Category: Initial post

Finally.

I have started back on a low carb lifestyle. Down here, that’s saying something. Tortillas, beans, rice; all of the lovely carbs I enjoy have to be reduced to a minimum for awhile. How long can I last?

As long as it takes. I am so tired of carrying around 2 stones of extra weight, I could scream. I won’t, but I feel like it sometimes.

This is not going to be very difficult for me, though, as I have been a carnivore from birth. To be forced to eat meat, poultry, fatty fish, chicken, eggs, dairy, avocados, nuts, green leafy veg, well, I look at it this way.

Someone has to; it might as well be me.

I am not a sweet fan by any stretch of the imagination. Give me a thick, medium rare, NY strip steak, with plenty of fat around the edges, and I’m in Heaven. If you throw in a baked potato with butter, you, too, will have a place in Heaven. (We haven’t had a baked Russet potato in over 3 years. Imagine that if you can!!!)

Anyway, we can’t go to the store just yet; have to wait for money to come in. After that, look out green grocers. We’re coming your way.

Hope all of you are doing well, and staying happy. Don’t forget to wash your hands, especially if you are no longer wearing masks. We are slowly getting out of the face covering here, too. See you soon.

I have to tell you how it’s the little things that make me smile.

I have been using my iPad Pro in its nifty cover that charges my pen, stores it, etc., for roughly 3 years, or more. It is finally giving up the ghost; after all of this time. I have made good use of the investment that it was at the time, so I don’t feel too badly about it no longer working well. Neither do I.

However, having looked into our stack of keypads for the Pro, I have, once again, found Ivan’s Brydge 11.0 Pro keypad/keyboard. My Pro fits comfortably into it, is portable, and types as fast as I do.

When I touch the keyboard, the backlight comes on, plus, I can adjust the light intensity without clack, clack, clacking a key, hoping something, anything will happen. It has taken me half again as long to type the last 10 posts as it is with this Brydge. I can actually keep up with my thoughts, and ideas.

As I said, it’s the little things.

You may be interested to know, that out of 4 bundles of basil cuttings from the store, and 3 months worth of trying, my latest little cutting has roots.

I broke down, and bought a rooting hormone, put some in this little yogurt container, and poof; 3 weeks later, it has rooted. Thank the good Lord. I have a freezer with a ton of basil, taking up much needed space for other things. Now, I need to learn how to make pesto. Loves me some pesto.

Thought you might be interested to see that. Maybe you’ll like this as well.

Yessiree. That’s garlic. Have no idea what I’m doing, just stuck 3 cloves in the dirt, watered it, and they are all growing. You should see the onions. But, that’s for another day. As it is the spring, and the growing season is upon us, everything is taking off like crazy. I like crazy. It looks good on me.

But, you people need to stay happy,healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Commonly referred to as beef tongue.

A more sumptuous piece of beef is not to be found. We found a meat market that doesn’t charge the same price, or higher than a t-bone for the tongue. Costco, one of our fav’s, charges $5, or $6 a pound for a tongue. As most are at least 2 pounds, that’s $10. For a beef tongue?

I think not.

The most recent one we bought we got at meat.me.mx, not far from the apartment. It was half that price.

I remember, when we were dating, we made a tongue for my mom. When we left the tongue on the kitchen table, and went off to do the dishes, mom’s stupid dog came in, jumped up on the table, grabbed it, and took it behind the living room couch. By the time we got in there to retrieve it, though, she had almost completely eaten the thing.

Until we make another one, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

He is obsessed with videos of ear wax removal.

On YT, there are hundreds of videos showing the removal of impacted, possibly hereditary, ear wax.

Yuck.

For years, I saw ear wax being removed by surgeons trained in its removal, and never really gave it much thought. Since he has become so cognizant of its existence, it has become more of a ‘thing’.

Mostly, the people in the videos are from third world countries; people who have, possibly, a lack of education about how to keep their ears clean of ear wax. OMG. It gets real, watching the videos. The amount of wax removed from those ears gets a bit overwhelming at times. Even he thinks so.

But, then there are the infected cow, and horses hooves. I do believe he is going to take up hoof cleaning as a hobby. Some of the videos I’ve peeked at are absolutely horrendous. The men cleaning these hooves always asks the owners why they don’t bring the animals in sooner. Some of the hooves that we’ve seen are several inches long, from neglect. Horrible.

Gosh, if you’re looking for a new “something” to watch on YT, try the two fun things already mentioned.

If they aren’t to your liking, there are always the butt flies.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

What is so difficult about buying a bag of dried pinto beans?

Everything.

The beans they say are “pinto” beans here are some of the smallest beans we have ever purchased. They are the size of sunflower seeds in the shells.

Okay, time out. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

The beans in the US are at least twice the size of the pintos here. Talk about flavor; there is none. The pintos up North make a luscious brown broth/gravy when cooked; no need for a coloring agent, like Magy, here, or Kitchen Bouquet, in the US. They have there own natural coloring agents within the beans.

We are searching everywhere, online, to find anything similar to the beans we had up North. While we search, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

Differences can be wonderful, also difficult.

It has recently been brought to my attention that, as “Matron” of our home, it falls upon me to meet, and greet guests, family, etc., when they are entering our home.

As we have had so few of the above over the past 10 years, it has fallen by the wayside for me, to remember my duties as La Dueña, or as Ivan has started calling me, La Alcalde. That always makes me laugh because I remember it from the movie we enjoyed watching with kids called “Zorro the gay Blade”.

There are few differences, really, here; I have just been lazy, truth be told. When someone comes into the home, it falls, normally, to the Dueña to answer the door, and greet said intruders with grace, charm, and aplomb. Hahaha. It is the duty of the “maid”, or housekeeper, to do thus. Don’t have one of those, so, I guess that leaves it to me.

That’s ok. I should know who is coming, and going in our home. Y biggest concern is my lack of fluency of the Spanish language. I am much better conversing in Spanish than ever before, however, without alcohol, (liquid courage,) it is difficult, at times, to perform this task.

That having been said, after having been gently reminded of this error, I have taken up the mantle, and am on my way to being “La Dueña del Año”, the owner extraordinaire. (A bit of poetic license was taken in the aforementioned translation; in case you were wondering if it was literal.)

Have a great day, week, month, year. Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

I just discovered that I can use the Uber app down here, and have stuff delivered from all of the stores we frequent.

I don’t know how important this type of delivery service is to any of you, but for us, especially, it means not having to get the car out of the garage, which is never easy, then drive through the recently renewed CDMX traffic.

People are even going without masks outside now; finally. Depending on where we go, outside, will determine whether we wear masks. If there are a group of people having a discussion, or eating, or what have you, we wear masks. If there is no one around, nope.

I am typing this after having discovered the Uber app for CDMX. I don’t want to spend too much time on it or I’m sure to order something we probably don’t need at the moment; just to see how it works.

I’ve got to go. I can’t resist seeing what happens. I’ll let you know.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

We have plants arriving today.

A 6 pack of Aeonium Kiwi succulents to be specific.

Just the thought of them makes me smile. They probably will be tiny little things, clinging to dear life, coming to my home for sustenance. If that wan’t so sad it would be funny. My obligation has begun.

It fills me with a bit of unease, receiving these, as I did not take care of them the first time they were in my care. I have done more research, and have concluded that this time I will get it right.

These little beauties grow to 3ft. in height, and can last for several years. When one of the rosettes begins to flower, the entire rosette dies. The plant remains alive, but that particular rosette will die. Therefore, one needs to propagate the rosette before it flowers.

That is simple enough, but I’m not going to go into all of that right now. Suffice it to say I will be doing my best to keep better track of the goings on with our newest arrival.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

We bought a couple of roles of double sided, reusable, washable tape.

IT IS AMAZING. I have already used it several times. First, we have a repeater, that we use to try to have internet available anywhere in the apartment, that was sitting on “S” hooks, on the front of a dining room chair. Tired of that, after we bought the tape I taped it to the wall in the hallway. The chair is freed up, and the signal is now consistent {(ly) bad, but consistent}.

Every wall in the apartment is textured, making things very difficult to adhere. This tape is so amazing that it can allow anything to be securely taped to said walls. There are a few framed pictures we have that I can’t wait to put up, but need to add them gradually. We have not had an earthquake in a few months, and I am no sure how this will weather one.

That said, we have gone as far as to use the tape to close our shower door. It has never stayed closed, to our recollections, since we moved in. It does now. Plus, I wanted it to stay open when it was open. A bit of the above tape, and both are now possible; virtually invisible.

No longer is there water coming around the 1” opening of the door itself. No longer does the door hit us in the head when we are toweling dry. It’s the little things, my friends, that can, sometimes, be big things.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect yourselves.

All day today, we have had only a trickle of electricity available to us.

I say it was 1/4 of the normal output, though I have no real idea how much we were receiving. The light on the exhaust fan was so dim as to be of little, or no use whatsoever.

The lights in the kitchen ceiling, of which there are 2, only one came on. Again, of no use, as it wasn’t even at full output. WTH?

Our air circulators, which you know really keeps the air moving in here, especially now that it getting really hot, put out the same amount of air on high as it does on low, normally. Ugh!

An odd day, for sure.

This afternoon, however, we made shrimp cocktails for the 4 of us adults, and it was delicious. The electricity went off completely only twice. However, even with the power back on, I am unable to start a flame on the stove by turning the handle to initiate the click, click, click of the electric starting mechanism. Bummer.

It makes cooking in the dark a bit more difficult, when one has to strike the tiny little match on the tiny little emery piece on the box, and hold it to the gas spewing out of the burner. Managed without incident I’ll have you know.

Anyway, the shrimp cocktails were excellent, even as a first endeavor. We had a huge container of Zatarains Crab Boil mix delivered, (yes, he thought it was a much smaller container when he ordered it), so we boiled the kilo of peeled, and cleaned jumbo shrimp in about a Tbs. of that for about 3 minutes, then put them into iced water to stop the cooking. Perfect.

We then took the shells, some carrots, cilantro, and celery, and boiled that for about 30 minutes to make a stock. Strained the veg, separated the shells, ground the shells with a bit of the broth, strained that, and pt a ladle full into the catsup mixture.

What catsup mixture? Ok, so I forgot to tell you about that. Simple. About a cup of catsup, 1/2 mango Boing, (a fruit drink that is hugely popular here, mostly natural), 2 tsp. Crab boil mix, a Tbs. of Salsa de Inglesa, or in the North, Worcestershire sauce. Mixed that together, added the 1 or 2 labels full of the stock, and all was done.

Not so. For the cocktail, we needed to dice cucumber, (peeled, and seeded), purple onion, diced, and cilantro, minced.

We put it in individual stemless white wine glasses, and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Try it. Let me know if you like it.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth as needed, and protect yourselves.