Time is not on our side
Is it on yours? Is it on anyone’s?!
But let me give you a taste of why the crate of books I brought to Mexico may never get read…
Today (Friday) we needed to take all five critters to the vet for vaccines. This is the third trip we’ve made as a 7-some because it’s better to space out shots, esp for the young cats. We knew it would take all morning but had other plans for the afternoon. I intended to do laundry, weed and harvest in all the garden beds, wash my hair, and cook our meals.
We got up at 7
- brushed teeth and all that basic hygeine
- Phillip made coffee for us
- I read a cookbook about grilling to learn any secrets for making desserts in our grill (get a bigger grill, which we aren’t going to do) while Phillip ate his eggs and fed the chickens
- I changed the kefir and filled some water buckets and washed dishes
We found all the animals and got them in the truck and left for the vet by 9:30
- got there around 10:15. They open at 10 so we wanted to be first in line, but traffic was heavy and we didn’t manage that
- dogs got their shots first
- then swapped for cats
- got rabies certificates for each pet
- Max is losing weight so they requested a stool sample to test for parasites (even though they’ve given him meds for such things, but just in case.) We thought we’d bring it tomorrow or Monday, since we didn’t want to come back into the city today.
We left the vet at 12:15
- we’d planned to do some grocery shopping, meet up with our uncle for an exchange of goods and services, then spend the rest of the day en El Terreno
- it was really hot and all the animals were stressed and panting. The dogs would at least drink in the truck but not the cats. We decided we better go home so they could relax, then head back out.
Got home by 1
- collected Max’s stool sample - now that we’d be going back out today, might as well deliver it
- made chilaquiles for lunch and had another round of coffee to try to shake off the stress of traffic+rough roads+terrible odl truck suspension+heat. Maybe shoulda done yoga, but coffee and chocolate are easier to enjoy while also cuddling. Relaxed for 45 minutes, then headed back out with poop in a bag; truck smelled.
Hoping to meet our uncle on his way to lunch, we left at 2:45 but we were too late
- at a red light two men come to the windows asserting that they’ll wash our windshield. We say “no, gracias” but they wash it anyway so we give them a few of our smallest coins in protest, including one Guatemalan and one US coin, which I’ve been holding onto because I don’t know what else to do with them.
- did a round of grocery shopping at one store while waiting for vet to re-open (they close from 2ish to 4:30ish for lunch)
- filled up the gas tank for over $2000pesos (slightly painful cause it’s $100 - gas is one of the few things more expensive in Mexico than US and this truck guzzels). The woman attendant washes our windshield. We give her a couple big coins because she’s efficient, polite and the first woman who has pumped our gas here.
- went to vet at 4, hoping they’d be back from lunch. Nope.
- went to chicken supply store across the street looking for a better watering system then what we have. Nope. But they gave us directions to two other places, which we barely understood at the time and definitely won’t be able to remember when we try to find them.
- went to a tire store around the corner to check out new truck tires since ours are so dry-rotted I’m afraid we’re going to crash, esp on the scary hill To be clear, this is the 5th tire place we’ve checked. Sometimes the price is painfully high. Sometimes they don’t have the size we need. Sometimes they have the size we need one visit, but not the next visit when we return with time and cash in hand. Plus our neighbors’ friend sells tires and we’re supposed to be getting introduced to make a deal, but it never happens.
- They have the tires and they’re relatively cheap! Like, each tire costs a tank of gas.
- We only have enough cash with us for two tires. They take off the two worst, which are outrageously bad. How have we stayed on the road this long?
At 4:30 I take the poop to the vet
- have some limited conversation with the other woman in line about her 6-year-old chihuahua who didn’t gain weight properly as a puppy because there was something wrong with his mother’s milk and to this day he has many health problems. He was in her purse while she explained this.
- also limited conversation with the vet’s wife (who runs the office) and I think I’m supposed to call her tomorrow to find out what’s in Max’s poop. But my Spanish is still terrible.
- while Phillip waited with the truck I walked around to find: chicken watering system, more buckets (we broke one and gave one away) and new dishtubs (we broke one and need a rinse bucket so our dishes don’t taste soapy)
- I found all the plastics but the animal supply store I found didn’t have any better watering systems than what we already have. They did have a buch of sad animals in sad metal cages, including chickens and roosters in the hot sun without any water. One rooster was slumped on the ground. I told the man that “los gallos tienen sed” which I hope meant that the roosters were thirsty. He explained that they need sunshine for the color in their feathers, or something like that. I mean, could he have been saying something that ridiculous? He did reek of alcohol. Wanted to buy all the animals, but honestly, there’s a 100 shops like this in Morelia, or Cleveland, or….
At 5:45 we left the tire shop with two good tires and two terrible tires and headed for Costco to finish our grocery shopping
- dropped off Max’s prescription and got great news (really cheap and he can take for up to 6 weeks in a stretch to help with upset stomach) and bad news (they only have tablets, not liquid, and only in a stronger dose than he needs so we have to cut them in half)
- found a blender! This is my new toy, because I’ve been longing to make pesto from our many wild and domesticated greens, along with nut butters/nut flours, mole, etc. We left our food processor in the US since it can’t run from our solar panels but this blender should work.
- got all the free samples that looked appealing, and dutifully bought two items that we hadn’t intended to because they tasted so good, all the while practicing Spanish:-)
- hoping to get all the groceries we’d need so we wouldn’t have to venture beyond the neighborhood for days to come, we happily accepted the helper’s help to get our cart to the truck, unload, and take the cart away (sometime I’ll write a blog post about the ways Mexico is more civilized than the US)
Left Costco at 7pm
- which meant we’d either have to rush straight to my uncle’s work (still need to exchange goods and services) while our berries and fish thaw in the truck and the dogs pee/puke in the van OR we’d go home, unload, let the dogs out of the van, and miss seeing my uncle
- compromised, which means we went home and while I unloaded and fed the dogs, Phillip biked to UNAM to meet Stan and exchange things
- I harvested red kale, dionasaur kale, mizuna lettuce, spinach, cilantro, purslane, soursop, radish tops and bottoms, lamb’s quarter, amaranth and green onion for salad
- I cut up the big piece of Costco salmon into serving-size chunks to freeze, and drowned one piece in crushed red pepper for our salads
- I rearranged and swapped ice packs in freezer and cooler and managed to close both
- By that time, Phillip came home with his new toy (a new inverter since ours hasn’t been working right)
At 8:30pm, as the sun drifted beyond the horizon, I finished dinner prep while Phillip opened his present (inverter box). We ate in the dark with mosquito lamp lit.
Now at 10:30 I’m finishing this blog post and Phillip has finished setting up the new inverter. All the dogs are asleep against my body. The kittens are hanging out in the net attacking anyone who moves underneath. We’re exhausted, from the roads and the animal stress and navigating a world with minimal language skills.
And I never did the laundry, harvested beans or squash, didn’t weed most of the beds, only watered 25% of the garden. We didn’t work on swales or shower or dig a new hole for the toilet or even wash the supper dishes.
Time to check the chickens once more and find some comfort-dessert. See you tomorrow, El Terreno.
2 Comments:
July 28, 2018
What a busy day. Poor rooster, and hope Max is okay.
July 28, 2018
wow. makes me tired just to read it! I hope today has been easier!