Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Comments from the Weekend

I'm running a little behind on some of the news from San Miguel so I'll try to catch up in one post.

Taylor, our Cocker Spaniel was sick. Friday morning he started throwing up. After a while I could see that it wasn't going to get any better so we got the car out and took him to the vet. Dr. Vazquez was very concerned about him and wanted to keep him for a few hours. It ended up that he spent the night in the doggie hospital. Dr. Vazquez diagnosis was Bloat. I didn't know what Bloat in a dog was but once I googled it, I was really glad we had taken him to the vet right away. Apparently dogs can die of it in a pretty short time. As you can see from the picture, by the time Taylor came home he was his usual "relaxed" self.

On Friday night we walked into the Centro and ate at one of our favorite spots, Brasserie. The Restaurante is so relaxing, the food is consistent and we just adore the restaurant owner. I guess we are pretty consistent too because they know what we usually order to drink and if we gave them three guesses I think they would also be able to name the menu item we will order.

I don't know why but it seems like lately we haven't been into the Centro very much on the weekends. So after dinner we walked to the Jardin. WOW, it was packed with teenagers gathered in small groups. There were some couples but most were groups of girls and groups of boys doing a little flirting. It reminded me that it wasn't that that many years ago when the boys and girls circled the jardin going in opposite directions with the girls under the watchful eyes of a guardian. Nope, not that way now.

From the jardin we wandered over to the Civic Plaza where the Wool and Brass Fair had just been set up. There were really nice vendor booths and there was everything there from wood furniture from Dolores Hidalgo to special canned condiments. But there were a lot of sweaters, mittens and mufflers too.

It seemed too early to go home, so we walked back by way of Relox and stopped at Los Milagros. Lee and Ty have been telling us about this place and we wanted to check it out. There was a trio playing "Buena Vista Social Club" type of music. It is amazing how many good musical groups there are in San Miguel.

We sat at the bar and watched what was happening. There were mostly Mexicans and there were several large groups. It was early, 9:30 PM, but it was lively with lots of laughter, talk and a little dancing in the aisles between the tables. We could see that it would get even livelier as the evening went on. But we didn't stay to see it. On the way home we talked about the Mexican growing middle-class and upper middle-class. While we were at Los Milagros we saw the waiters bring another round of drinks to some of the tables. The drinks are not cheap. In fact I thought the prices were similar to what we would pay in a neighborhood bar in Houston. So some of these young people have got to be making a decent wage.

This past weekend was a long weekend for Mexico. Revolution Day is today but the country declared Monday to be a "Bridge" holiday so many people had four-day weekends. San Miguel had lots of Mexican tourist. The traffic was bumper to bumper. I also thought that I saw more gringo tourist who might have been taking some vacation time along with the Thanksgiving holiday weekend this week.

Drops of rain were hitting the windshield of the taxi as we were getting out at Joe's house late Sunday afternoon. Within about 10 minutes we were in the middle of a hail storm that lasted long enough to cover his patio and destroy some of the plants. Some of the hail stones were as big as quarters but most of it was dime size. It rained off and on while we had dinner, yet when we left there was still hail on the ground under the table. This IS NOT the rainy season. This is the SECOND serious hail storm we have had this year. Most unusual!

When we returned home we found that we had lots of debris in the patio and still had unmelted hail stones as well. It wasn't until the next morning that we saw the poor plants in the patio. This is a canna with leaves so shredded that now it almost looks like a palm. I'm not sure what to do with it. I hesitate to cut it back because I don't want to encourage new growth when we are just going into the "winter" season.

Okay, I think that brings you up-to-date!

1 comment:

pitchertaker said...

Yeah, the world is a little up-side-down it seems. There is a forecast of possible snow in Lubbock, actually snowed in the NE, and a unseasonable hail storm in SMA....

P'taker