Month: January 2022

Rosa’s Tamales

A week ago it was New Year’s, an occasion which always signals to Rosa that it is time to make tamales. Hers are without a doubt among the world’s best, but as with much great artistry, they don’t come into this world without a great deal of sturm und drang. This year was no exception, as it turned out.

Rosa’s tamales: always moist, perfectly fresh and amazing. Just the best!

We have had all sorts of adventures, over the years, with the making and delivery to our house of Rosa’s tamales, almost always around Christmas or New Year’s. One year not too long after we’d arrived, I had asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said “Really??? I would love to have a tamalera.” This item is a huge steel steamer, almost a meter across, that can accommodate a vast quantity of tamales, enough to feed a big crowd. If it’s full, it might need two people to carry it. There wasn’t anyplace nearby where we could get such a thing, but I knew that the enormous Mercado Libertad in Guadalajara had a whole wing dedicated to restaurant supplies and cookware and I had seen them there. I said “Let’s go to the city on the bus – I’ll pay for it if you carry it home!” Done deal!

So we went in to the city on the bus, got ourselves to Mercado Libertad, and there indeed was a group of stalls in the market that had every variety and size of cooking accessory, from stoves to spatulas, that might be needed to prepare Mexican food. And tamaleras in a variety of sizes. Rosa picked out a huge one and she did nobly carry it on her lap for more than an hour all the way back home on the bus. That tamalera has now been used for innumerable fiestas and we have all gotten terribly spoiled because pretty much like clockwork she will make a bunch of them for our “extended family” at Christmastime, and at the traditional Mexican time of Candelaria, February 2. She will pack the tamalera with several different varieties; pork in red sauce, rajas de chile (green chile strips) in a white sauce (divine), and varieties with chicken and beef. They are incredibly good. The most calorie-conscious and picky of our visiting friends have been known to lose all control and pack away half a dozen of them in one sitting.

We always love her tamales and are like little kids waiting for them to arrive. However, à la mexicana, they always arrive very late, way after the hour she has told us to expect her (and the laden tamalera). One year, I foolishly invited a bunch of expat friends over for Christmas Day and comida to share in these delights just at the hour Rosa was supposed to arrive. They of course all showed up promptly at the appointed hour, and since I believed that they would all be stuffing themselves silly with tamales (and whatever other food the family brought over), I didn’t prepare anything for the guests myself.

Well, we waited, and waited, for several hours. If I called her she would just say “soon, we’re on our way, we will be there soon!” No food, we ran out of wine and mineral water and refrescos (soft drinks) and I had to just sort of shrug and laugh and say “Well,”Bienvenidos a Mexico!” Finally, the tamales arrived. The parade of transport personnel included Rosa, her son-in-law carrying the now very heavy and full tamalera, her three daughters each carrying various sauces and some chickens and salads, for good measure. Never a “Gee, I’m sorry I’m so late,” nor any explanation of why she took so long and guests were twiddling their thumbs for at several hours (she knew perfectly well I was inviting some friends over); just – “well, we’re all here now, so let’s eat!” We were all left typically scratching our heads, but everyone dug into the tamales happily and apparently forgot about the seemingly interminable delay.

It was only after the holidays, on her first Monday back to work cleaning our house, that she casually mentioned what had really happened – she confessed that actually she had run out of gas to run her stove. And it being Christmas Day, all the gas trucks which usually roam the streets of the village hawking propane, were nowhere to be found, and she was basically out of luck till she found someone who could deliver her a canister of gas.

But why didn’t she simply call to let us know what was going on? We of course would have understood. Naturally all of our friends, who live here, are used to this sort of thing and took it in stride. But I still have enough of my mother’s “flawless dinner party” genes in me to have had my feathers ruffled. I had made gringa plans, to have the guests arrive just when the tamales did, so they would have been super fresh and super delicious. Well, they were indeed super fresh and super delicious, but at 8 p.m. instead of 3 p.m. No one was annoyed but me. I hissed to Arnold that in the time we were waiting, we could have all flown to Nueva York for dinner. It just puts into relief the oft-spoken dictum around here “It’s their culture, and we will never understand it no matter how hard we try.”

Well, a version of the same thing happened again this year, but this time I was better prepared. I asked her when SHE thought she would like to arrive, and asked Mirella when SHE thought the kids would be ready to come over and open their presents. “Around two,” was the response. (Not like American kids who are pawing the earth at 6 a.m. to open their presents.) So, we got a bit of a win, because on the stroke of two the kids appeared, but MINUS Rosa and whichever family members were supposedly helping her out in the kitchen. The kids opened their presents and there was much merriment around that. Fortunately Mirella had brought the requisite several chickens so there was plenty to eat. But nary a tamal did appear, but Rosa finally did. She said she thought it would be better if she brought the tamales over for New Year’s Day instead. Fine, we said, and continued with gifts and comida. Fun was had by all.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day. No tamales. We waited somewhat forlornly for a communiqué from down the hill. Nary a peep from Rosa, it began to be dinnertime, 5, 6, 7 p.m. I fixed something else. The following day, Arnold and I were still planning on having the still phantom tamales (mistake of course), so I didn’t really plan anything for dinner either that day. And we thought we were just staying home quietly anyway, so it would be perfect to have the tamales if and when they appeared. Finally I said to Arnold, “I’m not going to call her, she’ll just say that she will be here soon, so I’ll fix some pasta and that will be the end of it.” So I fixed some nice pasta with sausage and some homemade sauce, set the table, and we chowed down. By that time it’s cast 8 p.m. and we were both starving.

Literally as Arnold put the last forkful of his pasta alle salsicce into his mouth, the doorbell rang. We both locked eyes and froze, Arnold with that great twinkle in his eye that I love. Then of course, we both fell apart laughing. Of course, there was Rosa, with a casserole full of tamales! She said she was all set to make them, had everything ready, but all the places where she could purchase masa, the cornmeal dough to make them, were – surprise surprise! – closed yesterday. She was furious. How could they possibly all close on New Year’s Day? (Especially in the middle of a pandemic with many businesses short-staffed).

The tamales, of course, were wonderful and Rosa made us stand at the kitchen counter and each eat a couple of different kinds to make sure we liked them. This despite the fact that we were totally stuffed from the pasta we’d just devoured. When I look back at the fact that I lived pretty much on 20 grams of carbohydrates a day for several years long ago to lose weight, I am pretty sure I couldn’t do it now.

We still negotiate, literally week in and week out, the differences in Mexican culture and our own. They treat communications and messaging completely differently, and one has to figure out different ways to communicate, and sometimes there just is no communication, or what we would call communication, at all. As it was when we first arrived years ago, no one uses email. If you leave a message for someone in their buzón – voice mail – rarely will they get it and rarely will they answer it. I think this may be because the phone company charges for voicemail messages, but I don’t really know.

There is probably some truth to the commonly held notion that Mexicans never want to give you any bad news. I can accept this as an outcome of their violent and persecuted history, because if the result of your bad news is that you get killed by your Spanish overlord, well, sure. But whatever the historical or psychological underpinnings of our differences in how we perceive time and social relations, it seems never to really change. Newly arrived expats still wait in utter frustration for plumbers and repair people who never arrive, never leave messages, never call to explain. Parties really start two or three hours after the announced invitation time. If you’re lucky, the person you’re waiting for inexplicably shows up late, but at least he/she cheerfully shows up eventually, no explanation for the delay proferred, and you’re happy to see them because you really need a plumber. If there is an excuse, it’s sometimes hysterically funny and pretty unbelievable, to us gringos, at least. One of my favorites was the plumber who apologized for his weeklong absence and lack of communication with me due to the fact that he had lost his phone several days before in a water cistern.

There are exceptions, and often they are tradespeople who have lived in the States and understand our ways. But our job is to scratch our heads and figure out something else to make for dinner….the tamales will surely arrive some other day.

RIP All of Them

My parents always had one or two cats and dogs, so I have pretty much always had pets. As soon as I could, I brought cats back into my home as a single girl, and when Arnold and I got together years later, we had a house and situation big enough for cats AND dogs. Arnold always loved schnauzers, and we adopted a quite handsome silver one from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter who we were warned was going to be a problem dog, and he was. We named him Fafner, because he had a wicked temper and had been so traumatized by someone, somehow, in his life, that he was unpredictable and difficult to have around guests. Unlike the two dogs we have now, Figaro and Minnie, who are hyperactive and nuts, and if anything TOO friendly, Fafner would growl and be very unpleasant. But we did our best with him. The shelter was probably expecting us to bring him back, but it never occurred to us to surrender him, because that had happened to him before. We just did the best we could, and enjoyed him when he was relaxed enough to act a little bit like a normal dog. He died when he got out of our fenced yard in Santa Fe, and three coyotes encircled him and injured him so badly that despite a ton of late-night veterinary care at the Emergency Hospital in Santa Fe, he didn’t make it.

A few months later, we got the “we need a dog” bug again, but this time, we decided to try to avoid the random result of a shelter adoption, and I began a research project to try to find a schnauzer breeder who bred “for disposition”, so we could pick out a puppy and have a reasonable chance at getting a dog that would be fun to be around and easy to train. We ultimately found a highly respected breeder who sounded like she bred the sort of dog we would like, so sight unseen, she put this adorable looking little puppy into a crate and shipped him to us in Santa Fe via air. He turned out to be a total delight from the second we released him from the crate at the airport. We named him “Figaro”, sticking to our custom of usually giving pets operatic names, and we – and my parents – adored him. He died, way too young, of a heart deformity we couldn’t have fixed even if we’d known about it.

Thus we were dogless when we moved from Santa Fe down to Mexico, but once we got settled, we asked Dr. Jesus, our classical-guitar playing vet, whether or not he could help us find or rescue a schnauzer. We were encouraged because on his office wall he had taped a photo montage of some adorable schnauzer puppies. He said, yes, actually, he knew a breeder, and he’d try to find out if there were any puppies available, or any that needed homes. This went on for months….we would take one of the cats in for a booster shot or something, and ask him if there were any schnauzers available. Yes, there were, but the puppies were too young to adopt. Yes, there might be some next spring. Yes, there were, but the litter was all spoken for. Yes, there were, but the breeder ultimately decided to keep them all.

And on and on it went, until one day we were in there with one of our cats and Dr. Jesus told us that a couple of days ago, someone dumped a puppy on his office doorstep (a frequent occurrence here). He said, “She isn’t a schnauzer, but she has some schnauzer in her, I am sure. She seems to be a very bright and healthy little dog, who won’t get to be too big, with no major physical problems that I can see. Would you like to see her? I have her in back….” We thought, “well, why not? Let’s meet this doggie and see what we think.” So out comes bounding this snow-white, long-bodied (more dachshund than even a drop of schnauzer) little puppy, who had some mange (being treated) from being out on the street, and pretty skinny. But very sweet, and most definitely a dog who needed a home. Only two months old, so it seemed like whatever trauma she had endured being dumped could be ameliorated by love and good care. Schnauzer or “part-schnauzer”, we were ready for a puppy in our new Mexico life. Now, rather than buy from a breeder, it made sense to rescue a street dog. We took her.

That little white puppy became Reina, and she lived with us for thirteen years. Everyone loved her. When she had to be put to sleep, it was horrible, but it was time. She battled an aggressive cancer very bravely, but there came that point when we knew we had to put a stop to it.

Along the way we thought she might like to have a companion, above and beyond the multiple cats. Arnold still wanted a schnauzer and in spite of Dr. Jesus’ insistence that she had schnauzer “in her” (not a chance, see earlier photos of pure white mixed terrier), he persisted in wanting the real thing. I kept an eye out for dogs “en adopción” on the internet. A few months later, a notice appeared that an obviously purebred Standard Schnauzer was up for adoption, and we got him. He became Figaro II, after our little miniature who had died so unexpectedly in Santa Fe. He has been an incredible dog. Yet after Reina’s death, Figaro went into a real depression, and we looked for a second dog. We soon found Mimi, a delightful little black terrier mix, rescued by a Canadian lady who sadly had some health issues and had to give her up. She and Figaro bonded immediately and we thought they would be together forever.

But in spite of supposedly having been vaccinated, after just a couple of months with us, she suddenly became inexplicably very sick. We rushed her to the vet, and it turned out to be distemper. Our new vet (closer to home than Dr. Jesus) said she would not be able to survive it, as it had advanced, and told us that sooner rather than later, her neurological symptoms would progress in a matter of days, to a point where she, too, was going to have to be put to sleep. We were in a state of shock. The lady who gave her to us had provided her vaccination card and clearly she had been vaccinated. But the vet said “sometimes there is a bad batch of the vaccine, it isn’t refrigerated, expired, or not at a low enough temperature; all kinds of things can go wrong with it. Here at our clinic we are meticulous about keeping our vaccines at the correct temperature.” It was heartbreaking, because one day we had a cheerful, healthy little doggie who was fitting beautifully into our family and a week later she was dead.

So Figaro was once again droopy and depressed, and so were we. He had bonded happily with his new playmate, and we also had fallen in love with sweet little Mimi. She came to us with that name, and we kept it because (La Bohème) it was operatic enough and it kind of fit her personality. In retrospect, I think she knew she was doomed, just like the operatic Mimi. In those moments when you are communicating with your dog, she would inexplicably gaze up at me with these very sad eyes, and I never understood why, until suddenly she got so sick. I really felt she knew that she was destined to die young, a weird thing to sense from a dog. But it turned out to be true.

Eventually, after the shock wore off a bit, I asked our vet, who does a lot of volunteer work with the various dog rescue groups here, to let us know if he had any dogs brought to him who he thought might be a fit for us. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, he told me that he had just examined a litter of part-schnauzer strays that had been brought in by Lucky Dog, to get them ready for adoption. He said “these are all very healthy, seem intelligent, and they are at least half schnauzer, because someone left the three puppies and their Miniature Schnauzer mom in a box outside the gate of Lucky Dog a few days ago. I have given them all their vaccines, and they should be ready for adoption next week after their isolation period.”

As soon as the puppies were “available”, I raced over to Lucky Dog to check them out. Two were very quiet and didn’t pay any attention to me, but one kept jumping up, completely focused on my face, frantically trying to lick me, and if that wasn’t a case of “Take me, take me, PLEEZE take me!” I didn’t know what was. Having had dogs most of my life, it was clear to me that this puppy was going to be a hyperactive handful but she also had a ton of personality and was seriously cute. We named her after Minnie (from Fanciulla del West, one of the few operas where the title role female character is actually very cool and doesn’t lie down and die of love for some man. She has indeed turned out to be a handful but we love her, and she and Figaro are absolutely inseparable.

So for now the animal situation is stabilized a bit, symmetrically, with two cats and two dogs. With both dogs calm in their crates nearby, Tabitha and Missoni sleep with us at night; like clockwork both cats come in and jump up on our bed. Missoni waits till I get comfortable and then walks over Arnold to lie down beside me and put her paw in my hand, and then we both go to sleep. it is very sweet; and it goes on until I inevitably turn over and then she gets annoyed and bites me, but not too hard. Tab has a little space between Arnold and me that is her nest and she gets in the same place every night, curls up and begins to purr and also goes to sleep. I’m aware that both those kitties are getting older. Tab has to be at least eighteen by now (no one really knows). And Missoni is getting on too. You’re aware that you’ll have to go through the same horrible drill with their deaths at some point, but it is so worth it to have them for an innumerable list of reasons. They give so much life and fun to a household, and I can’t imagine not having one or several of them around.

But you never do totally get over the loss of any of them after they are gone. I was completely broken up when we lost Achille, our wonderful Korat, and Rosie, Arnold’s little Abyssinian, who got a nasal cancer that deformed her gorgeous face. Jet-black Luigi, one of the most beautiful cats I’d ever seen, came down to Mexico with my parents. He lived to be quite old (no one knows for sure) but cancer and old age got him too. He died on our living room floor in the middle of he night, trying to get to us one last time in our bedroom. I knew he was sick, but couldn’t deal with how sick he was. I still regret that we didn’t just put him to sleep a few days earlier, but I couldn’t deal with it after Mimi and all the others. I guess on some weird level I wanted him to die at home, but in retrospect, it was a mistake. Rosa and Arnold all swooped in to spare me more pain after we’d discovered him, and took him wrapped in towels down below us to the San Antonio cemetery, where Rosa’s husband was the caretaker. Only humans supposedly are buried there, but Luigi is buried down there too. I can see where he is from my office window, for what it’s worth. I still miss him horribly. Someday I would love to have another black cat, but who knows.

Figaro contemplating the garden from his favorite spot.

Guess I’m Back Again…

After another long absence, I guess I am back. We are still dealing with the virus, facing another lockdown with the latest Coronavirus variant (this time it’s Omicron) and once more retreating back to our house, double-masking, and all the rest. We are all figuring this is the new normal, beyond sick (pun not intended) of it all. And so is everyone we know.

I’m writing this on January 31, New Year’s Eve for 2021. It was a horribly stressful year, what with the pandemic, and at least up until May, we were still dealing with Arnold not being able to see out of one eye. In spite of the virus, we braved an airplane and airports and ended up going to Florida, to the highly-recommended Bascom-Palmer Eye Institute, to see if any of their surgeons could help Arnold regain his eyesight, which was completely messed up for a variety of reasons. Since he only had one good eye to start with (the one that had the botched surgery), having that eye so badly compromised was a disaster for both of us. He couldn’t drive, could barely to see to read, and the list of things he couldn’t do any more was getting longer and longer every month. From being his generally cheerful and ironic self, he descended into depression and fear that the rest of his life was going to be completely compromised. We were prepared to do anything we could, and basically to go anywhere, to see if there was any remedy for it. Fortunately there was a great surgeon at Bascom-Palmer (Mexican, as it turned out!) who was able to fix the several things inside Arnold’s eye that were causing problem upon problem. His iris was messed up, his pupil was messed up, the cornea was a bit damaged, and on and on. None of the surgeons we saw here in Mexico were willing to tackle it because of him only having that one good eye.

It was hard; because of the virus they wouldn’t even let me into the hospital except for our first meetings with the doctor. Even during the several hours of the surgery, I was holed up back at the hotel with no communication from anyone. However, there was a miraculously positive outcome to the surgery, for which we are eternally grateful, but the truth is that the two prior years took a lot out of both of us. Now that it’s the end of the year I can look back and acknowledge how difficult and discouraging it was. Anything creative – ceramics, or writing – was just set aside. But after a few months of just licking our wounds and healing – literally and figuratively – Arnold began cautiously to drive again, and to pick up where he left off back in 2018 when the messed up eye surgery called a halt to what had been our previous lives.

As is my usual wont, I consoled myself during Arnold’s recovery and return to a bit of normalcy with a major remodeling project which was actually lots of fun. Our house has always had a beautiful view of Lake Chapala from the roof, but getting up there to enjoy it was up a dangerous flight of stairs, and the actual exit from the stairwell onto the roof was also risky and awkward. There was no electricity up there, hence, no lighting anywhere. The way the door opened, you actually had to back up. You had to reverse down a few stairs to get around the door that let you actually out onto the roof, and then, when you were out there, you had the view, but you were still up on the barren roof. Dangerous and not particularly inviting, but from that day back in 2013 when we saw the house for the first time, I promised myself that when the time was right, I would turn that dreary roof into something wonderful. So, basically stuck here because of the pandemic, I found a great construction guy, who continues to be our do-everything person for household jobs, who brought in a crew and with a bit of outside help, I pretty much designed the whole thing myself. It turned out great, and now we can actually go up there and sit on our new mirador (rooftop deck) and enjoy the breezes from the lake, the sunsets and sunrises, and the ever-changing view of the lake beyond the pueblo. I am still finishing up the last decorating touches up there, but I love doing that stuff, so it’s fun to bit by bit see it come together, including designing some very cool chairs, and having them built by our trusty ironworker.

Of course with the pandemic we haven’t had any guests, and other than a couple of furtive, double-masked trips north to help my sister move into a new house, we haven’t traveled either. It’s so sad – this is the time in our lives when we should be able to be zipping off to Paris or whatever, but that is out of reach at least for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, we haven’t gotten sick, and in that respect, so far, so good. Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, hopefully will start off a year that might see the end – or at least the reduction – of the pandemic, but we will have to get through a couple of months of this Omicron thing raging throughout Mexico before we can even begin to think about relaxing a bit. So I am just going to stay home, hopefully work out in my ceramic studio, and be thankful, for what it’s worth, that I have managed to get to be 75 years old without anything serious going wrong with me.

Ditto for Arnold – but it is certainly true that with me now being 75 and him being 85, we are treading a little more tenderly and facing the fact that in some areas, we are beginning to slow down a bit. Nothing too horrible, but I do notice a difference in some things – my balance is shot, my eyesight is being hindered by a small cataract that will have to be dealt with at some point, and so on. But things could be so much worse. And after Arnold’s misadventures with cataract surgery, I am terrified by the whole thing. One of us has to be able to see, and he will never be able to see particularly well, but at least he can function reasonably well these days. I will try to write more often and make note of at least a few things that life is throwing at me these days. At least I am going to try, and for the moment, that is all I can say. We, like so many, have lost a few friends to the virus, so no one is taking anything for granted, as far as future plans might be concerned, around here. All we can say as we have raised our glasses for New Year’s, is that we hope we are around for the next one, and that’s about it.