So many things to do, so little time

What do you do all day?.....well we have been through this before, three or four times a year at least we wind up on the coast.

We go when it is cold in the mountains. That's the perfect time to go visit the beach, mingle with the shivering Canadians who swell the coast starting in November.

See the prices jump up for the season.

We have noticed a decline in the number of visitors on the coast the last year or so.
Must be the economy or probably global warming, nice and toasty warm in Calgary.....?

Anyway we enjoy Mazatlan for a week or two, sometimes a tad longer depending on what and how many books I have to read.

No internet, unless I drag the computer to Starbucks or some location with free wifi.

After a day or two, I don't even miss it.

I love the change of regional food as we travel around. The great Sonoran Meat, nice fish if your on the coast, great fruit as your head further south, super delicious from the jungle areas between Lazaro Cardenas and Zihuatanejo......almost makes me wish we lived there.

But the reason we love Mazatlan is because of one fellow. I am his best friend, at least that is what he says until he greets his next customer.

I am talking about Mr Shrimpman.
Each morning around 7 he starts walking the beach in front of some of the hotels and condos yelling in a mumbled accent, " Shnip......Fresh Shnip."

Yeah I know that we can get shrimp at Mega and tons of other places, but I am a loyal shopper.
We have been buying Shnips from him for about 10 years now, long enough to get a discount.
You would think.

I don't mind, I rather support the independent Shnip man. After all walking around on the beach with a heavy bucket filled with shrimp and melting ice is not an easy job.

He sells two sizes. large which would be 21-30's those go for 70 to 80 pesos a kilo, and the grandes which would be 16-20's those go for about 120 -140 a kilo. They are the same size as the restaurant for gringos sells for 45 Dollars a kilo , ready to eat on a plate, boiled.

Sorry, I can boil my own , thank you!

During our stay I buy enough to eat, make shrimp rolls, shrimp ceviche, and freeze couple of bags for the cold mountain house.

In Patzcuaro our frozen Shnip markets don't sell the grande ones, so I stock up!
And support my local Shnipman.......ok Maestro de Camarones!

( Check his picture out and you will see evidence of both the shrimps and my previous post topic)

What is it with the attraction of tossing garbage out of the automobile window?

Today the Chevrolet pickup truck in front of us, must have tossed out an equivalent to a 10 gallon plastic bag of trash in the 20 kilometers of road that we were behind them.

In the front of our property we have the unfortunate chore of removing a large, I mean large bag full of trash on a monthly basis.

This bag is the kind that fits into a 55 gallon drum. The number one winner is plastic Coca Cola bottles. I pity the person who downs 1.5 liter of Coca Cola, in one sitting.

Hello Diabetes, Hello tooth decay, Hello uncontrolled sugar high.

The second runner up is Styrofoam square food containers.

The kind that you get when you buy some food to go. The box has several divisions for condiments and other stuff that once was tasty, I suppose.

Too bad they don't make the box out of some food material so that you could chew the box after you devoured the inside food.....

At least it wouldn't end up on the side of the road.

How about something to make plastic bags evaporate after the liquid is gone. These small bags with a straw stuck in them started hitting the road side ravines about two years ago..... Nasty little things.

The only thing positive about the Mexican road garbage situation is that we never find anything of value......or maybe that's a negative. I guess it depends on if we are throwing out or picking up the stuff.

I thought that it was only a get it out of the car situation, but even during my stumbling around town, I can be following people both old and young as they walk by a trash bin only to wait about 10 feet and toss it on the side walk.

Maybe it was a subliminal thing, seeing the garbage can , makes them want to shed the trash immediately......

It also seems that the old folks use the bins a lot more than kids......must be the rebellion in their pants.

Meanwhile we will go to Costco and buy a box of heavy duty trash bags and keep on cleaning.

Maybe one day, ( probably not in my lifetime) they will develop a sense of pride in their country.....

One can hope.

things are never what they seem...???

Call it old age, call it skepticism, call it cynicism, call it senility, whatever you want, it is a strange and awkward feeling.

Things have changed. It use to be that what you saw and what people said was fact.

If you saw someone walking down the street, you could be pretty sure it was really them and not a holographic image, not a phony lookalike with a pasted on head.

Now you can not be sure.

With the digital age, you can put the head of someone on a torso of someone else. It's done every day and with someone with skilled hands and mouse talent it is almost undistiguishable from the seeming real.

Relationships have been hiding feelings and truths for years....something a computer keyboard can't manipulate too long.

Trust and the belief in something is important. If you can't trust what you see or what you hear how do you know it is the truth?

A reader sent me a link that I looked at and this is the motivation of this rant.

You can no longer believe or trust anything to be real or can you?

Government propaganda machines around the world have been doing this for a long time, to get you to believe in something they want you to.

After all, can you really believe what you see on the news, on TV?

Take a look at this link and after you look at it, you will understand that everything we have been accepting as fact in our eyes can indeed be 180 degrees opposite.
Not a good warm fuzzy feeling.
Funny how we grew up believe things that were were taught. Lot of it was reinforced with visual aids.
The ad business in Mexico is catching up with the rest of the digital manipulators. A click here, a overlay there and viola, you have an end result.
So when you hear someone say, I saw it with my own eyes, which is a common saying, remember this link......


go check out http://2whoa.com/content/what-you-see-just-lie

And you will see what I mean.

So the moral of the story is this year take a little time and think about stuff just a tad more......

Dia de los reyes

The Christmas season continues in Mexico through Epiphany, which is called Día de los Reyes (Three Kings Day). Commemorating the arrival in Bethlehem of Wise Men bearing gifts for the baby Jesus, children throughout Mexico anxiously await waking up January 6 to find toys and gifts left by the Reyes Magos (Magi).

Another custom in some areas it is customary to leave out shoes where treasures and smaller toys may be deposited by the visiting Wise Men.

A special treat served one this day is the Rosca de Reyes -- a crown-shaped sweet bread decorated with jewel-like candied fruits, kind of a twist on the old brick-heavy pound cake for everyone else.

Tiny figures of babies are hidden in the dough before baking. The high point of the dinner is when each family member cuts his or her own slice, for whoever gets a piece containing a baby is obliged to host another party on or before Candlemas, February 2, when Mexico's holiday season finally comes to an end. Remember in Mexico there is never a reason NOT to celebrate something.

When we were building the house about 14 years ago, it was interesting to hear the reasons for not having the workers show up for work. Some were valid and a lot more were based on "Celebrations" of holidays......

As I mentioned before the Old Ruskies, and some new ones also celebrate this event, since Orthodox Russians use the other calendar thereby skewing events to later dates. For that story check last years blog at http://ranchocanyon.blogspot.com/2009/01/merry-christmas-and-happy-new-yearagain.html

So for your believers Merry Christmas again, and a Prosperous New Year to all!

If you would like a reciepe of the bread you can go to our recipe site: Los Reyes Bread

This was the year that was....

Was a title of a television program back about 30 years ago, or so.
I use to save TV guides and ran across a few. Interesting to see that in San Francisco there were only 4 TV channels. Amazing!

How did we ever survive with that?

Now there are hundreds and nothing to see...... There use to be a few TV shows that would recap the previous year, but for some reason I failed to find any while zipping past all the channels that are on the satellite. So, last week was devoted to music.......

All those channels and I usually can narrow my viewing to about 5.
BBC America
The History Channel
The Learning Channel ( Which has too many shows with nothing to learn about unless you want to learn about Tattoo shops)
The Discovery Channel
CNN

And the only review of 2009 was a half our program that devoted about 50% to Hollywood and super star gossip from the past year.

Sad. Truly Sad.

Our other Satellite receiver picks up all the Canadian Channels and that is usually were I get the unbiased news programs.

There is local Mexican Channels from Morelia, and if I am adventurous I can point our C band dish and pick up tons of other South and Central American channels.

But in the big picture, TV is just noise to keep in the background while doing other work around the house. At least we don't have one in the bedroom. Don't need a night light. And besides all the experts always say that you should never watch TV in the bedroom. It's only for bed related use.......
Besides I enjoy reading much more anyway. Only problem is that the pages and letters get fuzzier more often then they use to.....


So, with nothing that I want to really remember for last year, I am starting out with a new clean slate.......empty.
No mush in my mind, I have erased it all, sharpened up the pencil. Purchased a new printer, cleaned my etch-a -sketch , cued, all refreshed for new fuel to whittle down into some lopsided perspective only a cantankerous open-minded old fart who has done too many things which can't be written about, can do.

Or maybe I can......

We will see.
We will somehow get through this year too!