It’s a Conspiracy

 

It’s a Conspiracy 

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Hurricane Estelle blew in lugging a heavy cloud blanket behind her until the sky looked like cry me a river.

Day after day after day darkness reigned and time warped, smudged and dripped down the mountain walls like Dali-esque clocks.

If one took the sky and flattened it out like a topographical map, it would be criss-crossed by rivers cascading off the edges in waterfalls. (Flat sky, flat earth, what’s the difference!)

Under cover of day as dark as nightfall, somebody sneaked in and stole the sun.

I heard rumors that “they” took the sun to Montana where, doubled up, it reigns supreme forcing temperatures into the triple digit extremes.

Meanwhile, life as usual in central Mexico, right?

Wrong. While in town for dental work, I saw my neighbor Ariel and we had a ten minute chat. Next day, he felt sick, tested positive for Covid. We all who summer here are fully jabbed with needle marks to prove it. Life is not fair, right, Ariel?

So I self-quarantined for a week. Not that isolation is unusual this time of year, with hardly anybody about. But I have vulnerable friends, so would rather err on the side of caution.

With that modicum of extra time on my hands, I got an idea. Not a lightbulb idea. It coalesced slowly. With numbers of Covid cases and deaths on the rise everywhere, despite Covid being a left/right wing conspiracy, I figured I’d probably not grow wings and fly north for yet another year. Sigh of Disappointment.

So I consulted with my team, Leo and Josue, and asked if a bathroom could be made in the tool tunnel on the back side of the bodega, which is minimally used, most tools and manly gear residing in the other tunnel to the left side of the bodega.

Team took measurements, said it is do-able, and gave me a price less than I’d spend on a northern trip. So once a doorway is knocked through, my travel money will be flushed down the toilet, or rather, will go to build a toilet, sink and shower in a wee-tiny strip of space, but will make my bodega bedroom with en-suite much more attractive to any friends lined up for trips south to visit me.

So, if you haven’t got your passport yet, get that application filled out, please.

The destruction/construction area is covered by a roof, so take that, Hurricane Estelle. Pttttt!

The other conspiracy I can only partially blame on Estelle. The synthetics fabrics industries have rendered natural fibers such as cotton, linen and wool, very hard to find and expensive. In town there are no cotton fabrics suitable for clothing. None. Synthetics make my skin hurt. Truth.

In Guadalajara, there is a wonderful huge fabrics store with acres of cotton fabrics for dressmaking. For the past month, Michelle, Ana and I have intended a trip to the City. Every week, our plans were blown out of the water (Like that one?) by one and another Hurricane, stacked off the coast, one after the other, just to foil our plans, of course. I call this the clipped-wings conspiracy.

Guadalajara is an ancient city, grown to over six million people, built over literally thousands of years. Parts of the city are ancient with little drainage and are vulnerable to storms. Streets flood with regularity. If Guadalajara is rainy, we don’t go. It’s that simple. We are wary, having watched videos of cars washed sideways down flooded streets, smashing into everything along the way.

Not to be outdone by mere weather or the oil industry, I have now made a new nighty from bedsheets, and three blouses from cotton beach wraps.

I’ll not thumb my nose at hurricanes or major or minor conspiracies. We plan to go to Guad next week. Will we make it? Maybe so, maybe no.

Will my en-suite be finished in time for your visit? Maybe so, maybe no.

Will the sun escape the chain of clouds and again grace our sky? See above.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July third week

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Getting In Touch With My Inner Farmer

            Getting In Touch With My Inner Farmer

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            Two weeks ago I had declared, “New window glass all around; new patio roof; I love it all. These are my final projects. My home is complete. My garden is full and lush. No more projects!”

            This isn’t a full-blown project. Really. Honest. Sorta.

            It began with a bedraggled hibiscus. She hadn’t flourished since she’d been planted, several months ago. Her sister plants were “blooming healthy”, to borrow a British expression. Leo, my partner in digging dirt, asked if I wanted to go to Centro Vivero to get a replacement.

            “Sure, and as long as we are there, what about replacing those plants outside the wall, the ones I bought on the street from a pick-up truck. Poor things are last gaspers.”

            The space outside my wall, ah, yes. When I arrived here, a year and a few months ago, run-away bougainvillea had reached treacherous vine-y branches over the wall to choke out trees and grasp plants of all sorts on the inside garden. We had viciously pruned said bougainvillea until finally, each color now nestled, armloads of riotous blooms, atop the garden wall, creating bountiful beauty on each side.

            However, we had dug up the next several feet of ground outside my wall to install a new drain field. Replacement soil has finally quit sinking into holes but is bare and ugly. The poorly pick-up plants, including an avocado tree and two canela (cinnamon), almost goners, create the far boundary of my “commons” area. I maintain this weed-infested patch of ugly, about 18 meters wide. Beyond that is parking area and our dirt road.

            So, on the designated trip-to-vivero day, I stood in the center of the strip with Leo, list in hand. “One hibiscus.” Check. What do you think about replacing these last-gaspers with Plumbago? Plumbago grows quickly with blue flowers year-round.”

            With Leo’s blessing, I added to the list, “Seven Plumbago.” Check. “Fertilizer.” Check. “New dirt; how many bags, Leo?” “Tierra—ten bags.” Check. “Compost—five bags.” Check.

            “What about the grass, Leo. This patch is disgusting. Do you have something like Weed and Feed in Mexico?” I added that to the list. “Should we plant seed or buy sod.”

            See how easily a simple need for one hibiscus replacement plant simply got out of hand? After the weed-killer has done its work, then new soil and compost must be spread. A dirty job. Then we’ll wait for the seasonal rains to start and ask David to lay the sod.

            When we pulled into the vivero, David was on hand to help us. I chose the Plumbago, a new yellow hibiscus, gave David the rest of my list, emptied my wallet and turned to leave. Just then a perfectly stunning and bold Magnolia jumped into my pathway. She begged, pleaded to come home with me. Really, she sounded most pathetic. And Beautiful. I had little choice.

            “This is it, David. This is my last trip to the vivero. I cannot buy more plants.”

            “That make me very sad,” he said with a full-face grin.

            “I haven’t room for another tree or flower,” I countered and climbed into Leo’s Jeep.

            “See you next week.” David waved.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 1, 2017

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