The Rules

 

                        The Rules 

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If you ever for one minute think you are different from other Americans in this foreign country, who seem to live by the motto of “I want it; I want it all; I want it now,” just endeavor to undertake a major construction project. You will discover your Gringo sense of entitlement. Guaranteed.

My project isn’t major and it is only quasi construction. In a little-used space adjacent to my bodega guest bedroom, I’m installing a bathroom. Rendering my guest bedroom to en-suite status makes sense.

Ideas always make good sense when they are in my head. Putting an idea into action brings out all the hidden bugaboos. Every idea has some. It’s a rule.

Might as well accept up front two more rules: any project of this nature will take longer than estimated. And it will cost more than estimated, guaranteed. Just factor the rules into the equation before you give the go-ahead. Acceptance prior saves a lot of stomach aches later.

The hardware stores in our little town carry a small selection of tiles. My criteria was that the wall tile be light because the bathroom is being built into a space the size of a narrow hallway. A touch of blue and yellow would be nice.

Josue went shopping for me, returned with photos for both floor and wall. Easy-peasy. Perfect, I said. Order them.

The tiles were delivered, no, part of the order was delivered from stock-on-hand. We opened a box of wall tile and it was rough, a floor tile, not the shiny wall tile, easy to clean, like the sample shown Josue. Josue cancelled the rest of the order.

I went to Ahualulco to the first hardware store, picked a tile from the top of a stack. This will work. I like it. Do you have ten boxes? Yes. I paid for the tile and the boxes were stacked in the truck.

Got them home and opened a box to discover the box hid the tile I had chosen plus a dozen different patterns, none matching. I had bought a conglomeration of every known traditional Mexican tile with white background, blue designs with bits of ocher. When purchasing tile, check the entire box. Make it a rule.

Now what? Belatedly I discover that the stores do not accept returns on boxes of tile. I glared at the four boxes of my first choice, which I had liked better. What will I do with those? Shrug. Okay. We will go with this tile for the walls. This decision was not instantaneous. Or easy. Lemonade from lemons with not enough sugar.

My friend Michelle offered me leftover indigo blue tiles from her own building projects. She had just enough to make an accent line. The lemonade just got sweeter.

When it came time to put in the floor tile, Abel suggested we use the first tiles I’d chosen for the walls. He said in the small space, they would work better, and they were after all, floor tiles. The effect is “interesting”. It all comes down to acceptance.

Another rule of construction/remodel work is that if it can go wrong it will. See above. And see below.

One of the bathroom windows, an outsourced job because of time constraints, opens the wrong direction. Send it back? No, it’s not a big deal. Acceptance again.

The bodega bedroom had to be repainted. Brick dust doesn’t lend itself to a simple scrub with soap and water. The paint I chose is darker than shown on the chip. Oh, well. It will give the room a warmth it previously lacked.

And so it goes. Periodically I remind myself that this space was formerly a junk room. This project will not be featured on the cover of Architectural Digest.

That was last week. Then my computer crashed.

Amazingly, the men finished the project a day ahead of Ben’s arrival. And it is beautiful.

Ben came, walked into his quarters and said, “This is better than yours, Mom. Why don’t you move out here?” I’ve thought about it.

My Son the Geek fixed my computer, set up the new laptop he brought me, stole the affections of Lola The Dog, and settled in for a good visit.

Rules are, well, rules, but sometimes I don’t care. I bend them. Break them. Twirl them around. And, maybe, just maybe, my project will turn out even better. Like my crazy new bathroom.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August middle

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The horse sat on my chest

 

The horse sat on my chest

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Let’s start with the back story. Way Back.

Last year, because of the pandemic, I took my travel money and gutted my bodega which was a mishmash of shelves cobbled together from scrap wood. Shoved in rather randomly were what I call man tools and that which I didn’t want stored in the house. It was a mess, but needs must.

Once my bodega transformed into my guest bedroom, I kept imagining how nice it would be to have a bathroom alongside my bedroom. In back and along the outer side of the bodega runs a hallway which I call a tunnel. One afternoon while sitting on the patio, I noticed that the back tunnel is an integral part of the bodega. And it was seldom used, man-tool (mostly mine) stuff now neatly arranged in the side tunnel. Hmmm.

Front story begins here. A couple months ago I beckoned Leo and Josue. “Would it be possible to knock a doorway through the bodega back wall, wall up the ends of the ‘tunnel’ and in that narrow space put a tiny but functional bathroom.

The men measured, drew air pictures with their hands, talked about how to hook up to the septic, you know, man stuff. (Chuckle, chuckle.)

Both said, yes, we can do it and it won’t be that hard. So. How much will it cost?

I figured that tripping around the planet was not an option for me, yet again this year, due to the ding-donged new and revised issue of Covid.

Hot diggity dog. I could build a bathroom with this year’s trip money. “Yes. Do it.”

The following evening my son Ben phoned. “I’m on the computer to book my Mexico flight while we talk, Mom.” How sweet is that? I knew he was coming but now it is real. Know what I mean?

“Mom, I need a quiet place away from everything, a place to relax and get some direction for my next step in life.”

“Ben, this should be perfect. I’m building a bathroom for the bodega. You can have complete solitude when you want it.”

Next day I sauntered across the lane. “Josue, can my bathroom be done by Ben’s arrival?” He looked at his hand device on which ‘everything’ is stored, nodded his head, “Yes, I think so.”

Immediately I went from excited to EXCITED. Several days passed. No activity. I emptied the bodega into my house, with squeak through pathways. 

Several more days passed. No work. Then Abel, a master with brick and tile work, came and began digging trenches, through the tunnels, across the patio, to hook up with the septic line. He and Josue began working evenings, after their regular work. Some days three hours. Two hours. Some days.

I began to worry. How could the job possibly be done in time? When I say worry, I mean I lay in bed nights figuring out worst possible scenarios up to and including Ben and I killing each other for lack of privacy and alone time.

Little bits got done. Little things. Big lots of mess. The men all assured me the job would get done in time for me to clean, repaint and put the bodega back together. It will happen, they said. I nodded.

My ability to believe had come undone. My anxiety shot ever upward. I could see myself spinning myself upward and couldn’t stop. Normally, I don’t worry about what or when or how. This is so unlike me. It is. Really.

Then one night in a dream more vivid than real life, I was trying to move a balky horse. The horse pushed me down and sat on my chest. I couldn’t move a muscle with his big quarter horse rump holding me in place. I woke up. The dream felt too real.

I asked my daughter who is more conversant with these things, “What means this dream?”

She said, “A horse is opinionated. You have to work with them to make them feel they are doing what they want. Anything like that going on in your life? You feeling pushed? Or feeling like you’re doing the pushing?”

“Oh.” Though I wasn’t being pushy outwardly, I certainly was pushy inwardly. It was all in my own head. With that light bulb moment, the horse got off my chest. I got off the ground.

I fired myself from the position of CEO of Worry. Though I was quite good at the job.

Every day when Lola and I walk, we visit horses in the next field. I’ve named them Pretty Boy and Lawn Mower. I pet them but I don’t let them get too close. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

First week in August perhaps

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Tip-toeing through tulips metaphorical

 

               Tip-toeing through tulips metaphorical 

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Rain fell all night long. The ground was soggy, spongy. Flowers hung their heads from weight of water. The morning sky looked like moldy cottage cheese. Around noon, the sun broke through with promise.

Every morning I take a small basket out to my mango tree and fill it with what wants to be picked. Today I put another quart of mango pieces in my wee fridge-freezer. It is jam-packed, literally, since I made two batches of freezer jam and the remainder of the space is mango-mania. One more week and no more mangos until next year. To me, these fruits are treasure

Anything else that needs to go to the freezer faces rejection. No room at the inn. Not to worry. Mango pie. Mango drinks. Mango sauce on waffles. Mango with ice cream. Plain mango pieces in a dish. Mmm, yes.

Last February I planted spinach in a baby bath tub, three tubs of which supplement five-gallon buckets which make up my garden. Since April, this tub has fed me and my neighbors. Really, how much spinach do you want to eat? Today I made the final harvest for a salad. I could have urged one more cutting, but determined that enough is enough. I’ll replant in September. Nothing leafy seems to want to be planted during the heavy rains.

Have you ever planted tomatillas? Last week I made my first batch of salsa verde, all with my own produce, except for the jalapeno. There is nothing better.

This is my first time to grow these little green globes. The plant itself is beautiful, bushy with branches and leaves to make a picture. Then it magically blows balloons of fragile green like paper lanterns within which the little green ball of fruit grows from babyhood until the paper turns brown, filled with the lovely tomato-like fruit.

I get so excited that you’d think I made it all happen. I didn’t make any of it happen. I’m not the creator. I’m a helper. Most of all, I’m just an observer.

I watch. I see. I ponder.

I’ve come to believe this is my job for this time of my living. To be an observer. To what purpose? I’ve not a clue.

All my life until my health forced retirement, I’ve been a “do-er”. It is harder being a “be-er”.

As an observer, yes, I get to appreciate things I used to take for granted. Beauty in nature was like elevator music, there, noticed but not focused. Now not a day passes without a “wow!” or several.

I’m also aware of things I wish I didn’t see, such as traits or behaviors that I know are not meant to be seen. So I keep duct tape across my lips. But I also look at myself and search out similar actions, whether lately or historical. I see both, now, and then, in a different light. My searchlight helps me hope the negative I observe both “over there” and “in here” get rooted out. 

Yes, I’ve gone from growing garden to highly personal without a hitch. How I see it is that the gardening and the personal are all one thing. It is all about what seed I plant and when I plant it and if I feed and water the seed and does it grow or should it be weeded out.

Did I tell you about my cotton tree? I tried to make it grow in three different spots before finding where it wanted to live. After three more years of severe pruning when the leaves fall, I have the absolutely most beautiful, most perfect, delight of a cotton tree, full of yellow flowers which turn to orange. The flowers then form cotton bolls. Flowers and bolls adorn the tree for months.

See what I mean? We are just like that cotton tree. We need the right light, the right amount of shade, judicious pruning, food and water for body and soul. We flourish.

Certainly a gardener, a do-er, takes care of the cotton tree. We have to be our own gardener. It is harder work.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

End of July, 2022

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