The Goot Blog

We just got a really sweet and thoughtful note from our friend Anita Howard. I'd like to share with you her three concluding paragraphs:

It seems we often foresee and prepare for challenges and disappointments, but I am always surprised by unexpected gifts of friendship, beauty, enriching experiences and wisdom. We are blessed with prosperity and health (for the most part) and the love of our many and diverse friends and relatives. We value each and every one and intend for the following years to bring us together more often.

We work and wish for peace and a nation that challenges us to be better human beings; to take care of our neighbors, our poor and elderly and our planet; to affirm our commonalities and work through our differences with compassion and respect.

Wishing you all... the best in the coming year.

Amen!

Our friend Mary Marsh sent us this holiday greeting the other day. It might require you to consult a Spanish-English dictionary from time to time, but I think it will make you smile. Best wishes...

Merry Christmas to all, y Feliz Navidad!

Perhaps the most common question people ask of us is, “How do you spend a typical day?” Which really means, “How in God’s name do you manage to fill up an entire day now that you’ve retired?” Which really means, “Aren’t you bored to tears?”

Well, the easy answer is, without the structure of work, the concept of “typical” goes by the wayside. Most of us down here have at one time or another marveled at how often we lose track of the days. “Is it the weekend?” “Man, I thought sure it was Tuesday.” Stuff like that. When you can stay up late most any night, or sleep in most any morning, without suffering any of the typical consequences (like getting fired), things get a little weird.

That said, we haven’t yet become bloody anarchists. Most days are bracketed by a handful of comforting routines. For example, Karen, who usually gets up before me, meditates, does some yoga-like exercises for her back, watches a steamy Mexican soap opera (telenovela) to “help improve her Spanish,” reads Salon.com and the NY Times online, then checks her e-mails before showering and getting dressed. This typically takes her up to mid-morning. I usually shower and dress first, make the bed, prepare coffees for the two of us, wash and/or put away dishes, read said NY Times, turn on some music, check e-mails and review my daily To Do List, which I try to limit to two items, before facing the day.

Nightly, we engage in the traditional oral hygiene rituals and usually read (or, yes it’s true, do Sudokus) for a half hour or so before lights out. (What happens after the lights go out is none of your freakin’ business… except for this: Since we often drink a tad too much, and I’m blessed with an active mid-life prostate, we usually wake at least once each night to pee, toss off the covers and fumble around for the little bottle of Advil.)

In between, every day’s different. However… frustrated by our tongue-tied inability to answer the “What do you do all day?” question, we recently kept a simple diary of our daily activities. Here then is what a “typical” week looks like in San Miguel:

Sunday

• This being a telenovela-free day, Karen exercises to CBS Sunday Morning.
• Mike buys some smoked pork and pig’s feet for lentil soup; Karen loads up on fresh flowers.
• Karen checks bank balances, reviews her mom’s finances.
• Mike thaws a tub of home-made beef stock and starts soup.
• Karen calls her mom and her brother, and does a couple loads of laundry.
• We get in the holiday spirit by stringing the handful of Christmas lights that still work; we trash the rest.
• We then walk downtown and get lured up to the rooftop terrace by our favorite waiter Mario, where we enjoy the best 2-for-1 margaritas in town. En route, we visit friends who are celebrating a birthday in the downstairs lounge.
• Margarita’d out, Mike naps while Karen calls Ashley.
• We review plans for the week and eat lentil soup as we watch a Netflix documentary, “Why we Fight”.
• We close out the evening in mellow style, as Mike gives Karen a fireside massage.

Monday

• Karen goes to the bank.
• Mike sorts & catalogs photos from our Thanksgiving trip.
• We meet downtown and check the mail, where we run into our friend Salomon. We discuss his upcoming Jazz Festival and plan a rendezvous for the following day.
• We return home and eat leftover arrachera (skirt steak) tacos.
• Mike researches VRBO options for St. Martin & possible itineraries for our planned trip to the States in May.
• Karen bakes apple turnovers.
• We both read for awhile.
• We wend our way up a scary nearby hillside, flashlights in hand, to enjoy a wonderful bucatini pasta dinner with our friends Rick & Leah, ostensibly to see Rick off before his upcoming finger surgery.

Tuesday

• Karen, a real trooper, submits to an early morning mammogram, then scores us a bag of fertilizer at our landscaper’s nursery.
• Aurora, our housekeeper, comes to clean.
• Mike hauls the trash (basura) out to the waiting truck.
• Mike welcomes workmen who replace a gasket in our leaking kitchen sink, and semi-rewire our master bedroom to eliminate the ever-exciting spark-jumping-out-of-the-light-switch phenomenon we’d been experiencing for months.
• We meet downtown, check mail and buy a dozen $$$-saving, eco-karmic fluorescent bulbs for the house.
• We then eat lunch at a small neighborhood sandwich (torta) place we’ve been wanting to try and run into our friends Jim and Al. Al regales us with tales of his recent trip to Egypt, Turkey and Amsterdam.
• We install new bulbs.
• We meet Salomon for drinks.
• We have leftover soup and make it an early evening.
• Before retiring, however, Mike hunts down and nukes the annoying cricket (grillo) who’d set up shop in the ceiling above our bed.

Wednesday

• Karen starts the day with a long phone visit with her SC friend Deb.
• We trek up the hill to pay the cable and water bills.
• We check out the new American-style department store that opened while we were in California. Mike lusts after a $10,000US Italian motor scooter he’ll never own.
• We buy a Christmas gift for Jose Luis, our cab driver friend, plus a new surge protector and some CD sleeves at Office Depot.
• We buy some more buffalo grass vodka at the local Liquor Warehouse, and do some random shopping at Super Gigante, one of San Miguel’s two big-ass supermarkets.
• We take a cab home and cobble together a light lunch of brussel sprout coleslaw.
• We purchase on-line plane tickets for our May trip.
• Karen goes to a jewelry showcase at our friend Ann’s house.
• Mike pores through the 481 photos his niece posted of her new daughter, and nails down plans for his trip to the beach when Karen is in Hawaii with Ashley.
• We then meet at Harry’s, a favorite gringo hangout, to check out their anniversary specials and end up over-ordering, but still enjoy a phenomenal Cajun pasta with shrimp and smoked pork.
• Karen takes Dustin’s typical late-night phone call while Mike dozes.

Thursday

• We meet our friends Mike & Fran to help them paint a newly constructed one-room house out in the country (campo), built by a local, Habitat-type organization called Casita Linda. Mike rides in the back of the pick-up, Mexican-worker style.
• We return home about 3:00 and enjoy long hot showers.
• Karen engages in the all-in-Spanish Phone Call From Hell, securing bus tickets for our Christmas trip to Oaxaca.
• Mike checks in with sister-in-law, Ellen, who was recently mugged in Phoenix.
• We meet our friends John & Maureen for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at their house, then head for a showing of The Maltese Falcon at a comfy new, 20+ seat theatre housed in a local French restaurant.
• We stay for a light dinner, and then walk around downtown, enjoying the balmy evening and newly erected Christmas decorations.
• We then kill the mellow mood by checking out reports that the new Delta terminal in Mexico City is creating nightmarish problems for travelers, and review travel options for Karen.
• Karen wakes at 3:00 with her heart pounding and doesn’t fall back asleep ‘til 6:00.

Friday

• Aurora comes to clean.
• We meet with our landscaper, who delivers the fertilizer.
• Karen, feeling under the weather, lays low and reads.
• Mike visits our other San Miguel property to check out the bulldozer that’s gouging out the hillside of the property next door.
• Mike trims and ties up night-blooming Jasmine that’s climbing the stone columns on our upstairs terrace, then cooks/serves lunch.
• Karen & Mike both nap.
• We meet with our painter, who gives us a small batch of sealer for our polished concrete kitchen sink.
• We apply the first coat.
• We go downtown, get the mail, buy the weekly bilingual newspaper (Atención) and go to a reading at The Authors’ Sala, where we listen to excerpts from a new biography of William Morgan, an enigmatic American who became one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution; view slides from another new book that features amazing travel photo albums from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s; and enjoy our friends Leah & Lulu, reading from their newly-published Gringo Haikus.

Excerpts:

Carnelian sun slants
on red tiled roofs. I wonder
what it will sell for.

On Vonage wings and
wireless internet I reach out
to the old country.

Bored mariachis
serenade beguiled tourists.
“La Bamba,” again?

Warm starlit evenings
through haze of vino blanco.
Ah, the golden years.

Colorful lace fans
flutter in unison to
ward off hot flashes.

So, who does your hair?
And where did you buy that couch?
The timeless questions.

• Both of us feeling a bit funky, we slink home for a dinner of scrambled eggs (Karen) and pilaf-ish rice (Mike), while watching The Woodsman, a disturbing Kevin Bacon film about a recovering pedophile.

Saturday

• Mike lays down a second coat of sealer.
• We review our 2007 budget and anticipated year-end expenses.
• Mike talks with Dustin.
• Karen calls her mom.
• We both talk with Ashley.
• We buy a plump chicken and some veggies for dinner at the nearby mercado, and pick up a shovel at the local hardware store (Don Pedro’s).
• We drop our stuff off at home, re-visit our other property to survey the ‘dozer damage, and then repair to a nearby wine bar, where we while away the remainder of the day sipping bubbly and munching on cheese fondue.
• Needless to say, Mike follows this with a long nap.
• Karen, meanwhile, sorts e-mails and otherwise bonds with her computer.
• Revived, Mike bakes the above-mentioned plump chicken in his favorite tagine, and we watch a decidedly strange Nicole Kidman film (Birth), characterized by maddeningly long close-ups of people slowly “catching on.” Pheww!

There you have it. Typical? Sort of. Boring? Not on your life. Are you satisfied? We hope so.

The other night, having dinner with my friend Glenn, we discovered some obscure food item we both like. I joked, "That must be why we've become such good friends." To which he replied, "No, I just like you 'cause you're always cheerful. Huh? Three years ago, folks close to me were suggesting I have Cranky Old Bastard tattooed on my ass. Maybe it's the tequila...

Today's the birthday of the essayist and humorist Calvin Trillin, born in Kansas City, Missouri (1935), who started out working for the religion section of Time magazine, which he did not like. He said, "I finally got out of that by prefixing everything with 'alleged.' I'd write about 'the alleged parting of the Red Sea,' even 'the alleged Crucifixion,' and eventually they let me go."

When we were back in the States this past month, we were frequently asked (by potential visitors), “What’s the best way to get to San Miguel? What’s the nearest airport?” Assuming there are others out there who have flirted with the idea of Visiting The Crazy Goots, here, as a public service, is a Semi-Complete Guide to San Miguel Travel.

Flying
The first question most folks ask is if they fly into Mexico City to get here. The answer, in general is, “No.” Although you’ll likely find more carrier and flight options, and some attractive non-stop flights from major cities like New York and Los Angeles, Mexico City is nearly four hours from here by car or bus. So for most folks, the cost or time advantages of flying into Mexico City are usually eaten up by transportation to and from San Miguel. The exception: If you’re already planning a Mexico City excursion, and just want to piggy-back a trip to San Miguel.

The most convenient airport to us is Leon/Guanajuato (BJX). It’s a small, but new International airport about an hour and a half away from here. It’s served by Continental (usually via Houston), Delta (usually via Atlanta), and American (usually via Dallas). The other nearby option is in Queretaro (QRO), where Michelin has its Mexico headquarters. It’s an even newer airport, but at this point has fewer flights to and from the U.S.

If you fly into Leon, you can expect a full day of travel – between 5 and 8 hours flying (depending on your locale), plus the trip to San Miguel. When we fly out of Greenville in the early a.m., we typically arrive at our house my mid-afternoon.

[NOTE: San Miguel is in the Central Time Zone.]

Tickets, which obviously vary seasonally and from airline to airline, usually hover around $500-600 round-trip. A round-trip shuttle from Leon, which we can arrange for you, is around $50US per person.

While we have four seasons here, the weather is fairly mild year-round. Summer is our favorite time ‘cause it rains periodically, which keeps both the dust and the temperatures down, and makes everything lush and green. (Although the terrain is high-desert, the place explodes with wildflowers in August and September.) Autumn is great, too, and loaded with Festivals. Winter is the biggest tourist season, as many snowbirds take up residence here. The afternoons are typically warm (70s mostly) and dry, but visitors take note: it can get chilly at night (low-30s to low-40s), and no one has central heating here. We do have fireplace inserts, but typically bundle up in sweaters most of the day. Late Spring (mid-April through early June) is considered the worst time to be here. It’s the end of the dry season – dusty and often very hot (sometimes over 100). In fact, many shop owners and restauranteurs close during the month of May and head to the beaches.

[NOTE ABOUT BEACHES: San Miguel is smack dab in the center of Mexico. The nearest beach is about ten hours away via bus or car.]

Driving
We’ve never done it. But if you have time to kill and want the freedom to explore the country, it’s neither dangerous nor difficult. Friends drive from Texas (typically via Laredo) in two days, and from California (via Nogales or Juarez) in about four days.

A couple of caveats:
1) If at all possible, avoid driving in Mexico at night. Unmarked topes (speed bumps) have been known to rip out oil pans and transmissions, road work is often marked not with flashing lights but with a handful of large stones in the middle of the road, and cattle (along with other assorted critters) often wander out into the roadways.
2) If at all possible, choose toll roads over ordinary highways. While expensive, the toll roads are well-maintained, and you can minimize the adrenalin rushes you’d otherwise experience as you encounter a car that’s passed on a blind curve hurtling in your direction.

Accommodations
Casa Goot can accommodate up to five guests at a time. We have 2 guest bedrooms: 1 w/ queen and full bath; 1 w/ bunk bed (queen below, twin above) and a full bath you can reach via a short walk through our central courtyard. If you’re coming with a larger crowd, we can recommend several nearby B&Bs, owned by friends, or hotels in various price ranges.