What do you say to a horny moose?

What do you say to an amorous male moose intent on making you his blushing bride?  I tried "Go away" but that did not discourage him.  In this case, had a molestation occurred, it would have been right to blame the victim.  I admit it - I teased him.  I lured him into my camp with a homemade moose call.  He galumphed up to me, then stopped and stared as if to say "WTF?"  He was tall and gangly with a branch comically dangling from his antlers.  A young male desperate for his first meaningful experience, he reminded me of guys I dated in high school.  Eventually he realized this was not going to be his lucky day, and he slumped back into the woods with only a few wistful glances in my direction. (a closer photo at the end)

Horny moose

This encounter took place in Maine during one of my photo trips while I was searching for scenic landscapes.  Before the days of GPS, I used a road atlas to navigate, and I became fascinated with a large empty space on the map labelled the Great Heath.  My attempts to find it were frustrating as I encountered a number of dead-end roads but nothing resembling a heath.  Finally, I spotted a small area of bright red bushes and stopped to investigate.  A man in a pickup pulled up and asked me what I was doing.  I explained and asked him if this red patch was the Great Heath.  When he stopped laughing, he said "No" but he could show it to me.  He told me to follow him, so I hopped back into my SUV and headed down the road behind him.

Trail through the barrens

After a bit, we left the road and started following winding, unmarked trails through the blueberry barrens.  I started to think that following an older man way out into the middle of nowhere might not be the smartest move on my part, so I tried to spot any kind of landmark that might help me find my way out if the situation became dangerous.  "Barren" truly described the area because there was nothing there but low-bush blueberry plants and a few rocks.  We came to some woods, went through a gate onto a long gravel driveway and then emerged into a big open space where a large travel trailer was parked.  To my immense relief, a nice-looking, middle-aged woman waved to us.

Blueberry barrens

I needn't have worried.  Mr. and Mrs. Greene were delightful and were happy to show me the heath which they pronounced as "hayth".  Their land was on a high bluff overlooking an immense peat bog which was spectacular in its fall colors.  There was a lazy river winding through the bushes, and there were dark green pine trees around the edges.  I learned that at over 7,000 acres, the Great Heath, with the Pleasant River running through it is the largest peatland in the Downeast region of Maine.  It was breathtaking, and I desperately wanted to photograph it in better light. Before I could ask, the Greenes explained that they were leaving later that day but I was welcome to camp there for as long as I wanted.  Since I had outfitted my Suburban for camping, I was all set.

Great Heath and Pleasant River

The Great Heath

Early the next morning while I was taking pictures, I spotted a huge male moose down in the heath.  He was too far away to get a photo, so I quickly grabbed the moose call Mr. Greene had loaned me and started calling him.  The call was made from a plastic paint can with a small hole punched in the bottom and a rawhide cord extending out through the hole.  To use it, you hold the open end of the can toward the moose, wet your fingers and then draw them down the cord.  The sound it makes is supposed to resemble a lady moose who is "in the mood".  The bull moose definitely heard the call, turned around and took a few steps in my direction, but wouldn't come any closer.  Just then I heard footsteps coming up the gravel driveway and expected to see a person.  Instead, it was the silly young moose hurrying towards me in response to my call.  During the rutting season, a male moose can be dangerous, and he was coming much too close for comfort especially as it was obvious he was looking for love, if you know what I mean.  I tried to get a shot of him in all his male glory, but he was too close and I was jumping into the truck as fast as possible.

He paced back and forth and kept looking at me as I hid in the truck.  Eventually he backed away, so I took a chance, got out of the truck and managed to take two photos before he turned and disappeared into the woods.

Wistful moose

If I’m Not on Google Maps Do I Exist?

The U.S. government may be suing Google for antitrust violations but the rest of us are still pretty dependent on the company for a large part of our day-to-day life. And sometimes Google manages to make our lives just a little bit harder. For a year now, we have been unable to get Google Maps to recognize that our street exists. 

It’s not as if we don’t know where we live. Our little cul-de-sac has four homes and two vacant lots and Google shows a well-known casita (guesthouse) on our corner. But when restaurants, service people, and other locals try to find us, we don’t show up. To complicate matters further, there is a cerrada with the same name and number as our privada elsewhere in town. And of course that one is on Google Maps, so people go the wrong address and ask, “where are you?” We now must send maps, spanish address directions, and WhatsApp location links to give people a fighting chance of finding us. 

The Garmin (its a Taiwanese company) GPS in our car knows exactly where we are, down to the accent mark. But Google is apparently reluctant to add us, despite multiple requests and applications, including photos. To add to our insult,  Google Maps exactly pinpoints a location for a supermarket that hasn’t been built and according to local people doesn’t even have permits yet. 

Google Ergo Sum

[This is a guest post written by my husband Erich Almasy]

Packing heat in the desert

The day before I arrived in Arizona back in 1998, a large number of illegal aliens were arrested trying to cross the desert near Organ Pipe National Park, which was exactly where I planned to go following a short visit with my father.  Because I was traveling alone and planning to camp, Dad told me terrible stories about what happens to women driving alone in the desert and pleaded with me not to venture anywhere near the border.  But that's where the spectacular scenery and wildflowers were supposed to be, so I stubbornly insisted on going.  Finally he said, "Well, if I can't change your mind, then you have to take my gun!" and he handed me his pistol.  After showing me how to use it, he said, "Have you got a belt?"  I looked puzzled and he exclaimed with exasperation, "Well, how the hell else are you going to carry it?"  Apparently in Arizona it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon but perfectly acceptable to walk around with one displayed in a holster on your hip.  After much arguing, I eventually consented to take the gun with me, stuffed it into my already overloaded camera backpack, and went out into the desert packing heat.  It didn't occur to me that I might have to use it.

Organ Pipe Cactus

(Click on photos for larger versions)

Antelope grazing

I had no problems at all in the fabulous Organ Pipe National Park even though I spent a lot of time right next to the border which had just a rickety barbed wire fence to mark it.  After a few days there, I proceeded to Big Bend National Park in Texas, situated right on the Rio Grande.  I had a lovely drive there seeing herds of antelope racing through the grasslands they shared with herds of cattle.

Big Bend is massive and I never saw a park ranger the whole time I was there.  After reading about a scenic canyon carved out by the river, I went there to explore and take photos.  There were three or four cars in the parking lot and a trail to follow along the edge of the canyon.  I hiked to the end where I saw a few people, then set up my tripod to take some photos.

While I was taking pictures, a young man, younger than me, approached me and tried to strike up a conversation.  I had no interest in talking with him, so I told him I was a professional photographer on assignment and had no time to chat.  He came back a couple of times, acting a bit odd, and I was not pleased to realize he was trying to pick me up.  Each time I told him I was too busy to talk and he would wander away.  While I was preoccupied with my camera, I failed to notice that the other people had left, leaving me alone in the canyon with this guy.  He eventually started back up the trail toward the parking lot, the only way out of the canyon, so when I finished taking pictures, I started hiking out too.  After a bit, I looked ahead and was concerned to see him waiting for me along the trail. I quickly set up my tripod and pretended to take pictures, and once again he walked out of view up the trail.  This happened a second time, so by now I was worried about his intentions.  I took the aforementioned pistol out of my backpack, put it in a fanny pack I was wearing in front, and left the zipper open for easy access.  After giving him a lot more time to leave, I started out again.  Just as I came around a turn, he popped out from behind a large boulder and said "How about we do lunch?"  It was 3:00 in the afternoon and there wasn't a restaurant for a couple of hundred miles.  I backed away from him with my hand on the gun inside the fanny pack and told him that my husband was meeting me in the parking lot.  This seemed to discourage him and he walked away yet again.  After waiting for what seemed like forever, I warily hiked out to the parking lot and was relieved to see he wasn't there.  I'm not a violent person, but I will defend myself from someone trying to harm me, so in an area where there were no other humans to help me, I was comforted knowing I had some way of protecting myself.  Still, I would have preferred to concentrate on shooting pictures instead of having to worry about shooting at him.

Tripods don't work in quicksand

I learned this lesson while shooting at Mont St. Michel on the coast of Normandy in France.  I planned my two-day visit to the monastery to coincide with the full moon and even had a computer program telling me exactly where to expect the sun and moon to appear at any given hour.  Unfortunately, in spite of all the technology assisting me, the weather ruined my preconceived images because the coast was totally socked in by fog and heavy rain clouds as front after front blew through.

Giving up on dramatic sun and moon photos, I tried for a moody shot taken at low tide with a wide angle lens showing a huge expanse of sand in front of the monastery with a leading line formed by the last trickle of the receding water.  Donning my green Wellies, I hiked out onto the formerly submerged sand to get the appropriate angle.  I had seen signs warning about quicksand, but I walked carefully and had no problems as I found the suitable position.  I set up my gear and then waited for the racing clouds to part in just the right way to put a little light on the building.  And waited.  And waited.  Letting my mind wander... I was brought back to reality when I saw my camera and tripod moving, drifting slowly to the right and down.  It was sinking!  And so was I.  My feet had sunk so much that my insteps were completely covered with quicksand.  I extricated the tripod and then, with visions of being stuck there as the tide came in, I tried to free myself, which took quite an effort and almost ended up with me seated in the sand.  Finally, with a giant sucking sound, my feet came free and I retreated to firmer ground.    (Click on photos for larger versions.)

RIP Jean Henrietta Gundersen Blanton

My mother passed away on Monday, July 13, 2020 at age 96.  She had been in poor physical and mental health for a long time, so her passing was surely a blessing for her and a relief from her pain.  Still, I am sad.  (Click on photos for larger versions.)

Age 3

Jean was born on December 5, 1923 in Everett, MA.  She was a surprise addition to her family and her brother and sisters were much older.  Mom was a good student and very active in Rainbow Girls, reaching the level of Grand Worthy Advisor.  She graduated from Tufts (Jackson College for Women) in 1944 and spoke both French and German.

She looked for work in New York City but was unable to find anything, so when her older sister asked her to go to Brazil to tutor her nieces, she jumped at the chance for adventure.

Romance in Brazil

Cowgirl on the farm

She probably got more adventure than she bargained for because that's where she met my father, Gerald Blanton.  They returned to Oklahoma, where my father was from, and proceeded to have two children, me in 1948 and my brother Jerry in 1951. Later in 1951 they purchased a small farm near Shawnee, OK.  Sadly, after a lot of work to get the farm in shape, it all blew away in a tornado on May 1, 1954.  We barely escaped with our lives. (See an earlier post for the story.)

My sister Melissa, who spent the last few years caring for Mom, came along in 1956.

All dressed for Easter

Later years involved a move to California and then Maryland where she lived for a long time.  They were not kind years in many ways because of the end of her marriage and because she suffered from extreme depression and anxiety.  Her only real joy was her beloved grandson, Paul Selby. I don't have photos of her from those years.






My last photo is from 2018 when the ravages of dementia had already begun to take a toll.







I prefer to think of Mom when she was in her radiant youthful years even though I did not know her then.

.

Shopping During a Pandemic

As we read about the opening of States in the USA, I am struck by how different things are here in our UNESCO Heritage town of San Miguel de Allende. Our mayor instituted a lockdown in early March that shut pretty much everything down. Subsequent pronouncements pushed for mandatory mask-wearing (not always observed) and even roadblock health checkpoints. On June 1^st, a Phase 0 condition* was deployed with the opening of medical professionals, restaurants that pass a health certification, and shops. Entering a restaurant requires dipping the soles of your shoes in disinfectant, signing name, date, phone number, and temperature (taken with a handheld infrared thermometer). Then a squirt of alcohol gel and entry to a layout with tables spread wide apart. The staff often have disposable menus, wear gloves, and always have masks.

Grocery stores have been open throughout this period but they too have imposed safety precautions. Usually they do temperature checks, provide exclusive early shopping hours for seniors, have one-way aisles, spacing marked on the floor, and of course do a squirt. Some even provide awkward disposable gloves.

I approve of pretty much everything our town and the retailers have done with one exception. A national chain of fabric stores, Parisina, has an outlet in San Miguel. They chose to deny entry to anyone over age 55. Instead of creating separate senior-only hours they have shut out a significant portion of their customer base. AND, they are the only comprehensive fabric store in town. Despite my hat, mask and sunglasses, they wouldn't let me in. Call me super-frustrated.

* Phases 1-4 will open other types of businesses, parks, etc. as conditions warrant. Sadly, since over 60% of our local economy depended upon tourism, hotels and AirB&Bs will not be opened until Phase 4.

 

My husband's dad and Hitler

This post was written by my husband, Erich Almasy

Today is the 75th anniversary of the day that the American public learned that Adolf Hitler was really dead after taking his own life in his underground Berlin bunker on April 30th (or May 1st). It seems strange today that our Russian “allies” who occupied the bunker’s sector in Berlin kept secret the details of Hitler’s death and that 50 days would pass before the Western Allies would know the truth.

According to the June 20, 1945 front page story in the New York Times, my father, Canadian Army Sergeant Otto Almasy, and his colleague in the 10th CounterIntelligence Corps, British Army Captain K. W. E. Leslie, interrogated German policeman Hermann Karnau and determined that Adolf Hitler was in fact dead, thus becoming the first Western Allied soldiers to confirm his death. During the nearly two months previous, rumours had abounded about the Nazi leader’s escape, with unconfirmed sightings of Hitler in Argentina, the Vatican, and South Africa. Karnau was one of Hitler’s police sentries and witnessed the burning of the bodies of the Nazi leader and his recently-wed wife, Eva Braun.

My younger sister and I grew up hearing very few war stories, since Papa, like most WWII veterans was loathe to speak of it. But I do remember mention of him being the first (sic) Allied soldier to know that Hitler was dead. I’m not sure how much I believed it then, but a few years after his death in 2004 I discovered the online New York Times archive that contained the front page article below. 

One final remembrance about my father. In January, 1990 as part of his first-return trip since the war, we travelled to his former home of Vienna and then visited Berlin just two months after the fall of The Wall. We still needed to pass through Checkpoint Charlie, although there was a large hole in the final barrier that two teenage girls dashed through so they could get a picture with an East German VoPo (Deutsche Volkspolizei) guard. Yes, selfies existed before the iPhone.

My father was quite philosophical about the liberation exuberance we saw everywhere in Berlin and as we took our personal souvenir pieces of The Wall he commented that in his life he had seen tyrants more than democrats. He wasn’t positive that even the United States was immune from autocracy but he hoped that like Germany, if it ever came to that, maybe we could force a similar change.

San Miguel Widows' Club

Until tonight, every expat and snowbird we have met in San Miguel, who expressed any kind of political opinion, has been very liberal and virulently anti-Trump.  Tonight we were having dinner at a lovely restaurant with outdoor seating, and even though the tables were widely separated, we couldn't help but overhear the conversation among four elderly ladies, elderly being defined as older than me.  At first we were amused by their discussion about disposing of the remains of their deceased husbands - "he didn't want to be buried next to his first wife" - and talk about their amorous adventures between marriages, but then the conversation turned to the issue of removing Confederate statues.  These ladies all seemed to be from the South, Texas and North Carolina specifically, and two or three of them didn't like the idea of removing what they said was "history."  One lady said, "But would you want a statue of Hitler?"  None of them responded to that.  She also said she had not known until recently that the Civil War had been about slavery!  No response to that either.  Then another lady said she was hoping they could hold out until November and how Trump had done so much for Black people.  WTF???  What planet has she been living on?  They soon realized that we were listening to their conversation, and that was the end of the political discussion.

As they were leaving, I told them that I was planning on getting rid of my husband, who was sitting at my table, and I wondered if there was a widows club in San Miguel.  They said there was and I would be welcome to join.  Sad, but funny.

I was a Playboy centerfold, Miss March 1967

It was a nice morning in March, 1967.  I walked in the front door of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and heard someone say, “There she is.”  I looked up to see the stairs on each side of the entrance and the balcony above filled with boys, all grinning, laughing, nudging each other and all of them looking at me.  I glanced around to see if there was anyone else they could be looking at, but no, I was the only one there at the moment.  I had no idea what was going on so I just proceeded to homeroom feeling puzzled.  All morning long, boys were staring at me in the hallways and laughing, exchanging comments with each other, but no one would tell me what it was about.  Finally at lunch time, feeling totally perplexed and a bit angry, I cornered a friend of mine and demanded to know what the hell was going on.  He looked around cautiously and then pulled something out of his book bag.  It was a Playboy magazine.  Now I was really puzzled. I had no idea where this was going until he opened it to the centerfold and showed me the top part of it.  I gasped and my eyes bugged out.  I thought I was looking in a mirror.  Miss March was a dead ringer for me!  At the time I always wore glasses and Miss March was wearing glasses almost identical to mine.  How many centerfold models wore glasses???  I was completely stunned, but insisted on seeing the rest of the centerfold.  Poor Miss March had the BIGGEST pair of breasts I had ever seen, so big it is a wonder she could walk upright, and this was before silicone!  Just my luck. The absurdity of the whole thing hit me, and my friend and I sat on the floor laughing our heads off.  

My friend was the yearbook and school newspaper photographer and he had a fun idea.  Miss March wore her hair piled up on her head, so he suggested that I should pin up my hair and he would take a photo of me holding up the centerfold, just the top part, next to my face.  I assumed the photo would be just for him and me.  I thought it would be hilarious, so the next day I arrived at school with my hair pinned up.  Naturally this set off another near riot.  My friend took the photo, then proceeded to print up dozens of them which he sold for a buck apiece.  Oh well.  I have a good sense of humor so I proceeded to autograph the photos for the guys saying things like, “Dear Tom, I will never forget the night we spent together. Love, Fran.”  (Fran was her name.). 

After that first day in school, I did a terrible thing to my mother.  I bought a copy of the magazine and when I got home, I put on a shaky voice and said, "Mom, I have something to tell you.  You'd better sit down."  She looked very upset, and I don't even want to imagine what she thought I was going to say.  I hemmed and hawed as if I were afraid to tell her and then said in a plaintive voice, "I did it just for a lark.  I never dreamed they would use the pictures."  Then I handed her the Playboy and opened it to the centerfold.  She looked at the photo in horror and said, "Oh Cindy, what have you done??"  She was absolutely convinced it was me.  She was in such agony that I couldn't let her suffer for too long, so I opened up the centerfold so she could see all of it.  Somehow, she realized it wasn't me...  

My friend is now a film editor in Hollywood.  He did Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, all of Sean Penn’s movies as well as Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, A Star is Born and Into the Wild.  He has two academy award nominations, and he still has the negative of this photo in his files. 

Me, not airbrushed, with Miss March

Fran

It was a dark and stormy afternoon...

Mom, Jerry, Dad, Me

It was a dark and stormy afternoon.  May 1, 1954, a day that changed the trajectory of my family for many years.  We had been in town (Shawnee, Oklahoma) grocery shopping, and on the way home, the weather was awful.  We had the radio on in the car and there were warnings about severe thunderstorms, but no mention of a tornado, although it is taken for granted in Tornado Alley that there is always that possibility during Spring.  The sky looked ominous in the southwest, which is where tornadoes always come from, because in our hemisphere, the spinning monsters always travel from southwest to northeast.  If you look at tornado paths plotted on a map, they are always relatively straight lines going in the same direction.  Fortunately for us, Dad was worried, so as we entered our farm, he drove past the house and pulled up next to the storm cellar in back.  The cellar was just a hole in the ground with a mound of earth over it and a door on a low slant facing away from the path of the storm.  When Dad stopped the car, Mom said she was going into the house to wash her hair in case anything bad happened.  At that moment, Dad decided we needed to get in the cellar and yanked open the door. He told Mom to get in but she didn’t want to because it was full of mud and water and she had her good shoes on.  I don’t remember getting out of the car, but I remember standing on the ground outside the cellar and seeing my baby lamb, Woolly running toward us.  We had been bottle feeding Woolly, I guess because his mother either died or wouldn’t nurse him for some reason.  He was my pet, slept under the house, and always came running to meet us when we came home.  Dad pushed Mom into the cellar, then picked me up and literally threw me in head first.  I slid down the wet dirt slope and landed in the water that had accumulated.  As he threw me in, I was screaming at him to “get Woolly.”  I don’t remember if I knew exactly why we were going into the cellar, but I definitely knew we were in danger and wanted Woolly to be saved as well.  When Dad pushed Mom down into the cellar, she had my little brother in one arm and her purse on the other.  Days later, they found her purse way down in the pasture.  Dad came in after us, pulled the door shut and held onto the rope attached to it.  He couldn’t hold it down and the door went flying off.  I was standing on a little child’s chair in the corner of the small space and Mom was trying to cover me and my brother.  I held on to her.  Apparently my brother and I were both crying.  Dad watched our big Packard go spinning up into the air and come crashing down not too far away.  There were 2x4s rammed through the car including a big one that went through the windshield and was embedded in the front passenger seat. If Mom had been sitting there, she would have been dead for sure.

Little house that blew away

The tornado that hit us was massive, cutting a swath a half-mile wide.  There was no visible funnel, just a huge black cloud on the ground.  I don’t consciously remember the freight-train sound that Dad described afterwards, but for years I had nightmares where I would wake up in terror, but there was no image in my mind, just a feeling of terror.  I’m pretty sure the nightmares were caused by the sound of the tornado.  After things seemed to be over, Dad poked his head out of the cellar, said “Well, the house is gone.”  Turned around and said, “The barn is gone too.”  In fact, pretty much everything was gone.  They had purchased the farm in September of 1951 just before I turned 3.  It had a small wooden house, a Grade-A dairy barn, chicken coops, a rabbit hutch, and a large enclosure for pigs.  We raised goats and a few sheep along with the chickens, rabbits and pigs.  Dad sold goat milk to the local hospital and other folks in town. (I didn’t know I had lactose intolerance until college because I grew up drinking goat milk.)  There was also a wonderful fruit orchard which had been overgrown when my parents bought it.  They had cleaned it up and I have memories of picking cherries and peaches, although I think I ate more cherries than went into the bucket.  All the fruit trees and the pecan trees were torn up, roots and all, with only a couple of pecan trees surviving.  All the fences were gone too, so we couldn’t keep any of the animals that survived.

Dad went off to see if the people who lived down the road were OK.  They were hurt, but not too badly.  Before too long he heard our friend Wanda, the mother of the two boys I grew up with, running down the road in the rain and screaming hysterically.  Their farm, a mile away to the west, had not been hit, but they lost power, so she went looking for a phone to call the power company.  The first two houses she saw were destroyed, and as she came over the low hill, she could see our house was gone as well. There was so much debris in the road that she stopped her car and ran to our place oblivious to the downed electrical lines.  Eventually Mom carried me out of the cellar and put me in Wanda’s car.  I wanted to see what had happened, but there were dead and dying animals all around, so she covered my eyes.  My brother and I were taken away, I don’t remember to where, and somehow Grandmother and Grandpa came to get us and took us to their home in Oklahoma City. 

Dad with Flapper and Fanny

Dad had to borrow a gun from our neighbors to put some of the terribly injured animals down.  A few goats lived and some of the chickens and rabbits as well.  Woolly did not.

Over the next few days, Mom and Dad worked on the property trying to find anything that hadn’t been destroyed.  They put some items in the kitchen sink, but looters came out and took the sink and the stuff in it.  Dad had to sleep on the property with a gun to deter the looters.  Other people came out during the day, sat on their cars or pickups drinking beer and watched while my parents looked for our things.  They thought it was amusing, I guess.  There were other people, friends and acquaintances who came to help.

After a week or two, a moving and storage company parked a moving van on our place and we lived in that for 6 months while my parents constructed a concrete block building which was designed as a garage big enough to fit two cars with some extra space on one side and with a rectangular room in front.  The front room had a bathroom, a very small kitchen, a bar-type table for us to eat at and an area that was our living room.  They didn’t have enough money to build a real house, so the plan was to live in the garage for awhile and then build a house next to it.  We lived in that small space for five years.

I was 5 and 1/2 when the storm hit, but I have a huge number of memories from before the tornado.  I guess the farm was a wondrous place for a kid, which is why I remember so much from before.  I know a lot of people who say they can’t remember anything before age 6 or even 7. That just seems weird to me.

The block house a bit later

A Happy Tail

Last Sunday, on a typical balmy late Spring evening in San Miguel de Allende, we walked down from the mesa where we live and stopped at our local Southeast Asian restaurant for dinner and drinks. OKO Noodle bar has outdoor seating with four tables placed apart and we grabbed the last one. Our waiter arrived and we ordered from their eclectic drink menu - a ginger margarita for me and a lychee pomegranate martini for mi esposo. Our neighbors included a table with a Mexican couple and their shaggy terrier mixed-breed doggie, two men next to them that we learned later were a cousin and a brother, and closer to us, a table with four young Anglo women. Like the French, Mexicans are quite indulgent (and affectionate) about having dogs in their dining patios and we noticed a tan, short-haired Golden Retriever mix wandering between the tables looking for scraps and an ear scratch. We had seen her in this mall before, a street dog with no collar or ID.

Sadly, SMA has an overabundance of street dogs that either grew up feral or were abandoned by their owners. They tend to fall into one of three categories: scary wild dogs that can stalk your own pooch when you are out for a walk; shy dogs that will follow but are afraid to get too close; and sweet dogs that are apparently looking for a friend. We have run into all three types but the mix wandering among the tables, who we nicknamed “Blondie”, was definitely a sweetie.

No sooner had we started noticing Blondie than one of the brothers began rubbing her tummy. Our dog, Molly will do just about anything for a tummy rub, and Blondie seemed to possess the same personality. We noticed one of the young women approach Blondie and speak fluent Spanish to the brother. It seemed she was inquiring as to her ownership. We suggested that she should adopt Blondie, and she told us that was her intention! Surprise! She had apparently just moved to a new apartment with a backyard and a balcony and was ready to adopt a stray. She had not expected to get one with dinner.

Everyone was very happy, especially Blondie, and as they paid their bill the four women and the brother brought her over to their car. You could see she liked the idea of her new partner in life. The picture below shows the brother holding Blondie as a treat is offered to help her into the automobile cargo area. What a happy tail!

Trip to Puebla and Cholula, Part 2

On Thursday morning we left for the city of Cholula which is now pretty much a suburb of Puebla.  On the way we stopped at two churches, the most spectacular being the Templo de San Francisco Acatepec.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_San_Francisco_Acatepec  It was decorated between 1650 and 1750 by the Poblano pottery craftsmen who covered its entire façade with handmade ceramic pieces, primarily Poblano Talavera, and red brick.  (Click on photos for larger versions.)

The inside was another masterpiece of Mexican Baroque decoration.  The Golden Altarpiece is marvelous.

Part of the steps have
been excavated

Next we went on to the Great Pyramid of Cholula, also called Tiachihualtepetl.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Cholula The complex is massive and the pyramid is the largest by volume in the world. Interestingly, most of it is below ground, and for a small fee, you can walk through the narrow, low tunnels, something that was hard on my tall husband's back. You can also climb up the pyramid to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Remedies.  

Because it was the Christmas season, there
was a creche set up inside.  The tradition is
that the Baby Jesus is not put into the cradle 
until Christmas eve.

After exploring the pyramid complex, we were hungry and stumbled upon a nice restaurant where we indulged in some alcoholic beverages, and I had a delicious Enchiladas Suizas.

Trip to Puebla, December 17-20, 2019, Part 1

For our first excursion outside of San Miguel, we went on a trip to Puebla and Cholula organized by the local Lions Club. It was a great experience, and I have finally edited the photos.  Since they were taken with my iPhone instead of my good camera, please excuse the quality. (Click on the photos for much larger views.)

Our Talavera vase

It was close to a five hour drive, but we were comfortable on the first-class bus which was only two-thirds full.  Our fellow travelers were friendly, and we enjoyed meeting them at the BYO cocktail party after we arrived at the hotel.  The Hotel Colonial was delightful and perfectly located in the historic center within walking distance of all the major sights including the large Zócalo, the central plaza. Puebla was named a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is known for its variety of architectural styles ranging from
Renaissance to Mexican Baroque.  It is also famous for mole poblano, chiles en nogada and Talavera pottery, and we managed to sample all three.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puebla_(city)

View of Popocatépetl from hotel roof

One of the fun things about our hotel was its view of Popocatépetl which was smoking and actually erupted the following month.  The YouTube video is quite dramatic.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utLSZNb8H_4

We spent all day on the 18th walking around the city and visiting the major sites.  One of my favorite places was the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, founded in 1646 with its beautiful old wood bookcases and pretty tile floor.  It is considered the first public library on the American continent and UNESCO named it a "Memory of the World" as one of the most important places to safeguard the written memory of humanity.

Library floor

The Museo de la Revolución was fascinating.  It was a private home and is still set up that way with furniture from the period, but you can see the bullet holes from the gun battle that resulted in the deaths of the owners.  This event is regarded as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, November 18, 1910.  https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_de_la_Revoluci%C3%B3n_Mexicana_(Puebla)

One of the absolute "must see" places in Puebla is La Capilla del Rosario, the Rosary Chapel inside the Templo de Santo Domingo.  The plain gray facade of the church gives no clue to the magnificent sights inside.  The main part of the church is beautiful and the altarpiece is fabulous, but the Rosary Chapel is considered to be an astonishing example of hispanic baroque and is one of the greatest artistic/religious creations in Mexico.  It really was breathtaking.

Nave

Altarpiece

The Rosary Chapel

A sad sight

This is our wonderful town square, the Jardin, viewed from a live webcam on Wednesday, May 13th at noon.  Normally on a pretty day, this area in front of the famous Parroquia church is a vibrant place packed with visitors and locals enjoying the ambiance.  There is often music and street vendors selling hats, toys for the kids, and a variety of trinkets.  The garden on the right is always filled with people sitting on benches under the trees and chatting with friends.  Most of the major holiday celebrations take place in this spot including incredible fireworks displays.  We hope the pandemic will pass soon so our lovely city can get back to normal.