Monday May 10th to Friday May 14th, 2010

It is low season, what can I say, not much going on these days. Found out yesterday that Pam and Derek are coming down for a week on the 5th of June, Pam is looking for some warm weather in Mexico, she will have it here. It has been going over 30 every day and the humidity is brutal! It feels like summer already! They got a great deal and will be staying at the Decameron, I’m so excited.

I bought some flower seeds the other day and put some plant boxes outside in the front and the little guys are sprouting already! I planted Canterbury Bells, Periwinkle Blue Centaura, Chrysanthemum Pacifica and Pansy Flowers. I bought some Geraniums too; I have them planted in a planter in the back yard. I also bought some mint plants (already grown) and some other herb seeds and I got a packet of cactus seeds, not quite sure where I’m gonna plant those. I guess it doesn’t matter where you live when May arrives you need to plant something.

I am trying to do something different with our back yard; it looks so concrete (which I guess it should, since it is). I have moved some plants around to see if it looks any better, I guess it does a little. I moved plants around the pool to make it look more inviting. (I’m gonna talk with Sue to see if we can get her pool boy to come over and vacuum the bottom of the pool, there is a lot of algae) There is some grass that you can buy that grows on concrete (we saw a commercial on TV) I figure we need that!

We went to Costco yesterday and got a few things, a couple of bathmats for our bathrooms and a new mop for Lily (the strings are starting to come off). We picked up some good cheese (that is hard to find here) and I got a couple of shorts that were on sale. We drove over to Philo’s last night to listen to the jam, Ross played a bit, boy was the bar ever empty, in high season they have tables in the street! I think there were more musicians than patrons. We had fun though, saw some people we haven’t seen for a while, there was even another washboard player, no one seems to know where he came from and he wasn’t very good, Leon is much better!

Ralph came by yesterday to drop off Ross’s drums from Nelly’s and he brought a 3 cd box set of Juan-Ted and the Amazing Rhythm Roosters, some of the music they have done over the last few months. It is quite amazing!!! They are also going to be playing at Ana Banana’s next Sunday, May 23rd, a day after Pam’s birthday. Ross kinda asked Barry if they could play again when Pam and Derek comes, I guess we will have to wait and see.

We were driving the car on Monday and realized that the blower motor for the air conditioning was not blowing, Yack! It’s hot outside! Ed picked it up on Monday afternoon and we got it back Wednesday afternoon and it’s as good as new, all we need now is to recharge the air conditioning on the car, it’s not very cold.

The pool had been leaking since we put water in it but it seems to have stopped some how?? Ross picked up a bottle of stop leak, yes you read right, stop leak for pools and I think the pool heard us talking about it so it stopped leaking. Go figure, we have had to wrap the hose that goes to the filter with tape (it was leaking) but the rest of the leaking has stopped! That’s what you need to do, just warn the pool you are going to fix it, buy the stuff and then you won’t need it!
A couple of weeks ago Ross bumped into a very large rock outside the office and did a really nasty number on the bumper. A very nasty large dent, which somehow miraculously has un-dented itself, I guess it heard us talk about getting it fixed, like the pool.

We went for a scooter ride in the gated community of flamingos, behind Mega, and found condos for sale for as low as 100,000. We might go back and look around some more, they look really nice and some have a big back yard, which is not common. We had a good time, the weather was not super hot and we needed to go to Mega anyway to get more money on Ross’s phone.

Ross got stopped by the Transito going into Vallarta yesterday, he said that Ross went through a red light, Ross said no, it was flashing Verde (green) which it does when it is about to turn yellow. He wanted to take Ross’s license away from him and Ross kept saying no, take my license plate like everyone else does. They kept discussing if the light was red or not, Ross got out to get the paperwork and the cop asked whose car it was, Ross said it was mine so the cop said don’t do that again and let him go. He didn’t ask for a bribe or anything wow!

We just got back from the Transito office in Mezcales (between here and Vallarta) to get our license plates for our scooters. We had Sue and Alex come with us (Alex is Mexican and was helping us with the translation) we gave the lady a copy of our factura (invoice for the scooters) and we are to call them Tuesday of next week to make sure all is in order then we are to come back with our scooters to get our plates, with of course all our paperwork (copies of our passports, FM3’s, water bill, proof of address). Alex then asked if we could get our drivers licenses also. We need one for the scooters and one for the car but we had to take an exam first. Well since the exam was in Spanish and we really don’t know all the traffic laws here, Alex asked if there was any way we could get our licenses without taking the test, so……………….500 pesos later (slipped under the table) we were getting our pictures taken, our fingerprints taken, asked if we were sick or needed glasses to drive and 1,800 more pesos we both are now proud owners of two drivers licenses.

Only in Mexico! Well I guess that is it for now, we hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ross Kim and Critters in Paradise
The pictures are of my 2 new drivers licenses and Yoda with Begal.