A couple of "You've got to be kidding" moments

Sunday a.m.

Sun is up birds are making a racket seems like it will be a beautiful day again.
Roberto is coming over to get lessons in leather mask making. For anyone interested here is Bill’s web site where he works with the leather making the wind spirits and leather masks. http://www.woodspiritsandleatherartstudio.com/  He is sure going to be busy when we get home. And every day he gets more ideas of what he is going to do.  Here he is playing with some of the leather he just got.

Yesterday we had a couple of those “you’ve got to be kidding moments” the first when we were stopping by the grocery store. I walked by a store window and saw a sign “vestidos para Carnaval” clothing for Carnaval. There were three cute frilly sparkly small dresses in the window. I thought “more dresses for little kids.” Boy was I wrong. Upon closer look it was a pet supply store. These are dresses for DOGS!

The other moment came later in the day. I’m always fascinated by the cakes in the markets. This one looked so good. We just look at them as neither of us could eat it before it got stale.

We didn’t get anything perishable so we headed over towards the Centro Historico to check out the Carnaval preparations – As long as we went into town the back way through the city streets instead of along the ocean there was no problem. The street that follows the ocean is closed to vehicular traffic until next Tuesday the end of Carnaval. Neither of us had eaten breakfast so of course we had to go to the Plazuela Machado for lunch. Boy was that area ever getting ready for the party at night. Huge blocks of ice were being unloaded from a big truck.

They were being left outside on the plaza in front of all the closed restaurants. This ice is chipped up put in coolers and used to keep closed beverages cold. So sanitation isn't too much of an issue.

Next to the gazebo lots and lots of big sound equipment was being set up.

He was wondering “What the heck is going on?”

We sat down and placed our order for hamburgers and fries. And then came our next “You’ve got to be kidding” moment. The restaurant we usually eat at is owned by an older man and woman who we've become close friends with. She is also the manager and the head cook. A couple of people have told us that the restaurant is becoming more of a hobby to them then a business and that some things don’t get done on a regular basis – like ordering supplies. We’ve had our waiter go to the restaurant next door to borrow items they don’t have on hand. But that is kind of a common practice. Any way we were watching the music set up when the lady came rushing out of the restaurant and went over to where her husband was relaxing [dozing] on a plaza bench. She poked him and gave him some instructions – I understood hamburgers” and picked up on the urgency of what she was telling him. Hummmm??? He slowly got up from the bench and seemed to disagree with her. Well that didn’t last long. Another string of strong words and he got on his motorbike and took off.

She stopped by our table to say “Hi” then went back inside. Bill was laughing his socks off. What happened was they were out of tomatoes and she came out to send him to the central market to buy tomatoes. He was too slow getting moving and she gave him a tongue lashing and told him to hurry up. He is unloading the tomatoes from his storage bag.

In no time we had our delicious hamburgers with fresh tomatoes on them. TIM = This is Mexico! We enjoyed our meal and the people watching. Getting back in the car I was impressed with the very blue sky after a couple of days of overcast sky and colors in the buildings around the lot.

Our friend Angelica told us this parking lot used to be a beautiful home. She was raised in this neighborhood. She says there used to be a wonderful brick patio with a huge tree right in the middle of what is now the parking lot.
Yesterday the campground had a Chili Cook Off – we forgot about it and missed most of it. When we got back to the park all the chili was gone and people were starting to leave. But they had quite a crowd – it is a money raising event for children and is an annual event.

The first NASCAR race was last night. And all I could do was watch the commentary on the laptop – sure wish I could have seen it on TV. Hopefully after we get home it will be replayed sometime. Pretty exciting race.
Right now Bill has lots of company - he is showing Roberto and his son how to form the leather for the masks. I'm going to work on my necklace for a while. Just barely started on it.

I'm a little out of practice - will probably end up ripping all of this out and starting over - we'll see....