Stuck on myself

Wednesday morning – and where is the sun? I saw it peek above the trees a while ago and now it is gone. Just lots of gray clouds covering the sky.

I have to tell you about a funny happening yesterday. It concerns one of the trees here in the campground. It looks like it might be a citrus tree of some kind. There are a lot of lemon and lime trees here. The tree.

It has some kind of fruit type things on it. I was talking to a couple of the other campers about the vine with the orange pods and we got to wondering about this tree. Here is the fruit. The big ones are about the size of a ping pong ball. Also has small ones. 

They don’t seem to change color or texture as they grow. They are a kind of brownish green, very hard leathery skin and very hard fruit.

So I got curious and cut one off the tree and brought it inside and cut it in half. And that was my first mistake! The inside is kind of light green and very woody like and hard. It also oozes a white milky sap.

Of course I got the sap on my hands. And suddenly my fingers were stuck together. Hum...got a paper towel and tried to wipe it off. Now the paper towel is stuck to my fingers. Got out the dish soap and a sponge. Scrubbed. The water made the sap sticker and little parts of the sponge are sticking to my hand – as the water hit it the stuff spread and thickened. Well Crap! Bill came to investigate what I was doing. He suggested alcohol. Poured some on the hand and used a paper towel to rub it. Nope. Just more towel fuzz on the hand. This stuff was like super glue! Finally got out the Goo Gone and managed to clean most of it off. So I just smelled funny the rest of the day. Word of advice – if you see this tree DO NOT PICK THE FRUIT.

I had my optometrist appointment at 11:00 so we headed into the Centro Historico.

We parked in our favorite parking lot and Bill got talking to the manager about the wall surrounding the lot. Seems it is falling down. This is a picture of it from the outside of the lot – you can see the bow in it.

A chain wrapped through the wall to the inside trying to hold it up.

Inside you can see it is chained to the tree. 

The trees are actually causing part of the problem. The roots undermining it and the branches pushing on it. So why don’t they just fix it right? Well they can’t. When the government put a stop to destroying the old buildings in the Centro Historico they made lots of rules and regulations about what can and can’t be done to the old buildings. The exteriors MUST remain the same. So here we have a wall that is falling. The owners cannot reinforce it – they cannot tear it down and rebuild it. And the government says they better not let it fall down. Talk about a Catch 22. TIM

So we went to the optometrist. Got my eyes checked. Boy I really can’t see anymore. The last few years I haven’t been wearing my glasses for distance because I could see better without them. Really a big change. Very little change for reading though. But he also said the change in distance is due to cataracts. Crap. Anyway I’m getting new lenses put in my old favorite frames for regular progress lenses glasses and getting a new pair of bifocal sunglasses – which I really need. Picked out fancy frames for them. They’ll be ready Thrursday.

After leaving there we went on to the Parisina – which is a huge yardage store. All the Christmas fabric was amazing. Beautiful and compared to US prices cheap. From one dollar to three dollars a yard. The Christmas yardage was all on sale. 50% off - made me want to SHOP but I didn't. 

Then on to the Central Market. Noticed this sign in there; the market is 115 years old this year. It looks like it used to be out in the middle of no where. Now the streets around it are crowded.

You can get everything there from meat – what cut do you want?

To pretty colorful “I wish I was skinny again” dresses

Buttons and ribbons and yarn.

Fresh produce that smells and looks so good. We got some peaches.

And outside on the street all the prepared foods – some gorditas.

Walking back to the car we passed a dress makers shop. This beautiful gown was in the window. Wish I could have got a picture without the reflections. It was gorgeous!

We also walked around until we found the restaurant I’d been looking for. But it wasn’t open until later. Something to do another day.