Small World

Ever have one of those days when you've moved 1800 miles away from everyone you ever knew and then people walk back into your life?

Likely not, but that's what happened to us recently.

On Independence Day weekend San Miguel is typically full of people.  As one of the locations that fostered the independence movement - including Miguel Allende, who lost his head for his efforts - people tend to flock here for the festivities.

So Michael is walking into Centro (it's about a 25-minute walk from our home to the Jardin), when he looks up and says: "Jose!"  Who should it be but one of our favorite waiters from a Mexican restaurant in a suburb in the San Fernando Valley (Chatsworth), nearly over the mountain ridge into the next county.  (We spent a goodly amount of time there.)

His family (Jose's) is from San Miguel and we had even considered renting one of their properties when first contemplating the move SOB.  And there he was walking along the Ancha with family members.

Then, more recently, we got an email from a friend we had first made when we moved to San Miguel.  We went everywhere with her - fund raisers, Los Milagros (the Miracles) for guitar music and botanas every Sunday afternoon, restaurant meals, and gringo gatherings (more about that later). 

She had moved away from San Miguel, looking for something she hadn't found here.  Although we thought that she had moved south to the Pacific Ocean coast of Mexico, it turns out that she had rented there, moved to southern Alabama, spent a couple of months in Costa Rica....you name it.  And here she was back in San Miguel for a month before going on a Caribbean cruise.

So we did lunch and caught up on the last year for all of us.  We think we'll be able to meet up again the day after we return from our vacation.  Yes, even retirees take vacations. It's just too perfect here in SMA - you need some time away to realize just how wonderful it is.

The best part of this hiatus is that I'll be out of touch with the internet for most of the 3 weeks, and thus off duty as a moderator for a Yahoo! Group about the town.  It can get a little 'close' if you know what I mean.

In the meanwhile, Michael is finishing up the last file he's working on (it just came in today and we leave tomorrow) as well as trimming up the dogs.  Our sitter has seen them already, but it never hurts to brush them out and trim them down some more! 

And that's true for all  of us! 

Lime vs Lemon

It was supposed to be a lemon tree.  Our friends bought it at a local nursery and was assured it was a Meyer lemon tree.  Meyers are rare to non-existent here in the central highlands of Mexico.  The Mexican lemon tree - limon Real - looks like a lemon on steroids, with a extremely thick skin, but 'normal' lemon inside.  A friend with a tree gave us a dozen of the large grapefruit-sized beasts which we dutifully juiced (thank you, electric juicer, as it was too large to fit into one of our handheld juicers), froze in an ice-cube tray, and transferred to a baggie in the freezer, where they await their eventual use - someday.

But back to the Meyer lemon.  We were told that it had lived in a shaded patio, and thus hadn't produced any yellow lemons from lack of sunlight.  The fruit would turn yellowish and then drop off the tree before it looked like a lemon.  [A lime left to ripen on the tree will turn pale yellow and become juicier....]

We admired the tree and tremendous pot it was in and gladly became it's new owners.  It's now sitting in our backyard where it does receive its daily dose of clear, Mexican sunshine.

However, we had doubts about its provenances.  It produces fruits that are lime-sized. They taste like limes. They work in Margaritas splendidly.  So we looked on-line for how to determine whether a tree is a lemon or a lime and followed the steps given at eHow.com.

We checked the size of the tree, the shape of the leaves, the aroma released when a leaf was torn, the smell of the bark when separated from the tree, and the color of the blush upon the flowers.

The tree passed with flying colors and a score of 100% - it's a lime!  We're hoping that the backyard will be protected enough for the tree; limes are more sensitive to cold weather than lemon trees.  Guess we'll find out in January/February.

[ Did we mention that the pot was planted with basil, rosemary, and mint around the base of the tree?  An extra treat! ]

More importantly, it seems to have recovered from the move.  Yesterday we discovered it covered in blooms - even more limes!!!

And we love the tree: the look, the addition to our backyard, and most importantly, the fruit when you don't have enough store-bought limes for that Margarita!  (We go through a fair number of limes each week and the tree would never keep up without help.)  If each of those flowers turn into a lime, it will be lime juice that we're freezing!