Gray Skies Are Going To Clear Up...

A few days ago I was watching the workmen construct a house a block away from our second floor bedroom doorway.  Although it was overcast and foggy, there they were, working away.  The next day they were again at their task in the cold weather - 45F degrees is cold for San Miguel, even in the winter.  The fog was just lifting from around the spiffy homes on the rise to the west.

True to the usual here, by one o'clock each day the overcast had cleared, the sun was out, and it was rather warm (some may say 'hot').  They followed the usual weather pattern; just a bit colder at the beginning of the day.

Friday night it poured down.  I'm told that there was some terrific thunder and lightning (slept through that), but while watching the television in the middle of the night I witnessed a spate of rain that became quite heavy at times - and then moved on.

As expected, our street suffered.  We live on a modest hill that runs past our house, so rainstorms wash the hillside down to the bottom of the hill, where the street meets up with the road from Celaya.  Unfortunately, the Celaya road is on a higher elevation.  So the city had graciously installed a large drain where our street must change elevation in order to join the Celaya highway.  However, because everything gets washed down the street to the drain, it sometimes clogs up.  And it's been doing this for years....

Enter the city's road department which installs a supplemental drain that diverts the overflow through piping at the lower level which comes out a ways down the Celaya road and dumps the excess water there.  Of course that work eliminates the sidewalk up to the highway level, so they built a stepped rampway.  This is an improvement to the dirt path that has existed - for years - since the original sidewalk disappeared.

Now, there are problems with the location of the discharge of that pipe (it's in the parking area of our local gym and members drive around and through it), but their answer to that (some concrete over the discharge pipe and some vertical pipes to prevent cars from driving directly over it) are miscalculated.  It wasn't long (the first day) until a vehicle drove over the concrete panels and destroyed them.  And after this big rain, the part of the dirt parking lot that was dug up (by shovel and pickax) so they could run the piping was a muddy mess.  At least the dirt previous to their work had been hard-packed.

So life goes on.  I'm sure the gym is not happy with their work or placement of the discharge area, but if it was placed further down the road it would interfere with the parking for delivery trucks to our supermarket.  I suppose folks will eventually get used to it....  

Holidays

Just like life NOB (north of the border), Mexico has recently decreed that holidays that occur on weekdays should be observed on Mondays - to provide 3-day weekends for revelers.

Accordingly, Revolution Day (Thursday) is being celebrated over this long weekend.  Not that San Miguel is particularly associated with the Revolution, but it's a nice place to go on holidays, so we're flooded with traffic from DF (day-effay) or Mexico City's Distrito Federal with their driving habits from 'the Big City'.

Now, we're used to this - crowds, honking horns and all.  But this time the main thoroughfare into Central is chock-a-block with cars as a result of the work being done laying new electrical conduits. 

The work is only half done, so there are interruptions to the smooth flow of traffic.  It was evident when we walked into town  the last few days, and quite evident when we taxied or bussed back to our part of town.

Of course the improved electrical service doesn't extend to our part of town, so no new meters, electronic readings, et cetera.

In other news, our friend Victor is in town for a few days from Puerto Vallarta to close up the family condo in Vista Magna and turn it over to a corporate long-term renter who will furnish it themselves and offer it to  customers of their hotel who are looking for something a bit more more.  His mother, who owns the property, is also in town; we enjoyed lunch with them both at Hecho en Mexico yesterday. 

Mom returned as far as Leon late yesterday in order to return to San Miguel with more family members tomorrow. And we'll have a late lunch (well, not late by their standards) at Tacos Don Felix Sunday afternoon.  Good times!