You've read about our first six months earlier, so I'll skip to the more recent happenings.
The power outage began the day before New Year's Eve day. It had been pretty windy with gusts in the 30-mile-per-hour range when our lights began flickering. If we're running too many appliances throughout the house we sometimes suffer from a dimming of all lights, but this was worse.
The TV in the living room simply turned itself off and then eventually back on. The kitchen lights were dimmed even when no other kitchen appliances were being used. The exhaust fan wouldn't exhaust. The light next to my computer took several tries to turn it on. The bathroom heater would only put out mildly warm air. And to add insult to injury, the microwave's turntable would revolve, but it wouldn't cook anything!
Then we couldn't reach our Pedro by telephone and the electric company (CFE) wasn't answering their phones, either. Michael later walked into Centro and found the office was closed. [The observation of holidays in Mexico is a whole other subject.]
Luckily we located a number for an electrician who had been recommended to us by friends (husband of our friends' maid) who was available to come take a look at things. He brought two helpers and they called a service emergency number for CFE, so we had four people and a CFE truck here who discovered that the tree growing in our entry garden (it's now tall enough to reach above the second floor terrace) had a branch that pushed against the electric wiring that feeds the house and had broken the cable that supports the wire. The wire then stretched without the supporting cable and broke the grounding connection. I suppose we're lucky the house didn't go up in flames or something, but they fixed the problem, advised us to replace the connections for the meter (that's another story), and we promised to trim the tree - or at least to tell our landlord of the need.
That left us free to enjoy our NYE dinner at a local restaurant. The menu was quite tasty; we chose mushrooms with garlic, cream of poblano soup (which was outstanding), and the rib-eye steak with roquefort sauce and sides. The steak came out on a sizzling platter that would put Ruth's Chris to shame. Even the veggies were sizzling hot. And the roquefort sauce (which was served on the side and looked more like gravy) was excellent, too. The meal was accompanied by as much wine as you cared to drink, so over the three hours we were there (had to wait for the ball to drop, right?) we managed to drink quite a few glasses.
At one other table was a group of three chelangos (folks who live in Mexico City) who were a bit rowdy, but one of the three spoke fine Spanish, French, and English and we not only kibbitzed between tables, we ended up joining them after dessert for a few more glasses of wine! We all had a great time!! [There was something about meeting up at four o'clock this afternoon at another restaurant downtown, but I'm not sure we're going to make that!]
So great a time that the owner of the restaurant discreetly sent his son on his motorcycle to follow us as we walked home to make sure we made it safely. Guess he felt that we needed to cross a sketchy part of the colonia to reach our home - which we did, safely. Of course folks were out on the streets (not really well lit in some areas), and it was reassuring to have company!
And by only ten-thirty this morning I somewhat resembled a human being again. It reminded me of a recent time when we met a couple at a party where the wine flowed freely (one of our friends is a sommelier) and then we stopped at La Azotea for a few rounds of margaritas on the way home. One of the guys did not survive the night unscathed. [We did see them a couple of days later in Centro and were invited over to see their home, so all is forgiven, I guess.]
Thus we made it through the holidays in one piece. Unless they're very anglicized, most Mexican families give gifts to their children on January 6th, the traditional date the three magi arrived in Bethlehem and presented their gifts to the Christ child. I'm
And speaking of quiet, last night was pretty quiet compared to Christmas Eve, when the dogs were really bothered by the fireworks. We were able to sleep through the night with no barking, so it's just as well that we cancelled our plan to send them out to the kennel in the country.
Here's to more frivolity in the new year! Feliz ano nuevo, amigos!!!
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