I realize it's a very uneven match, but this Christmas we decided to do our share to beat back the onslaught of U.S. marketing and cultural influence that threaten to undermine traditional Mexican traditions.We wanted to give Christmas presents to Félix's three kids, Alondra, 11; Edgar, 8 and Jessica 4, but didn't want to participate …
Author: Alfredo Lanier
My husband and I live on an off-the-grid ranch outside San Miguel, along with the challenging but dear company of four off-the-street dogs and three cats. My interests lie in politics, writing, photography and sundry forms of spirituality.
Spring makes a welcome surprise appearance
Contrary to the wistful notions we brought down with us, San Miguel de Allende does have a winter cold, gray and windy enough, to send us rummaging through the coat closet for one of those heavier jackets we'd thought we'd never need again.And for three days last week, winter really stretched it claws here.Sparrows and …
President Trump's greatest "achievements" so far
Fellow blogger Felipe Zapata, headquartered at a remote mountaintop near Pátzcuaro, published a post yesterday celebrating the top ten achievements of the Trump administration. This morning when I reread the jeremiad I had written in response, I enjoyed my own words so much I decided to republish them here, with minor changes: Ah, Felipe, you’re much …
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The Christmas story: Bah! Humbug? Not at all.
I have a conflicted relationship with Christmas. While I enjoy the gift-giving, the family get-togethers, the decorations, and the memories, I can't quite embrace the elaborate religious packaging, or even a portion of it.So I winced last Sunday in church, as I listened to the gospel reading, Matthew 1:18-25, which purported to explain the strange circumstances …
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What to do in a gloomy winter day?
Wednesday awakened every bit as cold, gloomy and clammy as it was in Chicago when we visited over Thanksgiving, about 35 degrees and windy. I cancelled plans to putz around the garden as soon as I stepped outside. Then we discovered our internet connection, and along with it, the internet radio stations that provide background …
Growing old alongside our pal Lucy Mae
While volunteering at the reception desk of a local animal shelter, shortly after arriving in San Miguel, a woman came in with a battered birdcage holding a pitiful white puppy inside, with a bloated pink belly and soulful eyes. She had found a cardboard box containing three or four puppies, a few weeks old, by …
My kind of town, Chicago still is
When we arrived in Chicago, two days before Thanksgiving, the reception was neither warm nor surprising: The weather was gray and cold, and a steady breeze drove the freezing drizzle at a thirty-degree angle that felt on the bare skin like pinpricks. The 25-minute wait for an Uber taxi felt more like an hour. But …
A mid-rise condo for your collection of succulents
This blog doesn't often stray into the arts-and-crafts area, but Félix and I last week built this clay brick "condo" for our succulent collection that we're both really pleased with, and feel it deserves some celebration.We needed an attractive, and space-efficient way to display the burgeoning collection of succulents we've collected over the past three …
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One loud cheer for the 'fake news' New York Times
The New York Times, widely regarded the best paper in the U.S., if not the world, for the breadth and depth of its news coverage, has come under incessant attack by President Trump, and his millions of followers, as a nefarious purveyor of "fake news."We hear that the Times' news coverage is tendentious, if not …
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The autumn of our forgetfulness
Old age is like a car turning over 150,000 miles; no matter how many times you've changed the oil or rotated the tires, things start going clink, clank and pfft. In older people, a sputtering memory is assumed to presage dementia. We fret about finding ourselves in the day room of a nursing home, drooling and …
El Rancho Santa Clara 