Sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's, my birthday on December 30 traditionally has been half-forgotten but not this year, when I will hit the big Seven-Oh. Birthdays that end in zero are usually met with anticipation; they mark a passage to a new stage in life. When we turn twenty, college graduation and the beginning of a career—even …
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.
A few words about the meaning of religion
This morning Stew and I attended a service of the Unitarian Fellowship in San Miguel. We don't attend Unitarian services regularly but were attracted by a program of beautiful Christmas music performed by four very talented local artists. Sandwiched in between the music we read the following reflection about the meaning of religion that seemed particularly …
San Miguel's roadside Michelangelo
Probably because I don't know much about art or artistic techniques, I've always thought of sculpture as the pinnacle of artistic expression. It certainly seems the most difficult to execute.Paint brushes bend and you can always paint over your mistakes or whatever you feel didn't come out just right. Leonardo did that often with many …
Nine reasons why the cold wave that grips San Miguel doesn't bother me that much
To hear folks in San Miguel groan and kvetch about the cold snap during the past several days you'd think we were at the dawn of a new Ice Age.Our cleaning lady showed up Monday seemingly mummified under numerous layers one of which might have been a blanket.The follicly challenged visiting minister at our church …
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Mucho Macho at the Hecho Barber Shop
San Miguel scales new heights of urban sophistication at an astonishing pace.A French bakery that calls itself an "Atelier du Pain" opened a month ago. Meanwhile, a new "Interpretation Cuisine" restaurant that offers a weekly tasting menu of six or seven delicious spoonful-size servings was so successful it moved to a much fancier location in …
At the gas pump, curb your expectations
A month ago a perfectly usable PEMEX located on the way into town was demolished and barely three weeks later—in what must be a new Mexican construction speed record—it was replaced by a gleaming bright-green BP station, as in London-based British Petroleum, although those two potentially problematic English words were nowhere to be found.Welcome to …
The Met ought to compensate the victims of Jimmy's indiscretions
When the pedophilia scandal first enveloped the Catholic Church, its first line of defense was denial or trying to distance the institution from the predator priests. Church officials lied about the problem or blamed it on isolated miscreants.Then it commissioned a study that among other things suggested the incidence of pedophilia and homosexuality in the …
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MouseBusters™ on the case. No more.
Until this year, our two cats, Paco, 16, and Fifo, 12, did a credible job of keeping wild critters, particularly mice and rats, out of the house.This week, though, we discovered they'd surrendered their hunting badges. It may be Paco's old age or Fifo increasing rotundity and laziness, but when we spotted a small mouse …
Honey forecast: Lousy, reasons unknown
All outward signs pointed toward a bumper harvest of honey—good rains; nice cover of flowers, both wild and planted; mild temperatures—but for some reason we got only a fraction of the usual production this year.The number of monarch butterflies and their more exotic cousins also seemed to be sharply down. The only bumper crop this …
On Thanksgiving morning
Gratitude comes easily when everything in our lives is hunky-dory which, unfortunately, doesn't happen very often and when it does, it is usually but for a fleeting moment.Rather, we reflexively tend to look forward or backward, or right or left, and get distracted by the reality of a sick friend, a sore back, something we …
El Rancho Santa Clara 