Our solar electric system went on the fritz andthat brought us some unexpected blessings Our house is "off the grid"—the only external input is a refill of propane gas every two or three months—and the system worked well until last Friday afternoon when our solar electricity rig crashed, taking down with it all appliances and electronic …
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.
Why do you go to church anyway?
Is it cynical to attend churchmainly to meet other people?While in the U.S. church attendance continues to decline, during our eleven years in San Miguel we've noticed that English-speaking churches here seem to be growing almost as fast as restaurants and art galleries.No doubt previous religious affiliations point some expats to certain denominations, but I …
Forget emails. Just call.
"Now they tell me!" saidDonald J. Trump, Jr. During the past few days I've soured on that modern addiction to e-mails, a communication medium that frequently creates confusion and misunderstanding and can even get one of your mammaries in the wringer. Yesterday I called my friend Barbara to find out how she was doing after a …
Elon Musk's Tesla pulls into San Miguel
Electric vehicles are headed for San Miguel.That surprised the hell out of me.Sometime last week, with as little fanfare as organ cacti popping up in the countryside, six shiny Tesla electric car chargers appeared in the parking lot of the Luciérnaga shopping center in San Miguel, by the Office Depot store. We of course had …
Waking up to Donald Trump
These days perusing the headlines first thing in the morning often is like taking that first sip of coffee and discovering someone has laced it with Tabasco sauce. You gag. You spit. You say "What the hell?" or worse.Wednesday and Thursday were Tabasco days. Via one of his early morning tweets, which have come to …
Victory! Vinyl LPs live!
Comments on my blog yesterday, about whether I should keep my collection of vinyl LPs, leaned in favor of keeping it with an outlier voice from Pátzcuaro grumbling that I should toss it.Stew and three of our highly-trained dogslooking under the stereo cabinet toassess the nature of the problem. Vox populi won and Stew and I …
Is it time to toss my vinyl LP recordings?
I don't need my old LPs butsomehow I can't let them go.In the beginning there was the vinyl LP recording, and the LP became high-fidelity, stereophonic, quadraphonic, "360 Stereo" and more, with a detour for tape cassettes, compact discs and most recently MP3 files. Except for cassette tapes, I still have most of these media …
By the dawn's early light
It pays to get up earlyto catch an unexpected showA day's first and final hours of sunlight, the "magic hours," are supposed to be the best time to take pictures. It's true. At around seven-thirty this morning I went out with my camera, followed by our dogs, to take pictures of the ranch. At that time sunlight …
Of matzo balls and arroz con pollo
How the dots of Cuban Jewish historyfinally came together for me in San MiguelIn 1998, more than thirty-six years after leaving Cuba, the newspaper I worked for sent me to cover the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to the island. It would be a trip filled with revelations, a return to a place that …
Little League graduation
Think herding cats is difficult?Try kids doing a graduation waltzLast Saturday Félix' five-year-old Edgar graduated from kindergarten and there was a celebration so incongruously elaborate—and irresistibly cute—you'd have to be dead not to smile. About forty kids graduated, a third more boys than girls for some reason, and the dress code was equally formal but hardly …
El Rancho Santa Clara 