Malcolm knew when to come in and when to leave About fifteen or sixteen years ago when we'd barely fenced in our land and begun construction of the house, a pack of six or seven stray dogs, among them an ingratiating curly-tailed orange mutt we named Malcolm, showed up each morning looking for food. Pretty …
Category: mexico
The clothes of our lives
What we've worn, never to be worn again When Stew and I moved down from Chicago some twenty years ago, the packing began in an orderly fashion, boxes clearly labeled and sealed—books, tools, kitchen utensils and such—but we were nowhere finished when the crew from United Van Lines showed up. The pace of the packing …
morning breaks at the ranch
When you live in the country, driving home on a lonely road after dark is scary. Sometimes it makes us wonder why we didn't pick a place in-town to live, easily accessible by an Uber or kind friends who would take us home. No, we're not afraid of roving narcotraffickers, highway robbers, bandidos or other …
After the Trumpocalypse
How to keep my head when everyone's lost theirs On the Monday before election day Stew and I left on a three-day excursion to Pátzcuaro, a beautiful colonial town about three hours from San Miguel. And on the day after the election, while sitting on a bench in the main square of Erongarícuaro, a nearby …
Strangers we knew
People we meet are the most memorable part of travel In the 1993 movie "Six Degrees of Separation" the character Ouise (Louise) Kittredge, played by Stockard Channing, gave us this bon mot about how all people on this planet are related to one another, by blood, accident or coincidence. "I read somewhere that everybody on …
Cat people of the world, unite!
The Republican run for the White House turns even uglier Kamala Harris hasn't yet been formally nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for president but the mud-slinging already has begun. A 2021 rant by JD Vance, now the GOP vice-presidential candidate, has resurfaced that targets Kamala Harris, Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and Secretary of Transportation Pete …
The buzz of electric vehicles
Our brief flirtation with electric cars During our frequent trips to Queretaro we've noticed an increased number of Chinese car dealerships, many offering electric models. Forget the familiar Chevy, Ford and Toyota names and tune your ear to exotic brands that sound like a dim sum buffet: Geely, Jac, BYD, Omoda, Danfeng, Saic, Baoyun and …
This blogger is old
How i went from 'getting old' to 'being old' Lifestyle preachers may talk about "70 being the new 50" by profiling some 85-year-old guy who swims a mile a day in Lake Michigan in the middle of January. Such inspirational epistles never impressed us though. Less so after my husband Stew underwent serious spinal surgery …
When ‘what if’ turns into ‘what is’
An emergency tested our Medical plans Given the group's demographics, it's not surprising that health care, along with finances, rank high on the list of preoccupations among San Miguel's expats, as they realize they are on the last lap around the racetrack. Some planning is in order. At this stage, eightieth birthdays call for special …
Unsafe in either country?
How alarmed you should be by crime in the U.S. or in Mexico? It can be a matter of perspective The abduction about ten days ago of four Americans driving across the border from Brownsville, Texas to the Mexican city of Matam0ros, left two of them dead in addition to a Mexican bystander, and restarted …
El Rancho Santa Clara 