Movies are one of the great deals in San Miguel. With a government-issued “Third Age” discount card tickets cost about four dollars, and that includes premieres which, inexplicably, sometimes show up here a few days before the U.S. The discount doesn’t apply to 3-D movies and that’s just as well because all those special effects …
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Great Border Crossing Plus Seven
Stew, with his remarkable recall for dates and events, casually mentioned on Sunday that November 7 would be the anniversary of the Great Border Crossing. I, the one with a far foggier grasp of birthdays and most other significant historical markers, replied: "The what?"Indeed Wednesday was the seventh anniversary of our voyage from Chicago to Mexico …
So close yet so far away
During two recent outings, one a shopping trip a couple of weeks ago to the nearby city of Querétaro and the other a one-day photo safari last Wednesday led by a professional photographer now retired in San Miguel, Stew and I were again slapped on the face with the realities of poverty and economic inequality in Mexico.Querétaro …
Ahead of the tech curve in San Miguel
On Thursday Newsweek announced that as of the end of the year it will not longer publish a print edition--the one some readers regard as a "real magazine" that you can flip through nervously while waiting at the dentist's office--in favor of a series of electronic blips known as a "digital edition."San Miguel is hardly …
Bee Day arrives
The much anticipated day to collect the honey from Stew's beehive finally arrived last Friday, and a ho-hum feeling buzzed through my spine. The project had been going on since February, with free bee stings for everyone including the dogs, which had learned to flee whenever they saw or sniffed any bee-related doings. Most of …
One cheer for optimism
San Miguel de Allende at times feels like Medicare Junction. It can be full of bad news, illnesses and other problems that tax one's optimism while, ironically, reminding us how essential optimism is to a sane, healthy life--however many years of it we have left.The, hmm, "advanced" demographics of a retirement outpost like San Miguel--hell, …
Guess who we are having for dinner
End-of-life issues have been troubling me lately, specifically, What do you do when a hen stops laying?A recent egg shortage in Mexico has rekindled our plans to build a chicken coop but there are many details and ramifications that need to be explored.Our gardener Félix is all excited. He keeps a rotating cavalcade of animals …
At a real Mexican county fair
San Miguel's annual county fair, which runs for three weeks around the time of the month-long Mexican independence celebrations in September, attracts thousands of locals but hardly any foreigners. That's too bad.It's not the monster state fair in Dallas, or the dazzling, open-air Cirque du Soleil spectacle Stew and I were lucky to see in …
Tuning in and out of the presidential race
Among the many benefits of living in San Miguel is its foreigness, its physical separation from the U.S., despite the several thousand American expats who live here. Whether by car or plane, the U.S. and its rancorous political wars, are about ten hours away.That insulation is not hermetic. There is satellite television and radio, the …
And so to bed
Embedded in the part of the brain that controls my biorhythms there must something like an anti-alarm clock. For as long as I can remember it has gone off around two o'clock in the afternoon to whisper in my ear: "Time to take a nap." To reinforce the signal, almost non-stop yawning ensues, along with …
El Rancho Santa Clara 