San Miguel newbies are shocked to discover that we do have a winter season here after all, with some overnight freezes, sere vegetation and spells of gloominess that might seem interminable next to the eternal sunshine they expected. Our winters are not nearly as bleak, mind you, as the one Gustav Holst depicted in his hypnotic …
A heart of stone, just in time for St. Valentine's Day
In deference to the demographics of our circle of friends, who trend old and often trip over things, yesterday we hired a backhoe and two young guys to clean up the stones that boobytrapped the garden in back of our house, and patch up the holes with black dirt. Alas, by noon the project had …
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Who's afraid of Mickey Mouse?
Stew and I believe gray mice are endearing. And apparently so did The Walt Disney Company, who's made billions off Mickey and Minnie, and also Remy, the protagonist of Disney•Pixar's 2007 animated feature "Ratatouille," about an irresistibly charming Parisian rat who aspires to become a chef. A lot of people are unpersuaded by the charm of …
How I'm going to make 2022 an exciting year
Some people, myself included, make New Year's resolutions that are bound to fail. Take, for instance, my vowing to take up marathoning despite my penguin-like flat feet that keep me from running more than a block at a time. Other people inventory all their defects and deficiencies, the weight of which end up crushing their …
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The strange and sad story of our gardener Lupe
A week ago last Sunday, on the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, or Lupita as she is affectionally called by some Mexicans who venerate her more fervently that even Jesus himself, Stew, a friend and I went to Querétaro to see Steven Spielberg's remake of "West Side Story." We all loved it, although …
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My own curious sidebar to the coronavirus story
During a recent 15-day sojourn in San Antonio, Texas, for Stew to undergo knee-replacement surgery—and for me to play his personal Florence Nightingale during his recovery—we both got the booster Pfizer shot and the annual flu vaccine at a Walgreens pharmacy. Taking both vaccines simultaneously was perfectly safe, or so we had read. That was true …
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Zipping above Mexico's Copper Canyon
Tourism-promoters often resort to grandiose pitches that may not be exactly correct—we've got the fastest this or the biggest that. And so Mexico claims that its Copper Canyon, in the northern state of Chihuahua, is larger in area than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It all depends on how measure them. The Copper Canyon is in fact …
My cameo as a Sports Illustrated cover model
Decades, though it feels more like eons, ago, when I was a junior at St. Agnes Cathedral High School, in Rockville Centre, New York, I had the good fortune of catching the attention of Sister Malachy, a Dominican nun who taught English, moderated the student newspaper and sparked my interest in photography, which burns brightly …
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Moments and teachers that changed my life
Wednesday's Guardian newspaper carried a moving testimonial by famed Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart to Cecil Dormand, a high school English teacher who "spotted" Stewart's talent and essentially put him on the path to a brilliant acting career in Britain and the United States (Remember Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation"?) In the testimonial, effectively …
Storm warnings: Be careful what you brag about
Yesterday, Oct. 4, we awakened to the umpteenth cloudy/drizzly/gloomy day in this seemingly endless rainy season in San Miguel de Allende. Let us now bow our heads and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness from our friends in Chicago, New York, and points north of Indianapolis, for all our constant hee-hawing about the unpleasant climate in which they …
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El Rancho Santa Clara 