Griffins Corazon: 2015

October means fall and changing of colors, the cooler weather with a nip in the air. Carnivals and county fairs, goulish visitors and trickers to treat. There isn't much different here in Mexico City except for.......

The nip in the air isn't there but a carnival is setting up in the streets to celebrate some patron saint in the pueblito. The streets are narrow enough as it is without the carnival booths, but hey, that is the way it is here, set up a booth and sell something and celebrate.

The malls here are HUGE, with expensive stores, but they are always having some event or another in the central planta baja. This week it just happened to be a Legos Star Wars event.

For the most part, we can get the foods and items we are used to cooking with. Everything BUT......
GREEN CHILI, diced of the Hatch New Mexico kind. I mean it would be okay if they had any green chilie of any kind. But NOOOO. The only green chili they have is poblano (wrong kind), diced and canned with vinegar. Are you kidding me? You don't put vinegar in with the chilies!!!!!!

But never fear, Sister Sandberg had a can in her cupboard to borrow.

OPENING THE CAN OF GOLD!

Ok, so this part is just funny.... The NQR number ??? for Mexico. So we are cooking Sunday dinner for two other couples in Teca Once in our Easy Bake oven. John is all excited about serving the pesto chicken dish he wanted to try out. He opens the oven door only to have the outside panel come away from the door of the oven. Now, how are we supposed to get the dish out of the oven. With inginuity is how. I had to grab a big butcher knife and pry it open far enough for him to grab it the his gloved hands. Don't be critical of the usage of the knife.... we don't have any tools here, that is the best I could do. Especially since we were laughing so hard we almost couldn't get it done.

So we had to prop the door up to let it finish cooking because it wasn't quite time to pull it out yet.

This would be the back of the cabinet that has fallen off too.

So we manage to get the chicken cooked all the way and have a lovely dinner with Dr. Stevens and his wife Peggy. Elder Rice and his lovely companion BoAnn, but not before the door to the oven came completey off.

So we get up the next morning to get some breakfast. Not too worried about the oven door not being attached, not gonna use it for breakfast anyway. But that is when we discover that the microwave stopped working too. Now is where I have to explain the two realities we live in. The oven cabinet and oven are provided by the church, as is some of the other stuff like the blender and some of the dishes, an iron and the desk. The microwave is provided by Teca Once, as is some of the pots and some of the dishes. So..... when the oven breaks you call the church to have them come repair it. The micro, we have to call the maintenance guy here at Teca. So John called the church physical property guy, know his number already because this is the same oven that almost burn the place up. The maintenance guy here at Teca had to run wiring to that side of the counter for the oven. Only he didn't use a heavy enough gauge of wiring (no grounding wire) and the plug arched when they plugged the stove in, but the church guy wasn't worried, that is how it is done here. Except for one small detail, that arching action was the precurser to having the oven plug short out the wall plug and start a meltdown, with the smoking and almost fire, when we turned it on to bake something a couple of weeks before.... so, we called church maintenance then and they came and rewired both the oven and the outlet. Back to the door, (come to find out, we were told that is probably the same oven that one of the other couples had and the door had already fallen off before) so we called the same guy and told him that the door had broken, no problem they would come glue it back on again, with the same high heat silicone stuff they used before (as I am listening to him talk to maintenance and just laughing because it is why it fell off in the first place). John just happened to mention that the Micro had quite too, but that he was getting Teca to get us another one. So we get back to the room for lunch the next day and see the oven like this.

A note to not use it, written on a paper plate, with black electrical tape holding the door together while the silicone glue cured. Laughing may or may not have been on the menu for lunch. And there was a new micro on the shelf, which amazed us because Teca IS NOT that responsive, Mexico mañana is the time for repairs here. So we go thank the front desk after lunch and they say they didn't put it in there. Frankly, it is much bigger and new, which they would not have provided. The church put it in when they were fixing the oven. It still makes me giggle inside even now when I look at the picture with the paper plate....

So the cooking situation is not the only laughable (missionary experience) situation. To do the laundry here, we have to use the same facilities that the housekeeping staff uses for hotel. One would think that a hotel would be a commercial establishment that would use commercial grade equipment. And one would be very, very wrong to use that thinking. When we arrived here there were 3 washing machines and 3 dryers. Out of six machines there are 0 fully functioning ones. For a long time one would just overflow water all over the floor, one would fill with water and agitate and one would only do spin cycle. One dryer wouldn't dry, one would tumble but shut off after ten minutes and not turn on again until it had cooled off and one would get the clothes so hot the wrinkle free clothing got permenant wrinkles and messed up. At one point we were down to two half washers. Tecca finally bought one new one. It worked for a couple of days. Then one day we came home from the offices and they were setting up 3 new ones. WOOT WOOT! Dryers are still the same but John is learning to adapt.

Monumental Day - Washers that work!
(except the one she is touching is already gone and dead)

The Museum of Archealogy.....

John has decided to trade me in for a new companion..... I am to "skinny".

We found one of our favorite restaurants, they have been leaving the states but there stills seem to be one left here in Mexico City.....TONY ROMA'S.

The hills here make it hard to place houses. San Fransisco has nothing on these streets. Would hate to have to haul the groceries up that sidewalk.

Home Depot has fall poinsetias.

We haven't even gotten Halloween over with and they are decking the malls. (I got in trouble with the mall security for taking this picture, go figure)

No taxi, no problem, just all climb into Dr. Steven's car.

Rare scene out the window of our office..... The two love volcanos Ixta on the left and Popo on the right. (the would be the two snow covered mountain peeks in amongst the clouds as opposed to not being visible because of the smog)