Primera Post de SMA from KDL

Hola! We are sitting on our roof of our home in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) watching our first of many nights of fireworks. Why are they shooting off fireworks? We have no idea. But this is the first set of pretty ones, sparkly ones, the colorful ones. As Mary has posted, about every night or morning or mid afternoon or whenever you can hear a cannon type firework go off.

It is lovely up here. About 64 degrees F and clear, with quite a number of stars visible. I'm glad we're here.

I've viewed this adventure with the analogy of a gearshift moving from 5th to 1st. I can hear the RPMs slowly rev down as time literally slows. Realistically, I'm not quite down to 4th gear yet. But I can feel it coming. How do I know? 2 signs already.

1- On my first trip to the Mega grocery store I took a right onto Ancho San Antonio street and cut the corner too short. There is a way that the San Miguelians let you know when you've cut a corner too close. They put a 8" tall cornerstone on top of the 10" cobblestone curb at the corner. So when you cut it close, you hear this quite audible scraping noise against your what-used-to-be automatic sliding door. And you think to yourself, if I just accelerate through it, the noise will go away. And it does.
Normally, my thought may have been, "Damn it! I've scratched the car. How much will that cost to bang out and retouch?" But this time it was, "Well, there we go. I've got my first of many scratches on the car." And later, it became a bit deeper. "Why am I so attached to a car anyway? It's a car. It still runs. The door actually still works." I like this non-attachment stuff... at least so far as I dip my toe in the water.
On our first trip down here, we had barely left Austin when we heard something scraping the ground as we drove. It was a plastic cover just behind the front bumper that I suppose helps to protect the undercarriage. Our fix? A bungee cord. YES! Our car is ready for Mexico!

2- I had an important call with a client scheduled at 9am this morning. I awoke to a brown-out. Remember those? It's when you flip on a light and the little filament says, "Dude, I don't got no energy for this." So your 100w bulb glows like it's struggling to put out 10w. Well that's what it was. What did that mean? It meant my internet was down. It also meant my Vonage phone was down. So I had no way to be reached or reach my client. (My US cell phone doesn't work down here.) Luckily, Mary had her blackberry, which, interestingly enough, works very well down here. So Mary shot off a quick message to my client hoping to reschedule. He got it and was flexible enough to move the meeting to the afternoon. He's also traveled to and lived in places that experience brown outs as well. So once I noticed the blood pressure in my body dropping, Mary said, "Well, let's go out for breakfast!" And we walked until we saw a place with electricity and waffles on the menu. It only took about 4 blocks.

When you talk to the local gringos about brown-outs, they go, "Yeah, it only happens about every week or two. And usually only lasts an hour or so. Maybe a day. Usually after a thunderstorm, though. But... yeah, it was blue sky today, wasn't it? And sometimes it happens for no reason at all. A construction worker down the road may be welding and tap into a line or something. I had a brown-out downstairs but full power upstairs one time." How the hell does THAT work?

The kids are having fun. Jason loves to yell "HOLA!" to passing cars in the street. Jessica is practicing her Spanish with Lucha, a babysitter that is shorter than she is. And Jacob was running around the Jardin (main square) tonight kicking around an ice cube like a soccer ball with some local teenagers.

We've given some great tours of our house to our parents via Skype or iChat. Let us know if you'd like a virtual tour.... or even a real live tour!

More later... and we'll figure out how to add some pictures as well.

Hasta luego, amigos!