It’s been a lovely visit with friends and family in Austin, Texas. Here are some photos from the week.
My great nephew Dart. He should be named Tank.Such a good boy when he’s sleeping. Austin Public LibraryAn architectural marvel. Great place to people watch.The Sistene Chapel Experience Bringing Michaelangelo to Austin.Lots of looking up.Austin’s new to me skyline. Nothing like Tex-Mex.My eldest son.Viewing Salvador Dali prints with my niece.
We will return to our regularly scheduled program next week.
I am visiting the States and staying with dear friends Isa and Laird in Austin. When they say “welcome home” they mean it.
Isa and I shared a tiny office at the Health Department many years ago. People told me to be “careful.” She’s difficult and hard to get along with. I found out later that they were telling her the same thing about me.
2024 Mahahual Mexico
Yet we hit it off fabulously. We once closed the office door in the afternoon and danced to Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie and laughed until we cried. It is still our song.
I did the Heimlich Maneuver on her one day when she was choking on a carrot. She tells everyone that I saved her life.
I can’t count how many times we’ve stayed at their home. Lisa stayed for months after neck surgery. She helped Isa prepare for their exploratory trip to Costa Rica before Covid.
I was here to hold Isa’s hand while she cried over Laird’s early-onset alzheimers diagnosis.
They have visited us in Mexico, stayed in our home and sat naked on the dock in the sun.
I love being in their home, surrounded by pictures of their grandchildren. They don’t fuss. I am always welcome. Laird’s bearhug is the same although I don’t always know if he knows who I am.
Family
I am truly blessed to have these people in my life. They are our family, no strings attached, which is the best kind to have.
When I lived in Central Mexico in the seventies, a friend lived upstairs over… I don’t even know what to call it, a bread production company. At his invitation we dragged ourselves up before dawn to visit the bakery where traditional Mexican rolls, bolillos were made.
There was a huge rounded brick oven where bread was baking. Heavenly rolls, pillowy on the inside, crisp on the outside. They are cousins to the French baguette, left over from the French invasion of Mexico in 1838. The fragrance was swoon-worthy.
Several men in white aprons stood at a table where golfball-sized rolls of dough were already lined up, clearly this was an all-night job
Here was where the magic came in. With each hand they grabbed a ball of dough. Two dowels, like miniature rolling pins rapidly flattened the dough. One side was crimped toward the center, flip, crimp, voila, an ambidextrous miracle. The dough was set on long trays and popped into the wood burning oven. At five am, they melted in our mouths.
The bakers encouraged us to try their two handed roll and crimp.The results had them rolling with laughter. They made it look so easy. We looked foolish.
Coming to Bacalar, I eagerly looked for bolillos. There wasn’t even a bakery in 2013. Today a poor facsimile is sold, mostly used for tortas or sandwiches. They’re not even crispy!
$.15 cheap and filling.
The bolillos of my youth are still sold in Mexico City and thereabouts. Mostly mass-produced with highly processed flour, they leave much to be desired.
This past week, a British chef in Mexico City made a disparaging remark about Mexico’s “bread culture”. Dear God did a shit-storm ensue. Chilangos (from Mexico City) are very sensitive to the “gringo invasion” and how it’s changing traditional culture, food and dress.
The bottom line was that yes, the poor quality of Mexican bread needs to be addressed but NOT by foreigners.
Here in Bacalar we have a friend who has a delightful restaurant, Madre Masa or Mother Corn. Reading the room, they began adding pastries to the menu and then large loaves of sourdough bread. I am a huge fan, buying enough to ensure they never go out of business.
My daily breakfast.
Back in the day I used to make my own bread. Those days are long gone.
So are we part of the gringo invasion? Yes and no. We’ve lived in Bacalar twelve and a half years. We speak Spanish, contribute to the economy and pay taxes.
Madre Masa is always hopping.
MadreMasa caters to tourists, many from Mexico City who also buy sour dough bread. Yes, the culture is changing. In my opinion it is due to wealth acquisition and an ever changing global population. It’s easy to blame foreigners but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to take place with respect and kindness. For now I will continue to enjoy sourdough bread with no guilt or apology.
I have been quite sick this past week, and something in the fistful of pills I’ve been taking is causing me to have nightmares. Not the stabbing scarey type but, well, last night was the sad, nostalgic kind that woke me in tears.
When snow was fun!
When did I come to hate Christmas? Once upon a time, my Dad would wait until us five kids were all nestled and snug in our beds, to turn our living room into a Christmas wonderland. He stayed up all night, putting up the tree, assembling bicycles, and stuffing the stockings. Wide-eyed, we truly believed that Santa had come.
Once upon a time.
I remember in high school, turning out the lights in our library, (I use the term loosely) and bathing in the glow of blue lights reflecting off the tinsel, and listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams. Thank you (NOT) Ghost of Christmas past for stirring up long forgotten memories.
As our own children grew, the scene changed. I can see us in the kitchen, laughing, cooking and recreating my favorite holiday treats, dates stuffed with walnuts and rolled in powered sugar, celery stuffed with cream cheese. I guess we did a lot of stuffing, mostly our faces.
Our children in Mall Santa fotos.
Over time I began to resent the shopping, wrapping and hunting for the perfect gift. The lines at stores, endless traffic, jammed parking lots, and general over consumption. I declared, “no more gift giving!” I’d had enough.
My first Christmas gift from Lisa (1994) A “coupon ” book of dreams.
Moving to Mexico definitely lifted the stress, but I’m afraid the trees, music and holiday everything have crept in even here. My mother-in-law usually wants gifts and for us to put up her tiny plastic tree. This year we’ve all been sick and she doesn’t even care about that.
So there are no decorations, music or signs of Christmas at all. For the most part, I’m fine with it, but I wish the Ghost would leave me alone!
And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us everyone.”
Making eggnog is a true labor of love. Separate the eggs and whip the whites until they form perfect peaks. Beating egg whites was always accompanied by the story of how my grandmother used to achieve perfection using only a fork and willpower. Her forearm must have rivaled an Olympic weightlifter.
Nan on her 81st birthday wearing a wig because she hated her thinning hair. She lived just shy of 95.
Next came the heavy cream, again beat into submission. Vanilla, nutmeg, all came together in Mom’s glass punch bowl, only used for the heavenly concoction.
My grandfather wanted us to call him Uncle Ed so his coworkers didn’t know he was a grandfather.
Christmas dinner brought family together. My grandmother and Jewish grandfather were long divorced, but that didn’t keep them from both showing up. My grandfather’s sister, Aunt Tillie was a favorite guest as well. Uncle Jack made a foursome and the folding table was brought out for a raucous game of poker, complete with trash talk and accusations of cheating.
Uncle Jack lived to be 100. His daily drink of Jack Daniel’s never slowed him down.
Mom proudly presented the “perfectly chilled” eggnog, high cholesterol in a glass. When no one was looking, my dear uncle brought out his flask and dumped the contents into the eggnog. Of course this meant that the children could not partake, not to mention that neither of my parents drank.
Mom and I dancing in my kitchen.
I’ve never seen my mother so angry, and that’s saying something. Lightening was flashing from her eyes. I think if she could have gotten away with it, there would have been a Christmas Murder that year. Ah, siblings.
I invite you to whip up this delectable treat. Feel free to empty your flask, but only in your own glass, please. You’ll never drink store-bought again.
When writing about siblings last week, I remembered that this week is the twenty-fifth anniversary of my brother’s death from brain cancer. I thought I’d repost a blog I wrote earlier this year and take a week off.
I am reading the book, Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. It’s the story of four sisters, their individual personalities and how their close and connected lives fall apart due to death and questionable decisions. It has me thinking about my four brothers and where we’ve ended up as adults.
My oldest brother once told me that the worst day of his life was the day I was born. Nine years older than me, he was the fair-haired solo grandson and center of my parent’s universe. As the only girl and eldest of the next four children born in six years, the blame fell to me. He taught me about sexism, refusing to include me in the rough-housing because I was a “girl.” I adored him. He came for a visit to Bacalar in December 2023. Since then we talk every few weeks and enjoy long conversations.
2023 Bacalar
My next brother and I were always tight. We had special names for each other when we were little, Boody and Sany. My mother used to say that she held us, one under each arm to go to the bathroom. We were eighteen months apart. Today we talk every weekend like clockwork and he is my best friend and confidant. I’m not sure how he got to be so smart but I greatly appreciate his calm demeanor, insights and advice.
A year apart in high school.
Brother number three and I haven’t spoken in a year. When I had my accident last September (2024), he called both Lisa and me multiple times a week, to check on my condition and progress. I felt cared for. That all changed with a world-exploding US presidential election in November 2024. We were on opposite sides of the aisle which left me in shock. Many families deal with political differences by simply not talking about them. We’ve butt heads too many times and this was the proverbial straw.
Don’t I look happy?
And my youngest brother, who I was very close to, died in 2000 of a brain tumor. His daughter is now in my life and I feel blessed to have her.
Frozen in time. 1958-2000Undiagnosed brain cancer. The world changed a few days later.
I haven’t finished the book but I’m hoping that the sisters work out their differences. For me, three out of four connections aren’t bad. I don’t hold out hope that brother number three and I will work things out. And don’t give me that, “but you’re family”. Some things blood doesn’t seem to be able to heal.
In much of the world, a wedding is quite predictable, the dress, the rings, the cake. When we were invited to the wedding of our Mayan housekeeper Lucero, we jumped at the chance. She is from a postage stamp sized village thirty minutes from Bacalar. It was our fourth wedding in twelve years and they have run the gambit from top shelf to backyard.
Lucero’s dress was stunning and she looked very nervous, like most brides.
This wedding was on a whole different level. Ninety-some percent of Mexico is Christian with most of that Catholic. But not in this area. There are a lot of Mennonites, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals. We had never been to a Pentecostal wedding.
The first of three preachers.
The wedding started at 6pm on a Thursday. We put on our one “fancy” outfit and prayed that the thunder we heard would not spoil the occasion. The festivities started on time which was no small miracle in Mexico. It was all quite unexpected from there.
The children were adorable and looked at the strangers inquisitively.
The wedding involved standing for most of two plus hours, arms raised, and singing, amen-ing, and hallelujah-ing. Three different preachers tag-teamed to inspire, admonish, and harangue in Spanish. It would have been ok except the volume produced by half a dozen large speakers emitted a sound heard by God themself. I stuffed tissue in my ears but it did not help. We left early.
By the time we left, the seats were filled in. I think the whole town was in attendance.
I hated to leave. It meant so much to Luceto that we would come, and four old white women in a sea of about 200 brown faces did not go unnoticed. The family tried to feed us before we left but our tolerance for bleeding ears was spent.
Lots of sleepy little faces.
There are times that I admire the devotion, enthusiasm, and conviction of religion. My personal spiritual beliefs are quieter and more internal. I am grateful that everyone gets to find their own place, even if it’s not quiet or peaceful but right for them.
The archeological site of Palenque is one of the most magnificent in Mexico. The Mayan astronomers built towers to observe and record the night sky in 400 AD or thereabouts. I can’t imagine what the night sky must have been like then.
From my visit in 1974A time before you paid a fee to enter, before parking lots, tour guides and gift shops.
Lisa and I visited Palenque again in 2015 when we brought her mom to live with us in Bacalar.
Waterfalls near the pyramids.
This time, we did not climb the pyramids, but stumbled upon one of the highlights of our two-week trip, Aluxes Ecopark.
As always, YouTube shows off the animals way better than all my photographs.
The park breeds and releases guacamayas (red tailed macaws), helping to protect and grow their population.
Maybe it was the day we were there, but this out of the way animal reserve provided us with the relaxing time we were looking for. Shaded walking paths and benches allowed us to commune with nature as best as we could.
The Tortas have taken on the challenge of finding the best chocolate in San Cristobal de las Casas. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. The mountainous state of Chiapas, Mexico is known for its coffee and chocolate. The weather has turned chilly and rainy for us jungle girls. What better excuse than to drink our weight in chocolate!
Coffee for Lisa and chocolate for me.Dangerously across the street from our hotel.Lisa on the pedestrian walkway.View from dinner our first night. Love the colonial architecture. Gazebo waiting for Christmas decorations.
Not too sweet with notes of cinnamon.
While we loved San Cristobal, you can see how the narrow streets clogged with traffic and the stone sidewalks worn smooth from pedestrian’s feet have changed the city. Most visitors were Mexican, but we heard a lot of German spoken.
Mexico has so many beautiful towns, and we are eager to visit them all, at least as many as we can. They are called Magical Cities, and San Cristobal was indeed.
the adventures of dos tortas 
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