Seven Quick Takes from San Juan del Rio

UNO

Mazapan

One of my favorite childhood candies. As the photo shows, it’s a peanut candy. I suspect the only ingredients are peanuts and SUGAR, lots of SUGAR! Delicious. My friend Ivonne gave me one today, but it was different. It was homemade, and much better than those you buy! Wow! It’s gone already, don’t know where it went, so, sorry, I can’t share it with you.

DOS

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Today I went to Sams and had 248 prints printed up. I figured up the bill - $319.80! No, no, that’s PESOS, not DOLLARS! It’s still a lot, about $28 dollars. But when I went to pay, it was only $177.00! That’s $15 dollars! Yay! At our Sams there’s a discount, a hefty discount, when you have more than 100 prints made. Guess I’ll wait till I have 100 from now on (I wish!)!

TRES

So why 248 prints?

Well, since my brother Lee went to heaven last Monday, I’ve been on Memory Lane. And a few years ago I had all the slides I wanted to keep made into prints and put on CDs. About 12 CDs! Over 80 of those pictures will go into a Memory Book for Becky, Lee’s wife. Most of the rest are for me! A few go to my brother Keith – I know his wife Donna will love them!

CUATRO

Need a home for $2.2 million?

I’m sort of watching House Hunters International – I can’t “just” watch, I gotta do a couple other things while it’s on! A couple just bought a resort for $2.2 million in Roatan. Yikes! Yikes again! Of course this will be their life from now on, their business. So, what’s a mere $2.2 million for that? Another question: WHERE do people get that amount of money??

CINCO

Peanut drives me nuts

Peanut is our dog, no I mean, Alan, Beth, Cameron and Dayton’s dog. Not mine! OK, sort of mine too! Yesterday I came home from my adventure to Dallas and back and filled her dish with yummy food. Well, that nutty dog ate ALL of it, then promptly threw it all up! Oh, we love the messes “our” dog leaves!

SEIS

I can’t hear you, the music is too loud.

Actually, it’s kind of quiet right now, but for the past three hours, I’ve “enjoyed” music from the nearby park. This is our central park here in San Juan, complete with a huge church, lots of food stands, benches to sit on, balloon-selling men and women, stands selling JONQUE (that’s candy and that sort of stuff), fruit stands, and of course space for people to perform. And perform they do! So loud I can clearly hear it 10 blocks away, like it was coming from my stereo – and I don’t even have a stereo! Even if I closed the window, and it’s too hot to do that these days, it comes through loud and clear. Sometimes it’s nice music, sometimes it’s awful. But, ah well, at least it’s music!

SIETE

It’s summer here!

I know in a lot of places, spring is barely peeking up its head. Not here! It’s totally and completely summer! It’s 84 degrees right now, but earlier today was awfully close to 90. Of course I’m not complaining in the least! It sure beats the cold weather we survived this past winter. I love summer in San Juan del Rio!