Happy New Year

Well, I have had a few visitors in the past month or so and have had little time to think about a post. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

It has been an active holiday season although it is the low season in San Miguel. The usual Xmas kind of stuff going on here including a new “Winter Festival” which apparently featured some nice music events although I did not take them in. I did however take a bit more notice of what goes on around here at this time of year. (I may have been preoccupied with other stuff last year.) Apparently I said that Xmas was rather low-key on the gift and commercial side and heavy on the religious side. There is no doubt about the religious side but there is also a lot of TV and other commercial hype related to Xmas trees and Santa Clause etc. that slipped by me last year. That combined with the “3 Kings Day” just passed, where the toy fairs and general rush to buy all the kids a toy for January 6, makes Xmas in Canada look absolutely tame and makes me take back most of my remarks about how pleasant and low key is Xmas in this part of the world. Oh well, I still managed to ignore it quite successfully.

Son Sami arrived from Montreal on December 17th with his friend Jean-Guy. They are still here and leave on Friday although Jean-Guy may stay on another week at the place of a newfound female interest. It has been fascinating, to say the least, to watch these boys exploring the city. Sami however, spent most of his time with me and my friend David Black when he arrived with his two kids a couple of weeks later. He took David’s boy Adam out on the motorbike and ATVs and they also made a two-day odyssey to San Louis Potosi – some 4 hours by bus from here.

David arrived with, Zoe (13) and Adam (10), on Xmas day (actually 2 in the morning the day after). They were a tad exhausted from the trip, having lost luggage etc., but soon recovered. Sami took them on a little shopping spree to get some emergency clothes and supplies and the bags arrived a couple of days later. Zoe couldn’t take the grin off her face when she saw her bag. It was fun to watch David and his kids together. Some of us think it would have been nice to have the benefit of his example before experimenting with our own.

Finally got to the Diego Rivera museum in Guanajuato. It was closed the last 2 times I had tried. It is quite interesting with a number of paintings, drawings and photos in a rather large house. Also went to Queretaro but most of the time we hung out at the house and in and around SMA. David got some work done on a couple of manuscripts he is working on including one of a bunch of his poems that we have been wanting to see in print for a long time. I went to a bull fight with David and Adam - my first.

Cooked a turkey between New Years and Xmas that turned out quite well. Friends Brian and Joyce from North Carolina joined us, as did friend Kimberly (who incidentally and kindly let the boys rent her apartment while the Blacks were here). We had a few laughs and David took the opportunity of the captive audience to test several poems, which we all enjoyed as usual.

Sami has been trying to convince me to learn some more computing. We have downloaded the newest version of "Office" and I will play around with "Front Page" a bit to see if I like it. Getting tied to maintaining a web page is a bit like having a job however so I am reluctant.

The kids took some good pics, some of which I will try to post.