Guanajuato (Mexico) house adventure

Operation sofa (and armchair)

2006-12-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Finding the sofa and armchair at Sears in Leon, an hour away by (a friend's) car was only the first step. We received a courtesy call a week later to say they would be delivering the next day. We really had no worries about how we were going to get them up to our "sky room" because Maestro loves a challenge. Sure enough, he rose to this one.

Here's Juan with the sofa at ground level.

Unseen here, Rafael is hauling on one rope, Maestro (right) on the other, while Juan helps it clear their temporary staging.

OK, now we're at roof level. Next up is to get the sofa up and over the sky room, right.

Lowering it down the far side of our sky room, where we have our wide sliding door for access. That's the dome of San Francisco in the background.

After all that, getting the armchair up (here being hauled up to the roof of the skyroom with Louisa looking on, left) was a snap.

View from La Pipila--before painting

2006-12-02T06:34:00.000-08:00

Off it comes

2006-11-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

With work on our azotea (roof) room nearly finished, the next big project is to remove the old roof above what will be an indoor patio open to the skies. First off is to get rid of the rotten little cover (with the red metal door) to the top of the steep stairs--I was so glad to see it go, before it collapsed. Now maestro Don Gerado and Juan are finishing the job, taking off the roof next to it, so now we're trusting that it won't rain--not too hard, anyway--before they have a chance to install a new drain below. Photos show before and after.

Views from our new roof room

2006-11-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

Looking west through what will be sliding glass door to terrace

Door opening in center

La Bufa to the east, through what will be window above our bed

Looking north towards La Sirena and El Meco hills

Roof studio-bedroom

2006-11-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, downstairs...

2006-10-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

Really small upstairs bathroom!

2006-10-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

Upstairs kitchen 3, new window

2006-10-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

Upstairs kitchen 2

2006-10-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Upstairs kitchen 1

2006-10-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Future bedroom/studio on roof

2006-10-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

Maestro Don Gerado, roof room floor

2006-10-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

Hector unloading bricks on roof

2006-10-09T07:08:00.001-07:00

Juan hauling bricks to the roof

2006-10-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Callejon nearly finished, ours is pink house on right

2006-10-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Any color you like...

2006-09-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

...as long as it's salmon (the city painted the outside of our house, part of their beautification project. No, we didn't have a choice of color!

Also here (photos from Tom last week): vanity sink outline in our upstairs bathroom (toilet will be on the left, shower on the right, but most of the time we'll be able to look right out of the window): and azulejos starting to make our upstairs kitchen look like the real thing.

Unexpected bonus

2006-08-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

An unexpected bonus: Guanajuato greenstone (actually a laminated sandstone) is turning up everywhere. David had the albaniles check under the plaster at the top of the stairs...

...and there it is, back in the light where it belongs. (Thanks for the photo, Tom!)
Wonder how much more is waiting to be uncovered?

Still moving along...

2006-08-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

...even when we're not there.
Tom just sent us these three photos, of the new baldosa ceiling of the "reja" room (next to the new upstairs cocina); the entranceway brick arch, now that the plaster has been removed; and the main countertop area in the new cocina.

Story of a window

2006-08-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

This is what we started with, a typical Mexican window--small and high (and usually with drawn curtains).

Starting the process of opening it up--after pouring a reinforced concrete header beam, the albaniles cut through half the 16-inch thick adobe wall.

The opening's all the way through, awaiting finishing.

Plaster finishes the edges. Now we're awaiting the window frame. The inclined channel below the opening will house the drain from the sink.

Happy hour

2006-07-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

Maestro Geraldo, albaniles Hector and Juan, student Juan-Angel, and Louisa

Friday a las cinco de la tarde (5pm) is happy hour here, the guys finish a bit early and we sit around drinking beer and hearing (last night) about Hector's two attempts to gain access into the U.S., swimming across the Rio Grande. We shuddered.

Up on the roof

2006-07-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, just as David promised, it poured last night, right after the guys had removed most of the rotten roof. Now they're in the process of moving the water tank so they can take care of the rest of it.

Mexican houses generally have these 750 liter black tanks (photo above) on their roofs, since the pressure and flow from the city water system is very low. Water trickles in during the night, and you have the tank capacity to get you through the day (at least).

El equipo (the team)

2006-07-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

Arquitecto (architect) David with two of los albaniles, Hector and Juan, planning the next stage of our project...

...dismantling the rotten roof, to be replaced with a concrete one.

Our maestro, Geraldo, offers a considered opinion from his perch.

While we're at it, why not take out the door frame now? Make it easier to get rid of the escombro (rubble) from the old roof.

Local Home Depot

2006-07-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

aka Ferretería La Sultana

Antonio seems to have everything to hand in his neighborhood hardware store.

Zona de construcción

2006-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

Right outside our house. Not just on Calzada de Tecolote, but it seems everywhere in the city...

Apparently, Guanajuato received a large use-it-or-lose-it UNESCO grant (it's one of Mexico's several "Patrimonio de la Humanidad"--that is, World Heritage-- sites) and has to spend it in the next few months.

Night view from our back window

2006-07-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

Primer partido de la cena en nuestro nuevo hogar

2006-07-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

Tom and Guille helped inaugurate our new terrace window.

Piso alto, 13 julio

2006-07-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Yet another new window, with two new walls--behind these will be a toilet and shower. Normally door will close off toilet, keeping view intact. That indentation below the window opening will be a vanity sink.

Our lovely "terrace" window in upstairs kitchen

Part of new kitchen/dining room looking back into our "sala"

Looking out from our middle upstairs room through three (count 'em!) new window openings to the church behind our house

Middle room, to be our cozy winter "sala." Note instant window--three hours ago, it was half that size! (OK, the stone arch was already there, but the window started three feet below it.)

Temporary home, gas range in side room. Fridge and potable water container--all the home comforts (shelves even!)

Temporary home, to be 2nd floor patio. Note our very first "real" bed (mattress still in plastic!)

Full steam ahead

2006-07-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

View from back window, with dome of San Francisco

So the news here is that LOTS is (are?) happening. We now have a more or less permanent crew of workers (oddly, the word is albaniles, presumably cognate with Albanians--who live a zillion miles away--have to ask about that) working six days a week on our casa. The biggest thing that's happened so far, and structurally the most significant, was enlarging our back window. Here's the scene: the upstairs, where we'll be hanging out most of the time (whether or not we actually build on the roof) is long and narrow, with neighboring houses on both sides. Meaning that our main view windows are at the front (overlooking the callejon--the steep pedestrian street) and at the back, with our gorgeous view over, immediately, the back of the orange dome of a 350-year old church, and farther off, the city and hills beyond, to the west. Our house, by the way, dates back about 200 years.

The idea for the back room upstairs is that we're changing it a lot from what it was, i.e. a bedroom. We're in the process of converting it into "our" kitchen (there's a full kitchen downstairs, but this kitchen will accommodate most of our needs, i.e. three gas burners (no oven), a small fridge, a double sink and lots of countertop…plus our usual eating spot, with a table by the window. In other words the room where we'll be hanging out a lot. So we're enlarging the window from a typical "Mexican" window (small and high) to our type of window--eight feet wide and six feet high! This is enormous by Mexican standards, and is really more like a terrace--we'll be able to sit at our table with elbows on the sill and admire the view.

Window before enlarging

Los albaniles have already put in most of the main countertop structure, including a big hole for the double sink--pouring cement in place, they do that as if it's the simplest thing in the world here (it isn't). Same as enlarging the window--I wouldn't have known how to start opening up an adobe wall, I'm an engineer, true, but not a mud-brick engineer! So the upstairs kitchen-dining room-hang out room is progressing wonderfully.

There's a small alcove room off this room, which is crying out for (1) a small upstairs bathroom and (2) an office/computer room. It has a lovely reja (iron railing) overlooking the top of the stairs, but otherwise is just three solid walls. That is, until a couple of days ago, when the boys punched the wall through (while they had the scaffolding up for the adjacent room's window) and suddenly the whole room was very airy. Except we'd planned to have the window for the bathroom, meaning that when the bathroom door was closed, there went the light from the window (we'd thought to have a translucent door panel). But what about the view? Quick redesign--now we'll have door that is normally open between the window and room, but at the same time cuts off the small WC. And, big bonus, we have just enough space to squeeze in a little shower (originally we were thinking we'd just use the downstairs shower). So suddenly we have a really great useable space next to our hang-out room.

This redesign gave me another taste of the Mexican "we can do anything with adobe" attitude. We were looking at options for squeezing a toilet in next to the window, and I just couldn't see how it could fit. Between the bowl and the cistern, a toilet was just too long. So David--our architect, who trained originally as a mason--turned to Geraldo, our old "maestro" (foreman) (who it turned out had worked on our house 40 years earlier!)--and asked something about the toilet cistern. Geraldo said, "Por supuesto" (for sure!), and next thing they were drawing on the wall where the toilet will be. Turns out, the plan is to cut right into the 16-inch thick wall and indent the cistern into it. "But this is a load-bearing wall!" I objected. "We'll take care of that," David assured me. That was last night. Today we got to the house at 2pm after a hike in the hills, and there's the form for a brand-new lintel support beam, with the reinforced concrete happily curing behind it. These guys know their materials.

I noticed, too, there are no power tools in the house at this point. (Good thing too, we only just got power, and that is only for one outlet in the room we're using as an office.) So watching these guys in action, we're struck with their ability to (1) turn ideas into reality fast, and (2) create quality work using pretty basic tools and materials. We're fortunate with our workers, we know--we keep hearing horror stories, of drunk or stoned workers, of theft, of poor workmanship--so far, we're thrilled with them, and with our architect/project manager. Yeah Geraldo, Hector and Juan. We had a well-deserved couple of cervezas with them last night (they were the deserving ones, we just pay the bills!), and found them friendly and fun, too.

Even with the amount of work done, these are still early days. We're focusing on the upstairs floor, leaving the downstairs (which will be, mostly, our guest suite) for later. So the other two rooms upstairs will be (1) a sala, that is, a cozy living room. This is our "middle room" where we'll probably be spending a lot of time in winter--possibly with a gas fire for warmth. The main project here is enlarging a side window, no big deal, since the arch is already in place.

Today our office, soon a patio!
And (2)--this is the big one--our front room, which will be an indoor patio, open to the sky once we remove the roof. This really IS a big deal, not least disposing of the roof material. We have high hopes for this area--the idea is to create a waterproof floor and walls, so that when it rains, the water will drain away quickly (as opposed to standing and seeping down to the room downwstairs!). Think a wall fountain, a big planting box with bougainvilla, perhaps a glider, all open to the sun and stars. The boys think they can do it, so we'll just have to wait.

As far as building on the roof is concerned, we're putting this on hold. We have neighbors on our "down" side who are, apparently, very concerned with security and privacy, and told us (on our first meeting) that they were planning to erect an eight-foot wall between our adjacent roofs. There goes our rooftop view! So we discussed this with our architect and ended up trying to preempt them, erecting a high railing between us that we thought would satisfy them. No luck, they went ahead with their own railing anyway, which wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the opaque plastic screen, five-to-six feet high. So for now we're concentrating on what we do have control over, the interior of the house, and will figure out later what do do (if anything) with the roof. A studio up there really appeals, but with the fence, it's not going to be quite so wonderful as we'd planned.

Poco a poco, as they say, here, one step at at time. For now we're happy to be thoroughly involved in the remodelling process and seeing changes every day. As we keep reminding ourselves, an adventure!

The little things--follow-up

2006-07-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

How about that?
About three months after I posted the saga of the water bill (our $100 had credited the folks at 39B Tecolote, not 39 Tecolote), our pal Tom found a note at the house, "We now have the money to refund you." And sure enough, we got it. Another reason to appreciate this great town.

The little things

2006-02-19T05:19:00.000-08:00

We tried, we really tried, to take care of upcoming utility bills when we were down there in January. Water, for instance. Louisa went to the office of the Sistema de Agua Potable (sort of potable...) and paid 1000 pesos "anticipado"--should be good for a year. Unfortunately, as Tom, our good friend and now our rep in Gto discovered yesterday when he checked mail, it was paid into the wrong account. Tecolote 39, si. But wrong name. So Tom's going to try to sort it out Monday. The bill was due last week, but--hopefully--at least we won't have the water cut off. Maybe we'll even get our money credited to the correct account!

Plans afoot

2006-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

Just received plans from David. Here's the top floor, showing our ideas for the courtyard/terrace (cross-hatched), which at present is a bedroom and a separate closet divided by a wall. The wall goes, the roof goes, and we're left with this area, about 11 ft x 22 ft, that's calling for a planter box (on the right), fountain (top left), how about a glider (right of center) and stairs heading up to the roof. The whole open to sky and stars.

What else is going on here? The plan is that the ground floor will be available as an independent guest suite, so you come up here (the stairs on the left) and turn left into what will be our cocina and breakfast room, with enlarged window overlooking the lovely brick-colored dome of San Francisco (photo). From there, you can go into what we think will be an office (top left in plan) with a half-bath.

Or you can turn right, into our sala. Very airy and light--windows on three sides, including two non-opening clear double-glazed picture windows onto the terraza. A fireplace or gas heater in one corner. A place to hole up in on cold winter evenings.

Now all we've got to do is get it built!

Beautiful plumage?

2006-02-01T11:27:00.001-08:00

Most gringos go to Mexico for a vacation. These gringos are back in California for theirs.

It sure was an intense two weeks down in Guanjuato, dealing with all the stuff that has to be done when buying a house, only more so, because this is Mexico.

Take the title. We paid our 30% deposit, and in return received the keys to, and occupancy of, the house. But the title--today--is in the name of a dead guy, the father of ten kids, nine of whom have formally ceded their share of the house to Rosa, but that's still working its way through the courts. Once she is the sole legal owner, the title is transferred to us, on payment of the remaining 70%. We trust it will happen just as the notario (an attorney who specializes in real estate deals) promises--but there again, we must, that's how things work down there. Early April we get the escritura, title, he says. Fingers crossed.

We started making a list of everything we'd achieved in two weeks--meetings, plans, arrangements for services, working with our neighbors on a mutually-acceptable security barrier between our adjacent roofs, paying the property tax for the year, getting the last of the family's stuff out of the house, getting DSL service even (Louisa did the heavy-lifting here, i.e. going to the phone, water and 'luz' --electricity--companies and figuring out the systems--I married well).

Now we're waiting for David to send us working drawings based on our sketches and discussions for the remodeling. We're particularly excited about the proposed courtyard open to the sky. It's small--only about 240 square feet, but we think it will make the place so liveable, our substitute for a garden. Complete with a planter box for bougainvillea and who knows what, maybe a wall-fountain. Will we be able to attract hummingbirds if we plant the right attractors, and provide sugar-water? Hope so.

There's only a little bit of spam in it…

2006-01-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Mora

I'm in a pizza place this afternoon, asking if they have anything "sin carne", without meat. "Pues, tenemos pizza con piña y jamon!" (Well, we've got pizza with pineapple and ham!)

[You'd have to know the Monty Python spam sketch--I'll try to explain if you ask!]

OK, got that out of the way, now where were we?

* Yesterday we took a break from it all, walking eight hours in the hills with our favorite dog, Mora (+ Zarzamora, blackberry, see photo). So good to be away from the madding crowds and deep into the lovely hills that ring the city. We ended up at a little village where we hung out at its four-centuries-old church, breathing in the vista below.

* Today Francisco, Rosa's brother (she's the sister who presently owns the house, since her nine brothers and sisters have ceded their portion of the house to her) was clearing out the last of her bits and pieces, all destined to the landfill, I believe.

* We gave our pals Jim and Jenny the Full Tour on Saturday. They've lived here for about 15 years after quitting Portland. They are both artists, and have created a studio in an old tannery on the other side of town, quite the inspiration for us. Of course, their place is much larger than our 1350 square feet (not counting the roof, where we'll be adding a small studio), but it gives us ideas for what we can do with our casa. Particularly our proposed internal courtyard/patio, where we plan on having many plants and a small fountain. Their website is www.piramidalgrafica.com (for which I take some credit).

* Louisa had two major successes today--her spanish is much better than mine (she did spend several years at a bilingual school in Quito, Ecuador when she was a kid, to my eternal envy). (1) She got the phone transferred to her name, and then arranged for DSL on our line; (2) She paid our property taxes for the year, so we don’t have to pay the post-January penalty. I'm impressed!

* We're both taking one-on-one conversation classes--one hour per day for Louisa, two for me. Fun. The only way to learn, from my point of view, chatting about anything and everything with someone who wants me to improve.

* Such a good time Friday afternoon, when we took Tom and Guille out for a meal. Tom--attorney from Texas who lives with his Mexican partner Guille--drove us to a new restaurant with a view to die for. They have been SO helpful with our house, really good to know that when we are living in our new place, they will be just up the road from us.

Guille and Louisa

Just knock the roof off!

2006-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

We've met twice with David, the architect who will be remodeling our new Mexican home. One early idea was to create an indoor courtyard, open to the sky, since we don't have a garden space (it's all building). The planta alta, i.e. upstairs (of two floors) had two rooms that lent themselves to this major operation: the room in the middle of the house, or the room next to the street (actually a callejon, i.e. no traffic).

The middle of the house felt better--that's where courtyards go, right? But it would be rather small--we're looking at about 14 feet by 12 feet, and we'd have to make space for stairs to the roof (assuming that we build a studio up there, as we're planning). We played with this idea for a couple of days, discussing with the architect, making sketch plans of how it could work. But it just felt like we were shoehorning too much into too little space.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was sitting on the floor alone, staring at the space where the courtyard could be. It was like the moment in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where Pirsig is looking-without-seeing, zen-like, at his broken-down motorbike, for hours as I recall. Then he has this "aha" moment and out of the blue the answer comes. That's how it was for me--the courtyard should be in the room next to the street, where we could incorporate a closet that is currently dead space. "Knock down the wall between the room and closet!" was the aha.

Which means that instead of two roof areas on the roof with a hole between them (and no way of crossing between), we'll have one area. The sad little stairs to the roof can be demolished to make way for one nice set of stairs. And the part of the roof we were worried about, that we were probably going to have to replace anyway, will now be turned into a pile of rubble, the area open to the blue sky.

This is the middle room, where we thought of knocking the roof off and creating a courtyard. The main problem here was installing a stairway to the roof--the idea here would have been to open up the window, run stairs up from the left, walk out through the window opening onto a landing, then up to the right, to the roof. Leaving not much space for a patio area.

This is better! The little room beyond this room currently is a closet--dead space, with narrow and steep steps to the roof. The plan now is to demolish the wall between this room and the closet, take out the existing steps, open the whole area to the sky, and build proper steps running up from the left of the photo, then making a turn to the right to the roof.

It's a house, all right!

2006-01-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's a real house, with real rooms, windows, doors, staircases--just like in the photos (only larger and three-dimensional). My first thought was, "This is going to be a fun project!"

We arrived last Saturday night--our buddy Chris drove us down Thursday evening from Eureka (actually sideways and down, 101 was blocked by the usual Confusion Hill landslide, so 299 to Redding and zip down I-5), had a great day mostly playing with Chris in Oakland on Friday, and he got us to Oakland airport bright and early Saturday morning. (OAK is SO much calmer, happier than SFO, smaller airport, less flights, less stress.) To Dallas, four hour wait, and on to BJX = Guanajuato airport = Leon airport, take your pick. Where Julio met us with the Casa de Constancia limo.

OK, it's actually an old VW beetle. We stayed at Julio and Lupita's guest house earlier this year, OK room with an amazing view over the city (the photo of us to the right of this entry was taken on our balcony), and just the friendliest staff of two, we get to use the kitchen, perfect spot to base ourselves for this trip.

And more or less per plan, we rendezvoused with David, "our" architect (true, he works for others, but he's been SUCH a pal that we think of him as exclusively our personal architect) and Rosa (the house owner) and Francisco and Sebastian (her brother and 6-year old son).

And I got to see the place. Three hours later (most of which time L and I were alone in the house), we were exhausted with discussing, planning, talking about---

* removing the roof from one bedroom
* creating a second bathroom and kitchen on the upper floor
* building a studio on the roof
* making window openings larger
* converting the downstairs 'sala' into a beautiful guest suite
* adding a second stairway to the roof

---and much more. Now we're relaxing in the best way we know how--wireless internet. Coffee. She with her laptop, me with mine. And all's well with the world.

Louisa's note to her family this morning

2006-01-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

Hi Girls 'n' Boys,

Well, good news. No disasters, no sudden owner disappearances, no fires, floods, or earthquakes in Guanajuato, in other words no major glitches. Rosa, owner, has moved out, other than a little furniture, she says. (hmm...)

We have arranged for a place to stay in Guanajuato and are meeting with our architect/ally David, Rosa and her brother for the walkthrough at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday. Think of us!

It's all happening! (this just in)

2006-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hola Louisa:

Igualmente Feliz Año 2006.

Ya no estamos viviendo ahí, nos cambiamos a la nueva
casa, aún quedan muebles pendientes, esperamos en
esta semana desocuparla de cualquier manera nos
quedamos de ver el sábado 15, a las 12:00, para
entregarte las llaves.

Hasta luego.

Rosa María

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Calling David

2006-01-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

That's da-VEED, the Spanish way. His name is actually David Chavez Chavez, in the way people are proud of their patrimony in Mexico.

We spoke to him this morning, worried about waking him (although it was 10 am his time, Sunday morning, he's a hard worker and we thought he might be still in bed). He's going to call owner Rosa Maria's brother to check on the status of the big Key-Transfer coming up (we trust) in a week. We fly down from Oakland Saturday ready to get the key Sunday.

More on this later. We're hoping to hear tomorrow that all is OK.

Here's a couple of photos of the house taken by Louisa just over a month ago.

Dining room looking into the kitchen

View across our roof, looking west

Entranceway

Photos of Guanajuato

2006-01-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

Guadalupe, the flower lady, whose stall is in the Plaza Baratillo

Hanging out in front of Teatro Juarez, opposite the Jardin

Louisa and Mora-la-Princesca atop La Bufa, hill to the east of town, seen in background

Dia de la Independencia parade

Our favorite plaza, Plazuela San Fernando

A Bit of Background

2006-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

So Louisa and I first went to Guanajuato in November, 1999. This was at the start of a 20-month odyssey, we rented our home and traveled in Mexico, Greece, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank, Turkey, Georgia, Ireland, Spain and Morocco. At the end of that time away, we revisited Guanajuato, and discovered the more time we were there, the more we liked it.

Then, two years ago, we had the opportunity to house-sit and dog-sit for a month. Followed by the same deal this last September. That's when we seriously started considering the idea of buying a place there, to live in at least part of the year. We saw about 12 houses, made an offer on one (which the guy then decided not to sell) and came back home (to Eureka, California), still with a Guanajuato house very much in our thoughts.

Louisa went back alone in November, both to check on a couple of houses we'd heard about from friends (we were also running a "house wanted" ad in the local paper) and to look into the possibility of doing work down there.

A few days before she was due to return home, she heard about Tecolote 39. We talked on the phone, she emailed many photos, she took David, "our" architect over to see it and I discussed it with him on the phone, and we made an offer.

And now we're en route--flying down on January 14--to get the key.

Spot the Difference

2006-01-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

Response to my first comment received. At least my beautifully-styled hair stays...
The trick is now, without reading the comment, to spot the difference between the two photos.
Thanks, Photoshop! (again)

To Begin at the Beginning...

2006-01-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

...would take far too long.

It's the day of the Epiphany, 2006--January 6th for most of us--and Louisa and I are getting ready to return to Guanajuato, Mexico in just over a week. She for the fifth time, me for the fourth, in six years.

The last time she was there (without me), she bought a house. This blog is the story of our part-time home, Tecolote 39, Guanajuato, Mexico. This is it, from the street---