Por fin...

After all the months of medical uncertainty and struggles to prepare the California house for marketing, to finally arrive in Merida ready to buy or rent a house feels like such a triumph. While recent events have made me forever humble in the face of the vagaries of fate, I'll allow myself a moment of glory. As the sign on the wall of a cantina I passed says, "Vivir es un placer"...Life is a pleasure. Here they really can get away with making a statement like that, in that way.

Usually it takes us only a few days to wish we were back in California. With temperatures hovering around a hundred during the day, I expect this will be the case again, but soon there will be no more place to return to. Guess I'd better find a place here to call home, and soon.

There was a last minute panic last night when I couldn{t find an ATM card I was counting on using to make periodic peso extractions here. It seemed to become the locus of all my accumulated anxiety over the imminent departure and two week absence from (what's left of) home. When I finally found it, all those worries seemed to wash away, and today I awoke relaxed.

The BART ride to SFO, checkin, security, and flights to Houston then Merida when uncommonly tranquil. I was even able to switch seats to a roomy exit row on both segments, and edible meals were served both times. Usually I refer to airline offerings as "food".

The guy who is in contract to buy our house wants virtually all the furniture, which we will happily sell him for a small fraction of what it cost. This would mean that when the day arrives for escrow to close, we will simply walk out the front door of our familiar still-furnished house and drive off into the sunset. Strange.


Casa San Juan - my room is on the left side of the courtyard.

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