Bisbee Gal

We were in CDMX for a visit this week. Went out nightly for dinner and would hear this shrieking whistle on the street, but we never saw the source (at first). Then we saw the cart and we asked a local about it. It is the legendary (in CDMX at least) camote y platano seller (sweet potato and banana). His steam whistle will pierce an eardrum (ended up standing next to him once at a red light). We could also hear it loudly from our 6th floor apartment. We have lived in Ajijic off/on since 2008 and have traveled all around MX. But hands down this guy takes the cake for a new level of noise. To be clear, I am not complaining. I find this traditional noise charming and I fear this may be the last generation of sellers such as this camote/platano cart as well as our local knife/scissor sharpener (his whistle does not hold a candle to the aforementioned vendor). Here are a few short videos about this... Camote y platano vendor (short version) Camote y platano vendor (longer version)

My recollection is I registered with Amazon Mex and it "found" my US credit cards from my Amazon US account, but it's been over a year so I can't be positive. I use the same login name and same email address at both Amazon US and Amazon MX. FYI for other payments in MX that take Paypal, I use my regular Paypal account (same one I use in US) and change the money payment to pesos.

I know you can use US credit cards for sure with Amazon Mex.

Mention of the credits dropped off our bills 2 or 3 cycles ago when the bill format changed. Used to be shown in a section called Observaciones but that no longer appears on my bills. Tom...where on your bill do you see the CR's?

I had one bad experience with Amazon US here .... it was an item sold by a 3rd party vendor and it was not Prime. They put it thru US and MX postal and it was 3+ months late. Now, I only use Prime mostly with Amazon Mexico as I find better prices there when I search by the Mexican/Spanish name for the item. I am also expanding my vocabulary 🏆 Never a bad experience using Prime at Amazon MX or Amazon US.

I use Amazon.com.mx a few times a month. I have Prime and mostly order Prime items. I have also used Amazon.com (US), too. I have successfully used Costco.com.mx (most recently for contact lenses) and MercadoLibre. I do not have a Mexican credit card and other than MercadoLibre, have used my US credit card at the aforementioned sites. For MercadoLibre I pay in cash at either Bancomer or OXXO. I have all my orders sent to Handy Mail's SAT office so I do not have to be at home for deliveries. DHL had problems finding HandyMail at first (over a year ago) but I added HandyMail to Google Maps and that seems to have solved that problem.

Yes, thanks for the update.

Yes, despite the longer days, our June solar generation is likely to be among the lowest since our installation in August 2017. On the plus side, there is less watering needed, so our water pumps are rarely engaged. We check our solar generation online daily, no need to look at the CFE meter.

2-0 now.

Have you considered vetting Assisted Living facilities in CDMX since that may be where you decide to live? https://smartexpat.com/mexico/mexico-city/business/health/retirement-care https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=retirement_homes&find_loc=Mexico+City%2C+CDMX

Same recommendation...they repaired a beloved old pair of Nikes for me.

Is there a relationship between this new restaurant and Pien Tapetate Thai restaurant on Hidalgo in Ajijic?

No smoke on lake cam....maybe it's out?

You can see it on the lake cam of the local weather station. Here: http://www.ajijicweather.com/lakecam.htm

OP.....is your news more recent than this statement by STI's rep?? On March 21st in the subject "Anyone Having This CFE problem", Go Solar wrote:

My guess is they will be closed for part or all of Semana Santa, Semana Pascua.

His reaction might have been a deal-breaker for me.

We paid our gardener his vacation pay when we paid him the alguinaldo. He had worked for us only from May 1st, but Rolly Brook's formulae for both pay-outs take into account number of days or weeks worked per year. His site says: The vacación must be paid in cash, either before the vacation or before the end of the year if no vacation has been taken. The workers may be testing you and a formal sit-down over the rules may fix it. We felt our gardener tested us at the beginning by showing up in the evening with his family (his normal work arrival time is 7:30 to 8AM, 2 hours a day). The first time he showed up late (after 6PM) we let it slide, thinking he must have a had a good reason to come late. The 2nd time (the following week) we let is slide. The 3rd time we explained to him that we preferred he come in the morning. About 2 weeks he later, he and his family showed up again, quite late (it was dark before they left). Having his family here wasn't the issue; it was the time of day. We like to sit outside in the evenings and we enjoy our privacy. I spoke with him quite bluntly that night telling him he could only come in the mornings. My Spanish is so-so (he speaks no English), but I must have gotten my point across as that was over 8 months ago and he has not come in the evenings since. We travel every few months for a week or two and I assume he brings his family to the property in the evenings when we are away and that's OK with us. It never dawned on us to ask him to do any household chores for us when it rains, I view his job as taking care of our garden and pool. We don't have a housekeeper so we don't have the dynamic you are experiencing. When we lived here 2008 to 2012, we had no household help, so this is new to us, too. After hearing many stories from other expats over the years we made a commitment to not get involved with our gardener on a personal level. We address each other formally. We do not provide him with drinks/food or used clothing. We gave him a generous Christmas bonus in addition to his aguinaldo and vacation pay; I happed to be making Christmas treats that day and we sent him home with a boxful. I greet him every morning when he arrives, I ask him how his family is, we chat about weather, supplies he needs, how the plants are doing. We pay him extra for extra work (we ask him what he would charge, and we've never tried to bargain it down). Buena suerte!

May be time to look for a replacement gardener. But maybe your definition of "blew up at me" is different that what I envision. I have engaged the services of many Mexicans over the years and have never had any of them "blow up at me." Putting that aside, our gardener adjusts his own hours when he misses a day or sometimes leaves early one day and makes it up by working longer. Or not. Sometimes he brings a helper, his relative (we don't pay his helper). We pay our gardener for 10 hours a week whether he works 10 hours or not. The yard looks good and he takes care of our pool...as long as that remains the case, we don't track his hours. We pay him for rain days and I assume everyone does; there were a few weeks last summer when he couldn't do much in heavy downpours. One week he did ask us to deduct a day's pay from his pay when he did not work. If he didn't ask us to short him, we wouldn't have. When he went on vacation last year, beforehand he brought by his "replacement" so we could meet him. He said the man had filled in for him before (like you, we re-hired the previous homeowner's gardener, and yes, we have a copy of the finiquito she paid him). While our gardener was gone, we paid the fill-in what we normally paid our regular gardener. At year's end we paid our gardener his full vacation pay...not sure under those circumstances if we should have or not, but we felt his finding someone to fill in for him was very commendable. I don't know what we would have done if he just announced he was leaving for 2 weeks; it's not like you can easily find substitutes for a short period of time. Maybe it comes down to how happy you are with your workers.

How and why did you conclude Microdyn is no better than a water rinse??

I disinfect fruit and veg that I am using raw. If I'm cooking the veg/fruits 'hard', I don't disinfect them. When I have guests for meals, I disinfect all produce as some folks are more susceptible than others. For berries, I put them in a sieve and set the sieve in a bowl of water that has had the disinfectant added. They don't fall apart that way. I normally use Micodyn.

The note says he parked in the 'only parking spot on the street.' The area in front of someone's garage is not a "parking spot."

It's a vacation mind-set, I guess. I've likely been guilty of the same, when younger.

Often hard to tell who is US v. CDN, but I do agree gringo snowbird groups can be very loud and ruin the dining experience for others. The old stereotypes that "Canadians are quiet and polite" and "Americans are loud and obnoxious" no longer apply, if they ever did.

We have a MX plated car, but parking at Soriana would be a convenient in/out to Ajijic via the libramiento.