Resort Style Living at its Finest. And Stuff

Greetings from the Chula Vista Resort and Spa!

Life is still mostly idyllic here, but as you and I both know, there’s always something.

Before I begin to start to commence to complain about my almost perfect life, I should mention the good things.

Lea finally got her curtain rods for our master bedroom! It only took about two months. And about a dozen visits to the ironworks shop to talk to the Moron Twins. I think she wore them down and they eventually realized the only way they were going to get rid of esta gringa loca was to give her what she wanted. I’ve got to hand it to her. I didn’t think she’d ever get anything she’d be remotely satisfied with from those bozos.

Way to go, honey. You’re still a force to be reckoned with.

She still has to make the curtains, but my lovely supermodel wife is more than just a pretty face. She has some pretty serious crafty skills. She’s made a lots of stuff over the years. She already has most of the materials she needs, and she has a plan to procure the items she lacks. I’m sure they’ll turn out great. I’ll post pictures of the finished product.

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We had to replace the toilet in my workshop because the water tank fractured and flooded the floor. I think it had been cracked for years and finally succumbed to the pressure. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. It’s not a high traffic area. It probably hasn’t been regularly used for more than ten years.

The floors are all tile, so no significant damage occurred. Jaime, our property manager, bought a new toilet. Tacho, our general handyman guy, installed it. Mischief managed.

The only weird thing is this is the second new toilet we’ve had to have installed in the short time that we’ve been here.

I’ve also asked Jaime and Tacho to construct some water diversion devices for the corners of the eaves by the pool. This is our first Rainy Season at this house, and after the first couple of serious rainfalls, we discovered that we had a problem.

I’ve written about the Rainy Season before. People that live here might tell you the rain is very polite because it mostly falls at night. I’d tell you there’s nothing polite about the rain. It’s true that it mostly falls at night, but when it rains here it rains like a bastard. Maybe two of them.

We basically have two waterfalls pouring off of the roof into the patio when it rains. The tiles on the patio are polished porcelain, and when they get wet they’re just about the most slipperiest surfaces on the planet. I bought a giant squeegee the last time we were at Costco. I think it’ll come in very handy for the next few months.

The patio is open to the weather, so there’s no way to keep all of the water off of the floor. I don’t want anything extravagant. I just want something that will direct most of the water into the pool. But if we can divert both of those sources, we might not slip and accidentally kill ourselves to death.

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Our LG refrigerator has been acting up. Again. Well, the refrigerator part is still working. It’s the freezer part that has been acting up. Essentially, it’s not freezing anything. Luckily, we have two freezers, so we just moved everything from the kitchen to the casita. Again.

Lea is as close to furious as she ever gets.

The refrigerator is still under warranty, and after all the work we’ve had done on it, the LG Service Department in Guadalajara no longer gives Jaime any crap when he calls to tell them they need to come repair their piece of shit refrigerator. Again. They didn’t even ask us to do another 12 Hour Test this time.

They’re supposed to be here next Tuesday. And they won’t have the part they need to fix the problem, so that will take another week. It might be fixed by the middle of July.

Thankfully, the restaurants here are mostly excellent, and affordable. Dining out is going to be an ordeal, but we’ll get through this somehow.

* * * *

We received our WiFi Super Booster about a month ago. As near as I can tell, it doesn’t even mildly boost our WiFi strength or speed. I’d actually go so far to say that our ambiguous signal works better when it’s not being boosted. So, if you were planning on purchasing this technological wonder, I’d advise against it.

It’s too bad. I doubt that Telecable® has any plans to improve their service, and they have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any communications company in the Lakeside Area. Telmex®, the other local communications company, has the second lowest.

It’s like having to choose between having cancer or leprosy.

This is easily the most frustrating part of our new lives. And by our lives, I mean mine. I don’t think Lea finds this anywhere near as irritating as I do.

Ask any blogger you happen to see and they will tell you in order to post anything they write, they absolutely need an Interweb connection. And if they like to research their topics, it’s an invaluable resource.

Research is too much like work for me, so I mostly make shit up. I might be lying about that, but I’m a very good liar. And yes, I could be lying about that, too.

* * * *

Despite the fact that our WiFi mostly sucks, I have binge watched a couple of series on Fire TV®. Catch-22 was quite good. Chernobyl was even better. It was so refreshing to watch something where there was no question whether or not the government was lying. It was one of the best qualities about communism. They lied about everything! And you could trust that.

* * * *

I started watching Good Omens yesterday. It’s produced by Amazon and the BBC. Interestingly enough, a bunch of offended Christians sent a petition to Netflix trying to get them to stop airing the blasphemous series. Clearly, Satan had a hand or two in that.

Good Omens is yet another fantasy TV series based on the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It’s the story of an angel, Aziraphale, and a demon, Crowle, who form an alliance in an attempt to stop the approaching Armageddon.

I guess there are plenty of reasons why Christians could be upset. Adam and Eve are black in the TV show. Everyone knows all of the people in the Bible were white. Even the Egyptians. And the Queen of Sheba. And they all spoke English.

In the TV show, God is a woman, so that could be another point of contention for the uproar. That’s the only part I find hard to believe. A female God would never have made all the mistakes that our solidly paternal God has.

Hey, mister! I thought God couldn’t make mistakes!!

Yeah, I used to think that, too. But for an entity who is supposed to be All-Knowing, it’s pretty hard to describe some of His actions as anything but mistakes. Granted, He probably has the ability to fix all of this shit because He’s also, you know, All-Powerful. In that case, He’s right. There are no mistakes, just clever corrections.

Back to the show: The angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley have been friends from the beginning of Time, and over the centuries they’ve essentially gone native, preferring life on Earth to life in either of the respective realms from whence they originated. They were supposed to be keeping an eye on the Antichrist, but through a series of semi-comical events, they lost him and have been taking care of of the wrong kid. It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.

In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist will fulfill Biblical prophecies about someone who will oppose Christ and substitute himself in Christ’s place, just in cases you were wondering. “…Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” Revelation 13:15-18

I have no idea what that means, so I hope you’re not looking for any great insights here. On the TV series, it turns out to be a telephone number. Little Known Fact About My State of Minnesota Nursing License Number: It’s a six digit number. The first three numbers are 111. Any guesses what the last (6) three (6) numbers (6) are?

I once desperately wanted to be a prophet, but I have to be honest. When I looked at my nursing license for the first time, I damn near died to death. I used to be obsessed with the End of Times. I even wrote a book about it. It probably wasn’t a great book, and I base that assessment on the fact that none of the publishers I contacted were interested in publishing it. I used to have a stack of rejection letters that was more than a foot tall.

Seeing how I wanted to be a prophet, but had somehow been branded with the infamous Number of the Beast, the premise of my book was simple. The true identity of the Antichrist couldn’t be known because all suspicion would roll off of him like water off a duck’s back. Being the super-spooky twisted genius guy that he was, he could literally say anything and everyone would believe him. It’s one of his evil superpowers.

All he had to do was accuse his sworn enemy,  the True Prophet of God, of being the real Antichrist. And the people of the world would blame him for all of the crazy shit that happened during the turbulent End of Days, which made life more than a little complicated for our righteous hero.

And just to complicate matters further, both the Antichrist and the Prophet of God do a fair amount of crazy shit. The Antichrist does it because, you know, that’s his job. The prophet does it because, you know, that’s what God tells him to do.

It’s too bad that I was such a lousy writer back when I was trying to be a serious author. There was some pretty good stuff in that book.

I doubt that I’ll be able to get Lea interested in watching this series. It’s too bad because the show is fucking hilarious. She’s probably afraid that I’ll go crazy again, and start preaching to the multitudes on the shore of Lake Chapala, telling them to Repent! Or, ¡Arrepentirse! in Spanish.

Historically, that’s what prophets have done, no matter which language they spoke. Clearly, it’s a method that hasn’t worked. Past performance is sometimes a fairly good indicator of future results. I’d try something different. I’d hire the BBC to produce another comedy show, and take it from there.

However, I should point out that this is a subject I doubt I could ever get serious about again, even if the long foretold events actually started happening. I’m not sure I could muster the necessary energy again. Lea will read this someday, and maybe she’ll relax a bit.

Yeah, you’re right. I could tell her that. I’m just not sure she’d believe me.

I’d call my show Seven Trumpets. It was the title of my book. It’s still the best name ever for a series about the End of Times. According to Revelation 8:1-2, seven angels will sound the seven trumpets after the breaking of the seventh seal. Seven is a very popular number in the Bible.

It’s God’s favorite number.

To Serve and Protect

In my last post I mentioned that we haven’t had any major issues to deal with here at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa. And the next day the temporary faucet in our kitchen exploded and flooded the floor.

Thank God for tile floors.

Tacho, our general handyman guy, came over Saturday morning and installed a new temporary faucet. According to Jaime Mendoza, our property manager, our new permanent faucet is supposed to be installed on Wednesday.

We’ll see how that goes. It’s Holy Week, and not a lot gets done here this time of year.

Easter in Mexico is vastly different than Easter in the United States. In Mexico, Easter is when everyone goes to the beach. Except for the people that come here. Something like unto twenty thousand people will start flocking into the Lakeside Area today, and will be here through the weekend.

Unlike the United States, you can’t find an Easter basket in any of the stores here. I’ve looked. Only Halloween surpasses Easter in terms of candy sales in the US. But in Mexico, there are no jelly bean eggs, no chocolate bunnies. There will be no manic hunts for brightly colored Easter eggs by sugar-charged children on Sunday morning.

Just sun, bikinis, sand, and beer, and possibly beach volleyball. From my point of view, it beats the heck out of hard boiled eggs.

Happy Easter Bunnies!!!!

I’ve never celebrated Mexican Easter before, but given my affection for bikini clad females, I’m starting to think I might be missing out on something.

Easter is the most Christian holiday there is, but American Easter traditions have next to nothing to do with Christianity. The Egg Thing and the Bunny Thing are rooted in Pagan traditions, not Christian. It’d be cool if they came from Scotland, but I can’t find any evidence to support that.

* * * *

The other major issue we’re facing here involves curtain rods for the master bedroom. We chose a local ironworks shop to make them for us. The old guy who runs it is an artist. We’ve purchased some of his stuff before, and were very pleased with our acquisitions.

However, when we took Lea’s measurements and designs to the shop, the old guy had one of his arms in a cast, and it appeared the business was being run by a couple of kids that I have named the Moron Twins. There’s a reason for that.

One of the kids looked at Lea’s designs, and he seemed to understand what we wanted. Lea suggested that he come to the house and make his own measurements, which he did. Last Friday, he delivered our three custom curtain rods, and none of them were the correct size. In addition, he had added finials that looked like mutant insect antennae. Lea hated them.

The kid said someone would come to our house the next day, Saturday, to install them. Yeah, that didn’t happen. We went back to the shop on Monday with a new set of measurements and designs. Lea handled most of the transaction in Spanish, which was impressive. Once again, the kid seemed to understand exactly what Lea wanted. He even showed her that he had the finials Lea wanted in his shop.

We thought we had sorted that problem out. Later that afternoon, the other moron twin arrived at our house to install the curtain rods we didn’t want installed. 

As of right now, we still have the incorrect curtain rods stored on the far end of the patio. We have no idea when, or even if, we’ll receive our new curtain rods. I’m planning on asking Jaime to go down to the ironworks shop to advocate for us when he delivers our new kitchen faucet, possibly later today. More likely next week…

* * * *

We watched the first episode of the final season of Game of Thrones Sunday night. My long list of horrible people who need to got dead has shortened considerably because most of them have been killed to death already. Those who remain are Ser Gregor Clegane, Cercei Lannister, Euron Greyjoy, Qyburn, and the Night King.

It’ll be interesting to see how everything plays out. And how many of my favorite characters will get killed to death in the process. Then I’ll be depressed until Hallmark starts playing Christmas movies again. But long before then my lovely supermodel wife will have to tell me to grow up or she’ll really give me something to cry about. I haven’t seen Captain Marvel yet, or The Avengers: Endgame. So I still have something to live for.

* * * *

For those of you who are wondering how my golf game is going, it still mostly sucks. I attribute part of that to seasonal allergies, high pollen counts, and dust. The Rainy Season won’t begin for a couple of months, so those conditions are likely to increase in intensity until then. The rains start around the middle of June, followed by the invasions of the Flying Buffalo Ants and the Flying Scorpion Spiders.

Eek! Hideous monster bugs!!

If you’re freaked out by giant, poisonous insects, you’ll hate it here, so you should probably just stay at home and not even think about visiting here. And you sure as hell won’t want to move here.

But I did beat Cheryl last Sunday.

I golf at least every Sunday with my golf wife, Phyllis, and Tom and Cheryl. Cheryl is a very good golfer. She was the reigning Woman’s Champion at the country club we’re all members of.

It’s been a goal of mine to beat Madame Champion at least once before I get dead, but I’m not sure this one actually counts. Cheryl messed up her hip on the third hole. By the time we hit the back nine, she was way off her game.

I ended up beating her by one stroke, the same margin of victory Tiger Woods had at the Masters®. Now that I’ve kinda beat Cheryl, I need to beat her when she’s having a good day. Then it’ll be real.

* * * *

Our purebred Mexican street kit-tens, Mika and Mollie, are about eight months old now. They rule our house, and they know it.

They’re no longer little, which is kind of sad. They were so darlingpreshadorbs! They were a laugh riot with their antics. They’re still entertaining, but in different ways now.

They’ve developed very distinct personalities. Mika is a fearless tomboy, always looking for some mischief to get into. She’s our Arya Stark kit-ten. Mollie is a Sansa Stark kit-ten. She’s more of a lady, unless you drop an ice cube. And she’s more of a lover, especially at night. She always snuggles with us when she comes to bed and hugs us goodnight. It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.

They are easily the two most finicky felines on the planet. I had to buy two more litter boxes because the two they already had just weren’t enough.

Lea used to go to every pet shop in the Lakeside Area, plus the Petco® in Guadalajara just to find the canned food they liked, until they stopped eating it altogether. They don’t like people food. Whoever heard of a cat that won’t eat chicken? Or pork chops? They only eat kibble, and they eat plenty of that. Hence, the need for more litter boxes.

I remember the day we brought them home and first time they pooped in the litter box. I was so proud of them! Yeah, I’ve pretty much gotten over that by now.

Little did we know when adopted our rescue kit-tens that they would become service animals, but they are. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a service animal is any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.

They’re kind of like unto psych nurses, except people actually like service animals.

Probably the most familiar service animals are guide dogs for the blind. Evidence suggests they’ve been around since the Roman Empire. Around the 1990’s, people started training service dogs to help with a wide range of disabilities. Various species of dogs were trained to assist children and adults with autism, people with diabetes, veterans and others suffering from PTSD, and a plethora of other disorders.

Unlike every other service animal on the planet, our kit-tens didn’t require any special training because they evidently already know everything. There’s some dispute about just how much service they actually provide, but that hasn’t stopped them from poking their noses into everything we do.

No matter what we’re doing in the bathroom, the kit-tens have to be there. To be truthful, I’m not sure they’re all that interested in what we’re doing. It’s more of their fascination with running water. They think it’s the coolest thing, ever.

Mika and Mollie help me floss every day. Okay, all they do is play with the dangling end of my dental floss. Whenever I shave, Mika practically climbs on my shoulders for a closer look. Neither Lea nor I can take a shower without the supervision of our service kit-tens. I’m no longer sure how we survived without them.

Lea can’t cook a meal without the kit-tens’ assistance. They climb inside of the cabinets to help her find pots and pans. They help her with recipes by sitting on her cookbook when she’s trying to read it. And they play with the water in the sink.

Oddly enough, the only time our kit-tens don’t like water is when I give them baths. I have the scars to prove it. I’ve thought about tossing them into the swimming pool the next time I want to bathe them, but I’m pretty sure Lea would kill me if I did, so I probably won’t try that.

It’s not just us, Mika and Mollie supervise everyone that comes inside of our house. They help our maid, Monica, sweep the floors. Okay, mostly they attack her broom and scatter everything she’s already swept up. When Tacho installed our new temporary faucet, the kit-tens sat on his chest to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes.

I assume that they would be equally helpful if anyone ever broke into our home. I’m not sure they’d actually attack anyone, unless they were barefoot. They would certainly come running to rub against the shins of any burglar, and he might trip while he was sneaking off with our stuff. But their most effective defense would be if a potential thief had an allergic reaction to cats.

I’ve thought about getting them official service animal vests, but I’m not sure I’d survive putting them on our ferocious, not-so-little kit-tens. We’ve started trimming their needle sharp talons of death about every two weeks, out of sheer necessity.

Neither of them are especially fond of being held, so I can only imagine their reactions to being dressed in cute service outfits. I’d probably end up looking like I had tried juggling chainsaws.

Yeah, not the best idea I’ve ever had…

Well, that’s about it from here for this week. We hope you have a wonderful and peaceful Easter weekend. And that you find the perfect summer bikini.