View from my front window, but I live four or five times as far away as shows in this picture. Colima Volcano smokes off and on, and has been for ten or so years, with occasional lava flows. Alfredo and I live in the Green Zone: no threat of lava flows or bombs, only ashfall if it really goes.
>>> ADDED a year and a half later, 3/4/2012:
Five weeks after he began his around-the-clock CLEAN-UP and RENOVATION of the bar, "Alfredo" FINALLY let me see it. The bar was upstairs in a new-ish cinderblock building, had brick interior walls with NO decoration, tables and chairs to seat about 60, and a small bar stocked with only a few brands of beers and about twenty bottles of liquor.
The whole place could have easily been put together in ONE DAY. Clearly, Alfredo's absenses had been about doing and dealing crack.
UPDATE 8:08 PM CDT: Checking the balance on my checking account, I discovered that the company in Cincinnati that has the franchise to search for, obtain, and send out birth certificates, charged me the full amount on Friday (which means they obtained it. Had they not found it, they would have charged a smaller search fee only), but then yesterday, Saturday, they refunded the FULL amount they had charged my card.
Someone canceled my order. I'm betting it's my mother, the Nazi Ruth Anne (Meyer) Kenan. At least I get my money back, and the lawyer I met yesterday, was sitting nearby when I called my mother and used severe "bad language." She gets so upset when I do that. No problem with rapes and murders though. She condones Catholic priests and Republicans.
Anyway, the lawyer here is well connected and he's offered to speak to the Governor, so I guess things will heat up one way or another soon. Hope the volcano doesn't get TOO dischargey.
Alfredo has been working literally around the clock since we got here five days ago. He will continue for another week or so as he gets a popular sports bar turned around for his boss in Puerto Vallarta. He had only worked for the boss for three weeks when he was given the opportunity to fix the owner's other bar/restaurants with 30% of the profits as his compensation. He won't let me see the place until he's got it running right, but reservations for special events have been pouring in and passersby tell him the place now looks beautiful. I can't wait to see it, and I can't wait for him to have more time for me.
The manager in charge while Alfredo picked me up at Nuevo Laredo ran off with all the money, so Alfredo is really cleaning house, and only grabs cat-naps for now on a pile of blankets in a back room. He's totally dedicated, and says we will be rich in two weeks (or was it four?). I hope so. I was forced to sell my house in Stone Mountain at a huge discount. Drug-trafficking Republican idiots did everything to deplete my resources and I barely got out of town without being arrested on a false charge, just like in 1990. Thank God, I've learned and know how to beat their bull shit now.
My car cannot enter the interior of Mexico until my passport, stolen from my locked car without forced entry, or birth certificate is produced. I'm in line to get both replaced, so am carless for now. Alfredo brilliantly bribed officials to get me into the interior without documents, and later to get me out of a speeding ticket, although I am not the one who drives 100-110 mph (no, not kph) on the open road. Mexico has some kick-ass toll roads, although tolls are generally higher than in US and bear no relationship to how long the road is.
Note to Gringo smokers: Last week an international health organization completed a several years long study of cigarettes sold in many countries around the world. Cigarettes manufactured to be sold in the US by US companies have three times the cancer-causing chemicals as do the same companies' (and other companies') cigarettes produced for sale in all other countries. Guess they own stock in the hospitals or something.
Hoping to retrieve my car this week, but waiting to see what mischief the Republican Party might be up to in slowing or stopping my birth cert from making it here from Cincinnati.
On another front, my mother, whom I yesterday denounced once again as a literal Nazi via broadcast email, was nice as could be on the phone. She 's fishing for my mailing address -- as if she had any need of it. Any time my mother learns where I am, my life is soon in peril. I'll let them know more once I've spent a month or so here. I don't need to have the Gestapo breaking down my Mexican door -- not with the volcano smoking in the distance. It just wouldn't be fittin'.
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