The Burial of Ill Humor... and Much More...

Okay.  I give up.  This week too much has happened.  Just too much.  I cannot cover the week's events in my usual deep, analytical and insightful style.  I shall instead adopt my Entertainment Tonight mode which presupposes your attention span to be eight seconds and your thirst for detail to be nonexistent.  I apologize but THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH.

First Parade
You will remember our cross dressing, flour throwing sayacas from the previous blog.  Well, last Sunday they suited up for the first Mardi Gras Parade of the season.  This will be repeated today and then three more times immediately before Fat Tuesday.  As they pranced through town they picked up (well not literally) horsemen who accompanied them on their round about voyage to the bull ring.  I have spent more time in bull rings these last weeks than... well, actually, before this month I'd never been in a bull ring, so forget it.  But we've been in our local bull ring a lot recently.  Once in the bull ring, the sayacas upped the ante in the flour fights with the young boys. And it's not easy to chase down adolescents wearing heels and a miniskirt.  See photos.  This was followed by very young boys riding bulls.  Real bulls.  As I watch events like this I harken back to America and watching four year olds ride tricycles in helmets and shin guards. We live in a very different world now.  This event was followed by a barbecue in the Plaza hosted by the Charros to thank the ranchers who brought the bulls that mercifully failed to disembowel the youth of the town.  Followed by a dance.  Onward.

Sayacas with flour seeking people to anoint.

Running from the sayacas.

This one didn't escape the sayacas.

Sayacas stalking more children.

Charros join the parade with their Modelos.

The charros start their young early, even if they have to rope them in.

A sayaca pursuing its prey in the bull ring.

This boy got caught!

This sayace is talented with the lasso...

and uses it to good effect to capture someone.

Watch the flour fly.

Some of the kids get to try bull riding ...

and experience the agony of defeat!

Others appear to be natural bull riders.

Tacky Bedroom/Bath Off
Fine, I promised so here goes.  I referenced one of the house tour houses and mentioned that I felt their master bed and bath was rather...well...tasteless.  However, any of you who have seen our master bedroom/bath (I stress that we RENT) would immediately state this is the pot calling the kettle black. So, you decide.  The photos say it all.

Who wins the prize...

bed and ...

bath #1?

Or is it our bed ...

with the mirror above and ...

bath #2 with the six person jacuzzi & "tasteful" stain glass windows?

Seguro Popular es muy popular
You may remember that Michael and I have been working to enter Seguro Popular, the national health system here.  It doesn't matter if you are a citizen-- as long as you are retired they'll take you.  As with any government program anywhere, Seguro Popular is rife with documents, procedures etc. that  test the good humor and intellect of any human.  And they do it in Spanish.  Only Spanish.  We had jumped an admirable number of hurdles and had reached the point where we had the all important booklet saying we were "in" and had obtained a local English speaking doctor.  But we needed to go register at the really good hospital in Guadalajara where we would want to be admitted should something seriously go awry body-wise.

Thank God for Ramon.  Ramon is our friend who was born and raised in Guadalajara and, thus, speaks Spanish.  And knows the ins and outs of the hospital having negotiated it numerous times with his partner Ed.  A group of seven of us Gringos were going to attempt to register ourselves when Ramon and Ed said,"Are you mad?  You will never survive on your own!  We may never see you again!"

In retrospect they were right.  We were a spectacle.  Seven very pale, tall WASPs amidst a sea of walnut toned, short Mexican folks.  We followed Ramon as if he were a mother duck.  He dashed from window to window, doctor to nurse, administrative flunky to administrative flunky translating at a furious pace while we stood, staring without comprehension with mouths unhinged.  It was Ed's job to keep us in a manageable herd while Ramon ran the obstacle course of doctors and paperwork with each group member.

So, how did it end up?  We each saw a doctor who took our medical histories and reviewed our medications.  Within the group we got three, maybe four, referrals to their hypertension clinic, one to an orthopedic surgeon, one for a mammogram and one for I think an endocrinologist (but I'm not sure) and orders for lab tests.  What will all this cost?  Nothing.  Nada.  Rien.  It took three hours total and we each emerged with the little book that we flash in the EMTs face as we're pulled from the car wreck insuring we will end up in the best hospital in Guadalajara (or so many say).

Michael and I still have private catastrophic insurance and will sign up for Medicare when that fateful birthday arrives but Seguro Popular is pretty impressive.

Some of the organized chaos of Hospital Civil.

It's Over.  But It Was Fun
Well, we finally put a lid on Christmas yesterday.   It was Candlemas (40 days after Christmas, something about Mary and purification but remember-- no details or insight today).  Turns out Rosy ended up with Baby Jesus in the cake on Three Kings Day so she was on the hook for the traditional tamale party to be held February 2nd.  She and Luzma feted the group and stuffed us with enough tamales to hold us over until next Christmas.  So, out of the Nativity Scene and back to sleep Baby Jesus until it begins again in a mere 10 months or so.


El Rey Feo and The Burial of Ill Humor-- Second Parade

Having survived the Seguro Popular enlistment we hastened back to Lakeside to partake in the first really BIG Mardi Gras event in Chapala.   This began with the parade featuring many scantily clad people dancing in and on pick up trucks, creatures on stilts, the requisite Tuba bands and El Rey Feo (the Ugly King) and his glittery, star bedecked coffin.   The parade toddled down the main street, along the malecon and terminated at the gates to Christiana Park which is a huge park on the shore of Lake Chapala.   Eagerly awaiting admission to the park were, oh I don't know, maybe THOUSANDS of people on foot, in strollers, in wheelchairs and most impressively on 6" stilleto heels (not the terrain for those but the young things persist).  With great ceremony, the coffin was unloaded and transported into the park followed by the hoards.  We progressed to a stage and seating where still gyrating, scantily clad folk danced while the announcer  fueled the anticipation of the crowd for the coffin conflagration to come.  The coffin (which contained the oft mentioned ill humor) was positioned on a sidewalk (no extinguishers, no cordoning off etc) and set aflame to the cheers of the multitude.  Simultaneously vast quantities of fireworks erupted over our heads.  It was quite something.

Let the Carnaval Parade begin.

No Carnaval would be complete without scantily clad women & a scantily clad man as well!

Even the entrance to Cristiana Park is decorated for Carnaval.

The coffin to bury ill humor is led into Cristiana Park underneath the appropriate sign.

No Carnaval would be complete without a carnival.

Food is an important part of Carnaval as well.

On the stage in Cristiana Park more scantily clad women & girls.

Fireworks are part of the Carnaval celebration as well.

The coffin containing ill humor is burned while the celebration continues on the stage...

and continues...

while the coffin continues to burn.

What Carnaval carnival would be complete without the freak show!

This celebration in Christiana Park will continue for the next twelve days from noon to 2AM each day.  During this time, the park is filled with food stands, amusement park rides, an ice skating rink, a seal show (why seals?), a bird show, various concerts, car displays with bikini clad women, and stalls selling an unusual array of items.  Like furniture. Ajijic, not to be outdone by Chapala, will be hosting its own array of Mardi Gras events.  We will keep you posted.

We're gearing up for Betsy and Fred's arrival on Thursday and shall drag them mercilessly through the last week of Carnaval merriment.  They shall probably be shipped home covered with flour, stuffed with street food and swearing they will never touch a Margarita again.  But they will.....