Guitarist Francisco Bribiesca

This evening we went to the weekly concert at the Casa de la Cultura.  They have a free concert of some sort every Friday evening at 7 PM as part of the Peña Cultural Season.
Tonight it was classical guitarist  Francisco Bribiesca, if I understood correctly he has played something like 800 concerts over the last 10 years in countries all over the world.
He played works by various worldwide composers some of which were Ireland, Mexico, and Argentina.   In every concert he plays a song that is dedicated to is little son.
We enjoyed the concert and evening out.

                      










     

This, That and The Other

The new art gallery in town, Pincel Arte de Guaymas, is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 AM to 6 PM, (according to their sign), so this morning we went downtown to have a look at what is displayed.  It is on the street where the Palacio Municipal is, beside the P.M. is a white building and the next building houses the gallery on the second floor.  The stairway is quite steep so if going be careful on it.
The building itself inside is interesting.  The lady told us that the building is around 200 years old and it still has the old wooden floors and the ceiling is of the old type that was used here many years ago.  It has wooden beams, the bamboo poles all across, then some matting and if it is like other old buildings that I have been told about, it would then have a foot or two of dirt over that.  This construction was supposed to keep the building much cooler in summer I have been told.  I am not sure if this construction has the earth on top of the bamboo poles as of course you can't see and I never thought to ask the lady if she knew.  Sorry, I never thought to take any pictures of the interior of the building.  There are seats and benches placed in all the rooms so you can sit and view the art if you want.
We wandered around and looked at the art, signed the guestbook that the lady asked us to and headed over to the Malecon.




























It was pretty quiet over on the Malecon being before noon on a Saturday, so we sat and relaxed and looked out over the bay.
There is a big blue ship, boat, dredger ???? in the bay still, it was there when we were down there the last time and is still there.  I read that they are dredging so that it is deep enough to accommodate about 15 Navy ships that will being coming in to celebrate Navy/Marine day on June 1 st., so perhaps this is what it is doing.  Not sure.

There is also 1 big Navy ship that we could see, docked at the moment.  It is hard to see in the picture as it is gray.

There is lots of other action in town with troops training for their demonstrations that they will be putting on for the Marine Day celebrations, I am sure that they will want it all to be perfect as the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon is supposed to be here to help celebrate on June 1st.

One new thing to view on the malecon was this giant necklace of plastic bottles. The artists have placed a sign beside it explaining it.  A young boy came to look at it while we were looking and he said to me, "I can read that, it says Don't throw garbage".  Hopefully the message will sink it.

After our fun we headed over to the grocery and did our big shopping for the month and grabbed a cab home.
This afternoon we headed downstairs to a "come and meet me" party to welcome young Santiago, landlords new grandson, into the world.  Snacks and conversation flowed.
A good day all around.

Just Another Day

Just another day in the neighbourhood here.
I had to go uptown to pick up the framed hummingbird picture and took in the cat Martin to be framed.  Yesterday the teacher had told me that students from the Casa de la Cultura get a discount on their framing there as they get lots of business from the students.  He couldn't remember if it was 10 or 15 % and it turned out to be 10 % which is not a great amount; but is fine when I wasn't expecting it.  The hummingbird frame is about 1 inch wide, cedar in a reddish brown colour and glass (anti reflectante) it was 210 pesos, ( around $17.54 CAD) and it looks nice.  The frame for the cat, who is huge, will be 408 pesos or about $34.07 CAD..
On the way to the bus to take the cat uptown I was asked by someone if I did fish pictures, last night someone asked me if I did people.  People are very interested in commenting on what they are seeing and is kind of interesting.
After picking up the picture and dropping the other one off, I headed down to the Post Office and mailed my granddaughters picture to her in Canada. I hope she likes it if/when it arrives there.  Canada Post is talking strike so who knows.
I then headed over to Calle 9 to Orti Mart, a large stationary store.  I was looking for some different pastels; but they didn't have anything different.  They did have some acid free pastel paper so got some of that.  We chatted about the lack of art supplies available in Guaymas; but they don't seem interested in supplying more and said that they don't have a catalog to order from.  The fellow serving me had to look at my picture and then took it over to the boss to show him.  We chatted about my classes and the boss asked me if I sold any paintings.  He then offered to buy the hummingbird from me, I took it home with me and it is hanging on my wall over the TV at the moment and that is where it will stay.  Interesting chat though.
Tired of shopping and walking I headed home to relax.  A pleasant morning uptown.

Losing Focus

When I started this blog it was for our family and friends to keep track of what we were doing without emailing everyone.  It has expanded to include lots of blogger friends and other people searching for information about our city, state and Mexico in general.
The blog has been up and running since the beginning of May 2005, so it has been 6 years so far.
Our lives have changed dramatically since the first posts as we had no idea that from spending one winter here in Guaymas , we would end up living here permanently for all these years.
Our lives have gone from excited exploration of our new city and area to a now more relaxed normal way of life, it just happens to be in a different country.
As time passes our lives change and our focuses in life change.  I have found in the last while that I have been posting more and more about my artwork and less and less about our life here.  The majority of things here now do not seem strange to us, it is our normal and I view it through different eyes than a new comer would.  I realized my mindset change the other day on our Girls Day Out . At the moment I am sitting here and thinking how different some things seem to others that now are usual daily events for us and I have to try and get back into that mode of thinking for this blog to go forward with any interest to anyone other than me.
One change I have made is to open up a new blog for posting of my artwork.  I will be trying to post it there rather than here so as to keep the focus here more on Mexico.
The new blog is located here:  Art By Brenda  so if you are interested pop over and have a look, if you aren't interested you won't have to be subjected to it on here.  So far the new blog has a pretty boring title; but I have always gone by the premise of KISS.
Have a good day.

Girls Day Out

A friend who spends the winter in San Carlos is getting ready to head back to Canada for the summer, she decided that her, her friend who is visiting from England and I should have a girls day out before they leave.
We headed to a little town close to Guaymas called San Jose.  We took a look at the church, sat and had a pop at a little store on the plaza and then headed over to visit a fellow who has a used articles store.  This little old gentleman has quite the story to tell of the bad storm that sat over us for approx. 36 hrs. a few years ago.  His home was destroyed and he was injured saving a child.  He is now in a wheelchair and a local group built him a small home and set him up with a used article store in part of his house.  He is interesting and fun to visit with and we chatted for awhile.
 Then we headed over to a seniors home for men.  I had gotten to know these men after the same storm mentioned above.  Their home was also destroyed in the storm and they were moved into the womens seniors home beside the place where I was going to help teach the children English once a week.  I used to buy a bag of candy and go to visit them before my classes every week.  They began calling me the candy lady and I always got a big welcome when I arrived, they do love their sweets !!  I hadn't been to see them since they moved back out to San Jose.  One of the men told me that he had had a heart operation and showed me the round object placed under his skin, I am assuming a pacemaker or something to that effect.  We chatted with them for a bit and also with the lady working there, there are only 10 men now and 1 woman: whereas there were 14 previously, I didn't ask any questions as you can probably figure what happened to the others at that age.
Our visiting over we took the new highway between San Jose and Empalme and found a bathroom and a fish taco place, after eating some good food, we set out to find the giant cactus.  I had been to see them there about 5 yrs. ago and knew where they were in a general type of way.  We got into the general area and then asked a lady, she didn't have a clue.  We drove for a bit and came to a workshop where a couple of guys were sitting.  I got out and asked and he know where I meant right away.  He gave us the most precise directions I have ever been given here and we arrived there shortly.  I don't think either of my friends had ever seen such big cactus and I just wish that I could remember better the other 2 places out in the desert where there are even larger ones.  Our landlord took us there shortly after we came here and besides not knowing the area, all the roads in the desert look the same to me.  I was not going to start roaming around sand tracks in the desert to find them so they had to make do with seeing those.  If you have never seen huge ones before these are pretty impressive; but the ones out in the cactus forests in the desert are even grander.  It is too bad we had not gone a week or so earlier as they had just finished blooming and by the look of it had been loaded with blossoms.  They decided that they would go again next year; but earlier in the year to try and see all the blooms.
We then headed back home where Roy was looking after his buddy Geordie the dog.  A fun day with friends and a good way to end their winter here.

Church at San Jose.

A Couple Of Photos From San Carlos

This post seems to have disappeared during the blogger outage so I am re-posting it.
At the tail end of Semana Santa we went over to San Carlos to look after our friends dog and cat while she went to Mazatlan to collect a friend that flew in there.  They wanted to stay and look around for a few days, so we got to spend some time with our favorite dog, Geordie and their cat also.
One morning I noticed the birds having a feeding frenzy, there must have been a school of some sort of fish there as they were having a great breakfast.

We spent some time watching the Osprey parents feeding their chicks, they have made/used a nest on a building crane for several years or more now.

I took this picture in her garden, I just thought it was pretty the way the Petunia was blooming right on top of the Broccoli.

Her Bird of Paradise flower is blooming right now and is beautiful.  I just love these blooms.

Naturally I had to take a few more pictures of Geordie.

The New Baby

I had just gotten home from class yesterday when the landlady came up and told me that the baby and mom were home from hospital in Obregon.  I actually already knew that as when I left for class little Diego and Alan had told me; but I had to get to class and didn't have time to stop then.
I grabbed the baby gift and camera and headed down to see the new family addition.
He, of course, is a cutie.  They gave him to me to hold and he snuggled right in and went to sleep.  An Ahhhh moment.
They showed me their copy of the Obregon paper as Nancys picture was in it having been the only mom to give birth on Mothers Day in that hospital.  It was interesting to read the article.
Both mom and baby seem to be fine.
Here is a picture of great grandma with the new baby.  I am sure many more pictures will follow.

I felt I had put the finishing touches on my hummingbird painting on the black paper so took it to class last night to ask the teacher his opinion.  I was expecting him to tell me to add still more light or something; but he looked carefully at it and told me it was good, to leave it alone and get it framed.  That made me feel good.

Getting Errands Done

Yesterday I headed to the post office to send moms painting to her. The last one I sent to Canada I sent by registered mail and it arrived in about 10 or 12 days so it is not too bad. I asked about insuring it and the lady told me that I could only insure it if I had a bill from a business, I thought that was kind of strange. It was a different lady this time from last time, the last time the lady told me insurance would cost 186 pesos or something like that; but I didn't buy it, so am unsure about the insurance thing.
It was Wednesday so I went to the tianguis for some veggies before going home. I got some cherry tomatoes which I love. They were selling bags for 10 pesos or about 83 cents CAD, this was a small grocery bag full. Pretty cheap and very tasty. I had a bunch for lunch and dinner and took a bunch down to the landlady, as when I saw the amount of them in a bowl I knew I would never eat them all before they went bad.
In the afternoon the fellow came to clean our air conditioners before summer so they are all ready to go when we need them, he also re-insulated the lines on the roof. He was very quick to point out that the cleaner he uses is a green product. Total cost for materials and labour was 550 pesos or about $45.51 CAD. Good deal.
Class today and some cleaning in the apartment, other than that nothing much going on.

New Kid On The Block

First of all Happy Mothers Day to anyone who is celebrating it today as we are in Mexico.  I basically have the day off, my Spanish class is cancelled this morning as my teacher has gone to the cemetery to put flowers on her mothers grave.  I called the Casa de la Cultura and whoever answered, perhaps the security man, said there are no classes today.  So my busy day became a day off, I suppose I could find out if the afternoon group is still going to Spanish class; but think I will just enjoy a day off instead.  Just call me lazy.


The big news today is that the landlords new grand baby arrived last night. He was supposed to arrive on the 17 th, (C section); but she wasn't feeling well and was having some contractions yesterday so went to the hospital around 5 PM.  I guess the Drs. were worried that the baby might be in distress so they shipped her to Obregon, where the baby was born, he is just fine and all is well.  The landlady came up early this morning and called me downstairs.  She didn't say what for, just told me to come down.  When I got inside she showed me a photo of the baby on the computer that her son had taken.  So congratulations all around.  He is a little sweetheart, not sure how much he weighed but he has chubby cheeks and is cute as a button.  He will be named Santiago.  The oldest son, (about 11 yrs. old) was trying to get his little brother,(about 2 1/2 yrs. old) to call the baby Charly; but grandpa insisted he say Santiago. Too funny, he is just starting to talk so he is cute.  So little Santiago is a Mothers Day baby.
Momma and baby may be home tomorrow so will take some pictures when I go over to see them.
So instead of rushing around for class this morning I packed up my moms picture ready to send it to her.  Well, almost ready, I have to leave the last tapeing up stuff until after the post office looks and sees that there is nothing against the law in the package, then I can tape it up and away it will go.  Not sure if the Post Office is open today so will wait til tomorrow to go there and go to the tianguis at the same time.
Have a good day.

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all of the mothers out there that are celebrating it today and of course especially to my own mom.  Hope everyone has a great day.
I talked to my mom on the phone this morning; but unfortunately she hasn't received her gift from me yet.  Why? Well, probably because I am late getting it into the mail.  I did finally finish it yesterday though, so now all I have to do is get it into the mail and in about 2 weeks she will get it.
I did a variation on the hummingbird that I had done on the black background; but did this one on a white background so that I could spray it good with fixative.  So it is all set to go.  I hope she likes it.

This is it.

Lucha Libre

A couple of weeks ago we were at the landlords for the landladies sisters birthday party.  Someone, name withheld to protect his identity, brought out a Lucha Libre belt.  He explained that he was now the middle weight champion of the Federacion de Lucha Libre de Baja California.  If I understood him correctly he said that the area covers the Baja Peninsula, and a large portion of the west coast of Mexico and part of California in the USA.  I might have not caught that all right; but it is close anyway.
He modeled his belt for us and I took a couple of rather fuzzy photos.
I blanked out his face to protect his identity.
Kind of interesting if you are into Lucha Libre.

Baby Gift

I have been busy attempting to make a baby gift for the landlords new grandson that is to be born on May 17 th, the same day as my oldest sons birthday.  I worked at it while we were in San Carlos for a week and finished it so just had to have it framed when we got home.
I am now working on a picture for my mom for Mothers Day, and yes, I do realize that it is going to be very late getting there.  I wanted to finish the baby gift first in case they had a baby shower for her before the baby is born.

Grandpa, (our landlord) loves to fish as a hobby so naturally all the grandsons are also interested in fishing, so I thought I would stick with that theme and start the new baby off with the right thoughts.
I hope the daughter in law likes it.
We spent a week in San Carlos looking after our friends dog and cat and I have a few pictures that I have to post from there.  We didn't do too much while we were there as I did something to my hip and could hardly walk for 2 or 3 days so it was pretty relaxing compared to our usual hectic schedule, (tongue in cheek).