Spanish Word of the Day - Muro

The latest trailer park skirmish involves....yes, you guessed it, Flo. Oh, thank the goddesses for Flo or this would've been one boring snowbird year. Plus she's responsible for our very own bingo parlor which has been quite a hit - the last Bingo Wednesday is today and I hate to see it go.

So back to the skirmish which involves Flo's new neighbors and the wall (muro) they're building. The new neighbors aren't new to the park - they already have another place here - but they bought the trailer next to Flo's. These are prime trailer spots, right atop the seawall, nothing blocking their views of the sea, wonderful happy hour gathering places of which we had a few while they were deciding whether to buy that particular space. Although you don't really buy a space here; you rent the space and buy the trailer that's on the space if there is one. Flo and these people were friends and all was right with the world.

Until the wall. The man part of the couple wanted a wall for privacy so he began building a cement block wall and when Flo saw it she went over and said he needed to delete the top row and he complied. But then he started building the wall between his space and Flo's and he built it about 2 inches onto her property making it impossible for her to get behind her trailer. She said he had to move it; he said tough shit, you're too big to fit behind the trailer anyway.

Let the battle begin!

Back and forth the parties went to the office to complain, no one getting an answer because the park owners  want to stay out of it which is par for the course.

Finally the man neighbor said he'd move the wall but that it was going to be eight feet high so there! The day came for the wall to be moved - yesterday - and it wasn't. So Flo went to the hardware store and bought a sledgehammer. Flo doesn't speak Spanish so how did she convey what she wanted? Did she mime busting up a wall? Maybe she saw one hanging on a hook. Flo then came home and tore down that wall!

More running back to the office where the owner said "leave me out of it, get along" which is pretty much what you would say to grown-ups and not ten-year-olds.

There is a little bit of karma involved here. When Flo first moved into that spot she put up a fence way over on the neighbor's property and not only that, she had a cement slab built for her washing machine. Problem was the slab and washing machine were up against the sun room door so when those neighbors arrived for the season, they couldn't get the door open. Flo had to move both the fence and the washing machine and to make further retribution, she let the woman do laundry at her place.

I know how stubborn Flo and that man are but especially the man. When he first talked about the wall both his wife and I said "that will block the view of the sunset" and he said who cares, privacy is more important. I spent three weeks with them in New Mexico - I know there's no changing his mind once it's set.

I'm not sure what's next. Hopefully the new wall won't be eight feet high. Hopefully eventually this will pass and they'll be friends again. That happens here a lot - one year someone's not speaking to you, the next they are.

Flo's new neighbors moved out the trailer that was on that spot and are building a house of some sort. Hopefully that sinkhole the previous owner fell into won't reappear. Just sayin'.

Parade of Putas

Sometime this afternoon the owner returns and I will be officially released from my house-sitting duties. Even though I've been in the trailer for three weeks, I do go to the house twice each day to check on it - in the morning to raise the hurricane shades and water the plants, in the evening to lower the shades and turn on the lights. A couple days ago the cops were at the neighbor's house - someone broke into the storage shed - and that made me nervous and made me wonder if I shouldn't spend the nights at the house. But the neighbor's shed was broken into even though the house was occupied so I doubt if my presence would've been much of a deterrence. Besides, I'm pretty convinced that the break-in was done by friends of one of the many putas who frequented that house.

Man, you should've seen the parade of putas when the gringo first moved in for the winter months. I had no idea so many Ladies of the Night lived in this town. I wondered if some of them maybe didn't come all the way from Calle Doce. One of the women I'd seen many times before around town, skinny and tweaker-ish. Some of the women were very beautiful - especially one woman who seemed a little older than the rest with her hair done in a beautiful thick braid. She wore the prostitute uniform of skin-tight low-slung pants (all the better for showing off the Sonoran Belly), tight blouse with not a lot of cleavage, jean jacket, jewelry. Some of the women even brought their babies with them.

I know all this because to get the old gringo's attention the women (and one or two girls) had to walk past the windows of my house and then call his name at the gate of his house. One time the tweaker-ish one asked me where the gringo was and when I said I didn't know, she asked me for money.

Suddenly the parade stopped. I speculated that either the gringo's supply of little blue pills had run out or his funds had. But I did notice that as the trickle slowed, one woman would hang out across the road/alley and stare at the windows of the house I was staying in. The windows are reflective so it could've been that she was merely staring at her image in the windows. It felt more like she was scoping the place out. A year or two ago, after the gringo went north, there were a lot of break-ins along this stretch of beach. That doesn't seem coincidental.

Having that gringo as a neighbor is one of the things I will not miss. I will miss the kitchen counters and the speedy DSL. I'll miss the privacy and the view. Oops, time to walk over and water the plants, raise the shades on a whole new season...summer is coming to Kino.

Winter Recap

Bingo room with a view

On November 19 when I ended that blog post with "I'm out of here," I didn't mean for four fucking months (which may turn into forever...I don't know, we'll see how this goes). It was kind of a hellish holiday/birthday season and I'd rather not talk about it. I did spend hours watching Criminal Minds' marathons which at least made me grateful some maniac wasn't harvesting my organs (while I was still alive) or a crazy woman hadn't paralyzed me and turned me into a living doll.

That last post was about how slow the snowbirds were in returning to the trailer park and already most of them are gone. Of those eleven full-timers I mentioned, well most of them have plans to be gone for the summer, some leaving as early April, so it will be down to about six of us. Five of "them" if I get my act together and get the van turned into a camper and head out of here for at least a couple months.

There were no big dramas at the trailer park this year. No one: died; had a psychotic break and had to leave the country; suffered a stroke; tried to kill their wife and neighbor. There was a mini-drama involving Flo's dog who bit someone. Nothing unusual there except that the dog bit Flo's friend and the friend's husband dragged the cops over to Flo's place. The cops sided with Flo who said, "hey, the woman was in my house; it was her fault." Twisted logic if you ask me but that's how the cops saw it, too. Somehow things always work out in Flo's favor. I almost typed "flavor." Maybe I'm suffering mini-strokes.

Bingo was a big deal at the trailer park. In the old days only people from the park were there and pots were around 30 pesos. Now all these ladies from New Kino come down and bingo has turned into a big event with regular bingo wins about 400+ pesos and blackouts over 1,000. The Frenchie sells fresh-baked breads before the game - baguettes, kalamata olive loaves, even bagels. Our table's turned into a potluck feast with all kinds of food, not to mention a few bottles of wine, and other tables are beginning to follow suit. Sadly there are only two more Wednesday bingo games left which signals the true end of the snowbird season, at least here at Islandia.

Of course a lot of other events happened in Kino this winter but I stuck close to home, watching the sea (and  TV) from the wicker chair in the house. Now I'm back at the trailer, finished with my nine-month house-sitting gig and so happy to be home in my tin can, vowing to get things organized and to try to revive at least a little creativity. Besides, I'm now caught up on all of the Criminal Minds' episodes. However, someone just gave me the first four seasons of Sons of Anarchy. And there's always The Walking Dead to look forward to. Not to mention Dexter....The Following...