Q and A

So todays is a question and answer forum, based upon questions curious readers have asked me….

1. How do you do laundry?
Well, it’s a process. Pronounced Canadian like PRO-cess, with a true “o” and not an “ah” sound. Step One: Take other clothes off the line, Step Two: take clothes out of washer and put them on the line you just cleared off, Step Three: put your clothes in, Step Four: turn on the garden hose and manually fill machine, Step Five: think about how much water you waste every time you wash clothes, Step Six: check on the washer until it’s in rinse cycle, Step Seven: turn the hose on again to rinse clothes, Step Eight: Put your clothes on the line, Step Nine: Dust the now-dried sand off your clothes before you take them off the line and put them in your closet.

2. How does C---- try to get out of doing laundry?
She says, “Those aren’t my clothes”
Which is the truth I find out when I ask the other person, and they say, “yes those are my clothes but she borrowed it, so she should wash it.”
Really, I deserve whatever fights I have with my children about laundry since 1. I always refused to do it as a child, and 2. I always refused to get rid of clothes when I had too many.

3. How do you manage your extensive, beautiful, lawn?
Well, interestingly enough, since we’ve only been growing grass for a few months, today was the first time it was cut. It was also the first time I saw/heard/smelled/experienced a lawn mower in Mexico. Our backyard now looks like a golf course, spots of grass, and spots of sand traps.

4. How did Steve Y’s heart surgery go, and why didn’t you update us about it?
It slipped my mind. It went well, they readmitted him into the hospital at least once afterwards because of a fast heartbeat, but that’s a somewhat normal complication of the procedure. They have another follow up appt today about low blood pressure, but may be home after that.

5. How many times have you been to the beach in the last 6 days?
Four.

6. How many times have you been swimming in the last 6 days?
Six.

7. Does your bathroom smell like the ocean, and how can I have the same scent?
Yes, just place a salty, wet, seaweed filled bathing suit on your towel drying rack until dry. Repeat.

8. How many times did you eat clams in the last 6 days?
see answer to number 5. We had them cooked, mixed with noodles in a linguini sauce, cooked, as well as in a ceviche, that is, raw with chopped up tomato, onion, cilantro, and lime juice.

9. How grateful were the children?
“Aw, clams, AGAIN. I’m not hungry.”- L

9. What was it like to eat clams 4 times?
I loved every minute of it, since I’d helped harvest them. Things just taste better when you had some part in it’s preparation. And I appreciated a reason to be in the ocean that was different than “swimming and enjoying it!”

10. Do you know anyone famous in literature?
Well, we bought our house and land here in Mexico from a relative of someone whose is true character of a current best selling Non-Fiction book.

11. Do children bathe outside in Mexico?
At least 2. I was dropping off Jazmin, one of the ladies that cooks and cleans for us, when her 2 boys dashed inside the house, hoping I didn’t see them. Apparentlly they were embarrassed. Everybody in the car laughed.

12. What are alternatives to regular lice treatment?
Hair dye, vinagre, then blowdrying your roots/scalp every other day or so until the lifecycle has cycled. It really works. I think I’m like 6 weeks clean at this point.

13. How do you interact with cows tied to stakes in the middle of the field?
I taunt them and tell them to eat me instead of the grass. My daughter J—says, “They won’t eat you, they don’t like junk food.” ☺