Walking in Mérida will get little safer for seniors

April 30, 2012 By

On Calle 60 and Calle 47, outside the Comex across from parque Santa Ana, one of the worst hazards I've seen in the Centro.

The newspaper says that the local obstacle course known as sidewalks will be improved in the historic center to make them safer for senior citizens. I think junior citizens like me will benefit as well.

We can’t do much about the sidewalks being narrow, but we can move poles and wires to make them safer. Why am I concerned about this? Because guess who’s coming to visit.

My Mom, at 82 and a little unsure on her feet, is insisting on coming down to see Casa Nana when it’s finished. She hasn’t been on a plane since she took me to Disney World in 1974, and that’s only the beginning of my worry. She falls down very easily. This would scare me if she were traveling to Palm Springs or Boca Raton. But she’s coming to Mérida. I don’t know how she’s going to survive the white-knuckle cab ride from the airport, but she probably will, and then she’ll want to walk. She’ll look up and ask a question about some charming hand-painted sign, and before she can say “cocina económica,” down she’ll go. Oy.

The newspaper said that in 2011, most pedestrian accidents (that went reported) happened when people were forced off the sidewalk and into the the street, and into the path of a bus. This has happened to me often, up until [Read more...]

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Not again! Which architect to choose?

April 28, 2012 By

Deja vu! The doorbell rang today and we opened it to find a tote bag filled with architects’ proposals. There goes our Sunday.

Paul is on the building committee of a municipal board, and he will be expected to intelligently discuss all 15 pounds of spiral-bound puffery and fairy dust. The city’s Request for Proposal called for a 20-year master plan, and some big-name architects are lining up for a piece of the action.

I paged through them in about 20 minutes. The proposals were the same-ish, kind of impressive, kind of vague — and in the end it I got the impression that I could read through them completely and still not be able to make a firm judgement. Everyone had solid credentials and a good portfolio, with work we were familiar with. Two of the firms are home-town favorites, however, and the outsiders from Boston or Philadelphia will have to overcome that. Can the committee overcome any bias?

It all reminded me of our painful, painful Mérida architect search in January. We flew down with a definite bias, [Read more...]

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Living indoors and outdoors, for better and for worse

April 26, 2012 By

The architects are giving us what we asked for: Indoor-outdoor living, with plenty of cross ventilation. Although just two of us will live there, maybe more if a parental unit joins us, we’re designing for rental and re-sale in mind. That’s why we’re building four bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, in our medium-size property.

No, we’re not aiming for a modernist aesthetic. 3D renderings just tend to look modern, and since we haven’t really discussed finishings and colors − other than to indicate that we want traditional embellishments and a mellow pallet − they can’t infuse these drawings with anything specific. This drawing is just to show the bones of the place.

On the upper floor, a bridge joins rooms divided by a central courtyard

So far, plans call for a main building with three guest suites, a kitchen, media room, center courtyard and a large terrace. Walk around the lap pool and there’s an all-new construction casita with a master suite downstairs, a guest bathroom, and an exercise room and roof terrace upstairs. We asked for a lot, and demanded plenty of cross ventilation. I think they came through.

Click to see

What we also got was a house where the bedrooms can’t be reached from any other room without going outside. It guarantees each room will get a breeze, but it also guarantees we will occasionally get wet when it’s time for bed.

We could, if worse came to worse, cut stairs into the terrace or center courtyard, so no one has to go all the way to the front of the house just to go upstairs, but it pains me to do it. And I think the bridge is kind of cool! The practical New England Yankee in me is dying a little death right now, however. The hip, new Meridano in me is taking him down.

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Isn’t expat blogging a two-way street?

April 23, 2012 By

On my 10-minute commute to work (yes, I am lucky) along a two-lane state road, I pass many shops that serve our Mexican residents, and I notice lots of store signs and billboards written in Spanish. Day laborers congregate at a designated church parking lot, providing a safe place for workers to gather — certainly safer than exit ramps and other roadside areas.

Designated day labor corner

Designated day labor corner.

Are they marveling at our spring colors, uploading pictures of daffodils and dogwoods, sharing stories about seeing cardinals and blue jays? Do they scoff at what passes for ants around here? Or what passes for Mexican food? Wonder if the tap water is as potable as we say? Tell tales about our bureaucracy? Remark on the customer service at Marshalls or Macy’s? Wonder why the Walmarts here aren’t as nice? Are they blogging all this?

Our morning cleaning crew is outsourced, and guess where the workers come from. I wish I could engage in a little small talk with some of them. The guy I often catch sweeping around my desk at 9:30 a.m. lives in my neighborhood. It’s unlikely, but what if he’s from Yucatán? I once left a Yucatán Today on my desk hoping he’d see it, and [Read more...]

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Three Mérida homes that deserve some love (updated)

April 16, 2012 By

Casa Santa Lucia

Beautifully designed Mérida homes, deprived of a loving buyer, are common in Yucatán. It seems every day there’s a new one, cold and alone, sitting idle in the streets of the Centro Historico. Won’t you adopt a deserving home today? Here are four:

1. Casa Santa Lucia. It’s a little small, but really smart looking, and check out the view from the roof patio. I thought for a while that I might have a view from my upper terrace, but it’s not the case. It’s a view of nothing; just there to catch a breeze, so I’m jealous

[Read more...]

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Speaking of driving, here’s why we’re doing very little of it

April 14, 2012 By

Spring is beautiful in our little corner of the northeast this year, and normally Paul and I would be planning a weekend road trip or two. From where we live, we are blessed with wonderful daytrip destinations in all directions: The Jersey shore, the Connecticut shoreline, the Hudson Valley, Litchfield County and the Berkshires are all places we love and can drive to in a hour or two.

But this year, we’re not. One reason is gas prices. When it takes $60 dollars to fill my tank, I think twice before I drain it. Joy rides feel especially self-indulgent.

Perhaps another reason is that we’ve been together almost 20 years, and we’ve done these trips over and over. We love the unchanging nature of these places, but the other side of the coin is that … they’re so unchanging. We’ve seen them and we’re ready for something new.

And that dovetails with our plans to move to Mérida. Now that we have future plans that require substantial [Read more...]

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