The Mystery of the Disappearing Rook

The mystery of the disappearing rook nearly merited a blog entry here. It was a psychologically unsettling experience for me, as encountering a mystery often tends to be for even the greatest among us. And I am not even among the greatest.

In the late Sunday afternoon yesterday I had guests here at the loft. Three of them. This is a rare thing indeed . . . . Yesterday was Sunday, wasn't it?

The Fable of the Cricket and the Ant

I can now account for those 70 pesos that were missing after the foray into the Tianguis de Martes, the Tuesday Market. A pair of black, leather, fingerless driving gloves at 35 pesos. The balance was spillage--the odd pesos that spill out of one's pocket here and there as one walks around. Reasonable spillage is a legitimate line item.

I have gone to such pains to account for my expenditures yesterday for a reason. Once again, I wish to highlight the slanderous nature of the statement so often repeated by so many, “Stephen is not good at managing his money.”

The injustice of that statement always cut me and still cuts me.

Pancakes and The Vicar of Wakefield

A delightfully slow day. I spent it for the most part reading The Vicar of Wakefield.

When I mention these things that I am reading or have read, I honestly do not do that to impress you with my culture. It may sound as if that is the case sometimes, but it is not. It just so happens that I enjoy reading antique fiction. That is all. And since that is what I do sometimes, I mention the books now and again.

I Love to Piss Away Money

My own hypocrisy continues to astound me. I snipe at consumerism one day, and the next day I piss away hundreds of pesos in an orgy of it.

There is no way to make Tianguis de Martes, the huge Tuesday Market, photogenic. It is what it is.

The Baffled Dilettante

A Stroll on the Day of the Dead

Catrina




The traditional Day of the Dead bouquet, the traditional color scheme consisting of. . .



. . .the flor de cempasúchil and. . .



. . .the quelite.



The traditional Day of the Dead pastry, a sugared bread.







The photos above were taken in calle camino viejo al panteón, the street leading to the main cemetery, on the eve of the Day of the Dead.






The remainder of the photos were taken on Tuesday morning, the Day of the Dead, which I would describe as a very intense form of Memorial Day with a dash of Halloween thrown in.







This is the communal water tank.






















I am drawn to the back of the cemetery, the seldom photographed poor section, if I may refer to it as that.




This grave is decorated with dyed sawdust.








This is the norteamericano section of the cemetery.