Victor the carpenter - Saturday

Saturday March 16, 2013      8:05am

Hacienda Contreras, Valle de Juarez, Jalisco

Victor, the carpenter, is coming to install my cabinet shelving in my tiny clothes closet this morning.  He asked if he could come at 8 – we’ll see what time that actually means!  Mexican time is like Guatemala time; it kind of makes me crazy.  Their rational is that they’ll get here when they can; and it’s no problem for the customer!  Well, what if one has something else to do?  Nancy used to say, “If I’m late, I’m happy to stay over whatever amount of time I’m late.”  My answer became, “If I have something else planned for that overtime, I’ll need to short your wage.” That’s difficult to do ‘cause I know how much Nancy's family needs the money, but she agreed to be a little more prompt.  Of course, she was at the mercy of the bus schedule from San Antonio to Antigua, which runs late also.  It appears to be a vicious cycle in Latin America. My need for appointment timing accuracy is kind of unrelenting - I hate to say but I find it disrespectful and downright irritating.  Hmm??!!

4/5/13 Boy, do I need to work on this flaw.  I want to be more patient and kind.

                        Here's a photo of Nancy, Carlos, Heisell (20) and Shirli (15)
                            Taken at my going away party November 2012

I attended the happy hour last evening with only four others:  Peter and Madeline, my next door neighbors and, I think it’s Linda and Jurgen.  All are from Canada; Peter, Jurgen and Linda are German (Hamburg) and Madeline is Quebecoise.  I’m happy I went ‘cause Madeline invited me to walk into town with them this am for the Saturday market.  I replied that it would depend on the timeliness of Victor!  Hopefully he’ll be finished …..

In putting together memoirs / journal / legacy/ autobiography I read a suggestion of starting with the present and kind of writing stories in parallel.  I’ll check more on that when I have access to the Internet – even my iPhone has no service here.