Lily, and the Mexican Nat'l Health Insurance

Robert:

Our secretary Lily is being treated in the IMSS Centro Medico in Guadalajara. A previous post explains why. She is covered through her Mexican National Health Insurance. (IMSS)

This coverage is also available to foreigners here, at minimal costs per year.

Here is a link to an excellent article by a Texas lady whose husband had a triple bypass performed in this same hospital. She details their experience very candidly; the good, the different, the challenging aspects.

http://susanjcobb.com/2011/05/23/final-thoughts-on-our-imss-experience-in-guadalajara/

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Advice To His Daughter

Robert:

Below is F. Scott Fitzgerald's letter of advice to his 11 year old daughter Frances, while she was away
at summer camp in 1933. I hope he was kidding about spanking the cat. :)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1921

Photo by The World's Work via Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F_Scott_Fitzgerald_1921.jpg)

AUGUST 8, 1933
LA PAIX RODGERS' FORGE
TOWSON, MATYLAND

DEAR PIE:

I feel very strongly about you doing duty. Would you give me a little more documentation about your reading in French? I am glad you are happy-- but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.

All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly. If there is such a volume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a sonnet of Shakespeare's in which the line occurs Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds....

I think of you, and always pleasantly, but I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bottom hard, six times for every time you are impertinent. Do you react to that?...

Half-wit, I will conclude. Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship...

Things not to worry about:
Don't worry about popular opinion
Don't worry about dolls
Don't worry about the past
Don't worry about the future
Don't worry about growing up
Don't worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don't worry about triumph
Don't worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don't worry about mosquitoes
Don't worry about flies
Don't worry about insects in general
Don't worry about parents
Don't worry about boys
Don't worry about disappointments
Don't worry about pleasures
Don't worry about satisfactions
Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful intrument or am I neglecting it? 

With dearest love,

         Dad

Robert:

The sonnet he referred to is this one:

SONNET 94

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

A Sad Post I Never Dreamed I'd Be Making

Robert:

For those of you who have been in this office, and met and worked with our secretary Lily, you know how sweet and kind she is. For those of you who have not had the absolute pleasure and privilege of knowing her, be assured you would  like and admire her greatly.

Lily has worked here with me almost every day for almost 6 years, and I can say truly, with no hesitation or exaggeration, that she has never, not once, raised her voice or used a harsh tone with anyone. Never. And we often are involved with stressful deals and difficult, tense negotiations. She handles it all with placid, sweet calm.

Lily received a very difficult diagnosis over the last few days. She is going to be in all of our thoughts and prayers.

She is being taken tonight from a hospital in Tepic to a special hospital in Guadalajara. The exact treatments are still being considered, pending additional test results, but she will probably begin with several weeks of radiation, then either chemo, surgery or both. 

Lily is in shock, as are we all. It is, for now, hard to accept that this is really happening to her.

For those of you who know Lily, if you would like more details of her situation, please email me.

robert@rfasoc.com

The Telling Vocabulary of Poets

Brad Leithauser:

I sometimes wonder what could be responsibly deduced about a poet whose work you’d never actually read—if you were supplied only with a bare-bones concordance providing tables of vocabulary frequency. A fair amount, probably. You might reasonably postulate that Housman was homosexual upon learning that “lad,” “lads,” and “man” together surface roughly two hundred times in his poetry, as opposed to something like twenty appearances of “woman,” “women,” “girl,” and “girls.” Or you might—a deeper challenge—presuppose the existence of an essential temperamental and creative schism between two giants upon learning that “tranquil” and its variants (“tranquility,” “tranquilizing,” etc.) materialize more than fifty times in Wordsworth’s poetry and about a dozen in Byron’s. Doesn’t this statistic present, in stark relief, the posed polarities of the poet as contemplative and the poet as a man of action?

At the end of the day, when darkness falls, a concordance turns out to be a sort of sky chart to the assembling night. It shows how the poet’s mind constellates. Even if we’d never read Milton, we might surmise something of his vast, magisterial temperament on being told that “law” emerges some fifty times in his complete poems. We might surmise something further on discovering that “Hell” surfaces nearly as often as “love.”

Casa Cantera, Price Reduction!

Robert:

Casa Cantera, my favorite house in Bucerias, has a new and substantially reduced price, effective immediately.

The price drops from $649,000 to $589,000. Here's another look at the hi def video walk-through we just shot last week, in case you missed it.

And this link will take you to the web page for this house, with complete data and many hi res photos.   CLICK HERE

Tranquility Break, The Real Sounds of Willie The Shake

Robert:

This is fascinating and thrilling to me. It's cultural and linguistic archaeology, and these guys are Indiana Jones and his dad. That's a metaphor of course; one that illustrates and teases, but diminishes,  because this is a brilliant, and deeply reverential, labor of love.

Manuel Visits Bucerias, Overstays His Welcome

Robert:

Our weather yesterday and today is not unheard of but is not all that common. Two days in a row now of mostly steady, light-to-moderate rain. Nice and cool.

This is all because of the remnants of former tropical depression Manuel. Two days is nice, but enough Manuel! Basta! You have overstayed your welcome. Time to get a move on amigo.

Here's what it looks like in front of my office today. First looking north up Lazaro Cardenas street. Then south.

A Water Logged Mexican Independence Day

Robert:

Today is the 16 of September, Mexican Independence Day, and normally we would have started the day with parades in every little town in Mexico. But, in this area, many had to be canceled. The remnants of former tropical depression Manuel paraded through the area instead. A different kind of "float" was on display.

There was nothing dramatic; rather just about 12 straight hours of steady moderate rain that began around 4 a.m. and finally tapered off around 4 p.m.

No wind, no lightning, just cool, steady rain. (Kind of nice, really, but I feel sorry for all the kids who missed out on the parades.)

"Hush you bird, my baby's a sleepin'..." Tranquility Break

This is from my parents' generation, but what difference does it make? This transcends all that in its innocence, joy, and affirmation.

New Video, Casa Cantera, The Most Beautiful Casa In Bucerias?

Robert:

I really think it is the prettiest house in Bucerias. That's subjective of course, and you may disagree, but that is my sincere opinion. It's an elegant yet cozy mansion-ette.

It's on Javier Mina street, in the center of the Zona Dorada, about a block and a half off the beach. This is a heck of a lot of lovely house; 4 bedrooms with partial ocean view from 3 of them; rooftop terrace with panoramic bay views, a heated pool, huge gourmet kitchen, lots of storage, a big utility room and nice garage, and only the best materials and quality throughout.

The house was constructed by Kent and Sandi Nelson, and every property the Nelsons developed was rock-solid, built like a fortress, and finished in the best taste, combining traditional style with contemporary practicality.

Let's take a walk together through this amazing house:

Here's a link to the main web page for this house, with lots of hi res still photos, and complete data. Click  HERE.

Is this the deepest pothole in Bucerias?

Robert:

At the end of the rainy season we always get a few serious baches (potholes). This one's a doozey.

Just kidding. We do get potholes, but not quite this deep. I just ran across this random photo on the web.

New Look For The Costa Dorada Exterior! Much Improved!

Robert:

In Condos Costa Dorada, right on the beach and across the street from our office, we  have 18 beautiful remodeled and unremodeled 2 and 4 bedroom units.  All but one are beachfront.  They are affordable and spacious units, and right here in the Zona Dorada. They are extremely rentable, with a loyal rental clientele for many years.

The new cream colored exterior paint has just been applied and the difference it makes is remarkable. It gives a much cleaner, brighter, more modern impression.

Before, the building alternated in horizontal swatches of white and yellow-gold. That was fine, but this new look is infinitely better in my opinion. A pat on the back to Gabrielle, the developer. Bien hecho!

To see the complete web site for these great units, click HERE. Until I can get it changed, the web site still has the photos with the old colors; see if you don't agree that the new look is a huge improvement.