Another typical day in paradise…
I got up this morning and it was already really hot out. The dog had knocked the screen door off the track at about 6:30am, so I woke up then….but I laid in bed for another hour I think. I got up and went to Lomas Mariposas, one of the buildings I manage, where I showed up just in time for the gardener leaving an hour early. I asked him why and his very logical answer was, “I am going to get some breakfast.” I didn’t feel like this was a good way to start the week, so I asked him to go back inside and finish up his time there by spreading out the potting soil he harrassed me to buy that has been sitting in bags in the yard for the last five days. He watered the lawn instead. I decided that this was a fight I was not going to win, so I continued on my daily rounds, leaving him to his thing. I wonder if he stayed around or left right after I did?
I then went to electric company to pay the bill for one of the other buildings I take care of, the self-service machine in front was not giving out receipts and I figured I couldn’t risk putting $4000pesos($400 USD) into the machine without getting any proof of payment, so I waited in line inside. The air-conditioning in that office makes it all worth while. I waited there for about 30 minutes, there were about 15 people in line and only one teller taking transactions. Not so bad, I have had to wait for longer periods before.
I later got some banking done and got some “For Sale” signs made up, the bank really didn’t take that long. Which was nice, I really cannot ever complain about the bank though, it is air-conditioned as well.
I went over to the little machine shop in my neighborhood where I have been trying to buy a used pressure washer for the last two weeks, they seem to be putting it together piece by piece. Today the machine is assembled and there is a hose associated with its operation(though not yet attached), the only thing missing is the spray-gun. He tells me that it should be done today. I can only hope, some of the biggest excitement in my life these days is imagining all the things that I can get washed when I get that pressure washer.
I later got a call from the architect that is in charge of putting a new wood post on the terrace of one of the apartments at Las Olas, the building I manage close to Mamitas Beach Club. We have been waiting for a few weeks for the piece of wood to come in from the jungle south of here, it is a special type of post that is actually a hardwood tree that has been attacked by a creeping vine(also a hardwood), killing the tree but leaving an the vine to grow into an exterior tree on the outside. It is a pretty cool finished product, mother nature does good work. I will try to include some pictures. Well anyway, the post finally arrived today and the architect wanted me to come and have a look at it to make sure it was ok. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but it turns out that the post was much too big and she wanted to see if I would notice. I did. The post was about 20 centimeters too wide, which would have thrown off the whole look of the building. The building owners are funny about that sort of thing. So I had to send it back, I hope it doesn’t take another 3 weeks to get another post…Arquitecta Lupe told me that these posts are cut to order, I don’t exactly know what that meant. It was really too bad, the piece of wood they brought had some really amazing patterns that would have shined up really nicely in the finished piece. Asi es.
I am going to finish my day today rooftop meeting with some guys from Mexico City that want to sell a piece of land by the beach and their real estate manager here seems to think that I will be a useful addition to the land sale, so we are going to talk about terms of the sale. I am pretty excited because this will be the biggest deal that I have been involved in so far, it will be a learning experience. I am also excited because the owners are members of the Mexican National Soccer team, so they are somewhat celebrities down here. We shall see what comes of this.
