So what do we do all day?

People often ask us what we do all day, now that we are retired and live in Mexico. That’s a hard question to answer since it can vary so much! For example, here is what happened one day recently.
It was a Saturday morning and there was a meeting scheduled for the Amigos de Bucerias civic group. Harold is the vice president so he was going to the meeting for sure. Manuel, the contractor who has been working around our house was due to come over and work, also.
I stayed home from the meeting because Manuel wasn’t here yet. After Manuel arrived and had been working for a while, some friends of ours, Dennis and Jeannie, stopped by. They had been in PV for an errand and wanted to know if we were interested in going out for brunch.
I told Manuel where we were going and also left a note for Harold. As it turned out, that isn’t where we went. The Red Apple is a nice breakfast place in Bucerias but it is on the 3rd floor. Dennis hurt his knee last week and can barely get around much less climb to the 3rd floor. So we went to Bambu which is right across the street.
While we were eating breakfast, we talked about Dennis’s injured knee. He thought crutches would be good to have. Patricia lives near Bambu so we went to see if she had any crutches. She looked and did not have any at her house. She was fairly sure there were some in the Friendship Club closet at the Regional Hospital. We visited with Patricia for a while and she gave Dennis some suggestions for doctors.
After stopping by the house to see if Harold wanted to ride over to the Regional Hospital (he did not) off we went to Pitillal. It takes maybe 30 minutes to drive over there. Jeannie, Dennis and I went to the hospital and parked in the (dirt) parking lot. Despite it being Saturday afternoon, the hospital was pretty busy. Since it is where the cleft palate program takes place I am familiar with the hospital. We found the closet and took a look inside. Plenty of stuff for sure, but not crutches. About that time I remembered that last year our friend Monika hurt her foot pretty badly. I thought that perhaps she had used crutches. Her husband Luis has a lot and bodega neat the Regional Hospital and he is often at the bodega when not at work.
We piled back in the car and went to the bodega. It is maybe 6 blocks away from the hospital on another dusty street. Sure enough, Luis was there as was his brother Eddie and friend Rafa. They were watching the World Cup. We sat down to see the end of the game with them. Of course, beers were offered and accepted. Rafa was busy making ceviche so we also sampled that. Luis showed Dennis and Jeannie around his shop, bodega and party yard. But no crutches were located. Luis said Monika is a hard-headed German and refused to use them. The yard has several fruit trees and they had bunches of ripe bananas so we each took a bunch and headed back to Bucerias.
Harold was home when we got back. He was talking to our friend Alex who is a Bahia de Banderas fireman. Dennis and Jeannie stopped in to visit for a little while before heading back home to La Penita where they live. Alex had brought over some photos from a course he taught at the Vallarta Palace hotel. It was a week long class held each morning covering life saving, CPR, fire fighting and first aid.
Alex asked us if we have a Sam’s card, which we do. He and his wife Karena wanted to go shopping at Sam’s but don’t have their own card. We didn’t have anything else planned so off we went to San Jose del Valle to pick up Karena and their 6 year old daughter Mirtha Zarai, who is also called Mirzai, pronounced Mere Zye Ee.
But first, dinner! Mirzai wanted to go to KFC because she likes to play in the Chickylandia play area, and Alex and Karena like KFC too. The locals refer to it just as Kentucky, pronounced Ken-tooky. We were surprised when Alex insisted on treating us to dinner. The chicken was very good and Mirzai had fun playing. Harold and I were the only gringos in KFC at the time and it was fairly busy.
Sam’s was really busy. Alex explained that payday had been the day before for many people, including him. They are paid on the 15th and 30th of the month so right after that the stores are full. They stocked dup on some household essentials and a couple treats. Karena, Mirzai and I went to Walmart to look for something while the guys checked out at Sam’s. Walmart was also packed! Mirzai was like every other kid and saw many things she liked. But unlike most American kids, she didn’t ask her parents one time “can I have that?” We took them back home and then returned to Bucerias, put away our few things we bought at Sam’s, and crashed in front of the TV.
So, now you know what we did that one day. Every day seems to bring something unexpected.