Day 5 in Cozumel

Okay. You know how I said my only criteria for a house was “Not a hotel. Must have a pee trap?”

Well, obviously desperate to get the heck OUT of this hotel, we started our house hunt at 7 a.m. after a family picnic of assorted Mexican pastries.

(SIDE TRIP)

The kids each picked a different pastry and claimed their treats were AMAZING. I finegaled a bite from each kid. Boeing had a round thing made of bread with sugar on it. He was gobbling it so quickly, I actually feared for his fingers. I took a bite. Dry and tasteless. I forced a swallow.

Brooklyn had some bread contraption shaped like an hour glass. “Its so good, mom.” Hoping it was better than Boeing’s, I took a bight. Rock hard and tasteless.

Brighton chose a triangle pastry that I almost chipped a tooth on. He apparently liked it since he almost chomped off my thumb while I was handing it back to him.

I dug through until I found some doughnuts. Needed a good 15 seconds in the microwave, but at least edible.

(BACKGROUND PARAGRAPH)

House hunting is practically impossible when you can’t just CALL the number every time you pass a house for rent. Starling and I both had our cell phones on day three and were taking down numbers. We also lost BOTH our phones on DAY 3. You read right. LOST both of our iPHONES. ON the SAME day. I lost mine somehow between the beach and hotel even though I was SURE I grabbed it. (I think I must have sat it on the car while I was loading up kids). Starling was running back and forth using his phone for contacts calling numbers at the hotel’s front office and thinks he left it at the front desk. But cell phones don’t exactly get “turned in” here. TALK about being disconnected from the WORLD. We were downloading apps to text and talk for free to all of our Americanas! So if you NEVER hear from me again… THAT’s WHY.

Starling went and bought a Mexican phone for $14 with 100 pesos on it. (Which is prepaid minutes). Talk about going back to the 90’s. No predictive text or keyboard of letters. And we ran out of minutes before three o’clock! He went to the Mexican Wal-Mart (with American prices) and bought 500 pesos of minutes. He showed the lady his number in his contacts. She added his 500 pesos to the contact listed above HIS number. And fix it. ‘No can do,’ says the store manager. Gotta call the buddy, now doing the happy dance, and work it out with him. FANTASTICO! (Luckily it was a member of our new church).

(BACK TO POINT: assuming I remember the point I was trying to make…)

My STANDARDS.

Lowered to the dust, I was on the edge of a mental breakdown, when yet ANOTHER person who was SUPPOSED to show us their house for rent told us they rented it YESTERDAY after they talked to US! (Despite the fact that they couldn't meet with us until this MORNING). And almost EVERY house we saw for rent was being rented by a rental agency that NEVER answered the phone.

“So?? We are back to driving around like a stupid dog trying to catch his tail. Fantastic. This is great.  We will NEVER find a house! These real estate people are clueless idiots! How do they manage to DRESS themselves in the morning? How do they expect people to RENT their properties if they won’t even answer their freaking phones?? ”

Starling’s typical “take up for the enemy” speech:

“Um. We’ve been here five days and two of those days were Saturday and Sunday. And its 7 o’clock in the morning.” He is so annoying when I’m mad.

I was right, of course, about the realtors. When they finally opened at NINE, Starling gave them our criteria (which was pretty straight forward- “ANYTHING you HAVE will do”) and they couldn’t come up with ANY houses that they could show us today. In fact, the chic he talked to said they only had two available rentals. Coincidentally, EVERY house we SAW for rent was listed by THEIR company. And that was at LEAST 50. Starling called and said, “Okay. Your list has TWO rentals. I have EIGHT addresses with your number listed here as the agency in charge of renting them out.”

While the little blonde with air in between her ears looked up all of the listings, we started banging doors. (Or rattling gates. There is no such thing as touching a Cozumel door. Everyone’s residencias are completely gated). We found an apartment for $125 a month. (I’ll live ANYWHERE but the hotel, remember)? Except… NOT really.

We tried to be frugal there for a minute. We tried to be excited about one and two bedroom apartments for $300- $400/month. We did. I gave it a valiant effort.

Then we went inside the condos across from our church. $1300/month resort style living.

“THIS is it! Its perfect!!”

Kids: “I want to live here forever!” , “Look at the pool!!” , “Look at the STAIRS! I can climb on top of the roof!”

Me: “Look at the STORAGE!!”

Starling the party pooper: “Look at the price! Its not furnished and that price doesn’t include internet, electricity, OR water. We’ll have to buy beds and couches and a washer and dryer!”

Miss Frugal five minutes earlier: “It’ll be fine. Look at these CLOSETS!”

Starling haggled the owner down to $875 a month. “For $750 I’ll do it.”

Starling: “We would have to buy t.v.s. Electronics are TWICE as high as the states.”

Wendi: “Yeah, but LOOK at this PANTRY!!”

I finally said we’d keep looking but NOTHING would top that brand new, pristine two story condo with the most well designed cabinetry I’ve ever seen.

The realtor FINALLY grew a brain cell and told us she could show us a house. Sitting on a corner smashed in between lines of houses, the 2nd house looked like a quaint little villa for $650/month. Nothing included, partially furnished. We walked in and WOW!! The place was MASSIVE! Bigger than my $1400/month house in MS. It was technically a 4 or five bedrooms, 3 bath. (If you consider living rooms to be for beds). And the upstairs! Bonus space everywhere I turned. And on top of the roof, a gorgeous, HUGE tiled patio. The entire house was filled with entricate detail, mosaic tiled floors, tall ceilings, etc. LOVED it! Kids LOVED it! Starling REAAALLY loved it.

BUT I didn’t like the kitchen, which was huge but hideous, but situated smartly behind a closed door, and, as Starling pointed out, I never cook so why do I care? AND I wanted to repaint the inside. AND we’d have to buy a washer and dryer, furniture, a stove, a fridge, and beds. (And couches because I would NOT use the pink dilapidated couches in the living room. And there were almost NO closets and NO storage space. Which could only mean one thing. A LOT of clutter, or we were adding built in shelves. (And that’s kind of a lot to do when you are only renting… and Starling wouldn’t even entertain my idea of BUYING the house. Something about I’m insanely rash and bla bla bla). The other thing- NO yard. As in NADA. Unless you count the flower bed wedged between the privacy gate and front door.

We went BACK to the house where Starling had previously abandoned me two days before. Senora Angela finally got a key made to break into the house we might want to rent. (Because her current renter has the keys and she never thought to duplicate it). JUDGES the woman who left my OWN renters in MS NO keys because I don’t even think I’ve ever owned keys to my house. I certainly never locked my doors. (Don’t worry. They now have keys! At least I hope that all worked out…).

I literally walked into the front door and turned to Starling and said, “Okay. We are getting THIS one.” Fully furnished with dark brown leather couches, beds, washer and dryer, and all utilities included. Including internet. Three bedroom, three bath, not INSANELY large like the other house, but spacious enough. Lovely kitchen. And the porches are MASSIVE! Mexican style tile. And the yard is a tropical paradise! Palm trees and all the other beautiful tropical plants that make Cozumel beautiful. AND it comes with a gardener that maintains all the landscaping. $1,000/month. PLUS Senora Angela told us we can use her insanely spacious compound that’s connected to her house anytime we want. For church celebrations, etc.

(LEFT FIELD)

Right after we decided to move to Cozumel, I became increasingly interested in orphanages and birth mothers trying to put their children up for adoption to Americans, and the like. In one of my creative moments, I designed an orphanage on paper. I drew it out, labeled it, and showed it to Starling. “How much with this cost to build?”

“WHEW! A LOT.” He listened to me ramble about EACH part of my drawing and how it would all work and yata yata.

I told you in my last blog that we stopped at Senora Angelas property because I thought it was Los Ciudaded de Angeles because I saw the word Angela on the property. It wasn’t, of course. But Angela walked us through the entire property. Starling and I just stared at each other. EVERY detail of my orphanage drawing. EVERY last detail. So how much would my orphanage cost? One million dollares. It has TONS of hotel rooms. A GIGANTIC central hall (like a gymnasium) with a commercial kitchen. And so much room outside that every single person staying in the hotel rooms could play outside and not be crowded. The house for rent situated right in the front of the property separated by a concrete wall. JUST like in my drawing.

(BACK TO THE HOUSE)

Obviously I love the house and the yard. I LOVE the porches and the tiled trails going around the house to the back patio. (Kids and bikes= ME and QUIET). The only downfall to the house. We can NOT move into the house until January 5th. That’s like DECADES away.

But Angela wants us to be her renters SO bad (so she can see our kids and probably Starling, too) that she will rent us two of her hotel rooms for $14/night. (She started at $50/night).

So I went from BEGGING and PLEADING in my morning prayers to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING that would be live-able so we could move out of our hotel. And now we have 3 AMAZING options and I wish I had my girl friend clan here to help me decide which house we should get.

Starling wants the humongous house. Brighton wants to live at whatever place we are at, at any given moment. Brooklyn loves each of them dearly and equally, and can’t decide her favorite so she’ll just let Bry pick our new house. Boeing follows Bry around repeating Brighton’s every word with vigor, “I wan DIS howse! I wan live HERE por EVER!” And I am no better than Brighton. Every house I see I basically salivate and millions of pinterest posts start clogging up my thought processor.

I have culled out house number one because its the smallest, in a condo complex with a shared pool, and my kids would probably ALWAYS be in a neighbor’s porch swing, running on their patio, or tom peeping through their sliding glass doors.

Number 2 and 3….I just don’t know. Starling says the cheap rent of #2 would give us furniture buying bonus and we could sale it if we move back to the states. And I LOVE the thought of decorating from scratch. But no yard? In the land of glorious vegetation? BUT he agrees that #3 would probably be a bonding friendship. Angela wants Starling to buy the whole property and owner finance. She said she will claim him as family so he doesn’t have to pay high taxes. I don’t know WHERE that came from bc Starling never mentioned buying it. We are scared to lease a house for $1,000/month until Starling gets his work visa and can make “legal” money.

(RANDOM THOUGHTS of MY DAY)

When we went to Burger King we spent $15 on food. Prices are exactly the same as U.S Burger King except NO dollar menu. (But they do have the COOLEST playground I’ve ever seen). Starling asked the workers how much they make. $6 a DAY. (I told Starling we need to open a Burger King. Can you imagine the PROFIT they are rendering charging American prices working Mexican workers?!?)

We asked the guys pumping our gas how much they make. $4 a DAY.

We asked the hotel manager that is like the highest up of high ups in his job. $3 an hour. He’s big ballin.  

I can NOT compute. If Sam’s Club and Wal Mart have U.S. prices and ALL the little Mexican stores throughout the entire island are U.S. prices than HOW in the HECK do the Mexican people survive??

And on a selfish note, if adults make $4-$5 a day working a run of the mill job, how much would I have to pay for a couple of hours of babysitting?

I LOVE living here. The people are just plain amazing. Even when it looks like they have nothing, every time I go to a person’s house they bring our entire family drinks and try to cook us dinner. I just want to get in a house so I can return the favor. I’ll offer them some mac n cheese and ramon noodles. Because that’s going to be our Mexican staple since I can’t make tortillas and edible beans and rice.

What house would you pick? Big yard and smaller house or giant house/ no yard?