FRIDAY JANUARY 23, 2015

I don’t even know where to start. Hmmm…. I guess I’ll start by saying we did NOT move into the house we were SUPPOSED to move into.

Can I just take a moment to remind everyone that I am a pretty decent person that has not murdered a SINGLE person? Yes. Remember that.

I don’t like bad mouthing people, but (which is obviously the precursor for me dogging the heck out of someone), let’s just say the individual (NO NAMES- cough cough) that we were dealing with regarding said HOUSE turned out to be an adorable, sweet little compulsive LIAR.

We were told that the “man” would definitely be out by the 17th and to make ourselves comfortable until then. And we were given free rent in the hotel she owns, free laundry, free cleaning, etc.

All the while THIS was going on, Starling was hitting walls all the way around attempting to get into the Tourism business doing snorkeling and diving.

Now, I told everyone that we moved to Cozumel because we wanted to, we fasted and prayed and felt like we were supposed to, and I wanted to learn Spanish. One thing about me; once I ask a question and get an answer, I’m pretty much good to go. I don’t question God too often. However, the closer we got to moving, the more daunting the move seemed. We literally had NOTHING in savings and we had ZERO clue what we would do when we got there. In my prayers one night, I said, “We are going no matter what, but how ARE we going to live when we get there?” I got a VERY distinct prompting that a man would find us and tell us exactly what we would do. The next morning, I cheerfully told Starling and all my friends what would happen and I never worried about it again. (Its okay if my friends NOW admit that they thought I was loony. Starling would NEVER say so, but he totally did).  

The same week a guy asked Starling if he would sell his apartment complex. Starling and his business partner sold it, made a nice chunk of change, and we suddenly had savings.

I’ve never had a “false” prompting, so when we climbed off the ship, I kind of (and by kind of I mean COMPLETELY) expected some random dude to be waiting on the dock. “Hi, I’m John. Welcome to the island. If you’ll come right this way I will tell you what you’ll be doing to make money on the island.”

Well, there was no John. There was no MAN at all. We’d been in Cozumel for 3 weeks and hadn’t met “the man,” and Starling wanted to do the impossible; take tourists scuba diving and snorkeling. Apparently one needs a work visa, business license, AND a LOT of money. Let’s just say… that dream was looking a little BLEAK.   

When the house fell through, we took the opportunity to go to the mainland and check it out. We even bounced around the idea of just moving to the mainland. We figured it would take a solid 6 months for Starling to get all of his licensing taken care of and he could buy and sale cars, atvs, etc. on the mainland like he did in Hattiesburg.

When we first got to the mainland it was like returning to civilization after a primitive camping trip. Stores and more stores! And highways! And no ferry’s to get to another city! It was fantastic.

“We are SO moving here!” I said the first day.

“An Auto Zone! A Home Depot! We are moving here,” said Starling the first day.  

We went to Cancun, Tulum, Playa, etc. Everything was beautiful and so close together. We looked at some houses with a Realtor.

“This feels exactly like the States,” I said the second day.

“Yeah, not much like an island,” Starling said the second day.

“I’m ready to go back to Cozumel,” I said the 3rd day.

“Yeah. Me, too,” Starling said the 3rd day.

Starling and I were sitting in a Burger King, both of us on our lap tops while the kids played in the play place (that YES exists in Mexico unlike the po-dunk broken video games that we are used to). THAT is when it happened. We got an instant messaged from… The Man.

(I’ve already told him this story- and his head is big ENOUGH- so I’ll give you the short version).

Basically, Mike told us NOT to move to the mainland, to come and talk to him in Cozumel. He didn’t say what about, but his wife and I had already become “FB friends,” (people are marrying people they meet on FB so don’t judge me for finding my friends on there), and wanted to get our kids together anyway.

Well. We went to their house for dinner several days later. They met us. They fed us. (Or stuffed us like turkeys. I couldn’t move for two days). And Mike (or Miiikeeee, as our Spanish friends call him) offered Starling a partnership. And we’ve been dating ever since.

Brooklyn loves their daughter, Brighton finally has a GUY friend (who is 8 and amazing- and a BOY... key thing there. Starling can only tolerate seeing his son in high heels for so long). And Boeing loves their oldest son who has a high tolerance for pain. (As playing with Boeing is going to be painful, usually resulting in bruising and/or blood).

We barely even had time to worry about living in a hotel, because we had basically moved in with Michelle and Mike.

The 15th rolled around. “Are we still good on moving in on the 17th?”

“Oh yes. Absolutely.”

17th came along. “Can I go ahead and move in my stuff?” I ask in hybrid/broken Spanglish.

I was told, “Bla Bla… bla bla…” (I have NO idea what I was told). The INDIVIDUAL talks faster than the warning at the end of a drug commercial. “Do not take if you are pregnant or nursing, have children, or have thought about having children, have had a hysterectomy, have hair, are bald, have trouble sleeping, are in a coma, are a female, are a man...”

After we played a fun game of, “Un momento… Let me type in what I want to say to you on my computer translater, and you talk SLOW enough for me to type in what you are saying…” I nearly broke my very important disclaimer. (About being decent and not being a murderer).

The woman said that the people living there (remember there was only ONE man. Well. Then she claimed there was two. At some point she decided THREE people were splitting rent and somehow her friend/enemy the prostitute was “working” there) decided they didn’t want to leave so she was just going to keep renting to them.

‘WHAT? I have done my dishes in a bathroom sink for a MONTH waiting on a house that I only love for the YARD (which in hindsight IS a little dumb) because of promises that we would DEFiNITELY be in the house TODAY, which I have been counting down the days like a five year old counts down to Christmas, and you decide TODAY to be HONEST with me?? WHY didn’t you tell me this- oh… A MONTH AGO when we had TWO other HOUSES picked out!?’

But, I couldn’t say that in Spanish. Plus, the landlord scares the heck out of me, so all I did was

stare at her. Like she was an alien.

Oh, but it gets better. She THEN said, “But it’s fine. I can just rent you this whole back area like we’ve been doing,” (because, remember, she’s now made it nice. She hung a clothes rod so I could hang up ten shirts), “for even cheaper than the house.”  I held my tongue so hard, I nearly bit it off.

“And if you want to move walls around, we’ll do it. Its nice here. You like it. Its no problem for me.”

And that’s when I began to wonder if that was her plan ALL along. She thought we would go for it. She kept going. She’d rent us the entire facility and we could do what ever we wanted to with the whole compound. Change the hotel into a house, rent out the hotels on the other side, etc. And then we could buy it if we wanted. (Like she was grooming Starling to do all along).

Oh it was a deal we couldn’t resist. IF…. we were complete and total idiots that couldn’t figure out she’d LIED to us. REPEATEDLY!!

I had so much steam coming out my head, it made a cloud.

I was livid. When she left, merrily thinking she’d solved everything, I reared back my arm to slam my fist into the wall, until I remembered it was concrete and it would hurt. So I settled for throwing a pillow at the wall.

I slung my laptop onto the bed and started looking up rentals. AGAIN. Luckily I knew every site of listings since I’d gone through the trecherous process a MONTH earlier. I found several. NONE with an amazing tropical paradise YARD. I smacked my pillow again, for good measure.

When Starling walked in, he immediately regretted coming ‘home.’ I let him HAVE it (since I didn’t let HER have it). For ONCE in our 8 years of marriage, he didn’t tell me I was over reacting, or that I needed to see the opposing party’s point of view. He made a WISE decision (that you would THINK he’d have figured out a long time ago). He validated me. He was PISSED. (Which was totally fantastic and made me fall in love with him all over again).

I was perfectly fine once I got it out of my system. The venting, I mean. And the raging anger passed quicker than normal because I didn’t have to DEFEND my anger or further dwell on making a CASE for my anger. (Starling, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Even if you aren’t ready to murder the pizza guy for adding jalepenos to your children’s pepporoni pizza- If I AM, just PRETEND you are, too. And for the LOVE  of peace and sanity, do not EVER tell me “It’s not that big of a deal.” UNLESS you want me to turn the wrath from the pizza man to YOU, which pretty much happens EVERY time I get mad. Which is RARE (as ants in MS)).

Skipping ahead a few days. Starling was THRILLED that the house he wanted all along was still available for the lovely price of $550 a month. (It’s not furnished; that’s why- but comparing it to MS prices like I do EVERYTHING, noone rents furnished houses. And the house is 2500 square feet. And REALLY cute).

So after dealing with a fantastic realestate agency (TOTAL and complete sarcasm), we got keys to the house and started moving our crap over. We were delayed several days from moving in because the house had to be “cleaned.” I don’t know on WHAT planet sweeping a house is considered CLEANING it, but definitely not on MINE.

The inside of the cabinets? NOT cleaned. The walls? NOT wiped down. There were spider webs in the corners of the rooms. The ONLY thing cleaned was the floors. So naturally the very first thing my boys did was bring in the beach bag and dump it in the MIDDLE of the walkway connected the living room to two of the bedrooms and kitchen. Apparently, they’d filled the bag with sand to “bring home.” (No. Really. Bry said so). I walked around the literal SAND BED and waited for Starling to see it, so he could freak out. I didn’t have the energy.

So YAY! We had a house. I then got to start the search for furniture. AGAIN- NO used furniture. ANYWHERE. I finally found some beautiful brown leather couches. (I was done with tan microfiber and 3 kids). I got an EARFUL by all of the locals warning me NOT to get leather or vinyl or anything of that nature. ‘The humidity will destroy it!’, ‘you will stick to it constantly in this heat!,’ ‘I had some and it was completely ruined in 2 years.’

I usually DON’T care what people say, BUT I remember getting that tan microfiber after EVERYONE warned me not to. (At the time I had my 2 peek-a-poos and kids on the way). I just HAD to have it. It looked the best in my house, after all. (For about- the first hour until we used it. Then I had to clean it DAILY. And get real. Once I had birthed three kids and started foster caring- no WAY was I taking off the easy to clean microfiber DAILY and throwing it in the washing machine). Then I wished I had listened to the general consensus and gotten leather.

So when I finally tried to make a logical choice and get leather, everyone told me to get dark brown microfiber. I’m SO confused. MS is as humid as Cozumel, but we run our AC constantly. Noone does that here. The houses are made to just open windows, turn on fans, and the air is circulated enough to avoid humongous power bills. (But we DO have air in this house and we WILL be using it. But not constantly like in the States).

Dark brown leather would LOOK the best in this house…

I have no idea. I wanted to go to Cancun and buy all of our stuff for way cheaper, but Starling stared at me like my head was starting to float.

Today is the first day that I have been LEFT in the house for an extended period of time. Starling went Snorkeling (his job is SOOO hard) and I stayed with the kids (being a stay at home mom is SOOO easy). Hmmm… I wonder exactly how many hours its going to take me to completely resent this arrangement…

I CLEANED. I’m not even a tenth of the way done. I tried to organize the giant pile of everything we own. Gotta say- kind of HARD with NO furniture. I don’t know if its cheaper to buy furniture from a store here, or just pay someone to build it. Starling is DYING to have his tools here so he can do everything himself. (I, for one am a little GLAD he can’t start fifteen projects at our house. Not that I didn’t LOVE four wheeler yard ornaments).

Its just insane to buy EVERYTHING. We are starting over like newly weds. Without the wedding shower. And with 3 kids. I want to go grab just a FEW things from my storage units. The basics. Silverware, pots and pans, my DRY ERASE markers, the flat screens… And what I would GIVE to have my bedroom suite here. (Apparently not enough to ship it). And my TONY’s. I didn’t know there were places on the earth that didn’t sell Tony’s. Its the singular seasoning that allows anything I cook to be mildly edible. My family will perish if I cook without Tony’s. (Hmm… another good reason to hire a cook).

Starling should be back by four so we can go buy some must haves I discovered today. A mop (bc Boeing decided it would be especially exciting to frolick through the house with his sippy cup which is in actuality NOT leak proof), ant spray (bc I want to prevent a psychotic breakdown), washer and dryer (the laundry “pile” has now turned into a laundry “mountain”), and whatever screws he needs to bang into the wall to mount the fans Mike gave us.

We need to get ALL of that done before six at which time we are going to our friends’ FAREWELL to SPAIN for 3 months (and it better ONLY be 3 months or I’ll never forgive them). Bailing on a summer in Mexico. Who doesn’t like to swim in their own sweat? Weirdos. I could get away to MS for the summer, but… oh wait. It’s not any different. Californians and their spoiled to perfect year round tempature selves….

Basically it’ll be a normal Mexican day. Manana, manana. (Which means it’ll happen in the next week or two).   

    

 

 

  

Today is the 5th of January. Today is the day we were told we would move into our house. Today (right this minute actually) I am sitting in our makeshift hotel kitchen wondering WHY I’m not kissing a bathroom vanity and petting a toilet seat.

Everyday up until this point, Senora A. has asked me, “Tu es feliz? You happy?” And everyday I’ve mustered up a big, “Si! Muy feliz!”

Honestly, as far as economical hotels go, this one isn’t terrible. Okay, truth be told is great for the price we are paying and the “bend over backwards for our comfort” service we’ve been given. And considering we’ve seen the living conditions of some of the locals, our life in a hotel is incredible.

We went “exploring,” or off-roading, or destroying the vehicle shocks. The kids were looking out the window when we came to an area that was deeply impoverished. Make-shift shanties were surrounded by playing children. My initial reaction was to bring all the people to my house and share my canned tuna. (Which we’ve basically been eating about… every meal). I noticed Brooklyn deep in thought.

“Are you looking at all those kids?”

She sighed, “Yeah.”

“And what are you thinking?”

“I wish we lived in a tent.”

So I obviously won’t complain today. I’ll just give you a day in my life. Let’s pick last Sunday.

In case you thought I was lacking in the dare devil department, I’ll have you know, I balance my makeup bag precariously on the back of the toilet (the thing the flusher handle is connected to), along with my hair brushes, and hair spray. Over an OPEN toilet. THAT is BRAVE. Also, nerve wracking, what with little boys bouncing around like Pomeranians, while I’m trying to perform eyebrow surgery on my face.  (And no- I haven’t accidentally dropped anything in the toilet. Except toilet paper. SHHHH… I’ve repented).

Such was Sunday. Just when I thought I had everything ready, I tried to plug in my hair dryer and OH. Wouldn’t you know there is NO OUTLET in the BATHROOM? So I gathered all of my teetering beauty products and locked them in a suitcase. (Yeah. It’s the closest thing I have to a DRAWER).

I then enjoyed a relaxing blow-dry, jammed behind the hotel door, while Boeing ran through my flipped over hair like an old granny that just found the fountain of youth. I occasionally got whacked in the head by the door, because my husband couldn’t remember I was there since it had been an entire two minutes since he left the room. The sound of the blow dryer? Nope. Never clued him in.

I gave up before my hair was dry because it was tangled up like a fishing line. I glanced at the floor. It appeared that I had molted for the summer. Hair covered the ENTIRE room, because anything that should be thrown in the trash MUST exit the hotel only AFTER Boeing has stepped on each particle. At least 6 times. And kicked it for good measure.

If I am blowing drying my hair it is because I am going somewhere for which I am already late.

Sunday was no exception. I winced my way through the sweet tingling sensation of hair being ripped from my scalp. I teased my hair. (I don’t know why. It never laughs. That’s just in case you didn’t know I was corny).

I returned to the bathroom only to slip and nearly fall to my death on the remnants of the MONSOON splashing out of Starling’s shower.

I wanted to hit something, but couldn’t because my hands were full of brushes dowsed in bathroom floor. Boeing and Brighton, my pint sized shadows, were right behind me.

“Stop! This floor is slick. You’ll fall.”

Boeing, who listens like a brick wall, completely ignored me and cracked his skull. I stepped over him, since that is a tri-daily event, and tried to rub the fog off the mirror. The mirror measuring about the size of my hand. I was doing this while Boeing used my legs as ski poles.

At any given time, we only have ONE clean towel. I can’t compute how this keeps occurring, and it has turned me into a towel Nazi.

“Where are you taking that towel?? Dry off and hang it back, right HERE. Don’t take it to the other room.”

Starling said, “But I’m naked.”

“Yeah. So run fast.”

Every time I let a towel out of my sight I find it in a wet ball on the FLOOR. And I just CAN’T dry off with a towel that has basically mopped up foot fungus.  

  

“Kids! Are you dressed?”

“I am! But Boeing won’t let me put on his pants!” yelled a frustrated Brooklyn.

“MOM! Boeing is throwing dirt in my hair!” cried a hysterical Brighton.

“What are you doing out of time out!?” I snapped at Boeing.

He huffed back to his time out spot stomping and yelling, “NO! NO!” I wanted to thump off his head, but I didn’t have time.

I ran into the kitchen bathroom. To do my dishes. My whole five dishes. In a sink that only fits one bowl. I performed a balancing act, again, sticking dirty dishes on top of the toilet, all the while psyching myself out, “Don’t think about it. You are using gobs of soap. Your dishes are clean.”

“Eat fast. Don’t spill anything. Boeing! Don’t crumble up the bread! Why are you obsessed with destroying my sanity??”

“Let’s go, let’s go!”

“Starling? What are you DOING?”

“I’m just adjusting my guitar strings.”

“We are in a CRISIS! PUT a SHIRT on. We are LATE!”

I finally herded my mustangs to the giant door that we lock every night to separate us from the outside world. It is important to note that it is the ONLY exit door.

Starling turned the key. “Crap. We are locked in from the other side.”

“What!? How is that even POSSIBLE?”

“Well there is this little metal piece that-”

“Seriously? I don’t CARE how. We are TRAPPED!”

Mrs. A didn’t answer her phone.

My MacGyver kicked in. An open window. It was only 8 foot in the air.

“Starling! Look! I’ll give you a boost.”

Good thing we have been working out while we are here. (By that I mean, I do lunges across the grass while our kids play on the playground. And Starling uses the monkey bars to do chin ups. Its not weird).

He stood on the edge of the cement flower bed, about a foot away from being under the window to get a bit of height before he lunged up and away grabbing the windowsill. I climbed under him, and pushed him up. So basically, he used his feet to climb the wall and I was an extra wall decoration that would have become a greasy spot on the cement if he’d fallen.

It was a great sight. Starling playing Spider man in his Khakis. He lowered himself down. Into a toilet. And SURPRISE! No lid.

He freed us and we jumped into my sparkly new ride. A $2500 white mini van. It was the first and ONLY automatic we have found. Starling showed me a picture on the computer and asked, “Do you like it? We can get something better if we come across something later,” to which I responded, “Do I like it or will I drive it?”

And guess what? I will drive anything automatic with air conditioning.

   

Now, we are going to move into our house tomorrow. Oh wait. MAYBE. The dude currently renting (that has a family in Cancun and a mistress in Cozumel) hasn’t gotten his TWO things he keeps at the house out. (Probably a tri-pod and computer). He wanted to keep renting. (I guess his mistress is a keeper). According to Mrs. A, she told him her son-in-law’s brother was already here to move in and had his family waiting in a hotel. (She tells everyone that Starling is her CANADIAN son in law’s brother. Its so believable what with Starlings enormously tall, fair skinned, blond headed self. A spitting image of the picture of her son in law hanging in her living room. Well. They had different dads. And moms). Supposedly Sir Cancun is picking up his stuff tomorrow. If he doesn’t and we see this turning into an eviction process, we are moving somewhere else.

Not that I don’t love digging for clothes, literally watching my 3 year old grow a beard before I find him clean underwear, or risking my sanitary sanity daily, or even sharing a bed with my children wrapped around me like spaghetti. I can endure to the end. So long as the end comes before I’m ready to quit.