Columns

Mexico’s state of “orphanhood” as described by Octavio Paz has puzzled Mesoamerican anthropologists and historians for centuries.

I think as denizens at Lakeside we have an obligation to try to learn Spanish. Even if just to show our hosts that we, as guests, don’t expect them to bear the burden of speaking English for our convenience.

Let me say first-off that in most respects, my retirement brain has been a loyal and reliable servant, at least when it comes to my personal safety going up and down stairs after too many margaritas, or trying to convert grams to ounces when preparing margaritas. Or, even just remembering where I leave my margaritas when I go off to take my Krill Oil. 

For some emigres here at Lakeside, the recent peso decline has turned to a worry about a future foraging for food and ferreting out a secret home in someone’s tool shed, and taking placebos for medical conditions, seeing as they do only slightly worse than their regular meds and are much cheaper. (Some even freshen your breath.)

“In five years’ time Facebook will be definitely mobile, it will be probably be all video,’” said Nicola Mendelsohn, an executive at Facebook, at a conference in London this past September. Mendelsohn went further, suggesting that statistics have shown the written word becoming all but obsolete, replaced by still and moving images and speech. 

The Mexico City subway system is the second largest in the Americas, second only to New York. It serves 4.5 million users per day, with 12 lines serving 95 stations over 141 miles. It is a cultural treasury as well, incorporating art in the form of unique designs, historical and literary murals, as well as musicians playing classical, ranchera, and traditional music in the acoustical tunnels. The Mexican subway system is the great leveler, carrying doctors and lawyers as well as housemaids and store clerks to work each day.