Monday 6th

Monday………Yesterday, on my way back from the Café I stopped for a shoe shine. I cannot recall ever having done that before [getting a shoe shine]. The man did a good job; the shoes needed a good cleaning even before I arrived in town. He charged me 25 Pesos. He told me he is saving his money for a trip to Rhode Island. I didn’t ask why but he seemed serious about the visit. He felt he would need over 30,000 Pesos for the trip. That is a lot of shoe shines. This morning Natalia told me she was enjoying a three day weekend because the country was celebrating Constitution Day. She felt the dentist would not be open and she was correct. I walked back to the house to plan the rest of the day. That plan consisted of a long walk down one of the major throughfares in town; just strolling along with no destination in mind. I came across some extremely sad sights. Some of the places many of these people live in are no better than hobo dens by the side of the road. I took two or three pictures but could not bring myself to recording more of the situation I found. Every one spoke to me with kindness and I felt safe enough but it was still shocking to witness close up what a second world country Mexico can be on the back streets. I had lunch at Burger King again and walked through Wal-Mart then sat outside that store for a while reading and resting. I checked my watch and it said 1:45 when I started back. I was surprised find I made it back to the house in an hour and 15 minutes. It has to be at least 4 miles to Wal-Mart. Since it was a Holiday I allowed myself to decide that the Café would be closed so I made no effort to hike the 11 blocks to check my e-mail. I will take care of that tomorrow after seeing my dentist. Natalia was not home so I read myself to sleep, waking up at 5pm. I checked once more to see if I could access my e-mail but no luck. I brought my chess games up to date and checked into Facebook [very quiet there too] before posting this to my blog and getting back to my reading. This evening I will be finishing my fifth full length novel since I arrived. I seldom read fiction but it beats TV commercials all to heck.