Welcome the best and speed the rest
By Beverly Russell, Nov 17, 2006

Since moving to San Miguel a few months ago, I have quickly discovered that there are good guests and not-so-good guests, and that however much you thought you were close friends with another person, that friend can morph into an unexpectedly disappointing house companion. 

For easy recognition of guest types (this batch happen to be all women), I have created guest IDs. 


The Angel

Angels herald a heavenly interlude. They bring comfort and joy and are very considerate. Angels make the coffee before you get up. They are at the breakfast table with a welcoming smile, perfectly coiffed and dressed, halo glimmering. They have a cosmic touch that charms the house. Pull a chair here, fill a flower vase there, light candles and place them in just the right spots. Angels drizzle celestial blessings all over the place. They nap when you want to nap. They have witty and interesting conversation when you are ready for it. Angels are very hard to say goodbye to, and when they finally waft away to their Elysian fields you pray for another visitation soon.


The Saint

When the saints come marching in, it is a signal to shape up and be ready for some dedicated activity. Souls of generosity, they come bearing practical gifts such as tool boxes, coat hooks, sink stoppers, lavender cream to protect your hands in winter and other desirable items. Just what you wanted to get cracking in your new house. Saints are willing to pitch in and are usually up at first light, applying their well-intentioned energy to anything that needs doing—even mopping floors. 

Their forte is planning, having enough food in the refrigerator for meals ahead, driving to Gigante to restore supplies. Saints are very good people to have around even if they do provoke a twinge of guilt because you can’t quite ascend to their finer levels of domestic perfection. Saints never complain, and their loving arms extend warm, sympathetic support.



The Princess

Just like the heroine in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale who couldn’t sleep and got all black and blue when three peas were put under her 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds, a princess may alight on your doorstep even today, and nothing in your castle is likely to come up to snuff. True to form, she can’t sleep because there is “too much light at night.” (Princesses expect a footman to pull the existing draperies.) The laundry equipment/gas stove “doesn’t work.” (Princesses prefer someone else to handle the castle chores.) The Peet’s coffee she brought down from LA “doesn’t taste so good,” implying the filtered watered in Los Frailes is royally substandard. The rooms are “too cool” in their decoration and need more Mexican color. Princesses keep up a steady dialog of conversation about their lives, and when pausing for a minute to focus on the desperate hostess, suggest an exercise program for her, such as Pilates. Truth to tell, a princess sped off in a pumpkin before I got up one morning, en route to a proper palace, ready to tango with a handsome prince.



The Butterfly

Butterflies add glamour to your house, although they may make you feel below the mark in clothes, makeup, hairstyle and body size. They flutter in trailing delicious goodies, including your fave toothpaste and vitamin E cream, along with some fluffy bath towels and heavenly soaps. Butterflies happily agree with whatever agenda you suggest. Go to a movie, come to the Biblioteca, invite friends for dinner, show up at an art opening, Butterflies say “yes” to everything with an engaging smile and are delighted to hover hither and thither. Other people love their easy manner, charming spirit and engaging conversation—not to mention stunning looks and dress. When they migrate back home, you sigh and relax in your familiar cocoon, eagerly anticipating their next flight south to enhance the scene.


Beverly Russell www.beverlyrussell.com , a British-born American author of several nonfiction books on living, has written for The New York Times and numerous magazines. After living in London, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, she moved to San Miguel in 2006.

Letters, November 17, 2006
Send your letters to the editor to letters@atencionsanmiguel.org  

Atención will not publish offensive or defamatory material.



Editor,


On Thursday evening, November 2, my husband and I were walking home from the Jardín at about 9:30. We walked down Terraplen and were turning onto Jesús to continue home when we were held up at gunpoint and robbed. The perpetrator pushed the gun into my husband’s side and showed him how the gun worked. 

We didn’t really want him to prove that it did work, so we gave him our money and he ran off down the street.

We gave the police a description of the man, and about half an hour later there was a loud knock on our door.

The police were there with a suspect in their truck for us to identify. Unfortunately, they had picked up a middle-aged American man with a goatee—not exactly the man we had described.

I want people to know that this happened so they can be more cautious when walking around the centro at night. Now we will be, too.

Kathy Lichter



Editor,

My wife and I came to San Miguel in an effort to escape the urban chaos created in other Mexican cities by poor planning, greed and corruption. So, we see with alarm and anger the new ads for condominiums in a seven-storey-high building. Can this be true? Can the city authorize high-rise buildings? What happened to the zoning laws and building regulations that officials claim we should all obey to protect the city? If a seven-storey building is allowed, why not a 10- or 15-storey building? Does the city have the infrastructure (streets, water, etc.) to support high-density housing developments? What about the image of San Miguel? How many eyesores can the authorities and residents tolerate before action is taken to protect the city? Residents of San Miguel only need to look at the tremendous damage that poor planning has inflicted on cities like Mexico City and Monterrey. A few greedy developers and corrupt authorities can destroy San Miguel forever.

Rodrigo Antonio Treviño Lozano



Editor,

We want to state that we strongly disagree with the present and the former local administration regarding the repair of the sidewalks, since they are removing the ancient san miguelito multicolored, beautiful stones. They come from a now-defunct quarry unique to the area and are a symbol of San Miguel and are truly the last of their kind. The present administration does not understand, as the former did not, that the stones do not belong to them but to the town, and their responsibility should be to take care of the historical legacy of San Miguel and not to damage it as they are doing. This should be known and made to stop. Thank you.

Carlos Villalba



THANK YOU

This issue of Atención was made possible 
by contributions from …

Elizabeth Akins
Norman Araiza, MA
John Barham
Barbara Erickson
Margaret Failoni
Mauri Formigoni
Christine Foster
Dorothy Glenn
Vicki Gundrum
B. K. Lake
Charles Miller
Gary Mitchell
Beverly Russell
Carol Schmidt
Jon Sievert


Editing & Proofreading

Darryl Clifford
Robert de Gast
Luba
José Luis Mendoza Aubert
Rhonda Vlasak