So you think I'm not a real curmudgeon...?

     A real curmudgeon is a really grumpy old man who has somewhat irrational notions about how much better things were "then" than they are "now".   He also becomes especially grumpy when certain errors are committed by the forces of the Universe that really make him grumpy.     Since I am curmudgeon, I shall reveal certain secrets that heretofore have never been known about why Karl Marx, Van Gogh, Hillary Rodham, Santa Clause stand-ins at the department stores, and the guy in front of you at the Starbucks are grumpy old men.....or...as in the case of Hillary Rodham...a really grumpy old man. 

       (1)    Saying in an advertisement "Choose from 34 'select' models" .   The dumbo announcer means to say...wants to say...."Choose from 34 selected models."    The dealership is trying to unload the pink Jetta with a column shifter and has always had a dog-pound fragrance since it arrived from the factory.   It is a "selected" model.....this goes for motor-cars, furniture, food orders at a "select" restaurant...etc.    The announcer or advertizing agency is taking advantage of the fact that we dumboes associate the term "select" with things like meat & seafood, certain vegetables, and other commodities of higher quality that have the official legal quality status of "select".   They use that term to associate with junk that has been selected to be unloaded on the dumboes who compose the general public, like me.  

      (2)    College professors and radio personalities, etc.  who say, ...."He was talking to me and Jeff, but ..."

      (3)     Any severely intellectually challenged person who says ...." This will bring closure to the family....by finding the remains of the person who this vicious criminal murdered and brutalized in 1988....blah..blah..".     THERE IS NO "CLOSURE".....

      (4)      Weathermen who say, "Yesterday we had a high of 40 degrees and to-day will be 50% warmer, with a high of 60 degrees."    Temperature averages, as we know, cannot be based upon zero being an absolute base,  because temperatures do not have a zero-degree, absolute base.    In Fahrenheit, absolute zero is   459.6667...degrees BELOW ZERO degrees Fahrenheit.    Therefore 60 degrees F would be about 0.450% warmer than 40 degrees F,  (more or less).

     (5)      "With all due respect......" .

     (6)        "He is a member of a organization....."    A organization!!!!! ?????  In the dark ages, it was said, "He is a member of an organization...."    What is the vegetarian, wiccan, marxist problem with the article "an".....?

     (7)        The misuse of the word "gay".    What a ruinous way to contaminate such a noble word.  

    (8)        "This is adult entertainment".....No, it's not....it is degenerate, childish, coarse, sewerage.     Give me a break.

    (9)        "And if you buy these three Asian elephants for three million dollars we will give you this Made in China, genuine plastic flashlight that is guaranteed not to work....ABSOLUTELY FREE....".    And at Joseph Banks Men's Wear, you buy the first suit for 300 dollars, and the second for 58 dollars, and you get 5 more items....ABSOLUTELY FREE.....!"    Uuhhh??   Excuse me....If I buy something as a pre-condition to receiving something else.....THEN IT IS NOT FREE!!!!!   UP AGAINST THE WALLLLL!!!!!!!

Now you know what a curmudgeon is.

As always....Thanks for your time and attention!!
El Gringo Viejo

   
 

Some Notes About Medical Bills and Procedures

      As a card-carrying member of the International Association of Hypochondriacs, and a one time vice-president of that organization, I fight an urge that all but forces me to moan and whine about every little pain and/or discomfort.   It comes mainly from my Grandfather Rex Andrew Neal, who was a bundle of Southern contradictions......among them, never being sick a day in his life, but having more medical complaints than a charity hospital in New York City....daily.    He took every known purgative, curative, preventative, additive, and recyclitive that was produced during the period from 1893 through 1971.     When he moved his family to South Texas in the early 1920's, he hit the jackpot, because most Mexicans....especially those of primarily or totally Caucasian racial background are born hypochondriacs.  To this day, everywhere in Mexico....and most of Latin-America....there abound interesting, fragrant little stores that sell preparations for all known and unknown disorders that have ever or never existed.

      He would drink his half-gallon of castor oil, chase it down with a couple of pints of cod-liver oil, and then sit in the lion's-foot with cold bath water steeped in gobernadora leaf tea (to fight against gall and kidney stones).   Every day had to start and end with a 1/4  cup of lemon juice....etc. etc.

      To be sure, the previous paragraph might be a bit of a fudging from the absolute truth.....but the foundation of the point being made is certainly true. My addictions are essentially one fish oil gel-tab, two regular aspirin, and one vitamin D .....every three days.    I use an inordinate amount of garlic, a huge amount of onions, and eat any and all vegetables including huitlacoche (corn fungus), broccoli, cactus, and okra by preference.   Any meat....anemone, roasted crickets (in Oaxaca...mmm,mmm good), liver, menudo, fish-head stew, raw oysters, beef, fowl, seafoods of any and all kinds will be found on my table.    When I was a post infant...like two and three years of age.....people would come out to show their children that there are children who would eat everything on their plates.   My mother would put out turnip mush, broccoli, mushrooms, oatmeal, and Mexican dried beef and the little toe-heads would watch with saucer-sized eyes while I consumed it all gleefully.   My table is always graced with at least two forms of something "picante" ...as tame as Tabasco or Cholula Sauce, or serrano peppers, or some other selected or homemade concoction.    We used to joke that my mother ate her ice-cream with jalapen~os   (It was not actually a joke).

      SOooooo?  One might reasonably wonder where all of this superfluous bilge is heading.   As some might remember from a previous post about my unfortunate spill,   my account included the revealing of certain injuries and remedies.    My wife, who is both more reasonable and smarter than I...., noted that no mention had been made about how much it had cost to receive whatever medical intervention was necessary.

Prince, the Guilty Dog, in days before he became

a serial Gringo Destroyer

     It was pointed out that I had a tetanus shot (hate shots), some type of anti-pain sedative, three pills, but not a prescription.   These pills were for things that really hurt, not like my pleasant hypochondrias.   The doctor and his wife (a nurse) were doing contract service for the State to update and provide the current batch of primary school urchins with their required  childhood vaccinations and inoculations.   They had advised someone, I still do not remember who, to tell  me to suffer and they would be out in the early morning of the next day....and they were..... with a neatly stocked van and a portable X-ray machine....The only thing they "shot" was my right big toe...revealing a chip off the tip bone (done swole up real big, Miz Jolly).   The knot on my right side was "probably a cracked rib"...."have you cough't up any blood?"  ...... the knot on the front right side of my head was about the size of a pullet egg (maybe a bit smaller)....and this took the longest time, because the doctor....who looked to be   seventeen years old...(he is actually 27) gazed long and hard into my right ear and even put a q-tip in looking for any trace of blood, I presume.     He told me that his wife....also either a doctor or perhaps a nurse....could take off my right big-toe toenail...but I told him that I had grown attached to it, and preferred long goodbye's in this case.   They also painted up a nasty abrasion of the right knee.   I remember letting everything move along in Spanish...and then changing over to English, just to see how the good doctor would react.   He did not miss a beat...speaking an accented form of text-book English mixed with some practice with literate people in McAllen and Central Texas....as did his wife.

      When they were through they left....attended to their original, more official mission, and then came back in the afternoon to check on the Old Gringo.    When they had left I paid them what they asked....700 pesos....and told them they could use the guest room as a safe harbour, office, rest area, or whatever while they were out in the boondocks.   I think they could be heard returning later that day...but I was really in a cloud.....but their return late in the afternoon is remembered....because the routine with the Q-tip was repeated and a lot of stethoscope time was given over to the knot on my rib-cage.    "Drink CocaCola at room temperature, and take another of your pain pills at mid-night if you have to"....and then they left....after letting my inside cats in and feeding them.   The 700 pesos at that time was about 56 American dollars.

      For most of the time during and shortly after my regaining any coherence my recollection has been substantially cloudy.   I am very reactive to sedatives and have taken perhaps five in my lifetime...always due to significant minor injury.   So....what led to their arrival I am really still not perfectly clear....but they left behind a comfortable and repairing patient.   The toe, right knee, and the rib are still discoloured....but no longer painful except to the touch....and I am 99.9% whole.
     I noticed that they had used the guest room, left it spotless, and left a 50 peso note for the chambermaid who would have to re-dress the room.
     Now, you know the rest of the story.
     

Things that Don't Really Matter....but

       For many years we had carried in our family lore and understanding a notion that my grandfather had lost brothers in the War Between the States.   So that you all can feel like family members (This has already been sent to family yesterday) this is included so that the reader can know the writer a bit better.    An excerpt from the transmissions from yesterday are included below:

      Do not tell anyone, but while sneaking behind Yankee lines, I found a Pennsylvania bunch...the 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, Company D....just forming up for drill and presentation. It looks like they are getting ready to join up with Polk and McClellan down in Virginia. Their musicians are at the fore, waiting to strike up, and their rank and file look pretty good, except for the Corporal of the 4th Platoon, who is fully one pace back from presentation position. Checking our secret sources on the ground, it seems like he is some dolt named Charles Newton from someplace called Montrose, in northeastern Pennsylvania.
       Check in platoon groupings, one by one, as you move back from the company band, and you will see the Corporals presenting....and as you encounter the fourth Corporal, you will see him presenting properly, but standing about 3 feet back from the correct position. That truly is your Uncle Charles.

Enjoy....

p.s.   The Rebels killed him in May of 1863.....but it was the fault of the cowardice of the 5th Maine Regiment, who fled the field and did not support the Pennsylvania 96thRPVI/Dc advance as ordered.

DCN

     This picture taken in late 1861 shows what is probably the the final drills before moving out as a unit to join the fray.    While this company unit was organized in Schuylkill County, my great-uncle Charles was from Susquehanna County just to the north.    This regiment had service from about 5,000 different men during the hostilities.....and of that number over 500 were killed in action, 700 were wounded, 400 were taken prisoner, and 600 deserted and did not return  (all round numbers).   Great-uncle Charles was wounded on 3 May 1863 and died in Fredericksburg, Virginia in either a private home or private clinic/medical facility on or around the 18th of May, 1863.
     Another brother (actually a 1st cousin) was killed in action after Gettysburg....about a month later.    So the lore about them being lost at Gettysburg was wrong, but right in a way.   One was lost as Lee began his advance towards Pennsylvania and the other was lost during the pressing of Confederate forces during their retreat back to Virginia.    As one might imagine these losses caused severe emotional impact upon my great-grandfather....from which he never actually recovered. 

      As an aside, and for new or occasional readers, my mother's side was very Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina in their background.  For some strange reason I am shaped like my father's mother's people...tall, lanky (nice word for skinny), w/ long, thin feet....while my sympathies in the issues under dispute during that horrid war would have been and are with the Confederacy.    I guess that makes me a purebred American mongrel.

As usual, accept my gratitude for your time and attention.   Emails have been and are welcomed at any time.   All is well at the Quinta, Alvaro says that he is only feeding the cats seven time a day now.
The Old Gringo   

Weather Alert

This is a brief advisory of no particular urgency.   During the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the backside of the the Sierra Madre Oriental received considerable snow at the latitude of the Quinta.    If one clicks on to Google Earth and moves towards Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas....browse slightly to the west-northwest.....near the peak of Pen~a Nevada....stay at a fairly high elevation...about 35 to 70 miles west and northwest generally of Cd. Victoria and the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre.

     The west-facing (dry-side) slopes of the Sierra de Cautivo and surrounding areas can be seen to be heavily impacted by what appears to be snows of up to 12 - 20 inches overnight.   Most areas received much less.    The "El Cautivo" is a cordillero which composes a signicant section of the overall Sierra Madre Oriental range.

     These snows seem to be mainly in the 8,000 to 10,000 foot level with a few exceptions.

Back in Texas

     We were out for long time.    A great deal happened and very little happened.     During the first few days, I managed to allow myself to be tripped by Prince....my main pure-bred mongrel alfa-beta male dog.  I landed forward, made a 5 inch long, 3/8th's of an inch deep slice in my interior left forearm, cracked a rib, bonked my head, broke my right big toe at the tip, and had numerous very minor cuts and bruises.   Prince had tripped me from behind, which is kind of a morbid game he plays, especially when he is playing with the occasional visitors from the adjacent Hacienda de la Vega.

      These visitors...a male dog (part coyote) I call RinTinTin, and Mara the female Rhodesian Lion Hound....had come in company of the owner and we were checking out things on the lower part of my property.   This checking out concerned some suspicious activity on the adjoining property....it turned out to be nothing more than some workers preparing for a mowing project to be started the next day.  (Finally.   The owner has not raised a finger on the place since the floods of last summer.    Grasses and scrub had engulfed the entire place...five to seven feet high.)

     In any regard, the dogs meet seldomly and after a bit of preambulation begin to play like puppies.   The problem is that, this time, Prince included me in the game of tag.

     I had to have a tetanus shot (hate shots) and a bit of help to sleep through nagging pain (joy for a hypochondriac) but it did cloud about 2 days of memory.    My recuperation was quite rapid, leaving only a few bruises and aches here and there.

      Then there was a flood of bumblebee hummingbirds.   They came to the duranta plant that we have along the corridor.   The little one-foot high thing that we planted a couple of years ago is now about 16 feet high and full of the cascading assemblies of purple blossoms that are a joy to a gardener.   It turns out that they are also excellent for attracting these tiny members of the race of hummingbirds.    Even the males of this sub-species are only about 2 1/2  inches in total length and they are frequently thought to be moths, upon first sighting.  For  about a week we had mid-morning and late afternoon swarms of these rare birds.....thought to hide in the recesses of the Sierra Madre nearby.....and then over the past week-end they seemed to stop arriving.

      It was interesting that the other sub-species of hummingbird males did not attempt to drive off the new arrivals as is normal during feeding times.    Even without the bumblebee hummingbirds we can normally have as many as 20 feeding off of the shrimp plants and powderpuff at a given moment.

      During the past three or four weeks we have had very brisk mornings.  Temperatures have been as low as 33F on up to 55F every morning.   Usually it would be in the mid to upper 40's.  Daytime highs stayed stubbornly below 80F for the duration.   That last figure represents quite a departure from normal....and we even had one week where the temperature did not go above 60F.    Burned a lot of firewood that week.

     Briefly stated.....the overall climate in Tamaulipas continues to improve with the presence of the military.   My point of view is jaundiced because I am there.   The  American press and their various lackeys, etc. is better informed because they are not there....preferring to listen to "information sources"....and are more than willing to take elements of the truth and twist those elements into what finally becomes a lie.

      The press....for instance....can take a person who is essentially deranged, who shoots 19 people....killing six.....and declare that Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin drove him to do the deed.   This, in spite of the fact that he was mainly influenced by communist dogma,  and who, like Barak O'bama, Jeramiah Wright, Roger Ailes, Jesse Jackson, and most all radical leftists, holds a viscous  hatred for Jews.   Forgotten also by the press is the gunman's love of Satanic influence and ritual (odd for someone who says he is an atheist).

Beware of the American Press....beware of any press...in these times.  

In the Belly of the Beast

     This comes to all from near the Estacion de Santa Engracia a few miles north of Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas.    I arrived here last Monday travelling in a small caravan with my neighbours who had been doing some (considerable) Christmas  shopping in McAllen on the week-end before the Feast of the Nativity.

      Suffice to say that the warnings from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the United States Department of State,  were a bit......shall we say.....over-inflated.     The traffick was heavy....there were no incidents.....and the biggest news on the television and radio down here has returned to drunks running into bridge-supports and Pedro beating up Maria after one or the other or both returned from a night of celebration at the local cantina.   One Pedro did manage to kill his Maria in Monterrey....but it did not count because she had a protective order out on him....therefore nothing happened to her.....Right?   Chalk up another great success story for passing a law...relying upon government...and then walking away to tell everyone that all poor children will be fed and we can read the law once we pass it.     Ah....democracy.

       You all will have another up-date next Monday or so.    It is amazing how lazy one becomes here.....I shall try to be more detailed in the next transmission.