10 October 2009
by
Dave Clingman

We have a new puppy.  Her name is Mela (pronounced "may-lah" or "meh-lah").  She is about five weeks old and is a mix of all kinds of things, probably including cocker spaniel and chihuahua.  She is smaller than we wanted, but she was quite inexpensive.  Also, the vaccinations that we thought would cost over five hundred pesos actually cost just two hundred and change.  We have fallen in love with her and she with us during the six days since we got her.  She is very smart and already has learned her name and to come when we whistle or tell her "come".  I will try to get a few photos of her onto the website soon.

The FM3 process has finally concluded for this year.  Andrew received his visa Friday morning.  After picking it up, we headed to the Mexico tax collection agency, the Hacienda, for our Tax I.D.'s.  Unfortunately, they require an original of our rental receipt.  All I had brought along were copies.

We were invited back to Casa de las Flores this past Sunday on a spur of the moment.  We were readying ourselves for church when I received the email invitation from the owners.  We sure do love staying in the wonderful accommodations, which includes drinks, dessert in the evening, and breakfast.  Besides the service and yummy food, they are located just a few blocks from the Tlaquepaque plaza, and Andrew and I enjoy walking there to people watch, to view some of the artwork, and to simply enjoy an afternoon and evening away from home.  I can see why people from USA and Canada (and elsewhere I am sure) return again and again to stay there.

The owners are still considering having me work on their website, and they and I spent a couple of hours discussing this possibility.  I have spent several hours working up estimates for various aspects of their website and checking the compatibility of the previous designer's files.  Please pray this all works into their hiring me.  Thanks.

After church we joined seven others for lunch in downtown Guadalajara at a small restaurant overlooking the small fountain plaza in front of the Catedral (Cathedral).  It was an enjoyable time for all.  Afterwards five of us drove to El Baratillo (translated web page), the very large swap-meet-type tianguis I mentioned a few weeks ago.  John and Dale purchased a pair of birds, as well as a cage for them.  This is also when Andrew and I met Mela.  Mela and we spent our first night together at Casa de las Flores, since we were headed there after the Baratillo.  The B&B hosts Stan and Jose were very accommodating, even providing us a mop for the messes that Mela made in the bathroom during the night.

Mela does not like being alone.  It is interesting that if we place her box beside the bed, she'll sleep like a log all through the night.  If we place her box in the bathroom, however, she'll spend about half of the night howling and whining.  So, for now, she sleeps in her box in the bedroom.  Eventually she will be spending her nights outdoors, but we'll wait until she is a bit older and larger.

We had planned to go to the Thursday tianguis near our home this week in order to sell some things.  Wouldn't you know it, though, that Thursday was the one day this week we had some rain.  It was mostly stopped by the time we were wanting to leave, but we were concerned that with it being overcast and threatening more rain, people might stay home rather than chance getting wet at the tianguis.  So, we'll try next week.

We don't expect to make much money selling our few items at the tianguis, since things are much less expensive here than in USA, but we decided to go ahead and do this for the experience of selling at a tianguis.  We will donate to our church's thrift store those items that don't sell.

I guess that's about it from Gudadalajara for now.

Read update 2 October 2009

Read update 20 October 2009

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