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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 26, 2016 2:12:49 GMT
Thanks, Mossie. I didn't do either of those things, but did a lot and really loved it.
Local color here in my house in Oaxaca ~ there was just THE MOST incredible fireworks show filling the sky directly over the east wall of my patio. It went on for at least 15 minutes and at times cast light so bright on the west wall that you could read by it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2016 15:35:05 GMT
Yesterday on the bus, there was some kind of altercation between the bus driver, a young man of North African origin, and a very flamboyant African woman dressed in bright yellow and wearing a hat that looked like a huge mushroom. I couldn't catch what was being said, but suddenly the bus driver stopped the bus in the middle of the street, got up and turned to the passengers. Meanwhile the woman starting walking back through the aisle ranting about "I have the right to speak my mind" and "Nobody tells me what to do" and other less intelligible statements.
The bus driver said, "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I have to tell you what the problem is." The woman turned back and started ranting at him. He tried to speak again, but she got louder and louder until the other passengers told her to shut up and let him talk.
"This woman told me 'you're just a bus driver.' Well, I am not just a bus driver. I am a human being, just like she is."
The passengers started telling the woman "Say you're sorry, say you're sorry," but she was in her own mad world. The bus driver said "No, I don't need her to say she's sorry. She's old enough to be my mother, and that's not the way it works. I just had to say what was on my chest."
Then he sat down and started driving again.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 23, 2016 5:54:53 GMT
There has been a procession going on for several hours. A couple of hours ago I was in the back bedroom with the window open and was treated to giant fireworks practically at eye level. They finally made it to my street & I took these pictures at midnight. It must have been near the end, as it's completely silent outside now (12:48 am)
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Post by htmb on Oct 23, 2016 12:18:53 GMT
This was going on right outside your house? How often does this happen, Bixa? Is your street a big thoroughfare? Is this some sort of "warm-up" gathering in preparation for day of the dead activities? It looks like a celebration of Mary the Mother of God.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 23, 2016 14:08:38 GMT
Right outside the house, Htmb. I took all the pictures standing at my gate except the ones of the statues, when I stepped out into the street. My street is barely a real street, as it's only one block long. My house is at the exact middle, so when processions pass, they stop in front of my gate. Processions, both religious and otherwise, generally wind back and forth through several streets. I think the statues are Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but don't know what the occasion is. Calendas (the lively processions) are used to kick off an occasion such as a saint's day, usually a week ahead of the actual day. There will be tons more of these parades during the days of the dead.
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Post by htmb on Oct 23, 2016 14:33:45 GMT
I suppose I'll just have to experience all this for myself sometime soon.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 23, 2016 14:38:02 GMT
Well, in my opinion you will be here at the absolute best time.
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Post by rikita on Oct 25, 2016 6:23:57 GMT
not my photo, but an all too typical sight in my area:
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2016 12:39:24 GMT
There are a few parts of Paris that can look like that sometimes, but the municipal crews are pretty good about picking up most of the random waste regularly. People can make a free appointment with the city to leave out big items to be picked up on a specific day, but that doesn't stop people from dumping TVs or refrigerators in the middle of the night. The fines are pretty big if they get caught, though.
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Post by rikita on Oct 26, 2016 14:47:37 GMT
i suppose there are fines here, too, but usually people don't get caught. and it costs money to have large items picked up, so people prefer to do it like this. and then the city often does not pick it up for ages, apparently they fear that otherwise people decide that is a good way to get rid of their garbage for free. but they decide that anyway ... and once something is lying around, more things are added quickly.
we have glas containers in front of agnes' daycare, and there is always a huge pile of garbage around them, also glass that does not fit into the container, so it is kind of dangerous at a place where lots of little kids run around ...
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Post by htmb on Oct 29, 2016 2:00:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2016 13:18:10 GMT
Here is what the new Paris refugee centre looks like. The inflatable building is the welcome centre, and housing has been installed in containers in the old warehouses on the site. They are scheduled for demolition in about 18 months to make way for a new university campus. People are only supposed to be housed here for two weeks maximum, by which time they will have been oriented to various associations which provide long term solutions. But this place allows them to file their refugee applications, asylum requests and receive emergency living allotments... s19.postimg.cc/c5arvzmfn/RG_002.jpgs19.postimg.cc/8zq65s3tf/RG_003.jpgs19.postimg.cc/tmevr3n83/RG_005.jpg
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 17, 2016 14:50:43 GMT
Just now seeing Htmb's local color from where she was local on Oct. 28 -- great picture. I love the skeleton waving at the crowd from her hat as she stands all haughty and above-it-all in her finery.
The new refuge center is most interesting, not least because of the inflatable(!) building. Admittedly, it doesn't quite pull off the Olympic Village look that the builders seem to be going for (although it appears to be still a work in progress), but it certainly is far less forbidding and depressing than the prison camp it could have so easily resembled.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 27, 2016 2:00:27 GMT
In the past year or so, Chinese buffets have sprung up all over Oaxaca. They're always super cheap and always run by Asians, not a group much in evidence before. The menu and quality is pretty much the same in all of them, but I wind up trying them in the hope that one might be truly good. Anyway, there is a newish one at Llano Park, so a friend and I tried it this past Sunday. In most restaurants around here there will be some kind of religious object over a door, usually a picture of St. Martin of Tours. Not in this restaurant ~
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 12, 2016 6:53:34 GMT
The US has Elvis impersonators. Mexico has Juan Gabriel impersonators -- sure to be out in force now that the great man is gone ~ Incidentally, re: pista de hielo ~ apparently Oaxaca is going to have two ice rinks for the Christmas season. That's about as wtf as anything I can think of. Who would know how to ice skate around here?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2016 8:08:48 GMT
Paris is turning the inside of the Grand Palais into a skating rink again this year. "The largest indoor rink in the world." Unfortunately, you have to pay just to get in and look at it, so you probably won't be seeing it here.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 13, 2016 5:51:34 GMT
Really? I'd think you'd want to practice your moves.
Years ago there was an ice skating rink out in New Orleans East. I met a couple who took their daughter out there every day because they wanted her to be an Olympic skater.
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Post by rikita on Dec 13, 2016 7:56:14 GMT
and did they succeed?
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 13, 2016 16:01:21 GMT
I don't know, Rikita -- they were only people I met. It's just that an ice skater in Louisiana seems tantamount to the Jamaican bobsleigh team. I mean, why?
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Post by rikita on Dec 13, 2016 23:43:06 GMT
i would suppose also wanting a small child to become an olympic anything is a bit much pressure, even if you live somewhere it makes sense ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 18, 2016 6:36:23 GMT
Local color provided by yarn bombing ~
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 12:53:31 GMT
I have been laughing at recent articles about the "invasion" of rats in Paris, since it is well known that every city in the world has at least two rats for each human. 4 squares have been closed in Paris due to a visible rat problem while poison and traps are being used. The authorities will treat other squares in turn. Since Paris has 274 squares in addition to 137 gardens and 16 majors parks (not counting the woods -- Bois de Vincennes and Bois de Boulogne), this will be a major task. The articles make it sound like you can't walk down the streets without seeing rats. I personally have not seen any since last summer when I was out at 1 a.m. once and saw a few scuttling around in the Canal Saint Martin area.
So big deal, just the usual sensationalism. Then I saw a friend yesterday who has just arrived from Guatemala for the holidays and he described the totally horrifying thing he had seen two days earlier. At dusk (so not even in the middle of the night), he passed by the Square de la Tour Saint Jacques in the absolute centre of the city, which is one of the squares that has been closed to treat the problem. He saw a giant swarm pack of several hundred rats out on the street (so not even inside the closed square) along the wall of the square where they were greedily gobbling food. Needless to say, he quickly went away from there, and no, he nevers uses a camera, not even on his phone. I assume that the city had put out a big pile of the anticoagulent covered grain that they use so that the rats will gorge and then slink back into the sewers to die of internal hemorrages, but who knows? Maybe they were chewing on homeless people wrapped in blankets.
I do not plan to go out on any rat hunts at the moment, not even a photo safari.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 23, 2016 7:15:06 GMT
The potato wagon arrives to set up shop for the evening ~
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 21, 2017 3:58:08 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 21, 2017 15:59:46 GMT
In reference to the post above, the Oaxaca march will be live streamed here: www.facebook.com/CLICKLiveLounge/The march is supposed to start at 11 am CST, but I don't know how the live stream works on that page -- I think you just scroll until you hit it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 14:55:33 GMT
Today I went to my nearby laundromat to wash some clothes, and the only other person present was a young Somali migrant waiting patiently across from one of the clothes dryers. This is quite a common sight since this particular street that runs along the back of my building has become a major gathering area for Somali and Sudanese migrants. I sat there and read my book and saw that he was confused about how to stop the dryer to remove his things. It was immediately obvious that he didn't speak French, so I switched to English, which he spoke quite well. He got all of his things out of the drying and put them in a basket. Then he sat back on the bench to put his things where they belonged. First the pair of socks -- his feet were bare in his oversized trainers, so he put the socks on. Then he pulled a pair of jeans on over the jeans that he was already wearing. Then he pulled on another pair of jeans over that one. Then he put on a light jacket that he had washed, and then he put on another jacket over that one. And then he put the final jacket on top. This made me assume that he is sleeping out on the street with the hundreds of others camped out in front of the overflowing refugee centre at Porte de la Chapelle. He put his trainers back on and was all set to go.
He thanked me for my help and wished me a pleasant afternoon.
I guess there are certain advantages to being a very thin refugee who has obtained a certain quantity of oversized clothing.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 15:20:41 GMT
Kerouac, did you ever get your washing machine repaired? I recall that thread about it's being broken from years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2017 15:46:11 GMT
No, it is still waiting for a kitchen overhaul.
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Post by rikita on Mar 20, 2017 7:59:42 GMT
took this photo a few years ago in spring, in front of a shop ... other "flower pots" i have seen in front of shops include rubber boots, and also jeans filled with dirt, "sitting" on a bench ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 18, 2017 1:34:32 GMT
The dogs & I went to the big park (El Llano) this afternoon. There was a loudspeaker blaring from one end, so we finally went over there to see what was what ~
It's horses!Some corralling going on here ~Nice horse. Great t-shirt ~Okaayyy -- interesting! We weren't expecting this!Bark bark ... Big-ass weird looking giant dogs! Get over here! bark bark bark ... I want a better look!
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