Yin & Yang

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Yáng (陽 or 阳 "sunny place, south slope, north bank (river), sunshine"; Japanese: yō; Korean: 양, Vietnamese: dương) is the bright element: it is active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the daytime.

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Last Thursday when I was walking back to my car to take a much needed lunch break I noticed something in the middle of the road.

I make it a habit to look down when I walk because there are just too many random holes in the ground and I don't want to pull a "Baby Jessica", nor do I want to plant my face in the cement.

So here I am, doing my usual scan of the ground when I see something. I look closer and without stopping I realize it's a 500 peso bill! I reach down gracefully and barely stop as I quickly swoop it up into the palm of my hand and make a fist.

There's no one really around, and no one looks distraught so I figure, finders keepers and high tail it to my car.

I'm super happy with my find and figure I deserve it so I make a phonecall to share my news and then go home and enjoy my lunch.

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Yīn (陰 or 阴 "shady place, north slope, south bank (river); cloudy, overcast"; Japanese: in or on; Korean: 음, Vietnamese: âm) is the dark element: it is passive, dark, feminine, downward-seeking, and corresponds to the night.
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The next day is Friday and as per every Friday after work , I walk back to my car, get in and drive to wherever I'm going. It's pretty standard. Nothing special about it.

Except this Friday is different. As I'm walking back to my car which is parked in a fairly active yet dark street, I notice something is not right with my car.

The front passenger side window is smashed. There is a small hole and the rest of the glass is shattered but held together by the tinting tape. (Praise the lord for printing tape because there was a lot less glass to clean up inside the car.)There was nothing stolen (nothing to steal really besides the car sine I had the faceplate with me) and the door was locked as it should be.

It looked like someone smashed and ran. Whether it was an accident or not I don't know but my gut tells me it was not directed at me and that I was not a target so to say. My car was in the wrong place at the wrong time and now I had to pay for it....

So the next day I took the car into the window place, paid my 645 pesos and in less than an hour later my car window was replaced and I was on my way like nothing had happened. This is one of the things I love about Mexico. Certain things cost very little and are done very quickly. I LOVE THAT about living here.

Technically it only cost me 145 pesos to fix since I found 500 pesos the day before, so I didn't fuss about it too much.

It looks like Yin & Yang were doing their job and when things like that happen you kind of have to wonder about the weird voodoo that goes on in this world!

Not What I Expected Around The Corner

So I'm driving back to work after lunch and turn into the street where I usually park my car but something is in my way!!!

I swear a few times because I've developed some serious road rage here, and when I blink my eyes a couple of times, I see that it is a nice big brown horse and cowboy that are in my way!

WTF?

I wonder if they will get a ticket....

They were going down the wrong way on a one way street.....

???

Learning About Things I Didn't Know I Had To - PART DOS

Before I moved here I pretty much knew zero about cars. I bought my car brand spankin new back home and have taken it in religiously for tuneups and never had a problem with it. If I did, I would simply call up my brother or my dad and let them be the hero that they love being and have them come save me. I never got to that point.

When I moved here I didn't have a car. I even went without one for a few years. But I got sick of taxi's and the lack of freedom I had with them, even though they were convenient and when I had saved up enough money, I bought myself my first used car. I named her Bootyliscious. She's a red Chevy Monza and she's cute.

Right from the bat there were several things I had to learn from it.

First off, I purchased it without test driving it myself because I forgot how to drive stick. I learned when I was 17 and then bought an automatic, so what would make you think I'd remember? So I had a friend re-teach me how to drive and within 15 minutes I was getting around just fine (yes I stalled but I still got around just fine ok!).

There were a few minor things that had to be taken care of and my friend gladly helped (simply because if I had a car, his life would also be easy). He checked the oil, told me how to make sure they changed it, changed some lights and we bought a gas cap for my gas tank. I really didn't think you could just go to Walmart and buy a gas cap, but apparently you can!

I also didn't know that Mexico is really great at taking a car and making it as cheap as possible. They have versions of cars here that they don't have back home that are seriously below the basic models. While my car is not a total shitmobile....it is certainly one of those, "where can we cut corners to make this car cheaper" cars.

So here I am after 2-1/2 years of owning my car and I've learned that I should listen to it, that it speaks to me, and if things don't sound or aren't running right, it means there is a problem...and that no, it's not just because it's a cheap crappy car.

I've had issues with my air conditioning on more than one occassion and that is probably due to the place I went to in the first place. But I figured if they didn't fix it right the first time, it's their responsibility to fix it right the 8th, 9th and 10th time without a charge. Apparently the panel controls for my a/c is broken, and I now have a jerry-rigged "switch" to turn my a/c off and on that hangs below my steering wheel. They told me that this only cost me 50 pesos to do, instead of 5,000 and really, I'm better off. The switch is now broken and the a/c doesn't go off at all. I'm sure glad THEY knew what they were doing because boy oh boy, what the heck would I do without them?

Anyhow, I've had various issues that I wish I did not have. And it seems that every time they fix something, a month or two down the road it is something else. I've finally found the 3rd mechanic that I am happy with both in repairs and price, plus they are just really nice people which is kind of rare to find here. I suppose if I had him first, I wouldn't have had as many issues as I've had. As a result it's cost me more money and the ability to listen to my car a whole lot better.

My guess is that if I had listened earlier on I would have not had to do so many other repairs. But what do I know in terms of the various sounds it should make and how smoothly the clutch should work or how accelerating shouldn't be as hard as my car was making it. Or how about that burning smell and the leakage coming from under my car that I should have paid attention to.

Because you see folks, it's not that it's just a crappy car and runs like crap. It's just that I wasn't paying attention.

Just goes to show how communication is sooooooooooooo important. Even if it's with an inanimate object. I didn't know I had to learn that!

Now I know better.

Check out my car at: http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-14772657-_JM

If they sell the car the link might not work anymore but this gives it multiple views :)