Sunday Morning 6/26/2022: Not the Best Week

This has personally been a nothing burger of a week for us. We decided to mostly stay home this week to help my back heal, and I am happy to say it is much, much better; in fact, I’ve gone to bed most evenings forgetting it’s even been bothering me. I got reminded of it almost every morning though and it usually took a couple of hours to work out the kinks, but yesterday I awoke without any pain at all – yeah! Reducing our activity and all seemed to have made things better, and hopefully my back issues will soon be nothing but a distant memory.

Some of the things we’ve bought the past few weeks: Small (18″) mirrors with tinwork frames; Dia de Los Muertos themed t-shirts; authentic Talavera pottery mugs; and colorful shopping bags. Everything but the mugs are gifts for someone in our family, and nothing cost over $15.

We went out last Wednesday afternoon to do some shopping and try to find some specific things we want to take back with us to the U.S. as gifts. We shopped with a list and found what we were looking for but also found two other items at prices we couldn’t resist. We bought three t-shirts, two for the Meiling’s and YaYu’s partners and one for our grandson, two small mirrors framed with tin work (the unplanned items, but they were just $12.50 each) and a small hand-carved and painted wooden heart with wings. Some of the things we’ve bought since we’ve been here will be put away for Christmas, but many are gifts for family members or fun things for the grandkids. We’ve bought a few things for ourselves too since we’ve been here: my embroidered dress, blouse, and straw hat; two authentic Talavera pottery coffee mugs; a small piece of original art; the bean pot; and Brett gave me a silver ring. Shopping here has sort of been like dining out – so many things are beautifully made and very affordable and it takes a lot of effort not to buy them. The only thing I still have my eyes on is a pair of silver earrings in the window of the silversmith down the street. We have no idea how much they cost though, and if they turn out to be more than we want to pay they won’t be purchased. We’re otherwise winding down the shopping now because Brett’s afraid buying anything more will mean we may have to purchase an additional suitcase! For now though, everything we’ve gotten will go into the bags we came with (I will carry the bean pot onto the plane).

This morning I am thinking about:

• Things we accomplished this past week: 1) Other than finishing up our gift shopping, going to brunch on Friday, and doing our food shopping afterwards I don’t think we accomplished much of anything. 2) We both finished books and downloaded new ones from the library. I’ve read 27 books so far this year and I’m happy with that!

• What we’re looking forward to next week: 1) We’re looking forward to having our neighbor Jenny over for dinner this evening. We’re serving lamb burgers! 2) We’re going to have lunch at Raices mid-week and we’re both excited about that. I want to try their yellow mole. 3) We may try to take a two and a half hour walking tour of San Miguel de Allende one morning, depending on the weather. We’re hoping after being here for a month we’ll get more out of it and have a better understanding of much of what we’ve only been admiring up until now. 3) Other than brunch on Friday, everything else will be spontaneous (rain is predicted for several days, so somewhat difficult to plan ahead of time).

• The ways we saved: 1) We didn’t do anything special this week to save other than make an effort to eat all the leftovers in our refrigerator to make sure nothing had to be thrown out before we shopped. 2) We did all our shopping with purpose (and a list) and did not go crazy. We once again stayed under budget with both our food and souvenir shopping. We have put a higher than usual amount into savings since we arrived here

• Good things that happened: 1) The weather has been delightfully cool this past week, perfect for walking and sleeping at night. It has been a pleasure to go out versus the chore it was when it was hot. It’s still very, very dry though. 2) The frutería down the street had peaches, figs, and mangoes available this past week at ridiculously low prices, and we enjoyed figs with our cheese and crackers this past week and I had peaches on my cereal – yum! The mangoes here are so, so sweet. I didn’t really care all that much for the mango variety available in Hawaii (and they were ridiculously expensive as well), but can’t get enough of the ones available here. 3) The pain in my back is gone! The vertigo remains but is not as bad as it was.

After the Supreme Court decisions handed down this past week, all I can say is that the United States that Brett and I knew, served, and trusted is over. Miranda rights are gone. Women’s autonomy has been crushed, and unfettered gun ownership appears to be the greatest right of all. Privacy rights are on the line, with hints (threats?) that contraception, marriage rights, and others will be reexamined in the future. Only Loving v. Virginia seems to be off the table for some reason, interesting because it was decided on the same legal reasoning as Roe v. Wade. Some may be happy about last week’s decisions, but as a country I’m afraid we’re never going to back to some of the freedoms and protections we have enjoyed and to what we thought was normal. Tomorrow’s expected decision is the scary one for me though, the Court’s ruling involving the EPA. Their decision will decide whether the EPA, an executive agency, can issue and enforce an environmental rule that they haven’t yet made or issued; the Court will be ruling on a hypothetical rule that the EPA might issue in the future. This is no longer “calling balls and strikes” or adjudicating a previous case ruling, but ruling on something that hasn’t happened yet and is therefore being done for purely political reasons. That we’ve come to this should scare all Americans because the ramification are enormous.

Sorry to end on such a low note, but that’s the sort of week it’s been. I’m not sure next week is going to be any better, but we still have the power and right to organize and vote (even though that’s sadly being threatened in places as well). In the meantime, I still hope good things happed for everyone in their lives and that more will be coming your way in this next week.