Hotel TexMex

The rumours are true. We’ve moved out of the house in Ciudad Colon and into Hotel TexMex. Yep, that’s where we all can meet for Margaritas and Caldo Real. Come on over and join us for dinner sometime! It looks like we’ll be here for a while because the house out at Finca El Tigre won’t be ready until April- at last word. The first word was August of 2006 so we’re not sure yet if April really is the last word.

We do have an excellent architect and a very professional building team. Work is exceptional - very high quality throughout. Progress is slow.

We moved our housekeeper, Janet, over to her casita this week with all our brood of dogs and cats. She joins the Finca El Tigre workers and another brood of dogs and cats already living there. So Janet’s first order of business is to blend the two packs of animals. Kind of like an Animal Brady Brunch.

Hotel TexMex is going to be quite an adventure considering that El Jefe is used to staying at 5-star Hotels, usually upgraded to a suite, and often without paying anything at all, due to massive frequent flyer miles and platinum status and all the perks! His idea of roughing it is sitting out on the terrace at the Marriott.

So how did we end up at Hotel Tex Mex? Well it took some convincing because I was really quite shocked at the idea at first, and friends had made their homes available to prevent this sort of madness. But we are in transition from major life changes – Gerry leaving corporate life, and both of us changing to a lifestyle of residing and commuting between Finca El Tigre and New Orleans.

Hotel TexMex is our transition chapter - kind of like going from the sublime to the ridiculous. And, if we want to get right to the point, Gerry’s pal and personal physician, Dr. Bob, owns the place. Gerry hasn’t been for a medical checkup for over 10 years but if he has any sort of medical issue, he simply pops over to TexMex for dinner and a chat with Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob was once a Las Vegas Orthopedic Surgeon. He retired, moved to Paradise, got bored and opened up Tex Mex. We’ve been dining at his establishment every Sunday ever since. Now we live here.

We took two rooms opposite each other and installed ourselves, a small amount of luggage, our bed, towels, sheets, cleaning supplies…. Dr. Bob recently renovated the rooms so they’re actually quite comfortable, with good ventilation, excellent water pressure and tiled bathrooms. The main ingredients for survival.

The first night, we discovered some of those pesky tiny ants second-lining across our bathroom wall from the door frame to an outside window. No big shock – I’ve seen them at the Dentist’s too. At this point, we have taken the strategy of just ignoring them. It appears that they are just passing through. If they divert from that line, however and begin invading the room, we will terminate that strategy by terminating them!

Now that we’re over the initial shock of moving in here, we’ve settled into a rather pleasant routine. We can use the laundry facilities, make cappuccino in the morning and wander just down the block for the newspaper.

All these years, we always just eaten TexMex food or Chicken Soup – locally famous for hangovers and known as Caldo Real. But living here, we’ve had the opportunity to try other items on the menu and have been pleasantly surprised. Caesar salad with chicken -excellent! Fish dinner - very good, very fresh-tasting tilapia. And for all of you Buffalo Wing fanatics (yes, you members of the ‘Secret Wings Society’): the buffalo wings are crispy, moderately spicy and served properly with blue cheese salad dressing and plenty of celery. They provide extra hot salsa for those of us who like to kick it up a nice logarithmic notch.

So we have settled in and plan to stay here until at least a bedroom is ready for us to move into over at El Tigre.

Dr. Bob may have to expand that menu!