the end of the vouganbillea

That is not a typo. Spanish pronounces the “b” as a “v” and the “v” as a “b”. Hence: vouganbillea. Seems to me they could just reverse the process?

The garden has been clipped, trimmed and sheared right down to the bare stalks, and then they were cut. First to go was the bougainvillea in the front garden; next will be the two big ones in the back. After taking all the cuttings to the next door pyre the Patient carefully snipped off a beautiful bunch of blossoms. One doesn't think of bouganvillea as "cut flowers'; it's too wild, has too much a mind of its own and grows and trails any way it wants. But I crammed the stems into this vase just to admire their beauty. We have to do this major pruning (one step short of swidden; we slash but don't burn the plant. That goes on in the lot next door!) every year before we leave so that the greenery doesn’t take over. By December – projected return date – it will all be grown up again. I took out a huge Elephant Ear philodendron when we got here, hacked off a piece of it and stuck it in the ground and, not surprisingly, it is putting out new leaves and will probably be 6’ tall when we next open the front door.

Tonight we decided to go out to dinner. Then we decided we could do several chores AND go to dinner, too. So we took off for Tecoman about 4:30 so I could try, once again, to get my hair cut. Then we were going to investigate a few more tile shops, and end up at La Hacienda for dinner. Hair cut? No, only pedicures today. Come back Monday. Tile shops? We forgot that shops close at noon on Saturday. Dinner at La Hacienda? Sorry, we're closed tonight. Three up, three down. So back to our old standby, La Jacaranda in Armeria, ordered a pizza to go and came home.

There are two celebrations in Cuyutlán tonight and we should get the musical brunt of both of them. One is a boda, wedding party, at the San Rafael Hotel on the beach. The daughter of the owner is the bride. Big party, big speakers, big dance floor, big noise. The other is a quinceñero, the "coming out" party that Mexican kids have when they turn fifteen. It is in a venue in the middle of town, so we will get that musical treatment from back side, too. But it's only one night, it's what they do here, so suck it up and don't complain. Right?