On the Corner

This morning we discussed that we would eat Mexican-style eggs (huevos a la Mexicana). As usual, Miguel went to the market to pick up what we would need for today. On the list was tortillas.

He arrived back home with two bags loaded with fruit. But no tortillas.

That's ok - I said I would just walk down to the corner of our street and wave down a passing beep-beep bicycle vendor with a cooler of hot tortillas.

I got to the corner and listened. Silence. No beep-beep. Darn - I would have to stand and wait.

While lingering on the corner, our neighborhood beat patrol cop (also a local business owner), arrived for work on his moped. He parked on the corner opposite from where I was standing, and after the "Buenos Dias" greeting, I told him that I was there waiting for tortillas.

The cop told me that he would be bringing our furniture order over tomorrow, they were just applying the varnish today. "Ok, muy bien, gracias", I said.

There still wasn't a beep-beep sound anywhere, so I decided to walk up to my neighbor's house and feed her cats. It was a little earlier than usual, but with other things on our agenda today, it would be good to get that out of the way.

As I walked towards their block, the stray white cat that mooches food from me had jumped through the gate and was heading north. As I continued walking towards the house, a block away from the cat, he suddenly turned around and looked at me. All the cats seem to know my footsteps, they are at the gate before I get there because they've heard me coming. And this white cat knew it was me too.

Ah ha! I could hear him thinking. Here's breafast! He turned right around and walked towards the gate. Although I cannot touch this cat, he is responding to me by meowing to let me know he is hungry - something he did not do the last time I took care of the cats in the spring. He is not a pretty cat at all - part Himalayan and part Siamese, with a wicked overbite. He is not nearly as scrawny as he was a few months ago when I thought he was starving. He has learned where to stake his claim when I put down the piles of food, so he's well-fed now.

The orange cat with the crooked head (some sort of muscle disorder), is always there to greet me. He is the resident cat and almost never leaves the property. Unlike the grey cat, who seems to live at my neighbor's house but can often be seen outside the property. This morning the grey cat was not around - I think it was because it was earlier than usual and he was caught off-guard.

With the cats fed I headed back to my corner. Still no sound of beep-beep tortillas. The cop was getting ready to start his rounds, and as he headed up the road, he told me that if he came across the tortilla guy he would tell him I was there waiting.

The cop got as far as a block away when we both heard the beep-beep. He called back to me just as I called to him - "tortillas. I saw him tell the guy that I was waiting, and so arrived a nice hot package of tortillas, placed into my hands.

I walked back home and arrived to the smell of sauteed onions and garlic - the start of the huevos a la Mexicana. Mmmmm...breakfast was good today!