7 Color Lagoon

New Post on my little blog, Lizard Stew, about disinfecting foods — especially those eaten raw.  Tomatoes are in the news for that reason.  Last year it was “pre-washed” spinach.  It is a simple process that is not only for the developing nations.  Moctezuma can visit the US, too, for his revenge.

The other alternative is to eat cooked foods.  These tomatoes are safely cooked in a sauce with onions, capers, olives, and (for me) chiles.

Whole fish in a Veracruz style sauce at the Restaurant Cenote Azul.  Photo © Howard Dratch.

HOUSE FOR SALE ON THE SHORE OF LAGUNA BACALAR.  PRICE REDUCED TO $369,000US.

CASA EN LA ORILLA DE LA LAGUNA BACALAR SE VENDE.  PRECIO REDUCIDO A 3.8MILLION DE PESOS M.N.  La casa tiene 4 recamaras, 3.5 baños, alberça, grande muelle, jardin, casita de 2 cuartos, 2 bañitos, 1100 metros cuadrado embardado, titulado.  Fotos: clic AQUI

La casa esta cerca del Hotel Laguna y Cenote Azul.  El dueño puede recibir correo electronico hfdratch@yahoo.com o (983) 834.26.18.

Visit the gallery — Bacalar House For Sale — by clicking on this link or on the blogroll in the left column.

EDIT: It is now Monday, June 2.  The storm passed and seemed to have been small.  Then the backside hit with some winds and torrential rains.  Those 10-15 inches warned of may well have fallen.  Somehow the power has stayed on.  I have not ventured out to see if there was damage in Bacalar beyond the normal flooding of the streets that have no drainage (all of them).  Chetumal suffers the same flooding problems with any rain — streets have no drainage or it is blocked by garbage.  Still, next to Hurricane Dean last August, this was a puny wake-up call for the coming of the hurricane season.

Today the NOAA and National Hurricane Service warned of the approach of Arthur into Belize and up to the Yucatan:
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM ARTHUR SPECIAL ADVISORY NUMBER  1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL  AL012008
100 PM EDT SAT MAY 31 2008

…TROPICAL STORM ARTHUR…FIRST STORM OF THE 2008 ATLANTIC
SEASON…QUICKLY FORMS NEAR THE COAST OF BELIZE…ALREADY MOVING
INLAND…

AT 1 PM EDT…1700 UTC…THE GOVERNMENT OF BELIZE HAS ISSUED A
TROPICAL STORM WARNING FOR THE COAST OF BELIZE….AND THE
GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO HAS ISSUED A TROPICAL STORM WARNING FROM CABO
CATOCHE SOUTHWARD TO THE BORDER WITH BELIZE.  A TROPICAL STORM
WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN
THE WARNING AREA..IN THIS CASE…WITHIN THE NEXT 6 TO 12 HOURS.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA…INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS…PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 100 PM EDT…1700Z…THE CENTER OF NEWLY FORMED TROPICAL STORM
ARTHUR WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 18.1 NORTH…LONGITUDE 88.5 WEST
OR ABOUT 45 MILES… 75 KM…NORTH-NORTHWEST OF BELIZE CITY AND
ABOUT 195 MILES …315 KM…SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF COZUMEL MEXICO.

ARTHUR IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 8 MPH…13 KM/HR. ON
THIS TRACK THE CENTER OF CIRCULATION WILL BE MOVING OVER YUCATAN
TODAY AND EARLY SUNDAY. (more…)

Financial markets and expectations have spent months in turgidity.

As spring begins they have become turbid.

1 a: thick or opaque with or as if with roiled sediment <a turbid stream> b: heavy with smoke or mist2 a: deficient in clarity or purity : foul, muddy <turbid depths of degradation and misery — C. I. Glicksberg> b: characterized by or producing obscurity (as of mind or emotions) <an emotionally turbid response>

Since I have been posting again to my blog(s) and shooting a little, I have rebuilt the gallery of photographs of my house for sale on the shore of the Laguna Bacalar.

Visit the gallery — Bacalar House For Sale — by clicking on this link or on the blogroll in the left column.

Although concentration on getting my house sold this year is paramount, I visited a house on the coast road that is up for sale by its Mexican owner.  He is asking more than I am at the moment.

I shot a couple of façades of the house but I am not hired to shoot it nor am I involved in its sale.  I did enjoy this little detail — a personal aside in the business of living.

A picture from my garden as a post for today. Appropriate for Sunday.

This is the quick visit to a nursery on the highway from Bacalar to Chetumal. There is a nonchalant elegance to the mash of tropical plants — some for sale and some growing prettily that come with a quizzical look. “Of course they are not for sale. They are growing. Yes. It is the only one we have.” So goes the business acumen of many. It is not a commercial society, not totally comfortable with the concept of capitalism.

A NEW GALLERY OF PICTURES FROM A RECENT TRIP TO A LOCAL NURSERY HAS BEEN POSTED.

This is the newly-painted barda (perimeter wall) with the steel gates (porton) that help to shield the house and property from the street.

It has been so long since I have been posting to this and to my other blogs and sites that it is hard to get over whatever block has kept me from it.  One way is these short posts and pictures.  The pictures are important to me and have become so much easier since I bought my first digital camera in September.

My velador — gardener/guard/assistant — pushing me to get out of the house more than I have been tempted me with a nursery in the jungle nearby.  He wanted to do some planting in the “front” of the house facing the lagoon.  The winds and slight salinity of the air may make it hard to grow things there but we chose bougainvillea (bugambilla in Spanish) for its sturdiness and beautiful blooms.  We motored over to the newish nursery (vivero) and then creeped home with the Jetta laden with plants.

A gallery of the pictures is being readied or I will post some more here but, as a teaser, is the young son of the Mayan family who tend the plants.  It is not mall-world in L.A.  This lad was as fascinated by the pictures floating in the screen on the back of my Nikon D40x as he was by the old foreigner who spoke with an accent.  Of course, this campesino Mayan family did not exactly speak the king’s Spanish either.  Their local accent was thick.  I collected some plants and some images.

Following a recent request that made me realize I should have hand-outs available for the house, I made a simple poster in English to leave at some hotels where would-be buyers visit.  A Spanish version will be coming shortly.

Since there is a new downloading plug-in on this blog it seemed a good time to play with it for the first time.

The single-page pdf suitable for printing or showing on a computer screen is in my DOWNLOAD FILE.