I Am a Very Fortunate Person

I am a very fortunate person. Why, just in the last week I’ve received about five notices that I have won various foreign lotteries and have won a total of about $1 million Euros and $2.5 million U. S. Additionally, I have been contacted by a number of folks from the Ivory Coast, Malta, Benin, and other obscure countries urgently requesting my help in transferring millions of dollars out of their countries. All I had to do was send my bank account numbers to the various lotteries and persons requesting my assistance. I am expecting to begin receiving payments soon.

OK. Just in case anyone believes I’m really a dumb ass, I’m kidding.

None-the-less, I am a very fortunate person; and am so completely aside from the fact that I survived all the incredibly stupid things I did during my adolescence. OK, into my mid 20s.

My latest stroke of good fortune was securing the apartment I am living in. Having decided to leave for Merida on October 1st I began looking in August for a place to live. My search was not going well until the end of August when I responded to a request on the Merida Insider message board posted by someone looking for a roommate. As it turned out the person making the request was a 25 year old female college student and her friend. I explained in a follow up message that I was a 56 year old male.

After she initially expressed her fascination with the idea of having “a second dad”, as she put it, she came to her senses and realized it would not be a good idea. But my good fortune was that she worked for a realtor. A realtor, in fact, that I had contacted about a rental advertised on its web site.

Though I received no help from the realtor, the young woman looking for a roommate took up my cause and in short order put me in touch with Sr. Lopez Monsreal, my landlord. Sr. Lopez emailed me a proposal, which I accepted and immediately transferred to him the deposit and first month’s rent, using the services of the Mexican grocery in Elma. Though Sr. Lopez had sent a comprehensive description of the apartment and its furnishing I did not know what it looked like or anything about its location.

A few days before my October 1st arrival, Sr. Lopez emailed me to say he would be happy to pick me up at the airport. Sure enough, after going through customs, dragging my four pieces of luggage while sweating like a pig, as they say, I emerged into the airport terminal and there was Sr. Lopez. We got into his air conditioned van and he drove me to the apartment and gave me a very thorough tour of the apartment, proudly displaying all the furnishing that he had provided.
As it has turned out the apartment is in a perfect location for walking access to the historical district, the Paseo Montejo, four parks and plazas, a very nice small produce market I visit each Friday and where I have become recognized and warmly greeted, a Chedraui super store, and a great number of local shops at which I can get just about anything I need or want. And I couldn't ask for a nicer landlord. Sr. Lopez has been very nice to me, allowing me to dig up the back yard, use all of the water I need for the garden, and to consider this to be my home, as he put it. Today he brought me a Christmas present of a wrapped bottle of Chilean Carbernet Sauvignon.

Additionally, my neighbors Joel, the trombone player in the Yucatan Symphony, and Armando, and 88 year old Cuban American, are very fine folks who have welcomed me warmly.

Saturday evening I again had Joel and Armando over for a lasagna dinner, during which I toasted them and expressed to them how very fortunate I feel to have secured the apartment, sight unseen, and ended up with such great neighbors. Responding, Armando said “if you were a jerk we wouldn’t be having dinner with you.” Armando has provide me with a number of books and regularly brings me coffee grounds for the garden from the coffee shop he frequents.

Joel left today for three weeks in Spain to be with his family during the holiday season, so I am looking after his dog Dusty, whom I have been calling Rusty during the entire time I’ve been here. I could swear that’s what Joel calls him but today Joel left Dusty’s vet records with me just in case there is a problem and I noted Rusty is really Dusty.

I have had good fortune, and made a few fortuitous decisions, throughout my life for which I am very thankful. Ending up in this apartment with great neighbors is the just the latest.

By the way, I have had absolutely no regrets for my decision to sell out and leave my U. S. home of almost thirty years. I am living a stress free life, eating better than I ever have, getting lots of exercise, getting lots of sun, and enjoying the adventure of living in a new place.

Happy holidays to both of my readers.