
Taking photos of oneself in bathroom mirrors has been the rage for years now, but I’ve never jumped on that bandwagon. Of course, the photos are normally shot with cell phones, and if you’re a good-looking babe your butt and boobs are center stage.
I’m not a good-looking babe, and I’m not using a cell phone. I used my Canon. That’s our main bathroom downstairs. It has a tub, which is rare in Mexico. The other bathroom, upstairs, just sports a shower stall. Those wall tiles are green and white. I don’t recall why we made the mirror so huge. Our biggest regret is that we installed only one sink when the counter is about a mile long, and a second or third sink would fit nicely.
And here’s another photo. I took it today through the small window in the upstairs bathroom. It’s the only window in the house that faces out back. The wall you see at the bottom is part of our house. There is a parallel street just beyond.
An extended family lived in that lot with two now-crumbling houses for years. One day, they were gone, leaving it like a ghost town.

I had a surprise this morning. I drove downtown to the post office, something I do once every two weeks, to check the contents of my PO box. The reason I go only once every two weeks is because there is rarely anything there, which is the way I like it. Ninety-nine percent of what I find is from the United States.
There was a check from the U.S. Treasury for $600, a Kung Flu payment from “President Donald J. Trump.” There are a number of odd elements to this. One is that I did not receive the first Kung Flu payment because, the IRS informed me, we file taxes jointly and my child bride does not qualify for a Kung Flu payment, so nothing came.
So why did this one come? The second odd element is that it came in a window envelope and was completely obvious that it was a check from the U.S. Treasury. The probability of its being stolen was sky-high, but it wasn’t.
A tip of the sombrero to the Mexican postal system.
I am opposed to this payment that is sent to just about everyone regardless of need. It’s a textbook example of why America is chest-deep in debt. I do not need the money, and many — likely most — of those who received it do not need it either.
And it has delivered a dilemma. What the devil am I going to do with it? I cannot cash it. I cannot deposit it to my Mexican bank account, so …
I have a year to figure it out. That’s what the check says.