Lots of rain / Started a Trend

While some parts of Texas have been getting hammered by both rain and hail we have been lucky and mostly have received beneficial showers. Last night at 4:00 a.m. we had a thunder and lightning show followed by a strong storm.

The weather guy said that if we did not receive rains from Mexico by midnight they would probably not make it into our part of the state. Since I do not trust the weather forecasters I made preparations to cover dad's old car in case we got hail like the Austin area did yesterday.

I have a funny anecdote to share, on Wednesday, May 19th they announced storms with the possibility of hail. I have my stash of cardboard boxes so I placed them over the old ones. The neighbor across the street started to do the same with his truck and his wife's car.  She then came out and yelled at him so he removed them from her vehicle.

When the hail arrived...thankfully it was only pea size...it was coming down hard and that poor man had to rush outside to cover his wife's windshield...jajajajajaja 😇

I on the other hand rushed outside but to find Muñeca (the little orange cat) since she is so small and I was afraid she would get hurt. She was frightened hiding in the back of the old washing machine so I grabbed her and brought her inside. She unlike her siblings is not afraid of me.

Yesterday two more neighbors joined the club and had their cars covered with cardboard and old bedspreads...and I am the one that started that trend last year after the hail storm broke dad's old car side mirrors and chipped the taillights. I'm sure I was the laughing stock of the block but now I have company :D

It has been very muggy with humidity levels in the '70s which is oppressive and temperatures in the mid 90's with a heat index in the triple digits.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

May 2021 trip to Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila - México

On Tuesday, May 25th I made my first trip back to México since 2019 when I came to stock up for my annual trip to the Chili Cook-off in Terlingua, Texas. The reason for my trip was to take Bonnie Mae to be spayed. You can read more about that by clicking on my header picture or going to my other blog Walter's World.

With my car issues, I had intended to spend the day in Ciudad Acuña until she was ready to be brought home and thus only make one trip. With that in mind, I headed to Plaza Bella which I believe has had a change of name since I was last here. This is the only mall in Acuña and houses Bodegas Aurrera (owned by Walmart), several banks, a movie theatre, as well as large and small stores.

I do not know if it is due to the pandemic but they have cut down on their supply of grocery carts here. It did not matter to me as I was just making time and had not planned on buying anything. Upon entering the store it was noticeable that the lights had been dimmed and it was dark.  It was also warm inside.

They had little to no pastries, bread, and just a few tortillas. Their shelves were being stocked and there were boxes everywhere.

$88.00 divided by 18 pesos = $4.89 USD
for a bottle of Kahlua

The last time I was here like I mentioned above was prior to my 2019 trip to Terlingua and I had unsuccessfully for the third time tried to purchase a bottle of Kahlua. Today I found one lonely bottle in the liquor aisle but since I am not drinking because of all the medication I am taking...it will have to wait for another customer...😢

I had already gone around the store once when I finally found a cart. Set off on my second round and this time decided to buy a jar of decaffeinated coffee, a box of hair dye (Nutrisse is made in México), and a bar of Zote soap.

$56.00 pesos = $3.11 USD

$41.80 = $2.32 USD

$6.60 = $.37 USD

I think I did well keeping my purchases
to a minimum

These were the exchange rates for today at most Exchange Houses. They will buy your American dollar at $18.00 pesos and they will sell you dollars for $19.50.  For our purpose, it is $18.00 pesos to one American dollar.

Monday night I only slept two hours and that morning I left the house without eating breakfast so I headed to the food court only to find them all closed except for one selling Chinese food. I don't like Chinese food so sat at a table. I kept on trying to doze off and again the mall was rather warm and I still had a long way to go until I could pick up Bonnie Mae so decided to come back home instead.

There was a long line at the Mexican tollbooths since they only had one open.

Hardly any traffic as I headed back to the USA

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Replenishing my food stock

I usually keep three months' food stock but when the pandemic hit I doubled it to six months to keep from having to go to the store. Recently I started having car issues so I let it get down to a two-month supply and decided to remedy that situation.

Got up early to avoid the crowds and picked up quite a few things at HEB this morning. You do not know how much I regret having bought the turkey and ham back in November. We have a regular size freezer and it is taking up so much room not to mention all the frozen water bottles I keep just in case the power goes out as it often does in this sleepy border town.

A couple of days ago I went to The Dollar Tree to stock up on cereal, frozen vegetables, mushrooms, and cookies.  I so wanted buttered popcorn and chips but I made sure I ate beforehand and was able to maintain the little self-control I possess.

I have been with my cellphone carrier for five or six years and I have never upgraded my chunky smartphone. Wanting to be able to post better quality photos I finally got a new one but I am having all types of problems uploading them to my computer so until I figure it out I guess I will have a photoless blog.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Ran errands / CRS moments / A/C came on

I do not know what happened to me today but I definitively forgot what it was like to drive into town.  I do not know if it is because it has been a while since I left home or my CRS is getting worse. It is a good thing I stopped trusting my memory and made a detailed list of all the errands I needed to run.

As usual, I got a late start and was almost in town when I realized I was not seeing clearly. I thought my face shield was perhaps dirty and when I looked in the mirror it looked clean...then it hit me...did I remember to put my glasses on?  I looked again, but I was wearing my face shield with a glasses frame to keep it in place so I could not tell. I took off the shield at the stoplight, and sure enough, I did not have my glasses on, but it would have taken too long to drive back home.

This previously would not have been a problem as I always carry spare glasses, sunglasses, change, and all the stuff most car owners carry in their vehicles. However, since I started having car problems I emptied the car of everything in case it burned to a crisp.

The first stop was the southside post office where there was not a single place to park so parked on the street. This older lady decided to do the same but she was not doing a good job so I came back and moved my vehicle to give her more room but most importantly to keep her from hitting me. I could not believe how much mail I had. Since it was late decided to trust this post office and mailed my payment from here rather than drive to the northside.

Headed to the City of Del Rio Recycling Center where I got rid of a large bag of magazines, pamphlets, and basically most of our junk mail as well as our metal cans. As I was getting ready to head to my next stop I looked down at my tires and one of them seemed low. Decided to head to Mario's Tire Shop instead. The guy's dad told me that three of my tires were low not just the one I brought it in for. So for $2.00 plus $1.00 tip, I got that potential problem resolved.

Forgot to mention that I also did not bring cash with me as I usually pay for everything with a credit card but this small mom-and-pop shop does not accept them so had to make an unplanned trip to the bank.

When I went by the main HEB the parking lot was full as usual so headed to Little HEB instead. I was in and out in 15 minutes. It was so hot I did not have the energy to finish the rest of my errands...they will have to wait for another day.

We had a high of 101 degrees today and though we have already reached both 102 and 103 in April 2021 somehow it just felt a lot hotter than that. Sure glad we do not live in Cotulla or Laredo! It is no surprise that the A/C came on this afternoon.

This evening Boerne and areas in Bexar County (San Antonio) got pelted with more hail.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Header Picture