Walking Moppit the Philosopher Dog this morning and she was adamant about turning up Aldama as we left the main entrance to Parque Juarez here in San Miguel de Allende.
Normally we engage in a powerful battle of wills.
Moppit will want to go left when I want to turn right.
She wants to turn around and head home for a doggie treat while I want to press on for a few blocks more.
She wants to stop and sniff every pee-drenched corner when I don’t want to break the rhythm of my steps.
She wants to stop at Cafe Hortus for a croissant while I prefer walking over to Panina for a rosemary and raspberry scone.
Well, this explains so many things: Anthony de Padua is the patron saint of the insane.
Now the Dia de Locos — or Convite de Locos — isn’t so crazy after all.
Well, yes, it is. Crazy, I mean. Very very crazy. In so many delightful ways.
What better way to honor the patron saint of people who have lost their minds than to assemble thousands of people in costumes that suggest they, too, have indeed lost their minds?
Tried a CBD oil concoction for enabling sleep last night, then I ended up on the roof, mesmerized by the lighting around Parroquia San Antonio de Padua. I couldn’t stop staring at it, so I took this photograph.
The church is about a block away. When celebrations call for fireworks, as they often do, this is a great rooftop patio on which to be.
If the church looks other-worldly, it may be because my head was in an other-worldly place.
My sleep didn’t improve. Not yet anyway.
Though my dreams were weirder than normal, which, if you know my dreams, is saying a lot.
We’ll see what tonight brings.
Or doesn’t bring.
Meanwhile, sleep well. Embrace the new day. Do good works. Think kindly of others. Embrace second chances. Never shirk from responsibilities. Choose the right outfit for the occasion. Never take the last of the yogurt, even the store-bought kind. Don’t second-guess motivations in people who seem meaner than you. Smile and make eye contact with everyone. Frequent more than one bakery. When you tip someone, surprise yourself and go big. Try to remember the name of at least one person you meet this week.
Did I go too far? This Calla lily is in bloom just outside the kitchen door.
It stops me in my tracks every morning when I enter for breakfast. It has been in full bloom for nearly a week now and shows no signs of fading. A hardy one, for sure.
The original photograph, taken Wednesday, Nov. 2, is a bit flatter and duller than this. I’ll post it below. I blame it on the ambient light and the limits of the iPhone camera. And my own limitations as a photographer.
Parading around as elegantly dressed skeletons is so much fun in San Miguel de Allende that apparently, it takes two parades over two days to fit it all in this year.
In the past, it was sufficient to stage one parade of promenading Calaveras, Catrinas, and Catrins — and a variety of other-worldly subsets in various manifestations of theatricality.
Last year, after the wastelands of Covid had subsided and a rebirth of traditions signaled a new dawn, the annual Dia de Muertos parade was a joyous traffic jam of humanity. Skeletons paraded en mass down the Ancha. Preciously costumed Catrinas and their cohorts, led by a masterful and exuberant Mariachi band, exited the sanctuary of the Rosewood and paraded toward the Ancha.
The two masses converged and ground to a halt as paraders funneled up the narrower Zacateras, made narrower by the density of the watchers on both sides of the road. It was a slow slog up to the Jardin where seeing and being seen is the endgame of the evening.