Recent Pix

Although a picture may be worth a thousand words, I will add a few words too.

 This summer I added an outdoor sink to my work area. I got it for $10 from the neighbor and made the stand for it. Surprisingly (to me) the legs were even and the sink sank into the frame. It has been a useful addition.

 I really wanted the outdoor furniture I saw at Sam's Club, but I could not pay $300 for each chair. All other sets I saw did not seem comfortable. Finally BigLots! had their end of summer sale and I found something comfortable. The chairs have a slight swivel/rock motion to them. The set was totally unassembled. It was a good buy.

 Walk through the cemetery with your camera and show me your pictures. This was once an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Now it is something best fitting of Halloween. At what point do you remove what you bring to the cemetery, or do you ever?












No it is not "Wedding Barbie." This is the front window of the local "hierberia" and "santeria" store. It look eerily similar to the previous picture from the cemetery.











Highway signs

"Stripes" is a regional convenience store chain. I liked the three dimensional cup dispenser effect. I need to go back in the morning for better light and maybe less traffic.

 Pronto Insurance has done a good job with their ad campaign locally. I hear positive comments regularly. I don't how many people that relate to the ads go out and buy from the company though.

 

Gus - through the looking glass

     I have made some progress in getting Gus to get into a vehicle. At first he would not go near and resisted the pull. Once inside he was a bundle of high anxiety. Slowly the anxiety diminished, but he still did not seem comfortable riding. His behavior has progressed to the point that he is not fearful of the vehicle and will walk right up to the open door and may put both front paws on the seat or in the open door. However he still has not figured out how to maneuver his rear end to jump in. Once I lift him in he is comfortable, and dare I say happy to go for a ride. These pix depict what I see when I look out to the passenger side rear view mirror.

Digging up family

It seems like forever that I last wrote. My excuse or reason is that the summer has been very hot, tieing and breaking temperature records. It is a time to be indoors before 1 p.m. and resurfacing after 6 p.m. when the temp is around 95.

Doing a little at a time, I scraped, sanded and painted the carport. The last time it got some paint, very little prepping was done, so it needed much work. I wish I would think of doing before and after pictures.

On the search for my family I have returned to the cemetery. I knew that my maternal great-grandmothers were buried in the Weslaco City Cemetery. I also knew that other relatives were buried there. I decided to find their cemetery plots and take pictures and document where they are located. It was a good plan, but....

Who's Who in the City Cemetery
     Grandfather's mother - Maria Lugo (looking)
     Grandmothers mother - Prajedis Alanis (found)
     Grandmother's sister - Cirila Rodriguez (found)
     Grandmother's brother - Mateo Elizondo (found)
     Grandmother's sister-in-law - Maria Elizondo (looking)
     Grandmother's sister - Paula Elizondo (looking)
     Grandmother's brother-in-law - Abundio Vallejo (Looking)

"Cirila" is misspelled as "Sirilda" I am sure that this was before spellcheck.

Francisca was Cirila's daughter/ my grandmother's niece and Alberto her husband.

Mateo died in 1968.

My grandparents 2 days apart. (Interesting story.)

Maria Lugo (great grandmother)

I went to City Hall looking for the location of her grave. Using the latest in index card technology, he came back with a section, plot, and grave number. When I looked at the map, I knew that  the information was incorrect. I used to take my grandmother to the cemetery on "visit the dead" days and I remembered my great-grandmother's grave being on the "Mexican" side. (Yes, the dead were also segregated.) The information from the city had her buried (1952) on the Gringo side. Who was she going to mingle with???

 On the left side of the street was the Anglo side (it has been integrated). The markers are small or flush with the ground.

On the right side of the street is the Mexican side of the cemetery. The graves are adorned with an abundance of plastic flowers and wreaths for every occasion.  This section of the cemetery is extremely crowded.

Maria Lugo did not have a formal marker. My grandfather made a mound of cement and embedded sea shells and marbles in it. Years later the cement, and decorations disappeared.

In the old days, before plastic flowers, a trip to the cemetery required a shovel, a bucket, and other gardening tools. We had to plant and weed and water, and clean. It was almost a day-long trip if we needed to make a stop all over.

Maria Elizondo

Maria Elizondo was my "aunt," through marriage. She was my grandmother's sister-in-law and was 99 when she died in Chicago.

City Hall has no record of her burial in 2001. However....

Another distant relative was walking through the flea market when she noticed a tombstone, with a name she recognized, Maria Elizondo. Apparently the family did not finish paying for the stone and it was repossessed. The relative called the police and got to take the stone to her house. She tried to put it back, but had no one to help her and could not pay the fees that the city was charging. The stone sat on her front yard for years. I drove past and did not see it, maybe it is a bench in the back yard. I continue to try and contact this relative to get the marker to the cemetery. The City needs to find the spot though.

Looking

I just recently asked the guy at City Hall to look for the grave sites for Paula Elizondo, Abundio Vallejo,  I was told to return next week.

Monterrey,  Mexico Cemetery- Update

You remember the entrance to Neverland. My paternal grandfather and aunt are buried here.

 I was back in Mexico in July. I wanted to know who had purchased the plot.  My thinking was that now that I found new relatives in Monterrey and all are between the ages of 67 and 80, there may be a need for burial real estate. If I could have the plot transferred to my name, I could authorize burials as needed. The plot is built for 5 and has 3 vacancies.

I forgot I was in Mexico.

The plot was bought by the aunt that is buried there. She bought it about 10 years before my grandfather died. I did not know that she was so future oriented. The cemetery is city owned. They do not sell or buy plots. If a family wants to sell their plot, they advertise or inform the cemetery to refer buyers to them. The cemetery is out of the transactions.

The only way to bury someone or exhume the remains is to present the cemetery the deed to the land. I have never seen a deed. The alternative is to go to court and have a judge rule that I am the legal owner of the property as all of my family is deceased. This entails buying, a lawyer, and a judge. The property might be worth $120,000 pesos or $9000 US. From what I have heard of these proceedings, they are drawn out a they tend to bleed money, especially if the client is American. I am still thinking of a way to save this property and the remains buried there.

I WILL CONTINUE DIGGING!

Misc. Pix

Today is the day, July 20, 2012.  Here are some pictures that I had been meaning to post.

Gus update:
     He continues to do well. He plays fetch, but is not obsessed. He decides when to quit. He just does not bring it back and wanders off to something else.

 The mention of "where is the squirrel?" gets him looking up into the trees. "Where is the lizard" and he goes darting to the side of the house and plant areas. He has yet to catch either.

His favorite activity is sleeping and this is his favorite sleeping position.


 When my niece was out of town, I watched her dog Coco and Gus had a play date weekend. I thought that Coco would help in getting Gus into the truck. It did not work. The only way that Coco will interact with Gus is if Gus learns how to toss the tennis ball.

Plants:
    One of these days, I will have a south Texas pineapple.  I don't remember when I planted the pineapple top, but is has been growing steadily.

I think it has been 2 years since I got this plumeria stem in the mail - all the way from Hawaii. The leaves come and go, but it survived the big freeze. I am waiting for more growth before planting it int he ground.

At the Hilo WalMart, I bought two packaged Tea Plant roots. One was red and the other green. Even though I followed the growing instructions, the root-lings took their time growing. Although I cannot distinguish the red from the green, they are both growing and looking good.  Both pots seem to have acquired "squatters."

I saw that Lowe's sells Tea Plants for $8. It might have been easier and cheaper, but I can say, I brought these roots from the Big Island of Hawaii and miracle of miracles, I got them to grow.

More Cemetery Images

This falls under the category of what were they thinking.

 This mouning image is striking, until you see it 100 times. You can't tell someone, "He's buried with the mounring angle."

 I do not know if this is a single family grvae or a site owned by the cemetery. It was being worked on so I do not know how it will be finished or how they will get to the stairs leading down into the depths of ----the tomb.

This one caught my eye because of the name Fraga. I know some people in WA by that name. This "curio cabinet" motif is also popular in the cemetery. There is a picture of the dearly departed, along with a rosary and other religious objects. The box in the center had a can of coke, a can of beer, and to the side, the head of a broom. On top of the box was a roll/ package of crackers.

 This cube caught my eye because of the simplicity of the design and the over the top finishes. The glass cross is on both sides of the cube. I don't know what kind of stone it is, but it looks expensive.

 I saw this and immediately thought of granite counter in the kitchen. This was granite all around, including the backsplash.

If the statue in the center had been of an Egyptian goddess, I would say that Cleopatra was buried here.  The clue to this are the two sphinxes atop the columns. The glass doors hide a stairs that lead down. It could be a multiplex housing for the dead.

I hope you enjoyed the trip through Pateon de Dolores, through the gates of never-never-land.

Monterrey Cemetery

I went to Monterrey last weekend and spent four nights. I disregarded the recent violence involving the 40 headless bodies that were found on the highway between here and there. Again I took the bus. I don't think my car would survive for long in Monterrey. If I am not hijacked on the highway, the car would be stripped overnight where ever I park it.

I was telling someone about the buses to Monterrey. They really are better than the Greyhound. The seats are nore spacious and the rows are not as crowded. There is a restroom for the male passengers and a separate one for the female passengers. The trip is about 4 hours long and this allows for two movies to be shown.  These are usually American movies that are subtitled or dubbed into Spanish.

Cerro de la Silla (Saddle Mountain)

My grandfather died in 1973 and my aunt - his daughter - in 1992. They are both buried in the same plot. Although I found it unusual, it is a common thing in Mexico.  I needed to know where they were buried.

The cemetery is "Panteon de Dolores." It is adjacent to "Pateon El Carmen," and it is important to know where to look because they are huge. Here is a Google Earth image.

The red line is the path to the gravesite. From the entrance all the way to the back and then all the way to the right. I don't know why something closer to the entrance was not purchased. The office gave me an "address" for the grave, but the land mass is not marked in any way.

The entrance to the cemetery looks like the entrance to never-never land - well yes! After you go to the office for directions, there is a group of older gentlemen who would gladly take you to the general area and help you find the site and they work for tips. I chose to go it alone.

 Although it was early in the morning it was starting to get hot. The shady street past the entrance helped.

Half-way to the back was the chapel.  I was immediately struck by how clean the grounds were. 



















There is no dirt to step on. The area between the rows are paved "sidewalks." I also found out that they do not use any dirt in the graves. More on that later. Also in the picure below notice the brown-roofed enclosures with the windows.

So I finally find my relatives' resting place. On my next trip I need to find out under whose name it is and change it. Else it will be taken over by the cemetery and resold.

Unlike other cemeteries, this one is orderly. The names were etched but the groves did not have any paint. I decided to return the next day with a permanent marker and the image below is the result.

I took pictures with detailed instructions on how to find the site. If there is anyone interested in going there, they will have an easy time.

No Dirt

The plots are sold and dug according to the owners instructions. The norm is to have 5 compartments.

This is a grave that I assume caved in. Each "ledge" going up to the sunlight would be where the cement lid is placed over the coffin. It then serves as the base for the next occupant, hence, no dirt is needed.

 I am sure that this method of burial is common in other parts of the world, but I had never seen it or known about it.

In my experience, a distant cousin needed to bury her son and could not afford the real estate. She asked my mother if her son could be buried with my greatgrandmother. The hole was dug and whatever was there was collected and re-enterred in the side of the grave, making room for the new coffin.  I wonder what happens in the graves with 5 occupants and the family needs room for a 6th?

Back to these structures.

It is not enough to spend the money on a marble topper. Some folks have extra cash to spend. These are as wide as the gravesite. The interior varies a little. It can simply house the marble topper. Or it is a marble floor with artificial flowers in large vases. Some have a prayer-kneeling-thing. What I found over the top is the structure itself.

The windows are etched glass. The lower part of the window is louvered.

Notice the window cranks on the inside. Yes and the windows and the door have steel bars for protection or safety?

I don't make this stuff up. I am an observer and a reporter.