Topic: Around the House

And now for the most bizarre twist of events in the continuing saga of our relationship with CFE: our electric bill has gone down – drastically. Our kWh usage has gone up some, from 513 kWh last month to 576 kWh this month. But our bill went from $1,051MXN last month to $368MXN this month. The structure under which we are billed has changed. I don't know what twist of fate or computer malfunction occurred, but I will take it.

Like clockwork, wherever Gringos gather, at the beginning of the month talk turns to electricity bills. Of course, the subject is usually brought up by those of us who have the higher bills. During the Winter, most of my friends have bills in the $300MXN - $500MXN range. Ours has been consistently in the $1,100MXN - $1,200MXN range. This has troubled us off and on, especially since most of our friends have larger houses than we do. Finally, we called in an expert.

We have a large and fairly useless construct in our bathroom. It's kind of a large, tile box - with faucets. I think it's supposed to be a bathtub, but it is rather useless. There is a small pipe set into the tile that drains into the shower. I haven't yet been able to figure a way to adequately plug it. Even if I did, with our gravity-fed water, it would take 5 days to fill the ginormous thing.

Tuesday dawned astonishingly warm and humid. A sudden change from the weather we have been having. We hit 80 degrees in the house. Finally, blissful warmth. We drank in the warm breezes – the first hint of the Summer yet to come. When Wednesday came and was even warmer than Tuesday, we realized this wasn't a tease – Summer really is coming. I performed the season's first Ritual of the Space Bag.

We knew we were moving to a totally different climate with a new set of rules. We also knew that we were going to be living open air with no air conditioning. With this knowledge, we tried to make considered decisions about what to bring with us and what to leave behind. We almost succeeded.

I had no idea how to hang out laundry. I have always had a dryer. When I first saw the clothesline, I thought “How quaint. Won't it be great to have our clothes dried in the fresh outdoor air?” That was day 1.