Back on the Net, and a New Stove!

When a "Mexico" blogger is gone for a while and you hear nothing from them it is a good guess that Telmex got them. Telmex is the phone company in Mexico. Think AT&T before all the little guys broke up the monopoly, and then pretend their service was good, 'cause Telmex makes them look Great! Then realize that if there is a problem with anything you go to Telmex, and wait in line for hours. That is how you pay them also. For real, you can't call, or email. In person is all they do. And you can forget service, they don't do service. If you get connected, fixed, or anything else besides charged for service it was an accident, trust me. Recently while looking into contracts for a phone, I read part of their website. They have the government-issued "monopoly" for another 20 years. Thank God they have already used up 30 years of it. Crimey! You do not want to know how depressing that is. Those of you who are in Mexico already know.

Anyway, we are back online, and I won't say any more since I am sure I am now on Telmex's shit list and we will never get phone service in our own names.

We had a storm and it managed to take out phone service for only two houses on our street. And we were one of the lucky ones. (Actually, my landlady was the lucky one since we just mooch her wireless internet.) It wasn't the same storm that ate my TV. Electricity here is another story for another day. Suffice it to say, when you are hooked up directly to the lines on the poles, with nothing in between you and the power, and the power flexuates and comes and goes, and surges and wanes, your electronics don't last as long. Then zap them a few times and turn the power up and down a few times more. Not good.

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Good news! I got a stove, a real stove. Oven and all. Wow, and on sale. It was the floor model (and the last and discontinued) so was marked down, and guess what, if you ask, but only if you ask, they look on the computer and there is almost always another discount they can give you. Luckily, hubby is a pain in the tush to shop with and is never sure if he wants to buy or what. After running the saleswoman all over and back, then running the really young, like 16 yr. old, guy that she dumped us off on all over and back, then leaving and coming back several times, and going to every other store in the whole city for two days, my stove was only $2500! The others the same size, etc. were about $3500. Unfortunately, hubby went back in this week, can you say obsessed!, and they now have a nicer one marked at the original marked-down price, so he is sure we were robbed. haha

But I don't care, I have a stove and an oven.

It even looks like a stove (like a US stove that is) although it is about as similar in reality as the ones your 3 yr. old has. Ok, the oven window isn't really a window, it is a piece of thin metal painted to look like the dark window on a US oven. It is a great paint job, we didn't even know it wasn't a window for three days. The one above is almost like mine. Although I think it has the real window. And there is no light for said oven. There is no broiler, that panel is fake and screwed on. And the knob has 1-5 not actual temperatures. And there is no insulation around the oven, nothing. I'm figuring for people who have been using an adobe wood oven outside this is a major step-up. I hope to get a thermometer so I can actually use it.

The picture above is how you can buy them. No oven, but a really nice little cabinet, made of really thin metal (tin? aluminum?) All the people I know here in Mexico who have an oven use it only for pot, pans, supplies and plates. It is a status symbol and nothing more. The cabinet makes more sense to me. (And cheaper, soy coda.) Maybe they should paint that window on them and put on false knobs.

Now we're cooking with gas. I just have to wait until next week to have enough money to buy food to cook.

Edit: I just realized I said people use their ovens for pot, that should be pots, but it is too funny so I left it.