Let there be light

Three weeks of mananas ago I had asked my Plumber/electrician guy to come install some outdoor plug ins. He had done such a good job of fixing my hot water shower last year, it only zaps me once in awhile.
He finally showed, with his tool box and the standard 5 gallon pail and a mile of homemade extension cords, he first plugs his phone in and the music starts. He has the same music as me...old stuff, in English that he can't understand,  It's 8 am.

I lust for one of these

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He works slowly and methodically, enjoying his music. I sit on the step with my dictionary and blabber with him all day, he corrects my Spanish, helps me look up words, spells words for me, we tell stories, we talk about food, weather, the problem with women, the problem with men, our dreams ( I have a dream of having lights outside someday), his friend stops in and visits, he wants to learn German because his grandma is German, he knows how to say " asshole" in German but doesn't know what it means. We make plans to get together hopefully to give him a better vocabulary. He leaves.Dude and I talk about traveling, he tells me he is going to Nayarit tomorrow, I lend him a camera, he like to read, I lend him a Spanish book, he lends me a hammer. I make milkshakes with frozen fruit for lunch, we go through my verb  book, he says present tense is really all I need. I tell him I want to go to Italy some day, he misunderstands and thinks I've been to Italy, we decide maybe learn past tense as well. Another friend stops by, he's learning English online, we laugh at silly words that don't translate in Spanish, like "cowboy" and "hotdog".
 Dude  leaves to get some screws,  I snoop through his tool box, he comes back in an hour. " will I have lights before Christmas I ask?", " maybe by New Years" he says. I tell him how I discovered a box of little hooks with sharp little points that go through concrete in his tool box...he tells me they are mine, I paid for them when I gave him money to buy supplies, this will change my life,  that and the borrowed hammer. I run into the house and hang my calendar up, yup this will change my life.

2 new plug-ins get installed, a little ditch gets dug to bury cable, then we hang a chandelier from the mango tree, ( a very Mexican chandelier...not a Chrystal one, that's a different dream)  this involved a tall tall ladder and miles of cable and a lot of those fancy little hooks, I am still sitting on the step chatting with him and directing the placement of the ball, the chandelier still gets hung crooked but I don't mind, I'm so excited about all this. It's 8 pm when he is finally putting the last plugin in, it's dark, he uses his phone as a flashlight, "would be nice to have light out here wouldn't it?" I say. Haahah we laugh. 8:30 pm, we hold our breath and plug the lights in, nothing blows up, I am so excited about my Chandelier hanging from the trees, in glows in the dark like a twinkling star, we stand in awe. "Maria's dream is accomplished" he says. We laugh and decide as soon as I have a table and chairs outside we will celebrate with a supper. We have one light that still needs to be moved but it's late and he is leaving early tomorrow morning for his trip, I want to pay him but he says no, I can pay him when he is done. This is smart, as this will ensure that he comes back. I sit on my back step and stare into my sparkling back yard for half an hour.

Pretty sweet

Now....more exciting news, I was gifted this broken table and 3 broken chairs a few days ago. We were cleaning up the pile of garbage and storm debri behind the restaurant and found these. My Mex brother says it will be my Christmas present from him, he has a friend that works in a glass shop on the mainland and will get the glass cut for me. He will outfit the chairs with wooden backs and seats and then I will "art  it up". He laughs and says it will  be muy muy elegant.  Imagine this table under my chandelier. We'll see how long this takes.....shall we have an online wager. I say February 1.

 I go to bed and realize that I haven't spoken a word of English all day....or left my house. I bolt out of the house just before sunup the next morning, I walk right into the sunrise. One day of not being on the beach was noticed.