Debbie and Katia with the great tree
What a fun day this was! The amusement started on the elevator en route to breakfast. There were two big guys in Seattle Mariners uniform. (A quick check on the Internet later revealed that at least one of them, #40 (Julio Mateo), is truly a Mariner, but the other was wearing a #28 Jersey that doesn't match #28 on the roster, so I'm not sure what the deal was. Maybe a retired player. In any case, huge guys in real baseball clothes (some signs of wear), including shoes and baseball gloves. The funny part was when we got to the restaurant, I was greeted warmly by my friends there and immediately seated at 'my' table, whereas they had to wait to be seated. I felt like a local celebrity.
Great fun at Xochicali this morning. Because it's the first day of December, they had the 'all clear' signal to begin putting up decorations for Christmas (as mentioned previously in relation to Christmas cards, it really is only 'Christmas' down here). The primary decorations are inflated nylon figures - a really large snowman (snow woman, really), a smaller snowman, a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, and (my personal favorite) a penguin. It was quite a production with about five women and myself inflating the items and the guys in the nursery looking on in amusement. I asked, out of curiosity, whether any of the women had seen snow. Nope. I showed them a picture I had of my brother and his family and a life-size snowman and they seemed truly amazed. All this was against the backdrop of what felt like a perfect late summer/early autumn day. Clear skies, sunny, cool in the shade, with the smell of someone burning leaves in the distance. Really confusing to have Christmas not just in warm weather generally, but in what is truly 'summer' here.
In related holiday news, Katia and Ernesto invited Milli, Debbie, and I to their house last night for dinner, which necessitated some good-times grocery shopping. I have to admit, it's really nice to be in someone's home, rather than in the hotel. And Katia has done a fantastic job of decorating their place for the holidays. Tasteful and festive, but not overdone. They had a wonderful REAL Christmas tree that was one of the most full trees I've ever seen. (Refer to previous posting about scarce use of real Christmas trees in this hot climate.) Apparently Price Club (similar to Costco or Sam's Club, I think) had purchased a bunch of the trees and Katia's gorgeous seven-foot tree was only $40, which seems like a bargain, even back home. Had a really nice evening there.
I'm not the only one at Xochicali who loves the coffee from Ucaprobrex Apparently Willy commented this morning about the good coffee and later Wendy (the new accounting assistant) asked me whether the coffee could be purchased at the supermarket. Um, not sure. So I called Ucaprobrex Apparently, they'd been having a similar conversation about how they didn't really market their coffee and that they should start marketing to companies like Xochicali. So if Xochicali ends up purchasing Ucaprobrex coffee on a regular basis, perhaps Debbie can add to her resume that she was single-handedly responsible for an increase in direct coffee sales. ;-)
Speaking of sales, we had lunch at the Las Cascadas mall, which is where the Xochicali plant-vending Vivero Hiper Paiz is located. After my last report on the sales of our plants there, I had asked Willy about the arrangement. Apparently we sell our plants on consignment there. Another nursery also sells plants on consignment. What differentiates Xochicali, however, and allows us more shelf space there, is that we also provide a Xochicali employee on-site to assist customers and answer questions about the plants. So while I was wandering around there after lunch, I saw Sandra (not the one in today's pictures - there are two Sandra's in the nursery area), one of my favorites, working away. I wonder if she enjoys working there, or if she misses the social aspect one usually sees here at the main retail area. I suspect that being chosen to work there is something of a reward, though, in that it recognizes that the employee knows enough about the plants to represent them and has the right people skills, judgment, and professionalism to represent Xochicali well.
Just when I thought it wasn't possible, the day got even better! When we arrived back at the hotel, there was a youth choir and an adult choir in the lobby of the hotel. We heard the very end of the kids' set, and then the adults sang four songs. They were Christmas classics (including Joy to the World, White Christmas,Carol of the Bells, and a really fun version of Jingle Bells), translated into Spanish. Really good choral sound, and it wasn't all that large.
If you're looking for a variety of free, streaming holiday music, check out www.accuradio.com/holidays. They have subchannels for the typical varieties of holiday music, but also crazy channels like one that only features versions of Blue Christmas and White Christmas, one that only does 'Let it Snow' variations and let's not forget the 'Chestnuts Roasting' channel. And if you really like something, there are links to buy the song on iTunes if it's available there. Way cool.... May (gasp!) be better than XMradio.com for the holidays because you can more narrowly choose your selections.