For a while I’ve been asking myself how it’s possible that I keep finding new natural wonders to write about for this column after 25 years of living near Guadalajara.

Comments made at a recent memorial service remind us about the importance of family – not necessarily the family still living north of the border with whom we share DNA, but the one most expatriates form in the community they are living outside their native culture. Sometimes these chosen or collected families become more important to us on a daily basis than the ones into which we were born.

August 1910: Guadalajara, like Mexico City, is a hive of jolly expectation and schizophrenia.

Many of you know what it’s like when it’s that time of the month and a bill you know you have to pay or risk being cutoff, doesn’t arrive.  In March we learned that should you not receive your bimonthly electrical bill that you can go online to www.cfe.gob.mx and setup an online account allowing you to check the amount owed via the internet.