The Can Grinch
fashion week in the pueblo
There’s a lady who collects aluminum cans at 5:45am most mornings who is terrified of dogs. She creeps by the gates with an already full 50 kilo bag from Los Gallos Harina. The tippy toe hunch. She acts sneaky and wears a mask and has crimson hair that pokes out everywhere and often multiple striped layers of shorts and leggings and Ugg boot looking booties and hats. Like a cartoon creeping on the edge of the wall with the satchel, I gave her the Can Grinch name. The costumes rile the dogs. There are a few outside dogs. No one approaches her but there’s hair up and squared heads. Every. Single. Day. I don’t have any cans, not sure why’d she’d not take another route.
Will they bite me? she yells always.
No! Keep walking and stop acting so sketch. I say sometimes.
There are 4 dogs in front of the gate and some on the patio and the rest in the house in various locations. I used to say 7 was the maximum and then I said 10. Now there are 12. That’s definitely the limit. There have been 16 and some days when we walk to the shore, more than 20. Dogs like to walk in packs. I knew that from the farm days when I’d hit the front door there’d be some dogs of the neighbors out there to meet me and Brady and Mr. Ribs. A carpenter I had brought his dogs and most days there were 8 dogs doing things and it was hardly noticeable. I don’t understand how I ever just had ONE dog. I’m sorry Billy, how boring.
I am the shepherd/chaperone. They don’t go to the beach alone. It can be dangerous mostly if there are other people but we cross a lot of dodgy dog packs on the way there. Everyone is territorial but if they’re with me I convey (sometimes out loud) We’re just passing through! Just walking! Buenos Dias! Andale!
A couple feral and freelance street dogs like Ol Pedro get their meals, meds and naps here, but live all over the barrio. Andie the Feral recharges her batteries and eats here but has a person who also lives on the street. Calico and Border are late editions but are spayed and vaxxed and live out front and eat daily. They also pull all the foam out of the dog beds I put out front for them.
So anyway, the Can Grinch. When she sees the dogs and me in her street clothes she isn’t afraid of them, but she is always dramatic and zig zaggy fun like Betsey Johnson, Mexico edition. I see when she hangs her laundry out front in the trees it all looks like those picado paper flags put out for fiestas. I wear a uniform and have for a couple decades, with a navy blue top and bottom or black top and bottom. Period end of story. May be a tank top or tshirt and a pull up yoga pant with short or long legs. I change my head wrap and my shoes. It’s either flip flop or short boot.
Because I’m a moron, this helps me not have to buy things, think about getting dressed, separate my laundry, lots of things. It started long ago when I worked in a kitchen and it works for me in the middle of a desert with no place to buy anything, no place to go or an address to have things delivered. I take very good care of my pull ups. There is also a black tank dress and one navy wrap dress and a straw hat. If you’ve ever wanted to try the minimalist capsule wardrobe, here is the place. Mexican stores where there are no gringos sell hot plastic fabrics and neon bright colors and no one seems to worry about “that’s not my size” you wear it anyway. Most inhabitants in the town are teens. If you’re looking for Bad Bunny hot pants this is the place.
I love to see street fashion and style on others. Mostly, It’s little kids in school uniforms, middle class fancy moms in work out gear that will never see the inside of a gym and the Pueblo folks who sort of wear rubber boots and coveralls to work in the fish cleaning rooms that are packed with ice. I see insanely sexy and sheer lingerie sets sold on What’sApp and I’m wondering which abuela swapped her dentures for garter belts. Mostly tho, people wear jammies. Crocs. Shower sandals and socks. It’s incredibly boring and I wonder if I shouldn’t consider some floral print. I laugh at the Golden Girlsness of that and decide to keep a low profile. Maybe I’ll put on a lipstick.
But the Can Grinch is having a good time. Heart shaped glasses, crimson hair in an asymmetrical cut, rolled up jeans held up on her tiny frame with a scarf or a braided boat rope, bright gelly sandals and jaunty scarves. I wonder if she lived in a town that had more opportunities or pizazz if she’d be a fashion designer or if she’d open a little shop and retool second hand tshirts into sling sacks and hats. She could call it La Doctora Seussa.
Or maybe that’s my American Entrepreneurial (remember that?) story for her. Maybe she’s happy to be the bon vivant of the port of freedom, she plays Loteria with the old gals under the shade tree in the centro and seems to be making a killing turning in all those cans at the scrap center behind the fruit store with no fruit. I’ll leave her to it.
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