Introducing the Yucatan Yentas*

July 19 2009

 The Yentas Speak

  We expat girls mustn’t be too hard on ourselves. After all, here we are, retired in Merida, without real sushi or bras in our size or store clerks we can argue with in English   – we are so deprived.

Granted we have a lot going for us down here. We have cheap house cleaners, VIP movie theaters and enough gay men around to ensure that our homes and our hairdos are lovely. There are so many poor people here that by throwing pesos around to parking lot attendants and orphans, we become veritable goddesses of philanthropy.

But there is a fly in the tropical ointment.

Retirement is fabulous, but in our previous lives, everyone knew how important we were. We had titles. We had accomplished children and good addresses. We ran civic organizations. We had our roots and histories as our accutrements.

But we come here and what happens?  We have to scurry around and show people who we are. We buy the biggest houses we can pay for, hire architects and designers, join the IWC and run for office, pull out those new tubes of paint and tell everyone we’re artists, and generally re-invent ourselves.

In the inimitable words of George W. Bush, this is hard work. Exhausting work.

So when you take your sandals off at the end of the day, put on an old comfortable schmatte, turn on the a/c and sink happily into a chair that isn’t bare wood like in all those awful restaurants, what is it that you want to do now? You want to call a friend and say, “What’s new?”

As everyone knows, the best way to make yourself look good is to show how tacky other people are. Repeating and augmenting little stories about our fellow ex-pats, adding personal touches here and there.  Don’t deny it – you know you love it. It’s delicious. I know many of us claim not to gossip and say it’s not nice, but face it girls, it’s even better for the soul than air conditioning.

The question is, why are we doing so much more gossiping since we’ve moved here? Maybe it’s the climate, or too much time on our hands – who knows and who cares?

And that’s where we come in.

You see, in the culture of the yenta, gossip is acknowledged as an art. Our mothers did it, our grandmothers did it, and we carry on the fine tradition. It probably started in the shtetls of eastern Europe before newspapers, or before our forebears learned to read.

We are the Yucatan Yentas and we unabashedly spread all kinds of gossip. It’s our chosen work. If you have chisme you’d like to see on this site, please mail it to us at chisme@gorbman.com

In the meantime, here are some little tidbits to mull over.

 What tall, slim silver-haired matron was seen being poured into a cab the other night in front of Poncho’s?

Can absolutely anyone be a real estate agent here?

Which pair of elderly queens threw caution to the wind and showed up at First Friday in full make-up?

Do you think RP’s car would have been broken into if she’d been smart enough to remove the little TV from the back seat?

What could ML have been thinking when she invited those dreadful people down here for two weeks? We don’t feel sorry for her at all.

What well-known business owner had a teensy breakdown and disappeared for six weeks recently? Is her business in the toilet?

How in the world does JR put together all those carefully matched outfits? Where does she shop? Does she buy the blouse first and try to match with the earrings, or the shoes first?

No wonder MP is so well groomed. She spends 700 pesos a week at the Alejandro Cano salon in Altabrisa each and every week!

And speaking of Altabrisa, are we getting sick of these tired colonial mausoleums we live in downtown? They seemed chic when we bought them, but suburban flight is beckoning.

 
Well, that’s about all you can handle at one sitting, don’t you think? Feel free to contribute. Or just tell us what’s on your mind directly by email or in the comment section below.

• Yiddish for busybody or gossip.