Admiral's Log

Little Arroyo Seco is growing up

2012-02-13T08:36:00.001-08:00

We returned home to Arroyo Seco late January this year,months later than normal, to find our sleepy little Mexican village not sosleepy anymore. It’s like realizing your child is now a teenager. It’s witha lot of mixed emotions.

The biggest sign?

Two internet cafes in town, after relatively no internethere since we moved here about five years ago. Now we stop by to use a computer in the evening and eachmachine has a local teenager chatting on Facebook.

Big changes.

We arrived just after a big meeting on the beach to announcethat the local municipality and the state have supposedly committed the fundsto finally pave the 3 kilometerroad into Arroyo Seco.

No washboard road to get in and out?

Michael is skeptical since this has been promised for years,but the locals think that this might really be it. Some big homes have beenbuilt on Playa Grande, the bigger beach near town, and that is the locomotivemoving this train of improvements.

We’ve also spotted a brand-spanking new garbage truck comingto town, and two large containers are on the beach for garbage. They look reallynice and the vultures seem to be enjoying how much garbage is available withouteven having to cruise for lunch.

We are hoping the municipality actually starts to pick upthe garbage too.

A more subtle change in town is the conversion of many ofthe men into a type of evangelical Christianity that doesn’t allow alcohol.

Amazing how quiet the village gets now when someone isn’tdrunkenly cranking up the Banda music. And the women seem pretty happy with thechange.

Down at the beach we have three ---- yes, three! ---restaurants and the seafood is fabulous and fresh. Seriously fantastic. And oneeven serves sushi.

Sushi?

That’s when I knew for sure progress is heading our way,sooner rather than later.In the meantime, much remains the same.

The children still walk by our place about 8:30 everymorning on their way to school. The mothers with the younger siblings pass byat 10 to bring the schoolchildren their lunch. Home at 1:30 for the day.

The turtles are still laying their eggs on the beach, butnow some of the locals are rescuing the eggs by digging them up and puttingthem into a more secure area on the beach, rather than the locals digging themup to eat (for virility) or selling (for pesos).

My Spanish is finally sufficient enough to pass the timewith my neighbors, and I can run errands with a local girlfriend or two and wecan converse enough to make a make jokes only other women would understand.

And that was really the goal when we made the decision tomove here, to immerse ourselves in a village where we were forced to speakSpanish so that even this tired, old brain could learn another language.

The locals have been friendly and patient with me, values Iwill have to pass on as we watch more and more gringo traffic come down our roadto ‘discover’ this quaint little agricultural village down near the ocean.

Nos vemos…. See ya’ll later!

A test to publish

2011-09-26T22:18:00.001-07:00

This is a test of posting from my iPad.

Choosing to live with less?

2011-08-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

For the past 10 years --- more if you include summers --- Michael and I have chosen to live what my parents would have called a 'bohemian life' that meant living with limited utilities, limited comfort.

Whether we lived on our boat or in a rural village in Mexico or in our lake cottage in rural upstate New York, we constantly monitored our usage of what most Americans take for granted: water, sewage, gas, electric, garbage.

Know what we had, what we used, what we stored --- it was a lifestyle we had accidentally chosen.

We would carry a couple hundred gallons of fresh water on our 48' Maple Leaf sailboat, Sabbatical. So when I washed the dishes, took a shower, brushed my teeth, I knew I'd better not to let the water run because we would run out. Even after we moved off the boat and on to land when we built our home in Arroyo Seco, Mexico, the village would only turn on the water for an hour every morning so we could fill our water tanks for washing and watering. Drinking water still had come from the 5-gallon jugs purchased from the daily water trucks.

Living in our lake cottage in rural Upstate New York isn't a lot different. We use a beach well for our water, pumping the water into a big cistern located underneath the kitchen floor. So even in the United States, we've still had to be cognizant of how much water we've been using -- especially when we have guests -- or the cistern will go dry, which means the pump goes dry, which means Michael has to go grumbling down to the cellar to re-prime the pump. And then refill the cistern. Otherwise, no dishes, no showers, no flushing the toilets.

Because the 100-year-old cistern is a bit suspect, we haul water in by jugs. Limited water, just like on the boat. And just like Mexico.

Garbage is also an issue everywhere we've been living, which means selecting food and drink products based on the packaging. On the boat, small containers stored well. But then you have more containers to dispose of. We could fill glass bottles and throw them overboard to become crab condos on the bottom of the sea. But not plastic. We 'composted' food over the side because it's pointless to save it in a plastic garbage bag to send it back to a landfill.

In Mexico, if we throw everything into big plastic trash bags, the garbage guys will pick it up and deliver it just up the road from our village where they burn it. All of it --- including all plastics, toxic whatevers, tires, everything.

Really lovely when you live downwind....

So we tended to be careful to sort, compost, recycle, return.

Other utilities were limited as well.

When we ran out of propane on the boat for the stove and barbecue, the propane bottle would have to get to shore, then to a gas company for a refill (usually without a car), then back on the boat and reinstalled. So we were pretty careful with our propane use.

It was a little bit better in Mexico. The propane truck came by twice a week, although propane is pretty pricey there. For the water heater, we opted for a solar heater. Lots of sun in Mexico.

And then there's the head (or the bathroom for you landlubbers). That waste has to go somewhere. And the water that you flush with has to come from somewhere. Always a big issue on a boat. In Mexico and in New York, we built huge septic systems, so we wouldn't have to worry about that for at least a decade.

We hope.

So --- when we bought our 'new' little house in Watkins Glen, it seemed a miracle that the water would continue endlessly (as long as we pay the bill), we could drink the water, flush whenever and whatever, crank up the thermostat on the natural gas heat, put all the garbage out on the curb, throw all the recyclables into one container for someone else to sort.

These are comforts most Americans take for granted.

I could too. But here I am, not even five months into civilization, stunned at how easy it is to slip into a cavalier attitude about these resources. It's so easy to let more water run in the sink, run the dishwasher with only half a load. Same with the washing machine. Forget the clothelines! Just turn on the dryer.

So here's the first part of my epiphany for today: If I'm no longer vigilant about the packaging, the waste, the storage, if I can start to slide backwards after a decade of paying attention, and I multiply my attitude and use by an estimated 6.94 billion people on the planet, well, Houston, I think we've got a problem.

I finally understand the simplicity of the dilemma.

We're waiting and hoping for Americans (and all humans) to choose to turn off their faucets, take their bags to the grocery store, buy merchandise with the least amount of packaging so less is produced and less is taken to the landfill. We are hoping people will choose to use less of everything so we will need fewer energy resources which will then produce less pollution.

In the meanwhile, while we all bask in the ease and comfort of what we believe are unlimited resources, we're fouling our own nest and about to get expelled by Mother Earth. At least that's what it feels like these days as we break all kinds of weather records around the globe.

So the second part of my epiphany? We all need to change our lifestyles, use fewer resources, go without. And that's not going to happen. And it's probably too late.

Since I don't have a solution, all I can conclude is that perhaps my generation should start apologizing to our children right now. And to our grandchildren.

And in the meantime, turn the water faucet off.

An incredible video about the human destruction of our planet

Jack of all Trades, Master of None

2011-05-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, I remember my father telling me that I was a 'jack of all trades, master of none.'

He didn't mean it as a compliment.

I wasn't very interested in the academics of elementary school, although I did passably well. But what they called the extracurricular, well, that had my full attention.

I took violin lessons starting in fourth grade and joined the orchestra. You had to be a parent to love the recitals. I remember the realization that when I couldn't hear my own violin, that meant we were probably all hitting the same note. Unfortunately I was probably in my second or third year of orchestra before I understood.

Ouch.

I also begged for a piano and eventually one Christmas they relented and an old upright was moved into the basement/play room and lessons began. As the ultimate perfectionist, my father persuaded a concert pianist to give me lessons. My father believed that if you were going to do something, you were going to do it well. I wasn't her star pupil and although I played around on the piano, I don't actually remember practicing. It had to be painful for her.

Then there were the dance lessons. Years of creative dance through the YWCA.

And the horseback riding lessons, before I finally wheedled my own horse out of my parents, another great gift. She was a wonderful Appaloosa named Happy, and I spent many a hot summer day riding around a friend's farm and down to the lake to cool off, meandering through the apple orchard on our way.

Then the pressures of growing up started, my father passed away during my early teenage years, and I put my creative interests aside. I got multiple degrees, had children, had a successful career. And then I retired. And got time.

Four years into retirement, I'm beginning to think I'm going to need professional help to prioritize my interests. I simple can't fit in anything more and it might possibly kill me.

And Michael.

We landed in New York in early April and I immediately signed up for a quilting class from a fabulous, thriving quilting store in Watkins Glen, O'Susanah's. For four Saturdays in a row (plus plenty of homework during the week), we've learned how to create a quilt. I'm almost done with my first and I've loved working on it. It takes a lot of creative energy and it's soothing to the brain, having to fully concentrate on each step. Otherwise there is a lot of ripping out and re-doing. And I don't reverse and redo well, as many of you might imagine.

Then there are my music friends who are double and triple-booked with gigs and jams and, of course, I don't want to miss any music. But then you also have to find time to practice between jam sessions so that I can stand to hear my own playing.

And, of course, I'm committed to getting exercise so Michael and I walk almost day, exploring Watkins Glen and finding amazing historic homes, views that take our breath away. Although that might also be because everything is uphill from our place.

And I don't want to give up the exercise of dancing with my Zumba friends --- I love getting out there and dancing for an hour 'til the sweat drips off my pony tail. And now I'm trying to memorize some routines for an occasional team-teaching opportunity since I got certified last November.

And I can't wait to get the living room painted in our new house, find the furniture we want, get the wallpaper off the bathroom wall and re-paint, find a place for the jacuzzi, maybe build a deck off the front.

And I don't want to give up learning to speak Spanish, which requires study time. It doesn't just happen. I tried that approach.

And there's a piece of writing that I really, really want to do. All I have to do is plunk my butt in a chair and make the time to start writing.

I think you get my drift.

I've hit a wall, the wall of no more time in a day, no more energy to do what I want. And that's unacceptable.

Even I think that sounds crazy.

But here's the problem. I'm aware that I'm getting older. I now have to use eye drops because my eyes are too dry. I spend a lot of time with my favorite physical therapist and my favorite local massage therapist getting my neck and shoulder to cooperate with my lifestyle without a lot of pain. I get the occasional skin cancers removed. I'm not quite as perky in the morning (which my husband probably thinks, 'Thank you, God').

I feel the urgency of my meter running. I love doing all of this. I want to do more. I want to save every dog, drive the elderly neighbor to see his father's house before he dies, spend quiet time at the lake house, meet a friend for a movie and have dinner afterward.

And I can't. It's simply not possible.

So my thought this morning was to make a chart of all my interests and prioritize them (is that possible?), and put the rest of them aside for a while.

Last year I told my friends who hold Passion and Priorities Workshops that I didn't need to figure out my passions. I have plenty.

But --- aha! -- maybe it's time to figure out how to be happy doing less.

And maybe, like my father remarked, I can become a master of some. Maybe I can choose to do some things well and not try to do everything not-so-well.

In the meantime, gotta run. Michael is waiting for me up at the lake house so we can open it up for the season. And then it's time to decide between a movie with a friend or Zumba.

Back to our New York state roots

2011-04-13T05:24:00.001-07:00

In a surprise move even to us, Michael and I have bought a house and settled into a small upstate village of Watkins Glen at the end of Seneca Lake, near our family's lake cottage and near dozens of our relatives.

Michael and I met 21 years ago on a job interview (he was interviewing me) in Sacramento, California. It wasn't until we were almost heading down the aisle that I discovered that he, too, was an upstate NY "lake kid". He was raised first in Brooklyn, then on Lake Chatauqua, about three hours from where we now live. We had both migrated west in the late 60s, me to Flagstaff, Arizona and Michael to Northern California.

Those of you who have been following our adventures know we've spent the last decade or so living on sailboats, cruising Mexico, living in a small Mexican surf village, doing a canal trip in France ---- just generally not letting any dust settle anywhere on our lives.

It's not always been appreciated by our children. But we've had a blast.

So, what happened?

I guess we're getting ready for the 'final' retirement from the university and wondered where we were going to keep our stuff. We had always assumed it would be our lake cottage for four or five months a year, the remainder in Mexico or wherever else we would be traveling.

But the lake house is over 100 years old and I swear I can feel the breeze blowing through it, even with all the windows tightly closed. It would need a lot of work for me to be warm enough to survive even an early fall or a late spring.

So we started looking around and realized what a delightful area Schuyler County has evolved in to, a Northeastern version of Napa, California, with probably close to 50 local wineries and bistros on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail surrounding the lake. Not the small Upstate New York town we escaped from almost 40 years ago and that Richard Russo so aptly describes in his novels.

After being here for a week and initially wondering what the hell we were thinking, it's also clear to me why we've chosen to return.

The initial shock: It's still cold. Damn cold for my thin blood. Shockingly cold, despite what the natives say. But we have this lovely radiant baseboard heat that keeps our new house a nice constant shade of warm, an electric blanket on our bed, and soon, our jacuzzi.

A second surprise: I'd forgotten how many layers of clothes you have to wear on a daily basis. Long pants. Long sleeve shirt. Socks. Fleece sweater. Then a jacket. Sheesh! It feels bulky and abnormal after the majority of 21 years spent in balmy climates.

And what shouldn't be surprise: the bane of Upstate New York ---- the gray, about 200 gray days a year. We open up the curtains early in the morning and wait to see if the sun comes up. Often it doesn't. It goes from a dark shade of gray to a lighter shade of gray. Then it gets dark again.

So why on earth would we choose to move home?

Family: On our first Saturday back here, both my brothers dropped by for dinner and to see the house. My cousin Ruthie can swing by when she comes to town to do errands, as can many of my other cousins.

Friends: Yesterday morning I went to yoga at a friend's house, something that I miss every year when I leave in August. Our good friend Amanda dropped by after work one evening with her new dog (a lovely boxer) and a bottle of wine. Betsy, who is now a neighbor and is 'band leader' in my music world.

Music: I've started to practice my fiddle again, getting ready for the multitude of jams and gigs available in the area, more than I could ever fit into a schedule. And soon I'll start informal lessons with a friend who plays awesome old time fiddle and is willing to 'show me what he knows.'

Proximity: We can keep the cars parked and walk almost everywhere! The general store is 10 minutes from the house and makes two choices of homemade soup on a daily basis (and publishes the menu on FB). We have restaurants and great shopping just minutes from home. And I can walk to some of the Zumba classes offered during the week. The steep uphill trek home should only add to my workout.

Community: Tonight we're going to a meeting on a proposed gas storage facility. Tomorrow the protest group is having a separate meeting. We'll attend both. We might even go to a City Council meeting. What the heck. The SPCA is having a benefit at a friend's winery. Other friend's are playing at a nearby restaurant on Saturday night. We just don't feel isolated here at all.

So if we hate the cold weather, what else --- besides the fantastic summers! --- would make us still decide to commit to living part of the year in Upstate New York?

Oh, about two hundred years of family history in this area. It's amazing to walk through the local cemeteries and recognize dozens of the local family names, including our own, families who are still living in the area, people who still remember my mom, remember some of the mischief my brothers and I got into during our summers on the lake.

Serious roots.

If we had moved back to San Diego, moved on to South Florida, it would have been lovely. But it would have felt like starting over. And I just didn't feel like doing that anymore.

But don't be deceived. Come the first snowflakes of winter, we'll continue to hightail it out of here to follow the sun with the multitude of other snowbirds heading south. For those of you who have been perplexed our latest move, really, nothing's changed. We just finally settled down enough to have a home base.

It feels great!

Why we'll never get divorced

2011-01-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

When Michael and I got married more than 20 years ago, the one marriage vow we made to each other was that we would never get divorced.

Homicide, we joked.

Long-term separation? Perhaps.

But never another divorce.

Neither one of us ever wanted to go through the emotional turmoil and pain of separating lives, separating possessions, separating property - having friends feel like they have to make choices, even if they don't.

It was too painful then. And it's even more painful now as we watch our son and soon-to-be former daughter-in-law go their separate ways, work to begin new lives.

As Michael, Dustin and I were cleaning, painting, fixing up Dustin and his family's former rental yesterday so it can be turned back over to the landlord, I found various pieces of symbolic debris scattered among the mounds of trash left in the house when his wife and their 2-year-old daughter moved to their new home a few weeks ago.

Sasha's pink riding horse on a broom handle. A hairdryer I had left in their upstairs bathroom. A glass Christmas ornament they bought when they visited the Corning Glass Museum in New York after their wedding. Even a pink wig and various pink paraphernalia that Michael and I

wore to a costume party on Catalina Island more than a decade ago when we were cruising our sailboat, Sabbatical.

What I didn't find was one particularly symbolic former possession: a set of palm dishes that I bought for our sailboat when we were sailing Southern California in 2001.

A sailing friend had told me she had seen some perfect plates for our palm-themed decorations on board Sabbatical, so it became one of my early cruising adventures.

It wasn't so much that I was into decorating as it was the challenge of finding those specific dishes by navigating public transportation throughout Long Beach, then getting them safely back to the boat. The pursuit was as much fun as the pleasure of the set of dishes themselves. And that set of dishes saw a lot of dinner guests over our years of sailing, a lot of sweet companionship in many anchorages and marinas along the west coast of California and Mexico.

When we eventually decided to sail the boat back up to California from Mexico to sell, I took my favorite household possessions off the boat --- including those palm plates --- and put them into storage in Puerto Vallarta, with the intention of using them in whatever home we built or bought here in Mexico.

But a year after it was put into storage, Dustin ended up moving to Puerto Vallarta, starting his electronics company, Foxmarine, and renting an apartment. I offered to let him take our household goods out of storage to use until we needed them.

Within a few years he got married and we were sitting at their table, with those palm plates and matching place mats, and all the rest of our stuff integrated into his. Although I would tease him about recalling it, it just never seemed appropriate to ask for all of it back.

After all, it's just 'stuff'.

But now Dustin and his wife have separated and unfortunately, like most divorces, one person keeps the stuff and the other person moves out with a T-shirt and maybe some underwear.

So the palm plates, the Cuisinart toaster oven, the wine glasses, the matching place mats, it's all gone. Poof.

It's just stuff, right?

Right.

But then last week, we unexpectedly saw a couple of our Sabbatical boat chairs at someone's house in Nuevo Vallarta. And if we were to scratch the surface of PV, we might see some of the rest of our stuff, now in homes of strangers.

And that's the essence of why Michael and I agreed that we would never get divorced.

I don't care about the palm plates. Seriously. Really. It's just 'stuff'. I don't need them anymore. They could be on a shelf in the new condo, or swept up in the trash after they were thrown against the wall. It doesn't matter to me.

What does matter is the mean-spiritedness in which a life is dissolved, that the love from the beginning of a relationship becomes inversely proportional at the end. That everyone is in so much pain and anger that they can't see what they would know otherwise, that one act of kindness could salve a lot of open wounds.

She could have asked: Here, why don't you take your bike? I know it's your favorite. (Instead, it disappeared...)

He could have offered: Do you need me to help you move? (Instead, she moved without telling him - or telling him where they left for.)

She could have said: Do you want to meet us at the beach so you can visit with your daughter? (Instead, she won't let our son see his daughter -- under any circumstance.)

So divorce becomes a time of simultaneously getting even while also struggling to let go and to move on.

The elephant on our family table is that the delightful 2 and a half year old Sasha Fox is one of the 'possessions' that got taken from us, right along with the palm plates and the boat chairs. Michael and I haven't been allowed to see our granddaughter since we arrived last month and won't be, until, Sasha's mother says, things are 'done properly and legally'.

This is probably code for being done her way. She says Dustin can't see Sasha until he returns her U.S. passport. But the passport was the insurance policy he took when he left his home without his daughter, securing that Sasha's mother, in anger, wouldn't be able to run away to France or her homeland of Romania to be with her sister and family.

So that's where we all are: In a literal Mexican stand-off in Puerto Vallarta.

And that, dear friends, is why we will never get divorced. It's just too damn painful for everyone.

Another White Christmas in Mexico

2010-12-25T04:50:00.000-08:00

I haven't written a blog since August, since our Tenacatita land was taken by force. Really, I didn't have the heart to write about that --- or anything else. I didn't know what else I had to say. But, finally, here's a quick summary of our year. I'm officially back to the blogosphere.
_______________________________________________________

My brother asked me last night, didn't I miss having a White Christmas, as he's socked inside his house in Ithaca, New York with a 50 percent chance of snow, high of 25 F (-4C), low of 20 F (-7C).

Well, no.

We have a White Christmas every year. White sands on the beaches of Mexico. Works just fine for me, thank you very much.

Last night we were telling Dustin some stories of growing up in upstate New York and how I literally got frostbite most winters, my own version of freezer burn, with blisters across my face after an afternoon of skating on a pond or building a snow fort.

It was a sign, one that I have taken to heart, that a warm climate in the winter is where this body was meant to live.

This Christmas morning we'll meet good cruising friends, Di and Roger Frizzelle of Di's Dream, at the Tulum, our favorite beach brunch place in Nuevo Vallarto (Puerto Vallarta), and belly up to a buffet of tropical fruit (fresh pineapple, papaya, cantalope, watermelon), chiliquiles for Michael and Dustin, followed by a retreat to the beach to boogie board and to digest our food for the afternoon.

Sweet.

Our Canadian friends, Laura Warner (our teacher in Arroyo Seco from last year) and Christina, fly in tonight (with Princessa Mia!) and we'll celebrate Christmas at home in PV with cranberry cocktails, a turkey aracherra on the barbecue and sparklers.

Tomorrow we head out by panga (a stout fiberglass open fishing boat) to a beach restaurant on the southwest side of Banderas Bay, as the Christmas celebrations continue. I hope to head out by a panga taxi across the bay again early this week to visit my cousin Lynn on Yalapa, before we all head south to La Manzanilla and Arroyo Seco.

We'll continue to have a Puerto Vallarta presence this year as we stay with Dustin while he regains his footing from a recent separation from his wife, and we all hope to spend a lot of time with the always delightful Sasha Fox.

While we're here, I hope to finally take those Spanish lessons it's obvious I need if I don't want to bumble through conversations as if I'm a toddler.

New York

Had a fantastic summer there. The weather was the best since I was a child. Sunny. Warm. Followed by Sunny. And Warm. We built a new dock and we spent the summer on it, when we weren't on one of the boats or in the water. I played a lot of fiddle, got introduced to Zumba, cooked a lot of fresh veggies (Corn! Tomatoes!) , spent time with family, made new friends. All in all, a perfect summer.

Sacramento

It was the best semester I've spent in Sacramento, in the 20 years or so we've been living there. We were hosted by our generous friends, Pam and Steve Lovotti, living in their mother-in-law flat above the garage and sharing their kitchen and common areas. We cooked a lot of great food together, had great conversations over dinner at home and at local restaurants they introduced us to around town. They know everyone! We got an ongoing wine tutorial from Steve, who spent 30-some years as a wine buyer in Sacramento for the family business. And we were graciously adopted into their big extended Italian family. Even Dylan came up a few times from Oakland and got enveloped into the fold.

Fall is the time we get to visit with Anne, Sami and Kami, and get caught up on their year. And even Jason showed up, on his way from Detroit to Vail (yes, the geography is a little confusing).

The location was perfect for us --- within walking distance of Trader Joe's, the university, our post office, a direct bus line to the downtown mall where I could get a $18 chair massage to relieve the ongoing muscle spasm in my neck.

I immersed myself in Zumba for the semester, doing a daily circuit of my favorite teachers (and they were great!). In November I got certified to teach Zumba, but so far my preference is to be one of the people dancing in the crowd. We'll see if I get organized and confident enough to do more someday.

But standing up in front of my journalism classes at the university every fall is still comfortable, and always a bit of a surprise after eight months off. The students were enjoyable, we all made the best of it, learned as much as we could in 16 weeks, then called it a success. We have one more fall semester in Sacramento, then we're completely, officially retired from the university.

Watch for notices of the celebration!

Tenacatita and Arroyo Seco

Still a sore spot but here's what I generally know.

Lots of lawsuits. Someone else still has our land (and everyone else's).

The Tenacatita that we knew, the place that was the focal point of our week, an excuse for taking a half-hour quad ride down the beach, eating fresh fish tacos and drinking cold beer, spending the afternoon boogie boarding with our friends, that Tenacatita is still gone.

Almost every day the rumor mill starts and everyone is buzzing that the cyclone fences are down, the armed guards have gone home and we have access to the beach.

All I can figure is someone friends with the Rodenas Corporation, the developer that took over the land, is starting those rumors. Because the fence is still up, access is still denied. If there's a change, we should hear a fiesta roar its way all the way up to the Mexican-American border. But there's nothing new yet. Just a lot of talk and a lot of lawyers charging by the hour. Read the
Tenacatita Bay Bugle or the La Manzanilla Message Board or CyberPueblo (in Spanish) to keep up with Tenacatita news.

Arroyo Seco is mostly unchanged, or if anything, reaping the benefits of the closure of Tenacatita. We have a new gringo family who is expected to start living near us in 'downtown' Arroyo Seco in mid-January. There's a new restaurant on the beach and a local is opening an RV park on the beach. The surf beach, Playa Chica, is still untouched.

We don't have a plan for this season yet, and that's our plan. No plan.

We'll continue to spend time in Arroyo Seco and La Manzanilla, quad where we can, sit on the beach and watch the surfers, visit with our friends up and down the Costalegre.

The goal for me this season is to continue to be grateful for what I have rather than dwell on what I don't have. The meter on my life is running and I don't intend to waste a minute.

To all my friends around the globe; have a great holiday season and know that we'll connect again this year, starting mid-stream in a conversation that continues to flow from year to year. I'm so grateful to have all of you in my life.

Feliz Navidad!

Tenacatita beach takeover - a tragedy for Mexico

2010-08-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

We made our first land purchase in March 2007, buying an ocean beach lot in Tenacatita through Santana Realty not long after then-President Vicente Fox signed an order allowing the land to be titled. This title process guaranteed federal government protection of the purchase.

Guaranteed!

Or so we thought.

A serious fence blocking the public road to Tenacatita

If you have been reading the Mexican press, or any of the message boards in Costalegre, you're aware of the outrageous land grab last week by a developer from Guadalajara of all of Tenacatita lands. More than 100 armed state police took people out of their homes and off their land, barring them from even taking their possessions. They did so at gunpoint, for the most part.

The land grab was of 42 Mexican hectares (or about 103 acres) of gorgeous land, some ocean front, some fronting on Tenacatita Bay. The bayfront had seafood restaurants, a beautiful swimming beach along with pretty pristine mangroves and estuaries. It has been a favorite spot for thousands and thousands of Mexicans (and gringos) every year. We first discovered it when cruising Mexico on our sailboat, Sabbatical, in 2001.

The ocean beach was more wild and less placid, but still very beautiful --- and the site of some new homes (owned by Americans, Canadians, Germans and Mexicans). On many of the other lots, homes were in the planning stages with electricity and septic already in place.

We had originally planned on building a beach house there and upgraded the property with utilities before changing our minds and moving north to Arroyo Seco. But our love for Tenacatita continued. We headed down the beach from Arroyo Seco through El Tecuan to Tenacatita by Honda quad for weekly seafood lunches followed by an afternoon of boogie-boarding and snorkling with our Tena friends.

All that changed in a day, when the developer who took over the area by force said he had just won a decades-long court battle for ownership and was exercising his legal rights.

Naturally, we were stunned.

We had been told when we purchased the land that the court case was solely contesting the ownership of the bay concessions, essentially the restaurants on Tenacatita Bay, just around the corner from our lot on the Pacific Ocean. We were told in 2007 (and many times since) that the land we bought was originally Ejido land that had been regularized and sold as titled land.

All our legal experts still agree that what we were told is correct.

Unfortunately, the developer --- and a police force he is mostly likely paying -- now has possession of the land and all of us will have to wind our way through the Mexican judicial system for resolution and/or restitution.

Which we'll do. Count on it.

But how could it be, in 2010, in a country desperately seeking foreign investment, a state judge would allow a developer to send a massive, armed police force into a community one morning and evict the entire community of around 800 people, without notice?

How could a country allow people to be evicted that morning without allowing them to take their possessions?

How could a country possibly --- in 2010 -- allow foreigners to lose --- at gunpoint or otherwise --- federally titled properties? Land and homes in bank trusts? In Mexican corporations?

The map for Tenacatita that shows the numbering for titled properties

All I could think this week is that as stunning a loss as it is for Michael and myself to potentially lose our beach lot, the loss to Mexico is much greater. Our hearts go out to the hundreds of Mexican families who have lost their homes and their livelihood.

Paradise lost for everyone

And the potential to the Mexican workers continues: Why would anyone buy property and build on the coast if land can be taken away without compensation?

In a wonderful irony last week, a CNN Money Matters expert announced that now is the time to invest in Mexico.

Right. He must not have meant the coast.

And please, those of you who live on the coast that want to keep saying --- and believing --- that this is just a Tenacatita issue, think again. If someone can take federally titled land, or land legally held in a bank trust or Mexican corporation --- in Tenacatita or anywhere --- everyone's in a heap of trouble.

Me, you and Mexico.

Thank you to so many of our friends who have reached out to us this past week. You've asked if we're done with Mexico.

Nope. No way!

We're still planning to return to Mexico this fall to our home in Arroyo Seco, Costalegre, pick up the pieces and carry on.

Vamanos!

Story in the Guadalajara Reporter
Jane's blog in the Guadalajara Reporter
Photos of Tenacatita

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE LEFT COMMENTS AND WOULD LIKE A REPLY:
Unfortunately, blogspot doesn't appear to have a mechanism for replying. Your email address is hidden. But to answer your questions: Those of us who are working to regain our land have a variety of what is supposed to be protected titles including titles, bank trusts, and Mexican Corporations.

All land was confiscated, regardless of type of ownership. No one was contacted beforehand.

Life in the country

2010-07-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Our good friends, Dan and Lorraine Olsen, just headed home to California after a week with us country folk.

Getting to re-experience this place through their eyes was a reminder of just how close we live to nature, here and in Mexico.

It's definitely the Fitzfox version of summer camp.

Most mornings Arnold the Wonder Dog and I head out for a walk around 'the block' --- a two mile trek down the road that follows the lake, up the stop-your-heart switchbacks, past the old cemetery, over the creek and back down the vineyards to home.

We're usually spotting for whatever wild critters might be out, Arnold to chase them, me to look for deer, a fox, a wild turkey, whatever shows up. We have to be out pretty early to see anything interesting.

Then we head down to the lake for our morning swim/bath, often discovering the remains of whatever our local coyote or other predator has left on our path to the dock --- chicken feathers, the head of a fawn, other unidentifiable feathered or furry critters on last night's dinner menu.

And then there's the unusual occurance: The night before last I was sound asleep by 11, exhausted by too much fun, when some stupid skunk decided to spray right below the window of our upstairs bedroom. Woke me up, cleared us right out of the room, eyes burning. Good thing Arnold was back with Brad for the night. Could have been a much worse story, including a lot of peroxide/baking soda and Dawn detergent baths in the night.

On our way to yoga Tuesday morning, Lorraine and I spotted an injured fox , back legs paralyzed and dragging itself across the road, probably having just been hit by a car. We flagged a neighbor driving down the hill who got out his rifle to put the poor fox out of its misery.

But not before I got Lorraine out of there, explaining that she was a vegetarian from the city and definitely not ready for this particular country experience.

In Sacramento or elsewhere, we'd just call some animal agency to 'deal with it.'

In the country, you deal with it.

That's pretty much true for all home maintenance too. People expect you know how to fix pretty much anything and everything around your own home. If you don't, you call a brother, a cousin, or a friend to help you out. While there is hired help around, it's really for the big jobs --- putting in a new septic system, maybe a remodel.

The rest is on you.

One of the bright spots this summer -- literally -- is an unusual number of bright red cardinals. From the porch we've been watching one female who been spending an inordinate amount of time checking herself out in the passenger-side mirror of our Lexus SUV.

She's not so much interested in using the mirrors of the 1996 Mercury.

I understand. I like the Lexus more too.

Most nights we stay home and cook because it's too dang far to consider driving into town for dinner, plus we have a better view than almost anywhere else we would go.

Despite the inconvenience of cooking at home -- really, it's the clean up that's the problem --- we have access to spectacular fruits and veggies (sweet corn! huge slicer tomatoes! apricots! peaches! squash!) from stands set up in front of the homes of local farmers, some asking us to stick the money into a locked box on the honor system.

Don't see much of the honor system in Sacramento or other cities.
Last fall at a Sacramento farmer's market I saw some guy steal money from a farmer's cash box , leaping over the counter like a gymnast and then racing through city streets like a jack rabbit.

Jerk.

The biggest downside to country living, for me, is getting shackled to my car, as lovely as it is. If you have an actual destination, whether it's a grocery store, doctor's appointment, an evening of music, you have to drive (or go by boat) a pretty long ways.
It's a minimum of 15 miles to the grocery store, usually twice that to any other destination, and a whole lot of time out of my day.

I love the convenience of the city when we can walk, bike, take public transportation.

But what I would give up is the quiet roar of the cicadas at night, the bird choir that greets us about 5 o'clock in the morning, watching a storm roar across the lake while we wait to hear the cracking of large limbs or trees around the house.

And we'd miss the privacy of a couple of acres and a 40-mile lake to buffer us from the rest of civilization.

We're sometimes surprised mornings to hear the crunch of someone's feet on the gravel road in front of our house as they take an early morning loop around the block for exercise. And heaven help someone who drives up to our place and isn't looking for us.

Right now another storm is ready to give us a good wallop of thunder and lightening and hopefully some rain. We're heading outside to make sure everything is sufficiently battened down so we won't find the adirondack chairs flung over the cliff, or the buckets up in the bushes.

Then we'll sit and watch the light show as it comes across the lake, right before it hits us and we have to move inside for the night.

We have less than four weeks before we head back to what many of us consider civilization. I'm going to savor this while I can before I head back to the city and start walking over to Trader Joe's to get our nightly already-prepared dinner.

No clean up required.

See ya'll soon!

Status Report: A month in New York

2010-05-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Here's what's been happening in my New York world:

Bought the car.

In the least typical used car purchase I've ever experienced, we asked Hal Van Skiver, of Van Skiver Motors in Watkins Glen, last August if he would look around and choose a car for us to drive when we returned to NY for the summer. I said I'd even drive a Buick --- we just needed a good running car. He's got a stellar reputation with family members and many friends as being more-than-honest (is that possible?). And he has an interesting business model --- he'll only work on cars he's sold.

We returned this May to find a nice surprise --- like a good Jewish matchmaker, he sized me up and said I was much more the Lexus SUV type. Bingo! Leather (heated!) seats, sun roof, roof racks for all the boats, satellite radio, you name it. And a luxury ride. This one's a keeper. And I'm another devoted fan of Van Skiver Motors. Anybody for a road trip?

Built the dock

Michael and I have been waiting years to afford (or justify the expense) of extending our dock so it would reach deeper waters, have room enough for both of us sit for an afternoon or a sunset, and solid enough that it wouldn't scare our many friends who have refused to tie their boats up at our dock. The original dock was built about 30 years ago, more or less.

Guy Schamel, of the Schamel Brothers, sent his crew down last week to whip this new and improved dock together, about 30 feet longer than our old one and 12 feet wider. If you're looking for me this summer, that's where you'll probably find me.

Fix the neck

I'm now heading into town (Watkins Glen) twice a week to have our amazing physical therapist, Amanda Smith-Socaris, try to fix my chronic headaches and neck pain. It's helping (especially if I'm diligent in my daily exercises). I've been looking for relief and/or answers for a long time and have found amazing people who have helped over the years --- the miracle hands of my massage friends, Karin and Matty. The Russian accupuncturist (and former neurologist) in Ithaca. Antonio, our osteopath in Mexico. I'm interested in a cure, of course, but one is unlikely, considering how chronic the problem has been for so many years. But some relief is appreciated and I'm hopeful, once again.

Zumba

Michael and I have been reading a book recommended by a friend in Mexico (and New Mexico) who a friend of hers had told her to read, called Younger Next Year. I'm only about halfway through it, but basically, the authors say EXERCISE! Every day. So we have been. Up and down the many hills here, doing a lot of yard work, just keeping it moving. In addition, my friend and soon to be second cousin by marriage, Jesse, introduced me to the dance exercise program of Zumba, held twice a week in the firehouse in Lodi (New York). Love it. Love the location. Love the price. Love the dancing. Unfortunately I got some pretty extreme vertigo this past week and Amanda basically said 'no more jumping'. I must've shaken something loose. So I'm working on the age thing while also fighting the age thing. My motto in class will be 'Old Broads Don't Jump'. But I'm going to keep on dancing. It's a blast!

Overall

With the addition of new wheels, a new dock, places to dance and a place to call home, things feel pretty complete in New York. Over the past three or four years we've sorted, discarded, painted, fixed. Michael has done amazing things on the property, including maintaining the 40-year old goat path down the hill to the new dock. Now we're hoping work a little less around the property and play more on the dock and the lake, so stop on by the new dock if you're out on the lake. Otherwise, hasta luego! We hope to catch up with many of you in California this fall or in Mexico this winter.

Lunch at the beach at Luis'

2010-03-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

We finished up a morning of chores and decided to head out of the Rancho and down to the beach for the afternoon for some fresh fish for lunch.

A neighbor, Luis, opens a restaurant for a week or two each year as all the vacationers descend on the Arroyo Seco beaches for Semana Santa or Easter week.

The original plan was to head all the way to Tenacatita on the Honda quad, a beautiful half-hour's ride down the beach. But 10 minutes down the beach sounded even better.

And the food was better too.
The kids were there eating fresh ceviche. Pretty tasty lunch for kids!

Laura had the shrimp diablo (usually a pretty spicy red sauce), and Michael had the breaded shrimp, freshly pounded, breaded and cooked on the spot.

They safely hydrated with cervezas.

After lunch we headed south for another five minutes to our favorite Pacific Ocean 'swimming hole', a small area surrounded by rocks on three sides for a quick swim and a longer siesta.

The trip worked its usual magic. The sun set while the full moon came up. We spotted whales from the restaurant. The air is gently cool but not cold.

It's always good to get down to the beach and remember the best part about living here.

Here's a video of Luis preparing and cooking the fish over a hot wood fire.

A bit of Sasha for the relatives around the world

2010-03-13T07:20:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful visit with Camelia and Sasha while Dustin was working out of town. Here's a short video of Sasha feeding Maxie her breakfast, and a few photos of her last visit to Arroyo Seco.

Helping is not for the weak of heart

2010-02-26T08:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was D Day --- the day to deal with Distemper in the village.

The Ground Zero dog --- a young male, maybe two years old? -- was put to sleep first. Then someone else in the village brought this cute little two or three month old white puppy to us to look at. Soft, like cocker spaniel fur. A family favorite. But he couldn't sit up, couldn't walk, couldn't hold his head up, couldn't eat. Just flop, like a rag doll.

The family said he had a cold a few weeks ago --- which, of course, we now know is the first sign of distemper. Oscar the veterinarian says the problem is that most families will assume it's a cold from cambio de clime, a change in climate. It's been quite cold at night.

And then it's too late.

Next we went to persuade the owner of the first dog that her other dog needs to be immunized. She had initially refused but yesterday luck was with us. Her husband wasn't home (she was home alone with her five children, 12 years old and younger) and we were able to convince her it wouldn't hurt the dog, she wouldn't have to pay for it, and it might save her dog's life. She reluctantly agreed when we showed up with the veterinarian and a loaded hypodermic.

The veterinarian put one more village dog down that had a snake bite on its neck, which he had initially survived. But then the wound got infected and it was too late to save him.

The final count:
• Seven initial distemper vaccinations for dogs that were in direct contact with Dog #1.
• Three dogs put down and buried on the beach.

It's heartbreaking work, and incredibly frustrating to try to help in a country where everyone is speaking rapidly -- and all at the same time -- in a language I'm just past 'how are you?'. But despite the obstacles it feels like we have some momentum in getting help earlier, doing some prevention. And then, on to massive spaying and neutering.

For those of you who wonder why the heck we're doing this, why we're so immersed in helping animals --- really, it's because it is the greatest need.

We're offer English classes to the children in the village. We're offer music lessons on piano and guitar and the occasional music evening. But these are all bonuses for the village. If we left tomorrow, the town could take what English and music they've learned and choose to continue on. Or not.

But dogs in the town are suffering, not intentionally, and that is something that we may be able to change. And eventually, if we leave, the culture around how to take care of the dogs may have changed too.

Stay tuned.

Distemper hits Arroyo Seco

2010-02-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow afternoon we 'get' to put a dog down.

Heartbreak City, for sure.

Here's the story: A few days ago a neighbor asked if we could help with her neighbor's dog, one that she had been feeding. He was emaciated, mucous dripping from his nose, had a noticeable lack of coordination. Like a drunk.

Last week we had already been busy helping animals around the village. We rescued a pitiful dachsund mutt who in one week has evolved into the lovely Princessa Mia and has stolen our hearts. And then there's the cocker spaniel that showed up at our palapa one morning, stinking and ailing with a fever. After a quick haircut and three days of antibiotic infections, she's bouncing around the town again, unfortunately noticeably pregnant. This will be her third litter in less than two years.

So the neighbors know we will help.

Last night a veterinarian made a house call to our remote little rancho of Arroyo Seco, at our request, to see if the current dog in crisis could be helped. He was still wobbling around in front of our place that morning, but when the vet showed up around 5, the dog was gone --- taken off to a remote pasture by someone in the village, whether to die or to get the dog isolated, I wasn't sure.

Our neighbor's husband hopped on his bicycle to bring the dog back so the vet could check him out --- something I definitely didn't understand because it didn't seem like the dog could walk that far. But there's a lot I don't understand here, especially when everyone's speaking in Spanish so fast that I'm catching about every 10 words --- if I'm lucky. And then there is also the cultural differences in how we care for our pets.

Eventually we ended up with the Oscar the vet (in the red shirt) and the dog -- and a committee of about 10 --- in the same place and the immediate verdict was ––– distemper.

Distemper?

Good grief. Don't they vaccinate against that here?

Apparently not often.

So tomorrow we'll put the poor pooch to sleep, vaccinate his siblings and the same owner's mama dog who has four-week old puppies, plus a different neighbor's dogs who have been sharing food and water.

Later, we'll do some research, make a plan, figure out the best way to help that might really make a difference --- prevention.

When you get past the tears from watching this poor dog suffer, the anger follows. How the heck can this happen so easily in 2010? Are these people heartless? Ignorant?

I think the truest answer might be two-fold: there's no veterinarian in the village and there's no money to pay for vaccinations. It costs between $10 to $15 per shot. Might not seem a lot to someone living (and working) in the States or Canada, but it could be close to a day's wages here. It might mean the difference between food on the table, clothes for their children, gas in the car.

So we have a two-fold response to the distemper crisis: bring in the vet, provide the money for vaccinations.

Another neighbor asked me today if the vet could look at her daughter's dog whose hind legs don't seem to be working. And then there's the other dog that apparently got bitten in the neck by a snake and the neck might now be gangrene.

I know we can't rescue every dog. But there's a lot we can do. We can continue to get every pooch snipped and clipped so every dog is a wanted dog. We'll work on getting them all vaccinated. We encourage -- and maybe find a way to fund the use of a monthly tick treatment so dogs won't get Ehrlichia.

We're a small village. Sometimes it feels insurmountable. I know it's impossible to save them all. But what is possible is to help by educating, preventing, and sometimes funding.

And eventually, hopefully, it will feel less like Heartbreak City.

The lovely Princessa Mia on the first day at home in the Palapa Pink Flamingo, Arroyo Seco. She's definitely decided to stay.

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?

2010-02-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

It's been one of my favorite jokes for years.

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?

American.

The past two days have been filled with envy --- a rare emotion for me --- for friends who started studying multiple languages early and kept it up for life.

We spent Saturday afternoon at a beach barbecue with our surfer friend from France, Julien, and his family. His parents speak French, not much Spanish, less English. Laura comfortably slipped into the afternoon conversing in French, Spanish and translating into English when I needed it, as did another friend, Ana. Languages flowed like a river, starting in one language, moving into a second, explaining in a third.

I want that.

It's always been my belief, wish, hope to speak a second language. I want fewer obstacles in connecting with the person sitting next to me, regardless of language. I desperately wanted it for my sons, Dustin and Dylan, but it was rarely offered in the schools and I just didn't pull it off.

Sorry, kids.

Luckily Granddaughter Sasha, who lives in Puerto Vallarta, will be trilingual. At 18 months she understands Romanian, Spanish and English. Her first word was Spanish (mas!) but she's already beginning to babble in English. I'm grateful her parents, Dustin and Camelia, are committed to teaching her multiple languages from birth, which is so much easier than trying to learn it at my age.

Tonight headed for dinner at AsiaAzul, an Asian restaurant in nearby Emiliano Zepata. The restaurant was closed so we headed up to the owner's house to ask when he'd be open again.
Within minutes of conversation, Laura figured out that not only does he also speak English, Spanish (of course), probably Vietnamese, but that he's more comfortable speaking French. And off they went again, speaking in a language I couldn't understand.

Despite my envy --- or perhaps because of it -- the past few days have made me even more committed to becoming fluent in a second language.

As of today, two months into our second season at Arroyo Seco, I can pretty much understand what people are saying. And sometimes they can understand me. I'm rarely speaking in complete sentences yet, and I'm mostly speaking in the present tense.

But, dang it, I'm speaking. I'm listening. I'm learning.

Today at lunch we toasted to my first solo conversation with Tia Melly, one of the elders in town who I've been dying to joke with since I first met her two years ago.

So, Tengo esperanza. I have hope.

I have hope that I won't be 80 before I call myself fluent in a second language. Maybe then I'll consider going for a third.

Construction, speaking Spanish, Dengue and Dogs

2010-01-28T09:36:00.000-08:00

I have a minute to update the blog because I'm unexpectedly Home Alone for the second time since we've been in Mexico this season (if you don't count the four workers building our patio and painting the walls).

It's been the normal whirlwind time in Mexico with many friends and family visiting while they escape the terrible winter in the U.S. and Canada. We've started our language school for the children of the village to study English. And we still manage to get to the beach, to Tenacatita, to La Manzanilla to meet friends for dinner or a sunset.

Here's a glimpse of the idle musings bouncing around my head for the past few days:

Language

I now dream in Spanish but only the words (las palabras?), not the meaning. Very confusing. This morning I woke up trying to create the correct sentence to tell the teenage painters to make sure I have electricity to power the internet for a conference call from 9 to 10.

My sentence structure was undoubtly incorrect but at least this season I'm getting past the toddler stage of throwing out verbs or commands --- and they actually sometimes seem to understand me. And they didn't unplug my DSL box while they painted around the outlet.

Hooray!

The 24/7 immersion of living in the village is helping, as is our teacher, roommate and friend, Maestra Laura, who encourages me one word at a time.

Construction

It's official. We hate it.

We're not doing much this year, scaled way back from the original plan of building the guest casitas. (Sorry, everybody. Maybe next year). This year we finished the stucco on the remaining two walls of the compound, which required us to redo the electric (of course!). We also had to redo some plumbing (of course!). The walls are now sealed and halfway painted, with about another day of labor before completion.

In the meantime, we launched what we thought was a small project --- and, really, it is --- by putting a cobblestone step at the bottom of the first step of the palapa to keep dirt off the lovely tile floor. The maestro loads his truck up with the small round rocks from the riverbed next to the town and sets it artistically in the concrete.

We liked it so much --- and it went down so quickly --- that we decided to build the patio in front of our place with cobblestones out of the river, rather than the planned brick. And while he's at it, why not cobblestone the landing the length of the bathrooms so we carry less dust up onto the beautiful white tiles?

You get the drift. It's endless, small project after small project.

Our challenge is remaining close enough to home to be able to answer questions, provide supplies, make sure it looks like what we think it's supposed to look like without getting tied to being at home.

We're losing that challenge but we're determined that this will be the last project of the season. Right after we have someone build the bamboo privacy screen to shield the bathroom sink from the rest of the property....

Dengue

We've never had to worry about dengue here on the Jalisco coast before. It's always been here and I've heard of occasional cases over the years, but it just wasn't an issue. You didn't live in fear of getting a bite by a daytime mosquito.

Today I saw the statistics of dengue for the state of Jalisco for the first time.

In 2007, 953 confirmed cases.
In 2009, 4,835 confirmed cases.

I knew it was bad because so many of our friends have come down with it. And dengue's tough. No vaccination, no cure. Just treat the symptoms of a soaring fever, bone crushing aches and pains, no energy. And it lasts, often for two weeks, then several more weeks of getting your energy back.

I don't want it. We live coated with insect repellent, hoping for the best.

So far as I've heard, no one knows why it's soaring. Perhaps climate change?

Samba

Our surfer friend, Julien, who also lives in Arroyo Seco, has been a longtime friend of Samba, a village dog. I normally would say he's adopted Samba, but that's not the relationship. They're friends --- equals --- who choose to spend time together.

I can understand the relationship more after reading the wonderful book, Merle's Door, about an 'rescued' dog who lives with Ted Kerasote, who comes to the realization that a doggy door is the only thing that Merle needs for his autonomy and independence.

That's Samba. She adores Julien and the feeling is mutual.
But Julien has been terribly sick with dengue and our best-in-the-world neighbors, Chena and Chon, put him to bed in their house and ministered to him around the clock with poultices and Tempra and everything they knew to do.

Samba couldn't stay with him because they have a load of Chihuahuas that are incompatible with this great big Alpha village dog. After about three days of separation, Julien ended up in our trailer for the night. And by 11 p.m., Samba showed up at our place, burrowing her way under the gate, putting her front paws up so her claws clicked on the metal step of the trailer. Her version of knock, knock. She knew she had found her amigo Julien.

The reunion would bring tears even to a cynic's eyes.

I hate dengue, but I sure love knowing that this dog --- and so many animals --- are aware of so much more than we are aware, relying on so many senses rather than being able to simply ask someone, Yo! Where's Julien?

This morning Samba showed up at around 5 a.m. from a long trek from the beach house where Julien is now staying. Once again we heard her claws hit the metal of the first step of the trailer, her announcement that's she's come back to town.

Why? Who knows. She thought she'd visit? Because Julien is boring because he's sick, but she no longer is worried about him because he's getting better? Because she's hungry? I have no idea. But I know Samba does. I guess that's the point. And lucky Samba lives in a safe enough community that she can follow her nose, follow her instincts.

So, today, in my world that feels a little more complicated and a little more unsafe than normal, that's my bright spot. She spent the morning laying on a carpet next to me out in the breezy palapa after chowing down some chicken scraps from the homemade soup I made for Julien.

Then she heard his voice out in the street in front, and zoom! She's gone. Back to spending the rest of the day with her friend Julien. As it should be.

A Mexican amigo finally goes home --- to the U.S.

2010-01-15T15:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight we're celebrating a friend's return to his home in the United States.

Some of you who have visited us in Arroyo Seco, Mexico have met our friend, Francisco, and his sister, Veronica.

We were introduced when we first moved here because they were the only other English-speakers in the village. Francisco is a gifted translator and he's been on call as we struggled to converse in Spanish. He'd race down from his home at his grandmother's house and take as much time as needed, usually refusing any compensation, despite the lack of work in the village.

He's also the guy we'd call to take Dylan fishing, or to help us cook when we were having a load of guests in for dinner.

But Francisco's is an interesting story -- especially for those of us who only hear about U.S. immigration from U.S. media reports. And until I met Francisco and his sister Veronica, that was the only side of the story I knew.

During the George W. Bush administration, government officials started doing immigration sweeps (perhaps meeting quotas?), quickly deporting what we would consider the 'low hanging fruit' --- the easy pickings, but not necessarily the people we would hope to have deported from our country: criminals, drug dealers, violent offenders. Instead, they were deporting the citizens who had glitches in their paperwork. The easy ones to track. And the ones who were not hiding... They were working, paying taxes, etc...

This is his story as I understand it: Francisco was brought into the country without documentation when he was a child. Eventually he was able to get a driver's license, work papers and paid social security. He married a U.S. citizen, a bank administrator in Napa. He had a decent job in a restaurant. His two sons were born there. The U.S. was the only home he really knew or remembered.

But one day the new equivalent of INS showed up and gave him a choice. Go immediately to jail, --- or --- you can have one hour to pack your bags and get on an airplane to Mexico. They escorted him to the airport where he returned to his extended family in Arroyo Seco, to a family and a culture he barely knew.

Apparently his lawyer, who had been paid to continue to filing the paperwork to apply for citizenship, took the money but didn't file the paperwork.

His 25-year-old sister, Veronica, was deported in exactly the same manner. One day she day she was living in the U.S., working at a Napa restaurant, going to dances at night. The next day she's sleeping on a bed on the front porch of a grandmother's house in a remote Mexican village of 300 people.

Veronica said she cried for the first three months. Then she started to look around, started getting to know people, found new ways to entertain herself without going to a mall or going to a dance. Two years later she married a handsome, sweet man from the village in a storybook wedding. They are expecting their first child in May.

But Francisco stayed on the paper trail, working to get home to Napa and his family. This past Wednesday, nearly three years later, Francisco crossed the border one more time --- this time with documentation --- to return home to his wife and his two sons.

Francisco and Veronica are not the only cases we've learned about since we moved here. A neighbor has a contractor who says he was deported from Southern California in exactly the same manner and same circumstances. One days he's living with his wife and four children (all U.S. citizens). He goes to work at the two restaurants he opened. He owns a five bedroom home. Then one day he's deported. The options: A plane ride or jail.

We've heard of others.

Francisco's been through a lot over the past few years. And he's learned a lot. The celebration Michael and I will have tonight in our palapa in Arroyo Seco is knowing that he's reunited with his family, but that he can come back here any time he wants.

It's about time.

Feels pretty good to be home in Arroyo Seco

2009-12-27T15:48:00.001-08:00

Michael and I have just spent our first Sunday back in Arroyo Seco and I have to say, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

We took our first walk down to the beach and back, running into many friends who were headed down to surf or on their way back because the waves weren't quite right.

We couldn't make it past Tia Mela's house on the corner by the jardin, the first home built in Arroyo Seco about 60 years ago. Tia Mela clapped her hands with joy and beckoned us in to talk. There was no getting by today, so we stayed for a short visit before heading home for breakfast.

I broke in the new hand juicer today, with a lovely combination of oranges and grapefruit.

Then we puttered about the property all morning. I pulled the new kitchen together, which we moved on to one-third of the palapa. The Pink Flamingo bar is in place, the blender is in fine working order, the new leather bar stools set to arrive on Friday.

And the new pink flamingos are resting peacefully in the yard, our Christmas present from Dustin and Camelia.

Michael continued to empty the bodega (garage/storage building), also putting more shade up around the property.

We met for lunch in the palapa and started to make a list of projects we might accomplish this year until I saw him clutching his sore shoulder and neck and decided he couldn't take the stress yet. We'll go back to the list another day.

In the meantime, we're fresh from siestas, showers and now headed down to the jardin where there's supposed to be a fiesta grande, complete with a spectacular presentation by Chena and family. We'll post video soon, but we've heard it's not to be missed.

As in love with this little rancho as I am, I assure you it's not for everyone. I'm fighting the dust because the streets aren't paved. This afternoon I showered with a spider the size of my fist. Eventually I'll find a local to ask whether this is one of the good guys or the bad guys. If so, squish.

But for now, I'm exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing. And that's good enough for today.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

The Admiral joins the posada processional

2009-12-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

We're back in Arroyo Seco, Mexico, pulling the compound together for another six months of life here in this little rancho in Costalegre.

It's a different type of quiet for us. A non-mechanized quiet. Not many cars, airplanes, machines that hum. But loads of noises from roosters and chickens, flapping and cackling around our yard in the morning. A lot of children's voices as they play in the street late into the night. An occasional dog, donkey, bird, horse. And a lot of really loud music during the day.

Tonight we heard children singing as part of a nightly posada processional, part of the Christmas celebration. Soon they were in front of our home, then shouting out our names for us to join in the rest of the processional around the village. While I used to be hesitant about such events --- my limited language, my lack of understanding of the culture or what would be expected of me -- now I just launch myself out the door. Even without my trusty translator, Miguel.

What the heck. In for a dime, in for a dollar. Or in for a centavo, in for a peso.

I've learned that they're delighted to have our participation, to have us be interested in their lives and their celebrations.

Tonight when I joined the processional I learned how to be more prepared for next year --- have a small bag of candies or treats ready each night to give to the child dressed as Mary. And if we want to really delight them, have a pinata ready too.

After the last house, children dashed off in all directions. But a contigent of about 15 of them ended up in front of our neighbor Chena's house, painting ceramics at a table set up in the street. Hours later, we can still hear them.

I live here for a lot of reasons --- I want to force myself to learn the language, I love the climate, I like living in the country. But tonight I'm reminded that I get to learn about their culture, and that all I have to do is be brave enough to walk out the door.

Another act of bravery is driving back and forth to Puerto Vallarta. We have two big motivators --- granddaughter Sasha and Michael's doctor of osteopathy, Dr. Antonio, who is working miracles on his shoulder pain.

Yesterday we came across some cattle crossing the highway but we were able to stop our big Toyota Tundra in time. Unfortunately, the van in back of us didn't. After a spectacular spinout, he and his passenger ended up wedged in an arroyo. No injuries, but without AAA to call, it was probably going to be quite a while before their car was yanked out of that ditch.

We're heading back up to Vallarta tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with Sasha and her parents. And we're going to be driving very, very carefully.

Feliz Navidad!

Livin' in the Burbs

2009-11-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

We're just finishing up our four month stint in Sacramento, grateful to still have employment in a state that has a deficit bigger than most other states' budgets, grateful to have a lovely place to live while we replenish our bank accounts, grateful to have time with the kids and the grandkids, time with our California friends.

But.

I'm lonely.

It's not the one-to-one loneliness of being without friends and family. It's been lovely to see everyone. It's the loneliness of not having community, of not having a band of people who are willing to connect in the grocery store, in the parking lot, in front of their houses. I miss the day to day easy socializing and connecting, the serendipity of who you will see, who you will talk to that day that comes with living in a village, of living outside the U.S.

(Except maybe Hector, NY. But that's a different story).

Those of you who have known me for years probably have intuitively understood that I'm the friend you drop in on, not the one you make plans with weeks in advance. Even when the kids were little, I loved that friends would feel comfortable enough to stop by without notice and could ignore the chaos of the house, nor would I feel compelled to apologize for whatever chaos they found.

When I first moved from Flagstaff to Sacramento 20 years ago, I told Michael that I would feel at home here as soon as I could depend on running into someone I knew at the local grocery store and meet my daily innoculation against loneliness with some unexpected casual conversation.

I'm still waiting. It's just too sprawling a community, too many people.

When Michael and I bought our first house in an old Italian neighborhood in Sacramento, one of the qualities I loved the most about the neighborhood was the lack of fences around the properties. When our neighbor behind us started making noises about putting up the 6-foot redwood fence, we had an ongoing conversation about how that could change her relationship with the neighbors. Her mother, the original homeowner, still gardened, still puttered around the backyard, still looked for casual conversation with us and others.

The fence never went up.

Immediate community is one of the reasons I loved boating so much, regardless of location. You have to walk from your slip in whatever marina you're in past dozens of boats with dozens of people. You can't help but get to know them. And they might not be people you would have thought to befriend elsewhere. But you have a commonality, a love of boating, and proximity. You're both there.

Being back in Sacramento this year, I'm reminded how lonely people are here. I walk this year's foster dog, Tucker, around the neighborhood and it's only the dog walkers who are out and about, maybe a few kids under the age of five.

But I can see in the windows, and what I see are pretty huge flat screen TVs, keeping people in the house company.

No one is sitting out front. No one is talking. The majority of people are uncomfortable if you try.

A young Mexican woman who had lived in Sacramento with her family for a while once told me that she thought America was so wonderful because it's so clean. But so lonely. She couldn't understand why Americans stayed in their homes every night.

I guess that's how I feel.

My eagerness to return to Mexico is more than the lovely temperature. I miss the simplicity of easy interactions. I miss seeing some of the elders in the village sitting out in front of their home with a few empty chairs by them. Don't even think about passing by without plunking your butt down for a five minute visit.

I didn't understand the importance of community when I was in my 20s, the way I understand it now. I understand that the community comes with all types of people, all types of complicated, dysfunctional people, but that it doesn't matter. They'll help you. You 'll help them. Even if all you need is a quick conversation to know you're not alone.

I don't know how we got so far away from this in much of America.

I'm headed back to Mexico to get my fill (and no doubt my irritations) from all the community I can get. Come find me. I'll be on the bench in the jardin near the church, waiting to have a conversation.

Hasta pronto!

A textbook case for early screening for skin cancer

2009-10-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

First: I'm fine.

Second: I have a three-inch scar running down my right cheek.

Third: sunscreen! Hats!

But back to the first point.

I'm fine. I guess that's the most important point to make. That, and I'm sure glad that I'm not a super vain person about my looks. And, I'm ready for Halloween?

Nah, it's really not that bad. But it could have been.

Michael and I make our yearly dermatology appointments each fall with Dr. Silva when we're back in Sacramento, back on the job. Obviously, we're good --- ok, great? -- candidates for skin cancer. We live the majority of the year in sunny climates. And --- oh yeah --- we went sailing for about 16 years, most of the time sin sunscreen. We didn't burn, we weren't sunbathing. But we were undoubtedly damaging our skin.

Michael headed in first and discovered he had a squamous cell carcinoma on his chest, which he had surgically removed last week.

Ouch!

I headed in for my check up and pointed to the tiniest little bump on my cheek. I thought it was something like a zit but it didn't heal, didn't get red, didn't change color, didn't itch. It was just a tiny bump.

Fortunately, Dr. Silva didn't agree. We didn't even get to screening the rest of my face before she was biopsying that little blemish, which came back as a very aggressive type of basal cell carcinoma. I was immediately referred to a surgeon for a procedure called Mohs Surgery, where the surgeon removes and biopsies the skin, layer by layer, all on the same day, until a completely clean biopsy is present. It can often take two or three surgeries before they are ready to stitch you up and send you home.

What's apparently so good about the Mohs Surgery is they get it all the first time.

I got lucky --- lucky that I got in so early, lucky that it only took one surgery. The type of cell I have is aggressive, ill-defined, often spreading rapidly below the radar so that by the time the bump shows up, it's off and running.

I would hate to think what my face would have looked like if I had waited.

I'm not sharing this because I need to whine or I need sympathy or I need flowers. Really, all I need is for all of my friends to take the time to get screened by a good dermatologist.

Because, as I said, my little innocuous bump was tiny.

(Almost) 40 days & 40 nights in Sacramento

2009-10-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that this blog gets pretty quiet when I get back to Sac, back to work. One reason is the simplicity of posting quickie updates on Facebook, with a picture. Makes me lazy....

But here's the rest of the reason:

An unexpected marathon visit with ALL the kids.

One of the delights of having to return to Sacramento to work (besides the paycheck!) is getting to spend time with Daughter Anne and the grandkids, Sami and Kami.

But within two weeks of our arrival and barely back to work, sons Jason and Dustin (and family) showed up unexpectedly in Sacramento for an impromptu family reunion. Jason was heading back to Michigan for a two month stint as a volleyball coach. Then he'll be joining us in Mexico, in early January .

Dustin, Camelia and Sasha flew north to California to get out of the Puerto Vallarta heat for a few weeks. The airfares were astoundingly cheap and 1-year-old Sasha had just gotten her U.S. passport (and citizenship!) the day before the flight. Sasha was a blast -- a veteran traveler already. She was happy and flexible the entire trip.

At 13 years of age as of Saturday, Granddaughter Samantha (sorry, Sami) has reached my height and will soon be towering over me. She's tall, lovely, smiles a lot, is a great older sister, texts a lot of friends and plays a lot of softball.

Baby sister Kamryn, 2, is what we call "a pistol." Not sure exactly what that expression intends, but she's it. She is focused, smart, speaking in full sentences, has a spark in her eye. But boy oh boy, is she focused. It's like watching a computer processor at work.... processing, processing. Then ACTION!

We ended our 10-day family marathon with a barbecue at Dylan's place in Oakland Hills. Phenomenal view of San Francisco, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge and out of this world food. We're sooooooo glad he likes to cook.

All I can say is TOO MUCH FUN!

Back to work, back to teaching, back to a state in fiscal crisis.

Obviously, being back to work, back in the classroom is a shock to someone who has been able to do what she wants, when she wants for the past eight months. It's taken a few weeks to get to get my stride, especially with the kids visiting, to remember how to prep classes more efficiently, remember how to grade papers more efficiently.

But it's an odd time to be back in Sacramento. We have a 9.3 percent pay cut, which the state calls furlough days, because of the budget crisis. So in a 16-week semester, we must take two days off per month (9 days during each semester) to match the reduction in pay. And still teach our students. Unfortunately, I hear that the state/university system could be in much worse shape next year. Lovely.

Many downtown businesses near the Capitol have already shut down --- state workers don't buy lunch out (or anything else) if they don't have enough money to pay their mortgage --- or anything else. Especially if they're not even physically at the job for three days per month. Department stores have closed, electronic stores, jewelry stores, many of the major chains. The budget crisis was not as obvious in New York this summer.

Anne and Steve are finding many 'teachable moments' with Sami about the effects of the budget crisis, especially in Sacramento. State workers (including Anne) have a three-day reduction in pay per month. There have been some great lessons --- 'if you want label jeans, then you get one pair. If you don't care about label jeans, then you get three new pairs of jeans for school.'

And unexpected blessing for Anne to have three Fridays off per month to spend with the girls.

Pretty good life lessons, really, for all of us Americans.

Now for a couple of side rants:

First Rant: Medical care. Of course.

The quality of medical care is great in New York, good access too but it's sticker shock even with insurance. My co-pay is often higher than the cost of seeing a doctor in Mexico without insurance. But great quality and variety..

Mexico medical care is phenomenal, so far. Affordable. Great. Clean. Access to your doctor because you have his or her cell phone. No lie!

California. Stinks! At least in Sacramento. It's a huge system where the bureaucracy has become more important than the patient. I was thinking about changing doctors within the same system and the receptionist interviewed me quite extensively about my insurance before taking my personal information. And, no, I'm not in an HMO. I supposedly have 'great' insurance. So I told her 'no thanks.'

My doctor says it's going to take six weeks to get into a gastroenterologist --- amazing for a city this size, for a medical community this size. I'm thinking I'll just wait until I get back to Mexico, where I have better access, good medical care, timely ---- and I can afford it.

Second rant: What the heck happened to my skin here?

The humidity in Sacramento has often hovered under 20 percent (can we even breathe that?) and I'm guessing all the minerals have been stripped out of the water system so that skin is dry, hair is dry. So I can't believe it, but I'm back to buying products for hair and skin so I don't look like an aging witch.

Between upstate New York --- where we have humidity and a lovely beach well for our water --- and the sea air in Mexico, I've barely needed a moisturizer. Now I'm back in Sacramento to make some money and I'm having to pay serious dollars on moisturizers and conditioners. I need to get out of here before I've donated my paycheck to the beauty industry. Ack!

The temperature here has dropped like a stone, so this bird is feeling the urge to migrate south. See many of you back in Mexico at the end of the semester in mid-December!

Pictures below: 1. 13-year-old Sami. 2. Sasha and Kamryn. 3. Anne and Kami. 4. Jason, Dad, Dustin. 5. Dylan, Michael, Sylvia, Camelia, Dustin and Sasha.

Our secret weapon in cottage maintenance

2009-08-23T05:35:00.000-07:00

We always arrive at our hundred-year-or so old cottage in May with great ambitions about how much we're going to accomplish that summer.

And we do. But we always forget that when you're working on this old a wood-frame house, with old plumbing, old electrical, old everything, it's often two steps forward, one step back.

But we have a secret weapon in our arsenal.

Cousin Brett.

Thank God for us that Brett has an equal affection for the old place -- and capabilities to match.

When my good friend Beth Tucker came in four years ago to help me sort through my mom's things and make a space for us to live, Brett helped us (or rather, we helped him) remodel the downstairs bathroom, encouraging us to use as many hand-me-downs and scavenged materials as possible.

That's why the bathroom vanity is an old porcelain covered cast iron sink we discovered sitting outside the local recycle store, which he cut into an enamel covered baker's helper cabinet that we discovered down in our cellar. (The cellar is another story).

When Brett pulled the old paneling from one wall in the bathroom, we discovered the original window between what is now the cellar stairs and the 'new' bathroom (and what used to be a porch). No need to cover up the window, he thought. Just do something with glass and we can use it as ambient light at night.

So that sent me hustling off to Corning (of Corning Glass fame) to work with a glass artist, who helped me locate a close-to-exact old window which I covered with glass pieces to create a flower with vase night light.

This Sunday, when someone tried to put their foot (followed by the rest of them) through the rotted wood hatch that covers our 1,000 gallon water cistern under the dining room floor, we had Brett on our 911 speed dial.

Help!

As usual, he had a perfect piece of old cherry wood that he nabbed when someone was throwing out an old cherry table. Within days, we had a new, improved, beautiful hatch over the cistern, complete with a brass lift-ring so we no longer have to pry the hatch open with a screwdriver.

How perfect!

It even matches the multi-colored green cabinet that has been sitting next to the cistern for decades, something that my grandfather built to use as a tool cabinet.

(For those of you who are hoping to capitalize on Brett's carpentry expertise, sorry. He's a professional musician, The Brett Beardslee Trio, and values his digits too much to continue working with Very Sharp Objects).

The biggest project for us and greatest satisfaction this year was opening up the view in front of the house, something we had been hoping to do for years. We clear cut a dozen trees that had cropped up between us and the lake. Now we can just about see to Geneva, more than 20 miles north of us.

We're heading home to California this week, back to the university to refill the bank accounts and share our wisdom and expertise with our students.

In the meantime, we've asked Arnold the Wonder Dog to stay in the house and guard it for us. He's agreed, so he and Brad will be on sentry duty starting this week. We can rest assured the house will be safe from all woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks and skunks for the duration.

Thanks, Arnold!

A guest cottage over 40 years in the making

2009-07-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

When my mother, Louise Schwartz, first bought this cottage on the shores of Seneca Lake, New York in the early 1960s, one of her early projects was to convert the free-standing garage into a cabin for overflow for the many kids that came to spend their summer.

We were living in White Plains, outside of New York City, and racing up to the lake for summers with all the cousins, who still live around the lake.

Eventually, my mother had a vision to turn the cabin into a guest house in the woods or a studio for her while she turned over the 'main' house over to the rest of us. She had a friend of my brother's help design and construct an upstairs loft bedroom, a small kitchen, and a bathroom that resembled more of an indoor outhouse.

In the past four years that Michael and I have been spending summers here, we've made baby steps of progress, with a lot of help from friends and family. Cousin Brett did some carpentry for us. Our friend from Hazlitt's winery, Brad Phillips, painted the cottage inside and out in exchange for rent. We got the better deal, we think....

Brother Dan became the plumbing and electrical maestro. Michael did everything else, and I got to decorate.

So almost 50 years later, our first official guests are set to arrive.

I've felt my mother's presence on the property this past week as I put the finishing touches on the cottage. She is tickled, I'm sure, with how the place looks and how her vision finally has come to pass.

It took a lot of years and a lot of people to make it happen. But it was her vision, once again, exactly as she planned.

If you knew my mother, this is no surprise.

More pictures of the cottage.

Jammin' for Betsy's birthday

2009-06-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

Betsy, our fearless leader in Watkins Glen who hosts us every other week to play music at her place, let the cat out of the bag about her upcoming 'big' birthday.

So her good friends Kate and Danni, both hammered dulcimer players, threw the big surprise birthday bash for her last week, and even the sun showed up to help the celebration. It was the nicest weather we've had since our arrival in late May.

The company was great, the food was fantastic and the music was even better (at least for those of us who got to play). Betsy lives to sing the old time tunes (or anything else), plays the dulcimer and the bass, joins every jam in the area.

I also got to hear a great singer and local musician, Chris Holder, play (he's in the video too). Check him out!

A perfect celebration, for all of us.

Here's a wrap-up of some of the day's tunes (courtesy of Cap'n Michael):

A lot of cold, wet 'civilization'

2009-06-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

It's been three weeks since I've had anything to say.

That might be a record. I've hit a state of ohmmmmmmmmmmm --- or something. Just taking one day at a time, making a list, waiting for the weather to clear.

Especially waiting for the weather to heal.

Today is the Waterfront Festival in Watkins Glen and the much-anticipated Cardboard Boat Races. And this is our radar picture for today.

One of the biggest changes after living in Mexico for six months is that we now have to check the weather forecast daily --- or hourly --- and we actually talk about the weather. In Mexico, you knew every day was going to be perfect. Here in New York, Michael has already told me to clear my schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday because the forecast is finally looking good.

Not that the forecast can't and won't change. But I'm (finally) adapting. And not whining as much. I'm also layered up in fleece with a rain slicker, shoes and socks.

Re-entry to Civilization

The first few weeks back is a process of re-adapting to a country that offers pretty much everything and anything and is easy --- all for a price, of course.

Some of the things I've been enjoying:
• Just rinsing our fruits and veggies, rather than treating them in anti-bacterial rinse before eating.
• Drinking the water out of the faucet.
• Getting dressed in the morning without having to shake my clothes and shoes to make sure a scorpion hasn't taken up residence.
• Streaming video on Netflix!

Some of the things I'm still wrapping my brain around:
• The price of everything! --- food in the grocery stores, restaurants, gas, any services.
• The difficulty of finding people to work in some service areas, especially housecleaning. It pays pretty well but nobody's doing it. What's up with that?
• The weather. (Of course).

My latest venture into civilization was Friday's visit to a dentist in Ithaca, Dr. Chris Devenpeck (in practice with Dr. Ira Kamp) to have a tooth extracted. Friday's are also spa day at the office so you get massage while they yank your tooth out.

Silly as it sounds, dang, it works. It's hard to concentrate on exactly how uncomfortable and anxious I am when someone's massaging my feet.

How 'bout it, Dr. Pam?

Roots

I'm also so pleasantly reminded of the history of family, of the length of the roots we have here. Our ancestors arrived in upstate New York sometime in the 1700s and I have cousins and siblings, nieces and nephews to visit up and down the lake.

About 50 years ago, when my mother bought this place near Hector, we built a steep, narrow path down to our lakefront and dock. The cables we attached to the saplings have now grown into and become a part of the trunk of the tree, a reminder of how long we've been here.

The cable is a handrail tacked on to the tree 50 years ago

Our dock at the bottom of the 'goat trail'

Although my mother has been gone since February 2005, I still use her name to remind people of my connection to the area and she's still remembered, her house is still known.

But the memory of the locals goes so much farther back than us that often I have to remind the oldtimers that 'you know, the cottage that old Stoney owned?' And they know right where I live. And I think, 'Gee whiz. How long do we have to live here before we're not the newcomers?'

I guess longer than 50 years.

Catapulting out of Mexico

2009-06-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

I left Arroyo Seco last Tuesday for a quick trip to see Sasha and family, have an early celebration with Dustin for his 29th birthday, then on to Flagstaff, Arizona to sneak in a quick 'girls visit' with Beth.

A Mexican veteran herself (with a place in Kino Bay), she surprised me with appointments for massage and a haircut.

Wise woman.

She took me shopping at the new huge New Frontiers, which rivals any Whole Foods store in California. The choices were overwhelming after running next door to Xavier's tiny tienda for my limited groceries for the past six months.

Welcome to America!

Beth encouraged me to get a new look from her hair stylist, who I grilled with more than 20 questions about how many layers, how easy to take care of, can I still pull it back? By the time I agreed to the cut, I think he was more nervous than I was.

But it's great to have shorter hair again, great to come back to 'civilization' and try to fit in a bit more. At least at first. No makeup yet. We'll see how long I can hold out....

Beth talks me into a new 'look'

I met Michael on Friday at Sky Harbor in Phoenix for our annual red-eye flight home, first to Philly, followed by a commuter flight up to Elmira. It makes for a really long day (and night) but it's worth it to live in such a beautiful and remote area in the New York Finger Lakes.

The weather is unseasonably cold (oh great...), but it's great that all our flowers are still in full bloom, we have time to get the Spirit of Louise pontoon boat out of storage and into the water without missing any great lake days, time to reconnect with my fiddle-playing friends, get back up to speed.

Here's a video of our first afternoon on the ground. We arrived at 11 in the morning, borrowed a car from Brother Dan, went to Wegman's grocery for lunch and shopping, then on to our favorite used car dealer.

We were home at the lake by 3 with a new Jeep on order to drive for the summer and a carload of supplies, cranked up the jacuzzi and started to pull weeds.

We're getting this relocation thing down to a new art form....

Hope to see many of you now that we're back in the States!

A Mother's Day surprise

2009-05-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

The president of Mexico canceled Mother’s day this year, el dia de los madres, but the people didn’t get the whole message.
The Arroyo Seco fiesta will be held sometime this week --- and you have to be here to figure out when....
Chena and Chon did a booming business this weekend in their tienda across the street by selling silk flower arrangements, which they picked up in La Huerta the day before. They started with about 25 arrangements, including a 3-D piece of artwork with pitchers of flowing water (Michael suggested it would sell quicker if it was pouring tequila). By the end of Mother’s Day, they only had a few flowers left.
Several women stopped by to give me flowers and gifts, a very sweet and appreciated gesture.
But the real gift of Sunday was an impromptu visit by Sasha, accompanied with parents Dustin and Camelia. This was Sasha’s first real trip to an ocean beach.
She loved it.

Sasha's first trip to the ocean

She loved the textures, the water, the sand, the whole she-bang.

Sasha recharging the batteries for more beach time

We took the quad down to the surf beach for sunset on Saturday night. Then an afternoon at Tenacatita beach where Sasha loved being in the water and the waves. Even our 8-year-old neighbor, Julliette, swam with us in Tenacatita, where the water is deliciously warm.
It’s a relief to know our granddaughter has inherited the water gene required for holidays at the beach in Mexico or the lake in New York.

Dustin, of course, loved our Honda quad, and Cami was game for a sunny vacation on a beach and out of the house.

Really, this was safer than it looks!
While they were here, Dustin mentioned wanting a smaller dog as a companion dog to Max, their black lab mutt.
Careful what you wish for.
He went home with a tiny three-week old black and white pup that he has to feed formula and bathe daily.

Dustin feeds the newborn while Mama dog takes a snooze

We walked down to our neighbor’s house whose cocker spaniel had given birth to nine pups about three weeks before.
We were surprised and disappointed to find all the pups had died but one --- and that one was left was in a back room on a dirt floor, in the dark, with the owners out of town for the night.
I had given their cocker spaniel, Canela, a flea bath and a haircut right after the pups were born because the owners were complaining about the fleas.
Fleas? Yes, and dozens of ticks.
An ugly job.
I had taken Rocio, our friendly vet, to see the mom and pups right after they were born and she had encouraged the owners to get the pups out of the dirt and to get the mom more nourishing food so she’d have enough milk.
The advice apparently wasn’t enough.
A neighbor hopped the fence and grabbed the puppy for us. Dustin brought it back to our place for its first of many baths with a mild flea soap designed for puppies.
Our first report from Dustin and Cami, back home in Puerto Vallarta, is that the puppy is eating and sleeping well and starting to walk around, albeit a bit wobbly.

The last of the nine pups

As the last one of nine pups, he must be quite a survivor and he’s just gotten a real chance at a good life.
And Dustin must have gotten that ‘save the dog’ gene from me.

A quick update on the dogs:

Capitan is doing well again and living back at home with Marta, who is in charge of his medications. He seems to be getting energy back and is happy to be at home with his buddy, Paloma. We go up to give the occasional injection, provide antibiotics. He has a severe case of ehrlichia, which he got from a tick. One of the symptoms was the anemia and the bleeding. It’s treatable with a 30-day regime of strong antibiotics and a lot of vitamins.

Leona, the female with TVT, a venereal cancer, has suddenly gotten a lot better. We were three or four shots into her treatment with little improvement. On Sunday, she looks almost normal. She’s also getting a little easier to handle. It still takes three of us to hold her down, with a muzzle, to give her an IV injection. But there’s less thrashing, gnashing and gnawing going on. We’re all relieved (especially Leona?).

Canela, the cocker, has just gotten a full-strength flea bath, which we’ll follow up with a frontline treatment and spray around her house as well. We’ll find a way to get her spayed soon. No more pups!

I’ve learned a lot about how to help the animals down here and I’m more committed than ever to getting as many of them neutered as possible. This year I’ll be raising money in the states for the spay and neutering clinics, so please let me know if this is something you’d like to support.
You can email me a fitzfoxATgmail.com ---- we'll be back in the states at the end of the month.

Update on Swine flu in Mexico

2009-04-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

A quick update tonight: check Michael's blog tomorrow and there will probably be a lot more detail and pictures.

First of all, we're safe. We live in a remote place on the coast, we live outside most of the time in a warm (non-friendly to flu) climate, there's no wheezing and hacking by our neighbors. We're probably living in as safe a place as we could be.

But there's definitely impact to the citizens of Mexico, regardless of the health issues.

At mid-day today, just as we were taking our friends Pat and Sanders Lamont out for a last lunch before they caught their plane back to the California from Manzanillo, the governor of Jalisco closed all the restaurants in the state.

No lie!

Everything was closed or closing in Melaque, we went on to Barre de Navidad -- ditto. We didn't realize that it had been mandated. We just thought the owners had decided to close.

When we got back to La Manzanilla late this afternoon, we found Palapa Joe's was closed. We figured there had to something pretty dramatic going on. Friends on the street told us what was up.

When we got back to Arroyo Seco, the police were just coming thru posting the declaration on the walls of the tiendas in town.

Our friends on the beach say they're pretty happy that the governor is getting in front of this thing, rather than waiting for the citizens of Jalisco to start spreading some virus.

But for the people of Mexico who have to work to feed their kids, there's a lot of disbelief and panic going on. Our friend Chena said she thinks we'll all soon be feeding the poorest of the poor who aren't able to work right now and won't be able to feed their children.

It's a little scary to watch a country shut down. It makes me worry for the economy of the country, and the global economy as well. But I'm willing to wait and see how this unfolds, hope that this virus will die a rapid death as the weather starts to turn hot.

What is also a little disheartening is how the U.S. and European news coverage of Mexico is confined to simply reporting on the number of sick, the number of deaths, and no reporting on actions and impacts, especially outside of Mexico City.

Just imagine living in a city the size of Puerto Vallarta --- almost 200,000 people --- and having all the restaurants, malls, theatres, bars and all other areas where people can gather closed down for more than a week.

In the meantime, it's a quiet, lovely night in the village. All is calm, for now. We'll try to keep you updated as we can.

News from Mexico

2009-04-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

For all of you lovely friends that have been concerned about our health and welfare, thanks for caring --- and we're fine.

We've been reading about the swine flu and the possible pandemic. Veracruz and Mexico City seem to be Ground Zero for the virus. In Arroyo Seco, the only impact on our little village is that all the schools in Mexico have been closed for the next week or so, much to the chagrin of the parents.

The locals seem to be up on the news and on the threat. But it's all a watch and wait. We'll probably avoid the cities, wash our hands a lot and wait for the news, just as all of you are probably doing.

Otherwise, life is going on as usual. Michael is up watering all the plants and the grass. I'm getting ready to walk to the beach. We're meeting Sanders and Pat later in La Manzanilla for a beach afternoon and a nice dinner out. They fly home to Northern California tomorrow.

We'll update the blogs as we get information, but we feel pretty safe living in a tiny beach town where there aren't many people and everyone lives outdoors.

Apologies to all for not staying in touch through email. We've updated our wireless modem when the original one died and my old laptop no longer can connect through the wireless connection. So I have to trundle out to the 'comunications tent' to plug in to do my emails or hunt and peck on the iTouch.

The dog lady of Arroyo Seco

2009-04-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Helping out the dogs in the village has been a way to introduce myself to more of my neighbors, a way to get to know them on a daily level --- as much as one can with only a limited vocabulary and confined to present tense.

It's interesting that we don't seem to stick out here as much as I assumed we did. When I introduce myself, they sometimes tell me 'they've seen me around the village' or even thought I lived on the beach where a few other gringos live.

So, that's cool, I think.

We're a couple of Saturday's into our free clinics (free to the villagers but not to our wallet) and we're beginning to get a daily routine going.

I prepare a huge bowl of dog food, chicken scraps or other meat, rice cooked in chicken fat, grab a bottle of high-potency vitamins, all the various medications and Michael and I head out on the quad.

Right now we're committed to feeding our now-thriving Capitan and the blind 6-month old puppy, Paloma. Along the way, we run across other needy pooches and try to give them a healthy breakfast.

They are all extremely grateful.

Each dog seems to learn the sound of our Honda quad after one feeding, pretty amazing considering how many motos there are in the village.

Our tours remind me of stories I've read about the rural nurses making home visits in Appalachia. The families seem happy to have the help, invite us into their homes, give us small gifts of fruit or food to thank us for taking an interest. Last week Brianda gave Rocio, our vet friend, two baby ducks, something Rocio had been really wanting for her yard in La Manzanilla.

Brianda gives the vet, Rocio, two baby ducks to thank her for her help

The people here might also think we're a bit loco about the dogs, but that's okay too.

For now, my goal is three-fold: demonstrate how easy it is to have a healthy pet, get them medical help when they need it and the people can't afford it, and eventually slice and dice every dog's reproductive organ in Arroyo Seco.

Helping is easy, often frustrating too. One quick example:

Our surfing friend Julien, from France, saw a really tattered dog around the village who had lost most, but not all, of her hair. He grabbed the dog, had a friend trim the remaining straggly hair, then gave it a shot of medicine that pretty instantly cures the dog of the skin problem.

Within a month or two, I realized that the dog was an adorable cocker spaniel. Who knew? Unfortunately, the owner didn't get her spayed in time. Last week she had nine puppies, who will now need to get fed and cared for.

She's on my list for the next spay and neuter clinic, as are all nine of the puppies.

When we got back to Arroyo Seco last night after a leisurely day in La Manzanilla with our friends Sanders and Pat Lamont, Chon to help us give a couple of overdue injections to two dogs. One, Leona, is scheduled for surgery in our palapa tomorrow at noon. Rocio has been researching how to fix some female problem (she's already been spayed). Last night we had to put a muzzle on her and hold her down just to give her the mildest of injections. She loves to bite those who want to help.

I find working with her somewhat nerve-wracking. Leona is none too happy about it either.

How many people does it take to treat Leona? A lot!

Samba, Julien's part-time dog, has adopted us and makes the rounds with us, I suspect because of the fragrant treats I carry with me. That's okay too. She's a poster child for what a healthy dog looks like. And great company too!

Samba makes house calls with us, then joins us for sunset at the beach

We also gave Capitan his last pills and one last shot, this one to boost his immune system. Now it's time to get the owner educated about how to keep him healthy. The biggest issue may be his pal, Paloma, who aggressively gobbles up all of the food before Capitan can get a bite.

We've learned to tie Paloma up near his own bowl until Capitan leisurely finishes his meal. It's a tradition we're hoping Marta understands as we pass the feeding chores back over to her.

The progress Capitan has made in the past few weeks is inspiring, we hope to our neighbors as well. He was probably just a few days from death when we got him. Eye infections, blood dripping from his nose, skin so raw that you couldn't touch it without it bleeding, barely able to walk or sit, too weak to stand to eat.

Capitan when we first spotted him in the village

Capitan after about two weeks of treatment and a lot of food

Now he's playful, growls and yips, wags his tail, takes walks to the village. He's already growing fine red hair where the skin had been scabbed and bleeding.

This week a family with three small children and two dogs are camped next to the jardin, the central garden across from the church, while they charge village kids to play on a big trampoline and a fooz ball game (or something similar) in the evening. For the past few days we've been feeding their mama-dog, who is nursing four puppies, and their ratty-haired fluffer-dog who drags its hind leg behind him. Broken? Twisted? We'll check it out on the next clinic, scheduled for tomorrow.

On our way to treat Leona, I spotted our friend Chena toweling off one of the toddlers from the same family camped at the jardin.

She said she saw how dirty the kids were and decided to help them out with a bath. Then she discovered the lice. So she had been de-lousing the three kids for the afternoon.

It seemed so symbiotic, that Michael and I would help out the pets, she would help out the kids, all part of healthy community that is willing to share what it has.

Nice.

My Spanish phrase for the week has been vale la pena --- worth the effort, worth the pain.

Here's a video that Michael posted on his blog about when Capitan came to visit last week. You can see the spring in his step already!

Living and learning in Arroyo Seco, Part II

2009-04-12T18:00:00.001-07:00

It's been another week of firsts -- another week where I have had to learn a lot about living in a place with different customs, different values.

It's a big reason that we moved here (it wasn't just the temperate climate), but it also doesn't mean that it's always scripted out of a Disney movie.

Lesson Number 1

Actually, this is an ongoing lesson.

I love how most people around here can make something out of nothing, figure out how to fix, create, repair almost anything without having to drive to a Home Depot or an Ace Hardware or a WalMart. They are self-reliant and competent in a way that I remember from my childhood in the United States. People could actually do things, rather than hire people to do things.

But sometimes the cavalier approach is mind boggling, too. Last week the welder came to install our custom-made doors for our bathrooms. I guess he needed 220 power (or is it 210 here? I don't know....), so he took the front plate off the circuit breaker box and hot wired the dang thing.

Just wires.

Hot-wiring the 220 power for the welder

When the concrete maestro was building the bathrooms, his son would hotwire a lamp to the wires where the outlets were going to go, but weren't installed yet. Same deal. Wires sticking into the electrical cord.

Seems scary to me, but I'm no electrician.

During the welding, no safety mask either. Unfortunately, he also didn't cover up the tile where he was working so the tile clean up is going to pretty intense next week. Hopefully those aren't burn marks I'm seeing....

No safety mask, no covering the brand new tiles either.

Lesson Number 2

Rocio, the vet from La Manzanilla, agreed to come out to Arroyo Seco Saturday morning and treat a few dogs at our place. We knew one dog that we had taken to Cisco's Amigo's last month to get spayed had a venereal cancer that needed to be treated and I had also spotted an emaciated dog out here that I was hoping to get checked out.

Rocio, the vet from La Manzanilla, makes a house call to Arroyo Seco

The first surprise was the message delivered by the son of the dog's owner --- who walked the dog down to our place --- that she just wanted the dog "to be put down."

This is a treatable disease, the dog is healthy otherwise, she's been their pet for three years. But the mom said she nips at some of the little kids and she's got to go.

My question to her, of course, is why today? And why did they get the dog neutered last month if that was the problem, or the plan?

Rocio handled it beautifully --- no doubt having some experience with this issue --- and told the boys she would treat the dog this time and we would talk to the mother next week (who wasn't home right then). And then I think I heard her tell them to make sure not to throw rocks at the dog, to pet the dog, to be nice, to feed it....

I was somewhat stunned. Being asked to put a relatively healthy dog to sleep wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I arranged to facilitate some help for some of my neighbor's dogs.

Next, some other boys dropped by the emaciated dog that I had asked about last week and invited them to bring the dog by for the vet to check out Saturday morning.

Same conversation. Just put the dog down, was the message from the boy's mother.

Again, not what I had in mind.

Rocio believes the dog can regain his health. He has anemia, probably parasites, a skin reaction from the fleas and other insects. But he has a healthy appetite and has a light in his eyes.

For a couple of hours that afternoon, it appeared that Michael and I had either adopted a tragically sick dog, or were going to be in the position of making the decision to execute a dog. And it happened so quickly, we didn't have the time to talk it out, consider what our position was.

Poor ol' Capitan arrives at our house in Arroyo Seco for a visit with the vet

In the end, after a helpful conversation with my neighbor, Chena, and another conversation with the owner's daughter, we simply dropped the dog back at their house and told them we would be back with medicine and food four times a day for the next week and the vet would take another look at him then to see if he was strong enough to be treated for the anemia.

Luckily, the owner now seems grateful that we have taken an interest in Capitan and welcomes us when we arrive. The dog wags its tail when he sees her, he gets up to eat --- and eats a lot.

We asked Chena what the people in the village usually do when a dog is terrribly sick or there's a problem. She says if a dog gets bad enough, the owners drop them off at the nearby dump, thinking at least they will have a chance at feeding themselves. Or they will ignore it until the dog is a corpse in the backyard. Or, in rare instances, they will get out the 'pistola.'

So -- my lesson for this week is a vivid reminder, in both cases, that I'm living in a different world than my California/New York one. That people are much more cavalier, in many ways, about how they approach things. And that the people here aren't shopping at PetSmart and buying kibbles and bits for their pets.

I'm finding I can adjust, that no one was injured when they hotwired the welding machine, that maybe I can make difference with the dogs by focusing on getting them neutered so there are fewer cases of starvation and disease.

And maybe that's the most I can hope for. And it's OK.

Arroyo Seco dogs take a road trip to La Manzanilla

2009-04-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is the story of how a couple of dozen dogs from Arroyo Seco came to be hurtling down the highway in the back of our truck to a surgical unit in a neighboring town 30 minutes south of here.

Cisco's Amigos is a hugely successful volunteer (as in free!) animal clinic in La Manzanilla, founded by Julie Wagner and Rusty Schuetz from Nevada City, California (now permanent La Manzanilla residents). Apparently when they arrived in La Manzanilla years ago, they saw what we still see in many villages --- dogs with skin problems, emaciated dogs, dogs with too many puppies and just not enough food. A lot of sick dogs.

It's not that the Mexicans don't love their dogs. They do. But they frequently don't have the means to take care of them as most of us do in the states. And the animals often face many more challenges from living in a sandy (ok, dusty), hot, sub-tropical climate.

So Julie --- a woman after my own heart --- decided to do something about it, one dog and one cat at a time. The first, obvious step was to get the animals neutered. The females were having litter after litter with not enough food, not enough care.

It's made an astounding difference in La Manzanilla. It is the rare animal that suffers in the village and now there's someone to call. There's also a new, fantastic veterinarian in town as well. So the animals in La Manz are generally a lot healthier.

Cisco's has expanded over the past few years, allowing dogs from outlying areas to be transported in on specific clinic days. Last year our friend Tia Richardson picked up a load of stray dogs from Tenacatita. They came in, had a quick snip-snip of their reproductive organs, then got deposited back on their 'home' beach.

One afternoon at Palapa Joe's this past December, Julie and I enthusiastically agreed to have a remote clinic at Arroyo Seco on March 24, one of the clinic days scheduled for La Manzanilla. I was encouraged to produce 30 dogs to make it worth their while to move the volunteer vets and the clinic to our new palapa.

So I talked to friends and neighbors and two tienda owners took names and created a list of animals (strays and family dogs) for the clinic. There was a lot of excitement!

Then --- drum roll --- it became apparent that it would be too difficult to move the clinic out here this year but that we could have a designated Arroyo Seco clinic day in La Manzanilla.

Uh-oh!

So there we were on Arroyo Seco clinic day, a half-hour away by car, packing up the back of my truck and three others with all the animals that needed to go to the clinic but whose owners didn't have the means to transport them.

We called in the night before our clinic day to confirm with Julie and her amigos that we would be bringing in 21 dogs, mas or menos, and Julie said the vets enthusiastically said 'bring em on!'

It was a long day for everyone!

We started loading up the trucks at 7 a.m. We went rolling around the village to pick up each critter, tying them up in the back of the truck or tossing them in the back of the Isuzu Trooper, the smaller ones in some of the few cages we had.

We descended on Cisco's Amigos much to the shock and awe of the volunteers who were already close to overwhelmed for the day before we even arrived with our troupe. The clinic treated probably a record-breaking 57 animals by late that night. We left after 7 p.m. with the last dog, a Great Dane that was moved --- still asleep --- from the operating table to the back of our SUV, driven by Michael. He said he watched the rear view mirror the entire trip, hoping that the Dane would be friendly if he awoke from the anesthesia.

No matter how chaotic this all sounds, it was a great, important, incredible day for all of us in Arroyo Seco.

The people here were so grateful to have some help with their animals.

The dogs bounced back from the surgery the minute they got home and realized that they weren't on some train to a medical testing facility. They leaped and bounced and barked and licked when they saw their families, their familiar surroundings.

I've gotten to know a lot of people by going to their homes to meet their dogs.

Dogs I assumed were ferocious are as sweet as puppies and they are friendly to me when we take our evening walk. I'm beginning to learn their names.

I also learned that I don't have to be a trained vet to treat some of the simple problems I see in some of the animals here. A skin problem. Getting the right vaccinations. And there are others in the Rancho who also want to help.

In the end, it wasn't about a gringa --- an American -- coming in and wanting to fix and change a village. It was just someone in the rancho who knew how participate in a clinic and how to help with something they wanted. I had a ton of help from everyone who lives here.

Getting 20-some animals neutered this year in this small a village is HUGE. I'm guessing that if we can have a monthly clinic, a few dogs each time, we could really get a handle on the health and the size of the dog population within a year.

So that's the new goal.

Tomorrow we have a vet coming to our palapa to treat a village dog with a sexually-transmitted cancer and we'll start looking what other dogs need medical care.

We've arranged for one of our teens, Chena's daughter Brianda, to start an apprenticeship with the vet in La Manz.

It's all exciting, easy, rewarding.

And, really, it's all thanks to Julie at Cisco's Amigo's, for having the vision in the first place to see that this is a solvable issue and within our means to help.

For those of you in the states (or anywhere) who would like to help:

Cisco's remains a volunteer organization, it just 'depends on the kindness of strangers.' They have a few fundraisers during the year and collection cans around the village. If you'd like to contribute, please contact me and I'll make sure they get the money. This is one organization that uses every single peso towards its cause.

Just email me at fitzfox AT gmail.com.

A day of rest in our new & improved Arroyo Seco home

2009-04-05T14:43:00.001-07:00

Today we took a necessary day of rest after almost a week of putting in sod and plants around our Pink Flamingo property in Arroyo Seco. We were on serious dust control duty, trying to get a handle on how much dust we breathe, how much dust lands on our palapa floor and in our outdoor kitchen.

The results are pretty spectacular!

We've gone from a dust bowl to a lush jardin --- a green, grassy area that will keep us cool and clean. Many of our new neighbors have been stopping by to see what we've done. A friend reminded us that it wasn't that many years ago the owner was grazing cattle here.

Today I felt my mother's gene's kick in as I puttered around the property, planting various flowers in front of the bathrooms, moving ferns around in front of the old grey goose trailer, deciding where to put the frog pot with the beautiful lily we just planted.

My mother was a master gardener at her place in upstate New York. Her joy was to spend the day in the dirt and her home still reveals her ability to plan a garden that was meant to last for years. As difficult a relationship as we had, the sweetest moments came the last few years of her life when she would sit in a chair in the driveway and direct me to prune the flowers, explain which plants were weeds, why I should allow some of the wisteria to creep into her garden. She was pleased that I finally cared, that she could share this thing that she loved with me.

She would have loved it here!

The people of Arroyo Seco are all gardeners, for the most part. The soil is rich river bottom. Bougainvilla will sprout from a stick, as will most of the sub-tropical plants. It's what makes this village stand out from many others --- the burst of color surrounding most homes.

While grass is a novelty (no worries, everyone. It's low maintenance crab grass and if we don't buy a mower, we'll at least invite the neighborhood goats in for a scheduled maintenance), a jardin is something our neighbors can all relate to.

Today was Palm Sunday. A friend stopped by with his grandson (and his donkey) after the church service to check out the new jardin.

Tomorrow we paint the bathrooms in anticipation of the new bathroom doors, which are scheduled to arrive from the welder on Tuesday.

A new member of the Singing Headlamps?

2009-04-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Michael brought his ukulele to practice a few tunes with Sasha, our 7-month old granddaughter living in Puerto Vallarta with her parents, Dustin and Camelia.

Here's their debut video:

Run, amigos! Run!

2009-03-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

Should Mexico export its pedestrian crosswalk signal?

I first saw this crossing signal at least a year or two ago in Puerto Vallarta, strategically located on the crosswalk of the highway between where the huge cruise ships dock and WalMart/ Sam's Club.

A cruise ship lands and I guess hundreds of Americans and Canadians race across the street to purchase what they forgot to bring on their week-long cruise to Mexico.

Or they just want to see what a WalMart in Mexico looks like. I don't know.

But the culture class about crossing the street had become apparent when tourists kept on getting winged (or worse) by the occasional taxi or motorcycle while sprinting across the street.

Mexicans know that it is pedestrian beware. Even if there's a crosswalk, the vehicle has the right of way. Even before the light goes from red to green, cars are racing onward.

The video of this crosswalk signal pretty much sums up the Mexican experience ---- it shows an animation of a pedestrian walking, then race walking --- then sprinting.

Run, Forest, Run!

It could be the icon for the Mexican philosophy of personal responsibility. If you get run over by a car, you damn sure needed to cross more quickly!

A few weeks of 'almost' normal living

2009-03-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

Almost being a key word here.

Michael has been staying put in Arroyo Seco, landscaping, raking, writing, reading, playing his ukelele again, heading to the beach while I've made two forays to Puerto Vallarta to spend quality time with granddaughter Sasha, who is simply grand.

She stole my heart, again, when I waved adios to her on Thursday night and she waved back. In disbelief, I waved again. She waved again. Pure genius, I tell you!

In between weeks in Vallarta, Michael and I have taken several quad trips south on the beach to see friends in Tenacatita and to eat delicious, fresh fish (and drink cold cervezas). Last week a friend in the village gave us a tour of the RV park he and his father are developing on the Arroyo Seco beach.

He's created a natural pier out of dirt and gravel on the back side of the park so that people can sit by the lagoon, opposite the ocean beach, and watch the incredible assortment of birds, similar in type and variety to the Ding Darling Bird Sanctuary on Sanibel Island. The photo is a little blurry (my apologies), but it was delightful to see masses of roseate spoonbills, egrets and herons, other birds yet to be identified.

Each time I discover a place like this, I'm reminded that there is so much more to see here than what we can see on the beach. We are surrounded by hundreds of hectares (much larger than an acre) of mangroves and freshwater lagoons and have much to explore yet. Our neighbors have invited us for a day trip on the quads to show us their favorite places.

I continue to be reminded of what it was like to land on Sanibel Island in my teens as a transported city kid to be shown the wonders of the island by the natives.

Fun then. Still fun!

A couple of quick things to note:

• Today I'm aware of today that I'm to the point of taking the fantastic, fresh seafood for granted.
Yum. No complaints. Michael ordered this shrimp special at the newly updated AltaMira restaurant in El Tuito (about halfway to Puerto Vallarta). The restaurant gave us coupons for free margaritas for our next visit. Not a bad enticement. We'll be back!

• I love a country that allows free tequila and aged scotch samples in the grocery store. No signs warning of the dangers, no ID required. Wanna shot? And this was in the WalMart in Puerto Vallarta!

• Winter is over! It's finally getting what I would call hot and humid. No whining. Just an observation.

Now I'm off to La Manzanilla to volunteer at Cisco's Amigos Spay and Neuter Clinic. Tomorrow Michael and I will truck in a ton of critters from Arroyo Seco. Not that the animals will be thanking us. But the villagers probably will. Watch for a report next week.

The mystery and miracle of a spontaneous life

2009-03-04T06:38:00.000-08:00

I think the headline is a little more profound than I'm feeling right now, but today I'm aware of how life works out exactly as it is supposed to, no matter where I was originally headed or thought I should do.

Michael and Karen Schamel, friends from our lake home in New York, enticed us into leaving the Arroyo Seco compound for a few days of rest and recuperation from a load of guests, too much fun and too much polvo (dust).

It was exactly the right choice.

One day we headed out to find a small village recommended by the manager of the B&B we were staying in Comala, north of Colima. We took a wrong turn (yes, I misunderstood the fundamental directions) and ended up in Colima again. We decided, heck, let's just do our quick errand in Home Depot while we're here.

We ran into a friend from La Manzanilla, Jim Ferry, who we didn't realize has lived in Colima for years, who was also shopping in Home Depot.

He tells us the one, incredible, almost-secret best place to have lunch and watch the volcano and draws us a map.

We spent a fantastic afternoon sipping margaritas, eating ribs and watching the volcano burp smoke rings high up on the mountain --- the only people in the restaurant, which overlooks both the volcano and the city of Colima. It's run by an Ejido (Mexican cooperative), which also runs a campground by a sweet lagoon.

When we returned back to the B & B in Comala, even the owners didn't know about the restaurant.

For me, it was another great reminder to let thing flow, that things are exactly as they are supposed to be if I'll just get out of the way and let things happen.

A second miracle continues to be our neighbors in Arroyo Seco, who always reassure us through their actions that we've made a great decision to live here.

Michael and I were headed home to what we knew would be a pile of dust on the palapa floor and wilting plants because Michael has just transplanted a lime tree and some palm trees, a bouganvilla. Last night we discovered that Chon has reinstalled our drip system to keep all the plants thriving, while Chena and the kids swept and mopped every flat, tiled surface. And that's a lot of surface.

Really, it leaves me speechless. And grateful. And feeling like I have a lot to learn about this lovely culture, that would have a family come over and make things 'right' before their neighbors arrive home tired from a three-day vacation.

Wow.

Arroyo Seco gets pretty quiet

2009-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a rolling, 24/7 party since our first guests arrived in early February.

Son Dylan, Cousin Ruth, our good friend Laura, and Dylan's friends from Berkeley, Ginger and Lewis, all helped us beta test the Pink Flamingo, to see if this hairball idea of some type of communal living in this tiny Mexican village is viable.

The answer is a tentative, si.

We all survived the experience, had a lot of fun, and got a ranked list of what's next to make this place comfortable for a bunch of us.

Lights in the palapa.
More hot water for showers earlier in the morning.
Screening in or closing in the kitchen.

Oh, and beds....

Not bad, considering we hit the ground here in late December and had flush toilets and a somewhat functional galley within six weeks. Unheard of in Mexico. Maybe in the U.S.

When I woke up in Arroyo Seco the first day after everyone had taken off, a wave of loneliness swept over me as I realized it was the first morning that no one from my newly acquired extended family would be there to drink tea with me on the palapa.

Having like-minded folks stay with us in Arroyo Seco reaffirmed my commitment to this experiment. I find I enjoy the privacy of my own home but find my life more enhanced when we live in a compound of like-minded friends and family who also like to live cooperatively.

And like to surf, swim, snorkle, boogie board, drink coconut milk, sip tequila, teach English and Spanish, dig trenches, talk with our Mexican neighbors, paint new concrete walls, plant palm trees and sweep a lot of dust off the palapa floor....

After a good siesta that same day, we headed out to have dinner in La Manzanilla with eight of our family and friends from New York, spent the night at Kate's lovely beach rental, then continued the party at breakfast with the Hector cousins as son Dustin did a drive-by on his way to Zihuatenejo to do a week long job.

Today I'm aware how hard it will be to stay focused for the remaining months as I continue to study Spanish.

But I'm also aware that there's no chance that the party won't still be there when I lift my head up from my books.

I had a quick visit with Sasha in Puerto Vallarta on Friday when I drove Dylan up to the aiport for his return to San Francisco. She's almost 6 months old and perfect.

Of course.

And for those of you who have been asking, Michael is much better. Many, many siestas are in his immediate future for the remainder of the cure, but his cough is nearly gone.

Band picks us up to party in Arroyo Seco

2009-02-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

It's BIG doin's in the pueblo of Arroyo Seco this week, the tiny rancho we live in just north of La Manzanilla and Tenacatita Bay.

King Kong, Chena's brother, and Veronica, Chena's niece (by marriage, not by blood) are getting married today in an event that should draw more guests than we have residents here.

Cousin Ruth, our friend Laura from Calgary, Dylan's friend Ginger and I have been helping Chena and Veronica make the hundreds of elaborate table decorations for the event. Almost every evening this past week we'd pop in and tie ribbons, glue lace to things, write Veronica and Jose Antonio's names hundreds of times of various decorations. It's been a easy way to get to know some of the women in the rancho and a less intimidating way for me to practice my Spanish. Women will always find a way to communicate. Which we really did at the bridal shower, which was more like a stag'ette party and made me laugh until my face hurt.

A huge tent has been erected in the field behind Chapon's house, King Kong and Chena's father. Apparently the wedding cake weighs more than 6 kilos and has a fountain at the top. The wedding is early evening, the reception will undoubtedly go all night. There will even be security for the village, probably not a bad idea.

Yesterday evening we got home from a nice, long afternoon on the Tenacatita beach with our friends Karen and Mike Schamel from Hector, NY to find that Chapon, the family father of the town (and a more official role as well) had dropped by to let us know that there would be a band at his place and, Laura and Michael thought, that he would be by to pick us up. They weren't exactly sure.

We didn't really understand the full impact of that message --- a lot of language and cultural differences going on.

So, quite literally, Chapon and the band stopped by before sunset and 'picked us up' for the fiesta at his house.

It's the best damn way to be invited to a party, bar none. You're certainly sure you're invited and you party all the way down the street.

After dancing a few tunes in front of our place, one of the 'dancing' horses in town led us down the street with Laura, Chapon and Alfonso leading the parade.

The whole event so far is way out of my life experiences and also so positively overwhelming. It's not always been easy to share a life, day to day, without a common language and cultural background. But last night reaffirmed what a great, amazing decision it's been to make a home in this tiny Mexican village, just minutes from the beach.

We did it! The toilets in Arroyo Seco flush on Feb. 1!

2009-02-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

For those of you following the progress of our building in Arroyo Seco this year, we've made real progress.

First showers! First flushes! First fiesta with the new outdoor kitchen.

A lot of firsts.

Yesterday we celebrated the completion of all the concrete construction with a lot of food for the concrete Maestro and his son, Antonio, who is headed back to school on Wednesday. It's hard to imagine the adjustment of returning to the high school classroom in Sayula after six weeks of really hard work with his father. Perhaps it will feel like a vacation?

The outdoor kitchen has a new brick floor but not much else yet. But yesterday my friend Francisco, a former cook in Napa, and my neighbor Chena pitched in and saved the day.

I was flying solo since Michael has been down and out sick for a few days and unable to help. His soaring fever had me researching all kinds of potential tropical diseases.

Fortunately there is good medical care here and the doctor in Careyes diagnosed him with a lung infection and an early case of pneumonia. He's already on some strong drugs and hopefully on the mend.

So, the construction status is as follows:

• Almost all the tiles in the bathrooms and laundry room are down --- and would have been finished today had I bought enough floor tiles. Ugh. Another trip to Manzanillo coming up.

• The new, low water, high velocity toilets flush occasionally. We'll make some adjustments to these high tech things tomorrow and I think they'll be fine.

• My kitchen is getting pretty usable but I have to figure out how to keep the dust down and the flies out. All guests will be required to submit their design ideas on their cocktail napkins, prior to dinner.

The next step? Landscaping! It's a lot more fun here when you stick something in the ground and it just about starts growing that second.

My brother David is visiting right now. Dylan arrives Friday. Cousin Ruth arrives Sunday.

Hopefully that means the construction phase in Mexico is offically transitioning to the vacation stage....

A birth, a death, and life inbetween

2009-01-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a monumental few weeks here in Arroyo Seco and La Manzanilla, Mexico.

A Baptism

A very nervous godmother accepted her responsibilities to Devani on Sunday at the Catholic Church in La Manzanilla. I wasn't nervous about helping Devani -- we've been involved with her since before she was born, and her mother, Mimi, and her grandmother, Irma, have become close friends. And her great-grandfather is Xavier, who has taken care of many of us when we've stayed at Santana's in La Manzanilla.

The problem was the thought of the ceremony in Spanish (no, I'm not fluent yet) in a church service in which I'm unfamiliar. Several of the Mexican children in the village had advised me that the Padre would ask me many questions and just say 'si'.

Gulp.

We took our 11-year-old neighbor, Brianda, with us, with a request to nod or shake her head if I turned to her during the ceremony with a look of panic.

Fortunately, the Padre decided to ask all the questions of the padrinos --- the godfathers. So Michael got to squirm for a bit but did fine. And, yes, he's now official a Godfather...

One of his most important responsibilities was throwing pesos and candy to the children (and adults!) waiting in front of the church after the baptism. He handled it like a pro, of course. Our neighbors say that if you don't throw gifts, the children will fart at you --- I guess a Mexican concept of 'trick or treat'?

The loss of a friend, Isabel Jordan

Some of you have heard that a good friend of my cousin Lynn and her partner Suzanne had taken a bad fall from some stairs the first night she was visiting in them in La Manzanilla. Michael and I were called upon to take her to the emergency service north of us in Careyes, where the doctor confirmed she had two fractured ribs and some internal bleeding. We were told to drive her on up to Puerto Vallarta to the hospital where a surgeon would be waiting. Careyes has two ambulances but no paramedics or drivers.

After a week in the hospital, two surgeries, dialysis and other interventions, Isabel passed away from a heart attack at 81.

Should any of you think, well, she was 81, she wasn't like any 81 year old that I've known. The Monday I drove them all down from Puerto Vallarta to La Manzanilla, I had bought two low water, high volocity toilets, chairs, and a lot of other provisions for our Arroyo Seco compound. When we arrived in Arroyo Seco, Isabel and Michael unloaded the truck into the bodega, our California garage. She was stronger and more sure footed than I am --- and probably more than most of all of you.

I only met Isabel this winter when she officiated at Lynn and Suzanne's wedding in Marin, just days before Prop. 8 (to ban gay marriages) was officially approved by the voters. She was an icon in Yalapa and will be missed by many.

What Isabel taught me in my short time of knowing her is that 81 doesn't have to look like what I thought it would look like, that I should remember to live each day like it's my last, and that those of us who live in rural areas of developing countries have given up the luxury of 911.

All good reminders.

In other news...

An apprentice

It's been lovely getting to know our construction maestro again this year. He built our wall and the palapa last season. This year he brought his 16-year-old son, Antonio, with him while his son is on a long holiday from school (they go back mid-February). Antonio works side by side with his father, learning a trade –– and much more –– from dawn until past dark. Their home is in Sayula, where the Maestro and his son return by bus every 10 days for a three day visit. While they're working, they live in a small rental house in Arroyo Seco.

The constant murmur of conversation while they work is a delight --- sometimes I see them stop and laugh and talk if one of them is making an important point. If I'm moving something heavy, one of them races over to help. Sometimes they will stay for a late, light supper and talk with us.

It's a joy to see a father apprentice a son --- maybe it's something our country could relearn as we try to strengthen the fabric of our American culture.

No mas construction!

We're closing in on this year's construction in Arroyo Seco --- fortunately our money has run out at the same time as my patience. Everything has gone exceptionally well. It's just that I hadn't realized the full impact of having people in your home making a lot of dust and noise from dawn 'til dark and the constant lack of privacy. So whatever we've built by February 1, that's it for me this year.

Sure hope the new toilets flush by then. Because it's time to start going back to the beach.

An 'open mic night' in the Pink Flamingo palapa

2009-01-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight we were so happy to have our palapa (our big, covered pavillion) finally finished that we skipped the open mic night at Palapa Joe's in La Manzanilla to enjoy a quiet evening at our new home in Arroyo Seco.

It had been a long day.

We took Lucky Dog to his second visit with the vet, which is a whole 'nother story. It was almost 4 by the time we got home and hopped on the Honda 4WD quad for long ride down the beach towards Tenacatita to a freshwater lagoon for a late afternoon swim.

By early evening were back at the palapa with our 12 year old neighbor Brianda, who was attempting to give me some Spanish language lessons –– but she doesn't speak English. Since I can't speak Spanish, it was challenging and worth a few laughs. Finally Michael came out and rescued us --- his fluency is rapidly improving.

Somehow that morphed into my grabbing my violin and Michael's ukulele to play a tune or two for Brianda. Before we knew it, we had a gaggle of kids at our table pretty much vibrating with excitement about the music, the new gringos, finally sneaking into the palapa, who knows what else?

The 10 or so kids were generous with their applause –– they danced, asked millions of questions, tried strumming and fiddling and were so uniformly enthusiastic that it was enough to make me laugh aloud.

They want to learn to speak English, they want to learn to play rock n' roll, they want to know all about everything. And when it was time to go home, every single one came up to me to say buenas noches –– good night –– and shake my hand.

It was exactly the kind of evening I had imagined when Michael and I decided to build the palapa in the front of the property, before we had a plan for whatever else we might do here. We're still unsure of what the heck we're doing, but whatever it is, for tonight, it's more than enough.

Hoping to find a verb for my sentence

2009-01-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

Today I was reminded how the heck Michael and I have come to live in this little rancho of Arroyo Seco, Mexico when a friend asked how we made the decision to move here and build a home in 'el centro'.

When Michael and I decided to sell our beloved boat, Sabbatical, it took us both about a year to figure out 'what's next?'. We were back in Sacramento, back at our jobs at the university and kind of flailing about. We knew pretty much since the day we met that we would go cruising and traveling. Now that we had done it -- had pretty much sucked the marrow out of that experience -- the question lingered: What else do we want to do?

Eventually I came up with my short list:
I wanted to live in another country.
I wanted to learn another language.
I wanted to learn to play the fiddle.

This is our second year living in Mexico, our first year in Arroyo Seco. If I wanted immersion, if I want to learn the language, learn the culture, well.... be careful what you wish for?

It's exhausting. Fun! But mentally exhausting.

Tonight we had dinner with our neighbors and friends, Chena and Chon, and their children Brianda, Dani and Juliet. No English spoken at this table, por favor.

I vacillate between frustration and progress. Tonight I asked a question in a complete sentence and it was just about a conversation stopper.

Muy sorpresa!

We've only been here for about two weeks and Michael assures me I'm making progress. I can't tell. But now that the parties are slowing down a bit, I'm going to find a tutor to work with me every morning until a verb slips naturally off my tongue.

The hardest part for me as I learn to communicate in Espanol, poco a poco, is my inability to make small talk, to break the ice with people, to include people in conversation. Here I feel standoffish because I don't know what to say or how to say it, especially as I'm simply walking down the street near our house. I don't have the vocabulary to comfortably get past the morning salutations.

Upcoming events include a baptism (we're the godparents!), a housewarming and a wedding. I don't know how long it will take before social dialogue can be part of my new language rather than 'where are the bathrooms?' but motivation is high.

As to the third item on my list, I've been learning to play the fiddle for almost three years now. The hardest part, at first, was that it takes exactly the same part of my brain to learn the violin as it does to learn a language. Really a strange sensation.

Now that I'm a little more confident in my fiddle playing, I'm hoping that part of my brain can be diverted to language learning.

My immediate goal? To sound less like a toddler and more like a teenager by the time we head north in June.

I'll keep you posted. Wish me 'buena suerte!'
Dani and Juliet, Brianda this Christmas.

Christmas in Arroyo Seco

2008-12-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Arroyo Seco, our new home in Mexico where we're the only two gringos in el centro, just in time to celebrate a two-day fiesta for the birthday of the pueblo, followed by another Christmas fiesta, followed by a first Communion fiesta, followed by another....

The highlight last week was Santa's arrival to the village on Dec. 26. Our good friend and neighbor, Chena, dressed up and gave out a couple hundred Christmas presents to the village children (which took several of us several days to wrap). She summoned the children to the church by driving around the village honking the horn and blasting carols out of the truck speakers. As we arrived, the girls were already forming their own line, youngest and smallest in the front, oldest in the rear, boys the same. No pushing, no shoving, no whining, no crying. Wow.

Most of the presents had come by way of Sacramento, from generous donations from our friends and co-workers. A favorite present appeared to be the English children's books. Who knew? Our truck was loaded up for the drive down and fortunately we breezed through the Mexican customs checkpoint.

After Arroyo Seco, Santa took us several kilometers back into the deep, dark woods where the 'natives' have set up a camp where they work as produce pickers during the day. Chena says she goes at night because most of the children are working in the fields with their parents. She said she had taken some donated huaraches (Mexican sandals) and pants out to the workers recently. For some of them, it was their first set of trousers.

All the kids were thrilled to see Santa. Mothers pushed right up in the line as well, eager to get whatever gifts were being given.

Michael and I stood back and watched as Chena and her children and friends helped distribute the gifts and the candy.The stars were brilliant in the dark sky -- no light pollution here. It was as good a Christmas as we could wish for, as generous an event as we could imagine. And one of the reasons we've moved here.

Besides the fiestas, we're jam packing our days with trips to the surf beach (the surf is finally back up), trips on our new 4 x 4 Honda ATV (called a 'moto' down here), organizing our new home and getting ready for the next phase of construction, scheduled to begin tomorrow morning.

We've been here for a week and have had overnight guests already as we figure out how to make all of this work for everyone. Our nephew Nate and his mother Beth are in La Manzanilla for the winter. And our new good friend Laura from Calgary was here for several days, helping us all learn to speak Spanish. The village children have already fallen in love with her and we're hoping she'll return for a longer stay next time.

So it looks like everything is in place for another great winter in Mexico. Good friends, good food, good fun!

We're now back in touch with the world --- Michael got the internet hooked up with wireless internet and our vonage phone in this little village of 300 people, where only two other families appear to have internet connections.

Have a great, warm first of the year -- wherever you are -- and please let us know how you're doing. I'd love to hear from you.

A Mexico family holiday

2008-12-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

We've just arrived back to a foggy, cold Sacramento morning, reminding us of why we're moving back to Mexico in just a few short weeks.

We did a quick trip down to La Manzanilla for the holidays --- Thanksgiving and my birthday --- and Dustin, Camelia, Sasha and Dylan all joined us for the festivities. The beach was relatively deserted, the water was warm, the company delightful!

My birthday gift this year was a family portrait on the beach. Sasha turned three months old while we were vacationing. It seemed mui importante to have pictures taken where we don't have to layer up in fleece.

We launched the next stage of construction of our home/compound in Arroyo Seco, meeting with our contractor Arturo multiple times as I changed my mind --- daily. But construction on the bathrooms should begin any day, the tile has been purchased for the floor of the palapa, a few miscellaneous projects to ready the property for our arrival by Christmas.

We had many lovely afternoons in Arroyo Seco with our friends Chena and Chon and family. They have thoughtfully opened a taco stand across the street from us, assuring us that we'll never have to cook again if we don't want to. We're encouraging her to sell upscale coffee too so I don't have to figure out how to brew it for all the friends and family heading our way this winter. She's game, she says.

After the kids went back to their respective homes, Michael and I stayed for another day or two to make sure that construction was on track and that two of the Four Headlamps participate in the first open mic night at Palapa Joe's. Does it mean it was a success if it no-one threw any fruits or vegetables?

A few audience members even talked to us about joining the band for some future jam sessions.

I'm excited about our move to Arroyo Seco --- working on my Spanish, helping treat some of the unhealthy dogs in the village through Cisco's Amigos, teaching some English to the village children, playing music with friends and family.

I just have to get through the next two weeks of foggy weather while we all slog through the last few weeks of the semester. Then, andale! As we used to say while cruising our boat, time to head south until the butter melts!

The video below: While we were in Arroyo Seco, Chena and Chon brought their pet coatamundi over to play. Reminds me of the pet racoons my cousin Roger would rescue and raise around Seneca Lake.

Back by popular demand?

2008-10-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

To friends who have queried me about why no recent updates here, thanks for missing me.

Here's a quick synopsis of life since arriving in Sacramento around Labor Day.

A love affair with co-housing

We're subletting a one-bedroom unit in downtown Sacramento with about 20 families who have chosen to live in an intentional community in an urban environment. I only wish I had known about this when we were raising our kids.

Some of the bonuses: the choice of communal dinners (for $3 a homecooked meal), neighbors who want to get to know you and will offer to drive you to work if your car is broken, take turns taking care of you if you've just had surgery, watch your kids if you can't get home in time, loan you a car. That's the pragmatic part.

Then there's the just friendly part –– having the casual conversation with someone on the way in the door from work with someone who is actually interested in getting to know you.

It's been a perfect fit for us –– reminding me of why I loved the cruising community whether at the dock or at our anchor. And why I love living in North Hector, NY (Valois, if you can find it on a map). When I suggested we consider taking the co-housing concept to Mexico, Michael pointed out that co-housing re-invents the village within the city --- and that Arroyo Seco is essentially the model for co-housing.

I guess he's got a point.

Two weeks of jury duty

Not even two weeks into my return, I reported for jury duty . Not that I had any room to complain. Having never served, I guess I was overdue.

Still, I was stunned when I was chosen to serve on a two-week trial (Michael called me "Seven of 12" for the duration). The defendant had been charged with criminal negligence for leaving his 10-month old son unattended in the bathtub (with his 4-year-old brother). When he returned, the toddler had drowned.

Ultimately, we deadlocked, with 11 of us voting to acquit (deciding it was definitely negligent, but not criminally negligent). But the whole experience was exhausting, demanding, tragic.

Back in the classroom

Unfortunately, while the trial was going on, I was still responsible for teaching my four classes.

That meant spending all day at the courthouse, then coming home in the evening to prep for classes and generate assignments through email and the web. If I could point to any one thing that put my stress level over the top, that would be it. As the judge said early on, there's no hardship in teaching since the state will continue to pay us --- teaching is just hard.

And it was.

It's taken me about two weeks to catch up, and I'm just now hitting my stride in the classroom -- even tho' we're more than halfway through...

Some other highlights from our Sacramento semester :

• Celebration! We took about a dozen friends to Delancey's in San Francisco a few weeks ago to help Dylan celebrate the big pay-off for a year of studying. He has passed his second level Certified Financial Analyst test, a stunning feat! We toasted to having the most highly qualified bartender in Arroyo Seco, hopefully just on his vacations from his job in the financial district in San Francisco.

• Buying a Toyota Tundra truck (with a V-8 engine.... varoom, varoom!) to drive to Mexico. And buying another trailer to take to Arroyo Seco or one of the beach properties. It's 26 feet, with a walk around bed and a slide out where the dinette is. Pretty roomy compared to the Grey Goose! Now we're buying all the 'stuff' to put in the truck and trailer to take to Mexico, things we can't easily get in down there. We're also designing Stage 2 of construction in Arroyo Seco and we've put electric and septic out at the Tenacatita beach lot.

• Sorting thru a lifetime (mine and my parents) of photographs and documents, then scanning them to preserve them for the family. I've found old photographs of generations of Beardslees and Schwartzes, including finding my father's birth certificate from Hungary and his naturalization papers in 1921.

• Playing with our Sacramento grandkids.
Going to Sami's fastpitch softball games (she just turned 11!) and playing with Kamryn, who just turned one in September.

• Playing fiddle with my SloJammer friends in town.

• And –– oh yeah –– teaching four classes at the university.

We're heading back to La Manzanilla, Tenacatita and Arroyo Seco as soon as our semester is over in December. Hope to see ya'll there this winter!

Sasha Elena Fox arrives!

2008-08-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Our newest granddaughter, Sasha, arrived at 8:30 this morning in Puerto Vallarta, weighing 3 kilos 590 grams (or 7 pounds 14.5 oz!) and is 51 cm long (tall?).

She's a Mexican citizen and will have dual U.S. citizenship almost immediately. Last week we made a quick trip to the embassy to begin the paperwork.

She'll be bilingual, at the very least. Spanish and English are both necessities. And Romanian is next so she can talk to her relatives. French is also on the list --- a language that Cami and her sister Irina also speak.

Camelia has been tutoring me in Spanish this week while we've been waiting for Sasha to arrive. I'm pretty motivated, needless to say.

That she was named Sasha was extra gift for me. Had either Dustin or Dylan been a girl, Sasha was the name I had selected. Camelia had picked out the same name without knowing the coincidence. As a close friend recently observed, apparently Sasha has been waiting a long time to join this family!

Dustin, Camelia and Sasha breezed thru the delivery (by C-section) and they all are sleeping, nursing and healing in the Cornerstones Hospital as I write this. Sasha is absolutely perfect, arriving pink-cheeked and hungry.

Some observations about the medical care they had:

It was noticeably different from the states --- and impressive!

For instance, Cami and Dustin always have their doctor's cell phone number. And he answers it. And talks to you. No screening, no receptionist. And it's not just this doctor. All their doctors are a phone call away.

Cami and Dustin paid cash for the delivery and the hospital visit. Yup, cash. One reason they could pay in cash is because the services were affordable. Unbelievably affordable.

And that's in a private hospital. The hospital room they're staying in tonight is nicer than most of the hotels I've checked into lately in the U.S. -- spacious, quiet, clean.

They'll come home tomorrow when they get the okay by their doctor. Who they can then call on his cell phone if they have any concerns.

Now that's a concept we could embrace!

Here is a video of Sasha, Camelia and Dustin as they first meet this morning.

A 'Seneca Lake Appreciation Day'

2008-07-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

We declared a 'Seneca Lake Appreciation Day' last week before heading out to NYC for a quick weekend visit with Michael's relatives.

A SLAD day, for locals, means you ditch all lists, all chores, all those things that you should do but don't want to, and you head to the lake. And you know all your friends will too because the weather, finally, is great. And the lake is finally warm enough for us wimps to swim --- in the low 70s, at least.

At least this wimp.

We headed out on The Spirit of Louise, our pontoon boat, in early afternoon, catching up with another boatload of relatives and friends on Cousin Roger's dock. It was too windy for us to pull in so we kept heading south to Cousin Ruthie's dock.

We packed every possible fun thing into those seven hours that we could --- jet skis, swimming, skiing, dinner.

Had to. Rain was predicted again for the next day.

About seven or more hours later, we were safely home, flashlights back in the bag to get stashed back on The Spirit of Louise for the next unanticipated night run home.

Michael and I were motoring home long after sunset, beautiful pastels in the western sky and reflections across a pretty placid lake. Bats were flying alongside, looking for their nightly bug buffet. A couple of bonfires along shore.

And no other boats.

We took a moment to simply appreciate the place, the moment, the great extended family, the blessed life we lead. Then on up our 'goat path' from the lake to the house to review a long list of delayed chores and errands. Maybe manana?

Country living is not for wimps

2008-07-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

I'm seriously considering moving back to the city where my anxieties will be confined to the possibility of a drive-by shooting or the quality of the air I breathe. When I'm city living, I forget about the underbelly of dealing with nature -- the storms, the incessant creepy-crawly-stingy things that like to live with us.

I'll report in reverse order.

Yesterday Michael decided to do a quick mow on the half-acre or so of grass that's been growing like gangbusters lately, before we headed down to the lake for an afternoon of boating.

Just as he's finishing the upper side yard, I see him race in the back door and into the kitchen to peel off his sock because something had bitten or stung him. Ten minutes later he's covered in hives and --- with brother Dan's urging (our family paramedic) --- we're racing to the local hospital in Watkins Glen.

It got serious enough to call 911 halfway down the hill when Michael starting complaining about serious chest pain. The ambulance grabbed him at the end of the lake, started an IV of benadryl, with steroids to follow. Apparently he was stung three times by a white wasp -- a big hatch of the nasty things are around this year and they must have a nest in the ground where he was mowing.

It's the exact same spot --- the base of the big sycamore tree --- that the yellowjackets nailed me last year. As we pulled out of the driveway, I heard Michael yell up there, "It's war now, buddies."

Poisons and fuel accelerants are being gathered for the midnight retaliation, now that he's home and recovering. The hospital photo shows him taking his Benadryl-induced nap.

The wasp incident followed a quick moving strong storm cell the day before that hit a narrow path of Valois and Hector on the east side of Seneca Lake. We watched it on the radar as the red part of the storm tagged us dead on, like a bullseye on a target. It's happened a few times this summer but this was the most dramatic.

Trees came down, the wind howled across the lake, lightening strikes every few seconds followed by loud rolling thunder. I've been in a lot of storms, some out on our boat in the ocean. This rivaled that kind of anxiety.

We looked out the window and up, up, up at the huge Sycamore tree that we've been talking about trimming for the past few years --- a tree that's been here for probably a hundred years. And the big pine trees and the several huge locust trees that are much higher than the house.

Now I understand why all the neighbors have clear cut around their property. Aha!

The big willow tree came down across the road just few houses down the hill from us, a tree that was also probably over a hundred years old. And a friend's willow tree that measured more than four and a half feet in diameter came down across his truck and his new lake cabin --- with them in it! Everyone's okay but boy, will they have stories to tell for the rest of their lives.

We've been aware of nature up close and personal from all our years of sailing. But then we would get off the boat and retreat to Sacramento, the great urban, comfortable escape, get complacent again.

But between Mexico and Valois, I'm feeling a bit like the early settlers. There's so much beauty in the life and the land we've chosen. But it sure comes with a creepy, crawly, stingy, windy reminder that there is probably no such thing as paradise.

Time to 'fiddle around' again

2008-07-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

When we were getting ready to leave Mexico in May, I remember telling Michael that I was dreaming about being able to spend the summer playing my fiddle --- practicing, taking lessons, playing with friends.

More than a month later, I'm just putting down the project list and picking up the fiddle.

I've been playing music every other Friday night at a friend in Watkin's Glen. You never know who will show up, or what instrument they'll be playing but it's always fun and they're quite inclusive of all us newbies who are starting to play music late in life.

And I've played the violin a few times with cousin Brett and brother David, both professional caliber musicians, as we play some evenings by the campfire.

In early June I headed up to the top of the actual Glen --- of Watkins Glen fame --- for the Old-Time Fiddler's Gathering, with jams facilitated by the Valley Folk Music group. We were huddled under a big tent while thunderous rains rolled over the park, then cleared to a beautiful afternoon. Some excellent musicians were there and I learned some new tunes and made some local contacts.

In the second half of the video I've posted, the guy I was sitting next to (a great fiddler!) had just played with Jay Unger on his radio program the week before. Impressive! And I met Hope Grietzer, who gave us some quick pointers on how to add a little more fun to a tune. Hope has one of the best instruction books that I've found, including three CDs of songs. It has a great selection and it's really well organized. Practice has gotten a lot more interesting and fun.

When I'm struggling with the violin, I really question why I decided to pick up this difficult an instrument. But my spirit soars when I get to play music with friends. So I guess that's as good enough reason as any to keep practicing.

I've got a great network here in the Finger Lakes in New York. And there are a couple of groups that play together weekly in Sacramento, so I'm covered there. But I still haven't figured out who I'll play with in Mexico. I just don't have that mariachi thing down yet....

Here's a video from the Glen.

My mother, the ultimate collector

2008-07-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

My mother was a collector of all things. Some of it was pretty good. Some of it was, well, interesting. And she was good at collecting. She pretty much filled up this little cottage of ours on Seneca Lake, starting, no doubt, when she purchased the place around 1960.

Michael and I have spent the past three years sorting, storing, and giving away box loads of interesting, cute, nifty, pretty things, trying to make a simple lake home for us and for family and friends.

But I've successfully avoid the kitchen project --- until now.

The first major kitchen improvement was to take down the bookshelf that divided the kitchen from the living room. Cousin Brett did a miraculous job of putting in a breakfast bar that opened the kitchen up to the living room, finishing it just days before the wedding guests started to arrive.

Unfortunately, it also opened up the view from the living room to the kitchen.

Uh oh.

Hadn't thought about that.

For the last week I've been sitting at the new, wonderful breakfast bar, making note to Michael that the kitchen shelves sure needed to be organized, sorted, cleaned, painted, you name it, and I sure should get to it.

But I didn't.

So my dear husband decided to help by forcing the timetable.

On Saturday I returned from some errands in Ithaca to discover mounds of kitchen stuff on tables under a tent in the driveway. The kitchen was relatively unusable. The pressure was now on and the project wasn't getting any easier during the daily rainfalls.

The avoidance factor for the project was knowing I would have to take the time to decide that, yes, I'll keep that little oblong dish from the Mark Twain Hotel that someone probably lifted 40 years ago. And that cute little glass bowl that doesn't match anything else, so it goes. And maybe I'll really still use that little antique syrup pitcher.

Exhausting!

And, really, most of the stuff was/is pretty neat. There is just too damn much of it. When my mother was alive it was painful for her to give away things, or watch me give her things away. I used to agree with her that, yes, it was a treasure. It's just that now it was going to be someone else's treasure.

So, I'm happy to report that it's Tuesday afternoon and the kitchen shelves are back up and beautiful! Even with some empty shelves yet to be filled! And someone will be getting a box of some of our kitchen 'treasures'.

And I don't want to hear one word about the horrendous job waiting for us in the cellar. I can't see it... so maybe next year?

Today we've got more important work to do. The black raspberries are ripe in the vineyard above the house and we have some jam and pie requests to fill.

The new, improved kitchen, with shelves to spare!

Postscript: Check Michael's blog for the day-to-day news from life in New York. His blog is much more up-to-date than mine.

A country wedding for Dustin and Camelia

2008-06-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing from many friends asking 'where are the wedding pics? where's the blog?' So here is a quick synopsis.

Camelia and Dustin's wedding was fantastic, perfect, lovely. It turned into a three day event because friends and family started arriving on Thursday and left Monday. Dylan arrived from Berkeley, Cami's sister and brother in law flew in from France, Beth arrived from Australia, Rennie and Anne from California, Walt and Tencha from Colorado, Evelyn from Boston, the list goes on. We rented a neighbor's five bedroom lake house for out of town guest so they would be within easy walking distance of our cottage. We had a big traditional country barbeque one night, including roasting the corn on the cob. We took lake tours on our pontoon boat, we napped and read on the dock. And then Dustin and Camelia got married.

We successfully dodged the rain all day. We set up tables for dinner on the side yard. Just as everyone sat down to eat, the rain decided to return. So this incredibly flexible crowd simply lifted up their tables, plates and all, and moved them under the wedding tents. Then back to eating and swilling champagne.

The whole event was a community effort. My cousins and my friend Beth Tucker cooked all the food, my cousin Roger brought out the classic cadillac to deliver Cami to the wedding from the San Felice and take Dustin and Cami for a 'victory lap' around Hector to let everyone know they were married. And later in the evening we sat around the campfire and listened to cousin Brett Beardslee and my brother David play music. My mother's good friend, Tom Fassett, generously agreed to officiate the ceremony and brought us all to tears, especially with a tribute to my mother, who was there in spirit. She was the gardener who had created the greenery and flowers that surrounded us that day.

The grand finale was the fireworks and the incredible sunset, following a day of light rain.

Because of all the help from friends and family, I was able to just relax and enjoy the wedding. And I did. Tears, laughter, joy, a fair share of local champagne. It was perfect.

This morning we're all huddled up by the fireplace and the heater because the temperature has dropped like a stone --- I think it was in 40s last night. And the rains came too. So today we're going to enjoy the peace and quiet, enjoy the excuse to take naps and do nothing until the weekend when the weather forecaster says it might be boating weather again.

No photo captions --- but a quick summary. It's Cami's sister Irina, as maid of honor. Her husband Federico walked Cami down the 'aisle'. Rennie is in front of the San Felice, the house for out of town guests. A photo of Uncle David and Uncle Dan with Dustin and Camelia. Anne and Beth with Dustin. The sunset while we sat by the campfire in front of the cottage.

Flowers, flowers, flowers in chilly, beautiful Upstate New York

2008-05-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

We're home!

It's amazing how fast Michael and I can accommodate ourselves to the 'next' place we call home. It's a finely honed skill, apparently one we've been working on for years.

We left Puerto Vallarta late Wednesday afternoon and arrived at our house on the lake with a car full of groceries and supplies by mid-afternoon on Thursday. For a red-eye flight through Phoenix, another layover in Philadelphia (where the massage spa opens at 7 a.m.), we arrived feeling pretty good and put in about a full day's work here before doing a full-on face plant into bed after 10 (with the new electric blanket on High!).

The place looks great! Beyond great! It's green! It's flowering! It's freezing... but that's another story.

My mother, Louise, was a master gardener and took great pleasure in puttering around the half-acre that overlooks Seneca Lake. The comfy cottage is tiny and very old --- more than a hundred years ago it was built as a small fishing/hunting camp. But it's the location and scenery that can still take my breath away.

We haven't been home in late Spring in many, many years. We just missed the pink magnolia trees in bloom (although my brother David sent pictures) but we're here for the rest --- the pink and the white bleeding hearts, the rhododendron, the lilacs. And the yard is sooooooooo green!

And another big change from Mexico --- it was light when I woke up around five thirty this morning. And it didn't get dark until after 9 last night.

The chill is still in the air. Last night built a fire to heat the house rather than turn on the electric baseboard heaters (a fortune in electric bills!). Today we'll begin working our way through a long list of chores and errands ---- beginning with piling up a load of wood from around the property so we can light a fire again tonight.

Then it's off to Horseheads to pick up the new kitchen counter to get installed this weekend by cousin Brett. A quick look a used cars to have something to drive this summer. Maybe buy some warmer clothes to wear from the discount Woolrich store. I suspect my sundresses, shorts and tank tops aren't going to be worn around here for at least another month.

Then we get together to play music tonight with our friends in Watkins Glen!

That's a good start for Day One at home. It's great to be back!

Adios, La Manzanilla and Arroyo Seco

2008-05-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

Michael and I are decompressing in Puerto Vallarta at son Dustin and his fiance Camelia's lovely home, on our way back to the United States on Wednesday. Specifically, New York.

I'm rationalizing that the transition from Mexico to the U.S. won't be too traumatic since I'm going from rural living to rural living. We'll see.

But here's a short list of what I like about living in Mexico, and maybe a few things I wish I didn't have to put up with in Mexico, before my brain switches gears and I can't remember the details.

What I Don't Like About Mexico

Scorpions and other biting, stinging, nasty things.

I'm reminded that there's a price to pay for living in the tropics, things that I had glossed over since living on Sanibel Island in Southwest Florida a whole lot of years ago. I forget that there's stinging things in the water, stinging things flying around, stinging things crawling around houses in the night, into your shoes, into the towel you've left laying on the floor. But millions of others have learned how to live with all these icky, stingy things, so perhaps I will figure out how to do it with a little less anxiety too. If not, I'll be the newest resident of a really northern climate, suffering from low temperatures so severe that even the bugs don't like to live there.

Bacteria and other ugly diseases. Some friends who have lived in Mexico for a long time won't eat at the street vendors, not because of the food or the preparation at the open air restaurant is suspect but because the dirt from the street can blow on to the food. And the shop keepers water the dirt on the street with gray water (we hope it's just gray water) and there's nasty bacteria that gets on the food and utensils, which you then ingest.

The good news is that our doctor says he's never had to hospitalize anyone for the types of typhoid and typhus that is down here, but it does require a dose of antibiotic.

Road etiquiette

Left turn signals. It's been very important to our safety and well-being to understand that the left turn signal on a car --- ours or the car in front of us --- doesn't always mean what you think it means.

If we're on the highway and the left turn signal flashes on the car or truck in front of us, it probably means it's safe to pass him. But it could also mean that he's turning left and it's not safe to pass him. Veteran drivers usually stick their left arm out when they really mean they intend to make a left turn. Making an assumption that you understand what the left turn signal indicates could mean the last poor decision you've ever made.

Passing on two lane highways. I was horrified the first time I was driving to the Manzanillo airport on a pretty good highway and vehicles would pass the car in front of them even though they could see --- as could I! -- that there was an oncoming vehicle in the other lane. What I have since discovered is that there is an assumption that the oncoming car will simply shift over to the shoulder to make way for you, and not just crash head on. Hopefully everyone knows that same rule!

Things I Like About Mexico

The weather. Of course. Isn't that why most of us migrate south? I found myself grabbing the covers in the early morning for a little more sleep when the temperature had dipped below 80. If you don't like the heat, don't come to Mexico in May. But any place I can put on a swimsuit first thing in the morning and not need a sweater or cover-up all day is perfect for me.

The culture. I'm just scratching the surface and I'll admit it could be the equivalent of any small town in America, but I love the generosity of the people, even if they've just met you. We've been included in every fiesta or event. Everyone pitches in to help on a project. You're offered a place to sit, something to eat the minute you enter someone's home. And you shake everyone's hand and kiss cheeks when you first arrive and then again when you leave. I love the comfort of the physical contact. Now my own American culture feels too stiff to me.

The Pace. I love that traditional Mexican families all still go home for the big meal at 2 in the afternoon, then families and friends spend leisurely evenings after sunset visiting together in front of their homes with even the youngest children playing in the street --- long past what I used to consider my normal bedtime. Tiendas, the tiny stores in the villages, are open 'til 10 or later. But don't consider trying to find anything open early the next morning.

A cash economy. I love that you just don't use credit cards, rarely use checks. You pay your rent in pesos. You buy land in pesos. You pay your utilities in pesos. No surprises at the end of the month, unless you look in your wallet and it's empty.

Cultural surprises. We'll be sitting at a lovely restaurant and watch someone ride a mule past us -- and the new Hummer parked in front --- dragging many palm fronds for whatever building project he's working on. A young boy will ride his bicycle through town with his horse on a lead --- who knows why? Exercise? Moving? And the rental store in town delivers the washing machine to its customers by quad with a trailer.

All the street dogs and beach dogs have a predictable route throughout the village each day, depending on which butcher/cook/restaurant has a reputation for generosity. We used to see a small, blond beach mutt hit Palapa Joe's on one end of the village, cruise by Chop Chops, finally swinging by Martin's for the really good stuff. It's just another resident of the village looking for a meal, only it's on four legs. Love it.

The ease of construction. It's so amazing that you decide what you want built, you hire someone to build it, and they build it. Go to the store, buy the materials, find the labor, watch the progress. Few permits, fewer taxes. Just point and build. And now we have the huge, delightful palapa for dinners with friends, places to hang double-woven hammocks, maybe an actual bar to belly up to because a liquor and restaurant permit only costs about a hundred fifty a year. What's not to like?

Any excuse for a fiesta. You thank the workers. You have birthday parties. You give going away parties, welcome back parties. And everyone's invited. The food and drink just keeps coming. You start the party late and you stay late. You don't eat and run, like in the states. You linger. You have dinner, then you talk, you dance, you drink. And then you keep talking, dancing, drinking. And eventually, you go home. I've never made it to the hour where people start leaving and I still feel like such a gringo when I wimp out the earliest.

Maybe next year I'll get the hang of it. It's a goal.

The bottom line is that, all in all, I've been really happy here and sad to leave. I'm just getting the hang of things, just beginning to understand the language, even if I can't speak it yet. I've made friends, started creating community that I can't wait to get back to. Having said that, I'm sure I can also be happy at lovely Seneca Lake as we jettison ourselves into a different but equally satisfying life, beginning on Wednesday.

That's the list I'll be making in late August....

Saying goodbye to Devani in La Manzanilla

A new amiga arrives in La Manzanilla

2008-05-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's our last week or so in Mexico and we've continued with our normal relentless pace but it's been a ton of fun. Some of the highlights (and there are many) include, starting with the most important:

ONE: The baby finally arrived!

For those of you following Michael's blog, last week our neighbor Mimi (and Mom Irma) sent her grandfather, Xavier, over to roust us about 2 in the morning after a fun Mother's Day fiesta in the jardin.

We spent the night in the Manzanillo hospital with them, walking Mimi around the parking lot in the dark while we tried to kickstart her labor a little more efficiently. When we finally left them mid-morning to return to La Manz, Mimi was being admitted to the hospital.

Then, no word, day after day. Just that they were okay and that baby hadn't been born yet.

Finally, last Wednesday we got word that the baby girl had arrived and was fine, but there had been some problems with Mimi. After a cesarean section, Mimi lost a lot of blood. Had she not been in the hospital, she wouldn't be with us today.

Mother and child are now safely home in La Manzanilla, where we got the full report from the local doctor who was making a house call. Check out Grandma Irma, Mimi, Sylvia and Devani, and the local doctor (with a backpack) in the picture.

A house call? I love this place!

And last week when Michael and I walked 'downtown' for dinner, we spotted a local version of "urgent care" --- a pickup truck parked in front of the local pharmacy/doctor with an IV rigged up over the cab, attached to an elderly gentleman asleep in the front seat.

TWO: We went horseback riding!

Michael bravely agreed to accompany me on horseback for a tour of a friend's ranch near where we're building in Arroyo Seco. We rode through orchards to a nearby freshwater lagoon filled with a ton of birds and wildlife. It was amazing. And it really reminds me a lot of Southwest Florida, especially Sanibel Island.

So now I have this hot idea that we'll buy a horse or two when we return in December. It seems a perfect way to explore the countryside and the beaches around us. Michael is asking a lot of questions from the locals, like exactly how much dinero will it take to keep a horse in Mexico.

I think he's comparing costs of slip fees and yardwork from our former boating life to hay, barns and vet bills. I'll let you know when the verdict comes in.

THREE: Our palapa, ramada and bodega are almost done!

We've been visiting Arroyo Seco almost daily to check the progress on our building projects, see if more decisions need to be made. The workers have been making rapid progress with early mornings and late evenings, all day Saturday. I've been impressed. And it's requiring a lot of coordination to have the concrete go in at the right time for the posts for the palapa and the ramada, etc.

Friday night we'll have the requisite fiesta to thank the workers for all the hard work and the dedication to project. If we were living nearby, we would have been expected to feed the workers either daily or weekly, depending on the size of the project and the proximity to available food.

As I told my neighbor today, I'd know just what to do to throw a fiesta in the states --- what food to serve, what time, what the expectations would be. But here, I'm depending on local friends to help me. I've assured them that if they ever have to throw a fiesta in the U.S., I'm there for them.

We're now on Countdown status as we prepare to close down projects until the end of the year. This last week we're taking a vacation from our frenetic life and heading to the beach to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary and to spend some time with my cousin Lynn and friends.

The next blog post with be from Seneca Lake in New York, where I join up with my music buddies and prepare for a June wedding.

A hard day for kitty Cleo

2008-04-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

Most of you following our travels for the past eight years know that we tend to adopt (and spoil) all the neighborhood animals, foster friend's dogs and cats –– whatever we can do to pretend we have pets without the responsibility. When we finally settle down (when we grow up?), we'll probably end up with an extensive menagerie.

So Michael has been feeding our neighborhood cats in La Manzanilla the occasional canned kitty food, the smoked sliced turkey from Costco, the leftover chicken casadilla from a favorite beach restaurant.

And not just the old stuff.

Needless to say, his gato groupies have been increasing mui rapido. It's not uncommon to open the door first thing in the morning and have five feral cats out on the front stoop, waiting for breakfast.

We've had a favorite from the beginning, a loyal friend who has gotten so civilized that she's decided that coming in the house would be the start of a great friendship. One time she slipped in and we found her comfortably settling into life on the bed. But Cleo and her fleas got bounced out the door (with treats to make amends).

Cleo's been looking a little punk lately –– what we thought was a little skin problem from fleas has been spreading all over her hindquarters. So we finally borrowed the hav-a-hart trap from the local community activist who started Cisco's Amigo's, a twice-a-year neutering clinic that clips and snips about 140 dogs and cats in a factory line of volunteers.

We put the stinky kitty food in the trap, she climbed right in, the door slammed and she was in the new local vet's office in minutes.

Well, Cleo's back with a new name --- Clete. Turns out she's a he. Or was a he. Oops. The skin rash has been treated, he's been dewormed and deflea-ed. And neutered. He's still quite the drugged-out cat --- falling down like a drunk all over the house while we wait for the anesthesia to wear off.

His fellow kitty compatriots are outside wondering what it takes to get invited in the house. If Cleo could talk, I'm sure he'd be urging them to find other accommodations for the duration. They're next.

By the way, the veterinary charge was about $14 U.S.

While Clete was safely tucked in the house recuperating, Michael and I checked out the sunset before dinner where we ran into Molly, the great fire-dancing hula hoopster, where I got a quick lesson on the beach.

This is one sport I never could get the hang of as a kid but she swears I'll be 'hooping' within a day. So a trip to the ferreteria tomorrow for the makings for a hula hoop.

Stay tuned!

My first hoop lesson on the La Manzanilla beach

The tradition of 'Sundays at Sea'

2008-04-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico

I sailed around the world in 1970 and 1971 aboard the SS Ryndam as part of a university program called World Campus Afloat. Thirty-six countries in less than a year –– it was a mind-opening experience for any 18-year-old –– as we circumnavigated the globe as a first experience out of the United States.

I made good friends aboard the ship who challenged my comfort zone –– camping out in Stonehenge in England in case we could figure out the secret of the stones, hiking in the Japanese Alps in the middle of winter, exploring the Seychelle Islands off East Africa long before they built a jetport. And an incredible week in Tanzania as we rented cars and traveled inland for our own version of a photo safari (the rental agent's only advice? Don't get out and push the car in the bush because of the lions!).

It was a fabulous but exhausting year and certainly the foundation for the life Michael and I have chosen, in a small fishing/agricultural/surf village on the west coast of Mexico where we now live.

Today I was reminded of one of our ship's tradition on board the SS Ryndam from more than 30 years ago.

We were required to take university classes on board the ship every day at sea as we traveled to the next port, the next country. So we pushed hard every day at sea, then pushed 24/7 when we were unleashed in the next country, the next continent.

The only respite was a 'Sunday at Sea'.

It was the only day we were allowed to sleep in, hang by the pool, read a book or stare into the sea while we sat on foredeck. One day of rest, down time, then BAM! –– another Monday of classes or travel.

Today Michael and I had what might be our first 'Sunday at Sea' in Mexico.

Our good friends and great vacation buddies Jennifer and Scott Noble left yesterday after a fun-filled and exhausting week careening up to Arroyo Seco to fish, build, direct, or off to La Huerta to pay the taxes and look for huaraches, or to Melaque to the bank and lunch. Or....

Non-stop.

But today Michael and I leisurely rolled out of bed, stuffed the fishing pole and a beach chair in the car and headed to our lot in Tenacatita.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Hunger drove us back to La Manzanilla for brunch with friends on the beach. And because I took a minute to get to the beach, I stumbled across the most fantastic musicians from Guadalajara jamming at one of the beach restaurants. I just stopped, sat and listened.

I definitely need to do that more often.

It was followed by a great siesta, then another walk on the beach where we ran into a few more friendly hellos. Now we're fixing dinner at home (great tamales from the great tamale party in Arroyo Seco --- see Michael's blog for that), some fiddle playing and maybe even a movie.

Even as I write this, I consider that perhaps this doesn't sound as relaxing to you as it does to me. But for someone who probably needs to slow down but has a low tolerance for it, I'm thinking I did pretty dang good.

We're going to continue to jam pack every minute of the remaining five weeks here before we careen off to Seneca Lake, where we will start a new chore list, party list, boating list.

Hopefully, we'll take the 'Sundays at Sea' tradition with us.

Beach fishing in the Pacific Ocean at Tenacatita

Roosters, wild turkeys & cats

2008-04-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

LA MANZANILLA, Jalisco, Mexico
It has been unseasonably cold this year in Tenacatita Bay --- cold enough that I've been wearing a fleece jacket in the mornings and evenings and wouldn't even consider swimming in the bay. The locals agree --- brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr --- the coldest any of them could ever remember but they warned us not to complain since they said we would all be whining soon enough about the heat.

How true. The heat has arrived.

I could feel it Friday morning as we organized a field trip for our La Manz friends to see what we're planning to build/create in Arroyo Seco, a tiny agricultural village located by a pretty good surf beach. By mid-morning we were standing on our empty lot in 'downtown' Arroyo Seco (for context, our friend Tia said she'd like the town more if it had two streets) in what felt like some pretty blistering heat. Once the breeze kicked in, we were fine.

For the record, we've gone from a low of 64 to 68 in the mornings to a low of 76 the past two mornings. We're now in the high 80s during the day.

I've just finished my stint at the real estate office and I'm starting my life as a 'jubilado' -- a retiree. Mornings have changed dramatically from just a week ago. Instead of the early scramble for a quick breakfast and our 40 minute walk over some pretty steep hills (and great views!) to race into the office, we're easing our way into mornings at the Mexican beach village of La Manzanilla.

We find ourselves waking up to a medley of domestic and wild bird sounds, mixed with the honk of the tortilla delivery truck and a motorcycle quad either delivering or picking up the rented washing machine across the street. It all happens by 7 a.m. or so. I've discovered I have to deliberately listen for the waves breaking on the beach --- I've filtered them into background noise and forget to listen.

One of our four adopted (feral) kitties waits on the front step for desayuna (breakfast) while the others hide in the bushes and up in the trees for her highness, aptly named Cleopatra, to have first bites. Yesterday morning was particularly loud --- four wild turkeys or wild chickens took up residence in some of our trees while they begin to reclaim a nest in the abandoned lot next door.

And, of course, the neighborhood roosters and the rest of the clan were over picking out breakfast bugs out of the pile of leaves in the yard.

Then the day flies. Last week we were on the road to either Tenacatita or Arroyo Seco every day trying to get things squared away on the lots, plus I read a couple of books (before and after siestas) and I'm back playing my fiddle.

Michael and I are getting through our checklist of getting fences up, walls constructed, wells dug, septic in on the various lots. Next winter we hope to spend time enjoying Arroyo Seco and Tenacatita, rather than just working there.

By early June we'll be heading to Seneca Lake (right after celebrating Dustin's birthday!) and get the Spirit of Louise, our pontoon boat, out of storage and back on the lake tours, get the jacuzzi fired up, re-immerse ourselves in the ease of shopping in box grocery stores within driving distance. The most fun, of course, is a summer on the lake with family and old friends and playing music with all my new fiddlin' friends.

So that's life for now --- a lot of changes down here for us but it's all still working. We have friends from Sacramento coming next week to help remind us why we live here --- we'll roll out the best of vacation activities (snorkling at Tenacatita, beach fishing in Arroyo Seco, shopping for jewelry, shoes, hammocks, exploring new restaurants). I hope to have a full report soon ....

Saturday morning:

Fast livin' in Tenacatita Bay

2008-02-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

This is Michael's and my first night 'home alone' in many weeks as we take a quick rest before greeting our next roomies. It's a chicken soup and veggies night, chased by some ukelele and fiddle playing. Life in the fast lane starts again tomorrow at 10.

Cousin Ruth Bills left yesterday after a great three weeks at the Casa Lupita B & B --- what she probably didn't realize is that she'd be part of the staff. Every day was filled to exhaustion --- beginning with a walk on the beach, then breakfast at El Girasol, home for chores, on to a beach afternoon, late afternoon naps, finally a walk three blocks to 'town' for dinner. Then a late night collapse. Oh, and some shopping at the plaza!

And then there were the side trips to Tenacatita, Arroyo Seco, Barra de Navidad, Melaque & Manzanillo and the occasional overnight trip to Puerto Vallarta.

Apparently the goal is to see exactly how much fun you can pack into each day.

Jenn Bills also joined us for a surprise visit --- the day she left I was reminded of how many times Michael just about had to put a gun to my head to get me on the plane to go back to the States. I think she's looking at airfares for a return trip next winter. We can't wait.

We also had a short visit from Dustin who drove down from Puerto Vallarta to have us help nurse him back to health from a lung infection. He left for home with a little more color in his cheeks but not quite enough oxygen yet. We're hoping the medication will heal him quickly and he'll be back to work soon.

Tuesday our good friends Sanders and Pat will be joining us. They're leaving behind about five feet of snow at their home in the Northern California mountains. We'll be able to spot them anywhere on the beach the first few days. They'll be the incredibly white people under the umbrellas.

Having company here has been effortless for us. Our house is the equivalent of a simple lake cottage, a mountain cabin, or a boat. Somewhat rustic, no privacy but fun, nonetheless. And the company has kept me from missing all the rest of all of you who will either be joining us later or catching up with us in New York or California.

At my work, one of the best part is the forced Spanish immersion. It's really interesting to answer the phone and not be bilingual. But as my friend Jane says, "Don't worry. You'll be speaking Spanish in no time. You have no choice."

I'm really getting good at 'Uno momento, por favor!'

Now, on for some long-needed fiddle practice. Hasta luego, amigos!

What I haven't been doing in Mexico

2008-02-19T05:13:00.000-08:00

The last three weeks have been more of the same.

I haven't gotten to the beach much.
I haven't taken many siestas.
I haven't read more than a few pages of a book at a time.
I haven't played my fiddle.

You get the drift.

A good friend commented a few days ago that I could move to the Arctic and still be busy. Guess when I get the time, it would something to mull over...

This time I'm going to blame all this activity on the still obvious -- moving to a new country, a new community, a new job, lots of lovely house guests.

I've been at the real estate office a lot more than I had expected. But it's a great example of the seasonal frenzy of resort areas --- while real estate is always bought and sold, certainly a beach village in Mexico sees its share of winter dreamers (and buyers) who want to do the deal while they are here on vacation .... for two more days!

So it's a frantic whirl around the village for those in the business, trying to find clients the right home, the right beach lot, the right ocean view, before they head back to the states or to Canada --- while also trying to get the new home just listed online and on to a flyer on the wall, contact other realtors, get offers filled out and to the seller, counteroffers, etc.

Whew!

But I can relate to the dreamer, the buyer. It's been a great reminder of how it is that Michael and I are now living here.

Last January (was it only a year ago?) we were taking a few week's vacation with the kids in a lovely beach home over the Santana Real Estate office, when Joe Santana says to me, "You ought to see this great beach lot..."

The rest is history.

Joan Santana says the best part of her job is working with people who have a dream and are taking a huge leap of faith to get there.

I agree. It is the best part.

But the next step for me, personally, is to figure out how to still see the beach, read a book and play the violin during 'high season'.

I'll keep you all posted. In about a month.

A view of Tenacatita Bay from the inside of a hilltop home under construction.

Twenty days of no Manana time

2008-01-31T06:46:00.000-08:00

I've thought about posting something in the past 20 days about our first month as 'jubilados' (retirees) in Mexico --- but we're not exactly retired, we're not exactly taking it easy and all news was so eventful that I would have been writing in all exclamation points --- which I am fundamentally opposed to, as a journalist.

So now that some of the La Manzanilla dust has settled (at least in front of our house), here's a quick recap.

As many of you know from reading Michael's blog, I'm helping out three or more days a week at Santana Realty. It's not even the eye of the storm in there --- it's a daily tornado of activity, often stemming from tourists coming in about a beach rental and walking out with a realtor to look at buying property or a house.

It's been really interesting.

I'm on the fast track to learn everything about buying and selling real estate in this part of Mexico while also learning how to do it in another language -- Spanish. Already I know to ask for the 'carpeta' (the file), what a 'Constancia' is (a very important property document you get from the Ejido), or how to respond when someone asks if I would like something from the local tienda.

Whew.

I'm always exhausted by Thursdays but I'm also left mulling over what was left undone, what else might be handled more efficiently (am I allowed to think that in this culture? Hmmmmm).

In the meantime, there is much other news:

Dustin and Camelia delighted and surprised us with their engagement last week! They have the ultimate international, cross-cultural relationship --- Camelia is Romanian and has been living and working in Puerto Vallarta for the past seven years.

She and Dustin combined their business space last year so Fox Marine and Full Sail Canvas are now located in Nueva Vallarta at the Nueva Marina and their home is nearby. They live about three to four hours from us (depending on who's driving!) and Camelia has been very gracious in welcoming Dustin's quirky relatives into their home. We're elated!

The paperwork to get married in Mexico is 'mui complicado' -- stay tuned for a wedding date and a wedding destination.

You've also probably read that Michael and I have bought more property. We don't have a plan (what's new?) but all 'feels right' (that's so 60s, sorry!) so we're forging ahead. We haven't decided if and when to build or where. But we figure all will be revealed soon enough. For a change, we've decided to just live here for a little while and then make a decision when we know more. That's a different approach for us.

Of course, for those of you that know us, even this philosophy remains subject to change.

We've been seeing cruising friends too --- Phil and Nora on Shiraz, and Dan and Lorraine on Zephyrus. We're headed to Barra de Navidad later today to have dinner with Zephryus and make plans for helping them fix one more boat part before they head to Central America.

At some point we're expecting to see Jeff and Anne on Fantasia, headed back from Aptos, California. And Don Tiffin is now in Mexico on Sabbatical before he heads to the South Pacific. Anyone need to hitch a ride?

Today begins the yearly La Manzanilla birthday fiesta, rodeo and four day bash that the natives have told us will require a box of earplugs. Yesterday I saw a makeshift hair salon set up in an empty shop and dozens of the local women getting their hair fixed for the festivities. So this might be quite the event and one not to miss. Stay tuned for the video.

But all in all -- when I get a chance to take a breath -- I can heartfully say that the decision to move here is still all I had hoped for. I'm doing a lot of what I had wanted to do (with the exception of finding fellow fiddle players, but I'm working on it). I'm learning the language, making friends, seeing old ones, enjoying the warm weather and the late evenings.

Michael and I walk up in the hills every morning and I'm always reminded of the disparity of lifestyles here that seem to be able to co-exist as we hike up through the million dollar homes on the hill and descend down by the stick huts in the village.

The gentlemen pictured here sits out in front of his home every day, getting the occasional visit from whomever is passing by.

It's the La Manzanilla version of extended care living -- not an uncommon sight here. It's a good daily reminder for me that whatever I have, I have enough.

And for all of you who missed Jane 'the Rentalor' Gorby's birthday on Monday, here it is:

Who said life in La Manz is slow?

2008-01-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

We've just come off of frantic five days of searching for the perfect home or land purchase for my cousin Lynn and friends -- Suzanne, Karen and Randy --- while also squeezing in some important time for swimming, snorkling, sampling the pescado and the tequila, while also squeezing in some occasional non-real estate conversation. Basically, we did everything but sleep, rest, read or do anything else that might be considered 'idle time'.

This might be more the trend than what I had fantasized about mid-semester.

Oh well. It's still fun. Exhausting but fun.

Lynn and company went careening off mid-morning to the Puerto Vallarta airport, while Michael and I and Dylan suited up for some real estate shopping of our own, finalizing some property that we looked at in a nearby village last spring. That meant a 7 k ride down a washboard road and a hike up a hill to see what we could see.

It looked great.

I finally took my first siesta in a week, recharging my batteries for an evening trip down to Melaque and Barra de Navidad for groceries, a trip to the closest ATM and dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Mexico Lindo, with Tenacatita friends Sharon and Mario.

In the Small World we live in, we struck up a conversation with the people at the next table who turned out to be a California legislator (and family) who made it clear that he/she would really prefer to remain unnamed. But you have to wonder what the statistical odds are for sitting next to a couple of Sacramento journalists at a tiny Mexican restaurant in a small Mexican village.

Here's a video of the Tenacatita Beach, snorkling and dinner out afterwards in La Manzanilla. Tacos were 7 pesos each. Perfect for a retirement budget!

A new year in Tenacatita Bay

2008-01-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

We only left California 19 days ago but, as usual, we've jammed more than a months worth of travel, fun, work, guests, planning and whatever into those days. I keep saying life will settle down soon and Michael just snorts. So maybe not.

Yesterday was our first true beach day. We actually worked in the morning on a California consulting project, then took off for a late lunch at our favorite palapa at Tenacatita, near our beach lot. Michael and Dylan had their usual Rollo de Mer (fish roll with shrimp, bacon and whatever, deep fried and covered in a sauce) and cervezas.

Afterwards we took the beach chairs and umbrella to the beach where our friends Sharon and Mario are building, using the same contractor we plan to use.

Today we're heading to Puerto Vallarta (three hours north if I'm driving) to help celebrate Camelia's birthday and do some city shopping for stuff we need here. I find that I hate the thought of shopping and buying, so I must be acclimating quickly.

This is a short video from the beach yesterday --- it probably doesn't do it justice, but eventually most of you will come see it for yourselves. And if you missed our New Year's Eve celebration on Michael's blog, check out the dancing video here called New Year's Eve Rocks (tango, cha cha and whatever moves your body).

Retirement is exhausting (but I'm not complaining)

2007-12-26T18:29:00.000-08:00

It's only been a little over 24 hours since we arrived 'home' in La Manzanilla for our first extended land-based stay here. I love our new two bedroom house on the hill, much quieter than staying at the beach house we've rented for the past several years.

Last night we went to sleep with a grand chorus of cicadas or crickets (loud!), but by morning they had quieted down and the roosters started up. A lot. Before dawn. But it's a sound I relish --- a natural sound, rather than the roar of I-5 in the distance that we've heard for years.

I was still asleep when I heard the sound of hoofs as someone rode a horse by our house --- still dirt roads throughout the town. And even though we're about three blocks back from the beach, I could still hear the sound of waves crashing.

No regrets over this move --- low 80s during the day, 70s this evening. Friends are delighted we're back --- a sense of home and community.

Only downside was discovering a scorpion had hitched a ride out to Tenacatita in my purse --- the really nasty, lethal kind. I was reaching in and for some reason decided to look for my lipstick, rather than just grab. Holy Smoke! It scared the beejeesus out of me --- quite literally --- I couldn't say a word. Just a whole lot of gasps and shrieks, I've been told.

The scorpion climbed up and out and I flung him out onto the road where Michael stomped on him.

Locals tell me that you NEVER leave your purse on the floor. You hang it up. And you ALWAYS check your shoes before you put them on.

Great.

I guess paradise can't be perfect. Just almost perfect.

Hope all of you are well and know that I miss you all.

Music and Sun in our first day back in Mazatlan

2007-12-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Mazatlan today, grateful to have good friends and warm temperatures greet us. Dan and Lorraine on Zephyrus are here doing last minute projects and provisions before they sail south to Ecuador, first stopping by Tenacatita for a long (we hope) visit with us.

Tomorrow we head to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas with Dustin and Cami, importing a load of GrapeNuts for under his tree. It's hilarious what you can't get in Mexico.

This afternoon the Children's Home in Mazatlan, part of the Salvation Army, put on a show for the cruisers. A great greeting and first day back. It raises money for the Children's Home --- they do a month of performances in December around the community.

Hope all of you that we've left behind in the States are staying warm and happy. My New Year's resolution is to avoid all news and especially anything having to do with the election. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Mazatlan Salvation Army Children's Home singers

An early Christmas with the grandkids

2007-12-09T21:27:00.001-08:00

After a marathon day of packing (five day countdown! Eek!), we raced out to Rancho Cordova for an early celebration with Samantha and Kamryn --- Kami's first Christmas!
Grandpa Michael with Kami

Samantha is only one head shorter than me right now, soon to be eating peanuts off the top of my head. She held a short Christmas recital for us on our flute. She's getting great –– obviously practicing and enjoying the music.

Another candidate for the Four Headlamps (gotta do something about that number in the name, apparently).

Sami & Kami

After this week, we probably won't see them for six months or so –– one of the major downsides of adventuring during retirement.

On another note --- today's San Francisco Chronicle had an article about the toll stress is taking on all of us. And how most of our stress is self-imposed, much of it caused by a society that doesn't unplug itself, doesn't go to bed when the sun sets.

I'm definitely guilty. But I'm willing to change. Starting with some rest, right now. G'night all!

The Last Great San Francisco Adventure

2007-12-07T22:16:00.000-08:00

It was my last early morning trip to San Francisco to give a 5-minute state of journalism education speech to a group of publishers, probably my last official speech of my journalism career, followed by my last board meeting.

It was a glorious, clear day in the city and I considered taking a walk around downtown after my meeting. But I was anxious to get home, and tired, and thinking about all that is left to be accomplished before leaving here in seven (yes, seven!) days --- if all goes as planned.

I knew the subway connection to take the train home would be close but decided to go for it. But as the BART subway reached the Richmond station, I could hear the CHOO CHOO of the departing whistle of the train to Sacramento. I had missed it by less than a minute --- literally.

I raced up the stairs to the train platform in fast pursuit of others who were also trying to catch blasted train to Sacramento.

It was gone.

It was an hour and a half wait for the next one, outside, in the dark, on a cold and windy platform in a city known for its random gunfire.

It called for a New Plan.

Before I knew what was happening, I was on the next train to Martinez with two women who had also missed the Sacramento train. We were to go to a few stops down the line to a small community where we thought we might find a few restaurants across from the train station, then catch the last train to Sacramento.

It worked. And what's even better, I had a great time, one that I wouldn't have had if I had made the first Sacramento connection. We found a pitcher of margaritas, a guitar serenade, good conversation and a lot of laughter.

It was just another lesson that things work out exactly as they are supposed to and I just might as well chill out and enjoy the ride --- the whole ride.

My new traveling buddies

The Equipment Debate: How good do you go?

2007-11-29T08:06:00.001-08:00

For the past week I've had the debating society raging in my head.

Should I get the top of the line equipment as a beginner and grow into it? Or do I spend time improving and then get top of the line equipment?

It's a universal question that can applied to any sport or hobby. How about that new golf club? Will it improve your game or be wasted on you? What about that kayak paddle? What kind of skis do you need –– or deserve?

What launched the debate was this year's birthday present from Michael. We had a music lesson together (which you might have muted on Michael's blog) when I made the mistake of trying out my instructor's bow.

BIG MISTAKE!

I suddenly realized I was trying to play this new fantastic violin of mine with the equivalent of a K-Mart broom.

Soon I was home with six carbon fiber bows and instructions to try them out over the holiday weekend and pick the one I wanted.

None came with price tags. So it was like eating at a restaurant that I knew I couldn't afford. Apparently unless you spend over a grand on one, you're still at entry level equipment.

It didn't take long to figure out that any of them would be better than my current bow. But I still couldn't tell the difference between them.

Thus, the debate.

Do I buy the high end bow that I will grow into, possibly sounding better along the way? Or do I buy the cheap Chinese knock-off bow, replacing it with higher end bows down the line?

After a week of of a lot of input, I've realized that these two philosophies really set most of us apart. A majority of people that I asked would start with an example of a relative or a close friend who would always start with the best. And then there others that adamantly believe you shouldn't invest much until you're better at your golf game, your skiing –– your fiddle playing.

In the end, I clenched and wrote the check for the top of the line of the entry level bows –– with the encouragement of my instructor and others. And, no, I didn't spend a grand on it. It's a Coda bow, way beyond what I need right now. I spent the evening forgetting about all the fiscal angst and really paying attention to how it works. And it's great! It's light, it glides over the strings with the ease of Yehudi Menuhin, it makes me hopeful.

But I did note that those who advised me to 'go for it' didn't have one themselves.

In the end I realized that I really wanted a great bow. I just didn't want to spend the money. But I have a plan. Next time I'm planning a big purchase, I'll skip the debate and ask Michael to get it for me and to please, please, please don't tell me how much it costs.

Now that would be a thoughtful birthday present!

Fiddler's night at Fox & Goose Public House

The Irish fiddlers play monthly at Fox & Goose on the last Tuesday of the month. I've sat in a few times but my repertoire isn't complete enough to play many of the songs --- and they play like lightening! Tuesday was my evening with them until September (wow!) --- tonight I play with the Slo Jam group. More songs I know, at a pace I can keep up with.

Wish I had two to sell

2007-11-23T08:09:00.001-08:00

I'll miss my lovely Prius hybrid, which is apparently going to a new Bay area owner today. I was one of the 85,000 lucky ones that got a special carpool sticker that allows me to drive in the carpool lane with only one person in the car --- through 2011.

It's been a fantastic car and I'd buy another in a heartbeat if we decide to live the majority of our time in the U.S. But it wasn't the right vehicle to take to Mexico.

Driving down to San Francisco from Sacramento in the Prius has been awesome --- it's comfortable, perky and barely sips that high-priced petrol. We slip into the carpool lane on the other side of the Martinez bridge, then wisk at about 50 to 60 mph past the non carpool drivers, who are averaging maybe 10 to 12 mph...

When we decided to sell it, I looked up what top dollar for my car would be, then added some dollars for the carpool sticker since I had heard that it would increase the value of the car.

Wow! A serious understatement.

I've been hearing from potential buyers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and today I got a cash offer (and not a bad one) from a car broker in the Bay Area. Leaving me wondering, of course, how much I should have asked for the car.

Oh well. It's amazing enough that the car didn't depreciate a nickel since driving it off the car lot last year. No need to be greedy....

A surprisingly perfect Thanksgiving Day

2007-11-22T19:06:00.001-08:00

Michael and I thought we would be home alone this holiday with plans to rest, relax, pack and generally get caught up with ourselves and our work this long weekend, given that we're going to be hurling ourselves into a whole new life in about three weeks.

Originally we had grand plans to join the Lamont clan in Murphy, play lots of music, hope for snow and a reason to take a long nap near the woodstove. But Dylan couldn't join us because he had to work on Wednesday, then again at 5 a.m. on Friday, leaving no commute time from San Francisco to join us. We took a second look looked at our 'to do' list, checked our batteries and decided to stay home.

Then, to my delight, plans evolved.

By breakfast time this morning Dylan was parking in front of the house with the snappy little red Miata and a nice new street bike on the back, with a date to meet cousin Alex at 11 for a ride along the river, then join us for an impromptu turkey dinner.

It was exactly, perfectly what I wanted to do but didn't know. I got my 'kid fix' --- including lots of hugs, conversation and food --- but still got in a short nap, a long walk and lots of music in between their bike rides.

Dylan left with a huge leftover turkey dinner to take to work and enough stuffing to take to tomorrow's potluck.

I got to spend the day with family. And I got pictures.

Hope ya'll got a delightful day with family and friends too.