As a child, we always had dogs. However, I was never given the responsibility to walk, water or feed them. As an adult, when we expanded our family to include (Princess) Luna, I was puzzled by her barking, anxiety and difficulty sleeping. A quick toodle on YouTube and I found trainer Zak George and his helpful suggestions of taking dogs for daily walks, duh!
You may or may not know that once you do anything a few times with a dog, it quickly goes from a one off, to a habit, to a demand. Their internal clock tells you when it’s time to eat, walk and snack. Once a dog is allowed on the furniture, it takes a LOT of persistence, aka an act of God to break the habit. Our dogs have nothing better to do but wait us out. And they have far more patience.
Royalty
This week on Thursday we had an an arms’ long list of errands to run in preparation for Lisa’s trip to the US. By evening I was so tired that I fell asleep on the couch at 6pm. Of course Stela jumped on me at 7 for her final potty and snack. That dog will kill for food.
Stela the trouble maker.
Come Friday I declared a day of rest. No gym, no swimming, no leaving my hammock ALL DAY. It was a wonderful idea, until around 8am when I felt two pairs of eyes on me. It was time for the morning walk. I was loathe to get to my feet, change into mosquito-proof clothing and pull on my shoes. It’s a good thing I love these dogs, that’s all I have to say. And besides they’re awfully cute.
Life is slowly returning to pre-Covid days which for me includes Thursday night drawing class. This week we had a group of about eight meeting on the second floor over the Pirate bar. We draw with our non-dominant hand, left handed for me, which helps to develop hand/eye coordination.
Left handed drawing.
The evening started out delightfully with a shapely model. All too often we have young, skinny models with no hips or butt. During a break someone turned on music that was louder than I liked. Then the model, while posing for a longer sketching period, began reading aloud in Spanish. With the reading and the music, it was hard for me to concentrate. Then someone lit a cigarette! Yikes.
My head began to spin. Needless to say I’m the oldest artist in the room. I know how old people are labeled cranky or finicky. While I didn’t want to come across that way, it was exactly how I felt!
An enjoyable evening turned into an internal dialogue with the teacher, requesting that the class suit my needs, turn down the music, and NO smoking. I was clearly no longer having fun. So I gathered my things and left.
During the days that followed, I have realized that it is not the responsibility of the group to meet my needs. If someone smokes, I am quite capable of asking them to go outside. I will also bring my earplugs, as I do in the gym, to protect my hearing.
I am so privileged in many ways here in Mexico. An older, white (from the US) educated, wealthyish woman is pretty much at the top of the heap. Time to check my privilege at the door.
Naked reading.
So I give myself permission to leave the class if I need to, without the angst and self recrimination, and I realize that privilege means that something that is a problem for me is not necessarily a problem for anyone else.
What a week, what a week filled with windy downpours and cooler temps. Walking the dogs meant wading through a river of potholes in inappropriate footwear.
After leaving us, hurricane Alex headed to Florida.
Back-to-back tropical storms threatening to become hurricanes provided a welcome reprieve from the heat. We hunkered down and mostly enjoyed the sound of rain and the peace.
A second wave of storms finally moved off providing a beautiful weekend.
When finally venturing out, the mosquitoes made an unwelcome appearance. You must either stay moving, cover up or completely douse yourself in poison, or all three.
Sitting on the dock o the laguna.
Saturday evening saw the first rays filtering through the clouds to provide a stellar sunset. Life is good even in a squall.
A lazy quiet week is not a bad thing, even when that still small voice in my head tells me that I should be accomplishing something. Sigh.
This morning there was a smack down between the brown jays and the grackles. No, they’re not soccer/football teams, but the birds of our yard. Lisa and I were meditating when the screeching started.
View of the zapote tree from our porch.
We have a large wild zapote tree on the Laguna, out our back window. It attracts black squirrels the size of small monkeys, birds and our dogs who also love the small, brown fruit it produces. Zapotes, also known as sapodillas are unusual tasting, sort of like a cross between a pear and a kiwi in texture. Our tree is quite prolific and huge.
Our zapote is wild and the fruit doesn’t grow as large as cultivated zapote.
Lisa and I meditate every morning. The birds began making a racket this morning like I have never heard before. If I’d known I was going to write a blog on it, I would have recorded them. It went on for almost twenty minutes.
When I got up to investigate, I saw the large zapote tree full of irate brown jays chasing the grackles out of “their” tree. It was hilarious. Brown jays are bigger than grackles and very, very loud.
I finally put on headphones. This is life in the jungle, peaceful but certainly not always quiet.
Right before I left for California to see my daughter and her family, the US lifted the requirement for wearing masks on airplanes. I wore one anyway, as did most people.
We walked into this show four minutes before the curtain went up. It was amazing,
As a matter of fact, I wore a mask at all indoor events, shopping, museum visits, theater and a K.T. Tunstall concert. The only place I didn’t wear one was at home with family.
Fun at the Blue Note in Napa CA
The vacation was a lot of fun. Last Monday when I landed in Mexico City on my way home, I received a message from my daughter that my son-in-law had tested positive for Covid. Shit. He had driven me to the airport and hugged me goodbye.
This week I have tested negative twice after wearing a mask at home as a precaution. I’m getting back into routine and recovering from the change in time zones. You wouldn’t think two hours could make such a difference. Getting old sucks.
A big shout out to blog follower RudeinNewYork who sent me a box of Covid antigen rapid home tests. They are not available in Bacalar and frankly it never occurred to me to bring some back.
One of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
My doctor advised that if I tested positive to start antivirals. I found an agency that would deliver the medication to our door in four hours for a mere $950 us. We decided to pass. It seems I dodged a bullet. Please be careful out there.
A brief hola from the land north of the Mexican border (NOB). I am engaged with grandchildren and for the next few weeks will be taking a blog break.
Many birds of paradise.
Lisa is holding down the fort and Stella is driving her crazy. So enjoy a few pics from the California coast where I’m hanging out for a few days on a short family vaca. On Monday it’s back to Northern California. Until next week….
Walking to the gym is its own workout.Playing in the chilly Pacific.
With so much pain and suffering in the world, is it super privileged to be content? There are no broken bones, the car is running, we have food and shelter.
I am grateful, and I don’t want to jinx things. I’m not saying that life is perfect. I still struggle with not sleeping. It’s just the way it is. My body hurts from gym work outs, but it’s a good hurt and I’m thrilled with the muscles. Lisa and I have been having date-night once a week. Sometimes it’s the little things.
Moon over Laguna Bacalar.
I’m leaving for California a week from Tuesday and I’m actually excited. Not much really excites me these days. Soon I will be checking the weather, hauling out the suitcase and getting a Covid test. Hi ho hi ho.
Going for a swim.
Until then, I will try to keep the bubble from bursting, however I did buy travel insurance.
As a US citizen, I find that living in a foreign country (Mexico) is educational, stimulating and often times humorous. At first I thought it was a Bacalar thing, but having visited other towns in Mexico, I know that’s not the case. This week it happened again to my surprise.
Also add the ability to wait.
I remember the first time I went into Parisina, a fabric store in Chetumal. Figuring out how to make a purchase was complicated, confusing and time consuming. I later discovered that the process is the same in the local hardware store and in the art supply store I found in Oaxaca.
This week I stopped to purchase fabric to make a blanket for a dear friend who is expecting baby number five. To my surprise, the store had no cotton fabric. With rows and rows full of bolts of fabric, there was NO 100% cotton. Scratching my head, I wandered the aisles until I found the perfect alternative.
They have a pug!
I took the bolt of fabric I wanted to purchase to a male worker. He took out a hand held device and produced a ticket that I was to take to a cashier. I waited in line to pay the bill. I returned to original guy with the stamped receipt and he then measured and cut my fabric.
This is the same process at a hardware store. An employee pulls your requested item from the back of the store. You receive a ticket which you take to a cashier. The stamped receipt allows you to pick up your purchase. The entire process requires you to wait in three lines, first to be waited on, second to pay and third to retrieve your purchase. As a USer I think I don’t like to wait.
I’m not sure if this process is the norm anywhere else in the world. I love Mexico but it sure does make me scratch my head sometimes.
Watching the US Supreme Court nomination hearings this week of Judge Katanji Brown Jackson has been both inspirational and emotional. She gives hope to all women, young people, and anyone who has dreams for a better more egalitarian world.
Reading today that Ginni Thomas, wife of sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas tried in December 2020 to influence the overthrow of US elections made me sick to my stomach. What the heck!
Every day is a new beginning.
My personal takeaway this week is what an anonymous passerby whispered to Katanji Brown as a young, confused Harvard student, “persevere.” I’m so glad Judge Brown did.
Two years ago we adopted Stela, a blind pug. I had never been around a pug and had a lot to learn about their quirky nature. One skill she has is to be asleep on the couch, snoring loudly and on her feet a moment later when someone says one of the magic words, outside, potty, snacks, or walk. She’s a zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye kind of gal. Sometimes life is like that too.
Stela loves her pillow.
Last weekend I was blissfully returning from kayaking on Lake Bacalar, Mexico,where we live. I was anticipating the week leading up to my seventieth birthday, and in one misstep, I was sailing off the dock, landing on a pile of rocks, and screaming for my life. No bones were broken but doctor’s orders has me off my feet for 2-4 weeks. Zero to a hundred, but not in a good way.
I fell to the left of the kayak.
On Tuesday, our housekeeper of six years announced that she is pregnant with baby number five and could no longer work for us. While we completely understand it is the loss of a relationship that we were totally unprepared for. As much as I think that the people who work for us are not friends, the flood of tears said something different.
The husband of a friend and former neighbor from Texas lost his battle with cancer on top of the loss of our dear friend Suze the week before (Death Knocks) also to cancer.
On Sunday Lisa went to a celebration of life for her dear poker buddy Steve who died suddenly from Hepatitis C two years ago. He was a good guy.
Steve, Lisa’s Bacalar poker buddy and our friend.
I guess the only way we can be prepared for loss is to live every day fully. Many people don’t make it to seventy. I have a feeling that sadness and gratitude are a part of the aging process no one much talks about. I think fondly of Delmy, Troy, Suze and Steve as I grieve their loss. As for me, I think youth is vastly overrated. My bruised body will heal. None of us will ever be younger than we are right this minute, so enjoy today, live life to the fullest and above all be grateful.
DOS TORTAS
AFTER YOU DIE Just so you know after you die I will not wonder why you didn’t do your dishes or how long it’s been since you cleaned your oven or microwave or mopped your floors or why there were dust bunnies under the bed and behind the door
After you’re gone I will not wonder how you could have allowed the piles of old mail to accumulate or why you saved so many bits and pieces of this and that or why you weren’t more goal-oriented and well-organized or why your refrigerator contained so many expired condiments
When you are absent from all your familiar places I vow to avoid wondering why you didn’t eat less and exercise more or why you waited so long to stop smoking or drinking or whatever else was simultaneously soothing and deadly or why you took whatever risk may seem to have hastened your exit or why you left so much unsaid unfinished or unresolved
I will only wonder if you knew how much you mattered to me just as you are as you were when we met in our temporary human disguises and laughed in the dressing room of the world at how funkily our skin suits fit at times
I will wonder and hope you knew you were beloved
I will wonder when we last hugged and whether you felt how our heartbeats converged and our bellies bumped like boats and then we both sighed
the adventures of dos tortas 
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