A Selfportrait

In 2008 it will be 40 years since I left Denmark for USA, and there to meet Chuck and spend the better part of those years with him.
This portrait was painted while I was still in school and I barely recognize me.
So many, many years ago.
Well, this is the end of this year and the beginning of a new and better one.
And I am still here.

ps
Albin just told me, since the original is hanging in his home, that the date on it is 1961.
Much more than 40 years, as he points out.
We should all have cousins like Albin.

In Loving Memory

On this day five years ago at eleven at night, Chuck died.
I still find things of his, little notes left in books or forgotten in drawers.
And I love the idea that he still is around.
What a beautiful person.
And I am thankful for the time we had together.

Callipygian

I found this photo in a Danish newspaper and I fell in love with it.
It is a boxer weighing in before the fight, but being 50 gr. over the limit, he shed his shorts and made it.
Good thing it was the boxer who shed his shorts. I shudder to think, to imagine the old farts in their birthday rather than business suits.
The boxer lost the fight, but who cares. He has given me, and countless others, the pleasure of his near perfect backside.

Gosh and Golly

Gosh, I thought
Gosh and Golly, I said as I stumbled from the computer to the kitchen with an empty glass in my hand.
This is not my best afternoon, I thought, what with Priscilla and The Brown One returning from a trip to the woods all covered in dried blood.
What to do, what to do ?
Well, first check and see if the blood is theirs and if not, clean it up. And if it is, clean it up anyway.Then take some deep breaths, relax, and open a new box of cheap wine.
Which I did.
Now after a few glasses of wine I can cope a little better, sending my thoughts and anxieties into cyberspace where they will wither and die from lack of attention.
But I got it out of my system.
That must count for something.
Now back to that newly opened box of cheap wine.

The fragility of beauty

The Bougainvillea must be one of the most beautiful flowers here and I enjoy them immensely. The big one we had in front of the house that was cut by the electric company because it threatened to reach the wires, is making a come back. It will never, I don't think, be as spectacular as before, but it, like I, is still here.
I cut some of the new branches of it recently to ease the access to the light meter and gathered the cuttings of flowers in to a bouquet that I placed under my clock. With joy I discovered that between 9:15 and 9:30 in the morning, the sun would hit it as if it had its very own spotlight.
I grabbed my camera to take a pic of this sight, only to discover yet again, that the battery had run down.
The next morning with a newly charged battery the Bougainvillea had fainted. For all its beauty it is a very shortlived cut flower. But what a life, what beauty.
I was truly thankful for the time I had to enjoy it.

The Case Of The Missing Skivvies

I was folding and putting away the laundry and got to the skivvies and counted one...two.
and counted again...one ..two.. there was supposed to be three of my favorite, blue and white striped boxers. Three.
Ah well, thought I. Probably dropped them in the bodega...no. Then maybe upstairs, taking them down from the line.....no. Ah, but then surely I dropped them going down the stairs....no. In the spare room...? No. Under the bed ? No. Nowhere in the house did I encounter my skivvies, and the problem is that I can blame nobody. There is only this person here in the house, aside from the Worthless Mutts, but even as worthless as they are, not even they would abscond with my undies.
So now I have to wait to the missing garment miraculously appear again and till then, this will remain the case of The Missing Skivvies.

Maybe there is a mischievous skivvy fairy in the house.

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I will learn to drive with my windows down and my left arm hanging out and totally disregard the turn signals.
When I grow up I will wait till I am inside the bus, standing next to the driver, making the people behind me wait outside before I start looking for change for the fare.
When I grow up I shall wait for the last item I purchased in the supermarket to be scanned and packed before I will start getting out my wallet and search for my money to pay. I might even consider paying with a card or, maybe not.
When I grow up I shall do all the things that so irritate me now, so that future generations of Alan's will have something to complain about.
When I grow up.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving and I am divided.
For all the thirty-some years that Chuck and I spent together, this celebration was all his. This was the time to get together with his family, whether it was family by blood or family by any other means. And to eat and drink and have a wonderful time.
And we did have a wonderful time, which is why I feel so divided.
As a Dane it means very little to me, but as a person who has spent more years away from The Old Country, it means a lot to have this anchor, this once a year to meet old friends and reminisce about the year that passed
only
I seem to have lost connection with that part of my life.
To-night, here in Mismaloya, I shall reheat some rice from yesterday's dinner and fry a couple of sausages and that will be my thanksgiving dinner.
But I am thankful.
truly I am.
I have good health, I have a wonderful family in Washington and I have a wonderful family in Denmark .
Now that is being doubly blessed.
So who cares if you don't get to eat turkey.

Under Cover

Cindy has a photo on her blog of Mother Kathy cooking thanksgiving dinner wearing an apron with the print of what looks like the body of Michelangelo's statue of David, complete with his tiny weeny.
And that apparently upsets Cindy and her sister Kate, who want to cover up the offending part, or scrap the apron entirely.
Why, I wonder.
We are not talking prints of super endowed porno stars, nor in reality any living being. Why would these otherwise so enlightened girls be offended by this, admittedly tiny penis?
Let it all hang out, says I.
And the more so, for once a year to make those of us who are somewhat challenged in the weeny department, feel so superior looking at the equipment of David.
Once a year, is that so much to ask for ?
More to give thanks for.

The Snake On The Counter

So there I was, the tele turned off and the mutts let out for their last pee stop before bed and, miracles of miracles, they all came back so I grabbed the container with the doggie treats and gave them all a biscuit.
And replaced the container on the counter and wondered at the strange irregular shape that I saw there.
It looked like, but no it couldn't be,
it was.....
A SNAKE
right there on the counter, inches away from the container with the doggie biscuits.
I grabbed my meat clever and whacked the snake who then slithered over the edge and fell on the floor, where I had to shoo the dogs away and hack at it again and again before it finally died.
Birds I will help finding their way out when they enter the house. Butterflies as well as big buzzing insects get help to exit. Even the toads are evicted alive, but not the snakes and scorpions.
Those I gleefully kill.
And as I scooped up the offending reptile and threw it out in the jungle to feed some reptile loving animals and cleaned up the bloody mess on the floor, I wondered
how did it get into the house and how did it get up on the counter?
I shall have to keep the lights on at night now and keep my cleaver sharpened.

How I Lost A Day

I was sure it was Sunday,and I did all my usual Sunday things which, in reality are not that different from other-day-of-the-week things.
I checked my food stock which consisted of one English muffin, six eggs, a plastic container with the leftovers from dinner, two sad looking carrots and one beer.
I decided that Monday, the following day, would be my day for stocking up on comestibles
And so I ended the day by watching the television and wondering, briefly, why the hostess of some show urged me to watch her show again next Saturday night.
Some funny business from my Canadian provider I thought and went to bed and was awakened by the worthless mutts at the usual 7:30 am. Opened the door for the mutts to go out, made the first pot of coffee and turned on the radio and was perplexed; they were playing the national anthem, a thing they normally do at 7 in the morning. So I called the day and time number ( we do have such a service ) and the robotic man came on and said
Today is Sunday, it is seven am
YIKES
Not only did I loose a day, Saturday, but I also lost an hour.
The Saturday is all gone and I have to wait till spring to get my hour back.
And the worthless mutts don't really care.

La Migra or El Crudo

I was thinking of writing a post about La Migra ( immigration ) or, maybe, about drinking too much wine and getting a hangover ( El Crudo ) or, even maybe'er, a correlation between the two.
AH But, the immigration trip happens but once a year whereas the wine happens just about every night.
So NO, no correlation.
Except of course for the fact that I recently had to go to La Migra for my yearly renewal of my FM3, and Sam's Club is located but a stone's throw away and at Sam's, these days, they sell my favorite, cheap, carton packed wine in four-packs. So maybe there is a connection.
I went to La Migra and applied for another year and paid my now more than a hundred dollars for the privilege and thought to myself, if there are 500.000 of us yearly paying $100, that comes to 50 millions USD. WOW. We do keep the economy of The United States of Mexico going.
And we pay the taxes every time we buy anything, so maybe there is a lot more connecting La Migra with El Crudo than meets the eye.
Just a thought.

Worthless Mutts

Whenever I get upset about the constant and annoying barking of the mutts, I think to myself
At least this barking will keep fools and foes from entering the house.
HA.
When I got home the other day from a trip to town for victuals, and had schlepped the stuff up the hill, I was surprised by the lack of noise from the mutts who normally scream and holler as if they had been left alone for the whole day.
All right, thought I. They are finally growing up and dumped the groceries on the counter and headed to the fridge for a beer. It is hard and hot work walking up that hill.
And there was but one beer in the fridge. One beer where there should have been three. ( I keep tabs )
It took a minute for this to settle and then I checked the drawer where I had ( foolishly ) left my spare cash. Most , but not all of it gone.
So this was the reason the mutts were not too excited about me coming back. They had had company and most probably shown the intruder where the money was hidden.
Worthless mutts. When I need them to be fierce they just lick the burglar to death.
In defense of the mutts it must have been someone who knew that they are shams.
At least he left one beer and a bit of the money.
Worthless mutts.

It wasn't supposed to be like this

I looked around me and thought
it wasn't supposed to be like this.
We were supposed to bicker and squabble and disagree and make up
have wonderful dinner parties or lunches with our friends
and it was I who did not take vitamins by the handful and who did not exercise one day in my life
who reluctantly ate the veggies and and the salad
it was not supposed to be like this
yet
here I am almost five years hence, alone but for a house full of undisciplined and unwanted mutts,
listening to the annoying sound of the rain rushing off the roof hoping that this time the lights won't go out and that the mutts will do their business outside rather than unpleasant surprises for the morning.
It was not supposed to be this way.

Sam, The Elevator Man

Back in the years before First Chamber Dance co. moved to Seattle, we rented a space on 23rd street, close to the "old studio" on Park ave.S. between 17 and 18.
The building on 23rd was a big building with many floors and an elevator
and the elevator had an elevator man. Sam.
Sam was a skinny little old guy with a thick New York accent and an endless supply of pretzels.
Every afternoon when I left the office where the dogs and I spent some weeks care taking whilst the company was performing somewhere, Sam would offer some pretzels that he obviously had saved for the purpose, to the Schnauzers, Heidi and Frau. And the dogs would condescend to take the pretzels and then sit and stare at Sam till we hit the ground level and we could get out. They never let him touch them. Ever. They saw him in the morning and they ate his pretzels in the afternoon, but they never took to him. It made me sad, for Sam tried so hard.
I can still see the Schnauzers sitting, side by side, waiting for Sam to give then their pretzels and then back away. Very like humans. But Sam never gave up. If we had not moved to Seattle, maybe one day the Schnauzers would have relented. I'd like to think so.

Letters To The Editor

In most of my favorite books, the author or authoress has a character writing a letter to the editor ( I am talking about Agatha Christie or Antony Trollope or the the likes ) and I always thought it wonderful, the idea that one could write a letter to the newspaper and see it printed.
In the books it solved mysteries or exonerated innocent folks, whereas in real life you and your closest friend are the only likely people to read your input.
No matter.
I decided to join the forces of the The People Who Write To The newspapers.
I came across a "blog" entry in my Danish newspaper dealing with the Emmy speech by Sally Fields, written by a Dane living in Santa Fe who proudly pronounced in his bio that he owns a car that eats a lot of gas.
Already there I should have taken a deep breath and gone on to something else, but no, I kept reading. As his sources he listed the "leading media critic in the states" and the" leading TV critic in the states" ( both writing for the Washington Post ) and then, the capper, he referred to a wonderfully well written piece by Michelle Malkin telling Ms. Fields where to get off.
He thankfully gave a link and I read the "wonderfully well written piece".
YIKES
Michelle is mad, and what is worse, she is challenged.
She built a scenario of Sally Fields as an unfit mother, and certainly not speaking for this mother( Ms. malkin.)
Fine, says I, Fine.
And that was when I decided to write to the newspaper.
I want my voice to be heard, I want to be able to say to somebody like Ms. Malkin
I hear you, I do not agree, but I hear you.
The sad part about this whole deal is that people like Ms. Malkin are so sure, so absolutely sure, so sure as Mrs. Lynne Cheney who once said on a television show :
And from the right, and right on all issues.........
that they cannot fathom that others might have a point.
This is my point
This is my letter to the newspapers that I and a few of my friends will read
no matter
It did me a lot of good.

Monday Allergies

A long time ago I saw a poster of Snoopy of the Peanuts, resting on top of his doghouse and the caption said
I am allergic to Mondays
More Mondays like this and I too shall be allergic to Mondays.
When I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom for the obligatory morning pee, I noticed the lights were dim but, thought I, this is early morning and all that so....
by the time I got back from the doggie outing, the lights were gone, well almost. There was enough power to leave the little green light on the monitor operating. But not enough to run the fridge or radio or, most important, the coffee grinder.
The repair folks came to fix the problem late in the afternoon. And then I turned on the computer, only to find that I had no telephone connection and therefore no Internet access.
So I went down the hill to my least favorite public phone to report this problem which, since this was afternoon, would not be fixed till the next day.
I did my chores around the house and fed me and the dogs and did the dishes and sat down to watch some TV when it started to rain and the picture up and disappeared, but for good.
No matter, said I, I still have not seen the end of the Borat DVD that Colin let me borrow, so I fired up the DVD player and put the disc in and the machine spat it out saying it was "wrong disc". What? Does the machine decide which discs to play or what ? I tried other DVDs, but the result was the same.
There I was. No telephone, no computer, no television and a dysfunctional DVD player. And it was Monday.
The telephone repair people came Friday afternoon to fix the phone, but the DVD player is still acting up.
See how one can feel a little frustrated and ever so slightly allergic to Mondays.

Cenicienta

You look like Cinderella, I said to Josefina.
Cindy who ?, said she as she looked up from scrubbing the concrete stairs in the building with a brush and a bucket of water.
Oh, said I, Cinderella the fairytale, you know. Sorry, I don't know what it is called in Spanish.
Never had time to read, grumbled Josefina.
Well, this is a fairytale for children, something you read at night before they go to sleep...
Always busy to work, said Fina, always I work, all day and all night. Never read no Cindy books.
In desperation I turned to Yose and asked what Cinderella was in Spanish and in rapid Spanish he said
Well, I don't remember the name but Fina, there is this beautiful girl with an awful stepmother who has two ugly daughters and then they all got to a ball and wear these gorgeous dresses and jewels and high heels and she meets this super handsome prince and they dance and they fall in love and.........
by this time Josefina was back scrubbing the stairs muttering that she never read no fairytale book, only work and work and work.
I went home and found that Cinderella in Spanish is Cenicienta but even knowing that I am sure Josefina would deny ever hearing of this fairy tale.

Two Tiny Wires

It is amazing how such a big part of your daily life depends on two tiny wires encased in some black plastic material; the telephone line.
Mine was giving me all kinds of grief with lots of noise and slooooow, oh so slow Internet connection, till suddenly it gave up. How that happened I don't know, but the result was no telephone and by the same measure, no Internet access.
Calling The Company to complain involves, in my case, a trip down the hill to the public phone in front of the tienda. There, with buses roaring by and the local population of ill assorted mutts eyeing you warily, you make your case to some female in an office in Mexico City who will then promise that a person will be attending to your problems soon, and would there be somebody at the house when the person arrives ?
YES, you say, and then the game starts of you waiting all day and no repair person showing up.
Next day you brave the hill and the buses and the mutts and call again and the same result.
It took a week and a day for a repair that took all of 45 minutes to do, and that included a couple of breaks.
Now I am back online and wondering at the fragility of the tiny wires and my dependency on them.

So This Was My Birthday

Rain
It started with a view of rains as I woke up, this day of celebrating 64 years of my life.
But the rains gave way and I did what I had promised myself to do, to go town to buy stuff for a nice dinner ( and look for Canola oil ) and the makings of a cake.
And all went well, I even found the oil and I bought myself a birthday present, a $ 2.99 blue t-shirt.
And I fixed the dinner and sat down and ate it and was about ready to do the dishes and make the coffee and relax with some mindless stuff on the TV when
KABOOM
something made a very large bang and the lights went out.
It is remarkable how much we rely on electricity. Without it there is no TV, no radio, no computer and in my case, no telephone. Nor can one just sit and read a book, as candles, let me tell you, leave a lot to be desired for reading. Strangely enough I am presently reading Trollope, whose tomes take place in the later years of Victoria with candles and gas light. May hap they printed a larger font then.
So there I was. My birthday, all by myself, and no electricity.
Never before since I stopped smoking had I wanted a cigarette as much as I did then.
But I just walked and walked around the house and waited, hoping that things would magically get better.
They didn't and by ten I realized that this was it and went to bed.
So this was my birthday.
As a PS, they came and fixed the problem to-day about 5. We did not quite make the 24 hour line, but darn close.
Viva Mexico.

On shopping for oil

This I had decided. I was to stop and check my p.o.box, and if the telephone bill was there, then I would jump on a public conveyance and go to Commercial Mexicana, the supermarket where one can pay one's phone bill and shop for food all in one place. If no bill, then I would get a few things at Ley, the very Mexican market in the center of town.
No bill, so Ley it was.
One thing I needed was a bottle of cooking oil. The last I bought was Canola, and I really liked it so I was searching the narrow and cramped aisle for oils and such like, not finding the one I was looking for. But AHA, thought I, a young person is busy stocking the shelves; I shall ask him.
It went something like this:
me...excuse me, young man. Do you have Canola Oil ?
him...Canola?
me...yes, Canola, Canola Oil
him...Oil? Canola?
me...yes, like this oil, this is soy oil. I want Canola.
him...Soy ? Oil ?
me...it says right here on the label...SOY! but I want canola, do you have any ?
him...Ah, this is soy oil
me...I know, I would like Canola, please.
him...One moment. I will ask boss man.
Boss man arrives. He looks around importantly and I start again
me...Excuse me , do you have Canola Oil
Boss man...Uh, we have oil, uh, corn and.......soy and
me, exasperated...I know, but do you have Canola Oil ?
Boss man, busy studying the shelves, looks at me and asks....Oil?
me..Thanks you for your time, thank you
and depart sans oil of any kind.
But tomorrow is another day, and another try.

A joke

Most houses here in Vallarta have names, and it is even more important when your street address is, like in my case, totally incomprehensible to Mexicans ( try to explain who Ava Gardner is/was.. and then try to spell it ) .
I decided for a joke to name my house The Dog House
Only in Danish
and only to add to the confusion.
Dogs bark the same in all countries, what do they care.

On Blogging

When I first started my blog, I thought it was just going to be my thoughts shared by me with my family and a few close friends.
And this is not quite the way it works; The more one blogs, the greater the need to know that somewhere someone is reading your ramblings and, hopefully, liking them.
But the only way you will ever, ever know, is if that someone sitting somewhere reading your blog, posts a comment.
Admittedly it is not always easy to share a comment. Some blogs are darn difficult to enter. I once spent hours getting legitimized so I could post a comment on a blog. I never went back. But it is always a thrill when you suddenly see that someone has posted a comment.
This is my way of saying thanks to the people who not only read my blog, but who take the time to comment.

A new Career

It happened again.
I had finished a blog and did the obligatory spell-check, as my typing sucks and my spelling is not far behind.
And no yellow highlights.
No way, thought I, no way are there no mistakes, so I tried again and
POOOF
the post disappeared, and the more I tried to get it back, the more frustrated I became.
It was gone.
I took ten deep breaths, and one more for good measure and said to myself:
Self, there's got to be something positive in this.
And then I had my epiphany.
If George Bush can be "The Decider", then I, who can make posts disappear, will be "The Disappearer".
I can lease my services to CIA and FBI and Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales
and the silliness about nothing is ever truly lost from a computer
HA
they haven't met "The Disappearer" yet. With the "Madsen Magic Touch" I can rule the world of lost posts and emails.
The only problem is to advertise my services, because sure as manure the ad will follow all the lost posts.
Ah Well, it was a nice thought.

The Saga of the Tree With Yellow Flowers

In spring when driving to town, Chuck and I always loved to watch a tree by Garza Blanca which was covered in yellow flowers. One year we stopped after the flowering and picked up a seed pod, a strange longish sausage thing. From that we grew two trees and we were eagerly waiting for the trees to mature and produce flowers.
Well, Chuck died before they got that big, and their first time they had but a few flowers, and something must have alerted all the leaf-and-flowers eating insects and what-nots in the neighborhood to come and enjoy this new treat. The trees were stripped down to bare branches.
But this year we managed to produce the flowers, and what a wonderment; luscious grape shaped clusters of yellow flowers, right here, right in my own back yard.
If only Chuck could have seen it.

Eating Out

I don't much care for eating out, but " The Dames Who Rescue dogs " and I have lately gotten together for a couple of lunches.
Lunches, because we are all of an age, and having lunch leaves you with time for the real important stuff, such as feeding your animals and watching the news.
Rita, the other half of the rescue dames, has seven dogs in her house. ( she has a very big house ) .
So we have gathered at Inge's for lunches in the sun. The only problem is that Guadalupe, Inge's maid/cook has a very limited cooking vocabulary, consisting mostly of lots of oil and high heat, so even the most delicate pieces of fish fillets come out as contenders for shoe leather. How she does it is a mystery to me.
But I feel tremendously safe eating her food. No wayward bacteria or germ will survive her frying.
Maybe I should be grateful for that.
So we eat and gossip and compliment Lupe on her cooking and feel really good that we are so civilized.
And start planning for the next lunch.

Words

I like words. I collect words. I have a little book where I jot down the words that I like.
Some words I like for the sounds, such as
Circumambulate [ to walk around ]
others I like for their meaning, such as
Callipygous [ to have a beautiful behind ]
and then there are the words that express exactly what you are trying to say, as
Forsooth [ in truth indeed ] or finagle [ to trick or swindle ]
Every day I find another word I like, but even the best of the new words are competing with the tried and true, the essence of being human, words such as Peace, Happiness and Love.
But I still collect new words, because aside from peace and love, maybe happiness is variety.
I like words.

Apple Pie

I love apple pie
In the Old country, we have Aeblekage, which is the Danish version of 'something wonderful made with apples', only this is totally different.
And I make a great Tarte Tatin, if I say so myself. But be that as it may
I love American apple pie.
When I first toured with First Chamber Dance Company, we stopped at some out of the way diner in the middle of nowhere, and the waitress, when I asked for desert, said, as I understood her, that they had 'Apple Pie Alamo'.
I had visions of guns and scads of dying Mexicans and smoke and what-all, till I realized that she was telling me they had ' Apple Pie A La Mode' which I learned meant a great big dollop of ice cream on top of said apple pie.
I was sold.
No amount of whipped cream on the ' Aeblekage' will ever compare to the first taste of diner apple pie and runny ice cream.
I love apple pie.

Dreams

I dream all the time, but I don't always remember the dreams when I wake up.
And with the dogs waking me up many times a night, my dreams are often in multiples, like last night.
My first dream was me entering my father's barber shop ( my father has been dead these many years ), sitting down in one of the chairs and saying to him:
machine on the sides and easy on the top!
He was standing with his back to the window so I could not really tell how he looked, but I did wonder why I giving him the instructions in English.
The other part of the nightly dream was that somebody had given me an enormous bag of colored jelly beans, and it was imperative to me that I got all the colors separated and stashed in glass jars. One color per jar. The better part of the dream was this person sitting separating jelly beans.
Sometimes it is convenient when the dogs wake me up and save me from some incredibly boring dream.
But I dream all the time.

Conundrum

My conundrum is not to write or not to write; my conundrum is of what to write.
Could my daily problems with my ill-disciplined dogs really interest anybody.
And what about the unsavory neighbors, the Mad Queen and his entourage. Takers ?
Or my trips down the slippery memory lane to a time long, long ago, when men were men and women were chattels. Anybody ?
So maybe I should just write what comes to mind like
I like to take the bus
I do enjoy not having to drive to town once in a while, not to have to worry about finding parking, which has turned into a nightmare here in Vallarta, which was never meant to have automobile traffic in its narrow, winding streets.
And more than anything, I enjoy people watching in the bus.
The other day I was watching a young lad, maybe eighteen years old, sitting with a child on his lab. A child of about three. The joy was to watch the absolute devotion the lad had towards the kid who kept falling asleep, and the care he took to protect the wee one from banging his head against the seat. how he constantly tried to make the kid comfortable and when he had to wake him up for the end of the trip, the sheer delight in the little one's grumpiness.
l loved watching this little domestic happening. And they got off, the wee one complaining and the lad smiling and hoisting him up on his shoulders to walk home, and I went to my stop and walked up the hill to a collection of screaming, ill favored mutts.
To each his own.

Numbers/numeros/nummer.

So you may think that Spanish is difficult, but look at this.
Seventy in Spanish is sesenta. Not that different.
In Danish it is
Halfjerdsindstyve.
Let me break this down.......halfjerd/sinds/tyve.
Halfjerd is hal = half.....fjerd = four...= 31/2
sinds..= times
tyve..=twenty
So there you have it...3 1/2 times twenty......voila...70.
Simple no ? Of course not. It is so outdated and quaint and still used. And it was used by people like Tycho Brahe ( real name Tyge Ottesen Brahe ) 1546 -1607, the foremost astronomer of his day.
And by H.C. Oersted 1777-1851, a physicist and chemist who discovered electro magnetism and produced aluminum.
And by Niels Bohr 1885-1962, physicist who won the Nobel prize for atomic structure.
So if this was good enough for them, who am I to complain.
Besides, I still have a few years to go before I turn seventy, so I will worry about spelling it then.

Voice of the Future ?

On the radio that I listen to here in Vallarta, they keep playing a clip with an obviuosly American rock musician, addressing his, I asume, adoring fans.
I don't know man, he yells, I don't know, but I want my fun before this shithouse burns man,
ya dig !
And they scream
And I cringe
This is what it has come to.
After building the pyramids to discovering galaxies and finding that the earth is round and sending men to the moon, this is what we end up with.
A barely literate guitar playing mouth piece for hedonistic pleasures.
With access to thousands and maybe millions of young people.
This is our future ?
If this is it, I want to get off.

The End Of An Era

When I first moved to New York, I had a night job to make a little extra money.
My job was to help the wardrobe department of New York City Opera make funny little felt booties for the chorus of their new production of Faust.
Then I was hired as a dresser and I got to stand in the wing and see and listen to Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, and I was in love. That any human could produce the sound that Beverly could produce, bowled me over.
I remember gushing to Chuck about this incredible singer, this wonder, this lovely, lovely lady.
And I would hang out in the wings and watch her in Julius Caesar, watch her as she danced as Fata Morgana in Coque D'or, and of course in Faust.
Chuck caught the bug as well, and it was Chuck who took the time to write to her and thank her, it was Chuck who talked to her after I pointed her out in a super market in Vallarta, and it was Chuck who said, one afternoon as we were leaving our secret beach to head home for the states the next day, that for his funeral, he wanted this particular song by Beverly that we were playing in the car.
Now Beverly Sills is dead too, and Chuck never had a funeral, so I never got to play the song, but surely, wherever these kindred spirits are, Beverly will be singing to Chuck
Marietta's Lied from Die Tote Stadt by Korngold, and a wish will be fulfilled.
He certainly deserved it.

The day I saw Karen Blixen

I had ridden my bike to the movie theatre in the center of Copenhagen to look at the display pictures of the American movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
I must have been in my early teens and taken by the charms of Miss Monroe and in those days we still had movie palaces, in fact I think this particular cinema was named " The Palace ".
So there I was checking out the photos when I turned and saw, crossing the street, the aristocratic and wonderful writer, Karen Blixen.
Already in those days I was a voracious reader and had read many of her books and loved them, absolutely loved them, a feeling that has not dimmed in all these years.
There she was.
And to this day I can remember it as if I had taken a photo; she was rail thin and holding on to the arm of her secretary Clara Svendsen. She had on a black suit and a black hat with a large brim and, for a wonderful effect, a red fox collar around her neck. She looked at me and her pupils were so large that her enormous eyes appeared black.
I was awe struck, I was about to die. She looked at me, and to this day I swear
she looked at me and smiled.
That was the day I saw Karen Blixen and I will never forget.

In praise of the cheap chocolate bar

When I was a kid I promised myself that when I grew up and had my own money, whenever I felt like chocolate, I would buy some. Always.
And I have pretty much kept that promise and it was not until I started touring with First Chamber, I ran into minor problems.
We were part of a program called Community Concerts which gave smaller places a chance to see real live performances without having to travel hundreds of miles to a big city.
We,The Company, did the traveling.
And since these smaller places did not exactly have chocolate shops, I learned to get my fixes from dime stores and super markets, and found U-NO bars.
And I never looked back. They have been my favorite cheap chocolate bars since then, and I rue the day they may not make them anymore.
However, living in Mexico has curtailed my U-NO habit considerably except, once a year my Washington family brings me a supply.
And this is what made me write this.
Last night I ate my last bar, and now I have to wait to Christmas for a new supply.
But it is always worth the wait.

Not Your Disney Type Of Bird

Some days back I watched in amazement how a group of birds who build intricate hanging nests, by getting together gathered enough force to make an errant squirrel retreat when it got too close to one of the nests.
This was a neighborhood doing. This was all the birds who had spent so much time building these incredible nests congregating and as one, chasing the enemy away. I was so impressed.
And now today I heard a lot of noise from the back forties, a noise I have heard before when the birds are threatened. These were the blue and black Jays who were making quite a ruckus and as I watched them diving and flapping at something in the tree, I saw the reason.
There was a big and not very friendly snake, all twirled around the branches of a tree and very pissed off by the unwanted attention of the jays. Finally it slithered down the tree stump and tried to hide in the undergrowth, but one of the Jays would not give up and kept chattering and dive bombing and , when given a chance, picking at the snake who by now, I imagine, wanted nothing more than just to get away.
Which was fine by me. This is not a fella one would want to find on the terrace; he easily measured 2 meters ( 6 feet) and thick as an arm, so I encouraged the bird to chase the bugger so he would leave the neighborhood all together. I mean, Puertoricenos and snakes and yappy white mini dogs, one might as well sell out and move on.
Disney's birds might be good at tying bows and sing in harmony but my birds, my birds can chase squirrels and snakes. Maybe they don't sound so good, but boy can they deliver.
I feel a lot safer with my birds around me.

Of Bread And Wine

When Steve, my former neighbor, he of the big gut and foul mouth, announced that he would stop by my house to check on his Harley Davidson motorbike that I have stored in my garage, I thought
well
I shall bake a Rosemary Focaccia bread ( an Italian flat bread ) which will go nicely with my planned dinner of Chili con Carne de Pavo and it will impress Steve, a food lover, besides going well with a glass of wine.
So there it was, the bread, when Steve arrived late and bleary eyed from lack of sleep and other visits before this one, still warm and fragrant with rosemary and garlic and chunks of rock salt and I carried it to the table with cold butter and his bottle of Chilean red wine , which will never be my favorite.
This, I said, is an Italian bread I just baked. Taste it.
Which he did and said that it, eh, was, eh, very nice and, eh.......and then launched into a tirade about all the wrongs done to him, all the money owed him and all the problems with his wife.
He never took another bite.
There was my lovely, fragrant flat bread, barely touched.
There really, really is a vast difference between a gourmand and a gourmet.

And indeed it went well with my chili.

Josefina and the Puertoriceno

I heard voices from the house down the road, talking voices, so I Figured that Josefina had company and good, I thought, for the old bag and thought no more about it. That is till later at night when the mutts were barking at something in the street and I went to check, and there was Josefina saying
pssstt Senor
reminding me of the old times in Tijuana when shady characters would sidle up to you in the street saying
pssstt senor, you wanna buy feelthy pictures ?
I am hiding, Josefina said, from Yimmili. He wants to go to the pueblo for dinner, and I don't.
I am decent woman, she said, pounding her full but saggy bosom, I cannot go out with a single man except for maybe my husband, my brother, my son, my uncle, my nephew....but not with Yimmili because he is, and she paused dramatically
He is Puertoriceno
Besides, she said, look at me. I am not dressed to go out, and pulled at her t-shirt and shorts.
Now, I have only ever seen her dressed this way so I don't know if she even owns anything else.
I told her to come into the house and wait and then we would go, together, to confront Yimmili.
But first, to soothe her nerves, I poured her a small glass of rum.
No, she said, I cannot drink anything, I am too upset, and it is too much.....what is it? rum ? well, maybe for the nerves.
And with that she swallowed the drink. One gulp.
Now, I said, now we go and talk to Yimmi, and grabbed her arm and we started walking down the hill towards her house.
Halfway there we saw Yimmi by the house and Josefina wailed that she could not face him, that she was scared and that I would have to go and talk to him, which I did.
Jimmy, it turned out, needed 200 pesos to go to the pueblo ( turned out that it was Puerto Vallarta, not Mismaloya) to meet a new friend and he did not have the money but he would pay Josefina back as soon as , well.... soon, and he was drunk and besides he acted like a terrier who had discovered the scent of a rat, in and out of the house, yelling for Fina, climbing the walls.
There was no arguing with him, just as one can't argue with a terrier on a trail, so I went back to fetch Josefina who in the meantime was trying to hide by lying on the side of the street, but really looking more like a stranded mini whale in shorts and t-shirt. I almost broke my back getting her upright, and then we proceeded towards her house when Yimmi came out of nowhere and Josefina made a sprint for the safety of her gate, making it a stand off between her on on side and Yimmili on the other and this old fool, swearing that this was the last time he would get involved with the neigbors, heading back to the relative tranquility of the home, where suddenly five barking dogs seemed easy to cope with.
So that's the story of Josefina and the Puertoriceno.

AARGHH

So there I was. I had just finished a long and, I thought, good blog about the dangers of Senior Moments. Now all I needed to do was to spell-check as my typing is atrocious and my spelling not much better.
And I clicked what I thought was the right button and....nothing.
This, I knew, was not right. Surely my blog was full of my usual typos and bad spellings, so I clicked again and again and even tried another button and
poof
it all farted and flew out the window.
No matter what I did, no matter how many times I said that I was sorry and didn't mean to yell at it, the computer refused to give me back the blog, which for all I know is now floating around somewhere in cyberspace.
I was defeated, and the only way I could see my way out of this mess, was to cut my losses, which I did.
I turned off the darned computer. This was my moment of power, my Senior Moment when the finger on the "off" button will outdo even the smartest computer.
So there, I had my Senior Moment.

Monkey Business

So much dreary and depressing stuff in the news that when I came upon the story of the monkeys in Puerto Rico, my day lit up.
The story goes like this:
A bunch of monkeys escaped from a scientific research center in Puerto Rico ( I had no idea that they even had a research center there ) and started doing what monkeys and Puerto Ricans do so well,
they multiplied.
From the alleged ten escapees, they now fear they have an army of a thousand, raiding fields of produce causing the farmers no end of grief.
To alleviate this serious problem, the authorities put out eight cages, stuffed with mangoes, to lure the pesky monkeys and trap them. The monkeys got the mangoes but the authorities got no monkeys. AH But, said the authorities, this is just the beginning. We will now set out twelve cages, full of mangoes.
You guess what happened.
Smart little buggers, them monkeys.
Did it make your day too ?

Pack Rat

Pack Rat n.
1: wood rat esp. a large bushy-tailed rodent ( neotoma cinerea ) of the Rocky Mountain area that has well developed cheeks (!) pouches and hoards food and misc. objects
2: One who collects or hoards esp. unneeded items.

That's me, number two. That's me. A pack rat. I knew it when I was looking for a piece of fabric today to make some new runners for the dining room table and found a beautiful blue and white print.
This print, as I remember clearly, I bought when I was visiting Japan with First Chamber Dance Co.
It is a length of kimono fabric.( they sell them all rolled up and a certain width, all you have to do is cut and stitch ) And I bough it in 1970. So for 37 years I have been schlepping this and many, many other pieces of fabrics around from Seattle to San Diego to Puerto Vallarta.
If that is not a Pack Rat, nothing is.
The wonderful thing is that I still recognize the different pieces and it gives me no end of pleasure to look at all the fabrics and remember where I got them. Sort of like hunters and fishermen displaying their trophies and remembering the day and the fight. Only the closest I ever got to a fight was when a fellow designer wanted the same bolt of fabric that I had my grubby little hands on, and rather than a " High Noon " , we decided, being decent human beings, to split the bolt. And giggle.
Now, there is a lesson.
If you giggle you are much less likely to shoot, kill or maim some other person.
So there.
Giggle.

An old drawing

A long time ago, when FCDC was still in New York
we had a party at the loft at Union Square which was part studio and part living quarters for Chuck and me.
This is the drawing we used for the invites.
It was inspired by a girl I saw in one of the first Summer Dance Labs we did at Fort Worden.
She was over weight and had spectacles that fogged over, but her delight in being partnered was without bounds.
So many years ago.

On Dipping The Fork In The Jam Pot

We always ate the same breakfast, Chuck and I, an English muffin, poached egg and cream cheese and jam.
And Chuck was always after me for dipping the fork in the jam pot, excoriating the idea since it, according to him, was ill mannered and introduced bacteria from the fork into the jam.
Now that I eat my breakfast alone, I always dip my fork in the jam pot because there is no one to yell at me, and more important, it makes me think of Chuck every time I do.
So what is the danger of a few stray bacteria compared to that.
And as long as I still breakfast on English muffins and cream cheese and jam, I will dip my fork and relish the memory of Chuck.
And miss him.

Gateway to Paradise ?

He not him

On the television, promoting some car insurance, the announcer says with great feeling :
You don't drive like him so you should not pay the same insurance as him.

D'ohhh

I can, at a pinch, take the first part, but when the poor ( and very local ) announcer says "the same as him" I want to scream. It makes the completed sentence say: "the same as him does" and even the very local and, I am sure nice guy, wouldn't ever say that.
Or would him?

Good Old Protestant Guilt

So I have been feeling guilty about not posting. Why, I wondered, did I bother to create a blog if not for blogging ? And then I think, but what should I blog about ? What in my life at this point is worthy of finding it's way into a blog.
And I think, well now, I just found something, didn't I.
Anyway, it broke the dry spell and I shall be back soon to blog some more.

A Good Sign ?

I was reading the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidene, when a photo caught my eye.
It was taken during the riots in Copenhagen over the demise of a squatter house where scads of young people used to hang out, and whose owners finally decided to clean it out and tear it down.
Funny enough, when the police booked some 300 persons they had arrested, it turned out that two thirds were foreigners, called in to swell the ranks of the protesters.
Anyway......the sign that caught my eye said:

POLITISSEMÆND
GÅ SÅ HJEM

And I thought, well now, they can be tough and throw cobblestones at the police, but in essence they are still kids.....let me explain to those who do not speak Danish

The first word is a combination of POLITI ( POLICE ) and TISSEMAND ( PENIS ) but the thing is, this is the kind of word it is perfectly all right to use in polite society, in fact mothers oftentimes refer to the penis of their male off springs that way. It is a nice word. Unlike others one could think of.
The second line is the obligatory GO HOME
So my point is, screaming and throwing rocks are for grown-ups and according to the sign these rioters made, they are still kids who prefer the nice word for penis to the million of nastier and much more vulgar ones they could have chosen.
A good sign ?
Anyway, it had me smiling.

Doing my bit

Like the ladies of yore who gathered to roll bandages for the troops in war, I too am doing my bit to fight the war, only this war is the war against dengue fever, a nasty mosquito born disease that seems to be prevalent here in sunny PV.
My bit?
I drained my pool.
Now mind you, the pool had turned a nasty shade of green and I jokingly suggested that this was my experiment to see if life really did start by some amoeba crawling out of the sludge, the sludge being my pool.
No matter.
The folks from the health department had also muttered something about fines and...well.. it was time to do it anyway, only I'd like to make it sound as if this was my big donation to the fight against dengue.
So there it is, the pool, all empty and sad looking with mysterious green stuff on the tiles.
But I have done my part and I feel righteous. Not that I used the pool that much anyway, but that is not the point. The point is that I did my bit.
I do wonder if rolling bandages would have been more useful.
Ah well.

Yet another broom

The other day as I was shopping for food at the supermarket, I saw a sale of brooms. A whole bin full. Nice blue and red brooms. And cheap too. A mere twelve pesos for a nice red or blue broom. I knew I had to have one.
My argument for the additional broom to myself was what if all the brooms in the house broke and I had to run back to the store to purchase a new broom, I might discover that they were all gone, because they were nice red or blue brooms and ever so cheap.
So I bought the broom, and it is now hanging with all the other brooms. But just in case.......one never knows, do one.

This morning another bird did a kamikaze flight into one of my windows. This bird was an exquisite woodpecker with a black and white mottled body and yellow/orange head with black beak and yellow eyes. It ended up, stunned, on the terrace and I did not touch it as I could see that it was still breathing and lo and behold, after some thirty minutes the bird took off and flew to the nearest tree. They are truly beautiful creatures. But Will it learn a lesson ? Doubtful. Asta, the Scottie, never figured out that trying to bite the nasty, ugly and poisonous toads we have in the rainy season, would result in some very unpleasant times with muscle spasms and rigidity of the neck and mouth. She still did not like them and never seemed to connect the discomfort with the chasing of the toads.
We humans are really not all that different, are we.

view through front door

Love thy Neighbor

This had to happen, I know, but still it gave me a jolt.
The mutts had been even more restless than usual and got me up earlier than usual and I was in the kitchen getting ready for the first pot of coffee of the day when I first heard the mutts bark and then a lot of angry sounding human noises followed by the sound of BB gun shots.
next things were the mutts running home, well, at least some of them, and then more shot and shouts and the last mutts running for dear life with a big, black, macho truck in hot pursuit
The truck stopped in front of my house and out of the truck stepped a man who started to yell at me and the dogs and were using more F. words than a two bit hooker. And loudly. Complaining about being awakened so early Sunday morn and, news to me, about garbage being spread on the street and, even more news to me, about the other neighbors ( who incidentally do not live in their house but ocasionally ) complaining about the barking too.
Oh so loudly and obscenely this neighbor yelled, and I had not a chance to compete with that so this person kept quiet and listened, which made the irate neighbor throw his hands in the air and scream

He fucking well doesn't speak English. What is he ? French or Dutch or something ?

And this gave me my first chance to say something. And I said that I spoke and understood English quite well, thanks all the same.
Eventually he wound down and reached a normal level of voice and even allowed me to get a word in edgewise. And I apologized for the barking, and I told him I was sorry that the mutts had such bad habits, but what can one do ?
In the end he promised to lend me a book on doggie training, because he has, he told me, five small dogs in the house who are never allowed to leave the house and who are the best behaved dogs in the world, ( more likely scared to death of him )
It was, at any rate, quite a beginning of the day.
May there not be to many like this.

Skunk Alert

Sunday morning early and I did my usual stumbling from the bed to the front door to let the mutts out to do their business and then off to the kitchen to make the first coffee of the day......
and there I was, waiting for the water to boil, when I heard an awful lot of screaming and yapping in the wood and pretty soon purple clouds of skunk stench came sailing into my house.
Skunks are nocturnal so chances are the mutts got to this one just as she or he was getting ready to go to sleep and really, really pissed her/him off. I have smelled a lot of skunks, but this one was so strong my eyes started to water and my nose to run. And yes, when the culprits returned, they did not exactly smell of roses and lavender........yucky pooh but they stank. And still do, for I have decided that if they are stupid enough to tackle a skunk then they may as well suffer the consequences, but as usual
it is I who get the short end of the stick, because I have to live with them *eau de skunk* or not.
Maybe i will give them a bath.......maybe

Doggie Dessert

So there we were. Dinner over, the dogs happy ( I thought ) after their first REAL meal since the chicken and rice diet they have been on since getting unwell. And I had cut myself a piece of Queen's Cake ( no snide comments, please ) and turned around to the stove to get ready to make the obligatory after dinner pot of coffee.
When I happened to look back at the table there was NO cake on the plate, absolutely none.
One of the mangy mutts had managed to stretch and get a hold of the cake and devour it in a few bites.
All I could find were crumbs.
And guilty looking canines.
And all this after so much money spent on getting them better ( chocolate is very bad for dogs, as all dog lovers know )
Now all we can do is wait and hope that the chocolate, as opposed to distemper and poison, will not harm these incorrigible mutts.
Will they ever learn, or more to the point
will I ever learn.

Hi, I am vet.....

Arrogance of youth

Cousin Albin was told that I now, after hours and hours of gut wrenching, nerve wracking work, has a blog and asked for the address, which this person gave willingly and rapidly only to get a mail back in what seemed minutes, saying that he would like one too and, presto, after another minute or two, I got the address for HIS new blog.
This is not fair. Old and simpleminded folks have rights too, you know. And one of them is to not feel too silly when dealing with whippersnappers who know so much about computers. And play music too.
But can they bake a flawless Tarte Tatin ?
Ha, got you.

Better days

The vet has determined that things are going well. So now we can finish the treatments and hope that the mutts have learned a lesson and will stay away from bad food, cat poo, stinky wild animals, anything that moves in the jungle and get back to what they do best, barking at the occasional passer-by.
I am trying to take a photo of the vet for the world to see. Cross fingers.
We will be off on a walk now.

The Mangy Mutts

Sick as a dog

With a house full of dogs, and most of them mutts, there will always be a chance of illness. Add to that living in the woods and add to that, mutts with absolutely no discipline, and you know something will happen. And it did.
As I am writing this, we ( the vet and I ) are trying to cure two mutts of distemper and another two of some nasty poisoning.
That leaves me and the mother of three of the mini mutts with nervous break downs.
But we toil on, we shoot up the mangies and we clean up when they throw up and defecate from the drugs, because we know, with surety, that the drugs will cure everything. And when they are cured, maybe then we can find good and loving homes for them all.
And me too.