The Phone Call

Hillary's phone call may come at three in the morning, mine came a little after seven.
Louise called from Denmark to tell me that Benjamin, her brother and my nephew, was in a hospital in Afghanistan, having been hit by a bomb.
She was not clear how it happened, only that they were removing shrapnels from face and body and that he was alive. Still. And that he would be back in Denmark in a couple of days, transferred to some hospital for further and, one imagines, extensive care.
And that brought back to mind a thing I saw on the news a couple of days back, where the Barbie doll announcer chirpily told us that the building we just saw imploding on the screen, a vast building, used to be a hospital and that now, and here she could barely contain her enthusiasm, on this now vacant site, a stadium was to be built.
I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach, thinking that a stadium trumps a hospital; the saving of lives and treating of diseases is less important than the business of sports.
And now with my nephew going into a hospital, another victim of this groundless war, I cannot help but wonder how a stadium could ever, ever replace a hospital.
Ever.

Dreams

I don't know how other people dream, but my dreams tend to be in segments, more like a collection of short stories rather than a full length novel.
So remembering the dream may at times mean remembering only one little part of a larger picture.
Last night I had a dream wherein Chuck and I were living, temporarily it felt, in a trailer.
Outside there was snow, quite a bit of it.
I asked Chuck if I should take the dogs ( the Schnauzers ) out for a walk and if so, where were their leashes.
Never mind the leashes, said he, there's no traffic and no lights because of the snow.
Come here, he said, and started to apply some cream on a dry spot of skin I had over the nose.
He stroked my hair and said
You are a very handsome guy.
And then I woke up.

The Next Morning

I found this on my table after a night of a close and loving and ultimately sleep inducing relationship with a bottle of cheap red wine.

I drink when I am happy
and when I'm unhappy too.
Does that mean if I stop drinking
I'll be happily unhappy
or just unhappy
like the rest of you?

Not My Day

This has not been my day. Not my day at all.
And it is not over yet.
It started with the mutts starting their daily lick-a-thon to wake me up, only this time it was a little after six and still fairly dark.
All Right, I thought, we will get up and let the worthless wonders out. We did.
And they split and ran down the hill to bark at the yappy mini mutts of the Mad Queen.
Even I would be pissed off at that, so I hurried the other way to, maybe, entice the divergent flock of canines to follow me. Fat chance.
Safely back in the house, all cleaned, bathed and with the coffee consumed, I started my breakfast and discovered that I was out of E. muffins but still had a crust of " My Daily Bread " left, which would have to suffice.
After breakfast the computer announced that my security system was into a life-and-death struggle with some nasty and foreign Trojan Horse outfit, and on a window on my PC the system was buzzing through whatever junk I have stashed on my PC.
I was watching, absolutely fascinated, the numbers flying by as my valiant defender was sorting through all this crap. It was as exciting as watching paint dry.
I am not sure who won, but when I came back from trying to save a few plants in the garden from dying due to lack of water by hauling buckets of water from the abandoned pool, it seemed to be back to normal. At least to me it looked normal.
So All Right, OK, I thought, better get on with making some muffins, and I started to mix the ingredients, the yeast and water and vinegar and flour and...........I did not have enough flour.
I was staring at a soggy mess and no way to salvage it, as my place here in the woods does not have easy access to places where they sell flour. Sure we have tiny tiendas down the hill, but one thing they do not stock, is flour.
So I made do, and made disastrous muffins. YEUWWW.
Then when it was time to feed the mutts I discovered that I did not have enough dog food left and only by using all the rice and beans I had cooked for me for my dinner, did I manage to feed them all.
And now I am here. The dogs have been fed and I am trying to think of something for me, like an omelet, but the most distressing thought is....
it is not over yet, There are still hours left for scads of things to wrong. And surely will.
This has not been my day.
No Way.

On Paying Of Bills

I do love living in Mexico
BUT
Paying bills here is not one of the things I love
At the best of times it is not much fun, and to-day was a good example of the dark side of the problem.
I rent a post box for, mostly, my telephone bill as we, when we moved here to Lomas del Pacifico there was no postal service and keeping the telephone line functioning was important.
In those days, once in a while somebody from the village would make a trip to Vallarta, pick up the mail for Mismaloya and stack it in a card board box in a tienda where one then could rummage through to find whatever mail might be for you.
So having the P. O. box worked for a while, but now we have the occasional delivery to the streets and at the same time the sorting at the post office has gotten progressively more lax.
Which brings me back to the telephone bill.
If one does not receive a bill, one is left with very few choices of paying, in fact just one that I know of. Going to the only office in town, located in a mall, where one can pay without the bill.
And that means waiting in line as I had to do today and by count there were about forty people in front of me and twenty behind me.
And only two cashiers working.
I love people watching but even that gets a little old after an hour standing in line.
I am sure there are other methods of paying , and when I get my bill on time I pay at the supermarket, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
Ah well; really a small price to pay to live in paradise.

Easter thoughts

So there I was, thinking bad thoughts about all the people who come here to Puerto Vallarta to spend Easter.
Thinking bad thoughts about the inconvenience of not having water filling my tanks.
Then I stepped out of the house this afternoon to take the worthless mutts for their afternoon run-and-bark-and pee trip and the sun was shining, it was warm but not hot, and I felt like an idiot letting these minor matters get to me.
How lucky I am, I thought, to live in this place.
And when I later found this picture of two days before Easter in a Danish newspaper, I really felt stupid.
There they are in the Old Country, fighting snow and slush, in the Midwest they are fighting floods and here, here we are fighting inertia from sitting in the sun and maybe drinking too many Margueritas.
Or Cheap Red Wine.
Nevertheless, I appreciate living here .
Happy Easter to all and sundry.

A Long Winded Argument

Funny thing, this.
I labor writing my notes to friends and acquaintances;
Aside from being a deplorable typist, I have such great respect for words that I try to find the right ones to convey my feelings ( and thereby becoming in some cases verbose or long winded or just plain boring ) , but I write more than a few words.
And oftentimes , if i get a reply at all, it comes telegraphic style, or more up-to-date, as a text message only not abbreviated ( thank goodness )
Am I that out of touch ?
Or is it that I have disturbed a very busy person and the politest way to shut me up is to reply with as few words as possible, but reply.
Which leaves me wondering if it is worth it.
Yes, goldang it, it is worth it. I will go to my early grave defending good writing, long winded mails and the right to bitch about getting short replies.
See . I could probably have said that in very few words like :
I write good mails. I get short mails back. I am pissed.
End of post.

Another Loss.

I dropped my favorite wine glass.
It slipped out of my hands as I was cleaning it.
And there it was, on the floor, another old friend gone.
There will be other glasses, in fact it was part of a big family of glasses, but this one was my bestest glass.
We are, of course, none of us irreplaceable, but it made me remember another old friend as I was gathering the chards and secretly being thankful it was I who broke it.
I thought back on my old Volvo, my steady companion for more than sixteen years.
I smiled at how it had valiantly fought its way back to Seattle from San Diego on three cylinders because some idiot at a tune-up place there had forgotten to connect all the plugs, which was discovered when I put it up for sale, and some savvy kid lifted the hood and asked why not all of the plugs were connected.
So.... good bye old friends.
I shall fill a new glass with some Cheap Red Wine and salute you.........and the Volvo.

Genteel Squalor

What Wheels ?

See wheels ? Asked Antonio as we were walking the Malecon heading towards my bus to Mismaloya.
I don't see any, I said.
Look at bird, he said, follow and see wheels.
All I saw was a boat but, I thought, maybe they now have ecologically correct boats using some kind of paddle wheel.
But it was moving really, really fast and making quite a bit of noise for using wheels so....
Look, said Antonio again, they are yumping
and then it dawned on me.
He was talking about WHALES.
Well, whether wheels or whales, I still didn't see them.
Except for the kinds that walks on two legs, wear bright colored shirts and shorts and funny hats and who I would really rather not see.

Kong Knud den hellige

King Canute the Holy, King of Denmark from 1080 to 1086 and displayed in the church where he was murdered from about 1100 till now.
Now the Danes have decided to check and see if the bones in the coffin are indeed the bones of Canute and if he indeed was killed by multiple stab wounds as legend has it ( he was also sanctified )
Say what you will about the Danes but we will get to the truth. It may take some time, in this case about 922 years, but we will get there.
And since it is still the same royal family but for one little twist, finding the proof should not be too difficult.
All it takes is time.
Another 922 years.

What Is It About Crawford

Crawford Texas
The "Bush Ranch".
The minimum requirement for a visit, it seems to me, is a paid-up membership of the "Coalition Of The Willing".
Maybe the more soldiers of your country get killed, the closer you are to an invite.
And if you get an invite, the photo-op calls for casual dress, which in some cases, if the guest does not own jeans, means no tie;
but an absolute must is a goofy grin.
Now this comes naturally to Mr. Bush, but others have a harder time.
But why not a goofy grin ?
This is a little boy's dream come true. To play at being a cowboy without the bother of horses and cattle and smelly manure, nature without the fear of intruders. Being out with the boys, clearing the brush, riding the bike, barbecue and maybe a little business at the end of a busy day.
So why indeed not a goofy grin?
What the Mrs. Foreign-head-of-state is doing nobody seems to know, or care about.
For all we know she spends her days swapping recipes with Mrs. Bush, or talking about raising kids or the problems with the domestics.
Whatever,
but you do not see a goofy grin on the well coiffed head of the spouse of the visiting coalition member.
What is it about Crawford?
Deodorized machismo?

The Blame Game

I was in the kitchen making a batch of English Muffins, being a bit messy and thought
It sure was easier when one had someone else to blame
and even getting away with it at times.
but there is no-one but me and the mutts, and even I could not get away with blaming the Worthless Ones for spilling flour on the floor.
Not even I, so I faced up to the fact and cleaned the mess.
But.....
maybe I could pretend they bumped into me and made me spill the flour.....
no?
It was worth a try.