The End Of An Era

It seems that the new year is going to bring drastic changes to my neighborhood.
For days, around the houses and at the entrance to the big hotel, I have seen homemade banners and signs decrying the government and asking for help.
The citizens of my shantytown are sent packing.
For many, many years now, the good folks down the hill have built a most eclectic village, unfortunately on somebody else's land and now they are being evicted.
The lady at my tienda said that she has lived nearly thirty years here.
From what I hear, they are being removed to make space for new condos and hotels.
On one hand I feel sorry for them, even though they knew they were living on borrowed time.
On the other I wonder what that will do to me and my-oh so quiet- neighborhood. Will all this construction scare away the animals I see on occasion and will it, maybe, make it easier to sell the house.
We shall see in the new year.

Rapaciuos Rodents

The mornings are getting cold here, well, cold for an elderly gent such as I, with thinning hair and even thinner blood.
So I decided to get out my sweats and
behold.
The rapacious rodents had chewed a big hole in my Dracula sweat shirt, a treasured item from the time we did Dracula for the first time in San Diego, and some enterprising person had these sweats made up and sold them.
So the question is, do I wear it with the hole, or can I find a smart way to repair this sizable hole.
Throwing it out is not an option.
The other-not so favorite sweat shirt- is of course unscathed.
One can fault the rodents for many things, but to my regret, they do have excellent taste.

The 24th

It is the 24th, and I had hoped to spend the day in Halbyhoffburg a.k.a. Ajijic but, due to the vagaries of fortune, what with the death of Antonio my friend and house-and-doggie sitter and snowstorms in the NW, I am celebrating this day, surrounded by some of the Worthless Ones, roasting a chicken in the oven and drinking too much cheap red wine.
By myself.
I have no decorations, no mistletoe nor ordinary pine branches decorated with baubles and lights. Nothing.
I, at this time of my life, do not much like Christmas.
I always liked to be with my family, to hear what was happening to all of the wonderful and wacky girls and boy, and James and Kathy delighted in telling me.
This time they are not here.
I shall eat my chicken,drink my wine, yell at the Worthless Ones and eventually go to bed and wake up to yet another day.
Merry Christmas to all
Love and kind thoughts
Me.

In loving Memory

In Mismaloya, at the dining table where we spent so many ours talking. Erik took this picture.

Farewell

I was expecting a call from Antonio this Saturday so we could spend the day, his day off from work, together.
I got a call, but not a nice one.
Antonio had died form a heart attack, alone in his apartment on Thursday.
Farewell my good friend, and I shall miss you and all the wonderful times we had together, more than I can say.
Farewell.

The Last Goodbye

An article on the BBC made me think of my father who died from cancer of the lungs.
The doctors at the hospital decided that, towards the end, he would be more comfortable at home.
Later my mother told me that when he died she, and one of my sisters, got him ready for his final journey.
What to some may sound like a quaint, even barbaric rite, now sounds to me like the final show of love to one you have shared a lifetime with.
Chuck died in a hospital, and I saw him being wheeled out on a gurney.
But I still had the time with him as he drew his last breath.
Is there ever a right way to say goodbye, I wonder.
My mother did it her way, and I did it the best way I could.
I guess we all do the best we can.