THAT SUNSET

Robert, my ever creative and quirky and imginative genius of a delightful partner, was sitting next to me, our toes in the sand, as we watched the sun set over the ocean.  We do this most every night... and every night is a masterpiece.

This night, we were watching a big and  perfectly round circle of orange set like a jewel among colorful wispy clouds as it sank slowly into the sea.

Near the horizon, that edge of the vast sea,  the low cloudbank partially obscured the sun, creating the illusion of a perfectly round bite out of the sun along its north side.

Robert, ever the dreamer, the imaginer of the unlikely, said, "Hey!  There's an eclipse of the sun!"

I was lazily disputing this leap of imagination, pointing out the obvious to him, namely that cloudbank, while agreeing that what he imagined was a neat idea -- when our newly arrived good-buddy walked over to join us, after a great evening sesh in the waves.  He had JUST flown in from the States in the afternoon.

"Hey!   You CAN see the eclipse from here!  That's cool.  So I'm not missing it after all!  They say that in Albuquerque you can see the full eclipse -- but this is good!   This is good...."

THREE-RING CIRCUS -- in the nude

THREE-RING CIRCUS -- in the nude

Well, that would be me.

 I haven't heard ANY whispers at all about it, and it all happened during the afternoon siesta time when everyone is pretty much asleep in a hammock, so maybe I got through it without stirring up the gossip mill.

I had just come back from the beach after a wild sesh on my boogie-board (those were some wild, strong-current waves -- rollercoaster rides).   I headed out to our new fancy shower.  It is truly a classy, clover-leaf shaped masterpiece, painted with smooth non-slip blue swimming pool paint -- designed and constructed by Robert.  It also has a "rain"-style showerhead which Robert also made from scratch.. NOTE:  Inside, it is like a 3-leaf clover/each side is bowed out;  you can see one such  side in  this photo.  It is so elegant.

I closed the cloth curtain, hung up my sarong, and turned the little thingie that opens up the flow of water.  I was just luxuriating in the gentle, wide flow of water as it fell from directly overhead, when...   just moments later...   the whole damned pvc pipe blew off and clattered to the floor.

Now -- all that water was gushing, uncontrolled, straight out horizontally -- like a firehose -- and ricocheting wildly off the opposite curved wall.  Quickly it flooded the shower stall floor.  Its very force pulled down the shower curtain, and my towel,  and my sarong, setting them all adrift in a moving lake of water... which was now flowing out of the shower stall, across the ramada floor and cascading down into the yard.

Overhead, is a humongous water tank -- it holds 660 gallons!  It was now empyting out -- and I was alone.  Robert was off in some dry jungly area cutting more wood for his furniture projects and not due to return any time soon  -- certainly not soon enough to help, that's for sure.

¿What to do?

Three-ring circus time.

First; standing directly below the torrent overhead, I tried reinserting the pvc pipe, but the resultant splaying diffusion of such forceful water made me feel like I was drowning....

Next, I grabbed a limp, wadded up, soaking wet sarong and tried to cover some part of me (HA!  YOU try it and you'll know how successful I was), and ran outside, hoping to find a stop-cock around the back of the shower...  ...crazy gringa, running around naked like a chicken with her head cut off.

No stop-cock (and I am ignoring any bad puns/double entendres here.)

This is where I was running around naked--Robert is now inspecting the connections afterwards -- (and by the way, this ramada is still under construction:  retainer walls will be cemented smooth; poles will be finished/painted, arches put in place, simple kitchen/sink/fridge added, hammocks hung...)

Well, thought I,  (while grabbing at the sopping towel to try, yet again unsuccessfully,  to cover my nakedness -- and you had to be there to see the silliness of these dancing attempts at modesty with dripping wet cloth that clung to itself better than to me)... maybe there's another solution.

Yes! thought I,  maybe there is a stop-cock on the water tank itself -- up there on the roof -- better go look.  So, off I went, out from under the roof and  into the open yard so that I could look up there.  Fortunately for me, if you think about it, I couldn't see one.  How did I think I was going to get UP on the roof?

Throughout, I was still struggling to cover even some part of me (what is the most modest part? what matters to the folks of this village?), and failing hilariously.   At the same time, I was wading through a torrent of water issuing out of the shower stall.

Okay, then... moving on.  My goal now, was to get back inside that hurricane... to try once again to cut it off at its source.

This time, I was approaching the overhead, horizontal torrent of water, from a different angle, where there was less splashback blinding me.  This time, I was successful.  This time, I was able to force the smaller pipe back into the larger pipe.  The torrent stopped.

Not even a drip from the showerhead, which was in shut-off mode and now back in place.

When Robert returned, I was reclining in a hammock, utterly relaxed.  I told him of my circus antics, and  he was NOT surprised.  He told me that in fact,  he was waiting for the tank to be emptied so he could properly seal the pvc pipe in place.  Work in progress.  No harm done.
(You can see here what blew off--from the red turn-handle forward --the entire showerhead--and the water was gushing forcefully out...)

DEAD HORSE CROSSING

(Surf has been quite good, btw, but I digress...)

Boppin´ through the coco grove after a playful swirl on wild boogie waves, and dismounting  to wade the low-flow river (bike under one arm sorta), I wondered at the small talkative gathering, just across the river.  Ohhhh.....  I could understand the conversation....  So, Nacho´s horse is dead.....  I looked around, and yup, there was Nacho a short distance away, standing beside a swollen horse with legs sticking straight out sideways.  In a little while, he just shrugged and went home.  He wasn´t going to do anything about it.

My personal thoughts ran more along the lines of -- are they all gonna just LEAVE it there, and let it rot?  Oh, lordylordy.  That´s gonna be some foul stench for the rest of our visit -- right there at one of the most beautiful places of respite.  I love to come to the river and watch the graceful waterbirds, to listen to their various calls, and to amuse myself with the loud chorus of frogs, and gawk at their size...I love the multiple shades of green, the white feather'flashes from startled birds with resultant splashes all along the rivercourse...and the tranquil sunset colors as I make my way to the sea for sunset...  Damn.

Silly me. 

The next day, here is what I saw:  a large gathering of somber funeral guests, all in black, pressed together in silence,  huddled in the stones along the bank of the shallow river.  They stood a respectful distance from the bloating corpse. Vultures, of course. They were all facing towards where lay the corpse, up on the bank and hidden from my eyes by trees. They did not approach the corpse.  The most they did was flutter straight up in the air a moment and instantly resettle upon a fierce command.

And who commanded them? The dogs, of course!  Such ferocious growls, quite menacing.  I moved to where I could see better.  I saw just their backs, all  hunched over every part of that horse.

The next day, the dogs were gone and the somber funeral guests had moved in.  Now, all I could see was THEIR backs, with an occasional vulture hopping straight up in the air and landing again.

There was no stench.  The dogs had eaten the innards and muscle, and now the buzzards were removing any remaining particles.  No doubt the insects were right in there among them and it would be they who finish the feast.

The third day -- just bones, scattered widely.  I need not have worried.  I know that Nacho didn´t.

WILD SURF /

"Yeee-HA!"  "HO-ly CATfish!"  "Yeowza!"  "Yike-o!"  "Hijole!"  "Ai-yi-yi-yi-YI!!!"  "DUCK!!!"

Yeah, there´s been quite the swell this past week, and the above quotes refer to just this boogie-boarder's waves. Evidently it's been the same out at the break, judging from the big grins and swaggers of the surfers as they walk down the beach...  And then we top it all off  by returning to the beach at dusk for the sunset, each one a masterpiece.  Of course, I am also hoping one day to see the Green Flash....

The Sting of the Scorpion

That would be Robert...  He and our village neighbor from across the road took off one shiny new morning for a distant, remote wild and woodsy area from which Robert purchases, fells, and slices select trees into usable planks.  This time, he is collecting wood for a new shower door, for instance...

...only this time he neglected to wear thick leather gloves.

The scorpion lashed out fiercely (Robert never saw it amid the woodchips and dust after the log fell).  The stinger slashed open a blood vessel in his finger, and thus injected the poison directly into Robert´s bloodstream...  a potentially lethal situation.  Having been struck before, Robert could recognize the increased severity of this strike...  left arm, closest to his heart, the venom causing numbness and paralysis, far more pain...  Those kinds of thoughts.

Immediately, his companion helped Robert to load the large, heavy, bulky machines into his car, and got Robert back home, and situated on the porch amid the tools.  Then he left Robert there.  Robert had assured him that we have on hand "Epi-pen" which is a self-injectable antidote.  Alas, this time the Epi-pen had almost no effect on the venom now in his bloodstream.  In great pain, and increasing numbness, Robert laboriously lugged the machines into the house, locked them in, and drove the car himself, down into the river valley, through the river, and over to the beach where I was casually relaxing.  En route, he picked up my friend´s husband who took over the wheel.

My friend, Annie, and I had just emerged soaking wet and grinning from ear-to-ear after an exhaustingly fun plunge-and-crash session of boogying the big shore-surf repeatedly.  We were seated at a table, toes in the sand, facing the sea.  I had between my fingers a chip laden with guacamole -- yes, the food had been set down before us the moment we emerged from the sea.

I heard the unique, child-like toot of our car´s horn.  Odd....

All was full-on action after that.  Annie took care of the  guacamole and chips (oh, and the bill, too).  The cooks ran after us with a huge clove of garlic for Robert to chew and swallow (local remedy for scorpion strikes).  Annie´s husband drove (he speaks better Spanish than I do), and we were on our way to the nearby FREE hospital/clinic -- some half-hour away.

Robert was seen to, given immediate treatment, and then hooked up to an IV to hydrate him.  It helps if he can pee out the poison.  He was there for hours.

Robert is not one to complain of pain -- but when asked, he would comment on the "electric eels" in his extremeties, as well as curious and expanding numbness.  Walking to the bathroom, as he had to from time to time thanks to the dripping IV, was quite arduous for him.  Once the IV bottle was empty, he was released.

For the next two days, he lay comfortably at our home on our portable bed-system laid out on the cement floor of our porch -- woven mat, with a thermarest mattress, pillow, fleece blanket if needed.  And I read to him -- great book -- one we kept interrupting in order to discuss concpets.  He would, if pressed, describe the continuing electric shooting pains, and show where he was completely numb.

This strike, he says, was far more painful, far more dangerous, than the last time he was struck.  Last time, he was struck in muscle, and the Epi-pen worked, and we laid his mat in a cool room, and while he rested, I read to him.

¿And now?  In the aftermath (though his finger is still numb three days later), my advice will hereafter ever be:  "Wear thick leather gloves...  please."

A Mirror Into My Own Childhood

She lives right next door. I´ve mentioned her and her family a lot, and posted photos of them. This little girl whom I have known since she was in utero (there is a long story there, too...) and I share a deep, strong heart bond. She reminds me of me.

What inspires this short essay, however, is what we shared just yesterday.

Little Diana Laura sings. She sings to the trees, the flowers, the dog, the weather, in response to questions. She loves to whirl. She has her own personal connection to nature.... oh, there´s a story in that, too, but never mind.

She sings in the same way I did as a child -- spinning in a circle as flower petals from the tree overhead cascaded down, cruising along an expanse of flowers as the wind played their bobbing blossoms....

Yesterday, when we were both home alone (she is about 5 by now, and I´m slightly older), she spotted me through the fence, and came over. We spent over an hour simply singing to each other about.... whatever. We swung in our respective hammocks, sometimes bumping together, and laughed as we sang about it. We played hide and seek in the netting of our hammocks, and we sang about it. A dog starts barking -- we sing an imagined reason....

When the time came, we sang our goodbyes, filled with laughter and silly postures...

Just this morning.....

The kids seem to know it. They know when I´ve got all the toys back on the shelves -- and they show up -- polite, respectful, and eager. Since I always put everything back in the same location on the various shelves, they quietly find what they want and presto! Our porch is filled with totally absorbed children, each in their own world of creativity.

Jigsaw puzzles (new ones, too!), railroad tracks, Jenga, Mancala -- but most popular by far are paper and drawing utensils. Utterly silent absorption.

Today´s focus, as it often is, was on coloring in various mandala designs. Once completed, each child seeks me out to show it to me, and then hopes that I choose to somehow display it. With all the new magnets I bought, I could display them all, on our metal doors. They each take pride in their own work, standing back to look at its beauty, sometimes pointing, and commenting to each other...

Surf? Oh, that. Robert was up and gone at dawn, and didn´t return til early afternoon, grinning widely. Boogie-boarding? Nada. I´ve just dipped myself in the sea once, but the ocean is oddly cold, and there´s a cool offshore wind as well. Bag it for now.

Village life? How I love this village, esta pueblito con sus gente tranquilo y amable. Just to walk down the central dusty road through the village, and to greet all the neighbors, kids and dogs... to stop and chat awhile... to trade stories....

...and to enjoy walking under the various hues of bougainevillea (bugambilia in Spanish, which is easier to spell), and take in the radiance of the sun as it illuminates the multi-colored leaves of our croton plants...

Ya basta por hoy. Tengo cosas a hacer aqui en Zihua....