Saturday, January 15, 2011 — A duck can make you laugh

I really have to start writing for a few days because I'm just bursting with those little momentary thoughts that pop into your head and then disappear almost as fast. I just returned from a delightful evening meal here at Playa Los Arcos where I am staying in Puerto Vallarta. I sat in the no smoking area at a reserved table right next to the dance floor/stage. They seem to know my story and are treating me oh so kindly. I had used the hotel's wifi this afternoon to do a group email to my family to let them know I arrived safely and was beginning to adjust to the solo situation. I was told that the wifi only works in the public areas such as the lobby and restaurants. Of course, I had to try after dinner to do the Steve "stretch" with the system. I first tried with the door closed to my room's balcony. That didn't work. Then I tried all kinds of positions outside, short of hanging over the railing, but I guess I just don't have Steve's touch. So here I am, using a simple text edit file and hoping that it won't give me too much grief when I try to copy it into the blogspot ap tomorrow morning when I'll obey the rules and go to the lobby with whatever I write tonight. If you get this, you'll know that at least that worked. (Beautifully!)

Before I could leave Fort Bragg I had to do a million last minute things around town such as check in with the contractor's office with a new key to the studios at Pacific Textile Arts. Then I spent more than an hour trying to make a payment at the City Hall for the "swapping" of our former water meter for a new kind required by the city which will service the much talked about sprinkler system. When I balked because of the terribly last minute nature of the request, Bryan told me to just ask the finance department and they'd tell me how much it would cost. The finance department and every other department on one side of the aisle came up totally blank. So I returned to the community development side and they tenaciously tracked it all down after about five phone calls and promises on the other end that the paper work was beginning its journey down to the first floor. Finally, something printable was produced and the lady in finance skeptically accepted it. I paid the $331. with my own check and ran. I distributed a few more ESL class offering posters for the college advocacy committee and passed the rest of them on to the Bartleys.

By that time, Sandra was at the house for the transition and I finished throwing things into the car. The dogs walked me to the end of the porch and stood there with their muzzles two inches apart from each other and looking up at me. If you ever wondered about how knowing these canine creatures are — don't. There was simply no question that they had known all morning that this moment was going to come. I kissed them and made a lot of promises and drove away. When I got to the beginning of Madsen Lane, where a neighbor's small poultry enclosure is located, I saw a duck standing at the shared water pipe. He had such a purposeful lean to his posture that it just made me chuckle. A duck can make you laugh.

I'll skip past the lovely dinner I had with family and a friend at Italian Colors in Montclair. Dinner was delicious and gorgeous dessert was forced upon us by the ever hospitable owner. And, best of all, I got to hear Mike and Leah play beautiful music.

I spent the next day doing errands necessary for the trip including a quickie at REI because I forgot my Chacos, the sandal that has been my uniform in Mexico ever since Sally Williamson introduced me to her Colorado made favorite shoe.They have great arch support which I need, so I was shocked to find that there wasn't a Chaco sandal on the wall. That may have been one of those "out of adversity" events because I ended up buying a new Teva sandal with decent support and that adjusts with velcro in three places. And, I've been wearing them ever since. They were fantastic as my feet began to swell from sitting in a window seat on the flight. I loosened all three straps and felt like I might survive the rest of the ride. It's the only shoe I have with me but I think I did get lucky.

The flight was completely full and it was a bigger plane than I'm used to for this trip. Full of golfers and their wives as well as every other make of traveler you could name. Fabulous people watching and wonderful for eavesdropping. I could also look between and over the seats to see a few laptop shows of golf tournaments from the recent past, the World Cup special moments, scuba diving marvels. You name it, they'd been there. Half of them seem to have traveled together before and they talked constantly of where they might join up with each other next. That is, after coming down here and staying at their time shares at the Mayan Palace in Nuevo Vallarta. Got the picture?

This morning I was pleasantly awakened by a phone call from Jean Pierre who told me that friends were going to be demonsrating their ceramic techniques with Luis, who did our pair of dogs and other favorites, at a small community farmers' market just a short distance from here. I was wending my way to where he had thought it was until I reached the junction to the main highway. Who should pull up and be about to turn toward El Tuito, but Greg and Joanie and Luis. We had a tearful reunion and I walked down a hundred step descent to reach the site of the just closing fair. I'll definitely try to hit it on another Saturday if it's possible.

With all sorts of little details unmentioned, I've now finished my first whole day in Mexico this trip without Skip. I'm in one of our favorite rooms with a balcony overlooking the pool. I feel I must learn to deal with this business head on without trying to escape some of the sadder moments. And though I know there wil be difficult times, I am really happy to be here ands this is what Skip would have wanted and expected of me.