temporarily out of service

If it is not one thing, it is another.


I returned home last night to discover I am without telephone and internet -- probably until later in the week.


I will be back on line then.  It will give me some time to get accustomed to my crutches.

one foot in the gravy

Richard Weaver was correct.  Ideas Have Consequences.


So do adventures.


I drove up to Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday afternoon to meet some friends arriving on a cruise ship.  I had almost forgotten how deserted the road between Melaque and Puerto Vallarta can be on a normal day.


For good reason.  Even though it is the only major north-south road in the area, it runs through sparsely-populated rural countryside.  It reminds me of driving through eastern Oregon.


And I drove as I once drove in eastern Oregon.  Speed has no limit.  As it turned out, I may have been fortunate not to have my reflexes tested.


I had not been in Puerto Vallarta for a few months -- and the last trip, I was acting as a capital T Tourist.


My agenda was light.  Stop at Costco.  Eat a nice meal.  Go ziplining.


I decided to put Costco off until Friday -- on my way out of town.  But I was looking forward to that good meal on Thursday night. 


I duded myself up in my Guy on the Town outfit and headed out to make a name for myself in my favorite Mexican resort city.


I even took my credit card along -- simply because I can use it in Puerto Vallarta.  And I brought along my debit card -- because I needed to get pesos for gasoline on the return trip.


Having learned my lesson about putting all of my financial eggs in one basket (when I lost my wallet last July), I put the cards in a separate area from my wallet.


I crossed the street to Walmart to use my debit card -- only to discover it was not where I put it.  Neither was the credit card.  A quick retreat to the hotel room revealed they were not there, either.


You may recall the last time this happened, my debit card is my sole source of cash in Mexico.  Without it, I am effectively as poor as the beggar woman in front of the grocery store.


But, I was not worried.  I have some cash on hand -- probably enough to last until I get back to The States -- if nothing expensive happens.


That put my trips to the highlands in question.  It would be a tight-run thing.


But I was in Puerto Vallarta for fun -- and I was going to have it.  I may not be able to afford a fancy dinner, but I could have fun ziplining.


My friends arrived right on time to start our adventure the next morning.  And we were on our way.


If you have not ziplined, imagine you are in a parachute harness attached to a pulley.  The pulley is attached to a cable strung across a gulch, ravine, or stream.  You then let gravity pull you across the scenery -- to alight like Peter Pan on the other side.


Some of the lines are very high and long  -- where speeds of 30 or 40 miles per hour are possible.


We had a great day of yelling, screaming, and laughing in death's face.  Maybe too much fun with that laughter.


On the longest line -- the second to last -- the guides made it very clear to keep the legs up as high as possible to our chests.


The reasons were obvious.  Curled up like that, a zipliner can build up enough speed to rival a bullet train.  Well, at least, an Amtrak train.


The other reason is safety.  Putting your feet down on the platform at that speed is an invitation to a nickname like Hop-Along.


Well, just call me Hop-Along.


I came hurtling down that line, approaching the platform as if I were on a strafing run.  I attempted to use the approved braking method.  But it was obvious I was going to collide with the catcher guide.  Of course, that is his job.


I instinctively lowered my right foot.  Bad instinct.  I still crashed into the guide.  But it was apparent something was wrong.


My knee was facing forward.  But my right fot was stuck out at one of those angles not found in nature.


I calmy (Really.  This is not bravado.) informed the guide: "I broke my ankle."  When he did not respond, I repeated myself.  By then everyone else was trying to get me to lie down.


There are some other gruesome details you do not need to read.  Satisfy it to say, I am writing this post from a hospital bed in Puerto Vallarta following a two-hour surgery to reconstruct my ankle.


And this is where the loss of the credit card adds another layer to this drama of woe.  I am negotiating payment as I write.


So, here I sit in the hospital, my truck in the disco parking lot where we were picked up for ziplining, and no credit or debit card with me.


But there are always friends ready to shoulder part of the burden.  One of the men from my church has volunteered to ride the bus to Puerto Vallarta and drive me back to Melaque in my truck -- assuming it is still where I left it.


My highland trips are off until the end of the year and I may head north a little earlier than I had planned.


It will all turn out well in the end.  It always does.

sos

My hard drive is failing.


You all know the tale of the computer I bought last February and brought to Mexico with me -- only to watch it die a briny death with its exposure to the sea at the beach house. 


There was no Lazarus option for it.  So, off to the junk pile it went.


In January I purchased a new computer and brought it to my new house where we are sheltered from the sea spray.  Or so I thought.


For a couple of weeks, I have been getting strange warnings every time I boot up.  On Saturday, it refused to boot until after a dozen tries.  I have not shut it off since.


Being a good computer user, I have a backup drive.  However, my files had not been backed up for three days -- and there was some important material there.  So, I tried to back up those three days of data.


The computer would have none of it -- declaring my drive to be as corrupt as an Illinois governor.


On Monday I drove down to Manzanillo to purchase an external hard drive. 


I thought another source might trick the computer into transferring the files as a back up.  No dice.  Instead, I have now transferred my major data files to the hard drive manually.


But I cannot turn off this computer.  If I do, I will most likely not be able to get it to reboot.


That is not a major problem.  I am returning to The States in late April.  The computer is still under warranty.  I can take it back to Best Buy for one of their lengthy service checks.


The trick will be keeping it running that long without Windows having one of its "I'm-too-tired" fits and shutting down on its own.  Or running out of battery power on my trip to Puerto Vallarta this week.


If anyone has a better idea, now is the time to step to the front of the class.

weeding with benito

Happy Benito Day.

Not the Italian Il Duce whose apparent lovechild is now running Venezuela.

The Benito known to some as the Lincoln of Mexico: Benito Juarez.

His birthday is actually the 21st of March.  But the Mexican government decided that the American Congress had a good idea in moving Washington's Birthday to accommodate the desire of every patriot to celebrate the birth of dead presidents with three-day weekends.

So, this weekend, over a week early, we celebrated the birthday of the only president Mexico deigns to so honor.  Unfortunately, for good reason.

Our house celebrated Juarez's birth by harvesting water hyacinth.  My land lady, a mutual friend, and I slogged into the mud with our grappling hooks and started tossing more of the evil weed onto the laguna bank.  When it dries, we will burn it.

Several women rode by on their bicycles.  Each applauding our almost Herculean efforts.  Certainly the Augean stables could not have been as difficult to clean out.

And then along came two men.  They stopped.  Looked at what we had done and what was still left to do.  One guy commended: "It looks as futile as spaying dogs."

My landlady is one of the leading lights in the neutering-spaying project in our village.  She calmly asked: "How long have you been coming to Melaque?"

"Ten years," said he.

"And you haven't noticed any difference in the dog population in the last 10 years?"

"Nope.  Still too many of them."

At this point, I knew we were dealing with a founding member of the misanthrope society.

I tossed out: "Or it could just be the result of presbycusis."  Presbycusis being the inevitable loss of hearing as we age.

He responded: "What was that?"

"I thought so."

Of course, his problem was not that he could not hear.  He simply could not appreciate how things can change for the better.  And it was his judgment we were really questioning.

I imagine that is exactly how Benito Juarez felt.  He thought he had some good ideas, but his opponents could not see it.  As a result, he died a very unhappy man.

As a consolation prize, we celebrate his birthday.

So, happy birthday, Benito.  This hyacinth's for you.

a little bull

I have been running with the bulls.


Make that singular.  Bull.


A small (but deadly) one.


My neighbors follow a very simple maxim.  There is no sense in celebrating a saint's birthday unless you can maximize the possibility of maiming, trampling, or blinding a few innocent spectators each evening.  Perhaps in the hope Pat will wow us with his ability to produce a miracle or two.


The local boys may show their bravery by running under the dying shower of sparks on the castillo.  But the rest of us are no less brave for simply standing around in the jardin after the corona crashes to earth.


Some older folks (those in the know and with expiring health insurance) scuttle quickly away.  But the rest of us gird ourselves for the release of the bull.


That is him at the top of the post.  Getting his tail lit.  Admittedly, his paper-mâché construction does not engender immediate fear.  I heard a woman from Ottawa saw: "Look!  A piñata!"


Not quite.  If he is a piñata, he is a piñata who is packing.


Here's the drill.  The fellow runs through the spectators with boys running in tow, and the crowd parting like the Red Sea.  As he runs, mini-rockets shoot out of the bull into the crowd.


And I cannot overemphasize that verb.  Shoot -- as in from a grenade launcher.


I tried to follow close enough to get a good photograph.  But I was so busy dodging friendly fire, I could not get off a return shot.


Watching from the edge of the jardin, the rockets shooting over and into the crowd looked like those videos of Baghdad during the air war.  But this was all in fun -- terrifying, adrenalin-rushing fun.


So, why does everyone stick around for the opportunity to be burned, terrified, and trampled? 


I know why I do.  For exactly the same reason we speed in our cars or pay money for a carnival ride. 


We want to stand up, look at ourselves and our neighbors, and laugh that we have all survived another attack of danger. 


And life is good.


Note:  If you want your bull in larger doses, take a look at Gary Denness's site: Mexile.  He has posted a BBC clip of a bull in Mexico City.  Ours is not that large.  But when it comes to causing pandemonium, size does not matter.  The result in our little village is just as riotous.

boy in a box

Boy's Life.


Those two words are still magic for me.


It was (and still may be, for all I know) the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America.


That was the prosaic description of the magazine.  For me, it was a monthly magic carpet of newsprint wrapped in its glossy cover.  Taking me to worlds as exotic and diverse as California surfers, Watusi warriors, and Amazon archers.


Almost every article was a not very well disguised take on boys passing through some ritual to manhood.  The voice of Rudyard Kipling always lay just above the subtext.


After all, that was the point of the Boy Scouts, wasn't it?  All that talk of trustworthy, loyal, thrifty, brave, reverent was not designed to leave us in our 12 year-old worlds.  We were to change.  To grow.  To put some back into it.


Thoughts of those Watusi warriors have darted through my head this week while watching the fireworks in front of our local church.


The photograph at the top of this post is where the firework artisans want your eyes directed.  As each layer of the castillo is lit, the viewer is to look higher and higher in awe at each display until the final three layers of this pyre of piety are lit.  And the top layer flies high -- spinning in honor of the good Saint Pat.


But there is a foundation story, as well.  While the fireworks spray their fire and rocket bursts, little boys gather, cover themselves with their cardboard armor, and scuttle beneath the dragon's breath.To show their budding macho natures.  To pass through the fire from boyhood to bravery.


And, as in all rites of passage, this one is painful.  The burns are very real.  But the night before, many of them cry, out of fear of the fire, but also out of fear that they will be found wanting on the field of battle.


I understand the tears. 


On the second night of the fireworks, I was busy recording the event for you, and I did not not notice one of the mini-rockets that shoot from the spinning wheels.  Not that I could have done anything.  They travel at Tinkerbell speed.


It caught me right on the stomach -- one of my more-insulated body parts.  But it took the breath out of me.


And I was not alone.  Other audience members took as much fire at the minutemen at Lexington, with similar wounds (at least, on the non-mortal side of the wound scale).


Eyes at the top praising a saint.  Boys passing to bravery at the foundation.


There is enough symbolism to mine there, it could occupy a full week of writer conferences at San Miguel de Allende.


"Your assignment is to find an appropriate analogy to describe the mortal and immortal in daily Mexican life.  Go."

springing forward -- eventually

I always thought I was the Mad Hatter. 

But, I'm not.  I'm the rabbit.

And I suspect I will be perpetually stuck in the role.  For two reasons.


The first is that I have adapted very well to my mañana milieu.  Removing the urgency for almost everything lets me be 12-years old again.


But the second reason is far more pernicious.


I wrote about it in prepare to fall back last October.  The odd tale of how a city in Mexico can be in the same time zone as an American or Canadian city, and show a different time on its clock.


And here we go -- again.  It is now time to spring forward.  Or it was up north, and it will be down here.  But not right now.


Early Sunday morning, those states and provinces that have been beguiled by the questionable virtues of daylight saving time, moved their clocks an hour forward.


That will not happen in Mexico for three more weeks.  Not until 4 April.


For me, this is not an academic issue.


Later this week, I am driving up to Puerto Vallarta to meet friends who are arriving on a cruise ship.  We intend to have a great day ziplining over the canyons of Jalisco.


I say "intend" because the time-keeping on cruise ships often requires an engineering degree.


Under normal circumstances, a ship leaving Los Angeles will move its ship clock forward one hour when entering the new time zone at Cabo San Lucas.  When the ship arrives in Puerto Vallarta, the captain can reset ship time (because the marina is barely in the central time zone) or leave the ship clock on mountain time (to avoid bewildering the passengers with another time change).


Some ships do not bother taking into account the daylight-standard time issue.


I told my friends I would meet them in the Walmart parking lot at 10:30 AM (local time).  You see my problem, there could easily be a two-hour variance from ship time.


I suspect my friends will be clever enough to simply check a local clock when they disembark the ship.


Otherwise, Thursday will be a day to push that mañana envelope.