home again

As much as I enjoy traveling, I always enjoy walking through the front door of the house with no name and realizing I am home.

That has not always been true. Only a few years ago, whenever one of my trips was drawing to a close, I wished it would continue for another month or two.

I vividly recall when my mood switched. I was on a cruise from Miami to Los Angeles through the Panama Canal. As we sailed up the west coast of Mexico on 12 December 2018, I could make out Navidad Bay, the body of water that unites the little fishing villages I call home. And I realized that I wanted to be in Barra de Navidad instead of on that ship.

Maybe it is a matter of age. The older we get, we tend to find comfort in familiar routines as our senses (especially our memories) begin to diminish. Safety takes priority over adventure. External views turn internal.

I have been commuting to Oregon almost monthly since August. In August, the flights and the airports were almost deserted. Each month, the crowds increased. When I flew north a week ago, the airplane was almost full. Flying south on Saturday, it was full. The type of flight where passengers were stripped of their carry-ons because there was no overhead space available, and mask usage was a game of "catch me if you can."

The reason for the crowds on both legs was the same. Families were on the move for Spring Break. According to several passengers I talked with, they were taking extended trips because their children were not attending classes in person. So, they pulled them away from the computer to actually learn something by traveling.

Somewhere over northern Mexico on the return, the curmudgeon who lives in the darker recesses of my soul decided to make an appearance. Two young couples were traveling together. One couple upgraded to first class; the other was in coach. They were on their way to Manzanillo for two weeks in the sun.

For some reason, perhaps a bit of hierarchy envy, the wife in coach decided she would spend most of the flight standing in the aisle blocking all traffic. We all quickly learned what was up. She had indulged in at least one pitcher of margaritas before boarding the flight and had downed a few beers after takeoff.

Of course, that meant she was talking in her drunk-deaf voice. We all learned a lot about her, including how her children were created and where the blissful acts occurred -- as well as a list of the far more mundane details of her life.

After an hour of the banter, I could feel my patience wall being destroyed brick by brick. And I knew what was coming next. I was about to erupt and become another embarrassing character in Mexpatriate.

Fortunately, a soupçon of wisdom has accompanied my advanced age. Just as Mr. Curmudgeon stuck his head through the wall, I stuffed him back into his hole.

Sure, the young mother was annoying, but I had no idea what her life was like (other than The Stepford Wife version she had narrated for all of us). Maybe this was the first trip she had made away from her children. Maybe it was going to be her last lifeline to sanity.

The point is that she was doing her best to find a way to be happy. Maybe it was a doomed goal. Maybe it was not even an appropriate goal. But it was her goal. And I had no right to pretend I was a proctor in Massachusetts Bay Colony. I slid along the edge of how H. L. Mencken wittily defined puritans: "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

So, I just ignored her. Though, I will admit I kept listening for any further salacious details. Well, until her friend waved her hand and rather inelegantly dismissed the narrator from her presence.

The two couples are young. They still prize the value that adventure can bring to their lives. That realization was enough to blot out the less-pleasant side of my experience. Even better, the young mother who had become far too familiar with Don Julio made me re-discover why I like to travel. It is an opportunity to meet new people, experience events I have not experienced before, and to learn something new about the human condition.

I certainly did on this trip.

Having said that, coming home to the flowers Dora arranged in my kitchen was the best part of my journey.

Welcome home, Steve.


Note -- Two weeks ago in being dan, I told you about how I acquired my misbegotten lore of musical comedy. Well, everything exists for a purpose. As I was writing this piece, a Bock-Harnick song from Fiorello kept small-worlding through my head. It is not a very good piece of music, but it certainly sums up my feeling about coming home -- except for that USA finale. You can skip the Gentleman Jimmy piece if you like.

  

 
   

bag 'em, danno

The more regulated our lives become, the more complex life seems to be.

Time is an elusive dimension for me these days, but I think it was about two years ago that Mexico estrblished a regime to do away with one-use plastic bags. At about the same time, Oregon did the same thing.

On a visit north back then, I walked into my favorite grocery store in Prineville, paid for my goods, and waited for the cashier to bag up my groceries. I stared at her. She stared at me. Not in one of those courting stares, but an Oregon standoff stare whose subtext was -- "well?"

A little chat resolved the dilemma. I was waiting for her to bag my stuff in plastic. She was waiting for me to hand her a canvas bag hand-woven by Hopi widows under a waxing gibbous moon. Because I had come to the market unprepared, she graciously sold me a bag with the store's name written in script large enough that Venusians would know where I shop.

The clerk apologized and shifted the blame to Oregon's governor for stripping an option from customers that they preferred. The governor gets blamed for a lot in this part of Oregon.

It turned out that Darrel and Christy had a full inventory of bags in the back of their SUV. I simply did not know. On subsequent trips, I bagged like a pro.

When I returned to Oregon in August (just as the virus was building up a head of steam in the state), I headed to the same grocery store with my pied collection of bags. I wheeled my cart up to the cashier, unloaded the groceries on the belt, and started to hand the bags to the same cashier I had encountered the prior year. 

Her eyes took on a look of subtle horror. "No. No. I can't tough those. And don't put them on the belt. You're not supposed to even bring them into the store."

Outside bags were forbidden because they might spread the virus. Or, at least, that is the justification she was given when the state regulations switched bag horses in the middle of the stream. Canvas bags were now out. Plastics bags were back in.

Now, I fully understand the reasoning, if not the logic. But the ability to switch moral positions so quickly does undermine the absolute certainty that accompanies these pronouncements. The cashier, whose wisdom I have come to admire, said: "It is obvious whoever wrote these regulations never worked in a grocery store." 

Yesterday, I stopped at the same market to buy some cheese and sodas. Into plastic bags they went. At least, that fact has remained constant. But the contents of the bags were what caught my attention. Two partially-filled bags ended up costing me just under $70 (US). About 1400 Mexican pesos.

Now, I have paid 1400 pesos for groceries before at home -- now and then. But never for two light bags.

One of the largest differences in living costs between Oregon and Jalisco is food. It is noticeably cheaper in Mexico -- even though that gulf is narrowing as mexico becomes a more prosperous country. And, ironically, I can find more food options in our area of Mexico than I can in Prineville.

There are several benefits in my flights north. The first, of course, is seeing my family. But, the second is almost as important. Spending time north of the Rio Bravo reminds me of the virtues of Mexico.

In four more days, I will be headed home.

anti-climax on the bureaucrat front

My flights north to Oregon since August have become so frequent that I almost feel as if they are nothing more than a commute.

The only big difference on this trip was to have a piece of paper in hand that I was not the equivalent of a covid typhoid Mary. Or, at least, that I was negative for the viral antigens. Which, of course, is not the same thing at all.

We already chatted about how simple and fast it was to get the test done at my favorite lab in San Patricio (are your papers in order?). With a Saturday afternoon flight, I had all of my negative documents in hand to slip past American immigration with a smile on my face.

My friend Lew Moody dropped me off at the airport with plenty of time to complete my usual task of obtaining a hall pass from Mexican Immigration to give me permission to leave Mexico. My permanent resident card will get me back in. 

The next step was to complete the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-covid questionnaire and to have my temperature taken. None of it was new, and it ate up only about 30 seconds of my time. There were no other passengers at the table.

I quickly discovered where they were -- standing in line at the Alaska check-in counter. It was obvious that something new was in operation. The two people in front of me each took 20 minutes at the counter. I could see flurries of paperwork and pens that were new to the check-in process.

When Monica, my favorite Alaska clerk, started checking me in, she asked the usual questions and then handed me a three-page form and told me to "initial here" and "sign there." The lawyer in me started reading the form (in Spanish) until I got to the second line and decided it was going to take too long with everyone else in line.

But I read enough to realize it was a form disclaiming liability of the airline in the covid certification process. If I did not sign, I was not getting on the airplane. I signed.

Monica quickly scanned over my lab test and gave it back to me. I asked her if I needed to give the results to anyone. She said the airline was not taking the forms.

It turns out that no one (at least for returning Americans) was even remotely interested in my test when I landed in Los Angeles. Not Immigration. Not Customs. The immigration officer told me to keep it as a souvenir of my trip. I always appreciate a sardonic exchange.

So, the whole process was rather anti-climatic. At least, for me. In Los Angeles.

I suspect Canadians will have far more detailed tales of bureaucratic interaction. At least, what I have seen on Facebook keeps my hopes alive that citizens to the north will have scintillating tales to tell around the campfire.

One thing I do know is that getting back home to Mexico on Saturday will have even fewer steps.

And that really will feel like commuting.

signing off

In an hour or so, I will start packing for my trip to Oregon this afternoon.

These one-week jaunts require only about five minutes of packing. The routine is rather simple. It takes more time to prepare my dinner for the flight.

But before I do that, I wanted to share what appears to be the completion of the installment of the third-generation "Barra de Navidad" sign. I really liked the first one, and was rather agnostic about the second. But this version seems to be a home-run.

Made out of concrete to battle the erosive effect of climbing tourists and the corrosive effect of sea brine, this sign may be with us longer than the last two. And that is good because it is a pleasant piece of work.

The first sign included representations of the spirit of Barra de Navidad painted directly on the faces of the letters. So, does this version.

Pelicans. Fishing boats. A jumping dorado. The new maleconcito. A sunset. And the merman-mermaid statue that graces the malecon. There is only one obvious AWOL: the fallen-arm Jesus. But the artist could not include every comer.

Speaking of the artist, I understand Heidy Sanchez provided the artwork, and she made a bold choice. Instead of opting for strict representational art, she opted for an abstract palette.

While I was shooting the sign, a woman asked me if I knew when the painting would be completed. I told her I thought it was done. She pursed her lips. "It can't be. The mermaid does not even have a face. I hope the artist puts a smile on her." I could hear Ed Gilliam smile.

Well, I do like the painting. The artist has captured the spirit of this little village by the sea. And I applaud her for it. My opinion, of course, is influenced by the fact that abstract expressionism is my favorite school of art.

Now, comes the hard part. I have heard that, even before the painting was well under way, someone had vandalized one of the letters. That was unfortunate. But when you mix people, alcohol, and public art in the same area, having nice things is always a challenge.

I chose to write about the new sign today because it is the perfect symbol that will soon draw me home.

Perhaps I could pack up the sign and take it with me.

It is only for one week.

are your papers in order?*

For the past seven months, I have been shuttling between Barra de Navidad and central Oregon on family business. And, on each trip in these covidlicious days, some new twist is added to the travel experience.

At the end of January, The States (in the guise of its federal government) now require anyone entering the country by air to provide a test proving the passenger is negative for the virus. (There are other procedures for people who set off the Let's-Make-A-Deal procedures with a positive test, but we will skip over those poor souls for the moment.) The negative test result must be presented at the airline counter when checking in. No test, no flying.

Because I am flying tomorrow afternoon, I had a choice to make this morning. I could either obtain a test at the airport tomorrow along with most of the other people on my flight (and on other flights) and test my oft-touted belief that I enjoy standing in lines, or I could drive over to San Patricio Melaque and have the test conducted by the lab where I usually drop off my urine, feces, and blood for analysis.

The choice was easy. Even though the test done at my favorite lab would cost a bit more than the airport test, I would have my test in hand when I arrived at the Alaska counter. There was another advantage: in the event my test was positive, I could start the process for getting a flight clearance. The first step being to cancel tomorrow's flight.

I needed to be in San Patricio for men's Bible study this morning, so I drove over early fully anticipating that I would encounter a line of people who needed a test for tomorrow's flights. Other than a Mexican family, who were there for other purposes, I was the sole person in line.

I told the receptionist what I wanted and paid my 1,000 pesos. She then asked for something I had taken out and had left on my bed -- my passport. The nurse stuck a swab up my nose and told me the results would be ready in an hour.

In the 20 or so minutes it took me to drive to the house and back to the lab with my passport, the results were in my hand. Fortunately, negative. I was concerned that the antibodies from my March bout with covid might still be lingering in my system. They were not. Or, at least, the test did not detect them.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will board the Alaska flight to Los Angeles with my vaccination record and my negative test result. Only to be in Oregon for six days before flying back home to Mexico.

At least, I will not need a test to come home. Well, not yet, at least. 


* -- If you have concluded that the title is a preemptive strike to preclude the inevitable evocation of Godwin's Law, you are on to something. 

don't touch that dial -- yet

Some of my Facebook acquaintances have become a bit obsessed with advance planning.

I suspect that the virus with its attendant governmental rules about vaccinations, quarantining, and general travel has had a deleterious effect on people who have a natural tendency to focus on any attempt to control future variables. Especially the unknown unknowns in the Johan window.

Starting last week a couple of my Canadian acquaintances started posting warnings that daylight saving time was almost upon us. If you are in Canada or The States, that is true. Daylight saving time will start on the morning of 14 March.*

But, if you are in Mexico, the switch will not occur until three weeks later. On 4 April (like some delayed April Fool's Day joke).

I am not going to climb on my usual naranja crate and rant about daylight saving time like an over-memed Bernie Sanders. I will save that until Mexico joins the daylight saving time crowd.

Today's essay is simply a public service reminder that for three weeks in March and April, Mexico will be on standard time and Canada and The States will be an hour off standard. That can have consequences.

If you have a flight headed north, it is going to be an hour earlier than usual. Fortunately, I fly this Saturday and will avoid the time rift in the matrix.

If you are making telephone calls across the Mexican border, the time differences in time zones will be an hour off. Your call may inadvertently get your sister-in-law out of bed. 

And there must be other considerations that I cannot conjure up in my fevered imagination.

The Oregonian reported this morning that Congress is once again considering a measure that would effectively move all of the American national time zones to the right by morphing standard time into permanent daylight saving time. But let's save that topic closer to 4 April when Mexico gets sucked into the black hole of time.

For now, listen to the planners if you are in Canada or The States. But, if you are so privileged as to be in the far-saner Mexico, sit back in your lounger for three weeks, and let time take care of itself.   


Note -- This aside is for those of you who live in sections of Mexico, Canada, and The States who are wise enough not to have been gulled into the clock-switching nonsense, and who remind me of their wisdom whenever the topic arises. The exceptions do exist. They are the gray areas.

sussex is just a shire

Heather Wilhelm gives good advice.

In her current "Happy Warrior" column, she doled out this gem:

How about bringing back a long-neglected string of words: "You know, when it comes to that particular topic, I'm not sure!" Our society seems to have sprouted a bumper crop of people who are increasingly willing to spout off passionate and fervent opinions on every topic that might cross their path on any given day, regardless of whether they know anything about it at all. This may sound bizarre, but it's true: You don't need to have an opinion on everything. It's exhausting. 

Have truer words been written? "You don't need to have an opinion on everything." Facebook should develop an algorithm that inserts that sentence into every post. Of course, the very raison d'être of Facebook is to turn dross into fool's gold.

I find it interesting that the same people who were recently constitutional law experts morphed into virologists with the onset of the most recent plague and then into hydraulic engineers when our area was flooded last year. Facebook must be passing out honorary degrees somewhere in the depths of its software.

I do not always follow Wilhelm's advice. The underlying premise of Mexpatriate is that I am a stranger in a new land where the culture is completely new to me. It is a gold mine of writing material -- as long as I do not fall into the mire of turning every experience into an opportunity to complain about things I may not properly understand.

When I first moved here, my northern judgmentalism must have been packed at the top of the plastic bin containing my electronics because it escaped from Pandora's Box early on. Petty annoyances were -- well, annoying.

It took me about a year or two to get settled into the rhythms of life in these little fishing villages by the sea. Crowing roosters. Church bells. Bread sales cars with soundtracks loud enough to dislodge molar fillings. All morphed into part of the quotidian life I have chosen to live here.

Of course, the sounds did not morph. My attitude morphed. I simply did not need to have an opinion on them. They existed, and so did I.

When I sat down this morning to write, I had a distinct target in mind -- The Harry and Meghan Road Show. Barbara Castle and I never did share many political views, though we were soulmates on some social issues. She pithily summed up a similar royal dustup in the 1970s: "I find a plea of poverty from a jumped-up freeloader like him not just inappropriate, but downright offensive."

I even had a series of anecdotes lined up to support my views on monarchy in general. Here's one.

In 1992 I attended a performance of Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III at the National's Lyttleton Theater. For me, one of the most surprising moments was when the Charles Fox's character tossed this republican bomb concerning the rite and ritual surrounding the king: "Then why not be rid of him? If a few ramshackle colonists in America can send him packing, why can't we?" The line was met with a smattering of applause and laughter. In Britain. In the National Theater.

Other than those me-moments, I discovered I had nothing more to say about that sad couple who like many of the wealthy and famous cannot cope with the advantages they were given -- or whether there is any future for a medieval government model in this post-post-modern world.   

And then I heard the wise advice of Heather Wilhelm."You know, when it comes to that particular topic, I'm not sure!"

There is far too much life to live here in Mexico without complicating it with the woes of the over-entitled. I do not need to have an opinion about other people's failings. That is just a schadenfreude too far for me.

So, unless the entire Windsor clan moves into the house across the street from me here in Mexico (because they will eventually be looking for living space), I will probably not touch on the topic of the unfortunate Sussexes and their spiral into Wallis Simpsonland.

Getting my laundry done is more important right now. And I do have an opinion on that.