brakes and battery

Some lessons, we need to learn over and over. Even though I enjoy cars, I have never been as enamored with them as some of my friends. They fall into the same category of "nice to have" -- like wash and wear pants.

I live close to work and I do not drive far from Salem these days as Professor Jiggs ages. I have had my current truck for seven years now and it has 50,000 miles on it.

Here is how much I take my truck for granted. I have received two recall notices and I have avoided taking the truck to the dealer -- until today. The recall notices are two years old -- a fact I noticed only when turning the truck over to the shop. And after two years, what convinced me to take it to the shop? When two red warning lights on the dashboard simply could no longer be ignored. Two bad Bs: battery and brakes.

So, I walked the two miles from the shop to work. It was a great morning. Crisp. A few clouds. But it was a true spring day. Oregon knows how to do spring. There were flowers everywhere. Yellow. Pink. White. Purple. Blue. Crows croaked on fleshly-mown lawns. Pairs of squirrels ran serpentine tracks up oak trunks. Everything was crying out: I live. (There is a poem hidden in there that I wll need to parse out one of these days.)

And I missed every bit of that as I drove to the shop. I came back the exact same route where I witnessed spring incarnate.

We all know that cars isolate us from the rest of life. Yet, we need to be reminded now and then that life is still there.

That is why I enjoy my walks with Jiggs. As a dog, he only knows what he senses in the moment.

Note to self: get out of the car -- and get to Mexico.

turkey and trapezes

Saturday afternoon, we (a couple from law school and their daughter, and a friend from work -- Beth of Minto Dog) attended the Cirque Du Soleil's Corteo. It was everything I expected it to be. I continue to be amazed at how the artists who create, produce, and perform this marvelous material can continue to top themselves with each production. The combination of clowns, acrobats, and music is something to behold. I could write on and on. But what is the point? It is what it is.

The Cirque Du Soleil is something I will miss in Mexico.

And I will miss Huber's. Huber's is the restaurant where we celebrated my mother's 80th birthday. I like Huber's more for its ambiance than its food -- good, old-fashioned meals (the turkey dinner being my favorite). The food is very good. But Huber's is simply a fun place to spend an evening of conversation with friends.


And good friends it was on Saturday night. We ate. We laughed. We talked. It was exactly the type of night one spends with old friends -- and the memory lingers on.

This, too, I shall miss in Mexico. Huber's, certainly. Old friends, definitely. But now I can look forward to sharing new adventures with them when they come to visit.

putting our light under a bushel

For the last couple days, my email box has filled up with dire warnings that we need to "to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced.” At first, I thought it was another email about Britney Spears or Michael Jackson -- or a chain letter on how angels will bless me by sending it on to 327 of my closest friends.

I was wrong, though. "The greatest threat our planet has ever faced" is apparently global warning. Greater than Adolph Hitler, greater than AIDS, greater than that asteroid that is headed this way determined to open a new galactic highway where earth once was.

So, what are we to do to counter "the greatest threat our planet has ever faced?" Are we to march on every capital and overthrow the tyranny that walks amongst us? Are we all going to throw away our PDAs, SUVs, iPods, GPSs, HDTVs, and other high-falutin' electronic gear? Do we advocate returning to a life style of the golden days of the Great Depression?

No. We are to "use the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming."

This has all of the hallmarks of a Dick Cheney practical joke. Whoever came up with the idea must be the same fellow who created the name when the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party combined: Canadian Reform Alliance Party. Great name until someone spelled out the acronym. Turning off lights as a symbol of enlightenment? Great joke.

Don't get me wrong. I am as worried about global warning as anyone. We are supposed to be wise stewards of God's creation. But you don't do that with hollow Pharisaic gestures just to make yourself feel better. Have we really become so mentally unempowered that we have stopped taking responsibility for our own choices? We make choices every day about our environment and how we treat one another. Rather than telling other people that they need to make correct choices, we need to start making those choices for our own lives.

Maybe I am getting on my high horse because I do not have any lights to turn off tonight. I do not use lights very often in my house. (There is enough ambient light in my community for me to navigate through my house at night.) I do not have television. I seldom use my computer between 8 and 9. It is a bit like asking a pauper to contribute $1,000 to the church building fund.

But I have a solution. I promise not to open my refrigerator door for an hour tonight. There, I feel better already.

desayúnese en el jacuzzi

OK. Todd and Brenda have been kind enough to take us to very nice restaurants for breakfast in their home towns in Mexico. I thought you might like to see how we denizens of the Casa Algodón start our day. (Well, at least, how I started this day. Professor Jiggs starts his day -- and ends his day -- with the same bowl of dry food and a tasty selection of geriatric medications.) Here goes.

6:30 AM. Saturday. I should be sleeping in. Saturdays are the only day I can sleep in without running afoul of some obligation. I stumble down the stairs to my favorite breakfast spot: El Jacuzzi en la Casa de Algodón. For an eatery, it is a bit eccentric. The waiter always asks you to order before being seated. I open the menu.

The selection varies, but I always have a sense of déjà vu as I pore over it. I find what I want, and give my order to the waiter.

He then shows me to my table. One of the things I like about El Jacuzzi is its lack of pretension. It has an almost natural feel -- simple, quiet, airy. Almost like one of those backstreet cafés in Prague. Just a lot wetter.

I barely settle into my seat when the waiter brings the house bread. (Michael Dickson claims "house" is a synonym for "it ain´t nothing special.") Its only saving grace is its odd resemblance to a catcher's mitt. (And note the authentic touch: el pelo del perro.)

My appetite is now teased for the specialty of the house: the inappropriately named huevos y jamón verdes.

No eggs. No ham. And the only green thing I can find is the spinach fettuccine. But this is good. The sauce is a pepperoni-pork sausage tomato sauce infused with onion, garlic, and chili powder. My British friends would call this child's spaghetti. But what do they know?

Put together, this was a fine breakfast for a morning that promised just a hint of snow flakes in the air.

Sated, I totter back to the world of reality. And just as I did after breakfast with Brenda and Roy, I am heading upstairs for a nap.

Thank you for joining me for breakfast. We must do this more often.

getting ready for the circus

The smell of oranges on Christmas morning. The feel of your first good second baseman mitt. The sight of the first daffodil after a cold winter. Sheer juvenile excitement.

And it is in the air this weekend. THE CIRCUS IS COMING TO TOWN! Not just any circus. It's the Cirque Du Soleil.

Almost every year, they bring a new show to Portland. This year, it is Corteo on Saturday afternoon.

For those of you who have not seen any of the Cirque Du Soleil productions (and that would be hard to believe -- they are everywhere -- it would be easier to avoid a Clinton campaign volunteer in Hershey), let me explain a bit of frustration. First-time goers will respond to the question: "What is it?" with terms like "amazing," "magical," "whimsical" -- as if they had just returned from a religious experience, rather than a circus.

I have been there. I remember my first exposure to the group in Las Vegas. I sat staring into the air as acrobats dressed as Dali would see birds plunged near the earth on bungee trapezes and then flew spinning into the air as if Newton meant only we untermensch to be tied to the earth with gravity''s invisible bungee cords. It was -- "amazing," "magical," "whimsical."

The company has its detractors. A blogger called the shows: "Moulin Rouge without breasts -- or dinner." Last year Judith Mackrell of The Guardian sputtered:

So how is it that Cirque du Soleil continues to enjoy such special kudos? The hubristic scale of its shows doesn't deliver real circus; neither does the expensive elaborateness of their packaging. It doesn't even amount to theatre. However bendy the contortionists, however bouncy the acrobats, however many risks the aerialists take, they always appear too buffed, coiffed and airbrushed to seem real. On top of that, the accompanying muzak is always so dire.

But she was simply being British. Judith, just flow with the acrobats. That is what we intend to do.

There will be no elephants to ride. But there will be the acid smell of oranges to remind us that Christmas can come on any morning.

in hot water with Clarence Darrow

I had to abandon the hot tub for the dreamier climes of my bed.


I have almost finished reading Edward J. Larson's The Scopes Trial. Tonight I completed reading the section on the trial itself. As I read along, who should show up in the tub but John Scopes himself -- the veritable cipher in the whole episode. He settled down into a quiet corner.


But he was almost immediately joined by Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. Two loud Democrat attorneys -- both with causes -- filled the tub faster than I was willing to share. I decided to abandon the hot tub and the evening to the three of them. After all, they will still be there whenever I am willing to pick up the story again. And they have been good enough to abandon their histories to me.


Off to bed. This cold is managing to hang on for too long. It must be two weeks now.

mixed algodón

The family Cotton finally managed to assemble to discuss The Great Mexico Adventure. The cast: my mother, my brother, his daughter, and me.

We were on our way to a military memorial service for my uncle. Getting together is such a rare event for us that we thought we would squeeze out some mourning time in favor of family time.

For 50 years we have been eating at a local diner called Lew's Dari-Freeze. Over a traditional cony island hot dog (with onions), fries, and Diet Coke, we discussed two topics: 1) Where would Mom like to settle down, and 2) Who is going to join me in heading south to Mexico.

It turned out that my brother and mother had already discussed her future. And she was ready with her answer. She has two listings that she needs to resolve with her real estate business. And both will resolve soon. She then intends to move into her house in Bend. My brother and I will help her in whatever way we can. That was easy.

Then came the Mexico move question. My niece is in her sophomore year of high school. Her parents do not want to move until she graduates. My sister-in-law could telecommute from Mexico, but my brother needs to find some work to do south of the border. That is their homework assignment. But they may very well be heading south after the summer of 2010.

As for me, April 2009 looks like a good move date, and I have some good information on a rental house in Melaque. If I take that route, I would probably stay in Melaque on an FMT from about May through about October. I would then decide whether I wanted to convert to an FM3 and rent in the central highlands or choose another site on the coast -- such as, La Manzanilla. At some point, I want to get to Pátzcuaro for an extended visit.

Mom also said that if we all decide to move, she would like to come along. I should note that this was the plan over a year ago when I floated the notion of the entire family retiring to Mexico. And here we are, back where we started.

Several of you have wisely counseled: stop analyzing, start doing. You were correct. The plan is quickly falling into place. Come next April, I will grab two suitcases and either drive or fly south. Let the adventure begin.

I must comment on my uncle's memorial service this afternoon. My memory of him is that he was a man of action. Very typical of the other men in the timber country where I grew up. He was a boxer, a naval aviator in the second world war, and a logger. I never knew him to say much about any topic, but I do recall that he had a laugh that caused joy to well up in his listeners. In his later years, he became an accomplished keyboardist. But like the other Londons and Hemingways of this world, he was a flawed character -- just like the rest of us. By his flaws, I knew he was was human; by his virtues, I knew he was a hero. He was all that -- and more. He was my uncle. He will always be Roy Brewster.