elementary, my dear watson

I now have a better idea why the turkey vultures are vacationing at the beach. It appears to be Carrion Fisher week.


While walking along the shore, I have found the usual array of dead puffer fish along with assorted bait fish.


But last night, I found the treasure at the top of the post.


It was about the length of my arm. But I have no idea what it is.


My first guess was a new-born dolphin. The head has that distinctive look, even though the teeth do not seem correct.


And if it is a dolphin, it is one with severe birth defects. There are no flippers and the tail is not correct.


The tail is what makes me think this is a deep sea fish of some sort. All of the propulsion and motion stabilization appears to be in the tail with very limited fin structure.


The cause of death does not require Sherlock Holmes to give us an answer, though. If you look closely you can see a large fish caught in the creature's (such an Edwardian word) mouth. And without available arms on fellow fishes, the Heimlich maneuver is always out of the question.


Anyone want to toss your line into the fish-naming pool? I have run out of ideas.

amana mañana

During my recent search for a house, I had several requirements for a place to live.


The first was access to high-speed internet. It is my window to the outside world.


But the second was almost as important: a good kitchen. I like to cook. And I like to eat what I cook. So much so that the retirement gift I requested from my employer was a set of good-quality cookware. I certainly could not find it here.


Most Mexican kitchens are Spartan, but utilitarian. They get the job done.


But I discovered early on that many of the homes in my part of tropical Mexico do not have kitchens. The cooking takes place outside over a charcoal-powered flame. Only a bit more sophisticated than my Boy Scout camping days.


Some homes have a "stove" -- based around a frame that holds both the pot and the charcoal off the ground. The photograph at the top of this post is an example.


Outside cookery has its advantages. The cooking smells are not trapped in the house. There are days when I infuse peppers into my cooking oil that I wish I was cooking outside. The kitchen ends up smelling like a Roman square following a police-dispersed political riot.


It is also economical. Buying charcoal is cheaper than dealing with the cost and inconvenience of propane. The trade off is that charcoal affords next to no heat control.


If the setup sounds a bit primitive, you do not have to go too far back in American history to find houses where the kitchen was in a separate building from the main house -- usually for fire prevention.


I may have a small kitchen in the new house, but it is inside.

And it will be near a high-speed internet connection.

the greatest show on earth

I do not do this very often.


Video is not the best component for blogs. It devours far too much bandwidth.


However, an artist friend directed me to this short film. 20 minutes.


I almost did not watch it. And that would have been a mistake. Fortunately, my "stop saying no" rule kicked in.


And I am glad I did. It was 20 minutes well invested.


I like the music. I like the cinematography. But, most of all, I like the simple tale that this award-winning short film tells.


It is called: The Butterfly Circus.


[Some browsers appear to be having trouble loading the film from the embedded viewer. You can see the film at: http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/The%20Butterfly%20Circus/.]

i'm not dead -- yet

The shadow blocked out the sun -- just for a moment. The type of shadow that causes rabbits and iguanas to freeze.


And then a swoop and a shape. As if Bruce Wayne's alter ego was about to alight in my back yard.


My first reaction was that it was one of the eagles I see occasionally -- out searching for a bit of breakfast. But I had never seen one flying at balcony level.


It pulled up, stalled, and alit in the neighbor's coconut palm.


When I pulled out my binoculars. I was surprised to be looking directly into the eye of a Turkey Vulture -- what we country folk in Powers would call a "buzzard." (If you click on the photograph, you can enlarge it to see the distinctive head -- the turkey portion of the name.)


Within a minute three others joined him in the same tree.


Now, I don't know how you were raised. But where I come from, buzzards are not considered to be a pleasant sign -- nor a subtle one.


I had to do a bit of research to discover the cultural impact of the Black Witch moth (son of the witch). I didn't need research to know why the vultures were around.


Or I thought not.


My first reaction was that there must be something dead on the beach -- and they were simply waiting for the coast to clear. But they perched there all morning. I looked for myself to be certain that some poor soul was not dragging himself across the sand in search of water. Nada.


Eliminating the obvious, I started wondering if the vultures could sense my recent spike in blood pressure. But they obviously had no interest in me as I stood on the balcony snapping photographs. They wouldn't even close up like good tourists for their group beach shot.


But I came to the conclusion that is what they were: tourists. They had come to enjoy the pleasures of a sunny day at the beach. And they did.


After sunning themselves for about three hours, they simply disappeared -- as quickly and quietly as they came.


Several business owners in town have told me the tourist trade has been dead the past few weeks.


I think I now have proof that they are correct.

warm up this slice

Thirty-five years ago we worked on projects of mutual interest in Greece.


The Frenchman and the American. Doing the work of the Free World.


At least, that is what we told ourselves,.


The last time I saw him was in August 1974 in Athens at a seaside restaurant. I would leave Greece in just a few days, and America would have a new president.


The world moved on at its own pace.


It turns out, though, that it was not the last time I saw him. I ran into him again in 2007. In Mexico. At a seaside restaurant.


By the Gallic pallor on his face when he saw me, he thought I had come to settle a four-decade old grudge over French perfidy.


Instead of settling imagined scores, we caught up on our lives. To the extent that the gracious editor of selective story-telling allowed.


He told me that I needed to meet his greatest accomplishment: his son.


It took me almost two years, but I finally met him last week for dinner.


I was not surprised to find him to be a younger version of his father. Handsome. Witty. A great conversationalist. At 24, he had the social graces of a far-older man.


We had stopped by my place and were chatting about fears. I mentioned that my greatest fear is having my head underwater. He jumped up, and told me to follow him.


We went down to the beach. Even though it was well past midnight, he had me diving under the smashing waves that add a perpetual percussion in the house.


I was pummeled more often than I was successful. But I finally had a semblance of how to do it. And I thanked him.


But he is a perfect example of what can happen to bright young people in Mexico. He went to school to become an archaeologist. And not a Meso-American archaeologist. As a result, he cannot find a job in the area of his professional passion.


Instead, he works as a waiter at a resort about an hour south of my house. At least, he puts his fluency in three languages to use. But a passion it is not. At best, he is playing the role of a waiter in a never-ending production.


Fortunately, he has a fallback position. He wants to be an actor. I do have a few contacts in Mexico that I thought might be able to help. And I was happy to make calls. Whether it makes any difference, we shall see.


I made the calls as a favor to his father. But, I think I would have done the same thing if I had never met his father.


There is something refreshing about people who are willing to live their dreams and to escape the manacles of their own past.


And that is my second piece of Meat Loaf. The same album that contains the song from yesterday's post also contains"Objects in the Rear View Mirror may Appear Closer than They Are" -- one of my favorite Steinman songs.

The skies were pure and the fields were green
And the sun was brighter than its ever been
When I grew up with my best friend Kenny
We were close as any brothers than you ever knew
It was always summer and the future called
We were ready for adventures and we wanted them all
And there was so much left to dream and so much time to make it real

I guess that is what these two essays have been about. Trying to find the sense of maintaining the feeling that it is always summer and our futures are still calling to us.


So, Steve. Where does that leave you? You came to Mexico to experience a new life -- not to create Salem in a tropical setting.


And is a fair criticism.


I guess the answer is that I need to get with the program -- or I need to start looking elsewhere for my adventure.


I told myself last week that I am going to stop saying "no." When people offer new adventures, I am going to try them. Like my friend's son, I am going to take advantage of the situations when they happen.


I have dived under a crashing wave at midnight. And I survived.


What could touch me now?

two slices of meat loaf

The Kiwi accent was unmistakable.


But I could not place the voice on the telephone. And the computer-generated call was not coughing up any additional information.


He solved my dilemma: "It's Ken. -- The pianist."


And so it was.


I met him on one of my birthday cruises to Mexico -- almost a decade ago.


My usual routine on cruises is to spend a portion of the first day scouting out the live music venues.


On that cruise, a pianist was playing in the central atrium. Something lyrical, but vaguely mundane. Obviously another Lloyd Webber piece. The killing field of mass market piano music.


But the tune was one I did not recognize immediately.


I had become bored enough with Lord L-W's music that I was experimenting with a trial musical separation.


Then it hit me. I knew the tune : "A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste." It was a featured cut from Meat Loaf's most recent album. (The song was from Lord Lloyd-Webber's Whistle Down the Wind. Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf's regular songwriter, wrote the lyrics for the show. Thus, the odd Meat Loaf-Lloyd Webber combination.)


The song is not very good. But the pianist was. I was a bit surprised that a lounge entertainer would run the risk of playing something the general public would not immediately recognize.


When he finished, I applauded and remarked: "I see Meat Loaf is on the menu."


He looked at me quizzically, nodded -- and started laughing.


People who laugh at my feeble humor are given a pass to move to the head of my popularity queue.


The next day I ran into him while we were both running around the ship's jogging track. He told me he was a composer in addition to being a performer. His big dream was to finish a musical he was composing and to have it produced on Broadway. Truly, a Big Dream.


I asked if I could take a look at his draft. It was not great, but it was a solid piece with potential. I made some notes and suggested concept revisions, and returned the full package to him.


When I returned it, he said: "Thanks. You are the first person who has not rolled his eyes when I talk about getting to Broadway."


Near the end of our telephone call last week, I asked him about the musical project.


"Oh." He said. "I gave up on that. We all have to grow up sometime."


He didn't sound sad. Merely resigned. In a very adult way.


But it was sad. Hearing that a dreamer has murdered his own dream is always a bit too Medea for me.


When I hung up, I realized that Steinman's lyrics to the song I first heard Ken playing summed up part of my uneasiness:

The loneliest word you'll ever know:
If only, if only, it were so.
The emptiest words that there'll ever be:
It could've been me; it could've been me.

Ken's call caused me to think about the very fragile nature of dreams. And where we end up when there the future holds only dead dreams.


This is the point where essays are supposed to wrap the theme in a clever summary. But I am not ready for that summary yet.


Because there is one more slice of Meat Loaf to serve up.


Mañana -- perhaps.

just a reminder

For those parts of Mexico that went on summer time this year, the experience is about to end.


Today (Sunday) at 2 AM, we will set our clocks back one hour. (Or you can do it right now. Who is going to be the wiser?)

Canada and The States do not play this little game of appointment roulette until next Sunday (prepare to fall back).


I am currently finishing up the second part of our prayer series for church tomorrow morning. I have been through enough of these time changes that I would probably be wise to show up an hour early to make certain the non-changers stick around for the service.


But, for now, I am back to preparing my notes.