calling buddy holly

Tropical Mexico is a huge vaudeville theatre.


For six months, The Amazing Swallows had top billing. Swooping. Diving. Pooping. Then they were gone.


The Scuttling Land Crabs starred for two months. And then they were gone.


The Bumblebees for two weeks. The Biting Flies for five month. Cameo appearances by snakes and various lizards. Here. Then gone.


With the exception of the ever-present (and abundant) las cucarachas, there are no long-term billings in this theatre.


This week's act is The Infernal Chirping Crickets.


They are certainly not the solitary crickets of my youth in Oregon. Up north, I would hear one or two crickets in my back yard. Chirping now and then. As if chirping was not quite cool.


Like everything in the tropics, the crickets in my back yard are not constrained by anything as non-Mexican as seeking a quiet cool. These crickets know how to communicate.


To call it a chirp would be an insult to the decibels these crickets produce. If I did not know better, I would estimate their size somewhere between a city bus and those giant grasshoppers from the 1950 horror films.


But big they are not. I tracked down several. They look just like the crickets I knew as a boy.


Why the larger sound? For one reason, there appear to be more of them. A bunch of young males out to impress the girls at the local singles bar. I am surprised that they do not produce enough friction to simply disappear in a poof of fire.


And perhaps it is the sense of desperation that fills the air in every meeting place of the young as the clock slides near 2 AM. Failure to meet Ms. Right Now means that there will be no little crickets to book into the theatre next November.


So, I sit out on my balcony in the evening enjoying what has become a loud, but intriguing, chorus. And wonder just how Jiminy Cricket got his start in show business.


He must have been booked into a different theatre. Perhaps La Scala.

the perfect servant

As Mrs. Wilson, the head housekeeper of Gosford Park, Helen Mirren gets one of the classic lines of cinema:

I'm the perfect servant.

I know when they'll be hungry and the food is ready.

I know when they'll be tired and the bed is turned down.

I know it before they know it themselves.

I had one of those practically perfect experiences today on my third (or fourth, depending on how we're counting) day of Thanksgiving.


My small fishing village by the sea is not without its patina of sophistications. Most of our eateries are of the taco-burrito variety. Food that fills without really satisfying either the stomach or the soul. But there are exceptions.


One of the best is Restaurant Maya. I first ate there in July of 2008 when I test drove the house where I am now living. I loved the food.


The owners did not have the place open this summer. Instead, they were in British Columbia. But they are open now.


I was a bit reluctant to stop by -- for two reasons: 1) I was wearing my beach bum outfit and 2) I was afraid my gluttony over the past few days would take the edge off of the food.


Let me tackle ambiance first. Maya is not a shorts and flip flop place. If that is what you are wearing, you will be welcomed, but you will immediately feel as if you stepped onto the wrong sound stage. That was exactly how I felt sitting amongst my better-dressed expatriates.


I purposely use the cinema analogy. If Shakespeare is correct that all the world's a stage, Maya is the Cole Porter Theater.


I sat there tonight looking at the self-conscious arrangement of the well-manicured tables with their tidy candles and cutlery. The ocean and sunset as a backdrop. A canopy of palm trees as a roof. Subtle jazz drifting through the open air. Almost as if Erté had taken a tropical turn.


Even if the food had not been good, the visual effect was enough to make you believe Clara Bowe or Norma Desmond could be sitting next to you at dinner.


But the food is good. No. It is excellent. Considering the ambitious nature of the menu, I am amazed at the consistency.


The menu changes. But the current menu offers the following entrées: vegetarian, 3 fish, 2 prawns, chicken, pork, and beef.


I tried a mahi mahi marinated in lime, basil, and garlic -- along with side dishes of spinach risotto and a carrot-based puree.


I do not like fish. But this I liked. Of course, I also stuffed in a plum flambé with vanilla ice cream.


The total: $290 (including three soft drinks and a coffee). Or about $22 (US).


Try that in Manhattan or Montreal.


But, best of all, were the waiters. Black-clad as any stage hands, they disappeared into the darkness to appear even before the diners knew they needed anything. The perfect servants. Hardly the usual reticent service where waiters need to be summoned with gongs.


Thus ends my journey of self-indulgence. Well, this bout, in any event. Another thing for which I can be thankful.


If all goes as planned, this coming week, I will start some mini-journeys around Mexico. I have no plans. I intend to just head out.


Some of the trips may take me away from the house. If so, I may miss a post now and then because the wireless connection is not working on my laptop.


But you will hear it here first. I may not be the perfect servant, but I will stay in touch.

tail of the turkey

So, here I am. Three days into my turkey bender. Even though there was a bit of pork sandwiched in between -- as if I were a congressman from Boston.


I have enough tryptophan in my bloodstream to have a go at the Rip Van Winkle Open.


On Friday night I dined with two local attorneys, a hotel owner and his wife, and a friend from Tuxpan. Our conversation was primarily in Spanish. I discovered my listening skills have improved over the past eight months -- to the point I could enjoy (or, at least understand) the lawyer jokes.


We ate at one of the beach spots where herds of expatriates congregate -- usually. The type of place you could not swing a cat without causing abuse concerns from a score of Canadians. In a normal year, the place would have an orderly queue of expatriates waiting for a table.


Not Friday night. Tables sat vacant like jilted lovers waiting for the wandering scoundrels to make amends.


The upside was we enjoyed amazingly attentive service. The downside is if the wanderers do not show up, there may be no place to swing my cat.


The photograph at the top of this post illustrates the problem. That is the main shopping street in the village. On Friday night. If mouths are to be fed, the shops should be filled with tourists willing to exchange hard-earned pesos for shells and sandals. It is simply not happening.


A recent issue of The Economist puts the Mexican economy in perspective. It is hurting.


Fourteen years ago, Mexico's economy came close to collapsing. The peso was devalued in the midst of a bad recession. The United States put together a $50 billion rescue package, and the Mexican economy started to soar with the additional boost of the North American Free Trade Agreement.


I lifted the following graph from The Economist article:



It illustrates that the current recession is deeper than the 1996 recession (with almost a 10% shrinkage of GDP this year) and a drastic decline in exports. So far, inflation has not been a problem.


Mexico is often a slave of its own history, even when it attempts to toss off its yoke.


One goal of the Revolution was to make Mexico less dependent on outside economic forces, especially the United States. Mexico abandoned most of that principle with NAFTA.


But another historical factor undercut that brave move. Even though Mexico had trade agreements with other countries, they were primarily ignored in favor of trade with the United States. When Mexico was a colony, Spain allowed Mexico to trade only with Spain --with all of the troubles that come from a closed economic system. Inadvertently, Mexico resorted to historical type -- and has now paid a very high price for the slip.


But what does this have to do with living our lives in Mexico?


Successive Mexican governments have failed to address a major flaw in Mexico's fiscal health. For historical reasons, almost all taxation is imposed by the federal government. Mexico collects only 11% of its GDP in taxation -- one of the lowest in the world.


As a libertarian, that figure seems just about right to me.


The problem is that the figure has nothing to do with liberty. Mexico collects nothing more because the wealthy are powerful enough to prevent any additional taxes and the poor simply cannot pay more.


The Mexican government recently went through the political equivalent of a slap-down merely to increase the VAT by 1%. And raising taxes during a recession is usually counter-productive -- especially for raising revenue.


Some politicians have raised the possibility of an expatriate tax -- with details remaining increasingly vague. The problem with that option is that it would cause more problems for the government and raise very little revenue. But that is a logical response to a system that thinks it needs money.


If it is to recover from this recession and protect itself in the future, Mexico is going to have to make some very hard choices.


The domestic economy must be reformed with the goal of keeping Mexican labor at home -- rather than relying on remittances as if it were some Third World banana dictatorship. That means repealing regulations that prevent businesses from starting and operating; jettisoning the system of favored monopolies that stymie innovation; reforming trade union laws to remove their veto power over important economic matters.


Can it happen? Certainly, with a political will.


Will it happen? Mexico is about to enter an interesting time. Next month PRI -- a party not known for its reform affection -- will take control of the Chamber of Deputies. We will see if it has learned anything during its exile from power.


In my small fishing village by the sea, the big question is going to be whether the government will simply get out of the way to let turkey dinners be served to restaurants filled with tourists willing to part with their cash.

day two -- and counting

Today I felt the Newtonian tug of nostalgia.


I mentioned yesterday that Thanksgiving is -- by far -- my favorite holiday. The day that should be spent with family and friends.


Lacking any local family members, I celebrated the holiday with acquaintances from our local church. We share no memories bittersweet with time, as I would with my family or old friends. But, after dining for almost three hours, I certainly have the foundation of good friendships.


Earlier in the day, I must have been suffering from post-stimulation withdrawal of the cruise-Disneyland trip. While walking through the village, I realized I was simply bored.


Part of that was the realization that I was not sharing Thanksgiving with my family. I solved that by calling several people today.


But the dinner also proved there are people wherever we go who can help us share our joy and burdens.


For that we can be thankful.


Every year some postmodern smart-alec journalist tries to impress us with the shocking news that our teachers lied to us in grade school. The rap is the pilgrims did not celebrate the first Thanksgiving in what would eventually be the United States.


I have yet to meet anyone who ever heard a teacher say any such thing. Journalists often confuse straw arguments with reality. The implication being that the earlier Thanksgiving did not comply with the Puritan Myth -- being celebrated by Catholics and Anglicans, you see.


But here are the facts.


On September 8, 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and 800 Spanish settlers founded the settlement of St. Augustine in what would be Florida. The landing party celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving. Menéndez then laid out a meal and invited members of the Seloy tribe to participate.


In 1619, the English settlers at Berkley Plantation, Virginia celebrated a modest Thanksgiving on the banks of the James River -- a task they were obligated to perform by their charter, and executed with all the enthusiasm of a 13-year old boy cleaning his room. Considering the civil problems of the settlement, they were probably thankful they had not throttled each other.


On April 30, 1598, early Spanish settlers held a Thanksgiving ceremony and mass in the city of El Paso, Texas. That is them at the top of the post -- just hanging out together in artistic order.


The pilgrims, who obviously had a far better public relations department than the Spanish or the Virginians, did not celebrate their Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation until 1621 -- where they handed out construction paper pumpkins and turkeys to Indians who looked as if they had just stopped in from the American plains.


What those four celebrations had in common is that each group had faced long odds and thanked God for their survival.


Which group was first is irrelevant. They were thankful. And we should be, as well.


Without their derring-do, we might be eating our turkey somewhere in the depths of Lower Silesia.

on the first day of thanksgiving

If I work it correctly, I may be able to stretch this Thanksgiving into a Chanukah-length holiday.


We will skip over the fact that I already cheated by celebrating one Thanksgiving in October -- Canadian style (thanks for the memories). And a nice celebration it was.


But it is now time to celebrate American Thanksgiving -- and I got a great start on Wednesday night. Thanksgiving Eve, if you will. Now, there is a holiday we need to add to the calendar.


An American friend, Jean (she of cinnamon roll fame: buttery buns on the beach), invited a few of her closest friends for Thanksgiving dinner at her house. The bargain was simple. If the invitees brought a side dish and their own beverage, she would provide everything else.


I do not come from a very large family. The most family members I have seen at a Thanksgiving dinner ranges around ten or so. We cannot even fill out a decent Last Supper tableau.


Jean's invitation garnered about 42 guests. And it was a diverse group. Well, as diverse as most expatriate groups are. I sat next to people I had never met before. Because they had just arrived with the snow bird migration.


As is true with all potlucks, there was enough food left over to feed a good portion of our small village. The turkey was very good, but Jean's sister brought a star attraction with her from Portland: a genuine bone-in ham. Her sister then whipped up some of the best pies I have ever tasted, including a blackberry pie made with fresh Oregon blackberries. I could not have asked for anything better at home.


Tomorrow, I will have another dinner at a local restaurant with our new pastor. I suspect the dinner will not come close to Jean's extravaganza.


And on Friday I may have one more. Reservations are still open for Saturday.


Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday. It is not encumbered with the sense of mandatory joyful gift-giving and fears that something is going to go wrong that will end up with half of the family in psychoanalysis for at least forty years. Christmas and Valentine's Day come to mind as the prime candidates for that type of fun.


To me, Thanksgiving is the holiday where you can get together with family, eat a nice meal, have great conversations, play a board game or two, and perhaps catch a football game. I cannot think of one Thanksgiving where disaster struck -- or, if it did, it was not met with humor.


For that reason, I will miss having dinner with my family tomorrow. But I can still be thankful for many things:

1. That I have a family where I feel safe and loved.
2. That I have a brother who is my best friend.
3. That I have a group of marvelous friends throughout the world -- people who know me well from as long ago as grade school to as recent as this past year.
4. That I have met a fascinating network of people through this blogging process -- people I would never have met, otherwise; some I have not met in person and may never meet; but people who I feel as close to as I do to some of my old friends.
5. That I have had the opportunity to start this retirement adventure in Mexico and that I am prepared to take it to the next level.
6. That I enjoy freedoms in Mexico that I would never enjoy in Oregon.
7. And, most importantly, that the God I know has taught me that sharing His love is the most important thing I can do each day.

And I suppose I should be thankful that the weather is cooling down. That means I can get out on the road and walk a bit more to fight off the pounds that I hear sneaking up behind me.


Maybe that is why Thanksgiving is a holiday best served in daily portions.

we were young together

"12 is the perfect age."


My friend, John, leaned across the lunch table to make his point, in his best professorial mode.


"You are old enough to have a vague idea how life works, but you don't have any of the adult responsibilities. You know how to fix and maintain a bicycle. How to eke out the most fun in an afternoon with friends. How to avoid adults and their silly obsessions. Practically perfect."


I should point out that it was a well-appointed lunch table in an upscale restaurant he was leaning across. Neither of us could carry off the 12-ishness with much aplomb. Like old men muttering in their country club about socialism.


But, he is correct. 12 was the perfect age. And I have heard that same sentiment from several of my friends recently.


That may be how I ended up in Disneyland for almost a full week -- to be Magic King-demned.


Depending on which version of family history you choose to believe (more of that in a later post), I have not been to Disneyland since 1955 or 1956.


My belated homecoming was originally unplanned. When I decided to take the Mexico cruise, I thought I would immediately jump on an airplane after I disembarked from the ship.


Not so fast, sport. There is only one flight to Mexico on my chosen airline -- and it leaves LA on Saturday. Only on Saturday. My ship came in on Sunday. Sunday is not Saturday.


What to do in Los Angeles for six days?


Well, some friends had the perfect suggestion: join them in looking at the technical side of Disneyland. So I did.


Now, spending a week trying to figure out how Disney works its magic does not mean that you cannot enjoy the fun that Disney offers. And I did.


I have always enjoyed amusement rides. Anything that goes fast, throws you around, and promises even the hint of severe injury will win me over for repeated rides. That means variations on roller coasters operating in the dark or the light. Fake elevators plummeting to the ground. Faux flight simulators. (Hold it. I think just turned Soarin' into an actual flying machine. In Spanish, there would be no problema.)


What pulled it all together, though. was the music. Anne Lamott once wrote about the power of music: "We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow let's us meet in places we couldn't get to in any other way."


I thought about that quotation as I walked around the amusement park. Disney has installed high-quality speakers throughout the park, and they play uncompressed music that convinces you there must be an orchestra on the other side of the building. Music that is not intellectually challenging, but that is appropriate for families enjoying time together.


I suspect this is what Marx had in mind -- if workers could net $200,000 annually.

Would I go back? Sure.


But the next time I am stuck in Los Angeles, I will probably want to log some more roller coaster time.


I need the address for Six Flags.


And another swig of that "Now-You-Are-12" potion.

the friend ship

So -- what am I doing on a cruise ship off of the Mexico Pacific coast?


If you have read can you spare a cruise?, you will know the question is rhetorical -- because I have already told you why I was there. You know it. I know it. It is a cheap writer trick.


But here I go, any way.


My former work colleague, Roy, and his sister, Marcia, booked the Mexican cruise before I moved to my small fishing village by the sea. They wanted me to spend the day with them in Puerto Vallarta.


Instead, I signed up for the full cruise.


I am glad I did. It turned out to be a great time -- for a very predictable reason. I thoroughly enjoyed spending a week with close friends.


There was nothing unusual about the ports (Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta). I have visited all three regularly on my birthday cruises.


But I do not go on cruises for the ports. I would have been happy to spend seven full days at sea -- simply because the big ships are destination resorts. Most people can find something to keep them stimulated for the entire cruise.


For me, it was friends, food, adventure, and entertainment. Let me put food and friends together -- because we certainly did on the cruise.


Robert Frost said there is something about a wall that wants it down. Steve says there is something about friendship that makes us down food.


In addition to the regular dining rooms, our ship had two speciality restaurants: a steak house and an Italian restaurant. For a small additional charge, we had some of the best food I have eaten outside of Paris and Florence.


Beef eaters know that Mexico does not offer much in the way of tender steaks. The ship did. Even though I am not supposed to be eating beef (triglycerides and all), I stocked up on my annual intake in one week.


I suspect we could have been eating tractor tires, though, and we still would have had a good time. My friends know me well enough that we do not need to fall back on social conventions to keep conversation running. We ran out of food long before we ran out of laughter. That is something I have been missing in Mexico, and that I am now trying to remedy.


Despite what I said about the ports, the adventure element came on land -- or partially on land.


In Cabo San Lucas, I para sailed. That was not a new adventure. I did a tandem para sail several years ago in the Caribbean. This was a solo job. And great fun. At full altitude I could see the whales in the bay. But it was a bit lonely up there. I kept wanting to point out sights, but there was no one there. Do you see a theme here?


In Mazatlan, I went zip lining. I have done zip lining three or four times before. But it never ceases to thrill me. The speed. The height. The sense of impending danger. The shared comradeship. They were all there. And I would gladly do it again.


My only regret about zip lining is that it took so much out of the day, I was unable to get back to town to meet Nancy of Countdown to Mexico. But she was as gracious as she is in her blog. One of these days we will actually meet.


But the top reason I cruise is live entertainment. The ship is filled with small bands and pianists. But my favorites are on stage. And I get my most energy out of the singers and dancers of the ship's company.


I have stopped calling them kids because, even though some of them are just starting their careers, a number of them have been practicing their talents for a few years.


I have mentioned that I try to sponsor an appreciation dinner for the cast on each of my cruises. This cruise was no exception. The full cast showed up, and they were delightful conversationalists.


But their talent is far beyond conversation. They performed two Vegas-quality shows on a moving ship. Singing. Dancing. All with the professionalism you would expect from a Broadway-trained cast.


In fact, at least one performed on Broadway: Adrienne Fiske. Pictured at the top of this post. She is a true star in her own right.


I have now taken twenty-some cruises. But this one will be memorable because friendship ran like a thread through the full week.


And what could be a better result than that?