[Be sure to check the newly updated pictures in the December 12th blog]
Today Sheilagh is up in San Jose for a memorial service for her mother, Kitty. All of our children are flying in to pay their respects, and they will get a chance to meet most of Sheilagh’s immediate family. Without realizing it, Kitty has brought the immediate family together this Christmas, allowing cousins to see one another who have not seen each other for years.
I’m staying here to keep an eye on the boat and to avoid the high cost of air travel, particularly when there is no bereavement allowance for sudden travel from the airlines serving Puerto Vallarta. I guess they don’t feel that folks who can vacation in Puerto Vallarta would need the advantage of emergency prices equivalent to those charged for plans made several weeks in advance.
I’ve been keeping busy learning to cook, doing laundry, waxing the boat, and raising the Shade Tree tent-like structure over the boat to keep it cooler inside. Every day I’ve been visiting the lap pool to get in some exercise and to relax with my IPod and a book. So far I’m up to two-thirds of a mile, although the last few laps are looking pretty ragged. Afterwards I read and listen to music for about half an hour before dozing off for an afternoon nap. It’s a tough way to spend time, but I’m dedicating myself to it.
A view up the mast, a closeup showing it was really me at the top, and a view looking down from the top of the mastI also made it to the top of the mast a couple of times to install a new wind indicator and to refurbish the anemometer. I’m including some pictures looking down to show what it looks like from up there. We used the windless (anchor chain motor) to help lift me up; so we didn’t have to use any muscles to get me up there. We use an REI climbing harness connected to two separate halyards, using one as a backup in case the other fails.
This week I accompanied Alan and Rosie of “Serendipity” to the Britannia Pub in La Cruz to check it out for Alan’s birthday next Tuesday. Alan and Rosie have a Jaguar, which was so much better than a bus to get around, although the large speed bumps here in Mexico make it difficult for the Jag to get over without scraping. There are no “low riders” in Mexico, or they would get nowhere. There was an “open mike” night there and several made-up bands performed for the group. I believe there is an “open mike” night for volunteer musicians nearly every night of the week at one bar or another. There are a large number of cruisers with musical skills and musical instruments, who find places and times to get together, whether on a boat, in a pub, or on the beach.
I also accompanied Ed and Cornelia (of “A Cappella”) and Hank and Betsy (of “Equinox”) to a local symphony and choir presentation in Puerto Vallarta. Most of the musicians and choir members were gringos who spend their winters here, with a smattering of locals. I would think that most of the local musicians are more interested in making money with their music, than to commit the time to a volunteer symphony orchestra that plays music completely foreign to the local genres. To my unprofessional ears the instrumental music sounded very good, and the choir flashed me back to my own choir days.
As a freshman in high school I had the dubious honor (for a guy) of having the highest soprano voice in the boys’ choir, although it certainly was not of a quality that rated any solo performances. I elected to let my voice change, rather than have the surgery to keep it a soprano (as I hear has been done in the Vatican boys’/men’s choir). By the time I was a junior in high school my voice was in a bass register for the high school glee club. In between those two years I tried not to speak too often in order to avoid the embarrassment of having my voice suddenly change octaves without warning.
All of this thought process was prompted by simply watching the local choir perform Christmas songs. It also reminded me that I tried for years to get my daughters to join a choir in high school, since all have very good voices and good ears for the right pitch. However, my urging fell on deaf ears because “the cool kids aren’t in the choir.” Nothing like being told by your daughters that you must not have been cool in high school! And to think of the money we might have made with an all-girl band, except that none of them is too keen on playing musical instruments – the band was not “cool” either.
Last week I responded to a blood drive request for a local blood bank. Apparently there is very little blood on hand because the Mexican community doesn’t need to store it up. If a Mexican needs blood, the call goes out to his/her family and friends and there is suddenly plenty of blood available. In this case I believe the blood bank is trying to emulate the U.S. so as to have blood on hand for those without large families to draw on – like gringos. Most of the evaluation procedures were similar to those in the U.S. except that they required no I.D. from me and never did ask my blood type. The interrogation questions were very few, and the interviewer had to have me read them from the questionnaire, since her English was very poor.
After my blood was drawn, I was given free coupons for a breakfast from a local restaurant, a Bloody Mary from the Vallarta Yacht Club (to be used the following day to deter the intake of alcohol directly after donating), and a T-shirt. All the T-shirts were mediums, which may suit the body sizes of the locals, but didn’t begin to fit most of us overweight gringos. Interestingly enough the Mexican rules for blood donations forbid any alcohol for 48 hours prior and require that we be younger than 65. You can imagine that those two conditions seriously impacted the number of donors – most of whom are either retired or can’t remember what they may have imbibed within the past 48 hours. I learned later that there were perhaps 9 total donors in the three hours that the clinic was open.
Not much more to write for the moment. By next week Sheilagh will have returned and perhaps I can get her to write something for the first time this season. More later . . .
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