News you can use
News you can use
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Living several years in Montana, known as “Next Year Country” because of vagaries of climate and other erratic conditions, was good transitional training for relocating to Mexico, “Mañana Country”. Consider mail delivery. Anyone in a small town on the north-central Montana plains will tell you that a letter from either coast takes four days to arrive. Overnight or express delivery also takes four days. That’s just the way it is. One learns to shrug and compensate. Last week, I...
Those familiar dangers we learn from childhood on are such a part of our consciousness that they carry instinctual wisdom and warnings that become second nature. Growing up in the Milk River Valley and the foothills and plains beyond, we know to stay away from the river in flood, stay out of the pasture with the mean bull and don’t pick up a baby rattlesnake, cute or not. Such wisdom even tells us if the rattlesnake has just had its head chopped off, leave it for a while. Refl...
Spring lurks around the corner patiently waiting to burst forth into kaleidoscopic glory. Down here in Mexico, while daily temperatures peak in the perfection of the lower 80s and bougainvillea, weighty with color, drape over every upright structure, who can tell from spring! Not much to go by but a calendar. If one has a calendar. When the New Year approached I could not find a new calendar. I’m an old hand at making do. My much-scribbled 2013 calendar is filling the gap. F...
Chip away the ice, pull on a pair of shorts, T-shirt, flip flops, sun block, a hat and come with me on a mini-tour of my immediate neighborhood. I’m only a block from the beach, so you might like to go sunbathe after our walk. I thought you might enjoy a respite from Montana chill. A half block out my door and we are on Cameron Sabala, the main drag in the tourist sector of Mazatlan. Unlike getting a bus out of town, getting a bus in town is easy and costs pennies. There is a...
The Teatro walls were crumbling, the courtyard given over to dust and dismay, and a historic part of Old Mazatlan doomed to fade into distant memory. With vision, perseverance and pesos, volunteers renovated the Grand Old Dame and today, tucked into a corner of the Plazuela Machado, the Angela Peralta Teatro thrives, a cultural landmark in Historic Old Town. Kathy, Richard and I recently attended an orchestral performance at the Angela Peralta conducted by world-class Jan...
Patience is a virtue. In my new country I must exercise patience on a daily basis. Therefore I live among a virtuous people indeed. Logic 101. I, however, have been found out. I stand revealed as one naked in my impatience, not virtuous at all. Previously I would have described myself as patient. More patient than most I might have said with a hint of a smirk. I might have felt a bit smugly righteous. If “instant gratification” is the mantra of people in the United Sta...
Real life is not a perpetual vacation. Yet aspects of the last couple weeks feel like one. I love meeting old friends, Mexican, Canadian and State-siders, and watching faces light up. That is real connection — that is my “welcome home.” Sunshine days, balmy nights. Often I wake with the voice of Cat Stevens singing in my head, “Morning has broken, like the first morning.” All the shrimp, red snapper and mahi-mahi I want to eat. Exotic fruits, papaya, pitaya, pineapple...
The first day on our scenic detour through the Baja Peninsula was an exercise in holding my breath and shoving phantom brake pedals through the floor of the passenger side of Roshanna Van. I left my fingernails imbedded in the dash. My friend Lupe corkscrewed us up impossible peaks on an itsy-bitsy two-lane with no shoulders, not even a white line in places, a transport truck on every curve. He was focused but calm. One might say I was the slightest bit tense. Lupe’s friends h...
Me and my big mouth, blathering away about creating a new life without constraints of old beliefs and cultures and language and familiar surroundings. Oh, didn’t I sound so rosey-posey. Pollyanna on Big Gulp Valium. Would you like fries with that? Did I ever get my comeuppance. Let me begin at the beginning. First, getting through customs at the border into Mexico was a huge let-down. I had done my research. I had heard all the stories about people who had had to empty t...
I will do anything to avoid any mall in any large city. I don't know what possessed me to suggest the mall. It was a nice day. My 5-year-old granddaughter Lexi and I could have hung out on the waterfront. For 25 years I had lived within 10 miles of the Silverdale Mall. Frequently, two or three years would pass without me needing to mall shop. But I wished to buy one more thing for my trip. A store there carried the exact underwear I wanted. There is a "playland" center at the...
I try to be cognizant of the three-day rule when I am a guest, whether I'm visiting with friends or family. After three days, fish or guest, one stinks. One notices the speculative eyeball, "When do you think she'll leave?" There is a slight difference when one is a paying guest, such as I am at the hotel in Hot Springs where I spend hours each day soaking in steaming pools, sleeping, reading and healing. Just this morning when I was warming a chair in front of the fireplace,...
Last week I headed down the road from Havre to begin my journey to Mexico. I thought I might go to Saratoga in southern central Wyoming for their hot springs. That stubborn van I drive has a mind of her own, that's for sure. She insisted we bop into Missoula and head down I-90 west, never my favorite route. Just out of St. Regis, I tripped over nostalgia, took the exit and contined north another 20 miles to Quinn's Hot Springs. Back in the '80s Quinn's was our favorite family...
So many decisions. So many choices. After spending hours on the phone with my daughter, under the assumption that two heads are better than one, a cliché not necessarily true but I needed someone to hold my hand, we concluded that there is no wrong road. I am now homeless. My auction sale is Saturday out at the Havre Fairgrounds, so come, say goodbye to me. Early next week I will head out. All the right roads beckon. Being me, I want to drive every road. What way to take?...
Just today a gentleman in Great Falls, upon hearing I will soon move to Mexico, mirrored my enthusiasm, “Oh, I love Mexico. My wife and I go to Cancun every year.” Then he followed with, “Aren’t you afraid to go to Mazatlan? We hear so much bad news about the drug traffic there. Even in Cancun, when we walk the beaches, we are accosted by people trying to sell us drugs.” “Well,” I answered, “I have walked alone and with friends through many districts in Mazatlan and on the bea...
Holy Baloney! I’ve been on Harlem City Council the entire seven years I’ve been back in this little town of my youth. We’ve begged and pleaded for people to please show up, please. One is a usual number, six cause for celebration and anything more is indicative of a raise in rates. If the language in the 350 little yellow flyers which had been distributed over the weekend asking for answers and accountability from the city’s mayor, council and employees was designed to drag...
Storm alert: All points bulletin. High anxiety winds precipitate storm of indeterminate velocity and duration. Woman in full state of panic attack. Coordinates unknown. Situation critical. Last seen headed toward the deep end. Take cover. For no identifiable reason. At least, none I can put my finger on. Early morning. The phone rang. One of my readers called to wish me well; she showered me with words of encouragement, praised my courage, asked me questions. I bluffed my way...
My house sold. My business is officially closed. My belongings are going on the auction block. About the time of first snow, I’ll head south of the border, down Mexico way. I am currently filling the gap between leaving my house and the first frozen flakes of impending winter with sorting and packing. If I didn’t have scads of business materials and tools and equipment, and if I didn’t have 4,500 books and if every wall in my house were not a gallery, the job would be simpl...
It started out as a typical morning at coffee with the “boys.” I’ve been having coffee with the guys at City Shop around four years now. We show up any time after 6:00. The boss is there first and the coffee pot is full. “We” means the city employees (minus the clerks), a county commissioner, another councilperson and me. I’m there by invitation — honored to be accepted as “one of the boys.” Work starts at 8:00. I usually leave when the boss begins assigning the day’s tasks,...
I am a reasonably tolerant and lazy gardener. When an unsolicited seed shows up in my backyard, sprouts, shoots, flowers and flourishes, I’m open to letting it stick around. Unless the newcomer is a noxious weed. My work-free gardening philosophy has evolved over time. My Washington home sat perched on the crest of a hill, surrounded by two acres of dips and doodles, ups and downs, populated by trees, berries and shrubs galore. Natural landscaping was a breeze. I could spit a...
It is a dire and dirty job but somebody has to do it. Every night for the last week thunder rumbled while lightning forks split the sky and sundered the earth. Every night during the sky show, while rain pelted the town, I paced the floor, single-handedly keeping town and my part of the world safe from fires and mayhem. The responsibility weighs heavily on my sleepy shoulders. I decided to come out of the closet and confess to my prescient gift. I’m a weather witch. Really. S...
Our class was small (graduating only twenty-three) but we were tight. Whatever we set our collective mind to do, we did it up right. Year after year we had the best float in the Home-Coming Parade, the best skit at the Carnival, the most innovative dance theme. Best of all, we were pals. Then we graduated and scattered to the winds. Back in ’05 while we were lined up for a class photo at the All-School Reunion, an every five-year event, Karen and Jesse suggested, “Why don...
I walked into the empty gym at Harlem High. Not the same gym from which I graduated. Not the same school, but one rebuilt after a fire 25 years ago. The “Little Gym” and band room are the only remaining portions of the old structure. Bleachers flanked both sides of the gym floor. A balloon-lined pathway separated rows of chairs. At center back, a huge circular entrance arch, festooned for celebration. To the right, the band was practicing in the bleachers. Chairs on risers for...
Recently I spent two weeks in Puerto Penasco, state of Sonora, northern Mexico, in a neighborhood which reminded me of Harlem when I was growing up, dirt streets and all. My friend Lupe had gone there from Mazatlan to work for a few weeks. Business was slow in Mazatlan but hopping in Penasco, so his company said. They would provide transportation north and an apartment. He invited me to visit him and see more of Mexico. Lupe arrived in Penasco three days before me. His...
A couple weeks ago I wrote about beating the system with Cheap-Flights-R-Us. Today I hang my head in defeat. I had bought a round-trip ticket on-line. Great Falls to Phoenix. My ultimate destination was Puerto Penasco in Mexico. Sky Harbor in Phoenix sprawls over miles of concourse. Imagine my surprise when my plane landed in this itty-bitty place, tossed me out onto the tarmac and I walked into Gateway Airport, smaller than Great Falls International, in Mesa, Arizona. I...
I don’t understand the concept of boredom. As a child my family made sure that if I even looked bored, I got handed a do-list. I distinctly remember a time, when I was single-not-by-choice and raising my kids, when I prayed daily, please, let me experience boring. While I wasn’t exactly operating on the crisis of the moment, every day was hand-to-mouth and I certainly had tapped into the fast moving physics of cause/effect. My requests for boring were denied. I got “di...
