Up on the roof -- all day and into the night

I'm not blogging as much as before because I'm healthy again and getting a full night's worth of sleep. One reason I'm sleeping well is because I climb stairs all day long. Here's the way today went, for example....

Up at 5:30. Kody needs out. First walk is around the cul-de-sac. Larry usually does this while I get my head on straight and get right with the world. It's great to do this from the top of the roof as light breaks over the mountains.

6:30. We take a walk through the neighborhood and around the park. This is often the only time Larry and I have to talk uninterrupted -- except for talking to neighbors, saying "buenos dias" to every passing native (it's impolite not to), and coaxing Kody to keep up with our less than frenetic pace. It usually takes us 30 minutes to go one mile.

7:00. Breakfast. Three kinds of fruit in the blender for me, along with yogurt and peanut butter. A bowl of Fruit Loops for Larry. ("See," he says. "Three colors. That's as good as three kinds of fruit.") On Sundays I do bacon.

7:30. Yoga on Mona's roof. Four flights of stairs. Usually about eight of us. I stand where I can grab something so I won't fall over when we do those stand on one leg and bend over sorts of things. I'm getting better, though.

9:00. The art group met today to avoid the Homeowner's meeting tomorrow at 10:00. Long circular staircase up to Bobbi's third floor roof. First time we've all been back together in a long time.

10:00. I leave the art group, run over a few blocks to meet with....I never thought I'd say this again....a group of local residents who are forming a community foundation. I'm polite. I listen. I leave. We will eventually write a check, but I'm not ready to get involved right now. Happily they are SO much farther along than the one I started three years ago in South Orange County.

11:00. I return to the art group. Up those stairs again.

12:00. Home and hungry. Larry's been out supervising the neighborhood curb-painting project as well as the four painters who have been at our house for about a month. Larry and I eat lunch watching a rerun of Without a Trace. Both of us fall asleep toward the end.

1:30. I start putting away the groceries I brought back from Puerto Vallarta yesterday afternoon and was too tired to deal with last night. The Christmas turkey I bought (literally, the LAST one at Sam's Club) is safe in the freezer. All the other perishables -- spiral cut ham, cheeses -- all that special holiday stuff -- I managed to get stowed last night. What's left on the counter is an array of ridiculously high-priced traditional comfort food that I found at Gutierrez Centro Comercial down in old town PV. Ahem. Fifty five pesos for a small jar of Delmonte pickle relish. Worth every penny. Then there's Mrs. Cubbison's stuffing, Lindsay black olives -- pitted, LeSeur peas, canned sweet potatoes, turkey gravy, canned black-eyed peas for New Year's Day. Over six hundred pesos for two small bags. I was saved from "over spending" by the fact that we had to carry the stuff four long blocks back to the car.

3:30. After some time on the telephone and making watermelon agua fresca for our painters, I head up to our roof. We moved all my art supplies into that spare room up top. It makes a dandy studio -- views to the mountains and up the coast. A good place to escape and be alone. Not today. The shade arbor is finally finished, and Larry is tacking up the light strings I bought in PV around the edge of the roof. I start painting the project I sketched out this morning.

4:30. Mona calls. Can I deny that woman anything? She needs a witness and a translator. We're going to take the Mexican woman who rear-ended Mona's husband this afternoon in to a doctor to x-ray the wrist she claims was broken in the accident. (Yes it was her fault. Does that make a difference??!!) She's in a wheelchair (she was that way before the accident), so we need to clear out the back of a pickup and get two strong men to help us. All of this takes some time. When we arrive at her house she sends someone out to tell us she's gone to bed. Come back tomorrow. Her neighbor tells us she's had three "accidents" in the last year; that that's the way she makes her money. Mona and I talk about the concept of Radical Forgiveness, and remind ourselves that the sooner we learn the lesson of love presented by this situation, the sooner this woman can stop being a jerk. :-)

6:00. It's dark now. Really dark. And I don't feel like cooking. We did eat something. I can't remember what. Larry and I miss Dancing With the Stars. He settles for reruns of Two and Half Men

8:00. I finally decide to blog. Both of us are thinking about bed.

9:00 Larry's in bed. I'm headed there. 5:30 comes early...up on the roof.