Who ya gonna call? Nobody!

We did it ourselves! On the way to the petroglyphs, Mona's truck got stuck when we tried to be nice and get over far enough to let that GUY get by. Even when he knew we were stuck, he just kept on going. Mona dug like a little puppy dog and Sister Maggie from Portland and I gathered sticks and stones to give traction to the back right wheel. Then we pushed on the front bumper like crazy while Mona put it in reverse and gunned the engine. Rocking, pushing, one final shove and VICTORY!

Hey, and Mona and I handled those barbed wire gates pretty well -- except for that time when after a LOT of hard core struggle to get the loop of wire back over the post, we found ourselves finally looking at each other.....from opposite sides of the fence. Glad Sister Maggie didn't hear what I had to say.

Sticks and stones at a sacred site

Yesterday my neighbor Mona introduced me and one of her B&B guests to a really special place. It's the archealogical site just up the road from us called Alta Vista. There are petroglyphs there which date back about 2,000 years. You find them all along a rocky path about a mile long which leads to a large amphitheater formed by basaltic columns. There is a stream alongside the walk, which flows (in the rainy season, which this is not) out of a series of pools at the head of the amphitheater. But scattered throughout the experience are altars and devotionals, put there by visitors to the site. I saw feathers, baskets, shells, candle stubs, heart shaped lollipops and a pair of sunglasses. (I wonder if someone dropped those by accident, and then everyone else was afraid to pick them up!)

The site is not officially open to the public, but there is a series of informational signs along the trail, and a large sign posted in the parking lot inviting whoever reads it to a celebration of the vernal equinox tomorrow. Can't make it. I'm meeting an airplane in PV. Too bad. I feel like beating a drum and howling at the moon these days. At least that's what I'd expect to do! Maybe it's just as well that I don't go.....

Anyway, I took a lot of photos yesterday, and I posted them in an album on shutterfly.com. Watch for the link when I get it ready. Some time. Maybe its a vernal equinoxical conversion or something, but the internet around here is working ... barely. It is s.....l......o.......w. Howling has NOT helped. If this keeps up, I may be offering this high speed internet do-hickey thing sitting here on my desk to the ancient spirits at an altar in Alta Vista. Anybody got a match?

OK -- the album re Alta Vista is done. Click on the link to the left: "Susan's Photo Albums." SO EASY!

The best amigo ever

Kody and Larry are sharing some quality time this morning. What sort of quality is highly debatable depending on your point of view. I for one think the quality of life in the house is greatly improved when Kody doesn't smell so much like.....well, a dog.

Kody is a keeshond (pronounced for the most part "quiche hound") and he's pretty much an indoor doggie. He used to go with us lots of different places, but now he has a job, and he takes it very seriously. It is to bark furiously at every stranger who passes by when we're not home, and let them know that the house is protected by a ferocious beast who will tear any would be trespasser limb from limb and toss the remaining pieces to the seagulls and pelicans. He is very good at it. Except with girls. He LOVES girls, and makes an absolute idiot of himself to get an approving pat or scratch between the ears.

I met Kody about three years ago in January. He was walking on the beach near San Clemente with his owner, Janet. When I saw them approaching I fell to my knees and held out my arms. He was an absolute clone of a dog we'd had quite a few years back -- Rascal. At that time I thought I was special when he started doing his oh-you're-a-girl-let-me-please-you-and-delight-you routine. Little did I know! But he also took a shine to Larry when they were later introduced -- this MUCH to Janet's surprise. Kody and Janet and I met quite a few times to share walks on the beach.

So along about March of that same year Janet gave us a call. She had just moved to California when we'd first met. She'd come there to start a singing career, and caring for Kody was getting to be a bigger responsibility than she'd planned on. She'd been walking on the beach praying for a solution when I showed up in her path, literally on my knees. She'd scoped us out pretty well over the next several weeks, and finally decided that Larry and I could provide a good home for her friend, if we were willing. Were we ever! It's been pretty much a love fest ever since.

Kody is happy as a little clam in Mexico, even though the culture here isn't as welcoming to "mascotas" as say, in Europe. There he'd get an honored place under the table at the restaurant, and the waiter would bring him a dish of water! But he gets a walk every morning on the beach, and he's friendly with the children who aren't snatched away in terror by their parents. And just for the record -- the bath photo proves it: our dog is NOT gorda (fat). He's furry!

By the way: Here's a link to Janet's website. Click the music part, hear a sample of her singing, and understand why Kody gets a pained expression on his face when I serenade him. He was raised with a much higher standard. www.jdpetersonmusic.com

Something there is that doesn't love a wall…

This lot is my lot.
That lot is your lot
Except for that spot,
And the federal zone plot….

I have avoided talking about the situation across the street, but with a little help from Woody Guthrie and Robert Frost, perhaps I can find the words. Two lots, two owners, a number of disputed property lines, several lawsuits finally resolved. One big wall, just to prove the point. Thanks, “Winner.” We think of you every morning at breakfast. Where we should be looking at blue water, we see gray brick. Everyone gets it. That lot on the end is YOURS!

It is now for sale. Winner says she doesn’t want to build on it anymore. Won’t somebody we know and love PLEASE buy it, take down that wall and build a pretty house with a knock your socks off view? Buy that other little one in the middle, as well! It’s not so VERY little…..you could split it with Bruce and Jeanette and make a wonderful seaside garden. And we would raise our juice glasses in gratitude every morning.


“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Yeah. Right.

Jeanette's murals

Jeanette, on her blog, has been treating us to scenes all around this part of Mexico, but what some people have asked to see is the completed scenes in her very own house. Quite a few blogs back -- the one labeled "Creative Impulses," -- I talked about the artist from Guaymas she hired to decorate her entrance wall. She liked his work so much, that she had him do another one in her big main room. It's been a long time since he's finished, and I'm finally fulfilling the promise to show the final product. Here they are! The one of the village fountain is the one he spent the most time on....maybe because the view from her great room is so phenomenal and because she kept plying him with things she was cooking. Everytime she'd start a new dish, I think he began adding more color to those cobblestones.

The sweet spot

Our neighbor down the street, gave me a tour of the house he’s building. The woman architect they engaged from Tepic arranged the house on the lot so that every window frames a spectacular view. The island in our bay sits dead center in their wake-up view and over their kitchen sink. Less distracting is the view of tile roofs and mountains from the study. But the view I love most, the one that greets me each dawn from our own bedroom, verandah, and from our rooftop terrace in back, is the one he’s reserved for a special place in their home. Sunrise over the mountains.

“This is the meditation room,” he told me, “a place to have a cup of coffee and read from the good book in the morning.” “You do that, too?” I asked. “Every chance I get,” he nods.

He’s an airline pilot. I do like pilots who pray.

“Here’s the heart of the watermelon,” I found myself saying. It’s a phrase that’s been running through my head for years. For me it’s a mental place, but often I see it physically, usually where someone has provided a spot for meditation, worship, or contemplation. It’s a place reserved from seedy distractions, the best place to be, the sweet spot where the notes are clear and static-free. And because, contrary to what some people might say, I DO know one end of a tennis racquet from the other, I know that the “sweet spot” is where you want to hit the ball from. That’s the spot that gives the best response.

Responding. Giving back. Engaging. I’ve never been comfortable with that image of going off somewhere to “leave it all behind” and live a “spiritual life” away from everyone else in the world. God knows (and I mean that literally) we all need our alone times. There’s not a spiritual leader of any stripe who hasn’t been sent to or longed for a solitary place to search the soul. But we know and remember those people for what they did when they came back. Buddha from the Bodhi tree, Moses from the mountain, Jonah from his gourd, Elijah from the cave, Jesus from the wilderness or even from his nap in the bow of a ship. They all bounced back and responded: comforting the needy, teaching the receptive, and dealing with the dodos without going crazy.

Speaking for myself, there’s something that goes on in that heart-of-the-watermelon place that makes me a better person. Perhaps it’s a sense of being part of something much larger than just being Susan. Touching even for a moment the sweet consciousness of being conceived and supported by an unconditionally loving Creator is like hitting the middle of the trampoline. I can’t help but bounce back and reach out to others.

And I see that going on all around me here. There is so much love in this place! The people around here respond when there’s a need.

Good coffee and daybreak over the mountains. Watermelon places in the heart at Chuck’s house and up and down these cobblestone streets. I have a feeling I’m in a neighborhood filled with sweet spots. It just has that bouncy feeling.

Does anybody know what time it is?

Larry diligently changed all the clocks last Saturday, springing ahead an hour to conform with time in the States. It was all part of NAFTA, we were told. Mexico would change time along with the U.S.

But evidently they didn’t. And won’t for another three weeks. We think. At least that’s what we were told at the fundraising pancake breakfast we showed up for Sunday morning – not so late as we thought we’d be.

It’s already confusing enough around here, being an hour behind Puerto Vallarta. (PV is in Central, Nayarit is in Mountain.) Factor that into catching or meeting a plane from the States, along with whether or not PV changed times or not, and you’ve got a few more stress factors to add to the joy of travel.

Colin and Sabina, our friends with the surf shop on Vancouver Island who own the house down here in La Colonia, are up north these days. They are NOT happy with the earlier switch to DST. Canada DID change with the U.S., but being much further north, it’s way later there when the sun comes up. Their kids now catch the school bus at o’dark thirty.

The point of bringing all this up? What is done in the States usually has an effect beyond its borders, something Americans rarely think about. I keep thinking of the big Labrador who used to crawl in bed between Larry and me. Inevitably she’d poke one of us in the ribs while shoving the other to the edge. It would have helped – some – if she’d at least looked a little sorry.

Hope Bush and Calderon get their watches in sync for today’s meeting in Mérida.