We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
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I’ve become an early morning person. I don’t know if I’ve always been one. Most years of my life I simply rolled out of bed to do what needed doing without question. Now I’m a woman of leisure. I’ve not had a clock in my bedroom for years. I wake to the light. To the light and to the ever-loud, greet-the-sunrise, bird-cricket-frog-donkey-chicken cho-rus. The birds sing full-throat through the half-hour of pre-dawn light followed by a silence as the sun rises. Then they go about their birdy business-as-usual, noisily. One morning last week I aw...
Yesterday, after an entire week of vertigo, in which my main task was to keep myself and my head as immobilized as possible, was the first day I felt halfway like a human bean. That is not a misprint. I figure a “bean” is a step closer to “being”. “Being” is not something I felt much during the dizzy week. Vertigo seems to run in my family, an inner ear malfunction, maybe, so I figure to deal with it best as I can and pretend my head is in a vise. I had one “interesting” moment. I had just stood up and felt like I was easing into nothingness. I...
You can take the girl out of the farm but you can’t take the farmer out of the girl. Okay, so I don’t really have a farm, but I have a lovely mango tree in my back yard, and therein, my farm crisis. I’m standing at my window looking into my back yard at my mango tree, so loaded with fruit that we had to make stilts to keep the branches from breaking and to hold the fruit off the ground. Today the reason I’m standing in my house looking out is that the rain, has not let up, cycling, ‘round and ‘round, through drizzle, mizzle and pizzle to l...
Remember when you were eighteen and dumber than a rock but thought you knew it all? Me, I wasn’t about to dedicate my life to being my Dad’s housekeeper, cook and bottle washer, so I showed him. I got married. We newlyweds lived in a house made of three granaries knocked together, with no water, no bathroom, but, we had more than some. We had electricity. We had a good deep well with delicious water. Coming from a valley farm with soda water, that well water was fine stuff. In a way, we had running water. I ran it into the house in ten...
In passing by, I saw a book title, "Don't Believe Everything You Think" and I thought, that's the truth. Pun intended. I have a little, bitty story, which I'll entitle, "Hair Today and Gone Tomorrow", also not an orig-inal thought. Several weeks ago, I was visiting John and Carol when a man showed up with clippers and scissors. Alfredo, or Freddy, as John called him, made house calls. I asked if I could get a trim also, since I was beyond shaggy and had been cutting my own hair, never a good...
If I were a car, I’d choose to be a 1945 Pontiac sedan, green. Why a Pontiac. Because the first family car I remember was a Pontiac, an older model than a ’45, pretty sure. I don’t remember my Dad ever buying a new car, but when he worked for Ford Motor in Louisville, he might have. Memory is a funny, fluid thing. Somewhere in a box I have a photo of me as a little girl standing in front of our Pontiac, gray, holding my Dad’s hand. Since I’m not a car and this is my imagination, I can choose the year of my birth and the model and color I w...
If I were to find myself in front of the Great Judgement Seat, in which I don’t believe, I’m pretty sure the first question (Picture black robe, powdered wig, furrowed brow, huge eyebrows, glaring eyes.) she would ask, would be, “What did you do to enjoy yourself today?” I have an answer. “I rode my tricycle. Wah-hoo!” My morning starts early with a chorus of birdsong, which pretty much goes on all day, with the accompaniment of roosters, peacocks and a donkey, except for that strange moment of silence as the sun peeks over the horizon. On...
Now and then it behooves us to think about the Elements. Usually when we hit a crisis. For the past several days our air quality has been extremely poor. Our neighboring city of Magdalena, 26.4 kilometers by highway, about a half-hour drive on a winding highway, is beset round and about with wildfires. The mountains of Magdalena are famous for quality opals. Fire opals? This morning I woke up knowing that there had been no progress in controlling the fires. How did I know. My breathing when I awoke was quick and shallow, unusual enough for me...
I’m a decently good cook using simple, good ingredients. I am not a gourmet cook. I leave that to Kathy, an honor she deserves. I like to have guests to share meals. I’m past cooking for large groups. I’ll leave that to Nancie; that’s her forte. Some things I won’t attempt, much as I love them. Lani makes the most delicious chicken livers, which I savor. A long, long time ago I learned to leave specialties to special people. Rose made raised doughnuts that floated off the plate. I watched her make them, took notes, followed precise instructi...
We don’t have Robins here. We do have a similar bird, similar in coloring, larger, a Rufous-collared Thrush. Unlike the Robin, herald of spring, the Rufous-collared Thrush is here year-‘round. He’s a tyrant of the Lantana bushes with their multi-colored flowers and seeds like blackberries. He’s a bit of a bully, plowing out his territory with swagger. Ah, Spring. While up North it is snowing one day and melting into the 70s the next day, here in Etzatlan, we have entered our hottest two months, roughly mid-April through mid-June, when the the...
"Sondrita, how's your wonderful retired life?" That's a regular question from our rancho-helper-with-garden-and-more. It is a good reminder that life is full of wonderfulness. I like the wonder of my life, as in "I wonder what today might bring me." Not all gifts from Day come gift-wrapped with ribbons but all gifts bring an element of wonder. Take yesterday, for example. I'd invited two neighboring women over for breakfast, loosely scheduled, of pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream,...
Kathy arranged for the six of us women to go to the Laguna Colorado for my birthday dinner. Four of us piled into Kathy's car. John agreed to bring the other two and drop them off. We arrived at our favorite little restaurant under the large palapa by the water. The owner treats us like family and the food is good, the laguna full of all manner of water birds. What's not to like! Kathy, being the youngest, popped out of her car and immediately announced, "Smoke". By the time the rest of us groan...
Every time I've taken the bus on the toll road to the coast, when we pass by the outskirts of the mountain town of Ixtlan del Rio, I've noticed the sign that points toward "Ruina". That's all it says," Ruina", a blur seen from the bus window. That little sign was enough to make me want to see the ruins. I've been to Guachimontones in Teuchitlan and to the Palacio de Ocomo in Oconahua several times. These sites are a short drive from home, either direction. Both are fascinating places that fill...
