April 27, 2020
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| Dawn in the Darkened Hills |
Day 41 of quarantine. I got up and
went walking in the hills. The air smelled fresh and the cool breeze
felt delicious on my skin. I wished I could include that feeling in
my photographs somehow. It was getting harder and harder to capture
images that were both beautiful and novel when my world was limited
to an area with a five kilometer diameter, much of which was water.
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| Road to Matlali Hills |
For the first time, I met two other
people walking for exercise. Cabin fever was spreading faster than
the corona virus. Continuing my explorations, I hung a left at the
barking roof dogs and walked through a neighborhood of ranchettes
until I arrived at the road to Matlali Hills, which I followed to the
highway. I ran the last kilometer home because I had gone a bit out
of my way and wanted to return before the net began.
After breakfast, I started priming the
wall. The ladder was barely tall enough and didn't have a paint
shelf. I had to balance the paint can on the top, stretch as far as
I could possibly reach, and pray I didn't fall or spill the paint.
Fortunately, I succeeded in painting the top half of the wall without
incident. By 11:00, it was too hot to work in the sun. I retreated
inside to work on my blog and practice the guitar.
 |
| Primed Wall |
Cherie came back and worked on finding
a way to get home to Canada. The cheapest flight available in May
cost four times what she normally paid. She booked a flight for June
first. Other Canadian friends managed to fly to Dallas, but missed
their onward connection. They were allowed to leave the airport
proper to spend the night in an airport hotel, something Canadians I
knew had been worried would not be allowed.
I stayed indoors until about 4:00 and
then went out to finish priming the wall. I had been a little worried
that I didn't have enough primer, but there was plenty.
Dinner was leftover enchiladas and then
I watched a little Netflix, practiced the guitar, and returned to
working on my blog. The day's corona virus statistics were again
promising. Another day had passed with only 850 or so new cases in
Mexico. Deaths were also down. Back in California, the lockdown had
been extended through May. I would not be leaving La Cruz before
sometime in June.
April 28, 2020
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| Pre-Dawn Neighborhood |
Day 42. Tuesday marked a full six
weeks of sheltering in place. I awoke from a dream of releasing baby
turtles. It seemed like an auspicious beginning for the day. I got
up and took my usual walk around the marina. Prior to the
quarantine, I had always avoided taking pictures in the dark.
Recently. However, the darkness had become just another tool and I
was enjoying working with it. Someone would turn on a light and,
suddenly, a new image would appear. Looking at the same scenery
again and again forced me to look harder and see new details.
 |
| Cheerful Entrance |
I spent the rest of the morning
painting the first coat of color on the patio wall. It now matched
the wall along the street and looked nice. There were so many pipes
protruding from the ground near the wall that I couldn't get a ladder
close to much of it. I had to paint it with a brush because previous
experience had shown that using a roller just peeled off the previous
coat and made a mess. Without a roller, I couldn't use an extension,
so I attached the brush to the end of a stirring stick with rubber bands and used that
as an extension. It was crude, but functional. By 12:30, I was ready for lunch, guitar
practice, and writing.
 |
| Spotlit Agave |
I managed to dash up the street in time
to catch the tamale man who always seems to skip our block. I got
two pork ones and two chicken ones for a total of forty pesos (less
than $2.) That was good for two dinners and the first meal I had not
cooked myself in over a month.
I started transferring a drawing I had
made several years before to canvas. It got too dark to see before I
got very far, but I did get the grid drawn.
The evening's corona virus statistics
were not encouraging. We were back up over 1,200 new cases for the
day with 135 additional deaths. If cases were peaking, it was not
going to be a smooth curve.
April 29, 2020
Day 43. I just couldn't make myself
leave the house to run but I still got up early. I got my morning
routine over before the net so that I could start painting
immediately thereafter. I had the second coat of paint on the patio
wall by 11:00. This was a good thing because it was already hot. I
washed my brush, put the tools away, and retreated into the house.
 |
| Freshly Painted Wall |
I ate lunch, practiced the guitar, and
watched some Netflix. Then I baked a batch of cornbread. My phone,
while working fine during actual calls, had no sound while playing
music or videos and I couldn't hear callers on Messenger. I must
have spent an hour trying to figure it out. I asked Matt to call me
so that I could verify that voice calls were still working and we
ended up talking for and hour and a half.
I finally ended the call because I
wanted to work on my painting. I got about half of the design
penciled in before I lost the light. Then I made a watermelon,
tomato, and feta cheese salad and ate it with the last of the
leftover enchiladas.
After dinner, I practiced some more and
then sat down to write. New cases for the day were back down to
1,047, but the day saw the most deaths, so far, with 163. Deaths
always lagged diagnoses, so the number of deaths was not inconsistent
with new cases having peaked, but it was still too soon to tell.
April 30, 2020
 |
| The Entrance to Alamar Before Dawn |
Day 44. I hadn't had enough sleep but
I still got up to run, knowing that I could always nap later. I got
off to a slow start, walking at first, but started running when I
took the turnoff for Punta Mita. It was earlier and darker than it
usually was when I ran that way. The pavement seemed to be exhaling
heat even before the sun rose.
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| Sun Rising in the East |
 |
| Real del Mar |
I went through my usual morning
routine. Then I sat down to write.
After writing, it was time to practice
the guitar before taking a nap. I slept for a good two hours. Then
I shook myself awake, got up, and made lunch. When lunch was over, I
pulled out the painting I was working on and completed sketching in
the scene. Then I started the actual painting. I worked on it until
after 20:00 when I suddenly realized it was time for Cheko's live
stream. I put my art supplies away and heated up the last of the
tamales for dinner while I listened to Cheko. Then it was time for
more guitar practice before sitting down to write, again, before bed.
 |
| The Beginning of My Painting |
It had been a bad day for corona virus
cases in Mexico. There were 1,425 new cases, a new record high. It
no longer seemed like cases had peaked. The original estimate of the
second week of May now looked more likely to be the peak.
Deaths were fortunately down from the
previous day, but most deaths didn't occur until the second week
after symptoms began. Those numbers would likely climb, also. The
death rate in Mexico was high, likely due to the elevated incidence
of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension and low rate of testing. Even the state of Nayarit
was up to 63 confirmed cases and twelve deaths. Recovery seemed to
be taking a long time. Only two patients were listed as recovered in
the state.
May 1, 2020
 |
| Malecon at First Light |
Day 45. I started my day with the
usual 4.4 mile walk around the marina. I took a different route on
my way home and passed a lot with a herd of goats in it. They all
ran bleating up to the fence and climbed over each other to get to
me. They must have been very hungry.
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| Hermana |
 |
| Sunrise Over the Fairway |
It was a usual day. I did laundry,
swept the patio, and practiced the guitar. I was running low on
groceries,but seemed to have a lot of breakfast food. I had
breakfast, again, for lunch.
 |
| Friendly Goats |
I spent most of the afternoon working
on my painting. I didn't like some of the colors I had chosen and
needed to paint over them. I had hoped to finish the painting, but
it would take at least another day.
Dinner was a tuna kebab with a small
potato and salad. The tuna was the last protein I had in the
freezer. I could get by for a few more days on pasta and canned
goods, but it was time for a grocery run. I was running low on
lettuce, which was hard to get in town.
After dinner, I mended a net bag while
listening to a podcast and then chatted with Matt while trying to
write, a somewhat confusing multitasking process. New corona virus
cases were up to 1,515 in the country of Mexico and an accumulated total of 96 for the state
of Nayarit. The local food pantry had delivered care packages to 350
needy families. Volunteers had purchased two tons of beans.
May 2, 2020
 |
| Neighborhood Chapel |
It was Saturday. Day 46. Not that
Saturday was different from any other day in quarantine. Not that
the days didn't run together in La Cruz under normal circumstances.
Usually, the only thing that marked a Saturday was that there might
be a good band playing at the Treehouse Bar that night. Under
quarantine, I looked forward to Tatewari's live stream that evening.
The April 27th show that I had planned for Matt and I to
attend together had been canceled. Now, we would watch them on the
internet from two time zones apart.
 |
| Lichen on a Post |
I didn't want to get up. It felt like
a nerve was pinched in my hip. It was already 72 degrees when I got
up and I was slow getting started. I decided to take a walk in the
hills, but made it a bit shorter than usual so that I could still
return before the net. It was a mundane walk. The fierce guard dog
that usually threatened to take my head off seemed to be getting used
to me. He still barked, but he was no longer snarling and wagged his
tail when I took his picture. A little further down the road, a
friendly border collie barreled into me in an attempt to keep his two
companions away from me. He always protected me from the other dogs
on that property. A litter of black and white puppies frolicked in
the driveway across the road. One of German shepherds that usually loudly protested my passing from the roof ignored me completely as
I passed him sitting outside the gate. The scenery might have been
dull but the dogs were always interesting.
 |
| Fierce Guard Dog |
Back at Casa Bliss, I listened to the
net, made French toast out of stale oatmeal bread, and sat down to
write after breakfast. I practiced the guitar and tried, without
success, to convince myself to work on my painting. I read and
chatted with friends instead. By 15:00, I couldn't keep my eyes open
and I took a two-hour nap.
When I woke up, Cherie, who was not a
fan of masks, was wearing one in the house. Apparently, she had come
down with a sore throat and tightness in her chest. She was doing
her best to isolate herself upstairs, but we still had to share a
kitchen. This set off a storm of feelings. It was, of course, the
very thing I had worried about whenever she was here because she had
been out and about so much more than I had, including a trip into
Jalisco to go to Costco. On the other hand, I truly doubted that she
had contracted the corona virus. There were so few active cases in
our area that it was highly unlikely that she had encountered one. I
knew she felt bad about it. Still, I now felt obligated to stay at home
until we had a better handle on the progression of her symptoms. I
had planned to go to the supermarket on Monday, but now felt a
responsibility to stay in until we determined that Cherie only had a
cold.
I had purchased a thermometer for just
such a scenario and Cherie took her temperature. It was slightly
below normal, which was reassuring. She wasn't coughing, also a good
sign. I had ordered N95 masks from Amazon the day before after my
original order from Claroshop had failed to ship for two weeks. They
were due to arrive on Tuesday. I resolved to wait at least until I
received the masks before venturing out.
It occurred to me that this was a good
reason to order groceries for delivery and I spent a good hour while
Cherie was in the kitchen putting together my order from La Comer.
They had all kinds of things that I had been unable to find locally,
including Lysol wipes which even they hadn't carried the month
before. I was quite excited about my order until I discovered that
they would not deliver to our location. I was a little crushed by
that. My meager dinner of a tuna brochette and a quesadilla did
little to cheer me up.
Tatewari was streaming live from the
roof of the Groove House Studio at 20:00 and that had a more positive
effect on my mood. Matt and I watched it together, from afar. He
was getting to see most of the bands I had planned to take him to see
over the internet. After the show, I finished a blog post and then
watched a little Netflix before bed. I never did get to my painting,
but I let that be OK.
May 3, 2020
Sunday, day 47. I never managed to
sleep in as long as I wanted to on Sunday morning, but I lounged in
bed, looking at Facebook and dozing, until 9:30. Sunday was a day I
combed out and rebraided my two-foot long pigtail. That always took
some time. When Cherie was clear of the kitchen, I came out and made
pancakes, washing my hands after I touched anything. I knew she had
wiped things down, but couldn't be sure she had gotten everything
like the lighter for the stove. I normally put the dry dishes away
first thing in the morning but, this day, I left them in the rack. I
knew she had touched those.
 |
| Cheesy N95 Mask |
I practiced the guitar after breakfast
and then sat down to write. Someone rang the doorbell. It was my
Amazon delivery with the masks, two days early. That was a very
pleasant surprise after the poor performance of my first order from
Claroshop. The masks were N95 material, but small and completely
unshaped. They came with a tiny length of elastic that wasn't even
tied in a knot. I was rather disappointed, but also happy to see
that, whatever their shortcomings, they did fasten around the head
and not over the ears. They would stay on and not give me a
headache.
I baked another loaf of soda bread in
the afternoon and did some more work on my painting. It would have
been finished except that I didn't like one of the colors I had used
in the sky. I wanted to go back over it with something less purple.
I ate the last tuna brochette with soda
bread and canned tortilla soup for dinner. The Campbell's tortilla
soup was a disappointment. There wasn't a shred of chicken in it.
It was more like chile broth than anything else. I had the last
little bit of ice cream for dessert. I was going to have to do
without it going forward. I had only gained a couple of pounds,but
my weight was headed in the wrong direction.
As of Sunday night, the official total
of corona virus cases in Mexico to date was 23,471. Nayarit had seen
115 cases. There were only four active cases in our county. Small
as these numbers seemed in comparison to the tally in the United
States, it was clear that new cases had not peaked. The new
estimate was for additional cases to peak on May 6th. I
wasn't holding my breath.
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