December 31, 2018
New Year’s Eve was a Monday and I spent the morning at the
gym, as usual. It was so chilly that I
wore my fleece lined leggings. They were
a little warm for working out but felt good on the bus ride there.
At the beginning of 2018, I had resolved to reach my goal
weight by the end of the year. On the
last day of 2018, I was happy to weigh in at one pound below my goal
weight. I was dumpy no more. The gym had mirrors and I saw a rather muscular woman when I watched myself row.
I spent the afternoon practicing the guitar and trying to
stay warm. I was finally forcing myself
to study flamenco. It was slow going. I
made good progress with the melodic bits but continued to struggle with the
rapid strumming. I forged on, attempting
to beat the patterns into muscle memory by sheer diligence.
 |
| Geo Playing with Media Luna on New Year's |
Karen and I had tickets to see Media Luna at the Octopus’
Garden for New Year’s Eve. The band had
convinced Geo to join them during the second set and the music was
incredible. We had a nice dinner and
enjoyed the show. We were in no hurry to
leave afterward and hung around to finish our drinks and chat with the
musicians. We felt extremely blessed to
be able to interact directly with such great talent.
 |
| View from Our Rooftop |
Karen had to leave the next morning to return to the United
States, so we left about 22:00. I went
home and lounged about until midnight when Cherie, our guest Saul, and I climbed up on
the roof to watch the fireworks. Every
resort along the bay was shooting off fireworks and the display was more
incredible than the Fourth of July in the USA.
It was unusually chilly, so I was glad to crawl into my warm bed as soon
as the fireworks calmed down.
January 1, 2019
New Year’s Day dawned cold and dark. I wanted to start the year off with a run but
I just couldn’t make myself get out of bed.
It was so cold that I had closed all the windows. I stayed in bed until nearly noon. When I finally did get up, I made myself
pancakes and hot tea. I put on the
warmest clothes I had, including wool socks, and didn’t leave the house all
day. I didn’t have enough warm clothing
for the cold weather.
January 2, 2019
Determined not to let the previous day’s laziness set the
tone for 2019, I got up and went to the gym after the net. It had finally warmed up enough to leave the
house in shorts. I skipped the farmers’
market in Bucerias because I had to get to the marina by 13:00 in case anyone showed up for
the music circle. I had just enough time
to return home, shower, eat lunch, and get organized.
Victor had left us a couple of bicycles and I decided to
take one to the marina. I put my guitar
on my back and loaded my music into the basket.
The basket was precariously attached and wobbled dangerously as I rode
over the rutted dirt roads. I elected to
take the lateral all the way to the smoothly paved main street, rather than
bounce over the cobblestones with my heavy load. The bicycle was faster than walking, but more
dangerous.
No one showed up to play music so I practiced for an hour
and then headed home. Riding the bike
back uphill was more difficult. I kept
getting stuck behind slow cars which made it hard to keep up enough momentum to
avoid falling over. I managed to power
up the hill but had to walk the last step before I hit the lateral. A pedestrian cut me off.
I wanteded the go to the Octopus’ Garden but didn’t dare try
to negotiate the cobblestones on the bike.
I went home and returned on foot.
I picked up my complimentary ticket for the next night’s
anniversary party and bought a ticket to Diego Mondragon’s second show.
That errand done, I continued to the grocery shop to buy
bananas, yogurt and tortillas. There were
no tortillas in the shop, so I walked over to the tortilleria. They were out of corn tortillas. I didn’t know if it was because I had come at
16:00 or because they had run out of propane.
There was a shortage of propane in Jalisco, Nayarit, and Colima because
a propane distribution center near Guadalajara was down for maintenance (or possibly because the distributors were holding out for 2019 prices.) No one could heat their pools and people were
running out of propane for cooking and heating water. We were still okay but were keeping our
fingers crossed that the gas would last until propane was available again.
I read and worked on musical projects until dinnertime and
then sat down to write after I ate. I
planned to retire early so I could get up to run on Thursday.
January 3, 2019
 |
| A Rather Dull Sunrise |
I went running on Thursday morning. It was unusually dark and the sunrise seemed
to be in black and white that morning.
There was very little color in it.
That was disappointing, since it was usually so dramatic.
The day passed with the usual activities. I was excited about going to the Octopus’
Garden, that evening, to celebrate the third anniversary party of Alfredo’s having
taken over the restaurant, bar, and music venue. As a loyal customer, I had been granted a
ticket and scored a table front and center.
 |
| Lobo with Esau and Sonny from Tatewari |
There was a great lineup of musicians playing that
night. Lobo began the show playing
flamenco guitar. He was eventually
joined by Esau from Tatewari and the other members of the band, except for
Mimi, gradually joined them on the stage.
When they were all present, Lobo exited and Tatewari played a few
numbers.
 |
| The Shuffle Band |
 |
| Deep River |
Deep River played after the Shuffle Band. While they played covers, they did play an
eclectic set of unique songs, some of which dated from recent decades. I enjoyed the music and so did the patrons,
who kept sending them tequila. I noted
that most of them saved it until after the set.
 |
| Amy Armstrong and Piel Canela |
The last act was Piel Canela. Mimi's absence from Tatewari was explained when
he appeared as the lead guitarist for Piel Canela. His flamenco persona was left behind and he
was rocking an electric guitar. The
singer for the band, Amy Armstrong, had an amazing voice well suited to songs
by Aretha Franklin or Adele. Mimi did
himself proud playing rock solos. Their
set was unfortunately short, as they were playing a concert at the Octopus’
Garden only a few days later.
 |
| Alfredo Addressing the Audience |
The evening was a lot of fun, but also a little sad, as Alfredo
made public the fact that Octopus’ Garden would no longer be serving as a
restaurant and music venue after that season.
Alfredo and MaryChuy would be moving the business to another location in
La Cruz to be announced later. There was
much speculation that he might be returning to Philo’s old location, which had
sat empty for a couple of seasons without anyone coming forward to buy the
property.
January 4, 2019
Friday was a gym day.
I had to rush home because I needed to be at the marina office by noon
to assist with organizing all the donations for the children of the Manos de
Amor orphanage into gift bags for each child.
The children had written letters to Santa expressing their desires. Those wishes were then translated into
English, copied onto paper hands, and hung on the Christmas tree in the VIP
lounge where cruisers and others could take one and fulfill that wish. Donations were then returned to the office
where we picked them up and organized them all.
 |
| Assembling Gift Bags |
Our first task was insuring that all the wishes had been
fulfilled. While we had many extra
donations, there were some “hands” that had been taken, but never
fulfilled. There was some last-minute
scrambling to purchase missing gifts with late arriving monetary
donations. I tied ribbons on the forty-two recycled
and reusable gift bags that Katrina had obtained. People had contributed
additional clothing and school supplies and we distributed those as equitably
as possible. People had been very
generous.
The loan of Victor’s bicycle made it possible for me to run
home after the work was done and practice for a bit before returning to the
marina at 17:00 for Mexican Train dominoes.
We had a large enough crowd that we needed to split into two tables.
When the games were over, I agreed to meet Tom and Cary from
Dragon’s Toy at the Brittania, later,
for Indian food. They served passable
curries and attempted to make naan, an endeavor that I had never seen succeed
without a tandoori oven. It was an
enjoyable meal and a nice departure from the usual fare. We took our time eating and chatted with the
chefs who were acquainted with Tom and Cary.
By the time we got to Ana Banana’s for music, later, we only managed to
catch the last set.
January 5, 2019
 |
| A Proper Dawn in La Cruz |
I got up early on Saturday to run. There was a colorful sunrise. Back at home, I lounged around and wasted
time until I needed to scurry over to the marina to watch the orphans from
Manos de Amor open their gifts.
 |
| Elinore with the Kids |
The
children had been invited to swim in the marina pool and the Poolside Deli provided
a hot dog lunch for them with a Rosca de Reyes (a traditional circular bread
sporting candied fruit that is baked for Three Kings Day) for dessert. A Rosca de Reyes contained plastic babies. Whomever got one in his or her piece was
supposed to make tamales. Elinore got
one in her piece and the children insisted that she pose with all the other lucky
recipients.
 |
| Santa Steve |
 |
| Lots of Happy Faces |
I got there just about the time lunch was served and chatted
with some volunteers while the children ate.
Then it was time for the gifts.
One of the cruisers posed as Santa and the children all had their photos
taken with him as their bags were presented.
While not every child got exactly what they had in mind, there were a lot
of happy faces. We had a tough time
getting the correctly sized roller blades and ended up with many extra small
and large ones. The boy who had requested
baseball equipment got a real glove, bat and ball and he was ecstatic. It was fun watching the children dig through
their treasures.
After the gifts were distributed, the children returned to
the pool area for a pinata.
Traditionally, the youngest kids go first. While the pinata was rapidly hanging by a thread,
that thread never failed. It took quite
a bit of battering and one broken broom handle before one of the girls finally managed
to breach the papier mache and release a torrent of candy. I stayed long enough to watch the children
scramble for candy and then departed to get out of the sun. It was great having a bicycle to speed up my
return, although riding up Langosta was a challenge.
 |
| Pedro Carillo on the Requinto |
Saturday night was another concert featuring Diego
Mondragon. The first attempt having been
marred by difficulties with the sound, I went to see him a second time. At first, it looked like there would be a
conflict with loud banda music next door, but a compromise was reached and the show
delayed half an hour until they finished.
The show was much improved over the first night, although the poor
singer still struggled to perform numbers that exceeded her range. Diego played a very true and passionate
violin, The crowd was enchanted and refused
to let the musicians leave, contributing extra money to pay the backup band so
that Diego could perform a third set. I
was almost equally taken with the trio from Punta de Mita, featuring the
hilarious and ”internationally unknown” Pedro Carillo on the requinto, and
resolved to seek them out at their regular venue sometime. It was quite late by the time I got home.
 |
| The Sunday Market |
January 6, 2019
Sunday was my day off from exercising and I used it to sleep
in late. With Victor and Saul in
residence, there was a lot of activity in the house, so I hid in my room,
reading and surfing the internet until hunger finally drove me out just before
noon.
I needed a few things from the market so took the bike and
zipped down there after breakfast. Poor
planning resulted in my choosing a cobblestoned route and I vowed never to do
that again on the bike. My teeth were
nearly jarred out of my head and I could have walked faster than I rode. I quickly picked up some strawberries, porchetta,
and a baguette and returned via a nice, smooth dirt road. I also picked up a ticket to the upcoming
Luna Rumba concert at Los Arroyos Verdes outside of Bucerias. Luna Rumba’s following had grown to the point
where they had outgrown the La Cruz venues.
Their manager, Fernanda, assured me that there would be shuttles from
the highway on the night of the concert so that those of us without cars could
get to the location. The concert would
end well before the buses stopped running to return people to La Cruz.
The original Luna Rumba had been my all-time favorite
band. After two years without them, I
was excited (although still somewhat skeptical) to see what the new version
would offer. They had come a long way from
playing for free on Wednesday nights at Philo’s to selling 350 peso tickets to
events at Los Arroyos Verdes. Posters
for the concert series were plastered all over La Cruz and Bucerias.
No comments:
Post a Comment