RESTRICTIONS AND MORE RESTRICTIONS

April 20, 2020

My Non-Starter

I wished I had started keeping a diary earlier so I could better have tracked the changes in my emotional state. All I knew for sure is that I was mostly fine until the previous day when I heard I would be prohibited from going out to exercise. That was when it started to get hard for me. I was fine being alone as long as I could go out, breathe hard for a couple of hours, and enjoy the beauty around me. The prospect of being stuck with nothing but a view of my patio walls and my neighbors' derelict cars was depressing.

As of Monday morning, the states of Jalisco and Nayarit had issued an order forbidding anyone from leaving their homes except for essential activities. Those over sixty were ordered to stay at home, period. Wearing a mask in public became mandatory. Businesses not complying with the rules (and there were some) were subject to closure. Anyone caught having a party could be jailed. These were sensible measures and were a direct result of people ignoring earlier, more lenient suggestions.

Conspiracy theories abounded and I had even started receiving posts about them from Mexican friends, in Spanish. This depressed me more than anything except losing the opportunity to exercise.

Lime Steeping in Tequila

I admitted defeat in regards to my sourdough starter and made a pancake out of it for breakfast. Then I went to work on the “limoncello” that I was making from lime peels and tequila. I had a full bottle of tequila, but wasn't a tequila drinker. Since we were not permitted to buy alcohol, I had decided to try to make something out of it that I might enjoy. I had peeled forty limes the week before and had been steeping the peels in the tequila for seven days. I made a simple syrup and blended the two concoctions before setting the mixture aside to cure for another couple of weeks. It wasn't the pretty, yellow color that it would have been if it had been made with lemons and vodka, but still showed promise. I set the sweetened, tequila saturated peels out in the sun to dry, hoping to make good use of them later.

I practiced the guitar and then sat down to write. It seemed like the day would be a long one.

New Hose Rack

My housemate and her boyfriend arrived in the late morning. They were preparing to depart for points north in his sailboat and were bustling about, doing laundry and errands. John helped Cherie complete a few projects that she had intended to get done that season.  He put up a hose rack to finally get our garden hose off the patio. I had been tripping over that hose for three years and really appreciated this addition. 

Our house gets crowded quickly. I stayed in my room and read while they were home and used the periods when they were away to practice the guitar. It was a long, slow day. They finally departed about 9:00 in the evening. Part of me wished that I, too, was heading for the Sea of Cortez but Baja had been hit hard by the corona virus and no one knew what conditions would be like for cruisers in the Sea as time went on. I was equally content to stay where I was, where at least I could control my environment to some extent.

April 21, 2021

Our Terrace

Thinking it prudent not to disobey the order to stay at home, I didn't go out for a walk. Instead, I made tea and went up on the terrace, hoping to catch the sunrise from there. There wasn't much of a view. It would be impossible to keep up the stream of cheerful morning photographs that I had been posting on Facebook if I were trapped in my house. I loved my neighborhood, but it was not scenic, especially when many of the trees are bare. The rains and the growing season were still months away.

Neighbor's Yard at Dawn

The morning net brought the good news that exercising would be considered an “essential” activity. I would be able to walk or run in the mornings. That cheered me up for an hour before I received a phone call from my broker informing me that I should sell all my investments to protect my capital.  My income would be reduced to near zero. My rental properties were sitting vacant and no one was interested in moving during the quarantine.

While I had known all along that this virus might very well change my financial position forever, the prospect of having to live on my capital made it very real. I could probably rebound from a month or two but, if this went on for long, I would have to make some tough choices in the future. That left me feeling glum.

Soda Bread

Activity was the antidote to depression, so I swept the patios and made some mint sun tea. I practiced the guitar and baked a loaf of soda bread. Baking was a challenge. I couldn't get yeast locally or the buttermilk required to make soda bread. I had read somewhere that a mixture of milk and yogurt would suffice. The only yogurt I had was peach flavored ,but I figured a little peach in my bread wouldn't hurt anything. The thermostat in our oven was inaccurate and it took forever to cook the bread, but it turned out okay. It was dense and biscuitlike, but satisfied my craving.

Media Luna, one of my favorite bands, played a rooftop concert live streamed over Facebook that evening. It wasn't a long show, but it did cheer me up. Their youthful energy was infectious. It was fun watching the show with friends far and near.

April 22, 2020

Dock 1 Entrance

I returned to my usual routine and went for a walk in the marina before dawn. I was almost out of cat food, so didn't have much to share with my furry friends. They let me hear about it. Most of the usual walkers were out and I was the only one wearing a mask. I tried wearing the one that Cherie had bought at Mega. The elastic wouldn't stay hooked over my ears. I tied the two pieces of elastic together with a piece of cord over my head. That kept the mask on but gave me a brutal headache after and hour and a half of walking.

Dock Eight Before Dawn

Sunrise Over the Breakwater

Marina Cat Colony

Sweeping had become my new hobby. It gave me an excuse to get outside and check up on the neighborhood. I usually swept the front patio upon my return from exercise. Sometimes I swept the back later in the day. Now and then, I swept the sidewalk in front of the house. When I was feeling especially industrious, I would rake the leaves up off the street. The tree in front of our house was evergreen, but dropped leaves year round. In the early spring, it carpeted the ground with tiny flowers. At this season, it dropped small, pistachio-like fruits and twigs that clogged the broom and frustrated my sweeping. I had a love/hate relationship with that tree. It was rather ugly and made a lot of work for me but it did provide us with much needed shade.

It was cool in the house and I got chilled after my shower. I made tea and took it out onto the terrace to drink it in the sun. I ended up dozing on the daybed for an hour. It was still too chilly for me indoors, so I brought my computer back out onto the terrace to write. It was shady by that time, but there was a pleasant breeze and it was still warmer than indoors.

The Daybed on Our Terrace

It stayed cool all day. It was 4:00 I the afternoon before I got too warm to play the guitar without taking off my light bathrobe. There was nothing much to do. I read, practiced, and watched Netflix. It was getting easier to do nothing.

April 23, 2020

I somehow managed to turn off my alarm and go back to sleep until 6:45. Then, I just didn't feel like going for a run. I got up, made tea, and sat on the terrace until someone interrupted me with a text. It was nearly 9:00. I had lost track of the time and missed the net. I did manage to wash the filthy mosquito netting from over the day bed and sweep the terrace during that time, but it was a pretty lazy morning, even so.

When I had finally managed to shower and eat breakfast, I walked into town to shop for a few essentials at Mario's. Then I lugged my two bags of groceries back home. I had donned my mask just before entering the store, but wore it nearly all the way home because I kept encountering people on the sidewalk.

Mural in the Village

I settled in for a long day of doing nothing and started with a nap. Mid nap, I received a text from my housemate, Cherie, that they had returned to La Cruz. Apparently, they had broken the forestay on John's boat just before reaching the Marias Islands and the mast had come down. The bimini and solar panels had prevented anyone from being injured, thankfully. The navy was nearby and assisted them to secure things enough to motor back to La Cruz.

Cherie returned just before 2:00. John remained on the boat to assess the damage and try to arrive at a course of action. It did not look like they were going to be sailing to San Carlos in time for his haul-out appointment.

I had planned to be lazy and feel sorry for myself all day, but Cherie and John's misfortune rather dwarfed my mild depression. I got up, made lunch, and sat down to write.

April 24, 2020

Abandoned Panga at the Soccer Field

View from the Ridge

Crack I Squeezed Through

I was determined to make Friday a better day than the day before. I got up early and went for a walk into the hills. It was too dark to run on the rocky road. After a couple of miles on the familiar track, I reached an intersection and decided to take the road less traveled. I knew the main road ended at a closed gate, so wanted











to see where the other direction went. It quickly deteriorated to something between a trail and a stream bed. I followed it uphill and enjoyed some lovely vistas as the sun rose. I continued over the hill and began to descend. After a few minutes, I could hear cars and suspected that I was heading for the highway. The track met the highway to Sayulita near the roadside fruit stands. It was blocked off with barbed wire and I could just barely squeeze myself between the fence and a tree. The fruit stands were now closed up tight and even the guard dogs were off duty.  One doberman was worrying a stuffed animal.  Once I reached the highway, I ran the two miles back into La Cruz. It made a nice five mile loop.

Shuttered Fruit Stand

I listened to the net, made breakfast and did a couple of loads of laundry. Then I swept the front patio and took a quick trip to the Oxxo for ice cream. All the candy shelves were empty. I wondered if that had been banned, too, although I hadn't heard anything about it.

The day passed quickly between guitar practice, laundry, and reading. I didn't get around to writing until after dinner.

April 25,2020

Permanent X-mas Decoration at the Marina

Day 39 of quarantine. I got up at the usual time to take my walk around the marina. It was getting difficult to find new photographic subjects. I had been photographing the dawn in that marina for six years. I never got tired of looking at it. I hoped my readers weren't getting bored, either.

Philo's Memorial at Dawn

Patterns in the Mud at Low Tide

With nothing to do but read, play with my phone, and watch Netflix, I was having a hard time staying awake. Cherie left to go to the boat about 2:00 and I woke myself, snoring, about 3:00. I drank a diet Coke in an attempt to wake up. Then I practiced the guitar, watched a little Netflix, and made enchiladas for dinner. I resolved to start painting another patio wall. I needed a project to invigorate me.

Chicken Enchiladas

Experts had originally predicted that the pandemic in Mexico would peak during the second week of May. Now, they were revising their estimates and saying that it might be peaking, already. By Saturday night, we had had 13, 842 confirmed cases in Mexico. The increase was slightly less than the last few days, but it was too soon to proclaim a trend. More worrying was the prediction that the second wave would hit in July when the rains came and there was less light to kill the virus. I hoped there would be a window between the end of May and the second wave when I could make a break for California. I hoped that California wouldn't start a second wave as soon as the quarantine was lifted at the end of April (if it was still lifted at the end of April.)

April 26, 2020

Patio Wall Before Paint

I slept in a little bit on Sunday morning. Took my time eating breakfast and then practiced the guitar for a bit before starting to prep the wall I intended to paint. It didn't look too bad until I started scraping off the loose paint and realized that probably forty percent of it was loose. I scraped off what I could and then scrubbed a bunch more off with a stiff brush. The loose paint made a big mess that I needed to sweep up before I could wash the wall.

After breaking for lunch and some more guitar practice, I went back out and scrubbed the wall with bleach to kill the mildew. I scrubbed off more paint and blew off even more when I sprayed the wall to rinse it. The flakes of paint splattered all over the adjacent wall and the patio. Painting these walls always required things to get a lot worse before they started to improve.

I began the process of turning a drawing I had made several years before into a painting. I traced the major shapes with the intention of simplifying the design into something I could paint on a canvas or maybe my bedroom wall. It was tempting to paint a mural on one of the big, blank patio walls, but exterior paint was just too temporary to make the effort worthwhile.

Original Drawing to Be Painted

Cherie and John came back just before dinner time and I got to hear John's impressions of the dismasting. The forestay had parted inside the furler tube. It was not immediately obvious what had broken. He had tried to drop the main instead of immediately running a halyard forward to secure the mast. The whole process only took a minute or two, so there might not have been time to rig a temporary stay, anyway. Fortunately, no one was injured and the Mexican navy had been within sight when it happened. They promptly came to lend their assistance. A dozen sailors and the ship's windlass helped them to pull the mast out of the water and secure it on the deck. The ship continued to monitor their progress towards La Cruz until they made contact with the port captain.

After dinner, I listened to Cheko live at the Groove House Studio and chatted with Matt. I checked the daily corona virus statistics. The number of new cases had dropped for the second day running. I dared to hope that the first wave had truly peaked, although I realized that such data was always suspect, especially on the weekend when some locations did not report results. I read for a bit and then went to sleep without taking any melatonin. It seemed like all I wanted to do was sleep. I was starting to suspect that my blood pressure was low again.