The "wind down"

My favorite time to be on the beach is sunrise, my second favorite time is Sunday just before sunset. Sunday is usually the busiest day on the beach, it is our restaurants busiest day. The taxi boats that bring most of the tourist to the beach for the day stop running at sundown, so the exodus starts shortly before sundown. The  "wind down" goes like this:
Mothers gather their kids and give them a cold garden hose bath, washing off the sea sand, and scrubbing their pop stained mouths,  some get clean dry clothes to go home in, some get pajamas, some go home snuggled in a wet towel and some in a cozy house coat.
 Coolers, plastic bags, umbrellas, soccer balls and shoes get packed up and they slowly walk up the beach towards the sun, families arm in arm, kids piggy backing, some lagging behind dragging their feet, some still bouncing full of sugar, some being carried sleeping on shoulders. Some piled onto the backs of pickup trucks and some piled into cars. 
We rush to finish clean up, we bring table cloths in, bring chairs and tables in, we don't want anything washed away at high tide. We put a last fish on the fire for us to eat, fry the last 6 shrimp, and wash the last dishes, the pail of fish guts gets buried and all the garbage gets brought to the bins. Cocoa debris gets racked up. We eat standing up leaning against the bar so we can see the sun set, it's beautiful again. 
The 7 year old gets dry clothes on and needs to go in to do her homework. I get into my hammock and the cleanup guys rakes the sand. I watch the last people slowly make their way up the beach, towards the sunset. A kid passes by kicking a soccer ball, the life guards pass by on a quad, I watch a dog tear apart a left behind bag of garbage, the life guard booth seems so tall now that the beach is empty. The waiter next door walks by bringing his empties back to the cantina, 2 dogs are following him (they always do), a young couple are standing under a palapa making out, soon they start dancing to the music from the cantina, I see my sister's daughter dancing with a friend under the boogie board palapa, the wind picks up and sends a boogie board flying down the beach, she stops dancing and chases it. I snuggle deeper into my hammock, garbage starts dancing on the beach as if it can hear the music too, it's art, a reminder of the fun that was had here today, it could make a beautiful painting,  all the Styrofoam cups of  coke that were enjoyed, the paper plates of civiche that was eaten and the straws and stray tin cans, all dancing, shining in the last of the sun.
 In the morning the wind will have left ripples in the sand, like the ribs on a chocolate soft ice cream cone. By now everything is in silhouettes, the tractor pulling the fishing boats in, the dogs looking for left over bones, the lovers sitting in the sand....the left over few, the locals, that are not in a hurry to catch a boat, the music from the cantina is lovely, a table cloth blows by, I squint to keep the sand out of my eyes, I lean out of my hammock to pet a dog, I see my neighbors going for their daily evening walk, I decide it's too windy to walk, plus I am mesmerized by the "wind down", it's beautiful.  Once it's dark and the silhouettes are gone I get out of my hammock, I gather a sack of empty tin cans (my neighbor collects them) and carry my flip flops and meander on home, as I exit the beach I hear the red caution flag crack in the wind, kind of like the flag on the 9th green outside my office does on a windy day .....I am jolted back to reality,  I'm living in daily sadness now, the countdown to go back to Canada is on, 2 more weeks. The sadness will be replaced by excitement.....once I am on the plane, until then everything I do now is "a last".
I stop at a neighbor's little store, I bought a carton of wine a few days ago and plan on having a glass tonight and in case it's not good wine I should have a 7 up on hand, and I wanted a package of Ritz crackers to go with my wine (I'm classy that way), 4 neighborhood kids are in there and they have purchased tomatoes and an onion that they were sent for and now have 7 pesos left and want to buy as much candy as they can....they are pricing out the whole store, this amuses me, I wait, they don't have Ritz crackers, I end up with a bag of cheetos to go with my wine. I wait, this is how it is here.....and I like it like that.

I have another story, about my road trip to Chihuahua, but not now......I've had 2 glasses of wine, but it involves.....a pair of fleece lines leggings, a bus, a train, a car, 2 dried up crooked trees, my great grandmothers house, snow (yes snow) waffles and pudding and beans...and more.

 By the way....I can't believe how many of you can't get over my pink dress lol. If I can figure out how to take a full length picture of myself I'll do it for you....anything to keep the ratings up...since I have been slacking off the ratings are a bit down.