Still here

Just letting you all know that I am still here, haven't gotten electrocuted or anything. I am writing stuff just don't have anything ready to post yet. All I have today are some shots from my evening beach walk. It was a gooder.

And I BBQed some sausage and potatoes, my BBQ still doesn't look very artsy but it is functional. My fisherman has left on his tuna ship and so my construction has stopped....I may hire someone else. I think my plumber/electrician is also a brick layer, I might ask him, I know he is busy on Mondays but maybe he can come on Tuesdays.

Not very grounded

My shower had stopped producing hot water shortly after I got here but it was not a big deal as it was so bilitzen hot and a cool shower was wonderful...but then the weather changed suddenly and hot water was needed. Here is how you hire a plumber;

I happen to walk by a house one day and you see a guy working on a hot water tank, it is not his hot water tank because I just happen to know who lives there, so he must have been commissioned to fix it, so he must know what he is doing. Makes sense to me. So I stop and ask "are you a plumber?" He answers "what do you need fixed?" and I take that as code for "yes I am a plumber". I explain my chilly situation and he promises he will be over as soon as he is done here. I think "pff, will never see him again".
Well, he shows up as promised and fixed my water heater thing, I had a  great hot shower, it was hotter than it had ever ever been, I'm thinking this is great. I go to turn the heat down a bit and as I touch the knob I get a wee little shock...or was it a shock, it felt like a little shock, but maybe it wasn't, so I touch the knob again....yup, it was a shock. Yup, in the shower, wet and of course sin clothes, they make horror movies with scenes like this...I think. End of shower.

So I find my plumber guy again and this is how the conversation went, in Spanish of course.
Me: Hey Mr (because I couldn't grasp his name the other day) my shower is great, it is very very hot, hotter than it has ever been but when I touch the knob I get a little shock....here I also act out getting shocked because I forgot to look up the word "shock" and couldn't think of a substitute.
Mr: Oh that's normal
So I think my acting was bad and start acting this out again, seriously, there is only one way to act out getting shocked, you don't need to be no Meryl Streep to do this. I'm pretty sure I nailed it this time.
Mr: yes, that is normal
Me: No I don't think so
Mr: oh yes I have the same system in my house
Me: I don't like it much
Mr: It's because you are tall like me (he was very tall) and your head is so close to the shower head.
Me: No, I don't think that's why, it never used to do this before
Mr: were you barefoot?
Me: chuckling...yes,  of course (no need to mention naked too)
Mr: if you wear shoes it won't do that anymore
Me: Shoes? I need to wear shoes in the shower?
Mr: Not shoes, just flip flops will do
Me: I don't like this, I don't want to die in my shower
Mr: laughing...has never happened,
Me: can this be fixed, I don't want to be the first?
Mr: I'll come look on Monday

This conversation took place about 2 weeks ago, Mondays have come and gone. I have been wearing flip flops in the shower and have never gotten a shock since...but, the water has also never been as hot since...go figure.

A week after this conversation he comes to the restaurant to eat and when he sees me he says "oh, you're not dead yet, you're still here"? He laughs and  I call him a clown....I can do that now, I have learned how to call people names in Spanish, that has opened up a whole new world for me.

Here is my electric shower, many north Americans here call it the "suicide shower", When it works properly I think it is a genius idea, it eliminates having a hot water tank and only uses electricity when in use. To fully appreciate this genius contraption you have to first forget everything you have ever heard about having electricity n the shower...this takes a while. 

sunset shots from the hammock at the "old bull". 

Happy New Years!

The day before new years eve the beach was hoppin busy, I help out at the Old Bull all day, it was a great day for the restaurants on the beach, the atmosphere was electric. We hadn't seen that many tourists on the beach this winter yet and you could feel the moral of the locals had lifted. There was singing in the kitchens, laughing, everyone was effected in the new positive vibe, it ran through the palapas like electricity, right from the guy that rents boogie boards, to the lady selling beaded jewelry to man selling Mexican blankets to the guy delivering tortillas, to the water guy, to the man selling hats, even my Mexican cousin that delivered the coconuts was dancing and laughing...he did have a lot to be singing about, he almost free felled (is that a word) off a coconut tree that morning, he were laughing so hard when he was telling the story I could hardly get it all. He was on the tree with a rope tied around his waist and his assistant was on the ground holding on to the rope, when he was ready to  lower himself to the ground, he yelled "are you ready?" the guy said "yes" and then for some really funny reason he let go of the rope, I couldn't understand what happened to make him let go of the rope but dude on top had a fast fall until he hit the tree beside the tree he was on and then the other guy got a hold of the rope again. Everyone laughed and laughed, except for the guy that had let go of the rope, he was just sitting there sheepishly grinning. We joked  that maybe he wasn't paying his assistant enough. He replied that maybe he should start charging for delivering coconuts every morning and then he was reminded of how often he eats here without paying. We joked throughout the day that the price of coconuts might go up. End result, just a very bruised leg.....and a funny story to tell.

I am getting better in the kitchen now, my sister can actually send me for stuff now and I come back with the right thing...almost always. Now when she asks me to hand her a knife I don't bring her a spoon anymore. When the waiter asked me for an extra plate I bring him a plate and not a banana, I know how to unplug a drain with a straw, I know not to throw the eggs of the fish into the trash with the rest of the guts (fish eggs are yummy) I know how to make a band aid from an onion peel, and I am much faster at peeling shrimp without losing the tails. This is Spanish immersion at its best. I even know how to say "you are such an ass" in Spanish, teehehe.

As the day ended it started getting really windy and cold and a pot of hot chocolate was put on the stove. After we had cleaned up and closed up we pulled a little table into the kitchen in front of our fire and 5 of us huddled in around it and ate our supper, we hadn't had a chance to eat all day. Past the palapas you could see nothing but darkness, you could hear the ocean but not see it. The beach was pitch dark. We had a single light bulb hanging above our table as we ate rice, beans, tortillas and some left over shrimp and sipped our hot chocolate, we reminisced about the day and thanked God for the business that he had blessed us with. It was a very cozy and peaceful setting.
As we are getting ready to leave sister got a text from a friend in Culiacan that said a storm was heading our way. The wind had really picked up and it did feel stormy. We made sure the fire was out, normally we just let it die on its own, but we didn't want the wind to spread a fire through the palapas. We secured everything that could possibly blow away. We went home to wait for a storm.
The storm never came, it was windy all night and we got a few little showers of rain throughout the night and the next day, it was just miserable enough to keep the people off the beach on New Years Eve. A very disappointing business day. We prepared as usual in the morning, built a fire, made a pot of rice and beans and a batch of salsa....these are the staples in a Mexican restaurant and home. We did not have a single customer, but as family members stopped in throughout the day the food disappeared. We sat around and chatted all day. I had brought my big book of 501 Spanish verbs with me a few days ago and they helped me  and gave me tips. At one point the waiter jokingly told me to sit at the table with my book and not get up until I was fluent, I asked if he was willing to bring me food for a year or so, although I think it will take me longer than a year to master 501 verbs. I almost made a new years resolution to master one verb a day for the rest of the year...almost.

I did learn how to marinate beef for carne asada tacos.....this, along with the rice and beans recipe will change my life. Will share this information on a separate food blog post.

The locals celebrated New Years Eve with small family parties/gatherings at their homes, not a lot of fus and mus, I was invited to a few different gathering but declined all. I have a hard time with Spanish when there are big groups of people all talking at once. I was in bed by 9 pm and at midnight I did wake up to fire crackers and fire works and I think some pistol shots (even though no one is allowed to have a gun here on the Island), the noise lasted for about 1/2 hour and then I fell asleep again. At about 2 am someone realized that they forgot to set off their fireworks and decided better late than never  so there was about an hour of banging and that was it.....Happy New Year to us all!

I'll leave you with some unrelated photo, I know I don't like reading a blog post without photos.  

I bought this vine off of the plant guy that drives around with his truck full of plants,  no idea what it is called . I am still hoping to make a trip to a greenhouse to the mainland. 

I found a new water jug, just like the one I broke a few weeks ago, except with a pink flower, I preferred the other but I can live with this. Now I can stop storing my water in plastic yogurt containers, the price was right at 50 pesos. I think it holds about 4 litres of water.

My poinsettia is still alive 

If I had  a Mexican nickle for every time I've seen a child being transported in a milk crate I would have ......a lot of nickles.

Finally one flower in my garden, fighting the ants is a never ending battle

It's a small world

United States	74
Russia	52
Canada	44
Mexico	30
Malaysia	8
United Kingdom	4
Germany	3
France	2
Ireland	2
Australia	1

Blogger has a page that keeps the stats of my bog for me. . It tells me how many pages were viewed, it tells me how many hits I got on each post, it also tells me from which Country I got hits from, this one is the most interesting for me.  It of course doesn't tell me who the people are and for all I know they may have come upon my blog accidently and then just left, without even reading anything. I find myself thinking of these stats as game stats and of course I am always cheering for Canada, but they are rarely on top, usually somewhere after The United States, Mexico and Russia. I find it interesting that the Russians are hitting my blog a lot...many times they are even ahead of the US, I don't know if this is by accident or if they actually reading my stuff. Is it one person repeatedly hitting my blog or is it many people....I don't know this. All I know is that this week 52 pages were viewed by Russians (chart above) I would like to think I have a friend in Russia  and one is Australia this week, and 8 in Malaysia and so on, but chances are they are accidental hits...I can always hope. If they are friends and are reading I often wonder what brings them to my blog? I have had some anonymous comments which I always love, it tells me my viewers are real. When anonymous comments are posted it doesn't tell me where you are from, unless you reveal that in your comment. I would like to encourage my readers to post comments, even anonymous ones.....because it thrills me, no other reason, I would like to know where you are from and what brought you to my little space, if you choose to reveal that. For instance, what am I writing about that would interest someone way over in Russia or in Malaysia? If it's the food that I write about I could write more posts about food, if it's my gardening in the north, or is it my rambling on and on about cotton curtains? I bet it's my sunset pictures. Or is it my knitting? I just started a painting, maybe I should share that if there are any artsy people reading this. I always cheer when a new country shows up, that thrills me too.
Whoever you are and where ever you are....welcome.
For the sunset lovers here are a few for you

For the Foodies out there, I have learned how to cook the PERFECT pot of rice from my Mexican sister, so perfect that I believe it will change my life...seriously. And of course I have pictures.....and will write about it soon.

Oh and.....YEAH for the US, you're ahead today.

Christmas is not a color

People in Canada often comment on how depressing it must be to have Christmas without snow, that's because they haven't experienced one without it yet.....once you do it's hard to go back. You have to experience it in order to understand, me explaining won't help. For instance, right now as I am writing this on Christmas eve at 6:48 pm the church bells are ringing, this village is so quiet it echoes throughout....yes Christmas eve and except for silent night playing next door the town is quiet, no one is rushing around to get ready for whatever I used to rush around for on Christmas eve. I am sure if you sail across the water to the big city the shoppers are still rushing about. 

 I just walked from the beach to my house and met 2 guys on the street, the last 2 people were just leaving the cantina and they were closing. There might be some kids playing on the basketball court. But yet.......Christmas is here and it is real, you can feel it. It started 9 days ago.

 The posadas start 9 days before Christmas, representing the 9 months that Mary was pregnant. I've been to 4 posadas this year and they were all similar. The posada consists of Mary, Joseph, 3 wise men, 3 angels, and the devil and in the end baby Jesus. They re enact Mary and Joseph on their journey, they act out how they go from place to place to find a resting place, this is done in the form of a parade, with Mary and Joseph leading, all the  village folk following them. The angels see the star and sing and declare a king is coming. The devil hears this and wants to stop the good  news from spreading. The three wise men are on their way with gifts for the king, the devil intercepts, there is a confrontation and I can never really understand what happens here. With little kids acting, singing and reading, combined with a bad sound system....or no sounds system and of course my 2 year old Spanish understanding, I don't really get what happens. The devil steals a gift but in the end when Jesus is born the devil gets defeated and he is laughed off the stage....he sulks away. Then there is another possession with Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus leading the village people around the stage, ball diamond, school yard....where ever this event is taking place.

The sweetest posada was the one that the community put on here on the Island at the baseball diamonds. Except for Mary and Joseph the actors for all the other parts were choose right there with a show of hands if you wanted to participate....almost all hands went up, kids were randomly chosen. A lady read the story and the kids just acted it out, remember, no rehearsing, this was done on the fly. The kids were amazing, these kids love to perform and they are good at it. The best part was where the devil and one of the kings had it out with each other, the little devil was probably about 8 and the king was maybe 10, they managed to have a big fight without touching each other and when the devil made off with the kings present he truly looked shocked at first that his gift was gone and then enraged when he realized that the devil had stolen it. It  so reminded me of the story "The best Christmas pageant ever" If you haven't read it, read it. Read it now. The king is so enraged he lost his composure and forgets he is in front of a life audience and cry out "oh my God!" We all try to stifle our laughter, that left you with all  kinds of funny snorting noises, that happens when you try to cover a laugh. It was hilarious.

Joseph and Mary were probably about 10 or 11 years old and when they lead their last procession they really looked like they were proud parents. The way he had one hand on her arm and the other on her back gently guided her so she wouldn't trip or fall, he was so attentive and looked so proud at his baby, (a doll) he straighten the blankets out at one point when a toe showed out of the bottom and smiled proudly at Mary and at the audience. You couldn't help but be stirred just a bit, and you couldn't help but know that this is the real Christmas.....it's a feeling of peace and gratefulness, it's not snow.

Afterwards 3 piñatas were beaten to a pulp and the kids went home with a candy or 2 in their pockets.

The next Sunday in church we had another posada, same story. It being posada Sunday there were a lot of new people in church, some people only go to church on Christmas so our little church got packed full. When it was time to collect the offering  the pastor randomly choose a kid, turned out to be the same kid that was the star king at the posada at the baseball diamond, he is one of my neighbours, I have never seen him in church before. He was given the basket and told to collect the offering, I don't think he understood what it was for but he did well, after the first row of people put money in the basket he realized oh...I'm collecting money. It also just so happened that he was wearing a black hoodie...don't ask why, it was soooo hot.  He flips his hood up and taps the basket on the people's knees if they had their head turned.....like people do when they decide to pass on giving offering, and then he'd say "give me all your money". Well.....there we go again snort snort....he was just a giggling and swaggering and having a great time, and cute as could be. Yeah....you had to be there. He should collect offering all the time, maybe we could afford flush toilets sooner.

I love how at every Christmas concert regardless of the venue the same Christmas story is present, whether at the Grand theatre in Mazatlan, at an elementary school, at the baseball diamond or at the church. Whether it is performed  with props, costumes and professional dancers/actor, set and stage designers or with paper crowns and tables clothes as capes, the story is the same and it is for everyone.
May the peace and love of God be with ALL of you during this Christmas season

I'll leave you with the Christmas eve sunset

A iguana rodeo and keeping up with the Jones

Making small improvements to a home that is made of bricks is very challenging. I have written before how just hanging curtain rods can take days, even weeks. Just hanging anything is complicated and always messy, drilling a hole in the wall always makes a mess, setting a nail or a screw in the hole is tricky. A trick I have not mastered yet.

I have a saying I often use at work in Canada and it certainly applies here as well. "' when starting any major project always remember that it will take longer than originally expected, it will cost more than originally expected, and it will be messier than originally expected". How's that for a fridge magnet?

It is a custom here that if you can afford it you paint your house just before Christmas and since I am trying to keep up with the Jones here I had full intention of painting my house before Christmas. The overhang of my roof was starting to crumble in places exposing the rebar, which results in the rebar rusting from the humid salty air here. Everything rusts here...everything, and stainless steel just means that it stains less, which is why it is not called "no stain steel" it is "stain less steel". Last year just before I left I must have stuck 2 pins into a place mat on my table and forgot about them...I do that when I am working on something, when I came back this year those pins were so rusted I had to make a hole in the place-mats to get them out. A metal carrot grater only lasts one season here. In one season a new bike looks like old junk...completely rusted. You get the picture...everything rusts.

Anyway, so my rebar is exposed and needs to be fixed, and should be fixed before painting. Also, my roof overhang does not have a drip lip on it causing the water to run underneath it during the rainy season which is why it is crumbling so I should really put a drip lip (that's my word for it) on it or I will have to keep replastering the overhang every year or so....I don't like doing already done work over and over. So it was decided we would also add a drip lip.

See how ugly the roof over hang is

another look here, I was also blocking a newly knitted shawl on the line

rebar showing, this needs to be fixed prior to painting

I was told 2 days, 3 at the most. That turns out to be working days, not days until the project is finished. When you are working with concrete and mortar you can only apply so much and then you have to wait for it to set/dry before you can plaster more.

The process goes like this; you slap plaster upwards and what doesn't fall back onto your head, or splashes onto the side of my house, or falls onto my freshly washed shutters or lands on my nicely laid brick patio or onto my plants, or flies through my window and lands on my bed, sticks to the overhang and once you have fully coated it you wait a day (or 6). Then you come back and add some more with  a trowel and this time you smooth it out nicely. Then you rent some forms to mold the drip lip, the forms are just pieces of wood that attach with claps made from rebar. You stick mortar in-between the wooden forms and concrete and then you wait a day for it to dry.
The next day you take the forms off and then you realize that you didn't put enough oil on the forms and so they stuck to the concrete and so the drip lip falls off with your form. Bummer. Now you are 2 days behind, you start all over again. In his defense, he is a fisherman, not a masonry.

smacking plaster  into place

waiting for it to dry with the forms in place

and then the plaster came off with the forms.....start all over

the new drip lip, waiting to dry and then prime and then ...paint

This time you oil the forms more and you leave them on to dry for 4 days, just to be sure. They come off perfectly. Now you spend a day doing some touch up work and making it nice and smooth. Finished?. Nope, that's only one side of the house, now the whole process has to be repeated on the other side...except the part where the drip lip crashed to the ground, I hope. Today it is December 23, and we are into day 2 of the front side of the house, this house is not getting painted by Christmas...New Years? Who knows. It will take me a day to prep the house for paint because there is mortar splatter all over it. Yesterday as I was helping (sitting on the step with my dictionary) I said to him, "someday my house will be clean again...right?" He laughed and said "maybe".

Day 1 of the front side, or was it day 2....nothing seems to have changed the last 3 days

The painting won't take that long, of course because I am a little  "artsy fartsy" I can't have just a normal paint job, I had planned on being a little creative but now that I know how long and messy all this brick work is I might just settle for "normal" after all. Plus this guy has renewed his passport so he is waiting for a call to head out on the great big sea for a tuna fishing voyage. He could be gone any day he tells me. I can always do some "arting" later.

This whole process may seem like it would be fairly unexciting...wrong, there is never a dull moment here, ever. Let me tell you about the great iguana rodeo that we had one day. I have a video of it but can't figure out how to insert it.

I'm in my house and I hear some shuffling on my roof, these last 2 weeks during all this roof construction I am pretty used to roof noises but this was a different noise but I ignore it. Then later I sit on my step and am eating an orange and chatting with the guy and then I hear the shuffling noise again and then some bits of concrete fall on my head, I look up into the face of an iguana looking over the edge of  the roof. My first thought is "he has to die". Do you recall the great poinsettia massacre from 2 years ago? I haven't gotten over that yet. I'm a little protective over my price poinsettia this year. I tell the guy to kill him, he seems somewhat surprised, but he gets up on the roof again with his machete. He asks "you sure you want me to kill him?". I say "yes". He seems very hesitate, and I am starting to wonder if maybe there is some law against killing them, he doesn't want to kill it. Just at that moment 2 boys walk by, he hollers at them from the roof asking if they want a iguana, "is it green, is it big" they ask, "yes to both". They want it, they race around to the back of the house. Guy on the roof finds a piece of string, it always amazes me how what you need is always readily available for them, he makes a noose and I realize what is going to happen, he is going to lasso it....I need my camera for this, I run into the house to get it. I am thinking that lassoing an iguana cannot be easy and it will take a few tries so I am positioning myself to get a good angle and messing with the settings of my camera. The 2 boys are doing the excited happy dance, which is similar to the I have to pee dance, and then he lassos the iguana on the first attempt...not his first day fishing for iguana. Iguana goes wild but can't get away, the boys nearly pee themselves from excitement. Guy ties the string to a long piece of rebar and lowers it down to the boys, now what? This thing isn't leach trained and it keeps lunging at them, and the leach is not very long. I ask what are they going to do with this? Apparently you can sell a nice big green iguana for about 100 pesos. Tourists on the beach pay to have their picture taken with these critters. Guy on the roof jokes that he wants a cut of the profit. The boys lope off with their prize, a funny sight to see, 2 boys trying to take a wild iguana for a walk. Now that I know there is a 100 peso bounty on these critters heads I will be able to dispose of them in a more humanly manner than what I had planned. My poinsettia will be safe one more night. Maybe....guy tells me there were 2 when he started working on the roof, one took off.

The iguana....

The next morning when the vegetable guy comes around he has his son (kids are not in school because of Christmas break) with him who was one of the dancing boys, I was just about to ask him how he made out with the iguana sale and he shot me a look that I understood very well. It was very clear that he did not want father to know that he had made some cash yesterday. When kids here make money they are expected to declare it and to pay "family tax", a portion, in some cases all, of it gets put into the family coffers, to pay for food..ect. One kid told me once how he had sold his cell phone and then bought a cheaper cell phone and had some money left over and he had not told his mother and kept the money, he was pretty proud of how he had gotten away with that. Kids are kids. So....I kept my mouth shut, I now have an iguana guy if I should need one, I best not tattle on him, that is if my iguana fisherman sticks around. Don't think that catch would have happened so smoothly had I tried it.
I asked around if it is illegal to kill an iguana and was told it was not but there are not that many green iguanas left so they do try to protect them....somewhat, they don't like to kill them. If times are hard they will eat them, apparently there is not a lot of meat on them but it makes a good broth for a soup base. I was also told that you can tell how the economy is doing in a Mexican colonia by the size of the iguanas, if they are big, the economy is good, if they are small times are tough. This guy was a fair size.
I was also told there are 3 kinds of iguana, the green iguana, the black iguana, and the marijuana. The green ones can be tamed and be used as pets or eaten, the black ones are mean and taste bad, as for the marijuana ....enough said about that.     

Here is an example of how you can be dirt poor and still take pride in what you have, this darling little house is about 4 doors down from me. This lady gave me some of her plants last year. 

I can't seem to figure out why my font changes through out my writing once in awhile. 

Giselle

My body was not really in the mood to go to the mainland after working at the Old Bull all day, especially this late, but the ballet Giselle is on at the Angela Peralta Theatre at 8 pm and I have a ticket and made a commitment to meet some friends there. Will I even be able to stay up that late? Then I remember my favorite little coffee place right in front of the theater and I think a vanilla cappuccino will be a must.

I shower and change my clothes real quick, my shower has been cold for a few days now but since it is so blazin hot that is almost welcome most days...almost, I should find an electrician before it gets cold. I am sure my Tio across from me could fix it but  I have seen how his house is wired and I am not sure I| want him touching my electrical stuff.

I walk to the dock in the dark, I love the Island in the dark, all the lights seem to sparkle and dance, everything looks shiny and it's so quiet and peaceful. The boat ride across is like a dream, the lights of the big city getting closer and closer, lights from the Island getting smaller and smaller.

I take a pulmonia to central and for once I don't get ripped off, I've come a long way, negotiating a taxi fare was always such a nightmare for me.

I got this photo off the internet, now sure who to give credit. It is the Mazatlan pulmonia 

The plaza machado is stunning at night and is hoppin tonight, the place is full of people, I see a police truck and a fire truck parked to the side....getting coffee or buying ballet tickets I am guessing. I made my way to the coffee place and buy a vanilla cappuccino, a city luxury for me. I come out of the shop with my coffee and almost trip on a big hose, I notice there is water everywhere, then I see firemen coming out of a restaurant...of course, there is a fire...hence the fire truck. The plaza is packed and they just string their hoses out and work around the people, never a dull moment. I find a bench and watch the firemen gather up their hoses and take off, every one else carries on with normal Saturday night business, I am guessing the restaurant will spray febreeze tonight and reopen tomorrow night with new decor.

I sip my coffee and eat a whole brick of coconut while I watch an impromptu fireworks show, I brought a shawl in case it got cold...it does not, I carry my shawl, might need it for the  boat ride home.

photo scooped off the net

photo scooped off the net

The ballet is awesome, once again I feel like I am in a movie and I should be wearing a long red dress and my nails should be painted red to match, I was going to paint my nails (not red) but just didn't have time.  Being that I live waaaay up north I don't get the opportunity for this kind of entertainment, another luxury for me. I am a bit of an introvert and don't like events where there are a lot of people and you are expected to mingle, which is why even though this is a big theatre and there are lots of people, I am ok, because no one talks to you, except for applauding the place is silent....my kind of entertainment. Of course the minute the show is over before the exodus begins, I am outa there....first one out the door, I have a boat to catch and it is way past my bedtime, you'd think I was wearing glass slippers and in a hurry to catch my pumpkin carriage.

I walk 3 blocks to catch a taxi, the taxis outside the theater are always too pricey for me. In the past years I have walked at this time of night (it's 10:30 pm ) but  the times have changed a  little, even my Island friends confirmed with me before I left that I was going to take a taxi, I still feel I would be fine but I know I sure would feel stupid if something did happen, after being told not to walk. I think buses to the docks stop running at 9 pm, but even if they were still out,  if walking is dangerous standing on a street corner alone waiting for a bus is just as dangerous. There are not many places left in the world where a women can walk alone at night anymore. I get a taxi for 40 pesos, not bad at all.

There is a young couple making out at the docks, waiting for a boat, she is still in her school uniform, they don't notice me. I find a nail file in my purse and file my nails. Soon a big cowboy joins us, wonder where he has been all dressed up, shiny boots, white hat and freshly pressed shirt (must have a wife). A pretty young lady in a Panama uniform joins us, she is very busy texting on her iphone.

Then the entertainment arrives, he steps over the railroad track as if it is a foot high, his depth perception is gone....he is loaded drunk, at the ticket booth he can't get his money out of his pocket, his pocket is deep, his hands can't focus, the ground he is standing on is moving, he sways...but stays on his feet, now his hand is stuck in his pocket, there is a struggle..man against body, he gets his hand out....man, his money didn't come with it, he dives in again fishing deep this time, Lord don't let this man's pants fall down. Amazingly through all this he does not make a sound, not a foul word...nothing, as if he knows he is not capable of making sense anyway. He rocks back and forth with his hand in his pocket, like you rock your truck when you are a bit stuck, and then he gets it...yeah, I want to cheer for him, but  I don't. He pays and stands off to the side, doesn't join the rest of us. By now a man in a business suit arrives, he is chatting on his cell phone continuously, I try to eavesdrop but I am still terrible at that, who does business at 11 pm, he's probably cooing to his secretary, aside from him there is complete silence, a fish jumps in the water beside me, it startles Panama girl and I.

Then our boat arrives, but the captain wants to wait for more people, he has his wife with him, they stay on the boat and chat, we wait for about 10 minutes and no one else comes, we board, except young girl's boyfriend he stays behind, their good bye kiss was almost like a scene from the Titanic, no one notices or reacts. Drunk guy boards last, I worry for him and wonder if a drunk guy has ever fallen overboard or (eww) gotten sea sick, he makes it and sits at the bow all alone, still hasn't made a sound. If all drunks were quiet like this we would all like them a little bit better, great entertainment. Panama girls is still texting, I get a wiff of cowboy's cologne in the breeze, that dude smells good, business man is still whispering in his phone, I keep my eye out for plankton*, nothing tonight, I watch the Island lights get closer. I am still holding my shawl, unreal, last year at this time we would have all been shivering with our teeth chattering....it's beautiful, like being in a dream. Surreal.

On the other side someone on a motorbike picks Panama girl up, business man has a motorbike parked there as well. Young school girl walks onto the colonia on the other side of the Island, drunk guy fades into the darkness and is just gone. Cowboy has his tractor parked in the parking lot and fires it up, seriously, this guy got all washed up, dressed up and drove to the docks with his tractor, he roars past me, unreal. He pulls into his driveway as I am walking past, he's the watermelon guy!....wow, he cleans up good.

I love this place, I love that I  can walk alone in the dark at night and not be afraid, I love it. The best part of going into the mainland is coming home, I thank God for this place and pray that it stays like this, I've seen Mazatlan change so much in 13 years. Will this place be so different in 13 years from now, I hope not. I hope I didn't get here at the tail end of its best years.

*Bioluminescence Plankton is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Its name is a hybrid word, originating from the Greek bios for "living" and the Latin lumen "light". Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring form of chemiluminescence where energy is released by a chemical reaction in the form of light emission. Fireflies, anglerfish, and other creatures produce the chemicals luciferin (a pigment) and luciferase (an enzyme).^[1] The luciferin reacts with oxygen to create light. The luciferase acts as a catalyst to speed up the reaction, which is sometimes mediated by cofactors such ascalcium ions or ATP. The chemical reaction can occur either inside or outside the cell. In bacteria, the expression of genes related to bioluminescence is controlled by an operon called the Lux operon.^[2]

Bioluminescence occurs in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as fungi, microorganisms and terrestrial animals. Symbiotic organisms carried within larger organisms are also known to bioluminesce.

Plankton

Plankton on the side of the boat

Like I say....like living in a dream

I got these pictures off the internet, whenever I see Plankton of course I don'tr have my camera with me.