SANTA MUERTE

Acrylic figures of Santa Muerte sold in the mercado in Mazatlan.

Parties are happening tonight and tomorrow night at the Captain's Club, the Marina Cantina and Pisky's house. The Capt suddenly got inspired and began investigating pirates' costumes on the Internet. He already has a three-cornered hat and now he's on a roll. I can't remember the last time we dressed up for Halloween, but this could be fun. The best part is putting together the costumes, walking in the cool evening and seeing friends tricked out in their getups.

Skeleton costumes are right up there with pirates and ghosts, but in Mexico you can dress not only as a skeleton, but as Santa Muerte, the "outsider" saint of hopeless causes, the dispossessed, criminals, prostitutes and (secretly) a growing number of middle-class and ordinary citizens.

PUMPKIN SURGERY, ANYONE?

Whole Earth's flagship store in Austin had the biggest display of pumpkins I've ever seen, every variety and color. All those empty canvases awaiting creative hands (and sharp knives)

I can see how carving pumpkins would appeal to a lot of people. When else can you wield a big knife and ruthlessly chop holes in a large, defenseless gourd? Maybe because I spend so much time chopping veggies, I misplaced my enthusiasm for this particular Halloween ritual. Pumpkins aren't easy to come by here in northern Mexico, anyway. But if anybody with access is reading this and planning pumpkin surgery, here's a website, extremepumkins.com that offers some inspiration. When my son discovered it, his imagination caught fire and he immediately hit the local supermarket to buy a couple of pumpkins.

Angry kid pumpkin from extremepumpkins.com

Webmaster Tom Nardone has published a book on pumpkin art, plus the website has how-to advice from design strategy to carving with power tools and applying pyrotechnics to create astounding lighting effects. Even a tip for using WD-40 or its generic equivalent to delay decay. I spent at least an hour looking at the huge array of photos, from LOL funny to politically incorrect to unspeakably gory. If you're pleased with your pumpkin, you can send in a photo to compete in the annual contest. Any submissions that are uploaded to their website are rewarded with prizes ranging from "crappy to really crappy."

HOW'S THIS FOR REVEALING?

Taking it all off, the Halloween Stripper

SPOOKUMS!

Here's the recommended footwear for the Ultimate Bitch Goddess Halloween costume! (From the LA Times Style Section)

ANOTHER REASON I WANT TO LEARN SPANISH

Sometimes turning on TV is like opening a window. The Capt only had the tube on for a few minutes, but wandered onto an educational channel and stuck around even though it was all in Spanish, to discover Mexican sculptor Javier Marin, who works in bronze and acrylic. He talked at length about his techniques and I'd have loved to understand him. Googling Marin opened a further window: his website. Here's a sample, "Cabeza Roja." Now go see more.

HOW THEY'VE GROWN!

Zorra's babies are all grown up. Here they are on their first tree-climbing expedition, trying to figure out how to get down.

Wonder if it's time to get the trap and the sardines out again...

NOT EXACTLY PRIME TIME

I arrived home from a five-day road trip and the Capt informed me that we were playing for a party Saturday. Two days to practice, and I hadn't performed since a wedding back in October, 2006. ¡Caramba!

So we gave them "Popscicle Toes," "Temptation" (Diana Krall's version, not Tom Waits'), "Blue Bayou," "Solamente Una Vez" (que lastima, nobody to harmonize with), and "Fever." Then the Capt and our friend Gary jammed on some blues.

I was nervous but when I looked out over the roomful of people, I realized it was just like our last performance, a wedding in a room with ghastly acoustics. Very few people were really listening, and they didn't even applaud the first song. We might as well have been elevator music; even the racy lyrics to "Popscicle Toes" couldn't get their attention. But it was good practice, anyway and some of our closer friends came up to tell us how much they enjoyed it.

Here's the Capt and Gary playing their blues.

TULSA TO TUCSON and HOME!

In the last couple of days on the road, after leaving Austin, my wanderlust began to fade and a powerful urge to get home took over. Maybe the lonesomeness of Highway I-10 after Fredericksburg had something to do with it. I had thought to stop somewhere in New Mexico for the night. But I passed Las Cruces, then Deming and a few forgettable hamlets along the way and just kept going. When road signs showed Tucson less than 100 miles away at only 3pm, I set my jaw and put the pedal to the metal.

I pulled into the RV park in Amado, AZ where our disabled but still-comfy rig is stored, and crawled gratefully into bed. Next morning after a bit of shopping in Nogales I crossed the border, buzzing on three double espressos. Again it was dusk when I arrived home, to be met with dancing dogs and a warm hug from the Capt. I had been traveling since Saturday, with a one-day break in Austin. The longest I've been on the road in many years, and the first time to drive so far alone. There were a few miracles along the way: finding out I wasn't lost after all, leaving Austin. Dropping my credit card yesterday at Safeway and getting it back an hour later. Feeling the Escort start to lurch and watching the "Service Engine Soon" light flashing, fifty miles from home (I pulled over, read the manual and decided to keep going at lower speed. It seemed to do fine at 55.)

The Capt hadn't been wasting his time while I was away. There were new lights installed under the kitchen cabinets, brightening the counter. He had pulled out and fixed the leaky kitchen sink, replaced the faucet, cleaned and painted the shelves under the counters, installed our new bookcase headboard, and used the power washer to clean the front of the house.

Looking around at all the surprises he had for me, I thought maybe I should travel more often. But not for a while...

TULSA TO TUCSON (Day 3, Austin)

Drove out of Austin in pouring rain, but it's let up now and I'm in a boutique cafe with wifi in LBJ's old stomping grounds, Johnson City on Hwy 129. Next comes a long, lonely stretch on I-10, but I've got my IPod and my cooler's full of snacks, my tank's full of gas and I should be OK.

Yesterday my cousin and his wife took me on a grand tour of Austin, kindly stopping every few blocks to allow me to take photos. So here they are... A Texas-style rest stop picnic table (note the longhorn roof), the Austin skyline, Austin megamansions, the Texas State Capitol (looking like just about every state capitol, I guess), a wonderful sculpture of wild mustangs at the University of Texas campus ("The mustangs that carried the men who built Texas"), St Mary's magnificent cathedral, the Chinese horse at P.F. Chan's where we had a fabulous lunch, pumpkins at the enormous Whole Foods flagship store, and a shot of a pizza girl inside, who obligingly tossed the dough almost four feet in the air for my camera.

I've always had fantasies about Austin, and yesterday they were more than fulfilled. If I ever move back to Texas and decide to live in a city, I'd think hard about Austin. Except there's no ocean there...

TULSA TO TUCSON (and beyond)

I'm on my sister's (gasp) PC tonight, hoping for a good night's sleep on a real bed before hitting the road for Austin tomorrow, on my way to Tucson and then Mexico. I spent last night on a couch that was about 3 inches too short, and the previous nights being visited nocturnally by a very fat, friendly and flatulent cat.

I have a cousin in Austin, a good ol' Texas oilman I remember from when he was a teenager and I was a smitten little kid. He also has Pulmonary Fibrosis, in the later stage. He's not sure he'll make it to Christmas. Spends all his time hooked up to oxygen. Saddest of all, he just got married a couple of years ago. So I'm going to go say goodbye.

Sorry, no photos right now, but I'm going to put together a slideshow of Tallgrass, the retirement facility my mother just moved into here in Bartlesville. She's very happy so far with the food, the fact she gets to keep her cats, the friendly people, the upscale surroundings, linen service and housekeeping service. My sister and I spent the last two days settling her in and when I hugged her goodbye this afternoon I was sad because I don't know if she'll know me next time I see her, but I felt good about leaving her there.

BLOGGING IN BARTLESVILLE

Bartlesville, OK (at the green arrow) is due north of Tulsa and a few mies south of the Kansas border.

I’m blogging at Java Dave’s in beautiful downtown Bartlesville, Oklahoma, having fueled up on a not-half-bad high-octane double espresso. There’s wifi throughout downtown, thanks to Will Rogers University which reportedly is located right upstairs. But although it’s indicated that I’m online, I can’t get to a server, so I will have to delay uploading this.

One of the high points of the trip so far was on the way to the border, when we drove through Hermosillo, came to a stop in front of a government building, and out came the Governor of Sonora, Eduardo Bours complete with a swarm of papparazzi, underlings and onlookers. He climbed into a little red compact along with three other suits, and pulled into traffic right behind us.

Another peak experience was my sister’s chorus rehearsal at the (only) Bartlesville high school last night. I had expected to sit it out and listen, but when the director learned I sing, she sat me next to my sis. I had given up on ever being part of a chorus again after I moved to Mexico, and I was thrilled, albeit a little daunted. This was a group of about 50 or 60 singers, most of whom could read music, and the first song we started off with was in German, by Beethoven. We sang a lot of Latin in our Gualala chorus, but I’d never sung in German before.

I’m here in Bartlesville to help my mom, age 88, move into a retirement facility called Tallgrass Estates, "Gracious Living for Seniors," where she won’t have to cook for herself anymore, she’ll be pampered and hopefully be surrounded by new friends. And she can keep her cat. There are no nurses, although caregivers can be independently engaged. Downstairs from her two-room apartment is a plush dining room that looks like a restaurant, and up the hall are a rec room, a library and a lounge. I’ll get pictures next time I visit. The place looks like an upper-middle-class apartment complex, and the decor of the public rooms is plush with thick carpets and a crystal chandelier over the grand staircase. It’s the sort of place that should make Mother feel like royalty. My sister and I agreed we hope never to end up in such a facility, but it has all the amenities our mom loves.

Moving day is Thursday, so we’re packing her stuff and making all the arrangements for the move.

The next challenge/adventure will be driving home to Mexico in Mother’s 1998 Ford Escort, probably Saturday. I’ve been studying an atlas and some Googled directions, getting my bearings and it looks like I will only pass through five cities: Tulsa, OK City, Amarillo, Albuquerque and Hermosillo. My sister says I can be in Albuquerque in one day, but I have my doubts. I'm more interested in getting home than sightseeing, truth be told. And my temporary visa requires I be across the border by Halloween.

UPDATE: I walked two blocks to the public libary and found the wifi here trouble-free. How civilized!

WORDS FROM THE WISE AND NOT-SO-WISE

A quote from Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander, set in Admiral Nelson's time and just as true today:

..."You know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile."

Old Norwegian saying:

"If not for the sea, we would have to carry our boats."

AT LAST, CHEAP INSURANCE

The new liferaft. Cozy looking, with a roof and padded floor, double-walled tubes.

We just blew a thousand bucks on something we hope we'll never have to use, and I have no regrets. If we'd bought it new it would have cost three times as much, plus shipping. Some months ago I blogged about my wish for a liferaft, and my wish finally came true. Last Saturday we bought a pre-owned but never-deployed six-person liferaft from Isabel and I googled the brand, Plastimo, to learn as much as I could about it. What does it look like? (You're not supposed to unpack it unless you need to use it.) Where can we service it?

Liferafts have canisters that fill with air when the right cord is pulled, plus emergency rations. No info on what foods are included. We just have to get over any picky food preferences when we're stranded in the middle of the ocean.

I once heard of a sailor who named his dog Emergency Rations. Now THAT would keep any dog humble, you'd think.

It comes packed in a hard plastic case that can be strapped onto the foredeck for quick deployment. The hard part is deciding when to use it. I've heard of people who jumped ship too soon and put themselves in worse danger, and others who stayed too long on the boat when they could have saved themselves by using their liferafts.

Isabel is French, so it didn't surprise me to find that the liferaft is from France. I was able to find an email address on the Plastimo website and corresponded with Marion, a very helpful woman who advised me that rather than take my liferaft to any old shop for service, I'd be better off to wait until I find an authorized shop. The nearest one is in San Diego. Isabel thought they should be serviced about every ten years, but Marion says every three years. We might be able to get it in the shop every five or so...

That's OK, I'm not sure I'd want to eat ten-year-old emergency rations anyway.

POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

I'm convinced God gave women mild amnesia after childbirth so they'll be willing to do it again. And publishers too.

This year's edition of our annual publication went to press this morning, and as usual I feel disoriented, depressed and aimless. After 35 years in the publishing business I'm used to it, but find my typical ways of dealing with it--sleeping, reading, watching TV, marinating in bed while the rest of the world rolls by--are somewhat wasteful of precious time. So this morning I cleaned house, fighting off a fierce urge for a nap.

We have plenty of loose ends to keep us busy, and later in the week we'll cross the border so I can catch a plane to Oklahoma. I should just pop a couple of aspirin and get on with it.

I was proofreading and correcting files all week, but I really felt like messing around with the software I found, Picasa for the Mac. Finally this morning the inner kid came out to play, and concocted this photo memoir of the past 18 months of our life in Mexico.

OUR VERY OWN TIANGUIS

What's better than a Saturday morning tianguis? How about a Saturday morning tianguis in your front yard? Of course, we boat people call them swapmeets, and they're not nearly so well organized. No shady awnings and proper counters, no veggies and fruit. Mostly boat parts. One couple brought a spinnaker snuffer the Capt. had to have (that's a tubelike device that helps capture and control a spinnaker or drifter, a headsail made of very light nylon that can be hard to handle when you want to bring it down). Looks like it'll fit the Green Flash. And a crucial part for an autopilot that we can use to fix the one on our smaller boat, that broke on our last cruise to Puerto Vallarta.

My French friend Isabel brought the six-person liferaft she's been trying to sell, and we settled on a good price for it. Never used, of course. One always hopes one will never have to use a liferaft, but it's a great stress reliever to know it's there. It's a Plastimo, French-made, she said, though the sales and website originate in the UK.

Isabel also sold me a little sound system for my iPod and sold the Capt a car charger for a computer. And I bought one of her ankle bracelets. I know, ankle bracelets in the States are considered tacky. Here on the coast of Mexico they're considered normal, since we're always barefoot or in sandals.

It has two silver cat faces, in honor of my feral feline family, another of which, Zorra, has now been neutered.

I won't be wearing it next week, though. In fact I'm going to have to wear shoes for the first time in almost two years. I'm going to Oklahoma to visit my mother and help my sister get her settled into an assisted living apartment. Pack, schlep boxes, and mostly help confirm to her that she's doing the right thing. It's a good place, called Tall Grass, where she can keep her two cats and most of her stuff, she'll have regular meals and (hope, hope) new friends.

Next month I hope to actually have something to sell when we host another swap meet. With deadline imminent this week we couldn't justify spending hours in the storeroom trying to decide what we could live without. But we go to press in two days (!!!) and then we can get our life back.

BURMA ON MY MIND

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."
Aung San Suu Kyi

Video by Jim Carrey about Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel prize winner and legally elected prime minister of Burma who has been under house arrest for 11 years.