Scary Freakin' Video

 Sonoran Paradise Island Resort from elazulestudio on Vimeo.
Someone posted this video on the local Viva San Carlos forum, and watching it, I began feeling queasy. Frightened, then angry, then disgusted. It's an architectural plan meant to excite investors, and whoever made it I suspect never actually set foot in San Carlos. Rodeo Drive-style shopping mall, a condo tower out on what looks to be Honeymoon Island with acres of dirt dredged up to enlarge it. Beltranes Blvd sweeping past miles of housing developments that look like Southern California. 

For one thing, they left out images of the humungous desalinization plant that would be required to support such an endeavor. We already have serious water shortages here. It's the desert, for pity's sake!


A thundering soundtrack complete with heavenly chorus. "We will not be deterred," is the message. Local response was surprisingly blasé, with comments like "Bring it on," and "If they make this place into a resort it will mean work for lots of locals both in construction and the service industry..." and "This is a Fonatur project... this is the branch of the Government that built Cancun, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Huatulco and Manzanillo." Yikes!

One person's dream, another person's nightmare. 



All I can hope is that if they're successful, it won't be in my lifetime.

Princess Cruise, indeed!

 Princess Rosalina, a Mario heartthrob, at Gamespot

We are not the only sailors heading for the high seas this weekend; my friend Kris and her novio Al were set to sail today. Their boat has no furling sails, no electric winch to haul up the anchor. And although Kris takes responsibility for manually raising and lowering the sails when they're underway, and hauling up the anchor by hand, Al jokingly refers to her as a "princess."


"Princesses," in cruising vernacular, are mates who are less than enthusiastic about the voyage unless they can count on certain amenities, such as square meals, adequate water, cleanliness, order and pleasant aromas instead of diesel fumes and bilge rot. If these comforts are lacking, they tend to be somewhat vocal, even shrill, about it. They like to have some place on the boat cool enough to sleep. When they get seasick they can't cook. They hate the clunky, smelly toilet in the head. They use too much water washing their hair. They loathe overnight passages and doze off on lonely midnight watches. They are not much help in a crisis. When they spot land, they want to walk on the beach, dine at a palapa restaurant or even go shopping. If they have a choice, they'll catch a taxi to town instead of trudging the mile or so in the midday heat.


Some princesses aren't skilled enough to handle sails or anchor and prefer to just fill in at the helm now and then, and decorate the decks in their bikinis or birthday suits. Some go to extremes with their demands, wanting conveniences like walk-in closets, washers, dryers and jacuzzis on the deck. And some captains actually provide them.


But in my view Kris is hardly a princess if she manages without a furler and electric windlass. Even my Capt wouldn't want to sail without those improvements.


If a boat trip with Kris is a Princess Cruise, it's only because she contributes considerably to the comfort of the voyage, by keeping the boat clean, keeping the captain royally-fed with her gourmet meals and efficiently performing a lot of the duties that (frankly) she does better than he can. So there.


I only hope I can live up to her standard of performance out there on the sea. I admit to a less-than-enthusiastic attitude about sailing this late in the season, intimidated by murderous 100-plus degree heat and dangerous storms. But I'm working on my frame of mind. If Kris can do it, I can too!

Moonglow

"Moonglow," published in 1934 and made famous as the theme song for the movie "Picnic," was my favorite tune when I was 13 years old. Decades later, I'm finally learning to play it on the guitar. Never thought I'd even attempt that.

A full moon tonight. Chica waits outside our door, hoping I'll bring out the tennis ball. The gecko is chirping, hoping a mate will find his way into our house. I start packing for a long road trip to bring our boat back home, hoping for southerly breezes at our back, the company of whales and dolphins and maybe a little wifi along the way somewhere. But we will be anchoring in remote places so this may be my last post for a couple of weeks. I'll save up our adventures and share them when I get home. 

God bless men who cook

I admire a man who cooks, and the fortunate woman who has such a fellow around the house. Any mother who teaches her sons to cook is a credit to her gender and a great benefactor to future daughters-in-law.


The Cuban school principal who lives across the way from us does all the cooking, breakfast and dinner. If I'm around at mealtime he insists I join them, whether it's a breakfast shake of bananas and strawberries or dinner of roast pork (no, I'm not going to tell him I'm vegetarian). He brings home huge chunks of meat and cuts them up himself, to make more than one meal for his family of six, and his recipes are usually based on Cuban cuisine. I teasingly asked him once when he was going to open a restaurant, and he replied with all seriousness that he's just looking for the right building site.


A couple is staying next door while their house is being remodeled, and he's the official cook in that home too. She says when they married he told her that her cooking wasn't up to snuff, so he got the job. They're not saying who made that decision, but they both seem satisfied with it.

I've seen my son cook, and it made me so proud, though he didn't learn it from me. Guess he picked it up from a girlfriend. 

Capt Cookie does it again... Oatmeal raisin tonight

Although the Capt doesn't often cook meals,  at least once a week he bakes cookies. So far he's mastered oatmeal-raisin, lemon-coconut, ginger molasses with crystallized ginger (even crystallized the ginger!) and peanut butter. I can't decide which I like best. I try to limit my gorging to right when they come out of the oven, and avoid them after that.


If I'm not in a rush, I find myself enjoying the whole chopping, stirring, combining, recipe-consulting process. But as any cook will tell you, doing it day after day wears down the imagination. After a while I run out of ideas and lose the incentive to find new ones. Yet when we eat out we usually (with a few exceptions) agree we could have a better dinner at home for a lot less. 

It's probably good to think of the cooking process as an art, but only when it's viewed as one of those ephemeral arts, like Tibetan sand painting, created to be demolished. And if a meal turns out to be a major masterpiece, I could always take a photo, couldn't I?

Happy Birthday, Captain!

The Capt kicks back with the dogs.

It's the Capt's birthday, and he's taking a well-deserved break from projects. Or that's the plan, anyway. It's very hard for him to take time off, so we'll have to wait and see...

Feliz cumpleanos, cariño.

Daddy on my mind

Yesterday for the first time in decades, I forgot Father's Day, not that he'd mind, he's been gone since 1965. But this morning I was reminded by Jomamma's post about her dad. I started thinking about the good things my own father brought into my life.


I remember the seesaw he built in the back yard for us. He hadn't finished but we wanted a ride "right now!" so he served as the fulcrum himself. He built an enormous brick barbecue out there too, which I only remember us using a couple of times to cook hotdogs.  He planted geraniums and roses, kept the lawn mowed and later, after he and my mother divorced, started a Japanese rock garden. He was bringing back rocks from the beach for that garden when a heart attack caused him to pull off the road, and he never made it home. He was younger by four years than I am now.


He took us skating every Wednesday night for years and sat watching us. When I was six he patiently walked up and down the street steadying my new bike while I tried to pedal it. He taught me to swim, and when I finally got it, he was the one I wanted to show off to. When my sister and I sold Buddy Poppies for Veterans' Day, he was the one who waited for us and kept an eye on us.


Once he took me out on a motor boat to go fishing and when the motor failed, we were stranded after sundown out in the Gulf and he got us rescued by another fishing boat.

I always thought he looked like Humphrey Bogart. His hair never went gray or receded, and he always looked fit. He was never without his khakis and a perpetual sunburn from his work outdoors operating a dragline for construction crews. He had a hard childhood on a farm in the Midwest, growing up with immigrant parents who considered him, as the oldest of six, only a laborer who didn't need to go to school. But he loved to read and use "three-dollar words" and I wonder what he might have done with more education.


He was reserved with my sister and me, and I don't remember ever having a long conversation with him. He didn't seem to notice me much. My mother said he was disappointed we weren't boys.


But one of the sweetest moments of my life was when I dressed up in a yellow organdy gown for a junior high school dance and went to find him working in the yard. He looked at me, surprised, and said, "Why, you're beautiful!"


Thanks, Daddy, I needed that.

Puppies du jour

Hope springs eternal, and so we share the images of yet another batch of puppies temporarily sheltered at the Canine Center, aka Dog Daze, in hopes at least one of them will find a home. It's happened before, when someone in Boston saw a dog named Fe on my blog and fell in love with her. Our Cinderella dog, we call Fe. Another time, someone in the States saw a pup here and sponsored him, helping with vaccinations and food until the dog was placed in a loving home.

The little white female is expected to grow to be a medium-size dog, and she's already being leash-trained. Very bright, say the Dog Daze folks. The brindled black-and-gold pup, also female, has a sweet disposition and should be easy to train. She'll also grow to medium-size. Both are house-trained to the extent that they do their business outside.

I stopped by to photograph them at midday and they were limp with the heat, not their usual perky pup selves. But easier to keep in focus, sprawled on the cool tile floor.

Dog Daze can be reached by phone from the States by calling 011-52-622-226-0926 or on their cell phone at 011-521-622-103-0924.

Lurking in the Octopus's Garden

The Portland hawks have fledged, and although one seems to be having problems with city life, their day-to-day novelas are now offscreen. Adios, I said. Be fruitful and multiply. And watch out for that rush-hour traffic.

Now my friend Sue has discovered the Octocam, at the Hatfield, OR Marine Sciences Visitors' Center. This time it's a giant Pacific Octopus named Derik, and he's just as interesting as the hawks. This is nothing like watching grass grow. Best of all, he won't be flying out of camera range.

I snapped a couple of shots just for a teaser. Unlike the massive VW-size critters in the horror movies, this "giant" has a torso the size of a volleyball, and tenacles about 2.5 feet long. When visitors approach the glass of his aquarium he slips off to the side out of camera range, then when they walk away, he slides a couple of tenacles out, then gracefully glides across the screen, spreading out in all his glory.


If you crave a little more excitement, catch Deriq at feeding time, 1:00pm Pacific Time on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. When he sees his food, he changes colors!  I think I'll set my kitchen timer so I don't miss it. 

A speedbump on life's road

I like to say I don't choose favorites between my dogs, but how could I help but favor my birthday pup, Chica, who loves to chase balls, cuddles up with us in bed, and follows me around like a shadow? Our other dog, Sofia, is 13 and acts very much like the crochety little old lady she is. She "vants to be alone." But she's sturdy and healthy, which, it turns out, Chica is not.

We got Chica on my birthday three years ago and never regretted it, even now when things are getting complicated.


We first noticed the limp when we took the dogs to the Soggy Peso on the beach about a month ago. As we headed back to the car, Chica was freewheeling , her left hind leg (driver's side, the Capt called it) not hitting the sand. We figured she stepped on something sharp and looked for a cut but the paw was undamaged. The only unusual occurrence at the beach was her encounter with a baby mastiff that sent her into a fit of hysterical barking, but we never saw any physical contact between them.

Fast forward a month. She's still limping even though she otherwise behaves normally. Still wants to chase balls, doesn't seem to be in pain. The local vet X-rayed her and said she might have what's called a luxated patella, a condition not uncommon in small dogs. The patella is a tiny crescent-shaped bone attached to the inner socket of the fibula, and Chica's has become dislocated, causing discomfort when the knee is in use. He sent us to a high-tech vet in Obregon (over an hour's drive) for a more informed opinion. We drove there yesterday.

Dr. Hiram in Obregon looked over the ex-ray, manipulated the leg and told us she not only has a luxated patella in the knee but some problem there that he can't see in the X-ray. Plus there's a malformation in the ball-shaped top of the femur where it meets hip socket. He could operate on the hip, but first we should consult a orthopedic specialist he knows in Nogales about the knee.


He also said an MRI scan would give us a better view of the knee problem, and we might have to find a veterinary hospital in the States for that. He added that the right leg wasn't normal either. My heart sank.

Back home, the Capt researched veterinary MRI resources and found one in New Hampshire for $1,295. We're getting to that discussion pet owners always have. Our funds are limited, and there's no question that we have to draw the line somewhere in determining how much we can afford to spend on pet health care. So far we've agreed on one thing: we'd take her for treatment anywhere in Mexico...Guadalajara, Mexico City, even Yucatan...rather than using a vet in the U.S.


Without knowing the knee issue, we don't know if it will get worse or continue as is. There's no swelling, and she doesn't put her weight on it, which makes us wonder if it will remain the same.  I'm guessing the supportive tendons and muscles in the right leg could develop more to compensate, maybe enough to make up for its less-than-perfect state. Or is that wishful thinking?


We see three-legged dogs and free-wheelers all over Mexico,  most functioning normally. Last week I saw one happily chasing a frisbee on the beach, keeping up remarkably with her four-legged playmates.  If we were Mexican the decision would probably be to leave her alone. Avoid the MRIs, the surgeries, the endless vet appointments. Be grateful it's not worse.


But we'll take her to the doctor in Nogales before making a decision, and keep the door open to possible solutions. And keep throwing the ball for her.

Ready for his closeup

Fresh southerlies sprang up this morning, and I was outside enjoying the coolness when I spotted this fellow crawling among the succulents. Then he walked across the steps and up the side of another pot, seemingly unable to fly.

I could see no injury, in fact he looked just about perfect, but maybe he's been migrating and just needs a rest. I've been trying for years to photograph butterflies, and this time I got lucky.

Back to the nest

One of the pair of red tail hawk fledglings hatched on a fire escape in Portland, OR didn't do so well on his flying practice yesterday, and Audubon Society volunteers intervened after he was seen dodging heavy traffic on Burnside Road. A pedestrian captured him by throwing a coat over him. He was taken to an Audobon bird sanctuary, checked by a vet, banded and was supposed to be returned to his nest this afternoon.


A blog accompanying the webcam feed that has been watching over this hawk family since the eggs hatched three months ago reports that if he is returned to his parents immediately, their hormone levels will be adequate to assure they continue nurturing him. It's a myth, the blog said, that baby birds handled by humans are then shunned by the parents.


The fledgling is a healthy male, who probably simply had difficulty staying aloft due to the effect of heavy street traffic on air currents at lower altitude. I'm not sure whether he's the bigger of the two surviving nestlings, that was the first to fledge, or if he's the reluctant, smaller sibling. I'll probably be watching the nest all afternoon periodically, hoping to see them both back home.

UPDATE: Oops, I missed it, but my friend Sue was watching when the Audobon volunteer carried the fledgling back in a box to the fire escape. He cleaned the nest, removing a plastic bag that had caused a lot of concern among webcam watchers, and freed the captive from the box. The fledgling hopped up on a railing and called his parents. When they arrived, the mother pecked the volunteer on the head, drawing blood, and knocked off his Audobon baseball cap.  When the guy posted on the webcam blog, he called her "a good mother." Now that's a serious bird lover.

No tengo prisa*

I've been reading the daily meditations of Melody Beattie in "Journey to the Heart," and this morning's topic was "Why Hurry Through?"  As in, why hurry through life? Good question.


"When we hurry," writes Melody, "it is as if we are dancing out of step to the music. We become out of sync."

When I'm out of sync, I'm sunk.  

Probably the thing I hated most about going to school was the stress of getting ready in the morning, my mother's irritability over my inability to keep pace with her, the anxiety over whether I was remembering everything. Rushing so often led to disaster. One morning she dropped me off at school, I looked down at my feet and saw I was still wearing my bedroom slippers. Not something one could get away with in hyper-critical junior high, so I slogged the whole mile home and called in sick. Another morning we forgot to make sure my kitten was safely tucked away in her box in the garage, and Mother backed the car over her. With no time for my grief, she just dumped the kitten in the garbage and shoved me into the car. Tight schedules don't leave time for things like emotions. (Could that be why some people are addicted to rushing?)

I just seem to bumble through life at my own pace.  I always felt a little ashamed that I couldn't function in life's fast lane, but Melody's message is reassuring. "Step in time to the music—the rhythm of your soul," she advises. I like to imagine my soul's rhythm as something like a smooth, sweet, slow tango.


*No tengo prisa means I'm not in a hurry. One of my favorite expressions.

City birds just seem to find out early...

At least one of the nestling red-tail hawks is now a fledgling, and has already figured out that if he gets tired, there are cars parked down on the street where he can take a break. A photographer spotted him there and caught this lucky shot.

As of yesterday afternoon his nestmate was still perched on the rail of the fire escape on an office building in downtown Portland, OR, working up his courage to take flight. I've been checking the nest periodically on the webcam site and he's no longer visible, so maybe he's airborne. The parents both showed up yesterday morning with food for them, so even the reluctant one won't starve.


The blog accompanying the webcam says the babies were more mature than most fledglings, so they have a better chance of survival.

I'm already feeling a twinge of empty nest syndrome.