My Artistic Side

My other hobby (besides crocheting and felting) is digital photo enhancement. Last week, my neighbor liked my blog-header-photo I'd done of our casita, and wanted me to do one of her house.

She also said she didn't have a decent (flattering) photograph of herself. So I Warholed her. (Is Warhol a verb?)

I sometimes enhance the grandbabies' photos, eliminating cluttered backgrounds or chopped off heads:

Here are some more: the front yard

My son's wedding dance:

The Weenie Roast Picture

Yes, I can remove that second chin, bulging tummy, wrinkles and zits, and fix hairdos. Few photographs are perfect, but most have something in them worth saving.

Want me to do one for you?

2010 Holiday Week

First, last night's sunset:

And my new office chair. Eddie's chair is now in Ron's Man Cave.

It's been a crowded-but-fun-week here in our little retirement enclave, starting with the wrapping of presents and ending with The Big Dinner.

Gift-Wrapping Factory

All those quilts we made? Gifted to the poor farming families way out in the boonies, along with toys and candy, toiletry packages, and Santa's visit. A long caravan of gringos in loaded trucks bounced and careened throughout the "roads" south and west of Miguel Aleman, stopping at pre-determined farming communities. (I rode in the Candy Truck with Santa, we ate Tootsie Rolls the whole way...) There, the trucks and Santa were mobbed by the poorest of the poor. No fat children were seen. It felt good-but-not-enough, if you know what I mean. At one point, I thought we should have maybe brought turkeys instead.

At the pig farm

Delfie with Santa

Loading up the kids

Mobbing Jan's truck

Me and Eddie's bride Ann Jane with Santa's new friend

Happy Mamacita

Are we done yet?

Marion tripped and fell!

Christmas Eve was social hour and gifts at the RV Park. Each person brings a $10 wrapped gift, then when your card is drawn, you go choose and open one OR steal someone else's. Only one theft per item. We scored a 5 liter jug of Mezlalito (cheap rotgut tequila-like liquor) and a set of crystal snowflake candle holders. None of my photos were in focus, due to the egg nog effect. Our good friends Jose and Delfie from the village spent Christmas Eve night in our RV so they wouldn't have to drive That Road after dark. Ron fell down once or twice, didn't get hurt. Just a scratch. SO much fun!

Blurry, but Ron, Betty, John, Jack, Jose, and Delfie.

And then Christmas Day dinner was terrific. Yes, gravy was there, plentiful, and good. I brought Grandma Edie's Beets N Pineapple and have a lot left over... Plus a loaf of homemade bread.

Happily stuffing in stuffing!

John and Santa KLAUS!

And yesterday, my wonderful husband and neighbor John harvested and transplanted a huge Ocotillo into my front yard. It's gorgeous!

How Dare You Presume I'm Christian?

I have once again been forwarded that email In Defense of Prayer (falsely) attributed to Andy Rooney. Here's the Snopes article:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/prayer.asp

Yes, I am an atheist. Not many people know this about me, because I grow weary of their need to proselytize. The word ATHEIST seems to drum up an image of a card-carrying, angry, church-hating harridan. I simply do not believe in the concept of God. I truly do not care who does believe in God. And I will defend to my death anyone's right to believe in God, Buddha, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, as long as that person does not condemn my right to not believe. I believe Christians refer to this as their Golden Rule. Not to mention the law and Constitution are on my side.

If I were a Christian, though, I don't think you'd find me shouting "Merry Christmas" to strangers, simply because I couldn't be certain they were fellow Christians. Yes, in the USA, odds are they're maybe Christian, depending on where you are.

I also don't care if you all want to pray before I eat my meal, or watch a football game, and I'll sit quietly while you do. Are you offended that I'm not praying, too? Your faces tell me YES. (My heart wonders how Christian is THAT?) I am curious though, why y'all need to pray TOGETHER. Are the results numbers-based? The more or louder you pray, the better the chances of being heard? Whatever, doesn't bother me very much.

I do NOT intend to financially support your religious causes, however, and again, the law's on my side. Why do YOU believe that even $1 of my earned income should go to support private religion-based schools? Yes, I do want my grandchildren to hear about all the religions of the world, but it's called History class or Social Studies. Not Religious catechism. I want them to know there are people out there who truly think there's no scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution. I've even known people who think only black people descended from the apes. Forewarned is forearmed. Tolerance is everything.

But the part of that email that always rankles most is the MAJORITY RULES part. The Majority isn't necessarily right, and is sometimes proven later to be wrong (Slavery and Holocaust come to mind). You want the laws changed to suit your religion, there's a mechanism in place for that. It's called VOTING. I do it a lot, and so far it's working out for me. I even get paid extra if I work on Christmas and Easter. Pretty cool.

Casita Progress Versus THE RULE

There's an unwritten rule in Mexico retirement communities, so I'm probably violating "the code" by exposing it. But it helps to explain the mind-set here, the laissez-faire:

One Task Per Day MAXIMUM.

That's it. Very simply, we refuse to overdo or burden ourselves with honey-do lists. There can be a laundry day, but never the same day as, say, grocery day or pour-the-cement-slab day. So progress on our casita renovations is slow, however sure. However, this slow pace helps ensure the prioritizing is accurate, allowing extra time for certainty.

We've been here 2 months, and here's what we've accomplished:
1. The hot water heater is outside on a cement slab.
2. Hot water comes out the kitchen faucet.

That's all. Yes, I know, I said one task per DAY, not per month, but that's in addition to laundry, groceries, dish-washing, meal prep, vacuuming, etc. Plus one must reserve time daily to sit around and appreciate where we are.

You must understand, your average Blog Reader truly takes hot-water-from-the-faucet for granted. To go from Boiling A Kettle (pre hot water heater) to Filling A Bucket (water heater in, but only plumbed to the shower) to suddenly, FINALLY, able to turn that handle and have hot water gush out? It's HUGE! We've also purchased the porcelain pedestal for the bathroom sink, and are kept very busy planning exactly where and how to install that.  Takes planning. Then will come patching all the holes left by former plumbing sites, rerouting where the satellite cords enter, and eventually buying a bed and moving all the furniture. Sounds like 3 more months' work, but it is what it is. Plans aren't worth the paper they're written on, because something better might come along.

Take yesterday, for example. Yesterday was supposed to be baking day (for me) and laundry day (for Ron: he does that while sitting around in his man-cave.) Just prior to starting my baking, Ron decided to take the trash down to the trash trailer at the RV park. I thought WTF, I'll go along, and sign up for the Christmas Dinner in the office there. Well, that's way too close to the beach to NOT go there, so we did. I sauntered along, looking for shells, while he drove on down the beach.

I looked up once and he was WAY down there, struggling with something huge next to the truck. I was just hoping it wasn't a big smelly porpoise carcass: it's considered a score to have a giant skeleton in your yard. When I got there, it was just a dead elephant tree, all white and gnarly. With some effort, we got it into the truck bed and brought it up the hill.

Now it's in our yard, looks pretty cool:

No baking got done, no laundry got done. That would have violated The Rule, and left little time to sit around drinking beer and looking at our view. Besides, friends showed up. (It's very rude to work when socializing is imminent.) My friend Karen helped me appreciate my yard for an hour or two, with beverages, while Jack asked Ron to go help him with his new 12-pack.

And so it goes.

Time In A Bottle

June 1980. Newly separated from my husband, I had just moved into a tiny walk-up apartment in the gay district of Minneapolis. Quite naive, I didn't even know it was a gay district. Over 2 weeks, knowledge dawned. But there was this man across the street...

Tall, slim, resembled a young Clint Eastwood, usually alone. I bemoaned the idea he might be gay, living there. Our balconies were across from each other, and after eyeing each other those two weeks, I'd almost decided to check it out. But then one evening, I watched as he left his balcony and came back out onto the street below. He was carrying something glass. As he crossed the street, he looked up at me, grinned, and then disappeared under my balcony. A minute later, there was a knock on my door. Secured entrance my ass! I opened the door to this very handsome man holding most of a jug of wine, and he asked if I wanted to share it with him. I let him in. Turned out he wasn't gay, and he actually never left...

We've been married almost 29 years. And I kept that bottle. Almaden Mountain White Chablis.

My friend Karen makes and sells these GORGEOUS beaded wine bottle covers and stoppers ( I call them dresses and hats), and I now own 2 sets. "The Bottle" is now wearing a dress and hat befitting it's status.

I just LOVE those quirky stoppers!

Stuff I wonder about

Why do only CATS purr? Why don't dogs purr?
Chickens and eggs. How long does it take for an egg to form? If a chicken lays one every day, and you were to cut her open, would she be full of eggs in various stages of development?
How do spiders not get caught in their own webs?
How nutritious is hay anyway? How can animals as big as cows get that big just eating hay?

Birthday Blog

Tomorrow I'll be 58, but most days I look 68, feel 88, and act 8.  I had a Ramsay-Hunt relapse this weekend and started the steroids and anti-viral regimen. Wow, those steroids create a euphoria like no other! I actually said to Ron once "I AM SO HAPPY!!!" Imagine that, this crabby, negative shrew saying that.

My girlfriends took me to the village Sunday for a Birthday Breakfast at Casa Blanca. Yes, it's a white house, gorgeous, new, great ambiance and food. Here we are:

I had to crop the shit out of it because my bellybutton was exposed by raising my arms.

That afternoon, I hung my new lighted grapes and lighted bone wreath. They're amazing:

I finished hanging them by 2 PM and then was like a 4 year old waiting for Santa: I wanted the sun to go down NOW so I could see the effect.

The wreath is a re-make from last year. It needed a new frame to keep it round (those bones and shells are heavy), hence the turquoise Hula Hoop. It's wrapped with an old Seri fiber rope, shells and bones tied on, and 3 coyote skulls hung from the bow. Then I added the lights. It's spectacular, if I do say so myself. There's a Stingray "face" with lights coming out it's eyes!

One last shot from the porch looking out to the sea, grape lights on top. That's our truck in the front yard. Ron backed it in there to unload driftwood for our planned campfire tomorrow night, and left the lights on all day. Dead battery, now sitting on the battery charger...

So I've invited the whole park to my Birthday Bonfire tomorrow night, and asked them to bring an Hors D'Oeuvre. There may be drinking...