December 31,2007 Mexico

After several days observing the human body I have come to a definite opinion.  Slim is definitely better.  In any bathing costume in any shape or size or on either sex, slim is better.  Nor emaciated, not over weight. But slim.  Very pleasing to the eye.

The second opinion is that everyone should look at themselves from all angles, front, back,side.  If that was done, more bathing suits would be put in the trash.

The third opinion is that families are more than ever important to their lives.  I can see extended families every where I look.  Families with 20 or 30 in the group.  Lots of couples with children,all very attentive and loving. So if you read that families are not important in North America, tell them from me , that in Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta, families are bursting at the seams.

And now I am going to usher in the new year, on the beach, with 6 of my favourite friends.  And I wish you all a lovely evening of festivities and joy.

December 30,2007 Mexico

Three full days a activity, with David and Suzanne and the four girls arriving on Friday and staying in our apartment at Playa Royale that evening, then on Saturday  all moving out of that apartment and into another unit in the same building and  D.&S. checking into the Hotel down the road.  The girls were thrilled to get back to the alligator slide,  They each took about 50 turns each.  The surf was up so they all used the boogie boards too.  Followed by an Italian buffet dinner.  So the hard part is over.  We are all here safe and sound and in our proper places, which pleases us all.

David of course used the slid so often he ended up with a stiff neck.  So difficult to remember the aging process.

Today we went to the golf club for their wonderful brunch.  Ken and I have partaken of this brunch every time we we have been in town. The food is wonderful and is served as a buffet, so for the children  life is easy. No waiting and lots of choices.

Yesterday I discovered that I can not watch the four girls either at the crowed pool or at the beach.  I can't find them, which makes me anxious. Once Suzanne c0uld not find Abigail.  It was all very innocent on Abigails part, but she was at the beach with her boogie board with her Mother and sisters. She told Suzanne she was returning her board,which she did.  But she did not tell Suzanne she was going to the pool, and when she got to the pool she did not tell me she was in the pool.  So Suzanne came up from the beach and neither of us knew where was she was.  We were in a panic.  She waved in response to the announcer at the pool.  She realized what she had done and was sorry, and also said that she could always see Grandma.  This is why parents go grey.

Today I took all girls to the sports club where there were lots of activities and a big play pool.  I could manage the girls in that protected private environment, and they were happy.  Now they are at the beach with Suzanne and David.  And all is well. 

December 28, Mexico

I do have a propensity to tell people how to do things better.  Ken says that comes from my Salvati0n Army background, with those several generations of do gooders, but where ever it comes from I can't stop figuring out how  folks could, if they would only change a bit of this or a bit of that would make their lives better

Perfect example.  I am sitting by the pool minding my own business and reading my magazine.  But I finished my magazine, so I had nothing to do.  I swam, and while I was swimming I noticed a couple going around the pool, where the man was walking around the pool with the ladies arms on his shoulder.  Then I recalled that these folks were from a foursome of two couples, one couple about my age, and the other couple about 50.  The older man carried and used a bottle of oxygen, and the younger woman seemed to have very little use of her left side.  Her left arm dangled and her left foot dragged along.  The first time I noticed them three days before they spent the hour I was at the pool following the sun. So every twenty minutes or so they moved their lounge chair to face the sun.  I'm wondering if they know anything about skin cancer.

Now I'm wondering why this lady who had a stroke is not using this water to exercise her limbs.  It is true that if  exercise your good limb your bad limb receives benefit.  Also all new research in neurology says that  new nerves will come back if you try to activate another part of your brain  to instruct your muscles to move.  This lady has a perfect spot to work her bad limbs.  The water was warm, the depth was about four feet, and almost no one was in the pool. But she did nothing except give over to her disability,and let the care giver pull her around the pool and sit in the sun.

But I restrained myself.  My Internist, Dr. Albio, told me that she has patients who, after a stroke and they lost their words just lost their words, and they never got any better.  She sent them to speech therapy and they went, but nothing improved.  Her guess was that they just accepted the stroke as something over which they had no control, without realizing that if you work hard and then harder, and then practice and then more practice, the words will come.  Your brain will begin to make it behave.

But I behaved myself and said nothing.  But rather being sympathetic with this lady I was merely irritated.  Dammit.  Work harder, and make your life better.

December 26,2007 Mexico

The scenes on the bus are priceless.  One man got on the bus wearing a down jacket.  He was a very nicely dressed man wearing leather shoes, long pants and wearing this dark green down jacket. But not buttoned up.  He was carrying a small bag of  groceries. He had a very kindly face and as he sat at the front of the bus he offered a  candy to the bus driver.  Bus driver told this nice little man that  while he is driving he never eats.  At least that's what I think he said.  This little man in the green down jacket was Mexican, aged 60 or so and very short, maybe  five feet tall.  The other interesting thing on the bus is that the young men are all much taller than five feet.  But why was this man  wearing this down jacket when the bus  was full of people in shorts and short sleeved shirts?

  I'll never know.

The trip to town is easy on the bus. Ken is no longer going to sit near the front of the bus because the drivers drive so fast.  So it's the back of the bus for us.

December 25,2007

We were sitting at the restaurant outside at the very end of Paradise Village when we saw a large group of dolphins, just the other side of the swimming rope.  They put on quite a long show rolling along  in out of the water.  But so far no whales.

The bus picked us up just outside our building and delivered us back to our doorstep three hours later.  Just a piece of cake, says Ken.  I do not know if    the Mexicans are extra kindly or whether they  appreciate the tourist dollars, but the folks here are uncommonly helpful when we are trying to use the bus system.  The Christmas Eve dinner was wonderful.  We dined outside by the marina. at a new place,Tikul. Pacific cuisine, whatever that is.  

We have  spent very few events Christmas without our families . In the earlier years of our marriage in  we always spent Christmas with Dave and Irene in either Dundas or Ancaster.We enjoyed their children and helped assemble their toys.  Once Ken and I tried out Wendy's toboggan, then left it outside  so the snow could run off.  Wendy took um bridge when she found out that Santa used her toboggan.

Ken and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

December 24, 2007

Christmas Eve...the most thrilling night of the year for the children.  

My posting of yesterday made me seem to be the most self indulgent person in the world.But the truth is, I am merely trying to plan ahead.My grandmother lived to be 95, and I'm out to beat her age.  So if I intend to be active at 90 I have to keep myself fit and active at 70, and 80.  One of the aspects of my personality is that I can not stop planning ahead.  I know I drive everyone  else crazy, but the truth is, I am hard wired for planning ahead.

As a kid I could figure out how to make my life easier, what teachers were the ones to pay attention to, what classes I needed to take for the next level. And what I am going to do next.  This has worked very well at my jobs, and the office has been well served by my attention to the future.  But I think I drive everyone else around me somewhat crazed.  Most of the time I just pretend I am living only for the moment, but my head is always churning . It is interesting how some qualities stay with you your whole life.  Maybe everything.

Ken and I are going to go to a very nice restaurant in the Marine area of Puerto Vallarta. I want to go in a taxi. Ken wants to go on the bus.  I'll let you know the results tomorrow.

December 23, 2007

Once upon a time, many years 

ago, I was asked by my friend Butch what on earth Ken and I do with ourselves at the farm every weekend.  My quick response was that was the whole point, that we did not have to do anything.  Of course that is not the real answer.  The fact is that every place we live very quickly develops a rhythm of its own  and the days break up into several and distinct activities.

The activities are all selected by us.  Nothing comes in the door.  So here in Nuevo Vallarta the rhythm of our days and weeks are already well established.  We read for a couple of hours every morning after breakfast, followed either by a trip to the gym  to work out with the machines, or to take a walk.  Lunch is my favorite meal to eat out, so we mostly find a lovely spot by the water at a very nice restaurant where we eat lunch. Mid afternoon we read by the pool or the beach, or chat with some nice folks who we have met here.  We just kind of pick up something from our kitchen to eat at the evening meal.  It is a great blessing to have our own kitchen and laundry room, tho even tho we do not cook, we just kind or arrange the food that we have purchased at the local market. 

The computer is a great source of information to Ken, also wonderful to contact our families via the email and cell phone.  The evening is full of reading and writing.  So our days are full and happy.  Soon David and Suzanne, Sarah, Abigail, Allison and Samantha will arrive Dec.28 and then our days will be full and overflowing indeed.  

December 21, 2007

Today is the first day of Winter.  I enjoy this weather in  Puerto Vallarta.  

It is unfailingly interesting to watch people in the Mall.  Today we went to the small shopping mall in the resort area, and as Ken had shopping to do in the drug store, and no family member enjoys shopping with Ken I stayed out in the restaurant area and watched the people stream by.  I noticed that all the local people were wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants,even the the temperature was 75 degrees.  Even the children were in winter clothes.  The tourists were in shorts and T shirts.  So it is really winter clothes time to those folks in Mexico.  They probably think we are daft.

The other observation was that some people wear ridiculous clothes.  When they are a bit overweight they wear too tight clothes.  The young girls here are very sweet, but how on earth can they get their jeans on.  They are so tight they must be poured on .  And I continue to see ladies of all ages wearing high heeled shoes, even when they are in casual clothes.  Sometimes I am dismayed to think that we have not made many advances from the days of the bound feet days in China.  It was a fascination fifteen minutes for sure, but brought all my feminist thoughts to the fore.

I'm reading a good book.  Dave and Irene, my brother and sister-in-law, give us books for Christmas, so we brought them with us here.  Water For Elephants,by Sara Gruen is a good read, and I am enjoying it.

December 20, 2007

It was kind of nice.  We got on the bus yesterday to find a man singing and playing a guitar.  He sang   a half dozen song, of course in Spanish, then he made a little speech about how he loved to sing and play, and as he got off, the folks on the bus gave him some change.  Kind of busking on the run.  But I liked it.

December 19,2007

Today we went poking around.  This is something that Ken and I are very good at doing. This  is the opposite of beginning with the end in mind.  Poking around is just finding what is out there to find.  Our boys hated doing that.  They wanted to

know where we were going and what were we going to do when we got there. But now that we are old, we can poke around to our hearts content.

O today we walked.Some of the hotels  we went in to inspect, if they were especially gorgeous, and others we just walked on by. We walked and we walked.  We saw all the resorts north of our resort of Playa Royale, until we ran out of resorts. This took almost three hours.  The Rui hotel is beautiful and was worth the time we stopped to go in.  Of course, by then we were in need of  the facilities.  But finally we were at the end,but no restaurants.  

So a cab ride took us to the next little town, Bucerias, where we ate lunch at a charming little restaurant by the shore, while we watched the local children swim.  Lovely indeed.

Now the question is how to get home.  We decided on the bus.  But when you get on a Mexican bus you are never sure where you are going.  But we got on anyway.  Sure enough,the bus did not go where we wanted to go.  Folks here are unfailingly polite and helpful, so eventually we arrived home, which made Ken happy because the bus fare was 20 cents each. 

december 18, 2007e

We are in Mexico, living in a lovely apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  We are living on the seventh floor so our view of the palm trees and the ocean beyond are just spectacular.  The question  to as is how we come to reside by the  Pacific .  The answer is long and convoluted but bear with me.

In our late 50's, while sitting by the Atlantic Ocean in the Canary Islands, we decided to own a home by water.  We did not care by a river, or a lake or the ocean.  But we decided to own a home by water.  So one part of the answer has to do that we began with the end in sight,and paid no attention to the how and when.

The next part of the answer has to do with our involvement with timeshares.  In 1982 we bought our first time share.  Our friends and acquaintances all told us we were wasting our money and that they were bad investments.  On the other hand we saw them as a way to fix our  vacation expenses.  The only additional expenses would be the transportation,  And we could control our expenses.  So we stayed in that timeshare once with the boys.  The next year we traded into a ski resort at Vail.  Then we said to ourselves,"lets buy more time shares". And we did.  We have traveled all over the world by trading off our timeshares.  It has been a huge bonanza for our family.

Up until the last two years, we never spoke about the timeshares to anyone, because we got so much grief and grumbling about out stupidity.  But recently even those folks adamently opposed are asking us questions about how they work.  So now they have become trendy t last.

This brings us to the last step of the first question.  This is a new type of ownership.  You can  purchase 5 weeks or more, in fee simple of a  apartment by tbe Pacific Ocean.  We did not want a house we  fully own and that we are responsible for, but we own 10 weeks in the same apartment by the sea.  We think that in our 80's this should serve us very well.

So the path to our home by the ocean has not been straight, but it all started  on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Canary Islands.  Always begin

at the ending.

The day of travel  ends up a very difficult one.  I know a lot of people who never travel,even tho they they tell me they really want to  travel when they have the time and/or money.  it's my guess that they never will go anywhere at all.  And I think that it is all the fault of the first day.

We went to the NAR Convention in Las Vegas in November,  Three of us were checking in at the same time. We started very early.  We were tired and hungry. We were hating life at the moment, although no one said a word.

The next day peace had reigned in our world.  We knew how to get to the convention hall. We knew our way around the hotel.  We even knew the shortcuts and the best

 places for breakfast.  The key is to be steady and calm on the day of travel. And the next day a new world will be open to you.  Children especially need the experience of going through the difficult day on the way to the new world.

Now.. I am going to try to cultivate the spirit of the young man in the airport.  He did not only endure the process politely, but he enjoyed the experience.  I wonder if he is always so good natured

  

December17,2007

December 16,2007

Yesterday was  a travel day. Quite remarkable what  happens to a traveler in the modern world.  On the one hand you zip all over the world in no time flat and on the other hand you wait in line for one hand in order to obtain a boarding pass. Nothing to

 be done except wait...and watch for your fellow travelers. I noticed one couple  six places ahead of us.  I noticed because they were not moving ahead as quickly as they could have.  You know the drill.  The person ahead of you  moves up and then you move up.  But this couple did not move, except every so often.  S I started to take  a closer look.

This young man was the best natured person I have seen in a long time. They were a couple and a child of about 3.  The  line was very long, the airport was crowded, jackets we were wearing were too hot, but this young man was having a good time.  He went for coffee for his wife.  He played with the little girl. He talked and laughed with his wife.The rest of us were polite and mannerly, but he seemed to be enjoying the whole process.  I really wanted to ask him what he did for a living.

O I have learned from this anonymous young man.  Next time I am in a long line I am determined to enjoy myself and have. fun...and I am determined to get to the airport early so I can avoid the long lines.

December 13, 2007

Tonight is the office party. Actually we have been partying all this week and all last week, and we have discovered that we like the policy. But now we will soon go back to work. At least some people will go back to work. For me, I go to Mexico for the holiday season. But I intend to work away at the computer. So more to follow.

December 11, 2007

My task today is to get myself up with the modern world of technology. My friend Sarah Toppings is helping me. I am not the fastest person with the world but I am the most determined. Slow and steady will always win the race, especially when I am competing with myself. I also have encouraged Ken to put his thoughts together to tell the grandaughters whatever he thinks is important in life and investing. So far I am not rambling very far but I soon will begin. We go to Mexico for Christmas on Saturday.

December 10,2007

I have just turned 70. With this in mind, I will be putting together a journal of my comings and going. Every so often I will record my life, both past and present and future. And now I will begin.