Chilly Chile and a Disappearing Autumn

After getting pain meds!

WOW!! Seriously, is it less than a month until Christmas? It’s easily been six weeks since I’ve posted and so much has happened. We experienced a few beautiful days in Chile and on Easter Island, one of which Steve was in the hospital for a kidney stone; we’ve again started the rounds of “peak time social events” and I recently took an ESL teachers training course. Not exactly a “lay-by-the-pool” type of retirement. But it’s certainly been interesting.

Sunset on the snow-capped Andes

 First of all, the trip to Chile and Easter Island was amazing. Santiago is a beautiful and extremely modern city. You’d never know you were in a South American country – except for the language. We did struggle because their Spanish is very different from the Mexican Spanish, but thankfully, we had English-speaking guides on our numerous tours. It was when Steve went into the hospital and also when we went shopping that we struggled – mostly me! I had check Steve in and then pick up some meds for him at a pharmacy where you take a number same as in a deli; then you give the note from the Doctora, and the clerk comes back with the packet of medicines. You have to be sure it’s the right things because in Mexico, the people in the farmacias are not trained, and they may give you anything. In Chile, I had no way of knowing, but I got the pain drugs that Steve needed with relatively little problem. When I stopped into The Body Shop on the way back, the young woman there followed me around the shop talking constantly. I kept saying in Spanish, I’m just looking, I don’t understand and I don’t speak Spanish but she wouldn’t stop. I bought some little tubes of lotion and left as quickly as I could.

Fortunately, our first three days were spent sampling and appreciating the wine region around Santiago, days when Steve was perfectly healthy. There are several valleys and numerous wine regions to choose from. We visited six vineyards over three days, and it was fascinating how the different valleys with different soils, climate conditions and processes can change the taste of the wine. These tours gave us an excellent taste of Chilean wine. We enjoyed the tours of the vineyards and presentations of the different methods of making the wine and of course, getting to taste the various examples.

The rest of their bodies are underground.

Our time on Easter Island, Rapa Nui, was mind blowing! The island is exceptionally remote – it’s 3,500 kilometers from Santiago and even further from other land masses, so we had a five and a half hour flight from Santiago. You don’t get a lot of modern amenities in Rapa Nui – the hotel was bare minimum basic, and we had hardly any Internet service. We had to sit in the lobby and hope there wasn’t anyone else trying to access the Internet at the same time. 

The tours of the most famous Moai were the most incredible things to experience. You can’t possibly imagine how people a few hundreds of years ago with minimum tools could carve these massive statues weighing hundreds of tons and then how they would move them to their locations. Once in the location, they were hoisted onto massive platforms.  There was a lot of walking over “rough terrain” (rocks and hills) and it was hot, but it was worth the experience! This island is so remote and thousands of miles from anything else so it’s definitely not something that an everyday tourist wants to experience. This meant that it wasn’t overrun with tourists and we had full days of exploring the sites of the Moai.

As soon as we returned, we got back into our day-to-day lives with feline shelter tours, donor meetings and catching up with friends for dinners. In the second week of November, I started a 2-week course for Teaching English as a Second Language. It was intense with lots of reading and homework as well as in-classroom instruction, presentations and hands-on teaching in a Mexican school. The program is offered from a group in Canada, so we had to cram a month’s worth of work into two weeks. This studying, which I wasn't used to, was on top of our busy “catching up” social schedule so most days I was burning the candle at both ends – up at 4 am to do my homework and in bed at 10 – 10.30 so that I could fall into an exhausted coma. I definitely now have a higher regard for what teachers go through!! Lesson plans plus having to cope with very high energy kids – how on earth did you do it day after day?

We’re continuing our Cuale spay and neuter volunteering every first Sunday of the month. Somehow, I was “voted in” to keeping the clinic schedule as well as setting up an English Facebook page and liaising with a Spanish friend who is doing the Spanish Facebook page. I need to keep it active now, so those of you on Facebook will see several posts. Somehow, this all seemed to evolve while I was away – or maybe not paying attention! I have to admit, offering the free clinic is something that I’ve become passionate about, though, because there are so many street dogs and island cats and the Mexicans don’t have the same regard for animals that the North Americans do. It’s an educational process and one that the PuRR Project is addressing at a very early age through the handing out of coloring books in schools. These little books (in Spanish) tell kids how to care for their pets (mascotas) and have been tremendously popular with the kids. The last clinic, we even had a little girl of about 8 bring her parents and their two dogs to get fixed because of the coloring books’ message.

I also was roped into helping with a charity fashion show that took place this last Saturday afternoon. I produced the menu/program, table numbers and helped the organizer out on the day with anything and everything. I do want to help because I love these people but I also definitely need to learn to say NO!

Christmas is coming up and here in Mexico, and there are so many fiestas leading up to Christmas week. We have the posadas (parades) that begin on the 12th of December for Our Lady of Guadalupe. These run for two weeks and get bigger and bigger each night. There are lots of other fiestas too. And best of all, my daughter and her two sons are coming for a visit on the 28^th and will be here for just over a week! We’re planning on playing on the beach, snorkeling, paddle boarding, boat trips (hoping to see dolphins and whales), turtle releases, markets, maybe zip-lining and lots of tacos. We have so much planned for the boys; they will go home completely exhausted.

Oh -- I did my autumn leaves before we left for Chile. 

And now it's time to put up Christmas decorations. We can't wait to see how Kato reacts to a decorated tree. 

PV’s Sizzlin' Summertime is Winding Down

Our days of heat and tremendous humidity should be nearing an end but someone forgot to remind the weather. September, as PV’s rainiest month, lived up to it’s name in a substantial way. We’ve had thunderstorms most evenings with a result of gorgeous lush greenery and palms. And thunder clouds have given us a few evenings of pretty amazing light shows and sunsets.

Most small shops were closed during the month of September because it’s normally the month when no one visits. This year, many of the nationals decided to make PV a holiday destination around the 16^th, Independence Day, since it fell on a Friday. The 14th was our 25th wedding anniversary, a traditional charros parade (Mexican traditional horsemen) traveled through downtown so we met up with friends to spend the afternoon . On Friday, the 16^th, we met up with friends again to visit the taco festival and then on to a Mexican dinner where we celebrated my birthday (early), our anniversary and Independence Day. It was one wild night!!

The following day, a friend from Singapore arrived and we tried to cram a week’s worth of sight-seeing and eating into two and a half days. We wandered the streets of downtown and although the festivities were finished, green, white and red decorations flourished in the plazas and streets. We managed to arrive at the Lady of our Guadalupe cathedral just as noon services started and it was a beautiful experience. We hit a few market stalls and shops that were still open and then went for lunch on the beach.

Although it’s been busy, I’ve managed to sew some cushion covers for our balcony dining chairs. I’m really pleased with the way they turned out because it has been a very long time since I’ve done piping and any sort of cushion coverings, apart from the quick covers for our sofa when we got Kato. I actually put a lot of effort into our dining chair cushions! Then, I found a really cute bag on the Craftsy website and wanted to sew one. Finding some appropriate fabric took some effort but once home; a couple of hours later – my bag was ready to go. I’ve used it constantly since and just finished another one for our holiday. A couple of friends and I took a morning out to make breast cancer awareness ribbons for another friend’s reception. We had lots of fun and laughs and got to wear one of our ribbons at the reception.

And we’ve also managed to get Kato used to a harness so that he can go outside when we are out. He’s been very good about putting it on and doesn’t go too far – should say, he can’t go too far but we’ve ordered him a longer leash.

Releasing newly hatched turtles has long been on my list and it’s an activity that I wanted to do while Roger was visiting but we couldn’t find the hatchery. A few nights ago, we decided to walk the beach and walk until we found it and what an amazing experience!! We released hundreds of turtles and they all scrambled to the water. It’s so amazing that they have this inborn instinct to go straight towards the ocean. We watched their little heads bobbing in the waves as we wished them well. The magnificent sunset added to their drama of the life cycle.

The rest of our week leading up to holiday in Chile is filled with social events, reception for breast cancer awareness (my friends and I made ribbons for attendees), taking a donor on a VIP trip to the no-kill cat shelter, newsletter meeting for the other charity, Friday Foodies (our last of the season), “book club” brunch and a brunch on Sunday with friends who insist on a “last meal before we leave”. And somewhere in between I need to complete 30 hours of homework. I start a TESOL Training Program when I get back and the assignments for just the first day are calculated to take 30 hours. What have I gotten myself into?

I have to admit that starting last month, I’m missing the changing of the seasons. Last time I went to Walmart, they had pumpkins and fake fall leaves, which made me laugh. But now I’m thinking, I’m going to go back and get some of the leaves. If it’s not autumn outside, I can at least have the leaves in the house.

October is an “awareness” month for so many charities and organizations, it’s hard to keep track of them all. So my motto is, “just be in the here and now and think about others”. Hope you have a terrific month and I’ll post on returning from Chile. 

We have so many photos from the last month - far too many to include within this post. You can see some of them at this link https://get.google.com/albumarchive/102840684536112573599/album/AF1QipOSws2NDIvLyDAHpWG6gDSC2sZB1cAzYg7hylsT?authKey=CJ3siJ3ahYrVBg

My Current Obsessions

Example pages of a bullet journal

I’ve recently decided that I have an obsessive nature. Well, it’s not exactly recently that I’ve discovered this, but I’m finding more and more craft and creative things to occupy my time. And when something clicks, I tend to become a bit obsessive about it. My most recent example is my obsession with my “bullet journal”. If you’ve not heard about these wonderful creations, you’ll find millions of examples on the Internet. A bullet journal is a combination of "to do" lists (multiple ones all in one place), calendar, journal, diary, and anything else that you might want it to be.

Weekly spread example

Pinterest sends me emails occasionally but I’ve never really been able to get into it. A couple of weeks ago, I came across examples of bullet journals while looking through some pins in one of these emails and it kind of intrigued me because I’ve always been a list maker for everything. Mostly I’ve been using post-it notes – different colors and sizes. My research started with a Google search and I ended up spending almost the whole day just looking at various samples and reading through blogs. By dinner time, I had my shopping list for my book, colored pens, and markers, etc. The following day, I planned out and created my pages and again, spent the whole day just figuring out my formats. I’ve been using my bullet journal for a week and I’m loving it! I feel even more organized and energized.

One of my first

My more recent interests, although I wouldn’t call these obsessions, include Kumihimo, coloring, aqua aerobics, flower arranging and crowd funding. Kumihimo is Japanese braiding for which I’m using silk cords. The patterns seem to be almost limitless with different numbers and colors of cords. I’ve made several bracelets so far and none of them have been the same. My next step will be adding beads to the cords. My coloring obsession began when I was in the US in June. There are adult coloring books displayed everywhere so of course I had to try it and came home with two books. I'm almost done with my first book but I’ve since found some coloring books here in PV. It’s so relaxing and zen-like and I'm able to listen to an audio book while I’m coloring. This means that I’m doing two things I love at the same time.

The aqua aerobics class that I organize here at my condo has grown in size and we now meet two mornings a week. We work hard for an hour, sometimes even more, and then we lounge in the pool for a while and just talk and catch up. It’s such a great group of people and it’s also a good resource for ideas, contacts and where to find things here in PV.

A flower store not far away has just recently expanded and they carry all kinds of flowers and they are so inexpensive so I know this is going to quickly become another obsession. Here's the flowers that we bought last week for $6 USD.

Inspecting the building process

The crowd-funding site that I set up was officially launched on the 11th of July and we were completely blown away by the number of responses. I worked with a couple of the board members of the PuRR Project to determine our target goal. The cost of a building to house senior cats was going to be $6,000 USD but they were thinking only in terms of the older cats that are currently at the shelter. Because it’s a no-kill shelter, and it’s harder to get older cats adopted, I suggested they should consider a bigger building. They agreed so we set our target at $8,000. When the donations started pouring in, I became obsessed with logging on to see if there were any new donations. It’s amazing how addicting that can be! The publicity that we generated also helped to raise donations that were sent by checks. Within 1 month, we’d raised $12,000 and we were able to start on the building almost immediately. As of today, it’s nearly finished. When I went out to see the progress, I was so excited to see something that was just a “wish” a couple of months ago and to know that with all the money we received there’s some left over for medicines and care for the older cats.

Ready for an afternoon of fun

Life is still continuing at a fast pace with lots of social activities while dodging the monsoon-like thunderstorms. Last week we nearly had to swim home from a dinner downtown. We hosted a pool party a couple of weeks ago and it was a huge hit! About 20 friends came on a Sunday afternoon and everyone spent the whole afternoon in the pool. We have a pool bar so there wasn’t any need to get out for food or drinks. We had way too much food and drink and loads of photos ended up on FaceBook. We were incredibly lucky with a bright sunny afternoon. There was another pool party at a friend’s last night and we had a tremendous thunder and lightning storm. We were under a cover so we still had a great time.

This week we are gearing up for Independence Day which is a really big deal here. All of the town’s parks are decorated with green, white and red banners. There are lots of parties, dancing, parades and fireworks. Friday, we are going to a Taco Festival in the center of town before meeting up with our regular Friday Foodie group for dinner in a traditional taco restaurant. The restaurant will have a live band so it’s definitely going to be a loud evening.

Once Independence Day is over, everyone here will be starting to decorate for the day of the dead. Those celebrations are as big as Halloween in the US. And yes - there are already Christmas decorations up in some stores.

Crazy Days of Summer!

The world seems to have gone completely crazy. What has happened to respect, manners and consideration for fellow humans in the recent years? Every morning I’m saddened when I look at the news and see so many killed, not just in the US, but all over the world. Apart from daily catching up with BBC news and a little bit of CNN via streaming, we haven’t watched any other news. We did carefully watch the lead-up to and including the Brexit vote. We even tried voting but ballots had to be mailed out to us and then returned by mail, and that wasn’t going to happen in the short time frame they allowed! We are still waiting to get a Christmas card that was mailed to us last November. (I thinking we’ll probably never get it!)

Tuesday Taco night

Just when we thought our lives would slow a bit for the summer low season, we’ve been busier than ever with almost daily meeting up with friends for activities such as an ice cream tastings, Tuesday Tacos, Friday Foodies as well as extra dinners and trying out new restaurants/bars using cupocity coupons - PV’s equivalent to Groupon. It seems there’s always something going on and it almost always includes food. 

Our wonderful doctors!

My wish for a break from food came the first Sunday in July during a day of volunteering at another spay/neuter clinic, where there’s no chance to eat all day long. We had a lot of first-time volunteers this clinic, so I had an opportunity to get really hands-on, taking their pulse, temperatures and checking their breathing.  This one had extra excitement because we had a couple of cats who weren’t breathing after surgery; a dog who escaped (temporarily) as he was getting prepped for surgery; and someone mixed up a couple of dogs, so when the owner came to pick up his dog he said, “that’s not my dog”. These days are definitely not your sit back, relax and chat type days.

Our kitty-proofing tasks are nearly complete with Steve finishing the balcony and we both finished our work on covering the sofa. I took the fabric that Steve bought while I was away and made thirteen cushion covers -- these little devils seemed to take forever! Steve did the base covering, and together, we think we’ve protected the sofa from Kato’s little razor-like claws. He’s not scratching it on purpose, but he’s so active and runs and jumps, and because he’s still little, he digs his claws in to pull himself up.

Ready for action!

Due to the constant round of eating out, some of my friends and I decided to form an aqua aerobics class at my pool at least once a week. A friend that I’d met through one of my volunteer roles has previously taught classes, so she’s teaching us as a small group. This week, I’ll get two lessons as she wants a guinea pig to try out a new routine before trying it on the group. I definitely need the workout!

Big check from Richard Reed Foundation!

We are also continuing our volunteer activities and I got a chance to try out setting up a GoFundMe site for the PuRR Project. I’d done a lot of research this spring for another charity so knew what we needed and it seemed to come together quickly and easily. So far, just from the site alone, we’ve raised $3,250 and through some publicity, emails and FaceBook relating to the site, we’ve raised another $5,950 all within 3 weeks. Everyone is so excited about it so we are hoping the donations will continue. Following on this success, we are hoping to do a couple of more campaigns throughout the next year. I’m in the process of getting things set up so that we can do the same type of campaign for the children’s organization.

Some of our time has been spent organizing an October trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and Steve’s 60th birthday. We’ll be visiting Chile; staying in Santiago while taking day trips to wineries and spending a day in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. I’ve compiled a long list of things that I want to do in Santiago but we are only in the city for 1 ½ days, so I’m going to have to do some serious weeding out or not get any sleep! On our 6th day, we fly on to Easter Island for the rest of our trip.

There’s so much negativity in the world right now – on the news, on social media – it’s everywhere you turn. I just want to leave you with these thoughts . . .