Oh no!!! The whole high season (all six months of
it) has raced by, and I’ve not written a blog. No real excuses other than an
incredibly busy time with charity work, social activities and working – yes –
working!! And I have to admit to a bit of laziness thrown in during down times.
The weather has been glorious this winter, perfect
temperatures with very little humidity. Perfect conditions have meant that
we’ve left the doors across the whole front of our condo open continuously.
It’s even been a bit cold, well – cool (65 F – 18 C), so we’ve had to dig out
long sleeve t-shirts in the mornings. On the mornings when I have to find a
sweater, I keep reminding myself that in a few months I will need to remember
how good this feels when I wake up to 85 F (29 C) and 70% humidity. The jungle
and most plants are very dry and baked now, so I am looking forward to some
rain. 
Since my last blog, quite a lot of my time has been
taken up with work for a friend’s company. The first conference, Super
Computing, was held in Denver in November last year with the group reaching
just under 11,000 attendees. The convention center is so massive that it didn’t
feel like that many, until it came to breaks, lunch times or the parties each
night. Then the hoards came out of the woodwork and descended on the food like
vultures. It was incredibly long days though because Paul and I would start by
6:00 am and then we were responsible for each of the evening’s parties. Long
days with very little sleep.
Once that was over, I threw myself into all of the
social activities with gusto. We had Thanksgiving on the beach and lots of
other events leading up to Christmas. During this time, Paul asked me to plan
evening events for a smaller meeting in Tucson plus work a conference in
Baltimore at the end of January. Yea!!! It meant that at the end of that
conference, I got to spend a weekend with my daughters. While this was going
on, I had another event to plan for evening dinners in Dayton and then another
conference in Orlando at the end of February.
Although the planning time wasn’t full time, with
the charity work, social events, and my ESL classes twice a week, it kept me
going all of the time. In addition to a meeting in Dallas in June, I have two
back to back conferences coming up in May.
The first week of February, I had my first car
accident here in Mexico. I was on my way to have lab work done, so it was
relatively early in the morning. I made a right turn onto the street of the
hospital, and a lady hit the right front of my car. The guy with her jumped out
immediately, so I said: “I’m calling the police.” He immediately got all
excited and said “no police, no police”! The accident took the whole front of
her car off, but because I was going downhill, it did very little damage to my
car because she hit my wheel and wheel rim. So I sat there thinking s*!t – I
don’t even know how to call the police. I called Steve to find out, but in the
meantime, two tourist officers came by and radioed for a policeman. I was not
going to move my car until a policeman told me that I could. In the end – two
hours later, I’d moved my car, an insurance adjuster showed up, but I found out
that unless I claimed 50% of the liability, my car would be impounded for 2-3
months while the case went to court and the judge would decide on the outcome.
I ended up claiming that even though she hit me and she was in the wrong, it
was 50% my fault. I couldn’t see being without a car for 2-3 months. Also, I
found out that insurance wouldn’t cover it and the woman who hit me didn’t have
insurance. So repairs had to be covered privately. That’s Mexico!!!
In March, when I returned from Orlando, Steve and I
took a trip to Copper Canyon. It is four times larger than the Grand Canyon and
is beautiful beyond words! Copper Canyon is only one of four canyons that meet
and form one large canyon. In addition to the walks up and down the mountain,
we visited some of the indigenous villages and homes and of course their
markets. One of our stops was a girls school where we dropped off supplies and
learned how the school system works (or doesn’t in some cases) for them. Most of the families live too far away from the school so if a girl is lucky enough to attend; she has to live at the school too. It's a tough decision for families because the children are needed just to help them survive. If a girl gets an education, she most likely will leave and move to a city and the family loses a good worker. 
Semana Santa, the week before Easter, is a week when
a lot of Mexicans come to Vallarta for their holiday since the Mexican kids
have two weeks off school. Our little town swells with nationals, and I noticed
a big difference in driving around the city. People who live in Vallarta drive
very politely (small town attitudes), while the influx of holiday people
arriving from Mexico City or Guadalajara drive like lunatics and are not
polite. Easter holiday is two weeks long – the first week is for the nationals
who don’t have as much money, so they park on the beaches with their coolers of
coke and other drinks for the whole day. The second week, Pascua, the nationals
who have more money come to the beach but they will swim or lounge on the beach
for part of the day, and they tend to go to the restaurants. Steffanie, Lake,
and Fynn came down the weekend between the two holy weeks but the time that
they were here wasn’t all that busy. We had a great time with the two boys
spending a lot of time in the water, snorkeling, and swimming and a first for Fynn this time - parasailing. They wanted a
laid back and relaxing time this trip, rather than racing around trying to fit
in a lot of activities.
As I said, high season is winding down and can’t
come soon enough for me!! We’ve been having so many lunches, dinners, drinks,
etc. so I’m so ready for a “slow” season, although last summer was anything but
slow. And the longer we live here, the more people we meet so it’s even more
lunches, dinners, and drinks out.
After having friends over for dinner this week, I’ve
definitely decided that it’s better to enjoy a few friends over for dinner at
our condo than to go to a dinner with several people at a restaurant where you
can’t talk to anyone.
I'm thinking that as my seventith birthday is coming up this year, if I continue the blog, I should change its name. Can't think of words that go with seventy though - have to give it more thought.
