FLIP FLOPPING TIME
No, not beach footwear. About time for us to flip from our tropical winter home to our more temperate northern abode - although there were a few days last summer when Bucerias was cooler than Philo. We have the routine down but it still requires a bit of work. Mrs.T has prepared a final look as some of our winter activities.
We had a couple of surprises. The biggest was a visit by Rita. Rita has been coming every year for the last several. But this year she said she was not going to make her scheduled trip due to medical issues. Well she was jerked around by the system in a fashion such as Rebecca was with her knee. After some minor therapy Rita decided enough was enough and came down for a rescheduled visit. Just as well that she did not come when originally planned as we were dealing with our bad lungs at that time.
The second surprise was a package from Nick. R tells about it below.
On to the story:
About a month ago we had our street chalk artists. Artists came from different countries to compete. Not only was there a prize but they collected tips as well. I contributed substantially because I was quite amazed. The pictures were very good but the amazing thing was if you stood at a certain spot the pictures came off the street and were flying through the air. How did they do that? No, don't tell me; I don't want to know. I prefer to believe it is some sort of picture magic. Also for our convenience, the artists had painted feet on the road so that we knew where to stand to see the pictures fly. Isn't life wonderful!! (Now several weeks after the event some of the works can still be seen. -dt)
Rita came and visited us for a couple of weeks. She wanted to take some watercolor lessons and convinced me to take them with her. She paints with watercolor and is pretty good but I had never used watercolors before. The instructor came to see how we were doing. She looked at Rita's and said, "Very nice!" Then she looked at mine and said, "Don't worry." Sigh. Oil painting is much more forgiving. I found that if you take very wet toilet paper and rub real hard you can pick up most of the watercolor paint. You are not supposed to do this!
For each lesson we both tried to paint the same picture. The first picture was a beach scene and my picture was dorky because my boat insisted on looking like a hot tub. But my sky was okay. Rita's picture was nice and her boat looked like a boat. The second picture was palm trees at sunset. Rita's picture looked a lot like the picture we copied. It was nice. My picture was okay. It did not look like the picture we were copying but it did look like palm trees. (Actually this picture is quite good. -dt) My last picture was of a door surrounded by flowers. It looked okay for a sixth grader. All in all I did better than I thought I would but I do not like watercolors. Rita did pretty well.
Rita and I went SCUBA diving. Rita collected some shells for her grandchildren. I found an octopus and Alex caught it. Rita held the octopus and the octopus held Rita. We took a picture of them. Rita was the one who was smiling. (Unfortunately this was a real picture and she took it before I could take a picture of it. -dt)
I like to entertain Rita when she comes so I decided we would go to a polo match in San Pancho. Neither of us had ever been to polo before but we are nothing if not willing to try new things. This was rumored to be a high-class event so I wore my black dress and white hat that I had gotten on Daphne's advice. I felt top drawer! The polo grounds were beautiful. The polo started with mimosa's, I had the orange juice variety; Rita started with mango and tried all different kinds. I tasted hers but stuck with orange juice. The others - mango and papaya and some other kinds - were okay; I can't recommend the passionfruit. There was background music while we ate the first course of our brunch. A couple of ladies from Vallarta joined us at our table. We had a nice conversation and found out that they did not know polo either. The food in the buffet was fabulous - different kinds of salads and fruits, etc. Nice men in white gloves took away our plates and brought more mimosas. I had at least two and I think Rita had several; they were rather small. I think to succeed in this social league you must like mimosas. (I am sure it made the ladies more amicable. -dt)
While we ate our main course a man came on the speaker and explained how polo worked. It is sort of like hockey on horses. After the main course - different meats, fish, shrimp etc. - the horses and riders came over so we could meet them. Most of the horses were half Arabian so are somewhat small. They were beautiful. The men had cleared away our food and brought more mimosas. The polo started. It was exciting. The periods - chuckers? (Seven minute chukkas -dt) - did not last long. The announcer told us what was happening. We cheered. This was a practice match but the riders were from all over the world. The youngest was eleven the oldest perhaps in her forties. We could have signed up for lessons if we wished. We didn't. After the match we munched on desserts and listened to live music. The music was okay but not spectacular. So when the ladies from Vallarta offered us a ride home we accepted. It was a good day. (Seems like the main events were eating and drinking. -dt)
Nick had come down for a visit. He had a picture he had taken of our garden and pool turned it into a puzzle. All of the puzzlers thought this was really neat. It was a little challenging but not too hard. Dan and I are napping in the background of the puzzle. We will have it framed next season. Thanks Nick!
Dan and I both had been ailing but now we are doing okay. (A bronchial condition probably brought by a visitor -dt) One morning one of our neighbors said, " Did you hear that awful screaming last night?" I had not heard anything. "Probably cats fighting," I suggested. No, everyone agreed that it was not cats. Several people had heard it. Well, some old buildings behind us had been emptied and partially demolished. Some people suggested that the noise came from there. I suppose it was possible that there were unhappy spirits that had been disturbed. I did not suggest this for fear of being thought of as even crazier than usual.
Bandido, one of our resident cats, had taken responsibility for the area on his nightly prowls. For three succeeding nights the screeches and screams were heard by more and more people. On the third night I heard a high pitched hair raising noise. I did not know what it was but it was impressive. What could it be? Barn Owls!! (The precise type of owl was not identified. -dt) We found out the next night when two of them chased Bandido home. Evidently they had taken up residence in the empty buildings and Bandido had been trying to evict them.
While you had to admire Bandido's valor he is definitely lacking in common sense. Any one owl was bigger than he, and there were four sighted. Bandido is scrawny and arthritic - he is 17 years old - and all his teeth have fallen out. Several of us told him to leave the big birds alone. He paid about as much attention as cats usually do. He listened politely and continued as he had before. The owls on the other hand became more and more aggressive pursuing him home and diving at him in our courtyard. We seriously feared for his life. Brenda, his primary food slave, hung a blanket out over her porch so Bandido could lounge there out of sight from the air.
Some of the neighbors took to shining lights on the owls which was supposed to annoy them. Finally Bandido retreated from their abode. Alas, too little too late, they knew where he lived and kept a constant patrol of the area. But the screeching and diving was not the only bothersome thing about the owls. They spent all night every night talking to each other in a strident "skretch, skretch." It was not quite as loud but definitely irritating.
There was more computer searching and listening to recorded barn owl calls. Dan was of the opinion that some of the owls were babies and they were calling for food. Some neighbors thought that they were too big to be babies. I never saw the actual birds but did see some pictures. Whatever they were trying to say the calls were neither musical nor attractive. Since Dan and I wear CPAP machines we did not hear them so loudly when trying to sleep. But nonetheless after a few days we were really tired of hearing it. Also every day or so the owls would dive at Bandido just to keep him in line.
After about a month either the the babies were grown or the owls had extirpated the local rodent population. But for whatever reason the owls disappeared just as we were at our wits end.
Now the March winds have returned and at the beach we have real kite surfers flying through the air. Of course the downside is they go zipping through the water so fast you don't dare go in for a normal swim. I love watching them. This is something I am not silly enough to try because it needs both skill and strength. In fact, I find it rather entertaining to watch young, muscular men trying to do it for the first time. Sometimes I root for them clapping when they finally succeed. But sometimes I don't like their attitudes and am glad if they don't make it. Ah well.
Here are some pictures including a few on the repainted Kissing Bridge. Many puzzle pictures are not included. Thanks Barrie and Brenda for pictures from the chalk walk and owls: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmBM59KT And Jean Paul took the underwater picture.
And in the last issue I had an incorrect link to some pictures; I hope this one works: https://www.flickr.com/gp/9151458@N07/HVAqT7
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Hope you all enjoyed the full supermoon - Lenten, worm, sap, crow - and start to spring.
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com
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