Getting down to the wire

We will be driving back down to Baja next week. Today was my last day of physical therapy, grins! Of course I have to continue doing the exercises on my own now. Knowing me I probably won’t push as hard and if I get off on the wrong track and don’t realize I am doing the exercise the wrong way, there will be no one to correct me. We have to pack all my bands, pulley and large styrofoam tube—makes me feel like I am taking the whole nursing home with me. I am looking forward to the day I can move my arm in all directions and it doesn’t lock up or hurt as to how far it wants to bend. In the meantime tonite, I am having a wine party with my Mother and my neighbors, all other single girls. This seems to be a block of mostly single woman, funny isn’t it? All the other blocks appear to be families. The neighbor on my left never married, the neighbor on my right is getting divorced, and the neighbor just past her has been divorced for several years and now has a steady boyfriend; then there’s me—a mining ‘widow”.

Next Wednesday is the day! It will be nice to rejoin Esperando, but sadly after we drive down and have a week’s vacation in southern Baja, he will be deserting me again to go to Northern California for two weeks. We are going to stay in Cabo Pulmo and Todos Santos, both places we have never been. I am really looking forward to our stay in Cabo Pulmo at Diane Varney's El Encanto de Cabo Pulmo ever since I first saw it on the internet. This past week I have been busy buying, buying, buying stuff to take that we can’t get in Santa Rosalia—premium dog food, impossible-to-find-in-Baja premium cat food, cat toys, bird feeders, vacuum sealer and bags, fish fryer, face cream, hair dye (they don’t have blonde colors that work very well on gringos where we are), curtain rods, custom made blinds, more dishes for the guesthouse, and a slow cooker.

I still have to pack up all my clothes. I confess I have been a bad girl having gone on quite a spending spree while in Denver. Two weeks after my surgery Esperando and I were in REI and I was already trying on shirts, even though it meant I had to remove my sling. And with my Mother here visiting, she isn’t any good influence; she keeps wanting to go back to Chico’s for one last look at the sales rack. I sequester her in the largest fitting room, then race around the store looking for her size and my size, race back try on my clothes and dress again for another tour around the store. She is much slower trying on clothes, so it gives me quite a bit of time to comb every rack and make sure we haven’t missed anything. We made a pretty good haul several days ago.

Yesterday the flicker came back to destroy our house some more. Both Esperando and I thought they would only be a problem during breeding season, which we are now past. For the last two days I have been hearing tapping noises that sounded like them. The first time the dog immediately got alarmed and when I went out in the backyard to see if that’s where they were, he started barking aggressively at me. He followed me all over the yard barking. I had to yell at him to get him to shut up and by then whoever was tapping had stopped. Yesterday when I heard it again I was on the phone. This time I went out the front door and looked up at the balcony. Sure enough, there was a flicker on the edge of the upstairs balcony beating his beak against Esperando’s repair job. When I yelled at him and waved my arms he just stayed there. I went back inside and raced up the stairs to our bedroom, opened the door to the balcony bringing the dog along, and there was the flicker perched on an outdoor lamp. He must have been a young bird because he didn’t know enough to be scared of me and stayed there until I approached within 4 feet, yelling 'shoo' and waving my arms. I could see where he had put beak dents in about seven places, but nothing serious yet. Perhaps because he is so young I have been able to scare him away permanently. This wrecking of our house is a really serious situation.

On an additional sour note before I go, the mammagram people called this morning and said I have to come back in for additional imaging. I will have to wait and fret all weekend until Monday to get re-imaged and find out everything is ok. Neither my mother nor my sister nor any female antecedents in our family has ever had breast cancer. I don't intend to be the first!

Turf wars

Today I went over and confronted my neighbor Erin about the two large piles of weeds her husband Guy left in the alley yesterday after he chopped them down. One pile was right where I have to make my turn to go into the garage. In fact yesterday as I was returning from running errands, Guy and Erin were standing in the alley watching me trying to make my turn with that same pile of weeds in my way. We have lived in our house for 5 years now and I have not spoken to these neighbors much, I don’t think we are on very friendly terms as Erin doesn’t speak to me when I go to the mailbox if she happens to be there even when I say hello. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I hoped they would have bagged their weeds and moved them.

This morning when I left to run my errands the same piles of weeds were still in place. All the way to the grocery store I practiced what I was going to go and say calmly to Erin, I figured Guy was probably at work. Then when I got home I decided to pick up the weeds and bag them myself and drag them over to their driveway. It is some kind of martyr thing that I think I inherited (and I didn’t think it would get done if I didn’t do it either). First as I bagged them, some of the weeds were really prickly on my bare hands which of course made me madder. Then after I picked all the weeds up, I had to sweep quite a bit of dirt back onto their flower beds; I am especially concerned about that because the dirt turns into mud when it rains and then I carry that in on my wheels to our garage. The whole time I am sweeping I am thinking how maybe this is not a good thing for my bad arm and back so of course I am getting madder yet.

As I write this I begin to understand my anger, but at the time I went to talk to my neighbor I was astounded how furious I had become. I walked around to the front of her house half a block away. When I got there some woman was leaving. After she left I introduced myself. Then I told her they had left their weeds in the alley yesterday and I had cleaned them up. I could barely choke the words out I was so mad, and I continued to struggle to spit words out; it was as if my whole mouth was clenched and I had to push each word out between my teeth.












“Oh you didn’t need to do that,” she said, “my husband was chopping weeds yesterday when he got called out of town.”
“Yes, I did need to, they were right where I turn into my garage. No street sweepers clean the alley, you know?” said I.
“Yes, I know. Well I’m sorry,” she said, “but he was called away on an emergency.”
“I’m sorry, but you really need to clean up after yourselves,” said I. “I know you both think I am the one who runs over your side yard plants too, but its not me.”
“Oh no,” she said, “we know it is the garbage truck, we have seen it.”
“It is really hard for me to express this to you, I am not a person that likes to confront people,” I said.
“Well he was called away on an emergency,” she repeated.

Should I have been more sympathetic? My mind wouldn’t go there, I am thinking ‘so is there some reason you couldn’t take your two 8 year old children and go clean it up yourself?’

“I’m sorry,” I said as she began to shut the door in my face.

Now I was really furious, nothing like someone shutting the door in your face to create further anger. I might have been more sympathetic to Guy’s emergency, except every time he has ‘de-weeded’ his part of the alley, he has left a pile of weeds which he never picks up. My other neighbor Sally has been shoveling his alley weeds back onto his flower bed several times. I didn’t think to say that to Erin, but I should have (the weeds have never been at my turn spot into the garage before.) I went back home and called my neighbor Sherry to vent, and when she didn’t answer I called my other neighbor Deborah. She sympathized with me as these neighbors Guy and Erin never pick up any loose plastic bags or other trash the garbage man lets escape from their cans into the alley by their house, but leave it blow around for the rest of us to pick up. Deborah thinks we should start throwing the stuff back over their fence into their yard. That’s never been my style, but maybe she is right.

Hard Times comes a'knockin' at the door

Courtyard at the defunct Hotel Los Arcos

We will have been in Baja for a year by next month. I have cheated part of that time by having stayed away in Denver for the last 3 months recovering from shoulder surgery. Its a sad state of affairs. Even before I left it was noticeable that the Baja economy was struggling with a triple whammy. Coupled with the H1N1 virus scare, gringo fear of drug violence, and the meltdown of the U.S. economy, the tourist business is extremely slow in Baja. In the last 4 months their economy has eroded.

To start with, our favorite hotel in La Paz, Hotel Los Arcos, has been shut down since last November from a labor strike and has been sitting all boarded up since then. What a waste! It is in such a great location right across from the Malecon, and served up the best breakfast in town in my opinion—as well as some superb Margaritas in the bar. Last time we stayed at the Club El Morro and the accommodations were pretty, but they sure didn’t know how to make an even decent Margarita; the remembrance of those evil super sugar-y Margaritas makes my tongue want to shrivel up and die. I don’t know what will happen to Los Arcos, but I hope they win their lawsuit and can open up again sometime.

In June, the bankrupt Inn at Loreto Bay shut its doors and is looking for new owners and a cash infusion. It was such a great destination resort, low key and restful--right in Loreto, a hop, skip and jump from the airport. Gone are the availability of pretty rooms; the nice beach and adjacent pool where grandchildren can frolic; the pleasant outdoor dining, and the gentle slow resort just right for wallowing in the sun. Did I mentioned the golf course and daily activities calendar are gone too? I hope someone purchases it and sets it back up in business again (but when will the tourists even return to Mexico is anyone’s guess). Coupled with the hotel, the new construction at the resort of handsome townhomes has gone down the tubes and the developers that took people’s money upfront haven’t even left them with a hole in the ground.

Moving north back up the Peninsula toward Santa Rosalia our next victim is the Bar/Restaurant at Playa Buenaventura owned by Mark and Olivia Burbey who own our favorite hamburger location pitstop on the drive back from Loreto to Santa Rosalia. Their cute little restaurant/bar sits plop in front of the beautiful Sea of Cortez and the view is unparalleled. They also rent out space to RV’s and have a few humble cottages for hire. Mark told us his business was doing poorly last February. At that time when he is normally booked with 60 people he was only expecting 6. They are open for business, but are suffering. Stop by and eat a great burger if you are in the area. Tell them the copper miners from Santa Rosalia sent you.

Finally in Santa Rosalia one of our few nicer restaurant options, Tuxpan, bit the dust in June as well. Last year it was the site of our company Christmas party. The landlord wanted to up the rent and the owners couldn’t afford to pay more. In the ultimate moment of moving out it is reputed that the landlord had a change of heart, but the owners couldn’t afford to move everything back again. Gone the beautiful view, decent food, and all that great parking for passing RVs. Perhaps in another couple of months the mine activity in Santa Rosalia will start to pick up and infuse the economy there with some badly needed impetus.

Sad times for Baja, living on the edge.