When Life Weaves Magic

            When Life Weaves Magic 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            My son Ben lives in Poulsbo, a lovely town across the water from Seattle, where I lived with my family for 25 years. He sent the following email to me and it is a better story than any I could write.

He presents this story in a stream-of-consciousness way so I broke it into paragraphs. Otherwise, it is all Ben’s words, unedited.

            Have you heard of the Coffee Oasis in Bremerton? A guy started it years ago. It gives homeless and people in recovery a chance to have a job and a home and support to get back on their feet. They have helped hundreds of people to transition back into life.

            Anyway, the guy who started the place has been diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and only has another twelve months or less. His family has been slowly building a lake house out in deep Belfair that they had planned to retire to someday.

            Medical bills have drained their dream of finishing the place to a standstill. So my boss has been organizing work groups to volunteer and provide materials so they can finish the house and have a peaceful place for the last days of his life.

            On Thursday a group of us went up to the Lake House and installed hardwood floors and finished the electric.

On the way up, my work truck started leaking antifreeze. By the time I got out to the house my engine was dumping fluid everywhere. So after we finished working there, I coaxed the truck back to my own garage.

            Here is the place where life weaves everything together to someone’s perfect master plan.

            A couple weeks ago Kristen had taken her Durango to Ken’s to get a list of what needs to be fixed. One of the biggest items needed was a water pump. So I ordered a water pump on Amazon and it has been sitting on our kitchen table unopened for the past couple weeks.

            Turns out the water pump was what was wrong with my work truck and our two vehicles take the exact same part. My co-worker Bob is a grease monkey, so after volunteering to get the floors done, he came over and we spent the rest of the day into the night rebuilding the truck.

            With taking the truck apart and putting it back together, we, of course, had to run to the auto store several times as we discovered parts that needed replacement.

            My boss had given us some cash for our part in the Lake House project and after reordering Kristen’s water pump again, the day ended out almost exactly.

            So the truck is now running fine, the Lake House is finished, parts are on the way for Kristen’s car and somehow it all ended up being a wash.

            Hopefully that is not too confusing but I feel like life worked its magic and provided what was needed when it was needed.

Ben Thomas

For Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May 9, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bamboozled

                        Bamboozled 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            I know that I said (quite plainly), “I am not going to buy any more pots for my plants.” I spoke these words quite sincerely, often, back when I had accumulated a total 100 (plus a small number) pots.  I counted several times, trying to be, wanting to be, wrong.

            Plants, flowers, bushes, have a done-by date, just as we do. Some I’ve pulled out by their dead roots and reused their containers. But I’ve also made changes in my garden, some of which require more containers.

            For example, in the beginning the east wall hosted my five dead trees. What an exercise in patience that has been. The first two years leaf-cutter ants stripped new leaves with regularity or seasonal rest left the twined trunks naked. Not pretty, my east wall.

So I added a clinging vine to cover the brick, made a narrow bed along the length and filled it with green and purple ground-cover leafy stuff. Oh, and five large clay pots with bamboo for greenery for those winter months when the dead trees appear dead, just in case. This year my dead trees are in full leaf and flower, beauties, every one, purple and white and pink.

Later I added a tasteful pot garden out by my wrought-iron backyard gate. The riot of colorful flowers is lovely against the black wrought-iron. Just a few new pots. Mostly, I moved older flowers from elsewhere.

Ah, bamboo. Lovely stuff. Bamboo demands pots, right? If bamboo is not contained, within too few months my entire back yard would be jungle. Yes, jungle. That is why I pot many of my plants, to keep them within set bounds.

Last year I invested in a thirty-year-old hot tub, spiffied it up, got it running. The tub sits in direct sight-line of the back gate. Private. Nobody is watching. Far as I know, nobody has seen me in the tub. However . . . Having discovered the marvelous screening properties of bamboo, I added four well-spaced potted bamboos to curtain my tub.

Genius move on my part. The bamboo also filters noise and dust. Amazing stuff, that bamboo.

May is our hottest month in Etzatlan. My casa is built of a little brick and a lot of windows. To say I live in a glass house is no exaggeration. I like the open, expansive feeling of living outdoors so I do not use window curtains.

However—there is always a “however” in life; ever notice? The afternoon summer sun beats into three of my wonderfully arched windows, creating a dry-sauna effect. It is only unbearable three or four hours of the day, so I have tried to buck up and bear it.

Last week the proverbial cartoon lightbulb appeared above my head. “Eureka! By gum, I’ve got it! I’ll plant bamboo curtains outside those three irksome windows.” (The other seven windows do not get the same sun blast.)

Well, more bamboo equals more pots, special pots. Hence a trip to Tonola in search of big rectangular pots, large enough for three bamboos each one.

I know a street along which pots, pots of every size and shape imaginable, line several blocks. We drove into the market section of Tonalo, turned left onto the “tiles and pots” street, drove about six blocks, parked smack dab in front of the a stack of pots the perfect size. Lovely unadorned natural clay.

When I see what I want, I look no further.  My pot transaction took five minutes.

Jorge, the welder, made ironwork stands with wheels for my pots, each pot a few centimeters over three feet long (Spanglish). The better to move them on dread window-washing days, my dear.

Leo planted three bamboos in each pot. Even as spindly baby bamboos, the plants filter the extreme sun-heat. In three months I’ll have a lush living curtain.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

May 2, 2018

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As a Matter of Fat

As a Matter of Fat 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Several weeks or months ago, all the women in the Rancho jumped onto the latest diet-craze roller coaster. One at a time. I’m not sure how or why.  Each is beautiful in her own way.

I say “all” the women. I mean all but myself. I wasn’t invited. Not that I would have bought the ticket. I once rode that carnival ride and it cost me dearly. I have not dieted since.

            When I was in high school, several girls attempted the diet of that time. When I make up my mind to something, I’m like a snapping turtle; I clamp on and don’t let go.

            I doubt I was fat—none of us were. I grew up skinny. I lost more than weight. My immune system weakened, I contracted mono, was allergic to the meds, landed in the hospital several weeks, under-hydrated and unable to walk. I lost two months of school. And I never want to be that skinny again, not ever.  I was a skeleton with skin.

            It’s not fun lunching with a group of dieters. I order whatever I want. My friends eat lettuce leaves, while polishing their halos and eye-balling my plate with both lust and disdain. 

            One friend said to me, “It is not a diet. It is a lifetime change in eating habits.” “Uh huh,” I answered back. It seems to me that any food deprivation plan smacks of Puritan righteousness. And dieters usually fall off the roller coaster. It’s a rough landing, bruising body and psyche.

            We believe what we want to believe. I am no exception. But I know with all my knowing that no amount of starvation, make-up, hair color, face or body enhancements will change the person I am. What you see is what you get, and what you see is the real-me-deal.

            Back in my high school days, Jack LaLanne was the television diet and fitness guru. He said, “If it tastes good spit it out.” He also said, “If man made it, don’t eat it.” It worked for him.

            I’ve been heard to say I’ve never met a food I didn’t like. That’s not totally true but why would I eat something I don’t like? On the proverbial desert island with just one food, I’ll take bread. Real bread. Bread I bake myself. I could live on fresh bread, toasted, slathered with butter and smothered with mango jam.

            I’ve been skinny and I’ve been fat. I prefer somewhere in between. When I notice my clothes shrinking, I look inside my head instead of the refrigerator.

I ask, what is going on with me? What is “eating” me?  When a problem is eating me inside out, I’ve noticed I tend to want to live on bread and chocolate. When I deal with the bug-a-boo, I generally fade back to my clothing size with little effort.

It took me years to find that solution. Eating is easier. Why not pleasure the problem with food?

            I dropped a lot of weight when I moved to Mexico. I can account for that quite simply. Fruits and vegetables, fresh and local, are cheap and in abundant supply. So is fish and other seafood. These are foods I like and enjoy. So that is what I eat, no diet involved.

I agree with LaLanne that man-made foods are poison. I buy virtually no processed foods. It’s not easy but I have free time to make my own foods that if I were working and raising children, I’d pick up in a can or box at the grocery.

 I’m not skinny but I am comfortable with myself and I am healthy. I don’t live on a desert island. I neither live on bread nor do I deprive myself of bread.

Moderation in all things is as much of a food plan as I can handle. My opinion, not backed by science or statistics, is that to function fully, our bodies need some fats and carbs too.

Man does not live by grass alone. That’s why we eat cows. A prime rib sandwich can be a holy meal.

            Maybe my friends are losing weight. I don’t know. Maybe deprivation works for them. I don’t know. But why do desperate women crawl to my door begging for just one piece of chocolate?

            I’m hungry. I’m going to fix a plate of sliced tomato and cucumber with a drizzle of my homemade dressing as soon as I finish shining my righteous halo.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 25, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All My Oceans Lie Westward

            All My Oceans Lie Westward  

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            I felt lost the whole week. I had absolutely no sense of direction.  How could I tell? I have long been able to orient myself to water.  I sense the presence of a body of water.

            On our last day, luggage packed for return, I stood on the balcony over the Caribbean. “I got it!” I said to myself. Sometimes I am a slow learner. The Caribbean Sea is to the east, not the west. No wonder I have felt so disoriented. I had spent the entire week upside-down, so to speak, heading in the wrong direction.

            But what a week! We four, Kathy, Richard, Leo and I, wallowed in wretched excess of luxury in a resort on the beach outside of Cancun. The resort is isolated, in that it is not in a town or part of a town. To get there we drove down a stick-straight stretch of highway, bordered by a wall of green jungle with billboards. View was nil.

            Once at the resort, that all changed. The sea is stunning, even if it is on the wrong side. And the landscaping, a modified jungle made beautiful rather than impenetrable; I went gaga over the variety of plants and ideas.

            “Leo,” I said. “Let’s take out the back lawn and put in a pond like this, with a fountain in the center.” Or, “Leo, look at this beautiful tree. I want one.” Or, “I know. Let’s plant all these dozen kind of palms and make our own jungle.” Leo, friend and gardener, just raised an eyebrow in answer.

            I’ve no idea how many pools of swimming variety the resort has, plus the turquoise sea lapping the shore, but we basically ignored the water options in favor of exploration. We went to Cancun (a most modern city), to Puerto Morelas, a fishing village turned tourist trap, and to Playa del Carmen with a beautiful white sand beach (ditto on tourists). I stayed in my room, content with solitude, while the others explored Tulum and the ancient Mayan ruins.

And we took a ferry across the waters from Cancun to the Isla de las Mujeres. We rented the oldest golf cart on the island and chugged with frequent backfire blasts around the island. We ate a meal of the most expensive (and delicious) tacos de pescado (fish) made by man.

But the funny or odd part of this day was that we three gringos had interesting expectations of an ancient isle untouched by time. I suspect we wanted the island as it might have been fifty years ago. We would have been pleased with a village similar to Etzatlan where we now live. Leo had been there twice. He knew. We adjusted.

            What else did we do while on our exotic and surreal holiday at the resort? We ate. We went to every kind of restaurant, Asian, seafood, French, Italian, Mexican. We could even have hamburgers, but why? Every meal was sumptuous, rich, satisfying. Unfortunately. I’m fairly certain the plane returning carried more weight that the plane going to Cancun.

            Home. Yes, we were ready to come home, back to reality, back to our known environment, back to simple foods, back to a simple life.

            Kathy called this past week our “Ultimate Blowout Vacation” and it certainly did not disappoint.

            For dinner tonight, I sliced a tomato and a cucumber, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and treasured the simple pleasures.

            It surely feels good to be home, where east is east and north is north and the Ocean is on the proper side of the continent, even if it is several hours over two mountain ranges.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 18, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rags to Riches

                                    Rags to Riches

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Remember, a few weeks ago I stayed in the sleaziest hotel in Chacala? Lovely town. Ugly hotel experience.

            This week, thanks to the generosity of Kathy and Richard, I am in the most Posh hotel in Cancun, which says a lot! Cancun is “Tourist Mecca”, jaw-dropping beauty.

            My friends also invited Leo. Leo entered our lives as our gardener. Now he’s our friend. It is our bonus that he also gardens.

            Kathy said that this is the Ultimate Blowout Vacation, making use of time-share points they had to use or lose. I said, Wow, and Thanks.

            To get to Cancun from Guadalajara, we chose “Wingflap Air,” cheap with no frills. The plane was powered by dogs running a treadmill in the belly of the plane. The treadmill connected by rubber band to the prop in the nose. The dogs set off a yowl when the pilot released the rabbits. Rabbits ran. Dogs chased. Plane lifted into the air.

            When we got within sight of Cancun, the pilot pushed a button to drop the exhausted rabbits to the ground, may they rest in peace. The dogs settled down to a feast of doggy biscuits. We coasted to a landing.

            Once we picked up baggage, we made a huge mistake. We separated. Kathy and Richard took a shuttle to the hotel to check in. Leo and I shuttled to rent a car.

            The mistake? We did not think to have a copy of the hotel registration. Security is tight at this resort. We tried to phone Kathy. Her phone shuttled us to voice-mail.

            Ever-resourceful Leo got in touch with his inner lawyer and negotiated our way through three security check points before we could drive up to the lobby. Leo is a pro—he hardly broke a sweat. Me, I freaked, considered spending the week in another low-rent hotel. Silly me.

            Ah, the lobby! The grounds! The buildings! The greenery! The pools! The coconut palms! The fountains! The statuary! The turquoise sea! Words fail me.

            The rooms! Yes, the rooms. We made our way to Building 14, Unit 345. At the elegant carved wooden double doors, none of our keycards opened sesame. Kathy released her phone from airplane mode to call the lobby. A man arrived to fix our door lock. He called another man. Five men and forty minutes later, we entered our palatial suite.

            My room alone is an entire suite with every possible amenity. We each have a suite within the larger suite, if you can imagine. In the center we have a huge kitchen (which we will never use), a dining room and living room, all enormous. Each room faces the sea with a lovely balcony. Each room has a bathroom. A Jacuzzi tub sits in a nook on the balcony off the living room. Are you getting the picture?

In addition to the furnished kitchen, we each have our own coffee pot, microwave and stocked fridge. Each bath is stocked with toiletries to serve every need. Except soap. Somebody forgot to leave us soap. Toothbrushes, tooth paste, razors, loofahs, shoe rags, hair products galore, but no soap.

            But we were hungry, have not eaten all day. Dark descended. We left to find one of the several restaurants. I’ll tell you, when it comes to negotiations, Kathy and Leo make an unbeatable team. Kathy talked our way into seats in a reservations-only restaurant.

            We feasted. Such cuisine. Every bite delicious. Impeccable service. Our every desire satisfied before our brains had a notion there might be a lurking desire. Every bite elicited embarrassing mmmmm noises.

            When we returned to our rooms, we had soap. Which was nice. Because that might have registered as the most satisfying shower I’ve ever had.

            But this is not reality. This is not Mexico. This is a Disneyland sort of place.

            In the beginning, we felt a bit out of our element, not quite comfortable. Now we recognize this experience as a retreat, a week for each of us to feel petted and pampered.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 11, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tempus Fugit

            Tempus Fugit

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            Time flies and the older I get, the faster it fugits. As I contemplate yet another birthday, that mean ol’ tempus is fugiting at the speed of light.

            To add injury to insult, this weekend we will set the clocks ahead in Mexico. I know, you up north are already over the shock of change.  In a few days I will struggle to remember what time it really is, whatever that means, since “time” is but an arbitrary measure.

            Before I wax too philosophical, let me change directions and note that my snowbird friends are flying north at jet speed.

            Crin left for Victoria last Sunday. Julie flew back to Minneapolis yesterday. Jim leaves for Missouri next Sunday. John and Carol are heading out in another two weeks. Pat and Nancie have been gone for three weeks. Kathy and Richard leave again the end of April.

            Like kiwi birds or emus, Lani and I will be left, summer-time flightless birds. Oops, Lani plans to sprout wings in May and fly north for an extended period of time. Woe is me, alone and abandoned.

            Try as I might, I am unable to squeeze out even a crocodile tear since Saturday four of us are sneaking off to Cancun for a week of fun in the eastern sun. At last, I will get to see the Caribbean, unexplored territory. Happy Birthday to me.

            When my friends go north, they leave a hole in my soul and a hole in my daily life. We don’t do all things as a group but our paths criss-cross with frequency. Just this week I had lunch with two different friends. Plus, one afternoon six of us women drove up the mountain to Restaurante Don Luis for a three hour meal that was more laughter than food.

            Judging by stories I am told, the original folks who built these homes we now inhabit, had common ground. They were travelers with campers and RVs, were retired military, and liked to party hearty. Oh, we here are so different!

            The other night, sitting on my patio, Julie and I agreed, our present conglomeration of residents, whom I have come to love so quickly, have absolutely nothing in common. We come from quirkily diverse backgrounds. At times we act on one another like sandpaper. Whatever our roughness, we smooth it out. We share food, borrow ladders and trade plants.

            We are all mature enough to know to look inside our own guts first when we have a problem with another person.

Time. Time is a great helper, a revealer, more often than not, replacing petty snarls and sniffs with understanding and respect. Sandpaper or time, we interact with varying and shifting degrees of tolerance, acceptance and downright liking.

Perhaps it is no accident we were each drawn to be here at this time in life; perhaps there is a strange, unknowable, purpose in grinding our rough edges. Or not.

One by one, we arrived to fill the empty houses. I came to visit my cousin. Others came to visit me. Some were in the adjacent campground and ended up staying to restore a trashed house. None of our stories connect through common ground.

So sometimes we grind against one another. Some sand paper is fine; other paper is coarse. We seem to smooth out any bumps. I’ll miss my friends when they are all gone. But I am easy with my solitude.              

Before I’m alone again, I will move forward the hands on the face of my clock. I will fly with friends to Cancun in yet another time zone and be totally confused. What time is it? Time to celebrate my birthday with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Skip the candles, please.

When I return home, I shall remember that time has a very special grit of sandpaper for we who live alone. Meanwhile, tempus fugit.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 4, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Sleaziest Hotel in Chacala

            The Sleaziest Hotel in Chacala

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            We told her. We told her. Never again is she allowed to pick the hotel.

            “The owner is really nice,” she said.

            “Yes, the owner is a nice man; his wife is nice, his three-year-old daughter is cute.” The hotel is sleazy.

            Not sleazy in the way of an immoral business conducted in a hotel on the outer edge of town posting hourly rates, but sleazy in the way of shabby, dirty, sordid, inadequate and unpleasant.

            In her defense, she didn’t know and none of us checked it out before we booked.

            I suppose we’ve all had an experience like this, if we’ve traveled. I remember a motel off the highway on the way to Phillipsburg . . . but that is a different story.

            Lani, her husband, Ariel, Carol and myself drove to Chacala on the coast in Nayarit. If one has a large enough map and a magnifying glass, one might find Chacala north a bit from Puerto Vallarta. We went seeking a three-day holiday to scout out the town as a possible destination to flee next year’s colder weeks in January.

            We chose Chacala, a tiny fishing village, carved into the mountains on the edge of a small bay, for its isolation and quiet. The setting is beautiful. The townsfolks welcoming and friendly. 

            Our hotel perched two blocks above the main street along the beachfront. Straight up the hill on a street covered with ankle-turning rubble. The hotel office is a cell phone in the owner’s pocket.

Built onto a narrow lot, the two floors each contained three rooms.   My room required a precarious climb up a curving narrow staircase littered with construction debris.

             Sparse. Dirty white in color. A cell with two beds, a bathroom, and one dollar store plastic chair. No shelves, no dresser, no tables. One bedside wall lamp had no bulb. The other lamp had a bulb but didn’t work. The bathroom bulb had burned out and not been replaced. There was not a spot of color. White sheets covered the beds.

I made the best of it. I emptied my suitcase onto one bed, converting it to closet, drawers and shelves. For a mere three day trip, I had packed my two down pillows and my blue plush blanky.

We all made the best of it. After all, what’s to complain, we did have hot water for showers.  

Did I mention construction debris? Work men were building a third floor to the structure, adding three more rooms above. Seven in the morning until dark, hammering, hammering; dust and noise prevailed.

I speak but a minimum of our collective complaints. To say the hotel is “bare bones” might be complimentary. Why didn’t we move out? I don’t know. We grumbled. A lot. We had prepaid, in cash. Perhaps our room fees paid this week’s construction costs. Perhaps hope of a refund was long gone.   

Chacala, a lovely jewel on the sea. Chacala is not a tourist destination, not a high-rise resort town. We popped into several hotels, peered into empty rooms, inquired about rates.  We poked our noses into hotels with a dozen rooms. We checked out others with twenty or thirty rooms, all clean, all colorful, all reasonable in price, all along the beachfront, none perched precariously on the hillside.

We ate seafood at a different restaurant (or street stand) every meal. We found the best coffee in town. We spent hours on the beach, lingering over every meal. We talked. We read books. We lounged. Carol and Lani swam. Ariel and I shared a dozen oysters on the half shell, in ecstasy over every bite while Carol and Lani grimaced with disgust. We had good times.

Then we trudged back up the hill to our hotel.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

March 28, 2019

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________