Living the Unscheduled Life

 

Living the Unscheduled Life

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“Sondrita, how’s your wonderful retired life?” That’s a regular question from our rancho-helper-with-garden-and-more. It is a good reminder that life is full of wonderfulness.

I like the wonder of my life, as in “I wonder what today might bring me.” Not all gifts from Day come gift-wrapped with ribbons but all gifts bring an element of wonder.

Take yesterday, for example. I’d invited two neighboring women over for breakfast, loosely scheduled, of pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, scrambled eggs, and I do make the best egg scrambles.

While we are poised to dig into a breakfast of decadence unlimited, three men in a red pickup truck show up to build my new ramp for my tricycle. Unscheduled, sort of, maybe, scheduled. This means sand, gravel and cement, dust and noise. Kathy and Janet jumped up and closed windows to keep out dust. I took the pancakes off the griddle. We dug in.

It all worked out, no bumps, no grief, no problems. In fact, the three-red-truck men ate the rest of the pancakes. I am constitutionally incapable of not making too many.

The ramp is to enable me to get my new tricycle out of and back into my yard more easily. ‘Nuff said.

 The day proceeded as days will. Kathy threw out a fishing line. “Want to take a drive?” I took the hook. Kathy and I have a 25-years or more history of road trips, short and long. No specific idea of destination, just go. Left, right, turn around and head north toward Magdalena. I suggested we head down to the balneario, the turnoff shortly before you come to Tequila, an extremely beautiful, deep canyon.

Then we spotted a sign pointed toward San Martin. What? Where is San Martin? Obviously it is this side of the same canyon, so, why not? We followed the road around and about and I do mean around and about. Kathy pulled off to the side several times for us to feast our eyes.

At the very bottom of the deep and steep canyon sits San Martin. Our friend Julie lives in La Masata, a mountain town with narrow streets all carved into steep hillsides. San Martin makes La Masata look flat. There were more vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, on blocks, than vehicles still road worthy. We saw a dam across a river, young people out on motorcycles of all kinds, an elderly Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, in other words, a regular small village. We stopped at a small tienda de aborrotes for a drink and road snack.

Kathy asked about a street to the river. A lovely woman grabbed her and took her to the street and pointed here and there, arms waving. The young woman at the till pointed her phone at me with this message, “The road is ugly.” I nodded that I understood and made motions to let her know we would not try to find the Rio this trip. The word “feo” in Spanish means much more than “not pretty”.

In no time at all the streets spit us back out onto the road home, satisfied with our small adventure.

Take today, for example. Today Kathy takes the autobus to Mazatlan, five days on the beach, then flies back to Victoria until her return in October. I decided to ride along, delaying goodbye and depression, normal-reaction depression.

Kathy is, by far, the most super-organized person I know. We got to the bus depot in Zapopan. Leo drove. He got out and put her suitcases on the sidewalk, turned to hug Kathy goodbye.

Kathy has this strange look on her face. Disbelief and consternation, mixed with remorse and seasoned with a touch of self-recrimination. She’d left her wallet with Mexican ID and credit cards in her casa. What’s to do but laugh a little, reload the baggage, change her ticket and drive home. Definitely unscheduled.

I chose to skip the second run. What will I do with the rest of my day. I’m sure the day will unfold as days do. That is enough for me to know.

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Fire on the Mountain

 

               Fire on the Mountain

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 Kathy arranged for the six of us women to go to the Laguna Colorado for my birthday dinner. Four of us piled into Kathy’s car. John agreed to bring the other two and drop them off. We arrived at our favorite little restaurant under the large palapa by the water. The owner treats us like family and the food is good, the laguna full of all manner of water birds. What’s not to like!

Kathy, being the youngest, popped out of her car and immediately announced, “Smoke”.

By the time the rest of us groaned ourselves upright on the ground, the smoke had become visible flames. Within ten seconds the wind-whipped flames rolled over the top of the mountain and began the rapid descent down toward the restaurant—and us.

Another half-minute and we were zooming up the dirt road back to the highway, a cloud of dust in our wake. On the way we met John. “Fire. Turn around. Follow us.” We met two water trucks and approximately forty volunteer firefighters on the way to tackle the blaze.

By the time we got to the highway we had decided by committee consensus to turn left, to La Canada. (Cahn-yah-dah)

The food was excellent, the company, superb, the stories, mostly true, the laughter, real. Our energy had ramped up to the top of our scale by the drama of the fire.

It was my best birthday. All the women agreed that I didn’t look a day over 81. Four of us are in our 80s so they had to say that. (One of them whispered, “That changes tomorrow!”) We don’t exchange gifts, yet I came away with an extendable back-scratcher.

When we were ready to go home, rather than split up, rather than call John to come get passengers, Crin and Janet figured out how to cram us all into Kathy’s car.

Kathy is the get-away driver. I always sit in front, not because I am the birthday girl, but because I get car sick and threaten to throw up on everyone. Crin is small, so she tucked into the back seat between Lani and Carol. Janet, who is younger and more flexible, fit herself into the back luggage area, legs extended, “The best seat in the car,” she declared.

On our way back we could see the smoke still rolling black clouds into the sky from the fire. We are concerned about the restaurants along the lake, but more worried about the small scattering of homes. Fire doesn’t care.

However, our energy levels and camaraderie had not dissipated one whit. Four of us are in our 80s. We all have scars. Conversation in the back somehow centered around scars that look like zippers, should I get a tattoo to cover it, you must have shaved your legs this morning, (?) good grief, you could grow a kiwi vine up that one, show and tell, swinging legs, that trouble walking, through the air like acrobats, women comparing bruises and dents and purple veins, all with much teasing and hoots of laughter. Kathy and I wanted to climb over into the back seat and join the fun.

We are ladies in our 80s.

We are girls.

“Girls just wanna have fun.”

Sondra Ashton

Looking out my back door

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Ruins at the Ruina

 

Ruins at the Ruina 

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Every time I’ve taken the bus on the toll road to the coast, when we pass by the outskirts of the mountain town of Ixtlan del Rio, I’ve noticed the sign that points toward “Ruina”. That’s all it says,” Ruina”, a blur seen from the bus window.

That little sign was enough to make me want to see the ruins. I’ve been to Guachimontones in Teuchitlan and to the Palacio de Ocomo in Oconahua several times. These sites are a short drive from home, either direction. Both are fascinating places that fill my imagination with the lives of people of an earlier time.

Last year I’d shared my desire to see the Ixtlan del Rio archeological digs with Jim, who has been there, as well as many archeological sites all over Mexico and Central America. He promised we’d go this year.

We did. We went. We took off from Etzatlan very early in the morning, hoping to beat the heat of late afternoon. In our desire to make the trip, a minimum of two hours, even more delightful, we determined to take back roads getting there and coming home.

We headed due west through several small villages, on a narrow road that was gravel a mere five years ago, climbing all the way. In Amitlan de Cana we stopped for breakfast/lunch in a café along the Plaza.

I am not fluent in Spanish, to my shame, having lived in Mexico thirteen years. Too many people speak English, making it easy for me to slack off. I can make myself understood in most situations. I took online classes for a short while and then got lazy. Recently, my shame got strong enough to urge me to search for a better lingo class, so I’m back in school. I’ve been studying short lessons, not every day, but, I’m happy to brag that I asked directions, along with other opportunities to use Spanish, with confidence and more understanding than in my past.

We only got mixed up a little making our way out of Amitlan de Cana and back onto the road up into and over the high mountains and down into Ixtlan del Rio, from a direction that took us wandering through town streets until we found the way to the ruins.

When I describe Jim and I as “ruins at the ruins”, I mean that we are well matched as traveling companions. I have a gimpy hip on one side and many-times repaired knee on the other side so I use a cane as a constant third leg. I get by, slow and steady. Jim has COPD, making frequent stops to rest and breathe.

I won’t try to describe the ruins. They are better explained, with photos, in articles online. Each location I’ve visited is of a civilization from a different time, with different ways of life, and of setting up their administration buildings, homes, and places of commerce, worship and burial. I see differences and I see similarities. Much of it is not different from our own daily lives.

Jim and I spent several hours at the ruins, wandering around the restored structures, stopping frequently to sit on benches and to imagine the men, women and children of the past going about their daily lives, working, bartering, playing.

Jim is a great companion for visiting ruins, simply because he can make comparisons of the structures in Ixtlan del Rio with his knowledge of other ruins throughout Mexico.

The sun was heading toward the west when we finally hit the road for home, heading east, this time taking the back road down the high mountains into Magdalena, a small town close to home, famous for opal mines, where we stopped at the first well-shaded street stand for tacos and pozole.

Thank you, Jim. What a day. I had a great time. I am still smiling at the memories.

My friend heads home for Missouri tomorrow morning. We talked about where to go next year, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

Sondra Ashton

3^rd week April

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Shooting Lola

 

               Shooting Lola

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I’ve never bought into the theory that when children, or dogs, turn out difficult or neurotic or “bad”, whatever that means, it is the fault of the mother. Mom plays her part and I can make a long list of other factors, but that is for another story.

The person who used to give my sweet dog Lola her vaccinations is no longer available to do the job. With one thing and another in the chaos of the last couple years, Lola has gone without her normal rabies and whatever-the-other one is, although I think I heard it called a 3-in1 shot, which covers a lot of ground.

I am not medically inclined. Personally, mention a needle of the type attached to a syringe and I visibly blanch, this, despite the fact I use sewing needles almost daily, for fun.

I began worrying the problem of Lola being overdue for her shots a few months ago. Leo went to a vet in Ahualulco to buy the appropriate medicines, which I kept refrigerated, according to instructions. When Jim showed up in January, I said, “Ah ha! In one of his past lives, Jim was a nurse. He knows how to give shots.”

Jim agreed to take on the task and gave Lola her rabies vaccination a few weeks ago. The vet who sold the medicine said to give Lola the rabies vaccine first, to be followed a month later by the “other”.

Did I mention my own completely baseless and totally irrational fear of needles? I cannot bear to see myself be injected. My reaction is even worse if you are getting a shot. My stomach rebels and I squinch my eyes tightly shut while holding my throat closed.

Poor Lola. She pretty much always has a similar reaction. Much as we try to hide it, with loves and treats and distractions, she always manages to see the needle coming and fights it and us, us being two holders and one shooter.

It is time for the second shot and now Jim is unavailable. So, off to the vet’s we go. Leo hooked Lola’s leash onto her collar and jumped her into his car. I did not tell her where we were going.

When we got to the vet’s, Lola jumped out with Leo. As I opened my door, Leo urged me to stay in the car. I did. Happily.

Leo poked his head in the window to tell me that this vet had an array of leather muzzles in different sizes. Leo informed me that if I bought her a muzzle, he would give Lola shots in the future. He’d given injections to cows, horses, pigs and sheep.  He simply wanted Lola muzzled. Why had he not told me this years ago?   

 From my seat in the car, I could see through the large open doorway and watched Leo place four different sizes of muzzles over her mouth until he found the one that fit best. Lola stood there looking bored. Had it been me holding the muzzle, she would not have let me near her mouth.

A few minutes later, Leo led Lola out of the vets. She jumped back into the car, looking none the worse for wear.

Filled with my own anxious concern, I asked, “How did it go? Did she fight? Was it hard?”

“No. Lola was fine. She just stood there.”

“You mean she didn’t try to back away?”

“No. Nothing.” 

I know that Lola is sensitive to my moods. At times she seems to read my thoughts.

Does this mean that all the frustrations, fights, and troubles giving her shots in the past were because of me? It was all my fault? Always blame the Mom? Like Scarlet, I will think about that later.

I gave Lola the stink eye and whispered, “Traitor.” She just wagged her fluffy tail and grinned.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

In April

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Smallish Moments of Glee

 

Smallish Moments of Glee

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I’m fairly predictable. Each morning at sunrise, Lola and I walk the lanes to the highway, stop a moment to watch the goats being milked at the goat-milk stand across the road, turn for home, coffee and a nosh. This walk is for Lola. So what if I enjoy it just as much.

Now with my new trike, I have a new routine. After coffee and a few chores, now that my shiny new trike has an extended seat bar for my height and I have sneakers with soles so flexible they hug the pedals, we bike the same pathway, two or three times. Not at warp speed, mind you; I’m still in Granny Gear.

Lola seems rather blasé, bored. I’m “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

I’m so happy with my trike. She hasn’t bucked me off. Yet. I’ve named her. Dora, the Explora.

However, with every up, comes a down. Now that I’ve pretty much mastered the straight and narrow, I yearn to venture out, but how? I’ll worry my problem a bit. Where there is a worry, there is a way.

I’d no more than turned my face toward my casa and Dora’s new parking shelter today, when two rib-racked horses followed me down the lane. “Not much to nosh around here, sweet guys, but you are welcome to try.”

We are well into the Dry and quickly settling into the Hot. Grass is short and brown. My two new acquaintances didn’t stay long, headed back to the highway in search of greener pastures, which I hope they find. Simply being near horses makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

As Dickens said, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” I confess that I have difficulty keeping my focus on the balance during these particular times. I get discouraged. Another writer acquaintance reminds me that in every bad, there is the possibility for good, just as in every good, there is the possibility for bad.

I planted a mango tree in my back yard the first year I lived here. I dearly love the fruit of my mango tree. More than that, I’ve come to appreciate the energy from this particular tree. Laugh if you want. When I feel stress, tension, or anger, I go sit under my mango tree and let it all my anxiety flow into the ground. My tree surrounds me with shade and a sense of peace.

Generally, my sweet scruffy Lola follows me and sniffs out all the neighborhood doings of interest to a dog. She finds the most scintillating patch of sunny grass, throws herself onto her back and rolls and wriggles and scratches and squiggles with the widest grin and the most vivid expression of glee on her face. I cannot help but let her glee transfer to me.

This morning, while soaking in Lola’s grassy glee, my mango transferred a half dozen yellowish-green crawly bugs, onto my head and the back of my neck. Soon, a half-dozen Western Tanagers swooped into the mango tree, Through the leaves, side to side and back, scarfing down a buggy feast, saving me from new despair.

The good, the bad, the up, the down. We get it all.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 1, 2026

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How I went from 80 to 8 in moments!

 

How I went from 80 to 8 in moments!

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 I’d mulled this notion for a year. Everybody bicycles around here. When I first moved here, more people used bikes than drove cars. Then, seemingly overnight, cars proliferated. Now that parking is near to impossible, more people have dusted off their bicycles.

I checked several bike shops in town. Nobody had what I wanted. With the words from Queen bouncing through my brain and out my mouth, “Tricycle, tricycle, I want to ride my tricycle. I want to ride my trike. I want to ride my tricycle. I want to ride it where I like,” I ordered a gorgeous orange tricycle with a perfect basket in back for Lola to ride along like the queen she thinks she is.

I don’t intend to take my trike to town, much as I like the thought. I bought it to ride the lanes here on the rancho, nice flat lanes.

Eight days for delivery—it arrived in three! I’m not stupid. I hauled it to one of the town shops for the Bike Man to assemble. I’m no fan of instructions translated from Chinese to either English or Spanish by Artificial Intelligence. It’s hard enough to put something together when translations are guessed out by real people.

The following afternoon, while I was out walking my Lola Dog, Leo drove into the rancho in his pickup, my orange trike in back. That part of the lane runs through a nice flat, though very small, “field”. Leo unloaded my bike. I parked my walking sticks in the basket and had a series of instant realizations as I lifted my leg to climb onto the seat.

The seat was too short. We adjusted it as tall as it would safely go.

I must buy sneakers, pronto. One should not ride a self-powered vehicle in open sandals, slides or flip-flops, which are all that I own.

I have never used gears. My bicycle was the simple kind. I could not find a simple kind of trike, so thus, mine is geared.

And, what are brakes doing on the handlebars. Brakes are for feet.

I’m in for a learning curve. Nevertheless, I climbed on and wobbled up and around and back and around, wibble, wobble, wow.

Instantly, I was transported back in time to my eighth birthday. My Dad bought me a real bicycle. He ran alongside me as I wobbled on the lane between the barn and the house, holding me upright until I could hold it myself. That afternoon, I could feel my Dad’s hands on the back of the trike seat. I could smell him, faintly redolent of Camel cigarettes and good sweat and laundry soap.

Yep, I will have to learn how to ride all over again. I searched my memory. I’ve not rode a bicycle since I was 18. Next week I’ll endure my 81^st birthday. Oh, my.

First, I will go to town and buy sneakers. Next, I’ll stop at the bike shop and buy a longer post for the seat. Then, I’ll climb on, ask my Dad for help, and wobble until I don’t need to wobble. This will take the time it will take.

Once I’ve mastered balance, I may need to find a more sophisticated bike shop in Guadalajara. I may need a pair of those skin-tight bike shorts, you know the kind I mean. I’m thinking of cobalt blue with yellow stripes. Oh, and a matching top, which means I will also want a padded push-up bra, you know, for definition. And I’ll need one of those water-bottle thingies with a hose to your mouth, and a bike helmet.

Maybe my bike helmet should have a built in telephone in case I crash and need to call the ambulancia. Also, perhaps, one of those SMV triangles.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 2, 2026

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My Wild Water Story

 

       My Wild Water Story 

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Etzatlan, the little agricultural town to which I moved ten years ago, is bursting out of its britches.

In practical terms, to those of us living here, growth shows in various ways. Parking near the center of town is nearly impossible. Traffic has increased exponentially. Building happens, tear downs, remodels, add-ons and build ups, on every block. Corporate greenhouses sprout like acres of mushrooms. Strangers who work in Guadalajara have discovered this as a viable bedroom community, hence, cookie-cutter, ticky-tacky housing colonias, which were not here yesterday, seemingly magically rose from the ground. 

Nowhere does this growth show more clearly, to me, than in our water situation. “Situation” is my make-nice term for shortage. The city has dug two new wells but growth out paces infrastructure.

 This is my story so all I can tell you is how I adjust the best I can, to the “situation” which became alarming about three years ago. These “situations” always, always become alarming too late. I think it is a natural law, like gravity, polarity, and cause and effect.

I quit watering my lawn. A lawn is a British affectation. My grass is native so it’s nature is to brown in the dry season and green up in the rainy times. I drastically reduced my garden to essential herbs, fruit trees and a few essential flowers. Don’t argue with me. Flowers are essential to health.

I pat myself on my head and said, “That’s nice, honey.” Nice, but, not enough. We began having “no water” days in which no water flowed down the pipes from the city wells, not just to us out on the periphery but people in town also don’t have water. In the beginning, these days were during the height of the hot season. Now these days are any week of the year.

My 500-liter tinaco (water storage tank) on the roof is adequate for my one-person household but is inadequate in a crisis.

Leo, my all-purpose helper, and I put our heads together. Three days ago I bought a 2500-liter tinaco for a cistern or reservoir. Two days ago my huge tank was delivered. Yesterday, the plumber/electrician came to hook my tank up to city water. My tank began filling. One could stand near it and listen to the water falling from the pipe on top.

Late in the same afternoon, I was standing in the shower when my shower slowed, dribbled and quit. Water had showered down—and then it didn’t.

I phoned Leo who was at the hardware store buying hose to move water from Big Tinaco on the ground up to Little Tinaco on the roof. “Do you think gravel might have plugged the water line again?”

No. My Little Tinaco was bone dry. Leo climbed the ladder to the roof, cleaned the tinaco, a semi-annual job anyway, hooked up the new hose to the new pump and pumped water from BT to LT. We’d had drastically low water pressure all week. I don’t use a pressure pump. Usually the downhill flow is adequate.  Unbeknownst to me, no water had reached my roof in days. None.

Okay, so here’s the wild part of my story. How likely is it that the very day my Big Tinaco is hooked up, my Little Tinaco runs dry? Figure the odds on that one, will you.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 18, 2026

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