Gleeful in our wet dirt shirts!

 

               Gleeful in our wet dirt shirts!

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We did it! We single-mindedly pulled in our first rain yesterday (Friday) with a little help from Alvin the Chipmunk out in the Pacific swirling stormily.

Would you believe that the wet dirt here in Oconahua has a decidedly different odor than the wet dirt just up the road at the rancho in Etzatlan? As collector of wet-dirt smells, I am amazed. I love the scent of wet earth, especially after the first seasonal rain.

While talking about how the rain turned out to be a delightful mood changer for me, my friend reminded me that that rain train runs both ways on the tracks. Immediately I was back on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington in February, after months of daily rain, wondering if the Arc would be ready to float in time.

Fickle I am and easily turned, I admit it.

I took a holiday from morning hose dragging chores for a couple days. I went out and stuck my fingers down into the dirt in a few of my neediest pots to find that the moisture held. More rain will come, maybe today.

Then our sadness. Paco died. Ana and Michelle have rescued several dogs over the years, and Paco, Monkey and Dude keep company with my Lola while she alternates between my area and the common area. (There are two more dog areas but my Lola and I don’t socialize there.)

If Paco stood upright, I’m sure he’d be as tall as me. Big and black with white markings, lolloping ears and tongue, a leaner. Paco was just big and dumb and loving and leaning into me was his way to show me love. Unless I sat down. Then he wanted to be my lap dog. Which I don’t allow!

Paco took ill suddenly, refused breakfast and went downhill throughout the day. The Girls took him to the vet in the late afternoon. While there, Paco’s big heart simply quit beating. His death came as a shock.

Paco was never sick. Dude, who had been ill for a long time, seems to have made a miraculous recovery. We just don’t know as much as we imagine we know, do we, especially about the Great Circle.

Sometimes feeling sad makes me want to get creative in the kitchen. Sometimes feeling happy makes me want to get creative in the kitchen. Sometimes other feelings, well, you get the gist.

I like muffins. I’ve not made muffins in years. Since paring down my kitchen tools to bare necessities when I moved to Mexico, I no longer have a muffin tin. You know how the best part of a muffin is the top? I took a basic muffin recipe, gussied and fussied it and made a tray of muffin tops.

Is that genius? I assembled the ingredients, gave wet and dry a quick swirl, added a small, very small, handful of flour since the batter was not going into tins to shape it, scooped spoonful by spoonful onto a baking sheet, cut down baking time from 25 to 15 minutes, and forgive my brag, muffin tops are the best!

I’d love to claim this idea as my own but that is not honest. There is a woman with a food truck in Glendive who whipped out a batch of these and my daughter told me about muffin tops and I thought it a great idea. So I whipped up a batch with great success and now pass the notion on to you.

Clouds are stacking up over the mountains. There is a good chance for rain this afternoon. I have only a couple empty garden pots to fill so I’ll crowd together a few seeds of lettuce, cilantro and spinach.

In the spirit of “Build it and they will come” and  “Rain follows the plow.” Oh, the folly.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

June 5, 2025

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Can’t beat the heat!

 

Can’t beat the heat! 

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The other day I got excited. Movement catches my eye. I was near the window, sensed happenings, looked out and saw that I had a new neighbor. Oh, my, he was so handsome, black, with stunning confirmation.

Here in our little town, populated by women much of the year, husbands, brothers, son and other family working up north, there is an unprecedented number of houses under construction. The land around, tall with unkempt wild grasses, makes the structures look abandoned. No. Houses are awaiting the return of the owners to begin the next phases of construction.

Across my street and down one is a house under construction where I spotted the movement and my beautiful new neighbor. In my mind I was already crossing the road the next morning to talk with my new friend.

A couple hours later, I looked out the window and saw a white pickup truck with stock rack hauling away my beauty. In the yard, almost hidden among the grasses, was a sweet little brown mare and a black burro. What!

“Oh,” I said aloud. “I know why Black Beauty came to visit.” Well, at least I have the mare, the burro and a baby to look forward to visiting.

In the nine plus change years I’ve lived here in Jalisco, I cannot get used to spring being the hot season, summer the cooler rainy season. It’s backwards.

And hot it is! I briefly flirted with buying a portable swamp cooler. What? To use for two months and store the remainder of the year. Store where? Every inch of my space is in use, functional and pleasing to the eye. I have that gift, to create order and beauty. Soon we will have rain, early this year. So say the old-timers, of which I am one.

The cicadas have been yammering on for an entire month, early this year, which is how we know the rain will follow their song, as always. Folk lore, yes, but lore which seems to be imbedded in reality. Funny, how we welcome cicada “song” with joy when first we hear it. Funny, how at the end of a few weeks, the screech seems to rip tears in my mind, it is so loud and so harsh.

Michelle and Ana, neighbors and landladies, have a lovely pool which I can use. Just about the time we could get in the pool comfortably, early spring, we all came down with Covid. Well, that set us back several weeks. I used the pool a few times. Hurt my hip pulling weeds. The bending over thing, you know. Then my back went on the yip. It’s been probably three weeks since I’ve dipped.

Every time I’m ready to go to the pool, and this is coincidence, my friends drive out the gate. Or the young  man who cleans the pool comes a day early. Or, what happened yesterday is that Ana and Michelle, on the spur of an inspired moment, decided to head out and spend a few days in and around Ajijic.  

So no pool for me until they return. After all, I am 80, count them, a lot of years, old. My heart is healthy but one never knows when the reaper comes. I’d hate for my friends to return and find my body floating in the water. As I told them, I won’t go in the pool unless they are home. I don’t need anybody else to be in the water. I just want them nearby.

So how do I beat the heat? At pool time, I turn my shower on cooler than I normally like, and bask under my rain shower. Can one bask in a shower? I do. What can I say? It costs nary a peso and it works, cools me in the heat of the day.

My rain-shower keeps me sane under the shower of cicada song. Think of an old-fashioned blackboard scratched by a hundred long fingernails, over and over and over. Cicada song.

Time to go pet the brown mare across the street before the sun swings around. She could use some consolation after being loved and left. I leave the burro alone. It has huge teeth.

Bring on the real rain. I’m ready.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 29, 2025

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Out of my mangled mind.

 

Out of my mangled mind. 

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I wrote my title and immediately saw two meanings of “out of my mind”. Let’s just let both apply and be happy.

My mind goes weird. Yesterday I woke up singing a mangle of Mighty Mouse:

“Here I come to seize the day!”

I sat down to write John and Carol, who have left or are leaving for Duluth, driving their vintage blue and white Vincent Van Go, any hour:

“Are you on your way,

Won’t be back

For many a day?”

Remember Calypso?

John’s reply:

Sad to say, we’re under weigh

Cruising along in our Vincent sleigh,

We’re in Jimenez, without Jose

And tomorrow we’ll be entering

The you ess ay.

At my home, halfway up the mountain on the west side of Oconahua, the skies have a different energy today; the air smells like rain, the rain that will be here soon.

Cicadas are out in full force, singing down the rain according to ancient folklore, singing welcome hope, singing until the sound becomes nearly unbearable, rains flow from the sky and the singing mutes, stops, until next year.

Rain birds have flown back and are inhabiting their nests, eggs tucked into the sack-like nursery purse.

“Just a singing

Down the rain.”

It will splish-splash early this year. It will. It will.

Speaking of mangle, Kathy sent this quote this morning, don’t know from whom she snitched it, which I scoochied around a bit:

“Give it twelve hours and the undo of the redo of the previous undo of the un-implementation of the delay of the redo will be undone.”

No explanation necessary.

Lee contacted me to be part of the memorial service for his father, one of my very best friends ever. Al, David and I built a 100 seat black-box theatre with no money, no grants, nothing but our wit and determination and a handful of volunteers. That experience built a depth of friendship which death cannot break.

Our theatre has grown, is strong and in better hands today. Forgive my pride.

I declined Lee’s invitation to join my friends. It might not be raining here just yet, but if I went to Al’s Celebration, my tears would cause a flood.

Like an unrepentant thief, I stole the next bit from long-time friend Sandy. In the seems-distant past, Sandy and I shared the good, the bad and the ugly. She always made me laugh. Life happened. We lost touch.

Recently, and gratefully, we reconnected. Again, we share the deeps of our all too-human stories. Age and physical miseries and our opening awareness of all manner of things dominate our talk.

As Sandy said, “We are on the last plane out of Saigon.” If you don’t “get it”, that’s okay. It’s unlikely that we will be around to clean up the mess.

Let me leave you with this thought:

If you are not part of the solution . . .

Then you must be part of the . . .

Sediment.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 22, 2025

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My Mothers Day Retrospective

 

My Mothers Day Retrospective 

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At 3:00 in the morning on the Mexican holiday of the Dia de Madres, I startled awake to the blast of a band playing outside my bedroom window.

Naturally, I was out of bed in a flash and over to the window to see what brought on such music in the night. Despite the fullish moon, the sky held just enough clouds for the night to be dark. My window is high from the street and nobody ever looks up. I was invisible in my perch.

In front of the house next door, a pickup truck had parked. In the truck bed and around the truck were possibly a dozen, maybe more, band members, playing every kind of instrument. And, they were good. I mean, really, good. I watched as lights came on in various rooms of the neighbor’s house. Eventually, someone came to the door, undoubtedly Mom, walked outside and stood at the entry gate.

The band played at full heart. I didn’t eaves drop at the window long, climbed back into bed and enjoyed the twenty minutes or thereabouts of wonderful music, claiming the splash-over of the Mother’s Day serenade for myself.

In Mexico Mother’s Day is a Big Deal. It is celebrated on May 10 every year, no matter what day of the week that happens to be. This year it was Saturday.

I’ve no pretensions to be a musician but I do know when music is good, when it is tolerable, and when it can be dreadful.

At 3:00 the previous afternoon, I happened to be at my kitchen window and saw the young neighbor boy leave the house with a beautiful clarinet in hand. Ah, that answered a lot of questions I had about the mysterious (to me) musician in the neighborhood. Frequently, I listened to somebody practicing, often solo, but sometimes in company with other instruments, usually traditional but often jazz. For a practice session, he or they, was/were amazing.

What I found delightful is that the practice sessions were lovely listening. So this young man, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, is a good musician. No matter where life takes him, he will always have that.

On our Mexican Mother’s Day, I learned that people here in Oconahua hire musical groups to serenade their Mothers. They move from street to street, from house to house, bringing music and love and fun and surprise.

There are several bands, formal and informal, in our town. This seems to be quite the musical community.

When I talk about the group who showed up outside my window, I call them the “young band” only because I could see two young men with clarinets on the north edge of the group, my neighbor and another young man. Our band could have included all ages. It could have been a neighborhood youth group. It was too dark for me to take a census.

The following day, another Mother’s Day, I enjoyed a visit with friends, John and Carol, soon to head out for Minnesota. I served scones and iced tea on the patio. A good time was had by all.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 15, 2025

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Down and Out in Paradise

 

          Down and Out in Paradise

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You know how sometimes you can be thinking about a friend or an acquaintance and the phone will ring and suddenly you are talking with that person? This is sort of how my last few weeks have been but with a wry twist.

I have been hearing from people with whom I’ve not spoken in a while, friends and acquaintances. Their words mirror my feelings.

“I don’t know if it is the long winter or all the horrible news and strife in our country but I can’t seem to find my balance. My equilibrium is out of whack.”

“I turned 70 and my body betrayed me. Macular degeneration in both eyes and some days my hips won’t let me walk. My use-by date seems to have come and gone.” (Wait until you hit 80, I thought, but am too kind to say.)  

“I want to lose myself in gardening but I can’t even seem to be able to do that.”

 “We’ve lost another friend. Did you hear that Terri (or Mike or Bob) died last week?”

I could go on and on but what every example, said and unsaid reveals, is that we, my friends and I, have all found ourselves mired in the murky bottom of a slough of depression.

My friends are my mirror, so I’ll speak of myself.

I don’t feel exactly the same way every day. I’ve mild depression with variations on the theme. Some days I’d tell you I feel discouraged, down in the dumps, flat. Other days I might say I’ve no strength. Go away and leave me alone. My energy has up and gone.

Clinical depression is an entirely different matter. My malady is plainoldnormaleveryday depression. It is sad that we all feel so dejected at the same time. Usually, one of us can bring the other out into the sunshine of hope.

Which leads me to a really weird postulation. What if this is the way I’m (we) should feel? Look at it this way. I’m in one of my latter cycles of physical change. Some days it seems nothing works the way it used to work. I read the obits just to make sure my name isn’t listed. I’m grieving lost family, lost friends, lost chances, lost functions, lost country.

For example, last night Michelle and Ana and I climbed the stairway to my roof to pick guamuchil pods, here known as Mexican candy. This is the week of a special celebration local to the peoples of this area. While extracting one of the legume-like white fruits and popping it into my mouth, I looked across to the adjacent mountain. A long line of folks dressed in bright costumes trooped up the mountain in procession.

“Ten years ago, just ten years ago I could walk that pathway,” I said to my friends. I might still have been walking up while they were coming down, but I could have done the trip.

What I’m struggling to say is that maybe mild depression is simply a reaction to all that is around me, my present circumstances, not good, not bad, just the way it is.

Rather than fight it, why not accept the feelings and do what I always do anyway. Talk to my geraniums. Prune the oregano. Talk with my friends. Read. Watch the birds. Eat ice cream. Let Lola bury her slobbery muzzle on my white pants and look into my eyes, tail wagging.

I’ve even got a new therapy. Now that we are well entrenched in our hot season, I’ve begun walking the swimming pool, end to end, turn and back. I’m doing this for my knees and hips and back. Walking the pool (I never learned to swim) seems to be good for both body and soul.

Whatever I feel today, this I know: tomorrow I will feel differently. I may not feel better, but I will feel different.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 8, 2025

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Don’t know where I’m going but I’ve been here a while.

                Don’t know where I’m going but I’ve been here a while.

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That line came to me as if in a song. Nobody ever accused me of being musically inclined. Like most of us, I too have music in my soul. Sing along with me and let’s see where it takes us.

Yesterday, armed with a bundle of flowers, we attended the burial of our friend Leo’s grandma, who at 96 said she felt so very tired and went to sleep the long sleep. The ceremony touched me deeply.

I was surprised at the number of folks there whom I’ve met. I garnered my own bouquet of hugs and tears and waves along with a few of “Wonder who she is and why is she here?” I forgot to bring a hat, ended up standing in blazing sun, when one of the aunties scooted over to my side and held her sunbrella over both our heads.

Every woman in Mexico owns a colorful sunbrella and uses them. I just wrote “sunbrella” on my shopping list. I never felt the need for one until now. A hat will do, but what if someone next to me needs shade?

In the rainy season, this colorful device doubles as an umbrella but I’d rather be wet than scorched.

I’ve been here long enough to attend a burial, two viewings (similar to a wake), a baptism, and a first communion. That might mean I’m well entrenched. At least I felt so when the auntie shared her shade without a qualm.

In my collection of pleasurable connections, add in one zoomer of a birthday party for my best friend in high school, Charlotte. Her best friend, Karen, now living in England, was present also, along with Charlotte’s siblings, children and extended family. We all had two hours of stories, recollections, memories revived, meeting family we’ve not met. Two hours of warm fuzzies. I confess that when I said my good-byes, I was crying, tears of pure joy.

 I’d no more than zoomed out of the birthday party when my email pinged with a most surprising blast from the past, another thread of connection which I’d thought long cut asunder. Sandy, a friend from former years, mid-80s through the 90s, found me. We lost each other years ago when she went on the road with her husband.

Sandy and I had shared many adventures and a few mis-adventures but the thing I most treasure from her friendship was her ability to shake me out of taking myself too seriously. What a gift to be reconnected!

I truly never know where my day will take me. I’m along for the ride and glad to have a ticket.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 1, 2025

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Fire on the Mountain

 Fire on the Mountain

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Not on my mountain. Not the mountain on which I live. But over toward the east, far enough away that the glow was huge, lighting the sky scary. Far enough that I could not smell smoke, even though wind was blowing from the east. This event occurred a week ago but I cannot get it out of my mind.

Night. It was night. When dark descends, I retire to bed with my current book, propped on a huge “reading pillow”. The pillow doesn’t read; the pillow allows me to read comfortably in bed. Generally I read until my eyeballs fall down.  

I got out of bed to put away my book, and out the window, saw the fiery glow behind the horizon to the east. I stared at the phenomenon for several minutes. I couldn’t see leaping flames so with my keen logical mind, I determined that the fire must be several miles away.

I climbed back into bed, snuggled myself into comfort for sleep.

The committee decided to convene. “Oh, no, you don’t.”  “Fire, silly. Headed this way. And you want to sleep? Dumb, dumb, dumb!”

Another voice queried, “Don’t you think it might be wise to rouse the neighbors. In fact, why is the neighborhood so quiet? Fire is not to be ignored.”

“Fire races like, well, like wildfire, through the dry grasses and over the hills and before you know it, fire will be licking at your feet.”

Obviously, sleep was out of the question.

“Don’t you think you should organize a go-bag, just in case you must run?”

I decided that if I needed to evacuate, I’d take a spare set of clean underwear and socks. I’d wear my hiking boots. Passport. Water. Why would I want to lug around more than I could easily sling in a shoulder bag?

Then, with the help of my various friends-of-the-night committee, I wondered if I’d be safer closing all the doors and windows of my house and waiting for the flames to pass by. Surely there would be enough air in the house to keep one set of lungs happy. We are surrounded by a cobbled street and lots of concrete driveway and patios, and we live in brick and stone houses. I should be impervious to fire. Right? Maybe? Possibly?

Sure, it is the dry season, lots of tall brown grasses, groves of trees further up the mountain but not so many trees close by, not like a forest, here, just normal yard trees. (Never try to reason with the committee.)

“But the big danger with fire is that it sucks all the oxygen from the air, right? You’d be a goner before you ever saw a flame. You could die and never be singed.”

Now I’m getting sweaty, nervous. I can feel the flames out there eating the miles.

In the quiet of the night I continued to entertain this conversation, or it held me captive, a full half-hour. Finally, wondering why the night continued to be muffled beneath a blanket of quiet, why I smelled not a whiff of smoke, why I heard nary an alarm, I got out of bed and went to the window.

Lighting up the entire sky, my raging, leaping flames of fire, the gigantic full moon.

Perception, you deceiver. You surely fooled me.

It took so little to trick me. An awareness of our extreme dry season, an awareness hiding at the very back of my consciousness. A glow in the night sky that had not been there an hour previously. Knowledge that this time of year grass fires are a constant danger. Help from the voices of fear and anxiety and what if.  One plus one equals fire. So simple.

I’m glad I didn’t sound the alarm. I’m glad I didn’t wake my neighbors. I’m glad the joke was on me. I’m glad the fire was nothing but the mountains of the moon, that big dead rock in the night sky, reflecting other fires.

Fooled me. I forgot the maxim: Where there is fire, there is smoke.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 24, 2025

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Back to the Whole McGillicuddy

 Back to the Whole McGillicuddy

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Last Sunday Ana, Michelle and I had breakfast out, the real Mexico way. This, in itself, is not important. On Saturday, Ana had gone to her Uncle’s 90^th birthday party. This is important.

Tuesday was my birthday. Michelle and I drove to Etzatlan, masked and gelled with gloppy hand sanitizer, for a treat at a coffee shop. Ana stayed home, feeling unwell. Ana’s symptoms made me frown. I had, a mere couple of weeks ago, recovered from the latest covid variant and many similarities popped up.

When we returned from cake and coffee, Michelle had Ana do the coronavirus test. Ana tested positive. I isolated behind my fenced area. Michelle hitched up her mask and took on both women’s chores. At this point, Ana was very ill.

The next day Michelle hollered across our patios that she tested positive. Now I am in full worry mode. They have dogs and cats and chickens and sheep to care for in addition to themselves.

Michelle assured me that she was asymptomatic and able to do chores for now. She reminded me they have a town full of relatives to call for help if need be.

Me, I’m not worried for myself. I had two weeks of recovery behind me so figured I was graced with at least three months of immunity. Right?

Meanwhile my email was pinging and dinging with notes from friends afar who were also stricken. I would tell you what I think of this Covid virus but you might be inclined to dent my tin hat while I’m wearing it so I shall restrain myself.

Ana had been sick three or four days when I woke in the night thinking about immunity and what that means. Not the least bit worried, just to prove a point to myself, the next morning I reamed my nose and tested. I must have stared at the result a good ten minutes, stunned. Positive. How could that be? I’m immune. Right?

I waited a full 24 hours to repeat the test. Just in case I’d stuck my big toe in the test kit or in some other way compromised it, I tested again. I’m not feeling sick. I am testing positive. Thankfully, Michelle and I both are asymptomatic but that also means that while we are positive, we are carriers. I could infect you and I’d rather not.

I alerted our friends from the rancho to stay away, let them know that we are not entertaining guests at present.

Over the past couple of months I had noticed that more people in town were, once again, going about their business masked. Since my own bout with the disease last month, I  began masking when in the car or in tiendas. But not always. My guard, like most everyone else’s, was down.

We three have reverted to the whole McGillicuddy of precautions. I don’t like it. I doubt my friends are thrilled. Masks are irritating. Hand gel is gross. Isolating defies every instinct. Distancing, same. I want to touch, shake hands, see your smile, (read your lips).

We three here are in agreement about our actions and precautions. You do what you want. I understand. I have absolutely no advice. I don’t know enough to give advice.

At any rate, there is a lot of sickness out there. A lot of people are asymptomatic with Covid. I got sick the first time at a party in which nobody was feeling ill, yet someone carried it to me. We had all let down our guards. Lots of hugs, touches, closeness. Same for Ana at her party. Even people who have been recently vaccinated can get it but not feel ill and share it widely. Allegedly. How fun!

I’m okay. Don’t you worry about me. I’m appalled, not that I have the Covid virus, but that I could so easily and unknowingly give it to you.

Just in case, I’m writing this masked. I am isolated, 2500 miles away. I disinfected my hands. You are safe from me.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out 

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Eating Out in Real Mexico

 

Eating Out in Real Mexico

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Real Mexico is where I live, rather than in resort Mexico. No beaches, artist colonies, high-rise resorts with all-inclusive services, time-share sales goons here. Just us folks.

Ana said that all the restaurants in the area used to be open air, palapa style with palm or bamboo roofs, just like the place where we went to enjoy breakfast Sunday morning, on the edge of San Marcos.

The kitchen is over at one end beneath its own bamboo roof, a counter island between the half dozen long tables and the stove. We diners can watch the woman patting out tortillas, and, oh, such good tortillas, or be mesmerized by the young girl running baskets of carrots and bushels of oranges through the juicers.

Behind the eatery, across the fence, are pastures with cattle grazing, up into the far hills. Across the highway, fields blue with agave stretch almost to the mountains.

There was little traffic on the highway, so near to where the pavement ran out. Dirt roads cross the mountains into Amitlan de Cana. There were hundreds of bicyclists, a group of whom crowded around two of the tables.

We shared our table with a pleasant young couple.

We had invited friends to join us that Sunday morning. They chose to go elsewhere. In the choosing, according to an email they sent me, they kindly did the thinking for us, listing in bullet points, the reasons each of us would rather they didn’t join us. None of the reasons listed applied as often is the case when someone else decides what we think.

In all fairness, when I think I know what someone else thinks, I, also, am usually wrong.  

Our friends, and they are friends, have relatives visiting and decided to go to the Hacienda del Carmen, a completely understandable destination, one of the tourist highlights, of which there are few in the vicinity.

The restored ancient Hacienda is a lovely site, grand old Spanish buildings, on acres of landscaped grounds, complete with artistic gardens, ponds and pools and swans and peacocks, posh hotel rooms and a spa where one can be treated to massage, facial, pedicure, manicure, mud bath or salt scrub and such delights. 

I’m not being sarcastic. It is a wonderful place with a real indoor restaurant serving delightful food, with a choice of seating indoors or out. Mimosas. Did I mention mimosas?

We could have asked to join our friends for breakfast. They could have easily added three to the reservation. I confess that part of why I didn’t explore the option to eat with our friends was a tiny sliver of resentment that eating here or there was not explored voice to voice to choice.

We will be seeing our friends within the next week. I will explain that it is not nice to do my thinking for me, thank you very much. There will be a lightbulb moment of “Oops”. An apology and a laugh at our foolishness.

We three enjoyed our relaxing meal, without the option of mimosas or other fluffy drinks. I watched my orange/carrot juice being made. We didn’t get to wander around opulent grounds. I know our friends enjoyed their meals, without our option of slipping treats to the brown dog resting in the shade of the palapa, keeping an open eye for any bit which might slip from my plate.

Yeah, Real Mexico. Think about it. Which would you prefer? To eat with the cows in the pasture across the fence or with peacocks strutting the lawns? A choice of four items or an extensive menu with an even larger wine list? Our total bill for breakfast for three was half the cost of a meal for one at the Hacienda, not counting mimosas.

Okay, okay. When you come to visit, I’ll take you to the Hacienda.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 10, 2025

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Read the Fine Print

 

Read the Fine Print

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The small print is put in place for a good reason. Sometimes it is more important than the big print. Fine print has a purpose. Read it. Somebody must read the fine print.

I think the fine print should be at the top, not the bottom. Unfortunately, I too often neglect to even see it.

A silly, unimportant, example is a recent puzzle I ordered. I was ordering five jigsaw puzzles. That was my intention. Five puzzles to keep me busy for many months because I don’t binge on puzzles. They are for my occasional pleasure.

One puzzle depicts a beautiful scenic garden gazebo filled with colorful bamboo furniture, surrounded by lush tropical plants, alive with bursts of color, detail to keep one, well, puzzled.

However, I failed to read the fine print and even missed the big print. 1,000-piece puzzles are best for me. They keep me occupied for days. My project table is the perfect work size for 1,000 piecers.

I set my fresh puzzles in a pile for “later”. When I got a “round tuit” and opened the box,  Whoa! Wait a minute. This is a 300 piece puzzle. How did that happen?

I had not even seen the big print. I saw beauty and dumped it into my cart, and hang the details. To make my puzzling mistake more interesting, I worked it from the center out, edge pieces last.

I’d like to blame my family. We actually, usually, do read the instructions though. It’s what we do with them that changes things. Often, often, I read the directions and puzzle through them for a while, no hurry. Then I figure out a different or better or easier way to assemble the widget or bake the cake. It is a troublesome failing.

Back in high school Algebra was my bugaboo. I would get the right answers; we had to show our work, of course. I got marked down for doing it my way. I could not wrap my head around why that mattered. Stubborn got in my way.

My friend Denise told me she just sewed a shirt for her husband but she made a mistake. “He doesn’t know, won’t see it, and I’m not telling,” she said.

I’m doing all my sewing without patterns or instructions, so I’m quite familiar with getting to a roadblock, having to back track, pulling out stitches all the way. Sit with it, let it tell me how to fix it. I told Denise, “That is why God invented gussets.” I am very good with creative gussets.

I’ve often wished people came with an instruction manual. In a way, I guess, we do. But to read each diffferent how-it-works instructions, we, the reader, must slow down, listen very carefully to the other person, not so much the words, but the fine print behind the words. 

Jerry, a long-time family friend, contacted me the other day. Jerry just celebrated his 36^th Sobriety birthday. We were commiserating about my son, who went off the rails a couple years ago and recently clawed his way into a treatment facility.

Both of us had read the fine print. We saw the red flags waving before my son’s problems became visible. We heard the warning bells and screaming sirens.

Unfortunately, I can’t fix his problems with my gussets. I can only fix my own problems. Sometimes. That’s my full-time job. My son must find his own directions.

Sis said, “You can’t make gravy with a tire iron and tube patch. All we want is to be loved and to love. We just go about trying to find love in wonky ways. Some of us read the instruction manuals in a foreign language.” Amen, I say.

Jim said, “Everybody is getting along the best they can with what they’ve got.” (See above about foreign language.)

Jerry and I reminisced about when a group of us gathered Friday nights to play pinochle. None of us were rich. We had good times.

In closing, I told Jerry along with those of you who play pinochle, “Hearts are trump and I’m shooting the moon.”

Lest I forget. It is best to read the fine print. Read it first.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 3, 2025

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Roadkill with Oatmeal Brain

 Roadkill with Oatmeal Brain

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I make plans. Life smashes plans.

Last week I had social plans, lined up, all in a row. Because of trauma dredged up by news of my son, I wanted to cancel all the plans and binge on self-pity. But I was determined to suit up and show up, knowing I would enjoy outings with my good friends despite myself.

You know how sometimes when you awaken, you don’t feel tip-top? But a cup of coffee makes things better, right? In the hour between get-up and the-car-is-leaving-now, I felt “worser” and then “worser”.

With reluctance, I handed my concert ticket to Michelle and said, “Give it to someone, anyone, I don’t care, I can’t go.” On the way out of town they kidnapped Monica, Ana’s niece, and it happened to be her birthday, so wasn’t that perfect?

At home, I had a miserable day, not focused on anything but feeling like roadkill-day-one.

Roadkill-day-two was supposed to be therapy-in-the-pool day. Trying to fool myself that I felt better, I realized I felt worse.

You know that quiet little voice that sometime niggles in your ear and that is easy to ignore? Exactly. That one. Eventually, I paid attention to her and dug my test kit out of medical supplies. When does Positive feel Negative? No, I am not pregnant. I have Covid. I had managed to dodge that bullet through the whole pandemic, until now.

Today, I would not mind if positive meant pregnant. There has been one Virgin Birth. Why not two? My daughter assured me there have been thousands. Thousands claimed, that is.

I quick-told Michelle and Ana that I am poison. They quick-told Kathy, Crin, and Carol to turn around and go home. No pool therapy today. We’d all been together for a Thai feast, all exposed to one another.

Roadkill-day-three I tried to fake that I felt better. It didn’t work. I’m used to pain. I can handle pain, no energy, congestion, fever, chills, swollen glands and all the ugly rest of it. Instead of visiting an archeological ruin, I am one.

The hardest thing for me is oatmeal brain.

I like oatmeal, steaming in the bowl, laced generously with brown sugar, drenched in a lake of milk.

Oatmeal brain feels like cold oatmeal got dumped cold into my brain pan and congealed into a lumpy mass, no sugar, no milk. Incapable of thought impulses. Incapable of creativity. Incapable. Rendering me into a state of stasis.

Roadkill-day four found me no better but I wanted to do just one thing. I had not lifted a finger for any chore since being stricken with the plague. Sweep the floor or wash sheets? I don’t sleep on the floor so that was a decision requiring no brain.

The thing about roadkill is that on the first day one knows that the flat slab once carried life. By day four, roadkill resembles a dirty piece of ancient cardboard. Oatmeal brain turns crusty around the blackening edges.

Day five. Can desiccated cardboard be freeze dried and rejuvenated later, kind of a Resurrection?

The days rolled on monotonously. Until one morning, like magic, I knew my body was being reconstituted.

My brain? Since I’m using breakfast food as an analogy, think of it like a progression. Oatmeal to scrambled eggs to the time honored brains and eggs. Might not get any better than that!

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 27, 2025

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Speaking of ears . . .

 

Speaking of ears . . .

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Just last week I said that when I need to talk, you are my ears. So here goes.

Gary phoned me. He’s my son’s Dad, not biological but the only Dad Ben had. When Gary and I came to a crossroads, he and I stayed friends. Gary and Ben were always close. I suspect Gary married me to have Ben for a son. A phone call from Gary these days is not always welcome news.

This call held hope. “Sondra, I just returned from driving Ben to a Recovery Center. He worked hard the last four months to get himself into treatment.”

A couple years ago I told you the grim news that my son had plunged back into the world of illicit chemicals. How did I know? He quit talking to me. That’s how I always know. Ben and I have a good, warm and fun relationship, except when he’s using.

He has a history. When a teen, the nice doctor gave him oxycontin for back pain after he was rear-ended at a stop light. Ben freed himself from that once he discovered the dangers of legitimate pain pills.

Which came next, divorce or heroin? Doesn’t matter. What followed was three years of horror for the family until Ben was arrested by the County Sheriff, who’d found him tossed in a ditch, severely beaten, with a backpack of illicit goods. Jail and an excellent recovery program led to almost ten good years of hard-won sobriety.

So why did this man who had rebuilt his life, cleaned up the damages from the past, begin using? Addiction cannot be blithely explained. As with most addictions, this time the downhill skid happened more quickly and more severely than in the past.

I am glad that my son is in treatment. I am even more hopeful since he did the work to get there by his own efforts.

I am ever so grateful to be 2500 miles away.

Gary, his father and landlord and enabler by default, said that for the past year he has felt like the frog in the kettle of water over the fire, unable to jump out.

When Ben gets out of treatment he will have a huge mess to clean up and nowhere to land. The house he has been living in will be destroyed, too dangerous to rent to others because of the intensity of drug use. Meth permeates the walls.

Did I say I am ever so grateful to be 2500 miles away? I do not intend to be the next frog to jump into the water pot.

I sound uncaring. My heart hurts so much that some days I am physically ill. I would hurt my son more if I became his next enabler. Yes, I will bear on-going pain watching him struggle.

Treatment does not guarantee an outcome. Treatment is merely a first step of help. The results are all up to Ben. That’s a huge task but there is immense help and Ben knows it.

“Gary, I hope and I pray that Ben is able and willing and wanting to do the hard work, to open himself up to his own pain. You and his daughter are at the top of the list of people he will need to reach out to with honesty, with reparations. Then his old boss, a man more than kind, who gave Ben every help and encouragement. Then his friends, Jerry and Jeff and Shea and Shawn, all good people who have stood by with help and love.”

I would like to see that work done. This is a list on which I don’t mind being last. I am not being selfless. I’m being very selfish.

I’m angry and trying not to misplace my anger. I’m hurt. I feel helpless because I am helpless.

I’m going to Guadalajara with a carload of friends to a concert when I don’t want to go. I’ll show up for water therapy at Michelle’s swimming pool, our first dip in the not-quite-warm water. I don’t want to get wet. Then I’ll go with Jim to explore the archeological ruins at Ixtlan del Rio, where I’ve wanted to go for years, but I don’t want to go right now.

What I want to do is curl up in a ball with my own grief and self-pity and guilt and fear and pain. I want to feed it and pet it and watch it grow, like a well-loved pet. Even that is addictive.

Instead, I’ll “suit up and show up”. I’ll do my own hard work and try to stay out of the way. I’ll love and hope and converse much with my own Higher Power. I’ll reach out to my friends for their hands, knowing I need help.

Hey, thanks. Thanks for your good listening ears. Thank you for your help.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 20, 2025

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Grandma, what big ears you have!

 

Grandma, what big ears you have!

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I remember way back in the last century agonizing about my life’s purpose, as if one had only one purpose and if you missed it, you were skewered on Life’s Barbeque. Or something dire.

We used to believe such silly things. One purpose. One way. And, I love this one, “one soulmate” and he was sexual, instead of possibly a whole raft of soulmate friends, male and female, trees and pets and rocks; who could know the endless possibilities?

At the time I had a little home workshop where I repaired and recovered furniture so I could be in the kitchen when the kids got home from school. Did I not recognize that was my purpose for that time?

 Eventually, I quit agonizing, relaxed, and realized that I was having a good time making ugly things beautiful, was meeting interesting people and, dangled in front of my face, multiple opportunities for all manner of classes and workshops, trips and experiences.

As Dr. Seuss said, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

And I did. I went. Except when I didn’t. I couldn’t say “YES” to every opportunity. Oh, boy, when I went, I went. Regrets, I have a few. Both the “yes” and “no” variety of regrets. That’s okay. I rounded up a good balance.

As opportunities tend to do, one leads to another and each road branches. There’s always more. More people to meet.  More to learn. More to love. More to receive. More to give. Those various roads, so full of enticements and temptations, have led me to where I am today, living in Mexico, living the last years of my life, more moderately happy than I ever expected to be . . . and . . .

Dumb as a post. That’s me. The longer I live, the lesser I know. So what’s my life’s purpose these days? Much as I can tell, it is mostly to keep my mouth shut and remember that I don’t know.

People tend to talk to me. I listen. That’s all. I listen. Nod. Keep my lips zipped. Don’t solve other’s problems. Don’t tell them how I did it back in ’82. Don’t make suggestions. What about sharing something similar from my past? Not always. Mostly, I just listen.

Sometimes I forget and open my mouth and generally regret that action soon enough to clamp it shut quickly. Revert to listening. My purpose. Be.

Oh, I’m not hearing huge secrets. Mostly, my friends talk about niggly-naggly little everyday irritations. At times, one just needs to unload frustrations. There are moments when more important revelations need to be hauled out into the light. None of them, small or large, require me to pass on the information to anyone else. Period. End of.

What about when I need an ear, someone to hear me? Well, haven’t you noticed? I have you.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 13, 2025

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Pondering Important Conveniences

 

Pondering Important Conveniences

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We few who live in Oconahua and continue to use cable internet service have just experienced three days without phone or computer services along with intermittent electricity outages.

I could not explain in a rational way why I insist on clinging to what most of my friends consider to be outdated services. I like my landline phone sitting on my desk. I have no need for whip-quick internet. My service seems plenty fast enough for me. At approximately twenty dollars a month for the combo, it’s a deal.  

I do not find it necessary to cart around a plastic rectangle in my hand. In fact, I refuse to have a cellular phone. Why should I pay for a hand-held computer load of stuff I’d never use. A phone, for me, is for talking with another person. End of. I know. Dino.

When I go to lunch with friends, I’m the only person not checking in with the latest FaceFlap or TickleTackle, some surreptitiously, most outright blatantly.

I’ve no idea why our cable service was interrupted for three whole days. Electrical power was off and on with surges that first day. Does that matter? I don’t know. It was a little windy. By Montana standards, the wind would not have been noticed nor commented upon. So, I don’t know. How can those thing affect cable?

I’m of the generation who recalls when communication meant you wrote a letter, stamped the envelope, and put it in the mailbox hoping for a reply within a month. Local telephone service was sweet although the party line was not always so great. If you don’t know what those are, ask your Grandma.

We never called long distance unless someone in the family died.

Now we don’t even have long distance.

No, I do not want the “not-so-good-old-days” returned. I just want uninterrupted cable service, slow and low as it might be.

Those three days of my own personal disconnect felt like three years to me. It would be a rare day in which I utilize more than an hour of phone and internet combined. But, Holy Canoli, now that I have them, I want them, those faithful little worker bees making my life better. Okay, so I got a tad carried away. You know what I mean. I’ve seen you misplace your cell phone and go into a panic.

Which led me to thinking and you know how dangerous thinking can be.

Obviously, I rate electricity as a “necessary convenience”. I ignore any clash of definition of those two words. I remember when I lived in Dodson, okay, dark ages, my nearest neighbors did not have electricity. Nor did a whole large swath of land south of us have an electric line within double-digit miles.

We, ourselves, did not have running water, unless you counted me running from the well to the house with buckets.

I did not think it was funny when my father-in-law wanted to put running water in the barn but bypass the house.

I value all my modern conveniences, especially power and water. Interesting word, that, “conveniences”. I’ll leave you to ponder that.

I want it all, water and electricity, internet and phone, washing machine and refrigerator. And books. Don’t forget the books. Today I have all these things. What if . . .

Some days I think we are devolving. A huge percentage of my emails from friends show up with cave drawings. Almost cave drawings. None show a whole stick figure, only a round head, like an M&M. What if . . .

Tomorrow I might be climbing up the mountain to the spring to beat my laundry on rocks. Clothes? Animal skins? Will we still have animals? What if . . .

Tomorrow will my family/friends and I huddle around a fire grinding corn in a stone trough? Will we grunt and point because we’ve lost the ability to use words?

What if your cousin, who always was weird, yeah, that one, picked a charred stick from the fire pit and scratched wiggly marks with ashes on the cave wall? Things that looked similar to a water faucet or a telephone or an automobile, yeah, Flintstone era?

Maybe I’ve had enough isolation. I’m off to Laguna Colorado for fish tacos with friends.

I could not make up what happened. When I got home, we had no power in our town. Electricity was off for hours into the night. I located enough black marking pens to write the alphabet and basic rules of grammar on the bedroom wall.

Sondra Ashton

Havre Weekly Chronicle

March 6, 2025

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Life Keeps Happening

 

                  Life Keeps Happening

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Sunday morning when six of us sat around the wooden table at Molletes, sipping our drinks and waiting for our food to be delivered, one plate at a time, as is the restaurant way in Mexico, the conversation veered into the troubling elections in Germany, which meant we were one step away from becoming mired in the world political swamp.

Jim, bless his astute heart, intervened. “All I know is that right here, right now, sitting with friends in this upscale restaurant, sipping our lattes, sun shining, beginning a beautiful day, life is pretty fine. Pretty fine.”

Group laughter, shared and received, our conversations continued in a more personal vein, further cementing already strong friendship.

To backtrack, on Saturday, eight of us gringo friends had attended a pig roast feast and annual family gathering in La Mazata, about a half-hour drive from Etzatlan toward Magdalena, up in the mountains littered with opals.

Last year, Francisco and Julie moved to nearby La Mazata, where Francisco grew up and lived most of his life.

What an event! Francisco has a huge family and my guess is that everyone was there, siblings, cousins, in-laws and out-laws, all ages. Oh, my, the food, the scrumptious pig, the music, the dancing, the décor, the finery, the mingling of family and friends; all spoke of festive love and laughter. Pure fun.

Yes, Jim, life is pretty fine. Pretty fine.

All of life does not revolve around food, although much of my social life seems to center around tables with friends, a table that is generally piled with food. I call it Communion.

By Monday I begged a day of solitary quiet. However, even then, a big part of my day was filled with chopping and grating and measuring and mixing, making a filling. Let me explain.

Several days ago I’d mentioned to Kathy that I am so hungry for samosas. When we spent that month in India so many years ago, we ate samosas almost every day.

Later Kathy told me she wished I hadn’t mentioned samosas. Now they were all she could think about. So Kathy drove over to my house with printed papers in hand. “Okay, let’s make samosas. Years ago I took a class. It’s not that hard, just time consuming.”

After looking over the directions, I agreed to make the fillings and Kathy would make the dough. Fillings require a lot of mincing and chopping and boiling and frying.  

Tuesday we put our efforts together, rolled out the dough, filled the little pockets, and deep-fried our samosas. Oh, the aromas. Oh, the explosion of flavors. Oh, the deliciousness.

After making sure our samosas passed the critical taste test, of course, we divvied up the remainders for our freezers, treats for when we must go to India again, if only in imagination. We are not sharing this batch of samosas. These are for our own selfish selves.

However, next fall, we plan to make samosas in huge batches and piles and host an Asian foods pot luck. I’ll also bring chicken adobo, a Filipino dish taught me by my daughter, who learned to make this dish when she lived in Japan. Kathy will make one of her signature Thai specialties.

Why wait until next fall? Some of our friends are already headed north. We want to share the goodness with as many as possible. And such a feast takes some pre-planning, some gathering of spices and seeds easier to find elsewhere. That’s Kathy’s task.

Life is pretty fine when we can gather around a table with friends, share good food, stories and lies. Yep. I call it Communion.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Febrero 27, 2025

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The Chicken Woo-Woo Factor

 

The Chicken Woo-Woo Factor

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You must understand that since moving to Mexico I have the smallest kitchen possible. This means that I don’t have standard kitchen helpers, not even such items that my entire life I thought of as essentials, such as a mixer, a roasting pan or even muffin tins.

Basic. Only the bare basics. I do have a hand-held can opener and a wire whip. I could let the wire whip go. It is handy for beating eggs but my eggs are generally well-behaved and seldom require a whipping.

Through the moves, I managed to hang onto some of my cast iron pots. The other day I roasted a chicken in my large cast iron chicken pot. That’s what it is called, a chicken skillet, over-sized, intended for frying chicken pieces for Sunday dinner.

I like to roast chicken in a little liquid on low heat until the chicken falls off the bone, tender and juicy. When I bent into the oven to remove the delectable chicken, done to a turn, I said to myself, “We have a problem, Houston.”

The little liquid, accompanied by the fats and juices from the roasting process, was now doubled. I stood by the open oven door thinking how easy, how horrible it would be to drop the pan. The cast iron pan, the steaming hot chicken, the near-boiling liquid, all together posed a heavy conundrum: how to get the container from oven to cooling rack on the island without damage. Damage to me, my feet and legs, which suddenly seemed to be in the way.

I talked myself through the process, slowly. Doubled the pot holders. I pre-thought every muscle movement. True story. I breathed, in and out, took a deep breath and carefully lifted the heavy pot from oven rack to the island, no steps required, merely a full-body turn. Success.

Big Deal, you might be thinking, rolling your eyes, Big Deal.  Yes, it is a big deal.

It might be time for me to retire my cast iron, search for alternative low-weight pans. It might be a wake-up call. Here’s why: We ain’t getting any younger, chickiedee.

That evening I got this note from Kathy:

               We’re dropping like dominoes.

An eight pound circular wooden cutting board rolled off the open cupboard shelf and landed on my left foot while I was making breakfast. My throbbing foot is elevated and I cannot walk.

Crin, the night before, sliced her finger open, blood everywhere, and spent seven hours in the ER.

Janet was making bone broth in their Arizona home and when she lifted the pot to drain it, one handle broke off and the scalding liquid burned both her feet and ankles. The ER gave her morphine for pain and today she is in the Burn Unit figuring out how to deal with it.

Then Nancie’s daughter called her from Washington to report that she had tripped and spilled an entire pot of beans on her feet.

You’d better take it easy with a book today. We can’t handle any more casualties.

See you in the morning for breakfast.

No kidding, take it easy with a book. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The Woo-Woo factor? The timing? What made me, for whom impulse control has never been a defining characteristic, “stop to think it through in minute detail” before removing my roasted chicken?

Woo-Woo? Lucky? Grace? A rose by any other name . . .

I like ceremony. An offering of tobacco and oranges. A sage smudge. Incense.  A heartfelt breathing of thanksgiving for all of us.

Served with a chicken sandwich.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 20, 2025

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Among the Mung Beans & Family

 

               Among the Mung Beans & Family

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Mung beans have never been my favorite food bean. Pintos. Limas. Navy beans. Yum! Not mung. If you like them, that’s great. I’d rather have spinach.

Well, the other day a woman drove up and off-loaded a huge pile of vines, green and bushy. Ana looked like a tree packing the vines in her arms across our common area. “What are those?” I asked.

“Mung beans. I’m going to cook them now.”

“I’ve only had the dry beans; I’ve never eaten them green and fresh,” I responded, wondering if the difference would be huge, like the difference between green limas and dried lima beans. “I’ll bring you some,” Ana said.

Indeed, she did, indeed. Ana showed up with a serving bowl heaped with mung beans steamed in their little husks. She showed me how to pinch open the husk and eat the bean inside. Hmmm.

I meant to eat a few to be polite. I ate the whole bowlful. In one sitting. I returned the bowl of husks to Ana for the chickens.

What I’m saying is, that you might give fresh mungs a try. It might mean you must plant a patch of mung beans. Harvest them green. Steam them tender. Yummy.

I lost another person from my life this last week. Over the past few months I’ve thought a lot about the importance of Family, Friends, Community.

The woman who died was not close to me but she was a constant in my life. Loss, all loss, hurts the same hurt. I met her at a CYC dance when I was in high school. Then later knew her at three very separate times in my life. I liked and respected this woman.

At my age, Community, sharing feelings of solidarity, being family, chosen and by blood, matters. I cringe to say that with age it “matters more”. At any rate, I think about these things frequently, ponder the importance of people in my life, love them more.

Take yesterday. Ana and Michelle had a BBQ Potluck at their home. There were eight of us, a small group, comfortable, easily able to converse around the large oval table.  

Steve and Judy, their friends from Seattle, were strangers to the rest of us. Three of the group are friends of mine. They know Ana and Michelle, but not well.

We came together that afternoon as a mixture of strangers, acquaintances, friends. You might say each one of us was an individual mung bean in our husk. It is rarely, in my experience, that the magic spoon stirs us around as it did yesterday.

By the time we sat down at the table to eat, plates heaped with deliciousness, we were friends, one and all. By the time we left the table, we were family. I don’t know how else to say it. It is a rare and beautiful magic that melded us.

Later, I wafted across to my casa, feet never touching the ground, while the rest of the group settled down to watch The Game.

I avoid the Super Bowl, avoid it assiduously. The last time I went to a Super Bowl party, I married the man with whom I went. Dangerous things, those Super Bowls.

I’ve had a whole week of mung bean wonderfulness, letters and pictures from family, visits from friends, all of us connected with heart threads, Community.

Yes, at my age, I watch as people I know and love make their exit. Magically, I also watch as new friends enter my life and cement in as family. Magic? Natural? Grace? Who cares? I don’t question it. I love it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 13, 2025

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Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

 

               Incarcerated by Dude and the Domestic Gene

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Not really, not incarcerated. Looks a little like Ft. Knox with my muchly reinforced boundary fence to keep Dude out of my patio. I am not Dude’s keeper. Ana’s brother Lito is Dude’s keeper while Ana is gone on holiday.

The first couple of days that my friend have been gone, Dude, the dog with a neurological disease plus dementia, chewed through several feet of chicken wire. Lito soon reinforced those vulnerable areas. A little like Ft. Knox. Without any gold. No razor wire.

I discovered something about myself. While I battled to keep Dude in her own space, battled mainly out of concern for my new screen doors, which to Dude would be dessert, I found that pushing her out with a broom handle for forty-five minutes made me physically sick to my stomach and psychically ill.

I cannot fight Dude. It doesn’t help her. It makes me sick.

After consultation with my daughter, who knows more about behavior modification than I ever knew, I quit force-feeding Dude her “relax” pills. I had to teach Dude that I am no longer a source of goodies. I had been blithely stuffing them in the same mouth that chews wire. I really wanted to stuff them into my own mouth. R-e-l-a-x!

I decided the screen doors were not that important if she eats the screens, she is the one who must digest them, not me.

I closed my doors and opened the windows for sun and air flow and determined to stay inside my house, out of Dude’s sight lines.  This is not forever. Next week we will revert to normal, whatever that is.

Fortunately, this decision to stay inside my house activated my long dormant Stepford Wife Domestic Gene.

The first day of self-jail I whipped up a piecework tablecloth. Quite nice, I say.

I found my blouse pieces I had cut out back in September, made some modifications, and shall have that finished tomorrow. The blouse is piecework, patchwork.

I whipped up two batches of bread-and-butter pickles and a batch of dills. That filled all my empty pint jars. I’m grateful that I can order things such as cucumbers, fresh, and the size I want, from my local fruteria.

Today I jammed a batch of mangos, jars now cooling on my kitchen island.

Stepford or not, I’m not without diversions.

Leo took me out for a big shopping trip one day. We ate out. I stocked up with food from the Pepe’s Fruteria, the Mini-Super, the herb and seed shop, the cremeria, the dulceria and the Bodega. My larder is full. I also bought an assortment of threads to feed my sewing machine.

Kathy, Lani and Nancie and I had lunch another day at the new taqueria at the entrance to Oconahua. What a fun time, good food, lots of stories and catching up.

My friends who are exploring pyramids, swimming in cenotes and riding the Mayan Tren, will soon be home.

Then I’ll be spending my days in sloth, puttering with my plants, reading on the patio, wondering what happened to the Domestic Dynamo.

Just call me Sally Allie Apron.

Looking out my back door

February 6, 2025

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Dude, the Dementia Dog

 

Dude, the Dementia Dog

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Poor thing. She’s elderly, has hip pain, a neurological disease and dementia, which is also neurological, I’m told.

Who knows what goes on in a dog’s brain. As if the above were not enough, Dude thinks I’m hers. I wonder who I was in her past life, or who she thinks I was.

She is a large dog. In size, comparable to a Labrador or German Shepard. This gal is long-bodied and blonde. Perhaps blondes do have more fun. She would be happy if she could sit in my lap all day. I shudder to think.

Most of the time this is not a problem. My area is private, a “one-dog yard”. My fence is a clever blending of various discarded sections of wrought iron rescued from a junk yard, painted white.

I share a common area with my neighbors and landladies in which their dogs, Dude, Paco and Monkey, run and play with my dog, Lola. Lola lives with me. Not on my lap, but in her doghouse on the patio. Lola goes back and forth, from home ground to the common area.

The first time Dude breached my fence, she squeezed between openings in the wrought iron, through space logically impossible. (Open space is X wide. Dude is XYZ in width. Do the math.)

Once in my patio, getting Dude to move out was logically impossible. Dude is impervious to pain, curses, pushes, pulls, ropes, cajoling, pleading and prayer. She simply splayed herself onto the ground as if locked in with Gorilla Glue, looked up with big brown eyes and said in dawg, “I wuff you.”

A generous application of chicken wire secured the breached section of fence.

At the time of day when Sundowner Syndrome takes over Dude’s brain, I am usually on the patio, relaxing with a book. Back and forth, back and forth, Dude paces, just outside my fence, with an occasional whimper rcombined with gazes of adoration. I harden my heart.

One day she discovered that if I sat in a certain chair and if she stretched her neck to the ultimate length, salad-plate paws atop that section of fence, she could lay her head on my shoulder. Think 1950s love songs. Dude is not Paul Anka.

Dude, being a dog of little brain, took a couple weeks to figure out that if she scrabbled one hind leg up just enough to imbed her claws in chicken wire, this section of fence also being reinforced, and, remember, she is impervious to pain, the fourth leg would eventually follow. Up, up and over. Once, twice, thrice. Easy.

Ordinarily, Dude would not dominate our lives. However, Ana and Michelle have planned a needed vacation, a Mayan Train tour up the Yucatan, with friends. They don’t want me to have to lap sit Dude the whole time they are gone.

Hence, extraordinary activity these past days has included reinforcing my privacy fence with tall sections of heavy wire-grid panels. The panels do the trick while enhancing the look of the place.

Raising the fence necessitated moving my rotary clothesline, which had been wired to a fence post. Not a problem. Back to my Plan A which was to imbed the post in a large trash can filled with concrete. Works like a dream.

Changing location of the clothesline also meant changing location of several of my potted herbs and mini-garden. The entire arrangement is more pleasing to the eye, which is more pleasing to me. Wins all around.

One more positive thing out of this whole emotional mess is that we have discovered that Lola has therapy dog qualities. When Dude is anxious, Lola helps settle her down.

My friends and guests are off on a Train adventure. I’m not Dude’s caretaker. Laundry is hanging on the line. I’m listening to Paul Anka sing the lyrics to “Put your head on my shoulder.”  What could possibly go wrong?

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 30, 2025

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It’s not on the map!

 

                                             It’s not on the map!

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Kathy is my friend who first introduced me to Mexico. I am Kathy’s friend who first introduced her to Etzatlan. Beware introductions. We both ended up moving to Etzatlan.

Kathy and I have known one another twenty plus years. Those years translate into frequent opportunities to share experiences, get lost, explore places we should not have poked our noses. In other words, we know how to have fun.

Since mid-November I’ve been settling into my new casita in Oconahua, enjoying exploring the country ‘round and about.

Kathy drove over for a visit with a purpose. We were going to head into the center of this little town to see just what is available in the many little tiendas. I was almost out of toothpaste and needed tomatoes and bananas. Purpose.

We turned left instead of right. No, we were not lost. The property on which I live ends at an arroyo, deep and wide. Directly across this canyon is San Rafael, not a city, but a hacienda, private property on which so many people have built homes that it has become its own small community.

I wanted to show Kathy the tiny, beautiful church as well as the smallest schoolhouse I’ve ever seen. Surely not more than a dozen students could crowd inside. But it is the prettiest little school you’d ever want to see.

“Where does this road go?” asked Kathy.

“I don’t know. I suspect it dead ends at a rancho. I’ve never been further than this. But I know that past San Rafael we leave Jalisco and enter Nayarit.”

That’s all it took. We had to know. The street became a narrow highway, mostly paved, mostly pitted, but not too severely. Narrow, winding, up hill and down dale. Through the loveliest country, ever higher. We wandered along slowly, entranced, taking in the ever-changing vegetation, colors, bushes and trees, winding ever higher and higher. We wended through corn fields, meadows with cattle, and climbed high mountain vistas.

We reached the top of the pass and way, way, way down there, nestled like a chick in its nest, an impossible tiny village, a fairy land of forty or fifty buildings.

There was no decision to make. We had to go see.

(In the interests of full disclosure, if you are going to make this trip, be sure to take water and strong stomachs. Motion sickness possible.)

At the bottom of the road, and I do mean the bottom, with trepidation we crossed an ancient stone bridge over a dry river bed, smack into the middle of town. We drove every street, short streets, most of which ended in someone’s yard or field. We saw the plaza, the school, the health center, the church. That was it, this tiny town out in what we deemed the middle of nowhere in Nayarit.

“Let’s find a tienda de abarrotes. I need a drink.”

“I need a snack.”

The tienda, closed, that we first drove past coming into town, several minutes previously, now had an open door. An open door is like an open road, right? One must go inside.

All the sidewalks (here and in most towns) have impossibly high steps up from the street. When the rain comes, the streets become fast-running waterways.

I indicated to the gentleman who came out the door to greet us that I needed help. He gave me his hand, helped me up the step, and introduced himself.

Senor Moses Gomez quickly scoped out the we are gringos. He spoke impeccable English, had worked construction in the US for thirty-five years. This man said to us, “People are good.” In his actions he demonstrated that yes, indeed, “People are good.” I needed to hear that.

We had a delightful conversation, bought our unhealthy drinks and equally unhealthy snacks and inquired if there might be an alternate route back we could explore.

Senor Gomez hesitantly told us we could go to Amitlan de Cana and back to Oconahua. He poked his head out the door to see what we drove. “Return the way you came. The other road is not passable. Nobody uses it.” We assured him we treasured his advice, said our “adios” and back tracked across the stone bridge and up the mountain.

The little town of about 200 folks at the end of the road is named Jesus Maria. If you want to go, you won’t find it on the map. But Kathy and I are delighted to be your tour guides.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

January 23, 2025

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