Chinese food in Mexico. Who'd have thought? We went downtown tonight, the four of us, to a restaurant recommended by our hosts. They served Mexican and Chinese food - and there was also Pad Thai on the menu (chicken or shrimp) - so I ordered that, with shrimp. We had Szechuan beef, almond chicken, and curried chicken. There was a lot of food - and it was delicious.

This was our 'Last Night in Zihuatanejo' celebration. Tomorrow morning we have to make a stop at the tire shop because, would you believe? One of the brand new tires is flat. We figure it's probably a valve stem problem, and Robin says we can drive that far with it, because it's the outside rear, and the inside will carry the weight. I hope so. After that, we'll head for Acapulco.

Robin and I went for a walk on the beach this morning, all the way to the end. There was a redheaded woman running on the beach. She ran past us to the end, turned around and ran back, then ran out and back again, all while we were walking out and back just once. I complimented her and asked whether she was a marathon runner. She said she used to be, but no more. I'm not sure how old she was - but she was old enough to make me feel like a pudgy old wimp.

I spent part of the afternoon lying around, happily reading my favourite blogs. I discovered that Kathryn Magendie had a story up on Sotto Voce, and I read that. I loved it. Do check it out. It's called Woman Inside Out, and it's at http://tinyurl.com/dev9o9

After my lazy afternoon, and after dinner, we walked around downtown for a while, window shopping, trying to walk off our calorie binge. I don't think it worked.

My moonlight swim was a little melancholy, as it's my last here. I had been in the pool about a minute when I saw the oddest phenomenon - three stars in the southern sky, connected by streams of light so that they formed a brilliant isosceles triangle. Now, I'm not given to flights of fancy, at least not with respect to visions in the sky, so I figured (and still do) that what I was seeing was due to a combination of stars, palm fronds, and the fact that my glasses were sitting on the kitchen table, rather than on my nose. I moved around, trying to make sense of things, but I couldn't get rid of the vision - so I decided to recite a poem, instead. Who wouldn't?

My favourite poem, the poem of my life, was written by Adrienne Rich. I found it when I was rummaging around in somebody's office one day - back in the 1980s - and I have always kept a copy. I was going to reproduce it here, so I went looking in my other blogs, where I could have sworn I posted it years ago. I can't find it, and Google is failing me. Now, what? I can only hope that when I get back to Canada, I'll find my worn hard copy waiting in my desk drawer.

Or - if anybody who reads this can help me find the poem, I would be most grateful. There in the pool, I quoted it as best I could -


"As for me, I distrust the commonplace -
Ask and am receiving marvels, signs,
Miracles wrought in air, acted in space
After imagination's own design.

The lion and the tiger pace this way
As often as I call,
And out of empty air,
The golden-gourded vine, unwatered, springs.

I have inhaled impossibility,
And walk at such an angle, all the stars
Have hung their carnival chains of light for me.

There is a streetcar runs from here to Mars.
I shall be seeing you, my darling, there -
Or at the burning bush in Harvard Square."