My attempt at uploading photos to the journal failed, so I´m just going to give you a link to my Yahoo photo album. Let´s just hope that works.

http://tinyurl.com/38fo9l


I took a bunch of pictures yesterday, for the first time on this trip. We have been using the camcorder to do film clips, but I really like the stills it takes. When we were north, the weather wasn´t good enough to inspire a lot of photography. I´ll take pictures of San Carlos, Bahia Kino, and probably Alamos on the way back, when with any luck it will be warm and sunny there.

It being Saturday, I´m hanging around for a few minutes, hoping that one of my Skype partners will give me a call. I´ve uploaded the photos with the assistance of my provider´s two kittens, Jose and Hose B, who are looking forward to careers in the word processing field. I´ve come to enjoy my daily visit very much. Snickers, the dog, is friendly, and the kittens are hilarious. Their man is also fun to talk to. R just wanders by on his bike from time to time, making sure I haven´t passed out from sunstroke.

We went for our beach walk this morning, and it was wild. The tide was very high, and the surf was warm and foamy. The waves were huge. There must have been a big storm somewhere, to cause that heavy a surf here. I found a 50 centavo piece half buried in the wet sand, a continuation of the good luck I had last night at Scrabble.

We are invited to Ian´s for tea at four o`clock today. Very civilized. Meanwhile, I have to figure out how to cook the chicken I bought yesterday without turning the whole rv into an oven. Such a problem . This is so weird. My laptop is typing in Spanish again. When I try to type a colon, for instance, I get Ñ. Ordinarily I can´t get Ñ to save my life. I have no idea how to type a question mark, so I can´t ask somebody to let me know whether the link I posted works or not, except like this. It´s a little frustrating, but also an exercise in creativity.

The kittens are biting my knees. I think I had better move.

Happy Groundhog Day, everybody. We don't seem to have any groundhogs around here, but I am trying to upload a couple of pictures I took of the local wildlife. For It some reason, I'm having trouble doing that. I'll keep trying. If you see a picture of an iguana appear, you'll know I succeeded.

Our friend Ian from the other park showed up a little while ago, saying he's about to go to the supermarket - so I'll tag along. We need tortillas and a couple of other things.

We walked down the beach today, toward downtown, to see what was going on with the parasailors. (Is that what you call it? Parasailing? Boat, tow line, parachute, tourist in harness?) It looked like fun. I wouldn't have wanted to be in the tow boat, though. I got queasy just looking at it. The hotel nearby had red flags out, warning of dangerous water conditions - though the water didn't look any more lively than usual to me. Maybe they always have their red flags out.

Yesterday, just as I was putting the computer away, an instant message screen popped up, and it turned out to be my niece in England trying to reach me. We had a great chat for about five minutes, and then I lost her. I had somebody talking to me, trying to keep up with two conversations at once. I probably pushed the wrong button. Sorry, Jayne - call again, okay? It was great to hear from you.

Then I went home and cooked white beans with ancho chile sauce, Mexican rice (like Spanish rice, but here), lobster and shrimp, salad (uncooked). Dinner was excellent.

Okay. Here I go again, going to try to put that photo in before I have to leave for the shopping centre.

After finally watching the one movie we brought with us, I stayed up until 1:30 this morning, then got up at 7:30. It is now 1:20 in the afternoon. I’m sitting at home, composing this journal entry where I can sit comfortably. When I’m finished, I’ll carry the laptop up to the rig where my provider lives, prop it on the plastic case, and transfer everything into blogspot. First thing this morning, before I could get out for a walk, the veggie man came along, so I spent the next hour and a half washing fruits and vegetables, setting beans to soak, getting shrimp and lobster pieces out of the freezer for tonight’s dinner, chopping vegetables for pico de gallo, making breakfast, eating, washing dishes, gathering laundry in case the laundry man came along (he didn’t). Then R and I rode our bikes up to the end of this road, where the fish camp is. There are a couple of open-air restaurants there, and several people have set up tables in front to sell jewelry and so on to the tourists. I had a moment of what I thought was kismet.

Yesterday, you see, I spent a lot of time working on my mother’s biography, which is also the story of my childhood and that of my sisters. I was thinking of my paternal grandmother’s bedroom, remembering the little table by her window where she kept a rubber plant and a lovely, glossy brown and white speckled seashell about the size of an avocado. When I looked at the vendors’ tables, there were about two dozen of that very shell displayed on one of them. I asked the man at the table how much they cost. He said no, they weren’t for sale just like that. They were for making these – and he pointed at some shells near the front of the table, on each of which he had etched some godawful thing like “Souvenir of Mazatlan” or a dolphin or whatever. He was selling those for 50 pesos and up. Why would anybody do that to a perfectly good shell? Anyway, he wouldn’t sell me an unvandalized shell, so I went away empty-handed. So much for kismet. The experience wasn’t entirely without benefit, though, because it got me thinking about my grandmother and the shell. Where did she get it? Had she traveled? Assuming that those shells are really from these waters (and I know that’s a big assumption), does that mean that she traveled to Mexico, or did she just buy the shell at a shop? I only knew her as a widow of around seventy, and I don’t remember her talking about having traveled in her youth.

People were older then, do you notice? I don’t mean just that as we get older, people look younger to us. That is certainly the case. I mean that even now, when I see a picture of my maternal grandmother (none remain of the grandmother with the shell), she looks like an old lady, and I know that these pictures were taken when she was still quite young.

I am also here to tell you that as we get older, we all start looking alike – at least, that’s the case if my RV park experience is anything to go by. I’m thinking of buying a bunch of name tags – the kind you get at conventions – and passing them around whenever we arrive in a park. I only recognize people, the men in particular, by their RVs and their dogs. I think there are really only about three men, and they just keep changing hats and walking back and forth past me.

Anyway, after our cycle ride we went for a walk up to the rock at the top of Playa Bruja and back, and now I’m going to have a well-earned cup of tea before I go up the hill to post this. I think I’ll be having an early night tonight.