2023 abum
of garden flowers and produce, and other topics
2024 photo
collection Guadalajara
trip and link to photos
This diary entry, like a few previous ones,
will cover two years: 2023 beginning in May, and 2024.
2024 December 31st. Last day
of the year, time to complete this diary and start a new
one. We had the same old friends who visited us and hosted
us in turn. Tennis continued until the nets were dropped
for the winter, and I joined Variety Village. After a few
visits two or three times a week I would regularly hike around
the indoor track for a half-hour without tiring, and do some
upper body resistance machines before heading home. My
Spanish kept improving, and my Portuguese is not far
behind.
Low points and highlights of the past twenty
weeks: On June 27th, Deborah got stung on her baby finger by a
wasp in the hedge who took exception to her electric hedge
clippers. After about forty-five minutes she had a
terrible itch and then suddenly found herself on the kitchen
floor with low blood pressure. We called an
ambulance. She had mysteriously become anaphylactic, after a lifetime of not
being. Because of her age, she was prescribed a free
epipen, and then a free program of injections from a Dr. Iaboni
to desensitize her to bee and wasp venom. Beginning in
mid-September, she got an injection in each arm every Monday for
four months (she'll complete that part of the treatment around
January 20th) and then return for one each month for the next
five years.
I watched the Trump-Harris debate and
marveled at what a dissembling buffoon he was, but still he won
the election in November. He's a master of knowing how to
lie and deceive the majority population in the U.S. with the
help of Elon Musk, another buffoon but also the world's richest
man who controls the social media platform X, and the Russians
who know how to mess with it.
Taylor Swift did her Eras tour, ending in
Canada. She was in Toronto from November 14th to 23rd, and
Katherine Fuentes, a young (33) Chilean friend that we'd met
seven years ago in Chillan, Chile, booked a flight to Toronto on
November 19th with a one year work permit. She couldn't
change her flight, and hadn't known anything about Taylor
Swift. She suddenly discovered that there was no
affordable accommodation in Toronto because of the "Swifties"
who'd flocked to the city. We put her up in our basement,
expecting her to stay for four days until the Swifties left
town, but she stayed for three weeks, trying to find employment
and a place to live. We networked with Colin and Jodi at
our club while decorating the tree for the annual children's
x-mas party (Deb won the Ugly Sweater competition, her prize was
an HYC beer glass), and they followed up with a lead for
her. A club member had just bought a restaurant in
Pickering, the East End Bar and Grill. Katy interviewed
and was hired, although she had few shifts at first, and she got
a room in a nice home on Brimorton with three other young
ladies. Katy was a good guest, quiet and never
disagreeable. She conversed with me in Spanish sometimes,
and although I found that she spoke very quickly and
indistinctly compared to my Spanish youtube videos, it advanced
my ability somewhat. She visited Niagara Falls and other
places in Toronto, enjoying the Christmas lights and
decorations, and visited us again on Dec 30th with all her fresh
news.
I had to get a new computer. I got an old box
and mother board with a new Windows 11 SSD in it, but I didn't
want to learn a new OS so I got K&K Computers to just use my
old Windows 10 SSD in that box, which worked fine. Later
we decided that Deb also needed an upgrade so I took my new
Windows 11 SSD out and put it into her laptop. It was a
relatively cheap "double-upgrade", and now she's able to take
her Acer laptop to the community centre where we now have wifi,
and project our music charts from that - no more effort keeping
her tunes up to date and taking them to the centre with her on a
thumb drive.
In October I got a new battery for the RAV,
and a new passport, but we can't nail down a winter trip until
Deb's desensitization therapy has concluded its first
stage. We got our eighth covid shots plus flu. We
delivered a great performance for our seasonal concert at the
community centre, with sample videos saved to Facebook and
Youtube. Karen Dale was here for a visit. Lots of
other mostly routine and regular events happened but they're all
on my searchable digital calendar and pointless to list
here. We had a quiet Christmas and New Year, partly
because both events fell in the middle of the week so we
couldn't meet with our regular music groups. It felt like
having five weekends back-to-back. The string band will
meet again tomorrow for the first time in 2025, and we have lots
of good tunes learned and ready to play. It's my favourite
group, and my favourite genre to play.
Aug 10th. For the past nine weeks, life continued as
before, with gardening and music filling our days and
evenings. We had ate a lot of peas, then pulled those plants
and put in July bean planting, which are now tall and flowering so
we'll have beans from those in September and October. We got
a good harvest of zucchinis that continues now, and buttercup
squash. Our salads come from our own lettuces, we have kale,
carrots are large enough to eat now and we've had a few
window-ripening tomatoes plus some smaller red ones for
salads. Still no success at growing cucumbers, but Jackie
has a bumper crop so we swap stuff from our garden for her cukes -
mostly our swiss chard, zucchinis and pole beans.
We played in the gazebo at Rosetta
McClain gardens with our string band every Friday afternoon
through July. I really enjoy the view and surroundings
there. People pass by and through the gazebo, and thank us
for the music, which is rewarding. It's like playing for an
audience, however momentarily.
I didn't sign up for house league for
July in case we decided to drive to Alberta, but as it turned out,
we opted for a flight and spent six days on that summer adventure
from July 24th to 30th. We just couldn't face the drive,
which would have doubled the time and six of those days would have
been very draining. But tennis with
Don, Jim and Paul continues on a weekly basis. Our timing was lucky for our Alberta trip: there
was a terrible fire in Jasper and smoke through Edmonton the week
before, and high temperatures in Alberta generally, but the day we
arrived the temperature moderated and we enjoyed cool weather for
our visit. We met Ameline, my newest grand-niece, much
treasured first child of Andrea and Corey. We had cheery
news from Lissie in Seattle, and we enjoy regular photos and news
about Gia, another relatively new arrival in Osoyoos.
We went to Arc's for his annual Canada
Day party in his back yard, with a great spread put out by Angela
and extended by contributions of other invitees.
We continue to have meals with our usual
group of friends, at their houses and ours. We played
cribbage with Mom and Heather in Alberta, and when we got home we
found one of our own boards to teach the game to Lili and Delio,
and Ian and Ursula. My daily effort at youtube immersion in
Spanish and Portuguese results in glacial progress, and I'm able
to participate and contribute in conversations with Lili, Delio
and Deb. We had Chris Moffit and Mishi here for lunch and we
were invited to a BBQ at HYC put on by Don and Jackie.
So, the days are passing smoothly and we remain
healthy. No harsh medical surprises, no accidents or
tragedies of any sort. I'm still keen to begin unloading our
collection of junk that should be in a garage sale, but despite
not having a boat to fret over, we haven't gotten around to
that. The days have been very warm, which is great for the
garden but not pleasant for being outside holding a garage sale,
so maybe we'll get more active on that front when it cools down a
bit. The 2024 photo collection grows, see above.
June 6th. Life picked up where we left off before
Guadalajara. The yard work and garden set up took time and
effort but it is done now but for regular lawn mowing through the
summer. On March 9th we attended a concert in the Small
World Centre given by Anne Lederman, Pat Gorman and Peter whose
surname I have forgotten, about the history of Irish music in
Canada; we went as a string band group with Ian and Elizabeth, and
Sue and Manfred. The next day, Wayne Brewer and Jay came
over for a chat, wanting to get advice on retirement. I
offered them good advice but haven't heard back from them in ten
weeks. Scotia continued to ignore my requests for a return
of AMSF tax with-holdings for 2022...still. I've been working on
that project for a year, I think. They always say that
"someone" is looking into it.
On the 12th, our RAV turned
50K on the odometer. Steve Bryer came to ask whether my
swing band/jazz standards group would play for a dance for the
line dancers in the building, which we did on
My tennis foursome played in
Pickering for a few weeks, indoors at the Chestnut Hills community
centre, which is a great facility, beyond anything nearby within
the city.
We had lunch at Blanca's new
home on April 2nd. Allen gave me a small scale 5 string
called Plucky, which was interesting but difficult to find the
right tuning and strings for. It has intonation problems inherent
in the design, mostly because when you depress strings near the
nut it raises the pitch too much; some people put nylgut strings,
but I tried regular steel strings and detuned to A, which is only
a little bit useful; might be ok for playing with fiddlers in A
and D, but I haven't made that effort yet.
On the 9th I was ill and
Deborah ran the swing band on her own; on the 11th we got fresh
covid shots. She continued to bring home Value Village
violins, both full size and 1/2 size; I have a large inventory now
and am limited in my motivation to sell them or begin a fiddle
class. On the 16th we went to the ROM for free, courtesy of
Priyanka. I began pots with edible pod peas, and by the end
of May we were eating them, along with radishes that I seeded on
April 30th.
Deb went to Montreal for a
few days and accompanied her mother, who is now 100 years old, to
Michael's wedding. She had her shoulder tended to. I
had an MRI and other tests for the cause of mild vertigo, but the
conclusion is just that I am aging. We had Laurence and Joan
for dinner on the 18th. I found homes in pots and cups for
my final germinated beans, and the buttercup squashes that took
forever to germinate. We played at Rosetta McClain gardens,
and the following weekend we coached Even and Ozzie to raise the
mast on No Egrets. We have no regrets about selling
her. We have moved on to another stage in our lives, content
with gardening and tennis, and winter travel; sailing is no longer
a craving. Music is still a central pillar in our week, with
three live sessions and one Jamulus session. On the 21st we
played our dance party for the line dancers, which was great
fun. I borrowed a 30 button Anglo concertina from Lincoln,
intending to learn a new instrument, but the learning curve was
"no vale la pena" - there isn't a logical schematic for the layout
of the buttons, and my piano accordion sounds so much better.
Deborah bought a Jasmine
guitar from Value Village. When she got it home I discovered
that the G tuner had a stripped spiral on the worm gear and it
couldn't be tuned. After asking guitar friends and 12th Fret
unsuccessfully, I found a customer service email online in
Connecticut. That person spread the word for me and someone
on their network sent me a tuner for free. Last night I took
it to BCC and played it most of the night. It has a bright
sound and intonation is good, but I need a strap and case; and my
Yamaha is a better instrument, so I'll probably sell this one.
By the 26th, the patio was
all set up. We invited Ian and Ursula over and spent part of
the time outside but ate inside, which Deborah prefers. She
has instant access to her kitchen that way. On the 30th we
bought our airfare to Edmonton. We'll have Jackie and Don over for burgers this
weekend.
The summer
stretches on ahead with threat of continuously rising
temperatures. Global warming continues; we hope it we will
be able to endure its effects before it becomes unbearable, as it
already is in some locales. There's a heat dome over the
southern U.S. in May, and in India; Europe is threatened yet
again. And the news of global conflict grows steadily.
March 4th. In January we attended the HYC New Year's Day
Commodore's Levy which provided food in the afternoon and
connected us with some old friends. On the 5th Jennifer came
over for a visit and Deb gave her wool from her donations for her
mother which wasn't ideal for the hats that Sylvia makes. On
the 6th Ian and Ursula came for supper. Deb made pea soup
and ham, and coffee cake; Ursula brought fresh bread. We did
it again on the 20th.
On the 11th we bought pesos,
Greg dropped over for a visit to volunteer as a back-up home
protector. We packed, did our Dukoral, and early in the a.m.
on the 24th we traveled across the city to Pearson Airport.
The story of our winter escape is in the Guadalajara trip link,
above.
Upon our return we unpacked
and read mail, and attended the Wednesday evening music play along
at BCC. I completed the trip diary and edited the photos,
all three hundred and something of them, and posted the link so
our friends could view them. We got to our Friday afternoon
celtic group, and on Saturday evening we went to St. Barnabas on
the Danforth to hear Shraddha sing tunes for the swing dancers at
Toronto Swing.
Temperatures have been mild
since we returned; in the double digits, then a short-lived cold
snap and today and tomorrow (Monday and Tuesday) it will be 14 and
15 degrees again. A welcome anomaly, and possibly a long
term trend in the light of global warming. I've already
begun working on pots in the garden.
2023 December 25th, Christmas Day. For the balance of
October we helped Evan and Connie set up their cradle, attended
haul-out to give them confidence, and taught them to wrap the boat
in tarps for the winter. They had a scare at Haul-out when
the sling crew got the back sling under the motor stub and didn't
realize it until the boat was in the air. It was dusk, they
were the last boat, and one assumes the crew were tired and eager
to go home, but it was still a dangerous moment for the integrity
of the hull. I was already waiting by the cradle for the
boat to arrive, and it hadn't occurred to me that the sling crew
wouldn't put the rear sling on the marks we'd indicated.
They'd always done it correctly in previous years.
On the 22nd we got Winston to do oil changes on
the RAV and the truck, but he took about four hours and didn't
have or couldn't find the simple set of tools he needed. I
took lots from my own tool boxes, and helped him, but it seemed
that he just doesn't have his wits about him anymore. His
garage is in disarray, and time has run out for him to get it all
organized again, I suspect. One vehicle got a new filter but
we had to return the other.
I played my last house league games, and we got
our flu and our seventh covid shots. We had regular dinners
every week or so with the three couples we usually do those with,
and we began bringing in produce: peppers in pots, cherry
tomatoes, etc. We cleared our eaves and put the back door
on. Dr. Nicholas gave me another stamp of approval for my
endocrinology test results. On Nov 18th Samuel Troncoso from
Chile arrived for the afternoon for turkey soup and a visit.
He was studying English downtown for a month. That evening
we saw Connie Kaldor live at St. Paul's church on our old street,
at an Acoustic Harvest concert.
On Dec 6th we performed our second annual Holly
Jolly concert at the community centre. We still don't have
the promised video from the concert (same problem the previous
year). We had a roti re-connection with Moe and Jennifer,
and attended a semi-annual seasonal dinner at Jackie and Don's. We
went to the travel clinic and got treated like pin-cushions,
having many vaccine updates. I think we've had ten in the
past two months, some in preparation for our winter escape and
others just for general health because previous ones were ten
years or more before. I converted my RRSP to a RRIF because
I'm now 71, and that is required. Who knows why?
We're having a quiet Christmas, by
choice. The temperature is unusually balmy. There will
be highs of six and seven all week, and we will go each day to
Rosetta McClain to stretch our legs by walking the pathways, and
feed the squirrels. It's the only place we know around here
that we can find the aggressive little American red squirrel along
with the Eastern Greys, which are more often black than
grey. I enjoy them both, with a slight preference for the
red squirrels but the grey squirrels are fat and bushy, well fed
by visitors (and by us) so they are particularly handsome with
their gray and brown coats and luxuriously bushy tails.
There are also lots of Northern flying squirrels in Ontario but we
never see them because they are nocturnal. I'm not sure if
any live at Rosetta McClain. We should have Eastern
chipmunks as well, one of five kinds of chipmunk in Canada, but we
rarely ever see any. Eastern greys are ubiquitous at our
house, where they treat the phone and internet cables behind our
house as a squirrel highway.
We'll still have two music events for this week
between Christmas and the New Year, and then the four-a-week
routine will return. On New Year's Day afternoon we'll
attend the annual levee at HYC. Then our minds will stray
toward our month in Guadalajara, which will be our winter escape
this year. We'll begin planning and packing well in advance.
Oct 15th. On the 4th we taught Connie and
Evan how to drop the mast, wrap it and put it on the mast
rack. On the 8th we had a Thanksgiving dinner at HYC, in the
tradition of Barb Bruyea. The tradition disappeared during
the pandemic, and was restored by Linda Jarrett, who bought two 20
lb turkeys. All the guests brought side dishes.
Deborah cooked up one of our squashes to contribute. The
next day we had another turkey that Deb cooked for my birthday,
and we invited Ian and Ursula; however, the bottom element of our
oven cracked (the crack had begun six months earlier) and we had
to take our turkey to their house for Ursula to finished it, but
we had a good dinner and game of Chicken Foot back at our
house. On the 11th Lissie and Noah were here for a couple of
hours in the afternoon. We sat on our verge while Noah slept
in the car, and ate birthday cake that Ursula brought me the day
before.
On Friday the 13th we dressed up a bit for a
New Members party at HYC, which Connie and Evan attended.
There were fifteen new couples in the club this year, about a ten
percent turn-over of members. We're all getting older.
On Saturday the 14th we took the subway across
the city to the Old Mill Hotel, where we played fourteen tunes for
Ian Darragh's birthday party. There was a grand piano in the
Home Smith Bar, so I played that and only took my trumpet and
melodica along. Malcolm and Elizabeth joined us, and Ian sat
in for all the tunes with his guitar and with his flute for one of
them. It was fun, and I still have chops on the piano, but
we found that the grand piano was a little too loud to accompany
the strings - a modern keyboard is preferable, because it has
volume control, is more portable and can generate other sounds
besides piano.
It has finally turned cool, especially in the
mornings, but temperatures remain fairly high now and probably for
the balance of October, so I haven't stripped the tomato plants or
taken much else of the garden apart. I'll try to do a little
each day. Rumour has it that temperatures will be higher
than normal right up to Christmas because of another massive El
Nino. Apart from the garden and a few medical appts (we had
our seventh covid "update" booster last Thursday) there won't be a
lot going on from here until a BCC/BBNC Christmas concert
scheduled for December 6th, at which we may do some of the same
tunes we did for Ian's party, along with some others that the BBNC
Glee Club has been practicing.
Oct 1st. Toronto: our Goldilocks summer continues into October - daily highs of 25 (27 forecast for tomorrow), nights in the high teens (we continue to sleep with the bedroom window open) and no downward slide forecast until almost Thanksgiving. There is an annual wave of mauve asters in my garden, but we're still harvesting much of our supper each day with more maturing. Beans, carrots, squash, indeterminate cherry tomatoes...no let-up. Deb still picks a litre of raspberries each day.
Yesterday we drove to Lakefield Park Campground (trailer park) and played music with the HYC guys for three hours. Two hours drive each way plus packing, setting up, tearing down and unpacking made it a pretty full day. The park residents enjoyed it. They brought their camping chairs to Carlo's parking area and the street past his trailer and applauded generously. At four we quit because the campground kids dressed up and visited every site to do trick-or-treat. It's a month early, but the park shuts down and the community of people there breaks up for the winter, so this is an annual celebration for them and for the kids.
Sept 22nd. I'm attending (via Zoom) my
last HYC budget meeting and Elections meeting as I write this. On
Sept 11th we had our last official sail on No Egrets, coaching the
new owners on their first sail. We will have to teach them
how to drop the mast in October, be there for them as the boat
gets hauled out, and launched in the spring.
We will be "Life Members" at HYC going forward,
able to enjoy the facilities without keeping up boat maintenance
and expense or paying any fees. It feels odd to go down and
see No Egrets at her slip, like seeing an old friend or a family
member that no longer lives with you. We took Ian and
Elizabeth there for a hike around the island and a BBQ burger on
the 16th.
On the 17th Lionel and Silvia arrived.
Lili and Delio joined us for supper and crockinole on the 18th,
and on the 19th they took Lionel and Silvia kayaking. On the
19th L and S hiked the 5.3 mile Rouge Valley loop trail up one
side of the river and down the other, and then made Deb and me a
tasty dinner, in true couch-surfer tradition.
Apart from that, as Deborah wrote to Silken
earlier today, "We are fine - doing music/jams 3+
times week, keeping fit with either tennis (Steve) or zoom
classes (me). Enjoying the garden produce - we are having an
amazing raspberry production this year, and tomatoes, zucchinis,
onions, beans galore, buttercup and butternut squashes, carrots,
swiss chard, amaranth/callaloo, lettuce, kale, anise/fennel, a
variety of hot peppers, ever-bearing strawberries,
honeyberries/haskaps and arugula." [On
Sept 24th I took apart all my squash vines and
delivered a wheelbarrow load of buttercup and
butternut winter squashes to the back door for
Deborah's kitchen.]
Meteorologists are scratching their heads
over the summer we've had. There have been heat
emergencies, fires, floods and climate trauma all over the
world, including Canada, but not in Toronto. This has been
Goldilocks summer - "not too hot, not too cold, but just right"
- and the harvest is astonishing and bountiful. The usual
July heat wave didn't arrive until September, and August
temperatures are extending right now into October.
Aug 28th. In the past week we
completed the sale and transfer of ownership of our sailboat to
Connie Spence and Evan Jones. We're still providing
after-sale support to the new buyers, mentoring them into
their new club, etc. We'll revert to "Life Membership".
I took apart the squash pyramid made with old
wooden ladders, and harvested eight buttercup squashes from
it. I have another dozen on the gazebo frame in the main
garden and two or three more in the new middle bed in the lawn,
plus about eight butternut squashes. The summer squash are
almost finished but there are a few still coming.
Lionel and Silvia from Australia and Uruguay
will come for a visit for three days in September, arriving on the
17th.
On International Play Music on the Front Porch
day five of us from the string band played in the Rosetta McClain
gazebo for a couple of hours from one until three, until another
group showed up to hold an engagement party. They'd arranged
to meet there at two but heavy rain kept many of them away until
almost three, so the early arrivals became an audience for us,
which was kinda fun.
July 8th. We served quesadilla to Don and
Jackie on May 20th. In June Jackie fell and broke an ankle, and some toes in the
other foot, as well as spraining it. She'll be getting the
cast off next Wednesday, after a month. She already had a
pin in the other ankle when she broke her leg in Malawi a decade
ago.
We got our squashes started, along with
many other plants, but the packet of buttercup squash seeds seemed
to be a mishmash of cucumber and yellow crook necked squash rather
than vining winter squash- which of course, we only learned by
early July when they grew enough to be identified or to begin to
fruit. On May 27th we put out the cucumber, pepper and
tomato seedlings. We ate delicious sweet fresh green peas
through the month of June and that harvest continues; some plants
are aging out now and I'll replace them with more bush beans or
tomato seedlings that are too crowded. We've enjoyed hascaps
for two months, raspberries in late June and now July, including
the golden raspberries on the cane from Davin that is finally
producing, and strawberries that came from Marg's garden.
On the same day, we watched Christoph Chung
perform at St. Mary Magdelene church, trying to fundraise for his
attendance at Julliard. Today Andrew told me that he'd
achieved 80% of his goal, with the help of some recent private
donors. [Update: July 16th, Andrew says Christoph has achieved his
funding goal with the help of a couple of private wealthy donors.]
In early June we finally got the new AMSF
account set up for IECA funds to finance the schoolteacher's
salary; Eleanor came to our end of the city to visit her favourite
hairdresser, and stopped at our house to sign the forms.
Music continued, six times a week for me
including two Jamulus sessions with Anne, and once a week with the
guys at the yacht club.
Tennis continued twice a week, but often both
games happened on a Monday. On the 3rd we had dinner at the
Sortwells.
We stepped our mast on the 7th, and attended
Sailpast on the 10th. We attended Ian Darragh's presentation
about the park he loves below his balcony.
Allen Scobie gave me a mini 5 string
"traveler's" banjo. I put a set of standard G strings on it
and a lower bridge - it came with a 5/8ths and needed a
1/2". It had to be tuned in C, and I'm not that thrilled
with it. I might research and source nylgut strings with the
correct gauges to tune it in A, which would work for playing along
to fiddle tunes in A and D. It is also easy to use to learn
claw hammer style. I
might begin recording 5 string and tenor banjo and guitar tunes
just to have some videos of what I've accomplished with those
instruments; maybe also some fiddle tunes, before I get old and
inept.
We planted out squashes and cukes on the 13th,
and had a ride on an electric "Trishaw" rickshaw that morning as
well.
We finally got rid of our copper phone line
after weeks of crackle; everything in the house is now fibe.
On the 23rd I bought income producing stocks
for the IECA acct, which was good timing. The market was
lower on that day, so now I'm showing a capital gain as well as
more income than we'd have had from a higher price. We
managed to get more stocks for the same amount of money.
Smoke from Quebec forest fires forced us to
close windows and begin using our air conditioners, and we also
bought an air purifier for the bedroom - I didn't like the thought
of breathing in particulates all night. Under PM 2.5 is the
particulate size to worry about; our purifier cleans down to PM
0.1 or 0.01, I forget which. The AQI (air quality index) in
Canada goes from 1 to 10+; we were at 6 and 7 for several days,
and at 10 or 10+ for one day. Lately it has been 2 and 3,
which is considered low risk.
On our anniversary, July 1st, we went to Arc's
second annual Canada Day music party in Pickering. Our
Sunday family zoom calls continue. Medical appts have been
unconcerning and tests all positive, and today we'll get another
set of orthotics. Life proceeds in a straightforward and
generally unstressful way.
May 18th. By the end of 2022 the airlines were still in a
terrible mess of cancelled flights, stranded passengers, ruined
vacations and lost luggage. We'd had five vaccinations for
covid by the end of 2022 and had experienced a fairly mild case
of it ourselves in July 2022 - in addition to one in January of
2021, I believe, that happened before they were diagnosing the
virus. That bout resulted in organ damage for me, and
triggered a rapid escalation of type 2 diabetes. We got
flu vaccine both years as well, and although covid had been
increasing in China subsequent to their lifting of lockdowns and
restrictions, we hadn't seen a spread of new and dangerous
variants yet.
We decided to take a chance, and
indulge in some "revenge travel" - a current term for the surge
in people taking flights to vacation destinations. The
first obstacle was getting Deb's passport renewed - staffing
issues and long line-ups and wait times threatened to scuttle
any plans we'd dream up, but eventually everything settled and
we were able to obtain her passport.
Then there was the question of choosing
a destination. I wanted a place where I could walk around
a lot in shirtsleeves and that had enough activities of interest
to keep me from getting bored, which happens to me on beach
vacations if I'm not scuba diving. We're both getting a
little old for scuba diving. So the museums, zoos and
botanical gardens of Mexico City seemed appealing. I'd
learned how many museums there are in the city, and that they
are relatively cheap and often free. The city is safe
compared to many other cities and to some other parts of Mexico,
the people are gracious and helpful, and the public transit
system is extensive and inexpensive.
We spent 33 days there from January 31st to
March 5th, and came home to spend a week building our large
album of trip photos and a long
diary entry.
Upon our arrival, we were confronted with a
snow storm and a driveway to shovel out, but our friends had
graciously fed our cat, shoveled a path for the mailman, and
checked on the house regularly in our absence. We attended
our music groups, which had survived our absence; Arc and Linda
kept the Wednesday evening one going. I have six going
throughout the week, including two on Jamulus with Ann Delong,
and one at the yacht club with Don, Carlos, Paul and
Martin. Deb joins me for in-person musical activities
three times a week at the community centre.
We chatted with Lily and Delio at our first
evening back, and made plans to meet on Thursday evenings to
speak Spanish socially for one hour, to melt away my frozen oral
Spanish speaking ability. We kept it up weekly with games
and conversation. I resumed my Monday evening Meet-Ups to
get more Spanish practice. Laurence and Joan came for
dinner upon their arrival home from Baja, and in April we went
to their house.
We tried to open a parallel AMSF acct at
iTrade to manage the cash infusion from Etta Snow's bequest, but
were faced with months of red tape and delay over their cautious
approach and lack of staff, who I assume were still all working
at home. Many requests that I made to move the process
along were met with "crickets" for weeks at a time.
In April Deb made her version of a quesadilla
in a pan which could be sliced and served with a spatula.
We had the Sortwells for dinner to test the dish, and it was a
success. We went for a sixth covid vaccination.
We began yard work when the snow melted away,
took the tarps off the boat and got gas for the outboard,
serviced it and started it up. We launched on the 29th,
and I got to work the registration desk. I germinated peas
and planted them. Our green onions were an early success
as always, and I seeded lettuce and radishes. We ate kale
from plants that came back on their own from the previous year's
stalks.
In May I had a very successful medical with
Dr. Nicholas, continuing my careful diet and sixteen hour daily
fast. We mowed the lawns for the first and second time,
set up the back patio and opened the umbrellas. Then it
got cold again, but some of my beans began to sprout, so I kept
them covered to fend off the risk of frost. Greg and
Christine came for Deb's quesadilla and we taught them to play
Farkle. It has been a good month so far. We tend to
lean toward "retiring in place", not moving to a nicer climate
or better surroundings. It is difficult to imagine that
we'd be better off anywhere else, in terms of climate, nearby
access to shopping and medical/dental needs, and a musical
community. Now we just have to get the boat sold, maybe
also the truck, and spend more time traveling locally, camping
and playing campfire music, or doing gazebo performances at
Rosetta McLain gardens during the warm summer days.