Whoa there...I'm still here

It's very interesting! I quit posting to the blog and people think I might be sick...must be one of those old-age things. When I was young, everyone thought if they didn't hear from me that meant the Keys' were off on some adventure and would turn up somewhere, sometime and tell everyone about it. Now, it's a question of "maybe she fell and can't get up." Note I did not include Lefty in any of the expectations of any type of communication...when is the last time he wrote or called? It's just something missing from his DNA. Anyhow, I had decided to slow down and cut my work hours...Ha! You know the saying "Be careful what you wish for?"  Well, cutting my work hours kind of worked in reverse.  I no longer work 8 hours a day...I now work over 8 hours a day. Taking that into consideration along with summer construction/repair going on around our home and community obligations to attend to along with summer social activities (let's not forget them) I have very little time. But, today, I decided to blow off the laundry that is waiting for me, and post away!  

To those of you who have known us forever, you probably remember Randi, our friend from Colorado. Back in the 70's (1972 to be precise) we picked up Randi in Colorado, hitch hiking home from a Dead concert, and she took us to her home for the night. She has remained in our lives since then in some form or another. Randi emailed saying she was going to be in Spokane to visit her new grandson and should we be in the "neighborhood," drop on by. Well, it coincided with Steve's and my four day foray into eastern WA and we were able to hook up with Randi, her ex Ron, and her daughter, Tara, and brand new baby, Danny Danger (I hope that's right.)  Some things never change and one of those is Randi. Take away a couple of health issues and you could look at her and time-travel back to 1972. Hey, Randi!

We've planned our November trip to TS. It's a short one, November 6 - 16, but so very necessary. It will keep us sane until our 2009 winter trip....hopefully!

More shall be revealed....love to all

Juanita

Lefty is coming home tomorrow. He has video of the improvements made to our humble abode. Meanwhile, I found these videos and thought some of you might enjoy them. The first is of Punta Lobos, a wonderful beach that is always pretty much this populated!

This second is of LaPastora, a surfing beach.  Neither of these beaches are good for swimming because of the undertow, but I'm soooo ok with that!

I'm back!

Wow!  I'm amazed at how many of my nearest and dearest as well as some I don't know at all have written to me asking when I would post again. Thanks! As Sally Fields said in that wonderful moment to forget "You really do like me!"  Yuk!  Anyway, as I stated in my last post, we arrived home and I was immediately swept away by the plague...no longer do I just suppose it was the plague...IT WAS THE PLAGUE! Once recovered, my ENT said I had a choice to make. Either I stayed on my steady maintenance of bi-monthly courses of antibiotics and blasts of prednisone, or I undergo sinus surgery. Hmmmm...drugs (and not the recreational drugs might I add) or pain...nice choice, huh? I opted for the latter and went under the knife in early April. I won't go into the gory details, but just let your imagination run with cleaning/clipping/scraping your sinus cavities as well as removing large growths that have been living in my face for who knows how long. For some odd reason I thought I would have the surgery and be back to work in a couple of days. NOT. Anyway, it was the right choice and you can see by the open airways I am exhibiting, it was a success. (The stuff on my neck is from the DEEP breath I've taken, not age) Not only did it open up my nose and take away the constant post-nasal drip, it has almost removed my asthma...I have had to use my Albuterol maybe twice since surgery, and we are in the middle of allergy season. Yay!

Lefty is down in Mexico without his sidekick, Juanita. He was noble enough to offer his time and energy and go down to our lovely little casita to do some maintenance work and close it up for the summer. What a guy, huh? He celebrated a mid-big birthday while down there with friends and played music at the Hotel California. It must be the Catholic upbringing that made him suffer with such dignity. Just a little jab. He had to listen to my whining on a daily basis about the weather. I must admit that he never offered the fact the weather was beautiful down there unless I asked...I on the other hand didn't see the sun until yesterday. 

We have made our flight reservations (got in before they upped the number of miles required for flights) for next year. Yahoo! It's nice to have it done, but it makes it difficult to keep one's feet in today.

Until later...

Home?

We have arrived....sort of! On Thursday night I couldn't seem to get warm no matter how many blankets I piled on, and on Friday morning I realized why...the dreaded crud was hitting. I was the infected person that crawled on the plane, and I hate that! I tried to confine myself and used lots of disinfectant. Interestingly enough, I was just finishing a book about the plague in London during the mid-1660's. I made sure I didn't leave any of my clothing onboard :-) So here I am, it's now Wednesday, and I am shot up full of prednisone to get a handle on my asthma and quite sure I have done damage to my ribs since I find it difficult to breathe and when I feel a cough coming on it's necessary to brace myself, preferably in a doorway with pillows on each side of me....now that's difficult. Do we wish we were still in MX?  YES!

We arrived home to a bunch of work being done. A new water-catchment system is being put in place...it's actually a small pond that our garage roof will drain into and the back of the garage area is being graded and dug up to hold lots of garden and plants. It's all very exciting. The front of our house has a large barren looking area that is being changed also....yahoo!

Lefty is busy preparing for a show he'll be performing at the San Juan Community Theatre with two of his compatriots....in the "BIG" room this time! This conformation of musicians is called Uncle Otto and they play sweet music that tugs at your hearts and memories with wonderful playing and harmonies. I hope everyone that lives here comes.

Meeting the land sharks, or how to face extortion with a smile.

Lefty and I were invited to a function in Cabo San Lucas on Friday. Yahoo!  A chance to meet and greet some of the natives...well actually a lot of ex-pats and tourists, but nevertheless, new faces. So we hit the open road. We found a wonderful hotel with a fantastic courtyard and pool and small rooms surrounding them...and cheap...via friends in TS. Inside the hotel entry was a restaurant...Spencer's...advertising a great breakfast for $2.50.  We go to our function, have a great time, return to our room and settle in for a long winter's nap.  In the morning, off we go to Spencer's for our breakfast deal.  Since the breakfast is so inexpensive and there is no juice or bacon included we order sides of each.  When we got our "la cuenta"  we discovered the side orders came to $14.00, coffee $5.00, bringing our inexpensive breakfast to near $25.  Lefty, being very sensitive about being taken advantage of, swallowed a lot of anger, paid the bill and let me leave a tip...he wasn't up for tipping...I figured "don't shoot the messenger.

OK, so we are going to do a little shopping on our way home and we started our return trip early. We leave the hotel, take a right and then a left and find we are on a one-way street, going the wrong way.  Fortunately there is no one around other than a car a block away who is already doing some "gesturing" and yelling...in Spanish no less!...to let us know we have made a big boo-boo.  We immediately corrected our error and are now facing the correct direction on the correct calle, when from behind we see a white truck coming speeding up behind us and flashing lights. We're pretty sure there is an accident ahead and the truck is headed to it and sowe  pull over...and so did the truck. From the truck comes....Barney Fife! He's all smiles and very polite, asking for Steve's driver's license. He tells us we have made a grave mistake and the fine is going to be $50 AND he wants to keep Steve's license. Somehow Lefty gets his license out of the fellow's grip and tells him he cannot keep his license. Barney wants to take us to the police station...something we do not want to do. At this point Barney's compatriot...you got it...Gomer Pyle, comes to join in on the negotiations. Somewhere along the long the line we managed to convince them we were just ignorant yanquis and could we pay them a fine...and not $50...that they could take back to the police station for us and allow us to go on our way. Apparently that was more then acceptable since they lowered their cost of the fine to $20 and sent us on our way. Later, we were telling our tale to a friend. He pointed out in the states we would have paid a larger fine and would have had to go to court...obviously he doesn't know about being a young woman and crying...that can take care of any ticket for free! :-)

All of you islanders, BooBoo and Julia have arrived! BooBoo is driving a very large Suburban which causes lots of chuckles since she hasn't found a comfort level with this vehicle...backing up, turning...those sorts of things.

Well, we are down to a week left.  I have discovered a formula:

One week to travel

One week to come down from the drive

One week to get things done to achieve your comfort level in your surroundings

One week to slide into really not having to worry about anything

The rest of your time to truly become what you came here for.

So, we didn't have enough time....I'm ready for retirement!

Let me introduce to my fine new friend...

We have a new member in our family....and this has nothing to do with miracle births! Larry/Laura the Lizard has shown up in our sink and I can tell you we are very happy to have him/her as a new addition to our household.  I think L/L may have had some trauma in his/her life because he/she keeps making the same mistake....falling into our sink when we're away and he/she can't get out.  I thought lizards were able to climb into and onto anything, but L/L has a problem with porcelain and needs assistance.  

It has been an absolutely stupendous day (this was written yesterday, 3/6, but I left my camera at someone's house and had to wait until today to post) and we are enjoying it to the hilt!  It's amazing how quick one can adapt to this tropical lifestyle. Steve is doing a good job. At home he says "I can't sit down or I'll fall asleep." Here he just sits down, falls asleep and wakes up with a smile. I recommend this to everyone. The downside is it gets cold at night! Now I realize 58-60 is not exactly freezing....but when it's been 80 during the day....it's all relative, if you know what I mean. 

Day tripping

Yesterday Lefty and I decided to take a little trip to the outskirts of LaPaz...actually, our friend Trudi (the person we bought our house from) gave us directions on getting to a furniture store that held the possibility of our getting a matching loveseat to the sofa we already have (formerly Trudi's sofa...terribly convoluted, eh?) Anyway, I thought you might be interested in seeing our driving form...don't we look relaxed? :-)

You know what they say about the desert? It always gets cold at night. And exactly why don't I remember that? I believe someone told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over-and-over and expecting different results...which is why I don't have my warm pjs with me and Lefty resorts to wearing his stocking hat to bed. Next time we bring flannels...just like in the Christmas story, "Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap..."

In addition to the fancy iPhone we have that now works perfectly, thank you very much...and is there a "conspiracy theory" thing that goes along with that but I won't publish it here for fear homeland security will come and get me....we have a Mexican cell phone for calling people locally. It's a cute little thing that keeps giving me messages I can't understand...it all could be tied into the "conspiracy theory" thing, but I won't go there. Anyway, it currently is sending me a message about 19 something or other and since it's in written form, I can sit down with my Spanish dictionary and figure this out. Should I end up in a jail somewhere here, or Guantanamo there, take care of my my loved ones! :-)