Shipwrecked iPhone! What a better way to show off my new baby then among some old Baja bottles and local shells

“Does it have an off-switch?” asked my friend Julie Sheehan. “Not that I have ever seen.” I replied.

We were having our weekly tete-a-tete over cappuccinos-extra hot, no milk, foam only and a  mini-muffin split between us.

“And” I said, “they can never be more than a finger length away.”

We were looking at Gari-Ellen’s iPhone. She was paying for the coffee and did not hear us. We sounded like two primitives seeing a Coke bottle in our jungle for the first time. You know, like the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Anyway, I had been thinking about taking the plunge to switch over to an iPhone. They look like a lot of fun and I hankered for one. Coming from Silicon Valley where new technology and gadgets are as important as a new pair of shoes, and having techi-geeks for kids and grandkids, I felt woefully behind the times without an iPhone.

That week my Flip Camera died, and the next day my digital recorder gave up the ghost. To replace the two single-function gadgets would be half the cost of an iPhone, and I would need a still camera and a phone. That’s a lot of junk to schlep around.

As an investigative reporter and a real estate agent, I need to travel light.

So I did it, I went to Telcel and bought a new iPhone. Well I had earned  a lot of points and did not pay full price. And they put the difference on my monthly contract. I am paying a little more monthly, but what an amazing tool/toy!

And in the last three weeks it has become indispensible.

Last Tuesday evening I was going over a purchase offer with my sellers. We wrote a counter –offer, but my scanner was being uncooperative, we needed to respond quickly since the buyers were getting on a plane to Seattle in the morning. So I took a photo of the contract then attached it to an email using my iPhone for all functions, sent it on to the buyer’s agent.

And like every other convert to the church of Apple, I say to all that will listen: “I don’t know how I ever lived without it.”

I can keep my documents in the Cloud, and us Air Print. It’s a camera, a calendar, it has a GPS and it’s an iPod.

I have downloaded apps to make it a flashlight, which I used to read the purchase offer on the way back to my clients home ( my beloved was driving), oh and I love the mirror app, since I have to  use eye drops every hour which often make my eyes tear,  I can quickly check to see if I have Tammie-Fay eyes.

And now they want me to turn it OFF! There is a movement afoot in Mexico asking everyone in the nation to turn off their cell phones for two days. We are occupying cell phone companies-virtually-in an effort to bring our pricing on a par with the US.

I just don’t know if I can do it…can you?

First there were nine, then there were seven

There were nine stately palms that formed a dramatic backdrop to my house. They stood century over the  bare lot for  near to  30 years. When we  finished  the construction of our home we turned our eyes to the landscaping.

The palms had been painted once a long time ago and the trunks were discolored. So we painted them white from the ground up  about 45 inches.

They looked fresh and crisp and  old-timey tropical resort-like. A few weeks later we had a hurricane that blasted away the white paint! Not to be deterred, we  asked our gardener to paint them again. And they stayed nice and white for a few years. When they started to fade again, we  decided to wait till after Hurricane season.

Well we had no hurricanes, and the season had safely passed and our maid wanted extra work. She is a single mother supporting her 5 year-old son and her grandfather who raised her. She  is about to complete her teaching degree. We want to support her efforts any way we can and she said she likes to paint.

So the trees are crisp and white, but their numbers are only 7.

Our most dramatic  two trees are really a double trunk both rising some 20 plus feet and both slightly slanted like  the perfect tropical trees you see in travel posters.

A palm blight  hit our neighborhood, and the magnificent double palm died.

Fearing that it would come down on our house or the neighbor’s we asked our gardener to take them down. He hired someone to cut them down to  about the top edge of the white paint.

Then he and his son hacked, and chopped and dug at the roots and  only exhausted themselves, they could not budge the critters.

So he found two guys with a pick-up and more nerves than brains and more cerveza in their veins than blood. They assessed the situation, and went off to find a chain.

After hacking, chopping, digging, and then yanking the palms with the chain and the truck, they actually in a fit of frustration smashed their truck into the palm to dislodge it. And they broke their tail light!

So here is the video:

Like the day JFK was shot forty-eight years ago, September 11, 2001 is a day everyone will remember, they will remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when the news came of the first attacks at the Twin Towers in New York.

I was in La Paz, we had just returned from a trip to California.

I was watching CNN, the black ugly smoke was pouring out of Tower 1. And across the screen rolled the words that Secretary of transportation, Norm Minetta had closed all US borders and airspace. It was like an iron curtain had dropped and I was cut off from my country, my homeland, my family and friends.

I had plans to go segunda shopping for patio furniture with a Mexican friend. She understood completely when I told her I was too sad to leave the house. And to go shopping seemed frivolous in the face of what had happened in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA.

And I was afraid to go to town. Mexico’s fate is so closely tied to what happens in the US, I was sure the locals would tell me to go home and take my terrorism with me.

Just the opposite occurred.

My beloved works for a Mexican government agency. His colleagues were surprised that he went to work that day. They stopped in at his office, they sent emails, and they called, all offering their condolences. He did come home early, we were both too sad, and too scared to do much but watch the horror replay and replay.

We were building a swimming pool, and I had developed camaraderie with the workers and would ask them every day if that was the day I could swim. They would laugh and say “No, senora, maybe tomorrow.”

Our architect, their, boss drove out to the house to offer his condolences. I saw him talking to the men. Then a knock came, they were all lined up at my door and one by one they shook my hand, and said “So sorry, we are sorry.” They wanted to know if I had family that could have been hurt. I told them I had family and friends that could well have been at the Trade Center and I would not know for sure for many days if anyone I knew and loved was hurt.

In fact smoke and soot and debris rained down on my home town Atlantic Highlands, NJ, just a few miles by sea to New York City.

In the days and weeks that followed, everywhere I went, Mexicans would stop me and other Gringos on the street and take our hands and say “So sorry, we are so sorry.” My friend , the one I cancelled the shopping day with said there were no Gringos in town for a few days, it felt odd to her, but she understood how frightened and saddened we all were.

Ten years later we honored the dead, and the heroes of flight 93. They took a vote on the plane that was certainly going to be their death trap. They voted to take the plane down and not allow it to hit another target. Ten years later bagpipes wailed in New York and Pennsylvania recalling how many rescuers died.

Ten years later, we feel it like it happened yesterday.

May something like this never happen again…anywhere.

One of the joys of living in a semi-rural beachfront house is the things that wash up on the beach, land in your pool or fly in for a visit.

I was interviewing a developer today when Coco-Nut Ibrahim Garcia, my darling Chihuahua started barking, growling and pawing at the patio door.
I looked out and saw this small white Ibis checking out my pool.

I let Coco-Nut out so he could see that the small bird was no threat. It took a while for the bird to register the noise Coco-Nut was making.
He lifted his wings and went over to our fence. And there he stayed so I could snap a few closeups.

A few minutes later he was back at the pool,. Intent on capturing prey, I thought he was going to fall in. These are shore birds, and are usually at the water’s edge.

Another day a few months back this funny little shoe-shaped boat washed up.
There it sat for a few days. I asked one of our workers to take it away. I could see it getting filled with garbage by beachgoers.

And on a Sunday last year a seaplane came whizzing by, made a pass over our house and then made a splash landing. The occupants hopped out and fiddled with the plane for awhile then started the motor which sputtered a time or two, finally caught and off they went.

Oh and look at these cuties that showed up around lunch time last winter!

And one day while walking along Pelican Point I saw this gorgeous, burgundy sea star. Since it was dead I took it home. Those are my recently pedicured feet

Ingredients for perfect Sangria: cheap red wine, carbonation, fruit, and you

So what’s the climate like in La Paz? Well most of the year it is wonderful, a place where outdoor living is an art form.
And drinking icy-cold umbrella drinks is expected.

But my beloved likes to say we have five seasons here in Southern Baja:

• Fall
• Winter
• Spring
• Summer
• Summer Hell

And what is Summer Hell you ask? It has nothing to do with burly guys and equally as burly girls on motorcycles. It is that time at the end of summer that you northerners might call the Dog Days, but worse.

From the middle of August through September the sun is broiling, the air is thick and steamy and there is nothing to do but escape into delightful, air conditioning. The air doesn’t move, and you wish you didn’t have to either.
This is the time when just hanging in the pool with a big sombrero and an icy glass of Sangria is about as much activity as one can and should muster.

Hang in the pool wearing a big sombrero and holding an icy-cold glass of Sangria

This is the time of year when even the most casual acquaintance that lives in town and doesn’t have a pool becomes my best friend!

I am a gregarious person. And I have a gorgeous beachfront home with a pool. I love to pamper my friends. And it is a lot more fun to enjoy the pool with other people around. So tomorrow I am having the first of my summer “Salad Days at Susan’s Pool” parties. I invited 7 other women to bring a salad and come for a swim.

I am making sangria. And here is the recipe:

Wine:
– I used two bottles of a Santa Silva blend of Shiraz and Cabernet $90.00 (pesos each)
Other alcohol:
– I used 2 jiggers of Controy, this can be skipped or you can use gin, rum or Triple Sec
Carbonation:
– I used Fresca; you can use anything from plain mineral water to any flavor carbonated water or citrus soda.
Fruit:
– 2 limes
– 2 oranges
– 1 grapefruit,
– Fresh or frozen strawberries (I use frozen so they act as ice cubes and do not dilute the brew. I am not a scientific cook; I splash, dash, and dump ingredients. So use as many strawberries as fit in the pitcher or look good to you.)
– ½ pineapple (Pina Miel) or you can use canned pineapple chunks and the juice.
– 2 tablespoons of sugar or a dash of simple syrup. (See simple syrup recipe below.)

Get a big pitcher that can hold two bottles of wine. Pour in the wine. (Or use two smaller pitchers and put half the ingredients in each.)

Squeeze the juice of the two limes, two oranges and one grapefruit into the wine. Remove the seeds first! Then dump the squeezed fruit in the pitcher.

Cover the pitcher and refrigerate.

Just prior to serving add the carbonation. This is where the fun begins, add the flavored carbonation to suit your taste.

Warning:
Taste with a spoon, don’t get sloshed while preparing the sangria. Otherwise you may be a bit wobbly on your pretty flowered flip-flops with a tiny heel and drop the pitcher in the pool.

Add the frozen strawberries. Remember they act as ice cubes so let them plop into the glass as you pour.

Garnish the glasses with a lime or orange slice or even a paper umbrella.

Enjoy!

Simple syrup:
1 cup of sugar and one cup of water, boil till sugar dissolves. Let cool.
Sweeten the sangria to taste.

This is where I soak in milk and honey.

Beauty may only be skin deep.

But when you have dry, itchy, and sensitive skin, it is hard to feel beautiful! And to me, new cures for dry skin sound like a siren song.

I read on the Internet that honey was curative, restorative, and soothing and a good sunburn treatment. And everything you read on the Internet is true, right?

Standing naked in my bathroom, arms outstretched, and drenched in honey, I wondered just how I was going to get through the day. I was so sticky! I could not put on clothes. If I put my arms down, they would be glued to my side. And ditto for slipping on flip-flops. Well, I couldn’t actually put on flip-flops because my feet and the bathmat were quickly becoming a bonded pair.

So how did this honey-dipped Susan come about? Here is the true tale.

Living on the beach in La Paz, Baja California Sur, has its joys, but the dry, dry climate and searing sun make it hard for me to keep cool and my skin soft and supple, not itchy and dehydrated. Added to my daily woes of dry, itchy skin, I had a sunburn that left me looking and feeling like a seared steak.

A few weeks ago on our anniversary, my beloved and I spent the day at La Concha Beach Resort in La Paz. It is an old hotel with a white sand beach lined with palapas. After a lovely, leisurely breakfast, we staked out a palapa and some lounge chairs in the sun. It was a cool, breezy day; the sun felt good. I was enjoying a book on my Kindle when I fell into a heavy, succulent sleep. Sometime later, kids, playing and screeching, woke me.

I felt hot and a little drugged by my slumber, but felt no warning tingle of sunburn.

After a dip in the clear, shallow, warm water, I retired to the shade of the palapa. Our friendly waiter, Francisco, came over with an icy-cold limonada, a wonderfully sweet and tart summer drink with no alcohol.

Limonada photo from laylita.com/recipes2008

My skin was sizzling hot and hypersensitive. Every nerve ending seemed super-charged with electricity. I took off my sunglasses, and saw the red-hot skin of a cooked pierce of meat. It was awful. I hurt; I was shivering. My skin was hot. Every inch of me was toasted. I had been wearing a wide-brimmed hat, so my chin was burned, but the rest of my face was saved. We had taken our little Chihuahua, Coco-Nut for a walk on the beach and my back was crispy as well.
Sleeping that night was torture, every move, every wisp of a breeze, anything and everything caused searing pain. I thought I was going to die. I wished I had died.

The next morning I did some research and decided on the Honey Cure.
What a mess.

You are wondering right now how I solved my dilemma.

I filled the tub with tepid water, added some milk and lowered my sticky self in the tub. The honey became bath oil; it did soothe my skin and it helped relieve the itch and reduce some of the peeling. For the next few days, I mixed honey, milk, and finely ground oatmeal into my bath water and pretended to be Cleopatra. I also cut leaves of aloe vera plants and rubbed them all over me.

Twenty days later, my skin is finally healing, and I am still using milk and honey in my bath, and mixing honey and aloe as a lotion. I wear thin gloves as I type to keep the honey-aloe mixture from dripping on my keyboard.
A little sun block SPF-50 would have saved me from this misery. I cannot begin to explain why I did not use it that day. So I have shut the figurative “barn door”, and will slather on the sun block every day.

These were the words of frinds and family when we sold our house, had the mother of garage sales and left for points south of the border.
Befroe we left San Jose, Ca in 2000, there had been, in our upscale, vintage neighborhood, two murders. There were break ins and car thefts. There were also community picnics, and the annual San Jose Mercury News 10K run came down our street.
It was a wonderful place to lice with frinedly neighbors, cafes, and restaurants.
No one warned us about living in a dangerous place.

Yes, there is drug violence in Mexico. And most of it is fighting among the cartels, much like the Prohibition days of the 1920s.
If you are a tourist in any city in the world there are seedy places that you are warned to steer clear of.
Back in the 90’s , before they were married, my son-in-law came from South Dakota to meet my daughter. They went together to San Francisco. He was mugged.
No one at the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office put out a warning to it’s citizens not to go to San Francisco.
18 million Americans traveled to Mexico last year. did you hear about anything bad happening to them?

Where is the proof of all of this supposed crime, that cause sthe US Department of State to waen people away from an entire country. A country that welocmes tourists and has the most beautiful beaches in the world?
Where is the proof that you will be, shot or kidnapped while soaking up the sun on a white sand beach?
Watch this video and look at a map, and see where the drug related crime is and where you will most likley be visiting.

Valentine’s Day, or as we say it in La Paz; Dia de Amor.
When my kids were young (pre-teen through high school) I always purchased cupcakes for every season. I would put them under a cheese dome in the center of the table, and there they would sit until dinner time.

Of course there were other treats throughout the day, but the cupcakes, well they were the ultimate treat!
One year Bubbie, (Yiddish for Gramma), my sweet, late mother-in-law was staying the weekend. At dinner she was the first to choose a cupcake. She turned the plate, removed the dome, and looked for the cupcake with the most icing! She who eschewed treats and sugar and used to follow me around reading excerpts from Prevention Magazine about the evils of coffee, had to have the most of the sugary icing dyed red with red dye #1!

Well here I am in Mexico, and missing out on the usual exchange of Valentine’s in the mail, and treats at the office and a dinner out.

Since my birthday is also in February, on the 21st, my beloved and I usually visited Calistoga in the Napa Valley for a weekend of mud baths, massages and good food. This was after the kids had flown the coop.
We would do this or visit Carmel, or do both each on a separate weekend in February.
The gardens and garden shops in both Carmel and Calistoga would be bursting with Spring blooms. And hanging planters and wine barrels all dripping in color.

And the curb strip in front of my San Jose home would be blooming with 1,000 daffodils.
And just to make sure I had enough daffodils, I also planted bulbs in front of my neighbor’s house.
How I miss Spring flowers.

The other day I was in Chedraui, the main grocery store in La Paz and right before my eyes was a display of the loveliest potted tulips. I did not hesitate; I grabbed two pots of these luscious blooms. One pot for my office and one for the dining room table.
And here they are:

And when my beloved came home for lunch is said “Oh sweet darling thank you for the tulips!”
And he said “ So I don’t have to go to town and buy you one of those readymade flower arrangements they sell on the corners?” “I am disappointed.”

Don’t believe him for a minute, he was relieved.
And so to chase the” I am not in California anymore blues”, I decorate my house for every season.
And tomorrow I’ll show you what I did for Valentine’s Day.
Feliz Dia de Amor!

And in my mind, February belongs to me!

What a month, two presidents and George Harrison all had birthdays in February. And of course Valentine’s Day! I was born in Valley Forge in the middle of a blizzard! And yes I have heard all of the George Washington; hard winter at Valley Forge jokes! In fact my mother wanted to name me Martha or Georgette. But, my OLDER sister, Delia said that the new baby was so pretty that she should be named Susie after her Susie doll. Thank YOU, Delia, neither one of those other names fit me at all!

And yes I am so pretty too. Here I am with my beloved.

My dear friend, Kass is coming to help me celebrate this year. I have not seen her in about three years. She is a friend whose bond was forged as we stood tot-to-toe with the anti-choice bullies that thought they would close down the abortion clinics in the Bay Area. She is a warrior, and a writer, a photographer and my friend! Look out whale sharks here we come!

Kass do you still have your BACORR scarf? For those of you that weren’t there BACORR stands for Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights. How about you Lenay? BACORR was a big part of our lives back in the 90’s, and while we battled for control of the clinic door and won most of the time, life-long friendships were forged.
We changed the law in San Jose, and changed the behavior of the police.
And now we shall kayak, soak up sun and enjoy some icy Margaritas.
Here is a scarf that we all wore, proudly.

My daughter, Melissa has cooked up a surprise for me, she and Kass are in on it, I have no idea what she is doing.
In the past there were two surprise parties, and for my 50th a black-tie bash at the Hotel St. Claire in San Jose, CA.
I still have the wonderful memory boards with photos and captions that she and my sister, Delia made for that occasion.

I am back to blogging. I thought I would tell you all about my favorite Christmas ornaments. Well events transpired that kept me from writing and almost obliterated our Christmas. But, we are OK, and I am back to blogging.

The gray, cold, weather that came down from El Norte is gone. And our beautiful sunshine is back.
We have a new doggie, a tiny, tiny Chihuahua named Coco, and the HoneyMoon Hut is booked solid.

I am starting a juice fast tomorrow to cleanse my body and soul.
So stay tuned in, I’ll have lots of things to say about a lot of things!

Happy Halloween to those that celebrate it!

1. While the cat’s away the geckos take over!

2. Having a break between big sewing projects fabuloso!

3. Children are grown, married and in a different country.
4. A dip in the pool, naked when I get home from work or shopping or what have you.

5. This may seem odd, but Tequila really does have medicinal qualities.

6. The work week is over and that seems like a fine idea to me!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to watching some US television with my beloved, having chocolate, tomorrow my plans include private drinks and tapas at Casa Coctel on the hill overlooking the Gulf of California with another couple, and listening to jazz and Sunday, I want to enjoy breakfast out with friends at La Marmolera!