We could push it to La Paz!

Sunday at the beach.
What does that evoke for you? Sun, sand, brightly colored umbrellas? Kids yelling, waves breaking? Girls gathered ‘round the lifeguard stand?
Maybe a small plane would fly by trailing a message about Bob’s Lobster Pot, or a yacht would motor by causing some bigger waves to play in?
All of these were part of Sundays at the beach when I was a kid growing up on the New Jersey shore.
Now I live in La Paz, Baja California Sur…right on the beach. I mean my front yard is sand.
There are no lifeguards. There are families that come in their cars laden with coolers, tables, tarps and picnic tents. The kids fly kites, play soccer, and have all kinds of flotation devices. But that is later on Sunday afternoon.
In the mornings on Sunday and all day for the other six days of the week, our beach is mostly deserted. Even though my pool is beachfront I could saunter around on the terrace naked and no one would be there to see me.
Today, we returned home after breakfast with friends. I heard a noise that sounded like a light plane flying low, and looked out the sliding glass door to see a white seaplane skimming the water then landing.
Still dressed in our Sunday go to town clothes ( nothing like what we wore in New Jersey, but still more than we would wear just hanging around the pool…see naked above) Patricia and I went down to the water’s edge. Had we been wearing shorts we could have waded out to the floating plane.
It looked like they were having engine trouble and the tiny waves were enough to move the plane around.
Since we could not wade out (and we badly wanted to) we decided we had seen enough). As we walked back to the house we heard the engine splutter, then stutter, then come to life. The little white plane with yellow trim sped across the bay, making a frothy white wake, and took off.
And here are the pictures I snapped.

Gathering speed to take off, headed for La Paz

They're up and over the Bay of La Paz in El Comitan, heading for La Paz or the open sea!

Mother Daughter Pedicure La Paz Malecon Beach

Well MissMeliss came to visit. She arrived last Tuesday after completing a marathon of flights and plane and airline changes to get here from Dallas using miles.

But it has been wonderful to have her here by herself to while away the days.
We have had lazy days of sitting around the pool, reading and enjoying a margarita or two.

Tere my hairdresser, manicurist, massage therapist came and gave us pedicures. Yes my dear readers, my hairdresser comes to the house! I have installed a shampoo sink, chair and manicure stool so she can work properly and we can both be comfortable.

We had new color a hot pink called “That’s Berry Daring” an OPI color, hot and bright and oh so tropical. It was one of te many wonderful gifts Melisa brought me!
After a lovely lunch at Azul Marino in Marina Costa Baja, we sauntered down the Malecon ( like a board walk) and sat in the soft white sand.
The next day we went into town and lunched at the Cantina Mejicana also in Costa Baja, and also serving gorgeous and delicious food!
We, well MissMeliss, took lots of photos and sent them to Facebook via her iPhone, which she keeps tucked demurely in her bra. And the comments rolled in. They said things like: “Beautiful!” “You are bragging.” “Now you are really bragging!” “I want to be there.” And “I am jealous!” Her friends all over the US of A wanted to be adopted as my daughter so they could sit on the beach sipping mocha and gaze on azure waters. I am sure that “with your mother” was part of their adoption wish. I am a cool mother, as I have been told so many times.
She’s a seductress, my Melissa, she took photos of the food, the views, shells, our feet, and anything she thought would delight her friends.
Those are our feet on the Malecon beach in downtown La Paz.
My two and her one. Nice pedicure, Yes?

El Comitan Real Estate

Early afternoon on a windy, sunny Saturday in La Paz…

 We were just sitting down to a gorgeous bowl of homemade chicken soup. “It looks like something from Martha Stewart Living.” I said to my beloved. “ The white chicken, the clear broth and the gorgeous green vegetables. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.” I was raising the spoon to my mouth when there was a knock at the door.

It was Juan, the  man that had cleaned the hula skirts from our nine venerable  palms. Hula skirts are the dead palms that hang down below the green swaying fronds. They drop off at inopportune times and hit people on the head. Our hula skirts were not  near the danger zone yet, and my lunch was calling. I said  “ No gracias, proximo vez,” Which means: “I want to eat my lunch, go away!” Well it really means: “No thanks,  next time please.”

Well the tenacious guy was not leaving if he thought he could make a few pesos and buy himself some beer.

 So he pointed to our recently decapitated double palm at the end of our row of nine stately palms. This double palm was 30 years old and close to 30 feet tall. But a disease struck many palms in our neighborhood, and this one fell ill and died. Just before hurricane season we had it cut. We feared that it would fall on the house during the storm. It made us sad to see it come down.

  The stumps were about five feet tall, and our dramatic landscape lights were still illuminating the sorry site. Our regular gardener and his two sons tried to dig out the palm, but it was too big and heavy for them. He told me  he would see if he could find someone with a backhoe willing to take on the task.

So the stump stood upright from its three foot deep hole, but no longer illuminated since the dramatic landscape light was now buried in the pile from the hole.

 So back to Saturday. “How can you do this by yourself?” I asked. And Juan replied that he would use the might of his Ford pick-up and a chain. He would be back shortly with the chain. Seeing a chance to get to my lunch while it was still fresh, I agreed to his price of $500 pesos ( about $40 US).

A few hours later Juan arrived with the chain and a friend, an ax and  their determination.

They chopped at the trees roots, dug around it, hitched up the truck and started to tug. Well gravel flew and wheels spun, and the tree pulled the truck smack into its wher e it bounced off the trunk and shattered a tail light. Juan smiled and said “No importa, senora.” ( it’s not important) “Honey”, said I, “Move our car please, I don’t like the way things are shaping up.”

And so he did, thankfully.

I could regale you with more details of this misbegotten afternoon activity, but I  a made a video instead. And yes , Juan is deliberately smashing the back end of his shiny red pick up into the tree trunk.

After he was all finished, Juan said he would be back on Monday to  shorten the stumps, clean out the root ball, and turn them into planter for me. And I did not even have to ask!  Dead palm trunks make wonderful planters, the root ball area is rich ansd fertile.

 The stump is turned upside down, the wide part is the planter. they are elgant, and an example of recycling at it’s best. More ont this tomorrow.

 So here is the video proof…don’t try this at home!

I am back! For those of you, my loyal readers, and new ones too, it is true I disappeared. My blog was hacked and malware installed.

 No matter how many times we cleaned it, more malware was there.

  Finally we took the entire blog down and re-started it!

Hackers are criminals. They are malicious, nasty, selfish and immature. What they do is worse than vandalism, worse than trespassing. What they do is more like character assassination. Their actions make it look like their victim has done something wrong.

 My blog was banned from Twitter and I was sent a less than friendly message by the Twitter admin team. I did nothing wrong!

So I am back, do you like the new look of the blog?

 I do! My darling daughter did the work!

 I will be blogging about life in Mexico, and anything else in the world that catches my attention.

 Did you miss me?

 I missed you.

 So please let me know you are there, leave comments.

 I’ll answer them.

But I will not answer or approve those sent by black hat bloggers blogging for companies trying to get back links off my site.

 I am back, I hope you are too!