'The sea was beautiful that day...'

The sea was beautiful that day, my friends....

(ha ha-- isn't that a quote from Seinfeld...It's just before George tells his 'hole in one' story..with the whale.  think that's right...)--{edit here--after clarifying with my sister, & rethinking all day...we know the quote is 'The see was angry that day, my friends...' --George talking, relating the story of finding the golf ball in the whale's 'spout' and finding out, only later, it was Kramer's hole in one...'  we dwell on this stuff...

Anyway, lines from Seinfeld occur to me all the time, and it's fun to 'reapply' them.  Let's face it...the sea on Isla is always beautiful.
These are some views from Sailfish condo....I love that view.  We had to move all our stuff over there, since we're now renting Casa Colibri' a bit more, and will just keep our personal things out of there.  But then, we'll get things into the new house (which Sofi called 'the castle' and we sometimes refer to it as that...or, the shell, or...the money pit, Casa Ruinas... Casa Cascada if we can get a great waterfall or something....fun to think of possibilities as we are still searching for a name...might go with   'Las Casitas del Campo' as it has encompasses both.

Then...Sailfish...hmmm   anyone want to long term rent?   Rent with option to buy?
Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the awesome views...and just love to snorkel in the sea below..so near...it calls my name more when I'm over there.  I must work on getting the city to remove the old utility pole, which is now an eyesore, except once I saw a rare, exotic bird sitting on it last spring...must find the photo I took.  If I do, will slot in here.
 I also love going over to Garrafon de Castilla Beach club...
also, very near as you can see above. Even if I'm not in the water, enjoy watching other snorkelers.
And I could just look at that turquoise sea forever....

Permitame... ( or not....)

We gave this guy some business, and he gave us the song, 'Permitame.'
It was nice, and he also very nice--he's originally from Michoacan, but did spend 4 years in Texas, so his English is good. He is often in Playa, working his trade there, but sometimes comes to Isla also--lots of Mexican vacationers here now.

I looked up the lyrics to 'Permitame' (let me, allow me...) and I don't really care for them all that much. The words, or the insinuation of the request...well...at least he's asking, one might argue. On the ferry yesterday, there was an awesome singer who did a great job on 'Lagrimas Negras' (Black Tears).  I need to get a rendition of that--however, I also looked up those lyrics, and don't really care for them, either.   That's too bad;  I loved the melody...

More pics from this area, which I guess is called 'Playa Sol' the beach downtown, facing Puerto Juarez.

The latest little trinkets being hawked all around...actually I kind of think the little crabs are kind of cute....

Maybe they asked her, 'Permitame--can I do your hair...?  and she said  'yes!'   

 

 

She is very elegante.

Around Isla...

Just  some  photos...enjoying the scenery... this is looking west, toward Cancun, from Jax.
The beaches are crowded every day; lots of Mexican tourists.  Some international ones too.

Life is better with a golf cart. Now, both our cell phones have died, but we almost don't care.
I sat on mine at the beach, with a wet suit...it didn't recover, even after a day in a bag of rice.
oh well...we enjoyed some nice viewing at Jax, from their upper deck...really need to go there more...

This is a photo I copied & pasted from the Chatter Board.  Blackened Shrimp Sald.

 My entree.  Yum. 

This & Vivian's salads are my 2 favorites.

This is a nice statue...at the end of Rueda Medina, below Jax
but, the little girl, is all out of proportion
to the adults (her parents?)...there is another stature on the boulevard in La Gloria, near a school, with a little boy, also shown as a 'mini adult' and not a child at all.  The statues are really very nice...except for the faux pas of depicting children like that ...or maybe it was the style of the sculptor...as it was really ages ago...or maybe just intentional?

 I haven't had a real massage here yet; it's tempting. The lady here said $20/half hr, $35/hr for couples

hmmmm     so tempting.   That would make me forget about the cart, the phone, & the next thing... :-)

Golf Cart Recovered...

Well, it was a mystery with a happy ending...
Our lovely little cart was discovered abandoned (yes, due it the 'piratas' gunning it to death, it seems...) & left for dead on the road beside the Milagro Marina, just before the Marina Paraiso.

 A friend notified us of it, before the police (who were notified via another friend).

Lesson learned: do not leave your cart unlocked...we normally never do that, but probably have been too lax lately. Normally lock it & take the keys. But it was parked down the road by Playa Sol, where there was no other vehicles/carts that morning...  Whatever... it seems it was probably an easy target for juveniles ('jovenes') who probably just don't have enough to do on this island. They apparently 'hot wired' it & though they may not have known how to drive, they did their best, & it seems floored the gas & brakes at same time, at some point, causing the damage. No witnesses. They were never caught, and got away with it...I'll wish some bad karma on them in their future escapades....
So, the outcome is that we had quite an outlay of $ in repairs...generator, casing, new switch, etc.
But, at least they didn't have time, or tools, to strip it down & take stuff like tires. Hate to say, but it could've been worse... And thanks to our wonderful mechanic, Lenin, we are back on track...

So, for us, Friday the 13th bad luck happened on Tues, & it was not til Friday that we got back to normal with transportation, meanwhile, having to pay the ripoff taxi prices. I appreciate taxis when one needs them, but with their ramped up pricing, especially crossing zones...lately, I feel taken advantage of. It makes taking a taxi in Cancun a pleasure by comparison...you seem to get more for your money there, taxi-wise.  So, when we did have to go to Cancun for business on Friday, it seemed almost a pleasure to pay what they asked.
In any case, we are totally enjoying our cart again, and our freedom to get around on our own...

back to Isla.... problemas.....sorry!

remember the board game, 'Sorry' ?
I used to play it and love the excitement, & getting in & out of dilemmas....  

              
but now, that's how it feels sometimes coming back here...& really, it's not fun anymore...
sorry....your AC doesn't work.
sorry...your golf cart was stolen  (long story--maybe tomorrow....it's been an ordeal....)
Go back to start. 
sorry...you need your FM3 Visas to make an important transaction....but...oh no!....they were just given to our attorney to process the new FM3 Visas, which expire soon....which is why we came....

I wonder if one ever gets out from under.   From when we arrived, 3 days ago, we're at minus 0.
It's almost like when we first came to Isla, over 7 years ago....  sitting on the beach...waiting....
having nowhere to go because we had no transportation...
trying to figure out what to do next...trying to resolve the latest problem...etc., etc.

even when Steve got back to the house, the taxi driver asked him....
  '.....so...are you renting, or house sitting?'      (not as if there was any other category....)
I guess you can't get no respect around here.
 -------------
On the plus side... our downstairs renter, David, who is a capitan for Keen International charter boats,
has been telling us about his recent forays out to see the whale sharks.  He is sporting a 'Virgen' label T-shirt, and says the 'Virgen' company came from England, and are renting boats for many days, and doing photography, video, and have some famous actress, & maybe other famous folks, out on the half dozen boats they take out every day.  Maybe the most famous is the guy behind the Virgen label himself.  I'm getting some good gossip, and asking him to get details!!!!

Meanwhile, I saw this on a facebook posting, so I guess it's for real:

Turismo De Isla Mujeres

Sir Richard Branson, empresario multimillonario fundador de Grupo Virgin, visita Isla Mujeres con su familia y se va a nadar con el Tiburón Ballena !!! La presencia reiterada de éste líder de los negocios en Isla Mujeres está atrayendo la atención del turismo internacional hacia este destino.

See Translation

· · Share · 9 hours ago ·

Bad Blogger....c'est la vie

Sorry I've been a bad blogger...
It's on my mind that I should put something out there in the blogosphere, and I have plenty of stuff...that's not a problem.  June is coming to a close, and I feel pressured to write something...
I guess I can just rattle off all my excuses:
after 5 weeks of full team teaching/subbing, I'm exhausted & terribly disorganized.
I cannot find my camera charger, OR my cord to download photos (did I leave them at school?);
I've had to tend my poor yard and flowers, which are needing daily watering due to the drought;
  (I only water the flowers, which are doing well. It's great the lawn is dying--less work there...)
My daughter moved, and we are helping daily...(ok, we financed the house she'll be renting, for one...);
Today, I stained the wood floors, which were just sanded; tomorrow--several coats of polyurethane;
Due to my granddaughter's 'move' also, I'm her daily daycare provider....not complaining...I love it!
Wait! So, tomorrow being a Saturday, means 'double duty.'  Day care provider + floor refinisher.
wow.  It reminds me of the old days, when I really worked...like unloading 4 loads of hay, watching 2 kids, mowing the lawn, and making dinner for guests, including fresh bread.
It reminds me what John Galbraith? once said....'the only good thing about having worked on a farm is that nothing you'll ever do again really seems like work.'

Plus, the last several weekends I'm driving to & babysitting in Milwaukee for 2 other granddaughters, whose parents are doing wedding photography (June=busy season) & the other gram is out of commission;   again....Love it! Not complaining  :)        Time with granddaughters--priceless!

My brother from Arizona is here with us for the summer....Again, Love it!  Not complaining....
I wouldn't necessarily say he is 'high maintenance...in fact, he's helping with the house fixup...but, people who live in urban places are...hmm, demanding?  Not sure what, but not Midwest pace...
The irony is...he's from here too...but, living away from the Midwest too long, I guess....

Let's see...what else? My mother-in-law is planning a gigantic reunion at her one room schoolhouse...
(Her hobby...which is now also often, 'our' hobby... a museum of a slice of life she yearns for today...

   (guess what?  I'm okay with it.  Not complaining...(okay, maybe a little... it's only going to mushroom in terms of more work needed....and I don't have to worry about her reading this...she is anti-computer stuff, and calls facebook 'facemask' and won't even allow me to post things there....
(but, like her Amish friends, she'll agree to use things she finds unacceptable when it suits her needs...
For example, she'll look at 'facemask' to see her great granddaughters in Shanghai kind of like the Amish will accept rides to Walmart, though they won't drive themselves... hmm...I just saw some Amish young folks there yesterday...shopping away....It's okay though--makes them seem more normal, I guess...)

(By the way, we just took a trip to a nearby Amish general store and stocked up on staples...my brother & mother-in-law...both loving it...one seeing it is quaint, the other as catching up on local gossip...). My brother got a photo of them driving their horse & buggy (rear view--all that is allowed) as they left the country store. Maybe I can get him to send me that shot...too bad I don't have it yet...darn!

My days are filled and rarely am I setting the agenda.  C'est la vie....that's life.   It's okay.
I'm happy to be useful.  Not unlike the Amish in that way.


And now, our FM3 Visas are about to expire, and we have to renew them...which means a trip to Isla.
Darn.  Do I have to go?  I have so much to do here, I can't even blog about it or get a photo out.
I need to do something about that.

Poppies

The Poppy flower display was awesome this year.
I tried to capture it, but photos can only give a sense of the blooming spectacle of orange brilliance.

They're so elegant, and you wonder how their spindly little stems can hold up their large heads which wave in the breeze. There's also something about their paper-thin petals...seemingly unreal.
Georgia O'Keefe is from quite nearby here...Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
Her painting of a poppy flower is very famous.  I've always admired it.  Any flower is suitable to paint.

They hand out little paper poppies every Memorial Day; veterans organizations sell them; I think originally it was the veterans' widows or Ladies Aid Society which sold them to earn money for burials...not sure...need to look that up.  My mother-in-law would certainly know; I'll ask her.
Sometimes, that's just more fun than Google...

There is a little girl named Poppy at the school where I current am teaching.  Cute fit.
And lastly, I happen to love poppy seed pie...it's a Belgian/Czechoslovakian creation made north of here..where many Belgians settled. I learned to love it after often consuming too much from a bakery near my grandma's house. 
(Like Elaine on an episode from Seinfeld, I wonder if I'd pass a drug test after consuming my usual
several pieces of poppyseed pie?)  It is to die for.