I ruminate on being witty...

My last post was all about how I wish I was as witty as my other blogging friends, at least that was my conscious self speaking. But somehow my ego/unconscious decided that was not true and this blog post appeared, fully formed, in my head. At 2 Friggin 30 in the morning. And would not leave me alone until about 3:30 in the freakin' morning. GAH! But that is what happens when you are a writer in denial (I make that sound like a drug addiction, now don't I?).

I couldn't very well crawl out of bed at 2:30 AM, which on our boat entails, crawling over my dear inert snoring husband, thus ensuring him to wake up and ask me what I was doing and where was I going? Try explaining to someone who is trying to stay asleep, that not only could I not sleep, but now I want to turn the light on in the salon to write. Somehow, I don't think the hubster would have liked that very much.

Now I DO have many blogging friends that are very funny & witty. There is Jenn Lancaster ( here http://www.jennsylvania.com/jennsylvania/ ) who is so funny that she has written about 4 memoirs (Bitter is the New Black, is her 1st one) and a novel. When I read her blog, I laugh out loud, sometimes cry I am laughing so hard, and sometimes wee in my pants, I am laughing that hard. Have I ever met her? Why no, I haven't, but we have communicated by email and I feel like I know her (as does most of her fans, that's just the way she writes, it makes all of us her "girlfriends").

There is Deb Markus (here at http://www.bitternotes.com/ 1 of her blogs, all of them funny) who became my friend through homeschooling circles and because she ran the most excellent magazine "Secular Homeschooling" (and here is her latest bitter homeschooling list http://www.bitterhomeschooler.com/ about Rick Santorum, funny, very funny).

There is my friend Julie Tilsner ( here http://www.badhomecooking.com/ ) who cracks me up, because I seriously feel like her posts could have been written by someone observing me cooking. Or rather, trying to cook.

Was this a serious plea for all of my readers (all few of you!) to read my favorite other writers to prove that I sit in some pretty exalted company and that feeling intimidated by them, is understandable. (Oh, I almost forgot the person who last intimidated me with her great post on her blog, my newest friend, Molly Forbes Doolittle http://www.doolittlecruising.blogspot.com/2012/02/present-timebarra-navidad.html read this post to Ben's poem which is the best humourous poem I have read recently) Why yes, who do you ask? (and yet another writing friend is the poetess, Millicent Borges Accardi here at http://www.millicentborgesaccardi.com/ which is just more proof that if I can't be witty because of intimidation of my funny friends, I also feel intimidated by my extremely talented poet-y friend, who I grew up with. And yes, I know "poet-y" isn't really a word).

Having written all of the above as a prelude to my post about my stressful day yesterday (yes, you could be excused from the rest of your blog if you chose to read and get lost in those other blogs... wait a minute! No, you have to read the rest of what I have to say)

Yesterday, I lost my dad. Not as in "my dad passed away, isn't that sad?" but in a "geezus, how the hell did I drop my 82 yr old father off at the airport and my cousin is at the other end asking me where my dad is?" kind of way.

I took my dad to the airport, here in Pto Vallarta, and could barely get him on the plane, despite the fact that we arrive 2 hrs and 40 min. prior to departure. What kind of daughter am I, anyway? The kind that thought, "he has a puppy, how would he get on the plane with her?" and then somehow screwed that up-kind. I researched the website, and many others searching if he could travel with her in the cabin (& not in the cargo hold). By all answers, it should have been a resounding "yes"! But getting there, we were told (by a very nice but unresponsive Alicia at Volaris Air) that she could only be in the cargo hold in a hard carrier. Which we were not in the possession of. Nor were we able to follow her simple directions (walk from the airport to Comercial, its only a long block away {more like 1/2 MILE}) and I did tell her I was not going to make my 82 yr old father walk over there, only to miss his flight. She told me I had a bit more than an hour to get it done. Whereupon, my poor husband ran out to the truck, drove over to Comercial, could not find anything but dog houses, then in desperation drove to Wal-Mart (yes, against our religion but yesterday it saved the day) where there was only one size, a bit too small for her, but dammit, that was what we were going to buy. He got back with 15 min. to spare, we checked her in and my dad then needed to get to his gate.

We got some food for him, made him eat as quickly as he could (he is after all, diabetic, and needs to eat) and then got him to security check (which seems weird that I have to explain to my kids that we all used to be able to walk up to departure and keep our loved ones company until they actually were walking onto the plane, oh pre-9/11 was easy now, wasn't it?). Whereupon, all seemed to fall apart. He was standing in line (we walked as far as we could with him), and he was being directed by the TSA guy to where he should go, when a pushy couple just tried to shove him out of the way (which was funny considering he towered over them and could have pushed back & really knocked them over). I watched in dismay, as he dropped his passport, his visa and the dog's health certificate about 3 times while people shoved him around. We watched in a bit of a horror over his being made to go through the metal detector three times while he had to remove 1st his belt, then his change, and then his glasses (really, tsa guy? You are going to make an 82 yr old do all that? Don't you have any ablility to discern whether he is a terrorist by looking at him?) He couldn't hear what the TSA guy was saying and thus further delayed the people behind him, making them ruder! Now I was thinking, why didn't I just spring for another ticket and fly home with him? What else could happen to him? I watched, helpless and increasingly angry and bitter, that people don't seem to be able to help an older, deaf man and help him get through the process of security.

Then late at night (10:30 PM my time in Mexico) I get online to check on my dad and see text/emails from my cousin Yolanda's phone saying that my dad was not there on her end. Wha? Crap, I'm officially now the worst daughter ever, in my mind, because I am now convinced that A) he missed his flight or B) was sent by cab to the wrong border crossing with a lot of luggage and a puppy that jumps on everyone in sight. GAH! While that proved to be incorrect on my part (his flight was delayed and going through the border crossing on SAt. proved to be a longer ordeal than on other days during the week, which we had not accounted for), I was frantic and called back to the U.S. to find out what happened to him (which btw we in PV area are 2 or 3 hrs ahead of San Diego time and I should have taken THAT in account... I thought it was the same time back there and was apoplectic that maybe it was that late for my dad and he was somewhere without the possibility of sleeping somewhere comfortable). My cousin Yolanda is a saint, because she did get him a few min. after her last email to me asking where he was, and took him to her house to sleep and be comfortable and fed. What a great cousin I have, and I really shouldn't have stressed out over it. After all, I need to take the advice that I gave my dad that afternoon, when I said, "Why worry about it? It won't make it go away, and life is too short to worry about what we have no control over".

No control, indeed. sighing

rather than be intimidated...

OK, its true. I've been intimidated by my many, very witty, blogging friends who manage to come up with much better posts that I do. Its also true that I am a bit removed from what is happening politically in the United States, because my day is filled with talking to sailors at the Copa de Mexico, homeschooling, thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner and how will I fit in a nap or a meditation session into my day. Am I dreaming up funny poetry about people that I run into? Nope. Am I sleeping in and then recording the craziest dreams ever, that can then be made into a novel and make me millions? Again, no. Should I be scared of doing any of these things? No, not really and the next time I get a wild hair in my saddle over it, I plan on being witty and funny and gay. Instead, I thought I would post these great pix of my dad on his 82nd birthday and the silliness that ensued.

Here are the kids with their granpa
And then again, me and dad
My dad's special "headwear" courtesy of Oliver from Huanacaxtle

Like I said, silliness ensued but we sure had a good time. One only turns 82 once in a lifetime.
By the way, I'm going to miss my dad and Tricia when they go back to the U.S. this Sat. sighing...

Valentine's day with my sweeties

So my man is in Oman & missed valentine's day with us, but we still had fun. Cards were made my Miss T, she gave me earrings made of mexican bingo cards (El Borracho is one of the spaces! hee hee), and she cleaned her brother's room as a gift to him. I got them hair cuts and Granpa paid for lunch and dinner. Love my family and miss my honey!

last of the pix from Christmas

These are the last...

More Christmas eve pix

Photos of our odds and our ends (rear ends?)

This was from our first BIG potluck (all cruisers know that we are big on potlucks in this group) on Christmas eve. I took these pix even though I barely knew some of these people and NOW i know them pretty well

Rain, rain, rain?

Another day, another day frozen out of Fb. I guess this could be a good thing, in that I am now blogging more often. Today was a beautiful day in Bahia Banderas (Banderas Bay OR Bay of Flags) and going to the Sunday market was an especial pleasure. We managed to buy a cinnamon roll for my father before they were all bought up, some macadamia nut oil, which I bought because my dad's skin is very dry and scaly and well... old.

The kids got some nice treats; Leo, who loves his savory treats got two meat pasties, both kids got chocolate croissants (which did look particularly yummy) and then they split a strawberry chocolate piece of cake. We all got some lime/tangerine juice, freshly made, and I had a spinach tamale "wrap" (which the masa is thinner and there is more filling). We were able to see my dad and drop off his cinnamon roll, which I think he was very happy with, and we continued on our (very full) way.

Then, it did something that it rarely does in January; it rained. Big fat drops of warm rain that were far and few between, but it went on for about 15 min. It wasn't particularly hot or humid prior to it, but it was interesting and nice, in its own way.

Oh and the internet is just hideous right now. But then again, blogging seems to be the thing to do during this cloudy afternoon.

Added a few moments later- Oh, I guess I needed to say that our mail and engine parts caught up to us here (by our Friend Craig from "Gato Go") and our engine will be torn apart and fixed sometime soon. And that might mean some sailing will be done before John goes to Amman on Feb. 8th.