Turtle in our garden

Turtle treat

This box turtle has lived in our garden for nearly twenty years. He emerges only in the rainy season. This morning, he graced us with an appearance.

Patty’s Birthday

Once a month, Remixto and MexicaChica put on a decorous brunch at Roger Lynn’s gracious Casa Mexilio, one of the oldest privately owned hotels in Merida. The courtyard here is especially lovely and I enjoyed leaves falling into my food. (No, really, I did.) There were six of us at our table to celebrate Patty B’s birthday, and other tables were grouped under trees and among flowering plants. The food was first-rate and presented beautifully. I would have taken more pictures of it, but it was hard to hold back. Remixto and MexicaChica are the two new companies that put on that dynamite cooking class I took a couple of months ago.

Lechon Benedict - an inspired idea

Another Car Crash on Our Corner

Today I was sitting at my computer all the way in back of the house, when I heard the unfortunately familiar sound – the screech of brakes, and then the impact. This happens regularly on our corner despite the traffic light (downtown, Calle 58 and Calle 51). I am am always impressed with how rapidly the emergency teams respond and how efficient they are.

Today it was a pickup truck and a car. It was hard to tell who had run the light. One man, who had been sitting in the back of the pickup on a propane tank, was injured. The paramedics came within a few minutes, followed by an ambulance. They removed him immediately, put him on a stretcher into the ambulance, and were off to the hospital. Then the bomberos, the fire department, responded because of the propane tank. After careful examination, they decided it was intact and safe. There were lots of police cars and other unidentified officials. Several newspapers were there. Here are some pics.

A few minutes after impact

Injured man on stretcher

Paramedic

Examining the propane tank in the truck

Bombero

Fire truck

Photo of the day

All together, there were eight marked municipal police cars, one small police truck, an ambulance, two paramedic motor bikes, two fire trucks, and about 50 personnel.

Madrugada is set in Merida and a fictional village called Yaxum. Superficially, it’s about the theft of artifacts from an archaeological site, and associated greed and murder. The sub-theme is the impact of the modern world on small Maya pueblos in the Yucatan.

In the story, there is an archaeological site at Yaxum that is being worked by an American team. It’s a tale of corruption, pride, overcoming personal obstacles, and friendship. As in anything I write, the book takes a strong look at the dark side of human nature. The main characters are an American woman investigator from New York, the Merida Police chief, and the head man of the village of Yaxum. Right now, I’m editing this book once again.

We have a writer’s group in Merida, and they were helpful to me in writing my other book, 2012: Deadly Awakening. Now I am going over chapters of Madrugada with them. They have excellent insights. I enjoy this informal group that meets weekly in people’s living rooms.

Deadly Awakening features the same investigator and police chief as in Madrugada. They are wonderfully flawed people who are in Merida close to the “end of days,” which many predict will occur on 12/21/2012, the end of the Maya long-count calendar (a period of over 5,000 years). In Deadly Awakening, there is a truly awful murder scene, which makes international news. There are thousands of spiritual tourists in Merida for the end-of-days, and a number of groups have bizarre, charismatic leaders who don’t see eye to eye.

Right now, 2012: Deadly Awakening is available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon as an eBook. I am in the process of putting it into print, a long, arduous process. I just went over printed proofs of the book and read it through. Even I was amused. There are photos in both the eBook and the upcoming print edition.

As I nudge Deadly Awakening through the print process, I am preparing Madrugada for eBook publication. A third book with the same characters, Rotten Fruit, is in the works. A lot of the action in Rotten Fruit takes place, where else, in Oxcutzcab (the citrus center of Yucatan). The dregs of the Las Vegas mafia is involved.

We continue to get the most unbeleivably rude calls from Sky’s collection agency. This occurs in cycles, and when we eventually clear it up, they apologize and go away. But a few months later, they are back, even ruder than before.

The other night a woman called asking for Jim. I asked who was calling and she said, “You know who this is. Put him on the phone.” I took a hard look at the receiver, not sure it was operating correctly, and said no. She said, “You have to put him on the phone.” I hung up.

The creepy stalker lady called over and over and over again. I told her to stop calling and she said, “I’ll never stop calling you.” A Spanish-speaking friend of ours who was at the house told her to go to hell. Then I took the phone off the hook.

The cycle before this, the bill collector threatened to come to the house to collect. I encouraged him to do so, and said he would meet the police here.

This outrageous stuff is especially amazing in a country that is generally so polite. There is no attempt to actually find out what the problem is, or ask whether it has been taken care of. Just an onslaught of insults and threats. I can’t believe this method is ever successful with anyone.

Even if we had problems with Cablemas, which we don’t, there is no way we would ever again deal with Sky under any circumstances. Sky should realize that this kind of bad behavior reflects on them and affects their image.

In all fairness, the Sky company representative who came to collect the box was totally professional and apologetic, but as he explained, they farm out the collection jobs to other companies. He promised that it wouldn’t happen again, but we have gone through several more cycles now.

We recently bought an answering machine. Remember those? A great invention.

I love that word, underbelly. It sounds like a vast, hidden anatomical expanse of a tremendous person or animal.  A place that is seldom seen. Secret and shameful. And figuratively speaking, that’s exactly what it is.

Cities, families, governments, people, churches, clubs, companies, political organizations – they all have underbellies, or dark sides.  The thoughts and behaviors roiling around under cover greatly affect the superficial surface. It can be fascinating and often confusing to study what lurks beneath.

Much has been documented showing that the more rigid, strict, and rule-bound a person or organization is, the more pronounced the underbelly. No point in belaboring the case of the Catholic church, but there’s an example. Mystical, secretive, bound in dogma, unquestioned and until  recently, inviolate. A perfect nurturing ground for the dark side.

Police departments. They’re there to protect and serve, to enforce the rules. Yet some officers and administrators are egregious criminals who undermine their own stated goals.

The Masons, the Knights Templar, the American Red Cross….

In Seattle last year, the popular hell-fire pastor of a huge four-square church was found to be having an affair with a male prostitute. (His wife stood by her man.)

My friend Alan, a mental health therapist in Salt Lake City has hair-raising stories about his observant Mormon clients.

So often  when some cad is arrested for an outrageous homicide, the neighbors say,  “I can’t believe it. He seemed like such a nice guy.”

My friend Jane the call girl (see her posts on my site) tells me that wealthy, authoritarian, upstanding executives often like to dress in baby clothes and be spanked.

Your wide-eyed mayor in your home town kisses your baby and takes huge bribes which will allow buildings to collapse.

Goldman Sachs.  A company that cultivated a proper, conservative image and knowingly pulled illegal maneuvers that cost millions of people their homes and jobs.

The only surprising thing about any of this is that we are surprised by it. But we see moral dualities all around us all the time.

You Don’t Have to Look Too Far

We’ve been tossing around the idea lately on this site, that Merida has an underbelly. Criminal, sexual, moral, financial, whatever you can think of. Merida is a Catholic city in a Catholic country and of course there are huge dualities. Don’t be horrified. It’s the same in any other city.

Check out the Merida zocalo. In the daytime, it’s a place for families. Children run around eating colorful junk food their parents buy from the numerous vendors. The kids play on the structures and with each other – it’s a huge, innocent playground.

Around 7 p.m. things start to change. The families beat a hasty retreat, as they see the night people taking over the benches and walkways. Young boys approach older men, strike deals, and slither off together. People exchange small envelopes for money. Pimps and shills whisper at passers-by and thieves cautiously display their wares. (Good place to buy a watch.)

Take a close look at historically restored Pioneer Square in Seattle. By day it’s full of cheerful tourist families but after nine p.m. it’s dangerous. Every kind of opportunistic crime you can imagine happens here. Every variety of predator comes out in Pioneer Square after dark. People inflict inexplicable physical cruelties on the homeless, for no apparent reason. They rob and rough up tourists and locals.

How about Boston? San Francisco? Other charming American cities?

The Dark Side in All of Us

Heaven and hell. Devil and angel. Good and evil. We all work like crazy to balance them, all of our lives. But mostly, we’re in denial about this tremendous duality. Why is it our tendency to see only the “cup half full?” And why is that considered a good thing? No matter how we look at things, bad stuff happens anyway. It seems that we would be better served to look at the cup for what it is – partly empty and partly full. Both.

How can we address dualities in ourselves? How can we face our dark sides? I guess the first step is to acknowledge that we have them. Then we can face them squarely, analyze them, and decide whether they make us or other people miserable or not. It’s a starting point. And we might even be able to prevent some horrible things from happening. Being realistic isn’t a bad thing. If we decide our dark sides warrant it, we need to get professional help before we hurt somebody.

The more tightly we hold things in, the more likely we are to explode or act in ways we don’t want to, ways that are out of our control. Or just be unbearably judgmental of other people. Sort of like some countries. And religions. Much of religious practice is based on the assumption that the world is evil but we can be saved if we follow the (impossible) rules.

Do some people pick up and move to foreign countries in an effort to leave behind the things they don’t like about themselves and build new lives as good guys? Or do they move because they’ve always fought their dark sides and are compelled to express them, but they don’t want to do this where everyone knows them. Hmmmm….

Examples

Some people are open about elements of their underbellies.

Remember how Bette Midler used to be before she got all married and motherly and proper? Or Madonna? Or Chris Rock? Margaret Cho? They all lost their naughtiness. What a shame.

These people told it all. They extolled their dark sides, they flaunted them, they sold them. You could pretty much bet that what you saw was what you got. That they couldn’t have been much worse than they themselves were saying they were, so it was all out in the open. Exposing their underbellies and laughing at them was a relief to all of us who listened to them. Hey, we could say. Maybe I’m not so bad after all.

They say good comedians operate out of pain. Real fat guys talking about how gross they are. Women with unattractive features talking about how it feels to be ugly. They are making a living at NOT pretending that everything is okay. I admire that.

On a positive note (oh my god – she’s going to say something cheerful), I think there are people who do not have significant underbellies. Some of you might remember Jeannine, from Belgium who lived in Merida and died a few years ago. Then, there is Jimmy Carter.

But for most of us, it’s an uphill battle.

Looking Up

I know several people who don’t seem to have much of a dark side, but I won’t embarrass them. And there are millions throughout the world who we never hear of because they have no ambition to be known. People who know their flaws and do their best to channel them positively, or give in to them in ways that don’t hurt other people. People who walk through life making the world a better place, quietly.  I think of them as people of light.

Here’s someone I’d like to meet.

Global Guru Amma

The Hugging Saint Mother!

By Subhamoy Das, About.com Guide

The Hindu spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, lovingly called ‘Amma’, and known globally as India’s “hugging saint mother “, Ms “Amritanandamayi”, which literally means “Mother of Absolute Bliss”, was born to a low caste Hindu family in a poor fishing village in Parayakadavu, Kollam, in the southern Indian coastal state of Kerala. Amma began hugging devotees at an early age, and is said to have hugged at least 21 million people over the past three decades. In the 1980s, Amma founded her ashram to receive followers and offer them her healing hugs. There have been times when she has hugged over 20,000 devotees in a row over 20 hours at a stretch. Devotees find it blissful and soul-soothing, and Amma says her hug is her character and “karma to console those who are sad.”

There are no charges for Amma’s hugs.

Here are some photos and a bit of commentary about my last couple of weeks in Seattle. I’m back in Merida now. Whew!

Family

My sister Leila has an electric car. It’s a Xebra, made by a company called Zapworld.  Unfortunately, it is rarely in operating order, so she’s thinking of selling it. It would be fabulous if only it worked. It’s cute and running it is free. No gasoline! She plugs it into a 110v outlet for an hour or two, and then it will go about 30 miles at speeds up to 35 mph. Well, she says she may not sell it after all because it’s so much fun to drive. It needs a new charger.

My niece Celia, who goes to a nice suburban high school just outside Seattle, says that a whopping 95 percent of the kids in the school drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, pretty much on a daily basis. Most kids are high while  in school. I think it takes a lot of grit and determination to maintain yourself in the five percent who are different. You go, girl.

Keith and Richard’s

One delightful evening I went for dinner at Keith and Richard’s at their home on Capitol Hill. Here are some pics of them and their garden. Keith is a landscape architect.

Keith G. in his award-winning garden

Garden

Keith divides outdoor spaces into "rooms."

Garden

Richard cooked dinner.

There were four for dinner. This is Curry and Richard.

World's most polite dog

Tim the sculptor

We walked around the corner to the home of their friend, artist Tim D. Here’s what that looked like.

One of Tim's cars

Statue for sale

All of Tim’s statues are outdoors, in the untrimmed yard. The place has a wild look.

Wall outside Tim's house

Tim has his demons.

This is my favorite. It’s a mummy, or maybe a zombi. He has moss growing on his arms.

Mossy zombie

Pig truck

Here’s another interesting vehicle. It was picking up a load of cheese from a manufacturer.

Handmade pig truck

Jeanne

This is my friend Jeanne Sather. She maintains a superb website called Assertive Patient (www.assertivepatient.com). This site is an invaluable resource for people living with cancer and for their loved ones. It is also a revealing collection of stories about the medical profession, banks and money institutions, gardening, and raising children. The site can be painful to read.

Jeanne makes and sells original and unusual jewelry which you can see and order from her other site, Charmed Jewelry.

Jeanne Sather

These are Jeanne’s sons, Akira and Robin.

Akira and Robin

It was Robin’s 20th birthday. He’s about to go to Japan on an exchange program for a year. Here is a picture of Jeanne’s photogenic ex-stepfather.

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Mexicans in Seattle

One day, in the process of cleaning up the two units in our duplex and getting them ready for new occupants, I needed some heavy lifting done. I drove up to Home Depot where at any given time there is a crowd of unemployed men looking for daywork. I hired Angel, from Oaxaca, and Abel, from Veracruz. Abel was a tall, sad looking young man. I asked him why he was up here and he said he makes more in the USA in an hour than he makes in Mexico in three whole days. And that’s IF there is any work, which there seldom is. But he misses his parents terribly.

These guys are giving up a lot to come here to support their families. Home, siblings, kids, fiestas, home-made food, music everywhere, flowers, people you have known all your life. I wish for them that they will be able to go home soon, where the human environment is warm and beautifully complex, and find work that can support them.

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Margaret and Beta

My friend Margaret chauffered me around on a mad run of last-minute errands the night before I left. Then we went to a vegan restaurant where her companion, Beta, was welcome. The waitress brought him a bowl of water without being asked. Actually, letting the dog in was the best thing about the restaurant, Chaco Canyon. Vegetarian, okay. But vegan, not good. Everyone in there was very thin and intense and politically correct.

Margaret and Beta

The bird of Seattle

This is a picture of a banana slug, the mascot of the City of Seattle.

Free pet

The Journey back

This is me on the inter-terminal train in the Houston Airport. I’m at my most exhausted, schlepping two heavy suitcases, a purse full of small weighty items, and a package over six feet tall containing a new grill for our Honda Passport, which I’d crashed last month. (See my article called Automobile Accident.) I had many unkind thoughts about Cesar, the man who smashed into me as he tried to pass me when I was turning left. I thought about him as the handle from the box dug into my hand. I thought of him as Continental was telling me they were so sorry, but they couldn’t fit the box on the plane. (They did.) I thought of him when people pointed and commented at the crazy lady with the bizarre assortment of luggage. I frightened small children.

BG and auto parts

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Seattle Cat Needs a Home

For my Seattle readers… This is Pumpkin, a four-year-old neutered male cat who is an excellent mouser. Unfortunately, he also kills birds (hey – he’s a cat) and his owner can’t stand it any more. He is clean, trained, indoor-outdoor, not annoying, and I loved living with him for two weeks. If you are interested, contact me, and I’ll forward your questions etc. to the owner.

Pumpkin

Detail of Tim’s Wall

Ceramics

I’m in Seattle right now, and staying in my friend Susan’s townhouse in Jackson Street Co-Housing. She went back east to visit family and I’m living with her dog Wolf, and her huge orange cat, Pumpkin.

Wolfie

Co-housing is defined as an “intentional community” where buildings are erected according to a communal style design, or existing buildings are “retrofitted.” Co-housing developments have individual self-contained residences and also community facilities. These may include a dining room and kitchen, children’s play areas, free internet, pools, gardens, and in the case of Jackson Street Co-housing, a hobby room and a secure indoor garage. Some rural co-housing communities have substantial acreage and raise a hefty percent of their own food.

Jackson Street Co-Housing

The overriding philosophy is to have a low impact on the earth and learn to share resources. Everything here is meticulously recycled. In this house, there aren’t any disposable paper products, zip lock bags, or any disposable plastic.

The food served in the dining room is mainly vegetarian. This urban development has vegetable and flower gardens on the steep paths between the buidings. I only ate in the community dining room a couple of times, but I had my own cloth napkin sealed in a bag with my name on it, waiting for my next visit.

Often, a core group of people will get together to organize such a community. They might buy land, hire architects, and get the residences going. Other people who share their values, buy into units.

People depend on each other. If you need a ride, or need to have your child watched for a while, or you want to borrow a book, share a cup of coffee, or whatever, there are people all around you who are here because they want a semi-communal lifestyle and they’re (reasonably) available to each other.

You can sign up for meals or stroll in and ask the cook whether there is enough for another person on a given day. They serve meals about four times a week, and people take turns cooking. Saturday morning there were three kinds of quiche, with fresh fruit, juice and coffee. Meals cost $4.00 for a guest like me.

Here is a group at dinner. Attendance is sparse because it’s a holiday weekend and the majority of community members are out of town.

The population is multi-generational, ranging from small children to people in their 80s. The community values their elders and are meeting these days to talk about how to be more supportive to them. Several of the older people were instrumental in designing and bringing the place into being about ten years ago

I’m staying in a three-story townhouse, but there are “flats,” apartments in an elevator building. Living units range from studios to three-bedroom homes. Legally, the co-housing developments are structured as either co-ops or condos. This one is a condo. There are 27 separate units.

The residents have regular business meetings and decisions are made by consensus. I am hoping to attend a meeting. There are no leaders.

Of course, everyone knows everyone else and are closer than most neighbors. They are genuinly helpful and friendly. Before I came, Susan circulated an email so everyone would know who I am, and everyone greets me as I walk through the beautifully gardened paths between my house and the parking area, the trash area, the communal building, or the street.

The only drawback to this place that I can see is that the internet system is truly awful and I had a heck of a time getting up on line. The DSL operates in fits and starts and my service goes in and out. But in a way, it’s in tune with the place. No one gets too pushed out of shape though, and yes, they will get to it and have it upgraded, but there will probably be a few community meetings to figure out the specifics.

I’m enjoying the meals and my neighbors. There is wonderful six-year-old named Hannah who lives next door. She’s a brilliant little girl who plays independently for long periods, does not scream, and is comfortable with adults. We who don’t ordinarily live around children forget how exciting it is to see ordinary objects through a child’s eyes. I like hearing what Hannah has to say.

This little boy is the son of the guy who prepared brunch July 3. We had three kinds of quiche, plus fruit.

The co-housing movement originated in Denmark in the 1960’s and co-housing communities exist all over Europe. There are 115 of them in the USA. See www.cohousing.org for a full background and a directory with descriptions of all the USA communities.

I’m told that the units here sell for between $200,000 and $400,000 depending on the size and configuration. They are well-built, attractive structures, with balconies, bay windows, large kitchens, and a lot of windows. There is also a monthly maintenance fee, as with any condominium.

I got to know several people in the two weeks I was at Jackson Street and hope to get to know them better on another visit. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and would consider living here if I ever returned to the USA full-time.

Marathon Races and Lifestyles

Jeanne and I went downtown today to see the runners come in at the end of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. Here is an excerpt from their site:

SEATTLE – Under ideal conditions on Saturday morning more than 27,000 runners from all 50 states and 23 countries ran from Tukwila to Seattle for the second annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon & ½ Marathon benefiting the American Cancer Society.

With a fully-loaded elite field running the half marathon, it was Jynocel Basweti of Kenya who broke away from the lead pack at the 35K mark in the marathon to claim victory in 2 hours, 18 minutes and 19 seconds. Basweti, who finished fourth here last year, claimed his fourth marathon in 2010 on Saturday.

So when we pulled up about three blocks past the finish line and saw these contestants walking up First Avenue, we were puzzled.

Zippy runners

There are a lot of homeless people on First Avenue. We talked to these three young people and their dogs for quite a while. The two young women had “Entropy” tatooed on their hands. They even knew what it meant. The girl in the picture below had the vocabulary of a college grad. She said she was 20 years old and had been on the street since she was 13.

Strange, wonderful girl

This young woman is originally from Seattle and her mom lives here. The two girls and the guy below want to buy a used van and travel to the east coast with their dogs.

Dude

The Union Gospel Mission on First Avenue has been there for as long as I can remember. Here is a group of homeless men watching the race participants come in.

Later, we went shoppping at H&M, a fashionable store in University Village.

Cute teenagers trying on hats at H&M

We spotted Tyler Pendleton at work at Fry’s Electronics the next day in this fabulous suit from H&M.

The well-dressed Tyler P. at work at Fry's in his H&M suit.

Every few months I come to Seattle for a few weeks. It is such a contrast to Merida that for the first week or so I feel like a foreigner. Here are a few sights I saw that aren’t notable if you are here a lot, but for me, they were strange. In another week or so, this newness effect will wear off and I’ll be just like the rest of them.

The New iPhone 4

The day before yesterday, the new iPhone was released. I happened to be driving through an upscale shopping area, University Village, where there is a big Apple store, and saw the lines. This was in the early afternoon and there were several hundred people lined up for blocks in either direction to get their new phones.

There was one line for people who had pre-ordered and another for people who hadn’t. They took five people from the pre-ordered line for every one from the non pre-ordered line.  The people I talked to in the non-pre-ordered line had been there since five a.m.

Happy customer with new iPhone4

Next on line being greeted and escorted into the store

Brent and Ara

Pepper and Barb

Nick Smith from Oakland

 Nick Smith is visiting from Oakland and wasn’t buying a new phone. He just came down to the Apple store as a tourist. I asked him why so many people were all excited about the phone.

“I guess because it has video chat. There’s a little camera right in the phone. Also it has a good GPS feature.”

He said that he didn’t need it, and was happy with the phone he had.

Stan is on the pre-ordered line with his friend Angus. He’s buying the iPhone4 because “it has a better screen and a better processor.”

Stan and Angus

 Several people told me they were buying the iPhone4 because “it’s the latest thing.” They weren’t concerned with new features. The recession is not visible in Seattle, or at least among this part of the population.

Un-pre-ordered line

Taken from my car - the end onf the non-pre-ordered line

 The people at the end of the non-pre-ordered line, several blocks from the beginning of things, were grouchy and disorderly. No sun, no snacks, no visual contact with the mecca, the Apple store.

Since the day after the phone was released (yesterday), the news is that the phone has a design flaw. Apparently, if you are right-handed and hold the phone in your left hand, you cover part of the antenna (or one of the dual antennaes?), reducing the reception. If you put the phone down on a surface, it has five bars, but if you are holding it, you only get three. My god!

A young guy interviewed on the news said, “I’m sure Apple will make good on it. I’m not worried.”

And he is probably right. This company has generated a huge fan base because they are reliable and trustworthy and genuinely produce superior products. Years ago, Apple Mac computers were appreciated mostly by the less technically savvy of us because their interface is so intuitive. But now, Apple has become the darling of the tech population as well.

According to my site statistics, many more people who access gorbman.com have Mac operating systems rather than Windows or any PC system.

Apologies for the blue pictures. I had my lighting set wrong and I don’t have photo fix software with me.

Hairless Cats as Service Animals

This is Sam and her service cat, Baby Charlie. I was in a restaurant on Queen Anne Hill with my friend Richard when Sam walked in. She says that Baby Charlie lowers her blood pressure. She takes him everywhere, even when she rides her horse. Baby Charlie sits in front of her, clinging to the horse.

Sam and Baby Charlie

Baby Charlie is very cuddly.

Sam says that Baby Charlie is a Temple Cat and the breed is Egyptian.