THE ANNOTATION:
#1 In a perfect world, I would be up at 5 a.m., — meditate, walk the dog, make coffee, write until 9 a.m., do yoga/Pilates for an hour … blah, blah, blah. Say, has anyone seen a perfect world out there lately?
Lesson No.1: Repeat after me: I will not beat myself up. Nor anyone else. How you cope is exactly right for you. But do no harm (To you, me, or anyone else … including small pets and goldfish). Continue reading
# 1 Friday is laundry day and the day to strip beds and do sheets. I actually like folding laundry, something I have been doing since I was a very little kid. We are a family of eight sons and a daughter. The division of labor was a means of survival. My father was an engineer and a big fan of early efficiency-expert Frank Gilbreth, whose son Frank Jr. wrote a memoir in 1948, titled “Cheaper by the Dozen.” I read the book several times before I was 12 years old.
#2 Chekov: Think your times are hard? Read some of his short stories. First, the one above is NOT “The Postman.”That was a 1997 dystopian movie starring Kevin Kostner. The correct title is “At the Post Office.” It is silly … until the very last line, the implications of which, turn this light and slight tale into a potential novel.
But one Chekov tale is never enough!
#3 I found a PDF of a book with 30 Chekov short stories, spanning his whole career. It comes with an insightful introduction and hot-linked annotations. So far, I’ve read “The Huntsman,” “The Death of a Clerk,” and “Small Fry.”
#4 Podcast: While folding laundry, listened to “The Daily” interview with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, she will vote for Joe Biden but it will taste like Castor Oil.
#5 Subscribed to a new podcast: “Rabbit Hole” from NYT. Series will explore how the Internet changes people. The first episode is absolutely fascinating as a programmer explains how Facebook and YouTube are programmed to capture your brain (basically). By the way, my search for “Rabbit Hole podcast” came up with 21 possibilities. Think about that.
#6 Garrison Keillor laments the loss of baseball season and ponders the outcome if the Vikings had decided to settle on Manhattan island, rather than the European crowd. “We’d have universal health care and a highly developed system of state socialism. Vikings are a calm and reasonable people, they don’t go around yelling “Make Norway Great Again” …
#7 Heather Cox Richardson “Letters from an American”: Governors are organizing into bi-partisan scrums to tackle the decision-making responsibilities abdicated by Trump. “We will make decisions based on facts, science, and recommendations from experts in health care, business, labor, and education.” (All of which must have totally confused the president.)
#8 Virtual Camino walk enters Day 8, from Torres del Rio to Logrono. The 39-day walk is now a closed group but more than 2200 people signed up to take the “walk” with a San Miguel de Allende woman who plans other “walks” in the future. A nice meditative break in the day.
#9 Rolling Stones video interview with Roger Waters, estranged bassist, composer and singer for Pink Floyd. Who am I kidding, he was Pink Floyd. (Sorry, David Gilmour, you’ve always been shite without him.) Roger seems to have become a very cranky old man and I almost expected him to start singing “Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn …” He would have toured this summer and the concept sounded intriguing. In 2021, perhaps.
#10 MOVIE: “Life With Father” (1947) comedy starring William Powell, Irene Dunne, and little Elizabeth Taylor. Proof once again that sons can always exact revenge on their fathers by writing a memoir. (See “Cheaper by the Dozen,” above.) This one ran over 400 nights as a Broadway play and the movie is much beloved, although the bombastic Powell gave me a headache.
On March 27 I began logging my day’s activities into my now-useless appointment calendar. For the time being, there would be no luncheon dates, no concerts, no coffee meetups, no flights to visit grandchildren, no weddings, no visit to Mexico City with friends.
But how was I filling my days? They seemed to be drifting — without recollection of where I’d been, what I’d accomplished, where I was headed — from one gray fog-bound sea to the next.
“Naps,” seemed to be the only achievement that I recalled with any clarity. That, and pointlessly angry and condescending posts on Facebook. I had to be doing more than clicking “Like,” “Angry, “and “Love” buttons, right? Oh, and “HaHa.” Continue reading
Decontamination crews are spraying down the streets of San Miguel de Allende today. The visuals alone ought to drive the doubters indoors. (Photograph by John Bohnel)
So, Mexico entered Phase 2 on Tuesday. While the president still hugs and kisses the babies and young girls, his Health secretary has called for restaurants and casinos to be closed, for public gatherings to disperse — you know, the same stuff we have been doing in San Miguel for a couple of weeks now.
Only, a lot less.
Phase 2 is clinically called the “community transmission phase.”
Phase 2 feels like Mom calling the kids inside to safety — after it starts raining. The kids have been playing outside, conscious of the dark clouds building. Continue reading
A two-character, three-page play written to honor a talented theater critic, newspaper colleague, and friend who just announced an early retirement. The characters in this play no way resemble my friend. That would be purely coincidental …
Curtain goes up, in an empty theater.
On an empty stage, two characters face each other. One, Jim, is fully lit. The other is in the shadows. We enter in the middle of a conversation.
Voice: You’re sure? Continue reading
Early evening in San Miguel de Allende. The clouds rise up in the east like fluffy canvases, awaiting the inspiration of the dying sun to recast them in gold and amber hues.
We walk this same path over and over, Moppit and I.
The pattern is unchanging.
Open the front door at 7 a.m.
Glance up into the sky and count the hot air balloons.
Or remark on their absence.
Today was a day to note their absence. Continue reading
Sunshine showers down on the campo as Zangunga’s Sunday crowd heads for home one last time — for now at least.
San Miguel de Allende is not yet a ghost town, but it is awfully quiet.
On Saturday there were five hot air balloons crossing the sky as I took Moppit out for her morning walk. Today, there were none.
San Miguel’s edgiest T-shirt shop (“Any design you want, in black and white only”) has had a “Pinche Trump” T-shirt in the window for as long as I can remember. Today, a new shirt reigns: “Keep Calm and Wash Your Hands.”
Available in black Continue reading
Peña de Bernal sticks out like a sore thumb. That’s part of the pleasure in photographing the monolith. From almost any vantage point you can take an awfully good photo. On the day we were there, the sky was mostly hazy overcast, great for photos and hiking.
Walking up the well-worn switchback trail of Peña de Bernal I had the oddest feeling that I’d been here before.
I hadn’t, of course. Which is why we were hiking this trail on Friday.
And yet … Continue reading
Just before 4 p.m. on a brilliant and blazing Sunday afternoon in San Miguel de Allende the sound of a boombox rose above the usual bustle and cacophony of the Jardin Principal.
As if on cue, the several venders with their bright balloons and bouncing pencils were swept away like neon flotsam and jetsam on the shore.
A lone, tall, leggy blonde in jeans and a black top stepped to center stage and began to dance. She got the attention of the milling crowd. A second woman, all in black, bounded into the open space and the two danced as one. (Full disclosure: Woman No. 2 was my wife, Rose Alcantara.) Continue reading
The Tolantongo River, close to its headwaters at the top of the canyon which shares its name.
From deep within the Hidalgo Mountains, voluminous thermal rivers rise up to the surface above the Tolantongo box canyon. The warm waters cascade down the canyon sides and pour through vents into the grottos and caves.
The canyon walls are dotted with about 40 manmade semicircular pools called chapoteaderos into which are collected the warm waters rushing down the hillside. Water overflows from the upper pools and cascades into the lower pools. All the pools are connected by stairways.
No matter how many pools are built to trap the water, it is never enough. Water finds its way around the pools, over them, under them, into spontaneous rivulets and streams. The sensation is of being surrounded by the roar and rumble of rushing water.
In every sense, this is a totally immersive experience. Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 