Takin’ Care of Business

Hey there, little buckaroos. Yes, it has been awhile! I’d apologize, but I doubt anyone has gone through withdrawal symptoms because I haven’t written anything for a few months.

* * * *

If you aren’t familiar with the song Takin’ Care of Business by the Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, I don’t know what to say to you. It was released in 1973, and it’s their best-known song of all time. The song has been used in a few hundred thousand movies and commercials. If you can honestly say you don’t know the song, you need to get a life.

* * * *

I’ve been retired for five years now. If you’re not retired, you should try it sometime. If you are retired, you may have noticed the same thing that I have: Retirement is literally days, weeks, and even months of not having to do anything if you don’t feel like doing it. You don’t have to go work anymore. You don’t have any pending appointments or meetings you have to attend on your calendar.

There might be some things you’ve been thinking about getting around to doing, but they’re not anything pressing, so if you decide today isn’t the day to tackle them, no one is going to care.

And then it’s almost as if all of the things you didn’t have to do conspire and BOOM! all of a sudden there’s a whole lots of shit that needs to be done.

Right. Now.

And that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been writing about my mostly incredibly boring and bucolic life. I’ve actually been busy.

* * * *

Way back in September, I conceived an idea to write about. A lots of goddamn stuff has happened since then, and I’m no longer interested in writing about it. I may get around to explaining that — we’ll see… Instead of writing, my lovely supermodel wife and I flew back to the States to attend my Aunt Noreen’s 90th birthday party at Lion’s Park in beautiful downtown Swanville, MN.

Aunt Reen is the last surviving matriarch on my mother’s side of the family. All of the elder relatives on my dad’s side of the family got dead years ago. Reen is my mom’s youngest sister, and to the best of my knowledge, she’s the oldest living person in my family’s history. We don’t tend to live much beyond the age of 80. And far too many of us tend to die much younger.

Noreen is a really neat gal, very much like unto my mom. They were best friends, and when Reen came over to my parents’ house to say good-bye to my mom just before she died, that was the sweetest thing I have ever seen in my life. It still makes me cry whenever I think about it.

It’s the only reason why I thought it was important to go to her party. I doubt any of my cousins will ever come visit us in Mexico, so I don’t see a preponderance evidence that suggests I need to spend a lots of money and energy connecting with people that aren’t going to make any effort to connect with me.

And speaking of people I don’t want to ever connect with again, there’s John, my Idiot Brother. As you have probably deduced, John and I are not good friends. Mainly because every time John contacts me, he threatens to kill me. I don’t believe 99% of the bullshit that emanates from him. I’m not sure if he’d actually kill me if he ever saw me again, but I have no doubt that he’d try to.

I knew there was no way John would miss going to Reen’s party, if for no other reason than there would be a whole lots of free beer there. So, yeah, this created a bit of a dilemma for me. As it turns out, I’m not the only person in my family that doesn’t want to be around my Idiot Brother. None of my cousins wanted him at their party either, however, they didn’t think he would even bother to attend.

Cut to the chase: John arrived at the party about half an hour before Lea and I arrived. My cousins messaged me to let me know he was there — even though they still didn’t think he would come — then they asked him to leave. John said, “You don’t think I’d really kill my brother with all these witnesses present, do you?” And they replied, “Because you say things like that, you have to leave. And if you don’t leave now, we’ll call the police.”

It was a very nice party. I got to see my old friend, Shorty Girtz. I’ve written about him and our epic vacation in Dallas, TX. You can look it up in the archives if you’re really bored. He took Lea for a ride on his new touring motorcycle, which I have to admit surprised me. Lea has never been all that interested in motorcycles, but she had blast.

According to the 2010 census, there are 350 people that live in the city of Swanville. At least half of the town was in attendance at Noreen’s party, mainly because she is probably related to almost everyone in Swanville in one way or another. Reen was very happy that we had flown up all the way from Mexico for her party. I gained a new level of respect for my cousins. And my Idiot Brother messaged me to tell me he was really going to kill me the next time he saw me, this time for sure. Again.

* * * *

We were in Minnesota for five days. On short visits like unto this one, you scramble like hell to see as many people as you can before you leave. The list of people that I’m willing to try to see keeps getting smaller, mostly for the reason previously stated above. The other reason is the impermanence of life itself. And that’s the other reason we went back to Minnesota.

I wanted to see Paul Anderson before he died to death.

* * * *

Paul and I were registered nurses, and we worked together at the Minneapolis VAMC in the In-patient Psychiatric Department for the entire twenty years I was employed there. Paul was mostly an excellent nurse. I had the utmost respect for him as a colleague, and I learned a helluvalot from him about how to do my job with the most efficiency. We supported each other through every fucking miserable event that befell us during that time, and we both had more than our share of traumas and tribulations over those two decades.

We celebrated every victory together. We celebrated even when there wasn’t much of anything to celebrate. I taught him everything I knew about smoking marijuana, and he taught me everything he knew about craft beers and red wine. Yeah, he was my drinking buddy. Unlike all of my other drinking buddies — who didn’t want to have anything to do with me after I quit drinking — Paul and I remained close friends.

In vino veritas. We knew everything there was to know about each other. He was my best friend, possibly the best male friend I’ve had in my entire life, despite the fact that he rooted for the much-despised Green Bay Peckers.

* * * *

If you’re wondering why I’m not writing another installment entitled For Whom the Bell Tolls, I just don’t have the courage to do it, even though Paul is more than worthy of a tribute from me. I’ve lost two of my best male friends in less than four months. Those losses have taken a lots of wind out of my sails, simply because losses like unto these are roughly the emotional equivalent of getting kicked in the balls.

The pain from the grief is acute enough as it is. Opening myself up to further pain by writing about it is more than I am willing to take on right now. And it’s one of the reasons I haven’t written. I rarely know what I’m going to write, and yeah, the idea that something like unto that would pour out of me honestly scared the shit out of me. I had to wait until I was sure that wasn’t going to happen.

Writing about Francisco’s death helped me process the shock and dismay that plagued me in his absence. I needed to write about him. I don’t have to do that with Paul. I’ve known he wasn’t going to live very long for the better part of this year. He told me he was dying in May. I told him to stay alive until I saw him in September.

He promised me that he would.

Lea and I drove out to see Paul, one last time, at the house he built, mostly all by himself, on September 20th. It was a bright and sunny day as we headed east on Highway 94. We visited with Paul and his wife for about an hour. That was the extent of the strength he had left. Lea and I have a boatload of fond memories of Paul and Synneva’s house. We got together frequently, usually at their home in rural Wisconsin, and shared many an ice cold beverage and a lots of laughter over the years.

It wasn’t bright and sunny anymore as we drove west, back to Minnesota and the Airbnb in St. Paul we had rented for our stay. Dark gray clouds had rolled in, and the skies opened up, unleashing torrents of rain that fell like rage. It was as if the sky had offered me an unction by crying the tears I no longer possessed.

If you were to ask me where I am in my grieving process right now, I don’t know if I could tell you. I’m not even sure who I’m grieving over half of the time. I don’t know if I can grieve individually anymore. It’s all become a kind of Grief Casserole to me, and I don’t really know how to cook.

The one thing I have going for me is I discovered I have a really great support system. My friends and family here have been there for me every time I’ve needed them. And they will be there if I need more from them.

Excuse me, I’m going to have to take a break here…

* * * *

I talked to Paul almost every day after we got back to Mexico. Our conversations rarely lasted even five minutes. I just wanted to hear his voice again, knowing there wouldn’t be many times we would talk.

I sent him all the pictures I had taken of our adventures, and his family, because I had fucking forgotten to pack them when we flew up there. I had pulled them out of storage, meaning to give them to him when I saw him, and set them on the bookcase in the Peach Room. And that’s where they were when we got back to Mexico.

He appreciated the pictures. We had had a lots of great times together, and he smiled a lots remembering them. His wife told me that.

I was going to call him on his birthday, Monday, October 11th. But when I opened my Facebook account, I had received a message from Synneva. Paul had passed away in his sleep during the night. He would have been 65 if he had lived three more hours. On the bright side, he got to see his beloved Packers win one last football game that they should have lost at least twice. So there was that.

* * * *

Time ceased to exist for me for awhile that morning. I went to the end of the patio because it was it was in the sunlight, and the mornings are getting a little chilly here. The birds were chirping in the trees. A light breeze was blowing, just enough of a breeze to tickle the hairs on your arms, but not enough to really do much more than that.

A few hummingbirds flitted from flower to flower in the garden. A vermillion flycatcher flew into one of the plumeria trees, looking for a meal. The warmth of the sun felt good. And I smiled, remembering the good times, wishing there had been at least one more visit…

Paul would have liked Mexico if he had ever gotten down here. He was planning to visit us in May of 2020. He had even bought his airfare. Then the pandemic hit and brought the world to a screeching halt. Paul cancelled his trip, with the idea to reschedule for a later date. Then he got too sick to travel, and that ended up being that.

True to his word as always, he stayed alive long enough so we could say good-bye to each other in person. Thank you for doing that.

Twenty days later, he, too, was gone.

Vaya con Dios, Mr. Anderson. The last thing you said to me was we will meet again. That is a promise you had better keep. I’m counting on you to show me the ropes again.

* * * *

In early October, our oldest daughter, Gwen, her husband, John, and their dog, Tori Belle, took up residence in the casita we had set up as a guest suite. They’re going to stay here for the next five months until they decide what they want to do when they grow up. They both work remotely from here. I guess that’s one positive outcome from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This has been somewhat of a surprise to us, that one of our kids would want to move back in with us, but it has been a good surprise. We have a kind of communal living experience going on here at the resort — minus the drugs and free love that were so popular back in the 1960’s.

It’s also somewhat ironic. Prior to moving into this house, I observed that there are a lots of gringo mansions down here. Huge honker homes that were probably occupied by one or two old, white people and maybe a couple of dogs. And then we moved into one one of those huge honker places… That’s why we invited Todd to move in with us. We had more than enough room for another person here.

When Gwen and John asked if they could take over our casita for an extended stay, we were well-versed in the process. Things are going smoothly for all of us as far as I know. If there’s anyone that is not satisfied with our current living arrangements, they haven’t talked to me about it.

* * * *

Because we no longer had a guest room for all of the people that said they were going to visit us, but probably never will — and because I needed something to do — I repainted the Peach Room and turned it into our new guest room.

I guess you could call the Peach Room a bonus room/flex space. We had it set up as a second living room/den, but we never used it. The kit-tens used to hang out in it occasionally. They probably used it more than any of the people that live here.

Yes. It’s a very big room. And that’s a queen-size bed. There’s an adjoining Jack and Jill bathroom between the guest room and Todd’s room. In this picture, the bathroom would be to your right. If you come to visit, you’ll have to share that.

* * * *

The next thing that needed to be done was repairing the ceiling in the master bedroom. I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but a few months ago our landlord finally replaced the malfunctioning solar heater for the swimming pool. Said heater rests on the roof of our bedroom.

The summer months here are the Rainy Season. We received over 40 inches of rain this year, so yeah, they call it the Rainy Season for a very good reason. That’s how we discovered the leak in the roof. We assume it originated with the new solar heater because it wasn’t there with the old solar heater. Our property manager sent a crew here to repair the roof three times. The Rainy Season has ended, so we probably won’t know if the leak has actually been sealed until sometime next June…

Just in cases you didn’t know, all of the buildings in Mexico are primarily constructed of bricks, mortar, and steel. Someone told me it was because of the termites, which are pretty much everywhere down here. Maybe that’s true. I don’t really know. Concrete might have a lots of advantages as a building material, but one disadvantage it has is it is very porous and sucks up water like unto a sponge.

And that’s pretty much what happened on our roof. Water followed the path of least resistance and after one particularly heavy thunderstorm, part of the ceiling in our bedroom kind of collapsed — not much, just a little — but it continued to do so with each consecutive rainfall. After a couple months of this process repeatedly repeating itself, the ceiling in our bedroom was in a very sorry state of affairs.

Repairing the ceiling amounted to scraping away all the loose mortar and paint, then plastering all the cracks and crevices and canyons that the leaking roof had created, and then sanding all the rough spots down until they were more or less smooth. Plastering isn’t something I would call one of my strengths, but the end result looked comparable to the other repairs that had been done to the bedroom ceiling prior to when we moved in.

Lea said she was happy with it, and that was really all I needed to hear.

The worst part of this process is the mold remediation. If you have never attempted to get get mold out of a concrete ceiling, you haven’t missed much. It is a long and tedious process. Oddly enough, the mold is no where near the spot where the ceiling first started falling apart. I might be done with that part of the job by Christmas…

When we moved into this house, we hired Francisco to paint almost every room in the house. Just about the only surfaces he didn’t paint were the ceilings — except in the master bedroom. It must have looked like hell, so that’s probably why Lea asked him to paint it. It’s the only reason why I had paint that matched perfectly, and I won’t have to repaint the entire ceiling.

The final bedroom renovations entailed moving the TV set that had been in the Peach Room that no one ever watched into the master bedroom and connecting it to the DVD player I had purchased at Best Buy® while we were in Minnesota.

* * * *

Probably Little Known Fact About DVD’s and DVD Players: they are coded for the country they are manufactured in. Yeah, I didn’t know that either, until I bought a DVD player that was made in Mexico. It would not play any of the DVD’s I had purchased in the United States of America.

* * * *

It took me awhile to switch from VHS tapes to DVD’s, but once I did I thought it would be stupid to have just one DVD. Hey, do you want to come over to my house and watch my DVD? See? I told you… So I bought a lots of them over the years.

* * * *

It took me the better part of an hour to figure out how to change the codes in my Mexican DVD player so we could watch a movie, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t bother to even watch it after we finally got everything working. I don’t use that player to watch movies. I have it hooked up to the stereo on the patio because DVD players also play CD’s, and I have a lots and lots of CD’s.

* * * *

The last thing that kept me from writing was working in the gardens here at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa. They were starting to look tired, so I tore almost everything out of most of them. Then Lea decided she wanted to trim the Royal and Ancient Hedgerow in the South Garden.

I guess I should have asked her what she meant by the word trim. Lea more or less ripped out everything that had regrown, leaving the fence looking almost exactly like it did one year ago when we originally attacked the hedgerow.

I was originally a little bummed out because the hedgerow looks like hell now, but as we have seen, it will return again. And her extreme trimming may even benefit the vines that I actually want to grow. Time will tell on that account. All I know is they didn’t fill in the places I wanted them to this year…

* * * *

It’s been a tough year for me. It just goes to show you that you should never think things can’t get any worse than they were last year…

I had originally planned this post to be about the Anti-Vaccine Movement, and how incredibly selfish those people are in the midst of a global pandemic that has changed, and will continue to change our lives for the foreseeable future.

I think they’re moronheads. And that’s about all I have to say about that anymore. Except I hope the Green Bay Peckers don’t secure a bye in the playoffs because of Aaron Rodgers being an anti-vaxing sissifated sniffle-snaffle. It’d serve him right.

It’s also been a very good year for me. I am very aware of that. I don’t need anyone to point that out to me. Life is all about balance and equilibrium. My life is balancing out gradually. I no longer experience the wild mood swings that owned me in July.

I remain resilient. The losses I have felt this year have bent me and stretched me to my limits at times, but they did not break me. At least, I don’t think they did.

I have lost dear friends, but I have also found support from a group of people that I didn’t expect it from. That was another good surprise.

Thank you, everyone. Everyone that has supported me. Everyone that has helped me support Francisco’s family. Thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart.

It isn’t as broken as it used to be. And that is very much because of all of you.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Almost fifty years ago, I started writing my first novel. I was living in an apartment in Little Falls, MN at the time. I don’t think it had a title. I had no idea what I wanted to write about. I didn’t even own a typewriter. My novel consisted of a bunch of notes I had scribbled down on a yellow legal pad. Probably when I was drunk.

I don’t think any of the notes I had scribbled down actually looked like a novel. It was mostly ideas I was contemplating trying to turn into a novel. I had a few of the chapter titles written down in my notes. You know, like, I had an outline or something. The only thing I’m sure of is the title of this post was the title of one of the chapters of one of the books I never wrote.

* * * *

In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I suffer from Involuntary Musical Imagery, otherwise known as an earworm. Usually, it’s just annoying. But for the last month or so it has been almost intolerable because the song that was stuck in my head was Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers.

I know, right!

The song was bad enough when it was released in 1979, having to hear it 20 times a day or more on the radio. There are no words for the torture that it was having to hear it for all of your waking hours for 30 days in a row. or more. I’m just relieved that it somehow got kicked out of my mental playlist. Finally.

* * * *

Hey. How’s it going? I hope you’re all surviving the seemingly never-ending saga of the Coronavirus pandemic. I don’t think it’s even been one whole year since this thing started. And yet, it somehow feels like it’s been going on for most of my life. And I am old.

I don’t think I know anyone that has died to death from COVID-19. Several of my friends have had it, and they have all survived. However, several of my friends have lost friends or family members to the Coronavirus. I’ve been extremely fortunate so far. I hope my luck holds out for a very long time to come.

Up in the States, most of my friends have received one of several types of vaccines that are now available. Most of them have posted pictures on social media with their official documentation, which is something we’re all going to need in the future if we ever want to travel to another country, or possibly, even leave the house.

I don’t think any of the vaccines are available here in the Lakeside Area. My doctor thinks they might arrive here by June or July. Or maybe next year. This is Mexico. Time is very relative here. And there’s this: Many of the people that live here are gringos from different countries. Canadia. The US. England. New Zealand. South Dakota…

I’m not sure we’re a huge priority to the Mexican Government.

Up until he contracted COVID-19, the Mexican President didn’t believe the pandemic was real. I’m not sure how much his experience has changed him. Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been a bit a of an enigma while he’s been in office. He’s turned out to be a disappointment to almost everyone that voted for him.

Much like unto the former President of the United States, AMLO didn’t do much of anything to stop the spread of the Coronavirus in Mexico. He left that up to the governors of the 31 states. The governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, has been very proactive in trying to keep the people he represents safe and healthy. and alive. And that hasn’t been an easy accomplishment.

Not because the people of Mexico haven’t complied with most of the preventative measures that we’ve all experienced. No one down here has protested about alleged infringements on their rights or freedoms. It’s the whole family thing.

Family ties are huge down here. Ask any Hispanic person you happen to see and they will tell you that family means everything to them. Families here get together as often as they can to celebrate anything and everything. Or nothing.

Hey, man. The ‘Rona might kill me, but if I don’t go to my abuela’s birthday party– She’s gonna be 95 this weekend! — I’m a fuckin’ dead man for sure! At the very least she’ll slap me silly with her chanclas.

And that’s not an exaggeration. Not going to a family gathering can have serious repercussions. So now you have a better idea of the situation down here.

Governor Alfaro has ordered at least three major lockdowns in the last year, and I don’t know how many minor shutdowns. His latest directive will remain in effect until December 15th — pretty much the rest of the year. I think he just got tired of having to re-issue statements every other week.

* * * *

Despite the fact that there isn’t much to do here because there just aren’t many things to do not only here, but pretty much everywhere right now — we’ve been keeping busy here at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa. Retirement has turned out to be a helluvalot more work than I ever imagined. That probably wouldn’t be true if we weren’t the Stewards of the Realm at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa.

We’ve spent a lots of time and money improving a place that doesn’t belong to us, and more than likely, never will. Those things weren’t part of our rental agreement — we aren’t obligated to do any of them. I’ve written about all of them in previous posts, so I don’t think I’m going to list them all again. But the longest and most expensive endeavor we’ve taken on has been renovating the yard and all of the gardens.

* * * *

Every living thing goes through various stages of development in its lifetime. According to a guy named Erik Erikson, humans have eight distinct stages. I know I had to memorize them when I was in nursing school. And then I forgot almost everything about them because once you get out of nursing school, no one is ever going to ask you about them again.

The one thing I do remember about them is they all had kooky-sounding names — like, your biggest challenge in each stage was not to kill yourself, or everyone else you meet. Trust vs. Mistrust. Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt. Initiative vs. Guilt.

See? I told you.

According to Mr. Erikson, the stage of development I’m currently in is Integrity vs. Despair. Whatever. I see it more as a setting in of the Three G’s. In alphabetical order: Gardening, Getting Older, and Golf.

* * * *

Lea and I both prefer things to look neat and orderly. And so does Todd for that matter. Todd is our roommate. He moved here from Idaho about a year and a half ago, and took up residence in one of our guest rooms. He’s Lea’s oldest friend, and he’s become my closest male friend and golf partner.

That whole neat and orderly thing: that was probably the greatest impetus in our decision to improve the appearance of pretty much everything in the yards. That’s why we decided to have the pool repainted. And to annihilate the Royal and Ancient Hedgerow, and all of the other vines and vegetation that hadn’t been trimmed or manicured in the last forty years. All of those things started way back in the middle of last October.

I’m sure the lockdowns and shutdowns and restrictions from the Coronavirus had something to do with our decision There wasn’t much of anything else to do, and we had been here long enough that looking at the overgrown hedges and shit really started bothering us.

Lea and I have improved every house that we’ve lived in for an extended period of time, whether we owned them or not. It’s become kind of a habit for us.

* * * *

The pool had been bothering us for awhile. It wasn’t on good shape when we moved in. Additional time, and continued use, didn’t do anything to improve its appearance. So we made a deal with Lord Mark, our landlord. He would pay for the prep work, paint, and any miscellaneous supplies. And we would hire a painter to paint the pool.

We drained the pool and let it dry out for three months. In January we had all of the pool surfaces prepped by Tacho, and Lea and I pressured washed every inch to get it ready for paint. Francisco Flores Bernini, my friend, caddy, and the guy who has painted almost the entire inside of our house, painted the pool a deep, dark blue. Jaime Mendoza, our property manager, had 40,000 gallons of water delivered in two huge trucks.

I have to say it turned out better than I thought it would. If we ever have any visitors here, I think they’ll love it, too. It’s the jewel in the crown of the resort once more. Or it will be once we get the solar heating system working again.

The solar heater is on the roof of the master bedroom, and it is a Mexican technological wonder. It’s so complicated even other Mexicans haven’t been able to understand it. We’ve had a few guys come over to look at it to repair it, and they all say it just needs to be replaced.

We’re going to start that process this week, according to Jaime. We’ll see how that goes. There’s more than one person involved in finding a solution to this problem. It might take awhile to get them all together over here. Personally, I think we’ll end up with a new heating system eventually, simply because that’s what everyone has been saying we’re going to need. But this is Mexico. When it comes to stuff like unto this, nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems.

* * * *

When I was a kid, I spent almost every summer working in the fields on my grandparent’s farm by day, and was preyed upon by my pedophile uncle by night. As a result, I had no interest in becoming a farmer when I grew up. And yet, as an adult, I have done far more gardening than I ever thought I would. And that is all because of my lovely supermodel wife.

Lea loves gardens, but she doesn’t want to do any gardening. That’s where I come in. And the Five Languages of Love. I’m a guy. So you can believe me when I say I had no idea there were any love languages.

* * * *

This couple gets married. On their honeymoon night the guy looks at his beautiful bride and says, “Hey Mrs. Stevenson, you wanna retire into the bedroom and let me fuck your brains out?”

“That is just so rude!” his wife snaps. “I knew I wasn’t marrying a Casanova or anything, but couldn’t you at least try to be polite about it?” The guy thinks about for a minute, runs his hand through his hair and decides to try again.

“You’re right, honey. I apologize, and I’m really sorry I said that. Now, could you please pass the pussy?”

* * * *

Lea’s favorite love language is Acts of Service. In my case, that ended up translating into Build me a garden. Or in Lea’s case, a lots of gardens. I constructed at least three gardens for her in Minnesota. In Arizona I transformed our backyard into a desert oasis. Okay, I didn’t do anything except sign the check in that instance. But the results were worth it.

Here at the resort, the gardens had been completely swallowed by the Royal and Ancient Hedgerow and all of the untrimmed vines that covered the fence in the backyard. All Todd and I had to do was find them again. And I should add that Lea played her part in hedgerow annihilation, too.

Lea doesn’t like digging in the dirt because it ruins her manicures. If I spent any money on taking care of my fingernails, I probably wouldn’t want to do anything to fuck them up either. Oddly enough, Lea actually enjoys trimming shrubs and vines. It’s that whole neat and orderly thing again.

* * * *

All of the things I’ve already mentioned are true, but there’s one more reason why I decided to tackle the daunting project of hedge demolition and yard improvement. I really suck at sitting on my ass all day listening to the TV. Yeah, it kind of surprised me to discover this, too.

Lea says she’s not surprised. She apparently understands me better than I do. We have been married to each other for over three decades, so her comprehension of me isn’t all that surprising. I’m pretty sure I understand her better than she understands herself, too.

Speaking of TV, I’ve been able to get our streaming devices to actually work on a consistently reliable basis. So we’ve actually been watching a couple of series: The Crown, and The Mandalorian.

I’ve found that I actually like the young Queen Elizabeth II. And I detest pretty much everyone else in her family, the fucking royal sissifated sniffle-snaffles that they are.

The Mandalorian guy reminds me of The Rifleman. It was a TV western way back when I was kid. They were big back then, and there were a lots of them to choose from. I really liked The Rifleman when I was a kid. I watched a rerun of it a few years ago on a quiet Saturday morning, and I changed the channel after five minutes. I thought The Rifleman was just about the stupidest fuckin’ show I had ever seen.

That’s pretty much what I think of The Mandalorian too. It’s very predictable. The dialog is mostly boring and repetitive — except Baby Yoda is so damn cute I put up with all the stupididity just for him. I’ve watched five or six episodes. I’m still waiting for the Baby Yoda kid to say something. I don’t know if he ever speaks, but I’m hoping like hell that he does. And soon.

* * * *

Earlier in this post I said that restoring the gardens was expensive, and you night think that I spent a bunch of money buying plants to put in the gardens. That would be incorrect. I’ve probably spent less than two hundred bucks on new plants.

The expense was hiring someone to haul off all the shit we chopped down.

A guy named Guillermo was driving by the resort in his beat-up pickup when he saw Todd dragging a bunch of branches out to the curb to be picked up by the local garbagemen. He asked if we would be willing to pay him to do it.

Our garbage guys can haul off only a very limited amount of branches and stuff at one time, and everyone in our development always has a bunch of yard debris that they need to get rid of. If we had waited for them to perform this task for us, we would still have a mountain of debris to get rid of, and we started almost five months ago. For the very reasonable fee of $25 bucks a truckload, Guillermo hauled away about 20 truckloads of branches and vines and shit whenever we needed him.

It ended up being a good deal for all of us. Guillermo couldn’t find any work because of COVID-19, so we were an absolute godsend to him when he was desperately looking for a way to make some money. And we were able to demolish stuff at a much faster rate because we weren’t limited by the local garbage collection limitations.

* * * *

With the debris removed, we could focus on making the yard and gardens all pretty and cutey once more. We took the hedgerow out in sections, therefore, we also reconstructed the gardens in sections. With that in mind, we now have gardens that are very well established on one hand, to gardens that are just beginning to sprout flowers. If that pattern continues to repeat itself, there will always be one part of the gardens in bloom, no matter what time of the year it is. There isn’t really a winter season here. It’s more like unto varying degrees of summer all the time.

Now you understand why I think this place is a paradise.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the flowers that started growing once they could see the light of day once more, and that was what convinced us that our resort used to have gardens at one time, long ago in the past.

Morning glories, brown-eyed susans, amaryllis, dahlias, and lantana have sprung to life, adding pops of color along the south side of the house. Lilies and geraniums started growing around the bougainvillea and the monster poinsettia tree. At least seven varieties of vines are climbing the stone walls and fences that enclose our grounds. And we uncovered a mango tree, a papaya tree, and an avocado tree.

Unfortunately, flowers aren’t the only things that have sprouted up in the once-forsaken gardens. We also have a very impressive crop of weeds growing, too. This is where the helluvalot of work started coming into play for me. And Todd. And it involves the two W’s of the first G of my version of this stage of my development in life.

Watering and Weeding.

* * * *

To the best of my knowledge, there’s no such thing as a garden that doesn’t require any maintenance. If there is, I sure as hell didn’t plant it here. We used to have a gardener — well, he was more of a yard maintenance guy than he was a gardener — and that was our main reason for letting him go. He was one big reason the Royal and Ancient Hedgerow had grown to such outrageous proportions.

Miguel is no longer our gardener, but we did hire him to maintain the pool. He’s probably the only person on the planet that knows how the enigmatic plumbing for the pool works. Just in cases you were wondering, he likes what we’ve done with the gardens.

According to a reliable source that I can no longer remember, the one thing that all plants need to live is water. That makes sense to me, so I’m not going to research it any further. It’s the Dry Season down here right now. It won’t rain in any appreciable amounts until the middle of June. The gardens we decided to uncover need to be watered on pretty much a daily basis. At the very least, every two days.

Yep, I’m going to be busy for awhile.

Todd tends to set up sprinklers to water any part of the yard or gardens that he takes care of. I’m a bit more hands-on. I bought a shitload of hoses and wands and nozzles with a variety of settings and strengths, and I more or less water everything by hand. It takes me a few hours every day to make the rounds to all of the gardens. It’s one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to write this post. I think I’ve been working on it for at least a month. Maybe two… I honestly can’t remember.

I like to see how my plants are doing. Are they looking okay? Do they need more water? Less water? More sunlight? What’s that fucking thing? Is that a new weed I’ve never seen before? Is it a flower? Maybe I’ll leave it there for awhile and see what it grows into… That’s kind of how I roll when I’m watering the gardens.

* * * *

Gardening is a fairly mindless enterprise for most people. There is nothing mindless for me. My mind is always running, and it hasn’t been my buddy for quite some time. I have to seriously counter the natural tendency of my mind to make me feel as bad about myself as it possibly can. It’s become more or less a full-time job lately.

Age has given me some perspective on my life. This is the second G of my version of this stage of my development in life. Being sober has given me an extended period of time of reasonably sane behavior. But the more I seem willing to embrace myself, warts and all, the more my mind seems to think it needs to step in and do something about that.

It’s probably still mad at me for quitting drinking…

We’ll work this out sooner or later. I’m smarter than my brain thinks I am, and I am way more patient than it is. One of these days it will realize that and leave me alone.

* * * *

A weed, by definition, is any plant that you don’t want growing in your yard or garden. And they are pretty much the bane of my existence right now. Mostly because weeds don’t come to you. You have to get down to their level to get rid of them. My back is no longer built for that kind of movement. And I’m sure this is true for more people than just me, but for every weed I remove, ten weeds seem appear out of the ground to take its place.

And I don’t know what is in the soil here, but it took a toll on my hands. After one week of weeding, the skin on my hands took on the texture of 90 grit sandpaper. Then my skin started to crack around the beds my fingernails. It surprises me how something so tiny and seemingly insignificant can hurt so goddamn much. I couldn’t have typed anything even if I had wanted to. I could barely hold a golf club without breaking into tears.

I’ve started wearing work gloves out of sheer self-preservation. And I’m applying lotion on a daily basis now. I think my hands will recover and return to their previous state of feeling like I’ve never done an honest days’ work with them.

* * * *

Most of the garden restoration was accomplished simply by relocating the plants we already had to different locations, which was another back-breaking exercise for me, and seeds. I love seeds because they’re inexpensive and I don’t have to bend over to get them onto the ground. I more or less throw them in the general direction of where I want them to grow, and add water.

I’ve kind of become the Marky Flower Seed of Mexico.

My helter-skelter approach to gardening drives Todd crazy. He’s much more scientific and methodical in his approach to. He tests the soil and makes his own compost. He grows a lots of plants in small pots, then replants them exactly where he wants them to be, in more or less specific numbers.

Last year I sowed a few hundred seeds and almost nothing grew. This year I sowed a few hundred thousand seeds, and almost all of them germinated. Yeah, I don’t get it either. It’s one of the mysteries of Life in Mexico. I may not understand why it happened, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. And I really don’t care what Todd thinks when it comes to my gardening techniques. I have created the gardens of ten thousand dreams here, and I am well pleased.

Marigolds, zinnias, sweet alyssum, and cosmos. Lavender, lupines, bachelor’s buttons, and daisies. Calendaria, dianthus, and carnations. Salvia, asters, delphiniums, and mums. Sunflowers, snapdragons. scarlet pimpernel, and foxglove. Ageratum, hollyhocks, nasturtiums, and sweet william.

We have a lots of garden space, therefore, we have ended up with a boatload of flowers to try to fill them all. Most of these I’ve grown from seeds or cuttings from monster-sized plants. And almost all of these plants produce more seeds. I may never have to buy another packet seeds for as long as I live, even if I live for another two decades. There’s no such thing as too many flowers. Or too many types of flowers.

The end result of our labors has been so dramatic that it’s hard to adequately describe. It’s like unto a caveman/hippie/beatnik guy that decided to cut his hair and join the human race. It opened up the outdoors and let the sun shine in. Now all we have to do is keep it trimmed and manicured until we die, and then it will become someone else’s problem.

For now, there are three of us on the job so it hasn’t become a major ordeal for anyone. But we all can see that it’s something we’re going to have to be very proactive about or we’ll end up another Hedgerow from Hell in no time flat.

* * * *

And that brings me to the third and final G of my version of this stage of my development in life. Golf. Prior to the onset of all the COVID-19 lockdowns and precautions and stuff, I was consistently scoring in the mid-80’s. I fixin’ to get ready to start to begin to break 80, and go onto the Professional Senior’s Tour.

And then one day, for no particular reason, pretty much almost everything about my golf game just fell apart, and it stayed there. I was scoring in the mid-90’s and golf became a whole lots less fun than it had ever been.

I’ve tried to remain philosophical and positive about sucking at golf once more. Everyone goes through a slump. You’ve just got to play through it until it gets bored and goes away to ruin someone else’s game. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

That’s how dieting works. For example, if you lose several pounds, they float around through the atmosphere until they run into someone else, and that person suddenly gains several pounds. I’ve lost 15 pounds since I retired. And I’d bet at least one person reading this has gained 15 pounds in the last four and half years.

I rest my case.

* * * *

And that’s about it from the Chula Vista Resort and Spa for now. We’re still accepting reservations, and we now offer special Friends and Family Rates that will be available for a limited time — like unto those TV ads for Dr. Ho’s Circulation Promoter and Pain Relief System.

Y’all take care of yourselves and stay safe out there. I’ve come to the conclusion that gardening is an apt metaphor for life. Plant a lots of seeds. Keep the weeds away. And water as needed.

When you look at that way, life isn’t away where near as complicated.

Q & A

It’s been a busy year so far at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa. We’ve had illnesses, cancer scares, and various and sundry other medical issues that needed treatment.

I  had the Mexico City Flu, and a couple of precancerous lesions by my right eye that were removed in January. At the same time, our roommate, Todd, had a Shingles outbreak around his right eye. It took about three weeks, but that has resolved, so things are getting back to normal for both of us again.

Our kit-tens, Mollie and Mika, are doing great. Mollie is helping me type right now, so this could take a while. Kit-tens are apparently immune to the flu. And Shingles. They’re still the cutest kit-tens ever.

* * * *

We’ve had visitors in February. Our beautiful and talented oldest daughter, Gwen, and her husband, John, were here for a week. While they were here, we had a major plumbing problem with the kitchen sink. It started leaking. And then it stopped draining.

I can usually fix most simple plumbing leaks on my own, but this is Mexico. I’m not sure if there are any construction codes in Mexico, and if there are, they’re probably viewed in the same manner that traffic laws are. They’re more like unto suggestions than anything else.

The pipes under the kitchen sink are a perfect example of that.

The plumbing looks something like unto this…

So I called Jaime Mendoza, our property manager, and he called Tacho, our general fix-it guy. Tacho looked at the weird configuration of pipes and started swearing in Spanish.

“Now you know why I wanted you here.” I said.

It took Tacho two weeks to fix the leak because he would fix one leak, and another one would mysteriously appear. After the first week, we were pretty sure that dynamite would be the best solution because houses in Mexico are made of concrete. But Tacho preserved, and he eventually fixed all of the leaks and cleared out the huge clog from somewhere under the kitchen floor without having to resort to explosives.

* * * *

We also had a couple of issues with our swimming pool. The solar heater stopped heating, and there was a leak in one of the pumps. Those problems took closer to a month to fix because the replacement parts had to be ordered from Guadalajara, and then the repairmen had to be reminded that they had to come back to install the new parts, even though they had the parts that needed to be installed.

There was a defective valve in the solar heater. Once that was replaced, it worked better than it ever has. Our solar heater isn’t the top of the line model, so we ordered five solar heating lilly pads to augment the heater from a guy named Rodrigo. He owns a garden store that sells a lots of pool equipment. We’re going to pick them up later today. The total cost on those is less than $50 US.

And the leaking pump was sorted out with a new gasket.

Mischief. Managed.

* * * *

The heat shields on my propane grill needed to be replaced because they had more or less disintegrated in the eleven years that I’ve been using it. Finding replacement parts for your grill isn’t a big deal in the States. It’s a huge deal in Mexico. The easiest way to replace the three heat shields here seemed to be to buy a new propane grill, and while a lots of things are way less expensive in Mexico, propane grills aren’t one of them.

And then I met Ed and Kat. Ed is grizzled-looking gringo who kind of retired down here, but still wants to work for some unfathomable reason. Kat may or may not be Ed’s wife. She’s a very attractive Latina, probably thirty years younger than Ed. She has really big eyes, so she’s a lots of fun to talk to.

I love the Google Image Search!

Ed opened a shop called Baja Grills that sells propane grills and smokers. And fishing bait and supplies. And hot tubs. And fireplace inserts. And stuff…  He didn’t have the replacement heat shields I needed, so he made new ones for me. They probably cost me $60 US. 

Winter in the Lakeside Area lasts about a month — from the middle of December to the middle of January. It doesn’t get freezing-ass cold here, but there’s about a ten degree difference between the outside temperature and the temperature inside of the cavernous gringo mansion we’re renting.

It’s colder inside of our house than it is outside. We have three gas fireplaces at the Chula Vista Resort and Spa, but none of them have the requisite inserts that make them functionable. Probably because propane fireplace inserts are outrageously expensive down here, too. 

We have three portable propane heaters that we use during the coldest month of Winter. But one of Ed and Kat’s fireplace inserts might work perfectly in our living room fireplace. Lea and I are going to go take a closer look at it later today…  It’ll all depend on what kind of deal we can get.

* * * *

And there’s been golf. Todd and I play at least three times a week, sometimes more often depending on how we feel. So far, we tend to take turns having reasonably decent rounds of golf. Last Sunday, we played 36 holes of golf. I beat Todd by three strokes on the front nine with an 89. We both shot 88 on the second 18.

Yesterday, we both sucked.

I started playing golf back in my thirties because it was the only way I could talk with my dad. He loved to play golf, and he was a wicked good golfer. My favorite part about golf back then was I could drink beer and smoke cigarettes while I golfed. And there was that whole hitting the shit out of a little white ball thing…

The more I golf, the less it resembles what I thought it was in my youth. “Good golfers hit the ball as hard as they can. Great golfers hit the ball as hard as they need to.” I can’t remember who said that, but he was right. I would add this: Good golfers have a strategy. Great golfers are able to execute it. 

Golf is like unto playing chess with an opponent that never moves any of its pieces. Hitting the shit out of a little white ball has become the least important part of my game anymore.

Strategy was something I had no concept of until I started playing in the Go-Go tournaments at my country club. Go-Go is like unto regular golf, except with a twist. Or two. And that’s where all the strategy comes into play. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dave Naisby and Bill Merrell. They’re the guys that organize and coordinate the Go-Go tournaments at the Country Club de Chapala.

I can’t say they’ve made me a good golfer, but I suck a whole lots less than I did three years ago.

And then there’s that whole balance thing. I need to be physically relaxed when I hit a golf ball because my fucked up back can take only so much abuse. If my swing isn’t relaxed and fluid, I’m going to be in for a long and very painful day. But my mind has to be laser-focused because half of this game is 90% mental. And trust me when I say this: I can be too relaxed when I golf sometimes, and that’s not good.

It’s an odd set of contradictions that I have to manage every time I pick up a golf club. Sometimes it works very well. And those are the days that keep me coming back for more abuse.

It’s kind of like being a psych nurse, except the pay is worse. But you meet way fewer assholes.

* * * *

I’ve spent a few days trying to imagine this post as a question and answer piece about my nursing career. Or just a question and answer thing about anything. There’s one major obstacle to this concept. No one ever asks me anything about being a nurse. Come to think of it, they don’t ask me about much of anything else either.

So if I’m going to do this, it’s going to be all my imagination.

There’s one compelling reason for me to go down this road. A couple of my former patients have been on my mind lately. And I’ve learned not to ignore those things when they happen.

* * * *

What was the most heartbreaking thing that happened when you were a nurse?

The suicides. I was a psych nurse for thirty years. I couldn’t tell you how many of the people I had a role in caring for killed themselves after they were discharged from the hospital. There were dozens of them. In 1990, twelve Vietnam veterans at the MVAMC took their lives in one month.

I remember my first patient who took his life at the Minnesota State Hospital in Anoka. He drowned himself in the Rum River. I remember the last one, too. He was at St. Luke’s in Phoenix. He had had a stroke, and the day before he was discharged he met with everyone on the evening shift to thank them and say goodbye. He shot himself two days later.

And I vividly remember each of the five patients that killed themselves while they were still in the hospital. Those are things you never forget, no matter how much you try. If I exclude the suicides, there’s one person who jumps to the top of the list. That said, I probably have a hundred stories similar to hers.

* * * *

Her name was Audrey. I met her at the Minneapolis VAMC. She was a sweet woman in her forties. She was admitted for depression, and if I remember correctly, a lengthy list of somatic complaints. She was a cancer survivor, so one possibility was her cancer had returned.

As I’ve said before, diagnosing is essentially a process of ruling out all of the things that aren’t wrong with you until your doctor figures out what’s left. The first thing her doctor did was order a full body CT scan.

One of the great things about working at the VA was the ease of doing consults with other specialty clinics. Sometimes the consulting physicians would come to the unit, but usually we had to transport our patients to the various departments, then return them to the unit when their consult was done. 

I was transporting Audrey in a wheelchair to Radiology for her CT Scan. And she told me this story:

“I remember when this began. I had just turned 30 when the pain started. I went to see a doctor. Hell, I went to a lot of doctors. And none of them could find anything wrong with me. One of them said my pain was a figment of my imagination. You know, like I was crazy. After awhile, my friends all started thinking I was crazy. It went on for months. After about a year, even I started thinking I was crazy.

“It was so frustrating. There was nothing wrong with me, but the pain was unbearable. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have a life. All I did was go from one doctor to the next, only to hear the same fucking thing: All your tests have come back negative. We can’t find anything physically wrong with you…

“And then I was diagnosed with cancer, and this is going to sound really crazy, but I almost felt happy! I think I cried genuine tears of joy when I heard that! I was so relieved because it wasn’t just all in my head. There really was something wrong with me! I wasn’t crazy!! That’s just so fucked up, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t answer her. She looked back over her shoulder to see if I was still there. I was trying unsuccessfully to choke back my tears. 

* * * *

What’s the weirdest thing you saw in your nursing career?

There’s a lots of competition for this one. Lesbian encounters in the night. Guys accidentally getting foreign objects stuck up their asses. Guys jamming foreign objects into their penises. The list goes on. And on…  But the hands down winner has to be the guy that drove his girlfriend from Arizona to Michigan. It doesn’t sound that weird, except she was dead for most of the trip.

I don’t have any other stories like unto this one.

Her name was Christine. She was 31 years old, and was a frequent flyer at Aurora Behavioral Health in Glendale, AZ. She was a dual diagnosis patient, meaning on top of her psychiatric issues she was also chemically dependent. In layman’s terms, Christine was a trainwreck. She was one of the most exhausting patients I’ve ever met, and I wasn’t her nurse. Now that I think about it, she wasn’t even on my unit, and I probably spent more time interacting with her than I did with all of my patients combined. 

Christine lives forever in my Top Five Patients From Hell List.

In June of 2014, Christine was discharged from the hospital. She was picked up by Ray, her 62 year old boyfriend, and Ray’s 93 year old mother. We cheerfully waved goodbye as they all climbed into Ray’s van and headed off to Michigan. We prayed that they all made it there safely and never returned to Arizona again. Ever.

Christine probably accidentally overdosed on her discharge medications by swallowing the entire contents of a bottle of OxyContin on purpose, and then died to death somewhere in Oklahoma. See? I told you she was a trainwreck.

And then the weird part happened. Rather than stop and report what happened to the police, Ray put a pair of sunglasses on her face, placed a teddy bear on her lap, and kept on driving.

Across hot and humid Oklahoma to steamy Missouri, through sweltering Indiana into Illinois — you get the picture– stopping only for gas, fast food and bathroom breaks until he made it to Michigan. And then Ray decided to notify the police that something had happened to his girlfriend. It didn’t take the police long to figure out what was wrong because Christine’s body had begun to decompose. 

Police chose not to press any charges against Ray. Or his mother.

This is Ray. The story of his road trip made National News. You could look it up on the Google…

* * * *

When I first envisioned this post, I had imagined a lots more questions and a few more stories. And then I realized most of my stories bear a lots of similarities to each other, so there’s that.

It might explain why no one asks me a lots of questions.