he's coming Saturday....

i am so darn excited. what can i say; it's intoxicating "a.n.t.i.c.i.P.A.t.i.o.n" (thanks to Dr. Frankenfurter)!

this is my first Thursday off since my return from Mexico--the last 2 i had to work. needless to say i'm cleaning the house with great verve today. might get halfway done today, and finish up on Saturday morning. the couch-mate has a new place to land and will be out Saturday....i'm feeling more empowered since Monday.

ready to blast off, oh joy!

raining here too

amazingly enough....rain has persisted through several days since my return to Tucson. chilly some days, sunny on others....but rain rain rain, beautiful mud, wet doggies in the house. we should have an amazing crop of wildflowers this spring!

the Mexican romance is Tucson-bound and i'm getting excited--hope he will be here in time to enjoy the coming full moon. also hope the magical connection we both felt is intact. we have emailed a little, but his access to Internet service is spotty at best. so far, so good. fingers crossed!

today i took my courage in both hands and told driveway-mate that i wanted my house and space back to myself. i also told couch-mate the same thing. they both have until May to find new digs.

it has been wonderful to help both of these folks but i have reached the end of my ability to do so. remember, i have a super tiny house, and having these other people here (not to mention their attendant *stuff*) has been crowding my solitude. guess i need more than the average person--and Taza, that's fine.

today is also my son's 26th birthday. leaving in a moment to go to his house for dinner. sweet!

home again

well, the rains came and the rains stayed for 3 days. drenching downpours during the evening and night time, intermittent showers during the day. so that was a bit of a hassle, camping in the wet and all, but then again it was tropical rain so it was not really cold, just darn damp everywhere.

Sunday was the San Blas trip. Monday was the waterfall trip that i opted out of. Tuesday the rains came and stayed until Thursday, but we persevered in our excursions regardless. they were a little less enjoyable because of the weather, but we had fun anyway. we went to a coffee processing plant nearby and the way the coffee is treated is astonishingly different than the way Capulin is produced.

on Wednesday we went on a river tour of some of the nearby mangrove swamps. half an hour out the heavens opened and we were all completely drenched. that night i stayed in the hotel Casa Manana which was about 8 miles from Daniel's village and where some of the group had rooms, so there were extra beds available for those of us who wanted a hot shower and a place to crash. the group was a very fun bunch of folks, so we had fun drinking beer and eating more awesome seafood and walking on the rocky beach.

i met a very nice man at San Blas and we had us a little Mexican romance! wow, what an unexpected surprise, and how very fun it was. he was on a motorcycle trip and intersected with our group, got interested and ended up joining us. we had a nice spark from the start, and he is changing his itinerary so that he can come up through Tucson to see me again when he's done touring. it's quite amazing really, and i'm just rolling with it.

the bus ride back was 25 hours long, so last night i was toasted. back to work today. the rest of the week is busy with as much work as i can do, as i took this trip on financial fumes and made it back home with $18 left. so, the bills need to get paid, and i'm back to the grindstone, but gosh i have wonderful memories of Mexico and wonderful anticipation of Mark's visit in the next couple of weeks. i'd say i'm one lucky woman!

ohhhh, Mexico....

Tecuitata, Nayarit, Mexico....tiny village, funky paradise, beautiful jungle, beach within 5 miles (OK, maybe 10?). there are about 20 people attending EcoArc2010. 6 from Tucson, several from Iowa and some from Canada, ¿ where else ? oh yeah, Tennessee!

i am camping in Daniel and Marta´s backyard but other folks are staying right here in the village, rooming with residents; and still others are at Casa Mañana (this is a Spanish keyboard, has the ´ny´key and the upside down question mark!) which is a sweet hotel right on the Pacific. awesome. food has been amazing, mindblowing, fresh made and endless amounts of it. fruit out the wazoo--am particularly taken with a local variety called jackfruit which tastes as much like Juicyfruit gum as anything i´ve ever eaten.

mango trees everywhere, along with jackfruit and avocado and papaya and guava trees....abundance in the heart of the Mother....tranquil temps, mildly humid, rain yesterday and sun today.

yesterday a group of us hired a van and went to San Blas for a bird festival, which we missed due to being late, but vendors were still set up so i bought some Huichol beaded earrings. we all walked to the beach, sat in a beachside restaurant and had cervezas and fresh seafood (tostadas ceviche de pescado for me), then walked back into town and the same van came to get us. today most everyone went to the waterfall, but i am mindful of my knee and wanted a crowd-free day, so stayed ´home´with a couple others who seem to be similarly enjoying some solitude.

this morning i went up to the plaza with Daniel´s son Ryan and raked coffee cherries into drying piles. yesterday´s rain meant that all the cherries were covered over with tarps to prevent their getting wet. there are coffee trees all over the place too--my tent is pitched under several of them. the fruit is mildly sweet, a little pulpy, and there is a faint coffee vibe that one gets because what we call the beans are the pits. Daniel´s coffee is hand picked and fully dried so the sweetness of the fruit permeates the beans. OK i sound like an ad for Capulin but my goodness, to see the operation in person makes me more proud to be a part of the effort!

www.capulin.com just in case you want to find out more. anyway, might not have another chance to check in, but wowee zowee this is really something!