A dog day ends up with dinner at a seaside hotel

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - Sunday was another veterinary mini-clinic with the major patients being El Capitan and Leona. Leona has some problem similar to cancer and is getting a shot per week (which she does not like). El Capitan is showing signs of a disease spread by ticks and when he breathes, he sounds like a pig with a bad cold.

A really bad cold.

Both dogs were treated by our amiga and veterinarian Rocio on Sunday, with El Capitan getting three shots, several boxes of pills (all for this week) and a lot of sympathy. Most problematic is his runny nose. A runny nose with mucus that is mostly blood.

Stand way back when El Capitan sneezes.

Leona - for the first time - didn't squirm like Jack Nicholson in a straight jacket when we put a muzzle on her and gave her an intravenous injection. It was a great relief.


Capitan's bloody nose -a symptom of his illness


Leona gets her third injection

After cleaning up the palapa floor - largely from blood splatters - the Admiral and I headed off to Careyes, where amigas own condos at the swank hotel there. Careyes is only a few miles up the highway from Arroyo Seco, but light years away in terms of opulence and money.

We were waved through the gate by the guards when we dropped the names of our amigas, then found out we had missed our friends by an hour. (Merde!)

But because we were inside the resort, we opted to spend some time gawking at the rich and, perhaps, famous. Some time stretched to about four hours which included swimming in the pool, cocktails and dinner. (NOTE TO DINERS: The Cuba Libres served at Palapa Joe's are better than the Cuba Libres served at the Hotel Careyes, though the hotel's pack a wallop, too...)


Admiral Fox at Careyes


Relaxing poolside

The Careyes' anchorage is famous with cruisers who travel the coast from Mazatlan to Zihuatenejo. We had seen it eight years ago from shoreside when we used our journalist credentials to get by the gate. But while cruising on the 48-foot Sabbatical, we passed it up when traveling back and forth. The anchorage looks great on the charts, but when you see it up close and personal from the deck of a sailboat, the rocks get very big and the swell very intense.

When we arrived at the hotel and pool - and checked out the anchoring spots Sunday - our earlier decisions to skip Careyes as a waystation seemed like we made good choices. And the very calm safe waters of Tenacatita Bay are only a few miles further south.


Careyes channel - pretty from the shore

Today The Admiral is off helping with a vet clinic in La Manzanilla while my job is to go out and check on progress at our other three lots in Arroyo Seco. Two in-town lots are being cleared and some extra fencing put in place. Our beach lot is getting cleared and filled so we can start yet-another project out there.

Yet another project?

Why not? We don't leave for Seneca Lake in New York for oh, about three weeks.

An update of swine flu - and closing of restaurants

LA MANZANILLA, Jalisco, Mexico - We had just returned to La Manzanilla Wednesday (after dropping off amigos Sanders and Pat Lamont at the Manzanillo airport) and were heading for Palapa Joe's where I was ready to slosh down a Cuba Libre (or two) and have dinner. Then we ran head-on into the Mexican bureauacracy.

Thanks to an edict from the governor of the state of Jalisco earlier that day, Willy's doors were firmly locked and will stay so into next week - or maybe longer as Willy had planned to close down the first couple of weeks in May anyway.

The governor wasn't picking on Palapa Joe's - though it feels like it if you wanted to eat there. He shut down most of the public gatherings in the entire (and huge) state of Jalisco, neglecting of course, to shut down things like a long-planned fiesta in La Manzanilla to celebrate the end of recently public construction.

But I digress.

Up and down the main street, all restaurants were closed and we learned from amiga Kate Fisher that the only food we could buy, outside of tiendas, was para llevar (to go).

A plastic cup with a Cuba Libre would not be the same, even if Willy had opted for selling takeout. Very few places have so far.

The H1N1 flu, the flu-formerly-known-as-swine flu, is getting personal.


With the head of the Red Cross

We had an inkling of something going on in Melaque and then Barra as we walked the streets Wednesday. Many restaurants were shut down and we didn't know why. And we couldn't find one at which to eat. Very abnormal.

Then at the airport, the first person we talked with was Bonnie Sumlin of the Red Cross, who was soliciting donations from people heading back to the states and Canada. She opined that we should all wear masks - especially on airplanes - but that authorities believe the flu will burn itself out as the weather gets warmer.

I don't know much about the science behind that thinking, but I like it. It has a nice ring to it.

Most of the airport staff was wearing masks and after we crossed the Cihuatlan River, health workers (masked, of course) were handing out flu literature at the ag inspection station. I have trouble enough understanding Spanish, but when someone is speaking to me through a tightly tied face mask. Well, I know she told me to wash my hands a lot, but the other parts went by like the lectures of my algebra teachers in high school.


Rusty and Cisco head out on the highway

Back at Arroyo Seco, we arrived home just in time to see the police post signs up about the new restrictions on public gatherings. Of course, the notice posted on the wall of Luis & Nena's store drew the largest crowd I've seen here outside of a quinceanera here last year.

Earlier in the day, we stopped by our amiga Rocio's veterinarian office in La Manzanilla and ran into Rusty and Cisco - the famous Cisco for whom the Cisco's Amigos organization was named years ago.

Rusty had brought Cisco to see Rocio for some kind of problem with his foot. Cisco's foot... not Rusty's foot. Of course, we didn't ask Rusty about his foot. But Rocio is very talented and probably could help Rusty's with any ailments anyway.

Music, fog, and unusual visitors all arrive in Arroyo Seco

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - When Sanders and Pat Lamont arrived a few days ago, one of our biggest concerns was that the heat might be a shock to their Northern California constitutions. Their life in Camp Connell since November has been largely in cold, often snowy conditions with skiing as a major form of exercise. Evenings have often been spent huddled around their woodstove keeping warm.

We didn't really need to worry. Since they arrived, we have had nights down below 60 degrees and came within an inch of lighting a campfire last night.

A campfire, no kidding.

And then this morning, in the hours preceding our second animal clinic in a week with Rocio (the vet from La Manzanilla), the hills were shrouded with fog and everything was soaked with dew.


Fog over Arroyo Seco hills

The clinic was a success again, with Rocio treating four dogs, including the rapidly improving Capitan. Several young neighbor girls, including Brianda from across the street, came to observe Rocio at work. And Brianda jumped in to help with the last dog, handing Rocio the various instruments, hypodermics, and medicines as needed. The girls also went along when Rocio hopped on the quad to make two house calls away from the Pink Flamingo.

They seemed a little in awe of this professional woman who has her own successful medical practice in La Manzanilla (and Arroyo Seco, obviously). She received a gift of two baby ducks from Brianda as she left.


Anna holds a neighbor's rabbit at one vet stop



A puppy's first time on real grass

The Lamont's - as the Admiral and I had hoped - helped spark us to play some music, an activity we never seem to have time for after days of projects. After realizing that all three restaurants in Arroyo Seco were closed last night, we opted for reheated leftovers and getting out the musical instruments.

Sanders and the Admiral played a half-dozen instrumental tunes while Pat and I - and neighbor Juliett - provided enthusiastic drumming, and the occasional dance step.

Perhaps tonight I might drag out my ukulele and see if the group can stand a reprise of The Letter by The Boxtops and maybe even a chorus or two of Rodney Carrington's Dancing With A Man. That's a tough song to translate, but perhaps best left untranslated, now that I think about it.


Juliette and Pat handle percussion duties

Ironically, perhaps, we have barely made it to the beach, other than a quick foray two days ago to Tenacatita for lunch and to check out the new electrical connection at our Tenacatita beach lot. With the cooler weather, it hasn't seemed quite right to break out the boogie boards and snorkel gear, though both are standing at ready. I'm also not sure how warm the ocean water is at this moment.

But Sanders and Pat have been getting some serious quad time in, zooming around the village and last night to Playa Chica to check out the sunset. The sunset was shrouded in marine-layer clouds, though even at that, the colors were dramatic.


Heading for the beach to see the sunset


Sanders, Pat and the Admiral on the quad

But of all the adventures and strange sights of the past few days, this morning's visitors to the village were a first in a winter and spring of firsts.

The front gate was wide open - an invititation for villagers to come in and bring their various animals for our vet friend Rocio to examine and treat. And while there wasn't exactly a steady stream of people, quite a few folks did stick their heads in, in some cases just to check out the place and get a quick look at the now very-green grass in the center of the property.

But one group late in the morning looked a little odd - dressed waaaaay too well for people interested in getting dragging in their pooch for a vaccination or a flea treatment. The men were dressed in pressed white shirts. The women wore longish skirts. And they were all carrying a lot of pamphlets in their hands.

No way...

Yes way...

They were part of a truckload of about 15 Jehovah's Witnesses who had descended on the village making the rounds to give out The Watchtower.

Larry, an amigo from La Manzanilla who had accompanied Rocio to Arroyo Seco (and who is a big booster of Cisco Amigo's) quickly told the Witnesses that the clinic was very busy at that moment and we really did not have time to placticar (to chat...).

And that, in fact, was quite true.


Witnesses canvass Arroyo Seco