The paranoia about illness - or is it the illness of paranoia?

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The sneezing, sniffling, oh-shit-I-feel-like-I-have-a-fever time is raging here in Central California like a wildfire out of control.

At the university, the health center is diagnosing students over the telephone as having swine flu. And while it's normal at this stage of the semester to have a lot of absence, my classrooms are often only half full, with the other half emailing in that they are sick and will take a pass on coming to school that day.

And if they think they are sick, they do have strict orders: Keep thee away from me. A couple of zip codes would be nice.



This entire flu-mania took on special meaning late last week when a Sacramento amiga invited the Admiral and I to come to her house and have dinner. Sure, sounds great, we said. Plans were put into place to bring the ukulele for a little concert for she and her husband and two young children.

Two children. Two young children.

Uh-oh. Children, much younger versions of walking petri dishes of bacteria and viruses that I teach daily. Good kids to be sure, but what illnesses might lurk in that critical three-foot radius around them? And what if I caught a bad cold - or worse - weeks before the Admiral and I are scheduled to make our way south and east, back to coastal Mexico?

We canceled. I think we are still friends.

Someone once told me that you are only paranoid if you think someone is out to get you and they are not.

Hmm...

So I continue to gulp vitamins and minerals twice a day - prescribed by my Canadian amiga Laura - drink enough water to solve the Southern California water shortage, try to sleep a full 8 hours and I hold my breath in the elevators at the University.

Paranoid? No way.

Taking a 'vacation' from retirement

LA MANZANILLA, Jalisco, Mexico - The Admiral and I are taking a vacation from retirement.

I know, I know.

But if you have been following our saga this winter and spring you know that retirement has not meant golf, shuffle board and rocking chairs (hammocks maybe). Between all of the construction, then landscaping and most recently all of the 'save-the-dogs' efforts, we seem to have been running full-tilt, far busier than teaching in Sacramento.

Far busier. (OK, we have squeezed in a lot of fun, too. But still...)

For the past couple of days - and one more tomorrow - we have been doing some serious lounging (Is than an oxymoron?) at a house in La Manzanilla, without fixing anything, or chasing (and bathing) a single street pooch. (Oh crap, I hear a hound barking on the street. Somebody grab the Admiral, quick.)


Pre-vacation warmup in Arroyo Seco last week

The days off have been made more fun by having U.S. amigos Randy and Karin in town. They arrived a couple of days ago, getting off the plane in Manzanillo and immediately shifting from their native cold, mountain air (they live near Sanders and Pat Lamont in the California mountains) to the stifling humidity that has suddenly arrived in the last week.

That humidity was quite apparent went they stepped off the plane and made their way across the 90 degree tarmac to the terminal. Their flight was probably carrying 50 people - on a plane designed for 300.



But Randy and Karen conquered the humidity the way we all do down here (if you live close to the beach). They grabbed their bathing suits and we all traveled to the La Manzanilla beach for swimming - and a little shade from our umbrella.

The water has warmed up remarkably in the past two weeks, bringing with it some fear that sting rays might also be wanting to enjoying the waters. And on the La Manzanilla beach, the water is usually clouded with sand when the surf comes up, making visibility a problem.

No sting rays showed up, but midway through the afternoon we rubbed our eyes as we watched an overturned sailboat drift up on shore. For a captain, this is stuff nightmares are made of.


Sailboat drifting in

It was hard to say how long the boat had been drifting, but there wasn't any green algae growth on the underwater parts so I would guess that the boat was in the water for less than a week, maybe even just a few days.

Randy and checked out the boat pretty thoroughly - no name, hailing port or rigging at all. It did have plenty of bottom paint which was sloughing off quickly onto any of the young Mexican children who climbed on the boat to get a peek in through one of the major holes in the hull.

Because I have gotten quite sick from getting that paint on me in years past, I convinced most of the kids that the blue paint was peligroso (dangerous) and malo (bad).

Most of the children washed the paint off right away in the saltwater, probably enough prevention.



An added La Manzanilla treat was getting to attend a very small family birthday party for our God-daughter Devani two days ago. Her mother and grandmother and grandfather have moved to a much smaller house as the economic downtown - and H1N1, the malady formerly known as swine flu - battered the economy of this village so much that they lost their jobs.

No tourists, no money, no jobs for the family. They hope their two-table restaurant will keep them afloat for awhile. But we're not sure. No tourists probably means no customers. Except for us, perhaps.

The Mexicans we talk with are completely baffled by the fear many Americans seem to have of Mexico. Like folks in the U.S., they understand there are parts of their country to be more careful in. In Mexico, that's border towns and the big cities. In the U.S., it's border towns and the big cities.

Hmm...


Devani sits on her birthday present

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.