Roll over darling, and pass me another lotus blossum.....

Saturday went to Tulum for the morning.  Hopped on the collectivo and drove there, paid our three dollars as we got off.  Price has gone up from the last time.  We had a short tour of the site--the place first conquered by Cortez who arrived via Cuba.  Mayans later made a deal with the Brits for Belize for money and arms then took the place back.

I also learned about Mayan creation story--woman created first, needed someone to birth humanity; 13 levels of heaven and nine levels of hell. Lots of reading up for that.  Beautiful beach but one has to go down via quite steep risers.  Consequently, I passed as coming up would have not appealed to the hip.  Yesterday, Mike lay on the beach and I indulged in a little retail therapy.
We have a great beach here--the surf is rather high so they have built baffles out of tarp and sand.  The waves crash into them -- not just to slow them down, but to prevent the undertow from sweeping the bather out to the middle of the Caribbean.  We, of course, use them for muchos fun.

I spend some time writing out my Christmas cards, and actually enjoying do them.  We have run into several Critters that we can't photograph, either because they are too quick or because  it is night time.  In the early morning we have seen a small animal about the size of a muscrat but without a tail and with longer legs in the wild area just to the right of our unit (see picture from Nov. 25.)  I am still searching for what it is, but no one here seems to know anything about the fauna around here.  The front desk type employees seem all to be from some other place in Mexico.  The Mayans of the area are here only for cleaning and waiting table, the caste system is alive and well in the Yucatan.
The other critter looks to be of the coon family, but with a thinner, longer nose.  We saw one dining the other night as we were en route to La Tortuga (a Brazilian a la carte where the menu was solidly for carnivores). Yesterday, en route to La Hacienda Dona Isabel, (the hotel run mini mall and tourist trap) I took the photo just above.  The critters are called coati, and according to Wikipedia are indeed also known as Mexican hog nosed raccoons, Brazilan aardvaks, or "Snookum bears"  I am going for snookum bears, personally. Here is a link to a Wikipedia photo.   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/CoatiNosara.jpg
Coming soon will be birds. 

Day Five in Mexico

                  6 o'clock in the morning, after a storm

                                                              something in a shell....

 

It has been a very quiet trip....the weather has been muy humido this time around with a couple of thunderstorms, quite spectacular.  The first few days it really doesn't matter to me what the weather is like. If it is warm I am zonked out under an umbrella.  If it is wet, the same thing happens only am zonked on the bed in the room.  All good.  We have done a lot of swimming, as usual, and walking.  We were planning on taking the collectivo from out front of the hotel to go to Tulum, but the weather was rainy, so we chose not to go today.  We lounged about and read books.  To night we are going to "l'arlequin', a restaurant on the site for dinner.  We have taken a walk towards the bay we saw last time, (on our last day here) but we didn't go as far as we could have -- the couple we were walking with were afraid of the "no trespassing signs" on the beach.  I understand that it means not to trespass into the property, which is federal, but there were people strolling around the point.  It was still a good walk as there were several tide pools to examine.

Its all very well, to write them, but they have to be posted appropriately...Thanksgiving as Evensong

St. Matthew's Thanksgiving was the final one, held the Sunday evening after thanksgiving at four o'clock--lots of singing and a wonderful speaker,  Debbie Bodkin. . Debbie, an officer with the Waterloo regional police force has spent many of her leaves in places like Chad, Kosovo and the Sudan  not as a tourist but working collecting information.  I don't have the words to tell you about Debbie, so check out her page at http://www.debbiebodkin.com/.  If you have some real time on your hands, "Google" her name, and find all the articles, videos and radio and television interviews.
I have been preaching, over the Harvest season on the need to give thanks in actions, not just necessarily in words and/or money, and Debbie (it was the wardens' idea to ask her to speak for the special service) shows us that a woman living in Canada can do something about the horrors of the world around us.
What was really helpful for the parish was for the hard working folks to hear about meeting her 'adopted child'  (through World Vision).  Debbie told us how she had seen first hand how the money she donated helped the child, family and village.  Operation Christmas box is gearing up again, and the parish has taken heart from hearing from Debbie that the boxes actually get into the hands of the intended recipients.

We have tramps here too!

Yesterday and today are our to be our last gasps of summer, apparently.  My plans were to finish my sermon and clean the front windows before going to work out at the gym.  By the time I had finished 'puttering about' -- making French Canadian pea soup, read the paper, had breakfast etc., the day had developed into a beautiful breezy Indian summer event.  I got my cornstarch and warm water mixed along with the clean rags and headed out to clean the front windows--a thing of beauty.  By the time I had finished them, I realized that the sheers in the living room were filthy; I tried to remember the last time I had cleaned them and it isn't a thing I want to share with anyone but Mike.  Feeling guilty about all the window 'treatments', I took down the stuff from the patio doors, and the downstairs windows and threw them all in the washer. Of course, it was then noticible that ALL the windows in the house were dirty (is this beginning to sound like the bread and gravy game?), so more cornstarch and water were prepared, and they all had their dirty faces washed. 
I called a colleague, En, and after she had finished her nursing home service, off we headed to the Lorne Henderson Conservation Area, just outside of town to walk for an hour there.  It is a lovely site with three weirs and beautiful paths, and a great place to wander with a friend.

Pit Stop

We have a lemon bay tree to the side of the back patio.  This year, the squirrels left the seed pods alone, so they were available for the robins traveling south.  We had one late-comer this year who was here every day for the last week in October.  He had us worried that he wasn't going to make it to Florida before the snow fell here, but he has been nowhere to be seen the last couple of days. Vaya con Dios, mi amigo.

Halloween in Ontario

When our son was young we used to joke that Halloween was his favourite religious holiday--we used to go all out, pumpkins with all the fixings.  I think it is something that is most fun when we are young and when we have young people in the house.
One of my favourite memories around Halloween was going all dressed up to our son's French Immersion class at Queen Elizabeth School.  I was "une sorciere" and went to deliver the then always homemade treats.  After having fun with the kids (in bad French!), I had to race off to see a retired priest in the neighbourhood who was supplying a recommendation for me to be considered as a postulant for ordination in our diocese, so as to go to ACPO (Anglican weekend from Hell) to be assessed.  As he answered the door to give me the letter he had written, he remarked "Some of the strangest folk are apply for ordination these days".
This year's Halloween paled in comparison. We actually had forgotten that Saturday was the night, and had made plans to go out for dinner.  Mike carved the pumpkin, put a light in it, and we left it and the box of candy at the front door (Hershey's Cookies and Cream).  A few were removed but, sadly, the little monsters of the neighbourhood are growing up and have yet to be replaced.