The ice cream song

you know the one

The light was different today.

Coming through the windows at a flattering angle like the house was on a cosmic lazy Susan through the night. Just 1/8 of a turn. This whole place is like a weird stage set. Not quite the Truman Show but an episode of Los Garcias if they lived in a house made of wood pallets. The sun used to set over behind the two pipes coming out of the geo thermal plant on the shoreline when I first got here but now it’s at the end of my block which is 6 blocks from the Sea of Cortez. (not on the Baja side, I’m in Sonora, decidedly less upmarket)

Spring Equinox taken into account it’s a dramatic shift and decidedly Northwest, this light. It’s quite pleasant (which is weird) as this place has less ‘golden hour’ moments and is mostly cloudless and direct, fireball, desert blaze light and then night. Period.

It’s quiet (at the moment) because it’s Good Friday. Aside from some vendors with those music speakers yelling over top of a soundtrack, silly clown music like the ice cream pedo van guy who has an unmarked windowless van and that song, not quite The Entertainer and not Turkey in the Straw, but you know the one. Easter is his debut. Sometimes he parks and just let’s it rip that music box tune and just when I think I’ll go buy an ice cream sandwich to make him move along, he rolls away.

I rather like the vendadoras in Mexico and in many towns they have the pineapple guy, the CAMARON! guy, the Raul’s Naranjas guy with fresh squeezed juice and the whistle guy who sharpens your kitchen knives on his bike. Oh and the guava pastry guy! I’d run down a flight of stairs in Veracruz to catch that guy on his bike. Like empanadas with cream cheese and guava preserves.

Tlacotalpan, Veracruz the basket guys are everywhere

Here there are 3 water companies, a gas guy who blows the horn (I don’t use gas) and this creepy ice cream guy.

The weather is 73 degrees today and I’ve got the windows open and all the dogs are walked and we got a bone for Dusty at the carne asada guy and I roasted a chicken in my very ambitious toaster oven and I made stock and everyone is laying on the bed full and getting toenails clipped. I’m making deals with old lady Brady (16) that if she doesn’t nip me I’ll give her some chicken or some peanut butter. Just let me get the dew claw at least, and we agree.

I’ve hung the sheet set I washed in the bucket and I wait for my hummingbird to come by. I slept last night. This is how people feel when they sleep on a regular I imagine. Clear and calm and just listening to Count Basie and sweeping the sidewalk? How nice.

It’s Semana Santa (Holy Week but more like jerky teenager Spring Break loudmaker time) and the “fun” started Wednesday night with thumping all night bass that rattles my solar plexus and racing dune buggies until 5am. I was hungover feeling all day for lack of sleep. Everyone else parties, I suffer. The Get Off My Lawn Days are here.

I try to lean into my actual life that is available to me. Mostly I am unsuccessful. You can’t do the usual things like stroll the Zocalo and people watch, listen to live music or dance. Shop. Look at art. Snack. It’s a little sketchy at night but likely harmless. The food is gross and nothing opens until I’m headed to bed even if I was dying for a $4 taco made with donkey meat. Asi es (it is what it is) but it’s temporary right? (year 4)

This was not on my Manifestation Abraham Hicks Vortex of The Secret Bingo Card. But trying to block out noise and pretend Mexico isn’t just a loud, dusty place always ready to party is just crazy. I’m left with only changing how I react to the way things are while I’m here which is some kind of advice my mom would have given me when I was a young person lamenting that things weren’t the way I WANTED THEM TO BE.

In a bold move last night I left the windows open to feel the breeze and I didn’t put in my ear plugs. What if I embrace the noise? Just what if. What if I wasn’t the kind of person who didn’t freak out over loud noises and lose sleep over everything. I find if I get too worried and prepared for something that may or may not happen I just tense up and don’t sleep anyway. So leave the windows open. Even if it’s quiet like a monastery out there, I have a pretty good chance of being alarmed by the 13 dogs in the house, so who are we kidding. I’m trying to rid myself of counter productive personality traits while I’m stranded here. What else am I gonna do?

I’ve successfully ended food cravings, comfort eating, dating the wrong goofball dude because it’s late at night, online shopping (or any retail therapy) and wine time isn’t even possible here even if I wanted to.

Mostly I don’t have any habits because I don’t have any money, but after a while you don’t even crave things any more. There’s no itch to scratch. Not sure how I feel about it. A more sophisticated location may offer “fun” things for the human to do that didn’t entail mind altering substances and poor mating choices. Maybe?

So, I mop floors, throw things away like old writing and receipts, and comb these dogs and look for ticks. I clean Dusty’s ears of black tar wax and listen to him whine really quietly but know that it must be done. I marvel at how all the dogs start to have REM twitchy dream sleep at the same time like they are interconnected underground like trees. I look inside Brady’s mouth and try to decide which tooth has gone feral to make her smell like a baby diaper pail with an oyster in it. I see how her tan spots have faded and how she’s nearly white now, she cracks an eyeball and looks at River who has stretched out to touch her with her back paw. A sigh and back to sleep.

I look at them all, my only reason for still being here in this town and imagine how big the van will be that hauls us out of here. Would a Suburban work? Cookie’s eyeballs follow me around the room. Rocky falls off the bed but catches himself and settles in under a chair. I hear the vibrato of tiny wings and there she is, the green hummingbird at my window. I hang backwards off the bed and watch her flit across the yard. Il dolce far niente I’d call this if I was in Italy. So I squint my eyes and pretend I’m going to a Trattoria later. I envision a bruschetta, a prosciutto and melon starter, maybe a baked clams oreganata and a glass of Prosecco.

*Thanks for reading, if you liked it and even if you didn’t, hit the heart. You made it this far. Help the nobody writers get seen while the algorithm suggests someone with 10,000 subscribers and a Netflix series. I have a LOT of kibble to buy. Speaking of which, if you’d like to contribute to my unplanned Mission from Dog, you can go to linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue My most pressing need is a ride out of here. So I guess that’s my second most pressing need. My number one goal is to create a bigger sanctuary at a property yet to be determined. Maybe a quiet acre or two, a small town where we have a vet even. Literally open to all suggestions and opportunities.