This Week's Excitement

I started my latest attempt at writing a novel on January 8, 2011 - the first anniversary of my mother's death. It seemed fitting, seeing as how the protagonist's mother in my novel will play a significant role. A year has given me enough distance to have a better perspective on a lot of things. So far, I am making headway - writing a couple of hours a day should be a do-able routine to get into.

I couldn't write yesterday as we had to take our Jeep into Puerto Vallarta to be serviced; that took the entire day, and what felt like two near-death experiences.

After dropping the car off at Chrysler PV, we wandered around Marina Vallarta in the morning sunshine, Starbuck's latte in hand, and admired all the yachts (me pointedly walking away any time John started speculating aloud too much about having a boat down here...NOT happening, at least not until he's onto his third wife!). "Esposa Numero Dos" (Wife #2 - moi) is not on board with having a boat in Mexico.

We then hopped on the bus to the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta - and held on for dear life. The driving is totally insane. The tailgating, the speeding, the unsafe lane changes, no signalling, driving 3 cars abreast when there are only 2 lanes, and motorcycles weaving in and out - it's breathtaking in the worst possible way. It makes you all the more aware of what you are up against when driving your own car - you can be as careful and cautious as you want - but you are outnumbered and surrounded by the maniacs.

After a nice afternoon strolling and lunching in PV we grabbed a cab back to the car dealership. That was another white-knuckle/hair-raising experience. We bribed him with a 20% tip to encourage him to get us there in one piece...but he seemed to take that as a challenge to drive even faster and take more risks!

As we drove back to Bucerias in our own Jeep, all I could see driving around us were potential perpetrators of vehicular homocide! You really do need to have eyes in the sides and back of your head when driving here.

I better post this while the internet is still up (it's been dicey since Boxing Day).

Todo bien. (It's all good.)