For some reason, this detail of a fisherman’s net won out over other favorite closeups. It was taken with my Nikon Coolpix S33 camera shortly before it bit the dust when I mistakenly dipped the lens in sea water while trying to photograph a jellyfish. My cameras have had a shelf life of from one to two years lately, but they live a good and busy life in the interim.
https://musinwithsusan.com/2016/07/20/macro-moments-challenge-week-5/
I’ve mentioned this place where I go every year many times. Next year I’ll be there for three months. Thought you might like to have a look: at this video:
Double Snap!
“Clap hands,” they said, “Clap hands
to the music,” and we all obeyed
that 50’s and 60’s band
that we might have followed anywhere–
out the door and across the street into the ocean
like geriatric children following a Pied Piper.
As we had when the music was new,
we gyrated and sweated,
bumped hips, jitterbugged,
did swing and wild improvisation
at Palapa Joe’s.
Joe himself barefoot at the keyboard,
a bookend to Denise at the drums.
And we? We are as hot
as this February night.
“Oh to be young again” is not in anyone’s vocabulary,
for we are teenagers again below the Tropic of Cancer.
In the ocean or in front of it,
sipping the sunset from tiny cobalt glasses,
watching children move toy trucks down sandy roads
of their imagination
and teenagers elfin in the surf.
The sun falling falling farther northwards every day
until that March day we waited for every year when it sank
directly behind the offshore island.
Snap. It is gone.
Double snap. So are we.
Here’s more of a photo story about Palapa Joe’s if you are interested:
https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/02/28/last-open-mike-of-the-season-at-palapa-joes/
The NaPoWriMo prompt was “double” and the WordPress prompt was “snap” so I combined them today…Here are links to those prompt sites in case you want to play along:
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-fifteen-2/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/snap/
Wednesday Afternoon Music Circle
I was so lucky to be invited to the Wednesday Afternoon Music Circle at Yellow Bear’s place in La Manzanilla. I am going to let the photos tell the story for once and will let those who recognize the participants add to the story if they wish, so if you recognize yourself or a friend, please identify the photos and if you were there, give a bit of information about the afternoon in comments. I had a wonderful time!!!
(Click on first photo to enlarge, then click on arrows to move through gallery.)
Sculptor in the Sand
Mario Gagnon is retired from his life as a hospital maintenance engineer in Quebec, but when we retire from our profession, we do not retire from our interests, and his lifetime fondness for what he calls “decorating” comes with him when he comes to the beach. Like most of those camping beachside, he has made the palapa living area of his campsite “homely” in only one usage of the word. From hammocks to wall sconces fashioned from fruiting bundles of palm trees, his environs are beautiful in addition to comfortable.
I revisited him yesterday, partially because I’d forgotten to take a picture of him when I met him on the second day I visited, but I was also there because of my curiosity over whether he altered his sculpture each day. I did find him fussing with the tail of the iguana, but that was perhaps just staging for the bypasser who was currently taking his picture. When the “interloper” (kidding) departed, it was my turn.
This time it was a female neighbor who translated for us and she explained to me something that I had not cottoned on to the first time we’d met. “He can’t understand you because he is deaf and he can’t read your lips because he doesn’t speak English! Formerly, I had thought his friend was interpreting only because of the language barrier, and when I spoke Spanish, thinking it was closer to French, it hadn’t helped much either. Trying to imagine what the beach would be like without its sounds to accompany it, I asked him if he could feel the pounding of the surf. “Yes, he told me, “because I am deaf, my other senses are stronger. When I smell a fire, I can tell how long ago it was lit, what is burning and what was used to start the fire.”
This dapper, handsome man was generous in sharing his art, his home away from home and his time. Here are some of the pictures I took of his world:
(Please click on first photo to enlarge and view gallery.)
If you didn’t see the first segment I did on Mario’s wonderful beach sculpture of the iguana, to see it, go HERE.
Iguanas in the Sand
One thing I’ve discovered after six years of time spent in La Manzanilla is that it is never going to be the same experience two years (and often two days) in a row. One year the beach was covered by thousands of crystalline mounds of jellyfish that looked like snow globes that had wound up in the wrong climate. Another year, the beach was covered with coral, yet another with stones. One year we couldn’t swim because of a red tide and another due to all the sea lice (miniscule jellyfish larvae) in the water. Last year, three different mantas and a large sea turtle beached themselves, I found a blue-footed booby washed up on the sand and helped to set out hundreds of tiny sea turtles to make their way out into the ocean. There was also a month of feeding frenzy as hundreds of pelicans, gulls and other sea birds dived like kamikazes into the ocean around me and this ritual was repeated day after day.
This year, for the first month I was here, there were practically no birds–a signal as sure as the vanishing of fish tacos at Pedro’s that the fish had moved elsewhere due to those same warm waters that had caused Hurricane Patricia. In this fifth week of my stay, the fish have come back, although not in the numbers of former years.
But as in other years, there have been a number of rewards that compensated for days I couldn’t (wouldn’t) go into the ocean due to the opening of the lagoon and its drainage into the ocean. The resultant dirty water and odor caused me to walk farther up the beach than I have recently and those journeys led to the three different adventures involving iguanas that are pictured below:
(Click on first picture to enlarge photos and then click on each arrow to advance to the next photo.)
Today I was fortunate enough to meet the man who created the iguana sculpture. His name is Mario Gugnon, a retired hospital maintenance coordinator from Quebec. He says he found the large driftwood piece several years ago and to him it looked like an iguana with it’s left hind foot caught in a trap. He added the palm fronds and has been doing so each year since. In between Mario’s visits, the manager of the campground puts it away in safe keeping. When I asked if he worked in other media he said no, he was not an artist. He just likes decorating things. In illustration, he pointed out their tastefully appointed and comfortable little terraza under the canopy. But that is the subject for a different posting. (Update: I’ve now made that post as well. You can read it HERE.)
La Manzanilla is the perfect town and beach for someone who dreads repetition. It has been a new adventure every day this trip and I can’t type, edit and post fast enough to keep up with the stories. Another day, another saga. Thanks for joining me as I try to take it all in.
*
http://www.buysafesea.com/sea_lice.php
are actually the microscopic larvae of jellyfish and other ocean stingers which contain the same nematocysts (stinging cells) as mommy and daddy. In many areas of the Gulf and Caribbean the primary culprit causing “sea lice” infestations is the larvae of the thimble jellyfish.
In addition to being a fine writer, Denise Brown is an accomplished drummer and vocalist who plays several gigs weekly around La Manzanilla–most frequently at Palapa Joe’s. More information about her playing schedule is given after the poem.
La Manzanilla Tourist
…visitors are slightly different
How can you tell a tourist is aqui
Camera in hand bumping into me
Asking poor Lydia for plain white bread
Always looking up never ahead
Laying on the beach in all shades of red
Swimming in water most of us dread
How can you tell a tourist at the bar
Three margaritas goes way too far
You can’t drink like that in the heat of the day
They don’t like what they hear when they hear what I say
Come morning they rise looking so ghastly
Straight to the bano stepping so fastly
And out of the bathroom appearing quite ghostly
They say it’s the street food. I say it’s probably tequila (mostly.)
How can you tell a tourist is aqui
Just look around it’s no mystery.
Denise will play a final gig with Dave and Sally next Thursday, Feb. 25. She also plays there with the Lounge Lizards on Fridays and will play with Bindu Gross at artis gallery at an event that begins at 4pm on Feb 24.
Denise Brown
In La Manzanilla, every year around this time, a trench is dug between the laguna that houses the crocodile and bird sanctuary and the ocean. This allows the somewhat stagnant swamp water to run freely into the ocean, clearing out the still water and freshening the laguna. For those of us on the beach, however, it creates a few days of foul odor and tides we have no desire to swim or fish in. It is a small price to pay for the freshening of the mangrove swamp, but still, a yearly process no one looks forward to. Yesterday was the first day I witnessed the water running free this year. I took a walk down the beach, and this is what I saw:
(Please click on first picture and subsequent arrows to see enlargements of photos and commentary.)
Marjorie Pauline is my very dear friend, fellow writer, enthusiastic walker and dance partner. When I’m at the beach, she is the one who pulls me out to dance twice a week, and if she had her “druthers,” it would be three times. She has done the 500 mile Camino walk in Spain three times–including last year, when she did it to celebrate her 80th birthday, so her daily 5 to 10 mile walks on the beach when she is in La Manzanilla are nothing in comparison.
Above all, she is a social person, so it came as no surprise when we went to her favorite dancing spot, Palapa Joe’s, to celebrate her 81st birthday on February 12, that a margarita was put in her hand the minute she walked in the door, that her favorite band member greeted her as “Mom” and that people started coming to the table with cards and gifts. But when the band struck up a tune, all else faded away. “C’mon, let’s dance!” she demanded and away we went to dance every dance where she wasn’t recruited by one or another male friend.
Yes, the band sang “Happy Birthday,” the kitchen staff presented her with a Hostess Cupcake birthday cake and friends presented gag gifts. But the best part of the entire evening for the birthday girl was, as always, the dance!!!!
(Click on first picture to view a slideshow of all photos in enlarged format with captions.)
Murder, Migraine and La Manzanilla
Feet up at the Tequila Sunset Bar!
Murder, Migraine and La Manzanilla
When I was asked what my three most successful blog postings have been, I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to find out for sure. I knew it had something to do with the stats page, but I didn’t know how to go about finding out the total of views for each post over the years. I accepted the challenge, however, and found that the three topics that have created the most views over the two years plus that I’ve been blogging all start with the letter “M!”
First of all, as my title so clearly states, anything having to do with La Manzanilla, Mexico, where I spend two months of my year, garners immediate views. This is probably because most of my postings about La Manzanilla have been linked to their incredibly popular message board which has a loyal following. If you need something in La Manz from a ride to the airport three towns away to the loan of a charger for your camera to information about your computer, your house or your life—go to the La Manzanilla message board. And, for sure, if you took pictures all along the beach of different campfires and parties on New Years Eve and posted them on your blog, mention it on the La Manzanilla message board.
The third most views I garnered for any one post was a piece I wrote about the murder of two friends, and as the investigation into their murder continued, the international interest in my blog continued. I think the dearth of other information (since the murder occurred in Mexico whereas their families and lifelong friends were in Canada) contributed to people picking up on my blog from Google and Facebook. This is a sad way to earn views and of course that was far from the reason why I continued to write about this most tragic occurrence, but for some reason I wound up as a liaison between Mexican and Canadian friends of the couple, local police and higher up government officials and one local woman who relentlessly pursued the ones she knew were responsible. In the end, one of the men was caught and sentenced, but I keep hoping that one day I’ll surpass the day’s total for views for one of the days I wrote about their deaths, as every time I see that number in my “top three,” I am reminded of the sad topic of that post.
Also high in the ratings over the past two years was a blog I wrote about migraine headaches. I remember my friend, proof-reader and fellow blog administrator Skyping me that I’d had hundreds of views from Great Britain in the last few minutes and upon investigation, I decided that this must have been due to a web crawler picking up on the work “migraine” and distributing the URL for my blog to its participants. I hope in writing this that I’m interpreting correctly how and why a web crawler works. I can only say that it is exciting to see the numbers mounting, but I don’t delude myself that it was anything but a fluke.
In summary, I guess what I’ve learned from surveying my stats is that what is most important in attracting views is to write about a timely topic you have personal knowledge of—especially if no one else is writing about it. Or, to choose a topic of particular and clearly-defined interest and to find some way to get news of your posting to the particular group that has an interest in it. This might be through your choice of tags, where else you establish a link to your blog or the luck of being picked up by some service that disseminates information to its subscribers.
Ironically, this is something I rarely do and which in all of these cases happened more or less by accident. I think if I were to make these concerns my main consideration in blogging that all of the fun would go out of it. I love the more hit-or-miss option of writing about the Daily Prompt and posting pictures on the daily or weekly prompts given by a handful of prompt sites. If you look at my blog, you will clearly see which ones they are and I furnish links to all of them at the bottom of my posts. It is wonderful to be widely-read but I’d rather have the freedom of writing about what I want to write about and in the style I want to write. In my case, I think the label of my blog could best be described as eclectic. That’s how I like my life and that’s how I like my writing and photos.
The starlings come back to La Manzanilla. (Perhaps they’ve been here all along, but a lack of a stunning sunset in the west last night brought our attention to the southeast, where a lot more was going on thanks to the clouds and the murmuration of thousands of starlings, which I took for bats until Daniel straightened out my thinking by saying they were birds. Meanwhile, he took a break from smoking his cigar to smoke his cigarette. More about this in a later post!
(Click on first picture to see enlarged photos.)
A generous friend with time on his hands sent me links to my top eight most-viewed blog postings. These are the links he sent:
#1 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/10/24/la-manzanilla-after-hurricane-patricia/
#2 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/01/01/sand-in-my-sangria-happy-new-year-2015/
#3 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/02/11/upon-the-violent-death-of-a-friend/
#4 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/10/25/two-more-videos-of-hurricane-patricia-in-la-manzanilla-mexico/
#5 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/02/13/nina-discombe-and-edward-kulars-deaths/
#6 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/11/29/internet-infraction-bogged-down-in-blog/
#7 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/08/13/dizzy-representative/
#8 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/03/19/post-migraine-depression/
The Prompt: Go to your stats page and find your three most successful posts. What do they have in common? https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-stat-connection/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 