CHRISTMAS WEEK
Christmas dinner was lovely! The hosts are old friends who immediately invited me to join them when they learned I had no Christmas Day plans.
I got to meet a super new couple, who are their relatives, and had a great conversation with the other guest. Although we’ve known of each other for years we've only said hello in passing. I enjoyed hearing about the interesting life she has led. Another friendship is blossoming.
My hosts served a traditional home-made turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Add this to a wonderful evening, it was an unexpected treat!
The tickets to the Gala Dinner fundraiser that I’m helping to organize for the Espinoza orphanage, arrived. Unfortunately, instead of being two sided, Spanish and English, as we agreed, they are in Spanish only. This makes it difficult to sell to English speaking people without lots of explanation required.
After a flurry of Spanish messages between the orphanage manager and Azucena, and a bewildered me watching this interaction on WhatsApp, we held an emergency meeting. The outcome of said meeting is that English tickets are being printed, posters modified, then full speed ahead to secure silent auction items. The latter is the biggest challenge we face and any help we get in this regard will be hugely appreciated.
At the same meeting, dinner choices were firmed up, as well as miscellaneous other things. It has the promise of being a spectacular event and the first in support of this very poor orphanage.
My plea on the GoGoZLO page on Facebook for rolls of 50/50 tickets for the Gala was responded to immediately. Thanks social media, to Karen Trom, Administrator, and to the responders to my post, my request has been fulfilled.
Ten years ago, I received a commission to paint Maureen Geisler's two-year-old granddaughter, Ava. Maureen and I have known each other all these years, but it wasn’t until she arrived this year that we felt an instant chemistry between us and are developing a warm, comfortable friendship. Both widows, we can call each other at any time if feeling lonely, and say, “Hey, are you ok with my popping over for an hour or two?” Living across the street from each other, it takes only a minute to show up.
This type of friendship has been a missing link in my almost five-year widowhood, but it’s so much easier to develop in a close-knit community like Club Santiago. Unfortunately, Maureen lives in the mid-U.S. and I in Ontario – the “popping over” won’t work when we leave Manzanillo, but we will enjoy it while it lasts.
Living at Eureka has, time and again, reinforced my decision to spend the winter in this resort-like place as being the right one. Here you can be private when you want yet part of what is happening when that suits you. I highly recommend this type of living to any single person or anyone planning to become a nomad.
My circle of friends has been widening exponentially since I arrived two months ago and many more friends begin arriving next week.
I enjoyed my second time playing Mexican Train after a superb Indian curry dish cooked by Benny McCormack who claims Scottish Indian food is the best to be had. If this is an example, I have to agree with him.
Benny and Grace live in a casa they built on top of a very high hill (in Collingwood, Ontario, we’d call it a mountain). It sports a domed roof and a palapa covering the outdoor living area with pool, overlooking Miramar Bay in the distance. It's a magnificent location, if you can hold your breath or close your eyes, as you are driven up an 80 degree, sharply zig-zagged, walled driveway from a 70 degree graveled road. Once there, you can revel in the beauty of the place and their down-to-earth Scottish personalities. I look forward to future visits (but not the driveway - sorry Benny, lol).
My calendar was empty from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve, but that changed dramatically day by day! Every evening became busy. Saturday was a recharge-the-batteries day getting ready for welcoming 2024 in a fashion I haven’t done in many years. I was planning to get to bed early until my phone rang and another Happy Hour invite for that night! Well, I'm sure my batteries will be charged enough to handle this. I feel like I'm in training for New Year's Eve hahaha. I'll tell you how well I did in next week's episode of Nomad-Nana.
I want to take this time to thank you all for reading my blog, and to wish each and every one of you a Very Happy New Year filled with good health, great happiness, and prosperity.