The Tell
A Tell is what is demonstrated when a poker player, grifter or salesman—some person who wants to know something about his subject’s future—discovers a clue that enables him to predict whether a person is sincere or not—lying or being truthful.
Sometimes, A Tell may be delivered by a third party. For instance, in an old I Love Lucy episode, Lucy sees Desi’s poker hand and her big facial exclamations telegraph to the other players his great hand. Of course, the other players fold leaving Desi disappointed.
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In January, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico is an almost perfect place to be. Christmas is over and the weather is sunny with a fresh light breeze blowing every day from the ocean. Humpback whales cruise around the protected waters of Bahia Banderas, Mexico’s largest bay. They are busy with mating and birthing their calves. And, the city is full of grateful refugees from the frozen north.
Formal Attire
purchase gabapentin Black-necked Stilts
Candelero Mexicano
Picture a busy business executive dressed in a tuxedo while grabbing a bite in a sandwich shop at the beach. There’s no reason to wear dull clothing even when eating a mundane meal.
Yelapa, a small coastal village accessible by boat on Mexico’s Bahia de Banderas, is where we first found Black-necked Stilts. Then living in Guanajuato, we had fled a cold snap. After taking a bus to Puerto Vallarta, we traveled by shuttle boat across the bay to Yelapa. Our room overlooked the lagoon formed where a river, Rio Tuito, meets the ocean waters. This was our week to warm up.
On our first morning, as I prepared breakfast while looking out over the lagoon, I was delighted to spot a group of unfamiliar shorebirds. They appeared to be similar to the American Avocets we’d often seen in coastal North Carolina—both with a slight upturns to their thin bills. Watching them forage along the alluvial banks, we noted a most striking difference. These birds were wearing full formal attire.
mail order cytotec American Avocet
A Gift of Color
Note the white flecks on the blooming nopal
Blue jacaranda petals shower the ground and nopal pads
I rubbed my fingers across the flakey white stuff on the side of a nopal cactus in our jardin, intending to catch for closer examination a little of what appeared to be white powder. I had seen something like this in my North Carolina vegetable garden—little white scaly mealybugs on my tomatoes. Glancing down at my hand, It startled me to see bright red across my fingertips.
Did I cut myself?
Ahhh, this must be the way some Native American discovered cochineal dyes.
When the Spanish arrived in Mexico in the 1500s, they found the Aztecs producing vibrant red cochineal-dyed fabrics—far brighter than anything available in Europe. Further, these dyes retained their color for a very long time. The little creature responsible is the cochineal, Dactylopius coccus, a scaled insect native throughout sub-tropical Mexico, Central America and sub-tropical South America.
Thanksgiving Pineapple
In addition to being thankful for my wife, my parents and sisters, my children and grandchildren,
Henequén
In 1984, Alice and I visited Mérida. Then, the people called it La Ciudad Blanca, The White City. In addition to the whitewashed buildings, many residents wore white. Most men wore loose-fitting pleated white shirts, guayaberas, white trousers and fine woven straw hats from the nearby town of Becal. Women wore white dresses with heavy embroidery and bright-colored floral patterns. The city appeared clean and prosperous.
What we didn’t realize then was we were witnessing the very end of the Henequén Era in the Yucatán.
In the 1950s, nylon rope began to take the place of rope made from the natural fibers of the henequén and sisal plants. By 1984, the last viable commercial harvest of these crops had taken place in the Yucatán. The henequén industry which created enormous wealth-producing plantations using slave-like company store labor was over.
The Eye of the Curve-billed Thrasher
Cuitlacoche común
How is it possible for these birds to fly into such tangles of spikes and thorns unscathed?
Handsome with intimidating fierce yellow eyes, the Curve-billed Thrasher, Cuitlacoche, is high on my list of favorite Mexican birds.
Nothing to fear??
Another take on elections from Mexico.
Richard Grabman writes a blog, The Mex Files. I find it most interesting and recommend it to all interested in Mexico.
The following is a post from the Mex Files on the US election.
The Many Voices of the Zanate
Every day from the vantage of our roof terrace in Puerto Vallarta, I see a shiny purple-black male zanate lord over his kingdom of a great mango tree. That tree—more than sixty-feet tall—is the largest in our neighborhood. It towers over all the houses around and anyone looking toward the tree can likely see the big bird strut about the topmost branches. This puffed up garrulous creature points his head up, gapes his mouth, cocks back his wings and squeals his wild songs. His sounds surpass the mimicry of any mockingbird.
Cars drive by on the street below blaring mariachi music and the bird adds trills to the ends of trumpet accents. Other cars play US rap music and the bird attaches wild scats between pauses. This mastersinger comments on almost any stray sound—from raucous to melodic.
US Election
Today I read a post by a Mexican blogger with an interesting slant on elections.
Tamales, tamales, tamales….
Un tamal rojo y un tamal verde
Every night around seven, an old truck rumbles down our street in colonia Emiliano Zapata in Puerto Vallarta. The truck’s makeshift sound system blares, “tamales, tamales, tamales…tamales rojo, tamales verde, tamales d’elote…tamales, tamales.”
It is a song I love to hear. The chant and rhythm remind me of seafood vendors I heard in coastal North Carolina when I was young.
The word tamal derives from the Nahuatl, one of the core indigenous languages of Mexico, word for wrapper. Tamales is the plural form.
