Sunday, January 9, 2011

Back to the Cold!


We are getting ready to head north to Maine and Indiana at the end of the week, but we have a busy week before we go. 

I am attending my last meeting as a member of the Board of Directors for the Lake Chapala Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Tuesday morning.  We always meet on the patio of a local restaurant, have breakfast, then have our meeting.  I am not really a guy who enjoys meetings, so I am looking forward to not having to attend these long meetings once a month.  I am not running for reelection; they will elect a replacement for me next week at our annual meeting. 

Pixie and her friend Kathy are teaching a 14-week course called “Rise Up and Call Her Name,” a UU program about various goddesses.  It meets every Monday from 2-5.  They will be meeting tomorrow at the synagogue where we hold our services.  While she’s there, I will be at the dentist getting a filling fixed before we leave.

Every Tuesday at noon, Fred Harland and I run a learning seminar at the Lake Chapala Society.  We show a podcast from the TED conference, then we lead a discussion of the lecture.  Last week I showed a lecture by the autistic activist and animal specialist Temple Grandin.  The TED Conference brings speakers together from all over the world to address important and interesting issues every year.  You can watch the lectures at the TED.com website and download them to your computer.  This week, Fred is showing a lecture by Thomas Barnett discussing new plans for the defense Department readiness.  We always have a good crowd since this time of year we have many “snowbirds” here looking for interesting things to do. 

Wednesday evening, our monthly New Hampshire/Maine group is meeting at Brian and Evelyn’s house.  We meet at someone’s house for drinks, then we go to eat at a restaurant.  It’s fun to get together with other New Englanders to share stories and opine about the Patriots, Red Sox, etc.  We have about 25 members at the moment. 

Thursday, I have to meet with my doctor to make sure my Coumadin level is adjusted to avoid getting any more blood clots on my flight to Boston on Friday.   And Pixie and I have a meeting to plan services for our Fellowship for the coming year.  We have selected the theme of “aging” for 2011.  How appropriate.  We have to think of topics for monthly presentations on this topic for the coming year.  So, that means another breakfast meeting. 

Friday morning, we’re off to Dallas, Chicago, and Boston, then a two-hour bus ride to Portland and to Cassie and Alana’s house for the weekend.  We’re then off to Lewiston-Auburn, Maine to visit Wendy for a few days, before heading to Indianapolis  and  then Muncie  to visit Isabelle and her parents for a week.  Weather permitting, we’ll be returning to Guadalajara on January 30.  Chuy will be bunking with Jeanne and Paul and his buddy, Curly, while we are gone. 

We had a sad event here this week.  An American who was the partner of one of my fellow writers in the Writers’ Group was murdered in his home in Riberas.  The crime seems to have been a home invasion-robbery and not related to the drug violence in Mexico.  But it was the first violent death of a gringo that I know of since we’ve been here, and it has shaken our community. 

I will share some photos of our trip when we return.  We are bracing for significantly colder weather in Maine and Indiana, of course.  But I am sure we’ll survive. J.  So I’ll sign off until we return. 


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