Joy in Mudville

Olaf gave us a good soaking over the weekend, but after his tempestuous cousin Jimena he was a gatito. Some people in the ejidos hardest-hit a month ago were evacuated again as a precaution, and there was agitated talk of sandbags, but it only amounted to talk, and a lot of mud after our usual front yard pond subsided.

But there's joy in Mudville today. Nose to the grindstone, eye on the ball, yours truly wrapped up her part of the publishing project and handed it over to the Capt, the house techie, who is turning it into PDFs and sending it off to the printer this afternoon.

Our friend Mark arrived from Vancouver just in time to take the annual photo we put on our welcome page, so we piled into his car with cameras and laptop, and went down to our favorite restaurant, La Palapa Griega on the beach. We were windblown and squinting in the sun like moles emerging from the den after a long winter. We made a point of including the sand, strewn with kayaks, in the background, because this year we are no longer making any effort to deny the fact that we have oursourced our publishing company to Mexico. Yes, it can be done (with a few snags like hurricanes).

Oh, and the other reason we're smiling? We stopped by the condo this morning and we can no longer smell mold. !Gracias a Dios, que la vida esta dulce!