Belize Journal, October 22, 2017

Re-entry                                                                     20 October 2017

I arrived back in Belize about 2:15 PM, 7 October. While the tourists milled around trying to figure out what to do with customs, I went right through with nothing to declare because I know what the word abroad means and that someone who lives in the U.S. and is coming to Belize did not buy anything abroad unless, of course, they visited Scotland or somewhere else. I arrived home a little after 4 PM to lots of chaos, or as my oldest son described it—the rabbit was in charge. In Southeastern lore, rabbit is the trickster. For me, it was “tain’t funny McGee.” I spent about ten days restoring order to my property, house, and belongings. To my pet/house sitter’s credit, the animals were fine and no one had stolen anything. Perhaps that is all I had a right to expect.

In Portland, I had a great time getting to know my grandson, Eero. We celebrated 3 birthdays—his, his dad’s, and mine—while I was there. Once he understood the idea, he got into the swing of things and observed—there will have to be presents. I went with him to the toy story so that he could pick out what he wanted, and it was a neat toy—a gun that shot soft darts. What made it neat was that it had a scope on it to increase his accuracy. He agreed to wear his Chahta Sia T-shirt along with me. We ate at Red Robin and had some cake and sherbet that Eero had picked out. He had never had sherbet before, but was keen on trying it. He liked it so much that the next night he had some more while we watched the movie Goonies upstairs in the kitchen on my laptop. He pronounced it the best movie ever made.

He also took Mr. Pickles (the ball python),  Banana (Matthew’s dog), and me on a long walk. On the way back, he suggested a short cut that ended in people’s back yards. In trying to get out of that, I slipped and my leg got bent back under me. Fortunately, I swing it out a bit before I landed so that I didn’t land on the bent leg, but I had heard a little crunch in my knee before I went down. After that, Eero was careful to tell me to hold onto the trees when we were coming down a steep part of the path. I asked him what he would have done if I had been hurt. He really didn’t have a clear plan—don’t think he had ever thought about this situation before. I recalled all the hatting I gave my kids on how to handle emergencies. I still believe hatting kids on some basic emergency and first aid handling is very important.

Matthew was busy as always—selling the house, keeping up with his work, and raising that son. He loves to joke around a lot, so we gave him a new name—Chukfi, the trickster. He has been my best friend for some time.

In Albuquerque, I was able to do one ensayo with Kalpulli Ehekatl, get back on my personal project, and visit with James. James and I always have a good time together. He introduced me to Hotel Beau Sejour, a Flemish murder mystery that was fascinating, and I fell in love with Flemish language. I ordered the DVDs from Amazon Fr, and they arrived before I left. Of course, the subtitles are in French, not English, so I may be doing some dual language learning. Actually, I had been studying some Dutch and was able to recognize some vocabulary here and there. One word of warning if you ever plan to do this, you do need an all region DVD player.

It is raining here—lots, and the weather has cooled a bit. I have been replanting my gardens, but I need more soil, which I hope to get next work. I am still experimenting with what will grow when and where. I had my police interview for my residency application. He said he had received the paperwork on September 29 and had started trying to contact me the following week. At any rate, he seemed satisfied that I wasn’t a criminal threat although I did tease him a bit about that stereotype about older women.

I am finishing up one course and starting another for University of Maryland University College. I did get a little work done on my metaphor article. I just printed out what I have so far so that I can get that up and running again. I am taking an online drawing course just to refresh my skills in preparation to doing illustrations for some of my children’s books.

I am moving along here, and I hope you are doing the same there.