Our time is almost up here in God’s playground, and I point my nose north with a healthy sniff. Only a few more weeks in this life-giving Eden and I will return to my club chair a healthier and more centred mem, once more within shouting distance of my dear martinis.
I know this might come as a shock to many of my loyal readers, but in Mexico I have given up the vast amount of gin normally associated with my daily life, which has been replaced by an equally vast amount of white wine. Of course some of you Presbyterian types would have preferred that I do away with all alcohol, but steady on. The shock to the system from a full stop might well have brought on the final infarct. No, I feel comfortable in the slow boat of white wine, a much better choice in the torpid tropics than the rather sharpish gin martini of the club in Victoria.
You see, the gin drink makes for a much clearer mind with a greater edge than is necessary in dear old Mexico, where the mind is left to gambol in the meadows of the ether. I find it mucho easier to relax with a case of vino blanco from the Baja.
You can say all you want about your Major being a bad influence on unformed minds, but the Mexican wine trade can do with a boost and I jolly well feel I am the No. 1 Canadian cheerleader. Once again I am misunderstood for doing something worthwhile, but that is the cross I must bear for being single-minded and able to concentrate my grey matter. Besides I don’t want to talk to unformed minds. Do you?
At this particular moment I am watching our large Mexican housekeeper, “Itsy-Bitsy” as she likes to be referred to, going about her char duties with a smile of contentment on her face. She speaks not a word of English, but we make do as I stand no chance of picking up the lingo down here. All Greek to me, what? Nevertheless it has made me into a world-class charades player, and that is something I feel is worthwhile. I mean I wasn’t before I came down here, eh? However Itsy-Bitsy knows my ways so well after our three months together that I only have to cock an eyebrow at the cooler by the stairs and she is off like a large laser, returning with a cold glass of El Stinko Burro white wine for my quivering hand. Life is good, as I feel it is for our Itsy-Bitsy too.
The cats, however, would rather give her a pass. When we hired our dear maid I acted out the part of having two cats, which did not seem to faze her one bit, in fact she applauded when I finished my show.
As I have said before, the local cats down here are more along the lines of a professional model rather than the more effete self-professed intellectual Canadian version. The differences became clear that night when Itsy-Bitsy put large bowls of mahi-mahi fish down in front of the cats’ noses and left them to it. The cats had never tried this sort of fish before but taking Pericles’s point of view that everything in the end tastes like chicken, Bertram tucked in along with his already eating pal.
The first thing that Kitty, my wife of some 50 years, noticed was their heads shot out of their bowls where they had been dive-bombing the food, as was their wont. Then their eyes went red, which was followed by a great deal of frantic mouth opening and closing. One does not expect the meal to be over in such a rapid fashion, as these two boys have been known to gobble for more than 20 minutes before coming up for air. Something was wrong.
Then I remembered that the Mexican diet includes very hot sauces, too hot even, I guess, for house cats noted for their war-criminal-like nature.
Both the wretched animals now had their heads down the toilet bowl and were making loud drinking noises, which is surprising given the harsh meows they had earlier voiced over the fact that the Mexican cistern did not always entirely flush away all the gifts put into it. Nothing seemed to matter though, as they were taking on water like mad.
I stifled my giggles as Kitty fixed me with a reproachful look, but I managed to give Itsy-Bitsy a winning grin and a hundred pesos. I am not sure she knows why, but there it is, Puerto Vallarta.
Copyright The Major’s Corner 2015
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