Rainy in Guatemala

It’s still raining here in Guatemala. It rains here more days than it don’t. Sun shining as you head to town and if you leave your hatches open you will soon get a lesson in drying out your boat. It’s not warm here it’s hot to us gringos that spend winters where you need a coat. Here if it hits70F the heavy coats are out. 80 plus most days in winter then it goes back to just plan hot. There is something that seems to be world wide. There are people that are crazy every where and like to show off how crazy they can be.

A dead stinking opossum

Here is a man the locals say just likes to be noticed pushing a wheel-bar around town with flowers and green leaves in the front with just trash in the back. Trash you would notice. Women’s personal stuff. Tied to a rope dragging behind him is just stupid trash like oil cans and a gas can. Behind that is a dead opossum that has been dead for days and then more trash. I ask what he was doing and their response was don’t look at him he will stop and try to talk to you. Was advised too late. I couldn’t get him to leave me alone. Who really wants to talk to a man dragging a dead opossum behind him around town. I have always been an adventurous sole but that’s a bit too far out. Even the few accomplishments in my life I don’t talk about much. Some one will just make it sound less if they can. Trying to get my art career going the curators of the events has told us that our life story will sell more art than my art. People like to have something to talk about hanging on there walls. Artist like Dali. He had an ant eater trained to walk around Pairs on a leash and that curled up waxed mustache. They resumed his body to settle a maternity dispute some time back and they said his waxed mustache was still looking good. Maybe we do need to do something to call attention to us for the sake of art but it want be dragging a dead opossum through town. We have a book we want to sell “having no luck” about always being told I or we are a little out of steep with the rest of the world. That is what the book is about the always being told we are out of step. We have not been to a publisher but have talked to people that have had a book published. It’s always the same. What was your major in college. What is the use in telling them I only finished the eight grade. It’s always the same. You can’t do it. Even with Hemingway people know more about the way he lived than his writing. Even with being dumb it’s always been you are too young and dumb but now it’s you are too old and dumb and who wants to read about how dumb people live anyway. I did have a publisher that publishes books online from England said that all the things we have done in life every one has done that. Nothing new. Flying airplanes traveling on motorbikes, building things like log cabins on a lake and raising our kid there. Designing our own boat and going sailing that is all stuff every body does every day. I guess that is why we love living where people don’t do that kind of stuff and live their lives out simply. Here in town there is no side walks and vendors sell stuff out to the street. Just shopping is an adventure. What you can find with out getting ran over by a cattle truck. Even the food vendors sell hot food up to the white line on the street never cover their food as these big trucks go by with what is always coming off these trucks loaded with cows and what is getting on you some times. Some of the gringos down here won’t eat it but what the hell. I’m dumb Okay. “You can’t taste it.”

“Hum Hum” Good fried chicken.

Always something to complain about but being born dumb maybe is a blessing. If you don’t know you are dumb unless you’re told it doesn’t hurt. The adventure goes on and for some of us being dumb maybe life is not as complicated as other people that live so much better than we do. I painted another painting of Tweety Bird this week down here and people laugh or smile when they see it. I’m not through with it yet but they are laughing already so maybe it not so bad.

Tim working on Tweety Bird

The adventure goes on and I still have Pam with me aboard the old home built Schooner we build “Pamela Ann” named after her. Maybe I will catch an opossum and teach it to walk on a leash. Maybe that will help me sell paintings or better a book. How to live with and trained opossum. That might work.

 

Holidays Over

It’s Daylight and raining here in Guatemala. The holidays are over. It’s life back to normal. The decoration will be put back up until next year. Plastic rain deer and snowmen. It’s near 80F already and I’m just guessing plastic rain deer and snowmen have something to do with Santa and the North Pole where he lives. Because if it’s 70 here people will be wearing coats. Through out all the Caribbean they like it loud ” No speaker is big enough at an event.” Something going on and you can hear it clear as day miles away. Maybe this is why fireworks are so poplar down here. It’s quiet this morning but as I said It’s raining. We have spent Christmas in lot of places now that we are old are getting older. I believe spending Christmas in a boat yard is as lonely as it gets. If you know anyone there. There is no one there Christmas day. Spent Christmas day on Sugar Mountain snow sky one time. That way really good but some what like being lonely in a crowd with all the people there you don’t know. Spent Christmas last year at the little house in Kansas out on the prairie. Some old friends traveling across the US stopped in and decided to stay for Christmas and that was nice. The young couple that take care of the marina here lives here and keep the leaves racked and the place clean has a baby maybe 8 months old. Pam and I gave them one hundred quetzals for the baby. That is less that 15 US dollars but a days pay here. They brought new shoes and clothes for him and that was about the extent of our giving. We did get a gift we weren’t expecting. A “tuk tuk” roll up and the Driver was hunting Pamela not Pamela Ann and had a cake wrapped up from some new friends we met here that have opened up a new restaurant. The cake was good and as I said a surprise.

Our surprise cake.

A “tuk tuk” is a 3 wheel little cab they use down here named for how the sound trying to get all the people that can get in or on up a hill, “tuk,tuk,tuk”.

Some Tuk Tuks in town.

Every thing is bright green here this time of year and at our little house it’s snow and cold. Leaving the cold behind is good but not as good as it sounds. We have a good life out there and you can put on more clothes if you need to and stay warm. Here you can not get naked enough to get cool.

Pam found some nice strawberries and some veggies here.

With that food is a challenge traveling as it has always been for Pam and I. To say that food any where is not good when they love it is wrong but most of it we don’t like. Even traveling in the US we some times start to miss home cooked southern food. We have put in all our blogs and people that know us know we live different than most today with us hanging on to the old ways. Making our own Sausage and curing meats. Growing a garden when we can that will produce food the way our ancestors did it where you can eat a long time out of a small garden . Most people to day plant a large garden and it all comes in at the same time and is wasted and there back to the store. We left wrapped tomatoes and greens growing and our son that lives back there in Kansas had garden fresh tomatoes for Christmas. We make our own sausage on our boat and Pam found some fresh Sage in a store as in a sealed glass jar that looked like in was brought down here this century. The fresh pork is not as good as the pork back in the states and has less fat but sausage made on the Pamela Ann maybe be the best there is here because it’s the only sausage here. Corn is available here every where shelled in barrels so we have ground grits already with our little grinder on our boat. We all thrive to live the good life and do we really know what the good life really is? For now as we search for the good life. Life here is good today. The adventure goes on Happy New Year for 2022 from Tim and Pam aboard the old home built Schooner we built together to see the world. So far we have not seen that much but what an interesting life it has been getting to here.