More flies with honey

I laid on the couch last night with Dinah and the laptop, and watched the Olympics and picked out more vacation pictures to show. Dinah is so clingy that she's driving me nuts, but I know it's understandable after being away for a week; hopefully she'll calm down a little in a few days. Right now she has to be either on me or as close as possible. Last night she alternated between lying on me and lying on the back of the couch right above my head--this latter position made it possible for me to type, so that was my preference. Not that she paid any attention to my preference.

When we checked into the hotel in Puerto Vallarta, there was a woman absolutely screaming at one of the checkin clerks, saying that she didn't like her room, and she wanted something done about it RIGHT NOW. The clerk would try to speak quietly to her, and, I believe, would have tried to work something out for her, but she was having none of it. She wanted something DONE and she wanted it DONE RIGHT NOW. She had obviously never learned the concept of catching more flies with honey than with vinegar or, in this case, the concept that a well-placed $20 bill might just get you exactly what you wanted, and not send your blood pressure into the stratosphere.

Although I felt quite sorry for the clerks, and the whole situation was making me very uncomfortable, I'm actually sort of grateful to her, because I believe it was because of her tantrum that we were upgraded to a suite (perhaps to save them from having to give one to her).

We had a bedroom:

and a living room:

and a kitchen:

We didn't cook anything, of course (although Bob and John went to WalMart and bought avacados and made guacamole, since the resort didn't serve it), but it was lovely to have a couch and chairs (and a tiny balcony that opened off the living area); it was nice to have a separate room where Bob could stay up late and watch television if he wanted, while I could sleep. On Friday night, after we packed, Leslie and Kelly and I played cards in Leslie and John's room while the guys watched Battlestar Gallactica in ours.

I've never been a big card player, but Leslie and Kelly taught me Phase 10, which turned out to be fairly addictive, and I think we played it every day.

The bathroom was lovely, too:

We're completely spoiled for next time now, of course.

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Video

Here's a little video of the ocean, taken on our last morning.

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And later, resting

Bob got a little annoyed with me because of all the pictures I was taking, although he didn't actually tell me that until the last day. I started getting the "low battery" light on the camera while I was documenting the beach for the last time--I had taken over 300 pictures, after all, but he very sweetly found me a working outlet off the hotel lobby so I could at least charge the battery long enough to review the pictures that were in the camera.

I could hardly stand not taking any pictures in the Puerto Vallarta airport, but I thought it probably wouldn't be a good idea--I was just slightly intimidated by being in an airport in a foreign country--and we were warned that we wouldn't be allowed to take any pictures in the immigration area of the Kansas City airport, either, and, in fact, cameras and cell phones were in danger of being confiscated if we used them, or failed to turn them off.

Of course, I did turn mine off, but I was fairly twitching to pull out the phone and take a picture, or call someone . . .

Bob and I on El Malecon, the boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta:

A sunset at the beach:

A night view of the pool complex -- so much more mysterious at night!

Bob, John and Craig went deep sea fishing one day, while the girls and I lazed away the day alternately lying by the pool and playing cards. John took these pictures of Bob fighting for his fish:

And with the fish he landed:

And later, resting:

The kitties were very glad to see us! Bob's dad came over every day to check on them, and sometimes twice a day, I believe. He said that every day when he came over, they would be in the basement on the bed, and Dinah never did come up and visit, but Pyewacket would, once he came to the basement door and called her. He said that he didn't see Dinah at all until Wednesday, but she finally showed her face.

She's been following me around like a puppy dog since we got home, lying on my lap if I'm in a chair, lying on the back of the sofa if I'm watching television, lying pressed up against me when I'm in bed. And if I'm not at home, and Bob is, she's demanding cuddle time with him, even if Pyewacket is already on his lap. Not quite as independent as she would like you to believe, apparently.

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Home again, home again

What a lovely week! We had an absolutely perfect week in Puerto Vallarta, spent every day outside in the sun and fresh air, and just had a blast. So relaxing.

Flying in over Mexico was absolutely beautiful. When we came down last time, in 2002, it was the middle of the night, so I couldn't see anything. So flying in in daylight and seeing the mountains was breathtaking. I didn't dig out the camera and try to take any pictures, because I figured I'd probably get reflection from the glass anyway, but I tried to burn it into my memory, because it was so amazing.

We stayed at Canto del Sol in Puerto Vallarta, an all-inclusive resort. We were with Bob's best friend John and his wife Leslie, and John's cousin Craig and his wife Kelly.

Tres amigos (John, Bob, and Craig):

This was taken right after we arrived--or it might even have been at the airport. Bob has his travel documents holder around his neck. This one (Kelly, Leslie, and Willa):

was taken much later in the week, probably Thursday, after I'd gotten sunburned and we'd spent the week drinking and relaxing.

The pool was lovely. This was my view for most of the week:

This was the baby pool, just a few inches deep, on the shady side. I thought I was being very careful, and I stayed in this shady spot most of the time, but in the afternoon we would move over to the tables by the snackbar and play cards, and while I was careful to stay under the shade of the umbrellas, they apparently weren't really shading me. You could see the sun through little holes in the mesh of the umbrellas, and I guess the sun came through them because I got a pretty bad sunburn on Wednesday. Not so bad that it made me sick, but bad enough that it made me feel really stupid.

On Thursday we went downtown and ate in a restaurant, but every other meal we ate at the resort. I thought the food was pretty good; it's always kind of a gamble, and always kind of strange, but I was pretty careful what I ate, and no one got sick. Leslie got sick, but it seemed to be the flu, and not from the water or anything that she had eaten.

There were a lot of pigeons around the snackbar area of the pool, and we noticed one pretty little brown pigeon whose leg was swollen. It wouldn't have occurred to me to try to do anything about it, but one afternoon Bob and John captured her and took a look at her leg. John said it looked like her leg had been broken, and there was gauze wrapped around it that wasn't going to come off by itself.

So Bob held her while John clipped the gauze off with a nail clipper. We saw her later in the week, and she was limping a little, but her leg was no longer swollen--if they hadn't intervened, she probably would have lost it. We saw a couple of other birds who had gotten caught in fishing line, but they couldn't save them all.

More later.

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Off on an adventure

We leave for Puerto Vallarta in the morning. I've been packing tonight; I know I'm taking way too many clothes, but I guess I'd rather have too much than too little. Several swimsuits, shorts and t-shirts, a couple of long sundresses, a couple of sarongs . . . I'm very excited to be heading for a week in the sun! I just wish I was able to pack lighter. Every time I think I'll be able to do it, but I just can't. I guess it's my obsessive-compulsive disorder. Not that I've ever actually been diagnosed with that, and not that I really think I have it in any major way, but I do, a little.

I'm also taking the laptop, plus a tote bag with my knitting (socks) and a book (Windfall, and a notebook and pen, and a Minnie Mouse baseball cap, and God knows what else.

There's more yarn (another ball of sock yarn) and books in the suitcase: Stephen King's newest, Cell, a Joanna Trollope I got for a dollar on the clearance table, The Spanish Lover, and a mystery that I can't remember the name of at the moment. I plan to spend a lot of time sitting by the pool reading. At least this time I'm not being overly optimistic about the amount of knitting I'll get done. If I finish a pair of socks, I'll be lucky.

It's 1:00 a.m.; we're leaving for the airport at noon, so I guess I should try to get some sleep. Bob's taking me out to breakfast in the morning. He went out and picked up Chinese for our dinner tonight--spring rolls and fried rice. He said it might be the best meal we get all week--these all inclusive resorts aren't known for their food. But then, that's not why we go.

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