In Puerto Vallarta in Summer and with the KIds

On Tuesday we rousted Emily, Theo, Billie, and Elizabeth out of their brief snooze at 3 AM, grabbed our belongings and headed for the airport. Mark and I with the three grandchildren in tow were headed for Puerto Vallarta via Dallas. It was a usual travel day filled with the varieties of annoyance and pleasure to which we have become accustomed. The Dallas stop-over was blessedly easier than the one we had endured several years ago when passing through Chicago. Not only did we not have to pass through American security for a second pass, we came to ground in a well appointed gate area with plenty of space for walking about and enjoying the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on offer. By early afternoon we landed in the solid heat of Puerto Vallarta. Rejecting the 500 peso taxi vans, we opted for the local bus – 38.5 pesos for the five of us. It was hot, hot, hot on the bus; collectively, we dripped with perspiration. The kids were confused about where we were and where we were going. I was happy. It was hot but it was beautiful.

So we are now in our own condo unit for the first time. The building is very quiet as few people live here year round and rental demands are not high during the summer. The first couple of days I tried to get the three children oriented to a schedule of getting up relatively early – 9 AM -- and going to bed by 10 or 11. I hit a lot of resistance to the getting up routine and to other little idealized notions that I had had. So I now have given it all up. I’ll do as I chose and let them do the same. I suspect that we’ll all be happier for it. Mostly the kids want to swim – either in the ocean out front or in the pool on the roof. The direct sun is a killer however. On Wednesday Billie and Emily both were burned after failing to closely follow sun screen instructions. I think that they have learned a little something.

It’s quite an experience being marooned by the heat in an eight floor condo with two teens and one pre-adolescent. By turns they are sleepily out of it, full of beans and non-stop chatter, co-operative and resistant, hilariously funny, and, a pain in the butt. Theo has a significant comedic talent which he can push to a level of sheer madness, lots of fun though periodically over the top and annoying. My moment of greatest annoyance with the collective threesome came at 5:45 this morning when I arose and attempted to make my breakfast. NO MILK!! This, despite my clear instructions to all and sundry that they were to signal when we were low. Trudging along the malecon before 6 AM looking for an open OXXO store, I was in a less-than-charitable frame of mind toward my young progeny. You can see from this example the difficulties up with which I must put (to paraphrase Winston Churchill)!

We play cards – mostly an all-out, every person for her/himself version of Hearts. Mark doesn’t like cards so the four of us go at it. Without me, the three kids play rummy or crazy eights. We all read quite a bit. Mark and I are both into a book about Gabriel Dumont by George Woodcock for our book club. Dumont was Riel’s “general” in the 1885 uprising. Woodcock’s thesis is that Dumont, unlike Riel, has been forgotten in Canadian history because he was not “martyred” for the Metis cause, but that he was more clear-sighted and effective than was Riel. This story is of great interest to me as I have lately been reading of comparable events in the taking and settling of the American west in the mid-to-late 19^th century, especially as participated in by Kit Carson. Like Dumont, Carson possessed natural talents of leadership and the considerable abilities needed for a life devoid of the accoutrements brought by the coming wave of settlers from the east. In Canada as in the USA the settling of the west is the story of the subjugation of some by more powerful others. I like it that we, as a nation, are becoming more conscious of the wrongs perpetrated in our names and that our courts are beginning to address these in a practical manner.

Well, that’s all from the tropical front. Keep those cards and letters coming!