Shores, Forests & Music

Putumayo has some Great music.

While we have been charging around the Olympic Peninsula here in the greener than green Northwest I have been taking care of a music organization task that started when we were in Mazatlan, Mexico. We had taken the hike into the artsy district of old Mazatlan and there was a book and music street fair going on. We browsed the selections and I found a vendor with Putumayo items covering the table!! Oh, gosh, I think I need a few of those. Well, when I loaded them onto the computer to put into the iPod it seems they were missing the titles and details needed to keep them organized and recognizable. Hmmm, after some trial and error I finally came up with a way to get that accomplished without having to reload everything. Now that it's done I can happily listen and know what it is I am listening to. I had already known of this lable from the "Music from the Coffee Lands" CD I had heard some few years ago but had not realized the connection until I saw it at this fair. (The link is above).

Otherwise, we have spent time in the Hoh Rain Forest, a temperate area of western Washington state. This is as close to "magical" as it gets for me. The deep greens in so many shades and textures are amazing. Simply as shocking to the senses as the barreness of coastal Baja California must have been for Sandy. We have taken time, too, to explore the area where Sandy grew up and as a tour guide she has been finding ways to bring her childhood memories to the front. This would have been very different from the ways and places of my youth. It's about as different from Tucson, Arizona as you can get!!

Overall we have had a lot of fun checking all this out. No internet much of the time and spending time with family and friends along the way. Another thing we have done as we go is to read (together) a book about aging... that is, Sandy reads to me as I drive to the next stopping place. The book is, "You Staying Younger, The Owners Manual For Extending Your Warranty" by Dr.'s Michael F. Roizen & Mehmet C. Oz. It is well written and updates a lot of facts and myths about the aging process. This is between my current regular read, "The Wauchula Woods Accord" by Charles Siebert, which as the subtitle says, is "Toward A New Understanding of Animals". Today or tomorrow I am hoping to stop at the same bookstore in Port Townsend where I got Siebert's book to pick up a slightly related book that I should have gotten when I was there. We had helped a friend (Sue... maybe that's Surfer Sue) move her boat there. Anyway, the long and the now of it all is that we are having a bunch of fun while avoiding traffic accidents (like the guy in a motorhome, yesterday, who came around a corner waaay too fast in our lane). So there has been a bit of adrenalin from time to time but nothing worse than the old commute to work a few years back!! The rest of the day passes without nearly the stress that I was under at that time. The back drop of total "green out" makes this a reality I have never known before. The thing that makes all this so incredible is the amount of water there is here. Remembering that I am a desert person at heart, there is more water here for me to see than I have seen in my lifetime to date (that is by rough calculation a fact)!!

Musica

It may be hard to see but there are three computers attached to three super-duper antennas while we are on the rare internet connection!!

I had a chance to slide around Barra de Navidad the other day and stumbled on a music shop. The proprietor was more than happy to guide me through lots of CD’s according to my tastes and I came away with lots of new music. A group I had discovered back in La Cruz became the cornerstone for the exploration as he tossed one CD after another at me… I said, “Otra vez,” and he would click to the next selection with his remote as he piled the CD’s on. Gads, I was lucky to get out alive!!

This was about as much fun as you can have on a warm Sunday afternoon on your way to the pool!

There is a slight story here too because, as those who know me well will attest, I will always stop to listen to new music. There are lost hours in my life where I was under the headphones somewhere discovering new music. Obviously these are not blank to me but, rather, the world around could easily have spun off its axis and gone wandering the universe and I might not have noticed.

So you may wonder what I found?

Maná (accent over the second “a”) in a two album set – “Falta Amor & Donde Jugaran Los Niños” (you know that niños has an “enyay”, right?). Not having a Spanish keyboard or a way to put these in properly sometimes drives me a bit crazy.

Reyli in an album called “FE” (Faith) a coincidence to be sure.

An all female pop group called Jeans – “Porque Soy Libre…”

These are the only three that I have had time to listen to all the way through and they are excellent. More to follow later as I get the others entered and listened to. There were also two from La Cruz excursions that will get a mention later as well.

><(((\">`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸.•´¯`•...¸><(((º>¸.
•´¯`•.¸. , . .•´¯`•.. ><(((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸.•´¯`•...¸><(((º>

Another thing that has occurred to me today was that, “Worry is not an occupation; it’s a disease.” This comes from boat issues we are having (still) and realizing that some days there is absolutely nothing you can do about it that day. We, fortunately, have “work arounds” for most problems. We currently have to run the newly purchased generator a bit to have enough power until we get the new batteries installed. “Hmmm,” you say, “Didn’t you guys get new batteries back in La Cruz?” Well, yes we did but it turns out they delivered 12 volt batteries instead of the 6 volt ones I asked for. Even my suspicious concerns when they were handed over were brushed aside by the delivery guy. When I finally had time to check them (after laying awake much of the night, worrying) because they didn’t look right to me I confirmed my suspicions. By the same token, sometimes, others on the boat run around from time to time with worry being their primary issue unable to do anything to alleviate or fix the source of their excitement. This is fairly destructive because when there isn’t anything you can do this heightened worry just wears on everyone and makes us crabby. Crabby doesn’t have a place in paradise in my estimation. Anyway, it goes against my normally cheery disposition!!