Author: Marcia Blondin

Bogie and I were abruptly woken up at the stroke of midnight by explosions of fireworks and all the bells in the church banging and crashing in collision with the overhead cacophony of sounds celebrating the first seconds of Guadalupe’s Feast Day. Bogie meowed in protest and fled under the bed. I waited until it…

Yesterday was so long and so busy, I didn’t have time to get tired! The overstimulation continued into a calm, quiet corner of Casita & Garden, where three large, round tables were simply, but elegantly laid for dinner with tiny roses in small vases clustered loosely in the center, offering up delicate scents and unobstructed…

It’s just past 5 am, and I am on my second cup of coffee. Why so early after a relatively late night? I have an appointment at 8 this morning for a couple of X-rays and maybe get to touch base with my IMSS doctor, who is in Aurora and close to one of my…

Patrice and I will make one more run out to Coapinole this morning to see if there are any fabulous sweaters or down vests to keep her warm when she flies home to southern Alberta the day after tomorrow. Of course, my eyes will be peeled for anything chiffon-y or so pretty I cannot ignore…

Forty-five years ago today, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his home in New York City. I was living in Victoria, B.C., an entire lifetime ago. I remember reading that shocking – and breaking – news running across the bottom of my TV screen, and it took hours to find out what happened. Today,…

A Mexican friend of mine told me there is a huge cold front on its way to Vallarta this weekend, bringing us rain. I hope he’s wrong. Plans are to go back to Mojoneras Sunday morning, but many of the streets in that colonia are unpaved, and it’s not fun slogging through mud up to…

Three weeks today is Christmas. It STILL amazes me to celebrate that day being warm as toast and being comfortable outside wearing practically no clothes at all. Our childhood memories live deep in our cells, and when it comes to being cold, I don’t have a single corpuscle that yearns for frosty mornings or the…

What a difference a day makes. Sounds trite, I know, but I went from having one of the worst days of my life to waking up this morning with Bogie’s insistent meows and loves to realizing the pain in my face was gone. Not just diminished but gone. My caring dentist, Orlando Godinez, with the…

Sunny Rossi, Presidenta of the Vallarta Garden Club, called our first board meeting of the 2025/26 season to order yesterday at Galeria Dante. The focus, as it is for all non-profits, was money, where we spent it all summer long, and what we need going forward to keep Vallarta pruned and flowering. Last night’s bizarre,…

The sound of rain woke me this morning, suddenly and with a jolt as I remembered the bunch of clothes I had washed and hung up to dry after our foray into the Mojoneras tianguis yesterday. By the time the dryer had finished, the rain had stopped too. Weird this time of year, the rain,…

The end of another week and month over these next couple of days; how was your Thanksgiving? Patrice and I talked about indulging in turkey with all the attendant goodies, but slid into some baked spaghetti from the air fryer instead. We get to keep our vegetarian badges for one more day! The cheesy carb…

Live entertainment is fraught with danger, which is why it’s so compelling. A dozen things can go wrong and often do, which can bring a superstar down to the level of a mere fan who is sitting in the audience, both wondering wtf happened to the microphone. When all the elements come together, however, that’s…

Coapinole gave up loads of treasures for both Patrice’s and my closets yesterday. Patrice is so very good about rotating her clothes and donating things she has worn to her heart’s content, so she has room in her closet for new things. I can’t say the same. I overflowed my closet over a year ago…

My agenda today looks like a shopping list to stock the QE2: the tianguis in Coapinole first thing, followed by a stop at the great charity-driven Hotel Bazaar in Lomas de Coapinole. Then Costco, La Comer, come home, see our friends off, nap, I have a meeting at Sandra’s house at 5, followed by the…

Happy one month to Christmas! A sobering thought that includes winter and New Year’s Eve mere weeks away. The only sad part about it is that my sister Patrice will be back in Canada, happily with her menagerie, dealing with the snow and cold. We celebrate each trip she makes to Mexico with a bus…

I have been writing my column ”From Here” for a dozen years or so with slight variations in the title and for different publications, but it has always been written From Here, from my heart. 2026 will mark 40 years since Puerto Vallarta cast an indelible spell on me, and after spending two weeks here…

Another lovely friend of mine has passed away. Alicia Partida’s ashes were spread at the Botanical Gardens yesterday. Patrice and I are headed that way this afternoon for lunch and to say hi to Curator and Founder Bob Price and his wonderful staff that keep that gorgeous project alive and well. Alicia sold me a…

A month or so ago, right after his 2025-26 opening of his show at The Palm Cabaret, I asked Roy Cruz if, after five years, he was getting tired or bored with Freddie Mercury and the music of Queen in his twice-weekly shows. He said, ”The more I research him and his life, the more…

Coco Cabaret was full of friends, supporters, sponsors, and fellow performers for the premiere of ‘Rock the Opera’ last week. Finally, dear and sweet Tonny Kenneth, under the Music Direction of Edgar Bernache, stood before his peers on stage and brought the house down. A little Simon and Garfunkel, Metallica, and more, mixed in with…

‘Tease‘ returns to Coco Cabaret for a second season, with a new, mindblowing show. A few elements from their first shows at Industry three or four years ago remain – the bathtub, fingerpainting in an entirely new (black) light, and others that remind us of the fantastic skills this company of acrobats possesses. The international…