Author: Marcia Blondin

Humpday is usually the busiest day of the week for me, but with summer moving in, it has become less, and today will be full of joy as I get to do two favorite things – play Scrabble for fun (HAH! I say this often: Lose at Scrabble, Lose at Life.) The second is to…

It doesn’t matter how enlightened you are—or how enlightened you believe yourself to be. It doesn’t matter how many hours a day you devote to meditation or prayer, how many ashrams you have visited, or if you’ve spent a silent 28 days in contemplation. It also doesn’t matter how fervently you follow the teachings of…

A beautiful Monday morning with clear skies for a change! The air feels lighter, a good start to another week in Vallarta. What I love most about any conversation is to hear people’s opinions and thoughts about Vallarta. Particularly the ones that touch on serendipity and ‘coincidental’ moments, which are a rite of passage for…

This morning, I will be shouting out love to women in general and a handful in particular – some I have known and loved for years, a couple of new friends, and one woman I have never met but whose kindness and knowledge explained the intricacies of a system that I am a part of…

It’s funny, the difference in how we spend our lives in Vallarta at this time of the year, compared to Canada and, I am sure, in parts of the US. All around me, things are slowing, closing, and stopping altogether, and it is the opposite up north. The frenzied gardening and building things outside quickly…

First, this morning, thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who commented on the self-inflicted disaster of losing my health insurance. I have reason to believe there is a solution and hope to find out by week’s end what is involved. So, thank you. Another gray, dull morning today with a couple…

So, on Sunday afternoon I was rummaging through some paperwork and came across a page stamped RENOVACION and noticed a date surrounded with bright orange marker. Hmmm, I thought, I don’t remember paying for my IMSS, so I looked closer at the date. Yep, the time frame to pay my annual fee expired May 31.…

It’s the end of the season, and there has to be one final show. One that combines the talent of two cabarets but without the dancers that bring much to the fore, but there is no space. There is also not a lot of time to create a show with everyone still working their final…

It is trying to rain. A few spits yesterday and today, but nothing is actually wet. Our first named storm is passing by, creating overcast skies and teasing us with blistering hot afternoons but no rain. Not so much fun for our tourists who want to go to the beach. A couple of days ago,…

Kevin Levesque, born in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, has been a drag queen for 25 years and celebrated that silver anniversary in 2025. For years, he was the opening act for The Palm Cabaret after their summer hiatus. This season, however, for the first time ever, Miss Conception, Kevin’s drag creation, stayed in town to celebrate…

I was so excited when Hector Belloc invited me to see this year’s Art Auction in a new locale inside Vallarta’s newly designated “Art District.” Hector, the Executive Manager of the event and Art Director of Tierra Fisica, the company in charge of logistics and curating the artwork, teamed up with the Vallarta Pride committee…

There are people who throw parties that have the space, the energy, the theme for an evening, and the staff to help mop up afterward, and then there’s Miller Time! Rick and Monica Miller put a capital P into Party, take Pop-up/Pot-luck to a whole new level, and then, throw in live entertainment to boot.…

It fits that the end of the season should be as crazy as this past season was. So busy in fact, it will take this coming week to cover just the weekend, from the fabulous house party at the Millers to Miss Conception’s first Vallarta Pride performance in her 25 years in the biz. From…

And another glittering Gay Pride Parade floats away into the sunset. Every year is bigger and better than the year before. This year takes the record however, on the late start time… two hours. I don’t know how that affected the block party that was to start at 6 pm when the parade was supposed…

What an exciting day yesterday was! After I let Sharon win one game of Scrabble (out of four), I realized how good that felt so I let EVERYBODY at Bingo win every single game. I didn’t even try to win! After the losing was over, Lydia Damato and new friends Stan and Joanne piled into…

The last Gay Mixer of the 24/25 Season went out with popping champagne corks – Chandon this time, not Clicquot – at the new Tryst Hotel. The 8th-floor bar was shoulder-to-shoulder, with 360, mostly men, eating superbly prepared canapes and appetizers passed around by the most patient wait staff ever, who also refilled glasses in…

The Pride Pet Parade was a resounding success. Organizer Jeff was delighted with the amount of prizes the community donated for raffles. That took an hour at the end of the night to get through. Hundreds of people gathered with their dogs and friends to watch and participate. Not one dogfight erupted, although the challenges…

Happy Pride, everybody! Edition 12 kicked off last Saturday, which started as a quick concert, then home, and it morphed into the rest of this column! But first, there was a super interesting artist reception up the Olas Altas hill on Pilitas at Arte VallARTa to celebrate Cuban printmaker Joaquin Bolivar Thomas. He was brought…

Happy First Anniversary to my beautifully exotic Humphrey Bogart, aka Bogie. A year ago today, I picked him up at Nathalie Herling’s Arte Vallarta, the handoff executed by Alan Ross, her second-in-command. Bogie and I are still learning – and unlearning, behaviors as we go along. I mentioned something last night to him about the…

I love Vallarta when it’s quiet in the morning. When each sound can be picked out and separated because there are so few, those weird frogs that live by the river two blocks from me sound like owls hooting. A car or two accelerates on Juarez, and birds converse quietly as if they are respecting…