Extra Time on My Hands

The only problem with writing a daily, Monday to Friday column, is that you have to do stuff that people may actually want to read about. With the current entertainment situation in Vallarta, with all the venues scaled back somewhat for the off-season (with an upcoming blip for Pride Week), there is not much new to see. That being said, EVERYTHING still on the roster is worth seeing again, and I just might do that.

For now, however, I am luxuriating in the extra time on my hands, tending to things I have ignored since the fall, like working in my garden.

It’s tiny. A wee patio that’s dark until summertime when it gets full-blown sun, and the tiles are so bloody hot my bare feet have to toughen up, and they do as I hop around finding leaf-shade spots that are 10 degrees cooler at least.

There are old vines in a couple of built-in planters that surround the patio on three sides. They creep up the side of the hotel, which forms one wall, and fall down one other side over a brick wall, into my neighbor’s yard way down below.

So, I have a square of space that’s small, and now Bogie-escape-proof, and I love it because it’s all the outdoor space I have.

Right now, it’s heaped with old, dead vines and bougainvillea pieces I keep stepping on (yeeouch!) that have to be reduced to baggable bits. That will take a full day that I don’t have yet but I feel it’s coming.

Once I get the floor space tidy, I can start cleaning my two Egyptian carpets that I bought years ago at the great Hotel Bazaar ‘Aguilar’ up by the Vallarta Tribune’s old offices in Lomas de Coapinole.

And, I have an over-full rack of clothing that needs attention. There are dozens of pieces – fabulous finds from the tianguis – and not one I can wear without alterations. They wait for me daily. Their presence hovers behind me, just hanging on the rolling rack, haunting me as I ignore them all, typing away and not having time to fix a single one.

I can’t not buy them. Most of these lovelies cost me ten pesos and many are worth thousands and thousands of pesos – I shamelessly “Google Lens” the labels and sometimes find the exact dress. That makes me smug for the rest of the day. But for now, they sit. And wait. And judge me.

Thanks for the therapeutic session. My compulsive procrastination and buying habits feel somewhat eased. I am off to Versalles this afternoon for another Out & About Puerto Vallarta magazine’s Gay Mixer at El Rey BBQ Lounge on Viena from 6 to 8 pm. Join me there.