A Girl and Her Car: A Life Together

Today has been a hard day. The upstairs neighbor decided to leave on foot at who knows what hour early this morning (I'm guessing around 4 or 5). The door to leave the building is very big and heavy and has to be unlocked from the inside and relocked from the outside. It also happens to be in the same wall as the head of my bed and about 6 feet away. There's no way for anyone to enter or leave without waking me up. Then there is the garage door. It runs on a bicycle chain and is super loud. There is no pedestrian door. He left and returned I'm guessing around 15 minutes later so I got to hear everything twice. Then, probably around 6 or 7, he left again, in his car this time. 

In addition, Denny Crane decided he didn't want to sleep last night, but wanted to groom himself instead. The sound of his licking is extremely loud and obnoxious when I'm awake, let alone when I'm trying to sleep. I finally got up around 2am and reprimanded him in person and told him to knock it off and go to sleep. When the neighbor left the 2nd time Denny Crane woke up and started shaking himself and moving around in his little house bed, making sufficient racket to prevent sleeping until I got up at 8:30. 

Needless to say, when I got up I felt like I was sleep walking. I was so tired. I knew if I sat down to write or work I'd fall into a fitful and restless sleep so I decided to walk to a couple of stores. I acquired most of what I wanted and returned home about an hour later. 

To stay awake I decided to call my bank and get some business conducted. I fell asleep waiting on hold. 

So instead, I got up and moved around to try to wake up and did fairly well until around 5pm when I was sitting working on my computer but my eyes kept shutting. I'd force one open at a time to find weird webpages open when my hand had rested on the touchpad. Good grief. I decided to lay down on the couch for a half hour and take a nap, but of course and soon as I moved into position I was wide awake and just laid there unable to sleep.

....Then my phone went off with a message notification.

My precious car (for those that don't know she has been with me from the beginning and we are the tightest knit girl and car that ever was) is in the shop for some repairs. Nothing horrible. Until today.

My mechanic messaged me a video of my intake manifold leaking. Now, if I was in the USA, this wouldn't be a huge deal. I could buy a new one for a good price or even get a used one from a junkyard. There are a plethora of Aleros in junkyards now. But only in the US. The car does not exist in Mexico. Which means no old parts nor new parts if those parts are not used in other cars sold in Mexico. (hint: intake manifolds are not available here)

So now I'm contemplating my future. How will I be able to fix my car? How much will it cost? How will I be able to get back to the States to visit? 

There are a lot of 'how' questions and not a lot of 'how' answers. 

A girl has never loved her car and bonded over the 300,000 miles of travel together as me. The thought of losing her here is devastating. She was my kitten, my cat in crime, and I've lovingly cared for her as she's aged as best I could. I've lived in her, slept in her, and trusted her with everything I own. She has kept me warm and safe and waited for me to return from other countries for 20 years. She has been my one true constant in my ever changing adult world.

I want nothing more than to return to the mechanic and hear her gentle purr, feel her strength under my foot and her eagerness to roam the streets once again with me, and sense her protection around me once more. 

I actually have a whole album of black & white photos of her that I took and developed myself the first year I got her, but this is the most recent color photo :) 

Creative Construction: Building Something New Out of Something Broken

 The good news is that my back is better today than yesterday. Yea! It's not good by any means, but it's good enough I don't need any little pills to be able to hobble around.

So I took full advantage of that and sat around all morning working on my computer haha!

No really, there was lots of writing and editing in the beginning and then I decided it was time to get as creative as possible and create an entry way "table". So I hunted and hunted through the few things that aren't cardboard boxes that I wasn't already utilizing to find something I could put together to make a table high enough to actually be able to use.

What I 'created' I'm extremely happy with for the pieces I had available to use. 

All that was left in the apartment was a very dirty squarish plastic flower pot that I had stored outside because it was so filthy and cracked in multiple places. I partnered that with a broken plastic crate I used to use in my car trunk for all my car tools but it's so broken it doesn't work for that anymore. So I had brought it inside and it has been holding books I'm not currently reading along with my tiny sewing kit. It has done well at that but I decided to see if I could get it to work better as a table topper. 

I succeeded! It is far from the prettiest table ever, but it is very useful and I now have a place to set things when I walk in the door, first, and second, I have a place to keep my hand sanitizer and garage door opener that I always want as close to the door as possible. It's a little precarious to put much on top that's heavy, but I have a way way better bookshelf now for my books. An Amazon envelope and sturdy piece of cardboard provided sufficient surfaces to be able to use it as such.

There is now only cardboard boxes left with which to 'build' whatever construction I fancy next. Luckily the apartment is quite small so there really isn't much space left for any 'building'!

I guess that means I can't procrastinate my writing by rationalizing my cleaning habits haha. But hey, I enjoyed my day and will continue to enjoy my entry table for months to come, I hope.

Now how pretty and ingenuous is that?

Which Way Does Your Fridge Door Swing?

My back didn't handle today as well as it did the last few days. I went for a half hour walk and reclined, as opposed to sit, to avoid putting so much pressure on my tailbone, but I'm back on my little pill to make it through the night. It probably didn't help I had an hours worth of dishes to wash and I was spontaneously desired to reorganize the kitchen....just a little.

The current apartment I'm in only has what I call a dorm size fridge. It's the fridge style with the freezer inside it which means you can put a couple of ice trays and that's about it. Granted, it is slightly bigger than the dorm fridge I had in college, but still...

Anyway, I'd been planning and had arranged with the landlord to purchase a used, adult-size fridge for the apartment. But I've learned a new cultural norm about Mexico.

THEY ONLY HAVE FRIDGE DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE LEFT!!

No, seriously. I'm not kidding. Too bad if your fridge space is against the wall on the left side of the kitchen (like mine is). You'll just have to rake your knuckles against the wall every time you want to open the door and you'll have to open it all the way just to reach inside. Then you'll have to take one item out at a time to walk it around the fridge to put it on the counter. I seriously am still shocked. I thought it was just standard that fridges came with the possibility to change which side the door opens. They have had that option all my life. And I thought people just knew that. Even the appliance store workers in Mexico have never heard of the possibility of switching doors, let alone the regular population. It's a true unsolved mystery. 

Anyway, I started looking for fridges that opened from the right side first. There's plenty of those normally: not in Mexico. Once I realized fridges that open from the right are an anomaly in Mexico, I thought, "Well, that's not a big deal. I'll just change the fridge doors to open from the right." Hah! 

The fridges aren't actually manufactured to be able to do that here either. 

I finally found what I thought was the perfect fridge. It was an adult, large size, good brand fridge with the predrilled holes to change out the doors in the pictures. So I made an appointment with the owners and was preparing to buy a fridge. I got to the house. The fridge was fantastic. It was huge! And even better, it was clean!! I was stoked. I checked the extra holes in the middle between the freezer and the fridge, yes. I checked for the pivot hole in the fridge door, yes. And then I got on my tip toes to check the very top for the three holes to change the bracket to hold the freezer door on to the box. Nope. No holes. Not a one. They weren't covered or painted over. They'd never been put in by the manufacturer. 

I was devastated. 

I looked for another week and eventually gave up. The next however many months I'm in this apartment will be lived in a constant state of fear that I can't fit something I buy in the fridge or freezer and having to unpackage everything to make it fit and moving things around every single day to make it all work. 

Because I thought I was going to have an adult size fridge I decided to go ahead and prepare the kitchen for it. There was a 4 tier bookshelf I was using for paper towels, fruit, extra bottles, oil, etc. that was in the fridge space next to my dorm fridge. The two are so small they fit side-by-side in the same space for an adult fridge.

In preparation, I removed the bookshelf to the living room and relocalized all my bottles to various awkward locations.

With the reality setting in that I will not have an adult size fridge, I decided to go ahead and put the bookshelf back in the kitchen. There are only 3 upper cabinets and 1 lower so I'm super cramped for space. I cleaned the bookshelf of the items I'd collected in the living room and put it in a new location in the kitchen and restocked it with my fruit and bottles and napkins and paper towels. I can see my kitchen counters again and I can completely close the kitchen cabinets too!

I will definitely miss having a full size, adult fridge for the foreseeable future, but it is really nice to have some organization back in my kitchen. 

The even better news, is that if a right-side opening fridge falls in my lap for the right price, I have space for it because I relocated the bookshelf. It's always good to keep your options open! But I'm not longer fridge hunting. I've spent too many hours on it already and know it's a needle in a hay stack here to find what I'm looking for so it's time to move on to other priorities. 

Here's to organized kitchens, more counter space, kitchen cabinets that close, and refrigerators that open from the right side!!

The bright yellow 'cabinetless' wall with interesting African(?) art decor . (I rent).

Walking Through Back Pain

Many years ago now, I tore my lower back doing a simple lift at a Cross Fit gym under the direct supervision of its owner, who never realized I tore it coincidentally. I suffered for weeks unable to walk and then graduating to using two canes and eventually just one in order to get around. I couldn't stand up straight and it hurt to sneeze, laugh, couch, etc. It also hurt to sit down in a chair or go anywhere in a car. It was a terrible experience. 

After that, I began training in Insanity again and learned a lot about using correct muscles while I retore and rehealed and retore and rehealed my back. I finally recovered (technically you never do) and kept at the workouts but with a new found knowledge of muscle use in exercise.

Fast forward to recently and somehow I reinjured my back. There was no, omg ouch!, moment. I just realized at one point that my back really hurt and very quickly after that, it went from it hurts to I can't move. Once again I was practically bed ridden. I did nothing for a few days other than hobble from the bed to the bathroom to the couch and back. The pain didn't improve, nor did my mobility. So I started taken muscle relaxants (just over the counter ones, but strong ones-thank you Mexico), and slowly but surely I've progressed. 

I have no bath to soak in so I counted on those little pills to relax my back enough to walk. I couldn't stand up straight for about a week and it hurt to cough, sneeze, or laugh again. 

With the little pills though, I was able to walk around my place and one day (I don't even remember why, but I'm going with I needed food) I had to walk to the store. When I returned my back was aching horribly and I could barely stand up. I thought I'd really screwed up going for the walk. But the next morning, turns out my back was better; not perfect, but better. I took more little pills and laid around on the couch all day thinking it would be good to rest it after such a trialing day before. But the following morning my back was no better. "What in the world?" I thought. 

So yesterday I took another super duper, Ronda turbo speed, almost two hour long walk and yes, when I got back my back ached. Granted, I'd done that walk with Denny Crane comfortably resting in his fancy backpack on my back because he can't keep up with my pace for that long and I didn't want him molesting the neighbors by barking for 2 hours either. That night I decided not to take a pill and see what happened this morning. 

Turns out, my back is better this morning. No, it's not perfect. It still hurts if I sneeze or cough, but getting up and down from a seated position, or standing up straight no longer hurts or is impossible. I was also able to crack my lower back which really hurt but also felt intensely satisfying and relieving. 

I still have no idea what I did to cause my back to suddenly go out, but I am glad to have learned that if I can walk through the pain, I can wake up renewed and restored!

I spotted this beautiful bright red cardinal (?) on my walk.

Too Early For Coffee

 Today I'm up so early (for me) that my computer is still in night mode. All the blue lighting to help ease me to sleep at night is very low and I feel like I'm sleep typing just looking at the screen.

It's still too early for coffee. My body doesn't want anything yet. No sensory receptors are ready to function: no sound (except my keyboard), no food or drinks, no candles or aromatherapy diffusers, etc. I'm still sleeping!

Wasn't my choice to wake up this early as I set no alarms and I didn't have any nightmares, but things happen sometimes. Trying to use the time wisely because going back to bed only results in tossing and turning and light sleep patterns where you end up more tired than you began.

Yesterday was a good day for productivity though. Happy to have made as much progress as I did in so many things. Now I just have to stick to my guns and do it all again today! 

Here's to making it a good day.

Working from bed still...

Alive & Dreams

 The title won't make any sense probably, if you didn't see my last post, but I'm going to make the crazy assumption you're here because you enjoy catching up on my strange life, even though I haven't been good at posting for a long long time.

Truth is, I'm not inspired to post when I'm not really happy so it hasn't been a writing season for quite some time. And even less so during the fun newish, now oldish pandemic.

Trying to find a new me and learn a new life and all of that has shown me: 

• I need to sleep until at least 9am no matter how many hours of sleep that actually is.
• I am now a coffee drinker more than a yerba mate drinker even though I don't like the taste better.
• I need in-person/live people-watching to survive a quarantine.
• Shaunt T is still the man for exercise inspiration!
• I am able to learn a lot about relationships and communication by watching The Amazing Race.
• Lamps are amazing things. You never know what you will miss until you don't have it anymore.
• I've never been unemployed for so long in my life since high school.
• Wearing makeup during a pandemic doesn't help you feel more alive; more like silly.
• I hate cooking. This is not something new. Just something verified by pandemic cooking 3x/day.
• Video calls are more stressful than helpful. I'm old school and still prefer voice calls.

Ok, I think that is enough sharing for now. You get the idea. 

In the process of trying to find the new Ronda while not completely losing the old Ronda so that I can find work again one day (Who knew that violinists aren't commodities in the 'real' world and businesses aren't interested in the skill set of dedication, perseverance, focus, accurate and precise work, responsible autonomously, and fast learning required to be a professional violinist.), I'm hoping, yes hoping, to write more in the blog.

I can't guarantee the future and I'm big on not making promises I can't keep, so I will do my best to write a whole lot more :)

When I traveled the world for a living (yes, that was an awesome job), I had so much material I couldn't get it all written down. With life seemingly the same, churning out a mundane existence moving from one couch to the other, I'm not so inspired with fantastic tales of adventure. But, I do live in Mexico with a Dachshund of unparalleled personality, so I'm sure I can find something worth writing about once in a while, right? Well, that's the goal. 

I aim to write much more often here on this blog and if you feel so inclined, responding to me (respond to the blog email if you're a subscriber, comment on my blog, message me on fb, etc.) would be a wonderful way to inspire me to keep writing right now.

Hopefully I will have continuing reasons to keep writing and blogging and reimagining Ronda!

How is he so photogenic? I mean, he steals the shot every time! I am obsessed with my new watch band however.
Who knew 12mm quality watch bands were so hard to come by in Mexico?!

Sleep and Dreams

This last year has been a hard one, for everyone. It partially feels like I've slept-walked my way through it. 2021 has come and although new goals and wishes are supposed to be part of the package, life has continued on as if nothing significant happened. 

I know how many of you enjoy reading my posts, there just hasn't been any motivation to write. Without travel, without work, without friends, without family, without music, without my life, all the things I love to do have become the hardest things to do.

Mexico still remains my home destination. It's the longest I've lived in one country since college. Can't say I'm happy about that, but the road of life has become more about trying to stay in the car than enjoying the ride. 

I'm searching for new ways to bring joy to my days, to find the happiness in staring out my apartment window vs sitting in a restaurant people watching, to want to practice music I never get to perform, to find the inspiration for words instead of mindless fb marketplace scrolling for things I don't want nor need nor afford, to remember there is more to life than laundry, dusting, cooking, and washing dishes. 

When I moved to Jeju Island in Korea many years ago I was faced with a somewhat similar situation where no one spoke English, the time difference was too drastic for long phone calls daily with friends and family, there was no place to go hang out and be comfortable nearby. I felt totally isolated. But I started to find solace when I would go for walks along the deserted roads near the beach every morning before work. And I had work. 

Today the city streets of Guadalajara are packed with people with covid so I watch them walk by from inside my window and I have no work and no dissolutions of orchestras and cruise ships in my immediate future. My friends and family are isolated due to covid but at least I can call them every day and my Spanish is good enough I can communicate satisfactorily usually. 

I could never of dreamed of a life without live music. I could never have dreamed of a life without cruising (even just for fun instead of work). I could never have dreamed of a life without travel. I could never have dreamed of a life lived indoors. 

Yet, this is my "life". 

There are people who reinvent themselves quickly and easily. I'm apparently not one of them. This past year has shown me how so much of who I am are the things I love most and with every single one of them taken away, I've lost myself. I'm sleep-walking through a dream, hoping it isn't reality, but waking up every day to realize that it is.

Continuing from 2020 into 2021 I'm looking deep inside myself to find more. I'm not sure what more, but I know there is more. I want to go to sleep at night, excited about the next day instead of dreading it. I want to wake up each day pinching myself to be sure I'm not dreaming because my life seems so wonderful. I want to dream of my future and not daydream of my past. I want to sleep deep at night because I'm exhausted from a good day of successful pursuits and not because I'm depressed with my view from inside my window. 

I can't picture what any of this will be yet and that makes it even more difficult. Trying to compare it to any part of my life before covid makes it impossible. How do you walk out of the 'home' you've spent your whole life building, shut the door behind you, and never look back? I don't have the answer, but I must try. No one but me can build the new 'home' I need but me!

Below are some select good times photos from 2020. Enjoy!

Shadow hiking with Denny Crane.

Receiving a package that took months and much money to deliver plus a whole lot of luck!

Denny Crane enjoying the lookout:
from our vantage point and from his fancy back back ride!

Denny Crane got me. After a long work out, stretching on the yoga mat, 

he snuck a big ol wet kiss right on my cheek. Lucky dog! 

Hola Amigos!

Sometimes he just wants cuddles.

Denny's first international flight.
He enjoyed looking out the window :)
Yes, "awe" is appropriate!

Cliff knows what Ronda wants when she arrives from
Mexico at the airport after nearly 24 hours of travel!

A sunny day in the grass!

Final memory in front of my childhood home with my family. 

Homemade pumpkin pie from my Mom. No one bakes it better!

I learned the fastest way to reheat my coffee without a microwave.

Denny doing what he loves best. Playing ball!

Denny Crane is still doing well for all those who know and love him! He steals the hearts of everyone he meets and secures "mascot" for every group he joins. The "Denny Effect" is now a real thing.