She Said...

I also remembered a letter to the editor we received many moons ago in which the author wrote about the summer storms in Puerto Vallarta. She said it all, and very beautifully. However, although she spoke well of the effect these storms have on humans, she didn’t get into the physical (as in physics) effects of the thunder and lightning that accompany these awesome, marvelous meteorological events. Having spent most of my adult life up in Montreal, I was lucky to see the northern lights at this time of year, often. They appear surreal, like something out of a science fiction movie, that’s true, but they’re quiet, totally silent, just undulating up there, way up in some layer of the atmosphere, in soft folds of turquoise and blues. It’s a «sound & light» show ...without the sound.

Vallarta thunderstorms, on the other hand, are anything but quiet. They are full-fledged shows - sound, lights, action! The thunder reverberates against the mountains that surround the bay, amplifying the noise many times over. Sometimes it feels so very close, as if the lightning that preceded it hit the tree next door. And the lightning here dances between the cumulonimbus clouds ...parallel to the horizon, not vertically like the «common» kind! Sometimes it starts at one end of the bay and streaks across to the other.

A few nights ago, there was no rain. But there was a storm raging somewhere way out there, to the northwest. All we could see was the lightning illuminating the huge clouds in that particular area, while overhead the sky was nearly clear, with a bright moon accompanied by myriad stars. And all was quiet - here.

There’s another reason I love this time of year. I’ve gotten in the habit of putting a clean pail outside my door when it looks as if we’re going to get «a good one». The next day, I strain the water into empty bottles that I refrigerate. You think bottled water is good? You haven’t tasted «good» water until you’ve drunk rainwater. It is truly special, clean, pure, and very soft! I do not look forward to the end of the «rainy» season.

Meanwhile, those streets in Vallarta that have been the topic of discussion for the various successive administrations over so many years continue to flood every time we get a big downpour. I saw cars nearly floating on Morelos. By next morning, the sun comes out and the steep streets are dry, but not Francisco Villa Boulevard! I have heard it said that correcting the problem would involve so much tearing up of streets around that area that no administration wants to even contemplate the cost, both financial and social. Nevertheless, someone will have to do something sometime. Maybe mañana... And maybe mañana, the buses and taxis will remember that people –locals and tourists- are the ones they soak as they race through those flooded streets with complete impunity.

Before I forget, thank you to all of you who continue to call me and send me emails to inform me of their encounters with frogs, especially the gentleman who called me to tell me that he couldn’t walk through his patio because a whole bunch of those cute little guys were having a fiesta there, between the street and his front door. After I finished laughing at the image it conjured up in my mind, I recommended that he shuffle his feet, slowly, so as not to step on one of those endangered little amphibians by mistake.

Still on little creatures, my grandson noticed something I hadn’t seen in years, literally: a single little firefly, flitting around my front door, all by itself. What wondrous creatures they are! Years ago, they used to be all over the place in the summer time. I used to turn out all the lights and just sit there, watching them perform their luminous little dances. I wonder if they’re on their way to extinction too, like the bees.

Here’s some trivia for you for this week: Fireflies were a part of ancient Mayan mythology, often being associated with the stars. They were also associated with cigar smoking and may have had at least one representative in the pantheon of Mayan gods. The ancient Chinese sometimes captured fireflies in transparent containers and used them as lanterns, short term of course. At one point, the State of Indiana seriously considered making the State’s insect a firefly, but the legislature never put the measure to a vote…

Ah, yes, legislatures… wouldn’t it be amazing if this town really did end up with a state-of-the-art waste disposal system, for real? I think it might just suffice to counterbalance all the negative points our mayor has been accumulating lately… Well, maybe not. I forgot how many there are.

What else have these legislating bodies done lately? Well, I understand that they’ve reinstalled some of the parking meters downtown, the ones they installed and then removed a few days later, a few months ago. Personally, I’ve given up on trying to find a parking spot downtown, so I haven’t even noticed their reappearance.

On the other hand, I must admit that I find this project of setting up video cameras all over the place … a little unnerving, to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those many exhibitionists I’ve seen around town. No video «watcher» in city hall is ever going to see me walking around the Malecon in a G-string. (I would never subject anyone to such a scary sight.) However, this is getting very close to George Orwell’s vision of 1984, a little delayed perhaps, but still unnerving. It’s okay to promote Vallarta all over the world with Big Brother episodes filmed in luxurious villas up in ritzy Conchas Chinas, but that’s where I draw the line.
On the other hand, if the system is going to function as well as the video cameras they supposedly installed in the police’s patrol cars a few years ago, then we have nothing to worry about. They were never put into operation, despite all the hullabaloo that was made about them at the time. Perhaps there was no one at city hall who could read the instructions…
By the time you read this, the Olympic Games should be in full swing. I hope and pray that no unpleasant events take place. May the best athletes win!

I wish you all a wonderful week, filled with sunshiny days, and thunder-filled nights. Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com

posted by Anna Reisman @ 12:03 AM