Today during my morning walk — a lot of it with Diane Cooner and some of it with my other dear neighbor, Homer — I asked Diane to take a picture of Homer and me.  It turned out great (thanks, Diane!)!!!

 

So then I asked Homer if it would be okay to share it with my friends on Facebook and in my blog.  (My FB page is set to FRIENDS ONLY, so it is only narrowcast, NOT broadcast.)  He said I could, so at long last, here it a decent photo of Homer and me.  (The one I took a few days ago was in the shade and not very good!)

 

True Amigos!

I had so much fun walking this morning that I didn’t even pay attention to the number of laps we took as we walked and talked, and I was surprised to learn I didn’t make my quota yet. But I will by the end of the day.  I’m at 5182 steps and it isn’t even noon yet.

 

The Walkie-Talkie-Doggy-Casita Showing Combo Trek

 

So, to flesh out the above brief report,  I headed out a wee bit later than normal — about 7:45 as I recall, which was fortunate  because as soon as I hit Calle Esteban Salas, I spotted Homer coming in my direction.

 

I walked up to meet and greet him and found out (or convinced him, not actually sure which!) that he was walking to the end of Calle Esteban Salas in the opposite direction from Calle Los Angeles, so I joined him on his walk.

 

He told me in Spanish that he has a bad/problematic knee, so we took it easy at his pace.  He’s quite the chatterbox when we’re together and I never want to miss a thing he says, so I turned on Google translate on my phone and walked alongside him while he explained that his family has owned this calle property (the entire route) since his grandfather’s time. He told me his grandfather had two wives (I presume not concurrently!) and 16 children.

 

During an earlier walk, Homer told me he has eight children.  I’ve met some of them, and some of his grandchildren, because a sufficient number of them still own property here. He is just the most delightful, cheerful senor.  He has told me snippets about himself and his impoverished upbringing but never with a “poor me” attitude.  A great many families were in the same boat and because of the culture and the fecundity of the surroundings, they always made do, poor as they were. He’s always cheerful.  Even when he was fighting a bad cold for a week or so, he still had that smile on his face whenever I managed to catch a glimpse of him.

 

Well, he’s always cheerful except for the few moments when I explained that I would be moving to San Isidro on February 1st.  That wiped the smile off his face. I told him why, and he understood completely, but it was obvious that he was sad to hear it. I told him I would visit and that he’s always welcome to visit where I’ll be.

 

BACK AT DIANE’S PLACE…

 

By the time we made our way back to Diane’s, she had her two dogs out — one of them on a leash to keep him from ferreting out things he shouldn’t be eating along the calle — and was ready to walk with me.  That was pretty close to the time when I knew Homer would be bidding me adieu, so I was super glad to see her waiting to go walking with me again.

 

She was juggling an almost full cup of coffee and an eager, leash-pulling dog (Blanca), so I asked her if she wanted me to take the leash or her coffee cup to give her a hand.  She elected to give me the leash, OF COURSE!!! duh!!!  No coffee lover in their right mind is going to trust to their coffee to someone else! Their dog, maybe!  Their coffee, NEVER! LOL!

 

After we got our dog/coffee responsibilities sorted, we headed up the calle toward Calle Los Angeles — where we briefly met, hugged, and passed Luz and Noelia, who were finishing their walk just then — and Homer’s abode.  At Homer’s place is where I asked Diane if she would take the above photo of Homer and me arm an arm.

 

It turned out so great. I just love it.

 

 

We bid adieu to Homer and walked to Calle Los Angeles and then turned around and walked the length of Calle Esteban Salas to its end, chatting and laughing all the way. The dogs had fun, too. Their noses kept wanting to take them off the path and up the hill, but we said no; Blanca has already had a couple run ins with porcupines in her life, and that was quite enough!

 

I remember telling her about Deaken and Popcorn.  The rest of our conversation is semi-lost in the mist now, the parts that we’d both want broadcast, that is!  HA HA HA HA HA

 

(Doesn’t that make us sound mysterious?  That’s why I threw it in there — to give you something to conjure up! LOL! Now I want you to tell me what you conjured up!  HA HA HA HA )

 

Sometime during the walk I learned that she had never been up to see the casita I’m renting now, so I invited her up.  Her oldest dog stayed home, and when we got to my casita door, she picked Blanca up into her arms because she said he’d eat Charli (yeah, that’s good to know!) otherwise.  Charli saw us coming into the house — one of “us” a stranger to her holding a dog — so she went under the bed in my bedroom during the time Diane and Blanca were there.

 

Diane spotted the (very few) DeForest Kelley items in my casita and inquired, so I gave her a brief rundown of our association and eventual friendship. In doing so, I discovered she’s a big original generation fan.

 

(An aside: I’m glad we became friends before she knew a thing about my friendship with the Kelleys. This way, I know her interest in and care for me is “for real”. Sadly, I have to be careful. I rarely mention my friendship with De until after I’ve connected with someone for quite some time before revealing that, so I don’t have to be concerned about them coming in my orbit for any other reason than that they genuinely want to connect with me. I don’t do well as an object of “reflected glory.”  I want to be evaluated on my own terms, in the same way that almost every other normal human being gets to.)

 

Anyway, now she says she will buy the Kindle edition of my book to find out “the rest of the story.” Because, after all, she wasn’t here for more than ten minutes! I asked her if she wanted to stay longer, but with the dog in her arms and other people expecting to hear from her today, she declined.

 

I walked her back to her home and then took a couple more laps from my driveway to Calle Los Angeles but the sun was fully up by then and I had left my hat in the casita and the door unlocked, so I decided to call it a day and returned home.

 

Then I wrote this, which brings you right up to THE MINUTE.  After I proofread this, I’m going to hit PUBLISH and it’ll be available for you to read and hopefully enjoy within minutes from right now at 12:40 pm my time!

 

Hope your day after Christmas will be as delightful as mine has been so far!

 

Diane Cooner

P.S. OH! And I spent about 25 minutes on a WhatsApp video call with Samoel Black in Germany this morning, too.  We had fun catching up.  He’s heading out on a skiing trip in the Austrian Alps very soon. I told him to be careful but have a blast and take pictures!