Cafecito, Yuma

I arrived late for church at St. Luke’s.  I was on California Pacific time for Winterhaven and didn’t check Yuma Mountain time. I missed communion and arrived late for dinner. I hoped they’d have some leftovers for us late arrivals but it doesn’t work that way.  Jesus is all in the present. . Several people told me that the service began at 10:30.  When I said it was 1030 in my time zone, one beautiful woman responded, ‘welcome from California.’  She grasped the difficulty.  The priest who’d blessed Madigan last Sunday was again welcoming.   I was fine and with the time stayed for coffee. I chatted dogs with Michael and talked to two lovely ladies, feeling connected.

After we rode to the  Old Town.  Each year I’ve been to Yuma these last three I’ve come for coffee at Cafecito.  What a truly adorable place. There’s a very pleasant indoor coffee shop but what makes this place truly spectacular is the outdoor garden. The individualized tables of mosaic, metal and wood are there own works of art standing in the midst of  a variety of cacti , southern foliages and happy little song birds.  A beautiful hummingbird kindly u danced in front of me much taken by the red flowers beside my table. Truly heaven on earth. 

The staff are funky.  The music inside was contemporary. I didn’t recognize it but thankfully it was music. So much of what I hear to day doesn’t seem so me as such.  

There are so many gorgeous women here but the men they are with are distinctly masculine. Handsome warrior sorts.  I’m an ectomorph. These are definitely mesomorphs and endomorphs. One fellow with a beautiful buxom lovely and child looked like he’d stopped a whole line of football players in his younger years.  It could be the US Marine Air Base or just Arizona men annd beautiful women,  that western tradition that one sees here more represented ,than in the more ambiguous and often effete coastal groups.  Lots of country and less urban culture.  My Vespa this year is far more distinctive than my Harley was last year. There’s a lot of well dressed Mexican businessman sorts. Salma Hayek with Danny Trejo and Antonio Banderas would fit right in. There’s  that kind of charm and uniqueness. 

I have several medical friends in Arizona, a sexy brilliant physician in Tucson and another in Phoenix. One psychiatrist friend has retired and doesn’t tell anyone that he was a psychiatrist. A fellow psychiatrist friend visited him and said his sculptures were amazing.  “He just tells everyone he’s an a rtist and they accept him as that.”  I saw this ex psychiatrist now artist friend for the first time in a year on a zoom meeting.  We registered we were getting older. I’d first met him yesterday, a quarter century ago.  Time is like that.  

I’m glad Cafecito is here.  Most people are meeting in twos and fours with some tables of 6 or more. There are tet a tet posturing of shared gossip or intimacy. Lots of family laughter in larger groups.  Babies in state of the art strollers. I’m expecting Tesla to join the market any day.  There are few loners like me talking to computers or phones.  It’s an amazingly interesting place. I feel at ease here.  Madigan though is bored. As self anppointed sheriff he just barked at a passing waiter. The waiter was calling out names for the food he was bringing. Madigan was probably saying “here, here’.  I had a deleicions open faced advocado and tiny tomato dish.  It serves food my long decease aunt who served in the Canadian embassy in Washington during WWII would have liked.  She loved finger food and elegance. 

While Madigan was distracted with the passing waiter he missed an old grey bearded black lab who arrived with his master.   It’s not often another dog gets past his nasil radar. The sun is warm and the sky is blue.  

When Laura was here with me last year we had spaghetti and lasagna down the street.  That was a memorable meal with beautiful company.  Laura was looking like Meg Ryan that day,  happy  to be away from work in vacation mode.  We had a good time visiting nearby  Los Algadones,  buying jewelry from Sandra and seeing the St. Thomas Dentists recommended by Ivy League friend Sandra Ford.

The whole street that Cafecito’s is on has tourist attractions,   little gift shops and such..  Right now it’s Sunday, There’s food but not the same shopping opportunities. 

Madigan has been surprisingly patient.  It’s time we left this little bit of paradise.  Time to mount the Vespa, our modern day steed.  

 

 

Kodanad Elephant Training Camp, Kerala, India

I had wanted to ride an elephant. I’d not on my own come to the idea of climbing on top of a moving skyscraper and bashing about the juggle holding on for dear life.  War elephants had scared the bejessus out of Alexander the great and his warriors.
It was just at Ankor Was in Cambodia an elephant was taking people for rides. it was suggested, as locals and businessmen suggest impetuously, that I’d like to ride the elephant.  I said yes and got behind a young girl before me whose parents thought she’d like a ride on an elephant. She looked more dubious.  She had a marvellous time taking a turn on the beast and riding eventually back to the clearing where I waited.  I heard her wax poetically about her novel experience.
I think the elephant took one look at me, overweight and foreign, and told the trainer he was on strike.  The trainer with broken English conveyed the elephant was tired and it was too hot to carry me. I’m sure a lot is lost in translation  What the elephant said was,  ‘elephant can’t carry fatso’ .  The trainer being Thai and buddhist translated for the elephant,  ‘the elephant is too tired.’  The seed though was planted in my mind.

Here in Kochi in Southern India at the fabulous Crown Plaza, I asked the marvellous concierge if I could ride an elephant.
“Yes, sir, in Munnad.  150 km from here."
“No locally, somewhere close.” I counted.
“Kodanad Elephant Training Camp is 45 minutes away by the airport.  You can’t ride an elephant but you can feed them and wash them if you go before 10 am."
“I’d just like a selfie of me sitting an elephant. “ I said, admitting vanity. Girls look good taking selfies in toilets but for some reasons  fat old guys  feel the need of an elephant or ferrari to accessorize.
“ They don’t let people ride the elephants at Kodanad any more. There were security concerns at Kodanad last year.”  Again I presume something is lost in translation. I expect if he wasn’t polite he’d  fill in the details.  Something like, a fat old guy who was a western lawyer rode an elephant in Kadanad  His weight or attitude pissed off the elephant. The elephant then stampeded through the jungle to rid himself of the lawyer.  He then came back and stomped all over the lawyer, his family and a dozen innocent bystander locals before he was brought under control.  Hence the expression ‘security concerns’.
‘There’s a temple elephant, very old, very serene, very tame. The Kodanad elephants are still in training. Some very wild, they’re rescue and still learning to be with people. A temple elephant would let you climb up on her and have a picture.  The priests wouldn’t let you walk about, but just sit  for photo..”  Hearing him say it that way I kind of felt like a kid wanting to be in the lap of India’s equivalent of Santa Klaus.  The concierge phoned the temple
“There’s  a festival this week. All of the elephants at the temple are being leant out to other temples today for the festival.  They will come back this evening. You could go to the temple this evening when the elephants return."
“What time."
“9 pm'
‘That’s past my bed time” I said, “ Can I  go to Kadonad now."
“I’ll get you a car sir.” he said, happy for me.
That’s how I was again in an air conditioned  car watching countless motorcyclists and  other vehicles dart about while I video of roadside passings..
 I’d read up on the Trip Advisor reviews.  I saw comments saying don’t go because the elephants are slaves.
“The elephants are slaves"
‘They’re chained."
I had some misgivings as a consequence  but as often as not the reviews are a mix, wildly off or sometimes right on.  The positive ones tend to be more often accurate than the negative ones overall.  Negative people are more likely to broadcast their negativity whereas positive people often don’t even comment.
The Kodanad Elephant Training Camp was well kept and well organized.  I was impressed overall by the staff and camp and lay out.  It was all very professionally maintained.  Here in a wilderness jungle area at the end of a really bad road there were office buildings and paths with signs in English giving directions and information.  My driver came along with me as obviously interested in seeing elephants as I. Indians in general love their elephants.
I paid an extra $150 rupees to take my cameras. It was 100 rupee for camera and 250 for video   Somehow despite having my Iphone 11, my Nikon Coolpix 1000 and my GoPro 7 Black I was only charged $150.  Indian logic or math. I often can’t tell. It sometimes serves me and sometimes serves them.
I loved the quiet.  Bird songs and butterflies. The elephants were eating in the woods along side the road. Each was well fed and appeared rather contented. They had a chain attached to the leg to a tree. I thought of my very pampered cockapoo, Gilbert, and how I leash him everywhere I go. Without the leash he’d wander off and it wouldn’t be safe for him.  Unless there’s a female dog in heat he’s content to wait with the extra reassurance of the leash for me.  There are so many dangers for an animal in a modern world.  Cars especially are bad. People also complain and dogs are stolen or shot. I imagine the problem for elephants is much worse.  There’s not the wilderness we have in Canada where we can take bears that are bothering children in the city and relocate them. That’s a horrendously expensive process and I don’t think India has the resources for relocation of elephants but instead have these training camps. Elephants have been domesticated like our horses for thousands of years.
The Kodanad Elephant Training Camp takes rescue elephants and wild elephants and trains them much as we do with horses. I remembered as a child of 5 being put up on my grandad’s Clydesdale Horses. They had been trained  to pull the logging wagons. The height of those great horses would have been the same in comparison for me with an adult elephant today.   Elephants that are trained to be safe around people commonly are employed in street religious festivals where they go for a walk about in the crowds, something I suspect elephants rather enjoy.
I was impressed the elephants were healthy and well attended.  They were well fed and in no distress. I felt at peace with them.  I believe they’re telepathic like dolphins and highly empathic.  I’m definitely the latter and have been blessed with that sensitivity in my work.  In my personal life it’s a different matter. I’m more often seeking solace of aloneness to counter the sheer rawness of the daily encounters in work with disappointment, anger, fear,  pain and insanity.  Anxiety can be like nails on glass.   We are taught that personality disorders get under everyone else’s skin the way neurotics get under their own.
I learned long ago to join and share a nervous system as it was explained to me in training.  The psychotherapists empathic joining so different from sympathetic detachment. Prescribing medications or doing things like surgery to a person is different.  But always personal  touch is so much more revealing.
I closed my eyes and listened to the elephant and immediately she turned to me and acknowledged my presence. Then she  returned to eating.  Of course this synchronistic moment to me could be called  coincidence to another.  I prefer the sacredness of the contact rather than the sterility of the other.   In that moment I felt the elephant was satisfied.
To be romantically happy she’d need to be many years younger, with her family in the mountains untouched by man, safe from predators. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong century. I don’t want the wild tribesman superstitious existence but sometimes romanticize  the wild west of a hundred or two hundred years ago when a horse, a burro, a dog, a bed roll and a rifle were all that were needed.   The elephant seemed as  content  in her own way as I’m content in mine.  We’ve each got a pretty good existence waiting for the Messiah to come or just passing through lives.
I did love seeing the happy Indian trainer ride by on the proud elephant. The two were having a good time. Friends. The elephant was doing something which excited her. I think tame lives in general can be somewhat boring so that changes are better appreciated.  My favourite moment was watching the elephant lift it’s leg,  like my dog Gilbert does.  Gilbert anticipates I want to shake his paw. The elephant lifted his leg to assist his trainer to get down. A touching moment.
I love elephants.  In my perfect world now I’ve a dog and cat companion, a horse, a burro , a cow, a dolphin, some geese and an elephant.  We journey together.  My entourage.  It’s not particularly practical but in some reality it’s possible.  Since Laura loves animals, she can come a long too but she’d need to ride the dolphin perhaps who’d swim in air as other dolphins swim in the sea.  
After watching the elephants for a while we walked over to the deer park where there were so many beautiful deer hanging out like they did on the castle grounds in England. Deer parks are common there.  Here there was a smaller spotted type of deer similar to our Canadian white tail and a larger robust deer similar to our Canadian mule deer.  They all appeared well fed and happy as deer can be happy.  Deer are mostly afraid in the wilds, constantly on guard, always fearful of hunters and predators.  Here they were just socializing, which deer love to do.  A kind of deer tea party. I doubt they’d have anything negative to say about Kodanad.
Kodanad is a lovely place.   I was so glad to see the elephants.  I didn’t even want a selfie on top of an elephant after visiting these majestic creatures   I certainly wouldn’t want to offend one. I figure I’d better lose 20 to 50 lbs before I look for an elephant ride, just to be courteous.
There’s actual elephant safari’s  for days here in Kerala.  Munnar advertises them,  for instance. My friend John took his sons on a horseback round up ride in the west camping out for nights after days of riding. I imagine an elephant safari would be such  an adventure. John’s kids still talk of their round up ride and they’re married adults today.
I loved the walking  along the river path where the elephants come to be bathed.  It was so scenic and peaceful.
Kodanad Elephant Training Camp was a great experience. I suspect the negative comments were from urbanites who have no real knowledge of anything outside of the sterile elite world of parking lots and sky scrapers.  I’m so thankful my grandparents had a ranch and logging company. Spending time as a child and youth there with my rural nephews helped so much with laying a more grounded foundation for me.  It certainly helped me well in medicine which is far more hands on than the aloof sterility of  the worst of intellectualism and  academia.  Elephant rescue, elephant training camps and elephant orphanages are best depicted by the movingly beautiful movie we saw with Rob Lowe and Kristin Davis, Holiday in the Wild. It just came out this year on Netflix.
I wanted to bring an elephant home with me. But the driver, the hotel and the airlines might object.
I loved learning at the National Museum of India that the animal headed gods of the Indian Pantheon reflect the desire for enlightenment. The elephant headed Ganesh, so much loved in India, represents a person who has the quiet peaceful mind of an elephant with a human body. The elephant has a heart rate of 30 beats per minute.  That’s calmer than marathon runners.   Certainly a lot slower than panic attacks.

New York City Rainy Day Walk

We’ve been to all the places in New York City which I’d listed before coming as most desired to see. There’s endless urban activities here.  If one wanted to visit bowling alleys or dart playing venues or military museums or textile works they could. I just wrote down what Laura and I might wish to visit as a priority and we’ve  actually done it.  In 10 days we’ve visited all the places we really wanted to visit.  In addition we’ve attended the shows I booked on line back in November and really enjoyed the experience.
New York has been sensational. I spent a week here 30 years ago and have been back for brief jaunts since but this time I’ve just been so impressed with the friendliness of people, the civility, the cleanliness and law and order. In our experience , it really has been a safe place for a  tourist.  Of course we’re not out partying at 3 in the morning and Laura is not passed out drunk on the street.
I’ve visitted cities around and love London most but New York is comparable.. Nothing compares with Singapore as a safe and welcoming tourist destination.  However Mexico City and Athens, outside of a very limitted prescribed tourist district, stand out as  scary. I’ve actually been astonished at how civilized Manhatten has been. New Yorkers were once said to be as offensive as Parisians but today I really have only had one negative business experience.  As I experienced in Morocco one has  to be very much on guard with buying things because other cultures rather celebrate taking advantage of strangers in a ‘sharp deal’.
We took a taxi by the UN Building. Axis of Evil.
Yesterday  I asked Laura what would be the highlights we’d recommend for someone visitting Vancouver.  I really think Vancouver Canada would be a fabulous tourist destination for people around the world. Everyone I know who has visitted has spoken so highly of the scenery and location. Granville Island, Gastown, Davie Street, Robson Street, English Bay, Commercial Avenue, Lonsdale Quay, Stevenstons Fish and Chips,   Grouse Mountain, Christ Church Cathedral, Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Seven Sails Restaurant, the Art Gallery for the Emily Carr,  Museum of Anthropology at UBC  for the native art, the Aquarium, QE Park.  I’d recommend Pacific Theatre, the Vancouver Ballet and a Canucks Game.
I feel today on our last day here that I’ve experienced New York in much the same way.  It’s been a whirlwind tourist experience but God it’s been incredible. The Art Galleries and Museums are unsurpassed. I loved Moscow, St. Petersburg, Washington DC, Jerusalem, Instabul and London for the same experience of great art and sculpture and history well presented.
Vancouver has, to my mind, the best dining experiences in the world.  Frankly I prefer my own cooking of wild fish, foul and meat I’ve caught or shot and cooked myself.  Here in New York we’ve really not eaten out that much, loving a English Pot Pie at Churchill’s , the hotdogs and pretzel’s on the street, lobster and steak on Staten Island,  pizza at Marta’s.  We’ve actually had MacDonald’s burgers and mcMuffings on several occasions because there was one conveniently beside the subway a block from our Redbury Hotel.  We loved the Bread & Butter deli and Pret Manger.  The coffee at Redbury was great. We often stopped for coffee and a snack disappointed by Starbucks because there was so little seating and one actually didn’t have a washroom. We didn’t like the Nescafe’s because they didn’t have wifi. This LaColombe Torrefaction Coffee and Tea place is great.
I wanted to take a break from work. I was really tired with work and grief and getting older.  I’ve been so disappointed in our Trudeau government with his party boy elitism, increasing taxes , wasteful spending, communism and scientific ignorance. If he’s not smoking dope on a daily basis he sure acts like a stoner with the public purse and his platitude speechifying.
I’m actually feeling rested and  ready to return to the horrors of cancerous Canadian bureaucracy.  We just talked to a woman who had moved here from Finland. She was so frustrated by the taxation and government interference in every walk of life that she’d moved to the States for the “Freedom”.  Americans really do love Liberty. It’s something that one no longer feels in Canada,  once called the ‘true north, strong and free’.
It was good to be reminded of our insignificance amidst so so many people. Nothing offends me more than CBC talking about Canada’s position on the ‘world stage’.  Every Canadian should be required to come to New York and stand in Rockerfeller Square and feel how little they are.  CBC has been too long a propaganda instrument with its head  seriously up it’s ass.  Travelling always helps me see the propaganda and ‘fake news’ more clearly. There’s perspective 5000 miles from home
I’m not alone in the middle of the Pacific sailing across an ocean but there really is something being in this sea of people and feeling God’s grace is ever present.
I love Jesus.  I love Christ.  This Christmas season has been a true gift. I love the spirituality that seems alive in New York City  today. The excellence in the performances here and the genius in the architecture is something to behold.  We loved the service in St. Patrick’s last night.  We had a great dinner  English pot piles and gravy mashed potatoes at Churchill’s Tavern around the corner from the Redbury.
Laura has been a wonderful companion. We both miss Gilbert but together tolerate the absence of our furry friend better.  It’s been great knowing that he’s safe with Mida and Hannah.
Oh well, more just hanging out in New York today. Laura has been buying gifts for family. She mailed her post cards from Central Park where we had kosher hotdogs. I’ve been taking pictures. Loved the New York Library building.  It feels a bit like a weekend day in Vancouver back home. We had to buy another pack sack to bring back the shirts, books and stuff I bought. I had planned to wash clothing but I found such sweet deals on shirts and socks that it was cheaper to buy than to launder.  If one lived in New York the possibility for deals is endless. It’s a place of wheeling and dealing.  There are markets on the streets and who knows what falls off trucks but this is the place with the widest range of prices.
We joke, asking why did God create WASPS , white anglo saxon prestestants, ‘Somebody had to buy retail.”  That’s the flavour of this place. I confess I like Macy’s and stores with fixed prices that are true because I don’t want to put the time into haggling but if I lived here I could see that one would have to simply because it really is an expensive city.  Millions for apartments. Like Paris and LA there’s a high end to things. We walked into Tiffany’s and they didn’t even have prices listed. “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” came to mind.
I’m a peasant. A doctor. A physician.  A glorified guildsman.  There’s always a wealth of the George Soros and Warren Buffet set, the new monarchs and emperors.  I’m a mere working class man.  I can understand the revolutionary. There’s frustration in the elitism but I ‘don’t want a revolution’. All that happens it seems, is we get a different flavour of the month.  I’m too jaded and old.  But I’ve done well enough. The whole world is improving relative to poverty and disease.  The problem continues to be corruption more than anything else.  There’s entitlement too.  I can still be hopeful.
New York City makes one hopeful.  There’s so much life and vitality and creativity here.  I’m thankful we came.
EVIL UN  BUILDING

French Quarter, New Orleans

I’m been singing the praises of the food and people of the city of New Orleans.  It’s amazing how much revitalization has taken place since the storm.  I saw no destruction except some buildings were still closed.  The French Quarter was certainly alive and welcoming tourists and ready for business. I look forward to going again someday.  I’d like to drive there and have time for more visiting. This trip was for the IDAA conference at the Hilton and to quote Jim Croce "there’s just never enough time to do all the things you want to.”