Beautiful experience today.  We went up a narrow dirt road overgrown with greenery; trees, bushes, wisps and stalks and leaves, to the little cemetery for our small town of Playa Ventura. Others had been walking up, their arms filled with flowers so we had them jump in the truck and up the hill we went.

The town was there, caring for their loved ones; putting fresh flowers of beautiful colors everywhere, pulling weeds and picking up nature's debris. Guitars and an accordion played, songs were sung. They came today for El Dia de Muertos, not scary or even sad, but a celebration of their loved ones. People took care of their family plots, then came together in one area for a special mass. They sang and prayed, the padre spoke of love, it was such a gift to be able to be a part of it.

After the mass there was food. I have come to know that every celebration here is Mexico has food! I am very grateful to have been there to share their day, our townspeople are beautiful, loving and kind. My neighbors....

I wrote this in facebook a little while ago, so decided to copy it here. I can also add that it rained very lightly, sprinkling just for a little while. It sprinkled later when we took Sam for a small walk on the beach. My poor Sam. We took him to another vet today; but this was Chela's brother. I felt much better about him, he took Sam's temperature, listened to his heart and his lungs, asked alot of questions. He said it was not a big infection- that if it was he would have a temp, and he did not. But he said it could be a secondary infection, I guess low grade infection (?). So he gave him two antibiotics, in shot form. One he has to take for 4 days and the other for 5 days, in shot form. Everardo will give him the shots, and if he is too nervous to do it, then we'll take him back to the vet to get the shots. His cough sounds awful. He's kinda tired too. It seems like he coughs more at nite when the air is a little cooler. 

I'm going to bed after this and Poppi is gonna stay out here in the living room with Sam. Then after he goes to bed, if Sam coughs, I'll get up. Last nite that's what I did. I heard him cough and he was sleeping outside- so I brought him in and I layed on the couch and kept my hand on his back. I don't know if being sick scares him, it scares us. I hope hope hope that tomorrow he starts to show improvement; I know we have to let the medicine do it's thing. He stayed home while we went to the Day of the Dead thing; we were gone less than 2 hours. I want my Sammy to be ok. Poppi is worried about him too. He loves Sam like he's our kid. Our friends here laugh at us and say Sam has a better life than they do...maybe he does. We see our pets differently- I almost said in the US, but maybe it's different by economic status. I mean, the people who live here are trying to feed and clothe and make a home for themselves and their kids. A dog is going to eat after their children. But I'll say this- everybody around here likes Sam and they call out to him when he goes by.

Kids like to throw sticks in the ocean for him, and say his name to call him over. Once he jumped in Chela's pool. oops- we got him right out, I don;t think they were too happy, but they were'nt mad at us or anything and Chela loves Sam. Like Everardo she feeds Sam tortillas.

The ocean was different today. Calmer, and the tide is way way out. I think the season may really be changing. The air is cooler, this will be the 3rd nite in a row that we probly won't use the fan in the bedroom to sleep, that we'll cover ourselves with the sheet. Nice and cool. The only thing is I think the cooler air makes Sam cough, but he's not sleeping outside anymore until he gets better. Gume said the ocean would do this, be calm and you could walk way out there to get to the waves. That's how it was today. Me and Sam just waded though, I didn't want him to get too tired, and he did get out on his own- usually he's in as long as we are. But he was happy to wade and walk along the shore. The sky wasn't blue tho' it was kinda gray all day, and we had those sprinkles. 

If you read this, pls send a little good karma Sam's way ok? I love my baby boy Sam. And my daughters, if you read this, don't worry, he's gonna be fine. Well one of them will read this, the other one probly not, but I'll try to call them both tomorrow. The skype calling from my laptop to their cell phones is soooo cheap- so thanx Telmex for being so crappy that we were forced to try something else! Ok my turn to sleep....