Ojo Del Lago

A Weighty Issue By Neil McKinnon   It’s an axiom that, with the passage of time, pets and their owners begin to look alike. The axiom is at least partially true. As the obesity rate soars in North America, many pets are becoming more pot-bellied. Veterinarians classify 60% of their adult dog and cat patients

Soccer School   It was 2 PM on a hot afternoon in August, and the Union Ajijic youth soccer team had just played two back-to-back games in a soccer tournament in Chapala. They’d had little opportunity to eat and now they had only a 10 minute rest before playing a third consecutive game against Los

Christmas Memories By Kathy Koches   Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Since my earliest days, I have loved the music, the smells, the decorations and the excitement in the air. Every year my sister and I would help Daddy take the lights and colored decorations in from the garage, lovingly unpacking each bulb

The Wonders Of Mexico By Maggie Van Ostrand   Ah, the wonders of Mexico, they never cease to amaze me. I wonder how the lawn gets watered. The sprinkler is always moved to another area, yet I never see the gardener. Once, I spied a sombrero floating along the top of the wall, but can

Mexico’s Most Surprising Export: SOAPS! By Catherine Lancaster   Mexico has been striving to export as much as possible to improve its economy, but what nobody expected is that one success story in the exporting effort would be—soap operas! Although I find soaps (telenovelas)—from any country— excruciatingly boring with their slow pace, eternal close-ups and

The Poets’ Niche By Mark Sconcemsconce@gmail.com Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)   History makes it perfectly clear that totalitarian regimes on the far Left or the far Right abhor intellectuals. And they certainly don’t like poets unless they become apologists for the regime, like fascist Ezra Pound.  Russia of course provides many examples of poet persecution. Pushkin, Akhmatova,

Hearts at Work A Column by James Tipton I want you to faint.   Well, the holidays are upon us, and mistletoe (with all of those easy but reserved kisses) still hangs in the memories of most Americans and Canadians here at Lakeside, not to mention those New Year’s Eve parties that not so long

An Anjana In Ajijic! By Aurora Terrenus   An anjana is a type of witch in Hispanic folklore who takes on the disguise of a horrid old woman to test the charity of human beings. But in her true form, an anjana is a very beautiful young woman who lives underground and has many palaces

The Lady(?) Who Came To Lunch By Kate Karns   I had lived in Mexico for twenty years or so and when someone asked, “Do you like it here?” It’s hard not to answer sarcastically. You’re tempted to say, “Would I live here this long if I didn’t?” But that sounds unfriendly. I took my

Puns For The Educated   1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian . 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but