Stephanie says

I've got a leaky pipe in the laundry room.  Water on the floor alerted me - and my response was to locate the drip and catch it with a little bucket.  This was approximately a year ago.  A couple times each week I empty the bucket and think about either fixing the leak myself (because I have a lot of experience in plumbing - learned from manuals during a very dismal time in life when an outlay of cash wasn't possible.  My labor was free however.  It's not rocket science. )  Upshot, I let it go.  About two weeks ago I noticed the bucket was dry.  Hmmm.  You realize I am a very smart person so you'll follow that I reasoned the leaky pipe repaired itself, as it would, in some other world. Oddly, the other night as I was locking doors, etc., on the way to bed, standing in the laundry room, I heard a drip.  Drip, drip, drip.  I drew some conclusions about that dry bucket. The small leak wasn't so small now.   Water, being water,...

Two bone-jarring kilometers from Todas Santos over narrow beach road of washboard and sand are the final leg of the trip.  Finally here.  Here being Baja, a semi-tropical paradise of wind-capped ocean pounding up steep sandy beaches, where scrub trees and cacti dot the rising elevation from water’s edge.  Higher still and there’s the stuccoed house with deep, thatch-roofed courtyards, skirted by a green verge of banana and mango trees, asway palms at dance in the breeze, and bright bougainvillea flowers tumbling down walls in a riot of color. Now a passing whiff of plumeria.  I settle into my room: ground floor, ocean view and comfortably appointed.  The door does not have a lock.  Okay.   Ellen is at hand to meet us as we arrive.  This is the third year she’s held the writing retreat at Serendipity. Here comes Sheri: tall, blond, and thin, (they’re all thin.  Except me and Sharon, the only ones of any ...