Blah Blah Blah Blah Blog

I had a comment posted to yesterday's post  about our wanderings in Spain, Portugal and Switzerland before ending up here in Mexico.

It read "This does not mean, necessarily, letting down your guard and pouring your heart out about how much you love your grandmother. You have to find the right balance, and with practice you'll discover it. A good rule of thumb is: if you wouldn't say it in an email to a client, it shouldn't go up on your company's blog. " This was followed by a link to a site selling NFL jerseys.

Since the comment doesn't seem to have much with what I wrote, I am 99% sure it is probably spam. I can't be 100% sure, though, because I do have several friends who drink enough to frequently make rather astonishingly incoherent statements.

Regardless, this latest note remains just one more comment on my blogging - or in most cases lately - lack of blogging. It comes in all forms. LK periodically hits the toolbar link and gives me a disappointed look as she says, "You haven't blogged in a long time." When I explain that I will blog when I have something to say, she sniffs and tells me to stop whining, just suck it up and start typing.

Or as AB wrote, why should I be the only blogger in the world who doesn't write something because he has nothing to say?

My mother has more or less given up letting me know she is disappointed I'm not writing more often. Friends like Jon and Davy will make comments like "I looked at your blog the other day and see you haven't added anything," which makes me think I could have written 60 blogs in the past 2 months and they would only just be getting around to them now so it isn't all that important.

And there's the positive encouragement I always get from Judy, who drops a short note in the comments section when I re-enter the blogosphere. Carrots are nicer than sticks, I've learned from her.

But probably the most interesting recommendations I have received came from my friend Robert last night when he asked me why I wasn't blogging much any more. I explained to him that I tend to write when I'm travelling because there's new stuff to tell people about, but day in and day out at home it's hard to think of what's new to write. "How often do people want to read about me ironing the sheets and making the bed?" I asked.

Robert thought about it and then proposed a course of action that, quite honestly, I don't think I would have come up with on my own.

"Why don't you just write about vampires this week?" he said. "You know, tell a story about vampires. And then maybe next week you could switch gears and write a sports commentary about a game that never happened. Your readers would keep coming back to see what you were going to write about each time."

Now I don't know if this suggestion was in any way influenced by this resort's policy of all-inclusive food and drink (OK, the food wouldn't have much to do with it). And I don't know if my reaction was at all influenced by the rather large tumblers of vodka they served me at dinner.

But I have to tell you there was an eerie calm in the resort as we walked back to our room. You could hear something rustling in the trees just past our line of sight as the full moon made dark shadows stretch across the landscape. I could swear one of them moved ever so slightly more than the rest.

I tensely clutched the crucifix I had hung around my neck and patted my shirt pocket to make sure I still had the clove of garlic I had grabbed at the restaurant. Yet still I felt as if there was another presence in the corridor as we arrived at our room, but when I quickly turned around there was nothing to be seen. Only a slight scrabbling noise on the roof above us.

Anyhow, I started this post to let you know I've put up a bunch of pictures from our European cruise and you can see them here.  Next post I will tell you more about our time in Mexico (especially once the sun sets) and, weather permitting, the llama polo match I am hoping to catch later in the week.