Focus on Mexico Blog

Celebrating my 99th Birthday on Purpose; Just because I Can… 

On February 5th, 2009 I am choosing to celebrate my 99th Birthday. Want to hear why?

We moved to Lake Chapala, Mexico in 1995. In May 1998 we had just finished marketing a project called Birds of Paradise and decided to take our new puppy (Rusty) and the motor home and do a “walkabout” around Mexico to explore other areas.  We love Lake Chapala and wanted to learn more about the culture and people, so we set out to explore other areas. (Note: Important point for the following story - at that point, we kind of imagined ourselves ‘retired,’ never to work again.)

After doing a little research we had a number of places we wanted to stop off at. One of them was Catemaco, the Town of Witches and Warlocks, close to Veracruz in the Mountains. As we drove into town, we pulled up to one of the few locations where you could park a motor home. It was across the street from a wonderful cold clear lake. The town itself was as clean as could be and the people seemed very content living in their beautiful little town. Hardly a soul spoke English.

Ray’s Spanish was better (by a stretch) than mine, so I got him to ask around to see who the best ‘witch’ (more appropriately, cureando??) in town was and arrange an appointment for me to see her.

Next day, we arrive on her doorstep and enter a modest room which is her ‘office.’ A simple flimsy curtain covered the back door to her home, which was alive with activity from family members, including children. I couldn’t help but wonder if someone might spring through the curtain at any time during a treatment; at that moment I had no idea what kind of ‘treatments’ she even might do.

She asked me what I’d like to have done and through Ray, I told her I didn’t know, but asked her “what do you do?” She mentioned she reads cards and could do a cleanse, for instance. So after the cleanse (which is a whole different story), I had her read my cards with Ray translating.
It was uncanny how she zeroed in on my life and the people in it. Only one thing she said that didn’t jive. She said our business would flourish in 1999. (Recall, I said we had ‘retired’ in May 1998, and this was just a couple months into our so-called ‘retirement.’)

We left, and continued our travels around Mexico, forgetting my visit with my witch. We arrived home in November and through a series of events (yet another story), we ended up starting Focus on Mexico in January 1999. (We were so busy in the process, the prediction from the witch was buried in the past.)

We sold our condo and signed a contract to build a new home so we needed to find an eight-month rental. At the time, there was a scarcity of rentals, plus we have large dogs which added more limitations. Ray kept bugging the agent to find us a rental anyway and we needed it for October 1st. She told us about one that was being renovated, but wouldn’t be ready when we needed it. We followed her to the property and said we’d take it as we had faith it would be ready.

October 1st we were in her office and she handed Ray the keys and told us the phone number and address, which we hadn’t known when we saw it. We were quite astonished to learn that the phone number had 1099 (Oct 99) in it and the address was 99 Margaret Court. Then we remembered what the witch had told us: “1999 is going to be a very good year for your business.” Shortly thereafter we attended the Black and White Ball for the School for the Deaf charity and they had egg shells with numbers in them as raffles. I told them I’d take all with 99 or 9s in them.

I won:

1. A trip anywhere Continental flies
2. A dinner for two in a new French restaurant in Guadalajara
3. A weekend for two in a resort in Melaque

From that moment, I knew 9s were going to play a big part in my future.
So here we are coming up to February 5, 2009. Last year I ‘celebrated’ my 36th birthday (again) and I was deciding which birthday I’d like to celebrate this year. Then it hit me; I really must celebrate my 99th.

• 2009 is the 10th Anniversary of our starting Focus on Mexico (1999)
• I was born in 1949
• Before Feb 5th, 2009 I am still 59

Today is Feb 6th and last night we had our Farewell party for our Focus on Mexico program and as is tradition in Mexico, I got my ‘face in the cake’ to celebrate my 99th birthday and got to have a whack at the Piñata. For lunch, we took the group to the estate of Omar O’Rourke and they graciously also had a cake for me (and flowers) and low and behold, another ‘face in the cake’ opportunity.