Beach and Taxes

The federal government here in Mexico decided to start collecting on a beachfront owner's tax that was apparently established in 2008 only no one knew anything about it. A couple months ago people with homes on the beach received notices tucked into their doors and gates about this tax but most people just kind of ignored the notice, waiting for some other official word which never came. Finally some people took it upon themselves to go to the tax office and sure enough, if your home sat along the blue line on the map you were on federal property and had to pay the tax. However, home owners were told the back tax penalty would be waived if people came in before the first of June.

This was the purpose for our trip to Hermosillo. My friend who will be gone for the summer needed to see how much in taxes she owed. So along with another friend and our trusted Romanian chauffeur, we went to Hermosillo for the day. No movie plans, no big shopping plans; just hit steaming pile of poop bank

(really, doesn't the logo look like that?), go to the tax office then fine dine.

Our driver found the tax building with no problem and we found the correct office also with no problem. There was no line and we were immediately ushered into the tax lady's office. She showed us the map of Kino. My friend's house sat behind the blue line meaning she didn't owe the tax and woohoo! drinks would be on her. But it was amazing how many of the homes did sit on federal land - way on federal land. Why were they allowed to build there in the first place? Who knows. This is Mexico.

The restaurant we chose was Mochomos on Morelos over by San Jose Hospital. It's a lovely restaurant with a great wine list and a varied menu with enough meat to satisfy our meat-loving chauffeur. We had two bottles of a white French wine, chef's salad to share, a wonderful queso fundido (a melted cheese dish with green chiles and chorizo) and, of course, our four main dishes which included pork, beef, duck tacos and chicken and asparagus. The prices were terrific - our whole meal including tip came to about $40 a person.

That will be my last trip to Hermosillo with my girlfriends for the next few months because they're all leaving for the summer. Will I leave, too? Fingers crossed that the answer is yes.

~ ~ ~ ~

Back at the trailer park I pulled my chair over to the seawall. The kitten followed. He always does. We spied some kids digging in the sand.

peeing in the Sea of Cortez

plastic glimmering in the setting sun

Blue's feeling a little jealous of the kitten and joined us, too

Stolen Sand Chair

It only took five minutes - the time it took for me to go to the trailer and make a gin and tonic - for someone to steal my beach chair.

On Sunday (Mother's Day in the U.S.) the biggest Mother of all mothers - Mother Nature - switched on the summer heat. Fortunately it was a dry desert heat and not humid sea heat so it was kind of nice, especially sitting at the water's edge in the sand chair, the water lapping at my feet, a cold Negra Modelo in hand. No book, no camera - I just sat and watched the terns, pelicans and gulls dive for fish. The wings of the Ibises absolutely glimmered as they soared by.

A man with a chocolate-colored pit bull/boxer mix walked by. When the dog strained at the leash to come see me the man said in English that the dog only wanted to say "hi" and I commented on how beautiful it was. Then the man's wife/girlfriend joined him with another dog and I watched them play ball in the water.

Mother's Day. It was hot. I had no work to do. So I decided it was time for a gin and tonic. I left shells and the worm tubes I'd been collecting for a friend on the chair as a sign that the chair was occupied. I was gone five minutes at the most. Before I even noticed that the chair was missing the man with the dog yelled that someone had taken my chair. My first thought was why didn't you sic your dogs on him? I asked where the thief had gone and he said "On the other side of the wall."

I headed to the road that runs along the back side of the trailer park, the road behind my trailer. I'd heard from Flo that someone was squatting in the lot behind the white party house (she goes there daily to water two puppies). I saw where the chain link fence was down and stepped through, careful not to spill my g&t. It really stunk back there of shit - hopefully from the puppies and not the human. I walked around trash and plastic sandals and empty bottles of booze. There was an unfinished bodega - four walls but no windows or doors. As I got closer a man's head appeared in one of the windows.

When I'm pissed my Spanish improves. "Tienes mi silla?" To my surprise the man came out of the bodega and said "Si. Disculpe!" He said he was sorry, he was sorry, yes, he had my chair. He would go get it - it was on the roof. It was on the roof? Wouldn't you think that a homeless guy living in an unfinished storage room would be sitting on a newly-stolen chair? No. It was on the roof. What did he have up there? A sundeck? A beach umbrella? A tiki bar? He scrambled up on the roof and brought down my chair.

When I had the chair back I asked him if he was the thief who had stolen my beads and things and he said no, that he had a job in Punta Chueca diving for scallops. I said good because I didn't want to have to call the police.

When I came around the seawall with my chair, the couple with the dogs gave me big thumbs ups.

Sitting in my sand chair with my now lukewarm g&t I remembered that I'd bought that chair in Calle Doce for just a few pesos. Then I remembered I'd bought that chair because my other one had been stolen.

kitten photo bomb

No Mas Hora Feliz?

From 2010 a smaller happy hour group

A few years back - before all the scares about Mexico - our happy hour group here at the trailer park would number somewhere around thirty. People gathered in a circle by the seawall, or if it was too windy they'd set up between the first and second rows of RVs. Often there'd be two separate groups - the Canadians in one and the Californians in the other although the lines weren't that clearly drawn; the Canadians included New Mexicans and the Californians included Oregonians. But the two groups represented a sort of changing demographic where the California group were the older people who'd been coming to Islandia for years and the Canadian group represented the more recent arrivals. Then the Canadians left. Because Mexico was too dangerous. Because there were too many dogs. Because it was too noisy. Because it was too cold. Because of whatever. The Californians - the old-timers - they just got old (and beyond old if you get my drift).

Now, no matter the state- or country-hood or size of the group, happy hour happens every night at the patio table at S's place on the front row. If S isn't there for some reason, happy hour happens anyway (we don't need no stinkin' host). A couple summers back when I returned to Mexico after a month or so in Bisbee I was surprised to see that happy hour was in full swing with Islandia's three full-time residents. Senior Citizens and Happy Hours go hand-in-hand come hell, high water, humidity or hurricanes.

But a change is comin'. S may be moving out of the park to a place he's built a few blocks away. He has a buyer for his RV but the sale is contingent on whether he not he's going to like living in town, whether or not he'll be happy giving up his ocean view, and whether or not he'll be lonely at happy hour. He's got a couple buddies who I'm sure will go to his new place but will they go every night? Will the rest of us want to walk over with our snacks and beverages? If I need to refill my gin and tonic I won't be able to just wander back over to my trailer; I'll have to arrive at happy hour with all the fixings. And do I want to sit on someone's patio inside a walled compound and not be able to see the sea, to watch the sunset? Isn't that one of the reasons I'm here?

This summer will be much like my first summer here when there were so few people in the trailer park and I had no friends outside the park. I was pretty creative that summer. I spent a lot of time in the water. I read and drank beers under the palapas watching the pelicans and gulls do battle. It wasn't as hot that summer and I spent a lot of time walking the beach, taking photos. I'm kind of looking forward to my own private happy hours.

The current happy hour spot - soon to become a thing of the past?

Spanish Word of the Day - Muro

The latest trailer park skirmish involves....yes, you guessed it, Flo. Oh, thank the goddesses for Flo or this would've been one boring snowbird year. Plus she's responsible for our very own bingo parlor which has been quite a hit - the last Bingo Wednesday is today and I hate to see it go.

So back to the skirmish which involves Flo's new neighbors and the wall (muro) they're building. The new neighbors aren't new to the park - they already have another place here - but they bought the trailer next to Flo's. These are prime trailer spots, right atop the seawall, nothing blocking their views of the sea, wonderful happy hour gathering places of which we had a few while they were deciding whether to buy that particular space. Although you don't really buy a space here; you rent the space and buy the trailer that's on the space if there is one. Flo and these people were friends and all was right with the world.

Until the wall. The man part of the couple wanted a wall for privacy so he began building a cement block wall and when Flo saw it she went over and said he needed to delete the top row and he complied. But then he started building the wall between his space and Flo's and he built it about 2 inches onto her property making it impossible for her to get behind her trailer. She said he had to move it; he said tough shit, you're too big to fit behind the trailer anyway.

Let the battle begin!

Back and forth the parties went to the office to complain, no one getting an answer because the park owners  want to stay out of it which is par for the course.

Finally the man neighbor said he'd move the wall but that it was going to be eight feet high so there! The day came for the wall to be moved - yesterday - and it wasn't. So Flo went to the hardware store and bought a sledgehammer. Flo doesn't speak Spanish so how did she convey what she wanted? Did she mime busting up a wall? Maybe she saw one hanging on a hook. Flo then came home and tore down that wall!

More running back to the office where the owner said "leave me out of it, get along" which is pretty much what you would say to grown-ups and not ten-year-olds.

There is a little bit of karma involved here. When Flo first moved into that spot she put up a fence way over on the neighbor's property and not only that, she had a cement slab built for her washing machine. Problem was the slab and washing machine were up against the sun room door so when those neighbors arrived for the season, they couldn't get the door open. Flo had to move both the fence and the washing machine and to make further retribution, she let the woman do laundry at her place.

I know how stubborn Flo and that man are but especially the man. When he first talked about the wall both his wife and I said "that will block the view of the sunset" and he said who cares, privacy is more important. I spent three weeks with them in New Mexico - I know there's no changing his mind once it's set.

I'm not sure what's next. Hopefully the new wall won't be eight feet high. Hopefully eventually this will pass and they'll be friends again. That happens here a lot - one year someone's not speaking to you, the next they are.

Flo's new neighbors moved out the trailer that was on that spot and are building a house of some sort. Hopefully that sinkhole the previous owner fell into won't reappear. Just sayin'.

Parade of Putas

Sometime this afternoon the owner returns and I will be officially released from my house-sitting duties. Even though I've been in the trailer for three weeks, I do go to the house twice each day to check on it - in the morning to raise the hurricane shades and water the plants, in the evening to lower the shades and turn on the lights. A couple days ago the cops were at the neighbor's house - someone broke into the storage shed - and that made me nervous and made me wonder if I shouldn't spend the nights at the house. But the neighbor's shed was broken into even though the house was occupied so I doubt if my presence would've been much of a deterrence. Besides, I'm pretty convinced that the break-in was done by friends of one of the many putas who frequented that house.

Man, you should've seen the parade of putas when the gringo first moved in for the winter months. I had no idea so many Ladies of the Night lived in this town. I wondered if some of them maybe didn't come all the way from Calle Doce. One of the women I'd seen many times before around town, skinny and tweaker-ish. Some of the women were very beautiful - especially one woman who seemed a little older than the rest with her hair done in a beautiful thick braid. She wore the prostitute uniform of skin-tight low-slung pants (all the better for showing off the Sonoran Belly), tight blouse with not a lot of cleavage, jean jacket, jewelry. Some of the women even brought their babies with them.

I know all this because to get the old gringo's attention the women (and one or two girls) had to walk past the windows of my house and then call his name at the gate of his house. One time the tweaker-ish one asked me where the gringo was and when I said I didn't know, she asked me for money.

Suddenly the parade stopped. I speculated that either the gringo's supply of little blue pills had run out or his funds had. But I did notice that as the trickle slowed, one woman would hang out across the road/alley and stare at the windows of the house I was staying in. The windows are reflective so it could've been that she was merely staring at her image in the windows. It felt more like she was scoping the place out. A year or two ago, after the gringo went north, there were a lot of break-ins along this stretch of beach. That doesn't seem coincidental.

Having that gringo as a neighbor is one of the things I will not miss. I will miss the kitchen counters and the speedy DSL. I'll miss the privacy and the view. Oops, time to walk over and water the plants, raise the shades on a whole new season...summer is coming to Kino.

Winter Recap

Bingo room with a view

On November 19 when I ended that blog post with "I'm out of here," I didn't mean for four fucking months (which may turn into forever...I don't know, we'll see how this goes). It was kind of a hellish holiday/birthday season and I'd rather not talk about it. I did spend hours watching Criminal Minds' marathons which at least made me grateful some maniac wasn't harvesting my organs (while I was still alive) or a crazy woman hadn't paralyzed me and turned me into a living doll.

That last post was about how slow the snowbirds were in returning to the trailer park and already most of them are gone. Of those eleven full-timers I mentioned, well most of them have plans to be gone for the summer, some leaving as early April, so it will be down to about six of us. Five of "them" if I get my act together and get the van turned into a camper and head out of here for at least a couple months.

There were no big dramas at the trailer park this year. No one: died; had a psychotic break and had to leave the country; suffered a stroke; tried to kill their wife and neighbor. There was a mini-drama involving Flo's dog who bit someone. Nothing unusual there except that the dog bit Flo's friend and the friend's husband dragged the cops over to Flo's place. The cops sided with Flo who said, "hey, the woman was in my house; it was her fault." Twisted logic if you ask me but that's how the cops saw it, too. Somehow things always work out in Flo's favor. I almost typed "flavor." Maybe I'm suffering mini-strokes.

Bingo was a big deal at the trailer park. In the old days only people from the park were there and pots were around 30 pesos. Now all these ladies from New Kino come down and bingo has turned into a big event with regular bingo wins about 400+ pesos and blackouts over 1,000. The Frenchie sells fresh-baked breads before the game - baguettes, kalamata olive loaves, even bagels. Our table's turned into a potluck feast with all kinds of food, not to mention a few bottles of wine, and other tables are beginning to follow suit. Sadly there are only two more Wednesday bingo games left which signals the true end of the snowbird season, at least here at Islandia.

Of course a lot of other events happened in Kino this winter but I stuck close to home, watching the sea (and  TV) from the wicker chair in the house. Now I'm back at the trailer, finished with my nine-month house-sitting gig and so happy to be home in my tin can, vowing to get things organized and to try to revive at least a little creativity. Besides, I'm now caught up on all of the Criminal Minds' episodes. However, someone just gave me the first four seasons of Sons of Anarchy. And there's always The Walking Dead to look forward to. Not to mention Dexter....The Following...

The beginning of another year

It's been strange, waking to this run of cloudy days in pretty much always-sunny Kino Bay. No rain yet, but  last Thanksgiving it rained hard and constant. It was cold. This year I'm heading to New Mexico to hang out with friends. We plan on spending hours in the jacuzzi with lots of wine. Maybe we'll hit Santa Fe for a day and that little town New Madrid where Wild Hogs was filmed. It's been a long time since I've expanded my life outside of Kino and southern Arizona.

It's also been strange how slow it's been for the snowbirds to return to the trailer park. Usually by this time Flo is planning the Thanksgiving potluck, walking around with a sign-up sheet for mashed potatoes and other side dishes, and there are so many people she's always worried there won't be enough food. So far only one snowbird couple has returned. What's going on? Well, on my row alone one couple sold their place, one man died (and his wife won't be returning), and then next door to me the wifebeater is still in prison in Hermosillo and his wife won't be returning either. A couple years ago the Canadians stopped coming to Mexico, only going as far as Yuma or some place. The Californians who'd been coming for years got too old to make the trip. As of yet, no youngens have cropped up to take their place.

However, an interesting demographic shift has occurred at the trailer park: Full-timers. There are eleven of us now. One couple, three single men and seven single women. The man in the couple said now that they're here full year, they feel territorial about the park and are happy that the snowbirds are slow to arrive. I can so relate! I always dreaded the snowbird return to MY park. The lack of privacy mostly, but the dramas, the petty arguments, the who's not speaking to who, grown-ups indulging in summer camp behavior.

November has always been a month of change for me, way more a beginning than an end, and today is one of my biggest anniversaries - eight years since leaving Portland. As with last year and the year before and the five before that, I am grateful I made that change. But as with previous years, I wonder what's next. So far the what's next has remained the same - entrenched in Kino. Itching to leave, not knowing where to go, making new friends which makes it fine to stay put, waiting for the right time to make a move.

I'll be away for the next two, maybe three weeks. I'm not taking the laptop (this is when I wish I had a Kindle Fire or an Ipad or something). To all you Americans out there, have a great Thanksgiving. As Barbara Bush says, "People spoke. Move on, get on with it." For my Mexican friends, celebrate your hearts out on Dia del Revolucion! For all of you shop local, support your friendly neighborhood artists. (But if ever I can get movies in Mexico on a Kindle Fire, that's going on my Christmas wish list.) I'd send up a prayer for peace in the Middle East but that don't look like it's gonna happen any time soon. To my daughter, I'll be looking for you on t.v. at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. And for the rest of my family, you have no idea how much you are in my heart and thoughts right now.

On that note...I'm out of here.

Spanish Word of the Day: Trabajar

My work history is varied - waitress, bookstore clerk, database manager, IT Goddess, data analyst, post office employee, transcriptionist. It's that last one - the one I liked least of all - that's saved my financial ass these past few years. Medical transcription has to be the most boring job I've ever had. Combine typing the same shit over and over (Dear Dr So and So, it was a pleasure seeing your patient Mr. Bad Heart...) with hours of sitting in the same position with your right foot perched above a foot pedal, your hands on the qwerty keyboard, eyes straight ahead and you've made for years of back ache, numb fingers, tingling sensations in the pedal foot, a wide ass and blurry vision.

These days I'm grateful for this transcribing stuff, however. Grateful I can work from home no matter where that home is. And I'm grateful that I've pretty much bagged the medical  work and instead have a pretty varied workload. Confidential restraints limit what I can say about our clients but I think I can get away with describing some of my work starting with my favorite: Internal Affairs investigations.

Ooowheee, there's some crazy shit going on with policemen and firemen. Officer-involved shootings can be pretty run of the mill. The stuff I like are the DUIs and domestic violence calls, hearing the officers try to wrangle out of those. One cop - I swear he was a sociopath - was suing or had been sued by every one of his wives and girlfriends of which he had many. I transcribed hours of his interrogations and that bastard lied, lied, lied, and that's the thing IA hates most - being lied to. I don't know what happened to him. The frustrating thing is after all this drama it's like the book ends with the last chapter torn out. I hope he got canned.

I've done some great interviews and presentations. The most recent was a talk by a healthcare policy wonk. I wanted to share his talk with every anti-"Obamacare" person out there. He described the attempts at healthcare reform going way, way back and the various reasons it got derailed along the way. His talk was clear, concise and funny, healthcare 101 brought down to an understandable level.

There are pharmaceutical company advisory boards which are a challenge, all these doctors talking over each other, drug names so long and complex, mechanisms of action - thank god for the internets! In the old days my desk was burdened with massive medical dictionaries and that giant drug book - the PDR - which had to be updated every year. These days if I can make out a word phonetically Google usually nails it.

Then there's the foreign language stuff. Or rather, African Americans who speak a form of English I have no familiarity with. I need a master's degree in ebonics to really know what they're saying. These are the men and women on the lower rung of the social ladder. It's interesting, when grandma talks, grandma uses correct grammar, seems well educated. She chastises her grandson for saying "fuck." There's no need for cussing, she says. Terms of endearment - from young men to their girlfriends - range from my nigger (I miss you, my nigger), to ugly (I love you too, ugly) and b (How you doing b?). Fortunately our instructions from the client are that if we can't grasp something, we can skip it. As it is I always listen at least three times before moving on. Takes for-fucking-ever, b.

Thanks to my mom, I'm able to support myself in my senior citizen years in a manner that isn't too sucky - like cleaning toilets or caring for snot-nosed kids. My mom always told me I should learn to type because I'd probably never get married. Gee, I hate it when my mom is right.

Beach Cookies

After beachcombing this beach for five years I've gotten picky about the shells I gather. Pretty much the shells I like are the ones you see here - the potato chip or jingle shells, those little fan-like shells in the bottom left corner, and sand dollars. All of which are hard to come by which is one of the reasons I like them.

A couple years ago I was walking Popeye beach (down by the estuary) and a friend found one of those small keyhole sand dollars. I was so jealous. For days after I combed that beach looking for one with no luck. Then a few weeks ago I took some women to a beach which is good for beachglass and as soon as the words left my mouth - "we should go to sand dollar beach the next time you're here" - one of the women looked down and there was a keyhole sand dollar. Damn. At sand dollar beach we've found keyhole sand dollars but they're usually big. To me there's something special about these small ones, the size of a chocolate chip cookie. And a cookie is what the people here call them.

Yesterday I walked through town, to the now empty barrio, crawled through the barbed wire fence and up a hill to the restaurant Los Naufragos which, I discovered, is part of the private land that's been fenced off. I slid down the dune, careful to slide under the newly constructed barbed-wire fence that now runs along the beach.

On the beach I took a deep breath and told myself that my vision is too narrow. I need to relax, view the beach as a whole, and maybe one of those sand dollars would show up. I also gave myself a mighty good lecture about how I needed to get my life, my mood, my emotions back on track. I needed to get back the feeling I had when I first came to Kino. I'd been riding the wave of a glorious high-on-life feeling from the Home for the Bewildered. I remember those first days in Kino, sitting outside the trailer reading, listening to the water, endless hours walking on the beach. A summer hot but not as hot as the ones to follow. Then how my joy took a nose dive as snowbirds began arriving with their conservative and racist attitudes. How I spent years feeling as though I didn't fit in but I didn't know where to go. Tried Bisbee. It didn't work. Came back to Kino.

As interesting, quirky and wonderful as Kino can be, I began slipping into a familiarity breeds contempt state.  I felt stuck and stuck was not a feeling I ever wanted to feel again. But I was very, very broke and therefore stuck in Kino for a real reason. Yeah, I could visualize the life I wanted all I wanted but the bottom line is at the very least I needed money for gas and food to go off in search of that life and I didn't have that.

After my lecture I continued walking the beach, gathering jingle shells. On the return walk home I walked in the water, just at the edge of the surf. I was hot and sweaty and the cool water felt great on my bare feet, the sand smooth, washed clear of shells. And then there it was. Right in front of me, all alone, that keyhole sand dollar glistening white against the dark sand. I stood there and looked around. Then before I stooped to pick it up I looked out at the sea and said "thank you!" It was one of the creepiest things that's ever happened to me.

When I reached the muelle I ran into Tio, the old man who walks the beach gathering beer cans. I'd seen him in town when I started my walk and now here he was at the end. He had a treasure too: A canvas-covered mattress pad, kind of like the ones you see on bench seats or big lounge chairs. He had it folded in half, tied with a string, and carried it on his back. We stopped to admire each other's treasures. He pretended to take a bite of my sand dollar cookie. Tio was very excited about this new bed of his. I was excited to have this reminder that things come to us when we need them. And how small my needs are in comparison to others.

that was the week that was

What fun to wake up this morning and read the Facebook posts from last night. And to read the things I posted. Did I really write that? Ugh, too much prosecco. No wait. Is there such a thing as too much? Certainly not on a night like last night. Four years ago we breathed a huge sigh of relief but that was nothing compared to the deep breath I took last night. A Romney presidency would've been downright scary. McCain was Casper the Friendly Ghost in comparison to Romney's Freddie Kruger.

This morning I woke - or more appropriately I disentangled myself from election night hangover - to see my own private but very much public masturbator standing outside the gate trying to see me as I lay in bed. Last night I'd left all the roller shades up thinking that by the time I got home the masturbator wouldn't be around but now I remember seeing the glow of his cigarette outside the gate but I didn't care. So I went to bed with the shades up. The windows in this house are mirrored and impossible to see in during the day. However, I'd left the bedroom sliding glass door open about 18 inches. The masturbator was gazing into the gap trying to see my reflection in the wall of closet door mirrors. I got a pretty good look at him - average height and weight, baseball cap on backwards, white rubber boots. I've seen those boots at night. They seem to glow. Now I know the boots belong to him. I will be more diligent, have the camera ready. Strike a pose, asshole!

My emotions this week pretty much ran the gamut from joy and appreciation to anxiety and sadness.

A friend visited from Seattle - I've known her for decades - and we had a great week although I did worry she'd get bored. That didn't happen. All our nights were filled with dining and wining with my Kino women friends, our days pretty low key except for our kayak/stand-up paddle board excursion out in the estuary with seven other women - five in kayaks and four on paddle boards.

The week's sadness surrounded the eviction - which is way too nice a word for what happened - of the people from a number of barrios here. See my blog entry from November 4th for more details. And now I've learned that two good friends - my adopted son and my corazon - have to be out of their home in three weeks - a home they've lived in for years. Just writing that makes me feel like throwing up. I haven't been able to find much in the newspapers about this but there is this article which says that the Human Rights Commission is getting involved. I hope another barrio opens up for them, a place they can stay. Vanna will be available for moving services.

We were too exhausted after kayaking to go to the cemetery for the Day of the Dead festivities. My Seattle friend has a thing for cemeteries so we went the next day. All the gravesites were cleaned up, flowers and offerings everywhere. I thought this particular site was interesting because of the banners on the wall picturing the deceased.

When people visit their loved ones they bring food and drink, tequila or bacanora for the adults, Coca Cola for the kids, and often there is music. This family hired a group of musicians to serenade their dearly departed.

Of course the weather was perfect the entire week.

And now with my prosecco hangover I'm off to kayak the estuary with friends. This time I'm taking a camera. Hopefully the white pelicans will still be there.

Some good things happened last night. Let the celebration continue!