Christmas morning as we were greeting our beloved friend Joe at Casa Marina we noticed a drunk with bottle of tequila in hand who was having a rather one-sided rambling "conversation" with a couple of tourists seated on a bench at Casa Marina and who looked rather frightened and unsure of how to extricate themselves from what was obviously a very uncomfortable situation. Joe said he was trying to show restraint by not shouting at the drunk to get lost, and when I said "I'll take care of this" my wife held me back and told me to wait and watch. She walked up to the seated couple placing herself between them and the drunk and acted like she was greeting old friends, with a mischievous wink to the couple who followed her lead and played along with her. Joe looked at me and said "watch this, these strong women from Guerrero are amazing." The drunk stopped in mid-sentence and realized he recognized Lupita, and he started saying "I know you. This woman in an angel who helps everyone" to which my wife whirled around and gave him her winningest smile and cupped his face in her hands and wished him a Feliz Navidad, completely breaking the drunk's impaired train of thought, and still smiling she bade him a fond farewell to which he responded like the proverbial Pavlov dog and started to walk away saying his farewells. And just like that a rather unpleasant situation was resolved and over. The couple began showering Lupita with profuse thank-yous as we hugged Joe and bade him and them farewell, continuing our morning sojourn.

I wish I could do that. It seems not a day goes by that Lupita doesn't work some kind of similar miracle, her own special magic, often based on her incredibly insightful and usually accurate knowledge of how people behave and react.

Sincere thanks to all you generous people who make these smiles possible!

Lots of folks were on the beach early this morning.