Plans for the 36th annual Mexican National Chili Cook-Off are on already on the burner and heating up fast. Lakeside’s biggest, boldest community charity event will be held February 14 through 16, set once again on the grounds of the Tobolandia waterpark.

On Tuesday, January 28, Lori Vinh Sok Brown will be sharing her unique and inspirational story of how, as a 22-year old, she escaped the killing fields of Cambodia with her two young children in the late 1970’s.

El Piano Rojo was jam-packed last Sunday, as the grapevine had worked overtime following the previous night’s performance by Dame Edna impersonator, Michael L. Walters. So many turned out for the second and final show that the performance was delayed while additional seating was brought in.

In addition to the national holidays and celebrations that will be observed during 2014, there will be all kinds of special happenings going on in the Lake Chapala area.

“Julio Hummingbird was tiny, about the size of a chocolate bar, but he didn’t mind being small until one evening when he visited his favorite bird feeder in the garden of Señora Sanchez. There sitting right on top of it was Oscar Oriole, big, bad, beautiful and bold.”

Thousands of pilgrims began swarming the small Jalisco town of Cajititlan de los Reyes as of December 31 to pay devotion to the town’s religious patrons Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, better known as the Wisemen of the Orient.