Twitter has been abuzz with humorous descriptions of what Popo might really be up to. Some said he was coughing and sneezing. Others said he must be angry and perhaps demanding a gift, prompting one Mexican journalist to post on Twitter: “If Don Goyo needs a sacrifice, I suggest the political class.”

Here in Santiago Xalitzintla and in other towns with a clear view of Popocatépetl’s snow-capped peak and plume of smoke, the mood seems to run from calm to comical to mildly concerned. Rosario Jesús, 55, during a stop for tortillas in San Cayetano, was one of many who joked that Don Goyo “is a friend when he’s quiet, but not much of a friend when he’s mad.”

Like many others around here, she noted that 2012 has been a particularly bad year in the marriage of nature and humankind. “We started with earthquakes,” she said, “and now there’s the volcano.”

She looked down, smiling, but her eyes suggested a pinch of actual worry, perhaps for good reason. Mexico has endured quite a few rattles this year: a 7.4 earthquake in Oaxaca on March 20 was followed by a 6.4 in Michoacán on April 11 — and preceded by a handful of other quakes at a magnitude of 5 or above. With many of these shocks, and aftershocks, swaying buildings in the capital, many Mexicans have begun to ask what is going on.

Seismologists have generally suggested it is simply a healthy release of underground tension, perhaps preventing either a large volcanic eruption or a cataclysmic earthquake later on. But there is also the Mayan question. Long ago, the Mayan calendar put 2012 as the end of the world, at least according to some believers. And though references to the apocalypse usually come with a smirk — like a lime with tequila — there are plenty of Mexicans noting the year’s extraordinary natural activity. Residents of Xalitzintla are no exception.