La Ruta Pacheco-Addams

Oh, was this for you?

Look what we can do, Pablo!

Spittin' image!

Day in Sisal.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Pablo!

Hoy voy a escribir en español porque este es un mensaje de FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS al Licenciado Maestro-Extraordinario Pablo Francisco Chavez Ceballos. Es mi amor. Es mi mejor amigo. Es muy caballero. Es una persona muy alegre, amable, generoso, honesto, inteligente, guapisímo, motivado, creativo, etc. Es un poco loco también, pero así soy yo, y nuestra locura nos ayuda divertirnos y disfrutar la vida mejor. A veces no nos entendemos bien la otra gente, y la verdad a veces nosotros no nos entendemos. Ni modos, somos los Locos Pacheco-Addams. Este nombre tomamos para nosotros durante nuestro primer viaje a Chiapas y Guatemala. Salimos a las 6 de la mañana y fumamos un toquecito para empezar bien las vacaciones el diciembre pasado. Nos pusimos a reir. Nos gustó ver el programa "Los Locos Addams" (The Addams Family) y sentimos muy locos al momento mirando el amanecer. Nos llamamos los Pacheco-Addams porque aquí la palabra pacheco significa una persona hasta la madre o vamos a decir un poquito loco. Después del cigarrito estábamos un pocquito pacheco. Así se usa la palabra.

Ese viaje fue su primer aventura conmigo. No sabía Pablo que tan loco me gusta viajar, pero aprendió rapidamente. Dentro de unas tres horas llegamos a Campeche, donde decidimos desayunar camarones al lado del mar. Después de desayunar, seguimos manejando hacía al sur y me dijo Pablo, "¡Que lástima que no se puede capturar los olores!" Como olió el Gulfo de México de arrecife, de agua y aire salados, de camarones y mariscos cocinando, del diesel de las lanchas de los pescadores. Que bonito día empezamos.

El destino del día era Palenque, en el estado de Chiapas. A las 6 de la tarde llegamos. Las ruinas de Palenque están en las montañas de puro bosque. Está bien bonito. Buscamos donde hospedarnos en el Maya Bell. No llevamos hamacas o pudieramos acampar. La verdad es que decidimos salir y no empacamos muchas cosas. Sí, llevamos el cooler lleno de pavo pero nunca lo comimos. Estuvo riquísima y barata la comida en Chiapas.

Desde Maya Bell subimos la montaña para visitar las ruinas de Palenque. ¡Wow! ¡Que espectáculo! Vimos hojas de arbol en el camino, y encima de nosotros fue un mono negro grande. Desayunamos al mercado a la entrada unos tamalitos y taquitos riquísimos. Entramos tempranito, y subimos el primer templo que nos atrayó. Escuchamos a los monos (howlers) desde la parte más alto y más atrás del templo. También disfrutamos un poquito de mota, era muy temprano y no habían turistas. Desde allí bajamos y fuimos al gran templo, donde nos dió cuenta que era el dia del solsticio de invierno. Vimos la culebra Kukulcan subiendo el templo. Subimos todos los pirámides y caminamos en el bosque. Bueno, cruzamos una linea y nos sacaron del parque. Pero estábamos solamente buscando monos, no tesoros en templos. Aprendimos mientras que hubieran tesoros por allá y tuvimos que volver a ver todas las ruinas el próximo día. Y lo nos pasamos muy bien sin incidente.

Decidimos conocer partes del sur de Chiapas. Encontramos una playa increíble. Se llama Brisas del Mar. Fue la primera vez que Pablo ha visto el Oceano Pacífico. Que bonito fue todo, en realidad. Seguimos el viaje hacía Guatemala y opcionamos entrar. No estábamos acostumbrados a cruzar fronteras como la de Guatemala, y después de una fumigación, un chingo de quetzales y mucha confusión, nos encontramos adentro del país cuando descubrió Pablo que se quedaron con su identificación a la frontera. Eso puso los frenos a ese capítulo del viaje. Hicimos un paseo de Escuintla, una parada para camioneros, Antigua, y regresamos a la misma frontera a Tecun Uman para recoger su credencial.

Conocimos vistas increíbles, la zona zapatista, y pasamos el año nuevo en Aguas Azules, unas cascadas...bueno, unas 200 cascadas. Conocimos una familia quien nos invitó a pasar la noche con ellos. Con que rapidez las dos semanas pasaron. Nos divertimos muchísimo y aprendimos mucho de como está el estado del sureste de México.

Voy a subir unas fotos del viaje el el próximo post, con algunas explicaciones en inglés. Esto es mucho para traducir para mis amigos quien hablen puro inglés. Sobre todo, ojalá tiene muy buen cumpleaños. Sí ustedes quieren mandarle unos saludos, su dirección es pablol19@hotmail.com .

Te quiero y te amo muchisisisisisisisisisisísimo, Pablo Pacheco-Addams.

Kittens Want Stories Now

Why don't you work with these ideas?

Writing is fun.

I said I want that page!

I wrote a long list of shit to do today when I awoke from my three hour nap yesterday afternoon. I thought I might rearrange the entire house. Move all the furniture to different rooms and places. I sat down and made some sketches. Sometimes I like to experience different space. In my little house in Hawaii I could only move things around a little, since the kitchen, dining room and living room were just one room. The bedrooms were small and not much room for creativity there either. But this house? Oh, there is room to move all right.

But the cats decided today would be a good day to work with some old notes. They chose several projects and mixed them all up. It looks like they want me to combine some stories. Or at least get rid of some of this excess paper. Below you can picture what lies ahead for me today.

Buster's Anniversary

Buster and Busmo.

Dinnertime for the family.

Happy Anniversary, Buster! One year ago Sept. 22nd I received the call. "¡Encontramos al Buster!" (We found Buster!) He disappeared three days after our arrival in Mérida in July 2007. My fried Pea traveled with Buster and me to help us move. The house wasn't ready and we had to stay in a hotel. Buster was humiliated and sickened after being confined to a small cat carrier (he is huge!) under airplane seats, hauled around four airports, required to shit in public in a tiny cat box, and basically be in a constant state of travel and discomfort for over 24 hours on our trip from Kona, Hawaii to Mérida, Yucatán, México. When his final destination appeared to be a hotel room, he begged me to let him outside. The hotel had a huge enclosed courtyard, so in the middle of the second night I got up and let him out. He sniffed around for a while and then came back to the room and returned to hide under the bed. When we had already been in the hotel two days and had to change rooms, that was the last straw for Buster. The room we moved into had wide iron bars on the windows, and Buster decided to break out of his jail. Then I think the hotel cats ran him off.

Buster and I had come to Mérida to recover from pain and suffering: illness, death, earthquakes, vog, poverty, joblessness and lack of enthusiasm, to be specific. It was so upsetting having Buster lost among a million people in a huge noisy city. He had never been away from the hillside around Kona. He was used to lots of land and his favorite lava tubes. There was little traffic and no city noise. I thought I was doing the right thing bringing Buster to start our new lives. He missed Jim. He was traumatized by the major earthquakes we had in Kona and several months later was still hesitant to come inside the house. He had respiratory problems from the vog. The truth is we were both a big mess.

Although caught up in the rigamarole of buying a house in a foreign country, organizing and supervising its renovation in a foreign language, getting accustomed to a different culture, acclimatizing to the big city's motion and the intense heat, and preparing for hurricanes.....I never gave up hope that I would find my Buster. At first, Pea and I made fliers. Crying, we asked all the merchants in a several block area surrounding the hotel to watch out for Buster. We offered a reward. I published his picture in the newspaper and on Merida Insider online. We searched the hotel twice daily. It seemed hopeless. The rooftops are all connected here and Buster had never seen any such thing. He could have gone a long way. There were huge trees. He could have gotten anywhere and be completely disoriented.

I rented a car and drove around, crying, of course, calling for Buster. I walked the streets calling for him, looking like a lunatic with my eyes puffed out and feeling like an asshole. Not so much because I was making a fool of myself, I am used to that....but because I thought I was doing us a favor moving here, and I had caused Buster to suffer more. The day we were anticipating a direct hit from Hurricane Dean I really lost it, frantically searching until curfew, but I still could not find Buster. There were leads from the ads and fliers...none led to Buster though.

Buster had been through an ordeal. Somehow he made his way back to the hotel and the employees there, who had been fervently watching out for him, captured him in one of the rooms. His leg was slightly injured, he was skinny and completely freaked out. I swooped him up and was talking to him, sobbing, apologizing, driving toward home when I made an ignorant blunder. I made a right turn on red (which is illegal here) in front of a policeman directing traffic. I got pulled over. It was the only time I have ever bribed a cop but it worked. Two hundred pesos and a promise to not drive while crying again we were on our way. Buster was back. He arrived at our new house the same day my belongings arrived from Hawaii, two months to the day we departed.

A lot had gone on in his absence, apart from my camping out in a construction site and the constant searching. One of the calls we got from the fliers was from a parking lot attendant one block from where he was lost. Pea and I zoomed over there and it was not Buster. It was a little female that resembled him just a wee bit. But she was living under a car in an open lot and it was the rainy season. I already felt bad enough about Buster living outside, alone. So I gave the guy a partial reward for his efforts and carried the cat home. Pea and I named her Lotería, which means "lottery", because SHE had certainly won! We were a couple of cat forlorned ladies. Cat forelorned?? Anyhow, she was lots of fun for two months.

There were other calls. One guy told me he saw Buster in a park on the east side of town. When I looked at a map, if he had run straight down 55th Street he could have ended up there, Pacabtún, so I went there. No Buster. Another man called and thought he had seen Buster roving rooftops in his neighborhood in Santiago area, twelve blocks west of the hotel. So I concentrated on that area for a while, walking search patterns I learned in scuba training. No Buster.

One night I was living in my bedroom because the rest of the house was torn up. I had been writing on the computer during a full moon with some odd energy and I could not sleep. That was one long bad night in late August that I won't forget. First I colored my hair. I bought what I thought was the equivalent of my color, but it was not. I really fucked it up. It was a hideous cheap-wig mousy brown. I was frustrated that I could not set up Skype and ready to pull out my fake looking hair. I ranted to my friends for hours in long emails showing just how crazy I really am. Then I tried to sleep in my hammock when all of a sudden I thought I saw Buster in the window. My first reaction, other than yelling "Buster!!!!!!!!" and scaring the shit out of the cat in the window, was to sob. How could Buster have found me at the house? He had never been to the house. It is sixteen blocks south of the hotel. And if it was him, did he hate me now and that was why he ran? There are not many cats here that look like Buster. He is a gray tabby but he is a big boy. Most Mexican cats are slender. It was an apparition, like the Lady at Guadalupe or something! It was a sign to not give up hope. (That cat is now the father of Moka's baby Busmo, we call him Gemelo, which means 'twin', because he really does look like Buster.)

On September 22nd Buster came home for the first time. On Sept. 23rd my friend Lynne arrived with her cat Koko from Alaska to camp out with us, help on the decorating part of the house project, and experience six weeks of México. Buster would only hide under the bed. Lotería attacked him when he came in the house. She also attacked Lynne's cat when she entered the house. We separated them. All five of us were extremely upset. Lotería did not calm down, she had found good territory and wanted to keep it. Buster came first, Koko second, and unfortunately Lotería third. Luckily the electrician who was working nights and weekends, who usually brought his wife and deaf/mute child along, was willing to take Lotería home. His daughter had fallen in love with her. Lotería had been given her shots, spayed and was a loving cat for a one cat household. She could not co-exist with our two traumatized cats. That was that.

Buster found Koko intimidating and pretty much stayed under the bed until the end of October. He would only eat in the bedroom. He went outside, he climbed the tree and hung out in the abandoned building next door. He adjusted slowly. Not long after Lynne and Koko returned to Alaska, little Moka, the abandoned sick Siamese kitten, was curled up at my gate. And so Buster had to adjust AGAIN because I have this (at times) ridiculous soft spot for cats. He and Moka got along great, and he is the surrogate father to her kittens. He particularly loves the little guy that looks a lot like him. Buster has Busmo in training.

And so, to make a long story bearable, if that is possible at this point, Buster is now king of the commando. He has lots of cat friends, who he invites for dinner and catnip, and now he has kittens even though that is physically impossible. While brushing Buster last night as he relaxed on the bed, I remembered the anniversary date. Then I decided this could be Buster's birthday, since I don't know when he was actually born, so he will get tuna for dinner. We have both come a long way in the year that has passed. The commando is strong and life goes on.

Lotería with a feather toy on her head.

Sneak Peek

I guess if determined enough, I will eventually figure out how to link stuff up, but for now I am pleased to offer the viewing we were unable to see in person. I would have taken the photo without the head shots, but hey, I like to follow through.........this would be pretty cool to see, wouldn't it?

Day Late, Peso Short

Set the alarm for 4am today. Had cancelled exercise class for 8am. The day to see the autumn equinox had come. The big plan was to go to the ruins of Dzibilchaltun, see http://mayalesserknownruins.blogspot.com/. The sun was going to radiantly rise in the center of the door opening of the Temple of the Seven Dolls. An unforgettable phenomenon unique to those ruins twice a year and one I have been waiting impatiently to see!

The equinox is on the 21st and today is the 22nd. I know that, but the article in Diario de Yucatán I read a few weeks ago said TODAY would be the best day for viewing. They did not say they were not OPENING the gates for such a great viewing! So what is the first thing wrong with this picture? Ah, simple answer: I have NO picture! There is a great photo in the DIARIO DEL YUCATÁN in the Imagen section! It is online if you want to see it from yesterday's viewing. But the policemen, firemen and guards at the gate this morning assured us they WERE NOT AUTHORIZED to let people see the phenomenon they have trotted the globe to witness. Just one of those little reminders that we do, afer all, live in México and must continually be on guard to maintain lowered expectations and the patience to wait six months for the next equinox just to SEE THE LIGHT.

There is a bright side to this disappointment. Thousands of people flocked to Chichén Itzá yesterday to see its equinoxial phenomenon: the shadow of the Snake God Kukulkán descending on the Castillo. They got skunked also. The Rain God Chaak won the battle (according to the newspaper) and Kukulkán lost. Not only did it pour down rain assuring no appearance of any shadow from the sun....four people were struck by lightning.

The newspaper went on to report that a hundred people saw the light at Dzibilchaltún. A hundred people? Evidently I am not the only person who read in the paper that today would be the day to go. Ok, I am putting it on my calendar right now to head to Dzibilchaltún for the morning of March 21, 2009. If anyone asks what my future plans are, there ya' have 'em

.

I and I and I and I and I....Book Bashing

A good friend of mine sent me the book EAT LOVE PRAY by Elizabeth Gilbert several months back. Many friends had recommended it as an excellent read, so I dove in for some inspiration. I loved the first chapter. The only thought that recurred in my brain was: this should be MY book with MY story! And so I read on.

I think the first time it occurred to me that something was upsetting me was the whole ashram thing. A guru who you follow like the Northern Star but you have never met? I know it is pretty hip to be into yoga and have a guru. Her motivation for spending months at a specific ashram, where she never did meet her special guru who guides her life, seemed insincere.

But by the time she got to Indonesia I did not even want to finish the book. I did not like her at all. This is what went through my head: "You selfish, self-serving bitch!" She came off as feeling superior to the Balinese people, and the purchase of the house for her friend seemed to be nothing more than a pat on her back on what a wonderful and generous person she was.

I was actively working on a memoir. After finishing EAT LOVE PRAY I have never touched my notes again. There are too many "I's". Italy, India and Indonesia. No problem. I, I, I, I, I, I........me only and me first, problem. I now think I would rather write my story from a fictional vantage point in order to not appear to be boasting about what a wonderful person I am. I, unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, do not have such self confidence and I do not think I am a wonderful person. I doubt my writing would sound as self involved as hers but she has scared me off my memoir.

Recently I read that the divorce that was so difficult for her was her doing. She cheated on her husband, divorced him, and Disney paid her a fortune to travel around the world to write about her recuperation from her self-imposed depression. My husband of twenty years died after suffering a horrible cancer, and all I got was a note to show up to work the day after his funeral and people avoiding me on the street because I was damaged. I had to sell my house and move away to try to recuperate and survive the hideous ordeal. Resentment? You bet. Am I jealous? Of course! She is making a fortune. But I do not dislike the book because I am jealous, i was hoping to be inspired to write my story too. Instead, I ended up with memoirphobia and the fear of being seen as a braggart. If anyone wants to read her book, I have a copy to give away...if I do not burn it first in hopes of a reincarnation of my own lost soul.

In Search of Don Pepe

Don Pepe y Linda.

Don Pepe is one of the first people I met when I came to scout out Mérida a year ago April. I met him at the Casa de Todos, a night spot where we like to hang out to smoke, chat, listen to music and play dominos. He is 78 years old. As bouncer he managed to keep the young guys under control. The regulars are under-thirty local guys who usually paid Don Pepe the respect he deserved, but some of them are rascals and gave him a hard time. I doubt they know who Don Jose (Pepe) Medina Medina really is. He is a famous Meridan journalist, a great ballroom dancer, for starters, and he journals his life all day every day. Don Pepe was not in the best of health when I met him, his diabetes giving him problems with his legs, his arthritis, etc. But a year ago he danced a waltz with me. It was a very special dance.

It came to my attention that while we were tripping through Central America, his conditioned worsened and he had to have a leg amputated. He had been living in a room in a pension, but would soon be confined to a wheel chair and would no longer be able to live in his own place. So they put him in an old folks' home.

Having a soft spot in my heart for Don Pepe and a genuine concern for the elderly stuck in nursing homes, I expressed a desire to visit him. Pablo wanted to go with me. We asked the few people close to him where he had been taken after surgery. We went on a wild goose chase to one place that is for old alcoholics. It didn't make sense he would be there, not being an alcoholic. There was another retirement home nearby but they didn't have him there either. We searched the hospital and one more home. No luck. We decided to ask the owner of Casa de Todos for more specific information: his real name and where he was actually staying. Ok, hindsight we all know is 20/20!

A week later we found him. We went to visit him and the gate was locked at La Divina Providencia. A nun let us in for five minutes but warned us we could only visit him during official hours, on Thursdays from 9 - 11 am and Saturday and Sunday from 4 - 5 pm. Doesn't the frikkin' Bible say to visit the sick and the elderly? How could they limit visitations to these lonely old folks? I was shocked and dismayed.

We have since had two visits with Don Pepe. He looks great, his spirits are incredibly high, and of course he awaits our visitations sitting next to the clock. He called us and asked for pens and paper and a shoe! He called another friend to bring him a towel and toilet paper. What do they supply in these places, I wonder.

Visiting hours.

Griping

Ok. So my last article sucked. I had no brain power it was too hot and there were too many interruptions. Enough excuses or need I provide more? I had a great idea for the palapas and sat here melting thinking JUST POST SOMETHING.

It rained like hell yesterday. It was the first time this rainy season that the water rose up in the street splashing on my neighbors' doors, coming into my parking garage like the waves of a lake, sloshing plastic jugs and miscellaneous garbage up to my gate. That doesn't bother me as much as the garbage men missing pickup for the past several days.

I enjoyed the rain, but it was not too good for business. You cannot teach kids to swim in a lightning storm. We wait around all day for the classes and then the afternoon rains spoil our plans and we feel frustrated.

Today I am flabberghasted (that is such a strange word and probably spelled wrong) how quickly the mosquitoes arrive after ONE lousy rain. I am covered in Autan, or Mexican OFF, yet one mossie is obviously having a field day with me here at the desk. Living in the tropics for decades I try to keep mosquito breeding out of the patio area.

The weather cooled down due to a cold front passing through, but I doubt that will last long. I covered myself with a sheet last night for the first time in months. I am not looking to pull out any blankets just yet. We still have two months of hurricane season left and the weather is so screwy maybe the July rainy season just started.

I am in an anxious state today. I have to attend a meeting I am not happy about. Then it is off to Mayan class where I am lost. Level one pre-school Mayan language was fun and simple. Now they expect us to act like adults and know this stuff. Hmmph! It would have helped to have a book or something to help learn in the first class, or a teacher that was a little organized.

Shit like this should be written in the morning pages, the ones no one sees. I know that. But I have decided that my blogs have been sugar coated and not necessarily reflecting my personality. I think maybe I sounded even too happy, because my friends who I thought were reading the blogs and used to write to me have abandoned me. I am the one who abandoned all my friends and family, insofar as I moved out of the country, but still....I have always made an attempt to keep in touch with my friends and thought friendship had no borders. when I know many of my friends live on their computers: games, chat rooms, joke sending for hours on end, it hurts my feelings some that they don't have time to drop me a line. I still care about them, really I do. I guess I am just frustrated and over sensitive today....something new and different for me, huh folks?

Palapas

Close up: needs some repair!

Chiapas: rainforest calls for wooden walls, screened in.

Constructing a palapa for an exposition in the Plaza Grande.

My favorite: with the Caribbean out the front door.

Hopelchén, Campeche State in the hills.

Ranch style, Yucatán State.

Sticks and stone wall, Yucatecan style.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a palapa as "An open-sided dwelling with a thatched roof made of dried palm leaves or a structure, such as a bar or restaurant in a tropical resort that is open-sided and thatched with palm leaves. Perhaps from American Spanish, a kind of palm tree."

Wikipedia says the palapa is of Philippine origin and after it was brought to Mexico the people of the region loved them for their heat resistance and the fresh air that flows through. It goes on to say that the palapas were very similar to the indigenous architecture from "western cultures"; what does that mean? I only get Wikipedia in Spanish, so perhaps something was lost in translation.

The most interesting information I could find about the history of palapas was from a company called Wilson Laminate that sells palapas. It states: "some historians believe that palapas have over a 2000 year history in Mexico." What historians? I cannot seem to find any information in the few hours I have been searching the internet. I do believe the construction was used in Mexico for a long long time, and I can believe there was an influence by the Philipinos some time later.

Having lived in Hawaii and traveled through the South Pacific, I can safely say that as unique as the construction of hales, bures, bales, or whatever you want to call these palm-thatched huts can be, there is a similarity that leaves me a little confused. If this were some important link to the history of mankind, I would pursue it to see what the link is. I just happen to like palapas, and will may end up living in one some day...preferably one on the Caribbean coast somewhere. My house and the pool for a palapa en la playa!

Palapa dock near Livingston, Guatemala, Bahía de Amatique.

I Don't Trust Ike

Being a weather freak and the operator of a small school involving an outdoor swimming pool, I keep my eye on the weather. I spend hours here at the computer watching these giant rain balls spinning around the Caribbean, and afternoon storms brewing, trying to figure out how many of our classes we will be able to provide on any given day in the rainy or hurricane season. So far we have not had any hurricane scares here in the Yucatán.

As I write this, Hurricane Ike is pounding Cuba. The predictions so far have been that this storm is going to turn northwest and head straight to New Orleans. So far Ike has barreled due west, slowing down a little to whack things in its path, like islands, buildings, boats, and people and then flaring up again. Yesterday I felt that Ike was not headed northwest, but it looked like he wanted to keep on truckin' west. Today he is still truckin' west. He crossed Cuba and is now in the warmest part of the Caribbean Sea. I understand that the meteorologists have much more information about the conditions in the upper atmosphere blah blah blah....but they admit they cannot actually predict exactly what any of these hurricanes will do. I have a sinking feeling that Ike does not want to go northwest. Only once before did a storm on Ike's current path pass through the Yucatán, with Hurricane Hilda in 1955. And I could only find that on one of the weather sites' statistics. I am left a little confused. Did a drug cartel in Cancún pay off the meteorologists to just pretend we are in no danger, so as to avoid a negative impact on tourism? The recent rolling headless bodies have done tourism some harm and perhaps "they" just don't want any more trouble.

The 2pm report today still insists this storm is going to head northwest....now on the south side of Cuba instead of the north side.....and head straight to New Orleans. Nothing like traumatizing the residents of New Orleans before necessary. Wow, we all know they f***ed up with Katrina, and need to try to make things right with the folks there, but is this the way?

What has me concerned is that "they" (whoever they are) are so convinced that Ike is heading to New Orleans that they have not even mentioned a WATCH to us, let alone a warning. The western tip of Cuba is not that far from the east coast of the Yucatán. My map shows this giant ball rolling its way due west and heading straight into the satellite shot of the Yucatán. I for one am going to keep my eyes open and believe what mother nature dictates, and not the CNN reporters who are happily blowing away in the wind in the eyes of the storms.

The Cat House Update

Pure innocence.

Who, me?

Who, me?

I didn't do it.

I'm just looking.

It has been a while since the last report on the kitties. They continue to grow and amaze us. Little Mokito is a spitting image of his mom. He has been in the swimming pool twice. He manages to get out, just like Moka did when she went in three times, but we are not sure how he ends up in the water to begin with. All cats think the swimming pool is one giant bowl of drinking water. At night the entire outdoor commando sits around the edge of the pool, where it is a little cooler temperature wise and perhaps in status: "Yeah, I hang around the swimming pool all night and sleep in the shade all day, I'm cool...."



Moka had surgery two weeks ago. She had a chance to experience motherhood, and the good fortune of keeping all her kids with her. Sorry, Moka, but we had to do it. She had a little trouble with recuperating, she insisted on cleaning and ripping out her stitches and the kittens were matting on her tummy while feeding. Moka ended up back in the hospital for nylon stitches, the weekend, and returned with an Elizabethan collar. Moka was not happy with me. Now that a week has passed, and the collar is well out of sight (no, I did not leave it on for five days....I could only tolerate 5 hours of Moka's misery), Moka feels so much better she is starting to act like a kitten again.



Watching kittens play is a full time activity. I can't say job, because no one would pay to have you watch kittens play....bummer....but it is the job I have taken on full time. One could write a book aout learning life's lessons by following around curious little Mokito. And one might have time to write a book if he or she only had to follow around Mokito. But there are four of them, a fussy mom, and the outdoor commando who all have some psychological problems. So there is no time to write the book!



The cats use two cat boxes which need cleaning daily. Their feeding area is attractive to ants, and there is usually a complex trail of ants with freeways, detours, high roads and low roads leading to the cat dishes. I feed the housecats who put a dent in the first plates of food. They walk away, prean and clean themselves, play and sleep. Meanwhile the outdoor cats have snuck in to finish off the morning feed. They are in a hurry and leave food all over the floor, beckoning the ants....that completes that cycle. I come along with my Fabuloso and paper towels trying to pick up the mess and get it into the trash before the ants start biting me. They have a wicked bite. Then I am off to the living rooms with a broom, where Buster's been rolling in catnip and it now looks like the floor of the church at San Juan Chamula. It looks like someone took a bag of weed and tossed it in the air. I guess that is what I did, actually.



I am not blaming the cats for my brain freeze. Or brain fry as I referred to my writer's block in a former blog. I am not blaming anyone, really. My problem is that I would rather just be one of those kittens. But I am not. No one is going to feed me when I complain that I have spent all my money on cat surgeries and catfood.