Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Miscellaneous Ramblings


It is the second week of April. I've been concentrating on the book project, but I forgot to post any news or items of interest here. I promised no more cat photos, but I am indulging myself since my birthday is Sunday. Mokito is sitting behind the basil bush in the ground cover that looks great thanks to Pablo's diligent watering and constant care of the entire patio area. He is so cute I can't stop photographing him.


I was inspired to do some gardening on Sunday. It was still very hot this past weekend, and I spent three hours in the pool. As I read my book, drank my Gatorade, etc, I felt cooled off enough to plant some flower seeds, the new jasmine plant, prune the papaya tree out front, and generally do more work in the yard than I usually enjoy or tolerate. (Gardening is NOT my thing!) When sweat rolled into my eyes I decided to jump back into the pool.

Here is what is new.

Yep! Another kitty. I have a sinking feeling this is the fourth kitten from the litter that Momcat had....the ones we took out to the property. He is desperately seeking residence here. He made friends with Mokito, who loves everyone. Of course Moka wanted no part of him in her pride, but he is sweet talking even her into accepting him. He is a talker. Not a screamer like Sak Boox, but sort of an out loud purrer. Above he is wondering if he can come in to eat or if he should hit the high road.

Here he is wondering if he needs to scurry up the tree and vacate the premises. He is very cute. I imagine we will have him fixed and take him in, since we sent away his mom and siblings. We haven't named him because we are trying to avoid adopting another cat. I have to admit if I were a cat, I would want to weasel my way into this cathouse too. Even when it is over 100° outside, the cats find places to stay cool. They particularly like to sit poolside. Maybe we'll name him Weasel.

There are lots of flowers blooming in the patio. I wish I could remember the name of this mini tree, but I am brain dead and energyless today. They say it's the cold. Last week they said it was the heat. The real problem is that I am getting old. I have this love/hate relationship with my birthdays. I generally get stressed out about having one, but I always want to celebrate it anyhow. We didn't make plans to go anywhere for my birthday since it falls on Easter. The local people all head to the beaches and ruins and cenotes over Easter week, so if we go somewhere it will be after the holiday.

This is how I work at the computer. I have to set up chairs next to me for the cats. Moka prefers sleeping on top of the printer because she can attack it if it acts up. The others stay away from the desk and keyboard if I keep them close by and pet them enough. People who think cats are not loving must have weird cats. My cats require lovin' every day. They demand it. I work in some head scratching and sweet talking to allow me to take little mind breaks while struggling to think through this enormous project of writing a book. I think I have a name for it, and the project seems to be leading me in a specific direction now, which I see as a good sign.

Sak Boox drinks more water than any cat I've ever seen. They all drink from the swimming pool, and though we thought it wasn't good for them with chemicals and all, it sounds better than any standing water they might find in the bush. What Sak Boox prefers is to drink straight from the faucet or the 5 gallon jug spout. She will position herself and tell me, "I am ready!" Although I prefer to NOT allow cats on the kitchen counter, I usually let her come up and have a drink.

There are other things going on. The construction at the property is almost finished. I will post on it once we have it done. We have the bloggers Meet and Greet next week, and I look forward to meeting the other bloggers. An old friend of mine will be in Cancún next week and I would like to visit him and his family. I have known Lothar since I was about 12 years old. He is one of my oldest friends. Unfortunately, of all the cool places there are around here, the place I least enjoy driving to is Cancún. The toll road is hypnotizing as well as expensive, not to mention four hours of driving with nothing to see but road. So I am working that in my brain.
My pool exercisers are back. Once we topped the 100° mark last week, interest was peaked again. Now they are talking about evening swims in addition to morning swims. If we have the hot summer they are threatening, we will all have to live in the pool. The weather is confused right now. I may be brain dead today because of dehydration....again. Last week I was suckin' down all the liquid in sight, and this week I am not thirsty again. It was only 68° this morning. How's that for extremes? Anyhow, when it is cool outside we don't feel the thirst sensation but we still need to drink three times our weight in liquid every day.
This is all the rambling I will subject you to today. Mostly I wanted to say hi, I am still here plugging away, stumbling through life. Happy Easter to all of you from the Conejita de Pascua (the little easter bunny...me)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am searching for my brain cells and when I locate them will post a bitchin' story. Adios.
I tried four times to separate the paragraphs, so if they are still all stuck together, it must be a sign that this really was meant to be just a ramble!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lindi, Be careful how much gatorade-type stuff you take in. It's made for extreme exertion replacement - not long-run hydration. Your body needs to take in eight to fourteen cups of water to get rid of all the artificial crap in one cup of different brands of sports drinks. Fire departments usually say that you shouldn't drink more than a half water- half gatorade mix even if extremely over-taxed, too hard on your body, kidneys and liver especially suffer. Sodas aren't much better, it takes about 6 to 12 cups of water to rehydrate and recover from one cup of soda. They seem refreshing at the time but they're really counterproductive and downright dangerous if used regularly. One of the National Fire Protection Assn. studies show twelve firefighters drinking different sports drinks, sodas
and water. The guy who drank water only recuperated from heavy exertion about 4 or 5 times faster than the guy who drank half water and half gatorade. The ones that drank straight soda or sports drinks took as much as three days of drinking only water to get their bodies back to normal energy levels. This took into consideration brain-wave levels as well, it was shocking watching the difference in how the guys responded to questions, orders and simulated emergency situations. For about the first hour after an initial sports drink or caffeinated soda brain function was slightly elevated but soon thereafter brain function started dropping radically. After a whole day of pretty exhausting training most of the guys that had been drinking only sports drinks or soda were in pretty pitiful shape trying to do tests ( mental and physical ), the water drinkers were tired but did only slightly less well at the same tests that they had in the morning. Repeating the same pattern the second day was much worse and by the end of the third day the guys that weren't drinking water were completely useless and some had to be put on IV's to get them re-hydrated. The test was supposed to be a whole workweek long but it was cancelled because it was deemed to be too dangerous. The water drinkers were okay to go back to work immediately, the others had to be kept under observation for one to ( if I remember correctly) 6 days to rehydrate before they were okay to return to work. There were two groups of twelve in the test, they mirrored each other in all intake of food, drink and all tasks. The difference was that one group was ten years older than the other group and they suffered a lot more and took a lot more time to recover, about twice as long as I remember. The film really made an impact on me, I do have gatorade on our engine but I make the guys drink a whole bottle of water before thay can even touch it! A little bit for electrolyte replacement is okay. Your best bet would probably be to get some PEDIALYTE (Walmart) for kids, then drink just a little bit heavily diluted every day to keep up your electolytes. The movie also talked about long-term problems from not getting proper hydration because of interference of sports drink/soda. Kidney and liver failure were most prominent, also digestive and skin problems mostly as I recollect. Better to drink beer!
I'm packing up to go camping for the next four days to Ka'alu'alu Bay - yippee! Wendy and Buggy and their kids are going too so I'm packing almost literally tons of food. It's been almost a year since we've gone camping together so it will be a lot of fun for the kids to spend time with each other. Your waterlogged pal Noni

Tom said...

THe plant in your photo is an Adenium, or Desert Rose. It needs full sun to flower profusely, and prefers to be kept a bit dry.

Can't wait to see the 'slum'.

abrazos
Debi

Linda Dorton said...

Debi, Thanks for the info. It gets plenty of sun, and hopefully we don't wet it down too much, especially once the rains come, because so far it is happy and putting out lots of beautiful flowers.