La Migra , again.

Today was the third trip to immigration in my yearly quest for the renewal of my visa.
And I dutifully arrived early to stand in line outside and wait for the office to open so we- others were there before me - could be given a number and herded inside like cattle to slaughter where we got to wait some more.
And then my number was called and a nice lady took my number and papers and I got to wait some more.
She got back and smiled sweetly and said there was a problem; I had been late in starting the process so I had to pay a fine. To pay this fine, the nice lady said, I had to go to a bank with a form she would give me, pay the amount and return with receipt and two copies of same.
So I did.
I jumped a bus and fought a recalcitrant ATM machine ( it won ) found another and got the money to pay the fine, rushed to the bank to wait in line and then to pay and catch another bus back to immigration to wait in line to present my very own " Mission Accomplished ".
And the nice lady smiled sweetly and took my papers, disappeared and I got to wait some more.
She came back and pointed at my papers and said
This is the wrong amount. You have to go back to the bank and pay the correct amount and get a receipt for the that. Only the correct amount. Nothing else will be acceptable.
So, due to a clerical error, I had to return to the bank and battle bank bureaucracy to pay the missing amount and get a spanking new receipt.
And I persevered and I returned, triumphantly, to immigration with the new receipt and the the requisite copies and got to wait again till the nice lady took my papers and smiled sweetly at me and told me to wait a while.
And she came back and sweetly told me that now everything was fine and I should come back in about ten days.
To Be Continued..........

Batty

I fear that, amongst the many wel- and - unwelcome critters that I share my house with, I need to add ......bats.
For days I have found droppings on the floor under one of the chandeliers, and wings and legs and other indigestible parts of grasshoppers.
Now the geckos are too small to tackle these locust looking insects and when one of the mutts catches one of the big, green grasshoppers, it is only to kill it; then they loose interest and leave the whole carcass around.
This is something different. This is not only a kill of the insect, but also a devouring of same, except of course for the wings and such.
And all I can think of is bats since they are nocturnal and carnivorous and they can most likely hang from some part of the chandelier and do their thing.
Welcome to Alan's House of Horrors.

WOW

Think about this, found on a wall in Copenhagen.....Is Your God Democratic ?

The Blue Chair

I found an advert in a home decorating magazine, showing a dining set painted blue.
I loved it, I tore the page out of the magazine and kept looking at it thinking, one day, one day I would paint my wooden chairs that blue.
And one day I bought the paint and set about transforming a simple wooden chair to the dream of the advert.
And now ?
Well, after a few tries, the first chair is painted and I have been trying to convince myself that it is just right, but....
sure the blue is beautiful and sure I did a good job
but it doesn't fit with the rest of the colors of the house.
I have to face the facts. I have to repaint it.
Well, there is this red color I saw.......

The Muffins

Back in the states, many, many years ago, Chuck and I got into the habit of breakfasting on English muffins and poached eggs.
Keeping it up living in Mexico was a bit difficult as that type of muffin was not readily available.
So Chuck decided to make them himself and this he did to the very end.
Now I do it.
Not that I have to do it, but every time I make a new batch of English muffins, I think of Chuck doing this for so many years.
That is a nice way to remember your best friend and partner.

The Visa

I have just spent two mind-numbing days trying to renew my visa.
This is a once yearly happening and every year it seems that the procedure has been changed yet again.
This year I find that the office hours have shrunk. What, to the best of my recollection, used to be 8 to 3, has now been changed to 9 to 1, so when schleps like me finally get to present their collected documentation, showing that this person is who he claims to be, to the person behind the counter after waiting in line for 4 hours, and getting the go-ahead to go to a bank and pay the fee for this trip ( and by the way, there are no banks close by ) it is too late to come back, and one is asked to re-appear the next day, with receipt of payment to bank plus two copies of same.
And then you repeat the whole waiting again, sitting, frantically clasping your little, now damp piece of paper with the number of your turn, watching the minutes and hours pass by, waiting for the magic moment when your number follows the annoying ping of the number display.
And then you get to sign a piece of paper that tells you to return in 15 days for your visa, only when I sat down and read the paper it stated that this piece of paper in no way meant that the application had been approved, only that I had to show up at this date to find out .
Blimey, this is getting difficult.

Oh Rats.

I found a biscuit on the floor of my bedroom.
I picked it up, wondered a bit, discarded it and thought no more about it.
Till yesterday that is.
Yesterday I opened a drawer in my chest in the bedroom and saw, neatly stashed away, a multiple of biscuits.
And now the biscuit on the floor made sense. It, for some reason, never made into the drawer.
I marvel at the industry of my resident rodents, for logic and physics dictate that rodents cannot carry more than one biscuit at a time.
I counted the biscuits in the drawer, not including the one that did not make it.
Eighteen. Eighteen times the rodent would have to travel from the kitchen, where the biscuits had been left on a counter, to my bedroom at the other end of the house.
And when ?
In the daytime the mutts and I spend a lot of time in the passage between the two rooms, and at night when we retire, the mutts mostly settle into the bed and/or the floor in my bedroom.
So when would this - or these - rodent[s] find the opportunity. I mean eighteen trips, nineteen counting the one that did not make it into the drawer but was still hauled all the way from the kitchen.
What good, I have to wonder, what good are these mutts if they allow this back-and-forthing to happen right under their noses.
Worthless Ones.
They will bark and howl at things that none but they can see or hear, but biscuit carrying rodents will raise nary an eyelid.
Double Worthless Ones.

A Joyuos Moment

I keep coming back to read the news, the joyous news that now is the end of Bush and his coven of dark and sinister gnomes and misfits.
Now is the time for a new president.
This is like having a big bag of chips and eating them because every chip tastes as good as the one before.
Every time I read that Obama is the new president is as good as when I read it before and will be as good reading it again.
Bring them on, says I; bring on the big bags of chips.

In this rainy season I have been pretty much alone here on the hill. The Mad Queen and entourage left, Nicolas went on some sailing venture and all the other houses are sitting empty waiting for either rentals or the owners to come for a brief visit.
My closest neighbors have been the critters in the woods that scuttle about and upset the Worthless Ones and make them brake into gales of hysterical barking.
Till now when the rains have stopped.
Nicolas is back and the house down the street has had some renters and some white station wagon has been barreling up and down my normally very quiet street. The mutts have taken a great dislike to this car and I fear it is mutual; the other day a youngish, overweight biker-type in a dirtygray t-shirt and hair to his mid back, leaned out the window of the mystery white station wagon and yelled at the mutts. Right neighborly I thought, but then he is only temporary, we live here permanently.
So last night I learned what it is to have neighbors again. The house where I have seen the white wagon parked, formerly Steve's house, was having a do and music was blasting all night.
Now the house is a fair distance away, but the speakers were, as I discovered this morning when they packed up and left and passed in front of my house, enormous, the size one would imagine to be used for an outdoor fiesta at the local market square, not for a private dwelling in the woods.
And by a confluence of bad luck and too much cheap wine, I ended up with a very bad case of tummy ache, so I was wandering around the house, holding my tummy and wishing they, whoever they were, would go away, far, far away and leave me alone in my misery, rather that having the house shake from the music blasting through the wood.
But they blasted away all night, turning the volume down slightly toward morning.
The Mad Queen was having fits about my dogs barking in the early morn; imagine what he would have done with this noisome mess.
I kinda miss not finding out.
But the speakers were packed and shipped out in a rickety red, truck. I saw that myself, so maybe tonight I will get some sleep.