I would not, I had decided, redo the cushions on the couch and the chairs until the Worthless Ones had gone to other and better homes, where they could continue their destructive doings.
Well, it is four years and a bit and they don't seem to be going anywhere soon, so I have to admit defeat and think of a compromise.
In stead of the beautiful green material I had bought in anticipation of the change, and which would show all kinds of doggie hair and saliva and the occasional trow-up, I will now have to look for a material that will not show stains, that will stand up to doggie nails and teeth and slaver and that I can afford--and find, this is not exactly the metropolis for fabrics.
I am leaning toward the plaid that is used for pants for school uniforms for boys. If it can stand up to boys, it can stand up to my miserable canines. I hope.
Another item on my "To Do" list, right below the "talk to vet about euthanasia".

And all the newly polished brass....it was worth it.

She is gone.
My resident spider who was residing outside my bedroom window and for whose sake I didn't use the other door to the terrace lest I should disturb her web.
I was making a joke that the only company I would have for Xmas would be the Worthless Ones and the resident spider. Now she is gone, but she stayed through the 24th.
Her sister spiders with their webs in the garden left some time ago, but my spider hung in there with the company of the diminutive male who I noticed is left in her web right next to all her neatly wrapped victims. Dead. I fear he got his way, for as a final insult, he has been left unwrapped.
And so I wait for the next time the spiders come back to build their webs and give me endless entertainment.

I am not sure what got into me...maybe t'was the season, but I suddenly got the urge to polish the brass.
There is a lot of brass and copper in my house, so I started with a simple candlestick. And it looked great when I had finished scraping the old candle wax off the stick and then using a lot of elbow grease.
The thing was that it looked so shiny, so gleaming that all the other pieces looked desperately dingy.
And that was how I got tinto the frenzy of polishing. I did not mean to, but unlike the unfinished tiles on the deck that I am able to ignore, it is somewhat more difficult to ignore things inside.
So here I am with hands that ache and polish under my finger nails but with almost all the brass done.
Tomorrow I shall do the rest and for my solitary Xmas dinner I will light all the candles and watch them glow in the newly polished brass and convince myself that it was worth it.

And speaking of grandmas.
I was at the airport waiting for James to arrive, and while one is waiting, and in this case about three hours, there is nothing else to do but to watch the screen for arrivals, and the people around you, your fellow waiterers.
two things came to mind; I have never seen so many cell phones in one place before. It seemed every person, bar me, would at one point or another whip out a phone and have a lengthy and agitated conversation. As if waiting for someone was too difficult to endure without contact with the world outside the arrivals hall.
And the other thing was the clothing. Now, we gringos living in Mexico and venturing to the airport to pick up friends or family, are pretty much dressed the same way. Bright colored shirts or t-shirts and shorts--however unfortunate the choice for many--and sandals for the gents, smart and bright tops and shorts or tiny skirts and sandals for the females.
The Mexicans are by and large dressed neatly with the menfolk in shirts and long pants or jeans with shoes or boots, and the womenfolk dressed in what Chuck and I referred to as "Maria" dresses, in honour of our maid for many years who always dressed in dresses like that and would never, ever be caught in a pair of slacks, let alone shorts.
But now I see grannies dressed like this little lady waiting next to me with a bunch of grandchildren cavorting around her. Short cropped gray hair, pistachio green tight t-shirt ( I don't know if it was meant to be tight, or was tight because of her weight ) and finishing the outfit with a pair of Pepto Bismol pink lycra leggings, very, very tight.
This was definitely not your granny of yore.
Progress ? I am not sure. There was something comforting in the scores of Marias in their flowerprint dresses and their long hair in a sedate bun that you would see around town and in the markets. Now they are the minority.
Long live the minority.

Flowers for grandma

We were going to my grandparent's little farm, the place where I was born and where my parents had lived before we moved to the city.
We were walking from the train station, my mom and I, in that perpetual summer we seem to have in childhood memories.
The occasion was the slaughter of the pig that my grandparents had raised, but my mother had decided to come late to avoid--as she told me--the scream of the animal.
There we were. I must have been about four or five years old, and the road was dusty but on the sides of the ditches there were clusters of little wild violets.
I was enchanted and I picked the flowers, these delicate little things and held them in my hand because I had decided to pick them for grandma.
When we got to the farm the killing was over and I got to give granny the now slightly wilted and sad looking bunch of flowers.
I don't think she ever had flowers from a grandchild before; my cousins being, in a polite way of saying this, somewhat challenged and most assuredly not into picking flowers.
She thanked me sweetly but a little bewildered and found a cup, filled it with water and put my offering in it.
I think the next time someone gave her flowers was when she and granddaddy celebrated their fiftieth anniversary and the neighbors and family filled their small living room with endless pots of Hydrangea.
There is no picture of my flowers, but there is, somewhere, a picture of my grandparents, sitting on a couch surrounded by pots and pots of Hydrangea, looking a bit lost.
I'd like to think that my flowers made granny happier than all the pots of polite Hydrangeas.

Now this is one way to get a heart attack.
It takes a lot to get me out of the house, but one surefire thing is when I run out of my cheap wine.
And today I was out, so I got in my car and went to town.
Wrong.
Today is the day of our Senora De Guadalupe, and the Mexicans take that very seriously, so many roads downtown were closed for traffic to facilitate easy access and egress from the churches.
Total mayhem, but I made it to the store, fully expecting more mayhem, only to find the store almost empty.
Terrific, I thought, and sped around filling my cart with all kinds of stuff according to my list, and hauled it to the check out and watched the numbers soar, as the nimble fingered checkout lady added up all my purchases.
And then I dug into my bag for my card and...............no card.
My heart was palpitating, my pulse was racing and my face was flushing beet red...
no card...stolen, lost, gone, not here, and I had nowhere near enough cash to pay for my stuff.
What to do????
So I stammered to the nimble fingered checkout lady that I had to run to my car to look for my card, an off I took.
It was there; it had slipped out of the bag and was sitting on the seat.
Finding the card and paying for the groceries made the miserable trip home worth it.
Besides, I now have a supply of cheap wine, and that is very important.

So I decided to clean the deck in front of my bedroom. All through the rainy season the tiles accumulate a nasty greenish black mold, and so I thought, miguidedly it turned out, that now would be a good time to clean it.
What in my mind should be a simple task, slushing a few buckets of water and squish the broom around a bit, turned into a major undertaking, cleaning the area one tile at a time.
There are in excess of 360 12x12 tiles ( I counted ) and the only way to really clean them is getting down on the knees with a scrub brush and a bucket of water with ammonia.
I got two thirds done before my knees and back finally gave up and so, heck, two thirds are better than nothing at all.
When I get my gumption back, I shall finish the job.
Till then I will enjoy the cleaned part and ignore the other.

One can rent just about anything, but what I need most is not rentable.
I need support, kick in the ass sort of support.
I have been at the stores umpteen times looking for a new fridge, and I have left the stores umpteen times emptyhanded.
I get to the point where I try to hail the shop assistant and whip out my card and I am so very ready...I think...and think again and then I put the card back and trundle out of the store san fridge.
Now if somebody, rented or otherwise, would stop me and make me make up my mind, I would now be the happy owner of a new fridge, instead of a frustrated member of humanity who needs the final push.
Somebody willing out there ? A short trip to the store, a big kick in the behind.
Anyone ?
I can offer warn beer and endless thanks.