When I lived in New York I sported, according to the times, rather longish hair.
At one point I also sported a rakish goatee---I have one now, but it is neither rakish nor new, merely hiding sagging chin and wrinkles--and so, when once I was negotiating for some wonderful plates of costumes in a small and out-of-the-way bookstore in the east village, the woman I was dealing with stopped short, looked at me and let out a yell, screaming:
Herman, will you come here, right now. This guy looks just like Jesus Christ.
I got my plates.
And she got the thrill of seeing someone she thought looked like J.C.
A win win situation.

I normally feed the mutts around four in the afternoon...like a late lunch or an early dinner...and giving them time to digest their food before the all important nap through the night.
And I sort of got into the habit of pouring myself a glass of wine watching the mutts scuffle down their kibbles.
Now, due to the cold weather ( for us ) the mutts are demanding their dinner earlier and I have complied.
I have also poured myself the first glass of wine earlier, watching the mutts scuffle down their kibbles.
So I want everybody to know that this is a nice thing done by the mutts. A very nice thing indeed.
I don't feel guilty starting drinking this early because the mutts made me do it.
See ?

One of the bonuses of baking, aside form the fact that you get freshly baked whatever, is the smell.
Few things are as comforting as the delicious smells emanating from the oven when you are baking, unless of course you have rodents nesting in and below the stove.
I do.
So the other day when I was expecting sweet scented airs from my apple galette in the oven, I got the nasty smell of roasted rodent nests and rodent kaka, and I swore yet again that I would do something about the problem. Something. Soon.
It didn't, I am happy to report, interfere with the taste of the galette but it did deprive me of the joy of smelling baking apples in the oven.
This is war now.
No more rodents in the oven. Basta.

To A dead Chachalaca

The Chachalaca is a turkey looking bird who, when in company with other chachalacas will make the most goshawful racket, and many times I have been mildly annoyed at them for having a party in a tree close to the house.
Noisy buggers, they.
When checking on the car in the garage, I found a very dead and torn up chachalaca and I felt a bit of remorse for my bad thoughts.
Some nocturnal predator had caught this bird and done a messy job of getting to its vitals with feathers scattered far and wide. One sad and torn up bird which I threw into the jungle, feathers and all.
Next day all that was left was a few of the feathers.
Now I am listening for the chatter of the chachalacas, wanting to hear that they have not given up on me and my surrounding trees.
So far nothing.

They did it again.
I was gone for a while, getting a new supply of dog food and when I returned I found that one of the mutts had thrown up on my bed. Again.
Big deal, you might say. Clean it up and be done with this, you might day.
And that would be the case if it had not been sitting on my bed for hours, seeping through the cover to the blanket to the top sheet to the bottom sheet to the mattress cover and ultimately to the mattress.
A mess.
And so I hauled all the sheets and blanket and cover off the bed and out in the sun to dry, only I was not about to wrestle the mattress out, so it had to dry out all by itself, inside.
Why, I wonder, do the mutts do this to me?
I am fighting my way in hideous traffic to get to the store to buy them food, and the reward is this.
Some thanks.
I long for the days of the Schnauzers and my beloved Scottie.
They never did this.
Never.
They might have chewed up some books and such things, but they never threw up on my bed.
There. Breeding will tell.

As any parent or guardian of young souls, human or canine knows, silence may be the precursor for disaster, so when after a lengthy and annoying barking fit the mutts suddenly turned silent, my 'disaster antenna' went up and I went to check on the suddenly very quiet mutts.
They had cornered a possum and Priscilla had it by its neck and with absolute concentration and a will, was killing it.
And that was the eerie part of the spectacle...the silence. For once the mutts were quiet, even they who were not involved in the act. Just a lot of heavy breathing.
As possums go this was not a very big one, more like an over sized rat, but all the same it was a kill and my usually docile and friendly Priscilla had turned into a killer.
She wanted to parade the kill but that was just a step too far, so I swept it up on a dustpan and threw it out in the jungle.
The mutts have all forgotten about the possum kill, but I must admit that I, the big boss man, look at Priscilla in a slightly different way. The utter ruthlessness of the kill has made me ponder.......who next?

I was feeling despondent and restless, so I decided to check some old emails and found one from 2005 where I talk about the appearance of Priscilla and how she entered my life.
It was a long mail and sent to various people, many of whom are now gone.
And I wondered if it was read, if it gave these folks a few moments of --I don't know--joy, or just entertainment, something.
I have no replies to the mail so I have no idea what transpired.
I do know that I got something out of my system and what better way to do that but to share with others.
Like this.
And unlike emails, this is definitely a one way street, no replies required.
2005....wow, that is along time.

When it gets cold here in Vallarta..cold for me that is...I rummage through my closet to find my long sleeved shirts to wear over my ever present and much loved and much washed t-shirt.
The problem is that I have not replenished my shirt supply for a very long time, in fact not since I stopped going back to the US of A.
And that is a long time ago.
And I wonder
what will give out first
I.....or my dwindling supply of long sleeved shirts

Today I spent a goodly amount of time fixing one of the shirts, turning the collar ( I bet you did not know one could do that ) and fixing other problems, all the time thinking that by doing this I might just brace the race a bit.
Besides, being inherently cheap, it made me feel good saving money not buying a new shirt.
Happy New Year.

This morning the clock on the micro wave oven told me that there had been a black-out during the night and that I needed to reset it.
Nothing new in that. It happens all the time.
What was new was that I could not remember how to reset the clock.
I do it regularly and don't even think about the procedure anymore
till this morning where I stood in front of the oven staring at it
and nothing. Blank.
Eventually I got the clock reset but it was unsettling.
Is this what I have to look forward to ?
or was this caused by a miserable night and not yet functioning brain cells so early in the morning.
I hope that is the case.
The other option does not bear considering.