Awwww, I thought; Look at that. This thing that I at first thought was a dust ball on my bedroom floor--not an uncommon thing--turned out to be a baby mouse, a mousita, so young that it had not even opened its eyes.
AWWW, I thought again.
And then I realized that this little helpless thing would in a very few weeks be a big mouse and be searching for food in the kitchen at night and eating holes in t-shirts in my closet plus all the disasters I have not discovered yet.
So I gently placed it on a dustpan and tipped it out in the jungle.

I am not sure it pays to be nice.
Somehow some of the mutts had grown a bit weary of the usual fare, so I thought, to spruce up the kibbles a bit, I would add to their food a can of dog food i had inherited from The Bennetts.
Great and unqualified success, in fact so great a success that the mutts would attack whatever bowl I was scooping the canned food into which was not at all what I had in mind, so I told them to get back to their own bowls where I would give them their fair share forthwith.
Not being terribly bright to begin with they all got very confused and one clumsily stepped in her bowl, knocked it over and broke it into many pieces, food scattered all over the kitchen floor.
And then they all disappeared, leaving me to clean up the mess.
Had I yelled at them, had I been strict I would have an easier time with this mess. As it is I tried to be nice, to give them a special treat.
Well that stops this for a while. No more Mr. Good Person. They can eat their kibbles without any extra or not eat at all.

I am so proud of my country, said Alicia Alonso in an interview on CNN, I am so proud of my small country, Cuba.
How small, I wondered, is Cuba?
Well, not that small as it turns out. All the Scandinavian countries are smaller than Cuba but she probably sees it against the towering neighbor of USA, and compared to that, yes Cuba is small.
I enjoyed the interview but I have to say that as much as I admire her as an artist, as a dancer, she does not come across as a very nice person.
Ah well, at 91 I guess she has a right to be unpleasant, only I have feeling she was that way before she hit this venerable age.

A birthday cake.
I had a dream about making a birthday cake. And not just any old birthday cake. MY birthday cake, the one I am going to enjoy a month from now. Never too early to get prepared, I guess.
The choices as I remember were between a plain cake cut into layers and my fancy Queen Mother Cake, also cut into layers with filling.
My mother was the uncontested champion of birthday cakes, Danish style. Wonder who, if any, has taken up the mantle in the old country or if by now, as with so many things, one just makes a trip to the supermarket and buys one. Pre-decorated and ready to eat.
I don't think they will ever taste the same as the ones made by a mother or sibling.

I was bemoaning the fact that by reading the news on the computer you miss the feeling of the massive amount of paper that used to be one of the things that spelled : Sunday.
That and in the old country, freshly baked bread from the local bakery.
Sure, it has been many years since I bought a Sunday paper and it does seem that the writers of the blogs and the ones putting the regular news on the web, are all taking the commandment to heart, the one that says
Kom hviledagen i hu at du holder den hellig
And I have no idea where this came from. This is the commandment that tells you to honor the sabbath, only I can remember it in my native language.
I did not go to a religious school, nor did we have more than cursory instruction in bible knowledge, but somehow this bit got lodged in my memory some sixty years ago and is still there.
I admit that I had to look up the ten commandments and none others are that clear to me.
Funny things, minds. They sure can play tricks on you.
And all this because I was missing the heft and joy of the Sunday paper. And maybe more so now that Sundays seem so long.

And now for a bit of good news.
I have been moaning about the massive amount of newly erected speed bumps on the way to Vallarta, even in places where there was absolutely no call for them, such as the entrance to Lomas del Pacifico.
This morning when I went to town I noticed to my delight that the bumps had been removed, as had the set further down the street and, miracle of miracle, the hateful bumps protecting the entrance to a gated community, rarely used.
All gone. And what a joy and even greater joy since from now on I do not have to listen to the great big trucks go crashing into the ones at my entrance in the middle of the night, since they never got around to put up a warning sign.
Some are still there, to be sure. Some even make sense, but right now I am thrilled that so many of them are gone. Good stuff.
I might even go to town more often now. Nahhh. Best not overdo this.

This was a nightmare. A true nightmare. I dreamed I was wrapped in some sort of shroud, tightly, and I was fighting mightily to get free. In the meantime a body was pressing against me in the dark, making the struggle more difficult.
I screamed for help, but my voice was gone.
I fought and fought and finally made it to the surface of my conscientiousness and woke up.
I was all wrapped up in my bedding and Priscilla the mutt was dead asleep next to me, making it impossible to move.
It took me some minutes to get my manure together and bedding straightened out and move the immovable mutt to a corner where she could continue her deep, drug like sleep.
I do not like nightmares.

I hate getting old.
So what if you get a bit smarter--if that really happens
it does not make up for all the other deficiencies, the dropping of things, the not remembering dropping things, the absolute certainty that the new little age spot is really melanoma, just waiting to grow wild.
I hate getting old. I hate having pains in the morning when you wake up, the time you should be feeling your best after a good night's sleep
Yeah Right
Nights are either full of weird and crazy dreams or fighting buzzing insects that are not taking swipes for "NO" but will pursue you and your sweet blood all night
and nights are full of mutts feeling they have to defend their territory by barking incessantly and loudly at anything that moves outside
nights
nights were supposed to be a time to rest and get ready for another day
Well, I gotta tell you. That is hogwash when you get to be a certain age. Sleep eludes you, logic escapes you and bodily functions wreak havoc with your night.
I hate getting old.

And so I was cleaning another tell-tale pile of termite dust and since this was following my epic rodents vs. dogfood fight I was beginning to feel very un-wanted.
Wait, I said to self.
Wait and think. Try and see it in a different light. Like being wanted, being wanted by the termites to provide all the delicious wooden furniture for them to eat
wanted by the rodents to provide doggie food bags to rip, garlic to steal ( yes, they steal my garlic ) and all the other stuff in the kitchen, not to forget the tissues and paper towels with which to make nests
wanted by the ants to plant and provide flowers and shrub and trees for them to strip when they feel like it
wanted by the mosquitoes and the nasty no-see-ums to provide gallons and gallons of good blood for them to eat
so, yes, I guess I am wanted, just not quite the way I would like to be.

It had to happen.
it was only a matter of time for the roaming and rapacious rodents to find the sack of dog food that I keep in a cabinet. They've found it.
They are eating holes in what I thought was pretty impregnable plastic, neat and meticulously chewed half moon shaped pieces of plastic are--were--littering the cabinet and mixing with the food.
This is war, and I rinsed out a couple of big paint buckets with very tight lids, filled them with the pellets and sealed them. See if they can chew through that stuff.
And I wish they would stop stealing the garlic. Whoever heard of garlic eating rodents, except maybe in Italy. But mine seem to like the garlic and the used tea bags too. They are either very hungry or very sophisticated. Either way, I wish they would stop.
And I am sorry to report the the Worthless Ones are paying absolutely no attention to the goings on with the rodents. But let a nocturnal animal rustle a few leaves outside during the night and they will end up in a lather.
Silly mutts.