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.

Young Alan

My mother loved this photo of her first [ surviving] son.
Since this was taken before color photography was widely available, my mother sent this to be enlarged and colored.
On the back of the photo, she very carefully stated:
Light hair ( what hair ? )
Blue eyes
Red sweater
Blue trousers
White socks
size 18x24
I never liked this photo and never really connected with this guy, but it was always displayed as I grew up and maybe my mother saw something I have missed.
Bless her.

Unfairness

This time they really did it.
Whoever the leaf eaters in my garden are, they have now stripped my new plant totally.
All that is left are leafless spikes.
I checked the neighbors where I had " liberated " the plant, and the mother plant is full of leaves
but more devastating
it is also full of flowers, beautiful velvet like flowers, deep maroon.
And my plant does not even have a leaf.
Now this is unfair.

The Blackout

Another blackout, but this time it was daytime and furthermore, I had my new cellphone, so this is what happened when I called
Voice on phone : Can I help you ?
Me : I want to report that I have no electricity
Voice on phone : Where do you live ?
Me : Lomas del Pacifico, Mismaloya
Voice on phone : Mismaloya ?? just a minute
long pause
Voice on phone : and what is your address ?
I rattle off my address
longer pause
Voice on phone : You are Bennett ?
Me : No, I am the other one
Voice on phone : OH and you have no electricity ?
Me : NO, nothing....it is dead
Voice on phone : and your neighbors, are they out too ?
Me : Lady, it is raining here, I am not running out to check my neighbors, besides , I have very few of them and their houses are far away
Voice on phone : oh.. well....your complaint is number 470011
Me : and now what ?
Voice on phone : have a nice day and thank you for calling.
And three hours later the lights came back on.
Hallelujah.

Dupery.

I was duped.
At my supermarket they were displaying shelves of cookies in tins, the easily recognizable tins of royal blue or red with pictures of the delicious butter cookies, Danish butter cookies.
And with big lettering they announced
BUTTER COOKIES
and at a price that seemed quite reasonable.
So I bought one.
it turned out the price was not quite so attractive but worse, when I got home and tore the cello tape off to open the tin and taste the cookies, my favorite cookies, I was in for an even greater disappointment.
They were bad, no, they were very, very bad. Tasting stale and as if the makers had forgotten the main ingredient......butter.
So I put on my glasses and checked the tin carefully and, lo and behold, it never said DANISH butter cookies, in fact , in small, small print it said these cookies were made in Portugal.
If I were a Danish Cookie Maker, I would sue the pants off these folks in Portugal for absconding with and imitating the packaging of the famous butter cookies from Denmark.
I was duped by a look-alike product, and now I have to eat all these cookies.
Well, I could feed them to the dogs. They don't care if they are bad imitations.
They'll eat anything.

A Confession

I am a fraud, a wuss.
I keep ranting and raving about the destruction caused by the resident rodents, and saying that I am going to do something about it. Take charge and show them who the big, bad boss is.
yeah right.
The other day I opened a drawer in the kitchen, and there, in a four cup glass measuring cup, a baby mouse had gotten in, but could not get out.
An exquisite little thing, trying feebly to stretch to reach a hold on something to get out.
So here was my chance. Now I could show the world who is in charge and get rid of this mini rodent.
And I could not.
I tilted the cup so the little guy could get out, and when he was reluctant, I prodded him gently, only for him to try and hold on to my finger with tiny, tiny pink feet.
I lost this deal, I know. Now I cannot bluster and blunder about the rodents anymore.
I had my chance and I blew it.
We shall have to come to some symbiotic agreement, the rodents and I.

Friends in High Places

Uh oh, I thought. Here we go again.
I know the signs now, the darkening skies, the lightning and thunder and then the rain.
Another storm.
So I started to find and light the candles for the inevitable blackout, and was fumbling with the matches - Mexican matches are the worst in the world. Measly little things - when the skies opened up and the rains came blasting down and yes, the expected blackout.
I started my storm meanderings through the house when I noticed something different;
my neighbors on the other side of the valley, the ones with houses of nine or ten bedrooms, and who never have problems with the electricity, were out as well.
Black and not a light to be seen.
I admit to some unseemly schadenfreude.
And as I was indulging in this, walking back and forth, trying to reach The Company on my new cell phone to let them know we were without light, on came the lights.
It had been less than one hour and I never even got connected to The Company.
Last blackout, three days ago , we waited six hours for the reconnect.
It must be good to be rich and have friends in high places.