So who needs a cat?
This morning a couple of the dogs were sniffing around one of the cabinets and I got a bit nervous since one never knows what animal might be lurking and exciting the mutts.
With the help of a flashlight I saw that it was a mouse hiding behind the cabinet and I relaxed. Mice are pretty smart critters and good survivors.
So I put it out of my mind and went about my daily doings till I heard a scuttle and checked out the cause.
The mouse had taken a chance trying to escape and Priscilla had caught it. I know because she was prancing around the house with the mouse in her mouth, the little tail hanging down on one side.
And she took her trophy outside where she eventually got bored with it and left it for the other mutts to play with.
It ended up on my front steps, guarded by one of the mutts. A small, wet and very dead rodent.
So who needs cats when the dogs will kill rodents just as well.

This being the "season" and all, and having Flemming tell me about all the great things he is going to cook for a Christmas get-together, I decided that I too had to something special.
I wanted to make a liver pate.
I have nor done one for years, so now was as good a time as any.
And so I went to the store and bought stuff for the pate
anchovies...very special for the pate...check
onions, garlic, cream, butter...check, check and check
it was not until I was on my way back to Mismaloya that I realized
I had forgot to buy liver.
You cannot make liver pate without liver
you can, however, postpone the event till you get your manure together and your shopping list in order.
Until then, no pate.
Senior moments may be funny to others; they are not funny to seniors.

This month it has been 11 years since Chuck and I moved in to this house, and for 11 years I have disliked the dining room chairs, but they were Chuck's choice, so for a long time after his death, I did nothing to change them.
In the meantime I have gotten a new table, and the chairs are even more disagreeable.
And then I thought........paint the suckers.
They are not made of precious wood, in fact they are made from cheap pine, and they are what is known here in Mexico as " rustico ".
So I started to paint them.
And now I can stand them.
I still don't really like them but with the paint, I can stand them.
Such a simple thing; should have done this a long time ago. And before the termites got to them.
Ah well; so I am a bit slow, but I do muddle on. Like with the chairs. One at a time.

It is Thanksgiving and I wondered, as I am sure do millions of others today, what to give thanks for.
I was standing in my kitchen when I was having these heavy thoughts, helped no doubt by a bottle ( ! ) of red wine given to me by Kathy and James.
What to be thankful for ?
And I looked at my dining table where I had placed a bouquet of bougainvillea that I had picked this morning and thought:
This is what I am thankful for.
That I am still able to pick flowers
that I live in a place where on the 25th of November I can pick them
and that I still appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of these simple things
for that I am thankful
and to be able to share this with my friends and family who read my blog.
Happy Thanksgiving.

I am not old.
Compared to Methuselah who lived to be..it is said..969 years, I am a spring chick.
And yet.
Limbs are not working the way they used to
and the mind is definitely not.
But the problem is that the mind seems to be growing older at a much slower pace than the body, or maybe it just seems that way.
Maybe, cleverly the mind is fooling you to think that you can still think in a young way when all you do is make a silly fool of yourself.
Getting old is not fun at all.

I had already made the meatloaf, so I wondered what to make to go with it aside from the ever useful potatoes.
Beans, I thought. I am going to make a pot of beans.
I live in Mexico where beans is as important a part of the daily menu as is pizza to norte americanos, our brethren north of the border.
Beans.
I rinsed out my bean pot and dumped a bag of beans into it, added water and thought...wow..maybe I overdid the amount.
Never mind.
I started the process and now I have a pot of beans and enough to feed a small family.
I shall have to freeze some and that is fine too. I have come across recipes ( mostly for chile con carne) calling for cans of beans. All I have to do is to dig some bag of beans out of the freezer and use that. Simple.
And I do like beans. Seriously.

When Sara, who has never been to this house, visited me I grandly announced to her that I was living in 'genteel squalor' with thousands of dollars worth of art on the walls but covers on the sofa and chairs because the worthless ones insist on using them for anything ranging from eating mini cocos ( a messy business ) to a safe place to throw up after eating grass.
I refuse to refinish the covers on the couch and chairs for sure as shit, like when I mop the floors, the worthless ones will take that as an invite to do their business.
So I live in genteel squalor and I hate it.
But the worthless ones are happy.