I just found a web site called the Happy Planet Index. It provides an interesting measure of how satisfied people are with their lives. I wholeheartedly disagree with their rankings of some countries as being happier than others.

But when I took their survey to calculate my own Happy Planet Index (HPI) I was impressed with the questions, because those ARE the questions whose answers do indicate how happy I am. The link to the survey is below, and from it you can figure out how to find the map and the rest of the site, I’m sure. By the way my HPI is 59.7, which is higher than the average person living in Mexico.

• Calculate Your HPI

Dear Sam, My Lovely Dog –
Thank you for coming into my life and teaching me that:

– Dogs don’t need to actually eat dog food, in fact dogs can subsist on nothing for days, or on cat food, or on Cheerios, or raisin bran, or chick peas, or tamales with hot chiles in them, or on licking the front (outside) door of the oven (the clean part), but truly, there’s no need for me to buy dog food because it won’t get touched. Ever.

– And that the cats need to be taunted until they scratch your nose, every time. There’s no actual need to leave them alone when they hiss at you just once. It’s better if you bark at them and lunge at them for 15 whole minutes in a row, while they are hissing at you, that way they get plenty of time to aim right at your nose so they don’t miss when they finally do scratch it. And just because there are 9 of them and just one of you, and just because they ALWAYS win, that’s still no reason to back down. None at all.

– And that dogs don’t need to be walked because why on earth would you want to pee anywhere but INSIDE your own yard? Even though the grass is getting all yellow where you always pee on it, and even though we would love it very much if you would just pee on the nasty neighbor’s car tires, you insist on peeing in your own grass, in your own spot, because that’s the way it’s done. I mean really.

– And that cars were made for dog naps, that every time I open my car door to get out you HAVE to get inside the car and lie down. I now know that if someone leaves their car window open you are likely to jump inside and stay there until they drive off with you in the car. At least then you might pee somewhere besides your one yellowed-grass spot, right?

– And Sam, thanks for teaching me that it’s possible to want to please someone so much that it hurts. You are often so deliriously happy to see us, when we return from our journeys, that you crash and trip and step on us and run into things and even almost knock us over, all because you love us. You must be full of bruises from all that love, you poor guy.

– And thanks for teaching me, and anyone in earshot, what a great toy a plastic bottle is. I never knew one could occupy your time for that many hours, and I never knew that a plastic bottle, when chased and chewed on and batted about could be THAT LOUD! I mean really. Really.

– And thanks for teaching us your best trick ever, that trick you use when you need to go outside (you KNOW you need to, your spot is calling) but instead you LIE down and show us your belly. This forces one of us to either pick you up, 34 pounds of dead weight, OR we have to try to scoot, roll or drag you out the door in your lying down position. Why can’t you just WANT to go outside, like a normal dog?

– And mostly, thanks for teaching me that there’s so much LOVE in the universe. I truly had no idea that it was just packed this full of love; just like that raisin bran you love to eat is packed full of added vitamins and minerals, right?

Love, Mom

Well, Sam the man, the damn perro loco, the lovely sweet crazy dog managed to rip a huge gash in his hip. We’ve hunted all over our property and can’t determine on-what he impaled himself in such a dramatic way. But I came back from my run one morning, a bit over a week ago, and found him with a deep 3-inch long wound.

I took him to Adriana-the-Wonder-Vet, and she knocked him out and put in 2 internal stitches and 4 external ones. Everything was fine for 4 days. Then, one-by-one, Sam ripped those stitches out. And there we were, back to open gross icky wound again.

And so back to Adriana he went. And this time she needed to cut away more skin, so it would properly knit itself together, meaning the wound got BIGGER (dumb dog). And then, insult of insults, Adriana issued strict orders that Sam must (drum roll please) wear an ELIZABETHAN COLLAR for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Gak!

So now the wild and crazy guy, Mr. Discombobulated, Sir Chaos Boy, Mr. Bucket-Head himself, the Royal Racing Reverse Conehead careens headlong around the house wearing his upside-down lampshade, crashing into EVERY SINGLE corner, wall, windowsill, chair, table and being that dares to remain in his willy nilly path.

It’s pure lunacy.

That is, when he’s not completely sad and depressed by his new found stature as a walking light fixture sans bulb, as in this photo:

Poor Sam The Bucket-Headed

Earlier today my husband decided he would wash my very, very dirty car. But then he got miffed at me and decided not to. And shortly after that I left to go shopping with my daughter.

It’s a good thing he didn’t bother to wash the car.

My daughter and I ended up at Costco late this afternoon, and when we left the store we found that a car was on fire in the parking lot (not our car fortunately). We came along a few minutes after the real action, I think. What we saw was that some Costco employees and some passersby had just finished spraying this car down with fire extinguishers.

Here are some photos showing what went down after we arrived:

This is what we saw when we exited the Costco store; the air was filled with a mixture of billowing smoke and fire extinguisher dust. It was very stinky.

Next, some brave souls donned gloves and tried in vain to open the hood.

Then the Bomberos showed up with their big red truck (love the big red truck).

Fortunately the Bomberos also brought a 5 foot long pry bar, which they immediately used to open the hood of the Jetta. You can tell from this fireman’s jacket that Cancun’s fire department uses donated equipment (it says Contra Costa County on it, that’s in California folks).

Once the Bomberos got the hood open they proceeded to spray the motor area with water for at least 5 minutes.

There was a big uprising of flames when they first popped open the hood of the car. But the Bomberos got right on it and sprayed it down.

I looked around, through the crowd, to see if I could ID the owner of this poor wreck of a Jetta. And I think I spotted him, he was the only person who seemed concerned rather than interested. The rest of us in the crowd were gawking like there was no tomorrow, but that poor owner was thinking about whether his insurance was going to pay for this mess that used to be a shiny red VW Jetta. Poor guy.

About the time the firemen had sprayed the 400th gallon of water on that motor we got bored and left. Our car had been directly downwind of the burning car, but one row over. It was completely white with fire extinguisher dust.

Like I said, it’s a good thing my husband didn’t bother to wash my car earlier.

When I got home I washed the car myself. And as soon as I finished it started raining.

We took the dog over to run along the beach near Puerto Cancun the other day. The continued flattening out of nature is progressing there. There are now some huge rusty pipes laying on the beach. And we saw a few big earth moving machines there. But on a Sunday morning there it’s still tranquil. And, for now, it’s the closest beach to our house that we feel comfortable letting the dog loose on.

Puerto Cancun is a place of contrasts, right now, it’s peaceful and yet everywhere are signs of impending the development. Every time I go over there it’s different. Eventually my dog won’t be welcome there and I’ll probably stop going over there. Here are some pictures:

They have not chopped down every single tree, just most of them.

I spent 20 minutes photographing this heron, he wasn’t scared of my dog.

Some morning glories making their glory.

These two were just sitting there, seemingly watching the pile of earth in front of them. They seemed out of place to me, and yet looked perfectly at ease.

This is a shelter that someone was sleeping in, his feet were just inside the shadow area. I felt sick when I saw that someone was calling this home.

Another view of the Caribbean Sea, and another tree that hasn’t, yet, been cut down.