I suppose it could be worse.

I suppose.

Today Sam got hit by a car. He’s ok. He was lucky. It only tumbled him about 50 times. It didn’t smoosh him or squish him or pop any internal organs (that we know of) or any of that fatal crap. But it scared us. And we knew it would happen sometime because he can be unpredictable when you allow him to get off the leash. And the last three days, with all this rain, he’s been trapped inside with no walks. So he was all wound up and very excited to run around like a maniac. Which he did.

So he got tumbled by a car, and now we are on smooshed internal organ watch (no evidence yet) and we are giving him an anti-inflammatory for all his many bruises and we need to keep his road rash clean.

It’s clear the poor dog feels like shit. And my hope is that he does learn that being near cars can make one feel like shit, or worse. I hope he learns that.

I’ve just posted two new real estate listings on the Mexira Real Estate web site. Both are condos and are being sold fully furnished.

The first is a 3 bedroom for sale in Cancun’s hotel zone. It’s in Bay View Grand and is on the beach. It’s gorgeous inside, in fact each time I’ve been there I’ve had a fantasy about throwing a black tie cocktail party there. See: Bay View Grand Condo

The second condo is in Playa del Carmen. It’s got 2 bedrooms and is around the corner from Quinta Avenida (5th Ave.). The location is great and the condo has a lot of nice extras. See: Playa del Carmen Condo

Both of these condos are competitively priced, so that should make them relatively easy to sell.

Cancun is just a big puddle today. It’s been raining off and on, mostly on, for the last two days. Normally I love it when we get a break in our perpetual summertime-perfect weather. But when we get this much rain I do get sort of sick of being stuck in the house.

Sam, our dog, even peed in the house because he was so intimidated about going out in the rain. Of course his little plan back-fired because I threw him out on his butt and made him stay out in the rain for a good hour afterwards. The little brat!

And last night one of my inside cats, Lilah, snuck outside. She was hit by a car last year, and now has a permanent limp. So normally we do not let her out. But she got out between rainstorms and then flat-out refused to come in all night. I got up 3 or 4 times during the night to call her, but each time it was pouring and she refused to come out of her hiding spot and condescend to come into the house. The little other brat!

Finally at 6 am Lilah made her move, and I was able to get her to come inside. I hope she’s had her fun because she’s got a battle ahead of her if she wants to get outside again.

When there’s a break in the rain I open the windows (I hate closed windows). And then when the rain starts again I have to rush around and close whichever windows the water is suddenly pouring into. Yesterday I blew it with a window in the bedroom and the bed got completely soaked. Today I screwed up and soaked all the stuff sitting under the window in my office (a box of old broken computer parts, some cables and an out-of-date ASP 3.0 manual).

Once the rain passes it will be an adventure to see just how much the streets in Cancun have disintegrated. Every time we have heavy rain tire-eating potholes form in a flash, so with this much rain we should have some pretty seriously messed up roads. Ahh the joys of living in a 3rd world country with a tiny budget for road maintenance.

Here are some long-awaited photos of the street cat I rescued a couple of weeks ago. When I found her lying in the street she was so dirty that she could not hope to clean herself and she was listless from undernourishment.

We cleaned her up and have gotten her spayed, and she’s had her first round of shots. She’s had several weeks of eating regularly and of getting lots of attention. And now she’s strong and healthy and thinks everything is a toy!

This cat is tall and “leggy” and has a loooong tail.

We’ve gotten to know this kitty pretty well and she is one of the most loving cats I’ve ever known. She LOVES to be kissed, in fact smooching her is about the best and most sure way to get her to start purring.

This cat stares right at you, and her eyes are so pretty that you want to fall into them.

We’ve also noticed that this cat is STRONG and she’s a great jumper. She slim and a little tall and doesn’t have an imposing presence. She doesn’t look especially strong, but looks can be deceiving.

Purring – You can see she’s missing part of her left ear.

This kitty has been around the block. She’s already had a litter of kitties and can’t be more than a year old yet. She’s missing part of an ear. And her tail has a small and endearing little kink in it from some unknown trauma.

I absolutely hate to part with this cat, but I must find a home for her. So if you know of anyone who wants a loving and wonderful cat please let me know.

Ok, so I didn’t really GO to high school very much. In fact my high school career consisted of attending 9th grade and the second half of 10th grade. (I transcended the first half of 10th grade, thanks for asking.) Then I went to college (which, to be absolutely honest, saved me from running off to become a circus clown).

Somehow, I think by simply not being there for high school, I missed learning about a whole bunch of stuff which I think of as the “politics of female friendship”. The friends I had in my brief high school career were either male or serious intellectual females who didn’t fit into the regular high school population, and who didn’t have any idea about the “politics of female friendship” either.

Then when I got to college everyone was an intellectual, and the women there were so concerned with their studies and with issues like environmental destruction, or human rights abuses, or how idiotic the government was being, that they didn’t engage very much in the “politics of female friendship”.

After college I got involved in the male-dominated computer industry and started, or worked for, a series of small computer and internet-based companies. And the very few female friends I had then, for whatever reason, didn’t engage much in the “politics of female friendship”.

The result of all this is that I never learned how to navigate the tricky waters of things like what to do when one friend tells you that another one was saying nasty things about you behind your back. Or what to do when the secrets you tell one person come back to you from someone else.

Now, in one sense, I do know what to do, I should ignore it and keep my brain occupied with intellectual pursuits. Or I should turn my attention to simpler friendships (ones with men and with women who are too occupied for this stuff) where these issues don’t arise.

But since coming here to Cancun I’ve found that the closeness of the female ex-pat community can be my biggest comfort. Female ex-pats stick together and the women I’ve become close to here give me a sense of belonging that I’m not sure I’ve ever had before.

So I’m taking a crash course in the “politics of female friendship”, but I’m flunking! I’m flunking badly and I’m seriously considering dropping out of the class altogether.

A couple more quotes that amused me. I just love it when people play with the language like this. This one from my daughter, for no good reason:

Neither of them are if one of them isn’t.

And this one from the ex-Mrs. Rexroth in the movie “Intolerable Cruelty” (which is a witty and worthwhile Coen brothers’ movie):

I said I wouldn’t whilst I was, which implies no promise once I am.

Cancun is dead right now, there are almost no tourists here right now. And according to my airport spies there are barely any planes landing in Cancun these days. But I can tell that people are thinking about this area because just in the last few weeks the real estate business has really picked up significantly. We’ve been getting a lot of calls and serious inquiries from buyers in recent weeks and lots of sellers have been contacting us as well.

I’ve been given a number of listings for nice properties in just the last couple of weeks. I’m grateful that people have such faith in me. And I hope I can help them out by selling the properties for them. So far I only have one of my new listings up on the Mexira site. See: Home For Sale In El Table.

I’ve also got a listing coming along for a lovely 3 bedroom professionally decorated condo on the beach in the Hotel Zone, but it hasn’t been priced yet. More on that one next week. It’s a special property.

And I’m very excited to say that I’ve gotten a listing for a small boutique hotel located somewhere in the Riviera Maya, on the water. This one will be fun to sell.

In a previous life I worked for a business broker, so working on a hotel sale feels like going back to something I know well. In fact, I’m bringing in my old boss at the business brokerage to help me with the marketing package for this. She’s got over 20 years’ experience and I am excited to do a big deal with her. Plus, it gives her an excuse to come down and visit me (we are close friends).

Good things are happening. And we, in this house, are finally over the endless sinus infection, so everyone is feeling better. Yay.

I spent an hour today on this, may my clients forgive me this trespass:

—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—–
GAT/CA d- s: a C++++ U> P+> L—(+) E? W+++ N++ o- K?
w+++++ O—-(+) M–(+) V? PS+++ PE-(++) Y+(–) PGP t++@ 5++
X++ !R tv– b+++> DI++++ !D G– e++> h—- r+++ z+++++
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK——

If you have to ask…Google.

And I heard a couple of great quotes in recent days, I hope I can get them right:

This from a gringa friend on having a Mexican boyfriend/husband:

What is it about a Mexican man that makes you want to throw things at his head?

I only wish I knew.

And this one from another gringa:

“Did I tell you that I would be married to Eddie Vedder if my stupid ex-husband had only gone to happy hour?”

You and me both. My ex wouldn’t go to happy hour either.

It’s been a particularly hard week. There’s a sinus infection in this house that no one seems to be able to kick. So we all walk around suffering from that exploding-brain-tumor feeling, which can really make one quite grumpy.

But work-wise things go well. Real estate inquiries are picking up. And I’ve picked up several high-end real estate listings. And my web work is getting done, albeit too slowly for my taste. Now if I could just get that one old bitchy cat to quit throwing up all the time, and find a home for the new one, and get the kid to do some chores, well, then we’d be in business.

Oh, and I went to see the new Bourne movie, the Ultimatum one…and I just loved it! I just couldn’t get enough, it was like the best roller coaster I’ve ever been on. It was smart, and quick and unpredictable, but not hard to follow. It had one or two boring moments, and it had a typical ridiculous car chase scene, just to prove it was made by Hollywood. But Matt Damon was so good in it that I didn’t once even think “what a weenie”. I’m going to drag my kid to see it this weekend, maybe getting her out of the house will fix what ails her.

On Monday I walked past a parked car with two pairs of dirty kitty cat paws sticking out from under it. There was a cat lying under the car, it seemed to be in one piece, but it didn’t react to me when I talked to it.

Most of the time when I talk to a street cat it will either bolt and run quickly away or start meowing at me, begging for food. But this cat did not react to me at all. And that worried me.

So, fool that I am, I decided I was going to catch the cat. First, I casually mentioned to my husband (over the phone) that there was “this cat you see”. And when he gave me that knowing here-we-go-again “uh-huh” (as opposed to the “no more cats in the house” lecture) it strengthened my resolve to see what was what with this animal.

I dumped my purse and cell phone in the car and went back to where the cat was lying. I reached down and grabbed her and she tried to run, but she was too slow and weak and I was able to grab her easily. She spent a moment trying to convince me that she had claws and was actually ferocious, but it was just a ploy. She was weak and not very committed to fighting me off.

Once I held her I could see that she was absolutely filthy. In fact she was the DIRTIEST street cat I’ve ever picked up, and that’s saying a lot! So I decided that a bath was in her direct future.

I manhandled her into my car where she immediately start running in circles around the entire interior. During the drive she jumped from my left shoulder to the dashboard, ran across the dashboard and then to the back seat and back to my left shoulder AT LEAST 8 TIMES. Clearly this was a cat that had never been in a car before.

The good news is that this cat is basically healthy. She’s been malnourished for a while, and part of one of her ears is no longer there, and her tail has been broken, and she’s already had a litter of kittens even though she’s barely a year old, but besides all of that, she’s fine!

But the best thing about this cat? Once we got her home and fed and cleaned and pampered she became the sweetest and most loving cat I’ve even seen. She’s more affectionate than any of my other 9 cats have ever been! Most of my cats have been super-affectionate as kittens but by the time they reach a year they become uppity, picky, self-centered and hard-to-please. But not this new kitty, she’s managed to grow up with her heart wide open! She’s going to make someone a very nice companion.

We’ve just gotten her spayed. So she needs a couple of weeks with us before we can put her up for adoption, but soon I will be actively looking for a home for this most affectionate of all kitties!

And then, when I find her a home, I will start missing her! What a total love!

It’s still just Catergory 1, and it’s still 4 days away. But as one person I know said we are “in the cone of error”, meaning the damnable thing might just hit us. If it looks like we might get hit my pals and I will fire up the HurricaneCancun site again. But we are all hoping we won’t need to.