Today Sam (our maniacal dog) ATE one of my brand new Teva flip flops! Freshly imported from the U.S., I had had them shipped to my mom who then lugged them down here when she visited a few weeks ago.

I’m pretty neurotic about shoes. I’m not into the fashion of them too much, but I want them to be good quality, I want them to be comfortable, and I don’t want to overpay. Every single pair of flip flops I’ve seen in Mexico is cheap and uncomfortable OR wildly overpriced while being of suspect quality.

Meanwhile my last pair of Teva flip flops lasted me more than 9 years, including 3 years of near-constant use. And I paid only $20 usd for them. When the strap finally wore through on them a month ago I actually broke down and cried!

Naturally I wanted to repeated this success story.

But these new flip flops seem to taste too good, they were doomed from the start, in fact I should have just fed them to the dog, on purpose, and saved myself all this grief.

Sam has been sneaking away with one or the other of these flip flops since I got them. But normally I am right on top of things and rescue my shoe before more than a few holes are punched into it by those razors he calls his teeth.

But not today, today I had my US phone line, my local phone line and my cell phone all ringing at once, all while I was chatting with one of my fast-typing friends in Messenger. It was pure chaos and every phone call was important.

I didn’t even notice the flip flop was missing until he’d been chomping away at it for more than 10 minutes.

Now my flip flop has a huge bite taken out of the heel. Now it looks like the only surviving wreckage after a vicious shark attack. That dog will be the death of me, and especially of my flip flops. I might add that I cannot FIND said bitten out part, I’m quite certain it’s inside Sam’s tummy right now! And I wish him much indigestion for his fine effort, the little wretch…

I wonder if Teva will give me a discount on a new pair if I complain they made them taste too good?

Please, Teva, please, make me a pair of flip flops that tastes like something my dog will hate, broccoli or lentils or oranges, or medicine, he hates all those things. Just don’t make them taste like cat shit, because he LOVES to eat cat shit!

Life in flip flop land is depressing with no flip flops, I’m telling you, I don’t know how I’m going to force myself out of bed in the morning.

Moopie in the Window

Sam Upside Down

People have been asking for a recent photo of Sam. So here it is. Mr. Heart of Gold. Certainly the sweetest creature to walk the earth, after my last dog, Jasmin, who was also the sweetest creature to walk the earth. Sammikins, Sam the Man, Sammy Double Whammy. Poor Sam, who needs a walk right now, but I sit here blogging about him…

Sam

Sam is learning not to climb on our bed, which is always home to several napping felines. He’s learning not to sleep on the couch, which doesn’t need anymore animal odors in it. He’s learning that my daughter is the softy in the house, that she will always give a treat, will always welcome him to sack out on her bed. He’s learning the rhythms in the house, he’s learning how to sneak cat food when no one’s looking and he’s learning not to fuck with the cats. And we are learning his signals. Since he barely barks it’s hard to know when he needs to go out. But we are all getting it.

We have a friend who is an animal trainer. And we are considering asking her to help train him, and to train us too. Since we have a bilingual household the dog gets yelled at in two languages. I’m actually thinking that training him with hand signals might be best. Then the words won’t matter so much, and the hand signal will reinforce the word. I will let you know how that goes. But for now he’s a happy dog and we feel honored to have him living with us.

You’ve got one guess what we named the dog. After much deliberation (not) and several false starts (Johnny, Jack, Persephone?) we’ve decided to stick with Sam. It fits his gentle nature, and we all agree on it so we have a winner.

Sam did finally bark. I’ve heard him bark now 3 times, once when he was lonely in the yard, and twice when he got stuck outside in the rain. He’s also getting comfortable with the cats, which is another way of saying that he thinks they are toys and that it’s just a matter of time before one of them gives him a good what-for scratching.

We’ve taken Sam to walk on the beach twice. Both times we’ve gone to the beach along the north side of Cancun, the one that runs along in front of where Puerto Cancun and Residencial La Playa are being built. The pictures below are from that beach.

Sam on the Beach

Sam hasn’t been interested in the water yet. But he’s very interested in the wildlife we’ve seen, the horse (and rider), the stray dogs, the pelicans, the frigate birds, and various other birds I can’t name. He’d better enjoy them all now because once those two developments are completed I don’t think he’ll see much besides people along in there. Well, the frigate birds will probably stick around, I’ve noticed that they seem to like to ride thermals above hotels. So they may take to all the concrete behemoths that are being built out there.

View from the beach at Puerto Cancun and Residencial La Playa

I’m actually impressed with how nice that beach is. Being kind of a beach snob I prefer the beaches out on the long side of Cancun’s 7, the east side. Those beaches are very exposed to the ocean and get bigger waves. And the color of the water there is magical. But this north beach is protected by Isla Mujeres, and so gets smaller waves. And there’s some sea weed there, which darkens the water. But there’s still something magical about the beach there. And the view is quite nice, you can get some perspective on Cancun’s Hotel Zone from there. I imagine we’ll keep walking there as long as we can find easy access with the dog. Once it’s all built up I’m sure the dog will be banished, just the way he is from the other beaches in Cancun which all have no dog rules.

Sam with his Frisbee

Sam also loves playing frisbee. He’s got that bring-it-back-and-usually-let-go instinct. He goes like a bat out of hell and races around, kicking sand up in a storm. And then suddenly he’s tired, and then you have to go pick the stupid frisbee up yourself.

The vet came by last night, made a house-call to help us catch up with cat shots. She had the results of a test on Sam’s skin problems. She says it’s an infection and he just needs a round of antibiotics. She also suggested that we may as well take off the huevos now, since he’ll need an antibiotic after that. This way he’ll only need the drugs once. And maybe losing his manhood will keep the little bugger from getting horny every time I pet him!

Cancun is full of street dogs. Anyone who comes here and doesn’t see homeless dogs didn’t see Cancun.

One issue which contributes to the problem is something that Mexico Way mentioned in her most recent post (about Diesel’s one remaining testicle), and that is that many people here do not spay or neuter their animals. If the animal is female they seem to want to let her have at least one litter before putting a stop to things. And if it’s a male they seem to feel it’s insulting to the dog to snip it’s huevos off. So the problem of homeless dogs is made worse because most of the dogs running around are fertile, whether they have an owner or not.

Ever since our Jasmin doggie died, a little more than a year ago, we’ve been thinking about when we might rescue a street dog. We’ve gone back and forth about it. Wanting it but not being ready to have to walk someone all the time. We’ve enjoyed the lack of barking, the lack of hair all over the house and the lack of responsibility. And we’ve also worried that our cats might not put up too well with a dog in the house again.

But lately we’ve been talking seriously about getting a dog. My husband has come home several times and has described seeing street dogs who wouldn’t give him the time of day, even though he called them. And each time my daughter and I have seen dogs in the street as we drive around we’ve commented, and have felt pulled.

But today school got out early. And I forgot all about it. And I left late to go get my daughter. And then the car failed; it blew one of it’s 4 ignition coils which means one of the spark plugs wasn’t working, so it was running on 3 cylinders. Basically I got halfway to the school and decided I couldn’t drive like that, it was too awful. So I called hubby who came and, guessing the problem, brought a spare ignition coil (this car has done this before).

While he was fixing my car I took his car and went to get the kid. And on the way back she and I saw the puppy. I’d seen it the other day. It’s black with a little brown on the head. It’s living near her school with mom and several other dogs. We kept driving, past the puppy, but decided to call hubby (who had fixed the car already) and ask him to come see it.

But when we all arrived at the last known location of the puppy he was nowhere in sight. I think he was in the bushes. Mom and the rest of the gang were there, but puppy was gone. But as we were driving away another dog came along and got itself attacked by the little gang of dogs. And my husband, who was ahead of me, put on the flashers and pulled over to go see this new dog.

It took all of about 30 seconds for the three of us to decide this was the dog. He’s just a Mexican street dog, and is kind of nondescript. But he’s got the sweetest personality I’ve ever seen in a dog. He’s just a total love.

So we had to bicker for a few minutes about who would take how much responsibility for him. And then it was decided and he was in the car with us.

Nameless Doggie Sleeping

The first thing we did for him was to feed him a proper meal of cat food mixed with a can of tuna fish (that’s what we’ve got, want some?). And the second thing was to give him a bath because he was one stinky dog; fortunately we still had a big bottle of flea and tick shampoo. After that he got walked over to the vet who gave him a shot and fretted over him a bit. And then he came home to hang around appreciating our fawning over him.

He is showing his nature to be entirely loving, though sometimes nervous. And he has yet to bark, I mean it, he has not barked ONCE since noon today when we found him. We even checked to make sure he had a tongue in there. I’ve never seen a dog who was so quiet.

Our next adventure will be trying to find a name we can all agree on. Hubby is calling him “Johnny” which does not come close to representing this dog’s nature imho. My daughter’s been calling him Jed, and Zeus and Persephone (!). I’ve looked up the various names of Greek, Roman, Aztec, Mayan and Egyptian gods but have yet to find the right one. I like the name Jupiter, but it doesn’t shorten well (“hey Jupe, come here”, ick). I also like Seth (Egyptian god of wind). And the name Jake seems to fit too. But in this family I think it will take something like a miracle for all of us to agree on just one name. We’ll see and I’ll keep you posted.

For now I’m calling him “Doggie”.

Busy, busy. Well I started the New Year SWEARING right and left I would take weekends off. Well, except for the first one, and the second one, and here I am working the weekend again. But I am finally catching up on all the work that’s been outstanding, so that’s a very good thing. And I am planning to take a day off during the week, so that will help me keep my balance.

The other thing I swore I would do when the year started was to eat more green vegetables, and I am managing that. Today I had spinach and tortellini for lunch and chased it with fresh carrot juice. So at least I’m getting the nutrition side of things right, for now, so far…

As I’ve mentioned previously I lucked out and got given both Lost season 1 and season 2 for Christmas. And I polished off season 1 in about 10 days. But season 2 is taking a little longer. And unfortunately my husband is now getting addicted to them also. Which means that I can’t watch any more episodes unless he’s present (huff, huff).

The last episode we watched was the one in which Michael killed Ana Lucia and shot Libby and wounded himself to make it look like not-Henry Gale did it during his escape. Oh the drama, all those buff people running through the jungle all the time, chased by polar bears and Others wearing fake beards, gambling for mangoes, pushing that stupid button all the time…what a great show.

Oh and I’ve been having these little pangs of guilt lately. I keep seeing things that are really beautiful and not having my camera there to capture them. The not having the camera part is where the guilt comes from.

The other day I was stretching before my morning run and I saw a whole series of perfectly round spider webs in a bamboo tree, they were all right next to each other, touching each other. The flies didn’t stand a chance. But the way the light hit the webs was simply magical, they just sparkled.

Then I looked up and the air was filled with butterflies. And these weren’t our normal little yellow flitty butterflies. They were huge butterflies, each as big as my hand (with fingers outstretched). And they were a soft blue color on top with a soft yellow underneath. I was just dying from camera deprivation. But it was captivating and so precious. Like a little fluttering gift of beauty from the universe.

But I am proud to say that I did manage to capture a few nice pix today. These first two are the reason I couldn’t make my bed when I got out of it this morning.

Moopie being Moopie

My Lilah

And this last one was shot while I was meeting a client in the hotel zone today…and yes, I did notice that I work in paradise.

The beach in front of the Bay View Grand, Cancun

Well there’s not much more to say. I’ve been doing some painting around the house and should go do some now before I lose all my daylight.

Oh, I’m a bad girl, blogging in the middle of the day, morning, whatever. I never let myself do it, but I’m edgy and need to vent before I can focus on work.

So it is me? Or are a lot of people grumpy lately? I went to the International Women’s Club of Cancun meeting on Saturday and what started as a very pleasant meeting degraded into pretty much a cat fight. Things “needed to be said”, whatever, there were “issues” that needed to be talked about, whatever, save it for a board meeting! That club does excellent work and I’ve made some of my best friends EVER EVER there, but this last meeting was tedious and I was not happy about how it went. I do hope that there can be some changes to how meetings are managed which will insure that everyone plays nice.

And then my favorite online place, the CancunCare.com Forum has been seeing its share of little spats lately. Steve and the mods there are handling it all beautifully, but I’m kind of stunned by how grumpy everyone is. I’m sure it will pass quickly since that crowd is usually quite tolerant but still I just want to tell everyone to lighten up.

And even the cats are jumpy, I’ve already broken up two fights today alone. It must be the stars, maybe we’re having some kind of massive Mars Transit? Or maybe it’s in the air? El Niño perhaps? Or is it the post Holiday blues? Perhaps? Likely? Everyone is probably grumpy because they just got their credit card bill with all their Holiday spending on it. That must be it, it’s credit card guilt grumpiness. Well, whatever it is I hope people get over it.

In spite of the grumpiness I must also say that several of my close friends have reached out to me recently with truly caring and deeply insightful things to say. And I really appreciate that. So even if the rest of the world is grumping around I know who my friends are!

Ok, enough, now…to work.

I have this cat who purrs when you kiss the top of her head. If you try petting with your hands her you risk blood and pain but if you kiss the top of her head she will purr every time.

This cat was hit by a car last summer, while I was off gallivanting around the great state of Oregon. Miraculously, she survived without a broken bone, but one of her rear leg’s tendons was not so lucky. She is now missing the tendon along the back of her right rear leg and that means she cannot walk normally, since she cannot get up on her rear paw the way a normal cat walks. Instead she effectively walks on her elbow, which has no paw pad, and so it’s always kind of raw. And I think that this cat is always in a bit of pain because of this.

We’ve tried various remedies and bandages to solve this cat’s problem but nothing, so far, has worked. We will keep trying. But in the mean time she has become the Alpha cat in our house, dominating all the other 8 cats; she dictates who eats from which plate, who can sit on her windowsills and who gets the most attention from the humans in this house.

I found this cat when she was scarcely 2 months old. She was starving and she was purring. Back then you could pet her all you wanted. But I think that constant pain makes one bitter, pain has a way of making life so hard that nothing but a kiss on the top of the head will fix you. My poor Lilah. It is my solemn wish that we find a way to help her live a pain-free life. Maybe then she won’t feel the need to be such a dominant bitch.

Just before I awoke this morning I was having this weird dream in which I was holding one of my cats, Rudy, and he was covered in garapatas (ticks) and half the fur on his back was missing. I was out at some big mall, located at the top of a very large concrete skateboard park which ran down a big hill, and I found Rudy wandering by and decided that he needed to come home and get healed before I would let him out again. [In real life we have trouble keeping Rudy in the house, he’s always escaping.]

As I’m walking, cradling Rudy in my arms, back to my car I pass some people who are making a movie. They are almost done filming and need only to shoot the last scene. The main characters are 3 assassins or maybe they are terrorists. They’ve been killing specific people for the good of some “cause” which is not clear to me.

In the final scene the target they need to kill is one of their own, the only woman on their little team. The woman is standing in front of a concrete wall by herself. They trick the her into holding two items in her hands which help to guide an incoming missile. Then they blow her head off with the missile, and without moving the camera position they immediately roll the credits right in the blood stain on the wall. It was cinematically perfect, and horrific. And now I know for a fact that I dream in color because the wall was an ochre/yellow color and the blood was bloody.

I’m sure you all think I’m nuts for dreaming this. Normally I don’t remember my dreams and when I do they are boring, even to me. But once in a while I dream about movies being made and those are always my most interesting and vivid dreams. I think that I’m so practical that even in my dreams extraordinary things only happen in the movies.

But the real reason I wanted to blog this morning was not to tell you about my sicko dream, it was to tell you how I got woken up.

I was lying on my right side, with my head on the edge of my pillow. Another of my cats, named Ariel (after Shakespeare’s character in the Tempest), was lying ON my pillow with me. She had her spine up against the back of my head. Then she started scratching her neck with her hind leg; with her spine still pressing up against my head. So every time she scratched herself she bumped up against my head. I woke up with someone bonking me on the back of the head! Maybe THAT’S why I remembered my dream!? Now I know the secret.

Oh and by the way I DO know that Shakespeare’s Ariel was male, but my Ariel is female. When I got Ariel from the Humane Society her name was Oreo, and I couldn’t handle having a cat with such an undignified name. But I didn’t want to change the sound of her name too much, lest I confuse her. Ariel worked as a name, it was similar-sounding enough to Oreo, and it fit her flightly and devilish personality.

My hope is that this will be the first in a series of posts which introduce my cats. At the moment we have 9 of the critters relying on us for food, shots and sometimes shelter.

This first cat, is actually the last one we acquired. Her name is Moopy, and she’s a mostly indoor cat. My daughter will tell you that she has a longer name, which is supposed to serve to give the cat some dignity. But this cat’s name is Moopy, though occasionally she gets called Moopita, or Moopilita.

Her “dignified” name, if I can remember it right, is Anna Maria Koshkoko Loca. Koshkoko being the Mayan word for coconut (I think), and Loca meaning crazy (female) in Spanish.

Moopy is my daughter’s cat. She came to us at about 3 months old. And when my husband found her, on our property, she had a broken hip. We have no idea how she busted her hip. But when we found her her back right leg was just hanging limply.

And she was also filthy. Here’s a pic taken right after we found her, before we cleaned her up and before her surgery, you can see that she couldn’t bend her busted leg:

The vet decided this cat needed a pin put in her hip. But for some reason, that I cannot now remember, the vet couldn’t actually do the surgery right away. So the poor kitty spent a number of days with her busted leg before she got the attention she needed.

As you can imagine this cat need a lot of taking care of. And my daughter did a great job of that. She kept the cat in her room for several months so she could recover without the stress of dealing with the other 8 cats. In the end the pin actually worked it’s way out on it’s own. It was creepy when it popped out. But we could tell the cat was fine by then and the vet was pleased with her healing.

Young beings can recover from anything. Within a couple of weeks of popping her pin out this cat was racing around the house, and is still far and away the fastest cat in the house.

Here’s a photo of a clean healthy Moopy making sure my clothes have enough cat hair on them:

Moopy suffers from a real desire to be an alpha cat, but, being the last one to come live with us she has no seniority at all. Poor girl. So she takes out her aggressions on us people, keeping us in line with gentle little bites and swats. Moopy often comes to hang out with me when I’m working. She will announce her presence by coming up behind me, reaching up and clawing at the edge of my chair-seat and having a good stretch. Then she will hang out just beyond my reach and talk, mrrow, mrrow. She always wants something. But I don’t always figure out what. If she talks too much I grab hold of her and force a little petting on her until she’s sure to be sick of it. After that she will usually shut up.

Moopy specializes in sleeping in weird positions, as evidenced here:

And I had many similarly strange photos to choose from. She’s a weird cat. And something about breaking her hip at a young age has made it so she does funny things with her pelvis and her legs when she sleeps. Still, she gets the award in this house for being the cutest cat.

She’s also the most intelligent cat we have. She will seek someone out to feed her when she’s hungry, while the other cats just sit by their bowls and whine. And Moopy works hard to open doors, fortunately she has so far not managed to actually open one, but this is a matter of time. And when it’s time each morning for me to wake up the monster-teenager that is my daughter Moopy takes charge and enters the my daughter’s room mrrping and meowing loudly.

On cue, Moopy has just come over to me and licked my hand. Now she’s lying just out of reach looking at me.