My biggest kitten challenge

Splash & Spyder

Don't they look sweet? But looks can be deceiving. These 2 boys are from a litter of 4, all absolutely feral! Feral to the point where Spyder bit me when I took him out of his cage, both of them hissed and spat and Splash scratched me when I tried to catch him. Although I was supposed to give them medication, in the end I just decided to leave them to their own devices until they were ready. They did venture out from under the lounge but bolted if they saw me. After 4 days I finally got close enough to take a photo. It was on the 6th or 7th that I finally managed to catch them to give them their meds, but they still weren't happy.

From the start they were inquisitive - here they are checking out what's on top of the coffee table - before they were big enough to jump up and see.
They love to play and will chase a plastic bag or a piece of fabric for ages. They adore the cardboard tube from inside a roll of toilet paper.
Then just as suddenly, they'd be gone, back to bed. At the beginning, the eat, play, sleep cycle was more sleep than anything else. Now it's more play, but they do still have lots of naps.

 Their latest trick is suckling on their green furry bed. Both paws up and kneading the bed while they each suck on a piece of the furry side. It's very cute and obviously makes them feel good.
I can pick them up now and they don't struggle to get down, and sometimes when they are resting in their bed and I stroke them, they even purr! They have come so far from the savage creatures they were just 2 weeks ago, and I'm sure they will find good homes, hopefully together as they are very close.

Golf Para Todos

I spent a delightful Sunday with 3 mexican friends at Golf For All, which is a free event organised by the Mayakoba Golf Club which holds the PGA Mayakoba Classic every February.

Golf is not a popular activity for most mexicans, so they hope by running these to spark some interest, even for people to come and watch the event.

Me trying to Putt

Registration was first, where I was given my Frequent Golfer card. It gives me discounts at many restaurants, cheap movie tickets and a free pass to watch the Mayakoba classic. Then to the food stalls, where 3 local restaurants had prepared some samples. First we had a delicious ceviche, then some creamy spinach with toast, and salsa with corn chips. Drinks (non-alcoholic) were free, and we sat down to devour our mini-feast.

Me with Don P Lota

Then on to the activities. There was a group lesson, or individual coaching for those who knew a bit about golf, activities for children, putting, chipping and a team challenge. Well of course The Paradise Chicks had to enter - but of the required 11 challenges we only managed to achieve 8 before another team won. Oh well, winning is not everything!
At the end there was a raffle, and both Carla and her mum won prizes.

By that time we were all hungry again, so we drove to AguaChiles and had seafood tacos and more ceviche. After that we needed a coffee, so we went to the Mega Supermarket which has a small cafe, and we did some shopping too.


The Paradise Chicks - Alexa, Lynne, Carla & Carla

All in all, it was a delightful girls' day out, I spoke Spanish almost all day, discovered a new restaurant and even bought a new painting for home.

New work agreement

It's obvious that the developer's supervisor Martin isn't doing a good job at all, and I'm sick of this all hanging over my head and working to their schedule.

A neighbour passed on her handyman's details, so I contacted the developer about the remaining work on my list of defects and suggested that I get a quote for the lot and submit to to him for approval, then co-ordinate the work myself.

He agreed. I then asked him to put it in writing that he would reimburse me if I pay for the work, as most workers here expect cash and are not willing to submit an invoice  and wait for payment sometime in the future. Yes, he agreed to that too.

So I can call Jose today and go over the whole condo with him to make a list, then he will organise his men and get the work done. With a bit of luck and maybe another week, the condo will be perfect. I do have a 12-month window in which to have any defects repaired, but I'm aware that while I have the engineer working and agreeing, it's best to get it all done now, as he may not be so agreeable in 10 months' time.

HEADLINE - Australian woman sent crazy by renovations!

Ah yes, it's been a fun few weeks. I told you that the tile removal had started at a, well, not exactly cracking pace. And so it continued for 2 weeks, the worker spending at least as much time resting as working. In his defence it was heavy work smashing up the tiles and lugging them downstairs to dump them. I asked repeatedly for assistance for him, but it never eventuated, and I think he preferred to drag it out and get paid for 10 days instead of 4.

Fine for him, but I was getting very frustrated being captive at home, missing yoga classes I'd already paid for. Every time I asked for a morning off I got the puppy dog face and was told that he'd have to work somewhere else in the morning otherwise he wouldn't get the whole day's pay. I held my tongue instead of saying Not My Problem. My bedroom was the worst of all, with more than half the tiles drummy. By the Friday afternoon, he had started to relay them and it looked like the work would be finished on Monday.

I set the alarm to ensure I was ready to let him in at 8.30, but 9am came, 9.30, and around 10 the supervisor Martin arrived with another man. Apparently the 1st guy said he wasn't coming back, demanding to be paid for food, travel and accommodation, so this guy had to lay about 20 tiles, grout and cleanup. Martin showed him where to start, the door was closed and work continued. The painter was also there that day repainting all the ceilings and every time I sat down he seemed to want to work right there, so I let them both work. There did seem to be a lot of dust, but it's been an ongoing dust battle for more than 2 weeks, so I didn't think more of it. A bit after 5, the supervisor returned, went into the bedroom and told the worker to clean up, they left shortly after.

I went in to have a look, feeling relief that it was all over. I opened the door and was hit with a cloud of red dust. EVERYTHING in the room was covered in red dust! The tiler had decided to be lazy and had cut all the tiles with an electric cutter, inside the bedroom instead of going outside as he should have. This is my own bedroom where all my clothes and personal items not to mention my linen  - everything coated in a film of red dust. I looked up - the ceiling fan, the air con, even the light globes had a layer of dust.

But, incredibly it got worse when I looked down. The tiles had been laid crooked, there were large grout gaps on one side and then nothing on the other, and at least half had been relaid still hollow! At this point I went ballistic and phoned Martin to tell him I would NOT accept this work, and he'd better get someone who KNEW what he was doing to fix up this mess, and I wanted the room totally repainted and cleaned.

The next day, when I'm still coughing dust, he brings what he calls the "technico". He checks it out, they get new tiles and he and his assistant get to work. Within 6 hours they had removed all the tiles, relaid them and grouted them and cleaned up ready to go! Had Martin brought these guys at the start it would have taken 2 days to do the whole house instead of 2 1/2 weeks! Ay Ay Ay!
The painter returned the next day and repainted the bedroom, he washed the walls too and then helped me carry the bed back there. On the surface it looked good, but as soon as I started the ceiling fan another film of dust descended.
By this time I was coughing a lot and had a sore throat so I toddled off to the doctor. He listened to my lungs and was concerned, he said it was infected. He gave me antibiotics, something for the lungs, an anti-histamine and a pain killer, and told me to come back in 4 days.
I told Martin that I was sick because of all the dust, and that the work needed to be suspended for the time being until I had recovered.
In the meantime I continued cleaning - remove the light bulbs to clean the dust, wipe over all the closet shelves and floor, the top of the air con, clean the filters. I had to wash each one of my shoes, and everything in my jewellery box. I woke regularly every hour at night to cough and blow my nose.
I returned to the doctor on Friday, feeling a bit better, and that was his diagnosis too - I find you a little better. But he asked me to return again on Monday and thinks I will need more antibiotics. I had my first full night sleep without coughing last night so I think I'm finally on the mend.

Interesting retirement activity?

I have it on very good authority that there is a box (are boxes?) of willies in the Brit Mus (and/or p'raps the Ashmolean and quite probably many other museums as well). They were removed in Victorian times, for propriety's sake. Sadly, no-one had had the time to re-attach those which are not very easily identifiable (I believe most were not labelled).

Now, there's a PhD project for someone! :-))

Read more: http://forum.virtualtourist.com/discussion-573905-1-1-Miscellaneous-0-0-World-discussion.html#ixzz1XHTUi0lF

This interesting snippet came from a travel forum of which I'm a member - Virtual Tourist. Another member suggested it might make a very interesting activity for retired art academics. Can you imagine walking around the museum with your box of private parts, trying each against a statue to find the perfect fit? When you found one, whipping out your tube of superglue and then holding the part firmly to its owner while it dries? Maybe then finding that the superglue has "oozed" and your hand is now stuck firmly to a penis and/or statue?
I think this would make a MOST interesting project for someone. Just, please, don't let it be someone like Mr Bean, or who knows what parts the statues might end up with.

Any takers?

Work starts on my condo

Finally, the developer has done what he is supposed to by law, and sent a worker to repair the defects in my condo. They told me he'd be here at 10am but the doorbell went at precisely 8.25am. I was awake but still in bed and considering what the day held and had to jump up and get dressed in a hurry.

I had sent the list of problems to the developer at least 6 times, not to mention the times the RE agent had sent it. So when the workman arrived I asked did he have the list? No, senora. Have you seen the list? No, senora. Ay ay ay, I wonder why I bothered. Oh well, come in and I'll fire up the laptop and then walk you around.

It turns out that this guy is a general handyman and tile specialist. He speaks the usual lazy spanish from this part of Mexico where the words come out fast and slurred, the letter "s" is mostly dropped, and there's little intonation. Which means I understand very little of what he says. Fortunately he seems to understand my spanish very well, so that's a bonus. So I take him around the condo tapping tiles to show him which ones sound hollow. He agrees they have been badly laid, using only glue without a solid cement base, and not enough glue at that.
Eventually he decides to start in the loungeroom with a hammer and chisel. He has to remove not only the tile but the badly-done glue underneath. It's an excruciatingly slow job and a cloud of dust settles over the condo. With sign language I suggest a jackhammer would be a lot quicker, perhaps he could hire one? Come to think of it I have never seen a tool hire place here. All the tools would no doubt get stolen pretty quickly, it probably wouldn't pay to run this business.
I ask if he has someone to help him, I thought I heard him mention a boy? No, he says, they won't pay for it, he has to do it all himself. I know that construction workers get paid no more than 200 pesos a day (about $A16), so surely it makes more sense to pay him and his labourer than to drag it out with him only?
Although he starts strongly, it isn't long before he's flagging. The temp here is still somewhere around 30 and the humidity at least 60%. He finishes 6 tiles in the dining room and moves to the front bedroom. He removes 3 tiles from the balcony, and then another 3 in the bedroom, but he now seems to be spending more time sitting and resting than he does hammering. When I walked past he was holding his back - this doesn't augur well.
I do feel sorry for him, it's back-breaking work. And he has to take the broken tiles downstairs and they are not light!
He then asks if he can sleep somewhere in the building as he lives in Cancun. I tell him I don't have the keys to any other apartments.  I don't say it but I don't intend to offer hospitality to a man I don't know from a bar of soap. This is starting to sound like the other guy the RE agent sent, who kept complaining that he was hungry and wanted me to give him money for food.
I jump on the laptop and send an email to the developer. This is crazy, I tell him, at this pace it will take a month just to get the tiling done. Surely letting him bring his labourer will speed things up for both of us, it makes sense to get this over and done with. And I really have better things to do that sit around at home for weeks. I don't intend to give up a month of yoga classes I have already paid for.

So far, no response. Stay tuned. I know this is Mexico and I need to have patienza, but for a month???

The Story of Aunt Martina

Martina was well into her 80s when one day she called her local priest to come and talk with her. “My doctor told me today that I have a serious heart problem and have no more than 6 months to live” she told him.

“Perhaps we can get a second opinion?” he offered.
“No need, my body tells me that it’s time, I just need to know I can count on you to do some things when the time comes”.
“Of course, what would you have me do?” he replied.

“Before they close the lid on my coffin, I want you to place two things in my hands. In the left hand, my mother’s Bible that has travelled always with me, and in my right hand I want you to put this“, handing him a fork from an ancient cutlery set.
“Pardon, Martina” said the priest, “a fork? What a strange request. Can you tell me why you want to take this fork to your grave?”
“I was hoping you’d ask, Father” she replied. “You see there’s a story about this fork. Take a seat and I’ll tell you”.

When they were both comfortably seated, she continued. “When I was a child, we were very poor and didn’t have enough money for grand meals. But on special occasions my mother and her sisters would manage to pool their resources to make something special. On those days, when they cleared the plates from the meal, they would tell us “Keep your forks, kids”.
For us this had one marvellous meaning - there was a special dessert coming. Not just jelly or flan, but maybe Aunt Emma’s exquisite chocolate cake or Mother’s delicious apple and raspberry tart.
When someone told us to hold onto our forks, we knew that the best was to come.

And this is exactly what I want you to share with the others who will be there remembering good moments they shared with this old woman.
Some of them will ask you why I am holding a fork, and that’s when you will tell them my story, so that they all understand that I wanted to be prepared. Because I know that the best - the dessert of this wonderful banquet that was my life - is still to come.