What's Shaking

Mexican wrestling masks for sale (made popular by Nacho Libre)

I decided to wait until my next post to show you pictures of the Mayan archeological ruins at Coba and snorkeling with the turtles at Akumal Bay to catch you up on life.  This week:

- We ended up spending an evening in emergency at the hospital.  Hubby was experiencing some pain and it is often better to be safe than sorry when you reach midlife.  Without getting into details everything is fine and we were out of there two hours afterwards.  Our hospital is extremely old and it must be very difficult for medical professionals to work in such cramped aged surroundings.  Fortunately, our new hospital is being built as we speak and is only 2 km away from our home.  I have no problem paying taxes towards the new hospital as we definitely need it.  Sometimes people gripe about things like that - and then they end up in ER. It was an eye-opening experience. 

Day of the Dead decoration seen at Coba, Mexico

- Wednesday morning I was standing at my kitchen window and looked up to see racoon staring back at me.  He was climbing around on my neighbors roof.  Two crows were after him chasing him around - it happened to be garbage day and the crows were upset that someone else was after the street garbage as that is their domain.  Fortunately, Buddy was in the house as racoons can hurt dogs if driven to defend themselves.  We have a lot of wildlife on Vancouver Island - on any given day I see numerous bald eagles, deer, humming birds, and now racoons.  Just another reason why I love living here.  And no, he did not get into my garbage, thank goodness.

- We went to a Pet Expo on Saturday and came home with about $40 in free goody bags(treats, food, toys, doo doo bags) for Buddy and $20 worth of free cat stuff for my Mom's senior cat.  The event was free and we learned a few things, definitely worth attending.  I love freebies and we both want to go again next year as Buddy loved the event too - he got to meet lots of new friendly dogs. 

- I cat sat for my Mom over the weekend.  Her cat is 16 years old and experiencing some health issues and since she is an extreme loner who doesn't like other animals that meant me sleeping over there.  Fortunately we only live 2 blocks away so this didn't interrupt life too much.  While I was there I guerrilla-cleaned my Mom's condo including giving her floors and kitchen a good scrub.  Mom was grateful that she could go away without worrying about her cat and loved coming home to a clean house.

- We went kayaking yesterday, this time on the Punteledge river that goes out to the Ocean.  It is not a fast river this time of year and we had a lovely peaceful afternoon watching Kingfisher birds and enjoying the water.  We have had some extremely hot weather but there were just enough clouds that we didn't fry in the sun out there.  I am so glad we bought kayaks as now we can go for as long as we want whenever we want.  We even discovered a pub right on the river that we can kayak to and have a bite then kayak back, which we plan on doing the next time we kayak in the evening.  There is a dock and there were several kayaks there from people doing just that - one of those secrets only locals know. We have been here 3 years now so I guess we now can call ourselves locals.

Tourist shop at Coba, Mexico

- Our computer antivirus program was expiring and I couldn't renew it online.  It turns out they changed the name of the program.  In the end, it was cheaper to buy in a local store (66% off) than it was to buy directly from the antivirus people online.  It pays to shop around for everything.  Five minutes of research often saves us money.  In this case we have antivirus for five computers/tablets for $40 including tax for one year and online it would have been $70 for three computers.  I love saving money, even when it is a business expense.

- While we were away wasps built a nest on the side of the house.  Hubby tried to remove it and got stung twice.  The next day Buddy (puppy) got stung on the paw in the back yard.  We have tried natural wasp control this year by buying a device that you put apple juice in the bottom to drown them,  it looks just like a wasp nest.  It only kills one or two a day.  In the end we ended up blasting them with wasp killer.  I hate using chemicals but as we are out in the yard with Buddy several times a day it was extremely necessary.  On the upside Buddy does not appear to be allergic to stings.  He held his little foot up for the next hour and then took a long nap.  After that he was fine.  Apparently it is safe to give dogs Benedryl in this situation so I am going to buy some liquid Benedryl to have on hand if it happens again.

So that is what is shaking in my little corner of the world.  Have a great week everyone!