One of those 10-different-sounds-of-varying-annoyance car alarms went off at 5.15am outside our house for ever and after stuffing bog roll in me ears, cowering under the pillow and trying to think of lyrics to fit with it, I called the police for the first time ever in the states. They eventually investigated with their walkie-talkies at about the same volume as the alarm, prodded the car for 10 minutes or so, then called a tow-truck to come and shift the car, which duly reversed up the road beeping as it went then at around 7am, beautiful silence. I had lovely dreams and called in to work that i’d be late… Sita’n’me went to dine at Malabar, santa cruz’s premier sri lankan vegetarian restaurant, since i’m off for a bit and why not celebrate?
So last night after a lovely meal at Maggie’s pub-restaurant (Fish & Chips x 4 & surf’n’turf for the record) frequented by all the local ex-pat Catholic pedagogic population, Martin innocently commented that he didn’t think the headlights were on. Next minute, neither was the dashboard or radio or the engine. This sounded grimly familiar as the same scenario happened to me on the way to a conference in Berkeley before all kinds of alternator-related fun. Everyone jumped out and I started pushing the car along Imperial Highway in me flipflops. Not ideal footware for motorway maintenance, and true to form they broke and fell off along the way. Sally & Sita are lifelong AAA (the America AA) members so they were soon on the blower to get towed. After 2 hours, multiple phonecalls, one police incident (ask Sally- on her new email address, kilcarsally (at) hotmail.com) and one member of the party going AWOL on the buses later and we got back to Downey, where I got hiccups again. Hiccups resurfaced at regular intervals in my sleep. Sita had to decamp in the middle of the night as the bed was shaking too much from them. Anyroad, today is the day of packing before the big off.
I went to check on our dear little rodents in the back garden and was delighted to discover that they’re back in touch with their lapine instincts of burrowing. Klem was nowhere to be seen, Lulu (gordito that he is) was halfway through the hole and the dog was running around enjoying the mayhem. I sent Atticus indoors, yelled ‘Jailbreak’ to Sarita and we put the emergency plan into action. Klem was hiding under the cage, Lulu was still digging, I scooped Lulu up and threw him back into the cage. Sarita cuddled Klem (klem’s not big on cuddles) to scold him and then he got locked up too. I’ll have to work out how to implement the new security features in their run. Maybe an ID card scheme. Or face recognition technology at the back yard gate… anyroad, wandering back to the kitchen, Atticus is gallivanting about Dalen St. but luckily comes when he’s called… So for now, bunnies are are locked up tightly, we’re not really packed, Atticus is contained, Martin’s off alternator & battery shopping and all’s quiet again for a minute or two. Give or take some yard sales on the road. Glad the minor disasters are happening before we set off rather than after, that’s fer sure.
Phone calls to blighty’s next on the list. As I keep mentioning, get yerselves on skype. Octagenatian and Nonagenarian relatives are excepted…
This is Merlin the comatose rabbit, his story is in an earlier entry. Apparently he was saved from being snake food as a young buck, so he missed out on all the educational toys and attention that Klem and Lulu got. Anyroad, we sucked in the pub quiz the other night and walked out halfway through leaving our quiz sheet with another team… Dr.Jeckyl’s first name? the ZIP code for Iowa? How many bulls in a Spanish bull fight? We didn’t stay for the answers, but I think google might know. We went from abject failure in the quiz to one of the only scrabble games with no words longer than 4 letters. Dismal. Hey ho. Friday was nice, we were celebrating/commiserating my boss, Joop’s moving on to bigger and better things and had a couple of swift pints with the team (all in matching PAPAS T-shirts) before going home to see Sita and go to Ciao Bella to celebrate our anniversary. Photos shortly. Today we’re off to Sudarat’s for breakfast and stuff, there should be quite a crowd there. anyroad, that’s all fer now, cheersy.
CassetteIt’s early days (got the gig this morning) and no links work just yet but, check out Guadalajara’s new WaterJet webpage for all your titanium, kevlar and teflon cutting needs. I almost completely buggered up ordering the domain name. I spelt it wrong then had to call the help line to get them to change it to what I meant to put. They were great support, though, especially since it was my fault. Really. If you’re after hosting and domains, you could do a lot worse than Siteground.
Thanks, Roberta, for adding yerself to the guestmap. Can’t say I share your feelings about L.A. though, but to each their own…
Tonight, possibly pool. Possibly not. Depends how I get on with various projects… Thought I’d blog summink today just to reassure people about the Hurricane John non-event round these parts. All’s copacetic thanks for asking. And if it does rain, I’ve now rigged up a siphon/hosepipe system on the roof to stop it rotting through and attracting pondlife to the top floors of the house. Righty, back to the chamba (word of the week: Mexican Slang for work, from Chambear to work)
So last night after a lovely meal at 
