It starts so innocently

My Puertorican teenage cats wake up and start grooming each other...

Grooming, grooming...

Grooming, grooming....

When suddenly.... a fight erupts!

Fighting, fighting....

Fighting, fighting....

Taino Indians

Today's brunch meeting of the Mayaguez International Friendship Club was devoted to Puerto Rico's heritage: Taino Indians.

Sebastian Acosta from Cabo Rojo presents Taino Indian's culture

It was a double treat: Sebastian Acosta from Cabo Rojo, a devoted Taino culture enthusiast prepared an exhibition of Taino artifacts and gave a presentation on Taino's life and customs.

And a dance and music group Raices Sagradas brought the very sad Taino history to life playing and dancing it.

If you want to see a Raices Sagradas performance by yourself, you can: there will be two performances in Yauco on November 28 and 29.

No luck with the car... :-((((

Shock absorbers, fluid and coolant exchange... all of it is going to cost me today close to $900!!!
After I spent about $ 500 on it last month (starter, oil change, belts, air filter).
And it irks me that I have another car, waiting idle for me, on the mainland. :-((((

Boy, is life on this island expensive!!!! Sigh....

Hurra!

An early evening view from my balcony . The weather's fine!


I finely ( after 2 and a half month) got a cable TV and internet at my new place.

Long story: All utilities: electric, water, cable is in my landlady's name and she wants to keep it that way. She is a nice and wellmeaning lady, once you learn to know her, but she was absent most of the time and I had a lot of troubles to get in touch with her. Finally this month I decided to postpone paying rent until everything I needed fixed got fixed.

Looks like it worked almost like a charm: less than two weeks and I got a missing window screen, cable fixed, internet installed and a plumber is supposed to come later today. So now i can post some pictures of my new place - as it is now.

And here is the same view in the middle of the day. A boat is passing in front of Desecheo island. (Click to see the details)

My guests (Katrina and Disa) in an animated conversation one Saturday afternoon

Here is my kitchen
my living room...
with a good luck "goldfish" I once bought on Galveston island now hanging in a Puertorican net...

When I drag the table - and chairs - back inside from the balcony, they serve as a dining room/study.

Definitively minimalistic... save for the abundance of cats everywhere! Cats by the table...

Cats on the table...


Cats in front of the TV...
Cats in my recliner...

Cats in every corner...

Cats in cat beds...

Cats on top of the refrigerator...
Cats on top of the world... er.. on top of the stackable washer and dryer ...

Cats on the balcony...

...and all the cats in my bed! It's time to retire - they tell me: come on in, there is place for you, too! :-)

It's night already. Behind the bedroom window a silvery moon is reflecting in the sea...

I think I'll just move in to Sears

Auto Center. Due to all the time - and money - I spend there recently.

After all the maintenance and the purchase of an ultra expensive high performance starter motor ( as if I were a rally driver, lol), my car developed a ticking (coughing ?) noise every time I turn the motor on and turn a wheel. I have no idea what it is and the Sears mechanics did not mention that anything was wrong. Sigh.

So today I need to go there again and make them check it out. Wish me luck. Sigh.

A car and .... a machete

I have had a series of troubles with my car lately.

It served me without the slightest mishap since last December, when I bought it (save for a routine maintenance like oil chnges, new battery and tires) till October, when I had to replace its starter motor (and have been price gauged really, really bad) , got a flat tire and - upon changing oil - learned (from Sears) that besides the oil, I need to replace two belts, change all the fluids and the coolant, air filter and something - all in all over $300 - again!

But yesterday my car trouble was my own fault entirely: I left my car keys in the lock. I was going to atted meeting yesterday afternoon and found out the keys were inside.

So I asked one of the coworkers, Joel, a really thoroughly talented guy, what should I do, and he threw his arms in the air, but then laughed, asked me to wait and in a moment ... emerged with a machete.

I have seen machete used to cut grass, vines, pumpkins, but I had no idea how easy it is to open a car door with a machete. Merely seconds!

I was impressed by Joel's abilities, greatful for his help... but from now on I'd rather not leave anything of value (like my laptop) in the car, knowing anybody with a machete can open it at any time within seconds.

Not that a guy with a machete would not be conspicuous on a parking lot of a mall, for example ;-)

A little knowledge of Spanish can be dangerous...

...to your expectations.

These are enchiladas, right? At least to someone familiar with Mexican cuisine.

Well, last Thursday I took a coworker to a lobster dinner and could not make up my mind how I wanted my lobster, since I have had almost any variation of it in that particular restaurant, El Galloway in Boqueron, where lobster is always "just right".
But I haven't tried lobster enchiladas, so I ordered them (or so I thought) expecting something like above. A succulent lobster meat wrapped in a tortilla, with some sauce, cheese and sour cream on top.

Boy, was I in a wrong country. Lobster enchilada in PR is something else entirely. Care to guess what? (hint: it looks like the dish in the photo below)

And what is the dish in the photo above? Gazpacho, right?
At least that would be gazpacho in Spain.
In Puerto Rico a gazpacho is .... a salted fish salad.
Something I really like, but not when I expected a gazpacho of the Spanish variety.

But this culinary linguistic confusion is not limited to Puerto Rico. After all a Spanish tortilla and a Mexican tortilla are two very different things, as well. :-)