She Said...

And it seems that due to some whim of the universe, I've been acquiring more and more pets with every year that I complete.

A couple of years ago, when my beloved Kahlua, my Rottweiler companion of more than eleven years, died suddenly, Enya brought me a kitten she had found in the field. I published her picture at the time and asked my readers to find a name for her. Lucy of CuCu Cabana came up with Suzi CuCu and that's what we called her.

At this time last year, you may recall that Heather (who writes the Pet Tails column) posted a photo of a cute kitten. I ended up with her, and all her siblings.

Now my neighbor stopped me as I was walking down the street on December 31st, to show me a tiny puppy he had found in the bushes, nearly dead. It had obviously been thrown into the garbage heap by some insensitive being. Jon had rescued it, and bathed it -a few times- with anti-flea shampoo. Need I go on? We brought little Mo-Mo (short for Moses 'cause he was found in the bushes - there are no bulrushes in Mexico…) to the vet for his first vaccine and de-worming, and now he's exploring my place. The dogs seem to be accepting him, but the cats… ohmygoodness! Absolutely not!

Heather asked me how many furries I would have if I kept Mo-Mo. I told her, seven, six of which are "rescuees". She assured me that I was still within the "norm" for this town, but warned me not to cross the line like she and Silvia Alvarez did. I'll do my best, 'cause if I don’t I'll have to sell my place and move out into the country to accommodate all these loving little creatures.

That night, as we were sitting watching TV, with the puppy comfortably sleeping on my lap, on its back, with its four little paws in the air, my friend said, "Hey, take a look at this. Mo-Mo is a girl! She's a he!"

None of us had ever noticed the lack of any little appendage, not even the vet. He took me at my word when I told him "macho". So now, we can still call her Mo-Mo, but it will have to stand for something else, like maybe Mojit(a)… We all had a good laugh.

Other than the acquisition of a new family member, the past ten days have been akin to an eating binge for my house guests and myself. When they first arrived, we sat down and composed a list of the restaurants to which they wanted to return, and others they were not familiar with and wanted to try. So, we've ended up with a little of everything as of this writing: fabulous tamales from the various regions of Mexico at Maria Candelaria, a wonderful Mediterranean dinner at ViteA, another at Boca Bento, brunch at Johnny's Diner, Christmas at La Petite France for French, New Year's at Teatro Limon (see separate article / review in this issue), interspersed with lots of tacos and quesadillas at Memo's street stand, and we still have a few to go… Mama Dolores for brunch, Barcelona Tapas for Spanish, Hacienda Alemana Frankfurt for German, Espresso for Italian, Archie's Wok for Thai and Philippine, and of course, El Arrayan for Mexican. Whew! I won't have to eat again for another month.

We also ran to see "National Treasure 2" the day it opened at Cinepolis. Finally, we thought, a movie in English! Obviously, we weren't the only English-speaking folks yearning to go see a movie in a theater 'cause by the time we got there, that function was all sold out. We walked around the mall for three hours, had a dinner of sorts at Soriana, and got back to the theater in time to see the late show. Good, fun movie.

On New Year's Eve, we figured we'd leave Bruce's beautiful new restaurant early enough to go watch the fireworks from the terrace at some friends' home up on the hill, overlooking downtown. Although I really thought we'd done that, it turned out not to be early enough. The traffic coming into town was… how can I describe it? At a standstill. It looked as if everyone who ever owned a car was on his way to the street party along the Malecon and on Olas Altas on the South side of town. To make matters worse, folks had double- and triple-parked along the side streets.

In the end, we did get to enjoy some of the half-hour fireworks show around the bay, and especially the one organized by the City, so it wasn't all bad. Last year, we missed it completely, also because of the traffic.
A gentleman named Les Worley sent us a wonderful photo he took that night. I'm sorry that we cannot reproduce it in full color as his original, but I just want to share it with you anyway. What a great viewpoint he had! Thank you, sir.

The whole driving experience reminded me of the time we couldn't find a taxi on New Year's Eve a few years ago, and I ended up driving some out-of-town friends all the way back to their hotel in Nuevo Vallarta, and then driving back to the south side, alone, at 3:30 a.m. Amazing how totally empty the streets become at that time of night. The only other time I drove around, alone, at that time, was the night my daughter-in-law gave birth to my grandson.

Now I'm looking forward to see all the new shows lined up at the Santa Barbara Theater, especially the Return of the Phantom. I confess, I'm a Phantom "groupie". And the entire schedule looks like it's going to be just as great as it was in November and December.

Please don't forget to join us this Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Theater for our weekly Charity Night Bingo Game. Loads of fun, great prizes, all for a most worthy cause - all the proceeds go directly to the Refugio Infantil Santa Esperanza (R.I.S.E.) children's shelter. (And then you just have to walk down the stairs to see Sol's Return of the Phantom!)

According to my colleague, Cia Sun, "this is 2008, and 2 plus 8 is 10. According to tradition, numerology, the Bible and the ancients 10 is fresh starts, new beginnings and new opportunities. Almost a new birth. Let's all pay attention to these new opportunities and see them from new perspectives. Everything that has happened in all our lives has been leading up to this moment."

Have a fabulous week, dear readers, and may the whole year be filled with peace, health and happiness! Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com