Sunday, November 22, 2009

Critters 'n' More

Critters in My House, Part II

1) Hummingbird- They're fast little buggers. We tried for hours to get it out of the house. It couldn't find the door for the life of it. I suppose it's evolutionary: when they feel like they're in danger it goes against their instinct to fly downward to go through the door, as opposed to going upward into the ceiling. Once the sun went down, it went berzerk and tried to burrow into the light. After having exhausted itself in this effort, I was finally able to use a shirt to pick it up by the beak, wrap it in the shirt, and carry it outside. It lay there, prone and shocked, for a moment, as I held my breath, thinking it was dead. Then came to its senses and flew away.

2) Frog- in the bathroom. Not much more to say.

Critters Not in My House, Thank God

On Thursday, we walked down to the beach at night with our neighbor Michael. This is not an enterprise I would have undertaken without a local companion, as everyone claims the beach is full of drug dealers at night. As it turned out, we encountered no drug dealers, but lots of rather large crabs. As it also turns out, Michael is rather terrified of rather large crabs, scurrying about in the dark. He claims one of them pinched him. Susan brought her flashlight, so we were able to scope them out and avoid them pretty well, but Michael still shrieked every time the light illuminated one. I, of course, seized the opportunity to play crab and grab his calf.

Dance

Michael is part of a dance group called Swetin.
"It's a word in Miskito," he explained. "It means...it means..."
"Sweating?" I suggested.
"Yeah, that's it!"

I sat in on their practice, and also attended the aerobics/dance class that the group's coach also teaches. It was fun working out to hilariously vulgar songs in English that no one in the room probably understood, as well as a pumped-up version of "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas and the Papas.

2 comments:

  1. Glad you wrote about these experiences! Sometime tell me more about what it takes to cook a meal on that little two-burner hot plate!

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  2. I want frogs in MY bathroom. It would make it much more interesting. Though I don't suppose they'd survive an assault by my cats.

    This has nothing to do with anything important, but the crabs reminded me of a story I heard about an Israeli relative of Sarah's, who, not knowing the english word "cancer", informed Sarah's aunt that one of their mutual relatives had died of crabs. My snickering response to the story was further proof that I'm twelve.

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