Our 'double-wide' hammockI started to call this article "Lazy day" but upon further thought, I realized that it may not be my last one so I dated it. Ha ha.
I got up this morning and dressed in my paint clothes planning to work on the very tedious interior railings. When I say 'paint clothes,' these are literally painted clothes. I have a couple of t-shirts with something like 17 different colors of paint smeared on them. In addition to the paint smears, the shirts are also full of holes (one very large one is held shut with a safety pin) from a maid who tried to clean them by pouring straight bleach on them. I wear them with a matching pair of shorts. No holes in the shorts yet, but the elastic waistband is ruined so they hang down around my hips like one of those teenager rappers who wears pants four sizes too big for them.
Every now and then, I forget what I'm wearing and go talk to neighbors, relatives, or others at the gate. Yikes, what they must think of me! This may be a poor country, but people "dress up" all the time. I can promise you that I am one of the worst dressed of all inhabitants. On my best days, I almost blend in. On my worst days, I look like something from another planet.
The first half an hour or so of every morning is a rush. I hurry the two grown chihuahuas to the estudio (studio, of course) window and put them outside. I scoop up the puppies from their pen and rush them to the window where I put them outside to attend to their morning duties.
Then I feed and water Carmen the gallina (female chicken), clean the newspapers out of her box, and then put her outside for the day to fend for herself. (I need to tell you more about this later, but I've had a blind chicken living in a box in my studio for about 5 months now. Instead of "only in Honduras," this would have to be called "only a gringa.")
Next I turn on the coffee maker. I am not a morning person at all. I prepare the coffee pot the night before because some mornings even counting to 5 (scoops of coffee) is more than I can handle. While the coffee is making, I feed Chloe the rottweiler, change her water, and clean out the newspapers from the puppies' pen.
We wait for the newspaper to arrive while I turn on the computer and fix my coffee. I have to have coffee and email before I can do anything else.
The newspaper is delivered by a man on a motorcycle. He has this wonderful system where, without even slowing down, he slings the newspaper to the sidewalk where it spins and slides perfectly under our gate and lands a few inches inside our fence in the center of our sidewalk. It is the highlight of Chloe's day. She can hear that motorcycle coming a block away and goes running to get the newspaper. She then brings it to me, BUT will not release it to me until I give her a "cookie."
Then El Jefe and I fight over the computer. Winner gets the computer, loser gets the newspaper. Generally, whoever got up first and did all the racing around with the animals gets the computer. I described myself doing all those things, but he does them, too, if he gets up first.
I just barely got through my email and was going to post an article on the blogicito when the power went off, AGAIN. We have been having power outages a lot lately, two or three times a day. The weather has been extremely hot. I think the system just can't handle all the A/C usage but it may be some other problem.
After a couple of hours, I decided to fix some egg sandwiches. El Jefe got out the gas two burner cooktop (indispensable in Honduras) and we made bacon and egg sandwiches on bagels. Still no power and it was cloudy and too dark inside to paint. About 11 a.m. the water went out. Finally about 12 p.m., the power came back but the internet was still gone.
Whether it was from the heat, lack of sleep, or boredom, about 1 p.m. I suddenly became so sleepy. I said I was going to take a nap. That got raised eyebrows from El Jefe, because it is something this A-type personality can almost never do unless I'm sick. Go, go!, he said, so I did.
I woke up at 8:30 p.m.! Wow, I guess I was tired. I thought it was morning and wondered why it was still dark and where El Jefe was. It was nice to wake up to the luxuries of life − electricity, water, and internet. What a completely wasted day, although I do feel pretty good from all that sleep!
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