Small Miracles

I am writing this on my own computer. I don't know why it chose to allow me into the blog after months of lock out, but here I am. The only reason I even attempted entry was the near death of our household computer. Yesterday while finishing the blog on that computer, the screen suddenly turned pink and remains so this morning. It is difficult to see through the pink haze to the typed words so I thought I'd give this puppy another chance and even though I had to slip in the back door through "comments" here I bloody am.

"Ramon" I said to my bro seated at his own computer, "why would my computer screen suddenly turn pink?"

"It's because you've just become gay," he replied.

"Don't be silly," I said, followed by "but damn you look cute this morning."

Of course now that I am here I really don't have anything to say. I didn't think I'd be writing this morning. I thought instead that I'd be reading the news - Sox won fourth straight, Rockies streak at seven, Bush still an idiot - and then move on to weight lifting 101. Blah blah blah gang agley again. Now what do I do?

Our dog Gus is tired of rain. Every day he looks at me and says make it stop, so I give him a cookie. Then he says let's go for a walk and I give him another cookie. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth cookie he just takes them from my hand and drops them on the floor. After that he looks at me and says god what an idiot, so I give him another cookie. I mean talking dogs should be rewarded. On the few mornings without rain, we have been able to take short walks up to our new house site - we take the long way by the road going there and the shortcut down the hill through the jungle going back - and although Gus doesn't get all the exercise he needs from this jaunt, he does enjoy riling up the dozen or so dogs we pass along the way. They bark, growl, show their teeth and look menacing and Gus responds in kind, pulling at his leash and saying let me at 'em. When we turn onto our sirvedumbre, our property access road, I untether Gus and he leads us (Ramon is usually in tow) dutifully to the site by jumping into every mud puddle to either warn us they are there or invite us to join him, I'm not sure which. On site we talk to the capataz, the foreman, and together we bemoan the rain for awhile before saying "...talwaygo" (hasta luego)and heading back. Gus likes this part best as he gets to run amok through the coffee plants and other jungle flora in search of stray chickens. There are a couple of Indian dwellings hidden in this part of the woods and they all have uncooped chickens they keep for eggs and Gus' entertainment. Once Gus has forced a couple fowl air born he's a happy camper and he returns to the trail to lead us home. There he gets a shower from the garden hose and a quick towel off before being allowed back into the house. I promise him that once the rain stops for a goodly while I'll take him for a looong walk and he seems happy with that. He then looks at me with his best puppy dog eyes and says, you guessed it, where's my cookie?

Just thought you might like to know.