Random things about living in the tropics:

*Get the largest refrigerator you can. It's amazing the stuff that you will need to keep in it in order to keep the ants and the humidity out. Like dry cat food, vitamins, candy, crackers, bread, hot sauce (yes, Mexican ants eat hot sauce if it is at all sweet), bakery goods (cold donuts are not all that good which is probably for the best), some medicines, cough drops and cough syrup, honey, butter ... if I weren't too lazy I could go open my reefer and find some more odd stuff.

*Ants will inherit the earth. In fact, they probably already own it and just haven't gotten around to evicting us yet. I've never liked ants but now, I don't even get all that excited if I realize I ate one or two. In fact, the really tiny ones I can't even see unless they move. The variety of ants is mind boggling, there are dozens of types of ants just in my condo. The electric ants are cool, they only live in electric outlets and you never see them unless you leave something edible near an outlet. Like say, the top off your toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Did I forget to say that I want the toothpaste in the refrigerator too?

OK, this isn't really tips for living in the tropics - this is just a long rant about ants but without ant pictures. Instead, you get more pictures of my cutest kitteh in the world and the great view off my deck, which more or less makes up for all the ants you can't see inside.

A couple days ago, Mimi was driving and we were heading to Playa. When we got to the highway she reaches back and pulls her seatbelt around her and shortly thereafter she starts yelling and slapping at herself while I grab for the wheel to keep us on the road. It turns out that ants had built a nest in the seat belt receptacle on the floor of the jeep. This happened to be the large, red ants that bite. We safely got to the side of the road and she didn't use her seatbelt on that trip. Today, she spent the day cleaning out the jeep and found 4 separate ant nests in it.

Oh, and tourists! Sometimes locals make fun of tourists, not me of course because that's how I started out here.

I do sometimes get a kick out of them, like this afternoon. I went out on the deck and saw these 2 laying on the sand with their newly arrived whiteness. But, they are so cute! They look like they are just blissed out.

In fact, here's a close up. Aren't they cute? I think they are holding hands!