Yesterday we took off about 11am in the jeep and drove over to Akumal. It takes 3.5 hours in a car. We put up the hurricane curtain across the front of the condo in about an hour and a half. There were some things we didn't expect, like the loops will only fit into eye bolts that are a little open so those have to be on the top. We moved quite a few. Also, the straps seem to be on the wrong side, we have to call about that. All in all though it was a good practice run and it will go faster the next time.

There were streaky clouds across the horizon and gusty winds, the only sign that hurricane Gustav was across the way devastating Cuba and the Cayman Islands.

We also had to go into Playa to pick up our truck and then when we started back down the coast we realized we hadn't eaten anything all day so we stopped in Tulum for dinner. All that and we were back in Mérida by 11pm, a 12 hour trip.

The dogs were fine, anxious to get out and to eat but no problem behavior.

I had been worried that if we got in an accident or something they would all be locked in the RV with no key around so we dropped a key off with our friend Theresa and it made me feel a lot better. What would Theresa do with 3 big dogs and a teenage kitten you ask? We also left her the card of our vet who does house calls and boards animals so she could meet him here and he'd take them. I love the convenience of some things in Mexico, everything can be delivered. In a lot of ways it's not at all convenient here but then there are the things that just work so much better.

Security is very high here, I'm sure most of you have read about the 12 headless bodies found in Mérida on Thursday. The number of police roadblocks along the way were tripled and they were really looking at everyone in the car, no casual waves through. We fit no one's profile and weren't stopped but they looked carefully. Same thing over in QRoo, more military and police inspection stations, careful looks, lots of visible police of all types.

Today we spent the day furniture shopping and lunching with Henry, some of his other clients and Terrence. We had a great time, went to a factory that makes furniture for high end hotels and got big discounts on a bed frame and chaise. We also went to one of the big malls and looked at more furniture, bought some chairs for the terrace that are made from banana leaves. It looks like strong rattan and wears well. Tamale chairs I was calling them, wrapped in banana leaves.

Then we changed into our closest match to all white clothes and went to the march. It is a march that was held at 7pm today in cities all over Mexico and other countries calling for increased public security in Mexico. Wear white, bring a candle and walk in silence was the order of the day. I think this is the only thing I've ever been to in Mexico that started on time. Of course, we are so acculturated that we were late. So, we ended up speed walking the length of Paseo Montejo to catch up to the others. We caught up close to the end and the crowd filled a couple of blocks and a glorieta of this huge 6 lane boulevard. Even walking so far so fast, it was incredibly moving. It was led by a young boy carrying a Mexican flag and a baby in a stroller. It was silent except for the radios of police, stationed all along the way with the street closed. Flashing red and blue lights from their cars, the static from their radios and in the middle all of these people dressed in white just walking and carrying light. Iluminemos México

At the end there were some chants of Sí se puede (Yes you can) but mainly the crowd just chanted the city's name ¡Mérida! ¡Mérida! ¡Mérida! over and over and over. I've always felt that this city has a personality and a presence, she was there tonight and it seemed everyone felt her. I think she is hurt and in pain right now but perhaps encouraged.

After all that, we went out to dinner with our friends John and Mary. We had the traditional Chiles en Nogada, made at this time of the year to celebrate Mexico's Independence day on Sept 16. It's an exquisite dish, chiles stuffed with meat and covered in walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. It has the 3 colors of the Mexican flag, red, green and white. Delicious!

We saw this in a store the other day, isn't it August?? This is just WRONG!

Well, another hurricane is running up the Caribbean and looks to be heading for the channel between Cuba and the Yucatan. Just in case it comes our way, we're going to drive over from Mérida Friday and put up the new hurricane curtain in the front of the condo in Akumal. Hopefully, it will just be a practice run.

We've been having a great time in Mérida. We went to see some live music (the Yucatones) and met a bunch of friends there, had a couple of dinners with friends, got to hang out with our friend Mary at her house and pretend it was ours. That was really cool. She and John have a house also done by our architect and it has many similar features. Just sitting around on the terrace, drinking beer and eating hamburgers was incredible as both Mimi and I got the feeling that it was just like we were in our new house. Now, we are really anxious to move in.

We went by today to show it to some other friends and (((there is water in the pool))) I don't know why that makes me so happy but it does. The color is great, the cool, clear light green of a cenote just as Henry promised. We wanted it to look natural and he hit the goal.

Placido Domingo is singing on October 4th at Chichen Itza. I think I don't want to miss this so I've got to get on the ball and get tickets. I've been waffling and today I saw in the paper that he might also do a concert here in Mérida. I think that I want that combination of the location and the voices though so I'd rather go to Chichen.

Did I mention that it is hot? Yeah, even I think it is hot. It's wonderful at night though, warm and silky, but in the afternoon there is just nothing to do but take a nap in the AC. Even the animals don't want to go outside between 3 and 5pm.

I'm just cranking out the posts today! I want to show the house as it is now. It's a lot cleaner and easier to see for one thing, most of the debris is gone although there are still a dozen or so bags in the garage. The cave has been covered up and sits under the bags of escombro.

I was overwhelmed at how large it seems now that it is empty. I'm sure it will seem more normal sized once there is furniture in it but for now, seeing it without all the equipment and debris, it seems huge.

I'm really in love with it. The light is incredible, the flowing levels, the tiles, the shape of the kitchen hood.

This is light spilling down from one of the skylights in the office. Each corner of the room has one and the way the light washes the walls is great. Not so great is my ability to take a picture of it.

We finally seem to have decided what to do with that closed off doorway in the office, you can see the bump out in the picture. It is so that a full sized car will fit in the garage which was converted from a bedroom by previous owners. We thought of removing it, but it is really convenient. We thought of just making it a little smaller, a lot of work for little change. I think now it will have concrete shelves on either side, the top part will become a niche for art or a statue and the rest of the wall will also have places to display things as well as an area that can function as a desk.

The master bedroom tiles and floor are done, I like the green version we picked of the downstairs tiles. I didn't get a good picture but there are areas in the terrace and the counters, showers and bench in both baths will be crema maya a nice stone that comes from the Yucatan.

We walked around with the electrician and architect and checked that there are plugs where we want them, fans and chandeliers and light fixtures and where the switches are to control them. We changed some things and didn't change some others but for the most part it was done as I expected and as our last walk through had specified. I'm really pleased with Henry and his crew, they anticipate so many things and the work I see is excellent.

Mimi crawled around in the pool pump area under the stairs, tight but doable. I noticed that there wasn't a drain in there. When you open the filter, water comes out and I don't want it staying under the stairs for mosquitoes to breed in. They are putting in a drain. We were pleased to see that the pump sits in a well that is below the water level of the pool. This we asked for on the advice of our friend's Tom and Debbie as it keeps the pump primed through power outages.

A lot of work is going on off site now, the doors are all gone to the door maker. He will refinish the old ones, add hardware or repair it, and he is making new doors for the upstairs. The ironwork guy is making the window grills and railings at his shop. The glass guys are making the windows and inserts. The cabinet maker is starting on the cabinets next week.

At the house, more plumbing is being done. The solar heater for the pool is going on the roof. The water filtration and pressure system is going in, the tinaco is being delivered and mounted. The spillway and filter for the inside pond is being made, they are using part of the skimmer I brought down but not all of it as it doesn't fit right. Instead they will make part of it from concrete.

The next big change is they are going to start work on the front of the house soon. That's going to be exciting to see. The front door and garage door will be opened back up to their original height. The 1950's tiles will come off the front, new trim will go on, the plaque we had made that says Casa Ixchel and has a relief of the Mayan goddess Ixchel will go on the front along with the house number.

Oh, I forgot to add, in the last picture the guy up on the scaffold is cutting through the rock wall for 2 more round windows between the hall and the living room. When they opened up the original ones on the outside wall of the living room, they found very old round metal frames, perhaps wheels. They kept them but they are much smaller than we anticipated so they are opening 2 larger circles to the hall for more light. I love how they just get up there and start picking the stone out when they want a hole. I should have gotten a picture of that. One nice touch is that through the small windows on the far side, you can see the blooms of the neighbors huge bougainvillea perfectly framed.

Kitteh update. Today is a big day for Tita, she is off at the vet getting her mama parts removed. Not sure she would care but she will never star in a 3am opera or watch bored while a dozen suitors fight and howl or bring a litter of gatitos into this hard world.

She will continue to rule over 3 large dogs and take her rightful place on the largest bed so they can all jam up on the other ones.

She will continue to stalk iguanas through the window with her best pal, Cuba.

She will continue to enthrall Mimi and I with her unending cuteness and she will no doubt continue to refuse to acknowledge the babytalk and endless cooing that comes from her hoomans when under her influence.

She has learned that the humans do not like to play when the lights are out and they are sleeping and she tries to refrain from biting the bits that stick up out of the covers. Sometimes they twitch or move and it's just impossible not to jump and give a nip. She has learned to take off fast after that though, because the humans bat their big paws and knock her off the bed if she's slow.

She is endlessly fascinated by that room the humans go to with all the water things that gurgle and swish. Just because she batted at something disappearing in the whirlpool shouldn't mean she is forever locked out of the water room, should it? She thinks if she just gets her paws under the door the right way, she will be back inside again.

If not, there's always the other water room and sleeping with your head on the faucet.

Tita just arrived home from the vet, she's fine. She's a little groggy still and can't walk a straight line but she's safe and healthy and sleeping it off.

The completion of our hurricane curtain installation was last Tuesday. We're in Merida now but I wanted to put up the rest of the pictures for those of you in hurricane country.

I was amazed at how casual they were about being up on this humongous ladder, can you see that the guy at the bottom is having a cigarette? Standing next to the propane tanks?

It went pretty smoothly, they covered all the windows on the back and the side of the condo.

There was some discussion about whether we really needed the ones between the buildings covered. We decided to do it as it didn't cost much compared to the large front windows and the bedroom on that side is our 'safe room', where we store important stuff and where we would hide out if we stayed in the condo. I wanted it to stay as dry as possible.

Here you can see the safety equipment at work. He tied himself to the ladder with that red cord around his waist!

The bedrooms are definitely darker now, I like it as it is better for sleeping. It's cooler too I think.

We'll leave these high windows covered until hurricane season is over, sometime in November. We'll have to see who we can get to put them up and take them down. Finding someone with a ladder tall enough is a big part.

In this picture you can see that this guy didn't bother tying himself to the ladder with the red rope.

I think the windows look like they are in a strait jacket. We will be able to open a couple of windows behind the curtains so the pressure stays equal inside and out. We'll probably do that in the bathrooms because some water will come in.

So, we're as prepared as we're going to get. I do feel a lot better about it now even though I hope we don't need them. Particularly if we want to go north or travel during hurricane season, we'll be able to wrap it up and secure everything and go without worrying as much.

Last week Stormcatcher came and did the first part of the installation of storm curtains at our condo. These amazing things stop 97% of the wind and rain in a hurricane. They installed the main one across the front of our deck, it goes up fairly easily and once up we can walk outside and still see through it. Supposedly, we could stay and watch a cat 5 hurricane come ashore. I don't think so.

They are coming back on Tuesday to install the ones on the other windows, that will require a 3 story ladder and we plan to leave those up through the hurricane season. So, it is especially cool that we can see through them and open a window behind them as well.

This is looking out through it from inside. Pretty cool!

When not in use, the eye bolts that they are attached to, unscrew and come out. We have small white plastic caps that cover the hole. They aren't very noticeable and the ones on the side walls and ceiling of the overhang will get painted over next month when the building gets painted.

I was most excited when I thought to ask them to put one in where we put our sat dish and now we don't need the bucket of sand to weight it down. We can just attach it to the eye bolt in the floor.

I'm going to feel a lot more comfortable about hurricanes after this. We can crack a couple of bathroom windows behind the curtains to let the pressure equalize inside and the most we should have to deal with is some rain water in the bathroom.

Other than that, we've been moving a little slow. I had some problems with my feet swelling a lot, so much that it hurt to walk and to sit. They were worse in the mornings and it really was uncomfortable. I decided to stop taking a bunch of the vitamins and minerals I take as it seemed I had my electrolytes out of whack. It took 2 days and they are normal size again. I had been taking magnesium for leg cramps and eating a lot of potassium loaded fruits - which I also stopped. I'm going to see how it goes for awhile and then add a few things back one at a time.

It's been hot, the last couple of days I went out swimming, snorkeling and just floating in the water. I had to go out a ways for the water to get cool enough to be refreshing. We've also left the AC on in the bedroom the last 2 days and we take breaks in there, we call it Alaska. Mainly, I think the problem is the lack of much wind. The water is incredibly flat and clear and there is very little breeze in the afternoons. When the onshore breeze dies, the temps soar. The locals call it hurricane weather! Great, I grow up learning about earthquake weather and now we have hurricane weather. Oddly, they are very similar. Hot and still and kind of a flat, dead air feel.

Wednesday we head back to Merida for 10 days or so. I'm anxious to see the house.

I found this pic of sandwichon on the internet for you folks who are deprived of this delicacy. I thought it was a Mexico-wide thing but from the comments it seems not to appear in other parts of the country. It's found uncovered on the counter in the bakery area generally, sold by the slice or you can order a custom one for a party.

In case you missed it, it's kept ON the counter of the bakery... like the un-refrigerated top of the counter! Usually the store is air conditioned but come on, this is a mayonnaise frosted sandwich with fish or chopped hot dogs in it - and it is room temperature? in the tropics? I will never get used to that.

Osprey hunting in the bay.

I've always been a bit rebellious, if I'd liked my mother more I would have felt sorry for her. As it is, I figured I was her karma.

My last job taught me a lot about how to take orders, not act alone, keep the good of the whole ahead of the joy of the rebel. In fact, I looked at that job as a way to learn things I felt were not well developed in my character. There was no chance that it would be easy and no chance that all my rebellion would be wiped out, but I did learn discipline and self-control and I think it was very valuable. I'm losing it quickly though, reverting to a rebellious teenager at 62 is not attractive or useful.

My shit disturber side comes out when I am around pretentious tourists who love to one up each other with the "real" Mexican food that they say they've eaten. I actually doubt that as many tourists have tried Chapulines as say they have but, who knows.

I ask them if they've had sandwichon, a truly unique Mexican food and wildly popular all over the country. Most have not had this multi-layered combination of Bimbo white bread (with the crusts removed!) sliced hot dogs, lime-mayonnaise, jalapeño peppers and onions all of which is frosted with more mayonnaise. The frosting can also be liquid yellow cheese from a squirt bottle, commonly called queso Americano. We are what we are known for, scary huh?

I also ask if they eat hot dogs here in Mexico at least once a day. No? Oh, but you do drink at least a liter of Coca Cola daily right? How else could you say you eat authentic Mexican food?

This thing between Mexicans and Hot Dogs just has to be an obsession. There are 2 areas in any Mexican grocery store that are given more shelf space than anything else. Yogurt is one and hot dogs are the other. How many kinds of hot dogs can there be I hear you thinking. Oh, there are endless varieties and frankly I haven't done enough investigation to tell them all apart. Most of them look remarkable similar, in fact, only the label and the price changes. I have learned not to go for the cheapest, you won't make that mistake twice.

I was in WalMart the other day with my iPhone camera and tried to get some good pics of the hot dog section. I couldn't get back far enough to get the whole thing, I kept running into the cooler full of queso Americano squeeze bottles! You'll have to just believe me that this is only half of the area devoted only to hot dogs. You can see the different chorizos hanging up in back and some hams in the cooler but everything in the front section is pura salchichas!

Then I spotted a really upscale item on the bakery counter, this is no ordinary sandwichon, no layers, no frosting. I had to take a couple pics of it though.

Gorgeous eh? Truly authentic Mexican food, even if I did take the picture in WalMart.

¡Provecho!

Mary Kay mansion.

Just to put our little house in perspective, the other day in Mérida Mimi and I went to see another house being renovated.

This one is a mansion, I'm not fond of pink but when I try to imagine it some other color I come up blank.

I'm not actually sure if it is a renovation or a new build, everything appears to be new.

I can't help but try and imagine what it would be like to live in a house like this.

Of course, we aren't as formal as the house seems to require. I can't imagine 3 big dogs and an RV parked in front. Kind of the Beverly Hillbillies come to Mérida.

I sent an email last night to CEA asking for their side of this story. The director, Paul Sánchez-Navarro Russell, responded and also posted a comment on the last blog entry. I'm not sure that comments gets as much traffic so, with his permission, I'm repeating it here.

HI. I just want to clear up one thing, CEA does not block access to locals to go to the beach and it does not charge them. The guard was placed at the entrance to the beach from the road to stop all COMMERCIAL activity going to the bay. As property owners, CEA may legally do this. Access is guaranteed by law to individuals, not businesses. Too many companies are bringing tours to Akumal bay to snorkel and they are damaging the area, harassing the turtles and do in no way benefit the local economy. Several local actors want to keep the heat going for their own political interests and therefore are making false claims against CEA. Our efforts are to protect the local environment and make sure that Akumalians can enjoy it, without destroying it. CEA does charge for parking and bathrooms because it costs quite a lot of money to keep the area clean and in service (water costs, property taxes are paid, etc.) and if there is no charge, people traditionally trash the place (we have experimented). We are now trying to work with the local people to first inform them well of the matters and second, to involve them in the solutions so that Akumal can remain the incredible place that it is. Thanks for your interest in the area. Paul, CEA director.

My thoughts on this are that he is absolutely right about commercial tours coming in here. They come down our bad road in Half Moon Bay to take bus loads to the lagoon at Yal Ku. I think they should pay and I think they should repair the road, that's just my thought on that. However, I wonder how the guards decide who is a tour customer and who is a local. From his comment, it would appear that they are checking people as they cross the open area to the beach and that is far from the parking lot. I can't help but wonder how these guards really see their job, is it to keep locals out or to keep tours out? They could easily be overzealous.

I think at the very least, CEA has a public relations problem. Paul said in another email to me that they are working on that aspect. They realize that if they don't get their views out to the people, others will paint them however they wish.

I read the article that Cancun Canuck posted, it's in Spanish but I can read most of it. Again, similar to what I was told the other night and what the other article stated, the main beef seems to be that the people do not like the delegado appointed by the new presidente and that they want a vote. Today I was told that the Tulum municipio sent people around in Akumal a few weeks ago with a petition, they told them that it was for daily garbage service. Now, that petition and those signatures are appearing as people who signed in favor of the appointee. That is making people mad too.

I also found out that blocking a federal highway is a federal felony and that is probably why they only blocked the access roads to both parts of Akumal. That is why the federal police were there, to watch and see if the highway was impeded. A long time ago, I blogged about a girl who was killed crossing the highway up in Pto Aventuras, her family and others blockaded the highway until temporary speed bumps were installed. Then, pedestrian overpasses were built in Pto Aventuras and here in Akumal. Well, apparently the 3 women who instigated that closure of the highway are still in jail for it! It's been over a year, maybe two. This law does not seem to be enforced in other parts of the Republic but certainly it seems to be here. As I said, it's always been a common way to address grievances with the government that the people felt were not being heard. When you block a river, it flows elsewhere. I wonder if they considered this.

It does seem to me that in this case, the main beef is with the new municipio and the speaker on the truck perhaps had another agenda to push as well. Does that change the reality that more and more beaches along here are walled off? No. It is still a huge underlying resentment and it needs to be addressed. I do hope that CEA will step up in some way and try and make Akumal different than other tourist towns. Time will tell.

An interesting thing happened on my way home from the store about 8:30pm last night. I got a call telling me that the road into Akumal and Akumal pueblo was blocked and the people were demonstrating. I had already run into our friend Rodrigo at the gas station so he and I drove on to the Akumal exit.


Manuela is the one who had called me and she and her husband walked down to meet me to make sure I was fine. It seemed fine, once they saw that Rod was with me they said they were going home and to walk over to their house if I needed to. Rod immediately went off to talk to the federal police who were standing in a group along the side. As I stood there several locals came up and talked to me, some I knew slightly and some not at all. They all seemed to want me to know what the real problem was and to make sure I was fine.

I was told they had closed the roads because the new Presidente of the new municipality had 'appointed' a delegado for Akumal and they wanted an election. They were also mad about several things having to do with this new municipality and the presidente had said he would come and talk to them at 7pm and he didn't show. Blocking the road is an old and common way of getting your point across and I was surprised they left the main highway open, perhaps that was implied as a next step. I agree with them that they deserve representation of their choosing and I was happy just standing around listening to the loudspeaker.

Eventually - I'm a little slow - I started understanding the loudspeaker better and realized that among the demands were that the beaches should be open for their children, that they should have the snorkle equipment to use them and be taught to swim, that the gringos, italianos y chilangos have taken over their beaches and their land and they want it back.

Well., now I understood why I had an almost constant companion standing with me and why I got friendly smiles and almost apologetic looks from others. I was touched and I agree that these are all truths, it was the kindness of strangers or almost strangers that really got me. Several of the people who came up said they recognized me and knew I lived here and they just stood with me. I didn't really understand why at first, I was a little confused by it. Once I understood more of the rhetoric I knew they were caring for me in a very special way.

Eventually, it was announced that the Presidente was in Cheymuyil (just down the highway) and would be there in 5 minutes. There were a lot of police there, the chief of the Tulum police was pointed out to me, and there were federal police as well. Some of them had riot gear, shields and batons. The presidente arrived and the loudspeaker asked for everyone to come and listen to what he had to say, they emphasized that they should listen with respect and silence. When they came from the other side of the highway, cars were able to go through so I got mine and went home. It was about 10:30 by then.

Today when Manuela came I thanked her and her husband for walking down the hill to be there for me and told her that I finally realized why they had done that. She smiled and said that most of the people in Akumal were good people but that there have been some bad decisions made by the new municipality and by people in power in Akumal. She said that the main issue is that the Presidente of the new municipality in Tulum had appointed a delegado for Akumal and they did not like him. They wanted an election and they wanted to choose their own delegate. Apparently, the old delegado had been opposed to Akumal being taken by the new municipality and argued to stay with Playa in Solidaridad. So, when they took Akumal anyway, he was out. The second issue is that when the people from the pueblo try to go to the beach here the guards stop them and want $80 pesos per family. I had no idea this was happening. It is just wrong, it is illegal as well. By law, all the beaches in Mexico belong to the public and access is supposed to remain open.

Apparently this is happening over by the entrance to Akumal and it is believed that the guards there are paid by CEA - Centro Ecológico Akumal and by the company that owns the Lol-Ha bar and restaurants. I really have no idea who pays them or when this all started but she said it is a new issue. I'm surprised if CEA is involved in this as they have a lot of programs for the local kids to get them involved with and to teach them about the sea and the reefs. I'm sure there is another side but it would seem that this is what is believed to be true. Clearly there are a lot of angry people and it is not just here in Akumal, she said the same protest is happening in Cheymuyil and in the 'pueblos Maya' in the interior. It is true that there are fewer and fewer beaches along this coast that are open and don't have blocked roads or guards on the roads leading to them.

It's an ugly situation and it isn't a new one, these complaints have been made about the coast from Cancun to Tulum for a long time and they are valid complaints. Whether anything will be done about it this time, I don't know. I would hope that it isn't pushed aside again and left until there is an even larger resentment.

I found one limited article in the Cancun paper here. I heard that Azteca TV was there and there were some reporters with cameras and laptops present, let's hope it isn't covered up.

Almost magically since my last post, Tita has started to control herself and our nights have been free of bites and attacks. I guess, that was the dark night before the dawn. I hope so anyway. We'd been religiously yelling and holding her down when she bit us for about a week and it felt like little had changed. I guess it just took longer or she had one last night of testing the limits.

Don't get me wrong, she will still bite and try to scratch you if you hold her when she doesn't want to be but it does take something to provoke her now. She's more amenable to random pets and scratches without it turning into a battle.

We try to never play with her with our hands and if she's in a killer mood we throw her stuffed horse at her and watch her massacre it. She then carries it around between her legs like a lion with its kill.

In other news, it's been a tad hot lately. Isn't that right girls from the QRoo?? I started wondering how hot it really is and if it is really cooler over here on the coast than in Merida. So, I got these new weather toys on the blog page, they're over there at the right. I filched the address from Cancun Canuck because it shows the feels like number which is some combo of the temp and the humidity. If these things are right, it is actually hotter in Playa del Carmen on the water than it is in Merida. How odd is that?

It was all I could do today not to just retreat to the bedroom, turn on the AC and stay there. The main problem today is that until late in the afternoon there was no wind. Then, like someone turned on a fan, this rain squall blew through and now it is lovely. I'm sitting here in front of the open doors with waves still crashing from the stormlet and a cool fresh breeze blowing in. I hope it lasts through tomorrow.

3AM Laying in the dark.

Me:
"I feel like the parent of a teenager on crack. No matter how much we love her, we may not be able to change her and make her right."

Mimi:
"Yeah"

This is after Mimi wakes up because Tita is biting her nose - hard. She then holds her down, as we've been told to do, and I wake up because Tita is screaming so loud that I'm sure every turtle in Half Moon Bay that was on their way in to lay their eggs immediately turned around and swam away fast. She also never stopped fighting and trying to bite and scratch Mimi. Finally, she let her go and she ran off the bed.

A few minutes later while we are both laying there in the dark contemplating this evil spawn of satan that we have raised and love dearly, she jumps up on the bed and clamps down on my big toe. I repeat the drill, she screams and fights and eventually when she lays still for one half of a second, I let her go.

Next, she attacked Mimi's face again. This time Mimi trapped her under the sheet and held her there until she calmed down and let her pet her and then fell asleep.

Did I mention that we go through this every night?

While we were in Merida last week we took her for her second set of shots. She was as awful as she was the first time. The vet told us that we have to establish dominance and that we should hold her down until she poops and pees! WTF? No! That is more than I want to deal with, especially since these events generally happen in my bed in the middle of the night. But, we are trying, we just aren't going for the wet rewards.

Most of the time she is wonderful, she plays and purrs and falls asleep on your shoulder. I can't tell you how much we love her and just adore her. It's the dark side that is not working very well. Because we love her we want her to be socialized and know how to behave when people want to pet her or pick her up. I don't want to have to warn everyone not to touch her or have to lock her up somewhere whenever we have guests. Frankly, I'm not all that thrilled with the constant scratches and bites I have on both arms and feet. I know that we will do everything in our power but I don't know that it will work. I'm starting to worry that there is something not quite right with her. It makes me want to cry. I can't imagine how horrible it would feel if she were a human child.