Departed

This is what I found this afternoon.
The smell led me to it.

About a month ago, Daniel and his family visited me. With all of them in the house, things got stirred up and the mouse that had taken up residence in the library was disturbed. He began exploring other places in the house and Daniel and his brother would spot him in different locations throughout the day.
Eventually, I saw him, too. Running under the washing
machine. Sneaking out of the closet. Leaving evidence behind of where he had been.

"I know Robert has to die," Daniel told me (he had named the mouse Robert), "But don't tell me when he's dead."

Okay. So all of you reading this: don't tell Daniel.
Robert the mouse has departed.
Leaving his decomposing remains for me to dispose of.

I smelled something rotten in my closet and, yes, it was Robert. Dead among my socks and other unmentionables.
Oh does decomposition stink. Yelch.

I hope Robert has no relatives looking to move into his vacated place. It's not available.

Wearing snakes

Would you like to wear a snake?

This is apparently, a popular desire of tourists. Maybe they don't know they want to try it until they see the man with a snake around his neck and he charms them into wanting to try it for themselves.

And if you want more fun than just wearing a snake, you can check out the snake shows, too. I hear they put snakes in their mouths because their hands are already full of snakes, and it's really impressive.
I don't know, I sat out on that fun.

The birds

There were hundreds of birds, mostly kites, flying around the stadium. Kites like to eat fairly large prey (for birds), so what was the cause of the invasion we wondered--surely they weren't after the athletes.
At dusk it became apparent that the air was also filled with large dragonflies, large grasshoppers, and extra, extra large cicadas.
Why were they all congregating at the stadium? Did they come for Commonwealth Games, too?
At least it wasn't mosquitoes.

Ahh, the beach

I love the beach.
I love taking pictures at the beach.
I forgot to take my book with me today, so instead I watched crabs run away from me and watched trash wash up along the shore.
Yucky to the trash.

Here are a few other things I saw...

The bird who liked the trash

A woman swimming in full burqa

Well preserved dead fish

A footprint

Chipmunk rage

The noisy gecko has moved on and no longer bothers me, but it seems that if it's not one creature, it's another.
There is a now a chipmunk who likes to hang out on my balcony. Making an uncalled for racket.
Is this necessary? It's as if he's preaching to the noisy city from my balcony rail. Something about humans encroaching on his habitat? Or maybe he's demented.
Whatever it is, could he please find another balcony from which to yell?

Noisy gecko

There's a gecko in the kitchen determined that I don't sleep very well. I didn't know they could be so noisy. I didn't know they wanted to be so noisy; I thought they were stealth creatures sneaking up on bugs.
Anyway, the one living in the crack in my kitchen wall starts his chirping around 10pm and continues until the sun comes up just after 6am. At first I thought something was wrong with my fan, that it was making a funny noise. Nope. Gecko.

Ignore the poor video. I couldn't find the "record sound only" setting on my camera.

Bird Pro Solution

I have a pigeon problem.
Apparently since this apartment was unlived in for six years, or so, the birds, chipmunks and other creatures felt welcome to move in. They've been trying to keep their home for the last few months, despite my discouragement and eviction notices.

I especially dislike pigeons. The rats of birds.

When I had an exterminator come to get rid of the cockroaches, ants, silverfish and termites that had been eating away at the apartment for those many years, I noticed in the brochure he gave me that his company also offered the Bird Pro Solution.
"What does this do? You have this service?" I asked.
"You have problem with pigeon?"
No, pigeons. "Yes, I do."
"Show me."
So I showed the exterminator man my "problem" areas: the back balcony where they like the pipes and railing, the top of the window A/C, the front balcony railings and ledges.
"Bird Pro Solution does not kill pigeon, ma'am," said the exterminator man. "It makes him unsatisfied with roosting and he goes to new perch."
"Okay." Sounds good enough to me.
"It does not kill pigeon. It is spikes we put so when pigeon sit, he is not satisfied and he flies away."
"I see."
"You want this service, ma'am?"
"Yes."
I must have seemed too eager to be rid of the pigeons because he told me yet again that the service does not kill the pigeon but takes away his roosting place.
"Yes, I understand. He will still be alive to live somewhere else."
"I will have to give you a call back about the Bird Pro Solution."
"Okay, very good. How long? When will you call?"
"Two or three days, ma'am."
"Two or three days? So Friday?"
"Yes, ma'am."

A week later I called the exterminator man and asked if he remembered about my pigeon problem.
"Your problem is a very difficult one, ma'am," he said. "I need to talk it over with the supervisor. I will give you a call back in two or three days."
"Two or three days?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Okay then. Thank you."

Another week and I called him again.
"Yes, ma'am, I have been very busy. Another two or three days and I will call."

Another week--or maybe two, I loose track there were so many calls.
"Two or three days, ma'am."

One week when I called, Mr. Exterminator man apologized because he was out of station and wouldn't be able to call back until the next week.

But then, hey, he did. He called. It only took five weeks.
"You are still interested in the Bird Pro Solution, ma'am?"
Haven't I called about it half a dozen times? "Yes."
"I will talk with my supervisor and call you in two or three days."
Right. That again. "Okay, very good."

The next day he called back. "You are present in your home on Monday?"
"On Monday? Yes. Which time?"
"3:30."
"3:30? Yes, I will be here at 3:30."
"On Monday 3:30 to 4 o'clock, we will come for appointment."

At 4:30 on Monday, the exterminator man brought over the Bird Pro man. We reviewed the problem areas. Yes, my pigeon problem was a difficult one. Difficult because four storeys above the street makes for dangerous working conditions and the grills over the windows make installation of spikes more complicated.
They needed to talk it over some more with the supervisor.

The next afternoon they called: "You are present in your home?"
"Yes, I am here."
"In ten, fifteen minutes we can come with supervisor to review your problem?"
"Yes."
"Ten, fifteen minutes."
"Okay."
"Okay."
Three men surveyed the problem areas and decided on solutions. First the Bird Pro man explained them all to me in Hindi, then the supervisor explained in English.
Exterminator man then said they'd email me a quote for their service in my situation in two to three days.
"Today is Tuesday, so that means Friday?"
"Yes, it will be sent by email."
"Okay. Thank you."

I thought about calling on Thursday because I had a pigeon incident.
I was walking around the living room with my mosquito-zapper racket killing flies when a pigeon actually flew in and ran into the refrigerator. It broke its leg and injured its wing. It lay there in a disgusting-looking heap of mangled bird.
I had that racket in my hand.
But no, I didn't zap the bird. I turned the racket off and used it to shoo the pigeon back out the door. Then I watched it fly into the neighbor's house across the street. Ayah.

I didn't call, but I waited and, sure enough, I had an email Friday morning from the Bird Pro man with my quote and contract details. It said I could call him with questions, so I did.
I wanted to know how soon this service could be put in action.
He said he would come over the next day at 11:30am to confirm the contract.

He came around 12:30pm and wanted to once more review all the problem areas. Then he called his supervisor who also wanted to come over and review.
Finally we filled out the contract and made an appointment for the installation next week.

This evening when I locked up, I didn't bother to shoo the pigeons off the back balcony.
Their days are numbered.

Fusebox fight

There are three little birds fighting over who gets to use the fuse box space as a nest. I keep telling them that no one gets to live there, but they don't listen and keep coming right back.
They are not afraid of me, they are not afraid of the shiny stuff I put up to keep them away. And they yell at me.
They've already used the fuse box from the floor above and made a mess there.
I've now tied the fuse box shut and taped over any gaps. They just won't take no for an answer and they've been diligently filling my fuse box with grass and feathers.
I've thought about singing like Snow White or Giselle (from Enchanted) to get them to do some work for me.

Down on the farm

I'm staying with some friends. They have a number of domesticated birds wandering about: chickens, quail, guinea fowl.

The guinea fowl are odd and noisy birds.
I think they sound like an old, rusty, water pump.

Some new little chickens were born this past weekend.
They are nice and fluffy.

And what farm is complete without the faithful, guard dog watching over it all?

Butterfly farm

We visited a butterfly farm. They were not shy butterflies and flew right up to us.
Did you catch that odd looking one?

There were also a few unusual and incongruous items to see at the butterfly farm, such as traditional clothing from...an ewok village?

And some giant bugs--real and otherwise--were on display.

After the butterfly farm, the drama queen and I stopped at the Tropical Spice Plantation. It wasn't very plantation-like, more some trails through jungle with sign-age.

And it had this out-of-place window for picture taking.

Monkeys on the balcony

This afternoon I was startled when I saw a shadow on the curtain and a large shape moved into view.

It was a monkey. A big monkey, as big as a medium-sized dog.

Later his family showed up. Hanging in the tree. Walking on the rail. Sitting on the air-conditioning unit. There was even a little baby.

The neighbors didn't like them. They were throwing sticks and yelling at them. It probably didn't help his case when one monkey ran up a tree with a bag of trash which he then emptied out.

After the rain stopped and they'd eaten up all the fruit in the trash, they moved on.

Here's some brief monkey footage.

Scorpion stealth

There was a scorpion in my room this morning.

I was picking up some clothes from the floor and it was underneath. Black and scary. Only that's not what I was thinking.

I thought: "The boys haven't been here in my room, what is that plastic bug doing on my floor?"

Then it moved. Yich.

So I trapped it under the heavy Lord of the Rings movie box until I had time to do something about it.

Later, we froze him and now he's securely pinned to some styrofoam.