At the beginning of the month, things got really hectic around here.  Dennis
came back from Burma and 2 days later my friend Raymond from Canada showed
up and then the next day my other friend Holly showed up.  On top of that,
my maid took 3 weeks holiday with no warning.
Dennis left for his training in West Palm Beach on the 8th, and Holly,
Raymond and I flew down to Krabi for a little beach vacation.  Had to
scramble to get Vino looked after, but luckily there's a family (one of the
pilots around here) with 2 girls aged 7 and 11 a few houses down.  They did
a good job of looking after Vino, a lesser good job of watering my plants.
I guess they just didn't realize just how much water plants need at this
time of year when it's so hot out.  Oh well, I'm sure they will recover.  As
a gift for their efforts, I got them a 2 foot long lizard sandbag, it's a
heavy doorstop.  It looks really realistic.  I got a little card with a cat
on it and then I wrote in it with my left hand to make it look all childish.
It says: "Thanx fur taking care of me while my hoomin wuz gone.  I caught
this leezard just fur you, it's the biggest won I ever caught.  Luv, Vino.
(pawprint)
Paw ess - you can come over and play wif me any time."
I put a big red ribbon on the lizard.  I'm going to take it over there this
afternoon when they get out of school.
I'm so happy to report that I had a great time holidaying with these friends
who were visiting, a much better visit than the last friends who came.
Although my matchmaking efforts utterly failed, Holly and Raymond showed no
interest whatsoever in each other.  Oh well, can't win 'em all ;-)
We went kayaking in the mangroves one day and saw a few families of monkeys.
They had just had babies 3 days ago and the little ones were clinging onto
their mommies tummies, it was the cutest thing.  At one point there were
about 8 monkeys on Holly's kayak!  One monkey got hungry and stole Holly's
flip flop shoe and took a bite out of it.  I got a ton of pictures, I'll be
going through them in a few days.
We also spent a fair amount of time on the beach (have good tan now, not
shameful pallor like before) and one day we rented a car and drove around.
We found this temple that was on top of a pretty high mountain.  Had to
climb 1237 stairs to get there.  It was amazingly hard, especially
considering it was over 30C out.  The way back down was much faster, but I
got wobbly kneed and now my calves are screaming in pain.  Sheesh, and I
thought I was in shape!
Holly left yesterday morning to go to Taiwan where her mom and sister are
living.  She will spend a week there and then go home to Victoria, BC.  She
wants to come back soon to see the rest of Thailand.  Raymond is still in
Bangkok for 2 more days filling DVD orders from all his friends.  He'll be
back same time next year, as usual.
Dennis is still in West Palm Beach.  I haven't received many emails because
he's been busy doing his training from 6 am until 10 pm.  But the course is
over now and the other day I received the following email: "Me captain!  Me
get drunk now!  Ugh!"
LOL!  So it looks like he's passed and has gotten his captaincy which he's
worked so hard for.  I'm very proud of him and can't wait till he comes
back.  It seems like I have hardly seen him lately.  I'm thinking I may go
to visit him on his next tour in Burma to make up for lost time.  At least
we still have till almost mid-may until he has to go back.
So anyway, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for disappearing like that.  Just
couldn't grab enough time for the computer while all this was going on.  I
feel bad for missing the birth of Cary, just want to send out my belated,
but nevertheless most heartfelt congratulations to Vicky and Joel.  I'm
looking at the pictures at this very moment and Cary is a cutie-patootie!
I also want to send out purrs, hugs and meatloaf meditations as needed.  I
still have 1100 messages to catch up on.
--
Britta
Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered
in fur!
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album