Circus in town

Once a year or so the circus visits Cozumel. I used to love the circus when I was a little girl and even in Mexico the circus smells and sounds the same. The sawdust, candy, animals, big top. I tend to have a bit of a fascination with circus folk. Mystics, wanderers, they all set my imagination alive. And the animals; I remember being thrilled at elephants, lions, tigers and miniature horses. Even now as an adult I can't help feeling a little bit of childlike excitement walking past the circus.

Now though, as with so many things as an adult, I also see the badness in the circus, and in particular the way these magnificent animals are treated. In England and also I think America now the use of exotic animals in traveling circuses is prohibited. If it were not I would boycott them in the same way I boycott Sea World and the two dolphin discovery parks here in Mexico.

Sadly here in Mexico there is no such protection for big exotic animals. The circus travels in grueling heat with, from what I could make out, 20 tigers, 5 or 6 lions, jaguars, leopards, cougars, monkeys, camels, horses - well over 100 animals kept in tiny cages. I've never been to the circus as an adult, but on Sunday we were parking to go to the supermarket when BF noticed the animals cages at the end of the parking lot. We wondered over to see what was going on and found truck loads of animals packed in metal cages, on trucks, parked out in the blistering sun. I was overheated on the street and I was wearing a little sundress - imagine this heat in a fur coat. I'm always armed with a camera on Sundays to catalog the house progress so I snapped a few shots of what we saw.

These lions were collapsed on the floor of their 10' x 4' cage. The big guy's mane was all matted with sweat and the tiger, below, was lying on his back with his tong out, panting like crazy in an effort to cool down. In fairness they were all given water and seemed in fair health (in that their fur seemed healthy and they were not skin and bone). But how sad to see such grand animals trapped in such meagre conditions.

Despite being saddened by their plight, I must admit that it was amazing to see these animals so close up. The lions reminded me of my cats Bigsy and Bets snuggled up together and this tiger looks like he's waiting for a belly rub. I guess its this cuteness, together with the thrill of the fact that they are actually quite powerful killing machines which is such a crowd puller. I'm not sure what can be done to stop this. I'm sure there are animal rights organizations here in Mexico, and hopefully the world will continue to wake up to the fact that we should treat animals with respect. In the meantime I will continue to boycott such places and to air my view on animal captivity whenever I think I might be in a position to dissuade someone from swimming with dolphins.

The foundations are underway...

Well its over 3 months since we finished our wall and that is pretty much the time it has taken to get planning permission and water connected to the land. Last week though, we were eventually able to make a start on the foundations. The rectangle you can see will be our downstairs bathroom. Between that and the front wall will be the living room and small study. The photo was taken from what will be the kitchen. A few months could see a lot of progress on the ground floor of the house. One of our favorite topics of conversations is how we will finish each room. We get ideas for decorating everywhere we go.

BF's brother has made good progress on the doors he's making for the front of the property. He's just finished the walk in gate and added a black iron mesh to the windows in the top of the car port gates.

The water Meter has been connected

All systems go (provided someone does not manage to steal it before we get a Iron mesh over the meter hole this weekend).

I have a pretty highly developed patience level. I account this to years of working with a colorful crew, teaching scuba diving and a genuine effort on my part to be more chilled. Lately though, my patience has been resembling despair when it comes to the commencement of building work on our house. We finished the wall around our property in 2009 and it has taken a full 3 months to get the water connected so that we can start building our house.

Anyway it is looking like the builder will be able to get started on our foundations next week. I am very cautiously excited about being able to see the outline of our ground floor soon!!!!

House Updates

BF's brother is making a really good job of our doors. This picture is of one of the car port doors. They are 7' tall. Tonight he was adding an iron lattice to the windows at the top and we're going to paint them this weekend.

The saga with the water company continues. After months of waiting we were eventually connected, but that very same day our meter was stolen. We've had to pay for a new meter to replace this BUT that still has not been put on. Its very frustrating because this is the only thing stopping us from going ahead with our foundation. Hopefully things will be resolved by next week. We are also going to fit some iron bars over the water meter cubby hole so that it can't be stolen.

Some progress at last!!!!!

So for the first time this year things are moving again on the house building front. BF's brother is a carpenter and has been building doors for the front of our property. He's made two frames for the car port gate. I think the frames must be the most difficult part. All that needs to be done now is fill the bottom half of the gate with solid wood and the top with iron lattice work. Obviously we'll then be finishing the doors well. On sunday we tried them for size against the wall. There are some parts of the gates which will need to be shaved and other parts of the wall which will need to be chipped back, but we should end up with nice solid doors which reach within an inch of the ground and arch of the car port.

I like the way the gates are coming along. BF designed them and I think his brother has done a really nice job. The rocks that you see piled on the land are what the builders will be using to start the foundations of the house. We are still waiting for the water company to hook us up to the mains. We need water for the builders to mix their cement. 'Other people' have just used water from the mains without a contract to mix their cement but some have been fined for this and we don't want to risk that. Hopefully we should have water within the week and the foundations can begin. This will be exciting as we will really be able to see how the house is going to feel.

We have planning permission!!!!!

We received planning permission from City Hall to start building our house last week. Rocks for the foundations will be delivered this week and I'm told that our Valentines Day will be spent carrying all of these boulders inside of the property:) I guess our builder will start to dig the foundations next week and then we'll really be able to get a feel for the size of the house. All Very Exciting. Pictures to follow...

Some philosophical thought

Its funny, I do tend to believe there are forces at work in the universe that influence what goes on in our lives. I imagine these forces to form a fabric, like a great Ocean. You may be lucky enough to have been coasting through warm, tropical waters for most of your life, perhaps hitting the odd strong current or even hurricane, or you may have landed in the North Atlantic and had nothing but turbulent cold seas.

What made me think of this was that I have had a short spate of bad luck recently (a minor cold front) - my computer died; my external hard drive overheated; my new computer no longer fitted many of the leads I use; my new external hard drive refused to co-operate with my new computer; my favorite web site for downloading TV shows and Movies seemed to have banned me; I sprained my wrist and damaged my shoulder; there were some other persistent minor health issues, requiring unpleasant medication; the weather in Cozumel has been unseasonably bad and for some reason, although our hotel is at 80% we're making no money and I thought to myself - I'm in some type of negative current here. Then I thought what do you do when you're in the Ocean caught in a rip tide. You don't freak out and frantically swim against it - you'll just end up being pulled out into deep water. You relax and swim perpendicular to the current and out you pop into calm water again. So as I was beset by all of these minor issues, I decided not to get myself all wound up fighting against them, but let them slip out of my mind. I concentrated on running, yoga and meditation instead. Don't you know it - this week every little thing that was going wrong seems to have righted itself. New leads and hard drive will be arriving over the weekend, I seem to have returned to full health, my wrist is at full strength and my shoulder is almost better (indeed the injury has been a good thing as it has reminded me to be less reliant on my right arm - I'm now driving with my left).

It made me think of depression, you could view depression like being in an area of dead calm with no wind or current to carry you to the nearest harbor. This is a little harder to escape than a rip tide. You'll have a long and arduous swim with little sign of progress, but finally if you persist you'll make it to the shore.

Goodness knows what type of squall I had stumbled into during my years in New York, but I was definitely on a downward spiral. Perhaps a whirlpool spiraling out of control - again its no good grasping for the surface if you are caught in a whirlpool - you need to be smart and swim out of the side. Mine was a pretty big whirlpool and perhaps I also hit a few tropical storms.

What's my point? Well I think it is this: You are but one force and although you are somewhat in control of you life you are also navigating through forces which you don not control. In life you need to be alert because if you panic and flail around in a rip tide, you will most certainly end up in unkind seas. If you take no action when the wind falls from beneath your sails then you will stay in the doldrums. You need to recognize when life starts to carry you in a direction you don't like and take early affirmative action. My hope is that we have this amount of control over the fabric of the universe:)