Just another day in paradise...

Had to share this with you but will also caution you that the subject matter isn’t the most delicate of topics…bird poop and nose whoofing! I know you must be thinking that “this place” has sucked all the dignity right out of me…truth is, I’ve never been long on dignity although I strongly believe in it for others and will defend with great ferocity their right to maintain it. Actually, I think “this place” has just made me, more me. Hence this blog about bird poop and nose whoofing.

Some of you have wanted to know what we do on days we’re not out at the school or with Miguel…those days are usually filled with other things. Today it was laundry. It’s the first day I’ve had to do laundry since last Monday. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but imagine damp, sweaty clothes sitting in a laundry basket for 5 days…believe me, they’re not pleasant.

Thankfully, the mildew problem hasn’t started yet as the rains we’ve had have just been sporadic to date. And even though it’s humid right now, it’s going to get a lot worse. It won’t be long though before we’ll be battling more than just sour-smelling dirty clothes…we’ll be fighting mold on them, as well. Damp Rid is the best thing we’ve managed to find here and it actually does a pretty good job of keeping the mildew problem in the closets to a minimum.

Anyway, today was laundry day. My washer isn’t one of the great big ones so I often have to divide loads in to more manageable sizes. Pixie got on our bed this morning so in addition to the rest of the laundry, I had to wash the “clean” sheets I had just put on yesterday. That made two sets of sheets plus the other loads. A full day’s worth of laundry when the water is just dribbling in…

I knew the two loads I had already put out on the line ought to be about dry and was planning on going out to get them in a bit when Jim told me that I would have to rewash one of the sheets. It seems a bird evidently thought it would be great fun to try to hit a moving target like the sheet blowing on the line and scored a nasty, messy bulls-eye! Yuk!!!

Jim went out with me to bring the loads in. The sun was a scorcher and all breezes had seemed to stop. It wasn’t just hot, it was really hot. I looked at the sheet and saw that the bird must have chosen that particular opportunity in time to evacuate every single thing from his little bird intestines (do they even have intestines???) in one fell swoop. It was a terrible mess.

I began looking for a stick to scrape off the majority of the bird poop, which had seemed to bake on to the sheet. Because it was so hot, I wasn’t exactly doing that at a leisurely pace. I could feel the back of my neck getting damp as I was pacing back and forth under the row of platano trees frantically looking for a stick. Not only was I hot and beginning to sweat, I was irritated I was going to have to rewash a freshly washed sheet that I had just put on the bed the day before using the precious reserve of water we had in the tank. There was not a stick to be found! Our gardener Freddy, who is very good at his job, had left our yard stick-free.

I finally settled on a small rock I saw between a platano tree and the wall. I hated going by the wall as I am always afraid I’ll find a scorpion or tarantula lurking there…I never have but for some reason, it just looks like a place they would like to hang out. The rock wasn’t huge but I figured it would be big enough to scrape off the offending glob on my otherwise clean sheet. Just as I got ready to do the scraping, with lots of verbal expressions of disgust, a slight breeze came up, flapping the sheet towards me. I stepped back, down in to a small hole in our yard and gasping a bit, the next thing I knew, a bug had flown up my nose! There I stood, trying to whoof out the invading insect from my nose as ladylike as possible while trying to avoid the uncontrolled bird poop flapping dangerously close to my person and keep from tripping myself as I tried to get back up on level ground!

Note: I'm not sure how to define "nose whoofing" other than it's rapidly exhaling through the nose with little short forceful bursts...short of blowing one's nose...it's my own word to the best of my knowledge, so I suppose I can define it as I experience it. It's not one of my favorite things to do but will resort to it when a bug chooses to violate my nasal spaces.

Did I get any assistance from my beloved husband? Are you kidding me? He was too busy laughing at the whole situation. Not smiling, not chuckling but laughing! And I suppose it was funny as long as it wasn’t your own nasal passages being assaulted by an unidentified little winged trespasser and you weren’t the one in danger of coming in contact with a giant glob of bird poop!

I finally got the sheet off the line, carried it over and unceremoniously dumped it in to the pila, grabbed a corner of the sheet and blew my nose, as the whoofing technique obviously wasn't working. No bug. Okay…now I had more things to worry about than rewashing a bird-poopy sheet. I had an MIA bug somewhere in the corridors of my anatomy! More whoofing, more nose blowing…nada. Where could it have gone? It couldn’t have been inhaled all the way to my lungs, could it? I gave a tentative cough, just in case. Nothing. Jim was no help…he was still out in the hot sun, laughing. In order to preserve our marriage, I’m going to attribute his lack of concern and compassion to a mild heat stroke.

I never did see or feel the bug exiting of its own volition or with my help. But in order to maintain some peace of mind, I chose to believe that perhaps, it had been expelled without my knowledge...or was laying dead somewhere in an interior body crevice. That wasn't a pleasant thought so I decided to focus on the first line of thinking.

I guess that’s an example of what a day is like for us when we’re not teaching at Los Cedros or tutoring Miguel. Nothing special but never uneventful. And just so you know…I washed the sheet again – twice. It is now hung up in the basement, drying. It also bears a faint stain from the bird. Whatever he had eaten prior to his little bombing expedition is probably being used in permanent markers.

There still has yet to be any sign of the bug. Periodically, throughout the day, I would whoof as discreetly as possible, hoping to escort it out of my person with a gentle blow…just in case it was perched on the precipice of a sinus cavity. Tonight, I’m continuing to believe that it flew out as quickly as it flew in. And as for Jim, he’s managed to make a remarkable recovery from his mini episode of mania today and he can almost manage to look at me without bursting into fits of uncontrollable laughter again. So that’s it…just another day in paradise.