Miscellany

This first paragraph (actually, now it's the second...) will make more sense if you've already read the previous post which, although dated and posted last Monday, didn't actually appear online until today.

So the problem with the starter was the "carbones" (The carbons? Who knows what they're called in English...) Carlos showed me the old ones - worn right down to nothing - and said he hadn't been able to get hold of brand new ones, but that he had put in some from a starter he had in the shop, and if I want to I can go back another time for new ones. Cost me 15,000 colones, about $32. Those I've asked are divided on whether or not it's a good price. Elberth, who tried to help Carlos out by removing the starter, thinks it is, because he says the thing was behind something else and absurdly hard to get at, so labor is a factor. Anyway, it hasn't given me trouble since, although every time we get in the car Julia asks "What if the car doesn't start?"

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Here's my favorite thing:
Julia almost always gets her shoes on the wrong feet. So eventually you notice and say, "Julia, your shoes are on backwards." And she looks up at you, all angelic, and crosses her feet so the shoes themselves are in the right place. She's gotten enough mileage out of that one that she'll probably still be doing it when she's 20.

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Well, I think I may need to get another dog. *Sigh.* I was the one complaining that there were too many animals, and it was only under duress that I agreed to let Alex bring home a pair of puppies last year. They did well when they had each other to play with, but one got sick and died after a few months and Emily, the other one, is...well, energetic. She just loves everything and everyone, and really really really likes to play. But she's so happy to see people that she jumps up and ends up scratching the girls, so they don't play with her much. Tina occasionally frolics with her for a few minutes - or rather used to. I don't think she's done it since she got the eye infection last month. (The infection is better, but the cataracts in that eye advanced about as far as I would think cataracts can, so aside from being old, now she has to adapt to losing half her vision.) So I think Emily needs a companion.

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Meanwhile, when I got home last night there was a cool dog hanging around the gate, and around Emily, who was on the other side of it. I had to shoo it back when I opened the gate to drive in. It was still around this morning, and it agreed to sniff my hand and let me scratch its head. It's a so-ugly-it's-almost-cute bulldog. Just under knee-high, but built like a brick barrel. It had a big, thick, studded tough-guy collar on this morning, but now the collar is gone. Maybe he (I haven't lifted his skirt to check the gender, but based on the collar I'm assuming...) will keep hanging around and solve my problem. Of course there's obviously an owner somewhere, but who knows where. So I figured I'd do my part to help destiny along, and gave him some dog food and water this evening, which he accepted. (Having a boy around would probably move "getting Emily fixed" a few notches up on the to-do list...)

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So this week I got the kids to bed and settled in to watch a video, when I heard a strange noise. It didn't really register at first, but after a while I realized it was still there, so I paid a little more attention. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was a goose. When I heard it again, I went over and looked out the window, and there's my neighbor, throwing bread to a pair of geese. This is the neighbor who is still building his house, and he brought up a husky puppy to be a watchdog a few weeks ago. The poor thing barked from 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. the first night, and howled from 4:00 to 5:00 a.m. the second. It eventually started to settle in a bit, but I haven't seen it for a while. And now they have watchgeese. I figured, correctly, that geese probably wouldn't make much noise in the night (as long as nobody's around), but I forgot that they're barnyard animals and, as such, prone to wake up with the chickens. But they don't actually make that much noise, and at least for now it's still kind of a novelty to have geese next door.