Sunday we slept in until about 8, then fixed breakfast and started working on our “to do” list. Funny, I kind of thought the “to do” lists would go away when we got here, but no such luck!
Our neighbor dog, Bamboo, comes visiting daily and is quite fascinated by Dusty for some reason. Dusty’s patience has been tested with Bamboo crawling and climbing all over him, poking his nose in Dusty’s ears and generally being a pest!
We finally had to lock him out of the house. He went out and laid on the front sidewalk. At one point he was sound asleep –
almost as if he didn’t want to get too far way when we finally took down the doggie gate! Sierra seemed to take great pleasure in watching him from inside. You can see her practically taunting him in this picture.It seemed like we didn’t mark nearly enough things off that “to do” list before we needed to get cleaned up to go to dinner up at Al & Glenda's. We had a nice time there – met some very interesting people.
One couple we had met before at our DR mother's day dinner out - Jerry and Irma. He's from Holland and has worked all over the world, including South Africa. He's got connections with the UN and has been doing some humanitarian work in Haiti trying to help them get drinking water. He owns a company that does a lot of earthwork, drilling, etc. Recently the Haitian government confiscated his two trucks and they are demanding several thousand dollars to release them. They also arrested the drivers and have put them in jail. Great way to treat someone who is trying to help the people of that country – for free! It was very interesting to listen to his stories. Irma is from the Phillipines. They met when they were both working in Singapore. They've lived here about 3 years.
The other couple, John and Elmira (I think), have been here for 10 years. She's Puerto Rican and we’re not sure where he’s from - but they both are very well traveled as well. He has invented (again, I think) a system for generating energy called a dynawave. I didn't hear as much about it as Steve since I was sitting with the "girls". But again, they were just very interesting to listen to. They’ve all had quite the adventures in their lives! It was close to 10 when we finally all went home.
The doggies are doing pretty well. We did figure out that the chlorine in the pool has been bothering Sierra, so we got some shampoo with conditioner and gave both her and Dusty a bath. She's less scratchy now, but she’s still having a problem with her ear even though I’ve been cleaning it 2x a day. I ordered some stuff that will HOPEFULLY get to Puerto Plata today so we can pick it up Tuesday. We may have to take her to see Dr. Bob if the drops I ordered don't work. Poor thing!!
Oh, and I have a new lap friend. Bamboo! Each morning within a couple of minutes of us opening our front door he's in here to visit. Monday Bamboo came in for a while, then left. We were in our office and he came back in and wanted up on my lap. I picked him up and he snuggled right in. He took a nice long siesta - probably close to an hour and a half! Goofy guy!! I think we're now his second home!
Later Monday evening we were working on another “to do” item on the back patio. I was watching Dusty walking around the pool…getting just as close to the edge as he can. Both he and Sierra like to do that for some reason. It had been raining, so of course it was a little slick, too. I looked away and no more than a minute later we hear a “splash!” Yep, you guessed it…Dusty had slipped into the deep end of the pool! We were quite pleased that he didn’t panic at all. He just turned around and headed toward the shallow end where there are stairs. I took him over and rinsed him off (we’re trying to do that now that we know what the chlorine can do to their skin!), then toweled him off. It was quite a cool day and it was actually down to 79 degrees when he fell in! I told him he should do that when it’s hot outside – it would be more refreshing!
Tuesday Michael, the electrician, came to put up the medicine cabinet in the 2nd bathroom (there is no mirror, no cabinet, nothing but an outlet above the sink!!) and do the wiring for the casita. He and his helper, Jaquito, were here until 4 and will be back on Thursday afternoon – maybe they will finish then?
Wednesday was a cool, rainy day – what a nice break to not have to run the fans, any of them, for most of the day! We made a quick trip into Puerto Plata to pick up some ear drops we had ordered for Sierra. Hopefully those will do the trick as her ears have really started bothering her for the last couple of days.
And of course, we saw the “typical” sights along the way. It amazes us that anyone would ride a “push bike” here, but you do see them. You also see people riding on just about anything and everything – seemingly very comfortable. This guy wasn’t concerned about bouncing out, I guess!
Check out the mud flap on this moto!! This is a pretty common sight here…either that or a piece of cardboard.
Who know that they had carnivals here? We were very surprised to drive by one being set up near one of the main roads going into Puerto Plata – see the ride on the left? And there were some travel trailers too – almost made us feel like we were back home at the county fair! I was actually taking a picture of the clouds hanging down over the mountain – didn’t even realize there was a carnival being set up until we closer to it. So we got a good “two for one” picture on this one!
When we got home, I took advantage of the cool and baked some zucchini muffins and made pita chips (yum!). Finally having the oven on didn’t make the house too warm – for a change!!
Thursday morning we did see the sun for the first time in a couple of days. It lasted until about lunchtime, then more rain. Fortunately I was able to get two loads of laundry washed and dried on the line before the rain started up...again!
When we got up on Thursday, we discovered we had a major technical issue – no internet which also means no phone. And wouldn’t you know it? I needed to do a conference call/webex at 10:30 - yikes! Thankfully our neighbors, Tony and Linda, did have service. So after calling the cable company & being told (I think) that they’d send a technician, I went over and connected to their network. It worked long enough to get me through the call (although the phone was cutting in and out toward the end)…then their internet went down too! We found out later that there was a pretty major issue that impacted everyone for miles. Oh yes, and the power went out – shortly before Michael came back (are you seeing a pattern here?)!
When the electricity came back on around 3:30, I decided to see if perhaps…maybe…possibly the internet was back up – and it was! Connected again - thankfully. So Steve and I jumped back onto our computers and tried to make up for the time we’d lost earlier in the day. Oh – and Michael didn’t finish. He’s coming back Friday morning. We’ll see if the power is on when he gets here!
Friday was another beautiful day – started out sunny with a few clouds and stayed a little overcast, but comfortable all day. I think this is the first day in about a week that it hasn’t rained and we had power all day! Michael and Jaquito made good progress on the casita, but didn’t finish. They’ll be back on Monday.
Since the dogs can’t go out in the backyard when they are working out there, I took them for a walk around our neighborhood. We stopped at Jackie and Damian’s so they could meet their puppies, Rosie and Sasha (yes, it was Sophie, but they changed it). Dusty and Sierra have barked at them through the fence which scares the puppies back into their house. So we thought it would be good to let them meet on a little more neutral territory. Dusty was very interested in them, but Sierra was only mildly curious. We’ll see if they bark at them so much next time they are all in the back again!
And before we close this post, we wanted to share a discovery with you. Actually Glenda told us about it. You’ll never guess what keeps mosquitoes away…molasses…and it has to be organic. We've been eating (or drinking) about a tablespoon a day for about 2-3 weeks and it's pretty amazing how well it's worked. I used to be a mosquito magnet and now I rarely get a bite. And even if they do bite me, it's almost like they stop quickly (maybe they don’t like molasses?) as the bites are very minor. I put it in my coffee instead of sugar. Steve, who can’t stand it, mixes it in orange juice (that sounds really gross to me!) and then gags it down in a couple of quick gulps. He’s decided that’s a pretty minor thing to deal with considering the benefit it's had for us. We can actually sit outside in the evenings and not get eaten alive and don't have to wear stinky repellant!!
Well, that does it for this week. Stay cool (for those of you sweltering in Colorado) and have a fun, safe weekend! Hasta la vista from the DR!!
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