Working Hard...

It's been a tough week what with keeping up with work and missing Emily and being so far away from family... but can we complain when this is our lunch break. :-)

Scene: Bahamian Customer Service

Lisa: Oh no Mark - the internet is down.

Mark: OK - I will re-set the router.

Mark fiddles with the plugs a few times... nothing.

Lisa: Uh oh - Last time this happened they had shut us down for not paying the bill. I'll check the cable. (please note the bill was only not paid because they never got around to sending us one - details, details)

Lisa turns on the TV... there is nothing.

Lisa: Looks like you have to call Cable Bahamas

Mark gets on the phone.

Mark: Hello. It looks as though our cable is down can you cehck our account for me please?

Customer Service Agent: OK - Can I have your account information please?

Mark goes through the usual rigamarole of trying to find the account.

Customer Service Agent: No - there is no problem with your account your area has been shut down by Bahama Electric Corporation for servicing.

Mark: They just turned it off?

Customer Service Agent: Yes

Mark: Was this a planned outage?

Customer Service Agent: Well - they called us a little while ago and told us they were going to do it.

Mark: OK - well we run a business from our house so we really need the internet. Can you tell me how long it will be down.

Customer Service Agent: No -it varies.

Mark: OK - I guess we'll just wait for it to come back up again.

Customer Service Agent: OK. Bye.

Mark turns on the TV and waits for sound so that we will know when the cable is restored.

Nation Of Consumers

Discover Commercial

We are a nation of consumers.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just that there is so much cool stuff to buy.

Kamikaze Swallow

We have much more to say about China and many more pictures but as we recover from our trip we can't seem to get ourselves organized enough. To be honest, getting out of bed in the morning has been a bit of a trial this last week. Since we aren't sleeping during the night sleeping during the day is tempting - but not the way to cure jet lag. Anyway another story...

See these?

Tough to spot I know... but if you look closely you can see the wide open mouth of a baby swallow. Remember when we told we had new family members? Well said family members had babies.

Cute right? Not so much. The Daddy swallow takes his job of protecting his babies very seriously. As soon as either cat steps out of the house that bird dips in to a screaming dive-bomb and flaps his wings so loudly they sound like bullets firing. Needless to say the cats don't like it. In fact they don't like it so much that Ow has stopped going outside... ever. Colonel takes the occassional risk. We think that he is hoping (being the incredibly lazy cat that he is) that the bird will fly directly in to his mouth so that he can prance back in the house and show off his "hunting skills" to Ow. Well that plan isn't working. About 10 minutes ago Mark had to crawl under the chaise lounge and rescue Colonel. He was stuck under there shivering, mewling... terrified. Mark had to carry him back in to the house and shoo the kamikaze bird away.

This isn't going to help our "clean up the fireplace" quest as both cats were going to the bathroom outside.

The excitement never ends.

George and Lenny – Revisited

Here’s the thing….we have 2 cats that tend to act strangely like the characters from John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” One is a lumbering brute that plays dumb at every opportunity. He looks at you at food time with those “cow” eyes and blunders into the most obvious of situations with complete abandon. If his food wasn’t stuck under his nose every morning I don’t think he’d ever eat again. The other one is sleek and calculating with an air of confidence that lets everyone around know he is the smart one. He’s timid, hides under beds and things, but knows the time every morning and evening when its meal-call and he leads the way (and the nose of the other one) into the kitchen. They are The Colonel and Ow – can you guess which is which?

So which is to blame for the mystery? The mystery? Well, on our return from our China odyssey we were greeted by the news, and smell!, that our fireplace area (yes, we have one even though we are in Nassau and the last roaring fire here was when the Colonial Hilton burnt down in 1911) had been used as a public urinal for the last 2 weeks. So you can imagine the repulsion we felt, let alone the dismay on Mark’s face - as it was evident that he, and he alone, was going to have to deal with the situation. Dealing with the situation means cleaning up and ensuring no further occurrence, and identifying the culprit (and doling out punishment). To give you a flavor of the cleaning up – this involved Mark on his hands and knees under the fireplace with a bucket of vinegar and water scrubbing the stones followed by a treatment with a solution of Hydrogen Peroxide and washing up liquid topped by a good dousing with baking soda. A true and tried concoction. Of course this whole process needs to be repeated 4 times to ensure the smell is eradicated. If not then he will need to resort to bleach! Having diligently gone through this process you can imagine (or not) Mark’s disappointment (not sure if that’s the right word!) this morning when he was reviewing his good work and there in plain view was a little overnight puddle to greet him. Upon inspection, you’ve guessed it, it was clear the culprit had struck again.

But who…the docile, buffoonish Lenny or the stealth-like, calculating George? Mark is watching their moves very carefully and to ensure his clean fireplace is no longer defiled he has assembled a barricade (see below)…more to follow….

The Wheels on the Bus

We took many bus journeys on our trip to China as it was often the only mode of transportation to some of the rural locations on our list. Without Maggie the bus trips would have been an impossibility. As you can see from the photo below nothing in the bus station was in English.







During our entire journey we did not see another Westerner at any bus station or on any bus. You can imagine that we were kind of an oddity and a bit of a circus attraction. At one station a security guard approached Adam and I who were waiting while Mark and Maggie got the tickets. He stood perhaps a foot from my nose and shouted, "Hello", with a huge grin on his face. I repeated the greeting, then he didn't move. For about 7 or 8 minutes he stood with his face a few inches from mine, staring at me and grinning wildly. It was very unsettling. Maggie thought it was hysterical and launched in to fits of giggles every time I said, "Hello" (add funny sing song voice) to her for the rest of the trip.

Not since we moved in to Water's Edge have I wanted a bucket of hot water and bleach so badly. Give me that and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and I could have had this bus ship-shape in an hour. And sadly I'm not kidding. Had they given me the tools I would have done it. It would have been so satisfying.






This lady was having a very loud and angry fight with her husband on the bus. After they were done yelling she turned her face in to the window and cried for the entire hour journey. The husband tried to make amends but she was having none of it. Without understanding what they were fighting about it is impossible to say if she was justified. But we were on her side anyway.