Tooty-fruitty

One of summer's pleasures in Southern Mexico is the fruit pitaya. Vietnam and Malasia, and some other Pacific nations, have discovered this fruit and are cultivating and exporting what they call dragon fruit. And on Facebook Mafia Wars game, in Cuba, dragon fruit is given as a bonus on jobs done.
Me, I've embarked on some cultivation of my own. Jose Flores placed cuttings in my garden two years ago. Mostly, they were not pretty and took to climbing the walls. The main stem looked it was broken when we started emptying potting soil in the corner of the garden, with the papaya tree at the other end.
The flowers lasted only a few hours and I was remiss in not grabbing the camera. But rains were here and well, I thought, no harm in waiting.
The next day, the flowers were gone and little button like bumps appeared. Didn't catch those either. But now, there are fast growing fruits that at this stage look like artichokes.

They are growing inches in days. Today is sunny. The fruits are going to love it!
My worker is now back to painting the roof. He'll pick a couple papayas on his way in and, with the market bought pitaya, we will have a nice fruit salad for lunch's desert. No need to spend more money than the 50 pesos for the pulled pork, of which there is plenty left. I feel like I'm living the green life! Green Acres is the place for me...

Yeah, she had a hangover the next day!

Here's Delfino Guevara the vet with his daughter Berta and an assistant, waiting for Lora to go under from the sedative he gave her. She immediately looked happy. All this for a pedicure; she just doesn't like them.
An ear cleaning was also in order. Ear mites accompany ticks. And Lora got an anti tick shot and two days of parasite cleaning capsules for me to give her. A month ago, the ticks assaulted her and the capsules are to kill any eggs for heartworm.

Oncce she was totally under, the ear cleaning began. And I clean them daily myself, but can't go as deep as Delfino does.
Then the pedicure. She actually tolerated the front paws being done without anesthesia.
Back to the ear and ya, we're done. I took her back home in the golf cart with Berta riding with me and Delfino behind use to take Berta home.
My instructions were to watch her in case she stopped breathing. Better treatment than Michael Jackson got.
And she was so hung over yesterday, it was hard to get her to sit up! It happens.

The way we were

Here we were, in 2006, because we didn't think Joann, left, would make it to the real 35th year for our reunion. She had a double lung transplant earlier that year. Next to her is Rick, who went to Costa Rico ro live on railroad disability after his aorta was patched and became cocaine addicted. Next to me is Jeff. He's the one who's dead.
Joann and Mio went to his funeral Saturday in North Carolina. As Joann's grad student daughter drove, she and Mio talked about how she clings to life while Jeff tossed it away.
I've been looking at the emails between me and Jeff since his January layoff as as VP at Eastwood Homes. Tapped on the shoulder, told no profit was expected this year. Hasta la vista.
We had not written in a while, since March after he returned from spring skiing in Colorado with his daughter from his first marriage.
He had married his girlfriend of six years, Cindy, last summer. Karen, his first wife and mom of Kayla, and Jeff were on good terms.
Cindy's chain of dance studios went under shortly after they married. Jeff had built homes for Karen, his now 83 year old mother Ann, his sister Joanne, and himself, on Lake Norman in North Carolina, very much like the lake we grew up on, the photo negative image of Isla.
Jeff's father managed credit and money poorly. He vowed to not let that happen to him. Before joining Eastwood, he built his houses with his own money, starting the business with one house, then selling it and building two, etc.
He had accumulated expensive toys no one would buy from him in the recession. Nice power boats like his dad provided for us but sometimes Jeff came home from school to naked hotdogs.
He was fussy and a worry wart. I am still struggling to explain this. He had assets in land and homes. Used to have a million dollar portfolio. Lost it the way so many others did.
He was on anti depressants. Who knows what gave him the idea to hang himself on the 30th of June. May he rest in peace. May his family grow stronger from this. Jeff, you idiot! We are pissed at you for now.