Bringing lazy back

reformed task master sits on ass

The adoptive family of dogs Niles and Frasier up in Tucson said that they sure do get up early. Play starts out in the garage at 5am, but they have their own doggie door with access to a back yard and didn’t bother anyone.

That’s because I get up at the crack but I’ve also trained these street dogs to occupy themselves when I’m not available. Over here at the new old casita I’ve been in Project Polly Mode. Still up at the crack but very scheduled and busy (for real busy not wipe the counters and busy work busy) I have a new client with a pretty messed up website from 10 years ago who wants to keep most of it but make it “updated” which is I’m guessing how it feels when someone goes to a hair stylist and says they want something “edgy” but keep all the length. And the color. And the bangs.

Rebuilds and rewires are time consuming and later I will likely start over with a new fresh template but for now there’s a lot of cut and paste and font changes and DNS page redirects and yawn, but I’m delighted for the busy. So I feed at 5, I sweep interior and toss out beds to shake at 545, wash dog bowls at 6, scoop poo and tend the compost “bio digester” (a hole in the ground where I toss the poo with dirt and leaves and add yeast water and food scraps to, so the poo goes away and I don’t have to “save it” for trash day.) I rake the dirt yard which sounds gross but with 10 dogs you def don’t want grass. I spray the yard after that and move all the interior sweep mess out front and fill water buckets, drop food for hidden dogs out on the streets, rake the street of litter, start some laundry (in the sink, I don’t have a washer yet) hang the washables, check my emails, make edits, load another platform, move some furniture, try to figure out where I’ll put my tshirts with no closet and talk to clients with a 3 hour time difference in FL then start the leash walks. Getting in and out of the gates with only a couple dogs at a time is always a circus. Then come back and water my plants and blah blah blah.

But today, I did none of that. I was all caught up. I hung the curtains. I finished the websites. I don’t have to grocery shop and not doing big hauls has been a hard habit to break. I walk to the tienda, a lot of times they’re out of stuff. I have to carry it back home and well, they’re open 7 days a week. These Mexican ladies go daily, or send a 7 year old in to grab tortillas and milk. I don’t need to make a Costco sized list each visit. Chill gringa.

Sure it’s more efficient but why make such a big job of it? I didn’t have a big fridge or a pantry in NYC either (I lived there in the 95-97, I’m not a millionaire) and I got to go food or nibblies sorta whenever. Also I was 27. There’s no to go here so a little bit of prep is necessary but you can get some bananas and milk anywhere. There’s no emergency.

The dogs have been pushing the clock back little by little and before you know it fat Suzy the labrador and fatter older Brady will have me mixing breakfast when I get up to pee at 3am and well, I don’t sleep well enough to start my day at 3am so today I put my foot down. I fed them at 5 and went back to bed.

GASP

I started to fix the P-trap in the bathroom that the plumber didn’t and I saw water on the floor and hey, that could be from somewhere else what if the drain line is broken or it’s from the shower? Surely the other shoe is going to drop in my cute and cheap apartment. I’ve heard of gringos getting stuck with huge maintenance bills from septic systems that backed up into their condos and…

Wait. Go sit down.

It’s my natural habitat to Wheel Spin into Catastrophize Town and launch into prepper mode but I’m not doing that anymore. Please see: I’ve Demoted Myself from General Manager of the Universe. Also, I rent. I’ve had some repairs already and the landlord, who is a store owner with a prominent family all over this small town, is 6 blocks away. They’ve been very responsive with repairs. There’s zero reason for me to believe some urban ex-pat legend about paying for your own repairs. And maybe that happens in fancy town Merida or Puerto Vallarta? Dunno. If you want counters and cabinets you may have to outfit your own kitchen but for the price I really don’t mind. I’ll find that I can’t find either in town and I’ll just hang my pots and pans on hooks on the wall and use a desk for a prep counter. Things I learned from cheap digs in 90s Brooklyn.

Most of my food service these days is Dog Soup in the Crock Pot and making sauerkraut, a quicky fish sandwich or squeezing limes from my prolific tree out back and making lime-ade. I have One Glass and Three Plates, so why do I need cabinets? I used to have a very nice custom kitchen with an 18ft butcher block counter where I placed abundant catering trays and did cooking classes. I may have used up all my cooking in luxury tokens. If I see something at the used fridge store, I’ll think about it. (Also I don’t miss oiling that butcher block every week for ten years)

I made a strap out of a used dog leash and rigged up the sink drain. Turned off the light, listened to a podcast and drank Nescafe in bed with a couple dogs and did some much needed foot and nail maintenance. A little nap and it got the dogs off the let’s eat and go bark at morning dog passer by and make a mess at 6am wrestle mania habit. If you’ve got a super hyper athletic dog that bothers you for a run on a daily you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Dogs habituate to whatever you teach them to. Mix it up a bit. After about 15 minutes of staring at me for Walkies they realized it wasn’t happening and everyone got back in their beds and we chilled. I’m using them as an example but I’m the one who needs training.