What's Worse?

I already say that i dont take the bus as often as i use to now that i have this awesome bike to get home and to work but on Saturdays, during the high season (which considered the work load i've had to endure over the past few weeks, i'm surprise it wasnt declared "high season" earlier), i work half day and yes, i'm offering myself the luxury of taking the bus to work. 

I finish at 2pm and there is no way i'll bike at that time, with blazing sun and all. Just not happening.

Even though i dont take the bus as often as i said earlier, i still have tons of stories about the bus rides i've done in the past and most likely more stories to come as i keep on taking the bus from time to time.

So now, back to my title, and back to that pretty intense question:

WHAT IS WORSE?

What is worse when you're on a public bus?

A guy's crotch rubbing on your shoulder while you're sitting? A fat ass woman's huge belly? A fat ass? Someone's bag on your face? People squooshing themselves against you to make their way to the exit door? A borracho drunk breath at 8 in the morning? A punk listening to his music on his cel phone without a headset? A soaking wet kid coming back from the beach sitting next to you? A pregnant woman with 3 kids, all under the age of 5, with about 20 plastic bags of groceries dropping one of the bags on your foot? A construction worker's armpits at 6pm, obviously out of a sleeveless shirt? Or a complete stranger drip-sweating above you?

All of the above? (especially when you know it's 34°C outside!!)

All that familiarity in such a small environment is somewhat awkward and unpleasant ...

Drenched

I know it was meant to happen, it hadnt happened yet but did last night on my way back home. One of these days you're looking at the window at work and dont even see the building across the street. What i was seeing though was my bike on the balcony looking at me like it knows what's gonna happen next.

Every time i feel lazy or completely unwilling to bike back home,  i focus on the following morning at 8am, picturing 4 buses passing in front of me without stopping cuz they're jammed packed. And i think, let's bike then, i'll be arriving home and i'll take a shower and put on some dry clothes.

Yesterday, at 6pm, i raced into my biking clothes, grabbed my bike as fast as i could, rushed downstairs with bike on my shoulder and made it to the front door of my office's building right on time for the begining of the downpour.

Half a block down the street and i was soaked to the bone. The main difference is that it's still 30°C outside so risks of getting a pneumonia are actually pretty remote :)

What was worrying me a bit was that Exiquio Corona Avenue, which is the very last portion of my way back home. It's always the worse part when it rains cuz the draining system is inexistant and the streets get completely flooded.

Well that time was no exception. Except that something quite new happened to me. Every time my foot was at the lowest point of the pedal, my entire foot and shoe was UNDERWATER. I mean seriously 100% underwater. And obviously, it's not that nice clean pool water we're talking about. It's that nasty, stinky, oily street dirty brown water... GROSS.

I made it home after killing my crotch not seeing this big hole in the road around the corner from my house, thanked god i'm not a man, and made it home literally swimming in my shoes. 

Plotch plotch plotch.

Dear beloved was home, handled me a dry towel to make my way to the bathroom and emptied my bag to dry everything (especially my phone which was already taking a foot-bath).

The rain stopped about an hour after i made it home. I believe this was the last rain of the rainy season. 

It got me good.

I Scare People

Quite a while back, an ex-colleague of mine told me i always scared her. I thought it was hilarious. But then another friend of mine told me that i was intimidating. And i started to think about it and i honestly dont see what's intimidating about me. But anyways,

I currently live in a very, very mexican area of Puerto Vallarta. What i mean by that is that i'm most likely the only white person living in that part of town. And even though my neighbors and people in the block know me now, at first, they stared at me from head to toes. And they do a second scan as soon as i start to speak spanish to them. Cuz i dont have much of an accent.

When we crashed the car, i used to take the bus to go to work. Thus i also used to take the bus to come back home too. Now i bike but i have so many bus stories i should really start to write more often!

I've just realized recently, that when i'm in "my" bus, people stare at me, which i dont really care about, and people are scared of me. Or intimidated. Or whatever you want to call it. 

Bottom line is: i scare people off. I mean tonight for example, i had to wait quite a while to get my bus back. So obviously when it finally comes, a lot of people get on. I get the first stares when i get on a bus that doesnt go anywhere close to a tourist place. The only "tourist" stop it makes is wal-mart. But generally, tourists just dont take that bus. So most of the locals stare.

One day, i was sitting at the back of the bus and this old woman was standing in the alley (i didnt leave her my seat cuz there were tons of free seats) and she looked me up and down in disdain or in disbelief or in wonder or maybe all of the above for about 25 minutes (pretty much the entire length of my trip back home). I mean i dont get uncomfortable easily but after a while, i really wanted to stand up and ask her what her damn problem was. But it was late, i was tired and i didnt want to make a fuss. After all, it's a free country and i paid my trip and i was going home, just like everybody else in that bus. But still.

That day, the seat next to me was empty. And stayed that way the entire journey. Same tonight. I mean the bus is jammed packed, there is a free seat next to me and nobody dares to seat there. 

Why?

Because i'm white.

I think.

I dont mind really. You guys keep on stucking each other against each other and i'll keep comfy on my 2 seats :)

I Have a Purple dog

Like a friend of mine would say, Oh, Em, Gee, i have a purple dog!

Following up on my dog's health status...

So yesterday, she had her shot. But the vet was pretty specific and told me that every day, i have to clean her wound with hydrogen peroxide (?? is that the name really in english?, it's "eau oxygénée" in french and "agua oxygenada" in spanish but anyway). So i had to clean her wound everyday and then put an antiseptic on it morning and afternoon for the wound to heal.

In France, we'd use mercurochrome, a cranberry-red antiseptic that stains your skin for weeks. Well here in Mexico, it's called violeta and as the name so very well says, it's purple. A deep shade of purple.

And i have a white dog.

At least, i used to.

This morning, Lola didnt think any good of the violeta session and things got a bit out of hand. Ok things got totally out of control. 

As i was getting ready to pour some violeta on her wound, she flipped her head to check something so much more interesting than me trying to cure her and knocked the bottle of violeta off my hand, splashing generously my hands, my legs, the floor and obviously, her face in the process.

A colleague of mine says awwww, she looks like she's wearing a lucha libre's mask. Buu, she's gonna be the laughing stock of the entire neighborhood! She's gonna get bullied. She's gonna get traumatized for life and will never want to get out of the house ever again. 

Or is it only me?

Shots ... Like In Injection ... With A Needle!

So yesterday, i went to the vet to take care of my two injured pets: Lola, my bullterrier with a cut from ear to ear and Nina, my youngest kitty cat who's almost got eaten alive by my dear dog mentioned above.

The good news are: 

* Nina is starting to use her back leg again to walk ... it's far from being fully recovered but she also started eating again so she should be back to her normal pain in the ass self anytime now.

* Lola's cut is slowly closing itself up but again, without stitches and with a cut that wide, it's gonna take some time.

If it wasnt for me, i dont think Lola would actually bother wandering around with her head open wide. But being the worried "mom" i am, well, you know!

So yesterday, the vet did give both of them a shot. And told me: come back tomorrow with both so they can get another shot.

Well today, my situation wasnt gonna be any different than it was yesterday: i dont have a car and i get back home at 6:30pm. Vet closes at 7pm. So there is no way i'm getting both Lola and Nina to the vet, separetly moreover!, in 30 minutes. Took me 1h30 yesterday.

When i told the vet he said: so, you'll do it then! Here's the needle and the potion.

JA

JA

JA

Whaaaaat? O_o

Me? Giving a shot to my pets? You're kidding right?

Well no he wasnt. 

For those of you who dont know, i'm terrified of needles, i cant watch a needle entering a vein, no matter if the vein belongs to my dog, my cat, my man, myself, if it's live or on TV, just the thought of it gives me goose bumps. 

So no, i'm not giving ANY shot to anybody.

Luckily for me, one of my ex colleague and friend, who's an animal passionate lives 6 houses down. I called him and he said, yeah sure, no problem, piece of cake.

He just left. 

Nina is now completely and happily stoned and sleeping.

Lola is killing her gigantic bone, looking at me in sheer adoration, like dogs do. 

Lemus, you're my hero today!

THANK YOU!

Woo freaking hoo!

Worse Birthday EVER

Well it started ok. It just ended dreadfully.

I was in Mexico City over the weekend and we let our neighbor take care of our dog and 3 cats. Lola was going to be in a gigantic enclosure with the neighbor's 6 dogs and the cats were  going to be at home like normal. The neighbor was just gonna come and feed them every day.

I managed to get a flight back home instead of the 12 hour bus ride i was initially gonna take. And i thought, well, that'd be good, i'll get some rest, in my own bed.

Well not so much. 

When i went back to get my dog, neighbor said he saw a nasty cut on her head in the morning. First thing i thought was, well if it's that nasty, why didnt you take her to the vet? So i asked: do you think she might need stiches? And he said yes maybe.

And i thought oh my fucking god if my dog needed stiches why the flying fuck didnt you take her to the vet? I mean dude, you said you'd take care of my dog, it's like taking care of a kid. If he/she breaks his leg or get a cut that needs stiches, you dont just wait for the parents to come back, you take that kid to the ER, get him/her fixed and then call the parents.

Well the cut was even worse than i actually anticipated. And trust me, when its about imagining nasty gory stuff, i'm top notch.

So i did my best to clean the wound but it's never easy with such an excited dog or with hands shaking like that, or even when it's pitch dark outside. I cleaned it and then put some antiseptic and then had the amazing idea to put a band over it so it wouldnt get infected with some dirt or god knows what else. And since i didnt have any bandage at hand, i used an old sheet to make one of my own. And i was sincerely pretty proud of the result:

No, i didnt get her ears under the bandage, she just put them back, like a good submissive dog!

What i wasnt expected was that while i was finally taking my well deserved shower, Lola would throw herself at Nina (my youngest cat) who had ran outside and couldnt get back in.

The scene i witnessed (after very nearly breaking a leg because i ran soaking wet through the tiles of my living room) was horror movie worthy. If i had seen it on TV i would have switched channel. It was Lola going for the kill and the prey, her prey, was my cat.

What do you do when one of your pet tries to kill another pet of yours? 

After what seemed centuries, I managed to stuff my fist inside Lola's mouth eventually and Nina dropped on the floor and was so shocked that she was standing there, not even blinking. She was covered in blood and so was Lola. 

It took my 60 kilos to keep her still and a good 20 minutes to calm her down, away from the scene. And it took one extra set of gutts and another liter of sweat to carry Lola inside the house to get her leash and go back out to tie her up while i was taking care of poor Nina.

Needless to say i didnt sleep. 

My dear friend Nahomi did me the favor to help me go back and forth to the vet this morning to check on both. 

Verdic: Lola needed stiches, at least 8, but part of the wound was getting dry and nothing more than a shot and some more antiseptic to clean the open wound could be done.

Nina doesnt seem to have any broken bones, the 2 bites are superficial but she's beaten up inside and has been administrated strong painkiller and antibiotics. She still doesnt use one of her back leg yet and hasnt eaten anything in 24 hours.

Vet said that both will be just fine. 

My pets are bad-ass.

But that was still the worse birthday presents ever. And 24 hours later, i still feel like a gigantic pile of poop.

Early Celebration

I work in a company of 15 people. With 3 people who recently quit and have yet to be replaced, one that is now working from home and 2 currently on the other side of the country to open a new office there, that makes a grand total of 9. Out of these 9 people left, 5 are born in September. On the 5th, 13th, 18th (me), 22nd and 28th. What are the odds? 5 people who were conceived right around Christmas and New Year celebrations ... That could be material for an entire new post! LOL

So we all thought that September was gonna be the big fat month of cake eating and zillion calories. Cuz we generally have a birthday cake for birthday people. So 5 cakes in a month, that's about a zillion calories in birthday cakes. Just the thought of it was enjoyable.

Well we didnt. We didnt have 5 cakes. We had one gigantic cake, today, with a "happy birthday ALL" written in blue icing. They sang the mañanitas, the happy birthday song and i even get to sing it in French too, all alone but still.

I'll be honest. It was a gigantic trillion calories chocolate cake so compact and thick that one bite needed to be shoveled down with the help of a Coke gulp. And since i got the honor of cutting the slices, trust me that i was pretty generous on the portions. 

It was truly a delicious cake. And even though i had to say how old i'm turning on Sunday (11 years older than the one who was the actual birthday girl!! aargh) and that it wasnt my real birthday day (yet), and that i didnt have to blow any candle, it was still a nice quiet celebration, with a lot of laughters and quite a nice touch from the boss.

But i still want my own cake.

Seriously?

6:58am


It's 31.7°C outside.

Seriously?


Is it real?


Is it even possible?

Locked!

I'm home alone. No biggy you'll say except that i'm locked inside! O_o

How is that even possible is what people are asking me. Well i do have the keys to all the doors with a key-lock. But my front door is a slidding glass door that can be "locked" from inside or from outside. And when you're on the other side of the lock, there is no way you can get in. I even try to unscrew the lock - it doesnt change anything.

And obviously, i have all my windows protected by fences like everybody does in Mexico.

And dear beloved is at work. Until 5pm at least, maybe later.

I could see it as the perfect opportunity to clean the house since i cant get out but i'm gonna use it as a perfect opportunity not to do ANYTHING (insert evil face here).

Can't walk the dog, can't do laundry, can't go to the store buy myself a coke.

Story of my life!

It's only when you lose things you have that you learn how to value them! Hence only when you're locked up that you really enjoy your liberty!

I wouldnt last 2 minutes in jail!

Steamy

I have finally found Mexican's secret fountain of youth and perfect skin!

As usual, and most likely for quite some time to come, i took the bus back home yesterday. It was steaming hot outside since we havent had any rain in the past 4 days and the idea of being in a bus for the next 20 minutes was nothing remotedly appealing. But since walking home would take me a good hour and a half (if not more), what other options do i have?

That was undoubtedly the longest bus ride EVER.

It was so hot inside that everybody was DRIPPING sweat. Me included. But i really mean dripping sweat. 

On top of being the grossest thing ever, how uncomfortable is that anyway? 

There was this ventilation panel on the roof that was staring at me like it was saying "dont you dare opening me" that nobody even tried to open, i mean what is wrong with you people?

I caught myself thinking, wow, if i were stuck in a reduced space with the people of this particular bus, we'd die in no time. And then i thought, well, if i WERE stuck in there with all of them, i wouldnt ask for permission and would actually open the damn ventilation panel.

I work in an air-conditionned office and my desk is right under the AC. Needless to say i'm freezing my ass all day so i tend to use pants. Well yesterday i had capri denim pants on. 

Bad idea.

It took me like 10 minutes to detach them from my legs.

Sweating is not fun. Especially when you sweat doing nothing at all. When you're soaked in sweat because you spent 2 hours in the gym or walking your dog, it's ok. But doing nothing it's just not cool.

And when on top of that, half the sweat is not even yours, it's just plain gross.

But at least my skin looks HOT with a 6.5 pesos treatment. What does beat this?

How To Destroy A Car ?

In just over 6 seconds...


I have asked for a day off from work in order to go to the Consulate of Guadalajara cuz i have some notary paperwork to sign in front of the authorized authorities. Sounds important but really takes like 3 minutes. I basically went all the way to Guadalajara to sign 6 pages and get a consulate stamp over each one of my 6 signatures. And i didnt even see the consul. But anyway.

I asked dear-beloved if he would be so kind to take me to the bus station that night to take the 1:30am bus. I'd make it around 6:30am, will have breakfast and then go get my sheets signed, hop in a cab and make my way back home.
But then he said, well, i dont work tomorrow so why dont we go by car so we leave at 4:30am, make it there at 9am, have breakfast, sign your papers and go back home?


I told him i wasnt sure my old car would make it all the way to Guadalajara and back but if he was up for the driving, sure, why not?


And off we were at 4:30am.


And i slept pretty much since minute one until around 7:30am.


We were then on the highway, and the scenary was beautiful, all green and luxurious thanks to the morning drizzle. 


And that's when it happened. Dear-beloved lost control of the car, we slidded on the right, then on the left and the second i thought cool i think he's got the car back on track, we actually "hit" another slippery spot and front-crashed the car on the median wall, did an awesome 360°, hit the wall again but with the trunk and ended up in the middle of the highway, right outside the curve we were in.


He asked me if i was OK and urged me to get out of the car. I obliged. And he ran to the entrance of the curve to slow down traffic. I couldnt stop shaking.


After 2 guys stopped to move the car to the emergency lane so traffic could go on at its normal pace, dear-beloved came back to me and that's when we realized how lucky we both were. We dont have a scratch, not a bruise to "prove" anything even happened. 
Apart from the destroyed car and pictures we took of it, we could as well have been taking a morning walk in the Jalisco's mountains. 


If only.


Ambulance got there in not even 10 minutes but received a call of another accident that just happened 1.5km behind us with casualties. And since we were just fine, they dashed. 


And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. For the crane to come pick up the car, for the Feds to allow it, for the insurrance car...


We were there, on the side of the road for about an hour and a half when a pick up truck did exactly the same little show off dance we had done an hour earlier. I was so surprised/in shock/in disbelief that i was completely glued to the ground, watching in awe an accident happening in front of my very eyes.


Dear beloved grabbed me and threw me away from the road, in the bushes, just in case the truck would flip over and come flatten us both. It didnt. It stopped a few meters away from us, pretty much exactly where our car had stopped earlier. But there was 4 people in that car, 2 of which injured. 


To make one long story short, since, as i said, we were the only non-injured people of all these accidents (we heard later that in 1.5 hours, there were 5 accidents over a 3km portion), we ended up spending 4.5 hours waiting on the highway to be taken care of. 

Car is dead, engine was split in two, the front axle was also split in two, one of the back wheel was parallel to the road, one of the back door couldnt open. We sold it to the junkyard for just enough money to pay all that needs to be paid on such a situation, got a ride to Guadalajara with the insurrance guy, got hosted by a friend of mine, went signing the papers the following day and came back by bus.


TWO things are coming to my mind after such "incident":
1) you can truly know what people are worth when you're in such a challenging situation - you have the people who pass the crash almost stopping their car to feed on their morbid glutony, people who dont think twice and stop to help right away, people who keep their cool, people who try to abuse you while in dispair and people who'd simply give their live to save yours.
2) there is NOTHING like health.


And if i had just one little piece of advice, it'd be: USE YOUR SEATBELT.
It's the second time it saved my life and/or prevented me from being seriously injured. None of the 4 people of the truck who crashed after us was using it and 3 got injured, 2 pretty seriously. You can buy yourself a new car. Not a new life.


And as dear-beloved reminded me on our way back home, i was right, the car didnt make it to Guadalajara.


Now dear Santa, here is what i want under the Xmas tree this year ... Dont disappoint me!

Crazy Bus Ride

This morning, dear beloved got a last minute call asking him if he could work today ... that was on my way to work. So he took the car and i obviously had to go back home by bus.

Normally, my bus takes 34 minutes to get to the bus stop i get off at. 


Today it took 19 minutes. 


Speed bumps? What speed bumps? You want to get off at this stop? Who the hell do you think you are? And that bloody bus in front, move! you, slow ass! What do you mean there's no overtaking here? Whatever.
And damn you people for ringing the "i get off here" bell.


Dear Unit-169 ... your Jesus Christ stickers will do you no good. Nor your rosary.


But thank you for getting me home in no time ;)

Cat Bite

A good deed doesnt always pay off.

This morning, i saw one of my cats in the tree right outside the house. Since he was meowing like he truly needed my help, i called him down and decided to carry him back inside the house (so he wouldnt have to run for his life if ever my dog spotted him).


Well that was without counting on Lola (my dog) jumping that damn high. 


As soon as she spotted me with the cat in my arms, she threw herself at me and even my knee wasnt keeping her away. I was almost at the window where i first intented to throw the cat inside the house when she actually managed to jump high enough to bite the cat on the back leg.


My cat Yeti is not the kinda cat that takes that kinda crap without reacting so he obviously was more than eager to fight back. Problem is: he wasnt fighting back the dog but me. 


So i got scratched on my face (not fun) and got bitten on my hand.


I swear it hurt up to my soul. 


He left 3 bite marks: one for his lower teeth and 2 with his upper fangs.


And as i said, it hurt like mother fucking HELL.


Wounds were so deep they actually bled for a couple of hours. It amazed me how such incredibly small wounds can hurt that much. I mean seriously.


But what worried me more was the following morning when my hand had turn a nice shade of red and was twice its normal size. I had no idea cats were venomous.


Since that swell got me seriously worried, i went to the doctor to check it up. When i told him my cat had bitten me, he smiled and told me: people always come for cat bites, almost never for dog bites.
And why is that? Simply because a dog bite stays open so it's easier to clean and it dries quicker. Whereas a cat bite goes deeper (thanks to needle sharp teeth) and closes almost instantly, keeping all the venom bacterias inside with no way out.


As the doctor said, back in the days, we would have needed to cut open to clean the wound but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, we can now use drugs to sort it all out. Drugs such as penicilin which has been used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by organisms. 
Which is perfect to fight cat's venom.


Bottom line, if i'm ever stupid enough to try to "save" my cat from my dog, it's better to get bitten by the dog  than by the cat. And as my doctor nicely put it: your cat is more than capable of handling that kind of situation with the dog, he also runs faster than the dog and will most likely NOT get hurt if you dont get involved.


Well, screw the cat ... he's on his own from now on!

That is SOOO not my cat and dog. But if only ....

Yep, this is more like this ... Except that both mine are white ... 

Happy 14th of July

Happy Bastille Day as they call it in the US.

Whatever you call it, today, in France, we celebrate the 222th anniversary of the Take of the Bastille (if that even means something) which in clearer words, the official day when the Monarchy became a Democracy (or so they want us to believe).


222 years later, it's also the day that my car got towed right outside my office and the day i'm finally going to meet the in-laws.


Still thinking on how am i gonna celebrate all that!

The One I Get Assaulted (And Lectured)

I wasnt sure i was going to talk about this because really, nothing serious happened. But it did happened and i've promised myself i'd be writing about the crazy things that happen to me here. Crazy good but also crazy bad.

Yesterday morning, i went to walk my dog, as i usually do in the morning, at 6:30am. Since there was lightning outside, i decided to take a small bag with my raincoat in it, in case it started to pour. I dont mind walking my dog under the rain but if i can avoid being drenched, it's better.


I was almost to the point i normally turn around to go back home (so after almost 30 minutes walking) when i passed not too far (but not too close either) from 2 guys. As i was passing them, one of them asked me where was the regional hospital. I briefly stopped to answer him and was on my way again. 


Half a second later, one of them was throwing himself at me, from the back, reason why i didnt see him coming cuz i dont have a built in rear mirror, and telling me to give him my bag. My bag was a tiny little pouch with 2 things in it: my house keys and my raincoat. 


Absolutely NOTHING valuable in it. 


Obviously he doesnt know that and unfortunately, i'm not the kind of person who just take it easy, bend over and tell him oh yes sure please help yourself. So i wrestled back, telling him that i have nothing in my bag. And the dumb ass telling me to calm down and stay still.


What was the other asshole doing? Telling him to stop. Dude, instead of telling him to stop, if it's really how you feel, do something about it. 


And then for no reason at all, and quite unespectedly, he let go off me. Without taking my bag. I didnt run away from him but was checking every few seconds if he wasnt following me cuz that would have been creepier than anything else (in my opinion at least). 


I was DYING to shout at him stuff that would be censored and most likely making Blogger close down my blog for being so rude and vulgar. And if i had had a gun, i would have shot that piece of disgraceful shit in the eye. 


And that's exactly what dear beloved told me HE could have done as well. For no reason at all. Shooting you if he had a gun just because. 


As soon as i got home, i obviously told dear beloved what happened and he was tactful enough not to mention all the mistakes i made. But he held them for the day after when he lectured me for about an hour about all the things i need to be careful about, check what people wear, the look in their eyes, who's close to me, who's far, what car they have, never talk to strangers and if we ever go live in Mexico City as we both would like to, if that ever happen, not to fight back and give them what they want. Even if it's just 30 pesos.


Everything material, even money, can be replaced. 
My life and safety cant.


I was majorly pissed at his lecture to be honest. I mean i've spent 33 years on this planet and i have never been attacked in my whole life. I've been walking my dogs at 6:30am in the morning for the past 5 years and nothing ever happened to me. 
What i think happened yesterday was that for the first time, i was carrying a bag while walking the dog. I normally dont do that. Ever. For that very reason. I'm wearing a passion killer sport outfit with my keys in my pocket and that's it. 


And that bag was temptation. Even thought it had nothing in it.


When i told a friend of mine about it, she said: oh my god, you must have been so scared. Well strangely, no, i wasnt. I get terrified by birds and dead animals but not by an insult for a human being who's trying to steal a woman walking her dog. What fills me up is a shooting to the roof anger, a feeling of complete helplessness and unfairness and a dangerous rage that could make me go beyond the point of no return (and get myself into serious trouble).


I think that if i do get robbed one day, i'll become some dangerous bitter revengeful person in killing mode. 
I dont think i could stand the unfairness of it all or the fact that the dump shit motherfucker who steal from me gets away with it.


I have thus decided to get myself a baseball bat and start walking my dog with it. 


Or a golf club ... or a hockey stick ... 


See if they dare ...

I Know What It's Called

I believe i have 2 big irrational fears i'm dealing with in my life: the fear of big birds and the fear of dead animals. Which are called Ornithophobia and Necrophobia.

Technically speaking, an irrational fear is called a phobia. Except that in my situation, phobia seems always a bit too extreme considering what i feel.

As you all know already, i have had this fear of birds since i was about 15 years old when a pheasant attacked me. Since then, i am dreading big colourful birds, pheasants of course topping the list but closely followed by peacocks, parrots and roosters. You can say whatever you want about these birds, that they have beautiful colors and stuff, it doesnt make them any less dreadful to me. If they are in their natural environment, i am ok. Seeing a parrot in a tree doesnt bother me (even though i will most likely keep an eye on it, just in case). But seeing a parrot swagging on the floor, or a rooster perched on a tree, i seriously start to freak out. Same if i have to walk pass in front of a parrot's cage. I dont mind pigeons, sparrows, crows or swallows as long as they're flying or in the trees. If they dare to get inside my house, it's panick attack.

Ornithophobia can cause the following symptoms: breathlessness, dizziness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control or a full blown anxiety attack.

As i said, it's not THAT bad but yeah, sweaty hands and heart palpitations, inability to think clearly if i have to get a bird out of my house or losing control are some of MY symptoms.

Now about necrophobia. This is what the dictionary says about it:

Necrophobia  is the abnormal fear of dead things (e.g., corpses) as well as things associated with death (e.g., coffins, tombstones). 

Symptoms include: shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, dry mouth and shaking, feeling sick and uneasy, psychological instability, and an altogether feeling of dread and trepidation. The sufferer may feel this phobia all the time, or only when something triggers the fear, like a close encounter with a dead animal or the funeral of a loved one or friend. The fear may have developed when a person witnessed a death, or was forced to attend a funeral as a child. Some people experience this after viewing frightening media.

To clear things up a little, i don't mind coffins, or tombstones or dead people. I am not scared of dying or scared of death either. I just truly mind dead animals. And i only feel it when something triggers the fear i.e. seeing a dead animal body.

Now my big question is, considering that a phobia only develops after a traumatizing event (the attack of the pheasant for my ornithophobia), what on earth did trigger my necrophobia? I havent witnessed an animal getting killed. I have had pets dying in my hands or arms but not been grossed out or scared and even digged a grave for them. So what has?

What i do know though, is that i can't stand watching an animal being abused or one that has been beaten to a pulp or one that is more than obviously unhealthy. I just cant. And that's what happened with that puppy dog i found in front of my house some time last summer. I just couldnt deal with it.

My "phobias" are not as bad as it could be. I once met a girl who's arachnophobia (fear of spiders) was so severe that she couldnt even touch or look at a picture of a spider. And my trypanophobia (fear of needles) never prevented me from getting blood samples or tattoes. 

Needless to say that "Birds" is for me the ultimate scary movie. And maybe i'm just understanding now why i've been so uneasy during the entire movie of "Black Swan"...

I guess we're all screwed up in our own peculiar ways ...