7 am wed

The phone rang upstairs in the office and I held my breath. That's the number I left on Denise's voice-mail.  Bah. How could it not be for me! Did she rent the house already? Would she have let me know?  Last night, trying to sleep after learning the realities of break-ins and machetes ... well, uncool.
What if I make peace with the idea of staying here at VistaVerde for another week?  There was the other house that I looked at, I can wait. Order. Sense. Calm. Toast. (-- yes, more carbs.)

What is THAT bird? he sounds like a turkey gobble  but with a noise on the end like a drop of water down a deep well.

"Lord, I don't need anything special but I'd appreciate a safe, quiet house with a kitchen so I can buy eggs and eat normal food; is that odd?"   I could go look at Tesoro hostel down Cocles beach, right next to the OM Yoga (but I'd actually have to share a bathroom & kitchen there.)  The truth is that I haven't really been praying lately, not the Rosary, not at all. So... if I haven't really asked for help, how can I expect it?
It's 9am. Check-out is 11am. That gives me two hours until I'm obligated to stay here another day.  If there's no call by then, I'll go out.  Meanwhile, I will sit calmly in this hammock and read my book.


1:30 pm          In my new house on calle Toucan. 
                        I have 6 eggs in my kitchen.
Right when I decided to lie in the hammock, calm down, stop thinking and read: Denise, her daughter and her fella wandered into the garden & asked Katty for me. When I briefly chatted with Clyde this morning at 7am, he said he had sent "good energy" to Denise, well...no joke.
She never even got my second message with the phone number!  She was just taking a chance, stopping by my hotel to see if I was interested. Unreal.

Packed up. Ran down to the bank, stopped to get a taxi for me, luggage and bike to my new neighborhood.  No problem 3,000 ($6) says Roy, my new taxi friend. (He has two boys 8 & 10 who are mad for basketball.)  I settled my tab at VV (90 usd) while Roy wrestled my bike into the trunk of his Corolla.  Short drive on bad roads and that was it.
Actually, it was thrilling driving over = finally, it's settled.   I'M settled. 
No internet yet, a drag since the first thing I should do is tell Clyde his "energy" worked (and maybe I should not have told him the machete-wielding, cat-killer, door-shaking story until after I was out of there.)

--- Did a bird just fly THROUGH my little house?--- zip through the kitchen and out to the jungle, where there are at least 7 monkeys visible in the tall trees over the house.

      HUMMINGBIRD    

A hummingbird is INSIDE my house; he's hovering next to me, looking at the house-plant & the mirror. Up. Over. Down. Looking. Looking.    Is it the smell of incense?  He's confused there are no flowers to go with it?  Because the ants, lizards, and Enormous Numbers of Mosquitos are so awful, I'm guessing that the decorative jars of many many joss sticks are not, in fact, decorative. Self-preservation.  Why would mosquitoes swarm around hanging clothes? (I'm a fast unpacker.)   Already covered in welts and it has not been a full hour.

3pm.  Okay, now it has been a couple of hours and the welts are INSANE.

Spray isn't saving my legs. Incense isn't stopping them anymore -- but as I move to get off the sofa, TWO hummingbirds buzz by my head, racing from the bedroom out to the front yard, felt like helicopter wash.

By 7pm the gas stove is seriously annoying. I've tried all kinds of things, even messed with the tank (which scares me a little but you've got to try, right?)  Denise is out for the night, I passed her on my way back from the market... walk over and maybe ask her boyfriend, Daniel (who speaks NO English, so first look-up "mosquito net" to thank him for setting that up. Then look-up "sheets" since D. forgot those. Okay, now look-up "stove"... This is going to be slow-going.)  All that, but when I walk over the gravel driveway, there is no one in sight. And no door to knock on. Stupidly, I stand around, shifting my weight. Do I push? Am I too annoying on my very first day? But in the morning I will Really be bothered by no stove. I stand there until the motion sensor kicks on the floodlight= still nothing. Okay.
Think: today all the clothes-lines were covered with laundry from wash day ... maybe there's a sheet out there in the dark - nothing.  Okay. I can live without sheets. And adapt to no pillow (the 4 in the house are black with mildew. Even I draw the line at that.) 
But I still want a HORNILLO.  The lentils are all ready to go, soaking in a pot of water - at least they will only improve overnight. Okay, instead of spinach dhal, eggs ...er. No.  3 onions, fruit or water?   
Half a papaya here we come.   And morning?  Oh well.

The night noise is so loud that I actually think to turn it off before remembering: I never did turn on music, did I?   It's bugs and frogs and ___ well, we'll find out what.   There's one large gecko protecting the living room but clearly more since he "TK,TK,TKs"  and several others respond "polo".  (I'm paraphrasing.)
I do keep an eye out for activity at the other house across the yard. Any sound, anything - but no. Do other people fall asleep at 7:30 sometimes too? It must be the heat & humidity.
  UH. Is that a FROG on my ceiling? Shouldn't he be a gecko?  It's very dim light... There can't be a full sized frog stuck 12 feet up on the wood beam but ... yup.  One frog.       So far.
Plus the 3 visible geckoes. When I arrived a pair of lizards was having sex on the floor.
"Seriously, guys, you're lizards. You can't take it outside?"