Rats, Bats & Cats

Wow................. it's been some time but here goes.

Life in Indonesia has many surprises - a few of those being Rats, Bats & Cats!

Lets start with cats. If you know anything about me you know that I love cats. In fact I do think that I must have been a cat in my former life. Jakarta is covered with cats but they are not the nice cuddly soft ones that you have in mind. These cats are mean, skinny, fat, diseased, and scared of the rats. Still, I do love them but keep my distance. Moving on to bats. There are millions of bats. They come out at dusk and swoop down low in my back yard. At time, they have been known to fly down low in the middle of the night and set off my alarm system which wakes up the guards, us and the neighbors! The only advantage to the bats is that they eat the mosquitoes - which are in abundance here. In the picture Jake is at the bird market with a big bat in a cage.

Rats............. the rats have decided to take up living at The Best Western. While ALL of you are invited to come visit (very long plane ride - not sure worth the effort) the rats do not have the same invitation. Night after night we are woken up by the running rats that are in the attic and crawl spaces of the house. Enough! This week we have had many cages set - day 1 produced 1 very large rat. Day 2 we had 4 rats in one cage, day 3 a dead rat from the poison. Of course we were assured that the rats were gone as the workers have sealed all the openings but alas we still hear the pitter patter of the rats but they are now smart enough to avoid the traps. Never fear another opening was found and has now been sealed so hopefully the rats are history!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

WOW.............. that was stressful! I won't tell you how long it took me to remember (refer to my famous quote) how to create a new post. I need Andrea back here to help me!

Well........... I brought in 2009 about 14 hours ahead of family "back home". Quoting Matt "this is the most boring New Years I've ever had." Andrea and Sarah left Jakarta bright and early on the 31st and Steve and Jake left for their ski trip on the morning of the 26th - so that just left me and Matt and of course Max the Wonder Dog. I chased a Gecko around the kitchen tonight trying to get him to go outside but no luck so he is somewhere hiding in the kitchen. I watched Oprah and Matt ordered pizza - not an easy task. After repeating our address 6 times he then had our trusty guard talk to them and yahoo the pizza finally arrived. At 11:30 I could hardly keep my eyes open so I went to bed to the sound of fireworks and sleep until 2:45 when I woke up to the TV. The first words I spoke to Matt in 2009 were "go to bed NOW".

It rained all day today! The sky cleared for a bit so I ran out to hop into the pool but it didn't last long as the rain started again. We are officially in the rainy season.

2009.............. I wonder what adventures are in store?? I'm off to a booming start and look forward to a great year.