You Just Never Know...

Some days I find myself wondering if this is real life or a weird weird dream. You just never know what you will find in your yard.  Some examples:

- One night I had hung some laundry out to dry before I went to bed. It must have been windy during the night because the next morning some of the clothes had blown off the line.  Later angel khAla came in with a pair of A's boxers...that she found in the compost hole.  

- Another morning we found a pair of little girls pants in the garden and figured that they had blown off the line in the neighbors yard (they hand their laundry on our shared roof-top. I took them over to the neighbor's house (the first time I had met these neighbors) and they laughed when they saw them. They said that two of the little girls had gotten into a fight and had started pulling each other's clothes off and tried to throw them over our wall.  One of the girls had succeeded and the other was missing their pants.  I wasn't quite sure how to respond, so I chuckled a little bit while the family howled with laughter.  

- A few mornings ago, one of the stray momma cats that hangs around here (until she is 'encouraged' to leave the yard) was howling like crazy on the top of the wall between our yard and the ‘goat neighbors’ yard. She was driving Little t crazy. He kept asking me to get her down so he could hold her. I kept explaining that she is nasty not tame and it wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t have it and kept pleading with me.  After not being able to take it anymore, I went over to see what her deal was.  Hanging from the barbed wire on the top of the wall was a stomach (yes a stomach) of some animal.  Intestines, kidneys and other goodies were hanging there…ripe for the picking. Momma cat was having trouble, though, because the boys in the yard were throwing rocks at her every time she got close…so she sat there and yowled her nasty flea-bitten head off!  They must have gotten distracted by something because she darted in and with one big yank came away with a kidney (about her size). She ran along the wall until she got to a safe place and happily enjoyed her meal.  Throughout the day, it slowly disappeared. The mystery of what it was and where it came from still remains…bizarre.

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     - The kids that Little t likes to play with decided one week that they would begin coming to play at 7:30 a.m. We don’t do mornings well…so imagine our surprise (and hurried attempts to put presentable clothes on) when kAkA showed up at the door to tell us that the kids had come to play. We were still in bed reading books and they were ready to take over our house!  We kindly asked them to come back later. 

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-   - When the kids did return, we were reminded of how naughty they are.  At one point in time, all six children were in Little t’s bed pretending it was a boat.  Later, I heard sounds coming out of our bedroom and found three of them (plus the doll) in our bed.  I laughed hard and then shook my head.  They never cease to amaze me with the stunts they pull (walking across the table instead of walking around it eating every scrap of naan I have in the house, trying to break toys, and major major sibling drama).  They are great kids, but more than a handful! I find myself shaking my head each time they are here.

There they are...this gives a whole new meaning to the song "Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"!

This is the naughtiest girl.  She had kicked all of the other kids out and was pretending she was Little t's mom.  

    - Five minutes after A left for work a few mornings ago, he returned to tell me that the neighbors had decided to tear the wall down.   I thought maybe that meant that they would start in a day or two…nope it was 7:30 a.m. and they already had half of it in a pile in our garden.  The next few days we got to know our neighbors a lot better as there was no wall between our yards…a piece of fabric brought some privacy, but there were usually 4 or 5 little faces peeking under it.  Several times I walked outside, forgetting to cover my head, only to be met by the shocked faces of 4 or 5 men who were working there.  Back in the house I would go.  Shaking my head the entire time at the craziness of this life I live.

     - Little t was utterly fascinated with the wall construction project and spent a LOT of time in the garden with kAkA watching the men work, shouting orders to them, singing them songs and blowing them kisses. They were completely amused with him and he was thrilled to have such fascinating work going on in his garden! 

     -  And the absence of the wall brought an influx in our rabbit population.  We put our rabbit in our teammate’s yard so he wouldn’t escape. Imagine my surprise when upon returning from that yard I saw TWO rabbits in the garden and thought I was losing my mind!  It took me a few minutes to realize that they were different rabbits.  Since then, they have decided not to leave and we now have three rabbits running around the garden.  This is a dangerous state of affairs and we are looking into the future with trepidation. Who knows how many rabbits we will have in a few months at the rate we are going!

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-   - One of the funniest and most common sights in our yard these days is Little t and our rabbit (Romeo) playing tag.  They chase each other around the yard and Little t laughs and laughs.  When he actually catches up to Romeo, he pets him and then gives him kisses on his ear.  The explosion in the rabbit population has been slightly traumatic for Little t.  One of the neighbor’s rabbits looks very very similar to our rabbit, but Little t can’t figure out why he isn’t as friendly.  He chases and chases the rabbit, smacking his little lips and saying, “bunny, bunny!”  Only to be snubbed.  Poor kid. 

That is just a taste of the bizarreness that goes on in our yard…who knows what next week will bring!  Life is never boring, that is for sure!