Dear FML- I've been off the net for so long that folks are starting to ask what's been up. EVERYTHING! I can't keep up with it all! The last three weeks have made me feel like one of those Russian Sables that bounce off of the walls,the furniture, their hoomin...bing, bang, bzap! My two week vacation in Mexico turned out to be more like a two and a half week vacation in Mexico. It was drawn out because 1) Cancun Airport shut down for a few days due to a tropical storm, and then 2) Basically the whole N.E. here shut down due to winter storms. And a good thing, too. One of the last planes allowed to land at T.F. Greene in Providence, R.I. slid off of the runway when it landed. Very exciting, but no one hurt, luckily. (I think the pilot probably had to beat out his shorts when the sideways plane finally slid to a stop.) I won't even dwell on the week my Mother spent in Mexico with us before she went back home, leaving my husband and me to have some time to ourselves. She thought it would be a fun idea to drive twelve hours each way over the mountains in a rental car through Chiapas state, the poorest one in Mexico. I knew we were in trouble when we came to a big sign by the side of the road informing us that we were now in Zapotista Rebel Territory, which did not recognize the sovereignty of the nation of Mexico. Think National Geographic for that trip. Dead horses in the road. Machine guns. Landslides that have poured drifts of stones and sand across the road. Places where the road itself has crumbled and slid down the mountain. Cold rainforest jungle as we climbed higher and higher in altitude to the coffee growing regions. Swarms of small, filthy children who would run into the road without warning in an attempt to stop the car and sell us plastic bags full of cut sugar cane or sweet chestnuts, still steaming hot. It was insane, insane. Of course. My mother was involved. Thank god she only stayed a week. Fortunately, we had a place to stay in Mexico (Quintana Roo state, where they do respect the sovereignty of the federal government), so we didn't need to cough up the money for extra hotel stays once the airports closed. There were a lot of stranded, angry Gringos on the Mexican Riviera and if they had had enough brains to blow their noses, they should have gotten down on their knees and thanked the Creator for a few more days in the sunshine and plam trees! But Gringos aren't exactly known for their brains down there. The Mexicans just watch, and shake their heads, and think about us having access to nuclear weapons. And they shiver in the bright sun. We finally got home and I didn't feel too good. The next day, I felt much, much worse. I certainly didn't deserve whatever pathogen I picked up in the sunny south. I puuuuked and puuuuked for 24 hours,(worse than if I were watching Jean-Claude Van Damme action movies on a loop.) I was prepared to go the hospital E.R. the next morning if things didn't improve, but they did. And then I had to finish unpacking, to restock the fridge, etc. To take care of any last minute gifts that remained un-purchased. Pant. Pant. Pant. Wrap wrap wrap. And THEN, my little sister called and asked if I would take my four year old nephew Alexander not overnight, no no no. Not for a day. Not two. But THREE days. Three overnights. The last day being Christmas. OoooKaaay...I got used to a little voice blasting me out of bed each morning before the sun came up saying "Aunt! Aunt! You make me pancakes now, Aunt?" Now I know why pancake mix comes in boxes. Because you CAN make pancakes in your sleep that way. Just add water. Pour slop in pan. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. (It's a lot easier than dodging upside-down dead horses in the road, hooves pointing skyward, on the Pan-American Highway.) I did get *one* quiet moment in those five days after I got home to the U.S... One. But it was a good 'un. Thank you Ping, you are a good friend. When I let him and Puma out of their cages the morning after we got back home (and before I started puking), they immediately ran to the cat and dog's water bowl. Not because they had no water in their cage, but because someone else's water is a hundred times better than cage water. I understand. I set about downloading my HUNDREDS of e-mails in my chair in front of the computer. And after a few minutes there was a gentle pawing at my ankle. I pulled my foot up quickly, in case it was Puma, wanting to chew on my feet. I looked down and it was Ping, who often asks for a pick up by standing on a hoomin foot and looking up, hopefully. I looked down and he was looking up, hopefully. I reached down and gave him a boost onto my lap. He lay down and yawned and stretched while I stroked him in the way that he likes. He looked up at me with that trusting little honest face. I stroked him some more, and then he did something that he has never, ever done before. He curled up in a little circle, sighed happily, and closed his eyes. Nose to tail, he fell deeply, deeply asleeep on my lap. In perfect trust and contentment. I think maybe, just maybe, he missed me while I was gone. Two and a half weeks is forever for a ferret. Forever. And through the puking that followed the nect day, the little naked child running shrieking through the house waving a tiny pair of Spiderman underpants in his hand like a flag as he went, the demands for dawn pancakes, the family Christmas party a hundred miles away in the slush, the endless house-cleaning for guests who were already ON THE WAY! OMIGOD! The last minute emergency trips for more milk and butter, eggnog, etc...The realization that the Christmas turkey we thawed next to the woodstove had gone bad and fermented in its plastic wrap and my mother in law was ON THE WAY for Christmas dinner...I remembered that magic time that Ping slept in my lap as if it were the best place in the world to lie down and catch a few Z's. That small sigh of contentment he gave was even louder in its own way than the ripping of holiday wrap, the pop of green wood in the woodstove, the endless opening and closing of the front door to admit rosy cheeked guests wrapped up against the cold so that they looked like bulky New England Polar Bears...I held onto the memory of that little sigh. I always will. I missed you too, Ping, my old friend. Alexandra in Ma [Posted in FML 5833]