Dead stuff

I should have seen the signs: the sparking sound coming from the microwave and then the microwave dying for a short while; the ongoing strong cheesy smell that I could not rid my microwave of, even by boiling vinegar and water inside; the constant ant train that I could not remove from my kitchen, even with bug spray and forever washing the counters and walls. I finally got up the guts yesterday to unplug the microwave, unscrew the casing and peer inside (it's quite an incredible electronic wonderland...I didn't understand any of it). It didn't take long to discover the quite dead, quite ant-eaten cicak carcass stuck under a box full of wires and things. The trail of ants that lead me to it was incredible...there were hundreds of tiny ants, no exaggeration. In my microwave. For over a week now we've been nuking our food and in doing so, probably releasing microscopic bits of lizard into our meals. O gross. Thankfully, once the carcass was removed (what a stench) and the interior of the "engine room" of the microwave was cleaned out, the ants took off and the smell evaporated. My kitchen feels so much cleaner.


This morning as Matthew and I were heading to the pool to get some much needed exercise, he spotted a dead cat in our front yard. I have to admit to you, I was not sad one bit. Not even a little. I believe this is the cat that made our house it's territory, and so it has been from our driveway and our fence that he has called all of his friends together each night. I can't describe the sounds he would make, except to say that each night it sounded like the cat was being tortured and calling his mother at the same time. Why is it wonderful living in a taman in Lippo? Because Matt and I told the satpams (guards) at the front gate that there was a dead cat in our yard, and when we returned it was gone. I didn't have to deal with it, thankfully.

As you may know, Matthew is a lover of nature. How he sees things that the rest of us are staring at and just don't see is beyond me. On the way home from our swim he spotted a leaf (at least it looked like a leaf to me!), and picked it up with a stick. Turns out it was a dying butterfly, and it was huge! Unfortunately it had lost a lot of its wing powder and had been injured, so it has since died. I was amazed at the way the gold on its wings glowed, how big its wings were, and at the fuzzy antennae. Check it out!

Thanks for reading.