Ugh... and the stench!!

As we speak I'm trying not to gag. I was sitting here playing this nice game of Scrabble with my mom when all the sudden I thought, good God, what is that AWFUL stench?!! I asked Carlos and yes, he smelled it too. We rushed to the back window of the house, it got worse as we got closer and closer to the window. We stood there and were perplexed. How disgusting!! It wasn't the fan, there was nothing the matter with the plugs, nothing. It smelled like a medicinal skunky smell, if you can imagine that which really, I hope you can't. We came back and sat down. I admitted to Carlos that such a weird smell coming into our house all of the sudden kind of worried me so he went out the front door (I was thinking, chemical warfare? is it really the end?!) and immediately came back in. "Yep, it's from outside. Come out here." It was even worse; we immediately closed tight all 2 of our windows which was really a shame since it's hardly ever cool enough to keep them open. Then Carlos immediately googled something like "disgusting smell in Houston after it rains" and he found someone describing it as a kind of gross armpit smell. This has never happened before, but can you believe that? Then Carlos said, "I was wondering! I had been smelling my armpits thinking I was really disgusting!"

picture from unclestinky

Rice Squirrels

So I guess I thought Carlos was on crack when, about a month ago, we went to Rice and he mentioned that the squirrels seemed on the fat side (see picture). I said no, I thought they looked pretty regular, like the ones in Indiana, and that the ones in GA and NC had just been emaciated and suffering from the drought (i.e. the squirrel that was licking the condensation off our office window last summer in Durham because it never rained). But ANYWAY, so yeah, guess what happened today.

We go to Rice and are walking along and we see this squirrel. And so I make that squirrel noise that you make when you're imitating a squirrel and you know how it goes, you make the noise and the squirrel either runs or stares at you. But never, ever, EVER does it happen that the squirrel runs up to you and sits at your feet. And then stands up on it's hind legs and look at you. Yes my friends, that is what happened to the Savage Molina's today. And the story keeps going. So this squirrel comes up to us and is totally waiting for us to give it food or something, I don't know, and when it realizes we have none and are just standing there frozen and marveling at the fact that we can see it's little teeny, tiny, hairy little toes, it kind of walks away but really not more than a foot or two away. We make the noise, it comes back, and I am just freaking out, like totally. But then I feel really bad because we have no food and I was such a jerk to have called it over but who in the world would have thought it'd come over? So then we tried to keep walking but it followed us and then ran up a tree but just near us and watched. My heart was breaking when all of the sudden something happened that explained it all. A couple of guys in a university truck drove by slowly and threw the squirrel a biscuit. Ah ha! This must be a special squirrel because it was obvious that the guys had the biscuit all ready to go to throw to this little fella. We kept walking...

And not 100 feet away, what did we see? Another fat squirrel. Eating a biscuit.

We ate lunch and then walked to Carlos's new department. On the way, you know what we saw. Another squirrel. This one was further away and so when I made the squirrel noise he didn't come to us but he DID stand up on his hand legs and check us out and stared us down the whole way, waiting for the biscuit I suppose.

Update: Fiesta

1. On Sundays at noon, there is a mariachi band and chicken on the grill on the parking lot... We gotta get up early one of these days;
2. Our Fiesta is unsafe once it's dark. Maybe that explains the police we saw in the parking lot the other day, or that car with the doors suspiciously left open...or that were opened? boh.
3. People eat the fruit, as in, standing there eating a plum while looking at the plums. Then leaving.
3. Have you ever tried a lychee nut? It's small, reddish, and looks kind of spiky. It is weird, sweet, and kind of like eating an eye-ball.
4. I bought a piece of cactus. It's called nopal. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Suggestions are welcome.

pic by Nikas Culinaria