re-run (originally posted Nov. 2003)

I was sitting around with a bunch of young diplomats from around the world the other day drinking coffee and talking about international relations.

Diplomat 1: Bzzbzzbzzbzbzzz.
Diplomat 2: Bzzbzbbzzzzbzbzbzz.
Diplomat 3: Bzzbzbzbzbbbbbzzzz.
Diplomat 4: Bzzbzbbbbzzzzzzbzbzzz.
Diplomat 5: Bzzbzbbzzz
Diplomat 6: Bbzzzzbzbzbzz
[finally, 15 minutes later, the topic drifts to something I can contribute to]
Diplomat 2: …hands, and feet were also bound. And gagged.
Diplomat 3: What did police say the cause of death was again?
Diplomat 2: Asf… asfi… asfix…
Me: Asphyxiation?
Diplomat 4: Say what?
Me: Asphyxiation.
Diplomat 5: Spelled how?
Diplomat 6: A-S-P-H-Y-X-I-A-T-I-ON
[everyone looks at him suspiciously]
Diplomat 6: [shrugs]
Diplomat 3: What is that, exactly?
Me: Remember Michael Hutchence?

1. Do not assemble pool after dark. Seriously.

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My native guide takes me to a secluded location known for hedge-hog sightings. We put out food and hide in our blind. (all pictures link to larger popup images).
Soon, two emerge from their lair: a mother and a young one.

Then the remaining three young hedge-hogs emerge and start wolfing down the food. They can be distinguished by the colors of their snouts, which range from dark to light. Albino hedge-hogs have been sighted in Austria, where they are relatively common, but none of these are albinos. One of the young ones has the habit of climbing completely into the food dish and standing on the food, which I conclude he does in order to have more for himself. The little runt is the last one to get any food, spending the first several minutes jockeying for position.
We are quite surprised when a fifth young hedge-hog emerges from the lair, since we only moved four to the backyard from their burrow in front of our house. No idea where this little guy came from. We assume the mother remembered him and moved him from the burrow to the back yard one night after we went to bed.
Eventually, the hedge-hogs notice the guy taking pictures of them a foot from their dish, and I back off so as not to stress them out.

When you call into work from home and one of the hot secretaries answers, don’t expect your wife to appreciate all the different levels of irony when you purr into the phone, “hey beautiful, this is Mig.”

So now there are two hedgehog houses, one for eating and one for sleeping quarters. Sleeping hedgehogs. Whatever.

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On Saturday, ran in a race with Beta. “Only 2.4 km,” I was told; then, at the last minute: “Oh, yeah, and it’s all uphill…”. But I survived, and even passed several people: a few fat, short-legged little kids, and some teenagers carrying a sofa (which had it’s own starting number) as they ran, and a guy roughly my age.

At the finish line someone gave me a bottle of some water product. Water with extra oxygen.

Sunday I made another hedgehog house, because we discovered a nest of them in our front flower bed. Mother hedgehog and three young ones.

Note to hedgehogs: you’re cute, your little beady eyes are cute and the soft hair on your tummies is, but your feces are as uncute as the feces of any other animal. Please stop shitting half-way up the walls of your hedgehog house, please.

Cause, guess who it turns out has to clean them off?

Also on Sunday, I scooped more water out of the giant wading pool, my nemisis. Saturday we decided it looked a little rickety, and wouldn’t it suck if it collapsed when we filled it and it all drained into our cellar, next to which it stands, also there’s a little hole in the lining; although I glued the hole you never know so on Saturday I bought a duplicate and spent Sunday scooping water out and will soon dismantle this one, level the ground perfectly and put up the new one. So when my niece and nephew come in two weeks, they can tear it apart.