Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Welcome to Miami ... Green Acres?

It's 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. All the free champagne I ingested for happy hour the night before is making me feel a little less chirpy than the rooster next door, who is cocka-doodle-dooing to his heart's content. The neighbors are up early collecting eggs from the five or so hens running around, the dog has fun herding them, and the pig sits around hoping he's not Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) dinner.

I live smack in the middle of Miami, somewhere between Little Havana and Coral Gables, yet my neighbors are raising livestock.

Although I'm not certain what part of Cuba they're from, I'm willing to bet they lived in el campo (the countryside). A lot of Cuban campesinos feel it's completely normal to run a mini farm from their small single-family homes behind Calle Ocho. I'm okay with this; saying hello to a brood of hens just before plunging into big-city traffic is mildly LOL-inducing.

The comical contrast is lost on my dog, though. He is confused by these new weird animals.

Blade's early morning thoughts are as follows:

I'm ... awake? I'm awake. Must ... go ... OUTSIDE!
*cry cry cry (at inhumanly high decibel)*

Yay! Morning walk! Yay!
*trot trot trot ... freeze*

What are those?
*tilts head*

Are they large pigeons?
*wags tail (hunting is fun!)*

Way too big to be pigeons. Are they ... cats?
*wags tail (cats are my friends!)* 

Wait, those cats are too close to my territory!
*assumes defensive stance*

But cats have tails.
*sniffs air*

What ARE those?
*tilts head*

Blade has now taken to ignoring the alien creatures. For my part, I'm just hoping not to find any of them decapitated in the front lawn.

2 comments:

  1. Dirty Jobs in Miami
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badlt7ZkFqI&feature=related

    "Why did the chicken cross the road? To wake the neighbors." The episode opens with our favorite plastic chicken on Calle Ocho!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I highly recommend pastelitos before chicken chasing."

    So do I. I highly recommend pastelitos before most anything, in fact. Thanks for the vid.

    ReplyDelete