children of the night

Monday night I wished that I still had a job.


I do not regret retirement. I do not regret living in Mexico. Remember, I am a charter member of the Edith Piaf non, je ne regrette rien club.


What bothered me Monday night is that I simply could not sleep. And whatever it was, Jiggs was just as restless.


Maybe my body was feeling that two nights of sound sleep was enough.


Instead of sleeping, I drafted email, read my Lincoln biography, and wandered around the house as if I were waiting for my vampire wife to fly in from a busy night on the arterial.


I thought Jiggs would want a short walk on Tuesday evening. Simply because he would be tired. I knew I was.


Instead, he wanted to go to the beach. And not just any beach. We had to stop at the portion of the beach with the skim boarders and their canine groupies.

And an eventful evening it was. A young rottweiler wanted him to play. Jiggs did his best -- without falling over.


Then a yellow lab mix beach dog invited him to share chasing a bottle in the surf. Jiggs declined.


But Jiggs settled down into the sand just above the surf line. Watching each boarder run across the sand and skim over a wave. And keeping an eye on that dog as he worried his captive bottle.


There is always danger of imposing human emotions on our pets. But I could easily see in his eyes that his enjoyment of that moment on the beach had a melancholy subtext. The visual stimulation was what he needed, but he would have liked to have truly been a bigger part of the action.


Pulling him away from the beach was like trying to get a kid out of a swimming pool. But he finally tottered along behind me.


As I started to open the gate at the house, I thought I saw a swallow fly into the carport. It was too slow for a bat, and it was a little small for a swallow. Perhaps a juvenile returning to the nest late.


But when it approached one of the nests, a swallow batted it away. Instead, it landed on the bat's roost. Flat, not hanging.


You see the result. It is some form of moth wider than the span of my hand. The colors are subtle, but they would certainly fit a young vampiress on her night on the townies.


I am going to spend more time in that carport when night settles in.


Who knows: Maybe I will meet Bela Lugosi.