super troopers?

1. ipanema beach. people are yelling. a guy is running away, stepping on towels, treading on people. more yelling. sure - i would yell too if someone steps on me! the police is chasing the guy. the police catch him.
but... it does not stop the yelling. it causes even more yelling. fore the people were cheering on the guy in his escape. how naive was i to think people were shouting at the guy; i was simply assuming the thug running away was the bad guy, the police the good guys - and the crowd would be on the side of the good guys, right?
wrong.
now that the thug is caught begins the next chapter. the beach go-ers start throwing all kinds of stuff at the police; empty bottles and beer cans filled with sand, coconuts (it is still a tropical country), shoes.
more police appears.
more shouting.
more throwing.
even more police.
so many policemen.
wow! where do they come from?
policeman with hand on gun.
oops - getting scary now.
police wins the battle. thug and 2 other guys get taken away.
crime of the bad guy? smoking pot.

2. 2 handsome cops. one black-black, one latino-black.
black cop is backing up the car, onto the pavement. he is not very agile, perhaps also because he is on the phone.
the latino-black guides his colleague. he is not very good at guiding his colleague, because he is checking out the results of the illegal lottery - a list pasted to the house that the police car just hit...

3. we get stopped by a cop. a 'blitz': several policemen, randomly stopping cars and mopeds, checking papers, license plates, etc. routine.
also present are some guys from the municipality, ready to tow away cars should the paperwork not be what is desired.
the boyfriend forgot his papers. no problem. we are not far from our house. i will jump into a taxi to retrieve the papers.
as i get back 10 minutes later the boyfriend is on the phone. i hand him his papers.
'what's a matter?' i ask him.
'i will tell you in a minute'
boyfriend shows papers to cop.
cop nods, points out that license will expire this month and then sends us off, on our way.
100 meters after our release the boyfriend stops the moped.
'these guys from the municipality - they don't tow away cars or mopeds at all. they just ask for a bribe and then let the people go. ofcourse they split the bribe with the policemen.
i have seen 3 or 4 people escaping fines and getting towed away - just now in 15 minutes!'
(i guess what is shocking to me most is not only that these guys explicitly ask for bribes, but also that people are so easily prepared to pay the bribe. corruption only works if the ordinary people participate...)
the boyfriend calls the special department against police crimes ans bribes.
no one answers the phone...

all creatures great and small

let's start at the top of our house. near and on the roof live the caged and uncaged birds. it is the caged ones that drive me nuts. particularly mr. pavarotti - the non-stop singing bird. cut it out will ya. we've all heard you and no one is going to let you free. so please stop your nervous tweet-tweet and la-la-la.

mosquitos - tell me what they were good for again? not only do i dislike them for biting me, but also for leaving behind a blood-red stain on the wall when i kill them with a newspaper.

then there are the ants. they come in 2 sizes: tiny and huge.
would the big ones even recognise the small ones as their species? would they consider them 'unter-ants'? or would the small ones think of the big ones as posers?

the tiny ones live in the kitchen.they are as big -or small- as a pixel and carry away our bread- and cookie crumbs, our left over lasagna, grains of sugar. one day we will wake up and the entire kitchen will have disappeared to their underground hiding place.
the big ants live in our patio. near the plants. they love marching in 3-4 lanes. always busy demolishing. left-right-march-march. i think they are up to an evil plan. perhaps they are slowly digging away at the foundations of our house, but strategically. we will notice nothing, until one day - KABUM, the whole house will disappear into a huge hole. people will wonder how it was possible nobody ever noticed anything. and the ants will giggle their mean little giggle.

the centipedes and millipedes have no plan. they simply live under the plants. once in a while when i pick up the pots to water the plants (which i should do more often), they wriggle and squirm, afraid of the daylight. dumb asses.

look at your thumb. well, that's the size that the cockroaches get here. and bigger. hey, it is a tropical country! they make a loud crunching sound - under my slippers. disgusting creatures.

our weirdest animal visitor in the house is the bat. yes, it comes into our house. late at night it flies in through the open window, circles around the lamp a few times and then flies out another window.
not so nice that he shat on the wall the other day. he should not do that.

there's only one creature living here that i actually have sympathy for: the lizard. it makes no noise. it does not bite. it does not seem to shit. it just seems to be happily leading his own little live without bothering me. every now and then he does scare the hell out of me when i pick up something from the shelve and he is sitting there. at least he is also scared - quickly scattering away to hide behind the next object on the shelve.

sometimes i think i am not really living in this house; it is all the animals that are living here. i am simply tolerated here by them because i provide them with food and shelter. they only need to change their mind and turn against us and the boyfriend and i will be out of this house within a day.
better be nice to them...