Which Maya?

This morning after she had her canned portion of food, and cleaned the plates of all the other cats, Maya started fussing to come in from the back terrace. Some mornings after she eats she gets up on her ledge and is content all day long. Some days Maya and Minina sleep together on the old BBQ. And some days Maya simply refuses to be left out on the terrace. Yesterday was one of those days - she tore the screen off the kitchen window, frame and all, and climbed in.

Today, with one window out of order, she tried to tear the screen off the other window, so I closed the window, which makes her stop because she knows there's no point in continuing. So then she started with the screen door. We had to put a metal mesh over the screen at the back of the door because all the cats kept jumping up and tearing the screen until they could climb in. The metal screen hasn't stopped them from jumping though - but although they may get a bit of a grip in the metal mesh, they can't get leverage. They hang from their front paws and claw at the door with their back feet trying to get a foothold, but eventually they lose their grip and they fall to the ground with a thud.

Maya makes a pretty big thud when she falls. I was in the living room on a conference call this morning when I heard her whining to come in, and then jumping, and then falling to the ground - at least 4 times. She didn't want to give up, but I just ignored her because there wasn't much else I could do.

Just as I finished my conference call, Miguel came downstairs and muttered something about checking the door, and Maya, and bathroom. I really had no idea when he was talking about, and with Maya the cat on my mind, I thought he was trying to tell me something about Maya ruining the back door. I asked for clarification, which irritated him, and he growled something about Maya and the bathroom door. So I went to our bathroom door downstairs and looked in the bathroom, and at the door - I didn't see anything.

What was he talking about? He had run out of patience trying to explain to me, but finally I understood that he wanted me to go upstairs and check out the left side of the bathroom up in the bedroom we call "The Maya Suite" (it's our bedroom but we don't use it during high season).

Oh - he was talking about Maya the room and not Maya the cat. He couldn't see why I wasn't following his thoughts, but he wasn't clear. I knew that he was grumpy because it was bad news.

When I went upstairs I saw the problem - the talavera tiles on the bathroom wall were buckled and ready to drop. A section of about 15 tiles, right at the entrance to the bathroom - and it wasn't possible to close the bathroom door. Just what we needed when guests were due to arrive in a few hours.

But no worries - as Miguel always says, "everything has a solution other than death". So he and "Chino" got busy after breakfast and pulled off the tiles, only breaking about 3 to the point where they could not be reused. We had 3 extra blue tiles from another sink counter, and in several hours Chino had the wall rebuilt and you would never know there was a problem. I happen to dislike those yellow tiles anyway, so if we ever have spare cash again, I would like to take all the tile down and redo it to my taste.

So the Maya suite was put back in order, the guests arrived to a clean room, and Maya the cat gave up picking at the back door and spent the day out there until we got back from evening rounds.

Another day is over...and the peace lily is blooming. Back to normal life.