We are the family Lobo Verde. “Lobo” means Wolf and “Verde” means Green. We bought a house in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero in 2001 and have been trying to fix it up ever since. When we’re not living in Zihuatanejo, we’re generally in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have one baby and five cats, and we think it’s really fun when all of us are on the king-sized bed at the same time.
Trinity is the newest addition to our family. She was born on June 3, 2005, and is the smartest baby we’ve ever known. Her favorite things to do change at a rapid pace, sometimes after only 30 seconds, but her current, long-standing favorites are: chewing on books (preferably Proust or Elixir by Gary Braver – we don’t know why) and nursing. She knows how to clap, wave bye-bye, and make kissing sounds, but will not do any of them on demand.
Bev is an Employee Benefits/Retirement Plan attorney. After working for several different law firms and an international corporation, she switched to being an independent contractor and moved to Mexico. She currently keeps herself busy by managing Andy’s business and all the accounts, the household, and chasing after Trinity who learned to walk in early March, but still hasn’t learned that it is a bad idea to eat non-food items. Bev’s favorite things to do are: cook fabulous foods, walk on the beach with her friend Rai, and watch movies (it goes without saying that she also loves spending all her time with Trinity and Andy).
Andy is a computer software engineer. One of his many current projects is to automate the house – so lights and ceiling fans go on when you enter a room and go off when you leave. He hopes one day that we’ll have tiny consoles in every room so we can turn on whatever music we want to hear, surf the net, or locate the other occupants in the house. Of course, that last item requires that everyone wear a com-badge like in Star Trek. We haven’t totally worked out those details yet. His favorite things to do are: work on computer software, play Halo and Halo 2 on X-Box, read Sci Fi novels, and hang out with Bev and Trinity.
We found Pixel and Widget one night in the empty lot next door – well, to be more precise, they were running out of the empty lot into the oncoming traffic when we found them. We saved them from the speeding cars, took them in that night, and by morning they already had names, so we knew they’d be staying with us. We thought at first that Widget was the runt of the litter and that Pixel was normal, but as it turns out, Widget is normal and Pixel is enormous. Widget has a foot and shoe fetish, so will always be found curling up and nibbling at our feet (it is not a pleasant experience, considering all the sharp teeth and claws). Pixel is a table clearer; he finds a crowded table top, lays down, and continues to stretch out until everything has either fallen off the table or been otherwise removed. He is also the most chilled-out and friendly cat ever, and calmly allows himself to be cuddled and pet by babies and small children, and attacked vampire-style by kittens.
We heard Hobbes’ plaintive cries as he was being brought down the street to our house. A little girl knocked on our door and asked if we wanted this kitten she found at the corner. We told her we already had too many cats, so she left. We continued hearing his cries for quite a while, and when we went out to check, we discovered that the girl had left him in the driveway of our neighbor’s house. We took him in, gave him a flea bath, and discovered that he had a fractured leg. He was so tiny and so pathetic; we absolutely couldn’t give him up. Also, since he had tiger stripes, we wanted to name him Hobbes (after Calvin and Hobbes. My brother has a cat Calvin, and we thought Hobbes could be his long-distance playmate). Hobbes loves to try snack foods, and so far has shown great interest in peanuts, chocolate, black licorice, red licorice and most flavors of ice cream.
Zorro came into our backyard one night, apparently after reading the sign that said “House of Suckers – All Cats Welcome,” and he simply wouldn’t leave. We thought he belonged to someone else, and that he was only a few months old, but later discovered that he was more like 5 months old and had just managed to care for his long black fur pretty well on his own. He’s got a big fluffy tail, like a fox’s tail, so we named him Zorro (“fox” in Spanish). Zorro also has a foot-fetish, but he doesn’t tend to bite them or use his claws quite as much as Widget does.
Ewok came to us via our friend Jenny who was moving back to England. Ewok loves to have her tummy rubbed, and is very cuddly and friendly, provided you are Andy and are in Andy’s office. We’ve coaxed her out of the office a few times, and she’s getting more confident of her new-ish surroundings, so we hope to have her sleeping with us soon enough.
