Cum on Feel the Noize

I don't know what it is with me and the song references, but I've got to give myself credit for pulling Quiet Riot out of the memory archives.  Especially when I sometimes walk into a room and can't recall why I'm there.


Anyway, yesterday was moving day.  We left the hotel and are now in a small, furnished efficiency.  Casa Ordonez is the same place we stayed during our exploratory visit and I highly recommend it.  The hotel is a converted old family dwelling with bedrooms surrounding a central courtyard that has a clear plexiglass roof to let the sunshine in but keep out the elements.


And, as we quickly learned at this new place, the noise.


You know the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for."  As we walked along the river last summer we looked up at the beautiful old buildings towering over it from the hill above and agreed, "Now that's the kind of place we'd like to live in."


Well, here we are a year later on the 3rd floor of just such a structure.  Up the stairs from the rooftop terrace the view is spectacular.  You can see everything----and hear everything.


From this elevation sounds are coming at you from literally every direction.  Lots of sounds.  Traffic--honking horns--sirens--car alarms going off and staying on.  Thank God the rap music/big subwoofer-in-the-trunk thing hasn't caught on here.


We learned last night the hard way that there are numerous nightclubs in the area.  Nothing like the gentle THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of loud techno music to lull you to sleep at midnight.


Those fireworks I wrote about recently have finally stopped.  Apparently last week was some big national celebration that ended Monday.  At 5 this morning we were greeted by the real thing.  Yep, roosters.  I didn't say a rooster.  Roosters.  Two of them somewhere within crowing range.


Being a city boy I don't have much experience with barnyard fowl.  As I lay there listening to this "Crowdown" (apologies to Bobby Flay) I noticed something that perhaps is perfectly normal but struck me as a bit odd.  One of the competitors was doing the usual cockadoodledoo thing, but the other one was just going  cockadooooooo.  And I thinking, "Yo, wassup.  Listen, listen.  I know we tell you to make it your own but, dude, you don't go messing with a classic like that, changing the arrangement.  I didn't even recognize it.  Just crow it, dawg, crow it.  I don't know.  It started out really pitchy for me.  You were screamin' that last dooooo over and over.  It didn't work for me, man.  I didn't get it.  I didn't get it."


When we were up on the terrace yesterday afternoon I noticed that the neighbor next door has a grassy rectangular backyard, highly unusual in a dense urban area like Cuenca.  Just as I was drifting back off to sleep from the roosters I noticed that the neighbor next door was mowing that yard--at 5:30?!?!  All right, all right--you win Yard of the Month award--turn that damn mower off so we can maybe get some sleep!!


H-m-m-m---it's now 9:15 and my knowledge of roosters is growing exponentially.  I thought they just crowed when the sun come up, but those two little bastards have been going at it constantly for 4 hours straight.  Please, for God's sake, cockadoodledon't for a while!!