Annie frowns with concern. I've just walked in the door from the hour and a half drive down from Tucson.
"Honey, we found a couple of dead mice in the sofa bed. It was pretty icky," she says. "They looked like they had built a little nest in there before they died," she adds.
"Did y'all clean it up?" I ask.
"Oh sure. But it still smells," she says.
I put my nose to the open sofa bed in this, the guest house. Nice fresh sheets. Annie's pillows from home. Very romantic. I breathe in. A little stinky but not too bad. We are out in the country, after all, here at the Canelo house.
"It's fine, honey. Really. I'm OK," I say.
I only get down here to Canelo when Kathy, one of Annie's best friends, gets the house for a weekend, and I get asked. The Canelo house is a hundred year old farm house, owned by The Nature Conservancy. It sits just uphill of a beautiful cienega, a wondrous marsh of tall grasses and old Cottonwoods, that is also owned by the Conservancy. Volunteers take care of the house. Kathy is one of them.
The house, which began as a one roomer in the 1800's, has grown over the years, to a hodgepodge structure with a living room with foot-thick adobe walls, a dining room, a kitchen, and an upstairs bedroom with three beds. The upstairs bedroom, also tends to be the place where bats live from time to time.
The guesthouse, just downhill, is a long adobe building built in the 20th century sometime, that has a small office, a bath, a living room with a pull out sofa (the one with the dead mouse nest), and two separated larger rooms where tools are stored. Bats sleep a lot in the tool shed part.
The center piece of the Canelo House is the front porch, with many chairs and benches to sit on, and a lounger or two. Off to the right of the poach is a rope hammock for napping. If you're not hiking around the property or fixing food in the kitchen, you tend to hang out on the porch. Napping is a major sport at Canelo. Kathy calls it the Canelo Mellow, where the mind and body slow down. Eating, sleeping, and walking are the major activities at Canelo. Lovemaking too, if you lucky enough to have your honey with you. I'm a lucky man tonight.
I mentioned the bats. There are a ton of Mexican bats at Canelo. One of my fondest memories of Canelo from a few years ago was sitting on the front porch one night and having bats fly down the length of the porch, dodging my head at the last moment. They won't hurt you, but if you're scared of bats, Canelo is not the place for you.
After I've sniffed our bed, and Annie sees I'm OK with it, we walk up to the big house and hang with Kathy for a while before turning in. Kathy is still sad about the big fire that happened here a couple of years ago. Her sadness is mostly for the lost of the huge old Cottonwood trees at the edge of the property, south of the porch. She has watched them slowly die over the past two years, and she misses them. I see them as beautiful dead trees myself, but I didn't have a long term relationship with them like Kathy had. I know how she feels though, having lost The Three Surrender trees in the Aspen Fire. Other than that, Kathy seems quite happy to have us at Canelo House with her this weekend. It's very gracious of her to ask us down.
It's only 10 p.m. but I'm tired and ready to go to bed, as is Annie. I'm also ready to make love to her on the sofa bed in the guesthouse. As is Annie.
Afterwards, we leave the front door open with the screen latched, letting the smells of Canelo in. The winds are rustling the leaves on the Cottonwood tree outside our door. We snuggle deeply into the electric blanket covering us. I sleep like the dead.
But the dead woke up early, before the dawn. It was still dark but slowly it grew lighter and lighter in the East, the wind still in the trees. Usually, I'm quiet in the morning but for some reason I'm a bit chatting. Annie listens and talks some too. Just about love and friends and the land here. Then Annie softly groans...
"You're talking to me! You're talking to me!" she says sweetly.
It's hell when your own words are thrown back at you. In years past, I have given Annie a hard time for early morning chit chat, and here it is, not even dawn yet, and I'm quite the chatterbox.
Annie gives me a big kiss and a squeeze.
"I'm just teasing you." She says.
"Ha ha ha ha," I say. I don't mind so much exposing my own faults. I just hate it when others recognize them before I do. But there is a smile on my face, and eventually I laugh out loud when Annie reprises, a little later, her quiet little chant of'You're talking to me!' .
We keep talking for a while, watching the sun rise above the eastern ridge line. Just as it does, we stop talking and I begin to bust a move on Annie. She busts back. Hands are moving. Feet are tangled. Lips are firmly locked.
In just a few minutes, the full sun hits the guest house and begins to heat up the cold building. Then suddenly the sun-heated house hits a critical mass, and explodes with this hugely intense smell of Dead Mouse.
"Oh my God." Annie screams.
"Good God Almighty" I exclaim.
We jump out of bed.
"That's fucking intense." I say.
"No shit." Annie says.
"So much for fooling around this morning" I say, as I pull her naked body close to mine.
She laughs. So do I.