Marriage does not tame a couple of sexy, wired and volatile animals.  The first fight engaged in by Sloane and Caroline Simba was on their honeymoon in the Seychelles when she locked him out of their luxury bungalow stating that he had flirted outrageously with a human female of great beauty in the casino.  That one was followed by a wrangle in the first class section of Kenyan Airways with Caroline dumping her wine in Sloane’s lap.  It was obvious that life wouldn’t be a bowl of cherries once back in residence in Sloane’s bush house.  However, their sex life was heady, they craved each other physically and both had very intellectually inclined minds.  That wasn’t such a terrible start except for the fact that Caroline’s intellect buzzed along in a different zone from her husband’s.  Where his was a mental power focused on his work as the Justice Minister, hers was wackier and completely abstract.  The Mara sat back and watched the couple.  Bets were taken as to the odds of their marriage lasting a year. 

            The English idyll of Roy Lee and Janice Jaguar Simba ended as the film closed down its outdoor and interior filming.  Arthur was in the can so Janice and Roy Lee headed home.  With them on the Baboon-Simba jet were their three young cubs.  They toasted each other once out of British airspace.  The rushes looked good for another Roy Lee Simba epic film. 

“I’m returning to Iraq.  Things are dreadful there now and the new American command has offered me an exclusive interview,” announced Jane, lighting a cigarette. 

“Damn, Jane, you can’t go.  It’s worse than ever, they say,” roared Shane.   

They were in the retreat near Kitale.  Their cubs, Andy and Catherine were playing near. 

“Shane, it’s my profession.”

“Don’t you care that you have children now?  Not to mention the fact that if anything happened to you, I’d end up in a mental ward drooling.”      

She threw back her head and laughed at this image. 

“What would you be drooling in regard to?  A pretty female prisoner incarcerated nearby?”

“Janie, I am dead serious.  I can’t think of you in peril any longer.  I no longer have the stomach or balls for it.”

“We both have atypical careers and destinies, Shane.  We can’t play it safe,” she said, taking his paws in hers. 

    Violence in the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia spurs intervention by Kenya and Ethiopia...

       A continuous stream of mortar bombs and Katyusha rockets slammed into markets and neighborhoods in Somalia's capital city on a Saturday. The violence is part of an ongoing battle between Ethiopian troops and Islamic insurgents. Fighting has intensified in the past two days, as more Ethiopian troops arrived Friday in Mogadishu to suppress the insurgency.  The death toll among the insurgent forces, who are trying to oust Ethiopian-backed interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is unknown. Jane put her Iraqi trip on the back burner to accompany President Shane Simba’s return to the military base just within Somalia’s border where our country’s flag had been raised. Within these walls, President Ahmed of Somalia became an ally rather than foe.  President of Ethiopia, Dr. Negasso Gidada, met with Ahmed and Shane Simba to form a union in order to remove the insurgents from within Somalia whose citizens were fleeing by the thousands, flooding bordering countries with their growing numbers.  Shane agreed to back President Ahmed of Somalia.  Once again, our troops were mobilized and brought to the borders of Somalia and Kenya.  Ethiopian troops were embedded among our military.  Additional border refugee camps are being added for those that are now homeless in Somalia.  Kenya has had refugee camps for years due to unrest in the many countries that border her.  Dr. Juma Mnyama has been asked by Shane to check the AIDS/HIV status of the refugees.  For this, he enlisted his best nursing assistant, Staci Simba.  Since the insurgency and fighting is mostly taking place in Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu, we have not suffered casualties yet. 

             On a lighter note, my sister, Margaux Monkee Tigeres, has moved her growing French bakery, fine meats and wines to a very elaborate store front in the new addition to the Lewis Lyon Mall.  Margaux, being married to one of the Tigeres males, has a wonderful support system in her in-laws.  Her husband, Tony, a white tiger, was one hundred percent supportive of her having the French procedure which produced two male tiger cubs who are now in University and thriving.  Last year she gave birth to a full macaque, a little male, who she named for me.  Tony owns the heterosexual disco in the Mara and is very successful as is Margaux with her thriving fine foods business renamed simply, Chez Margaux.  They have built a lovely bungalow in the Tigeres Compound and Margaux has become an advocate of swimming in the Olympic size pool.  They are one of the happiest couples in the Mara. 

my sister, Margaux Monkee Tigeres

            Customers can't get enough of her petits pains aux lardons et comté, slim, chewy rolls with bits of bacon and melted Comté cheese, or escargots cannelle, cinnamon-filled pinwheels of croissant dough with a buttery crumb topping.  There are some very attractive tables set up in front of the store where diners chow down on these items during lunch.  The State mansion has a standing order of Fougasse sent to its kitchen at least twice a week.   The fougasse, a ladder-shaped loaf dosed with olive oil and baked with fillings that change daily -- black olives one day, chčvre and tomatoes the next, is apparently a favorite of the President. 

            The sun was boiling hot, with dust caking everything in sight.  Jane was stooping behind a tree that had seen better days from the constant shelling in Mogadishu.  She was fiddling with her camera when a sniper’s bullet hit her in the chest, causing blood to soak her shirt.  The two Kenyan and Ethiopian soldiers carried her to their jeep and sped for the city’s hospital.  The Ethiopian tried to prevent the bleeding.  Jane was unconscious when she reached the operating room. 

            Shane Simba sat with his fellow East African Presidents, attempting to map out a strategy when one of his generals approached. 

“Sir, Jane has been hit by a sniper in Mogadishu,” he reported. 

Shane jumped up, knocking his chair to the floor. 

“Mogadishu?  I thought she was with a brigade doing reconnaissance in Kenya,” he shouted. 

“No, Sir.  She went into Mogadishu today.”

Shane called for his helicopter to be made ready.  He and two officers ran for it and boarded.  It rose in the air, throwing sand with every whirring motion of its blades.   Shane’s eyes were closed as he directed the pilot to take him down near the main hospital in the seaport city.  He held his head in his paws the entire trip, praying to anything that would hear him, not to take away the one he so loved.  After what seemed an interminable time, the helicopter put down just outside of the hospital.  The President hardly gave the crew time to lower the stairs before he was running down them and toward the hospital entrance.   When he entered, there was already a flurry of reporters from foreign countries that had gotten word that Shane Simba’s mistress was badly injured from sniper fire.  When he pushed past them, almost forcing one to the floor, they followed.  He made his way to a small room off the surgical area.   Jane lay very still, with a heart monitor and IV’s in both arms.  He took one paw in his and leaned down.

“Janie, Janie - please say something.  It’s Shane, my love.”

She opened her eyes slowly causing him to cry with great shudders of relief. 

“I’m okay, Shane.  I really am.”

Someone brought a chair in which he sat by her side until another injection of morphine caused her to go into a merciful sleep.  The doctor was standing near when he rose from his chair. 

“She lost a great deal of blood, Sir,” reported the physician.  “But the two soldiers who accompanied her here were very smart.  They staunched the bleeding.  She will be all right.”

Shane thanked the doctor and went to find the soldiers that had so valiantly saved Jane’s life.  He thanked the Ethiopian and Kenyan and assured them that they would receive a medal for their quick thinking and bravery. 

            Jane, being a strong animal, was already stabilized when she flew in the helicopter with Shane back to the base in Kenya.  There he set up a mini-hospital room in his quarters with nurses flown from the Mara.  Jane’s collarbone had been shattered, causing her great pain.  Dr. Juma Mnyama, who was nearby tending the refugees, visited Jane when needed.  He brought supplies of morphine which a nursing military orderly administered.  Since the base was not a victim of shells and mortar, the couple settled into another phase of their intensifying love affair.  Shane would work with the generals during the day, planning which military units to send into Mogadishu where the guerilla warfare continued.  Kenya and Ethiopia both had troops in there fighting the extremist. .

            In the evening, food was brought to his quarters.  Jane would enjoy a beer while Shane drank his usual Scotch.  The IV’s had been and unhooked so Jane was able to sleep in the bed with Shane.  Quietly and unannounced, some soldiers had exchanged the single bed in Shane’s room for a double.  Jane began to get her strength back with short walks around the base where she would take pictures of the soldiers asking them about their lives both personal and military.   

            In the mansion, Betty had turned on the newscast from WMM-TV to see Shane rushing from a helicopter into the hospital in Mogadishu.  He looked panicked and impatient, brushing reporters aside brusquely.  She closed her eyes to further images when the reason was explained – that Jane had been wounded by a sniper’s bullet.  She slept with small Solly at her side that night. 

            In another ultrasound, Frank Tigeres praised her for this cub’s exceptional growth. 

“Make plans, Betty, this chap will be a whopper,” stated the tiger doctor. 

            Betty went to her old home in Mombasa for the weekend, inviting Montecore and Gerald Giraffe, who was her yoga instructor and Montecore’s lover.  There they examined names for the coming cub. 

“Shane is not that interested in this one.  I want to name him something meaningful to me,” Betty had told them. 

“Betty, I have a wonderful friend that I made in Kenya.  He is an elderly chap and human.  His name is Jalil.  It means exalted in Swahili and is a Kenyan name,” suggested Montecore. 

“Oh, that is a wonderful name, Monte.  How about Jalil Jules Simba?  I cut my teeth on Jules Verne’s books while I was a kid in Tanzania,” enthused Betty. 

“I brought some Dom Perignon champagne,” chortled Gerald. “Shall we toast that name?” 

The three lifted daintily cut crystal glasses in a toast to the new son of Shane Simba and Betty who was to be born healthy, rugged and well named. 

            Jane arrived in the Mara to be checked over by Dr. Frank Tigeres.  He advised her to take it easy with the shattered collar bone.  Luke was flying supplies to the front when not on safari.  He flew Jane with her cubs to Kitale where she stayed in the home Shane had built for them.  Jane spent her time with her children, taking long walks on the savanna with the two toddling behind her.  In the evenings she wrote a series of articles and emailed them to the Masai Mara Daily.  She had one maid that helped tend the children and prepared simple meals.  Shane would fly in and join her in their love nest whenever possible.  He had not seen Betty since the new conflict had broken out.  

Shane and Jane at their retreat near Kitale....

            Leland Leoparde and Cate Ocelot, having become lovers and dearest friends, decided to seal their commitment.  Leland placed a beautifully cut square diamond on the fourth digit of Cate’s left paw in a late dinner in his lovely home. 

            Cate, being a major life saver for my Lachlan at the Mental Health Center, was honored with a small dinner party at our home.  We hung the garden with lanterns, placed torches about and created, together, a feast of delicious proportions.  I daresay there are no two better chefs on earth when Lachlan and I make pretty in our kitchen.  I was greatly impressed by the elegant Leland Leoparde.  We sat for a bit, ignoring the others and discussing his late Uncle and my former lover, Lawrence Leoparde.  He invited Lachlan and me for dinner the next week at his bush home. 

Cate Ocelot and Leland Leoparde in our garden....