My car's out of gas and there's pee in my bed

I ran out of gas today, for the first time in my life. Going by the gauge, I still should have had some gas left. Going by the mileage, I probably didn't. Going by the way the engine sputtered and died half a mile before I reached my house, I'm going to go with...pretty much out of gas. The gas pump needs to be fixed -- I was already planning to take it in this week -- so I figure maybe that's why the gauge was a little off?

I had just dropped off the girls at school and was planning to read the blogs and have some coffee before going to the board meeting for the new quilt guild. (I'm co-co-treasurer. Woo!) Instead, I walked home, played a game of solitaire (quicker than blogs) and had some coffee, then got out the gas we have for the lawnmower, called my friend for advice (lacking a funnel), got the laptop for the meeting and walked back to the car, which I had maneuvered into a parking space at the (still closed) animal shelter down the hill. By the time I got there, the guy who watches cars when the shelter is open was there. He seemed to want to help, so I let him pour in the gas (I had cut the bottom off a small empty plastic bottle. It was just big enough to use as a funnel without having to use the bit of hose and electrical tape I had also brought along.) The car didn't want to start right away, but I guess the gas has to get back into the system or whatever. I got gas on the way to the meeting and was only 15 minutes late.

And if I hadn't been running a little late, I wouldn't have gotten to listen to "Para Complacer" - an all-request radio show that apparently starts at 10:00. The announcer has this smooth radio voice, but very little in the way of personality. Maybe he missed his coffee this morning. So he starts the show and picks up the first phone line, but nobody's there. He hello's a couple of times, repeats the request line number and tries again. He gets some guy asking for some song, but apparently there's rules. The song the guy wanted was from 1986, and this particular all-request radio show only plays music from 1985 or earlier. So he told the guy to pick something else. The caller asked for another song and the announcer, who evidently listens to his own radio station, says that he just heard that song on the way in to work - so he can't play it again this soon. So he asks the caller to pick ANOTHER song, reminding him that it should be from "the 80s" (but not, we have learned, from 1986, 87, 88 or 89.) So the caller names another song. And, if the announcer is to be believed, THAT song was also played just minutes ago. Finally the caller asked (a bit timidly) if he could request something by Elton John. The announcer agreed that that would be fine, and they finally settled on Candle in the Wind. Granted, this is all in Spanish and they did both call it "Candle in the Rain" but...well, there was music, so that was good.

The thing is, almost any DJ would take that situation and milk it for all it was worth, but the comedy here lay in the simple fact that neither of the guys seemed to have any personality at all...it was essentially just a long and very nearly futile conversation between two guys...that happened to be broadcast live, nationwide.

So anyway then I got to the board meeting...which ran from 10:00 to 2:00 with no lunch break (but the cookies were good). Actually, the food thing aside, the meeting was perfectly enjoyable - figuring out how to build a guild is kind of fun.

Then I got the girls and brought them home and gave them dinner (actually what they really wanted was to make their own PBJs.) As a special treat, I got them ready for bed early so they could eat popcorn and watch Mary Poppins (which is very very long). But something went wrong with the popcorn. The packet was sitting on top of the fridge and it must have gotten too warm or something because the "butter" sauce had kind of melted out of the paper bag and was smeared inside the plastic wrapper. I popped it anyway and it came out totally tasteless. Oh well.

Julia, as usual, fell asleep before the video was over. And then she peed in the bed. My bed. This child hasn't had an accident since I don't know when...at least a year, but she did have a lot of water (what with the popcorn) right before bed. I didn't think she'd had that much to drink, but you know what? She apparently did. Have a lot. To drink. A lot a lot. The end.

I just had to tell YOU first

I just got a call from the gallery that's hosting the quilt show and they accepted both my quilts! I would have been really disappointed if they hadn't taken either of them but I had no idea I'd be so gratified that they want both!

It was made even better by the fact that I had no idea who was calling. Usually when I get a call from a stranger who asks for me by my full name, it's someone wanting me to translate something, and although I always accept the jobs, I usually make a face at the phone.

Thinking it was one thing and having it be the other makes me feel like I should get started creating my alternate (financial) reality instead of just planning it. Like maybe I should stop reading blogs and start dyeing some fabric...

Save yourself some heartache

Here's what I did with the scraps, but before I show it to you, let me give you a piece of advice, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.

Never sew velvet.

No, I don't care what your grandmother used to make. Just don't do it. It can be free and right there and the perfect color and a glorious accent, but take it from me and just don't sew the velvet. It's just a teeny, tiny little 15-inch quilt, you say? I repeat:

Don't. Sew. The velvet.

And most especially? Don't bind a quilt with velvet. A quilt with piping. Pieced piping. And slippery slithery shiny floppy unraveling weird stuff. Multiple layers of weird stuff. At the corners. On the afternoon of the day it's due for the quilt show. Seriously, what kind of a simpleton would you have to be?

(All I know is, they'd better put it in the show...)

I am so high right now

Statistically speaking, that is.

It has taken me two full years of living here to realize that the pasta makers of the world aren't full of, er, it, but rather that the decreased air pressure at one mile above sea level permits water to boil at a lower temperature, providing a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I consistently have to add up to 50% more cooking time than the box claims.

I mean, I always knew about altitude and boiling and stuff, but I never thought it applied to me. Well, turns out it does. It is apparently also to blame for the fact that I've had to add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of extra flour to every pizza dough recipe I've ever tried, just to keep it from gluing my fingers together. And here I thought it was the idiot recipe-makers of the world. (Or the Italian ones anyway.)

We may never know if altitude is to blame for the problems Dad had when trying my favorite muffin recipe, but it's possible. Actually, I kind of doubt it - I got the recipe off the Internet and the changes I made didn't have to do with altitude stuff. Plus, according to my pizza experience, I should have needed MORE flour than he did, but when he used my measurements he was unnaturally dense. His muffins, I mean. His muffins were dense.

Here, why don't you try it and let me know? Just mix:

2 C shredded zuchchini and/or carrots
1/2 C oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp lemon peel (or, you know, not)
1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg (or not)
2 tsp cinnamon
1 C raisins
2 C sugar (or just one)

Then sift in:
3 C flour (substitute some whole wheat if you want)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Put in muffin tins and bake 15-20 min @ 350. Makes 24.

So let me know. They should taste great no matter how it goes.

So, speaking of statistics.

You live in the tropics and people ask you if it's hot. (Go ahead, people. Ask if it's hot.) Actually, if you live up a mountain (a mile up, to be exact) it's pretty much the perfect climate. Y'all in North Carolina and that have, what, like 90-degree summers? And snow in the winter? I always told people it was about 60 to 80 degrees here, day and night, all year round. But I never knew for sure. What if I was talking out of my...ear?

Well, rest easy my friends because now the truth is known. I asked Dad to bring me a thermometer when he came, and did he ever. At the press of a button, I can now confidently report that over the past month, we have had indoor temperatures ranging from 63.3 to 83.7 (it's currently 8:30 at night and 71.6) - so I wasn't too far off. Outdoors, though, impressed me. Outdoor temperatures ranged from 49.6 to 77.4 (north facing, out of the wind).

The indoor/outdoor difference is, of course solar. My house is fiber-cement board on the outside, sheetrock on the inside, with dead air in between. Lots of windows let the sun all day. Actually, I bet it's been quite a bit higher than 83.7, but the thermometer is downstairs and it's cooler there.

So. I think that's all I have to say about that.

This one's for the kids

I mean, you can read it if you want. If you can. But really it's for them.

Julia's class is going to talk about the history of Costa Rica. But first, they need to introduce the concept of history, so they've asked for each child's parents to send in the child's history. Here's Julia's.

La Historia de Julia Elizabeth Arce Tucker
Julia nació el 19 de agosto en el año 2001. En ese momento, su familia (su madre, su padre y su hermana mayor) vivía en los Estados Unidos, en la ciudad de High Point del estado de North Carolina.

Julia nació en una tina de agua tíbia en un centro especial para partos. Sus padres, su hermana, sus abuelos, su tía y su tío estaban presentes para verla nacer y darle la bienvenida. A sus 3 horas de vida, Julia ya estaba en su propia casa con su familia.

Julia era una bebé saludable y creció rápidamente. Nunca bebió de un chupón, pero sí le gustaba la chupeta durante su primer año.

Cuando Julia tenía seis meses, fue con su mamá y su hermana para ayudar a la abuela, quien se estaba pasando a una casa nueva. Durante este viaje, Julia vió un plato con palomitas de maíz en el suelo y lo quiso tanto que aprendió a gatear por primera vez! Desafortunadamente, a pesar de su gran esfuerzo, no pudo comerlas porque todavía era muy pequeña.

Ella aprendió a caminar en su propia casa cuando tenía un año. Sus comidas favoritas a esa edad incluían bananos, puré de manzana, avena, cereal para bebés, jugos y leche.

Cuando Julia tenía un año y medio, su padre fue a trabajar a otro lugar y ella fue con su mamá y su hermana a vivir con los abuelos mientras tanto. Las tres compartían una habitación y a veces hablaban con papá por teléfono. A Julia le gustaba mucho ir a los parques cercanos y leer cuentos con su abuela.

Finalmente su papá terminó el trabajo y la familia se mudó a un lugar nuevo justo antes del segundo cumpleaños de Julia. En ese lugar Julia compartió un cuarto con su hermana y durmió en una cama grande por primera vez. Le gustaba ir de compras con su mamá, pero su actividad favorita era visitar una gran biblioteca donde habían juguetes, videos y rompecabezas además de muchos, muchos libros.

Mientras vivían en ese lugar, su abuelo en Costa Rica estaba ayudando a construir una casa nueva para Julia y su familia. Cuando la casa esaba lista, se mudó una vez más, con su hermana y sus padres.

Desde que Julia nació, su papá siempre le hablaba en español, y ella siempre le entendió. Pero nunca había venido a Costa Rica, y estaba acostumbrada a hablar solamente en inglés. Cuando vino a vivir aquí, ella conoció a sus abuelos Ticos por primera vez. Ella los quiso mucho y les entendió cuando hablaban pero al principio no quiso hablar en español. Después de unas semanas se acostumbró y empezó a usar algunas palabras. Le gustaba decir “el bus, el bus” cuando veía pasar el bus por su casa, y rapidamente aprendió a decir “leche” cuando quería que la abuela le regalara leche.

Cuando vino a Costa Rica, Julia tuvo mascotas por primera vez. Al principio tuvo dos perros, una gata y dos loras, aunque ahora son cuatro perros, y se perdió una de las loras. Su abuela también tiene mascotas: tres perros, una gata y dos periquitos.

Un rato después de venir a Costa Rica, la hermana de Julia empezó a ir al pre-kinder cerca de su casa. A Julia le gustaba entrar al aula y jugar en el pley cuando recogían a Robin, pero ella todavía estaba muy pequeña y no pudo asistir.

Cuando iba a cumplir tres años, Julia fue con toda su familia a los Estados Unidos para el matrimonio de su tía Lisa. Ese año ella celebró su cumpleaños dos veces – una vez con los abuelos en los Estados Unidos y otra vez cuando volvió a Costa Rica.

El año pasado, el papá de Julia otra vez tuvo que ir lejos a trabajar, pero esta vez ella no se tuvo que mudar. Su “papi” le habla por teléfono y ha venido tres veces a Costa Rica a visitar...una vez vino de sorpresa!

Cuando Julia estaba por cumplir cuatro años, ella fue junta con su mamá y su hermana a los Estados Unidos para visitar a su papá. Se quedaron cinco semanas, parte del tiempo en la casa de los abuelos y parte del tiempo con su tía Lisa y tío Scott. Lisa y Scott compraron una casa nueva durante ese tiempo y la familia de Julia los ayudaron con la mudanza! De nuevo celebró su cumpleaños—esta vez cuatro años—dos veces, una vez en los Estados Unidos y otra vez cuando volvió a Costa Rica.

Después de este viaje, la hermana de Julia vino a la Casa de Niños San Lorenzo por primera vez. A Robin le gustó mucho y pronto Julia empezó también. Como nunca había tenido una experiencia como ésta, Julia estaba nerviosa y lloraba cuando su mamá la vino a dejar los primeros días. Pero su tercer día hubo una actividad especial. Era el 15 de Setiembre y todos los niños desfilaron por el parque. Julia tuvo una enagua nueva con los colores de la bandera, y tuvo su propia banderita de papel. Estaba orgullosa y ese día no lloró cuando vino al kinder.

Ahora Julia tiene cuatro años y medio y conoce bien los trabajos y actividades del kinder. Tiene amigos y le gusta hablar con su papá por teléfono. Pronto su papi viene de vuelta a Costa Rica, no para una visita sino para quedarse.

¿Cual será la próxima aventura en la historia de Julia?

A quilt dyed before it was born

My first dyeing project was to make a 12-step color wheel of fat quarters.

That means that I took 12 peanut butter jars (well, eight PBs & four tupperwares) and arranged them in a triangle. The three jars at the corners had the three pure colors (red, blue & yellow), which are the only actual dyes I have. Everything else is obtained by mixing. The jar at the center of each side had a 50:50 mix of the colors on each side of it. Then the jars to the left and right of center had a 1:3 mixture of the two end colors, with more of the nearest color.

This resulted in fat quarters in Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green, Blue-Green, Blue, Blue-Violet, Purple, and Red-Violet.



I didn't have a specific plan for the fabric, but I wanted to make a quilt for my new neighbors, who were getting married and moving into the house behind mine. There's also a quilt show coming up here and I wanted to submit something made with the dyed fabrics.

In order to keep the focus on the fabric and the subtleties in the dyed colors, I chose a very simple design and calculated how big a quilt I could get out of my fat quarters. I cut the strips and squares, then lay them out on the table to make good-looking color combinations.






After sewing the strips into borders on the squares, I did it again to choose the next color for each block.







Then I laid them out and rearranged them until I liked the overall effect. I sewed the (24) blocks together, layered the quilt, and pinned it.





Choosing the back was kind of a challenge. I had a piece of cream colored fabric with gardening motifs on it, drawn in a kind of a seed-catalog style that I liked. Since I first met my neighbors when they used to come up on weekends to plant trees and weed their lot, it seemed like a great choice for the back of the quilt. But it had little stains spotted all over it (a lot of my fabric is from discount sources) and I was going to give up on it until I remembered: I can dye it! So I did, and it came out quite cool but really not right for this quilt.

The technique I use for dyeing lets the dye penetrate the fabric randomly and is meant to come out blotchy and with variations. But this was only my second time trying it--and my first time with a single, large piece of fabric--and it came out way too blotchy and uneven. So what did I do? I dyed it again! And it came out much more suitable for the quilt back; a dark but muted green (the overdye color) with brown vareigations (the original dye job). If I had it to do again, I would probably do the back differently, but it came out suitable, if not ideal, and I learned a lot about dyeing, so that was good.



So I had made a simple, throw-sized quilt in a simple pattern. I probably spent a total of three days on it - entirely reasonable. But did I let well enough alone? No, I did not. I just couldn't bring myself to quilt it in-the-ditch (simply following the seam lines). I toyed with different ideas and ended up with a plan that was...a bit more complex than I was theoretically looking for.

I quilted a pebble pattern in the middle border of each block. I was thinking of a garden path, and let the "path" cross over from one block to another at certain points. (If I had it to do again, I would either keep the pebble pattern confined to its borders or link all the blocks instead of creating separate groups of four.) I left the center squares unquilted - the better to appreciate the dyed fabrics - and made a winding vine of leaves, flowers, curliques and made-up stuff in the outer borders.









It came out a lot more ornate than I planned, but also pretty cool. I was pretty sure my friends liked the colors because they had shown me a photo of a painting that they chose for their living room. But the quilt is pretty bold, and when I took it over to them today I stressed that it was for curling up with on cold nights. But they really didn't hear me because they were carrying the thing around, trying to decide which wall to hang it on. So I guess it's not too bold after all.

Just how much money do some people HAVE?

Oh, and by the way? How insane is this?

It makes me wonder what "value" actually is and how people end up reaching an acceptable (economic) value for a given thing.

And, too? How hard did they have to work to get this much "value" into one short-term consumable?

You have been warned.

School is going well...no freak-outs by any of us. I'd venture to say we've moved beyond the danger zone for separation anxiety, but watch this space...

However, we did just have a major (and, I have to say, entirely unexpected) freak-out over homework. Robin was showing me some other thing she was doing and mentioned in passing that she had some homework today but had forgotten to bring her notebook home. When I asked, she said it was a drawing she was supposed to finish.

So simple, right? She makes the drawing on a piece of paper (when has this child EVER declined to draw something?) and sticks it into her notebook tomorrow. Well, you'd think I had suggested she rip out her current loose tooth to stick in the notebook

Best I can tell--and I'm not completely sure, but I think this is it--the drawing (which is of the solar system) took too much work for her to do all over again, when all she actually had left to do was some coloring. I suspect she's also worried that she won't be able to get it "right" if she does it on her own.

So in an effort to dial her down a notch--she was really REALLY upset about this--while still sticking by my original point (forgetting the notebook doesn't mean she doesn't have to do her best to complete the assignment), I'm looking for a solar system coloring sheet so she can do the coloring she was meant to do, then tomorrow she can finish the original drawing in the notebook.

All this as a prelude to my favorite line from the various education websites I've just visited. (Well, and to throw you, the reader, a bone here. I know I've been out of touch.)

So, I leave you with a word of warning.

WARNING Teachers in grades 5 and under. DO NOT tell your students that the Sun will eventually die. Avoid any statement dealing with the death of our Sun or any other star. Believe me, telling kids that the Sun will eventually die greatly disturbs them and you will get bombarded with 'anxiety' questions. Again, just avoid the topic all together. The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old and will start to die in about 4 billion years, but to kids, 4 billion years might as well be tomorrow. I have warned you.

An apple a day

And he's off...

...but we already knew that.

First Grade

Today is Robin's first day of first grade. She has been excited and is very proud of her new uniform. The school uses a variation on the official (public school) uniform, substituting its own golf-style shirts for the white cotton button-down of the official uniform. More comfortable & less ironing...I'm for it!

The uniform calls for navy blue slacks. There are some differences in style & quality, depending where you buy them. We went to a department store that was recommended by a seamstress who makes uniforms (but had too many orders to do ours). We got there (unintentionally) just a few minutes after the store opened, so the place was empty and we went straight over to the well-stocked uniform section and got what we needed. Robin was thrilled to see that the girls' styles had a flared leg - not quite bell bottoms but, well, close. Fun to hem, lemme tell you. (I know it doesn't show up in the picture, and by the time I hemmed 4" up from the bottom there wasn't actually that much bell left in the bottoms anyway. But Robin knows it's there, and that's the important part.)

She was only a little nervous this morning, and it only lasted for a couple of minutes. When she transferred to this school last year she was excited like this at the beginning, then she had a harder time with nervousness & separation anxiety after a week or so. We'll be ready for that if it comes, but I don't really expect it this time around, since she's more familiar with the setup, and she knows all the other first graders and most of the teachers.

The first graders start today for some individualized time with the teacher, then the second and third graders come in on Friday. There will be a total of 24 in the 1st/2nd/3rd grade mixed classroom, with one teacher and one assistant. There were just 6 first graders there when we took Robin this morning, although I think there are a couple more than that in all - maybe they were just late.

School normally gets out at 3:00, but they only stay till noon this week. We'll go to Yolanda's house after school so she can show them her uniform and tell them about school. Plus Dad really wants some of Yolanda's gallo pinto (a rice & beans dish) and this is pretty much his last chance!

In lieu of 2000 words

Guess who rode a train today?

The trip is an hour long. It goes from the center of San José out to Pavas (to the west), back through the station, then to San Pedro (to the east) and back to the starting point.





The excursion is mainly for families with kids, and includes singing, dancing and general tomfoolery


Which some preferred to watch from a distance


The train stopped at the end of the line in each direction. The engine was detached and moved to the opposite end of the (two-car) train so we could go back the way we came.




This is the train in its entirety:




After the train trip, we went to the National Children's Museum. Very hands-on, very well done. Very much more to it than we thought - we had 2 hours before it closed, but could easily have spent twice as long...Fortunately, it's inexpensive and easy to get to, so we'll just go back another time.

(The 1-hour train trip costs $1.50 per person, all ages. The museum is $1.50 for children, $2 for adults.)

The museum used to be the penitentiary. There are before & after photos in the entrance hall showing just how much work has been done to it.
























A bit fuzzy perhaps, but this is much closer to what I think I look like...

It's high-res, baby!

Before Dad got here, Alex told me he was sending us each a present. I knew the girls were getting dolls from the dollar store and I figured, Cool, a box of chocolates or my favorite conditioner or something.

No no. Not chocolate. A new 5 megapixel digital camera with 128 MB expansion card. It's high-res, baby!

I took 83 pictures on our trip to the Orosi valley yesterday. Here are 21 of them. I had to shrink them down for the blog of course, or it would have taken hours to upload them all.

(Still no word on broadband in my neighborhood because neither the cable company nor the sole DSL provider--the telco is a government monopoly--has seen fit to wend their way up my mountain yet. Although it was suggested to me today [hi Ruth!] that if Oscar Arias wins the election on Sunday--and he's expected to--there could be some progress on the technological front because he's fer that sort of thing. So that's something.)

So without further ado, I bring you...well, what we did yesterday.

We decided to be adventuresome and go the back way. Which, you know, is not like going the back way to the mall. It would be somewhat misleading but not inaccurate to say we headed generally east, then hung a right at the volcano...

Anyway, I asked Dad take a couple of scenery shots while we were driving down the road, to see how the camera did while in motion. I'd say it passed that test:


Then we came to a scenic overlook, so we got out and looked over the scenery.


We were going through Cartago, so we stopped at the Basilica, one of Costa Rica's holiest sites (Catholically speaking).


The story goes that a young Indian girl found a statue of the Virgin Mary in the woods on this site in the 1600s. She took it home, but the next day it was gone. She returned to the woods and found that it was back on top of the rock where she had found it. This was repeated the next day, so she went to the priest, who took the statue and had the same experience. The church was eventually built on the site, and the statue - now swathed in gold - is above the altar.

Many people make a yearly pilgrimage to the Basilica on a certain date each year, mostly on foot and some from towns many miles away. Many travel part of the way, or at least up the aisle, on their knees. On any given day many of the people who visit the church move from the door to the altar on their knees.

Some of them come to ask the Virgin Mary for specific prayers or miracles, and often they leave a token that represents their petition. In a specially built area behind the church, you can see the original rock where the statue was found, as well as case after case of these tokens (which can be purchased in a shop across the street). Most are in the shape of a specific body part that needs to be healed or cured. There are whole sections of hands, feet, eyes, etc. (And yes, every body part you can imagine is represented at least a couple of times among the hundreds of figures.)

There are also non-medical petitions, with figures representing houses, vehicles, chairs, weapons, jails...you name it. I'm not sure exactly what the whole-body charms represent...maybe the desire to have a child, or for the general well-being of a family member?


The shop across the street also sells plastic bottles in various shapes that you can fill with holy water from the spring near the site of the miracle. I got a bottle in the shape of the statue (in its current form - with golden rays emanating from it) and filled it for Yolanda's ailing mother.

I took my cue from that other guy and rinsed out the bottle a couple of times before filling it. I guess the "clean catch" concept holds true for holy water too.


After the Basilica we went to the Lankester (why oh why do they spell it that way??) Botanical Gardens, which were lovely.







Dad's favorite was (were?) the giant bamboo








Here's the view from the place we had lunch:


In the town of Orosi we saw another very old church, this one very small and quaint. It had a tiny attached convent, which has been converted into a museum of religious artifacts from various parts of Central America and Mexico, as well as some of the original furnishings from the church.


One of my favorite plant photos is not from the botanical garden, but from the landscaping around that church:


I also like this one, which is from the place we went next:


We finished the day with coffee at a restaurant called La Casona del Cafetal, which was recommended to us by a friend (hi again Ruth!), but which neither of us realized would be sooooo nice. And I mean "nice" like excellent food, service & ambience for a great price, without being (and this is key) "shouldn't-be-wearing-jeans nice" which would have detracted from the overall niceness quotient.

We ordered our coffee, then I went to the ladies room. I actually had to leave the restroom and go back to the table for my camera because this is what it looked like in there:


If you're going to go out for coffee, you may as well go to a place that takes its coffee seriously. All the art (outside of the restrooms) revolved around the planting and harvest of coffee, which is grown locally.



I'm pretty sure I don't really look like this, but it strikes me as one of those pictures that everyone else probably thinks came out good, so I guess I'll go ahead and put it in.


It's high-res, baby!!!