That day in my life

So all day Friday I was making mental notes about what time it was and writing another Day in the Life post in my head.

Thursday's post was already written and published and I have no intention of doing this on a daily basis, but I guess it's like playing video games. Concentrate on one mode of thinking for long enough and it kind of becomes the default for a while. Keeping a running internal commentary on your day is less annoying than seeing Tetris blocks falling in your sleep, but still.

Anyway, it was fun to read all the other Day in the Life posts and even more fun to have new people stop by and say nice things about my blog.

In response to the commenters:

Dad: We go out most Fridays and they always take a taxi home afterwards. I usually do too, since we don't normally go to the restaurant across the street. We went there this week because it was a school night and that way I could stop by the house and get things in order before going over. It also made it that much easier for me to leave and get the kids into bed at a normal time. (It wasn't raining, by the way.)

Sarah: Whew, having read your Day in the Life, I can't wait till your girls are older either! (Although if you're anything like me, you'll always be looking forward to them being some mythical future age...)

CarpeDM: I can only guess at the questions, but some basic background information probably would be helpful. I grew up in the northeastern US. I came to Costa Rica through a college program and ended up staying after graduation. My husband, Alex, is a Costa Rican who, ironically, is currently working as a land surveyor in the US and lives right between my parents & sister while I'm 15 minuts from his family. He's coming for a visit in a couple of weeks. The girls are 4 and 7. (BTW, Julia doesn't usually cry that much, but she seems to be in some kind of a phase at the moment. It probably made it into this post so many times because it's unusual for her and therefore notable to me.) José & Yolanda are Alex's parents.

Sheryl: The parrot's name is Loren ("parrot" is lora in Spanish). She's a Red Lored Amazon and she's the best! Well, if you're me she is. She bites other people. I used to have two, but Rosita flew away about a year ago. We still speculate on her fate. Loren has been very attached to me ever since - they're flock birds by nature and need the company. I wish she had another bird for company, but don't really want to get another parrot because most of the pet birds available here have been stolen from the wild and you don't want to perpetuate that. (These birds belonged to my mother in law, who gave them to me when she saw how much I enjoyed them.) Also, parrots can be really really noisy and my house is an echo chamber because the living room is two stories high with a tile floor. Loren often shrieks at dinner time and echos the girls' screams when they get loud, and that's plenty. A new parrot that was a frequent shrieker would most assuredly be cause for regret. (I've never seen the Hitchcock movie...perhaps I should keep it that way.)

Some general updates:

The car is back to stalling again, and not just when I start it. Now it stalls in motion up to three separate times in the first two blocks whenever I drive it. After that it drives normally. I suspect the mechanic will be closed all through Easter week (which is a bigger deal than Christmas here) but I'll call tomorrow to check. Good times.

The washing machine is doing the same thing again, but I did discover a way to get it to pick up where it left off instead of starting the cycle over when it rings the error bells. Whatever.

I left the kids with José and Yolanda for much of the day yesterday and when I went to pick them up, they had bought the girls a bunk bed. Robin chose to spend the night there so she could try it out. Julia wanted to come home with me.

Wow, this sure is a boring post. Stopping now.