You know that thing about "The more things change"? Well, sometimes they don't actually stay the same.

This weekend, Julia was invited to play at the house of a friend who used to go to her school, but has since moved to another town. I was given fairly easy direction to the girl's grandmother's house this morning; the father and Julia's friend met us there, and we followed them to their house so I would know where to go pick her up at the end of the day.

Robin took notes on the route as we went, and we probably could have retraced it if we had needed to, but once we were there, they gave me directions to get home a different way that was actually more direct and fairly simple.

That route took me past a well-known restaurant I've eaten at a number of times, but not for at least 10 years (and never driving myself), then past another place where Robin and Julia had a school graduation ceremony once, and the place where Robin used to take swimming lessons (the lessons were through the school, and I had only ever gone there once, for an end-of-year thing).

The road I was on was meant to take us all the way down to the town of Barva, as long as I kept on it through a variety of twists and turns. I did so, recognizing things here and there, until I came to one of those places where a two-way road turns into a one-way road, and I had to turn right. I took an immediate left as the most logical way to continue in the same general direction, but then I wondered if maybe I was meant to keep going in the new direction. I was pretty sure I was nearly all the way down to Barva, so after a few blocks I pulled up alongside a woman pushing a stroller and asked if I was headed the right way to get to Barva.

Heh. Yeah. I was in Barva.

I was picturing coming in from the north, and there's a pretty distinctive intersection-y bit to the north there that I never came to--possibly because I was entering town from the completely unremarkable west. The woman told me which way to go to get to where I was ultimately headed (out the other side of town to the Heredia road) and by the time I got myself oriented I realized that when I stopped to ask I couldn't have been more than four blocks from the house we lived in for five years.

In my defense, that was 10 years ago and the town has changed a lot since then.

No, really.

Better get out the spare quilt

Gmail has a selection of themes with which to customize your mail-reading experience. Some of them are just color schemes and others are more elaborate.

I use "Tree" which...well, has a tree on it. Sadly, it's just a little tree at the very bottom; I never even see the tree part, because it's been a very long time since my Inbox has been a single screen high.

But I do see the sky a lot, and "Tree" has a cool feature, which is that you can set it for any given city--well, any city on their list, but suffice to say it's a very long list--and it'll show that tree in whatever sort of weather your chosen city happens to be experiencing at the moment.

I set it for a city just a couple miles down the road, and at any given time my Inbox shows me sunny skies, puffy white clouds, dark threatening clouds, wind, rain, or lightning. It's not exactly up-to-the-minute, but it's pretty impressive for a meaningless, free application that somehow ties into real-time local weather information.

So I was a little taken aback when the girls and I finished watching The Incredibles this evening and I switched back to the Email tab to see this:

Chinese underwear

That's what Julia ended up calling the calzones we're making tonight. Calzon does mean underwear in Spanish, and the "Chinese" part came from her mixing up two adjacent conversations.

We used Brave Sir Robin's crust recipe, and it behaved itself really really well. They're in the oven now, smelling divine, and Bob is queuing up a movie as we speak, so I'll see you later :)

The way medical care should be

Well, short of "free and freely available" - I guess that would be okay too.

But failing that, this ASEMBIS organization is great.

Costa Rica has a public health care system that is free to those affiliated with it - which is almost everybody; formal employers have to cover their employees, and self-employed can sign themselves up for next to nothing a year. But the public system is overloaded (not unlike the immigration system, now that I think of it), and you can wait months - sometimes even years - for appointments and treatment.

There is a parallel, private health care system that offers high quality health care with little or no wait, but of course that's expensive. (Not as expensive as in the States, but it's a lot in the local economy; certainly enough to deter people *raises hand* from using it in the preventive way health care is meant to be used).

And then there's ASEMBIS. I don't know how they do it, but it's basically low-cost health care available to whoever walks in the door. They do optometry & ophthalmology, ear-nose-throat, general medical, gynecology, and a bunch of other stuff. That's where Bob and I got our eye tests ($3 for both; the full-on ophthalmological exam, which I'll get at some point, is $30. Actually, they're currently having a sale--yes, a sale--so that one's $20 at the moment.)

The three times I've sought appointments there, I've gotten exactly what I wanted every time - "if you can wait 20 minutes, we can take you right now" when we went for the eye exams; after school on the same day for Julia's toothache, and at the most convenient after-school time imaginable for Robin's appointment.

Robin's was today--no cavities, but she did need a cleaning ($28). We made sure to get the same doctor as Tuesday, because we liked him so much. I'll go back to him myself in a few weeks; it's been years and years since I had a cleaning.

And, surprising no one who has ever looked into her mouth, Robin also came away with a referral to an orthodontist. I'm gonna let that one sit for a few weeks while the cash flow recovers; ASEMBIS doesn't do orthodonture directly, and I have no idea how much that sort of thing runs here. But, I've seen her teeth on more than one occasion, and I'd say it's pretty inevitable, eventually.

Getting it in before story time, just in case

So, I took Julia to the dentist yesterday - the same place that did our eye exams for the glasses. The exam is free, then the doctor tells you what treatments you need, and how much they'll cost. We walked in speaking English, as is our wont, so the doctor spoke mostly English to us as well. I assured him that we were all perfectly comfortable in Spanish, but he enjoyed the practice, and his English was extremely good. His chairside manner was also very good, and he really seemed to enjoy interacting with the girls. Julia needed a filling, an X-ray and a root canal, and got all three on the spot. The grand total was about $70. We have an appointment for Robin tomorrow, long's we're getting teeth looked at.

Let's see if it'll take this time

So, watching a video with the kids is every bit as soporific as reading to them. I know cause I did a study.

But no matter how many times I dream that I've gotten up to post this and turn off the computer, it stubbornly keeps not being true.

And I had so much to tell you today, too. But odds are it'll all still be true tomorrow.

* Hitting "Publish". Again. *

It's getting to be a tradition...

...This not realizing it's towel day until said day is at an end. To paraphrase last year's remarks on the subject:

I didn't know about it in time to celebrate in the traditional fashion, but I have managed to follow the Guide's immortal advice all day. And since today is [one year since*] my last day with Alex and the day before I sign the apartment contract, it's really particularly good advice.

* In fact things were delayed, as things tend to be, and I ended up moving on the 27th, so it won't actually be one year later until Wednesday.

Busy weekend

We've* cooked in and eaten out, rearranged furniture and assembled shelving, gone out to the movies and watched Shakespeare and slapstick on the couch, taken care of business and goofed off, gone out with friends and spent time at home.

Now there's chili and brownies for lunch tomorrow, my bed is finally turned the way I want it, and I have a roomier-looking bedroom as a result of it. It's also neater (looking) because, while I didn't actually organize any of the stuff that had been piled in my room since the shelving imploded, I did at least tidy it away under the bed for safekeeping.

I also unpacked the children's books, which I reacquired at the same time that I reacquired the cat. Fortunately, they came with shelving, which we** set up downstairs to hold my books, making room on the upstairs shelves for the girls' books. I'm amazed at how many there are; dozens and dozens of them in at least six languages and on every topic imaginable.

The cat followed us upstairs today, poked around the house for a minute or two, then retired back down to her couch, satisfied.

The parrot is happy to be out of her cage for a while, and is sitting in my lap being as sexy as she knows how, bless her little green heart.


* Where the "we" in the cooking part was, to be honest, mostly Bob.
** There's that "we" again. See above.

Perception vs. reality

I'm pretty sure that, objectively, those two pictures from yesterday are fine. But you know how it is when you don't look like yourself in a picture? I can not look at those pictures and see myself.

This here is much closer to what I think I look like. Plus, there's a cat in it.

Now I'm that amusing person who has new glasses and can't stop comparing ... with ... without ... with ... without ...

Thanks to everyone (and there were more than a few) who participated in finally getting these to us!

Kitty!

The cat finished her course of antibiotics and cream and stuff, and was considerably, but not completely, better.

We took her back to the vet this afternoon to see what he thought. He gave us another four days' worth of antibiotics and said she looks good. I mean, she's like a thousad years old, so "good" is a relative term, but she's eating well and showing interest in her surroundings and beginning to spend her time dozing around us instead of dozing in the laundry room, so I guess she's...good.

Some pics:

This is my favorite one, although it took a lot of color tweaking and is still a little funky. But I like the expression.


This, too, is vintage Fifi (just pretend I know how to put the accent on that second "i" on Bob's Linux-y computer, kay?)


And this is what color she really is. She's not so fond of the flash.

The wages of sin ridding oneself of burdensome spare change

So, the guy who collects donations for his rehab organization at that one intersection in Belen, and who said people who give regularly deserve an incentive, and that his way of offering an incentive was to give out a DVD, and to whom I said I like comedies, was there today.

There's no telling what you'll get when you give a complete stranger an entire genre and then just wait to see what transpires.

I've become more sensitive to the tone and content of movies (and TV and news articles and...well, you see where I'm going here), and wondered if I'd get a misogyfest or something that I would in some other way object to. Even if so, and despite the likely not completely legal provenance of the goods, I did appreciate the overall gesture and was looking forward to seeing what came of it.

And today, this is what came of it. He had asked, and I had told him, that Spanish was fine, but in the end he went with an English language (with Spanish subtitles) environmental film put out by the BBC. Could there have been a better choice? I'm thinking not.

Bob's reaction: "You had me at BBC."

Speaking of bugs

This noble creature was sitting on the wall outside the garage door yesterday morning, pretty much at Julia's eye level. Fortunately, she was focused on heading up the street to buy the milk for breakfast, and didn't notice.

Sunday's picnic

I don't have pictures of the ball playing because we were all busy, you know, playing ball. Eventually, though, we were permitted to sit down and various people took various pictures.

Playing Five Crowns, a rummy-type game I've had for years, and which the girls are now old enough to play (and play well), and which is also fun for grownups, hooray!


General cuteness


Figuring out the stopwatch on Robin's phone because wow do kids love grownups to time whatever particular activity they're doing. I believe in this case it was "balancing a ball on the back of your hand."


One of several visitors, which included two dogs (Seamus and Napoleon), this squirrel (Horatio) and a small bird (Scheherazade) that landed on Bob's shoulder before flitting off into the trees.

If there's one thing I just adore about Alvin and the Chipmunks...

...it's that one day my children will outgrow them and life will be sweet again.



We didn't, in point of fact, have a bad day. All four of us had a very nice time up at the Monte de la Cruz, playing allovertheplaceball (no sittingdownball for anybody this time) and actually building...I believe it was meant to be a "fire"...and making hot dogs and even s'mores.

And now not only am I bound by my promise from this morning, I'm also too tired to think of an excuse or counter-offer, so I'm about to sit down and watch the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie - for the second time in 48 hours.

I think this is the first time I've ever actually taken comfort in the idea of introducing my children's children to something from my children's childhood, simply because I was, umm, privileged to experience it as an adult.

Or perhaps I was unduly affected by the comic somebody showed me yesterday.



Nah.

Happy Birthday...

...to Ken (the very bravest of Sir Robins) and Christina, both of whom had the eminent good sense to be born.

And what better way to celebrate than with a pedantic argument about coconut migration? It's, umm, tropical!



Happy birthday, y'all. Hope you like the Python. (You have no idea how close you were to getting Norah Jones singing to Elmo about the letter Y.)

Now it's the bugs

The rain was a passing thing - it's still coming, but Margie was right; it's not quite the rainy season yet.

Most of our unwelcome visitors were one-time things in those first couple days of downpours. Maybe we'll get more when the rain comes back, but for now it's bugs. Mostly little (well, okay, medium-big) winged ants, with some abejones thrown in. Abejones are beetle-type bugs. They don't bite or anything, but they sound & maneuver about like helicopters, and their feet are pinchy if you pick them up. You haven't lived until you've heard an overtired seven year old shriek when one of those things suddenly shows up on her arm.

For an activity involving both a cat and a Q-tip, it really isn't so bad.

The cat seems to be settling in well; a little too well, if finding her way up to and out of Bob's kitchen window and onto a nearby roof is any indication.

She's probably closer to 20 than 15, seemingly completely deaf, sprouting tumors at one end and...infected...at the other, so we really didn't see the neighborhood exploration initiative coming quite so soon.

We took her to the vet yesterday, and he gave me a course of antibiotics for her as well as a cream for...the two ends.

She doesn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort, and she takes her treatment with little more than a "not again" roll of the eyes. She's a willing (if inexpert) visitor to the litter box, and even seems fine with it being filled with sawdust (free) instead of super-expensive-fancy litter, which is good of her, considering that she does need the super-expensive-fancy food.

Once the infection clears up, she'll be a lot more pleasant to be around, but she already seems pretty well at ease, her own self.

Pre-caffeinated thought for the day

"Jack and Jill went..."

Wait.

Who the hell drills a well at the top of a hill?

Complicated nostalgia

So, who doesn't look back fondly on the TV shows of their youth, right? My kids are gonna have it rough.

You'll be hearing more about this, I'm sure.

I find myself in sudden (re)possession of a cat that may or may not have a broken ass*. You'd think I'd have more to say on the topic, and I'm sure I will, but for now, that's about the size of it.

Well, except for this:

She took the move with aplomb, and as far as I know hasn't left her box since we put her in it. I hope--first for the cat's sake and then for Bob's (What? He likes cats. And his laundry room is so big and available...)--that this turns out to have been the right thing to do.


* Broken as in prolapsed or otherwise not fully potty functional. Not broken like bones. She's been seen by a vet and all, but I haven't actually looked for myself yet, to see what's going on back there.

If I were the type to feel old this'd probably do it.

It was actually a very Enjoyable Event. It was a potluck/musical gathering, centering on several members of Harmony Roads ("The oldest Gringo band in Costa Rica") and whoever else brought or picked up an instrument to join them.

I only actually knew two people there, in addition to having met the hosts at some point along the line, but not so's any of us particularly knew each other. But I knew people in common with everyone, and we were welcomed kindly.

The two I knew were both translators from my second Costa Rican job. I was standing next to one of them for a few minutes before she and the person she was talking to turned to introduce themselves, and once we'd each said our names, we double-took each other and realized who we both were, and proceeded to hug and catch up.

We met when I was hired to cover her maternity leave at the news agency, where we both worked as translators for a time. She had her son with her at the party. He was wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and a leather jacket, and taking his turn on the drums whenever the band member would let him have a turn. Doing a fine job of it too, especially on the Hendrix.

Coffee? Why yes, I believe I will.

So, Costa Rica is a really small country, and the Gringo community is smaller still. It's not exactly that everybody knows everybody, but after a while you find yourself part of a network. I don't immediately recognize any given foreigner I run into, but if they've been here a while, chances are we know some of the same people. To the point that when I asked my neighbor (who is not a foreigner, but who I met through my first job here, nearly 20 years ago, and who now lives four houses down from me and our kids are in the same class) for contacts, she went to a friend of hers who turned out to be a friend of mine, (recently returned to that same job from 20 years ago), who also used to rent a house to people at my current job and knows the guys from my other job from only 15 years ago, and she suggested I contact someone whose name I've heard mentioned plenty of times over the years, but whom I'd never met myself. And that same person has potluck get-togethers every so often, and I had already found myself semi-invited to that, and it's tonight.

So that should be enjoyable and probably get me back in touch with some folks from long-ish ago, and meet a few new ones and introduce Bob to another bit of the mythical Gringo Community.

It's not quite that small a country, though. The Enjoyable Event is on the whole other side of the Central Valley (ie, an hour away) and doesn't start till 8:00. Don't wait up.

In which being nice (in a way that's already beneficial to me) reaps an unexpected reward.

So, Costa Rica has gone through several iterations of coins in the years I've lived here. (And when I first arrived there was at least one additional set from years back that would still pop up occasionally in a handfull of change, but don't anymore.)

The ones that were in general circulation when I arrived, and all but the smallest of which are still in use today, are really big for small change. The 20-colon (pronounced cologne) coins especially are just needlessly big and bulky. Granted, back when I arrived, 20 colones was a bit more than 20 cents - an amount you'd sometimes spend and/or take seriously. Now, it's about 3.5 cents, but those big ol' coins are still floating around.

Those original coins were silver colored. Then, a few years ago, they put out a new line of bronze-looking coins. Their sizes are more reasonable; the 100-colon coin is maybe a little bigger than a US quarter, and certainly smaller than the old 20s. The 500-colon coin is bigger than the big 20s, but it's worth nearly a dollar even today, so I'm okay with that.

Then a while after that they put out some little aluminum coins for the smaller denominations. It's really hard to take those ones seriously; they're so light and thin that they don't seem like they should actually be worth anything. (Probably because they, as bits of metal, aren't, themselves, particularly worth anything.)

ANYway.

I'm not actually here to tell you about Costa Rica's coinage.

Except insofar as to say that you really need to spend those buggers down because they pile up and they are heavy and take up a lot of space. If you're like me and keep your change in a pants pocket...well, you don't want to have too much of it, especially if you're not a belt-wearing girl.

My solution is to keep it in the ashtray of my car, and give it to people who ask for change at the intersections. I even have a little compartment in my dash that...well, I don't know if it's made specifically for coins, but it sure is ideal for them. So I keep the bulk of the change in the ashtray, and then pull out one 100-colon coin (worth about 17 cents) along with one or two of the smaller ones that I really just want to get rid of, and hand that out the window when someone comes along asking for money.

And they do. Some people just ask for handouts on their own, but there are also a lot of drug and alcohol rehab centers that don't receive government funding, and one of the ways they bring money in and give their clients something productive to do, is to have them work the intersections, especially at rush hour. You can tell them by their yellow t-shirts and sealed cans or boxes. They also solicit donations on buses, but I don't ride the bus that much anymore, so that's not part of my story and you can disregard this entire sentence if you are so inclined.

ANYway.

There's one particular rehab guy who works one particular intersection in the town of San Antonio de Belen, who is just always so happy to see people, and friendly and smiling and God-blessing people and just generally being a bright spot in the day. Sometimes he's not there, and sometimes I have a green light and don't have to stop, or stop too far back for him to work his way to my car, but on the days we coincide, I give him the coins and he wishes me a blessed day, and then I drive the rest of the way to work.

So today he was there, and I gave him my 25 cents or so, and he asked if I like to watch videos. Actually, he asked if I like watching films or music. I thought he was promoting some kind of upcoming event - maybe a benefit - or possibly selling tickets to something, but I was wrong. He says that he has a policy (and I'm thinking it's just him, not his organization) of giving something back to people who give regularly. He says people who do nice things should get incentives, and he's going to find me a nice comedy for me (that being the type of video I told him I like).

Now, as we've discussed before, Costa Rica's intellectual property scene is not exactly pure as the driven snow, so I'm sure he knows someone who makes copies of things, and it'll only cost him the price of a blank DVD or so. And of course that's not really the way I tend to roll when it comes to acquiring videos, but then sometimes these things just sort of seek you out.

What's the name of that puppet again?

I like Ellen DeGeneres as much as the next blogger, and I actually think the photo on this post at Shakesville is a very nice one.

But sometimes a nice picture of someone can also remind you of something else, and that one makes me think of...what's that puppet's name???

The crotchety old woman with the hard-drinker's nose, who lived near King Friday's castle in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The one with the Boomerang Toomerang Soomerang.

First I thought I was thinking of the queen, but that's Queen Sarah. Then I went to Lady Aberlin, but she's one of the human actors. Henrietta Pussycat, no. And the rest of the ones I remember are boys: King Friday, Daniel Tiger, X the Owl.

What the heck was that puppet called?

* Breaks down & looks it up *

The outspoken, cranky schemer who took over the Museum-Go-Round after the Froggs moved; often known to say "Okay, toots." She is generally the antagonist when a storyline calls for one, but her neighbors are quick to forgive her because they understand her so well. It is discerned during the series that she has low self-esteem and is extremely self-conscious, and because of this, her neighbors are extremely patient with her until she finally learns her lesson. Despite her own faults, she consistently shows King Friday when he is wrong about something and frequently goes to extremes (such as physically moving her museum or modifying a comet) to do so.

Ah, yes. That was her.

The kind of weather where they can't NOT play "Who'll Stop the Rain" on the radio

So, Margie (of Margie in the Morning - oh, did I mention Bob fixed my car radio? Or rather, discovered in what specific way it was not, in fact, broken?) says that the weather service says that this is not, in fact, the rainy season. I'm not sure by what measure it's not, but if that's the case, I wish someone would get the memo out to the local wildlife. We've had representatives of at least four different species (two insect, one reptile and one mammal) scoping out the prospective shelter of our home in the past week, and three of them are most unwelcome.

The gecko can stay.

Guess so

She climbed up on her own initiative, and sat there quite happily for probably 20 minutes or so as we watched The American President last night. She didn't even complain when I stepped away from her side to get the camera.

A young bird's fancy

So, I gather it rained in Heredia while I was at work today. And when it rains - especially for the first time (or the first time that really counts) in about five months, a young bird's fancy turns to thoughts of SCREECHING HER FOOL HEAD OFF.

Or so I'm told, and it rings true to me, based on past experience.

It also seems to have awakened other sorts of fancies in our young Loren, as that was one cuddly bird when I came home this afternoon. I was sung to, I was danced at, I was rubbed upon...and I believe I may narrowly have escaped being puked on (a term of endearment in psittacine society, but one which I have not been offended to forgo thus far).

It was a time such as this that Robin was first able to pet The Bird, back when she (The Bird) thought she loved only me, so with any luck this year she'll expand her affections to include the bearded man who controls the almond supply.

Ooops

Julia likes to walk up to the corner and get little individual cereal packets for breakfast. In theory, I let her do it once a week, but it might work out to a little more often than that, especially when there's a friend over.

This morning, as she and her friend from down the street (Robin is at her cousin's house) were setting off for the corner they paused, looked at each other, and started running. I thought they were just having a race or something until, with a sinking feeling, I realized: Oh, crap. It's raining.

Now, if you're not from here you may not realize, but rain is very, very dangerous. You must not let it touch you! Lest you become ill! I can only imagine how the swine business might compound the hazards.

If it were just my own child, I wouldn't particularly worry. My neighbors seem okay with my foreign quirks; they cheerfully send their kids over to play and accept mine.

But I had sent one of their own! Out! In the rain! Without so much as a sweater!

I hustled back upstairs and grabbed two denim shirts for them to put over their heads, and met them halfway up the block on their way back. I only hope the symbolism of the gesture is enough to counteract the deadly effects of a light drizzle on a poor, innocent child.

Innocence of youth?

So, I have these two children here--they are both siblings, but not of each other--and they're playing "Sibling Rivalry".

I mean, really. Do I spend my holiday weekend playing "Inventory"? I do not.

Listen. Hear that?

That's the sound of several generations of grandmothers--including, if I'm not mistaken, my children's and my own--chuckling gently when, in looking for a recipe for microwave-baked apples, I saw a variation called "baked apple slices" and my running internal commentary said, "Oh! Peeling and slicing five apples would be easier than coring them."

Yeah, I must be sleep deprived or something. More straightforward than "core apples, leaving bottom intact," certainly; especially with the small specimens I had at hand. But easier? Umm, no.

It was good though. Even if it did take 45 minutes to make and about 45 seconds to eat.

See, that's the thing about expectations

Sorry 'bout the "Expect photos!" - Seems my camera had different expectations, most of which involved me inserting a memory card into the expansion slot, upon which to save the photos. I think the camera has a bit of internal memory, but the reason the card was out of the slot in the first place was because the camera/computer cable doesn't work anymore, so the only way to get the pics off the camera is by putting the card in the card reader. So, not so much with the saving pics to the internal memory.

ANYway.

We did go, and had a nice time. The place was pretty crowded, but Bob stayed home sick, so we weren't trying to do the whole barbecue thing, but just made sandwiches. That means we didn't need to worry about getting one of the picnic shelters, but just hiked around the trails for the first hour, then settled down on the grass near the playground.

We ran into a friend of Julia's, and I had picked up a ball and a plastic badminton set at the store on the way up. Robin and I played sittingdownball and Julia and Missi played allovertheplaceball and after a few hours we came home, the end.