A Few Choice Words

The Kaleidoscope that Wouldn't Go Away

2010-10-25T16:25:00.002-06:00

I was contacted a week or two ago by the owners of a blog called Quilt Inspiration, asking if they could feature one of my quilts on their site. I said yes and provided them with some additional links, and they published it today.

The main page of the blog is here: Quilt Inspiration
The article featuring my quilt is "Straight piecing patterns that appear curved: Snail's Trail and Kaleidoscope."

It's a very pretty blog that (surprise!) features lots of quilts that appeal to my personal taste. Do stop by!

Cats meet goat

2010-10-25T16:02:00.002-06:00

"I really don't think this is supposed to happen. They didn't say anything to me about goats."

"Me either. Go tell her to move on."

"Why don't you tell her?"

"I told the doves."

41 = Idiosyncratic

2010-07-02T16:36:00.003-06:00

So, my birthday is tomorrow and so far I've been given (in addition to a carrot cake and a pineapple upside down cake, both homemade):

A massively large, unripe avocado
Two broken solar panels to make into coffee tables, and
A coolant temperature sensor for the Purple Hatchback of Loveliness

I'm figuring the 41st year must be "idiosyncratic gifts".

It made me curious, so I looked up what the gift category is for a 41st wedding anniversary. It's land.

And then 42 is improved real estate, 43 is travel and 44 is...groceries. Alrighty then.

Couple photos

2010-06-30T17:47:00.004-06:00

Here are a few pictures I've taken around town.

Fog at my place:

Kitty (and distant puppy) at Michelle's:

And the Irazu Volcano, seen from San Rafael:

I started carrying my camera around again because one day last week I was dropping the kids off at school and I saw a column of something rising, not from Irazu, but off to the left/north of it. It looked like a volcanic eruption of some sort - for starters, it was white not black, and the column rose straight up and then just sort of hung there in a cloud.

As you can see above, I can see the top of Irazu pretty clearly, so I could tell it wasn't Irazu that was erupting. And I didn't think we could see any of the others from here.

So, I did what anyone would do, and phoned the morning show DJ to see if she knew what was going on. She didn't, so she put my call on the air and asked around. A few minutes later a guy called up to say it was just the Turrialba volcano erupting again. The DJ's final word: "Hey, this jungle phone thing really works!"

The next day, I thought I could actually see a bit of the summit of Turrialba (the first day all I saw was the steam/gas). It's been hazy ever since then, but today it was clear and I took the photo above. I believe the small bit that seems to be set off from the rest of the mountain on the far left there is actually the other volcano, farther in the distance.

***

And finally, a bit of a warning against future disappointment:

My college is looking to expand its online presence and take advantage of social networking and all that good stuff, so the next post you see here is probably going to consist of a few photos & links for them.

Thoughts on an ER

2010-05-18T18:05:00.004-06:00

I spent last night with a friend at the ER. It was a long, long night, but a good experience overall.

I've lived here for 20 years, but have had very few experiences with the public health system. My poor friend M. was immersed in it less than a month after her arrival. It was a valuable experience for me because it helped demystify the system, to which I am entitled to full access, and of which I would like to avail myself sometime this year to get a long-term, non hormonal birth control solution, in addition to catching up on routine preventive care.

Of course, this won't take place through the ER, but I spent many many hours inside the hospital and got a feel for what it really means to go through the system.

The first impression is not a good one. M. had been there since about 6:30 pm (having spent several hours at the smaller local clinic earlier in the day). I was able to go down to the hospital and find her around 8:00 pm. The waiting room was crowded with the usual cross-section of humanity: many parents with young children, a few non-catastrophically injured adults and a lot of people who clearly just felt like crap. The benches were hard, the room bright but shabby, and there was an actual (if small) smear of blood on the wall behind my friend. There wasn't room to sit together (and M. really didn't need to be getting up and moving around the room), so I sat on the floor while we waited for her name to be called.

When she finally was, we figured out where to go and were briefly questioned by the security guy at the door - only the patient is supposed to go on through, but I told him she didn't speak Spanish and he let me go in. I was allowed to stay with her almost the whole time.

Back at the nurses' station, there were six gurneys lined up in a space designed for three, with people who had apparently been admitted lying there trying to sleep. More patients in hospital garb (either blue or salmon colored, it was more like scrubs than johnnies, with a wrap-around robe style for some of the women) were seated in a row of chairs, and two (three?) more gurneys were crammed in behind the nurses' station.

We approached the desk and said we had been called, and the guy who was standing there turned out to be the doctor. He motioned us and the other patient he had called toward a tiny room that had one desk and two gurneys (these divided by a curtain) . One was occupied by a bleeding man with an IV and the other by a woman with a persistent cough. The doctor took the other new patient first, while we stood in everyone's way. I found M. a chair.

...okay, if I keep going like this, this post could get epically long, and I'm not sure I'm up to that. Let's see if I can switch over to general observations.

The place was crowded and we would be told things like, "go to _____" without it being clear where _____ was. Asked for clarification, most of the time people would point. It was quite a small space, but with so many people between "here" and "there" it still felt overwhelming.

The space was shabby and obviously too crowded (and, to a lesser extent, understaffed) to adequately handle the demand they were facing. We kept getting told where to go, and then (except for the reception desk, which we revisited several times over the course of things) finding just a muddle of people instead of a line, so you had to kind of push for your turn.

The people on the gurneys were lying there, suffering whatever brought them to the ER in the first place, in full view of everyone (not that many people were paying them any attention). They were so closely packed the doctors and nurses had to push them apart to get close enough to give any care. If someone needed a shot in the butt, a shot in the butt was administered then and there.

Those were the first impressions.

The doctor who saw M. around 9:00 pm was friendly and asked the right sorts of questions, and had a computer into which to enter the answers. The examining room was, as I said, already occupied and privacy was simply not a consideration. No one was asked to disrobe, and for the most part nobody was paying attention, but I heard plenty of peoples' conversations with the doctors, saw the (clothed) exams, and watched the bleeding guy trying to get someone's attention. Our doctor was interrupted several times by other personnel needing him to do something for them on the computer.

Something I already knew about the public health care system here, is what I decided last night to call the "brute force" approach. It's kind of a "broad side of the barn" thing. Almost everyone is entitled to care, and the system is operating with limited resources. There are a few standard treatments and most people receive them as an initial measure. I can't tell you how many little plastic bags filled with cards of acetaminophen and penicillin I have seen in my Costa Rican families' homes over the years.

In the ER, the "brute force" approach consists of either oxygen or an IV. Almost everyone I saw had one or other - or had already gotten past that stage, as almost all the patients had an IV stent in the back of one hand. Medications were administered via those two means as well, either in a small IV bag or injected into the nebulizer.

I've always heard, and I think last night bears it out, that the Costa Rican health care system improves, the sicker you are. You're in the ER for a minor injury or sudden illness, you're going to get the "brute force" treatments, no matter what. But if you need actual surgery or advanced care, there is some highly specialized expertise out there that will be made available to you.

Our initial experiences were more of the former sort. M was uncomfortable and needed some attention to her IV, and the answer was basically, "that kind always hurts" and, later, "she's already had some pain medication, and we only have so much we can give out."

Those were some of our second impressions.

Things that you don't immediately notice in the confusion and overwhelmingness of a foreign ER, but which we did eventually pick up on make up my final impressions:

There was no particular smell. It didn't smell unclean or even medicinal.
There was a sign up in the initial waiting room, saying "If you have two or more of these [flu] symptoms, use the facility around the corner." There were lots of people there, but hardly any of them appeared contagious.
The personnel seemed to have a good rapport with each other. They spoke casually as well as professionally to each other, asked for and received help. They touched each other supportively.
In nearly 10 hours, the most overt sign of frustration I saw anyone exhibit toward a patient was an eyeroll, which the patient (who was reluctant to be moved to make room for someone else) did not see. An elderly man who was there the whole time became noisy and then disruptive, and he was verbally rebuked and physically removed, but in appropriate ways.
Everyone was at least civil and often cordial in their treatment of the patients, including the security guard asking family members to leave the nurses' station which is meant to be for patients only.
Although I felt at first that my requests for some additional attention to my friend were probably being perceived as Gringo Entitlement, when they learned more about the nature of her discomfort and reached a probable diagnosis, the level and quality of care she received improved noticeably.

...There's probably more, but I've had two two-hour naps today and I can't think of it now. All in all, a good experience to have had for me, as a consumer of this system, and for M., who is satisfied with the results she obtained, and knows what she wants to do next in pursuing her own care.

Oh. That's right.

As someone who has no coverage whatsoever, M received a 2-hour IV drip, four different medications, an x-ray, and was seen by two different doctors (one of them twice) and countless nurses. Nobody asked until we went to leave if she had coverage. In fact the final receptionist, who appeared to be new, appeared to assume she was covered, and I had to ask her if M owed anything.

She was charged $20.

UPDATE
In addition to fixing a couple of typos above, I've remembered a few more things I meant to include on the bulleted list above:

There were very few bodily fluids to be seen. Not that there weren't any being produced, but cleanup was called for and provided.

We were there for about 10 hours, and many of the people we saw toward the end had also been there early on. Apparently this is just how long it takes to go through the system.

Most of the patients seemed...content? accepting? resigned? I heard no complaining about the wait from anyone around me. There were plenty of children, but none of them were whining or fussing.

It wasn't noisy. There were a few crying kids, mostly in the oxygen room, and one crying mother whose child was in an ER operating room, and who was subsequently whisked away by ambulance (with his mother).

Accomplishment

2010-04-25T15:03:00.003-06:00

The field that runs alongside our gravel road is mainly used to intermittently house horses and, on weekends, people who come and ride them for the day.

Last week, someone came along and dumped a truckload of construction rubble at the end of it that the horses don't really use. We wondered if accepting construction debris might be another way for the owner to make money from the property, and then Bob noticed that the debris seemed to contain a fair number of bricks.

Our front, umm, area is tiled where the car goes, poured cement leading up to the door, and semi-cemented/semi-hard-packed-dirt in the remaining wedge-shaped space, backed by an untreated cinder block wall. Yeah, it's about as attractive as it sounds.

We'd like to fix it up a little, but there's no real danger of anything actually growing there, since the dirt is so packed and part of it is actually concrete anyway, and all our "it really belongs outside" stuff ends up leaning up against the wall.

I thought if we could loosen the soil just a bit along the bottom of the wall (and find another spot for all the junk), maybe we could get some sort of climbing vine to go up the wall at least. And when Bob saw the bricks, he suggested asking for some of them and stacking a couple of rows up to maybe hold in some additional dirt, in which perhaps something might one day grow.

I asked about the bricks yesterday, and the guy said he'd actually brought them to "load" the horses. Not sure if that means he's going to train them to carry loads, or build something up which they might walk when loaded into the trucks, or ... well, anything really.

But he also said we could take some, and when I got home from dropping Bob off this morning (he has to leave the country every 90 days to renew his tourist visa), the same guy waved me over and said he'd pulled some bricks aside, and that I should leave those and pick what I wanted from the rest.

So that's what I did, using a couple of the cat litter buckets and making ... well, I didn't count at the time, but about nine two-bucket trips based on the number of bricks. They're homemade adobe bricks, clearly from an old house that was demolished, and a decent number of them were relatively whole.

I found a little chunk of broken cinder block with which to knock bits of mortar off the bricks, and now we have a pretty little dry-stacked wall into which we may eventually place some dirt:

The whole thing probably took an hour and a half or two. Then when I was done the kitty got up from her nap, strolled over to the door and said, "Dayum. How long was I asleep?"

And then she said, "Okay. Nuffa dat."

The end.

In which I feel like a foreigner. Or a liberal. Or something.

2010-04-19T21:12:00.003-06:00

They had a parents' meeting at school today. Usually I find them A) Boring, because they address all the same stuff every time, and B) Encouraging, because they reinforce that the school has a positive, caring approach to education.

Today was all of that and more, where "more" is comprised largely of pretty basic psychology with which I don't disagree ("It's not your job to make your child happy, it's your job to provide your child with the tools with which to build his/her own happiness!"), but which I don't really need to sit in a very hard, too-small chair to nod along to.

There was also the requisite head-shaking at Society Today (TM) where, it seems, children think they can have it all and parents want to give children everything they, the parents, didn't have as kids. Except, of course, for those of us who had more growing up than they can currently provide to their children. Really I'm okay with it; we do have what we need and some extras, but I don't really need to be preached at about buying kids All The Latest Gadgets and watching them go un-played-with, TYVM. On a tiny, hard chair.

Plus, while I generally consider the school to be fairly progressive, we did hit a couple of snags this evening. It seems Society is in transition from a sexist society to...umm. NOT a feminist one, certainly not! But, well, something else anyway. It's very conFUsing, apparently. Do boys open doors for girls or do they don't? Do they pick up the tab on a date or will they get the evil eye for suggesting it? Apparently these are still Very Difficult Questions.

I had the unanticipated opportunity to make my own small pitch for Feminism and Fairness today, when the ballet class was discussed and I suggested that, next year, the girls be allowed to wear the same "uniform" as the boys. Currently, the girls are required to buy $25 worth of leotards and tights, plus the shoes which I don't even know how much those are because Julia's still fit. Plus a bun. The bun is very important.

Boys wear tank tops & shorts.

I suggested that girls are expected from a young age to invest time and money in their appearance, and that for the purposes of the dance class, what is really required is freedom of movement, which might be afforded by, say, tank tops & shorts.

The response was twofold: But it's ballet. So the ballet clothing Must Be Worn. However, of course we aren't going to be putting leotards on boys. Heavens no. Either the boys (in some cases) or their parents (in others) would never stand for that. The end.

There was also a question from the mother of a boy with shoulder-length hair, who has apparently been spoken to about Personal Presentation. This was answered with appropriate discussion of general personal grooming and such, but there was also a bit of "well, as long as it's not too long. I mean, it's not like we've had a boy who wanted his hair down to his waist."

I rather hope they get one. Or that Phillip becomes one.

Anyway. I still like the school very much and I think it is more progressive than most, (especially around here and within my budget). But jeez. Between the dumbed-down, feet-on-the-ground "it's okay to have your own needs" psychology (Which, again--not disagreeing, just been there and back and had other things to do this evening and softer chairs to do it on) and the not-quite-there-yet with respect to certain elements of feminism (like, for instance, being comfortable with the word "feminism"), I guess even in a parents' meeting at a Montessori school I'm The Liberal One.

Some favorites

2010-04-04T07:33:00.006-06:00

Now that the new hard drive is running and trustworthy and everything, I finally got my massive backup file of photos off of Bob's computer and, at Lisa's suggestion, installed Picasa to help me deal with it. I had used Picasa before, but hadn't kept up with it.

Now that I'm starting fresh (and Picasa has more features), it seems to be a handy thing. I've spent a lot of these vacation days organizing the folders on my computer and eliminating duplicates, and checking Picasa's face recognition picks and adding ones it missed so that the "sort by people" feature is pretty well set up. It's very cool.

Yesterday I stuck a bunch of my favorites into the screensaver file, and I thought I'd share a few particular favorites here. There are still several CDs of photos that were backed up in a different place and haven't been restored to the new computer, but these are some of the best photos from the batch I've been working with this week:

Curses, missed it again!

2010-03-31T16:25:00.002-06:00

And this time by over two weeks.

March 13 was the fifth anniversary of this blog :)

For the benefit of those who aren't reading along on the Facebook side of things, all is well. My sister came for a visit last week, and I took the whole week off and yea we did have fun. We took the kids to the amusement park, did a puzzle, played a lot of cards and did a bunch of baking.

Then I had three days of work and now it's that most significant of Costa Rican holidays, Holy Week. Thursday and Friday are national holidays and we also have Monday off at my particular workplace, so now I have five days off to recover from my vacation last week :)

After that, though, it gets serious. Rather than a 4-day week following the Monday holiday, I have an 11-day one. There's a trade fair from April 8-11 and being A) The closest, B) The most bilingual and C) Happy to have the extra hours, I'll be covering the whole thing. The others will be in and out as well, but I'm on all four days.

So if you need me between now and Tuesday, I'll be sleeping in a lot, playing a lot of cards (Lisa reintroduced us to Hand & Foot, and kindly left her Rook deck when she left, so now we're playing both of those) and watching a lot of downloaded TV (currently Ballykissangel and WKRP, with episodes of The Big Bang Theory as they become available and Fawlty Towers for when we get tired of WKRP).

Oooh! Oooh! She posted!

2010-03-27T21:25:00.003-06:00

Okay, I didn't expect it to be this long between posts, but there you have it. Facebook is really well suited to my online needs right now; I get to remark on the minutiae of my day and the issues of the day at will, and also keep up with many of my friends' goings on. And the commenting is much more interactive, and more of my friends are on there than ever read here.

That said, this is not an abandoned blog. I do expect to post here from time to time, especially when there are photos, because they're more accessible here than on Facebook. Well, kind of. Facebook is way better at providing access to all the photos, but the blog is available to anyone, even if they're not a Facebook friend.

ANYway.

What I came here to post was, my sister is in town and we discovered Ze Frank's Young Me / Now Me site, and we got Dad to scan some family scrapbooks, and here's ours:

Us in 1978

Us in 2010

Think he'll pick us for the book??

Prophetic, wasn't it?

2010-02-19T17:33:00.003-06:00

No, reader in Rhode Island, it wasn't meant to be the finale of the whole blog.

In fact, it was the very day I mentioned to a friend that I really needed to keep posting every day, lest I stop posting altogether, that I decided to give myself permission not to post everyday.

And you see what happened.

It had gotten to the point where, more often than not, I was finding some random and trivial thing to post simply to keep up with the (self imposed) obligation of daily posting,when in fact I had nothing of substance (for even very generous definitions of "substance") to say, and the whole thing was really a chore.

So anyway.

I haven't abandoned it altogether, but I think it's clear that I'm over the Post Every Day Just For The Sake Of Doing So phenomenon.

Basically, I've switched over to Facebook for the day-to-day keeping in touch with people, remarking on the minutiae of life, and general online presence. It's not the same as blogging, but it's meeting the same needs. I'll post here if I have something more substantial to say, or photos to post.

Season Finale

2010-02-07T22:09:00.002-06:00

Raxi's second favorite TV station went off the air today.

I've been wanting to get rid of the turtle for...well, not so long after we got her. She's cute and all, but there's not much interaction, and the tank is too heavy for the girls to be able to clean it themselves, so...

Then on the Nicaragua trip I said something about it to our friend Sherry, and she actually wanted the turtle, which I couldn't believe. They have a small "water feature" in their yard, with running water and a couple of plants and some rocks piled up. We took her over this afternoon and she seemed to like it just fine.

Raxi seemed to know something was up, because she paid way more attention to the turtle all morning than she usually does. I'm sure she'll miss The Turtle Channel, but The Bird Channel is still on the air 24 hours a day, and if this morning's evidence in the laundry room is any indication, we may have an interactive Mouse Channel in the offing at some point.

We're compatible in that Jack Sprat sort of way

2010-02-05T22:02:00.003-06:00

Dad brought Bob a Highland Brewing Company beer, which made Bob very happy. This evening, Bob brought the beer to the proper temperature, uncapped it, and took a blissful swig.

However, I think he got even more pleasure out of the face I made when I tried it.

Again with the bullet points

2010-02-04T21:31:00.002-06:00

The phone company, having heard from us [the company] daily starting Monday morning, finally contacted us this morning to see about fixing the Internet connection at the office.
It was already fixed.
The phone company, having heard from us [the household] once, yesterday afternoon, called back early in the business day today, and came, and fixed the Internet, and all is well.
I dropped Dad at the airport this morning and haven't heard from him, so I'm figuring he got all the way to where he's going.
On the way home from work, I came upon Jose and Yolanda walking down the street carrying a small television, so I gave them a ride the rest of their way.
Turned out they had just called the house to see if the girls could come with them, so we picked them up too.
Then I went home and played my computer game while Bob played his, and then he took a rest and I was ALL BY MYSELF. FOR MINUTES AND MINUTES ON END.
It was nice.
And then the girls called, and I went and picked them up, and Bob went to work, and the girls and I watched a movie, and it was nice.

You're not supposed to bring work home, but...

2010-02-03T19:47:00.002-06:00

Internet's been out at work since Friday afternoon. They finally discovered today that someone bumped a wire in the back room, so it's fixed (the phone company never quite managed to send a tech). And now our home modem lost its configuration, so we're back to the dialup for a couple of days.

IOW, see you later.

Some sort of a half life?

2010-02-02T17:15:00.002-06:00

When we went to Quepos in October, we crossed a small bridge.
Five days later, the bridge collapsed.

When we came back from Grenada last week, we crossed a large bridge.
Five days later, the bridge blew up.

Now I'm scared.

(In fact, when I searched "bridge" on my blog to find the October post, I discovered that bridges, their structural integrity and their lack in spots where you would really kind of expect to find one, have been a not-so-infrequent topic around here.)

Recycling is good

2010-02-01T18:29:00.003-06:00

Remember this?

Where I'm From

I am from a Snoopy lunchbox,
a rickety cart with a tiny black and white TV,
waxed paper and Strawberry Quik.

I am from the red house on Bayside Avenue
the rambling parsonage on the hill
the splintery-sided duplex
white siding in the suburbs.
Loyal Smutley, orange Volvo, fresh cut grass
Grandpa praying for unwitting sinners in the Sunday leaves.

I am from the woods behind the house
woodchucks, rat snakes, box turtles,
the allure of touch-me-nots--but only the fat ones pop.

I am from "not before six o'clock" on Christmas morning,
Saturday special breakfast,
From Earl and Louise and the far-off Moores.

I am from towering stacks of library books in crinkly plastic
and from moving boxes never unpacked.

From the marriage of "one right way" to "shades of gray."

I am from Sunday School, peace rallies,
boxes sent to a Mississippi family,
rice and tea like the children in Cambodia.

I'm from Tunkhannock, the Dutch rub,
brownies and maple walnut ice cream.

From great grandfathers black with coal dust,
a great aunt (or cousin once removed?) in France,
Nicholson File, Lincoln Bank.

I am from thick, crumbling sepia photographs:
Is that Grandma? Who's he?
Did they really take a picture of her after she died?

I am from jumpy, faded, silent home movies:
Mom in polyester and cat-eye glasses
Dad in shorts and knee socks, trips I never knew I took.

I am from a scrapbook for each child and another for the whole family:
Combing through childhood photos to recall
that couch, those shorts, don't you still have that teddy bear?

Scrapbook photos of a family reunion 30 years back, long-lost cousins.
Digital photos of another family reunion, cousins found.

The original post is from June 2006 (wow, I was blogging in 2006??), and can be found here, with explanations and links to the source material, and Mom & Lisa's versions in comments.

This came up today because Dad read me a (partial) version that he's been working on, and which he is welcome to post in comments here.

Saying nothing

2010-01-31T19:32:00.001-06:00

With the exception of a trip to the grocery store and some brief helping with dinner, I spent pretty much the whole day trying to get my computer to boot Windows when Windows is selected from the boot menu.

I have not yet succeeded in doing so, and I don't have anything nice to say about the process.

The end.

Conclusion: In-depth research may be required

2010-01-30T20:07:00.003-06:00

I had never had a margarita, so when Bob and I went to the beach a few months ago, I ordered me one.

I quite enjoyed it.

So when we went to Grenada last week, I ordered another one.

And I enjoyed it even more.

However, when I had another one the next night, and a third one on the third night, they deteriorated steadily.

And we just went out for dinner with Dad here in town, and I ordered one, and all I can say is, it's a good thing it wasn't my first, else none of this would have happened.

I can only conclude that I need to hook up with someone who has experience tending bar, and learn to make my own.

Season's greetings

2010-01-29T17:28:00.003-06:00

Dad and the girls made Christmas cookies while I was at work today, and this evening we all (who live here) get presents (from those who sent them) (Thanks!).

It's been a push to get everything taken care of since the Nicaragua trip, with a lot going on at work and two short nights' sleep, but the weekend's here and we get pizza tonight and go out to eat tomorrow and there's gas in the car and ... I'ma sit down for a while.

Merry Our Second Christmas, everyone!

The final dozen (okay, baker's dozen)

2010-01-28T19:27:00.004-06:00

Whew

2010-01-27T22:42:00.002-06:00

Aaaaaand, 12 hours of travel. We left the hotel at 10:15 this morning, walked maybe 15 minutes to the bus stop, waited another 15 or so, and got the bus. Hour and a half to the border, an hour of waiting while everyone on the bus was processed out of Nicaragua, then three hours (mostly standing in line, much of that in the direct sun) being processed into Costa Rica, then about another week and a half on the bus.

Eight of us live in the Heredia area, so we got a (van) cab all together that got us home in good time and for a good price. Walked in here right about at 10:15 this evening.

The kitty survived, didn't wreak havoc, and now has some special canned food and clean litter. I scooped, unpacked and straightened our bed while Bob took Dan & Jan home, and now it's time for a snack, then bed, then work, then picking up the girls at 3:00 tomorrow and then cleaning up because Dad gets in about this time tomorrow night.

Good thing it's almost the weekend.

The view from the bell tower

2010-01-26T12:36:00.004-06:00

Don´t worry, there´s not supposed to be any audio. My camera doesn´t roll that way.

And here´s the same thing on the west side of the tower:

Grenada, Nicaragua

2010-01-25T17:21:00.005-06:00

See you Thursday

2010-01-24T06:54:00.003-06:00

Or, you know, maybe tomorrow.

We're off for our visa-renewing-slash-romantic-getaway-for-14 to Grenada this morning.

I suspect there'll be Internet cafes in town, given that there's WiFi at the hotel, but I haven't actually looked into it.

The bird and turtle are farmed out, the cat is mega-fed (and may be looked in on), and we're heading out in half an hour for a 5-minute bus ride, followed by a 20-minute bus ride, followed by a quick taxi to the 7-hour bus. Yup, we've got cards and Jan's bringing the light reading.

Hopefully she'll still let us park there

2010-01-23T16:54:00.003-06:00

We no longer have a car port.

We'd been planning to screen it in for ages, but the plastic netting we bought for another project once upon a time was no longer available at the hardware store, so it kept getting put off. Yesterday I picked up a slightly different kind and today while Bob was at work I put it all up with about 150 zip ties.

No more car port. Now it's a cat porch.

The classic "labor saving device" story

2010-01-22T20:20:00.003-06:00

I have stuff I could post about tonight - sending 645 faxes at work (really), meeting a very charming (and tiny) little gecko, the video game I've been playing lately. But I didn't feel like writing about any of that, and when I walked into the bedroom the cat was all spread-eagledy on the bed and I took her picture and was going to post that.

Only, when I went to get my camera card reader out of my purse, the camera card was still in it. Meaning that the three or four photos I just took are stored on the camera's internal memory.

The whole reason I have a card reader in the first place is that my camera doesn't play well with others, so when I hook it up to a computer, the computer whistles tunelessly and looks at the ceiling, and never ever acknowledges that anything so lowly as an uncouth little digital camera might be connected to its USB port.

I tried it on Bob's computer but it still didn't work, and I haven't been able to figure out how to transfer the photos from the internal memory onto the memory card, from whence I would be able to retrieve them.

Bob suggested re-installing the camera software on the computer, which is an excellent idea even given that computers used to read the camera without ever having it installed in the first place. Technology being the crafty beast that it is, we figured it was worth a shot, so Bob downloaded the driver.

Or tried to.

It froze up after downloading 55 out of the 42 MB of the file, so he gave up on that and I set out to look for the actual installation CD, which I remembered seeing during the move. Of course, I remembered seeing it in a place other than my One True Drawer of computer stuff and CDs, so I went off seeking that other place amongst the 65 cubic feet of stuff stored in the 50 cubic feet of space under the bed.

I didn't find it.

Although I did find a box of stuff I could probably reduce to a small stack of papers if I decide to get into it tomorrow, and I have a pretty good idea of where the CD may actually be, if only I felt like moving all our tools and spare plastic bags from off the container in which it may or may not be lodged.

So I can't resort to a cute kitty photo for an easy post tonight :(

Now what am I going to write about?

Eventful

2010-01-21T21:00:00.004-06:00

Today I got my NC Driver's License Out of State Renewal by Mail packet and it all looks doable. Mostly just forms to fill out, and I have to get a local vision test.

Then Bob called to tell me the DSL guys were going to be calling me for directions, which they did within minutes. Thing was, Bob was supposed to go out and meet a friend of a friend of his who is new to Costa Rica and not reachable by phone. We weren't sure what to do about that, but we knew we weren't going to miss the DSL over it.

Happily, the guy showed up sooner than we feared, and took less time than we thought, and he got to the appointed meeting place long before the acquaintance-to-be did anyway.

I was going to go meet them both after work, but as I was walking out to the car, a government inspector dude showed up and had to be dealt with, so by the time I actually did manage to leave, it was too late to meet the new friend.

And then we came home and I marveled at the DSL and played The Sims and Bob went to work and now he's home, the end.

Discovery of the day

2010-01-20T14:32:00.003-06:00

I had an excellent day today.

Meaning, I used Excel for almost everything I had to do at work.

I discovered that it's pretty easy to update an old spreadsheet to include the 8th digit in the phone numbers (Costa Rica added a digit last year) by inserting a column and then pasting in a formula that adds 20,000,000 to the old number.

Formulas and mass pasting are a good thing, given that it's a 645-row spreadsheet, and each row includes two to four phone numbers.

That's 8-inch tile

2010-01-19T19:58:00.002-06:00

I keep talking about how we found this Big-Ass Spider, and then the cat killed Big-Ass Spiders numbers two and three (okay, #3 was smaller). Well, this is what I mean by that:

Squared away

2010-01-18T22:02:00.003-06:00

Well, the girls are up the hill till after the Nicaragua trip, we have our bus tickets, my passport is not expired (there was a brief scare caused by an out-of-date photocopy), and the hotel likes to get paid in person, so I don't have to figure out how to get them my credit card number beforehand (I can call the US for free, but the next country over is more complicated). The only thing left to do for the trip is pack for it and coordinate getting to the pick-up point.

I spoke to the phone company this afternoon and they confirmed that whatever tech is sent over to install the DSL will have modems in the truck - you can rent the modem from the phone company for a dollar a month, but after we'd applied, I realized they hadn't asked if we wanted to do that, so I worried that the guy might show up and not be able to do anything. I still hope they don't come while we're out of the country, but there's not much we can do about that. If they haven't come before we go, I can call the phone company when we get back to see if they have a "not home" note on the work order, and if so we can set up a new time.

I finished the quilting I was doing for my friend in time for her to add the binding and bring it back in to work this morning; it looks great and she's pleased, and the proceeds will be almost exactly what the Nicaragua tickets cost, so that works out well.

And I moved a new family into the neighborhood so my Sims can make new friends. All's right with the world.

Scintillating

2010-01-17T21:17:00.003-06:00

We made cinnamon apple scone roll-ups, watched Underdog and I cleaned out all the long hair (and a little yarn) that had rolled up into the five wheels of the newest office chair.

The girls rode bikes (Well, bike. We only have one so far, and it's too small for either of them, but it does get a workout!) and played "chess" with the neighbor kid outside for a good part of the afternoon. It looked like the board was set up right, and the one move I saw (a knight) was correctly executed, but I'm not real sure how far beyond that it adhered to standard rules.

In other news, the parrot seems to be entering That Time of the Year, when she pines for company (it's actually quite a good time to get to know her) and, this year anyway, shreds everything she can get her beak on, presumably for nesting fodder. I can't exactly provide her with what she really wants, but I figured I could at least give her a box in which to deposit her newspaper shreds, and maybe even sit in for a while. Well, she loved that. Shredded it into tinier pieces than the newspaper. Twenty-four hours later, I can't even see where it was.

And now we have a Mystery Leak in -- well, under -- the toilet.

See? Scintillating.

Daily highlights

2010-01-16T22:40:00.000-06:00

Bob was at work and I wanted to finish the quilting I was doing last night, so I talked Robin through making dinner - pasta with sauce from a packet, and some boiled corn. That went over very well, and needless to say, I've Created A Monster. She immediately wanted us to commit to having pasta for dinner the following night.

So today I let her mix up the pancake batter for lunch and she had a bit of a lesson in Roundness and Gravity and the Combined Effects Thereof. And the kitty had a snack.

This afternoon the girls and I drove into San Jose to pick up the bus tickets for our trip to Nicaragua next week. The actual ticket buying went very well, although it turned out they don't take debit cards, so we did have to walk a few blocks through not the greatest part of downtown, over to an ATM. This in turn afforded us a several-block conversation about alcohol and drugs and why people might try them initially, and what it can lead to in their lives.

Then there was a car accident outside when we were back at the counter buying the tickets. Everyone in the bus station except the guy behind the counter ran en masse to the door and out it, to spectate. I started after them, since my car was parked just out of sight, but they all got to the door and started ogling to the north, and happily we were parked to the south, so I returned to my transaction.

Random aside: If kitty comes to me with the big-ass spiders she kills, does that mean she's accepted me as one of her own? I'm guessing since I trade her for a treat (that she not consume it outright), she's prolly not going to be stopping any time soon.

Having a functional telephone has paid off already

2010-01-15T22:14:00.002-06:00

I never used to call in to the radio when they gave stuff away, because with the cell phone chances were good the call would drop, never go through, or be inaudible if I did.

But I have a real phone now, so when Evan said they were giving away the weekend brunch for two at Café des Artistas, I went ahead and picked it up. I turned it on, waited till he said "be the first to get through," decided to turn it off and on again, and then dialed. And it rang, and Evan picked up and said I was a winner, the end.

Funny, it only feels like 1492

2010-01-14T12:00:00.003-06:00

This is the 1500th post on this here blog, how about that.

So, as I was saying last night, Bob needs to leave the country to reset his visa before the regulations change, and as it turns out, some friends of ours happened to be planning a trip to Nicaragua at just about the right time. Couple that with Christmas money for just about the right amount, and we get to go here the week after next.

I'm just as glad to have company the first time we do this little excursion (which we'll need to do - or Bob will - either every three or every six months from now on, depending on how exactly the regulations change). The fact that we get to go with good friends (and some others we don't know yet), and stay at what looks like a really nice hotel, with tours and everything...well, I can make my peace with that too :)

I've been to Nicaragua many times, but I haven't been back for years, and I've never been there as a tourist. This looks like an entirely different side of the country than I used to see 15 and 20 years ago, traveling with students and talking to people about politics and the war.

Halfhearted post, oh well

2010-01-13T21:33:00.000-06:00

I've had a busy day working, trying to get information from a recalcitrant (well, okay, very busy) bus company, spending time with the girls and quilting (not my quilt).

We finally got the dialup from home sorted - after trying a number of things, and downloading new drivers (not from home), and then trying a number of other things - but it's still dialup, so I'm writing this in WordPad for copying and pasting once I connect.

Most people who have put in for DSL say it takes a week or two, so I'm hoping the official month-long wait is more of a worst case scenario than the actual deal.

I also really, really hope they don't suddenly come wanting to install in a week and a half, when Bob and I will be out of town for four days. More about that another day - I'm thinking I may still get another half hour of quilting in before bed, so I'll keep this short for tonight.

Or not dialup

2010-01-12T14:54:00.003-06:00

We tried the 900 number for dialup last night, but neither computer could communicate with its modem. They've both been formatted since either was last asked to do anything modem-y, so we're figuring they probably lack drivers. I've downloaded some at work here, and we'll have another go later on.

Also, and unrelatedly, this is a presidential election year in Costa Rica and I heard a political ad on the radio this morning:

Voiceover: Who are you voting for this year?

Citizen #1: Eh, what's the difference? I'm voting for the least worst.

Citizen #2: I don't like any of them. I'm voting for the least worst.

Citizen #3: Politicians are all the same. I'm voting for the least worst.

Voiceover: Fishman. The least worst.

Well, that was anticlimactic

2010-01-11T12:58:00.003-06:00

I have posted at least once every single day since ... well, I'll go back and look it up eventually, but it was sometime before November 2007, and it was officially so as of January 4, 2008.

But, no more.

We had a really really stay-in day yesteryday; I made grandma's apple crisp for a mid-morning snack, and oven fries for part of our dinner, we watched two movies and played lots and LOTS of computer games (the girls have discovered The Sims), and I finished Julia's bag. Well, almost finished (photos forthcoming).

Since the girls are on vacation, their bedtime is more flexible, and I didn't get Julia settled till after 9:00 pm, and then it was 9:30, and then it was just too late to run out to the Internet café. So I didn't.

Oh well, lots of changes going on in life, I guess this is one of them. I'll probably still keep blogging daily, but the angst over missing one no longer seems to be an issue.

For the record, there is a pay-as-you-go dialup option and I made a couple of attempts to figure that out, but it was a little too elusive for my 10:00 pm brain to deal with. Plus, well, you know. Dialup.

I want to call it a light at the end of the tunnel, but it just doesn´t feel like one right now.

2010-01-09T18:36:00.005-06:00

So I went down to the phone company just now to tell them I wanted DSL on my brand spankin´ new phone line.

My phone company branch of choice is in a grocery store, in a mall. Suffice to say, there was a line.

But it was moving. I seemed to advance about three feet every 10 minutes, and that´s progress. People kept leaving the line and rejoining others in the line in front of me though, and somehow after half an hour I still calculated that I was about 7th in line.

Anyway, it was eventually my turn, and I went up to the window trepidatiously (it is TOO), well aware that they could ask me for documents I didn´t have on me, or even things that I can´t necessarily access without some significant effort.

Like, for instance, a valid ID card, but that´s another story.

So, she didn´t ask me for anything I couldn´t produce (although I did meekly accept a warning about the ID card - what´s the point of Immigration issuing automatic extensions and extra years on the card, and renewal appointments a year in the future, if nobody thinks the document that Immigration faxes me to that effect in fact means anything at all?) But I´m not here to talk about Immigration.

Ahem.

She didn´t ask me for anything I couldn´t produce, but she did say that she can´t actually put in an application for DSL on that line because the work order is still open. Something about coming in less than a week after the thing was physically installed.

But she had a solution: She took my application and kept it to the side (in, I couldn´t help but notice, an otherwise empty folder that she then placed at the very bottom of the stack on the bottom tray of her three-tiered Inbox), and as soon as the work order is closed (within a week), she´ll process the DSL application. She even gave me a blank work order for when the application goes through, and said she´d call me with the number when she had one, and I´ll write the new work order number on the blank work order and post it in my window.

And then proceed to wait A MONTH.

*Sigh*

Coming to you live from my second-favorite booth at our favorite Internet café....

WooHoo!

2010-01-08T14:52:00.001-06:00

A quarter
Five dozen
Bicentennial
Tiny little record album

That´s our new, fully installed and operational, very own, eight-digit PHONE NUMBER!!

And we didn´t even have to bribe anybody.

Very much.

This is what happens when I have to post at lunch hour instead of loitering on the Internet until I actually have something to say...

2010-01-07T12:26:00.006-06:00

On the to-do list for today:
-- Now with 100% more late-afternoon progress reports!

Trim the parrot's claws so she doesn't get tangled up in her food dish again.
-- No, becase #2 freaked her out enough for one day.
Sandpaper her perches so the claws will stay trimmed.
-- Just the first one, which freaked her out enough for one day.
Install the fourth and final light fixture (in the girls room, since they come back tomorrow). -- Well, there´s always tomorrow.
Find places for the stuff I've put on their beds while organizing the rest of the house all week.
-- Uh, some. Enough to make a difference.
Drop off utility receipts to former landlady.
-- Oooh! Oooh! I did this one!
Find out how much it will cost to fix the car's now considerable oil leak. (*sigh*)
-- Yup. A whole lot, but not as much as I´d feared. It´s now on the list for next paycheck. Or the next.
Get seat assignments for Mom, Dad, Lisa & Scott's return flight (what, don't you have people in Costa Rica handle your Mexico/US travel plans?)
-- Tried, couldn´t, was informed that Dad can do it from the hotel. Hoping they don´t come home with as, uh, interesting a travel story as Mom & Lisa & I did a couple years ago.
WATCH DR. WHO THE END OF TIME, yaaaaaaaaaaaaay and thanks Bruce!!
-- On deck for...pretty much as soon as possible, with chili to go with it!

I'm in Costa Rica, but also standing in line at the NC DMV

2010-01-06T14:51:00.003-06:00

The reason my Costa Rican driver's license is so badly expired is that you can take in a valid foreign license and get a CR one same-day with no real problem. But if you don't have a valid US license, you're treated like a non-driver and have to take tests and courses and all kinds of things.

Since I know I'm a good driver, and the fine if you get a ticket for driving on an expired license is something like five bucks (maybe ten by now), I've just let it slide.

Hmmm.

Okay, thinking about it, I guess I could have renewed my CR license before my NC one expired, but for some reason I didn't. Possibly I didn't realize in time, or maybe it was just that I wasn't dealing with non-essential things at that time last year, what with all the personal upheaval. Probably both.

In any case, my NC license expired on my last birthday, in July. I tried to renew it when I was in the States last year, but it was six months and one day before my birthday, and their system only accepts renewals up to six months in advance. The guy was nice, but he said I would have to come back the next day, which I couldn't do.

Anyway, it occurred to me this week to check the NC DMV website to find out if there was any way to renew it without going in personally.

After a long list of the things you have to do and present in order to renew a license, there was a small-print paragraph about how people living temporarily out of state could, under certain circumstances, renew by mail.

I contacted them for more information, and was answered within 24 hours with a list of the information they would need in order to determine whether I was eligible.

I've sent them all of that, and they sent it on to "the appropriate unit", and now I'm supposed to be contacted "within 10 days" with a response as to whether I can renew by mail or not.

If I can, the new license will be good for 8 years, or for 60 days after I next enter the United States, whichever comes first.

Works for me.

Crafty. Like tricksy, only not.

2010-01-05T14:17:00.002-06:00

Thought I'd take a few minutes to post before leaving work today, in case I don't feel like going back out to the café in the evening.

These are the photos I took of Julia's bag under construction. It's not completely done yet, so there's no actual "After" picture.

These are the pants with the inseam removed, basically converting them into (slightly funky) yardage (but with a waistband in the middle, even though it's not real obvious in this photo):

The flared legs on the pants seemed like a nice shape for the bag itself, so I used one whole leg and the bottom of the other, trimming the upper leg part to match the flare.

Julia picked a green print with pink flowers for the lining, and a matching pink for the pockets. The colors are way off in this photo, but you can see the inside pockets sewn onto the lining fabric, before making the lining itself.

This is the complicated step - the one where you refer back to the pattern, even if you get how to put the rest of it together. The bag and lining are each made by taking a long strip of fabric and basically folding it in thirds. The top third is the flap, and doesn't get sewn down. The other two thirds get sewn up the sides to make the bag part.

Then you put it all together by turning the outer bag inside out and putting it inside the lining which is rightside out (meaning that the right side of the fabric is on the inside - where it will be once the whole thing is finished...got that?) and sew around the flap and rim. This is what it looks like at that stage:

And then you turn it all rightside out and topstitch everything you can reach, and make a strap. I'll post another picture once it's completely finished.

Guess we can scratch ¨Be a law abiding citizen¨ right off that list of new year´s resolutions.

2010-01-04T16:53:00.003-06:00

Not that I made any resolutions, much less a list of them.

So, I´ve known all year that vehicle taxes and registration are paid in December. You can even pay it online, and pick the sticker and registration up at your local branch of the bank.

Only thing is, once I got off work on the 23rd, I went into vacation and moving mode, and just completely forgot. Never crossed my mind, not even once.

I didn´t even remember when I was pulled over on my way to work this morning. There are always cops at that particular intersection, pulling random people over, and today they waved me over.

I gave the cop my license and it wasn´t until he looked at it to get my name, then asked me by name if I´d paid my registration fee, that I realized I hadn´t.

I told him no, that I´d totally forgotten, but could do it as soon as I got to work a mile down the road. He sighed and looked sorrowful, and said he was so sorry, but he had to confiscate my license plates. I asked him what I was supposed to do, and he kept turning around asking me, ¨what CAN we do?¨

Now, I was more than willing to slip him something if that would help, but I have to say I´m really not that well versed in the whole cop-bribing protocol, so I wasn´t sure how to go about it. I did toss in a, ¨what can we do?¨ of my own, and asked him, wide eyed, what options I might have.

He went off for a few minutes, I guess to let me stew about it and get real desperate, and then came back again and asked me what he should do. I asked if there was anything I COULD do and, again, what options I had and I guess he finally realized he was going to have to walk me through it, because he asked if I would give him a little something (the phrase he used is essentially, ¨would you buy me a drink,¨ but without mentioning drinks), so I asked how much was normal and of course he wasn´t going to set a limit on it.

I checked my wallet, hoping I had a ø5000 bill, because less would surely be insufficient and I didn´t really want to offer ø10,000 right off the bat. Fortunately, I did have one, and I asked him if five would do, and he said yes. So I pulled it out and he actually had to point out to me that I should slip it into his hand on the door frame, rather than passing it out the window to him.

Apparently this is truly not one of my skills.

So, that was that and I went to work and logged into my bank account and paid the silly thing, and after work went to the bank to pick up the sticker and Oh My Goodness.

You really don´t want to go to the bank on the first business day of the year.

I waited 15 minutes (in the very hot sun) to even get in the door, and another five minutes in the vestibule, waiting for my turn to go through the security door thing.

Once inside, though, I told the guard I was there to pick up my registration, and instead of sending me to the standing-up line (for the regular tellers) or the sitting-down line (for specialized services), he actually directed me to a desk at the back where there was no line at all.

So that was nice, and now I´m legal. Well, legalER.

I´m just glad that cop was working so hard at teaching me how to bribe him that he didn´t notice the license he´d been holding that whole time expired in 2007.

And...two

2010-01-03T18:33:00.002-06:00

I made Julia´s bag today, almost. The bag part is done, and the strap is made and half topstitched. I took some pictures, but I worked right up until I really really didn´t want to work anymore, and now we´re at the Internet café, briefly, and next we´re taking ourselves out for dinner for having had such a productive day (we installed the second light fixture first thing in the morning, and Bob made TWO of his projects while I worked on the bag), and uploading and editing photos just isn´t in the cards. To say nothing of deciding whether to expose my memory stick (or camera card) to whatever Contagion might be lurking in either this computer or this copy of Internet Explorer. (Three days at the café and I have yet to get a machine with anything but Explorer. BOB, on the other hand, had Firefox the first day and currently has his pick between Firefox and Chrome. Some PEOPLE.)

Near miss

2010-01-02T21:23:00.003-06:00

We´ll see about this not having Internet at home thing. I almost passed up coming in to the café today because I didn´t feel like going out in the afternoon, and by the time we finished diner and a movie (¨Star Trek: First Contact¨ - sorry, Spanish keyboard and it´s too much trouble to find the codes for italics), it was 8:30 pm and I didn´t really feel like going out again. But what with the Blog365 thing and everything, I decided to go ahead and do it. We´ll see if that sentiment wins out every time.

No word on the phone thing (prerequisite for the Internet thing), but assuming there´s no actual technical problem like there was in the other neighborhood, it should happen within a couple of weeks.

So we didn´t do all that shopping I said we were going to do yesterday; turns out New Year´s Day is a pretty serious holiday and all the stores were closed. Well, except for the ice cream shop. That was open :)

Today we did a lot of the hardware store shopping, including actual light fixtures to replace the bare bulbs in our four rooms, a shower caddy for our shelfless, towel barless, toilet paper holderless bathroom, and some wood for the first two projects: shelving over the toilet and a base for the birdcage.

By the time we got home, however, we were both worn out and spent most of the rest of the day hanging out and playing computer games (although we did install the first light fixture, which went well and works fine, despite Costa Rica´s approach to household wiring. [By which I mean, we made an educated guess as to which of the two white wires was the ¨black¨wire and got it right on the first try.])

So tomorrow will be the big Getting Things Done day - Bob building and me sewing - and today is...well, pretty much over.

Happy year!

2010-01-01T14:37:00.003-06:00

We cleaned out the upstairs apartment and dismantled our personal Internet café yesterday, so in a sense the last night of 2009 was our first night fully moved.

I dropped the girls off up the hill after lunch, and we had a quiet evening at home. We watched The Sixth Sense, which I had never seen, and tried to play a couple of computer games together, but one wouldn´t work right, and one was too complimicated for me to learn it all in one night. We played around with The Sims for a while, then had some cookies and eggnog and went to bed around 11:30, secure in the knowledge that we wouldn´t miss the new year.

And we didn´t. Fireworks are legal here, and our little cul de sac didn´t hold back. They went on for a solid half hour, by my count, but maybe more because we did eventually fall back asleep.

This morning we took down the Christmas tree and decorations, so the living room is ready for whatever ends up being its first semi-permanent furniture arrangement.

We´re at the [public] Internet café now, and then heading over to the hardware store to get some minor construction supplies, some screening to see if we can´t fashion a cat-proof carport area, and maybe price some paint, because the landlord had the main walls painted, but they didn´t finish the edging, and they didn´t touch the bathroom or the aquamarine doors (and not the good kind of aquamarine), and there´s no molding around the ceiling, so there are roller marks all around the edges. We may need to tweak it all a bit.

One to go

2009-12-31T10:30:00.003-06:00

I took Julia to the thrift store this morning to see if we could find some pants or lightweight jeans that she would like for her bag, but which would be simpler to sew than the pair of regular denim jeans I had planned on using.

Well, that didn't go as planned.

On the bright side, it's reportedly going to be the coolest bag in the WORLD. So there's that.

One down

2009-12-30T18:29:00.003-06:00

I spent all day making Robin's Christmas messenger bag from a pair of pants we got (for that purpose) at the thrift store, and some lining fabric she picked out of my stash. We're all pleased with the results.

Why, yes. I did go cross-eyed sewing those striped pockets to that checked lining. Thanks for asking.

Julia's is going to be made out of a pair of jeans which, I realized while I was working today, is considerably heavier fabric than the khaki-type pants in Robin's. Wish us well.

Utilities would be so...useful.

2009-12-29T10:17:00.002-06:00

Just spent an hour at the phone company. I finally got the information I needed for the guy who contacted me a week ago, and we exchanged half a dozen text messages last night (with varying degrees of success), and he even tried to stop by, but it was dark and he was afraid there might be dogs in the cul de sac, so he didn't make it all the way to the door.

We determined that the next thing was for me to go in and sign something, which I did, but he wasn't completely ready for me when I got there. Eventually I signed about eight things (returning each of the various portions of my deposit on the initial application, and then re-paying them for the new one), and he gave me a new work order to post in the window, and photocopied my ID and...well, that's it.

There's really no telling whether his desire to make things right will result in the work actually being done any sooner than if I'd just gone down and put in the application today, but I'm sure he's doing all he can.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that my initial application did in fact get lost in the shuffle because in addition to telling me to go to the employees' entrance and ask for him (rather than waiting in the half-block long line for the public entrance), when I did that, and he came out to help me, he gave me nine little corporate notepads "so you can write down phone numbers."

Anyway. Presumably it's now properly applied for. We'll see when it actually gets installed (the good sign is that, as always, the phone company installers are out in force today, and still working a couple blocks west of the new place, but moving, as the days go by, in that general direction.)

The daily check-in

2009-12-28T16:28:00.004-06:00

We watched Wall-E today, and figured out which kinds of bags I'll be making for the girls, and that we'll make peanut butter cookies this evening.

Now I'm here to check the mail and check on the house & dog & guinea pig-sitting situation here on our old street, then off to buy peanut butter and stop by the thrift store to get some more jeans for with which to make the girls' messenger bags.

Looks like the garage area (yes, Dad, there is one) is pretty well closed in, structurally speaking, so we're thinking we may be able to put some screen on the wire and then we can keep the front door open without letting the cat all the way out. We all think that would be a good thing.

I texted our meter number to the phone company guy at the start of business today; no response yet, but I did see utility trucks out and about today, so at least they're open for business and whatever has to happen can now proceed to do so.

And, that's about all I have to say, what with it being vacation and all. Not a lot going on.

"Country lane" defined

2009-12-27T16:37:00.004-06:00

I keep calling our street a "country lane." Here's what I mean by that:

We're really not out in the country in any sense of the word, but the seven houses on our cul-de-sac (three adjoining across the end of the road, and four adjoining off to one side) are at the end of a single short block with a corn & coffee & squash field on one side and a grassy field with citrus trees on the other side. The only cars that ever drive down it are the five or six that live at the end of it, so the kids (I've seen at least 10, aged from two to eleven) have the run of it most of the time.

That's Julia, honing her newfound bicycle prowess.

Quick update

2009-12-26T19:41:00.004-06:00

Just a quickie, cause it's already past dinner time and there's nothing here for the kids to do while I skim my Facebook feed and toss a quick post up.

Julia had hesitated to go out and play with the neighborhood kids (I estimate 10 or 12 in our seven-house cul de sac), because she has a bike but never learned to ride it without training wheels. So today we took them off and taught her. I knew it would come quickly, because she's good at sports and physical things, so once she had a flat street and some time, it took about half an hour.

Then she made friends with the 9 year old next door, and spent the rest of the day with her.

We made our first batch of cookies this morning - just chocolate chip, nothing complicated - but there were enough to eat a bunch and share a bunch and freeze a bunch, and tomorrow or Monday we'll make another kind.

Kay, time to get going; more tomorrow!

FINally, she posts some PICtures...

2009-12-25T18:10:00.005-06:00

Posting a few photos at last. Christmas, after all the hectic and tiring and overwhelming that led up to it, was lovely. The tree was...well, okay. The girls liked their presents, we sat around and watched A Muppet Christmas Carol and napped and played with the new toys and the cat (and made new toys for the cat) all day. Just like it's supposed to be.

Then we even found a grocery store open in the evening, so there are cookie ingredients for tomorrow and everything we need for dinner & breakfast.

Now we're here to check email and post (and say hi to the new neighbors starting to move in downstairs), and then back home.

Look! Space! Yes, the shelves in the bedroom and the space under the bed are packed solid, but the living space is totally livable. We actually have a table. At which to eat and do puzzles, even if other people are home and wanting to do other things. At the very same time.

Well, I got what I wanted for Christmas

2009-12-24T16:30:00.003-06:00

...which is have all our stuff (except this here computer, plus a chair and small table) in the new house.

An added benefit to that is that I now know the new place won't get any more crowded with boxes and stuff. It can only improve from here.

We hung some quilts on the wall (provisionally, where there were already hooks) and it made a big difference in the bedroom especially, which had been starkly functional until now, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I'm not feeling very Christmasy, what with all the work we've done and still need to do, but knowing the move itself is behind us is, truly, what I wanted and I got it.

Now I'm back here at the online computer to do my Christmas shopping for the girls. It's not as bad as it sounds, though. I have their stocking gifts all bought and wrapped, but the other gifts I want to give them have online components.

One is a membership to an online computer game they love playing, so I need to find out the terms they offer so I can decide how many months they get, and also find something to print out and wrap up to actually physically give them.

The other is that they'll be home with me most of the next week, so I thought a good gift that I wouldn't have to deal with before Christmas would be to find simple sewing patterns for a purse (for Robin) and a tote bag (for Julia) and let them pick the fabrics from my stash and help me make them.

So I need to find some patterns for them to choose from and, again, something to print out and wrap.

And the final thing is to bake cookies together over the coming week, but I can look up recipes for that in my cookbooks (which finally got moved today), or online when the time comes. I have cookie cutters and some of the specialty ingredients (chocolate chips and sprinkles) so there's something for them to open in connection with that.

Bob's giving the whole Christmas Tree In A Land Without Tree Stands thing some thought, and we'll cobble together whatever he figures out when I get home. I bought some ornaments (Costa Rican grocery stores gather all their Christmas stuff in a 1/4 aisle and mark it 70% off several days before Christmas, it turns out), and we made some, and they can do popcorn strings if we all feel up to it.

So.

Gotta go gooping. (That's googling/shopping, you see.)

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Bullet point afternoon

2009-12-23T16:57:00.003-06:00

I'm on vacation, yay!
Bob finished clearing out the downstairs apartment (which the landlady has already re-rented, so she's glad we're finished a few days early) and is mopping it now.
The upstairs one is still pretty depressing, but I did actually accomplish quite a bit today. There's stuff everywhere still, but closets and cupboards are pretty much empty inside.
The landlord didn't come by to give us the meter number like he said he would, but we narrowed it down to one of two (out of six) meters in the cluster, thanks to Google Earth.
The mall wasn't really that crowded today, but Costa Rican malls don't build their parking lots to scale, so getting in and out was insane.
The kitty spent several days at the back of a shelf in a dark room, but she's been out and about a lot more today.
I'm on vacation, yay!

To phone or not to phone

2009-12-22T17:12:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I got the call I've been hoping for; or rather, I got what at first appeared to be the call I've been hoping for from the phone company.

The guy asked for me, then said he was the one who had processed my application for a phone line back in July. He went on to say that, the following week, he had been involved in a car accident, and ... well, you can see where that's going. I'm a little skeptical as to how the absence of the person who took my application, entered it into the computer and printed out the work order for me to hang on my house, translates into the application not proceeding, but whatever.

He said he had heard that I went in to request a transfer of the as-yet uninstalled phone line to a new address, and that I was mad about it.

Now, I did request the transfer, and I did tell the guy that the line hadn't been installed, but I wasn't mad. Nobody in my neighborhood had phones installed, and many of them had been waiting longer than I had. Some of them years longer. I only put in the application because it looked like there was some utility work going on in the neighborhood back in July, but I wasn't surprised that it never happened.

Anyway, this guy apparently feels personally beholden to me, and while I did tell him I wasn't upset, I'm certainly not going to discourage him from doing what he can to get our phone hooked up in the new place.

He asked for the exact address and I started to give it to him - with no street names or house numbers, it's really just a description from a known starting point. So I told him, from a particular condo development, it's 50 meters south, 100 meters west, and 50 meters south.

And he said, "That can't be. That's not a paved road."

And he's right.

We determined that I do, in fact, live on an unpaved road, and that he knows exactly where it is. He said he'd just stop by that afternoon and get the information. Talk about personalized service. Or a small country.

Except, the one thing he needs, besides the address, is the number of the electric meter at the new place, not the number of the next door neighbor's meter, which is what I provided to them when I went in to request the transfer on the 10th.

It's not as simple as looking at the meter itself, because there are seven houses on our tiny little cul de sac, and all the meters are installed in a row halfway down our (unpaved) country lane. And our electricity is currently shared with, not the house next door, but the house next door to that.

I have no idea.

Anyway, the landlord said he'd stop by yesterday to show me which is our meter, but he didn't. The neighbor whose house shares a meter with ours (who, by the way, is very nice) says she doesn't get the bills directly, but that the landlord picks them up and either pays them or bills her or something; anyway, she couldn't help.

So now...who knows. I tried calling the landlord back today, but a child answered the phone and said the guy has a new number. And the new number wasn't available.

Anyway, I still think it's a net positive; getting a proactive call from anyone at the phone company shows that things are happening, and they're still installing phones all over the old neighborhood; in fact, they're done with this particular street and a couple of blocks closer to the new place.

So, here's hoping.

Stopping by apartments on a chilly morning

2009-12-21T07:51:00.003-06:00

Had to come by here on the way to the office this morning to pick up the hand truck that I borrowed from work.

Well, okay, and because it turns out that all of my pants are still here, except for the paint-stained jeans I'd been wearing the entire weekend.

There's still just as much to do here as there was yesterday (except for one [1] carload of sixty gazillion [60Gz] books, that I moved yesterday), but now the kids are away till Christmas Eve (or Day) and work should be very low-key, and the roads are very clear (except for that one ambulance-worthy accident we passed this morning) and hopefully the next few days will be productive without being crazy-making.

I went ahead and got a Christmas tree with the girls last night, which I envisioned as being an extra-special, unexpected Making Christmas Happen thing for them, but in fact we couldn't see the tree in the dark, Robin cried because we were killing it, and Julia fretted that it would fall off the roof of the car and damage things.

Oh well.

But now we have it, and it looks pretty nice in the light of day, and smells good, and that's one more thing partially dealt with. Next up, figuring out how to stand it up and get it water in the Land Without Tree Stands.

Okay, off to work. I did take a few pictures of the wreckage of the old place and the Lovable Insanity that is the new one, so those'll be appearing eventually.

Happy Monday, y'all.

The mid-move complaint post

2009-12-20T12:01:00.003-06:00

The new house is fine, the night was quiet, the cat and bird and children all seem to have adjusted quickly and with a minimum of difficulty. (The turtle too, I think. Communication is not her long suit.)

We got furniture and stuff and things into a very livable first-draft arrangement last night, and had pizza and A Charlie Brown Christmas and passable showers.

In fact, it was so livable that it makes it hard to see the value in coming back here (where we'll keep a computer hooked up till the last minute) to gather more Boxes O' Stuff to throw onto the currently almost manageable Piles O' Stuff at the new place. The sense of urgency and Must Have At Least The Bare Necessities that got things (like an evening run back for electrical tape and other Must-Haves) done last night is entirely lacking today.

Now I'm just looking at an apartment full of stuff that has to be moved from one place to another, with insufficient boxes and in the knowledge that it's going to be in the way as soon as I do.

Ah well. It does make the new place seem all the nicer, so there's that.

Ooof

2009-12-19T14:44:00.002-06:00

Just jumping in real quick to say we're moving and tired and I'll be offline the rest of the day. Maybe even the rest of the year; no telling yet how long it'll be till they install a phone and then the DSL.

I went over to the hardware store to talk to the transport guys and see if one of them could do our heavy moving later in the day or tomorrow, but the guy who said he could do it, said it had to be RIGHT THEN.

In retrospect, we were not at all ready to do it right then, but we went ahead anyway, and now the furniture part is done. I wouldn't do it like that again, but I'm really glad that the entire rest of the process is under our control and at our pace.

Now I'm going to have some lunch before I turn around and realize it's dinner time.

Walls: White

2009-12-18T18:51:00.003-06:00

I stopped by the place on the way to work this morning and there was a little old man with a big long roller who had already painted half the walls by 8:00 a.m.

Bob stopped by on his way home from work just now, and he said all the walls are painted, so the guy will be doing the edging tomorrow.

He was really nice this morning, and I'm sure we can take the girls over to see it, and maybe run a few carloads over in the afternoon, once he's finished a room or two.

I carried a dozen boxes down to the garage while Bob was at work, but I can't really tell yet how it's going to go. There are empty shelves and things, but there's still a lot more to do.

The girls were all excited when I brought them home this afternoon, so I gave them each a suitcase and let them put things into them; that lasted about 15 minutes, but at least they have their part, and can do more of it if they get the urge.

I may not sound like this in a few days, but...

2009-12-17T19:02:00.006-06:00

For a family that's fixing to move less than a week before Christmas, we're ticking along pretty calmly here.

I took my commute on ... I think it was Monday ... to get myself from "How on EARTH am I ever going to get the girls presents they'll like and care about for Christmas?" to a simple, realistic and pleasing plan for how to do exactly that.

I shopped for stocking stuffers on my way home from work for the last couple of days, and I'm wrapping them this evening. I've also picked up a couple of immediate essentials for the new house, like an on-demand heater for the shower (most Costa Rican homes, including the one we're moving to, have no centralized hot water) and a pack of compact fluorescent bulbs. For the most part, the things we're going to have to acquire will come afterwards: curtains by me and some extra table/shelf action by Bob are the main ones.

We can't get a tree till after we move, so there's no dealing with that till next week. We've made a bunch of Moravian stars to decorate it with, we can string some popcorn, and I'll buy some lights and red balls. Voila, pretty, homemade tree.

The neighbor who sold us Bob's fridge when he moved here actually wants it back, so we don't have to figure out how to sell that or whether to move it.

I don't see doing a whole lot of packing until this weekend, since it's such a nearby thing and we can take the small stuff over ourselves either before or before and after the furniture goes on Sunday. Not like everything has to be boxed on a deadline for someone else to deal with.

The things I most want to have taken care of, aren't really in my hands. I was worried about scheduling with the girls while I'm off work, so I wrote the email that needed to be written, and now I just need to wait for a response. I'm a little concerned about the painting in the house, but it all sounded really good on Tuesday. Hopefully there's no problem there.

So...I guess I'll just get back to wrapping the stocking stuff and maybe make sure the wine from the other night hasn't gone off.

Came back to add:

I realized after I hit Publish, got the wine, and went back to the wrapping that the reason having a glass of wine while wrapping the gifts felt so right was that, nine years ago about this time, I was wrapping Christmas presents with Mom in my apartment in High Point, and she offered to pour us some wine. I only had a little because the big present we had for everyone that year (which Mom of course didn't yet know) was the news that I was expecting Julia, who was born the following August.

The cat says this one doesn't have to have a title

2009-12-16T19:50:00.004-06:00

We tried a new restaurant this evening; they've been building it for ages, and we actually tried to go a couple of months ago, but it wasn't open yet.

It was brave of us to try, because this was happening again, and...well, let's just say you wouldn't want to be on the road if that were true.

ANYway, the food was good (mine was; apparently Bob's was VERY VERY VERY VERY good) and the ambiance was very nice, and Self Conscious Waiter was self conscious, but also very attentive and friendly.

Then we stopped by the house (which showed no signs of paint or pre-paint processes, but one must have faith, mustn't one?) and talked about where to put things and who gets what room and stuff.

And now we're home and Bob made dark chocolate pudding and we're waiting for that to chill while I talk myself into making the baked treat I had planned to make for my boss's birthday tomorrow, even though I'm all full and ready to just sit on the couch and watch Friends.

The one that almost had to be back-dated

2009-12-15T20:57:00.004-06:00

Well, the phone company is definitely making strides in and about this neighborhood - I passed sub-contracted phone company minion dudes working on the lines when I left for work this morning, and again when I got back home. I nearly had to forgo posting this evening because the Internet went out early today (Bob was offline by the time I got to work this morning), and only just came back on about half an hour ago.

Again, very glad we requested the phone line transfer before this started happening, and also glad it's going on, since the new house is less than a mile from the old one, and maybe all this Progress will trickle down to that neighborhood and result in us actually having a phone sometime soon.

And on that topic, we're now the proud renters of The Other House. The contract the owner prepared was entirely reasonable; I was taken aback to see "three years" in the first clause, but it turns out (which Bob actually knew and told me) that rental contracts are three years by law. But the owner added some more text that effectively made three years the maximum period (I'm sure it could be renewed if everyone were happy three years down the road), and he added a clause a the bottom that actually makes seven months the minimum, by stating that we would lose our (one-month) deposit if we move out within the first seven months. That's entirely reasonable.

So we signed the contract and paid the first month, AND, it turns out the owner is still going to paint. He said he has 10 houses he rents out, and the guy who works for him just finished painting one, and is ready to do ours starting tomorrow. So we told him "white" and let him know that we'd like to take some carloads over on Saturday and move the major stuff on Sunday, and we think that's all going to work out just fine.

We also ascertained that eight of his ten houses have three bedrooms, and asked him to let us know if a 3BR should become available at any point.

We also gave him a papaya, which seemed to go over well.

Holding pattern

2009-12-14T20:33:00.003-06:00

The dead dog was picked up today, the landlady found a half-buried cutoff valve that isolates the burst pipe so Bob has cold water at least, and the utility company (or minions thereof) were on the street today apparently moving toward installing the remaining phone lines in the neighborhood. This last makes me glad we already went down to transfer the phone line application to the new house, because if they showed up and installed here, then who knows what would be involved in getting it moved from here to a new location, plus there would be a transfer fee and stuff. The neighbor at the new house said that when she applied for a line (no idea how long ago), they came along and installed it really quickly. We're hoping that remains the case, since we'll be without Internet till the phone is installed, and then another week or so after the phone is in for them to send the DSL tech out. But it sounds promising enough that we're probably not going to transfer the cable over. I think. We sign the contract and actually take possession tomorrow, so we'll find out then if the owner painted at all. If he did, it all happened on Sunday (or today), so probably not.

In which our neighborhood says, "Oh, go on with you. Get out of here."

2009-12-13T20:46:00.003-06:00

Bob walked up to the corner store this afternoon and 10 minutes later came back in calling for me. A black lab-type dog that had been trotting down the street when he walked up the block was now lying in the road having fits.

Another neighbor came out and together we made the gesture of trying to give the dog the universally accepted home remedy for poisoned pets, which is milk and lemon juice, but the poor thing was way beyond actually ingesting anything, and only lasted another minute or two. We pulled it onto the sidewalk, but didn't really know what else to do.

The first thing I did was to go check on my friend's dogs, since I'm house/dog sitting for them this weekend. They were freaked out, having seen everything that had just happened, but they clearly hadn't been fed anything themselves. I checked the yard carefully for any tossed-in food, but didn't find any.

I suspect the classic milk & lemon juice antidote has some basis in reality for some poisons, but I seriously doubt it would have any effect against a substance that can kill a dog in five minutes flat. Nevertheless, in the name of doing something, I went ahead and squeezed a lemon into the dogs' dishes and poured in some milk, just in case whoever it was came along and tossed some more bait over the wall. I also explained to them that they should not eat anything unusual they might find lying around.

Another neighbor came out and asked what had happened, which I explained. She called the police or the municipality or whoever you're meant to call, but today is Sunday and I don't know how responsive they would be even during regular business hours. The dog is still lying there.

And THEN we were back in here, making Moravian stars and watching each other play the Harry Potter game, when Robin said she smelled something. I didn't notice it at first, and then it hit me. A burning insulation/plastic/electrical kind of smell. We checked everything in the house and didn't find anything.

The smell was stronger out in the garage, but fainter outside in the street. Eventually we concluded that the wind must have gusted the smell in, and the garage walls were keeping it from dissipating.

So we all went back to our various occupations for six minutes, until a pipe burst on the hot water tank in the utility space off the garage.

We got the water turned off out at the street, texted the landlady, and filled Bob's water bottle and...well, that's all really.

See, this could never happen at the new place, because it doesn't have hot water.

Update:

9:35 p.m. -- Bob and I are talking about plumbing and insulation and building codes and what kinds of fixing up the new place might require, when we hear a muffled crash from outside.

9:40 p.m. -- I'm on a kitchen stool, pulling down the still-drooping bits of plaster that didn't just fall off the porch ceiling.

Dear Universe:
We get it, we get it. We're going. How about you leave the place in decent enough shape that L. can re-rent it without feeling she needs to withhold part of our deposit, eh?

The continuing stoooooooooooooooooory --or-- It's amazing how much you can say about something when there's actually no news at all

2009-12-12T19:33:00.003-06:00

So, we had a brush with an alternate house today; the landlady said the house two doors down was for rent, and she thought it had three bedrooms. I went and talked to the lady, but it turns out it's only 2BR, is really a bit out of our price range (ie, $100/month more than the place we've taken), and is in fact already promised to someone else. So we'll not mourn that one, except to briefly acknowledge that it would have been exponentially more lovely than where we're going. But for $100/month, we'll get along without the exponential loveliness.

The girls are still campaigning for moving sooner rather than later, and I'm leaning that way myself; it will make for a big push over the next week and weekend, but it means that my week off between Christmas and New Year's can be used for settling in and resting up, rather than doing the actual move and then trying to recover while back at work.

Bob stopped by the place on his way home from work this afternoon and there was no sign of any painting or anything. Frankly I'm a little surprised, since the owner really didn't seem to want us to do it ourselves. But if he doesn't do it by the time we sign the contract on Tuesday, I'll tell him that we plan to. There's no point moving into the place and then bemoaning the smudgy, poorly painted, hospital walls.

In which "cream" is a difficult concept

2009-12-11T21:06:00.003-06:00

The children and their local grandparents have now seen and approved the house, and apparently the landlady got our letter giving notice on the second apartment last night, because there's a For Rent sign on our gate now. My neighbor down the street knows a community group that might want to buy our soon-to-be-spare refrigerator, and the phone company work order has been posted at the new place. I've spoken with the next door neighbor a few times now, and she seems very nice. There are seven houses on the cul-de-sac and at least three of them have very young children. Pamela, next door, is five and an only child. Michael, across the way, didn't want to eat his hot dog the day we were seeing the house for the first time, and was threatened with having his kiddie slide taken apart - apparently for the second time that day. Two children of maybe four and six were at the next house after Pamela's when we stopped by today. No sign yet of older kids.

The owner was ... he seems nice enough, but I think communicating with him is going to be a learned skill. When we first saw the house, I asked if it would be okay with him if we painted, and his response was, "What do you mean?"

...How do you clarify "is it okay if we paint the walls?"

When I went back to pay the deposit, he asked again, "What were you trying to say about painting it?" So I said we meant that we would buy the paint, and we would do the work, and then he wanted to know what color. I said white or cream, and he wanted to know what I meant by "cream". After a while I think he accepted that by "cream," I didn't in fact mean "vermilion with chartreuse tiger stripes" and, as I say, he seemed to indicate that he would do the painting. There was (needless to say) some conversation about which walls we might be talking about (Umm. The ones with all the fingerprints on them from the previous tenants? IOW, all of them?) I can only assume that whatever he does will be this weekend, since we start renting as of the 15th.

So, the question of the hour is, when do we move? We can either do it over next weekend and early Christmas week, and have Christmas there, or we can hold out and have Christmas here (which would mean putting up a tree, like, NOW), and move the week between Christmas and New Year's.

The girls are in complete agreement that WE SHOULD MOVE NOW. TODAY. WHEN CAN WE GO SEE IT AGAIN??? And Bob and I are shuffling through the factors to decide what'll actually happen.

More about the house

2009-12-10T16:29:00.002-06:00

I may yet do the whole SketchUp thing like I did before the last move, but it's complicated this time because my Real Computer is running Linux and, as such, needs an intermediary program set up before I can install SketchUp.

In any case, the house is about 520 square feet, with no light shafts or hallways and not including the laundry room, whereas the apartments are 410, including light shafts, hallways and laundry room. The smaller of the two bedrooms in the new house is about the same size as the larger of the two where we are now.

So all our stuff will fit. And I like that the living room is contiguous with the kitchen, so whoever's cooking doesn't have to go off behind closed doors (or around corners or whatever) while they do it.

It is, as I said the other day, not very attractive, but the owner seemed to indicate that he would be painting it, and once we put our things in it and choose curtains and stuff, hopefully it'll be nice.

We went down today to transfer our existing application for a phone line (which we put in for last July, but there are no lines available in this neighborhood) over to the new place, and while we won't know till it happens, it sounds like that may work out okay. And when it does, we can have DSL instead of cable Internet, and thereby not have to pay for TV we're not watching. So that'll be nice.

Here's what it looks like right now. We believe that if the owner paints it, it'll be off-white as opposed to another coat of the oh-so-popular Industrial Hospital it's currently sporting.

Definitely a step. Hopefully one toward TOTH

2009-12-09T19:26:00.002-06:00

We went ahead and paid the deposit on the house, then stopped over to measure the rooms and take pictures, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for those because for now it's pizza, beer and Torchwood.

Not TOTH, but hopefully a stop on the way to it

2009-12-08T22:20:00.002-06:00

We went to see another house today. I have resoundingly mixed feelings about it. It's on the right end of our budget range, almost as close to the school as our current place, and small but large enough to be workable. In short, it'll do and we're taking it.

I was exceedingly lucky, when I first needed a place to move into, to find the apartment that I did and, when Bob was ready to come here, to have the adjoining one become available. A big part of what I like about this apartment is that it's attractive. It's just pretty, with nice surfaces and interesting colors and attention to detail in the construction and finishing.

This other place is flatly none of that. I'm sure we can make it pleasant enough with time, and it's not like we're committing to years and years there. But I really wish I actually liked it.

As I was saying...

2009-12-07T18:10:00.002-06:00

Pursuant to last night's post, this:

is not a happy monitor.

Well, THAT'S never happened before.

2009-12-06T20:06:00.002-06:00

So we spent most of the day playing the Harry Potter game (it took the three of us most of the day to get Julia's Harry past the Flipendo level) and drawing temporary tattoos on each other. (Well, okay. Mostly it was me drawing them on everyone. Robin got a butterfly and Julia got a parrot and I got a purple gecko.)

And then while I was cooking dinner they started calling from the living room, but I was all cooking eggs and not about to leave them to go look at the computer, and when I finally did, it turned out something had...happened.

The entire display was rotated 90º clockwise. And the children were still playing the game.

I put an end to that, took them in the kitchen and fed them dinner, then came back out to see what there was to see. I posted a jokey little complaint on Facebook, then restarted the computer to fix the problem.

Except.

It didn't fix. Windows came up and said, "Hey, your resolution and color depth are pretty low, how's 'bout I fix that for ya?" And I said sure, and it did. But apparently Windows had no issue with the whole having-to-crane-your-neck-90º-to-the-right-in-order-to-get-your-hand-eye-coordination-to-work-enough-to-put-the-mouse-where-you-want-it thing.

I tried a few things, complained on Facebook again, and eventually went for help. Bob came up and tried a few things, then helped me turn the monitor on its side (which looked weirder than you'd think - I took a picture but I don't feel like downloading it right now) and then he went downstairs to Google it for me.

Then he came back upstairs and fixed it, yay, the end.

Nice day

2009-12-05T21:47:00.003-06:00

The Grinch wouldn't play, so we watched The Gods Must Be Crazy II instead. Julia and I fell asleep, but we'd already seen it. I like the badger part.

I made Robin's cake today; mocha cake with extra dark cocoa powder. Very rich and very yummy. I'm surprised it didn't keep us all awake for the movie, but then we only had small pieces.

Robin got some really nice presents from my family; Lisa faked us out with a Harry Potter computer game that we all started enthusing about, then she opened the box and there was a shirt and some Mad Libs inside. And then under the shirt, there was the game after all. So now we all know what we'll be doing tomorrow.

You know what's an addictive little game?

2009-12-04T19:09:00.002-06:00

Pac-xon is an addictive little game. Way better than traditional Pacman.

It's all the girls' fault, naturally. I said it looked like fun, and they invited me to play, and there's this "Try Again" button that works in a non-standard game restarting way (it restarts the game, but keeps you at whatever level you were on), so they convinced me that I kept getting additional lives.

And the news is...

2009-12-03T18:45:00.003-06:00

...there is no news.

We drove around town for a while this evening and didn't see any For Rent signs. Guess we'll try again in a few days; in the meantime, the Doctor is about to regenerate and I want to see how he comes out, and also how long it takes for him to mention that the new teeth feel weird.

The one with all the reminiscing

2009-12-02T18:43:00.003-06:00

Eleven years ago today, I had lunch with my Mom, and we bought a hairbrush.

We were waiting around to see if I was in labor, you see, and it turns out I was. I'd just had a prenatal appointment and the doctor, knowing I lived an hour and a half away by bus, suggested we not go home just yet.

So we had a (light) lunch at the Hotel Don Carlos, and bought a baby hairbrush at Mas X Menos (I can't recall that we ever once used it, but I'm sure the girls appropriated it for their stuffed animals eventually) and then went back to the clinic and were admitted. Well, I was. And Mom got to stay right up until I went into the delivery room. She brushed my hair for me.

Alex and I picked out the name "Robin" while waiting for the second checkup, if I recall correctly. I was wearing an enormous shirt with a very large paisley pattern. It was nicer than it sounds.

She was born in the late afternoon, and we stayed the night. I remember trying to get her out of the plastic bassinet beside the bed in the middle of the night. I couldn't reach it that well. I'm glad I didn't drop her.

We took her home the next morning, about an hour or so before Dad showed up at the hospital, having moved heaven, earth and office schedules to get an earlier flight.

We scandalized the neighbors (who told my mother in law on me) by taking the baby out of the house when she was just a couple of days old. Broke the quarantine, don't you know. "Quarantine" being derived from the same root as "cuarenta", meaning 40. That's the number of days you're traditionally supposed to be paranoid about the baby and avoid exposing it to...well, pretty much anything if I recall correctly. But I needed nursing bras and wasn't about to leave the baby behind when she didn't have any sort of eating schedule worked out yet.

She turned out okay, though. I don't think we ruined her.

The post on the day she's actually here to celebrate with us will probably be less about me and more about her, but she's with her dad today so I get to reminisce instead.

On the lookout for TOTH

2009-12-01T16:52:00.002-06:00

Today is rent day and, as such, the only opportunity to give notice on one or both of the apartments until next rent day.

We went to see a house that was available on Thursday, and at the time we weren't very impressed with it. I described it as "adequate", and we let the owner know we were going to keep looking around.

Last night we talked over the options and decided that, while it really isn't The One True House, it would in fact do nicely as a transition from two apartments to all living together, en route to all living together in a more pleasant space and hopefully somewhere that the girls can each have their own rooms.

Except, when I called the owner this morning to see if it was still available, it wasn't.

Fortunately, Bob measured the rooms and some of the furniture this morning and we determined that we can fit everything into one of these two apartments. It'll be tight, but we're ready to both A) All live in the same place and B) Spend a lot less on rent each month.

And that way when we do find something, we won't be paying for three places for the first month.

So, that's the update on that.

And now for something completely different:

That awkward in-between stage

2009-11-30T17:33:00.002-06:00

Okay, I really need to either get sick enough to stay home and lie around drinking tea and watching movies all day, or get all the way well already and stay that way.

For tonight, I'm going to spend excessive amounts of time at today's favorite: There, I Fixed It (check it out - it's even better than Awkward Family Photos.) Oh, wait. I've already done that. So now I just need to cuddle on the couch and eat meatloaf and mashed potatoes and watch lots and lots of Dr. Who.

Wish the weekend was only half over

2009-11-29T19:26:00.002-06:00

We put up the short, single strand of lights I got at the grocery store on Friday. They look nice, but really demand a second string in order to reach all the way across the porch.

We made a bunch of white snowflakes this morning, and the girls hung them on the living room wall. They look really good there.

I went to see a second house for rent; this one around the corner from us. I was aware, because of the extremely low price, that it might not be suitable, and indeed it was not. We'd be more comfortable all living in a single one of these apartments than in that tiny little airless place with no parking.

Bob's not all better yet, but he's finally turned the corner, which is good. We've determined he must have picked it up from one of the 30-odd people he dealt with at his various classes last Saturday. He came down with it on Wednesday, which means if any of us are going to get it, it should be right about .... now.

I've got a scratchy throat, but then I almost always do at some point during the week, so hopefully it's not The Cold Of Doom.

I keep forgetting and then remembering that I said I'd bring a cake to work tomorrow, so I guess I'd better go get that underway.

Glad the weekend's only half over

2009-11-28T20:58:00.004-06:00

We had our second Thanksgiving today. Both versions were really enjoyable. The one on Thursday was everybody from the office, plus families [except for Bob :( ], very intimate and relaxed. Then today was larger, with good friends I haven't seen for a while, and some others who I don't yet know that well. There was talking quilts and talking shop and talking Facebook. And a very slightly naughty joke or two. (I told this one. I'd tell you the one that Dan told, but it doesn't lend itself to text.)

Sadly, Bob is still not feeling well and missed them both. We'll need to do other fun stuff because we were all looking forward to the Thanksgivings this year.

And now, I've got cake from the next door neighbors' six year old's birthday party, wine from last night (that liter box isn't going to drink itself, and Bob's in no state to help), and Christmas decorations a-waiting for the morrow.

The hell with Buy Nothing Day

2009-11-27T19:19:00.002-06:00

...And I don't mean that I disagree with the concept, but I got paid today and we had some shopping to do. You know. Fill the gas tank. Get a decent decongestant for Bob. Food for the kitty. Cereal because the leftover corn flakes from the crust of that sweet potato casserole were pretty bad - hopefully we can find another recipe that calls for corn flakes.

Pizza for dinner and wine for me. In fact, Julia just brought me a refill (I *love* that they're old enough for that kind of thing) so I'll just see you all tomorrow.

I hepped.

2009-11-26T21:50:00.001-06:00

I have apparently led quite the sheltered life

2009-11-25T21:23:00.002-06:00

Fiction-wise, at any rate.

I'm reading the comments on a Shakesville Question of the Day that asks, "What's the worst book you've ever read, so bad you couldn't believe it got published?"

There are a lot of books being thrown across rooms and very little love for Dan Brown in that thread, but it was the comment that included the following that really gave me pause:

The minor villain who wants to ban fire. The evil chicken. The statue that converts people to Objectivism. 'Darken Rahl' as a villain name. Slaughter of evil pacifists.

...I have every reason to believe the person who left that comment had actually read a single book that included all of those things.

It's a jungle out there, kiddies. Have a very fruitful day.

2009-11-24T21:29:00.003-06:00

Had to honk & swerve to miss a bus this afternoon. It was at this one stop sign (as opposed to all the other ones, you know) where the people do stop, but they're not happy about it.

Not sure what it is about that particular spot, but they're always nosing out into our (non-stop-signaged) street, and today this bus driver figured he really didn't need to wait for a break in traffic, but would make his own out of things he probably already had around the house.

Except, I was going uphill in the hard rain, and I'm used to seeing the cars nosing out, so I didn't notice at first that the bus was not only sticking out farther than it should, but was also moving out into my path. Until I did notice, and laid on the horn, and made the bus stop. Which I'm glad it did.

Funnily enough, I was, most of the way home, contemplating the body work I need to have done on this car. But which I'd really rather schedule at my own financial convenience, not in response to buses and things.

The bus-y swerve-y thing was three blocks beyond the Street That Always Floods When It Rains, which was axle-deep in water this afternoon; surprising, really, when it wasn't even sprinkling when I left work, but there you have it. Seasons changing and all.

And that, in turn, was about eight miles after the very smiley, besunglassed driver of the car in front of me flicked a butt out his window. A butt that, my own windows still being open at that time, I discovered when I drove over it moments later was really very much not composed of tobacco.

And those are all the anecdotes from today's commute, the end.

Monday thoughts -- or -- In which I fail to respect the true haiku form

2009-11-23T21:58:00.006-06:00

My babiest girl
The family snowflake expert
Is now four foot three

Blame it on Facebook
Bob wants an ocelot now
It's all Lisa's fault

Pie pie pie pie pie
Chocolate pudding cookie crust
Pie pie pie pie pie

I see origami googling in the future

2009-11-22T19:35:00.002-06:00

Actually, I've already done some.

The girls came back this afternoon, and declared that we Must Decorate For Christmas Now. They don't know from Thanksgiving; or rather, they do but not as a prerequisite for Christmas stuff when there's already a lavishly lit house with a Christmas tree on the porch up the street, and the music's playing in the stores and two weeks ago you could already not get birthday wrapping paper at the grocery store, but only Christmas paper.

I have the important things: our stockings, home made by Mom over the years, and the tree skirt she cross stitched for us when the girls were younger. Oh, and a tacky Christmas throw pillow I won at a quilt raffle something or other somewhere along the way. But...well, that seems to be it.

I think I took my ornaments with me when I went to the States for Christmas last year, and I'm pretty sure I left them there. And I don't seem to have brought any of the household decorations when I moved.

Fortunately, we're a crafty bunch and the kids love projects, so we made some snowflakes and paper chains with what was on hand today, and I'll see about acquiring some additional supplies (like, say, some plain white paper to balance out the Phone Book Snowflakes we made today), some non-microwave popcorn for stringing and whatever else we come up with.

Oh, and I do have a few CDs of Christmas music, so that and the activities set the mood to the girls' satisfaction.

Apparently I'm insensitive

2009-11-21T21:06:00.004-06:00

It's getting to where every day now, Bob will turn to me and say, "Did you feel that?", and I'll be all, "No.", and he'll go look it up on the US Geological Whateveritis and show me this map that shows (or that he's managed to convince me that shows) that there was just another four-point-something quake a few dozen miles from here.

Sometimes the t-shirts on the clothesline will be stirring the teensiest bit. I don't know if I'm insensitive, or simply desensitized, but I've only noticed it consciously about twice this season.

This video is seventeen (17) kinds of awesome

2009-11-20T21:37:00.000-06:00

Via Mom's Tinfoil Hat

Okay, it's official. The Internet has everything

2009-11-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

I remembered it, I Googled it, and two clicks later, BAM. It's Paddle to the Sea!

Maybe there's a lot going on this time every year.

2009-11-19T17:07:00.002-06:00

I noted t'other day that there was a lot going on this time last year. The two posts I linked to were about changes; people moving, marrying, getting hurt, starting relationships, ending blogs, and, what inspired the post to begin with, the earth moving.

We've had a bit of that moving-earth stuff going on this year too. Nothing big. Nothing you'd even notice if you were, say, walking across the room or riding in a car. But if you're sitting quietly at a computer, you suddenly say, "Huh. The floor's a little wobbly."

It tends to happen with the changing of the seasons, and that's what we're doing right now; the rainy season--such as it was; you notice I missed my heretofore annual "I'm sick of the rainy season" series of posts--is pretty much out of here and the December winds are picking up. And the earth is shaking a little from time to time.

Other things are changing too, or trying to. We keep hoping to move, and may start working a little more purposefully toward that. Bob's class schedules have been declining for weeks now, and suddenly seem to be picking back up, which is a good thing. The car is having its own little renaissance, which is prompting some short-term financial changes.

Maybe it's all just the cycle of things, huh? That'd be nice.

In which I save you two and a half hours

2009-11-18T18:24:00.004-06:00

I have no intention of watching 2012, now or ever. (Of course, I have that approach to a lot of movies, and it doesn't always work out *cough*PiratesoftheCaribbean*cough*.)

But my bank always has the Discovery Channel, muted, playing on its Keep-'em-Entertained TVs, and on Monday while I waited an hour to be told to go to hell (I mean Immigration), I saw lots and lots of scenes from 2012 (okay, actually the same four scenes lots and lots of times) in between interview shots with scientist guys who, I dearly hope, were saying "Shut up, the world's not going to end in 2012."

That little bit of footage combined with this little bit of PURE MARVELOUSNESS means I definitely never have to watch the movie and now, neither do you. Unless you want to.

(Note to those on the lower end of the Internet indoctrination spectrum: There's a bunch of Internet-y slang that makes it even funnier, but it's worth a look even if a French person saying "L'OMFG" isn't your cup of tea.)

Thanks to Christina for this.

Time of the season

2009-11-17T19:02:00.002-06:00

Lacking any particular point to make this evening, I looked back at our blogs from a year ago.

There was a lot going on, this time last year.

Dear Costa Rica: It's a good thing I can't just take my ball and go home.

2009-11-16T18:03:00.002-06:00

I took my four forms of ID to the bank today, but they wanted more.

In case you're in need of a time sink to wrap up the weekend

2009-11-15T20:41:00.003-06:00

It's been a quiet day in Lake Rafael here, so I'll just direct you over to Awkward Family Photos (dot com), which I had heard of but never visited until it popped up in Lisa and Scott's Facebook feeds.

I'd direct you to my favorites, but there are just too many to choose from.

Too technical and not technical enough, all at once

2009-11-14T17:26:00.003-06:00

Overall, I like my bank.

It's one of the leading ones in Costa Rica, so there are branches (and ATMs) in any town of any size. There's a branch two blocks from the girls' school, and I pass about three more on my way to work every day. I can check balances and pay utility & Internet bills online, and I can transfer money to other peoples' accounts (like the girls' school or the landlady), all from the comfort of my very own computer.

Recently, I needed to add a new favorite to my account so I could send money to someone for the first time - to pay for this here hard drive, as a matter of fact. When I tried to, it said the bank was introducing a new layer of security, and that I would need to purchase a special "token" thingy (essentially, a random password generator) and activate it in order to proceed. I was able to use the points I accumulate by paying my bills online in order to pay for the thing, but I still had to go in to the bank to pick it up.

Now.

This bank can let me do all that online and without, in my experience, any real errors. But, also in my experience, they really can't manage to update my personal info, so every time I go in to do identity-based stuff, I have to bring my Costa Rican government-issued ID, as well a my three most recent passports - that's the current one, the previous one, and the one I had when I first opened the account 17 years ago.

So I paid for my token with Virtual Points, printed out the bar code thingy, gathered my IDseses, and looked up the hours for the branch at which I had chosen to pick up the token. This bank is so civilized, it even has weekend hours at some of its major branches.

Except, for all their Come And Get Your Random Password Generator Thingy Now Because We Are Awesome And High Tech, the bank did neglect to update its website when the specific branch at which I'm meant to pick up my token thingy stopped having Saturday hours. According to the guy at the coffee shop around the corner, that would have been about six months ago.

Oh, and by the way? One of our clients can't pay his bill because he can't get a token because he's out of the country, so he asked his builder here to pay it for him, and that guy went in and his local branch is out of tokens, with no word when they'll get more in.

Overheard

2009-11-13T19:46:00.004-06:00

Coworker B, from the back room: "Jennifer, do you know how to say 'funnel'?"

Me: "Embudo."

Coworker B, from the back room: "Embudo."

Coworker A, from the back room: "Embudo."

Client standing with coworkers A&B in back room: "Embudo."

Me to Coworker G, at the next desk: "It's a good thing I tell those guys the right words."

Am I sensing a theme here?

2009-11-12T20:48:00.002-06:00

One of Julia's current recorder pieces is a snip of "We Three Kings," but she doesn't remember the song herself, so I looked it up on YouTube for her this morning.

There are lots of results for "We Three Kings."

There's "We Three Kings" on something called hang drums, "We Three Kings," the Guitar Hero version, "We Three Kings" by the Barenaked Ladies...

Actually, the BNL version was quite nice, but it was a medley with another carol, so it didn't really serve our purpose. Bob eventually found us this one:

'Tis, increasingly, the season

2009-11-11T18:31:00.003-06:00

The girls are entering holiday mode at school. Julia gave me the blow-by-blow on the version of "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town" that they're learning for the holiday presentation thing, and then she asked me too look up Frosty on You Tube.

I didn't realize perspective had evolved so much since 1950.

I was[n't] interviewed for a newspaper article today

2009-11-10T20:53:00.004-06:00

El Financiero, Costa Rica's most serious, ~~*cough*stodgy*cough*~~ respectable newspaper--the one that thinks it's the Wall Street Journal and is printed on pinkish newsprint instead of plain old grey--contacted the office on Friday afternoon because they're doing an article on alternative energy.

The reporter is on a tight schedule and we were really busy all day Monday (not all the boxes were full of air), so in the end she sent us her questions by email. I consulted with B, who gave me some talking points and statistics, and then I wrote up the answers and sent them in.

I don't know how long the article is going to be, or how many companies the reporter contacted, but I know she was pleased with the scope of the answers we provided, so I'm sure she'll use some of it. The information was all provided to me--or was general stuff any of us at the company would know--but if there are any direct quotes, that'll be my words.

The article comes out on the sixteenth; the autograph line forms to the left.