Where in the World are the Kittels?!

Happy Birthday Monkeys!

2012-02-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

The ides of February are upon us, meaning we are poised in between the birthdays of Christiana and Bella. Christiana turned 20 last Thursday and Bella is counting the days until she turns 8 on Friday. From American Forestry books to American Girl dolls, as their birthday presents indicate and as I’ve come to think of them lately. (Except really what I think is from birth control to Polly Pockets but I’m not going to write that here.) It was only when Bella brought home the obligatory second grade Chinese Zodiac wheel that we realized she and Christiana, being 12 years apart, share the same symbol – the monkey. Now, probably much like any old zodiac regardless of what language it speaks, you could find traits of yourself in every one of the twelve Chinese zodiac characters. But I can say with some certainty that the following monkey traits do, indeed, fit my second and last girls: motivator, improviser, quick-witted, inquisitive, flexible, innovative, problem solver, self-assured, sociable, artistic, polite, dignified, objective, and factual.

I have long described Christiana as one who knows her mind and sets out with a purpose to achieve her goals. I learned a long time ago that when she stepped her self-assured self up to the ice cream counter and decisively ordered pink bubblegum ice cream, no amount of me trying to talk her out of that hideously artificially-colored flavor would work and that, indeed, she would eat every last blaring bit of bubblegum before concluding with a fuchsia-tongued smile. In short, she taught me at a very young age to heed her word. Because she was true to it. And so it was that on her big day last week we headed to the valley to take her to dinner and she chose the restaurant, announcing that she wanted a piece of fresh fish and that is exactly what she ate down to the last little flake.

Meanwhile, back here in yurtville, Bella has planned her own party. And she has already drawn and colored the pictures of she and her guests cavorting happily at the event, even though they haven’t even RSVP’d yet. She is organized and artistic and doesn’t forget a thing, which is why she is the keeper of the grocery list. Last year she went to Automercado with our friend, Wendy, after a sleepover and informed her on every aisle what she needed to buy until finally Wendy said, “Bella, you don’t even live with us.” “I know,” Bella said happily, not skipping a beat, “but you do need apples.” And they did. I have long said if anything happened to me, Bella would take right over and never miss a beat.

I try not to compare my kids and had never really drawn a Venn diagram around these two, but that monkey thing got me thinking. They do, indeed, have a large circle of commonality. Both are very creative and can/could be sent to their rooms to “clean” them and stay for an entire afternoon playing, happily emerging hours later having never picked up one single thing. Bella is the only one wearing my high heels and dresses around here or fully taking advantage of my handbag collection. Recently she emerged from her yurt dressed for work at her new Home Depot job wearing an orange apron that used to belong to Christiana and sporting a giraffe nametag from her summer Bible school - Wild about the Bible or something equally exotic. She was toting Hannah’s new pink tool kit left out of the post-holiday carry-on luggage, a screwdriver being a threat to our national security and all, and sporting plastic high heels to match. When I asked for some remodeling advice, she informed me that, sorry, but she was on her lunch break. And so, as with her sister before her, I just follow along and try not to get in the way, letting my two monkeys plan their own parties, pick their own ice creams, and find their way. From the second year in elementary school to the second year in college, they both stride through life with confidence and a big smile and so far that is working just fine.

PS Yesterday Bella received her birthday card from Grandma Moore and read it to me while we were driving to ballet. 'For a Granddaughter who's amazing, talented, fun-loving, a great sport, a shining star, and most of all . . . a super sweet girl who's loved very much!' "That Grandma sure knows how to pick the perfect card," she said, clearly agreeing with every American Greetings word.

Never Buy a Cat on Sale

2012-01-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

I’ve been shopping for over four decades now like every good Born-in-the-USA consumer and I should have learned by now that there are some things that are not a bargain at any price. Apparently, I have not. Since losing Duncan in July we have been half-heartedly scouring Craigslist and the like in search of a new faithful companion. Not a replacement. There aren’t any of those. And so it was that I found myself at the Safe Haven Humane Society one rainy night in November with Bella and Christiana, both of whom are overly sentimental shoppers who say things like “Awww” at every cute thing they see, living or not. Cute, or not.

The first “Awww” creature we encountered at Safe Haven was a fluffy white Malamute puppy with sad brown eyes and a heart condition. It was impossible not to love him, handicap and all. We were drawn into his enclosure like it was our destiny, digging our fingers into his irresistible down and dreaming of wrapping him around us and taking him home. Until one of the many shelter workers roused us from our reverie with a good dousing of cold water words like grooming and mud and every-time-we-take-a-walk. We considered all the dirt as well as the creek that surround our yurt, picturing all that snowy fur turned brown and tangled like March in New England, then gave him one final pat and backed away from all that adorable temptation.

Entering the long kennel room we passed easily by the chihuahuas and every kind of pit bull mix known to man, including the ones named Bella, until we came to rest in front of a cage full of black and white exuberance, three or four puppies tangled up and tumbling over each other, all SO happy to see us. We swayed. Vicki Vale (of Batman fame) quickly became our favorite and when we picked her up she snuggled into our embrace like she was home already while her siblings, Bruce Wayne and the like, chewed on our shoe laces and peed on the floor. We took turns holding Vicki, admiring her serenity and markings, took photos on our phones, and sent them to Andy. He said no. The comic book puppies were an unknown blend of husky and lab and whomever else Trixie, their Mom, had entertained. Trixie, yet another shelter worker informed, was also living at Safe Haven but was currently at the vet being fixed. So we couldn’t get any more information from her on the puppy paternity. We called Andy and his unsentimental voice of reason prevailed. Being any part husky meant they still had a strong hunting instinct and we live with resident herds of elk and deer who regularly sleep and eat in our pastures. Andy was right. We conceded that Vicki was not to be ours and we all parted ways with a whimper.

Next we braved the elements, venturing outside in the rain to check out the older dogs. Nothing we wanted to live with. That left the cat room. Now we are not cat lovers and people who call me Kitty are the bane of my existence, so why we ever even opened that door is questionable. But in we went, dutifully examining the lines of cages along the wall with no real intent and a few errant lower-case “awws.” And that’s when we spotted an attractive sign proclaiming in colorful double letters, “Great Barn Cat.”

Now, back in June when we’d returned from Costa Rica to the yurts, we discovered that we had what you would definitely call a “Great Barn Cat” living somewhere in the stacks of wood piled up in our lower barn. This cat was vaguely Siamese looking but we never got close enough while it lived to know it well. It demanded nothing of us except to be left alone. Our kind of kitty. And clearly “our” cat was, indeed, what this colorful shelter sign also boasted, “A Great Mouser,” as we never fed or watered it even once. We had no particular fondness for each other, that cat and us, our only encounters being a blur of cream-colored fur whizzing by whenever we ventured into our barn to retrieve a gardening tool or a bike. Still, we felt some degree of sadness when Andy discovered it lying near his saw mill one morning in August, dead. Having just lost Duncan, we felt a little bereft. And even though we never invited what we now knew was a he into our lives, his absence left a kind of blurry void.

So seeing that carefully lettered shelter sign posted on the cage of the last cat on the left got us to thinking. And it was on sale.

“We have a barn,” we said to each other.

“We have mice,” we reasoned.

“We’ll take it,” we announced.

Perhaps we were a bit hasty. Perhaps we should have asked more questions. Like when the shelter workers’ eyebrows raised uniformly upon learning that we’d chosen Molly, the Queen of the Cat Room, as they now informed us she was known while processing an inordinate amount of paperwork for one discounted cat. Or when they told us we had one week to return her if things didn’t work out and then let it slip that she’d been returned once already. Or when they hesitated over who would put her in a box and bring her out to us. Or when they warned us not to open the box until we arrived home. But we were committed. And anyway, why should we care? She was going to live in the barn and require nothing from us like her independent predecessor. We paid our $15 and left.

We drove the remaining hour home that dark and rainy night with our new barn cat in her box on Christiana’s lap, complaining loudly. And when we arrived home, Molly sprang from the box and immediately began making herself right at home. “She’s fat,” we said, finally getting our first good look at her. “Is that normal?” we wondered as her belly hung low in front of her hind legs, swaying to and fro as she walked. We knew very little about cats and wondered if it was a tumor. “Ah well, she’ll be getting plenty of exercise soon,” we said while visions of Molly mouse hunting danced in our heads. She was pretty, a tortoise-shell they informed us, with white feet and light green eyes. They’d told us to buy the purple bagged cat food at Costco and sent us home with a starter kit, warning us to feed her only ½ cup a day or she would eat and eat. “No wonder,” we now said, seeing her feline equivalent of a muffin top. And later when I dutifully purchased said Costco-sized bag of food it never even dawned on me just how long that was going to last at ½ cup per day without, say, a whole cat room or a bull mastiff eating it.

They also told us not to let her outside for a couple weeks until she knew her boundaries. But what we quickly discovered was that Molly, the Queen of the Cat Room, had quickly reinvented herself as Molly, Queen of the Yurts. She had no interest in the great outdoors. Or our very nice, mice-filled barn. Neither would she soon forget where she lived. First of all, she was too fat to catch anything except maybe her own tail. And second of all, we had to move quickly ourselves to catch her and toss her out the door if she was ever going to get some fresh air. Molly was perfectly content to stay inside the yurt. Forever. And when we did manage to capture and evict her with encouraging words about our barn, she sat underneath the yurt and meowed. All day. Loudly. Until we let her in again. Or until someone opened the door. Then she was suddenly motivated to move at lightning speed, flashing past us like her predecessor.

Now you might think that upon meowing herself hoarse, Molly would simply accept her fate and head for the barn. She does not. Instead she tries to find a way back into the yurt. Like jumping up on the front door and attempting to turn the door knob. Or leaping up at one of the two mudroom windows and hanging by her claws from the screen. I kid you not. None of her persistence is appreciated by people who live in a canvas house. In fact, people who live in fabric houses should probably not own pets with claws.

The questions we probably should have asked those nice Safe Haven folks are these. How would they know if Molly was a “Great Barn Cat” or a “Great Mouser” if they’d only known her as the Queen of the Cat Room where she’d spent her lazy days indoors eating the Purple-bagged Costco Cat Food? Did they ever hear her sighing and wishing aloud, "If only I had a barn and some nice fat mice to catch?” How did they determine that 1/2 cup of food was enough? Because the purple cat food bag has been shredded by Molly's attempts to increase her portion. And why exactly was Molly brought in the first time? Too noisy, perhaps? How about the second? Customer dissatisfaction? Did she scratch her owners? Refuse to go outside?

Hannah hates cats and threatened to boycott Christmas but relented, keeping a watchful distance. Micah became very good at catching and evicting Molly while he was home for the holidays. We tried to pass her off as Isaiah's birthday present but he was having none of that. And Andy keeps threatening to teach Molly to swim.

"Maybe she’ll go outside when it gets warmer," I reason. "And besides, Bella likes to play with her," I say, even though Molly often switches moods and scratches her.

"Bella can play with her Littlest Pet Shop cats," Andy counters.

"Well, at least wait until all that cat food is gone," I say. That ought to take us to 2013.

One thing is for certain. Molly was no bargain.

For The Love of Money

2011-12-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

I never loved money.

But I grew up surrounded by it.

My impressionable adolescent years were spent on my island home in an environment created largely by the rich and even richer—blue bloods who made their living off the imported sweat dripping off the backs of folks like my Irish ancestors who crossed the Atlantic and then criss-crossed our nation with steel rails, guided by the black smoke marking their manifest destiny and filling the New York city coffers of my neighbors. They carved their summer cottages in the graven images of Europe, palatial knock-offs in gold and marble which lined the Bellevue Avenue of my youth where I pedaled my bike beneath the graceful dreadlocks of giant weeping beech branches. Imports, all of us.

So it wasn’t easy for me to be impressed by ordinary wealth—new money, as they call it.

Still, for a time, I was.

I grew up, parked my bike, and headed north to a small, liberal arts college where there were a lot of rich kids. And I fell in love.

I first encountered John Senior when I was sitting on a covered bridge watching orange and red leaves swirl below me in the currents of the Contoocook River which threw its watery arm around our campus like a protective lover. My reverie was interrupted by a rhythmic wooden sound and I turned to see a boy striding towards me with a chunky, carved walking stick I would soon come to know as Half-Step marking his progress. He wore a funky knit hat and a broad, confident grin.

“Hey,” he said, passing by me.

“Hi,” I said, turning back to the blinding sun in my eyes and then around to watch his retreat. In and out of my life, just like that. And that might have been the end. But it wasn’t. Not yet.

I saw him loping around campus but not up close again until one day when I was out running along a wooded path that followed our river and there he was again, his long brown hair unmistakably swinging my way with Half-Step setting his pace.

“Hey,” he said again, his grin closing the gap between us, “What’s your name?”

“Kelly,” I said, slowing to a jog to answer.

He might have asked me what dorm I lived in, I don’t recall, but I do remember the knock on my door soon afterwards and a voice, “Phone’s for you.” In those days we had one hall phone for everyone that hung on the wall—no booth, no privacy.

“Hey, it’s John,” a voice said, “from the river?”

“Hi,” I said, my heart flipping around like the coiled phone cord in my hands which delivered his voice again to my ear.

“Do you wanna go to the movies Friday night?”

Yes, I sure did. I don’t remember what movie we saw, but I do remember there were some scary parts that had me diving for the safety of his shoulder and we exited the theater with his arm wrapped around me like the river.

From there, our romance marched forward in full steps and soon I was spending much more time in his dorm room than in my own. When his room-mate failed to return to school after Spring Break, we put the twin beds together and I took his place more or less permanently.

John was the life of the party—the kind of guy they warn you not to marry. His crooked grin charmed everyone he met and his confident charisma made him the center of attention, always. When he turned his wide smile and deep brown eyes on me, there was no escape; his dark eyebrows blocked all exits. John was outgoing and generous, attracting a large circle of friends. There was no capturing him, even though I became his number one girl. He was all kinetic energy, always on the move, always ready for fun. Even when he sat down, his foot shook incessantly, ready for its next move.

I fell hard for him and there would be no easy way back up. He wrote me poetry and played songs with lyrics intended for me. We were young, strong, and smooth-skinned and I loved the feeling of his long fingers entwined in mine. Half-Step was our constant companion while we ambled through the forest, kicking our Bean boots along woodsy trails which soon filled with snow. When winter released its icy grip we threw open the sunroof and drove the countryside in his blue Honda like we'd just been born. John introduced me to Tanqueray and tonic and was rarely without a beer or drink in hand.

Our freshman year ended and we parted ways, he back to his home and me to a summer waitressing job in my neighboring state. It was too far and soon I moved over to his state and into the sprawling suburban home of his mother. John came from a trust-funded life of privilege, a boarding school brat from a world I had encountered on my own island but did not know intimately. I studied it like a refugee from my firmly middle class background. He was purportedly an heir to a Poppin-fresh fortune that would make any dough boy giggle. New money. His friends liked to party. Hard. It was the late 70’s and recreational drugs were not uncommon. We spent the last carefree days of summer swimming in his pool, hanging out with his friends on their estates or at Lake Quassapaug, and hosting a wild birthday bash for him. His last.

School bells threatened and we choked out tense and tearful goodbyes as I flew off for a semester abroad in England where I was summoned out of my very first class—a Dickens seminar. A phone call. For me. “Kelly,” his mother said, “Johnny’s dead.” On Labor Day three hired thugs had kidnapped him, shot him three times, rolled him in a rug, and dumped him in the East River as part of a convoluted criminal-plot-gone-bad drama. For a few hundred bucks, rum-drinking strangers had casually killed him. “Wrapping up loose ends,” they explained. Indeed. Any love of money I ever had evaporated.

I was 18 years old and cried the proverbial river until the innocence of my youth swirled away from me in the currents of distant memories. I mourned for John, for myself, for the We that we’d tried to be. I mourned for the smooth body I'd loved so completely, violated so cruelly, so violently; it broke my heart. I managed to keep up my studies but quietly switched my major to mourning John Senior. Walking for miles and miles thru the English countryside, I became a shadow of my former self, sitting for hours in damp stone churches which were always blessedly open and empty. My fingers clutched at empty-handedness while I wandered through the ancient graveyards marking their exits, wondering at all the stories, all the broken hearts which lay buried beneath my feet. I spent a lot of time gazing at the sky and pondering the meaning of life. I could almost believe that John’s unbounded energy and zest for life were a sign we’d missed that he was not to be here for very long—live fast; die young. But it still hurt.

I finished the semester with John’s Cheshire grin filling my thoughts and his death enshrouding me and when I returned home, I transferred schools and began a new field of study.

One day, John’s mother came to visit.

“I brought you a present,” she said. I followed her out to the parking lot where she led me, smiling, to a brand new silver car shining there in the winter sun, orange letters printed across its front doors proclaiming it to be “Le Car.”

“This is for you,” she said. A car? I translated silently.

“Um, thank you,” I said, understanding the French but not fully comprehending this unlikely gift.

She hugged me and said, “I didn’t get you the stereo package; maybe your parents would like to buy that for you.”

It was so surreal. My parents had two kids in college and two more at home and no interest in buying me a car stereo. But I nodded, yes, maybe they would, because my parents would definitely want me to be polite. I could not even fathom telling them that I’d just been given a new car, much less asking if they wanted to provide the soundtrack. I was saddened that somehow she thought this all made sense, this for that, but I guess in her world it did. Le Car was definitely a step up from the red ’64 Dodge Dart with black and white checked bucket seats I manually steered around my island home when not riding my bike. I was thankful to have a sparkling new car instead. But still.

Weeping, John's mom handed me the keys and said, “Thank you for loving my son.”

I did not love cars. I did, however, love that John Knowlton Senior. But nobody needed to thank me for that.

~ K3

Fifty is the new Forty

2011-11-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve been 50 for an entire day or so now and therefore, like many Americans, am ready to start dispensing the wisdom of my decade even though I am basically unqualified and inexperienced. Fifty is the new forty, I’ve decided. I never felt 40 when my calendar flipped from 39 but now I am ready to embrace it fully, hindsight being what it is and all. So here is what I know thus far.

You know you’re fifty when:

The Fred Meyer check-out gal asks if you qualify for the Senior citizen discount. And the only thing worse than that is that you don’t. And when you tell your mother about it she informs you that it’s because you have “The Moore” wrinkles.
Getting a couch for a birthday present excites you. A couch. For sitting on.
A man at the Laundromat informs you while you are loading the dryer that he is “legally blind” and looking for a live-in “helper” and that he lives in a very nice one-bedroom house and is hoping to find someone who is 50. Or 60. And you don’t even realize he is hitting on you until you tell your husband about the encounter later. And you actually compliment him on his vehicle. Which is a wheel barrow parked outside.
You start universally hitting “I accept” to all terms and conditions on all electronic devices because you simply can’t read what it says and life’s too short anyway and you don’t feel like getting up to find your cheaters (which are yet another thing.)
You quit reading “50 things to do when you turn 50” after one essay on aging gracefully and accepting your new wrinkles followed by another encouraging a little nipping and tucking entitled, “Put your best face forward!”
Your AARP card comes in the mail and you start eyeballing motor homes and reading up on the national parks.
You should be outside taking a walk but it looks cold and you are in the middle of an exciting Words with Friends game and you are attempting to take advantage of your free app download for your Blackberry (I accept, I accept…)
You spend more time watching salmon spawn than, well...
You stop buying in bulk.
You have the flattest tummy in the OB/GYN waiting room and you’re not necessarily thrilled by that.
You apply on a vacancy for the job you once had and are told you are no longer qualified.
You actually think Words with Friends is exciting and justify your addiction by thinking it will help boost your brain power, which is another thing you suddenly think about.
Your wedding ring band has been worn so thin it can't be repaired one more time.
You have friends who are 60 and 70 and even 80 and your 20-year-old friends are your daughters.
You post a blog (or email or make a phone call), get in the shower, and think of at least three things you forgot to say, including that you know you're fifty when you have washed your hair with body wash and washed your body with conditioner...

RIP Mr. George Richardson

2011-10-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Mr. Richardson was a summer fixture for me as a child, more constant than sunscreen (which we didn’t have). I never knew him as a fall, winter, or spring guy. For all I knew, he returned each summer to Pocasset like a loon. Like we did.

With his classic flat-top crew-cut (his hair was always white) and his buck teeth, Mr. Richardson (we never called him “George” in those days) delivered our boat motor each summer and drove the silver ski boat for hours and hours every afternoon, teaching us all to ski with his characteristic favorite advice. You know what he always said. Nothing. And it worked. We all learned to ski under his silent, patient tutelage.

But the most fun to be had with Mr. Richardson was in the evenings. Rushing through dinner, we let the screen door slam behind us when the red truck appeared outside our cabin. Before Mr. Richardson could lift our garbage can off the nail in the tree, we were in the back of his truck, ready to do the garbage run with him, collecting from every cabin and riding all the way to the dump down the road where we hoped to see something exciting, like a rat. Summer just didn’t get any better than that..

Karen and I grew to be best summer friends and I spent a lot more time around Mr. Richardson. So I was lucky enough to discover that behind his thick glasses were twinkling blue eyes. And I got to go horned pout fishing with him in the evenings, sitting in Jennings Stream at dusk with Janet, Karen, and our green drop lines, then pulling the barbed fish up, left and right, while Mr. Richardson patiently took each and every one off our hooks with a gloved and practiced hand. I felt privileged to be in that boat. Mr. Richardson, as usual, rarely said a word.

To see Mr. Richardson was to see a man whose work was never done, but who was never in a hurry. He slowly and purposefully went about doing, well, everything there was to do. When I try to hear his voice, mostly all I hear is a meaningful silence. Followed, sometimes, by a slow, “ayuh.”

It seems that my summer innocence ended around the same time Mr. Richardson became George. It just hasn’t been the same around the beach for many years now without George quietly going about his ways. And even though I know that time marches on and change is inevitable, still, I miss those days. I miss those colorful beach chairs that George built and maintained. I miss that silver ski boat and the long line of skiers waiting to be towed—on skis, not tubes. I miss the red truck and those horned pout and grabbing leaves on the narrow road, which I also miss, and I even miss the dump. I have missed Mr. Richardson for many years now. And now I will miss George too.

Today is George's funeral in Wayne, Maine in the church where we were married 23 years ago. It is the same church where our son, Noah, was baptized 15 years ago and then memorialized a year later. It is an altar we know well. So even though we are 3000 miles away from George's service today, still, we are there in spirit. Rest in Peace, Mr. George Richardson, Lord knows you’ve earned it.

Still Nine-Eleven

2011-09-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

Isaiah’s chubby fingers fondled my neck as I strolled along the beach, my almost two-year-old riding behind in his blue backpack. The air suffused our skin with September warmth and the sky blanketed us in blue, the ocean reflecting its beauty with a peacefulness that would soon be shattered. Later, I would recall this tranquility and remember another day twelve years earlier when, like today, an unusual stillness had permeated the air as I took my lunchtime walk along the San Francisco waterfront. The bay had glistened calmly and the gulls were silent. The earth was holding its breath but we didn’t discern its foreboding. In a few short hours it would exhale a 7.1 Richter scale “OHM,” blowing buildings off their foundations and dangling cars and passengers beneath buckled bridges. This day would likewise bring a bustling city to its knees, forcing folks to shed their coats of isolationism and embrace one another like small-town neighbors seeking comfort and reassurance. But this day would not be defined by Mother Nature. This day would be remembered for Human Nature. And I was preoccupied by my own struggle with life and death.

I kissed my son’s fingers as the gentle Atlantic caressed her baby sands, the comforting weight of my chattering bundle an antidote for the loss of his brother, our ninth baby, due to arrive that very day but who had died mysteriously in March. I’d headed to the beach that morning to think about the short life held four months within the depths of my body and which remained in my soul, like a tiny shard of glass not yet tumbled smooth by time. I smiled at the glimmer of hope now known to me by flutter kicks in my womb and prayed all would go well this time. The gulls screamed overhead, sensing no earthly need for silence.

We concluded our walk and drove towards a doctor’s appointment with my radio tuned to its typical NPR, my meditation interrupted by breaking news unfolding a mere hundred miles away in Manhattan. I listened, stunned, as the familiar voice told how a plane was engulfing thousands in a jet-fueled hell while the beautiful blue day shone all around us. I called my husband who turned on the tv as another plane struck the second World Trade Tower. “People are jumping out of windows,” he said.

I continued driving to my appointment, life marching on for the rest of us. “Did you hear about New York?” I asked the ultrasound technician as she scanned my belly, casually chatting, not expecting any more disasters. I should have known better. My three-month-old swimmer had stopped kicking inside of me and now lay crumpled on the bottom of my womb. Like the day, we all finally became very still. Screaming gulls filled the void where a heart used to beat as people stepped out of windows, flying off to meet my baby.

2011-08-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Duncan Munchkin Kittel

11/17/01 – 7/27/11

Who loved: hot dogs, peanut butter, coconuts, snow, bones, tennis balls, other dog’s toys

And hated: fireworks, loud noises, delivery trucks, mailmen, people touching his ears, that old woman who walked on Second Beach with a white hat

Duncan was born the runt of his litter to Tatum Smallwood on the coast of Oregon and became ours as a promise fulfilled to Christiana with the vision of a mid-sized dog. (He never knew his father.) When we moved to Rhode Island from Salem in 1999 we left our dog, Dude, behind with Andy’s parents and Christiana begged us to let her have one of the first-grade classroom quails. Andy said no but promised her she could get a new dog after we settled in. He flew across country the following December and brought her promise home in time for Christmas and snow. From then on, Duncan always loved snow and would bury his nose in it and sneeze. As we traveled home from the airport we tried on names and asked, “What would be a good east-coast name?” Dunkin Donuts being the quintessential representation of New England, we answered, “Dunkin Munchkin!” And so he was.

Duncan chewed on our stairs and scratched our floors, growing in our hearts and family and vastly exceeding everyone’s expectations until he reached 110 pounds. He was one year younger than Isaiah and they grew up together with Isaiah riding him like a horse. He went to puppy training at the Potter Shelter and passed K-9 training and when we moved to Portugal he stayed with Matt, his trainer, spending a lot of time in Vermont that winter playing in the snow and sneezing with Matt’s other dogs. When we returned, Duncan was five and graced the cover of the Newport Daily News in full color walking Second Beach on a winter day with Andy and I during the controversial leash law debate. He had no leash. Duncan spent many, many happy hours walking with us on the beaches of Rhode Island, Oregon, and Costa Rica chasing tennis balls (each ball lasted only one walk), sticks and coconuts.

Duncan ruled Mohawk Drive, often laying in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. Our yard was littered with his collection of stolen pet toys from the neighborhood animals. His morning routine consisted of walking the kids to the bus and waiting for the bus driver, Gene, to give him a dog treat. After waving goodbye he trotted over to the horse barn and played with the dogs that lived there. Once when he wore the cone of shame for some minor surgery these folks signed it as if it were a cast and it was then that we began to realize that Duncan knew everyone in the ‘hood,’ including folks whom we did not. He spent his days between our house and Jack and Kathy’s across the street where he tortured their cats, Grace and Buddy. When the hour approached each day for Don and Rosemary to come home, Duncan headed across the street to await his daily treat from them. He knew everyone and their schedules and was doubtlessly more popular than were we.

When we moved to Costa Rica, Duncan drove with Andy and Micah in the Black Panther from Rhode Island to Playa Conchal, riding in the back seat as their security guard. It was in the tropics that he developed his obsession with coconuts, ripping them open with his teeth, no easy feat, until he came to the nut inside. He waited all day for someone to throw them to him and never tired of retrieving it. Sometimes he dropped them in the pool and sat and stared at them for hours. He was relentless and could carry them, whole and heavy, to the beach where we would do our best to shot-put all 20 pounds of them into the ocean for him to swim after. He loved to swim in the warm, salty Pacific and we always laugh about the time he was chasing a ball around the pool and he slipped and fell into the deep end. When it came time for us to leave, Duncan flew solo internationally on Continental to Oregon where the Smallwoods picked him up and he hung with his ornery mom until we arrived to build the yurts. A few months later we went up the river to a bonfire and brought Duncan along to see his mom, thinking she would be happy to see her son. She was not, barking at him like he was an intruder.

Duncan was a great friend to G’ma Kittel while we lived with her and she spoiled him with treats and let him sleep in the house. When we finished building the yurts and moved up the creek he made himself at home and usually slept underneath the yurt right beneath where our bed was. Any time we arrived home he came out from under the shade of the yurt to greet us, running alongside the car as we came around the yurts and parked. He was always a very happy fellow and befriended everyone he met. He took to sunning himself in the middle of the forest service road just above our yurts which is where that the Lincoln County dog officer picked him up. It was then that he earned his title, “a dog at large” while serving his time behind bars, even though Andy attempted to inform them that he was simply “a large dog.”

Duncan was diagnosed with bone cancer as we packed up to come home from our second year in Costa Rica in June. When the kids and I arrived on Father’s Day he was so happy to see us and still managed to walk the road with us. But the cancer spread rapidly and he must have been in a lot of pain as the tumors grew daily before our eyes and his hind leg became useless. Still, he rarely complained. He visited Christiana in RI in a dream and told her he could wait for her arrival at the end of July. And he did. He waited for her in the shade under the yurt, gradually coming out only to eat. His friend, Mocha, visited him daily and kept him company. Christiana arrived and Duncan rallied enough to take one last evening stroll with us down along the creek. The next day we loaded him into the van for his final trip to the beach. He made it down the ramp to where we all collapsed in the warm, soft sand and pet him. He watched the other dogs playing and even socialized with a few of them as we made our way back to the car for the sad trip to the vet. The vet came out to the car and relieved Duncan of all of his pain while reciting the poem, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”

Duncan’s pain was erased and ours began. He left us with sand in our ears and tears streaming down our faces for our great and terrible loss. We brought his body home and laid him to rest in a large hole under a gnarled apple tree, scattering wildflowers in the freshly turned earth. A moss-covered crook in the branch juts out over the foot of his grave and it is lovely to sit in and swing your feet. It is Bella’s favorite place to climb to and practice her jumping off. Countless times in the ten lovely years that Duncan was ours I would find myself on his tail end as he greeted one friend or another, bearing the brunt of his enthusiasm unhappily as he smacked me with the strength of his strong appendage. Duncan lived the motto, “Wag More, Bark Less.” Now we will sit on a mossy cushion watching the flowers bloom and blanket our beloved Duncan, wishing forever to complain so again.

Photo Book

2011-08-01T20:53:00.001-07:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

When It Rains...

2011-06-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

It pours. And it is, pouring, right now. Rainy season is upon us here in the tropics, as well as graduation season. Many years ago I suppose we figured out that this time would come when Hannah would be graduating from some as-yet-undetermined college and Micah from a similar high school. And even though we have had all these years to prepare ourselves, still, it is impossible to foresee anything until it is staring you in the face. I am fairly certain we never imagined that Micah would be graduating from Country Day School in Costa Rica.

But he has. With honors. Perhaps even as valedictorian of his class but the school has been unable to calculate that particular honor, math apparently not being their strong subject, being that the director hit the stage carrying only 7 diplomas to the commencement for 8. Woops. And this one short week after we witnessed Georgetown successfully distribute diplomas to over 6000. (Okay, it is true, however, that GU also distributed over 6000 commencement books to the proud participants on which the cover boldly proclaimed 2011 in gold lettering accompanied by three words - Commencement, Georgetown, and UniverISty. And this in their 222nd year of producing commencement books. I believe they may be hiring a new copy editor if you can handle the pressure.)

Out here on the playa we are CDS-G, as in the Guanacaste branch of our American school in paradise. The original campus is in San Jose and they appear to have the same math affliction as Friday's Tico Times sported a shining photo and listed no less than 78 colleges and univerSIties that their graduating class of 40 will be attending next year. Pura Vida.

We had a lovely graduation night on Thursday last with speeches by each graduate and flowers for each proud Mom. Micah distinguished himself by winning one of the school's two special awards - The Ann Wellnhofer Science Award. Ms. Wellnhofer was the first science teacher at the school some 11 years ago when it opened but it seems she was subsequently fired for being out-spoken. I am assuming he was chosen for his science ability only. Tough shoes to fill, perhaps. Thank you Anne, wherever you are.

And so our year here in paradise is coming rapidly to a close. We came with the intention of allowing Micah to graduate with his amigos. Check. Hats off to Micah. We are very proud of you.

K3

Lucky Stars

2011-05-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Two days ago was Friday the 13^th. Yesterday was Jonah’s 13^th birthday. Only I don’t really get how that works in heaven. Having died at birth, he never even learned to breathe, much less eat cake. So I am not sure how he celebrated the first of his teen-age years. Here on earth one of us was rowing, one was mowing, one was living out of her car, two played basketball, and one was beating a pinata at a birthday party. I ate cake. Not angel food, but chocolate with chocolate chips. And it was delicious. So let me be the one to say, Happy Birthday Jonah. Wish you were here.

I am not a numbers person. I like words. But if I had to pick a number that seems to recur in my life it would have to be 13. I was born on November 13th and before I retired my uterus from active duty, it held 13 babies in various stages of development. So, 13 is the most likely candidate for my lucky number, although I have never considered myself to be particularly lucky.

In a few days I will be on a plane heading north to Hannah’s graduation from Georgetown. I am as proud as a parent can be and grateful for the good fortune of having Hannah in my life. Hannah can not only breathe but she exhales in Portuguese. She lived in Rio without getting robbed (and DC) and imparted some amount of wisdom to young girls in a favela and pre-teens in DC public schools. Her Brazilian skills also include wearing a micro-bikini, creative sarong-tying, and mixing up a mean caipirinha. Hannah is good at eating cake and mastered the free daily flavor at Georgetown Cupcake. She won an award for her excellent shelving ability in the science reference library and can play a pretty good game of flip cup. She learned to row and to run and to understand Physics while keeping her sense of humor and leading her team as co-captain. And even though her family abandoned her by moving thousands of miles away, she found her way.

Hannah attended the inauguration of our nation’s first black president and slept on the mall under the stony watch of Lincoln to hold a spot for the preceding concert. She never used the computer lock I insisted on buying her freshman year which she insisted she did not need, and, indeed, did not. She lost one bike but managed to recover another. Perhaps she should have used the computer lock for her bike. She also misplaced one highly coveted office chair but hung on to a fancy flat screen tv and my sister’s futon. She once fell asleep while standing in a Southwest boarding line and has slept through every alarm clock ever made. Because of this, she missed one flight to Maine and was late for more than one final. But when her boat capsized during spring training, she successfully swam to safety.

Hannah of the Georgetown class of 2011: Wear sunscreen. In your potential future as a dermatologist, the wisdom of those two words will become increasingly clear. Congratulations on your many achievements as well as mastering the fine art of DC public transportation. Thank you for staying safe for four years and for making it through. Thank you for being such a great leader—to your team, your friends, and your siblings. And for being such a great daughter for your parents.

Mommy loves you.

Siempre Stamp

2011-03-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago my friend Susan was robbed. Now this in and of itself is sadly not a rare event here in paradise, where some have more para and others more dise. But the fact that Susan had also just lost her one and only sister, Karen, made this news that was just plain wrong. In fact, she had only just returned from her sister's memorial service in the big cold apple. At the time of the robbery, Susan was in her office creating a memorial video on her computer for her sister's children and was lost in cyberspace as the robbers happily helped themselves to her purse and the usual variety of easily-sold electronic items. Her dogs did their best to alert her to the I-theft in progress but she ignored them until they insisted. She was visiting with Karen, after all, who was laughing and talking and so deceptively real only inches in front of her. She had been feeling an aching void in her life where Karen used to be and the virtual fix was filling that emptiness. So who can blame her for cursing her dogs and staying in her chair with Karen?

The thieves took all they could carry. And while her friends cringed to hear the news, Susan philosophized that at least these were worldly possessions and therefore replaceable, given her recent reminder of the things that are not. And even though her passport was gone and a trip scheduled in a few days, yes, she could fly to San Jose and pay for a quick replacement. As she made her arrangements, the phone rang. Three touristas were walking up the steps from the playa nearby and had found some of her stuff, her passport included. She went to meet them.

"My friends were ahead of me," one of the girls told her, "and I was hurrying to catch up when I happened to look down. And then I spotted it. A postage stamp."

When Susan was leaving NYC the week before, her niece and nephew had encouraged her to take her sister's purse. Not wanting the whole thing, she decided to just take just one small thing that would remind her of her sister. Randomly, she selected a book of stamps. She tucked them into her wallet and had kind of forgotten about them until the girl said, "stamp."

The tourista continued, "I thought to myself, well that is odd, what on earth is a US postage stamp doing sitting here in the bushes? So I reached down to pick it up and that's when I noticed the rest of the things."

Apparently the thieves had sat in that same spot to survey their booty. And there they had discarded the items which were of no use to them--passport, credit cards, postage stamps.

"I was praying daily to Karen to come back to me, to let me know that she was still a presence in my life," Susan said. "As soon as that girl found those stamps, I knew Karen was here."

Folks often comfort themselves and others with the mantra that everything happens for a reason. And while we sometimes wait a lifetime to divine the mystery of purpose, for Susan this was a profoundly simple example. For even as she set about replacing her worldly possessions, her otherworldly ones were restored. "I lost my stuff, but found my sister. Not to say that I am glad I was robbed. But I am."

The booklet of stamps is tucked safely in her new wallet. Having never bothered to check what kind of stamps they were, upon their return she realized the cover proclaimed--Forever.

K3

Follow the Light

2011-01-30T07:02:00.000-08:00

One facet of life I have learned to embrace in a town where "tan" is a verb is the absolute lack of any kind of schedule on most days. It takes some getting used to for us over-scheduled Americans with our color-coded calendars, but easing into the day and trusting it to bring it on is a lovely change of pace. I am never disappointed looking back at what has transpired when the sun sinks into the sea at day's end. While my friends in the States are waking up to a Saturday morning and negotiating the commitments of the day with their spouses about who will take X to indoor soccer and who will head to the hockey rink with Y, Bella and I are carrying our white plastic chairs out to the short wall that separates us from the beach to drink coffee and watch the world go by.

Yesterday we exited our casa with the intention of watching the surfers and reading her Wizard of Oz script since Bella is to be a munchkin in her stage debut. As we were settling down in the morning shade, we noticed a few trees down from us a double line of people extending from the top of the playa to the water's edge. Thinking it some kind of Little Mermaid wedding rehearsal where the bride emerges from the sea to join her landlubbing spouse, we turned back to Dorothy when Delbert, the rasta surf instructor, sauntered over and said, "Baby sea turtles are hatching." Now we have watched countless female turtles heave themselves up the beach and have worshiped at their feet with sand flinging in our faces while observing every step of the turtle-egg-laying process on many a star-filled night And recently I was paddleboarding around a mating pair of olive ridleys when an extra male-in-waiting surfaced right in front of me and exhaled loudly. But the running of the babies is the one step in the making of sea turtles that I have never seen. And the fact that a turtle dared to lay her eggs on Tamarindo beach qualifies as a small miracle in and of itself.

I grabbed my camera and we ran over to watch, arriving at the water's edge when what appeared to be the last little guy took his final sandy steps and was introduced to the salt water he would call home for the rest of his or her life. Baby sea turtles do not have sex chromosomes so the ole' pink or blue is completely dependent upon the temperature of their nest. If the eggs incubate at an ideal 83 to 85 degrees they will be a nice mix of each. Anything warmer results in all females and anything colder creates a hundred or more bouncing baby boys. As a wave washed over this particular baby and he was given the old sink or swim mandate, he never hesitated for a second, bravely paddling like a pro away from the crowd of humans photographing his every first step.

With a sigh of happiness and a prayer that this would be the one in a thousand to survive, we began our journey back to the land of Oz awaiting us in our chairs and were just settling down in Munchkinland again when we noticed that folks were still congregating at the top of the beach from whence the baby turtles began their journey. Some of the few things we understand about sea turtles include that they are born with a caruncle - word for the day. A caruncle is a sharp egg tooth which gives the pointy appearance to the little guy here. The caruncle is used by the ninos to break out of their egg shells and then it falls off, bringing to mind a sweet anthropomorphic image of the turtle tooth fairy depositing gifts of tiny molluscs under sea sponge pillows. Once the baby turtles come out of their shells (pun intended) they remain underground in their flipper-deep nests for days slurping up raw egg-yolk from their shells and building strength like Rocky in training, only not for a title match but to survive their first few days at sea during their crash course in deciphering food from non-food.

(This, incidentally, has become more of a challenge for the lonely little turtles thanks to all the tiny floating plastic pellets and tar balls we have introduced to their snack selection, which is one of many contributing factors as to why all six species of the world's sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered and why you, too, can pay thousands of dollars per week to "volunteer" to save them in countries like this one while the rest of us are busy tanning.)

Meanwhile, back in their hole, the hatchlings chat amongst themselves and determine when it is time to move on up. Then, in a remarkable feat of sibling cooperation unknown in the mammal world, they all coordinate their efforts and work harmoniously to dig themselves up to the surface. Once they approach the light, they resist the urge to break free of the claustrophobic confines of their womb, demonstrating remarkable reptilian restraint by waiting until the sand cools off, which typically signals night. The wee ones can then emerge under the cover of darkness and avoid daytime predators as they scramble towards the sounds and sights of the sea, swimming away to the rest of their lives. The end.

Bella and I then observed people running from the top of the beach to the ocean cradling something in their hands. "What are they doing now?" we wondered as we abandoned Zelda, the wicked witch, to her unlucky fate and returned to have a look. To my dismay, I saw that our Tica neighbor was now on her chunky knees in her housedress digging into the turtle nest and pulling out handfuls of baby turtles and eggs. A group of misguided mammals all joined in on the action, thinking they could somehow improve on what these reptiles had somehow been successfully doing for over 200 million years without them and their supposedly superior intelligence.

To my horror, they started pulling baby turtles out of their eggs and rushing them down to the sea. When a few of us folks tried to curb their enthusiasm, myself included, by begging them to leave them alone, Tica threw her weight around and imparted her infinite wisdom that the nest was too deep and too compacted from, of all things, people walking on it and that these turtles would die if they did not save them. Save the turtles? Even though they did risk becoming breakfast for hovering birds and crabs, the process of crawling the gauntlet from sand to sea is considered to be a critical event in the new life of a baby turtle. They need the exercise to strengthen their flippers for swimming and they need to smell the particulates of their natal beach in order to return once they have survived their "lost years" at sea, having successfully grown to the size of a dinner plate instead of being served on one.

Saddened and concerned, we returned to Oz where only Zelda's legs were happily sticking out from underneath a house. Later that morning Bella and I were walking on the beach past the spot where the turtles had become swimmers when a couple stopped us. "We found this swimming around," the husband said, cradling a baby sea turtle in his hands with some combination of shock and awe. "That is probably because it is disoriented," I told him and informed him that this was where it had had its first swimming lesson that morning. "This would be a good place to put it down and let it crawl back in the water," I suggested. He glanced at his treasured souvenir and determined, "No, I think it's tired. I think I'll hold it and let it rest awhile." "Whatever," I thought resignedly, "I am sure you know best." We walked on, our heads filled with ruby slippers and swimming turtles, towards whatever the rest of the day would bring.

K3

Make New Friends

2011-01-18T05:56:00.000-08:00

I am 49 years old and I just had my first friend cancel our friendship like a postal worker. No, obviously she didn’t kill me. She “resigned” as my friend. Now this is probably not the first time I have lost a friend and it is definitely not the first time I have been excommunicated as a family member, but that is another story. In fact, this may not even come as any great surprise to some of you. And it could be that I have joined the whining ranks of the “unfriended” on facebook but would I even know? Ignorance is bliss.

In elementary school I had fights with my friends but there were happy endings with skipping home from school together once again. I had an older brother and was somewhat of a tomboy, fancying myself as kind of tough, so this probably happened on a regular basis just so I could keep in shape for kickball.

High school brought the added drama of hormones to the playground and discrepancies usually revolved around boys. At the ninth grade dance my so-called friend’s so-called boyfriend persuaded me to tell him that so-called had in fact been “cheating” on him, promising never to tell her what I said and then proceeding to march right on over and create a big scene which somehow ended with the two of them happily making out to the teenage equivalent of make-up sex – an hour of rotating to Stairway to Heaven. And while their lips slowly chapped my own so-called date marched home to the tune of their lies about me ringing in his ears, closely followed by yours truly. A brilliant retreat except that I was staying at so-called’s house for the night, the unhappy details of which I have happily forgotten by process of selective brain cell loss. (Now that is an interesting concept coming as it is on the aching heels of a deadly drinking/disco combination at Super Wendy’s birthday bash the other night. Would that we could target the brain cells we’d like to lose.)

What I do recall about the ninth grade dance besides one more polyester dress with matching blue eyeshadow plus a bad experience with so-called’s sunlamp which has cost me a lot of money forever-after in the form of expensive sunglasses to protect my once-burned retinas (actually, that came later in preparation for the Starlight Ball or some other gropefest which must mean that even that friendship was rekindled, ah, yes, it must have been because she later became my brother’s girlfriend which once inspired him to punch the wall and break his hand. So really we all should have kept our distance.) But I do still wonder to this day what they told my retreating date to make him leave me standing at the ninth grade equivalent of the altar but was too embarrassedly mortified to ever ask him. Surely, it can’t have been very flattering. So MM, wherever you are, you should know that whatever they said, I didn’t do it. I was a virgin in every sense but especially in the ways of mean girls and their so-called boyfriends.

On beyond high school the friends I lost were usually of the opposite sex. Boys morphed from friends into lovers and girlfriends were more or less what I did in between. So I lost the menfolk in one way or another also. Sometimes that was mutual and sometimes as dramatic as losing them to their own awakening sexuality or to death - which was certainly neither voluntary nor a resignation. I lost the good graces of their families and sometimes our mutual friends as well depending on the severity of devastated dreams.

But here I am midstream in life and I am reminded of the song we sang as wee Brownies while toasting marshmallows around the campfire: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.” We sang it in rounds. Over and over. Until the fading echoes of the final verse tickled the stars above and we all shivered from the beauty of our high young voices and from too much sugar. Maybe it was the s’mores, but somehow those words stuck with me. I don’t discard friends. I am the one sending hundreds of smiling greetings to all holiday corners of the globe each year. I have moved around a lot, as you might surmise from the title of this blog, and I drag my friends along with me, ready or not. I love to laugh and to make new friends and the writer in me loves to listen to other people’s stories. I have friends I see daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, and annually. I have friends I never see and rarely if ever hear from but still I wonder about them at 4 a.m., hold them in my heart and hope they will darken my doorstep again some day. Some of you might agree that I am a good friend to have; some of you might be reading this with a sneer on your lips. Thanks to the world-wide-web I have no idea who reads this but I am smiling at you all as I type.

I may have lost friends along the way, even as recent as recently, but the deliberateness of this particular incident is what is new. No guesswork about, “I resign as your friend.” Can you do that? What if I don’t reciprocate? My friendship is not a commodity, after all. There are no returns nor refunds. It is given freely, like the sunset. You may forget about it or choose not to look but it is there, sinking into the sea with a glowing smile every evening all the same. And it goes on and on and on.

As a supposedly mature adult whose life is more than half over, what is my response to this? Enter serenity prayer stage left please and endow me with the wisdom to know the difference, por favor. Enter Maya Angelou stage right and remind me once again that if I don’t like something, change it, if I can’t change it, change the way I think about it. Enter that hokey song and know when to walk away or when to run. I certainly won’t beat her up on the playground. I could spread rumors like in high school, but never mastered the art of subterfuge. So I guess that leaves accepting her decision with grace and humility, moving along and wondering when I might run into her in the marshmallow aisle at Auto Mercado.

My response so far? “Wow.” I know, a simple yet profound palindrome. So, strike up the fire and unwrap the Hershey bars. It’s time to add a new verse and sing along. “Make new friends, but keep the old, if they unfriend you, that’s pretty cold. Or welcome to the fold. Or send them some mold.” I’ll have the s’mores ready in case she wanders by at sunset. An open invitation.

Star of Wonder

2011-01-09T08:59:00.001-08:00

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea . . . Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." . . . They went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.” - Matthew 2

Dear Friends and Family, near and far,

On the twelfth day of Christmas I am finally sending you our holiday epistle. I apologize if you were hoping for twelve lords a leapin’ instead. We have been busy embracing each of those dozen days in their entirety, this being the only time of year we are all together as a family. We have been lazy and indulgent in the welcome presence of each other with long days on the beach walking, shell collecting, swimming, shadow tagging, reading, surfing, and teaching Bella to ride her bike at low tide. Each day begins with morning coffee watching the surf and ends with the sun melting into the Pacific in front of us.

If life is a beach, ours is here in Costa Rica. In August I moved back to Tamarindo with the three youngest kids where we live on the playa in Casa Azul and rarely miss a sunset. I have traded my glittens for a bikini and sleep with the sounds of the surf outside my window. It is lovely to be back, basking in the warmth of the tropics and in the smiles of our friends.

We have kissed the yurt-filled 2010 farewell and will send it on its journey into the annals of the past once this missive is concluded. 2011 is stirring to life now and resolutions for its success and productivity are set firmly-ish in place as we each begin following the stars which lead us onward. I am still searching for the literary agent who will lead me down the path to publication. Andy is busy expanding Silke communications and firing up his sawmill with periodical tropical excursions here to see us. (No, after 22 years of marriage we are not getting divorced!)

Hannah was selected to be Captain of the Varsity Crew Team in her Senior year at Georgetown and is hoping to lead them down the path to victory. She will be graduating in May with a degree in Physics, a minor in Portuguese, and a pre-med concentration, hoping (along with her father) that these credentials will lead her to employment and into med school.

Christiana is in her freshman year at University of MA in Amherst and beginning her journey to perhaps become a wildlife biologist.

Micah will graduate from CDSG here and his college applications have headed off into cyberspace. Hopefully a few acceptances will travel back in his direction soon.

Isaiah is studying in a bi-lingual fifth grade class and his preferred path lately has been along the face of the waves out in front of our house as he and Micah learn to surf.

Bella is starting her academic journey and on track to master the art of reading in the first grade. She is full of joy and very observant of the feats and foibles of her older siblings. And parents.

As we head towards 2012, we are hoping the Mayans were math-challenged. But just in case they were not, we hope you are living your dreams. May the stars you follow be worthy of song.

“Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to Thy perfect light.”

Bring me to your Chef!

2010-11-29T07:49:00.000-08:00

I am teaching 16 first and second graders which is why I am not blogging very often and why, in all likelihood, you will probably be hearing a lot of classroom anecdotes if you hear from me at all in the next months. Last week was our big Thanksgiving program at school followed by our Feast, even tho the Costa Ricans are not big fans of the pilgrims, or pil-GRAMS, as Alexa calls them with emphasis. But being an American school we pulled out all the stops and I ate three turkey dinners before the week was over. I love turkey and I am, after all, a living example of what the pilgrims were to become, twelve generations after they hit the rock. So I can never get enough turkey and can whip up a pilgrim hat with little prelude.

For the occasion and to honor my forefathers, my amiga and I wrote an original Thanksgiving play called, with great imagination, "Thanksgiving Play." I wanted to write "Thanksgiving, the musical," but Bono was busy on Broadway working on Spiderman. So we settled for something with less of a score. Like every other first and second grade classroom in America, and one or two beyond its pilgrim-loving borders, we enacted the whole story starting in England with the King as villain disallowing his subjects to pray as they please, then moving on to Holland where the children became naughty because, after all, this was the home of Amsterdam so what were they thinking anyway and they were praying freely but in Dutch, what?! In an act of linguistic desperation, the pilgrims hired the Mayflower and the ill-fated Speedwell which you may, or may not recall (I had forgotten it myself) which proved to be holier than thou and began sinking soon after they set sail.

The pilgrims limped back to Holland where their kids once again had to translate every blooming conversation their parents attempted which, incidentally, is something my own kids can relate to in our current cross-cultural living situation. When they had successfully crammed all 100 pilgrims onto the Mayflower they set sail for America again, take two. When given a replica of the Mayflower to color in class, many of my students chose to decorate the sails with brightly colored flowers - get it? - in a much-improved version of the dingy white ones which were impossible to clean and with which those plain folks grew quickly bored and which might have cheered them up on their two month voyage had they simply admitted that plain and boring was not necessarily the only pathway to heaven. There being no floating hospitals in the midst of the Atlantic, at least not in 1620, Oceanus was born at sea and he was a boy but in a brilliant stroke of artistic license coupled by a shortage of boys in our class, we cast he as a she.

Finally the pilgrims hit the rock, which is yet another brilliant stroke of artistic license by the history makers, as you surely know if you have ever been to Plymouth to see the famed Rock which sits in a cage and typically results in exclamations of disbelief and a vast sense of being both underwhelmed and somehow misled by both history books and first grade teachers everywhere even though you find yourself squinting at said stone as you are simultaneously blinded by the flash photography of busloads of Asian tourists who seem quite happy with this scheduled stop at the rock on their tour even tho the rock is really more like a pebble. But maybe the Japanese are used to things being a little smaller than previously imagined. Meanwhile, back at our story, the pilgrims hit the promised land where they see not only that they will be free to pray as they please but that they had better get started because it was November in New England and, as Rumor (brilliantly played by Bella) notes immediately, "There are no flowers here!" Which, in our play, is succeeded by similar sentimental expressions of surprise and dismay culminating in Rumor lamenting, "Who will help us?"

This is where Squanto appears to save the day by showing them how to use the very first organic fish fertilizer to plant their corn and pease (simple living somehow included adding an extra -e to every word), all of which leads to the following year when the stalwart survivors decide to forego hiring prestigious party planners from the island of Mannahatta and opt to plan their own simple and organic, yet humble, first Thanksgiving feast. In reading this part of the story in class, Camillo - a native Costa Rican who would ultimately go on to play Chief Massasoit - was supposed to say, 'I will bring my chief." Instead, with a slip of the tongue coupled by an inability to read, which is probably how most of history has evolved, Camillo said, "I will bring my chef." Which was probably a better idea anyway.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving,

K3

When trees fly...

2010-11-02T09:44:00.001-07:00

Q: So where have I been?
A: Oregon.
Q: Doing what?
A: Building "high-quality overwintering habitat" for coho salmon which were listed as "threatened" species in 2008.
Q: What?
A: Have you heard about the ARRA? How about the Economic Stimulus Package signed by Obama in 2009? I like to think of it as the modern-day WPA and if you have driven across America lately you understand why. All across our wide nation are men and machines toiling away on highway and bridge projects being brought to you by the ARRA.

In our little neck of the woods up Canal Creek we just flew 312 massive fir trees via chinook helicopter (no relation to the fish) which strategically placed them in designed structures across the creek to build coho habitat. Functioning rather like larger, more expensive beaver dams, these structures will create "stream complexity" and deep pools where the wee ones can hang out for a year or so without being eaten or flushed out by heavy winter rains before they are ready to make the transition to bigger and better and brackish and saltier waterways.

If you have never seen a 23K lb. tree fly, believe me when i tell you that it is a sight to see. We only managed to get a portion of the 1000 trees planned for four different waterways before the rains began and the fish moved upstream but we will hopefully continue where we left off next year flying trees and spending almost a cool million ARRA dollars. I thank you, America, and you, President Obama, and the coho do too.

Here is another photo from my trip. And no, these are not coho, these are chinook. This is Andy and I celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary by catching the first legal salmon of his life. (You will have to ask him about the others.) IN the two weeks I was there, we went to an 18-year-old birthday party, a 50th wedding anniversary, the Governor's Gold Awards in Portland, the laundromat (where I folded my clothes while eavesdropping on an interesting conversation about channel catfish in Arkansas), the pool, and Target where I erroneously got in the 10-item lane with over $300 of stuff (including a tropical-scented deodorant that I think I bought after smelling way too many because it reminded me of Costa Rica but ultimately made me walk around smelling like a bad candle) and where I instantly made several new enemies in Eugene, Oregon. Lo siento.

I got my hair cut, co-hosted our monthly writing workshop featuring my favorite pen pal and funny tween author Dale Basye and a Conversation Project for our town to help decide what Waldport wants to be when it grows up. I opened my first business checking account for my first business--Coho Consulting--and ate the best chocolate creme brulee EVER at Panache in Newport, don't miss it. We had dinner with friends at their house and at our yurt and in general had fun playing yurt without the kids around and ate so much salmon I am afraid I am now, absolutely, part fish. We saw a dead stellar sea lion on the beach, purportedly from leptospirosis, and I came upon a smaller California sea lion resting at the tide line who looked very hungry. Hopefully he will have more salmon to eat soon.

K3

Go Ask Alice

2010-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

Fifteen months ago (a lifetime for some) we met Alice. That's her there on the left. Although you can't tell in the photo, Alice has no tail and was raised at Capitan Suizo, a hotel on the beach in Tamarindo. At the time we were renting a house two doors south of the hotel and now we are living in a tree house two doors north where the local gang of howlers wake us up at 530 every morning--who needs an alarm clock? Some nights they sleep in the tree over the house and have their coffee klatch directly overhead, flinging their noisy news and bits of breakfast onto the roof and pooping, well, you get the picture. When the gang moves through the 'hood, one male consistently stops to peek at us over the edge of the roof or to otherwise come closer for a chat. We finally noticed that he had no tail but was clearly a male, the dangling white cojones not leaving much room for speculation.

Last week Bella and I stopped by the hotel to check on the progress of a lora (olive ridley sea turtle) they were rehabilitating and on Friday at sunset we stood on the playa and waved goodbye to her. (I am certain she was Maude or Mildred, but that is another story blogged about earlier.) Talking to Hector, the hotel wildlife guy, I asked about the overtly friendly howler hanging around the 'hood and he informed me that our tailless socialite is none other than Alice, herself! Turns out young howlers are rather amorphous in their private parts and that Alice was a bit of a misnomer. The good news is that the local gang has accepted her-m because it also turns out that a tail is a critical component of howler attraction and so, alas, poor Alice is not considered much of a threat in the mating department. The bad news is that Alice's lack of a tail will probably preclude him from getting any. So, Alice must be content to hang around as best he can, socializing with distant relatives, and generally making a life for himself.

Pura Vida.

Con Mucho Gusto!

2010-06-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

One of the more endearing terms used by Costa Ricans with frequency is, "Con mucho gusto," which is often shortened to simply, "Mucho gusto." Any time you try out your amateur Spanish by thanking someone with a "gracias," or really showing off with a "mucho gracias," the automatic response will be that simple phrase--Mucho gusto. It is a lovely retort and I prefer it to our standard, "you're welcome." Whether you are in a restaurant or the grocery check-out line, any time you find yourself giving a perfunctory thanks to someone they will respond, "with pleasure," or "with much pleasure."

One of the sure marks of an amateur writer these days is the use of what we were taught to call the exclamation mark or point. Fairly soon into your writing career or your MFA program you will learn to indicate all forms of excitement and horror along with all adverbs by simply choosing a better verb to denote the exact extreme emotion you are attempting to convey. (Thus, the blurb at the top of my blog.) I freely admit that I, myself, am a formerly-frequent user of the now-dreaded and tres-gauche punctuation mark I used to put at the end of almost every sentence of every email I ever wrote to denote my happiness and excitement to my friends and family. Then I had a friend tell me her husband says reading exclamation marks makes him feel like he is being yelled at. This was certainly never my intent and thankfully I have never written to him or he would have run from the room, hands over eyes, screaming with a trail of periods following behind. And then I had an editor tell me you are allowed maybe three exclamation marks per book. What? Well, admission is the first step and I trainable. So I am well on my way to being the writer formerly known by her profligate usage of the exclamation mark. Not to mention those pesky adverbs...

Now without further ado, let me put these two seemingly disparate paragraphs together with a little Memorial Day tale. On Sunday we had a brief break in the rain here on the coast where a 3-day weekend fills every road and all vacant spaces with campers and I don't mean tents. I mean enough equipment to duplicate all the comforts of home BUT you are "camping." Seeing a bit of blue open up in the heavens above was all we needed by way of encouragement and we headed for the beach which was uncharacteristically packed with people, many of whom actually thought that frolicking in near-freezing water was great holiday fun. Until they did it. We had a nice long walk to the "big stump" which is a huge redwood remnant that has been sticking up out of the sands since Andy can remember and that is something on a beach where full-length trees are tossed about like match sticks by the waves and tides and nothing stays put. Except that stump. Bella packed snacks and books and we took a stump break and the five of us generally enjoyed ourselves to the point where we even stripped down to one layer for a moment or two.

Our journey yielded not even one intact sand dollar, given the hordes combing the intertidal zone, and upon our return we sat down to put on our shoes because in spite of the fact that the weather is worse now than in the winter, we bravely marched forth in our bare feet in deference to the calendar more than anything else. As we sat collecting ourselves Isaiah began to write a B in the sand with his stick. "Look, a "B," I noted to Bella sitting next to me, "I wonder what Isaiah is going to write?" "E," I continued, I guess he is writing "be."

She laughed with the assurance of a 6-year-old, "No, he's writing Bella." (Note: Here my natural inclination is to end her sentence with the exclamation point that follows almost every sentence of a 6-year-old with all their enthusiasm for even the most mundane aspects of life, all of which, of course, are still new and exciting to them. But I have learned to slap the little finger of my left hand when it wanders too close to that now-rarely-used key which can only be touched when typing the number 1.) And sure enough, Isaiah continued to write two L's and an A. "Bella," Bella exclaimed period. But then Isaiah continued to draw another line.

"Hmmm, now what is he writing?" I asked her, "Kittel?" But just then he lifted his stick and then poked it back into the sand with a flourish and finality, to her delight.

"A Gusto Mark," she exclaimed. (Again, see note above.) We all looked at each other and at her with curiosity and laughed. A gusto mark? I have no idea where she got this name for the punctuation formerly known as an exclamation something. Did she learn it in Kindergarten, as she said? Or did she hear the teacher wrong and put her Spanish and English vocabularies together in a cheerful new Spanglish punctuation term? Either way, it is a very fitting name for the much-maligned sentence ending which has fallen from grace. But I think Bella could well be on her way to changing that. (Or her middle name is not...)

K3

PS The photo is of the very-excited Bella at her dance recital which was akin to Christmas with the counting down of days and everything.

Dear Emily,

2010-05-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Belated Birthday. Tuesday was your big day. On that afternoon I sat in my van at the Nye Beach parking lot overlooking the endless progression of Pacific waves while Bella practiced for her ballet recital. Isaiah sat in the back seat behind me watching a movie. It was a sunny day but the wind had come up, strong, and a kite flyer struggled to hang on to his wings which threatened to abandon their tether and take him for a ride. And then, Emily, your mom and your grandparents arrived. They parked their silver sedan in the row in front of me and I watched your mom's back as she struggled to unfold herself into the elements, her fists clutching four balloons filled with helium and hope. Before I had even read the Happy Birthday messages printed on their bubblegum backgrounds, I knew it was your birthday. And I knew you weren't here.

Your mom wore a black leather jacket, its wind-driven fringe whipping her onward while those balloons pulled her closer to you. I know she would have gladly abandoned herself to the lift. Your three loved ones wrapped their arms around themselves against the weather and the missing you as they proceeded down to the hard-packed sand with I, and perhaps you, their only audience. When they reached the darker shades of sand they huddled together as your mom patiently unwrapped the desperately entwined ribbons. I wondered if it had been so when she was forced to say goodbye to you. Had she simply, helplessly let go of you, all wrapped up and twisted together with parts of herself? Or had some stranger peeled her pleading fingers from your blue skin, one by one, prying her loving warmth from you on that cold day and leaving you covered with only her fingerprints? What had happened to you, Dear Emily?

Finally your mom succeeded in her grosgrained task. She distributed your enthusiastic balloons to the helpless hands of her parents. The three of them busied themselves taking photographs of each other holding your gifts. And then they just stopped and stood there a minute. Maybe they spoke. Maybe they had already said all there ever was to say. On silent cue, they let your birthday presents go, sending them soaring to you, Emily, wherever you are. We all watched, desperately straining our eyes as your balloons ascended on an upward current--up, up, and away. We lost sight of them as they disappeared over the rooftops of houses built too close to the eroding cliff sides which the sea will shortly claim as its own, just as perhaps you were doing then with your birthday balloons.

Your mom found a stick and began to write to you in the dark brown sand, packed hard and cold by receding salty water. I knew without looking what your mom was writing--the same thing I would write were I down there with the wind whipping my face with my hair and my jacket fringe instead of wrapped in the warm cocoon of my car, watching. We bore silent witness, your grandparents and I, with your grandmother bending in to help her bereaved daughter as best she could, lengthening a letter here and there. I, in turn, kept silent pace with your mom in my head, slowly, painfully learning your name. While your mom scratched with the hard, brown stick that had once exhaled soft, green leaves, so I, too, engraved each character in my head, etching H's and A's into the pink tissues of my brain.

When at last we ceased inscribing the happiest and saddest words a mother can sing, your mom straightened her weary spine and your loved ones took their final photos of your big day. Wanting only photos of you, Emily, laughing and smiling so pretty while blowing out your candles and opening your presents, they settled for snapshots of themselves waving bye bye to balloons and inscribing sandy birthday cards with forced smiles on bewildered faces. The three of them fought the wind back to their car and I watched them climb back in more easily now, unfettered by some of their heavy burdens. They drove away, your mom clutching a dead stick with a damp and sandy end--one more thing for Emily's baby book.

I started my own car but before I left to collect my ballerina, I asked Isaiah to run like the wind down to the sea's edge and learn your name. "It says, Happy Birthday Emily," he panted upon his return, "5-11-88 to 3-5-09." So it was your 22nd birthday, Emily. You were born the year we were married and the year before Hannah, our firstborn, who just turned 21. You, Emily, did not quite make it. Today is her brother Jonah's 12th birthday. He was born three days after your tenth birthday but he has only that one date, 5-14-98, as his birth was also his death. I won't be buying any blue balloons and any messages I send will be invisibly transmitted from my heart to my heart, which holds him still. And besides, my brain is now permanently scarred. But, Emily, I might prevail upon you to share your balloons and your spirit with Jonah. I like to think of the two of you laughing and playing tag with his brother, Noah, and all of your too-many friends in the warmer, friendlier waves of your home. By now the selfish Pacific has claimed your birthday card. That is bittersweet. Like so many things in life, the words were only temporary. The message, however, is eternal.

Yours,

Jonah's mom

PS Happy Birthday Jonah. Mommy loves you. As your sister, Bella, said yesterday with a heavy sigh, "I wish he was real."

Happy Mothers Day!

2010-05-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Mothers Day all you Moms out there in cyberspace. Good work if you can get it, as my Mom would say. Like most of you, I cleaned yesterday so I wouldn't have to do it today. Woke up with just Bella, the rest of my kids and Andy currently scattered around the country. So sweet receiving her Kindergarten gifts--a book about "My Mom and I..." with great illustrations and a cute pink teapot card that says, "Here's a card for Mother's Day, I'll try to be my best each day. But if you get upset with me, Relax and have a cup of tea." It has a tea bag inside. Decaf. I'll probably never need it. Right.

Thank goodness for teachers. Without them we would not get these lovely momentos of our kids early years. Certainly the Georgetown professors are not sitting their students down with glue sticks and markers to make gifts for their Moms. I wonder what they would produce if they did? Certainly they are good with scissors by then. Ditto for Jrs and Srs in high school. I guess by the time they reach these advanced grades the teachers figure these kids can work independently, however misguided that may be. Ahh, but the day is young yet.

By nightfall I hope to have heard from DC that Hannah can come home to visit later this month. By this afternoon I hope to see Andy and Christiana's smiling faces as they arrive home safely to sleep in OR, having woken up in RI. I am sure Micah will call from his island perch at some point. And Isaiah will be home from his sleepover at the Pankey Pit. Everyone will be back in their proper places and we can give thanks once again for the blessings of each other. Which is all I ever want from my mother's day. Altho a kitchen sink would also be nice.

K3

Lonesome Larry

2010-04-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

It is Friday afternoon. I am lonesome. I know lonesome sounds more like a Friday night, or a Monday even, but it is one, the loneliest number, etc. Maybe I am just unsettled but there is no segue to my story from there. Waiting on news of the weather, as in whether or not Isaiah's baseball game will be rained out or not so we can travel east today over the mountains to the desert, to Sisters, to visit friends and escape this incessant spring rain. He is playing the other red team, the Siletz Indians, again, having already been beaten twice by them. How much restitution can one team make? Waiting to hear if the heater guy is coming or not. Waiting for school to get out, for the clock to strike two, for another sighting of that black bear, or that humming bird, or for, as always, some good news. Bella has her first loose tooth, which is exciting news. Now I want more. So, speaking of lonesome, while I am waiting, let me tell you a fish story. See how that worked?

In one of my past lives as a fish biologist, I managed a variety of projects including a program to save the critically endangered sockeye salmon of Redfish Lake in Idaho, the offspring of Lonesome Larry. You have probably never heard of Larry but he was a pretty famous fish in his day. In 1992 Larry was the only sockeye salmon to successfully make the journey of over 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to Redfish Lake, a lake named for the symbolically passionate color of its water when it historically filled with some 30,000 red fish like Larry every year. Sockeye turn bright red when they are ready to spawn and develop a hooked jaw that makes them look quite fierce to other males and oh-so-desirable to the females they entice, red representing either anger or amour in the eye of the beholder.

Larry's ancestors made this journey for thousands of years, but Larry had the additional challenge of navigating past eight dams starting at sea level on the Oregon and Washington border, turning up the Snake River in Washington and on into Idaho, climbing up to the almost 7,000 foot elevation of that deliciously cool Sawtooth Mountain lake. The intended reward for his perseverance on this perilous feat of endurance was, however, conspicuously absent when Larry arrived that year, exhausted yet exhilarated.

Larry's excitement at reaching his manifest destination must have quickly turned to disappointment as there was no attractive female wagging her tail provocatively at him with whom he could co-mingle his genetic material on the gravelly bottom of that pristine lake. Larry found himself all alone in the lake. Well, not quite alone, but not with the lovely lady he had hoped to dance with. In her stead, there were some not-so-sexy scientists waiting for him in the cold, clear water, excited in their own way to see Larry. They captured him and milked his sperm, then froze and stored it in their laboratory.

Larry’s sperm lived on to become the basis for a captive breeding program for his progeny, the most endangered salmon stock in the Pacific Northwest. Each year it is carefully dispensed to artificially fertilize the eggs of the future females who manage to show up, eliminating that nasty little variable--timing. His offspring are reared in captivity instead of in the lake where they are ultimately still released with the prayer that they will successfully negotiate the dams and return some day.

As for Larry? Well, they stuffed the poor guy, mounted him, and hung him on their office wall. Not a very auspicious ending for a legend. Although I am sure he draws an admiring glance every now and again from members of a species he never intended to attract. Larry has been preserved for perpetuity. His offspring may not be so lucky. Our days of telling tales of the ones that got away might include his whole species some day. Now that would be lonesome.

K3

Hannah is 21!

2010-04-26T12:47:00.001-07:00

Parabens a Voce Hannah! Nesta data querida!

No forgetting number 21 at the Tombs! Happy, I think, that you are still on the team. Shout out to my devoted fans, Allie and Lindsay--thanks for not letting her get 21 marks on her arm...

I traveled to DC for a pre-birthday bash amongst the somewhat faded cherry blossoms a couple weeks ago. Had fun watching Hannah do what she does--row, bike, walk, study, sleep, work, eat, not in that order. Here is Hannah with her free birthday Georgetown Cupcake of the day--Cookies and Creme--right before she keeled over and fell asleep after getting only a few short hours the night before.

Last nite on 60 minutes they had a piece on post-Loma Prieta earthquake rebuilding of the Bay Bridge. Twenty years ago we lost some of our more delicate wedding gifts to that rocker when Hannah was only 5 months old. Here they are, twenty years later, still rebuilding and fingers crossed they will complete this "quake-proof" bridge before the Hayward Fault slips again, any minute now. (Last time it slipped - 1868. Average time interval of slips - 140 years. 140th anniversary - 2008. Gulp. This is not a good time to relocate to Berkeley, thank you Stanford for rejecting Christiana...) Of course, not a good time to be living here on the Oregon Coast either. Plate tectonics are a bitch.

And all this while that the bridge building has continued, Hannah has been living her life. She was born to us naive newlyweds of only 6 months confirming her grandmother's sage warning, "The first baby can come any time, the rest take nine months." We lived in a third floor walk-up in the Sunset district, built on sand, not a great foundation for quakes. I delivered Hannah naturally, pushing all 8 pounds 7 oz. of her for an hour and a half with enough force to break my own tailbone, speaking of plate tectonics. Ouch. Afterwards the nurse and doctor both informed us that ours was the first natural birth they had ever seen. What? I had no aspirations of martyrdom. Especially around 8 cm. All those Lamaze drop-outs, who knew? Hannah paved the way, pushing that pesky coccyx aside, making me wish I still walked on all fours as I crawled around recovering, vowing "Never again," and going on to deliver six more babies who did, indeed, take nine months...

So, we cut our teeth on Hannah, our perfect first child. She was so happy and easy and made us feel like the best parents in the world. So successful. So competent. She sat on the floor and grinned at everyone and everything, content. No hurry to crawl. No rush to walk. She quietly went about her life doing great things and making no fuss about it. "Goody, goody Hannah," her grandmother called her when she potty-trained her with a pack of gum. And she was.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Love,

Mom
XOXO

Kelly Go Bragh

2010-03-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Message

Happy St. Paddy's Day-After from Bella and Isaiah down by the creek in a field of clover. Some of you might recall my posting from last year's celebration off the sea-snake-filled waters of Brasilito--if not, scroll thru the archives for a trip down memory lane. This year, Outback Jacks not being, sniff, a sweaty option, our plan was to head down by the port docks to the Salty Dawg, for the advertised corned beef dinner. Great. As we wound our way down the one lane road that follows our creek, forks in hand, Andy asked, "Should we get Uncle Buster?" So we crossed over the river and wound our way up his one-way road to his sunny perch on the hillside, pulling in amongst the rusting cars and agate-filled sinks spilling into the garden. It's a bit unkempt, you might say as the understatement of the year, navigating your way past prehistoric cobwebs. Andy roused UB from his slumber and out he came, looking like Santa in a black leather jacket, gun in hand. Gun?

"This is for Isaiah," he announced, a shiny black and chrome 22 the proferred offering. Now, I happen to be in the middle of reading Before you Know Kindness, a novel about a girl who accidentally shoots her father unaware the gun is loaded.

"Is it loaded?" I gulped. Buster extracted the rod and sure enough, 6 or 8 little bullets fell out on the seat next to Bella. Great.

"Is the safety on?" Andy asked.

"Red means it's on," Buster showed Isaiah. (Later, back home at the yurts, Andy would show the same red spot and inform Isaiah, "Red means it's off.") The gun went in the back, Bella put the bullets in the cup-holder, clearly an unadvertised innovation, and my nerves became a bit more frayed in the face of my 6-year-old with a fistful of the only kind of gold the day would bring. We headed downriver past a herd of grazing elk to the Dawg--the actual spelling as I discovered but I am getting used to these things.
*

It was a beautiful sunny evening but the wind was cool off the water and Bella was dressed for Outback Jacks, purple flip-flops and all. So we scurried to the entrance, our tastebuds ready for corned beef, only to be met inside the door by a surly waitress definitely not of the happy leprechaun variety who barked that the dining room--vastly exaggerated in nomenclature as "the garden room"--was reserved for a private party. Now, mind you, we had eaten in desperation at the Dawg a couple weeks ago which is why we knew that they serve no butter, only nasty fake stuff, and that they were hosting the annual eating of the corned beef. On that night we were seated in "the garden room" since the rest of the place is a bar/restaurant and there is a sign posted between the two rooms that says No Minors Past this Point but we had joked with the waitress as the bathrooms are located on the "other" side and Bella, as usual, had to go at least twice. She-of-the-not-so-sour-disposition told us that kids can go in there, not a problem. Now the only thing the Dawg really has going for it, especially if you like real butter, is that it has been forced to join the ranks of the non-smoking. But having filed away this little No Minors reality check and now finding my way to my ancestral corned beef blocked by the ugly stepsister of the kinder, gentler waitress, I simply said, "Okay, then we will go to the other side."

"NO kids are allowed in there," she hissed before playing her nasty trump card, "And we are out of corned beef anyway."

"Well, then why are you advertising a corned beef dinner?" I gasped incredulously, my Irish blood starting to boil at the thought of missing my annual corned beef fix.

"We've been serving it since 11," she sneered over her shoulder, clearly finished with the likes of us, the uninvited.

Now, of course this begs too many unanswered questions, not the least of which could be,"Who eats a corned beef dinner at 11 and wouldn't that be called a lunch?" You are not in that bastion of all things Irish anymore, Lassie, I told myself, meaning Costa Rica. Stunned, I remained in the warmth of the garden room entrance in deference to Bella's tropical attire, reading and re-reading the false advertisement for their corned beef dinner, while waiting for Xana to get dropped off to meet us while Andy marched past the NO Minors sign to work the crowd. The triumphant witchy waitress made a point of shooting daggered looks at me in between taking her green beer orders, pausing her scribbling only to aim a dramatic roll of her evil eyes like I didn't understand English or whatever. Once everyone converged, we left. Kelly Go Bragh.
*

There is a new little diner around the corner so Andy suggested we try that. We blew around the corner on the exhaled cloud of nicotine from the desperate Dawg patrons and entered the place which is smaller than a very small yurt, instantly greeted by the cloying smell of fryolater which clung desperately to our every hair follicle and clothing fiber. The owner is a large character in a town full of them and he was seated in a side alcove hunched over his computer, never bothering to make the effort to rotate his bulky girth around to talk to us while we guessed at the veracity of his sign which did say "open" and which appeared to be so as there was a decidedly non-Gaelic-speaking couple busily eating their fish and chips, explaining our freshly acquired scent. The six of us along with the two fish eaters commenced to guessing if he was open, wondering aloud if he had given up at 6:55 because the hours Sharpied permanently on the sign threatened that it would, indeed, flip to Closed at 7. Unable to persuade the big guy to turn from his screen where clearly his Free cell game or Facebook account were proving irresistible even in the face of 6 whole paying customers in a local economy that put the Dee in Decline, we took the rather obvious hint and left. Again. Welcome to Waldport is not the sign that greets our visitors as it would, indeed, be a stretch. What our sign does say is, Waldport, Home of the Fighting Irish. No comment.
*
We hurried back thru the cloud of smoke and into the warmth of the Silke-mobile, where I ascertained that the gun was pointing towards the back, just in case. "I want to go to Outback Jacks, floor it," I announced, the 22 our only passport. We cruised beneath the proverbial one stoplight in town which is typically blinking yellow and hit the main street of Waldport with my blood cells screaming for a salty beef fix, passing the only other Wallyworld culinary options - Grand Central Pizza, Geng Sing Chinese (sacrilege, both of them) and the notorious Flounder Inn which is a scary place to drink much less "dine" although I am sure some of my ancestors would have happily acquiesced to a liquid dinner and turned their thirsty selves right on in. Trying to set a good example for the kids in a town where parenting has become a lost art, we headed south to Yachats, quelling our hunger while enjoying the St. Patrick's Day sun sinking into the Pacific. We drove along the coast, reminiscing dreamily about a place 3000 miles further south where the party was in full flip-flop swing complete with bagpipes retrieved from Peru, an acapella-singing amiga, and plenty of smiling non-Waldportonian-type faces.
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Pulling up to the Drift Inn we encountered a lass in a green velvet shirt and Irish plaid skirt drifting out of the inn so Andy rolled down his window to inquire as to the status. She said she thought the wait was too long for dinner and was heading for the Adobe instead. We parked and Andy went in to inspect the situation while Buster got out, crossing the street towards the ocean where he encountered a scruffy hitch hiker and proffered a smoke while we watched from the warmth and safety of our armed vehicle. "That's called sharing," Bella informed. Andy returned with the happy news that yes, there was a table in about 5 minutes and we all piled out. Heading towards the bar I noted the towel-covered Irish soda bread resting at one end and my blood began to sing along with the Irish band. Bella and I shared a stool by the soda bread while the fiddle-playing lass sang an old-country yarn. As the notes lingered in the air, Bella sighed, "That was the best song I've ever heard."
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The whiskey flowed, the corned beef was tender, the cabbage was green, the mash had little green onions, and the soda bread was typically short but would have been better without those blasted caraway seeds. We ate, drank, tapped our feet, and were filled with good ole' Irish cheer, momentarily forgetting the cursed Luck O' The Irish I grew up hearing muttered about by me mum when faced with situations of a decidedly unlucky nature. A precocious young lad sat at the next table with his parents and little sister and as they rose to exit he informed me that they lived far away from the ocean in Talent and extricated a precious muscle shell and a rock from his jacket pocket--gifts from his day at the sea.

"You should ask Buster what kind of rock that is," I told him, pointing the way to the guy who looked like Santa. Clearly a brave lad, he marched on over.

"It's a Leverite," he returned to tell his trusting Mom who had amazingly not stopped him from talking to strangers in an area full of them.

"You will have to write that in your journal," she said.

"Buster knows his rocks," I assured.

Our Irish blood restored to its proper salinity for another year and our tropical dreams temporarily forgotten in the face of our full bellies, we all drifted back out of the inn to a perfect sliver of moon cradled over the sea.

"You could hang a pail on that," Buster noted.

"What kind of rock was that?" I asked as we drove away.

"Leverite," Buster replied knowingly.

"As in leave 'er right there where you found 'er," Andy snorted.

We all laughed. I wonder if that family from Talent will think to question the authority of a man who looked like Santa. Will they ever recognize that treasured rock for what it really is--a Blarney Stone.
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K3

Pony Tails in Paradise

2010-03-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

And speaking of Killer whales... The folks at Sea World have had quite a time lately with their multi-million dollar "Believe" show. In case you have been under a rock, a couple weeks ago one of their star killer whales lived up to his name. Yes, in spite of our tendency to treat top predators like tiny kittens, sometimes we receive these not-so-gentle reminders as to why on earth we named our monochromatic "friends" so unflinchingly accurately in the first place. Who has not seen the Discovery Channel footage of orcas tossing baby seals back and forth like beach balls or dogging gray whale mothers until they can swoop in and take one delicious bite out of their baby because they can? So, yes, you can believe that the star of the show got a little out of hand at the after-show party the other day as he lived up to his real name as they hustled to get damage control on the hotline, NOW, and canceled that catchy pitch: "Be part of an up-close and unforgettable adventure!" As it was, unforgettable, indeed.
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But, hey, they named the big black and white guy Tilikum (even though they call them all Shamu in the show) and the largest orca in captivity was probably rebelling against that. "I just want to be called Bobby!" he whined as as his pals taunted and trainers unwittingly called to him - "Come here Tilly!" And even though this "incident" happened in Orlando they canceled all killer whale shows throughout the land because these things can spread like the bird flu after all. It could be a trend. And what was the official Sea World quote? "He lover her," said Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld's zoological curator (not a typo, I could not make this stuff up) after Tilly grabbed his"lover's" pony tail (okay, so some eyewitnesses say arm, some say waist, but they were Brazilian, it was probably lost in translation...) as Dawn was rubbing him and telling him what a good job he did Tilly, good boy, anthropomorhism rearing its ugly head. Perhaps she rubbed him the wrong way? So much for positive reinforcement.
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"Pony tails: killer whales; ball of yarn: ___," is the new analogy question the SAT test-makers were busily jotting down as Tilly pulled his lover underwater to love her to death in front of an adoring audience, much like he and his pals had done to another trainer in Canada almost 20 years ago, eh? Only this time Tilly looked around with his big black flipper ready to high five but it was just, gulp, him... Woops. Now, everyone knows that pony tails are irresistible to orcas. And in perfect CYA form and blame-the-victim mentality, that same loverly guy is quoted as saying, "Dawn Brancheau Should Not Have Let Hair Dangle in Front of Whale." (I am willing to bet her wetsuit was tantalizingly too short as well.) Especially a whale that was not responding to directions and behaving like "an ornery child" that day as everyone was quick to attest after the fact in equally classic "I knew it," hindsight.
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Chuck, in his infinite wisdom, also said Tilly might have been playing, and we all know how killer whales like to play. "We have no idea what was going through his head," said Chuck, but I am sure with time and therapy they will get to the bottom of that. They weren't exactly a "perfect" couple after all, I mean, his brain was four times the size of hers and he outweighed her by about 11,900 pounds and was not even of the same genus, much less species, as I recall. (King Phillip Came Over From Greater Spain...) And even though this was the THIRD time he was found at the scene of a homicide, still, Sea World insists on saying, "Who knew?" As if. (In the last incident the naked corpse formerly known as Daniel was actually draped across Tilly's shoulders like a victory wreath while he swam around whistling innocently, "What? Okay, I bit him, but he was already dead!") "I always gets blamed for everything," Tilly whined. Now lest you think they are being too easy on the big guy, they did put him in isolation for a nanosecond. They canceled the show for a week while Tilly chilled with his killer whale family, all of whom have been made to shave off their pony tails - just in case.
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Denied a transfer to San Diego, the famous father of 13 spent his time off eating, stretching, and swimming lazily around with his homies, humming Pink's "Missundaztood" while dodging reporters and trying to ignore the hurtful headlines which insist on broadcasting his weight, a sensitive subject, like this one: "A veteran trainer, who loved whales, was killed by Tilikum, a 12,000 pound killer whale with a troubled past." Or how about this one - "Tilikum, who is an acknowledged member of the top predator species in the ocean, could face the death penalty via lethal injection for his actions." (No, I am not making any of this up either!) "Does anyone know a good lawyer?" Tilly moaned. Did you even know we have the death penalty for killer whales here in the land of the free and the brave? Where will they find a jury of his peers? Clearly, the other Sea World Shamus are biased. His new nickname? Killer, of course. And when, exactly, does your past become "troubled" - after the first, second, or third time you lover your lover? "Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?" Name that musical... "Sea World defends Serial Killer Whale." It is fairly troubling stuff. Poor Dawn, she should have stuck with sea turtles.
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K3

Maude, Myrtle, and Me

2010-03-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

Message

Okay. So here is something I have been thinking on for a few months now. Thanks to the crazy ocean conditions around here, two wayward sea turtles limped ashore on nearby Oregon beaches, cold and a bit disoriented, just in time for Christmas. This was not, after all, the place that smelled of their birth. Fortunately no common folk attempted to move them illegally and a bevy of highly trained and certified professionals whisked them off to the Newport aquarium where they enjoyed hearing their tropical turtle tales over the holidays while spending lots of money encouraging them to quit hibernating by heating them up, naturally, with electric blankets. Apparently, the tortugas said, they had been happily swimming north on a nice warm current when said current disappeared on them, dumping them unceremoniously in 50 degree water.
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They named the olive ridley Myrtle and the green turtle Maude, perhaps not understanding their Spanish accents but sexing them correctly anyway. They hydrated them with your average sea turtle diet - dextrose, electrolytes, and IV fluids - and once they were swimming around they added sea turtle vitamins. Chewable? I wonder. Myrtle was "plagued by buoyance problems," not a very auspicious trait for a turtle, and Maude had a fractured flipper which, again, could be tricky for a swimmer. Once their repertoire of Under the Sea stories started to loop, it was time to go.
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Using the guise of "practicing getting in and out of a small airport and handling a unique loading exercise" the US Coast Guard landed in the hinterlands of Newport and loaded the chicas into a massive C-130 airplane, the likes of which they had last used here to "Free Willy," which was not ultimately deemed a success story as you might recall since Willy swam around in the wilds of Iceland waiting for somebody, anybody, to hand feed him. But back to the girls...

This was NOT, and I repeat, NOT, a waste of taxpayers dollars so just get that cold-hearted notion right out of your pretty heads. As you may have already guessed, "The C-130, based at the Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, was used to ensure a stable environment, with the cabin pressure kept at sea level and the temperature in the mid-70s." So don't you worry about the cabin pressure or temperature-related effects on the gals. And, furthermore, before the journey - in case you are wondering - the chicas were "slathered with petroleum jelly to keep them hydrated. They were then cradled into custom-made, ventilated crates that had ample padding and a little bit of extra room but not so much that they could flail around and injure themselves." There is nothing worse than a flailing turtle, after all.
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But after all that holiday bonding time and with the nostalgia of the holidays and all, Myrtle and Maude had become like one of the family. Who could ever see a Christmas tree again without thinking of Maude covered in her favorite afghan, clutching an eggnog in her "good" flipper with the other all bandaged up and propped up on a pillow? And what about the tears of joy shed by Myrtle as she unwrapped her little hand-knit flipper socks and the way she struggled to get them on? Oh, my, the memories... So, the aquarium folks ultimately had a hard time saying farewell. There was not a dry eye on the tarmac as that big military plane lifted off into the fog, flying Myrtle and Maude off to SeaWorld in San Diego which they had always wanted to visit. And wasn't that a tiny piece of yarn that drifted down out of the sky as they waved their little sock-covered flippers farewell?

Once comfortably settled in San Diego they were to have a private behind-the-scenes tour with their little boondoggle in the sun, from whence "ideally" they will be released back into the wild, presumably with a bottle of vitamins tucked under each flipper. (The cost of caring for the sea turtles will be covered in part by a grant from the Kinsman Foundation - note to self, meet the Kinsmans...) So, sniff, Maude and Myrtle are on their way to being on their way.
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"OMG!" you are probably now wondering and rightfully so, "What the yurt has happened to Kelly with all that time on her hands to type her fingers off spinning tales of turtles, no less?" Answer: It is raining. And anyway, you have to admit, yurt makes a nice 4-letter word and there is that whole Yertle the Turtle thing I blogged about earlier. But some days I do feel exactly like Myrtle and Maude, or Maude and Myrtle if you prefer - like I was happily headed north on a warm current that suddenly dumped me into 50 degree water and now my flippers hurt and I find myself suddenly plagued by buoyancy problems. So, I am wondering, who are these Kinsmans anyway? Because I think I could fit my family very nicely in a C-130 with all of our cargo and even though the ample padding and little bit of extra room in our crates sounds dreamy, we could probably forego such a luxury and still avoid flailing around and injuring ourselves en route to the tropics.
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K3

Christiana Rocks WHS!

2010-03-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

Feliz Cumpleanos Bella Grace!

2010-02-25T11:13:00.001-08:00

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Bella is six! Learning to read, write, loving pink and purple, wanting to be a Kindergarten teacher when she grows up, growing up, indeed, too quickly. Not a morning person, a gal after my own heart, but off to school each morning and home at noon. She is always happy and an expert skipper and such unadulterated joy! Still remembers some of her Espanol from last year and hoping she keeps it up, even tho there is no instruction at her school. Her classroom is like a revolving door with kids coming and going often, the nature of this rural community where parenting has become a lost art. And did I mention she snores? Loudly, like her adenoids need removing, again.
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Her room is a disaster with Barbies and impossibly small and yet painful-when-stepped-on-barefoot Polly Pocket shoes and assorted miniature accessories spread everywhere. I send her in to clean and she plays for hours with entropy as her constant companion. Her clothes spill out of her hand painted drawers in various half-open yawns, or are they half-shut? She could easily fill her own yurt with her Barbie and stuffed animal collections. And this is after we have downsized more than I care to remember. I vacillate between ranting and raving my threats to give them all away and my propensity to clutch the entire collection to my chest, remembering the Christmas when Hannah got that Scuba Barbie with the chattering dolphin sidekick and Christiana her dark-haired familiar with a trained but silent sea lion. Scuba Ken joined in on the bathtime fun at some point. And now they are all growed up and saving China. Christiana can scuba dive all by herself, just like her childhood doll with the built-in wetsuit. We still have the miniature mask and snorkel - how can I possibly part with the likes of these? Ouch.
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Bella loves to snuggle and finds her way to my leg or lap wherever I land. She began in the summer of aught three and swam across the bay with me before I fully realized she was on board. She grew in utero, slowly asserting her presence as we settled into our Portugal life at Casa Mocho (House of Owls), nourished by the olives and pomegranates we picked from the trees and the pain au chocolate and fresh blood orange juice from the Intermarche market where Andy and I struggled with the language and the metric system to order Jamon y Queso, um kilo media we gestured because we couldn't speak any fraction besides a half or a whole and coming home with 2.2 pounds of ham only happens once. Bella was rocked to sleep as we walked daily on the sunny Algarve beaches after tucking the other four kids in school, digging our toes into the ochre sand backed by impossibly orange hills while old men raked for coquinas and ameijoas and the fishing boats perched precariously on nearshore waves to capture sardinhas to be grilled on sidewalks. We inhaled the incense of ancient churches and admired the beauty of the flowering almond trees, learning their legend before Bella began her own storied life. Isaiah and I flew west with the night across the stormy Atlantic while a nor'easter raged around our fragile fuselage, threatening to birth us all in the tumultuous cold sea, but landing happily in the darkness.
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Bella tread water confidently while my aging body struggled to nourish us both and keep us whole as I lay in the hospital for a month. She gave the doctors two thumbs up six weeks early to get things started, then did a belly flip in labor, deciding for us both that cutting a new bikini line would be her preferred exit strategy. She was so tiny, like 2.5 kilos of jamon, but perfect and beautiful with her almond-shaped blue eyes. She was cold in that snowy week of Valentine's Day so I stuck her under my night gown and kept her there, skin to skin, radiating the heat from our hearts beating in unison down to her perfect toes and fingers - ten of each, count them, Mimi used to instruct - while we dreamed together and woke to feed each other. When she was warm and pink enough, first passport clutched in her tiny fist, we returned to Portugal in March before even her April due date and surprised the kids in one of the most glorious afternoons of our family history. Bella met her sisters who adored her and counted her perfection by tens and beyond while their combined tears of joy fell on her soft cheeks and her brother memorized her with amazement. The hoopoes cried their delight and the wildflowers bloomed in greater profusion to welcome our Bella to the orange blossom air of her new home, the smallest Mocho in the casa.
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She is a huge blessing, our Bella Grace, the final Willa award lost, the exclamation point at the end of our family!
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Mommy loves you and Daddy does too!
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K3

Feliz Cumpleanos Christiana!

2010-02-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

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Well, a picture is worth a thousand words... Christiana turned 18 yesterday and I am happy to report that she did not exercise her new privileges by enlisting in the armed services nor by rushing off to Rays to buy cigarettes, porn, or lottery tickets at lunchtime. She went to school instead, both high school and community college, and last night she was feted at her final home basketball game. It was Salute to Seniors Night so all the seniors are traditionally introduced to center court with their families where they are showered with balloons and flowers and candy. Christiana was the final player introduced and her friend above - Mighty Maddie - led the crowd in a rousing round of singing the birthday song with each side alternately chanting boom, rah, after each line followed by Christiana shaking it to "cha, cha, cha." Ahh, the benefits of life in a small town. She handled herself admirably. If that had been my high school and my birthday and my town focused on me, me, me, I would not be here right now to write about it. I would have died a thousand deaths.
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So, my hat is off to Christiana! I learned in the handout they produced that Christiana's nicknames are Optimism Prime and Night Hawk and have not had a chance to probe any further on either of those. Her favorite foods are sushi, ice cream, and cheesecake, which we had after the game. If she was a music artist she would be Prince and her most prized possession are her rainbow suspenders she just got a Buffalo Exchange in Portland on Saturday where everyone had an armful of tatoos and a spandex jump suit with go-go boots - everyone but Bella, Xana, and I that is. She would like to visit Malaysia and Ethiopia and she loves grocery shopping. So, that gives you a starting point in case you were wondering what to get her...
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Christiana was my first but not last candidate in the delivery room for the name I still like - Willa. So I am giving her my own private Willa Award. When Andy prevailed by naming her Christiana after the town where we lived in Jamaica I figured she would have to become a pretty good speller and she has, never one for nicknames and not shy about saying so. Our friend Peter from JA said, upon hearing the news of her birth and her name, "But it is such an ugly lickle town." So I guess she has fared better than her namesake. She arrived at 420 in the a.m., not my favorite time of day, but we induced her so who knows what hour she might have chosen left to her own devices - Miss Night Hawk. She had threatened to be huge and at 8 lb. 12 oz. was the biggest baby I pushed out so hesitate to imagine the scenario if we had not forced her to join us two weeks early. Ouch.
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Xana was a colicky baby and cried for three months until we thought we would go deaf and mad, especially after her perfect sister who made us feel like we were A+ parents. After a rough first year of sleeping mostly in her battery operated swing - and yes, thankfully that flat spot on her head did fill in like the doctor promised - she became the happiest child and is still wearing her winning smile. The day she turned one she forsake all things baby and heaven forbid you gave her a baby spoon or plate or anything of the ilk because she was done. with. that.
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Xana is sporting a few battle scars from her journey thru childhood between chicken pox and stitches but has otherwise emerged on this end in fine form. She was always a keen observer with her big brown eyes and would gaze straight into your soul, as my mother often said. She could tune into people's emotions and was known to say what others were thinking. Back now where she began, she does not necessarily feel like an Oregonian. Although she does not mind the rain, still she craves the sun. She is currently committed to eating for her blood type and a stalwart example to those of us who fall short every morning first thing with our coffee AND cream, both of which are on the list of prohibited foods. Alas. So, might as well have another donut... She wants to go to Stanford! Pray for her. She will do just fine wherever she goes, no doubt. She has always marched right on up to the ice cream counter and ordered what she wanted and slowly I learned to trust her instincts even when she was only knee high and ordering bubble gum in neon pink with unwavering confidence because she would, indeed, eat it.
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Happy Birthday Christiana Elizabeth! You go, Optimism Prime... Mommy loves you.
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K3

Happy New Year 2010!

2010-01-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

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And Martin Luther King Day. And while I am at it, let me be the first to wish you all a Happy Valentines Day too. The new decade took off without me and I have been running to catch up ever since. This year I have decided to put my holiday greetings on my blog here and will provide you with a succinct synopsis of our lives over the past 12 months. For those of you yearning for more, more, more, you can scroll back through the other 33 posts I have written since last January when I started this new form of written regurgitation, intending to post one per week which, for you math lovers, would mean that I somehow missed about 23 weeks. Not bad for my first year.
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Well, as I sit here feeling rather chilled in our new yurt, up the river and then up the creek from the Oregon coast, my thoughts turn longingly back to last year this time, when I might have been sweating in my bikini while walking the white sands of Playa Conchal, heaving a coconut into the warm waters for Duncan to fetch every now and again. (See photo from March 18 post.) Do we miss Costa Rica? Si, you bet. We miss our amigos y amigas a few thousand miles south down the coast. (And those a few thousand miles to the east of us as well...) We miss the warm sunshine and the blue sky and the palm trees and the mot mots and the howler monkeys and the leaf cutter ants and the playa. Bella and I just read "Slowly, slowly, slowly said the sloth" and reminisced about swimming each evening before dinner as the sun descended and the air glowed orange with the bats swooping the pool and our heads. We had a great year and hope to get back there soon. Micah got a ticket to Tamarindo for his March break from Santa. Lucky boy.
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Hannah is back in the US after living the Rio life in Portuguese for 6 months - running the sands of Copacabana and sipping Caiparinhas. She returned to her second semester as a Junior at Georgetown, struggling with three advanced physics classes and whipping herself back into shape for the rapidly approaching varsity crew season.
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Christiana took on Waldport High School for her senior year with her usual aplomb and adaptation. She played her first season of volleyball and is in the midst of her second season of basketball and second semester of taking classes at the community college since her class of 61 does not merit much of an AP roster. She has been in the throes of college apps and fingers crossed for an ambitious list of choices, hoping to continue her Spanish and Portuguese studies and major in Marine Biology.
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Micah is in the fifth form at St. Georges in RI and we miss him. My birthday present from him was joining the swim team where he has made great strokes and plans to swim the bay with me again this summer. I will be lucky to see his wake. He was happy to be back on the gridiron this fall but misses CR very much, as do we all.
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Isaiah is loving the fourth grade at his new school and is looking to be a great fan of reading, yahoo. He was also happy to play football again and is currently tearing up the basketball court after all the days he spent after school in the open air gym last year with his pal, Jackson. He misses hockey and will hopefully get to play again some day.
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Bella Grace is loving Kindergarten and learning to read. She gets home at noon daily and we are going agate hunting on the beach today with our west coast UB - Uncle Buster. She is dancing ballet and learning to jump rope.
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After last year's letter, a good friend heeded Andy's siren call for employment and he is now busily engaged as the General Manager of Silke Communications in Eugene where he toils away most days and nights of the week. He spent the fall building the yurts (see archives) and is happy to be back on the left coast again.
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Me? Well, I am writing. I finished my book, for the fourth time, and am seeking an agent or a publisher if any of you know anyone in the industry. I am the new Co-Hag of a local writer's group and we host authors monthly for our workshops so I am networking and meeting interesting people and loving that. I have just dug out my old fish biology hat and will manage a restoration project for coho salmon habitat through our local watershed council.
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Andy and I are on the steering committee to get the high school moved out of the tsunami zone. With the Cascadia subduction fault about 50 miles off our coast a massive earthquake is building that will generate a tsunami of freezing cold water, inundating our town within minutes sometime between now and the next 50 years. Time to move the kids to higher ground.
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With three thin layers of high tech fabric separating us from Mother Nature we are getting to know her ways intimately. The whistles of the elk, the hooting of the owls, the winds that threaten to blow our house down, and the many sounds 70 inches of rain can make on a vinyl roof all surround us with intimacy. The ocean here is mighty and majestic to behold but not something to take lightly or turn your back on. The hills are alive and the trees and rocks pushing each other off in a constant battle of rock, paper, scissors which encourage watchfulness. We are paying attention.
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I hope this finds you all happy and healthy through the wonders of cyberspace. Give yourselves a chocolate-covered kiss from us here on the edge of the continent. Happy Aught-Ten from our yurt to yours.
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Beisos - Kelly, Andy, Hannah, Christiana, Micah, Isaiah, and Bella Grace!
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You Better Watch Out...

2010-01-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, so we did see Santa way back when. I took the kids nostalgically to the old Meier and Frank in downtown Portland where the first four used to sit on the old guy's lap. They always had the best Santa and there was a wondrous village set up complete with a monorail the kids could ride that was suspended from the ceiling. Unfortunately, the store is now Macy's and Santa's floor is no longer. Santa has been relegated to the basement and the monorail sits resignedly on the floor, alone and stationary, the sad little so-called "monorail museum," boo hoo. But we made the best of it and Micah even posed with Santa and Bella asked for a Barbie and Isaiah requested that his whole family to be together and everyone got their wishes and they were filmed by a new crew but we have no tv so never saw it. And, as an added bonus, we watched the mounted police arrest a homeless guy out in front of the store. HE should have called for Santa...
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And then there was the Nutcracker. Bella was an angel and a bon bon but she did not get to be the "naughty" bon bon at any of the three performances and I am not sure if she should be congratulated or straighten her tights and work harder. Mostly she was just happy to be wearing makeup.
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We have five noble fir trees lining our
driveway of staggering sizes so the kids each decorated their own live tree with different colored lights. It got very frosty for the week before Santa came to eat his cookies and every morning we awoke to a winter wonderland with everything coated in a heavy load of white. No snow. By the day after Christmas we were playing on a sparkling sunny beach with the girls running in their sports bras - quite a temperature fluctuation but no complaints, especially from Hannah who was still tan from the sands of Copacabana.
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The propane heaters were finally hooked up and running on Christmas Eve, in the nick of time, and we all slept in the yurts for the first time that night. We slept in our caps reminiscent of 'twas the night before xmas' - and Santa found us! We had a little live tree under the central domed skylight, the focal point of our round room, and Bella and Isaiah made ornaments at school to decorate it. We have a 'frig and a toaster oven and a crock pot and a coffee maker and that allows us to eat pretty well. Hannah brought pastries from Brazil and we had cookies Santa left us and a wonderful Christmas morning. Everyone got a new hat. Ho! Ho! Ho!
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K3
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Sea Lions, Sea Lions, Everywhere...

2010-01-20T11:34:00.000-08:00

"Well?" you may well be wondering and rightfully so, what happened to me after the very pregnant pause following my birthday which post was considered to be highly inappropriate according to one very special adolescent, He Who Shall Not Be Named, since it contained several questionably controversial "p" words? Well, having birthed seven babies and shredded most of my anatomical self-consciousness in the delivery room, that is not, alas, the reason for my long silence. It was more like the end of the year got away from me and the new year began before I was ready and I have been running to catch up with "aught ten" ever since. So, this is a catch-up post, better late than never.
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And here, on the beach by Heceta Head - a few miles south of where I sit happily typing in my yurt, live and online in person for the first time from my lovely life in the round since we finally have internet service to our barn even tho we have no indoor plumbing (or outdoor plumbing, so I guess we have no plumbing, to be clear...) and so you can see by that where our priorities and other things lie but I digress and will pick you back up here mid-sentence - yes, here, en masse are the missing California sea lions that once sank the piers of San Francisco with their halitosis and gas-eosis and exuberant mating behavior and blubbery bulk, the same lions of the sea which had everyone wringing their hands with frustration as they flatulated in a most uncivilized manner and openly displayed their affection for one another, causing the well-heeled urban ladies to cover their eyes with kid-gloved hands, fingers nevertheless parted with unconfessed curiosity, until the tourist dollars flowed like so much saltwater into their palms and they threw their arms around their marine mammal friends, embracing their slippery skins which recently slid out from their clutches, leaving them scratching their heads and fingering their empty wallets with wonder. (No, I don't really intend to catch you up here all in one gigantic sentence..)
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"Where did they go?" our neighbors to the bankrupt south of us yodeled in fake Austrian accents with tears matching the salinity of the waters around their shores which now lapped uninterrupted by barking except as emitted by proud pampered poodles being walked by their pooch-sitters and doing their duty with propriety in several different languages. And no, they did not call over their little shoulders in perfect imitation of their governor, "I'll be back..." Or at least not so anybody heard. But it is fun to think about and certainly something a sea lion seems capable of.
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But, anyway, not to worry your permed little heads about it any longer as here they all are, right here in Oregon, safe and sound like so many other economic refugees from the Golden State. Eureka! Perhaps they are enjoying the temperate rainforesty weather for a change, tired of all that sunscreen application, perhaps they are simply following the herring who have done the same, their little fins tired of traipsing off to Rite Aid to stock up. Nobody knows WHY, but the amazing sight we beheld on our Thanksgiving trip down the breathtaking Oregon Coast was thousands of them soaking up some, ahem, rays and catching waves en masse. They looked and sounded to be enjoying their stay and who knows, perhaps they will tarry awhile. Hopefully you can tell that those brown blobs in these photos are, in fact, the missing Californicators, as folks in these here parts have been known to call those who try to take their motto across the border with them crying Eureka! (tr. "I have found it!")
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So, we headed south along the edge stopping briefly to remember ourselves to Paul Bunyan and Babe, the big blue ox with the big blue testicles - never mind, Micah - that Andy had to pose holding up, irresistible to males of all ages. But I will leave you to your own visual imaginings on that one and keep right on moving through the last vestiges of the oldest things on earth, Sequoia Gigantia, which we stopped to admire immensely and on under the Golden Gates of the city where Hannah was born and where we began our happily wedded life together and still keep on going a bit further south to where we ate turkey and celebrated the holiday of my Mayflower ancestors, hosted by Henrietta the chicken and her lovely caretakers, our friends from our days in Costa Rica which seem like yesterday but are fading quickly into the past. Too quickly.
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And what better to do after eating all that pumpkin pie than to walk over the famed Golden Gate. So the next day we did. And I won't bore you with all the dramatic details of how our nephew was married the weekend before in Seattle but chose not to invite us to witness his nuptials because, well, that goes along with why we celebrate holidays with our friends vs. family out here on the left coast, but I might just drop a little reminder about the bitchiness of Karma because who do you think we ran into strolling under the Golden Arches but said nephew and his lovely new bride on their honeymoon. So remember fair reader, as I told him, you can run but you can't hide. And as an added bonus he got to meet Bella and Isaiah, his first cousins, for the first time even though one of them has been on the planet for over a decade now and the other for a half. His blushing bride remarked how much Bella resembles Dakota Fanning, asking, "Has anyone ever told you that before?" "Why, yes," I replied in my perfect Scarlett O'Hara imitation. But then I missed my golden opportunity to add, "And don't you think she would make a perfect flower girl?" Darn it...
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K3

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-11-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

"You say it's your birthday?" You can sing the rest. And all I want is for Bella to poop. I already got my period so that tiny question mark has been laid to rest after battling some kind of nauseous stomach thing for 3 or 4 days now that reminded me of, well, pregnancy. Other things I am not getting besides a 48-year-old immaculate conception since Andy's parts were snipped after Bella was born and I hung a giant CLOSED FOR BUSINESS sign on my uterus? Well, the swine flu, I hope, a boob job, a tummy tuck, or any other kind of narcissistic surgery - I'll save that for my 50th, a warm and sunny walk on Playa Conchal, a trip to DC to visit Hannah since she is in Rio, a trip to Brazil to visit Hannah, anything smacking of rampant consumerism, or a trip to Hawaii so I am posting this photo from our aquarium trip the other day instead. It is the Picasso Triggerfish, aka the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, the Hawaiian State Fish and I love that fact. Or a move into our yurts. Yes, my third move-in deadline is here and will not be met either. Instead, the carpenter called this morning and is checking himself into rehab. Surprise! Happy Birthday to me!

Yesterday I went on Isaiah's fourth grade field trip. They are studying Oregon history, timely for us, and we went to two museums in Newport where I learned that Newport, OR, the next town to where Andy grew up in Waldport, was actually named after Newport, RI, the next town to where I grew up in Middletown! Ha! An apparently little known fact that even Andy never learned. It appears that one, Sam Case, hailing from Mom's great state of Maine, came west to seek his fortune and stopped when the land ran out on the Oregon coast where he conceded, founding Newport in 1868. Here he built the Ocean House, also named for a hotel in Newport, RI, which used to be the center of social activity and remains the same, of sorts, as now it is the Stop and Shop plaza. But back here in Newport on the left coast, I figure Sam Case was the first to arrive here from Newport on the right coast. And about 150 years later, I am probably the second.

After lunch we danced at our first Pow Wow! Wow! Such a fun word. Pow Wow! Sorry the photo stinks. The Confederated Tribes of the Siletz are celebrating their reinstatement of tribalhood in 1977 which they lost for 20 years or so after apparently selling off most of their original 1.4 million acres which includes the land I am sitting on right now typing. Even though it is a mixed ragtag bunch of folks in appearance, I nearly wept at the beauty of the tiniest girls dressed in their regalia and dancing on their tip-toed mocassins with their hands placed proudly on their hips and moving with the graceful elegance of their genetic heritage. They, too, might morph into the caffeine-in-a-can-carrying teens who shuffled along behind them, unsure of their place in the world, but for now their enthusiasm remains the colorful and hopeful link between past and present. "Listen," the leader commanded us with the words of his Grandfather, "or your tongues will make you stupid."

These are the reminders that you are back in the west. Christiana recently played the Chemawa Lady Braves in volleyball. The Siletz team, incidentally, are the Warriors. These folks aren't afraid of racial stereotyping. The Chemawa Indian School is the oldest operating school of its kind, from 1880, and used to be one of those horrid places where they forced reservation kids to board, speak English, and forget about being Braves and Warriors. Their team roster proudly lists what tribes the players are from and these gals hailed from more than a dozen tribes including the Navajo, Apache, Cherokee, Pueblo and Karuk. I sat in the stands and secretly cheered them on with historic guilt, admiring the variety of their ethnic beauty. Last year in Costa Rica Isaiah studied Native Americans and did a report on the Apache. Now this year he and Christiana are playing with them.

We left the Pow Wow in better shape than my ancestors on the Mayflower afforded their native friends. We were welcomed openly, treated with respect, educated in their ways, invited to dance, and cheered by the crowd on our departure. My ancestors invited their native friends to dinner on the first Thanksgiving. Then they killed them and stole their land. As I sit here on former reservation lands, I am sure hoping the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz have not taken any lessons in history from us.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yurts, yurts, everywhere...

2009-10-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, yurt fans, here is the long-awaited sequel to the first, cliffhanging episode of Yurt Building 101. When last we left off, the yurts were basically a supporting structure with nothing to protect us from the elements. Now, they are finished! Well, almost. To recap, we managed to get the smaller yurt closed in before the rain fell. Here is how the structure of them looked before all the supports you can see lying on the floor were screwed into place and the covering process began.
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Working from the hole in the top, the interior roof liner is unfolded and worked around the top.

Then the space blanket of astronaut-friendly insulation is unfolded on top of that and super heavy top cover is hefted up thru the hole and carefully unfolded as well.

The interior insulated walls are hung from the interior support cable and the outside walls hung from an extra flap on the exterior roof. It's kind of like hanging a giant, heavy shower curtain. The skylight dome is carefully fed up to the center and put into place. The whole thing is cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And screwed into place. Tightly. Nobody wants a baggy, wrinkly yurt, after all.

And here's how it looked before the rain began.

And it did rain. And the larger yurt did get wet. And the water did pool on top and drip thru the floor boards into the insulation, which also dripped, and it was not a pretty sight. BUT. The sun came out and dried up the landy, landy and everything was fine and dandy, dandy. And we managed to get that one enclosed before the next rains fell and now I think we are out of the danger zone. Today we are supposed to get 6 inches of rain so that should be a good test.

Now we are building the mudroom/bathroom in between.

We had high winds a few nights ago and I lay awake listening to the howling gusts and imagining all that work flying around up there with my mother-in-law's words in my head, "It can get pretty windy up here you know," but am happy to report that in the morning they were intact and they were like, "What?" when we showed up all concerned and everything. Bella finally found a wall she can color on without getting in trouble.

And here's a view of our dining/living room view. Lovely!

You will know us by our layers

2009-10-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day has come and gone and, as usual, I wondered, "Okay, what would Columbus do?" Especially if his kids were home from school on a 4-day weekend. There being no edge of the world to sail off and certainly no hope of discovering a new nation complete with old inhabitants, I, like most Americans, celebrated with the closest approximation available to us - I gathered my kin and sailed up the coast of Oregon to Lincoln City to the Tanger Outlet Mall. I think Columbus would have approved, not being much of a stay-at-home-and-watch-the-Red-Sox-lose kind of guy. He would definitely have sought an adventure of this kind, I am sure of it.
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While on our voyage, we slowed down in Depoe Bay long enough to annoy the traffic behind us until we spotted a whale spouting just off the surf, both of which seemed something else Columbus might have done. Whales aside, just imagine the tailgating and bird flipping that went on back in the glory days of the high seas.
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Once safely in port, I beat out my fellow celebrants for a prime docking space. No mooring buoy for us. I located my AAA card and got a free coupon booklet for fabulous discounts at each store which drew us lemming-like through its doors with the promise of giant Columbus Day markdowns, just as the old salt himself probably would have done. I think Columbus was your early day bargain shopper, after all, judging by the continent he scored. And my AAA card is gold, something he shopped around the world for. The only thing I perhaps did not do as well as Chris, himself, was spread pestilence and disease, but the verdict is still out I suppose. Another 24 hours should tell.
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So, why were we outlet shopping when earlier this year I lamented this all-American pasttime as a terrible waste of time and money right here on this blog, all but proclaiming it the harbinger of all things wrong with our society, albeit from the relative soapbox safety zone of my tropical paridise? Oh yeah, good point. But the answer is - layers. Layers, my girl, layers. Lots of them. As in name this movie: "You're so wrapped in your layers, onion boy." It is only mid-fall, I know, but already we are piling them on and we need more. Today I have on boots that seem stylish at first glance but are rated to 40 below, a good Canadian brand and those Kanuks know how to be stylish and warm. I have on thick tights and a dress and a belted sweater dress, don't tell Christiana, and a scarf and all this just to putter around the house and type away at my keyboard. I am in search of fingerless gloves. And when I dare to venture outside I will really have to get serious.
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Okay, so the temperature is still in the 50's. And I am still surrounded by central heating. I am worried. One year of all that wonderful tropical blood thinner and we are all freezing, all the time. I am looking at deer and elk in a whole new way. I don't want to eat them; I want to wear them. Last week we almost hit a huge elk in the road. He bounded up off of the road, revealing the yellow road sign that he had been blocking with his bulk. Elk Crossing, it said. Well alright then. At least he was in the right place and it would have made us look rather, well, illiterate had we crushed our car on his broad side. "Well, officer, we were just approaching the Elk Crossing sign when we came upon this big bull, er, um, elk..." I was busy imagining how many mukluks I could get out of that gorgeous pelt.
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Melanie wrote today and invited us to move to Dubai. I googled UAE quickly, even tho I admit that I was a geography major. Anyway, it was probably called something else back in those days. It's one of those fields of study you have to keep up with. Now, as a swimmer, deserts don't really interest me. They make me thirsty just thinking about them. But immediately I noticed it is a coastal country. I am not even sure what sea it lies on but Iran is a short sail away. Perfect! One of my top ten vacation destinations. I will pack Lolita and visit Tehran. The truth is, I fear the cold more than I fear terrorism. (And now I wonder how many Homeland Security types are about to read this blog because I used that last word.) Oh well, maybe they will offer me a job in a warm climate.
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Thanks, CC, for the great holiday. What was your middle name, anyway? Sure, we all struggled to get out of bed this dark and rainy morning, but honoring you with all that shopping was worth it. My AmEx card thanks you as well. My husband? Probably not so much. I can hardly wait to honor the pilgrims, my own ancestors, with even more blessed bargain shopping. We give thanks that here, in our beloved country, there is no end to the money you can save by honoring our past and simply spending.
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Amen.
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K3

So, What Exactly is a Yurt?

2009-09-25T08:10:00.001-07:00

Okay, alternative dwellings fans, listen up. Your mongolian housing education course for the day is here, in case we have not already answered this question in person. All you ever wanted to know about yurts and more, coming right at you. So, what is a yurt? No, it is not yet another clever word invented by Dr. Seuss - remember Yurtle the Turtle, the king of the pond? Well, you should. Yertle wanted to reach higher than the moon so made all his fellow turtles stack on top of each other to raise him higher and higher until one of them burped, once considered a vulgar word for a children's book, landing Yertle in the mud where, you might conclude, he belonged. But I digress.

According to the dictionary, a yurt is "a circular, domed, portable tent used by the nomadic peoples of central Asia." Think Mongolian yak herders... In our case this might read more accurately, "a circular, domed, tent made with high tech insulated astronaut-friendly fabric resting on a wooden platform with a lovely pine floor and technically considered "portable" but I would sure hate to move the darn thing(s), yak backs or no. But don't worry PETA supporters, no yaks have been harmed in the process.

And why are we living in Oregon for a year? Well, because we rented our house in RI out for 2 years to a proper British naval officer and his family and spent only one of those years in Costa Rica before coming up with this brilliant next adventure. Three weeks ago we sat down with said proper British naval officer and he assured us all was in order in proper British naval officer fashion. So we loaded up all our belongings and sailed across the USA in a manner unlike my Mayflower ancestors but with perhaps some of the same ideology and motivation. Two weeks ago we arrived at our destination here on the left coast and unloaded our precious possessions, got the kids settled into their new schools, and continued pounding nails and generally getting our yurts to rise up in order. One week ago we received an e-mail from our proper British naval officer's housing and relocation department notifiying us that said officer and his family have been relocated back to England and effectively giving us 30-days notice of their impending departure as per their "military clause", a standard cursed feature of any military rental agreement. Did you hear that primal scream?

Okay, so I digress, but if you know anyone in need of a lovely home in Portsmouth, RI to rent or buy please don't hesitate to holler! Meanwhile, back at the yurts... So, because there are five of us and we like a little bit of stretching space, we are actually building two yurts. Why not. And with a regular old rectangular-shaped building in between which will serve as the mudroom and official entrance to our little yurtdom. Yes, we are expecting a bit of mud. This is a photo of the larger of the two yurts so you get an idea of the structural framework.

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Next the floor is insulated and a lovely pine flooring nailed on and the whole thing cut into a circle to fit the yurt itself.

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Last Wednesday we took a field trip to Pacific Yurts in Cottage Grove where we could walk around in a yurt for the first time and get a feel for our new concept of home, sweet home and start to envision where the furniture might go. We drove thru the equivalent of New England on our trip around one small section of this vast State through the land of magical words like Umpqua, Siuslaw and Siletz. Or Alpine. Or Drain. They loaded up the neat packages containing our new home on Andy's white truck - and here I could add that this is also the land of the white trucks. Trucks, in general, are abundant but there must have been an oversupply of white paint in Michigan in the past decade or maybe it's just like anything on your mind like when you want a baby you can't move without tripping over one. And even though I swore I would never live in a home that came on wheels, I am granting this one exception.

So, by now you might have guessed that there is some assembly required. And soon you will be scratching your head wondering how the average Joe manages to erect one of these things. To begin, you put on a ring of insulation to prevent those nasty floor drafts and attach a ring of hardi-plank cement siding. Then you unfold the exterior like a baby gate and attach it.

Now if it rains or floods inside you will effectively have a nice barrier which prevents the water from escaping, leaving you with a water feature. So you start to feel the urgency. Next comes the most dangerous part - inserting the roof rafters between the ring in the center and the high tension cable that runs around the top of the lattice. This is when Randy, one of your helpers, will stand on a 10 foot scaffold and regale you with the amazing story of how he fell 120 feet when a building he was working on was hit by a crane and collapsed around him. Three hours later they dug him out, finding him miraculously alive but quite broken. He was in a drug-induced coma for 3 months and 30 surgeries and so many pounds of titanium later here he is scampering around overhead declaring, "But I love heights!"

Yesterday Christiana and I drilled and screwed four metal plates to the ends of 81 (That's 81x4x2 holes each!) vertical supports and attached them to the floor and rafters and sides, effectively screwing the whole thing together so the yurt does not collapse in case of snow or excessive rain or high winds!

Today, with any luck, we will get the ceiling and walls and skylight dome on before the rains fall and the swimming pool forms. Pray for us, please, and look for the next cliff hanging edition of Yurts are Us...

From Left to Right and Right to Left and Back Again

2009-09-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, I guess it is only fair to warn you. This is a long blog detailing a long trip. But hey, it's been awhile since last I wrote and it is a big country. If you can, hum the tune, "This Land is Your Land", while you read along. It's probably been awhile... AND, there are pictures! I finally figured out how to add them to the body of the text!! Progress is being made daily. Grab a bowl of coffee and read on.

Twenty one years ago this October 8 will mark the first time Andy and I drove across this vast nation we live in these days. The words, "I do," were still fresh on our lips as we had recently spoke them with great sincerity in front of a small crowd of family and friends in the Wayne Community Church and then danced until our shoes wore out on a snowy night in Maine during the peak of the foliage season. We had loaded up all our new possessions, which fit nicely in the back of a 2-door Honda Civic hatchback I purchased from my brother Brian using my readjustment allowance from the Peace Corps where Andy and I met and fell in love in the tropical warmth of Jamaica where everything seems like a good idea. But lest you think we had heatstroke and made the wrong decision, and you might not be the first, let me assure you that we heeded the extolled PC advice and returned home on the range to make sure it was the real thing before running off down the aisle with no looking back. Then off we drove, 3000 miles, for the first time to settle into our first home in the hills of San Francisco and our first jobs and soon welcomed our first baby, Hannah.

Fast forward 11 years to 1999 when we loaded up two huge U-Hauls with our expanded collection of possessions once again, each with a car on a trailer in tow. We caved in and bought a game boy to entertain our three kids - Hannah plus two of our four Beaver State babies, Christiana and Micah. The kids traded off vans and mine held Micah's two spotted newts - Sir Isaac and Fig - and an assortment of plants I couldn't bear to leave behind like my single peony and we headed back from the left coast to the right. This time we were leaving Andy's home state where we had settled after being all shook up by the SF earthquakes. I was pregnant with Isaiah and we were leaving the remains of Noah and Jonah in a cemetery on a sunny hill in Salem where two sweetgum trees and a granite seat marked their spot. The sight of Mt. Hood retreating in my rearview mirrow allowed me to take a full breath and exhale a huge sigh of relief as I headed my family home to the Atlantic to heal.

Fast forward another decade and there we were, last week and the week before, doing it all again in reverse. This time we had successfully whittled our "needs" down to one moving van, a Penske this time having learned from our "What maintenance?" U-Haul experience the time before. Andy had already driven one car across in July and I followed him across country like a good wife in my van with two bikes on the back and two different kids this time - our RI babies, Isaiah and Bella. (We left Micah behind, boo hoo, and Xana took the quick way, flying out to meet us in Portland.) Following that big yellow truck made for a quick game of "Banana", if you know what I mean... We figured they could switch off vehicles now and again but the DVD player and leather captain's chairs proved too much to resist. Technology has changed alot in a decade and the game boy lost its allure, replaced by a DS and an MP3 player which barely got used due to the DVD's and Polly Pockets.

We headed up thru MA and back down thru RI and across CT and over the Hudson on the Tappan Zee bridge from NY to NJ, both of which have a no-cell-phone law while driving. We chatted freely after crossing the PA border and spent the first nite near U Penn. PA, by the way, has the best rest areas with great food choices. I can tell you right now that we saw a good many rest areas en route thanks to the "pinenut" bladders of Isaiah and Bella, who spent the trip filling them up as fast as we emptied them. "I'm thirsty," was quickly followed by, "I have to go potty." I figure they rode 3000 miles across this fair land but will mostly remember Middle Earth as they watched the extended play Lord of the Rings trilogy with perhaps some scenes from Rugrats in Paris mixed up in their memories of our trip across the nation.

Skipping across OH and IN - not much to see besides barns and no wonder Michael Jackson left the armpit known as Gary - I have said this before, but seeing all the wind turbines spinning happily over the verdant waves of corn and soy in our nation's heartland - IL and IO - warmed my heart. But really, must they do all the work? And speaking of putting people back to work, I should add here that our nation's highways are under construction - all of them. We spent a night at Andy's cousin's farm and learned a bit about the farming-thousands-of-acres life before heading on to cross the mighty Mississippi River and eating lunch at ACOE dam #12 - voted the most scenic Subway in the nation in our very professional scientific study. There we sat in the sun and watched the heaping piles of coal on flat barges traversing the locks in Bellevue while chatting with the city manager. Iowa looks small on the map but it is not. I was elated by the "Welcome to Minnesota" sign and picked up the national public radio station broadcasting live from the MN State Fair. Perfect.

We crossed over the mighty Missouri River on the Lewis and Clark trail, a great visitor's center where a gal walked her horse in the "pet walking" area and they had a "beware of poisonous snakes" sign on the scenic overlook trail. I figure they should post one of those at the airports in Costa Rica and that would pretty much cover them for the entire country where, by the way, we never saw such a warning in spite of the plethora of said creatures!

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Okay, here is where things slow down so read more slowly. One word - South Dakota (!) Guess we should have known we were in for some long miles ahead when they offered a 4 CD set at the first visitor's center on all kinds of fascinating and not-so-fascinating details to get you across their state without killing yourself from sheer boredom. Guns for Jesus should be their motto judging by the billboards and thank God we had those to read! I used to think it was terrible that the white man hung out of train windows and shot at the buffalo passing thru this vast expanse but now I understand their desperation completely. I was ready but we never saw even one buffalo in 3000 miles. Ask me anything about SD. They have a state dinosaur, the triceratops, and I really wished I would see one running at us thru the miles of sunflower farms which seemed so lovely at first... As an aside, many states have state dinosaurs. RI does not. But one of my wonderful uncle's lasting legislative achievements as a State Senator from our neighbor, CT, was to get them one - the theropod - never heard of it but there you have it.

So it is really called the Mt. Rushmore State and that is as it should be since that awe-inspiring monumental achievement made every long and boring hundreds of miles across SD worth the trip. Dream big! It is an amazing achievement and you should make a point of seeing it before you die. Bella had a bloody nose there and bled on the stone, a family tradition as my Dad recently bled on the Blarney Stone, and we renamed it Mt. Gushmore.

We had to seek shelter from an awesome hail storm as we hiked the presidential path and in the walkway of flags RI was touching OR, how poignant...

Safe to say we were the only RI plates in the multi-tiered parking garage and we made the kid's day who was working his summer away taking money at the park entrance and asking folks, "Where you from?" That's what he said after he said, "No," when we said RI and asked for a discount for distance traveled - "But you just made my day!"

When you do go to Rushmore, enter thru Wyoming. Here the deer and the antelope really do play and the landscape is varied and interesting with the Rocky's looming in the western sky. Black oil rigs pump away in folks' backyards like prehistoric critters themselves and their owners smile all the way to the bank. Wyoming is a state where you can really STREEETTTCCCHHH out and you can do whatever you want in your own backyard and nobody else will know. This is the state I was traversing as NPR reported on that poor gal who had been found imprisoned in that creepy CA backyard all these years later but looking around WY one can easily see how that could happen.

Entering into MT the sky really does seem to get bigger. Courtesy of the pinenut bladder twins, we happened to stop at the site of Custer's last stand, the Battle of Little Big Horn. There we listened to a very engaging park ranger recount the entire day as well as a good bit of the history of those times. We should have stayed for hours but it was only supposed to be a pit stop... I sure felt sorry (read that with a western twang...) for how we treated Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and so many other proud and wise men of their time who fought so hard and unsuccessfully to live in peace. NPR chose this very moment to do a Pete Seeger show and I drove while singing along to folk music inspired by the landscape around me, including songs from his days with Woody Guthrie. We sang "This Land is Your Land" while we traveled thru Bozeman and crossed over the continental divide to Butte, home of the largest scary still-filling superfund lake site in the land, and on into Missoula where Steve and Heidi of the Christiana posse put us up for the night. We talked and dreamed of Jamaica with jerk chicken and Red Stripe in our bellies.

We climbed thru the serious mountain passes all in the next day with gorgeous views of Lake Couer D'Alene as we crossed the skinny part of Idaho's panhandle. In WA the weather was wild and I ran over a good number of quintessential tumbleweeds in the road as we approached and entered into threatening dust and lightening storms under black skies. "I hope there aren't any tornadoes," Andy remarked casually, scaring me to death. It was blowing like crazy in the windy Columbia Gorge where hundreds of wind turbines lined the river, a new feature since our last trip thru. The wind and kite surfers criss-crossed the river with their splotches of fast-moving color and we pulled into Hood River in time for dinner. Our stated goal for the entire trip was to be right there so I could swim across the mighty Columbia from WA to OR on Labor Day the next morning and we made it!

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Early the next rainy dark morning ("Get used to it," I thought to myself), several hundred swimmers loaded onto a sternwheeler and travelled across the river where we jumped off the not-so-low side in flights of ten. By the time we reached the WA shoreline the sun had come out and before we jumped into the sweet water a rainbow appeared and spanned the course like a magical map. I held my nose and goggles and was the last one in after my new friend, Alcatraz Joe, who was celebrating his 75th birthday. I adjusted my goggles and started swimming easily for the border in the middle of the river to re-enter Oregon after a decade away. After 6 days of driving it felt heavenly to move and stretch with each stroke. I pulled my arms thru the pale green river waters which are home to the salmon and sturgeon I had worked for years to save. I thought of the waterfalls the dams had drowned but could not feel their pull. Each stroke brought me closer to crossing over as I swam directly and willingly towards Mt. Hood - the same white pointed peak I was so happy to see receding behind me a decade ago. The water was warm and the happy arms of my family greeted me with a dry towel as I emerged under the rainbow's end to begin our new life here. Again.

Once More to the Lake

2009-08-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning shivering next to Bella. It has been in the 90's during the day but it cools off quickly in these Maine woods and I need to put a quilt back on the bed. "Mom, are we staying for the whole week?" Bella asked my still closed eyes. "Good, 'cuz Danielle's Mom says they are staying for the week too," she said snuggling in, assured that all was well in her 5-year-old world. She and her new playmate would have many more hours spent swimming to the raft and playing house between the red boat house and the big, wooden swingset.
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No matter where in the world I have been for the rest of the year, I have spent some part of almost every summer of my life on Pocasset Lake and on Richardson's Beach doing exactly what Bella is doing. This year she is finally able to swim to the raft by herself, a milestone she and all my kids have attained over the years, like my generation before them. If you look at the lake from above, it is shaped like a big, blue teddy bear lying on its back and gazing up at the sky from the green woods that surround it. Our beach is perched on the left shoulder before the open white doors of the boat house which have watched over all of us as we learned to swim in the sweet waters and rubbed our feet in the sand.
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This morning I emerged from the cool darkness of my back bedroom with Bella in tow and opened the sliding doors of the screened-in porch to greet the rising sun. A loon called loudly from the waters of Pickerel Pond sparkling in the sun behind the cabin. Yesterday's beach towels hung on the line, the neat procession of our new Save the Bay swim towels interrupted by Snoopy and Betty Boop. Slowly, everyone makes the transition from the cool darkness of their dreams to the skylit brightness of the cabin where the sun and the loons and I with my coffee are ready to greet them.
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It is another morning in Maine and soon we will all don our bathing suits and sunscreen for another day spent on our beach. We who have grown up with the taste of this water on our tongues will watch over our children as they learn its flavor. We will line up our chairs on the beach and stare out beyond the raft anchored to our shore by its yellow buoys to the opposite shoreline whose profile of trees and hills we have memorized unknowingly in our brains. It satisfies us because it is familiar. We will talk of our lives spent mostly away from this place we all love so viscerally until our voices trail off and the lure of the lake draws us back to the present. We will all realize that we are here and we are hot and even the older folks will eventually end up in the lake once more. We will run our fingers through its liquidity and catch glimpses of the fish who are drawn to the brightness of the shallow waters but quickly dart away to darker depths, frightened by our motion. We will float, surrounded by its willingness to hold us, and gaze up at the sky like so many misplaced buttons on our teddy bear's shoulder.
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The lake will know us and the loons will sing our names until our ashes are scattered and our cry becomes a distant echo.
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K3

I swim because I am part fish...

2009-08-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

As promised, check out the following link to see my 3 seconds of fame on a Save the Bay commercial! Hot off the press... Tomorrow, we swim!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prjZIjHcsZE

Just Keep Swimming...

2009-07-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

See Kelly. See Kelly swim!

That is the opening line of my new swimmer's page. Now, in addition to this blog, my beloved e-mail account, my new Facebook wall, my cell phone, and about three street addresses I use regularly in spite of the fact that I live transiently out of my Toyota Sienna, I now also have a Swimmer's Page to manage! (follow the links on http://www.savebay.org/ if you dare) Is it summer? Is it sunny? Are my kids hungry? Who cares?! I am busy on my laptop... I love these things, I do admit, tho I'd be happy to throw my phone in the lake.

But summer means swimming to me and swimming means Saving the Bay so log off I must. This is my ninth year to swim the 1.7 miles across Narragansett Bay, the waters of my youth and beyond. Rhode Island is the Ocean State and I grew up on Aquidneck Island, the original Rhode Island as you may have learned from an earlier post I ranted about. I have always been surrounded by water. But even you folks in, say, Iowa, really oughta learn to swim because the sea level IS rising after all and there once was this really big flood.. I love to swim. And other than that one time when I inadvertentely wore 17 pounds on my scuba weight belt I have always been perfectly at home in the water. The saltier the better. I spent half of my youthful summers at second beach riding waves and floating with my ears just below the water line drowning out the busy summer beach noise and watching the gulls fly overhead in search of someone's sandwich to steal. The other half of my summer was spent on our lake in Maine where there were no waves and the water tastes sweet. We waterskiied because in those days there was no easy tubing option and we swam to the raft where we practiced our diving skills and where I think I was 20 when I finally got up the nerve to do a back dive off the edge. We played King of the Raft for hours, screaming no and meaning yes to being highland flung off the edge by our teenage heart throbs. But, I digress...

Swimming, yes, that was it. I love to swim, did I mention that? It is meditative for me and even though my shoulders are a bit tight from swimming about a mile the past three days in a row, I think I could swim forever. But I am prone to exaggeration. Save the Bay is a great organization dedicated to restoring Narragansett Bay and the surrounding waters, educating folks of all ages about the salty and brackish waters that surround us and the other critters who call it home and scrubbing it clean of all the nasty things we have seen fit to discard in it, out of sight, out of mind-ishly. This year is the 33rd Swim across the Bay which is the largest fundraiser for Save the Bay. Each of us 3 or 400 swimmers have to raise at least $300 to get a number sharpied onto our bulging biceps, don our brightly colored caps, wade across the seaweed covered rocks guarded closely by the War College and start swimming. Heading out in four different colored waves and escorted by a fleet of brightly colored kayaks, it makes for what must be a beautiful sight. Fortunately they stop all boat traffic in the bay while we make our way across so the best view is saved for those driving across the Newport Bridge. One year my nieces were riding across the bridge and spotted us swimming. "There's Aunt Kelly, saving the bay!" they said. And for me, that is the primary reason I do it.

But the other one is that we have so much fun training and, did I mention I love to swim? I play, I mean "train," with a group of friends and one or another of my children. We meet for training swims at a variety of beaches and shorelines around Narragansett Bay and beyond so that each of these swims is an adventure in itself. Last year I swam with Joyce and Eve in the ancient emerald green Mayan waters of Lake Atitlan. This year I swam with Micah in the clear, turquoise waters along the white sandy shores of Playa Conchal below our house in Costa Rica. Every year I meet my friends in the greenish waters of second and third beach on our island or at Mackerel Cove on the next island over, Jamestown. This year Rachel and I swam at Narragansett Beach for the first time. We typically do a Provincetown Swim for Life in September from Race Point to the marimba band playing in drag in the waters below the Boatslip at the finish line. I swim in the sweet, brown waters of Pocasset Lake in Maine and in Siltcoos Lake in Oregon. When necessary, we enter the chlorine human habi-trail of any nearby pool where we talk and flip our way through lap after lap with our fins and kickboards. Like so many things in life, the journey to the swim can be more fun than the destination itself.

But for me, being in the middle of Narragansett Bay in my swimsuit and Save the Bay cap is undoubtedly a worthwhile thrill. As I swim across to Potter's Cove in Jamestown, every time I turn my head to the left in my alternate breathing pattern I see the Newport Bridge moving across the water with me. To my right sits Gould Island which has an interesting history including as the former training site of the Harvard football team but which is currently owned by the military and used to test torpedos or whatever else they dream up. I make a point of stopping midway between the bridge's two lofty spires to warm the waters of my wetsuit, if you know what I mean, and take it all in. I always think the kayakers are lucky with their vantage point. In the years that Andy kayaked next to me he spent the whole swim talking to other paddlers and I spent the whole time vaguely hearing him through the water in my ears and exhaling with my breath, "What?" to which he would reply, "Nothing."

I ushered in this new century with my first swim in 2000. Isaiah was a baby and I had gone back to the YMCA pool to get in shape where I met Rachel and Liz and they convinced me to do the swim. That year most of the swimmers got stuck in a rip tide and I swam in place for an hour trying to get into Potter's Cove before we all finally realized through our increasing hypothermia that we had to abandon our course. We cut diagonally across the tide and climbed onto the rocks south of our destination, hiking over to the cove and jumping back in to swim to the finish line. It took me hours to warm up and when I did I realized my numb feet were all sliced up from the barnacle-encrusted rocks we traversed. But I was hooked. The next year I was back out there swimming and have jumped in every year since. Hannah has joined me for three years and Micah makes his debut this year. Christiana does not love to swim long distances but I am hopeful that Isaiah and Bella will join me some day. I look forward to the once-a-year chiropractic adjustment I get before I swim and the free massage waiting for me at the end. I have a collection of great beach towels they wrap us in after each swim and have given away a hefty stack of swimming t-shirts.

Somewhere in Costa Rica right now a Tico is sporting a Save the Bay t-shirt. A tourist is walking along Playa Conchal saying, "Well look at that, Martha, that towel is from Save the Bay! Isn't that in Rhode Island??" And I am preparing to swim across the lake on a sunny day in Maine. Nato ergo sum. I swim, therefore I am.

P.S. "All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

P.P.S. Usually the only press I ever get is when I am sporting an attractive swim cap and goggles. (Thanks John Martin for the great photo!) A couple weeks ago we made a commercial for Save the Bay where my hair is actually blowing in the wind for a change. I will attach the link when it hits the streets! Sure to be a YouTube hit...

At the Copa, Copacabana...

2009-07-20T04:06:00.000-07:00

Summer has finally arrived in New England and waking up feels more like a celebration than a groan these days. And with all this sunshine comes more moving around. A week ago we said Ate Logo to Hannah after one short week together buying sandals and peanut butter. "Our little girl, all grown up and off savin' Brazil." From what, I am not sure. She is now living in Copacabana 4 blocks from the beach with a host family who have 2 sons her age. No wonder I have not heard from her except to say she arrived safely and her head hurt from speaking so much Portuguese. She will, indeed, Fala Portuguese for the next 6 months with all her classes in that Iberian tongue. Hopefully her head will not hurt the whole time.

On the home front, after waxing dramatically on and on in my last post about the comforts of my minivan I was slapped upside o' my head by a short course in physics. Here in the Ocean State, you see, most folks consider the turn signal to be an optional feature on their vehicles, rather like the cigarette lighter. They figure that of course you can intuit where they are planning to go in a split second, even while traveling at 35 mph. My powers of perception being a bit blurry from my time away, I failed to foresee that the Ford Focus in front of me was actually a volunteer driver for the tennis tournament and would be turning right, right now, to pick up some players at the tennis courts and transport them back to the Hall of Fame. In order to avoid hitting the vehicle rapidly approaching in the opposite lane and the two ladies walking home from the beach on a sunny evening, I was forced to firmly apply my anti-locking brakes and get a better focus on, yes, his Focus.

For the exorbitant cost of one undented bumper and a new headlight I could be sitting comfortably in a Herman Miller Aeron chair. I could even have his and hers in matching shades of black if I purchased them from Sit for Less. But no. I am stuck here waiting for the consequences of my unexpected meet-and-greet to be finished. In the meantime, I left my laptop cord in Maine and the washer and dryer broke in our house even while Andy was busy replacing a leaking window in our bedroom so all things considered, my brief honeymoon with life in the fast lane with all its modern accoutrements has come to a smashing end. Oh, and did I mention the flat tire? "How do I miss thee, Costa Rica. Let me count the ways..." I know, I know, all of these things could happen in the tropics as well. And they did! Let me just insert my brief bastardization of Shakespeare in a reverent moment of fantasy.

And speaking of bastards...no, not you, honey. It would not be summer for Andy without the feel of four tires on hot pavement beneath him as he steers through an assortment of States and sometimes distant lands, logging thousands of road miles on some vehicle or another. To this end, Andy imported his brother, Buster, and the two of them left two days after Hannah to drive across country, the first wave of the family to hit the Oregon trail. They are somewhere around Ruby Ridge in Idaho as I type, where Buster owns the abutting property to Randy Weaver, whom you may or may not recall as the poor guy who invoked the ire of the FBI for various trumped up reasons, resulting in a stand-off and shoot-out at his cabin where he and his family had retreated from "a corrupted world" to worship God, home school their kids and live thru the apocalypse they believed was imminent. Turns out they were right, albeit for the wrong reasons. When the apocalypse came knocking in the form of our government, it ended the lives of his 14 year old son and his wife for what was ultimately determined to be the heinous crime of missing his court date and violating his bail. Right here in the land of the free and the brave while I was delivering my second baby, Christiana. Although reading the Mayflower, it turns out even the Pilgrims were not so tolerant of religious freedom when it was not focused in their own myopic vision. Okay, I promise not to use that word again...

Christiana is busy bussing tables at the Salvation Cafe and living the life of luxury with her best friend and surrogate family on Meadowlark Lane. Micah is in Maine and me and my happy sidekicks are here in the smallest state with the still-longest name waiting for our wheels to join him. Altho, technically, he won't be there. He is heading to DC this week to spend time with friends from Costa Rica on Capitol Hill. Yes, summer is in full swing and the Kittels are on the move. You never know when you might encounter one of us...

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K3

P.S. I might have said, "when one of us might come into focus" if I had not promised not to.

P.P.S. Have you voted for us on our 2010 Antarctica trip yet?

Floating along...

2009-06-27T08:07:00.001-07:00

Back in the land of the busy consumers, trying to readjust. I am looking out at another cool and rainy "summer" day in Rhode Island. (Photo of cold spring runoff still running off over the dam in Maine last week.) When our plane landed three weeks ago it seemed like only the portion of me that had fully arrived was the part that had her passport stamped. Slowly, slowly, the rest of me is starting to show up. But all seems a bit tilted. Walking the familiar sands of Second Beach which I have known and loved for over 40 years even seems a bit off. The color green dominates the landscape but it is not the same luscious green my eyes are used to watching explode in the tropical heat. The sky is blue and the clouds are white but neither are as brilliantly so. The color of the sand is brown-ish, definitely not the white shelly sand of Conchal or even the browner shades of Tamarindo. These sands have been formed by a different breed of elements tumbled smooth and tiny by the Atlantic, which is of a colder hue itself and feels less friendly to my bare feet. The shells I scan as I walk along are jingle shells, scallops and moon snails, not the puca shells, olives or screw augers I have perused on my beach walks in the previous months of this year. (Photo of moon jelly in much warmer waters.)

I got in my Japanese-made mini van and gave thanks to the God of Craigs List that we were unable to sell it last year before we left, try as we did. Backing out of my brother's paved driveway for the first time onto a smooth road I said to the kids, "It feels like we are floating!" I count my blessings every time I get in it and scan the back-up camera, glancing at the kids in my rear view mirror with their alien head sets, silently tuning in to a movie. I adjust the lumbar support in my leather seat and think I could happily live in its heated and air conditioned comfort forever. This one vehicle offers more comfort and features than our whole house in Costa Rica. Arigato Toyota.

Pressing "agree", I searched through the radio options and re-programmed my favorites on my car computer where they conveniently reside under the GPS map. Recalling how a radio search in Costa Rica often led to not even one station stop, I bid a fond farewell to Radio Doce and all those blasts from my past - it's National Public Radio from here on out for my brain stimulation as I float along oblivious to even the price of gas. As happy as I am to hear the familiar voices of Tom Ashcroft and Terry Gross providing intellectual fodder, I did have to pause and wonder at the all-to familiar commercial heard hourly - what exactly is the Herman Miller Aeron chair they are still incessantly advertising anyway? So I looked it up.

Apparently it is the best office chair. Ever. It comes in your choice of nine fancy names for black and 13 fabric styles. You can swivel in luxurious ergonomic comfort on its sturdy graphite base, having just spent hundreds more dollars on your office chair than the average Nicaraguan makes in one year. Fabulous. I am getting one. Maybe two. It is difficult, after all, to decide between carbon or hematite. The website claims the name is synonymous with social responsibility so perhaps I can use the free shipping option to send the extra one to some poor Nico struggling to sit under his zinc roof at the Managua dump, Casa Dolce Casa, in the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. I can even order it in Espanol. Who knew there was a website called Sit4Less where the fabulously low "right" price is only $649?

I might get the foot rest with built-in massage balls while I am at it. All that lower back support will eliminate my need for stomach muscles, which are hard enough to come by at my age with my overtaxed uterus which has been fully inflated seven times. We all know how a balloon looks after you blow it up repeatedly... And those massage balls will conveniently replace my need to actually get out of my fancy chair and take a real walk, say barefoot - on a beach. I could probably hang a picture of seashells above my desk or a verdant tropical scene, sprinkle some sand between my toes, and really get my money's worth. I could sit all day in virtual peace with true comfort only one of 103 revolutions of "geometrical tilt tension based on natural human body linkages" away. Wow. Finally a real life use of geometry. I knew I should have paid closer attention in tenth grade.

Anyway, for now I will enjoy the lower back support of my heated leather minivan seat instead. It may not have a lightweight and breathable Pellicle fabric back to it but it does have arm rests. And it cost me over 60 times as much as that designer chair anyway.

P.S. Okay history buffs, pay attention. Here's a newsflash from here in the smallest state with the maybe soon-to-be-shortened longest name.

How many of you know that the Ocean State was granted its charter by King Charles II in 1663 to become the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations? Or that the latter portion of this auspicious title bears reference to the large land holdings on the mainland across the water from this fair island on which I now sit and type? Or that this island upon which I write is the original "Rhode Island" referred to in said charter? It was named the Island of Rhodes upon discovery by the Italian explorer Verrazzano Island 500 years ago because it reminded him of its namesake island back home in the Mediterranean. Roger Williams saw fit to change it to the Island of Rodes, dropping the "h" in reference to the Greek word meaning "roses" which he must have found here in abundance as Rosa rugosa, beach rose, still thrives here and sweetens our salty air. This island is now commonly called Aquidneck Island to avoid the inevitable confusion folks from afar understandably have regarding whether or not our little state is an island.

Well, it seems some people are offended by the reference to the word "plantations" in our State's title. They consider it a throwback to slavery. And while little Rhody was indeed a major player in the slave trade and efforts are currently underway to make reparations for the vast fortunes amassed on that historic front by families like the Browns and DeWolfs, the word in this instance is actually innocent of all such connotations. However, our venerable leaders have voted to put the State-formerly-known-as ballot measure before us citizens re said moniker for next year's election. They propose we agree to become quite simply, the State of Rhode Island. Period. And the originator of the legislation has stated, "It's got nothing to do with Barack Obama." As if. While I am all for simplification, I do think this is taking things a bit far. Our little State has been well served by our big name for hundreds of years. I see no need to change that.

Adios Amigos

2009-06-09T05:40:00.000-07:00

Two chestnut mandibled toucans and one large green macaw named Fred are squawking outside our hotel room as I type my final farewell to this country we have called home for the past 10 months. It is with great sadness for us all that our time has drawn to a close for now.

We spent our final weekend on the beautiful ranch of our friends, Finca de Imagines, and enjoyed the pastoral views of hundreds of healthy cows grazing and tens of horses cantering in the fresh green grasses brought by the welcome drops of the rainy season. We toured around and admired the primary and secondary tropical forestland, the canopy interrupted now and again by the spectacular green roundness of one individual who had managed to grow tall above the others and now commanded the best view to the ocean beyond. Midge and Brock are determined to protect these forests and are demonstrating to their neighbors that grasses for grazing the cows so loved by the Guanecastican ranchers actually grow best in the shade and the cows are happier out of the sun as well. This is an important lesson for a country of cowboys who have often been encouraged by their government to clear the rainforest for grazing.

Back at the hacienda, the bromeliads and epiphytes burdening the ancient spreading arms of huge mangos in the yard attract a whole host of birds, leafcutter ants, and mariposas like the blue morpho to the rotting fruit beneath, each tree representing an entire ecosystem. I never tire of watching the lines of leaf cutters marching so precisely down the tree trunk and across the yard, each holding its own impossibly large sail of green leaf overhead on its long journey traversing a well-worn path back to the nest. Every so many of these leafy sails carried the tiny, minimus ants riding shotgun and protecting the burdened worker below from a wasp that likes to land on the leaf and lay its egg in the ant's head where the larvae will grow into its brain and kill its ant host before emerging to fly away. Yuck. These are amazing insects who compost the leaves in their enormous underground nests to grow a tiny fungus which feeds the colony. When a new queen emerges and leaves her birthplace to start a new colony she carries with her a tiny bit of this vital fungus, like the sourdough starter the Oregon trail brides carried across country to nourish their new lives in the unknown wilds of the west.

I bathed in one of two rivers that traverses their land, cooling the roots of the trees and watering its wildlife, while we watched hopefully for a spider monkey to come swinging through the limbs above. We kept our eyes open to the possibility of seeing the scarlet macaws who fly through the area on occasion but they went unseen by us as well.

Bella had her first horseriding experience on Gringo, a cinnamon colored mare, and Isaiah got back on the proverbial horse after his last bad experience riding with the older kids on Playa Conchal at Christmas time. Happily, his gentle steed restored his confidence. Senor Chino, as he is affectionately known, is retired now from his days of carrying all the ranch kids to school and patiently waiting outside the windows while they learned to read and write before bearing them all home again. Nowadays he is called into service from the pasture only on occasion to recall his days as the local school bus. I rode with Bella awhile and then we mercifully let the big kids go off on a longer, faster ride without us. It lifted my heart to see Christiana and Micah riding away with Kerry and Stewart with such a sense of confidence and freedom. Midge and I unsaddled the sweaty old timers and they perked up immediately, kicking up their heels and skipping off to join the herd with a friskiness they never dared show while we were onboard, lest we get the wrong idea. Clearly they had learned to work smarter, not harder, in their years of handling humans.

It was a lovely place to end our time here on the "island." Micah will be staying on with Kerry and his family for another week or so and then they both will join us on our temperate island. The rest of us sat in the heat of the outdoor jacuzzi last night to ease the chill from the San Jose altitude and sipped on a cool drink while reminiscing about our year here with awe and sadness. It has been an amazing experience in so many different ways. The kids have all grown and matured and are returning back to the States healthy and taller with Spanish words in their brains and stellar school transcripts. We are thankful that nobody was injured or bit by a snake and have only the one scorpion tale from Micah to tell. Everyone made such great friends and we have met so many interesting people that we must figure out how to return very soon. I am very thankful for the time I had away from the usual distractions to pursue my lifelong dream of writing a book. I hope someday it will be published. Then perhaps I can revisit the subjects of this lovely land and write about the wildlife, the people, the beaches, and the rainforests of this country and the wonder of experiencing it all with my family for a year.

So, for now, Hasta Luego, Amigos. Know that we will miss you all but carry you in our hearts and minds and conversations until we meet again.

Mucho Gracias por todos. Amor Y Besos.

Life is a beach

2009-06-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

Happiest when sand is between my toes, I love to walk the beach, any beach, and have spent years of my life on the sands of beaches from Rhode Island to Oregon; from Portugal to Costa Rica. I have never lived far from the salty water I crave. With Hannah home here to visit we decided to move to a house on Tamarindo beach to live out our last days in our year of Pura Vida. It has been a great move. We enjoyed the final days and evenings before the move on the white sandy beaches of Playa Conchal swimming in her turquoise waters so clear you could see the sand between your toes. I had one evening swim with my three oldest children and one with my two oldest daughters that will take a permanent spot in my memory bank.

In between houses we took all the kids on a road trip down south to Uvita where we have owned property for several years now. It is a much greener and lush part of the Pacific coast where the jungle meets the sea and the Ticos still outnumber the Gringos in a positive kind of ratio that lends to a more tranquillo life. We had the run of a lovely new house overlooking the sea where we sat around the dinner table enraptured by the tales of our host who has experienced life to the fullest in his travels from Africa to the Amazon.

"You haven't lived until you have heard a hyena laughing outside your ring of fire," he told our captive ears.

So, we have not. Lived. Yet.

We took the five kids on a trip out to Canos Island which lies some 15 miles off the coast and is a gem. We took a panga, which is a small boat with an outboard and a canopy used by most fishermen here, down the many miles of mangrove lined Sierpe River until we reached the sea. Crossing the bar proved to be a rail gripping ordeal as we exited the river at low tide which meant there was a line of towering waves marching towards us between where we were and our open sea destination beyond. Walter, our driver, who looked about 15 but was probably 30 in true Tico fashion, expertly assessed the breaking waves and kept us jockeying for position until we could get past the white water.

"Here we learn to drive a boat before we can ride a bike," our guide Michael explained to ease my white knuckled grip on Bella's life jacket.

Once safely on the open ocean our boat, which seemed so natural in the river, suddenly felt very inadequate. We beat our way across the advancing swells towards the island which lay far in the distance. When we were nearing the island we came upon a pod of spotted dolphins, some of which were sleeping. They woke up, leaping into the air and entertaining us all, except Isaiah, who was feeling a bit sick by then and laid down in the merciful lull while we watched them.

Once we could see the line of palm trees backed by the thick jungle of the uninhabited island I started to scan the sky, certain that I would see a flock of pterodactyls circling overhead. Canos is part of a chain of offshore islands that includes Cocos and the Galapagos which lie off the Pacific coast, the former being where they filmed Jurassic Park. Indeed, as we approached the island the theme music played in our brains and it felt very familiar from having watched those films multiple times. We snorkeled before converging on the beach for lunch with a small fleet of fellow snorkel and dive boats. The undersea life was lovely. We saw schools of bonita, yellow tailed surgeons, and our goal for the day, a shark. The trip home was also through a pod of dolphins, but crossing the bar at high tide with the surf was easy. Late afternoon on the river brought out the monkeys, howlers and white-faced capucins, and we saw cool bats (photo) and the piece-de-resistance, three scarlet macaws. Fabulous.

Upon our return we loaded up the Black Panther a couple of times and moved to Tamarindo beach where I am sadly typing out my last morning. Usually we are woken up by howlers in the green space next door and we have had our encounters with bold raccoons partying on our porch all night long. Andy tried to speak to them politely in his best raccoon, which must ultimately be like his best Spanish, as instead of leaving they simply moved their dancing onto the metal roof. One afternoon a band of howlers ran across said roof creating a surprisingly loud cacophany and jumped into the matapalo tree which abuts our porch. We sat in our rocking chairs and watched about 20 of them munching away for happy hour a few feet in front of us (photo). Yesterday I got in the shower and looked out the large window next to me into the watching eyes of a howler hanging from her tail happily eating the yellow flowers growing between us. Magic. I cleaned and she ate and we parted company feeling mutually satisfied.

In a few minutes I am going to take my final early morning beach walk down to the estuary with my friends - the ladies of Tamarindo. Yesterday Susan and I passed a herd of about 20 cows strolling down the beach, a Tico moment etched in my brain but unfortunately not on my camera. The day before we sat in the estuary with Midge and a pink roseate spoonbill flew between us and an impossibly blue sky - fabulous. These ladies have lived here since Andy and I first arrived on this beach in 1987 and it is always enlightening to hear their stories of this town that has changed so much in the interim. Some things are eternal, fortunately - the line of palms on the beach, the flocks of birds and crocs in the estuary, the eternal sunshine and warmth we will miss. I eye my one pair of jeans which have sat in my closet all year along with my capris and short sleeved shirts and socks and fleece, all of which have way too much fabric to even consider putting on my body here. Even shorts are too confining in the heat. Reluctantly I have placed these strangers in the bottom of my bag, scrolling forward to the day which rapidly approaches when I will be frantically digging them out in the coolness of June in New England.

Soon the sand between my toes will be replaced by little balls of cotton which rub off my socks. The last of my footprints on these sands will be washed away by the relentless incoming tide and new ones will appear in my wake. My friends here on the beach will greet the new faces of this place which sees so many footprints come and go. And I, in turn, will sink my feet into newly familiar grains of sand which have been tumbled and polished by the waters of a different shore.

Happy Birthday Noah!

2009-05-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

Today is our son Noah's birthday. He would be 13. We have not seen or held him since he was one. Twelve years have passed since the day we celebrated his first and only birthday. Twelve years since his brother and sisters helped him blow out one candle on a cupcake. Twelve long years yet some day soon twenty two years will have gone by. Tempis Fugit.

Today Hannah is flying here for two weeks and we are all so excited to see her! She turned 20, as I blogged, a month ago and we will bake her a cake and eat chicken, again, as Bella points out often. After Hannah leaves we will only have one week left of our life here in Costa Rica. School gets out June 5 and we are now trying to put the brakes on the clock, which keeps its own pace. We have met so many great people here and do not want to say goodbye. Second and third thoughts cloud every daily event.

Saturday I completed my scuba course! This time dolphins escorted us on the way out, leaping into the air and landing with a happy splash, and the mighty Pacific was as calm as a lake - perfect diving conditions. After swallowing a few moments of Panic - Remembered, I managed to concentrate on Hannah, the instructor, and not on the fear rising from my belly as I descended. "Do this for Noah and Jonah," I said to myself as the day fell in between their two birthdays and I found myself busy looking at nudibranchs in the clear and incredibly blue water around us. We completed my original dream of diving as a family, Andy, Christiana and I, and saw some very cool creatures - blue tunicates, moral and jeweled moray eels, a white tipped shark, a seahorse, spiny lobster, a spotted eagle ray, blue and red sea stars, octopus, and a fabulous assortment of fish including moorish idols, rainbow parrots, king angels, and my favorite bright blue juvenile damsels. It was fun, as it is supposed to be, and I am looking forward to going again before we leave.

Yesterday we went to Agam's 4th birthday party. (photo) Agam is Bella's Israeli friend and we admire her beautiful family. Agam's brother Afik and sister Ella are at CDSG with the other kids. We had a delicious spread of middle eastern food and I loved listening to them sing Happy Birthday in Hebrew and carry Agam around in her little chair in celebration with another song. It was a fabulous cross-cultural event with people speaking Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and English that i heard. One of the things I love about being here and will miss greatly!

But the most meaningful encounter I had was meeting Candy, a stately, red-headed woman from South Africa who has lived here for many years now with her Argentinian husband. She has a beautiful family with one daughter, the youngest, and three older brothers. I could not help noticing, as always, that one of her sons was named Noah and was almost the age of our Noah. We started talking with the usual conversation here, which is where are you from, where do you live, where do your kids go to school, how long have you been here, but were interrupted.

A little while later I was in the pool and she sought me out to ask about my family. Forever after I buried my sons this is a conversation I tend to avoid. Usually to no avail. What is the correct answer to "How many children do you have?" when the conversation is casual. How many times can you answer "five," when the correct answer is "seven," to avoid the inevitable but negate your son's existences? It is always a quandary for me. Candy pressed on. I noticed a slight belly on her tall, lithe frame and wondered if she were pregnant and if that was where we were headed. I wish that were so. As the conversation unfolded her need was revealed as she told me she had lost her second daughter, her fifth child, the week before Christmas.

Candy and her husband, a doctor in Sta Cruz, live purposely in this country and in the bush for purity and peace. They don't believe in vaccinations and she never even uses Baygon, the lethal spray people here use like room freshener to battle nature in thir homes. But their neighbor rented out his land to a large scale rice farmer who has been spraying chemicals on his fields and they have been the unwitting recipients of his overspray, which has landed on them, their house, and their land. She was poisoned along with the rice pests and her baby died six months in utero. Their plants withered and their cows and six horses died, one of which also aborted her foal.

This is a sad tale of environmental degradation and its human and inhumane consequences. We feed ourselves at our own peril. This farmer is within his rights here in the third world to spray his chemicals which have been banned in the US for safety and health consequences but are still manufactured by our homegrown wealthy chemical giants and sold to countries like this one instead. It is wrong. It is a crime. It is legal. And the results are tragic. In Nicaragua generations of cane workers are dying of kidney failure from chemical poisoning in the fields they must work to survive. Here in the land of eco-everything they use more agricultural chemicals than anywhere else in Central America, says one statistic. Bananas, rice, sugar cane, pineapple, melons - all brought to you by the good grace and giant bank accounts of chemicals that can kill you. Eat up! Perhaps it is best to stick with cheeseburgers in paradise.

Tonight we will skip the rice and eat cake in celebration of the births of Hannah and Noah. And I will think about this sweet baby girl who was whisked away from the weeping eyes and pain-wracked body of her mother by well-meaning but ignorant nurses before she could be properly adored and memorized. Her name is Makeba and she is buried on her family's land in Costa Rica. Next door the plows are tilling the soil after the first rains in preparation for planting the new rice crop. She is named for Miriam Makeba who sang about Mama Africa for the last time in November of last year. Baby Makeba's song was silenced before it began, drowned by the sounds of a crop duster wiping her life from our planet while her family's tears water her grave.

Happy Moth-ers Day!

2009-05-11T04:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a special moth and a bad pun for all you moms out there on moth-ers day! Andy found it in Uvita a few weeks ago. And, a butterfly on Bella, of course. One of the nice things about living here is that we have two mother's days! Costa Rica celebrates on August 15 so we arrived to that unexpected holiday last summer. As a staunchly Catholic country, they have chosen this holy day of obligation - the Assumption of Mary - as the day to honor their Mothers. This is believed to be the day when Mary was assumed into heaven - body and soul - on the 40th day after her death and is one of the essential beliefs of the Catholic faith - that the Blessed Virgin Mary's body was not allowed to corrupt nor to lie in a tomb, a symbol of the promise Jesus gave that we will all be received into paradise. Here in Costa Rica on August 15 mothers prepare to receive tv's and appliances, the mark of true appreciation for mom in this culture.
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I am not Catholic, but there's your lesson for the day anyway. I am Metholic, having been raised both Methodist and Catholic all my life. I have always admired the Catholic faith for its unique reverence for Mary, the mother of God. I know about the BV's heavenly birthday because we buried our son Noah twelve years ago on August 15, unaware that here in Costa Rica mom's were busy cleaning out the old refrigerator in preparation for the new one. Noah was not assumed, as far as we know. He was cremated and we planted him around the planet instead. But he is remembered by me on Mother's Day, whatever day it falls on, as well as every other day.

I had a great Mom's day yesterday. A bunch of families from the school descended on the new JW Marriott hotel near Tamarindo where we spent Saturday night. We enjoyed each other's company in the huge pool, took long beach walks, slept in their comfy beds, relaxed in the bathtub and the hot tub, and ate way too many french fries. They have a great kid's club and the little kids had 20 or 30 friends to play with. The big kids chose not to join us as their friends were in a fashion show in Tamarindo Saturday night at a club, but not a kid's club. They were modeling retro clothing from all the way back in the '90's! You know you're old when... I could have given them all kinds of things from that decade as I believe I am still wearing them! So that pretty much dates my wardrobe. I may even have something from the '80's, before most of my kids were even born!

Friday afternoon we took the teacher's on an appreciation sunset cruise to mark the end of the school year. We sailed on a large catamaran with an open bar and pretty good guacamole to Playa Huevos, which probably was not named for chicken eggs. As soon as we dropped anchor we strapped on our snorkel gear and headed over to the shoreline. There we spent a good hour or more with Kim and Diver Dan Baldwin, two of the school's science teacher's exraordinaire, while they found creature after creature for us to examine. We played with a beautiful purple and orange sea star, a pencil urchin, a very cool arrow crab with a bright yellow mouth and were entertained by a spiny brittle star which undulated all around our hands. Underwater we found a jeweled moray eel hanging with a scorpion fish, lots of bright blue juvenile damsels, a few dainty butterfly fish, a hawkfish, and I followed a lovely spotted eagle ray. It was a great day spent with the fun faculty and great parents we have met here. We will miss them all.

Well, I hope all you moths and mothers had a great day yesterday. If not, August is coming.

PS My blog is being featured this week in Travelblogs.com! Welcome all you travel blogs readers, enjoy! Thanks Eric! And congratulations on your new baby and to your wife on her first Mother's Day!!

Happy Birthday Micah!

2009-05-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

Micah is 16, it's official. For two days now... He can't drive here in Costa Rica yet, but he can drink! Yes, you can drink before you can drive. Just not in quick succession, you should wait a year or two. Here he is in a rare appearance with clothes on before a school dance. The jacket did not even make it out the car door.

It is the rainy season again here, though a much friendlier version than October. The air has become heavy and the mornings are sunny but the clouds build all day and the thunder threatens in the distance by sunset, alternating with the howlers who like to sing at dusk and dawn. The lightning shows have been great entertainment and the rain usually follows, clearing the air for sleeping.

On Micah's big day Wednesday we picked the kids up from school after sports and headed to Tamarindo. It was humid and overcast all day. Micah wanted to eat at Mama's Deli and we sat at a table on the beach as the day drew to a close. I should mention here that Mama is the Mama of Geronimo, Bella's first boyfriend who was present and showing off for her with his friends in their boxers. Clothing is kept at a minimum here in the tropics, which makes it a lovely place for a 16 year old boy. Even I, after 7 kids, have brought my belly out of hiding and put it back in the public domain, for better or worse. Even a lined bathing suit has too much fabric for comfort!

Christiana and Micah went for a run down the beach and Bella and I walked in the water. We converged back at the table for drinks and a salad when suddenly the bright orange sun dropped below the clouds and melted into the ocean. Too bad I didn't have my camera, but if you've seen one sunset, you know... With the end of the sun the mosquitoes descended so we decided to move to a table under cover off the ground. As we were eating our pasta the skies opened up and it started pouring rain which was heavenly! Fiesta! Fortunately we did not leave the cake out in the rain, ahem, and we sang Feliz Cumpleanos with a chorus of falling agua and ate cake with a cool mist on our skin.

Someday soon I may live to regret singing the praises of rain, but after so many months without

even one cloud in the blue sky it is a refreshing change of pace. That is human nature, is it not? We always seem to desire that which we do not have, be it weather or food or that someone special in our lives. I am not sure why it is our nature to be discontent and we struggle all our lives to overcome that with various prescriptions for counting our blessings. But it is. Start counting when you forget. But don't count your blessings before they hatch!

Back to one of my blessings, Micah. He has had a great year here at the Country Day School as a sophomore. Next year he will return to St. Georges, which granted him only year's absence, and he is excited to switch back from being a Pirate to a Dragon once more. He will be in the dreaded Junior year and that might be tougher than usual following a year in the tropics. He is a smart boy, though, and if he applies himself he should do fine. He has had near perfect grades this year and his Spanish has improved greatly. He is swimming now, which warms my heart to see, as well as playing basketball. For his birthday all he wants to do is rent a Yet Sky, which is what they advertise of the beach for waverunners, so on Mothers Day he and his friends will be speeding thru the turquoise waters of Playa Conchal below us here. We rented them one other time at Easter when our friends were visiting. I took one ride with Andy and it gave me an instant headache. He should enjoy these things while he is still young.

I labored for two days with Micah, the primogenitor, to convince him to enter this world and he is still not one who rushes into new situations. He has always liked to know what the plan is beforehand and has stood back and observed before deciding to enter into new situations or not while his big sisters sallied forth. He loves music of all kinds, including from the Broadway musicals we have seen. He has learned a lot about history this year with Mr. Berey who had them do very creative assignments such as making a CD of songs that represented different historical events, planning an entire trip around the world given certain parameters, and reenacting WW2 battles on the beach. He aced Chemistry thanks to the enthusiasm of Mrs. Baldwin and had a very insightful year in English with Miss Brigin who encouraged them all to EMBRACE their education. Indeed.

As Mother's Day approaches I am thankful, indeed, for my many blessings. Happy Birthday Micah, and many more...

Labor Day

2009-05-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

Well, we had yet another Costa Rican excuse to go to the beach this past long weekend - Labor Day. It appears that on May 1 while we were dancing around the May Poles of our youth with images of flowers and flowing skirts in our heads and Ring around the Rosie on our voices, much of the rest of the world had morphed the pagan rite of Spring into a celebration of workers (trabajadors) and the advent of labor unions.

So we joined them all at the beach after only a half day of school on Thursday. On Friday Isaiah had a birthday pool party to attend and we whiled away the afternoon playing Scrabble with friends while the kids swam. Micah went to his friend's ranch for the weekend and rode on an intense water slide, shot a pistol, and watched a cow give birth. Saturday I took Isaiah and Bella to a new Marriott with a large group of our friends from school to play in their enormous pool on the beach while Christiana took her SAT's. And Sunday we had our final open water dives scheduled for our scuba certification.

After a day of blessed cloudiness on Saturday night it rained for the first time since early November, if you don't count one brief and spontaneous shower we had a month or so ago... We have rarely even seen one cloud in the sky since the deluge of the rainy season ended around my birthday last year. But after the hottest of days and the building of heat and clouds for the past two weeks, the skies finally opened up with a full performance of thunder and lightning and the power went out and the unfamiliar smell of wet dust and dirt filled our nostrils while our ferocious guard dog, Duncan, cowered inside at our feet. After recovering from the initial shock of falling agua, we quickly scurried about shutting car windows, moving furniture, picking clothes off the line, then pinched ourselves and settled down to play cards by candlelight and head lamps.

We have avoided using the global warming machines in our house, air conditioning, for most of our 8 months or so here but the past few weeks have found us holed up inside feeling guilty for suddenly cancelling out on our outdoor living while the cooling machines hummed away and ruined the future of the planet for the sake of our short term comfort. It was just too hot to think and the sweat dripped off even my fingertips as I typed. One day the week before last I think I hit the apex of the heat when I shut myself in my bedroom with my laptop and 100 Years Of Solitude, finally able to think only with the refreshing electric coolness blowing over me. With the rain, the temperatures have thankfully dropped and the howlers are happy to have freshly rinsed meals after wearing their teeth down by chewing on leaves coated with road dust for months now.

Sunday when we awoke it was still cloudy and sprinkling but we set off bright and early to dive anyway. Andy had taken sea sickness medication, luckily, as it was rough with large swells as soon as we hit open water. Our destination was the Catalina Islands, about 30 minutes or so off the coast. All year we have been looking at this group of big rocks sticking up in the ocean and now, at last, we were to see them up close and personal. Like everything on and in the sea, they looked closer than they were and one clearly could not kayak out to them, as some guest or other had once inquired. We arrived at the 2 largest islands and prepared ourselves to step off the boat. Both are major bird rookeries but interestingly only one is covered in cactus while the other had nothing but scrubby grass, causing much speculation as to why.

The waves were crashing on the rocks when we entered the water and split up into 3 groups of divers. Andy, Christiana and I were in a group of 6 with 2 friends and Julian, one of our instructors. As soon as we got in the water the boat backed away, a little close for comfort with the swells it was riding and I found it difficult to kick away from it which scared me. We started our descent into the blue water and were making our way down to the bottom when the instructor signalled us to surface. "Where are Andy and Christiana?" he asked the three of us in his Argentinian accent. "They were right below us," we answered, but there was nothing but fish and water now visible from the surface when we looked down with our masks. "We will descend a little and look for them," he said. We descended about half way but saw no black wetsuited bodies anywhere and he signalled for us to surface. They had vanished into the blue. Another group was off away from us and he called to them to ask if they had seen them but they said no. He got very annoyed, finally calling to the boat to return to look for their bubbles while we drifted rapidly away from where we lost them and I started to panic, realizing how quickly they could disappear in that vast ocean with its quixotic currents.

By the time the boat signaled to us that they spotted their heads surfacing off in the distance maybe 10 minutes later an eternity had passed for me. My insides had turned into their own little private shipwreck. When we were all reunited as a group again they said they had followed the other group by mistake. I decided I was feeling too sick and could not do this dive, swimming through the rough seas to the boat instead to recover. I had instant running belly, not easy with 2 wetsuits and a bathing suit and one head with no toilet paper onboard. Soon we spotted Andy's head bobbing on the surface again and picked him up; he could not get his ears to clear on the second descent. So he and I sat the dive out on the boat and rocked in the swells and I felt progressively more awful. I was relieved once everyone was back onboard and we were motoring over to the Sombreros, a couple of pinnacle shaped rocks (photo), for our second dive. They all cheerfully ate cookies while I struggled to get ahold of myself.

Once we arrived and geared up again I was really fighting with myself to go. On the outside I appeared ready but inside I was running away. My stomach was in spasms and my weight belt was digging into it. I nodded and stepped off the edge of the boat when it was my turn, having chosen Christiana as my partner this time. Swimming over to our group I held her hand but was struggling to maintain my buoyancy in spite of inflating my BC. I felt like I could not move easily and I could not breathe. I told Julian that I didn't think my regulator was functioning properly as I sucked hard on it with little results. He tried it quickly and said it was fine.

We started our descent and my panic rose quickly. I let go of Christiana who patted my hand reassuringly and began to go deeper but I could not breathe and I felt incredibly heavy and unable to ascend. I forgot all about clearing my ears while I struggled, which is usually all I am focusing on. Julian kept signaling me to come down and I gave him the thumbs up, meaning I am going up. He shook his head no and signalled me to look at him but that made me panic even more. I put some air in my BC, a no-no, with him shaking his head no, but that was the only way I could make any progress up to the surface. I have to say this was one of the most awful feelings I have ever had. I felt like I was going to suffocate and sink into a watery grave below.

I managed to surface with him behind me and I told him I was not going to do this dive either. Christiana and the group were waiting for him and I did not want them to get separated again so he signalled for the boat to return. I told him to go, I would make it to the boat just fine, happy to be back in the world of ambient air breathers. After climbing onboard I found out my weight belt had 17 pounds instead of the 10 I usually use, so that explained some of my inability to move freely or surface with an additional extra one fifth of my body weight strapped on. But more than anything I was left with an excruciating feeling of panic that I have been trying to reckon with ever since. It was the first time in my life I was uncomfortable in the water, which is usually my favorite place to be. I was the last person I was worried about as I was the only one doing a recertification. With echoes of my younger voice in my head bravely extolling the pleasures of scuba diving, I wondered: Was it age? Hormones? Fear? A sudden attack of claustrophobia? The weather?

Everyone surfaced with happy tales of eels and nudibranchs and one small shark. On the way back to the marina we were accompanied by a school of dolphins, sleek and speedy on our bow wake. But my day was shot. We went to breakfast with everyone tho my stomach was still very upset. Christiana and I walked home along the beach - me wearing a hat, sunglasses, 2 long-sleeved lycra shirts and a pair of long sweatpants as I was still chilled - the most clothing I have worn in 8 months here by far! I looked like one of those people who can not have any sun exposure but somehow had a tan underneath. The day remained overcast and I did not warm up until we were almost home, a couple miles later. We lay on the couch, exhausted, talking about colleges for Christiana while watching The Phantom of the Opera, a welcome lazy gray Sunday afternoon for us all.

Today is Monday, a new day. The sun is shining again and I am still trying to shake this lingering knot in my gut, the place I hold my anxiety. I am sure I will strap on my gear eventually but for now I am in no great hurry to face my fears for the sake of looking at a few fish. Maybe it will be better for me to dive alone without the worry of my family down there with me, like it used to be in the carefree days of my youth. Maybe a sunny, calm day is what I need. When I climbed onboard the boat after quitting the first dive, one of the crew said to me, "I am glad I am not a Mom. When my Mom is worried she says her feet ache." I nodded, sympathetically. For us Moms, every day is Labor Day.

Happy 20th Birthday Hannah Amelia!

2009-04-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

See Hannah!
See Hannah Row!
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This photo was taken during practice on a rare warm day last November when I had the pleasure of spending my 47th birthday with my oldest child in DC watching the beautiful synchronicity of her strokes on the Potomac from a rowboat with her coach yelling orders with a megaphone behind me. I wish I could do it again on Sunday for her 20th birthday. Boo hoo. We will be diving at the Catalina Islands to complete our certification while Hannah turns 20 without us at Georgetown where she is finishing up her sophmore year, majoring in Physics with a concentration in Pre-Med and a minor in Portuguese. In a few months she will be landing in the wilds of Rio to Fala Portuguese until Christmas, hopefully perfecting her minor so she can concentrate on classes like Relativity and Quantum Physics or Multivariable Calculus! Yummy!
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Hannah was born in San Francisco, our only California girl, looking calmly at us with her brown eyes. She entered this world on the day Lucille Ball exited, leaving us all with laughter dying on our faces. Hannah knit our smiles right back together. She was a great baby to cut our teeth on with her calm demeanor and happy grin, waiting patiently for us to catch on to the art of parenting. In no hurry to challenge us by moving around, Hannah was content to sit and smile while her friends crawled around her. She paved the way nicely for her siblings to follow in her path, literally, as she broke my tailbone to get it out of the way during delivery. Ouch. Hannah was always the voice of my conscience growing up, telling me things like, "Mom, you can't park here!" The firstborn, the rule follower; Tuesday's child, full of grace.
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We moved to Oregon when she was one, time for her to come out of the closet, the only space for her crib in our third floor Sunset apartment with a view of the Pacific. There she was joined by her confident sister, Christiana, and her cute brother Micah who followed their every lead, even when he found himself dressed in red velvet with a bow in his hair. Hannah waited, quiet and observant by my side, as her second brother, Noah, was delivered into her world of 7 years which she welcomed him to with wisdom and love. They shared an instant bond as if each were the one the other had been waiting for. Noah learned to climb quickly with the added incentive of Hannah's hidden candy stash on her bed which he secretly ravaged when she was at school. She bravely sang Counting Sheep, a beautiful lullaby, for the crowd at Noah's funeral 15 short months later. She held her brother Jonah gently and added her 8 year old tears to the growing puddle on his sweet little lifeless face. We moved to RI when she was 10 and she joyfully welcomed Isaiah and Bella Grace to her collection of siblings in the years that followed! She has been an excellent role model for them all! "Goody, goody, Hannah!" as her Grandma Kittel named her when she learned to go potty like a big girl.
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Hannah began her love affair with Portuguese when we lived in the Algarve for a year where she distinguished herself as always with her intelligence and had her onstage debut as a beauty school dropout in Grease. She returned to Portsmouth High and proudly drove the sand van to graduate with a fistful of honors and a happy invitation to become a Hoya. Clearly, she had mastered the art of crawling and had, indeed, learned to run. She took on the challenge of crew in her typical quietly confident way and has been rowing and studying in our nation's capital ever since, mastering the art of city living while honing her award-winning shelving abilities in the science reference library. She came here to Costa Rica for Christmas vacation with her friend, Alicia, and we had a great time swimming and playing together as a family for a short 10 days. (Photo below) We miss her! But we are very proud of her as she continues to excel in her endeavors and grow into a capable and lovely young lady. Our hats are off and our feet are jiggling to our Hannah Banana, Banana Skittle and she has 20 times 5 spankings waiting for her when next we gather!
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Parabens a Voce, Nesta Data Querida, Muitas Felizidadas, Muitos Anos de Vida, Hoje e Dia de festa, Cantam as Nossas Almas, Para menina Hannah, Uma Salva de Palmas!
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Feliz Cumpleanos a Ti!
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Con Mucho Gusto Y Mucho Amor,
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Mom (K3)

The Black Panther, Part One - In the Beginning

2009-04-19T06:49:00.001-07:00

In the beginning was the word and the word was idea. And the idea was good. Or so it seemed. Perhaps it was not all good as many ideas are often found to be. And it came to pass and the idea became reality....

When we conceived and implemented the idea of moving to Costa Rica, it had been for some time already that Andy and Micah had been discussing a father/son motorcycle trip across country. Since we needed a way to get Duncan here as well as some of the stuff we thought we needed, the idea of them driving here morphed into reality and the panther, a Ford F350 with a crew cab, entered our lives and replaced the Harley of their dreams. As the trip grew into reality the truck gave birth to a trailer and the trailer was filled with supplies for the Nicaraguan mission work done by the Methodist conference of churches. And off they went from this photo taken above on July 18, '08, Micah and Andy and Duncan, on their great adventure driving to our new home here and causing too many geographically challenged folks to scratch their heads with wonder at how you can drive to an island. And what an adventure it was! For 6 days they drove across our fair land listening to tales of pre-election woe and discontent with the economy and leadership of our country, stopping at an endless array of "business closed" signs and entertained by fluctuating fuel prices which declined with latitude.

They arrived in post-hurricane Dolly Texas to find no room at the inns, which were overflowing with evacuees. It took three days to convince the friendly Mexican customs officials to let them pass into the land of tacos and federales. Here they began their affair with border crossings and armed lovers who stopped them over 20 times in 3 days to fully enjoy their caresses and attempt to extract the sweet kisses of pesos to their extended hands. They had hoped to worship at the crumbling feet of its ancient temples but were only given a 5-day, $500 Visa so had to rush right past the ancient Gods to the begging arms of the colorful Guatemalan keepers of the border. There they managed to cross for half the price and were granted a 3 month stay in that land of bargains waiting to fill their trailer with beautiful embroidered cloth and cheap trinkets which they did not desire even from the pleading round eyes of beautiful black haired five year old girls with piles of rainbow colored scarves on their heads.

It was raining and they rushed through in a day to El Salvador, which lie before them previously unconsidered with perhaps a negative connotation. The border crossing cost only $10 and became the surprised sleeping favorite country and day of the trip with a beautiful coastal highway overlooking basalt bluffs and tunnels opening to the rugged shoreline below and quenching breezes of the Pacific on their steaming skin. El Salvador swept the "best of" award categories, winning for the easiest and most civilized border crossings as well.

The next day they crossed into Honduras which should have been only a one or two hour trip across its 60 miles of highway but, like many such places, tried to make the most of what little it had. It ended up taking a full day and $450 split between the two borders with a Honduran official escort who shall not be named and was given the seat of honor, in the back next to a drooling Duncan, demanding his own payment of $40 for the ride with no discounts, thank you very much. Arriving at night in the no-man's land that lays between countries they were forced to sleep in the cab of the truck, swatting mosquitoes all night until the customs officials had their morning coffee and fill of gallo pinto and opened up for business. This night won the award for the worst night of the trip as they were awakened continuously to the sounds of busses emptying their passengers into the parking lot around them. These travellers, in turn, unabashedly emptied their bowels and bladders on the pavement around them as well.

The next day they drove to Managua and were relieved to see the joyful faces of the Methodist mission workers who emptied the trailer of its supplies with many smiles and gave them a bed and bowl of water for the night. There they had their most hauntingly educational day when they were given a tour of selected highlights of the city, including the vast, teeming dump built on the remains of old Managua which was leveled by the earthquake of 1972 and bulldozed towards the lake, filling in the wetlands with the palpable spoils of its memories where once egrets and herons nested to the distant disco beat. Here over 10,000 citizens lean on their flimsy hold on life together in zinc and cardboard houses, squabbling for the first fetid spoils to fall off the overflowing regurgitation of their daily bread, the abundance that floweth from the garbage trucks. This was not the first sighting of such abject poverty for Andy, but it was an eye and awareness opener for Micah. But even for Andy, what set this "one man's trash" neighborhood apart was the sheer size of its desperation and the fact that it was recognized as an acceptable suburb by the government who provided electricity and water for a fee to its garbage filled streets where babies crawled through ankle-deep refuse, flies fighting for prime nesting spots on their faces, while their ancient older siblings searched through broken glass and putrid smells for a tiny reusable piece of wire or metal and their fathers struggled under their light-weight burdens of oversized clear plastic bags filled with recyclable everlasting plastic from our transplanted consumer economy which has allowed their neighborhood to flourish and grow.

Built back into a high hill overlooking this shame of civilization sits a shiny new US Embassy, recently completed for hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars, strategically situated for its perception of safety. Safe, perhaps, from the wrath of the trash town citizens who are temporarily blinded below by the reflection of the sun off its shiny white facade with tinted one-way windows in their dismal downturned eyes. There our ambassador sits high and secure on his hill in his clean office overlooking the putrid pea green polluted waters of Lake Managua and the smoking volcanoes in the distance, his view sullied only by the humanitarian recycling project which lies in the space between, praying the sun is never darkened long enough for their searching eyes to turn upwards towards the heavens or him.

The next day they left for the welcome sight of the Costa Rican border with an empty trailer and welcome addition of Miguel onboard to help smooth out their last border love affair. They had the haunting memory of those dump dwellers in their brains but also the vision of the sewing projects and school and health supplies left behind in the helping hands of the mission workers. The crossing was smooth and cost $25 of actual fees. Andy had no idea how much time he was destined to devote to this border place called Penas Blanca. For now they were content to look only as far as the heaping plates of filet mignon and fish which lie within a fork's reach before them at the Happy Snapper, offering a burnt cigar offering to the Gods of the Pan American Highway left behind them. They happily pulled into the clean linens awaiting them at Hotel Sugar Beach and put the Panther in park, jumping into the pool and washing off the 9 days of Central American dust that had accumulated on their skin. Each floated under the wisdom of the stars above with memories of too many guns and tortillas tucked safely behind them.

The word was idea and the idea became history.

Hopping and Flopping Around in the Heat!

2009-04-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

I know you don't want to hear it, but lately it has been 95 degrees and warmer around our casa. Our clay tile floors feel like they have built-in radiated heat underneath as they warm up with the day. Not that we have a thermometer or anything, but when I sit at my keyboard with sweat running down my fingers I sometimes click on the Tamarindo Tide Chart and check out the weather. Sunny and hot, emphasis on the latter. As much as we have cursed the winds that lifted the roof and rained bug larvae and dirt on the floor, they did keep the air moving. Now, alas, we may have to resort to using that precious commodity, electricity, to move the sweat in different directions.

So as Easter rolled around it seemed highly improbable that a fur-covered oversized rabbit would be found hopping around delivering, of all things in this heat, chocolate! As usual, it is blissfully easy to remain unaware of holidays, with the blaring lack of commercialism and we might have overlooked the event entirely for the lack of advertising circular reminders if it were not for a few other hints - like church, Spring Break, and the monthly flipping of the calendar. Plus the fact that three of my kids faithfully observed the abstinence of Lent this year and were eagerly awaiting the resurrection of not only Jesus but french fries, chips, and ice cream into their hungry young lives.

Saturday rolled around and found us cleaning our house after our friends with "their three sons" departed for colder climates, namely California. As I mopped the floor on Easter Eve Bella happened to mention that her friend Katie at school told her that the Easter Bunny does, indeed, come to Costa Rica! We had planned to attend church and have a family dinner with grilled chicken but had not contemplated the possibility of a visit from the big bunny. But Bella was correct! The Easter Bunny did somehow enter our casa and hide a bunch of little chocolate soccer balls as well as some chocolate crunchy eggs and some kind of pastel colored candy eggs that only the hormigas enjoyed. So the kids had their traditional egg hunt before breakfast using plastic bags instead of cute wicker baskets and off to church we went with chocolate on our breath!

The Beach Community Church is an over-sized, open-air palapa with one sunny yellow wall behind the altar. The parrots fly by with their own squawking chorus and the breezes blow through the surrounding hibiscus and beauganvillia blooming around it in a permanent hug of pink, orange, and red, a lovely alternative arrangement of altar flowers. The service is slightly evangelical in nature but the surfing pastor (see photo) with his bright white infectious smile and entertaining lessons make it very easy to listen to. There is a new mix of talented singers and instrumentalists every week. Everyone wears shorts and flip flops or little dresses and it is the healthiest and most beautiful congregation I have ever admired. I think God himself must be very pleased when he lifts up the edge of that palm roof and peeks in on all the happiness and beauty and warmth worshiping him from under its shelter.

On Easter Sunday everyone greeted each other warmly with salty kisses - all tropical kisses taste like the salt of the earth and sea in this heat. There is a Costa Rican superstition that cautions against swimming on Good Friday lest you turn into a fish! The beaches around here were packed all Semana Santa and many of the Chipenos frolicking in the sea were apparently eager to risk this transformation instead of heading back to San Jose with their feet still intact. I, myself, water lover that I am, had to think twice about whether or not I might not mind being a fish... Depends what kind, I guess, definitely not a tasty minnow, even though I do like big families. Maybe a stunning rooster fish. The pastor gave a lovely message interspersed with several funny jokes, one of which Andy had been telling all week himself! He reminded us of Jesus' last words as he hung on the cross, "It is finished." Those three simple words hold so much meaning and gave me pause to ponder. So simple, yet so profound. What you might say to yourself, for instance, upon glancing down and discovering you were the proud new owner of both fins and a tail.

During communion it is the custom of this church to flip flop up the center aisle and take a little square of bread, the body of Christ, and a little cup of grape juice, the blood. Everyone carefully carries these symbolic elements back to their folding chairs while the offertory music concludes. On this Easter morning we were blessed with the beautiful singing voice and keyboard playing of our school's new music teacher to keep the procession moving. She is the Mom of 3 of my kid's fellow students and the wife of a devout Christian locksmith named Darwin. No kidding. I actually thought we were listening to a recording before I stood up and noticed her on the altar, playing and singing so professionally. As her last note echoed around the wooden poles of the palapa and through the palm fronds into the eavesdropping ears of God himself, naturally we were all moved to applaud our appreciation of her talents. This is not a church that is afraid to clap, unlike other more reserved and steeped-in-tradition types I have belonged to which shall remain nameless, where they actually instituted a clapping policy to alleviate the angst and rigidity of the proper shoe-wearing parishioners... But there we sat on this hot and sunny Sunday, sweating with the body and blood of Christ in our hands, unhibited by an overabundance of either cloth or leather and eager to make some noise of our own! And that was when our smiling pastor verbalized what everyone present was suddenly realizing, "It is hard to clap with the blood of Christ in your hand!" Indeed!

Amen!

Hooray for Juan Santamaria Day!

2009-04-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

And the sun sets on the end of Spring break...

Today is Juan Santamaria Day, also known as Easter Monday, and a nice extension to the busy holiday. According to Wikipedia the holiday is held every year on April 11, and today is the 13th, but here we are. The old "if the holiday falls on fin de semana we celebrate on Lunes thing..." And who was Juan, you might be wondering along with the rest of us gringos? Well, read on to your ultimate enlightenment...
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Young Juan is one of only two bonafide national heroes of Costa Rica and his holiday is held on the day of his death in 1856. As the story goes, there once was this guy named William Walker, the self-proclaimed grey-eyed man of destiny, who put the F in Filibuster. I have spent the morning surfing the internet but can not verify the rumor that he is the ancestral "W" our own illustrious past Prez was named for but it is fun to think about their similarities. William was hanging around San Francisco in the mid-1800's when he had this brilliant idea to turn Central America into a private English speaking slave colony and subsequently began his quest for glory by taking over Nicaragua and declaring himself the 6th President, killing all who opposed him or called him bad names. So you can see some potential genetic traits emerging with our own 43rd Prez...
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With one banana republic neatly tucked under his belt he set his sights on his new neighbor to the south, our own Costa Rica, never known for its ferocious military might. He and his welcome wagon of mercenaries headed off to the land of Pura Vida, thinking the Ticos would line up neatly and speak English, damn it! Instead he met with armed resisitance thanks in part to the financial assistance CR received from Cornelius Vanderbilt, whom Walker had pissed off. In those pre-Panama canal days the tycoons fought over access and control of a shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific thru this fair isthmus - no, we do not live on an island - and Nicaragua was the place to flex your big cojones as boats could sail up the San Jaun River and into Lake Nicaragua, offloading there for a short jaunt by oxcart to the Pacific. These were the heady days of the goldrush and the building of vast fortunes and economic battles between giants like the V's and the Morgans, the latter having backed young master Will in his endeavors for control of the banana republics.

Meanwhile, back in Guanacaste, the grey-eyed Will was routed out of Santa Rosa just north of us here and pushed back to Rivas in Nicaragua with some hot Ticos in pursuit, taking strategic refuge in a fort. Enter Juan stage left, the poor boy born of a single mother who heeded his President's call to arms, volunteering to march his country's army to the beat of his drum. After several failed attempts to burn Walker and his men out, Juan traded his drum sticks for a flaming torch, asking that his country take care of his mother as he successfully set the fort on fire, his last dying act before meeting his own destiny. He was named a national hero for freeing his people from the threat of shackles and the audacity of saying "Hello" instead of "Hola." Walker's name is the nasty equivalent of a different four letter word in this part of the world and the reason most Nicos still distrust fast talking gringos. And Ollie North didn't help matters any...
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The little drummer boy, Juan, was only 24 years old when he beat out a Latino rhythm on the world's oldest instrument for the last time. Now we all fly into the national airport in San Jose named for him and give thanks for this extra beach day before heading back to the school routine. Walker, on the other hand, was sent home by the US Navy to an unlikely NYC hero's welcome where he sat down and wrote his memoir. He then made the ill-fated decision to go on a book tour to Honduras, this being the glory days of publishing before you needed the expert advice and services of a literary agent, who might have wisely advised him on a different marketing strategy while convincing him to drop all adverbs and exclamation points. The Hondurans gave him a clear consumer response, executing him by firing squad before he could write anything more about his big idea to hear them all cry, "Yes, Master!" In the end, slavery never held much in the way of popular appeal, regardless of what language spoke its name.

Tortugas

2009-04-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

Last night on the beach was pure magic. Another one of the 99 reasons we moved to Costa Rica was so our kids could observe the wildlife here before it is all gone. Sound gloomy? Sadly, it is a fact. Most of the wildlife here is, indeed, endangered and it could disappear in their lifetime. Andy and I actually beat the bush at Monteverde in 1987, our first Pura Vida visit, until we found the Golden Toad, a fluorescent orange beauty endemic to that cloud forest and never seen again in the years that followed. So we take no creature for granted, taking advantage of our time here while we can, and try not to hasten the decline. We have spent many, many magical moonlit nights on one gorgeous beach nearby watching the turtles lay their eggs under the stars and praying the US owners of the property never develop it. Some months have been busier than others, but every night there is evidence of turtle activity on this beach. Olive ridleys were abundant in the fall and now there are one or two black turtles, tortuga negra, as they are locally known lumbering up the beach nightly to ensure the survival of their species like this one from last night's adventure.

We have seen the wide tracks of giant leatherbacks twice on our beach but have not been lucky enough to see them heaving themselves across the slippery sands. We did, however, pay $50 to see one 500 pound sheila on Playa Grande in December during their nesting season. She was a small one for her kind. Playa Grande is a national park for las baulas, the leatherbacks, and the park rangers do a good job of patrolling and keeping people off the beach at night. It is one of the most important nesting sites for these behemoths of the turtle world and controversy rages as the government allowed lots to be purchased and houses built within the park boundaries. Artificial light is one of the biggest enemies of sea turtles and the houses create illumination problems. Where thousands used to arrive, now they are lucky to see one hundred.

On our beach there are one or two guards and sometimes people camping at holiday times like now, Semana Santa, Holy Week. Otherwise we are usually the only ones enjoying the warm nights walking in the shallow waters along the tideline, our feet kicking cascades of phosphorescent creatures sparkling like a tiny bioluminescent light show before our happy feet. Last night we brought our friends and watched this black turtle throwing sand on everyone, digging herself in deeper and deeper. You have not lived until a sea turtle has flung sand on you with her powerful flippers perfectly proportioned for both swimming and digging in the sand. We have found this type of tortuguero to be quite skittish and sure enough, after captivating everyone's attention for an hour she ultimately decided not to deposit her clutch of about 100 eggs and headed back for her saltwater home instead. (The photo above is an olive ridley laying in September) Perhaps she returned later when the smoke from the campfires did not assail her sense of smell and the onlookers were dreaming in their tents. Perhaps she will wait for another night. It was a rare opportunity nevertheless for our friends to witness this spectacular creature toiling away so earnestly out of her natural liquid environment.

While they observed, I spread a large cool cotton sheet out on the sand and Bella, Isaiah, and I had a moonbath. The moon was nearly full and the stars were dull in its light but we could pick out the big dipper anyway. Usually the constellations are numerous and the milky way an easily discernible band of densely packed lights. But any night on the beach is special. And laying on a white sheet in the moonlight with the sounds of the surf and a sea turtle flinging sand nearby and the warm bodies and questions of my children next to me is pure magic. They have each watched so many sea turtles do their thing on the beach in the past 8 months they could easily lead guided tours and answer any questions that might arise.

The only stage of the process we are still hoping to witness is the hatching out of the chicas, the perfect tiny replicas of their moms, all of the same sex depending on the temperature of their sandy womb. We have seen the evidence they leave behind, the dry leathery egg shells and the many little tracks radiating out from one small spot in the sand and we have followed their sometimes misguided attempts to reach the sea, picking one track and observing its meanderings with a sigh of relief when it evidently reached its new saltwater home. We lay on our sheet and the world fell away around us. The moon was bright, the night was sweet and warm, and we were content, needing nothing more.

I should mention that we joke that the guard job at this beach includes all the turtle eggs you can eat, but it is not funny. The guards and some of our neighbors do, indeed, wait on the beach for these mamas to do their thing, waving goodbye to them as they head back to sea with salty tears running from their eyes, leaving their offspring to meet their fate. Then the hungry onlookers simply follow the telltale road map left behind by flippers and shell which leads them straight to the nest where they neatly dig up the ping-pong ball-like eggs still warm and covered in the liquidy lubrication from their mother's bodies. They eat these eggs raw and rubbery before the shells begin to form, selling them to the local bars where they are served in shot glasses with tomato juice for a serving of protein and "Mas Fuerte" with the flowing beer and guaro. Mas Fuerte means more strong, and of course they view these reptilian delights as powerful aphrodisiacs like the body parts or products of so many other endangered species around the world. Think bear gall bladder, tiger pee, rhino horn... sea turtle eggs, all of which leave me with one giant vote for Viagra as the most unlikely solution to saving these species! As if our world needs Mas Fuerte. What other species on the planet has been more successful in their efforts to reproduce and fulfill their biological purpose than homo sapiens?

I lay on my tropical cotton island with two of my own five living children, gazing up at the heavens where perhaps the rest of my children who have gone before us were swinging on the stars. I thought of the Native American saying, "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." I sent up a silent prayer to the twinkling stars that my fears never come to pass and that the two children snoring gently beside me in the warm night air can some day bring their own offspring to that same spot, spread out a sheet of their own choosing and listen to the same sounds gently ushering them off to the land of their dreams - the warm waves gently kissing the shore and a mother sea turtle sighing softly with the effort laying her eggs.

Simply Living

2009-03-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was lamenting the Target selection on her blog the other day and it got me thinking about yet one more of the 99 reasons we moved to Costa Rica - Simple Living. Can you simply live right at home in the land of the free and the brave? Sure. Is it more difficult? Definitely. Here in the tropics we do not shop. See that period? We have not bought anything besides food, gas, car and quad parts, and other household goods for 6 months now. Yes, a family of 6 sometimes outgrows items like soccer cleats and new sneakers for school and we have imposed on our friends coming to visit to bring a few things like that from the land of plenty. But we have not shopped for unnecessary clothing or little household decorations or holiday decor or a toy or a game or anything like that since we arrived last August. The kids all have school uniforms, so that helps. But there is no Target. Or TJ Maxx. Or Marshalls. Or Christmas Tree Shop. Or any of your other favorite stores beckoning with colorful flyers and promises of great new Spring selections just in time for Easter!

I think of all the times my car pulled automatically into the Marshalls parking lot where I, Starbucks mocha in hand, thought I would just take a look in the half hour of "free" time I had and found myself squeezing back out the exit clutching plastic bags stuffed with hundreds of dollars of items I did not actually need or plan on buying! Here there is no bombardment of holiday candy for Easter or special dresses with matching hats and purses or cute little decorations or anything like that at all. Period. None of that constant tempatation that marketing brings. This is not a consumer oriented society; people here do not consider shopping a pasttime. Does this mean that sometimes I don't have throw rug envy? No. I do wish I could find some cheap but colorful rugs to cover my hard tile floors and sink my perpetually bare toes into but there aren't any, so I don't, and that's one less thing I have to move before I shopvac and mop my house! The only decent shopping, I am told, is in San Jose and that is a good 5 hour drive from here. So, it's not happening. We are simply living with less.

The other day during our beach walk Christiana was commenting that she thinks it might be weird to go home. Amen. I know from my Peace Corps experience that as hard as it was to leave my family, friends, and all things familiar behind and immerse myself in a foreign culture, it was much, much, muchly, much more difficult to return home to all the wastefulness of our throw away society and rampant consumerism. The technical term is "readjustment" and after buying the same exact items at the grocery store for 2 years I could not enter a grocery or drug store for many months without forcing down an overwhelming feeling of being, well, overwhelmed! All those choices! All that information overload! You have no idea the magnitude of data you process and internalize on a daily basis at Stop and Shop until you have not done it for a year or two. Too many choices, too many price comparisons, too much time spent poring over highly marketed products and forget about the rest of your day if you are actually going to compare ingredients or the relative sugar content of breakfast cereals! It is happening to you every day and you don't even realize you are on the merry-go-round until you get off and try to get back on again. So, yes, Christiana, it will indeed be weird. And this lovely realization from my daughter whose idea of entertainment used to be a trip to the mall! Now she is the one running around our casa turning off all unnecessary lighting and fighting with Micah over running the a/c in their bedroom at night. You go girl!

Besides the lack of a shopping scene, other ways we are simply living include washing dishes by hand, and yes, there are a lot of us. We wash the clothes in cold water only but it comes out warm because of the ambient temperature and we hang the clothes to dry, which I do at home too but now I can forego the down jacket and gloves and am less inclined to settle for the ease of the dryer during a blizzard. We only drive to school and the grocery store, usually combining trips. The rest of the time we read, write, walk the beach, and wait for our "busy" American friends to take a minute from their overscheduled day to send us an email or two. There is an occasional birthday party or sporting event or other social outings of course and I am not meaning to preach, but just think of the time you spend in your car or shopping for Spring clothing and imagine yourself curled up in your favorite chair with a good book instead. Christiana is doing a vegetarian experiment with her Environmental Science class but even without that added incentive, we eat much more healthfully and simply. Real food only, the closest Burger King is an hour away, thankfully! What junk food there is has been imported and is expensive so we don't eat it much. School lunches are proper meals sliced, diced, and cooked from whole foods by living, breathing lunch ladies who work too hard for swinging triceps. No microwaved airplane fake food mass produced in Pennsylvania. And nobody has been sick since we arrived other than an ear infection for Bella and Andy.

We are blessed with time. And that is why I posted this great photo of a howler monkey. (Thanks Robin!) Howlers have to hang around to survive. They are folivorous, meaning they eat only leaves with an occasional piece of fruit or tasty flower thrown in for variety. But this diet provides low nutrition and is difficult to digest so they have to chill, resting about 3/4 of the day and all night to ferment and digest their leafy meals in order to get any energy from them. Even though our diets are higher in energy, we could still take a lesson from these fellow primates. So, even if only for one day, try foregoing shopping, drive only if necessary, and learn to be more comfortable with the time you might discover. Time to stop, time to think, time to be alone, time to open a great book and read or bake something from scratch. Saturday is Earth Hour. For one hour, 830 to 930 pm, all around the Earth folks are encouraged to turn off all the lights and nonessential electricity. So, unless you are on life support or emergency oxygen, this means you could probably hit the breaker and play cards with your family by candlelight and tell Abe Lincoln stories. Last year Isaiah and I were home alone and that is exactly what we did. He keeps asking me when we are going to do it again, so here it is! He is excited! And he lives in a country where losing power for an hour is practically a daily event!

PS If you are reading this blog, please sign on as a follower! It gives me an idea of how many folks are lurking out there and helps me sign on to blog lists so others can learn about life in Costa Rica! Thanks!

That's Bull....

2009-03-23T06:14:00.001-07:00

Monday morning here in the tropics, kids at school, laundry is hanging, see it?, no, the pool is not running off the edge, that's just my angle today, stayed up too late watching "The Reader", need to have 10 posts to get on the ex-pat blog directory so stepping up the pace...and 9 and... Andy gone to the border to give them all our money and see if we can get the black panther back. When I say "gone to the border" think "gone to Hell" as that is the closest metaphor. Border towns are teeming, dirty, swarms of uncivilization that can instantly turn you into an obsessive compulsive anti-bacterial soap lover. Dehydrating yourself is the best border strategy so as not to need the "facilities". Hungry? Forget about it. Last time we went we came home with dirt even in our ears thanks to a constant barrage of windblown dirt and dust. Yuck. When Andy got there Friday he found a sticker on the truck window saying it was abandoned like an unloved pet and about to become the property of the aduana, translation: thieving tax agency, and I guess they would have soon given it to the employee of the month had Andy not shown up to visit. This in spite of the fact that it is impounded in their own secure lot where they put it and is accruing a daily fee! So, fingers crossed half-heartedly after 4 months and counting of false hope and premature labor-like anticipation.

I heard on Radio Doce this morning that the March winds are here which is funny as I thought these were still the Papagayos minus the steroids but guess they magically morphed at some unknown transitional point, like maybe when the calender page flipped, hmm... One hit wonders heard lately that should have stayed locked in the archives include "Afternoon Delight", "My Baby Takes the Morning Train", "Fox on the Run", and "Roseanna". Others I could actually sing along with included Bread's "Guitar Man" and the not so old "Drops of Jupiter" so you can see the ratio is easily 2:1, cringingly horrible:happy to hear. I also heard that lame America song, whose dazzling lyrics include "Oz never did give nothin' to the tin man" and what the heck was that all about anyway? First of all, I always thought they said "Odds" until this latest "aha!" moment but whatever because it makes no sense either way and is a very dumb song that I never thought too much about. Tropic of Sir Galahad, say what? And speaking of when we actually used to say, "Say what?" as in "Rollercoaster, of love, say what?" Ha! I wonder if the Ohio Players are here in CR too! Remember sitting glued to the radio hoping they would play some favorite song and straining to hear the lyrics? I remember writing "Stairway to Heaven", my first book! And now you can figure all that blather out immediately as the internet posts them all, for better or worse. Hopefully this will be an added incentive to song writers to sober up and write some good stuff, all that hippety hop nasty crap not withstanding. Stay tuned for more blasts from the past. At least I will be in great shape for my 30th MHS reunion this summer! I wonder if my hair will still shape into wings... Say what?!

Which brings me to my topic of the day, Bulls... Saturday nite marked the beginning of the next round of Fiestas which move from town to town. The last round were the Chrismas ones and now we are gearing up for Semana Santa, holy week. Not sure how they are Easter-like in any way, except perhaps for the prayers sent up by the bull riders and chinese food eaters. I took Micah to meet his friends and Eileen came along for her fiesta debut. We took up our position in the stands, which are constructed fresh for each town's fiesta and resemble those toothpick projects my kids had to make to see which design could support the most weight. People hang off and sit all along the fencing that comprises the bull ring itself and try to bravely kick the bull when it comes by and this fiesta crowd was particularly large, Villa Real being a bigger town, so that when the bull ran by the people lining the inside of the fencing all rose with synchronicity like a pop-up book or the wave at a sporting event! In addition to lining the fences, the inside of the bullring itself was filled with macho men with liquid courage, typically the local firewater guaro, coursing through their veins. There are usually some gringos in there and, this being Spring break time, there were a few tourists and college kids too. You could practically hear the scratching of their pens on the postcards home, "Dear Mom and Dad, ...gored by a bull..." All around the outside of the bull ring are carnival games, candy apples, flying swings, cotton candy, dancing parlors, fried dough, flying pigs, and your typical fiesta fare found everywhere else in the world, the only distinction being the language all the ex-inmate workers speak. One funny aside, under the "supervision" of his Dad, Isaiah spent all his money one night at the Brasilito fiesta on some crazy game and finally won a bottle of wine! He and his buddy Jackson, also clearly a minor, wandered the fiesta proudly with their prize alcohol for the rest of the evening and were the talk of the school as half the teachers were there too!

So, the stage is set. Now for the action! The rider and bull burst through the gate where one of two things usually occurs. Either the rider manages to hang on for the allotted time to a simple rope tied around the bull's chest, digging a metal boot spike into the bull's side, enraging the poor beast who bucks and flings him around like a bad case of shaken baby syndrome. OR, and this is what the crowd really loves to hate, the bull succeeds in tossing that piercing pain in his side off his back. Once either outcome is effected, the bull might either stomp on the rider, impale him on a horn or the rider might manage to run off and crawl under the fence or is unceremoniously carried off and stuffed under the fence with some degree of injury or unconsciousness and little or no medical care. Once the rider is dispensed with, the bull continues to chase the macho men around the ring, snot flying everywhere, until the dancing horses enter and manage to lasso it into submission or the bull finds the open gate and runs off into the shoot and truck waiting to transport it to the next night's fiesta.

The bulls were particularly fierce Saturday night and Eileen and I had watched a few dramatic rides, cold-ish Imperial cans in hand, waiting for the big draw of the night, Chichiri, one of the two most famous bulls in the Fiesta circuit, as he has killed two riders this year. It is difficult to survive a bull horn that enters your mouth and exits the top of your head. They had a brief intermission while they switched bull trucks with some typical colorful Guanacastican dancing and a school band playing whatever beat it could manage on the only two instruments available, drums and xylophones. The field cleared and the macho men all huddled around the gate dancing and slapping each other on the ass while watching up close for the next bull, then signaling its imminent arrival by running away to the other side as fast as possible, so reminiscent of Monty Python - "And brave, brave Sir Robin, he turned his heels and fled..." Out charged a big black bull with no rider! Sometimes this happens, not sure why, perhaps the rider figures out at the last minute that his life is worth more than $20? The bull started chasing after the macho men and had made his way to the opposite side of the ring when suddenly the lights went out in the ring, giving that black beast a distinct advantage! The lights outside of the ring were still on, plunging the bull into the shade of the toothpick stands, giving some real drama to those postcards from the edge! Sadly, they never managed to fire up the spotlights and the bull riding was prematurely ended before we could get our $10 view of Chichiri. We bravely rode the flying swings, screaming like teenage chicas, thinking of every carnival ride horror story ever told and Micah and Eileen dominated the bumper car scene before calling it a night.

Before I conclude my Monday post, let me just take a minute to update you on that scorpion I evicted in my cleaning frenzy. No, he did not return to sting my nose or bite my toes, as over the hills we go... Oh, never mind. But, it turns out, he does have both a vindictive streak and friends in high places, namely our bathroom, as that same Friday night those ants-formerly-known-as-helpful whose praises I am sure I have sung in past posts were apparently persuaded to take up his charge and our bathroom burst into life with a veritable army of red ants in all shapes and sizes suddenly swarming in the shower, streaming in from the space where the ceiling meets the wall and flying around the house like a really bad segmented body horror show with a cast of thousands! What began as a simple idea for a shower before dinner (after Micah and I swam the beach and I finally figured out that if I swim with a mask and snorkel I don't have a post-swim allergy attack, aha!) became a night time of murder and mayhem and ladders and Andy filling the bathroom with a cloud of BayGon - the nastiest spray available in a convenient aerosol can and that can shrivel a tarantula in seconds, so I've been told. And of course the darned shop vac was clogged with concrete dust from earlier cleaning, ahem, causing Micah to curse with words like the back end of bull.... while cleaning it out so we could attempt to suck them up even tho half managed to be blown back out the other side, something my sweet Miele would never have allowed to happen. I swear I heard a scorpion snickering nearby while I brushed my teeth later, wondering how much residual BayGon was left on my toothbrush...

Tidying Up

2009-03-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Bella and I are home today as Andy took the BeGo to the border to see how many parts have been "borrowed" from the Black Panther. And, by the way, yes a BeGo is a tiny compact car that we are managing to fit in just fine, all 6 of us! Usually we are on a bumpy dirt road or the beach road, rarely on pavement like you may be picturing, no "freeway" driving here. The kids took the quad to school so we are home baking bread, making cookies, and tidying up around the place. The power has been going on and off all morning and I am wondering if I have jinxed myself. The second to last time I baked bread the power went off in the middle of baking it with no fewer than 6 half baked loaves of bread in the oven, which proceeded to slump all over themselves and the oven, unable to support themselves any longer without the heat needed to chemically prop them and their dying yeast up, and when the power came back on an hour-ish later I had one huge mono-loaf attached to all 4 walls of the oven, given a real good visual for the term, "half baked" and I am praying that does not happen again today! With bread must come soup. So even tho I am sweating in a bikini with the effort of typing, we will probably be perspiring in our potato soup at dinnertime.

But back to the tidying portion of the day. Since I have been teaching for the past couple of weeks, some of the meticulous cleaning I usually undertake, ahem, has been let go a bit. So after mopping the floor humming tunes from Cinderella, I dragged my shopvac outside, the only vacuum I have here to use which makes me dream of my sweet Miele at home in RI where she rests in her cozy closet while I am provided with no end of frustration or the f-word as the handle constantly falls apart when the plastic floor attachment sticks to the tile on every other stroke in spite of the rolls of masking tape I have used to try to tape each ridiculous section together. But don't get me started on that. I dragged the cursed appliance out to try to clean up the concrete dust from the patio that surrounds us as the concrete is not sealed properly so constantly disintegrates into a fine dust, eventually making its way into the house if not sucked up regularly. Now, you are probably wondering, is she really going to bore us here with the details of her housecleaning? No, that is just the thing. Any time you forget where you are, doing some mundane task like you might do if you lived in the Ukraine or the US or anywhere else in the universe, that's when you inevitably get blindsided, reminded that you are, in fact, living in Costa Rica.

So there I was just leaning in to the unpleasant task, when I mindlessly moved the plastic bin of pool and snorkeling toys and surprised a large scorpion, which quickly scuttled back under it while every inch of my own skin started to crawl. Yuck. Of course I could not let it linger there, so close to the front door and all, and finally was able to get it cornered with a broom for a photo op, see above, which apparently it was in no mood for and then encouraged it into a plastic quart Pops chocolate ice cream container where it promptly hunkered down to await its fate. The photo is for Alicia, who stated bravely that she does not mind scorpions at all but the tarantula photo put her over the edge. As an aside, that same tarantula, or perhaps its twin, was waiting outside just below the door when Andy went to lock up two nights ago. It's tough to tell them apart...

Now, I confess, scorpions really creep me out with their sinister little lobster-like claws and nasty segmented tails for maximum flexibility. I know they are my zodiac sign and perhaps I should have some kind of fondness for them, but I really wish my Mom had waited and pushed me out as a Pisces or something, possibly simultaneously landing herself in the Guinness Book for the longest pregnancy had she succeeded. They, including Micah, say that the beast's sting is like a bee sting, nothing worse, but the idea of having one of them actually on my body somewhere before flipping that nasty barb on the end of its tail over its head and into my largest organ gives me such agida that I am sure I would have a heart attack simultaneously from the creep factor alone. Others have said the venom can make you feel kind of high for the rest of the day but I'll take quaaludes or some moldy mushrooms over that any day.

Here's an interesting fact, tho I have not tried this at home myself. When cornered and sensing its imminent demise, a scorpion will supposedly sting itself and head voluntarily off into scorpion heaven where I suppose none of us freaky humans abide. Rumor around school has it that if you make a little ring of fire and put my zodiac mascot in the center, it will indeed commit scorpion suicide, using its handy dandy built-in hari-kari barb. I prefer to toss them as far from the house as I can, hoping they are not vengeful creatures like their human zodiac signees, and will make their way with great determination back to the foot of my bed to wait under the covers, stinger in the up position, for my tired little toes to stretch out. Which, by the way, is the best reason for having white and only white linens in the tropics. I figure the beasties do serve a purpose and I did look that up in response to a student in my class who stepped on one after I explicitly stated, "Don't...," and the answer to "What good are they anyway?" was not all that impressive. I mean, they do eat spiders and other insects, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da, but nothing so amazing as to stimulate the sympathy of your average teenage boy. Frankly, I'd like to match up our tarantula with the stinging gymnast and see who prevails, as creepy as that would be. Rather like that footage of the killer whale and the great white shark wrestling with their teeth in the cold waters lapping at the ends of the streets of San Francisco, but with less splashing and underwater obscurity.

Okay, I am off to make sure the ants have not discovered the rising bread. I fully expect they are capable of carrying off a loaf or two if they put their backs to it. Speaking of San Francisco, I will close with my new Spanish name, as coined by my friend Gloria from that fair city and the birthplace of Hannah - Kelita. This name is useful as it prevents every Tico I meet from saying, "Kelly? Oh, like Barbie's sister!"

I found Karen Carpenter!

2009-03-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

I may be dating myself for missing her, but I have found Karen Carpenter! No, that's not her, that's Bella...

I used to listen to the Carpenters as a dreamy-eyed pre-teen and thought it was so cool that she and her brother sang together and were both so, well, groovy together, while me and my brother couldn't even play a decent game of croquet without fighting over who got the green mallet and if I got to it first he chased me and beat me up in front of the neighborhood kids until I agreed to be orange. Green was the best, by the way, because green went last so could capitalize on all the balls already in play. And yes, my brother usually chose to send me across the street as opposed to taking two extra shots when he gleefully hit my orange ball, humility not being in his vocabulary.
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But back to the lovely romanic innocence of the Carpenters, "long ago and so far away..."! They are alive and well right here in Costa Rica on the only radio station playing US tunes with a couple regular DJ's who broadcast in English. Radio Doce is nothing short of a blast from the past and perhaps the past is all they can play legally within copyright laws, I don't know. I find myself singing along to tunes I have not heard in 30 years or so while driving Bella to school, speeding over the improbable background of rutted dirt roads as the faster you go the smoother it feels, always on the lookout for blind corners behind which may be mulling a whole herd of cows, some of whom may even be laying in the road depending on the hour. As I am usually late, I move rapidly along sans seatbelt, which would only serve to continuously tighten until I am inextricably pinned to my seat, clicking on the radio and becoming instantly transported back to my days at Gaudet Middle School. I might find myself back at the 8th Grade Prom while a blast of Summer Breeze fills my BeGo. Or I might find myself lamenting along once again with the woeful sounds of Karen herself singing "Don't You Remember You Told Me You Loved Me Baby?" bringing my teenage angst and raging hormones right back while I belt out that heartfelt song along with her, "I love you, I really do," wondering if I had someone in my back-then self to feel so achingly for. Today she happily sang "Sing A Song" with all those adorable children in the chorus and I was so sure I could have contributed mightily to that, once upon a time in the back seat of our family station wagon. You would never imagine she had died so young and tragically to hear so much cheerful innocence.
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Hitting the power button for Radio Doce might bring me back to being both so cool and so insecure at Middletown High School on a different day. While I speed by the howler monkeys hanging in the trees overhead I find myself singing along with the Beatles to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, thinking in my surreal surroundings about the lyrics to this particular soundtrack and their trippy implications. A trip, indeed, glancing over my shoulder at Bella in the backseat wearing her rose colored glasses rimmed in pink sparkles which could have come straight from those decades gone by. And this just after picking up our German stained glass artist neighbor, Adrian, with his pony tail and sober for a change demeaner, it being morning and all, delivering him to the bus stop humming, "Do you Know the way to San Jose?"
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I might find myself transported back to my college days by Pete Townsend, singing along to, "Let My Love open the Door," remembering my boyfriend dropping me off for our final farewell before I left for a semester in England. He died tragically while I was abroad. This too, while digesting my usual fake breakfast that Bella serves me cheerfully each morning with my coffee (see photo), a brown plastic waffle I sometimes supplement with a perpetually over easy cloth egg on a pink flower-shaped plate with some plastic grapes and an orange or pear. Yummy. I guiltily sneak them back to her play kitchen when I return home, not sure what else to do after I pretend to eat them day after Groundhog-ish day, thinking I wish the real food would magically replenish itself over and over in my own play kitchen. That would be the kind of recycling everyone could embrace!
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So even though Andy and I sometimes draw straws to see who has to change out of their pajamas to make one of the four daily trips out to school, at least if I draw the short straw I have the anticipation of some time travel courtesy of Radio Doce to look forward to and accompany me on my journey. And sometimes when I pull up to Educarte or find myself at the entrance to the Country Day School singing "It's More than a Feeling" or some other Boston tune, thinking I am in the bucket seat of my '64 Dodge Dart or sitting under the stars on the beach of our Maine lake, I am confused for a moment. But the palm trees and blast of heat when I open my car door drop me right back into present day Costa Rica. Perhaps I should listen to some Tico tunes for a change.

Erin Go Bragh-Less! The day after...

2009-03-18T05:40:00.001-07:00

Top o' the mornin' to all you leprechauns out there still dancing a jig, or perhaps hiding under a shamrock recovering from too much exuberant jig dancing and green beer drinking. All that food coloring can't be too good for you, the rest of it aside... Who would have guessed that we could find a really good corned beef dinner complete with bagpipes and enthusiastic wearin' o' the green right here in the rainforest? Okay, not so rainy forest, but it was steamy all the same and green was the dominant color of the day tho the Irish Knit everything was conspicuously absent. Yes, Outback Jacks on the not so beautiful beach of Brasilito, one beach over from us, home of the infamous "Bye Bye de Bush" party, was the scene of some serious celebrating of all things Irish! I am not sure the Ticos knew what to make of it all on a Tuesday night, as they seemed to be watching with great curiosity as the distinctly non-Latino music and green haired revelers spilled out into the tropical night. Perhaps with time they, too, will become Irish by injection or simply adopt the enthusiasm for one day like the rest of Americans do.

For my kids it was perhaps the most enthusiastic wearin' o' the green I have ever witnessed as it meant a reprieve from their school uniforms. Isaiah even wore a green furry wig we brought back from Jordan's Bat Mitzvah! Christiana laid her Aunt Erin's age old lament to rest, perhaps, by wearin' Micah's shamrock boxers, yes, over a pair of spandex shorts after her father raised his eyebrows. Every year me Mum would hang the Erin Go Bragh paper shamrock in the cottage window to mark the 17th of March and she, in all her infinite young wisdom, would say with great embarassment, "Why don't you put Mark Go Underwear?" in response to yet one more excuse for said brother Mark to tease her endlessly as brothers are wont to do. So Christiana did the Go Underwear part for her Aunt anyway...

Meanwhile, back at Outback Jack's, where the sands were jumping... We invited our Irish neighbor Eileen to join us and discovered her talent for singing and bravery! They had a German sounding Karaoke singer who alternately entertained us when the poor bagpiper stopped blowing and marching around for a much deserved water break, kilts, sporran, and knee socks not exactly being tropical wear. Eileen got her New York Chutzpah and her Irish up and decided after listening to the singer butcher "Killing Me Softly" that we needed a song from the Motherland. She convinced the brazen imposter to relinquish her grip on the mike and sang "Tu-ra-lu-ra-lu-ra" acapella, there being a sad omission of Irish ballads on the karaoke selection! We all sang along while Eileen rocked Outback Jacks and their wasn't a dry smilin' Irish eye in the house! And she didn't even need the "mas fuerte" of turtle egg eating to do it! I am sure even the crabs stopped their incessant scuttling around the beach to hear the unfamiliar melody of her clear Irish lilt as it met their tiny ears on the warm breeze!

Back to the bagpiper, chilling in the corner. Turns out to add to his potential for heatstroke, that he hails from Alaska! I forgot to ask if he departed for greener shores because of their governer... He has been living in Panama for several months now and in his travels he somehow abandoned his bagpipes in Peru! So the owners of Outback Jacks actually flew to Lima to retrieve them so he could play and sweat for us all! Talk about an international affair and an admirable dedication to the saint known as Patrick. Surely they deserve some sort of honorary mention by the Ancient Order of Hibernians when they put their mugs down! And all so they could sell green beer and corned beef, which by the way, I have no idea where they got! Perhaps the corned beef capital of the world, Peru?

And speaking of cojones, the ocean water is finally clearing and warming up. Perhaps St. Patrick has done his thing here too as the sea snakes seem to have headed for other waters. So I strapped some on and started to whip my typing arms into shape with ocean swimming! One day in the school pool where my teeth got whiter convinced me that I don't need the monotony and chemicals it affords. So I am swallowing my apprehensions and swimming along the shores of Playa Conchal, snakes and sharks be damned! (See photo) Easy to say from this distance... I started on Monday and was about 2/3 of the way down the sunny shoreline, just about to start patting myself on the back in between strokes for my bravery, even tho I only stayed in water deep enough to pull my hand through without hitting bottom, like you used to do when learning to swim, "Look Mom, I'm swimming!" while your hands groped for the next sandy perch. When what did I spot just ahead? Why, a group of folks all gathered near the water's edge, pointing into the water. Damn. So I got out and they managed to convey to me in Farsi and a little Spanish and sign language and ultimately by drawing with a stick in the sand (!) that they were looking at a snake in the water. We went through the whole range of communication once more to determine that it was not yellow and black, like the deadly sea snake, but brown and white and mostly because the lovely serpent then consented to be washed in with the next wave I saw that it was, indeed, one of the beautiful brown spotted eels that are sometimes in the shallows.

So I assured them it was "muis simpatico", deferring to my "expertise" in our common language, and tried to be a poster child for cojones and encourage them not to beat it to death with their sticks by diving in just past its wiggling form and praying it would stay close to the bottom, swimming along my merry way thinking what a good example I was setting but also unable to get my wandering mind off sea snakes and how even tho their venom will kill you in a few mere minutes, they have such tiny mouths they could probably only bite you on an ear lobe or in the webs between your fingers, then putting that exact part of my body into the water blindly ahead of me... Thinking too of how Micah and I were walking the sea snake-laden beach just last Friday, no more than three days prior, when we risked our very lives with a stick and a t-shirt to toss one back into the water in an attempt to "rescue" it and to see how they look in their watery home. Because even if it is against your better judgment to perform such a "humanitarian" gesture, if your teenage son gets it in his head to move a highly poisonous snake you are bound to stop protesting eventually and help out at some point if he persists in proceeding. And sure enough, before the snake managed to get itself back to the warmth of the sand where apparently they were intentionally heading to escape the cold water, we observed that they do, indeed, swim on the surface and are very visible if you are looking from above, like from the safety of the sandy shore as opposed to at eye level. I tried to swim with my fingers locked a bit more tightly together and perhaps I exited the water soon after that thought, just shy of my intended destination, where I looked back and saw the Farsi speakers still pointing en masse and waving their sticks at the poor spotted eel.

I walked the rest of the beach sneezing all the way as even this salt water seems to have that affect on my damned sinuses. There have been 2 huge belted kingfishers plying the waters for food there lately and I watched them do their thing in between sneezes, not exactly able to sneak up on them and probably scaring them and their intended dinners to death with my explosions. I kept hearing things in the tree-lined shore and thought someone was following me. The snake god? Would he thank me or consign me to some horrible fate? Had I done more good than harm or vice versa? Finally I was hit on the head with an empty fluttering seed pod and realized the sound was coming from the trees themselves, as their hanging seed pods were popping open and releasing their seeds to the waiting warmth of the ground below. Another "aha" moment brought to you by Mother Nature. Time to get my littlest leprechaun off to school...

Beware the Ides of March!

2009-03-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

And so we find ourselves in the midst of yet another Friday the 13th, so far, so good. I happen to like the number 13, having been born on it, and the next Friday the 13th will be in November on my birthday!

Yesterday was much worse. We woke up to no water. None. Turning the faucets resulted in getting more of the same, air. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. Well, it is amazing how many times we turned on faucet after faucet, toothbrush in hand, either forgetting or hoping for a different result! Tough to shower with air, shampoo not having much of a foaming action without it. So we harkened back to our Peace Corps days and went to the spigot below the pool, bucket, towel and shampoo in hand. The water temperature is not a factor here, it rarely comes out very cold and even if it did would feel mostly refreshing. So we all managed to get to school looking and smelling halfway presentable while the ants did the dishes. But it made us appreciate H2o with renewed vigor. When was the last time you were without water? I won't launch into a tempting tirade here on water conservation or the gloomy scenario of a warmer world with millions of people suddenly cut off from the Himalayan water company. But it is good to be reminded nevertheless of the preciousness of this commodity and retrain yourself to simly turn the tap off when you are washing dishes or brushing your teeth!
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I have lived in three places now where water shortages were a fact of life and we stored water in every available container for those times when the faucet produced only air. I remember one time in Jamaica when our neighbors flooded their apartment by inadvertently leaving the waterless faucet turned on and the water came back into the pipe, filling the sink and happily overflowing all over the floor while they were away for the day! For many of you, the most likely equivalent might be a rare power outage in your first world nation where you go to bed with no power and are suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by all your lights and tv and appliances coming to life with the restored flow of electrons you forgot to switch off in the dark! 'Nuff said. We are all dancing a little jig while we brush and shower and wash with abandon today and will soon forget to appreciate water properly once again.

Speaking of ants. Was I? Maybe not, but I needed a segue. We have 3 types of ants sharing our casa. Hormigas, as they are called in Spanish. The first kind are the teeny tiny sugar ants that live by the millions in my kitchen, occasionally migrating to any room with a guaranteed source of sugar, even if it is in the form of toothpaste. They aren't picky. They love sweets! They form trails all over the place, signalling chemically to their buddies, hey, this way, cookie crumbs on the counter! Or, their favorite nighttime treat, the compost bin. You know ants are basically blind, right? We could possibly get rid of them if we were absolutely meticulous about leaving any kind of sweet food crumbs from ever touching or resting on any given surface of the house, but that is not very practical with 6 of us happily munching away. It also means that any open cereal bag or any other kind of thing that has sugar listed as an ingredient must be stored in our very cramped refrigerator and explains why on any given day you can open the freezer and have a bag of Golden Grahms fall on your head. I am sure we have eaten our share, like that protein powder you can boost your smoothie with in the good ole' U, S, of A. If you are not sure if sugar is an ingredient in any given food, they will let you know in a hurry. Did I mention how quick they are? And they have given us a newfound appreciation for both airtight containers and water, yes, water. They can not swim! So you might come into our kitchen and see the cookie container or compost bin stranded in the middle of a water filled cookie sheet. Anything I bake and set out to cool becomes a challenge between me and the ants; they usually know before I do when it is cool enough to touch.

The second type of ants are usually outside of our house and we try to keep it that way. They are the black ants, as we so creatively call them. They bite. And it hurts! They are protein lovers so if you drop some cheese or meat on the floor they barge right in without invitation. They also have amazing powers of smell and communication and can locate a new source of protein before you know it hit the floor. Emerging from the house yesterday I found them doing their usual line dance around Isaiah's sneaker. Upon closer investigation, I discovered there was a dead tarantula wedged behind the shoe box they were happily breakfasting on. Yuck. As with their sweet loving cousins, simply removing the spider to a distant location causes them to follow immediately, like throwing a ball to your dog. Which, in the case of our dog, would be like throwing a coconut as Duncan has gone completely loco for chasing coconuts. (see photo of him waiting for his coconut to float by.) He will drop them on your feet if you are not paying attention or in the pool if you are swimming or on the ground where he will stare at it all day, occasionally picking it up in his what must be very strong teeth and flinging it around. If he does not eat his food right away, the black ants stand ready to swarm his bowl too.

The third ant is my personal favorite, if you must have such a thing. They are the red ants and are bigger by far than either of the other two. They are my kind of ant. They come in at night only, clean the bathroom and the kitchen, and leave by morning. They don't trouble me any and never outstay their welcome, always leaving a place cleaner than how they found it. What a good ant! I will stop before I break into song.

Well, that's all the news fit to print for this week. The fires are out, the truck is still at the border as the paperwork was delayed by another earthquake in San Jose, I just finished teaching second grade for 2 weeks, Bella had a tooth filled, Micah had a field trip to the beach to reenact World War II battles, Christiana is on an honor society field trip, Isaiah will be out in the field playing baseball with his school and the local Nicaraguan boys.

K3
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PS Well, talk about timing! I just found out next week is national fix a leak week in the USA where it seems a trillion gallons of water are wasted each year! Ouch! For more information and facts to wow your St. Patty's Day party guests, visit the EPA website www.epa/gov/watersense. Come on people! It is one of those two things we cannot live without, after all! And no, the other is not Starbucks....

Critters

2009-03-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

March 7, 2009

Well it has been a busy, critter filled couple of weeks here in sunny Costa Rica. The other evening Andy and I were sitting on the veranda by the pool talking when Bella came out of the house behind us and casually remarked, "Mom and Dad, there is a big spider next to you." She went on about her way and we really were only half listening but Andy turned and there was this huge tarantula on the ground next to us! Yikes! Some days you kind of forget you are in the tropics until something like this pops out to remind you!

Last week I gathered the dirty clothes from the casita in my arms and carried them back to the house and when I had put them all in the machine, there sat a scorpion right on top of Christiana's sports bra, arrgh! I know they are my zodiac sign but they are the creepiest looking things and thank goodness it did not sting me while I was unknowingly relocating it! The winds are still blowing and the water has suddenly turned very cold with the upwelling. It is so dry that brush fires have been burning on all the hills around here, driving all these critters out. Monday night Andy battled the fire that burned behind our house for most of the night. It is amazing to see how fast the new growth begins but I don't think anything will grow in earnest until the rains begin again. In the meantime the orange lines of fire provide our nighttime entertainment and I keep singing to myself, "How can we dance when our earth is turning; How do we sleep while our beds are burning?"

Well, one of the 99 reasons we jokingly gave last year when the 99th person asked us why we were moving to Costa Rica has come to pass. "Cheap plastic surgery," was my answer and last weekend I got my first implant! Yes, it's true. But not very centerfold-ish. Even though breast implants draw your gaze everywhere you go here, forcing me to bite my tongue before it says, "Nice boobs, did you get those here?" Mine, alas, is not so eye-catching, located a little higher up and of a singular variety in my mouth. Boring and necessary, I won't regale you with my tales of pain and misery from the past week. My smile is a bit compromised for the next 2 months with a new temporary tooth that is shorter than my old one so I don't bite on it and cause it to fall out as it is only glued in while my implant heals and I am having to relearn the "f" word, I mean sound, with this new little space in my mouth but at least I am not all stitched up like the bride of Frankenstein following a facelift. I won't attach a photo! And it does cost a fraction of what it would set us back in the States.

I have been substitute teaching all week in second grade and it has been fun to be back in the classroom after many years. My class are mostly native Spanish speakers, one is French, the rest are Americans and the cultural diversity makes for an interesting day. Bella started taking hip hop lessons in addition to ballet. Isaiah is learning to alternate breathe while swimming which I love to see! Perhaps another Save the Bay swimmer is emerging! Micah, nicknamed the baconater, has not been frying meat shirtless this week and I keep thinking of writing about the perils of cooking in a bikini as we all wear as few clothes as possible around here. Christiana, Andy and I started scuba lessons and they both had their first thrilling experience of breathing underwater last Sunday! I am renewing my training as I lost my scuba card years ago and hope the ocean will warm up by the time we are ready to venture forth in our flippers from the confines of the pool!

I hate to jinx him, but Andy actually had news that our truck may be released this week! For those of you not following the continued saga of the "black panther," our truck has been impounded since November in a secured lot at the Nicaraguan border, Penas Blanca, yes, that's correct, we call in Penis Blanca, the white penis also, while the Costa Rican aduana has tried to extort as much money from us as they can. Who can blame them really? So we have rented a series of BeGo's, zipping our family around in a tiny 5 passenger economy car while they have probably been slowly stripping our truck of all its parts! Stay tuned for the next thrilling edition of the Black Panther does Penas Blanca. And say a prayer for us!

Ciao for now!