Waiting for a Train

Freedoms just another word for nothing left to loose.  I’m sitting here studying my Spanish and listening to Janis Joplin’s Bobby McGee with the rain literally dumps outside.  Damn, that song always gets to my vagabonding gypsy heart.  If I didn’t get anything else from my dad, it was certainly my overwhelming desire to travel and see and do things.  Well, and most likely my taste for beer too.  It’s hard to explain the feeling I sometimes get, it’s so overwhelming, like every particle and cell in my body wants to flee.  To get on a bike, in a car, a van, a bus, plane.  Sometimes when I think of “home”  I think of my van, and get excited about the sink and the stove and the fridge.  other times I think of camping in the forest.  But sometimes when I think of home, I think of my nice soft comfy warm bed, and my kitties and a nice boy lying next to me.  Today I’m tore between all of those desires and feelings.  It might be time to make a spreadsheet.  When all else fails try an excel spreadsheet for a shot of logic. 

Alice, Drink Me!

This stick was too big

Flat ass but still fat!  :)

One of the best things about Costa Rica is coconut water and fresh coconut*  to drink/ eat on the beach.  But usually to get these you need a man with a machete, sometimes a man to climb the tree to get them down too.   Or so I thought.  Saturday the other woman from the school and I rode our bikes to the beach.  We first stopped by one of the resorts to talk to the manager.  We now have permission to use the pool whenever we want.  So we did.  But didn’t stay long as we wanted to eat our picnic & fruit we brought.  We left the resort and started walking down the beach.  We came upon a makeshift shelter and had planned on eating there until 2 dogs ran up and peed on it.  But the previous occupants had left a perfectly good coconut behind.  It was the perfect size and I could hear the water inside.  Score!  Now I just needed to open it!  

So I’ve seen Coco, and William both open the older coconuts before.  And I was there when Sean got his step by step lesson.  So I gave it a shot!  After about 20 mins and an entire bucket of sweat I finally got it open!  I was so excited!  I’m not going to die after all if stranded on a tropical island!  It was delicious too!  

*There are two kinds of coconuts here, the young ones which they call pipas.  These are great for drinking but the fruit inside is very jelly like.  It tastes ok, but I prefer the older ones for eating.  The older ones are what most people at home find in the grocery store, the dark brown ones with three holes at the top. But that’s not how they are in nature.  They are wrapped in a very strong outer shell made of fiber stuff.  So to get to the water and fruit inside you have to break them out of the shell without damaging the actual coconut.  The best means to do this is to find a smallish stick poking out of the ground, a log or a tree, stab the coconut with it and pry the outer skin off.  Easier said than done!  I this case I had to find a stick and wedge it in the sand next to a big piece of drift wood to get the leverage I needed.  It took all my body weight and strength!  I’m hoping next time will go more smoothly and faster!   

Take a Step Back to Wednesday!

April 11^th 2012

Today was a day off from school.  I woke up to torrential downing pouring rain, great, so much for the beach today.  I was planning on heading to the beach with the other woman teacher at the school.  So instead I had breaky then ran some errands.  There is a new veggie fruit place in town.  It’s great!  Fresh everything and sooooo much cheaper than the grocery stores.  I was pleasantly surprised to know someone who works there!  Then I finished cleaning the new to us fridge.  It was sooo filthily that Coco was shocked and disgusted that we plugged it in before we cleaned it.  I’ll spare you the graphic words he used.  We didn’t clean it first because we wanted to make sure it actually worked first.  It’s working like a champ now!  Hello cold cucumber water!  

After my chores I rode over and met my friend.  We went to the bar at the beach to chill, talk, I had a beer, she wrote and basically we got out of the house.  We realized while discussing important issues that we are both taking in our surrounding and easily distracted!  Phrases like "look at those cutter ant working away" "wow this tree is beautiful!"  "That's the most beautiful bird I've ever seen!"  Interrupted our serious talk of life. and made us crack up laughing.  Laughter really is the best medicine!  We finished it off with pizza and laughing at inappropriate things.  Laughing at and about men and wondering how we can get to Cuba from here!  Nice to think about!  If I stay here till June I will need to do a boarder run to renew my tourist visa.  Most likely I’ll be headed back to Panama for a long weekend.   Panama is cheaper and the amenities are better than CR.  I’ll be loading up on salt and lemon peanuts.  And maybe some shorts that fit.  And some new undies.  Hand washing and line drying actually seems pretty hard on clothes here.  Plus I don’t have that many clothes here so I’m wearing them over and over and often and again.  I hand wash one week and take my clothes to the laundry the next week.  The mundane here is interesting to me.  I’ve been away from home now 49 days 7 weeks.  The longest I’ve ever been away from home is 7 weeks.  It has gone by so quickly and is so different from my other trips abroad.  In some ways better, in someways worse. 

I skyped with my Thai kitty and Frank this weekend.  I miss them and the other but I still feel like there is nothing for me there.  I feel like I’m searching, trying to understand something or come to some conclusion about something.  I’m just not sure what that something is.  Maybe something in my heart.  Maybe something in my brain.  Both? Neither? I know that part of this trip was supposed to be about love, or the illusion of what love could mean to me.  I’ve lived a long time with walls up, at arm’s length and maybe I’m ready for that to change.  I wish I knew. 

Well, I Never!

All my life I've had a huge ass, not necessarily wide, but lots of junk in the trunk if you will.  up until recently.  I'm not sure what happened.  Age?  Lack of exercise? loss of weight?  It's terribly disturbing that I'm now a boarder line flat ass.  I don't fill out my shorts or my pants.  my once too small too tight underwear are sagging.  So today I went on a longer bike ride.  On the bumpiest, rockiest, gravelly road I've ever been on!  and up a couple of hills.  Mt. biking is fun, though I feel a bit jarred!  I'm not sure it will help my ass, but hopefully it will help something!  :)
My plan is for more biking and hiking!  Tomorrow I'm biking to the nice beach with my friend for some much needed sun and shell hunting!  Tonight is homemade nachos and pina coladas at another friends place! 

Wish you were here!

We Are Young

It's never going to be a good conversation when someone starts it by saying "don't take this the wrong way but..."

Last week Coco said that to me, then said, "wouldn't it have been fun if we'd had met when you were my age?"  Firstly if that were the case Coco would have been 12, so not ok.  Secondly, yes, Coco is 27.  Thirdly he clarified that what he really meant was that it would have been fun if I was 27 now.  After I thought about what he said, and why, I decided not to be hurt and replied "no, because by now we'd both be in costa rican jail".  haha  At least there are conjugal visits visits here. :)

Yes it would have been fun.  It's fun now.  Coco and I have a lot of fun together.  We laugh all the time, talk a lot, stay up way late and probably drink too much.  So just what the dr. ordered - Party like rock stars, cook, eat, bike, walk, talk, repeat.  :)

Don't worry, I've come up with a new plan of moderation! 


I heard this song tonight accidentally but it seems appropriate for the situation and this post.  

We Are Young

Give me a second I
I need to get my story straight
My friends are in the bathroom
getting higher than the empire state
my lover she is waiting for me
just across the bar
My seat's been taken by some sunglasses
asking 'bout a scar
and I know I gave it to you months ago
I know you're trying to forget
but between the drinks and subtle things
the holes in my apologies
you know I'm trying hard to take it back
so if by the time the bar closes
and you feel like falling down
I'll carry you home

Tonight
We are young
So let's set the world on fire
We can burn brighter
than the sun

Tonight
we are young
so let's set the world on fire
we can burn brighter
than the sun

Now I know that I'm not
all that you got
I guess that I
I just thought maybe we could find a ways to fall apart
But our friends are back
So let's raise a toast
Cause I found someone to carry me home

Tonight
We are young
So let's the set the world on fire
we can burn brighter
than the sun

Tonight
We are young
so let's set the world on fire
we can burn brighter
than the sun

Carry me home tonight
Just carry me home tonight
Carry me home tonight
Just carry me home tonight

The moon is on my side
I have no reason to run
So will someone come and carry me home tonight
The angels never arrived
but I can hear the choir
so will someone come and carry me home

Tonight
We are young
So let's set the world on fire
we can burn brighter
than the sun

Tonight
We are young
so let's set the world on fire
we can burn brighter
than the sun

So if by the time the bar closes
and you feel like falling down
I'll carry you home tonight

Just like Riding a Bicicleta

Last night I rode home side saddle in a skirt on the cross bar of my bike while Coco peddled.  A little scary but totally normal here.  Kids, babies, girl friends, boy friends, bikes here are for two people not one.  If you are small enough you ride on the rack, in the basket or the handle bars. 

Last week I rode my bike  with an umbrella open above me.  First time of many I'm sure.  Mountain biking with one hand on a rocky, bumpy, pot hole filled road in the rain at night with no light was interesting.  No helmets, no lights, and no signalling.  Pura Vida baby.  Which for some people doesn't mean "pure life" it means whatever, just live life and do what ever you want as if there are no consequences.

Last week I also stopped wearing my bra with certain tank tops.  I've lost enough weight that my boobs are small so the built in bra works just fine.  My clothes don't fit.  Thankfully most of my clothes are skirts and tank tops, pretty forgiving.

Today we finally got a new fridge.  Been without a working fridge since we've moved in to the house.  Yay cold beer!  and grocery store here I come.

Tonight was my first night co- teaching the adult night class.  As it turned out I had one beginner student so that worked out well.  We practiced basic questions and giving directions and following directions.  The student is 25 and works for the dentist in town.  She's also his girlfriend.  She has 4 cats and one dog.   The dentist has a vasectomy!  Yippee!  One smart man so far in all of Costa Rica! hahaha

Pura vida!

Who's life is this anyway?

This week I woke up feeling like I’ve been living someone else’s life.  It’s hard to put into words.  But I’m here in this foreign country living a life that really isn’t mine.  Eating food that isn’t “mine”, making friends, loving, hurting, and crying all about things that really have nothing to do with my real life at home.  My real life where I am unemployed and every month wonder if I’m going to make my house payment.  Every day wondering what I should be doing with myself.  Wondering what to do with my real life.  So instead of thinking about my real life I’m creating a temporary existence that might look like a real life but at times certainly doesn’t feel real.  

I’ve always been good at not thinking about things, ignoring issues, burying things deep and hoping they don’t resurface.  It’s not the healthiest way to be, and I’ve been working on changing it.  But for now I wonder is that what I’m doing here?  Hiding from my real life, from real decisions?  I honestly don’t know.  I came here to see if I could make a life with someone and that didn’t work out.  I stayed because I had nothing better to do.  I am planning on coming back mid May or June at the latest.  In time for Oregon summer, and we better have one.  I’m looking forward to camping with friends and seeing my family and kitties.  

I’ve been unemployed for about a year and a half now, and the time has flown by.  But I’m nowhere closer to knowing what to do with myself than I was a year ago.  I haven’t looked for jobs as aggressively as I could have but my guilt over this was mostly relieved because a good friend of mine has been without the success we’d like.  Everyday sending cover letters, resumes’, filling out applications etc etc.  She has a similar design background and has more experience in some areas than I do.  I have other skills and many more years of employment than she does.  But she hasn’t had any success in finding a job.  So my guilt is relieved.  At least temporarily.  

So what’s the point of this post?  I don’t know.  Just like most other things in my life right now, I just don’t know.  I’m trying to just live each day and enjoy it, the people I know, the food, and yes, maybe too much beer.  And maybe at times I’m still living the 20’s I didn’t get to live.  I’m living an adventure that many people will never have the chance to take.  And I’m thankful for all of it.  I can only make the best of it, do the best I can with what I have, help the people around me when I can and hope it’s all worth it in the end.  And, I guess, isn’t that what real life is about?