6am Friday, my first morning with a kitchen ....

Early, early, as soon as it's light enough to creep out and sit at the tables, I go with my book and journal. The big garden is beautiful in the morning.  I take a banana off the huge bunch, hanging from a beam in the lounge.  

A land crab is hiding by the wastebasket so I dangle the peel for him (they like peels, right? what do they eat?)   WHAM! Wrong, Lady! He is  Angry that I'm up so early. He expected some "alone time". The kitchen is locked up until 7am. (I have a lot to learn about life in C.R. like locks on ALL doors, windows, the breakfast bar...)   So, I sit at a table and write and listen to Noni fruit fall onto a pile of leaves = Great! I can do something clever and organic and "natural healing" with that ... just as soon as I learn what that is.
A sort of small pheasant is tip-toeing through the plants, so well colored that only his slender yellow beak gives him away.  Even though I'm very still, he spots me and prances away in a hurry to be somewhere else.


Katty comes down the open stairs, unlocks the front gate, the kitchen, shuts off the night lights and fairy lights strung around the rafters. 
The crab and I are left to figure out the stove situation.
It's like camping with the Girl Scouts, even with facilities. 
Challenge one: can she get the sack of coffee open? What is the knife situation? Assess.
Challenge two: when was this coffee moka last unscrewed? (don't be filled with old grounds!don't be filled with old ground!don't be - aww, man.) 
2a: scrubbing dishes without soap but "con crema" which looks like green margarine in a tub by the sink. (Oooh, it may be my new favorite thing about Costa Rica.) 
okaayy...  ENORMOUS gas stove with mysterious European lid, seen only  in movies. And connected by hose to _ to_ to_ right? (I'm poking around under creepy dark counters, probably foolish.)
Two stoves, three gas tanks, hose-- hose-- wait for it... Okay.
   (Really, I JUST want coffee. A little espresso from this simple little pot -- why is that so hard? I would go build a fire in the hibachi out in the yard but cats are sleeping on it. Cats are sleeping everywhere.)
Gas stove, check dials, listen for hissing (not too close with the long hair) okay. Matches? If this is normal, there are matches riiiight here somewhere. Bic lighters, all dead, just sparking. (No, I'm not willing to get close enough to try the last spark with burner on HIGH.) Ha! I have a lighter in my little "kit".  But the kit does not come with balls so I find a dry leaf to light and stick into the gas: American style.  (Hey, we do light gas stoves but usually with a switch not with cavalier abandon, our knuckles ON the burner.) Good call too - it only catches if you Touch the gas ring.
Thank you, Lord of all that is good: coffee.
I'm exhausted. I sit back down at the table.


Things are falling out of trees as they ripen (or fatigue.) Cats are lounging, sleeping, cleaning, wandering everywhere. Some unknown bird just YELPed!  I might be late for yoga... I might not make it at all.  It's that place that I dragged Clyde to: OM by the beach. (We only went because I'd met the teacher the day before at the flea market. Clyde got a fancy "GUEST" belt.)  She's cool, Argentinean, and teaches in Spanish but that's only one day a week. So, she's not there today and 8 bucks a class ... seriously.


And then the coffee hits my system and, La La,  it turns out the slippery chicken is STILL not done with me.  (How is this Possible?)   "Well Lord, I wanted to lose weight in Costa Rica. I even jokingly hoped for a parasite: Reap=Sow, I get it."


Toast! Toast & jam is safe. And there's a regular toaster so, no problem, right? just put in Bimbo/Wonder bread  (set on 1? don't be silly, too low. 3.)
Ahh, the smell of toast is the smell of childhood, of Normalcy, of of Burning... 
Okay. I see now that 3 was VERY enthusiastic.  (so, what does 5 do - make coal?)

What SHOULD I do with my day if not yoga at 8.30?
The class at least gave structure to my day ...
STOP! THE INADEQUACY & OBLIGATION can stay inside the Beltway. I am in Costa Rica for pete's sake! If my brain can't finally be off duty for ten minutes here : when is it going to happen?! 
1. Buy a Spanish - English Dictionary -- Sondra said to start there. That's my job for the day.  One book. 
2. And swim.  To put on a bathing suit once a day and DEAL with it. (As a total neurotic) it's good to think of the the hardest thing you couldn't possibly do and then Do It.  (gee, that reeks of Unhealthy when you see it in writing; when it's just a New Year's Resolution it doesn't seem that bad)
(In case you missed it, publicly posting what a complicated mess you really are underneath is the Challenge for June.)

It turns out, none of my summer clothes fit (you thought i was making it all up. One year, two sizes.) I'll have to go buy something comfortable, especially over a wet bathing suit and on a bike. Eek.  How far to the fairy tale beach someone described: Playa Chiquita? Too far to bike this late in the day?  Or do people swim  in the killer surf across the road at Crocodile Surf Camp?  Checking the free maps that are found in stacks on every front desk, km 6-8 is Playa Chiquita, after Miss Holly's. We're at km0, in town.
ooh Hummingbird!  Yellow bird!  Squeaking bird!
(these are not the scientific names, mind you)

2:30pm back from errands "downtown" (in the village, locals say).
Left with a $20 and 3,500c ($7)... down to 1,300c ($2.60). No dictionary to be found.
Before leaving I coated myself with SPF 30 slimy spray and then some Very Strong eucalyptus oil bug repellent. (The bugs may or may not find this repellent. The tar-like coating that this blend creates on my feet and ankles and then causes all forms of mud, bike chain oil, and general debris to adhere to my skin while biking in flip-flops: I find Repellent.)  (It is also, apparently, semi-permanent. It does not rinse off. It does not wash off. It does not even scrub off. It requires scraping with a kind of scouring pad.)

Happily set off to town to look for beach dresses, window shop only at Miau* (fabulous hand-made beach fashion at full Miami prices, cute enough too.) Stop by fruit vendor to check price of mangoes and he gave me a wee, red pear-like "manzanita de agua", good.  Off to Maru's flea market -new& used clothes. She'll have something for sure, board shorts, extra bikini tops. Very common around here are crochet tops, string bikini to half-shirts.  (Of course, in my mind they are for only the most slim & confident women because my babysitter had one when I was five and she was a Senior. She was marvelous. It was the 70's so she probably knit it herself, she was so worldly & stylish) (She lived in the farmhouse next door.)   Holding up one example from the bin I have to question whether there is enough dieting in the world -certainly not in this town of pastry- to reduce me into a backless, halter, half-tank top with bits of string holding it on to my gringa, pasty white lumpy self. But I need a GOAL.  And a witness, I look over at my new friend Maru "Okay: this is mi sueno." 

We talked about the book we were both holding the day we met,  EAT, PRAY, LOVE.  She said, eagerly, "where are you? I'm still in Italy - don't tell me! All I want to do is eat what she does!" She even went online to see a photo because her back cover is different than mine so I show her my book (which is naturally in my bag - hers is too.)  Maru and I laugh about my open plan to stay in CR if I find a place, work, language school & a home here... "I'm flexible" I say.    "You're like HER! Do you write too?"  I did admit that some of the similarities are eerie.

It's so nice finding a yoga community in Puerto Viejo. On the local post board there's another class at C&J Natural Juices tomorrow morning at 6.30, pay by donation. Sunday morning there's a Satsang at AMMA up in Playa Negra - probably in Spanish what is not in Sanskrit but still, good experience or Maru is teaching Sunday morning at The Treehouse in Cocles.

I found a bikini top that wasn't the worst (compared to three others) and two dresses that are light & local that will work with bathing suits and bikes.  One white, terry cloth halter dress I leave behind as I'm already up to $14!  (but  it's only an hour later and I'm already thinking of going back for it...)

Have to break  yet another 20 anyway, right? Still need dictionary, paid $2 for 3 mangoes and wondered if that's the gringo rate, and then found a great little cafe with hundreds of used books all around the walls, local woodcarvings and art. They do have a dictionary but it's in their Not For Sale= Reference Section (bless them). Cappuccino, another $2 gone.

I could go find an internet cafe and check in but the truth is, after 3 days alone I'm more PRESENT without it, without thinking of email and skype and what time it is somewhere else. I write more often and more thoroughly, maybe because it's how I process all the things I would otherwise be saying to Clyde; things I've seen today, crazy moments, how I hit a car on my bike (hey, there was a big truck in my ear), how my feet are weirdly swollen and hurt by midday every day like a Denny's waitress on a double-shift, how the mangoes  were so ripe I could smell them in the bike basket, pedaling along -- lovely, even romantic (if you're into sugar & tropical fruit, which I am.)  I'd be telling him that when you eat them here it's at "room temperature" 96F and they taste sooo much better but messier that way.

So now it's 4pm and I'm meant to swim - as per my new regimen - orrr, I could search for that elusive book some more. Okay, and Yes, go back for the 3d dress.  (Really? Think about this: TERRY cloth. HALTER. USED. Are you hearing these words? Have you been drinking the KoolAid?)

7pm  Have had time for a (finally) thorough and serious scrub of gunk from ankles, deep condition of salty hair (why IS the salt content so high here?)   Felt lovely to be so clean, except for one glitch -or two: No hot water, No warm water even (as heavily bragged about) and umm - how do I tell Katty gently that the faucet gives a slight Electrical boost to one's system, making it hard to hold the water tap for too long without a buzzing ache up your hand.   At the end of my shower, now standing in an inch of water, I tried to think of solutions... cannot reach tap from outside the shower, nothing in this room will stop the flow of electricity to my hand. (It sounds silly but I was desperate enough to try using my towel as a buffer. No help at all. Obviously.)  Do I mention it or just rush off to the rental house that's available now, very likely with a voltage-free shower? 
Worry about it later. I've got a Skype date in five minutes with my fella.  (why do you think I scraped off the chain oil and beach debris? it's a whole new world with video.)