montezuma´s revenge

¡Hola amigos, yo estoy en Costa Rica!

We´re in Montezuma, on the Nicoya peninsula on the Pacific coast. I´ve been having flashbacks to Thailand, but this town makes it a full on hallucination. It´s a hippy surfer beach town, where Americans and Europeans with dreads sell boring jewelry from tables set up on the town´s main dirt road. Our hotel is rather interesting, with only netting for one whole wall, out onto howler monkey-infested jungle and sandy beach beyond.

The journey here was rather an adventure. I guess Costa Rican roads are notorious for being poor, but the scenery more than distracts my easily-distracted mind. It was the ferry ride over, in still, stifling heat, that just took it out of me.

At any rate, we have a few days here, which we haven´t had in any of the places we´ve been yet—San Jose, Arenal, and Monte Verde. I expect to finally get some sand and sun in some nooks and cranies, so that I can return home happy.

travel lux

I leave tonight for nine days in Costa Rica. It will be a very different trip from my usual style, as we will be travelling with Erik's parents. Although I got to suggest and ultimately choose our three destinations, a travel agent put our itinerary together. I don't think I've ever been on trip planned by a travel agent, and it is rare for me to stay in nice hotels.

One effect of this luxury is that I haven't given the trip much thought. It's been relaxing to not stress about coordination and details, but I miss the excitement of anticipation derived from researching the myriad options of things to do and places to see in a new country.

Because I will not be travelling with my usual pack-everything-in speed, I hope to focus more on reading, writing, drawing, photography, and meditation. I'm also bringing my laptop, and it'll be my first trip (not including a couple of business trips between San Francisco and NYC) with a computer. HDR, here I come-- especially now that Eric has shamed me by purchasing a camera and creating an HDR image during the lag time of me only contemplating the HDR process.

On another hand (no, not "the" other, since the deity of ideas and opportunities certainly has more than a mere two hands) I'm sad to leave Portland for even two weekends. For each day of free time that passes here, I feel doors and windows opening to me. There are always new places to explore just within Portland city limits, new garments or accessories to repurpose or create, new disciplines to explore that blend science and art in wonderful ways.

I wonder if the same blossoming would occur wherever I found myself. But I do not myself contain BEAM robotics, nor primeval forests condensing moisture from the clouds with mossy beards, nor rust and bricks and beetles. So I wonder-- where do I fit in? Where do I stick out? How does a place shape the mind? How does a language shape a place?

Will the colors reflected through my eyes in Costa Rica stay static in my memory?

mind in a muddle

As is requisite right before a vacation, I am on the verge of getting sick. I've also had a very odd toothache and accompanying headache since Sunday. I guess I've never before had a toothache, but the pain is so throbbing and insistent, so close in my head that it interrupts my thoughts. I hope it's not the fault of the dentristry done last week to my last left molar, but a few days had passed before the odd ache began.

The ibuprofen has kicked in, so now I can think more clearly about all that has transpired the past handful of days.

Erik and I had a make-your-own spring roll party Friday night, inviting Erik's coworkers and soccer team. I got home a bit late and the party started a bit early, to accomodate the wide range of people. The result was that I spent the first two hours of the party in the kitchen, prepping ingredients. The party turned out to be a success, though, and I was impressed by the casual mix of friendly people. The first people arrived at 6:30pm and the last left at 2am, so I think it's officially the longest time I have ever spent at a party.

Saturday I woke up late, and lazed around the house until it was time to meet Eric's friend, Donna. It was a magical day, walking around Alameda with the sun setting everything aglow with brighter colors than February can usually handle. We climbed through brush into the backyard of the magic bicycles, then walked to Donna's house and played with cats. I met her best friend, Becky, and the three of us walked around the Rose City Cemetery, then went for dinner at La Buca, and watched "Me and You and Everyone We Know" at my house.

Sunday I went for a twelve mile run up Terwilliger, then for breakfast at Junior's with Julie. Julie and I worked in the yard a bit (well, I did. She worked a lot), then Erik and I went to his indoor soccer game. I was supposed to play in the game, but by that point the headache and toothace had started up. I'm glad I didn't play, too, because it was a rough game. The other team was fond of kicking the ball into the wall as hard as possible, so that it would bounce back out and often hit someone in the face. After the game, Erik and I walked around NW 23rd to kill time before meeting up with John for the Grizzlybear show at the Mission Theater.

Last night I made pizza and a green, polar fleece, cephalopod cat toy for Donna. Julie, Erik, and I went over to her house to check out the kittens. I had hoped to convince Julie to adopt one, but she decided against it. I finally started repair work on my favorite coat, sewing buttons and figuring out how to fix the lining.

Those are just the diary-style events, but the colors and sunshine from Saturday dazzle me still. Something else happened over the weekend that keeps muddling my brain. My creativity is energized, but the rest of me is bogged down.

driving on 9

Yesterday, driving in to work, my concentration like a butterfly buffetted by a stout Nor'Wester in Christchurch. The clouds hunkered down on the west hills, rain caressed the air in a warm, good-natured mist, and things were generally as Portland as possible. I listened to the Verve. I couldn't believe it, sitting there, immersed in the essence of the place, that I was also in charge of piloting a rather large and heavy machine.

Not large and heavy as that type of machinery goes, certainly, but capable of great damage nonetheless. It just hit me, for some odd reason, and I couldn't believe that they allowed me, that they trusted me, to pilot this thing. Sure I took the test, and sure I passed it. And I'm smart, and able-bodied... but maybe they should have given me another test, too. A mind focus test. Maybe I should take one every time I get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Waiting behind a string of cars on Murray Boulevard, the light turned green and my mouth dropped open. Against the backdrop of several parallel planes of trees-and-clouds, lighter and murkier as they marched backwards, the traffic light with its bright green lens appeared a beautiful, bright, shining beacon. While my mind processed this sight, I was already blocks away, closer to the office.

recipes

Last night I made two kinds of wraps for a "round food" themed party. The first one, savoury, I dreamt up on my particularly long drive home from work. I started by stirring curry powder into mayonnaise (Veganaise, technically), and letting it sit for the flavor to emerge. On a tortilla, I spread the curry mayo, spinach, Tofurky deli slices, and peeled, julienned apple.

The other wrap was peanutbutter spread over half of a tortilla, a strip of banana, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a touch of fresh-ground nutmeg. The nutmeg really made it.

It's difficult to come up with good, new flavor combinations that are easy to make for Erik's lunch, and I had hoped that he'd like the first one more. I'll keep trying.

feathers flying

Yesterday showed me two very different and rather unflattering sides to birds (the avian variety. I'm sure that today-- Valentine's Day-- will show me the same for the other kind of birds).

Gosh I love loaded language.

On the pretty walk from the parking lot to my building, I saw two male robins by a big old live oak. As I neared them along the path past the tree, I saw them leap up from the ground, come together low in the air, and beat their wings against each other. Unable to sustain flight while using their wings as weapons, they'd fall almost to the earth before separating and repeating the attacks. I stared as I walked within three feet of them. It was quite violent, and they just kept at it-- leaping, attacking with a rustling sound like long skirts gathered up before a running escape, falling, breaking apart just in time.

Later in the day, Corey took me outside to show me a stripe of dew along a curving row of bushes, like a guardrail that follows one of the bark trails on campus. For some reason drops of water from the saturated air had gathered only at a particular height on the bare branches.

On our way back to our building, almost to the lake, we heard a sound right behind us like a full bucket of water being splashed out onto the pavement.

We both spun around to see a blue-grey blur of motion off to the left. It was a great blue heron landing at the lake's edge, about fifteen feet away from us. To the right, the source of the splash: a ten foot swath of soupy white bird poop. It was as though the bird had painted its own landing strip. I can't believe so much volume came from a creature that size. We were extremely lucky to not get hit.

After gazing in wonder at the crap, we watched the bird's graceful, mechanical movements as it slowly positioned its whole body over the water and then with a delicate snap grabbed tiny silver fish in its chopstick beak. We must have stood there for twenty minutes, enthralled. I can't imagine a more awe-inspiring blue heron experience.

I do so enjoy the dark side of beauty, or the beauty of the dark.

sprinkle sparkle spring

I was walking back from a meeting this morning, closing my palsied Oregonian eyes against the sudden sunlight filtering down through thin layers of winter cloud. The whole campus smelled of flowers-- sugary pink early spring flowers. I felt a few drops on my head, spaced apart, like a mistake of rain.

As I crossed the bridge over the creek it sprinkled a bit more insistently, and in the sun, the water sparkled where the drops hit. It felt like spring was dancing with my senses. Like the perfect flirtation, it was over before I knew it and left me with a lingering smile on my face.

st bacon

For all of my bacon-loving friends: good news. I have discovered the patron saint of bacon!

While watching a travel show about Venice, I learned that the city's patron saint arrived in town wearing a makeshift cloak of bacon. Well, I'm talking it up a bit. The real story is that Venetians stole St Mark's body out of Egypt by wrapping it in bacon, so that the Muslims wouldn't inspect the box too closely.

A mosaic on Saint Mark's Basilica depicts the event.

hinges

Last night Julie and I tried Loyly, a new-ish steam and sauna place. It's rather an odd concept, since there are no hot tubs, and it's a tiny space sandwiched in between a realty office and a restaurant in a bank of brand new buildings off Clinton St. Inside it's very vertical and airy, almost solely concrete, very sparse and Scandinavian. While I enjoyed it, I can't imagine being there for more than about an hour. There's just not that much to it. Although twenty dollars gets you three hours in the facility, it seems a bit steep for the one you're likely to spend there.

When I got home, I tried to fasten the hinges onto the built-in linen closet door-- the last step before we can actually use it. It was very difficult to figure out where and how the hinges should go, and then to try to drill into the tight corner. When I finally got the hinges on, the top one was crooked. I thought about just going with it, but so far I've been letting my perfectionism guide me on this project, so when Erik offered to try I was glad. His came out ever-so-slightly more crooked than my job. I tried one more time, and it was equi-crooked to the initial attempt. I decided to go ahead and attach the hinges to the door, which was much easier than attaching them to the wall. All was well when I opened the door. Then I tried to close it. How is it that I screwed everything in with the door closed, but now it no longer closes?

I left that mystery for tonight. Who knew becoming hinged could be so difficult?

drowned

Perhaps I'm boring now, but I eschewed going to the community garden pruning class/ work party and the Swap-o-rama clothing re-make session to stay home most of the weekend and work on house projects. I rearranged the living room. I eked out a bit of progress on my hallway project. I ran ten hilly miles on the Wildwood Trail. I finally stitched the first piece of my laptop case (while doing my biweekly mom listening session). I made three mix and match ravioli fillings, although I didn't have time to make the pasta.

Time slips away from me. How did the flow increase from dribble to gush? I can no longer grab a hold. I try to buckle down my personal organization, but time management has never been something I'm known for. I am late, I am rambling, I am ten directions at once. I like to do five things at a time, and maybe they will reach completion.

Recently, none have, so I'm paring down. Tonight it's make ravioli, paint in the hallway, go see Pan's Labyrinth at CineMagic, pick my brother up at the airport. And maybe when I get home I can look up a local chapter of Overachievers Anonymous.

red

I think that one of the great mysteries of life is the question "Do you see the same color orange that I do?" How can we ever know that what appears orange through my eyes isn't what I'd call green through your eyes? But since we both point at the same thing and nod in agreement while we say "orange," we are comforted in the naming.

Think of how much deeper a problem this poses. We now have the illusion that we mean the same thing with our shared word, but I see something that I don't like and you see something that you do. Maybe it's not just because you like orange and I don't; perhaps it's that we are fundamentally seeing different colors. We are experiencing different senses, although we know that we both mean the same physical object or trait at which we're both pointing, now shouting a little in frustration.

I'm sorry, I just don't like orange.

It goes beyond the simplicity of color. There is so much visual, auditory, physical, odorous data, every moment in time across a wide world. With a practically infinite variability, how can I really understand the same orange poppy on a rolling hill in Palo Alto as you? How can you understand the same rust on a bolt barring windows at Dammasch as me?

We've developed language to try to communicate these things, but perhaps the endeavor is entirely futile because we are not even experiencing the same senses. Maybe that is the reason why this isn't working.