What the hell bit me?

Last weekend I went for a 12K hike in the mountains of Escazú. It was beautiful, all green hills and big trees.

But some insect bit me on the arm, probably while I was twirling around on a grass-covered slope belting out The Sound of Music like a retard, and now I have a big red lump on my arm that's so hot you could almost fry an egg on it.

Strange, how so many of my blog entries speak of bugs and bumps on my person. Ah, life in the tropics.

There's a rat in me ceiling, what am I gonna do

Scratch, scratch... shuffle, shuffle... scratch, THUD.. scramble, scramble...

Something was living in my ceiling for a time. It made a lot of noise, scratching and scrambling and stomping above my head.

I was determined to ignore it, until my neighbor Bernal asked me: "Do you have a rat in your ceiling?"

"I have something in my ceiling, but it sounds a lot bigger than a rat."

"Ah. Must be a zorro."

Zorro means "fox" in Spanish, but in Costa Rica the word applies to a large, possum-like creature.

I lived with the foxy thing for a while. It woke me up a couple of mornings, and I wondered what kind of damage it would do to the house, but a renter's ignorance is bliss. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the noise stopped.

Shortly thereafter, a stench from the underworld developed in my spare bedroom. It smelled a little like mouse-infested house, and a lot like death. Incense had no power over it. Finally, I just closed the door and hoped for the best, which in this case meant rapid decomposition -- not a tall order in the tropics.

The odor of the poor thing’s demise is already abating. This, too, shall pass.

Fall

Kids, don’t try this at home.

Walking down the stairs with my guitar in hand, I fall. It was the kind of fall you remember, not because of the resulting giant hump on your left ass cheek, now turning ghastly shades of purple, once your favorite color. Not even because witnesses called it “the worst fall I’ve ever seen -- your head whipped back like a slingshot.”

No. You remember it because of the sickening crack that is the sound of your guitar slamming into hardwood, even though you instinctively broke most of the fall on your left butt cheek. You remember, because the first thing you do after you are capable of movement is raise the guitar, still clutched in your hand, and see the cracks in the wood, ugly splits along the beautiful grain, raised up like faults in the ground after an earthquake. You remember screaming, “Noooooooooooooo!” and being inconsolable, impatient with the well-meaning but asinine concerns of others for the state of your ass when your guitar is cracked, damaged, hurting.

You lie awake all night, wondering if your clumsiness has cost you one of the only possessions you truly love. The keeper of your sanity. Your companion through the Grand Canyon and all its rapids, to be destroyed by a stupid digger down the stairs, for real?

You can think of nothing else.

In the morning, you take your poor guitar to the brothers Guzmán, makers and (you pray) repairers of guitars. The blessed brothers tell you it’s fixable, you’re lucky it cracked along the grain and not against it. It will be ready on Friday.

A wave of relief the likes of which you have seldom experienced washes over you. You can feel again. And in that moment, you become aware of the fact that your ass feels like it’s been run over by a Mack truck, and is swollen horribly on one side.

Clarisse, you beautiful instrument, I'm sorry. Come back to me whole, and ready to sing.

Taco Time

My friend Jill and I went to visit our other friend Kristin over the weekend. Kristin is a raft guide and works for an outfitter in Turrialba, a couple hours east of San José. She's a giant, 6'4" and strapping. Jill is a midget, not quite 5' and maybe 100 pounds on a fat day.

I was outrageously overworked and ready to play hard. The three of us went boating on this beautiful little river called the Pejibaye. Kristin kayaked and Jill and I paddled a Shredder down the river. It was a ghetto craft with two pontoons on either side, a fabric floor and two thwarts connecting the pontoons. The front thwart leaked like a mo fo; we pumped that shit up every few minutes but it deflated just as fast, so every time we hit anything, the limp thwart would fold and the boat would taco, sending the two of us flying. It was so fun.

We floated past a group of locals and left them gaping at what must have been a strange sight to a bunch of macho Ticos in rural Costa Rica: three women paddling alone down the river, one bigger than a man, one the size of a 10-year-old and one with decidedly slanty eyes.

Were we representing our sex in a good, strong way? Or were we cementing the already widespread notion that Gringas are f'n crazy? Food for thought.

Elephant Woman

We have a wasp hive hanging from a tree branch right over our driveway. I've been attacked twice. The first time, before I knew there was a hive there, I was beating sand off my car mats against the tree trunk. The wasps went for my face pretty quick, and I had a swollen head for a week. I stayed away from the tree after that. The second time, just yesterday, my alarm went off while I was checking the oil -- man-o, the wasps didn't like that. One got me a little on my nose (brushed the sucker off really quick) and another got me good on my inner arm (burned like a mother and now my arm is swollen to one and a half times its size -- it happened to Kuro once, remember, sisters?).

Phone conversation with the housekeeper, Rosa (me at work, she at home; translation from Spanish):

MEG: We have a wasp hive over the driveway.
ROSA: Really? That's good luck.
M: I don't think so. I've been attacked twice.
R: It's good luck.
M: I don't think so. The wasps are really big and they hurt like crazy when they sting you.
R: A wasp hive brings good luck into the house.
M: I don't think so. Can you ask the gardener if he can remove it?
R: It's good luck.
M: I don't think so. My arm is swollen to almost twice its size.
R: What good luck!
M: Leland is really allergic to bee stings. He'll swell up like a balloon if he gets stung.
R: It's good luck.
M: He won't be able to breathe and he might die. They're really big wasps; go look at them.
R: (Walking with the cordless phone outside the house) It's good luck to have a wasp hive outside your house. Especially if it's near the door.
M: If Leland starts swelling up, we'll have to stick him with a medicated pin so he won't die.
R: (Still walking) It's good luck, though.
M: I don't think so.
R: (Still walking) It's good luck. Wasps' nests are good... SON OF A BITCH, THEY'RE GIGANTIC!
M: I know.
R: Oh... they're the big black ones. They're not good luck. It's the little yellow ones that are good luck.
M: So can the gardener get rid of them, please?
R: Okay. Today.

Who is you know who?

Anonymous, who are you? You, who are crying into your cornflakes?

I had a lovely two weeks at home in Vancouver, and saw my beautiful sister get married. Oh! She looked so beautiful in her dress made of Obaachan's old kimono fabric.

It was hard to come back this time. I've heard from other expatriate types that this is a sign, a sign that one is nearing the point when one is ready to go home. I can't deny that I haven't been thinking about it since I got back. It doesn't help that I've been buried in work all week and spent today, Saturday, in the office, laying out supplements until past 9 p.m., alone with Snuffy (who is being evicted after all, because he bit one of the star reporters -- today was his last day, and I was the only one there to say good-bye to him when Olman, the dour-faced accountant, took him away to his finca).

I did go roller-skating afterwards, though, with Tamara Neely and the rest of the Tico Times crew. Roller-skating was weird. Some of the Ticos were all hard core, skating backwards while dancing to a cumbia beat and shit. There was a fly dancing queen who looked like she could've been in Abba, if she were just a little more Swedish-looking. Tamara is leaving Monday -- her internship is over -- and everyone is sad. Great gal.

The new intern arrives on Tuesday. Poor guy. When I was going through resumes, I liked his because of his last name: Foxman. What a great reporter's name. "Foxman! Where's my goddamn copy?! GodDAMNit, Foxman, did you fact-check this son of a bitch or not?!" You see what I mean, I'm sure. Anyway, I made the mistake of voicing my observation to some people in the office, and now everyone is referring to him as Foxman!! before he's even arrived. No one even knows what his first name is. Great last name, though.

Aaaah, the Title field: LOOK AT MY CAR!!!

Holy cow, I bought a car! It's an old Suzuki Samurai, and I love it. It creaks and groans and goes anywhere. Been around the block a few times but still going strong, just like Mommy.

In the background of the photo is the Tico Times office. It's an old house in downtown San José that somehow manages to fit the paper's entire operation. The tree you see in front sucks because birds live in it and shit all over your car. To the right is another, bigger tree, which contains bigger birds that produce bigger doo doo. We also have fruit trees in the small bit of soil around the house: banana, orange, cas (kind of like a guava) and avocado.

Not shown in the photo are the ghosts that allegedly inhabit the building. Sonia, the editorial assistant, says she often hears the sound of typing from the editorial room in the morning, before anyone else arrives. Occasionally it's typing on a computer keyboard, but more often it's the sound of someone typing on the old clackety-clack manual typewriter still used by Dery, the publisher (who doesn't use computers). Which makes sense, since if it's a ghost, he or she has probably been dead for a while, and may not know how to use a computer.

Also not shown in the photo is Snuffy, the former street dog with the adorable underbite, who lives at the office and occasionally bites people, particularly men wearing black shoes. Snuffy really hates black shoes. And motorcycle helmets. He recently tried to bite the UN Peace Ambassador on a visit to the office. Snuffy almost got the boot for that one, but I defended him. It's not his fault that some people don't know they aren't supposed to wear black shoes.