Retraction

I would like to take back a statement made in my first post in which I said that the term "cafe" could only loosely be applied to the restaurant in Cabuya. Having returned last night for dinner and eating one of the best fish dishes I have ever had, I would like to apologize to the proprietors of La Panderia and give it my most genuine endorsement.

Poem

Thoughts on the spider who lives in my bathroom and is currently hiding lamely behind the exposed stud in front of me after I startled him (and, yes, myself) when I opened the shower curtain

a poem

I can only see part of your leg
But I know you are there,
nestled,
in a safe nook for a moment
before scurrying off
like the
slut
you are.

I fear you,
Yet I am enamored with you.
I recognize how much more powerful I am than you,
Yet it is you who wields power over me.
I want to kill you, but I will not.
I want to love you but I cannot.

Wilbur was an idiot.

My First Shape-Up

I took a bike ride with a friend of mine to Cabuya, which is the town 8km away. When we get there, we go to a small cafe (loose term; poultry walking around seating area) where two Tico friends of ours work. I mention off hand that I really need a haircut, and Marlon -- said friend -- says that his friend Christopher is getting a haircut currently down the street. This surprises me as everyone has been telling me that the only place to get a haircut in the area is in Cobano, the central town of the region. Long story short, a call is made, I get on the back of a motor cycle and in two minutes find myself on the front port of some tico-style rancher, sitting in an old school barber chair in front of an even more old school mirrored hutch, having some heavy set middle aged woman try to ask me how I want my pelo cut while pointing to pictures from a 1980s hair magazine... and that's how I got my first shape up. My hair line has never been sharper.