It Is Recognized That You Have A Funny Sense Of Fun

My idea of fun is polishing copper pots. I'm not joking. My idea of fun is weeding the flowerbeds. Anything that produces immediate results. I prep the coffee maker each evening just to have coffee instantly at my disposal when I awake. And I find great fun in varying the amount of caffeine placed in Rusty's morning cup o' Joe. Must be an instant gratification thing. And it's fun to sneak in a tad of extra caffeine when I need a few extra honey-dos. Notwithstanding Rusty's varying levels of caffeine, I'm clearly not opposed to some housework. However, this cleaning of tile floors in a dusty land is never-ending, therefore it is not fun. Mopping merely produces mud. This is why I had a housekeeper in Africa -- those gals knew how to sweep and mop a floor.

Rusty and I are nesting. Well, I'm nesting; Rusty is trying to work while I cater to his every whim. Hey, it's instant results, so it works for me -- it is truly my idea of fun (at least for this first week or two). My darling, would you like a tuna sandwich? Can I get you a beer? How about some trail mix . . . a little chocolate snack?
The tuna here is fabulous. Kyle, remember the Maison du Thon? Tuna here is that good. But in between playing haus-frau (something totally foreign to me), we're naming fauna that we don't recognize. We actually enjoy knowing the proper names of birds, animals, and reptiles. Our check-off-the-species list from African safaris was fun -- the little green bee eater, check; the Wood Hoopwe, check; red lechwe, check.

Here in Costa Rica, we're still ignorant of our fauna . . . so we're making up our own names. A pair of charming birds built a nest in a tree right at eye level by our terrace. And they used the cat fur removed from Nut-Meg's brush after we removed Meg's Texas winter coat. Rusty has named this bird the cream-breasted wool gatherer. I like that. As I type here on the terrace in the dark, little moths alight on the illuminated screen. They have a cute, dramatic triangular shape, so I've named them the Concorde moth.

Then there are the monkeys. We really wanted monkeys near our home. Howler monkeys. What we didn't realize . . . and it's come as a delightful surprise, is that we hear them almost 'round the clock. True, they seem to nap for an hour or so in the mid-day heat, but they're awake and howlin' in the mornings and really go to town with their howls from dusk until bedtime. Sometimes they're seen right outside our kitchen window. Today this young fellow crossed the road, right in front of us. Sally, if you can open this photo to a larger image, you'll see the . . . the . . . what is that look on his face? Ask before you photograph me? I'll carry away your seven pound cat. What is that look?

Jill hears these monkeys. In fact, Jill hears monkeys greet us right over the terrace retaining wall. She is puzzled. Our dog with a crazy fear of thunder realizes that the monkey noises are not thunder, yet sometimes they are thunderous. She's boggled. What this dog needs is an exhausting beach morning that will result in a very tired terrier. As we've always said: tired terrier, good terrier. Anyway, today Jill was introduced to the Pacific Ocean. We selected Playa Carillo as it is virtually deserted and there would not be a large number of other dogs to meet-and-greet. Jill has yet to master the polite meet-and-greet. We'll go into Jill's adventure at the beach on another post; but be assured, she was brave and has a tale to tell.

Speaking of tale to tell . . . our friend Helen gave us a going away party (we had a number of good-bye get-togethers, thanks Becky!). But it was at Helen's party, out of earshot of his wife, that Rusty announced his desire to blog. As Rusty later related it to me, he explained to many party-goers that he did indeed have a strong desire to post Samara updates, yet was intimidated by his wife, the grammar Nazi. I took this as a back-handed compliment . . . but there was also a bit of embarrassment. My own husband, a truly brilliant man, shouldn't be intimidated to blog, despite his poor typing skills that translate into failed capitalization, poor punctuation, and possibly erroneous verb conjugation. In other words, if you, gentle reader, recognize that my musings are pure stream of consciousness thought, Rusty's will be, too . . . but without the neurotic grammar/spelling/capitalization proof-reading. It's simply not in his nature. So Jill and I will break him in with Jill's own musings about her visit-the-beach-and-dig-up-a-crab adventure. Jill can't spell worth a flip, so Rusty should be less intimidated. Maybe . . . hopefully.

So prior to Jill's tale (at another time), we'll end this evening's post with a few musings specifically for you, Sally . . . red-alerts, if you will:
A. Six scorpions, two days.
B. Yesterday we were visited by a very large Rottweiler named Max. Very friendly, though I did not introduce Jill to this 130 pound canine. A few texts, eMails, and phone calls later and we had identified Max's owner. Took both Rusty and I to heave-ho Max into the car, and off I went up the mountain to return Max to his home. Max has a reputation as a kleptomaniac and biscuit seeker. Max's owner eventually dropped by to thank us for returning Max (we were assured that Max would return one day), and Max's owner related his recent life on the mountain. Thus, Sally . . .
C: A five foot long snake was in Max's home on Tuesday evening. It was urged to leave and did leave; but I can't imagine that you'll want to be anywhere near a snake of such formidable size as I'm urging it to vacate our home . . .  your guest quarters.
Then D: we have frogs. I hate frogs. Childhood trauma incident. And they are everywhere after dark. We keep Jill indoors as she would love nothing more than to play with a frog. Play with it until its demise. Finally, darling Sally,
E: Insects are everywhere. Look at this little fellow beside the scorpion. I don't know a great deal about centipedes and millipedes, but I believe that the millipedes are the species that can deliver a sting or bite.

 

Now I call these red alerts, but you know that you'll be perfectly safe and protected from all species of frightening fauna. It's the jungle . . . embrace it . . . and I'll have so much sick fun watching you. Lo que hay!