This Is Either Madness Or Brilliance. It’s Remarkable How Often Those Two Traits Coincide.

Reason number 25 to move to Costa Rica: That happy surprise about the Tico genius and sense of humor.

I always had plans to retire in Africa. My neighbors were to be hippos in our river, baboons and vervet monkeys, and of course, the big cats. And giraffes. We would have a journey of giraffes visible as they crossed the delta. To this day, I look at our home with an eye toward making it into the style of the great camps of Botswana or Zimbabwe. Chitabe is shown here.

There may come a day when Rusty and I are unable or unwilling to perform most home and garden maintenance. That day is not today. True, I have a housekeeper to perform tasks of which I’m really not capable. For instance, I absolutely cannot immaculately clean our floors the way Janet can. My mopping action looks the same, but somehow Janet does it better. How she can clean spotlessly mirrors and glass without Windex® remains a mystery. So most every Tuesday morning Janet arrives to magically clean things that I honestly cannot clean as well as Janet. As in any home, before the mopping and vertical-glass-surface cleaning must come some amount of dusting. Now don’t picture me lounging and eating bon-bons six days a week awaiting Janet. I do a considerable amount of daily dusting and sweeping and vacuuming. If you, gentle reader, have never dusted a home, 1) you should try it, and 2) it involves picking up items and returning them to their original spot.

Clearly Janet has ideas of how our home should be arranged. On our dining table rest a vase and two candle holders. They are aligned right down the center-line of the table. Usually. Janet prefers a centered vase with candle holders placed at angles. After months of re-placing the candle holders in a straight line, Janet seems to accept that this is how I like the placement of these items. In my bathroom, Janet will not accept my Tom Ford Neroli Portofino on the vanity. She always moves it to the shelf containing other perfumes. Over a month ago I decided to foil Janet’s movement of my bath items by moving them out of sight or to the perfume shelf prior to her arrival. When Janet leaves, out comes the Tom Ford spray to its proper place near my sink. Absolutely no big deal.

Then there are the giraffes. We own three little giraffes. Actually, a medium wooden giraffe, a tiny wooden giraffe, and a equally tiny brass giraffe. They live on a table with a few other things that I brought here from Africa. Every single week when Janet leaves our home I find that the giraffes are in a new position. Initially I assumed that Janet was merely picking up the giraffes for dusting, then randomly, if not carelessly, re-placing them, not in their original position. Yes, I’m so obessive that I notice these tiny details. 

Then I began to notice a pattern to the giraffes. Sometimes the two small giraffes are parallel and peering at the larger giraffe. Let’s call that larger giraffe the giraffe mother. Other times the two small giraffes are nose-to-nose, placed a bit away from the mother . . . as if having some secret juvenile giraffe conversation. Coincidence? I think not. Recently the three giraffes were in a line, mother leading the way . . . and once the three giraffes were centered at their rumps, facing outward in three separate directions. Truly, this is not a coincidence. Janet is amusing herself playing with our tiny giraffes. I absolutely love it and I will never mention it to her. It’s become a little game. A surprise. Janet leaves and I run to see what the giraffes are doing.

About the time that I discovered a clear pattern to the giraffe movement, I found a very interesting photo-essay on Pinterest. Yeah, I know . . . the dreaded Pinterest. However, this is arguably the single worthy thing that I’ve ever seen on Pinterest; and with that said I am in no way confident that the story accompanying the photos is true. I think that some adult with a sense of humor (like our Janet) moved toy animals into position, took photos, and then made up a story about being a clever parent. Nevertheless, the photos are brilliant . . . and they caused me to purchase a set of toy dinosaurs for Janet’s two sons. Let’s see what Janet and her sons can do with more than three tiny giraffes. Click here to see the expanded image. Lo que hay.