Costa Rica

I was just browsing over a few old posts and I realized I neglected to mention that I have now totally been to Costa Rica. I can report that it's a lovely place to totally go.

Not only are the people quite friendly, but it's choc-a-block with interesting flora and fauna, some of which are delicious, but all of which are quite intriguing. To be honest, I didn't eat a lot of the local fauna, but I stayed alert for unusual fruits to nosh on. My mom used to occasionally bring home weird and unusual fruits when I was growing up. We'd all come and try them out and usually we got sea-monkeyed by a star fruit or dragon fruit, but occasionally we'd learn that kiwis or mangoes were delicious and add them to our list of regulars. Sometimes mom would unaccountably learn something false, like papayas are delicious, and the rest of us would have to choke down fruit that tastes like mucus, but overall it was worth it.

So anyway, arriving at adulthood, I felt I had a pretty good handle on what the world's fruit is generally like. There are millions of versions of tiny oranges that all taste the same; a handful of reliable standards like apples, pears, bananas, peaches, nectarines and plums; and some more interesting if still standard "tropical" fruits like mangoes, pineapple, papayas (blech). Finally, there are the weirder options like lychees, ugli, star fruit which never really caught on because they're awful, dull, or just not worth the extra effort.

So when I went to St. Lucia some time back and had myself a soursop, which is the best fruit on Earth, I felt a little betrayed. It was the same way I felt when I found out that cuttlefish are not just the source of those weird shells that look like soap dishes and wash up on beaches in England for no apparent reason. They are also astonishing alien-like beasties that can change both the color and texture of their skin, see as well as us, and already know the manner and time of your death.

That's why (the fruit bit, not the cuttlefish), when I go places I haven't been before, I want to try the fruit. The weird thing about Costa Rica is their utter reluctance to ply you with new fruit. So weird is this, that it extends to mangoes. I found this lack of mango frustrating, not because it's new and exotic any more, but because it was falling out of the goddamn trees whenever the wind blew. Nevertheless, we could not get served a plate of it for love or money.

Every morning we sat down to a platter of FANTASTIC pineapple, quite good bananas, papayas that tasted unremarkably like snot, and wholly inexplicable watermelon. I'd gaze wistfully out into the hotel parking lot where cars had started a reasonably compelling mango chutney using nothing more than gravity and the bushels of fresh fruit that had fallen from the trees during the night, and wonder what the blazing hell was going on around here.

I know where you live and I want my mango back, gringo!

I finally seized my chance when a troupe of white-throated Capuchin monkeys started shaking a tree for fruit and knocked some to the ground. Monkeys may be hella strong, but I wanted my fruit, dammit. I dashed across the street, grabbed a mango, and pranced away one mango richer and slightly worried about being chased down and gang-mauled by a tribe of feisty Capuchins.

It was delicious.

Now I'm back in the U.S. where I just heard about the Paw Paw which grows in like Ohio or something for godsake. What the hell supermarkets? You've got mango-like superfruits growing in my own back yard and you won't find and sell them to me because they're not created from seeds made by Monsanto?

Moving. It sucks.

Moving first myself and then my girlfriend in the last month has given me a keen insight into moving. It sucks. I've learned other things too ....

1) It truly sucks. I learned this first from everyone else. You know how science tells us childbirth is awful but that there's a part of women's brains that, for the preservation of the species (and because brains are misogynists), helps you forget that fact in the face of sexytimes? Well that part of the brain doesn't exist for moving. Nor does the part of the brain that edits what you say about it or when, apparently.

My friends, when I told them I was getting ready to move, happily assured me it would be fucking awful. Thanks, pals! When I asked my boss for a day off to prepare, she raised a hand to cut me off as though I'd told her a family member had died. Moving? Say no more. "Moving is hell," she admonished me. Even a completely random guy outside Staples who saw me and my sweetheart walking along with our freshly purchased boxes and bubble-wrap figured he should weigh in and explain, you know, in case we were otherwise without human contact. He'd moved the weekend before and could vouch that, "moving sucks!"

But of course, they were all right. Why you ask?

2) It takes longer than you expect. A lot of things take longer than you expect, adoption of the metric system, general acceptance of evolutionary theory, college, whatever. But unlike a lot of these things, which only take longer than expected in blue states, moving takes longer than you expect no matter how long you expect. It's like a weird twist of Zeno's paradox, but rather than resulting in never getting there, you instead find yourself cramming whatever you can lay your hands on in boxes or bags or, well mostly the trash, as the moving truck sways around the corner.

My girlfriend, who I'll be calling Alphonse from here on out, benefited slightly from my packing mayhem weeks earlier, because when I showed up and found her considering whether this knick-knack was a better candidate for the kitchen box or the things-from-my-mid-twenties box, I pooped. More than was strictly necessary, given how effing smart she is, I explained, nay insisted, that the gig was up and it was time to narrow choices down to the "is it coming" boxes and the trash.

3) Holy shit we live with a lot of trash! Alphonse and I each lived in a one bedroom. Hers was quite small and mine was a bit larger. I threw out (or recycled, you humorless harpies) around 8 large trash bags of junk I will never miss, along with three boxes of books that went to the used bookstore conveniently open for donations between like 10AM and 4PM, those precious darlings. Alphonse remarked that the process made her feel like a hoarder. So anyway, my best gal and I have agreed that we will do a monthly purge of our stuff so we don't find ourselves surrounded by crap come March. I suspect it's a lie we use to comfort ourselves, but I'll let you know.

The worst part of that is that the grand total of crap doesn't even include the TWO trips I made to the dump to get rid of a desk, two bookshelves, a dead hobo and god only knows what else.

WHEEEEEEEE!!!

4) Going to the dump effing rules!!!! Moving is a stressful endeavor that you're not good at because you don't practice. There are entirely too many choices about what to take, how to pack it, and where to put it once you're there. As the previous item suggests, a lot of stuff that you've hidden under the proverbial rug because you couldn't work out where to put it resurfaces and requires some dealing with. Take that shit to the dump. It's liberating as hell.

Once you arrive at the dump, you are a samurai. The choice is made. This desk will not be recycled or dropped off at Goodwill. This desk will be excised from the list of your possessions and all that remains is to execute your good choice. And the execution requires no paperwork, no planning, no stress. I arrived and began fretting about the correct protocols for disposing of my stuff. The protocol, apparently, is you park in the general vicinity of a huge pile of refuse in the Fort Totten area, extract the unwanted item from your car, take a couple of discus thrower spins for good effect and spin the large wooden plane that was lately the top of your desk as far as you can away from you and toward the center of the heap. It's primal; it's final; and no one there gives a rats ass if you could have reused or recycled that crap.

5) Unpacking takes forever and chicks need lots of closet space. There's no further insight for item 5. It's just true. Plan ahead.