Good afternoon from El Cajon Costa Rica!

 

I didn’t post anything this morning because I’m more than halfway into the pages of a book that Jon Graham Mitchell loaned to me on Friday.  It’s called Like People in History by Felice Picano. It’s a semi-fictional account of a number of gay individuals who lived large during the gay rights movement from Stonewall through the AIDS epidemic and beyond.

 

The back cover of the books reads (in part), “THIS IS THE BIG NOVEL WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR — THE GAY GONE WITH THE WIND.” — Edmund White

 

“Harrowing and sad, and very funny, Like People in History manages to bridge the unnerving chasm between the queer present and the gay past. This heartfelt memorial to a vanished time sees whole, perhaps for the first time, what til now has induced only a tragic sense of disconnection.” — Andrew Holleran

 

“Survivors of extraordinary times sometimes write extraordinary books. Like People in History is one such book.” — Jenifer Levin

 

“Like People in History is a major accomplishment, a vastly ambitious work not just because of the historical span it bridges, but because of the narrative strands it weaves together. It is a cathedral of a work — graceful, imposing, and solid but also filled with millions of details, many moving in their delicacy, others hilarious in their grotesquerie. (It) embraces so much life and is so generous in it sympathies, so unabashed in its espousals, and so inspiring in its conclusion.” — David Bergman

 

I concur entirely although I haven’t yet reached its “inspiring conclusion.” I just fully expect to be inspired by it when I do!

 

The cats intervened for a time, as did my landlady and her daughter

 

The cats (yes, cats — more about that in a minute) interrupted my reading pleasure a time or two to offer additional pleasure of a different kind, as did my landlady and her daughter. As did my brief walk to take the wet trash out to the main road.

 

Mr. Grey Fuzzy Pants showed up and walked across the patio this morning, so I took some food out to him. He readily scarfed it down, so I stayed outside for a while to see if I could entice him to let me pet him.  He declined the offer but flirted with me, writhing on the patio like a female in heat and walking right up to the lens of my camera phone when I lowered it enough that he could do that. But no petting! Not yet!  He’s no pushover, that’s for sure.

 

 

 

My landlady and her husband invited me down from my “mountain casita” 20 feet above them to show me where wild tomatoes have started to grow in their shrubbery.  They are perhaps three times pea sized and delicious!  Her husband, she and I pulled some of the accompanying foliage out and away from the tomato vines so we could see them well enough to erect a fenceline of sorts which the vines and branches can use to establish themselves without interference, so the sunshine can work its magic uninterrupted.

 

While doing that, I noticed some new insects (new to me!) that are gorgeous, so I took a picture of them. They are tiny; this is a close up of them so you can see their speckling. They are much smaller than they look here (perhaps the size of  the smallest circumference spaghetti noodle):

 

 

Trash Walk

 

Today I also walked a small bolsa of wet trash to the main road to put into the permanent trash receptacle there. I took an extra, empty plastic bag, too, so I could clean up around the trash receptacle while I was there. Sometimes the bags break as they’re being lifted out and debris falls to the ground.  As a new arrival to the land of pura vida, it’s as much my reponsibility as anyone else’s to keep the roadsides looking as tidy as possible.

 

Speaking of which, I see almost NO litter here.  The only time I see much is near the trash receptacles. That’s awesome!

 

While walking to (and alongside) the main road, I decided to take a few extra steps and get some more images of my neighborhood than I have heretofore neglected to get. Because I live in a delighful neighborhood.  Here’s proof.

 

At least two of my neighbors are vacas

(and that’s not a slur — it’s a fact!) 

 

 

 

and the rest of my neighborhood is even more lovely!

Two different views of Grecia from the main road near me…

 

This afternoon I visited with my landlady’s daughter for about 15 minutes. She lives in Grecia and comes here on weekends to see her folks. Cat’s (my landlady, her mother) birthday is tomorrow and she made her a carrot cake and says she will bring me a piece of it later on today. YUM!

 

We’re both cat lovers, so we exchanged cat stories the entire time. She’s a kindred spirit, for sure. She looks like a younger version of her mom, too.

 

I’m struggling to remember her name. (I’m terrible with names at first in nearly every instance. I think I get internally  hysterical when I’m introduced to people the first time or two.) I think her nickname is three letters long, like her mom’s.  But I simply can’t conjure it up right now. Forgive me!

 

All of the rest of today (so far) I’ve been either reading, eating, or watching Charli explore. So, that’s why this post is reaching you so late in the day.

 

Hey, it’s Sunday, the day of rest!  Don’t expect blog posts from me every day of the week even though you’ve been getting multiple posts daily for at least a month!  I’m developing a whole new life here. I gotta stay off the keyboard more than I have been to do that!