Arrrggghhhh. It rains. It's wet and nothing dries. It rains more and the previous assortment of cow pies that keep our daily walks to and from the farm nice and squishy get replaced with mud that eagerly awaits the arrival of the inevitable next batch of cow expulsions. It rains more.
Don't get me wrong, overall we are pretty happy to be here, but holy cow crap it's been raining a lot. You slip on your moist boots, plow on through triumphantly to your destination and do it all over again. Complicating matters is the need to tire out our canine residents, a task which becomes difficult to do in this climate. So those are my meteorological observations (see my previous post for issues pertaining to seismology).
On less boring matters, a few days ago, as I walked the dogs around 5pm, the cat came back! Or a cat, I should say. A wild one. In any case, it might have been "the" cat of Kate's preoccupations. Strutting along in my Caesar Milan style, the dogs and I approached a turn in the road--not 400 yards from our house-- when a stealthy black shadow paused, its body taught with undomesticated spring, ready to bolt at, or away from us. Fortunately, the latter scenario unfolded. Now it was cloudy and a bit dark, and it all happened faster than I could realize I was ankle deep in cow shit, BUT, I am pretty sure it was a feline. It was longer than both the dogs, and the way it cleared the road with one leap and disappeared down the paddock was reminiscent of what I envision a wild cat darting away must look like. After describing it to my friend Anibal, he concluded that it was probably not the puma (apparently not big enough to match the description of the notorious puma), but he said it could have been a caucel (hence the image above). So that's my biological observations for now.
On the physiological front, Kate and I went to a spinning class two nights ago with our friends Anibal and Evelyn, and enjoyed it greatly. It was a great workout and a fun time.
Work wise I have begun visiting a lot of people again, which is my favorite thing about being an anthropologist. I met a really cool 61 year old farmer who grows some tobacco. I had never seen a tobacco plant before, so that was pretty cool. The leaves were about a foot in length and half a foot in width. I'm gonna try to help him sell some to the tourists, since he doesn't have much of an income.
So that's a few days in a few paragraphs. I apologize for the scattered nature of this post, but I figure people will read what they like and skip what they don't. My belly is growling!!!!!!!!! 12:19 pm.
Ernesto
We were watching the news from Mexico City the other day, and they were talking a lot about all the little communities in CR that are under water right now. They had some good images and interviews (which of course the American networks did not bother with). We immediately thought of you and, based on how serious it sounded, I was actually worried about you two. Thankfully, I can check this page and see that all is well, if a bit muddy and wet.
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