Early Friday five.

Five quotes from I Am a Cat, which I didn't love but I found the cat's narrative very entertaining, and which even non-cat people will appreciate, in no particular order:

• "I move forward between the woodpile and the coal heap, turn left and find a glazed window to my right. On the ledge below, a considerable number of small round tubs is piled into a pyramid. My heart goes out to them, for it must be painfully contrary to a round thing's concept of reality to be constricted within a triangular world."
• "I desire to pray for success in war by worshiping my honored Great Tail Gracious Deity, so I lower my head a little, only to find I am not facing in the right direction. When I make the three appropriate obeisances I should, of course, as far as it is possible, be facing toward my tail. But as I turn my body to fulfill that requirement, my tail moves away from me. In an effort to catch up with myself, I twist my neck. But still my tail eludes me. Being a thing so sacred, containing as it does the entire universe in its three-inch length, my tail is inevitably beyond my power to control. I spun round in pursuit of it seven and a half times but, feeling quite exhausted, I finally gave up. I feel a trifle giddy. For a moment I lose all sense of where I am and, deciding that my whereabouts are totally unimportant, I start to walk about at random..."
• "In my opinion, there is nothing more unbecoming in the human type than its indecent habit of sleeping with the mouth left open. Never in a lifetime would a cat be caught in such degenerate conduct... The result is not only unsightly, but could indeed, when rat shit drops from the rafters, involve real risk to health."
• "Anyway, human beings being the nitwits that they are, a purring approach to any of them, either male or female, is usually interpreted as proof that I love them, and they consequently let me do as I like, and on occasions, poor dumb creatures, they even stroke my head."
• "Actually, a mirror is a sinister thing. I'm told it takes real courage, alone at night, in a large room lit by a single candle, to stare into a mirror. Indeed the first time that my master's eldest daughter shoved a mirror in front of my face, I was so simultaneously startled and alarmed that I ran around the house three times without stopping."
  

Early Wednesday three.

Three movies I did not like, in no particular order:

• Changeling. Oscar nominated? Really? Angie repeated three lines ("he's not my son!", "did you kill my son?" and "I'm not your mother!") for two hours and this won her a nomination? Meh.
  
• The Contract. Oh, John. Why do you taunt me so? I keep hoping upon hope for some redemption, but anything after Identity has been a letdown. I couldn't even finish this. (It's okay, I'll still marry you though.)
  
• Sleepwalking. Nick Stahl's character was vaguely interesting. I didn't finish this one either.
  

Hmm. I seem to be getting selective with free time in my old age. I remember a time when I would stick something out until the end, optimistically thinking it would get better. Now I give a film 20 minutes, and if it doesn't grab me, I'm done.

Monkey mania.

(Never washing that hand again...
just kidding, washing it immediately, but still...)

(Whenever a Very Bouncy Animal arrives
in the forest and you are told he has
just come, the thing you should ask is:
"When is he going?" ~ Winnie the Pooh)

How's YOUR vision?

See if you can spot the aforementioned elusive silky anteater.

Yeah? It's RIGHT THERE, right? No fair, you had the benefit of my friend's new camera with stellar zoom.

I am Jack's bitter regret.

What I should've asked him, dammit, was whether he actually knew Myla Goldberg, the sister of a girl I was good friends with in high school who wrote a fantastic book that was turned into a terrible movie. That would've been a great question.

(This has been plaguing me ever since I first heard the song named after her five years ago. Of course all I had to to find the answer was JGFI, which I just now did, and lo and behold.)

DAMMIT!!

Interesting facts about the number four.

It has a lot of religious, spiritual, natural and otherwise meanings. It's considered unlucky by many Chinese folks. It's a stabilizer in the Tarot-reading world. Its aura is red and orange and it sounds like F#.

It's also how many pounds Her Majesty now weighs. So that's pretty awesome.

The vet specialist (VS) apparently hasn't seen a cat not respond to what we've tried, so I guess in her own special, annoying way Her Maj is helping VS learn something new. Next up, if the next week goes reasonably OK, is probably IV injections of a kickass chemo drug or immuno-suppressant, both of which have their pluses and minuses.

DAMN CAT.

On the up side, her tiny size makes toting her to the car in her carrier much easier. When she was 12 pounds I had to use both hands.

If only she were a little bastard, I could just hate her and be over this. But she's so darned cute, kind of like this guy:

(white-nosed coati, relative of the raccoon)

Got more photos from the vacation today. Look for updates soon.

Jen(n) is a dork.

Around 5pm today I learned that the Decemberists were doing a CD signing at Music Millennium in honor of their dark, troubling masterpiece which came out today. It was to start at 6pm. I had stayed home sick but I could've been bleeding out of every hole in my head and I wouldn't have missed that, so I scurried over, unshowered and barely presentable (I think I did brush my teeth at least), and got in line.

During the 1 hr 15 minute wait, I tried to come up with something clever, interesting or funny to say or ask so that I wasn't just a dork with a poster. Lots of things came to mind but as soon as it was my turn, as soon as I was standing two feet from Colin Meloy, my brain froze. "Hi," I said shyly, pushing my poster toward him.

THINK THINK THINK! You're clever, you're funny, COME ON!

"Um," I said, but then he was done, so I said "thanks" and moved along. Jenny and Chris were bantering about baseball and asked me who I would root for if I was watching a Yankees/Red Socks game. "Red Socks! My Boston friends would kill me otherwise." They nodded in agreement and thanked me for coming. And I was on my way.

I had my camera with me, but I didn't want to be a loser doing the one-armed self-portrait on top of already being a dork, and really, let's be honest here, I love them all but I just wanted a picture with Colin and that would've been odd.

But they were all very nice as one would expect and I'm going to laminate this poster immediately and shut the door on this entirely dorky experience. Can you imagine if I were to ever run into Joss Whedon? I'd be an utter mess.

(Have I mentioned that I LOVE THIS TOWN?!)

Distant cousins?

(circa 1999, when she was still fat)

(circa 2009)

Two no's and a yes, immediately.

In Bruges: just couldn't do it. Just couldn't bring myself to watch Colin Farrell for that length of time. Plus that was holding up the next installment of Dexter Season 2 which was the finale which was making me very cranky. I'm sure I enjoyed Dexter much more.

How's Your News?: Arthur Bradford was a guest at a recent Live Wire show, and after assuring the audience that this wasn't about exploitation he played a few clips from the original documentary. As a result, I queued it the next day. Sweet, charming, restoring your faith in humanity one minute at a time. I guess there's now an MTV show which I won't watch because it's on MTV. But there's also a web site with lots of clips including this one where they interview folks like Will.i.am and The Shins on the red carpet at the Grammys. (Watch until the end of this clip - priceless.) And there's a documentary "on the 2004 campaign trail" which I would love to see...

Vicky Christina Barcelona: tried really hard to get through this. Gave up after about 40 minutes, even though that was just the start of Penelope's performance. Scarlett specifically, and the story overall, just bugged me. I hope to enjoy a Woody Allen film again someday, but until then I will just watch Annie Hall over and over.

Tonight's viewing involves Twilight. Does that officially take me from nerd to dork? Inquiring minds want to know. (But but but it was filmed in my state! That counts for something, right?)

Questions.

Would it be wrong to offer a half-eaten bag of Munchies to a homeless man holding a sign asking for donations? Before you judge, know that I bought the bag at Target because I had more errands to run and after eating a way-too-healthy vegan Reuben sandwich earlier today, nothing else remotely appealed to me at that moment. I've eaten all I will ever eat from that bag, and I hate to waste food. Well, "food."

Another question. What is the proper response to a pink-haired male cashier at OfficeMax asking to shake your hand because you're one of their smartest customers for buying the $10 3-year warranty on a $70 computer chair? I said sure and shook his hand... but it just seemed odd on so many levels.

(New chair is awesome, by the way. I finally opted to replace the Ikea plastic piece of crap I bought last May with a real chair because I signed up for a Photoshop online class, and as a result I'll probably be spending more time here in the coming weeks. And also because I watch so much TV on the interweb these days, and dragging the big comfy chair over got annoying after the second time I did that.

Maybe one day I'll actually spring for a laptop and wireless and watch stuff online from the comfort of my couch or bed like all YOU people! Give me a few more years.)

All caught up and nowhere to go.

I am officially up to date on Lost, Dollhouse and Dexter (well, to the degree Netflix will let me be caught up with Dexter).

I'm not sold on Dollhouse yet. I appreciate Joss using the talents of Fred, Helo and Faith but frankly, between those guys and the smart-Andrew-look-alike and the British-accented head honcho, I'm having trouble remembering what show I'm watching. And some of the stories are familiar, or otherwise unoriginal. I also think I have a fundamental issue with the premise, as in "surely this is already happening somewhere in real life," but I'm willing to overlook that. I'll give it time, since the quirky banter keeps me interested, but until then Faith really needs to work on her blind girl act and Joss needs to step it up a bit.

I think I'm going to hold out on BSG. The marathons are just too much fun. Which means I have at least 5 hours to kill tonight... the horror!

Correction.

Forget that 10 mile run. My new goal is to go to the gym on a semi-regular basis, keep up with strength training, and maintain my current weight plus or minus 5 pounds. This is out of respect and admiration for my knees, which I will need (in healthy form) when I move to Costa Rica to work on an eco-farm.

And also? Running 10 miles in one session? Borrrrrr-ring. At least until Lent is done and I get my iPod back. (Dumb dumb dumb.)

Otherwise, doing well on the 1Q goals. I'm two books ahead of schedule and I think a whalewatching trek is in order next weekend or the one after.

Incidentally, #22 on the list starts on the 30th. Annnnnd... scene!

Last belated Friday five.

Finally, five good stories from Costa Rica, in no particular order...

• Two days into uncivilized jungle territory deep in Costa Rica, we were incredibly startled by three non-uncivilized jungle things: 1) a gray cat wandering around the outdoor cafe where we ate dinner, 2) some sort of house or car alarm near the lodge, and 3) people! sitting in a car! in the parking lot! the horror!

• My friend's watch stopped the morning of our last day. And isn't it ironic.

• During the mangrove boat tour, the boat driver stopped so that we could observe a silky anteater - a rare treat, as this is a nocturnal animal. It looks like this. (This image is important to the story.) My friend saw it right away through her binoculars; I had the guide's binoculars but try as I might, I could not locate the sucker. After at least 10 minutes of various people pointing, as well as the boat driver using a mirror to shine a light on the creature, I finally asked, "Is it near that brown leaf?" The guide kind of laughed and said, "It IS that brown leaf." Turns out, I'd been looking at it the whole time. I noted to the guide that I clearly needed to go to Africa because the animals are much larger and easier to spot there. He agreed.
  

• On the drive from the zipline to Manuel Antonio National Park, we stopped at a lovely beachfront hotel for lunch. The guide recommended I try the soursop fruit drink, so I asked what the Spanish word for "soursop" was. "Guanabana" was his reply. I had to ask him to repeat it twice and then spell it because it was such an odd word. The driver, who was dining with us and hadn't said more than three words to us (in Spanish, no less) the entire time, said, "You know, like the Muppets song - Mahna mahna! Doot doo, do do do. Mahna mahna!" And thus, the bond between me and the driver was sealed for all eternity and Jim Henson knows no boundaries. (PS - soursop is amazing. Neither sour nor soppy.)
  

• The last day, our taxi didn't show up to take us to the local airport which would transport us to San Jose International. The hotel manager was kind enough to drive us, and we stood in a very long line fretting because the taxi was supposed to have all of our flight information. So we got to the front of the line, having missed what we thought was our flight, and the guy couldn't find our reservation. At this point we were totally panicking - I think I said something to the extent of "I was just kidding about not wanting to leave" - when a pilot came over to the desk and mentioned our names. Turns out we had a private plane back to San Jose. We turned our noses up at the lowly commoners taking the public jets (well, we didn't really, but it was funny to think about doing so) and boarded our private plane back to the big airport.

My favorite story is the one where I was hanging out solo in the pool at the last hotel, just watching the ocean waves and admiring the view, and a little lizard walked over and we just sat there, watching the waves and admiring the view, in perfect solitude and contentment.

(the little guy on the left was my ocean-gazing friend; the guy on the right appeared the last day)

Second favorite story involves monkeys. (I'm sure you're shocked.) On the boat tour I was offered the opportunity to give the monkeys some fresh water, which entailed holding a plastic container of water and letting them come to me (video coming soon). Most of them kept their distance, sipping carefully from the plastic container and then running away to pretend the boat awning was a trampoline (video coming soon). But one of the monkeys wanted a little more balance so he put his little hand on my hand... and my heart just about melted. I really hope video of that is coming soon.

And finally finally finally, a PS for the CHM: The best Costa Rican coffee is grown at 3000 feet in volcanic soil. It's organic and wonderful and magical. Due to luggage constraints I couldn't bring any home with me, but I found a great cafe that delivers, and I will be sending you some at some point... No monkey poop involved.

More belated Friday fives.

Five things you might not know about Costa Rica, in no particular order...

• This is possibly the most eco-friendly country in the world. They are conveniently located near lots of water, so that helps. At least 40% of their power is hydro-electric, another 10% comes from wind turbines, an unconfirmed amount (depending on who you ask) comes from two of their four active volcanoes and they will be expanding that to all four in the near future, and they are working on generating power from sewage water (using the gas generated to run laundry machines and other non-food-related types of equipment). Their hotels and lodges are rated on "leaves" - how eco-friendly they are - not "stars." We mostly stayed at 4-5 "leaf" places and I was quite impressed with the CFLs, recycling, organic/local foods during meals and various other eco efforts. In fact, this is such an eco-friendly country that we passed a bullfighting ring on the way to the first lodge, and the guide explained that because they care so much about animals, the bulls are never killed - instead of the usual matador routine, people are paid to try to pull the tail of the bull. That's as violent as it gets.
  
  

Lost Iguana Lodge path lamps, powered by CFLs!

• They have four species of monkeys: the howler, the spider, the squirrel and the white-faced capuchin. I saw three of these and have photographic evidence of seeing two of these. The squirrel monkey is apparently quite elusive, as is the red-eyed tree frog (much to my dismay). I will just have to go back to see those guys.

Howler

White faced capuchin, in the normal resting stance on the tour boat

• At least 33% of their land is protected through the National Park Ministry or private efforts.
  
  

Arenal - hanging bridges tour

Manuel Antonio National Park

• In 1988 they lost three species of toads and declared "global warming" a reality. Almost 20 years later, most people are finally agreeing.

Marine toad - not extinct, obviously... these guys were everywhere in Tortuguero

• And here comes the socialist in me... They have universal health care. If I'd injured myself on vacation I would've been taken care of, free of charge. And? The country has no army. It was abolished in 1948 after the then-President saw too many people killed in their own civil war during WW2. (The then-President also left the country in the hands of the people via a democratic society.) If anyone should decide to invade them, as some have attempted since the 1940s, they benefit from the protection of the U.S. because we have a very vested interest in their country. Well, Intel has a very vested interest, at least. They employ 6,000 people in exchange for free water to make silicon chips. Anyway, military money was filtered into education instead and it shows - I think our guide said the country was 95% literate. Astounding. Only very remote rural kids don't benefit from a basic education, and most kids go on to University which is pretty reasonably priced. Costa Ricans are very proud of their non-military status. Some locals postulate that it attributes greatly to their quality of life... and I would agree.
  

And five useful words/phrases I learned in Costa Rica, in no particular order except the first, most important one...

• pura vida - the equivalent of "hakuna matata." It means "no worries, it's all good." This is how people greet each other, say goodbye to each other, comment on meals and activities, etc. I think this also contributes greatly to their quality of life.
  

• lizano - the best salsa ever
  

• gallo pinto - pictured below with slightly butchered platanos before I thought to take a photo, the best meal ever... with casado coming in at a close second
  
  
• pajita - straw
  

• rana - frog (how did I not know this word, of all words?!)
  

Red poison dart frog

More belated Friday five(s).

Five things that seemed like a good idea at the time, in no particular order...

• Catching up on the last few episodes of Lost (where they go back to the island) right before I personally head onto an international flight across a large body of water.
  

• The Live Broadway channel on Continental. (Had high hopes. Turned out to be lots o'crap - Taylor Swift doing a remake of a Wicked song? holy crap they really did make Legally Blonde the Musical - and it's terrible? etc. But then to my shock, they played an Avenue Q song! And some of the oldie musicals were fun to hear.)

• Bringing the one book that I haven't been able to get past chapter 4 with, despite several attempts, figuring that being stuck for days at a time would force me to read it. The first night I had a repeat occurrence of the nightmare so I packed it away for good and resigned myself to boredom (if howler monkeys, cool birds, geckos, iguanas and poison dart frogs can be considered "boredom"). The next day, a rainy day, I ran across the second book in the Twilight series in the lodge's lobby. Without having read the first, I dove right in and it was all downhill from there. Got halfway through before leaving, found the first book at the next lodge and as soon as I finished that, the second magically appeared and I finished that one too. And I'm selling that stupid non-readable book back to Powell's immediately. (Possibly trading it in for the third and fourth in the Twilight series. But that's just between you and me.)
  

• Giving up my iPod for Lent even though those 960 hours included two eight-hour flights. DUMB DUMB DUMB.
  

• Skipping the tetanus shot renewal until my next physical. I went seven days with no worries, but on the last small plane ride back to San Jose I sliced my palm on a random piece of rusty metal when the seat belt wouldn't fasten before take-off. It's been 18 hours, I'm still alive and my hand hasn't turned yellow, the wound seems to have healed, but still... I watch House. I know these things happen. (As with potential malaria, for which I took no pills and sprayed no DEET before heading into the swamp for my hike and getting eaten alive, please just get me out of work for a few weeks but don't kill me, okay?)

Belated Friday five.

Five reasons I desperately needed a vacation, in no particular order...

• It's been 40 degrees and rainy since about January. (Oddly, that didn't bother me too much, until I spent the last three days in 90 degree weather lounging by the ocean only to return to 30 degrees and snowing this morning.)

• If I'm not going to support the U.S.'s economy, I might as well support some country's economy.

• Taking care of a very sick (but beloved) cat is probably much like taking care of a sick (but beloved) parent, although at least the parent might be able to tell you exactly what's wrong or where they hurt, and if they don't take their meds you can just put it in their IV without their knowledge instead of having to wrap them tightly in a towel, sit on top of them, hold their head back, pry their mouth open and force-feed them. The night before I left, I was so freaked out about getting all four pages (!) of Her Majesty's instructions written up and emailed to the catsitter that in addition to sending it to her, I also sent it erroneously to 1) the coordinator at the travel company, 2) my parents, 3) my friend in Pasadena who is not at all involved in any of this and 4) my local friend who was to be my petsitter's spare key contact. (You know how gmail generates a drop down list when you start typing in a few of the letters in an address? Yeah, well, I must've somehow chosen all those folks in addition to the catsitter. And none of those folks needed detailed information on my cat's disgusting GI disease.)

• My last interesting vacation (Australia) was almost exactly six years ago. SIX YEARS!! The last time I gave blood in Oaktown before the big move, I realized I no longer had to claim that vacation in the "external US travels" question... and it made me so very sad.

• Monkeys. MONKEYS! 'Nuff said.