Pupusas Rule!

For those of you who have never heard the word "Pupusa", it's a tortilla filled with cheeze and/or meat, and is a very popular meal in El Salvador. It's made its way to Costa Rica, apparently from a long time ago because Gianni used to come to this same restaurant "Pupuseria" with her grandparents when she was little.

The last time I had a Pupusa was in the city of San Salvador cerca 1969! They're still the greatest!

Here's Julie and I with Gianni and David and her grandparents, Don Mario and Dona Iri, enjoying platefuls of these delicious items. I didn't hear what the rest of the folks were talking about, but Don Mario (80 plus years) was filling me in on the way life used to be in the good ol' days...

Sculptor Manuel Vargas

Julie and I were invited by Guiselle Vargas, a swimming companion from a group who exercise at a pool nearby, to visit her husband, Manuel Vargas, who is a famous Costa Rican sculptor. Manuel invited us on a tour of his shop and his exhibition studio to see some of his work. Below is a piece he did which is made from pure Cocobolo wood (this would be Costa Rica's most famous wood and a version of the famous Rosewood). He took full advantage of the grain for this piece:

The painting below was given to Manuel in trade for some work he did. Julie and I loved this work and are considering buying it, but we can't figure out where to hang such a thing in our house! The photo doesn't really do it justice. The colors and style are great--especially the light and shadows.

Great Visit!

My friend Marco Morales and I made a plan, as part of a teaching campaign all our Baha'i communities are undertaking at the moment, to visit one of our old-time Baha'is, Juan Luis Rojas and his family at their home. Juan Luis is a genius with plants (and animals) and has constructed an amazing retreat for his family on the side of a steep hill. The place is so surrounded by greenery, trees, vines and exotic flowers, that you can scarcely see the house itself--at least from the outside.

Here's a shot of his gracious family at the dinner table on the back porch. This porch overlooks a steep hillside leading down toward the valley. On the table is one of his magnificent ferns, planted in a glazed Mexican frog vase.
Here's a Guardia Morada orchid (Costa Rica's national flower) hanging over his large fountain pool on the edge of the porch.
Another amazing fern (orchid?) which apparently has a bright yellow flower that sprouts from the bulbs hanging down from the bottom. (These have not yet sprouted.)
Juan Luis was able to save the life of a tiny puppy belonging to a neighbor, and here it is being nursed by the household cat! Amazingly, she has no kittens but started lactating for this pup!
One nevah knows, do one?

Fiesta en Casa

Here a little record of a great 19 Day Fiest at our house. This was David and Gianni's first at our place and we all had a terrific time.

Marcos and Mike and Gianni chatting during the social part. Julie made a great dinner for everybody--even including chocolate cake!

Here are the youth checking out the various game sets that Gianni brought to share
And here's a bunch thorougly enjoying "Cerebro", a fun mind game. Ferisdani is molding the team's answer to the riddle out of clay. It was a boxing glove. Everybody stayed late and had a great time.

Bumpa scruff!

Here's the lady who's behind the fur adjustments. "McLady", I fondly calls her.
And on my lap is "Butter Kitty" who can really get into a comfort zone easily.

Our next door neighbor, Garry, mentioned how destructive cats are--especially at night. They go after all sorts of creatures and kill them unscrupulously. I mentioned this to Julie and she said, "not our cats; they're too busy waiting for their morning feeding in the house!". So I say, "how is one too busy 'waiting'?" "Well, they're just out there looking up at the sky, waiting for dawn."

Little summer?

We have a lull in the rains for a few days, so we've been enjoying dry lawns and paths. For those of you who know my infamous "garden" plot (which only grew weeds), here's a bunch of marigolds that are thriving in it. Julie gathers them up, along with other stuff around the place, to decorate the house.

This lovely vine, shown below, is called "Conde Amor" (roughly, "love that sprouts"). It has a bright red, five-pointed star, flower and thrives in the rainy season. The seeds stay in the soil until the rains start and they sprout right away and climb everything. Here they've run out of fence to climb!

Here they're climbing over David and Gianni's wedding arch (which we left in the yard after the wedding two years ago).

We dragged this old log (incredibly hard wood!) into the yard to serve as a decorative piece, and then planted orchids in it.

Done at last!

After a marathon day yesterday, Julie and I finally finished the last main details of the downstairs apartment. Our new tenant, Elizabeth, was supposed to arrive at 9pm but due to plane glitches didn't arrive here until 2 AM!
Here's a shot of her bed and the desk.

Pending, in the Kitchenette, is the backboard. We're going to put decorative Mexican tiles set into a wooden border behind all the counters. The chop block almost looks too nice to use, right? We've made it so that it can be removed to refinish periodically when it get's scruffy.

More changes around the house

For those of you who know our house, there's been some changes to the Pila room. Here's the old pila with a coat of epoxy paint on it, plus a new faucet as well. (The old one lasted about 25 years, so we got plenny of service out of it!) The white part under the pila will be painted later (as soon as Julie decides on the color!).


We coated the old shelf lumber with the same epoxy paint.

In Jaleh's old bedroom we're installing a little kitchenette. Here's the first counter and shelf unit in place. Next to it will go the stainless sink, then a chop-block unit with drawers.

The wood piece sitting upside down (there are tiles on the top) will be a breakfast counter.

For those of you into plants, check out this fellow! It's taken about ten years to hang over the basket and touch the porch deck.

D & G's progress on the moving

David didn't waste any time whatever in setting up his business office in Costa Rica. Here he is, in formal attire, attending to the business switchboard (working from 10am to 7pm). He has his recording equipment set up in this office/bedroom also.

On the other side of the wall, here's Gianni putting everything in its proper place. She says she loves doing this stuff! We can see that she's a wonderful home maker!

I wanted to get some "before" and "after" shots of the house, so here you can see how much stuff they were able to jamb into their suitcases and boxes! Gianni is showing me a remarkable book, supposedly for children, on the wonders of places in the U.S.. Each page opens out like an origami work of art.

Here's a close-up on this book, titled: "America The Beautiful", by Robert Sabuda. This page folds back flat, which is pretty amazing, seeing how complex it is. The little folder in the left corner also opens into more detailed images!

David and Gianni are here!

Everybody's probably wondering why I don't have a bunch of new photos on the blog of this great event: the arrival of David and Gianni! Me too!

It's kind of crazy, but they arrived safely last night, got up early (since David had to get his computer setup ready to keep working at his job--now from home), and we've all been dashing around all day trying to get orderly. So, this is the only shot I have for the moment (taken from the loft early this morning when Dee was configuring the laptops to the new High Speed Internet connection at the house). More to come, I promise!

Reflection Gathering

Our "A" Cluster got together Sunday for the best reflection meeting ever! What a turnout! Some of us old-timers were moved to tears by this great event. After years and years of feeble efforts to promote the Cause we are seeing fabulous fruits. One old-timer, Ali Morales, who was sitting next to me burst into tears of sheer joy when two of his new Baha'i "children" (a couple of youth who had become uplifted from previous low-life activities by his teaching efforts and had just declared their belief in Baha'u'llah) thanked him publicly on stage.

The photo below shows some of the youth who came up front to sing a new song.

Here's a shot of part of the group. There was a great variety of ages and cultures represented. I'd need a wide-angle lense to cover to the whole salon.

We gathered around blankets, chairs and tables for a lunch break below. Here's our group from Mora.Mike Robles gave a bunch of kids rides on his Harley. Here's Amanda (daughter of Alejandra and Luis Dumani) ready to roll.

Back Yard Antics

I snapped this picture on my way out to do some work in the shop. Little Javidy was enjoying some quality time with his mom in the back yard after she returned from work. He's been spending his days at a day-care center, so a bit of time on the tree swing (all the kids love this little job!) and picking flowers and rasberries with his mom makes for a happy boy. (See previous post on the Solan Family.)

He was being camera shy but I finally got him to look at me in this shot.

Pilgrim's Reunion

Many months have passed since our wonderful pilgrimage to the Baha'i World Center, and one morning after a local devotional gathering, and over coffee, we all discussed the idea of the five of us, who enjoyed pilgrimage together, joining the sixth, don Gerardo Arce, at his home in San Isidro. We planned to leave on the following Sunday for the three hour drive South, and when we mentioned this to him on the phone he was totally delighted and said that they would expect us to have lunch with him and all the family.
The five of us took off early in the morning and had a great time getting there.

The road we took, the Inter-Americana (leading to Panama) passes over the highest mountain point on the entire stretch of this highway through Costa Rica on the way to our destination. We were delighted to be feeling chilly up there, and everyone brought along their jackets.
(Thanks here, Ken Lerner, for the great leather jacket. I was snug as a bug in a toad's tongue with it on!)
Gerardo's wife, Dorita (in brown dress) and her daughter, Veronica, made us all a fabulous lunch and delicious dessert to top it off perfectly! Here's a picture of us after we polished it all off:
The Arces have a lovely property with fruit-bearing trees all over. (They had ripening Noni's, which is famous for it's healing properties, and the best Lychee nuts!)
Here's a shot of the 6 Hajis in the back yard.

And Doña Lourdes with Gerardo's baby goat. The front yard gang under the Lychee nut tree. There was a tiny humming bird nest just over Jose's head. Gerardo said that he was amazed that the birds had made a nest so low to the ground...but he was able to watch the parents feeding the chicks until they grew up and flew away!
We showed a collection of all our photos from pilgrimage to the family and visitors after lunch and had a great time chatting with everybody and getting to know Gerardo's family.

We are thinking that we'd like to make this trip to San Isidro a yearly event to commemorate our great connection!

Here's a bunch of the Arce family (his sister is in front with brown stapped blouse, and his 2 daughters are on her right). On the right, in black shirt is Lilia Jimenez, a local Baha'i woman, with her three kids.

Road Toad

At last, after years of missing my little mascot, he's been replaced!

The story is that when I was very young I acquired a very nicely hand-crafted wooden toad. This I promptly placed on the dash of my pickup, which seemed like a nice place for it. From then on I became known as the "road toad".

I was always the guy with the car (since I was given my first car--1931 Model A Ford--by a friend even before I had a driver's license). All my friends knew that they could depend on a ride to school, or wherever, because of this.

Once I was telling a hitch-hiker about the Baha'i Faith in the car; he asked if we worshipped toads!

That toad got passed from car to car over about 40 plus years!

A few years ago some kids stole it out of our pickup. When word got out, I started receiving "replacement" toads from friends around the world!

This is the one that was finally a suitable dude for application to the dashboard spot--a gift from Paul and Frances Klippel who found it in a Chinese store in Panama.

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

Today's my dear first-born little girl, Lisa's, birthday. Here's a fun photo of her when she was small.

Ever lovely and radiant, but older, my little girl--always surrounded by my two sweet grand-daughters, Mariana (on left) and Anisa.

Have a wonderful and happy day, and know that I love you dearly!