Port Hadlock

Originally - a Cabin in Indexxx at Lorne's Landing at the wet foot of the Skykomish. Imagining hot tub & river dip. She ordered - Maine Lobster Now: Lobster Roll Kit - 6 pack. Overnighted to the cabin. Then - the shipping partner for perishables in Tennessee couldn't move product bc of freezing rain & ice. Then - Snow & ice storms in Washington. Vehicles unable to reach the cabin. The cabin cancels. Diverted - to the 3-story Brighton Beach House in Port Hadlock, on a cliff over Port Townsend Bay, peeking Indian Island.

Ferry cafeteria: hot cheese, tater tots, stale pretzels, chowder, fountain sodas. To - Chimacum Corner Farmstand; Henrik in short sprints and scary maybes near the wine bottles. We play the word in our mouths Chim-a-cum. Buddha's Hands are $13.99/lb, smell delicious. 

Play: Linda Perhacs' 1970 album, Parallelograms; the song "Chimacum Rain," a work inspired by Chimacum's natural environment. 

Port Hadlock-Irondale is "a bedroom community for the surrounding towns." Brighton Beach House - off the main floor is a deck with a built-in bar on the railing, overlooks bay. On the deck below, a hot tub with the same, lower, view. A maze of steep stairs winds down to the water. We are between the kitchen, pecking cheeses, and the dining room table working a puzzle that fatigues the brain and eye, calling for respites in intervals. Eat: Hempler's styrofoam-packed meat sticks, queso, guacamole. Watch - American Nightmare, then Love on the Spectrum. The five of us hot tub till pruned. 

Saturday morning we drive to Port Townsend for breakfast at the Blue Moose Cafe. It is quirky but includes bristles of hair in the Ode to Ina scrapple. I want to forget, so I delete the photographs, which is sad because scrapple is full of texture. 

To Fort Worden - The 1898 Endicott Period US Army Coast Artillery Corps meant to protect Puget Sound from invasion turned Nat'l Historic Landmark. Signs dotted, "No Pool Tax." Past: Commanding Officer's Quarters on Officer's Row and the Batteries to Point Wilson Lighthouse. "The forts never fired a hostile shot, and many of the guns were removed during World War I for use in Europe." Here we braid in traverse, re-joining in view of large-headed sea lions, skipping rocks, eyes swallow white ridgeline, playing at brief concrete soccer. 

After - a 20 mile run in unincorporated Chimacum. Off highways, through sad wet parks that smell like damp dog waste. Stop to observe horses & shaggy miniatures & the Egg & I Rd (Betty MacDonald's book, The Egg and I, upon which the Ma and Pa Kettle films were based, described the author's experiences on a chicken farm on the road that became Egg & I Rd). That night she makes homemade focaccia; it is rightfully oily. Listen to Funkadelic - Maggot Brain. The chef has talked up chili burritos to a nay-unrealistic level of hierarchy. The chili is bubbling. Each burrito is made singularly, adorned first in a cheese melt, then red riced, then chili'd, then folded, then browned. 

Sunday morning we pack up and drive to Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island - Est. 1897, activated 1899, a coast artillery fort, that along with Fort Worden & Fort Casey, once guarded Admirality Inlet, the nautical entrance to Puget Sound as part of a "Triangle of Fire" defensive plan. Closed June 1953. Bursts of deer. A wooden beaver behind bars. Mini churches in neat rows. The cavernous inside, with cemented toilets and disjointed graffiti. 

Our group of women & Henrik drive home in a fit of naps & snacks. 

35 > 36

 35 was a blend of assent, thrill, grief & pother; in its own way, balanced. 

Assent & Thrill

1. Quepos, Costa Rica
2. US 100K team/100K World Champs: Gold
3. Berlin, Prague, Munich
4. Crawboils & dinner parties
5. Annual All Hallow's Brew Crawl & the perilous pipe crossing
6. Surprise: McKinnon's 50th
7. An almost OTQ @ CIM
8. Troncones, Mex
9. London with LB & Mck
10. Celebration of the life of Marianne Helen Olsen
11. Floating Icicle River
12. A sudden Dead & Co groupie
13. In company with Belinda & Diva in San Leandro
14. Witness to my loved ones' children budding
15. A sudden sailboat adventure to Chuckanut Island
16. The Kean Wedding

Grief & Pother

I penned a list, but it bored me. I acknowledge that I'm deep in "it" ; a constant processing. And that I feel a considerable amount of guilt and a considerable amount of let-down. I just hope that there is something to work out from the thick-think, and that I will not, forever be, in the doldrums, ellipticalling. 

Scablands: A Sudden Deadhead

The lot of us are camped in a small community of tie dye and shade tapestries at the Gorge Ampitheatre Campgrounds - a circular labyrinth - between Quincy and George. There's a Pivot in the center for vendors and food trucks. A general store of dystopian character: a concrete warehouse flooded in medical light, a few shelves sparse with old, overpriced gas station snacks, simple toiletries, and a wall of ice for $8/bag that melts money on the return walk, forearms lengthened in the weighted pull. 

The Gorge Ampitheatre (previously Champs de Brionne Music Theatre) is now owned by Live Nation, which operates in this plutocratic monopoly, charging $18 a beer and $39 a cocktail. Just weeks before, the Gorge experienced its first mass shooting, and thereafter safety protocols inflated. It felt frivolous and insensitive to be there so soon after. 

The amphitheatre campground can disorient. It's a planair maze of abnormal topology, of heavy-lidded half beings holding one finger raised, abandoned yard games and green smoke. The intimacy of the braless brushing their teeth at a concrete sink. The tents xerox, until one takes flight, and you stop to watch in awe akin to hot air balloon or eagle, which further befuddles one's bearings. Eventually you find your camp, and, sometimes, thereafter, you'll have developed an enhanced assimilation to the ever-evolving landscape.

Over the years we'd come for "camping." We'd come for Petty. For DMB. And now, we'd come for the Dead.

At the Dead & Co show we anted up on Premier Camping. It held more space, offered free showers, private restrooms, a shuttle bus to and from the venue - accommodations to quell a runner in the scablands of central Washington. Exempt of bitterness from either party - in my having or wanting to run, and in both of our waiting - them on me, me on me - I ran, they slept. The group would sleep in and I'd try to wake early enough to run to not miss: 

        - a morning review of the set list
        - a michelada
        - cachinnations, the merry chortling
        - a thing

Most times that late traipse back to camp, the few hours of sleep, the unfolding of limbs into a morning ready-made tepid, the subsequent run, day drinking, body and mind in damp fatigue, the multi-hour concert and into the late traipse back repeating is only so romantic, and I am no longer young. 

The history of this "humorous homage" George, Washington in the Columbia River Basin region, whereby the Ampitheatre rests, is somewhat playful. In the early 1950's, the need for a town to further develop local agriculture grew manifest. Grant County (after Ulysses S) land wasn't in any sense "tame" until the first decade of the 1900's, when irrigation attempts were made and where the promise of an "agricultural Shangri-La" was sold. Still, development wouldn't really take off until irrigation could service large scale farming with the completion of the Grand Coulee in 1942. There followed the 1950's, where the Bureau of Land Management offered to sell 339 acres to establish a town in the area. There was a sole bid - the bidder a local Pharmacist named Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown decided to name the town after the OG GW. The citizens named their streets after varieties of cherries native to the area, like Bing and Royal Anne and Montmorency. The town was officially incorporated on July 4, 1957, where there was a 1,000-pound cherry pie, and annually since, this prodigious pie returns. 

In the years we'd been coming to the Gorge at George, I'd run the same out-and-back on Rd 1 NW. It might have been that the simplicity helped balance the stimulus, or that it felt safer not to turn. On a favorable day there might be a blue-green rush in the ditches lining the vineyards, orchard tracts and fields of hay (often swathed or bailed at night), the fugitive dust kicked up by a tractor with bale spear, or upon return, the smell of grill-meat or the cherry-bubblegum masking scent in the vacuuming of the porta-potties. Other times, it's just one long dry-mouthed, yellow-muddled memory, the bottoms of your feet baking. One thing was always promised: Monotony.

It was at Dead & Co that someone at camp asked if I'd seen the Ancient Lakes. In all those years I hadn't even been down to the Columbia. Someone in our camp woke early each morning to hike down to the river to soak their legs; I was envious of their ritual, of their self-possession. Ancient Lakes? Has my curiosity gone? The next morning, I'd look for them, try a Left off Rd 1 NW.

From the tent into the soft bakelite of the eastern fielded morning, a cotton-mouthed revive. The heat wasn't bright or pointing but sweatered. From the Amphitheatre Campground - left onto Rd 1, left on Rd U, left on Rd 2, curving right onto Rd U 1, which became Rd U, becoming Rd 2.5. In the tenderness synonymous of a no-wake-zone, farm trucks passed with a respect the city lacks. Sweat tickled in its trailing, the only reprieve the breeze made in movement. 

I accessed the Ancient Lakes from the Evergreen Reservoir in WDFW's Quincy Wildlife Area, where a few warmwater fishermen sought bass, Walleye, Black Crappie or Tiger Musky. The irrigation runoff is not safe to drink even after filter or boil. It was apparent that a runner there was atypical. Tucked into a little carrel of a long-reeded sandbar that hung like a cliff over a deep pool of water I cupped handfuls onto my face and wrists, resisting the urge to jump in. To do so would have felt wild and vulnerable, accessories I wish hadn't tamed in aging. Once cooled, I careened waterways led by intuition and views of the Columbia Basin, the flat-bottomed canyon coulee floor flanked by steep 300-foot basalt cliffs. 

Millions of years ago, lava flows filled what we know as the Columbia Basin. There followed Ice Age floods which carved the spectacular recessional cataracts called Crater, Potholes & Frenchman Coulee; Coulee from the French "couler," meaning "to flow." These deep gulches host dry, braided channels formed by the glacial drainage. What stands so scenic feels artificial with its cataract-lined arms and alcoves clutching basalt ribs.

Around a network of trails that weave around Burke, Quincy, Stan Coffin and H Lakes, the sun reflected off the water and onto the rocks, magnifying the heat. Rabbits, rattlesnakes, coyotes, deer, loons, duck, sparrows, quail - all of these creatures known to inhabit, but, eerily, not a reed moved, nor a footprint or slither track impressed the sandy trail. 

Here and there a vault toilet, that barren concrete and pebble brushed bathroom with a port to the deep bowels; no toilet paper, and the warm wind necessary to carry the stench. 

In turning back towards the Gorge, the faraway vistas of the Kittitas County Wildhorse Wind Farm windmills replaced the canyons, their turbines perched on the high open shrub-steppe ridge tops of Whiskey Dick Mountain. Covered in sweat, fatigued from the heat, but fulfilled in that bowl in the soul that fills with experiencing wild country, with feeling small against the contours of cliffs. 

Back the way I'd come, back down Rd 1 NW, soused, dehydrated, back into the Ampitheatre campground and into camp. He said, Did you find it? 

A Brief London

I don't know a lot about fulfillment, but I do know that I love to leave the country. The city. That is no longer what it was. 

The world seemed more promising elsewhere (a state of mind which, once entered, will never leave you in peace). 

- Ian Buruma, Churchill's Cigar 

:A redolent memory that burned in because, young, I must have thought he was entirely petulant, and it was curious. Why hold the memory of a sullen supposition?
:My father, saying, in 00's - this town has changed.  And here I am, too, thinking it. It's not so simple as change is the only constant; it's jaundiced.

LB drove us to Burien, and then Mr. Williams fresh from Retirement, with gleaming teeth and a budding sense of "you need to see Churchill's war room," took us to the airport. LB & Mck had acquired the superior status of TSA Pre & Global entry, so they strolled in streetwise, whereas I, who had her TSA interview cancelled last minute, waited for 2 hours while a singular agent checked out us long line of cogs. 

We had gone the super saver route, no bags, no seat selection, and so it was with deep gid that each of us acquired an entire row for the International 10-hour flight. But, lest we'd get too excited, please add in an aisle where none of the armrests go up, and the passenger behind in a constant kicking, and someone wringing the life out of a plastic water bottle in a 10-hour anxiety, and shame on you for pre-ordering a vegetarian meal, there's simply not enough of them. I'm a maximalist in somethings, especially when it comes to maximizing the parameters of my international saver fare (i.e. alcoholic drinks) and though I'd been off of it, I had allotted a brief interim for London. So we ordered plastic cups of wine and took our sip & did not enjoy it & with a brief sort of curious farewell let it go. 

People who come to London also bring it with them in their minds. They have a feeling of how the city should be before they meet it...a swollen, imaginary London, larger in the mind than in reality. 

- Ian Jack, Editor of GRANTA 65, Spring 1999

THURSDAY, APRIL 20

The flight was ok, which is a welcome gift in this gouged-for-more-but-given-less-transport-moratorium. And, deposited at Heathrow, trying to parse out the English as it glid down in a puddle from the lips of an impervious station agent. We made our way to Euston Station, the few blocks' walk to the Hilton Euston off Upper Woburn Place, which plops itself a half-block thick across and near the Crypt & St. Pancras. The Crypt was gated, something I stumbled upon, as if it was out of place, so to find it a burial ground from 1822-54, when all the crypts of all the London churches were closed to burials, and it being an air raid shelter in both World Wars, and here I was walking by surprised, wearing crocs, felt ignorant.

The Hilton Euston is a symmetrical terrace of 5 house-bays made of yellow stock brick, stucco, pilaster-jambs, cornice-heads & slated mansard roofs with dormers. The entrance's central bay has four Corinthian columns flanked by bays. We dropped our bags and walked to find something to eat, past Tavistock Square, to Fork Deli Patisserie - for cheddar with pear & ale chutney & cheddar with marmite toasties & flat whites. A greasy readying for a run to/within Regent's Park before dinner in Clapham. Under squint of rain, the sport pitches and thick-thighed cricketers felt a novelty. Regent's Park - after the playboy Prince Regent vis a King George IV. 12,000 lank roses, unbudded, a boating lake, a heronry. A run around the outer ring. 

In the car to Clapham we crossed the Thames for the first time. To Minnow, the sky sere & draining. Minnow is kitsch, fake-floraled in a burst that makes the gray feel otherly, a transportation into false gaiety. It is narrow & cramped, but in a comfortable way, you just have to get in the mood; what they call "romantic, with plenty of cosy corners." Something moves beneath our feet. We catch glimpse of an elderly waddle of some thick caramel colored dog that looks like a sack of uncut sourdough. It walks with the authority of restaurant proprietor. An aperol spritz sounds nice, and it looks nice with its striped straw, but it's perhaps the worst aperol spritz we've ever had. We toil & practice what we'll say if we were to have the balls to request a different drink. It is awful being someone who complains, ungrateful, wasteful, but awful to spend your money on something unexpectedly sad. How do you make a bad aperol? Flat bubbles? Not enough of the red thick? Soapy ice? My, with our American accents, did it seem like we'd never had aperol before? The social drama. And I tell myself I will drink every drop, I will not complain, but it's not just me, it's her too, so he asks if everything is ok, & I say, "I'm sorry, this doesn't taste exactly right, could we order something different? Perhaps just a glass of the Spumante?" And, "Of course!" And that's that. 

The menu is seasonal modern euro. There are: nocellara olives, croquettes, burrata, pickled courgettes, moules mariniere, pan-fried squid, lamb rump, potato dauphinoise. We order bread rolls with herb butter; several rounds as they are the size of fingers. I have the sea bream with soy, chili, spring onion & ginger - something I'd selected mentally, in the US, in my investigations, and, now following the aperol crisis I've somehow set myself up with a halved-thin, skin-thick, bone-filled, minisculy-meated sparidae in a bowlful of brown broth. The flavors mimicked the description, but it was meager, and perhaps I'm an idiot. 

We decided we needed something more. Something to root and enliven us. And as we walked to hunt the place, we stopped at an empty gelato shop called Nardulli's. The Italian behind the counter was pure. I had fig gelato in a cone ("fresh fig fruits from the south of Italy"). LB & Mck had black cherry, cookies ("pure oreo yummy cookies and fresh milk"), stracciatella (fresh milk and chocolate cream). We gorged these en route to No. 32 The Old Town, which was proceeded over by two prodigious suits. They have bottomless drinks and happiness hours. The menu is a book. We found a spot at a large family table by the door and ordered glasses of wine: Lilith Primitivo (smoky, dark, lashings), Bagoas Leda Albarino (crisp, spicy, salty, lick-finish) & Luigi Baudana 'Dragon' Bianco (stylish, top end Piemontese). They had pudding wines, juicy & fulsomes, vedrines and tipples. It was busy & good for observing. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 21

Snuck out for a run to/along the "once mercantile artery" - the Thames, before they woke. 

"This is the first time I have ever been on the river and I'm besotted by its khaki smell which so precisely matches the water's colour. The smell is compounded of freshwater mud as well as of sour tidal flats mixed with oil and bilges. It is both melancholy and bracing...'we call this rolling butter.'" And, "That peculiar symbiosis at town and waterfront often seems to densify the national character even as it lends people a faint air of being in transit." - James Hamilton-Paterson

To the Neoclassical complex Somerset House, along Charing Cross, among Jubilee Gardens with its Sweet Gum & Beech. The Eye. Outside St. Thomas', the Covid-19 Memorial, 1-kilometer long, haunting in vibrant heart - a visual representation of every UK life lost. 

Back at the hotel, another lost art appreciated - the free continental. I had crumpets & croissants with nutella, chocolate filled pastries, a fried egg, black pudding, sausage, runny baked beans, coffee, grapefruit juice. 

We went to the London Marathon expo; LB acquired her bib & finisher's jacket. Took a car across Tower Bridge, the bascule & suspensive curious blue, to South Kensington for brunch at Farm Girl: flat white, farm bowl (turmeric & preserved lemon, hummus, roasted sweet potato, kimchi, broccoli, greens, cous cous, kalamata olives, herbs, pumpkin seeds, pomegranate). Bagged to go for our walk to the Natural History Museum: an Anzac Cookie larger than a head, a lemon cake with rapeseed oil, lemon zest, a chunk of ginger & poppy. 

I'm surprised by my feelings of the Natural History Museum. An attitude/judgment I didn't expect to possess. It wasn't as if I went in with any grand notion save for an interest in seeing the scaffolding of Hope. And yet, 

upon entering the large terracotta Victorian-Romanesque symmetrizing building, which is a joy, I was surprised, I guess, that there wasn't a scanning of the bodies, metal detection, or masks worn; it took me a long time to remember that we weren't in the US. I couldn't help but feel incredulous about the sheer privilege (maybe just positivity) it is to trust a building, to trust people. What a perfect site for chaos, I thought. And perhaps because I felt haunted by the Covid-19 Memorial, that physical-visual representation of loss, it was curious to experience a claustrophobic space of indoor breath, in juxtaposition, in mind. So that's where I began, and then, to the left, to the Dinosaur exhibit. I think one of my fundamental problems is that I don't like crowds. So I wasn't doing myself any favors. 

Dinosaurs - pregnant plesiosaur, sub-adult rex. Much of it felt plastic, enhanced by robotic rex's. I enjoyed the encouragement Mck placed on us having our photos taken against green screen in mimicry of being nearly attacked & the subsequent 30-minute wait to get our photo printed and compiled in a booklet. Honestly, it tipped the scale into that fun gimmick from the cringe gimmick. 

Up the stairs to the Minerals exhibit, which felt more rooting: polished, raw, meteorites, carats, asbestos with muscovite, butterscotch, full of ites and obes. 

It could be that I need more time in there. It felt full of replica. And I've read - "Mostly, you'll encounter the wildest creatures of all: lurching, wailing, scampering children in all their varieties, because everything here, down to the simplified signage and touchable replicas, is pitched to kids." - Jason Cochran. I appreciate its opportunity to teach, that it welcomes classes. 

"...put the Natural History Museum back to the way it was before they started dicking around with it (in particular, they must restore the display case showing insects infesting household products from the 1950s)..." - Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island

Note: I thought Bryson's Notes from a Small Island was really lame. And though likely in jest, this sentiment speaks a bit to my feeling that something wasn't exactly right. 

From the Museum, through Knightsbridge, along & through Hyde, observing the sleeping & head-dunkery of tagged swans in the Serpentine. To the corner of Kensington Gardens and on to Notting Hill. I like Notting. With past descriptions of, "It was a place to party, to hang out at late-night speakeasy bars, to buy music and fruit. Afghan coats and dodgy antiques from the Portabello Road and the odd illicit substance from the All Saints Road, when it was lined with bobbies..." That's what it was & likely what it is no longer, but there's still the feeling of was. 

I was sweating over the Clothing Exchange off Pembridge. LB & Mck graciously following as I fingered all fabrics, and I had to say Please Go Enjoy Yourselves Out There in the Notting, as I Am Entirely High and Need to Feel Everything. The splurge I had gone into London committed to make (only to be known when seen), was on an emerald green vintage Rochas. 

:Founded in 1925 by French designer Marcel Rochas (apparently the first designer of 2/3-length coats and skirts with pockets & alongside Schiaparelli, launched padded shoulders in 1931); known primarily for perfume, it wasn't until 1990 that clothing became their focus. French-influenced, "demicouture" (special pieces too costly to mass-produce but which may not meet strict couture rules regarding hand-stitching and numbers of fitting), which evolved from made-to-measure to closure to reopening to new creative directors/ection. 

In this separation they purchased me a Harry Styles coaster.  

We had reservations at The Shed in Notting Hill. Created by the Gladwin Brothers incl. Chef Patron Oliver, Restauranteur Richard, and Gregory, a West-Sussex-based farmer, the restaurant brings the Sussez countryside to West London. Their English wines come from the vineyard Nutboarne. Items of interest: the 'Daily Loosener,' the 'Green Fingered Gardener,' Chateau L'Etampe Saint-Emilion Gran Cru, wild yeast breads, mushroom marmite eclair, egg confit, caraway crispbread, Hampshire chalk stream trout pate cornetto, Exmoor caviar, brick pastry, homemade Sussex chorizo, hung yogurt, broad beans & garden pea hummus, Ticehurst celeriac schnitzel, Hackney burrata, Chichester beetroot puree, cornish scallop, south coast sea bass, devon crab, red wine jus, cheeseboard (blue vinny, soft bath, cornish smuggler, house chutney), chantilly cream blueberry. It was my favorite place. Our server, a copy of Cam Stewart. Ordered a bottle of '14 B Debiac Chateau Cadillac Bordeaux, the mushroom marmite eclair with egg confit & cornichon, garlic & rosemary wild yeast bread with wild garlic butter, chargrilled broccoli tenderstems with creme fraiche & sweet chili jam, the south coast salmon & cod fishcake with truffled cheddar fondue, red chili & spring onion, the Hackney burrata with heritage tomato, wild garlic pesto & broken walnut, rosemary salted crispy potatoes & the cheeseboard. The wine we had left was shoved with a stopper and saran wrapped by Cam-alike. 

With reservations at St. Pancras Champagne Bar by Searcy's - we were excited for the gimmick of a "Press for Champagne" button at Europe's Longest Champagne Bar (98 mtrs), and the Victorian Gothic architecture of St. Pancras International on the Grand Terrace, with its "sumptuous leathers" & velvet booths & oysters & caviar and Emin's "I want my time with you" aglow in pink script - it all seemed exuberant. So big were our pupils in the possibility of it, that we walked right past it. Because, it was near-dead, sleepy, dark, and the long bar in our mind was curtate, and the gold Press For's were greasy in fingerprints & the server advised against a tasting, as it wasn't as profitable as a glass pour, and to hurry & order as they'd be closing soon, though the hours listed included hours more. A semi-uncomfortable not the Vibe. Instead, to GA KINGSX, for a bottle of prosecco Collalto extra dry from Milan. The air felt very sexual in there. They had 50 separate gin listings. ("London went through a period called 'the Gin Craze' between 1720-1751; during its peak, the average consumption of gin was 2 pints/wk for every person, including children.")

SATURDAY, APRIL 22

Saturday held a fat run for me. Initially & thoroughly I'd committed to pacing LB in the marathon (to the point of hand-crafting fake bibs), but after research on arrests made on bandits, and of a fundamental desire not to overstimulate her on her big day, I, sadly, forewent. Instead I was given a 20-mile workout/LR, to be done in Hyde Park. The run from our place to Hyde was salubrious: past the University of London, Goodge, the shops on A5204, Oxford, until - Marble Arch & Cumberland Gate - the state entrance to the cour-d'honneur (as well as a historical site for public executions). I liked how barren, or rather, unpeopled the gate was. All I recall is a child chasing a pigeon. As the hours grew, so did the flux. Large swathes. Between broad stone pathways and dirt lanes, among the exercising of horses on Rotten Row, past limes & maples & sweet chestnuts & beech & bedding plants, past hunting dogs in red sweaters, past, even, Sifan Hissan, whose eyes I met. 

I was toasted but in love with Hyde. Ended at the Hilton just as Mck finished her own workout; the sudden intercourse felt serendipitous. Gorged on free English breakfast. Packed pocketfuls of croissants. Today was reserved for Camden Town. 

Trained to. Deposited into a mouth of movement. Took a fast right into the stacked containers of Philippe Conticini off Buck for iced coffee. I photographed every pastry: Paris-Brest Amande Noisettes, Tarte Saint-Honore & Tarte Citron Sarrasin, Gran Cru Vanille, Eclairs & Flans, Pain au Chocolats, Macarons, Millefeuilles, Calin Gourmands. 

I think I'd like Camden best without the people, hungry people like me, in it. Only the originals. Only the hard-earned. I appreciated that even amidst the mass, I could photograph the textured walls of shopfronts; it helped to look up. And I loved the canals. The culverted, Regent's, a little Venice, Maida Vale, kayak classes, boozy sports chants, weepy trees tickling & obscuring, the graffiti, the buskers, the artists. With no lunch plan & a need for a sit, we lucked out on a table at Mildred's, the host himself surprised he could seat us. And by the window. Right off I ordered a fresh lemon & ginger teapot. 

They had: cardamom porridge with compote, harissa v'egg bap, chilaquiles with cheez, banana biscoff pancakes with cookie crumbs & speculoos caramel, a classic, an almuerzo, a thali brunch. Lamely, or simply, I had the avocado green chilli toast with crispy kale & seeded crumb & sampled from Mck's Classic. 

After brunch we walked around the Primrose Hill district, where trees pulse fat through iron bars & Chalcot Square & well-kept pastels. To the top of Primrose Hill, which feels a mound but reveals a panorama. "'Splendid to be on Primrose Hill/At evening when the world is still' wrote W.H. Auden in a poem in 1922...Sylvia Plath lived in a house nearby, one that was inhabited by W.B. Yeats almost a century earlier...engraved in stone at the edge of the summit are William Blake's famous words: 'I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.'"

We crossed over the Grand Union Canal and in a brief moment of bliss caught a small gray boat whose entire center was a table spread of prosciutto, dips, crackers, pringle cans, bottles of wine and stems filled, sat round by a family & led by a man in a flat cap and a young sailor, suited. 

Regent's Road is littered with places we would like to return to. I regret encouraging us away from it, instead of stopping to sample something from the outdoor terrace of something the likes of L'Absinthe or Lemonia or Odette's or on the corner which seduces you like a nose, The Queen's, with its "dinky terrace." 

After our long gallivant, it was time for LB to rest, the race being the next morning. Mck and I went for a walk along Euston, past Saint Pancras Renaissance Hotel in an almost fictitious curve & King's Cross & Platform 9 3/4, back across Grand Union Canal, Camley Street Natural Park, past a most haunting Gasholders No 10,11,12 -"An ever-changing facade that appears alive & responsive to passers-by," with folding, perforated screens. We enjoyed the dance classes in Coal Drops Yard, the vision of two women eating from a bowl of olives against a wide window, and of those feasting on seafood grilled on their own bespoke mini-grills at Parillan's terrace on the viaduct level of the former Victorian coal store. Later - pre-race dinner res at Via Emilia in Fitzrovia. Fitzrovia is a playful word. 

All of Via Emilia's menu comes from Emilia-Romagna. A must-eat declared the Gnocco Fritto. We had 3, with a bowl full of green olives, and 2 rounds of Lambrusco served in the traditional ceramic bowl & small vinegary salads & to share - spaghit a l 'ai, oli e pavronzin, taiulen cun furmaj ad pigura cun e pevar, tajadel bulgnaisi col rago, spaghet' cun e sug ed pundor and reginetti aj fonz. It all felt like it was supposed to be transportive, but left us for want. The service was poor, but the lambrusco was lappable, and though I wanted to taste the mortadella, the formaj and end with the chocolate salame, we were quite ready to get out of there. It's slightly uncomfortable to be underwhelmed, edged up against the reflex to be grateful, to own ones privilege, and it being a more bulbous, anticipated moment in one's life - the pre-race meal - you want to walk away from that meal like it's an additional piece to the month-to-years-long study in Running. Too much importance placed, I understand, but can be achieved.

We found a long line of people outside of Amorino, and, considering it a good sign, ordered ourselves rose buds of l'inimitabile, arabica utz & litchi raspberry rose. Took an uber back with a guy who didn't know his lights were off in the dark, took corners at 50mph & careened into opposite traffic to park us across from our hotel, in front of an oncoming bus. The bus driver shook their head and gave us a "W" symbol. We're not sure what this means.

SUNDAY, APRIL 23

London Marathon morning, 7:15 am - we saw LB off on her bus to the start line. We had a few hours before we'd need to take the train out to the halfway point, where we'd see her for the first time. 

I ran to, along and up Primrose Hill, past the London Zoo, pursuing more of Regent's Park. Between the Outer Circle & Grand Union Canal, there was this dirt track, its infield of thick grass, and a forlorn long jump pit: jejuneness, a redolent 90s. The boating lake, baby greylags & ansers. Queen Mary's Gardens. Marylebone Green. It felt a gift, to be able to lope around in that quiet of a big city when the city itself is pulled away because of the marathon. 

At the buffet - sliced white bloomers, brie, peppered mackerel. Mck & I got ready in rain gear, packing portraits of LB, her head on sticks. What started quiet turned to pissing. We navigated with a symbiosis. Deposited at Shadwell in East London on the north bank of the Thames, timely catching the lead wheelchairs. This section (specifically the area around Mile 13ish & it's circling back at 22ish, Butcher Row in Limehouse) was chosen for its ease to get us back to the finish in time (and away from the more popular Tower Bridge area), but we didn't know it constituted Rainbow Row, and were joyful in finding it. Drag Queens in 7" heels & immaculate makeup, a Priest shimmying as he walked by, colorful streamers that brought bright contrast to the leaden sky. We saw the male leads, the throngs thereafter, the female leads across the way, ahead at 22. My eyes grew weary from scanning the crowd of runners looking for LB. The world tilted, and so I leaned into voice & started calling her name, hoping that if I couldn't see her, she'd hear me. And then, all too quickly, she was there, smiling, and saying something indiscernible, and our moment there was over. Everything and everyone was wet. 

Mck & I took the train back towards the finish, to Westminster so we could see Big Ben & Buckingham before walking the last mile of the race. Quick coffees from a coffee cart in the park. I liked the bodies lined on concrete walls in relaxed cheer of the race. 

LB finished in 3:06:44; got to catch a glimpse of her at the finish between the far-off fencing & troves. Made our way to the big "O" to meet her. Grew worried after a while, until she popped through, ambling in a way rare to see her. I feel like the next 30 minutes was a sample of: capacity, connate, consummation, comity. The changing of shoes, the bracing of shoulder, the dry bra, the mental noting. Perhaps, simply, Presence & reverence. She didn't have the race she wanted, or was apt to have, but it was close & the power of her felt voluminous. 

I was growing miserable, so how LB managed I'm not sure. We walked to & through Piccadilly, decorated in celebration of Ramadan (piccadills/piccadillies - term used for various forms of collars). "Piccadilly, the great thoroughfare leading from Haymarket & Regent St. westward to Hyde Park-corner, is the nearest approach to the Parisian boulevard of which London can boast." - Charles Dickens Jr., 1879. Moodily wanting to take it in but soggy-boned & hungry. Coffees & sandwiches at Amelia's on Bedford. A train back to the Hilton Euston to warm & shower. Grabbed tickets for the London Eye. 

I managed to sneak in a bottle of bubbles, despite bag check & body scan, with the intention of us pop & sipping it with view of London on high, but the vibes in the egg weren't right. From up there & to the south - the Crystal Palace, St. Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth Palace, MI6, Vauxhall & Nine Elms, Houses of Parliament, Battersea Power Station, Elizabeth Tower/Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, County Hall. To the west - Windsor Castle, the Natural History Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Parks, Wembley Stadium, Scotland Yard, the Ministry of Defence, House Guards Palance, Whitehall Court, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street, Charing Cross Station, To the north - the London Zoo, Madame Tussauds, BT Tower, Covent Garden, the British Museum, Hungerford Bridge & Golden Jubilee Bridges, the Savoy Hotel, Somerset House, Waterloo Bridge, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the National Theatre, Royal Festival Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral & Tate Modern. And to the east - Shakespeare's Globe, One Blackfriars, the Walkie Talkie, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Shard, Canary Wharf, the Old Vic Theatre, O2 Arena, Royal Greenwich Observatory, Waterloo Station, Strata SE1 & the Imperial War Museum. So, basically, a list of all that anyone could know, But, a view lifted. 

A late reservation at Morso off Abbey in St. John's Wood: Negroni, focaccia charred, coarse salted, with halved green olives, a little gem salad with micro cress, lemon & mustard dressing, antipasti board with prosciutto San Daniele DOP, pancetta arrotolata IGP, aged balsamic vinegar of Modena DOP, pane carasau, parmigiano reggiano DOP, cornichons, Italian mixed olives, Rigatoni Pistachio & Burrata with pistachio & basil pesto, parmigiano, homemade buffalo burrata & toasted pistachio crumb, a bottle of Cool Boy prosecco from Veneto and a Potted Tiramisu to share (their signature; enriched with dark chocolate crumbs & sweet marsala wine). 

*Bookmark for Mamma Santissima (could have been the Negronis, but the place looked like I needed to be in it): it hearkens back to "La Vecchia Napoli," inspired by Sofia Loren. 

Our last ambition - Abbey Road Crosswalk. It was black, wet, and I'd been carrying that bottle of warm bubbles (reserved for the London Eye & not yet enjoyed) in my purse all day. We outdoor-girl-crouch-peed en route, past the Studios, wondered if it was it, decided it was, and I pulsed that cork from the tight crowning across the infamous zebra. Imagine a day where you race the London Marathon, walk Piccadilly, eat a tiramisu en potted plant imitation and end with drinking bubbles from a bottle as you take large steps to stay on the whites where the Beatles walked. 

MONDAY, APRIL 24

We needed more time. I hadn't done all of the literary detours I'd set out to. Not near enough walking about markets, looking into bookstores, or being quiet at a cafe, sketching. We did what we could with 3 full days in London. I forewent a run, and we packed & walked with heave to a cafe for a last cup of coffee before the train back to Heathrow. 

The London in my mind is more developed, tainted now by reality, and I like to think on sweet words surmounting, like cream tea, high tea, Belisha Beacon, serviettes, ice cream cornet, pasty, and hardy words like towcester, slough, milk floats, scotch eggs, streaky bacon, fry ups, meat fruit, tipsy cake, eton mess & slang like all-to-pot, sod off, chuffed, innit?, chunder, damp squib, grockel. 

Troncones

Houston Sunday Afternoon: I took a caustic shower and then put makeup on, the act of it impulsive, unthinking and soothing, as if someone else acceded. Gratuitous, however, when, I sat in bed and cried. Opened a previously purchased petit bottle of rosé bubbles, distracted, finally sipping and audibly, to myself, "This is not good." 

Arrived late on Sunday night from Houston to Seattle to Bellingham, then back on Tuesday to Seattle to San Fran to Zihuatanejo to Troncones (laughably self-designed). Not efficient or economical or environmental, but I had put my eggs in the basket of portent positivity - it would be a reset. A celebration. A no-run work-vacation. I slept 7 hours overnight at SFO, by a window, in cold agitation, and woke to a family - "Oh look, she's awake." To Zihua, where I'd arrive a few hours earlier than Cousin & fam. Bided by outside the aeropuerto internacional, trying unsuccessfully to paint the scene in watercolor over margaritas (no bueno), landing on a bueno Victoria con limon (refrescante). 

The family arrived, rosy cheeked, and Connie took us to the mercado de Soriana off Avenida Paseo de la Boquita for cold cervezas, tequila, limes, fried chicken, vino, rum, coconut milk, pineapple juice, yogurt, pan, striated horneados en forma de cerdo, a firetruck, dolarés. At the beginning of each re-entry into Zihua I stand dumbly and ask lamely for Neil to guide me in remembering the conversions, the words, the needs, the right buttons and on refrain for a good few hours, is, "I just need to get reoriented." 

Back in the car we sip Victorias & Neil eats the cold fried chicken. Priority: Troncones by puesta del sol. "Connie go past them." "Connie watch out." Off the highway to the left in that weird jarr of a corner, and as we tried to enter the main street into Troncones, we're met with much military, rifles at side, a gang of motorcycles, a seeming roadblock; they search the windshield flange for illicit contra & wave us forward. 

Puesta del sol - lisps of gauze on a gradation of azul to naranja to oceano profundo, shadows of palm against Connie's mitad veranda & the titian orb swallowed. On a warm black walk to Cenaduría Rufí (un favorito querido de la familia). The Wednesday special: chiles rellenos. A margarita habañero. Upon leaving, barefoot children in the street light fireworks against laser-cut white paper garlands hung low. 

On this trip I was able to work half days. Each day began with an accidental inspection of accumulated picadura de insectopicaduras de insectos, a heavy but happy-footed traipse down the exterior stairwell to the main floor, where, if not immediately greeted, then shortly thereafter greeted by the squinched eyes and open sonreir of principe Henrik. I think being a Tía-Prima, or any other Identity, and waking after salty open-air Mexico sleep and descending upon another's bebe feliz - the recognition or the flirt or the entertaining of en llamas on their face - it a quite restorative and trickling feeling. So anyway, he eats, we eat - usually frutas, bolillos con mermelada y café. I'd walk at each day's morning, along the shoreline, reading, the favorite of such mornings when I woke early enough (as Prima rapped softly at the door, calling in question) to walk with her & Henrik as the salida del sol, and how adoring eyes of the lined ancianos perked & peaked at the quiet soul strapped to Prima's chest. We swung on beach swings & he clenched a singular fist in paralyzed sensation. Then I worked. And waited for that second part of the day to begin. 

On Thursday's there's a mercadito organico y cultural at Tres Mujeres. We looked at fine handmade jewelry (especialmente moonstone y amber) till we went ojos bizcos. Fresh salsas, homemade bug repellant and tinctures of psilocybin & peyote. A variety of tamales and sweets, of which a bagful was purchased & enjoyed for lunch. 

Prima can make a good drink. Any kind. And it would be the most intoxicating and delicious of all drinks made on the trip - a few rondas of piña colada blenders - that really set me up for success and humility on Thursday evening. There was natacion y andante y tocamiento de cangrejo y erizo. The black long-spined sea urchins are quite taking. And then we/I walked with that glossed jovial quick-to-smile and quick-to-hope-make-others, until we deposited ourselves at Orbe's, where the elders were playing dominoes. I ordered a margarita, and I think I ate food, but then I fell asleep leaning back in my chair and startled the lot with a fall & though I feigned the savv to walk myself home, I was encouraged to be driven. I walked down to the ocean to look at the stars, then fell asleep in the sand, a second retrieval, afraid I'd drown. I went to bed dressed in Pacific sand. 

I think I woke fine, which is a wonder. Restored with a healthy, robust brunch at Pacifico: beet juice, a sprout & hummus baguette con ensalada. Each one's dish needed keen admiring. Watercolors beside the pool. Prints of a body in sweat on the cushions. Connie has a special woman come to clean & cook for her, and this special woman made a pot of chicken legs stewing in creamy tomato sauce over a cama of rice. 

El viernes fue genial. Cousin, Neil, Hendrik & I went into Zihua so Cousin could see el dentista, so we could stock up on comestibles & so I could see a bit of Zihua-town. The mercado municipal campesino - almost like stepping under & into a circus tent - whose plastic walls trap a must of smoke, meat, herb, dust, quease & death. It is a living breathing dying thing. Life calls out in an infirmary of senile arcade games called Tesoro Azteca y Grand Monarch y Rey de Poker. Breath calls out precios for avocados & in old fans unsettling the thick air. Death calls in the gathered sinew bouquet of tendon & meat flanks hung from hooks and dripping down slanted glassfronts which encase metal platters of other-meats, fly-spiced. There's foot creams and photos of feet in various stages of ailment. Befores but no Afters. And outside, there are tables of pan & panadería tucked beneath thick plastic sheets. 

On our walk to the beachfront, we stopped for a michelada lesbiana: 2 cervezas, sal, límon, salsa inglesa, jugo maggi, salsa tabasco y clamato (delicioso). To the playa principal, playa la madera, playa la ropa, drinking our michelada lesbianas and lambering along the boardwalk. An event - the seat turtle (olive ridley) a hatch & slow scurry to the ocean. It stopped everyone in temor, like babies, puppies or natural disasters. 

With the sun subsiding we headed to a family favorite restaurant, where the owner remembered Neil & Cousin despite years absent. Sopa azteca, tacos de camaron con col, mayonesa c/ chipotle, nopal y queso panela. After our meal we stumbled upon a girls' basketball game, the court an array of bright colors, laid low in a concrete bowl, surrounded by palms and patrons eating & drinking booze. I remember judging their ball skills quite unnecessarily. 

Late the next morning we drove to Tres Palmas, where we could eat & drink & use the Inn's beach access to buck about the waves like children. The margaritas were big but mediocre, the queso dip Americanized, but the poor man's white fish filet & the pulpo roofed in thick shavings of garlic looked bueno. There are a lot of parts to Troncones that arouse this verdadera, this veracious sense of Vida, and one of them is that electric buzz in your fingertips provoked by tequila, and that electric brazen excitement in running to the beach with jellyfish panic, and tasting salt, and catching your body electric in waves willingly and un. See: getting buzzed & jumping in the ocean with abandon. 

That evening we walked from Connie's beach casa to her new secondary property, built higher up & inland for a sort of christening at eventide. Up a short dirt-dusty road, past a seemingly unnamed cemetery whose entranceway are stones & deep pink bougainvillea in curve, the headstones in white granite.

The home's tiled bathrooms & top veranda with expansive mountain & ocean views are its dearest features. It's new neighbor who has built to ocean-blocking height on one side is not. You ascend these steeply curved concrete stairs where the setting light creates yellow geometry between the walls & windows. From the front - the Pacific, wider than wide, and behind, rolling mountains in a general palate of sage. There is not a cloud. And the sun in set as blood orange. Connie has prepared a finger-food veranda christening meal of molding cheddar, rellenas de salmon, smoked oysters, seeded crackers; a weathered plastic chair breaks a leg under body. After, back at the beach casa, Neil fries up pizza in a pan.

The next day Cousin & I walked into town for some groceries. Off the main road is a dusty verdura y fruta y productos enlatados shop. A machete lays on a pile of canned elote, colorful verduras separated by crate. You grab a child's laundry basket and fill it with your wants while cats lounge and braid between. Cousin collects items for homemade salsa. 

For breakfast - a green smoothie with kiwi, blueberries, banana, nuts & seeds. Then fried cheese. Then a pitcher of margaritas, then grilled sausages & onions with cotija, and rice & beans & salsa. But we did go for a walk thankgod, and toes wet, and sunset, concluding at La Mexicana for live music & drinks: mangoe mezcalita with tajin on the rim, salsas y chile oil & thick black artesanal chips.

To Troncones Steak House: chilaquiles verdes con pollo y queso y piña coladas. Spiked iguanas climb the bramble & bougainvillea. A walk to Deb&Dave's, keeping Hendrik cool with chilled Modelos. A swim & sun-bathe in the pretty pool. For cena that evening we went to another fam-friends' restaurant (Thai), walkable, with arte orientado a la comida, outlets drilled into stone, and an exquisite tile-laid pool. Tom Kha Gin (gin, coconut milk, ginger, lemongrass, lime, sesasme) & Bangkok Punch (tequila, black pepper, pineapple, tamarind, cardamom, ginger). And Tom Yum soups, warm salads, pad Thai, stir-fry noodles in oyster sauce, curry. 

More mornings filled with grilled bolillos, petit sweet bananas pulled from the property, thick slices of papaya. 

A massage, which I'd find would be the only thing that truly got me to relajar. We walked to visit Connie at a used jewelry shop where she works once a week. Proceeds go towards funding the local school. Connie, a creative spirit, will take broken or unsold jewelry and revive them into something other. En route to the jewelry shop, we selected some frutas y verduras from a dusty-ricket of a truck selling the produce off the back, an old scale above the bumper. 

Before leaving, Neil took us to Restaurante Los Angeles for grande piña coladas y chilaquiles verdes con huevos. And kindly deposited me back at the airport in Zihua. 

Me siento muy agradecido de que Troncones se sienta como en casa, y que Neil y su familia sean tan generosos. Me siento más yo allí, más expresiva, la vida más simple. Es bastante doloroso que un lugar así no pueda compensar la depresión.

Coast & Current

2022 was, at most, a coast. Coasting doesn't feel the right right. Existing? It feels vaindulgent to consider one’s suffering, to let it in but not out. But what good does it do to judge one's self for breadth or style of suffering. So, I just sit in it. Because somewhere along the way I heard that you could observe your thoughts, and that everyone considers their own problems as top-drawer.

I think some of it started with leaving my job at the hospital. It felt really personal. Corrupted. Insensitive. Painful. But, eventually empowering. Can you imagine working for a place for 7 years and the day you leave no one says goodbye? I had nightmares for months. That's how much it got into me. Like a sickness. I couldn't wrap my head around the callousness. I couldn't wrap my head around how they put me in front of the ER to vet people in for Covid. Couldn't wrap my head around how they wouldn't let me use my own PTO. Couldn't wrap my head around how they didn't know what I did there, and then asked me to teach them the week I left. It took near a year to feel like I purged the gross feeling that I had just willingly given 7 years of my life to a place that didn't care about me at all. That's really tough to sit with. Perhaps that's common.

And then I learned a new trade, which was uncomfortable but stimulating. I had to set aside any self-worth antagonizers like the dip I'd take financially, the seniority lost. Though I am currently unfulfilled, I feel more care in a single year here than I ever did at the hospital, which is a good lesson that I learned way too slowly - if you're not being treated well, you don't have to stay. But the problem for me is, I don't know my worth. 

So here's all this change, and I'm financially stalled, but living got more expensive, and the Dems rose gas prices & the Reds went untaxed and Russia and suddenly I've never been poorer. But I say yes to all possible travel, and my new place of work lets me take unpaid leaves, which further dries me (but at least it's for fun), and Hoka is 3-6 months delayed in reimbursements, and house prices skyrocket and outsiders flush in big city cash move in and the whole town feels different. It breathes differently. Hisses in dissentient. How the people treat each other. How they treat people outside. And I want to ask, how does one not feel sorry for one's self? Sloane said his 90-year-old father holds the hand of his 85-year-old mother, mostly to help each other balance as they walk, and how people stop them to say how good they make them feel, to see them. To see old people with linked arms, outside. How they've had fish purchased for them. And this is LA. And I know it's out there. People's kindness. Floating around between pockets & puddles of parsimony. I want to live in the bubble-link of two old people touching. 

While struggling I thought, Buckle Up, Ride Wave. There's optimism in me somewhere, whispering how it'll pass. And I lived between coasting and saying Fuck It. Went to so many wonderful places. Argentina, Duluth, Eugene, Costa Rica, Germany, Czech Republic, Sacramento, San Francisco. I had to. It was only in all of these did it actually feel like I was living. Which means, I have to be gone to feel alive. 

Alright, and then family on all sides was/is probably the largest stimulus for the deep ache. Bone deep. Psychic storm aswirl at all times just murkily lounging behind an inconsequential thought. This is the most difficult stimulus to parcel out, to investigate, to work through. It is blinding and I go numb. I've been thinking on dissociation, the topic of which seems hot; wondered what it felt like when one dissociates; all that came to mind were images of people zoned out. Where do they go? What does it feel like? And then I read something about dissociation being a mechanism for lapses in your childhood memories, or all memory, and suddenly I had a theory to my own. Though I'm not currently suresure, I think I do know what it's like. Where you go. I think it's been a means of my own survival. I think when I say remaining alive or existing or coasting, I mean there's a big box of shit I'm not dealing with, and when it bubbles forward, I dissociate. I'm theorizing. Really how it feels is that I'm numb and then I ache and then I get worried that I'm not doing something I should be doing And my memory is poor.

I woke in the black of an early morning sensing my grandfather (maternal) passed, and then my mother called & confirmed it. When my grandfather died last spring, I was curious about my own strength. I felt safe enough, a little detached. I thought maybe it was because I always had this feeling around that side that we were the fuckups (not necessarily me, but perhaps in solidarity I harbored my own division). They loved us and we them all the same, but that air of black sheepness created the feeling of division, and when you feel divided it's easy enough to consider yourself on the other side. False safety is possible there. I'd drive by his home (where I grew up) and would feel the need to avert my eyes and wish him well. The funeral came months later, on a sweltering summer day at the family property, and when I drove down his long gravel road, it dawned on me that he was gone, and that I, was in fact, not strong, I'd only been numb. It felt better to busy myself, pass beverages, help with the food, than to sit still in the fact that I had not processed his death, months later. It's so obvious, my pain; I was the only one who took a seat under the blistering sun, sweat dripping between my legs and down my back, growing red, while all others gathered beneath tents and the shade of trees. I had to make the hurt hurt more. And it was there at his funeral that two other really painful things happened. One was a good painful - the retired co-workers and friends of my grandfather's told me that my grandfather bragged about me all the time, that he would tell them my results, and air my races. I didn't know that he was that kind of proud of me; it was painful but good. The other - I saw my mother in a state of decomp, jaundiced, swollen, sweating. And suddenly I am a daughter who didn't know that her mother was just fighting for her life for 10 days at the hospital. 

So, there, all at once I'm needing to process my not processing my grandfather's death, the fact that he loved me out loud to others, though it was not necessarily known to me, and that my mother had just returned from hell & that I might lose her too. 

And then I numb out, lay prostrate. Watch a lot of toks. And between, some travels (where I lived). 

There was so much to be grateful for. 

For one, how does a person have 15 other solid people in their life, who live all across the US - and have them meet in Costa Rica and we all fall in love with one another? And still talk all these months later? 

And how incredible was it that I made another US team, got to race in Germany, fell hard or harder still for each teammate and their support people, earned Team Gold, got to travel after. I learned a really valuable lesson over there, one that is life-altering for me personally. And to think of all the things that needed to happen before that lesson could be earned - there was so much to be grateful for. 

And then my grandmother (paternal) in what seemed like a flip of a day, had an aggressive onset of dementia. I went to see her with my father and we broke down, in front of her, while she pretended to sleep. I didn't feel good about us crying about her in front of her. It felt like we were already mourning. Mourning her in front of her still living. I talked about it with a co-worker whose parent had waged a painful war with dementia, and I re-opened that wound in her and she began crying at work. After loosely acknowledging her diagnosis, things progressed fast and hospice began. But everyone tends to say you have no idea how long it'll go. I certainly didn't think weeks. I was supposed to stop by and see her around Thanksgiving, but that previous visit had pained me vividly, so I went and got a tattoo instead. And then the next day she was taken away by ambulance, found to have sepsis, and died in the ER, the hospital capacity at full. Again I woke in the early morning with a start, thinking something was wrong, and my father called not minutes later to confirm. Hearing deep pain in your father's voice is haunting and renders in me profound helplessness. And all I can think of is how many times he said, "Grandma misses you." "Grandma wants to see you." "Grandma asked about her bracelet." And how many times I said I would see her but didn't. And how I didn't fix the one thing she ever asked me to do. 

So I numbed out, laid prostrate, watched a lot of toks. And I tried for the OTQ at CIM, and missed it by 50 seconds, and was getting so sick of myself sending email after email to a brand in desperation to get them to believe in me, when it's hard to believe in me. And never have I considered more than to pick up and go. It soothes the brain on fire, to think about exits.

I want to say: I can't afford a home. I don't make enough money to get anywhere close to ahead in life. My family is hurting. Alcoholism chews at the edges. I try hard to be a good friend, daughter, wife, teammate & leader but feel guilt in not being better. Buckle Up. Ride Wave. 

COSTA RICA

We were committed to whatever he'd ask of us, his having solicited years before 50. I like that kind of person. I like it about myself - someone who says yes to large, unseen, unknown - to trust yourself to it, without much thought, it's just Yes, and follow-through. Originally there was a flirt of an idea that we'd rent a large sailboat & sail the Caribbean. This evolved to Costa Rica. For the past year we made payments towards the small & large of it - Kurtis' 50th.

In prep for trip merch, sketched a caricature of Kurtis as G.D. bear; got it printed on aquamarine scuba-coozies & tee's in a mix of blues, greens & tie-dyes. Found a '72 Olympics patch, and coupled with it - star-printed banana hammock & Stop Pre shirt: Americana, 70s, lewd. We packed up the merch, the gifts, Hoka hiking shoes, other shoes, running clothes, sidekick tool, speaker, toiletries, and all of M's things in a checked bag. In my personal - bathing suits, 1 running set, dainty silks, flamboyant tees & 1 pair of Mach Turbos.

Rant of travel logistics & continual disappointment of Alaska Airlines here (highlight if you like to read about stress?) Splurged to fly out of Bellingham. From BLI > SEA we were delayed by Blue Angels. At SEA we had under an hour to make our connection to LA. Made it. I was curious if our bags would make the transition just as quickly. Sat there for a while before the pilot announced that a part of the plane needed to be fixed, that it would be about 15-20 minutes. Our 2nd & final connection would be LA > San Jose, and it too only allotted an hour. With a 20-minute delay we'd be cutting it close. Then, the pilot announced it would actually take hours to fix. In it taking that long, they needed us to de-board & the connection became obsolete. 2 hours transitioned to 5, and they had to take the bags off the plane to aid in whatever they were fixing. We waited in an Alaska Airlines customer service line for a spell (staff looking bedraggled, underwhelmed, apathetic), and were told that there were no more flights to LA, nor San Jose, and that we'd need to wait for the delayed flight later that evening, head to LA like we were supposed to, and hop on the mirroring flight to SJ the following afternoon, which would have us missing the van the group rented to take all 16.5 of us to Quepos, 4 hours away from San Jose, and eat a day of our vacation. We'd also rented a hotel in San Jose that first night so we could get groceries/necessities for the house, and because it was within 12 hours of original arrival, they wouldn't let us cancel the room. In one delayed flight - a dominoes of shit. Researched other airlines that we could transfer to, to get to CR in time to meet the group - found one through United & decided it was worth it to spend the money to save that day of our vacation. Went back to Alaska Airlines, and found someone helpful, who was able to rebook us on United sans cost. It felt like a big win. Went to the gate to see about collecting our checked bag from the original flight; they were very Can-Do; said that they had to unload all the bags anyway & that they were in talks with other Alaska Airlines staff to remove our bag specifically, and bring it down to the Alaska baggage desk @ baggage claim. Next, a little elated, we had to exit the airport, go to baggage, collect the bag from Alaska, then go to ticketing, complete the transfer & recheck-in with United. We were told to give it about 45 minutes for the bag to go from unloaded off the original flight, to dropped at Alaska's baggage desk. We waited for over an hour. They called up for it, said they were backed up, told us we had time since our new flight didn't leave SEA for 12 hours, took our phone number & said that if it wasn't there by 5p, they'd personally go and retrieve it & put it on our new flight with United. 

We headed to United & completed check-in. Tried to go to the Alaska Lounge (members), telling them our situation - how the plane had broke, we'd missed our flight, we had to rebook, how we'd lost out on the hotel & had to wait at SEA for 12 hours - they said, "Sorry, we took the day pass option away. This is only for 1st class customers." So M bought a bottle of red & we sipped on it. For 12 hours. Until others in our party arrived for that same flight, and we bought another bottle and we started to feel in the trip-mood. We hadn't received confirmation on our bag having transitioned, and no one was picking up at the desk downstairs, so, in hoping for the best, we put our faith in them. Boarded, this time en route to Houston. Quick stop down there, then on the final leg to San Jose, Costa Rica - an international flight where they give you 1 cup of water & a Biscoff. No chargers. No nuts. But we were going to make it. 

Once landed in San Jose, we found that our bag had not in fact arrived with us, and there wasn't a United baggage service desk at SJO, so we exited and entered the ticketing side to talk to a United rep. They were not helpful & suggested we call the service line. From what they could see, our bag was perhaps in LA. Which would mean it got back onto the flight we were originally on, with Alaska. 

We had a little time before those who had arrived the day previous, and those arriving just after us would converge. Sat at a top-floor café, had Stella Artois & played gin rummy. Purchased booze from Duty.

Picked up via passenger van, the top rim & back seats filled with boxes of groceries acquired from our earlier arrived friends. From San Jose to Playa Caimito = 155-165 km. Our driver stopped at La Casita del Café in Atenas - an open air café perched on a cliff's edge off the winding 3 highway, with deep green views of the rolling hills, banana & coffee bean trees, dotted with white cattle. Mist & clouds blocked the depth, which, on an unobscured day, would reach the Pacific. The server brought a small bowl of coffee beans beneath our noses. Ordered 16x Imperials & a round of café chorreado capuchinos.

To Mi Rancho Los Cocodrilos to see the mud-baked crocs at Rio Tarcoles & the market of fresh fruit (pineapple, dragon fruit, bananas, lychee), salted plantains & souvenirs. Apparently back in the day there was little to the lip of the bridge & people would tight-tope to catch sight, so they installed a pedestrian bridge. "There’s still the running of the gauntlet of t-shirt, pipa and cell phone charger cord vendors to get out of the parking lot – you could get poked in the eye with one of those straws – but the serious adrenaline rush is no more." The cocodrilos themselves are American (Crocodylus Acutus), and they like to gather in the mud where the Costanera (Hwy 34) crosses the Tarcoles River. Jean Lea picked out a variety of fruit & a piña colada. Several hours passed. Our driver pulled over for a nice view of the ocean & we groaned, anxious to get to Caimito. Met Mefi off the side of the road for a welcome. He was very Can-Do too.

It was 5-6 hours before we landed at the Villa Caimito. The sky dimmed & the rain pissed. We dragged water and looked around in awe and drew numbers to choose rooms. M & I landed in a room facing the jungle on the 2nd floor. Two chefs, led by Jeinor, were already at work in the kitchen, steam from their pots in deliquescence on the wall of windows. 

Villa Caimito - 618 El Cerro, Provincia de Puntarenas in Quepos - is an estate property in the tropical rain forest, in a private & secluded section of Manuel Antonio, minutes from the Marina Pez Vela, the main beach & Nat'l park. It's walking distance to the secluded Playa La Mancha. Has Pacific Ocean views, 9 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, 4 stories, a cozy washed concrete breakfast counter, tropical hardwood dining area, 8-person whirlpool, bean-shaped swimming pool, private chefs & a concierge team. 

48-min of aqua jogging in the villa pool, the sky dark & damp with fits of thunder.

Casual dress for dinner: lime-saturated gauc, plantains, homemade chips, salsa & ceviche, breaded/browned mahi, broccoli with cheese & almonds, baked potato balls with breaded crust, shrimp sauce. Dessert: upside down warmed hostess cupcake with chocolate drizz, strawberry ice cream with sliced strawberries & 2 chocolate & vanilla wafer sticks. Paired with bubbles & fresh mulched blackberry/raspberry juice. 

For personal bar - Cream dulce, finca las moras pinot grigio, ketal one, milagros, aviation american gin, flor de cana, bacardi hurricane, jose cuervo especials, tierra-noble tequila blancos, adobe reserva cab sauvs, dibon bruts, modelos, blue nun 24k, sangria, red tree pinot grigios, bavaria masters, titos, tecates, marques de caceres, +

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6 - 

7:30a run of 20 miles (3 @ 7-7:05, 4-17 @ 6:40-45, 3 @ 6:55-7) - one of the more rough runs of my life, eccrine and apocrine in constant tide; stopped often under small patches of shade to cool. Found an outdoor sink outside of a closed chicken shop and scooped mouthfuls of water thinking potential beaver fever the last of my worries. The run was honkerific. I love honks. Observing locals at work in fields, sawing, dogs jetting across highway, chicos playing soccer on grass fields. I appreciated experiencing Quepos by foot, but it was over-stimulating. 

Back at the house, stood under the outdoor shower to regain myself, enjoyed cold coke. M would spend hours trying to source our bag. Brunch by the pool: breakfast tacos of beans, eggs, greens & hot sauce, savory pastries, papaya, pineapple. Rental cars delivered @ 1p. Poolside cocktails, platter of cheeses. White-faced monkeys leapt from tree to tree beyond the pool, breaking coconuts & scooping the juice. Grocery run: more spirits, fresh vegetables, ceviche, ice. For dinner: The house made pasta, grilled chicken & "shrimp surprise," dotted with bowls of "anus crackers," cheese puffs & white wine. Cocktails on the top deck playing games before a saunter to bed. 

SUNDAY AUGUST 7 - 

B,C,D,J,K,L in kitchen making desayuno, prepping for a day out on the ocean, pesca. 5:45 am run, headed toward Manuel Antonio Park, 3.3 miles from the house. From Calle Vieja > Via 618, past lush sections of jungle, peakaboo Pacific, past Q'Tuamis, El Lagarto, Mare Milagro, Agua Azul, Jommy, El Avion, Tierrazas, Mar y Sambra, igloo alojamientos, descending down to the end of the path at the foot of the park: white sand beaches & felled coconuts. My father had asked that I collect some sand from CR to take back & set at my grandfather's grave; he said my grandfather had always wanted to go to CR. Back towards Quepos, running the residentials to roosters calling for morning. Grandes colinas. Breakfast - coke, coffee, soft boiled eggs, toast, potatoes, hot sauce. 

A group headed out to Dominical to check out the small surfer's village, while M and I hung back. Day by pool reading "Running the Rift" snacking on salty Rumba Chicharricos con limon & sangria. Lunch of tostadas with black beans, rice, cabbage slaw, queso, salsa picante.

The fishing troupe caught a 185-lb tuna that took 2 hours to reel in, plus sailfish, mahi, bonitos. Celebrated with dinner of fresh mahi soaked in soy, ginger, jalapeno, guac, cucumbers, salad, white wine, bubbles with gold flecks. In bed early. 

MONDAY AUGUST 8 - 

5:45 am run. Observations: kids in uniform, all walked to school by guardian, armed guards/police only visible around schools, weedwacking = major job, lychee sold on every street corner, grocery stores are minimally stocked. 

JL in kitchen making birthday breakfast. Raining. Ran towards 34 again. School traffic. Catamaran pickup @ 8:10a. Driven to marina. Driver rammed ladder into marina building. Sky stopped its wet as we boarded the Boomerang V. Upon boarding, handed a shot of firewater (guaro). Then we felt flush con riqueza from 9-1:20p. 

Stopped at coves along M.A. park, spotted with umbrellas & dwellers, jumping fish, humpback & her baby, sailboats like pirate ships, turtles several miles from shore. Leapt from low deck, laid out on net, circling rock and small island clusters, stopped at another cove for swim & snorkel - visibility minimal. Bloated and floating in the ocean with mojitos, beers & tequila refreshers. On board for almuerzo - an interesting assortment of mashed potatoes, cold pasta salad with fresh tuna, chicken legs, greens with cucumbers & tomatoes, pineapple, kiwi, mango. Diva caught a skipchak. The whole thing felt meaningful - a group of healthcare workers, public servants, teachers, sheriff's, merchants, attorneys in swimwear, leaping giddily into the thick wet salt, being cared for, attended to. You know, like well-filling. Oh, save for M, who definitely needed a saging; poor guy got ocean-sick & spent his day napping away the green sweats in the '90's decor'd cabin's quarters. 

Afterwards, reddened, we made another grocery/pharm run. Had drinks in the pool, played volley, ate fresh ceviche with plantains. Kurtis napped while all 15 of us went to Pub El Avion in his honor. 

El Avion is off of Via 618. It sits 150 meters above the beach & boasts a pretty panorama. The famous CIA/Iran Contra plane rests there. "She has gone from the Cold War to sunsets and cocktails in paradise," said A. Templeton. The plane has an interesting history (read HERE). We sat on the upper deck at a long table with a view of the Pacific and all that we'd traversed earlier. Ordered picante margaritas, piña coladas, white wine sangrias, the mass of which needed a rolling cart to be delivered.

Back at the villa, chefs prepped for Kurtis' birthday dinner. A salad of greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, heart of palms, chips, ceviche, tuna tar tar, roasted carrots, tomatoes & broccoli, sliced baguette oiled & herbed, large slices of tuna lightly browned. Decorated the top floor with ribbons & streamers, glow in the dark habiliments & blacklight impedimenta. A projector played either WSP or GD. And after that lovely dinner we headed up to celebrate. The fridge stocked with Imperials, tequila, red wine (chilled). A lot of Tequila Squirts happened. That night we'd find, as Kurtis turned 50, that Newton John passed away. that Miralago was invaded by FBI. 

TUESDAY AUGUST 9 - 

Jean Lea, Marjanne & Becca would horseback ride this day, while the majority rest spent it at the public beach outside of Manuel Antonio. Before the beach, Gray drove me to the 34 so I could skip a portion of the most stressful part of the run. Ran out towards Dominical 5 miles, and back to the house. 3E, 6T (6-6:10s), 3E: humid-to-rain, hair wrapped circles around my arms & jarred the carriage. After a quick shower, we caravan'd cars to Espadilla Beach, set up under large tent with sun loungers ($30 for the day).

Playa Espadilla goes from Puntas Quepos to Puntas Catedral, forming an arch that is divided into 2 parts by an estuary. The rock formation, Roca Tortuga, separates Espadilla Sur Beach from Manuel Antonio Beach. Offerings of: surf lessons, catamaran rentals, banana boats, kite-sailing, vendors pushing fresh coconuts (pipas), teak bowls, snowcones, sunshirts, chicken skewers. Surfing warm waves with body & boogie, sunning, drinking beers & fresh cold coconuts. Piña Coladas from a bus just off the beach. Walked the length of it, through town with its trinkets & bars. Monkeys would swoop down and steal packets of ketchup & mayo. 

Home in time for early evening rain. Monroe took a sink-bath to rid her skin of sand. Rosé on the top deck, playing everyone's least favorite songs. For cena: leftover ceviche, tuna, salad, pasta with pesto, chocolates.

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 10 - 

Ran around Quepos City, skatepark de quepos, boardwalk statues, paseo del mar & parque nahomi past the nat'l coastguard. Ready by 7:45 am for ziplining (Marjanne, Brian, Kurtis, M & I). The rest, save for JL, would go on a buggy tour. Picked up via mitsubishi; Kurtis said, "I need a little breakfast." Seconds later our driver pulled in front of a bakery & birthday babe acquired some traditional pastries & a red-sprinkled custard donut. On the hour+ drive into the jungled mountains of San Antonio de Damas, a spider-cricket took board. We passed teak forests (2nd most expensive wood), a basset hound deep in the jungle, ferns growing off palm wood. Our guide called himself "Danny Gonzales Escobar." The drive was wild, slow moving. The driver would cross his chest in religious gratitude after every successful crested climb. M would fondle his gear shaft to confirm it's gear & the driver would eye him with playfulness. 

The zipline tour was through Amigos del Rio/ADR Adventure Park. It incorporated a nature walk, narrow cliff hike, dry rappel, waterfall zippel, ziplining into waterfall with a free fall into a river pool, a tarzan swing, 3 jungle zips & 2 canyon zips. We walked the borders of the canyon attached to the walls by ropes, outfitted in harnesses, heavy metal carabiners hanging chunky. The first zip line was long, high & swept the canyon; made you realize you had to trust a person. The second was fleeting. A 13-meter rappel. A 35-meter waterfall. The free-fall. How awakening it felt to control your own drop, the plunge of it, the ascension. To the La Galeria - a natural platform where we did a mix of rappel & zip along a 60-meter waterfall. We stopped at a mid-jungle bungalow after the final zip, for sliced pineapple boats & Cremas Pozuelo cookies & cold water in metal cups. Hiked uphill alongside leafcutters, back to our cars. Drove to Quepos headquarters for lunch, a homestyle meal of white rice, black beans, mixed salad, steamed veg, tortilla chips, salsas, chicken & iced tea. Over lunch we watched a slideshow of pics & vids from the day's tour, which also included a tag-a-long group of 50-something body-builders from TX, which also profited a slideshow of one large implanted peek-a-boob en-waterfall-plunge, to which her husband wanted us to know should be seen, as he paid a lot for them. Tipped the team in a motorcycle helmet they'd set before us.

Back at the house we shared stories with the buggy group at the pool, drinking strong G&Ts, eating weird CR popsicles, encircled by squirrel monkeys, coaxing them closer. 

It's such a small-but-large pleasure to be surrounded by monkeys. The squirrel variety inhabit lowland rainforests (restricted to the northwestern tip of Panama, near the border with CR & the Central & Southern Pacific Coast of CR, primarily in Manuel Antonio & Corcovado Nat'l Parks) & scurry between tree branches  in the jungle understory & bound  across the forest floors. They tend to be part of 30-member troops & possess one of the most egalitarian social structures of all monkeys.  

Accidently bleached M & I's clothes (his only ones). Upstairs watching our first clear sunset with peaks of pink in a cloudy sky. Rosé, malbec, reading in swinging chair, to the mid-floor couch, watching Monroe with Gray, gumming her new tooth, talking with JL about refugees. The Pre - tuna tar tar, slices of pepper-crusted tuna. Brian made Becca & I dirty martinis with fragments of ice in the freeze (hard to come by). Had chefs order 6-7 bottles of bubbles, white wine, sugar & ice. Dinner - grilled hunks of tuna, croquettes, corn on the cob, and boated zucchini with cheese, bacon & corn. Dessert - wet coconut cake with toasted coconut skins & a chocolate roll.

THURSDAY AUGUST 11 - 

Slept in to dreams of brushing my hair, it falling out in clumps, and racing the 100k (in my dream I'd run 7:10). Ran straight towards the harbor, out 235 to 34. Had 3E, 15x 1/1, 3E - seedy sudor. Diva helped me to coffee, oj, a toasted cheese sandwich. 

Carfuls to Manuel Antonio Park with to-go mimosas. "As you travel the road between Quepos & Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, the din from roaring buses, packs of tourists and locals hunting foreign dollars becomes increasingly loud, reaching its somewhat chaotic climax at Manuel Antonio village." Belinda scooted past the schwindlers to park nearer the park entrance. In Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio the air is heavy with humidity & scented with thick vegetation. Protected as of 1972, it was preserved from being razed to make room for a coastal development project. Only 600 are allowed entrance each day.

Solicited an official card-carrying tour guide for the park, a professional naturalist. Our guide - Jorge Armando Picado Masis - came with telescope. A deluge drove cotton to intimate second skin with garbage bag laden lucky few. A warm wet. Diva assisted Jorge, holding an umbrella over his scope. It was near nebulous how Jorge would walk, stop, set scope & within seconds say Look at this Howler, or These Bats, or This Poisonous Snake, and you'd squint & see it among an immeasurable amount of green. Like slides. But then the thing in question would move. 

In the park there are 109 mammal species, 184 bird species, brown basilisk lizards, fruit bats, whiptail snakes, toucans (emerald toucanets, collared aracari, firey-billed), scarlet macaws, white faced capuchins, mantled howler monkeys, 2 & 3 toed sloths, black spiny tailed iguanas, ghost crabs, red land crabs, mouthless & hermit & halloween, crab eating raccoons, white nosed coati (pizote) (coatimundi), hummingbirds, american crocs (25-30 ft in length); Caimen , Basilisco (Jesus Christ Lizard), spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys (mono titi), poisonous dart frogs, blue morpho butterflies.

Spotted fruit bats in a cluster beneath frond, glass frogs on rain-drenched leaves, howler monkey in the tree, a small viper snake & colorful blue & red crabs scurrying across the forest floor. Jorge guided us for 2 hours with savv & jungle acumen. After him, we split to explore the sendero elevado el manglar, catarata, Peresozo, Sendero playa gemelas, puerto escondido, congos, miradores, punta catedral, playa espadilla sur. Hiking the Sendero Miradores was a strange commitment: scads of stairs, midway viewpoint, platform with view of playa espadilla sur, higher view of ocean along southern coast of MA & Punta Semicho (Saw Tip) that juts out from the mainland. 

The dense forests in M.A. are made up of guacimo colorado, madrono, cenizaro, bully, cedar, locust (including endangered sura black locust), cow & silk cotton trees strung with vines & lianas. Along the shore there's a mix of manzanillo, beach almond (import from East Indies), copey & coconut palms. Nearer the entrance is a small arrangement of mangroves (red, buttonwood, white). The viscoyol (Bactric Major) - the ground of the trail - spends most of the year covered in water, allowing an endemic plant of the wetlands.

We walked down the slippery manglar trail to the park's entrance/exit. Pounded coladas until the caravan picked us up. Belinda, M and I took the car to fill up at an all-woman gas station, grabbed snacks, one-off beers, ice, meds. 

The sky broke open in a rush. We hung at the pool, swimming, sipping, aqua jogging on our last night. Reading beneath a soggy umbrella. Secured the chefs for a final dinner + a bartender. Bartender arrived at 5p, setting up on the rooftop deck bar; made delicious raspberry & passionfruit mojitos with globules of sweet fruit & green herbs. Belinda passed out mustaches & party hats. Sampled Piña Coladas. Fire water shots. Tequila shots. Empanadas were brought up. Then a dinner of coconut rice, grilled steak, carrots, zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, shrimp with buttery garlic sauce. 

Made a list of all animals seen: squirrel & spider & capuchin & howler monkeys, 2-toed sloth, raccoons, crocodiles, white-tailed deer, fruit bats, toucans, scarlet macaw, pileated woodpecker, red & blue land crabs, humpback whales, tree frogs, centipedes, iguanas, red-eyed frog, glass frogs, rainbow grasshopper, leaf cutters, viper snake, spider-cricket, Giant red-winged grasshopper, leaf cutter ants y más. 

Places/things sad to miss: 

coquette
plumeleteer
fer-de-lance
Christ Lizards
olive ridleys
littoral
cloud forests y dwarf cloud forests with bromelias, lichens, mosses, sooty robin, quetzal
Golfo Dulce
Olla de carne
Gallo Pinto "Spotted Rooster"
Tamarindo
Agua dulce
Viveros & sand spits
Playa Savegre, Matapalo & Baru
La Meseta Central 
Cordillera de Talamanca
Fila de Bustamente
Reventazon River Valley

FRIDAY AUGUST 12 - SATURDAY AUGUST 13

8 miles @ 5:45a before PU @ 8a for the drive to San Jose. Saw runners out for the first time, strangely. Saw the housekeeper on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle, climbing the hill up to Caimito. Her dropped wave as they went by made me feel good. Everything-in-the-kitchen breakfast of toast, avocado, hard boiled egg, chocolate muffin, last night's shrimp, coffee. All bags packed & put in the van; large cooler with leftover booze, bloody mary makings, vodka, pineapples, Imperials, pinot grigio. En route to San Jose to drop the majority of our confab (sadly), we had 8am mixed drinks & snacked on the remainder of the butthole crackers (sabor extra Queso bizcocho palmarero), fractured from mini-roasts brought upon by questions like Kurtis' - 

"Is this Jamiroquai?"
"...it's Stevie Wonder..."
"...ohh."
"That's your new name - Jamiroquai." 

= Mini-Roast

The drive from Quepos to San Jose via the coastal highway withheld: 

km after km of African oil-palm plantations
Graves above ground encased in white tile tombs
Parrita
White truck full of bananas (green to yellow)
Corrugated tin roofs in degradation
Lots of lavacars
Dogs tied to trees
mud-floody yards
goats, white donkey
waterways, streams the color of thai iced tea
esterillos centro
Colorful laundry hung to dry
rice fields
Pulperias
Jaco
Lighthouse (inland)
Pipa fria
Cornfields
Tarcoles

Dropped M, B, L, JL, K, R & B at SJO. Went to Hampton where we rented a room for the day, as the remaining-us would not fly out till 1:00a. Taxi'd to Mercado La Cartonera, an open air market off the Rio Virilla between Alajuela & Santa Ana/San Jose. To one of the first few shops for piña coladas, of which the tender took great care in making, decorated with rose petal, leaf & berries, placed with surgical precision using long metal tweezers. To Sirocco Zingara Cocina Mediterranea for a Cubano (acompanado de papas fritas cerdo pepinillos, mostaza dijon y mayonesa) and a Heineken. To other shops for chiliguaro y miguelito y kamika shots, margarita azul, sangria rosé, paloma ahumada la mula coja, fresa coladas, scotch whiskey with jugo de cranberries y esencia de naranja, smoked bloodies. Had El Gueros (Mezcal, licor andero reyes, jarabe de Piña, con mezcla de pimientas, jugos de limon, albahaca, sal de pimiento, rosada). Gray bought sweets from Dulces D'Antano - tradt'l coconut cookies & pralines. Belinda bought a board of meat, cheese, olives & carrot cake, savored over amaretto spritz's. Then sangrias. Then empanadas to go. 

Said goodbye to Gray who had a place in Alajuela. Culled in the lobby, playing Phase 10 with hotel wine, round of drinks & plantains with dips. Napped while Diva, Belinda & Johann gambled next door (won $500). Shuttled to the airport in kind of a glaze, a trance, narcosis. 

In our travel back we got to hang in the Alaska Lounge in LA en route to Seattle (them dismissing the elitism of 1st class travelers only I guess) and thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of sparkling rosé, lattes, chia pudding, fruit, almond croissants before the trip's true end. 

Addendum: Mid-September we received a call from Costa Rica that our bags had made it there...They shipped it from CR to BLI, and the following week, late at night, we giddily drove to the airport to collect our beloved Hoka bag, which had gone on a vacation for a month and a half.