Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   a whale and some hermit crabs
Wednesday, February 8 2023

high up a hill just northwest of the center of Santa Teresa, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica

Gretchen had the air conditioning running so cold during the night that at some point (and it must've been very early in the wee hours) I left the bedroom and went out to attempt to sleep on the more distant of the day beds. At that hour, a whole crop of stars had rotated up into visibility, and I saw four that formed a distinct cross of the kind that is completely absent from the skies visible in the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Initially I thought this must be the Southern Cross (and it might well have been). But then, looking around, I saw several other cross-like asterisms (some of which actually overlapped with this one). All I know for sure was that I was looking at an unfamiliar part of the celestial dome, though it's not as though I'd never seen it before.

It being the last Wednesday of the scrum sprint (that's workplace jargon in case you didn't know), I began the day with a french press of coffee and a recreation 150 mg dose of pseudoephedrine. And indeed I took it for largely recreational reasons, as I didn't have much I needed to do today.
Throughout the day, I noticed that Joe the Lead Developer was less jokey and communicative than usual. I attributed this to him being irked by the company's apparent plans to clamp down on remote working by employees in the Boston area. But he might've also been annoyed that I'm now working from Costa Rica. He tends to have a leftie outlook on the world, and I frequently chime in with supportive reactions to his socialist-tinged comments. But perhaps I'd shown myself to be just another member of the 5% (if not 1%) unfairly advantaged by American society. It's not as if I haven't hinted at my unusual financial security in the past: the rental houses, the numerous visits to distant points on the globe, and the existence of a vacation home. But my working from Costa Rica is a harder thing to simply shrug off.

Though the stools are uncomfortable, sitting at the island in the outdoor kitchen area provides amazing panoramic views of the ocean. I've been enjoying watching the occasional appearance of large ships, which then move very slowly across the vast expanse that I can observe. This morning I saw some churning in the water several miles away and wondered if I was looking at someone who had decided for some reason to do donuts in a jet ski out on the open ocean. But then I saw something big come out of the water and smash back down with a massive splash. It was black and white, so I was sure it was an orca. But when I told my colleagues about it, they apparently did some quick research to suggest it was more likely to be a humpback whale. The black could've been its body and they white might've just been spray. I was, after all, watching it with my unaided eyes from miles away. I had presence of mind to grab a camera and start snapping pictures, hoping the whale would jump out of the water again. But the best picture I managed to take involved a cloud of steam exhaled from a blow hole.

I made myself a gin-based drink for the sprint retrospective, which wasn't too different from the usual despite the fact that something was clearly making Joe the Lead Developer much quieter than usual. Gretchen arrived home from language school near the end of the retrospective and I joined her (as usual) in the pool to debrief. She's now paying someone to drive her home after school, and that person drives her all the way up to April's gate, so Gretchen is no longer completely spent by the time she gets home.

This evening Gretchen and I went out for dinner to Muzza, a pizza place that makes a sourdough crust and has a vegan option involving cashew cheese. On the way down into town, we had to latch April's gate behind us because it's still broken. And then we almost fell on our asses a few times just from the steepness of the grade. It was a little before 6:00pm and the sun was low enough in the sky that it wasn't a problem. It was actually a beautiful time to be walking around. Fortunately also, traffic on Calle Cóbano was relatively light, meaning we didn't have to dodge too many vehicles or breathe all that many fumes.
Unfortunately Muzza was out of cashew cheese, but they had a backup: some sort of tofu crumble that worked well enough. The truth of the matter was that it made little difference what was put on the crust because it was delicious no matter what. It had little burn marks and fun inconsistencies of thickness, and the mushroom they used on the vegan pizza were amazing. Gretchen also ordered a salad, and it came in a bowl big enough to make a horse happy. It was also liberally sprinkled with almonds and chickpeas, making it a meal in itself. The pizzas themselves are kind of small, and initially we tried to order two. We only ever got one, but that proved sufficient. Gretchen also ordered a glass of pinot noir and I, of course, ordered an Imperial. (Muzza has IPAs on the drink menu, but I was skeptical of those.)
We were among the first to arrive for dinner, but by the time we left, Muzza was pretty crowded (nearly all the diners were gringos) and a band was setting up. Gretchen is already able to identify the body type of a female surfer: they tend to be solid and skinny, likely because of the workout they're constantly giving their core.
We walked southeastward from Muzza looking for supermarket so I could get a few provisions. It took awhile before we came to one: Super Rony (also spelled Super Ronny). It was a pretty ghetto store by the standards of the ones we'd been to, but at 7:30pm it had long lines of deeply-tanned white people buying small things. I was hoping to find antacids and maybe peanut butter. But it doesn't seem as though supermarkets sell antacids and the peanut butter, at least in this store, contains unwanted ingredients such as palm oil and sugar.
We took the first access path to the beach that we managed to find and then walked out to the surf. Initially I used my phone as a flashlight, and when we got to the beach itself, we saw it swarming with hermit crabs. Since hermit crabs all outfit themselves with different shells, the scene was much more diverse than swarming creatures normally appear. It was impossible to walk anywhere without stepping on them, so hopefully their shells provided them protection. It's difficult to find the alleyways back to Calle Cóbano from the beach at night, though there seemed to be a groups of people hanging out on the edge of the beach near the alleys at the two we used (both the one we took to the beach and the one we took away from it).


Some sort of whale offshore exhaling a cloud of steam.


A great-crested flycatcher (I think).


April put fresh fruit in our refrigerator before we arrived. These included mangos, a pineapple, limes, lemons, and this. This fruit is mostly empty with fibrous husk and seeds in a grey slimy material that looked rotten. But it didn't smell rotten and had a slightly sweet taste. I couldn't figure out any use for it, so I tossed it into the weeds for the wildlife to enjoy.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?230208

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