Up early and breakfasted and out the door, Q dropped off, T dropped off; then Janneke and I threaded our way through the city to find the recycling drop-off spot located near our apartment. Marimer, who rented us the place, told us about it last night, using the map and a pen and everything. Should be a piece of cake.
Drove back through the high-falootin’ high-finance part of town called “la Milla de Oro”, and were duly impressed by the tall buildings and the neckties. And we were apparently so impressed that we (well, I) missed the left turn to the recycling center. And were promptly funneled back onto the highway and out of the neighborhood. So we said “screw it” and drove to Supermax. I left Janneke there to do the shopping, and told her I’d be back directly with the car once I’d found the recycling center. And off I went for the second time.
Driving around San Juan as I have been for the last week or so, a few things have occurred to me. The first is this: I really like salsa. I've found this radio station, 93.7, and it is fan, tastic. The morning guy goes by "El vacilón de la mañana", and he's nation-wide (the nation being Puerto Rico), with callers from Mayaguez, Ponce, Rincón, etc. And he's got a lot of the usual "morning zoo" comedy bits, a lot of discussion with his panel of booth experts on interesting news items of the day, etc. And I get his / their sense of humor. They do a crank call bit, called "Caíste!" (literally, "You fell"; really, something like "We got you"), where people call up and say, "Call my husband, he's really sensitive about (X), make fun of him for it, it'll be great". But somehow, at least the ones I've heard, have been good-natured. Today's was a guy who goes by Boogaloo, and his wife had called them up and told them to call and pretend to be the husband of some neighbor woman, accusing him of having patted her on the behind. (Sounds like there was a running joke between the Mr and Mrs Boogaloo.) So the Vacilón called him, sounding gruff and intimidating, and told him he'd better stop making advances on the neighbor lady. Boogaloo was as calm and cool as could be, and responded by saying, "Look, I don't even know who you are, nor which neighbor lady you're talking about, but I would encourage you to come to our neighborhood you seem to know so well so I can reach down your throat and pull your @#$@# out through your mouth, you @@(#$)(*." (They were beeping like mad on the recorded version they put out over the air.) El vacilón came back with "Maybe I should come by and rip off that mustache you inherited from your mother so I can use it to wipe my !@)(#)". "That would be the first time you ever wiped yourself in your life, you filthy !)@(#*!)"...And these two guys appeared, on some level, to be enjoying the banter, Boogaloo probably thinking it was a wrong number or a case of mistaken identity, and the Vacilón somehow keeping the smile in his voice - and as they progressed, it got more and more light-hearted; finally, the Vacilón said, "Do you ever listen to 'El Vacilón de la mañana...?", and before he could finish, Boogaloo said, with the same smile in his voice, as calm and collected as he had been up to now, "Caí, no cierto? Caí. Estoy empezando a sospechar que caí." (I fell (you got me), didn't I? I fell. I'm beginning to suspect that I fell.) He knew immediately what this was about. And I was laughing like crazy as I drove to pick the kids up, understanding maybe 89% but appreciating all of it.
And on top of that: The salsa music is incredible. I'm gaining a deeper appreciation of it all the time. It's complex, it's tasteful, it's beautifully executed (mostly), it's timeless, and it just makes you feel good. Not angst-ridden, not vindicated, not powerful, not like a superhero - Good. It makes you feel good. There was a piece of "latin jazz" (that's what they called it), just for piano and timbal, that I'm sick to realize I can't remember the title of, that just had me fascinated. I don't have any urge to change the radio station - I don't care about the news, I don't care about the weather. I just want to feel good, and it does it for me.
And then there's the way they drive. Last time we were here, it bothered the heck out of me the way people only took laws and rules half-seriously, nobody signaled, etc. But this time, I've been amazed at how well it works. When we were looking for a place to park near the hyper-crowded beach the other day, we did this little loop several times, and if you came out of Old San Juan onto the bridge that goes to Condado, you were funneled automatically into a lane that was going straight into Condado, making turning back into Old San Juan impossible. You were in a "straight only" lane no matter what you did. The left-turn lane was right there, but the two were separated - you could not get into it. Meanwhile, folks coming from another direction wound up in the "left turn only" lane, both of us at the same light. Something wasn't planned correctly, because huge numbers of us on the right needed to get left, and vice versa. And with nobody signaling and nobody in charge, it just happens: Smoothly, with no nervousness, people let each other get past and in and voila, we're all where we need to be. It's a very intimate, impressionistic, spontaneously choreographed dance we all do, none of us deciding much, and yet everything being decided, and before you know it, the hive mind has worked out the kinks and we're all on our merry way. I find myself letting people in who thrust their nose out ahead of me, where last time, I strove to uphold some sort of allegiance to the law - "No! You don't even bother to signal? No! I won't stoop to this...!" But now I realize that when I need to do it, they bend over backwards to allow me to get where I need to be! Everybody - Everybody - lets you in. Is it because you're threatening to crash into them? Because in some ways, by beginning to poke your nose out in front of them, that's what you are doing. But I don't think it's that - I think everyone is under the assumption that the other person is in a jam, and it costs nothing to let them out of it, so relax, let them in. They'll let you in when you need it. I feel a bit chaotic, driving here, but I do not feel unsafe. Not at all. Am I? Hard to say, I don't know the statistics. But I feel like I get it. I'm in on the system now, in on the joke. I get it.
And I get to listen to salsa.
So, anyway, off to the recycling center. Two wrong turns later, I wound up there, and there it is. Four or five big, green, metal bins for various types of paper, aluminum, and plastic. And, get this: On the entire island, there is no glass recycling. Probably because there’s no glass production anywhere on the island, meaning that there are no glass producers who would save any money by using recycled materials, and broken glass is so damned heavy and difficult to transport, that it isn’t worth anybody’s while to collect it and then ship it across the open sea to someone who does recycle glass. So all the glass we’d accumulated for a little more than a week, we just have to toss in the trash anyway. Ah well.
There’s also no recycling pickup anywhere in the city. If you want to recycle, you fill your trunk with your recyclables and drive to this drop-off site, which looks like it would serve a town the size of Williamstown, and not the city of San Juan. And hey, it’s probably not the only one in town. And it is well-maintained, and some people are definitely using it. But it was a bit depressing nonetheless.
Back to Supermax, where Janneke and I finished shopping; home, where I worked a bit on some things (never you mind), and then off to see the last 30 minutes or so of Q’s soccer camp.
It was raining, so the 11-13 group was in the gym playing “Indor”. Q’s play was definitely lackluster; he was in one of his timid grooves, where he’s a very passive participant in the game, despite his skills. It’s frustrating to watch, I have to say, speaking as a dad who knows first-hand what he’s capable of. But when he’s in one of these moods, there’s no shaking him out of it. Might as well not even try. But in every non-soccer sense, he’s doing phenomenally well there. We watched his team on the bench (again, there were three teams, so at any given time, one wasn’t playing), and he was laughing and joking with teammates, talking about the differences in their shoes, which players weren’t doing what correctly, etc. And then when he went out to play, he was being called out to (they all know his name now), he was calling out, he was responding to directions. One game we saw ended in a tie, so they did penalty kicks; Q was the last to shoot on his side. As he was preparing, I got positively giddy watching teammate after teammate walk up to him, grab him around the shoulders, and whisper advice into his ear, slap him on the back, ruffle the back of his head, etc. He stepped back from the ball, looked at the keeper, looked at he ball; his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh, and he charged and pounded it past the keeper. Jubilation, hugs, fist-bumps. Awesome, awesome stuff. He reported that the day was more fun than yesterday, and went by faster, and that what they told him before the kick was “Tú, tranquilo. Esto ya está hecho. Tranquilo, quieto.” And another was “Pégalo fuerte y pa’l lado, y ya está.” Way, way cool.
T, meanwhile, racks up the friends and the fun. The details are sketchier – I don’t get to go in and see how they do things, I just pick her up and chat a bit with some of her less-shy friends. But I do get to take shots like this:
Victoria, her friend who goes on and on about Clarabelle, is on the right. T doesn't remember the other girl's name, but says she's just as nice. Happy, happy kids. Clarabelle, again, was dropped off happily and picked up happily, none the worse for wear. The counselor told me that at one point another dog had gotten snippy with Clarabelle, and that Clarabelle had put the other dog in its place – no harm, just dogs sorting it out – but that T had seen it, and had cried, saying that she was afraid the other kids wouldn’t like Clarabelle now. But the counselor said she’d called out to the group, “A quién le gusta Clarabelle?” and the whole crowd had shouted, “A MI!” So they were cool.
Home, and Janneke took the kids to the beach while I did some things at home; back together for the late afternoon / early evening for Go Fish and chips & salsa, before supper, dishes, Mr Bean, and bed. And here I am, telling you about it all.
We’re probably going to go away this weekend. We don’t have the car beyond July, so we decided that we have to do whatever out-of-San-Juan traveling we’re going to do on these coming two weekends. Meaning we’re probably going to Rincón, or somewhere similar on the west coast. We’ll put the dog up overnight one night at the facility where she and T are doing camp, and leave plenty of food, water, and kitty litter for an overnight stay for the Skittlemeister. What to do? That’s tonight’s project: Plan it out, make decisions. Got to go strap it on, as it were. Cowboy up. Put on my Dad pants, full of jack-knives and two dollars in change and a thick wallet, adjust my stained white undershirt, and call the shots.
As soon as Janneke’s ready.
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