A Post Is A Post Is A Post

...no matter how crummy. Quick! There's no time! Show the pictures!



Visited El Morro castle with the kids. This is the inside.



Near there, there's this fountain, designed for kids to frolic about in. We brought towels and bathing suits so they could do that.











Project churns along swimmingly, with occasional glitches, mostly technical, some interpersonal. It's good, hard work, that I find satisfying and intriguing, and I ain't done with it yet. Don't really feel comfortable describing it, lest I tender a trap for m'self - write a check my butt can't cash, as it were. I'll just say this: You will all be amazed by the most amazing thing I have ever produced in my life apart from my children.

But I don't want to hype it.

And I will say this: I met a man today who is one of the most amazing whistlers I have ever heard.

Enough - I've said too much.

Q got another sea urchin spine in his foot today - we tried to buy swimmy shoes for him before this very trip to the beach, but the Walgreen's didn't have his size. Remedied it at Supermax post-facto. He's got them now, just in time never to need them again. 'Course, how will we know? The spines will just bounce off his shoes if he finds any urchins.

Going to see Harry Potter tonight - Janneke and Q have been letting bits of information slip, so I need to remedy the situation.

Off to watch the first 30 minutes or so of the first "Mr Bean" movie. Yep. They're that desperate.

Hasta pronto!

Whoah - I'm back. Watched "Harry Potter". Well-made film, gripping and exciting. I expected more in the way of sacrifice, I have to say. But I've probably said too much.

Y'know what I notice? Puerto Ricans respect the holy !@$#@ out of lines. Get in a line anywhere, and Puerto Ricans do not, repeat, do NOT elbow their way in or let their friends in at the very front of the line or jump the ropes and dare you to call them on it. Unlike Mexico and Ecuador, and even much of Europe. I find that very comforting and homey.

I keep hearing salsa songs on the radio that I really like - I think, "Hey, that's dramatic, textured, intriguing, clever" - I quick whip out a pad and paper and write down a couple of lines of the lyrics so I can look them up later. Then I go home, and I find them, and they're all by the same guy! Here are a couple:





Hector Lavoe. Genius. He may have operated in the seventies, and worn unfortunate glasses and hairstyles, but he's my latest definition of genius. Though some of his lyrics are a titch mysoginistic.

OK, OK, so I misspelled it. Don't get your panties in a wad.

Dang...Went out to see the movie and now I can't fall asleep. It's almost 1:00 AM - what am I going to do?

Beer?

That's so crazy, it just might work. To the kitchen!

Pets Go Bananas; Owners, Less So

I did project stuff all morning and part of the afternoon yesterday. Spent the time talking with a butcher at the Santurce market, seeing how his day goes from beginning to end. (It was a half day, due to a holiday, so we were able to see a condensed version.) Interesting to see how much alcohol some folks can put away in the course of a morning. Hard-working folks, but jeepers, that work apparently needs a fair amount of lubrication.

Thence came I home, and met up with the family at the beach, where we spent some time in the waves. Lots of people there, but we hit the beach at our usual spot and went left, away from the crowds. Once you go left, you get into a portion where the bottom of the near-shore area gets a bit rocky (thank you, swimmy shoes!), and is so less attractive to most folks. The beach also ends at a rocky promontory, such that there are no people at all coming from the rocky direction. This makes for a very depopulated strand, which we took advantage of to let Clarabelle romp as she might like. She pretty much bothered no one. The only trouble with that part of the beach is that it's at the western end of a long (more than a mile) stretch of beach, and the wind and waves are set on a permanent east-to-west slant, such that all the garbage from that mile of beach that doesn't sink to the bottom eventually winds up there. I think there's less garbage on the beach in general than there was four years ago, but there are an awful lot of plastic cups lying about when we get out there. I usually spend the first ten minutes picking up our immediate area - otherwise, I just can't enjoy myself. I usually find a plastic bag or two among the detritus and use them, and get about a pillow case worth, volume wise. A sad duty, but one I perform without complaint.

(For the record, the present document does not constitute a complaint.)

Home, where we played a game the kids bought at Border's (which is shutting down, apparently? Globally? Had no idea!), had supper, hung out and read together a while, and then settled in for bed. (I did dash out to Best Buy at one point in search of a simple clip-on microphone, to no avail. Drat.) Janneke and I then watched the last two episodes of Friday Night Lights, and hit the hay.

Up around 7:30 to go spend the day again on project stuff; I did that until about 3:00. I was interviewing / filming my friend Basilisa, who owns the botánica, as she went about her work day. Big fun. Back to the beach, where I met up with the fam and found this awaiting me:



His name is Benjamín, and he is a Shar Pei. Which some of you know is the breed of dog my family had when we kids were in high school. I told his owner (a nice Colombian-Belgian woman) his name should actually be "Benacá" because he's so irresistible. God only knows how she gets rid of all the sand you can see getting trapped in the wrinkles.

(By the way, the Puerto Ricans call the sea grass that accumulates on the beach "pelo" (hair).)

So, now we're home again, after a supper of leftovers. T is writing a story about a young blue whale named Christine who has two domineering older brothers and who shows them, with the help of Wom, her friend the hermit crab, that even though she's extraordinarily small for a blue whale, she has a mind that's bigger than either of theirs. Q is elbow-deep into reading "The Hunger Games", and claims to love it. "I could read it all in one stretch if I didn't have to go to bed," he says.

Nothing planned for tomorrow - Janneke's going to take the day to work, so it'll be me and the kiddles. We might hit Old San Juan and the Morro castle, which the kids want to tour; might go out to Piñones, an area near San Juan that lots of natives keep telling us we should visit. I'll decide in the morning, I think.

Meantime, here's a couple of pics:




The pets test the limits of society's willingness to accept their love and enjoy each other's company. I think Clarabelle kind of imposed herself, and Skittles was too sleepy to do much about it. Which is pretty high praise from a cat.



Here's the guilty moment after the passion wears off. (Again: For a cat, "passion wearing off" = waking completely up.)



Well, almost completely. (Q took this shot!)



Clarabelle, still feeling dirty. (Another Q opus.)

Least Interesting Post Ever

Well, at least I'm honest.

As planned, Janneke did her thing this morning, and then around 10:00, we switched off, and I did mine. Went to the Santurce market and talked with all the folks I want to work with on my project, the exact parameters of which I'll make more known at a later date. Basi, the woman who runs the botánica, had her daughter there with her this afternoon, who's very spiritual, like she is, and appears to go in for a whole lot of stripes of mumbo-jumbo. (Which I mean in the nicest of ways.) As we were chatting, her daughter asked me, kind of out of nowhere, "Do you do yoga?"

"No," I said. "Why?"

"Because your aura is so clean and bright."

Probably the second-nicest thing anybody's ever said to me.

So I was working on project stuff until close to 4:00, when Janneke and the kids got home from the Childrens' Museum in San Juan. Q and T gave me extremely lengthy and detailed debriefings, on any number of exhibits and challenges they offer there. It's on the most beautiful street on Earth, as you can find if you go back a few entries in this blog to the last time we were here 4 years ago. They had a hell of a good time.

We all hit the beach to decompress from the day, then home - where I contributed panapén as the starch portion of the evening meal. The kids love it (as much as one can love a potato substitute), and it filled us all up right nice-like. Felt good to contribute positively to dinner for a change.

Chats, Mr Bean, and bed. Another relaxing but productive day in San Juan.

Man - hardly even worth posting this. Tell you what: I won't brag it up on Facebook. That should keep the expectations to a reasonable level.

Relaxation. Recreation. Preparation. And Trivia.

Not too much time again - it's late; we just watched "Kingdom of Heaven" with Q. Fun but frustrating experience - he got it clear who were the Muslims about 3/4 through the movie. Hey, he's a kid, I guess. Should be expected.

Here are some pictures from the day, which was spent in a leisurely fashion - beach in the morning, combined with pigeon feeding; late lunch; I took a run, then we all walked to a local park (beautiful) so the kids could ride their scooters. Janneke power-walked the perimeter of the park while I sat on a bench and petted Clarabelle; Janneke used T to ferry trivia questions to me, and I would send back my answers. "What's the capital of Ukraine?" "What are the colors of the Belgian flag?"

I countered by using Q to send trivia questions to her. "What breed of horse is the heaviest horse ever?" "What living land animal is the closest relative of whales?" It was a very pleasant half-hour for all concerned.

Though strangely, the lizards that used to populate that park appear to have disappeared. I see them all over the place in other parts of the city, in people's yards, etc., but that park has lost them. It worries me.

Bought some ice cream at Walgreen's, walked home, Janneke made supper, we ate it pleasantly, and T then collapsed into bed, so we threw in the movie. T walked back out to try to worm her way into watching it an hour or so later, but she was put back to bed. A little too gory.

I also bought some swim shoes at Walgreen's. Janneke got some sea urchin spines in her foot yesterday (forgot to mention that) and has been limping since - too deep to dig out, not painful enough to go to the doctor. Today she's a lot better - mostly her calf is sore from walking to protect her heel (where the spines are) from the ground. She's had them, Q's had them - I run barefoot. I can not get sea urchin spines in my foot. I now have swim shoes. The look sort of kung-foo-ey and yet, strangely effeminate. I figure: I have a beard, and I'm bald. That evens it out.

Tomorrow I hit the market again, all day if I have to, as of about 10:00 AM. Janneke is going to go do some "work" at Starbuck's in the early morning to free up my schedule. WIsh me luck.

All right, all right, quit yer caterwaulin'. Here's some dang pictures.



Q and T feed the pigeons before hitting the beach.



"What is this thing? It rolls - and yet, it tears apart when you bite it, and it tastes of delicious fibrous plant life! Just like a stick!"



"Is it a stick? Is it a ball? My God - It's some kind of wonderful, magical.....Stick-ball! It's the greatest, most fabulous object I've ever laid my teeth into!"



"Arraraaargharahhkkkaraaakkh."

Snap-Happy Pappy Snaps Hapless Papooses

OK - The last entry was kind of a downer, and was pretty text-heavy. I mean, the deaths, the carnage, the orphans...What, you didn't read that one? Boy, you missed it. Go check it out. But for this one, I'll keep the kids out there smilin' with a lot of photographic evidence of our latest hijinks.



Clarabelle, after a full morning of fun at the beach. Plum tuckered.



Skittles, after three solid weeks of napping. Still hasn't quite caught up.



The El Morro castle, where everyone goes to fly kites, and where we went with that same object in mind. And here are a bunch of pictures thereof - too many for me to come up with clever captions for them all. In fact, I probably could have stopped that last segment after the word "many". I went a little nuts. Bear with me:










By the way, those are the shorts Q won as "Player of the Week" at soccer camp. They're silky.






One of the plazas near El Morro in Old San Juan has this fountain in it, designed specifically for kids (and adults) to run through and scream. It shuts off every few minutes, which makes the times it turns on again very scream-worthy. Probably not a coincidence.




This is Charlie Chaplin imitator in Old San Juan. She was excellent - people were fascinated by her.



Including our kids.

Saturday-Sunday: Boremageddon

Goodness - Skipped another one. Last night was kind of a blur. I tried to go see Harry Potter at 9:25, but the line was unbelievably long. Puerto Ricans love to go to movies as late as possible, it seems - the lines were kind of long when we went to the 6:25 showing the other day, but nothing like this. I showed up, waited in line to get cash (the movie theater in the mall only takes cash), and then said "Screw it" and went home. So I got in late and went straight to bed.

'Cuz I was up this morning at 4:30 again to go film the sunrise on the face of the Santurce market that the sun actually hits. Got there on time (barely) to film the first lights coming on inside, but I was jiggling my tripod around when they went on (D'oh!) and settled on a spot that, once the sun was fully up, turned out not to be as nice as the one I had started in. Drat. And the day dawned overcast, so the sun never directly struck the face of the building, which I was shooting for. I'll try again Tuesday, 'cuz it's closed tomorrow.

Yesterday? Wow, kind of hard to recall. We did household chores in the morning, lunched, and hit the beach, I think - yep, that's it. Though I did take a run right before lunch, which was nice. Hot, but nice.

I also did a recycling run, and on the way I listened to 94.3, I believe, which is a regaetón station. Those of you who don't know what regaetón is, listen up: It's a new-ish form of urban music that was born in Puerto Rico and involves a mixture of Caribbean-style rap beats and sort of hypnotic, repetitive, Jamaican-influenced melodies. Four years ago, every single regaetón song sounded exactly alike, but now, it's really grown up, and there are complicated melodies and downright thoughtfully produced, nifty arrangements of beats that still qualify enough as regaetón to be played on this station. And then there was
this song. It's very funny - it's a long list of silly, ridiculous things that the singer can supposedly do - things like "I can cross all of the borders and don't need a visa, I finally got a decent smile out of Mona Lisa," etc. "For you - Everything I do I do it for you..." That's the refrain. I found it wonderful, came home, and found it on iTunes.

The song itself is played on ukelele, with the slide guitar as a key element, all Hawaiian-style; and I suspect that they just didn't know how to end the song, so they had it end with the gunshot and the sound of a breaking ukelele string, and then called it "Death in Hawaii" because of the ending. The video? Well, if you have a song strangely titled "Death in Hawaii", that actually has nothing to do with death, what are you supposed to do? So they do this video of two of the band members as a couple being gunned down on a beach in Hawaii. At the end, it says "25,000 dolphins a year - eventually, they were going to get their revenge." Apparently they just shrugged and said "Look, the title is a joke anyway - Let's turn the video into a joke / protest about the massacre of dolphins, which is another thing we don't like." I like that kind of thinking.

I researched the group a bit: Puerto Rican, called Calle 13, and they achieved notoreity for writing a song in 2005 as a reaction to the death, at the hands of the FBI, of Filiberto Ojeda, a nationalist resistance leader in Puerto Rico. I had no idea - I'm listening to the song as I write this for first time. It's a rap, and I suspect I'm going to get a looooot of mileage out of it in class. And out of Calle 13 in general.

And then, around 4:00, I departed to go to the market and chat with my friends there, including Basi, the owner of the botánica, who was very happy to see me and chatty, and who agreed to let me film her store and interview her all I like. Great. Also met Oscar, who does spiritual consults there on Saturdays, and his mother Aleira. Great people who are form the area where we spent last weekend.

Back home, supper, after-dinner reading for the kids, and then we settled in to watch "The Mask of Zorro"'. And I left at 9:00 to go see the movie.

So, was this our least interesting day yet? Possibly.

This afternoon we're thinking of going to fly kites near El Morro, the old fort in Old San Juan. And the dryer dial broke, so we got no dryer. And that's the end of the news. Hasta luego, mis amores!

Zig-Zagging About San Juan: I Am Officially Good At It

What a day what a day what a day. Here's the best I can do to relate it:

Up at 4:30 to go film the sunrise at the Santurce Market Place. I wanted to get there to film the doors opening, but the doors were already kind of open when I got there. Still, I found a great spot and set up the tripod and got about an hour and a half of footage of the place as the sun lit up the sky. That's how long the battery lasts, turns out.

Back home to drive in with Janneke to get the kids to camp, and to stop at Best Buy on the way back and get more video cassettes. Janneke realized halfway there that if I was going, there was no need for her to go, and she could have stayed home and gotten work done. Hadn't occurred to me, either.

The whole thing was made triply ridiculous by the fact that Best Buy doesn't open until 10:00.

But before we found that out, we dropped off the kids and were saddened to see them trundle off happily, confidently, no-problem-at-all-to-be-walking-through-palm-trees-and-spend-the-day-among-non-English-speakers. We are ever so glad we did this, and eager to find more options for them for the coming weeks. Though it's turning out to be tough. There is one woman who's willing to give T four hours a day of baking lessons, but it would be one-on-one, and it's the interaction with the kids that's the most useful. Plus, four hours alone with any adult would start feeling like a job really quick. So I spent some of the rest of the morning calling places and trying to find out options. Got a few messages in; I'll give them another jingle tomorrow. I also called the San Juan Parque Central, a gigantic, new, wholly pre-apocalyptic park complex that apparently was meant to take over for the one we visited a couple weeks ago. But the guy seemed not to be quite all there; lots of grunted, one-word answers, with little or no follow-up information. I decided I would have to drive there myself and actually talk to someone.

I also walked back to the park and chatted with Basi a bit, but she was so busy I couldn't get a decent moment to ask if she'll let me interview her and film her store. But tomorrow's another day.

But first, Janneke and I went off to see Q at his last day of soccer camp. We got there in time to watch about 45 minutes of the end-of-the-week slugfest among the three five-man teams to determine the champions of the week. We watched a few short games, and Q was downright ferocious for most of it. In fact, over the end of one game, which his team won 2-0, and the second, which his team won 3-0, Q had one assist - and four, consecutive, goals. Including one that - Well, let me describe it: Q received the ball at midfield and zigged and zagged into the corner, where he tried to center the ball. It was kicked into the air by a defender near him; Q ran under it, headed it over the defender, ran around him, and found himself with the ball coming down toward him and the goalie charging. Before it could hit the ground, he popped it into the air again, over the arms of the leaping goalie - and into the net on the far side. The whole crowd of kids, on both teams and the team that wasn't playing, erupted in shouting; the coaches put their hands on their heads or slapped at the air helplessly; Q ran and slid on both knees, arms splayed the sides, and screamed, and was mobbed by teammates - and a 13-year-old from the team not playing, who lifted him in the air and carried him around the field for a bit, hollering.

The players all gathered around the coaches at the end, not leaving the field; unlike last week, we were the only parents who'd showed up to see the end of the week. There was talking, a lot of high-fiving, and when it was all over, Q came away with a little bag containing a pair of soccer shorts. One of the other kids reached us at the fence before Q did and told us with a grin:

"Q fue el jugador de la semana."

What a fantastic end to a fantastic experience. Here are some pics:



Q and Alejandro, a boy he got on really well with, who was on his team and who kept coming by to high-five Q and say "Bye" one last time. And one more. And one more. You could tell that each was very sorry to see the other disappear over the horizon.




Q and a couple other boys, all signing each other's SPADI camp balls. Not sure who's on the left, Giovan on the right.

Dropped Janneke and Q at home, and headed straight back out to Best Buy, and thence to T's camp.

Where I finally bullied my way past the barricades and got in to see what some of the inside of this delightful camp looked like. Behold:



One of T's friends singing in the camp-ending talent show.



T in the audience, cheering her on.



T in her starring role as the wolf for their re-telling of the Three Little Pigs. In Puerto Rico, the first house is straw ("paja") - but the second is of wood ("madera"), and the third is of concrete ("cemento", which is technically not correct, but is what they said).



T and her friends, and one of the counselors, who really pretty much ran the show.



T at the final sign-out. What a sad moment!

I watched the theatrical production (I sneaked out one minute before the end of the second one, to go see the parrot they have in a cage (it's the same species as the wild escapees we saw a couple weeks ago), and got busted by T, who broke down and accused me of not watching her shows. "I did! I did!" I said, and qucikly re-told the plot of both, and held up the camera to show her the photos and prove it. She bought it. ('Cuz it was true.)) Then I helped T carry out all her booty (they're big on giving prizes at this camp), collected the dog, and headed home.

But not before swinging by the Parque Central, so I could talk to someone other than whoever that monosyllabic dude had been on the phone. Found the office of the Natatorium - the largest outdoor pool I have ever seen, a gorgeous, multi-million-dollar facility that would be the envy of any city, anywhere - and walked to the front desk.

Where there sat a young man - the same one I'd talked to on the phone - with spiked hair, a yellow polo shirt, and Down's syndrome.

I felt awful. He was pretty clear about there not being any options, but when he allowed me and T to go through to the pool area so she could use the bathroom, I checked with a couple of other people.

The guy had been right: No organized classes or anything until August 15th. Shoot. And damn me to hell for doubting him.

Collected Clarabelle (we'd left her tied at the front, where we could still see her through the glass - What, do you think I'd leave her in the car? Or tied up where we couldn't see her? Sheesh! What next...!), drove home, and pretty much piled back into the car - by now, it was 4:30 - to go out for dinner and a movie.

T ate Burger King; I had "La vaquita frita", which is not a dish, it's a Cuban restaurant chain. I had the "mofongo relleno de ropa vieja". Literally, that's mofongo - a banana-based dish of unimaginable deliciousness - filled with, literally, "old clothes". Which turns out to be their funny name for pulled pork.

And speaking of pulling: T lost a tooth while we ate! She worked it and worked it, and took the advice of a family nearby, who told her to grab it with a napkin and twist it until it came out. We all applauded when it finally did. Janneke and Q ate somewhere else, closer to the theater; their start time was about twenty minutes earlier than ours, so they didn't really have time to walk all the way back to the food court.

Janneke and Q saw "Harry Potter"; T and I saw "Zookeeper". T said that it was the best movie she had ever seen.

I would not go quite that far.

But it did make me laugh. And T insisted on sitting in the very front row, so it was a pretty neck-stiffening experience for me.

Get this: Two previews before the movie, and TWENTY-TWO COMMERCIALS! Something is wildly out of whack in San Juan in that department. I wanted to burn the place down before they finally showed me some Kevin James riding an ostrich.

Home, where T wrote the tooth mouse (our version of the fairy) a four-frickin'-page letter before turning in.

OK - Off to a well-earned and much-needed shower, and then to bed. Won't be getting up at 4:30 tomorrow. Won't do that again until probably Monday.

Banzai!