Grin and Pare It

Okay, I brought way more stuff than I should have. More framed photos than I have wall space to hang. Blankets? What was I thinking? Favorite kitchen items I may never use here, but simply could not part with when I packed them. Stuff my mother gave me that I could not imagine giving away, and souvenirs of my travels that still can transport me back to the day I found them. Oh, the pain of editing. I thought I had gotten used to being brutal about what to pack and what to give or sell. This is cutting a little close to the bone...

The sala, or living room, is full of boxes at the moment, and my bedroom is not fit to be seen until I get a hamper. So I focus here on the veranda, where I plug in my computer, take my meals, and sit at night listening to the surf just below the garden wall. That row of pots just beyond the hammock is the line of demarcation between my porch and the landlords'.

Brynn is recovering her joie de vivre, and using her hind leg little by little. Here she is, chilling with Rasta, next to a cool seat just handcrafted by Mike, using rebar and a fanny-shaped stone he found on the beach.

In front of the house, a casita, or bodega, as Mike and Beth call it, houses a freezer and a washing machine. The automatic dryer flanks my apartment, strung up between two trees.

During my layover in Fort Worth en route to Managua, brother Bobby fashioned a little bowl out of canary wood on his lathe. Pretty nifty repository for my precious limes, essential for wonderful pico de gallo!

Tomorrow, the wife of the groundskeeper Salvador will come to mop the floors. They live with several children in a small house in a corner of the property. So, even when I am here alone, I am not alone. I'll probably go to Diriamba tomorrow to buy some hooks and some chicken. I love fish, but five days in a row is about my limit.