And then, she woke up...

 After ten interminable months in quarantine, not to mention four years of trumpian tyranny, something finally made me feel like posting anew. Nothing special has happened to warrant this sudden and unexpected turn, save for a technological earthquake of sorts, for the better. My online life of the past two years has been limited to the snail-speed of a used HP mini-laptop I purchased when my other machine died. Not only was it used, it was used in Spanish, and though it converted to English with little fuss, the keyboard functions were unfamiliar to me. Although I did eventually sort out semi-colons and dashes, parentheses and slashes, I never felt unconstrained by my clumsy fingerings and those exhausting delays, waiting for pages to load, or websites to appear. I dare not estimate how many days, nay months, of my now-limited life I have wasted watching the little round loading arrow spin and spin and spin.

My plumeria blossoms -- Sacuanjoches - were wonderful in 2020!

Yesterday, masked and washed, I ventured out to Managua for the first time since last February. I needed to visit the Office of Immigration to inquire about renewing my five-year residency, which expires this April. (Where have these five years gone already?) My wonderful driver Julio -- who has ferried me to the bank, the grocery, and the electric company since last March, (when riding the bus became dangerous to health) -- took me and my lawyer Noel to Imagracion, then to Wal-Mart to pick up duct tape and light bulbs, and then to Metro-Centro, the big shopping mall in the old downtown section that had been leveled by the 1971 earthquake. Metro-Centro is a popular site for demonstrations, which sometimes turn violent. Except that now a daily presence of riot police with shields and guns are on prominent display at the entrance. So, no demonstrations yesterday, but I did finally break down and buy a new computer. More on that in a minute. We capped off the visit to Managua with a rum-and-Coke-fueled lunch with my friends Ivan and Erlinda, whom I have missed for the past year of enforced solitude. What joy, to laugh and talk and catch up on news. I had almost forgotten how nice it is to visit a restaurant and meet up with good friends. It rocks, really! Lordy, I hope Covid did not find me...

Then this morning, I rediscovered the dizzy delight of surfing from one site to another in the blink of an eye, of listening to NPR without losing the audio everytime I added a tab or opened a document. Oh, how I have missed the ease of connection I now enjoy. And I have shelved the replacement keyboard I've had to use since the HP mini's gave out a year ago. And all of a sudden I felt like expressing myself a little. I have no idea if this impulse will last, but for the moment, I almost feel as if I have something to say. 

Stay tuned?