Is that possibly Clerodendrum Trichotomum, dear?

I never cared much about where and how I fit into Costa Rican society. It was quite clear that we didn’t, even though we seemingly were an integral part of what makes up Costa Rica in this day and age: foreigners looking for a slice of paradise.

Costa Rica is teaming with gold diggers (it’s main gold is real estate), tax and winter refugees, hippies and wannabes, small-time crooks, and a lot of other colorful characters.

We weren’t colorful - not in that way - and we weren’t Costa Rican, although by the time we left, we had a pretty good idea about what that was. We simply were enjoying a time out, a moment in our lives to figure out what exactly it was that we wanted. A little breathing space. Every one should get one.

Raising a family, it is easy to get stuck with mortgages, credit cards, suburban life and bad coffee. And we knew, we didn’t want that.

But we also didn’t want country clubs, Latin American sprawl and one hundred percent hinterland, which altogether to us were ten times worse than all the bugs fluttering and scampering about combined.

Now, however, that we have found what we want, we are faced with a new challenge:
How to fit in.

When faced with seed catalogues, chutney jars and garden shows, I am quite perplexed. I love the beauty of the English landscape, I absolutely adore the seemingly effortless charm of an English garden and nothing is quite as exquisite as a visit to a manor house, be it in Chelsey or Cheshire, where the good life seems to be enshrined forever.

BUT how is one ever going to be all that, unless you are born that way?

Really

Thinking about it, all idealism came to a grinding halt sometime in the 1920s, when Communism turned totalitarian, Fascism entered the living rooms, and the world economies were begging for war fuel. The cynical decades that followed where but a reckoning with human nature. We are after all nothing but the pinnacle of the primate world. Whether we make it to Mars, or turn our garbage into drinking water, we are nothing more than a species concerned with survival. It remains to be seen, who is the fittest.

"Can you get in trouble for that?"

...is what Zoë wondered after she had scanned through my last post. And she is probably right. If anyone actually read my little bits and bites, I would probably receive a lot of hate mail from the Christian Right, including the PR office of Mr. Ratzinger, as well as everyone up and down the Islamic hierarchy...don’t know whether I have offended any Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist....or Jewish person yet, anyway the Mullahs would be up in arms and so would any cookie baking mother, doting husband, and in general people with nothing better to do in life.

So, it’s a good thing Blogspot readers don’t seem to be too aware of this little corner of free speech.

Actually, thinking about it, womazzle was at some point on a black list, I was told by a faithful reader, because when quoting Jules in one of my posts, there was some indecent lingo. I think that’s because I used a word referring to a male appendage used in reproductive efforts. So, yes, I am bad !

Anyway, I like where I am. I do not care enough about this world to climb onto a soap box and holler my wisdom into the noise of traffic or infomercials. Otherwise, I would have done so years ago. I have made my peace with life. No need to struggle much beyond pound cakes and recycling schedules. What I say and write and share with others is just that...me. No need to convert humanity.

Living the good life in one of the most beautiful places left on this planet, I am truly grateful. It is just a shame, not everyone is that fortunate.

For Others

Correct me if I am wrong, but I see some patterns develop in families around midlife, even if at first glance there aren't any visible cracks.

This is how I think it works: Boy meets girl, girl likes boy. Kiss, marriage, baby carriage, the whole works, and suddenly that degree can wait, the job wasn’t really that fulfilling, the hours don’t work out, boy earns more, child care is hard to get by... And all of this is probably true. Sadly so.

What follows is a silent contract, the promise that both sides will fulfill their share in the family enterprise, that they both will keep to their part of the labor contract, because from now on they will inhabit separate work spheres, worlds which will rarely meet.

That requires a lot of trust, maybe even naiveté. Because what will ensue is a sort of schism, a gaping abyss which will prove more and more difficult to bridge as the years pass by and misgivings, spoken or unspoken, will be stock piled behind a façade of good will and determination.

And unfortunately, the big picture doesn’t help either. Because as girl redefines her role in life as one devoted to the well-being of the family, and foremost her offspring, boy defines himself through success measured in power and recognition. And while his position in life will receive bolstering through social bonuses in the shape and form of titles, networks, pensions, and bank accounts, girl will live in the shadow of that plentiful tree and - once again - naively consider half of all this hers.

If she has any wits at all, she may have signed a marital contract, insisted on life insurance, and a separate bank account. But most likely, that sentimental streak in her, that little voice that has told her since she was little that she is special, a princess really, and that nothing bad will happen to her, has silenced all worries and lulled her in a cotton cloud of denial.

As the years go by and the parent evenings, stomach flues and birthday parties start grinding her down, as she realizes that children love their dads just as much as their moms even though they do not help with the homework, pick up the dirty socks, and feed the hamster, they may get a little disgruntled at wiping down toilet seats in the evening, emptying dishwashers in the morning and checking the mail for coupons.

And suddenly, while she is standing there in the kitchen, flipping cheese sandwiches on the griddle, and sunflower oil starts to dot the flabby landscape of her worn out sweater, girl doesn’t look quite that appetizing any more.

Surely, there must be something more to life. In Zoe’s class 6 out of 23 children are raised by their mothers alone. The dads have moved on to greener, lusher grounds. Why get stuck in misery? That’s for others.

Baaah!

Goodie Goodie, ‘half-term’ is just around the corner when school ‘breaks up’ and we get a chance to come up for air from between stacks of cookie sheets and mixing bowls.

However, in light of my rapidly waning enthusiasm for 'special events', I have called off our family trip to Wales since it is not my intention to spend these few precious days messing around with five sets of muddy rain gear in the mournful twilight of late afternoon down poors at the foot of a bleak mountain next to a sheep.

Not so Blissful !

By now, I have figured out a way to produce eight gingerbread houses for the school’s advent fair; and I shrewdly shifted from baking ten bags of cookies to instead preparing ten bottles of flavored oil. That and the raffle for classes K, 2, and 7...and I am way ahead of the game.

Well done, mom. Well done.

In addition, I dutifully put my name down on several rotas for flipping burgers, clean up etc., AND I managed to go to all parents’ evenings as well as one-on-one consultations. I now know everything about my children, including their attitude to ring time and spelt pancakes.

And even though an episode of bronchitis has dragged us all down these past weeks, everyone seems to be upbeat. Instead of being bullied, Zoe now has turned to bullying behavior herself, Lea is successfully conjugating the verb ‘to be’ in her native language, and Julian is no longer crying in afternoon club.

In fact, on my walk back from school this morning, I felt as proud as a parade of prancing peacocks. I had made it through the first weeks of formal schooling, and that, all things considered, relatively unscathed.

After all, there was only one minor run in with the Kindergarten teacher about head lice followed by a talk with the principal about the Kindergarten teacher, and a visit to the school nurse to improve communication with parents on the same issue, which consequently triggered emails of surprising content and a round of fruitful mediation.

And just as I sat down to have breakfast after the early morning school run, the sun light sprinkling the ivory petals of a bunch lilies...,you guessed it...the phone rang and I am informed that class 2 has, indeed, nits.

Oh well, maybe they are going to pass on my memo after all. It is admittedly a rather outstanding piece of prose, rendered in a beautiful albeit somewhat wistful voice. One of my best, really. Here it is, so you know what I have been up to these past weeks:

If, while checking your child’s hair, you find tiny yellowish grains stuck to the hair shafts, it means there are adult lice around. These tiny kernels are so-called NITS and they are the eggs of the head louse.

Sometimes nits are mistaken for dandruff or sand, but unlike dandruff or sand, they are stuck to the hair and can only be removed by sliding them carefully down the hair shaft, one by one.

You will most likely never see a louse scrambling through your child’s hair, because they are good at hiding, but if there are nits there are lice!

Also, importantly, if you find any, please tell everyone, you have been with in the past week, that they need to check as well!! Someone probably does not know they have them, and that’s how you got it.

.....

Try to be thorough, because if a single louse survives, the cycle will start all over again ....