The Itsy Bitsy Spider

You can do a lot in a Nica day...
Its 9/11, everyone has sufficiently paid respects using social networks for their medium of choice. The history sucks, we can only keep walking forward, and we will NEVER FORGET.

Today began early, it was hot, no matter how close I position my stand up fan to my face its still hot...I don't know how Boston does it.  I was skyping with my parents last night and my mom asked me to take her through a typical day, so I'll write about today.  Between the hour of 9 am and 10 am I woke and stretched, sliced a mango I had chilled in the fridge overnight, walked Boston, cleaned my little apartment, threw on a bathing suit and headed towards the beach.  @ 10 I met up with a friend by the Barrio Planta Project- la escuela where she is the director (and I am currently volunteering.)  Anyways, clouds were being weird- happens in rainy season- so we walked through town, and grabbed a coffee for 5 cords.  Sat in a shaded area down one of the streets and caught up.  The power and water went out this morning so going to the beach would have been a hot and sticky mess altogether.  Walked back through town and went to the little town bibliotecha.  I love libraries, small, big, old, fancy, doesn't matter.  It's the smell of library books that gets me I think :) Got a library card, note that all the books have that little white sheet with the handwritten due date on the inside front cover still, that brought me back to a happy place.  Checked out 3 books, 'The Skeptic's Guide to The Adventures of Life,''ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN,'& a James Patterson book (which is exciting in itself finding one I haven't read).  Headed to see where a friend's place (hidden behind a restaurant in town).  The storefronts here are so deceiving, I always wondered where the 18,000 people were that Wikipedia said were living in San Juan del Sur.  There are so many hidden mini-streets, apartments, rooms, hallways, winding stairways, its like a whole other secret life.  Like Diagon Alley in Harry Potter (yet not as posh).  Headed to the beach for an hour or so after that.   The sky looked amazing, its been ever since the earthquake that the clouds have been super weird here, oh well.  Read for a bit then headed home.  Water has turned back on but electricity was still out...warmed some gallo pinto on the gas top and had a lunch with a Cat Stephens soundtrack.  Found a classified ad for a job at a surf shop down the beach, went there to apply.  Seems once again that I need to learn Spanish asap because they wouldn't hire someone who wasn't bilingual.  Met Marlon at Gato Negro, local /coffee house/for some reason they have geese in a large pen out back.  Caught up.  Walked to town to see about finding a dog groomer, no luck, poor little lion, I might have to become brave and give being the groomer another attempt.  Poor little lion.  Power turned back on.  Came back home, caught up online with some things, headed up the mountain to visit my friend's new apartment.  Caught up, relaxed a bit, he was making beans, I picked some limes from the tree nearby, and we set up some of his college work that I am going to be helping with.  Left in search of a lemon tree that's rumored to be near the Zen Yoga studio, I have so many things I want to cook with lemon zest and juice, but all they seem to have here is limes, though they are called limons. No such luck.  Just got back to my place and have an hour before sunset.  That's the one thing we never miss, sunset on the beach.  Boston loves this time of day, its wicked beautiful to see, and he runs and prances and gets ridiculously dirty and dreaded in sand but like I said- its his favorite time each day.   He will sit up right in front of me wherever I am and give me that cocked head 'I know I'm cute as hell' look right about this time and be stoked up until we leave and throughout.  So there's a day so far, its not even 5pm, I usually work at the school for a few hours but there was no water or electricity for most of the day.  Welcome to Nicaragua.

On the beach earlier I began reading the book, 'ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN,' by Robert Fulghum today and he wrote about the children's song 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider.' The spider always gets right back up and heads back up that spout, no matter how many times he gets washed down, he just gets up and keeps on.  Puts things into perspective. Thought I'd share.