Gerry Goes to Court

Well, Gerry got back from New Orleans with his business suit alright. He brought back one suit, dress shoes, black socks, 3 ties (from which he can choose depending on his mood) and one shirt. That is correct. He only brought back ONE SHIRT.

Today and tomorrow he meets privately with his defense team: three lawyers and four corporate ‘suits’ who came from the Head Office to help plan the defense strategy and serve as witnesses. Today’s meeting takes places at the corporate offices and tomorrow they all meet again at the office of one of his Costa Rican attorneys. On Wednesday they all go to court together and defend Gerry before a Costa Rican judge.

Which day to you think Gerry is going to wear his ONE SHIRT? You got it – when the whole parade of ‘suits’ marches into the Costa Rican Tribunals on Wednesday morning.

So today, he put on his jeans and Bahamian silk shirt as usual. The only item of clothing he lacked for the ‘retired man’ picture, was his Panama hat, which is in storage. So how do you imagine all those hard-working lawyers and corporate guys responded to Gerry’s outfit?

And not to mention Gerry’s New Freedom Attitude:

“Hey! Great to see you! How’s the weather up there in New Jersey? Retirement is great! I’m busy remodeling the Costa Rica house but made time to travel to our flat in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Actually, my primary purpose of going up there was to pick up one of my suits for our court appearance this week! Fat Tuesday was just a coincidence but hey, what a riot that was – parties of all sorts going on all over and what parades –Orpheus was the best parade by far for the floats! But Zulu was the most fun…then there were all those wild and silly costumes on Bourbon Street…and what a racket the crowds made… you couldn’t hear your cellular after 5PM … and then the cocktails and galas….and on Ash Wednesday, I jumped back on a plane to reach Costa Rica in time for this strategy session here with all of you nicely dressed gentlemen.”

Meanwhile, for all of us tree gazers, we’re in the middle of high flowering season. All you have to do is look out the window to see the spectacle – that is if you live in Costa Rica. Otherwise, go the Elmundoforestal.com to take a look at the pictures. It is just a glorious sight outside:

In bloom you have both Poro species blazing up the highways around Escazu over to Uruca with orange blooms both bright and lighter colored. Poro (Erythrina lanceolate) and Poro Gigante (Erythrina poeppigianao) species are mixed together over there but Poro Gigante predominates over at the Rodeo coffee fields. Also in bloom are the incredible Tabebuias. What a show! Both the Cortez amarilla (T. Ochracea) and the Roble Sabana (T. rosea are brightening up the terrain with a canopy full of pink and yellow blooms. You can also see the scattered, more open blooms of the Poroporo (Cochlospermum vitifolium) and the streetside yellow Oleander. Also, due to the rain we got 10 days ago, the coffee fields have all burst into bloom, filling the air with the sweet aroma of coffee flowers. And that’s just the trees! The flowering shrubbery lining the roadsides have burst into riotous colors with bougainvillea stealing the show.

The colorful spectacle is kind of like a Mardi Gras for naturalists!

Klutzy? Take Taiji or Ballroom Dancing!

You need balance and agility for rock climbing in the jungle. So how do you train for that? I study Taijiquan, specifically the original Chen style, but any style will do. Ball-room dancing also works. Anybody who can foxtrot with ease across a ballroom has enough balance to jump rocks on the river. If you happen to do both Taiji and ballroom dancing, then one will improve the other.

I’m basically a clumsy and poorly coordinated person. Gerry says that dancing with me is like hauling around a big bag of potatoes. In fact, I used to farm him out to other women at parties because I couldn’t follow him and we would end up fighting. “Just follow me, you idiot”…
“Why can’t you just shut-up and have a good time, you miserable old sod!”
“Go back on your left foot and follow me…what IS it with you???”
“Oh piss off and go dance with Penny…I’m done with you!”

Then we started dancing lessons with a professional – the beautiful and incredibly talented Lucia - and she got us moving together after the first lesson. Want to fire up your marriage? Take private dancing lessons! We learned all the ball room dances – even the Argentine Tango. The important thing is one partner has some sense of rhythm and can lead or back-lead the other. I have no natural rhythm at all so have to work hard at following my partner.

When I started Taiji, it immediately improved my balance and my ability to dance - and to do just about everything else. The mind quiets and the body relaxes.

Taiji is known to have immediate health benefits but requires some 20 plus years of training to truly excel as an internal martial art. This is true. I have been at it for 3 years and am still a beginner. My teacher trained with Master Xhang of Fan’s line in San Francisco but couldn’t truly communicate to me the internal energy for a long time. Partly I wasn’t ready but even then, she had to use Pilates-like descriptions to help me to understand and really get it.

So something happened this morning with Patricia. Suddenly, after 3 years of Taiji training, I felt the chi - impulse circling deep within. It sounds really esoteric but the feeling is real. The energy comes up and circles forward to back or side to side or any gyroscopic circle within and around the dantium – your center core. Your limbs are superfluous but carry out force through yi - attention. The impulse pulls the arms down in neutralizing force and circles up and around to give energy back (to opponent). All motion starts deep inside the center, pulling energy up from earth or down from sky. This is the spiral energy!

Also. The pushing forward always parallels opposite force with back leg pushing foot into the ground. Springing forward is never total commitment. The back foot pushes with opposite force into earth. Or rather, the stretch involves the qua – hip joints shifting through pelvis. The impulse forward circles into backwards. The tree is always rooted.

Does that make sense?

In any case, there is hope for klutzy people – Taiji and/or ballroom dancing!

Gerry goes to Mardi Gras

How did he manage this one? Well, he’s got to go to court at the end of the month to face civil and criminal charges (let him blog about his trials and tribulations), and he needs a suit. Trouble is we’ve got all his suits in storage until the Finca El Tigre house is finally remodeled. And he can’t just walk into the storage container and pull a suit out of a box, because he would have to sort through 284 boxes to find the suit and then the shoes and then a white shirt. .

It would be a lot easier to just fly up to New Orleans and pull a suit and accoutrements out of our closet in the flat. And it just so happens that the flat is located in the French Quarter. And coincidentally, he arrives the Sunday before Fat Tuesday and would depart the day after the start of Lent. And no, I doubt very much you will find him in the Cathedral on Jackson Square. So there it is. Gerry’s leaves Sunday for New Orleans and I will remain here in Costa Rica to sort out the construction.

Or will there be any construction? Yesterday afternoon, a bus from the University of Peace knocked a gaping hole into the rickety wooden bridge that connects El Rodeo with the rest of the world. Now, only cars can cross the bridge with great caution. So how do the delivery trucks get to Tigre now? Will the construction workers show up? What about all the mountain of debris they were supposed to haul out this week? I heard a truck arrived at Tigre before the bridge got whacked and they removed all the recyclable steel, plastic and iron. Well that’s great. But they left the rest of the debris in a huge mess worse than before. And now the bridge has a big gaping hole in it. What more can happen to delay construction? What could possibly be worse than finding the Finca completely cut off by a broken bridge? And when will they fix it? Remember: We are in Costa Rica. Nothing gets fixed until, well, until the bridge is completely unpassable. That's just about now. Just about. Cars can still get through so nothing much will get done until some unlucky chap breaks through and plumments down to the river. Then maybe.

So guess we'll be spending even more time here at Hotel TexMex. We have some whacky guests in here at the moment to keep us amused. There’s this crazy German fellow: “I am German and I vil stay a veek!” Oh lucky us! He’s either psychotic or on hallucinogens. He actually believes he can advise us on our Federal Tax Returns. Now is that crazy or what? Then there are the two gals from Arenal. They do everything from selling horse-tack online to producing music events. Was it Bob Dylan they wanted to bring in? I can’t recall. Much of what they said was this stream of consciousness. Then there’s the stunning blonde traveling alone with her baby. Came from way up north near the border with Nicaragua and en route to Chicago. What was she doing up there in nomad country? Was she a Peace Corp volunteer who became infatuated with a Costa Rican cowboy? We didn’t ask. We pretty much stay to ourselves here at Hotel TexMex.

It's TOO Hot to Hike! Reading "Tropical Nature"

It’s hot. Too hot to go outside. The sun rays come straight down and burn and dry out everything. It feels like Guanacaste and, since Tigre is nearly 900meters above sea level, that means Guanacaste must be blistering hot right now. Actually, the outside Temperature Gauge says it’s just 88F, but the tropical sun this time of year makes it feel hotter. It amazes me how people come to Costa Rican beaches and just lounge about out in full sun, lazily roasting and broiling away. Many return home with burns they will never forget. I know a few of them. Once took a young, healthy hiker from NYC to the hospital for heat stroke. Slathering on a ton of sunscreen staves off the burn but makes you swelter even more! I try to stay inside and only venture out early mornings or after 4PM.

Friends up north just snort and say, ‘Oh sure! Poor you! Up here in Michigan today, we’re getting an arctic blast with wind chill temps at 35 below!’

Perhaps that explains why they prostate themselves under the tropical sun when they visit! Paying homage to the great sun God! Very powerful in these parts!

We do have much activity during the dry season. This is the time for cutting new trails, renovating structures and general maintenance. It’s the time for collecting seeds out in the forest. Armando and his workers are of indigenous descent, with dark skin and wiry bodies – it’s rare to even see these guys sweat. They just go out there and work without commenting much on the weather other than to make an oblique reference to it, like: “Feels nice in cool where we’re cutting that trail down there in the forest”.

It’s nice and cool down there all right but when you climb out of the forest into the blazing sun, you still have to hike another 20 minutes up to the stables. This is the time of year for hiking very early or just before sunset.

One major feature of the dry season is that many deciduous trees burst into bloom and are giving us a mouth-dropping show. The forest looks different during the dry season when viewed from overhead, which I do from the balcony of the house. Many trees have dropped leaves, giving them a dramatic, sculptural appearance, which really contrasts with the evergreen trees behind them. Now you can really see the architecture of the massive Guanacaste trees, not to mention the Cedrelas and so many others!

With the flowers, you can point out trees usually well hidden during the leafy rainy season. Found a Poro Poro (Cochlospermum vitifolium, BIXAC) for the first time when it suddenly burst into bright, yellow bloom. Also noted the mimosa white blooms of the Guayaquil, which so many of my botany friends still insist is a Cenizaro. But the petiole gland nailed that one last season and the white flowers confirm it. We’ve learned to accept that trees aren’t what they seem at Tigre.

Maybe I will go take a closer look at it early tomorrow morning. Before it gets too hot. In the meantime, someone gave me a book by Adrian Forsyth & Ken Miyata called “Tropical Nature”, which reads just like having a nice chat with some old friends.

This is just an awesome book for naturalists. Here’s something I didn’t know: Human scat is a highly desired commodity in the forest! It’s the caviar for beetles. As soon as you take a dump in the forest, you stay around and watch the battle that soon ensues as smaller beetles battle for a clump of dung and bigger beetles come in and feast on the eggs and larvae of the smaller beetles. The whole scene is like a huge battle scene straight out of a science fiction movie. According to the authors, the whole thing is over within just a few hours and there is no trace left of the human excrement.

“Tropical Nature” is such a blast to read! Everybody reading this boring blog would just love the style of this book. How do you convey the feeling you get when immersed in the lungs of the earth? The authors really bring it across. The book mostly talks about the lowland forests where the eco-system is so efficient, not much is wasted on the forest ground.

At Tigre, we are at a higher elevation with longer dry season so have a lot more deciduous trees – about 40% mas o menos – so there is a huge leaf drop in the forest soon after it stops raining and the soil gets nicely composted in parts. Great for planting seedlings! But we have to take care while hiking trails thick with leaves. You can’t just strut along kicking up heaps of leaves as you go because you might wake up a sleeping snake. I will write about snakes another time. We have the highly poisonous Fer de Lance (Terciopelo) and also the Coral Snake. We also have many species of non-poisonous. The trick is to understand their habits and instincts and behave accordingly.

We are still camping out at Hotel Tex Mex, where the huge, varnished wood verandahs provide us with much coveted shade during the hottest part of the day. There’s always a nice cool breeze wafting through and the setting is just perfect for doing Chen Taiji forms. If we want something to eat, we wander over to the restaurant where everybody knows us and will cook to our whims.

We don’t know how much longer we will be here but it’s nearly 4pm and time to venture outside.