Welcome to the Tragicomedies, or what will likely comprise Chapter 14 of my yet/soon/maybe-to-be-compiled memoirs, 14 because that was the number of the untouched page in my passport that now bears a Costa Rican entry stamp.
(I avoided the obvious title for these Costa Rica writings because 1. to repeat "Chronicles" would have been unoriginal, and if I've learned anything from Madonna, it's the importance of reinvention, 2. I'm trying to wean myself off of my alliteration addiction, although the ever-emphatic hard k alliteration was admittedly attractive, and 3. the "Tragicomedy" gives me something to aspire to when writing these.)
So, yes, I moved. It happened quickly, and I arrived a month ago in San José feeling not unlike how it must feel to get swept up in a tornado and then thrown down: discombobulated and wet.
It’s rainy season here and will be through October. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen, and Lord knows I’ve seen my share of precipitation. Starting in the early afternoon, the clouds ominously swell and darken, and then they erupt. For about the next 10 hours. Every day. I half expect to see Piglet in an upturned umbrella floating down in the rushing, rising rivulets. And it turns out jellies are practical, as well as stylish.
For the initial fortnight after I got here, I stayed in a hostel that was 35 meters from our office, which meant most days I walked to work in the morning, the clouds hemorrhaged, and I walked right back to the hostel to hibernate. All this to say, there was little with which to orient myself psychologically and geographically, to travel a couple thousand miles in a couple days and then wander a few dozen meters each day in a perpetual cloud. But I didn't move to Central America to mope about rain, promise. (And the redemptive blonde beaches are coming up.)
In reality, I moved because I got a job that I'd found on a website. True story. And it's a legitimate one: I'm the editorial assistant for The Tico Times, “Central America's leading English-language newspaper.” Now, when I tell people I work for the paper, I have to remind myself that I don't have to add, "I just freelance."
And it's a good fit, at last. I knew my sentence-diagramming skills, bless my little homeschooled soul, were not honed in vain! Although I do wonder sometimes if letting this Recovering Oldest Child pour over every minutiae of others' syntax and punctuation isn't like letting a former anorexic become a dietitian.
Thankfully I only wield a pencil and not the editor's red pen. So if you see an errant comma or amusing malapropism, please don't correct me: the flaws mean progress.
But this is one of the best parts of this paper: you can buy it in the states. Also, we have a P.O. Box in Miami, so you can send me things at domestic rates. And my best skill is, arguably (wink!), good written correspondence.
c/o The Tico Times - SJO 717
P.O. Box 025331
Miami, FL 33102-5331
Now that being said, as international stamps open a whole new world of fabulous philately, feel free to send postcards and other things of lesser value (inflatable pool animals might actually have some utility here) to our local address:
Apdo. 4632-1000
San José, Costa Rica
Besides inserting carets with that pencil and relentlessly looking up entries in the AP style guide, I get to write occasionally, too. Last week, I was responsible for a short news item, (encouraging a) letter to the editor, and photo each on soccer, which we were not otherwise covering despite the fact there were THREE INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENTS going on. So many conversations went, "But why would we cover Euro Cup if there are no Costa Ricans playing in it?" "Because every person in this country is watching it. [It's about the solidarity that makes the nationality irrelevant.]" And the fact that Euro Cup was on the covers of almost every national daily almost daily. When we were putting the photo in, I mentioned to my editor the bit of his caption that said "soccer-loving Ticos everywhere" was twice redundant. He laughed. But I will convert every one of them, or at least get them to stop with the piteous proffering that soccer "doesn't have enough scoring."
And now (probably to shut me up) they've got me on the national soccer team beat, which means I get passes to the games and, if I’m good enough, some interviews with players. Score!
People keep asking me if I've “met any cool people yet,” how my coworkers are, etc. I can aver the coworkers are indeed cool and ever-so-quotable, and there are, naturally, cool people outside of work, too. (Including the 74-year-oldish man at the hostel who greeted me one evening with, "There's a very graceful swing in the pleats and structure of that skirt," as I was passing through the lounge. He was Scottish, so he could appreciate pleats, he said as he sat there in his suspendered corduroys. Within the next five minutes, he'd also told me about the beauty of the sound of bagpipes ("makes the skin tingle"), how he used to test silencers on the rats at the Pentagon, finishing with, "to make a long story short," a bit about the ironic desk he discovered that validated all his mothers' proverbs.) As with any place, you have to weed through other ridiculous characters, sure, but the good ones are there. And mercifully none of the weeds is at work. I would have more stories about the Ticos themselves, except they keep speaking to me in English. Here are some snippets of me doing my best to fit in:
Holly Would got lured out of a four-plus-year retirement into a rap battle in front of most of our newsroom staff with the reporting intern, who's from Hoboken and has sold "over 3,000 CDs in NYC." And in the maybe eight lines I spat out, I implausibly impressed all of them. One of the other reporters said they were thinking I wasn't going to step up, but I'd apparently won points for throwing down the word "guile." My sparring partner himself later asked me, "So how does a white girl from Idaho get to appreciate hip-hop, because you, like, really understand it?" GOOD QUESTION.
Then week before last, while watching Italy v. Holland with our Tico staff (all the North Americans were upstairs not watching), I turned a few heads for 1) being a gringa watching the game, 2) knowing which Italian Zidane head-butted in the last World Cup (Materazzi), and 3) knowing what Cannavaro had injured (left ankle). The ways I never expected to bond with our office accountant, tech support, and doorman. And they call the Dutch los tulipanes.
Later at a going-away party, my apparently long-lost twin — a girl with whom I share affinities for baseball teams that start with 'm,' countries that start with 'b,' and bandeau halter swim tops — and I are talking with a guy from Minnesota whom we've just met. Now, said guy is a bit beside himself with the fact that he can actually discuss sabermetrics with two level-headed gringas in Costa Rica. (Why more girls aren't sports fans is beyond me.) The best part was, when she challenges me to name the five other people the Kid, aka my Man, recently joined in the 600-homer club, which I do in about 5.6 seconds, he goes, "I just got goose bumps," and then he pulls up his sleeve, AND HE REALLY DID.
HOW D'YA LIKE THEM FIRST IMPRESSIONS?
I credit NaS, BBC Sport, and Sports Illustrated for Kids, respectively.
Although I know how much you all loved slogging through thousands of words on Adventures in Socialism and the Water Balloon Wars (and I didn't even write about the time I flooded the apartment after falling asleep in the bathtub with the water running), this round will likely be far more visual than textual because 1) Costa Rica doesn't have quite the revolution going on, nor I a blue bathtub, and 2) I have a camera at my disposal. Here are some bits from out and about in San José. Allez-y.
the national breakfast fare:
gallo pinto (black beans and rice), huevo, y cafe con leche
how have I not mentioned the coffee yet?
Little circular beds of these flowers are all over downtown, but only until people uproot them to plant them back at home, I've been told.
New Favorite Material Possession: the Dragon Steeper.
The red version of this mug cost 1,000 colones ($2) more.
The below store is called The Galleon of Quality Stamps.
This explains EVERYTHING about Latin American bureaucracy,
all ghostly galleons of paper tossed upon cloudy seas of ink ...
Wonder if they sell any bibles.
Oh, and I got glasses. Ones I actually need.
This is how I know I am an editorial assistant.
You know all that rain? We beat it and went to the beach.
reflection.
reflectee.
Et voilá.
(I avoided the obvious title for these Costa Rica writings because 1. to repeat "Chronicles" would have been unoriginal, and if I've learned anything from Madonna, it's the importance of reinvention, 2. I'm trying to wean myself off of my alliteration addiction, although the ever-emphatic hard k alliteration was admittedly attractive, and 3. the "Tragicomedy" gives me something to aspire to when writing these.)
NO WAY! SAN JOSÉ?
So, yes, I moved. It happened quickly, and I arrived a month ago in San José feeling not unlike how it must feel to get swept up in a tornado and then thrown down: discombobulated and wet.
It’s rainy season here and will be through October. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen, and Lord knows I’ve seen my share of precipitation. Starting in the early afternoon, the clouds ominously swell and darken, and then they erupt. For about the next 10 hours. Every day. I half expect to see Piglet in an upturned umbrella floating down in the rushing, rising rivulets. And it turns out jellies are practical, as well as stylish.
For the initial fortnight after I got here, I stayed in a hostel that was 35 meters from our office, which meant most days I walked to work in the morning, the clouds hemorrhaged, and I walked right back to the hostel to hibernate. All this to say, there was little with which to orient myself psychologically and geographically, to travel a couple thousand miles in a couple days and then wander a few dozen meters each day in a perpetual cloud. But I didn't move to Central America to mope about rain, promise. (And the redemptive blonde beaches are coming up.)
In reality, I moved because I got a job that I'd found on a website. True story. And it's a legitimate one: I'm the editorial assistant for The Tico Times, “Central America's leading English-language newspaper.” Now, when I tell people I work for the paper, I have to remind myself that I don't have to add, "I just freelance."
And it's a good fit, at last. I knew my sentence-diagramming skills, bless my little homeschooled soul, were not honed in vain! Although I do wonder sometimes if letting this Recovering Oldest Child pour over every minutiae of others' syntax and punctuation isn't like letting a former anorexic become a dietitian.
Thankfully I only wield a pencil and not the editor's red pen. So if you see an errant comma or amusing malapropism, please don't correct me: the flaws mean progress.
But this is one of the best parts of this paper: you can buy it in the states. Also, we have a P.O. Box in Miami, so you can send me things at domestic rates. And my best skill is, arguably (wink!), good written correspondence.
c/o The Tico Times - SJO 717
P.O. Box 025331
Miami, FL 33102-5331
Now that being said, as international stamps open a whole new world of fabulous philately, feel free to send postcards and other things of lesser value (inflatable pool animals might actually have some utility here) to our local address:
Apdo. 4632-1000
San José, Costa Rica
Besides inserting carets with that pencil and relentlessly looking up entries in the AP style guide, I get to write occasionally, too. Last week, I was responsible for a short news item, (encouraging a) letter to the editor, and photo each on soccer, which we were not otherwise covering despite the fact there were THREE INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENTS going on. So many conversations went, "But why would we cover Euro Cup if there are no Costa Ricans playing in it?" "Because every person in this country is watching it. [It's about the solidarity that makes the nationality irrelevant.]" And the fact that Euro Cup was on the covers of almost every national daily almost daily. When we were putting the photo in, I mentioned to my editor the bit of his caption that said "soccer-loving Ticos everywhere" was twice redundant. He laughed. But I will convert every one of them, or at least get them to stop with the piteous proffering that soccer "doesn't have enough scoring."
And now (probably to shut me up) they've got me on the national soccer team beat, which means I get passes to the games and, if I’m good enough, some interviews with players. Score!
NEW GIRL AT SCHOOL SYNDROME
People keep asking me if I've “met any cool people yet,” how my coworkers are, etc. I can aver the coworkers are indeed cool and ever-so-quotable, and there are, naturally, cool people outside of work, too. (Including the 74-year-oldish man at the hostel who greeted me one evening with, "There's a very graceful swing in the pleats and structure of that skirt," as I was passing through the lounge. He was Scottish, so he could appreciate pleats, he said as he sat there in his suspendered corduroys. Within the next five minutes, he'd also told me about the beauty of the sound of bagpipes ("makes the skin tingle"), how he used to test silencers on the rats at the Pentagon, finishing with, "to make a long story short," a bit about the ironic desk he discovered that validated all his mothers' proverbs.) As with any place, you have to weed through other ridiculous characters, sure, but the good ones are there. And mercifully none of the weeds is at work. I would have more stories about the Ticos themselves, except they keep speaking to me in English. Here are some snippets of me doing my best to fit in:
Holly Would got lured out of a four-plus-year retirement into a rap battle in front of most of our newsroom staff with the reporting intern, who's from Hoboken and has sold "over 3,000 CDs in NYC." And in the maybe eight lines I spat out, I implausibly impressed all of them. One of the other reporters said they were thinking I wasn't going to step up, but I'd apparently won points for throwing down the word "guile." My sparring partner himself later asked me, "So how does a white girl from Idaho get to appreciate hip-hop, because you, like, really understand it?" GOOD QUESTION.
Then week before last, while watching Italy v. Holland with our Tico staff (all the North Americans were upstairs not watching), I turned a few heads for 1) being a gringa watching the game, 2) knowing which Italian Zidane head-butted in the last World Cup (Materazzi), and 3) knowing what Cannavaro had injured (left ankle). The ways I never expected to bond with our office accountant, tech support, and doorman. And they call the Dutch los tulipanes.
Later at a going-away party, my apparently long-lost twin — a girl with whom I share affinities for baseball teams that start with 'm,' countries that start with 'b,' and bandeau halter swim tops — and I are talking with a guy from Minnesota whom we've just met. Now, said guy is a bit beside himself with the fact that he can actually discuss sabermetrics with two level-headed gringas in Costa Rica. (Why more girls aren't sports fans is beyond me.) The best part was, when she challenges me to name the five other people the Kid, aka my Man, recently joined in the 600-homer club, which I do in about 5.6 seconds, he goes, "I just got goose bumps," and then he pulls up his sleeve, AND HE REALLY DID.
HOW D'YA LIKE THEM FIRST IMPRESSIONS?
I credit NaS, BBC Sport, and Sports Illustrated for Kids, respectively.
WHO SAYS PICTURE BOOKS ARE AN INFERIOR GENRE?
Although I know how much you all loved slogging through thousands of words on Adventures in Socialism and the Water Balloon Wars (and I didn't even write about the time I flooded the apartment after falling asleep in the bathtub with the water running), this round will likely be far more visual than textual because 1) Costa Rica doesn't have quite the revolution going on, nor I a blue bathtub, and 2) I have a camera at my disposal. Here are some bits from out and about in San José. Allez-y.
the more charming part of my morning commute
the national breakfast fare:
gallo pinto (black beans and rice), huevo, y cafe con leche
how have I not mentioned the coffee yet?
Quite possibly the best part of my day:
agua de pipa (coconut water), straight from the gourd.
agua de pipa (coconut water), straight from the gourd.
Little circular beds of these flowers are all over downtown, but only until people uproot them to plant them back at home, I've been told.
New Favorite Material Possession: the Dragon Steeper.
The red version of this mug cost 1,000 colones ($2) more.
Cream with that sugar?
(Decor in a nearby café that was inexplicably removed a week ago by the owner.)
(Decor in a nearby café that was inexplicably removed a week ago by the owner.)
The below store is called The Galleon of Quality Stamps.
This explains EVERYTHING about Latin American bureaucracy,
all ghostly galleons of paper tossed upon cloudy seas of ink ...
Wonder if they sell any bibles.
You're gonna lose that call ...
Oh, and I got glasses. Ones I actually need.
This is how I know I am an editorial assistant.
PLAYA = BEACH
You know all that rain? We beat it and went to the beach.
on the road from San José
And then we arrived.
reflection.
reflectee.
Et voilá.
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