Ain't A Thing I Can Do About It.

Our new puppy is a terrier. We often tell Penny that her behavior is tenacious, which it is, though the animal could not care less whether we notice. Penny is going through her "make me" stage, though sometimes it's a "you can't stop me" stage. All we can do is remain firm in her training and love her to bits.

I understand Penny's persistence. My own tenacity simply will not allow me to walk away from a baking failure. Having perfected the cream puff . . . having posted the recipe here with specific instructions that cream puffs absolutely cannot be made without bright light . . . what did I do? I tried to make cream puffs in the dim evening light of our kitchen. Complete failure. So naturally I had to make two more arrays just to confirm that indeed I can make cream puffs . . . in a brightly illuminated kitchen filled with afternoon sunlight. 

And then there was the brioche calamity . . . and the biscotti nightmare . . . and my reproach of Paul Hollywood's recipes, which is neither to impugn Paul's kitchen talent nor The Great British Baking Show -- I'm merely saying that Paul's instructions failed me when using primarily Costa Rican ingredients. So I ran far and fast from Paul's recipes and sought the advice from good ol' U.S.A.'s King Arthur Flour. Mulligan! Now I won't say that it was the best brioche in the land, but I definitely made genuine brioche à tête as well as white chocolate & cranberry biscotti that actually resembled biscotti. 

Then I triumphed with my chocolate-mocha cream horns. They were worth that battle for puff pastry. And my Pastel de Tres Leches with the Italian meringue topping was so good that I believe Rusty only got two slices. Suddenly I'm an Italian meringue expert.

Anyway, with so many sweets swarming in our home, my shorts are noticeably tighter, which should come as no surprise. I need a mumu . . . that, and a new hobby that doesn't involve sugar, eggs, butter, and cream. I chose sewing.

I'm an excellent seamstress and pattern-maker; and my friend Rob brought yards of colorful pagne fabric all the way from Chad (the country in Africa, not a person). Maybe my penchant for baking came from Rusty's failure to repair my sewing machine, despite all those boy toys that he calls tools and despite my full year of whining about my machine's goofy needle-tension. Had I a working sewing machine, I'd weigh 105 pounds and Rusty would be whining about wanting my chocolate-orange ganache torte. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Finally Rusty disassembled my sewing machine, cleaned it, did his man-magic to repair that inner sanctum wherein lives the bobbin, and presented me with a machine whose needle- and bobbin-tension match. There is one small problem: in layman's terms, the needle won't go up and down . . . neither via the foot pedal nor with a hand-turn of the wheel. And no, I'm not talking about an antique machine. The damn thing simply won't work; I haven't the skills to repair it; and this tragedy came to light on the eve of Rusty's departure for Texas.. 

Rusty tells me that, true, he did not disassemble the upper mechanism of the machine, and that it's probably like a two-stroke engine and simply needs its lightweight oil to work its way up to the wheel. Yeah. Right. Do I need a lesson about stroking a machine?!? No! I don't need an engine lesson, I need a working sewing machine.

So Rusty is in the United States this week. And without a sewing machine I'm left to find other projects . . . like shaving my legs. And projects like cleaning up Rusty's boy toy world -- removing to the recycle center all those pieces of scrap metal, bottles, and gourds that have been in his boy world for over a year . . . those items that Rusty avers he needs for some secret project and which I've sworn to eliminate from our property.

It's conceivable that the man will be thrilled when he sees that our car can now be parked under the shady carport. It's also possible that I'll have some explaining, if not apologizing, to do this weekend. Nevertheless, he cannot say that he wasn't warned; and I've enjoyed a tidy carport for a full week.

Will the carport quickly be refilled with dozens of new boy toys that return from the U.S. with Rusty? Of course it will. And I"ll complain until my next opportunity to de-clutter the man cave during Rusty's next trip to Texas. Ah, married life and first-world problems. Lo que hay.

Anybody Interested In Grabbing A Couple Of Burgers And Hittin' The Cemetery?

Today is this man's birthday. True. 

For years I'd revel in Rusty's birthday. We were born in the same year and even attended the same high school. In years past I'd delight in those few days between our birthdays when Rusty was older than I. This year I announced: Dear God, we're both old . . . let's just spend the day digging a couple of graves and wait. So, no party; and we even cancelled Operation: Dinner Out . . . though we did luncheon on the beach, and I did make Rusty's favorite, coconut cream pie.

Anyway, I thought that I'd take this opportunity to share a few more photos of Rob's visit (my photos, this time), and to make fun of my darling husband . . . and men, generally . . . since we're both old and have so little time remaining.

Will I Get In Trouble For That?

Let’s talk trash. Once upon a time I took for granted the fact that little (or burly) elves arrived at our curb twice-weekly to remove trash. Then arrived this pesky save-the-planet era when something called recycling began. No longer could trash be hauled to the curb in a willy-nilly fashion. 

But think of recycling this way: how many jobs would be lost if someone wasn’t required to cull through my garbage at a landfill located in some unknown part of my world? Are you getting the impression that I rebelled?

But wait . . . those elves were not Superman, endowed with x-ray vision. They and could not possibly see through our opaque plastic trash bags to determine contents. 

Then I moved to Africa . . . a land where little black plastic shopping bags are everywhere . . . sachets, they were called. Sure, you could place that tiny packet of soap in a purse; but in the third poorest country in the world, a woman with a sachet was a woman who could afford to spend money. It was the Burkina Faso version of carrying a Barneys bag. Sadly, these little sachets found their way to tree tops, blown there by wind. They were under foot on every inch of the earth, en masse in gutters in cities. It was horrifying. 

This Is Either Madness Or Brilliance. It’s Remarkable How Often Those Two Traits Coincide.

Reason number 25 to move to Costa Rica: That happy surprise about the Tico genius and sense of humor.

I always had plans to retire in Africa. My neighbors were to be hippos in our river, baboons and vervet monkeys, and of course, the big cats. And giraffes. We would have a journey of giraffes visible as they crossed the delta. To this day, I look at our home with an eye toward making it into the style of the great camps of Botswana or Zimbabwe. Chitabe is shown here.

There may come a day when Rusty and I are unable or unwilling to perform most home and garden maintenance. That day is not today. True, I have a housekeeper to perform tasks of which I’m really not capable. For instance, I absolutely cannot immaculately clean our floors the way Janet can. My mopping action looks the same, but somehow Janet does it better. How she can clean spotlessly mirrors and glass without Windex® remains a mystery. So most every Tuesday morning Janet arrives to magically clean things that I honestly cannot clean as well as Janet. As in any home, before the mopping and vertical-glass-surface cleaning must come some amount of dusting. Now don’t picture me lounging and eating bon-bons six days a week awaiting Janet. I do a considerable amount of daily dusting and sweeping and vacuuming. If you, gentle reader, have never dusted a home, 1) you should try it, and 2) it involves picking up items and returning them to their original spot.

A Toast Before We Go Into Battle: True Love . . . In Whatever Shape Or Form It May Come. May We All In Our Dotage Be Proud To Say, "I Was Adored Once."

It's Christmas Eve. For those who do not celebrate Christmas (which is absolutely acceptable in my world), it's merely another date on the calendar . . . December 24th. 

We're hosting a luncheon today, and some of the invitees don't celebrate Christmas. So instead of a Christmas Eve luncheon we'll call it our December 24 luncheon. I'm thinking of making it an annual tradition -- like our Bastille Day Party (no need to be French to enjoy). After all, a successful party rarely depends on the date/holiday, nor is it about the food and drink. The measure of a gathering's or a union's success is always about the people (sometimes people and pets). Today we're blessed to be entertaining very dear friends. 

I often joke about the quantity of alcohol that I consume. As with any party, my cocktail consumption is never about the quantity . . . it's always about the quality. True, from 23 through 25 December, I do begin drinking in the mornings. . . after all, 'tis the season and Irish Coffee is de rigueur. And I happen to have a full bottle of Jameson from that trip north to Coco. When the caffeine outweighs the effect of the Irish whiskey and the Amarula, I'll switch to Greyhounds. Again . . . that trip north -- we have fresh grapefruit, which is perhaps my best Christmas gift this year . . . except for one. My husband.

The Beginning Of The End Of The End Of The Beginning Has Begun

 

Bam. And just like that, dry season has arrived. Our last rain was 23 November. Prior to 23 November we had rain every single day for over a week (three inches, minimum, in a 24-hour period). We’re told that rain so late in November is unusual. What is unusual to me is that one day the rain just stops. For the first time since we moved-in in May we can see 360-degrees around our home, including all the way to the horizon of the ocean without one single cloud. Look straight ahead, there's nothing but blue sky.

And with the end of the rains the winds have arrived. Some say that this is the papagayo wind, some say not. Me? I’m inclined to agree with them. Imagine hours of sustained 40-50 mile per hour winds. Our large butterfly bush snapped in half. And we’re told by expats who have lived here for years that we’ve seen nothing yet – winds can be sustained for days at 60 miles per hour. I imagine pool furniture in the pool, along with our youngest papaya tree.

I Hope That You've Had Enough To Drink. It's Going To Take Courage.

It's one of those oh-so-typically Kathy days. I'm staring into the abyss. I'm doing everything within my power not to cause Rusty to jump from the railing in an attempt to escape my world. Let's review:

Tick fever is caused by . . . (two guesses, you'll only need one): ticks. Not just any tick. The brown dog tick. This is not a tick with an affinity for brown dogs. Neither is this tick always brown. So as with everything else in my life today, the term brown dog tick is a lie! Anything in that photo below appear brown to you?!? It's like every suggestion for a Mason jar craft on Pinterest. Liars!

Tick fever in dogs is deadly. Period. There is no cure, so it's all about early detection and management. Think malaria, which can lie dormant in your liver for weeks or years only to surprise you one Christmas. Think of a slow-acting ebola where the patient essentially bleeds-out (internally and externally). Yeah. This tick fever stuff is serious.

It Was The Ants

Man plans, God laughs. October is National Dessert Month and I am committed to a minimum gain of five pounds. Minimum. I'm going to need dessert rehab. Anyway, Costa Rican humidity be damned – I was going to make chocolate cream pie for Rusty . . . with a mile-high meringue topping. If my Kitchen Aid can turn cream into butter in less than five minutes (it’s like Butter Jesus in that regard), it can surely whip into stiff peaks a few egg whites. 

And then it started to rain. That was yesterday. It’s still raining.