My online alter-ego is larger than life, apparently.  When I am signed onto a certain popular dating website I can receive four or five messages simulataneously and double that in profile views, all within minutes.  This is perplexing since I have not had one quality date in the last five years in which the gentleman dressed nicely, offered to come by and pick me up, paid for the date and spoke and behaved reasonably.  Have online dating sites turned into cutesy cover-ups for escort services?  Many men begin their email or text message with a crudely worded and often misspelled sexual proposition while others skip the basic courtesy of a written introduction to send a picture of one of their body parts in an altered state.  On television lately Christian Singles has been advertising.  In my case it would have to be Buddhist/Taoist Singles (which, if you think about it, kind of goes against the whole Buddhist schtick) but I wonder if the Christian single men have the same direct sexual introduction style ? The only advantage I ever saw in the brief hours I spent on E Harmony was that the introductions were controlled, step by step, by the website design.  Although E Harmony sent me unappealing and uneducated men for the most part, I have to give them kudos for making it difficult for desperately horny men to spray their website with hundreds of crude sexual pick-up lines.  

The blissful weeks of summer without 150 young minds to spar with has gotten off to a relaxing yet productive start.  Cars repairs underway, deep cleaning of the condo has commenced, organization and thought put into personal affairs, yes, I am pleased.  The Florida heat and humidity is testing is already testing everyone's resolve to do outdoor activities - at 5 and 6 in the morning the streets are dotted with joggers and walkers escaping the brutal daytime temperatures and blanket of humidity. 

Looking forward to mini trips to South Carolina and south Florida to visit friends from graduate school and then spending the rest of the summer on the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica.

LIG 

We teachers are so well off! Guess that is why I wear clothes from Walmart and consignment shops, drive a paid-off thirteen-year-old autombile and live in a 1,100-square foot apartment. I work 50 to 60 hours a week and have a bare-bones HMO health plan which I try like hell to never use. Among the skills I have to be proficient in are technology, secretarial, psychological, presentational, public speaking, conflict management, preparing lessons that cover multiple intelligences, socialization and entertainment for adolescents. If I stay home sick one day I have to leave detailed lesson plans, seating charts and notes before I can even think of lying down and trying to get better. When I DO recuperate I am faced with marking all the work the students did in my absence while moving forward with the next day's plans. I have to prepare modified plans for the learning disabled, the limited-English learners, the non-readers and the kids who cannot focus for more than five minutes because of ADD or AD/HD.  Do the Republicans really not see the value of a dedicated teacher? There are bad apples in every profession and job sector. The difference in our society is that the bad apples among the wealthy get wealthier and the bad apples in other sectors keep their employment which allows them to support a family on less and less money.  I might argue that a bad apple in a public service job still works far harder and much longer hours than a fat cat in a corporate job or a highly-paid congressman or congresswoman. 

Yesterday I flew from Florida to Costa Rica for my quarterly mental and spiritual decompression (or would  that be depression considering I coax and cajole 14-year-olds into learning French and Spanish).  I arrived hours before my family members did and had a Costa Rican adventure.  With about four hours to burn before Ashley and Alex's fllight got in I decided to go out to the arriving passengers area and read a book.  As I was heading to the bench across from the unloading zone all the while dodging throngs of shuttle and taxi drivers holding aloft welcome signs with American names lettered boldly on them in magic marker ink a female taxi driver hailed me (strange reversal of roles, right?) and asked if I needed a cab ride.  I declined pointing to the bench and the book in my hand to which she replied "Wouldn't you like to sit outside overlooking a coffee plantation and drink a nice cup of coffee?"  Pilar is obviously an expert at reading her potential passengers because her offer was instantly accepted by me and my luggage was being thrown in the trunk of a 1988 Nissan Sentra with about 300,000 miles on it.  Pilar turned out to be an entertaining and jovial taxi jockey.  She wove her way expertly through the congested and rainsoaked streets of San Jose all the while regaling me with stories of her ex-boyfriend of ten -years time who  according to her analysis, was an excellent dining companion for every meal of the day served in her house.  She drove me to a sweeping terraced coffee plantation in San Carlos where we sat for hours and watched a summer weather pattern first drop a dense but benign blanket of fog which soon turned into a thunderous rain event which soaked the coffee and banana bushes on the terraced slopes.  More to follow, including the trek from San Jose to Nosara in the pitch black rainy night complete with giant plastic roadside monkeys and snakes landing on windshields at midnight!

On Monday morning after Easter we spent time in the open-air patio of the Versailles Cafe in La Fortuna planning our flight back to Samara/Guiones. The people of Costa Rica are so relaxed and friendly that it makes it a pleasure to interact with them except when it comes to business. They have the attitude that nothing needs to happen in a hurry, and that being pleasant and making a connection is important.  I suppose that a person who does not speak Spanish might have a different perception.  During the pre-flight check men who were working the fields on either side of the landing strip stopped their labors to watch us get the auto-gyros ready.  They were friendly and curious about these strange grasshopper-looking aircraft we were about to hurl ourselves into the sky in! 

Easter Sunday morning Alex, Fritz, Frank and I flew in the auto-gyros to Arenal Volcano.  On the two-hour flight over I had my first disagreeable experience in the gyro totally due to my own stupidity.  I did not clamp down the ear muffs with the radio controls in them which allowed my hair to work itself loose from under the helmet.  My hair whipped my face at 60 mph the whole which effectively prevented me from enjoying the beautiful morning and the view of
 Arenal as we flew over the cone.  I was so mad at myself when I discovered after landing that I had not put my helmet on correctly.  While flying over the cone at 7 thousand feet I also got disoriented, not sure if it was the from the intense magnetic energy and smoke from the eruption, but I felt like I was going to faint and became very light-headed right when I was trying to watch the eruption and hold my hair away from my eyes.  Very bizarre feeling which I was able to control by breathing deeply and focusing.  The afternoon in La Fortuna was great, we drank a bunch of coffee, chatted, took pictures of Arenal as it continued to erupt from the patio of our cabinas and during the evening we went over to the Baldi Thermal Springs and sat in the volcano heated rock pools.  It was totally and utterly relaxing to stare at the night sky while sitting in hot water outside in the pools. My life would be more relaxing if I spent more time in thermal springs, that is for sure.  The mineral content of the underground water and its soothing heat work wonders on the human body. 

Tried a new way to get to Costa Rica this time, the stop and go method of getting a lower fare.  It involved going through Panama on Copa, then to San Jose, then Nature Air to get to Nosara via Tambor.  Fourteen-hour travel days to save a couple hundred bucks, definitely a sign of the it's not-really-a -recession mentality that seems to have gripped us all. 

Today was spent in clouds, first in the turbo propeller small plane flying through a bank of cumulus nimbus clouds from the Central Valley over to the Pacific
Coast,  secondly in the swirling dust spouts on the dirt roads of a very very end of the dry season Guanacaste province.  How wonderful, I am thinking, to have experienced the temporary loss of the sense of up and down both in the air and on the earth.

Just six hours here and I already feel the tropics working its magic in me...  the power of the high tide on the Pacific Coast tossing me around in the waves, the muscular lassitude brought on by the intensely dry heat and the physical well-being of having ingested all organic food so far today. 

This week is going to be a good week. 

I just woke up from a very ill-timed nap during which I slept very deeply and had a disturbing dream.  I dreamed I went to visit my friends Aimone and Terri in their new home and it turned out to be a dilapidated and musty older home that reminded me of the some older homes my relatives lived in when I was a child in Maryland.  (This is uncharacteristic of Aimone and Terri who have lived in beautiful homes in Rome, Miami and Argentina.)  In the dream Aimone and Terri had terrariums in the back yard, many of them filled with serpents.  While I was in the house visiting them Terri told me one of the snakes, a pet, was slithering around loose in the house and to not sit on. I saw the snake and picked up it because I did not want it to bite me.  I kept holding the snake but no one would tell me where the cages where and I increasingly became uncomfortable and panicked. I kept squeezing the snake harder and harder behind its head and asking where I could put it. No one paid attention to me because there was a great deal of commotion in the house. Finally Terri and my friend Elise (who had magically appeared) agreed to take me to the serpentarium behind the house.  On the way the snake began to struggle against my grip and managed to sink its fangs into two fingers.  My fingers began to swell up and ache and I asked if the snake were poisonous.  Terri said yes, unfortunately.  They made me put the snake in the cage which upset me even more because I was afraid it was going to bite me again.  The dream ended with my fingers swelling up and the fang marks turning black and someone driving me to the hospital.  I woke up hard with my fingers feeling numb and I am very disoriented now.  Any ideas as to what this disturbing dream means?  I have had a little alcohol in the last 24 hours, (two beers, one Irish Mist Shot and one glass of wine at lunch today) but hardly enough to cause a dream like that.  Anyone care to interpret the hidden meaning behind my dream or its symbolism?  

Just finished watching the DVD of New Moon at my brother's house with the nieces.  Some random comments from an amateur movie critic (moi).  Taylor Lautner has no talent as an actor. 

How did he develop that physique at age 17?  There is no depth to his portrayal of Jacob.  The wolves look like giant Chuck E. Cheese figures.  I didn't notice the credits, I hope that Rick Baker was not involved with those wolf sequences.  I was hoping they would be more realistic. 

Why would two very cool supernatural creatures be interested in the whiny and sniveling Bella Swan?  As my sister in law so aptly observed several times during the movie, she was a dumb-ass in distress versus a damsel in distress and yet she kept getting saved. 

Rob Pattison is the only believable character in the films.  The Italian scenes with the Volturi were brief and unsatisfying.  When Aro's vampire court talked my teenaged nieces broke out in laughter.  

My final comment:  oh how I miss the Ann Rice literary empire of vampiric lore.  Interview with the Vampire did not do justice to her first book either.  Why is it so difficult to make vampire stories into good screen versions?  I think I liked the Dracula film with Gary Oldman the best of any vampire movie I have seen....wait, perhaps The Hunger with David Bowie and Catherine Denueve is up there as well. 

Anybody remember Dark Shadows from the 60s and 70s?  That was more scary to me than any of these new vampire movies.  

As I wait for my niece to arrive with her dogs for our three-mile walk the weather continues to surprise me.  Did the big chunk of ice that fell off the glacier in Antartica affect our weather here in Florida?  Is the unseasonably cold weather making my 14-year old students act more immature than they already are?  Am I really prepared to continue trying to talk over, around and down to inattentive children who have the attention span of a gnat?  Why am I so cranky?