according to patrick, i look like "something from harry potter" in this picture. i don't know how to interpret that, unless perhaps he's inferring that everyone in harry potter has a sunburned forehead. patrick looks like a dork in a honduras-purchased polo shirt.
Hawk Waterfall! in the beautiful misty cloud forests of Parque Nacional Montana de Comayagua.
cascada!
Gabe doing his duty as a tour guide [note: this photo is definitely not staged.]
you may consider us the three musketeers. 
tiny baby waterfall!
Gabe utilizing his sorry excuse for a pila...but it's okay because he has the sweetest view in the world.
Douglas chillin' in my hammock. That's his cousin Andri in my other hammock in the background.
My kindergarten buddies marching in the Independence Day parade of Alubaren.
Alison and her neighbor Yesica, her cousins Lisbeth and Andri, and her brother Noel.
Nina Independencia!! I guess I could have put her in front of something prettier than my clothesline.
Remember baby Javier, my old host mom Suyapa's youngest? He's a crazy monster baby now and runs around like a track star.27 September 2009
Hey, chochachos!
Guess what today is? Nothing other than my official half-way mark of service, THAT’S ALL. Though actually it was the 28th of September that I arrived in Alubarén last year, but that’s because I cheated and came a day late so I could be sneaky and have a fun time with my buddies from training one last time. Anyway. I can’t think of anything to say about this moment that isn’t just a bunch of clichés out at a cliché family reunion, totally singing songs about bein’ clichés and eating snacks that clichés eat….I can’t believe how time has flown; it seems like only yesterday I was dragging two huge suitcases up the dirt road, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and sweaty-faced, etc. Time really has flown, but not any faster than it always does. That would require that Honduras be in some sort of time-accelerator-warp. Let’s not be crazy here people. EVERYBODY CALM THE HELL DOWN.
I am currently eating hot green squash with sugar sprinkled on top that my neighbor Glenda just brought me in a little bowl. It is delicious.
After a particularly long period of “mini summer,” we have now departed the hot-and-dry-all-the-damn-time period and entered the hot-and-muddy-because-it-rains-like-the-tears-of-an-adolescent-boy-listening-to-The-Cure-in-a-sit-down-bath-in-the-eighties every dang day. I rather like thunder storms…they’re so violent and warm and extreme, nothing like the cold wintery rain that California gets. My yard LOVES it; I’ve had to pay a dude to come machete all my grass and weeds into submission again because it was getting waist-tall and I’ve been finding snakes and such in places I do not want them (aka eye-ball level in my shower, for starters). I’ve planted a bucket full ‘o basil, which is coming along delightfully. I can’t wait to eat it on EVERYTHING. The rain is also making the river grow, which is awesome…I can’t wait till October (wait, I guess that’s this Thursday…I can’t wait till late October) when the river gets nice and swift and deep and we can go tubing in it. Lightening, however, can just take its business SOMEWHERE ELSE (more on than in a second).
A couple weekends ago I went with my buddy Patrick to go visit our friend Gabe in his site, a tiny 400-person village up in the mountain of Comayagua, in the western-ish part of the country. Gabe is a Protected Areas Management volunteer (as is Patrick) so the lucky bastard lives practically IN the Parque Nacional Montana de Comayagua, a beautiful national park that is mostly cloud forest and dripping with water (it supplies water to a jillion communities, I believe). His town is called Rio Negro, and is basically a small cluster of houses nestled into the forest. “This here is coffee country,” said Gabe, hitching his thumbs behind his over-all straps, and I believe him. Everywhere I looked grew short, shiny coffee bushes, and I tasted some of the best coffee I’ve ever had while eating dinner at his old host-mom’s house (and promptly bought three pounds of it). Gabe’s house is small but nice, though like the rest of his community, has no electricity. We’d stopped at the grocery store before heading up the mountain, so the three of us prepared a tasty meal of eggplant, spaghetti, and quesillo (a mozzarella-like cheese). Then we sat out of his amazing porch that looks down onto the basin below and admired the incredible lightening storm dancing on and stabbing up the open valley. In the morning, the clouds hang in the trees like they ain’t got no better place to be, and the birds just go crazy flyin’ around while Gabe identifies them with his nerdy little bird book (I’m jealous). Then he took us on the sweetest hike ever, especially considering the trail head is a five-minute walk from his back door. The trail winds through cloud forest for about an hour before reaching a small waterfall, and Gabe stopped and explained all the leaves and trees and plants and insects for us whenever we asked. Then we decided to scramble up the higher ‘trail’ to get to a bigger, more impressive waterfall, which was about another hour up the mountain. The trail, however, was barely existent, and Gabe had to force our way through with his machete much of the time, constantly looking out for the bright orange plastic ribbon marking where the trail aspires to be. The trail was also hells of steep and quite muddy, which meant that we had to crawl on all fours for much of the time, pulling ourselves up by vines and roots and branches. I pretended I was a chimpanzee and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We were so filthy by the time we got there! It was awesome. I love filth. Especially cloud forest filth…everything there smells so awesome and mushroomy and soily. Delightful. Getting down was even harder, because it was so steep and slick, so I finally just waited until the boys got a good ways ahead, squatted down on my heels, and skied down the slope. I don’t think I need to mention how filthy I became after sliding down a muddy mountain on my ass. Patrick didn’t like it much, though, because I would invariably catch up to them in about 10 seconds and smash into the backs of his legs. I kept doing it, however. Soon karma caught up to me, though, when we began walking through a sunny meadow and I tripped and fell flat on my face in a GIANT ant-hill. Biting ants, people! I start screaming and leaping around and smacking at myself while the guys just howl with laughter. I think the worst thing about Honduras is definitely the bitey ants.
We got home late afternoon, with just enough time for the three of us to shower and head over for a six o’clock dinner with Gabe’s old host family. I was busy scrubbing my filthsome shorts, so the guys went first. When it was my turn it was already raining pretty good, but no one ever told me of the dangers of showering during a thunder storm, so I jumped into the bathroom and rinsed myself with nice cold mountain water. I has just finished soaped and shampooing myself to hell and was just beginning to rinse myself when….when….I TOTALLY GOT ZAPPED BY GOD HIMSELF. A lightening bolt landed just outside the house and the electricity ran right through the hose I had in my hand and the water I had squirtin’ all over myself and just jolted me. I SCREAMED bloody murder and threw the hose down, then screamed again. Then I leapt out of the shower and stood dripping soap all over the floor while I whimpered to myself and explained in hysterical tones to the concerned boys on the other side of the door what had happened to me. It reminded me of the time I grabbed a hot-wire fence as a kid and stood there screaming and electrocuting myself until my dad came and ripped my fingers free. I continued to stand there and stare up fretfully at the small sky-light in Gabe’s bathroom ceiling for about half an hour. Finally I jumped back in, rinsed off for about 30 seconds, and jumped back out. I then spent the rest of the night recounting my horror story to anyone who would listen (Gabe’s old host-family, my family on the phone, and the boys several more times).
The next day we had delicious hot mountain coffee and pancakes for breakfast (I warmed everything by zapping it with my fingers, like the Emperor) and then set off for another adventure. We went over to the little Tourism Center (basically just this guy’s house), saw the four eco-cabins they have built for tourists, and had some juice. The family was incredibly nice and the mom couldn’t seem to stop stuffing us with food, followed by promises of more food (“You like those fried corn cakes, do ya? Well wait till ya try my homemade CHICKEN SOUP!”) Then we hiked down to this little waterfall and pond where the guy had built a sweet hydro-generator! His house is only one in Gabe’s community with electricity. It was totally amazing. But not as amazing as his WINE CAVE. You slosh through this freezing cold pond and force yourself under a pounding waterfall to reach a little cave hidden behind the dumping water. There, this enterprising man has hidden a bottle of homemade wine, complete with several little wooden cups. Unfortunately, the idea is a lot radder than the actual place, because a) the wine tasted like vinegar and puke, b) the cups smelled like my childhood friend Jennifer’s turtle tanks, and c) the cave was tiny and freezing and very wet, not my ideal wine-drinkin’ local. But at least now I can say I’ve drank crappy moon-shine in a cave.
So Honduras, like all over Central American countries, celebrates its independence day on September 15th. In a typical year, the kids basically stop learning or doing anything productive in school for a full six weeks before the 15th, spending their precious four hours of school practicing marching around, twirling batons or pompoms (if you’re a girl), banging on a drum (if you’re a boy), and singing the National Anthem, which has like 100 stanzas. However, this year was a little different, because the kids had already lost so much school due to the coup. So the Ministry of Education declared that no school could waste class preparing for Independence Day, which was sad for the kids but an excellent decision. As such, Alubarén’s “Quince de Septiembre” parade was rather thrown together and lame, but at least no minds were deprived of long division unncecessarily. My little neighbor Alison, one of Nelly’s kids, was crowned “Nina de Independencia” in her kindergarten class, so I had a great time walking next to her in the parade and taking a million pictures. She LOVED getting to wear lipstick and earrings and have her nails painted and her hair done (in case anyone is wondering how the exchange rate is doing down here, the local hairdresser charges one three-liter bottle of Coke to style a 5-year-old’s hair). It was a proud moment for Nelly…there are lots of cute girlies in Alison’s class, so the teacher must think Alison is pretty special to have chosen her.
I had a really special day the other day…about twice a month, I go into the health center and give a health lecture about high blood pressure to the poor people sitting in the waiting room. Usually there are about 30 people sitting in the church-like pews, talking quietly or comforting fussy babies. It’s almost always folks that come in from the surrounding villages, or aldeas. Aldea folks are, typically, must more shy and quiet, especially around gringos. Doing a workshop with folks from the aldeas is often like pulling teeth—people no one will even LOOK at me, much less participate and speak and contribute to the group. My monthly health lectures are no different. I always follow a similar format, asking questions about what they might know about high blood pressure, how it’s caused, how to prevent it, etc. And, usually, no one says anything, and then one of the nurses Franklin comes in and yells at them for being so rude to me, which just makes it WORSE, and then I just have to go through the lesson about the evils of salt and saturated fat and pretend I’m talking to people instead of robots who are programmed to only stare shyly at the ground. But this month was AWESOME!!! I don’t know what the difference was—all of the people were new to my lecture, no repeats—and most were from aldeas. But they listened when I was speaking, contributed when I asked them questions, and then began peppering me with so many questions I ended up staying a whole hour later than usual. I brought up the dangers of alcohol and how it can affect the heart, and encouraged them to give the local AA chapter a try if they were struggling with drinking. An older man then stood up, took off his cowboy hat, and began to share with this health center waiting room his own personal history with alcohol and how it nearly destroyed his life and his health. He looked around at all the other men and told them how wonderful AA was and that they should give it a try if they were “tired of being drunks.” Then he sat down. Then a young woman raised her hand a little, and addressed the group, saying how she had never really considered what her food was doing to her and her childrens’ hearts, and that from here on out she wasn’t going to cook with manteca (vegetable-based lard) anymore, only vegetable oil. And “only a teeny bit of salt!” She finished her speech and another woman declared she was going to start exercising to lose weight. Then we started discussing alternative recipes for meals (making rice without manteca, for example, or spaghetti without the obligatory 2 bars of margarine), and the women started getting all excited about the new ways they were going to prepare meals. Hooray for days like today.
Tomorrow is the “clausura” (closing ceremony?) of my “Yo Merezco” abstinence-education workshop. We’re going to eat cake, drink soda, bash open piñatas, play games, and pointedly not have sexual relations until we’re ready. This cake better be the best freaking cake ever, though, because it’s costing us $25 DOLLARS. That’s….so much of my money. God damn.
NOW I am eating dinner I just made, which is rice cooked up all tasty with tomatoes, celery, cilantro, sweet pepper, onions, garlic, and eggplant. One of the ladies who sells produce has really been bringin’ in the good stuff lately. I mean, eggplant?! In Alubarén?! It is awesome. I am kind of obsessed with eggplant these days. Weird.
The other day I played in the annual “teacher’s soccer game” (Alubaren versus one of the aldeas). It was rather hilarious because many the teachers were fat and running around in tight jeans, and everyone was shouting “GO HEELI!!” because my un-encumbered body could move around quicker than theirs. But then I got too cocky and totally wiped out, skinning my knee, which turned me into an instant celebrity. Even now, over a week later, people keep coming up to me—“Jili, is it true you hurt yourself?! Let me see! Oh, Diosito [tiny baby God].” Seriously. I’m FAMOUS for my skinned knee.
I guess since I’m describing my meals I’ve sort of run of out things to say at the moment. Lesse….I got a little bird’s nest in my lime tree! I think it’s a sparrow. I have no reason to think this other than the momma bird is small and brown. What else…man, I guess I actually went a whole blog entry without talking about Igor. He is doing excellently, and continues to grow, though I think he’s almost done now (he’ll be a year old in November!). The other day I noticed in the evening that his left eye was almost swollen shut, and totally freaked out, convinced he was pulling an Erika and going blind on me. I force fed him an Advil and slept fretfully. In the morning, however, his eye was totally normal, so I guess a bee or something must have stung him.
Time for bed…it’s nearly 9:30! Though the other day I made a new record for myself…the lights had been out all day and it was storming so violently I was afraid to be in my hammock, convinced a rogue lightening bolt would hit the roof and travel through the cotton and fry me. So I crawled into bed and decided just to chill and relax until the storm passed. This was at like 6:45pm…the next thing I knew, it was 7:00am and Igor was nosing me through my mosquito net. I am a human miracle!
Looove,
Hayley
Hey, chochachos!
Guess what today is? Nothing other than my official half-way mark of service, THAT’S ALL. Though actually it was the 28th of September that I arrived in Alubarén last year, but that’s because I cheated and came a day late so I could be sneaky and have a fun time with my buddies from training one last time. Anyway. I can’t think of anything to say about this moment that isn’t just a bunch of clichés out at a cliché family reunion, totally singing songs about bein’ clichés and eating snacks that clichés eat….I can’t believe how time has flown; it seems like only yesterday I was dragging two huge suitcases up the dirt road, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and sweaty-faced, etc. Time really has flown, but not any faster than it always does. That would require that Honduras be in some sort of time-accelerator-warp. Let’s not be crazy here people. EVERYBODY CALM THE HELL DOWN.
I am currently eating hot green squash with sugar sprinkled on top that my neighbor Glenda just brought me in a little bowl. It is delicious.
After a particularly long period of “mini summer,” we have now departed the hot-and-dry-all-the-damn-time period and entered the hot-and-muddy-because-it-rains-like-the-tears-of-an-adolescent-boy-listening-to-The-Cure-in-a-sit-down-bath-in-the-eighties every dang day. I rather like thunder storms…they’re so violent and warm and extreme, nothing like the cold wintery rain that California gets. My yard LOVES it; I’ve had to pay a dude to come machete all my grass and weeds into submission again because it was getting waist-tall and I’ve been finding snakes and such in places I do not want them (aka eye-ball level in my shower, for starters). I’ve planted a bucket full ‘o basil, which is coming along delightfully. I can’t wait to eat it on EVERYTHING. The rain is also making the river grow, which is awesome…I can’t wait till October (wait, I guess that’s this Thursday…I can’t wait till late October) when the river gets nice and swift and deep and we can go tubing in it. Lightening, however, can just take its business SOMEWHERE ELSE (more on than in a second).
A couple weekends ago I went with my buddy Patrick to go visit our friend Gabe in his site, a tiny 400-person village up in the mountain of Comayagua, in the western-ish part of the country. Gabe is a Protected Areas Management volunteer (as is Patrick) so the lucky bastard lives practically IN the Parque Nacional Montana de Comayagua, a beautiful national park that is mostly cloud forest and dripping with water (it supplies water to a jillion communities, I believe). His town is called Rio Negro, and is basically a small cluster of houses nestled into the forest. “This here is coffee country,” said Gabe, hitching his thumbs behind his over-all straps, and I believe him. Everywhere I looked grew short, shiny coffee bushes, and I tasted some of the best coffee I’ve ever had while eating dinner at his old host-mom’s house (and promptly bought three pounds of it). Gabe’s house is small but nice, though like the rest of his community, has no electricity. We’d stopped at the grocery store before heading up the mountain, so the three of us prepared a tasty meal of eggplant, spaghetti, and quesillo (a mozzarella-like cheese). Then we sat out of his amazing porch that looks down onto the basin below and admired the incredible lightening storm dancing on and stabbing up the open valley. In the morning, the clouds hang in the trees like they ain’t got no better place to be, and the birds just go crazy flyin’ around while Gabe identifies them with his nerdy little bird book (I’m jealous). Then he took us on the sweetest hike ever, especially considering the trail head is a five-minute walk from his back door. The trail winds through cloud forest for about an hour before reaching a small waterfall, and Gabe stopped and explained all the leaves and trees and plants and insects for us whenever we asked. Then we decided to scramble up the higher ‘trail’ to get to a bigger, more impressive waterfall, which was about another hour up the mountain. The trail, however, was barely existent, and Gabe had to force our way through with his machete much of the time, constantly looking out for the bright orange plastic ribbon marking where the trail aspires to be. The trail was also hells of steep and quite muddy, which meant that we had to crawl on all fours for much of the time, pulling ourselves up by vines and roots and branches. I pretended I was a chimpanzee and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We were so filthy by the time we got there! It was awesome. I love filth. Especially cloud forest filth…everything there smells so awesome and mushroomy and soily. Delightful. Getting down was even harder, because it was so steep and slick, so I finally just waited until the boys got a good ways ahead, squatted down on my heels, and skied down the slope. I don’t think I need to mention how filthy I became after sliding down a muddy mountain on my ass. Patrick didn’t like it much, though, because I would invariably catch up to them in about 10 seconds and smash into the backs of his legs. I kept doing it, however. Soon karma caught up to me, though, when we began walking through a sunny meadow and I tripped and fell flat on my face in a GIANT ant-hill. Biting ants, people! I start screaming and leaping around and smacking at myself while the guys just howl with laughter. I think the worst thing about Honduras is definitely the bitey ants.
We got home late afternoon, with just enough time for the three of us to shower and head over for a six o’clock dinner with Gabe’s old host family. I was busy scrubbing my filthsome shorts, so the guys went first. When it was my turn it was already raining pretty good, but no one ever told me of the dangers of showering during a thunder storm, so I jumped into the bathroom and rinsed myself with nice cold mountain water. I has just finished soaped and shampooing myself to hell and was just beginning to rinse myself when….when….I TOTALLY GOT ZAPPED BY GOD HIMSELF. A lightening bolt landed just outside the house and the electricity ran right through the hose I had in my hand and the water I had squirtin’ all over myself and just jolted me. I SCREAMED bloody murder and threw the hose down, then screamed again. Then I leapt out of the shower and stood dripping soap all over the floor while I whimpered to myself and explained in hysterical tones to the concerned boys on the other side of the door what had happened to me. It reminded me of the time I grabbed a hot-wire fence as a kid and stood there screaming and electrocuting myself until my dad came and ripped my fingers free. I continued to stand there and stare up fretfully at the small sky-light in Gabe’s bathroom ceiling for about half an hour. Finally I jumped back in, rinsed off for about 30 seconds, and jumped back out. I then spent the rest of the night recounting my horror story to anyone who would listen (Gabe’s old host-family, my family on the phone, and the boys several more times).
The next day we had delicious hot mountain coffee and pancakes for breakfast (I warmed everything by zapping it with my fingers, like the Emperor) and then set off for another adventure. We went over to the little Tourism Center (basically just this guy’s house), saw the four eco-cabins they have built for tourists, and had some juice. The family was incredibly nice and the mom couldn’t seem to stop stuffing us with food, followed by promises of more food (“You like those fried corn cakes, do ya? Well wait till ya try my homemade CHICKEN SOUP!”) Then we hiked down to this little waterfall and pond where the guy had built a sweet hydro-generator! His house is only one in Gabe’s community with electricity. It was totally amazing. But not as amazing as his WINE CAVE. You slosh through this freezing cold pond and force yourself under a pounding waterfall to reach a little cave hidden behind the dumping water. There, this enterprising man has hidden a bottle of homemade wine, complete with several little wooden cups. Unfortunately, the idea is a lot radder than the actual place, because a) the wine tasted like vinegar and puke, b) the cups smelled like my childhood friend Jennifer’s turtle tanks, and c) the cave was tiny and freezing and very wet, not my ideal wine-drinkin’ local. But at least now I can say I’ve drank crappy moon-shine in a cave.
So Honduras, like all over Central American countries, celebrates its independence day on September 15th. In a typical year, the kids basically stop learning or doing anything productive in school for a full six weeks before the 15th, spending their precious four hours of school practicing marching around, twirling batons or pompoms (if you’re a girl), banging on a drum (if you’re a boy), and singing the National Anthem, which has like 100 stanzas. However, this year was a little different, because the kids had already lost so much school due to the coup. So the Ministry of Education declared that no school could waste class preparing for Independence Day, which was sad for the kids but an excellent decision. As such, Alubarén’s “Quince de Septiembre” parade was rather thrown together and lame, but at least no minds were deprived of long division unncecessarily. My little neighbor Alison, one of Nelly’s kids, was crowned “Nina de Independencia” in her kindergarten class, so I had a great time walking next to her in the parade and taking a million pictures. She LOVED getting to wear lipstick and earrings and have her nails painted and her hair done (in case anyone is wondering how the exchange rate is doing down here, the local hairdresser charges one three-liter bottle of Coke to style a 5-year-old’s hair). It was a proud moment for Nelly…there are lots of cute girlies in Alison’s class, so the teacher must think Alison is pretty special to have chosen her.
I had a really special day the other day…about twice a month, I go into the health center and give a health lecture about high blood pressure to the poor people sitting in the waiting room. Usually there are about 30 people sitting in the church-like pews, talking quietly or comforting fussy babies. It’s almost always folks that come in from the surrounding villages, or aldeas. Aldea folks are, typically, must more shy and quiet, especially around gringos. Doing a workshop with folks from the aldeas is often like pulling teeth—people no one will even LOOK at me, much less participate and speak and contribute to the group. My monthly health lectures are no different. I always follow a similar format, asking questions about what they might know about high blood pressure, how it’s caused, how to prevent it, etc. And, usually, no one says anything, and then one of the nurses Franklin comes in and yells at them for being so rude to me, which just makes it WORSE, and then I just have to go through the lesson about the evils of salt and saturated fat and pretend I’m talking to people instead of robots who are programmed to only stare shyly at the ground. But this month was AWESOME!!! I don’t know what the difference was—all of the people were new to my lecture, no repeats—and most were from aldeas. But they listened when I was speaking, contributed when I asked them questions, and then began peppering me with so many questions I ended up staying a whole hour later than usual. I brought up the dangers of alcohol and how it can affect the heart, and encouraged them to give the local AA chapter a try if they were struggling with drinking. An older man then stood up, took off his cowboy hat, and began to share with this health center waiting room his own personal history with alcohol and how it nearly destroyed his life and his health. He looked around at all the other men and told them how wonderful AA was and that they should give it a try if they were “tired of being drunks.” Then he sat down. Then a young woman raised her hand a little, and addressed the group, saying how she had never really considered what her food was doing to her and her childrens’ hearts, and that from here on out she wasn’t going to cook with manteca (vegetable-based lard) anymore, only vegetable oil. And “only a teeny bit of salt!” She finished her speech and another woman declared she was going to start exercising to lose weight. Then we started discussing alternative recipes for meals (making rice without manteca, for example, or spaghetti without the obligatory 2 bars of margarine), and the women started getting all excited about the new ways they were going to prepare meals. Hooray for days like today.
Tomorrow is the “clausura” (closing ceremony?) of my “Yo Merezco” abstinence-education workshop. We’re going to eat cake, drink soda, bash open piñatas, play games, and pointedly not have sexual relations until we’re ready. This cake better be the best freaking cake ever, though, because it’s costing us $25 DOLLARS. That’s….so much of my money. God damn.
NOW I am eating dinner I just made, which is rice cooked up all tasty with tomatoes, celery, cilantro, sweet pepper, onions, garlic, and eggplant. One of the ladies who sells produce has really been bringin’ in the good stuff lately. I mean, eggplant?! In Alubarén?! It is awesome. I am kind of obsessed with eggplant these days. Weird.
The other day I played in the annual “teacher’s soccer game” (Alubaren versus one of the aldeas). It was rather hilarious because many the teachers were fat and running around in tight jeans, and everyone was shouting “GO HEELI!!” because my un-encumbered body could move around quicker than theirs. But then I got too cocky and totally wiped out, skinning my knee, which turned me into an instant celebrity. Even now, over a week later, people keep coming up to me—“Jili, is it true you hurt yourself?! Let me see! Oh, Diosito [tiny baby God].” Seriously. I’m FAMOUS for my skinned knee.
I guess since I’m describing my meals I’ve sort of run of out things to say at the moment. Lesse….I got a little bird’s nest in my lime tree! I think it’s a sparrow. I have no reason to think this other than the momma bird is small and brown. What else…man, I guess I actually went a whole blog entry without talking about Igor. He is doing excellently, and continues to grow, though I think he’s almost done now (he’ll be a year old in November!). The other day I noticed in the evening that his left eye was almost swollen shut, and totally freaked out, convinced he was pulling an Erika and going blind on me. I force fed him an Advil and slept fretfully. In the morning, however, his eye was totally normal, so I guess a bee or something must have stung him.
Time for bed…it’s nearly 9:30! Though the other day I made a new record for myself…the lights had been out all day and it was storming so violently I was afraid to be in my hammock, convinced a rogue lightening bolt would hit the roof and travel through the cotton and fry me. So I crawled into bed and decided just to chill and relax until the storm passed. This was at like 6:45pm…the next thing I knew, it was 7:00am and Igor was nosing me through my mosquito net. I am a human miracle!
Looove,
Hayley
1 comment:
Hayley! I love you! DO NOT GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING AGAIN. As an elder member of our family, you have to listen to what I say, and obey my Old Person Tone.
I, too, was almost kinda barely hit by lightning once. Well, not really, but it came super super close, and hit a tree in front of me, and I screamed and ran and ran and ran like it was chasing me, and then when I got inside I just stood there, dripping wet for a good 10 minutes. So... by my standards, you reacted completely normally to your zap.
But... you get 50 points for referencing the emperor in your descriptions of your new electro-powers. You rock my geeky sci-fi world.
In other sci-fi news, I am going to be a superhero for Halloween this year. I'm going to be the Silk Spectre from the movie/graphic novel The Watchmen and I am going to be sexy and tasteful at the same time, which is totally difficult if you're not a badass such as myself. I estimate 2% of people out will know who I am, but I don't care, because as I stated just now, I AM A BADASS.
I love that you're giving talks about health down there!! Come back and go into practice with me, and together we shall save the Bay Area from diabetes and stinky feet.
Congrats on being more than halfway done, and rockin' it like you have so far.
Much, much love,
Libby
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