swimming pools and owls

Well! A few days have passed and my visit is feeling much softer. My sense of mobility is improving and that is helping tremendously. I spent the weekend in San Jeronimo, a town that used to be about three hours away but is now only an hour away with the construction of a massive tunnel that runs through a mountain and takes about seven minutes to get through. It's supposed to be warm there, but it hasn't been particularly warm any of these last few times I've visited. That didn't stop me from getting into pools like this one:

life is hard?

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I also ended up at a couchsurfing meeting in the centro. As much as people talk about how scary it is, I really like the centro here. It's still pretty old school, with old cafes and kinda sleazy bars and neat museums. I don't tend to be as impressed with the brand new construction that crops up all around the outer edges of the city. That's probably not too surprising.

So, that's been my life lately. It's been helpful to remember (and constantly remind myself) that part of the reason I wanted to come here was to get to know this place on my own terms and see if I could love it. It's also helpful to remember the Legacy-of-Luna-esque lesson of flexibility making things easier.

Also, I know this is gross, but, y'all, chorizo, like this, makes things easier:

(We were supposed to be meeting someone to hang out and instead ended up in this town, Sabaneta, which is famous for delicious chorizo and we decided it was okay to be sort of late and make a quick stop for chorizo. This is how we are.)

I'm still not sure how long I'll stay here, but I'll worry about that some other time. There's more eating to do. There's also more reading to do! Mel did me the favor of passing along this article, which I understand has been making its rounds on the internet. I've totally been quietly obsessed with one of these blogs (this one), and I had no idea about the Mormon thing! But, dude, whatever! I love it like I love cooking blogs and design blogs and even those vintage outfit blogs, just because I love imagining a world of air conditioning and people shopping at Target and having all the right kitchen tools when they need them. Something about imagining those things is so comforting. Also, owl crafts.

I've been reflecting on my love of owls lately. My love of owls began before the dawn of the designy, cute screenprinted owl craze, with this weird shelf that was directly above the kitchen sink in the house I grew up in. It was full of owl figurines. I always loved the idea of people collecting things, and it appeared my mother had been collecting these owls. There were all kinds of owls--owls made of tiny seashells, creepy realistic owls, cartoonish owls.... One time, I asked my mom why she liked owls so much and she explained that one person had given her one owl and she had displayed it at our house and then EVERYONE started giving her owls. It was really disappointing to realize that my mom hadn't even sought out to start the collection, but now that I am nearing the end of my nomadic life (for now), I'm fantasizing about stealing her owl collection for my new home, where I'll sit around and read Mormon blogs and write in this blog and make owl crafts in my free time.

Right?