GIVE ME GRACE

Nietzsche said, “without music, life would be a mistake.”

I was on a little solo road trip home today and all I had was the car radio. Usually I hate the radio but today was different. Today was…..good. The radio was actually decent and I jammed out all the way home. It was one of the least painful trips back from WPB that I have ever taken. And I was alone.. and not medicated AND hungry. It was like a miracle. So now I am thinking about all the songs that I like and I can’t even pinpoint anything about them that is even relatively similar. Apparently my tastes are eclectic.

Here’s what I’m listening to right-meow: blues traveler-felicia
men at work- land down under
the black keys- howlin’ for you
led zeppelin- tangerine
dave matthews- #41
fleet foxes- tiger mountain peasant song
regina spektor- bartender
bonobo- beachy head
etc….

Holy shit. Why am I not singing when C plays the guitar? Let’s change that.

On a totally different note, i got hammered by a nasty orange jellyfish today. It hurt, I’m not gonna lie… but it doesn’t look nearly as bad as I thought it was going to. Relatively minor actually. I still don’t recommend it though.

Home now… C is still in WPB so the girls and I are going to have to snuggle by ourselves. Which, by the way, is about to get even crazier since we should be receiving another dog in a week. Yes, ANOTHER DOG. Yes, RECEIVING. On a plane (I’ve had it with these motherf*cking dogs on this motherf*cking plane!). Only kidding. So if anyone is looking for a sweet little three legged gimp dog from costa rica let me know. I have one right here for your pleasure.

Pretty regular stuff to report. Some car fixin’, some gardening and hopefully I’ll find myself in a little down dog at some point as well. (get your mind out of the gutter) and while you’re at it……..

“Blow up your T.V. throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches”- john prine

*sorry about the randomness in this post. I have to get it all in before I forget.

I can’t help but start this post out by saying what an absolutely beautiful day it is here. Thank god I live in Florida because I think returning from CR to somewhere less wonderful than this would be such a shame. Though I do believe that there is beauty everywhere, if you know how to look for it. Missin’ costa rica a little, but finally getting back into the swing of things. A little lunch with a friend, a run with another and a quiet night in the casa alone (never really alone… thanks to miss betty). You can’t beat it. I have been having these crazy experiences lately where I cannot even believe how blessed I am. I don’t think I could avoid being thankful if I tried.
I have a few quiet days to myself while C is in West Palm. I’m only going briefly on Wed. to drive the car back down on Friday. Errands to run, bills to pay, but finally back into yoga and my daily mindful meditation (running). Also back into school which is much more delightful now that it’s online.
Speaking of delightful, C and I (mostly C since he’s my sugar daddy) are looking to buy a house. We have our eyes on one in particular right now… but we aren’t totally limiting ourselves. But holy backyard batman! It is the most tremendous yard I have seen in Tampa….ever. You could build four more houses if you wanted to. We are dreaming about this yard it is so glorious. But who’s getting their hopes up? Certainly not me and the organic garden, volleyball court, chickens and dogs that I am envisioning. And dinners…. did I mention dinners… on the deck… with friends that actually fit inside of our house? We shall see. Everything happens for a reason so que sera, sera.

Bonita

So this is it. I am sitting here in Florida, home sweet home. This is my 2010 pura vida update:

Part 1 (8/24-8/8):

The flight was totally uneventful. Even though I hate flying, thanks to C and a little Bach’s rescue remedy, it was over before I knew it. I did get a little evangelized by the girl sitting next to me, in Costa for a mission trip I’m sure…. So me, C and my new copy of ‘how to be saved’ arrived in Costa Rica and went directly to Orotina where god supplies the earth with women who make the world’s most delectable cheese only empanadas. That’s right. Con queso…. solo queso. Empanadas the likes of which you have never tasted.
Then we were off to Esterillos Oeste to say hello to some folks and enjoy 3 days in the oeste palace on the hill…..

It was beautiful, and thanks to our lovely friends Shannon and Bruce, we got to stay there absolutely gratis. We surfed, we ate, we walked miss Mama Dos. Luxury living, complete with four post princess bed with mosquito net. Gotta love it.
After they returned from their trip and relieved us of our duty to live the super high life for three days, we took a little road trip to Nosara. What a beautiful place. I totally recommend it. It’s a tiny beach/surf town. Tons of gringos so it gets quite expensive, but definitely worth at least a few days. C was totally impressed with the beautiful and forgiving waves and so was I, even though (as you will see in the rest of the post here) I ate total shit surfing. I also was able to take a class at the amazing Nosra Yoga Institute. They have an open air studio on top of a hill in the jungle looking out over the ocean. Holy crap. Namaste baby. It’s hard not to be in love with everything you see there. We surfed, ate, walked….. do you see a pattern here? Then it was onward to Esterillos Centro for the remainder of our trip.

Part Dos (8/8-8/24):

On a rainy rainy sunday with our boards strapped to our Suzuki Alto… also known as a golf cart, we made our way back to esterillos. This time to house-sit for a friend going back to Canada for awhile. Did i mention that our board holding apparatus made the car leak on our shoulders every time it rained? Did i mention that it rained the whole time? Well, I am mentioning it now…. thank god for travel mugs. It was like bailing ourselves out.
Now we were able to get a little comfortable and make her little tico house our own for the next two weeks. She has two sweet dogs and a little Costa Rican kitty, so my animal urges were staved substantially. They were sweet as can be and pretty frisky for little old ladies.

We were borrowing a bike from a friend of ours after we returned the rental. Now it was two weeks with no car…. thats what costa rica is to us. We never have a car. We walk EVERYWHERE. People can’t get over it… but I think its wonderful. So our days were lazy and beautiful. We woke up, walked the girls, took a low tide walk to Oeste, fished or surfed (i ate it again and again), visited people and then we walked back home when the estuary was low enough. We ate, we walked, we surfed, we napped…. does it get better than that?

We were able to visit with everyone we wanted to see, make a few new connections, help some people out and be relaxed and rejuvenated when it was all over. We ended with an awesome full-moon party the night before we left. I would say it was an astounding success.

Things I learned on our trip:
Beach living makes my body happy
Beach living makes my mind/soul happy
C even amazes me in paradise
even CR doggies love treats (but i already knew that)
don’t touch the mangos
i haven’t gotten over my surfing hump…..
CR allergel doesn’t work
border collies like to fetch
don’t eat any more brownies
and stop drinking cacique

We missed our friends, family and furry girls here at home, so we’re glad to be back, but it certainly was just what we needed.

PURA VIDA!!!!!

Well, our trip is almost over, but I am going to wait until I get back to sit down and gather my thoughts and write it all down. We have had an awesome trip and it will be sad to not be walking down the beach every morning, but we have furry kids waiting at home for us. We leave here on Tuesday, so we are going to go to the market, eat some more tasty tico food and ride some waves and then it’s all over. For now at least. There is a lot to take care of at home and a lot of things that I am itching to get started with, so I suppose that now is the time. I am over the stagnation…. we’re tearing some shit up when I get back.

Costa Rica posts to come….

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. C told me not to bring my computer to C.R. so this is only our second trip to an internet cafe. All is well here in pura vida land. A little surf, a little sleep and lots of eating. We are in Nosara-Playa Guiones right now and the waves are lovely. The town is nice too with the Nosara Yoga Institute just down the road from where we are staying. I took a nice restorative flow class yesterday in the open studio in the jungle. Can´t beat that type of atmosphere. Other than that we have been pretty busy visiting everyone and exploring around. We were in Oeste house-sitting a pretty awesome house on the hill and now after our little vacay we are going to house-sit for the next two weeks in Centro. A couple of dogs and a kitty and a house on the beach. I still miss Miss betty and the cats though. Centro will be nice and C can fish in the estuary. Time to just relax and get on tico time. Surfing is coming along and I´m getting in some little runs here and there. I´ll have to take some more pictures so that I can post them when we get back (I´m so terrible with that.. even with my ultra fancy camera). All in all the r&r has been what it is supposed to be and we still have 2 more weeks. If this is my last post until I get back I swear i will update you with everything then.

Hasta la vista

We are going to work on that. Authenticity that is. It seems some people, a lot of people, just don’t have an accurate point of view. So it must be something that I need to work on. I m going to have to completely start over with some things.

I figured that since I am a list maker… I am going to make two lists. One about gratitude… because there are so many things that I am thankful for and I don’t think anyone realizes it. And another list of things I plan to improve on. No reason to wait for a new moon to make some intentions. No time like the present.

Thank you:

mother nature (you grow my food, dry my clothes and remind me that there is a greater force at work here, whatever it is)
C, for being a total badass and possibly the only one who understands it all
my friends for living totally different lifestyles and being able to give an objective view, while appreciating that our differences are what makes us, us.
my sister, for being as crazy as i am
betty and the cats for endless entertainment and unconditional furry love
my health and my body which allows me to run and swim and do yoga
music
amazing food
crazy multi-use plant oils
whatever awesome unknown universal force it is that allows me and c to barely work and still be able to support ourselves

and a slew of other things that I can’t even put my finger on.. the list would go on for years

Honey-do:

have a positive intention every day
do something new even if it makes me nervous
om namah shivaya… whatever will be will be
be comfortable with being out of control
cook more
sing when c plays the guitar
be more empathetic
trust more
thank people
BREATHE…

It’s amazing what a little bit of r&r can do for you. That is running and relaxation for those of you who think that I am discussing rest. Rest is good too but too much rest makes for a lazy mind and discontent. At least for me it does. It makes me crazy. I can go from super frustrated to all que sera sera in the time it takes me to start sweating. Thankfully having done a little workout and some much needed running in the hot hot sun, I am now feeling much better about all of the business ahead of me.

The weather has turned out beautiful today and I am almost done with everything that needs to be done, except for the class I’ve got to go to tonight. Hopefully it won’t take the 4.5 hours they say its going to. Or at least maybe there will be some interesting people there to keep me entertained.

Tomorrow is running and yoga and brunch and a little trip to see a friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Once again, I cannot complain. Miss Betty is feeling a little under the weather today and C is out of town, but everything is pretty balanced besides that. Our little hobbit house is pretty mellow and I am glad our house sitting time is over… gotta soak up some kitty lovin’ at home before we go to CR!

I have been sprouting with my sprouting jar like a mother f-cker and mung beans are next on the list. My favorite so far. Crispy crunchy goodness. Which reminds me… I better go eat something or this whole mellow mood is going to be wasted.

Pura Vida

I have got to get my thoughts in order.

House sitting almost over. Class tonight. I just need my routine back. Mama needs to run. This whole ankle thing has messed me up… I just can’t get right.

This is my reset week before Costa Rica. I have to make sure everything is in order before we go so I can enjoy myself without being a spaz about everything at home that I am supposed to be doing. Which is nothing actually.

Ok. Out for a run and maybe some yoga. Then potentially I will have better things to post.

I am seriously considering weening my cats and dogs onto a vegetarian if not completely vegan diet. It simply seems hypocritical of me to eat a vegan diet and still feed my animals garbage food from the pet food aisle at the grocery store. I am already spending an arm and a leg to buy the grain free cat food and the dog food with no by-products, so why not just go the whole nine yards and do it the mindful way?

I am sure that this all sounds crazy hippie tree hugging useless to some people, but they are my companions and how can I feel good about feeding them food with animal parts in it that are deemed unfit for human consumption? I would not feed this trash to my children and that’s what my pets are to me.

It’s going to be slightly labor intensive, but there are some companies out there catering to people like me. After C.R. I am going to initiate the animals-go-vegan initiative in the Behnke/Winn house. I just don’t think whomever I find to babysit the kitties (and there still isn’t anyone) is going to want to go through crazy vegan cat lady’s weird food program. We’ll take it one day at a time. A couple of websites that are useful if you’re interested are :

http://www.vegancats.com
and
http://www.peta.org/factsheet/files/FactsheetDisplay.asp?ID=34

I finally went for my first post-ankle sprain run this morning. It was lovely. A bit hot and only a short 4.5-5 miles, but lovely none the less. It is nice to be back. I’ll try babying it a little longer as it has also been contributing to a lot of pain in my back as well and I don’t want to be too decrepit.

In food and garden news we FINALLY got a food processor and made some delicious tabouli. If you don’t already eat tabouli, call me. I will make it for you. Everyone should eat it ALL THE TIME. Unless you have some kind of crazy and unacceptable to me, aversion to parsley.
Otherwise, I have been finding some tomato hornworms on my plants (which are lovely little creatures, but the bane of my tomato growing existence) and we put up some new bird feeders so that the cats can have some entertainment.

Countdown to C.R.: 15 days

I am having a kitty meltdown. We are officially going to Costa Rica on Aug. 4th- 24th and there is nobody to take care of the kitties. I thought it was taken care of… wishful thinking on my part I suppose. Three weeks is a long time. I need someone to come watch the house and take care of the animals. I am a crazy cat lady… and proud of it. This is going to make me even crazier.

On a lighter note, C and I finally got a computer that works. And get this…. we got the internet too! Sounds like a total non-event right? NOT! We haven’t had the internet at the house for over a year… this is like big pimpin’ for us. So now I have no excuses….

Same ol’ same around here. Just got back from a little trip to N. Carolina. We did the drive in one shot and it seemed like forever, but we survived and everybody and their naked dogs in north cackalacka entertained us for the weekend. It was nice.. and suprisingly hot. I managed to sparin my ankle playing my first game of disc golf ever. Awesome… i can run for a million miles no problem but the second I throw a frisbee my body decides enough…. So i have been hobbling around with my ace bandage making excuses for being so lazy.

I am going to do a little bit of solo yoga tonight and then get back on the running wagon tomorrow. Good idea, no? We’ve got a lot to do leading up to our trip to CR (now including finding someone to watch my babies!): house sitting, house prepping, work, some vball and making sure everything is in order for me to get back to being a good student when we come back.

Had some tasty miso soup in N.C. which is going to be added to the list and finally perfected our babaganoush recipe….
We also had a tasty meal last night at Datz deli with a beer list that I think brought a tear to c’s eye. I recommend it.

Tags: Add new tag, pets