A Broad In Costa Rica

Repeat After Me:

You heard me. g-NOWF-glinz. It stands for God's Natural Organic Food Grown Locally In Season and is my new favorite blog. I'm already in love with Wardeh (Wardee), the mom, and I only just discovered her Saturday! She and her family started out five years ago homesteading, growing their own natural organic food. They follow the Weston A. Price guidelines. Us, too, as much as possible!

Like Wardeh, we have changed everything about how we eat. (Except that Hal still does all the cooking.) "Changing everything about how we eat" is like a snowball rolling down a hill. S-L-O-W-L-Y at first, then a little faster, then speeding along. The #1 thing making the start so slow is denial. Denial about how poorly we were eating, nutritionally speaking. Hey, we followed the pyramid! Turns out it was complete b.s. Denial about the crap the FDA and USDA have allowed into processed food, into the animals we eat, into the milk we drink... denial about having to change the way we eat to actually care for the temple. Nobody likes change.

If you think you eat well* now and you don't want to change anything, don't ever read a label. This was the beginning of the end for me, a rabbit hole wide and deep. It looked like a tiny harmless hole when I dug in a toe and read my first label. Sure enough, I saw an ingredient I needed to scroogle.org. "Eeeeeyyyyooouuu. We've been eating that crap? No wonder we're fat and sick. That box goes in the trash!" Ok, at first, we finished that box of crap, knowing it will be our last box of that crap and not wanting to waste the money. Besides, it was crap that tasted good. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

But then I looked down and saw that toe-sized hole. "Heck," I thought, "we are out of work and Alex Jones isn't on yet, maybe I can get my whole foot in there..." Before I  know it, I'm falling, falling, falling, dragging my family kicking and screaming down with me. You've heard the expression "One thing leads to another"? Unless you stick your head back in the sand toot-sweet, it does.

Why? Because that first tiny bit of knowledge made me suspect that the food filling our cupboards was quite possibly making our bodies and the planet sick. That nags at ya. Then, when you verify your first fact (as best you can, anyway, because the information is unpleasant and difficult to come by. Plus, you find out the alphabet agencies who are supposed to be protecting you from the very things you are ingesting, play fast and loose with the facts. Hey, the current head of the FDA left his cushy job at Monsanto to tell us which foods and supplements are safe. I wish I thought that was funny.)

Once you've verified your first fact, seen your first movie on the topic, like Food, Inc. or Monsanto: Controlling Our Food or Supermarket Secrets or Aspartame... one day, you find yourself emptying your cupboards, throwing away boxes and jars and cans of what you now know to be poison. I do not exaggerate.

Your husband is standing there, calculator in hand, completely pissed, your kids are in tears because you are throwing away perfectly good boxes of _______. Nobody likes you, but you know you are on to something and they are going to have to get used to it or move. Ok, maybe not move, but they knew not to mess with me.

Besides, they hadn't seen the movies, read the indictments. They have now. They may not like it, but they do appreciate it.

The funny thing is, we'd always been vitamin takers, thought we were pretty healthy eaters. Looking back, I'm aghast. My children were raised on sugar and chemical filled GMO-soy** formula, diapered with toxin-laden landfilling disposable diapers, filled to the brim with nutrition-free Goldfish crackers. Mea culpa. How did they survive it? Must have been the preservatives and pesticides.

Back then, I thought people who ate only organic, who eschewed meat and avoided processed food were hippies, probably stoned all the time and not living in the real world. I had no political attitude or even knowledge about vaccines. I just didn't like the idea and couldn't see the point in vaccinating the boys against either diseases they were unlikely to get or ones I'd had and survived. I allowed the first couple of suggested vaccines because my pediatrician scared me into it, then didn't do anymore. Other than that, I towed the government line 100%: ate their food, took their medicines, watched their news. In spite of Hal. I knew he wasn't stoned all the time, but he was awfully suspicious of the party lie. Er, line.

Then we moved to Costa Rica and I had time on my hands (like, all of it). In August of '08, I decided I should devote some of that to finding out how to get Ryan off his asthma meds. They weren't curing him, he wasn't getting any better. Or worse. I figured there had to be a better way. If not, at least I looked.

So I surfed the net, discovered who the ABC agencies are protecting, found out how much doctors really know (after med school, they only know what pharmaceutical companies tell them), found the autism websites, read about mercury poisoning and chelation, vitamins and, oh yeah, read a label... Time on the topic has not been wasted: emptying our cupboards, getting off all medications and processed foods, tossing back a boatload of vitamins everyday mixed with freshly-juiced juice and goat's milk kefir, has been dramatic. Ryan is no longer on meds and his asthma is gone.

Still miles to go: sugar is not gone from the diet, but it sure needs to go. Sugar is killing us. I'm looking forward to stopping supplements and getting our nutrition from food. Reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. Getting a VitaMix next time I'm in the states so we can soak and mill our own wheat berries, and make smoothies with fruit and raw food to keep the fiber. Fiber is critical (of all the videos linked to here, the Sugar one in this paragraph is the one to start with. Loved it!)

Our garden needs some work... animals are way easier to grow then plants! We grow chickens for eggs and tilapia not to save money but to know where our food comes from. I want to know what I'm eating ate. Costa Rican eggs come from Costa Rican factory farms, run just like U.S. factory farms. Local tilapia is fed antibiotics. Much of the tilapia sold here is from China. I don't understand that but I'm not eating Chinese tilapia.

So we are working towards healthy eating: local, natural, simple. We buy almost nothing but olive oil from the center aisles in the grocery store. On Saturdays, we eat whatever we want, but even that's changed. I can't eat at McDonald's anymore. Not even a fry. I know too much.

If there's a piece missing from my well-being protocol, it's inner peace. I'm horrified (absolutely horrified) by what is happening politically in the U.S. I find it so disturbing, yet can't stay away from it. I need to balance my political read-rage with down to earth inspiration. Like what I find at GNOWFGLINS and CheeseSlave, another new fab blog I'm reading. Because, you know, it's later than I think.

*Well as in healthy well, not well as in stocked-cupboards well. In fact, if your cupboards are stocked and you or your neighbor didn't can, bag or dehydrate everything there, you are not eating well.

**From here: "Four companies now process 80 percent of the beef consumed in the United States; Monsanto has unprecedented control of the corn and soybean market. Their Roundup Ready corn is now planted on nearly 80 percent of the farmland acreage in the U.S., and Monsanto’s soybeans, with their Roundup Ready gene, is in 93 percent of U.S. soybean seeds."

TED Talks does it again. Absolutely Brilliant:

Indulge Me For Less Than a Minute - Thank you!

Make sure President Elect Obama keeps his campaign promise to label GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) foods - this takes less than one minute. Thank you so very much!

To find out more about GMO, visit the expert Jeffrey Smith.

Watch some excellent videos here: Google video.

Thank you, Ginnee, for starting me down this particular rabbit hole. I am grateful.

Busy As A Honeybee

Helloooo. It's been a wild two weeks over here. I haven't been sitting around on my shrinking butt doing nothing. Mostly I've been busy freaking out because Ryan's surgery is in the morning. Adenoids out, septum straightened, you-know-what vacuumed away. In the big picture, this is so routine, a nothing surgery. But still. I mean, it's not even like he's going "under the knife" unless you count the tiny laser razor on the end of the thingie they stick in his nose. No stitches, about 90 minutes out, 2 hours in recovery, then home to sleep and ice cream. In fact, I know several people here who have had the surgery, including two people in my band. The head geezer, Barry, had it done last year.

But still. The past couple of weeks, I've literally been a human doing because if I stop and breathe, I feel deep anxiety. Like it vibrates my whole body. That is not a good thing right now. Too bad I don't drink or do drugs. I remember in the good old days how that would make time just literally disappear.

Lately, we are so sober and healthy, we experience every blessed minute. Fortunately for me, eating healthy and curing disease takes time. So much time. When I'm not reading and taking notes, I'm printing it all out and making everyone else read it. Or I'm counting out vitamins and chasing everyone down with 'em. Or squeezing fresh OJ so I can count out drops of GSE to put in it. And cooking. My back hurts from standing around in the kitchen all day. That's new for me!

Everyday I make fresh bread, then try to keep up with the demand for homemade mayo, chicken salad, egg salad, hummus, clarified butter, hard-boiled eggs, and fresh washed cold celery. Hal keeps us in brown rice and beans. Gone are pasta, canned goods, chips, potatoes, peanut butter (because here you can only get it with hydrogenated fats or freshly made from rancid nuts - they just don't get peanut butter in Costa Rica. Besides, peanuts are a huge allergen and we'd give it up anyway.) The list of what we no longer eat is LONG.

The boys like to complain there's nothing to eat. But, you know, they always think there's nothing to eat if they can't find chips and ice cream.

It's true, the cupboards look bare. We have always been a Full-Pantry kitchen. I think that's been the hardest thing to get used to: looking in cabinets and seeing space. If the cabinets are over-flowing, that means a) we are prosperous, b) we won't starve and c) there's gotta be something good to eat, right? It's completely psychological... and an incredibly wasteful way to live. Looking back, I'll bet we could have supported a family in Darfur on what we've thrown away. Ouch. Yeah, I'm uh-merikan. Pity.

But I'm moving on!

The geezer gig went fairly well. If you only count how we sounded, it went incredibly well! We really sound good, tight harmonies, good musicians and a real live saxophone player! Too bad, because there were only a dozen or so people in the audience, mostly friends and family. I felt like I was in a high school play. Our publicity campaign fell a tad short. We now have a website (notice the next gig 25 October) and an updated email list. And an Advertising Action Plan. Heck, we sound too good not to play to a full house!!! And, ok, since we keep the door, we need more than 12 people in attendance.

Sunday the next day was my birthday. To celebrate, we fed the homeless in downtown San Jose with the Amma crowd. It was right after the Week of Worry and I was feeling deeply grateful. An overwhelming urge to give back overtook me. At that exact moment, I got an Amma email announcing their monthly soup kitchen. Serendipity. Sunday morning early, we met at one of the organizer's homes, cut, chopped, stirred, spiced and got a soup going. Then drove it all downtown and served it up. I was the Tang girl and I was darned good at it.

There are some seriously homeless people in San José. They were all so filthy, they pretty much looked alike. Some taller, a few gringos, not too many young people, too many women who looked like they'd been run over. They love soup, they love Tang. Good for the boys, good for me. It was a perfect birthday.

Let's see, what else... OH. I kinda got a hair cut. Like all of it. I actually paid someone to cut my hair and she did a terrific job. I am sick of dying my hair and actually want to see it all silver which it looks like it will be once the reddish blonde is gone. And I LOVE no hair. Whoa, this is living. I know why Hal shaves his head now. Besides the fact he doesn't have enough hair to speak of...

I hate this picture because this is exactly what I look like. I always think I'm thinner and younger. I'm especially always surprised that my mouth is so little. Oddly, you can see a bit of a picture of my father who everyone says I look like. Um, he's a guy. A good looking guy, but still.

We are off to bed. To sleep... HA! To read, toss and turn, to wander about, doing stuff. More soon.

My Cup Runneth Over

Mostly with things to do, but I've been gifted with a few lovelies from the universe as well.

1. The first to do today was to search online for the article starring me in the L.A. Times. I seem to have a knack for drawing attention to myself. For free, but hoping it leads to a paying gig. To read the whole article, you have to close the seductive Halle Berry movie ad about a million times. Small price to pay, n'est-ce pas? Actually, I do not star but rather close. And they mention the broad website! Cool. Gee, I wish my book was ready...

2. Putting the finishing touches on Hal's book, Democracy: The Painted Whore. Provocative, si? Our Spanish teacher, Jorge, was shocked by the title. He was thinking puta, when it's actually akin to prostituta: selling oneself for money or gain. If things go as planned (you know, like they usually do), this will be online as an ebook by Tuesday. Getting it ready for the print edition will take probably till the end of the week. Because...

3. Learning Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 ain't simple. Fantastic program for writing ebooks, but this is more than a day's learning curve. Far more. Both of us are learning this, as well as...

4. Learning the ins and outs of Smart Digital Dispatch which is the software we'll use to actually sell the ebooks: it securely collects the price ($9.97) via PayPal and delivers the book.

If you don't have a PayPal account, it is simple and free and, so far, incredibly secure. Better than online banking.  We've had accounts for years. You store credit cards and at least one bank account there, then you can pay for tons of stuff online with a click. You get an email confirmation from PayPal, they back the purchases. If something bad happened, they cover you and investigate. We've never had to use the safety features. Plus, you can get a PayPal debit card. I love debit cards. Unfortunately, Hal keeps finding them.

5. Working on my book Advice From A Broad: The First 100 Things You Need To Know About Coming To Costa Rica. Brevity has never been my long suit. This will be a couple more weeks in coming, but, hang tight, it's almost ready. I know you're anxious... Lots from the blog, of course, but lots new. I'm cracking myself up writing it. Trying to be serious but having a little difficulty. Things are serious enough if you ask me.

6. Rehearsals and memorizing the words for my song in the upcoming LTG Halloween Extravaganza next Saturday night. We all took showtunes (I'm using My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music) and re-wrote the words to go with a zombie theme. Like Thank Heaven For Little Ghouls and If I Were A Zombie, yadadadadadadadadadada. There will be a video... perhaps I'll post it IF I look thin enough.

7. Trying to stay on my diet. I cannot drop this extra 10 pounds. Well, 20. OK, 30. But I'd be happy losing 10. OK, 15. But no matter what I do, it refuses to budge. And no matter where I look, I see it. It's really getting in my way here. I can still see my toes, but if this continues, it won't be long before those disappear and I'll only be able to see bosom. Plus, I need to lose weight for the book tour.

Clearly the recommended 20 minutes of aerobics three times a week which used to work just fine needs to be upped to an hour everyday of vigorous walking. But you see that to do list evolving here? This is only half of it. Who has an hour a day to walk?

So I'm on a modified Atkins diet. And, no, "modified" does not mean it includes ice cream. Unless you think that would work. It's like an Atkins/diabetic/low insulin response foods/Perricone mix. Mostly protein and complex carbs, low-glycemic fruits, no white flour, no white rice, no grains that I can think of except maybe oatmeal. Trying to stay low saturated fat so lots of fish and chicken.

Sadly, I am built for carbs. Especially now. And, after a week of this, I am jonzin' for carbs. Yesterday I was in PriceSmart, looking at sheets, no where near the bakery isle. And I thought, "You know, I could get one of those 6-packs of cinnamon rolls and eat the whole thing and no one would know." At least no one would know right away... I did not, of course, I swear. I don't even eat cinnamon rolls. As a rule. It was worrisome to have that thought cross my mind, as if I'm a sugar junkie or something.

So on a diet and NOT happy. Although I do have more energy and am sleeping better sin carbs. I'll focus on that.

There's a ton of other stuff on the Master to do list. Showering. Making more coffee. Learning about my new affiliate website: www.FiftyToLife.com (nothing there yet) about life for women over 50 and how this is actually the time to celebrate. And how to use my new software affiliate package SiteBuildIt.com with which I am TOTALLY unimpressed so far... All sales and no support. $300 down the drain. We'll see.

At this very second, more coffee is at the top of the list.

I have much to be grateful for this Sunday morning, too. Like the fact that Costa Rican coffee is GOOD and CHEAP. And that my LTG friend Lisa who is going through chemo for breast cancer is doing great. Four treatments down, two to go, excellent prognosis. And, OK, I may be fat, but I'm otherwise in excellent health as are all my boys, all my dogs and my only mother.

Plus - and this is really personally very exciting - I stumbled into a GREAT place for meditation and spiritual hoo-ha. I found it a couple of weeks ago with my friend Candy. Being at this place is like walking into the movie What The Bleep! Absolutely fantastic and, seriously, just what I've been looking for in the Personal Growth Arena. And, no, "personal growth" is not a euphemism for getting fatter. Look for more on Sat Yoga, for sure.

Hope your Sunday is as good as mine. Pura vida! Love, Saratica

Fascinating:

What the world eats.

Ceasar Salad (specially made)

This was the description of the first item on the menu at the Arenal Observatory Lodge. $6. "Specially made." Turns out, they were not kidding.

I lived in Manhattan in the early 80's. Had Ceasar salad prepared table side at some fabulous restaurants: rub the big wooden bowl with lemon, toss in Romaine lettuce, raw egg, big fat homemade croutons, little olive oil, fresh Parmesan, whole anchovies... tossed and served by snobby old waiters in tuxedos. You can get ALL these ingredients in Costa Rica except the tuxedos.

Let's just say this Cesar was nothing like that. Gayle (with whom I have done some pretty fine dining) could not resist and ordered it.

I may have mentioned that the food in Costa Rica is nothing to write home about. There is no cuisine here, which is fine. What you get in the markets is fresh, beautiful, plentiful and cheap. Fresh corn tortillas - especially the ones with cheese and natilla [na-TEE-jah, like a sour cream] - can be heavenly. Fresh gallo pinto can be delicious. You get damned sick of it, but, if you stick around long enough, you come back around to enjoying it.

Since there is no cuisine to fall in love with, you just want to be served good fresh food when you go out. Even if it is gallo pinto and tortillas. I was dismayed to discover that during our trip to Costa Rica's Magic Kingdom®, ALL the restaurants in which we ate served bad gringo food. So mediocre and poorly translated, it was, fortunately, cause for amusement. Sometimes the plate of food would appear in front of us and we would stare quizzically. Then ask, "Is this what I ordered?"

The "specially made" Ceasar salad had four ingredients: chopped iceberg lettuce with tiny store-bought croutons. Not really too surprising. The black olive halves raised an eyebrow. But the pièce de résistance were the tiny cocktail onions scattered about the dish. Yeah. Cocktail onions. Like you get in a gin martini. The three of us gaped for the longest time, speechless. Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to take a photo.

Gayle was still game - I mean, by this point, we'd had some pretty amusing meals delivered. Then they brought out the dressing: a monkey dish of gelatinous brownish goo that tasted... not that great. It may have just been the look of it, but it was not edible. This salad is now too special for us and Gayle sends it back.

How do the restaurants around the awesome Volcán Arenal get away with it? Captive audience. Despite the fact that vegetables are plentiful - the country is overflowing with delicious vegetables - at every meal, we had the same pre-packaged restaurant supply steamed broccoli/cauliflower/carrot mix. Exactly the same. You know the joke that all the Indian restaurants on 8th Street in Manhattan share the same oven? It's like all the restaurants around Arenal shared the same chef.

Hey. If you are looking for something to do to make a million in Costa Rica and if you can cook - at all - open a REASONABLY PRICED restaurant around the volcano. I promise you will rake it in. Doesn't need to be all gringo food either. Fresh and flavorful would pretty much get the job done. I'd recommend staying away from "special."

Rainforest Salad

Photos of food are hard. Especially half-eaten food. But I couldn't take the time to pretty up this bowl because I was afraid someone else would come along and eat it before I could. Have I mentioned that Hal can cook? Oh man. He can go into a kitchen that contains no food at all - NONE - and whip up something tasty. I've seen him do it.

For the Rainforest Salad, he had ingredients. All fresh and fabulous. I guess this is sorta like a Waldorf Salad only no raisins, no walnuts, no cheese, no vinegary dressing. Maybe Waldorf is not a good comparison. Dan will know... Here's the "recipe." You'll have to make up the amounts which is why I have a picture at all. Helps with the guessing!

MAIN INGREDIENTS:
Apples and Fresh bamboo shoots from your local rainforest.

Brian brought us our fresh bamboo shoots from his farm in the rainforest in Guapiles. I didn't take pictures of ours, but found this pic online. Ours looked just like the big one on the right, only ours were twice as big and greener, fresher. (He brought them in a cooler.) He told us to cut off the fibrous plant parts to get to the middle, then boil for 10 minutes in lightly salted water. We did... They don't seem to have much flavor alone, but take up the flavor of whatever you add it to. Delicious, so crunchy. We've added to salads and stir frys - the perfect ingredient!

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
Chopped raw cauliflower heads
Chopped cilantro (the green leafy herb)
Minced garlic (one clove)
Minced dry roasted salted peanuts (1/4 cup)
Juice of one limón mandaríno - This is the name on the tag, couldn't find these on Google. Our limes are green and nasty looking on the outside, orange and delicious on the inside. Tart without too much bite.
2 T olive oil
Coarsely grated Parmesan (handful)
Salt to taste

Mix and eat. Don't let anyone else see you with it. They will want some!

Buying In Bulk

I never used to buy in bulk because I like to shop. If you buy in bulk, you don't get to go to the grocery store as often. But if you want gringo goods in Costa Rica, Pricesmart (PS) has the biggest selection, and they only sell in bulk.

They sell everything: washers, dryers, tvs, huge workout stations, sets of 500 ink pens, a package of 100 spoons, socks, towels, pillows, toilet paper, dog food in 50lb bags, groceries galore.

Oh. Before I forget. Check expiration dates on gringo grocery items in Costa Rica. They are often expired or damn near. I suspect a developing nation might be shipped seconds and almost-expired goods from arrogant first-world nations. Hey, I'm probably paranoid. Check expiration dates anyway.

While the goods may be cheaper at PS than anywhere else, it's still not cheap. If you are buying gringo goods, you are paying duty which often translates to double what you pay in the states. Buying bulk helps mitigate the sticker shock.

Here's what I paid:

3 jugs of PS brand bleach (in the big blue box): $7 (Probably coulda gotten this cheaper at Auto Mercado.)

Huge jar of ground black pepper: $16 (The regular size was $5 so this was well worth it. Can you believe the boys made fun of me?)

Big bags of Splenda: $12 each (Yeah, pricey.)

Planters peanuts: $10 (Nuts are sooooo expensive: a small bag of almonds is $10 and they are usually rancid so I've just stopped buying them. Ticos don't eat nuts. Or peanut butter.)

Jug 'o Mayo: $5

BBQ sauce: $5

Sugar: $3 (Sugar is cheap here.)

Coffee: $5 (Coffee is cheap here, too.)

The 4 containers of blue stuff with oxy in it, top left of bleach box, next to the coffee, is what we use to wash dishes. It's like a blue paste. Just over a buck each. Comes in orange and green, too. But only the blue has the oxy stuff in it. With the boys washing the dishes, you need all the help you can get.

Oh, one more thing. See the marshmallows (only $3 for this great big bag)? Xavier said, "What are you doing buying marshmallows? They are junk! They don't have the life-saving qualities of chocolate." Really.

Takin' The Cocoa Cure

PRE-PROLOGUE: During our 24 hours of hell, the only thing we discovered is that Xavier's blood pressure is in the high range of normal. Not high blood pressure, as he is quick-like-lightening to point out, just in the tippy-top limit of normal. "Which is still normal," he says, "not high." Proof that denial affects even the sane.

PROLOGUE: A few days ago, I stumbled onto an article making the startling revelation that cocoa - organic, sin azúcar [seen ah-SUE-car, without sugar] lowers blood pressure as well as makes you smarter, happier, sexier... the list goes on ad nauseam. I innocently sent X a link to the site. He latches onto the notion - the article IS from Harvard, after all - and starts researching the internet. Cocoa is grown in Costa Rica, not a lot (that we know of), but some. We just don't know where to find it. The hunt begins.

Last Sunday, as Xavier and I were strolling through Sabana Parque, we came upon one of the many tents set up around the park, each protecting a clutch of vendors from the 9° latitude sun. The gods are with us. Amongst this gaggle is a seller of locally-grown organic cocoa. There is a Costa Rican organization, ACOMUITA, Asociación Comunal de Mujeres indígenas de Talamanca,* that trains women to grow (from seeds to fruit) and process (grind up and make into squares and candy) organic cocoa.

For more information, if you speak Spanish, look here. If you speak English, look here. And if you want to help, either with donations or a volunteer vacation to the jungle, look here!

X goes wild at the cocoa stand. He buys a big chunk, 2 small square bars reminiscent of Baker's chocolate from whence cake is born, 2 bags of powdered cocoa, and a bag of candies. The candies are delicious, con azúcar [cone, with] and grainy, fudge-like. Could this be good for you? Hey, Harvard says so.

Since Sunday, we've had shaved organic cocoa on EVERYTHING that lends itself to the flavor: fruit, French toast, ice cream, oatmeal. Powdered chocolate in our coffee, which doesn't taste that great and leaves cocoa sludge in the bottom of your cup. For some reason, it doesn't dissolve like you think it will. X cuts off little chunks and eats it. The man's cocoa crazy.

Then, last night, X comes home with a bag of mini-Snickers. Call me skeptical, but this seems a little outside the box. I point out that Snickers bars may not have the same health benefits as organic cocoa. He shrugs. I fear there may be more wrong with him than high blood pressure. IF he had that.

This morning, X is triumphant. His blood pressure is down today. I tell him I'm going to blog about his current insanity. Here's our conversation:

Xavier: "You are going to mock me in front of the whole world? [He has a rather inflated idea of my readership.] Not only am I healthier, by buying that chunk of cocoa, I am supporting an entire Bribri [BREE-bree] family. And my blood pressure this morning was down to 137/79."

I mockingly said: "Down from 140?"

He's indignant now: "No, down from 145/83. And that's after only one day on the stuff. In a week, I'll be comatose. So there. Gimme one of them Snickers bars."

It's sad, isn't it, what testosterone does to a perfectly fine brain? More in a week.

*Asociación Comunal de Mujeres indígenas de Talamanca: ah-SEW-see-ah-see-OWN co-moon-ALL day moo-HAIR-ace een-DEE-hen-es day tall-ah-MAHN-cah, Community Association of Indigenes Women of Talamanca