Lettuce Surprise

Whoops two post in a day. Might be a bit overkill, but I can't NOT blog about this.

I was making myself a healthy salad. Nothing amiss. All was well. Then I grabbed a chunk of lettuce. You know the kind that still has its roots attached? All still good. So, there I was just washing, and washing, then I opened a leaf of lettuce to really get the inside because that little part of dirt that was connected to the lettuce sometimes makes for grainy salads and I saw this:Yep, that's right. A SLUG! I squealed like a little girl, dropped the leaf in the stream of water, and stayed a safe distance away to make sure it wasn't still wiggling. It wasn't. I chucked that entire section of the lettuce along with anything that the slug sat on, ate, touched, breathed on, etc... Then, I tried to figure out the odds that the slug was not actually dead and instead just cryogenically frozen and would come back to life as some mutant slug thing that would sit under my bed and telepathically send me nightmares about things like giant slugs and stuff...

All this from the girl who as an innocent five year old in California would chase the slugs and snails and try to "make friends". I really needed to get a life.

I was trying to explain this to L. on MSN today and I was all "Guess what I found in my lettuce? GUESS! A..." Wait. Word Reference time. How do you say slug in Spanish? BABOSA. Hahaha...the name makes me laugh. I'm going to name my next cat that. Babosa!

For real though, I don't know if I can ever eat lettuce again.

Advertencia de Viaje: Volcán Barú, Panama

Sorry English only readers for the Spanish post today. It's just that there is pretty good evidence that mis abuelos read this blog semi-regularly and they like to think that mi hermano and I live in a bubble. It's a pretty bubble, you'd like it here. Anyways, I promised my little bro that I would get the word out on this blog about something que me da mucho miedo that happened to him while hiking on the Barú Volcano in Panama. He wrote this for a local paper to avertir other tourists and Panamanians alike (sorry for any rough edges):

El fin de semana pasado, el 15 de Noviembre, fui con un grupo de cuatro personas a Volcán Barú. Mi grupo avanzó adelante que yo, y llegó a la cima 40 minutos antes que yo. Al fin cuando llegué encontré dos complejos de telecomunicaciones. A la derecha estaban dos trabajadores que los mantienen. Ellos me hablaron casi 20 minutos. Mientras en la distancia oí una risa. “ ¿Será mi grupo?” les pregunté Uno de ellos me preguntó, “ Todo tu grupo es gringo?” “No” le respondí “Uno es Panameño.” Porque yo quería andar con mis amigos yo los fui a buscar. Y me sorprendió, los trabajadores me siguieron y entraron al complejo encerrado, No es una mentira cuando les digo que 10 segundos después ellos salieron con dos rifles M-16.

Los dos, me siguieron otra vez, pero esta vez hablaron con mi grupo. “¿Alguno de ustedes es Panameño? ¿Sí?”. Escuché que Yony había levantado su mano, y dijo con una voz temblorosa ”Sí, soy Panameño.” “Dale pue,” dijo un hombre con la arma “Ven conmigo queremos enseñarte algo, y traduce a tus gringos allí que todo esta bien.” Pues yo no me sentía bien dejando mi amigo ir solo con ellos y por eso, los seguí.

Un minuto después, los dos con armas, no ensenaron una mierda, en un patio del lugar encerrado. “¿Esa mierda es tuya? ¿Sí?”. “Claro que no!” exclamó mi amigo “No hice nada.” Para los próximos 10-15 discutimos.

Finalmente los empleados con armas nos dijeron que todos teníamos que salir pero Yony, el tuvo que limpiarla con una toallita. Eso me enojo mucho. “No Yony no vas a limpiarla como quieren ellos, ven conmigo y vamos a bajar sin hacer nada por ellos.” Esa acción les enojó y me provocaron como me querían disparar.

Dos minutos después, Yony la limpió con una toallita con las armas apuntadas directamente a su cabeza. Durante ese tiempo caminé a otro lado un poquito más lejos donde no me podían vigilar. Trataba llamar la policía. Llamé tres veces, y tres veces la policía me colgó. De repente los a los hombres hablar y corrí a juntarme mis amigos otra vez. “Oye gringo si tu quieres que te devolvemos tu amigo tienes que pagarnos 40 dólares. No tuvimos otra opción. Qué debimos haber hecho con dos rifles apuntados a nuestras cabezas? Así que les dimos los $40 porque si no, no sabíamos que nos iba a pasar.

Al final, nos robaron no sólo de $40 pero también de una experiencia en el volcán Barú que queríamos. Además de eso, quiero decir que el cerro es peligroso. Ya tengo miedo para las personas que viajan solos en vez de ir con un grupo. Cuando fuimos solos todo el mundo nos recomendó ir con un guía, pero no quisimos gastar tanto dinero así que fuimos solos y casi nos costó la vida por la culpa de dos empleados corruptos.

La embajada estadounidense me dijo que hay una ley que dice que la policía panameña no puede perseguir una delincuencia si ocurrió en una otra provincia pero cuando llamé a la policía me colgaron porque escucharon mi acento creo y no me tomaron en serio. Aparte del hecho que los hombres en el volcán nos pudieran matado, eso es otro tratamiento que nunca voy a olvidar porque en mi país la policía no puede elegir a quien quieren ayudar. Tienen que ayudar a todos. Por eso quiero informarles que el volcán Barú es peligroso, especialmente si andan solos como nosotros. Ya aprendimos que cuando todos nos dan un consejo, hay que obedecerlo. Por eso escribo eso, porque no quiero que le pase a otra persona lo que nos acaba de pasar. Tenemos mucha suerte que estamos a salvo y que no nos pasó nada más grave.

My Attitude

...Has improved dramatically in the last two weeks since I haven't been at the beck and call of the English institute. To their credit they treated me fairly, paid me well, and gave me lots of opportunity to take on lots of classes, but for some reason I don't like when people tell me what to do as in "Sara be at this place at 9:00" Why? What's wrong with 10? Why do you people have to wake up so early?

That's just the beginning. For some reason, this last go around at teaching got me some real doozies, like the one who stared at my chest the first entire class and then became my first student to internet stalk me and add me on Facebook. Denied!

I'm thinking this arrogance may be a problem that could possibly affect me later in my professional life, but I'm too busy enjoying semi-retirement. Now, who can hold my margarita while I apply more sunscreen?

Oh, and I had a chat with my roommate. It was brief. I told her to knock before she came into my room and respect my space. She nodded like she understood, although she looked somewhat confused. Now, my biggest problem is how to tell her, politely of course, that her aversion (I think it's been a week) to showering isn't cute or cultural, it's just gross. At least she's leaving soon. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

Then, after I wrote that post about my mastocytosis and saw the responses from family, friends, and strangers alike, I was reminded of what a great support network I have and why I blog in the first place.

All of those things combined have definitely lightened my mood. In fact, I barely even noticed that young couple still in their school uniforms who stopped in front of me to suck each other's faces off right in front of me forcing me to walk around them. It hardly even phased me today when I went for my morning jog that four, count that four, grimy old men called me beautiful. Okay, so it bothered me a little, but not as much as it usually does.

After that, I was jogging around the park and I saw three parrots in the park. I couldn't find an image online that fit them, but they were fairly large, green, and had red beaks. I've never seen them in Chile before. I googled them a bit and it looks like a similar bird lives in Peru. They looked sort of like the parrots from the Qué Barato! commercial. Here's a clip if you haven't seen it yet.




I kept trying to get close enough to them to see if they would squawk "Qué barato!" They didn't.

Alright, I'm off to do stats homework. Linear regression woohoo!

What's up world?

Abby recently wrote this post about not knowing what's going on in the world, and I have to say I feel the same (Now, when will I start coming up with my own content?). Last year, when I got back to the US for Christmas I had no idea what was happening in the news, pop culture, or the lives of most of my friends and family. My mom wanted to take me out for a movie and showed me the list of current showings and I knew none of them.

In fact, I apparently acted so strange and lost that people asked me where I was from, "Er...here?"

Then they would look at me knowingly, lower their voices, and say "No, where are you really from?"

One barista at Caribou Coffee said that he knew all of his customers and he knew that I was not from around there, despite my insistence that I lived down the street.

Fortunately, I had kept up with the election news because something that important made the international news, but I had no idea when my parents would reference local or neighborhood news. It would be all "Sara, do you remember that one guy who did that one thing?" Then my mom would look offended and scold "G. she hasn't been here!"

Right...

Recently, I was talking to my grandma. Now, she is rather republican and I tend towards the other side. I try to avoid talking politics because once I got mad and called her a fascist. That's when I learned that no matter how right you think you are, it's considered disrespectful to compares one's elderly relatives to Mussolini. Nice going me.

Anyways, back to our talk. She always tries to catch me up on the local and national news and she got on her politics soap box. I kept trying to interrupt with a polite cough, but I guess that just comes through as static on Skype.

G.Ma: So then Obama goes around apologizing to all the other countries, like we've got something to apologize for!

Me: *clears throat*

G.Ma:He wants to make us another Venezerala.

Me: Venezuela?

G.Ma: Yes. Venzoowella.

Me: He wants to take away all of our free speech!

Me: *cough*

G.Ma: Fox News, which as you know is the only unbiased news left, said that he wants to socialize everything. Everything is at risk.

Me: *cough*?

Eventually, I butted in and explained that I didn't want to discuss politics and she understood. But, I started thinking. What has been going on in politics? I know that Obama's approval rating has slipped, and that recently democrats lost two seats in congress, but I haven't heard anything that has led me to believe that the US is going down the socialist crapper either.

Note: And before you leave me any comments about how socialized medicine is the ruining life as we know it, then let me tell you that I could not be anymore in favor. I have been rejected from private insurances becuase of pre-existing conditions three times. There is absolutely no reason why private insurance companies should be able to control so much and deny me the medical coverage I need. That, to me, is much more of a threat to our way of life than socialized medicine.

So, what has really been going on in politics? Anyone care to fill me in?