Upon the Stormy Seas

I sat in a low slung salt air battered beach chair and watched the midday tide roll in as the air vibrated from the green season afternoon storm pushing through. It's remarkable how it seems like I can have a relatively busy week and still feel a sense of calm contentment knowing that the only thing that really mattered at that very moment was watching the pelicans swoop in and run out the line on the foamy right breaking waves.

I've been fairly lax on keeping these pages updated, not because nothing is really happening but because I feel like the things I am loving right now might not come across all that interesting.

-I cooked six consecutive private three course meals for a couple from NYC.

-I ate some silly hot chiles from Jose the guard's home garden. He warned me "Tio (he calls me uncle) these are super hot" but I assumed that they couldn't be THAT hot considering the Ticos just don't eat spicy food. He was right though. They were super hot. He laughed. I cried. And then I laughed.

-I listened to a ton of music.

-I got full on pineapple.

-I read a page or two of Louis L'Amour, the unsung hero.

-I had a sip or two of Flor de Cana rum.

-Sleeping sleeping sleeping. I don't sleep late but I've been sleeping hard, a pleasant development considering I hadn't been sleeping too well in the states.

-I've been out at Las Casitas kayak surfing four days this week learning how to read the waves, catch them on the shoulder, bottom turn and use my paddle to turn back up the face of the wave. Each time I drop down the face of the wave feeling the spray come up over the nose, I laugh. Every time I paddle out into the break not sure if the next wave is going to pound down on my head and I punch through it and sling salt water everywhere with a whip of my head, I laugh. When I roll over in bed and I feel those two little muscles in my lower back tense and burn from another day in a boat, I grin and sleep like a stone.

-I have felt the healthiest I've felt in a long time.

-I am quickly adjusting to slower ways of life and Costa Rican handshakes.



(The painting above reminded me of this rediculous 3 Inches of Blood song, who by the way, Charles, have a new album out. PIRATE MEATAL...YAR!)