Funny that the day after I wrote my whole snorkeling oeuvre, I rediscovered snorkeling as a genre and event. My cousin Paul and his friend Joe arrived on Monday. Paul owns his own aquarium store and has worked in fish since high school. Joe is similarly employed. So it that we are driving along the scenic 901 coastal road, beach hunting, and ( Read more... )

We love Rincon because it is, essentially, a gringo fishbowl. This is where all the surfer dudes from California and Florida came crawling and stuck. Long-haired, tan-skinned people, so relaxed they make cooked spaghetti look tense, drift everywhere, not unlike seaweed or the cool fungus-like corals. This floating shaka-like atmosphere has given ( Read more... )

Last week, during meetings, we got little snack breaks, with newspapers and coffee and treats. I was sitting eating my treat, drinking my coffee, reading the newspaper. The first story was a car accident, a silver BMW convertible, twisted into a hunk of metal, with a heading that said, "15 year old high school student killed in car accident ( Read more... )

The last time we were at Steps Beach, we went snorkeling. This is the best snorkeling I’ve had on mainland Puerto Rico - the actual best on the island was on the atolls off the coast of Culebra. There is a great reef that breaks against the rocks that divide the beach form the ocean which makes for some great feeding for little creatures, and ( Read more... )

Mary is the one who organized the trip. It was she who thought to invite Clate, and good she did, too, because Clate was the one who figured out the timing of things. We got to Ponce about 8:30, without food, because we had thought you could buy food on the island. You can’t. We struggled around the pier in our bad Spanish for a while, trying ( Read more... )

Last week, all full of bragging over my new journal entries with bright shiny pictures, I showed Mary my site. Instead of being impressed at the pretty and cleverness of it all, she counted pictures and informed me that there were far too many of people I teach ( Read more... )

I don’t really think of myself as a Wisconsin Girl, not in a trademarked, labeled sort of way. I say it sometimes because I think it sounds cool, but essentially, its meaningless words, a string of concepts that are open for such open interpretation, that they mean nothing. I don’t feel that I will die if I don’t consume blocks of cheese. I do ( Read more... )

And I’m the one who can’t get mail delivered....Look closely....

( Read more... )

Back at the beginning of May, I was appreciated. I got a little card that told me I was appreciated and everything. It even invited me to a small gathering that would drive home my deep appreciation with wine. This gathering was to be held in the school library. So it was that on May 4th, 2007, I gathered with my equally appreciated collegues ( Read more... )

Yes, a theme is starting to emerge. Back in the dark times, when we did not have a car, Mary and I developed this fun game I refer to as lizarding. When one lizards, one takes a beverage and walks the block and some to the little park-like-place that is behind the Costa Azul high school, where one lies down on the sidewalk or benches and ( Read more... )