Genteel Poverty

Two very important people were re-introduced into my life recently: Casper the much bigger puppy, and Laura Scholten, once-and-future room mate extraordinare!

Kenny has no time or wherewithall to care for his dog, so I´m the one who takes him for walks. Sometimes, at night when it´s cool enough, we jog down to the little bridge and back. He´s a very good dog, doesn´t chew on our things (much), doesn´t bite, doesn´t bark or bother us, especially considering that he´s terribly neglected. He looks like this.

But. Potty training seems to be beyond the scope of Casper´s little doggy potential. He´s 3 months old, which probably means at this point that he just wasn´t trained soon enough. And because his mother (yours truly) cannot supervise him constantly, we´re making little to no headway. So I am living in a house that smells like dog piss and K and P´s fried pork. And apple incense and pot. What a life.

Then Laura came! It was so much fun to show her my life. She thinks that Jill and Bob are critical self-centered jerks, which confirms something I have felt for a while now. They always make me feel like they´re dissapointed and like they wish I would just go away. It´s like everyone was super nice at the beginning but now they´re not.

Kenny, on the other hand, has been really nice lately. And when Laura came, he pulled out all the stops, making conversation, bringing home wine, inviting us out for drinks, and recommending we go to the Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua this week, which is where we´re headed (but that, as my parents used to say right before bed, is a story for another time).

I had to paint the living room. We were spending all out time at home, and so we were feeding ourselves. On a VSB, very serious budget, which we still are on. For lunch Laura at cereal, that she was also eating for breakfast and dinner. I decided to make cabbage salad with a cabbage and a tomato. Consider, the vegetables we have at our disposal are few, namely only the ones that do not need refrigeration. I needed a lemon for the salad, but no worries! We have a lemon tree in the yard. After squeezing the lemon on the salad, Laura asked me, is that a lemon or an orange? A lemon! Smell it, Rachel. I smelled it. It was an orange.

We ate the salad anyway.

We spent all day Friday painting, with Fight Club on the tv to provide packup soundtrack and burnout inspiration. I am Jack´s bad attitude toward the work environment. While we were still taping, Laura and I ran out of tape. First we went to the dictionary to look up, masking tape. You can say it two ways: cinta adhesiva protectiva (adhesive protective tape) or cinta de enmascarar (masking tape). I memorized them both and we walked down the street to the store. I asked for the tape the first way. Confusion. I asked for the tape the second way. Confusion. I produced our masking tape sample that we brought along because you must always anticipate confusion. Oh, the lady says, ¨masking¨. Yeah, I say, masking! Laura, who speaks about as much spanish as a pull-string doll, said, Rachel, you said cintura, not cinta. Shit. I just asked that lady for a protective adhesive belt. Although I guess I could have used one of those, too.

We spent all day painting the living room white. It didn´t really look any better than it did when it was ghastly green on top and sky blue on the bottom. But whatever. Jill told me to do it, and I don´t give a shit about the house any more. That evening Jill stops by to see how the work went, and to introduce me to the new massage therapist, Angela, who is sweet and shy but at least she´s a friend for when I get back. Jill says, it looks nice, although I see there are a couple screw ups where you got paint on the walls, but you can fix that later. Thanks for the generous praise, boss. Then she says, but I asked you to paint the kitchen. Excuse me? Yes, remember, we talked about it and we decided on the kitchen?

Shit. The truth of the matter is this: Jill´s decision-making proccess is tedious in the extreme, my opinion doesn´t matter that much and I´m generally apathetic anyway. She rambles out loud about what she maybe wants, and I tune out because it´s like watching a dog chase its tail. So she maybe decided on the kitchen, but I thought it was the living room, and I don´t really listen anymore, which is a problem. Hopefully when I get back from vacation I can check back in for the last 3 weeks. But at least the living room looks nice even though there are a couple screw ups.

We left for Nicaragua at 5AM the next morning.