What is it with dogs today?

As I was driving down the road to pick up some clients at Cap Suizo, I kept seeing a weird black and white blur out of the corner of my eye, in the rear view. I finally stopped to look in the back seat and nearly jumped out of my skin when a Chihuahua was back there doing hot laps from door to door. WTH? My first reflex was to assume it was a skunk or raccoon, or even cat. But a chihuahua? I can only guess that it got in there when I was closing the front gate-- I left the car door open to close the gate, then remembered to run inside to grab my coffee cup. All told the door on the car was open in the driveway for maybe a minute. So there I am, with a frantic little dog in the car, on the way to collect clients. I finally wrangled the darn thing to the front seat to read its collar and called the number on the tag. Turns out to be one of neighbors, but she isn't home.

Ok, no worries, I'll just grab the clients, then drop the dog off on the way to show properties. The clients got a good laugh and we decided that the dog would be fine in the car with windows down, while we toured a condo. Then we had to run out to the store for something, so I tried the collar numbers one more time and decided to just take the pooch with us once again. I parked in the Auto Mercado (supermarket) underground parking to keep the car out of the sun (no cooked chihuahua on my watch!) and we ran in to grab a few essentials, including water.

It occurred to us that the pooch was probably also thirsty, so I opened the tailgate to get a bowl that I keep in the back for my own dog. While I was opening the tailgate, the mutt decides to jump out of the front door of the car and make a break for daylight (and the busiest street in Tamarindo). Fortunately for us, the guard was nimble and cut off the dog's egress, herding it back towards the car. I hoped that he would jump back into the car, but apparently he had decided by then that we weren't such fun people and instead he hid *under* the car. So there we are- four adults, two kids, and a chihuahua playing catch-the-escaped-and-freaked-out-dog-that-belongs-several-miles-away while also trying to keep him from darting out into traffic.

If it sounds fun, go back and re-read. It sucked. I'm not particularly anal about my professional image. I work in flip flops most days. But I do try to maintain a minimum level of dignity and decor, and crawling under the car in an oily parking garage saying "Come on, buddy, it's ok!" Doesn't exactly seem.... seemly. Ya know?

We finally murmured enough sweet imploring to get the dog close enough for someone to grab, then jumped back in the truck and drove it home. Of course, by then it was POURING rain. There was still nobody at the house, but I could see where the dog had dug out under the gate. I dug the hole out a little more, and despite his protests I managed to gently smoosh the little guy back into where he was supposed to be (keep in mind, POURING rain). I then spent a few minutes finding large rocks to pile up on the escape hole, to help ensure he didn't dig his way back out (at least not while I was within boarding distance). By the time I got back to the car, I was drenched, but happier.

Phew. Dogsaster averted. I hope that someone else would treat my dog as well as I did this one, despite the fact it made me miss an appointment with my clients. At the very least, they'll have a funny memory of their time shopping with me.

And speaking of my dog: Caly is moping around the house. Surely she feels neglected since Jocelyn is out of town and I've been out of the house more than 12 hours/day with work. All she wants to do is go sleep under Jocelyn's desk (which is most of what she does all day anyway, and not that weird).

To top it all, there is some other dog in the neighborhood who is yelping piteously. Probably got left at home, can't dig out to jump in anyone's car, and doesn't have an owner to ignore spitefully for the abandonment.

Dogs. Sheesh.

Labels: dog, real estate, tamarindo

On the night of his death it would be a travesty to ignore the importance of Michael Jackson's contribution to modern pop music.

My earliest memory of his sound was "Beat It". It defined an important part of my introduction to popular music and brought out the dancer in a half-dozen of my pre-pubescent peer group. Never one to pine over fashion, I was not entirely immune to wanting my own (how many zippers?) leather jacket and single white glove.

Billie Jean is still on my "Top Music" playlists (though I now prefer a cover by Chris Cornell, live in Sweden. Just awesome.)

So long, Michael. Your music lives on.

Labels: news

The 2nd loaf came out excellent! I'm so happy.
Need to lower the rack in the oven or back off from 500 degrees- the top got a little overcooked, looks more like toast than bread. The flavor is still excellent, and the interior is fine.

I like the mouthfeel of white bread better, but a little whole wheat in there makes me think that it is a tad healthier.

While baking, we also saw a new-to-us bird in the tree out front. Turns out it is a Masked Tityra (Tityra semifasciata). White feathers, black mask, red bill/eyes. Pretty interesting looking bird that reminds me of a penguin. (image linked from RioRvPark.com).

Feeling good about the morning so far.

Labels: bird, bread, food, garden, tamarindo

Back in a previous life, I got into the habit of occasionally making bread in our breadmaker. My favorite thing to do was to load up the 'maker with all sorts of fancy flours and grains with malts and honey and whatnot- start a batch right at bedtime and let it rise for a few hours so that it would finish baking just an hour or so before I needed to wake up. Waking to the smell of fresh baked bread is a good thing. Eating thick, warm, grainy bread with a hot cup of joe ... Yum!

Fast forward 10 years, and I've started making bread again.

This time I don't have a breadmaker and my access to 'fancy' flours are limited, so I hunted around online a bit and found some simple recipes for simple bread. The recipe from which I borrowed most heavily is here on www.instructables.com. I also found a great recipe on YouTube. "Easy Bread".

It turned out delicious! Thick, crunchy crust, soft fluffy inside with nice crumb. The crust has an ever-so-slight sourdough flavor that we loved. The whole batch was devoured by us for dinner- leaving just 3 slices for toast this morning. I didn't snap any photos, but I did record my recipe:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• a little less than 1/2 Tbl of dry yeast
• about 1 Tbl of salt
• 1.5 cups of very warm water

Note re: the yeast & salt: I just used a regular spoon, and eyeballed it to about half-full. This will surely come back to haunt me later when I can't get the exact same results as my first attempt, but that's what I did.

I put the yeast in the water and let it do whatever dry yeast does for about 5 minutes, in the mean time I mixed the salt and flour and did some dishes.

Then I poured nearly all the water into the flour mixture, which, it turns out, was too wet. You want "shaggy", apparently. I had "gooey". So I added more flour and mixed it up a bit more. Then more floor, more mixing. About 4 times. Mental note: next time add 1 Cup water and see if I need more. I suppose that all that fiddling is almost a little like kneading. Maybe.

Finally satisfied that the texture was acceptable, I covered the bowl with a kitchen towel and left it for about 5 hours (I was aiming for 4, but got distracted).

I broke the dough into 2 chunks, then did the stretch/fold thing from the video on each chunk. I did this in a baking sheet to which I had added olive oil to keep things from sticking (like the instructable). I let the second rise go for about an hour. After the second rise I sliced a line down the center and sprinkled some salt on top (very little).

I then cranked the oven to 500 degrees and added an empty pan near the bottom (for ice, later). I got impatient around 450 and threw the loaves in, as well as a hand-full of ice in th empty pan. I planned to cook 'em for 10 minutes but at around minute 8 I noticed that they were getting a little singed on top so I backed the oven temp to 450 and reset the timer for 10 minutes. At 10, I set the timer to 10 again and reduced the temp to 350, and added some more ice to the pan.

The ice-pan thing is purported to help form a crunchy crust.

Somewhere around minute 4 I pulled the round, small loaf out of its pan and put it right on the rack, to brown the bottom a little extra. The rectangular loaf wouldn't come out of its pan, so I left it alone. Note to self: add a little extra olive oil on pan sides, or try flour, to reduce sticking.

After the final buzzer went off, I pulled one loaf and thumped the bottom with my thumb- it didn't sound quite hollow, so I put everything back into the hot oven for another 3 minutes.

Pulled it out and let it sit for... 1 minute? To "cool". Couldn't wait any longer and cut it open.

Now, there are good smells, then there is the smell of fresh-baked bread from your own oven. I highly recommend it.

The crust was firm and a little salty, surprisingly thick and very dark.

After devouring the first loaf with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or with butter on it, we were giddy with pleasure.

It comes as very little surprise to me that the foundation of most European cooking is bread. I am still a little surprised that this couldn't-be-simpler recipe produced such a lovely treat.

And on that note: I'm off to bake my second attempt. This time I added a cup of whole wheat flour instead of 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and used a little less water to begin with instead of adding extra flour to firm stuff up. I also let it rise the first time overnight (because I was sleeping). I'll be sure to post up results.

Roads in Costa Rica are... not so great.
Generally speaking, our best roads are about as good as the parts of California roads where they have big flashing signs that say things like "Caution, Debris in Road" or "Uneven Surface", or "Give Up Now- You'll Never Make It".

But little by little it does seem that the MOPT (road folks) are making some headway. Last night I had to drive home at midnight from Liberia (only about an hour now). Two years ago I never would have done it- simply too much bad road and too late (and it would have taken 2 hours or more). But last night I found myself zooming along, listening to the pleasant thrum of the diesel (and the not so pleasant knock of the worn Ujoint) and thinking: "Wow, this road is in great shape!" It even has lines painted and reflectors glued down.

Which made me happy. Even though I strongly prefer to drive on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, if I'm going to be on a highway, I'd like it to act like a highway.

Labels: Costa Rica, travel