Two Cafes in One Day

Been doing more of the same. On Tuesday I met Cara and Aimee for lunch and I tried "Gazpacho" for the first time. Am I the only vegetarian in the world who has never had gazpacho before? It was okay, but not my favorite. That is surprising, considering I have been known to eat salsa with a spoon. Tuesday evening I went to running club. Cousin Don (not my cousin) brought sweet corn from his farm, and I took home 2 ears. It was really good-- I guess Cousin Don is as good at growing sweet corn as he is at running ultra-marathons.

Today I biked over to school to take "Pablo" out for coffee. Pablo (who I often claim is my thesis advisor even though he actually is not) introduced me to Nicaragua more than 2-1/2 years ago when I went with him to be a teaching assistant for his course on primate behavioral ecology. Pablo drinks more coffee than anyone I know. I asked him one time how much coffee he drinks per day and he estimated it to be about 16 cups. Talk about excessive. At any rate, I'm still off caffeine, so I had a decaf, and we split a cranberry scone. Tasty. We went over my data collection protocol, so now I know what to do when I get to Nicaragua. Its amazing-- I've spent about a year and a half working hard core on the proposal, but dealing with all that theoretical background and significance has somewhat made me lose sight of the project. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, I guess.

When we left the café it was pouring down rain. I waited around school until the rain let up just enough so that I could bike home without getting completely drenched. Later in the afternoon, I left in Iris (my car) to go to Frida's. The rain had stopped, so Frida and I left, on foot, for my second café of the day. Keeping with my caffeine avoidance, I had an orange juice. While we were chatting (40% Spanish, 60% English, and an occasional French word thrown in there), the rain began again. We briefly and hilariously attempted to run through the rain, but Rob ended up rescuing us in the minivan.

Although its continued storming all night, Rob backed the van up to the garage so we could load up a bunch of things. The kitchen table and chairs, my desk, my filing cabinet, the TV and its stand. Tomorrow it will all go up to Nana and Grampy's. At last, the house is beginning to look like we're moving.