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Simple Pleasures 1: Thursday Night Dinner

I’ve been eating on the front porch lately, watching the world go by!
My old favorite was the side garden porch & inside you smell fresh bread!
So wherever you sit you will find enjoyable food! Buen Provecho!

Thursday night from 5-7 is my second Spanish class at Iglesia Biblica, just a half block from one of my favorite restaurants, El Balcon del Cafe, so . . . I started going an hour early for a very early dinner or late lunch at 4:00 with usually the day’s special. The couple who run this place are German but only a few items on the menu are German, and it is all very good! They are also a bakery with some of the best fresh bread and cakes in town, maybe tied with my other favorite bakery, Crema y Nata.

One of my two favorite fish plates in town is here a wonderful whole Corvina (Sea Bass) smothered in a white wine sauce that makes the fish melt in your mouth. And my favorite dessert here or maybe anywhere in town is her Queque Manzana con Helado (Apple Pie Alamode).

Her daily specials are usually gourmet recipes and always healthy, with or without a fruit bebida (drink). Tonight’s was an absolutely delicious steak or special cut of beef (beef not served much here) with her special German pan-fried potatoes and one of her scrumptious salads! No need for dessert tonight! I look forward to Thursday evenings and the surprise gourmet dinner before Spanish Class. One of the many simple pleasures I enjoy in Costa Rica.

Buen Provecho! The equivalent to the English “enjoy your meal!” or the French “bon appétit!” And believe me! I enjoy most of my meals here! For a light lunch snack I had some of my homemade guacamole with plantain chips to carry me over to dinner. My guacamole is from local fresh avocados and other veggies (I add fresh squeezed lime juice, onions, peppers, herbs, and tomatoes) and it is actually another one of my “Simple Pleasures.”  As is my usual breakfast of a bowl of 4-5 fruits with whole-grain cereal and nuts.   🙂 Charlie

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.~George Bernard Shaw (1856 –1950) 

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Disgustingly Like the States (Christmas before Halloween!)

Walmart (photo) and other stores started Christmas promotion in October!

Like in so many developing nations, it is the commercial world that is most “up to date” or more “developed” or shows more “progress.” That has mixed advantages and disadvantages. Like Alajuela’s infrastructure (especially streets) is simply not ready for the biggest mall in the country! And the majority of the people cannot afford the expensive stores. It still amazes me how much the rest of the world hates the USA and yet copies it! Or should I say allows U.S. businesses to come in and change the local culture. Interesting to note that all 15 or 20 Burger Kings in Costa Rica have closed. Nada! Some investor was probably losing money. Yet all the McDonald’s and KFC’s seem to do well even with multiple Latin American fried chicken competitors opposite KFC. Likewise Coke & Pepsi do well, while some big or expensive stores depend greatly on expats along with the growing rich among Ticos. I think that will be the case of the new City Mall. Catch the quote below by a North American:

We’re not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can’t even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.~Alex Steffen

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A New Black Witch Moth

Black Witch Moth, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica
Inside my house on screen. I opened screen, shooed him out.

And this one is darker, though still not quite black!  🙂  And he was INSIDE my house.

Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what’s in a name?

~Helen Hunt Jackson

And my photo galleries on:
Costa Rica Butterflies & Moths
Costa Rica Insects

Or all my Costa Rica Galleries together

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Monstrous Mall Opens Today!

See Living in Costa Rica’s new Blog Article on the Mall

In addition to theater, gym, and 1,600 seat food court, it will have an amusement park with snow-sledding!
The man-made snow will be the first snow some Tico kids will ever see!
350+ stores, 2,000 parking spaces and all just 45 minutes from me on a bus.
Unfortunately it will be expensive and focused on rich people. But us poor like to go see these places!

This afternoon (Tuesday) I went to Walmart in Alajuela and on my way back to the bus station my taxi drove by the above mall that opens tomorrow (Wednesday, 11/11). Traffic was terrible and it isn’t even open yet! The road in front is being widened but of course they are not finished with the road yet (sounds like the states). My driver said there is a big fiesta planned for the grand opening tomorrow. I enjoyed his characterization of the mall as “Gringo Landia” or Gringo Land. You can be sure the gringos here will certainly support the place! At least the rich ones, which is a bunch! And just in time for Christmas!


Shopping at any level is a bit of therapy for my medulla oblongata.~Theophilus London


INTERESTING COSTA RICA NEWS TIDBIT: 


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Groove-billed Ani

Groove-billed Ani, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

Though fairly common and widespread all over Costa Rica, I haven’t seen many here. This was one of four in my yellow-bell tree just off my terrace. From a distance he can be confused with the Melodious Blackbird, but a closer look at the bill is the difference in these two all black birds with black eyes, the only two totally black. I made an out-of-focus photo of one at La Jacaranda last January, but this is a much better image. Also back then I called that one a Smooth-billed Ani which is almost the same, without the grooves on top bill which is also a little higher pitched. But they only appear in the South Pacific area of Costa Rica, so I renamed it there and in my online photo gallery of Costa Rica Birds. 

Cornell Lab Site on the Groove-billed Ani, an unusual bird

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?”   ~Rose Kennedy

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Could You LIKE a Facebook Page for me? :-)

Su Espacio Community Center, where I take Spanish classes, had a Facebook page like a person. FB told them they couldn’t do that, closed their site and made them start a new organizational Facebook Page, starting all over and losing over a thousand LIKES! So friends, do me a favor and go to their page and LIKE IT!  https://www.facebook.com/suespacioatenascostarica
THANKS! -Charlie

It will make David & Corinna feel a lot better even though you are not clients or even potential clients. Muchas Gracias!   🙂




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Black Witch Moth (Late for Halloween!)

Black Witch Moth, Atenas, Costa Rica
Outside of my bathroom window screen & photographed with flash at night

I know! It is not black! Though some can be black, gray, brown or other colors, this fits the description and matches photo in Butterflies, Moths, and Other Invertebrates of Costa Rica by Carol L. Henderson. I’ve seen one other of these earlier. They appear from Florida to Brazil and in every part of Costa Rica.

I am not seeing many new creatures this month but enjoying a good rain every afternoon or evening like I had been expecting since May! Hope the rain continues into Dry Season/Summer, which often begins in November or December. We need rain greatly! It has been a drought winter in Costa Rica this year with our summer beginning in December it will mean no rain for 6 months, our dry season. I’m expecting to water my garden a lot.

Yeah, this is “just a moth,” but click image to enlarge, then look at that intricate pattern, those fake eyes near top to scare away birds, and the subtle colors. It reminds me of a favorite Scripture verse:

Take a good look at God’s wonders—
    they’ll take your breath away.
Psalm 66:5 THE MESSAGE
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Garden Regulars

Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird, one of my regulars, every day!
Click image for larger or closer view.
Banded Peacock Butterfly, another regular and about the only
butterfly still around much with a few Julia left and brown Skippers
June-July was the big butterfly time but hoping for another season

NOT WRITING AS MUCH
I could blame it on being busy with Angel Tree and two Spanish classes, and all the regular housekeeping, shopping and I’m working on the continuation of my photo biographies and have started photographing scrapbooks so I can get rid of these boxes! But I also am slowing down and just not in to writing on blog every night like I did for months. We’ll see what happens, but I think I am in a period of writing just every few days for awhile. 

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Angel Tree at Halloween Party

5 of us from Su Espacio raised a 100,000 Colones ($200) at the Gringo Halloween Party (I’m in the Red Scream Mask)
We sold Sangria, had a raffle at about $100 each and had only 11 angels taken from the tree, but more will go later. 

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A Saint’s passing reminds me of God’s Grace

I just learned of the death of Dot McGinnis, one of the saints I worked with at Belmont Heights Baptist Church in Nashville back in my Youth Minister days. Service is October 29, 1 PM, Woodbine Chapel.

God’s grace has always kept me surprised by the good things He keeps allowing me to be a part of though not deserved! And the brief intersections with her life and that of her son Ben (Pastor of Woodbine Baptist Church) are certainly some of those acts of grace for which I am thankful. Her untiring faith raised two very fine sons who honored their parents until death. Ben’s passion for missions is something I pray all pastors might gain.

I thank the McGinnises for their faithful examples and for being one of those surprises of Grace they gave me. Your light is still shining!

Blessings!  -Charlie

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:7 THE MESSAGE

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An article for those considering a move to Costa Rica, the Happiest Country on Earth!
Who’s Happy in Costa Rica?
If you’re an unhappy American, you may have to change more than your country to be happy! 🙂