COSTA RICA - THE PROMISE

In my camera are beaches, forests, giant trees and bug-eyed frogs. Spiders and a drop-dead gorgeous guy (he's easily an entire post, if not several). In my digital recorder are cicadas, howler monkeys, the ocean and a hike on the river looking for snakes.

The promise is this: all will be revealed once I'm back home. I have no doubt come Monday morning, I'll be jonesing to edit tape and tell stories. And I've got some good ones.

But today is my last full day of complete repose and I'd like to spend it spacing out to the sound of cicadas. So instead of a substantive post, let me offer you a moment from this morning's soak in a Pacific tide pool watching the tide come in.

COSTA RICA - THE HAMMOCK

One of the great hammocks of all time sits outside a small, cozy bungalow at Hotel Pirate Cove in Drake Bay, C.R. It's a creatures with an astonishingly gentle temperament. We're talking nonjudgmental and delightfully conformist and as content to sit idle as it is to sway young lovers or rock beneath a small pack of squirmy kids.

I regret that the Hammock and I did not not become as familiar as I'd hoped. While I wasn't as yet ready to receive its many blessings, I did listen carefully as it whispered without condescension about the possibilities of a contented life.

For its part, the Hammock took no insult by my frequent abandonings and held me closely during those moments I sought its support.

Thank you, Great Hammock.

COSTA RICA - THE STORY BEGINS

Well Hi There. It's been a while. Little did I know that schlepping recording equipment and a computer into the remote jungles of the Osa Peninsula is an exercise in, well, schlepping. Without internet access until today (bless me, father, it's been nine days since my last blog entry), all that excess weight has just been more baggage.

I say more because the moment I walked into my little cabin with its front porch hammock in Drake Bay, Costa Rica, the unpacking began. Call it the inevitable airing of my hopelessly wrinkled self, she who is now one week and three days out of a most beloved job.

But who's counting.

Those first few days surrounded by the constant press of cicadas were other-worldly. I stumbled around as in a stupor and slept floating in sound, too tired to feel the claustrophobia (make that madness) that so many cicada-crazed residents feel. My best times were in the water, kayaking on placid seas and snorkeling among crayon-colored fish, and just cruising beneath a canopy on a small motor boat traveling the coast with a sweet, young captain picking up and delivering tourists.

I remember swimming in the Pacific at one point with an endless view of the dramatically verdant coast and thinking finally, finally, I had found "enough space". The feeling lasted for several hours; since then, it comes and goes with enough regularity that any small panic or worry over who I am, what I'm doing here and where I'm headed dissipates pretty quickly.

Yes, I have pictures,stories and sound! But that all takes time to produce and as much as I crave your company (and I do), I still find I'd rather spend it exploring than reporting.

At least today.

But tonight I may very well try my hand uploading and editing the first promised audio postcard: a dawn chorus of howler monkeys with live play-by-play by a woman who's in search of someone who is but who isn't NPR's Ketzel Levine.

Check back soon...

Next Stop, Costa Rica!

It's almost time to blow out of town. 8 hours and counting. Journey begins crack of dawn tomorrow from Portland to San Jose, CR. Sleep a few hours at an airport hotel, then take an in-country flight southwest to Palma Sur, then a (sometimes tempestuous) boat trip to Drake Bay down the Pacific Coast, then a pick-up and delivery to a hammock with my name on it and a cabin on stilts.

My hope is to be sending audio postcards! as soon as I get my bearings. Do hope you'll join me on the adventure. And now, to sleep and to dream!

Bye Bye Miss American Kosher Rye

I've got a few hours before I'm forever locked out of my NPR computer. The powers that be prematurely pulled the plug on me this weekend (even after HR directed me to fill out my timesheet today) but AFTRA reps were quick to straighten things out.

I need the extra time -- both for the last F:drive back-up and the final loving keystrokes on a loyal and companionable machine. Of course we all know there's way more at stake here than simply losing a Toughbook (a young guy magnet if ever there was one, sigh), but it's the closest thing to a "Am I hip or what" briefcase I'm ever likely to have.

(Oh, the places we've traveled together! Hawaii, the Amazon,the autumnal golds of Vermont!)

No, the loss goes deeper. I could always buy the same computer. What I'm really struggling with is giving up access to NPR's Virtual Private Network, the VPN,my morning commute through a portal of privilege into a network of people and information that have given enormous and exquisite meaning to my life.

Soon I'll just be a civilian.

Even as I write, a huge UPS package is winging its way back to DC full of recording equipment and microphones, a camera and an ISDN transceiver. I packed it all in a rage and drove it to the store in an altered state, knowing in my heart I could replace everything, that nothing could diminish my rapport with the tools of my trade.

But my anger's abated now and what was a state of strangeness is now SOP. It's just flat-out sadness and longing as I prepare to back-up the last of my NPR Inbox, box up the old Toughbook, and submit to circumstances that are about to leave me out in the cold.

Maybe it's pathetic. I won't argue. I mean WTF, who am I to complain? The cold is nothing if you've got a closet full of "clothes".

Thing #1 You Can Do Between Jobs

Hover over your sleeping animals with a camera.

HORTIDEAS For the Hard Core Horthead

This is the 25th year anniversary of a horticulturally intense, informative and ultra-geeky newsletter called HortIdeas. The Big News is that its founders Greg & Pat Williams are now offering online subscriptions as well as a free online sample. All you gotta do is ask.

If this is the first you've heard of HortIdeas, let me introduce you to some classic content:

Earthworms and Water Pollution from Farm Fields
It seems hard to believe, but intentional destruction of earthworms might become a routine practice of commercial growers worried about chemical and/or microbial pollutants from their fields reaching streams and rivers.
That’s because evidence is accumulating that chemicals applied to the soil in fertilizers and pesticides, as well as microorganisms in manure, can move quickly to subsurface drainage pipe networks via “macropores” made by earthworms. Such macropores, which are channels typically larger than 0.08 inches across, apparently circumvent filtration and breakdown of the pollutants in the soil by providing rapid transport of water from the surface to the drainage pipes.
Perhaps researchers will develop tillage methods to disrupt the macropore connections, but if they don’t, we see the use of wormicides as a definite possibility. Unfortunately, what we don’t expect is what seems to us a much better solution to water pollution from farm fields: stopping the application of large amounts of soluble fertilizers, pesticides, and manure contaminated with human pathogens. That’s because the latter would probably be less profitable than the former.
Reference: Garey A. Fox (Dept. of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, 120 Agricultural Hall, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078), Ramesh Kanwar, and Rob Malone, “Earthworms and E.coli: A Perilous Combination for Drain
Flow Water Quality,” RESOURCE: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World 15(6), September 2008, 22-24. (American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2950 Niles Rd., St. Joseph, MI 49085-9659.)

The latest issue also has several single-spaced pages on Interesting New Vegetable Cultivars for 2009. If you're a vege gardener and like to think of yourself in the loop, you need HortIdeas.

Ride That Puppy!

The puppy in question being the mood swings I am riding on this orbit of the unemployed. Under the covers, into the woods and today, up the ladder...the one pictured both wondrous and terrifying and one of the highlights of my last trip to South Africa several years ago.

Adventure, Back Pain and A Continent Beagle

Let's start with the newly continent beagle. Starlet is, ahem, holding her own. You were all right about using Proin (1/4 tab @8 hrs) despite these scary warnings. I've also taken her off for her chronic allergy med Temaril-P and on the whole, she's quite carefree and I'm doing a whole lot less laundry. Thank you.

On to back pain. Mine. The mind is willing, the mouth talks a good game, but the body is showing signs of stress. Of course going back to the gym after months off combined with going back to yoga (yes, after months off) and hiking on vertical inclines of snow have all a little something to do with my inability to sit, bend or drive. But never mind! I have an agenda: to be as strong as possible for my next adventure.

Here's a hint. A very difficult hint. But you're all so damn smart I figure that even without googling, someone will be able to i.d. a region which includes a huge national park with 13 ecosystems, among them:

1. Mangrove swamps
2. Lagoon
3. A herbaceous marsh
4. A palm swamp dominated by Raphia taedigera
5. Varied swamp forests with well-buttressed canopy trees
6. Gallery forest with possibly largest tree in (blank)America
7. Plateau forest with large tree density
8. Mountain or uplands forest with abundant palms
9. Cloud forest with Quercus spp.(e.g. Q.insignis)

So, where am I going?

INSTA-CURE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT BLUES!

Wake me when it's over.

The Forest, When All Else Fails

Anyone who was with me at TalkingPlants knows I spend a lot of time botanizing in and around the Columbia Gorge. With the current snow pack and only the hint of spring buds, the botanizing's on hold. Which is a good thing. Time for the big picture, the quiet of the forest, where what isn't visible is as powerful as what is.

Together with my hiking buddy Jeanette Cummings (who is also my chiropractor, thank you Jesus), we headed out to one our favorite spots just past Multnomah Falls. What I didn't talk about during our trek and what I'm not writing about now is how sad and bereft I've been feeling about losing my job.But even as the last door closed -- and yes, it did hit me on my way out, thank you -- others have opened. If you haven't already read it, allow me to point you to a recent comment by Jarrod Henry from Nashville (you'll have to scroll down), who was as much of a stranger to me as you are -- until he opened his door.

Tips To Remember If You've Lost Your Job

Here's a handful I read like mantras. Of course the ones you'll hear the most are "When one door closes, another opens," and "Some things happen for a reason," but I'm hoping that's because they're true.

*YOU DID NOTHING WRONG! You're the same person with the same talent and (fill in name of company that dumped you) cannot take that away.

*GOOD THINGS DO COME FROM SUCH AN INSULT. You will get through this and land firmly on your feet.

*ENJOY THE HIATUS. Take advantage of the chance to rest, re-create and re-focus.

*GET SOME SLEEPING PILLS! Sleep is good, no sleep is very, very bad.

*YOU ARE IN OUTSTANDING COMPANY. Welcome to the world of the un- and under-employed!

*YEAH, THIS SUCKS They should have dumped (fill in name of lesser talented co-worker).

*WALLOW IN ANGER AND GRIEF. Then once you feel it, get up, shake it off and get going.

*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Do not take on a rommate to save cash.

And above all, remember this:

*YOU AIN'T DEAD YET.

Keep It Calm In The New Year

Wishing you the most comfortable spot on the sofa, the safest port in the storm and the least incontinent of beagles in the coming New Year. And thank you all for softening the blow.