I’m not sure I should be calling this trip a vacation, tbh. Here’s how it’s gone so far:

Day One (Tuesday): arrived.

Day Two (Wednesday): went to the dentist. To my pleasure, the dentist said she didn’t want to do five crowns. Two, definitely; two others, she would prefer to do a partial crown (an onlay) and save as much of the tooth as possible; the fifth, she felt could just be filled like an ordinary cavity. Oh, but also, there was another cavity that needed filling. (My CA dentist had told me that, my FL dentist hadn’t mentioned it.) So the new plan: two crowns; two partial crowns; two fillings. And did I want a night guard to help with my TMJ? And a cleaning? Yes, I did. To both.

Day Three (Thursday): went to the dentist. Ugh, it was grueling. I mean, I always expected it to be grueling, but… yeah. It was grueling. Surprise: it is really uncomfortable to lie still on your back for hours and hours. Hey, ‘ya think that’s why the FL dentist wanted to take months to do this job? But also, while they’re drilling, they’re spraying water in your mouth, and while the tech is suctioning it out, some of it is going down your throat. Fine for forty minutes. But after four hours, I thought I was going to explode. I had to get them to stop for bathroom breaks for me three times! By the time I was headed back to the hotel, I felt like I never wanted to eat or drink again.

A little bad news: one of the teeth that she thought she could do a partial crown on was worse than she expected, so it turned into three crowns. And some potential bad news: two teeth were borderline for root canals. She told me if it was painful at all when the novocaine wore off, they’d want to do them, but we’d wait and see before deciding. My last three dentists have been warning me about those teeth maybe needing root canals, so it wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t thrilling, either.

Day Four (Friday): went to the dentist. Not grueling! Got my teeth cleaned, and the two cavities filled and all was fine, especially because those borderline root canal teeth weren’t hurting at all, so I’d dodged that bullet, yay! Getting the cavities filled was interesting, too — she asked if I wanted novocaine, and I asked her if I needed it. She shrugged and said, we could see, and if it hurts, we’ll do it. It didn’t hurt at all. It really made me wonder how many times dentists just use novocaine automatically. I haven’t had a lot of fillings but getting the novocaine shot has always been the most painful part. This wasn’t painful at all.

Up to this point, end of Day Four, all of my food had been either breakfast at the hotel (Costa Rican food — a delicious fruit starter with pineapple, banana, papaya, and watermelon, followed by scrambled eggs and either an empanada or a tamale or something similar) or UberEats. Good UberEats — poke bowls, a spicy chicken bowl, a crunchy Thai bowl — yes, I like bowls — but still, not very… vacation-y? Not that I’ve ever once ordered from UberEats at home, but when I’m on vacation, I would much rather go out and see places than eat my meals in my hotel room.

But I’m staying at one of the hotels recommended by the dentist, and it’s extremely delightfully low effort: the dentist tells the hotel where I’m supposed to be and when, the hotel arranges for someone to take me there and then picks me up when I’m done. The hotel itself is terrific, but it’s in the suburbs — it’s a place for peaceful recuperation after misery, not a place for taking great walks. Literally, they recommend that you hire an Uber even to go to the nearest restaurant because the streets are not pedestrian friendly — narrow, winding, hilly, blind corners, and traffic. Obviously, I could hire said Uber, and go to that restaurant or somewhere else, but my dental visit days did not leave me so inclined.

Friday afternoon, though, I was ready for lunch and still in San Jose, so I texted the hotel and asked if I could get picked up a little later, maybe in an hour or an hour and a half? My pick up driver that day was actually the owner of the hotel, and he said sure, so I wandered down the very urban street to the nearby shopping mall.

When I say “very urban street,” I am not meaning ghetto or city center, I am meaning the kind of street that runs next to a highway, with some big chain-type stores, all with parking out front. Basically I was strolling by a bunch of parking lots. Car-friendly, not people friendly. The mall had an Outback Steakhouse on one corner, a Starbucks in the center. You could figure out pretty quickly, of course, that it was not American — all the signs are in Spanish — but San Jose is not the charming, exotic city of anyone’s vacation dreams. At least not the parts of it that I’ve seen. It’s a real city, not a destination city.

But it also had a seafood restaurant with a menu out front, seats outside, a note on the bottom of the menu that mentioned allergies, and a friendly waitress. Their speciality: ceviche. We had a little discussion of gluten, and she started showing me through the menu, but it was, of course, all in Spanish. And it was 2PM, I was hungry, so I pointed to the trio of ceviches, said “Your choice, pick the good ones,” and handed back the menu with a smile.

She brought me back the above and told me what they were: on the far left, the “typical” ceviche with sea bass; in the middle, her personal favorite, a spicy mango ceviche with tuna; and on the right, a Caribbean version with coconut milk, red onion, and lime. Also chips, made of taro root and plantain, I think.

It looked great to me, so I was delighted, but the table next to me — well, the three men seated there — immediately started hassling the waitress. They were speaking Spanish, and it was obviously friendly, but also dramatic. I didn’t understand a word so after a little bit, I looked away and started eating. It seemed like the waitress knew them, she was arguing and laughing with them. Like I said, completely friendly, and probably none of my business.

Except it was my business, because a few minutes later, she brought me another bowl of ceviche. Their argument had been about her ceviche choices for me. The one man did not agree that she’d picked the best one. In his opinion, the best one was the one with passionflower juice. He’d ordered me an extra bowl, so that I could try it out. I think he said that it was a Peruvian ceviche. I’m not sure which one it was on the menu, but he was right, it was the best of a very, very delicious set of ceviches. (Edited to add: and really a delightful moment for me, experiencing the generosity of friendly strangers — I was seriously charmed.) 

That has been, however, my ONLY vacation experience on this trip so far. Well, apart from swimming in the very lovely pool, which I have done every day. Oh, and eating breakfast every morning with a fellow traveler, who’s making a solo move to Costa Rica when she retires in two months and is spending her days managing those details. So I guess a little more vacation than I was thinking, but still, so far the dentist has very much outweighed any sense of exploration and adventure.

You know what, though? That is very much okay with me. I have always had a “do ALL the things” mentality about vacations. I want to take advantage of the opportunity to see everything I can, do everything I can. But I’m finding this hotel relaxing and peaceful. When not at the dentist, I’ve been working, writing, learning, reading, doing all the things I usually do in my life, just doing them in a truly lovely place. Well, most of the things I usually do in my life. I obviously miss Miss Sunshine (“absolutely adorable,” according to Jamie, so doing well!) and being able to cook my own meals. Otherwise, though — I might make it home from this vacation without having touched the sands of Costa Rica, but I suspect I will finally have finished the Master Wellness Coach certification. How long have I been working on it? Since the end of February, I think. It’ll be good to be done. As long as I’m also happy with my teeth and have swum every day, I’ll call that a win.

It’s the rainy season, now, too, so every afternoon has been torrential rain. Really impressive torrential rain! I thought it would be like Florida storms, over in twenty minutes, but not so much. I won’t swim if it’s thundering, but I swam in the dark and the rain two nights ago and it was so, so peaceful and lovely. I remember wondering during my last night swim in my own pool if I would ever get to have that experience again. Answer: yes.

Life is good. Dental “vacations”, also good.

I didn’t sleep much last night, although I’ve learned enough about not sleeping that at least I didn’t stress about it while I was doing it. Multiple books on insomnia have taught me that when you’re not sleeping, you only make it worse if you start getting stressed about not sleeping. I would have rather slept, but I understood that I was anxious and I knew all the reasons why I was anxious and so I just tried to remember to breathe, worked on being mindful, let my thoughts drift away on clouds…

And then woke up again, wondering if I’d remembered to pack tissues for the plane. Or enough pairs of socks. Or my floss. Or whether my backpack was going to be too big to be a personal item or whether I should see if I could borrow a bigger piece of luggage from someone, maybe Jamie. Before 8AM, because that’s when Greg was coming to give me a ride to the airport. And thinking of 8AM, would I have time to give Sophie a good walk and take a shower and eat a good breakfast, or was one of those things going to have to fall by the wayside? And if so, which one?

And then I’d remember that I was being mindful and not worrying, and I’d work on some square breathing, where you breathe in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, in for 4, etc. (When you consider breathing exercises, you’ll notice that most of them have you breathing in a lot less than you actually hold or breathe out — square breathing, for example, lets you get one second of air for every three seconds of not-air. It’s nature’s best high, because a tiny bit of mild hypoxia — aka oxygen deprivation — causes euphoria. Too much hypoxia causes death, of course, but a little of it is practically spiritual.)

Anyway, morning eventually rolled around. I tried to cram in sufficient dog walk, a good breakfast, a shower, plus some rethinking of packing decisions, and my anxiety level hovered somewhere around medium high. High enough that I was always aware of it, but not high enough to be disabling. It stayed that way until I opened the door to Greg’s car and discovered a packet of tissues on the floor almost under the passenger seat. I immediately remembered my middle of the night wish for tissues, realized that I hadn’t brought any, and asked Greg if I could have the ones I’d found. He said sure, and all my worries pretty much dissolved. Those tissues felt like the universe taking care of me. They were magical.

The rest of the day passed in travel, boring in the way that travel can be, also magical in the way that travel is. I looked out the windows of the plane a lot and thought about how amazing it really is that we can just jump on a plane and go SO far away, and yet at the same time, I wanted more leg room, I wanted to change positions, I wanted no one sitting next to me, I wanted it to all be over sooner. I stood in long lines at the airport to get through customs and immigration, waited for my bag for what felt like forever, and tried to appreciate that I was doing those things in a country I’d never been to before. It didn’t stop the lines from being tedious, though.

A driver picked me up right outside the airport, holding a sign with my name on it. He didn’t speak a lot of English, but he had his phone set up so that when he talked, it automatically translated for him. Whoa! That did feel magical. He told me about the nearby volcanoes releasing gases that formed clouds over the city, the neighborhoods we drove through, pointed out the nearest restaurants and the American style shopping district (Starbucks and Olive Garden included), and dropped me off at the hotel.

I checked in and the very first thing I did was go for a swim in the very lovely pool. Good thing, too, because the first rumble of thunder sounded not ten minutes later and within half an hour, the rain was nicely torrential. I spent the next hour or so browsing Uber Eats and when the rain finally started to let up, I ordered a papaya salad and a sweet ginger poke bowl from a place called Raw to Go. It wasn’t exactly my idea of the Costa Rican national cuisine, but wow, there are a lot of poke bowl places here. A ton of American fast food, too, but the poke bowls and the keto Indian cuisine will get more of my business than the Papa John’s and McDonald’s.

Then I started writing this blog post. And then I realized that I was so tired, I was  incoherent, so I stopped writing this blog post and went to sleep. 🙂

Now it’s 6AM. My first appointment at the dentist is at 8AM, so I’ll be leaving the hotel  before breakfast, unfortunately, but I have leftover papaya salad to keep me going. And I’m feeling — well, not exactly enthusiastic, it is a ton of dental work, after all! — but definitely positive.

For those wondering (I would be), my housemate Jamie is taking care of Sophie. He’s never owned a dog, so this is his chance to see whether life is better when a dog is dragging you out for walks every morning & afternoon (it is!) and he and Sophie adore one another, so she’s in good hands. I watched her for a while on my Blink camera last night while he was at work — she was lying on my bed, staring out the window, being a very good girl — and I absolutely miss her already.

But it’ll be so good to get these teeth taken care of — I’m expecting 5 crowns on teeth that currently have ancient fillings — and I’m looking forward to enjoying the pool, some more interesting foods, and hopefully getting a chance to see more of Costa Rica while I’m here.

On Wednesday afternoon, about 5PM, I decided that Sophie needed a birthday treat.

She’d had a couple birthday treats already: a three mile walk along the RiverWalk in the morning, where we saw nesting ospreys (she did not care), a swimming alligator (she did not care), and a squirrel (she was delighted, but sad that I wouldn’t let her chase it.)

Also, a couple rounds of ChuckIt out in the park in front of the house, which is a much bigger space for running than the backyard. I don’t usually play with her there, because, sure, she can run farther, but while she’s running, I have to make sure I’m not standing on a fire ant hill. Plus, at the end of the street, two little dogs come out of their house and bark, bark, bark at her. I don’t mind the barking, but I worry when they run out into the road while their owner yells at them from the door. I don’t think it’s going to be my fault if those dogs get hit by a car, but it’s not something I want to witness. Wednesday we’d played there anyway, though, long enough that Sophie collapsed in the cool grass, panting. (We were playing there because of the giant tree branch blocking most of the backyard.)

Still, neither of those activities were particularly out of the ordinary. And it was her birthday! Three years on the planet is an event worth celebrating. So I decided to take her downtown for a pup cup at my favorite coffee/ice cream place. Christina’s out of town with Riker, but I invited Jamie and Greg to join us if they were so inclined. It was a pleasant Wednesday evening, so they both said yes.

On our way, though, Jamie said, “Three years old. That’s really twenty-one in dog years. We should take her out for a beer instead.”

I laughed.

But I was underestimating Sanford’s dog friendliness! Jamie was serious. Instead of going to the coffee shop, we wandered up the street a couple of blocks and went to a brewery with a dog menu. Sophie got meatballs, a “cigar” (lamb jerky) and her very own dog beer (a beer can filled with pizza flavored dog treats.) We sat outside on the patio, enjoying the weather, and celebrated Sophie.

She was, as always, terrific. She’s a really good restaurant dog these days. Not exactly thrilled when she realizes that we’re not moving — she would much rather be trotting along the sidewalks, sniffing every possible post — but perfectly amenable to just hanging out with the people for a while.

As it’s gotten hotter here, I’ve had to leave her home alone more, but I got a Blink camera so I can watch her while I’m gone, and that’s always fun. She sometimes whimpers a little in the first few minutes, but once she’s resigned to what’s happened, she mostly sits on my bed and stares out the window. Waiting patiently! I think the longest I’ve left her was about six hours and every time I checked in on her, she was in the exact same spot, lying quietly, but with her eyes on the window.

I do wish we were still doing our California dog training, though, just because she liked it so much. Every so often — probably not often enough — I’ll grab a handful of treats to play with her in the evening and she’s always really delighted. Not so much, I think, because she cares about the treats, but she loves the interaction. If I sit on the floor she immediately brings me a toy, and anytime a stranger comes in the house, she first says hello, and then goes and finds them a toy, just in case they might want to play with her. She’s such a sociable girl.

Definitely more mellow at 3 then she was at 2, but also more loving all the time. At 2, she did not particularly want her tummy rubbed; at 3, tummy rubs are an essential part of a good day. (Somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5, she became willing to show me her tummy upon request, although I can’t really remember when — in 2023, I know, but I can’t place it to a month — but now she shows me her tummy without waiting to be asked, a silent request for pets. Still would prefer not to have her paws held, though!)

Once upon a time, I made a scrapbook page about R, listing adjectives about who he was at that moment in time. I wish I had that page now, I’d love to see it and remember what I wrote, but if I had done the same thing for Sophie on birthdays one and two, energetic would have been the first adjective on the list. Sweet would have been close to the top. Curious would probably have been in the top 5. At three, though, energetic is… well, maybe third. I think I’d put curious first, sweet second. Or maybe delightful second.

I’m so grateful for the curious, though. Well, and also for the well-trained, which probably belongs somewhere in that list, too. It probably took me until Monday morning to realize that if she didn’t have such a great recall, she would still have been standing under the tree when it fell. I screamed for her when I ran, “Sophie, Sophie, with me,” and she came immediately, no hesitation at all even though she was curious about what was happening. I would not have liked dying by electric wires, but honestly, I’d probably take that over surviving if Sophie had been crushed. (I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t care. Whereas if Sophie had been crushed, I would have cared immensely.) So I am enormously glad that her curiosity did not win out over her obedience. Maybe that means sweet is first on her adjective list, curious second? But either way, this week would have been a very different week if she wasn’t such a curious girl. I feel so very lucky that she is who she is! For many reasons, not just that I am glad we were both alive to celebrate her birthday.

Every morning, Sophie and I go for a walk. When we come home, Sophie eats her breakfast while I make my own breakfast, aka ALL the veggies. Then I eat, quite leisurely, often while catching up on my RSS feed or my email, while she watches me with the intensity of a cat at a mouse hole. Finally, I take my last bite, set my bowl down, and say, “Is it time?”

She says, “Oh, yes, yes, yes, it is, FINALLY!” with dancing dog delight, circles and bouncing and little dashes in front of my feet. I grab my second cup of coffee, and we go into the backyard, where I sit in the far back, next to the fence, with the ChuckIt. She finds her ball and for the next thirty minutes or so, I hurl the ball for her and she retrieves it, while I also enjoy my coffee and do a Japanese lesson or ten. I am pretty sure it’s her favorite time of day.

Today started out no differently.

I threw the ball once, maybe twice, and then heard a sound. A crack. I glanced around me, wondering what it was, and where it came from. Maybe one of the neighbor’s houses?

I heard it again.

Again, I couldn’t tell what it was. Generic crack noise. I looked around, couldn’t see anything that would be causing it.

Sophie, however, was standing on the other side of the big tree in front of me, staring up into the branches.

I looked up, even though I didn’t know how a squirrel could be making that sound. It was definitely not a squirrel-type sound.

I couldn’t see anything.

Again, CRACK.

I got up, ChuckIt in hand, and went over to where Sophie was to see if I could see what she was looking at.

And… CRACK, followed by a second or two of slow motion realization of what was happening, followed by a mad dash away from the tree amid frantic calls of “Sophie, Sophie, with me!”

And then lots of crashing and crackling sounds as the enormous branch breaking off the tree hit the electric wires and took them out, blue sparks flying.

I’m gonna say that I don’t think the branch would have killed me, unless I’d still been sitting in the chair as it started to come down and made a super bad decision about which way to run. But I think if I’d been a little less curious about what Sophie was looking at and a little slower to react, the electricity from the power lines very well might have.

From beginning to end — from first sound to calling Sophie away — was maybe thirty seconds? Maybe a whole minute, if the time between cracks was longer than I remember.

It was a memorable minute.

I’m trying to find meaning in it — a message from the universe! — but sometimes things don’t have big metaphorical meanings. It’s just lightning. It struck, it missed.

But if it had happened ten minutes earlier, we wouldn’t have been outside. It still would have been one of those, “Wow, crazy,” experiences, but it would not have been a near miss in any way.

And if it had happened ten minutes later, I would have been immersed in a Japanese or Spanish lesson. I wouldn’t have been paying as much attention to Sophie or to strange unidentified background noises.

Death by Duolingo.

Jamie was asleep and missed the whole thing but we laughed together afterwards about what an awful way it would have been to wake up. Dark humor, but ugh, can you imagine?

As it was, my day went on. The electric company came, and eventually the internet company, too. I went and visited my friend Lynda for that cup of coffee I’d missed, plus, as always, good conversation and a little bit of writing time, and then some lunch.

When we got home, Sophie wanted to play ball, of course, so we did, even though the backyard is decidedly no longer fenced. (You can sort of see in the third picture how the fence collapsed under the top of the branch.) Tomorrow the landlord’s dad, Mike, will come over, probably bringing a chainsaw, and start clearing it all away. I’m hoping he’ll decide to fix the fence, not just tear it down, but either way, I’m sure Sophie and I will still be playing ball back there.

I will probably not, however, be sitting under the power lines when we do.

Friday was the first beach day of 2024. Beach days in Sanford are very different from beach days in Arcata, because the beaches themselves are so different. But I love the ocean and any day that includes some time near the ocean is a good day, IMO.

C & G picked me up a little before noon. I was extremely well prepped, with my sunshine-y beach chair, my insulated water bottle, my towel, my multiple forms of sunscreen, and some snacks (all birthday presents from C, G, and J, with the exception of the snacks.) Oh, and also some headphones so I could listen to the new Taylor Swift album, and, of course, my phone with Blink camera app so I could check in on poor Sophie.

Yeah, dogs aren’t allowed on Florida beaches. Instead of this being a “take a long walk with Sophie running free” excursion (which she and I both do miss, quite a lot), this was a “sit in the sun, well-sunscreened, and appreciate the light and the day and the water” excursion, (which I did appreciate, quite a lot.) I wore a bathing suit and went in the ocean up to my knees, but neither the water nor the day was so warm that I felt inspired to actually swim.

Also, I slightly need to get over my knowledge that New Smyrna Beach is the shark attack capital of the world. I know that the numbers are really ridiculously low — only 8 people were bitten by sharks in Volusia County in 2023, and I guarantee, even without looking it up, that a heck of a lot more people were involved in car accidents. And yet…

Afterwards, we went down the street to a restaurant with a patio rooftop and $1 oysters.

Christina and I ordered a dozen oysters each, plus shared a really delicious “pulled pork stack,” which was a mound of sushi rice, topped with pulled pork, a vegetable slaw, pickled red onions, grilled corn, and jalapeños. No picture of the pork stack because I didn’t think to take one until it was long gone, but I would absolutely eat it again.

We spent much of our meal discussing which restaurants in the vicinity might have better GF options, because the place where we were didn’t have a lot, and agreed to try one down the street next time, but honestly, the rooftop bar concept delights me. There’s something about sitting up high with a view of the tops of the palm trees and the sky that feels magical. I wish I’d thought to take a picture — actually I did think to take a picture, but I couldn’t find a view that really captured the essence of how it feels. I know it’s something about the palm trees, but it’s also that the air is fresher up higher, that it feels more ocean and sunlight, less traffic and dust. And I didn’t spend long searching for the perfect photo op, because it was so much nicer to just BE where I was than to be thinking about where I was and how it looked and whether the light worked, etc.

In other news, back in March of 2023, I mentioned that my dentist in Arcata thought I needed $10,000 worth of dental work and I was looking into dental tourism. I did look into dental tourism and had a whole trip scheduled for February of 2024, where Suzanne and I would drive to Arizona, I’d walk across the border and get my teeth taken care of while she hung out with dogs, then we’d meet up with my brother and a friend of his and hang out in Tucson for a couple weeks, exploring the area and having fun being tourists. Reservations were made, appointments were scheduled. But for obvious reasons, that trip did not happen.

A couple weeks ago, however, I went to a dentist here in Florida, who agreed with my dentist in CA. Unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t be nearly as expensive to do the dental work in FL, but I was still looking at spending the next six months or longer having dental appointments, as well as about $5000. I decided if I was going to spend $5000, I’d rather have an adventure to go with it, and so last week, one of my big projects (and my only successfully completed project) was to research dentists in Costa Rica. I’ve got an appointment, a hotel reservation, and a plane ticket now, so I’ll be heading to Costa Rica for ten days in May. I am both excited and anxious. Obviously, I think it’s going to be fine or I wouldn’t be doing it, but… whee! Solo travel! New country! Foreign language! I’ve added Spanish lessons to my daily Japanese lessons and am hastily trying to remind myself of the basics. I think it’s going to be fun, though. Well, somewhat fun. The major dental work, probably not so much fun.

Sophie has reached the stage of putting her paw on my arm and earnestly staring into my eyes, so it’s time to get my day started. But I woke up this morning with the certainty that today would be an excellent day, so I’m ready to get it started, too. Happy Monday!

… I should just blog more often, rather than less.

I took Sophie down to the Sanford RiverWalk this morning for our morning walk. (Why is it a RiverWalk when it actually runs along Lake Monroe? Because the St. John’s River flows through Lake Monroe. But the walk — currently a five mile multi-use pedestrian trail adjacent to the lake, with plans apparently to make it a 26-mile trail going all the way around the lake — doesn’t ever actually follow the river away from the lake, in either direction. So…? Maybe LakeWalk just doesn’t sound as nice? Ahem. Anyway… )

The sunrise was beautiful. I don’t think this picture does it justice, but it was so bright, I had to take the picture without looking. Not quite in focus, but you get the idea.

This little stretch of trees is often my favorite part of the walk, because it’s a bit of shade and greenery between stretches of unobstructed sunshine. Unobstructed sunshine is, of course, awesome, but not so much when temps are in the 80s. This part feels like a break and there are often cool birds on those structures in the water. Sophie loves it for the squirrels.

This bit of wilderness is usually my goal. It’s around 1.3 miles from where I usually park, so makes for a nice two and a half mile morning walk, and I’m always hoping that I’ll spot an alligator here. But it’s also just a good place to pause, lean on the bridge, and take a few deep breaths, appreciating the moment I’m in.

All of these pictures are more beautiful in their high-resolution, non-Website friendly versions. But I still wanted to save them, as memories of a morning worth savoring.

Bacon tacos (aka pork belly tacos, I suppose, ’cause it’s not really bacon)

3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pound pork belly, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Put the ingredients in a big pot, cover and bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat and simmer until the pork is tender and falling apart. It takes at least two hours, maybe closer to four.

About half an hour before you’re ready to eat, uncover and let most of the liquid steam away (ten minutes or so). Shred the pork, if it’s not falling apart enough already, and transfer some of it to a frying pan. Fry it over high heat until it starts to get browned and crispy, while breaking apart any big chunks. Don’t rush it, because the crispy bits are the best.

Transfer it to a paper-towel lined dish, and let the towels absorb some of the fat, like you would with bacon. Cover it with tin foil or stick it in the oven to keep it warm, while you do the same to the rest of the meat. (You’re only doing it in parts because 4 pounds of meat is too much to do at once.)

Serve with corn tortillas and other toppings of your choice. Chopped white onion is great, cilantro is nice, limes and avocados are good, cotija cheese is tasty… but charred tomatillo salsa is the BEST.

That recipe:

Toss at least a pound of husked tomatillos, a white onion (skin removed), a jalapeño (or two), and 1/2 head of garlic, unpeeled and halved crosswise, in a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil, then grill all of it on a medium hot grill until charred, turning as necessary to get a nice char. Let it all cool a little so you don’t burn yourself, then cut the stem off the jalapeños; squeeze the garlic into a food processor and add all the other vegetables, plus some fresh cilantro and 1/4 cup of lime juice, and whir until chunky. Season to taste with kosher salt and black pepper and maybe more lime juice.

Not the world’s easiest meal, and also probably not the world’s healthiest meal. But a delicious birthday treat meal!

(It almost makes an extremely delicious next day breakfast, reheated in a frying pan and often with the addition of an egg or two.)

In the eighteen years that I’ve been writing this blog, this is the first time I’ve used that title. Third time for “Time Flies,” though. To be honest, I was a little surprised by that. If you’d asked me to predict how many times I’d used that title, I would have guessed at least five or six. Clichés come so easy.

But wow, time flies when you’re having fun!

First things first, though:

A little book-related link. I’m cleaning out my email today — I’ve been having too much fun and let it get out of control again — and came upon an email from these kind people, who featured Practicing Happiness on their site ten days ago when I wasn’t paying any attention to my books or email. They asked me to share their promotion of my promotion (Practicing Happiness was free for a few days) on my social media and I didn’t. But backlinks are helpful, too, for search engine optimization purposes, so here is a link to their site, with thanks to them for sharing my book promotion. Thanks! (And if you like free or cheap books and don’t mind getting more emails, consider signing up at the link.)

As for the fun, let’s see… writing group; Mexican street corn and Filipino cheese ice cream at downtown Sanford’s monthly food truck event; farmer’s market, followed by hanging out on my favorite patio with Sophie, Christina, Greg, and a mangonada (alcohol-free, I didn’t know it was supposed to include tequila!) plus delicious GF cinnamon cake; Disney’s Hollywood Studios with J; hot pot at Hotto Potto; writing with another J; drinks on an outdoor patio with multiple dogs and extra friends; birthday fun and games including Christina’s awesome bacon tacos; birthday fancy dinner with family; Reninger’s outdoor antique mall and flea market; wandering around downtown Mount Dora and being gifted awesome shoes; sushi!; delicious rice bowls; swimming; savoring some time in a jacuzzi; a long walk around Lake Apopka (or maybe near Lake Apopka)… and I’ve probably forgotten some stuff.

Yeah, it’s been a busy few weeks. Sociable and fun, filled with good dog time — Sophie was an angel at the food truck event, I was so proud of her! — and great people time. Lots of lovely weather and interesting activities. Florida is fantastic right now, it’s the perfect time of year. Well, okay, the caterpillars were freaking me out and the mosquitoes are a PITA, but mostly it’s a perfect time of year. Temperatures are supposed to go up to the 90s by Friday, though. Still, fingers crossed, that might mean first beach trip of the year with ocean swimming!

Should I really be working? Well, yes, of course, and I am actually trying to do a lot. All plans still moving forward, one step at a time. But that’s why blogging sort of fell by the wayside — between a busy social life & lots of activities, I just couldn’t do all the things. Fortunately, I figure the first job of a happiness coach working for a business named Choosing Happiness is to choose happiness, so that’s what I’ve been doing.

I was completely surprised by how much I enjoyed the Star Wars area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but it was so well done. The rides were great, enough fun that I think Hollywood Studios has actually moved up in my preferred theme park list. I mean I’m not sure what it’s displacing, exactly, but I think I’d probably rather go there than the Magic Kingdom. And Animal Kingdom — well, it holds a special place in my heart, but it also makes me sad because I miss R so intensely when there. So maybe Hollywood Studios is my new favorite theme park. I actually rode on the Twilight Zone’s Tower of Terror ride for the first time ever and loved it!

Sophie got to play ball in this HUGE open field in Mount Dora. So fun for her to just get to run like mad in a big open space. There was one day in particular where I actually managed to tire her out. That does not often happen. She puts up with inactivity when I’m trying to work, but her preference is definitely to go, go, GO.

If I had made any dumb promises to myself three weeks ago about not posting again until I could share a link to my Choosing Happiness website… well, it’s still not ready. Someday. Maybe even someday soon.

Meanwhile, onward. So much to do, starting with continuing the email clean out. Can I make it back to inbox zero before midnight? It’s a quest!

This one was really hard and took me SOO much more time than any of the others. I learned a lot, but some of the lessons made my head spin. It’s not often that I’m learning multiple new vocabulary words in a single ten minute period. I mean, I have a pretty good vocabulary to begin with!

Anyway, I’m sharing because it feels like an achievement, and I’m proud of my persistence and… well, maybe endurance? I do not intend to start designing exercise programs for anyone anytime soon: the movement section of my Choosing Happiness course is going to focus on things like short walks and two-minute stretches. But I have the resources and info now that I could if I needed to. (I’m not going to need to: if someone comes to me looking for a full-fledged exercise program, I’m going to be referring them to someone with a lot more experience really quickly!)

I actually want to make it through the course creation classes next, just to see what I can learn from them about designing a good course, and then I’ll be moving on to either the Diet Coach certification class or the Yoga Coach class. Again, my program is not going to be about weight loss — I’m opposed to deprivation diets — or yoga, but I want to get the Master Wellness Coach certification, which does fit into my ideas, and I know I’ll learn a lot from both of those courses. None of those courses, though, are going to get in the way of getting my coaching practice going — they’re going to be things I’m working on alongside the business. And there’s a Mindfulness Coach course with a 21-day mindfulness challenge that I’m looking forward to. Totally up my alley, way more so than a diet class!

So I didn’t write about identity yesterday (my popcorn was, in fact, delicious, however!), but this is what I’m thinking about/struggling with.

My name is not Sarah. Pretty sure that everyone who reads this blog already knows that, but just in case — Sarah Wynde is a pen name I chose for entirely practical reasons.

The number one reason was that my real name (Wendy Sharp, it’s not a secret) is thoroughly taken. Google “Wendy Sharp” and you’ll find a Yale violinist, a social worker from the UK, a television personality in South Africa, some lawyers, some dentists, a singer, an artist, an Ironman competitor! I am not the Ironman competitor, which is not going to surprise anyone who knows me. Fifteen years ago, you could also find an editor, which was me, but I’ve mostly disappeared out of the 19 million results for the name my parents gave me by now. Well, I’m probably in there somewhere, but I didn’t dig down deep enough to find me.

Sarah Wynde, on the other hand, was a name that didn’t exist on the internet. It does now, so I have to feel slightly guilty about the woman in Surrey who should really own the search results for her name, but there are still less than a million results on a search for that name.

There was another reason too, at the time: I was in graduate school to be a counselor and didn’t really want to mix that identity with my author identity. I didn’t expect being an “author” to become a major part of my life, but I didn’t want potential future clients to learn about me from reading books with sex scenes and ghosts. Now, on the other hand, I do feel like my books — specifically Practicing Happiness — are important to what I want to do. I’d love for people to read Practicing Happiness and then feel like I was someone they wanted to work with. But I think it would be really weird to go to a coach who’s using a false name. That just seems wrong.

This is mostly relevant for marketing issues: do I create new social media accounts under my real name? Do I create new social media accounts under my new business name? Or do I use the social media accounts I have and put my real name into them somehow? It’s a question I need to solve. Do I re-do the cover of Practicing Happiness to put my real name on it? Do I add my real name as an author name in the meta tags but ignore the visible evidence of the author name? Ugh.

It seems like it should be easy but it’s also the kind of decision that could ricochet into the future in unforeseen ways and so I want to make it carefully. (Like getting a new phone number back in 2019 — it turns out that it’s really hard to change your phone number these days, because the supercomputers in our pockets never forget the old one, and so I’ve had to wonder innumerable times about what messages might have drifted into the ether instead of making their way to me.)

I’ve also been thinking a lot about identity because — believe it or not — I actually think of myself as a pretty private person. I know, I know, I’ve been writing a personal blog for almost 20 years, how private can I be? But I don’t post pictures of me much at all, I rarely use social media and when I do, it’s mostly to share cute dog photos, and… well, what feels like the way to say this is that I’m not out there. I’m not demanding visibility in the way that sells books, sells ideas, sells a coaching practice. And I never have been. I’m comfortable speaking in front of crowds, but I’ve never tried to build a reputation, or establish myself as an authority, or even wanted to be famous. I don’t even understand why people want to have a video go viral — I am just not that person. Except… well… maybe that needs to change? Maybe I need to become the person who’s speaking up, who’s networking and building an audience, who’s selling an idea? Passionately selling an idea? Or at least open myself up to becoming that person? I don’t know. Things to think about, I guess. But the first question to solve is the literal one of how do I merge my identities in a practical way that feels good and keeps my life simple?

Related, in some sense — my three rules of change, to be covered in the first course module of my Choosing Happiness course and probably in the second chapter of my Choosing Happiness book are:

1. Keep it simple
2. Make it easy
3. Have fun with it

So maybe as I think about my identity(ies), I need to think about what would be simple, easy, and fun. A good strategy for change!

The two things on my mind this fine Monday afternoon are hedonic adaptation and identity. Well, actually, there’s a bunch of other things on my mind, too, but those are the two most interesting things on my mind.

Hedonic adaption is… oh, how interesting. Well, okay, wikipedia says that hedonic adaptation, also known as the hedonic treadmill, is “the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” The discussion in the wikipedia article seems mostly to suggest that we inevitably return to our happiness set point, and looks at hedonic adaptation in terms of the big picture events in our lives, ie marriage, disability, that kind of thing.

I’ve been thinking of hedonic adaptation in much smaller terms, basically just the human tendency to get used to things — to anything, really — and start taking it/ them for granted. If you drink a cup of tea at 4PM every afternoon, it will just be a cup of tea. If you have a cup of tea one afternoon out of the week and you schedule it and you plan for it and you really consider what kind of tea would be most delicious and you make sure to have actual milk available (if you like milk in your tea), then your tea will be a pleasure, a delight, a joy.

If the weather is 72 degrees and sunny for ten days in a row (it hasn’t been), on the tenth day, you’ll be thinking, “I wish it wasn’t so bright” or “this wind is so annoying” or “damn these awful caterpillars,” instead of “wow, this is so lovely.” Unless maybe you’re one of those people whose happiness set point is really high, but I am not one of those people, and I don’t think I’ve ever even met one of those people, so… (shrug)… I’m not sure we need to consider them.

Basically, human beings take the status quo, whatever it may be, for granted. We so much take it for granted that psychologists have been writing about our ability to take things for granted for fifty years! But taking things for granted gets in the way of happiness. Ergo, one way to be happier is to fight your own tendency toward hedonic adaptation. Variety is truly the spice of life. That’s what I’ve been up to this week and it’s been working wonderfully well.

Yesterday I had a delightful day. Why was it delightful? I don’t know. Just because it was. I changed the sheets on my bed and put new sheets on that I’d bought at Ross earlier in the week in the most impulsive, “I must own these sheets immediately” purchase I think I’ve ever made of sheets. Here’s a peek at my pillowcase:

I wasn’t at Ross to buy sheets — I was looking for a towel, because I only owned one towel and towels turn out to be a thing where having an extra is really nice. It’s kind of pain not be able to take a shower because your only towel is in the washer. But I saw these sheets on an end-cap (the end of the aisle shelves); saw that they were full sheets, which can be hard to find; saw that they were $19.99; all in about ten seconds, and immediately picked them up and carried them around the store with me, hugging them to my chest. Mine!

Did changing the sheets on my bed really make me happy? Well… sort of? I mean, yes, I was happy that I got to have clean sheets on my bed, and happy that my sheets were pretty, and really, I was mostly just happy, and that was a piece of my happiness.

What else made me happy? Well, my breakfast was delicious, with lots of vegetables. Oh, and I have determined that spending $4.99 to have the good tomatoes is a totally worthwhile expense. This after a couple months of buying cheap tomatoes or having no tomatoes. But a few delicious tomatoes truly elevate a meal. Also! Expensive butter — totally worthwhile if you’re doing something with the butter where you can taste it. I bought Buy One, Get One Irish fancy butter at Publix last week and it is COMPLETELY different on popcorn than regular cheap butter. A different color, a different taste, and so delicious. Yeah, I had delicious popcorn yesterday, too. Hedonic adaptation suggests that I will start taking my delicious buttered popcorn for granted soon, but I haven’t yet.

Hmm, now I’m hungry. And I haven’t written about identity, and I haven’t written about today (also a delightful day) and… well, I’m in a mood where I could probably just write forever. But I’m being very careful about my sleep — one of the foundations of happiness, IME — which means I only have half an hour left in which I can eat, because if I eat later than that, I mess up my sleep. So I’m going to share one more picture:

This morning I took Sophie down to the river walk for our morning walk — fighting the hedonic adaptation of getting used to our regular walk and taking it for granted means changing up the walk, looking for new beautiful views, so that the familiar views have a chance to become new again, too — and it was so lovely. A beautiful day, a beautiful place, a nice breeze blowing, a delightfully happy dog bouncing along and being a very good girl. Hmm, word of the week appears to be delightful. Well, or maybe beautiful. Or maybe delicious!

And now I am going to go eat something delicious, which might even be popcorn, since I’m not yet hedonically adapted to that butter. Mmmm, butter. I’ll just have to write about identity someday soon.