More Karaoke, or Too Much of a Bad Thing

Friday nights I usually stay in and rest up for a late night Saturday at Coyunda's where they have a live band for dancing. That means I miss karaoke at Coyunda's, which is held Friday nights. I've always been fine with missing karaoke, which I've never been fond of. But since last Thursday when my ladies lunch group sang karaoke at Corinne's, and I sang into a mike for the first time among my friends who were kind and applauded despite my going off key and missing some of the words, my appetite for making a fool of myself in front of other people has been whetted.

So Friday night I went to Coyunda's with Susan. Several of our friends were there, including my old appliance buddy, Hugo, who has a very nice voice. He sang and a bunch of friends sang. The more people drank, the more they sang. All in Spanish, of course.

After a vodka and tonic or two, I went over to the control board and asked if there were any songs in English. There were, and I picked one. But then I got nervous, and asked around for anyone who would sing with me. Jefferson, who is gorgeous, early 30s, and a fantastic dancer, agreed.

So when I Can't Get No Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones came on, he and I started singing into the mike. Well, that song an international hit, and everyone in the room knew it. Everyone sang with us and we were all rockin' and smokin'! For the refrain (I can't get no satisfaction), I put the mike in front of different people and they belted out the words, too. It was a blast! And no one really noticed that I was off key.

Sundays I usually stay home, too, getting a late start, going to the feria, and mostly vegging/napping in the afternoon. But this past Sunday, after spending the afternoon at my friends' house, I joined a birthday party already in progress for Gerardo at Coyunda's. I selected some rock n roll songs, and a bunch of us got up and danced. Feeling very comfortable at Coyunda's, which is becoming my second home, I sang the words at the top of my lungs.

About 8pm, we moved the party to El Coco, where there was alternating one hour DJ music, and one hour karaoke. Still bitten by the karaoke bug, I picked a song, I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor, and Yalile and I sang it together. Then she sang a romantic Spanish ballad by herself.

Then we started dancing. OMG - we were like whirling dervishes! The DJ played rock n roll songs and I could not sit still. A bunch of us got up and started dancing, partners not needed. I must have lost a couple of pounds that night just from dancing.


Gerardo's Birthday Party at Coyunda's


Yalile and Me Singing


Yalile, Mayito and Me Dancing at El Coco

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep

My horn goes off whenever it feels like it, and won't stop until it tires itself out after about five minutes. This has been going on now for about three weeks, since I had some air conditioning work done on the car.

The horn starts all by itself, whether I'm driving the car or the car is parked. The first time it happened, I was driving around Santa Ana. Everyone looked at me as I made my way to Chichi, my newest mechanic. Once there, Chichi took out the fuse to make the beeping stop. He looked at the wires and couldn't find anything out of place. He told me to bring the car back the next day, and he would give it to his cousin who does electrical work.

The next morning, I brought the car to Chichi's and walked home. The following day I picked up the car and paid about $15 for a new horn and a new fuse. I thought the problem was solved. That afternoon, while the car was parked in my garage, the horn started in again. Inside the confines of the garage, that horn just about burst my eardrums. I opened the hood, opened the fuse box, and yanked out the fuse the way I had seen Chichi do it. My body continued to vibrate after the beeping stopped.

Then I called my friend, Moe, a Canadian mechanic two towns over in Cariari. I made an appointment to bring him my car. He tried to open up the steering wheel, but he didn't have the special six-sided wrench with a pinhole in the middle. Meanwhile, I'm riding around in a time bomb, never knowing when the horn is going to go off again.

The car went over a week without beeping. I didn't know if it was done tooting at will or if it would happen some night at 3am, or toot when it was parked somewhere and I didn't hear it and it wore down my battery.

I found out last Sunday at the feria. I parked my car downtown, took my daily walk up and down the hilly streets, shopped at the farmers' market, and returned to my car. The watchee man (guard) who knows me said that my horn was honking for about five minutes then stopped. Arrgh. I got in the car and honked the horn, but it wouldn't honk. Now that was just plain mean. It had beeped itself out.

There's an expat resource I turn to when I need a question answered. It's Costa Rica Living, a Yahoo group. So I posted a query, looking for a car electrical mechanic. I got a response and called the guy on Sunday. He understood and problems and was willing to come to my house the next day. But that Monday morning when I called to confirm, he said he didn't have the tools necessary to work on my car. He recommended that I take it to the Nissan (expensive) dealer in San Jose.

Desperate at this point, I called the Nissan dealership and made an appointment for a week later. They said they would need my car two days, which is probably not true, but I will have to leave it there and take the bus home in the rain, and bus back the next day to pick it up.

In the meantime, I am driving around without a horn in a very horn-friendly city.

Beep beep

Indian Food and Karaoke

Most Thursdays I have lunch with a great group of expats at Robin's Kitchen, where Robin serves up a variety of lunch specials and the best desserts in Costa Rica. Until yesterday my favorite was mocha pie, but that rich and creamy delight has been bested by the tart and sweet key lime pie. Maybe next week I'll pick another favorite, like the orange cake.

I joined this group of brujas (female witches, affectionately named after the mascot of the city where we have lunch, Escazu) in February of this year. We talk about anything and everything, and it has been a lot of fun getting to know each woman.

One of the things I like best about this group is that we celebrate birthdays. In April I received many gifts, and for a single person without much family and certainly none in this foreign country, it is a blessing and a comfort to be shown such love and friendship on my special day.

Yesterday we celebrated Carina's 40th birthday. Carina is from Sweden and is a very good golfer (she broke 80, whatever that means). But instead of going to the restaurant, Corinne invited us to her house way up the mountain of San Antonio de Escazu. Finding Corinne's house was a trip, because we did not have clear directions and no one's cell phone had a good signal. But we finally found the house with all windows overlooking the Central Valley.

This is a wine-drinking group, so we started with reds and whites with our appetizers. Corinne, a Philippino, is married to an Indian and has learned to cook delicious Indian food. I also love that we are somewhat of an ethnically diverse group. Corinne prepared all the food with love and attention to detail. We ate on the semi-enclosed balcony and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company. Jane brought her little angel, Alexis, who will turn one year old on Lisa's birthday in July. Alexis munched on Cheerios while we enjoyed chicken, rice and eggplant dishes and flatbread. I wish I could remember the names of everything.

While Robin wasn't there with us, two of her desserts were. The key lime pie and a chocolate cake. Corinne added a carrot pudding that was also very good. Of course, we sang happy birthday to Carina, and she opened our gifts.

Then we piled into the living room and turned on the karaoke. Oooooweeee! Did we have fun! We have two professional singers in our group, Barbara and Sally, the former and the current lead singers from Harmony Roads, a rock n roll, country, blues band (see my story, La Lunada). And the rest of us did the best we could. I had never sung karaoke before, and was a little hesitant to try, but I felt supported by the group, and after the first song, no one could shut me up. It's like singing hymns in church: it doesn't matter if you can carry a tune or not when you sing with passion and zeal.

Our lunches usually last 2 to 2.5 hours, but we stayed at Corinne's 4 hours. And then she sent us home with doggy bags of her yummy Indian food.


Barbara belting out a song with Alexis on her lap

Sunday at Mayito's, or How to Pour Tequila

Sunday afternoon Susan, Yalile, Toro and I went to Mayito's backyard BBQ hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Mayito only makes two dishes: roast chicken and chicharrones (fried pork). It had been a while since we had devoured Mayito's great chicken, and we missed it. We sat around, talking with folks at other tables, drinking beer, and feeding our faces.

We got there around 4pm and just stayed, passing the time. After the beers and the food were gone, the tequila showed up. First, Mayito brought a shot for Toro and himself. Then Yalile started in on the shots. Then Susan. I was still sucking ice cubes from my one and only watered-down beer.

Someone put on a CD of American oldies but goodies. I remember listening to Creedence Clearwater's Proud Mary while Susan translated the words for our tico friends. Yalile and Toro actually speak and understand English, although it's a fractured English, but I usually understand their meaning.

Yalile started singing another American song. Since she didn't know the words, she made them up. But her words didn't have anything to do with the song. She started singing about Susan and drinking. It was very funny to listen to her because she didn't even try to rhyme her lyrics; she just blurted out whatever came to her, and it wasn't exactly on key.

Around about that time, I decided to have a shot of tequila. I know I can't handle too much of that stuff, but I thought I would have one shot to see how smoothly it would go down. My attention was on picking up the bottle and tipping it over the shot glass so I wasn't listening to what Yalile was singing at that moment. I was looking at the bottle and shaking it, wondering why no tequila was pouring out, when I heard Yalile singing about me and how I didn't drink very much. Suddenly everyone was laughing and I realized that the cap to the tequila bottle was still on. It was one of those hysterically funny moments that couldn't have been planned. It was as though I drank so little that I didn't know how to open the bottle. We laughed until we cried.

I finally took the cap off and poured myself a shot.

At some point I got up and started dancing to the oldies. Toro and Yalile did, too. We made a train and danced around the tables on the dirt floor. Susan snapped some pictures.

We were there so long that it was time to eat again. Without us asking for it, Mayito brought us a plate of roasted garlic that was to die for, and a plate of chicharrones. Ooh, can he cook!

At 7:30pm we finally closed up the place.


Mayito


Mayito and Toro


Yalile, Toro and Margie dancing

Making Claussen Dill Pickles

For the past week I've been working on duplicating my favorite pickle, the Claussen Dill. This refrigerated brand isn't sold in Costa Rica, so I crave these pickles when I go back to the US.

Recently my friend and chiropractor, Dr. Jim McLellan, had me taste a pickle that he had made. He's always experimenting with something to do with food. In a very small backyard, he raises rabbits, tilapia fish, chickens for their eggs, and all sorts of vegetables and herbs.

My taste buds were shocked! The pickle he had me taste was a Claussen Dill. He said they were easy to make, and gave me the recipe. Here it is below:

1 1/2 quarts boiled water, cooled
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
8-10 pickling cucumbers, sliced into spears
6 long sprigs fresh dill
1 tbls coarse kosher salt
1/2 cup white vinegar

Put some dill and the garlic at the bottom of a big jar.
Add the cucumber spears. Put sprigs of dill in the center of the cucumbers.
Add salt and vinegar, then fill jar with cooled, boiled water.
Cover. Shake to dissolve salt.
Set upside down in cool, dark place.
Let sit 4-5 days, turning jar either upright or upside down each day.
Let sit upright 2 more days.
Refrigerate.
Good for about 6 months.

Susan's Epic Birthday

Susan turned 50 this week and it has been the endless birthday celebration. We started on Monday by having a free overnight at the Hampton Inn near the airport. Susan works in tourism and was able to finagle a free room, and she asked me to accompany her. It was a very nice hotel with a sparkling clean room, free full breakfast, and friendly service. The hotel honored her with a bottle of sparkling wine and a box of Ferrero Rocher candies. For dinner, we went next door to the Fiesta Casino and shared chicken wings and a Caesar salad. A friend of mine sent over drinks, and then it was Ladies' Night so we got more free drinks. The place started filling up with young ticas half our age. In fact, there were so many of them, they overflowed onto the dance floor and there was hardly any room to dance. It didn't matter to us, though, because none of the teenybopper guys wanted to dance with their grandmothers. So we called it a night and went back to the room.

Wednesday was Susan's actual birthday, and about 10 of us took her to lunch at TGIFriday's. I had brought a candle and stuck it in her bowl of ice cream. The staff sang the birthday song, in Spanish, of course, then we all sang in English, even though Susan and I were the only English-speaking ones in the group. A meal here doesn't last just an hour or hour and a half. Three or three and a half hours later, we finally left.


Margie, Lupe, Hazel, Yalile, Susan at TGIFriday's


Sue doing the hula while the TGIFriday's staff sang her happy birthday

Friday night was Susan's official birthday party. Yalile got to Coyunda's (the place where we go dancing Saturday nights) early and decorated the hall (with her two daughters) with balloons, streamers and funny eyeglasses, which we wore for a group photo.

Oscar, Margie, Patri, Anabel, Jenny, Jose and Michelangelo wearing our funny glasses

Yalile got folks to make yummy food - Mayito (he has a weekend restaurant where he makes chicharrones (fried pork) and roasted chicken) sent over chicharrones for about 20 of us, plus Yalile's neighbor made piccadillo (a mixture of finely chopped potatoes and some other ingredients I can never remember). I brought a chocolate cake from Robin's Kitchen (where I have lunch every Thursday with a different bunch of friends).

The Cake

The party was a fine tribute to a wonderful friend.

Susan with her birthday cake

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta at Patty's

Patty went all out for her Cinco de Mayo party. Since she lives on a narrow street with a treacherously steep dip, she asked us to park on the main drag, and her friend Wagner drove us to and from her house. About 40 of us celebrated the Mexican tradition of the fifth of May.

The food was delicious, of course, as were the margaritas. And who could resist the shots of tequila from the pretty bottle that Patty passed around?

Poet MariAmanda read a couple of her poems, although they were lost on me. It's hard enough for me to understand straight-talking Spanish, let alone metaphorical Spanish. But it sounded pretty and she read it with emotion.

Then the mariachis strummed and sang their way up the driveway to entertain us. I had brought my maracas, so I shook them in rhythm as though I knew what I was doing. A Latin friend of Patty's belted out a few songs with the band.


Patty and dog Lucky in front of the mariachis, with her friend in jeans also singing


Old friends Barb and Richie Highgate and me