a day in the life + dry season woes

Such a true statement haha. Classes just started back up for me and let me tell ya... I'm already exhausted. Especially this week, I have class every single day - in Mayaguez (30 min drive) and La Parguera (1.5 hour drive). I'm pooped! Let me give you a little insight into my Wednesday and Friday mornings...

1. At 5:30am, I awake in a sour mood because it's still pitch black outside. The sun is not even up.
2. I brush my teeth, let Sophie outside and put some water on the stove to boil
3. I get ready. I go back to kitchen and put tea in the water to prep. I eat breakfast. All in silence. Not a happy camper.
4. I put tea into my mug, which will be too hot to drink until approximately 15 - 20 minutes into my long commute
5. I get my stuff together and leave the house (bye, Sophs!) at 6:30am. Get in car, don't turn on lights because I don't want to wake the people on the top floor of my two family house
6. Drive. For a while. In the dark.
7. Sip my tea, feel a little better while discovering some new music on Pandora.

When Evan is riding with me, we will chat, but later in the car ride. I'm not a morning person, so I don't enjoy conversing when I am already unhappy about being awake so early. I've had this schedule for two weeks now. I hate it haha. But... I must get used to it for this whole semester.

However, coming home to Rincon is absolutely wonderful. I love to finally pull down my driveway, let Sophie out and then lay in my hammock for a little while. There's a wonderful breeze, it's nice and quiet with just the birds around me.... and relax. Today, I left the island early to get back home and just chill. I finished reading The Ragged Edge of the World, and also picked up a new box of books from B&N that just arrived today: two non-fictions and one baking cookbook. Having my homebase in this town lets me:

(Well, my mind.) Something interesting that I've discovered about the dry season on this side of the island. There is a plant (a vine, actually) that produces these fuzzy pods with fiberglass-like threads. It's called pica pica (which means "itch itch"). Apparently this is the time that this vine reproduces and releases all these tiny, unseen fiberglass threads into the air. Of course, propagated by the wind that blows incessantly at the same time as this reproduction. The result? Itchy clothes, itchy couch, itchy dog fur, itchy everywhere. You hang clothes out to dry, the pica pica gets on it. We leave all our windows open all the time (with screens on them, mind you), pica pica gets in the house... everywhere.. unseen, so you can't simply clean it up. You just get to discover it when it lands on you and makes you itch... an itch that cannot be quenched.

Thus, this silly vine has led to the mass fires that the locals have now sprung up everywhere in town. Remember... we're in the dry season... we are basically a tinder box. But that doesn't seem to bother anyone... or rather, I suppose they are more concerned with ridding their backyards of this annoying vine than the chance that their fire might cause the entire hill to go up in flames. In fact, as you take the road that leads into town, you can see the hills covered with little smoky patches.


Note to self: find the pica pica around my house. and kill it. sans fire.

Read more about pica pica here.
Get updates about the upcoming art festival from mi amiga, Karla.
Amped to find Papaya!Art products at Marshalls yesterday!
Love this song by the group M83.


Update on 2012 Goals: [Travel] $40 has made it into the Evan & Chelsea's US West Coast Summer Travel Fund. Alrighty!

{all images, click for source}