A Sign, I Think.

I saw Mike D from the Beastie Boys at the bar last night! And The Highway served him a soy macchiato at the coffee shop! Which makes Mike D. awesome (a macchiato is my personal fave as well) and also a bastard (it's nearly impossible to steam soy milk suitable for latte art when it is in a tiny, tiny demitasse cup).

Since about the 10th grade, The Beastie Boys have signified summer for me (I don't know why. But I'm sure it involves driving around. You know, since driving around aimlessly comprises about 90% of my high school memories). Now that I'm older, (wiser?), and kinda think driving is annoying, they are my go-to BBQ music.The three (four?) B's: Beer, BBQ, Beastie Boys.

And so my time in Puerto Rico is complete.(I just wish Mike D. would have filled me in on the Master Plan :( ...)

Weekly G's

• Amazon.com. For reals! It has helped me organize and keep a list of things I need to read (even if I don't get them from Amazon) because if I am reading one thing and it references another work, I just go to Amazon and find the book and add it to my "Wishlist" --  all in like 5 seconds! And then I go back later when I am reading and look at all the books I saved and then try and find them for cheaper (or for borrowed or free). It has also been helpful because of that little "you may also be interested in..." part where they list a bunch of other books similar to the one you are viewing. I HAVE been interested, many a times, Amazon. So thank you, for your clever (but helpful, when you are for example trying to find similar theorists or work to something you are already citing) marketing strategies.

• Coffee in the morning. Green tea in the afternoon. Wine in the evening.

• The glorious feeling of finishing something before a self-administered deadline (I finished revising a draft today). Usually when I give myself a "deadline", I end up extending it. You know, because it's not a "real" deadline. Well, this week things just got REAL folks. I needs to finish the motherfuckin' thesis before April 11th!!!!!! Not ONLY finish it, but have it revised and formatted into its COMPLETE form,  and have ALL committee signatures signed off on it. Before April 11th.  Ze pressure es ON.

• So, there's a new bar attached to the bakery up the street from me that hasn't *officially* opened yet. Who opens a bar attached to a bakery, you ask? Only. In. Puerto. Rico. Whoever decorated it is awesome, and apparently there is an Ikea somewhere it Puerto Rico that I don't know about because shit looks like it came straight out of an Ikea ad. I'm cool with that. Modern. Spacious. Simple. Just the BESTEST of BEST environment for me to work in (completely alone w/o Internet distraction), especially since they bakery people let me go in there at 8 in the morning to write. YAY bakery people! Thanks for trusting a girl to hang in there alone among so much unaccounted for booze.

•  Breaking Bad. GREATEST SHOW EVER! (Besides HIMYM, of course). I'm talking tonight off and starting Season 3 tonight, you know since I accomplished my deadline and all :)

My quote this week isn't very uplifting, but holy shit if it isn't BRILLIANT. Also, it reminds me of the world today, like TODAY. Iraq. Afgahnistan. Libya. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Please everyone let's get over ourselves and stop now, please. Please.

All throwing shapes, every one of them
Convinced he’s in the right, all of them glad
To repeat themselves and their every last mistake,
No matter what.

People so deep into
Their own self-pity, self-pity buoys them up.
People so staunch and true, they’re fixated,
Shining with self-regard like polished stones.
And their whole life spent admiring themselves
For their own long-suffering.

-Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy

Field Trip!

I went on a work field trip on Tuesday to Sandra Farms in the mountains of Adjuntas, PR -- a coffee plantation where Banana Dang buys some of the coffee they brew in the shop. It's is owned and operated by Sandra and Israel Gonzalez, two adorable retired teachers who somehow have the energy to maintain their land and business, and I only hope I have the motivation they still have when I have in my 60's. It was an AMAZING experience, as I have never seen something like this before.

Here is the view:





Some yet-ripe coffee beans

Israel and Sandra showing us a storage space:


Israel showing T2 some of the beans:


Where they dump and sort the picked beans before dumping down the shoot to be washed:


Israel and T2:

A bags of beans yet to be roasted:

The beginnings of a coffee bean? A flower:


Israel and his bag of beans:

LOVE THIS PICTURE:

Israel and the sugar cane he chopped down for us to try:


Everywhere you turned there was a freakin different plant on this farm. Grapefruit, orange, and avacado trees, sugar cane, BLUEBERRIES...it was insane. It also made me realize that, as much as I deny it, I'm growing to prefer the mountain air and country side to sidewalks and cities that never sleep.