mouseworks

My current computer is an Acer Aspire One and I'm logging on via a hot spot at a small hotel near my new apartment.

Photos up on Flickr (rbb_56) of the new neighborhood. I've been wandering around with very little Spanish and sometimes without a phrase book. I'm at an advantage in the supermarket because most of the packaging is in English.

I agreed to pay extra to get the Nicaraguan consulate to do their part while I went to Dupont Circle to get money. The woman who brought out my paperwork about ten minutes after I got back asked where I was going and I said one of the three northern cities: Jinotega, Matagalpa, or Esteli. She said Matagalpa would be best and corrected my pronunciation of it, a couple of times.

I now have all the paperwork that I need to apply for residency in Nicaragua that needs two more sets of seals of authentication and all that, which I'm planning to do as early as possible tomorrow (State Department office for authenticating state authentications of notaries opens at 7 a.m. in Foggy Bottom).

Sur la Table had the knife roll, which now has my sharpening steel (restaurant supply store grade) and seven of my best knives, plus my chicken shears in a pocket with my wine steward's tool. This and the Leatherman Wave and some other things will go in the check in baggage.

I have a Nicaraguan routable map on my GPS, which has detailed maps of Esteli and Leon, but not of Jinotega or Matagalpa.

Salvation Army got the rice cooker and the tea water boiler and the copper pot, plus some miscellaneous sweaters that were in the car and not necessary.

I have to take the rest to the stuff in the living room out to the curb or to Huey's, probably out to the curb.

My subscription to the New York Times Book Review is cancelled, along with my renter's insurance, Cox Cable internet, and the electric service. Two places left for address changes, and I need to pack sometime before Thursday morning, and sleep in dispensable pajamas.

(Reminds self to send landlord a check for damages and possible further clearances of small stuff -- the big stuff is gone).

Huey will be getting the complete to 2010 collection of whatever I've been watching on the multiple connections hard drive, and I'll turn off Time Machine and further backups.

I'm taking some pots, and probably will pack the Canadian whiskey for Suzanne in one of them, wrapped carefully in lens wraps.

Tired, but have to get the stuff out of the downstairs carpeted room so it's cleared for intensive cleaning.

...on Thursday. I've got all the running around town stuff to deal with today -- stuff to the curb, stuff to the Salvation Army, stuff out of the eaves to decide what to do with, stuff to put in boxes, stuff to put in the backpack that goes in the duffle that goes in the belly of two different planes and hopefully makes it to Nicaragua when I do.

Huey Callison has been a prince -- loaning me a wet dry vac and carrying big heavy furniture away (some he and Sue are keeping, some Sue's got on CraigsList as free pickups), and will be hosting my car in his driveway for five months. And lots of my stuff, either in his guest room or sitting in the car. Winter clothes, except for a fleece jacket, are staying to see what the Jinotega Decembers are really like. I've got some minor sewing work to be done on three summer things. I'll be taking two pots, two sets of sheets, one cutting board, and a knife roll in the checked luggage, along with whatever else fits that seems essential.

I hadn't realized I acquired so much until I started to get rid of it. Some of it was identity stuff -- the camping equipment, the bicycle, and some of it wasn't. I think I may re-kidnap my brother's F3 if I do stay.

Until I know for sure that I'll be staying for longer than five months, I'm trying to keep my possessions down to what I can lug out of town in a hurry.

As I told the woman where I'll be staying initially, I'm both exhilarated and terrified. Can I actually live on $600 a month plus the cost of Spanish lessons? How fast can I learn Spanish? Will Kentucky get the certified birth certificate back to me in time? Is Nicaragua going to fuss because my health letter doesn't have my address on it? What happens if.....

Binoculars, digital pocket camera, and a netbook with a separate mouse. I should be fine.

A boxer/taxi driver will be picking me up at Sandino airport on the north side of Managua and driving me to Jinotega. My hostess will be riding along, I think. This saves a night at Best Western Las Mercedes. Reports as they happen.

I'm paying my landlord $300 for any residual mess.

So, I took things in to the State Department authentication office in DC and found that they could only process one document as it was, the verification of benefits from Social Security. Four documents need to go to Richmond to have the notaries verified, and my birth certificate has to go to Kentucky.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to give away two book cases and a filing cabinet, which has been a matter of people not showing up (furniture dealer who was just sure he wanted all the stuff I was giving away and who would call me when he was in the area and who I called twice to find out what his plans were), not having a truck or van lined up before asking if they could have the filing cabinet, and two people who want the filing cabinet and who have or don't have the required two people and the van or truck necessary to get a free filing cabinet. If I ever do this again in the US, I'm doing to wait until several people email and then say first one over here with means to get the thing out of my house gets it and I'll email the others that they've missed the freebie. I understand Free Cycles have a number of no-shows, too. I'll ask if the person has a truck already lined up before committing to giving that one the freebie, though the guy who had a truck was supposed to be coming by at such and such a time and didn't.


The other stuff -- I've had inquiries but no takers. I'm planning a yard sale for the weekend, and need to pack some more of the stuff I'm keeping tonight or tomorrow night after I get back from Richmond. I don't expect the Kentucky paperwork back until Monday or Tuesday, which will mean Wednesday running around in DC, which means I need to have everything out or packed by Tuesday. Thursday a week from this Thursday, I'm flying to Nicaragua.

Boyd Davis is awesome. Told her she was the best thing ever about the English Department where I got my MA.

Saw my niece after lunch with Boyd, and then my dad, who's now 88 with an 89th birthday coming up in October, and then spent more time with my brother. Today I went up to Stuart, VA, to see my Uncle Clyde who was in the hospital. I told him that if he was still alive when I got back in December from Nicaragua, I'd see him again, and if not, I'd have someone light a candle for him. I don't know what to expect for him. Thanked him for his stories.

Very fond of my niece and hope she will be able to get down to Nicaragua sometime while I'm down there.

Now in the process of getting rid of furniture. I need to toss some stuff that I've lugged through a couple of moves. Looks like someone will pick up the freebies tomorrow, and possibly will sell a few other pieces tomorrow night.

I'm amazed at the people who moved down to Nicaragua to live American lives in the defense of capitalism, car ownership, and so forth, not that a considerable chunk of Nicaraguans probably don't want SUVs, too.

The woman we spent time with in Jinotega forwarded an email from someone looking for housemates in Matagalpa (where the the humble campesinos/Matagalpa Indians tried to drive out the Danes in 1937 or so). Rent is $155 a month with wifi and all other utilities included, including weekly laundry, weekly house cleaning, and a night time security guard for the block. I don't know if this was already snapped up or what.

I went in to my doctor's office for the TB test and then hit MicroCenter for a USB DVR/CD read/write drive and headphones with a mike that will work with Skype. I'm rebeccca_brown1 there, in case anyone is interested. Also picked up a 4 Gig SD card for the Coolpix and stuff. Finished all the other stuff I need for the netbook, and think I may also buy a really big thumb drive for music, though I probably have room for music on the current internal drive.

More books need to be packed up and taken to the Salvation Army, but I've kinda run out of steam at the moment. Need to visit my family once before I go, probably this weekend. One of the tires may be losing air -- the indicator came on. I'll put the pump in the car just in case.

When I get back from that, the next order of business is emptying out the house the rest of the way.

He looked at the books and asked if they were all mine. I said yes, and he picked up various more scholarly looking books and asked me what was in them. I answered, but there was definitely the tone that he didn't believe I'd read these books. He came across as geekish, computer guy, and I suggested the various O'Reilly books, but he had most of them. I finally, rather nervously, let him see the books in the living room that I hadn't brought outside to sell yet. He didn't pick up anything more and wasn't interested in a cheap grab bag of books, saying that he never bought books he wasn't going to read.

Weird feel to the whole thing -- not that I felt like I was being cased for a burglary, but the questions and attitude were definitely intrusive, looking for ways to be dismissive.

I hear American men talking about the machismo in Nicaragua, and then about the greater numbers of Nicaraguan women taking computer programming classes than they'd seen in the US (I understand that this varies over the US and will have to see how Nicaraguan women programmer fare after graduation).

I've never felt that the sample Nicaraguan men I've met were threatened because I might be bright. Brightness in women doesn't phase them the way it appears very much to phase some American men.

The people in Immigration might not be amused if I say I'm going down there for the history and the feminism, but if Nicaragua has women programmers, women working with solar panel electrification projects, and women leading battalions and national police forces, it's got some things that are missing in the US at this point. And it's already had a woman head of state.

After I learn Spanish and if Cuba hasn't been subjugated to US plans, I want to see Cuba. It sounds like a giant American-style commune, with people all working together for food, housing, clothes, and a monthly allowance, with some private enterprise allowed on the side. I think, now that we should have lost our terror of Monolithic Communism, such places should be allowed to exist (Cuba lets anyone who really doesn't want to stay on the commune the opportunity to leave, which is far cooler than the Soviet Union's refusal to let anyone leave unless they were a famous writer who didn't want to leave but who was forced out).

What the communes say is that there are different ways of doing things. I don't know if they're workable for the entire planet, but it's rather cool that a whole rather large island is basically running Twin Oak's script with additional charges to the people who just want to visit and get laid. I suspect that communes would be a rather pleasanter way of running the tourist industry than capitalism. Everyone needs to do dishes at least once a week; everyone needs an opportunity to try running the place; and nobody has to specialize in being a maid.

Twin Oaks and Acorn both work as organizations if not as cradle to grave communities. They're useful in showing us that there are different ways to organize a company, happiness to be had in what people do rather than what people consume.

I know that life in them isn't perfect, too. I lived at Acorn for three weeks.

I think one of the reasons I gave up the camera was that I was seeing and remembering far too many people who were going to write or who were writing after the kids left home, after they retired, or any number of combinations of things. Most of them don't succeed at even greater percentages than those who don't succeed who started at earlier ages. The premise makes an assumption that their life experiences will translate into something useful for the art, but most people like my father who try writing after retirement don't have the reading or understanding gained in other ways that would give their experiences a context.

Also, the arts seem to be different from other sorts of learning -- they're more like a series of habits, a growth that's informed by thinking analytically about the art, but which isn't really completely under analytical control. The progress is more developing practices than thinking about something and setting out to do it the way one would put together a bicycle. I can put together a bicycle from a book, but I can't simply read a lot and put together a novel.

The people who are the most successful at any of the arts started young, worked in cities with other people doing the arts, and generally didn't have spectacular difficulties getting some recognition, often no difficulty getting recognition (W.H. Auden's comments that few people get less recognition than they deserve; many get more recognition than they deserve come to mind here. Reasonable people tend to know where they rank and people who find their artistic abilities aren't up to their ambitions often move on to other things.

For an academic to encourage an older beginner as if there was significant chance of that person being able to catch up to artists who've been at it since childhood feels like to me more a matter of manipulation, of getting attention by praising others, than making a useful statement.

I think the academics excuse themselves by believing that art at any age is enlightening to the artist, but often these older students have different ambitions than simple enlightenment. They want to make money at it or get recognition. The famous examples of people who started late tend to be somewhat mythical -- Grandma Moses had been an embroiderer before turning to art because working with needles hurt her hands. Her father had encouraged her art when she was a child. While she didn't have formal training, she had worked on art as a child and painted as a young adult.

But most of the time, people starting serious work in retirement not only have lost time in developing their art, but have less agile minds than they had in their 30s and 40s.

I didn't digest the amounts of things I'd need to do photography even as well as my writing, and while I'm not sure about my writing being what I'd like it to be, I do have what I have.

The dream of taking up something new in retirement seems to be what keeps people working at jobs they may not care for which allow them to save for the day when they can finally do what they want to do. And there are an enormous number of adult education classes that will take their money while encouraging them.

Try hard while young and let the chips fall where they may. If the arts aren't the answer, then move on, without the fantasy that one can come back in retirement and write the Great American Novel.

The fantasies are how camera stores sell people like me $10,000 worth of camera gear and how many programs that admit older adults fill their classes.

I needed the cash more than the fantasy.

Yesterday, when I was talking to the woman taking Kit for Border Terrier Rescue, she mentioned what BT prices were like now. I remembered paying $170 for Ginger, my first Border Terrier, and thought that would be close to what BT prices are now. Probably for a pet quality pup, though, $1143.90 to $1178.47 in 2009 dollars. 1963 or 1964 was when I got her.

I never thought of my parents as being particularly rich, but for then and there, I can see why the college professors found the mill management irritating. Great time to be an intelligent white man, I suppose. And the WPA and GI Bill made it possible for him to go to college and graduate school.