Stranger Than Fiction, 14

In 1994 we more or less settled into our new house.  I had the basement with a huge bedroom and my own bathroom which gave the old ladies and I a lot of breathing space from each other.  Dippy continued to drive Dopey crazy but I at least got to ignore them both, most of the time anyway.  We would still have lunch and dinner parties and did our very best to fake getting along beautifully though I'm sure at least some of our friends and visitors saw through us.

I continued to develop my craft as a painter, did a show in a café downtown that drew an agent to me, ironically the girlfriend of the artist who had encouraged me more than a year ago to start painting seriously.  She helped me land a juicy commission of big parrot compositions for a new hotel and the proceeds paid for my vacation in Costa Rica in June.

Costa Rica was for me one of the most wonderful things that had ever happened.  I was free for two glorious weeks from both those women (I do not doubt for a minute how mutual the feeling must have been, at least for Dippy).  I spent most of my time in the cloud forest of Monteverde where for the first time I saw live and up close such wonderful birds (hummingbirds especially) and butterflies (blue Morphos) that previously had existed for me only in books and documentaries. 

This is a Blue-Crowned Motmot.  The first morning I woke in Monteverde I looked out my window and saw two of these beauties flying in and out of the hole in the clay bank nearby where they had a nest.  I also saw these hummingbirds:    This is a Purple Throated Mountain Gem.  Here's another:  This is a Green Crowned Brilliant.
And here is the rock star of the local hummingbirds in Monteverde:

This is the Violet Sabrewing.  I saw others but I will bore you no further with the theme.

There was, and still is in Monteverde a community of largely American Quakers who have done much to set the tone and the atmosphere of this magical place.  I attended their meetings and felt pleased to feel included and accepted.  Is it any wonder that for years I entertained dreams and fantasies of returning here to live?

 I met a lot of interesting people, journalled and hiked relentlessly.  I experienced a powerful oneness with nature as the very boisterous fecundity of the tropics entered and inhabited my soul.  For a long time afterward I wanted to live in Costa Rica.  Years later, on a second and third visit, I realized this was neither practical or desirable.  But I since have accomplished an enviable fluency in Spanish and have come to enjoy travel in Latin America.

When I returned home Dippy's ex was trying to move in with her.  He was a fat middle aged Ukrainian, aka "The Perogy."  The first time I saw him he was seated at our dining room table.  We had other guests over.  He suddenly peeled off his shirt, and his pasty white skin covering mounds of fat gave him the appearance of one fat gigantic perogy.

Dopey and I did not want him there and it was clear that Dippy was at the very least ambivalent about having him back.  She was very vulnerable with nonexistent boundaries.  Dopey and I felt moved to get the Perogy out of there as soon as possible.  She never forgave us for driving him out though she also expressed gratitude that he wouldn't be troubling her again.

In August Dippy moved out and Dopey and I went out with the Self Proclaimed Apostle to celebrate.  Her leaving the community became something of a mixed blessing.  Dopey was not quite the frail little old lady she purported to be and had somehow manipulated Dippy into being her servant.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and I with great reluctance took on the mantel of Dopey's resident slave.  Three times Dopey called me by her deceased husband's name.  That is when I insisted that we find a replacement for Dippy, preferably a male.

Dippy's successor was a spoiled white male in his thirties from a privileged background with major depression.  He only lasted a few months with us.  He was not prepared to live in community and had a tendency of complaining a lot.  While he was with us we noticed a number of our towels had gone missing.  When he moved out and we were cleaning out the pigsty he had transformed the room into (it took ten days for the stench to subside and this is no exaggeration!) we discovered about a half dozen towels stashed in the closet, stiff as cardboard.  Dopey was all set to launder them and wouldn't listen to my insistence that she wear rubber gloves.  "You might not know what he was using those towels for but I do", I said.  And if you, Gentle Reader, still haven't figured out just what he was doing with those towels then you are likely not old enough to be reading this blog!