Costa Rica 27

Parent Advisory: 

This blogpost contains bitchy and sardonic content.  Please read with a grain of salt and take two aspirins and call me in the morning.  And don´t forget to smile.

Today I would like to celebrate my orange little friends, without whose help, travel would be very difficult for me if not downright impossible.  I am referring here to my earplugs.  That´s right, Gentle Reader, your humble servant is noise sensitive.  There could be any number of possible reasons for my being noise sensitive and I am not going to spend any more time boring you with the details.  I will say this.  The world is a much noisier place than when I was young.  Those of us who spent our first forty years or so before cell phones and other fancy schmancy hi tech communications enjoyed the first half of our lives with quiet bus rides and peaceful cafe and restaurant visits for one simple reason.  No one was yapping away on their goddamn phones  everywhere in sports´-broadcaster voices and generally, there were no tv´s blasting away.  You could actually enjoy relative quiet almost anywhere in public.

Coping with increasing noise pollution is for many of us of a certain age a daunting learning curve.  There are also a lot of peer-reviewed scientific studies that indicate the many health risks from the prolonged stress from increased noise exposure, and this affects everyone, old and young.

That said, twice today, I had to rely on my orange little friends while out in public in Monteverde.  While seated in an otherwise quiet and blissfully tranquil cafe with a view we were being serenaded by renovations being done on the hotel next door.  When the young woman sitting nearby began yapping very loudly on her phone in Dutch, likely to her parents back in Holland, it became so annoying after a while that I had to put in my earplugs.  I was determined to not let anyone ruin my enjoyment as I sat there for a couple of hours finishing a drawing.  In the meantime, I also made an effort to appreciate how she must be missing her family and how nice it must be to have time to chat with them, and even though the annoyance didn´t stop altogether, it did become more tolerable.  Then a family group nearby decided to play soccer.  I could tell they were North Americans because their youngest was squealing like a piglet on steriods.  By the way, I do not dislike children.  Some kids I actually like.  I don´t tend to relate to people by category, but as individuals.  However, the way I saw the little girl being doted on and indulged by her mother I really got a dose there of some of the worst excesses of child-centred, or should I say, child-controlled, parenting.  It isn´t that I think the way my parents raised me was any better, because it wasn´t, but really, we do tend to go from one extreme to another, don´t we?  I shudder at how some of these over pampered and over nurtured kids are going to turn out: possibly they´ll turn into entitled little monsters who can barely wipe their own bums.  Anyway, I am willing and prepared to be proven wrong, and every generation, no matter how lousy its style of parenting, always features families that really do well regardless of everything.  And really, the way our parents used to yell and hit us was probably no better and likely much worse than indulging the little darlings.  But everything in balance.

I was going to have dinner at the soda, but it was crowded and noisy, the tv was broadcasting the soccer game and there was an adolescent boy bouncing his little ball inside like it was his personal basketball court. So, I went to Tramonti, the fancy Italian place instead.  I walked in and there was the soccer game being broadcast at high volume in this otherwise elegant restaurant with linen napkins and stemware.  In for a nickel, in for a toonie.  So, I sat by the huge window with the dazzling view of trees and tropical forest and put in the earplugs.  It worked really well.  When the waiter came back I took out one in order to hear what he was saying, then like a good little Canadian, I apologized as I put the earplug back in.  I suppose if I was an American and annoyed by the racket I might have just told them to turn down the goddamn tv while demanding an apology.  Ah, the True North Strong and Free, and I did it all with a smile!

By the way, speaking of Tramonti´s, in an earlier post I mentioned that the owners, who immigrated here from Italy, live in a huge glass and steel palace on the mountainside.  Today while walking past I noticed the road going up to their place and the huge stone and metal gate.  Quite a fortress.  It really makes me think of those immigrants who really make it in their adopted country, and really, how pathetically shallow and materialistic they often appear.  I mean the really successful ones, who crow loudly that if they can make it, so can anyone else, without thinking of the many others who have had to return to their country, or subsist in diminished and demeaning circumstances because they weren´t able to compete well.  And don´t get me started on some of their shameless poor-bashing, especially against our own poor and homeless.

This morning I gave my hosts at the bed and breakfast one of my drawings (I let them pick) as a gift and a gesture of thanks and friendship.  They have truly gone over and beyond to help me feel at home.  Though I am not usually one for using this blog for product or service endorsements, here´s the exception.  The name of the place is La Mariposa Bed and Breakfast, you can find them on Google, and if any of you have future plans to visit Monteverde, then stay here at La Mariposa.  These people are awesome.