Farm goodbye

I sit on my cabin porch couch; I look up at tall, youthful cottonwood trees, below a tranquil sky blue dome, gracefully curtained with white cotton sheets. I contemplate my last few hours (in the foreseeable future) here in Chimayó.

My bags are packed, my car awaits, and I only had goodbyes and thank-you's left to say. My time here was peaceful, educational, happy, pleasant, somewhat structured, picturesque, and oh what beautiful sky! And oh, what a centered family, and strong community. I felt openly welcome in my time here, and Josh & Tyler gradually included me as one of them. I feel fortunate to have found this place. I might just come here again.

A new interest guides my current course. What secrets, experiences, and joys have Montana and the Rainbow Gathering for me? To be continued...

Quotes from "Nature"

• Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
• A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work.
• Therefore does beauty come unsought, and comes because it is unsought.
• Every object rightly seen, unlocks a new faculty of the soul.
• Each creature is only a modification of the other.
• When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence,... it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.
• As long as the active powers predominate over the reflective, we resist with indignation any hint that nature is more short-lived or mutable than spirit.
• [It sees the world]... as one vast picture, which God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul... It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is a doer, only that it may the better watch.
• [The world]... its serene order is inviolable by us.
• The perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means.
• The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is because man is disunited with himself.
• Build, therefore, your own world.

Farm 0623

June 23

The images of my now-forgotten dreams flitted around in my mind as I turned on my sides and moved my arms and legs around, rolling to the point of most coziness inside my blankets. Aware of floating around between dreams and the material, my post-tired body aimed to maximize its sleeping time. I remembered I'd climaxed sometime during the night when I dreamed of having gotten very close and hugged some woman inside my dream, and that I felt tired enough to not get out of bed or clean up at that time. I felt dry around me when I finally sat up in bed, though the texture of a small portion of the front of my shorts did feel more ragged than the rest of the smooth polyester fabric.

It was 14:42, and as I'd left the mobile data connection on my Nexus turned on, I woke up to see an email and a Hangouts message from Ping. She was not online at the time, but I downloaded Whatsapp and messaged her to at least give her a reply. I cooked rice+lentils for "lunch", left my garbanzo beans cooking for dinner later on, and decided to upload some of the media that Mario desired for his new devices (iPod Touch + laptop). I opened up the JW site, downloaded a few of the books he had shown interest in before, downloaded a bunch of them in PDF and MP3 format, then uploaded them into a few different cloud services: the audio files into Google Play, and the PDF files into Google Books and Google Drive. I think he'll like it.

The whole process took hours, but while this happened, I took a shower, read Plato's Dialogues, and helped J&T with the animal chores. I actually only waited out with the sheep while they grazed in the field, then helped route them back to their pen. It was harder than one would usually think, but after about 5-10 minutes of running and routing, it worked out. Then we walked back to the HQ area, talked to Pilar and Adan for a while, I got some of my staples refilled by Josh, and came back. By that time my laptop had gone to sleep, so I set the power options to "Never" go to sleep, and left it finishing. Then I had my garbanzo dinner, finished reading "Symposium", left tomorrow’s garbanzo beans lunch soaking, then began writing this journal entry. Journal entries take quite a while to write. I might want to reconsider my writing method, detail, topics, and/or frequency.

Anyway, now I decided to leave the english audio version of the Bible downloading, then uploading, for Mario's later convenience. I've thought of sketching up a model of the device/cloud media consumption system relevant to Mario and family, and how to make it work for him. Seems like a worthy project to spend a little time on, plus an exercise of sketching and penmanship.

Farm 0622

June 22

J&T planned to begin driving at 8AM to arrive at ABQ right when the convention started (10AM). Though I should’ve woken up at 6AM, the alarm clock didn’t ring until 7AM (I think), so my morning routine was a bit rushed. I made oatmeal breakfast, drank a cup of tea, packed up a few books, my notebook, my phones, and my laptop, and we drove off. The drive was pretty uneventful and conversation-dry, though we got to listen to the Thrift Shop song on the road (which I just realized was about a thrift shop about 3 days ago).

Once in ABQ, Josh parked at the convention center, we each paid $21.40 to get in (online tickets were not available anymore), and we went inside. And then I saw what a comic convention was like. Comic book sales, fiction book sales, extended series fiction, fictional art; many sensual-, epic-, cute-, bodacious-, original-, colorful-looking drawings and paintings everywhere, artists drawing and coloring right there on the tables, booths of fictional equipment replicas, quality miniatures of Star Wars ships and actual airplanes, and people wearing MANY kinds of costumes. The Brave heroine, X-Men, Superman, Flash, the Blue Spirit, Stormtroopers, Lego Stormtrooper, pirates, Korra, Star Trek officers, Star Wars/Bioshock/Sleeping Hill/Sailor Moon/Dragonball/anime characters, She-Hulk, Thor, Yoda, Roboto-Rita, Green Lantern, Commander Shephard, Ironman, Dr. Who, The Joker, the Demented Duo, and zombies were among the costumes I saw. Most of them were easily recognizable, although some of them gleamed more effort put into them than others. Hair and skin was painted in many cases, and at some of them, especially at the Brave heroine, I found myself lauding internally. Many of them, mostly the anime or newer video game characters, I didn’t recognize.

So I walked and browsed around aimlessly for about an hour, looking at art, people saying hello and telling me about what they made and offered and sold. I politely looked and listened, but not being genuinely interested in anything there, I just moved on from booth to booth. From the few things I remember, a replica of Commander Shephard’s helmet was available for $500, and the main female actress from Back to the Future offered Photo Ops for $10 and autographs for $25. I thought the prices fairly hefty for me, though reasonably-priced in the given market, if the actress actually wanted to made her time worthwhile (money-wise) while she was there.

I got a little hungry, but muffins were $4 a piece inside the expo, so I walked to the street and bought a little bag of peanuts for $1. Those held me for a while, and then I attended a talk with 77-y/o Dean Stockwell with J&T. He seemed so... bland. Well, his answers did. He didn’t really speak much - he sat down in front of the crowd, and simply said: “Well, who wants to ask the first question?" His 28-y/o-looking wife appeared a few minutes later, and he introduced her as such: "You might not believe it, but this is my wife". And the questions just went on. Apparently, he played the role of Father Cavin in the Battlestar Galactica TV series. The dialogues between the crowd and him went something along:

-"Along your extensive career as an actor, since you were a little boy until now, was there a character in particular that you enjoyed portraying the most?"

-"Ummmm... no. No, not really"

-"Why did you take *such-and-such* role when it was something so different from what you had done before?"

-"Well, the money they offered me was pretty good. Money can do a lot to shape one's decisions"

-"Was there any particular kind of movie, or genre, that you liked acting in more?"

-"Well, I did like working in comedy/romantic genres sometime. Like Quantum Leap, that had a little bit of it".

His answers seemed to be terse and true, and he seemed to be making little to no effort in keeping the audience entertained or excited. People seemed to try to pry into his thoughts about his role in Battlestar Galactica, but I think it was not mentioned even once. It was 11:29AM when he said "Well, it's time for lunch, right?" Someone else interjected a question before he left, but he seemed anxious to finish the session. As he walked out, I noticed his posture and attitude. He walked steadily and hunched, and he seemed like someone resigned to do what he was doing, though not really excited about, or looking forward to, pretty much anything. His demeanor did not seem like one productive or enjoyable.

For the next hour, I wanted to see some Martial Arts demo, but that part was postponed, and I instead sat at a talk by Robotech for a few minutes. When I realized my disinterest at the innovativeness of the games that Robotech was advertising, I walked outside and joined the talk with Neal Adams that J&T were attending. That one was much more interesting - he was a storyteller, as he said himself, and he talked about how he helped make the comic-book/arts industry return the original arts to the artists. His stories were full of dialogues and anecdotes, his voice actually modulated when he spoke, he attended to people's questions humorously and with a personal touch, even though many of the answers seemed to be prepared and rehearsed. So after an entertaining 20-30 minutes, the talk ended.

Then we went out to eat a Subway sandwich with J&T, then we returned to the expo. I hung outside for a while as I ate Subway cookies and drank their chocolate milk. I sunbathed for a while on a bench, then filled out an online Subway survey in exchange for a free cookie. After the survey, I wrote down a numeric code on my Subway receipt, made the line in Subway again, and got a free cookie in the end. I went inside again, and I saw many costumed people line up, all of them seemingly ready for the costume contest at 3PM. I decided to go to the room early, so at about 2:45, I went near the front of Panel Room A, and saw another engaging artist talk about his experiences to the crowd. At 3PM, people started getting up, so I grabbed a front row seat and reserved two other seats beside it for J&T. I called Josh to tell him I'd gotten them seats, then we sat down to watch the show.

The show was entertaining, and gave me a sneak peek into the interests of fiction fans. The event seemed to be central to the Expo, and even J&T, who aren't that much of hardcore fiction fans, were quite observant of the details and originality of the characters and costumes. An X-Men team that I thought looked cool and flashy, was easily discarded by Josh as very store-bought-looking, and unimpressive. And after I saw the costumes with a bit more attention, and compared it with many of the others, I understood what he meant. The time and effort that the X-Men team had invested into their costumes were probably only a minute fraction of what some of the others' had. Make-up, hair paint, sewing, painting; leather, paper, fabric, wood, metal, wires, electronics craftsmanship had been involved in many of the other costumes, and a store-bought costume was certainly not a match in originality with those others.

A listing of all the costumes I liked would be too long, but I found the exposition quite entertaining. I clapped loudly when the Brave heroine stepped in, in perfect make-up, long fire-orange hair curls, sky-blue long dress with a golden hem and Irish-looking designs on it, hand-crafted leather-covered bow: to me, a perfect replica of the character displayed in Disney posters. Even her face seemed to be a perfect match. It might've as well been the other way around. An Ironman suit made from scratch with LEDs on its helmet and chest, and a mask that opened just like in the movie, was a pretty strong, though not very original, contender. A little girl in a shiny green suit and skirt with a green lantern logo on her chest, and her hair only subtly dyed green, and a dramatic entrance and appearance, was one of the cutest contenders (and the children's category winner). The Blue Spirit made quite an entrance, with hand-crafted swords, and showing off actual-looking, flashy martial arts techniques with his twin swords. A red-haired dad came on stage with a baby, representing Fry & Nibbler from Futurama. A very detailed Captain Shephard in full armor ran into the stage, pistol in hand, shouting "nobody move!!", or something of the sort as he entered. A pyramid-head, walking on tall stilts covered in a brown sack-like fabric, seemed to crawl across the stage, dragging a huge sword behind her, and with, well, a pyramid head. The winner of the whole affair ended up being Roboto-Rita, who hand-made a near-full metallic enclosure with transparent domes, colorful LEDs, and wires all around her. Her hair was made of tangly wire, her skirt's hem was metallically adorned, her hat looked made of aluminum, her face was fully painted gray, and her entire thorax area seemed to be covered by a desktop enclosure. The time and effort put into the costume was most impressive, for sure, although my own personal favorite ended up being the Brave heroine, for the remarkable similarity I found in her to the "real" movie personage.

So after the contest (and watching some slapstick-humor Looney Tunes coyote & roadrunner interludes before they gave away the prizes, and wondering at the physical resilience and seeming indestructibility of the coyote's body), J&T stayed for the following talk in the room, and I walked outside the center to finish my sandwich. When I finished it and was still hungry, I walked to Subway, only to find it closed. Other restaurants in the area seemed closed or too expensive, so I just got a corn-in-the-cob from a food truck for $1, then sat down at a table in a deserted-looking area, and read Plato's Dialogues for about 30-45 minutes.

When I walked back in, J&T had gone into a talk called "Geeks who Drink", were the audience was asking questions to a group of semi-famous people in the art industry, of which I knew none. I sat there for a few seconds, then decided to walk outside and continue reading Plato's Dialogues. I sat down in a corner of the convention center, and after a while, I saw a red frisbee whizz by. Dean Stockwell's wife appeared and picked it up, then Dean Stockwell appeared, and they threw the frisbee back and forth between them for about five minutes before walking away again. The wife seemed to be very unskilled at throwing a frisbee, though she displayed much better catching than throwing skills. At about 7PM, I thought the whole event might be closing down, so I walked back inside Panel Room A. The event wasn't ending at all, and Josh saw me and invited me to sit with them. Since I'd been spotted, I thought it rude to walk back outside and continue reading, so I came inside and sat down with Tyler and two new friends, Ashley and Steven.

A few minutes later, Josh and Megan, Ashley's sister, appeared. Their backstories were fairly irrelevant, and a little later, a trivia quiz began. We formed a quick team of six people between all of us, and we called ourselves "Murder of Crows". I liked it. We did our best on the six sections with 8 questions each about aliens, musicals, Star Wars math, and other random facts, but we ended up placing somewhere in the middle. Still, the first place team got $60 and a Gamecube, so we didn't fail to win much more than ephemeral glory.

After the quiz, Ashley was acting pretty huggly and caressingly with Tyler, so we decided to stick around Albuquerque for a little longer. The girls invited us to a bar called "Sister", so we drove down to downtown ABQ, found a parking spot, and ate a $2.75 pizza slice each. Then we walked up to the bar, paid the $7 cover charge (each), then we went in and pretty much danced to rap and indie music all night. Oh, and Tyler danced with Ashley, then they held each other and kissed for a few minutes.A burlesque show with female fiction characters taking their clothes off, up to their covered nipples, followed, but I lost all of the little interest+peer-pressure I had after watching Kitana, the opera singer from the Fifth Element, and some kind of Catwoman holding Batman's picture dance and take clothing pieces off. I walked outside, talked to a very cordial and pleasant-looking Hot Dog vendor named Earl, visited an art gallery that seemed ready to close (which had a piece of art with a replica "Starry Night" from Van Gogh, plus a Thundercats symbol in the night sky), and went into Lindy's, a diner that was open until 3AM. There I ordered some Mexican Eggs (with hash browns and beans included), and heard two girls, a certain gold-skirted, white-bloused Ms. Chang, and her black-dressed Armenian friend talk to some old famous black guy in the diner. The Chang girl seemed especially engaging, sassy, and flirtatious, and sat down on the famous-seeming guy as someone took a picture of them. I liked her boldness and character (she began the conversation with him when she saw him dining), though I questioned her motives. If they were benign, then good for her.

When I walked back into the Sister bar again, Ashley was no longer beside Tyler, and he seemed to be waiting for her. He seemed to have little hope though, and after he went to look for her and couldn't find her, we decided to leave. We walked back to the car, Josh found the I-25 highway, and then I dozed off until we were back at the farm, just after 3AM. I think I washed the dishes I'd left in the sink, left half a cup of garbanzo beans soaking overnight, took my clothes off, crawled up into bed, and fell asleep.

Farm 0621

June 21

On Friday we were out in the field early (@6AM), and we weeded all day. We weeded all the remaining chile crops in Cipriano, then moved on to weed the corn crops in the right side of Nemesio. I hoed the majority of the rows while J&T hand-weeded, and when I’d finished, helped J&T hand-weed what was left. It was a good morning of continuous work, perhaps until 10:30 or so. We conversed a fair bit about comics and video games as we weeded the chile crops, and Josh placed a powerful speaker between the corn crops as we weeded, so we listened to a podcast about the NSA and the privacy of citizens in the US and elsewhere for at least a good hour before we finished weeding. It was distracting, but I think I’d rather not have listened to it - I’d rather have been left to my own sounds and thoughts.

My lunch break was nice and long, and after I ate, Mario visited me in my cabin to ask me how to access some functionality about his emails, the particulars about which I don’t remember. After I helped him how I could, he left, and I managed to acquire car insurance for my new Geo. State Farm offered me the lowest price: less than $28 per month for PA insurance. Considering other companies charged me around $50 per month, I was happy to find this option. Soon after, I went out to work for the second half of the day.

I met J&T at the truck, and after gathering up some tools, we went to pick up some of the remaining branches from the horse fields. We managed to clean most of them up, and then we drove off, picked up a plastic wheelbarrow, and drove to the “zoo” to clean up the sheep pen. I inhaled much sheep manure dust that day, but we left it nice and clean, and after picking up the chicken eggs, we finished off the day and went back to our cabins. J&T told me they would be driving to SF at 6:30PM, and to be ready by that time. They were a bit dazed by me telling them about the laptop that I intended to purchase while in SF, but OK with it. Once in SF, they drove me up to Denny’s (the meeting place with the Craigslist guy). The guy turned up, he happened to be a 14-to-16-year-old-looking kid, and his computer happened to be an Asus EEE PC netbook with WXP on it. Everything seemed to work just fine, so I paid him the $50 and was on my way in about 10 minutes. Then J&T&I and drove to Trader Joe’s (where I bought 5 bananas and 1 carrot juice drink), then to Whole Foods (where I found a free little piece of protein bar sample), then we drove back to the farm. Movie night was about to start in front of Adan’s, but I texted Mario about the laptop, and I told him he could come get it now, as I’d be gone all day on Saturday. He seemed a bit coerced, but he agreed to come get it that night.

So instead of attending movie night with everyone in the farm, Mario and his wife came to my cabin, I introduced the new laptop to them, told them about the functionality they’d most probably deal with (basic trackpad/keyboard usage, internet, email, VLC player, and such), and after about 60-90 minutes of such, they went back to their house, and I headed over to movie night. The movie, “Born in East LA”, had just ended, but I stuck there for a little while, and Pilar logged into Netflix and put on a couple of Family Guy episodes - one with the Bird song and one where they go back in time to the beginning of WW2. After watching random funny jokes and eating cocoa-dusted crisp almonds and chips under the moonlight along with all the Trujillo friends and family, we said goodnight, and I came back to my cabin to sleep.

Farm 0620

June 20

The tequila drink I was offered by J&T last night relaxed my body more than I realized, and I ended up falling asleep on the lower bunk bed, when I only intended to rest for a while. At 4:58AM, I realized I’d fallen asleep, and simply started my morning routine to get ready for the day.

During the morning, we harvested snap peas and shell peas. We gathered 51 pounds of snap and 6 of shell, then proceeded to weed all the chile rows with stirrup hoes. It was still 11:20 by that time, and we decided we’d start an early lunch and reconvene at 4PM. Ashley stopped by while we were near their house, and gave me a package - Mario’s iPod had arrived, used and cracked on the bottom. I went back to my cabin and proceeded to set it for up for him. It wouldn’t turn on at first, so I tried to charge it with the iCharger someone left in the cabin. And the plug wouldn’t fit in. Oh no, the port was bent inwards! The screen break seemed to have been caused by some precise crushing. The electronic part of the port seemed to be OK... I only needed to open it up so I could fit the charger inside.

A pair of pliers could help, I thought, so I went to Josh’s to ask for one. He very coolly lent me one, but when I told him what the problem was, he suggested that I tried to hammer and pin it instead. I thought it was a good idea, so I tried that. A hammer and some metallic wedge were already at my cabin, so I just went back and hammered it. A few seconds later, the charger fit inside! Josh had known just what to do! I made a mental note of thanking him afterwards.

So then I set up the new iPod for Mario, downloaded some Jehovah’s Witnesses talks in English and Spanish for him to listen to, synced it up with my laptop, then called him to tell him that it had arrived for him. He seemed pretty excited - he interrupted the work he was doing at the time, and told me that he’d be at my cabin in 30 minutes. 30 minutes later, indeed, we were setting up his new Apple ID, downloading apps, looking at the JW website, and making sure he had everything he wanted on his new little device. By the time he left it was 3:30PM, and I only had time to go back to my cabin, clean up my dishes, and dress up again before meeting J&T in the truck area.

They were loading up a board on the truck that we’d used to carry branches yesterday. And yup, that’s what we did all afternoon - load up strewn branches in the area where the horses are to be taken to. There were a lot of them - two pretty full truckloads of branches (which were easier to unload thanks to the wooden board on the truck that was used as a platform) later, the field was still not completely clean, but the whole area certainly looks much clearer. Then we did animal chores, which for me basically consisted in collecting eggs. 14 eggs later, we put the eggs in Adan’s fridge, and we each went back home. I fried a bag of snow peas and cooked rice+lentils+all-remaining-chard as my dinner. Josh stopped by a while ago to tell me he and Tyler would be going to a comic festival in Albuquerque and Saturday, and invited me to come. I was happy to oblige. He also said that he’d probably go down to Santa Fe tomorrow evening, which fit perfectly, as Mario’s wife also wants a little laptop to work with, and I found one on Craigslist for only $50. If things work out well, after work tomorrow (which will start a 6AM as a trial) we’ll drive down to Santa Fe, I’ll notify J&T about the laptop purchase I might be making, hopefully they’ll make a little time for me to get it done. Then we might come back to the farm, sleep, and on Saturday morning at 8AM, drive to Albuquerque and be there all day at the Comic Festival. It’s $15 each if we pay online. Then we’ll probably drive back to the farm, or stay and watch the new Superman movie at a theater there somewhere. J&T seem pretty excited about the movie, though we might also go sometime on Sunday, perhaps early to get the matineé price.

Farm 0619

June 19

Finally up to today! I woke up, met Josh and Tyler at 7AM in the fields, and we picked up 11.5 pounds of snow peas. Adan was left picking up snap peas in the field alone, and we proceeded to weed out the rest of Cipriano. We were working on the pinto beans when Adan comes up to us, and says “We need to talk. I don’t know if I didn’t make myself clear yesterday, but I thought we were going to pick the rest of the snap peas today”. A polite but tense conversation ensued between Adan and Josh. Tyler and I were pretty relaxed, but we could see there was tension. We decided to continue weeding that day, and work on harvesting the next morning.

So we weeded the field until 11AM. Afterwards Josh and Tyler came along to my cabin, and we fixed the gate by removing a bunch of screws, and putting some more back in. After that I came back to my cabin, ate my cooked garbanzos (THEY ARE SO DELICIOUS WHEN FRESHLY COOKED!!!!!), and I spent the rest of my lunch time writing up this journal entry. Oh look, it’s now 3:59PM. I gotta dress up and go back to work. Bye!

And in the afternoon, we cut/uprooted a bunch of plants with white flowers from the front of Maricela’s house. We then loaded them up into a truck that Josh brought, and dropped them off into a branch pile. Then we moved on to the area where Mario, Ramon, and I had once picked up cherry branches with a tractor, and we loaded as many debris sticks as we could into the tractor. Then back to the branch pile, we unloaded it all, and then after animal chores, we were pretty much done for the day.

Josh invited me over to his cabin to grill veggie burgers, and I accepted. I offered to go buy stuff at La Espanola, so Josh made a little list, gave it to me, and gave me $50. Simply Limeade, Simply Orange, Sriracha, and 1 avocado. Once in the store I replaced the Simply Orange by Grower’s Choice, Sriracha for nothing, and added 1 banana for Josh and 1 shampoo bottle for me. The car doesn’t seem meant to deal with rocky, farm-like terrain very much, but it did OK on the way forth and back.

Once back, I went to J&T’s and hung out. We prepared our own veggie burgers with flour tortillas, hummus, avocados, grilled onions, grilled veggie paddies, salt, pepper, and mustard (not me). They turned out quite well. They also offered me an ad-hoc Margarita: OJ+Tequila. I took it, and then we talked about a diversity of topics. How Josh got into farming, the Federal Reserve Board, economic conspiracy theories, man+machine melding, Star Wars, J.J. Abrams & art, Joss Whedon & art, Bruce Willis, Harry Potter, weed and regulations in different states, and others such. Eventually conversation grew thin, and we said good night. And now, a few minutes later, I’m back at my cabin, finishing up today’s journal entry. Whoop.

Farm 0618

Tuesday June 18

We harvested 36 pounds of snap peas in the morning, then mowed down the hoophouse crops with the tractor and corresponding attachment. Then we went up and picked up a spiky-looking attachment to carve the earth with, and came back down. It didn’t work. The floor had become very hard clay, and even a full digging-bar blow wouldn’t crack it any further than 1cm. We switched to the plow, with same results. Though it managed to carve down a little on one side, it only scraped it in the other, so in the end Josh gave up, and decided to try using the “Baco” the next day. Felix appeared, and he got on the tractor for a few minutes as it was on. He was paralyzed with excitement, eyes-wide open, sensing the vibrations, and just looking around at everything. He cried when Adan turned it off, and once on, he began saying “woah”, again. Eventually Adan ripped him away from the tractor, and cars started coming into the farm - there was to be an informative event about the Aztec calendar that night.

Though I was going to help Josh with the animal chores, I was told by him that I could attend the Aztec calendar event instead. In the end, I was stalled by a very long-seeming phone call from a AAA insurance agent, telling me the details about the insurance quote I requested (for my new Geo). After the call, I went into the Aztec calendar meeting area. No one was there but the food, and I wasn’t so hungry or rude that I would begin eating alone, so I went back to my cabin for a while. About 30-40 minutes later, I walked out again, and the area was full of people listening to a long-haired, long-and-gray-bearded, brown-skinned, smiling old man with a red-and-black-angular-designed bandana on his forehead, and clothing similar to that of an old sage in an indian tribe.

I sat down and began to listen. He talked of the discovery and invasion of America by the Spanish, and about how the indians in America were originally pure, and lived communally with the Earth and the Sun, and how they simply moved all across the continent, unhindered, and found help even in the remotest parts of Alaska and South America. And how the center of everything was Tenochtitlan, in Mexico. And how Cuactemoc, a famous figure, was not at all a king, but rather a representative who surrendered to the Spanish in peace, but was tortured and killed in turn. And he said that all of us humans already have many things in common: the Sun, the Earth, and Time. And that we have a cosmic identity, and we should learn it if we are to know what our mission on this Earth is.

After a while of explaining details and telling anecdotes, he turned to each person in the audience and asked them their birthday. In turn, he told them the sign of their year and their day, and what this meant for them. I was told my year was the House and my day was the Eagle, but looking further, I have the impression my year sign was the Reed. And now online, I read that my year is the Flint and my day is the Ollin, movement, so now I don’t really know. I like Ollin, though. The eagle’s cool too. In the end he offered a little bit of merchandise - a few books, colored or B/W, and Aztec calendar poster in two different designs, sizes, and languages. I didn’t want any merchandise, but Pilar said she was collecting donations for gas money, so I got my wallet and gave her $9. Well, I actually gave them to “Maestro Mazantlin”, whose name he told me meant “Venerable Deer”.

And after a little bit of helping to fold and move chairs, Adan asked me to close the farm gate. So I did, and when I turned back and looked up, the moon was waxing, and it had a soft, dark blue tinge in its light. Traveling clouds around it were painted with some of this blue light, and together with their gray centers, the blue/black background (depending whether clouds blocked the moon or not), and the spread-around white dots, it was a delightful spectacle. Then I went back to my cabin and slept.

Farm 0617

Monday June 17

I met Josh & Tyler at 7AM in front of their cabin, and we began the day. Josh took a full tour of the farm area, looking for things that needed to be done. We went to all fields, including those I’d barely interacted with until then. He found quite a lot of things to do, including clearing the weeds from certain paths, irrigating garlic, fixing up my detached cabin gate, harvesting, weeding, and irrigating Cipriano, and tilling up the hoophouse terrain. He jotted it all up in a little green notebook, and we began to do stuff.

We irrigated the garlic, and I got to carve a water ditch around potato plants with a hoe. Josh cleaned up the weeds in the path to that field, and then we went to irrigate and weed the Cipriano border crops. I forgot what we did in the afternoon, but later on, Josh and I took the sheep out to the pasture field for about 10 minutes, then brought them back in. Day finished, I went back to my cabin.

Farm 0616

Sunday June 16

Sunday I woke up early (before 6AM). I showered, folded my linens and towel, packed up my stuff, and walked to the laundry area. It was closed. The original clerk, Preston, shouted at me from afar: “Hostel opens at 7!”. I half-shouted back “Ok!”, and went back into my room. At 7AM, I went back and put my laundry in its place. I saw Preston and said:

• “Good morning!”
• “Indeed it is... I heard you had a problem with Rick last night”
• “Ah... yeah, ok... look, that was just a misunderstanding...”
• “We do not allow homeless people in this hostel!”
• “Look, I don’t think he was a homeless guy”
• “THAT IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE, SIR!... WE LIVE HERE! You did something bad”

His raised voice and piercing language struck me like a reprimanded puppy.

• “I didn’t realize I had”
• “So do your chore and be on your way”
• “Can I still have breakfast?”
• “Of course you can. We’ll honor our side of the contract until check-out time, at noon”

So I emptied the trash, had some cereal+water for breakfast ,and called Tom to tell him I was ready to leave whenever. He was just putting in the screw into the loose door handle (in the car), and said he’d be there soon. I played Moonlight Sonata on the lobby piano while he arrived. When he did, he rented a shower for $3, and then we were off.

I withdrew the rest of the required money from the ATM, we went over to Trader Joe’s, I bought a small bottle of carrot juice, and we finished the transaction. I gave him the remaining $600 (I’d given him the first half the previous day), I drank carrot juice while he drank almond milk, and he signed over the car title to me. After the paperwork was done, I decided to drive back up to the farm, so we hugged, wished each other wonderful lives and travels in our own ways, and I walked to my newly-acquired Geo. 35 miles and one female-hitchhiker-who-refused-a-lift later, I parked my Geo in front of the cabin, and stayed indoors for most of the day.

Farm 0615

Saturday June 15

I woke up unhurriedly on Saturday, and I found a response from a Craigslist ad I’d responded to, about a Geo Metro I bid $1200 for. After emailing for a while, I realized we were both excited about getting the transaction completed, so I decided I had to go get cash at an ATM somewhere, and that I needed a car to do so. It was around 10-11AM when I went to Josh’s cabin. The dog on the front, Francisco, barked at me even from afar, to the sound of which Josh and Tyler came out, shushed him, and introduced themselves. Tall and blond, long hair, and trimmed beard, Josh seemed pretty cool. Tyler was his heavier cousin, and had a neat mohawk on his head, and several tattoos all over. After introductions, they mentioned they were going to Santa Fe, and I latched onto the topic to say that I’d like a ride. They said they’d leave in about half an hour, so I went back to my cabin, told the guy (who was in Santa Fe) that I’d be going down there anyway, we got both our phone numbers, I packed up a few basics and my blankets in case I’d need to spend the night, and then Tyler came up to my door and we drove off.

On the way, I conversed a little with the WWOOF’ers I’d heard so much about. Both of them were very open and conversational, though I didn’t quite warm up to them as quickly as I would’ve liked. They both seemed open, tolerant, peaceful, and energetic, Josh the more so, and seemed very welcoming, both to his car and to the farm, when he talked. Once in Santa Fe, we stopped at an ATM, and I was able to get $800 from it. Then I called the car guy, Tom, and we said we’d meet outside of Trader Joe’s. As the place was only on the other side of the street, J&T dropped me off in the parking lot, and I went off to meet Tom. A minute later on the phone:

• Hey Tom. I’m in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, but I can’t quite find you. Where are you?
• Hi, go to the left of Trader Joe’s.
• OK. I can’t quite see you - I’m wearing blue jeans and a gray shirt.
• I’m wearing a purple shirt and I’m standing on my car.
• Standing on your car! That’s unusual. I can’t quite see you yet, though.
• I see you. Just turn to your left, a little more, yeah, that’s right! Here I am!

And there he was - a tall, thin, purple-shirted man in shorts standing over his small white car. After the seconds it took me to walk to him:

• Hey Tom!
• Oh! Nice smile there!

And there it was - the white Geo Metro, with a bike inside. “Is the bike included?”, I joked. “Ohhhh, not unless you want to triple the price! The frame itself was $1700!”. As it turns out, he designed his own foldable bike. I was impressed by that. He went on to introduce me to the car - the engine, the trunk, the spare tires, the upholstery, the quirk of it doing a strange pitch in fifth gear... things like that. I gave it a test drive, and it felt great. I had not driven a manual car since Guatemala, and mixing the concepts of Guatemala and of driving in the USA gave me a sense of freedom mixed with familiarity. A very nice feeling.

We went to another ATM, and I managed to get $120 more, but no more. With $971 in my wallet, I didn’t have enough to pay the $1200 for the car, so we decided I’d stay at a hostel overnight, and I’d retrieve the remainder of the cash the next morning. So we checked in, although the clerk first looked at me with mistrust, thinking that I might be some homeless guy from Santa Fe. When I told him about WWOOF’ing, he grudgingly agreed to host me, charged me $18 plus $10 deposit, and introduced me to my room. The stay included free expired foods, which was nice.

After a few minutes, Tom and I drove off to have lunch somewhere. We thought of eating Thai, but both Thai places I found on GMaps were closed. So we went to an egyptian restaurant instead, called Nile Café, where he knew the owners. He gave a Tarot reading to the 16-year old owner’s daughter, which I observed all the way through. Two central cards representing objective and something else, then 12 around it covering the 12 houses from usual astrology. Then 2 more representing her personality and her potential, I believe, and that was it. A few subjective and psychological discussions later, it was over. It was interesting. I could see her interest in the reading wax and wane, and Tom mold his words to adjust to her interests and where she wanted the reading to go towards. A few things in the reading made sense. Her personality, for example, I thought, was indeed excited but subdued by peer pressure. Then she read to us a few of the dreams she wrote in her dream journal. I especially remember one where she was born from the earth, with black wings, and she was angry because her wings were black, but in the end she used them to nurture and embrace someone, and she felt in peace. And one where she ran across a forest, in a white dress and leather belt (like an elvish lady, I imagine), and the seasons of the forest changed as she ran.

We then had lunch/dinner at the restaurant. Marianne (the 16-year old) either messed up or brought the item that Tom did not mean to order, but they replaced his veggie sandwich (with feta cheese) with a veggie burger (without it). Then Tom and I talked. The topics were diverse. Economy, the real way that money works, at least in the USA, privacy in the Internet, getting Linux into his Macbook Air, Tor, tablet devices sufficient for him (to which I suggested the Note 8), the skills he has acquired throughout his years as a nomad (oh yeah, he retired at 17, and he’s been a nomad ever since. He’s 55 now). He mentioned handyman skills, tarot reading, hand reading, astrology, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, adobe building, and others. And other such topics. I tried to understand his vision of life as a whole - 55 but living on, day by day, fairly uncertain of what even the near future holds. Frequent changes and transitions, almost always. I wondered how that would feel like.

He then dropped me off at the hostel, and I ate there for a while. Then I walked out towards South Capital Station (Railrunner), and hung out for a while. The sky was beautiful. An enormous cloud with a gray front traversed the sky, like a mighty boundless ship, or like a Greek goddess slowly pulling the blanket of night onto the world. The changes of colors (blues and grays) were also marvellous. A baby blue spot here, deep sea blue there, and intricate gradients of grays all in between, is a lovely show indeed.

On the way back, the wind blew strong and smooth, and I basked in the Wind of Freedom. Indeed. It felt thus, and I did thus. I jumped, I danced, over grass and sidewalk, on the way back to the hostel. I enjoyed the time of dusk in Santa Fe on the high-car, low-pedestrian Cerrillos street, very much.

Inspired again, I entered a gas station shop and sparked a conversation with the clerk. After browsing with quick and dramatic attention, and comparing an extendable fly-swatter with a Jedi fly-swatter, I bought a $0.99 eraser, and walked out. Once outside, a girl called me, and asked me if she could use my phone. I dialed her number, and she talked. She was looking for a place to stay, and her friend had not called her yet. I suggested the hostel, but she said “Oh, yeah, I know about the hostel. I’m not staying there”. And I wondered why. Eventually, she was told to walk about 20 minutes to where her friend was, so she said bye and left.

So then I walked back to my hostel, and on the way I danced. Half a block before arriving, I heard a voice behind me:

• “It’s dusty, isn’t it?”

Startled, I quickly looked back. It was a guy with an unsleeved blue shirt, stringed backpack, shorts, and sandals.

• “It’s the wind that I’m feeling!”
• “Oh yeah. It’s unusual for this time of year”
• “Really? I’m not from around here, so I wouldn’t know”
• “So what brings you to walk on Cerrillos road at 9PM?”
• “Oh, I’m just walking back to my hostel. What are you doing?”
• “I’m just coming back from a festival, in the park”
• “From the skate park?”
• “Well, around there”
• “Oh right, the gay pride parade! I heard that was going on today!”
• “I brought a little colored thing from the festival, do you want it?”
• “No thanks”
• “Do you have any of the good things? You know, some drugs?”
• “Umm, no”
• “A smoke?”
• “Nope. The closest I could come to offering you is coffee, at the hostel”
• “Ummmm.... yeah, coffee sounds good”
• “All right then, let’s go”
• “You are a very attractive man”
• “Ehh, thank you. I’m NOT gay, though”
• “Oh ok”
• “I imagine you get that a lot. I mean, you are the minority”
• “Well, it happens. You know, I put out my calling card, that’s it”
• “Right”

I skipped the lobby and entered the entrance to the kitchen, thinking it would be more direct and less awkward, as I would feel strange if the hostel guy were to think I was a homosexual. So he sat on a stool in the kitchen, and I offered to bring us two cups of coffee. I was interested in asking him about homosexuality, as I had never talked about it openly with a homosexual person. He mentioned he was a republican and the grandson of a senator, and I was curious to know more about it.

I found two cups and poured out what I thought was coffee. It was hot water, and Rick, the current hostel clerk, rushed in to tell me that the coffee was for the morning. I said “OK, is there any tea?” And as he looked for some, he went into the kitchen, and asked the sandaled guy what he was doing there. I told him he was with me, but after a slight deliberation, Rick decided he disapproved very much of him being there, and he told him to leave. So he did, I said bye to him from the doorway, and went back inside. Once inside, Rick said that he was most likely a homeless guy, and that while they didn’t hate them, they were not allowed in the hostel. I told him I really thought he was not a homeless guy, but he thought otherwise, and I went back to my room.

After a few minutes in my room, I decided I didn’t want to go to sleep quite yet, so I walked out at about 11PM. Rick saw me coming out and asked “you heading out?” “Yup”, I said. I didn’t go far. The moon looked about halfway lit, and it looked beautiful as it illuminated the gray nebulous travelers around it, so I found a fence to lean on, and watched it for about 15 windy, beautiful, slightly-chilly minutes.

I went back to get the blanket I had packed to cover me while I continued to look at the moon. I found Rick on my way out, again, and then another dialogue:

• “I see you’re taking a blanket to a homeless guy now”
• “Oh no! No no no no no... listen, this is MY blanket, I bought it in Austin, TX in 2008, and I’m just taking it with me because it’s a little cold out”
• “Oh really? So what are you off to do now?”
• “I’m going to see the moon! It’s beautiful!”
• “The moon”
• “Aha!”
• “Why don’t you just go to your comfortable room and sleep? You paid for it, it’s right there”
• “Yes, but then I don’t get to see the moon. Ok ok look... can I sit here on this chair to see the moon?”
• “Of course you can, I mean, it’s not illegal”
• “Thanks. So I’m just going to stay here”
• “Well, I’m going off to sleep”
• “Ok”

And that was it. I watched the moon and a few stars, mixed in with a couple of orange fluorescents from the hostel, for about 15 minutes, then I went back to my room and slept.

Farm 0614

My discipline slacked and/or activities varied just enough that I have not written any journal entries since last Thursday. It is now Wednesday (June 19th). I’ll do what I can to catch up.

Friday June 14

I asked Adan for Friday off from work, and he asked me to help with pea-picking in the morning. So Friday morning I woke up, and found Mario and Adan picking already at 7am. I joined them, and after a row and a half of sweet-pea-picking, I brought the peas up to the fridge area, said goodbye to Mario, and waited the expected 30 minutes for Adan to take me to La Espanola to do laundry and hang out.

45 minutes later, Adan comes out of his house and tells me that he’s off to do something that came up, and that I should go read. So I came back home and ate the rice+lentils second breakfast I’d left just freshly cooked in the kitchen, and started to read on the introduction of “Great Dialogues of Plato”. About 60 or 90 minutes of just hanging out and visiting Mario for a bit, Adan finally returned, then came out of the house again, and we drove off to La Espanola.

After half a hour of listening to Adan talking on the phone with his dad Ted (he is quite an active person), we reached La Espanola, and Adan gave me a tour of the main town street. He pointed out the three laundromats he knew in town, plus the main restaurants, the seedy pawn shop area, Walmart, Burger King, Taco Bell, and other such food places. I decided to go to the middle laundromat (with the most businesses around it), so Adan dropped me off and drove away.

Once inside, people threw a few quick alert glances in my direction, and I guessed my uncut hair made me seem potentially dangerous. I changed $5 into quarters, bought $0.75 detergent, put my few pounds of clothes into the $1.50 washer, and sat down to read “Oscar Wilde”, by André Gide. I’d read a little bit of it before, but I decided to start it from the beginning, since I had quite some time to read.

Once the wash cycle was over, I put my clothes in the $0.25/8min dryer, and continued reading. 8 minutes didn’t dry them quite well, so I let them sit in for another cycle, and left only my jeans for a last 3rd cycle. By the time I’d folded and packed everything, I was almost just done with the book.

And I found it inspiring. “Art begins where Life ends”. “We must always go to Art. Why? Because Art does not hurt us”. I felt in me a rush of preciousness about everything inside and outside of me, around me, and I saw three girls, 3-6 years old, running around each other, wanting to catch each other, playing, laughing and shrieking joyfully all around, running and dancing at the same time by the gracefulness, and not even running towards each other, just between themselves, randomly, now following, now splitting, now around each other. And their mothers would shush them continuously, to which they paused for a second or two, and then continued running and playing. I saw the whole scene like there was a mild and bland pond, on which I could see three shimmering sparkles of reflected sunlight playing around, dancing, joyful by nature. And the pond, afraid of change, shushed these sparkles sometimes, but they were too joyful. I loved it.

And I thought I would tell their mothers to let them play and be and shine as they were, in eloquent oratory, but I could not muster the courage or right words. After a while of eyeing one of the girls and smiling at her, I told her, and the other two: “You girls are precious! All you three, you know that?”. “Your daughers are precious”, I told their mothers. They said “thank you”, and as I often do after delivering a genuine, bold-enough statement, I stood up and left with my clothes and books in my backpack.

It was raining as I walked outside, and I felt the rain fall on me drop by drop, and I felt the now-ness of the moment, and how beautiful it was that I was feeling and enjoying it, instead of fleeing from the rain with fear and anxiety of getting wet and getting my clothes or shoes muddy or of appearing unseemly to other people. The rain on me was marvelous, it was there, for me, and I was there for it. I walked out towards Riverside St, and I saw bubbles floating along the rain streams like tiny sci-fi waterships, of many sizes, some double or triple bubbles, merged by surface cohesion, or simply single bubbles floating alongside the sidewalk. They were so ephemeral - a single rain drop fell on one and it vanished; its lovely dome would shatter into a thousand pieces and become one with the stream below it. I saw into one of the larger bubbles, and I saw my own body walking on its surface, a convex mirror inside of which I effected but a tiny of projection of colors, like itself on my own eyeball. But I saw it, and it was mine, and I was its, in that very moment, and because of our bond in that single moment, that bubble’s existence became indispensable to my own existence. Out of the hundreds of bubbles around me, of the millions that bearned and died during that one rainfall, it made a bond with me. And that made both of us very special. We gave meaning to each other. Our lives merged, and we would forever remain together.

I thought of returning to the laundromat and telling the girls the extent to which I appreciated their joy and playfulness, and their mothers how they should let the girls be girls. And as I looked back, I remembered how “... that part ended. I now have to move on”. How one either moves on, or stagnates, like the pond. So I kept moving forward, and after appreciating for a little while the large spray painting on the wall made by Adan’s friend, I arrived at Riverside. The light had just turned red on me, and cars began to drive by.

I felt stopped, stagnated, and refused to be stopped like that. Once the cars from my left stopped coming much, I crossed over to the median line, but cars kept coming from my right. My spirit sallied like an exalted horse, and I felt my “coeur” telling me to cross. So simple - Guatemalan habit took over, a good two to three seconds of space opened up between the cars, and I ran across the street with powerful exaltation. I reached the sidewalk and kept on going - I stepped on an elevated divider with little stones, and then jumped off to the parking lot, still at full speed, feeling like I was jumping off a cliff. As my feet landed on the parking lot, my momentum kept bringing my arms forward also, and I fell on my knees and hands, enveloped in wonderfully exalted inspiration.

“We can’t stop Time. Time can’t stop us. We have got to moooooooove” came into my mind. The physical momentum I collected was only its outward-most expression; I felt in my mind, in my heart, I MASTE keep going. I stood up - my hands stung - I’d scraped the bottom palms of my hands, and a little skin off my knees and legs. It was not bad at all though, and it seemed like a good price to me for the wondrous momentum I felt inside me.

Inside Burger King, I washed myself up with disinfectant soap in the bathroom, then ordered. My eloquence had hardly ever reached these levels. I was ecstatic, inspired, and felt every interaction maste be richest in experience and meaning and wonder. The exact dialogues with the BK clerk I will not recall, but I exuberantly ordered what sounded good at all, unrestrained by limits of diet, prudence, or price. 5 chicken wings, large caramel mocha, Alaskan Fish sandwich combo, a chocolate milk, and 2 oatmeal cookies, if you please! I gave the 2 cookies to the clerk, Victor, as appreciation for having attended me as he did, and I sat down to ruthlessly devour my meal, with packets of ketchup spilling all over my hands and tray.

After the meal and thanking Victor for his kindness, again, I walked to Pizza Hut. Promptly I asked for an employment application, and I was given a QR card and a form. Salary? $7.50. Minimum indeed, and I left. Next on the street was an electronics and furniture sale. I walked to the computer area, and asked to see the newest addition they had. A PC all-in-one screen, I asked to see the specs, and the lady left to print them out for me. Once on the desk, I asked her about the Blue Bus schedule (to get to Santa Fe), and she offered to look it up on the internet and to call them up to find out more information. She told me the next bus would be leaving at 4PM, and as it was only about 2:20PM, the impulse jumped in me. I would be going to Santa Fe that afternoon, going to Albuquerque, find a good music player and/or car for Mario and me, respectively, or just hang out and meet Irini, then come back to La Espanola on Sunday. It seemed perfect. Immediately I took out my phone and called Adan to tell him I wouldn’t need a ride back to the farm that day. When voicemail came up, I boldened up and recorded my intentions for him to listen to. I walked towards the bus station.

On the way, I saw a car dealership with prices shown around $2000, $1600, and even $1200. Curious, I stepped in to ask about them. Then Adan called me to tell me to meet him in McDonald’s, so after really quickly checking out the cars, I ran back to McDonald’s and got in his car. He was on the phone with someone else, so I didn’t yet tell him about my plan to buy a car. But he just happened to stop at a Farm shop right in front of the dealership, and then I told him about it, and he was OK with it, though he did warn me to take care with monthly payments, as the guys were shady. I was dropped off there, then he left.

I spent the next three hours trying to get a cheap, working car back to the farm with me. The cheapest one, at $1200, seemed to turn on and work OK, until the test drive. At that point, it wouldn’t gas - I pushed on the pedal over and over, maxed it, but it barely responded. So we took it back to the repair area, and the guys started looking it over. After about 20 minutes of watching the mechanic guys look puzzled, I asked to try a $1600 white Mustang. It drove nicely, and I got to give it a little 1-to-2 mile ride, but the whole inside tapestry was an intense red, and the driver’s door was completely broken from the inside - wires and pieces of plastic hung everywhere. I considered it, but between the style, the mileage, the color, and its ragged inside state, I voted for a no. I asked to see a 1990 brown Volvo sedan, and the owner said “Take it for $1000, but no buts or why’s or fixes. As is”. Intrigued, I looked into it. It didn’t seem in such a bad shape, so I asked to see the engine. They couldn’t find the lever. It seemed to have been broken, so they needed to go inside with a pair of pliers to open it. At that point I realized they didn’t really have anything that I could walk away satisfied with, so I thanked them for their time and left.

As Adan had already left me there, I wondered how to get back to the farm. I reached the main 76 road and considered walking, then saw a Long John Silvers right in the corner. Concerned about resentful shady car dealers driving off to rob a lonely walking guy who had seemed close to pay with cash, I entered LJS and ordered a pineapple cheesecake. I checked my phone - missed call from Mario. I called him back:

• “Hola Antonio. Estas en el Rincon?”
• “No, estoy en La Espanola”.
• “Ah, es que queria ver si le enseñabas a mi esposa como mandar fotos con la iPad?”
• “Ah, si claro!  Aunque fijate que no tengo como regresarme a la granja. Tu venis para aca en algun momento? O me podes venir a traer? :-)”
• “Ehh, si, esta bueno. Salgo como en media hora?”
• “Si, esta bueno! Aqui te espero, voy a estar en el Long John Silvers que esta en la esquina de la 76 y Riverside”
• “Ah, si conozco. Alli te veo...”

Quite the synchrony. So for the next half an hour I ate my cheesecake, something else I ordered that I don’t remember now, and waited for Mario. Soon he arrived, I got in his car, heard voices in the back, and there was the rest of Mario’s family! I said hi, and we drove to McDonald’s. Only Mario, Manuela, and Hernán came down - the rest stayed in the car. For the next 20 minutes or so, I registered her and Yailin’s emails on the iPad, and showed Manuela how to send pictures with the iPad. Oh, I also installed, and showed them how to use, Duolingo, in English for Mario and in French for Yailin. After the quick session and 3 shared ice creams, we got back into the car and drove back to the farm. In the way, I asked Yailin about french. She seemed interested, though she doesn’t know much french yet.

Back in the farm, I cooked dinner and read Plato/Craigslist’d for the rest of the evening. I heard a car drive up on my road after midnight, and I guessed that would be Josh and Tyler, as they’d said they’d arrive on Friday night.