Bichos y Llueve 3, Grace 1

People in CR are afraid of Rain. You'd think that for a country where it rains every single day for at least six months of the year, they'd be used to it. But they're not. Witness this morning, the first where I've woken up to rain. Very grey and miserable, indeed. I walked to the piscina, to swim, and inside, a mere three other people - there are normally at least ten (it's not overly used, but see this post for my thoughts on that... To be fair, it was miserably cold in the swimming pool, as the only heat seems to come from the sun. Nevertheless, you're going to get soaked in the rain, so you may as well still swim. PLUS my weekend plans have changed YET AGAIN because there's going to be "too much rain" this weekend and we can't get to Puerto Viejo, apparently. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Very disappointed, but still planning to get away...

Other note: Costa Rica is not cheap cheap, but for $16 you can, as I did last night, feast on the finest pizza San José has to offer (not bad, actually - better than law school pizza), buy it for your friend who is leaving, drink a considerable number of beers, have yet more patacones, frijoles and yuca, and get a taxi home. And however great happy hours at Verlaine are, that ain't happening.

However, those beers did not fortify me to deal with the roach that was in the sink in the bathroom when I got home. Instead, I chickened out and took my toothbrush to the kitchen and brushed my teeth there. What with that, my startled leap away from the scuttling thing that was by my glass in my bedroom a week ago, and the rain, the beasties here are beating my sorry backside. However, I think my stomping around to alarm and repudiate the bedroom bicho plus bravely closing the door to face off to it (it never did emerge again) gives me one goal. Hence 3-1. I always like to think that I can handle insects, because that makes me not conform to the cliché that all women are afraid of them and need men to deal with them. However, I may have to see it instead from the perspective that admitting I'm afraid means that I am being true to myself and not non-conforming for the sake of it. Or something.

In the news today: some good things that made me very happy, some less so.

Good: First, finally someone decides that vaccinating women against cancer is a good idea.
Second, albeit far too closely to be happy about entirely, the Senate rejects a constitutional amendment (NO HILLARY NO) on flag burning.
Third, Guantánamo tribunals are illegal. I don't think much more comment is required on that one.
Fourth, although we shouldn't have to celebrate ridiculously basic steps like this, women are voting in Kuwait and standing for election for the very first time.

Bad: if this is true, which sadly, I think it very probably is, then something needs to be done about the Spanish participation in the World Cup. Start them on negative points for the next qualifiers, anything, just do something important and keep doing it until people realise that it is not acceptable. I realise the contradiction between my anger at this and belief that flag-burning should be allowed in terms of free speech. Yet, and yet... not sure I'm going to justify myself here.

This one, I'm not sure about. The Tico government has said it's going to delay the immigration law I'm working on for a year, to work out whether they can afford all the extra costs - more police, more lawyers etc.. So not because it's an overly-aggressive and abuse of human rights, then. Rats.