Update June-July 2008

Hi Everybody:

It took me 6 weeks to settle down enough to have a good night sleep here in NY—it is an over stimulating environment, which contributes to it being a great place. My friend Ginger was here from Boston and we went to see “Sunday in the Park with George” with her actor-daughter who lives here and we also went to an exquisite gourmet Italian restaurant. I had previously seen ‘The Adding Machine”, an “absurdist” play the week before. The amount of high-quality activity here is astonishing---and overwhelming. I try to do something once/week.

In Nosara, it seems we have lost our gardener, whom we were thinking of as family, to other opportunities. He began to show up intermittently, not do work he was told to do and charge for work not done. After trying for weeks, Joe says he got tired of dealing with Fernando and Fernando got tired of working for us. Now we have two of Fernando’s helpers, Joshua and David, who are young, bright, diligent and industrious and we hope to keep them for a while.

Joe had a 4th of July Red, White, and Blues party. It sounds like it went great—he had a collection of “patriotic” songs that he had compiled, two Blues guitarists, American hotdogs and hamburgers, and draft beer. We had to increase the price of our draft beer -- we probably should have increased more since we have to pay more but we weren’t sure what the traffic would bear. Right now we are charging $4 for 20 oz which is close to US prices and we are trying to be very careful about waste.

Joe will be here in 3 weeks flying in to NY on Aug 11th. We will go directly to Rochester, then to visit Bill and Nancy in the Adirondacks, Bill and Robin in Beverly, Jack and Margaret and then Ginger and Mark in Boston. We will be at Sally O’Brien’s on Sat August 23rd from 5-10 for the weekly post Plough music event. I have about 30 bars and other activities for Joe to try when we return to NY the last week of Aug.

I was at the Blue Note the other night to see Charles Tollivar Big Band. Recently, I saw the Les Paul trio at the Iridium –Steve Miller, long time friend of 93 year old Les Paul, showed up to do “Fly Like an Eagle”. And I saw a great free band at the terrarium-like private development near my work site- a 10 piece Slavic band. As Joe says, in Nosara, we don’t have music but we have the weather.

And I have discovered Macys’—the summer sales are great. This is the original Macy’s and the site of Miracle of 34th St.--Joe is saying that when he comes to NY he wants to spend a day at Macy’s. Now I am busy working to make the last bit of money before heading back to the jungle on Sept 1st. The NY—Nosara contrast is amazing.

Write when you get a minute. We love to hear from everyone. Love Helena and Joe