The End of Puerto Rico

Didn't have anything earthshattering or interesting to post. My friends have celebrated my birthmonth, since gifts and birthday outtings have been streaming in from the 15th. Special thanks to the Boyfriend, L, Viv and Stiv. Haven't been able to hang around my favorite Internet haunts, because of the job. The boyfriend's gift was the Megadeth concert. Truly awesome, ignoring the unfortunate choice of opening band, but that wasn't important. L. gave me a manga book called Helsing and Viv and Stiv have been pampering me and driving me around these days. Thanks a lot, people.

The killing of Filiberto Ojeda has meant lots of work, interesting research and little tidbits, rumors and funny outrages that have made me a very busy stringer. Also the statehood party is going to a primary election. More hilarity ensues.

The economic crisis is making everyone jittery, but not in any way that hampers shopping mall habits. The government strategy now is to make everyone a self employed entrepreneur. We will give you money to start your own business. Like the last governor's strategy to give people money to buy their own house. It was supposed to be a social need project, so how come a social need house costs 80 grand, when two years earlier it cost 55,000? And now they are selling them for 125,000? So I sit back as the real estate bubble starts bursting on illusions, cracked mildewed moldngs. and tacky Corinthian columns on houses that wouldn't know the phrase Greek Revival style even if a tractor plows it into them. Now we are headed toward a bankrupt small business bubble, where people think they will start another Colombian or Brazilian underwear sales representative business, work three months and reap lots of money that allow them to go on a Caribbean cruise. WAIT. We already ARE in the Caribbean, so what the fuck?

Since I am a self employed writer (and desktop publisher, and network administrator, and translator and designated e-mail correspondence sender) I took a day off. Tee-hee. Went with Viv and Stiv to search for an open public beach on a Tuesday. Little did we know that our fascist government has prohibited enjoying public beaches on Mondays and Tuesdays. I suspect this is a discriminating strategy against assorted social outcasts who'd rather go to the beaches when everybody else is working. (Or maybe they just can't wrap it around their heads, that yeah, some of us take vacations at home or work on weekends). So our vacation spot ended being a beach that is not used much as a beach, but is better known for the lighthouse and the salt flats. Viv: we have to go back, I didn't take ONE single shot of the lighthouse, duh. Apparently I was in beach mode.


Of course this blog entry is useless without pictures:

The Bahía Salinas:



The blood water that forms in the salt ponds:



A face Viv found on the rock (Stiv insisted it was a monkey):



The kind of sandy beach people pay to visit in other places:



Groundel sacrifices the Vierna vampire. Vierna, the vampire queen, is confident in her return from her salty grave to repay Groundel:



Cobito ("hermit crab"): A little pebble that suddenly moved and then I realized it had legs: