Can you believe I saw Christmas decorations in the store yesterday? It's not even the end of August for crying out loud! Well, I guess the truth is, we don't celebrate Labor Day, Holloween or Thanksgiving. So what else is there to look forward to here?

Just a little Friday morning bit of useless info: Rabbits cannot vomit, but it was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up it's stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of it's mouth. Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again. No wonder I like rabbits so much better!

On the first day, God created the dog and said:
"Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."
The dog said:
"That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"
So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said:
"Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh.
For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."
The monkey said:
"Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty
long time to perform. How about I give you back ten
like the Dog did?"
And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said:
"You must go into the field with the farmer all day
long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give
milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will
give you a life span of sixty years."
The cow said:
"That's kind of a tough life you want me to live
for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back
the other forty?"
And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said:
"Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For
this, I'll give you twenty years."
But man said:
"Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my
twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the
monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that
makes eighty, okay?"
"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why the first twenty years we eat,
sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty
years we slave in the sun to support our family. For
the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain
the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit
on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you!

I do have to say that it makes me laugh when I think of these guys making anti-gay proclamations. Do they look in the mirror? Check out the colorful costumes ---- especially the adorable red shoes!

The church teaches that persons with a homosexual orientation "are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity," and a life of loneliness and lack of sexual intimacy. But I guess they didn't say anything about a life free of fashion!

I heard a funny -- and sad -- story today. My sister-in-law just moved back to San Jose from the small Costa Rican town of Orotina. She relayed a story about a famous parakeet who lived in one of the town bars. The bird would be let out of the cage, walk up and down the bar counter and sip off of the clients beer. The bird would often get drunk, then sing and talk like crazy. This went on for years.

Well one day last week the bird had a bit too much to drink and woke up with a hangover (goma in Spanish). Someone had the bright idea of giving the poor bird some aspirin -- and the little birdie croaked.

A sad end to a short life.

I got this picture from a friend of mine in South Africa, Bruce. It took me a few seconds to realize the guy is drawing beer out of a computer! Very funny...

Though as I write this I have a bit of a hangover, so the sight of the beer is making me a bit queezy. Costa Rica is most certainly a beer-drinking country. We don't have lots of great beer, but what we do have is consumed en masse!

As if day-to-day drinking aren't enough, we have several festivals, one of which was supposedly voted by some "Top 10" show as one of the Top 10 beer-drinking festivals in the world. It's called Palmares. And it's in the City of Palmares every January.

The crowds are sometimes unbearable, but the drive home is worse. The good news is they stop nearly every car to see if the driver has been drinking. The bad news is this makes the one-and-a-half hour drive home a four hour drive home. Not fun at 4am!

Something I see at the festivals here that I've never seen before is the construction of huge dance clubs and bars with scaffolding. Yes, scaffolding! They'll pile thousands of folks into these contraptions and jump up-and-down. I stay away. Looks pretty frightening to me!

Another popular festival is Zapote, which really starts  on Christmas Eve each year. Two years ago I got caught in the worst crowd situation I've ever been in. Some fireworks exploded and they were trying to get a couple of ambulances into the area. So they roped off a big section of the main walkway and crowded us all in together. I've never been so scared in my whole life! People were pushing and shoving like crazy.

Aside from that little incident (which was over very quickly), it's great fun and an amazing way to see -- and participate in -- the local culture. Beer.

On more of a lighter -- if not stickier -- note, I thought I’d introduce you to a popular Costa Rican product: Plastigel. Let’s just say that Ticos are not big on high-quality hair products. Cheaper and bigger are better. Therefore, one can buy a 4-pound HUGE container of hair gel for the equivalent of about three dollars.

Good news: The container is so big you can stick your whole head in to apply the gel. Talk about convenience!