Q&A Session - Ask a (World Famous) Author

Lately the old blog has really taken off. The response from readers has been a little overwhelming. While we couldn't possibly respond to every single email we receive, we wanted to try to answer some of the more common questions asked by our legions of fans about living in Puerto Rico. We like to think of it as our way of giving something back.

Roger Mower from Gunwald, Iowa asks...

"Buzz, I know at least fifty people in Iowa have read at least one of your books. If you can get someone in Puerto Rico to read one wouldn't that make you a 'world famous' author?"

Wow. Great question, Roger. Thank you. As a matter of fact, our neighbor is reading one right now. So, yes. I guess that does make me a world famous author, doesn't it? Good point. Thanks for reading. 


Phyllis Trout from Duluth, Minnesota writes...

"Buzz, from the description you give of mowing the lawn down there it must be a pretty big yard. Would you describe it as massive?"

Excellent question, Phyllis. Yes. It is massive. Thank you for reading.

From Kansas City, Missouri, Gerald Fiddleberger asks...

"Doesn't your wife feel guilty for leaving you all alone down there to do all the laundry, cooking, cleaning, yard work, and emptying the stinking cat litter box?"

Oh. Gosh, Gerald. I never really thought of that. I sure hope not. I just hope she is having a good time visiting friends and relatives back in Iowa. Guilty? No. I wouldn't want her to feel anything like that. Thanks for reading, Gerald.

Agatha Dingus from Dowagiac, Michigan asks...

"Buzz, does all of that yard work help you be more creative with your writing?"

Good question, Agatha. No. It doesn't. Thank you.

Quentin Butterworth from Lucas, Iowa writes...

"Do you think Hemingway was ever expected to do yard work?"

No, Quentin. I am certain all he had to do was write books. That's probably what made his books so good. Thanks for reading. 

Finally, Ruth Schaarts from Springfield, Illinois asks...

"Wouldn't it be better for the economy down there if you paid someone to mow your lawn and do the weed eating? That seems like a pretty selfish thing for you to keep it all to yourself in the midst of such a depressed local economy."

Wow. That is a great point, Ruth. We will definitely have to take that into consideration. I never thought of how my doing all of the yard work might have a negative impact on the community. I will definitely discuss it with Lorri when she gets back home. Thank you for reading and for the great suggestion.  

While we couldn't possibly respond to everyone, I think this sums up a lot of what we are hearing out there. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for when our photographer gets back for more pictures and stories from Rincon, Puerto Rico! 

"Dave" and the Legend of Puerto Rico's Fabled Sea Glass Beach

Let me begin by saying welcome to the hundreds of new readers we picked up over the last few days by me (Buzz) making disparaging comments about mofongo. More on that later, but first... the story of "Dave" and the Legend of Puerto Rico's Fabled Sea Glass Beach.

The story really starts over a hundred years ago when to get rid of garbage forever in a place where it would never ever be seen again, the practice of hauling it out to sea and dumping it was commonly employed. Puerto Rico was no different. Fast forward centuries and decades later, and all of the bottles from that garbage and ship wrecks were busted up on the rocks and corals as the tides swirled them around on the ocean floor. 

What resulted is sea glass, worn and polished, covered in a frosty glaze, and coveted by tourists and jewelry makers much like seashells are in areas where they are prevalent. Presumably since shells are so scarce in this part of the island, sea glass has instead become the favorite keepsake of tourists. 

We first encountered the phenomenon when we came to this part of the island and stayed on the beach a while back. The section of beach was littered with sea glass. We would wake up in the morning to discover a new mound of rocks had been deposited behind our rental and find dozens of pieces in it without ever walking more than a few feet off the deck. 

When we met a kind woman from Long Island, she informed us that we could take the best of our most prized pieces to a lady who sets up a tent in front of the lighthouse in Rincon, and she could make them into jewelry for us. The girls loved the idea, so we off we went to Rincon. 

There, we found a very sweet lady sitting in the parking lot beneath a tent surrounded by sea glass jewelry for sale. We inquired, and sure enough, for about the price of a mofongo dinner (yuck!) she would drill a tiny little hole and craft them into jewelry to take home to the little girls in our life. While she inspected each piece and told us which ones were the really good pieces, she would say things like, "oh, this is a very rare piece" and "this one would fetch $900 in New York." 

By the time were done, we realized that we were sitting on a virtual undiscovered gold mine. On the way home, I was mulling over what sort of sluice box I could construct to separate sea glass from rocks and industrialize our new found wealth into billions of dollars. 

Also on that drive home I noticed something else. While Puerto Rico has a very depressed economy, the locals are incredibly resourceful. While there may not be very many jobs in our area, people make their living doing every possible thing imaginable. Hard jobs. From the guys who stand in the heat selling ice cold waters at the stoplights, to the people who climb trees to harvest coconuts, only to spend the rest of their time performing the grueling job of harvesting the oil from them, to the young people who climb into small wooden boats to set out upon one of the most treacherous seas in the world to catch a few fish, these people work hard to earn a living. And, I deduced, that if there was real high value in sea glass, there would be gangs armed men with automatic rifles and machetes out protecting every stretch of the best beaches.

Not seeing any buy/sell/trade sea glass pawn shops around, and not being privy to where, exactly, in New York, we could go to collect our millions for our sea glass haul from that week, my mind drifted quickly to other things and I forgot all about it. 

   

While we were in the process of moving down here, Lorri decided she wanted to take a break from house hunting and stressing and go back to the beach we stayed on to look for some sea glass. She had no plans of doing anything with it, but thought it would be relaxing.

When we went, we met another couple who had moved down from the States not long before. For the purpose of respecting anonymity I will call the guy "Dave." Well, Dave and his wife were also there looking for sea glass. While they were both very kind and welcoming to the island, Dave informed me that they lived very near that particular beach, looked for sea glass on it every day, and that there were better beaches for sea glass, with much larger pieces, back in Rincon. 

I got the drift. I am, after all, an old union bum, accustomed to being run off from places, and have been on the receiving end of my share of threats from mobsters. "Look, I'm not telling you what to do. Only that there are better places to try to unionize than this particular laundry. Mr. Jimmy owns this one, see. Maybe try up the road. There is a really good laundry needs organized up there." 

I can only assume that after that day, Dave had secretly installed a GPS tracking system on our car that sent off an alarm at his house to let him know when we had breached the city limit. Because when we couldn't sleep and went up at 6am, Dave showed up. When we went later with our friends from Iowa so they could find some sea glass, Dave showed up. It is as if Dave instinctively knew anytime we went there. 

Fast forward to this morning. Having had to go to the post office to pickup our weekly trunk load of Amazon crap on the north side of town, I thought I would drive to the sea glass beach to look at the waves coming in. Side note: you have to pick up everything from the USPS at the post office here, because, bizarrely, they never quite got around to naming the streets and every address will leave you at a mailbox, and every address typed into google will lead to some random nearby point on the nearest main road. 

Walking down to the beach from my car I noticed the waves had washed in a large pile of rocks. I threw off my flip flops and walked around in them. 

There was gold in them there hills! Sea glass gold! And while I do not value the stuff enough to walk long stretches of beach for it like Lorri does, I thought I would pick up a few pieces since they were right there. I also felt the added bonus of knowing that I was "stealing" them from "Dave's" beach, which made the entire twenty minute process all the more enjoyable. 

I might have stayed there, kicking rocks around and letting the waves reveal treasure, but a large wave came up while I was bent over and splashed up between my legs, making it appear that I had pissed myself and soaking my cigarettes. No matter. I had a pocket full of Dave's sea glass. Mission accomplished. 

Walking up the ramp my heart raced when the little car pulled up. Dave and his wife emerged, waving and smiling as I approached. 

"What are you doing up here?" Dave asked with a smile.

"Nothing," I replied. 

Panicked and hoping the bulge of sea glass in my pocket wouldn't be spotted, I lied. "I just came up to look at the surf and dip my feet in the water," I said nervously, pulling at my collar as beads of sweat formed on my forehead. They were onto me. The GPS tracking device had busted me again. 

Dave's wife smiled as she eyed me suspiciously. She could practically smell the sea glass on me. Dave knew I was lying and made me stand there making small talk as punishment. 

We exchanged more shallow pleasantries, and I walked slowly away, careful to move slowly and methodically so the telltale tinkling of sea glass in my pocket wouldn't give me away. Whew. That was a close one. 

Having barely escaped the wrath of Dave, I stopped up the road at one of my favorite little seaside lunch spots, and in light of all of the comments on my mofongo article, I decided to give it one more chance.

Here is a chicken and rice with a side of garlic butter mofongo. Mmmm.

And here it is after I was finished eating. Mmmm. Mofongo. It is delicious if you only lick the garlic and butter off the top. Delicious. The one missing bite required two cans of Coke and a glass of water to get it down. Legend has it the dish was invented during a mini-ice age when the local children couldn't find anything else to use for a hockey puck. 

And finally, here it is. The twenty minute mother lode, pilfered from Dave's fabled sea glass beach, and safely smuggled across county lines! Score! In your face, Dave! Whoop! Whoop!

According to local legend, a haul like this ought to be worth about $50k somewhere in New York. But today it can all be yours. If you're interested in winning this entire lot, simply email me at buzzdmalone@gmail.com and I will enter you in a drawing on December 1, 2019. You could be rolling in the stuff before Christmas!  Make sure to state in the subject line "Dave's Treasure" to be entered and include your mailing address (I promise it won't be used or saved for anything else). 

Also, the winner has to promise to send a picture of you when you receive the prize to be used in this blog later on so everyone can see where it ended up. Thanks for reading everyone! 

Dear Clarabelle (AKA Lorri), War is Hell

Dear Clarabelle (AKA Lorri),

War is hell. The morning began well enough, with a light breeze rustling through the palms, and the sound of distant roosters announcing the start of another promising day in Puerto Rico. 

Paradise quickly turned to purgatory however, when the battle to mow the lawn commenced. Our quaint decision to use a push mower decimated morale as we fought hard to capture each hill. 

Toward the end of the battle, halfway across the vast expanses of wilderness known as our front lawn, the resistance became too much and a general retreat was called back inside. 

I do not know if I will have any future beyond this day, but please know that I have fought valiantly, and beyond what any man should be ever forced to endure. I am forever changed. 

Paradise is lost. All hope is gone. The heat and rain conspire to grow the grass faster than we can muster a response. Without reinforcements soon, defeat is an absolute certainty. 

Your Loving Husband,

Buzz 

P.S. for those who have been inquiring, please see the tabs above for links to Buzz's Books, and watch for Lorri's creations to get a tab... if she ever comes home and gets back to work.  

The Darker Side of Living in Puerto Rico

 Now that we have been down here for more than a month, most of the people I talk to back home are starting to wonder when this fad will end, and if we still like it here. They want to know if the newness has worn off, and almost to a person they want to hear about the negatives as if they are almost hoping we think it sucks by now. 

The picture above is of me (Buzz) at the beach this morning. Did I mention it is an island surrounded by beaches? I feel like those questions can mostly be reduced to one of the following:

A) Don't you miss the freezing cold that makes your bones hurt back home yet?

B) I hate my life and I hope your sucks too. If it doesn't suck then you're probably lying about something.

C) I actually love you guys and wish it would suck more for you down there so you will come back to Iowa. 

But, in the spirit of trying to answer all questions we receive, I will take a swing at the most common stuff here.

What about crime? Isn't Puerto Rico like some third world country?

NO. It is not a third world country. It is part of America in fact. Crime exists just like it does everywhere. In the big cities there is a problem with drugs just like everywhere, and there are related murders and crime just like everywhere, but below the averages for most "American" cities. Where we live (outside of the larger cities) crime is not that much of an issue, and since most crimes are property crimes, and the vast majority of those are crimes of opportunity, we simply try not to walk around with hundred dollar bills glued to our foreheads. 

What about healthcare? Aren't you worried that you will get sick and die for lack of medical attention or have to get worked on by some horse doctor or something?

No. They have real doctors and plenty of them. There are shortages of some specialty doctors here though. And the system works differently. You don't usually make appointments. You show up at the office and it is first come, first serve. When I went to the doctor I had to wait about an hour. 

Now, here is the rest of the story on healthcare. Most people do not worry about it so much here, because health issues, and even hospital stays, will not rack up million dollar bills. There is a flat rate for stays in the hospitals and they don't charge you like, $900 for an aspirin. I know. Crazy, right? 

Beyond that, when you need medications from a local pharmacy and they aren't controlled substances like opiate pain killers, you skip the doctor's visit, walk in and say I would like 100 anti-depressants so I can happily answer everyone's questions in my blog later, and an antibiotic for the ear infection the constant saltwater presence in my bad ear is causing, please. And then, like magic, the pharmacist gives you what you need, and at a fraction of the cost of in the States. Why? Why is it so much cheaper and easier everywhere else? Great question every American in the States should be asking themselves. 

What about DANGER? Aren't you afraid? Like, at night and stuff?

It's funny when I hear variations of this question. This one should actually be posed as "I am prejudiced as shit against people who don't look like me, and the most terrifying thing in the world is walking into a dark bar and being the only pasty white face inside."

Seriously. Prejudice is fear. People are all the same no matter where you go. We are not afraid of people. Any people. Sometimes we even find some that we like no matter where we go. 

If you are afraid of being the only pale face in a massive crowd of slightly darker faces after the sun has gone down, then don't come to Puerto Rico. Period. It's just that easy. Own your prejudices and recognize that nowhere on this entire island do the homogenized all-white resorts exist where the only "local" is that one bartender who smiles all the time and always makes your drink just so. 

What about the food? How is the food? Is it spicy like Mexico?

Well, here is where I will get myself into the trouble with my Puerto Rican friends. 

Mostly, the food is either fried at beachside places, or pretty bland. And when I say bland... I am talking about the 500 ways they try to turn plantains (the local starch and staple-think potatoes back in the Midwest), into something edible. 

I do not like plantains. They are bland and dry and mushy. The national dish is comprised of plantains that have been fried and mashed. It is called mofongo. It is like eating a baked potato that has been overcooked and stuffed into a dehydrator to remove any remaining traces of moisture. It is then covered with a variety of foodstuffs to try and make you forget there is a massive dollop of mofongo underneath it all, and the stuff is impervious to absorbing any other flavors. 

Every restaurant and every family has their own variation of mofongo. And by variation I mean that one recipe uses the right hand to add a pinch of salt, and another uses the left hand. Worst of all, everywhere you go they take tremendous pride in their mofongo and you end up having to pretend to love it while you swallow it in lumps with entire glasses of water for each tiny bite. 

There. I am keeping it real and will probably now be murdered in my sleep tonight for insulting mofongo. Because you never, ever say anything bad about mofongo here. Ever. It's like trying to live in the Midwest and say you don't like any pork or beef products. Ridiculous. 

Know what is amazing here? The bakeries. I had no idea that anywhere in the Caribbean you would find such an amazing array of baked goods and donuts and pastries and each one of them more wonderful than the last. Seriously. The picture above is what I had for lunch today after I left the beach. You can't tell it from the picture, but all of that is vegan and made from dehydrogenated seaweed and kale. 

Okay. Not really. Like back in the States, literally nothing in the bakery is good for you, but it is all amazing. And the breads. Don't get me started on the breads. There are entire storefronts that exist here with the sole purpose of distributing long, amazing deliciousness in a paper sack in the form of bread. People walk up and order two, four, or six loaves and walk away with a skip in their step. There is nothing like it. 

What About Infrastructure? Water? Power? Stuff like that?

Anytime you live on an island, anywhere, electricity and running water are more like luxury items. Turning on the tap is less of an anticipation for water than a hope. However, the house we live in has solar power with a Tesla battery, and a backup well for water. So we always have plenty of both. We haven't ran out of either one and based on the landlord's testimony, we never expect to. 

When I think failing infrastructure, my first thought is the roads. The roads are bad. Like, really bad. In the States, when you hit a big pothole that causes your bones to jar and your car to slam down on its leaf springs, you get pissed about it. You know where those are because there might only be one like it in your entire town. You complain. The neighbors complain. It gets fixed. 

In Puerto Rico, there are pot holes that will bottom out your car and bust your tie rods. Not only do they exist. They are everywhere. There are probably two in every hundred feet of road or so depending upon where you are. In other places, they have paved over the old road so many times and left the sewer manhole covers at their original elevations, that they themselves have become foot deep obstacles you can bottom out in, and there are a lot of manhole covers. A lot.  

In some places, the local residents have created a new form of protest by planting plants and small palms in the pot holes. While it is good to know where the big ones are, having small trees in the middle road makes driving even more interesting. 

When the side of a road washes out, it is not replaced straight away. Instead, a large orange cone is set up. When the cone falls into the washout and the road continues to collapse, a concrete barrier is put up along it...on the road. This makes the already narrow roads just wide enough for two professionally trained stunt bicyclists to pass one another, or one tiny car. When two cars pass in these narrows, neither ever yields, and you just sort of have to close your eyes and brace for the impact as you defy physics and squeak through. And these are frequent. 

Stop signs and laws are more like quaint suggestions. If you are travelling in a straight line in the States, rules of the road and the law dictates that you have the right of way. Here, it is the expected norm for anyone turning onto the road to simply pull out in front of you, pause halfway into the lane, and then look before going on ahead. 

But for every time someone pulls out in front of you, someone else will let you go ahead of them when they are driving in a straight line, so somehow, miraculously, it all works, and you actually get used to it. 

The Wildlife

When we first got down here I was expecting to constantly be on the lookout for snakes or tarantulas or scary things we didn't have in Iowa. However, after a week or so you stop even thinking about them as you trudge across a dark lawn to greet the UPS guy in your bare feet. P.S. The UPS guy shows up at like 10pm here after he finishes his business route. 

The things I worried about initially quickly gave way to other things I didn't anticipate. Like, the giant toads. Giant toads are an invasive species that were introduced by our capitalist friends from the American sugar corporations decades ago to eat some other thing they had accidentally introduced that was attacking their sugar cane crops. 

Giant toads rapidly became the scourge of our existence as they setup shop outside our windows at night and make a sound that can only be described as a hundred dying rabbits all screaming in unison. By night three I could have cared less how many tarantulas and snakes I stepped on when I went out clad only in underwear to hunt toads. 

The other thing is dogs. There are a lot of dogs here. When we vacationed here I always wondered why everyone who went for long walks through the towns carried some sort of stick that was more like a war club than a walking stick. It is because of the dogs. They have a tendency to pack up from time to time and bite people, Dogs are a problem here. 

If there is some other downside to the island I haven't mentioned yet, it would have to be the beaches. Why the beaches? Because there are so many amazing beaches you never really want to decide on going to just one of them. This is the quiet beach called Lala where I went this morning here in Rincon. There are prettier beaches, but this is the best one for swimming.  

I hope I've answered some of your questions. Thanks fore reading. We will post again when the photographer gets back from visiting her children and grandchildren in Iowa!

The Dangerous Side of Life in Puerto Rico

Here is Lorri before the "incident." She says every girl is prettier with a flower in her hair. I'm not so sure. I think she is pretty all the time, with or without the flower, but I have allowed her to indulge herself with this flower thing. 

Anyhow... we were driving down the road today and she literally plucked this thing from a bush on the side of the road going like 20 miles per hour. I know it was around twenty, because that is about as fast as you can drive here without having your entire car swallowed up by a giant pothole that goes all the way to China... or whatever the polar opposite of the globe would be from Rincon, PR. There must be an app for that or something, right? Anyways, back to the story...

This here cat is Pilar (named after Hemingway's Boat). Pilar is the world's most expensive farm cat, because while she was born in our barn back in Iowa, she was immediately recognized as having been born with the congenital physical anomoly known as polydactylism, and was rewarded with first class, cabin airfare to Puerto Rico, that cost even more than mine did, and I outweigh her like, 330 pounds to 1. 

Over the course of her short life, Lorri fell absolutely in love with the cat... and I allowed Pilar to come inside of our house (cat's are usually not allowed unless they bring lasagna or something), because polydactyl cats are also known as Hemingway Cats, and there are even a bunch of descendants of Earnest Hemingway's original polydactyl cats still loafing around his house in Key West. I can only imagine that Hemingway's works may have been that much more expansive and mesmerizing if he hadn't had to constantly be bothered with emptying stinking litter boxes and the like. 

But back to the cat. If you look closely, she has an entire extra paw on each front paw. This isn't some common, run of the mill, six or even seven toed cat. This is an extremely rare, presumably priceless, double-pawed polydactyl Hemingway cat. I was in awe... until we heard from people who had like fifty of them living in their barns, but by that time she had pawed her way into our home and Lorri's heart.

Here, if you look closely, you can see the pads of the extra paw. That is the best I could do, because she is clawing the shit out of my hand with the other eight front claws while "posing" for this picture. I began to learn some of the perils of these cats when she would try and jump up my leg while I was wearing shorts, and sixteen front claws would set into my skin, and then slowly tear sixteen razor thin gashes down my leg.

Anyhow, we have started allowing her outside for short ventures while we are out. And today, we were getting ready to leave and couldn't find her anywhere. We listened for her little bell, but she was nowhere to be found at all. 

Finally, I went out into the darkest realms of the back yard, and there it was... an iguana that appeared to be a stunt double for the raptors in the Jurassic Park movies. I mean... it was massive. 

I called for Lorri, and we stood there, staring at the ancient predator, and looking for signs of blood, or a struggle, or a tiny bell stuck in between the iguana's incisors. There was nothing. Not a sign. Not a meow. Not a tuft of kitten hair. Nada. There was only a huge, fat bellied iguana licking its satisfied lips.

Lorri ran, nearly in tears back into the house while the flower drifted slowly from her hair, and into the grass of the rain forest floor that is our backyard. It was sad to see it lying there, knowing it had been placed in her hair during a brief time of joy before falling during a moment of despair and sorrow. 

Meanwhile, the iguana just stood there staring at me. I stared back and thought about running to fetch my iguana killing stick, until I realized I am completely unequipped to kill a large iguana, and wouldn't really want to have to deal with disposing of the toxic corpse even if I did have one (but they are considered an invasive species here, so I could totally have a killing stick if I wanted one, so take that PETA!).  

Apparently, sensing my weakness, he turned his back on me without concern, and wandered up a branch, over the fence, and off the property. Nasty bastard. 

But also, standing there, I felt of a sense of this being how things work in the wilds of Puerto Rico. The cat had killed at least three small lizards that ventured into the house since our arrival, and she had been, in a karma-like fashion, eventually consumed by a much larger lizard seeking veangance for all lizard-kind. It was an eye for an eye, and I could almost sense that it was somehow a symbol of a righteous universe, at least in the wilds of Puerto Rico.

Rest in Peace, Pilar the Cat, I thought as I picked up the fallen flower from Lorri's hair. I wondered how Lorri would take it as I walked back to the house, twirling the flower between my fingers. I also wondered if the pet store would take back the ridiculously expensive cat tower we had bought for her just a week earlier, or if I would ever be able to find the receipt. These things are hard on everyone, but hey... if I don't have to have a box filled with poop inside of my house any more, there are pluses and minuses to everything, right?

By the time I got to the back porch, I could hear the tingling of the tiny bell coming from in the house. Lorri had been giving a live video tour of our home to someone using her phone and had accidentally closed the cat inside one of the guest bedrooms. Pilar was just fine. Lorri was so relieved.

"Thank god," I said.

"Right?" said Lorri. 

"Yes," I replied. "Here is the flower you dropped in the yard." 

And finally, here is Pilar, the Iowa farm cat, showing off some of her sweet ass ninja catlike moves she uses to avoid being eaten by giant lizards, on her $200 cat condominium, safely here in Rincon, Puerto Rico.