Me and My Tropical Disease

Costa Rica is a very generous country. Not only do I have fantastic photos from my trip there in August...



... I also got a few bonus take home mementoes.

First gift: Water in my ear, from swimming in the warm Pacific. I bought these drops from la farmacia to help with this, but I really have no idea what these are for. They simply had me at "oticas." That means "ear" in Spanish, doesn't it? Maybe I should have brushed up on some Español beforehand, since I speak close to zero. Anyway, this water traveled in my otica all the way back to the US with me, resulting in a trip to my doctor's office.



Second gift: scars on my lower back, from surfing the giants waves of Dominical. Got raked over some rocks while being pushed to shore. Bled through my shirt for the remainder of the day.



Third, yet most exciting gift: contacting a rare tropical disease called Leptospirosis. This disease takes about 25 days to kick in, and is caused by exposure to bacteria found in water that's contaminated by animals. I was trying to jump over a swamp while hiking in Hacienda Baru, but miscalculated the length, resulting in water splashing into my mouth.



One sleepless night, on a brief break from puking in the bathroom, I did some online research and was able to diagnosis myself. Only 100-200 people are reported with this disease in the US per year, so I'm actually quite special.

I brought a check list of my symptoms to another doctor visit, and she could neither confirm nor deny my disease. She didn't know enough about it and had to look up the details herself. So I prescribed myself some antibiotics, which the doctor quickly fill.

Monday was the last day for me to take these antibiotics. But while my rare tropical diseases may be gone, my bragging rights will last a lifetime. Malaria and Dengue Fever are a dime a dozen. How many people do you know that have caught Leptospirosis? I am truly blessed to have been a chosen one.

Eight Years in the Making!

Ladies and gentlemen... the tremendously odorific Corpse Flower bloomed this past Wednesday, June 30, at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden! And as promised, it delivered a potent stench as if something was decaying.

The flower was 34" in diameter and sadly closed as quickly as it opened. As of Saturday, July 3rd, this big beauty was already withering up. It'll now be another 8 years or so until it appears again.

The flower is truly an amazing sight. The comparison to the blood drinking plants in Little Shop of Horrors in uncanny. If fact, when I first entered the greenhouse, I thought I saw Rick Moranis sitting beside the flower. After putting on my glasses, it was clearly not Rick Moranis, only a botanical garden volunteer. I found this somewhat disappointing, so I took my glasses back off.


In addition to the flower, I was equally intrigued by the behavior of the crowd coming to visit. One woman was so moved by what she saw that she kept repeating "Oh my God... it's beautiful!" I thought she was going to pass out from over-excitement (and I secretly wanted her to pass out into the flower).

Then there was the fool who felt the need to touch the flower, after being asked not to. Why do people need to touch EVERYTHING? This is why I use Purell religiously, folk! Look with your eyes, not with your hands, please...

And lastly, who can forget the woman who stood right in front of the flower asking question after question, pointing at everything and blocking everyone from being able to take a picture. I have FOUR pictures with her hand in it (exhibit A below). Finally, a man asked her to step aside, and all was good.

The Corpse Flower will now go dormant for 8-10 years, until it blooms again. Until then, sleep tight, my magnificent friend...

There she grows!

I image most people have their seasonal obsessions... something that comes along every year or so, which then becomes an integrated part of your day. Whether it's watching a new baby panda at the San Diego zoo through their Panda Cam, checking snow levels at Tahoe compulsively during the winter months, or having your life consumed by NCAA basketball during March Madness, I think everyone has their thing. For me, it's watching the Corpse Flower at the UC Botanical Garden grow.

This may sound as exciting as watching paint dry, but it's anything but that! Their latest bud, "Maladora," is expected to bloom around July 1st, and is growing up to 3 inches a day! The botanical garden posts daily updates on it's growth, complete with photos. This flower is so huge and bizarre that it's almost like watching a creature come to life!

Below is a photo that I took last weekend, but their website always has the latest: http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu

You can track Maladora on Facebook as well, of course. While I'm not a heavy facebook user at all, I find myself logging on more these days to find out the latest. Most people's status updates are truly a bore (you had a cup of coffee today? That's great!), but it never is with my corpse flower friend!

The Biggest Little Present

Is there a better way to say happy birthday than with a 5 foot flower that smells like a decomposing animal? I think not. My dad's birthday was earlier this month and I gave him a Titum Arum, or Corpse Flower, from the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden.

This unique flower is native to the rain forests of Sumatra and blooms approximately every 6-8 years. The flower last only 2-3 days, and produces the smell of rotting meat to attract carcass-eating insects.

According to some websites, only about 5 or so cultivated flowers bloom per year around the world, and these are usually in world-renowned botanical gardens. So as you can imagine, aficionados travel from all over to witness this event.

This plant looks fairly ordinary while young, but someday it's going to attract media and botanist from around the world! What you're seeing in this picture below is a single leaf growing off of a corm. This leaf grows on a stalk that branches into many leaflets, and can reach the size of a tree. Each year, the old leaf dies and a new one grows in its place. Once the corm stores up enough energy, the flower blooms.

The woman at the botanical garden has not heard any success stories of having one of these bloom at someone's home. But if anyone can pull this off, I truly think my dad can. Not only does he have a green thumb, but he has a green house!

Be sure to check back on this blog in 6-8 years for an exciting Titum Arum update. Or better yet, just turn on the news... you're going to hear all about it!

Nuns have more fun!

I have a special place in my heart for nuns. My childhood memories are filled with both awe and terror of these women. I'd be sitting in my old wooden desk at Christ the King elementary, when an ambulance could be heard passing outside. Sister Mary Richard would instantly stop her math lesson, make us all bow our head and say a silent prayer for the whomever was just in a crash. Oh, the power that Sister Mary Richard had to make everything OK.

And the fear that Sister Ann could instill! I'd quietly slide down the hallway past her in my blue and green plaid uniform, clenching my bible studies book closely to my chest, hoping that she wouldn't notice I had hairspray on my bangs. Because hairspray-wearing 5th graders are vain and, you know, going straight to hell.

So what an unexpected surprise it was to find about 30 of my favorite friends betting on the horses this weekend! Golden Gate Fields was a sea of little black and white ladies, shuffling around with their racing programs. I guess drinking and gambling isn't a sin, but wearing Aqua Net is. I don't get it, but I like it!

I secretly snuck a few pictures as evidence, thinking no one would believe it when I told them nuns are party animals. Here's a table of nuns drinking wine and champagne.

And here are two nuns in line to place their bet. Unfortunately I wasn't able to snap a picture of the nuns outside the bathroom griping about how they got robbed on that last race.

Nuns know how to party. They're like a sorority... tearing up the town, causing mayhem when you turn your head. There was a full buffet bar serving food all day. How much do you want to bet they hit up the pastry section a good 3-4 times...

I wasn't able to grab a photo of all the nuns posing with a jockey after one of the races. It was something you'd see in one of those "Nuns Having Fun" calendars, only this was the real thing.

And I didn't win any money... the nuns were probably using up their prayers on their own bets. But amen, sisters! You certainly made they day more entertaining.

Nothing but Flowers

Spring has definitely sprung at the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland! From the sun-filled, flat trail that circles the perimeter, to the narrow paths that wind below the redwoods, each turn is bursting with color.


Turns out that the yellow flowers in the first photo are French Broom, an invasive non-native plant that is taking over parts of the park. French Broom displaces native plants and the animals that depend on them. Because of this, there's a volunteer group that meets once a month to remove broom and to plant native grasses.

While I admire the people that give up their weekends to help preserve native species, I do have a question for them. Can they wait until the fall or winter to do this, when the flowers aren't in bloom? I felt like I was following the yellow brick road with the flowers there, on some magical hike to find my car back in the parking lot. And while a rustle in the bushes usually lead to a rabbit or bird hopping out, I was totally open to the idea of having a munchkin join me on my journey.

If I Was Rich - Part 1

If I won the lottery, I'd build a school in Cambodia to help children there get an education and make a better life for themselves. That sounds like a noble thing to do. THEN, with the money left over from that, I'd buy a little house along the water, right off the Mendocino coast.

A place where guitar playing hippies and artists painting landscapes are my neighbors, and the town village resembles that of New England, with its Victorian-styled buildings. I'd make friends with the locals and drink Boonville beer with them at the Grey Whale Bar, and hear stories of their logging days up in the Humboldt Redwoods.

THEN, after spending the weekend at my weekend get-away house, I'd go back to the Bay Area so I didn't turn into a local. But I'd already be looking forward to my next trip up there.

There's something very calming about this coast. While giant waves crash along the driftwood covered beaches, the air is remarkably still. This area reminds me of Stephen King's book, "Duma Key," about a man who moves into a beach house for a year to rest and recover from a terrible accident. The book is creepy and a bit too long, but I image this is the type of place someone would go to hide from the world. Or go to write a book such as this.

If I still had money left over after buying my little house along the Mendocino coast, I'd also get a little chateau in Paris. But I'll save that story for another day...