Random Thoughts

I. After not being able to observe a thyroidectomy this morning (the patient was in a hypertensive crisis), I took a nap and then woke up thinking, "Well, I might as well go to the beach." My grandmother heard my plan and said, "I think I'll go too." So we ate lunch, my grandfather packed a cooler, my grandmother grabbed towels and we headed to the beach, where Abuela and I sat with our legs in the water and we talked, among other things, about how my grandmother's brothers and sisters are living a routine, they go to church, go home, sleep, eat, and do it all again, never finding time to go the beach or anything like that. And I thought to myself, "That's the way to be 87," Not that my grandparents don't have their routines-- on a usual weekday morning my grandfather is napping in the patio and my grandmother is sitting in her rocking chair, listening to some radio show. But every once in a while, they do something I don't expect, like invite themselves to the beach, bathing suits and all, or travel to Europe, Texas or wherever my mom happens to be, or take 4 days to stay at a parador out on the west coast of the island. That's one of the many things I love about them.

II. At Seven Seas in Fajardo (towards the Cabezas de San Juan side), you can find many things:
1. dried up seaweed that washes up onto your legs
2. mangrove trees
3. water that barely forms waves, but instead gently rolls in
4. plastic cups
5. pieces of broken bottles
6. bottle caps
7. grape-like fruit (?) that fall from the mangrove trees (we think)
8. on a good day, my granparents
9. about 10 big trash bins by the entry, lined up, and not very full

And any Puerto Rican will not take offense when I say that that's the problem with us as a people. We have beautiful, beautiful nature all around us. Places that people pay a lot of money to be able to come enjoy, and we just leave our trash everywhere to come in and out with the tide, even though the trash cans are about 10 feet away.

III. It's scary (or a little sad) when you've let so much time go by, that all of a sudden, your little sister is 6 inches taller than you, and looking like a woman.