DEAR ALIZARIN: Great minds at work

I just wrote you an email about us meeting up in the Alizarin Spa of Avila (that is, your parents beachhouse), followed you your simulteanously written email proposing that same idea. Great minds . . ..

I am truly sorry you have had to cut your Costa Rican adventure (perhaps nightmare, as it turns out) short. However, relax about me and not being there when I arrive. I am going to Costa Rica. It’s not like I was meeting you in some prison camp.

Emmy Lou, one of the ladies from church fell and spent the night on her floor until another member called 911 when she could not get a hold of Emmy Lou this morning. Emmy Lou is the reason many of us are at that church (she remembers your name and is always happy to see you no matter how late you are or how many Sundays you skip church) and, though many have tried, no one seems to have her skills as the Sunday morning greeter. Also, I just went to a conference about “Education, Not Incarceration” and learned how there is a low-intensity genocide happening in our prisons and many young, innocent adolescents of color are labeled criminal before they have a chance to commit crimes (www.ednotinc.org). What does that have to do with you standing me up in Costa Rica? Nothing except for emphasizing how I am so incredibly lucky to go to Costa Rica all alone and learn Spanish in Heredia.

Get home, rest, give me a call. Come to CA in August.