Fact Checking My Friends' Good Friday Brunch

It was a hot day in Escazú, San José, Costa Rica today as my husband and I journeyed two doors down to our neighbors for a friendly Good Friday brunch. We didn't speak of Christ's suffering on the anniversary of his suffering, but we did talk about many other topics. I think it's important that we look at what we discussed to verify what was true and what was not.

First, let's look at the key players. The host was a woman I'll call Gretchen. She's fantastic and I love spending time with her. Her fiancé, Todd, did the cooking. He's fantastic and I love spending time with him. Of course, I was there with my husband, whom I'll call Padre. He's fantastic and I love spending time with him. The wild card was the neighbor sandwiched between our condo and Gretchen's. I'll call her Antigone. She's fantastic and I love spending time with her.

We gathered at roughly 1 PM, a miracle in this strange and alien Tico culture where Pura Vida is the mandate, which usually means big waves and fat doobies. Upon arriving and seeing sugar-free peach iced tea, I immediately ordered a six-pack of my favorite Costa Rican brew, Libertas, from Uber Eats. I was offered an IPA while I waited, and for someone who doesn't really appreciate IPAs, I drank the hell out of it.

Things got off to a rough start when the Uber delivery person only brought three cans of Libertas. "That's all they had," she said in broken English. I had specifically designated a backup beer, but this is the second time this has happened to me. Next time, I will walk the three blocks myself.

The conversation kicked off unexpectedly with Succession, the much-loved TV show featuring Scottish dreamboat Brian Cox. Todd proclaimed it his favorite show.

FACT: People who tell you Succession is their favorite show are lying.

I told him there was too much yelling for me to enjoy it, but the Bore on the Floor episode is the stuff of dreams to a dirty-minded fink like me. It turns out that Todd and Gretchen's dog is named Shivonne, based on Sarah Snook's character.

FACT: That's not how you spell Siobhan, an Irish name meaning "God is Gracious".

FACT: Shivonne is a really sweet good girl and I love her.

Todd and Gretchen had put in a lot of work for this brunch. They had recently painted the walls of their backyard garden a tawny green. It was a lovely shade for a hot day. This caused the discussion to spill over into the size of backyards in our condo complex and whether the condos needed to be painted or not.

FACT: We only rent, so the faded yellow of the condos is not important to me.

I made my delicious tuna pasta salad with red onions, black olives, and feta cheese. It was a good thing I did because Antigone is a pesca-vegetarian. If not for the grilled vegetables Todd was making alongside the bacon-wrapped beef filets, she would have had nothing to eat. As we waited for the rest of the meal, we paid a great deal of attention to Shivonne, who is probably upset with me because I shaved my beard. She loved nibbling on my facial hair with a quiet, loving intensity.

FACT: Shivonne loves me whether I have facial hair or not.

The politics of the United States was mentioned, mainly concerning the firing of Pam Bondi? Or Gnome? I don't know who any of these people are anymore. Hogswart is one, right? He's the one who prays for Jesus's death? We all agreed that President Trump was bad at hiring people.

FACT: Pig Hogswart prays for the death of Democratic politicians, but possibly Jesus too.

We circled back to the house painting discussion and several ideas were bandied about regarding colors. Only Gretchen and Antigone have a stake in this. They have to convince the condo board and get the other residents to pony up the money to pay for painting the front exteriors. Truthfully, I kind of like the yellow they are now. In fact, I wish they were more of an orange-yellow, like those rad XTerras from the early oughts.

FACT: No one cared what I had to think.

FACT: Saudi Arabian food might be good.

Shit. I didn't provide context there, and probably shouldn't, but two people at the brunch travel to Saudi Arabia frequently. They gushed about the food, the people, the way the people smell, and how you have to have everything ironed. One guest said that the thing men wear on their heads was a little wrinkly when he first visited, and his driver stopped at a dry cleaner to have the thing pressed. The driver insisted on doing this for free, and the next day, the driver gave him a camel. I don't know; I wasn't listening at that point as we hadn't been served food and I had already demolished the IPA and two of my cans of Libertas.

FACT: I think I might be wrong on how much beer I consumed at this point because I definitely had an entire can of beer left when we had dessert.

When we were discussing house painting, we talked about our weird landlord who is a botanist of some type. Every time he comes over to do work on the garden, he goes after it like Jason does teens in any Friday the 13th movie.

FACT: Pamela Voorhees was the killer in the first Friday the 13th movie. Jason became Crystal Lake's local bogeyman in the only good sequel, Friday the 13th Part 2.

We talked about cloud seeding and wondered if anyone does that anymore. For those of you who are younger, cloud seeding was something we talked about a lot for some reason. The idea was that you'd drop silver iodide or dry ice into a cloud to make it rain. There might be an episode of Gilligan's Island that featured it. I know there was some 1960s show I watched that had an episode about cloud seeding, though. Maybe I Dream of Jeannie?

FACT: No one knew enough about cloud seeding and this led to a lull in the conversation.

We thought it might rain, though. Todd stuck his knife in the ground and said that's what Costa Ricans do to stop the rain from coming. All I could think about, seeing that silver knife sticking in the grass, was the scene in Caddyshack where the guy gets electrocuted because he's playing the best golf game of his goddamn life and won't quit even though it's storming real bad.

FACT: I shared how one of my professors teaching a Classical Civ class during my freshman year at UT was discussing Plato’s Cave. I gave a brief overview of Platonic Exemplarism before describing what he did during that lecture. He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, but all it did was drag a massive booger and snot across his face. And he didn't notice. He just kept on going like there wasn't this stringy, sickly tangle of snot leading from his nose to his face. No one laughed. We just watched, wondering if he'd ever feel it. And he didn't. I imagine he was horrified when he finally got to a mirror.

Todd once taught, and he said he was leaning back in a chair once during a guest lecture and fell backward to the ground. He told me that before I one-upped his ass with that snot story.

FACT: I was called an idiot savant and can't remember why.

Antigone has misophonia, and she said she doesn't like the sound of chewing or the crinkling of bags. This reminded me of my grandmother, who lived as an adult through the Great Depression. We lived with her for a few years in Port Lavaca, TX, during my junior high years. My grandmother saved everything, but regarding Antigone's misophonia, she would walk around with large Doritos bags and crunch them with her fingers. My god in heaven, it was annoying.

FACT: What was even more annoying was being sent to school with our lunches in Doritos bags.