Every Breaking Wave...

Took this photo last week at Playa Grande. The fence along the blocked of parking lots and usually reads "Parque 1000 Colones" and the wall is now painted with the words "Peace On The Land And In The Water"
Peace, simple peace, yes I am down for a spate of that. Unfortunately now is a time of rumor, rumors of war (against Covid) and no real answers. I did hear that the government in Costa Rica is extending the passports of we Americans here on tourist visas until November 19th, which is good news indeed.
But at the same time we are having close to 400 new cases of Coronavirus daily. Much of the country is back in Phase two reopening with 5 pm curfews and Phase one license plate restrictions in the Orange zones. Tama is still in the Yellow zones, but tonight we are hearing that it is quite likely we are all going back to Phase One nationwide, that total lockdown for everyone with the only exception being going out twice a week for food or medications. I'm parts di…

Sunset overlooking Playa Brasilito shot from the sadly now gone Lucy's, a surfer themed restaurant near the turn to Playa Flamingo. They had an amazing deep fried avocado salad.

One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is money, the lack of it, and all the sleazy actions someone will take just to get it. I look at folks like our president Donald Trump, and just know he has much less money that the image he strives to project. Money is intrinsically tied up in so many people's notions of 'self worth' when it really shouldn't be.
Can money insulate you from many of the harsh realities of life? Sure it can, but I'm not so sure that's always a positive. Going from having money to not having money is a harsh mistress, because you realize suddenly how cushioned and insular you were and now you're having to clean out the crisper drawer in the fridge like everyone else. It feels like a betrayal. It happened to me when I was tossed out of my family in m…

Stinky hanging out in the guesthouse during last October's flooding of the house during the massive storm. I love that coffee table. Mango wood shaped just like a surfboard.


Stinky fell off the roof a little while ago, right into the bubbling boiling hot tub. I'd been in the hot tub for my back when he started meowing. Spotted him on the roof, started talking to him and he rolled right off the roof. Never have I seen a critter move so fast getting out of the hot water.
I needed the laugh. I've been filled with crazy irrational anger all day long. You'd think by now I would recognize it as a coming severe asthma bout, but I rarely do when its happening. Just much later.

But it did hit, after I sat in the hot tub. The hot tub chemicals get me every single time now. So I'm stuck with the bad back now. My padded computer chair got all wobbly and I've been having to use my leather Costa Rican rocker. I'm only 5'2", Jim's well over six feet. My desk is …

We have had quite the day. Parking today in front of Banco Nacional in Nicoya this morning.
This morning proved one thing, that Jim and I are the most ineffectual criminal types ever. We're the Apple Effing Dumpling Gang. I shook every time we saw a cop. It must be a hang over from being raised Catholic, but whenever I see a cop I automatically feel guilty, even if I'm done nothing wrong.
We had to take our friend's jalopy back to get inspected for Retive again. The Retive is expired, and much of the major roads are crawling with cops, lousy with law enforcement. The stick is dead-dead, and the car needed major work.
I was freaking out about it after talking to our lawyer last week. He told us that merely driving around in a car with expired Retive and getting stopped means they'd impound the car and only the owner could get it out, at about the costs of three hundred. We talked to our Canadian friend, and he said to do it.
The first set of cops was less than two blocks fr…

My desk, my view from the desk. A dark view today based upon how I'm feeling, even if it's broad daylight now.
I am feeling just heart sick today. Why? Well, it's dawned on me that someone I know, that I know pretty well, may be neglecting their child with chronic health issues, serious chronic health issues.

We bonded over the issues involving children with chronic health conditions initially. I know what that life is like, the feeding tubes, the endless blood tests, the hospitalizations, the surgeries. The endless worry. It's not a pleasant way to live, but I lived it intensely for a few years during the worse of my youngest child's bout of ITP idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Scary words. Her immune system, they think but are unsure of hence the idiopathic, randomly destroyed her blood platelets in childhood. Thankfully my daughter seems to have outgrown this particular symptom of a flawed immune system and now only gets the occasional bout of shingles instea…

A stump that washed ashore last week at Playa Grande. Even though the end part of the week was more like what I encountered on the main road through our village when I went to pick up medicine this very morn. Those grinning local road repair guys were at it, trundling over wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt over to the axle cracking potholes deep enough to bath in, dumping it and tamping it down while chortling and waving to me. I shook my head and smiled, knowing the first hard rain it would all dissolve. This was around 9 am. By 1 pm it was raining cats, dogs and iguanas, and all the dirt had washed out of the potholes.

Life is getting too much lately, and I'm starting to feel grumpy again, as grumpy as last month when I had to keep telling friends to back the eff off on Facebook and phones. I couldn't figure out the why then, now I have a better handle on the why.
Keep reading that people with empathetic tendencies are getting emotionally worn out in the time of COVID 19 …