The Sea is a Salty One

This has really been one hideously terrible week! Another round dealing with the government over importing out possessions combined with worrying about my husband's mind. Things took a loop into crazytown mere hours after my last post. Once Jim got back he wanted to walk back to that same store I had just visited. I agree to go because I'd forgotten to poke my head into the souvenir stand in that same shopping center that sells yarn so I could pick up a few skeins to crochet up a few more wash clothes. We set out on foot to the farther away store, about a mile. Jim got to talking to the guy in the store working the Moneygram counter (leading to further crazy doings a bit later), while I got my yarn and a bottle of Costa Rican chocolate/coffee/cream liquor to give Jim for his birthday on Sunday. As we left the shopping center it was twilight, and it turned nightmarish for me. Let me back up, about four weeks ago I was driving hear San Jose, near Escazu, when I suddenly los...

... go out in the midday sun. I just got back from walking to the grocery store, the far one and holy crap my sweat has sweat has sweat. I was trying to sneak away while Jim wasn't here so I could find some inexpensive little geegaw he's like for his birthday in two days. Plus, I'm out of butter, and meat. No Southerner can live without butter (and mayonnaise if that Paula Deen is to be believed) I'd take butter over mayo any day of the week. Going to the grocery store makes me glad my late father is not here. He had a thing about mayo that came from his great aunt Gloria making him eat sandwiches with too much mayo, and that mayo brand was Hellmans. He hated Hellmans like Trump hates Hillary. Hellmans is the only mayo brand available from the States here. He would die, or throw a fit to end all fits by Southern men. He also had an excessive love of mayo, making a scene if a family marrying, burying or other mass gathering of our Cajun clan happened. If mayo was n...

We've moved into the big house, but haven't been doing much. I've been felled by a cold that moved into my chest, spending most of my time horizontal either in the bedroom reading or laying on the sofa watching one of two television stations out of Miami when I'm not watching HBO. I've slept most of the last three days with the exception of yesterday morn when I staggered out to the nearby grocery store to get milk and juice. Our internet is down too until they show up to set up the new connection and equipment. Like I've stated before everything in Costa Rica takes three times longer and it three times more expensive than in the US. I'd also run through my box of hard-won Kleenex with all the nose-blowing and coughing I've been doing. Getting Kleenex in CR isn't always easy either. The only reason I ended up with a box is that I was driving the nice Chinese man in the grocery store in Santa Maria nuts for it. I'd asked him twice a week ...

My updates have been so sporadic this last month because I'm insanely busy here and I'm stuck in a sort of down mood. Damn gringos! That's a big part of the bummer for me here. The Monday night almost two weeks ago that I updated from was the beginning of my 'damn gringos' phase. Remember the last time I updated Jim and I were rushing about like the Keystone Kops, tripping over each other trying to figure out who we could bum a car off of to go fetch Jim's replacement from the airport. His replacement found her way to the person that was supposed to meet her and transport her up to the guesthouse before we could finish contacting folks to get to the airport. She arrived very late, after 10 pm, in a farming community that goes to bed at 8pm. She showed up, we all welcomed her before the landlord showed her the her bedroom, and we all shuffled off to our beds and piles of warm blankets. She seemed quite nice on first glance. The next morning ...