Costa Rican Math: 7 Beaches in 7 Minutes, 3 Times Longer and More Expensive and 5 Hookers and Blow in 5 Minutes

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 like clockwork for a month before he finally stocked a couple of boxes. I bought one and when Mary showed up she bought the other one after complaining that she'd looked at the stores between San Jose and our tiny town for Kleenex on her trip down. Kleenex is rare here. But the advantage of being in a tourist town like Tamarindo is that you can find things like Kleenex, paper towels and other American things much easier.

We took a taxi back and it was all haggling with the pirata driver over the fare. We did discover that the piratas charge exactly the same from our house to the beach as the local bus. We're seven minutes from seven beaches in our new home. From our swimming pool I have a great view of the beachside mountains near Playa Grande and several national parks. It's beautiful here. Photos of the house coming soon.

Haven't been to the beach since we moved in on Monday, but I've been too sick. Jim has gone into town a couple of times now, to go to the sports bar to watch football. He came home from that first night of football shocked, immediately confessing to me that he'd been approached five times in five minutes to buy hookers and blow. Hookers and blow! LOL!!! Innocent, staid, white bread Jim, who I happen to love so much was approached for these things and it was mind-blowing shocking to him.

One of the funny things about being so sick that I cannot get off the sofa is that for the first time in many years I found myself watching the afternoon game shows on the Miami stations. I hadn't seen 'Wheel of Fortune' since the 1980s and I have to say I now wonder if they screen the contestants to find the stupidest ones. Watching was an exercise in frustration. Jeopardy is more my bag. Not that I could ever compete. While I can smugly call up the answers to the questions laying on my sofa with a snotty nose, I know if I ever tried to go on the show I would experience immediate brain-lock, staring into the camera like a bumper-stunned deer in the headlights. It would be a disaster. Likely I'd be ever worse on 'Wheel of Fortune' because once I got over the fear I'd be calling the other contestants naughty names and berating them for being so dull.

I'd not seen 'Dr. Phil' more than a handful of time through the years. What an exploitative, pompous, self-important gasbag that man is! Why on earth would anyone go on his show and air their extremely dirty laundry? Seeing Sinead O'Conner with him made me weep. There has to be a special place in hell for him. I was cringing for her the entire time. I know someone that was approached by his show several years ago and shut that down rapidly. I don't blame her as I have no doubt Phil would have put her ex on the show too.

Jim is sleeping in this morning because he was up all night dealing with his fantasy football lineups online. Yes, I am a fantasy football widow again this year. He always says he'll never play again at the end of the season, but he always does.

I had trouble sleeping last night because I was pissed off by a Realtor near our home in Virginia. It's been up for rent for six weeks now through a local property manager with lots of viewings but very few people who actually qualify to rent it. We knew going in that it might be awhile to rent because of the price. It's not a cheap rental, it has been beautifully remodeled, and our agent has a pretty strict set of requirements. We're prepared to wait for the right renter for three or so months.

Last night both Jim and I got emails and texts from a Realtor we do not know, with a rental application attached, begging us to rent our house to her client, who happens to have one of the lowest credit scores I've seen in one very long time. Working a just over minimum wage job for only a few months with a pile of teenagers and no references. This Realtor thought she'd bypass our agent and make a personal appeal to us to give her client a break.

While I might have given her a break if I was living locally and could check on the tenant frequently there's no way in hell living across the globe from the house I'm going to do that! This annoying spamming and begging is one of the very reasons I am paying for a property management company to do the day to day and thoroughly screen the potential tenants. I'm going to have to be a lot more desperate to even consider renting to someone with a credit score in the low 500s. Nope.

Damn, I'm starting to sound like a Trump supporter! But I'm worried there's no way she can afford the deposit, the rent and the utilities on the house and we'd have to eventually evict her and her teens. Would just be another enormous hassle. More math problems and I hate math. Hell, I cannot even balance my checkbook.

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