Mad Dogs, Englishmen and Elderly Cajuns
... 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 not on the sandwiches and not on the table he would leave, get a jar, preferably of Zatarain's mayo and plunk it right down in the middle of the feast. When we buried him we slipped a jar of Zatarain's into his casket just before the lid went down. Dad needed mayo no matter which way he was going.
There are some things that have happened as part of our settling into Tamarindo that would have appealed to my dad's sense of humor.
Example? Getting our cable and internet last week. The guys showed up with new and ancient equipment. A brand new Motorola Surf Board modem identical to one that I had from Comcast back before they started with this Xfinity nonsense nearly twenty years ago. They also climbed the electric pole across the street. Now, that pole, like most of the poles in Costa Rica, has wires going this way and that way, tangled like some sort of crazy hyperactive monkey threw black spaghetti in the sky. Once up the pole one dude had to disconnect and reconnect each wire individually to figure out which one was ours. The other technician stood in our doorway, staring at our blaring television screaming to his partner 'No!' or 'Si!'. Something that in the States would be plugging that old modem in and flipping a switch, here it turned into a traffic jam with tourist bus drivers and taxi drivers screeching while they played with the wires and blocked the road. It was sort of surreal and all kinds of funny.
Afterward the guy that spoke beautiful English asked me what I thought about Donald Trump. This seems to always be the litmus test here for if Ticos will accept you. The Trump issue. He's, understandably, upset over the immigration policies and deportations going on under Trump. Had to tell him I completely agree. He then moved on to telling me that something very similar has happened here with the locals and the Nica's, the Nicaraguans. They, like Mexicans in the US, do the jobs that no one else seems to want. We both agreed that removing either people group from our countries would be a very bad thing. In the US it would have a impact on the costs of food, the construction industry and other industries.
Wow, that took a more serious direction than I thought.
Since returning from the store I've been laughing over one of the cleaning products I bought. Mr. Musculo. It seems that Johnson Family products gave Mr. Clean a Latin American makeover. See for yourself:
Doesn't he look like the kind of very macho guy you might pick up at the club, dance with, share illicit substances with before breaking some of the sexual activities laws of your state, but you never give him your phone number because you know he's gotta be boring outside of the dance floor and bedroom?
Mr. Clean cannot compete with that. He's more like your asexual uncle you're pretty sure is gay but you know he does not come out of the closet for fear of making your great aunt Giselle have heart failure. What gives Johnson family? Why the hunk for Central America and the asexual bald dude for America?
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 not on the sandwiches and not on the table he would leave, get a jar, preferably of Zatarain's mayo and plunk it right down in the middle of the feast. When we buried him we slipped a jar of Zatarain's into his casket just before the lid went down. Dad needed mayo no matter which way he was going.
There are some things that have happened as part of our settling into Tamarindo that would have appealed to my dad's sense of humor.
Example? Getting our cable and internet last week. The guys showed up with new and ancient equipment. A brand new Motorola Surf Board modem identical to one that I had from Comcast back before they started with this Xfinity nonsense nearly twenty years ago. They also climbed the electric pole across the street. Now, that pole, like most of the poles in Costa Rica, has wires going this way and that way, tangled like some sort of crazy hyperactive monkey threw black spaghetti in the sky. Once up the pole one dude had to disconnect and reconnect each wire individually to figure out which one was ours. The other technician stood in our doorway, staring at our blaring television screaming to his partner 'No!' or 'Si!'. Something that in the States would be plugging that old modem in and flipping a switch, here it turned into a traffic jam with tourist bus drivers and taxi drivers screeching while they played with the wires and blocked the road. It was sort of surreal and all kinds of funny.
Afterward the guy that spoke beautiful English asked me what I thought about Donald Trump. This seems to always be the litmus test here for if Ticos will accept you. The Trump issue. He's, understandably, upset over the immigration policies and deportations going on under Trump. Had to tell him I completely agree. He then moved on to telling me that something very similar has happened here with the locals and the Nica's, the Nicaraguans. They, like Mexicans in the US, do the jobs that no one else seems to want. We both agreed that removing either people group from our countries would be a very bad thing. In the US it would have a impact on the costs of food, the construction industry and other industries.
Wow, that took a more serious direction than I thought.
Since returning from the store I've been laughing over one of the cleaning products I bought. Mr. Musculo. It seems that Johnson Family products gave Mr. Clean a Latin American makeover. See for yourself:
Doesn't he look like the kind of very macho guy you might pick up at the club, dance with, share illicit substances with before breaking some of the sexual activities laws of your state, but you never give him your phone number because you know he's gotta be boring outside of the dance floor and bedroom?
Mr. Clean cannot compete with that. He's more like your asexual uncle you're pretty sure is gay but you know he does not come out of the closet for fear of making your great aunt Giselle have heart failure. What gives Johnson family? Why the hunk for Central America and the asexual bald dude for America?
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