The Sea is a Salty One

This morning I saw one of the oddest sights I've viewed in awhile, and that's saying something considering yesterday I was in a Florida Wal Mart and it looked like most of the customers were escapees from 'The People of Wal Mart'. We went to breakfast at a darling little cafe, and as we walked through the parking lot my eyes fell on a newish Corvette. The things dangling from the rear view mirror were decidedly not that New Orleans favorite fuzzy dice. What their were was boobs, well, boobies as imagined by Jim Henson's folks at the Muppet workshop, with big old aureolas and nipples. Stuffed, fuzzy and hanging from strings from the rear view mirror. I snickered and remarked that chances are that the driver was less than desirable. A penis mobile festooned with fake breasts does not scream hot to me. Sure enough the only other customer at this place was an elderly man, rather portly, looking like he had one foot on the banana peel and the other on the tombstone...

I am here in Cocoa Beach, Florida with the family. It feels bitterly cold to me, so much so that I had to go get winter clothing, something I do not possess. Thank gawd Ron Jon's has hoodies and long sleeved tees! It's in the 50s and 60s here, something the Weather Channel neglected to tell me and I am not acclimated since Tama is between 75 and 95 every single day. This feels cold. The other thing I was getting at Ron Jon's was a huge buttload of their tacky advertising stickers. Why? We had a little tiny catastrophe on our way here. We changed planes in Atlanta from Costa Rica and someone accidentally took my suitcase. There were ten identical suitcases on our flight from Liberia. Ten large Kenneth Cole Reaction hardshelled suitcases. All brand spanking new. I've mentioned before the expensive shopping and lack of quality in Costa Rica, so when Auto Mercado started their yearly stickers for stuff green stamps like program this year it was for suitcases, decent sui...

We fly out in the morning. By lunchtime our AirBnB guests will be picking up the keys from our agent. Flying to spent Christmas with the kids in Florida. From beach to beach. I guess it takes me awhile to catch up, but I was completely unaware that you could check in online and pick your seat from the cheap seats. Just checked in and we're not sitting by the back bathroom this time.  Upgraded to sit by the exit where you have leg room. All happy. Packed up and ready to go. Our internet came back on too around noon today. I was happy because the last few days with no television, no internet and the power cutting in and out was gruesome. I've read a pile of books now and made three throw quilts. Glad to be leaving, as much as I love our house in Tama the invasion of the crazy San Joseites has happened. You cannot drive in town, you cannot get near the beach, the grocery stores are filled with drunken tourists. Add in a pile of American tourists and it is miserable. The re...

This morning I worked on finishing up an item for a dearly beloved relative. Something I've been promising for ages, a lap quilt with fabric from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' movie. I'd not been sure for a long time what to do with it, deciding finally to do a very simple design in purples with gnashing teeth. The fabric is super busy so a complex design was just not going to work. This does. I'm excited to finish it up and finish up the Day of the Dog quilt I'm making for this lady's dog. At the same time I got that fabric for TNBC I also stumbled across fabric for Mexican sugar skulls, dog skulls, and it was just so cute! The problem being complex busy fabric with the need of a simple design. Worked that one out  too. Will post photos of both when I'm done. One quilt I finished but never sent off was one I started for myself and ended up promising to Cindy Kunsman. I was going to make it into a weighted quilt, but I ran into some design problem...

I finally remembered the kind man that squeezed the orange juice and made me some delicious hot toddy - Narcisse. We went back today so I could have more oj and another hot toddy. Also got passion fruit and pineapple juice too. All of it helps. I added in garlic pills this time and today I felt much better. First time in years I've gone from one day of bad cold to feeling better this quickly. Less drugs and more supplements and juice. Still no essential oils. Cannot do those.

I had a hard time getting up on Sunday morning. No amount of coffee seemed to help, and once I got to church I was tapped to sing, at the last minute because the fluffy stomping lady neglected to show up. I was okay with singing, but not okay with not having the time to do vocal warmups or rehearsal. It went well regardless. Even did that thing I hate to do - sing soprano. I was pleased that the pastor had taken my advice, adding in some Christmas music with the worship choruses, mixing them together instead of skipping carols under Christmas Eve. One song in particular, "What Child Is This?" really got to me, well specifically one line which I am now thinking about a lot. Particularly in light of the nasty cultural enforcers I cover at NLQ 'The silent word is pleading..' Yes, it is, too bad there are some too listening to the sounds of their own voice to pay attention. I'd been geared up to talk to and possibly confront Oily Jane, but she showed up five minut...

Cindy Kunsman and I have been talking a lot lately. Cindy, and me too I have to admit, does not always have the best boundaries or pick up on who is using you and who is a true friend. Coming out of my old religion I sometimes struggle to have good boundaries and I don't always figure out who is using me until too late. I know one thing, Cindy is my friend, a true friend. I've cried on her shoulder, laughed and vented over the doings of Mrs. Satan and I've listened to her process the things and people she deals with. It's helpful to have good friends like that. Looking back over my blog I can see I've done a boatload of bitching about people, from oily Jane on down, but I don't mention the oodles of great people I love, or hang out with. You wouldn't know it from my complaining but I have many wonderful people in my life. They just don't tend to get under my skin enough for me to end up ranting about them here. The kind of relationships I have with...

Made a funny discovery this morning upon opening emails from the doctor's office to start the insurance paperwork. The Spanish word for mushroom is 'hongo,' and it's the same word for fungus. Jim has mushrooms. He's no better. In fact he has an infected bug bite on his butt, which means two things. Number one, Dr. Fernando is going to be squeezing the pus out in the next day or so to his delight. Number two, I've had to play step and fetch it today. I ran around first thing to take our power washer to the church so they could clean something at the new building. Jim rode with me because the workment know no English and my Spanish does not extend much beyond 'Gimme a mojito,' 'where's the bathroom?,' and 'what does that cost?' On the way back Jim wanted to stop at a new gym. We got there just in time for their morning class. Apparently it's some sort of 'Crossfit' studio and we got treated to instructors and owner hav...

Jim is pretty sick right now. He has a full body rash that keeps coming and going that has turned out to be one of the common fungal infections here. We spent much of the morning at the doctors office. He had blood work run on his liver functions to make sure the fungal thing that would not go was not a symptom of liver failure. Jim also scratched himself up pretty badly and has a bacterial infection that have to be lanced and drained. Plus a cold. Miserable. But most ladies know that a man with a paper-cut thinks he is dying so it's good times at the house. He is very cranky right now, but too sleepy to be much of a pest. Life is good, even if Dr. Fernando is freaky in his obsessive love of draining all infected carbuncles on your body. He's not happy unless you have some oozing pus. The little hot tub that blows our fuses is still being problematic. Alejandro and guys were out today switching out electrical cables, seeking to find a breaker and breaker box where turning o...

We have had some fabulous times in the last week. The hot tub is finally in, and running. We bought the cushions Jim wanted and they look lovely against the gold painted stucco of our house. I'm still ordering the gardener around to move plants to better locations. On Sunday we spent the day on a forty plus foot long catamaran. Once or twice a year our church gets a half price rate for the cruise and we go out for the day. Forty bucks a head instead of eighty. Wonderful time on the water, I wish I had photos but my sports camera is not cooperating, it's not allowing me to access the photos on the memory card. Which is really a bitch because the cruise was one of the best days yet in Tamarindo in some big ways. We went way out, dropping anchor near one of the tiny deserted islands that dot the Pacific. Dropped anchor in about two hundred foot deep water, and jumped in to swim. The water was turquoise and crystal clear. While we were out we saw a pod of dolphins and sev...

Last night I  toyed with a scammer. Many years ago in the early years of the internet I used to be part of a group that baited Nigerian scammers . If you could get a Nigerian to rush all over Africa on a safari thinking they were about to fleece you out of dough you'd scored. I loved doing this, but it made Jim nervous so eventually I stopped my amusing hobby. But the other night it was just too tempting. I engaged with one of the newest wrinkles in the Nigerian scam - the Facebook Romance Scammer. These are the guys that try to find women of a certain age, near retirement age. Their profiles always show Mr. Successful, as a military officer, big international businessman, or the newest one |I got, a doctor working with Doctors Without Borders in Syria. None of them have friends, or many photos, or usually any posts beyond one or two. They show up, try to friend you suddenly. I always look at the profile, because I do get a fair amount of strangers hitting me up because of N...

Broke, as in things aren't working right. There have been a thousand roadblocks, changes and not so nice things happening on the patios, yard, hot tub and gardening front. As in crazy asthma from the spraying of the weeds, the burning of the trash, the chemicals used all around. As in broke the crappy old sofa having some horizontal fellowship. But none of those even began to touch the most awful broken. Which is hearing yesterday about a sweet boy from my old church, the place where the Possums run in fellowship - Possum Creek Fellowship church. Ned was one of my bff Joanie's foster kids. She and her husband had him for more than a couple of years. They got him as a toddler out of an abusive home with substance abuse issues. Ned grew up into a nice boy in his time with him. Ned was sweet, well behaved, particularly for what he came out of, and the challenges of being born to an addicted mother, physical challenges mingled with psychiatric ones. He had a pretty bad seizure ...

One of the things I do not like seeing here in Costa Rica is that the worst aspects of America popping up here. Usually that means, for me at least, seeing Ticos flocking to McDonalds and KFC. This morning I witnessed something very different, awful and oh so typically North American. Road rage. Once church let out and Jim went to fetch the car from a nearby hilltop (no parking at the church) I saw a blue car and a tourismo bus drive by fast, side by side, ignoring the oncoming traffic until the tourismo bus had to fall back behind the compact car or be hit. This took place on the one road leading to and from Tamarindo, simple two lane blacktop. This happened a couple of times as I watched. I could see that the tourismo bus was attempting futilely to get behind another tourismo bus painted exactly like it. But the blue compact car kept speeding up every time the bus tried to pass. By the time Jim brought the car around things had actually escalated, the bus had squeezed by the ca...

Things have really changed. Not here. It's the same old, same old in our little rural corner of Costa Rica. We roll past the mountains sheltering Playa Grande near our house daily. I wheeze from various things. Jim itches and scratches. The guys keep pouring the concreto for the patios and are putting the tile down now in the Jacuzzi. I think the tile is the wrong shade, slightly darker and greener than the pool but it's too late now. Shrugs, not the most interesting happenings I admit. I did come to the realization anew about how much social mores have changed. That's if I'm not reminded every time I fly. I am so old I remember when people got dressed up to fly. No flip flops and yoga pants, suits and ties, nice dresses and heels. Don't get me wrong, I'm not lamenting the change because I'm also wearing flip flops and my favorite tee shirt dress when I travel. I still try to be somewhat stylish with my accessories and jewelry. But I really like comfort. ...

Jim's still down and out with his virus or flu. No longer throwing up, but not right. Swilling Gatorade and napping a whole lot. He does manage to get up and do some taking care of business, like running to the bank with our pool guy to pay him, or get over to the mechanic. Me? I'm making like I'm still some sort of fundy wife, buying Gatorade, making soup, changing bed linens and scrubbing toilets. Being a good little wife. Sickness tends to bring piles of laundry and other tasks. I'd rather do the cleaning, and I hate cleaning, than nurse anyone. It's funny to admit but I am a terrible nurse, I'm just awful and awkward with sick folks. Could have never been a nurse, even if I did well when my youngest was so sick. Everyone else of older ages? Oh please, I know I gag, get faint at the sight of their blood, have no clue what to do beyond settle them in the bed and bring drinks. That's it. I'm too scatter brained to remember meds, not even my own some...

Since the first week of September when I had my stroke I've been sort of checked out on a lot of things I normally micromanage. Hmm, micromanaging might be an actual stroke cause. It's been a very slow awakening to real life. This week has been the closest to my old schedule and energy levels I've experienced in quite some time. The whirl of Thanksgiving, visiting San Jose and the shipping issues, Jim and I going shopping in Santa Cruz on Friday. Guess what we did yesterday? We went shopping in Liberia. No photos because I forgot my camera, but there's nothing interesting to see on that drive. Found a wonderful jeweler in Liberia who not only fixed my gold watch, he also remounted the diamond in my wedding ring, and rebuilt the prongs. I really thought I would have to take my ring back to the States for repair. The last time I had tips rebuilt like that I think the bill was somewhere around $150 to $200 bucks. This man charged me the pittance of $30. Thirty dollars!...

We had our Thanksgiving feast yesterday instead of Thursday actually on Thanksgiving Day. I was just too tired and burned out to cook after a few days in San Jose crawling through our possessions. Jim had a Thanksgiving dinner he went to at a church a few towns away on Thankgiving Day. I opted out because I was too tired. But perhaps I should not have. Jim attended with J.A. and Derwent and family were there. From what Jim said it went oh so awkwardly once Derwent discovered J.A. there. I figured it might. Neighbor feuds. So silly. Now I cannot sleep. Too much caffeine, too much food. And I didn't even eat a full plate. Today we got up and Jim wanted to take a trip to Santa Cruz to get his watch fixed. I was in favor of this because the guys are still here tearing up the backyard to install the hot tub and patios, dust, noise, and lack of all privacy until the project is done. Plus the drive through the countryside is beautiful. I brought along my wedding ring on the slim c...

We got back late last night from a three day jaunt to San Jose, to beg, plead, bribe and cry for a chance to get all of our household goods. At the last minute Jim decided we should stay in the same part of town with the bonded warehouse and shipping coordinator had offices, so there was no reunion with Marvin the kitty and Carlos his owner. It's hard to get around San Jose and very time consuming. We stayed at a place next door to a casino. Huge old place that once upon a time must have been a theater because there was a 1923 old carbon arc projector. I was fascinated to see it because when I first got to our Virginia town the only job I could find was as assistant manager of one of the town's two movie theaters. I worked in the projectionists booth many nights, even as both places on the same nights. I still love to look at the old equipment, new equipment and anything about the industry. The way these old babies worked was that you would have two of them for each film...

I was going to speak today about humility. Michael Pearl has the strangest posting up at No Greater Joy about being humble that seems to boil down to trying to be humble is a prideful sin. I've been thinking about humility since, pondering how to be humble. I have a lot to say about it, but I think it boils down to putting others first, something I'm not always good at. Michael Pearl is wrong, it's never wrong to try and consider others before yourself. Anyway, earlier today I have been cooking for the feast we're having at church tomorrow most of the day and somehow when Jim and I were talking I ended up telling him a tale that happened with my old boyfriend Tony. It was about the time I thought Tony might just be gay. Funny-ish story. I was so unaware of the gay world then, but I did pick up on some strange vibes. Tony, like I said in an earlier piece about him , was a chemical engineer working for a big multinational company that used to send him to work around...

...and it works! One of the rare drags of NLQ is the random men that try to friend me. Old, wrinkly, fat, married, oh so not interested in other men me. I know it's not because of my sparkling wit or anything more than being a 'name' online. Guys show up, pm me asking how I'm doing, or expressing a desire to be close friends, or just immediately hitting on me. heh! It's been annoying, I've discussed it with other female Patheos authors and others with the same low level type of internet visibility. It's common. I try to screen these guys. If they have no friends or interested in common with me it's an automatic rejection. But every now and then someone fools me. I've discovered a fool proof method for dispatching them. I say like I'm a proper pearl clutching fundy - "I'm sorry, I do not have private message conversations with strange men because it dishonors my husband and our marriage." It works like a charm, I even get apolo...

Today has been a series of shocks in trying to get the last of our things here. It didn't help that I'm dealing with my unpleasant horrible emotions since the stroke. I have cried a number of times today after discovering after five months of the shipping company telling me various things followed by a two month strike that we discovered this morning that they have decided not to import any of our things beyond what is listed on the manifest. This is after I paid a huge fine AND provided about a million explanations of what happened AND our U.S. realtor fucking it all up. If you recall when I was in the States back in late April I went into my storage room over the garage, chockablock full of everything we owned. I sorted the boxes out. So many coming here, so  many to be hauled to the dump or Goodwill, so many that family members were picking up. The last lot was all  for the kids to pick up. Guess, what? If you say that the realtor had all of it packed into our shipping co...

I must because on Sunday two different people tried to offer me the leather and wood rocker at church. Which I declined. There were kids sitting in the rockers, plus I have done so much sitting in my own two leather and wooden rockers. Still struggling with my health. MRSA is back and making me feel sicker than hell. Especially today. Blood pressure still too low, so it's down to a quarter of a pill daily. We're going back and forth daily with the new gardener and the guy putting in the patios and hot tub. Jim changes his mind about details more than any woman I've ever seen. I am coming to realize I care less about the details than he does. He does this when there is a major money outlay. I am sure whatever he ultimate choses will be fine.

It's situations like these that make me decide to cut off contact. This morning we went down to the local Kolbi office because starting about two weeks ago our internet and television decided to start cutting in and out, off and on all day long. I didn't call because I could not find any information on their customer service among my contract paperwork. So we drove down to the nearest office. We get there and find that the same guy we've been dealing  with in the past is there, one of three regular customer service agents. He happens to be the only asshole of the bunch, so of course he is the only one working. It is always the assholes that are consistantly on the job. Like a Tico Patty and Selma from 'The Simpsons' being as difficult as possible every time we're there. Today was no different. This time he refused to help us because we had not brought our copy of our service contract with us. So he refused to look up the account number, which I know he can d...

Today was slightly disturbing because of lying liars who lie. One of the things that has been rather unnerving to deal with is the Tico tendency to smile, nod and agree. Ticos do not say unpleasant things, or disagree, or tell you that they have no intention of showing up on time, or even on the day they are swearing to. Or even the week. We've now experienced that from plumbers, landscaping dudes, painters, the guy that put in the automatic gate opener, the guy who adjusted the gate hydraulics, various pool installers for estimates, you name it. Not all tradesmen here are that way. I have found an excellent plumber, ac repairman, pool builder and general contractor who are quick, respond to emails and calls, come out exactly when they say they will and do the job on time and on money. But these guys are few and far between here. What is more typical is that they show up three weeks later than the agreed upon date or time, completely misunderstand why you are mad, and state b...

An open letter to a friend, or someone I'm starting to think of as a former friend.... Dear "Friend", I was surprised to hear from you after nearly a year of radio silence. Since you married the guy you were complaining about abusing you and moved away I don't hear from you at all. I was assuming it had more to do with his controlling ways than anything else. Guess I was wrong. I'm no longer useful. But you contacted me merely to ask for information on a third person. You didn't even bother to ask if I minded, or anything else. You didn't even bother to be even slightly polite, never once asked how things were going for me. One short sentence of a demand. No even surface social niceties. I have chosen not to reply to your email at all. Trust me, it's kinder this way because I would say something both of us would regret and I would rather not end it that way. Nicer to say nothing. Roughly eight weeks ago I had a mini stroke followed by broken ...

The title seems to be the theme of the last few days here. My toe healed up closed and a week later I finally got the okay to get back into the pool, where my toe started oozing and hurting again. Too soon and now it's not so good. The infection is trying to come back. During my trek back into the pool I decided to finally try on the stack of swimwear I got off the 3 dollar final markdown rack at the one store I shopped at in the States. Here's what I learned. Never buy swimsuits off the discount rack when you're in a hurry, you're on narcotics, you have a high fever and you can barely stumble around because that swimwear is going to be weird as hell. \ The one piece fits wonderfully everywhere but my boobs. I would need to smuggle bowling balls in the top to fill it up and I'm not small up top. The bikini bottoms and tank top fits tightly but will do. One of the random bikini tops to wear with my shorts was so bizarrely cut I've already taken it apart and...

Friday was all kinds of odd. It started out in a way that was so lucky I should have bought a lottery ticket afterward. We were headed out to Liberia for a Wal Mart run and to pick up a part for the car. I noticed as I stepped off the patio and onto the mud leading to our garage a sparkle out of the corner of my eye. Looked like a big sequin glimmering on top of the mud. I bent down to take a look and it was the diamond from my engagement ring perfectly laid out on top of the mud like a perfect decoration. Yes, I found the central diamond in my wedding ring set sitting there in the mud not ten feet from the front door. Very odd. I had perfect peace about this all along , but I figured I would never see it again. Was I happy! Unfortunately things went disturbing shortly thereafter. We were driving along on the road between Huacas and the turn towards Liberia and came up upon a wreck mere seconds after it happened. A collectivo pirata taxi had stopped suddenly with no warning and th...

Today didn't go quite as well as the previous days. My asthma flared up hard, but it happened because of the plumbers and our mystery pee-er of the sofa J. A. I've had three different Tico plumbing outfits in to replace the wax gasket under the toilet in the master bath. One used too small of a gasket, and it leaked. The next guys set the gasket wrong and tried to hide their error by running a beat of silicon around the bottom. When it started leaking again I had goopy white silicon residue melting into the water and whenever I went to wipe it up with a towel it would ruin the towel. It's not like you can buy decent towels in Costa Rica anyway. It requires a special trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond in San Jose. A five hour drive that I only do once or twice a year. The last guys did apparently put the right size gasket on, get the toilet to seal and ran some foul smelling sealant around the toilet. I started wheezing from the smell before they even left this morning. The ...

No more whining about my health. I feel better. I'm just back on my prescription night time allergy med and boy is it making me have some very strange dreams. Just in time because yesterday one of our friends spent the better part of an afternoon here and  I got to know him just a little bit better. His name is Bobby and he's been living here and near where we used to live in the States part time for a few years. He came over to help me set up my new Fire stick. Last year I'd made do with my ancient Roku device, a first or second generation model. I'd had to do something squishy and possibly illegal to make it bypass the safety features of Hulu and Netflix that involved booging on into the server at Cabla Tica and resetting my ip addy to a Stateside one. Unfortunately Kolbi has much better security and a much less easy to guess password into the server so it was time to upgrade and do it (semi) legally. Bobby had been telling me at church that he knew all about se...

Been an odd couple of days. Cutting my blood pressure pill in half did nothing. Still low readings. So I got off, stopped taking it altogether and my pressure came up to normal ranges and I started feeling normal for the first time in two months. Decided yesterday afternoon I needed to have that "Come to Jesus" meeting with my young doctor over the blood pressure meds. I went in with my blood pressure monitoring cuff and my records of readings for the last month. I figured there might be a fight. I was prepared for a fight. I know that doctors hate you going off meds without their approval. But, I was surprised. After all our recent blood pressure discussions, two months worth of records and my description of what happened Friday he said I needed to cut the pill in half, that it might be time for me to get off altogether if the half pill gave me too low of readings. I almost passed out again when he said I'd done the right thing completely stopping the meds for a few ...