The Sea is a Salty One

My grown kids are here and we spent the day on Playa Avellanas. They tried surfing for the first time in many years and decided it was too much like work. It is. I have a saying about the ocean in general, and surfing especially - 'Sometimes the ocean is your bitch and sometimes you are the ocean's bitch' Today I was the ocean's bitch. I'd not been to swim at Avellanas before, I'd just driven past Lulu's bar and the beaches. Was completely unaware that about half the beach had  slippery rocks beneath the surface. I ran out onto the sand, stepped upon the rocks under the water and realized I had to be careful. I gingerly edged over the rocks, stepping right into a big rock hole twisting my ankle and sitting down abruptly. The tide flipped me over and I emerged five minutes later oozing blood from a multitude of tiny cuts and with a badly scraped elbow. The elbow is pretty agonizing, but not swollen up, scraped up bloody. I can bend and flex it, but the al...

I'm trying to knock out the last few things before my adult children arrive in the morning. In the last month I repainted the interior of the guesthouse on our finca a light turquoise with darker turquoise cabinets and shelves. The guesthouse has all new appliances. I've decorated with a beach theme and some furniture. Still not completely done, and will not be until the remainder of everything we own gets shipped here. But it will do for ten days. Stocked the fridge tonight with sodas, wine, beer and juices along with putting a variety of snacks, fruits and cereal in the cabinets. I don't want them to have to trudge that long path to the main house. The shipping has turned into a freaking nightmare. I've spent a lot of time in group IMs and phone calls trying to coordinate the packing and pickup of about 2/3s of our furniture and possessions, all the things we stored in the box room above our garage. We are selling our American house and settling here as residents. N...

One of the things that has made me laugh the hardest in the time without regular internet is the reaction of one Larry Solomon (not his name, but I do have his real name and location from the time he showed up and went nuts at NLQ) from Biblical Gender Roles to NLQ quoting his semi-treasonous rantings on his website. Larry's not on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate list.... yet... but there is still plenty of time for that! I suggested that perhaps the FBI ought to add him to their watchlist, which considering some of his political pieces would not be a bad idea. Just like Vaughn Ohlman, a fundamentalist nutbar, bad author, girl-selling into common law marriage and theonomist,  Larry believes that our government needs to be overthrown so that his flavor of rare fundy-town, very fragile masculinity can take over the government and turn it Christian. Since this is in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution. I would consider that at the least borderline treasonous. ...

Hooray! I finally have internet and cable - obscene number of channels - installed this very afternoon! We had to do the most White Upper Middle Class action ever. Storm into ICE (Eee-say) and ask for (gasp!) a supervisor. As of this morning it's been 41 days since we gave them our CR LLC papers, signed the contract and ordered the service. We were told it would be one to two weeks. Tico time. One of the nicer un-Tico time things happening is that the work crew is almost two weeks ahead on the construction of our monstrous huge pool.j Tiling starts tomorrow, and next week the pumps and water go in and a week from tomorrow we swim! I'm excited. Unhappily we had to go back to the U.S.A. to go to court to evict our renter, and pack up our remaining possessions to move everything here, right down to Jim's motorcycle. The renter tried to appeal the eviction order, but was shut down by the judge. She would have had to have coughed up all three months rent she's not paid...

I have been completely without the internet since we closed on the house, only able to access NLQ and email on the few days a week I've visited the restaurant at Witch's Rock. I have eaten my fill of Casadas and Nachos As Big As Your Ass as I've tried futilely to stay abreast of NLQ unsuccessfully. The closing went off without a hitch, even as Jim and I both were busy seriously mistrusting and disliking our realtor. I managed to keep from telling him off by the skin of my teeth. The day after the closing we moved into our new house, and I set forth on the Sisyphian task of cleaning our rental to exacting German standards. I scrubbed for five full days, we're talking taking apart every appliance that could be taken apart and hand scrubbing every surface. The realtor selling our German landlord's hotel/property/houses had already warned me that the Germans never gave back anyone's deposit, and I'd likely get nothing back. Taking the security deposit is com...