The Sea is a Salty One

Yeah, so it's been a strange few days. We have a visitor we had to evict from the house. Yes, that is a big green iguana. Nope, the flies are normal sized. I shot this from the kitchen window and managed to catch a few ever present bugs on the inside of the kitchen window. I was trying to get a shot of the iguana drinking the pool water. He's not the same dude that comes to pick the papayas. That guy is grey and black. We sometimes see a five foot long golden and red iguana too. This guy was never before seen and very green, emerald green. Not too long after I snapped that happy shot I was on the phone to my friend Cindy whining about Jim's obsession with what we're making on the house and the copious lies of that hated relative. I talked to Cindy right after I got out of the pool, and I was talking to her and changing out of my swimsuit, feeling a sudden sharp pain. Yes, yes, I happen to be just dumb enough to have thrown out my back talking on my cell phone a...

Ugh! If it's not one thing, it's your most hated relative by marriage, the newest one who called your husband names on the phone with Vanguard, who was horribly dramatic at family Christmas six years ago, and behaved like the maw in law's funeral was a party to celebrate her. The one you've spent endless hours discussing with your therapist that led both of you to conclude you are dealing with some sort of narcisissm. Yesterday was her husband's birthday. Jim called him. Typically he did not pick up, allowing the call to go to voice mail like 99% of the times Jim calls. But they started texting and in the course of the texts Jim mentions we're selling our house and the closing fees are astronomical. He replies with how WONDERFUL his wife is yet again because she handled everything about selling their two homes and only paid $150 bucks each, which stirs up Jim yet again. He's pretty tightly wound and is now screeching that we got ripped off. Not so fast, ...

Yesterday I lost it. One of my biggest flaws is I sometimes lose my temper. And I don't mean I stomp my foot and yell for a few minutes. I go completely over the top and completely eviserate whoever the target of my temper is. We're coming into the home stretch of the house sale. Our Costa Rican lawyer has all our signed paperwork for a July 31st closing and he left for NYC this morning. The plan we came up with was he was going to overnight it to the lady at the closing company tonight for delivery tomorrow. She insisted this was not good enough, so we talked to our lawyer, making arrangements for him to put it on a UPS three day delivery from his office in San Jose, CR. On Wednesday morning he sent it out for a Saturday delivery in the D.C. area. Now I'd been telling this lady over and over and over again in the last eight weeks since we took the contract on our house that a) I needed a closing date information asap, b) I needed the documents to sign a minimum of two ...

Since Lori Alexander has me blocked on Facebook this is one of the few places I can say to her what I want. Dear Lori, I am tattooed. I have a tiny series of blue dots on my left breast. A legacy of receiving radiation during a bout of breast cancer. I didn't want it, it was necessary. It does not make me sinful. It does not mean I am 'slutty'. If you have had genuinely the brain tumors you keep talking about and the Cyberknife treatments, are they radiation? Then it's likely you too have a tattoo hidden in the hair of your head. A survivor's tattoo of blue dots. Does that make you easy, or sinful, or indicate anything beyond that you've had treatments to save your life? Nope. I hope this clears it up. This is a tattoo club I wish no one would have to join because it means suffering. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even Lori.

After Jim's wonderful treatment with Maggie on Monday morning reality, at least the realities of living in the U.S. of A have hit again.I'm spent the better part of two days either on the phone with some company in the States, meeting with our lawyer or dealing with the paperwork on the sale of our Virginia house and getting out possessions here. Jim isn't writing long ranty emails to the realtor and yelling about it, but it's still pretty screwed up. Supposed to close on July 31st, but every single day surprise expenses are being sprung on us.I just fired off the angry email because the realtor has the wrong figure of what's owed on the house by about double, he's trying to charge me for an overnight delivery of the paperwork that cannot happen here that I could get cheaper through my business UPS account, and some other charges we never agreed to. Getting stupid. Real estate sales and laws are set up to benefit the realtors, not the buyers or sellers. How ex...

We had an interesting day today. Jim had to go get physical therapy for his achillies tendon today from  our friend Maggie. Maggie is sort of an interesting character. We go to church with her. The very first time I met her Jim and I had gone out for one of our late night dinners and drinks. It was the last time we ate at that particular burger joint because it is the place in Tamarindo that seems to have drug dealers hanging out in the front, leaning over into the open air restaurant trying to sell everyone cocaine and chicas. I complained several times to the owner, pointing out that nearly all the nearby restaurants had armed security guards to stop the invasive drug dealing, but they don't see the problem. It's hard to scarf down a burger and keep saying 'No thanks, man' every five minutes to a so high his pupils  are pin pricks dealer breathing down your neck. This is the place I met Maggie. It was dark, so I couldn't really tell how old she is, but if I ha...

In all my readings of Lori Alexander of The Transformed Wife website and her various ridiculous ideas about marriage I know one thing. It does not work like that! You have to have humor, graciousness with each other, not take things too seriously, and a whole long laundry list of things.It does not need constant judging of your spouses food choices, the inability to be real with your life partner, or tricks. What am I talking about tricks? Being told you can only be a stay at home mother when you have your second kid, so you damage  your birth control device on purpose to accomplish this even as you and your spouse have agreed to wait so many months or years before having a second child. Yes, Lori did this, and apparently has zero remorse over this lie of omission. Don't do sneaky shit like this! I was thinking about marriage and how many in Evangelicalism do it so damn awful yesterday as I walked the beach. Our walking the beach is a very good illustration of how our marriage ...

I have to laugh. Yesterday at NLQ I did that thing I'd been putting off forever now, quoting alt-right recruiting all around toxic theologian Jordan Peterson. It has become quite the game for authors of Patheos Non-Religion section to poke the beast that is the Jordan Peterson Defenders Dumbfarts. Post why you dislike the words of Jesus handjob giving Peterson and wait for the outrage and hand wringing. Once that quote about women needing to deal with their anger by holding babies made its way around Facebook I knew I had to hold my nose, and just jump into the deep end by posting why that's insulting to women and how it reduces them to objects. I knew his dumb defenders would show up, repeat themselves ad infinitum, and eventually I would just ban them all. It happened. I banned this morning. They can gotten most broken record like and devolved into crazy circular logic. The funny bits to me were the fact that I'd gone off to the beach, walked the beach picking up sa...

I wish I still had all the posts at my old blog on Diaryland. Diaryland was ghetto and basic, but my years there encompassed the crazy of fundy town along with some of the getting out adventures. This morning I was talking to a friend about job interivews and shared one of those worst ones for myself that happened in my Diaryland days. One of those times when I was seeking work, and I tended to look for temp jobs or long term assignments over a real job, because it fit our lives better. I came across an ad for a long term assignment doing medical records at night, right up my alley. Applied, got an interivew and  prepared. Did nails, hair, makeup. Put on a business suit, one of my favorites, navy blue with a wife label embroidered with black design. High heels, stockings. I looked professional. And then it all fell apart. Once I got to the parking lot of the clinic things started to go haywire like I was starring in some bizarre comedy on job hunting. I got out of the car, ba...

So we're in our second wave of tourism this year. The first one runs from Christmas to May before dying off. The second one starts once school in the United States happens, running from late June to early/mid August. I'm not sure which one is worse. The one that starts in December is a world-wide glut of tourists.The one happening now is almost strictly Americans of the most obnoxious variety. Last night we went to our favorite local restaurant owned and run by Ticos and instead of being one or two non-Tico couples the entire restaurant was filled with people from the U.S. of A. with their kids running and shrieking around the restaurant. Loud conversations, drunken idiots behaving badly. Left a very bad taste in my mouth instead of just chifrijo. It was jarring. When we eat at the tourist traps I expect this during the two tourist seasons, but not when you go local. I know to avoid the Auto Mercado and Tamarindo Beach on the weekends during the tourist times because of...

The interesting thing to me about being nearly twelve years post-Quiverfull Evangelical is when old memories pop up. I absolutely could not be farther away from that old life, living like rich Eurotrash in Central America. When the memories pop up I am frequently astounded by what I put up with. Things that either make me laugh at their ridiculous nature,  or because they were crazily toxic. Take last night for example. I cooked dinner, something light and simple, baked beans, hot dogs and salad. Just like that as I was grilling each of us a hot dog I flashed on an incident that had to be twenty years old. At some point we'd had my personal Fundy bete noir with his family over for a quick meal one summer evening. Hot dogs. One minute I am cooking in my kitchen here near Tamarindo and suddenly Tom Smith is yelling at me for not grilling the buns in butter and not having any of the condiments to make Chicago-style hotdogs. I haven't thought about that incident in twenty yea...

So we managed to pull it off, even in record time. In just under an hour we crossed the Costa Rican border at Penas Blancas into Nicaragua and back. The U.S. Embassy might have issued their travel warnings and pulled their personnel out, but at the border it was busimess as usual without violence or riots so it was all good. I had started to get a bit nervous as  I drove north from Liberia on the Pan American Hwy Rutas 1 and there was almost no traffic. It was eerie having the road to ourselves for a very long stretch. But once we neared Penas Blancas and I saw the hundreds of idling big trucks waiting to cross and the Tica and Nica buses waiting I knew it was just another business as usual day. What made this crossing different for us than the other times we'd come up to the border is that we weren't riding in on Tica Bus, or on on the local bus that dumps you out on the border. We drove, but we weren't taking our car across the border. To do that meant we would have...

There used to be a video game I loved to play, one of the Mario Brothers games, old I know. What was interesting about this particular game was that I got all the way to the final boss and could not beat him. I couldn't even figure out a way to beat him and I have always prided myself on my creativity and experimental nature. I still love video  puzzle games at my advanced age. I tried everything, bombs, certain guns, fire, you name it, unlit I finally did beat the boss. You know what it took? Vegetables, you had to toss vegetables into his mouth to beat him. My experimental self had to go way beyond what usually works in video games and do something unexpected to win. And so  this was actually a good lesson for life,  and one that I've carried with me since. For years I've fretted over Jim's tendency to worry and go off the deep end in transactions that involve large amounts of money. Right now we're waiting for all the tees to be crossed and iiii's dotte...

Just finished up the hard core antibiotics for the toe infection around noon. About an hour later I started having a sore throst and a runny nose. FML now I have a cold! Been dragging around sneezing. The only excitement this week was Thursday afternoon's trip to Liberia and Walmart. I managed to finally locate a fabric store (squeal!!!!!!!!!!!), a jewelry store and a movie theater. They have been building a movie theater in Tamagringo for ages now, well over  a year. It was supposed to open back in January, then it was July 1st. I went by there this afternoon and none of the flooring, the screen or the seats have been installed yet. Tico time strikes again. Jimmy Danger at the book store and I started a betting pool for when this happens. I predict November 15th. Good thing too because I am moving slowly.

Another visit. Toe more infected. Put on serious meds this time for the proper amount of time, ten days instead of five. Received lecture on blood pressure and blood sugar readings again, even as I pointed out that both are within normal ranges when I'm not illing like a villian. Sweaty and yuk. Got worse. Ended up with vomiting like crazy last night along with the meds tearing up the rest of my stomach. I am cleaned out. No cleansing needed. Jim is at church, and I'm sitting feebly on the deck waiting for the sheets and quilt to come out of the wash again. I hate clammy sheets when I'm sick. Feels just like it did when I had MRSA a couple of years ago I asked for a culture, but the doctor didn't want to do it, even if I explained the why. I guess it does not matter because I'm back on the baddy antibiotics that kill MRSA. I feel like shit. I hope I can keep the medicine in this morning without throwing it up or having to throw the other end on the toilet. So ...