The Sea is a Salty One

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...