Waffled Monkeys and Politics
I'm never going to speak of our shipping household goods issue ever again until it's resolved. It's just been too much, we're not special and this happens to almost everyone here. Gringo Shuffle.
We waited around way too long this morn for our shipping lawyer to call. I was annoyed because it seems every single time I had plans to go to the Waffle Monkey for breakfast we get very delayed. No waffles on the beach until noon. Oh, but what glorious and perfect waffles they were! Dripping with honey, coconut and fresh bananas. Jim won a gift certificate to Waffle Monkey, which is good because usually it's a special occasion sort of a place for us. Not on our usual round of restaurants.
Afterward a long walk on the beach we ended up going from lawyer to lawyer to lawyer here in Tama. Jim's motorcycle needs to be registered in Costa Rica. We did the inspection, the Riteve. We've paid the import taxes. Now he needs plates and registration - Marchamo, and unfortunately, like for every other single knitpicky thing one must do here one must hire a lawyer to do the paperwork and submit the application.
The last attorney we saw made me nervous. He would not tell us upfront what he charges to do that. He seemed increasingly insistent that we apply for our residencies through him. Rather pushy about it. We put him off. Not telling him we're already working on that with someone else and we're not paying the Gringo Shuffle prices.
Eventually he emailed and quoted a price to get the motorcycle registration done. Way too much, more Gringo Shuffle. On to one of the other lawyers.
Let me re emphasis yet again that there are certain business people here who see you're from the States and automatically think that means you are mega bucks rich. Even if you are not, and the prices you'll be quoted reflect that fully. I have learned to tell them that's too high, and they'll fold, offering better prices as you go along.
Today's Clonie conversation involved our recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton. I try to avoid the Trump fans here, but they are everywhere and the Clonies love them some Trump. It's such a small town it's no avoiding people. I didn't start this convo, I got asked my opinion, something I'm going to have to figure out a kinder way to avoid, like maybe talking about the weather instead.
Clonie: "Yes, people died, but more people died in the twin towers on 9/11. No one blamed that on Obama!"
Me: "Why would you think Obama might even be slightly responsible for 9/11?"
Clonie speaking with just a smidge of self-righteousness "Because he was President"
Me, intake of breath as realization of what she's babbling about hits me: "9/11 happened in 2001 when George W. Bush was President. Obama was elected in 2008 and took office the next year. What you're suggesting isn't even possible unless maybe you bent the laws of the space time continuum!"
Clonie, speaking triumphantly "And not one of those people died from guns. Guns are NOT the problem!"
Me, staring open-mouthed in disbelief, slapping self mentally about the cabeza for even stopping to talk to this lady.
For the last few days I've been watching people online and offline spinning all sorts of ideas over what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. It's the first time I have seen both left and right agree on a conspiracy theory. I think it's possible it could go either way, suicide or murder, I don't like to speculate, although I did at first. I do know one thing, if clonies or others try to ask my opinion on this one I'll just talk about the weather. Lovely weather we're having lately. It's safer, no ones confirmation bias gets mangled, and everyone keeps to keep their facade of intellect.
We waited around way too long this morn for our shipping lawyer to call. I was annoyed because it seems every single time I had plans to go to the Waffle Monkey for breakfast we get very delayed. No waffles on the beach until noon. Oh, but what glorious and perfect waffles they were! Dripping with honey, coconut and fresh bananas. Jim won a gift certificate to Waffle Monkey, which is good because usually it's a special occasion sort of a place for us. Not on our usual round of restaurants.
Afterward a long walk on the beach we ended up going from lawyer to lawyer to lawyer here in Tama. Jim's motorcycle needs to be registered in Costa Rica. We did the inspection, the Riteve. We've paid the import taxes. Now he needs plates and registration - Marchamo, and unfortunately, like for every other single knitpicky thing one must do here one must hire a lawyer to do the paperwork and submit the application.
The last attorney we saw made me nervous. He would not tell us upfront what he charges to do that. He seemed increasingly insistent that we apply for our residencies through him. Rather pushy about it. We put him off. Not telling him we're already working on that with someone else and we're not paying the Gringo Shuffle prices.
Eventually he emailed and quoted a price to get the motorcycle registration done. Way too much, more Gringo Shuffle. On to one of the other lawyers.
Let me re emphasis yet again that there are certain business people here who see you're from the States and automatically think that means you are mega bucks rich. Even if you are not, and the prices you'll be quoted reflect that fully. I have learned to tell them that's too high, and they'll fold, offering better prices as you go along.
Today's Clonie conversation involved our recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton. I try to avoid the Trump fans here, but they are everywhere and the Clonies love them some Trump. It's such a small town it's no avoiding people. I didn't start this convo, I got asked my opinion, something I'm going to have to figure out a kinder way to avoid, like maybe talking about the weather instead.
Clonie: "Yes, people died, but more people died in the twin towers on 9/11. No one blamed that on Obama!"
Me: "Why would you think Obama might even be slightly responsible for 9/11?"
Clonie speaking with just a smidge of self-righteousness "Because he was President"
Me, intake of breath as realization of what she's babbling about hits me: "9/11 happened in 2001 when George W. Bush was President. Obama was elected in 2008 and took office the next year. What you're suggesting isn't even possible unless maybe you bent the laws of the space time continuum!"
Clonie, speaking triumphantly "And not one of those people died from guns. Guns are NOT the problem!"
Me, staring open-mouthed in disbelief, slapping self mentally about the cabeza for even stopping to talk to this lady.
For the last few days I've been watching people online and offline spinning all sorts of ideas over what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. It's the first time I have seen both left and right agree on a conspiracy theory. I think it's possible it could go either way, suicide or murder, I don't like to speculate, although I did at first. I do know one thing, if clonies or others try to ask my opinion on this one I'll just talk about the weather. Lovely weather we're having lately. It's safer, no ones confirmation bias gets mangled, and everyone keeps to keep their facade of intellect.
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