The Sea is a Salty One

That's our Stinky when he was a kitten.We adopted him from our local vet. She had trapped a number of stray kittens during Hurricane Nate. He was just the skinniest most pathetic little thing then. We have a new visitor. I know for sure he visits every afternoon around four pm, but I think he sneaks in likely several times  a day. It's a cat with markings very close to those of Stinky above, another tuxedo cat. A stray, a very nervous stray that I see daily coming up over the wall, walking down the sidewalk bold as brass before sneaking though Stinky's cat door. This new cat comes to eat the leftover dry and wet cat food. We've tried to keep an eye out, see if we can tempt him with treats, but so far he's been a little black and white ghost. Swift, careful to keep a low profile and utterly silent.  Today when he walked up I was sitting in my rocker quilting, saw him look through the cat door, realize I was there and walk off. Later when Jim napped and I lay in...

Let's eat, y'all! Red beans, rice and sausage and some cornbread stuffed with cheese and hot peppers. I need to make this tomorrow. I miss my Cajun foods. Last two days the asthma has been insane again. Hitting the electric bong (nebulizer) like a fiend. Laying around coughing. But something rather interesting happened yesterday. Something I've not seen happen since the economy crashed in the States in 2009. Someone ended up my doorstep begging for work or food. He approached wanting to pick our star fruit, oranges and mangoes. We let him. Why? The answer goes way way back for me, all the way back to the insanity that was the late 1990s, when we were card carrying fundagelical Christians. I spent the two years of the run up to Y2K watching everyone else around me at Possum Creek Church (not the real name of the church but rather close!) lose their damn minds over Y2K. I listened to folks claim for months on end that the end of the world was coming, that one had to...

A cloudy sunset over Playa Grande. Jim just left to go check on our friend who lives right on Grande. Cannot find out if he's alright. Phone going straight voice mail. Was up most of the  night last night. Grande is little over a mile away and we did get a few high flying sparks coming down very late last night. I was up, watching to make sure that orange glow got no closer to our house. I'm a worry wart. Jim slept. I knew it wasn't likely to come this way because the winds were blowing the other way, and there's that big wetlands between us and them. But still I worry. Well, he slept right up until the earthquake hit and then the aftershocks. Not a lot of sleeping happened last night. I'm dragging right now. But no napping. Our friend going back to the States came by to drop off his car. His parting shot was that the car needed a ton of work to pass Retieve (inspection) and there was zero insurance on it. If we wreck it it's up to us to pay damages. Per...

Playa Grande is on fire tonight. Midnight and I'm not sure how much sleep I will be getting. I know looking at the fire photos people are posting that at least one friend's home is engulfed in flames, and there may be more. Friends living out there in Las Ventanas, Alemendro Hills and Corona de Cabo. Those things sticking up black from the flames are houses. One of which I know the people very well. We're a mere mile and a half from the flames, and on the backside of this photo taken by a friend of mine that lives up the hill in Tamarindo. I think even if the fire moves and travels we'll be okay because between us and those houses is an enormous wetlands and estuary. Nothing like a bayou for snuffing out flames. I cannot smell the fire from here, but I can see the faint otherworldly orange glow and my asthma kicked up pretty badly. We have had one major rain and a few sprinkles, but we're still on the backside of dry season, everything is dried tinder. Guanaca...

Yes, yes, we are COVID free here in Guanacaste finally! Sadly this was one of the few pieces of good news running across my social media, news feed and comment filters. That title was the first line in a piece of spam stuck in the spam filter at NLQ this morning. Usually they are not that amusing. I have to laugh at these Nigerian come ons. The next line guaranteed you up to a  15 inch growth in penis size. Ha! How is that desirable? And of course the phone number and email resolve to... Nigeria! Sort of encompasses the flaming two stepping goat rodeo of the last few days. Asthmageddon again. To steal a song lyric from an obscure song "Brain on bed, where am I? Liverpool, Leeds, Miami?" I started swimming again. It triggered this crap again. Go figure. Yay drugs! Boo feeling like shit. It looks likely that this Tuesday we'll be heading into the dark heart of contagion, San Jose. One of our good friends is bailing. He's catching one of the few hastily or...

Jim is working his way down a list of the supposed top fifty films during our Covid lockdown, and I have to say that I am finding it a sad and pathetic bunch. Almost all big bucks blockbusters that just never appealed to me. I have always preferred the odd, the weird, the quirky in my films. I am exiled to the living room to reruns of very old horror films and other bizarre fare while Jim partakes of the rom-com, the action film, the bad film adaptation of a sappy novel. To each their own. Just don't try to fob that off on me. I am still sentenced to using my greatgrandmother's ancient electric skillet with the replaced cord, microwave, my hot plate and toaster oven both from the guesthouse. They've come out a few times from the appliance repair shop and fiddled around with my stove, but so far de nada. Still does not work. I'm sort of discombobulated. Last night I flaked out at 8 pm, feeling the very awful first beginnings of what feels like strep. I even slept t...

Can't wait to get back to the beach, but things are moving along  nicely here. First bits of rolling out a slight reopening since we're under 5 new Coronavirus cases a day and no cases at all near here. We were supposed to go to Liberia shopping yesterday. Costa Rica is doing some rolled out openings during the week. Certain days certain license plate numbers can drive. This week they extended the roaming range one can go, to about an hour away from your home. Not enough for you to do a Price Smart run to San Jose, but plenty enough to get to Liberia. But Monday didn't work out. Why? Tico Time. One of our guys that does simple construction jobs for us was supposed to show up early and finish the gardening frames. I'd watched Jim measure, ponder, calculate, look over the boards left over from making the concrete frames from the French drain, then measure again, calculate and start again. Like I said the other day, how the thing went is very much an illustration of ou...

Almost ripe mangoes on our tree.Whelp when it rains stoves, it freaking pours appliance parts. Since Jim started this diet I have been cooking, like cooking a like, like every single freaking meal. I'm not whining. I don't mind. Plus the whole Covid 19 quarantine happening here in Costa Rica makes it very problematic to go out to eat. Since it started we've have takeout from favorite restaurants. For several weeks authorities here shut down all restaurants. The big tourist restaurants have shuttered their doors until the next high season. So it's cook or don't eat. Plus this is really how it's supposed to work in healthy dynamic marriages. One partner expresses a need, a need for special food that must be cooked, and the other partner seeking to support what their spouse is trying to do cooks. Jim does not cook. He's something of a retro sexual. No cooking, no laundry and not a lot of cleaning, which is fine. I tore a ligament early in our marriage, ...

It's official. I am done with the Donald J. Trump foolish ramble of a press conference. The one today ran two hours if it ran a second. I didn't watch it, but I did keep tabs on who spoke when while I did something I have discovered is the best thing ever to do during those endless press conferences  I watched a very bad B movie by Roger Corman from the 1950s, a cheesy horror movie. One of my friends set up a Pandemic group for those of us who are her friends, and every afternon during the president's ill informed press conferences she runs these terrible films in the group. Today's film "Attack of the Giant Leeches" was pretty unintentionally funny. Yesterday's was an even better hoot! "Attack of the Crab Monsters" with 'The Professor' Russell Johnson from "Gilligan's Isle" in a starring role. I had to laugh and ask if this was a prequel to "Gilligan's Isle" You have to love a film with giant paper mac...

Happier times, sunset in Tama as the boats come back in. Completely deserted beaches now. There comes a point in your life when you're standing at a crossroads. Sometimes it happens many times. Right now is one of those 'many times' of crossing that rubicon, hard choices with no idea it they will genuinely work out. The American community here in Costa Rica we are having to decide. Do we stay, or do we take that one last flight out of Costa Rica to go back to the States to ride out the Pandemic. If you go you risk your residency status, and application. You go knowing it may be one very long time before the borders reopen and allow you back in. People have pointed out that you might come back to a looting house, or a landlord that has evicted while you were gone. What happens if this extends and you miss paying your Riteve on your vehicle. Lots of risks. And what for? Here the COVID curve is being so thoroughly squashed the daily numbers of new infections have now d...

That cop needs to be holding a gun to make it an accurate depiction of what's happening on the beaches of Costa Rica between the law and the surfers. This is a riff on a classic poster for the surfing movie "Endless Summer" We both ended up going out today, both a little logy from the quarantine. I ran out to the pharmacy and on a futile hunt for chili powder. While the local stores have been mostly well stocked I am finding at  least a couple of items each trip I am missing. Sunday it was dry roasted peanuts and no added sugar apple juice. This time it was chili powder. Going to make cooking chili tomorrow problematic until I get down to Walmart in Liberia. I guess I'll substitute hot paprika and see how that goes. Jim had to hit the bank as he'd forgotten to write down his new banking password, used it a month and promptly forgot it. Senior moments I guess. Late afternoon we had to bring Stinky in to the new vet for his yearly physical and shots. I picke...

Wow, am I tired! The day after Easter I managed to finally crawl out of bed and do a few things, scrub the deck that got muddy during yesterday's rain,some kitchen clean up and cooking, sort out, clean and fill the bird feeders and bird bath, and fold up put away all the laundry I've been washing and leaving in baskets since nearly two weeks ago when the asthma got insane. Whipped by afternoon. Talked to various feuding elderly relatives again. One of which is upset by the church in Central that keeps busing people in to their services. I am not surprised. How to describe Central, which is a small town right near where several of my elderly aunts live. It's rural, it's backwater, it's the place where if they were going to give the Bible Belt an enema the nozzle would go in. Of course that could just be my own prejudices against the place and the copious crazy fundamentalist Baptists, Assemblies of God, assorted flavors fundamentalism that lurk there. You see I...

I haven't been up long this morning when I got a call from the Health Dept doctor. Doctor - "Meees  Esus-Anna? Dr. Freeeeeholy here. You eeeh, err you test is noogaa$&(#*" Me - "Repite por favor?" Doctor - "Test neeeeeeeeeeegartibbb" Me - "Donde?" Doctor - "EEEEEEeee Noo garbitibay!" Me - "Ah, Covid si o no?" Doctor - "Covid no!" And that, ladies and germs, is how I found out my Coronavirus test was negative, between his pigeon English and my pigeon Spanish we finally worked it out! After screaming and dancing for joy for awhile I had to go get groceries for the first time all week. Costa Rica is on a license plate system right now, only certain plate numbers can be out on certain days, our day is Sunday. Tomorrow they switch it to the San Jose plate number thing, just one day during the work week when you cannot be out on the roads. At least twenty cops were setting up near the house for pl...

A long ago Easter. I miss my things sometimes. We did nothing today, largely nothing. Jim swam. The pool guys showed up and I had to tell them my 'Holas' from behind the glass since I am quarantined. Still no word on my Covid 19 test from the Health Dept. Just another illustration of something you must get used to when you move to Costa Rica, The "Manana" - being told something will happen tomorrow or the next day, but the reality is that it happens when it happens, when they get around to it. Slowly sloth-like. As I keep reminding Jim when things happen like it took a month to get our internet repaired.  To quote Jimmy Butter "People get by and people get high... in the tropics they come and they go" It is funny how much things can change in your life. This would be the 24th anniversary of the Easter Eve where I chewed out Mormon missionaries for calling at 10 pm. I had been on a month of steroids for my asthma (of course!) was shaking as a re...

According to the health department doctor I spoke with on Thursday they were supposed to have called me today and given me the results of the test for Coronavirus. Didn't happen, and when I tried to call him in the late afternoon I got the message that the office was closed for Semana Santa (Easter). Looking at the latest figures released for once they did not list the towns of those found to have the virus, but after today I fear I am one of the 19 new cases definitively diagnosed. I feel dreadful after a couple of days feeling better indeed. Woke up feeling better, but a curious thing happened around 5 pm after the chatter with my aunt. I went outside to water my orchids, a simple task I haven't done in a few days that involves simply walking over to the tap, turning on the hose and walking around blasting the begeezus out of everything with the water. I started to feel most curiously unwell, like everything in my body was shouting at the same time "Lay down NOW...

It's finally dawning on me, now at bedtime, that I have a few apologies to make in the morning. I think I really angered an old friend this morning by suddenly ditching while she was telling me about her problems. It wasn't her, it was the fact that during the last month of dry season they switch off all water at 9 am and I was bumping up against the hour in about ten minutes. I desperately needed a shower. My hair a lank tangled mess that needed washing and oiling. This is one of those facts of life here that you are outraged about at first, stomping around in gringo entitlement, not able to understand why they don't just drill up more water. But after a while you're so used to it that you get up super early on laundry day, water the garden, do the dishes, make sure you have water in the sink to wash your hands with for the day before they shut it off. You shrug and move on. You do the tico thing. I likely need to apologize to both of my elderly aunts. I know I w...

A happy corvid getting a sprinkler shower at the same time as a happy bath. Wow, I barely know where to start. I'm kind of still blown away right at this second. Let me start pleasant. I feel better. Not hundred percent well, but considerably better than yesterday, and the day before. Plus the health dept doctor just called to check up on Jim and I. Everyone is fine, even if Jim is a little stir crazy from not being able to drive out. Our gardener worked today. I stayed far away and waved through the window, and Jim tried to keep the six feet. We called and explained the quarantine situation, but he still came. He still wanted the work, even while he was joking about making iguana soup. The workers in this part of the world are feeling the border shut down and lack of tourists acutely, so we're still having the folks that work for us keep doing their jobs just so they'll have some money. It's all good, at least right up until I started fielding phone calls fr...

Those are the Health Dept workers setting up and suiting up to test me this morning under our garage, bumping up against our old CRV. I've been largely in my bedroom today, cowering under the air conditioning and reading the funniest book titled "Disgraceland" about all the bad behavior in rock and roll. If you have to be stuck inside reading having something to laugh at helps. The Health Dept came out in the morning, issued me an official quarantine order, tested me. They didn't test Jim but he did get more questions about his health than I did about mine. Likely because they already had the report from my doctor. They are monitoring him. If I am positive I have a feeling they'll come back and test him too. I still only have the one real constant symptom of COVID, utter exhaustion that feels different than the utter exhaustion of bad asthma. C'est la vie! I will know on Friday if I am positive, or just having a really bad time with the last gasps of d...

Sunset in late February from the rooftop of a bar here in Tama. How much things change in such a short time. Today was all sorts of weird. Around noon today, after lots of Combivent and a slide into more crazy symptoms, four bad days followed by two where I felt much better, followed by three getting sicker I finally went back to the doctors office. Which turned turned into an all afternoon thing, many tests, blood tests, a chest xray and assorted medical nonsense. The good news: My chest xray showed while I had some small amount of congestion are the very bottom at my lungs I did not have RSV or the start of pneumonia. All my silly doping on asthma drugs and doubling and tripling up on the Combivent has had a good effect, and apparently I'd likely be a lot sicker if I were not so crazy hyper vigilant over my asthma. I have learned that I must be, because no one else will be. The bad news: It ain't asthma. Tomorrow the Health Dept for this state in Costa Rica will be h...

This photo represents about how much sense today made, which was none at all. This is a real photo taken here in Costa Rica, the land where the weirdest things get done super slowly. I know we're all a little squirrely and on edge, but I realized this afternoon I had to clean off the Facebook. It was cull or explode. Still poorly. Asthma meds are basically amphetamines that aren't doing my nerves any good. I got up to friends fighting on Facebook and this evening have had to restrain myself from fighting. Why? The Clonies. I was ranting just the other day to my friend Jamie about the different types of Americans here. This is one of the subgroups. You would be genuinely surprised how many are super conservatives inhaling a steady diet of Fox News. It's depressing. The Clonies are a large bunch of women, some rich, some not, that are friends here, that I know pretty well from social events. They all look scarily alike due to lots of plastic surgery, yoga, hair dye...

  Still no freaking beach. Le sigh! I need a beach walk badly!   One thing is for sure. I cannot watch the popular Netflix show "Tiger King" about Joe Exotic. I tried. I did. I saw episode one and had to ditch. Why? I was absolutely furious! None of those people have any business with exotic animals, or in animal rescue. What I saw wast people exploiting wild animals for money, not caring for them properly, squashed into small cages and fed substandard diets! For many years, going back to my high school days, I've been involved in some fashion in animal rescue, rehab and the like. I am still involved in a place where wild animals who are injured are taken, nursed back to health and released. No place I have ever been involved in has been run like that! Or treated animals that poorly. I despair that most of America seems to be amused by animal neglect and mentally ill people. But super crazy people seems to be a theme in my life right now. One of our friends invi...

Now not only ate the daily number of COVID 19 cases here going down, I'm hearing some awesome stories of Tico justice. Apparently when those fleeing San Jose tried to sneakily take the afternoon ferry over to the Nicoya Peninsula they were stopped. By who? The locals near the ferry landing banded together and refused to let the people from San Jose off the ferry. Costa Rican authorities are enforcing the country’s strict vehicular restrictions during Semana Santa via air, land and sea. “In particular, authorities are making great efforts to stop the presence of people in tourist sites, as well as on the access roads to such places, especially beaches,” the Public Security Ministry (MSP) said in a press release. In Paquera, Puntarenas, residents apparently took matters into their own hands, reportedly preventing vehicles with tourists from disembarking the Gulf of Nicoya ferry.

Just found out that San Josers are trying to flood into Tama and that there are transitos turning them back at various check points like this one on the bridge named for friendship with Taiwan. Beautiful vantage point between the Nicoya peninsula and the main land. This afternoon the bridge turning folks around who are not locals or delivering something. Hearing there are manned checkpoints at Cruce Huacas, and the main road into Tama. People breaking the curfew trying to flood in for their annual beach vacation. I guess people don't want to accept that the Coronavirus is altering the landscape of life. Easter is more than a week away and it's already started. But I have to laugh at some of the funny messages scattered among locals angry rants against those trying to turn up here. A few below. Me too, sweetie, me too. Don't tempt me! I've already had a verbal run in with a social distancing ignorer. People on the local lists are afraid that these p...

A couple of monstrously bad asthma days to the point where I had to pull out the big guns, the nebulizer and leave the inhalers in the dust. It's helping. I always say that the inhaler is like a small firecracker, but the neb like a bazooka. They both use gun powder, but only one is lethal.  So much more relief even with the same drug. I used the last of my carefully hoarded Xopenex. I've been doing very little as a result. Until today when I realized I had to run the fifty yards to the pharmacy and and get a couple of boxes of Combivent for when the Xop runs out, which was this afternoon. This afternoon was also the last time until Sunday I could legally take the car out until they lift the vehicle restrictions. More adventures in people misunderstanding just what social distancing is. Interestingly enough the pharmacies, and the grocery stores here, have made attempts to comply with the social distancing orders. They have measured off six feet, put tape in six feet increm...