The Sea is a Salty One

  Where the sleepy river meets the Pacific not far from Portero. Today involved getting that specialized insurance that the government of Costa Rica is requiring one to have to trek back into Costa Rica after our trip. Expensive, and a new part of the experience of travel. Thank you, Covid! The utter ridiculousness of it is that it has to provide you with lodging insurance, which we don't need since we own our home, and medical treatment insurance, again unnessisary because our health insurance covers us here 100%. Two hundred bucks down the drain. But that wasn't the thing that was the most off putting today. It was the happenings in the group of folks that dislike Without a Moral Compass. There's been crazy infighting, doxxing, and just all around very bad behavior. Splits, new alliances, rumors and idiocy.  I'm done. I'm done with them. I'm done with anything Without a Moral Compass related at all. I'm done even with the idea of giving any information to ...

 So high right now. High as a kite high. New pain meds, a big bump up in the amount of Lyrica I'm taking after a fruitful doctors visit with my favorite doctor here. Appointment with a neuro in San Jose. So much better than the first guy I saw. I know he's young and inexperienced. The main reason I stopped by is that the phones are out at the clinic and I needed to make an appointment to get my Covid test before flying back to the States. Spearing the old brain through the nostril with a super long q tip. Here's where it went nuts. The place was filled to the top with angry entitled Gringos screeching and shouting about needing that Covid test now now now!!!!! My poor doctor reminded me on the way out of the door to schedule my test because they were running out of slots. Told her I already had. They'd done something like 150 by the time I left the clinic at 1 pm. and she told me that the day had been nothing but angry Americans making demands. Part of me laughs, when I...

  Santa Cruz advertising the last bullfights before Covid in January 2020. Yesterday we got news I pretty well knew we'd get. We cannot extend our visas beyond the early March date, so we'll have to leave Costa Rica for somewhere else on this planet via an airplane. We'd been delaying until the last minute for a couple of reasons.  People here made all kinds of claims about filing for exemptions that turned out to be utter codswallop idiocy.  1 - C.R. is notorious for backtracking on their government edicts. They reversed themselves two hours before the drivers license expiration took affect in mid November. I've been watching them doing these silly things since I got here. As stable as a plate of jello sometimes. But they issued word yesterday that this was the law and there would be no exceptions if you weren't hospitalized. 2 - Covid, duhh, I have zero desire to travel during a pandemic and expose my old sick self to strangers cooties on a plane. Even if the airl...

  One of the statuary at Bernabela Ramos Parque in Santa Cruz, a nearby city I go to shop at. The center of the city is one of the most interesting shopping areas around. I usually park near this parque or down by the Plaza de los Mangoes when I do a shopping run there. This park is still closed due to the pandemic. I feel like the guy in the statue, in the grips of some strange beast today. I was initially going to rant that there's nothing wrong with someone deciding to read banned books, or how we don't support abusive Quiverfull enforcers just to piss off someone we dislike, but no, today is just all the way around bad for other reasons. Woke up this morning, started the roll over and slide off that is sleeping in our tall waterbed, and lost my balance. Fell. Balance worse again after two weeks of dealing with this. Fell rounding the bed and trying to navigate around my desk chair. Fell trying to get to the bathroom, ending up hugging the wall on the way back to the bedroom...

Our constant vista no matter the month here in Costa Rica.  Man, the last few days..  Not with us. Nope, the last few days I've been watching the weather related confloption unfold in Texas. Texas usually does not get cold weather. But what they are experiencing is pretty routine in the VaMdDC area and parts north. Shocking for them. Ten years ago the federal government told Texas in the aftermath of a similar storm that they had to step up their game, they needed to have a plan in place, with equipment and supplies, for these rare winter weather happenings. It's rare, but they do happen there. Thankfully this storm wasn't as bad as the one in 1933 in Texas.  In the last so many years the newly elected Teaparty politicians decided to strip away the few weather protections as a 'small government' move and a cost saving measure. Add in Texas isolationist poorly designed electrical grid that also didn't take possible weather conditions along with just general Texas...

  The time the baby possum fell in my washer back in the States. Good times~ One of a certain nasty female cultural enforcer of QF said something yesterday that lines up with my title. I just nodded and laughed and moved on. One of her nasty little supporters started spamming me snotty comments about my lack of mentioning Valentine's Day, so it must mean the husband and I aren't "romantic" or "loving" But see here's the thing: WE'VE BEEN MARRIED FOR AGES NOW! What that means mostly is we don't go insano for holidays. What did we do yesterday. Well, if you read my previous post you know I spent the day nodding off. Jim spent half the day at church. We usually only go out to dinner and maybe exchange cards if we're living in a place where Valentine's Day cards are available (They aren't here~) I got roses, per usual, but we could not go out to eat since the pandemic restrictions here prohibit us from using either of our cars. Only Jim...

  One of the spots on a backroad where one must drive down and drive through the water of the river to get where they are going. I feel like I'm roughing it and fording the rivers of life. The drug the doctor put me on three days ago is Lyrica. Added it to the laundry list of things I take for MCAS. Not loving it. Yesterday when I sat down, over and over again, I kept falling asleep. No book, crafting project or anything else helped, I kept nodding off like a heroin addict.  When I wasn't falling asleep I was dragging my old biscuits around feeling exhausted, like run over by the train exhausted. Got little to nothing done. So stoned stupid I forgot I had a load of clothes in the washer until they were stale smelling.  People like to feel like that? People pay to feel like this? I just don't get drug addiction. This is the same as the time I had carpel tunnel and the insurance company made me wait for the surgery and go through a couple of rounds of PT first. I was draggi...

  I wish my gingers, birds of paradise and orchids were still blooming like this. I need a bouquet right now, and not those florist hothouse flowers either. This has been quite the week for conversations. I have a grown child buying a house, so there are those nervous nail biting conversations happening waiting for contract approval and a million other things. Jim and I and others are continuing on our conversations about what church will look like in the future. Jim's attending a place filled with the agitators that brought about the crash of the church we were attending. I refuse. I had to deal with those assholes for over two years. I have boundaries. He apparently does not. Another adult child is building a home and working crazy hours so we've had short snatched conversations there. No conversations happening with my mother because she now has her phone unplugged for days on end. I hear from elderly aunts living near her that she's fine, just having sinus infections.  ...

 This week has been filled with going back and forth to a friends house with some of their furniture. So many people get here, stay a while, put down roots, hit that 2 year mark and decamp. Some little minor thing just pisses them off and they leave. Which is why I'm talking and writing about it now. Have you seen my YouTube videos about moving to Costa Rica yet? Sadly this is getting ever more common. The pandemic has pushed more expats out, and many marriages I know have not survived. I know people who've lost their damn minds during the pandemic, imploded their marriages and decamped. Even a few that have lost everything due to scary new habits like drug abuse, gambling and day trading. Actually, the day trading and the gambling seem to be the exact same thing here. I know someone that lost literally millions to the day trading, going back to work in his 60s. A fool and his money, or lack thereof. Yes, the casinos are still open during a pandemic. Times like these bring out ...

  The fruit and vegetable market. This is going to be brief. Sunday evening I was eating popcorn and watching tv when my mouth started to itch. Assumed it was a food allergy reaction, washed the mouth, popped meds and stopped the popcorn. Then half my mouth went numb, the left half, my left arm went numb followed by my left leg, torso and head. Then it faded away. Got up Monday morning and it was back getting progressively worse until you could have taken a marker and drawn a line down my front between the left and right sides. Everything left has that weird fuzzy just waking up from Novocaine feeling. No balance, of course, because my left foot can barely feel the floor. It's gotten worse. I finally went to the clinic this morning after a sleepless painful buzzing night. I thought perhaps one of the thin discs in my neck had ruptured or herniated. One very long visit to the clinic along with a huge plethora of tests. Here's what they are sure of - it's not a stroke, it...

  This week has been Jim in conversation with the pastor. I stayed out of it because I am done with churches and organized religion. It always turns crazy toxic. Faith is a great thing, however a lot of religious people just simply suck at being decent human beings.  I've been watching, a Googling, and perusing news sources on line trying to hear anything about the murder of Todd Ferguson to know avail. Except for the Facebook group and his YouTube channel it was like he never existed. I'm not entirely surprised because I've been told by friends in Columbus, Ohio, that the police dept there is largely incompetent. The silence, the utter silence, is quite strange. I suspect this is the first time a YouTube creator has been executed because of the content they published. What I know about what happened to Todd is that he was beaten to death in an alley. I suppose it could be crackheads trying to rob him for a fix, or even a pissed off family member. Beating someone to death i...

 Today we went off for the day to Las Catalinas. I splurged on a new bracelet that spells out how I am feeling many days. Salty, and I'm not talking about because I swam in the ocean or played in the waves. Took hundreds of photos I'll be slowly posting here. We love taking a day to go to Las Catalinas, to eat at the restaurants, swing on the giant swing, swim in the calm waters of the cove at Playa Danta. We have wonderful Tico friends working there too. While I was there, slurping down fresh mango gelato and a cappuccino in a rocking chair overlooking the ocean I got some news that was a big blow. One of my favorite YouTube creators, whom I've spoken to before because there was some overlap between No Longer Quivering and his content, was murdered. He was beaten to death. Likely by the neanderthal idiots that make up the pissing pastor's squad.  I'm not mentioning any of the names involved because there has been no official announcement of his death. I found out t...

    Boats waiting for gringos with pockets filled with cash to go out for the day. It runs about 80 bucks per person to go out on one of the huge sailboats for the day. A lot of fun, open bar, a great lunch, swimming with dolphins in crystalline waters 200 feet deep where you can see the bottom. Just not for me without a stomach filled with motion sickness meds. Even after being raised with going out almost every weekend as a kid on my father's 40 foot sailboat I still get seasick. Landlubber. Today was just not good. I must be on the verge of another bad bout of mcas asthma. When my moods tank it's the best indication it's on it's nasty way. I woke up with a headache, and feeling out of sorts. Even as I'd done a happy fun late video last night where I said I was done having anything to say about Without a Moral Compass for about five seconds before starting to ramble about how wonderful and crazy living here in Costa Rica is.  Struggled to wake up. Jim kept proddin...

  Interior of the Catholic church in Santa Cruz. It's been quite the few days here. I'm done with church. I'm never going back to organized religion ever again, maybe the Catholic church once in a great while. After leaving Quiverfull my faith has never really fully returned, but being here I've gone along to church because Jim wants me to. My own spirituality is very different than it once was, and I realize it would likely horrify the prissy Baptists I was attending church with. I have no desire to explain it, or push it on anyone else. Nor do I want to hear the codswallop most are pushing. Not so done with the Catholic church, even in Spanish I find the rituals and words comforting. I was raised Catholic. It's like going home again to when I was a child. Remember I said nearly a month ago that the pastor of our church was pressured to leave? things at the church have gotten decidedly weirder. Jim is very upset because of some of the actions. He's in the same ...

  Yes, this is a photo I took early on Sunday morning of one of the howler monkeys stopping for a few minutes on the wall to peer into my sewing room at one of our strayers we've adopted, Scabby. Scabby napped on the bed in front of the window and the monkey watched him for a few. First time any monkey has bothered to peer into the house. This was shortly before the House of Millionaire Assholes also known as church. On late Sunday night we had our dear friend over for ice cream, cake and hottubbing for her 60th birthday. We had a lovely time, right up until I looked down because my feet felt weird and discovered I was crawling with ants all over my feet. Dry season and the papagayo winds seem to bring them. It kicked off this latest dysfunctional two step goat rodeo for me. I got the ants off and my feet started to swell. I couldn't get my flipflops on.they were so swollen up so much! Scrubbing, ointments, benadryls. Per usual my stupid body decided to completely overreact. My...