The Sea is a Salty One

  New Year's Eve surfing at Playa Avellanas. A beautiful sunset. We have the prettiest sunsets in dry season. So we knew today was going to be insane. The traffic experienced a significant uptick starting late Friday. The government of Costa Rica pretty much shuts down the week of Easter (Semana Santa), and everyone decamps for the beach, turning our narrow one road in and out of Tama into gridlock. No parking, no nothing.  We had things we could not put off, I needed crayons, which were hard to find here, only at the bookstore. So Jim dropped me at the bookstore and went to the bank. I walked around town to get my necessities, I'm trying to put together a batiked altar cloth for church, and cannot get the encaustic wax I need for that, so I'm improvising, making my own with pigments, wax and melted crayons. We dealt with the crazy crowds, got what we needed and hightailed it down one of the dirt backroads. The rivers have dried up to the point where all the roads, even whe...

 The last few days Kirby Smith Hall at LSU has been a topic of discussion at our house as we ran to Price Smart and other mundane errands. Yep, Kirby Smith Hall. I never lived there but my husband did the fall of 1969 before he pledged with a fraternity and moved into the frat house. Kirby Smith was always an eye sore, even if it was only four years old when Jim moved it. It represented everything wrong with modern Soviet style architecture on a campus of ivy covered classic brick buildings and graceful Live Oaks. Jim has told me many a stupid tale of things breaking in the building all the way back into the Mesozoic era he lived there. Reading through the history of the place it looks like it turned into something of a very expensive white elephant.They use it as a dorm, then it would be condemned, suddenly they were in a housing crunch so badly they'd retrofit the place for something like 17 million and use it a few more years. It has spent as many years empty and ready for the w...

  The local food bank. We were out yesterday dropping off four bushels of ripe mangoes along with bitter oranges and star fruit. Our orchard runneth over! This is also where our stimulus checks went, where we give regularly too. They feed a lot of folks in the area. Thinking about charging non family members using our guesthouse a token fifty bucks for the week and donating that too to the food bank. So what does the food bank have to do with idiots flapping their gums and getting it all wrong about life in Costa Rica? Plenty. We stopped at a favorite restaurant at a local corner that is all food trucks. The place took a hit during the Covid lockdown, but the years we've been here there have always been taco stands, smoothie places and vegany type food trailers there, except for during the six week Covid lockdown.  Our favorite place had gone from their old dirty location in the middle of town into the food truck corner. It was around 3 pm, too late for lunch, too early for di...

 This was written by a friend of mine. I share this just for educational purposes, not to claim copyright. "I got my Costa Rican license today. This. Was. Funny! Step 1- First, you get online on Thursday mornings at exactly 8:00AM, to get your appointment. Step 2- You repeat step 1 for many weeks in a row until you get an appointment. Step 3- You send off your foreign license to be translated. They write you back with pick up instructions that are straight out of a spy movie—- drive to this gas station an hour and a half from home. Find the auto parts counter in the gas station. Walk to the back of the store. Give the woman $20 in American dollars. She will give you an envelope. So awesome! Step 4- Go to the clinic. Pick up a health voucher. This costs 5000 Colones or about $9. Step 5- Drive to the DOMT. When you arrive, park in the parking lot. A guard will meet you. Park where he tells you. Step 6- The guard will then instruct you to walk back out of the parking lot and around t...

  A nearby peaceful cove past Las Ventanas My pain has stepped up a few more notches and they're stepping up the Lyrica, first another 75 to see if more helps. Not in time for Saturday night. I slept poorly, got up late, not wanting to go to church. I did go. I said I would, and I sang. It didn't go well. Three of the four songs were new to me and very new to the congregation. This is literally the first time I've taken the stage in a full year because of Covid with no rehearsal other than a quick run through of the three songs I didn't know. I held back and only sung on the choruses. I said nothing, but the best practices on worship team is that you introduce one, sometimes two new songs in a month. Introduce them as new songs, make sure the team has rehearsed them for a full month. None of this thrown together nonsense. This was a perfect illustration with everything going wrong with the church after the pastor bailed.  When I'd gotten up on Sunday morning I'd...

Pain related insomnia sucks. I've tossed and turned the last few hours. I know part of it is the on going mess at church. I think this is the end. It was supposed to be the end a few weeks ago, but I had a good friend talk me into staying. Seducing me with talk about remaking the church the way we all want it. Things have changed, but I am getting the distinct vibe that it's time to burn the ships and leave.  Last Sunday was tough because I'd told the worship team leader I'd start singing again as the Mississippi Millionaire who can only sing on key when standing next to someone singing on key was leaving. Showed up, but could not rehearse because I could not see the tiny print on the printouts. It stymied me. It didn't help that when we got to the one hymn, one I've heard this other lady bobble too many times when the leader said she'd really wanted to sing it with Miss Mississippi one last time. I stared at her like she has lice in her hair, slightly hor...

  I feel like these guys from "Office Space" do right now. The last 24 hours has been sort of frustrating, but I have no evil printer to go out and kick. Tried some comedy writing last night and one project helped. A poll on YouTube listing all the possible "evidence" that Todd Paulson holds against Tati and James Westbrook. The giggle helped. Today shows signs of being no better. I need to get out and get in the pool, but the water pressure is nil right now, just like it frequently is towards the end of dry season. The Asada cuts water availability some days between 9 am and 4 pm to conserve what's left. I need to shower immediately after swimming lest my asthmatic dermatitis rears its ugly itchy head. This is a non negotiable for me. Jim's on the phone with ICE already today, not understanding this will just close out our repair ticket and open another one, delaying the repair even more. I've already hissed at him about this. Yesterday started well, wi...

  Late afternoon at Las Catalinas on Playa Danta last month. Life since we're returned has been the utterly mundane, just like I like it. Even the back and forth with ICE over the problems with our internet. It looks likely I cannot get decent upload speeds that seriously limits making YouTube videos. Today was hit Mega Super for the 4 for 3 specials and go talk to ICE about the upload speed being almost zero. Chase around the dentist because Jim is infected after having two teeth removed. I've been reading CNN anchor Don Lemon's new book released yesterday. I entirely read it yesterday as Jim is sick with an infection from having those teeth pulled, and I'm fighting another stupid sinus infections. Lots of laying around happened. The book is called "This is the Fire" and it's about racism in the United States. Interesting book, at least to me. I'm six years older than Don Lemon and grew up near where he did. Except I lived in Buffwood. I'm not su...

  Here, look at this photo of the sunset over Lake Arenal instead of my whining below. I'm about to whine about my heath so if you're not down for that you might want to ditch here. I am struggling right now. They upped the Lyrica to full treatment dose and I am super duper stoned all of the time now. Which does not help with the balance issues. I fall down a lot now. Two nights ago the pain and pins and needles feelings ramped up to a new high. Yes, it got about another half again worse for no reason. Thank god for Lyrica because I would be stuck in a painful hellscape with no sleep if I wasn't taking it. Now I'm just stuck in a painful hellscape while crazy stoned. Which is sort of tolerable. Having good days and bad days. On a good day I was able to dust, scrub and mop the entire house. Bad days it's a miracle if I get the clothing on the line and folded when dry. However I am happy, pain or hurting or not. I am home in the warm blue skies. I'm in the pool. I...

  Yes, yes that is gumbo and jambalaya base for sale in Walmart. Seriously, if you cannot whip up a roux and go on to make either dish from scratch you got no business cooking and need to use Zatarain's Jambalaya mix or get your gumbo pre made at the Piccadilly. Oh dear gawd it looks like McCormick's has bought out Zatarains! But it's a perfect analogy of the week we just spend in our old town. My family is from New Orleans and Jim lived there for some years before we met. But how things have changed, and not all for the better, just like the sacrilegious idea of buying canned gumbo base. I've already mentioned how weird the hotel is. At first I put it off to the fact that it hasn't been long open during the pandemic. Later I learned the entire chain has been sold to another lesser nice chain. Why? Likely Covid. The nicer luxury chain is owned by a company that also does these huge honking timeshares, got squeezed for cash the minute the pandemic hit and had to sel...

  Since yesterday is such a dirty tale I thought I'd post clean, the downstairs bathroom at my Virginia house. Thursday was run around with my eldest daughter and knock out buying everything on my list. When a box of 30 benadryls are 8 bucks a box in Costa Rica you tend to buy an enormous Walmart bottle of 365 for 4 bucks. Toss it into your suitcase for home in C.R. and you are golden. I left my sweater, my lone sweater here, behind in my daughter's car so yesterday started with me getting a sweater off the markdown rack and a couple of long sleeved tees. I was excited that the sweater was a waffle weave material. I'm pleased by the dumbest things, I know. Afterward we walked around the French Quarter, a dirty place that's usually busy. Not so much yesterday. We stopped into an adult video store for giggles, neither of us having any clue anyone still bought magazines and video. They do apparently. I guess they don't know about Porn Hub. We're not consumers of po...

  I don't know if this is something everyone will find universally funny, but, seriously canned roux? It's just grease and flour! And Rouse's is a Louisiana brand grocery store whose idiot owner was part of that dum-dum mob on the grounds of the U.S. Capital back on January 6th. We made it to New Orleans. The trip went too smoothly. No one forgot anything, my wheelchair was waiting at the first ticket counter right to the last cab stand once we landed. I was whisked through customs and immigration on both sides of the border, even if we had a sticky moment in Atlanta when TSA tried to make me stand in the scanner without a cane, and I started wobbling so much they just waved me on through without the scan. The only fly in the ointment was the hotel. While I was rejoicing finding it so cheap, less than half the usual price I noticed when I checked in a lot of deferred maintenance during the months they were shuttered. Many of the special things about this place are shut down...

  Sunset over Pan de Sucre Playa a few weeks ago. Perhaps it should be a bloody corpse instead. I have had my hands full today. Printing our airline tickets and Covid test results, laundry, packing, making a list of instructions for the house sitter on feeding the cats. Around 1 pm today I discovered that the government of Costa Rica has said we don't need to leave, right on the day they were kicking us all out. I had some choice curse words to howl until I read that to stay you'd have to do some of the many steps we did to fly out, Covid tests, Covid insurance, along with file a form and pay a fee to a certain agency in order to stay until my birthday June 2nd. We'd still going, but this is so typical for Costa Rica! They tend to do this, issue harsh deadlines during Covid, then turn around and undo it. Sorry, guys, we were just joking! I delayed my ticket purchase until Friday, mere days before the flight because I figured they would do this, just like they have with ever...

  A recent resting place at the beach, me, cane and cheap rubber sandals. Bliss. Sadly the last few days haven't been blissful. I still cannot reach my mother. We spent the morning getting our Covid tests, that unique brain tickling with a cotton swab. This evening as we watched our friend sing at Walter's Fish and Cheeses in Langosta Beach we had a fender bender in the parking lot. Our car got the worst of it. It's dark, there's crazy road construction and Jim backed into someone's car. Knocked off a protruding turn signal. They were demanding two hundred in cash, in American dollars only, but settled for 30 colones, roughly 60 bucks. I don't doubt it is enough to cover the cracked turn signal, but they're making noises that it's going to cost more. This is why I don't like going out after dark here. The streetlights situation are mostly nonexistent in Costa Rica. Here in Tama everyone's crazy driving goes up a few more crazy notches when you ad...