The Sea is a Salty One

  I laughed when I saw this. The last time we grabbed coffee and fried eggs on English Muffin sandwiches at The Players Club at the Liberia Airport it was over 25 dollars for something that would have run four bucks at McDonalds. Picked up Jim from the Liberia Airport on Tuesday and it was a almost literal zoo.  I arrived like I always do to fetch someone, walked into the terminal and took a seat where I could view the arrivees. Like always. I hadn't been there more than five minutes when a security guard told me I must move outside. I tried to plead disability, arguing I needed to stay seated on the disabled seat until he arrived. No dice, she said that the Covid regs would not let me stay there, even if I was dying. So it was out into the brutal sunshine and hot air outside the arrivals door. With ten thousand shouting Tico drivers holding signs with the names of various tourists. After an hour I started getting most logy. And sweaty, very very sweaty. I noticed there was a ...

  The hummingbird that visits every morn. I finally got a photo of him two days ago. Today I was back at the doctor's office, down to the clinic, where I got to see Baby Doctor. He's so young and so cute, the kid brother of my once and future neurologist who treated me for my stroke, and who's about to see me for my balance confloptions. Baby Doctor is so so nice too.  I had to stop by because while my asthma finally backed off I've been having one heck of a sinus infection in the aftermath that is refusing to respond to garlic pills, my usual treatment. My right eye that swelled shut the other day, and did the same thing in the poodle aftermath looks like I went a couple of rounds in the boxing ring, swollen, red and painful. Nose infected. Damn, I'm fallen apart. Infected upper respiratory stuff in the wake of the bouts of asthma. This happens if the attack is severe enough, and gets provoked again, sinus infection, infection in the eyes and nose. Nose I have the ...

  Rainy season in our front yard looking towards the guesthouse. Life has been kind of fubar lately. I'm not mad or sad about that, it is what it is. I almost wonder if this is really all Mercury Retrograde to blame. Makes the idiotic fighting and splits in the Anti KJ community look like what they are, petty and inconsequential.  Fuck that. I care not. Example of life. A few nights ago I went to cook up the few leftovers for dinner, pasta and meatballs, some broccoli salad and other things. Went to warm it up and the old big microwave in the kitchen is toast. It stopped working and started flashing an error code. Looking up the code it looks like something major and expensive went haywire. I'm just going to replace with our old one from the guesthouse. So here I am, heating up dinner on the stove top. Found out my fancy Black & Decker toaster is also fried. No matter what types of surge protectors you use here the flickering electrical grid kills appliances. Moved the toa...

  Wow that is some short hair on me! Right before moving here four years ago. I still laugh over the fact that the souvenir stands sell these crazy painted dildos. One thing was brought to my attention this week that was just disgustingly breath-taking. I discovered that the last pastor's wife told all the ladies of the church they should avoid me because of my column at Patheos. So now I know why I kept getting the cold shoulder from everyone but a handful of people here. Such completely fake ass people.

  Taken yesterday sitting in a pedicab at the first checkpoint into Nicaragua at the aptly named Penas Blancas. We've been trying all week to make our 90 days border run to renew our visas. We've done this particular goat rodeo before. Just not since Covid. If only all our residency paperwork was in and accepted as 'in progress' by the government instead of kicked out of the system and forced to start over with all new copies of every nit picky document. We were just in progress when Covid hit. The government threw out the applications of everyone applying when the pandemic hit, which means start anew for us. Usually we go during the week, trying to go in the morning so we could escape to the plethora of restaurants in Liberia that do not exist in the Tamarindo area. Usually you walk up, pay your exit tax of $8 or $9 dollars (depending on the exchange rate that day), walk into the CR immigration building to turn in your exit tax papers and they stamp your passport with ...

  Playa Grande this morning. With asthma while it's helpful to live within 7 miles of the beach,  actually going to the beach with the fresh salty air seems to help. I didn't walk as much as usual, but I did enjoy the ocean breezes. The waves were insane with lots of rip tides visible. Last night my asthma started trying to morph into lung crud. Better today. When we first moved to Costa Rica almost exactly four years ago we were getting near the end of our four months there when we met someone on the bus to San Marcos. A retired lady with a name straight off of "Game of Thrones" and a haughty attitude. Another American, retired there from teaching creative writing at the university level. I could tell that Jim was pissing her off on this short ride. She wasn't doing herself any favors with me either. Why? Because she spent the entire 45 minutes bragging about being a great writer with a zillion books. I went back to our plastic paneled room and looked her up by h...

  Yeah, I'm there again. Still asthmatic, but now it's settling in my lungs in such a way as I feel like I'm developing bronchitis or worse. High fever, sweating, coughing and honking way too much. Tomorrow to the doctor I go~ Pretty sure I don't look as nice and nicely put together as Chappelle's Crack Guy. Jim is getting the full court press official evangelical Love Bombing at the church. He attended the same one we've been going to for years just so he could fully restock the tee shirts and make sure it's all organized. Miss Bossy claim twittering on up stroking his male ego about how 'needed' he is. Kristin came out and did the exact same thing! Now our email box is filled with paeans to Jim's helpful tee shirt selling and doing other things. I can see what they are up to, and I don't much like it. But I know even if they tempt Jim into staying a few more weeks it's just going to be more of the same, and he'll figure it out. Righ...

  The rolling, roiling, goat rodeo, one legged man at an ass kicking contest that is church. This is going to be long, and explains why I've been mostly gone. It's been quite the horrible week. My snark-o-meter has been turned to 11. You've been warned. It's also going to be a long one, this tale has sprung boarded me into a huge discovery about someone too. First read this , followed by this . Yes, the Big Fuzzy Emotional Rescue Poodle happened. I have had several not so friendly conversations with that board member that keeps chasing me outside and insisting I sit just beyond the doors to watch when I am in desperate need of injectable benadryl and a boatload of Combivent and other drugs at home, asap. She told me immediately after the second happening that the board had decided I was to keep sitting at the tee shirt table with Jim, and they'd put Emotional Comfort Poodle on the balcony next to the other side of the room, and his owner would sit inside the buildin...