The Sea is a Salty One

    Yeah and it's hard to keep that in mind when dealing with others. We had a series of conversations today. I am still waiting for his realization and apology for his shiatty behavior yesterday. I pointed out over lunch that he'd shouted and squealed like an offended Wookie being deprived out of Wookie-Chow for 12 solid hours and he's lucky I didn't attempt to bounce something fatal off his skull. I was that offended. It just reminded me too much of various assholery drunk family members that turned every holiday into drama and indigestion. Today he's ranting it had to be someone messing with him, the CIA or something. I had to point out that the CIA has a lot more important things to mettle in internationally that getting players on his fantasy football team to throw the game. Starting to wonder if this is creeping senility or the first indication of Alzheimer's.

  Christmas at my Virginia home eight years ago. Yesterday was miserable, just miserable. What happened? Fantasy effing football. This morning I'm in quite the mood as I've been thinking and ranking the most awful Christmases of all time. Top five. Excluded from the list are those holidays where some  Cajun relative got piss ant drunk and told someone off or just acted tacky. That happened a lot, enough that it wasn't note worthy. Figured I needed to do something better than construct a voodoo doll of the husband and torment it. 5 - The Year Dad Nearly Burned Down The House I remember this year all too well because I was in my starving student phase. I'd left my first husband and his abuse behind and was living on ramen noodles in a crappy efficiency apartment (glorified room with a kitchen in a closet) working and going to university full time. The day had been awful before the fire. As per usual my kid step brother got over the top presents, that year was a tv and a n...

 Used to make this yearly and will be making it this year with a few changes. I cannot get fresh or frozen cranberries so I'm going with Granny Smith apples and blueberries. No almond paste or proper sour cream, but I do have the Costa Rican version of quasi cream cheese that's not quite cream cheese I'm going to use instead. You want a sweet dense flavor with tart sort of fruits to offset the rich sweetness. I'll let you know how it goes. You need: 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries 1/4 cup Amaretto liqueur or you can substitute water for a non-alcoholic option 1/2/ cup dried cranberries 3 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp salt 11/4 tsp baking powder 2/3 tsp baking soda 4 ounces almond paste (at room temperature) 1/2 tsp almond extract 2 1/2 cups sugar 1 cup plus 2 tbsp butter 6 eggs 1 cup sour cream   For the glaze you will need 2 tablespoons Amaretto and 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar stirred together and poured over the cooled cake. Two hours before baking: in a small sa...

  View from our hotel when we went to see my neurologist Dr Freddie in San Jose. I love this photo because you can see very old buildings reminiscent of New Orleans mixed with more modern ones. The mixed clouds and volcanic fumes hug the smoking mountain tops surrounding the city. I was going to talk about something utterly different. My realization that I carry this crazy "Do not inconvenience anyone for any reason ever!" that I learned from my mother and how it's caused a lot of silly fretting and anger through the years. Just dawned on me that this thing was in me.  But this afternoon someone sent me a link to a hotel for sale near Playa Avellanas. I am not sure if anyone but me remembers but pre-Covid a set of our newer friends wanted us to invest in this very hotel.  I wrote this on March 14th, 2019 and quickly removed it from my blog because I thought better of it: " Yesterday morning Bob and Carol showed up at our house. We tried to very gently tell them that...

Here, have some chocolate pods. You're gonna need 'em. Just got back from the doctor's office. Blazing crazy painful uti. Again. Le sigh. I need to put down the coffee cup and drink more water. What is funny about it is the conversations in the car Jim and I have on our way to different places, like talking about the woman in the bank the other day that kept angrily glaring at me and started throwing anti evil eye hand signals at me. I'm still not sure what her problem is, but I am sure there's a fancy psychiatric name for it. It was so creepy, and no I'm not involved in the demonic. Just the Magic 8 Ball! Used ironically on my YouTube channel once in a great while. But the funniest is when Radio Dos places some ancient song and I cough up a memory I'd long forgotten. Like hearing "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" by Elvin Bishop. Every time I hear that I flashback to the moment I decided to leave my ex. He liked to drink, and he wasn't a fun dr...

A hummingbird that used to visit and sit quietly when you talked to it. Trying to also get a photo of the parrolet that is digging out a nest hole in our strangler fig tree. Fascinating in that if I stare directly at it from the pool it gives the warning/fright cry and darts off. But if I sneakily glance over briefly he's not much bothered.  Well, I will admit one thing, Jim going daily to the clinic for iv infusions has landed us among some rather strange characters. Just the other day we were sitting in the back waiting for the iv to finish up when they brought a lady through to the " Sala de Emergencia " or the emergency room at the clinic. She was an odd bird. It's a small clinic, a couple of exam rooms, a lab, an area with a few beds so you can get ivs or rest, an ER room and a procedures room. There's no notion of privacy much either there. Very modern and clean, nice than many U.S. hospitals, but zero privacy. In tromps that patient, and we could not avoid ...

  A sunset from the hospital room during Jim's rupturing gall bladder adventure. He is sick, way sicker than I have ever seen him. But the time together has been peaceful and nice. This is the second day since we got home and I've started working on my mountain of laundry generated by having guests. We also nap a lot. Napping is good. The cats are pathetically grateful to see us. Yesterday, today and tomorrow Jim had to be transported to our clinic for iv antibiotics and a check up. There will be more blood tests and checks to see where he is in a few days and to see if he needs more meds. So far I, and Jim, have managed to keep visitors at bay. He really shouldn't be exposed to possible germs or Covid or RSV/Flu. He's not ready. Our friend from the other night has gone angrily radio silent after I told her no, that Jim said no, and she said a bunch of not so nice demeaning things. Whatever. I am that crazed Momma Bear for the folks I love when they are sick. Today'...

 No pretty picture. We've been away since Saturday. After dropping our family members off at the airport we had to drive down to nearly San Jose to get Jim's gall bladder removed. Not going into too much detail. Suffice to say it was literally something of a sh!tshow. The bladder was very infected and starting to rupture. Once they opened Jim up it was pus everywhere and infected tissue. A 45 minute surgery morphed into 3 hours. So we've had to stay two additional days due to the overwhelming infection. I'm exhausted from being the only driver as it's a five hour ride before you add in medication breaks, breaks so Jim can pee and breaks where he had to walk about. First of all. I seized Jim's cell phone shortly before the surgery because he was getting so many calls it was stressful on him and he was just so sick. Including but not limited to Velma demanding to know why we switched from the hospital that did her hip surgery to one in San Jose. I told her succinc...

  Took a ton of sunset photos last night from San Raphael Hospital yesterday but haven't started to edit them yet. All in these colors of my Brasalito photos. Crazy week. Family visiting from the States. Jim had a gall bladder attack and we're trying to work out where exactly the best place for the surgery is. San Raphael is closer, but I'm still trying to collect for my ER bill and the four days I was inpatient with the 104 fever back in March. Insurance keeps rejecting the bills each and every time.  Hospital Metropolitano takes our insurance 100%, but is a five hour ride. I had to explain to Jim I am so not taking the damn bus. In the middle of this drama trots one of our visitors to tell us how he views our marriage. I cried I was so crushed by his ideas. No one looking at your marriage from the outside can possibly determine everything going on inside. It's just not possible. Plus he's angry and bitter about being alone at thirty something, which colors his vie...

  It's backyard banana season again! These are my neighbors bananas. We relocated our banana trees out front with our cacti, not quite big enough to bloom and produce bananas but close. They weren't doing much back in the shade. I had some interesting experiences this week. My fancy newish coffee pot has started doing something terrible, well, terrible for the white marble countertops. It sometimes spews coffee and grinds everywhere instead of down into the pot. I ended up going online to see if I could solve this problem. Manufacturers website blamed the problem on a dirty coffee maker, too fine a grind of coffee, or, get this, brewing a full pot. Brewing a full pot?!? I always brew a full pot. I do that, let it cool and pour it into my cold coffee pitcher for iced lattes in the morning.  Consulted Consumer Reports which said some coffee makers were more prone to that than others and offered some tips to avoid it. I ended up with various tools to effing remove that useless li...

  Beach walking on a cloudy day. Last week I made a discovery of something I'd never laid eyes on before. Or maybe I'd seen them and it didn't mentally register. This time I stopped and picked it up. That's a sea bean in my chubby little hand. What's a sea bean? A seed from a tropical plant that gets carried on the ocean currents before landing into the flotsam of beaches at high tide. I picked it up without knowing what it is. Now I've fallen down a sea bean shaped hole and have been back and forth several times to Grande looking for them. Few and far between. Once it's finished with the freezing that kills any potential bugs the old dremel is drilling a hole and we're stringing it up for a necklace. My new crazy searching fetish means I've been beach walking twice as far even as I'm having some post Covid fatigue. At the same time my legs look like I caught them up in barbed wire or something because I'm ringed with scabs. I'm having cr...

  The sign mere feet from the expensive exclusive beach club in Langosta. I laugh every time I see people swimming in the lagoon and ignoring the sign. Proceed at your own risk, which seems to be a theme here. Monday I finally got released from daily heart/lung examinations because of the Covid. I'd made enough process to end them. What hasn't ended is we both are dealing with hard fatigue and muscle pains. Not exactly 'Long Covid' just one or two pesky virus hold overs. We were still quarantined through Thursday and we made the huge mistake of rushing out to do a Price Smart run and pick up the license plates on the new car. It took all this time, nearly three months, for the government here to issue. Tico time on extra slow speed involving a hack of the government database and them trying to upgrade mixed with the shuttering for some months of the inspection process called Ritive. The plates had come in a few days after we got our diagnosis and could go nowhere near t...

  What I am longing for. Well, yesterday was a fucking disaster. We arrived at the clinic at 8 am to have my vitals rechecked because of the mast cell. They said they wanted to listen to my lungs. I had no idea what I was about to walk into. Writing this listening to obscure bands, British Lions, Dead Boys, Daycare Swindlers, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Mambo Sons to name but a few. I feel a little punk rockish today. When I arrived I was hustled out back quickly. I figured. I'd gotten the quarantine notice from the CR Health Dept - the Salud - shortly after I tested positive. Ten days from first symptoms. Tomorrow is day eight from onset. So I'm almost there now. The troubles started when Miss Dee, the young doctor treating me, said she'd consulted with a critical care pulmo about my case. They were preparing to wrap me up, and transport me to the Covid hospital in San Jose because they believed with my illnesses that I would decompensate and need more monitoring and...

  Well, shit, we have Covid. Billy Joel gave Jim and I Covid. Had no idea he had it. We're also being tested to make sure we don't have Zika, Dengue or Chigungunya. After seeing the hot mess of scarred needle track marks my arms are after my time in the hospital the phlebotomist took three tubes of blood from a vein between two of my fingers. New place to get stuck. Honestly this just feels like a bad cold. I have cough syrup at least now and I've been told to keep pounding the asthma drugs. I have to trudge back and forth to the clinic daily to get my lungs listened to. But that Billy Joel is a Typhoid Mary, riding on the bus to San Jose yesterday spreading virally goodness.  

Next project! Doot doot mutherfarks I am celebrating. Billy Joel left today for Alajuela! Haven't been in the guesthouse yet to see if there is any damage, but I did ask him to bring me the towels he's been using. Ruined, pure white, now thick with brown sludge on all six. Two washings with hot water and bleach did very little. Yesterday I was griping about looking out and seeing the wet towels laying on the bare ground under the almond tree. No sunlight penetrates there. I don't know why he didn't do like I do when traveling, laying them over the patio furniture until they are dry. Safe from harm and random dirt. I would have just given him pool towels had I had any idea. It was kind of funny because the second I posted that I was pissed about the towels yesterday on Twitter I got to see someone griping that if I was rich the cost of those towels would not bother me. Sweetheart, I am comfortable, not rich. There is a difference. We have been spending like fiends lately...

  Does accidentally drinking a lizard that got into your coffee pot and cup count as booze? Didn't even make me hallucinate although I was grossed out to find it at the bottom of the cup! So Billy Joel is here, still here, even as he was supposed to leave this afternoon. Basically the way it's gone has been Billy Joel in the bed until 9 or 10 am before limping complaining of back aches or fatigue, works slowly for two to three hours, and then says he's leaving to go see a man about a dog, or money owed him, or who knows. Billy returns in the wee small hours saying he does not feel well, but smelling of liquor. Today he got up at literally 1 pm. I just told Jim, very calmly and rationally though I sort of feel like shouting, that Billy must go. He's still not done yet with the work we're paid him for, but in my eyes I do not care that he still owes work. It's been an interesting few days. Poor Jim is felled by "Man-fluenza" that startling illness involv...

 So things have gotten officially wild here. Wilder than this begging coatimundi On a non griping side there have been glorious naps  and bookreading. We're still getting adjusted to the new kitchen island. Smack dab in the middle of the kitchen, six feet by four feet with four feet walking distance all the way around. If you strip it and our kitchen cabinets out the room measures roughly 20 feet by 20 feet, worlds bigger than our small galley style kitchen in Virginia. I can't decide if I like the bigger kitchen or the smaller one, but the kitchen island feels right. Even Jim has embraced it once he realized he does not have to walk across the kitchen to put his bowl of cereal down before getting the milk. I figured he'd like it once it was in. Photos soon. On the other front we have Billy Joel here building more furniture. I'm getting a small table made that I can do a mosaic top on with my broken china and a custom sewing machine cabinet.  Billy Joel being here is bo...

  Sunset over Playa Junquillal in Guanacaste. Lots of clouds because I took this during rainy season. Yesterday was sort of another goat rodeo day. I got up, drank coffee and perused the internet per usual before doing the other thing I do twice or thrice a week, get into the pool for some swimming, water aerobics and a touch of water yoga. Usual stuff, right? Gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky, very unusual in this time of the year. October can be an endless parade of raining all the time. Happy to be swimming, swam for an extra long time. It didn't go haywire until I got out of the pool. I got out and discovered that the water was off. In Dry Season it is not uncommon to be without water for six hours or so while they fix the million and one leaks in the system. Costa Rica, construction, roads, houses are sometimes sort of slap-dashed together and these leaks happen. Usually the Asada (water company) sends us an email before they cut the water, unless an emergency has happened ...

 I am neither salt or light today. More cranky judge on LSD indeed. Jim wanted to go to the high end furnishing store near our house to check out their selection of kitchen islands. I tried futilely explaining that most folks have them built in at the same time they build their houses, and I doubted seriously this place carried them. But typically he had to see for himself. We get there, this enormous warehouse filled with twee trendy furniture and overpriced geegaws run by some Europeans we know. Immediately I was distracted by the hanging light fixtures because I want to replace the 3 recessed lights over the kitchen bar with the stools. They were pricey, but not too crazy. Very doable. Once we found our way deeper into it we saw that they had a high end kitchen cabinetry maker company on site. They did have a kitchen island on display, but trying to discover a price point was like trying to capture an eel coated in baby oil on a Slip n Slide. We never did get a price, we went ro...

  Jim on the estuary at sunset. Sun reflecting on the trees and the crocodiles and tree stumps hidden to trip you up if you don't know what you're doing. Like I rarely know what I am doing. I am seriously ashamed of myself today. We went to bingo last night at the surf and yacht club with the usual gang. It's the last time we'll all be together because two of the couples are returning to the States for good. One because they've experienced the dark side of the Pura Vida via a home invasion, another because they have apparently bought into some sort of sea cruise travel pyramid scheme that they think will earn them a zillion bucks back in the States. Before we even left I knew I was taking my chances. It was a high nerve pain day and I skipped the the extra dose of Lyrica I take on high nerve pain days so that I could be functional and converse without drooling in my food. But it is a risk, because pain equals a lower irritation threshold, and lawdy I crossed that th...

  Yeah, I did. Yesterday while doing a quick painting to use as a guide at an upcoming "Wine and Design" event I was going to be involve with. This one was interesting to do because you used one paint brush, squirted the paint right on the canvas and mixed as you painted. A big challenge. There's just one problem with it. For the first time ever I made myself sick by using acrylic paints. First time I've reacted to the commercially prepared acrylics. I've reacted to the oils, and oils are my preferred painting medium, but was asked to come up with a quick and easy acrylic project. I think my painting days might just be over. Other things I am over this morning. Relationships with close relatives that neither rsvped to the wedding, or attended. My own self for losing my temper many times. My dumb meat suit for being so defective. Selfish folks. Most television and movies. Many books.  Many YouTubers. Hulu for recognizing my VPN I've used for the last five years...

  Yeah, we did this again - the infamous 90 day border run to Nicaragua. I was on tenterhooks the entire time because I was a week past visa expiration date. They could have hit me with a small fine, or told me to stay out two weeks before I could return, but in the end my anxiety was for nothing. It was rather anti climatic, if not slightly more expensive - fees have gone up to a total of $56 dollars for two people. I had the sweetest Nica man helping me navigate the border in a pedicab. One of my closest friends in the States asked me if I felt that using a human powered transportation was demeaning to the guy peddling, the ultimate in white privilege. I had to point out while I could have made the walk I decided this was the best way to get a decent sum into the hands of the cab driver. Nicaraguans are in dire straights. Between the heavy handed dictator in power and some of the violence much of the tourist traffic has dried up. The middle class is gone, all the doctors, lawyers...

  Last few days, man, last few days. Quick updates - Velma and everyone else has been trying to borrow money from us. Not insignificant sums either. Velma is confused about her finances, unable to remember her online banking password. I think it's likely on Monday we're about to run her to her bank, have them log her in, get a print out and go from there trying to straight out her banking and figure out what her budget is. I swear, I'm pretty sure she has significant dementia. Super Christian Davey Jones of the moping, pouting and volunteering us to pay for Velma's surgery has told Jim he needs rides back to Liberia, but he wants me forbidden to ride with them. Jim said no. Sorry buddy, my name is also on the car, it's not happening. You are going to a place where there's always something on my shopping list I must have. He even offered Jim fifty bucks for the manly man solo ride instead of with the evil harpy that is I. Muuuhahaha.  Jim got a lecture on Titus 2...

  An early morning visitor one morning before we painted the concreto walls. I never knew chickens could fly because that's about ten feet straight up. This morning we were driving around. There's been shouting and tears, but no pot roasts flung, until we managed to come to an agreement on where the new bookcase was going, what to do about the flubbed up old bookcase and other critical decorating decisions. As I talked about today on my YouTube video when your husband retires and is around 24/7 and starts holding strong opinions about topics that were only yours before it can make for some tense moments. We're driving along to the store for light bulbs, sunlight gleaming off that eye gouging prideful blue-ness that is our new car when Jim said, "Say, is that not Derwood on the orange motorcycle?" Turned out to be Derwood. Have no idea how long he's been back or anything else. Derwood called him after total silence for the last four months and asked to " ...

  Horses this morning at one of the tourist places near Tamarindo awaiting riders. A very rainy day shortly after this was taken. We're getting the spin off split off from Hurricane Ian, or as they say here 'Tormenta Ian' This last week was a wash for me. I was unable to do much because the asthma kept coming and going and coming and going due to the gasses from the grumbling volcano. When I went into town to get more solution for my nebulizer it was in very short supply. I scored a mere two vials until today. Price Smart pharmacy to the rescue with full boxes of the solution! Jim's made a new buddy pal, a Tico with the legal name, I kid you not, 'Billy Joel' Rodrigues. I guess we know what music his momma listened to. He and his family are living in Velma's back room, taking care of her along with various volunteers. Billy is temporarily homeless. Jim's put him to work here at the house, putting molding up in the guesthouse bedroom and building furnitur...

  The trail leading down to Playa Grande, about a mile and a half from my beloved home here in Costa Rica. We go there often. So we went to see Velma once she came home. I had to pop my head in, wave and ditch. She's a chain smoker with a pile of dogs. It was hi and bye. But I had to laugh, she was laying on the sofa, half sitting up, half supine, smoking and watching Fox News while complaining about something. Velma's feeling better, she's going to make it! My husband Jim and I came to the same conclusion figuring she's right back to what she does so she's alright. Right now I'm planning a quick trip to South Louisiana. Several days ago my mother called with some convoluted story about my aunt needing my daughter's phone number because she was worried about my daughter and the terrible storm rolling through her area.  I gave my mother the number, and thought that is was a weird call. But because there is sometimes alcohol involved in my family of origin I d...

  The huge Catholic church in the oldest part of the city of Liberia, Costa Rica, mere steps from the hospital.  Today was better. Velma had her surgery and did well. Velma is obviously not her real name, it's the name I use for her here. I'm glad. Even better is that when Jim got to Liberia with the pastor of his church they managed to scrape up the rest of the money for the surgery. We didn't have to pay another dime. It looks likely after Jim's talks with the pastor that we'll end up eating that 5K amount we paid yesterday. I guess it is what it is, and I keep saying when you give money you cannot expect anything back, or how it will be used.  The pastor has already put in place a support group of volunteers for the next month once she gets home to care for her. I spoke to Jim about perhaps putting together a list at church for people willing to provide cooked meals for her and her helpers this month. We're talking also about taking over and running the food ...