The Sea is a Salty One

  So we talked to the pastor being deported back out of Costa Rica for vaccine snafus. I'm going to call him Skip, not his name but he looks like a Skip to me. Remember when I was bitching and moaning much earlier in the pandemic that Costa Rica kept trying to order millions of doses of the vaccines from the U.S. and parts of Europe? So were many Central and South American nations, who got tired of tiny batches arriving. Order 3 million, receive 10 thousand was the game. Russia jumped in to supply vaccines to some of these other countries, who did vaccinate their folks using the Russian supplies. But here's the problem, many of those Russian and some of the Asian vaccines are not accepted by Costa Rica's health dept as valid. Certainly not the Sputnik V one that Skip got in Nicaragua. There are fully posted lists of accepted and unaccepted based primarily on if the vaccine manufacturer filed for emergency use with the World Health Organization.  The info was out there, and ...

  Playa Tamarindo at low tide. I'm at low tide too.   Exhausterated is another made up word from a kid. But it fits how I feel. A state beyond exhausted in the aftermath of four days in the hospital. Today was slightly better, right up until Jim informed me of his plans to spent part of the summer in Michigan and parts west with his best friend from middle school on. His pal has had something of a very rough time and a nasty divorce. I can see that Jim feels obligated to visit. I will survive, and likely thrive not having to do it all. One of the things that was painfully obvious anew is that Jim is a messy Marvin, his own personal circle of chaos. That tiny hospital room and Jim is unpacking the suitcase, chucking shit left and right until I started to snap at him to organize it. This month here alone might be blissfully without mess or chaos. I welcome that, especially right now. We had to drive back up to Liberia tonight, did a quick run through PriceSmart for crackers, hum...

  Paris 1981 I keep dreaming of Paris. Not the Paris of the 2000s, or of the late eighties when I lived in Europe and visited. No, I always dream of Paris in 1981 in black and white, my first glimpses of the city. I'm always walking in the dream, looking for a public restroom unsuccessfully. I wake up, realize anew I'm in my house in Costa Rica and I have to pee. I cannot figure out for the life of me why I never go to the places I know in Paris, to the USO offices, or to the American Express office, to the multitude hotels and restaurants, any number of places I know have public restrooms. Why Paris? Why only the Paris of 1981? Since I last updated I have had a visit to the land of very painful existence, the hospital. One of the hospitals in Liberia. The entire experience was horrific. Apparently I've now entered that bizarre age when it's possible to have a urinary tract infection and have no more symptoms than a fever. Nearly three weeks ago, back when I was having ...

  View of the house from the guesthouse I took when we moved in nearly four years ago. The thing you're seeing here is the master suite bulging out of the house like the nice large add on it is. The house behind it is hidden in the shot. It's a total of around 3,000 square feet with a huge kitchen and laundry room. I'd forgotten that the concrete wall was unpainted when we moved in, and that the house was painted a dull color with scant landscaping beyond a couple of fruit trees and palms in front of the house. It was a house in flux because we upgraded a lot in the last four years. It's a home in flux again because the crew of workers under Jim's friend Carlos has been here off and on for three weeks. Last year they put in a concrete sidewalk to the guesthouse and surrounding the guesthouse. The year before they put in the French drains and the year before that they put in our garage, pool deck and hot tub. Good things come to all who wait. Right now it's a com...

Our gate on the outside. Velma showed up again. Jim left the gates open for her. I'm sitting here, working on my book again (this is taking forever!), look up and see Velma scuttling along, grabbing the big metal gates and brutally slamming them closed. The wind was picking up and slamming them back and forth, open and shut, again and again, out of her hands. She'd huff, slam them shut again, lather, rinse, repeat, right up until I came out of the house with my gate keys in hand to ask her what in the holy hell she was doing. She said, and I quote, "I thought you wanted them closed?" I explained that you cannot be manhandling the gates because it will break the electronic locks and closing mechanisms, and the wind will cause even more damage. Checked the gates, unlocked and relocked the mechanisms open. No harm done. Didn't bother telling her they were this way because Jim has a mechanic here to look at our car shortly, and we were expecting friends and her. She l...

  Birdy breakfast at the Arenal Falls Lodge on smoky overcast morn. The last few days have been filled with fear and worry/scurry. Jim's been having pain in his jaw since last Monday when Carlos gave him a massage, including his head. It's gotten worse. Yesterday morn our young doctor I call Baby Doctor xrayed Jim's head and said he had a broken jaw, said the xray indicated a fracture, not a dislocation. After some scary discussions of possible wiring his jaw shut or flying Jim to San Jose for surgery we had to rush at break neck speed to the imaging section at the hospital in Liberia, the San Rafael de Archangel hospital to get a CT scan. And we waited, and waited, and waited. This was rather frightening because Jim  has had surgery for hypo parathyroid several times now, and there's been some fear that the years he went untreated there was calcium leached from his bones. Add in the good sized tumor he had removed from his lower jaw over 30 years ago and you have some ...

 I finally caught one! A photo of a monkey peering into my sewing room, creeping on Stinky and I for about twenty minutes. Not the first time it's happened, they do tend to routinely drop in as I'm working on the sewing machine, or laying down taking a nap or reading while petting Stinky. Of all the large windows in this home the one looking into the smallest room, my sewing room, happens to abut the wall enough for me to be observed. There have been Great Kiskadees, Magpie Jays, or Orioles peeking in and other small animals. But I never seem to move fast enough to get a photo. Asthma still crazy so today with all the noise, dust and just general chaos going on with the general contractor combined with the leftover volcanic ash I washed every blessed thing in our bedroom, all the bedding, and it seems to have helped a little. I keep my bedroom eat off the floor clean, but when the allergens hit the fan its time to wash all the bedding, right down to the silk mattress pad beneat...