Everything But the Kitchen Sink
A Near Thunder and a Magical Place
Monday was sort of an odd day. The internet kept cutting in and out just as Jim tried to call the organization holding his pension-savings. He wanted to move about his investment mix again. I swear, that man has done it practically every few months for the last few years, fretting and worrying about the economy and disaster. We all have our follies and foibles, this is his.
The way we run here is that we need internet to call the States using Skype. Friends and family we use any other number of internet programs, but official stuff goes through our Skype phone number. The Skype number also functions as a number that elderly relatives without computers can reach us. If you live overseas Skype, Whatsapp, FB Messenger Video and Phone calls turn into crucial lifelines between you and your Stateside friends and family.
For days I’ve been watching the clouds pile up, with dark black pendulous angry bottoms, thinking we’d soon see rain. We’ve heard distant thunder a few times, felt a few minuscule droplets sprinkle down, but nothing of any substance. The Tico Times is predicting a heavier and longer rainy season just based on how dry our dry season got this year. So dry it completely drained our aquifer by February and we’ve been on water restrictions since.
So when the sky turned black around four thirty pm, and the thunder crackled and lighting flashed I welcomes it. Even if it make the lights flicker and killed our internet. Eventually the heavens opened and it rained down hard, flood level hard. I was thankful yet again for the French drains we’d had installed that whisked away the deluge.
I noticed Stinky was darting about, going out in the rain for a second, dashing back, coming to stare in at me and meow. In years past I’d darted out with him, and we’ve danced around in that first rain storm of the season. I wasn’t going to do it this year because of my ongoing balance conniptions of my body, plus I didn’t think Stinky would care. Well, I found out apparently he does remember the other four times here. He would not stop bugging me until I got up, hauled my biscuits outside and danced in the rain with him. Funny that he even has that memory. He was so excited to see it raining.
Tuesday involved trying to talk the cable company into coming out sooner than later to fix the internet. Sunday is the earliest they can guarantee. I guess the storm did more damage than I dreamed. We were supposed to go into Nicoya for Jim’s motorcycle yearly Retive (inspection) but were unable to reach the mechanic that checks the bike for problems first. There are always problems and gringos always get a much more thorough check than any Tico at the one we use.
We didn’t manage to get much done or many contacts going on before we left, but we could not delay. Tuesday we had an appointment to go up to Hojoncha to look at properties with an eye towards building a house (or possibly houses for rent) there.
I have to say we were enchanted. It’s an entirely different vibe on the mountaintop than here in the beaches. One of the other expats we met there summed it up as ‘magical’ and I think he might be on to something. It’s definitely climbed up to the top of the list of places we might build a second home.
I always breathe so much better up on the mountains. It will be a retreat during high season with the crazy tourist traffic, the extreme heat of high season and we’ll likely rent out our beach place since we discovered how crazy high we can charge. Rentals here have gone insane. I love my house here, but I hate high season, its like living in a much more drunken version of Spring Break on Panama City Beach. Having options sounds like a fine and dandy thing.
Hojoncha is green and lush during dry/high season, and so quiet and beautiful. Everyone we talked to told of a place without crime, noise or tourists. Sounds like it might be for us.
Seeing Red and Blue (Cross)
It’s not even ten am on Wednesday and I’m dealing with a huge pile of paperwork from our insurer denying most of my pharmacy claims. Yet again!
Last time it was because I hadn’t literally pen and ink signed the online filled out and submitted form it is impossible to sign. So I started printing out the form, signing it and scanning it back in before sending.
Now it’s a laundry list of stupid. Metformin denied because they claim they don’t cover it. Metformin covered on another claim form, but Lyrica denied because I switched generic brands to a cheaper one. I even noted on the form that it was generic Lyrica, a drug I’ve been on over a year now.
Another denial would have made me laugh if it had been less stupid. In the middle of a long receipt from PriceSmart, where I buy my monthly prescriptions it has a sticky saying “Who is the patient?” for only one of the drugs. It’s right on my form that I am the patient and I’ve been taking that med for a year now.
Another set of denials was because I’d gotten a month and a half, or filled something two days early, or had to literally hunt down the pills a few at a time so had about a dozen receipts just to get my months worth of pills.
Dealing with the insurance company from here on the pharmacy side has been a nightmare in so many ways, but today’s crop of denials are, quite frankly, criminally stupid, like they hired chimpanzees to pay the bills. The medical side is slow, like four months slow, but eventually they pay. Not the pharmacy side.
I don’t know why they make it so difficult. It’s much much cheaper for them to pay my claims here than it ever was in the States. I’m not on that budget busting Xolair any longer.
My Magical Place
It’s Thursday evening and I’ve had the most magical experience. I’m trying to resume my normal duties and one of them is watering my copious pile of potted plants. I went outside, turned on the hose, started trudging about watering and then I heard them, heard before seeing. A small group of Scarlet Macaws! I suspect they are from last month’s release of the birds raised to repopulate the macaws into the beach areas that are their natural habitats.
We also had yellow naped green Amazon parrots show up at the same time! So many noisy chattering parrots overhead in our mango trees! I had to take a seat and watch. I was in heaven! I LOVE LOVE LOVE parrots!
Internet still out. Jim is having withdrawals. They came to repair it yesterday and didn’t bring the right cable. They are promising anew repair tomorrow.
Yesterday after I had my conniption fit towards Blue Cross and how awful they are in the pharmacy division Carlos showed up. He put in the new sidewalks. He came to pick up tools. He also brought me a small native potted plant. I cannot remember the name. I was touched.
Carlos also tried to proselytize to me about his church, the 7 Day Adventists. For the first time I was happy my Spanish speaking is minimal. He gave me a small battered book explaining salvation in English. I haven’t read it yet, but I will. I’m getting a huge kick out of the cover. It’s a picture of the blonde haired blue eyed Jesus knocking on the United Nations building. There’s a cloud over his left shoulder that resembles nothing more than a silhouette of an enraged Donald Trump!
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