The Sea is a Salty One

  Yes, we were here again, La Fortuna / Arenal this week, on Thursday and Friday. It went well with few exceptions. We sold the old Honda CR-V to a local mechanic whose going to replace the transmission, polish it up and sell it. Our car has been very gently kept by us. It was a quick trip down and back mixed with us visiting every major car dealership in the Liberia area on the way back. Jim and I are not in entire agreement on the purchase now. I think we should consider a brand new Chinese SUV because warranted, new car and price is good. Jim is still leaving towards the older car sold by our mechanic. We'd be fine with either one. Although new would be awesome. I like new, and I'm willing to gamble on a Geeley.  Yesterday involved laundry, bales of it, mountains of it, particularly after finding out that our hot water heater is leaking very slightly. Today I have to organize and scrub the laundry room in preparation for the plumber. I've needed to reorganize for awhile ...

  I love this statue in the park at Santa Cruz. This park has some amazing statuary depicting the important cultural aspects of the region. This one involves a sport that originated in farming towns of the Santa Cruz region, bull riding. Bull fighting, bull riding, would have been easier than dealing with the enormous a-holes we've been dealt with lately. Old car sold. Done deal. Valuable for parts apparently. We have to go up in the next few weeks in a rental to sign the title over. The A-hole Chronicles - Jim went to church, sure enough Davey sidled up to spout bullshit. He lied anew about hanging up on Jim the other night, claiming he was in the middle of cooking. This is a new one. Yeah, buddy whatever. But the title of "Biggest A-hole" belongs to Bruce, the guy who jalopy we stored for two years during the Covid lockdown. We ended up eating most of the costs for the many breakdowns, the registration, insurance and inspection during that time because Bruce decided tha...

  One of the crazy pathways through the forest region at the resort we stayed at. This is pretty typical of the walkways I traversed during my hour long trek from the reservation desk to my bungalow. So a bunch of hideous and dumb things have happened since I last posted. Yesterday we had tentative reservations to fly from Arenal home to Tamarindo, but after arriving at the airport, really a banana strip, things changed again. We ended up taking an Uber the four long hours back. I didn't realize when I reserved the tickets for the flight that a) it's not high season so it would be one flight to San Jose to hop a second flight to Tama, b) taking the ticket price from the usual eighty bucks a head up to around two hundred each and adding a couple more hours to the trip. The Uber did not run that! Being that it's low season even the buses weren't a good option. I think we figured out while it would have been cheap, cheaper than the Uber at least, we would have had to chang...

  Been out driving again! No, not really. This is a photo I took like 18 years ago driving through Amish country in Pennsylvania. I thought it was striking with the different colored bumpers and car pieces. We're in Arenal at the volcano at our usual place. Yeah, this joint. Today we got into our car, our old Honda CR-V that's been having some issues for sometime. We'd already ordered parts for the transmission solenoid so that it could be worked on this summer after our daughter's wedding. But it's not to be, coming down off the mountain the transmission started acting most strangely. It would not go into gear, at all. You could turn it off and then turn the car back on and put it in gear. You'd have first and second gears for five minutes or so, then the gears would drop out again. We immediately went to a highly recommended repair shop here. They drove it and said that the gears were all burned up, the transmission is all flubbed up. Total transmission replac...

  Lake Arenal in February from that point where you turn off the main road from Tileran and first see the lake. There's a set up of vendors, people who hand make any sort of craft you could imagine and food trucks. Beautiful sight! I need to go back soon for another mental health break. Yesterday I had something of a crazy day. First I had to go into the bank to sign the paperwork setting up a separate account just in my name for the soon to arrive Social Security payments. I ran into a bit of problem. Why? My stroke of a year ago. One of the things I've been left with is less accuracy with my hands. I've done some occupational therapy and kept using them, but there are differences now. Differences in my signature significant enough that I had to rewrite the bank signature card 7 times to get one close enough to my passport signature to pass the bank examiners. Which leads me to the question - what do you do if you are so physically incapacitated that your signature is now ...

  I like to think I am like this heliconia in my yard, beaten up by the drought of the dry season, but springing back as soon as they get a little water. They're ever returning to the places in the front yard that got dug up to make room for my sidewalks. While the rainy season is in full swing here, and the birds of paradise, and two different types of heliconia are bounding back I'm not doing so hot. Stomach issues have me kind of knocked down. I'm struggling not to go off the deep end at folks over on Twitter due to the paranoid nonsense being spouted there. Alliances formed, crap thrown at folks for the most random of reasons. I cannot be assed about any of it because of how literally crappy I feel. Book going well in fits and starts. It's part of why I'm not on this much. I'm writing out my entire story of leaving my old toxic church and sometimes dredging up long dead memories has been a bit uncomfortable.  Hit another uncomfortable one yesterday when anot...