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...