The Sea is a Salty One

  At the hardware store. Dig Jim's crazy pants! Yesterday was kind of fubared beyond all recognition. But I knew it was going to be. One of the pastors at the church Jim attends was supposed to be giving a sermon on Israel. I knew this was going to go sideways. It did. The pastor said you can only watch Fox News because everything else is antisemitism. Baloney! There was a post church unfriendly conversations with Jim and others. He's decided to stop tithing. He wrote a sternly worded email as well. No reply. Typical high demand non-denominational evangelical nonsense.  This is so serious with my husband that he stopped tithing immediately. He's now talking about going back to the dog hair church, which I predict will be another disaster! That's the same place that was teaching on "End Times!!" for the last 3 years that drove Jim nuts. I can hardly imagine the slant there, the usual evangelical promotion of Israel only to bring about the return of Jesus.  Ther...

  Boats at sea. Wish I was. So much going on right now. I haven't felt right in the head since Israel and Hamas started bombing each other. Heart breaks for those on both sides, the desperate families of the hostages and those dead in the first terror attacks and those in harm's way through no fault of their own on the other side. Too much blood has already been shed. Yesterday morning we got very bad news first thing in the morning from Jim's recent repeat of his tests from two months ago. He's scheduled for a biopsy in just under two weeks. I was and am in tears because I've read up on what they think this likely is and it's not good. I wasn't much good afterward, and when I saw what someone I don't much like had done my mouth outran my brain. I don't like the lying about too many things. I don't like she was trying to follow me again after I've blocked her many times. It was all fire and fury coming out of my mouth. I'm ashamed I behav...

  I’m going to puzzle over culture again, and include a cautionary tale of shopping in Costa Rica. Today amply illustrated the triggering of my hunter/gatherer instincts. Just like so many other times here in Costa Rica. I was hunting down pieces of a nativity set. Just a cheap plastic one, but one to replace the one I had for years, since 1988 actually. Back when we’re first moved from the United States to Costa Rica I’d shipped two full pallets of possessions. They arrived in one piece with a few notable exceptions like the small crockpot that arrived with a broken crock. I’d done the packing, the listing of every nth thing. The guys picking up our two pallets said to me that it was obvious I’d packed before for an overseas move. Yes, one to Germany years before. The second shipment of goods didn’t go so well. I packed nothing, but I’d gone through the storage room over our two car garage and labeled where everything went, some to Goodwill, some to my kids, some out ...

 This afternoon at this place Playa Grande! Yep, rainy season so we were walking knowing we might be rained out at any moment. Tide wasn't as low as it is here. Lately I've been catching the tides too high and I knew I was walking a merely two hours after high tide. I wanted to sea bean hunt today. Hitting the beach right after high tide is always a good bet for beans. There was just one problem. A week and a few days ago I'd walked the beach at Tamarindo during the height of high tide and somehow twisted my ankle. Right where I already have issues on the foot and ankle. It's spot where I have a bone spur and every now and then if I move just right a ligament catches on the bone spur and WOOWEEE SUCKA does it hurt! Today I refubbed up my foot.  One of the challenges of hunting for sea beans is that they don't congregate in the edges of the waves like shells do. They end up pushed up the beach with the trash and the seaweed, meaning you have to meander around searchi...

    My husband looking at the estuary at sunset. Estuaries are places in between, not quite ocean, not quite river. I get a sense right now that the world is sitting in a place that is not quite one thing or the other, just like an estuary. These last few days have been rather hard to stomach on many different levels. It has some horrific echos for me of our time living in a high demand religious organization all those years ago. My old church was all in for Israel. In case you’ve been living under a rock, or you do like I do many times which is take a break from the news, Israel has been in the news since Friday. Hamas fired a large number of rockets into Israel. They’ve also taken hostages and barged into a music festival to kill the festival goers. It’s an evolving situation that is beyond awful and tragic. Israel has declared war on Hamas. Let me ask you a question, how can you declare war on a group, not on a nation? I’m not sure. I pray for peace in this sit...

 I wish I would have had a bridge like this one to roll across in several flooded places today! Not today, just a random bridge between Arenal and San Jose. So six years ago today this happened...  Pretend you are looking at a photo of a massive flood.  We had Hurricane Nate roll through Costa Rica, only the second time a hurricane has hit and it happened to hit just as we were trying to fly back to the States to visit our kids after 4 months living here. I cannot even began to tell you what all we went through, but I know I posted here once it was all over. Scary times involving sleeping on the floor of three different airports because we could not get a direct flight out and then having to split up at the Fort Lauderdale airport because we got word while we were waiting that Jim's mother was dying. She died before Jim could get there. Our Journey Part 1 Part 2  Part 3    Part 4  Part 5  Part 6 I know, I know, it's a long read but there were lots...

  A few days ago I did my usual beach walk. It was just so much harder than usual because it was high tide. I’d forgotten to check the tide charts and moon phases before heading out. Few sea beans to be found. After a good hour I trudged back to the restaurant we routinely park at, the place above, and ordered a cold bottle of soda and a few glasses of ice water. The waitress who is a local Tico we know, served my drinks no problem, watching me guzzle the ice water hard. I’d stupidly not filled or packed my beach bottle. She gave me two menus, knowing that my husband would be joining me shortly. After a few minutes I called her back for more ice water and told her I wanted to order an appetizer and a lunch item. She says to me, “You need to wait until your husband gets back so he can approve your order.” I looked at her like she was touched in the head, even as I know that many Ticos hold very sexist patriarchal views. But this was the first time I’d run across...