The Sea is a Salty One

  This was certainly true yesterday. I veered into some very bad behavior. I've been cringing and inwardly beating myself about it since. Embarrassed myself indeed.  I mean, this is nothing new, I'm not perfect. I screw up, I screw up a lot. I usually try to do the right thing.... right up until someone provokes me in some horrible way. You remember last year I was having sudden problems with an Airbnb property behind me? Someone built a three story lux townhouse, and while it was some ridiculous distance from us, like twenty yards or so, they could see over our ten foot wall to the glistening pool and hot tub. Plus the back wall of the kitchen is a picture window something like eighteen feet across with my range and sink on that wall. Eventually we started getting complaints from their guests showing up on our doorstep to either request pool and hot tub access or accusing me of standing there like a creep spying on them when I was either cooking dinner or washing dishes. We s...

 Took it all down. Why? I don't want to leave space for her, not even negative space in my life. Who? Who are you asking about? The stealing accusations were getting me so angry and I don't like staying angry. Prefer to treat her like a buzzing fly and ignore.

  Boats off Tamarindo. They really need to built a harbor now.   I finally found my missing jewelry. Just inexpensive costumer jewelry. Every single time I stay alone at my mother's house I have two or three pieces go missing because of Norma. Times three trips that is about nine pieces.    Who is Norma? My mother's late husband's second wife. The one he was married to all during his and my mother's many years long affair. I knew Norma. I knew Norma pretty well because whenever she'd drink she'd call the house when I was a teen. I spent many a long evening talking to Norma trying futilely to reason with her, begging her to stop calling so I could study. Once she died my mother and her love married, and moved into Norma's house on the country club fairway. I begged my mother to buy another house in that neighborhood, not to move into that place but she listens to me about as well as I ever heeded her advice to me.   Here's the thing. I have always felt so...

  Yeah, any family that thinks it is a okay to let a toddler be in neck deep water is a great thing isn't really so wonderful themselves. Another day, another set of crazy things I have to do for my mother while fending off the other side of the family demanding I fly to New Orleans for a funeral. So many stupid phone calls, so little time. Discovered this morning that another family member disregarded my wishes and named me in the relative's obit even as I literally had not once clamped eyes on her for twenty six years.  I did get today's most important task completed. The yearly required distribution of her IRA account. But it was close, multiple phone calls. First to find out if they received our notarized paperwork over her being in memory care and incapable of making big decisions. The rep kept referring me to the website, where I tried to log on and got locked out. I had to call back multiple times before I was able to finish the transaction.  Right now I am contemp...

  Feeling as stripped and used up as this abandoned building right along Playa Panama that's already been knocked down. I should be so lucky! One of the biggest most horrible things about being back is the husband nagging me a few times a week on what he thinks should happen with my mother and her assets. I finally had to take to telling him to ferme ta bouche please, before I lose my mind. I can only do so much, I am determined to be responsible with every cent, and this whole crap shoot has required oodles of paperwork. Like trying to eat a steak the size of Detroit levels of paperwork. I have discovered the only way I can cope is two fold. 1 - Keep a detailed hand-written ledger of every action. 2 - Take only the size bite I can handle that day. Anything more than that is too much. Today's crisis was I was contacted about an unpaid bill at Mom's new home. I did sign away my life and provide the home with the obligatory cancelled check, told them I didn't want to be b...

  Sort of me the last few days. I decided on Monday to give up my decades long post-coffee drink. Stopped cold turkey Monday morning -- Diet Coke. I was drinking one to two cans/bottles a morning after my coffee. My aunt guilted me into it based upon several studies claiming it causes high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes. I've had a TIA and a more serious one, so I'm trying to do everything I can to avoid another one. I started feeling physically awful and exhausted on Tuesday morning and here it is on Saturday night and it finally dawned on me I'm suffering caffeine withdrawal. Yay me! I'm so dumb sometimes. This has been going on at the same time as the husband has been losing his mind after the accusations of financial chicanery at church by you know who. Would love to know how our president drinks a dozen cans a day? How does he sleep? I cannot stay out of the bed. Sleeping eleven to twelve hours a night this week.  Not sure how I'm going to drag my ex...

 Starting with a song by Jason Upton - Freedom  I love this lyric: "  Well, we live in a country supposedly Pharoah-less But all over town and in churches abide Powerful weaklings who practice they're politics Stealing from Jesus his beautiful bride Whether you're Pharisees, Sadducees, heresies You best get outta God's way!" This is what went down yesterday with the Ogress texting my husband every five minutes all day long ringing his chimes by accusing him of stealing or misplacing money. I believe now that she set him up. She was so incredibly upset that we stopped all favors to her, stopped her swimming daily in our pool, and the husband stopped going out of his way to help him. She blames me, but she decided to torment him in order to upset me. She's a powerful weakling. While it did upset me the only thing I did was leave it alone and spill my ire here, and think of ways to expose or dethrone her. While I'm annoyed she's done this by late yesterda...

  This morning the poor husband still had not found the missing monies and he's not taking it well. He's about to take it a whole lot less well when I tell him what the Coconut Telegraph spit up today to me as he napped. The Ogress told others he is ' confused ' and ' not himself.' Oh, please! He's his usual one track mind * coughcoughFantasyFootballcough * self, no more senile than usual even if he is at least ten years older than her. He has always been a guy who focuses on what he wants to focus on, and behaves every time he's around her recently like a man forced to use a rotting kipper as a tie pin.  She's gaslighting him to anyone who will listen now. I find it infuriating, but he is going to lose it when I tell him what the rumor she's floating is. Way worse than I did. On the flip side I finally realized what I need to do to shut Rebecca of Delusional Hill Farms down and it involves an upcoming meeting, asking legitimate questions and quo...

  A Thanksgiving many years ago in my Virginia home. I still miss this place, including the small galley kitchen. Giant turkey roaster. Good times. Had something of a down day today. Talked to my aunt a long time last night. Aunt have all sorts of problems, meaning she's dragging on things she needs to do on her end, like get the paperwork notarized for my mother's investment account. Since we're both on the power of attorney we both have to apply. I'll be going to the Embassy on Tuesday to get my half notarized. We're bumping up against the mandatory withdrawals you must take yearly after reaching 73 and change. She's also telling me that Mom still thinks we moved her to a cheaper place, and are stealing her money. Mom's trying to report my husband and I as some sort of illegal rapacious folks spending her money in great orgy of spending, and is trying to be sprung from her memory care unit to move home to the haunted doll castle on the fairway of hole 5 of...

  I am an old woman, not an ogress! Written on Friday the14th A week ago today we flew home. I'm still recovering from my month back home. I brought things back to the house, all the towels and bedsheets I'd purchased for the assisted living plus a pretty inexpensive comforter for my bed. My aunt tried to tempt me into purchasing an absolutely beautiful white comforter with silver pewter medallions sewn into the white linen. I loved it, then reality set in. I'm married to a guy who is so so smart but does not have one lick of common sense. I've learned I must have a pile of inexpensive comforters that can be washed. I never know when he's going to trot into the bedroom and pass out on the bed with black little goat feet. Here in Costa Rica he tends to walk around shoeless and if I'm not awake to gently remind him to wash those goat feet he'll go to bed with them like that. Besides the beautiful linen was dry clean only, something that does not exist here. I ...

 Whelp, this one seems to be summed up by the news a few hours ago when it was announced that 40 different US airports will be staffing down starting tomorrow. I'm scheduled to fly out on Sunday back to Costa Rica through one of these scaled down ports of call. One of the biggest. So far my flights are listed as ' on' but I feel no confidence that this will happen if my flights to get here are any indication. Might have to take a cruise home if flights are cancelled. I am so ready to go home, you just don't know! I've been rushing about buying furnishings for my mother's accommodations in memory care since her bed is too big. Had her assisted living apartment packed and delivered back to the house, and placed her in the new place. There's just one big problem, Bottomless Betty is livid with the move. She threatened my husband physically, all 91 pounds of her soaking wet, and has hurled angry nasty invective at both of us, insisting that the move was made on...

  Nope, I'm not at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, but I might as well be.   Shit and Roaches, Excuse Me Palmetto Bugs Tuesday Oct 14 th Well, I am here in South Louisiana now and I think my experience so far can be succinctly summed up by an episode last night. I had purchased a bundle of flowers in lovely fall colors to brighten up the nearly empty home. Looking through my mother’s collection of high end vases I decided to go for broke and use the huge cut glass lavaliere that’s big enough to bathe in. I pulled it down from a high shelf and an enormous roach fell on my head. Yep. I screamed and ran before I realized the palmetto bug variety of roach was long dead. I flew in on Sunday. It was a shitshow. My plane in Liberia had gate changes three times before they changed planes and we left very late after having to scrabble up an outside set of metal steps instead of a jet bridge. Flew into Dallas and my next flight was changed planes and gates after an hour’s...

  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge last weekend. So where have I been? Back to Louisiana and then up to Maryland. I wanted to check on my mother in her assisted living. It didn't go well at all, even if I stayed ten days. One of my aunts in the Aunt Heap nicknamed my mother 'Bottomless Betty' after she suddenly developed the inability to wear bottoms at all, no pants, no panties, no skirts. It was most bizarre and had a sudden onset. Her dementia has gone haywire in the few months she's been in assisted living. I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was either. This was a shock, her mental status slid so fast it was scary. Did what I could, talked to the folks in the admin office seeking a way to help her. My mother's doctor had tried a drug to slow the dementia but all it did was cause my mother to hallucinate.   Got home on Tuesday night, taking that long airplane ride from Washington, DC to my home near Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Human Greek chorus and alarmist member of...

  Some years back. Need to take a new photo as the banana trees are putting out six bunches of bananas. Yes, we have bananas! Starting with a mangled cliche! There was a Jimmy Buffett song titled "Cliches" with the chorus lyric " Cliches, good ways to say what you mean, mean what you say. " I hope some I have listed below are largely devoid of meaning.  Yes, I am back doing D list actor who is not very deep's writing prompt. It's a good one today, cliches uttered by parental units. He was wittering on about his favorite Southern writers, O'Connor and McCullers, while admitting a) he's really not read them, but ha has seen the movies and b) kept confusing the two. C'est la vie!  I prefer the works of people like Zora Neale Hurston, Truman Capote and Faulkner for my navel-gazing Southerners. At least Capote was amusing. There are so many things, deeply fucked up things uttered by my parents that I am at loath to repeat them here. A sampling of a f...

Water feature from the Orchid Garden near San Jose. Well, it's been a strange week or two. I've lost days to this silly ankle thing. Took off the boot at a week to start doing physical therapy movements, made it two days and now the boot is back on and I'm down to two pain pills. It's healing so slowly this time. Have to do a medical follow up this week. Several days ago we went to a party for a lady we know who is throwing in the towel and going home to the U.S.A. Katie was trying to do that thing that is impossible here on the Gold Coast -- live as a gringo without a steady monthly income. Even a social security pension will not cut it here. It's expensive, but likely not as expensive as life in the U.S.A. is getting lately. Read that there has been a 40% jump in the price of vegetables and fruits last month. Deporting the folks that do all the grunt work there was one very bad idea mixed with those insano tariffs. We have high tariffs here and it inhibits the amo...

  If anything I should have stayed in bed the last almost week even without the ankle situation. Why? Three things that happened while I am just over here trying to live my life. First I bought a beautiful polished chrome set for my bathroom, A large pipe assembly coming off the wall with a large rain shower head that you could swivel and bend any direction along with a shiny hose and a hand held shower head. Installed it. Made sure both ran well. Turned off the tap and walked away only to hear a huge CLUNK!! The thing was so heavy it snapped the pipe in the wall. Plumber coming next week, the endless Tico "Manana" Second I am allergic to the stupid orthopedic boot. Apparently parts are latex, and when I sweat, which is a daily thing in Costa Rica, it leeches through to the latex part. Leg, ankle, foot all covered in an itchy rash now. Tried going with just the ace bandage this morning and spent the day eating pain pills. Back in the boot, itching scratching at it all. My lun...

  Arenal Volcano near La Fortuna, Costa Rica A few days ago a psychologist I follow mentioned something about the nature of PTSD and CPTSD. Sometimes it  keeps showing up long after the original event and wrecking you. Thinking about that led me to volcanoes. Why? Well, with volcanoes it's not just the initial explosion that causes you harm, it's everything afterward. I'm fortunate enough to live near volcanoes here in Costa Rica. There's several about an hour away, the biggest being Rincon de Vieja.  I've climbed Arenal Volcano several times now. Climbed Turrialba. I've seen the smoke and glow of  Poas from our hotel room near San Jose. Been up close and personal with volcanoes. Something I never dreamed I'd do when I grew up as a child in Louisiana, but I have. It's not just that explosion that will get you, it's everything after will continue on the damage. I like to use the analogy that when a toxic person explodes on you. When it happens it can ...

  View from our room in Copey eight years ago. Was I ranty on Sunday? I was livid after someone else invited folks to my pool followed by an accident that wouldn't have taken place had the husband just done what I asked him to do involving concrete stepping stones and our garage. We bought pavers today. Monday morning clinic, x rays, consultation with an ortho surgeon and exam by the lady that runs the clinic. Nothing broken, just a ton of degraded bone and old injuries, new sprain and new ligament detached. The pain had amplified so much by the time I got up that morning it was straight to the doc. Last time I did something like this to myself it was back in Virginia. Woman ran over my foot with an electric mobility scooter. It hurt worse, but not by much. The funny thing of this is my doctor oh so seriously and mournfully informing me that I had lots of old damage in the ankle/foot, the torn ligament and I wasn't going to benefit from ligament surgery. D'oh! I'm old! ...

  Massive gardening project going on right now at the house. We've been having the security wall painted a rich dark brown and now I've decided we need more flowering plants along the wall. Too bad it's going to be a few days before I'm walking again. Spite wall behind the pool getting a nice coating of those fake plant walls. Just to break up the brown on the metal wall extension that takes the wall from ten feet to almost twenty. Contractors in and out right now, new gate, new security system, bathroom expansion with a tub and a sun room just to name a few.  Today church. I go only to support my husband. 30 year old worship music, and a sorry excuse for a sermon that was the thrice divorced pastor preaching to himself again. All pretty standard. This is how it goes every week. The problem started after church was over and the bane of my existence, the church secretary, came over with 15 YWAM kids. She was prancing around, showing off, and squealing that she was hostin...

  Written in mid June 2025 I disappeared into the ether. I genuinely didn’t mean to but life handed me some psychedelic-soaked dramatic lemons and the lemonade is warped as a result. My mother. Before this is all over I may end up in a psychiatric facility myself. Ready a bed down at the state mental hospital in Mandeville, Louisiana! Ha! Where my long departed mean as fire great grandmother taught art. Oh, almost a month ago. Right around the time we returned from Jim’s radiation treatments I got a call from the Aunt Heap telling me that my mother was in the hospital with A Fib. Talking with her doctor I started to get a more complete picture of what was going on – she’s going into end stages of anorexia. Her body is breaking down the muscles, including her heart. It’s that serious. I don’t think she’s long for this world at this point. One thing that the doctors could all agree on is that she cannot continue to live in her dusty mausoleum of a haunted house alone. They didn’t...