The Sea is a Salty One

 ...foot traffic visa runs by expats and others? I wish I had taken photos the last time I did the border run! This photo is from the time before that.. The husband standing under the Sandinista flag. Yes, the same Sandinista that Reagan and Bush kept trying to illegally funnel money into so they would overthrow the government. How did that work out? Well, they did and it's not an improvement. Just like every other time the CIA has meddled in Central and South American politics. Don't remember the date of the photo. I've been all turned around since my mother's goat rodeo started and I started having to fly out to Louisiana regularly. I haven't given the visa run a thought in a long time. It's changed a lot, and I mean a lot a lot in the nine and a half years we've been living here. In the early days we went to the border a mere month after I arrived in Costa Rica because the husband's three month tourist visa was running out. Pro tip: any organization ...

 ... he never promised me a rose garden!  Not the final state of our back yard! The wall has been painted. Twice! All those piles of stuff turned into a swimming pool and Jacuzzi.  Yesterday was the husband's yearly what will we do about the yard verklempting, and watching someone I know is a thief and the slowest laziest most unskilled gardener strip the back yard of the beautiful birds of paradise from the back yard. These things: Orchids, Ginger and blossoms that are actually a variety of Heliconia not birds of paradise! Husband keeps calling them birds of paradise, but that name has stuck.  I wasn't watching the work much. There's nothing out there for Stealy McStealypants to steal, just a rechargeable radio and old bottles of sunscreen. They aren't worth it. Husband asked me when I was cleaning the kitchen what I thought about the work ongoing. I told him Stealy was working with a slowness that not even a stoned sloth on Xanax would move. Later when I looked I d...

  Hey, uh, buddy, you may not be as "straight" as you are claiming.... Just like certain people aren't as good and Godly as they pretend. Yesterday I was having something of an emotional hot mess of a meltdown because yet again at church a pile of folks brought dogs into the sanctuary and it made my asthma go haywire after almost two weeks of bonkers haywire reactions. I am considering my options including turning this place into the health dept. here. Today I am better, but I woke up and took one look at my normally beautiful and relaxing looking side of the bedroom and see what looks like the doings of a junkie = multiple pairs of abandoned shoes on the bedside rug and so many empty dropped where they fell all over the nightstand nebulizer vials. I guess when I'm in that state I am the worse of junkies, not worried about keeping everything tidy like normally. So I'm cleaning the bedroom this am after another neb use. I do have a cute little cat hook that I'm...

  I cannot tell if RFK Jr. was in my yard or if the lurking raccoons were. Yesterday I made pork chops for dinner with baked potatoes and honey glazed fried apples. Husband took his plate to our dining room table on the lanai. A few minutes later I had to call him in to take a call from the kids, our adult kids. Didn't think to warn him about leaving his plate unattended. He went back out twenty minutes later and someone had jacked his pork chop, boosting it right off the plate, left the potatoes and apples alone. Took just the meat. Pretty sure it's just raccoons as they're the reason our doors and cat door are locked at night now, to prevent some furry thieves from taking our crackers and running that purloined goodness straight out the cat door for a feast. That pork chop was a beast feast!  They were calling to tell us about our son's new job! Hallelujah and praise jibbers, he finally scored a good IT job in the Washington DC area and starts in a few weeks. We also ...

  Not my bed, just where I was camping out nearly ten years ago when having the interior of the house  gutted and redone to ready it for rental. Some days I miss my pretty little cottage home, even after painting the entire interior this gray. I found I even got sick of that gray here, where everyone is still slapping it on high end real estate like it was the only shade choice besides white. This gray is the reason I have gone with colors here instead. Yesterday was all washing bedding for our bed and watching movies. One of the big things I've done lately is to replace all of our bedding here because it's old and it's cheaper. Realizing anew that nice bedding holds up better, is a bit more comfortable and there's no sin in throwing out what doesn't serve you any longer.  For the longest time the only bedding you could easily obtain in Guanacaste came from Walmart. There was nothing available higher grade unless you went to San Jose to buy it. San Jose has most of ...

  We're doing the usual errands and crazy retired coastal living there per usual, but this everything I had a depressing encounter. I was in a live stream of another YouTube creator I watch, and got to see white male privilege ride again.  He's a "reactor" and covers a few folks I sometimes watch when I feel the need to view a circus freakshow. That's not the problem, what the problem is happen to be his ridiculous over the top ideas, such as being disabled means you cannot fly internationally and other just very wrong ideas. He's not even open to having a discussion on something when he gets it horribly wrong.  Tonight he did it again, which was too bad because I was initially enjoying the silliness of the stream. In the comments there were funny discussions about things like the Ronco Pocket Fisherman, Chia Pets and Shakeweights among other items. I was laughing along. The conversation took a hard right turn into misinformed white man overconfident in his op...

  A pile of cat butt coasters I made for a friend as a gift. Cat butt kind of describes the day. I went to church. I did my own thing. More people wanted to talk but I wasn't in the chattiest of moods. A few weeks ago a couple from Brazil ( I think?! Don't they speak Portugues there? One of the Latin languages.. ) were very excited to see worship flags. The lady kept mentioning coming by the house to see. I tried to tell her unsuccessfully that there wasn't anything more than I had there. Suggested a meet at a coffee bar to talk to answer her questions, but I was too busy for a visit to my home studio. Her response, reaching out to one of my tenants, asking for my phone number. My number was not given out thankfully. When I saw the lady approaching today I sighed, smacked myself in the head and squared up my shoulders. She came up, starting her usual babbling about coming to my house to see me. I let her know that would not be happening because a) I am not well right now an...

  Oooph!I need to be facedown in a bag of coffee beans at Coopedota right now! Muy cansado, or tired beyond tired. I will skip all the boring moaning about mast cell that is driving this exhaustion and point out something super funny about living here in Costa Rica. Accents. Spanish accents! Just now I was outside speaking to Eduardo and Luis, the pool guys, as they did their Saturday morning thing at the pool. As I approached Eduardo stopped his constant rapid-fire commentary to Luis. I find Eduardo very hard to understand when he's speaking like that. Why? He's speaking very rapidly and slurring the words together. He's a Nico, from Nicaragua, speaking with his regional accent. He knows if he speaks to me it has to be slower and more distinct.   Spanish class in university did not cover accents and colloquialisms.. Here you might have Guanatecos with their slang, Ticos from farther south, Nicos from the north, Mexicanos, Argentenians, etc all with different accents. Som...

  Someone shared this crumbled up piece of paper on my social media this morning. She was mourning the fact that someone tossed it away because she would have treasured it from her mother. Girl, me too! Right now my mother resides in a locked memory care unit. The decision to place her there fell to me as her only child. It was devastating and sort of soul destroying to take this step because she always had a fear of ending up in a place like that! While we're never been estranged for more than a few months never have we been close. I would have never once received a card or letter with something that sentimental on it. She's made it clear through the years that I am an enormous disappointment to her because we could not have been different. She's told me repeatedly I never heeded her advice, or lived exactly as she did and she couldn't stand it. As if she's the living embodiment of Scarlett O'Hara from "Gone With The Wind". Very much a Southern Belle ...

   A cave wave carved near a beach named in Spanish "The name of Jesus". Took this photo and a pile of others on Sunday on a big boat on the Pacific. Saw humpback whales. Saw a ton of tiny islands and deserted beaches, swam in the Pacific and got waited on hand and foot by the staff. I could get used to that. One thing I didn't count on was how quickly those whales surfaced, and disappeared in the flip of a massive tail. Don't really want to talk about the trip because I took a tumble, broke toes, injured my hip and discovered I also have a cracked rib now. No more "Ahoy sailor" for awhile. Today two of my biggest baddest stressors resolved. First, the husband finally started taking his blood sugar problems seriously. He takes his readings, he uses his insulin and he no longer whines about it, trying to bargain it away. I guess I got kind of over the top insano mean to him while chasing him about with the blood sugar meter and trying to keep him on the stric...

  Our cat Stinky submitting to a big iguana he'd been fighting. This bout stopped all the silly attempts to land a five foot iguana. Ignore all that silly whining and whinging I've been doing. It all fades away into the silliness it actually is. Day before yesterday, last at night our cat Stinky started to follow around and cry so piteously. That "Mom, Mom, it hurts and I frightened" cry I last heard when Miss Porque was dying. No he wasn't dying but yesterday morn as soon as the good vet clinic by the house opened we brought Stinky in. As I suspected it was a urinary blockage.   This handsome fellow had minor surgery and is staying several days as a guest *coughcoughUnwillingPatient* at the animal hospital until his blood tests show that the infection is going.  I went to see him this afternoon and he was so so pitiful in the clinic's kennel cages in the back. But after I knelt down to talk to him and pet Stinky he finally started making eye contact with us b...

 Heck, I have tried thrice to insert a moody atmospheric photo of the gardens at that missed Arenal hotel that has now been razed. Just imagine it's here. Something in this thingabob isn't working right for me tonight. So on brand. Today was a wild one, tough, trust-busting, and brought some big surprises accidentally.  Husband and I had a disagreement. That's not too unusual. We do not agree on a vast many things and it's okay. Even silly things like who gets to clean out the crisper drawer in the fridge. We still manage to find our ways back to each other. Yeah, we're that couple that does not go to bed angry. We might be going to bed hurting or sad, but having talked out the heat of the matter that diffuses the anger aspect of interpersonal dramas. I discovered that a pretty big boundary had been breached in my privacy. I found out entirely by accident when he handed me his cellphone to fix and when a strange set of messages popped up as the first thing. It wasn...

.......Fantasy Football season where I morph from my grumpiest form - Fantasy Football Widow!  This is where we are right now. The husband gearing up to pick his fantasy teams, scream at the tv, spout obscenities, and acting a fool. Over the freaking NFL! An organization that exploits the players, sure, they pay them well but the emerging science that shows what this does to their brains and their bodies makes it seem like this is a blood payment for that which should not happen. I realize my thoughts on this sport brand me almost as UnAmerican considering how much of society worships at its altars. I hated it when I attended LSU, I hate it now!  So in the past two weeks the husband has been doing two things, one - he's been asking for a cauliflower pizza he can eat because he misses it. The second thing is more problematic - he wanted me to go with him to one of his fantasy football drafting events. To sit all night with strangers, a wife and young children I do not know whil...

  A disappeared world in Arenal that is now a fancy hotel instead of the quiet place I loved. Nothing stays the same forever, not even my misunderstandings and emotions. Things shift, my slight friend and the outright disliked person from the other day? Yeah, I still deeply dislike Charity Lynn, but I went out of my way to help her. My husband came home and told me what happened when Charity was dropped off late that night. She arrived in the middle of the meeting being held at Kaitlyn's house, which, I think, is how Kaitlyn decided the husband might help driving her there. I held my boundaries and said no because I was worried that the husband wasn't well enough to pick her up from the bed and tote her to the car like a sack of potatoes. She showed up, crying and hollering how much pain she was in. I am sure she is in pain. That night one of my good friends said she was going to go to her storage unit and dig out her walker to bring to Charity. I don't get why Charity was ...

  Sort of my level of agitation this last week starting with the flood of messages over the course of several days from Miss O. In the week since everything you could imagine selling a house overseas has crash landed, all of it not something I had done.  When we hired the real estate agent she told me it was no problem to do the sale with me in Costa Rica and the sale being in Louisiana. This was true right up until her telling me a few weeks ago I needed to just scoot out a few days before closing and have my copy of the papers notarized and overnighted back. After I pulled myself back off the floor from laughing I told her the truth, that here any notarized paperwork went through the Embassy and you had to book the appointment six weeks in advance. Cue realtor freaking out until I came up with the plan to have my Aunt who is also on the Power of Attorney to sign. In the meantime Auntie says she didn't have a copy of the PoA, which I did leave with her last summer. I ran arou...

  What I finally ended up doing with that tray and other items I picked up at the resale shop. I take my coffee and tea seriously. Not seen, my CR coffee pour over, my French press and the Keurig I took from my mother's house. I need coffee so badly right now. Bad crazy asthma. Bad crazy asthma anxiety. And so Miss O has continued spamming me after I told her in no uncertain terms that I could not drive her, lend her my car or arrange her transportation with friends. I told her those were my final words and to not bug me. Her emergency was not my responsibility to fix. She's still sending reams of words. I am not reading them, shunting them down the garbage chute with all the other nutcase ravings that get sent to me regularly. Since then I have heard from two different folks that she brags about being a "bulldog" who never accepts a no, or stops asking because she knows she can wear anyone down. Whelp, she has met the immovable object that I am, filled with a vast am...

  There may be no place like home, but my home here isn't far enough from my personal bete noire Miss Ogress. I sometimes call her the Big O, although there is about thirty pounds less of her now.  Tonight, I'm headed to bed, book in hand about 9 sometime at night on a day I got little done and we had a number of quake shakes in one day. I spent the day trying fruitlessly to find a company to ship 3 boxes of things from my mother's home. Also my aunt has lost her mind, and misplaced her power of attorney so I get to go out and overnight a copy to the law offices handling the closing on my mother's home. My messenger suddenly exploded on my computer, multiple messages coming in fast and furious with the rapidity you usually only get when a pile of faux romance scamming individuals show up. I sigh, roll my eyes, thinking it's the husband again. We're coordinating his arrival in a few days. Returning to Costa Rica requires a printed out airline ticket proving you a...

  It's a Sunday and I should be elsewhere, but church here is a huge problem as long as they refuse to ask clueless gringos not to bring their poodles to church. So much for legal disability accommodations and the love of Christ I guess. A few days ago I had to reach out to my aunt, the one that holds secondary power of attorney over my mother's life with me. I hated bugging her because her husband is in the early months of six months of aggressive chemotherapy. He has cancer in his pancreas and kidney. It's been horrible, so I try to keep my requests to her very minimal. She, like I, has a serious chronic illness there isn't much treatment or knowledge of. I remember how hard it has been going through the health crisises of my own husband. I have no wish to add to her burden. But that whole thing about having my signature notarized on the closing problem had to be overcome. Thankfully she was happy to sign for me. Then she gave me the real updates on my momma. The home...

  Not my momma's house!   Selling my momma's house and one of the people involved just told me I need to skip right on out and get something notarized then overvnighted back... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! (on the floor laughing so hard!) This is Costa Rica where getting a notarization of a document requires making an appointment at the US Embassy in about a month's time and a good 6 to 7 hour drive there plus an overnight stay and a drive back.......... Sort of sets the theme for my time back, hurry up and wait. I love Costa Rica, I really do since I'm usually moving as slowly as a sloth. My gall bladder is rumbling and I may be facing a removal soon. I feel like death warmed over this month but couldn't figure out the why until the familiar but rare pain started last night. At least I can get fast delivery of about a week afterwards I guess.... Just hoping I can avoid the surgery because I'm here alone with an expired drivers license I've been trying ...

It is late and I'm having a Biblical bout of mast cell insomnia. Just got back from the States a few days ago. Sleeping hours topsy turvy after sleeping a mere 2.5 hours before my flight Sunday. My pattern since back seems to be one night regular sleep, one night no sleep, and so on. It's the breaks. Add in a new late big wave of Sahara Dust and you get not just these types of spectacular sunsets, but no sleep, no breathing right. Afraid to get in the bed. No sleep till this breaks and I get used to being home again. House was very nearly clean when I got home, and with it just being me here for a few weeks it took one simple clean to keep it sparkling and keep it that way.  Stinky my kitty has been clinging tighter to me than wet underwear since I got back. I know it's not all about the six pounds of cat treats I muled back with a pile of truly silly and/or thrifted things. My stash minus a couple of fountain pumps and a huge pile of fabrics bought in Amish country a few w...