The Sea is a Salty One

  Yesterday's beach view from breakfast at Johnny's.  I didn't get a photo of it but later when I was beach walking, walking off my breakfast and that morning's Pina Colada I got to see a Tico on horseback with a large old school boom box hoisted on his shoulder playing NWA's "Fuck the Police" A sight that sort of summed up the day. The last few days involve naps and running about. A Price Smart/Costco run with stops in Wal Mart and Moda Tex to get fabric to recover the chaise lounge cushions. We are both still suffering from various body boring bullshit like dizziness with the added complication of fevers, sore throats and coughing. Rona please stay away! I am annoyed because we had to go into two Coronavirus hot spots for Jim's surgery. But all of that madness was culminated in yesterday's goat rodeo two-step dance in boots on the wrong feet. Because of Jim's surgery I am the only driver now. Yesterday being Thursday was one of the two days w...

 Monday started off okay. Our monkeys showed up just outside our windows and walls, closest yet. I talked to the insurance company who told me they would pay 85 percent of Jim's hospital bill if we used the Liberia hospital. So we scampered off for Jim to do the pre op bloodwork, the EKG, the COVID test and the xray. Show up at the hospital, met at the door by the nurse with a handy dandy temperature gizmo. Pop a 101 temp. I had to trot back out to the car, and read a book while Jim did his pre op. Which I was nervous about, rightly it turns out. I handle all the insurance. By the time Jim came back out an hour later it was all bolloxed up, changed around. The insurance company refused to pay for the pre op, saying there was no indication that this surgery was necessary. Upshot now after two full days going back and forth with the hospitals, doctors and insurances. Jim is not having surgery tomorrow in Liberia, but in a week and a half in San Jose. That five hours away San Jose. Ou...

From our trip to Manuel Antonio a few years ago. How I wish we were there now, and not having to deal with the insurance. The tale below is why I like the idea of Medicare for all and socialized medicine. I had nothing but very positive experiences with socialized medicine in Germany. We got up this morning and discovered that our insurance will not cover Jim's upcoming surgery if he has it at the hospital in Liberia, even if it's just another branch of the same hospital in San Jose. There was a lot of back and forth between us, the doctors, the hospitals involved and the insurance company. It's still not resolved. But now I have an official billing statement from the hospital in Liberia with the full price for the surgery on it. The decision now is if we should just pay 100% out of pocket for the surgery in Liberia and then submit all the bills to the insurance company, or go to the pre-approved hospital in San Jose and have it entirely paid in full. Depends on how much th...

A stump that washed ashore last week at Playa Grande. Even though the end part of the week was more like what I encountered on the main road through our village when I went to pick up medicine this very morn. Those grinning local road repair guys were at it, trundling over wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of dirt over to the axle cracking potholes deep enough to bath in, dumping it and tamping it down while chortling and waving to me. I shook my head and smiled, knowing the first hard rain it would all dissolve. This was around 9 am. By 1 pm it was raining cats, dogs and iguanas, and all the dirt had washed out of the potholes. Life is getting too much lately, and I'm starting to feel grumpy again, as grumpy as last month when I had to keep telling friends to back the eff off on Facebook and phones. I couldn't figure out the why then, now I have a better handle on the why. Keep reading that people with empathetic tendencies are getting emotionally worn out in the time of COVID 19 ...

Just had a very upsetting conversation. Chewed out by a Bridezilla. My husband Jim has a friend he made back in elementary school he loves dearly. We've visited them off and on for years. He and his second wife have a daughter just about the age of our youngest. She was always bossy, opinionated and headstrong. Even as a small child. The last time I went with Jim to see these friends I wasn't too favorably impressed by the grown up version. What's cute in a child in small doses can be deplorable in adults. Loud, obnoxious in every single way, vulgar with language lousy with swear words. I cringed away from her every time she spoke, this future Bridezilla. I especially remember our final meal together on this trip. We took the family out and I was on tenterhooks the entire time. Copious drinking, ordering half the menu and then not eating it. After we were driving away at the end of the night Jim and I talked about how immature she was. I knew he would have a problem with he...

I have been kind of down and out for the count the last four days. My back. I've done something to the muscles just under the shoulder blade extending down to the top of my hip on my left side. Started in Arenal when I stupidly, clumsily, awkwardly did a header into the soap dispenser after slipping. Slipping again, wrenching those muscles. This isn't the first time, and it's unlikely to be the last time. Two years ago I threw my back out taking off my swimsuit. Last year it was when Stinky jumped off the headboard onto my back. C'est la vie. Here's the problem for me. I have a bleeding disorder. It comes it, it goes, and I don't know if it's active if I'm not having blood tests run, or bruising up terribly. It's intermittent. I know if they pull a few tubes of blood and I start bleeding like one of those dumb Grindhouse movies. Which means taking NSAIDS  is sometimes a very bad idea. Like right now. I was taking what I had, a form of Tylenol and nar...

We went to Playa Samara today, even though the beaches in Costa Rica are still mostly closed. We had been talking about seeing Samara for a long time, it's a lovely twisty winding road over the mountains from Nicoya. We had a 6 pm appointment in Nicoya at the nearest Riteve car inspection station for the car our friend left with us. We thought we would do him a solid and get it inspected. Nicoya is an interesting place with shopping and the oldest church in Guanacaste, but Samara is not much past it. Jim knows that since the COVID 19 crisis started I've been working longer hours and writing about some stressful things, that I'm feeling super exhausted in the wake of finding our dear President had family and friends teargassed to have a photo op in front of a church. So he suggested we make a day of it, a beach sort of a day. We did. It didn't go off without a hitch, unfortunately, and it was more than the embarrassment of rolling up to the Riteve in a rattletrap of a je...