The Sea is a Salty One

Big Iggy just walked up to me in our yard. He's four feet long and suddenly not afraid of us. I had a head nodding conversation with him. Bet you didn't know I speak iguana.  Back years ago when I was in one of my social work positions I worked with a 21 year old girl who styled herself as a rapper named "LoLo Ballz" Clearly this was not her real name. She was a very attractive girl with waist length wavy chestnut hair, a petite figure and a pretty face. If you'd have been casting a teen movie you might have cast her as the ditzy Valley Girl sort of friend. LoLo was harmless, but she used to just stress me the heck out every single time I had to interact with her. It wasn't just that she did things like interrupt a IEP (Individual Educational Plan) meeting to shout, "Quick! Quick! Can someone explain how you give a blowjob!" The blowjob thing is a long story involving an inappropriate relationship with a married man she worried would cheat on her wit...

Today has been freaking miserable. I got up late and discovered that Jim's surgery was moved yet again. Up a week to this Saturday. This. Saturday! While I'm still gobsmacked by my stomach! After Jim got back from the pre op, which they did this time and billed the insurance company I was down to the clinic seeing my beloved Dr. O and Dr. A. I still was so dizzy standing was an issue, sick to my stomach, headache, fever and the whole nine yards. Ended up getting an IV with some meds. Apparently I'd gotten pretty dehydrated, and needed to be infused. I'd gotten so goofy and sick I didn't realize how bad I'd gotten in five days. Tests, blood work, CT scan to make sure it was not the place in my intestines that gets grumbly every few years. Turns out I have a virus, some stomach thing that my mast cell has decided is the WORST THING EVER, and sent out the immunio troops. Plus they spotted some new endo on the scan also likely bolloxing things up.  Didn't even b...

  This is my view from my desk today on this very rainy day. This is what I am looking at when I do live video. We saw that water had overrun and flooded the parking lot of our local grocery store today, and a street over from us where friends live is under water. We are dry. Thank the heavens! Today started badly. Our insurance company. Our supposedly 'gold standard' insurance for government employees. I am doing that horrible delicate dance of informing them that Jim is having surgery next week, getting the ball rolling on pre authorization. I did discover that they are about 6 months behind instead of the usual 3 or 4 months behind on processing claims, which is why I haven't heard anything from them on all our earlier claims. But the truly upsetting thing happened after that. Our insurer pays if you keep up with tests and exams. They issue offers every now and then for things like a $30 to a 120 amount on a special co-pay Visa card. I do those things, I get my A2C level...

  Scored something crazy at the store, something missing for some months here. Clorox Wipes, that essential for daily MRSA prevention and COVID 19 avoidance. Many years ago Jim and I owned a country store near the main hiking trails in the Shenandoah National Park. It was a good, but hard three years. One night we had troubles with a regular at the store. This guy had so many DUIs that he'd not been able to hold a license in some years. He went everywhere on a bicycle. He was as nice as could be, but he wasn't all together there, I was never sure if it was because he'd marinated all of his brain cells in too much cheap Wild Irish Rose wine, or if it was because his family seemed to exemplify the whole inbred hillbilly genre of cousins marrying cousins and living off making moonshine and SSI payments for intellectual disabilities. I wish I was making this up, but it's the sad truth. You could see him riding the mountain backroads on his bike, spray painted a glistening s...

The roots of an enormous tree near the turn for the nearest grocery store.  Yesterday was primarily given up to shopping for folks here still under quarantine for exposure to Covid. Thankfully I think the quarantine lifts late this week. Shopping here is quite a task. I was explaining it earlier to a Stateside friend. In the States it wasn't unusual to have to hit Aldis, Trader Joes and then Wegmans to fill your list at a good price. Here it can be more complex, here, like there, you can break down and buy everything, well, mostly everything, at one place. But like the States some items are only at certain stores and if you want the best price you have to divide up the list. Meats - This is one I will not cheap. There are much cheaper meat places, but only the heavenlies know for sure what's in their meats. I use only the USDA inspected places here, getting all my meat at either Auto Mercado (expensive place with foods from around the world), or over at the wholesale meat mark...

 "Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time..6 feet of water on the streets of Evangeline.." - Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman The entry way into our house where you can fold back the glass walls and open the living room up to the outside. Late last September when we got a tropical doldrums storm. This happened again today, not to the depth you see here, but still a good inch throughout most of the house. We had a tropical depression come through and dump copious amounts of rain in the morning. I kept nervously watching the French drain put in back in the winter, and it functioned well for the first few hours before being overrun by the storm. We got water in the house. Called up the guy that installed the French drain and had him and his crew out immediately. Nothing sat more than a half hour in the water, thank God! Not a single drop in the bedroom. I have to give Augusto and his crew credit, instead of days of me manning a mop and a squeegy they had it out lickity...

I didn't do much today. I made fresh pesto from the basil I accidentally picked up on my grocery buying errands for the quarantined folks I know here on COVID quarantined. There's no Instacart or Shipt in Costa Rica. During my rush through Come Frutas I grabbed two bulging plastic bags from the shelf labeled "Espinacha", seeing dark green leaves. When I got them to the recipients house it was obvious I had grabbed two bags of sweet basil No biggy. Ran out and got the spinach and hauled the basil home to make pesto. While I was making pesto CNN started reporting on who all the RNC has tapped to give speeches at the Republican National Convention. Contrasting their slate with who all has spoken at the ongoing Democratic convention was laughable. That demon sperm doctor! Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, the My Pillow guy, those two gun nuts in St Louis, and... drum roll please.... that Maga hatted kid that got into some sort of kerfluffle at the Lincoln Memorial back in January 201...

  Stinky looking most annoyed because I keep calling his name right after berating him for tearing into the cat food bag of the cheap stuff we feed the strays. You'd never know he gets the good grain free stuff based on his love of bread and Lil Frisky's.  Been another series of very odd days here. Sunday I did end up going out with Jim to grocery shop. We had several sets of friends with COVID exposure on quarantine we had to shop for along with our own things. Sunday was bad, not a bad asthma day, but I swear I had literally every symptom of COVID save one, never lost taste or smell. I stumbled and shambled around masked and exhausted playing everyone's favorite game "COVID or Cold?" We dropped off everyone's grub using really silly 'Secret Squirrel' type arrangements, i.e. "Put the bags halfway up the stairs and then knock" or "Place the bags in the back of the car and then lock the car door and we'll fetch them after you leav...

 ....to bed.. to some pain meds.... to fever reducers, etc. A recent visitors. These guys are much rarer that the green or gray variety. He's huge. Yesterday I should have known something was happening in the old body. I usually don't get negative and start questioning what I'm doing until right before I get sick. It, and extreme sadness or anger, are usually pretty good barometers that something is coming. The something happened. Got up today with a fever, body aches in every place I've ever injured. The usual lung asthma is coming tightness, low oxygen stats, lung pain and low blood pressure. It feels like I'm getting the flu with none of the nasty running nose and coughing. One very bad bit, blinding back pain every time I stand up on both sides. Not really back pain, more like flank pain, lower back between the small of the waist and the butt. I almost never get this type pain, but when it happens it's awful, takes heat, Tramadol and rest to go away. I'd...

Stinky asleep in the guesthouse last year after I was rained out of the house in October.  Last night we had to ride out to our friends house, Derwood and Krissi's. Derwood went back to the U.S. for his mother's funeral, and Krissi had driven into San Jose to pick up her youngest child. Somewhere on road Krissi's car died, and she was worried about her brood of animals. She called us to drive up to their home, five minutes from ours to feed them. We did, in the total darkness of the Costa Rican night. I had to laugh because when we pulled up because their huge dog Molly ran up, and licked my face. Did I mention I've never met Molly or their eight cats? But I did a ton of petting of friendly critters. Like I said a few days ago animals realize I am a complete pushover and either beg to be petted or fed. Last night as I was petting cats Jim looked at me and said "You cannot pet all the kitties!" He has a point. I spent all last night and some of today thinking a...

    Our view at breakfast. This morning we decided enough with errands, car repairs, and real life so we ran away into town for breakfast on the beach. Perfect day, sunshine instead of clouds. The beach was open to swimmers, surfers and walkers. Surf too gentle for surfing, but we got to see a pile of local guys fishing this morning. Once we sat down and ordered breakfast we were joined an unexpected guest. This guy. An iguana so used to people he was begging for food. I cannot stand begging puppy dog eyes in any animal much less an iguana, so what could I do but share my breakfast with him.  I've had stray animals beg me for food here. This isn't unusual. I always say there must be "SUCKER!" tattooed on my forehead in a language only animals can read, because wether it's a whining coatimundi asking for a granola bar, to an iguana asking with his eyes 'Hey buddy you gonna eat that slice of toast or what?' I get hit up. This entire restaurant was full, well...

 Recently I saw a clinic here offering botox, fillers and lip injections in a wooden shack about like this one. Not that I'm in the market for that stuff. It is big business here, and before COVID 19 shut down the borders cheap plastic surgery and cosmetic alterations trips from the U.S. to here were popular. They advertise the plastic surgeons along with the discount dentistry in all the travel magazines. But there are the cheap and nasty local places that do it for pennies on the dollar if you don't mind the dirt and the squalor. It's only your health! I'm not entirely opposed to plastic surgery. I have a good guy in Northern Va, that is the only one I let touch the skin tags on my face. He's done scar revision on my breast tumor scars too. He's good with a very light touch on the scalpel. If my eye lids get any saggier he'll be lifting them for me so I can see. The other junk, the fillers, the botox, are a big no no to me. I'm allergic to so many th...

 I've been busy today. Over three weeks ago we had a crew of guys come in to redo the roof and then they moved on to the ceiling in the master bedroom.  This was the master bedroom suite two weeks ago. It was quite the job! The house has had several alterations since building, adding on the large master suite after the first two years it was built, bumping out the living room, kitchen and adding a maids room. The living room, master bedroom and kitchen have cathedral raised ceilings, the rest of the bedrooms jewel box ceilings with recessed lighting.  All these alterations had made for a roof with strange angles and steep pitches in places, leading to a leak here in the master bedroom at the very beginning of rainy season.  I dread these repairs for a couple of reason. One is strange people in and out of the house, dust, dirt, noise. Not to mention the fumes of drying paint and caulking and such making my asthma go insane. But a week and a few days after they rolled ...

A small crocodile hiding in the shallows at Playa Tamarindo last February. I love to scare tourists by pointing out the crocs, but I really don't want to see anyone get bitten. They do sometimes bite a tourist or two. Today is kind of sucking and sucking hard. The house, the guesthouse and the yard is filled with workmen. One of the realities of Costa Rica is that everyone claims to be an expert at repairs, but rarely are. Last years we had the roof fixed, the roof repainted and the one leaky spot remudded and repainted. Guess what leaked during the first hard storm of rainy season. The roof. Of course! Because they are using latex based mud, primer and paint I'm hiding in my new temporary refuge, my sewing room. I think this was originally supposed to be a live in maid's quarters, but I put my sewing machines and mountains of quilting fabrics in here along with all my other art supplies. It's my she shed. Jim is not allowed in. I don't quite know why, but every sin...

 They see me rollin., they hatin'.. cuz I'm ridin' dirty... Today contained one of those God/Universe moments telling me just how inconsequential I am, and how dumb and petty my own problems are. Fortunately I recognized it quickly and was just rolling laughing at my own stupidity and besmirched dignity. The last three days I've been completely down in the dumps and extremely concerned about my elderly mother. She's showing some pretty serious signs that she's in end stage alcoholism. She has most of the symptoms. I've been getting panicked communications and sad phone calls from other family members in Louisiana too. It's not good, it's looking like the end of the road is unfortunately within our vision. She's no longer rational at all. We've had one of the longest and oddest phone calls of our history on Sunday. She's slipped so much so suddenly. I've been in denial about how bad it has gotten but talking to the elderly aunts it...

We have had quite the day. Parking today in front of Banco Nacional in Nicoya this morning. This morning proved one thing, that Jim and I are the most ineffectual criminal types ever. We're the Apple Effing Dumpling Gang. I shook every time we saw a cop. It must be a hang over from being raised Catholic, but whenever I see a cop I automatically feel guilty, even if I'm done nothing wrong. We had to take our friend's jalopy back to get inspected for Retive again. The Retive is expired, and much of the major roads are crawling with cops, lousy with law enforcement. The stick is dead-dead, and the car needed major work. I was freaking out about it after talking to our lawyer last week. He told us that merely driving around in a car with expired Retive and getting stopped means they'd impound the car and only the owner could get it out, at about the costs of three hundred. We talked to our Canadian friend, and he said to do it. The first set of cops was less than two blocks...

Grande from our walk on Wednesday. Something about the walk made my back so much better. We've noted this week that the Sahara Dust is here. The mountains surrounding the beaches are shrouded in misty brown dust. All of the vehicles, parking lots, leaves on trees and so many other are wearing a fine sheen of light brown dust, not that different in coloration than the beach above. My mother called me several days ago, worrying about my asthma and the dust. Told her I was taking my maintenance drugs and using my eye drops. Sadly it was not enough. I had to leave the house early today. We had to pick up our friend's car from the shop, and take it home to park. We're still talking about what to do about it. The mechanics pointed out all the oh so obvious flaws that make it largely worthless. I suspected as much. Rolling dumpster covered in dents. On the way to the shop, just over a mile, I started itching. My elbows were on fire. Asthmatic dermatitis. Things went downhill from ...

This morning we ended up going out early on. Jim needed to hit the bank to transfer funds. We're trying mightily to switch law firms here. You cannot do a damn thing here in Costa Rica without hiring a specialized lawyer for it. Need to register your brand new motorcycle? There's a lawyer for that. Want to buy a house, that's another lawyer. Need someone to keep an eye on the taxes, paperwork, investments for you, that's another lawyer? Have businesses, another lawyer. Have rental property you're definitely going to need a lawyer. We're trying to move the house and the incorporation oversight to someone else because we're in the middle of opening a couple more small businesses to go under the incorporation umbrella We're still looking at property for building rental homes and a possible mountain top home for us A home at the sea, and one in the clouds. Our original lawyer has the tendency to file forms without letting us know, and then demanding the fee ...

We took a small vacation this week, as you already know from previous posts. Yesterday was all kinds of wonderful driving through Alajuela, one of the states of Costa Rica. Even though that throbbing crazy mess that is San Jose is in Alajuela it's gorgeous once you get out of the city.We drove back through San Ramon and over to Sarchi. Handmade furniture for sale. Anything you need to furnish your home can be found in Sarchi, Once upon a time that is where they used to make those crazy multicolored ox carts everyone associates with Costa Rica. The one land bridge into town was proudly painted with the same swirling designs and colors as those wagon wheels. Jim had meetings with a few factory owners about his business idea. For once I skipped out on the meetings. I could see the places he was going were dust traps and laden with things like lacquer and wood stain. I have no wish to provoke my health so I spent a happy afternoon reading in the sunshine. We drove back slowly, stopping...