The Sea is a Salty One

Haven't updated in a while because I'm having weird health things going on again. I'm being tested for Chagas, a scary thing you get from a kissing bug shitting in/on you. Yeah, so there's that. It might be behind everything I've been going through. Hope it's not because I don't look forward to taking that many parasitic meds. Warning I'm going to bitch about my health again. You might want to ditch. Yesterday was the scariest on top of pretty scary before. on Monday my blood pressure just dropped like a stone. I felt very good and then suddenly it was like someone kicked the props out from under me. Pressure shot down to 70/45, non-functioning for me. Bed, stopped my 1/4 blood pressure meds for two days. Tuesday afternoon my pressure came up to high normal. I took my 1/4 pill and boogied on. Wednesday morning Jim went off to Men's Group, and I developed a headache. On my way to get the tylenol I decided to check the blood pressure. I was 225/1...

I had to laugh today as a friend of mine uttered the title of this as a bon mot of how life is. And it is always a frog. We were talking about our various struggles with different funny aspects of Tico life. My recent discovery of termites in our guesthouse and the ongoing discussions about what type of hot water, if any, to put in the house. Do we go with a standard U.S. electric hot water tank that's quite expensive and expensive to operate? A Tico electrified shower head that I've mentioned here before - Central American Death Shower? Or the combination hot water tank on the roof with a solar panel to heat the water? Too many options, none of them great. My friend Christie started talking about the frog. We all have a frog story here, remember mine? The frog that kept going down the sewer pipe and swimming in our toilet and shower before being evicted via duct tape and mesh? Christie told about the main water line going to their house cracking and leaking. They live in a...

Ouilted out is a term we use sometimes in quilting when things aren't going a 100% right, you have to make adjustments or you think you're screwed up. Hopefully when you quilt the project that edge will now lay flat, or you've adjusted enough for whatever oddity you run across. Today I put together the front, the back and the batting on that huge 144 inch by 144 inch California King quilt I am making for my new bed. A huge bastard of a project that's taken me something like eight months because I kept running away crying during the making. It's ambitious and it's all glorious pinks. corals and golds for my bedroom. During one of my breaks from the actual quilting process it became obvious I need to do some sort of blogging 'quilting out'  after I looked at a link someone sent me to a board discussing Vyckie Garrison's divorce and ancient history. There are some untrue assumptions I need to address. Vyckie and I are still friendly. We're not...

We were back at the doctor's office bright and early today to see Dr. Oscar. It was an experience. Jim ended up having lung x-rays and more blood work. Turns out he has an infection in his lung. Swollen up lymph nodes too. They ran a bunch of tests to make sure it was nothing worse in light of his having only one kidney and having this crap two months with various medications. He's just sick with it. Got the right meds this time. He is already feeling slightly better. I am glad because sick men are always difficult to be around no matter how much you know his mood has nothing to do with you. Being tourist season means you're not waiting behind someone with a cold or a twisted ankle. You're waiting behind piles of surfers, experienced and wanna be, mostly wanna be, with odd injuries. Today that meant someone with sea urchin spikes in their foot, someone else who scraped all the meat off their hands falling forward on their board and sliding, or a lady with a wicked c...

.... than a man. Currently my husband happens to be crankier and bitchier than two drag queens fighting over the last wand of mascara in Rite Aid. Or if you find that offensive two Trump fans fighting over the last MAGA cap if you like. his cold/cough/whatever is no better. He's super upset this morning over everything and nothing. He's been like this off and on all day long. And you know what? That's okay. That's on him. Me, I'm moving through my day and tasks like a boss. His mood does not affect or control mine at all. I understand why he's upset. It's because he didn't sleep much last night and he still have his coughing hellaciously and sneezing up a storm. I cannot tell if that's because he's been swimming in that vat of pollen I am avoiding, the swimming pool, or he's just not recovering well. Not sure. Some from column A and some from column B. This afternoon's visit to the doctor has his doctor saying he's just recoveri...

Just coming up on the backside of the most intense lung crud and coughing of all time. I swear I thought I might end up hooked on cough syrup. Went through literally a bottle a day, Robotussin, prescription 1, prescription 2, left over Nyquil and a whole lotta Vicks 44, which tastes horrible. Crawling around barking coughs and a great deal of medicated sleeping. I do not understand at all those folks that do the Robo Tripping using Robotussin because all cough syrup  just makes me feel oh so weird and jumpy. Cannot believe people enjoy feeling like that. Today I finally did a few things I'd let slide this week, the usual housework. But it was the first of the packages arriving from Amazon I was the most excited about! When we'd been in the States I'd gotten to try this new crazy inflatable raft or beach lounger called Chilbo Swaggins. Today my pool one arrived the Don Coolio. I must have flipped, rolled and flopped off it a dozen times this afternoon just trying to la...

My life can  be summed up by something that happened when Stefan was visiting us. He and I are sitting in the bank, waiting for the lone bank officer so Stefan can buy one of those 8 percent CDs when a woman came up to us and spoke to me. Lady: Spanish Blah Blah Blah (spoken so rapidly I got maybe one of out of every three words) Me: Nicht verstahen (German for I do not understand) Stefan: bursting out in laughter says 'Why did you answer in German?' Because that is where my brain always goes. My brain has decided that German is my bedrock foreign language and will route me to it every time if I'm not paying any mind to it. The last few days have been pretty horrible. I picked up something that filled my lungs with fluid and caused me to cough bark every few minutes. Last night after five days I drug my ass off to the doctors offices. Unlike the states you can see a doctor here 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It took a long time even if there were no emergencies of de...

Haven't posted much because immediately after we dropped off Stefan I started coughing. I have Whooping Cough AGAIN! I wonder which idiot anti-vaxxer here's child gave it to me. I've been in the bed sick doing nothing, reading a pile of shitty books. This morning though I laughed so hard I made myself go into another coughing fit. Jim fell out of the bed, Kaboom~~ and the earth shook, The only thing injured was his pride.  How hard to you have to be sleeping in fall out? He's on my list right now, you know the list, for telling me on the way to church that I've been too bitchy lately. Dude I am still recovering from my stroke and I am going to blow up a lot easier if I have zero chill and too much pressure to do things. I can only do what I can do and it if pisses him off that's too damn bad. He's been less than sympathetic, wanting me to return to my pre stroke level of activities. That's not happening. Fall out of the bed a few dozen more times d...

Well, he showed up. Jim's friend Stefan from Germany.  We knew him well back in 1986 and 87 before he flew off to work the German pavilion in Disneyworld's Epcot Center. Stefan turns up like a bad sweary penny every so often. His last visit was a disaster because all he did was scream 'FUCK!' and behave like he had lost most of his marbles. This was just much of the same. He'd been saying for months he was coming the first week of January, and contacted us to let us know last week that his schedule had changed and it was very unlikely he'd show. Whew, I relaxed just to have him phone on at dinnertime on Wednesday to say he was at the Penas Blancas border crossing and would be soon hitch hiking his way to us. Scrambling to put out clean towels and make sure the bed was ready. Aaaaaaaaaand we wait, and wait some more. The crossing is only 90 minutes or so from the house. De nada. About midnight we get a call from Stefan. He is waiting for a ride in Belen, a go...

We're at home, waiting again. For what? Well, do you remember about four years ago when we had an old friend from Germany visit and it went super sideways to the point where the folks at the diner asked me never to bring him again? Yeah, him. I'm not sure how we're hosting him again, but he called up and he is hitchhiking in from Penas Blancas this evening. House isn't perfectly spotless, mostly clean, clean enough. His bed is made, I've resigned myself to several days of madness and crazy which I will be documenting here. Having the excuse of recovery from my stroke will come in handy this time. I'm still not quite myself yet. I am allowed to finally get in the pool and hot tub, but I'm still having issues with energy. In fact last week I had something of a meltdown over several days. It dawned on me that I've stopped improving. I talked to everyone I know who has had a stroke and the general consensus seems to be a) doctors lie about recovery and b...

BYOB no longer stands for 'Bring your own bottle' in this house. It's been replaced with 'Bring your own bag' as in trash bag. I'm going slightly stir-crazy here. Jim still have pneumonia and the drugs weren't helping much until about an hour ago. He's moaning, he's coughing, he's snotty, just an absolutely miserable wretch to be around. As we all would be if we were as sick as he is. He has reason enough to be miserable. Had to take over his tasks, watering the plants, cleaning the pool and hot tub, doing all the driving back and forth. I am not annoyed by that because I like doing those things in the first place. He also takes out the trash, but we're just piling it right now by the guesthouse. There's been no trash pickup for the last two weeks. Why? A perfect story illustrating the nature of the Ticos. Because the first of the year was when you had to pay your Marchamo, the taxes and insurance on your vehicle, or the policia tak...

It's been another kind of weird day. Jim is still sick. We just got back from the doctor's office. He had some sort of walking pneumonia type infection and has been in the bed for days now. Antibiotics, antihistamines and cough syrup. He'll live. I've been laughing most of the day, but that's okay because I've been watching the mess on YouTube between hate-mongering pastor Steven Anderson and a whole long laundry list of folks. Every few hours I'd check, he'd have issued a new response to someone, I'd update and laugh. Around  4 pm, just about the time I was nagging Jim that he needed to go to the doctor because his face was very red I received some disturbing news. Steve Gupton was dead. Steve is one of my online friends I've had forever it seems. He'd pop up whenever there was any weird news having to do with the IFB and Steven Anderson. We'd laughed so many times over Anderson's shenanigans. We spent most of the day on Frid...

Jim was sick again yesterday and spent the majority of the day and night in bed. I rattled around quietly doing my thing, trying not to wake him. He has chest congestion yet again, just like he did before the trip. It comes, it goes, he refuses to go to the doctor, just like a man. Went out in the morning and was pleased to note that I could actually walk around the store. I had no trouble parking and there was no one arguing over booze prices. The San Jose tourist horde has officially departed! Mostly I organized. I bought smaller plastic boxes to put our Christmas things in along with tools, assorted household repair items. I'm washing all of our beach things and packing them away. But the most important of my organizing is thing I always do after - my toiletries bag. I learned years ago that we travel frequently enough to dedicate a small zippered bag to the things I need when I travel. Instead of rushing about grumbling tossing toothpaste and hairspray into a bad last m...

Oh holy hotdogs it's insane in town right now! I went out for bread, expecting the holiday crowds to have at least started to dissipate. No such luck. Crazy traffic. Stuck on the one road going in and out of Tamarindo for over twenty minutes. I could have walked home quicker. The stores were insane. I went to two and both times got stuck in line behind drunken tourists trying to fight with cashiers over booze prices. Some people are taking high season a little too literally. I cannot wait until mid-month when tourist season drops down to a manageable level again. Tomorrow we're heading out to one of those more deserted beaches we flew in over on Monday. What I don't 'get' about the tourist hordes is why come all this way, and spend all that money just to cram into the same two mile stretch of beach in an overpriced area? There are other beaches, prettier beaches, cheaper prices and better surfing else, like Grande or over at Avellanas. I don't get it. Ne...

We had a happy time in Florida and are now back in the Tama. Presents given and received, foods eaten, and beaches flopped down upon. It's all good. Even the people-watching, especially the people watching which is one of my favorite past times. We saw a trans person on the beach, out and proud and cute. I got to see a guy stomping along the beach paths with a small cheap birdcage strung on a shoulder strap loudly proclaiming he was taking his lizard for a walk. There were assorted oddities of dress and hair that I inwardly giggled over or admired the boldness of the wearer. But the majority of the people watching happened on the gambling boat. My kids said that one of the big things they wanted to do was the booze cruise, the floating casino that goes beyond the three mile international waters line and you drink and gamble. It didn't go quite like they anticipated. I enjoyed it. But I am no gambler. I've worked too hard for what money I have and cannot enjoy fruitles...

This morning I saw one of the oddest sights I've viewed in awhile, and that's saying something considering yesterday I was in a Florida Wal Mart and it looked like most of the customers were escapees from 'The People of Wal Mart'. We went to breakfast at a darling little cafe, and as we walked through the parking lot my eyes fell on a newish Corvette. The things dangling from the rear view mirror were decidedly not that New Orleans favorite fuzzy dice. What their were was boobs, well, boobies as imagined by Jim Henson's folks at the Muppet workshop, with big old aureolas and nipples. Stuffed, fuzzy and hanging from strings from the rear view mirror. I snickered and remarked that chances are that the driver was less than desirable. A penis mobile festooned with fake breasts does not scream hot to me. Sure enough the only other customer at this place was an elderly man, rather portly, looking like he had one foot on the banana peel and the other on the tombstone...

I am here in Cocoa Beach, Florida with the family. It feels bitterly cold to me, so much so that I had to go get winter clothing, something I do not possess. Thank gawd Ron Jon's has hoodies and long sleeved tees! It's in the 50s and 60s here, something the Weather Channel neglected to tell me and I am not acclimated since Tama is between 75 and 95 every single day. This feels cold. The other thing I was getting at Ron Jon's was a huge buttload of their tacky advertising stickers. Why? We had a little tiny catastrophe on our way here. We changed planes in Atlanta from Costa Rica and someone accidentally took my suitcase. There were ten identical suitcases on our flight from Liberia. Ten large Kenneth Cole Reaction hardshelled suitcases. All brand spanking new. I've mentioned before the expensive shopping and lack of quality in Costa Rica, so when Auto Mercado started their yearly stickers for stuff green stamps like program this year it was for suitcases, decent sui...

We fly out in the morning. By lunchtime our AirBnB guests will be picking up the keys from our agent. Flying to spent Christmas with the kids in Florida. From beach to beach. I guess it takes me awhile to catch up, but I was completely unaware that you could check in online and pick your seat from the cheap seats. Just checked in and we're not sitting by the back bathroom this time.  Upgraded to sit by the exit where you have leg room. All happy. Packed up and ready to go. Our internet came back on too around noon today. I was happy because the last few days with no television, no internet and the power cutting in and out was gruesome. I've read a pile of books now and made three throw quilts. Glad to be leaving, as much as I love our house in Tama the invasion of the crazy San Joseites has happened. You cannot drive in town, you cannot get near the beach, the grocery stores are filled with drunken tourists. Add in a pile of American tourists and it is miserable. The re...

This morning I worked on finishing up an item for a dearly beloved relative. Something I've been promising for ages, a lap quilt with fabric from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' movie. I'd not been sure for a long time what to do with it, deciding finally to do a very simple design in purples with gnashing teeth. The fabric is super busy so a complex design was just not going to work. This does. I'm excited to finish it up and finish up the Day of the Dog quilt I'm making for this lady's dog. At the same time I got that fabric for TNBC I also stumbled across fabric for Mexican sugar skulls, dog skulls, and it was just so cute! The problem being complex busy fabric with the need of a simple design. Worked that one out  too. Will post photos of both when I'm done. One quilt I finished but never sent off was one I started for myself and ended up promising to Cindy Kunsman. I was going to make it into a weighted quilt, but I ran into some design problem...

I finally remembered the kind man that squeezed the orange juice and made me some delicious hot toddy - Narcisse. We went back today so I could have more oj and another hot toddy. Also got passion fruit and pineapple juice too. All of it helps. I added in garlic pills this time and today I felt much better. First time in years I've gone from one day of bad cold to feeling better this quickly. Less drugs and more supplements and juice. Still no essential oils. Cannot do those.