The Sea is a Salty One

Today was our 33rd wedding anniversary. But it didn't feel much like one. We ended up not going to San Jose for the day, but waiting around to hear what the outcome of our shipping would finally be. I was busy with issues involving work early on, including the hassles involved in filming and uploading a YouTube video. They've been encouraging us to do things like that. Several years ago I did a Facebook Live video series reading and laughing over a terribly smutty book poorly written by some poor sap of a patriarch. I'm considering doing a similar project soon, a book review series more in that vein with a nod to one of my favorite video series "Thug Notes" I'm going to call mine Handbaskets 2 Hell, a play on words to one of those silly answers to Evangelical accusations of going to hell. I always say why yes, I am busy decorating my basket. It seems to shut them up. While I was trying to get my video to upload to YouTube all of my communication devices we...

Today we had to make another border run to keep our visas valid until we have our residency cards in hand. A few things changed, a few things stayed the same and I got clarify on a few more. The fees are higher than three months ago. It costs $26 a head to cross into Nicaragua and back into Costa Rica. Now to leave CR the fee is nine dollars but to leave Nica it's only 3 dollars a head. Found out the Costa Rican exit fee can be paid either in dolares or colones.  You can even pay with a bank card or credit card. Fees as of today June 27th, 2019  Fee Breakdown: Leaving CR $9 Entering Nica Building $1 Entering Nica $12 Entering Nice Building again $1 Leaving Nica $3 Nicaragua, not so much. American citizens must pay dollars only, and cash only. No Nica money or colones accepted. Remember a few months ago when I went and said that there was something afoot in Nicaragua because they'd put in sidewalks instead of the cracked pavement ringed by worn out tires? Now t...

Jim is not good. He's still in tremendous pain from his surgery nine weeks ago. He should not be at this level of pain and not able to use his arm at this point in his recovery. So tomorrow we're off to the nearest big city to get an MRI of his arm. His two hour pt session didn't go well. The surgeon is afraid that the titanium pins in his shoulder are interfering with the nerves of Jim's arm. I saw the newest x-ray and I am disturbed by how far apart his shoulder socket and the ball head of the arm are. Looks all screwed up to my untrained eye. His therapist said yes, the gap is way too much. This throws something of a monkey wrench into our week because we're bumping up against our 90 day Nicaraguan border run at the same time. So tomorrow's plans have shifted again. We were going to go on up to Nica, hit up San Juan del Sur for a few days of fun in the sun, but that is not to be. Tomorrow morning early is the MRI, and then we'll do a quick in and out ...

Tonight is the tenth anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson. Make no mistake, I am not much of a fan of his. Never have been, even if I did outrage my father by buying a copy of Michael's song "Ben" back in 1972. A love song for a rat from a stupid horror movie. But I will never forget the night he died. I was working nights taking phone orders for floral arrangements at one of the big international floral fulfillment places. I worked the 3 to 11 shift as a supervisor. Didn't like the job, but I had one kid in college and another about to go. So the job was a necessary evil. I'd had no luck finding a job in my field due to my suing my old boss. I won, but I lost in the fact that I could not get another job in my field for a few years. By eight pm the calls would usually taper off, you'd get a few but not many. I worked from home and would either read or crochet between calls. That night the phone lines were hopping. I could hear that nearly everyone...

So I just outed Larry Solomon under his  real name. Let the real fun began. Been sitting on this for a few days, unable to post here that someone had sent me this. Trying to decide if I should release it. I knew I could not post up the info in its entirety on Patheos, so it was Jerks 4 Jesus while referring from NLQ to it. I am surprised/appalled at how absolutely ordinary Larry actually is. Most excitement I've had all week. Most of the week was working on quarterly taxes, fixing torn clothing and a whole lot of swimming. Looks like we might be able to get our seized shipping after all. We're in a waiting game right now.

I wonder sometimes which one came first. The asthma and the anxiety go hand in hand, after my convo with the doctor and friends I am starting to wonder which is first. I sometimes get irrationally angry or down right before an attack. When the attack happens the meds make you anxious. Today I spent several very frustrating hours on the phone. First with AXA, who used to administer and pay all Blue Cross claims. They paid the Hospital Metropolitano in San Jose in full for my hospital visit in September four months ago, yet I cannot successfully get Hospital Metropolitano to refund the roughly 1,100 bucks they squeezed out of me during the stroke. I have written, emailed, called. I've shown up there, given them  a copy of my receipt, the EOB (explanation of benefits) and still no refund. They told me they needed a  letter or email from Blue Cross AXA telling them they paid in full and to refund to me. AXA told me to piss up a rope, they aren't willing to do anything for me eve...

Didn't sleep well last night. Too many memories and too much revisited emotional pain. One of my friends is going through a very tough time right now. I've spoken to her a number of times recently. So have other friends of mine. Her fiance has been arrested, and some of the things she's saying about what he was charged with do not make much sense. I don't know if she's so traumatized that she's processing information weirdly. Or if she might be in denial about what this really is. Or perhaps she's keeping most of this to herself. I'm worried about her because for the last six or seven weeks this has been going on she's coming seriously unglued. Here's the thing I fear. That the fiance is not being honest with her. If that's the case the eventual reveal of his crimes, and his culpability will completely crush her. I know what that feels like. I have very big trust issues from earliest childhood because one of my closest relatives still...

Last night we discovered we suddenly have no hot water in the house. Jose supposedly put a timer on the tank so we would have hot water in the morning and evening, but not 24/7 to cut our electric bill.  Something has clearly gone haywire with that plan. Remember when I said some of these Tico guys will claim all sorts of mad skill sets while only really being skilled at a couple? I think that's happening here. Very glad I didn't let him work on the routers leading to the guesthouse. Today looks busy, so I'm not sure when and how we can get Jose back out here. Yesterday involved working most of the day on my quarterly business taxes, which are due at the end of the month, and scrubbing the house, frantically doing all the things I neglect when I am sick. Jim has a two hour pt session, followed by another meeting with Bruce about that bathroom cabinet. I have to finish up business taxes, finish up the chair covers and a million other small neglected things. We'll b...

So it turns out the new med that the doctor suggested has broken my asthma after five days. Too bad I have to immediately get off it. Just looked it up on the FDA website. Black boxed for asthmatics. It kills them off and is only appropriate for COPD. I don't have COPD. But I'm hanging onto it and will use it for a few days to turn off the asthma when it goes nutty. Been running around measuring sinks, measuring the bathroom, and having endless discussions with Jim and our furniture making friend about the cabinet we're getting. I want to stick with guanacaste wood because all of the moldings, cabinets and closets in the house are custom made out of guanacaste. This needs to match. Plus I want a nicer, bigger sink. Typically it's not happening very fast. Fast does not happen here. I guess I'm starting to get used to it. Sang today at church. Voice still very farked up, combined with these all being songs I don't know well. Went okay. Was told it was good, bu...

Feeling better. But discovered a few things I did not know Ventolin inhalers are now CFC free and I can use them! Ventolin nebulizer solution gives me all sorts of odd symptoms I was not getting with Xopenex, like the pain my chest from the water/air pressure, like muscle pain and weakness. Sadly I also have new other side effects, a bladder infection, a sinus infection, go figure! But I can breath well enough to have mopped the entire house today. Score! Sad what you get excited over after having been sick.

At least that's what my husband claims. I tend to be more eye-rolling and unamused by some of our adventures. Particularly when it happens I have to hire three different plumbers and stand over the last one, step by step supervising the replacement of the wax gasket under the toilet to make sure it is done right. Three. Times. This last few days has been so illustrative of the differences in culture and work principles between Ticos and Americans. The guy we used to put in the new air conditioner and to repair the broken pipe in the garden showed up bright and early on Monday morning to make sure the air conditioning was working fine. While he was here Jim started talking about getting internet in the guesthouse, something we'd already talked to the computer repair shop about, we already had the router going out there too. We were going to run the cable between the routers strung along the pipe that carries the electric for the hot tub. That and hot water were the two very ...

So I went, I sang, it was okay. Not great since I'm definitely not 100%. I have no high register right now, only my alto voice. My right ear is stopped up and it's playing havoc with my ability to hear the other vocalists, instruments and my own voice. I read somewhere that Paul Stanley from Kiss is deaf in one ear. I don' t know how he does it, but perhaps he's used to the way his voice sounds in one ear. It's rather disorienting. Didn't pass out, have an asthma attack or anything else. Band members did tell me how frightening they found the episode. I bet.

A two day stretch of doing nothing because of the asthma and I'm getting dressed to go sing. We'll see how it goes. I might faint, I might be fine. Leaning towards fainting.

As in a little bit better. I stayed in and home as much as possible today while medicating. Going out is making everything all the worst. I am still almost blacking out if I exert, even mild exertions like walking around a computer store. I have to stay inside under the air conditioning until this passes I realized around noon today. Remembering back when I first got dreadful sick and diagnosed with Mast Cell I was forced to take two weeks off work and given mild chemo therapy to turn it off. I only got up to go to the bathroom or to get something to eat or drink. I'm there again I think. But after an afternoon  sitting in my mahogany rocker reading I realized I am fortunate. Blessed to not have to work. Lucky for having a new air conditioner in the bedroom twice as strong as the old one. Glad to have access to all the rice based things I'm eating to turn off the asthma. Happy I have a housekeeper coming in to clean a couple of times a week. Grateful for the gardener.  T...

Yesterday was Day One of the stupid elimination diet I do when I start having crazy insane allergies to food and everything else and the asthma goes nuts for months on end. Three or four days of lamb, garlic, rice and butter to start with usually helps take the asthma food reactions down a bit. Then you add slowly back in the things you don't think  you're allergic to. When I do this it seems to calm everything down. It just sucks to eat that way when there are so many great foods out there. I ate a ton of rice in South Louisiana as a kid. I never look forward to scarfing down more. It's like a sugar crack that raises your blood sugar so it's throw in metformin time. Don't much like doing it because it's expensive to get all organic stuff for it. Especially here where all that and gluten free is only available at the Auto Mercado for inflated Gringo prices. I even bought pesticide free rice, not that I believe they grow it any different than regular rice. On...

Still working on the guesthouse, dealing with contractors, asthma and daily life. Rather routine. But one thing has been so bizarre and bizarrely funny. Jim and his buns. It's been almost 8 weeks since Jim's surgery on his left arm. He's still not able to use it much. He cannot drive, he cannot do simple tasks like putting on his seat belt, lift things, carry things. He has been able to slowly do a few things, like push a grocery cart, unload the bags with one hand. There is a big big thing he still cannot do, no matter how much physical therapy he is getting. He still cannot pull up his pants. He likes to wear his swim trunks as pants every day because their have elastic and a string to tie. Dealing with zippers and the like one handed doesn't work. Where it gets funny is that he cannot pull them up in the back and on the left side. It's okay at home, he emerges from the bathroom and backs up like some enormous cattle presenting his backside until I tug them ...

Last night I was watched a movie I'd wanted to see for a very long time. It was "I, Tonya" a film about former figure skater Tonya Harding. Tonya infamous for her possible involvement in the clubbing of rival Nancy Kerrigan. I remember all too well the Olympics where the two went head to head to see who was the best skater. Everyone, and I mean everyone, universally hated Tonya for her possible involvement. Years ago I started watching a rather dumb, but fun show on TruTV "World's Dumbest..." The show's format is to pick a theme for the awful video taped shenanigans and have a panel of disgraced celebrities and low level comedians comment on the action. Tonya Harding is one of the celebs. After a while I started getting a sneaking liking of Tonya.  Not someone I'd be besties with, but definitely someone to wile away an afternoon and a beer with. I think we've all been mislead on who she is. One of the cringy factor things about the film was t...

Still felled by various bodily problems, but now I have MRSA in my right eye. Ugh. It just never ends. When we got back from Monteverde we didn't do much for a few days. We're working on the guesthouse now, that's taking all of our time, and Jim is still hobbling around with his arm, while I'm still  having to pull up his pants, buckle his seat belt, drive him everywhere. One of my friends thinks I should McGyver his ass, put binder clips and a bungee cord on his pants. The guesthouse we replaced all of the doors with new cedar ones, I'm having some walls moved, and we're putting more new things in there. It looks like a nice hotel room now. Just a few more things and it will be ready for friends and family. Late Tuesday night, Wednesday morning Jim was up at 3 am on his computer. We're in the middle of rainy season here and so far it's been extremely rainy. It was raining then too. Around 4 am a huge wave of water started pouring in under the glas...

We took a little trip. Between Jim's surgery, my asthma and all the work on the house we decided to get away for a few days. Somewhere beautiful where we could sit out in a garden and just read. I suggested Arenal,and our friend's hotel. Jim wanted to try Monteverde, somewhere we'd not been. Not far from Arenal. And yet an extreme world away. Monteverde was beautiful, but I was reminded of the worst of West Virginia. The roads were awful. Dirt and rock, rain and fog. We could not see a foot in front of the car. So we crawled along as 20 mph. Driving in Costa Rica is so so so damn slow even when the road is paved. I figured I might be in for some rough roads, but not like this. Back during Hurricane Nate the roads of Monteverde were washed away. The town was cut off for a couple of weeks. It took a good hour to go 20 miles. It reminded me of West Virginia because of the remote nature of the mountains and lack of all people. I was surprised because I knew this was a hig...

Today Jim asked me to think about making slipcovers for some of the outdoor furniture, the dining room table chairs. I can do that, and set to looking at fabrics. Getting the material turns out it might be a challenge. Cannot get the good Suncaster material shipped here by Amazon or anyone else so it was off to Santa Cruz. The lone fabric store where I only buy muslin to back my quilts. I left Jim home alone. I've not driving out to go shopping alone over an hour away for a very long time. I realized Jim and I are sort of joined at the hip now. I worried about leaving him because he's only a month post surgery and I still have to help him pull up his pants The only shop had lots of ugly cheap polyester fabrics that remind me of the 1970s, and not in a good way. I drove through a terrific thunderstorm and got pretty wet once I got to town, but it was good, even with rain and no decent fabrics. I'll have to hit Liberia in a few days. There is a high end fabric store the...