The Sea is a Salty One

Those shoes on Oates are just cracking me up! Sadly I no longer have my shorts I'm about to talk about. Many years ago, about a year before I met Jim I made the mistake of dating a coworker. I was young and fancy free then, thinking my dad with his hyperbole corn porn advice from bayou country was back in the stone ages. He'd always said "Do not get your meat and your bread at the same place" as his reasoning about why dating a coworker was so bad. Turns out he was right. It was the first, last and only time I did it. But the story isn't about the bad date, or even my very first exposure to fundamentalist Christianity. Even if it was both. I worked at a big restaurant that was a chain in the South in the early 80s while I was in college. I had taken enough coursework to qualify for a culinary certificate just so I could have a decent flexible income to put myself through school after my short lived marriage right out of high school. It was a good job, I could work...

Confession time. I used to love the Sweet, the band pictured above. Even if the blonde looked like one of my elderly Louisiana aunties and the rest of the guys looked like bricklayers in wigs. I liked them. I bought their records. Loved the harmonies in the insipid pop songs they played. Didn't know individual members names, or drool on them. Just loved the music. I have very happy memories of basketball practice after school involving the Sweet. The ubiquitous radio churned out a happy stream of always on the radio pop while we practiced dribbling and layups. When Sweet came on with their latest hit "Little Willy" smiles would break out, the ball forgotten and we'd all dance. Even the nuns in their full habits. It was just happy fun time music for us. Last week the bass player died, Steve Priest of "Are You Ready Steve?" fame and all their albums. As is my wont to do I responded by looking at all the Sweet videos my friends were sharing online, and I downlo...

One thing about me is that I do not do well with injustice. That's one reason things like the recent protests in the wake of George Floyd's death strike me so hard. Why I got so upset when friends and family were teargassed so that President Trump could have a photo op. It's why I carry a full change purse when I go out here. It's why I don't always watch the news. It's why I donate to certain causes, and I don't usually wallop ashholes upside of the head when they earn it. Seeing the unfairness of life and situations is sometimes more than I can bear. It is with that in mind I've shut off all contact for No Longer Quivering for now, and on my social media I've blocked all racists. I think I'm going to start by taking a bit of a vacation from all the chattering voices on both sides, all sides, the injustice of it all and the cruelty are just too much in this time. I'll still post at NLQ and here, but there's likely to be no interaction. T...

One of the pals of the lady I spoke of yesterday just accused me of getting a copy of the restrainer order from Steve McRae, who I have not spoken to in weeks except once to ask if he was okay after being slapped with the order. Katie's pal says that makes both Steve and I violators of the actual restraining order, that dubious document with strange unlegalese language. Are you listening? Are you? Close? Paying attention? KATIE JOY POSTED THE RESTRAINING ORDER   Plus there is now a copy up at Reddit. Steve supplied de nada.

Someone else sent me a new Katie Joy thing claiming we were cool and I went off the ranting deep end on YouTube this afternoon. I think I'm going to have to scrub that name and that crime of stupidity out of my mind. I don't want her in my life in any way, shape or form. She still has not contacted me at all. She needs to stop saying we've spoken. I have gone no contact with her like you are supposed to do with people you suspect of suffering from narcissistic disorders. You do not feed them attention. And I did. That's why I'm disgusted with myself today. I know better, and I still took the damn dumb bait. Last time. Last time I mention her anywhere. Final words on this chicklet. I have talked to Steve McRae, and I believe him. Saw the copy of the application for a restraining order she sent the courts that reads like a downloaded from the internet all purpose document. Not at all something a lawyer wrote. Terms like " Handful of Things Posted " do not us...

Mountains and volcanoes topped with cloud cover near Liberia The last few weeks have really been so depressing. I had a hard time even thinking about my birthday while everyone was asking me if I was having a good time. I turned 60 earlier this week and it's not a milestone I am excited to reach. I will be way happier in two years when I hit 62 and can file for Social Security, that's if Trump doesn't raid it, and steal it before then. Nope. I was not having a good time. Everyone tried. Flowers, cake, going out to eat, presents and phone calls. It wasn't them. It was me. But my brain kept drifting back to COVID 19, the riots and marches over the death of poor George Floyd, Trump's idiocy and a million other things. It didn't help that it's rainy here, cold and rainy I had a sweater last night. It didn't help to discover friends and family were at the D.C. protests, several near the White House the night of Trump's photo op  It didn't help that I ...

A A guy on horseback explaining to a surfer that the beach is still closed today. Today went from confusion to confusion. Today was my 60th birthday. I had hoped to sleep in, but that was not to be. Jim tried to wake me up bright and early with breakfast in bed, a nuked bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from Wal Mart.  Without nuking it quite enough. A cold hard biscuit when I kept trying to roll over and go back to sleep. It's the thought that counts, right? Me, laying up in bed with a coldish breakfast sandwich. Had to get up, and before having more than a mouthful of coffee roll out of the door. We had to take our friend's car to the mechanic to have it fixed to pass Retive. Another goat rodeo. I had to flag down Jim less than a block from the house because the bottom half of the Jeep door was flapping open spewing trash. The back of the Jeep is filled with detritus. We got back on the road and then Jim forgot where this place was. I am no help because I'm just trying to dri...

It's rainy season, not much happening here. Very boring. A picture of our latest rescue kitty  who has decided he lives with us, napping the laundry room. I could not love a man that does not love rescue animals. It is one of the wonderful things about my husband I dearly love. But not this morning. This morning I finally forced myself to start looking at the man-fluffing insanity that is Suzanne Venker for NLQ. Her complete and total ennoblement of guys I consider sub-dudes, or duds.The type of guy living in his mother's basement whining that no decent female will give him the time of day. I've worked with some of these guys, and most are such incredibly rude and unpleasant people it's not surprising a hot super model hasn't fallen into the laps. Or even the pimply young gal working at Burger King, or anyone in between. She's complained that chivalry is dead because of feminism. That feminism is the reason men cannot be assed to do good things, or behave in dec...

Today as seen in Burger King Liberia. He walked around masked with nothing over his nose for a good hour. Wal Mart run today in Liberia and we drove by the new Pricesmart to see if the sign was up yet with the opening date. Looks like June 17th. Cannot wait! No long drives to San Jose to get American hot dogs and bacon. One thing about our monthly run to Walmart is that it is the only opportunity we get to have American fast food.  Within a half mile you have a McDonalds, a Burger King, a KFC, a Taco Bell, a Quiznos and a Papa Johns. Pizza Hut is in the downtown area, near the good fabric store and the guy that works on my sewing machines. It's a rarity we enjoy. Screw calories, cholesterol counts and nutrition on shopping day. Except that the local Walmart has a wonderful selection of all things gluten free, sugar free and organic. Yeah, I know Walmart, who would have thunk? Gimme that five pound bag of sugar free cocoa roasted almonds! A mixed day of bad eating and planning for t...

After a glorious four days of no asthma it came roaring back in the worst way. Yesterday was so awful I started wheezing when trying to apply baby oil. My eyes swelled shut when I started working on a new quilt I am naming "Octopus Garden" from the finishing on the fabrics, and the wheezing started up again.  Literally everything provoked it. Iron clothes, start wheezing from the starch. Mop the bedroom floor and wheeze from the very mild soap I was using. I just cannot get a break. Five long months of this crap, I'm getting beyond upset about it and have no life that does not revolve around the drug regimen and allergen avoidance. I drug around miserable yesterday and today. I've been saving a couple of books by some of my favorite authors and I've been reading a lot and laying in bed. Jim is freaking out because this has been dragging on since January. He's never been around me so much when it's been this awful, like back in 2007 when I kept waking up in...

Just discovered I had oodles of comments sitting in moderation! I've flubbed up something with the comments that I cannot figure out, so I just went ahead and approved most them, just not the ones offering penis pills, magic spells or abusiveness. Those went down the garbage chute. I'll try to do a better job of approving.

Kitty boy taking a morning nap. Far more relaxed than I am. "New Blogger" what gives? Why did you take away the photo size function? I am so damn annoyed today. Why? All the local American Christians here posting crap about it's time to reopen and who cares if the sicky mcsickalots die. Dude, you're talking about me! How on earth can anyone possibly think that abortion is wrong, but sacrificing fellow humans to a virus just so they can get to Starbucks and get their hair did is anything God might approve of? I don't get it.

Yesterday started early. We went to the beach. A few local beaches are now open Monday through Friday from 5 am to 8 am. Lots of surfers, lined up along the shore awaiting that perfect wave. At 8 am sharpish the policia showed up and roused us off the beach. Including my friends playing volleyball not even on the beach. Surreal experience. Gosh darn it all! My internet is too weak and messed up to post photos of the beach or the quilt I just finished. Later I guess. Jim's gone today. Gone into Nicoya to get his yearly riteve on his motorcycle. This is pretty much an all day process. First he'll need to get to the motorcycle shop to have them reset the idle low, going back and forth until it passes. I love my husband, but I'm sort of glad. Right now I have the bed torn apart and I'll be able to wash not only the quilt and sheets, but also the mattress pad, pillows and mattress topper. Plus wash down the waterbed mattress with that pleasant disinfectant fro...

  What they do in Costa Rica instead fix the road holes. Pack with dirt and pile rocks onto the unfixed portions.    Today was irksome all the way around, starting this morning when I went out for my weekly grocery run. I was happy to find a few non food things I needed, like a cheap surge protect and Goody brand hair elastics, and to see so many of my Tico neighbors out and about. Rounded the corner and saw my cowboy neighbor saddled up on his horse. Lots of waving and happy "Holas!" I guess it wasn't completely awful, just partially so. Right up until I got to the main village road. I knew something was happening there because of the past few days we've seen city buses and trucks on the dirt back road past the front gate. Turns out they are 'fixing' the roads again, the village road, by packing dirt into the potholes, which fixes it until it rains again. Rainy season just started. They also  piled rocks and trash onto the portions that are still unfi...

Iggy says not cool at all! I really want to rant I'm so mad this evening, but no sleep because of the asthma drugs means I slept little last night and I'm finding it difficult to keep the eyelids open. But I have to say....... what the hell church what the hell????????? Pizza party today when all religious gatherings are still banned in Costa Rica. At a restaurant that is supposed to be limiting the the number of customers and were not AND letting people swim in the pool. The pools are still closed. Supposed to have private gatherings of no more than ten social distancing people. There was way more. I didn't attend. I heard from my husband who did attend. Who witnessed people shaking hands and hugging. Bunch of idiots during a pandemic. I almost hope they all get COVID 19 for behaving so poorly. Here comes second wave. They are still having online services, but somehow a giant gathering was aokay. I will never understand people

I decided as I remember bits and pieces to post them here on this post as they come back. I'm so addled with asthma drugs right now that it sometimes comes through into my memories that way. I have no desire to fight with this person, but I'm not going to lay down and play dead either. This is my truth, the only one I know, and those of you coming in here from Reddit  and  other places know who this is. Not mentioning her directly by name because I do not want to feed any narcissistic supply, but I need to vomit up this entire history of awful. I can't recall exactly at what point I met her virtually. I think it was not long after we moved into this house. Pre stroke? I think. She popped up, and we started talking. I believe she'd been pointed towards me when she came onto Patheos as one of the old hands who'd been writing for Patheos for a long time, that I could answer questions and help out. It wouldn't be the first or last time I have functioned in tha...

Today we just sort of let everything go and spent the day up at the Las Catalinas resort at Playa Danta. We have a good friend that works there and the place is almost completely deserted except for the Tico workers doing some low season remodeling. I didn't get within ten feet of anyone, didn't even bother to don a mask. A few photos. An iguana walked up begging for food. He's used to the tourists feeding him. The Guanacaste trees are in full glorious bloom. I love Las Catalinas because it's like walking through a lovely European village ending down at the ocean. Self care is so important. While we did little but hang around with a friend this was just the reset button I needed to push today. This afternoon starts another brand new day when we got home, and swam in the pool between rain storms. It was the first time I ventured out maskless in over two months. I think it was fine, the place was deserted, almost entirely ours. If only we were wealthy ...

Welp, it's been quite an almost week for me. I've gone through a complete spate of emotions during this time, from hurt and disappointment, through anger, to apathy, to a desire for revenge, all the way to grace. In the flesh I was tempted to construct a box of torture for a narcissist. I'm fully capable of that too. I helped take down two other huge internet liars, one of which was a plagiarist of some renown.It would be a piece of cake to use a lifetime of knowledge on how mental illnesses work to go after someone hard enough to make them crack. But I would have to care a lot more than I do. I've also suffered my own dumb slings and arrows for writing online. I have learned I have to ignore what others say about me.  One of my favorite sayings that I repeat when coming under internet reprobation is " The dogs may bark, but still the caravan moves on... "and I have mostly stuck with that. I've written and edited for Patheos for very nearly ten years...

My mother is trying to insist my asthma came from her father. She says he had it. I knew him pretty far into my adulthood, until I was almost 30. And I never once heard her, him or anyone else refer to his asthma. I knew he'd had emphysema, and had part of a lung removed from cancer, but not this. On my dad's side though, it's chockablock filled with crazy asthmatics. I remember being a very impressionable 11 years old and arriving with my father and a friend to my aunt's house before we went to a movie. The movie idea was scratched, once they had to carry my other aunt Carolyn out of the house. She'd turned a weird blue around the lips. It was scary. All the adults rushed out, leaving my friend and I alone with my weird cousin Kevin. But I didn't contradict my mother. I'm allowing her to believe it's inherited from her side of the family when it genuinely does not matter. It's a useful skill I picked up, allowing others around me to spout ridi...

Trying to photograph howlers in the overcast day does not work out. You just end up with moody green foilage. Today was a funny sort of a day. I woke up, stumbled around in desperate need of coffee before my weekly grocery run during old timers time at the only American type grocery store here. The expensive place with American and European foods. You know what their ounce per ounce most expensive food I'd seen there? Canadian Maple Syrup works out to  about 46 bucks a quart. Needless to say we don't eat that. After I finished shopping, writing this morning and finished lunch for everyone I was amused and occupied by phone calls from the 225/504/985 group. The aunties and others. Endless stream of calls. I was surprised by one of the calls, from a rare reclusive family member who happened to be hammered at 4 pm in the afternoon. Look, I know it's Louisiana where everyone stays drunk to deal with the humidity and heat, but come on. You're in your eighties lady! W...