The Sea is a Salty One

 Remember this video. Remember this guy? So you say, but saying don't make it so. Theme of yesterday. Derwood showed up and stayed all afternoon. I appeared, said hi and disappeared right back into our bedroom per usual to work on my book. He is borderline creepy so I my contact very limited with him.  And the big reveal is... drum roll... are you ready for it? Are you? Really, really ready for it? ... ... ... His only reference to what had happened was to tell my husband that his wife had gotten angry with him, for no reason, and kicked him out. Which meant he had no option but going to live with that gal on the beach. And dodge all the phone calls and messages from my husband apparently. I smiled and said little, but I'm not buying it. I've seen his wife's tears and distress over the past month. Something serious went down.  Why is it when men leave they immediately spin it into their being without a choice. Bullshit, we all have choices. There have been tough tim...

  Driving up to the front gates with the guesthouse tucked snugly against the wall. Turns out our guest broke our washer and our dryer. I spent much of yesterday night breaking them apart to clear out the mess. He washed and dried a pillow that came apart and all the stuffing had gummed up the works of each. Dissembled and cleaned both machines. The next time Jim mentions a Tico moving in we're going to have a very naughty word laced 'Come to Jesus' Never again. Jim's at church, and I'm drinking my coffee this morning watching an enormous flock of yellow naped Amazon parrots go from citrus tree to tree on the property. Trying to deal with super low blood pressure again and continuing asthma. Now I'm allergic to Jim's shaving cream, the same one he's used since we met, very basic. Nervous about one thing. Derwood, Jim's friend that used to hang out here for days on end for months before leaving his wife is coming by this afternoon to talk to Jim. I...

  A monkey just outside my sewing room window. Today we had a "Come to Asthma Jesus" meeting this morning where I told a certain man I needed help, hired, or him, to keep the house during my asthma times. Sylvie is in Nica for who knows how long. My stupid Roomba broke a few weeks ago, and I do not do sweeping or dusting because of the asthma. Someone has to play step and fetch it and do those things.  After we came up with a plan that involved him sweeping, dusting and cleaning windows with me doing everything else, at least until I can slide into Price Smart and pick up a new Roomba we departed to hit up the Auto Mercado. Our unintended house guest has done a number on my broom, breaking it, and wrecked all sorts of havoc on supplies and implements.  We live on a big property, so sometimes things can happen near the gate we don't see right away. We pulled up the the gate and the entire front half of our property was flooded with water gushing in. I freaked out, jumped o...

  I just need to dive headfirst into this basket of fresh cocoa pods we saw on a coffee and chocolate plantation tour we took last year. I am really in need of chocolate. We had the dramaz, the major unhappy dramaz. Why? The trainer I was talking about last week. Last week when he started training Jim he came up with the idea that he was going to move into our unoccupied guest house for the next month and train Jim. Jim was enthusiastic about this. I had to throw water right on that crazy flaming idea. I pointed out to Jim he didn't know this man from Tico Jeffrey Dahlmer.  Jim and I make quite the pair. He trusts everyone. I trust no one, at least not at first. It takes time, you have to prove you don't suck. This process has gotten longer in Costa Rica because of the craziest Americans and those Ticos that want to rip you off for being American. We had a very unfriendly discussion over this nearly two weeks ago. It was settled. No random guys we just met moving in with us. B...

 Last night after Without a Moral Compass moaned about taking a four day internet break she posted this: Vaguely hinting around about being suicidal. I hoped she was just being her manipulative self, but I've been seriously worried by the Tsunami that is Suenami going around. She's started to act more like her slim hold on sanity is slipping. People stepped up to call law enforcement to ask for a well check after the suicide threat and we get this: She makes a vague threat of suicide, then get upset when people take it seriously and want to make sure she hasn't carried through on the threat. Apparently this is all a game to her. But here's the deal. In this difficult time dealing with Covid, not seeing friends and family and all the other struggles for money, to keep a roof over ones head it's not something that could or should be treated as an idle threat. Just in the last few months I have had several friends here in my small Costa Rican community kill themselves....

  Yesterday's morning walk at Playa Tamarindo. The boats all anchored up, waiting to take tourists out fishing and more. Several days ago on one of the local gossip lists people started bemoaning something entirely new. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano the tourists are back here. It's a good/bad thing. Why? Covid. Our Covid infection rates are climbing here with each day. We finally ended up being declared a danger zone here in Guanacaste because of the rapid rate of infections. People are flooding in from Europe and the States. The good is that they bring money, and the locals are in desperate need of tourist dollars, even if this is the group with the least money, that do not ever want to spend it. I have to ask the question: Who takes an overseas vacation in the middle of a dangerous pandemic? Who gets on a plane filled with non socially distancing people who cannot be bothered to wear masks for hours on end? I think I have an answer to that now. Those of us who liv...

 I think I'm going to have to get offline again for awhile. Why? Dumbest reasons of all time. I am getting irked by people on a Facebook group for a reality television show. Idiocy abounds. One of the guys on a certain reality television show has been giving a ton of dumb excuses for his messed up lips, saying it's food allergies. It's obvious from the incision lines that it was a bad repair of a harelip or other surgery or surgeries. He claims food allergies, something I deal with many times, like right now. If you have food allergies and you know you FREAKING AVOID THE FOOD! Unless something happens like what happened to me three days ago. I got an ice cream bar and the photos on the front of the bar showed sliced almonds on the bar. The packaging said almonds. I opened it, bit into it and tasted peanuts, spat it out, rinsed my mouth and medicated. I didn't have a severe anaphylaxis type reaction, thankfully, but just bad asthma, that I am still dealing with. Irked by...

  Sunset at Playa Dante taken by a friend of mine two nights ago. So lovely! I need to go visit him soon. This has been quite the week starting with the massive rains we got from Hurricane Iota hitting north of us in Nicaragua.  Jim hired a personal trainer this week, and some gardeners. I'm fine with the gardeners, mostly. They did a bang up job. I find we usually need to have someone come tame the yard every six weeks or so during rainy season. The problem being most of the people we've hired in the past are now back in Nicaragua.  I was just nervous they were going to touch my American sweet potato patch. Every Nica or Tico I've hired in the past decides since they've never seen it before it must be weeds. This time they listened to me and stayed out of it. I didn't mule those potatoes back in my luggage last year for nothing. The only drama with the gardeners is that the head guy insisted we plant this certain type of cactus on the property that he swore was the...

 There's an old R & B song I love by the above title. I can only find a recent remake by Duke Robillard. The version I love was recorded back in the 1940s, and was on a blues compendium CD I used to have. One of the early lines in the song always makes me laugh "I'd believe you better baby if your wig wasn't on so tight" . It's a song that speaks of folks that make ridiculous lying claims and the singer knows better.   Back in the mid aughts when I worked at a large clinic across the parking lot from a hospital we got to see a lot of crazy examples of this. One regular patient showed up staggering and babbling, either having some sort of seizures or a stroke. We were so worried that one of the doctors ordered him loaded in the clinic wheelchair and he was pushed across the parking lot to the emergency room and admitted for suspected stroke. His problem? He was high on meth, and starting to have seizures. To this day he swears he didn't take drugs. Su...

  See the turquoise bird posing at the top of the wall? That's a Mot Mot, one of the rarer birds to be seen here. They are around, but they hide many times on the edges of the forest. They are frequently skirting around the edges of the property here. Notice it has no tail, just one long stick coming off with a turquoise spoon like feather. So beautiful! I need beautiful today. I didn't sleep much last night, and now this morning Jim has his new 'trainer' here. I am not amused, particularly when I was summed pre-coffee into the kitchen to make smoothies. Showed the men where the knife and cutting boards were and quickly left. I am not the smoothie maker in chief. I've always been cranky pre-coffee, but since the stroke I am now serial killer level cranky and I have no clue why. Before I was "ugh, just leave me ALONE!" and now it's "ugh, just leave me alone before I bury the machete in your stupid head" Ugh! And the trainer just tried to get m...

 So I've slept well, I've had breakfast and  enough coffee to float a panga down the estuary. Which is why I'm using a photo of the actual estuary minus the pangas for today. That boat is too big to be a simple panga. It's a tourist boat taking people out to see the crocodiles. We're going to look at two particular human crocodiles this morning here. Katie Joy and her simp Unirock. I have been utterly fascinated these past two weeks since it was announced that Tati Westbrook would be suing Katie Joy of Without a Crystal Ball for defamation. I figured eventually someone would do this. You cannot dig that hard into someone else's background, trying to obtain birth certificates and the like, and tossing about old rumors involving the death of a loved one as fact without there being some legal pushback. For the record I know exactly zilch about Tati. I don't follow the beauty bloggers in any way, shape or form. Since my diagnosis of mcas 13 years ago makeup and ...

  Scabby Bun Bun making himself at home on Jim's motorcycle So tired tonight I cannot talk about what I want to speak about, depression in the women of the church, friends with horrible problems, the coming tropical storm/hurricane Iota scheduled to make landfall here in Central America and other inanities. Instead I am reduced to talking about our strays, our many many strays we feed now. After the last few insane days in the world that is Katie Joy Paulson of Without a Crystal Ball. Last night she doxxed someone again on Unirocks Discord server. Not the first time she's done that. Her behavior is getting more and more unhinged with every day that passes, safer to enjoy my cats and hot tub. It's costing us a small fortune in dry cat food. This afternoon after I hauled a 25 pound bag of Don Gato (translation: Mr. Cat) home Stinky started licking the bag and the photo of the cat on the bag. He's hard to keep out of the dry food even if he's fed almost entirely wet fo...

  Sharing yet again my favorite photo I've taken at Playa Grande, a place known for it's very dangerous rip currents. As a life long ocean lover, swimmer and former surfer let me just say that if you find yourself in a rip current swim sideways, parallel with the shore and you'll soon find yourself out of it's grip. If you relax and don't fight it the current will push you out and soon push you towards the shore. Don't fight it. That is how people routinely die at places like Grande. I've known a few that the rips at Grande have taken out. I've not slept well this week. Because of my stupid body, asthma + asthma meds = no sleep my sleep is all screwed up. Waking up yesterday morning felt like being hard pummeled in a sudden rip current. Jim came roaring into our bedroom in a panic. Why? Stupid Gringo alarmism. You know that here in Costa Rica the government keeps extending our visas out further and further due to the 'Rona pandemic. Right now they ar...

  Approaching the first checkpoint at the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border at Penas Blancas. Shot last March during my hurried border run trip to keep my drivers license valid. This currently is a thing of the past. At least for now during the pandemic. Last night I came to a decision about where my personal borders are. My boundaries. For the past ten days we've all been chuckling over the graphically bizarre hot mess that is Katie Joy versus Tati Westbrook. I willingly admit, I've joined in on the delicious schadenfreude nature of the lawsuit and the paperwork, and the speculations. But I am stopping right here, right now. Why? Easy. I think, after viewing her live streams of the past week, especially last night, we're all just poking the deranged badger with the sharp spoon. It's just making the badger even more crazed. In my humble opinion. Not saying this is all 100% factual, this is just my view from the mean girls squad. My opinion only. Just like what is below is jus...

  OOur walk yesterday morning on the beach at Tama right after picking up that missing Ipad. The weird bad thing about the Ipad is that it's not my Ipad. It's some replacement Ipad he scared up and tried to say was mine. It's a newer model, lacking the personalized inscription on the back of mine and without the dinged up metal bits. He swore it was mine, I know it's not, but at this point I believe he's accidentally broken the video card in mine and maybe more. I took it. This one has a broken sound card, so it's going to function as a Kindle backup only and I'm buying a new one the next time I'm in Price Smart. This is a perfect illustration of the issues trying to get something sophisticated fixed here. I have since found the official Apple approved repair shop here, and it's not this joker in the middle of Tama. It's the stereo store next the Auto Mercado.  Asked him to order a sound card. He does not think he'll be able to get it for a c...

  No he does not. He has no chill either, which is what I've had to have a lot of lately. I guess by now you guys are wondering why I took down all social media but Facebook, and my Facebook page is locked up tighter than the Pope's underwear. I also got rid of all of my public email addresses, stopped most ways for people to contact me out of the blue after leaving NLQ. My friends know my phone number, my real genuine email and have Facebook. A couple of reasons. Biggest one. I got tired of the physical threats from lunatic Christian men. Some quite harrowing. It was upon the advice of my lawyer here, in the States and law enforcement. One of the groups of guys has been known to do scary things, and have passports. They routinely go "Soul Winning" in Central America. What scary things? Recently a bunch of them showed up at a pastor's house that has criticized their cult leader. With guns. Twenty guys with guns going up to try and frighten an elderly man. Luckily ...

  After the tension of yesterday and my tossing and turning all night mixed with Jim's nightmares what I did today was nap. I napped through the work crew replacing our glass doors. I napped through lunch and dinner. I napped hard. Now I'm sleepy again. Stinky napped on top of me much of the day. So relieved to get up this morning and see that counting the mailed in votes is starting to turn some of the red states blue, and that Joe Biden currently stands at 263 electoral votes with more than a few states still counting those mail ins.  Also relieved we've had no real violence yet. I've seen footage of a few rallies around counting centers, but no gunfire yet. I was so worried about the violence at this time. Worried that they would have voter intimidation at the polls. Our long national nightmare is easing for now. I got up a few minutes ago to take a shower and get ready for bed, chuckle, chuckle, I don't know how I slept all day and now am as sleepy as if I worke...

 Waiting to see who wins tonight. I'm concerned. Talking to one of my elderly relatives today she told me that she voted for Trump. I had to question why, since I know she will not financially benefit from Trump's financial policies, like Jim and I have. She told me the strangest reason --- because Trump buys his lumpen ill fitting suits off the rack instead of having expensive suits tailored like Biden does. She says this shows that Trump is a man of the people.  Very weird logic! Jim has a friend, uneducated, poor, living in an assisted living facility for impoverish Vietnam vets. He owns literally nothing, not that proverbial pot, the pee, or anything else. Yet he voted from Trump. The why? Because he's a successful business man. I overheard Jim gently remind him of the many business failures and bankruptcies of the president and it just could not crack this man's insistence that Trump was two steps away from Jesus. Here's the thing for me. I didn't vote from...

  The Marbella Beach Resort in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua from our lone trip into the heart of Nicaragua three years ago before this latest round of political violence. I loved the place, but it is the poorest place I've been, right up there with Haiti and parts of Africa.  I thought today I would be more worried about the U.S. Presidential elections but there is a more pressing need today. Hurricane Eta is hitting Nicaragua right now, projected to be a cat 5 with an 18 to 21 foot storm surge. I'm so scared for those people. People in Nica have almost nothing. Even before COVID started many crossed the borders to work here, going back to Nica to see family and bring their wages. Yes, the incredibly scanty wages paid in Costa Rica are riches compared to what one can earn in Nica. Farming is a big source of income, but as you can see from the photos below it's not exactly high tech or prosperous.   I've been watching the skirmishes at the Fronteras because of the COVID l...

  I wish I had mournful tombstones and statuary to post today instead of this bright crisp statue involving bullfighting from the town square in Santa Cruz. Took the photo last February when my youngest child was visiting.  Today being All Souls Day is already one of those days when I miss my father, miss him so badly it's nearly a physical ache. He loved Halloween and the day after. From the time I was a small child even November 1st found he and I at the family tombs in New Orleans. We cleaned them thoroughly on All Souls Day. Stopping only for a picnic lunch we brought with ourselves. I feel somewhat guilty now that once I married and moved first to Europe, and later up north in the States that I abandoned that duty. After reading Kristina Kuzmic's story of her children's Halloween one year when she was an impoverished single mother I could not help but reflect on mine from 1983, mere days before I met my husband. I was a struggling single mother raising my daughter alo...