The Sea is a Salty One

  Playa Grande on a not so nice day. Overcast during the rainy season. I had an epiphany this evening. What was it? That, finally, this is home.  Still decompressing from family trip from hell, and with the assorted stupid body highjinks this afternoon came and I had to just simply go to bed. There's a lot going on, Jim trying to get assorted parts for the motorcycle, schedule a car repair since the ac died, the pool guys were coming to change out a burned out light in the pool. Add in that the pastor of the new church Jim attends asked us if we'd put up a member with marital issues in our guesthouse for a few days. Jim wanted to go into the guest house, schedule this, do that, but I had to tell him I was sick, wrecked on the rocks sick and just had to lay down. I think some is definitely decompressing from the trip. I just fell apart and went to bed, sleeping for four hours When I awoke I remember feeling happy and safe, mostly very safe, listening to the distant thunder and ...

   The concrete lady wearing a bikini at the JSM gas station near Filadelpha. Lot has happened. We traveled. There was family dramaz. We traveled back to the no drama zone where it's always Tuesday afternoon, and the worst drama one can have is running out of Corona, or that bougie bubble water I drink since I cannot drink. I like drinking, it does not like me so I avoid it. A couple of funny moments. Jim discovering he forgot to pack underwear just as he went to take a shower and demanding to know why I let him not pack undies. I had to point out anew he's a grown ass man.... He finally bought new ones and we managed to shift him out of the old man tighty whitys, the Walter White of underwear, to knit boxers, which immediately made him sigh happily that now he had more room for his junk.  Today I pulled my own doozy stupidity that more than rivals forgetting to pack drawers.I drank bug spray. Didn't mean to. Cleaned the kitchen. Washed the dishes, just like people are wo...

On the beach in Tama four years ago when we arrived here. We're preparing to fly back to the States for a few days to see family. Going to be a challenge because we'll be a full house where we're going. One of my kids ran away from Hurricane Ida and has to start over... again. I suspect it's going to be heavy going when I get there. Lots of folks in the house. One of the big problems is that Jim has a crazy ex coworker at his old position in the government that wants to schedule a party for us with former coworkers. Sounds nice, right? It's been a cluster you know what. First he invited himself and all the others over to one of my children's home for a BBQ. I gently pointed out to him several times I would have to talk to her about it, and told him to come up with an alternate plan.  I talked to her, knowing she would be against this because, hello who invites themselves over with a pile of friends during Covid? Also her house isn't big, there's only one...

  A local IFB church near my old house that had beaucoup of trouble too bizarre to detail involving a child molesting pastor. I am sitting here in all amusement watching Jim rush about madly trying to make everyone involved with his new church happy. I'm not dressed for church, I'm sitting here in my old cotton granny nightgown drinking coffee and listening to the phone conversations. He just said to me that perhaps he's too nice of a guy. You think? All this started earlier in the week when Velma, the older lady who likes to use our hot tub but has no idea how it gets hot , visited for another hot tub bout. Jim mentioned something about picking up Dave for church too, and she lost it on him, screeching she WOULD NOT ride into town, with Jim driving of course, to pick up Dave. Did I mention it's only about six minutes out of their way? Now I'm not as nice as Jim and that same afternoon I had an unfriendly exchange with Velma who started bemoaning that the virus is a...

The last month has been struggle, and I've not wanted to dump that on any readers. Why? Me coming to terms with the fact that I was told I probably had MS and it was thalamic stroke instead and I wasn't referred  to the neuro in time enough to recover lost function. It was a dishearteningly hard pill to swallow along with the news that I had old thalamus damage likely from a stroke in utero.  Lots of hard ugly crying mixed with self pity there for the last month. Plus it took me awhile to get okay enough with this to tell family members. Processing takes time. I won't bore you with the physical details. I've had issues my entire life that relate to the first thalamus damage, now I have more. Big effing deal, I'm still very fortunate compared to others, I have access to great healthcare and have the gold standard health insurance. They've switched around my medications and I'm doing better now. Jim is Jim and he's enmeshed with his fantasy football prepar...

 I've been silent while I've been mentally processing the fact that I was denied medical care because little Dr. Bitch thinks I'm a hysterical woman. The one doctor at the clinic I dislike. I've spoken now with the clinic director and wheels are turning, just slowly at a sloths pace. Recently I flew to the States to get my Covid vaccination since Costa Rica hasn't been able to get enough vaccines to protect their citizens much less people in various stages of residency. Plus I needed the Johnson and Johnson per my lung doctor. I had a hard time in Maryland finding the vaccine. D.C. was a wash, they didn't have it either. Plenty of the other two. Turns out I finally found it in Virginia and drove several hours to get vaccinated. The trip was a shit show. Not seeing my kids. That was wonderful. But traveling without the ability to walk well was awful. But I'm not going to rehash the lack of wheelchairs even when you make your reservations months before. Let...

  View from our hotel room. We just got back from a dizzying trip to San Jose for me to see my once and future neurologist I'm going to call Dr. Freddie. Well, it is his name, his nickname anyway. It did not go well. Why? Lots of reasons. What went well? The hotel. It was the most beautiful lavish thing in the heart of the downtown next door to a casino and overlooking the park. Most pleased with our cheap luxurious night's stay. Not ready to talk about my diagnosis yet. I am waiting test results. Yes, I did get a CT scan of my head and a spinal. Yes, the doctor thinks he knows what it is. It's not MS. I am LIVID, simply livid that Dr. Stupid at the clinic told me it was likely MS, that he'd touched base with Dr. Freddie and that I should just be monitored for 5 or 6 months. All lies. I am very unlikely to regain function in my left side because I did not receive hospitalization and proper treatment at the onset.  Costa Rica being what it is I cannot sue for malpractice...

  Propped up electrical line in Costa Rica. We see a ton of sawed through and hanging posts here. It makes no sense and fits with the rainy season's flicking electric. This is normally where I moan about my body's utter and complete betrayal via mast cell, but I'm weary of it. The day to day reality of not walking without an assistive device, and lets see what triggers crazy asthma is too much. Tonight's depressed mood mixed with low oxygen levels and high blood pressure spells more on the way. Dull, but I am feeling so many bad angry feels in the wake of Church Dog Gate.  Tomorrow night we are invited to a party, at someone's house where I have been told to 'med up' because there will be long haired fuzzy dogs there. If only it were a mere case of 'medding up' I declined, and now the host is acting like I am a drama queen, even after seeing how I got with the last bad long haired dog exposure. She huffed that she'd put her dog in the other room....

  I laughed when I saw this. The last time we grabbed coffee and fried eggs on English Muffin sandwiches at The Players Club at the Liberia Airport it was over 25 dollars for something that would have run four bucks at McDonalds. Picked up Jim from the Liberia Airport on Tuesday and it was a almost literal zoo.  I arrived like I always do to fetch someone, walked into the terminal and took a seat where I could view the arrivees. Like always. I hadn't been there more than five minutes when a security guard told me I must move outside. I tried to plead disability, arguing I needed to stay seated on the disabled seat until he arrived. No dice, she said that the Covid regs would not let me stay there, even if I was dying. So it was out into the brutal sunshine and hot air outside the arrivals door. With ten thousand shouting Tico drivers holding signs with the names of various tourists. After an hour I started getting most logy. And sweaty, very very sweaty. I noticed there was a ...

  The hummingbird that visits every morn. I finally got a photo of him two days ago. Today I was back at the doctor's office, down to the clinic, where I got to see Baby Doctor. He's so young and so cute, the kid brother of my once and future neurologist who treated me for my stroke, and who's about to see me for my balance confloptions. Baby Doctor is so so nice too.  I had to stop by because while my asthma finally backed off I've been having one heck of a sinus infection in the aftermath that is refusing to respond to garlic pills, my usual treatment. My right eye that swelled shut the other day, and did the same thing in the poodle aftermath looks like I went a couple of rounds in the boxing ring, swollen, red and painful. Nose infected. Damn, I'm fallen apart. Infected upper respiratory stuff in the wake of the bouts of asthma. This happens if the attack is severe enough, and gets provoked again, sinus infection, infection in the eyes and nose. Nose I have the ...

  Rainy season in our front yard looking towards the guesthouse. Life has been kind of fubar lately. I'm not mad or sad about that, it is what it is. I almost wonder if this is really all Mercury Retrograde to blame. Makes the idiotic fighting and splits in the Anti KJ community look like what they are, petty and inconsequential.  Fuck that. I care not. Example of life. A few nights ago I went to cook up the few leftovers for dinner, pasta and meatballs, some broccoli salad and other things. Went to warm it up and the old big microwave in the kitchen is toast. It stopped working and started flashing an error code. Looking up the code it looks like something major and expensive went haywire. I'm just going to replace with our old one from the guesthouse. So here I am, heating up dinner on the stove top. Found out my fancy Black & Decker toaster is also fried. No matter what types of surge protectors you use here the flickering electrical grid kills appliances. Moved the toa...

  Wow that is some short hair on me! Right before moving here four years ago. I still laugh over the fact that the souvenir stands sell these crazy painted dildos. One thing was brought to my attention this week that was just disgustingly breath-taking. I discovered that the last pastor's wife told all the ladies of the church they should avoid me because of my column at Patheos. So now I know why I kept getting the cold shoulder from everyone but a handful of people here. Such completely fake ass people.

  Taken yesterday sitting in a pedicab at the first checkpoint into Nicaragua at the aptly named Penas Blancas. We've been trying all week to make our 90 days border run to renew our visas. We've done this particular goat rodeo before. Just not since Covid. If only all our residency paperwork was in and accepted as 'in progress' by the government instead of kicked out of the system and forced to start over with all new copies of every nit picky document. We were just in progress when Covid hit. The government threw out the applications of everyone applying when the pandemic hit, which means start anew for us. Usually we go during the week, trying to go in the morning so we could escape to the plethora of restaurants in Liberia that do not exist in the Tamarindo area. Usually you walk up, pay your exit tax of $8 or $9 dollars (depending on the exchange rate that day), walk into the CR immigration building to turn in your exit tax papers and they stamp your passport with ...

  Playa Grande this morning. With asthma while it's helpful to live within 7 miles of the beach,  actually going to the beach with the fresh salty air seems to help. I didn't walk as much as usual, but I did enjoy the ocean breezes. The waves were insane with lots of rip tides visible. Last night my asthma started trying to morph into lung crud. Better today. When we first moved to Costa Rica almost exactly four years ago we were getting near the end of our four months there when we met someone on the bus to San Marcos. A retired lady with a name straight off of "Game of Thrones" and a haughty attitude. Another American, retired there from teaching creative writing at the university level. I could tell that Jim was pissing her off on this short ride. She wasn't doing herself any favors with me either. Why? Because she spent the entire 45 minutes bragging about being a great writer with a zillion books. I went back to our plastic paneled room and looked her up by h...

  Yeah, I'm there again. Still asthmatic, but now it's settling in my lungs in such a way as I feel like I'm developing bronchitis or worse. High fever, sweating, coughing and honking way too much. Tomorrow to the doctor I go~ Pretty sure I don't look as nice and nicely put together as Chappelle's Crack Guy. Jim is getting the full court press official evangelical Love Bombing at the church. He attended the same one we've been going to for years just so he could fully restock the tee shirts and make sure it's all organized. Miss Bossy claim twittering on up stroking his male ego about how 'needed' he is. Kristin came out and did the exact same thing! Now our email box is filled with paeans to Jim's helpful tee shirt selling and doing other things. I can see what they are up to, and I don't much like it. But I know even if they tempt Jim into staying a few more weeks it's just going to be more of the same, and he'll figure it out. Righ...

  The rolling, roiling, goat rodeo, one legged man at an ass kicking contest that is church. This is going to be long, and explains why I've been mostly gone. It's been quite the horrible week. My snark-o-meter has been turned to 11. You've been warned. It's also going to be a long one, this tale has sprung boarded me into a huge discovery about someone too. First read this , followed by this . Yes, the Big Fuzzy Emotional Rescue Poodle happened. I have had several not so friendly conversations with that board member that keeps chasing me outside and insisting I sit just beyond the doors to watch when I am in desperate need of injectable benadryl and a boatload of Combivent and other drugs at home, asap. She told me immediately after the second happening that the board had decided I was to keep sitting at the tee shirt table with Jim, and they'd put Emotional Comfort Poodle on the balcony next to the other side of the room, and his owner would sit inside the buildin...

  Pork, the stray that moved in and adopted us, taking a long hard nap on my fresh sheets. She arrived with her friend we called Beans, as in Pork and Beans, but Beans comes around rarely now. Not Pork, Pork is permanent. Yesterday Jim gave his good friend Derwood a ride to the Liberia airport.  I didn't offer to go with them. I knew Jim wanted to take the opportunity to talk with Derwood alone. Last year when the pandemic started until Sept Derwood was at our house every single freaking day. Jim thought he'd made a close friend here. It's hard to make close friends here because of the very transient nature of the place. It fits the description that Stephen King used in "Stand By Me" about friendships. It's more true here that friends move in and out of our lives here like busboys at a restaurant. My best friend here got abused by her husband and went back to the States.  It happens. When Derwood disappeared in Sept we were both puzzled by this. Every single d...

  Right now I need all the chocolate in all those cocoa bean pods processed in my hot little hands pronto! No sleep because no breath plus asthma drugs. It's easing some, and I had a small window of time today without wheezing, but my eyes look like I'm smuggling these cocoa beans between the bottom and top lids. No bueno. Stayed home largely in the bedroom under the air conditioning and I read and crocheted a lot. If I ever again utter the words "Hey I love that very intricate afghan and I'm going to make it" I want one of you to stick my head in the paint can shaking machine down at the Sherwin Williams store, either here in Costa Rica, or home in the States and flip that sucker to high. Right now I'm making the Phoenix pattern and I'm losing my mind. Had to rip out the last six rows last night because I'd some how made an error six rows back screwing up the entire thing.  Because I am somewhat sidelined I'm now the official keeper of the Iphone...

  Last night's sunset at Tama. Horrid asthma. This will be brief. We keep running into Jerzey and he's still shouting out warnings about the Covid vaccine like he's this guy.    He cannot speak of anything else, no matter what you say he's right back there again and again like that last conversation. Lather, Rinse. Repeat. We're going back into Covid restrictions and near lock down again because now we're ranked #4 per capita in infections. Number 4, yet they are completely 100% open to tourism. Please don't visit right now! In other less exciting news I got new glasses, purple this time, a purple so dark it looks black. I'm not excited about them except now I can order from Zenni and get pairs in crazy colors and shapes to break this up a little. New glasses, old wrinkles. I had to laugh yesterday because right around the time I took this selfie in PriceSmart my husband started asking me where I got that pink necklace. He thought it was new. I had to po...

  Traffic jam on Monday afternoon coming back from Nicoya! This week has been getting Jim's motorcycle through the Retive process - the yearly inspection. The motorcycle being problematic because of something to do with adjusting the idle down low to get it to pass. We have to take it to the closest Yamaha authorized repair shop, which is Nicoya over an hour away, have them adjust the idle, get the inspection, come back to adjust the idle up to make it more drivable and then go home again. Monday it didn't work out. Turns out the bike needed a ton of work so we left it and came on home. I was dismayed to find that the fabric store in Santa Cruz I'd been buying quilt batting and quilt backing from had gone under and the other store a few blocks from the park had all unnatural fabrics in an array of garish colors but no silks or cottons. I'm trying to make an altar cloth and need a silk or a cotton to use encaustic waxes on and dye for a batiked altar cloth. I'm going...