The Sea is a Salty One

 Picking up again almost exactly a week ago. All photos from the Museo de Oro Precolombino .   Thoughts on San Jose and homelessness: During our recent vacation we spent two days/two nights in San Jose. Now we don't go there very often. During the best of times it's a good five hour drive, much of it through road construction and bumper to bumper traffic. Many streets are one way, the street numbering makes zero sense, and it is a vast sprawling city that makes both Google Maps and Apple Maps give up the ghost! Most of the time when we go it's because we're seeing a specialist at the hospital. It's just too nerve-wracking any other way.    When we're in San Jose we don't get to see the tourist things at all! During Jim's medical trials last year and this year I started attempting to book us into a hotel near the hospital yet overlooking Calle Central, not far from the Central Market, Theatro Nacional, Museo de Oro, etc, etc, so at least we could sit on ...

 So we were out of town last week. My rantings and ravings part uno! Arenal garden in front of the church. Extremely cloudy this trip! We’ve gone off on a vacation before our real vacation. Three days in Arenal/La Fortuna, two days at Copey de Dota/Santa Maria and two days in San Jose. I’m not looking forward to the drive back because Backstabber Bridge is still closed, so it’s about another hour up to Liberia and another hour over back home to Tamarindo. There is a ferry, but there seems to be some confusion about how to reserve a spot, and a small number of spots available. It doesn’t help much that the ferry seems rather poorly run on it’s cruise to the Nicoya Peninsula.  Sorry to start on such a downer note, but as I like to say, it is what it is.   Arenal and La Fortuna were lovely as usual. We made two trips to the Chocolate Fusion for delicious treats, and we had the usual amazing time at the villa we stayed in near the waterfall. We also spent a wonderful day...

  The beach at Carillo we visited last Monday! So aggravated this morning. Why? Couple of things. This happened on Wednesday. The Asada (local water company) decided to replace all of the water pipes around our village. I was glad they started doing this considering every time they repaired a leak in the system they shut down the entire system. We have a tank outside that holds something like sixty gallons so we have enough water to keep going some hours, but if I don't know the water is off I don't always cut back the amount I'm using. Why does this matter? Because if there's a system shutdown I don't do things like run the washer or the dishwasher (me).  You cannot see it, but our auxiliary tank is up those legs! So cool beans, they were replacing the pipes! Better water pressure and less down times I hope! Later that same day we went to the local Wal Mart subsidiary to pick up cat food and milk. On the way back it started raining, turning all that dirt into a riv...

  We've had torrential downpours here for days, days and days, something like four or five days in a row. I've been spending more time in my studio painting and doing other arts like making glittery nice smelling soaps and today putting together a large macrame dream-catcher like thing. The majority of my quilts get made once it starts raining every afternoon.  More rain was forecast, but by 11:30 am yesterday I started to see the tiniest patch of blue in the middle of the gray. Slowly that blue started to seep out and take over more of the sky until I started to push, prod and plead with Jim to get off his ass and go to the beach with me. We drove to Grande, my favorite place on the entire earth. Wet, partly clouded and cold, the wave pounded the shore in incredible foam displays.  We weren't the only stir crazy ones coming out. The beach was crowded and more people kept piling into this place that is normally nearly deserted. People showed up with surf boards, and touri...

  Was so in shock over the reappearance of old you know who I didn't include our usual Sunday night highjinks. Yes, yes Mrs. Bronx Honx made a reappearance after we'd skipped skipping a few Sunday nights. We'd barely climbed out of our blue tiny car when there she was, insisting we sit with her group. She was literally in the parking lot! Husband said later he saw my face when she appeared and later when I approach the table and realized that there were roughly 12 folks trying to cram around a table built for 4. I stomped off to beach walk without another word because I was just not dealing with that. My friend we took noticed my reaction too. I came back a half hour later to discover only our small party at the table and the Honx and their guests up in the nosebleed seats. Apparently the guests didn't take kindly to us showing up and they all moved. I spent a few minutes trying to explain to my friend that one of the hardest things post stroke for me is controlling my ...

 ... I am not whining and whinging! Pelicans flying overhead in Playa Grande. Sweet sonny boy cheeses, I am not even sure how to describe a lot of recent actions, so I'll baldly state it. WTF universe, WTF? The good. We did a tour of the local chocolate factory and sampled over thirty different kinds of chocolate. They even were very caring and solicitous over this being a bad walk day for me. I have to use my rollator.  Loved the ghost pepper chocolate and the white chocolate lime.    But my favorite part was when I stayed behind in the Tasting room because the group was about to have to traverse two sets of steps. I stayed behind and talked to the 3 nice young men who were so passionate about chocolate. They told me their life stories and thoughts on so many things. I would have missed that had I had a day when I could have taken the stairs, and I do have those days. The bad. Sunny, the church lady that has been a thorn in my side, returned home a week early from t...

  I've always loved this bullriding statue in Santa Cruz. Today I felt like I was riding the bull.... right on the horns. It was my birthday, and I've found that holidays and special days seem to hold some extra crazy. I was praying today would not. I turned 64 today. Did some work things this morning involving my book and it was good. Talked to my kids. That was good.... ...and then it took a sharp left turn into crazytown. I started hearing from the Aunt Heap in New Orleans about my momma. My mother didn't call, and she has me blocked still. The Aunts again were outraged, which meant I ended up fielding too many angsty phone calls. Again I am expected to put my mother into a nursing home. I've already been told by law enforcement and lawyers that until she takes some sort of bizarre turn there's not a lot I can do legally. I spent too much time explaining this yet again, getting my emotions yanked all over the place and I started crying. This is why I keep my phon...

Yes, that's a smoking volcano, that's Arenal Volcano. I made like a volcano and spewed this morning, sadly I did not spew ash! I know, I know, I haven't posted much, but much of life has been mundane and inane! The rains have arrived along with the ripe mangoes so the monkeys are living full time in our mango grove. Scuttling across the guesthouse roof, peering in windows, pooping in the pool. Every time I step into the kitchen to cook I do it with a watching howler monkey troop. I don't know why they thing that is so fascinating.  Yesterday I did something I never do. I ate processed foods and about equal to a smallish package of gummy bears. I felt weird almost immediately, but I was binging on a very bad new Netflix documentary series where it felt like everyone in the series save a few folks were just awful people. I was self medicating with small amounts of the stuff the husband always eats.  Never again! Going back to cleaner eating. The capper was waking up at 5a...

  The usual Sunday night place just in time for sunset. Been a very wild couple of days. Working on getting our passports renewed. Jim and I were forced to work as a team to fix the leak in our washer. Mix in that we've been social, too damn social for introverted me. Saturday night. We head off to the house of a local musician we know well. It's his 72nd birthday and there's a shindig at his house. I didn't know anyone there at first beyond the host and hostess, but that's okay, I love to people watch. I'm hobbling because my knee is still a problem, the band of muscles on the outside of it are strained and I've already been told its a long recovery time. It hurts, I deal.  After slipping out back to smoke a little of the devil's lettuce with the host I went back into a house to sit in the living room to people watch and rest my knee. I sat down in a living room filled with ladies of a certain age. One of them kept telling me I looked 'familiar'...

  Strike up the band! Sunday night at our usual hangout. I'm having symptoms that make me think there's something very wrong and different going on in my body. Yesterday I accidentally took a four hour nap while boiling potatoes and eggs for potato salad, got up around 7 pm and stayed up until 11 before crashing for about ten hours. On top of that my balance is much much worse suddenly and I'm having difficulties with my hands gripping things along with shaking involuntary muscle movements and crazy random pain. I guess it's time to go get a physical again. Starting to wonder if the doctor that thought I had MS might be right after all. I hope not, but I am not a happy camper about any of this! Yesterday in the middle of my moaning about my stupid body I decided to go get a few plastic things and casserole dishes from the local Walmart subsidiary, not actual Walmart as that is over an hour away. Noticing cleaning the guesthouse post visit that I really needed to add to ...

  Funny how different life can look a full week later! First, we finally heard from my husband's doctor and that one high marker in his prostate blood work apparently does not mean cancer, it's the last gasp of a body that had it's prostate removed. I am hoping he is right! Different week, man. Last Saturday morning I was sitting in my car weeping thinking the cancer was still there, listening to Glen Campbell singing "Rhinestone Cowboy" and feeling like I understood a lot of the frustration and lack of freedom in the song. I got home just in time to hear the good news. May it be so! Right now my youngest's child's best friend and husband are here. Sweet couple who've stayed with us before and are doing it again. This week has been running them around to get a rental car after making sure the guesthouse was immaculate. I had to do some appliance and linens replacement because of the guy that stayed 3 months last year, and ruined or disappeared certain ...

  Sunset last Sunday at Tamarindo Beach. I'll be there tonight for sunset yet again. Our Sunday night tradition! We're pretending to normality at the moment. Jim's bloodwork is not good. Likely he will be going back to the capital for radiation and chemotherapy. I am a mess. But I am pretending yet again. In several days my daughter's best friend and her husband are visiting. Their visit does not need our drama, plus I don't want to coming back to my daughter to tell her this isn't over yet. I love these kiddults too much for that.

Taken during my first trip to Costa Rica far south of where we are now. You know I was calm and copacetic thought all the tests, biopsies, and the actual cancer surgery this last six months or so. But it all fell apart on one day. The day my husband was rushing around our house pantless screaming he needed me to give him an enema. Right in front of my adult children who didn't need to see that mess! I remember rushing him, leaking enema juice everywhere back into the bedroom, administering two Fleet enemas before rushing out the door with my purse to take the kids to the airport so they could fly home. Yes, yes, I washed my hands first. This was the moment that just emotionally broke me. Not arguing with the hospital over insurance coverage, not seeing blacked tissue in the biopsy container going to the pathologist, not the troubles I hadd booking a hotel room during high season. But this. Since that time I've just been shaking and shaken.The only feeling I've had that even...

  A Turquoise Browed Mott Mott. It's a rare sight indeed because they usually lurk in the shadows and are notoriously shy. Taken this evening. Not much happening here. Starting to beat house back into great shape. Just need to mop kitchen and clean the laundry room and everything will return to pre-chaos clean that it was before Jim's surgery in late January. Finished submitting piles of stuff to the insurance company, finished taxes, finished cleaning our guesthouse. Nice thing about a messy house is it doesn't take much to put it back to rights again. Just a good hard scrub. Hung a new hummingbird feeder and we had something of a tizzy over the stuff you put inside. It came with a packet you boil with water and sugar. I did just that one night, resulting in some very red sugar water. I warned Jim not to drink it and we both laughed talking about the time David Rodrigues did just that and his wife Jill posted photos making fun of him for it. Not very submissive Godly wife ...

  About a week after we got back from the latest hospital confloption the wildfires got completely insane again. Sunset filtering through smoke near our house. Sort of apocalyptic looking. This week has kind of been hell. I was manipulated by a few people I used to respect, learning one of them was a terrible liar who'd played a game by using me as pawn piece. Another Judas in a sea of them apparently. They kind of broke my heart to a level I'd not experienced in quite a long time. I've been morose and moping as a result, and had to reevaluate if social media really is something I wish to participate in. Boundaries redrawn yet again. But today I started feeling a little better after talking to one of my dear older aunties. We've both been walking through an extended season of suffering. She pointed out that our old Catholic upbringing just primed us for introspection and emotionally beating ourselves up during Holy Week when we've already been in the valley for mont...

  Not a bad view, eh? Haven't been back to this restaurant in awhile. I've been busy trying to rescue my normal life from the wreckage and devastation of Jim's diagnosis. Getting back into the rhythm of life here. Almost finally on top of laundry and a few other things. Working my usual schedule like a fiend. I want normal, I crave normal and we're almost there. Jim's incision seems to be healing this time. They took out the stitches even. Yesterday for the first time since mid January he has been able to get into the swimming pool again. His total function below his waist hasn't fully returned yet, but there's hope. At least he's not peeing the bed any longer. Small tender mercies. Thankfully I'm not peeing the bed, not that I do because that's a solid no. But all of this just points out to me that money is worthless and so are possessions along with internet feuds, church battles and crazy unstable friends and enemies. Even when they provoke yo...

 It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a big metal bird in the skies of San Jose! Wish it was real and not quite so big. I love Scarlett macaws. Sometimes you see them in the trees throughout big parts of Costa Rica. I cannot go on and be as detailed as I might like because this last 14 days or so would read like the "Game of Thrones" series. Like George R.R. Martin I know I tend to be verbose. Street painting of a Macaw What happened: short story. Jim's incision opened. The sponge pump drainage system that we spent a week trudging back and forth to the doctor for wasn't working well. We ended up in San Jose at the better hospital that is our insurance's company's preferred provider facility.  This place:   View from my husband's hospital room replete with the vilely uncomfortable couch/bed combination I slept on the first night. Luckily a very worried relative showed up the next afternoon to drag me away to a nearby hotel and start making sure I ate...

  The chickens here haven't been smoking, but I'm tempted to...and I don't smoke. Ever. Couple of days ago, Jim started complaining about the fact that he's still oozing something, not quite blood, not urine. His bladder finally woke up and realized it had a real job to do and the random peeing ended. Not a moment too soon as I have a threadbare set of sheets and a twenty year old quilt so drab and faded it's been washed so many times on the bed.  Haven't even started on the linens in the guest house yet and it's been two and a half weeks! I'm slacking, stress, constant medical confloptions, peeing, the dying of my dryer, my back, the phases of the moon, voodoo doll making have distracted me! I have also been distracted from eye balling Jim's incision. He had the metal staples removed a week ago. He started asking me to take a look. I finally did and a three inch long section of his incision has opened up. Doctor said its open two inches deep. So he...

  Well, I am not from f*cking Memphis but its been this kind of a night and day. Last night Jim drug me to his church to the Valentine's Day dinner. I wasn't best pleased by this, but I went to keep the peace. Besides sometimes very amusing things happen. They did! The good: My favorite local math teacher greeted me in the food line by asking me if I was ready for 'authentic Mexican food'? As I told him I am always ready for authentic Mexican food. His tacos were better than any of the local taco places, even the expensive ones. The bad: I had to keep fending off folks that wanted Jim and I to take this poor old dog that was Velma's. I kept having to explain over the course of yesterday and yesterday evening anew to folks about my dog dander allergy. The ugly: Shortly after arriving one of the church members sidled up with the pastor a few mere feet in front of me and started trying to engage in him speculating over another member's possible wealth. Kudos to the...