The Sea is a Salty One

  A Thanksgiving many years ago in my Virginia home. I still miss this place, including the small galley kitchen. Giant turkey roaster. Good times. Had something of a down day today. Talked to my aunt a long time last night. Aunt have all sorts of problems, meaning she's dragging on things she needs to do on her end, like get the paperwork notarized for my mother's investment account. Since we're both on the power of attorney we both have to apply. I'll be going to the Embassy on Tuesday to get my half notarized. We're bumping up against the mandatory withdrawals you must take yearly after reaching 73 and change. She's also telling me that Mom still thinks we moved her to a cheaper place, and are stealing her money. Mom's trying to report my husband and I as some sort of illegal rapacious folks spending her money in great orgy of spending, and is trying to be sprung from her memory care unit to move home to the haunted doll castle on the fairway of hole 5 of...

  I am an old woman, not an ogress! Written on Friday the14th A week ago today we flew home. I'm still recovering from my month back home. I brought things back to the house, all the towels and bedsheets I'd purchased for the assisted living plus a pretty inexpensive comforter for my bed. My aunt tried to tempt me into purchasing an absolutely beautiful white comforter with silver pewter medallions sewn into the white linen. I loved it, then reality set in. I'm married to a guy who is so so smart but does not have one lick of common sense. I've learned I must have a pile of inexpensive comforters that can be washed. I never know when he's going to trot into the bedroom and pass out on the bed with black little goat feet. Here in Costa Rica he tends to walk around shoeless and if I'm not awake to gently remind him to wash those goat feet he'll go to bed with them like that. Besides the beautiful linen was dry clean only, something that does not exist here. I ...

 Whelp, this one seems to be summed up by the news a few hours ago when it was announced that 40 different US airports will be staffing down starting tomorrow. I'm scheduled to fly out on Sunday back to Costa Rica through one of these scaled down ports of call. One of the biggest. So far my flights are listed as ' on' but I feel no confidence that this will happen if my flights to get here are any indication. Might have to take a cruise home if flights are cancelled. I am so ready to go home, you just don't know! I've been rushing about buying furnishings for my mother's accommodations in memory care since her bed is too big. Had her assisted living apartment packed and delivered back to the house, and placed her in the new place. There's just one big problem, Bottomless Betty is livid with the move. She threatened my husband physically, all 91 pounds of her soaking wet, and has hurled angry nasty invective at both of us, insisting that the move was made on...

  Nope, I'm not at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, but I might as well be.   Shit and Roaches, Excuse Me Palmetto Bugs Tuesday Oct 14 th Well, I am here in South Louisiana now and I think my experience so far can be succinctly summed up by an episode last night. I had purchased a bundle of flowers in lovely fall colors to brighten up the nearly empty home. Looking through my mother’s collection of high end vases I decided to go for broke and use the huge cut glass lavaliere that’s big enough to bathe in. I pulled it down from a high shelf and an enormous roach fell on my head. Yep. I screamed and ran before I realized the palmetto bug variety of roach was long dead. I flew in on Sunday. It was a shitshow. My plane in Liberia had gate changes three times before they changed planes and we left very late after having to scrabble up an outside set of metal steps instead of a jet bridge. Flew into Dallas and my next flight was changed planes and gates after an hour’s...

  The Chesapeake Bay Bridge last weekend. So where have I been? Back to Louisiana and then up to Maryland. I wanted to check on my mother in her assisted living. It didn't go well at all, even if I stayed ten days. One of my aunts in the Aunt Heap nicknamed my mother 'Bottomless Betty' after she suddenly developed the inability to wear bottoms at all, no pants, no panties, no skirts. It was most bizarre and had a sudden onset. Her dementia has gone haywire in the few months she's been in assisted living. I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was either. This was a shock, her mental status slid so fast it was scary. Did what I could, talked to the folks in the admin office seeking a way to help her. My mother's doctor had tried a drug to slow the dementia but all it did was cause my mother to hallucinate.   Got home on Tuesday night, taking that long airplane ride from Washington, DC to my home near Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Human Greek chorus and alarmist member of...

  Some years back. Need to take a new photo as the banana trees are putting out six bunches of bananas. Yes, we have bananas! Starting with a mangled cliche! There was a Jimmy Buffett song titled "Cliches" with the chorus lyric " Cliches, good ways to say what you mean, mean what you say. " I hope some I have listed below are largely devoid of meaning.  Yes, I am back doing D list actor who is not very deep's writing prompt. It's a good one today, cliches uttered by parental units. He was wittering on about his favorite Southern writers, O'Connor and McCullers, while admitting a) he's really not read them, but ha has seen the movies and b) kept confusing the two. C'est la vie!  I prefer the works of people like Zora Neale Hurston, Truman Capote and Faulkner for my navel-gazing Southerners. At least Capote was amusing. There are so many things, deeply fucked up things uttered by my parents that I am at loath to repeat them here. A sampling of a f...

Water feature from the Orchid Garden near San Jose. Well, it's been a strange week or two. I've lost days to this silly ankle thing. Took off the boot at a week to start doing physical therapy movements, made it two days and now the boot is back on and I'm down to two pain pills. It's healing so slowly this time. Have to do a medical follow up this week. Several days ago we went to a party for a lady we know who is throwing in the towel and going home to the U.S.A. Katie was trying to do that thing that is impossible here on the Gold Coast -- live as a gringo without a steady monthly income. Even a social security pension will not cut it here. It's expensive, but likely not as expensive as life in the U.S.A. is getting lately. Read that there has been a 40% jump in the price of vegetables and fruits last month. Deporting the folks that do all the grunt work there was one very bad idea mixed with those insano tariffs. We have high tariffs here and it inhibits the amo...

  If anything I should have stayed in bed the last almost week even without the ankle situation. Why? Three things that happened while I am just over here trying to live my life. First I bought a beautiful polished chrome set for my bathroom, A large pipe assembly coming off the wall with a large rain shower head that you could swivel and bend any direction along with a shiny hose and a hand held shower head. Installed it. Made sure both ran well. Turned off the tap and walked away only to hear a huge CLUNK!! The thing was so heavy it snapped the pipe in the wall. Plumber coming next week, the endless Tico "Manana" Second I am allergic to the stupid orthopedic boot. Apparently parts are latex, and when I sweat, which is a daily thing in Costa Rica, it leeches through to the latex part. Leg, ankle, foot all covered in an itchy rash now. Tried going with just the ace bandage this morning and spent the day eating pain pills. Back in the boot, itching scratching at it all. My lun...

  Arenal Volcano near La Fortuna, Costa Rica A few days ago a psychologist I follow mentioned something about the nature of PTSD and CPTSD. Sometimes it  keeps showing up long after the original event and wrecking you. Thinking about that led me to volcanoes. Why? Well, with volcanoes it's not just the initial explosion that causes you harm, it's everything afterward. I'm fortunate enough to live near volcanoes here in Costa Rica. There's several about an hour away, the biggest being Rincon de Vieja.  I've climbed Arenal Volcano several times now. Climbed Turrialba. I've seen the smoke and glow of  Poas from our hotel room near San Jose. Been up close and personal with volcanoes. Something I never dreamed I'd do when I grew up as a child in Louisiana, but I have. It's not just that explosion that will get you, it's everything after will continue on the damage. I like to use the analogy that when a toxic person explodes on you. When it happens it can ...

  View from our room in Copey eight years ago. Was I ranty on Sunday? I was livid after someone else invited folks to my pool followed by an accident that wouldn't have taken place had the husband just done what I asked him to do involving concrete stepping stones and our garage. We bought pavers today. Monday morning clinic, x rays, consultation with an ortho surgeon and exam by the lady that runs the clinic. Nothing broken, just a ton of degraded bone and old injuries, new sprain and new ligament detached. The pain had amplified so much by the time I got up that morning it was straight to the doc. Last time I did something like this to myself it was back in Virginia. Woman ran over my foot with an electric mobility scooter. It hurt worse, but not by much. The funny thing of this is my doctor oh so seriously and mournfully informing me that I had lots of old damage in the ankle/foot, the torn ligament and I wasn't going to benefit from ligament surgery. D'oh! I'm old! ...

  Massive gardening project going on right now at the house. We've been having the security wall painted a rich dark brown and now I've decided we need more flowering plants along the wall. Too bad it's going to be a few days before I'm walking again. Spite wall behind the pool getting a nice coating of those fake plant walls. Just to break up the brown on the metal wall extension that takes the wall from ten feet to almost twenty. Contractors in and out right now, new gate, new security system, bathroom expansion with a tub and a sun room just to name a few.  Today church. I go only to support my husband. 30 year old worship music, and a sorry excuse for a sermon that was the thrice divorced pastor preaching to himself again. All pretty standard. This is how it goes every week. The problem started after church was over and the bane of my existence, the church secretary, came over with 15 YWAM kids. She was prancing around, showing off, and squealing that she was hostin...

  Written in mid June 2025 I disappeared into the ether. I genuinely didn’t mean to but life handed me some psychedelic-soaked dramatic lemons and the lemonade is warped as a result. My mother. Before this is all over I may end up in a psychiatric facility myself. Ready a bed down at the state mental hospital in Mandeville, Louisiana! Ha! Where my long departed mean as fire great grandmother taught art. Oh, almost a month ago. Right around the time we returned from Jim’s radiation treatments I got a call from the Aunt Heap telling me that my mother was in the hospital with A Fib. Talking with her doctor I started to get a more complete picture of what was going on – she’s going into end stages of anorexia. Her body is breaking down the muscles, including her heart. It’s that serious. I don’t think she’s long for this world at this point. One thing that the doctors could all agree on is that she cannot continue to live in her dusty mausoleum of a haunted house alone. They didn’t...

  I love this silly photo. Many days that's what I feel like. Particularly when dealing with copious amounts of Sahara dust. Haven't posted here in a while. I was busy with getting the husband through radiation, myself through putting my mother into assisted living and now the fall out for basically not being home for five long months. Dirt! Dust! Laundry! Asthma! The relentless asthma inducing Sahara dust! There's a very low level dumb celeb who fancies himself deep that sometimes does these writing prompts. It's funny because his spelling isn't great and his usage of the language isn't either. But sometimes I do his challenges because, well, when you're stuck, like I am right now on the tines of the bad asthma and the second season "Happy Shiny People" I am kind of wrecked. It's killed my writing mojo to the point where I've been just using my computer to organize my recipes.  One of my three beloved children was involved with Teen Mania ...

  Naughty man standing in front of the " Beware Volcano " sign. So I am storing my writing prompts from a group I am in here on this mostly abandoned blog. I don't know why I participate in the group because the leader a) cannot spell in the age of Spellchecker, and b) his base of knowledge about life in general is simply shoddy. However I'm not sure which one of us is truly idiotic, him for his multitude of significant flaws, or myself for being a member of his group. Today his exercise involved going outside and writing about what you see, old school style on a notebook with a pen. First of all, I struggle with balance and would surely face plant right onto the cold hard surface of the side walk just from juggling a notebook, pen and cane. Not happening.  Add into this very awful scenario the fact that I am currently in a three star hotel in the industrial section of San Jose, Costa Rica, overlooking the John Deere warehouse. Plus for crazy ironic giggles check this...

So so tempted to rename this whiny ass blog "Sorry Side Up" with a photo of some janky fried eggs. The last year has just sucked so much, since the husband's cancer surgery in Jan. 2024. I haven't been posting for quite a while. I haven't much felt like it, yet I keep returning here to gripe on the regular. Just the short period of time of the current political administration has kept me busy writing at my Substack. If you're been watching the madness you know what's going on. The bit that concerns me that I keep returning to is the fact that the USA keeps sending deportation flights here to Central America where countries are in no way able to handle or accomplish what the administration wants. Panama is pretty much just turning them loose on the streets and telling them to ' self deport '.  Fly free my little deportees, fly free!! It's an evolving humanitarian crisis in this part of the world created entirely by Trump. One of the things I...

  Things are finally starting to feel more 'normal' as we return to our regularly scheduled programming and boring every day lives here. I am trying to download and edit a few of the many photos I took at Lago Arenal, the volcano and other places on the trip including a pile of rainbow photos. It was rainy and cold around La Fortuna during our visit last week, but it just made the adults only pool next to the cocktail bar at the volcano springs place the best place to be! Soaked so long and hard in 100 degree water I started to feel faint. Upside: We've managed to move everything back where it goes and clean. Fresh sheets on the beds, both bedrooms that were used are freshly clean. Guesthouse pretty clean, I can put off the sweep/mop/dust a few days. Good thing too because I discovered today that our other guests used all the towels and extra sheets. Guesthouse sheets on the line right now drying. Towels first thing tomorrow! On top of it all now.  I just started something ...

  We were here again, on that windy road with warnings not to feed the coatimundis, or as the Ticos call them Pizotes. Yes, I did feed a pile of them. Breaking the law, breaking the law! Sorry the sign is so fuzzy.  These guys. So I know I said I was staying home from Arenal and my husband was taking his two friends, but what ended up happening is that Jim talked me into accompanying him because he didn't really want to be around them either. One of them is just ridiculous! His brother was fine save for handing out those religious tracts. I went because the husband requested it and boy it was a huge mistake, pizote feeding or not. Why? Well, Timmy, the guy that's visiting. Not Mike his brother, but Timmy. Timmy started getting on my nerves and didn't let up even after he left. He pretty much ruined my Tuesday and parts of yesterday too. I've come to the conclusion after this trip that Timmy must be autistic, or OCD, or some other diagnosed 'ism.' None of this is...