Don't Cry for Me, Costa Rica!

Our Santa Eulalia neighborhood

Just as we are feeling comfortably settled into our Santa Eulalia neighborhood, we've been hit with a wild pitch: We must return to our home in California! It has been a stressful two weeks since we got the news that the tenant renting our house had broken the lease. On top of that, our property manager said we probably needed to reduce the rent in order to lease it again. Given the small margins we have had between the mortgage and the rental income, we've decided our best course of action is to return to our Pilot Hill ranchette to live for a while as we look for ways to cut our expenses there. If we manage to do that, hopefully we will be able to return to Costa Rica one of these days.

At least it's springtime there so we won't be heading from tropical balmy days to frigid wintry weather. But it's also "springtime" here with many fruits and vegetables coming into season. Our avocado tree in front has bulbous green fruit all over it but they probably won't ripen before we depart on April 11th. Likewise, our mango tree in the backyard has fruit ripening but still too green to pick. 

Avocados about to ripen

Still-green mangos

We have so many mandarinas (like a tangerine), they are falling on the ground in abundance. Even our landlords came over recently to ask if they could pick a few. They filled two big bags and we still have so many I'm beginning to add them to salads just to try and use them.

Sadly, my brand new orchids, which I just bought a few weeks ago, cannot travel with me. I plan to offer them to Seidy (finally, this IS the correct spelling of her name!). She has a yard full of wild orchids of all kinds so I'm sure they''ll have a good home. Likewise, my "kitchen garden" of herbs will be parceled out to friends nearby. Bonnie wants the basil and I'm sure Jackie will take the oregano and rosemary. Hopefully, someone will take the big Aloe Vera plant. Sigh.

Goodbye to my herb garden

Of course, we had planned to go back to the States later this year to see family and friends, as we have every year, so this just pushed those plans forward a bit. We will now have time to deal with some of the "stuff" still in the barn. I worry that between the heat and the moisture that some things of value are being ruined. Long-time readers will recall what a hectic dash out of our home we had to make in December of 2009 when we decided to rent the house and head for Costa Rica. The prospective renters were being pushed out of their home due to a foreclosure. To paraphrase an old saying: Manure rolls downhill, so we had to get out of our house of over 14 years in less than six weeks. A lot of our stuff just ended up in our large storage barn. This return to residency there will give us a chance to clear it out.

We also look forward with joy to the opportunity to spend time with old friends again. Dinner parties with Ruth, chats over the fence with our neighbor Susan, time to drive into San Francisco to see our son Damian and grandson Kai and other friends there. We will make our pilgrimage to Portland to visit family there this summer and on to Spokane to see Layne's son Jess and his family. I will have a chance to fly to Texas and spend some time with my mom.

Still it's a bittersweet pill to have to leave Costa Rica, our adopted homeland that has welcomed us so warmly. As time allows, I'll continue to post reports on our activities as we settle back into life in California. And as circumstances allow, we hope to return to Costa Rica, at least for visits if not for good. Pura Vida!!

Don't Rain on Our Fiesta!

The thunder has been growling down from the sky for the last two hours, like some huge angry lion, with occasional hazy lightening flashes through dark clouds, followed by more rumbling until it’s virtually a continual sound, rising and falling with the distance. The rain continues to come down in a steady hum through the leaves. It’s a very “tropical” afternoon.

The normally placid Concho River

My mom relayed to me in great excitement this morning on the phone that in West Texas they had finally had a gully-washer of a storm, with the Concho River carrying dead trees, blue trash cans, Styrofoam cups and coolers and all manner of stuff downstream, as it rose along the banks that run by the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center where she works. Total rainfall? According to the newspaper, about 1½ inches. Wowsa. Here in Costa Rica, I think we get more than that every afternoon lately. The rainy season seems to have moved in past veranillo, or little summer, when the weather dries up for a couple of weeks in July just in time for the kids’ summer break from school. Now we’re heading into the serious stuff that comes in September and October.

But the daily downpours don’t stop a fiesta, and since yesterday was Mother’s Day here in Costa Rica there were fiestas aplenty. I made my way to two of them, one Tico and one Gringo.

A few days ago my Tica housekeeper Cidia called and tried to communicate something to me about a fiesta for “Dia de Madre,” or Mother’s Day. I got that much. But the rest was … well, Spanish. Bad enough in person; impossible on the phone. So we finally agreed she’d have someone call back in English. When he did, I found that Cidia had paid for a ticket for me to come to a Mother’s Day dinner-dance at the community center behind the soccer field here in Barrio Los Angeles. When I learned that our friend Jeannette was coming as well, she and I made a plan to go together in her car in case of rain.

And of course, it was raining so off we went last evening, slogging our way through wet grass to the entrance of a long open hall with a stage at one end and a kitchen at the other, decorated in merry abandon with hundreds of red and white balloons, red hearts along the walls and red flowers on the tables. Loud music from the Latin band onstage was spilling out the windows as we parked and since Cidia’s table was in the front near the speakers, Jeannette and I suffered seriously numbed eardrums by the time we left.

But the only way to deal with loud music is to get up and dance. And dance we did. The entire crowd was women; the men were in the kitchen cooking, then serving us drinks and food. But the audience of women just ganged up on the dance floor and shook some booty, so to speak. It was a kick! One of the most enthusiastic dancers was a well-dressed grandmother who happily posed for my camera.

Cidia, in center, kickin' it!

Cidia's dancing shoes

Cidia, 2nd from right, and friends

Jeannette and the dancing grandma

After dinner of chicken, rice and salad, there was an apparently funny skit performed by four men, two dressed up as a mother and a daughter. I say “apparently” because Jeannette and I couldn’t follow the Spanish but the crowd would explode in laughter now and then. Finally, when the “daughter” turns up “pregnant” with her boyfriend, the “parents” go crazy but eventually forgive and all ended happily. The performers got a huge round of applause. When Jeannette and I finally left, Cidia and her friends gave me the carnation centerpiece, which now graces my coffee table. I’m honored that Cidia invited me. Hopefully, next year I’ll understand more Spanish!

Today was a fried chicken luncheon at Kay’s Gringo Postre, the gathering place for the Gringo community here in Atenas. With Layne in Oregon, it was just me in the taxi but once I got to Kay’s, there were lots of friends already seated and our buddy Marc was helping serve the food. After saying Hello to proprietors Kay and Tom, I found a seat by our friends Jackie and Neil, lately of Bend, Oregon. Although relative newcomers in town, the two have easily fit right in here in Atenas. We chatted about how they are enjoying life here and about other places to live in Costa Rica, all while being served a nice green salad, then a big plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a biscuit; iced cake for dessert. Buena comida! Good food! 

Progress Report: Eyeglasses ✓ Hair Dryer ✓ Swimsuit ✓

         Two hours ago I was lying in the sun, occasionally swimming laps in the pool in my new hot pink swimsuit. Now there’s a torrential downpour with raindrops as big as grapes pounding through the jungle outside my office window and occasional sharp claps of thunder in the near distance. But as our landlady Odie says, the October rains are important for the rice and bean crops. Plus, that’s why things are so green here: lots of sunshine and lots of rain. Life in the tropics!

         At least Layne’s cold has improved enough that we went for a walk earlier this morning while the sun was shining. Along the way we met a Gringo couple from Chicago and their little Beagle dog, who moved to Atenas only three weeks ago after living a couple of months up the mountain in San Ramon. Although they found that town to be too cool and too large for their taste, they are quite enamored of Costa Rica in general. Like us, they are working on legal residency and have achieved the “active file” status. We got their contact information and hope to get together soon to cultivate our new friendship.

         Our big outing this week was in search of new eyeglasses for me. In Spanish, they are called anteojos, which is so amusing to me because “antes” means “before” and “ojos” means eyes. So literally, it means in front of the eyes! I’ve been wearing the same scratched up, out-of-date prescription lenses for at least three years so I was overdue. And since part of the reason for this blog is to inform my readers what life is really like in Costa Rica, I will describe in some detail my search for new spectacles.

          Last summer in California, I got glasses made while still covered by Kaiser Permanente insurance but the result was unsatisfactory so I returned them. With only a few days before our departure for Oregon, however, it was too late for Kaiser to make another pair so I got a refund and took my prescription to Lenscrafters, where they can produce glasses in an hour or so. But we were shocked to find that they wanted more than $500 for a new pair, even using discounted frames. At that point, we decided prices would surely be better in Costa Rica and we held off until our return to Atenas.

         A few weeks ago, we stopped by a local optician’s office with my prescription and were quoted a price of one hundred seventeen thousand colones or about $235, using my same frames but with top-notch progressive lenses. They warned us that although we could have glasses made for much less through CAJA, the Costa Rican universal health insurance which we have, they would not be of the high quality that I am used to. Apparently, CAJA keeps their costs down by using lower quality laboratories for such items.

         But the price seemed rather high to us so I put off making an appointment until I could talk with our trusted landlady about it. When I did, Odie frowned and shook her head no. That was too much, she said. And besides, she didn’t really trust the level of competence and knowledge of the company here. Better I should go in to San Jose to a store she could recommend. Since we needed to visit the U.S. Embassy to give Social Security our new address anyway, we headed out on the 9:00 a.m. bus last Thursday. After the brief stop at the Embassy, we walked a few blocks to Plaza Mayor shopping center where I found a great deal on that pink vestido de bano, or bathing suit, in a shop just across the from the optometrist’s office. We found it curious indeed that the cigar kiosk in the center of the aisle was filled with colorful hookah pipes since drugs such as marijuana are quite illegal here.

         Optica Vision was sparkling clean and high-tech, the doctora (female doctor) was in, the staff was friendly and with no other customers around we got quick service. Using my old frames, I was quoted a price of ninety thousand colones ($180), which sounded pretty good compared to the Atenas or U.S. prices. But after I mentioned that we were getting our pensionado status, they tacked on a 10% discount, dropping the total to about $165. They offered to have the glasses back within two days and even gave me a free pair of contact lenses to use while I would be without glasses. We picked the anteojos up yesterday and once I tried them and found the result so excellent, with the progressive lenses sharp, the anti-reflective coating clear and the prescription apparently perfect, I inquired about getting some single-vision computer glasses. I spend a lot of time at my computer and the drugstore pair I use can cause eyestrain. How delighted we were to find that for a simple prescription like that, they offered a “promocion” of only twenty thousand colones ($40) including the frame and the lens! Needless to say, we ordered a pair of those as well as a pair of reading glasses. Now I’ll be set for all my vision needs.

         On our return to Atenas by bus, we stopped by to check on my hair dryer repair, the one that was supposed to take only two days but which, at that point, had been over a week in the shop. I am happy to report that we did indeed retrieve it, fully repaired and for only 2000 colones, about $4. That’s the good news since there’s no way you could have a hair dryer repaired for that low price in the States. Thus, back home one would just sigh and head out to by a new one. Here, the new one would cost quite a lot but the repair is cheap. The bad news is that it took so much longer than I had expected. Each time I went to pick it up, the clerk on duty was unable to locate it, to the point that I had begun to worry that it was actually lost. Apparently the repairman had placed it high up on a shelf out of easy sight, leaving the other workers at a loss as to where it might be found. Finally, I happened in when the repairman was there and it was quickly returned to me with sheepish smiles and apologies for the delay.

         On a final personal note, I would like to thank all you readers for your loyalty to this blog. My page views are now well over 2600 and my audience just in the last week has included visitors from China, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Slovenia, Denmark, Djibouti and of course, the United States and Costa Rica. Thank you so much for coming to visit this page and keeping up with our adventures in the land of Pura Vida!