The Friendliness of Strangers...

...never ceases to amaze me. After our walk in the park at Inbioparque, we walked back to Santo Domingo central to catch a bus home. As we passed a beautiful old colonial home, we stopped to greet the older gentleman in the front yard. As we admired his garden, he quickly unlocked the gate and invited us in. His garden indeed was pretty, but I was itching to see the inside of this house which from the garden was gorgeous! He picked 2 of the biggest flowers I've ever seen and presented them to me. Maybe next time we'll get invited inside...

Inbioparque-A Walk in the Park

Let's go do something! Before the rains come! During the rainy season, we have to learn to think like this. My inborn tendency to have coffee, surf the net, have something to eat, relax, think about what to do today, does not work during the rainy season. If you want to do something, it's a good idea to do it soon after waking - especially if you are not an early riser. So today it was let's go to Inbioparque. This place describes itself as "an amazing theme park that offers an interactive experience with nature." It further says that it "teaches people about Costa Rica's biological diversity and the importance of conserving it." Sounds either like a fun park for kids or an educational tool for school trips. In our book it turned out to be a pleasant place for a walk through "jungle" trails, around a pond and through a butterfly garden. Pretty birds in the trees along the way made us feel like "birders" without the early morning awakening. A relaxing cafe hidden away in the midst made for a nice rest stop for a snack with coffee when the rains started. Yes, of course they started. After a walk back to the entrance during a lull in the rains, we stopped for lunch at the large commercial feeling restaurant. Yes, there are educational displays with information about flora and fauna and all that stuff. There are also markers naming the plants growing along the way. There is a huge map display with a video about Costa Rica's national parks. Our timing was off. We arrived just as the video ended, but the map was interesting. For us it was mostly just a pleasant walk in the forest. We will go again, but won't bother with the overpriced, oversized casado (set meal) in the restaurant. Instead we will just lunch on a variety of the nice little pastries with coffee in the cafe in the jungle. Or maybe we'll take a lunch and just have our coffee there. The 2,300 colon entry fee was reasonable enough for a pleasant morning. I would not, however, pay the $20 US fee that is charged tourists. We have lived 15 minutes from this place in Santo Domingo for 5 years. It was time to see it. We had always planned to take guests there but always ended up filling their time here with other activities and never made it. I guess I'm glad we didn't take them now. Although it would be a pleasant place for a morning with guests, I don't think any of them would find the $20 entry fee a worthwhile value.

1st Day of School

Grandma brags! That cute guy is Evan (1st son of my son Rob & his wife Polly) ready for his first day of 1st grade. And the adorable little girl on the left is Megan (1st child of my son Mark & his wife Debbie) with her best friend on their first day of kindergarten.

Couch Surfing

A good friend told me about “couch surfing”. Apparently the term has been used for some time among the college crowd to describe “crashing” on someone’s couch when traveling. Now it’s a huge online site for people who are willing to “host” total strangers
in their homes for a night or two or more, or for travelers who would like to stay in the homes of total strangers in unknown places. Wow! Right up my alley, I thought! Not only a way to possibly meet new and interesting people from around the world, simply by offering our guest room occasionally, but a way to find free places to stay for part of the time when we roam the world! “Sounds dangerous,” says my son. How did I raise such conservative kids? The very day that I joined the group and set up my profile, we received a request from 2 brothers from Ohio who would like to couch surf at our home in October. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Mi Artista

As a person with zero artistic ability or inclination, In am constantly amazed at the number of artists I know. I even live with one! My husband Gene does mostly abstracts. Over the past several years most of his work has been airbrush on canvas. But he has also done some sculpture and mixed media.
Recently a friend presented him with a large piece of scrap wood and challenged him to "do something with it." With my usual I don't get it reaction, it looked like a piece of wood to me. Several days later, I walked into his studio and saw thls relaxing beach scene. This is why we call him the artist in the family!

Many of his abstracts are in black and white. Here's one of my favorites.

And here's some more:

El Mercado

I try to go to the Heredia market (el mercado) at least once a week for fruits and vegetables. This is not the vast Saturday morning feria, but rather just the everyday market. You can find anything there (well almost). Sometimes when I go on Fridays, I run into my friend Flora. Flora sometimes helps me when I can't figure out how to explain what I want (pork chops thicker than 1/4 inch!) or don't know what on earth some strange vegetable or fruit looking thing really is and what to do with it. I love going to the market. It is so colorful! And so economical. I think I could do all our grocery shopping at the market and feed us well for very little. 'Course that's not what we do. We like all that cool stuff you can get at Mas X Menos (mahs-pour-MEY-nos, or "more for less"). But el mercado is one of my favorite things about Costa Rica.

Happy Birthday Aunt Kay

We Love You!

Lunch with Friends

Jon & Emma decided we should do lunch to celebrate the 5th anniversary of our moves to Costa Rica. OK. Seemed like we'd been home long enough that it was time for me to come out from behind my books and get sociable. Then Jon suggested that we post a message on the online groups Costa Rica Living and Gallo Pinto telling people where we were going to lunch and maybe a few other people would like to join us. Great idea! 23 people showed up! It was a lot of fun. We got to see some people we hadn't seen for a long time and also to meet some new people. We may tell people where we're lunching more often!

You Can't Go Home Again

Here we are back in our old hometown. Hollywood, Florida has changed a lot since we left 5 years ago. Surprisingly, it keeps getting better. Lots of nice new restaurants to try in the downtown strip. Outdoor tables at a lot of them. Beautiful new sidewalk areas. We like it. Young Circle, previously unused except for a few street people, has been totally redone with a big beautiful fountain, a neat childrens’ area with a cool fountain to run through and fun big spinning toys to lie down on. The entire childrens’ area is covered with some sort of soft artificial material. No concrete jungle here for the little darlings to break their heads on!
Of course we all went to Sushi Blues where Gene and I met about 12 years ago. We always go to Sushi Blues when we’re in town. Here’s Kenny, the leader of the band, one of our favorite people. Junko, his fabulous wife and chef extraordinaire, was off the night we were there, dancing in a ballroom dancing competition. We had gone out to eat early and so didn’t stay long enough to hear the band. Just eat slowly and stay for the music, said Kenny! But we were there way too early. Next time for sure. We haven’t hear Kenny play for a long time. He’s great!
Of course we also had breakfast at Jack’s Diner for a great breakfast. Jack’s is where we ate most of the time during the year that we renovated our house in Hollywood (while living in it, but without a kitchen – interesting!). We used to arrive and yell, “Mom, we’re home!” Dennis and his crew are still serving up great food at reasonable prices for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
We ate at a really neat waterfront fish place on the Intercoastal. It’s been there like forever and I can’t remember its name but for some reason I don’t think I ever ate there when we lived there.
We tried a new fish place on the downtown strip, but it was very disappointing and way overpriced. So we won’t bother to mention it.
Another place that we always have to go when in Hollywood is the breakfast place on the beach. Angelo's Corner. We’ve been going there like forever for weekend breakfasts (when we lived there). They also have pizza and Italian stuff. It’s an Italian name. Antonio’s or some such. But it’s right on the broadwalk, so you get the watch the roller bladders strutting their stuff, runners, bicyclers, people on those bicycle thingees that carry 4 people, and just plain sun-bathers enjoying the fabulous white sand beach. Hollywood Beach is still the best. And they have a beautiful newly paved broadwalk that really fancies the place up.
I get a kick out of going to the grocery store (Publix) with Gail just to look at all the “stuff” that’s on the shelves. It’s overwhelming really. But I like the fact that you can actually buy fresh sushi in the grocery store. My friend Gail loves Publix because they have this really special kiosk where someone actually cooks a meal, shows you how it’s done, gives free advice and recipe cards and sells you all the needed ingredients right there so that you don’t have to go running all around the store finding them. Gail is learning lots of new recipes. She has one for sea scallops that is absolutely dynamite.
There are also condos going up everywhere around Hollywood. I can’t imagine who’s going to buy all those high priced digs. Reminds me of Costa Rica! There is a huge new condo complex right on the railroad tracks that supposedly has apartments starting over $300K. I don’t get it. We can’t afford to move back. Thank God we don’t want to.
We’re on our way home tonight. Back to the “real world.” This one feels especially unreal when looking at things like restaurant prices. Oh, my God! It has been a great trip. We have had a blast and loved getting to see everyone. I hope we’ll see them again soon. It would be nice to get together in Costa Rica next time. Adios mis amigos!

We Travel to Eat

Friends Forever

This is my friend Gail. Way back in the "old days" when I moved to Florida, I rented an apartment from Gail and Tony. Later on I sold their apartment buildings for them and helped Gail find the house she owns now. Still later I found them another investment property which fortunately they sold at a market high before the current crash. Along the way, we became friends forever. It's Gail who we visit when we go to Hollywood. It's also Gail who lent us a car during our entire 2-week visit. It was Gail who lent us an apartment for a month when we found ourselves temporarily homeless when our house sold in Florida before we left for Costa Rica. Gail is also the one who, when she learned of a homeless shelter being built in her neighborhood, took a bunch of stuff over to donate to them. This was while the rest of the neighborhood was up in arms doing that "not in my neighborhood thing." It was Gail who, with no hesitation, said "Of course" when I asked her if she wanted to drive across state to help when Hurricane Charley devastated the other Florida coast. Now she's a regular Red Cross volunteer. She's an amazing woman.

Driving a Car

Driving all the way from Port Charlotte to Plant City yesterday morning and then down to Hollywood last night was not really my idea of fun. On the other hand, since we don’t own a car and I don’t drive in Costa Rica, it’s kind of interesting to be on the road. Our incredible friends Gail and Tony, who live in Hollywood, actually lent us one of their cars to use for our entire 2 week trip! How great is that? What a huge savings not to have to rent a car this trip. Thanks Gail and Tony! Of course we always stay with them at their house when we’re there, too. Gail and I are the absolute best of friends and always have tons to catch up on, even though we talk regularly on Instant Messenger. There’s finally an airline with a flight from San Jose to Ft Lauderdale – Spirit – so for the first time we were able to fly there instead of going through all the crap at the Miami airport, which I hate. Gail picked us up at the airport and we visited with them for a couple days then took off for Port Charlotte. Now we’re back to visit some more before going home.

Speaking of Staying Young!

The amazing Uncle Nello is doing great and says he’s just a little sore where the incision is. He certainly doesn’t need us. So, much as we would love to spend more time with them, we drove this morning up to Plant City to visit Gene’s Aunt Mary. We had called to invite her out to lunch. You know us, everything is about food. Yes, she said, I’d love to see you. But of course when we got there, she had the table set for lunch! Well, she had had a little spare time yesterday, she said, so she decided to fix us lunch instead of bothering to go to a restaurant. And of course her famous jello salad.
Aunt Kay and Aunt Mary are both gorgeous women, still in their 80’s. Aunt Mary golfs, sings in the church choir and does a zillion things around her community to help some of the “older” people who live there. Her next door neighbor Lucille will turn 100 in October. I hear that her family is planning a huge birthday party for her and inviting the entire community, along with a lot of other friends. I wish I could be there for that. So maybe it’s not just Port Charlotte. Maybe it’s Florida. These women age well and slowly!

Something in the Water?

Well, I had been thinking that Aunt Kay and Uncle Nello were unique somehow in their ability to remain forever young. I know that a lot of it has to do with attitude. They both seem to think like very young people, if not teen-agers, most of the time. They take classes, learn new things, go to exercise class, lots of other stuff.
But in the past couple of days here we’ve noticed a lot of “mature” people who are clearly very youthful. One woman in particular was eating lunch at a table near ours. I had noticed her and thought how attractive and refreshed she looked. She was probably in her mid-70’s. And then she stood up. This woman, wearing shorts, had legs that any 19 year old would be jealous of. She was a knock out! So maybe it’s just attitude, living and eating well, getting exercise and being active. On the other hand, maybe there’s something in the water around here. I’ve been trying to drink the recommended 8 glasses a day every day.

Let's Play the Game!

Those are Uncle Nello’s words when we get to the house! Shouldn’t you be resting, we ask? No, they told me not to lie down and to make sure I get up and walk around. So it looks like playing cards is perfect, as long as I stand up and walk around from time to time. So we spend the afternoon playing “the game.” God we’ve missed these crazy relatives of ours! We wish we could spend more time with them. But they’re not going to move to Costa Rica. And we’re not gonna live in Port Charlotte. ‘Course we don’t have to wait for someone to have surgery to go visit. We wish they would visit us once in a while. They came down once but feel that it’s too much strain to do it again. We love spending time with them but it’s expensive to get there. Actually the expense was substantially reduced this trip thanks to the generous loan of a car from a friend (more on this later).

Operation Totally Successful!

It was long day. I don’t know how Aunt Kay held up, but I was a wreck. You know, that hospital thing. They put you in a waiting room and proceed to get your loved one ready for surgery in some other mysterious area of the hospital. Hours later you’re worrying about why you haven’t heard anything since someone told you 3 hours ago that he was going into surgery. It was supposed to take only an hour and a half. When you finally find somebody who will help, you learn that he is still in pre-op, waiting for the surgeon. So after hours of waiting, we find him still in pre-op. I think he’s now been nearly 24 hours without food or water and how ridiculous that is. He says he’s doing just fine. Been napping on and off and listening to the activity around him. We try to get an update on the expected time of his surgery, but no one seems to know. After a while someone comes over and informs us that the surgeon has had to tend to an emergency at the other hospital and will probably be tied up for 3 or 4 hours. Apparently that was old news because 20 minutes later someone else comes in and says that the doctor is on his way. There are too many people in his little cubicle, so we all decide to leave and return to the surgical waiting room. These people can’t even communicate and organize well enough to get their stories straight to tell you whether he’s still in pre-op, still in surgery, in recovery, on his way into surgery or some other option. And yet you have to trust them to have their systems working well enough to work together to cut open someone’s body!
Of course after we leave pre-op we have no way of knowing if the surgeon really shows up, if he is now in surgery, or what. After a few more hours, we decide that it’s “tea” time (North American style) and I get sent out to procure the wine and cheese. By the time I get back, Aunt Kay has been told that he is out of surgery, in post-op and that everything went well. We will be able to see him in a while. We have time for our wine and cheese in the waiting room first.
Uncle Nello looks great! You’d never know he just had surgery! You’d certainly never know that he’s over 80 (considerably over 80 actually!).
While we wait in the hall outside his 2-bed room to be able to see him, a nurse walks up to us and starts asking Gene questions about the patient’s normal medications. The only trouble is that she’s asking about the other patient in the room. Comforting, huh? Don’t ever go into a hospital without somewhere there at all times to look after your needs. That’s what they do in Spain. A family member is there at all times. Uncle Nello will not like me saying anything negative about his hospital or the staff because he believes that his surgeon and everyone else associated with him are perfect. I’m certain that his surgeon is great. He did a great job on Uncle Nello. But the organization (or lack thereof) in hospitals terrifies me. Not just this hospital. All hospitals. From what I’ve seen, they are all confused.
But right now we are all just totally relieved that everything went well and that we can take him home in the morning. In spite of my fears for the system, medical science is a wondrous thing.

Aunt Kay's Art

Aunt Kay is getting ready for her next art show. She now has a gallery wall in her house. She also has a cozy little studio off the lanai. That’s the lanai which had to be replaced after Hurricane Charley. Recovering from Charley was a long two year process, but the house is now beautiful. Aunt Kay loves her brand new kitchen. The new flooring is nice, too. It’s practically a new house, thanks to Charley. May there never be another hurricane year like 2004. She was teaching art classes but got derailed after Hurricane Charlie and hasn’t found the time and inspiration to start again. Hurricane Charley (and the 3 that followed within a month) changed a lot of people’s lives. But she still takes art classes and displays her art regularly in various venues. Her art is fabulous. Watercolors that are so beautiful. Dewdrops so real you think someone dropped water on it. Roses so soft you want to reach out and touch. After years of incredible still lifes, she is now doing abstracts – fabulous abstracts. What a woman!

I Don't Know What I'm Going to Do When I Get Old

This is one of Uncle Nello’s favorite sayings. At 93, he doesn’t appear to be planning on getting old any time soon. He’s scheduled for spinal surgery tomorrow. Last week he went out and bought a table saw so that he can get to work on some of his projects after the surgery, once he doesn’t have to endure this pain anymore. He’s been feeling a little better the last few days, so we’ve been able to spend some good time visiting and playing “the game,” the card game with no name which he and Aunt Kay taught us years ago and which we have now taught to all our friends.

Lunch with the Grandkids

Megan is 5. Austin is 3. They are absolutely adorable. And they have amazing amounts of energy. We met them for “lunch” at Jaxson’s – Hollywood’s famous ice cream parlor. We let them bring along their Daddy – my elder son Mark. He’s kinda cute, too!

Home Again-But Not for Long

After 3 months in traveling in Guatemala, we’re back in our wonderful home in Costa Rica. What a welcome home. Our friends Emma and Jon and Dale met us at the airport – a real homecoming! Not only that, but they had made sure that our house was stocked with the essentials – coffee and wine! Of course we had assumed we were coming home to 3 months worth of accumulated dust and God only knows what else. Que sorpresa! (What a surprise!) The ever helpful Emma, in her spare time, had brought her maid over and cleaned our entire house! I say in her spare time because she is in the middle of supervising the construction of their new home. We’re here for about a week – long enough to see some of our friends, brag about the trip, do our laundry and repack the backpacks. Then we’re off for Florida! Gene’s wonderful Uncle Nello is having spinal surgery. We doubt that he needs us, but this is all the excuse we need to go up to visit Uncle Nello and Aunt Kay, play some cards, see our great friends Gail and Tony and also, hopefully, see the Florida grandkids!