Laurie Barron has her eye on me. I need to make two corrections to earlier blog posts.
She says the lizard image she sent me … this one …
..
…is not an immature iguana but some kind of basilisk lizard. I’m wondering if it’s the species nicknamed “the Jesus lizard”. I can’t see it clearly enough to see if the characteristics match, but since it’s by the pool, and maybe was in it at some point, it’s a possibility. They’re Costa Rican. Laurie says it might be a Moses lizard, but I googled that and the online info says they aren’t native to Costa Rica.
She also told me that the store I visited and ordered from online recently is Mas X Menos. The X stands for “por” (for). So, translated, it means “more for less.” I wrote por in there in earlier logs for the benefit of my English-speaking readers. The folks down here know the correct version is Mas X Menos, and now you do, too.
My Landlady is Wonderful
My landlady, Cat(hy) Carvajal, is wonderful. You know how I hate to bother or inconvenience people, so when I descended the hill to pay the rest of what I owe her, I thought it would be a brief, perfunctory interaction. Not so! She invited me into her home and we chatted for a good 90 minutes, possibly even longer, until it began to get dark and I needed to duck back inside my casita not long before the mosquitoes came out.
Cat has had a challenging but fulfilling life. I learned more about it during today’s visit. She’s bilingual because she was raised in the U.S. but her Tico father insisted that they come down to Costa Rica almost every year while she was growing up during summer vacations, so she feels deeply connected to two cultures. I won’t divulge much more, as I didn’t ask for permission, but I feel truly in awe of her resiliency and multicultural background. I will ask if I can take a selfie of us so you can see her. Just probably not tomorrow.
Tomorrow my Mas X Menos groceries get delivered
I made two orders — one on a credit card and one (accidentally) that will be POD (pay on delivery). Not a big deal, but I don’t know how it happened. The second sale registered before I had a chance to tell it I wanted to pay via my credit card. I figured it had “assumed” I wanted to pay the same way I had the first time, so I didn’t worry about it. But it never appeared on my credit union register so I wondered about it until the store called Cat (my landlady!) today to ask if I plan to pay cash tomorrow. (They know Cat very well and deliver to her often and they knew I was attached to her in some way — I believe she told them! — since we share the same address more or less. How is that for personal service?!)
I prefer to use my credit card right now because I got my airline refund for the return flight that Charli and I won’t be using so my balance is MINUS $500+, and I figured I’d charge items to that until the balance reaches or approaches zero.
But it’s no biggy. It’ll just happen at a later date! Tranquilo, baby!
I unearthed a small digital camera that my niece Wendy gave me for Christmas several years ago, so I’ve charged its battery and hope to be able to post better photos with it than I can with my smartphone. I should be able to because it has a terrific zoom feature. I just have to figure out how to get the images from it to my laptop… It sure ain’t intuitive/user friendly! I’ve pushed every button it has, and it just sits there telling me “MSDC”. Huh?
OK, I figured it out… (blush) I am such a bimbo when it comes to technology!!! (Which reminds me. There are BIMBO bread trucks down here by the dozens. Every time I see one, I can’t help but smile!)
The dates and times are wrong in these images.
They were all taken this afternoon.
It threatened to rain all afternoon but never did…
at least not so far, and it’s 7:22 p.m. now
A little zoomed and unzoomed of Cat’s home…
Got another (bathroom) shower tonight. Heavenly!
That’s all for now. I’m hitting the hay. Sweet dreams!