Election Day in the U.S. is here. HOORAY!  FINALLY!

While we await the results, I’ll catch you up on my most recent doings.

On October 28th, I experienced an intense stabbing pain in my left side near (or in) my pancreas. It was late at night, so I took a 500 mg acetaminophen and went to sleep.

The next morning, my side was sore and pinched painfully at times, but not anything like the stabbing pain from the night before.

But a couple times that day, the pinching pain was sufficient to almost double me over, so I was pretty darned concerned. Looked up the symptoms of pancreatitis online and determined I wasn’t experienced any of the additional, more concerning indications (fever, nausea, etc.), so I decided NOT to assume the worst, since I wasn’t needing acetaminophen to deal with the occasional twinging.

As the days passed

…the occasional twinging stopped entirely, but I could still feel that something was “off” whenever I took a deep breath or let out a lot of breath.  I had noticed the night of the acute attack that the pain seemed to happen when my gut was processing food (or gas) past that point near my pancreas.

By yesterday, all was well again.  I’m glad that whatever it was, was momentary and resolved  without medical intervention! The last thing I needed was to get saddled with acute pancreatitis just weeks before I’m due to get my resolution and CAJA health coverage!

During those days, I didn’t feel much like eating, because processing food caused the ow-ee to hurt until just about two days ago. Now I can eat without negative repercussions, so I’m chowing down on homemade crockpot soup like mad. I’ve gained back four of the eight pounds I lost during those few ow-ee days.

On Sunday Nov 1 

I walked to San Isidro to get some grub and to visit Cindy for about 90 minutes on the way back up the hill to my place. Oreo, one of her dogs, nipped me on the wrist bone again when I reached in to open the gate, so I will probably get a tetanus shot next time I go to Clinica Sanchez on Wed.  I know I have a tetanus shot on board but it’s either three or five years old, and people who work around dogs and soil and such should have tetanus shots every five years, and I don’t want to get in arrears there.

The Christmas Trade Winds Have Arrived

…so it can get mighty windy around here. The rain is more sporadic, too. It’s about to turn off for a few months, meteorologists say. Not good. We didn’t get our usual amount thanks to El Nino, so some areas of Costa Rica are under restricted water conditions.

Swept and Swabbed The Apartment

…took a shower, and cut my hair. All in a day’s work.

I Can Start Wearing My Holiday T-Shirts Now!

I’m looking forward to getting people’s reactions.

From FloofsCafe.com

I’ll Be Moving Again on December 1st

…but not very far!  Less than a quarter mile away from where I am now, in fact. I’ll take pictures inside later, but here are pix of the place from the road.

(My place is located behind the main house, shown immediately below. The following two pix show the outside of what will be my place.)

The gazebo  area next to/in front of my place

The main entryway into my apartment

WHY I’M MOVING

My landlady came here this morning to pick up the rent then sat down to tell me a long, long story about how she might have relatives wanting to visit soon and maybe next year and that she didn’t know whether to extend my rental agreement for a full year (as we previously agreed we would do starting this month) because they might want to stay in the apartment. And she added that she had never rented it long term before, so she didn’t ever have this conundrum crop up, and on and on.

So, I took that extremely unanticipated conversation as my cue to start looking for another place to rent, because living on pins and needles anticipating a 15-day move out notice at some unknown point in the future would not make for a serene life!  I figured it could take me several weeks or even months to find a comparable-priced living arrangement with utilities included, and no grass grows under my feet when I set a task for myself!

So, I put out an APB

…to my Costa Rica friends. Within an hour, I had this new place to check out just down the road.  It’s a (so-called) studio apartment in a beautiful gated and completely fenced place across the street from where Cindy lives (perfect).

It’s less well appointed inside than either of the two places I’ve rented in Costa Rica to date, but it’s perfectly adequate. It’s what spoiled gringos might call “a tico dwelling”: Basic. Nothing fancy. It’s clean, easy to care for, and in a good location. It has a microwave oven, a large fridge, and a tabletop inversion hot plate-like stove. I will have to buy appropriate pots and pans to use the stove (they have to be ferromagnetic to work). Jon Graham Mitchell told me where I can find some.

Its main room (where I’ll put the bed) is spacious and will serve as a combo bed/living room/kitchen area. It has separate rooms for bathroom/shower, a nice size walk-in pantry, and the landlord is a great guy named Roy who lives in the main house and often has family members visit, most of them tico, so I will be able to use and improve my Spanish!  And he says he will buy me a double bed for the place and get screens for the windows that open. Who could ask for more?

Everything is included in the price of rent which is only $550 USD/month, $150 less than I’ve been paying here. What a relief! I can start saving money again, despite the super low exchange rate!

That’s all I have for this time.  I hope we wake up tomorrow with news of a BLUE-NAMI in the United States of America!  It won’t be long now before we find out!

LET’S DO THIS FOR THE WORLD AND FOR YOUR OWN BEST INTERESTS, VOTERS!!!