I’m going to spend quality time with Cindy Winder and her canine companions today. We’ll have lunch afterward at Carne Solis at Coope Victoria, about halfway to Grecia…
Cindy texted me around 7:30 asking if I’m available today for our first extended get together since we met on Calle San Isidro several days ago. I said sure!
Our brief meeting the other day signaled
…that we’re most likely two peas in a pod. We’re both animal lovers with similar sensibilities and traits, etc. I’ll find out more today, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing if my first impression (which is usually pretty spot on) will be confirmed.
Just texting with her this morning already reveals that we’re on the same wavelength. I sent her the link to this blog so she can see if she minds being included in my daily doings and musings. She read a couple and texted back that she’s probably going to be fine with it.
Then she gave me a heads up: she said that although she is comfy one-on-one, she is far from a social butterfly and avoids all unnecessary parties and large gatherings. I texted back, “So do I! I love the saying, “Writing is show business for shy people!”
So, yeah. I think this is another new friendship that is pretty much destined to flourish and fulfill.
I’m one lucky dude:
I just keep encountering the best souls
that Costa Rica has to offer!
Lisa just texted to say she’s doing well hydrating Harmony
I knew she would. It just took some getting used to for both of them.
Harmony knows she feels better afterward, so she has figured out that Mom-cat Lisa is helping her, I’ll bet. Kitties are smart!
Spread-eagle chachalaca
Took a semi-decent picture of the spread-eagle chachalaca yesterday with my smartphone. It’s nowhere near as good as Lisa would have captured with her pro camera, but it’s worth a share, I think:
The bird was spread eagle for more than fifteen minutes, allowing its wings to dry in the morning sun before finally flying off…
That’s the bird I was trying to get pix of when I slipped on the algae and went down. (Wrote about that yesterday.)
Update: Just got back from lunch with Cindy
What a delight. Met Cindy’s dogs and cats, toured her lovely two-story home and garden, saw some of her amazing crochet work, and then we ate lunch at Carne Solis while we chatted. We’re definitely two peas in a pod and I look forward to getting together with her again.
A milestone birthday is coming up and I want to take her to breakfast or lunch that day if she hasn’t already made other plans. I’ll be dog-sitting very nearby on her birthday so it will be very convenient to get together…
After we ate lunch, I popped back inside the store to buy cheddar cheese and root beer and then she drove us to Super San Isidro to pick up a couple of items that she wanted. Then she drove me home, so I invited her into my apartment and back patio so she could get a look at my abode. She was very impressed.
She asked me to take pix of a particular blossom that she liked and didn’t have in her back yard and that reminded me to get a selfie of us together, which you can see above. It’s my favorite of the two I took, although they’re both very similar. The other one just looks more posed/less candid. I much prefer candid!
Charli smelled my pants leg and discerned that I went out and two-timed (actually, many-timed) her by letting a bunch of dogs and one cat get near enough to me to leave their scents. Shame on me! Her nose is a little out of joint, but she’ll eventually forgive me…
Cindy Came to Costa Rica Nine Years Ago from Maine
Like me, she came alone, but she knew no one when she got here. Now she’s sufficiently fluent in Spanish and has become a permanent resident. She owns her home and property — it has breathtaking views from the upper story — and she walks at least two miles every day with her dogs, rain or shine, so she still gets around as well as I do.
She was braver than I, by far, when she moved.
I developed a social safety net before I got here and landed here with arms ready to enfold and welcome me at Rainbow Refuge. She had no one except the few dogs she brought down with her.
She and I moved for the same reasons:
Finances and T-Wrecks. She just did it years sooner, not long after The Scourge got into office the first time. We learned that far too many of our family members and friends had voted for the white male supremacist, misogynistic grifter and wanted to find a place that wasn’t inundated with people who supported those policies.
We found it. We’re nostalgic about what we believed the United States to be before the curtain was lifted, but going back is now out of the question because even what we had there that was to citizens’ benefit is no longer there — it has been systematically dismantled and sabotaged. There is nothing worth returning to, even if it were affordable.
It’s a tragedy that simply cannot be described in words. To forever leave a country that we once loved is heart-wrenching. But to find that people we dearly loved are perfectly okay with what’s happening now (and has been happening in T-Wrecks World ever since he got into the real estate business decades ago) is even worse.
It feels like far too much of the United States electorate has gone mad — deaf, blind and dumb.
Tears are the only language that can carry the burden of expression and lamentation.
On to Happier Topics Now!
I’m at 8144 steps for the day so far, at 2 p.m.
Lisa tells me that FloofsCafe.com is going to be offering some awesome new “catty” items real soon, so be sure to check it out before the end of the week. I’ve seen a few of the designs, and I concur! The snarky cat lovers in your orbit will love what’s there, so bookmark the site and check back often!
Mauricio “Mao” Marin Just Texted Me
…and asked me to record on audio one of my blog posts because he assigned it as a reading assignment and thought it would be great if the students could hear me saying the words. So, I just did that. Took about seven minutes. He loves it, he says.
The one he had me read (up to In Other News) is this one:
Guess that’s all for this time.