During this morning’s meander, I walked 4000 steps and said hello to the traveling pack of neighborhood perros again. I will do the rest of my daily walking routine in Grecia before I go to lunch at the Futbol Club with Dale, Crystal, Christine, Francisco and Jon. I need to get bloodwork at the Sanchez lab to check my INR level and pick up a few things at Mercado Municipal.
The Fab Five (see above list of folks) are going to the feria before then. Jon says he will pick up some small papayas so I can feed “my” birds all week long. Right now all I have for them is cooked brown rice and whole grain bread. Bread isn’t great for birds, but they love it. I don’t offer them much, and it’s always as natural and nutritious as I can find for myself: multigrain with seeds.
Rice satisfies some of them — especially the thrushes — but I know the many other species will flip out for papayas. I saw that in real time while dog-sitting for Jon and Francisco.
An AI search confirms this:
“Many Costa Rican birds love papayas, especially Tanagers (Silver-throated, Scarlet-rumped, Crimson-collared, Bay-Headed, Palm, Summer), Toucans & Aracaris (Northern American Toucanet, Fiery-billed), Barbets (Prong-billed, Red-headed), Orioles (Baltimore, Black-cowled), Honeycreepers (Red-legged, Green), and Parrots and Warblers (Tennessee Warbler), flocking to fruit feeders for this nutritious treat, making it a birdwatcher’s favorite for spotting diverse species.”
I can’t wait to see who will visit once I start offering “the good stuff”!
100% Acclimated Now
After three months in this tropical paradise, I’m fully acclimated now, so much so that any temperature under 68 degrees Fahrenheit feels chilly to me. Yesterday it got up to 80 here in the casita and I didn’t even need to shed my long-sleeved cotton pajama tops, nor did I need to turn on a fan. That’s pretty darned amazing.
Out in broad daylight, 80+ degrees is another story, though! The good news is that I perspire appropriately down here. Some older folks don’t and they can get sunstroke. I also always carry water and an umbrella (sombrilla=sunshield, paraguas=literally, for aquas/water, unbrella). Rain or shine, artificial cover is a lifesaver here in the tropics!
Found a 4-inch brown round millpede inside today
My first indoor non-spider visitor made an appearance this morning. It was about four inches long, rounded in shape, and brown, with lots of legs. I did a little research and believe it was a millipede.
I captured it in my bug catcher and relocated it outside. Stepping on it bare-footed in the middle of the night was a prospect I wasn’t terribly enamored of, even though they aren’t dangerous to people. Their venom/chemical extrusions are only powerful enough to cause severe harm to creatures of their size and a little larger, from what I’ve read.
It didn’t curl up into a ball when I tried to collect it using a napkin, so I know it wasn’t the curling type of millipede.
THINKING ABOUT GETTING A BETTER DIGITAL CAMERA
I sure would love to find a used, better digital camera. My smartphone is OK, but it’s inadequate for zooming. There are so many beautiful sights (plants, birds, and other critters here) that it’s frustrating not to have a camera that can capture them and actually do them justice.
I’m in Costa Rica, fer gosh sakes! I could be selling images of some of the sights I’ve seen!
Which reminds me. I want to get two of my Costa Rica images enlarged and printed onto photo paper so I can frame them and hang them on one wall. I’ll go to DIMI soon to show them the images and ask what size I can enlarge them to without losing image quality, and then I’ll buy frames in that size and get it done.
These are the two images I have in mind. THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED, SO DON’T SHARE THEM!!! I hope to sell limited one-time rights to calendar, tourist, and other companies that would like to use them in their products.
I’m also thinking of having the following one, which I took at Ruby Beach in Washington, enlarged and framed.
It TOO is COPYRIGHTED!
All in good time. All in good time.
Tranquilo, bebe!
INR Result, Shopping and Lunch
My INR level keeps inching higher — not at all dangerously, though — so I am going to reduce one of the three 5 mg doses down to 2.5 for the next few weeks and see if that brings it down to mid-range (2.5). If not, I’ll reduce another 5 mg dose and see if six days of 2.5 mg and one day of 5 mg are all that’s needed to keep me mid-range. These are very low doses to start with. That’s good!
The fabric store where I got Charli’s fabric “escalator” had a cute fabric square in the window of a sloth in a Christmas tree wearing a Santa hat. I went in and quickly snapped it up. I asked for two of the same but when I got them home I noticed that the second one wasn’t of the same image, so I’m going back next week to get another of this same image, because it’s the cutest of the images offered. I want to get one for Lisa. She’s a big Christmas fan. They’d better have another one! The second one they put into my bag (without me looking to confirm that it was of the same image) when I asked for another one (I meant “of the same image” not another image; I guess there was a language interpretation snafu) isn’t as cute.
Incidentally, the image above was taken from the back side of the fabric because I taped it up on my sliding glass door and the front side has reflections from the yard in it. I’ll post it, too, so you can see it the way visitors will see it:
I also got Charli some canned cat food and another cat scratch toy. This scratcher is much bigger and round:
Finally, I got more hongos (mushrooms) and lechuga (lettuce) at Mercado Municipal and more gel pens from DIMI.
Oh! And when I paid to use the restroom at Mercado Municipal, the custodian there pointed me toward the mens room! That was a first! I’m definitely passing as he/him now, for sure, as long as I don’t open my mouth and say anything! (I’ve never taken hormone therapy, so I still sound female. Gotta remember to talk from my belly and in a lower octave in the men’s room OR keep my mouth clamped shut!)
LUNCHTIME
We had lunch at Grecia Futbol Club at noon. Here are a few of the best images from the event:
Simple but elegant Christmas Tree Decoration
I want one!
Crystal in her new skirt, hat and shoes.
LOVELINESS PERSONIFIED!
Christine, Dale and yours truly.
(Gotta learn to keep my finger away from the selfie lens!)
Jon and Francisco looking at Dale’s noodle-centric lunch
Money Mayhem with Marianela!
As Marianela was returning me home this afternoon, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have enough small bills to pay her the way I usually do. So I asked her if she had change for a 10M bill. She said she did.
She pulled out her calculator and typed in 10,000 and then minused out 5500 (or 4500, I don’t recall which), which was her fee for driving me to and from Grecia, which left a balance of … whatever it was.
I told her I thought I might have that much after all, and pulled out the smaller bills. I had 4000 colones, I think, in smaller bills. So I offered them to her.
I got something bass-ackwards (you know me!) and she started laughing. She said, “No….” I cocked my head, trying to figure out where the disconnect was.
What she was trying to tell me was that the number she was showing me on her phone was what she owed me if I gave her the 10M bill — which I hadn’t done yet! Giggling and grinning, she typed something into Google translate — by now we were both laughing hysterically. It read: “You are draining my money!” I was trying to pay what she owed me without giving her the 10M bill, which would have left her paying me to drive me around!
By now, I’m tearing up, I’m laughing so hard. I said, “Ay, estoy estupido!” (oh, I’m stupid!) and she shook her head no, still laughing like crazy. So I gave her the bill, she gave me the change, and we continued to guffaw as we exited the vehicle and went to the trunk to pull out my cart.
I told her, “Bueno, ahora tienes una historia divertida que contar!””(Well, now you have a funny story to tell!”) and she laughed back, “Igualmente!” (You do, too!)
Sheesh!!!
We have more fun together, for two people who don’t speak each other’s language very well. I truly adore her.
Steps Update: 10,149 steps today! WOO HOO!!!