Well, it's been a while since I've done any blogging. I am trying to cope with dog issues these days. Sally, the younger of my two dogs was abducted for five days. She evidently escaped and showed up at the house late one evening. It was wonderful to have her back. However, she is extremely traumatized and is not comfortable to let me out of her sight. She used to stay on the property or in the house when I left, but not any more. For a few days, I tried to outwit her by blocking exits but that didn't even slow her down. As a result, she has been an honoured guest at Happy Hour at Perla's for a week or two. To further my frustration, Gracie, my other dog has now taken to following us to Perla's. Dogs are welcome there but I don't feel comfortable with it. Tonight is the big Hallowe'en Party and I will have to find a way to keep them home or pass on the party.

I have brought a traveling kennel into the house and have left Sally there two or three times when I had to go places she could not. But she is so smart she will not come to me at five o'clock when I typically leave the house. She doesn't think the kennel is much fun compared to Perla's, I guess. But if I can get her in there today, then I think I might get be able to get Gracie and bring her in the house. Gracie shies away too, because the maid waxed the patio floor and Gracie can't stand up on it - she came with a bad leg. This happened once before and it was months before I had her coming back in. Now she just doesn't trust it. So it should be a challenging evening.

I don't like Hallowe'en. There is a big annual party at Perla's. I won't wear a costume although I have in the past. It just doesn't make sense to me and I don't believe that 20% of the party goers have a clue what it is about. It really creeps me out when people I can't recognize but who know me come up to speak with me. We'll see how it goes tonight.

I just got a micro grocery delivery. One of my neighbours offered to pick up some items for me at Automercado - a large American-style supermarket in Tamarindo, about 40 minutes' drive from here. I seldom get an opportunity to leave my home-office long enough to make the trip. And although the local grocery shopping is good, there are certain items that just can't be had here in Surfside. So I am a happy camper. Tomorrow I will experiment with a crock pot chicken lasagna recipe I found.

This has been some day. My older daughter got married back in Newfoundland, Canada and I couldn't be there. That, although understood from the get-go, was disappointing. However, apparently all went well and she got a hot turkey sandwich to boot!

I spent the day emulating a plumber. I had two toilets go south on me simultaneously. The flush mechanism on toilet number one physically broke yesterday so that toilet was totally out of commission. I was able to adjust toilet number two yesterday to working order but the toilet seat needed replacing. I went looking around in my bodega and lo and behold there was a toilet seat there! With a little old-fashoned modifying, I was able to replace the toilet seat so now I had one functional bathroom.

Then I attacked the other, number one bathroom. I searched the bodega for suitable replacement parts and believe it or not, I had them! When you live in remote places like this you build up a supply of spare parts just for occasions like this. After working in a kneeling position, mostly working with my left hand for what seemed like hours (and probably was) I restored the facility to working order. I was feeling pretty cocky until I saw the leak. More to do tomorrow....but hopefully just tightening connections.

Tropical Thunderstorms can hurt

Three days ago in the mid afternoon we started to get some rain and a little thunder. This is my cue to shut down and disconnect all electronic equipment. Unfortunately, while I was winding down, there was an enormous crack of lightning that sounded and felt like it was directly overhead. My system went down in seconds but miraculously recovered everything except internet. Now being the "expert" I am, I decided to put in a call to the resident PC surgeon. We agreed, it was likely the ethernet connection at one end or the other had been blown up. He had a spare ethernet card so I set off to Potrero, the neighbouring community in the pouring rain on my Honda ATV. He gave me the card and went back into the shop to look for a cable to test the system with. While I was waiting, I saw Sally, one of my dogs at the bottom of the hill. She had somehow followed me all the way from the house to Pat's in Potrero. She gets spooked by thunder and lightning so I guess chasing me seemed like her best option. I picked her up and placed her in one of the cargo boxes on the back of the machine and took her home.

I could not install the ethernet card...seems the CD is corrupt. Called the Cable Service provider who promised to send out a technician the next day. While I was waiting, I switched the internet connection to USB and it worked. The technician came and went claiming to have fixed it but it is still not working. Today I downloaded the support material for the ethernet card but the system will still not let me install it. USB is slower than ethernet but I can live with it.

I will call the Cable company again tomorrow. And poor little Sally is limping around as though she had run a marathon...which I guess, in dog kilometers, she did.

Pool boy blues

So the water in my pool has turned green. It's disgusting. I have never had a pool before. I didn't realize you have to be a chemist to maintain it. In the last two years, I have purchased enough chemicals to outfit a high school lab, I'm sure. But over time, I got into a regular maintenance program that kept the water clear, bright and sparkling. Of course, this is the rainy season and God knows what is being introduced into the mix when we get a significant rain. So I am playing chemist and doing the best job I can to fix the problem. The pool has a paper filter system so I can change filters frequently. I bought a new broom to dedicate to the pool and I use it to stir up any algae or sediment that settles around the perimeter after I have vacuumed. In theory, the chemicals kill algae and fix particles to themselves to be trapped by the filter. Hmmmm...we'll see. I have done this successfully in the past but I can't remember if it was rainy season or not. Then again, I can always call the pool maintenance company. They'll probably straighten it out in an hour or so.

Housekeeping help

I thought I would have no problem keeping this little beach house clean and presentable. After all, I live and work here so one would not expect it to be much of a challenge. In that case, one would be wrong. It is a challenge...and a big one. I have two dogs that leave a trail of hair, mud, dust and food everywhere they go. I can only do a little laundry at a time because we are so near sea level, the water table is high enough to serve dinner on. I think I can multitask and I suppose I can but I tend to forget which tasks I'm multi-ing.......of course that could be age. In any event, it was running away from me. So today, I hired the services of a housekeeper to come and put things back in order. She did an outstanding job and I can now spend my time looking for things in places I would never consider putting them.

Disastrous Sunday

Normally, Sunday is the only day when I am completely free and I usually use it to relax and get ready for the coming week. however, this is a luxury I can no longer afford. But I am big on multitasking so I got some laundry going. Then I vacuumed the pool. Next, I switched the laundered clothes over to the rinse cycle. You see, I have one of those washer spin-dry units so you have to empty and re-fill the wash tub part. I set this all up and took a little break while the tub was filling. Need I say more?

I woke up almost ankle deep in water! I then spent hours mopping up until the flooded section of the house was reasonably dry. They have the strangest mops here. Not the Rastafarian or even sponge type from home, but, rather, a device on a stick that you clamp rags into. For me, this was a most awkward and tedious operation and sucked a large hole out of my day off.

Not to worry, I still had time to light the barbecue and grill my dinner. Maybe I'm not as good at multitasking as I thought!

A visit from the Vet

Living in the rain forest does have it's advantages. Being a rural area, we get a lot of house calls - everything from the German Bakery, to the butcher shop and, yes, even the veterinarians come right to the door along with your usual variety of "tramps and hawkers" selling hammocks and floor mats, kitchen utensils, etc.

The dogs - Gracie and Sally - never quite seem to get used to it. A lovely, gentle vet gave them both the once over and they behaved very well. They were given pills - one huge and theoretically chewable, the other rather small - to immediately repel the fleas that had hitched a ride with them which I administered later that afternoon cleverly disguised as hot dogs. I was left with a syringe and something to inject them with that eliminates fleas and ticks that can be irritating and even lethal during the rainy season. I have found a combination of FrontLine and flea collars to be successful.

One of the dogs, Gracie, develops an ear infection during the rainy season so I was given a regimen to treat that as well. Trouble now is that as soon as the dogs see me with anything that appears to them of a medical nature, they are out the door in a flash. I have to alter my routine yet again it seems.

In any case, the dogs are healthy and a little too smart for my liking...but there you have it.