charliedoggett.net
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39214757-the-power-and-the-glory
I read about a third of the book and quit because I found it rather depressing. It is very good writing and descriptions of rural Mexico in the 1940’s, but at my stage of life I do not care to read hopeless, depressing stories of misspent lives and that is how I see the story or life of this outlawed priest. Others will see it as an adventure!
The National Bird of Costa Rica is known for singing in the rainy season in April and May, thus his honored position in Costa Rica, yet a simple bird. Seen here in my back garden, hiding behind a limb he thinks.
Change the world by being yourself. – Amy Poehler
“Quiet the mind and the soul will speak.” – Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati
Your have heard me brag about the tranquility and great weather of my little farming town of Atenas – and the “muy amable” or very kind people here. But one thing that many hyper and efficient Americans don’t always realize when they move to such an easy-going society, is that to be that way means everything and everybody moves slower here! No rush! ¡Pura vida! To not adapt to this slower way means you will not be happy here. Always frustrated at the inefficiencies!
My example of this today is my efforts since Monday to pay my surgeon for the work he did. (No pressure from him.) I made arrangements in advance with my Credit Union in Nashville to move the needed money from Savings to Checking so I could easily pay with my debit card. Hospital payment was quick and easy as I had planned, but the doc requested to be paid separately. Okay.
The doctor comes in my room with his little portable credit card machine, saying he doesn’t like to wait for the hospital to reimburse him if I pay through them (the most efficient way), saying they sometimes take a full month to forward the money to him. Okay. He tries repeatedly and his machine doesn’t work or at least he blames it on the machine and not my card which had just worked for the hospital. He leaves and returns in a little while with a bigger machine he plugged into the wall (still dependent on hospital WiFi). And it did not work. He then says we will take care of it when I see him at his office later this week (Wednesday). It still did not work there. He then gives me his account number at Banco Nacional and asks that I just transfer the money to his account from my account – but that account (my SS check auto-deposit) is just for housing costs, so I still have to get the money from Nashville.
Thus Wednesday afternoon I go to the bank with my CU debit card and ask them to get the needed money from it and put into my local account so I can transfer it to the doctor’s account. Sure! The teller aims to please, and tries repeatedly (7 times – service is important!) and he continues to get “denied” or “acceso denegado.” I call Nashville and they raise the cash advance limit (I thought they had already done) and say everything else is cleared – it should work! It did not! I told the patient teller (not the long line of people behind me) that I would return tomorrow and try again. Lo siento señor, mañana es un día festivo, no estamos abiertos. And I reply, Hasta el viernes. Tomorrow is a holiday and we are closed. See you Friday. 🙂
Well, Thursday was Virgen de los Angeles day, (patron saint of Costa Rica) with only Christmas and Easter being bigger for Catholics here, when thousands make the pilgrimage to Cartago Cathedral to touch the black stone Maria. So nada yesterday! (Click above link to learn about the holiday.)
This morning I call the Credit Union again and make sure the card is good for a large amount of cash on this day and I’m assured it is. I go to the bank with teller lines going outside onto the sidewalk and street, more than an hour wait for a teller, so I tell the guard I need the “special services desk” and go wait nearly an hour for it, but those persons are more accustomed to “different” transactions like mine and I figured they could handle it better, maybe quicker, and once I finally got to a desk, it worked very smoothly, though taking another 25 minutes to do it! Remember – everything is slower here! Why rush? But she did go ahead and let me pay my monthly CAJA (public healthcare) with her and not have to go wait for a regular teller to do that.
Sooooo . . . an hour and a half at the bank, another chapter read in my latest book (which is so, so), my doctor bill is paid AND my monthly CAJA (public healthcare) bill paid! I breathed a sigh of relief and headed home for a more relaxed weekend! Pura Vida!
And, if you are wondering, the reason I didn’t use CAJA for the surgery, is that I would still be waiting to see a surgeon and I chose not to have patience for that! Choices and Patience! Retired in Costa Rica! 🙂 ¡Pura Vida!
Another Giant White Butterfly – the only species slowing down enough to photograph in my garden right now and I’m not going beyond my garden these days with a sore shoulder. This is a repeat butterfly within a week, but a different view. 🙂 The chachalacas and rufous-naped wrens are active but I’m tired of photographing them. So a repeat butterfly today!
My shoulder is doing fine, the incision healing well and I start with a physical therapist Saturday. Pain only bothers me at night and the pills help with that.
In a Blur – How I feel 2 days after surgery – but all is well – saw doc today. Physical Therapy starts soon. And photo from my garden yesterday is a red ginger with background blurred. Happy day to you!
The Plain Longtail Butterfly or Urbanus simplicius proves that all butterflies are not colorful. In fact, I had one of the many different longtails in my bathroom one night and thought at first that it was a bat! Yes, he is fury! But you have to admit that he is very interesting and beautiful in his own simple way, photographed here in my garden. I have a photo of a White-striped Longtail in my butterfly gallery and there are other varieties.
See also my Photo Gallery Butterflies and Moths with more than 80 species photographed here in Costa Rica.
I also have a little 7X7 inch photo book titled My First 50 Butterflies in Costa Rica. You can preview all pages electronically for free at this link. Best viewed full screen for bigger photos.
¡Pura Vida!
My right arm is still numb, so limited left-hand typing. Hospital and docs/staff were super! I see doc tomorrow and schedule physical therapy. No problems, still numb. No pain.
The Gulf Fritillary Butterfly is found in the states touching the Gulf of Mexico, especially Florida and South Texas, all the way south through Central America and the northern edges of South America. They love to feed on my Lantana (Porterweed) plants shown in these photos in my garden and also love the Passionflower when available (I have none), thus its secondary name of Passion Butterfly.
The above average rain this year has helped my flowers which seems to bring more butterflies and maybe more varieties. June and July are the peak months for butterflies here, meaning they may decrease in number soon. I include two photos to show the difference in the bright orange top of wings and the underside with silver/white spots. Beautiful!
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly. ~Richard Bach
See also my Photo Gallery Butterflies and Moths with more than 70 species photographed here in Costa Rica.
I also have a little 7X7 inch photo book titled My First 50 Butterflies in Costa Rica. You can preview all pages electronically for free at this link. Best viewed full screen for bigger photos.
Report on Tonight’s Surgery will come in tomorrow’s post, Tuesday.
¡Pura Vida!
This name or label is the closest match found in online searches with the scientific name of Ganyra josephina, found from South Texas all the way through Central America to northern South America. It is similar to the Felder’s White found in the book A Swift Guide to the Butterflies of Mexico and Central America with scientific name Ganyra phaloe (which name I almost gave it). Another web page had a similar butterfly labeled Godart’s White, almost identical to Felder’s, both having a little brown edge around the upper wings which mine does not have. Mine more closely matches the “Giant White” photos and descriptions online but is not in Swift’s book.
Butterflies are so difficult to identify, especially in Costa Rica where we seem to have millions of different ones! This was photographed in my garden in Atenas, Costa Rica.
See also my Photo Gallery Butterflies and Moths with more than 70 species photographed here in Costa Rica.
I also have a little 7X7 inch photo book titled My First 50 Butterflies in Costa Rica. You can preview all pages electronically for free at this link. Best viewed full screen for bigger photos.
¡Pura Vida!
Above Canario Supermercado is a new little coffee shop overlooking the entrance to Atenas Mercado Central, bus station, and a busy street for people watching. See photo above. Just this one visit today and it is now in my top three coffee shops (called cafeterias here). (1) Crema y Nada, (2) Cafeteria by the church, and now (3) Cafeteria above Canario. (If the last two have names, they are not prominently displayed, but most things here are described by location as I just did.)
One of my retirement joys these days is slowly sipping 2 or 3 mugs of coffee every morning after breakfast, with breakfast or like today, after my cereal breakfast I walk to town and have a pastry and cup of coffee downtown while people watching or finishing today’s Washington Post on the Kindle. This is what retirement is like for me when not traveling! And of course my favorite and most common place to enjoy morning coffee is from my own terrace as seen on this cloudy morning in the photo below.
Living the Dream
¡Pura Vida!
And for those who think I never have anything negative to say about Costa Rica (and I seldom do) I will admit that one thing here that scares me is the Terciopelo, the Costa Rica name for what Americans call Fer de Lance snake (Bothrops asper). (Click Terciopelo link for English article in Tico Times) It is one of the most deadly snake bites in the world and unfortunately we have them living in my Roca Verde neighborhood. I know of two neighbors who have been bitten, both going outside in early morning barefoot (note that I will never do that). Both stepped on the snake (a sure way to get bitten!) and were rushed to the public clinic here for anti-venom shot and from there in ambulance to the public hospital in Alajuela for further treatment. They are both fine now, but it was a big scare for both with swollen leg and a lot of pain. One guy had an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and got extra allergy treatment for the hives it gave him. See Wikipedia article on the snake.