Although I only stopped in for a pair of shoes, but I considered buying this. Then, every time my son knocks over the flower vase with stale water or my daughter whines about her homework or the money runs out of the checking account when I thought I had enough….I can remember him.

He must have had a really, really, really bad day.

The chilly weather in the Central Valley of Costa Rica quickly turned hot. It is rare for the winds to fade in January. As the heat catches and brings on the summer months, everyone wonders what March and April will be like - our hottest months.

One day, as the sun set, I looked up and caught a glimpse of what should have been a shot in a movie. But then, I thought, maybe I am in a movie. Is it a good movie or just a B flick? Addison saw me from across the park and ran his wiggle walk to climb the jungle gym with me. I flipped off my sandals and scaled to the top. He joined me, reaching as high as he could go.

And that was it, a moment of bliss followed by falling down, tears, and being blamed for not bringing enough water or always wanting to leave too soon. I walked over to a swing set and stood as high as I could on the railing. The hot day had cooled into an hour of freshness. A smell that reminded me of being a kid, running around in shorts and no shoes in Minnesota. Sun rays beamed as if on cue.

My life, take 33201. On to the next scene. Let’s see if I can get it one shot.

One year turns into the next. Before I knew it, I looked back and realized I’ve been in Costa Rica almost twelve years. And all though the calendar will turn another year and we’ll on sing onward into getting into shape and making new promises, somehow it always seems to circle back to the basics.

When Coco asked me “why do my eyes get googgy” when I read. I smiled and inside was shouting that this is it! This little moment is what I live for. Not soon after she began to whine and I sighed. Thus, starts the circle again.

Whether in Costa Rica or New York, we’ve got to bring with us our stuff. No matter what stage of my life I’ve been in, I seem to always be hauling a cart. On the airplane, I’ve always got more to pull along than others. I’m amazed at those with the single fanny pack. I admire people who get it all in one bag. I even had a job once that ran out of office space when it came to me, they gave me a cart. Just find a space that’s open I was told.

With my car in for another adjustment, I pull my orange cart out and take it from the kid’s school to the grocery store to the pharmacy. One night, a rat crawled into my garage and must have discovered something I’d neglected to take out of the bag after shopping. The little rodent chewed a huge hole right through the bottom. Now, I’ve got to be sure I don’t put a wandering avocado on the bottom.

Few people stop for pedestrians in Costa Rica. Being pregnant or crippled doesn’t always add to the advantage either. Having a cart surely gets no exceptions. I have to fight my way across like the rest of the world as I lug my stuff to it’s next stop.

I go through phases or trying to downsize and get sleek. It never seems to work. Between diapers and snacks and water and my camera and…..I’ll be pulling more than my share for a while to come.

He’s left of you’ve finally ended it. How to survive these next few weeks, months, years? Start with number one the moment you’ve become a single woman. Repeat and mix as needed.

1.    Ben & Jerry’s Praline Cream Ice Cream. Forget the chocolate - that’s for another step. Ice Cream was born to be vanilla. The Praline part is a perk. It’s important to keep true to tradition at this tender time because your mind is a mush ball of stupid thoughts that are beating you and down and pleading you to get in your car and stalk his house at midnight. Never buy more than a pint; that’s lunacy. Eat in one sitting; that goes without saying.

2.    Chocolate. Find the best chocolate bars you can buy. Nothing cheap. Fork over a few bucks for the really good, dark stuff. It’s acceptable to purchase a few bars with lemon or orange flavor.  Never let your supply run low. Devour one bar each day in the middle of the afternoon to prepare yourself for that lonely night when the most exciting thing on your agenda is a re-run of CSI and/or organizing your underwear drawer.*

3.    Wine. A good Cabernet will smooth out the feathers that have bound up your backside during the day.  If you’ve just become a single parent, be sure to have the first glass at 4 p.m. due to the ravishing hunger that is over taking you because you opted for the bag of M&Ms instead of a good sandwich and your blood sugar level is below sea level.  Children will soon file into the kitchen opening the refrigerator and stand there as if worshiping a false god. Only you can save them. First save yourself and drink. Feel the fermented grapes trickle into your brain and watch yourself invent a fantastic meal out of peanut butter and tuna you never though possible.

4.    Coffee. Hit it hard in the morning. Espresso gives you more points for facing the day with courage when all you can think about is kissing the barista, who never looked attractive until now. Taper off in the afternoon unless you want to count those cracks in the ceiling for yet another night in a row.

5.    Potato Chips. Only gourmet will do. Then, when you’re sitting in front of Oprah bawling because you happened to tune in on orphans in Iraq that have lost their limbs, or puppy mills, or wives who’ve caught their husbands cheating….Come to think of it - down the bag in one sitting and skip Oprah. You’ll never be able handle the sadness. Your tender little ego can only take so much.

6.    Water. Number 1 though 5 will parch you beyond belief. Drink a few glasses through out the day. Your kidneys will thank you.

7.    Yogurt. You’ve got to eat something, and you’ll have no energy to face those empty skillets. A single plate on the dinner table will tear you apart with memories of shared spaghetti and meatballs, candlelit dinners, and that silly time you boiled the egg rolls instead of frying them and the fantastic sex that followed.

8.    Cereal. Immediately after eating yogurt you will be hungry. Cereal is a dead food we pretend is healthy. For now, believe the myth. The crack, snapple, and pop will occupy the dead space in your stomach and hold you over until it’s time to eat the ice cream.

9.    Vegetables. What? Green things. You don’t want to die during this time or have your teeth fall out. You will love again some day, so get a juicer, celery, and some other green things and drink a glass to the life that will begin again some day.

10. Crème brûlée . You’re going to need a blow torch. This is the only food that requires some preparation time, which is good because you’ll need all the time you can get to watch all the seasons of Friends just one more time. Crème brûlée is the perfect food. Close your eyes. See it: the eggs, the creme, the layer of sugar glaze on top. Tap. Tap. Tap. Crack into the top and watch it splinter. One bite at a time, place it on your tongue. This is how life will be, again. Smooth, sweet, warm, rich, and incredible. And after you’ve finished four out of five of the ramekins cups, you’ll wonder what in the world all that crying was for anyway.

*M&Ms are forbidden inside the home. You may purchase a small bag while waiting to check out at the Supermarket
and eat them within 1 minute of leaving the store. M&Ms fill no empty place in the sole and will only make you
fatter than all the above is already going to do. 

**Try to stick to the one glass, but two is understandable. If you don’t drink or can’t find the corkscrew,
hold your thumb out on the counter top and whack it with a hammer. Same effect will ensue after the initial
shock wears off. 

I stood in front of the oxygen machine as it wailed out a high-pitch squeal.  It was 4:30 a.m. I’d had to leave a delicious dream because as I teetered on semi-consciousness, I finally remembered there was a human (my child) attached to the other end of the screeching machine.

First I tried “hoping” the noise would go away so I wouldn’t have to actually turn on the light. When that didn’t work, I flipped the on and off switch. When that didn’t work, I gave in to turning on the light. The machine continued it’s disconcerting noise.

As I opened canisters and wiggled hoses, I started at the machine and thought how convenient it would have been if I hadn’t been such a dunce in science class. If science didn’t include the study of an animal, I would either doodle in my notebook or look at my neighbor’s answer. Cells, amoebas, neutrons, electricity, gasses, vapors…..all of it flew over my head. Nothing stuck. That is, until I had kids.

Now I study anatomy, food science, chemistry, and physics, but I couldn’t repeat a thing I know. If a scientist asked me to explain an atom I’d say it was a wiggly little thing that was really hard to see. I’m better at doing science than explaining it.

The oxygen machine wouldn’t stop it’s high-pitched squeal, so I just kept unplugging hoses and reconnecting them. Finally, I figured out that the cannula (hose) in Addison’s nose was doubled over and the air was blocked. I mean who wouldn’t squeal when gasses were plugged up like that? I wiggled the hose in his nose around and the machine went back to sounding like the clunky motor of a 1979 Datsun instead of a giraffe with a stick stuck in it’s throat.

I’m pretty sure giraffes and Datsun’s won’t be in any science book on gasses or oxygen therapy. But it sure makes sense to me.

As the mechanic and I took a drive to check some work they did on my car, he drove along a back road and slowed down for a little traffic jam ahead. We’d both noticed a camion backing out of the uphill driveway, but it wasn’t until the truck was moving faster and faster and a man started shouting at it and running after it that we realized it didn’t have a driver. Two seconds earlier, and I would have had the rear end of the truck plow right into my door.

I wonder often how many times I’m kept out of harms way, despite myself. There are times I think I have to be where I need to be - must be - and it just “works” out that I can’t go. As of late, I’ve been stuck at home due to a “car-in-repair,” and I can’t help but wonder how many mini-disasters I might have been spared.

The mechanic laughed so hard, it was awkward. (I guess being a mechanic, it really hit him metaphorically!) The truck driver jumped into the cab and the woman that owned the house started yelling at the man that he was going to kill her. My mechanic rolled down the window and yelled at everyone what a thing it was: que va! que suerte! (and a few other que-s I couldn’t pronounce and sense I don’t want to repeat them here.) He snapped his fingers in that way only Costa Rican’s can do - by flapping his hands so hard the fingers snap.*

We waited for the driver to gather up his on-the-loose truck and drove on. My car, of course, didn’t make that funny noise as we continued on. I told him it was like when you were a kid and you called your mom into the room to hear that funny noise your closet was making and when she stood there, silence. Only silence.

These purple flowers are hearty and grow everywhere. I sense many ignore them as weeds or usual. They grow everywhere, just as impatiens do. As I admired their purple”ness” and many webs laced in the leaves, I couldn’t help but wonder what I was missing as I took the time to stop and admire them. Sometimes what we’re missing isn’t always what we think it is.

*I’m gathering video footage of this, so stay tuned. It’s quite amazing. 

Most who garden in Costa Rica or the tropics have felt the sting of leaf cutter ants or witnessed the devastation they can do on our favorite plants. From our view, they are destroying. From where they stand, they are building the castle of their dreams.

Now, I’m not sure if ants dream. In fact I don’t know much more about ants except there are billions and billions of them probably just in my neighborhood.

But after the rain washes all the hard work away, they’ll start all over again. And in one day, this is what they get.

It’s really a fabulous model. Perhaps something we should take more note of from time to time.

I started cooking at 4 p.m. and didn’t stop until 7 p.m. Deciding to take Coco, along with Addison and I, off of wheat has taken me back to the depths of cooking, which includes baking. Something I’m never overly thrilled to do.

Finding a way to cook, eat, and exist without wheat is exhausting and makes me want to pull out my hair at times. A long time ago, my oldest child at avocado and date bocas. Now she turns her nose at anything green except cucumbers.

However, one day while doing Addison’s therapy, I heard Coco coughing, really coughing. Just like Addy did. I realized that the bronchitis she brought home in December, which then Addy caught, which then went away, which then never really did go away and returned and landed him in the hospital with pneumonia, never went away for her either.

At one time none of us ate wheat. But boy we all love it. I mean, warm bread or gooey pastry things stuffed cream or pineapple or dulce de leche?! After two weeks, the cough is almost gone.

I finished baking the non-wheat bread, and then made a batch of non-wheat pancake batter for breakfast. I’d rather eat bread, it’s just easier. I’d also rather watch television all day such as Oprah and Ellen and E Entertainment, all the while popping Starbursts in my mouth from dawn till dusk. Why is it that the good things end up being so bad for us in the end?

Sometimes I hate asking why. Usually because I know the answer before I even ask. But in the end, it’s the victory that turns out to be the best tasting of all.

Cultural differences always seem to come down to the kitchen sink. The basics. It’s what we’ve been taught to do “all these years.” Living with someone from another culture full-time is a non-stop lesson in understanding that there is no one way to do anything.

The difference between living with live-in nannies and maids is that I have three people in the thick of my life 24/7. They get to see it all: my habits, the kids habits, how boring we are, how odd we are, and how frustrating we must be at times.

All of my nannies prefer splaying the wet dish towel we are using for the day atop the small counter tops I have. I detest this. It drives me buggy. Why would someone want to take up the clean counter top with a yucky old towel? To dry of course. Women from poorer cultures, at least here, must be concerned all the time with getting things dry. With no dryer in sight, it’s the sun and air that gets life dry with any luck. Since I’ve lived with a dryer all my life, I just flop the rag in the corner by the sink until I return to the kitchen because I know it will be tossed, washed, and dried by a machine.

We also have sink basket issues, which I’ve written before. In or out is best? I’ve even hauled down a fancy stainless steel mesh basket that works like a funnel and catches everything. Except when a nanny comes in and pulls it to the side, does the dishes, and all the bits of food go down the drain anyway. I’ve come to the conclusion that pipes must not clog as much here. For if anyone saw the innards of a sewer system due to a blockage, no one would throw anything down the drain.

Even in the garden, one nanny digs and plants that I just planted or chops something down. This is with the greatest of intentions. And she probably knows more than I do. I can’t help but wonder if wars don’t come down to more than this? Wanting to do things our way because we just know - darn it!  It’s the truth!

After so many years of not having things my way, I’ve learned to come in the kitchen and put the rag aside. Replace the sink basket and sigh as I look out the window at the geranium that was just planted in the shade. (Don’t even get me started on mops. That’s a whole other issue.)

After so many years of not having things my way, I’ve learned that the truth isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.