Nine month anniversary

It has been nine months since we made the big move to Costa Rica.  We have settled in nicely and made many new friends.  Some things in our lives, such as taking care of a senior citizen with dementia, are challenging no matter where we live.  We do our best to manage a difficult situation and are fortunate to have one another to lean on for moral support.  Unless a person has cared for a person with special needs, another cannot possibly understand the patience that is required and the mixed emotions a caretaker faces.

Even taking care of old dogs can be challenging.  The other day while my senior citizen Chihuahua was out taking care of his evening business, I noticed the neighbor standing at the end of our driveway with a long pole.  I asked him what he was doing since he seemed a bit frazzled.  As it tured out, his old dog had walked into a drainage tunnel (for the second time in a week) that runs underneath our driveway.  The dog appeared to be stuck or too tired to come out on his own.  Since our neighbor had been trying, unsuccesfully for over two hours to rescue the dog, I offered to help.  I found a shorter wire pole and hopped down into the drainage ditch at the other end of the driveway and managed to hook onto the dog.  Once the dog realized I was there to help, he started trying to crawl with his front paws.  He was exhausted by the time he was rescued.  It truly felt good though to have the doggie out and safely on his way home.

We get some horrendous electrical storms here with lots of rain.  The poor ole' dog would have easily drowned if a rain storm had developed that afternoon.  We did have one such storm just yesterday, which caused loss of power for over an hour at the house and Internet disruption for most of today.  We depend so much on the Internet these days...no Skype phone service, no television service, no shopping online, and no emails!  Whew, it was a long morning, but we did get some weeds pulled and even scan through a couple of books that had been collecting dust.

While we realize our paradise is not everything we wished for due to our circumstances, the consensus among us is that we made the right move and there is nowhere else we would rather be than in our home here in Atenas.  Posted pictures may help explain why.