As moving day approaches

We're moving on Wednesday, in case you haven't heard. Though I think anyone within a 20-mile radius should know already, as I've been shouting it from the mountaintops. In the words of Lightning McQueen, I've been stuck in Hillbilly Hell. Get me out of here. It can't come soon enough, and all that.

So we found a great house in Santa Ana that I absolutely love, and I'd tell you all about it, except that it's for sale and I don't want you to buy it, because maybe I want to buy it myself next year. Maybe. Depending on how the economy down here is looking. It is a great house, though, in a great location.

The thing about moving that sucks majorly is the moving process itself. The acquiring of boxes, the filling of boxes, the getting sick with the flu and lying in bed for days while wishing boxes would pack themselves, the packing of boxes two days before the moving truck arrives. Ah, moving. We've done it so often (9 times in the past 8 years, not including moving from California to Costa Rica), that I think we could do it in our sleep.

Today we spent two and a half hours (yes, you read that right) getting our cable and internet stuff worked out at CableTica. Turns out that when we canceled our last CableTica service, they didn't actually cancel it, and wanted to charge us like $150 for three months of service that we weren't even in the house. Including some pay-per-view movies (and we have never used pay-per-view!). F that, is what I said. Esposo worked it out, and we got a new service without paying all that old nonsense. But he did have to sit there for more than an hour arguing with the customer service guy, then arguing with his manager. I have to hand it to him, though, he did it. And I think that in a week or so we will have cable and internet at the new house. Hooray.

As I was going through things, figuring out what to throw away, what to pack, and what to donate, I found some old photos. This one isn't too great, but it is really special. These are my girls, Lucy and Mable. I have very few pictures of them together where May-May isn't sick (even in this picture, though, you can see that she's blind in her left eye). This was taken during better days. I miss these girls so much. You know how you have one special dog in a lifetime, that dog that would do anything for and for whom you would do anything? Lucy was that dog. I loved her (and still love her) so much.

Want a real Halloween pumpkin in Costa Rica?

I saw some today at Pricesmart. They were 6,000+ colones, or around $11. Each. Oh, and AutoMercado has them as well; around $13 each over there. And none of them was a really nice, big, round, unblemished Halloween-y pumpkin.

Ouch. I'm thinking pumpkins are not so expensive in the States. Of course, they have to ship them from there to here, so you should expect to pay exorbitant pumpkin prices here.

You can buy a watermelon for a couple bucks, paint it with orange poster paint, and carve that, if you want to save a few bucks. I might do that. Or carve a papaya. Actually I've seen friends do just that. You could carve pinhead.

If you're looking for something political to do with your Halloween pumpkins this year, Associated Press has some ideas. Otherwise, enjoy this small bit of pumpkin humor.*

Why you should not leave alcohol around your Halloween pumpkins.

*Sorry, I don't know where this photo came from or who took it; it was one of those silly things that gets sent around the internets and forwarded and forwarded on into infinity until it finally found its way to my inbox. If anyone knows who took this pic, I'd love to give them credit, because I think it's pretty freaking funny.

Well, that's a first

This morning as I was going in the laundry room to do the wash, I noticed something that looked like a brown ribbon or yarn on the floor. Imagine my surprise when, upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a snake. A small one, only about six inches long, and most likely a harmelss garden snake, but a snake nonetheless. Unfortunately, the poor little thing was dead, but esposo and son and I had a good look at it before I put it on the other side of the fence. It was strange; it had sort of curled up with its head up, and didn't look as though the cats had gotten it at all, so I couldn't figure out what it had died from. Esposo thought it may have come in through the grate in the hole in the laundry room floor (and if I hadn't mentioned it before, our laundry room looks like it was, at one time, an outdoor space that someone slapped a roof over, as it has rain gutters on the inside of the room).

Life in the tropics.

Is it weird?

Rachel Ray is making dog food. As weird as it may, in fact, be, that's not the weird part to which I refer. She is also donating profits from the sale of said dog food ("Nutrish," naturally @@) to animal nonprofits. (Good for her, on that point.) She was on Food Network the other night talking about the dog food with her dog, Isapoo. What is weird is that we also call our dog (my "baby") Isapoo. How many dogs out there can possibly be called Isapoo, and why does Rachel Ray's have to be one of them? That is the weird thing.

Actually my dog's name is Isabella, though we often refer to her as Pooh, and just as often shorten it to Isapoo. Now, in all fairness, she might have been calling her dog Isaboo, and not Isapoo, so maybe I misheard her. Still... still... it's weird.

My Isapoo

I have my tickets!

Woo-hoo! I've been waiting like seven years to go see Beto Cuevas. Actually I wanted to see La Ley, but then they broke up, and it's been three years in the making of B.C.'s own disc. Anyhow, he's playing at The City Club in Zapote on November 5, so I will be celebrating President Obama's win on that night with Chris. If you want to go, Credomatic has the tickets.

And the below is especially for Manders, just so all of you out there know I am not gratuitously posting Beto Cuevas videos without having good cause. :-)

P.S. I am thinking about getting a real j-o-b. That thought is both scary and kind of exciting.