Month: October 2018

I can’t get rid of the alien

Oct 1, 2019 I think the 3 blogs about La Mosquitia drained my brain, I have had absolutely no desire to write anything. Instead I binge watch TV shows I have seen before, like Weeds and Friends. Next will probably be Seinfeld. Mindless TV for mindless me. Bill is usually watching something on the big TV (yes we have one but no cable) so I am watching on my Samsung Galaxy tablet, which for the record let me say, I HATE IT. It’s the most poorly functioning despicably designed tablet I have ever owned. Several times a night I say, I hate this damn tablet. And I researched it and read reviews, it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision.

Speaking of electronics, I used to have a Moto G 4 phone, I loved it, except the camera on the phone is awful. Photos look like a drunk 93 year old person took them. I love Instagram and like to be able to take a pic and post it immediately. I finally broke down and bought a Moto G5 which one step up from my phone and the same phone Bill has. The photos are so much better, still struggling with the thickness of the phone, my Moto G4 case was boxy, this is slim and trim. Changes are hard when you are old.

So, what have I been doing since I got back from La Mosquitia? Not much. We did some TOMS shoes to several schools on the east end. Still have 1 school and a kinder to do. I’ve been staying home with my dogs, hanging out by the pool or afternoon napping, which has become a very decadent past time of mine. Me, a fan, a few dogs, I’m good to go. A champagne chocolate truffle from the UK helps too. OMG. Pure and absolute decadence.

These things are oh so damn good, thank you Mandy and Darren!
As if truffles weren’t enough, Mandy and Darren brought flowers. Brightened up the kitchen for a week.

The dogs and I still have tea every morning by the pool. They bark and chase each other, the boys swim, they pretend it’s the biggest water bowl in the ‘hood. It’s a morning ritual.

Brotherly love, or tolerance. These two have some issues with each other, I can tell by their body posturing..scares me.
Luckily we keep the chlorine level VERY low. Just enough to keep it from getting green.
I took the covers off the dog beds to wash them. This was on top of one of the kennels. I KNOW for a fact that Gringo did this. He has had a foam fetish since birth. I keep forgetting to take the cover of this destroyed piece to Waldina to have her cut me the 18th piece of foam for a dog bed. My dogs should be called the Destroyers.
My morning tea spot.

When we came back from La Mosquitia we took a week off and then started fitting TOMS shoes again. We did the Froylan Turcios kinder, Juticalpa kinder, Politilly kinder, Barrio Lempira kinder and the older kids, Marcos Aurelis school in Oak Ridge. We still have a few to do. All the shoes are in my guest condo downstairs. Along with soccer balls, school supplies, clothes, 4 bags of dog food because it’s been hard to get so we are stockpiling and paint for the house. We are repainting the exterior of the house, same color. The verde (green) fits in with our surroundings. Lots of prep work before painting. Plan to do the outside, then the inside during rainy season.

I am not going to caption all of these photos because I would be saying the same thing, cute kids.. just enjoy these faces, the best part of doing TOMS is taking photos of the kids.
Our fitters, Chase, Diane, Leila and Mac.

 

Handsome, AKA Nidia’s son Franklin.
I love how she is leaning on Franklin’s back,
This is the extent of the playground.

This pair made it one year. Old TOMS for new TOMS
How do they sleep? It must be like the “old” days when we went to bed with curlers in our hair.

S H O E S TOMS S H O E S
Chase, Gail, Leila and Diane sweating like crazy while fitting shoes.
The kinder class

Pastor Bill and his daughter. He helped us for the whole day, great guy.
I think he needed new TOMS shoes.

Many times it’s absolute insanity.

Clarence and the kids.
Chris and Franklin

The red hat gang. These guys work so hard and are always happy, really a joy to be around.
Clarence fitting a lone blonde boy.

We also went to Punta Gorda and fit the kids there. Some of the students wear the traditional blue and white and others wear the Garifuna clothes.

The children in the royal blue are Garifuna.
We had some of the older students help us fit the kids.

Because We Care strives to give new shoes to as many school kids as possible. TOMS shoes rock!!

Childrens’ Day was Sept 10th, Independence day was the 15th.  All of the schools get dressed up and march. The school we help a lot was marching from below our house, past the driveway and up to their school. We went out to watch.

This is Osman, Ephrain’s nephew. He goes to a different school in Politilly. You can see our driveway behind him.
The stilt walkers. We watched these guys practicing at Jonesville last year. They actually tie themselves onto the stilts. I guess if you fall, it’s going to hurt.
Little girls all dressed up.
Ephrain, in the hat with the white X on it. He was the only one not wearing sunglasses so he asked Bill for his. Of course, Bill gave him them but I doubt Ephrain could see a thing as they are prescription. Bill told Ephrains lousy excuse for a mother that he needed the glasses back. Now she says she lost them. She sold them, I bet you $$. I can’t even speak to her I dislike her so much.
Little girls and boys all dressed up!
I saw this praying mantis on my porch, it was less than 3/4 of an inch long, just a baby.

I was paying bills and running errands on September 6th, wearing a pair of comfy Dr. Scholl’s sandals. When I got home later that day my right foot was bothering me. By Friday morning it was full-on limping. Oh well, figured I had strained something and it would get better. On Saturday morning I went to my friend Linda’s house and picked limes, so many limes it’s not even funny. It was killing my foot to walk around on the uneven ground but I wanted limes!!

I came home and started juicing. I have 2 plastic ice cube trays and filled them each 4 times over the next few days. I now have bags of lime ice cubes in the freezer, ready for a recipe or some ice water.
I could sit here all day and juice.
The rinds got thrown into the jungle for the animals to feast on.
If I am at the pool, so are the dogs.
Getting ready for company, Barrio checking things out.
Barrio taking a swim, happens many times a day.
Max and Gringo getting out, Max shakes before he gets out of the water.
All I need is an IV tube and needle, I would be all set to go.
I was trying to lay in bed, Barrio had other plans for me.
Max and Barrio do not get along, sibling rivalry over me.
More Hot Tamales from Oregon, thanks Steve! This makes 23# of Hot Tamales people have brought to me.
Bill had food, despite the fact they already ate, they put on their starving faces.
Gringo has no shame.

So, flash forward three weeks from Sept. 6th, my foot is still killing me. Bill thought I had plantar fasciitis, so did I. I googled it and couldn’t find symptoms similar to mine so I joined a PF group on FB. Once I was admitted I posted my symptoms and several people said it’s not PF. Great.

On Friday I messaged my friend Andrea, the nurse at Coco View. She said I needed to have it looked at and she texted Dr. Izaguirre, the orthopedic surgeon. She made an appointment for me for Saturday morning.

Bill took me down to the hospital. The Doctor wanted me to get an X-ray, but there was nobody there to run the X-ray machine. He examined me and said I have a fracture of the 5th metatarsal and I am not allowed any weight on it for 3 weeks. In reality, I should not have been walking on it the last 3 weeks, that must be why the pain was so bad and I was too stupid to realize that. I’ve also had issues with a screw in my left ankle since I had surgery March 31, 2013. My ankle gets a hard calcified thing that comes out of it, I’ve called it my alien for years. Doc said he could remove the screw for me and Bill said, you’re already going to be laid up, why not. I’m pretty convinced he hates me. So the Doc got me in a surgery room and did a local on my ankle. Once he cut me open he realized the screw was right below the skin and he also realized it was a special screw and he didn’t have a screwdriver to remove it.

This is the alien trying to come out of my ankle. It’s actually hard calcified skin. If my ankle gets bumped by the vacuum or a dog, it’s instant pain. Sometimes I can dig the calcified skin out and then there is a little hole in my ankle but the callus always regrows.
The doctor tried every single tool he could find. I could feel him trying to turn the screw but it wouldn’t budge using the tools he had available. No wonder the insurance and medical stuff in the US is such a mess when doctors have to use screws that require a (ridiculously priced) special screwdriver to remove it and that hospitals in other countries don’t have access to.

So, after digging for an hour and the local wearing off, when I told the doc I could really feel what he was doing he decided to quit, stitched me up and said he’ll remove the stitches in 2 weeks when he checks my broken right foot.

Did you know you can not use crutches if you can’t put weight on either of your damn feet? I am a crutch spaz anyhow, I detest them so I have been using my desk chair to scoot around on, using my left foot that’s not broken and a crutch. That was working well until the chair tipped over this morning and I fell out. Believe me, I am grouchy as hell and not having fun with this at all.

Friends donated 2 trumpets to me and I knew which school would want them. Froylan Turcios is the school we help the most and Marlon the principal has been wanting to acquire instruments.
One of my high school friends has been donating money every few months for me to use as needed. I decided to use some of it to help families who are raising their grandchildren. Marlon from Froylan Turcios found the needy families for me and Bill delivered the food to Marlon, SINCE I CAN’T WALK. This lady was a recipient.
Bill with bags of food.
Another man who received food for the family.
This is Don Lorenzo, he said, “thank you, thank you for your help. Blessings!”

A little bit of food goes a long way for these sweet people. Having someone hand them a bag filled with $25.00 worth of non-perishable foods (they don’t have refrigerators) is a big deal.

We have had a lot of company recently. Just last weekend John and Lizeth came from Kentucky. We first met (when I was volunteering at the airport) in the immigration room. She recognized my name on my name tag from reading my blog. We’ve been friends ever since and we can’t wait until they finally move down here. They offered to bring stuff for us so they “muled” down my new phone, repaired jewelry, eye glasses and 8 jars of hot peppers that I ordered from Tony’s Deli in my hometown of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. They also brought a lot of donations for the kids and a box of these;

MMMM, good stuff.
Gringo, Max and Barrio laying on me
Max and Barrio’s face.
My boy Gringo..

I’m going to have dinner, pour a glass of wine, and go back to bed to watch TV. I’m sure I’ll have some dogs with me. I’m hoping to be back in action soon.

Eclectic Twist

Design And Live Outside the Lines