Drugstores (farmacias) in Costa Rica

Ξ October 25th, 2006 | → 12 Comments | ∇ Costa Rica, Health and Welfare, Life in Costa Rica, Retire to Costa Rica |

mortar_and_pestle.jpgPharmacies in Costa Rica are quite different than those you find in North America. A regente or pharmacist runs each pharmacy. Most, if not all, also have their doctorate. They can provide a lot of help in choosing medicines and providing good advice.

The services are quite different. You can get an injection or you can buy a pill. Yeah… one pill… or 6… or 11. Many people here cannot afford a whole bottle, so they can buy just what they need for 1 or 2 days, then return to buy more if needed.

One of the good… or bad… things about a Costa Rican drugstore (aka droguería but far more common in Costa Rica, farmacia) is that you can also buy just about any prescription drug you want without a prescription.

While this seems like a great deal, and maybe it is, when a person makes the decision to self-medicate, to buy a prescription drug without a physician’s advice, the burden of making the correct decision is removed from the hands of the doctor and placed squarely in the hands of the person buying that prescription.

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I am in love with another woman…

Ξ October 14th, 2006 | → 6 Comments | ∇ Blogging stuff, Costa Rica, Geeky Stuff, Hmmm!, Humor, Idle Thoughts, Life in Costa Rica, Maria Luisa, Rants, Shakira, Whatever |

OK… perhaps it is more of a lustfull thing. I am totally in love lust with Shakira.

I explained to Maria that should Shakira decide to come to Costa Rica searching desperately for a 60+, overweight Gringo with whom she could spend her declining years, I would have to consider leaving my wonderful wife… forthwith. Well I tried to say that, but I didn’t know how to say forthwith in Spanish. For those of you who know not who is shakira, read on…

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Hoo are you?

Ξ September 28th, 2006 | → 9 Comments | ∇ Animal Stories, Costa Rica, Humor, Life in Costa Rica, Maria Luisa |

A couple of nights ago, Piro started to go crazy in the back yard. This in itself is not so strange as she is a nutty animal under the best of circumstances and can always find something to go crazy about, but this was about 1 AM on a nasty, cold and rainy night and that bore some checking out. ML went to the window and announced that “something big” was in the back yard. I figured she was talking about the pool. Those of you who have spend any time on this blog know that my dear wifey is prone to…emmm… exagerate things. I decided the bed was a better option.

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New Blog Design (for now)

Ξ August 5th, 2006 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blogging stuff, Costa Rica, Geeky Stuff, Life in Costa Rica, News and Comments, Whatever |

man_at_computer.gifAs with my other blog, a fair number of people have complained that the old brown color scheme was difficult to read. Not enough contrast for older eyes I am thinking.

With that in mind, I am switching to new theme which hopefully will be easier to read. About the only thing I may want to change on this one, is moving the posting information to the bottom of each post instead of having it appear just below the title.

Anyway, feel free to comment on this new design… good or bad.

 

A Beginner’s Guide to Using RSS for Reading Blogs

Ξ June 24th, 2006 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Blogging stuff, Costa Rica, Geeky Stuff, Life in Costa Rica, News and Comments, RSS Feed, Tutorial, Whatever |

rss.jpgI really do not know just how many Blogs are being published about Costa Rica, but for sure, there have to be about forty or so… maybe more. Some are really, really good! Some are… well… not so good. Who reads these blogs? I guess that depends on the type of Blog. Some are of a personal nature giving readers the chance to peek inside the personal lives of the blog writer. Others are geared to current events, news, information on living in, retiring to, or general information about Costa Rica. Sadly, there are also some SPAM blogs that really say nothing. They only want you to click on one of the ads you find there.

Some Blogs add new content (articles) every day. Others maybe once or twice a week or sometimes less often. So the question is whether there is a way to keep up with the blogs you like to read without having to go to that Blog to see if there is anything new. If you have a list of maybe 8-10 of your favorites, that can be time consuming. Well there IS, and this article will teach you how to do it in almost no time, and the good news is you already have everything you need to set it up!

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Please Don’t Touch Anything in My Room

Ξ June 9th, 2006 | → 6 Comments | ∇ Costa Rica, Family, Life in Costa Rica, Maria Luisa |

“Leave everything like it is.

Tell my brother that wherever he is, I will be with him.

Thanks to everyone. I love you.”

Signed: Elmer Fallas A.

(From his suicide note; 8 June 2006)

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Nicaragua Wants Guanacaste

Ξ December 5th, 2005 | → 0 Comments | ∇ -My Favorites, Costa Rica, Humor, Life in Costa Rica, Travel |

Costa Rica has been disputing Nicaragua’s refusal to allow Costa Rica police patrol boats to carry weapons on the San Juan river. I guess they are fearful that our staunch Fuerza Publica will cross the river and attack their country. I am not sure 1. who would really WANT Nicaragua, and 2. if our staunch Fuerza Publica could actually pull it off as they have a tough enough time dealing with pickpockets and petty crime in San Jose. The idea of our boys in blue actually facing an army (yes, Nicaragua has one), with REAL weapons might be mildly amusing as THAT battle might last no longer than 4 minutes, which thankfully is sufficient time to call George Bush. (more…)

 

Girlfriends, Pizza and Christmas Trees

Ξ December 6th, 2004 | → 0 Comments | ∇ -My Favorites, Costa Rica, Humor, Life in Costa Rica, Maria Luisa |

My girlfriend is a most thoughtful person.
She is also caring, warm, sexy, beautiful, and generous.
She is also really hard to train. She resists this, preferring her way at all times. Many times this is good thing as I often do or say really dumb stuff, and she is always there to fix that. Other times, it is most annoying.

For instance, let’s discuss what I call the pizza incident last night.

This occurred when we (read SHE) invited a few family members over to decorate the Christmas tree. In Costa Rica, when you are involved with a (Costa Rican) woman, your involvement extends to her family as well. Actually, I like this!.
Some definitions!

As this is a good Catholic country, this “extension of family” translates into roughly 732 family members who show up (announced or not) for all functions.

“Function” is broadly defined as just about anything that is not done in the bed with the lights off or in the bathroom involving the toilet. I say this as tooth brushing can be an acceptable event (as can be flossing). The act of taking out the garbage qualifies as an event. In reality though, that event seldom attracts more than a half dozen or so persons. Decorating a tree is certainly higher up on the function list.

A tree decorating event, which really IS a function as defined in the US Culture of Acceptable Events & Functions, vol 3, may easily draw 90 folks who thoughtlessly expect to be fed and given something to drink.
Something to drink means something with alcohol.

I have mixed feelings on this.
When I lived in the US, only the closest family members arrived to decorate the tree. We ate a few cookies. Drank some eggnog, decorated a bit. Drank some more nog. Listened to the carols and drank some nog. Sang some carols. Downed some more nog. It was a fine time.

So last night, we decorated our tree. I do not have a body count, but the expression “shitpot fulla people” may give you an idea of how many arrived. There was merriment and fun. Music and dancing….and PIZZA. A LOT of pizza.

Remember the olde expression “Many hands make light work”? The tree was decorated in perhaps 6 minutes. Now… the tree looked great… until the lights were turned on. We had a problem.
When I was a young person, I was taught early to hang the lights first, test them to be sure they were distributed properly, THEN add the rest of the stuff.

Well, apparently, it is done differently here. Everything is done at once. However, when the lights were turned on, there were roughly 392 lights in the top third of the tree and perhaps 9 to cover the middle and the bottom.
As you may imagine, this gave the tree a somewhat unbalanced look. With the lights off though, it looks first rate!
My suggestion that we un-decorate the tree and re-do the lights brought forth a veritable blast of laughter, so the tree remained as it was.

An amazing amount of pizza and beverages were consumed and finally her family went back to their homes. Happily, there was left over pizza! I went to my bed dreaming of the next morning when I could rush to the kitchen to eat COLD pizza preferable washed down with Coca Cola (Diet is OK) to sorta cut through the grease if you catch my drift. Certainly cold pizza is an item very high on the list of “the foods of the Gods”.

I am never clear if eating cold pizza is a guy thing. I certainly know of no man in my life who ever warmed up pizza before consuming. IN fact, many of the women in my life enjoyed cold pizza the next day…

Sadly, my dream was to be dashed.

I made grave error. On my way the kitchen this morning, I stopped to check my email. The next thing I know, my wonderful sweetie is bringing me WARMED UP PIZZA and COFFEE. Oh the pain!

I have discussed the fact that many Americans LIKE cold food and will happily munch away on leftovers fresh from the fridge. She cannot fathom this! In fact, when first I mentioned this, her reaction was akin to mentioning I had a penchant for cooking and eating small children. She was horrified and told me eating cold food could kill me. She believes this! Argh.

But I have aged and know the value of a wonderful near-perfect relationship. I ate the pizza and washed it down with coffee. I also promised to get my ass outta bed earlier when there was cold pizza awaiting. One must adjust to life in the tropics….

 

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