A Broad In Costa Rica

Luck

First, a little background music to set the tone: right click here and click on open in a new tab or window. The song should start playing automatically. Perfect song: Vive Ya [So Live, Already!]

"Don't minimize the importance of luck in determining life's course." - Alex Trebec

Man, you can say that again. All the best things have happened to me while I was out looking for something else.

My life plan was to marry Sean Penn, ultimate bad boy, and be a rich, famous Broadway star living between London and Malibu. I managed to screw that up by marrying a regular guy, a businessman. With a job yet. None of my other boyfriends had jobs; how did this happen? Big bonus: he also happens to be a libertarian wacko. I mean, how lucky can you get?

Then we find out we can't birth babies. ("Hallelujah," I say. Pretty lucky I feel that way, huh?) So then the universe drops Morgan and Ryan into our laps, pretty much out of the blue (thanks to Sherry, my adoption fairy godmother). You just can't get luckier than that.

"Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered." - William Shakespeare

But wait, there's more: luck sends four hurricanes in four months, stops my income, then gives us the bright idea to move to Costa Rica practically at the same moment. Then we do. Sometimes I look back and wonder how we made it through that first year. Geez, were we rubes or what? Luck had to play a part, there's just no other explanation for how we survived.

I'm here to testify that losing one's income does NOT make one feel lucky. Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. It was Terrifying & Depressing. Especially at 50, especially with no pension or Roth or anything like that, especially looking forward to this economy (because it was clearly going to get worse before it got better) and especially when, everywhere you look, people are losing jobs and/or a good portion of their income. No, not lucky at all.

And, for most of those people, losing their mortgaged-to-the-hilt homes, too. I'm sorry, I can't drum up any sympathy for that consequence. First of all, most of my friends in the keys have been living in their foreclosure properties rent-free since we moved to Costa Rica. That's rent free for almost four years. Man, that's a lotta lemonade outta yer lemons.

Despite being overwhelmed with T&D, one could still grasp the beauty of the situation. Living rent free for four years, the benefits have to dawn on you at some point, unless you are already suicidal. So what, your credit's in the toilet? Who needs credit? What, you're going to go out house-hunting anytime soon with no job and a car payment you can barely afford thanks to Cash For Clunkers? I don't think so.

"Depend on the rabbit's foot, if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." - R.E. Shay

Losing that overpriced mortgage is a blessing. That pile of bricks is a house, not a home and it's never going to be worth enough to justify paying that mortgage for another minute. So, ok, when your bank finally forecloses, you'll have to move. Moving never killed anyone. Move in with mom. Ok, yeah, that might kill you. So move in with your bankrupt neighbor who is still living rent free because his bank hasn't foreclosed yet.

One friend went ahead and moved because she got sick of waiting for the bank notice to appear on her door. She rented the house to a guy, so she's got income from a house she basically no longer owns. That's like gourmet lemonade.

I guess there are people who can't make lemonade outta their lemons: acceptance is not in their tool bag. Not yet, anyway. They will, of course. U.S. citizens all have boot straps and we know how to use them. It's that initial realization period that is so shocking. I know families like ours that lived comfortably, not richly, but comfortably. Unexpectedly (because, you know, it always happens to the other guy), they lose something big (a job, a pension, insurance) and suddenly life is uncertain. Questions like, "what is going to happen next, where are we going to live" come to mind. Not only does day to day life change dramatically, many of their expectations, things they worked for, planned for, simply disappear. Poof. People who lost pensions and nest eggs... to me, that would be the hardest thing to accept. Lucky us, we never had one to lose.

"Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident." - Mark Twain

Financially speaking, the luckiest thing of all is that we accidentally had a year of adventure to distract us from the reality of our situation. During that year, whenever we thought of going back, we slowly became aware that the life we left behind didn't exist for us anymore. The work (real estate) was not coming back. We could no longer afford the house we left. Sushi dinners were out of the question. Clearly, we couldn't go back. Live in Key West without sushi? Not possible.

Our T&D at losing the old life was substantially mitigated during our first year of living abroad. We were too busy looking up words from street signs and trying to understand tico directions (Va alla = go that way with a sweeping wave of the arm) to be depressed for long. Today, our T&D is more like MA&W: Mild Anxiety & Wistfulness. By now, we know we'll think of something.

Here's my ace in the hole: if things get really bad, we'll sign up to teach English in China or Korea for a year. Escape, get paid, get a free place to live. Good idea, huh? I'm only sharing it because, at this moment, it doesn't look like we'll sign up for that adventure and I don't feel right hogging all the good ideas. I highly recommend the Living Abroad tactic to mitigate T&D brought on by extremely bad news. It works like a charm.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get." - Anonymous

The other thing is to start living like you've already lost it all. We figured this out in the nick of time. Stop spending. Stop eating out every meal. Work out a trade for sushi. Watch the cooking channel. Learn to sew and fix stuff instead of throwing it away. Grow a garden. If you haven't bought that clunker for cash, don't. Save every penny. There's the hard work part of staying lucky.

Oh, and buena suerte! [BWAIN-ah SWEAR-tay = good luck.]

"Those who have succeeded at anything and don't mention luck are kidding themselves." - Larry King

Falling From Grace

China is having its way with Costa Rica. A few months ago, at China's insistence, Costa Rica dumped Taiwan in order to form a new relationship with The Big Guy. Taiwan had been good to Costa Rica, built them a Friendship Bridge, never did anything harmful or even rude. Tough luck. China is a more prestigious trade partner and has tons more money to give to a beggar state. Bye bye Taiwan (in the middle of the night with no warning, muy humillando), Hello China.

The first thing China did was promise to pay for a new soccer stadium for Costa Rica. Say no more: Costa Rica "R" soccer. Everyone is all excited about the new stadium. So excited, in fact, they went to work on it straight away. Not seven months later, the old one is already torn down! Seven months. That's gotta be a record.

Nothing happens straightaway in Costa Rica. Nothing. They've been trying to get a road finished from Puriscal to Jacó for something like 30 years. There's a list of projects that have been years, decades, in the making. But Costa Rica keeps running out of money for its own projects. China, in the spirit of Friendship, enters bearing an envelope of cash: $60,000,000 in small unmarked bills. That's only for the stadium, though. Nothing for those unfinished roads or roofs or bridges. Just fútbol!

Ok. Nobody asked me for my opinion. Sanctimony "R" me. Whatever. And they don't care how we do it up north. We got a good chuckle at this headline:

New National Stadium To Have Only 400 Parking Spaces For 35,000 Fans

The Estadio Ricardo Saprissa stadium, followed by the Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto, home of La Liga, are a perfect example of poor planning of a stadium, especially when it comes to parking, where there only parking is provided by adjoining land owners who offer their porches and lawns for high prices.

The new Estadio Nacional ... that will soon rise over the land that housed the old Estadio Nacional for decades, will be no different, as only a few hundred visitors who arrive real early will be able to park their cars in the stadium lot.

The new stadium is expected to hold 35,175 people, but will have room for only 400 vehicles in the parking lot. Continue reading here...

Actually, 400 spaces for 35,000 seats is not so ridiculous in Costa Rica, like it might be in New York. At least two to a car so 17,500 cars max. There probably aren't 17,500 cars driven by die-hard soccer fans in the country. And, since most people go everywhere with their entire families, you have to figure at least 5 people to a car so we are already down to 7,000 cars, even if every family who went to a game drove.

But at least two thirds of those game-goers aren't going to drive because at least two thirds of Costa Rica's population doesn't drive. So, we are down to 2,300 cars. Just 1,900 parking spaces short. Hardly seems worth mentioning.

What is worth mentioning is the other recent China debacle. The Dalai Lama was supposed to visit Costa Rica. Had his ticket and everything. He was here in 2004. Looks like he liked it!

But China asked Costa Rica to refuse him entry and, to its shame, Costa Rica complied. Adding insult to injury, Arias tried to hide why he did it. China fessed up, though. They don't care what anyone thinks.

So Costa Rica dumped Taiwan and the Dalai Lama for money and a soccer stadium. A definite fall from grace.

Poetic Injustice

The picture alone is worth a thousand words. The article here is excellent, too. Read it and weep...

Antsy

For years, I told my real estate customers who came to Key West from various parts of the globe, "I'll be over to visit you in [London, Spain, India, Thailand, Mexico]." But I never went anywhere. I meant to, but I was always too busy. Too much of a homebody. And, if the truth be known, too fearful. I couldn't go anywhere. What if something bad happened?

We finally went to London in May of '04. But that was only after being shamed into taking action. One of my customers said, "Oh, stop saying you're going to come visit. You've been saying that for two years now. You'll never come." Ouch. That was a wake-up moment. That said something not good about me. I hated being one of Those People. Within a week we had reservations to go to London.

It's so funny: I couldn't get myself on a plane to go visit a foreign country, but I could pack up and move to one without knowing much of anything about it or even knowing anyone there!!! That says something about me, too. Something adventuresome, slightly foolish. I can live with that.

Because of the play, it's been a few months now since we went anywhere new in Costa Rica. I'M READY TO ROLL. I have to do the play again in late April, then my mom moves here... but in May, I'm off. We still have to go to the Caribbean side. I want to go to Dominical. To Guanacaste. To the Osa Peninsula. To the north country. To hike up to Volcán Barva. To hike some of the other cool trails. To visit Quint and Gazelle, my buddies who own property where you have to camp (I must really want to go there - I'm not exactly the camping type) near San Isidro de General. To spend a week with the turtles. To spend a month at The Bridge. So much still to do in Costa Rica, so much still to see. And, as luck would have it, mucho tiempo [MOO-choe tee-M-poh, much time].

Now that I think of it, now that I've finally traveled, after years of not really wanting to go anywhere, suddenly, I want to go EVERYWHERE. All those places above and more. What about Indonesia? Buenos Aires and dinner at Casa Saltshaker - my life won't be complete until that happens!!! What about Vietnam? Russia. Japan. Alaska. Nova Scotia to visit my friend June when she's up there. Slovakia. Greece - oh yes, Greece. Italy. Paris. Australia. Why not?

Well, there's money. But, I'll deal with that tomorrow. I don't want to be rich anymore. I've been rich. It's fun and better than poor, but it's not that satisfying in and of itself. You have to work so hard just to stay rich... I just want to travel. Remember that book Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow? One of those books I never had to read because it's all in the title. Like Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. Anyway, maybe I can make money traveling. Besides, I know people in most of those places. I hope they have room for four guests.

Here's my new plan: I'm going to one new country every year. For a month at least because you can't see anything in a week. I think it's why I don't like going places for a "vacation": you just get there, just get warmed up and unpacked and you have to leave. You can never get past the tip of the iceberg.

For the time being, I must content myself with my friends' travels. Like my Key West buddy, Rita Mae Brown's (not the RMB, my RMB) trip to China last month. It's Rita's birthday tomorrow. She used to be older than me, but she's not anymore. I'm going to have to ask her how she did that... In the meantime, she sent me a link to her travel pictures... WOW. I definitely want to go there. Don't you?