the may cocktail hour: final wrap up, a wedding & leaving for costa rica

Saturday, May 31, 2025: Welcome to our May cocktail hour. May was another busy month for us as we wrapped up our U.S. business and flew out to Costa Rica.

Let’s have some margaritas, in some new margarita glasses I got.

I also have a variety of beers, soda or seltzer water for those of you who are calm enough to survive the next four years without angst, anxiety or alcohol.

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Mike finally went to hourly at his job on May 1. He officially retired as of May 30, and may only do some consulting here and there in the future. This meant we had to convert our insurance to Medicare + supplemental health insurance; I was surprised it went rather seamlessly, until it didn’t. We’re still in process of sorting out the switchover.

We both had to squeeze in a lot of doctor’s appointments before we left the country for Costa Rica. I went for a physical & PAP, a mammogram & dexascan, and a dermatology visit.

Mike worked on figuring out our car situation in Costa Rica and we finally arranged to buy a 2014 Mitsubishi ASX that an expat American who lives in the compound where we’ll stay was trying to sell. He had bought the car for his girlfriend and they broke up, so he wanted to sell it. Though it’s old, it only has 40,000 miles on it and we hope we’ll be able to sell it when we leave the country next year.

I finally found a couple of decent teachers at Beloved Yoga so I could use up most of my remaining passes before we left.

We continued to work on decluttering our house, giving a lot of junk to Purple Heart. Mike managed to sell Adam’s almost-new massage table on Facebook Marketplace, as well as a huge antique sideboard we’d had in our garage for at least the last 10 years!

We went to a new restaurant at Reston Town Center, Se7en, with our friends Karen and Michael. Though there was absolutely no ambiance and the food was expensive, we still had a good time laughing our heads off. Karen and I always get dirty martinis when we meet, so those guarantee a good time.

We didn’t do anything to celebrate Cinco de May or the National Day of Prayer. On that day, May 6, Mike was climbing out of the pool and slipped and gashed his leg open on a hook that connects the pool lane lines to the side of the pool. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he had to have 26 stitches. That also meant he couldn’t swim for the rest of the month; neither could he bike outdoors. He was very disappointed because we don’t know if he’ll be able to bike or swim much in Costa Rica.

On that same day, our contractor José, who redid our bathrooms last year, installed recessed lights in nearly every room in our house, an expensive endeavor.

On May 7, we went to the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) to apply for our “Real IDs,” which require more documentation than a driver’s license. It’s always a hassle to go to DMV and it didn’t help that the deadline to have the Real ID in order to fly domestically was May 7, which meant for long lines at DMV. Of course, we have our passports and can fly with those, but we figured we should get our Real ID as an additional document. Those arrived on Friday, May 16.

A new pope was chosen on May 7. He’s the first American pope and he’s from Chicago. Apparently he cares about the poor, which is more than I can say about our government. I’m not sure how progressive he is on other issues.

On Mother’s Day, Mike, his sister Barbara and I went to Lebanese Taverna in Arlington to celebrate. We hadn’t seen Barbara, even though she lives locally, since just after Christmas.

Sarah started her new job at a Richmond law firm on May 5. Adam and Maria celebrated their 2nd anniversary on May 13, little Mikey celebrated his 1 year birthday on May 15, and Alex and Jandira celebrated their 2nd anniversary on May 18.

Our garage door was making an ungodly noise, so we needed to have some repairs done to that. Academy Garage Doors did those repairs on May 13.

Mike’s high school and college friend, also a Mike, came to visit and stay overnight on Wednesday, May 14. We made some bison burgers and had drinks on the screened porch. The two Mikes went out for lunch and beers and camaraderie.

Mike and I went out to Tiki Thai on May 17, where I enjoyed Chili Softshell Crab with Chu Chee Curry, kaffir lime leaves, coconut milk, red chili, and steamed pumpkin. Mike had Braised Beef Massaman: beef with coconut milk, onions, potatoes, carrots, roasted peanuts, and curry egg fried rice. It was all yummy. I hadn’t had soft-shelled crabs for years!

It suddenly turned cold on the week of May 19, with temperatures in the low 60s and rainy days. Alex, Jandira and Allie flew up here on Friday afternoon, May 23, so that they could go to their friends Edwin and Louisa’s wedding on Saturday the 24th. We all went to a pre-wedding BBQ at Louisa’s parents’ house on Friday night, and though Mike and I were invited to the wedding, we opted to stay home and babysit Allie. It was nice to have the family around for Memorial Day weekend, although the weather wasn’t great. The family returned to Atlanta to begin packing up for their move into our house while we live in Costa Rica.

Alex and Jandira went to the wedding on Saturday the 24th, and Mike and I babysat Allie.

The family stayed with us until Wednesday the 28th, at which time, they returned home to begin packing to move up to Virginia. It was great having some more time to spend with the family before we took off for Costa Rica.

We took off for Costa Rica on the last day of May, flying via American Airlines from Reagan National Airport to Miami and then on to Liberia, Costa Rica.

You can see me at the airport just before 6 a.m. after waking up at 2:30 am. We had a huge suitcase each (these were big ones I used for my year-long stints in Korea, Oman, China & Japan) and a carry on. Together we brought 20 books, as we’ll have lots of time to read. Why not Kindle books, you ask? Because I own a ton of books and I’m not going to buy them again. I’ll leave them behind in CR. And I love to read. But of course our bags were overweight. Mine was 6 lbs over and Mike’s 1 lb over, so we either had to dish out an extra $100 or rearrange our bags. Luckily they let mine go through at 52.5 lb after a rushed reshuffling on the floor of the airport. 🤣🤣😂🤣

Flying into and out of Miami we had some of the roughest turbulence I’ve ever experienced because of stormy weather. On the flight, I continued to plod through a book I brought that I had halfway finished, The Floating World. It was bad, but I was determined to finish it despite the suffering it inflicted. We nibbled on dry ginger cookies and an orange juice. It’s depressing what airplane travel has come to these days.

Our flight to Costa Rica was delayed and we arrived later than expected in Liberia, not only because of the original delay but because we had to circle the airport for 20 minutes.  A thunderstorm was unleashing its fury over the airport.

Both of our old large suitcases which we haven’t used in forever began to fail after we landed in CR. 😂  My handle was jammed and couldn’t be pulled up and Mike’s wheels started disintegrating as we walked through customs into the taxi. People in line were laughing at the pieces of Mike’s wheels that were falling in their path.

We left the airport in pouring rain with taxi driver Dagoberto. Mike loves to practice his Spanish talking about fútbol with drivers.

We spent our first night in Cañas at Hotel Hacienda La Pacifica. We walked the long distance from our “Junior Suite” to the dining area and ordered beers. We also got appetizers: grilled hearts of palm with plantains and tomatoes and Aztec soup. We nursed our drinks and appetizers while watching the tilapia in the fish pond, but we couldn’t make it to our 6:00 dinner reservation. We’d arrived at 4:30 (6:30 EST). We always eat too much, and our plan was to have the two appetizers and then a meal to share but we felt full after the appetizers so we called it quits. This is highly unlike us as we love to eat, but Mike needs to cut out sweets and I would definitely like to turn over a new leaf with my eating and try to eat more healthily and mindfully. I would love to lose at least 10 lbs. We will see if I can do that!

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I finished 8 books in May, bringing my total to 23/48 for the year, with my favorites being Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, The Summer House by Philip Teir, and Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue. I also read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, which basically outlines twenty lessons learned from 1930s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, and draws parallels with what is happening in the U.S. now. We saw two movies, Conclave, which was appropriate since Pope Francis died and the conclave picked a new pope during May, and Revolutionary Road, based on the book I read this month. We started watching several series: The Four Seasons, Istanbul Encyclopedia, & W1A. We continued watching The Split, Younger, Dying for Sex, The West Wing, Long Bright River, Your Friends & Neighbors, Severance & Unforgotten.

Here are a few random pictures of our grandchildren from afar. Little Mike looks just like Adam did when he was a baby.

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I hope you’ll share how the year is panning out for you, and what plans you have for the spring and the rest of this year.

How did your May go? Did you have a happy Mother’s Day or Memorial Day celebration? Have you welcomed any new additions to your family?  Did you celebrate any birthdays or anniversaries? Have you read any good books that can inform your worldview, seen any good movies, binge-watched any television series? Have you planned any adventures or had any spring getaways? Have you dreamed any dreams? Have you gone to any exotic restaurants, cooked any new dishes? Have you been surprised by anything in life? Have you learned anything new, taken any classes or just kept up with the news? Have you sung along with any new songs? Have you undertaken any new exercise routines? Have you marched or otherwise participated in political protests? Have you been battered, or alternately, uplifted by any news?