Hearing Doctor Appointment

A couple of weeks ago we drove to Escazú for an appointment with my hearing doctor, Dr. Natalie Goldgewicht Davidovich. Because of Covid-19, we had not been able to see her for a couple of years. I suspected my hearing aids needed to be recalibrated due to further loss of hearing. Or, as Lance said to Dr. Davidovich at this appointment: “she can’t hear!”.

I remember my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side both wore old fashioned hearing aids … the battery pack was the size the size of a deck of cards that they wore in a pocket on their clothes. So I suppose this is where I inherited the hearing loss from because it doesn’t relate to anything else in my life. Hearing aids today are totally different, very sophisticated.

The drive there was uneventful until we reached the Centro Commercial mall on Avenida Escazú. We mistakenly drove down into a dark, private underground parking lot and eventually reached a gate which wouldn’t open without a pass card. I think that was my fault …. I said “oh yeah, turn left here”. Lance had to back up in the dark along the curved and upwardly sloped driveway. It was tricky and he did a good job. We then drove into the public lot and went to my appointment.

Sure enough, the audiogram showed further loss. The hearing aids I have are Signia Pure Charge&Go. They were not inexpensive but well worth it. I have an app on my iPad and my phone that lets me control the sound levels and I can choose where sounds are coming from. For instance, in a noisy environment such as a restaurant I can adjust them so I can better hear the person sitting in front of me and not all the other diners. And mine are also hooked up to Bluetooth so I can listen to videos on my iPad or movies on our TV directly into my ears.

So that was done for another year and we headed for Auto Mercado in Santa Ana for some high end grocery shopping. 

Driving home, we saw a downed power pole on Hwy. 1 at the turnoff to Grecia. The turnoff itself was blocked by another downed pole so we had to detour back to Hwy. 1 north and get to our house via Sarchi.

We made a dashcam movie of the drive, except for the portion of driving from Sarchi to our house, because we previously did that and you can see in on my YouTube channel.

A Lightning Strike and Noisy Parakeets

Yesterday afternoon we experienced a fierce lightning storm with torrential rain. I was in the kitchen when I saw out of the kitchen window a red and orange fireball followed by an ear splitting crash of thunder.

You can imagine how fast I departed that room! Looking around outside today, we saw the tree that the lightning had hit. It was in the vacant lot below us. Bark had been stripped from it, some of which was blown onto our property.

Here’s the tree - you can see where the bark has been stripped off:

Debris on our patio walkway:

The strike even blew a piece of bark around the corner of our house, where it landed on this bush:

On a less scarier note, last week a huge flock of parakeets landed on this same tree and held a noisy convention for a good while. As you can see from the video I made, they are hard to identify because they blended so well into the green leaves. My best guess is that they were crimson-fronted parakeets, the most common parakeet in the Central Valley, where we live. If anyone can make a more definitive identification please let me know.

Turn up the sound!

Click on images to enlarge.

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - September 2022 / Covid-19 Update

During September, visits to this blog were received from the following 9 countries, 1 unidentified European country and, for the second time in the last two months, 1 totally unidentified country (Europe, Asia or otherwise):

The total number of countries and non-independent jurisdictions from which visits have been received has risen to 135. Of this number, 13 are non-independent jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, etc. The latest country is Guyana located in South America. The visit came from Georgetown, Guyana's capital city.

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The following is a summary of weather for September in the area where we live:

Temperatures during September were moderate and relatively unremarkable. The real story was rainfall. Except for a single day, there was at least some rain every day - ranging from 0.01 inches (25 mm) to over 5 inches. The total rainfall for the month was the most we have ever encountered during any single month since our arrival in Costa Rica in 2011 and, with 3 months to go, the total rainfall this year to the end of September has now exceeded that during the full 12 months of any previous year. 

Despite the amount of rain, most days in September were marked by several hours in the mornings by broken clouds and no rain.

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Covid-19 Update

The following table updates information which appeared in my blog entry posted on September 5, 2022:

With regard to the Death Rate Trend, the rate has risen by 0.01% in Canada, but has fallen by 0.01% in Costa Rica and the United States.

If you want to see how some other country is doing in comparison to Costa Rica, then visit the website of Worldometer. Numbers for populations, reported cases and reported deaths can be obtained from that site. All that is then needed is some simple math to calculate the percentage death rate for the other country and the death rate in that country compared to Costa Rica.

Click on images to enlarge.

Lunch - Chirinquitos Del Rio Restaurante & Bar, Grecia, Costa Rica

Today we returned for a second time to have lunch at Chirinquitos Del Rio Restaurante & Bar. I wrote a previous post about our first visit to this restaurant and you can read it here.

The setting above and beside the river is so nice. Because we have had so much rainfall this green season the river was full and running fast. The sound of it is nice to hear.

Their menu is quite extensive and I remembered how large the lunch portions were so this time we decided to order bocas, thinking the dishes would be more snack size and we could try several types.

Well folks, at this restaurant they are definitely NOT pequeño (small) dishes. We started with sangria. Even these are very generous sized. Lance ordered arroz con camarones and gallo de pescado. I too had the gallo de pescado and also the chifrijo de chicharrón, one of my favourite dishes.

Lance’s choices translate to shrimp with rice and breaded fish on a small corn tortilla. Both dishes came with chips and a salad. The rice was loaded with shrimp. My chifrijo is best explained here.

The sangria:

My gallo de pescada (and Lance ordered the same dish):

Lance’s arroz con camarones: 

And my chifrijo:

So, as the photos show, it was a lot of food and we brought a good deal of it home to enjoy tomorrow.

While up at the cashier, we met a customer from the U.S.A. who had brought his beautiful English cocker spaniel to lunch with him and a friend (it’s not unusual here to see dogs and cats in restaurants - some of them live there). Well of course I had to make friends with this doggie, whose name is Junior. Outside at our cars, we had a good chat about what brought us to Costa Rica. He was of like mind and had the same mantra as we do - “if not now, when?”. He was a pharmacist and, while counting out pills every day, he pondered on making the move and then did it. We all agreed that this is our home now and we have no intentions of leaving.