CHA CHA CHA!!

I used to say that raising my son, Christian, was like dancing the ChaCha...two steps forward...one step back. He was a busy, active, strong-willed child (infant, child, teen, adult...). This serves one well in many instances but was a challenge when he was a toddler/child. He was a "find a way, make a way" kid and could do anything that he set his mind to. Trenches in the backyard to act out Army...no problem. We had trenches reinforced with wood from pallets that he "rescued" from building sites elesewhere in the neighborhood. Archery to be like Robin Hood or Ted Nugent? No problem. Christian started archery lessons and got a compound bow with a tension that i could barely (and often not) pull back. When he couldn't find a book that was "accurate and right" on hunting, spying, and foraging, he wrote one....500 pages and more...and typed it on a typewriter that he got at a garage sale........See? He was very creative and industrious and focused. But.....when he didn't want to do something, there was (is!) no getting him to do so. When i thought that things were going well...that maybe life would be calm and all would work out....a downturn. I'd come home to see a knife sticking out of a wall ("i was throwing knives and that one just stuck"). Or he and his sister would be spatting and he would push her down (one time, she rolled down some stairs...). So...two steps forward...one step back........ This, however, has primed me for living in Costa Rica. Hubster will tell you, nothing works until the third time. Do you want to open a bank account? The first two times you go to the bank, the paperwork that you bring will be lacking something. It's only the third time that you go, maybe with the same paperwork but a different clerk, that you are able to put your own money in an account at the bank. We have been trying for THREE YEARS to get a new refrigerator and a new freezer. Yesterday, Hubster was able to coordinate the arrival, delivery, and installation of the two units in our kitchen. With the concommitent wood framing enlargement, moving on the cabinets by 5" (then replacing them to only a 1" enlargement), hooking up water/ice production, and getting everything back in the refrigerator and freezer. It "only" took seven (7!) guys and seven (7!) hours but it was accomplished. MAJOR COUP!!!....... But, what is the headline of this posting? What is the theme here? Cha-cha-cha. The refrigerator is working. Fantastic. It's a thing of beauty and taller (but shallower) than the unit that we had before. It is certainly prettier and cleaner and newer. The overhead lights in the kitchen were shorted out by the installation but repaired before the guys left......then shorted out again and have been out all night......But wait......it gets better......the freezer has also shorted out and has been off since, essentially, the guys pulled out of the driveway. So...we have a freezer full of things that are not frozen (while the chicken and shrimp were in a cooler of ice yesterday, the rest of the contents of the freezer sat on the counter for 7 hours yesterday so were mushy, at best, when placed in the freezer to "firm up")........CHA-CHA-CHA!! We have no freezer and the installers (just guys, not professionals of the Frigidaire company) are in San José, a "quick" 55 minute drive on a good day, one way. So...i don't know what Hubster is going to do. I am the "weak and wary female" in this scenario. I don't speak Spanish. I don't have rapport with Victor (the salesman who was here to oversee the installation and speaks English...with Hubster). I don't have WhatsApp on my mobile, the platform on which everyone communicates here in Costa Rica. I am female...which is a thing in this male-dominated, Latin machismo culture. So, i try to keep the rest of things calm or at least inoffensive and pray a lot that this will pass quickly and relatively painlessly. At $10,000 we should be able to have ice pops and frozen chicken........We had a patient who told us something that has become a mantra in our family...if money can fix it, it's not a problem. The patient had inoperable, incurable badness and would have paid anything for health and time. We have our health, our marriage, our family, a roof over our heads......life really is good(Pura Vida!) but this bump in the road is all the more jarring b/c we thought that things were resolving with this long-time frustration. Cha-cha-cha.