Richard’s aunt and uncle lived in San Anselmo at this time, so they kindly let us park our car at their house while we traveled to Costa Rica from San Francisco. Richard’s aunt Arline was his mom’s baby sister, and she had married a Presbyterian minister, Randolph Taylor, just like Richard’s mom had. Randy had ended up helping to bring the northern and southern Presbyterian churches back together (they had split during the Civil War), and as Moderator the first year the churches reunited, he and Arline traveled all over the world, meeting with other religious leaders such as the Pope and the Dalai Lama. Now Randy was the president of the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, living in a beautiful house designed by the architect Julia Morgan. Richard’s grandmother, Mama Kitty, was also living there since her husband, Pappy Dear, had died a few years before.

 

It was always a treat to stay with the Taylors, as they were welcoming and hospitable, interesting, thoughtful, and compassionate. It was also a kick to find one’s self in the middle of such a classic Southern culture smack dab in the middle of Marin County. A shuttle to the airport left from Larkspur, so we took off early the next morning for Costa Rica.

 

The Keltons were still living in Texas, so we missed them this visit, but the Ticos we knew and loved were there—Ana, Lijia, and Luís. It was terrific to see them. We also had a little time with a few of our friends from the language school Conversa, and I even got a Spanish lesson in from my former tutor Otto, whom I had missed the last time we were here. (Newcomers to this blog who would like more background on Costa Rica and our time there can check out the posts titled “Crazy Good Fortune Out of the Blue.”)

 

But soon, friends from the U.S. arrived. One of our friends’ father had retired to Costa Rica in a town on the side of one of the volcanoes, so she and her husband went to stay there, along with her sister. Unfortunately, it turned out that he was not as keen to have house guests as his daughter had hoped. One of our brothers-in-law who was living in NYC came with his girlfriend, and then a friend of a friend and his sister arrived, too. This last arrival proved problematic, as this sister spoke no Spanish whatsoever and had no intention of speaking any, either. Not only that, when it turned out the retiree on the side of the volcano didn’t want a houseful, she became bent out of shape that she wasn’t invited to stay at the Keltons’ where Richard and I were staying. It was not our house, so we didn’t feel, of course, that we could invite anyone else to stay there. But when she saw the size of the house, her disgruntlement increased. Since we didn’t even know her, and she was basically horning in on our trip in the first place, this didn’t sit well with us. This poor woman was a South Park character many years before South Park was conceived, her mouth, in my memory, a simple, downward slash. Because of the awkwardness of this situation, we ended up going to the coast and renting a small house instead of spending the time we would have preferred to spend in the central valley where our Costa Rican friends lived.

 

Next time I’ll have my boundaries more firmly in place, but at the time, I didn’t. We had an okay time on the coast, but it wasn’t at La Mariposa, so we missed our friends Garth and David, too. And the place that was available at the last minute was in a pretty touristy location. Our brother-in-law ended up dislocating his shoulder while body surfing, and had to hitchhike inland in order to get treated, as those of us with the car had gone some place else that day.

 

But the worst thing that ended up happening was The Cough. I’m not exactly sure where it came from, whether one of our entourage brought it with them or whether Richard picked it up in Costa Rica. But it was a nasty, nasty, dry cough. In retrospect, I’m wondering if it wasn’t Whooping Cough from the descriptions I’ve heard of that malady. Poor Richard coughed and coughed and coughed until we managed to get our hands on some codeine cough syrup.

 

I seemed to have dodged that bullet until we got home, packed up and headed to Colorado for the summer. But along the way, I came down with it just as Richard was getting over it. Bizarrely, when we got to Colorado, scads of people there seemed to have The Cough, which led me to think it started in The States. I have truly never experienced anything like it. Coughing fits would turn into violent hacking spasms, during which time I literally thought I might break a rib. Unfortunately, I don’t do well with codeine; it makes me feel nauseated and groggy. So I tried to make do with more mild-mannered solutions.

 

Because this was our third summer in management at the Lodge, we were awarded both sides of one of the duplex cabins in the employee loop, and I had brought my tools with me to do some remodeling that I’d been given permission to do. Cough or no cough, I was determined to make over this cabin. But it was definitely a challenge, and in my efforts to get rid of this cough, I set in motion a downward spiral that was to have far-reaching repercussions … .