I've been caught in nightmare out of a Kafka novel since last Saturday morning, when I returned to Costa Rica, eager to greet my kitties after spending two weeks away in California, securing an apartment and a car. Customs informed me I wasn't allowed to enter the country. They said I'd been deported! This erroneous charge came as a complete shock. I was already exhausted from a red-eye flight from Denver, and had been traveling nearly 24 hours from SF. They wouldn't even let me call my attorney. They put me on a plane back to Denver, where I have been since, in a hotel. I contacted my Costa Rican attorney six hours later, from the Denver Airport. He's been working on the case since Monday. So far, no result. I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to repatriate my cats and possessions without ever setting foot in Costa Rica (CR) again. My attorney initiated a legal action against Immigration yesterday, and says we're supposed to get a definitive judgment in 48 hours. Meanwhile I've decided that Friday afternoon, if I don't have official permission to enter CR, I'm flying back to California to start getting furniture into my new apartment. Meanwhile I'm contacting pet transport companies to see how I can get my cats to SF within the next week. They must be stressed out. They have been fed twice a day by a neighbor's maid, but she's not a cat person, and they are surely starting to feel abandoned. So, it looks like they may have to travel cargo whether I want to or not, because I believe that is how most pet transport companies do it. I am not sure about that, but will ask when I get my quote. I don't know, I haven' decided what to do yet, I'm stressed, I'm frazzled, I'm infuriated, scared...In short, I'm experiencing what most victims of serious crimes experience: sleeplessness, difficulty concentrating, feelings of acute aloneness...I've never been through anything like this in my life.
I'm sorry I ever entered that godforsaken country.
I'm still waiting until Friday morning. That is the last time at which we can reasonably expect to get a clear answer to my attorney's legal actions. Or, rather, if we don't have a clear answer by then, it could be weeks or months before getting an answer. But I have to be out in March, as that is my last month's paid rent. If there is no clear answer by Friday, I will have to get busy getting my property back without my going there. Assuming I have to do that, I have a friend there who can help me, but I'm not sure I want my cats there during the whole process of him being in my apartment packing up my stuff. They are already going to be stressed, and I think it will stress them even more to have this strange guy - well, they sort of "know" him, he's been to my place a fair number of times, but still, they are shy cats - in my place, disassembling their familiar home. The move itself will inevitably be stressful enough. But he's not a cat person either, and asking him to foster my cats while asking him to do all this other stuff too -- including wire transfering bank funds to my US bank and boxing and flying with my stuff to SF -- is asking a bit much.
So I'm rambling. But I need to, to think clearly. Does anyone know how pet transport companies usually work? Do some of them fly with the cats in the regular cabin? One possibility is that Rob could get an apartment and then move the cats over there temporarily while he boxes up my stuff in my apartment. I think he's been planning to get an apartment in March anyway because before I left he said he wanted to buy some of my big furniture, so he's evidently planning to find a place in March, because he knows my plan was to be out of CR by mid March. NOW I can't be out of there soon enough.
