Rain, Bugs and Flowers

Yesterday at 3 pm, I was looking out over the Caldera River Gorge. The clouds were pushing up from the sea, roiling and oozing over the hills, laden with water. It was breathtaking

to watch. Quiet, kinetic, overwhelming.

I don't know if the picture captures the awesome beauty of this but I thought I would show you a picture. It started to rain a few minutes later and didn't stop until 1 am. Mucho Lluvia!

The other picture is a flower that only blooms one day a year. Can you imagine, something this stunning is visible for only one day!

On another note, the bugs are fierce in Panama! We have trained ourselves to shake out all clothes and shoes, reach gingerly into cabinets, closets and drawers, and check the sheets before getting into bed.

Yella found a scorpion in bed yesterday. Freaky! Good thing she checked.

I have to admit, I am gun shy about bugs. If I feel something on my skin, I flinch. Most of the time it is cloth or a shoe lace rather than a bug. Sometimes not. I found a squirmy little green worm on my arm last night while we were playing music.

I don't like that!

Continuing on, we have not been able to reach our builder for a couple of days. Work has been progressing at a remarkable rate but no communication.

And, you know us neurotic gringos, we must talk! Talk, talk, talk.

Yella said after breakfast, "Let's go to his house." I didn't think he would be there and I said so. She accepted this without comment, so I thought.

We headed out to our house so Yella could see the weekly progress. On the way, Yella asked how come we are not going to his house. I said, we already discussed this, it was unlikely that he would be there. This became a little tiff.

You know: how come you do things with out asking me; because it was obvious; I don't care, you didn't ask me; and so on...

While we were having this pissing match, our builder comes driving down the road and stops.

Problem solved. We got a good laugh about this!

As it turns out, our house will probably be finished in TWO WEEKS!!!

No shit!

Now we have to scramble to get things done. Like buy appliances, furniture, towel racks, mirrors and more.

I am a little weirded out. I guess I didn't think our house would EVER get done.

All right! This is more fun than all the bitching over the last 6 months.

Uh oh, I might loose those of you who like the bitching. You sick people. But then again, there will still be much to bitch about.

We played 6 songs with our friends last night at a dinner with 120 people. The audiences are great here. They love everything. Plus, it got a little drunk out at the end of the second set. They would sing alone with anything at that point. And, they did. After all, it is a little hard to enjoy a 10 minute rendition of Bob Dillon's Knocking on Heaven's Door but they did and wanted more. Got to love the booze.

We did sound good, if I might say so myself. As always, Yella stole the show.