Reflections on Aging

With Yella going off to her 40th high school reunion, I have been thinking about the span of time.

I punched up a Facebook picture of one of Yella's friends from the old days in KCMO. I remember what she looked like back then. When I saw her picture now, I was stunned.

She is so OLD!!!

She was a spacey hippy chick, with long, straight blond hair, tall and slender. Not any more. She has a round, doughy face with dark brown hair (who knows what her natural color is). There is mature presence in her eyes, no doe eyed hippy chick left.

I feel like it was just yesterday that I knew her. And now, a life time has gone by...can you get it...a life time!

Wow, where did it all go?

I can think back to the years and decades from the 60's on with vivid recall. When I think about it, the time is there...full and real and substantial. Every upset and victory for our children. All the phases that Yella and I went through. And on and on...

But...when I think about it in the same moment, it is a twinkle in time. Insubstantial, whimsical, brief...so, so brief.

Shit, where did it all go?

And I still feel young. I remember my father telling me when he was about 75, that he felt young inside even though he was old outside.

I still feel young too. I think of my life with a future to be lived yet.

Then I look in the mirror and I see...my father. How the hell did he get in my mirror!

Uh oh. I better read a book or watch a good movie to snap this crazy thinking.

New Car & Mega Saturday Night Dance

I can't believe it! We actually got the new truck on Saturday.

What a relief. The car shuffle and waiting in town was getting old.

I woke up this morning to a little rain and I didn't have to sweat the bicycle ride into town. I hopped into my truck and went to the gym, then breakfast.

Halleluja!

We went to the first annual Bailar (Dance) put on by a couple of our friends. They did a bang up job. They raised several thousand dollars for a local charity.

It was held in a huge fair grounds building. Over 400 tickets were sold. The place was full with everyone seated around tables, night club style.

They had a band stand and large, elevated stage for dance demonstrations. Professional stage lighting and a monster sound system...of course! And thousands of balloons in huge clusters hanging from the ceiling.

The band was a Panamanian dance band that played half local music and half gringo music.

It was LOUD...ear splitting loud. Just right for the locals.

After a hour of dancing, the dance demos started. Several dance teams were present from Panama City.

Dancing is BIG here. Many dance classes and dance clubs. Everything from the Tango to Salsa to Hip Hop.

The demos were extremely well done. The local gringo couple who sponsored the dance were in one demo and held their own.

This was a Gringo/Panamanian dance. Pretty evenly split between the 2 groups. I think we need more integrated events like this. Maybe it does a lot of good to bridge the two culture gaps.

A fantastic event!

We are now in 6 day a week rehearsals for the play. It is actually coming together.

Yella watched rehearsal on Friday and laughed a lot. About half of the acts were funny to her and she can see the rest coming together with more rehearsal.

We have encountered some hard feelings between a couple of the actors and the producer. Some loud shouting and stomping out of rehearsal.

The producer is a lightning rod for hot tempers. She is an MBA, CFO bean counter personality that does not mix with the actors. I don't envy her thank less job in the production. BUT, couldn't she try to put a lid on her rigidity, for God's sake!

Got to love that drama!

Yella is leaving for the States today for 3 and half weeks. She will miss my play. Too bad. I always value her opinion and support.

Well, off to stuff and more stuff.

More One Car Blues

It was raining this morning. That's 2 rainy mornings this month...can't have that!

Not really a problem but I have things to do, places to go.

Yella went into town to get the gardener and maid. When she returned, I left for the gym and breakfast. I returned so she can have the car for errands. A friend picked me up at the house to have lunch. (This is an act or generosity for sure, given the condition of our road) I returned in time to take the gardner and maid to town and go to rehearsal. Then home for the final night of American Idol.

Phew! Too much car shuffling!

We should have a second car by Friday or Saturday. Can't wait.

Yella performs her reader's theater Thursday night, one night only. The ticket sales have been lackluster. I hope they get a full house. I think it will be a great show. Many may miss out.

We may have reached saturation with the theater events in Boquete. I was wondering when we would hit that point.

I am now worried about attendance at my play. We have 6 nights with 50 seats per night. It could be a little thin in the audience. We will see.

For the first time, I went to work hard and for real on memorizing lines for the play. That's not too bad given that the play is 2 weeks out.

In Sylvia, I had been hard at it for 6 weeks at this point. I am soooooo thankful that I have only 5 pages of lines for this play. What a relief. Even if 3 pages are in French.

The next production, which is a Broadway Review ,goes into rehearsals at the beginning of July. I am in one number, about 6 minutes, and that's it!

I do it to hang out with fun people. I don't like the "work" of theater but I do like being with great, alive people. That is the fun of it.

Now, if I could find a way to get around the memorizing...oh, and the nasty directors...they are always a pain in the ass! Oops. My resistance to authority is leaking out.

Adios.

An I Love Panama Day

I can hear you now: come on, make up your mind...do you love it or hate!

That's the way it goes down here. Up and down.

I got up this morning and rode my bike to Curvas Bonitas, where I worked out. It is a good work out on my bike just getting there.

It's a little weird working out in a facility designed for women. But they have the best cardio equipment which I need in the rainy season, so Curves it is.

Then, on the way back to Boquete to meet some Colorado friends, I stop at the Dorado Park cafe. Several of my good buddies are drinking coffee and eating breakfast. We yuk it up for a while.

I ride on into Boquete, another good work out, to you guessed it, Olga's, and meet my Colorado friends.

We spend an hour eating and catching up on old times. This is their second trip to Boquete this year. Their house is almost finished and they are in the last throws of fighting with their builder, the same one I had.

Poor souls!

Then Yella showed up with our dog Emmy. They were just back from obedience training. Yes, even dogs have to go to school.

So it is more socializing with the dog.

We go to Romero's, the local grocery store, and I run into a good friend, so it is round 3 of standing around and talking.

The other day in the afternoon, I stopped at Culturas, a bar and restaurant, and met at least 20 friends. That doesn't happen often...so many friends in one place. It was like old home week in Boquete.

The people do make the place.

Hell, maybe life!

Play practice yesterday was a hoot. We are starting to see the first glimmers of it all coming together. I wasn't sure if this was going to happen. And it still may not happen, but at least there is a possibility.

In each cast, I get to be good friends with someone. This is the great joy of being in a play. I think I will end up with 2 more good friends out of this play.

Now, if we only had another truck! We need another means of transportation so BAD.

Hopefully, next week.

An I Hate Panama Day

About once a month I have an "I Hate Pamana" day. And this was it.

I have been trying to get an appointment with my account. The one that is always on time, in a land where no one is on time, and is as accountable (no pun intended) as the day is long.

He didn't show for my last appointment. I drove to David and no accountant.

That pissed me off!

They were supposed to email me with another appointment but nnnnnnnoooooooooo! No email.

I called and they told me I missed the appointment which they HAD emailed to me.

Grrrrr!!!!! I never got the email.

So I called earlier this week to get another one set up and once again I have to wait for the email.

Why is this so hard? What happened to my non-Panamanian like accountant? I think he went native on me.

I will try again to see him tomorrow. This better work or I'm going after him with a shot gun.

A quick little story...

A few days ago, some friends were on a bus at the frontier between Costa Rico and Panama at 6 am. The custom office didn't open until 7 am so they were waiting...but the office didn't open until 9 am.

Why? They could find the key to the office! So Panamanian.

Finally, some lady showed up with the key, looking like she just got out of bed.

There is just a never ending stream of this good stuff!

I have not mentioned much about the play I'm in because it is so much easier than the last one.

The entire play is 33 pages long...the last one was 132 pages long. I have about 5 pages of lines to learn. Granted, 3 of them are in French. It took me 3 hours to learn how to pronounce the lines in French.

At my first reading of the French lines, the director laughed so hard he was hiding behind his script. That is how bad my French is...uh oh.

This is a physical play with much slapstick. It is harder to learn than regular lines but it has to be learned at rehearsal so there is not much holing up alone memorizing lines.

I hate that!

I don't know if we can pull this play off. It seems to require more talent than the last one. In the last play, we were "type cast" to our normal personalities. All we had to do was be MORE ourselves than normal...an exaggerated version of yourself. This takes something but not as much as the slapstick.

We are supposed to be bad. But in order to be bad, you first have to be good, then degrade it to bad. We haven't even been within a mile of good yet.

Oh boy! Another adventure!

An update on our triple flip truck deal. You may remember this started at the beginning of April and we still don't have a truck.

The first leg went well. We bought the Nissan Frontier and flipped it for a profit.

We were supposed to buy a Hilux at the beginning of May.

No truck.

So we were supposed to get it last week.

No truck.

Why?

Surfs up, dudes. We wouldn't want him to miss the waves, man. And his girl friend was harassing him...what could he do?

So, on the day of purchase, armed with the cashiers check and all necessary documents, he puts us off until May 26th.

Asshole!

We have been looking for another truck. This guy isn't very trustworthy. We desperately want to leave him hanging until the last moment when we tell him to take a hike, we're not buying his truck.

Ha Ha...surf on that wave dude!

So we will probably still buy his truck...isn't that the way it works most of the time?

Reminds me of powder days at Colorado ski resorts. If there was powder, no one worked...professions and short order cooks...everyone was skiing.

I hated that too.

The Panama Census

Every ten years Panama takes a census.

This is an enormous feat! After all, many people live in the jungle, off the beaten path (literally), and many other people live on extremely remote paths/roads with unknown locations.

Everyone...and that means everyone...has to stay home on Sunday from 7 am until a census worker (170,000 of them) arrives at your house, motel room or where ever you slept last night, and conducts the census.

Can you imagine the US government demanding that everyone in the states stay home for a day? Ha! That would never happen!

After the census is complete, they give you a card that allows you to go out but you will be stopped at check points to prove you completed the census.

We didn't think they had a snow ball's chance in hell of finding us. We are on an old farm track 600 meters off the main road and not visible from the road. And we have only been here less than a year in this house.

But find us they did.

We thought we would be stuck in our house, waiting fruitlessly, until 7 pm when everyone can go out again.

They got to us about 12:30. Not bad for a 3rd World nation!

We printed out the 20 page questionnaire in English so we had an English translation. The census taker didn't speak any English.

We muddle through it. In about 30 minutes.

Now back to our life.

The power went out this morning, again, at 7 but only for about 5 minutes. Then it went out again at 8:30 but only for 5 minutes.

Damn power! It is tough to sit down and do anything that requires electricity because you never know when it will go out again. We go a few months with almost no electricity outages then we get them a couple times a day. Frustrating...

And to matters worse, the Internet was down this morning. We called and they said it would take all day to fix it.

Hmmm!!???

It was back on by 1 pm.

All is good...power, Internet and the freedom to roam around town!

The Pain in the Ass Electricity

At 10 pm Wednesday night, the power went off.

We looked out over the valley and the lights were on. Uh oh.

This means that the problem is local and possibly on my semi-private 600 meters of power line.

I have been dreading the first time we try to get service from Union Fenosa.

We don't speak enough Spanish to make the call for help.

We get a Panamanian friend who makes the call for us. They promise to have it fixed in 24 hours. As a matter of fact, they are bound by law to fix it in 24 hours.

We'll see.

Friday morning, still no power. So much for the 24 hour thing.

Yella goes to the local Union Fenosa office, gets our Panamanian friend on the phone to help, and they tell us it's fixed.

How typical.

NO IT'S NOT, DAMN IT!!!

They give us the run around. Their own office can't get through to Panama City to order another fix. This goes on for 3 hours.

Cripes!

They now promise us it will be fixed in 24 hours. I say, what about the last 24 hours? Well, this is a NEW repair ticket with a NEW 24 hour period.

Oh, I see, this is how they get around the 24 hour law. They start a new set of 24 hours.

Much to their credit, they fixed it a 6 pm Friday night. I was impressed by this.

A fox (I didn't know there were foxes here) got fried in the electric line and blew the fuse in the transformer. When they fixed the other problems in our area on Thursday, they didn't check to see if our was fixed. (We have a new stretch of power line that is isolated from the rest of the community.) So we didn't get fixed with the first request.

All is well now...for the time being...

Off to a chili cook off this afternoon!

Powerful Blogs in Boquete

A local guy named Lee has a popular blog about Boquete. He gets a couple hundred hits a day making this a well read blog.

And, it does influence things here.

He wrote about a chili cook off scheduled for this Saturday. He was critical of the event because they were charging an entry fee of $10 to make chili, $5 at the door to get in and taste the chili, and no money was going to any charity...so the girls that set it up were going to make some money and he didn't like it.

My friend was one of the girls setting it up and she went after him.

First with an email, then a phone call, then a face to face meeting.

Why all the effort? His blog with a negative article could kill the event. That's how powerful his blog has become.

Much to their credit, they got it worked out. The $10 entry fee has been waived and he is now entering his own chili in the event.

He, of course, wrote a retraction in his blog.

Another strange thing happened in the blog last week.

He mentioned seeing a man named Ozzie on the streets of Boquete, walking with another guy who has a computer business. Ozzie ducked his head, trying to avoid being recognized.

Too late.

Ozzie is a convict criminal in Arizona.

Apparently a few years ago, Ozzie was preying on the Boquete locals by offering computer tech services in people's homes, until he was exposed and fled.

He's back.

There was a flurry of email notices, blog entries and responses to blog entries over the last week. Apparently this guy is not liked! And people want him out of town.

I guess Arizona doesn't want him bad enough to send a airline ticket so Panama can extradite him back to the US...so he is still in Central America.

His crime...sex offenses, larceny and other pesky things.

What I find interesting is that a couple of people here are protecting him AND using him in their computer business. And, trying to hide the fact that he is back by calling him a different name.

The jungle drums sound loudly in Boquete! It is hard to slide anything by with all the blogs and email lists.

Remember, this is a SMALL town. It is hard to hide anything down here.

Baseball

Baseball is VERY big in Panama.

Each state has a team and the rivalries are fierce. The local team in Chiriqui is a consistent champion of Panama.

As those of you who follow baseball know, there are several big time players in the US leagues from Panama.

I ran into a major league scout in the David airport one day. He said that he was in this area of Panama several times a year looking for players. This I didn't know...he was a scout for 3 major league teams. I thought they each had their own scouts.

I just heard that Chirqui played our neighboring team from Bocas del Toro for the championship. Bocas won for the first time in over 40 years.

The teams got into a fight and the Chirqui team walked off the field and left, therefore forfeiting the game, resulting in Bocas's first win in 40 years.

Baseball runs deep here.

Peculiar Things

Yella and I were driving up Volcancito Road, one of the rural areas outside Boquete with many gringo houses. This is a steep hill going up the side of the volcano.

An old man was pushing a wheel barrow loaded with a lawn mower up the hill. He was going slowly but steadily. We passed him 15 minutes later and he was still pushing.

We wouldn't even thing of doing this is the states. We would get a car or truck to move the lawn mower.

Well, most people don't have a vehicle so it is typical to see men walking down a street loaded down with tools or bottles of propane.

And women too. Hauling bags of groceries or children in their arms.

Many things are done by hand rather than with a machine. When the gravel and sand truck is loaded with a couple of cubic meters of material, it is shoveled into the truck by hand. They don't use a backhoe or loader to do it.

Septic pits are frequently excavated by hand. It might take an indian a week to dig it, but it is cheaper than bringing in a backhoe to do it.

And, the object of working here is not to complete the project. It is to keep working. With labor so cheap, most people don't mind the "never-ending-job" syndrome. It keeps people in work.

Only in Panama!

My good friend helps gringos buy used cars.

This is a tricky process in Panama. First, because cars are poorly maintained so checking them out is tough. Second, the paper work could choke an elephant, so help is needed.

He locates many of the cars in Panama City, 225 miles and 6 to 7 hours away. He jumps on a commuter airplane to PC, then hires a taxi for the day, races around PC looking at cars and, if he finds one, gets to the bank and pays for it.

Now the car has to be driven back to Boquete.

The problem: he has cataracts in both eyes and trouble seeing. There was a period when he was getting treated and operated on when his sight was very poor.

No problem for the business, he hired a driver.

Now the fun starts.

He had a local Panamanian, highly recommended by another friend, get on a bus to PC and drive them to Boquete.

After the Panamanian started driving, they got stopped at a check point, which is predictable. You always get stopped at check points a couple of time from PC to Boquete!

And, he didn't have a drivers license. So my friend had to bribe the police to get moving again.

Now, this in itself, is hilarious. Who would accept a job driving without a drivers license? A Panamanian. They don't think like us. This makes good sense to them.

No problema!

Now, several months later, we find out that the Panamanian also has cataracts and is essentially blind! Now, as he was then!

Only in Panama would a person accept a job to drive without a license and legally blind.

I howled at this story. I am still laughing.

My buddy is livid about the whole thing, as he should be...someone could have gotten serious hurt or worse.

Powers Out!

We were sitting in a restaurant at about 3 and the power went out. It was out at our house also.

The good news is that the town is without power so they will fix it ASAP...which could be a couple of days, if it is a real bad.

Some of our friends called from a beach house outside of Panama City, 200 miles away and told us several poles were down and the repair could take a couple of days.

This is typical...the jungle drums send the local info a couple of hundred miles away before we get the news here.

Not to worry...we have a GENERATOR...whoo hoo! And it works! And the gas stations are still pumping fuel because they are on generators too.

In the Land of Unfulfilled Expectations, when every thing works, it is cause for celebration. I am breaking out the sugar cookies right now!

So all is well and we are watching a movie tonight.

We attended a party last night for 2 Canadian couples that are going back to Canada for the wet season...we have a lot of snow birds here.

It was a major party with about 70 people with dinner, a live rock band, and beer and wine flowing freely. I am still having trouble figuring out how all these people put on these huge parties.

I'm sure as hell not going to put one on. Too much work!

And you can't really talk to people and connect...too much noise and commotion.

I still admire them getting it done.

A Panama Morning at it's Best

I rode my bicycle into town for breakfast. It looked like early rain could develop and I could get wet.

Great breakfast and conversation at Olga's...you probably are getting tired of hearing this but that's what happened.

I went to a meeting a 9 with only 4 people. Great, great meeting, then we hung around for a hour for more casual talk. A real hoot with some wonderful people.

As I was riding back, about 8 blocks down hill out of town, I saw one of my fell thespians in our play. We stood around and talked for a half hour, then she asked if I wanted to have some coffee.

I really didn't...it was time to get home. And, I had to walk my bike back up hill 8 blocks. But, something told me it would be a act of kindness to join her. She has been struggling to re-assimilate into the community after being away for 8 months.

It is amazing what can change in a few months.

She lost her place to stay that plugged her into a big group of friends. Without this, she was challenged by renewing friendships.

It was no hardship to talk to her because she has lead an amazing life. She lived on a 100 foot boat for 5 years, toured Costa Rica and Honduras on a bicycle, to mention a few things.

Granted I got home later than I wanted, missed the heavy rain by only 5 minutes, but it was was worth it.

We all need a little help from time to time, don't you think?