Tropical Languishing

First Friday Sunset Beer out on our Balcony

Alright, I have a question for you. If you were living right on a beautiful tropical beach would you spend a lot of time writing? I really enjoy writing here on Frail Deeds but the blog is up against a serious adversary in the form of my favorite beach in the world. I wake up each morning to the siren call of the best body surfing waves I’ve ever encountered and I’m once again putting off writing. I’ve also received some fairly robust feedback from frozen family and friends back in New England that my attempts at humor whilst comparing our relative weather are not fully appreciated.

Meanwhile - Back Home

This of course only motivates me to strive for greater comparisons. This is the first time of my many visits to Panama that seemingly the entire USA and especially New England were submerged in a serious deep freeze. Obviously no such problem here but there has been an occasional passing shower. I’ve fortified myself by attempting to master the newly acquired family boogie board. For those of you grating on that last sentence just remember I only have a week left here and will have to carve the remains of the snow storm from my driveway which will have had a full week to turn into some hard packed ice. I’m “almost” looking forward to it.

With Two of my Favorite People

We’ve been fairly busy and productive down here. On Thursday we hosted my wife’s Cousin of the Legendary Laugh along with a large contingent of her family. It was kind of an overcast day but they constitute a healthy percentage of my favorite people in the world so we just hid out on the beach bohios when there were passing showers. Earlier in the day we’d seen a huge pack of dolphins jumping and playing just outside the surf line. The visitors spent the entire day with us and we had the entire condo complex pretty much to ourselves.

My Wife with Part of the Group

My Wife's Aunt

Cousin's Daughter with her Signature Pose

The cousins brought my wife’s aunt and a good representation of their growing brood of grandchildren. Seeing that energetic group careen between the beach and the pool brought visions of the upcoming years when I hope to see my own grandchildren doing the same thing. We have been able to FaceTime with both sets of frozen progeny. The FBR is usually much too busy to stop and talk with her grandparents until I ask her if she wants to see the beach and pools. This usually stops her dead in her tracks and gets her in front of the computer screen. This is all part of my long range psy-ops campaign to have her and her parents come visit us in the coming years.

Beach Lunch

Grandchildren in Pool

My Favorite Panamanian and I spent another half day back in David completing most of the paperwork to sell our land. There was one final roadblock thrown up when they said since I was a foreigner they wouldn’t accept cash but I needed to pay some fees with a certified check. No, I didn’t understand that either but with the help of our intrepid lawyer we got everything sorted out. “We” also did some shopping (you understand the “we” now) to continue the effort in furnishing the condo.

Wife Caught me Walking to Surf After Return from David

She Does her Yoga on the Beach
Music Put me Sound to Sleep

We bought two nightstands and an assortment of other tables, all of which required assembly. Luckily the instructions were in English and on a whim I’d purchased a basic set of tools which the assembly would have been impossible without. We returned to the condo to find the elevator was on the fritz so I had to carry all of the purchases up the stairs. I was assisted by the caretaker who we’ve kind of adopted. A good friend to have when something like this happens. I’m not sure the furnishing of the condo will ever be completed, if I know my better half at all.

She Makes it all Worthwhile

We’re hoping to have several groups of friends stop by for a visit in my last week here and I think that’s what I like most about this place. It seems to attract visitors. Even on those days without company though my wife and I have settle into a pretty cool and restful routine. I get plenty of exercise with multiple trips into the waves but it’s almost completely stress free. That will all change when I return to work since I just learned one of my key managers has been hired away but I’ll need a challenge like that to get my head back in the game. This beach is going to be hard to forget.

With Due Apologies to all Long Suffering New ENglanders
Some of our Spectacular Las Lajas Sunsets 

The Bad Cinema project count will remain at #88 out of 100, as I didn’t bring any of them with me.