Two Worlds

I had more than a little fun with friends and family during my January stint in the tropics contrasting the polar freeze they found themselves in while I basked in the tropical sunshine. My basking days are certainly over as I find myself on the other end of the equation during my daily FaceTime calls with my Favorite Panamanian. She and the Neighborhood Mafioso continue their sojourn in our condo at Las Lajas while I was moving a fresh coating of snow this morning from the driveway. I think this clearly falls into the turnabout is fair play category which I’m sure the aforementioned family and friends that I tortured are enjoying immensely. My wife also provided the accompanying photos which demonstrate the two worlds we are currently operating in. She gets to experience her own brush with reality on Saturday with her return north.

The View out my Office Window This Morning (l)
Contrasted with My Wife's View from the Condo (r)

Some big doings at work as I have to plan around losing my assistant general manager shortly as she was selected to fill a general manager position in Springfield. I hate to lose her but when I heard the position was open and that she applied I started my own succession planning figuring she would likely win. That plan went into effect yesterday with my current operations manager proposed to fill the soon to be vacant AGM position. If corporate approves that move it opens an opportunity for Keene Friend to come work for me. He thinks I’m doing him a favor but in reality I end up looking like a hero by quickly filling the vacant operations manager position with an experienced manager.

A gathering of the Beautiful PanaGals

At The pool

At The Beach

Out to Eat

Late night Bingo

Wife and Her Two Sisters

Beachside Dining

Wife - Really Rubbing it in

one of those Las Lajas Sunsets

Gnocci and peas were central to a bold faced lie I was required to utter to the FBR last night. She was particularly talkative and has taken to commandeering the IPad for each call in order to take me on a tour of her toy stash. This is an improvement because before this if she got control of the device she always summarily hung up on me. I also joined her and her parents for their family dinner where the prevarications commenced. She loves gnocci as well as peas and dutiful asked if grandpa also liked them. I’m sure my own mother did a couple turns in the grave when I enthusiastically stated my love for peas. The only redeeming facet of this episode was the gratitude I received from my daughter and Wingman for my fibbing.

Back at the cinema last night to see Hostiles which could have been a bit depressing if not for the fantastic acting on display. Christian Bale plays a deeply conflicted cavalry officer in the dying days of the old West. He’s been fighting Indians for his entire career leading to a bone deep hatred for his enemy. His last job in the military is to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief, one of his former antagonists, 1000 miles north to his ancestral home in Montana. The journey is really about a search to rediscover the officer’s own humanity, lost in the atrocities he’s seen and participated in. His traveling party soon runs across a frontier woman whose family has just been massacred by Comanches. The cinematography is world class as the group travels north through the vast wilderness. Wes Studi redeems the promise he demonstrated early in his career with the Last of the Mohicans by portraying the dying chief with dignity and inner conflict of his own. Bale has to be the unluckiest commander in military history as his command is constantly whittled down by the events that cause him to rediscover himself. In the end, a very interesting look at the issues of the waning days of the Indian Wars and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. As I stated above though, this is a story of redemption and despite its dour outlook for most of its run I really liked the subtle final scene.