It’s
been an interesting week since I last wrote on Frail Deeds. It’s mostly been
consumed with our continued idyllic retired life on the best beach in the known
world. There was an event this past Sunday that certainly livened that luxurious
somnambulant lifestyle to a certain extent. I was engaged in my nearly favorite
activity of reading on the beach while admiring the nearby display of the female
form. I briefly thought my Favorite Panamanian had finally achieved her
marriage-long goal of being able to read my mind from distance when my phone
rang and it was her.
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| With Our Great Friends Last Night |
She
had gone into the village to attend mass. Her first words were kind of
chilling. She reported she had a huge problem, not the best way to start a conversation.
Appropriately perked up I learned that she had forgotten her driver’s license
at the condo. Usually that’s no problem but on weekends the policia set up a security
checkpoint on the access road to the beach. She was pulled over and hoped I
could find the license and then drive it to her. Problem # 1, she had our car. I
went upstairs to our new gringo neighbors who graciously allowed me to use
their car to reach my Favorite Panamanian.
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| Mornings on the Beach |
I
arrived at the scene and delivered the license and passport. The rules are, you
can drive on your US passport for 90 days after you arrive in Panama. After
that time, you are expected to get a Panamanian drivers’ license. She was still
issued a ticket for failing to carry her license with her. There was a bigger
problem in that when we entered Panama, they didn’t stamp her passport, so she couldn’t
prove how long she’d been in country. This led to a determination to get our Panamanian
licenses.
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| My Wife, The Crime Wave |
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Growing up, I Thought Sand Dollars were rare and Exotic
I See at Least Two on Every Morning Walk |
As
an aside, I told her that I could forbid her from attending church because this
was the second Sunday in a row where she reported a major problem while at mass.
Last week she nearly destroyed the only key we have for the car, which required
last week’s trip back to David. I’d avoided the license requirement because one
of the requirements was attending driving school for three weeks. Talking with
our new neighbors, they reported you had to have a certificate from the school but
not necessarily attend. It’s a Panamanian kind of thing. We got the name of their
school and on Monday returned to David to hunt it down.
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| Sunday Sunset |
There
is also a requirement for a documented blood test showing what blood type you
have. We found the school and in short order had copies of all the potential test
questions we will face. They took our picture and said it would take about
three weeks for the certificate to be ready, allowing time for the fiction of
our attendance at the actual school to be validated. The school also offered to
prepare the requisite blood type form. When I asked where the blood would be
extracted, the nice young lady asked me if I knew what my blood type was. As with
any infantryman, I knew that. She said that was all that was needed and would prepare
the form. Panama. We have the study the 130 questions, of which ten will be
chosen for the driver’s test which will be followed by an actual driving test.
That should happen in mid-February.
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| Visiting an Old Friend |
Since
that went a lot faster than anticipated, we had some time on our hands in
David. That meant crisscrossing the city on a couple of errands. For those of
you who have never driven in David on a busy weekday, your life is not complete.
It’s a little like boogie boarding when a really big wave engulfs you and
shakes you around. A lot of praying is involved. We found the place my Favorite
Panamanian had to pay her fine and then headed to El Fogon for lunch. My favorite
waiter greeted me like a returning hero and started asking when my kids and
their families are inbound (tips increase the friendship quotient geometrically).
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| With my Wife |
We
took my wife’s twin sister with us to the movies Monday night. It was a lot busier
than I remembered from last year, but the theater was still better than our usual
one back home and much cheaper. We saw, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,
featuring my wife’s cinematic boyfriend, Jason Statham. See review below. I was
modestly impressed with myself as we watched the movie dubbed in Spanish instead
of our usual English with subtitles. My three weeks’ immersion with speaking
mostly Spanish seems to have knocked the rust off.
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| Two Great People |
We
also made arrangements to visit the husband of the Cousin with the Legendary Laugh
on Tuesday. He used to be an integral part of our annual trips to Panama driving
his bus all over Panama filled with family and laughter. Needless to say, it’s
been a tough year for him with the loss of his wife and his own physical
challenges. He’s lost most of his sight and now lives with his daughter. He perked
up a lot when we arrived and we had a great time reliving some of our old
adventures and remembering the Cousin with the Legendary Laugh. That’s one of the
tough parts of getting old, more and more beloved people drop by the wayside
along the way. Being young was so much easier, in so, many, ways.
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| Dinner is Served!!! |
We
hung around David for the rest of the day since it would be our only
opportunity to hang out with some good friends from the DC Chapter of the Panamanian
Mafia. They’d been in country for the better part of a month and were returning
stateside late this week. They arrived in David late Tuesday and we arranged to
meet at a new, for us, restaurant, called Angus. The last couple of years they had
visited us at the condo where I’d made the husband a true convert to the Las Lajas
boogie boarding. The
best things about old friends is the ability to pick up the bond and the shorthand
communication assorted with it immediately. We had to negotiate a truly
ferocious rainfall which meant we ate inside instead of the planned patio
dining. We spent a fabulous couple hours catching up with each other, again, as
if no time at all had passed. As the name of the restaurant implied, steak was
a prime dish served. We chose to have a central platter with three different kinds
of steak served. It was predictably awesome as we devoured the dead animal flesh,
okay, that was mostly me.
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| Truly Great Night |
The
most entertaining part of the evening was the combination of my Favorite Panamanian
and sangria. They have an interesting relationship with some of the funniest stories
I have about my better half originating there. Since we were driving back to Las
Lajas after the dinner I was the designated driver and my wife got caught up with
the fun of being around great friends and sangria. By the time we approached departure
time she was in truly epic form. For some reason she kept asking me if I had
brought Alka Seltzer with me. The funniest part was the short stop at the
supermarket on our way back, truly entertaining. She’s a lot of silly fun on
the rare occasions she imbibes.
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| FBR Appointed Herself in Charge of Silly Faces |
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| And Ice Cream Sandwiches |
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| Seeing her Soon!!! |
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RECURRING CHARACTERS:
ABFA – Amazing Best Family
Athlete - my daughter
in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter
#3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel -
second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue
about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut
Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor
of the big river; Curbside Girls – close
friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which
grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of
course); FBR - First Blog Reader -
first granddaughter; First Friday –
celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene
Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene,
NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend
since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife –
her US sisters, my wife is the 3rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew –
son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia
member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends
of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin
Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we
have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate– high
school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the
Grandpuppy, son's dog; Soxfather -
my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course
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