Neighborhood Mystery and Halloween Crab Season

I’m down to my final day of beach quarantine. Tomorrow I’m back in the water!!! Las Lajas took some pity on me over the last couple days as the waves were decidedly sub-par so I wasn’t missing much. It still hurt. They better be up for my return to the boogie board tomorrow. I guess the ear is getting better but that’s hard to gauge. My Favorite Panamanian is insisting on ear plugs for the duration (she’s fairly strict). We’re also dealing with a neighborhood mystery. Our living room wall is all glass, which offers a spectacular view of the surrounding area. A few weeks ago, a new rancho was constructed a couple lots down the beach. A rancho is a palm tree leaf covered structure offering shade at the beach. It’s where I spend most of the time on the beach. Shade is a premium commodity when it comes to the tropics. Anyways, the mystery involves what happened after the rancho went up.

Friday Night Pizza Time with Upstairs Neighbors

Viewed from our Living Room
Rancho on the Left and Pipe Next to 

Pipe About a Quarter of it's Length under Ground
Sandbags Hanging from Top Edge

Early last week, a truck delivered a huge plastic pipe and dropped it next to the road, about 50 yards from the rancho. That same night a couple guys strung hammocks up in the rancho and spent the night. The next day they started digging a hole next to the pipe. In a couple hours it was deeper than they were tall (lots of sand involved). It was at this point we took off for our trip to Volcan. When we returned on Thursday, the pipe had been stood up and lowered into the hole with a number of sandbags hung from the top edge. People would disappear down into the pipe and mystery material was handed up and out while they continued to dig around the base. This has been going on for four days now. I consulted with our upstairs neighbor who is a civil engineer and he was as baffled as I was. Today he went and checked it out. Apparently they’re going to keep digging until the entire pipe(weighed down by the sandbags) is buried which will then serve as a leach field for a future house. He shook his head while we discussed it and said, two hours with a back hoe or two weeks of digging by hand, kind of crazy.

Friday Sunset

We have new residents on the first floor. It is Halloween crab season. Each year around the beginning of April thousands of back and orange land crabs emerge from underground. I’m constantly reminded of my high school colors – Go Blackbirds!!! The birds and other crab eating predators have a field day/night. Each year a couple of the more adventuresome crabs sneak under the door and haunt the first floor, bristling at any human with the temerity to cross its path. The guy pictured below is the latest and was funny as hell this morning trying to block my path. One step towards him sent him scurrying for cover. When we drive the road at night you can see dozens of them running across. Each morning, we find a bunch of hollowed out shells where the predators have feasted. Life on the beach.

First Floor Crab

We reunited with the upstairs neighbors for Friday night pizza and had a dedicated visit from Chow Mein the cat. We passed on the granddaughters’’ best wishes but he was more interested in pepperoni handouts. Saturday morning saw the arrival of one of the inimitable PanaGals for a weekend stay. She usually spends more time with us but this year she was overseeing a complete remodel of her David home and all that entails. She’s a lot of fun to have around. Today my wife’s cousin and his ex-wife stopped by for the day. She, of course, is the other half of my Favorite Panamanian’s 2am conversation binge in Volcan earlier in the week. They brought a cooler full of dead animal flesh which was almost immediately searing on a charcoal grill.

Lunch Today

I really missed the elevator today as both my wife and I were called upon to go and down from the condo many times to retrieve items for the picnic lunch in the condo common area. Totally worth it though as we enjoyed the meat almost as much as the company. My wife’s cousin is very interested in buying one of the available condos in the building and my Favorite Panamanian got them access to a couple to check out. It would be so cool to have some of my wife’s ever superb family in the condo complex (I’m talking party time!!). All our guests had to leave late today, so my wife and I are alone again, but this week holds promise. Holy week leading up to Easter is a very big deal here, to include everybody being off from work starting on Wednesday. We’re picking up my mother-in-law tomorrow and Tia Loca is rumored to join us on Wednesday. In addition, the Seis Amigos should be reunited here tomorrow! As I said, promising. A telling harbinger that our time is growing short here is the end of the dry season. It’s rained hard the last two nights for the first time since Great Aunt was here in early February  as she was categorically blamed for that unseasonable rain. April 18 seems to be rushing towards us, my Favorite Panamanian says we need to start the luggage packing process which is, at least, much easier heading north than the southern leg.

Saturday Sunset with PanaGal

Sunday

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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 3^rd 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; Seis Amigos - two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course