We had the Panamanian Mafia coming
to the house for a cook out and camaraderie so my wife was in high cleanup and
cooking mode for the entire day. She had
a laundry list of things I was supposed to accomplish which appropriately
enough started in the laundry room. (She did bribe me with her usual excellent Saturday supply of chocolate chip pancakes)
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| In Search of Elusive Plastic Parts |
She had been forcing the
door to the closet open which screwed up the doors. My job was to figure out how to make them
work again. I located the problem and
began fixing it when a small, but vital piece of plastic popped out, ricocheted
off my forehead, and headed for parts unknown behind the dryer. This meant I had to move the machines out and
find the small piece in the detritus left by a machine that hadn’t been moved
in seven years. That was fun.
After hanging a picture and
a couple of other equally vital tasks I was released to take on the lawn
mowing. The first lawn mowing of the
year is always an adventure based on the unpredictability of the machine (Sears
again) and the very thick spring grass.
The mower started right up but I noticed that the mower blades were not
real level and there was a this god-awful clanking sound coming from the mower
bed (I see a visit from my beloved Sears techs in my very near future). The grass was so thick that I had to mow it
twice at decreasing levels just to get it close to acceptable. I did get the lawn mowed although it was not
a work of art and offended my sensibilities (I’m weird that way).
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| The Barely Acceptable Lawn |
The extra time required to
get the lawn done prevented me from assisting the wife in the house (silver
lining there) as she frantically charged around the already very clean house –
cleaning. As always, everything fell
into place – she is the ultimate in party hosts.
She did make an effort at
social engineering with her invites. She
told one habitually late couple one time for the party and a punctual couple
the right time, figuring they would arrive at the same time. This kind of backfired as the late couple was
punctual this time and vice versa. The habitually late couple was so confounded
at being the first ones to a party that they thought they had the day wrong and
sat in the driveway for a while.
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| My Wife and the Mafia |
It was a fantastic, bright
afternoon as we sat out on the deck and caught up with the rest of the mafia
whom we hadn’t seen since before my wife’s January departure. Buddy alternated between stints in the cage
and experimental party attendance. His
stints in the cage came from his unrefined love of low lying snacks. He did achieve parole once when we needed a
cleanup from a snack spill.
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| Great Friends |
It was simple fare of burgers
and sausages but the company was fantastic.
Someone mentioned it was almost Cinco de Mayo which sent my wife to the
basement where she emerged with several large Mexican sombreros. Since they were self-respecting Panamanians they
didn’t put too much importance on the Cinco de Mayo stuff but it gave us another
reason to joke and enjoy the day.
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| Sombreros Came Out! |
My wife suggested a fire as
the light started to fade and I leaped into action before she changed her mind. (actually it was a semi-tame jump versus a
leap) I soon had a fire blazing as we
gathered around to continue the extremely funny conversation. These are great friends and it had been way
too long since we’d spent time together.
The Panamanian gals all had to don blankets despite the fairly prodigious
size of the flames. We gringos didn’t
need the blankets and used a cell phone app to find constellations as the stars
seemed close enough to touch on the clear spring night.
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| Just A Small Fire to Start |
We ended up spending a
couple hours and three loads of wood around the fire. I defended the wood piles against Buddy’s typical
raids to rescue them and also succeeded in not burning down the deck. We finally decided to give the neighbors a
break and headed inside around ten PM to say our goodbyes. I had
to stay up and keep an eye on the coals as they slowly faded into the night.
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| A Truly Great Evening |
There is something almost
primordially comforting to sit around a fire with good friends. You know people did this thousands of years
ago and it must be part of human nature.
The real heat last night didn’t come from the fire though – spending
time with good friends provides its own form of warmth and things were toasty
last night.
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| The Mafia |
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