Well, my week of wall painting finally
reached its end late yesterday just before the celebrations for the First
Friday of the Week commenced. Both my Favorite Panamanian and I learned we are
not as young as we used to be in fairly definitive fashion. We thought we could
put in twelve-hour work days for three days in a row without paying a penalty.
That was not the case. My wife’s bad leg and arm acted up and I was dealing
with some fairly unsettling re-occurrence of some of the issues I had to deal
with in the months following prostate surgery. We mutually decided on Wednesday
night that we would institute an operational pause for all of Thursday and just
rest.
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| Much Needed Fun Last Night |
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| The Mafia Gathers |
That worked. I spent the entire day in the
Man Cave devouring movies (see below) and explicitly endeavoring not to spend
more than two or three minutes on my feet. We launched again Friday morning as she
finished up the last of the trim and I knocked out the bathroom and the two
entry doors. The house was still in disarray but we didn’t try to exert any
kind of order as that could wait until today. The weirdest part of the
operational pause was that my legs were cramping up uncontrollably at night. I experienced
a similar thing when I first went to Panama and had to abandon the daily bike
work out. So, Thursday I knocked out 30 minutes on the bike and the cramps were
vanquished.
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| Door to Garage |
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| Bathroom |
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| Front Door |
The bright spot is that everything came
out looking great. We still have some curtains to install and some wallpapering
(that will be my Favorite Panamanian’s job). All of this week’s exertions
prepared us for a memorable First Friday celebration. We hadn’t planned on even
trying to dance but the Neighborhood Mafioso called for an impromptu assembly
of the Panamanian mafia at her home so we wandered across the street to her
abode after we cleaned up. It turned out to be a great night of laughing with
these superb friends. I had to repair to a spare bed room to accomplish the
Family FaceTime call which the FBR thought was strange but it was good seeing
all those faces. The Mafioso’s daughter showed up later and joined in the
hilarity. The Mafioso’s husband and I have perfected his ability to smuggle additional
beers to me after I emptied the cooler I brought with us. It was the perfect
way to end this week of too much work and we even got a couple dances in later
in the night before we left. I don’t know how much rest we’ll get next week as
we’ll be visiting my son’s family at his rented beach house in Hampton and the
BRS/BR3 combo don’t exude restful tendencies. Morale, however, will skyrocket
Seven movies fell in my A-Z watch, like
I said, day off in the Man Cave, all keepers except one, Emmanuel, First
Contact, fell in love with Krista Allen when meeting her on Skinamax in 90s,
apparently I’ve outgrown her, discard bin; Enchanted, so funny, Amy Adamas is
perfect in this; Ender’s Game, book was so much better but this was still good;
End of Days, may be Ahnuuld’s best movie, fighting the devil; End of Watch,
awesome buddy movie, love Michael Pena; Enemy at the Gates, Soviets versus the
Nazis, who to root for?, Law and Weisz have real chemistry; and new addition to
the library, Kandahar, Butler blowing up Iranians, well alright.
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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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