Astute viewers of my Facebook feed will
realize I didn’t torture them with yet another of Las Lajas spectacular sunsets
yesterday. No, I have not decided to take mercy on them. I denied myself that pleasure
for the simple fact that we were running out of food and needed a resupply run
back to David. You throw in a good action movie showing at the local cinema and
Thursday was pretty well fried. Back home in the frigid north, my incomparable
high school classmates staged a takeover/mini-reunion of the Pub in Keene to welcomed
home a classmate returning to visit from Atlanta. Missing something like that is
one of the few occasions to cause me to regret not being back there. The Cantankerous
One as well as both Keene Friends represented our gang at the gathering. KHS ’73
just rules, there is no plausible argument anymore.
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| Kobbe Ladies on the Beach Wednesday |
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| Cantankerous Flanked by Keene Friends 1 and 2 |
Before heading into David, we indulged
in some nostalgia of our own on Wednesday. I met a fellow second lieutenant during
my initial training at Fort Benning in 1980. He was married to a gorgeous
Panamanian lady which offered me my first indication of what was in store since
I knew I was going to be stationed there. Before that assignment was finished,
I emerged from a well received exploration of Panamanian pulchritude married to
my Favorite Panamanian. The lieutenant and I were assigned to the same infantry
battalion at Fort Kobbe and our wives got to know each other. That was the only
times we were assigned together but we ran into them over the years and they remained
good friends. He and I sufficiently embarrassed them by singing military ditties from a high rise balcony (but that's a story for another day). He’s now a successful author and she was visiting family here in
Panama. They conducted a mini reunion of their own Wednesday when she and my
Favorite Panamanian got together on the beach with her godchild. These Chiricana
ladies age spectacularly well.
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| With Tia Loca at Terra Ristorante Last Night |
Back to that hunger induced run back to
David. My Favorite Panamanian has been busy scribbling meal plans for weeks
involving some upcoming visitors and yesterday was the day those meal plans had
to be translated into actual food. I also obtained supplies to hopefully repair
my severed boogie board. I’ll let you know how that goes. We stopped for lunch
at the David TGIFridays. It’s been there forever but this was the first time I’ve
ever been in. I was truly excited about a very American tasting cheeseburger
(the simple things in life). After some serious pillaging of the local grocery
store, which included her giving me a long list of the toughest things to find,
we rushed back to her mom’s house to pack her freezer before grabbing Tia Loca for
a trip to the cinema. We followed that with dinner at one of my favorite places
in David, Terra Ristorante. So, missed the sunset back in Las Lajas but it was still a
day well spent and I made it back to Las Lajas to fall asleep to sound of
waves.
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| Good Friend Walking a Rat with a Hormone Problem |
One of those upcoming visitors will be
the FBR accompanied by her mom, my daughter. I scored some Fruit Loops for her
yesterday, the FBR, not my daughter. The FBR has the 90th day of
school coming up and they’re going to mark it by all dressing up in 1990’s
fashion. Unsurprisingly, I know nothing about that since I wore a uniform the entire
decade, but luckily my daughter has her mother’s fashion sense and took on the
project. The photo below shows the results. As far as the photo above, it
pictures Soxfather’s long suffering brother-in-law. He and I always bemoan the fact
that he’s been saddled with a series of small and noisy dogs. He asked my daughter
to take this picture when she was in RI recently to demonstrate to me that the
trend continues. I blame his wife, a well-known and disavowed photo critic.
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| FBR, 90s Style |
Den of Thieves 2, Pantera was a predictably
good action flick. Predictable because of the Gerard Butler O’Shea Jackson
pairing. Butler plays a disgraced cop who joins up with an international criminal
ring, led by Jackson, the only one who got away in the first film, to rob a
diamond market. There are some huge plot holes, like why the organized criminals
so readily accept a former cop into their team, but with action movies you
forgive a lot. The two leads make a very good buddy paring, from opposite ends
of the law enforcement spectrum. This is a lot less gritty than the original
but the robbery was great cinema keeping the audience on the proverbial edge of
the seat. A great addition to the action genre.
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Great News from Down the Beach
The Buddy Doppelganger was not the Dog Who Died |
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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 her single days in Brooklyn; Czech
Connection – Czech couple who’ve become good friends along with their
daughter (the Czech Shadow); 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; Seis Amigos
- two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother-in-law (whom I miss more than I can ever
explain); Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course
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