May report

It's been an outstanding month, weatherwise. Mostly sunny with late afternoon and/or evening showers to settle in the newly planted flora and germinate the seeds. The only downside has been that weed seeds, too, have been germinating at a pace that Edwin, Juvenal, and I can't keep up with. Many orchids are blooming in the orchid casita and on various trees throughout the property. We have three nests of baby birds in various stages of growth; a couple apparently fledged overnight. The pond has cleared up, and the goldfish are growing and have multiplied. They're a joy to watch. Larry is absolutely enamored of them, particularly when they rush to the surface and toward him at feeding time.

The tranquility was disturbed big time yesterday afternoon when Doc, Charly, and Ramon dropped by with the four-legged fiends in tow. After visiting for a while, Charly and I ascended into the upper garden to admire all the new growth, at some point during which Larry turned on the pump to start the waterfall. This served as a reminder to the fiends that there was a swimming hole nearby, so, trampling through all the plants that surround the pond, they made straight for it. They didn't confine themselves to the upper pond this time, however; Finnegan assumed the lead, ran down the waterfall, and did a belly flop into the main pond, overturning my precious waterlilies in his thrashing around. Charly and I were screaming from the deck overlooking the pond, being too far away to do anything else. Larry collapsed in laughter, while Doc ambled over and finally managed to yank Finny out by his collar. While Doc was wrestling with Finny and Charly and I were rushing down from above, Raffy jumped in the pond and Matty began playing in the waterfall. Doc released Finny to grab Raffy, whereupon Finny, followed by Matty, bolted into the house dripping wet. Raffy followed them as soon as Doc released him. It was sheer pandemonium. All the guys were amused, while Charly and I were furious. My waterlilies were wrecked, my fish doubtless traumatized. Later, after everyone had gone home and we had mopped the house, Larry stripped and went into the pond to retrieve the waterlilies from the bottom and set them back on their pedestals. They don't seem to have suffered irreparable harm, I'm happy to report. We didn't see the fish for several hours, their apparently having taking refuge in the grasses, but they eventually reappeared begging for food. Today everything is back to normal except that I'm not speaking to Doc. And the pups are canini non grata.

I traveled to David last week to have the car serviced and, on the return trip, dropped by The Book Mark, a used book store in Dolega owned and managed by the curmudgeonly Hal de Mun. He is strategically located because I nearly always have something to gripe about after spending time in David, and Hal's just the man to enjoy a good bitch fest. A native of New Orleans, Hal holds a Ph.D. in English Lit from the University of Illinois. "I was a DeFoe man," he confides. He's approximately 99 years old and sports an old-fashioned hearing aid, the kind with wires draped all over his body. Nonetheless, he can barely hear a thing, so we shout out our discontents while ambling through all the dusty shelves and mildewed books. He has an extensive inventory, and books can be brought to him for credit toward the purchase of other books--a real boon in a place where books in the English language are a rarity. He loves to see me because I, in his words, "bring in good books." He's very disdainful of most reading material and can hardly wait to demonstrate to me the latest evidence of the abhorrent taste of most of the reading public. Given the fact that one can hardly move about for all the books, as well as the fact that he constantly complains about how slow business is, it's interesting that he nearly always admonishes me to be sure to return the volumes that I buy.

Derek arrives day after tomorrow for a too-short visit of just one week. (He sits on a French student's doctoral committee and has to go to France in mid-June for the student's dissertation defense. Dirty work, but somebody's gotta do it, I guess.) I've planned for us to make a trip to Steve and Michelle's place in Chorcha on Friday, and Larry's lined up golfing at Cielo Paraiso on Saturday or Sunday. We'll try to work in a hike or two and, perhaps, a trip to Volcan and Cerro Punta as well. I'm really looking forward to his visit--particularly for the chance to get out of the house and roam around a bit.

Meeting Mr. Gruber

I believe I mentioned in my last post having acquired a bottle of Gruber's Jungle Oil, the panacea concocted from Panamanian herbs by Franklin Gruber, an FSU alumnus. It's turned out to be quite a lifesaver. When I remember to apply it, it repels the tiny no see-ums, locally called chitres, that dwell in and around vegetative areas. They don't bother us in the house or on the terrace, but the closer we get to the back of the property toward the river or to the coffee fields next door and across the street, the worse they get. And when I forget to apply the jungle oil beforehand, it does a superb job of putting a stop to the itching that ensues.

The label on the bottle reads as follows:

GRUBER'S JUNGLE OIL

Made from Panama's finest medicinal plants and soybean oil. It rapidly neutralizes poisons and allergic reactions to sand flies, chiggers, mosquitoes, tics, wasps, bees, spiders and scorpions, etc. Once on the skin disinfects bites to avoid tropical disease and also REPELS those critters for up to 4 hours per application when walking. While sleeping and thus sweating less works all night. Use this oil also to heal severe sun burns and also as an optimum sun screen. Mr. Gruber, an FSU Science Graduate, used it once to heal a mole that changed color and bleed [sic]. Applied on feet before going on muddy nature trails prevents and treats "jungle rot" fungal and bacterial infections. Use also to heal ACNE, minor and mayor [sic] cuts and bruises, prevent, cure gangrenous skin ulcers. As a massage alleviates tense muscles, lupus and arthritis pain, varicose vain [sic] inflammations. Apply 2 to 4 times daily or more. [Mr. Gruber is not a tribute to the FSU English Department.]

I badly burned my little finger on and above the cuticle last week when I removed some brown sugar from the microwave and had some of the resulting syrup dripped from a hole in the bag. After soaking the finger in cold water for a while, I applied jungle oil and, voila, a large blister formed, but I have been pain free for a week. (The blister burst yesterday and, admittedly, it's a little tender now. But I'm still applying the jungle oil, which has kept it supple and infection free.)

So it was with great anticipation that I set out for the meeting of the Love To Garden Club yesterday morning at which Franklin Gruber Himself was the scheduled speaker. After retrieving my friend Sandy from high up in Alto Jaramillo, driving back down the mountain, and then about ten miles out of town on the road to David, we finally arrived at the home of the member hosting the meeting, where other club members were huddled together on the small front terrace in folding chairs. Having no folding chairs, Sandy and I huddled together on the hard stone steps where we watched as Mr. Gruber unloaded bag after bag of plant material on a small round table and prepared to lecture. He appeared much less peculiar than I had envisioned, but not entirely without peculiarities, not the least of which was that, among the plant material, was a jar of fireants and a freely stalking scorpion. He assured us that the scorpion would be fine on the table, for us not to worry. I, for one, didn't take my eye off him for a minute, being the person most closely situated to the table.

The talk proceeded with a discourse on the extraordinary number of medicinal plants in Panama, how he had become familiar with them, and how they had served to cure innumerable people of even more innumerable ills. The stories were fascinating, the ills running the gamut from flatulence to cancer. While he couldn't be described as a dynamic speaker, Mr. Gruber was interesting and kept everyone's undivided attention until such time as a neighbor's gardener took up weedeating and a wind chime overhead began clanging in the breeze. Everyone was alternately leaning forward trying to hear and keeping a wary eye on the scorpion, which was scampering about the table trying to find a way to descend and make mischief. Finally, after about an hour and a half into his two hour allotted time period, Mr. Gruber grabbed the jar of fire ants and thrust his hand in amongst them. Amid the squeals and twitters of the audience, he left it there until what he considered to be a sufficient number of ants had bitten him, after which he removed his hand and liberally applied some jungle oil. He then demonstrated the resulting bites and reported, bit by bit, his reactions to the diminishing pain as the welts gradually, over a period of about five minutes, disappeared. This was followed by more talking about medicinal plants and their uses--still amid the whirring of the weedeater and the jangling of the wind chimes plus the stomping of the fireants that had been slung from Gruber's hand before application of the magic oil --until such time as he located the scorpion on the underside of the table and coaxed him onto a small limb for demonstration purposes. After briefly advising us of the various types of scorpions and the severity of their stings, he aggravated the scorpion into stinging him, whereupon he swallowed a small vial of jungle oil mixed with rum and spread an equal amount of the oil itself on the site of the sting. He confessed to being a little light-headed, at least partly as a result of having eaten nothing that day, he said, and even apologized for needing to sit for a bit. But in due time, ten minutes or so, evidence of the sting had disappeared and he announced that all was well.

Afterwards, I introduced myself, and we reminisced about Tallahassee. We were interrupted, however, by various participants extolling the virtues of jungle oil and narrating their own experiences of having used it. Mr. Gruber briefly took the floor once more to announce that two people present had bottles of jungle oil to sell, as well as his newly concocted salve (more a pomade, actually) for sun spots, age spots, and wrinkles. The latter sold out immediately. I have one at my elbow as I write.