I hosted the Love to Garden Club monthly meeting at our house Thursday before last, the preparations for which were extensive. Edwin, sensing that his reputation as the finest gardener of the finest garden in Boquete was on the line, kicked into high gear. Also, getting wind of the upcoming occasion, Steve swept in to solidify his reputation as the finest landscape designer. He, along with son Garreth, set up shop in the garage for over a week, constructing three trellises: one to hide the unslightly satellite dishes (we have two: one for Panamanian tv and one for the bootleg Puerto Rican setup which carries US network channels), one to train a vine up and over the entrance to the garage, and one to break up an expanse of front wall that was declared, as though it were a mortal sin, "naked of adornment." While on the premises, of course, his discerning eye spotted various plants that, to Edwin's consternation, needed to be repositioned. One was a bird of paradise that I had purchased at Lulu's Tropical Gardens in David which had been placed in a front bed to complement an already existing one. Steve wisely pointed out that what I had bought was indeed a bird of paradise, i.e., a strelitzia, but was a stretlitzia nicolai, whereas the more common bird of paradise that previously had been planted is a stretlitzia reginae. While this suggests a negligible difference, the latter grows to a maximum of three feet, but the former can reach 30 feet. So repositioned it was, although it took all three of us quite a bit of time to find space to accommodate so large a plant. Following the erection of the trellises, Steve and I were off to the viveros (plant nurseries) to select just the right climbing plant for each, a chore that consumed half a day. After a lot of haggling among me, Steve, Garreth, and the various nurserymen, we settled on a red passiaflora (passion flower) for the garage, a sweet-smelling star jasmine vine for the front of the house next to the bedroom window, and an antignon with a tiny pink flower for the satellite camouflaging structure. The latter two choices were particularly vexing because we wanted to preserve a view of trellises themselves, which sport very artistic designs courtesy of Steve.
For those of you not rendered comatose from botanical terminology, I move on to the neutering of Juanita last Sunday. It took place at what is called a mini spay and neuter clinic, i.e., an interim one at which only a few animals are spayed or neutered and a few veterinarians employed, as opposed to the maxi clinics, held four times a year, involving a team of vets to render nonprocreative a hundred or more dogs and cats. In an effort to effect some sort of organization on what is generally all out chaos, Ruby McKenzie, the president of Amigos de Animales de Boquete and organizer of the clinics, elected to assign appointment times. Juanita's designated time was 10:00 a.m., so we dutifully showed up at 9:30 to complete the registration process. (I've noticed, and I'm sure you have to, that I use the word "dutifully" a lot in the these blogs. I'm equally sure that you've noticed that my being dutiful was to of no avail in any instance. There was to be no exception here.) I observed a lot of animals about: in kennels, tied to trees, tied up in bags, straining at leashes--all barking or caterwauling. After filling out the requisite forms and contributing $20 towards a $5 charge, I was assigned number 25. This puzzled me a bit since we were early on the schedule, so I asked what number currently was under the knife. "Number 3," I was told. There was only one vet that day, a Costa Rican who had driven over and arrived late, and the first patient had been a pregnant rottweiler who first had to be aborted and then had presented complications in the subsequent spaying. Clearly, too, the appointment process had broken down somehow as 25 animals could not possibly have been envisioned to have been operated on in an hour and a half. "It'll be a while," the registrars needlessly advised. After a long, hot, noisy time--without food, drink, or a book to read--Juanita and I returned home at 2:30, both of us pretty cranky.
This reminds me whenever there are two or more expats together, talk inevitably turns to some trial or tribulation of Panama living, large or small. The mention of a troublesome issue just as inevitably leads to analysis of what should be done or should have been done. Inevitably, too, someone leads off a sentence with, "Now, logically . . . ," whereupon the other or others hold up their hands to remind the speaker that logic plays no role whatsoever in Panamanian thinking. It is as futile to be logical as it is to be dutiful. On Friday, for example, Larry and I were in David to try to purchase a few needed items (notice the use of "try"). At our first stop, when I opened my wallet at the cash register, I noticed that my cedula (Panama national identification card) was missing. As it is widely known that replacing a cedula is a bureaucratic nightmare to end all Panamanian bureaucratic nightmares, I was shaken. I said nothing to Larry for fear of his falling completely to pieces (he copes less well than most with bureaucratic nightmares), but I was occupied throughout the shopping spree and the trip home with mental machinations of where my cedula might be. Because it holds a very secure place in my wallet, I was fairly certain that it hadn't dropped out anywhere, so I concentrated on when I had last removed it for some official purpose. I eventually came to the conclusion that it had last left my hands at the bank Tuesday when we had visited to add Larry to a recently opened account. There had been lots of paper shuffling and rubber stamping and information gathering, and my cedula had been needed. So I called the bank Friday afternoon, and, sure enough, it was there tucked away in a drawer awaiting my realization that it was there and my retrieval. I was relating the story to Charly last night and pointed out that among the information the bank had gathered on Tuesday was our e-mail address and phone number, so I couldn't understand why they hadn't contacted me, knowing how vital one's cedula is. "Logically," I began. Charly threw up her hands.
Finally, more monkey business. Steve moved on to erect a fence for Doc/Charly/Ramon to contain the chicken killers after prettying up our place for the Garden Club meeting. He set up shop in our garage, however, because they don't have one and he needed a level and dry location. On his arriving one morning this past week, one leg and one hand were heavily bandaged. He explained, in very colorful language, that Pookie, one of their two tamarin monkeys, had escaped from its cage, come across the lawn, come into the house, and attacked him while he was at the top of a ladder installing dry wall. Pookie, an accomplished escape artist, he elaborated, hates all men and him in particular. She previously had gotten out and attacked both Garreth and Steve's father, the latter of whom, a very distinguished little man, had been enjoying morning coffee and a newspaper on the front porch. But the attack on Steve had been paticularly vicious, the bite on his hand having gone all the way to the bone. He hypothesized that a man or men had abused Pookie somewhere in her past and that she was set on vengeance. Although they can be docile, tamarins are feared by other monkeys, he said he has read, because of their bad temperament when riled and because of their shark-like teeth. I recalled having held and cuddled with the tamarins at Paradise Gardens. I guess they had had a good day.
