Larry's watching the Miami/Pittsburgh game, I've got my every-other-day pressure cooker full of chicken and vegetables for the dogs on the stove, and Felipe and Kitty Kitty are chasing throughout the house. So I thought I'd repair to the computer room in search of a modicum of tranquility.
The town is gradually recovering from the most recent flood. We had no major damage, other than the loss of some property, and heavy equipment has been working behind our house for weeks building banks, redirecting the flow of the river, and hauling off huge boulders and trees from 6:00 a.m. until dark. I never thought the sound of chain saws and bulldozers would be sweet. We've been without water off and on as the system repairs are fine tuned, but are better off than Doc/Charly/Ramon who have no reserve tank and therefore have suffered considerably more. Most importantly, through the good graces of my friend Penny Barrett, I was put in touch with an insurance agent, Gloria Detresno, who managed to get us flood insurance of $400,000, plus full coverage for anything else that possibly could happen. This was a real coup as no company currently is offering flood insurance in any part of Boquete, much less for property with river frontage. I'm sleeping better.
Larry finally has finished painting the exterior of the house, and currently we have a Panamanian lad replacing the roof tiles broken by the painter hired (and fired) before he (Larry) took over the project. That should be completed tomorrow, after which we will take on repainting the interior. We've also been involved with replacing virtually every incandescent light bulb in the house with the new energy-saving fluorescent ones. This leads right into a typically Panamanian story.
Since we moved into the house over three years ago, our electricity bills have been between $150 and $175 dollars a month. Having nothing to compare to but the States, it was not a concern until I overheard friends mentioning that they were astonished to have received a bill for $40 one month. That led to my subsequently determining the average electricity bill here to be between $30 and $45. We took stock and realized that we have several things that close friends don't have: a dishwasher, a pool pump, a water reserve tank pump, a pump for irrigation to the upper garden, and one electric hot water heater. The minor pumps are used minimally, and the dishwasher couldn't possibly make that much difference, so we settled on the electric hot water heater as the culprit until we learned that a resident with two electric hot water heaters experienced bills averaging $90 a month. We further assessed that the minor pumps, even if going full time, use very little electricity. We hired a recommended electrician who, after a lengthy survey, determined that there were no anomalies and that we needed to replace all our light bulbs. I did so, to the tune of about $150. (The light fixture in the great room requires 16 bulbs, the one in the kitchen 11, just for starters.) When we had installed them all, I realized I had mistakenly bought white ones rather than what they call yellow but is really a soft white, so returned to David for $150 more, relegating the white to the innumerable fixtures on the terrace which surrounds the back of the house. No appreciable difference resulted. So eventually, finding a day when nothing was pressing, I made my way to David once again to visit the Union Fenosa office.
It took me a fair amount of time to find the office, and, when I finally found it and found a parking place, I discovered that in its vast confines, no one spoke English. After a long wait, however, I was attended to by a very pleasant man who eventually understood the problem and pledged that someone would check our meter within 30 days. Thirty days came and went with no visitation, so I returned to David only to be told that the meter had, in fact, been checked and that everything seemed to be in order. We knew something was amiss but didn't know what else we could do except be sorely aggrieved.
At an auction-related meeting at Penny Barrett's house a few weeks later, her handyman Gary, who, according to Penny, "takes care of all the single women and lesbians in Boquete," overheard me griping about our utility bill problem. Having been around the block with virtually every problem that can occur, Gary sagely advised that it was, in fact, the meter and that the only surefire way to resolve the problem was to break the meter and have it replaced. Upon returning home and during the preparation of dinner, I casually reported this exchange to Larry.
As my female readers will understand, information from a wife which might give rise to a project on the part of the husband is, at best, mulled over for a few days before any sign of action.The thought of destroying the electric meter carried great appeal for Larry, however, who made straight for his tool box, seized a hammer, and marched outside in a downpour to confront the tried-and-convicted offender. I suggested that it might have been better to have waited a few more days between visits to Union Fenosa, but by that time the deed was done. I reported the problem and, astonishingly, the meter was replaced within three days with a new, digital model. Two weeks later we received our bill for the preceding month. It was $70 lower, for only half a month. Flush with success, Larry is keeping a daily log of our kilowatt usage, which is roughly half of what we have been charged for over the past three years. That translates to about $3000--not to mention the the light bulbs, two visits by an electrician, and wear and tear on the hammer.
Auction activity has been somewhat less for the past two weeks because Penny's daughter is visiting and Martine is in Greece for a family wedding. It's nice to have a breather, and we're doing beyond well. We have $12,000 cash in the bank and, two months before the auction, donations valued at over $31,000. A glutton for punishment, I also took over as secretary for the Garden Club and have spent hours and hours just getting the membership list straight. I thought the job would involve little more than sending out a monthly meeting notice, not realizing that I would be fielding hundreds of e-mails from dozens of folks with varying ideas about what the club should be doing, where it should be going on field trips, which potential speakers we should be courting, and what topics should be addressed at meetings. Being retired and having maids and gardeners to do the dirty work leaves a lot of time to be filled, I've found, and lots of time for people to think about how to fill it.
There are more ways to fill one's time than charities and garden clubs. I've found it more than interesting that a local theater group, the Boquete Community Players, has been an enormous success. It's beyond me how a community this small has attracted so many people with backgrounds in the performing arts, but we have actors, directors, musicians, sound technicians, stagehands, etc., of professional quality. I haven't been to many of the productions, but the three or four I've attended have been better amateur performances than I've seen anywhere in the States. Too, the group took over a large restaurant downtown and completely converted it into an events center, El Centro de Eventos, with a stage and auditorium, a bar, a kitchen, and various meeting rooms. In addition to having at least one production a month--and usually more--the facility hosts a weekly market, potluck dinners, art exhibitions, meetings, and all sorts of other events. We're holding the wine tasting event and live auction segment of Bid 4 Boquete there on a Saturday night in December, in fact, before the rest of activities the following day across the street at the fairgrounds.
What time I have left over from B4B and the Garden Club has been spent fighting mildew, visiting vets in both Boquete and David when Chyna was sick, taking Dalys' family and pets to a spay and neuter clinic, cooking, lunching with friends, and reading. You can add to that watching football with Larry from now 'til New Year's.
As my female readers will understand, information from a wife which might give rise to a project on the part of the husband is, at best, mulled over for a few days before any sign of action.The thought of destroying the electric meter carried great appeal for Larry, however, who made straight for his tool box, seized a hammer, and marched outside in a downpour to confront the tried-and-convicted offender. I suggested that it might have been better to have waited a few more days between visits to Union Fenosa, but by that time the deed was done. I reported the problem and, astonishingly, the meter was replaced within three days with a new, digital model. Two weeks later we received our bill for the preceding month. It was $70 lower, for only half a month. Flush with success, Larry is keeping a daily log of our kilowatt usage, which is roughly half of what we have been charged for over the past three years. That translates to about $3000--not to mention the the light bulbs, two visits by an electrician, and wear and tear on the hammer.
Auction activity has been somewhat less for the past two weeks because Penny's daughter is visiting and Martine is in Greece for a family wedding. It's nice to have a breather, and we're doing beyond well. We have $12,000 cash in the bank and, two months before the auction, donations valued at over $31,000. A glutton for punishment, I also took over as secretary for the Garden Club and have spent hours and hours just getting the membership list straight. I thought the job would involve little more than sending out a monthly meeting notice, not realizing that I would be fielding hundreds of e-mails from dozens of folks with varying ideas about what the club should be doing, where it should be going on field trips, which potential speakers we should be courting, and what topics should be addressed at meetings. Being retired and having maids and gardeners to do the dirty work leaves a lot of time to be filled, I've found, and lots of time for people to think about how to fill it.
There are more ways to fill one's time than charities and garden clubs. I've found it more than interesting that a local theater group, the Boquete Community Players, has been an enormous success. It's beyond me how a community this small has attracted so many people with backgrounds in the performing arts, but we have actors, directors, musicians, sound technicians, stagehands, etc., of professional quality. I haven't been to many of the productions, but the three or four I've attended have been better amateur performances than I've seen anywhere in the States. Too, the group took over a large restaurant downtown and completely converted it into an events center, El Centro de Eventos, with a stage and auditorium, a bar, a kitchen, and various meeting rooms. In addition to having at least one production a month--and usually more--the facility hosts a weekly market, potluck dinners, art exhibitions, meetings, and all sorts of other events. We're holding the wine tasting event and live auction segment of Bid 4 Boquete there on a Saturday night in December, in fact, before the rest of activities the following day across the street at the fairgrounds.
What time I have left over from B4B and the Garden Club has been spent fighting mildew, visiting vets in both Boquete and David when Chyna was sick, taking Dalys' family and pets to a spay and neuter clinic, cooking, lunching with friends, and reading. You can add to that watching football with Larry from now 'til New Year's.
