August in the Valley of the Flowers

We've had a much better August this year than last. So far the rainy season has been as advertised: mostly late afternoon and/or evening showers, beautiful days. No major headaches this month, which means we have steered clear of bureaucracy, by and large. And I've found a new haircutter, Renny, a member of the garden club who has a small and select clientele she administers to in her home. I discovered that she possesses this talent only last Sunday, when she and her husband, Austin, visited us for a few hours, but I'm convinced that I'm going to be looking better. She owned a salon back in Houston, where Austin was a superintendent at the Houston Port Authority. Because she has spoken Spanish for 28 years and also has a degree in Education, the government of Panama has hired her to teach English at the university in David several days a week, and she and Austin both are fine gardeners and great cooks They're keeping busy in retirement, and I'm glad she agreed to work me into her schedule.

On the subject of personal appearance, I continue to have to buy new clothes, as I'm now down to a size 6. I'm healthy, though, so I suppose it's because of better food and eating habits.

And on the subject of language instruction, I'm going back to school later this month. Habla Ya, the local Spanish language school, is offering a 2 for 1 deal for residents of Boquete through December, so Ramon and I have paired up to take advantage of the deal. We begin on September 28, when Doc and Charly return from a trip to NYC to visit their daughters (Ramon is in charge of the fur-faced fiends while they're gone), and will be attending class three days a week, two hours a day, for two months for $250 each. My Spanish is better than pretty good, but I'd really like to become almost fluent.

We're finally getting out of house more as most of the major work is done around here. Larry plays golf twice a week, once with Doc and Charly at Valle Escondido, and once at Cielo Paraiso, the very fancy development south of town. Because we're friends with the developers, Raideep and Colleen Lal, they waived the $25,000 initiation fee (!) and give him a reduced rate of $60 for play on their PGA certified course. He's in a foursome with Raideep, the golf pro Liz, and the chef-to-be (when they get the hotel and restaurant up and running) George, a Greek who owns two restaurants back in their hometown of Toronto. He (Larry) has bought all new golf togs so he'll fit in and has worn out the grass in the backyard practicing. His handicap is improving and he's happy as a you-know-what.

We had dinner at George's house last Friday night, and what a treat! In addition to fabulous appetizers, he served a standing rib roast, the first exceptional beef we've had since coming here. The owner of Super Baru, the finest grocery store in David, is owned by Spiro, also (as you might have guessed) Greek, whom George befriended so as to have access to comestibles (food) not generally available. We hope to benefit, too, by the association. We were joined at the dinner party by Raideep and Colleen, Colleen's uncle "Tio," and the foremost orthopedic surgeon in Panama, Yacko Barrios, and his wife. It was a lively evening as George, Raideep, and Yacko are characters of the first order. I worried a bit about the amount of alcohol consumed by Yacko as he was scheduled to operate on my friend Jane's knee early Monday morning, but both Raideep and George testified to his competence by demonstrating a shoulder and a foot, respectively, set aright recently by Yacko's skills.

The following morning I traveled to Potrerillos to visit Bill Streit and Donna O'Toole, who bought and have restored the house and gardens of Noriega's so-called "summer palace." I received the full tour, including the former helicopter landing pad, guard towers, outdoor party area complete with kitchen and dance floor, and a beneath-the-staircase locked compartment within which was a safe within a safe. They've managed to get through the locked door and the first safe, but have been stymied by the second safe. They confided that they've given up the effort for the time being for fear of what they might find. They've had plenty of other things to do like modernizing the house and rebuilding the large garden area, which is lovely. I forgot to take my camera, but they're hosting the garden club next month so I may get some pictures yet.

On Wednesday I took friends Sandy and Gaby to Volcan and Cerro Punta, primarily to point out the location of the many nurseries over there. It was my second trip in two weeks, as Jane, Steve, and I went to a special heliconia sale at the home of Carla Black, a legendary heliconia grower, a couple of Saturdays back. I came away with some fine specimens.

Juanita Bonita now is fully integrated into the family. She's determined to be the queen of the house and, at less than two pounds, terrorizes the dogs. When she's not playing with her own tail, she's leaping out from behind furniture to attack a wagging dog tail. I bought her some cat toys which we keep in a bowl on a console behind the sofa. When she takes a notion to play with them rather than tails, she jumps on the table and methodically throws each one on the floor. She then zips all over the house, batting and biting them. Her quickness fascinates and confuses Chyna and Trudy. We've all finally become accustomed to catching, out of the corners of our eyes, a flash of white now and then. We give the dogs raw bones every afternoon. She refuses to be ignored or to be placated with something lesser, so she now receives a bone, too, which she guards with her life. She's a joy, but we throw her out into her own cushy bed when we go to bed because she habitually wakes up at odd hours and makes all sorts of mischief.

We've gotten two huge bunches of bananas off our trees, and the strawberry guavas produce at a rate that neither we nor the birds can keep up with. My lemon trees have yet to produce, however, although the herb garden is thriving. Everything else is flowers, flowers, flowers. The photo attached is of an orchid called the Espiritu Santo, the Holy Ghost Orchid, Panama's national flower.

From the land of eternal spring

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.

New members of the family

We've been regrouping since Demaris' and Juvenal's departure. With the rainy season now in full swing, it was no time to lose a gardener, so we did some budget work and decided to put Edwin on fulltime (five days a week) and seek a housekeeper for only one day rather than two. Edwin had been lobbying for the job for some time. He complained bitterly about Juvenal's work, for one thing. He considers this his garden, for another, and kept saying that he just didn't have the time to keep it up as he wanted it kept up. He objected to going all over town and up and down mountains to various clients, and simply didn't like several of his employers. Most importantly, fulltime employment also would make him eligible for "seguro social," which, in Panama, entitles one not only to retirement benefits but also to national health insurance, sick days, bonus payments every four months, and various legal remedies related to employment. When we told him he had the job, at an increase in pay from $16 to $18 a day, he was quite possibly the happiest man in Boquete. In the two weeks he's been on the job, he's whipped the garden into shape and taken charge of the running of the household--ordering fertilizer and chemicals, cleaning out the garage, reminding us about garbage days, washing the car, sprigging grass between plants in the upper garden, and reminding us repeatedly that we need to do this or that. He now has his eye on the orchid casita, which needs some cleaning and rearranging, and has requisitioned a pressure washer. Who knows where this will lead, but so far he's got us organized to within an inch of our lives, beginning at 7:00 a.m., when he pokes his head in the window of the computer room and tells me his plans for the day and suggests what mine should be. He often inquires about the lunch menu at this time, too.

I hired a facilitator to help with the seguro social enrollment (the cost of which is not inconsiderable). I had lots of written material and local lore, but it all was contradictory. The one thing everyone agrees on is that it's the most byzantine of Panama's many byzantine government programs. The consensus is that the staff members are obstructionist about enrolling workers because the government doesn't want to have to pay for their health needs. On the other hand, if an employer is caught with an employee who should be on seguro social but who is not, the penalties are swift and financially severe. Once overcoming the enrollment hurdle, there are further difficulties because certain things can only be done on certain days of the month, the paperwork required monthly is beyond burdensome, and no one in the office speaks of word of English. Moreover, the rules change regularly--so regularly that my facilitator, Stephanie, advised that we had best pay a visit first to determine exactly what the rules were in effect on that day of the week. With her aid, we had everything accomplished in just two visits--a record, according to everyone I've spoken to. Stephanie's also going to handle the voluminous paperwork. I have confidence in her because she is a native Panamanian who spent most of her life in the U.S., from kindergarten until age 18, and therefore has a stateside education and a stateside sense of responsibility. She came highly recommended by my friend and neighbor Penny Ripple, who is quite a taskmaster.

We began the search for a housekeeper and ended up with someone we already know and like: Doc, Charly, and Ramon's neighbor and gardener Dalys (pronounced DAH-leese). She lives right up the road with her husband and several of her six children, and we've come to know them and like them. She's worked two Fridays now and is a delight. She even speaks some English. Her children range in age from twenty-two to six, the older ones having attended or attending college and holding down good jobs in Panama City or David. Her husband Tony works with a local coffee enterprise. The icing on the cake is that Dalys is a fine plantswoman who knows and is a friend of Edwin's. In his new job as property manager, Edwin was quick to advise that he thoroughly approves of her working here, that she is "buena gente" (good people). Of course, he said, she is of the Serracin family, a locally large and very prominent one, as is Edwin's wife, Maria.

For several months now I have intermittently been expressing my desire for a cat. Larry counseled that I should just bide my time as one was sure to show up sooner or later. I've noticed, however, that there aren't many households with pet cats as cats don't seem to be highly valued by Panamanians. Also, the predation rate for both kittens and cats is high. Most dogs run free, and there're many large birds and wild animals that prey on cats as well. The majority of cats that do exist here are feral, and, as a rule, feral cats are difficult if not impossible to tame. So it was quite a surprise when a skinny kitty of about three or four months began prowling around the back terrace and doors. We fed her once when the dogs were asleep in the bedroom, so, of course, she came back. This time the dogs weren't sleeping and strenuously objected to her presence on the property. In fact, there was quite a fracas between Chyna and the kitty up in the orchid casita, and we figured she was either dead or long gone. Instead, she moved to the front, where she's been ever since. Though a little skittish at first, she obviously had "belonged" to someone as she was approachable with a little work and exhibited a bald spot around her neck where she had been tethered by a rope. She settled right in, began following us around the yard, and has fattened up beautifully. I bought her a bed on a trip to David last week, and she stays curled up in it on the front porch when she's not exploring the garden chasing lizards, butterflies, or hummingbirds. The dogs no longer make a fuss about her, so I'm confident that she'll work her way inside in due time. She bangs against the front door when I get up in the morning and comes into the kitchen while I'm preparing her breakfast. The dogs, behind the closed bedroom door, don't even bother to get to out of bed, although they have to know that kitty is inside because she sets up quite a caterwauling while awaiting her food. I have named her Juanita, but Larry and Edwin continue to call her Kitty Kitty. At any rate, I now have a cat.

Continuing on the subject of pets, Doc and Charly are in a bit of hot water because of theirs. Doc called today to say that he had been stopped on the road by an indio (a man of the local indigenous Indian tribe, the Ngobe Bugle, members of which live throughout the community in primitive enclaves and work mostly as coffee pickers) who pointed out Matty nearby with a dead chicken in her mouth. The indio indicated that the chicken was (had been) his and that it was not the first to have been done in by one or more of Doc's dogs. Immediate recompense was sought, and they settled on $10 as just compensation for four or five slaughtered chickens. Doc has been following the Panamanian tradition of allowing the fur-faced fiends to pretty much go where they please, and Larry and I had warned of the potential consequences. Virtually all chickens range freely, and it is common for chicken-poaching dogs to be poisoned, but Doc and Charly have been friendly to this group of indios, giving their children candy when they pass by, so perhaps the dogs were spared for this reason. In any event, they now are faced with fencing at least that portion of their yard closest to the house. And they're afraid that there will be other demands from other neighbors whose chickens may or may not have been victims.

Larry has promised to take me out to breakfast tomorrow morning. It'll be a real treat as I continue to spend the better part of my days cooking and cleaning the kitchen.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Allegedly, it's "winter" here in Boquete, but it seemed a lot cooler a few months ago. We awoke this morning to approximately 65 degrees; I'm sitting here in a nice, warm robe typing away and reading in the Democrat about 103 degrees and higher in Florida. Except when it's cloudy, most days have been in the upper seventies lately, dropping to the high sixties as the sun goes down.

THE GOOD: Derek has come and gone. On the Friday after his arrival late Wednesday, we motored down to Chorcha to visit Steve and Michelle and their plants and animals at their Alouatta Lodge. ("Alouatta" has something to do with howler monkeys.) We were greeted by Steve's father, visiting from Australia, who sat on the front porch with a monkey in his lap. We joined him and promptly had monkeys in our laps, too--two adult howlers (Yahoo and Maisie), a toddler howler (Lisa), and a very young squirrel monkey (Mikey). We visited the cage containing two two-toed sloths (Oreo and Stinky), hiked a trail through the jungle, visited their camping site complete with three enclosed hammocks for guests, and enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by Michelle. Steve gave me several beautiful plants to bring home to the garden, including an outstanding but thorny bamboo. All in all, a fun day.

Another highlight of Derek's visit was a hike in Bajo Mono with Dan and Kay Wade. Only about ten minutes into the trek, we spotted a male Resplendent Quetzal! He obligingly sat high on a limb at a medium distance with the sun at his back. It's difficult to describe what breathtakingly beautiful birds they are and easy to understand why they are considered the most beautiful bird in the world. It is said by the Panamanians to be good luck to spot a quetzal, so we're eagerly awaiting a major change of fortune.

Derek enjoyed a day of golf with the gang, we had dinner out with friends, and we did a good bit of lounging around the house. Next time, I hope he can stay longer.

THE BAD: I had my first brush with the Panamanian health system this past week. Weekend before last I suffered from abdominal pain and general malaise for about three days. It disappeared, only to return on Thursday. I decided it would be wise to seek medical advice, so I called my friend Lulu (proprietor of Lulu's Tropical Gardens in David), whose husband is a physician, to seek a referral. I reached her at home during the lunch hour and, as her husband was there too, she turned the phone over to him. (Steve had told me that he is a neurosurgeon at Hospital Chiriqui, but he advised that, in fact, he's an internist and general surgeon at Hospital Mae Lewis.) He said he would be happy to see me and told me to report to his office at the hospital at 9:00 the following morning. After examining me and taking a medical history, he sent me for a battery of lab tests and a CT scan just down the hall. I had the tests and the results by 1:00, reported back to him at 2:30, and left with a handful of medications, punctures all over my arms (they couldn't find a vein for the extremely large needle necessary to inject the chemicals for the CT scan--painful, painful experience), and a diagnosis of diverticulitis. I was exhausted from the all day affair, spent a very uncomfortable weekend, but seem to be pretty much over it today. Now I'm trying to figure out what brought it on. Internet research indicates that diverticulitis is diet-related, particularly to the consumption of processed foods and to the lack of dietary fiber. We eat virtually no processed food, and we consume lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as beans by the potful. So go figure.

THE UGLY: We had the unpleasant experience this morning of firing Demaris and Juvenal, who have been with us from the beginning. Juvenal had lost his main job as caretaker of the house and property of a couple in the Santa Lucia neighborhood where we rented while building, so, in an effort to help him, we recommended him for a similar job with friends Sandy and Bill Dillon for a period of two months that they will be in Mexico completing some business there. Juvenal accepted the position, but then, the day before they were to leave (this past Saturday), demanded a higher salary, more time off, additional transportation funds, access to laundry facilities, etc., and ultimately backed out of the deal altogether, leaving Bill and Sandy with no caretaker for the property while they're gone. Juvenal is guileless and has never exhibited this type of behavior, so we assumed him to be operating on the advice of Demaris and/or her family, which was born out in Sandy's reporting that he was on his cell phone constantly during their Saturday discussions. I was sick, so Larry was obliged to run interference, which took most of the day and ended with his driving all the way up to Sandy and Bill's to take Juvenal home. After it was over, we were embarrassed, hurt, and very angry. When Demaris and Juvenal reported to work this morning, I explained our position and told them that we no longer had confidence in them. They left willingly, but I doubt that that will be the end of the matter. So I've cleaned house and am now left to clean the house.

So where's that Quetzal good luck?

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.

The fur-faced four-legged fiends

Doc looks like walking death, pallid and perpetually stooped over. Because he acquired their three pups absent consultation with his housemates, he rightfully has been assigned their care and upbringing (and has been forbidden from ever entering Melos, the store in David where they were purchased, again). Now and then Ramon and Charly will, out of pity, step in for an hour or two to relieve him, but on the whole Raphael, Matilda, and Finnegan are his charge. He reports that they awake at various hours in the morning, sometimes as early as 12:30 a.m. and usually one at a time, and demand to go out. While he lets the demander out, he continues, the other two generally see it as a sign that they are free to relieve themselves in the house as soon as the first one disappears. So in the wee hours of morning, when he's not unlocking doors and herding dogs outdoors, he's cleaning up the floor. He claims that they sleep approximately one minute for every two hours that they are awake and troublesome, and his sleeping patterns have been adjusted accordingly.

Their yard looks like the city dump. Anything that isn't nailed down, behind closed doors, or placed on a very high shelf is fair game for pilfering and strewing about. When Doc telephones to warn us that he will be visiting on one of his dog walks, Larry and I first secure everything indoors and then rush out to the gate to witness him struggling up the road entangled in three dog leashes. Once inside our house and faced with the prospect of playing with Chyna and Trudy, the pups go into high gear, whereupon we all become entangled in dogs and leashes in an effort to free them. It's an exhausting exercise, and afterwards we usually collapse on the terrace with a drink and watch them ravage the garden. They climb up the waterfall and splash about in the shallow upper pond, they dig around in the plants in search of heaven knows what, and they chew on everything in sight. Doc and canine company usually stay for about an hour, after which Chyna and Trudy take to our bed, utterly spent, and Larry and I, dazedly and confusedly, put things back in order.

Doc called this morning to report that Matty had brought a baby rodent of some sort into the house. Like their predecessor, Gus, the two cockers have an affinity for avocados. They scour the environs and return throughout the day with dozens of them, which they savor on the porch, leaving only the pits to be stepped on later by Doc, Charly, or Ramon. Charly says they've chewed through a number of electrical cords and have shredded every dish towel in the house, as well as a number of towels. Anything can occur, she maintains, if you turn your back for even one minute. It's little wonder that Doc looks so careworn and sleep deprived.

Doc is great lover of dogs and always has referred to them affectionately as "fur faces," but these he calls the "four-legged fiends." Ever the comforter, I remind him that he can look forward to their maturing at about two years of age.

Above is a picture of the little darlings in a rare, rare moment of repose.