A Day in the Life....And Larry's Take, Sort Of

We're coming up on six months in the misty cloud forrest mountains of Boquete, Panama. Our friends occasionally ask me "What does Larry think about this adventure?"
Ahhh, a simple question... and simply answered. Let me explain.

Larry put in close to ten years tending bar at Marina Jack and never, ever did he utter a word of gossip about his job. (Okay, except for that one time when a female co-worker of mine arrived so hammered she was immediately cut off, but hung on the bar's edge, hounding poor Larry about her interest my bosom! Wow! So, that indicent did get a slight mention over toast from my usually tacit husband.) But the truth is, if you danced to one of Rock Lee's snappy tunes in the buff, right on the bar, the next day, when asked "How was work last night, honey?" Larry would just say "It was okay." My Larry, a drunkard's dream bartender!

Once, we were leaving the Dollar Theater after just seeing a film I was kind of jazzed up about. So naturally I ask, "Hey, Honey, how'd you like the movie?" To which Larry responded with a nonchalant shrug and an "It was Okay." "Hey!" I jab him enthusiastically. "Want to go to that little pub over there and talk about it?" To which Larry replied, "We just did." Enough said.

As I write, Larry is hotly digging out a fountain-stream-pool under our Chirimoya tree in the back yard. It's going to be quite something when completed. Alan is laying the stone wall to enclose it. Jose is hauling about 500 pounds of weeds I pulled all the way to Caldera, where dumping is allowed... for a whopping $50 bucks. "Cincuenta dolares!" I exclaimed to him... "Me Matas!" (translation: You're killin' me, Jose!). The average worker earns around $200 a month here.

William is at school now full time ($45 a month, not including uniforms and more books than a camel could carry). We'll resume the half home school/half Panamanian school in September.

His teacher has, once again, told him to cut his already cropped hair. William and I both know what she really wants is for him to shave it, military style. Okay. My long-locked, Sailing Squadron, Florida Studio Theater, Skate Park cum Surfer Dude kid does not want a naked skull. So every morning I comb it back, wet, and together we try to fool the nuns. (Okay, they're really not nuns. Just rigid, rote style teachers who can't bend an inch on a rule. So they feel like what I imagine school nuns to be.)

Larry deposited six fresh avacadoes from our tree on my kitchen counter this morning. He's looking for baby bamboo to plant near the fence and he thinks Rodrigo may have some. (Rodrigo owns the Villa Maria, where we used to stay, and has a hydroponic farm.) I call him the Panamanian Jesus because when we arrived to our entirely empty house in February, Rodrigo had placed 3 fully made beds, towels and soap in our house.

Rodrigo just stopped by to give us three heads of lettuce from his hydroponic farm. So I gave hims the avacadoes, thinking maybe I should make it more like a trade. Later today, Larry will clean up, get William from the Spanish tutor, and off they will go to basketball, where Larry coaches with his buddy Terry at a local gym up the road. Then we'll all eat out, or I'll cook.

So, how does Larry like Panama so far? I asked him that very question this morning. And he said "What?" So, I asked him again and this time he heard me. "Oh" he said. "I like it."