Close To Home.....

Stayed close to home for Mother's Day after Saturday was spent with friends sipping mango-ritas and eating fish tacos with chips and mango salsa.  A sweet end to the meal with magnificent mango cake topped with cream cheese frosting. 

On Sunday we took care of some long awaited planting around the house.  Clyde had been wanting to separate some of the over-grown plants into decorative planters on the porch.  And he also planted some seeds for cucumbers, Serrano peppers, squash and a pineapple crown. 

Our dog entertained us by chasing lizards in the flowering hedges that run the fence line.  At one point she came out chewing something so we assume that she caught one for a snack.  She manages to self-exercise herself by chasing huge lizards around the property when she's not eating mangoes off the ground.

Later in the day we drove into Coronado to check out a sale on granite at one of the local stores that friends told us about.  We picked up three pieces of granite for future kitchen counter tops, and one for the master bathroom plus the pieces for the back splash, a total of 24 feet....all for $320.  Granite was never affordable in the states but since it's much cheaper here in Panamá I just had to have some put into the house.  So now Clyde has another thing added to his to-do list.  First he has to rebuilt the kitchen cabinets and put in a new sink before he can add the new counter tops.  And as for the master bathroom that has nothing but a single sink hanging on the wall now,  it needs a counter to be built plus two new sinks. 

The leftover mango-ritas made great tasting frozen sorbet last night for dessert, after a dinner of chips and mango salsa.  Moving slow today since it's been raining all morning.  Time to get dressed and head over to the gym for our Monday workout.  The flowers and plants are growing rapidly as the tropical rains blanket them with love.  Time for us to get our sweat on, burn some calories and build some muscle.....along the gringo trail.

Happy Mothers Day......Dec 8th.....

Although it's Mother's Day in the U.S. here in Panamá it's celebrated in December.  Thirty-one years ago I had a very special Mother's Day as I went into labor.  The doctor's determined that inducing labor would be a good idea since I was past my due date and having contractions, although they were not regular. But because it was a holiday the hospital in Brooksville, Florida was under-staffed so they told me to go enjoy Mother's Day and come back in the morning.  As I plopped down on the hospital bed not happy that the wait had to continue, my water broke.  As I sat there in a puddle the nurse said they couldn't be sure that was amniotic fluid, and I'd be just fine going home and waiting to deliver in the next day or so. Desirée Leigh was born the next day on May 11th but sometimes her birthday falls on Mother's Day.




Being the sarcastic critic that I am, to me Mother's Day was invented by the Hallmark Company as a way to sell more cards.  Or some florist may have created it to guilt people into spending outrageous prices on flowers for Mom.  So instead of guessing I decided to research it and here's what I found.

Mother's Day was officially started in 1868 by Ann Jarvis, and was originally intended to reunite families divided during the Civil War. In 1872 Julia Howe who wrote  "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," organized the first official Mother's Day in New York City and Boston as anti-war rallies.

Several other celebrations popped up through the years here and there, but it wasn't until 1914 that President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day a national holiday in the United States.

Fifty country around the world celebrate Mother's Day at different times throughout the year. Here in Panamá Mother’s Day was started by the Rotary Club on May 11, 1924. According to Alonso Roy, a Panamanian historian, the first celebration was a success as stores were full of people buying gifts, and people crowded cemeteries bringing flowers to their departed mothers.

Panama changed the date of its Mother’s Day celebration in 1930 as a result of a national debate over making the Catholic celebration of the Immaculate Conception a national holiday. This was opposed by those who did not want to turn a religious holiday into a national holiday. The solution to this dilemma proposed by then-deputy Aníbal Rios was to move Mother’s Day to the 8th of December, the date of the observance of the Immaculate Conception, and declare Mother’s Day a national holiday.
The celebration of Mother’s Day in Panamá has not changed over the years. Panamanians bring presents to their mothers, cook traditional dishes, or take Mom out for a nice meal. 

Because Panama’s Mother’s Day is celebrated on the same day as the Catholic celebration of the Immaculate Conception, many communities have a mass and a procession through the streets of the town in which families participate.

In Panama just like in the rest of the world, Mom rests on this day while her husband and children do the dishes and housework and look after the smaller kids.

As an American living in Panamá now I have two days a year to celebrate Mother's Day, this one and December 8th.  So I'll just have to take it easy, relax in the hammock or sit by the pool, not much different from any other day in paradise.....along the gringo trail. 

Just Flowers

Clyde here:

I walked the property and took pictures of all of the flowers.  Hopefully, there are not any repeats.  There are some flowers of the same species but different colors.  All of these come from our property only.



A Houseful Of Smoke.....

This weekend while visiting with friends in our outdoor living area we noticed that someone was at the weekend house next door.  Clyde mentioned that we'd have to go over and introduce ourselves since the people were rarely there.  But before we had the chance fate sort of took over and we had a rather smoke filled meeting of the minds.

Panamanians like to burn their lawns here instead of mowing as they feel when the new grass comes in it's healthier.  Yesterday our neighbor in the brown house next door who we'd never met before decided to burn his foot tall grass, instead of mowing. Suddenly our house was full of smoke and with no glass windows, we had no way to block it out.  Fireman Clyde ran outside to keep a close watch on our hedges that run the fence line, making sure they didn't catch on fire.  He grabbed a hose and started to soak them with water as the other side in the neighbors yard began to burn.

Next I hear him yelling at the neighbor in Spanish that our house if full of smoke and he needs to put the fire out already.  The neighbor answered in English explaining that his yard is full of snakes since the grass is so tall, and that's why he needed to burn the grass.  The man did at least apologize and said he was cleaning up the house since he has sold it to people from Miami.  Clyde jokingly said "oh no, more gringo's," as he continued to water our hedges hoping to prevent them from burning.

A view over our hedges

A close up of the finely "coufierred" lawn
of my fine next door neighbor

 

This unfortunately is one of the downfalls of living with the locals, since they see and do things a bit differently than Americans or Canadians.  Instead of burning the lawn, us gringos buy a riding lawn mower or lawn tractor to tackle the job.  And that's exactly what we did yesterday.  Our Canadian friends had brought a lawn tractor with them from Canada but had no use for it on their property since it's hilly and covered with lush, thick jungle.  Clyde gave it a whirl yesterday and is trying to convince me how much I will enjoy using it to mow the lawn while getting a tan at the same time.

Our other Panamanian neighbors had music blasting that was so loud it was clearly heard over the sound of the mower. They DO love their music here and even the poorest Panamanians will have big speakers to share their music with the neighbors.  They did turn it off after sunset and things got quiet on that side of the street.  But there is a house behind us that seemed to be filled with teenagers that drank the night away talking and laughing loudly into the morning hours.  But since it cooled off a bit we were able to close the bedroom window to block out the noise.

Unlike living in the U.S. where we rarely saw or heard our neighbors, here the locals live outside more than in.  Front doors on Panamanian homes are always open, and kids are outside all the time playing while the adults swing nearby in hammocks. And even through the long rainy season outside living continues since all homes have covered terraces or bohio's to protect them from the torrential rains.

Perhaps that's why expats choose to live in gated communities with other foreigners.  Everyone can stay in their air conditioned homes, with windows shut tight and no need to talk to or see the neighbors.  But then we'd have to ask ourselves why we moved here if we wanted to live just as we did back in the states?  We enjoy the indoor - outdoor living just as much as the locals do and spend much of our day outside.  In fact we have an outdoor kitchen in our gazebo along with an outdoor living room on our terrace.  And I suppose we could even spend the night in our hammocks being rocked to sleep like babies in a cradle, providing a tasty treat for the mosquitoes. 

Things are different here in Panamá, not better or worse just different.  Our neighbor across the street is yelling at her teenager not unlike parents in other countries, while sweeping her front porch.  People are the same but the way they live life is different.  Still trying to figure things out in our new neighborhood, and our new country of Panamá......here along the gringo trail.

A Hot And Sweaty Affair.....

Reunited with an old flame this week and it wasn't a pretty sight as I flaunted my love right in front of my darling husband Clyde.  For the past six weeks while working on the house I just didn't have any time to devote to my boyfriend Gym.  But this week we reunited at the weight machines with Clyde nearby watching and working out himself.  I even hopped on for a ride, straddling the seat of my old spin bike while tunes were pounding in my head.  It felt good to be back in the saddle again as I missed my muscle time and was starting to feel like a helpless female. 

Although it's not like we've been lying around doing nothing as we've painted, scraped, cleaned, and fixed every square inch of the house.  And now that the mangoes are ripe we're picking up hundreds off the ground, and every day many more fall.  Mango salsa, mango cake, mango smoothies, grilled mango, mango margaritas and more. Anyone that stops by the house leaves with a bag or two of the plump, succulent suckers.  And today we even delivered some to friends locally and at the gym.  Unfortunately, since they grow in abundance everywhere.....all of our friends have their own mangoes to deal with so try as we may, we can't seem to give any away.

Newest Batch of Mangoes ready
to be cut up

Mango "Cheeks" cut
away from the seed

Mango Cake!

Mango Salsa!

Bowl of cut up Mangoes
ready for freezer bags

Bags of Mangoes ready

for freezing



Clyde has been flushing his brain out trying to shower it with ideas as to why our showers don't drain properly.  And when the showers don't drain then the toilets seem to leak around the base, and vise versa.  So yesterday he found a plumber online that lives in Gorgona, a nearby beach community.  Within an hour he was at our door ready to take a look at the problem.  This American plumber was an old "zonian" that grew up with a military Dad stationed here in the Canal Zone.  Coincidentally, the plumber even knew a few old friends of Clyde's from Texas that also spent time in the Zone. 

He snaked out  two of the three bathrooms and suggested that since the house was used only as a vacation home, that's why roots have grown in the drains causing them to plug up. Now that we're using them regularly they should stay opened up and flowing. He's coming back on Monday to work on the third bathroom and even invited us to join him at his beach front villa.  His prices were very reasonable and we are thrilled to be able to use our bathrooms without worry. 

The weather seems a bit hotter these days as the rainy season begins.  Temperatures have been sizzling up into the 90's with high humidity.  We make good use of the three showers inside the house as well as the one outside, for a cool mid-day and night time refresher.  Perhaps we'll pop some fresh mango into the blender, and add a touch of rum and lots of ice for a cooling off night cap.  Because living in the tropics is all about chillin', with a cold one......along the gringo trail.

Working Away In Mangoville.......

Keeping fit doing "mango-arobics" yesterday while baking in the 90 degree sunshine, Clyde and I cleaned up the property.  My former personal trainer in Texas would have been proud watching me do the "mango squat" up and down, over and over until I had picked up hundreds of mangos.  With just what I picked up off the ground, I counted over 80 of the sweet, juicy little darlings to add to the pile we already had inside the house.  Not to mention the decayed, half-eaten, rotten ones that I had to pick up and discard.  Clyde spent the morning trimming more hedges and plants.

Nicely trimmed plant

Front-side view of property

Also picked up some cashew fruits carefully twisting off the cashew to save for roasting.  The fruit of the cashew tree or the "marañon" as the locals call it, tastes somewhat like tangy chalk with a stringy consistency.  I peeled and cut up some of the apples and cooked them with sugar and cinnamon like regular apples and it came out ok.  But I really wanted to try roasting the cashew nuts, or shall I say have my dear husband roast them.

Cashew fruit or apples, minus the cashew on top

Roasting raw cashews is quite the ordeal, rather dangerous due to the toxic fumes that are housed inside the shell of the nut.  The toxins can permeate the lungs of the person doing the roasting and also burn their skin, according to what we read on the internet.  The process must be done outdoors while adorned in full protective gear.  Clyde reluctantly suited up and went outside after reading the instructions online.  The first step was to boil the nuts in oil for a few minutes and then remove the shells.  The meat inside the shell just fell apart like mush so we threw out the nuts and gave up on the whole mess for now.

Clyde de-shelling the nuts

I did cut up lots of mangos and added them to onions, tomatoes and jalapenos for some salsa which went great over fish.  Back in Texas we used to buy a small container of ready-made mango salsa for $4.00 in the grocery store.  Clyde cracked open a coconut and shredded some up since he wanted to make a coating for fish.  We dined on the gazebo enjoying the coconut fish with mango salsa accompanied by arepas stuffed with pepper jack cheese.

Coconut fish with mango salsa

Grilled arepas with pepper jack cheese

On Monday we made it back to the gym after about a six week absence.  But with working on the house all day every day, climbing up and down ladders, painting, scraping, cleaning and fixing we had sore muscles constantly.  After the gym workout we spent some time lounging by the pool, something we had missed too.

A slimmed down Venus, who has lots of land to run around on,
although she has taken a liking to all the free fruit

Later that day Clyde ventured into Capira and La Chorrera to close out the accounts for the electric and cable/internet in the rental house.  But unknown to us apparently Monday was the end of a long holiday weekend for the locals.  Traffic was heavy into the city from the beaches, schools were closed and so was the electric company.  And ironically enough the internet was down at the internet and cable company, so they could not close out the account.  Labor Day here is on May 1st and they apparently celebrate on the weekend prior to that date. 

A very cloudy start to this day, but this is the beginning of the rainy season.  Will make an attempt to walk the dog then we're off to the gym.  After that perhaps we'll get a few more things done around the house or we may do nothing at all, because after all this is retirement in Panamá......along the gringo trail.