Our first project, even though this is a rental house, is putting screening material up on the metal gates and doors in this house. At night, we would like to be able to keep the doors open and not lock the house up at 6:30, because the critters and bugs will come in too easily. The screens are temporary, but they will keep out a few bugs here and there. And if a bird or bat tries to fly in, they will get tangled in screening material. Yesterday morning Ray and I left the house for Novey. This is a two story hardware store with appliances (big and small), outdoor furniture and paint, too. It has been called "the mini-Home Depot for gringos in Panama. The screening material we found the other day upstairs with the magnets we need to "secure" the material. We knew that we wanted three pieces of material at seven feet in length. Ray told the salesgirl this in Spanish (she spoke a little English, as well). Terry told us that this store is trying to have at least one employee know English. What we forgot is that Panama uses the metric system. That's right. Duh. Ray quickly goes to the conversion app on his IPhone, and he tells her he needs 2.1 meters. She says she needs an exact number, such as 2 or 3. We decide now to ask for five pieces at three meters, just in case. We also buy magnetic flexible strips. Once downstairs to pay, Ray hands the cashier a $50 bill. Not a $50! Off to her boss she goes to have the bill analyzed, and then she opens up a webpage on her cash register to check the serial number of his $50 bill. She asks for his name and passport number, enters the serial number in, and we will now use $20 bills whenever possible. And since we were there, we also went to El Machetazo for a stapler ($2), looseleaf paper is expensive ($4), tape (.45), and binder for the paper. This will be for our Spanish lesson. Once at the register in this store (down three stories), we realized the purple binder I had picked up after looking at the red didn't have a label on it. Well, the cashier was puzzled. We have found if there isn't a label then the other binder just can't be scanned even if they are alike except for color. We had already run back upstairs for staples for stapler (and it turns out they come full), so we told her not to bother, and we would come back another time for my purple binder.
Back at the house, we changed into our gym clothes. Time to pick up Terry and get some cardio exercising in. We arrive with the gate being opened, park our car, meet a woman who lives at the resort and is a friend of Clyde and Terry's, and we find the gym door locked. We find Giovanni, the groundskeeper, to unlock the door, and we are told the power is out. Guess we won't be walking on that treadmill or using the eliptical or having air conditioning. We open all the huge windows that we can, and the three of us sweat it out on the weight machines. A good workout nevertheless, we drop Terry off, and Ray and I drive to Jasmine's house to get our bearings straight on where she lives near Cholos (a Mexican restaurant we want to try and is right up the road from our house). Ray puts his left turn signal on to go down this tiny, one lane, dirt road, and when he starts his turn, a green car literally comes out of nowhere. The road we were on was pretty straight, but where did this guy come from, and he must have been flying! All four of his tires burn rubber, and he spins horizontally in front of us. We do not collide, but...wow! All looks fine with his car, but the driver (there is a passenger also) does get out to check the tire on the passenger side (caught the edge of the road), and his car stalled. Our hearts are now out of our chests, and we are thinking the worst. The driver waves us on, and off we go. Too close! Thinking back, he probably had a good time burning rubber and spinning his car like that, because the passenger was smiling when they came to a stop. After finding Jasmine's house, we pick up Ray's PSA blood test, all is normal, and we scan that to Priscilla for our health insurance. Can we take a shower now, please?
Spanish lessons at Jasmine's is very relaxed and enlightening. We sit outside on her front porch, and she starts introducing us to major phrases we are going to use here on a daily basis, and those we have already heard for the most part. We were with her for ninety minutes, because then we started chatting about the area and the changes taking place. She will also keep her ears open for us on rental properties. We then enjoyed another marvelous meal and relaxing chatter with Clyde and Terry. Clyde was at the grill preparing chicken fajitas, TexMex rice, refried beans, and afterwards, they had made mango ice cream. Four hours later, with a chill in the area and cool breezes to boot (!), we headed back to Casa 40.
Which brings us to this morning. We decided to start early on the screening of the doors. We were successful enveloping the front door gates and the side sliding glass door. It's not perfect, but it will help. Our daughter was on her way to Stafford, VA for an appointment, and the poor thing was caught up in a mess of traffic. She allowed two hours to get there, and it wasn't looking good. We Imessaged that we would all be around and available for a chat, and we talked for thirty plus minutes. I wonder if she made that appointment. It was for a long overdue haircut, she was hoping to catch up with her friend (the stylist), so here's hoping they were able to still squeeze her in, because she tried so hard to get there. (She just sent a message that she was able to be seen. All is good.) Once we hooked up with Clyde and Terry that we were all willing and able to go back to that place that's good for us called the gym, we hopped in the car with the two of us already being sweaty messes. Terry now knows that I will always reply back to her when she shows me something new or what might be a little bit tougher, "too advanced". And she knows that I curse at the machines a lot. She has many years of weight training under her belt, so I will look and listen, and perhaps try out some of those "advanced" techniques...someday. However, we did get in over an hour with cardio and the weights, we accomplished getting a FOB for the gate (remote), and there was electricity. Life is good.
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| Front door all enveloped in |
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| Sliding glass side door/not to be used for six month |
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| Our back door |
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| This is my view when on treadmill (when dolphins spewing, power is on) |
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| The gym (it also has weights, balls, and mats) |
Back to Novey we go for ONE MORE PIECE of screen and ONE MORE PACK of magnets. We ended up buying all three packs of magnets remaining, and we were only charged for one pack (even though we saw the cashier scan each set). We told Gus what we were up to, and he thought we had screens (his house does not). He told us we could come over onto his patio and practice Spanish with him and his wife anytime. No hay problema. The screens are done. We truly have spruced the place up. hahaha The screens may not be professional, but they make us feel right at home like we are in Bumpass, VA with the screened in porch (albeit many areas have had some repairs here and there). And tonight after we come home from dinner (trying out Cholos), we can try these babies out!
And finally, back to the car. We did get an email that since tomorrow is a holiday in the city (Old Founders Day of Panama which means everyone will come in to the interior to go to the beaches and use their vacation homes), we will meet the car owner's attorney on Monday morning. We have to go to the Notary office, and then she will go downtown to pick up the title. We will then take ownership of the car. Hip Hip Hooray. And Ray booked us into a hotel where we are meeting her for Sunday night, so we won't have to fight traffic Monday morning. We tried using our Jubilado Discount, but our Marriott rate was much better. The rate is too low to bother with points this time. Before this big day, we are going to El Valle for the Golden Frog Festival. El Valle (
http://www.el-valle-panama.com) was once a crater lake and is now a town situated high in the mountains and on the floor of the largest inhabited volcano crater. We are packing coolers, and bringing our bathing suits in hopes of also exploring waterfalls (if the festival becomes too overwhelming for our tranquilo state!). Clyde and Terry's blog is titled "along the gringo trail", so Ray and I have decided we will go along with them on their trail and get into shenanigans with them in our retirement. (I think they know this!)
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| Punta Chame Resort pool |
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