Why, oh why, the doily?

Since arriving here, I've seen Esso gas stations everywhere, which always remind me of Elizabeth Bishop's poem "Filling Station." You may be aware, we don't have Esso in the U.S. anymore, because the company's known by the name "ExxonMobil" thereabouts. I like that the gas stations here make me think of poems, and I like this poem because I think the world needs more doilies (no really, I do). Have you every tried to put a doily on a flat-screen TV? It's an exercise in futility.

Filling Station
by Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO

to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

The Tiniest Lizard in the World

I was sitting on the balcony reading today (as is my wont) and this little guy ran out from under my chair. I can't believe I was able to get my camera before he ran over the edge of the balcony and out of my life forever. Come to think of it, I can't believe I saw him at all: he was only about an inch long. You have to run pretty fast when you're snack-size.

Going the Distance II

Oddly, all of the books in this book review post are about beaches/warm tropical locations, and/or they are about journeys that are more often than not difficult and life-changing. Funny, that was totally unintentional.

I actually also read two graphic novels that I would kind of like to review, but I'm either going to let them go or save them for later. I'm not going to put them in here because it's just nuts to review more than five books at once. And anyway, they don't fit in with this miraculously developed theme.

Here are the contenders, in reverse chronological order that I read them.

Sag Harbor
By Colson Whitehead

"There are natural laws. The Third Law of Thermodynamics says that as temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant. Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion holds that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The entity on my head was proof of another fundamental law: a fucked-up Afro tends towards complete fuckedupedness at an exponetial rate over time, as expressed by the equation,

AN=F * t

where AN is Absolute Nappiness, F is fuckedupedness, and t is time."

Sag Harbor is the story of 15 year-old Benji, a kid from a "Cosby Family" who lives in New York city during the year, but spends his summers in Sag Harbor, a legacy of the black community there. The story is set in the 1980's--and watching what happens when the 80's hip hop, new wave and preppy scenes all collide in one teenager is, oh my god I'm going to say it, delightful.
I bought the book because after reading about it nerd blogs for a few months, I had heard Colson Whitehead read and demonstrate his insult chart (a real crowd pleaser) and I knew the book was funny. What I didn't yet know was that the book is also incredibly intelligent (not just witty intelligent but like, see-this-world? intelligent), poetic, heartbreaking, and let's face it, I'm white: informative about parts of black culture I just didn't know about. It almost sparkles.

I would recommend this book to: Tim and Elsa, and anyone with a sense of humor and love of pop culture and a good metaphor.

Robinson Crusoe
By Daniel DeFoe

Right. So. I bought this book because it's Robinson friggin' Crusoe, the "first novel in English." I finally picked it up to read it because LOST was over and I felt lonely for castaways. Did you know that Robinson lands on his Island of Despair on the 30th of September and Flight 815 crashed on the 22nd of September? Anyhoo.

You already know that Robinson Crusoe is about a guy who shipwrecks on an island and befriends a cannibal named Friday, etc. But did you know that Robinson shipwrecks because he's a selfish, godless heathen? That before shipwrecking, he takes a turn as a Turkish slave? And that he owns a plantation in Brazil? That Friday doesn't appear until 30 years into the book?

Robinson Crusoe is a surprising book. The narrative arc is really nothing like what you might expect--it's much fuller (though I really could have done without the 20 pages of the book before the last 20 pages of the book, good lord). But what is most surprising is Robinson's character, the way he treats other people, the way he looks at the world, the way he thinks about religion--for someone who spends all of his time thinking, he's so... unthinking. But I think it's sort of great that he's such a doof... he's like Jack, he's a man of science (or money) who becomes a man of faith. But he's still an idiot.

I would recommend this book to: someone with a pool who doesn't mind reading about lots of animals getting killed.

The Time Traveler's Wife
By Audrey Niffenegger

I have a general rule which I call "The Metro Threshold". Once I see more than 25 people reading a book on the metro, I generally refuse to read it unless I read something extremely convincing about the book or someone intelligent recommends it to me. The Time Traveler's Wife met the The Metro Threshold, THEN crossed the Rachel McAdams Threshold in utter no-man's land. BUT: then Omnivoracious shockingly stated that rather than being fluff, this was science fiction (oh noes!) and then Amber wailed, "read it now! What is wrong with you!" When Amber said that after she put it down she suffered from separation anxiety, that was a fairly convincing argument.

Oh, you want to know what it's about? It's about a man who has a chromosomal disorder that causes him to time-travel uncontrollably, and unpredictably. He can't take anything with him that is not part of his body, including clothes, the food in his stomach, or the fillings in his teeth. Or his wife. Though it's advertised as a romance, this book is full of difficulty and violence. Tearing, is a good word. And Niffenegger is like a crow, scavenging little bits and pieces from other literature (she is a creative writing professor, after all) so the book itself is like some sort of time traveling artifact.

I would recommend this book to: Kacie, the end is good, I promise.

Brother, I'm Dying
By Edwidge Danticat

Two seemingly unrelated events occur within months: Haiti is reduced to rubble by an earthquake and Arizona passes immigration law sb-1070. For Haitians seeking asylum in the US either from Acts of God or for political reasons, a law that passes in one state is symptomatic of an issue that has spread throughout the entire country. Danticat, who is more commonly a fiction writer, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for this memoir, published before these events in 2007. This is one of, if not the best book I have read so far this year.

It's the story of Edwidge's two "fathers," her Uncle Joseph in Haiti and her father who immigrates to United States. Growing up with both remarkable men, she is able to tell the story of both Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. Danticat is an unbelievably talented story-teller. I dare you not to fall in love with these people.

I don't want to scare you away from the book by telling you I think it's important. Maybe it will help if I say that only the end is important, and the rest is merely excellent.

I would recommend this book to: everyone. Literally. I'm on a soapbox here.
A Handbook to Luck
By Christina Garcia

Multiple lives intertwine, people are connected in unforeseeable ways. Stage magic (that old chestnut again!), birds, drowning, home. A Handbook to Luck is one of those delicious short-ish novels where that follow four main characters whose lives are seperate but they grow together like vines, and where all of the symbolism is juicy and ripe and apparent, but not so easy that you hate it for sitting right in your face. The cast are Iranian, Cuban, El Salvadorian, Panamanian, and Korean... and they come together on American soil in a way that is classically and perfectly American: with sweat and grit and determination (and runaway monkeys). I love it.

Most readers are familiar with Garcia's first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, but I actually think this one was much better.

I would recommend this book to: my dad, or anyone who needs summer reading that's sexy but not smutty.

Going the Distance

It's gray and overcast today and the temperature is such that one could almost use the word... "cool." (what?) Yesterday Tim and I tried to hang my amazing new hammock on the balcony and failed mightily (unless you're ok with sitting in the hammock, on the floor). And I forgot to take my "waterproof" watch off for 3 minutes in the ocean yesterday and it's gone kaput.

Still and all, if these are my worst problems, I'm not doing all that bad in the grand scale of things, eh?
Even though we don't have a car here, we've still had the opportunity to see huge portions of the country (which has 3 million people, btw, or about 2 million fewer people than the DC metro area. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.) One of Tim's coworkers, Rodrigo, likes to take us on driving tours that we've started referring to as "Rodrigo Trips" which you can see on the not-terribly-high-quality map above.

Tim went on one before I get here (the blue line on the map), which I can't presume to tell you anything about so I won't. Although I guess I could make something up (they went kayaking! with muppets! and ate caviar off of the Hope Diamond!). The first one I went on was Memorial Day and we drove from Panamá city to Colon. I will try to state how amazing this really is as briefly as I can:

We drove from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean and back again, in one day.

Let's also just add that we were driving from south to north, not east to west or vice versa. Helloooo? I am from America, westward expansion, anyone? Oregon trail? No? Well let's just drive on over from one ocean to the other, no biggie. They literally have a race here every year where people just run from one side the other. That is ridiculous. Do you know how long it took Forest Gump to get from one side to the other in the United States? He grew a full beard.

What amazes me the most is how not amazing it was. We got in the car, we drove to Colon, Rodrigo said, "this place used to be really beautiful." --as in "and now it's kinda dangerous." He got out of the car to get some empanadas and said "Don't let anyone in the car while I'm gone" (OMG, I HADN'T PLANNED ON IT.). Then we went and took one picture by the ocean and turned around and left. Wham bam thank you ma'am.

Our trip wasn't that unsatisfying though--we also drove to Portobelo, which is where Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery (Claim. To. Fame. Y'all!). It was a major port for the Spanish and for PIRATES! and there are still ruins of the 17th and 18th century forts and lots of canons that you can play on and pretend you're battling with PIRATES! In particular, Henry Morgan, of Captain Morgan's fame. There's also a church with a Black Christ and the Aduana, or old customs house from when the city was the center of trade and PIRATES!

Our second Rodrigo Trip was much longer (the green line on the map), but was mostly just a drive through the mountains near Pananomé. He likes to show us places so that we can go back later on our own. E.g. he showed us how to get to Santa Clara beach, which we went to again this weekend (it rained on us), and he took us to the salt flats at Aguadulce, where there is a restaurant where I discovered my favorite Panamanian food so far: Patacones rellenos de camarones, or shrimp-stuffed fried plantains. I didn't get a picture because we ate them so fast, but I did get a picture of the ceviche.

He also took us to the pineapple plantation belonging to his parents in-law. I enjoy doing things like this: meeting people I would never otherwise get to meet, seeing how different the way they live their lives is from the way I live mine; I wish there was someway to show them the hospitality they showed us. Rodrigo's father in-law reminded me so much of my Grandpa Smitty. And his mother in-law, just like my grandma Helen, talked to me about her flowers and wouldn't let me leave without taking a bunch of food. Even though they spoke Spanish I could tell they had this crazy sense of humor--just like my own grandparents. It's funny how people can be so different and so similar.

Well and then there are the pineapples. We took home more pineapples than I've ever had to deal with in my life. And plantains and Yuca too. I feel like people are always handing me native fruits and vegetables in this country. I have more mangoes than I could ever eat.

Mountaintop Graveyard in Pananomé. Lovely, no?

I can has three nutz dreams

"Oh, there's some nutty taste. But I'm pretty sure there are no nuts in this." -Tim

Adventures in Foreign Cooking

The word of the day is: YUCA.

Which, by the way, is not the same as "yucca", which is a cactus we have in the U.S., and which we generally don't eat unless, I guess, we're trapped in the desert, dying and in desperate need of sustenance. And even then I feel like I'd think really hard about it.

Yuca (pronounced YOO-ka), or cassava as it's known in the U.S. and other parts of the Caribbean, is a staple of Panamanian cooking. It's a tuber, that is cooked similarly to potatoes and used in all sorts of dishes, particularly the soup called sancocho.

Last week, I obtained two giant yuca roots (in a manner which I will tell you about in my next post). They are the two giant root-looking objects in the picture (go figure). Not surprisingly, I have no idea how to cook these things. Thankfully, a kind gentleman with a machete showed me how to peel the dang things, so that got me started. From there I just had to decide what to make out of ten pounds of peeled yuca.

This is sort of a commitment because after spending 30 minutes peeling the cursed beasts, I really didn't want to waste it. I decided to stick with something I was relatively familiar with:

¡¡YUCA FRIES!!

Step one: peel both the brown and the pink outer membrane off of the yuca--place any yuca you're not going to use immediately into cold water or in a ziplock bag and into the freezer. Wash it pretty well.

Step Two: Slice the yuca into 2"x .5" slices and boil in salted water for 15-20 until the fries can pierced with a fork. Do not boil them too long! They will completely fall apart. But they definitely need to be boiled, so don't skip this step even though I skipped taking a picture of it. (It wasn't that cool looking, sorry.)

Step three: drain the boiled yuca slices and let them dry. I put mine in the fridge for a few hours.

Step four: heat oil in deep pot or deep-fryer, enough to cover one layer of fries completely. When the oil is hot you can begin cooking the fries until they're golden brown. As with any deep frying, don't heat the oil too hot or over-load it or be crazy. This is coming from someone who likes to catch things on fire. Seriously. Be careful, People.

Step five (THE GOOD PART): remove fries from hot oil and sprinkle them with the following:

• 2 parts salt
• 1 part paprika
• 1 part fresh ground black pepper

If I had had cumin, I probably would have used it. But I didn't. So.... bully.

Then dip them in this amazing aioli:

• 1/4 mayonnaise
  
• Juice of 1 lime (less if you don't like things too lime-y)
  
• dash of salt (I can't help it)
• couple of healthy dashes of cayenne pepper
• 2-3 finely chopped garlic cloves

Mix ingredients and refrigerate while you're frying the yuca fries.

Then watch them disappear. Yuca has a sweeter taste than potatoes and is really pretty delicious despite it's pain-in-the-butt factor. I'll admit I'm pretty proud of myself for cooking something that fancy-schmancy DC restaurants sell for way-to-much-money, but that just grows in the ground here like it ain't no thang. They totally sell yuca in a grocery store near you in that section of stuff you sometimes look at and say "what is this stuff and who eats it?"

You, my friend. You could totally be the person who eats it.
Sorry this picture is poor quality. I was hungry and is was noshing time.

Get this party bus on the road...

Do me a favor, please. Do a Google search for "Chiva Parrandera." I'll wait.

Ok. Now kindly forget most of what you saw (except for the pictures of the buses).

Last weekend, Tim's co-worker, Gilberto, invited us to join him, his sister and his girlfriend on a Chiva. In Gilberto's words: "What is a chiva? They are a school bus without seats, painted with crazy things and loud music." My first reaction to this fairly accurate (but oh-so-overly-simple) description was:

This terrifies me.


However, after sending our non-refundable check and reaching the point of no return, I was committed to going and not embarrassing Tim in front of his new friends by acting like a pilon.

I should begin by explaining that things here happen on "Panama Time" (which I think holds true throughout Central and South America, and really, parts of the Deep South), that is to say, when--for example-- a Chiva is supposed to happen from 9:30 until 12:00, what that really means is that people will begin to arrive around 10ish, and you will arrive home somewhere in the vicinity of 3. I think, perhaps, if one's appendix had burst, this would be an issue. But generally, once I train myself to kind of get over it, I really prefer this approach to time. It certainly seems to make sense in relation to the way the sun and the rain come and go on a whim.

We arrived at Zona Viva, an enclosed strip of bars and clubs with ridiculous American names that sound like something out of an SNL Stefon sketch and found probably ten different Chivas waiting around the giant parking lot where we met up with our group. The buses range in quality from "used Bluebird school bus" (normal) to "Aerosmith tour bus" (ultra plush). Ours hadn't arrived by the time we got there (about 10:15, aka 45 minutes "late"), so we assembled and got our t-shirts.
T-shirts are a key part of the native Panamanian Chiva--as far as I can tell, tourists just dress tropical-y. You chose your color when you sign up, and every Chiva has a different design. Girls immediately set to work dismantling their shirts with scissors (Lorena immediate whipped a pair out of purse--handy in case of muggings too I guess) and re-creating them in ways that are more appealing (and cooler, temperature-wise) than a regular t-shirt. Guys go hide behind cars and self-consciously change. After this transformation, we entered the Zona Viva to get stamped which would allow us into the clubs when the Chiva returned--girls in one very swift-moving line, guys in another molasses-like one. Thennnnn, we wandered around for a while because we had no idea where our Chiva actually was.

Sweet lord, when it arrived? First I should explain that this and most "real" Panamanian Chivas, unlike the tourist ones, are set up for special occasions among groups of friends. Though they were strangers to us, were weren't really boarding the bus with a group of strangers, but for the birthday of a friend of a friend of a friend named Eliecer. So this bus was a very special bus for his birthday--not an Aerosmith bus, perhaps, but certainly no Bluebird either. Our first clues that the bus was awesome? The bus had four televisions on the outside, and steam on the windows. Steam on the windows means A/C on the inside, which is a good, good thing.
Inside the bus we find red lounge style seats in the front, dangling ropes to hold on to while the bus moves, a giant TV in the back, huge booming speakers (though sometimes there are live bands), two poles (classy!), and an open bar (which doesn't serve beer because, Compadres, there is only one bathroom stop on this trip). My first apprehension with this little adventure went something like "OMG, people stand up and drink on a moving vehicle in Panamanian traffic in the middle of the night? How are thousands of people not killed on these death traps?" Well, I'm an idiot. The buses travel at approximately 5mph and everyone in Panama knows what they are and avoids them on the roads. When the bartender ran out of coke, we just pulled over and someone ran inside and got more. It's a pretty fabulous system really.
Half way through the trip we stopped at a family-style Italian restaurant so everyone could use the restroom and get some fresh air. Another Chiva, with another group of people in their own matching outfits, stopped right in front of us, so it's clear that the restaurant must have some sort of Chiva-friendly kickback. Why else would they let a lot of drunk 20-somethings pee in their restaurant at 1 a.m., I ask you?
By the time the floor of the bus was completely sticky with spilled seco, and I thought I could not possibly sweat anymore, we pulled up to Zona Viva and disembarked. We spent a few more hours dancing at a club called "Chill Out" and praying for a breeze, until Gilberto's amazing parents picked us up and brought us all back to the apartment (where we discussed the concept of 4th meal and the injustice of Taco Bell--which delivers here--closing at 3:00 a.m.).

All in all, I'm still kind of in shock that something this ridiculous exists (I sincerely, sincerely apologize for not providing you with a picture of the outside of the bus), but I'm so glad it does. It's too glorious and ridiculous not to.

Memorial Day Menu

• Amazing Guests
• Gorgeous weather
• A glittering pool
• Hamburgers (2lbs lean-but-not-too-lean beef, fresh ground pepper, salt, three cloves garlic, Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 cup Parmesan, 1/4 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg--sort of like giant meats balls--I DROPPED TWO OF THEM ON THE FLOOR, UGH.)
• Hotdogs (BEWARE: Panamanian hotdogs are wrapped in plastic; you can't tell. WHY?)
• Corn on the Cob (which Panamanians don't usually eat and think is a little weird)
• Sour Slaw (Made with cabbage)
• Pineapple soaked in Rum (rrrrrumyumyumyum)
• Cheesecake
• Beer (Particularly Balboa, one of Panama's many native beers. BTW, when our guests drank Corona they drank it with a lime, in glasses rimmed with salt, like a margarita... GENIUS.)

This year, I developed something of a new philosophy on Memorial Day. My Grandpa Smitty was definitely in my thoughts, which he often is, as were our other service men and women. But I also thought about how important it is connect with people from other countries and cultures on a human level, and to, I guess, remember the people we're not at war with. And what we can do to stay that way so that no one ever has to be injured or die for our country again.

Tim and I didn't invite our guests--Gilberto, Angelica, Lorena and Kerube--here this weekend to make a statement, of course. We invited them here because we like them; they've been so welcoming to Tim since he got here and we wanted them to be able to come over and see how Americans spend their summer holidays. (If you think about it, we spend every summer holiday pretty much the same: EATING PICNIC FOOD. It's wonderful!) It just turns out that I happen to think that Memorial Day is a particularly nice time to make friends with your neighbors out in the world. I wish I had the opportunity to do it more often.
Yes, this is what the actual sunset looked like that day. Can you believe it?