Buckets of Drag

It's my last day in Panama.

Two days before I left DC to come here, I called Kacie and asked, "Is this the worst idea ever?" Because when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Should I really be taking off for paradise instead of sticking around in DC, getting a paying job, and not spending money on plane tickets all over the damn place?

And Kacie basically said, "WHAT, ARE YOU CRAZY?"

Which is why is I keep her around.

Coming to Panama has been life-reboot and DC-detox in the extreme. In case anyone has forgotten or wasn't paying attention: I hate DC. But living here reminded me that, yes, I am capable of liking where I live, and that where you live actually does kind of matter. That yes, I have creative impulses, and no, I don't need to buy things all day long to feel good about my life. These are things I always know in my brain, but that get drown out by noise and politics. Noise and politics. Noise and politics. Noise and politics.

Under normal circumstances, I would be so excited about the next three weeks. I get two weeks in Colorado--a rare event these days--and then: PERU, which has been a life-long dream. And it seems like we're checkin' it off like it ain't no thang. It is un.be.liev.able.

But I know that DC is waiting for me when it's over. Which is buckets of drag.

I've been really happy in Panama, living simply (I use a coffee mug for a measuring cup! I've gotten three pieces of mail in two whole months and they were from real humans!), and I re-learned that it doesn't take a lot to make me happy, but it doesn't take much to make me miserable either.

I'm just terrible at goodbyes.

Paradise/Lost

Knowing that it was my last weekend in Panama, Tim and I wanted to do something unique and unmissable and which we would regret not doing. So we settled on going to the San Blas islands, in Kuna Yala, a comarca controlled by Kuna indians in the north east of Panama. Tim arranged everything, while I sat by the pool and read The Grapes of Wrath. As I may or may not have already mentioned, I've taken to letting (forcing?) Tim plan our weekend trips because it's a particular skill of his.

Cannot pick up socks/Can locate excellent bed and breakfast in rural Virginia. Who knew?

But this time, I started to doubt his decision making skills before we even left the apartment.

1. The day before we left he forwarded me an email from our hired driver, and commented simply: "Does this inspire confidence?" This is coming from a person who would buy a cookie from a crackhead if it looked like it was chocolate chip.
2. We heard numerous horror stories about the road (singular) to San Blas. It's muddy. It washes out. In order to get there, you have to have a jeep. A hum-vee. A tank. A submarine. You could fly there, but if you did, you might end up waiting four or more hours on the mosquito-infested airstrip for you return flight to pick you up.
3. San Blas is directly adjacent to the Darien, where we have been expressly forbidden by the Embassy to go because that is where the FARC hang out in Panama and they have been known to kidnap diplomats and give them Cheerios laced with cocaine. Ok, I made the last part up--what they do is actually much worse and I'm sure they neither have access to Cheerios nor waste their cocaine on their hostages.

But the thing is, we really wanted to go. When Tim says something is amazing, I have a tendency to believe him. I mean, he thinks I'm amazing.

So Friday arrived and with it, our driver. Here is something fun: Kunas speak Kuna. We speak English. The language we all try to speak to meet in the middle is Spanish. Kind of.

The drive from Panama City to San Blas is essentially this: 1 hour of highway, then stop to change drivers ("Buenas, me llamo Felix. Somethingsomethingsomethingsomething.") and pick up some boxes, and then one and a half straight hours on road like a roller coaster, then drive through the river, then drive up the air strip, yes, up the airstrip, and voila: you have no cell service so I hope you can find your boat driver.

Oh, I left out an import part. It's important to, as they say, grease the wheels. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Give out a little bakseesh. There are a few passport checks on the way to Kuna Yala, so be sure to have some puppies on hand. What Tim and I thought was a box of beer, we soon found out was actually a box of very quiet, but very adorable puppies, which our driver was handing out to his friends along the way (he makes that drive multiple times a day, every day, so he knows people). We got to pet only one because neither of us knows how to say "pretty pleeeeease OMG I wanna hold the tiny puppy now" in Spanish, but it soooo filled up the heart meter after that gut wrenching car ride.
Puppy goes back in the box; we go over the river. In the car.

On the other side is the air strip, and the dock where the boat would presumably pick us up for the hour+ trip to Kuanidup (kwah-nee-DOOP). We assumed that our driver would tell us what to do next, or that perhaps our boat would be waiting for us, but uh... this is the part where I got very, very cranky. My doubts were rapidly multiplying and I weighed the practicality of taking out a restraining order against Tim, who was obviously trying to get me killed by bringing me here but...

[lots of difficulty and complaining omitted]

Look! We're on a boat! Called the Kuanidup Betty! It's so friggin' beautiful! Tim is a GENIUS!

There's just something about sitting there with your face in the wind that makes you forget anything that might have been plaguing you/trying to get you murdered. Close your eyes and it's the perfect feeling... until you open them and there is an island squatting under a protective turtle shell cloud, blue on blue on blue. Ugh, it's so amazing it nearly gives you a heart attack.

After an hour of passing little islands with palm trees and huts, daydreaming about Robinson Crusoe and LOST and The Little Mermaid, and wondering if each island was the one we would be spending the next three days on, we finally zeroed on Kuanidup. The island is no bigger than a football field, with about ten huts for guests, one hut with three bathrooms and showers, one for meals, one for buying beer and other necessities, and a few for the 10 or so permanent residents of the island.

As we docked, people laying on the sand or playing in the water waved (!) and a boy came up and grabbed our bags.

And then we were left to do whatever we wanted. On an island that looks like this. For three whole days. It boggles the mind.

Mind. Boggled.

Included in this trip were excursions and meals, which seemed almost secondary to me, as I am someone who is very enthusiastic about hammocks and sand. I am aware that one can, but probably should not eat either hammocks or sand, but that doesn't stop me from thinking those were the two most important part of the trip.
This right here? This might be the happiest I could possibly be.

I should at least mention the exursions, though, because they were both nearly outside the scope of my imagination AND they're much more interesting than just talking about how I want to lay in a hammock full time, for my job, no benefits required, daiquiris would be nice, let me know where to send my resume.

This is the nearest island visible from Kuanidup, inhabited only by birds and bad juju (probably not really). Tim created his own excursion by swimming there and checking things out. I, however, only made it half way before the depth of the ocean and the sound of my breathing in the snorkle (AKA: snerkle), made me feel like I was surrounded by just too goddamn much water. There is a great chance that if we'd had more people with us, or I hadn't been using the snerkle, I actually would have felt much more robust, but instead I turned around and laid on the sand wishing I had gills. And a harpoon.

In the afternoon, we went with a group to one of the bigger Kuna villages. I have to state for the record that the reason there are no more than two pictures is that the Kuna are very enterprising and have realized that white people will pay for anything. So if you take out your camera, they say "One dollar." I don't have that many dollars.

Really, I don't blame them. They've done a pretty incredible job of preserving their culture, which means balancing openness with a touch of reserve. People are going to come, you might as well let them in. Better to let them in on your terms.

Fun facts: the Kuna are the shortest people in the world besides the pygmies. Which explains Tim's posture in this picture. And why little kids thought he was hilarious. But then, I think he's hilarious and it has nothing to do with his height.

Almost every structure in the village, in every village we saw, was constructed similarly to the one in this picture, though many were much larger, and occasionally some were made from concrete. In general, women dress traditionally, while men dress in western clothing. And on the day we arrived, they were having a celebration called chicha inna, which is a coming of age ceremony apparently for young girls, though you wouldn't have guessed that because it was mostly men smoking and drinking chicha. Ask someone in Panama what chicha is and you will get 100 different answers, but that day it was coffee, sugar cane juice, and sugar which had been fermented in large earthenware jars. Sort of like Buzz Beer, only not fictional and way coffee-er.

We were also able to buy freshly-baked coconut bread, 10 little loaves for 50 cents. 'Nuff said.

Our last excursion was to Isla Perro, Dog Island, and we departed immediately after our camera died. so please take the following picture and multiply it by shipwreck.

Got that? Snerkling x Shipwreck - Underwater Camera = Sorry Folks You Just Have to Take My Word For It.

We never heard the story of how the ship got there, but once you're under water, and you can hear the fish crunching the coral (I guess that's what that crazy sound is?), you really of don't care where the ship came from, you're kind of just totally glad it sank. The ship was only about 20 yards of the shore of Isla Perro, which, like Kuanidup had a beautiful, clear, waveless, white sand beach. The rusted rear of the ship, which must have been some kind of cargo ship, poked up out of the water, while the body stretched another 30 yards back, visible below the surface.

Though the ocean floor was mostly an empty expanse of white sand, with a few clumps of brain coral here and there, the ship was a big, blooming cluster of coral and fish in every color. How can I thank Tim enough for taking me there? How can I do it so his ego doesn't get all inflated?


This says everything about this trip, and about my time in Panama in general: my one goal, the whole time we were on Kuanidup, was to find a conch. And on the last morning that we were there, I walked out in the ocean, and there under the water, I found one.

It's a very simple and unsophisticated goal. It has everything to do with pleasure and nothing to do with "real life." But it made me incredibly happy, and I'm very lucky.

A little chain of daysies

I have one week left here in Panama. Just one week. Just one week. Just one week. Just one. One.

On one hand this is good because it means I'm going to Colorado and I get to see my whole family and meet my mom's new dog, and continue to put off reality. On the other hand this is bad because I eventually must return to said reality (thank you for reminding me so often, Georgetown).

As Kacie so astutely pointed out, I have two months worth of mail that Alsn has been politely picking up off my floor. I should open it. But really, my fireplace is so convenient.

This weekend Tim and I tried to fit in the last few things around Panama City that we didn't want to miss out on: a couple of museums, some time in the pool (he never gets to use it), a trip to Taco Bell (no, that's not a joke), a fish fry, and on Saturday a few Panamanian friends came over because they wanted to try my chili (and a greek salad and chocolate chip cookies...mmmmm).

The best part of the weekend may have been that we actually finally found the only bookstore in Panama.

Let me back up a little bit.

Panama has the biggest mall I have ever seen in my life. No, it's not bigger than Mall of America, or that crazy mall in Dubai, but it's huge, and you can buy just about anything you can imagine there (Refrigerators? Bowling balls? Cartier? Churros?) HOWEVER. There are only two "booooookstores." We will not call them bookstores. The first is called "El Hombre de la Mancha" (cute, right?), but the selection is bad, bad, bad (2006 NFL guide? why?) and half the tiny store is occupied by a cafe... in a mall with approximately 12 McDonalds. The other is a Christian book store, which Tim called "the propaganda store" and we won't discuss here any further.

But then, GLORY BE. We discovered a place called Exedra Books in downtown Panama City. The selection of English books is more "Airport Borders" than "Library of Congress" but really, it's a Spanish-speaking country, so that's totally ok. I was just glad to find a real bookstore, with... atmosphere. And, uh, books.

Don't people here read? How can there only be one legit bookstore in the whole country?

I believe we spent something like 3 hours there. But I have to say that three hours in two months is a new record for least-time-spent-in-a-bookstore for me.

I'm a schmuck and I still don't speak Spanish, so I got The Lost City of Z and Pudd'nhead Wilson, and Tim got a play called "De Barbados a Panama" written by a local woman (in Spanish and English), about her grandparents coming to Panama to work on the Canal. Because what I really needed to do was support the Panamanian economy, and put some more weight in my suitcase.

Later in the weekend, we went to Casco Viejo (this is a picture of the metropolitan cathedral) one last time and then to the Fish Market (El Marcado del Mariscos), of Anthony Bourdain fame. The only thing is, ehhhh, I love fish but I don't like to have to cook it myself, and I'm not a celebrity (*cough*cough*), so it's not really the same. I bought a pound of shrimp (ignoring the horrors that come from peeling and deveining the bastards later), and a half a pound of what I can only describe as "mini-lobsters." They weren't crawfish. They weren't lobsters. They weren't those weird langostino things... but the were delish over pasta with white wine sauce.

Weekend accomplished.

N.B. You may have noticed that I redecorated. I like it. I hope it's not hard to read, or somehow insulting to your refined sensitivities. The only problem I can see is that, before, yellow was my favorite color for, um, vociferating, and that color is totally illegible in the new design. So I've got to go through my old posts and fix the text color because it's not automatic.

I haven't decided what my new favorite shouty color will be. I wish I could always shout in color.

Panama Breakfast

I think the official name for this recipe would have to be something like, "Arepas con queso y frijoles negros." But Tim and I just call them "arepas" in the way that you would call pancakes "pancakes" no matter what you put on them.

There are 2 disclaimers for this recipe:

1. I made it up. It's not based on anything Panamanians eat. In fact, I fed it to Panamanians and they were like, "this is weird, but good; who taught you this?"
2. Arepas are thick Colombian tortillas, which are available in grocery stores here and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully can be found back home too. If not, there are a number of homemade-arepa recipes online, but that sort of defeats the purpose of how convenient this recipe is for breakfast.

This is going to be a Pioneer Woman-style post, but probably without her heaps of charm.

Here's what you need. Chili powder, Oaxaca cheese, black beans, arepas, a lime, garlic cloves, and butter, salt and cumin, which are not pictured.

Get the black beans cooking first. They don't take long to heat up, but the longer they sit, they better they taste. Smash about three cloves of garlic and peel the skin off, but don't dice them up. This imparts the flavor into the beans without overpowering everything. This is breakfast we're talking about here.

Dump the can of beans, liquid and all, into a small pot and add a dash each of cumin, paprika, chili powder and salt, as well as the smashed garlic. Set this to cook over medium low heat. These also make a good side dish, or a good taco-topping, or they go really well over rice. To quote PDubs, "the possibilities are endless!"

Anyway.

While the beans are cooking, slice enough cheese for however many arepas you are making. This should be enough to coat each one in a single layer. A vegetable peeler is perfect for this job because it allows you to slice the cheese thinly and uniformly. You really don't want thick or grated cheese for this.

BTW: you should be able to find Oaxaca cheese, which is a very mild white cheese, in your grocery store. If you can't, block (as opposed to "fresh") mozzarella is similar.

Once you have enough cheese, heat your non-stick skillet (or wok, in my case), to medium and throw in The Magic Maker, er, a tablespoon of butter. While that melts, microwave the arepa for 30 seconds. This is key for softening it up a little.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum.

Fry the arepa briefly on both sides, adding more butter to the skillet if necessary (you know it's always necessary).
When the arepa is done, flip it onto the serving plate hot-side-up. This helps the cheese get nice and melty-tastic. Lay the cheese in a single layer over the entire surface of the hot arepa.

By this point the beans should be delicious and bubbly. Using a slotted spoon, or draining the liquid against the side of the pan, spoon the beans over the top of the cheese. Here is where the joy and the mystery collide and things start to melt together in a perfect marriage of "amazing."

Too much? Sorry.

But wait! It's not done without the secret ingredients. Squeeze a fresh lime over the top, being sensitive to the citrus addictions or aversions of your guests. I'm a half-a-lime kind of a girl, but Tim prefers the "distant acquaintances" lime/arepa relationship.

THEN--and don't forget this! Sprinkle cayenne pepper over the top, and salt over the top of that. The chili and salt bring out the lime in an amazing way, and the texture of the cheese and the beans on top of the crispy arepa is unexpectedly satisfying. Mmmmmm.

It doesn't look like much, but this is so flavorful. And melty.

And gone.

A Purple Blanket

In January, I went home for a weekend because I found out that Buster was dying of cancer. It was strictly a sort of prescient sitting Shiva, so while I was there I did nothing but take pictures, appreciate Buster's eyebrows and idiosyncrasies, toss the flippy flopper around (he wasn't really strong enough to play fetch, but he wanted to play with it, nonetheless), and knit.

I just now finished the project that I started that weekend. I can't believe that Buster has been gone for six months. It's maddening to think I'll never, ever see him again. But knitting this blanket has been kind of therapeutic. Somewhere in those 61,000 stitches, you concentrate your loss into the creation of something new, however inadequate.

Don't misunderstand and think I'm depressed about finishing the thing or that I knitted it for therapy. After a while, I thought it would never end, and now HUZZAH! it's done, and it owes its existence to the fact that I enjoy knitting. I'm just sort of awed by the difference between the day I started it, with Buster at my feet, in Colorado, and the day I tied off the last strand, here in Panama, half-way through grad school, both of my dogs gone, and my best friend is pregnant with her second baby... life marches resolutely forward, unimpeded by the desires or the disappearance of a dog.

Blackened Rings
By Virginia Hamilton Adair
Once, to come so far

up tilted prairies to the mile-high

beginning of the barrier peaks

was to cry farewell until death do us join

to all the faces

the little fences of the East.

Between the tears on the homespun blanket

and the deafening silence of the stars

the alder-smoke marked time westward:

each blackened ring spelled sleep.

And the day started with a puff of frost

the sigh and sign of waking.

I came, I saw,

but the conquering took a long time.

Out of the bones of young men

the lodgepole pine;

out of the girl who groaned

entering her final stillness

the alder yielded its bark to the winter deer

branches for lonely fires

and a slight song of leaves.

Now to return is not impossible

the slow wheels having grown wings;

but my blood tells me that the trail ends here

at the vast waters of the sleeping sun.

How should I turn again past death

past life, go down the grainlands

to that narrower sea?

finding the dreams have faces

and the places fences

and myself a mere hovering

spun of some traveler’s frosty breath

he pausing

high on the crest

of one of the great passes

looking for the last time

both east and west.

Only just the one...

Hello, goats!

If you come to Panama, and you have any time at all this is where you go. Go to Boquete. It's not easy to get there, it's a six hour drive on paper that is more like eight hours because of rainy, winding two-lane roads with no passing zones, and a notorious lack of signage in David (dah-VEED) to let you know where the road to Boquete begins.

However, despite the trouble, this was the highlight of my trip to Panama so far. I mean, look at this place.

Just look at it.

I discovered this coffee plantation called Finca Lérida on the internet before coming to Panama, and it's really the only thing I didn't want to miss while I was here.

Why Finca Lerida? Coffee? Meh. But it has acres and acres of protected cloud forest that you can just hike around in. The lodge is totally silent except for the sounds of birds and frogs. You can see a million, millllllllion stars at night because you're on top of a mountain with no light pollution as far as the eye can see. It's funny--no matter how far I go from home, it's like I'm always basically just trying to get back there. *sigh*

Anyway, there are no toucanets in Colorado. Miniature toucans, I beg of you.

Immediately surrounding the grounds of the Old House and Ecolodge, where guests sleep, are all of the coffee bushes. Coffee beans grow as red "cherries" on bushes before they're picked and processed. I would tell you more about that, but we didn't have time to go on a coffee tour AND go to the trail Tim wanted to see, and it's not fair to torture someone who doesn't like coffee after they just drove you 8 hours to a bed and breakfast.
We went hiking in two places: the trails around the finca, which "look like Avatar" according to one of the Finca employees who gave us a map. (See how manly Tim is? Actually, I think this picture is a little too convincing: that machete was stuck in the tree like that when we got there.)

And, the trail to Volcan, which I wanted to follow so we could tell everyone we went where Spock was born, and Tim said I was stupid, and then asked, "was that really the name of Spock's planet?" (and I'm the stupid one) but we went there anyway. Also, Spock's planet is Vulcan, but we won't be too picky.

The trail to Volcan is sort of exactly what it sounds like. It's a road that leads to a volcano. And it's supposed to have some of the most quetzals anywhere in the country. We didn't see a single quetzal, alas (no-I really wanted to see one of those stupid birds. I really did.), but we did we this awesome bull, and simply some of the most amazing scenery I've ever seen in my life. I don't want to bla-bla-bla-blog about scenery, but if you've never been in a cloud forest at 6500 feet, it's enough to make you want to cry.
Something else that is equally apt to bring one to tears? Popping, not just running over a nail or something, but POPPING a tire on the rental car at 6500 feet, when you have to have the car back in 6 hours and you didn't buy tire insurance. That stupid bit of concrete at the top of the mountain cost us an extra $110.
The lesson here is: always buy tire insurance. That's one hell of a hole.

I begged and begged Tim to stay and extra day and to tell his office that when the tire popped, a hoard of angry mosquitoes swarmed out and gave him malaria and there was no way we could go back on Sunday, but apparently he has integrity and we're on a budget, so he said "no." Beautiful places turn me into a horrible person and I would do almost anything to stay in them. But no, I wasn't the one who popped the tire. If I had had about two more cups of that coffee though, I might have. It was amazing stuff.

The Top Five Books I Would Ask You to Read, Pretty Please, For Me.

Tim and I both have these ridiculous shelves of unread books that we're trying to plow through. On one hand it's great because I feel like there is always so much potential; I'm proud of us for being the kind of people who know about books and who look forward to reading them. Like we're connected to this big nerdy web of knowledge.

I've never understood people who can't find anything to read (what, are you crazy?!?!) If you're that kind of person, I'm very sorry but I just simply do not understand you. Please come talk to me and I guarantee I will be able to help you find something to read. Maybe you can help me understand Jersey Shore.

There's a downside to being a bibliophiliac though, besides the sagging bookshelves and beady eyes: your self-imposed required-reading list always stretches out ahead of you for miles. And sometimes you buy a book and don't find your way into its pages for years. And it gets worse when you're with someone. When you're in a couple, you read something really astonishing, something just really meaty and amazing and you want the other person to sink their teeth into it too so that you can talk about it... but the thing is, they've got 457 books on their own list they've got to read first.

In Panama alone, this is what we're dealing with (I'm telling you, People, I packed light):
This is the shelf of books I've finished since I've been here. Of these ten books, I've wanted Tim to read all of them, but I've earnestly suggested that he should read three and a half. And I read half of one of them out loud to him on a car trip, so now he HAS to read it (haHA!). If you're doing the math here, that's three novels I've annoying just added to his to-read list (3.5 - the half I read out loud, see?).

And these are the novels I want to try to finish before I leave in three weeks. That's a joke.
The ones on the top shelf are Tim's (and I read two of those too), but you get the point. I have a lot of reading to do, and so does Tim and by being in a relationship it MULTIPLIES, because you're constantly recommending things to each other. So last night, we came up with the an essential list just to get things under control.

The Top Five Books I Would Ask You to Read, Pretty Please, For Me.

First, Tim's Top Five, because he's more interesting than me (except what is with all the colons in the titles, history people?).

1. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman (judging from observation, this is Tim's favorite author)
   
2. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang
3. Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond
4. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's, by Fredrick Lewis Allen
5. Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle, by Daniel L. Everett (I'm going to go ahead and take some credit for this though, because my grandmother recommended it to him)
   
6. Bonus: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann

Then mine:

1. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (If you haven't read this, why? Do it. Then call me.)
   
2. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
3. Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
4. Contact, by Carl Sagan
5. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll

Mind you this list has changed over time because, well, Tim is an amazing sport and has already read many of the most important books to me. He really is a much better person than I'll ever be. (I read 74 pages of Guns, Germs and Steel and thought about writing Jared Diamond a letter about how he's clearly a great researcher, but his tone is for shit.)

Top Five Books That Tim Has Already Read, Making Me Love Him Forever:

1. Farewell to Manzanar, by Jean Wakatsuki Houston
2. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
3. The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay
4. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
5. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding (Tim had already read this before we met, but if he hadn't, I would have made him, because I couldn't talk to him like a human.)
6. Bonus: The Giver, by Lois Lowry (same as Lord of the Flies)

Really, these lists are tailored towards the dorky things we want each other to read because we want to talk about them over a milkshake with two straws. But I'd talk to you about them too, if you'd let me. What have you made your petit chou chou read? Is there anything I'm not reading that I should be? (Why do I ask these questions and multiply by burden?)

Need a mainline from the brain to the blog...

Apparently, I would have to blog every single day in order to keep up with everything that's going on around here. I'm not joking. It's ridiculous. I feel like Tim and I are doing at least eight awesome things every weekend, and that's when people aren't coming to visit us. When people show up from the states? fuhgettaboutit.

Here's what you missed:

• Tim's Family came to visit us for a whole week, which is about 15 blog posts right there, because we went on tours and saw monkeys and went to a resort and tried new restaurants in the city we shopped and we had a dinner party in the apartment and that's not even the half of it. whew.

This is the full spectrum of the visit: crazy monkey boat one day, amazing resort hotel the next. You tell me you wouldn't have taken a picture of the room too.

• Tim and I took a tour of Barro Colorado. Pictures to Follow.
• Tim and I spent a day driving around Panama city and found the only bookstore in Panama but it was closed (more details forthwith), so we went to Panama la Vieja, which is the ruins of old Panama, and then to dinner at this place called The Rockin' Gorilla where we accidentally ordered a whole bucket of beer and I had to drink them all because Tim was driving. So I got more than a little drunk and then we went to the mall and had Dairy Queen. Says Tim, "you're the only person I know who is more pleasant when you're drunk." How am I supposed to take that? You tell me.

These are both from Panama la Vieja. I took a ton more, but I like these best. Crabby?

• Jana and Mike came to visit for the Fourth of July weekend! We did more stuff in two and a half days than you might imagine was humanly possible and Jana and I still had time to lay by the pool. How's that for talent? We ate so much we made ourselves tired both days. And on the 4th, the embassy did an excellent job of making everyone feel like home (which is kind of not what you want when you're on vacation, but definitely what you want on the 4th of July). We were essentially directly underneath the fireworks. Which is what I always want. Always.

So, this is Mike driving across a rickety, one-lane bridge where you have to keep your tires lined up on the boards... with no hands on the wheel. Iguana! Also known in some parts of Panama as "Dinner." And these are from playing with the new, waterproof camera. Note that none of them are underwater because, well all you could see was murk.

(Ahem. You'll have to excuse me, someone seems to be murdering a toucan outside my window.)

And now for something completely different...

Today for breakfast (brunch?) I had what can only be described as "messy pile."

Three slices of bacon and two poached eggs on top of fried potatoes, covered in Hollandaise sauce.

(Sweet Molly McGuinty.)

This is somewhat ironic considering that I just started something called The 30 Day Shred. I'm also in the middle of something called Couch-to-5k, which is a running plan intended to get you from being a couch potato (hence, Couch) to running a 5k, in 9 weeks. Aaaaaand, as if that wasn't enough, I've rebooted my yoga practice.

So. So what. In high school I ran and did yoga all the time, because Colorado is beautiful and inspiring and I had a lot of free time and I was a teenager and I could. Bazinga. Since then my attitude is more, "I don't have to work out, so why should I?"

And then while I was working at Clutch, I went to the Doctor one day and he told me I weighed 175 pounds. And the next time I went he said--I'm not kidding or exaggerating--"oh, you're still fat." UGH, kthx.

So. So what. Time to not be fat anymore. So I lost over 30 pounds. But I can't take all the credit because the aforementioned Doctor is a migraine Doctor who put me on brain pills that help regulate my appetite, so now instead of wanting to eat an entire stick of butter, I just want to eat a half of stick of butter. And you can't stop me. But it helps.

And at this point, I'm not doing this because I want Tim to be able to pick me up and carry me around like a man-slave. I'm doing it because in August we're going to spend FOUR DAYS hiking Machu Picchu and I have to carry most of my own gear at high altitude after almost nine years living at sea level and I don't want Tim to end up having to carry me like a Sherpa.

Here is my million-point plan for weight loss:

1. Have terrible migraines; the pills regulate appetite (WARNING: I DO NOT ACTUALLY RECOMMEND THIS AT ALL. I would rather be overweight than be on pills or have another migraine ever.)
2. Quit your stressful job. Stress makes you eat badly and messes with your metabolism.
3. Don't eat lunch "downtown" everyday. Even if you think you're eating at good places, eating out one meal a day is worse for you than you think.
4. Get a wii fit. (Or join a Tai Chi group or whatever) Start something that you will ACTUALLY be motivated to use. I like my WiiFit because after the initial cost, I never have to pay for it again, it monitors my weight and balance every day, and if I don't use it for a few days, it guilt-trips me. I need a good guilt trip sometimes.
5. Keep bowls of candy everywhere. Amazingly, this makes me never want to eat candy. Actually, this is probably a bad idea. Everyone around me eats out of my candy dishes all the time, but having them there makes them somehow less desirable. I don't know.

And finally, set large, non-refundable goals. Like Machu Picchu for instance. If I can't hike it, I'm in HUGE trouble. HUGE. I've considered signing up for the Disney Half-Marathon with Elsa in January, because that trip would involve Harry Potter Land AND I would essentially be running to redeem the registration fee (a very lofty cause, I know). That's all I can say for myself. I feel better and ugh, I hate admit it, but it's a daily thing to pay attention to your body any make sure you're not on the slippery slide to doom. Damnit.

I remember seeing this picture in 2008 and thinking, "oh, that's not good." But everything can get better.