Abogodas and Veterinarias

We descended from our rocky, Panamanian moutain high for a visit to our lawyer Fatima. Can you say Fatima without thinking of desert sands, scorching suns, mirages, camels, tents, an arab with a hookah watching a veiled woman with bloused, see-through pants dance erotically, an oasis in the middle of nowhere sporting a clear, blue water pond, sheiks, arabian horses, the French Foreign Legion, sword fights with curved swords, harems, Bhagdad and Damascus, flying carpets, magic lanterns, Abbott and Costello, Turhan Bey, The Mummy, Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Sabu, and a cast of thousands, most of whom could sing? I can't. But then I saw a lot of movies in the Forties and Fifties in Technicolor, a term that meant technically colored a whole lot brighter than your drab real life.

Our modern day Fatima smacks of none of that. She is a Panamanian professional woman. Okay right there you have learned several things. First off, she's a Panamanian woman which means that she is shorter than you are and has high heels on all her footwear, slippers, sneakers, flip flops, everything, to compensate. Second, being a pro, she wears a suit. I like women in suits. Women bring something to suits that men can't...their bodies. Men in suits? Who cares. Third, and this is what I like best about our abogoda, ( a much more fun word than lawyer) she has a sense of humor in two languages. She does, however, after making a funny in English, say "that's a joke" or "I was kidding." I don't know whether she is not sure she said her wit correctly or if she is afraid we would not "get it" and misunderstand her. No matter, it is very charming.

So I sat there in her Boquete office behind the Mexican joint, holding Gus on his leash, and listened as my smart wife and this smart abogoda exchanged questions and answers about buying property in Panama. It was all kind of pleasant, a thing rarely said about visits to lawyers. I did, however, occasionally think of figs and dates and women gently waving big feathered fans.

After the abogado we took Gus to a vet's office. That's vet as in veterinarian, not When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again kind of vet. He has been scratching himself bare in patches. Gus's Vet is a Brazillian woman- that's not a number George W, that's a nationality- which would ordinarily conjure scantily clad black women dancing wildly at Mardi Gras, but, because Dr.Chelly speaks no English, I was forced to leave my fantasies behind and concentrate solely on understanding her Spanish. No hay problema. Gus has a common dermatological condition easily treated with a salve and a medicinal shampoo for which Dr. C. wrote prescriptions. The charge for the visit...five bucks. I love Panama.