We Can Go...I Think

If you know me you know that I hate being cold almost as much as I hate war, intolerance, ignorance, fevers and dropping heavy objects on my toes. It rained yesterday and it was cold. Well, at least for those of us with lizard DNA it was cold. And it's not looking any warmer this morning what with the sky blocked in gray and getting lower by the minute. Makes me glad to be going to Daveed where if the temperature dips below 80 the denizens cower in their homes fearing Armageddon is upon them.

We have to deal with the bureaucracy today. That's nearly as much fun as a toothache. We have to get our exit/entry visas renewed so we can head to NY next month. I fear that this will require sitting in the Immigration Office looking bewildered after someone takes your passport and papers, says I'll be right back and disappears for hours. Lunch, siesta, who knows. We think we have everything we need to accomplish our task, but it it sometimes feels as if the rules are what the guy in front of you determines them to be.

Those two paragraphs were written Monday. Today is Wednesday or Miercoles as we like to say here in Panama because Miercoles is a cool word that is fun to say and sounds so damned Spanish. Miercoles. That's me-air-co-lace to you single tongued souls. We never made it to Immigration. We drove by it a couple times but a line outside the door stretching down the street said no no gringo to us in all the languages we know. Let me see, that would be one and a half. We were later told by a reliable souse, I mean source, that the rules for Panamanian residency were changing on the 26th of August and by changing I mean getting more expensive, so the line outside the door was probably composed of people trying to get in under the old limbo bar. It further develops by leaving the stuff under that fluid in a dark room that we may not have to do any renewing of the old visas at all. Friend B sent us this translation of a new law about coming and going: All the temporary and permanent residents, intrinsic to the permission offered, have the possibility to enter and leave the national territory without the need of prior authorization to the national service of immigration except for cases in which the competent authorities interpose prevention measures or restrictions of entrance and exits. Alrighty then! We are permanent residents. We are intrinsic to the permission offered...I think. We have the possibility of leaving and returning without touching base with immigration. Oooh that's tricky. Possibility? And there are no strikes against us as far as I know unless bad golfers are banned from traveling. We will continue to explore because exploration leads to discovery and discovery leads to documentaries on television that are useful in the aid and prevention of insomnia.

It's a lot warmer today. The sun is out and about shopping, shining and doing chores. I might have to take off my parka and ski pants.