Beaching

It rained yesterday so we headed to the beach. I know that sounds like a strange plan, but here in the land of milk and honey...make that coffee and bananas, if you don't like the weather, drive fifteen minutes in any direction and you will likely find some that is different. At the beach it was warm and sunny.

We parked alongside a restaurant in Las Olas (The Waves) situated just up the beach from a large hotel. Between the open air (roofed, but wall-less), very throw-back Panamanian restaurant (La Costena - put a squiggle over the "n" to make the pronunciation co-stain-ya) and the large modern hotel, lay an expanse of vacant lot featuring, if featuring is the word I want...probably not, scruffy weed-like plants and brown sand. I suspect that both the hotel and the restaurant appreciated the separation.

We lunched there after I had written our orders in Spanish for the waitress/proprietor. Three of us, RTGFKAR, Woowoo Charly and I, had corvina, which is not a new Chevrolet model, but rather, a very nice tasting white fish. They were served with their heads on which I always find somehow disconcerting, particularly when the meal is finished and you look at a plate that contains only the fish's head and its skeleton. Joe had a serving of fried chicken that looked good and both he and I were glad the chicken wasn't served with its head intact. Kira had salad. All the plates included rice and lacked only beans from being a "tipico" Panamanian repast. They were out of beans.

After the meal, J and K headed for the water's edge to fool around, cool off and look like happy lovers, which they are. RTGFKAR, Woowoo and Yerstruly dodged the sun and took comfort under a shady waterside palapa. We sipped cool beers, watched the surf showing off ten foot waves and discussed Super Colliders, Big Bang and String Theory, Quantum Physics and trying to "wrap your mind around" such things. Okay, I didn't have much to bring to the conversation, nothing at all really, but then I was too busy contemplating how hard it would be to walk to the horizon.

Eventually it was time to go, so we did.

At home, we patio-ed some more and Joe played my guitar for awhile singing us a little John Denver, James Taylor and Joe Clark while I skimmed through the latest issue of "The Walking Dead" comic book that D and D had sent from NY. Thanks D and especially D.

Later we had a pile of sushi that J and I had picked up at the Tuesday Morning Gringo Meeting/Farmer's Market early that morning. The accompanying wasabi was so mind and sinus liberating that we were all actually able to "wrap our minds" around
Quantum Physics, Quarks and such, but we chose to use our expanded intellect to tell old family stories and laugh a lot instead. What the hell, we can always get more wasabi.

Today it is off to Olga's (La Punto De Encuentro) for breakfast with B and L and then on to Paradise Gardens. (Lot of things around here with the word paradise in their names.) After that? Maybe El Explorador.

There is no rain today. The sun is shine-ing. (Spelled correctly, shining, looks like it has something to do with the front of your lower leg.)

Hasta.