XMAS EVE/XMAS DAY

In a word, unremarkable. Which, as some of you may know, is fine with me. The holiday season doesn`t bother or depress me as it has sometimes in the past. It would have been nice to be with family or friends; but I also didn`t have to buy and wrap gifts for people who, for the most part already have everything they want or need. Lest you think I`m the grinch, the gift giving rule for the year was that we only buy gifts for people we are going to be with on Christmas.

One of my greatest fears is running out of sauce before I run out of spaghetti. A close second is running out of beer. If I have it, I may not use it; if I don´t have it, I worry. After I spent a few hours reading by the pool on Xmas eve day, fearing things might close up early, I made a beer run to the Fiesta Liquor store across the street at about 4pm. Not to worry, they said they would be open till midnight.

BIRDS
Since I had no plans I decided to talk a walk up the Via Argentina, where every evening about six pm the parakeets land in the trees on the medium across from Andros Bellos Park and set up quite a racquet. They are very difficult to see, as they are exactly the same color as the leaves.

There were a few places open, so I had a few cocktails on the patio at Manolo`s, watching the people and vehicle traffic. Everybody was rushing around carrying packages, but most were not dressed as if they were going to church.

I selected Restaurant Rincon Habernero, which was open with people inside. I again sat on the patio, and ordered from their menu which appeared to be typical Panamanian with lots of dishes served with plaintains (which I don`t particularly care for)

Not being particularly hungry, I chose an appetizer plate that looked pretty good on the menu. Lots of stuff with pork in it. To my surprise, the platter was all deep fat fried with a lot of pork rinds (except they actually had pork in them) pork sausage and chucks of pork. It was very good, although I didn`t eat many of the pork rinds.

Heading for home, I stopped at a Columbian bar and restaurant called La Tienda Cesar, which I had gone past many times. There, I met an English speaking couple, Manual and Lena, originally of Bogota; recently from Toronto, and vacationing in Panama City to get away from the cold. They explained to me the pie pans coming out of the kitchen which, initially looked like gravy were, in fact, a Xmas eve only dish called Natilla, which gels to the consistancy of flan, and is served in slices, like pie.

Xmas day was likewise uneventful. Read by the pool till it started to rain, then retired to the den of my apartment. This time it was an electrical storm, and you could watch the lightening strike, or seem to strike the tall buildings. Directly to the South of my location, there was a water spout in the Bay of Panama. I´d never see a big one like that before.

This is a lot of verbiage to cover a little activity.....just like my life.Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.