Back Home At The Playa

After spending two lovely weeks in Washington and California, I'm happily back home at the beach in Panama. Some memories include: birding with Carol in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (saw my first Yellow-headed Blackbird and Common Yellowthroat); jumping into Kelsey Creek on the Fourth of July (after a hiatus of 45 years); travelling with Mom through airport security (yes, Mom really did tell the TSA agent who patted her down that she thought she was falling in love after all the "touching"); finding a plethora of bikinis to buy at Wal-mart because nobody who shops there is my size; birding with Chris Thaub and talking with him about his feature film Samira (wishing I could invest in the film before it becomes a hit); spending a week at True North Health and finally perfecting my diet (good-bye salt, sugar and oil); buying "The Kiss" from Artist James Zimmerman (Santa Rosa High School classmate) after seeing it in a San Francisco art gallery in 1978 for $300 and not being able to afford it.

The weekend I returned to Panama, I had the pleasure of "hosting" two Learning Enterprises (http://www.learningenterprises.org/) interns named Kelsey and Emma. Kelsey is from Anchorage (her mother works with a Dancing Bear friend named David) and is a Junior at Brown while Emma is from DC and a Junior at Georgetown. They are teaching English in the province of Los Santos for 6 weeks. While at the beach they enjoyed kayaking (pictured), eating vegetables (it's rice and fried food when you live with Panamanian families), and dancing at the Las Olas bar (it was karaoke night).

I am back into my routine of walking the beach with Chester (yes, he did miss me), birding with the Boquete Birders (we will walk the Caldera River this Friday), catching up with friends (Pauline is in Panama for a couple of weeks), and enjoying the sun/fun/adventure of living in Paradise!