QUINOA AND PANAMA

Since our daughter has left for graduate school, Ray and I don't cook too many meals during the work week.    We eat a lot of salads and a lot of vegetables.  We then go all out on Saturdays.  But since I discovered Pinterest (late bloomer compared to my friends), I have wanted to try out some recipes just to mix things up a bit.

We are not seafood lovers although lately I have sampled some fish dishes (tilapia, grouper, red snapper, wahoo), and I have liked those that I have tried.  We eat some beef but mostly chicken and a bit of pork.  Along with these meats, I have been into quinoa for a while.  An excellent source of protein, quinoa is a whole grain seed that is light and fluffy with a slight nutty flavor (compared to couscous in texture).  Due to its protein and fiber content, there isn't a need to have meat as part of the dish.  It can be the whole meal.  Tonight, while preparing a stuffed pepper with quinoa meal, I wondered about Panama and if quinoa is on the store shelves there.

I am "stalking" a Facebook page as well as a Panama Expat Exchange Forum page (www.expatexchange.com/panama/liveinpanama), and recently they both had the topics "what do you miss most about being able to get from the States" and "what are your must haves to bring to Panama"?  I read that a meat tenderizer mallet is a necessity for the Panamanian beef, and it isn't easily found in Panama.

What are our must haves?  I wonder if we will miss things or just be so excited and ready to try all new foods.  I wonder how long the excitement will last?  I am sure we won't starve though--I have also read that ice cream is readily available!

RETIREMENT READY AFTER 30 YEARS OF WORKING

Allison's done all the postings in the past, so here is my first go!

This week not only marked my 46^th birthday it also marked my 30^th year of working.  I started working at 16, working 3 weeks at a fast food restaurant and then moving onto 15 ½ years at a grocery chain. 

At the time getting a job at Giant Food was nearly impossible unless you had a connection, which luckily for me I did.  During high school I worked as a bag boy, moving up to cashier and then joining their management program.  The money was good and I was making more money working part-time (35 hrs a week) than my friends that were getting out of college.  Unfortunately, the money hooked me and I never did finish that degree I started.  I worked my way up the ladder through the management program and was very content with my job until Allison and I started our family.  It was very difficult working in the grocery business and trying to spend time with the family.  Work weeks were 6 days and there was no need to even think about having a weekend or holiday off.  Finally I made the decision that I needed to spend time with my family and made my move to change jobs. The only down fall with leaving the grocery chain was the fact that I would have 30 years of service in when I turned 46 and would be eligible for full retirement with insurance benefits.

I moved to doing billing for a law firm and then into managing the billing department.  The move was a great move for me and for my family.  It allowed me to spend more time with them as well as allowing us a bit more financial stability.    Unfortunately, when I leave the law firm I will not be able to keep my insurance which means Allison and I will be looking at about $1,000 a month to be insured in the US.  This was the major factor that got us started looking at retiring to Panama. 

Allison lost both of her parents to cancer at a young age and we both have decided we should live life to its fullest while we can.   With that in mind, we started looking at various options and have spent the last several months focusing on Panama.  Anyone that knows us knows that we don’t typically jump into anything without researching the heck out of it.  That being said, the research period is moving forward with our upcoming trip to Panama and the start of downsizing our personal possessions.  Although it doesn’t appear that retirement after 30 years of work is going to happen, it does look like retirement after 32 years is doable in the great country of Panama.

SEVEN MINUTES WITH A DOCTOR FOR BONY PROTUBERANCE

Ray and I very rarely go to the doctor’s.  We stay (knock on wood) pretty healthy, but occasionally we will get things that have to be checked out.  He had pink eye last year and a spider bite a few years ago (super scary and ugly what it did to his hand before getting on the meds), and I go diligently for my yearly exams as well as eye exams.  However last year, while on vacation in Sweden of all places, I fell on my knee.  I didn’t dare break my fall on those 500 year old steps of the City Hall building in Stortget (Malmo) by dropping by camera or my purse!  Instead, I chose to just land on my knee and let my knee take the all the trauma.  And since I fell going UP the five steps, Ray was where he was supposed to be—behind me in case I fell backwards!

 Besides the huge yellow, green, and purple bruise that went down my shin bone, I didn’t think anything of the fall until I felt a “bony protuberance” about a month later.  I chose to have a physician at Patient First look at the lump and x-ray it there.  Patient First is open 365 days a year and is a one stop shop for exams and x-rays.  His call was that the x-ray looked fine but “you should see an orthopedist”.  Two doctor appointments down and I was pretty much told “if you want a name put on it, have an MRI”.  No thanks.  That would be another doctor’s appt, another co-pay, and more time in a waiting room.  So I left it alone for a year.  I would rub it every so often thinking I could just break it up some.   Then I decided to really wash my floors on my hands and knees (yes, I have done this within a year!) and noticed a nagging ache in my knee.  It lasted all day and into the night.  Like an old sports injury of which I never played any sports!  So back to the orthopedist I went.  I didn’t like thinking “is it really scar tissue—it seems super bony to be scar tissue”.  I mean I did learn something about bone formation in dental hygiene school but that was 27 years ago!  So maybe I do want to put a name on it.  And perhaps relearn what I had been taught about osteoclasts and osteoblasts (okay, perhaps not).  The other reason this lump was now weighing on my mind was that I had  just read an article in the paper about an adolescent boy (both of which I am not) that had cancer of the knee joint, so now I knew I was doomed. 

Back to the orthopedist I go.  Forty minutes in the waiting room,  Nurse Abby then took my vitals, fifteen or longer minutes in the closed operatory (I read an entire Family Circle magazine from November, 2011), five minutes with the orthopedist to look at my one year old x-ray and have him request new x-rays, ten minutes or longer waiting for the x-ray tech to get me from the closed room (I had moved on to another magazine), x-rays taken and another ten minutes or so waiting for doctor to show again to fortunately  tell me that it all looked good.  Basically, from the trauma I had a microscopic fracture of the bone and because of that fracture more bone formed—so I will always have this bony protuberance.

  I do feel better knowing why I have a lump.  I  just wish the Physician Assistant last year at the Orthopedist office had explained this to me and not told me to get an MRI (which is good for soft tissue, not bone) for a name to be put on it.  But what I really loved about getting this explanation was the one hour and forty five minute appointment that I had (and $60 in co-pays for the three visits not to mention what the x-rays will cost since I have to meet a $250 deductible) to see a doctor for perhaps seven minutes J 

When I get to Panama (still thinking it’s going to happen!), I hope that IF I have to go to the doctor or when I go for my yearly exams, they are quick and efficient and cheap like I keep reading about on everyone’s blogs!  And maybe I will even be privey to more than seven minutes of time.

READY, SET, DOWNSIZE!

When we moved from Lake Ridge, VA to Stafford, VA, it was from a townhouse into a single family house that my father –in-law had lived in for 22 years.  The house was on six acres (we wanted that land at the time) in the country.  I remember being so excited for everything that Ray’s dad was leaving behind for us in the house!  Furniture, dishes, piano, country wall stuff (!) on every wall, glasses, kitchenware, linens,  antiques, and family heirlooms.  He, apparently, had outgrown it, and Ray and I both loved country décor at the time.  After ten years of six acres to mow, an almost acre pond to keep maintained, the upkeep of an in ground pool and landscaping and a now thirty plus year old house, we threw in the towel.  We packed up all of our “stuff” from 18 years of marriage, and  all of the acquired stuff and moved into a new modern house on barely a quarter of an acre.  Fast forward six more years, and this “stuff” is now in Rubbermaid Totes and lots of them in the basement.  Sitting there not being given a second thought until now.  Carly does not like country stuff; she does not necessarily want the dishes, the old iron shoes and iron presses, or the Cat’s Meow Villages.  We are bringing suitcases with us to Panama, not stuff from the basement.  I won’t move it a third time.

 So who are we gonna call?!  CRAIGSLIST!  The definite things we knew that no one in my family would want to take off our hands or needed  went to a college student (a double bed frame and mattress—which was giving Carly backaches-- and a rickety eleven year old dresser from IKEA) for cash, and to a Marine based in Quantico (another too heavy IKEA dresser) for more cash.  Think Panama Cash!  Ray, also, brought pictures that were hanging on my walls into a colleague that wanted to shop for pictures for her house—one picture sold (it was down a “short cut” hall that I never walk through) for more cash!  That should do it for now.    Let the downsizing but mostly just de-cluttering and sorting continue.

THE ATTORNEY AND THE MAID

Ray works for a law firm. (And again, he is not a lawyer.  He gets them paid.) Word is getting around that he wants to be out of there in "two to three" years and retired to Panama.  The attorneys love hearing about the research we have been doing and share in the excitement of our hopeful move to somewhere in Panama.  Some of the questions asked are "how can you retire at such a young age, what about your daughter/family here, what will you take with you, what will you do when you get there...".  The attorneys really have nothing to offer Ray because this is extreme and out of the box for them.  However, the cleaning crew in this building have lots to offer Ray!  One woman told Ray she knew about our vacation to Panama this fall and also about our wanting to retire to Panama and the need to refresh/relearn (!) Spanish, so she gave Ray a book that was given to her when she came to the States.  In this book, there are much needed words and phrases that I suppose we should know how to speak in Spanish when we get there.
 Here are some examples of what phrases I know I should memorize before moving there:
Please help me.
I do not speak Spanish well.
I need help.
Please, try to understand me.
Can you help me find this address?  (I know this one will be useless in Panama since there aren't addresses there!)

Hopefully these listed below what be phrases we are likely to need to memorize.  But they are in the little white book she gave Ray :)
I have no money.
I have done nothing wrong.
I am not guilty.
Do not be afraid.  I will not harm you.
I am going to sue you.  (I know this one will mean nothing to the Panamanians!)
Go to Hell.
I am sorry I am late (I know this will never pertain to Panamanians--they know nothing of timeliness)
Put it in writing!!!!!!!
I want to go shopping!!!!!!!
I will be back tomorrow (I better recognize this one and then forget about it since no one shows up tomorrow apparently!)

And as I learned from the International Living Conference, if I have a party or get together, I will need to put the start time and write in "tiempo Americano" so the friends that I am sure to have made will know to show up on time and not two hours later.

TOO HOT FOR THE PIRANHA OF LAKE ANNA

It's one hundred degrees again today, and it will be up to one hundred two on Saturday.  Treading water and a little swimming is about all I can do in the lake today.  It isn't floating weather.  My feet get a little cool the deeper they are in the water.  It is even too hot for what we have determined the blue gill fish in our cove to be in actuality:  nipple biting piranha.  I say this only because in the past, if you do not move around and play or splash in the cove, you will get nibbled on.  It is a startling feeling, but other than that, they are harmless.  Except to Ray.  He was just minding his own business holding onto a noodle, chit chatting with our neighbor across the cove, and the darn piranha nibbled him on the left nipple.  And I also think the thing was latching on as well!  Now, if we hang out in the cove, we use our noodles as a protective device, and we don't let fingers dangle off the floats.  Lately though, I haven't seen any fish ready to torment anyone in our cove.  Too stinking hot perhaps.  In the deeper water, the place we go to float, I see big fish jumping (maybe they are too cold?), but in the shallow pools, there really isn't life there.  Which is how I feel when I am floating on top of the water.  Lifeless.  Hot.  Dead hot.

Ray and I floating high above the nipple biting piranha.

This is looking out of our cove at Lake Anna.

When we are on rafts, this is what we look out onto at the end of our cove.

And when we kayak, we go into the open waters of Lake Anna.

PYROTECHNIC SPECIAL EFFECTS

This is mostly an update to my previous post about Friday night’s house fire.  We had an out of the blue wind storm (out of the blue because everyone I have spoken with knew we were having chances of storms that night, but no one expected the devastating  70-75mph winds).  I read in today’s paper (we did not get Saturday’s  paper due to the storm knocking out power at the newspapers’ printing building in Fredericksburg), that the house I saw burn to the ground  was actually one of two houses that completely burned in Lake Anna.  The firefighter that was trapped under the porch is still hospitalized with severe shoulder burns.  I also read that a firefighter was injured at the other home that was burned down (the two homes were six miles from each other).  The fire that I watched on Friday night was thought to have been put out by the homeowner (the lightning actually came down inside the kitchen wall, and the owner extinguished it).  The owners then left the house to drive to the fire station to ask that the firefighters take a look at the house to make sure it was still safe (they couldn’t get through on the phones).  While they were driving away from their house, neighbors were reporting that the house was on fire.  (So basically they left the house thinking there might still be a problem, and in fact, there was still a whole lot of fire inside the walls). 

P is for Point.  I will try to get to it.  Lake Anna is one of the largest freshwater inland lakes in Virginia (second largest to Smith Mountain Lake).  It covers an area of 13,000 acres.  It is 17 miles long and has 200 miles of shoreline.  It is 70 miles south of Washington, DC and is in three counties (Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange).  Every year, the residents surrounding Lake Anna are granted  a wonderful fireworks display.  This year the event was to take place the night after the “fiery” storm.  This storm left three million people without power and thirteen people died (and it wasn’t even a hurricane!).  Seven hundred fifty thousand people are still without power in Virginia, DC and Maryland, and it is still 100 plus degrees outside.  There was a rain date scheduled for next weekend.  There was another storm that came through at Lake Anna (close to where  the fireworks were being shot off) about two hours prior to the event.  More hard rains, thunder, lightning and even hail (this happened at the time the event was to start—9:15) materialized.   I knew for sure that the firework event would not happen.  The weather was all wrong, but most importantly, the timing was just off.  Many, many residents had to clean up a mess from the storm.  Some didn’t have power at their permanent residences, and two homes were completely destroyed. 

A houseboat on Lake Anna

Many sailboats and parasails out there that day.

P is for Pyrotechnics.  It just didn’t seem right to have pyrotechnics when so much was going on within the seventy miles surrounding the event.  Perhaps it was too costly to postpone?  Perhaps the powers that be felt the people of Lake Anna needed a festive event.  They thought they needed a second night of brilliance in the sky.  Perhaps Lake Anna residents needed beautiful colors, smoke and loud noise the night right after we had just seen raging, violent, stormy skies.

P is for Perplexed.  (I had seen enough stormy weather and didn’t care to hear more booming noises).

And now that it is the end of July 1, I will Put an End to the P’s.