END OF 2012 RANDOM THOUGHTS

While doing my very best dental hygiene work today (since I have had to work a whole twelve hours this week, I was in my element), I let my mind wander just a bit.  Things I gave thought to today and while I write this post in no random order:

I am glad I don't really keep milk in the house except when my daughter is home--the cost may double in the coming year to as much as $8/gallon.

The highway sign says 20 miles=74 minutes for Ray's commute tonight.  I am depressed for him.  Yesterday his office closed at two pm due to inclement weather (we had torrential rain/sleet/snow).  He arrived home 2.5 hours later.  My office was closed for the day, so my commute of ten minutes didn't occur.  It only took him 170 minutes to get home (40 mile drive) tonight.

My boss told me he was thinking about me this morning!  He saw THE BEST COMMERCIAL for Panama and saw the modern city in all its glory.

I am committing myself to only making three different kinds of cookies next Christmas (chocolate chip, peanut butter balls and No Bake).  No bark, no tres leches cake, no magic cookie bars--three kinds.  Perhaps I will make one hundred of each of those kinds or just a dozen, but I am keeping it to the three favorite and old standby's.  I suppose I will still decorate some whether they are sugar here or butter there (at my sister's house). That would mean four kinds, so I am on the fence about this one.

I really enjoyed the movie "Les Miserables" even though the whole script was sung to me.  I could hear it and understand it.  It was long, but I only wanted to know what time it was because I was wondering if it was getting close to telling me the ending (I didn't know too much about the plot).

I need to start using my new scanner to put pictures on my computer, save to my external hard drive and have them with me in Panama until I get my photo albums there.  Maybe I will do this rather than posting random thoughts on this blog.

I ate way too much Christmas Day, but I don't care.  It was all so good!

We have plans to go to Washington DC on Saturday night.  Our goal is to eat dinner at the historic Ben's Chili Bowl restaurant, walk around the zoo and view the "Zoolights", and see the National Christmas tree.  It is supposed to snow in the morning and perhaps turn to rain or stay all snow until mid-afternoon.  I don't like when my plans go awry.  If there is snow, it will be pretty though.

I was in Turks and Caicos almost one year ago.  Blue water, white sand.  We weren't even thinking about Panama and didn't even know it was a reality eleven months ago!  And another Panama vacation (in March) is right around the corner.

I will leave the Christmas decorations up for a few more days.  Or longer.  Not really motivated to take it all down yet.  And the outside lights can stay up until it gets warmer--not anytime soon according to the meteorologist (and they have been right for the past two days).

Are they working on the fiscal cliff?  Not really.  House members are still on vacation!  Everyone should be ashamed of themselves.

Ray could have driven from Panama City to the middle of the country in the time it took him to drive home tonight.

This post has nothing really to do with Panama except that I think about it daily still. Knowing Ray has such a horrible commute along with working sixty plus hour weeks has our retiring early making that much more sense. And yes after all of this randomization, I have decided I will add sugar or butter cookies to my Christmas baking, because my daughter loves decorating them as much as I really do (even after the eleventh and twelfth and thirteenth one).  Really.  So make that four kinds of cookies to make at Christmas time in 2013.  And putting together a  not pre-assembled gingerbread house, too!

KEEPING HAPPINESS WITH THE HOLIDAYS AND TRADITIONS

 The paragraph below was posted the other day in Richard Detrich's blog (RichardDetrich.com).  Gallup asked about 1,000 people in each of 148 countries (150,000 people worldwide) if they were well-rested, had been treated with respect, smiled or laughed a lot, learned or did something interesting and felt feelings of enjoyment the previous day.
In Panama and Paraguay, 85% of those polled said yes to all five, putting those countries at the top of the list.  They were followed closely by El Salvador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Guatemala, the Philippines, Ecuador and Costa Rica.  Latin America is the world's happiest place to be!  The richest countries  such as Japan, did not make the top ten most positive countries.  The United States ranked 33.

I shared this information with Ray.  He smiled broadly and commented, "Allison, we are making the right decision."

While at a neighbor's annual Christmas party Friday night, the subject of conversation turned to our move to Panama.  The neighbors asked about our vacation there, and we shared that we were taking another trip in March to do some more investigating and researching.  Since we spend many weekends at our Lake Anna house, and most of these neighbors have small children, we do not get together often enough with them.  This group of friends was very inquisitive and enthusiastic about our decision.  They made Ray and I feel at ease talking about the country and why we chose to retire there.  With wine and champagne punch in hand, the women discussed the malls.  I described the two different one's I had been to in October.  The first Panamanian mall being just like Tysons Corner mall which is not too far from my house (unless there is traffic on I-95, so I guess you can say it is very far away--45 minutes can turn into 2 or 3 hours).  These women all know that mall and could picture Metromall in Panama a little bit better.  The other outdoor mall just across the street, I explained, was more like an outlet mall to the extreme.  Inexpensive/cheap.  I told them I saw and would actually wear pants and jeans that cost up to $6.99, shorts for $2.99, shirts up to $4.99 and shoes or flip flops $1.99 or even $8.99 depending on the embellishments.  And the consensus was "who needs The Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and Coach and those high prices, when you are going to a place where you can just kick off you flip flops and be happy and rested"!  They suggested we might have many more visitors once settled, and we encouraged them to come check it out!

 My daughter and I make dozens of cookies for the Christmas holiday.  We always do.

Just a few dozen butter cookies we decorated with my sister and family.

The beginning of some chocolate chip cookies.

  Many more treats than these to go to my sister's on Christmas Eve!

We also decorate a gingerbread house annually.  This year the house came broken, but we plastered it back with royal icing and carried on with the decorating!

This is the mess we made repairing and rebuilding!

Beauty restored!

While I think I could just not do it, these are two of many traditions I am not ready to give up.  Even though I  get frustrated having to wear reading glasses now to see the recipes, and because I want to make so many more cookies but what will I do with them all (?), I still love seeing them just pile up!  I try to smile while cleaning the measuring cups and spoons and baking sheets for the umpteenth time.  I try to laugh a lot when the gingerbread house is in pieces while still wrapped and in the box.  I try to come up with another way to decorate that butter cookies-shaped Christmas tree or my side of the gingerbread house. The "tries" don't always work out.  But I am going to lose these traditions someday, or they will just change.  I will still bake cookies and watch the movie "Elf" with my daughter, but it won't always be here in Stafford, VA.  And we might just make one kind of cookie.

I also realize I won't be working when these traditions change, and things will be easier.  I will  have more time. (Oh, the Federal Government was given tomorrow--Christmas Eve-- off!  I wasn't!).  What we do with the traditions will be enough.  I will be in a country that boasts the happiest people!  Panama will be cheerful.  I will take that cheer, my rested and relaxed self and all that I have learned and enjoyed to my daughter and family when celebrating the holidays.  Traditions can be persisting things (I am also very persistent.  You think?), but I will learn to allow them to evolve and change.  And I will embrace everyday and every holiday whether here in VA with old traditions, in Panama with new traditions or where my daughter ends up in life with HER traditions.

CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN THE U.S.

Another tragic mass shooting event occurred this past Friday.  This one occurred at  Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  I am watching President Obama on TV speak at the Memorial Service for the twenty-six victims (it is his fourth mass shooting memorial of his Presidency). I don't want to explain myself again to any concerned family and friends about our "crazy" idea of retiring to Panama. Dangerous Panama. I can't convince anyone to change their minds and thoughts.  Right now I worry about my daughter everyday staying safe when going to night classes or even just meeting friends for dinner;  she is also getting ready to embark on a teaching career next fall.  I worry about my sister that is surrounded by mentally ill parents that abuse and neglect their children and threaten to "stomp her (my sister) on the head", and even Ray who has worked with his share of troubled "no longer employed" employees.  

In just this year alone, there have been four major shooting events in the United States (not to mention, and let's not forget, Columbine, Virginia Tech or Congresswoman Gifford).  

Seven Die in California School Shooting (Apr. 2)

Twelve Killed in Colorado Theater Shooting (July 20)

Six People Are Killed in Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting (Aug. 5)

Gunman Kills 26 at Elementary School (Dec. 14)

And in Panama, I know there is crime.  I read about it in Panama-Guide.com by Don Winner (Panama Guide is the #1 English Language web site about the Republic of Panama).  I haven't read about mass shootings.  More like drug related crimes where one person is shot many times (I wish they didn't show the pictures though!). Or the following headlines from 2012: Expat millionaire murdered.  On the trail of a murderer in Chiriqui.  Body of a man found.  Body of a young woman found.  Man escapes kidnappers.  Police sergeant kills his wife and another man.  Bomb threat of Supreme Court building.

There were more drownings, fires, car accidents and deaths due to mudslides.  So I won't swim in a riptide or even go swimming when I am told not to go into the water, I hope not to live in a wooden structure that will burn down, I can't avoid the fate of a car accident but I will try hard not to drive in Panama City, and hopefully when the rains won't let up, my house won't slide down a hill.  Here's dreaming of a safe, warm and friendly environment in Panama that I will call home someday and that my friends and family will find safe, warm and inviting to visit and feel comfortable in knowing that we have made the right decision for us.


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WEEKENDS IN THE WINTER

Besides asking why we would ever want to move and retire to Panama, and then being told (by those all knowing) that it's a third world country and what about all the crime, the other thing that most people ask is "what will the two of you do together all day everyday?"  Ray and I will be together 24/7 until we make friends (we do have two wonderful one's living there now) and until we make the move to venture out on our own on that first errand.

 Weekends in the winter are different in that the lake house is quieter.  Without the sun and warmth luring friends and family to the lake, we don't even see the roomies as much.  Yesterday our plans changed and left us "alone" together.  We had things to do, things to shop for (Christmas in ten days!), and a movie that interested us ("Hitchcock"), and since it turned out that it was just us at the lake house, we decided not to hang out (this was part of the plans that were changed) the entire weekend.  So yesterday we set out bright and early to run those errands.  I did try to incorporate my sister or a friend into the plans for later in the day, in case Ray got tired of listening to me, but that failed.  We visited four stores, had an early lunch at Chili's, watched some TV back at the house and left the house again for a late movie.  After the movie, we stopped at the bookstore to get hot chocolate for him and chai latte for me.  We walked outside to the Spotsylvania Town Center Christmas Tree to see/hear the six minute Concert in Lights (we didn't know it was six whole minutes).  After leaving the lake house in Bumpass at ten in the morning and returning to the Stafford at ten at night, being together all day today and about eight hours on Friday, we still like each other.  Today it has been a miserably rainy day, so we accomplished wrapping gifts, vacuuming, baking and catching up on recorded DVR shows. 

Spotsylvania Town Center Concert in Lights

 Of course, I realize that when we are retired in Panama we won't have the weekdays to "catch a break" from each other like we do now.  I also realize that we finish each other's sentences, we say the things the other one is thinking when the other is getting ready to say it, we help each other with the mundane chores, and we hope, pray and want pretty much the same for each other, our daughter, extended family and  family.  

In Panama, we will stay busy initially with all those horrendously long, overwhelming tasks of finding a lawyer and realtor, renting a house, buying a car, trying to open a bank account, passing our driver's license tests, establishing our Visas, signing up for health insurance and so much more.  We will do this with excitement and nervousness.  But we will do it all together.  And will be just fine..."alone",  24/7, and retired in Panama.

OUT OF THE LOOP

This past week, while performing a dental exam on a fifteen year old patient of mine, one of the dentist's I work with made the comment, "I hear you're going to Panama to retire.  I hadn't heard this news yet."  I had to have him repeat what he said because he had his mask on, and I wasn't expecting him to bring this up.  I had no idea when he was told this information or who had talked to him about me either.  He told me the other dentist told him my plans.  I agreed with him, told him it would be in a few years, and yes, I am going to retire to Panama.  He said, "we need to sit down and talk about this."  I immediately looked around for my father.  When I joked with my boss about letting the cat out of the bag to the other dentist (yeah right, since everyone else but this man knows my plans), he simply said that "Obamacare and the mess of the country" was what got them on the subject of retiring to another country.  How many times does it have to be written or spoken that just because you may not like what is going on in your own city, state or country, it doesn't mean you should pack up and leave.  Another country isn't going to be the answer if you aren't prepared for the ups and downs.  Ray and I are retiring to Panama for a few simple reasons:  climate, out of the box desire, living expenses, adventure.  We want to try experiencing something else.  Something out of the ordinary.

Today, while eating lunch at a restaurant in Old Town Fredericksburg, I watched men and women of all ages walk by the windows in Civil War attire.  They were spending the day re-enacting what happened in the United States 150 years ago. Sitting there I wasn't thinking about the current state of our country, the Republicans and Democrats not compromising on anything (or the Yankees and the Confederates for that matter), or the cost of my health insurance/mortgages/utilities.  The state of affairs of the U.S. is not what's driving our decision to move to Panama. 

Fredericksburg, VA

Civil War  VA 1862

Present day  VA  2012

Once home, I wrote out my Christmas cards.  Many of our friends know of our future plans.  Many relatives do not.  I included in our annual newsletter the events of the past year.  I wrote about our vacation to Panama this past October as well as our pending trip in March.  I referred my family and friends to my blog if they want to know the nitty gritty as to why we chose Panama and how we think we can retire there so soon (sometimes I get tired of answering the questions).  Not too many will be out of the loop now.  More will think we are crazy "wannabretireesinPanama".

SELECTIVE HEARING ENGAGED

Having not seen my very best friend from high school days, a bridesmaid in my wedding and come to think of it, my daughter's Godmother, in a long time, I have finally seen her a few times in the past few months.  And along with seeing her, I have had the great pleasure of spending some time with her dad.  This is a man I always enjoyed sharing Thanksgiving dessert with, a man that I know my dad had great conversations with while eating the same Thanksgiving dessert, and a man that I have shared my retirement dreams. When he first found out that Ray and I were traveling to Panama to visit and research it as a place for retirement, he was "completely enthralled and enamored with our decision".  He wanted to know everything I knew and all of the reasons behind Panama being our choice for retirement.  Six weeks later, after our vacation, Ray and I saw him again.  He had just read an article in "The Economist" about Panama, and he again stated that he was so excited for us. (http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21567091-why-latin-americas-fastest-growing-country-so-furious-earthbound-bite-back).  Part of the article states:

Panama’s economy has grown faster than that of any other Latin American country this year, as it did last year. Growth has averaged nearly 9% a year for six years, transforming the skyline of the steamy capital. Though it lies in Central America, the poorest and most violent region in the West, the country’s 3.6m citizens are now richer than most Latin Americans.

According to my friend's dad,  "Panama's economy is just booming".  "The expat world is thriving".  "The banks are exploding". His son-in-law (my high school best friend's husband) was discussing with him the Panama Canal, taking a cruise through the canal with the probability of visiting us while on the cruise (when it is in port).  He was trying to figure out the best way to get to us.  Like I told him, along with his father-in-law, "it is a simple four and a half hour flight.  You fly to Panama City, and we come and get you".  Simple as that.  That was a happy conversation.  I look forward to more of those.  This man knows that every country comes with its problems.  He knows there is unhappiness in Panama, discord among many, and there are many things that need to change with as much growth and boom that is being thrown at it. He told us more about the negative comments in the article.  He shared the good and the bad and the ugly just as our friends, Clyde and Terry Coles (www.alongthegringotrail.com or www.alongthegringotrail.blogspot.com), have.  He knows that Ray and I are not stupid.  We are doing our homework.  We are making educated, not emotional, decisions.  We are willing to take risks, change our lives and our families lives to a certain extent, and we realize the effect our decisions could  make on others.

Then we encounter the negative comments of others.  Those that are trying to throw their concerns or fears, I guess, our way.  In the same week that I had multiple friends and family members telling us that they were so excited to hear about our adventures, cannot wait to visit us, ask enthusiastically how we have come to realize where we would like to rent or buy a house, and who want to hear more from us after our next trip to Panama in March, Ray and I also heard (or mostly I heard) the following:

How can you get so excited about something when you are leaving your friends and family?

What will you do when you get there?  Is there anything to do?  There won't be anything to do if you aren't working.

What are the houses like?  Where will you live?  How will you live?  

Why wouldn't you just move closer to your job (since the commute is so horrible) instead of moving to Panama?  (The point is to not work.  It's not about the commute.  It's about quality of life, so perhaps it is about the commute in a way.).

Ray cannot contribute to the negative comments he has heard that are listed above, because he has learned to not listen, to not comment, and to not share as much.  I need his shell.  I need a thicker skin.  I need to use my hearing disability, perhaps, to filter the negativity and the pessimism.  I will learn to use my supposed "selective hearing" to hear from those excited for us.  Refer me to an article in a magazine like my friend's father did, and let me make up my own mind. I am all for hearing the concerns, as long as they are researched and valid concerns.  I am just no longer willing to entertain those concerns from those not knowing.