DO YOU SPEAK SPANISH?

With a slight chuckle, a patient of mine this morning (reminder that I am a dental hygienist) asked if I speak Spanish?  In twenty-eight years of practicing dental hygiene, I have never been asked this question.  I am in Virginia.  The United States.  Why would I necessarily speak Spanish in a city with 9.5% being Hispanic or Latino (75% White according to 2011 numbers)?  Now she did chuckle, so I know she was a bit nervous.  And I wasn't put out in any way by her question, it was just odd to me.  Then I realized we do have one Spanish speaking dental hygienist in the office (not that this one has ever treated her before though), and the dentist she sees in the office speaks Spanish (he is from CA).  So her question then made a little sense.  And also, as Ray reminded me, when we have traveled to Mexico, Spain and Panama, we have often asked "do you speak English"?  Mostly because we have needed to know if we needed our daughter to speak for us, to take our translation guides out or use a lot of hand gestures.  In Panama, in the interior, we learned quickly not to even ask anymore.  There is limited English even with the policemen.

 Back to the job--the fun part for me was to actually try and answer her a bit and communicate with her in Spanish.  But then I froze.

Here is the scenario at ten am.
Patient:  Do you speak Spanish?  Chuckle.
Me:  Oh, no.  Chuckle.  Un poquito (A little, I bravely try and say.)  Despacio, por favor.  (Speak slowly, please.)
Patient:  Bueno, bueno. (Good, good).

The worst thing someone can do, of course, is let the other think they know their language.  Because then they just let it all go!  And it is just so fast.  So I have set the patient back in the chair now and I tell her that I am going to Panama in three weeks.

Me:  Voy a Panamá en tres semanas.  (Or I might have said "¡Vamos!"--as in "Let's go!"  lol  I think that is the word I used instead--ooops.)
Me:  Aprender espanol.  (learn Spanish)  I don't know how to say "I am trying to learn Spanish again".
Patient:  Nothing.  Her mouth is open.  She can't say much and that's good!

At the end of the appointment I cheated a bit, signed onto Google Translate and told the patient that Dr. X was coming into see her next.  Oh, and I tried to ask her if she taught Spanish or ever did intercambios with people interested in learning Spanish while she learned English.  That didn't go over well.  She spoke in English and answered me, but I couldn't even understand what she replied.

Dr. X came into the operatory to perform the exam.  In Spanish, I know that he asked her how she was, how her teeth were (dientes), and then they chatted.  I gathered the word "solamente" (only) out of her mouth.  She rolled her tongue a lot (she is from Honduras--another dialect naturally), they laughed (I wondered what he really understood), and she spoke so fast!

At the end of the appointment, I did manage to tell her I would "veo que in seis meses" (I cheated on the 'see you' part but knew 'the six months' part--meaning "see you in six months") and made her appointment "de agosto a las 10 am" (on a certain day in August at ten am).  I am so going to knock her socks off at that visit.
Okay.  Probably not.  I will just speak English which is something I know quite well.  It might be best for both of us.   It just really woke me up to how much I want to learn the language and how difficult it will be.  I still have time.

SELL, TRASH, GIVE AWAY!? YES.

Ray and I are going to be busy and/or away for the next several weekends.  And the away part doesn't include trips to the lake house necessarily.  This is why yesterday was a good day and opportunity to take a road trip to visit our daughter in Williamsburg, VA.  It is about a two hour drive to her apartment which is manageable for the four hours or so of a visit from us that she can spare.  It was a bleak, rainy, gray and cold day.  While she was busy with Campus Golf (one of William and Mary's annual competitions that combines a little bit of crazy golf with a philanthropic purpose as well) in the morning, we were busy getting a car serviced and running a few errands.  Upon arrival to her apartment, we quickly said hi to friends and roommates that were studying for midterms (or taking a break from Campus golf and playing Wii).  We left them to shop at the outlets (Ray needed a shirt for an upcoming wedding we are attending in Key West, and one of the reasons we are gone a weekend), pick up a few things for her at Target, eat Mexican food for dinner and drink coffee while sharing peanut butter pie at a small coffee shop in Colonial Williamsburg town and chat a little more back at her apartment.

Sharing pie and drinking coffee at Aromas.

I hate goodbyes.  Since the next time we  see her will be when she has a job fair to attend in our area in three weeks, this was a good weekend to check in on her.  And the Friday night that she does come home, we will only see her for just a few hours before flying out to Panama the next day.  Leading me to this blog and this post...because we were away for most of the day yesterday, we decided not to stay at the lake house.  We drove straight home instead, passing Lake Anna and the lake house, so that today we could.......clean.

We didn't talk about cleaning the house or our Sunday plans on the drive home from Williamsburg last night.  We didn't talk about anything really.  I broke out my ear buds an hour into the drive, because I only want to listen to country music or Satellite radio for so long.  Then I need my kind of music (current Top 40 or alternative).  We are both perfectly happy with this set up.  We had already talked about Panama earlier in the day and yesterday and pretty much all the days prior.  We took a break.  And listened to our music.  This morning, I jumped out of bed and decided to strip the bed (I didn't really jump.  It was more like "It's Sunday already?"), wash the sheets and and everything else.  Ray vacuumed, I dusted and we did the floors.  The house got cleaned up a bit.  What's the problem then?  The problem here is that when cleaning, all the little stuff is noted.  What am I going to do with this when I move?  Who will want that?  How will I pack up what I do want to take with me?  And then I see all the stuff I "inherited" when my mom passed away two years ago.  Things my dad bought overseas.  Or are they?  Or when they were decorating their new house in the seventies, did they just purchase these things from  stores like Bombay Palace, Hong Kong or Pier One.  My parents liked Asian knick knacks.  Not me.  I googled an old typewriter.  If I can sell it--$50.  Kaching.  I googled one of the knick knacks I was given by a great friend of my dad's.  Hae Song was his name, and he loved to eat kimchi (outside though!) with my dad.  A miniature gold crown inside a paperweight--a replica of a crown from some big wig king (in Asia somewhere) that was worn in 5-6 AD apparently.  $10, kaching.  A samovar (Russian teapot).  No clue.  Again, if it were to sell, $300?  $500?  $2000?  Yeah right!  I may need to get an appraiser or do one of those estate sales of my meager possessions that I think are super valuable!  I know by posting the pictures below, they will be a big hit and sell fast!  I think the dust has gotten to my head here.  My give away pile is getting bigger, and the sell pile is getting the "yeah, this will never sell" look.

This is the samovar.  I have an additional small teapot on the very top  instead of a lid.

Alas, the 5th-6th century Asian Kumkwan Chong  gold crown, and paperweight.

Then my thoughts drift to the upstairs rooms.  My nightstand drawer with an old camera in it and my daughter's first pacifier and hospital bracelet (those are keepers!), the trunk against a bedroom wall with my medical records from my pediatrician, some cards and books, and I don't know what else in it (I went to the pediatrician a lot due to my hearing loss apparently).  Ray starts purging his nightstand drawer (awards/pins received from his service at Giant Food, Bible (wouldn't dare toss that) and more stuff.  Next we move onto emptying the desk in the office. Ray starts cleaning the office itself.  And I shred pay stubs from my teaching job from twelve years ago (I made $23/hr in 1999 teaching and lo and behold was given a raise the very next year to $24/hr--raises are unheard of nowadays!), medical EOB's that were screwed up from 2010, bank statements, and I no longer even use those banks and the next thing I know I am googling this, shredding that, and thinking "this is why I shouldn't stay at home".   I don't want to have to make these decisions.

 This is why it will be good to be gone for a few weekends and back at the lake house when it gets sunny and warm again--if that ever happens.  If I ignore it, it will go away.  HA!  Truthfully, it did feel good to purge. Ray said it was good to stay home and get it done. It felt great when I completed scanning all of those pictures and making sense of my photo albums now turned into photo boxes.  And there are decisions to be made, and we will make them.  That is our character.  Make decisions, purge, clean, get it done and move onto the next task at hand. I have already put  a note out to an old neighbor/realtor in regards to a recommended realtor in the area (since she moved too far away to take care of me).  Do I sell things when I can?  Things my daughter and family doesn't want?  Do I stage my house?  Do I hold onto the things so it looks better to the buyer?  Do I care that much?  I know I won't make a killing off the house.  I just want it to sell in a decent amount of time.  Of course I care.  If I didn't, I wouldn't be walking around the house looking at this and smiling at that, remembering where it all came from and figuring out a way to find a new place for it when I retire to Panama.

I doubt anyone will know where this is...our first weekend in March will be to spend time with friends near the Piankatank River.

Next stop will be Key West!

And finally, back to Panama!

GROWING OLD IN PANAMA

Tonight Ray and I went to see the movie "Quartet" with Maggie Smith.  I have always loved her character as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, and most recently the two of us have been enjoying her sassiness as the Dowager (a titled widow) Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey".  The movie is basically about lifelong male friends along with a former musical colleague living in a retirement home for musicians.  Once the character Jean moves in (played by Maggie Smith), the threesome try to convince her they, being the finest singers in English operatic history, should perform once again as a quartet.  It drives home the idea of aging.  How we choose to let it happen to us.  And if we come to terms with it.  I thought long and hard about love, support, family and friends while watching the movie and afterwards.  Amid those thoughts,  I was letting thoughts of Panama drift in, as usual.

While waiting for the movie to start, we had our cell phones so we could stay connected to the outside world.  Not really.  I usually get to the theater so early that I then read a book on my Kindle (an app on my phone) or catch up on reading a new blog as I did tonight (indacampo.wordpress.com).  While reading the blog, the subject of internet and cable came up.  I leaned over and asked Ray (there were only advertisements popping up on the screen and perhaps three other couples were in the theater at the time) if he thought we would have just one cell phone to start with when in Panama.  I told him I didn't see why we would incur the extra expense of another phone if we would be with each other daily for the first couple of months.  His comment put me at ease when he said that it would be longer than just the first couple of months most likely that we would be inseperable, and he sees my point of why we would only need one phone.  TBD at a later date.  We like the idea of having a phone and just adding minutes to the card, but we will cross that bridge once there.

Once the movie started and was getting to the good part of the relationships forming, I leaned in again to Ray.  Relationships were forming, some of the residents were having issues (don't want to give things away), and others were just being crotchety and testy (lightened the mood).  But this time when I leaned in, it wasn't to ask "what did he just say"?  I just wanted to hold his hand  :)  I was feeling content watching the movie (at peace), letting a daydream slip in about our retiring to Panama, thinking about spending the days together while still so young and healthy in hopes that we will live a long, healthy, comfortable and easy life in Panama.

DESTINY

I just read this caption today (Richard Detrich's blog) ---
Flying high . . . Panama’s Copa Airline

Copa has recently added direct service from Boston to Panama.

Is it destiny?  Ray and I were talking to our daughter on the phone this past week mostly about her life--not so much about what led me to call her in the first place.  The fact that once again, I swear I didn't do it, I have apparently shut down a laptop.  Another one bit the dust.  More, maybe, on this subject later.  She has applied to two jobs in Boston and has searched all the counties surrounding Boston where she might want employment as a teacher.  This is her top choice of places to reside.  This is going to be tough.  It is not easy finding a job, let alone one in Boston where teachers are unionized and not giving up their jobs until tenured.  BUT when I read that caption, that Copa is now flying direct to Panama from Boston, I couldn't help but smile.  Hope and pray.  And leave a message on her cell phone.  This must be a good omen, right?  One can only daydream for all the right dreams to come true.

AH, THE SPA.

For fourteen years, I have left my daughter and husband to fend for themselves for forty-eight hours (for the past four years though, it has been just Ray) while I exhaustingly check into a resort in Charlottesville, VA for some much needed tune ups and repairs.  I just need a few hours to spend with an esthetician and massage therapist.  My two Lake Anna roommates, another very close girlfriend and I check into a suite loaded down with all the necessities:  food, drink, tablets loaded with games and novels, IPODs with downloaded music from every genre, board games, simple deck of cards and walking shoes (in case we aren't being lazy and decide to walk the hills checking out the million dollar homes).  My thoughts run from how funny it is that just a few short years ago we brought same food and drink but toted along books, magazines and Walkmans (what was a Kindle, Nook, Ipod or Ipad?).  And those million dollar homes I would daydream about owning have turned into daydreams of a rental home in Panama. We even joked about how some of bonding time was being taken over by playing games on those electronic devices.  But when talking, our conversations over  cocktail hour (we prepare the food and drink in our suite) can be as simple as what happened during our spa services or as complex as our personal health issues that have now started to rear an ugly head.  We went fourteen years being young and healthy.  Age and sickness was bound to occur along the way.  We laugh at ourselves, play games fiercely and competitively, and during conversation, we share thoughts, and concerns of the present and future.  We toasted that we can no longer be stricken with illness.  I was reminded of the vow we made fourteen years ago that only in death will someone be allowed to break the spa weekend dynamics.  Oh, the pressure.  The heartache.  The wonder that I will still be able to pull off spa weekend from 2,100 miles away.

The Spa.

Retreat for two days.

I had a nice conversation about Panama while walking yesterday with one of these four woman.  She is wonderfully supportive.  I do not see her as often as my Lake Anna roommates, and it was easy to talk about the future.  We talked about friends visiting Panama.  She had some excellent ideas for what I hope will be the influx of travelers coming to visit us and to see Panama.  We talked about Ray and I retiring to Panama and the plan that we have for living there.  At the end of the conversation we approached a swing by the water (it was time to rest).   I was explaining to her why it is that we have decided to do what we are doing and how soon we are going to do it.  After I made the comment and waving my hands in the air of "we just want to go outside the box, see what's out there for us, not to be working for the weekends going to bed at eight pm and waking at two am, and if we can do it now, we want to go now and just..."   She simply said, "You want to live."  YES.  EXACTLY.  We want to live.  For the days.  All the days.  We are young.  We are healthy.  We have done it right and played it safe.  As some would say "we are on a journey".  We look forward to the journey.

FEROCIOUS NOR'EASTER, NEMO (MISSES VIRGINIA, AS USUAL)

Monster snow storm ravages New England.  That was the headline in the Boston Globe newspaper today.  The following paragraph was taken from the paper the day after New England had one of the worst winter storms in its history.

Pummeled by one of the worst winter storms in its history, much of Massachusetts spent Saturday digging out, waiting for power, and navigating a snow-shrouded landscape that was both pristinely beautiful and savagely cruel. Two Boston residents died and two were injured because of carbon-monoxide poisoning linked to the storm, which dumped up to 30 inches on snow on the state. Hundreds of coastal residents were evacuated from the North Shore to Cape Cod, and more than 400,000 people in Massachusetts awoke without power on Saturday (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/02/10/ferocious-nor-easter-departs-leaving-deaths-and-injuries-its-wake/TTs8xVUD5dtJmToasYOR8I/story.html)

https://www.google.com/search?q=boston+snow

The reason I am posting about this snowstorm in Boston is because my daughter would love to land a teaching position in Boston.  We were just on the phone Thursday night talking about a possible trip to Boston to a job fair in April.  Her dad asked her if she could find a job and reside wherever she wanted, where would that be?  While she replied that Northern Virginia is probably where she will end up at first, she truly would love to move to Boston. She loves cold more than hot and humid.  She wants to live in a city.  She wants to go out of the box. (Sound familiar?).  This storm was a classic Nor'Easter coming up from the south wreaking havoc and creating ruckus for hundreds of thousands of people.  While my friends, family and I all know what transpires from these storms (accidents, power outages, possible deaths, travel disruptions), we still crave this type of storm for our area. We are due some snow.  Which brings this blog back to Panama.  

While watching the news yesterday morning and The Weather Channel, my one girlfriend told Ray and I  "when in Panama, you won't see any snow".  The reason I want a foot of snow (okay, I will settle for waking up to six or eight inches of snow) to fall from the sky and land in my neck of the woods is so that I will get that surprised "snow day" thrown at me.  Work will be canceled if I wake up to too much snow or the hours of my schedule would be shortened if it starts falling heavily midday.  I don't long for shoveling, being cold, and being cooped up in the house with possible power outage.  And the only thing on TV (if not prepared with recorded programs, and if there is even power) is the news.  And the weathermen stating how right they were about the big snow event.  Snowmaggedon as we had February 5-6, 2010 dropped thirty inches of snow in my area.  The Federal Government shut down.  Thousands of people were without power.  My neighborhood wasn't plowed for five days, we shoveled every two hours to stay ahead of the game, and we chatted with our neighbors about how we could see the main road plowed "right there".  If we could just "get there".   Ray drove me to work eventually, because his office was shut down along with the government. This was once we (the neighbors) finally used the one snow blower in our subdivision of twenty-five houses and blew our way out of our court. 

 So when in Panama, why will I want to feel those frigid cold temperatures that go right along with a good snowfall? Why will I want my skin to be snapped with those biting winds?   Why will I care about not seeing snow, having that measurable snowfall or the digging out?  Oh, that's right, I won't.