Neighbors Bringing Gifts

 Most people have neighbors who bring you cookies they've baked, or who tell you to mow your damn lawn, or ask your dog to quit pooping in theirs.  We have neighbors who bring over a sloth on a stick.

He apparently wandered over to their yard and got stuck in the wire over their fence.  They coaxed him down on a stick and then brought him to our house so he could scamper - okay, drag himself slowly, being sure to pace himself so he doesn't get too tired, since there's no use rushing things - back to the jungle, which is literally right behind our house.

So he held on to the branch and just kind of watched them as they carried him around, with an expression on his face sort of like that of ancien regime aristocrats being carried on a sedan by their peons.  The jungle is about 30 yards from where they dropped him, so he might be there by tomorrow.

The Caiman Whisperer

Give Mallory one beer, and there's no telling what can happen.

This, I am told, is a night monkey.  I don't know what the thing with bulging eyes sitting on her shoulder is.

Swimming with the Fishes

Note that there is absolutely no evidence in this photo that she was pushed.

So it is possible, though not necessarily advisable, to swim in Lake Gatun.  It's important to avoid passing ships.  It is also helpful to avoid water snakes, crocodiles, caimans, jaguars, and swimming within half an hour of eating lunch, or even longer if beans have been consumed.  My daughter chose to follow none of those rules. 

Morning Ruminations

There is no question, at least among the most eminent scholars, that Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries is the greatest breakfast cereal in the history of mankind, followed closely by the now defunct Quisp.  There is equally little doubt that Frankenberry was among the most abysmal.  Fruit Loops was an honorable mention, somewhere among the top quartile of food products that have formed part of a nutritional breakfast since the post-WW2 era.  Fruit Loops commercials were mediocre at best.  However, in real life, the toucan kicks ass over all other breakfast cereal mascots.  There is no dispute on this point; don't even bother posting a comment if you care to disagree.

Ugly Monkey

 These are called monos "titi," and I think somewhere I've read that they're actually called "Geoffrey's monkeys."  They're tiny, maybe a pound in weight, maybe 6-8 inches from head to butt, not counting the long tail.  They're ugly; their faces look like bats, and they have essentially a white mohawk for a hair style.  Notice the second photo, what looks like a black tumorous growth on the back behind the head.  If this were a sci-fi movie, this would be the second head emerging from the torso.  In fact, it's a baby, and they carry them around while they bounce along the branches and mooch bananas from tourists like us.

Capuchins

They're not just monks; they're monkeys, apparently so named by the Spanish because the white around their heads and the black on top made them look like monks.  They don't behave like monks, though; they rudely grab food out of your hands, wolf it down, scratch their crotch relentlessly and screech merrily while doing so.

Oh.  I stand corrected.

Sloths

 This is our back yard, and this is a sloth.  This was yesterday.  I've heard some interesting things about sloths, but I don't know if it's true: that sloths are sometimes green because their fur hosts algae; that sloths only poop once every eight days or so, but they come down to the ground to do it; that sloths eat the leaves of one particular tree in Panama that has an almost marijuana-like effect on them, which explains both their habitual stupor and what happened to the Doritos.

Panama Summit Sights

So this is an anteater.  Apparently he's tired.

This sign seems reasonable enough to me.  By the way, they don't really enforce it.

"Sendero del Abuelo" means "Grandfather's Path."  So that's the one I took.

Toucans, toucans everywhere, but just try to find a restaurant that serves Fruit Loops.

My Thanksgiving Cat

 

This is my cat. His name is Tiger, and he was the best pet I ever had. We got him and his sister, Parsley (the Calico in the third photo), from a street vendor in Taegu, Korea in November 1993. They were both kittens, about two months old, underfed and tiny. We were told that in that particular market, cats were sold not as pets but rather as raw ingredients for shaman medicine, and that would have been our cats' fate. They were both scared of people when we bought them, but as we rode home in the taxi with the kittens in a cardboard box, Tiger put himself above Parsley to protect her. Over the next 18 years, Tiger traveled all over the world with us. He lived in Korea, Chile, Venezuela, Spain, the Czech Republic and the U.S. Every time we had him in a cat carrier or a cage, he made the most tremendously loud meow ever heard by mankind. When we took him to airports, people dozens of gates away would look our way at the loud mournful meowing. When we carried him to the vet, people driving in cars would stop because they had heard him yowling. The first time we took him and Parsley on an airplane, they flew cargo, and we had been told there was a pressure problem with the cargo area. When we saw their cages sitting by the luggage area, it was as quiet as could be, and we feared the worst. But then he must have heard our voices, because suddenly he let loose an ear-piercing meow that echoed throughout the terminal.

He was, I confess, not the smartest cat in world history. He had a very hard skull, and he seemed to think that if he rammed his head against doors, they would eventually open, even the doors that opened inward. He could keep banging his head against closet doors for an hour with no letup.

When we lived in Chile, Tiger would perch in a tree outside our house. I rode the bus home from work, and when I rounded the street corner two blocks from our house, I would hear this very loud meow, then a thump, then a vibrating, woo-ah-woo-ah-woo meow as he came running toward me still meowing. And then he would bump his head against my leg and walk home with me. He was never really a lap cat; he couldn't figure out how he was supposed to sit in someone's lap. But he would crawl halfway onto your lap and stay there as long as you would let him, periodically bonking his head against your hand to remind you to pet him. As you can tell from his photo, Tiger was a Japanese Manx. He had the most amazingly powerful back legs. He could jump, quite literally, eight feet straight up onto the roof of a pool shed we had in our back yard, and even as a very old cat he never lost his ability to easily jump straight up onto beds and other furniture. He loved to sleep in the sun, and he loved to be near people. 

Tiger was loyal, affectionate, sweet and kind. When we went to Afghanistan, we couldn't take him with us. Parsley had died a month before we left Prague, so he was the only cat we had left. My parents agreed to take care of Tiger for us, and after we came back, he was even older and more frail, and I was afraid to bring him to Panama. My parents are the kindest people on earth, and so they took Tiger in for good, fully knowing that it was a matter of time and that I would not see him again. I think they fell in love with him, even in that short time, just as much as we loved him for nearly two decades.  We dragged him all around the world for 17 years; for his last year and a half, he could rest, and he found a new, final home.

Tiger came to us on Thanksgiving 1993, and he left us, dying the day before Thanksgiving 2011. But for 18 years, he was my little boy. And I will never have a Thanksgiving again when I don't think of him, and be very thankful for the time we had with him.

Days of Our Agoutis

So the agoutis, or neques as they are called here, have pretty much taken over the yard in the morning.  They come sniffing along for any fruit or nuts strewn about.  Sometimes we feed them bread sticks; they proceed to gnaw away as if they were extremely long cigarillos.  They tend to get into fights with the quails, and kind of stare at the lizards.  But the main thing they do is fight among themselves over food.  We stuck a couple of bananas into the fence hoping the monkeys would see it and get them, since if it's on the ground, the neques will get it first.  The birds were interested, but couldn't figure out how to eat the bananas - but they did manage to knock them to the ground.  (They also keep knocking over the bird feeder.)  So one neque eventually found the banana, and grabbed it with his mouth and started trotting off.  The other one came up behind him, obviously smelling the fruit, and kept trying to see what the other one had.  The one with the banana kept turning away from the other one to hide the banana.  However, a neque - which is about the size of a cat, without the tail - with a complete banana in his mouth, is not exactly a subtle sight.  So the one with the banana started running off, and the one without the banana started running after him.  Hey, it's a slow holiday morning, and I've got time to gaze out the window.

Iguanas, de paseo

The main street running by us is the Paseo de las Iguanas, and we have seen several large ones, but infrequently.  In our back yard there is Pedro, of course, who might be a small iguana, along with a bunch of even smaller lizards.  Well, today we saw an iguana about 1.5 feet long not counting his tail, very dark green with some hints of green, munching on something in the jungle.  We went outside to take a look, and this enormous iguana, nearly three feet long not counting the tail and very, very thick-bodied, came crashing through the underbrush.  Then, suddenly, both  bolted off and climbed trees, quickly disappearing from sight.  So now, anytime we are walking along with a tree branch overhead, we have to assume there is a decent chance there is an iguana up there.  I am told they are delicious.

Animal update

Today and yesterday have been banner days for us and animals, in the sense that many animals have come into our back yard and demanded food.  We had the gatos solos (coatis) yesterday morning, only 30 or 35 or so, a smaller crowd than usual, but they have revealed an endearing new quality.  After they eat all the fruit and bread, several of them decide it's time to scratch.  They basically recline back, then with their front paws scratch furiously at their tummies for several minutes.  The agoutis then follow, waiting patiently for bananas and breadsticks.  They sit upright on their haunches when they gnaw on the breadsticks; I have started calling the fat one Nibbler, after the Futurama animal.  The bushy-tailed squirrel has also come bounding in.  Today we had about 9 monkeys, the little white-faced ones.  Cholo the cook, wearing his French chef hat, took a bunch of bananas and papayas into the yard and once he left, they came in to eat.  We've had one very bright green iguana.  The other night we had the zorra, (not its real name - it's some kind of big shrew) snuffling around.  Haven't seen the armadillo for a couple of weeks.  The lizard who hangs out by the fountain has earned himself a name.  He is Pedro, for Pedro Picapiedras, the Spanish for Fred Flintstone.  Pedro is fast.  The other day he was sunning himself on the rocks while the chacalacas, a kind of big-winged pheasant, were eating bread we had thrown into the yard.  Pedro darted off the rock, dashed between them, grabbed the bread and zipped back to his rock.  He kind of runs on his back legs and rears up when he goes fast, so it looks like he's a cartoon character with his back legs spinning like a wheel, like he's the road runner.  The Chacalacas, who might not be the brightest creatures in the yard, stared blankly at each other wondering what the hell had just happened and where the bread had gone.  Pedro was back on his rock, the bread was gone, and if lizards can have shit-eating grins on their faces, that's what Pedro had.

Departure of the Coatis

 For those who may be concerned about leaving small children or inebriated adults with us, ignore those previous posts.  The gatos solos were actually quite friendly and gentle, except for ripping the kitchen door off its hings - we'll need to get that replaced.  And thus, their bellies filled with bread and cookies, their paws filled with the door keys they stole from us, along with the TV remote, they clambered over the fence and went back into the Canal Zone jungle.

Reflections Upon Feeding the Gatos Solos

 Who knew they had learned to open doors?  Who anticipated their surprising ability to learn to manipulate door knobs?  As the final photo shows, they can be rather insistent.  It was all darkness after that....

The Gato Solos Strike Back

 I was out of bread.  There were more than twenty of the gatos solos.  Then I remembered - we had a few cookies left over.  Everybody likes chocolate chip cookies, right?  Turns out they do.  Turns out they would much prefer, rather than having you toss them to the yard and they have to eat them out of the grass, to take them forcibly from your hand.  By the time I got the door closed, quite a few of the coatis had closed in.  But the door was closed.  We must be safe now. . . .

Revenge of the Gato Solo

 You can see their attack strategy revealed in this sequence of photos.  Sure, there are only eight or ten at this point, and they seem disinterested in the humans standing innocently on the patio.  They're keeping their distance and there is no sign of aggression.  Even at the time of the second photo, the only indication things might take a turn for the worse are that your esteemed photographer took a step forward without looking and startled the biggest freaking iguana I have seen outside a zoo, at least four feet long just in the torso, a tail stretching out at least another two feet, and looking like it weighed twenty or more pounds.  He went streaking across my foot, and by the time I recovered, for photo three, the coatis had launched the first wave of the attack.  Now there were close to two dozen already in the yard and at least ten more climbing the fence, and I was running out of bread.  It's rare that I recall any words of wisdom from my parents - a fact in startling contrast to what my own daughters must go through every day, remembering dozens of extraordinarily sage sayings and bons mots I offered throughout their childhood, oftentimes despite their best efforts to put those years far beyond the reach of conscious memory - and yet, for a moment, as I noticed that coatis have very sharp teeth and very sharp claws and were already within pouncing range, I vaguely recalled my parents saying something like, 'You shouldn't feed wild animals up close.  Remember what happened with the crocodile.' 

Return of the Gato Solo

 So there were a few gatos solos (coatis) outside the fence of our yard and we thought, what could be the harm of tossing them some pieces of bread?  And it seemed perfectly fine; a handful came through the hole at the bottom the fence and a few climbed over it, and they ate the bread. And that would be that, right?

Except this was the Day of Revenge of the Gato Solo.  Things weren't over, not by a long shot.

Animals Invade

 Sure, armadillos might seem cute at first.  And in fact this one was.  But he was a harbinger, a scout if you will, an agent of reconnaissance for what was to come later in the morning . . . .

Me and a Mermaid

Already we notice subtle differences from Afghanistan.

Here are photos of me and a mermaid.  I am the one wearing a shirt.

Lining Up for the Canal

Another view from the Amador Causeway.  On the horizon you can see ships lining up to enter the canal.  On the stern of the small boat in the foreground, you can see what appears to be one guy trying to drown another guy.