Blog? There is a blog?

You wouldn’t know from the amount of time I haven’t spent here. I never wanted it to be an obligation, and I haven’t had anything I felt like writing about for a while so it’s been a dormant blog. It’s just been regular life here doing the regular things, nothing out of the ordinary. But today we are at a hotel all day, waiting for our flight to California in the morning. Maybe I could use this time here.

What has happened in the last few months? We passed our 12 year anniversary of living here. By now we are very well settled in, of course, but the time has also gone quickly so it doesn’t seem that long. It’s nice that we know our way around and how to get things done. Even better, as we have gotten older and lazier, we know other people to call on to get things done. We are more content just chillin these days instead of looking for new adventures or challenges.

We continue to go back to the USA to see family every few months. The grandkids are 6-11 years old and more fun all the time. We can play and do things and have much more interesting conversations. I have learned a lot about Taylor Swift and Harry Potter, among other things. My relationship with my sisters and wonderful extended family continues to develop also, and I look forward to more visits with them. But other than family, the USA doesn’t hold any appeal and we have no desire to spend much time there.

The band has also had major changes. We used to play in Boquete every week, which is a mountain town 45 minutes up the road. This involved practicing for gigs, hopefully learning some new material to keep things interesting, loading a lot of gear in the car, unloading it all up there and hoping we didn’t have any equipment issues, playing the gig, loading up again, and driving home late at night, often with rain and/or fog, and unloading it all back into thru house to start preparing for the next gig. When our drummer was away for a few weeks we gave our dates to another band, our friends who wanted more work, and we realized how much easier life suddenly became.

Also, Hops opened up in David, just down the road from us. It’s a friendly, relaxed bar that has live music every weekend, karaoke nights, open mic nights, and other activities. They wanted us for a while so we started playing there once a month. It’s perfect! They have their own PA equipment and a sound man, so we have much less to carry and manage. We enjoy adding new material to keep it interesting and fun but with only once a month, the pace is so much more manageable. Our drummer didn’t want to work in David, so we have someone else we’ve known for years and it’s going wonderfully. We have even made friends with the bartender who is an excellent singer, and he sings a few songs with us at our gigs and brings a fun, new energy to our group. Now it’s much less like work and much more like fun and enjoying the camaraderie of playing music together. Who would have thought?

Oh, there was other news in the area recently. It’s the rainy season so we expect a lot of rainy afternoons and evenings. But, sometimes there is a storm system or even a hurricane above us and we get seriously soaked. This year though, my goodness! It rained and poured day and night for three weeks. There was flooding and landslides. Flights were cancelled. Roads and bridges were washed out. Restaurants and businesses were closed and sometimes flooded, and homes were flooded. Thank goodness construction here is concrete block, but the muddy water still leaves an awful mess. And, when things are closed, income is lost, often causing considerable hardship. The sun started coming out a few mornings ago and it was wonderful! It’s good to see things getting back to normal and recovery starting. The rainy season will be ending soon so hopefully there won’t be any more weather related problems, at least for us. Other parts of the world, however, aren’t as fortunate.

Other than that news, things are good. I’m spending more time with friends. I’m getting back to painting a little and I’m riding my bike a lot more. I still spend the majority of my time outside and there is more goofing off these days, just because I can. But outside is also interesting because I share it with so many birds and other critters. I’ll have to write a bit about that soon.

I hope all is well with you all out there! Take care of yourselves and each other.