Gamboa 21k

Heading down to the start in the rain

So I finally ran my much anticipated 21k on Sunday.  It rained the entire race.  Which seemed bad at first when I got out of the car, and seemed worse as I stood in line for the portable toilet, and dreadful as we all stood milling around, soaked to the skin, waiting for the race to start (6:30 start time was delayed to 7:00 because of the rain).  But it was totally fine. In fact it was great--I don't think I've ever enjoyed running more.

It was so cool, and green, and beautiful.  The rain was not torrential, but steady and the scenery on the course was spectacular. The jungle along the canal is gorgeous and the rainy misty weather only made the greens more intense.  The rain also kept the temperature down and I found that I felt much better than I had during any of the past sunny races.  Between the verdant gorgeousness that surrounded me and the refreshing rain, I enjoyed the run immensely.

My final time was 2:20.  Maybe not as fast as I would like, but probably not so bad for my first time.

finish line

So now I can cross half marathon off my 2011 to-do list and move on to the next thing.  A Panamanian driver's licence.  This will probably be harder for me than the half marathon.  I am afraid of driving and I haven't driven in the last fifteen years.  Panama is a driving city and my life will be better if I drive... but I dread it.

5 observations and banana bread

the rocky side of Isla Iguana (pretty isn't it?)

• The qualities I most admire in my children are the ones I don't have. My girls are both good at math and I struggled with math in school. I don't know if they have better teachers and curriculum, but they excel and I am so proud and pleased.
• Hot days = more laundry. It has been so hot and humid here that you break a sweat reading the paper. I need to change clothes three times a day and the laundry pile is perpetually massive. I'm used to being a soggy, sweaty mess but it's been a little ridiculous. My running clothes are disgusting and I mostly run before or after the sun comes out (I may have to burn some of them). Thankfully it rained yesterday afternoon, and it seems rather less sticky today.
• I like the new public campaign against throwing garbage on the street. It is disgusting and it would be good if people started thinking of it that way. I hope it works.

• Making a new playlist is a calming, constructive activity.  I've been working on my playlist for Sunday's half marathon and it's been a fun distraction from fretting.
• These songs from Iron and Wine's, Kiss Each Other Clean (my favourite album title of 2011) are not on Sunday's playlist, but are perfect for this rainy rest day.

This is my go-to, hands-down-favourite, banana bread recipe adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.
Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 ripe mashed bananas--I don't use the monster (genetic freak) for-export ones--the smaller ones are tastier.
1 teaspoon dark rum
1 cup toasted, shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

Mix the dry ingredients together (not the coconut).  Cream the butter and beat in the eggs, bananas and rum.  Stir the wet mix into the dry (don't over mix).  Fold in the coconut.

Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes.

in the mix

My half marathon is on Sunday.  Physically I'm ready for it, mentally I feel a little sluggish.  I don't know what it is, but I don't feel excited (at all).  I was wondering this morning if I'm in the process of sabotaging myself.  Am I afraid?  I don't think so.  I know I can finish and finishing is my main goal this first half marathon.  Music is the one  thing that can pull me out of a running funk, but none of my old favourites are doing the trick.

I have a running playlist that is different from what I usually listen too.  In fact if something from my running mix comes up on the ipod when we are sitting around drinking wine, I always feel a little uncomfortable.  Not because Missy Elliot is incongruous with quiet wine sipping, but because I'm so in my head when I run, that a song from my playlist feels like a page from my diary.  When I run I get to listen to music the same way I did in my twenties, intensely and with volume.  It's a major reason why I run and I can usually count on it to keep me going.

So I need to find some new songs for my running playlist.  Songs that will pull me out of this sluggishness.  I'm going to give this a try:

sleepover

When my daughter decided (months ago) that she wanted a sleepover for her eighth birthday I tried to sway her.  Bowling is always fun, or we could go to the movies.  No, all she wanted was a sleepover, with make-up, and nail polish, and the TV moved into her room.  How could I deprive her of a pleasure I enjoyed so much myself as a child?  I swallowed my apprehensions, which mostly had to with mess and dealing with other people's children in Spanish, and moved the TV.

The girls arrived after school on Friday.  My daughter had requested burgers and waffle fries, so that's what I made.  Everything seemed to be going well until I heard (in a stage whisper--in Spanish) I have some bad news, I don't like hamburgers.  I would say that this pretty much sums up my interactions with this particular child for the rest of the party--equal parts hilarious and annoying.  (Although, it was probably more annoying than hilarious when I woke Saturday, to her telling me there was no toilet paper in the bathroom.)  After eating, they played and giggled and ran up and down the stairs.  I was grateful when they were finally all in pajamas and watching a movie.

They went to sleep late and no one was up in the middle of the night crying to go home (have you ever had this happen?  it's the worst!).  They were up a little earlier than I would have liked on Saturday morning.  (They needed a round of Nutella on toast before I had the pancakes made.)  They had a great time and there were no fights, and no one wanted to leave (a sure sign of a successful party).  The mess wasn't too bad, except the  floor in my daughter's room was disgusting--popcorn, Monopoly, pretzels, make-up, and rabbit poop will do that.  I survived, and even mostly spoke in Spanish.

I speak to my girls in English, so I always feel a little unnatural talking to their friends in Spanish.  They know me as foreign, and accented and that doesn't feel like me.  Dealing with people in your second language (if you are like me, and are more proficient than fluent) is like having an awkward costume on, the people you're talking to never get the real you.  A puzzled look from my kids' friends always makes me painfully aware of my deficiencies in Spanish.  But really, they mostly understand me, and my own kids are so good-natured about correcting, or explaining what I am trying to say, that it's really no big deal.  Ultimately, my Spanish has very little to do with the success of a slumber party.

So, it was all good, and I'm sure we'll be doing it again soon enough.  A little mess and being the weird, accented, foreign mom is a small price to pay for my kids' happiness.  I am grateful that my daughters have developed close friendships here.  Rabbit poop under the bed, and blue nail polish on the night stand--I wouldn't have it any other way.

Even the bunnies survived six squealing girls

5 observations and sweet almond spread

1. Kids do not judge birthday cakes by how elaborate or arty they are.  They judge them by how much candy is on them, with bonus points for marshmallows.  I made the above cake for my daughter's birthday yesterday, planning to make something more elaborate for her sleepover tonight, but she was so pleased, she asked to save this cake to share with her friends.  I did not complain and we celebrated her birthday with chocolate ice cream.
2. At forty, I can still muster all the self-righteous indignation of twenty.  While running the other night, there was a Porsche parked on the sidewalk in front of a "spiritual centre."  The thought of someone looking for enlightenment while being so oblivious infuriated me (I have some enlightenment for you, don't be a dick).  Every time I passed that car, my fingers twitched with vandalism.  I did not act on my juvenile impulses but was kind of impressed that they were still there.
3. Eight is a great age.  My baby is eight and she's more like a person every day.  I mean, she thinks about stuff and feels empathy.  It really is an incredible privilege to watch kids grow up.
4. Roald Dahl is so great.  We are reading The BFG and enjoying it, especially the language.  Jumbly and scrumdiddlyumptious should totally be real words.
5. This is a great song, and was my daughter's favourite when she was three.  I will never forget her having us obsessively play it over and over for her, as if if she were trying to memorize it.  I figured it probably meant she would grow up to be as cool as Kim Deal.  So far so good.

Instead of a recipe I have a link this week.  There is a sleepover in my very near future, and I still have a few things to prepare.  I've made this spread a couple of times and it is really good.  I am a regular reader of the Healthful Pursuit blog, but I haven't made many of her recipes because all those health food store ingredients are so expensive here.  This recipe is simple enough and it's delicious.

sweet almond spread

Enjoy!

when the cure is worse than disease

Not even the best holiday is without mishap: lost sandals, or a hole in the mosquito net, or noisy neighbours--there's usually some little thing.  Our lovely holiday was not without incident.  On Sunday, while in the water, my daughter was stung by jellyfish.  Not a little sting, some fairly large tentacles wrapped around her wrist--she must have stuck her hand through a mass.  Anyway, it was painful and big--we've only dealt with much smaller stings in the past.  I had some antihistamine cream in my bag for just such an occurrence and was calmly applying it to my poor, whimpering  girl, when our boat driver came over to see what was the matter.  He said, lime, we need to put lime on it and he went off to find a lime.  I had a twinge of misgiving, but I let him put the  lime on her arm when he dashed back.  The lime did seem to soothe the sting and soon we were back on the boat looking for whales.

We continued to treat the sting with the antihistamine cream and it seemed to help, but it was strangely red, and by Monday night quite swollen.  On Tuesday morning it was blistering and very painful.  I knew it was the lime, as I recalled a friend's mysterious rash turning out to be the result of lime juice and sun exposure.  Google confirmed this; it's called phytophotodermatitis.  The reaction is not the same for everyone and my daughter's was definitely extreme. After a trip to the dermatologist and pharmacy,  she is doing much better.

actually quite improved this morning

 You might well wonder why I let the boat driver put the lime juice on my daughter's arm.   And honestly, I wish I had stopped him.  But, I let him. because I respect local knowledge.  He was not wrong, the lime did soothe the sting but combined with sunlight it was not a good idea.

A couple of years ago my husband developed a strange swelling on his leg.  Our nanny at the time, saw it and said with conviction, that's a torsalo (botfly).  My husband went to a doctor (two in fact) and was told it was an infected, ingrown hair.  He was prescribed antibiotics and sent on his way.  The swelling did not go away, in fact it became more painful and bigger.  When he was seeing an orthopedist about his sore knee, the orthopedist saw the swelling and said, that's a torsalo.  By this time the larvae was large and very painful to remove.  If we had listened to our nanny, my husband could have been saved a lot of pain.  And that is probably why I let the boat guy put lime juice on my daughter's arm.  I really don't know what I will do next time I am faced with folk wisdom.

Pretty Pedasí

We spent the weekend in Pedasí.  There are many beautiful places in Panama, but this would definitely be in my top three. along with Bocas and Islas Perlas.

My internet research said that it was a four hour drive from Panama city, but that's pretty optimistic.  There's a lot of road construction between Divisa and Las Tablas and with a snack and stretch stop, it was more like five hours.  When the new divided highway is finished it will be four hours, but it's not right now.  The drive back was more like six hours, stopping for lunch and with horrible, heavy, Sunday afternoon, traffic between Coronado and the city.

Apart from the longish drive, (really not so long, but longer than we expected) we had an amazing time.  The town of Pedasí is really cute and the people are friendly.  There's a nice bakery and plenty of little restaurants.  Friday night, the central plaza was full of kids of all ages playing what looked to be prisoner's base.  We found the town to be very pleasant.  We didn't stay in town although there are a lot of little hotels that looked nice.  We stayed just out of town, closer to the beach.

Our bed and breakfast was sweet, clean and comfortable and not (for a change) overpriced.  The owner was nice and helpful (he brought us a bodum of coffee to have on the back porch while we waited for the girls to wake up).  We walked down to Playa del Toro when we first arrived.

We were on a rocky stretch of the beach, but we could see that it was sandier in the other direction.  There were sand dunes that we raced and slid down.

It wasn't the best spot for swimming, but pretty and fun in other ways (and I'm sure it was sandier further down).  One little girl I know did not want to go back to the hotel even though it was getting dark and buggy.

On Saturday we went to Isla Iguana.  Isla Iguana is a short boat ride from Pedasí.  The island has a pretty beach and some great snorkeling.  It's nice for kids because you don't need to snorkel from a boat, the reef is just right there.  The water is clear and as calm as a swimming pool.  We saw lots of fish and coral.  We walked across the island to another small beach.  From this little beach we walked along the rocky coast back to the main beach.  Along the way, we poked around in some tidal pools and found a big trilobite and a spotted sea snake.  We also saw the Frigate bird colony, which no photo could possibly do justice (everywhere you look there are birds in the air and in the trees).  There are incredible volcanic rock formations and coral beaches.

On our last morning we took a boat out to see if we could see some whales.  We did  see a pair of hump backs and couple of young whales.  We didn't get close enough for great photos, but getting to see them at all was thrilling.  We also got to see some sharks and a sail fish.  We stopped back at Isla Iguana to avoid the rain.  The girls got back in the water and some local fisherman shared some fresh caught fish with us.

The trip was a big success.  We didn't have time to go to nearby Playa Venao or Isla Caña.  A return trip is already in the works!