Meet Alfie

Hi friends and family,

I thought it would be a good time to introduce you to our new dog Alfalfa Sprout. We just brought him from a beautiful Arkansas farm near Petit Jean mountain. I know he and his brothers and sisters had a good life there so all we can hope for is that he is as happy with us as he was on the farm. His mother was surprisingly tall and the sire is supposedly big for the breed meaning that the paws on Alfie are telling of whats to come. He is a Redbone Coonhound and we fell in love as soon as we saw him.

His first night I was warned about so many things, mainly that he would whine and wimper to alert his pack to find him. I knew I had to be tough and realize that he isn't "crying" like we might think. His first night he slept and slept and was soooooooo good. He slept the whole night while I tossed and turned and stayed awake and alert should there be a time when I had to rush him down the stairs and out the door to use the bathroom. He just slept. I kept thinking that there was something wrong with him and was thinking for a while that he must be dying from heartache thats why he's not showing the signs of the new puppy first night crazies but nope, he just kept sleeping. So Alfie is well rested and Jamey too since in order for Jamey to agree to get this dog I had to assume all puppy duties; breaking habits, house training, etc. So I am tired but it seems that if day one and day two are any indication of the temperment of this dog I will be relieved from a lot of stress.

Jamey and I have agonized over getting a dog for a long time. Since we were so transient for so long we never had the opportunity to get a companion but now we've made a commitment and there ain't goin back. I think that is what freaks Jamey out the most. Jamey has given me a pet before. My first Valentines Day gift from him was a Beta fish named Nikhil. Jamey surprised me and made me close my eyes and put my hand in the fish bowl. I pulled back my hand and opened my eyes as I felt the water. To my surprise, there was my brand new Beta fish, swimming upside down on top of the water. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to transfer a new Beta fish from room temperature distilled water to freezing cold well water in a glass bowl. I was confused at first as to why he would want to give me a dead fish but it turns out that he didn't mean to, from the time he transferred the fish to the bowl in the kitchen to the time he got to the living room, the Nikhil 1 died. It was the thought that counts. That's the last present I ever got from Jamey. I'm just glad he consented to having a dog. Its much more fun to play with Alfie than with a dead Beta fish, trust me.

The mothership has landed....in Arkansas

I hope you are enjoying the new look for our blog. Now that we are living the American life with full time jobs and all I thought it was time to give it a more sophisticated look so you're welcome. Some of you may wonder what I mean by the "American life" and well for us it means that we have a new place with no furniture with the exception of a nice couch that was donated to our cause and a brand new Samsung flat screen, overly large, ostentatious but beautiful T.V. Yes, that's all we own. In fact, here is a picture of our living room here in Little Rock. (That box near the window is our T.V., just so you don't miss it.)

Some wonder what has gotten into us, because, in fact, before we settled here Jamey and I shunned the life of consumerism and yet the first thing we did for our townhouse was consume a rather large flat screen T.V. We bought it and we like it, even despite the fact that we don't have cable and only watch re-runs of shows we have never even heard of through a snowy screen. We are connoisseurs of film and we wanted to do it right so we bought it. Done and done. And if you've ever seen Judge Judy in HD you will never buy another regular T.V. again. She's amazing. (picture of the kitchen, very exciting.)

Just to catch up the two or three people that are reading my blog, when we returned from Central America (see posts below, we were in fact in Central America only a couple of months ago...) Jamey holed away at his parents house in Mountain Home and worked his little heart out on the Rough Guides Panama chapter. He produced some amazing work and even more amazing maps, if I do say so myself. I went to Raleigh to visit family and let Jamey work so I wouldn't be tempted to nag and bother him while he finished his writing. While in Raleigh I applied to I think a thousand jobs in San Francisco because our plan was to gracefully transition into a really large, expensive city in the western United States. As it turned out, Jamey had friends and family looking out for him and suggested his name for two very good writing jobs in Little Rock, one for ESPN outdoors and one for Heifer International. So we changed our game plan a bit and scrapped the San Fran idea once we found out that these jobs were the real deal. Jamey ended up getting both jobs but the Heifer one fell through because of funding issues, which was a real bummer. The ESPN job seemed to be the right fit for him now anyway so he accepted the job and here we are in Little Rock. As for me, I'm still looking for work but thoroughly enjoying not working and arranging and re-arranging what little furniture and knick knacks we have. (Here's another picture of our place)

After living here for only a few weeks I have realized that I desperately miss the East Coast. Well, I don't know if it has to be East but definitely the coast. I never took for granted that for the last six years or so I have lived in walking or biking distance from the ocean or Vineyard or Nantucket Sound. And now, I am landlocked and without a natural body of water to which to run from the sweltering southern heat. It's making me feel a little claustrophobic. We miss Cape Cod and we miss the Atlantic Ocean and surfing and midnight swims and digging for clams and kayaking. It is now my mission, while I have the time, to find a natural body of water in Central Arkansas. Please, suggestions are welcome.

Our tentative plans while we are in Arkansas I will list below:

1) start our own non profit advertising agency (don't steal this idea)

2) breed bloodhound puppies
3) get a book deal on a topic I can't discuss because someone would definitely steal the idea

4) join the Rodeo circuit

5) become a famous photographer

6) prepare for overseas lifestyle. We must be prepared when we are accepted into stellar graduate programs in our respective fields

7) make beautiful music (this is not a metaphor, we are really going to start a band and call it The Soggy Croutons)

And lastly, I have a trivia question that stumped us last night at our bar trivia on Tuesday nights. No googling, use only your brains people.

Q: What is a Hemicrania?

Panama Shitty

James and I managed to escape the city and made it to Bocas Del Toro for a week and what now to me seems like months ago. We have been back in Panama ¨shitty¨as the locals affectionately call this black hole and we are really enjoying it. That was sarcasm. Jamey had some unfinished business here in the city and so we came back to walk around and pollute our lungs. Now that I have had a taste of the Caribbean I want to go back! I´m no city gal, that's for sure, but I´m definitely not a Panama City gal. I am yearning to visit a place where there is a waste management system, i.e, it doesn't constantly smell like you are walking around in a toilet. Granted, there are parts of New York that smell like a toilet but you can manage to get away from it. Not so much here. So I guess you could say I´m a bit burned out from this place. Several events have contributed to these feelings.

The week before we left for Bocas we had a brush with the immigration police and one foot in the back of a patrol car, we evaded riots by a bunch of really angry construction workers throwing cinder blocks and we were in a car accident. It was really fun. Then we had to come back and so far we have been yelled at (for basically being from the States), segregated by race on a bus and witnessed a vehicular homicide. I´m ready to go. We are dreaming of the Panama that we fell in love with last year which for the most part was in the Chiriqui mountains or on the Caribbean. In a last ditch effort we are attempting to escape to the Caribbean tomorrow, the day before we leave so our lasts precious moments here are not wasted in this smelly gutter.

I´m not sure when the next time will be that we travel and it may be while Jamey is working again for a book, which is great, but I really hope he gets the country-side and not the city. The city research was crazy and I think that I might kiss the ground when I get to DFW and be thankful for all that I had growing up in Virginia. The woods, the playgrounds without hypodermic needles and an education.

I´ve been trying to think of what to write for a blog to let people know what its like here. I have been at a total loss because I´m not sure you want to know. The poverty is intense, the pollution is deadly and there is widespread apathy for throwing garbage in the actual trash can. Hey, where can I toss this large dirty diaper? oh, there's the river where we get our drinking water, i´ll just toss it in there. MMM, serve me up a cup of water from the tap senor and please dont fish out the unidentifiable floaties.

If anything, this trip has taught me the value of education, if I didn't know before. You want a solution to poverty and environmental issues? go to school. Education. The average level of education for the working class here is probably 8th grade. I am making a sweeping generalization. I have also been told that the average education that a policia or military guard on the street has is the second grade. Now, I don't know if I believe it but I don't necessarily discount it. Imagine that, handing a second grader a gun and a moped and telling them to fill the quota of sending gringos to Immigration. Awesome. It is amazing the ego and power issues that go along with being an under educated, armed and uniformed military man. wow. Let me give you a dialogue of our brush with the military-

note: all from the policia was said in Spanish. Everything kate and jamey said was in broken, bad spanish.

Policia-

Hey, (big bright light on big stupid truck) wait there. Dont go any further. (truck pulls over)

Kate- are they talking to us?

Jamey- Si?

Policia- We need to see your identification or passport.

Jamey- Identification? We dont have it, it in apartment up the street.

Kate- No have it here. We can walk and get it.

Policia- You need to have identification to walk around here. You cant just do anything you want.

Jamey- we have a credit card.

Policia- no, no good, (addressing other policia) well what are we going to do?

Kate- (to Jamey) oh, they want money.

Jamey- I dont have any money.

Kate- (to the policia) I have a dollar. Thats it.

Jamey-(fake looking for I.D. in back pack) Do you want to make a run for it?

Kate- Are you crazy? They'll shoot us with their machine guns.

Kate (to police)- Well, what do you want us to do?

Policia- You need identification, it is illegal not to have Identification.

Kate- (to Jamey) Thats *expletive*. Its not illegal. They can go *expletive* themselves. I'm not *expletive* giving them anything. They can follow us up the street or they can *expletive* off.

Jamey- We dont have money.

Policia- You need to come with us (pushing jamey in police truck)

Kate- No *expletive* way. We are not getting in that truck. (to police) you can follow us up the street. No, we no want to go in truck. No. Where you take us?

Policia- Immigration, Jail.

Jamey- what? Immigration?!

Kate- No *expletive* way, do not get in that car Jamey. (to Police) We did not know that it illegal no have identification. Now we know.

Jamey- Senor, I writer for guide book. I write only good for Panama.

Policia- (after a quiet discussion among themselves) okay. have a good nite.

Kate and Jamey- What? okay??? See ya lata suckas.

Lesson learned. It is in fact illegal not to have I.D. on you as a foreigner. Especially at night. So I dont know Panamanian law all that well but the practical experience sure does help. Let this be a lesson to all who want to avoid a Panamanian jail. In fact if you can, avoid Panama City altogether.

Overall it has been an eye opening trip. The latent hostility towards gringos is grinding away at my nerves and making me very uncompassionate. I have to go somewhere to re-group and center myself. I think being a bitter, angry person only exacerbates the problem. Thanks for reading our posts. And check out the 2008 edition of Central America on a Budget from Rough Guides. You will see Jamey's name in print! yay! And a whole bunch of hard earned information on Panama Shitty.

A lunar celebration

A lunar celebration

On Wednesday, February 20th, the stars and the planets and the moons all aligned for a cosmic celebration. A lunar eclipse hung in the night sky, and fortunately for us, the Americas had the best view. As the night progressed, so did the clouds and by the time the moon had partially moved into the Earths umbra it was all nearly obscured by the dark clouds that had moved in from the southeast. We sat and watched on a dock, overlooking the Caribbean Sea, in hopes that it would only be a passing swath of nebulous but alas, it was not to be so.

Jamey was a bit gloomy but he was certain that the eclipse couldn’t have been on any other evening than this because this was the day and year of the thirtieth celebration of his birth and he knew his destiny was written in the stars. So instead of moping about we gathered with a a crew of mates from the hostel where we lay our heads and decided to make sure Jamey drank enough Abuelo rum in celebration of his birthday. After sharing drinks with two Brits, a Spaniard, a Chilean Swede, a Quebecois or French Canadian, and a Columbiana, we were ready to go and bailar, bailar, bailar. So off we went into the dark ink of the Caribbean Sea, heading North West to a place where the drinks were cheap and the music was loud and the sea would lap at our feet. We arrived and the party was in full swing and Jamey was grinning and telling everyone of his grand entrance into a new decade.

After many more toasts and saludos, I peered into the night sky, and much to my surprise the clouds opened a small hole giving us sight to the cosmic event we had so wished to witness. The lunar eclipse! There in the middle of a rowdy crowd of drunken sailors I stared bedazzled by the moon, halfway through the phase of the eclipse. In an infinitesimal moment in time the moon peeked out from behind the thick blanket of clouds to give us permission to view this millennial event. How lucky we are, to be here in this peaceful haven on earth as we pass between the sun and the moon casting our shadow on all the dents and divots of that glorious lunar orb.

I believe there were only but a few party-goers who were as distracted by the moon as I. Jamey included. We thanked the moon and the sun and the sea and were grateful for the company we were keeping here on this tiny archipelago. After that brief moment of clarity, the clouds passed over once again and the moon was gone into obscurity. And there we were, with nothing left to do but thank the celestial gods that gave us a brief view of this cosmic event and bailar, tomar and celebrar many more birthdays and eclipses to come.

Please check out the nights events captured by only a select bunch of pictures that make jamey look really sober.

Jamey jumping into the sea for his baptismal entrance into the 30 somethings. BOCAS!

30 years old, and still kickin'

I'm 30, people, so bring on the cards, presents, and general enthusiasm.

And for God´s sake, somebody throw me some kind of big, expensive party - I´m talking about MTV´s Super Sweet 16, except with receding hairlines and people who can complete a sentence without saying, ¨like¨.

Lots of love, and I hope to see you all in the very near future so that you can lavish compliments on me about my youthful appearance and buy me things.

Love,

Jamey

B22, Considerable Comfort

Chances are if you are reading this right now you are reading it in an e-mail. You should also know that this is simultaneously being published on our blog page. So, for those of you who are confused, I linked all of my friends and families e-mails (that I had) to a google group (KateandJamey Blog) account with the sole purpose of updating you all when we posted a new blog. So, apparently, unknown to me, it publishes what we write in our blog also in an e-mail to all of the addresses I typed in. I thought it would just send a quick “hey Kate and Jamey have a new blog, check it out” type message but it publishes the whole dang thing. If you prefer not to get the e-mail update you can unsubscribe at any time. But we will be sad. I was trying to make things easier but I think I made a few people confused. Sorry!

Jamey and I are still here in Panama City. We have been here two weeks and we are about ready to leave. We are very ready to leave. If I have to listen to another car alarm I am going to start throwing bricks through windows. I know that sounds violent but I’m at that point. I wonder if there are this many alarms in all cities or if Panama is exceptionally security obsessed. Which, judging by the armed guards on every block, they like security. Anyway, we are ready for our next destination on the Caribbean at Bocas Del Toro. We were there last year and we liked it but we definitely didn’t love it. We loved Boquete. Bocas was different. The Caribbean is beautiful and very poor and sometimes it’s hard to watch unabashed exploitation of a beautiful archipelago. It seems a lot of environmental groups have been winning the war against developers in the region. That’s the word on the street anyway, so I’m eager to see what has changed from last year.

Speaking of change, I’ve never been in a place where the economy is growing so quickly and there are multimillion, 50 floor towers popping up on every street corner. From our balcony we can see 4 new buildings in mid-construction. I have been in total awe of the amount of construction and all of the mid 60 retired baby boomers that are consuming condos in mass amounts. They locals call them “the baby boomers”, even if their not, and they are very aware that the Americanos are changing the whole economy, again. It seems that most of the boomers have jumped ship on the U.S. real estate market and are goin’ where the gettins’ good. Now is the time if you have the capital. I think there’s a mixed review on the streets of this economic boom. The tourist industry is seeing a lot of a new market of older, moneyed people willing to pay for higher flight prices, expensive restaurants and fancy hotels. Gone are the days of catering to the grungy, dread headed backpacker. The Panamanians are smart too. They know how to make a buck from the Gringos. A lot of Gringos are moving to the City but are moving to neighborhoods outside of the Canal Zone, which maybe a few years ago would have been uncommon. We are staying in a part of the City call El Congrejo (the crab) and it is a nice area of town with all of the best restaurants and tree lined streets. The foreign investors see all of that and are buying up all the space they can get their hands on. I think the entire skyline of the City will be drastically changed in only a matter of years.

We’ve spent the last two weeks eating at every cheap restaurant and visiting all of the cheap accommodations. The first few days we spent visiting the tourist spots like Panama Viejo and the ruins and Casco Viejo, which is my absolute favorite part of town. It’s still a part of town that is a little dodgy at night but they are making historical renovations through a group called “Revive El Casco” which is slowly but surely fixing up the beautiful colonial buildings and houses. If I bought anything I would buy it there. It’s amazing. You can check out my photos on your right!

Casco Viejo is also the location of the new Bond movie, B22, Quantum of Solace. I’m serious, that’s what it’s called. They are shooting night scenes at the bombed out shell of a building where Noriega used to hang with his cronies. They have transformed it into a set for a ballroom scene. I am curious what the magic of the movies is going to do with the side of the building that is riddled with bullet holes and a crumbling façade. We’ll see! On Monday we got to see them shoot a scene with Daniel Craig as he enters a hotel. The “hotel” is actually a school but they have taken it over and made it an “Andean Hotel”. Apparently this is supposed to be Bolivia. They couldn’t shoot there because of political unrest or something so they are using Panama for all of the Bolivia scenes. We sat on the set on Monday and watched Bond get in the car, get out of the car, get in the car, get out of the car. Next we watched him go up the stairs, give the bellman his bags. That happened about 20 times too. Wow. Boring. Daniel Craig is short too. Shorter than I imagined James Bond would be. I was really hesitant about trying to meet him because I didn’t want his shortness to ruin my idea of Bond. So I didn’t seek him out to meet him. I think its better this way.

And on a final note, there is no usage of the letter K in the Spanish vocabulary. I defy you to find a word with a K in it. I could never figure out why it was so freakin’ hard for them to say my name. So now, to help out the Spanish speaking population, my name is now spelled- Quet (QUE=KA) (T=TE).

I hope I haven’t bored you too much. Jamey will write next. He’s a professional.


Love to all

Kate and Jamey

photos? what photos lady?

Its been brought to our attention that the photos link that I posted (to your right, under the heading Panama 2008) doesnt work and you need to have a password and such for a yahoo account. I am currently perplexed and unsure about how to proceed. Any suggestions about how I can link my flickr account to this blog so peeps can view my pictures are more than welcome. We are also going to be posting a new blog about our adventures recently but we are preoccupied trying to figure out how to talk to a Korean person in Korea at a Spanish speaking phone center. Its complicated, to say the least.

Much love and solutions invited!

besos!