Putzing Around

Frittered away the morning readily after a late awakening and headed out in search of ways to kill time. The weather was wonderful, in the low eighties, slightly overcast with a a slight breeze. The mile walk to town was punctuated by brief chats with the usual suspects. I stopped by Stephens to inspect my latest package. This turned out to be the camera mount for my spotting scope. One more piece and the scope and I'll have a little fun, but in the mean time, Stephen can I store it here? Sure.

Over to Casa Verde, a little time on the dock catching up on news, wrapping up some email and surfing. Roxie showed up sporting a T shirt promoting a competitive hostel. "Roxie, you need to go home and change that shirt, or just take it off. I'm in favor of your just taking it off." It's different down here. I said that in front of three woman and they all laughed especially Roxie.

Julio dropped by and he gave me commentary on various sailboats I was inspecting on the web. "No, that's the wrong kind of keel for here, too many reefs, that is a bad hull design, that's overpriced." Carolina graced us with her presence. Black lycra pants never looked so good. The look on her face indicated that I was about to be saddled with another thankless task. "I locked myself out of room number seven." "You don't have any keys for room number seven." "That's why I'm locked out." "Who locked the door?" "Well, I was testing if it worked, so I turned the button on the inside and closed the door." "So the lock works, you locked yourself out knowing you don't have the key." She gave a sheepish grin. "Interesting story, Carolina. How do you test hand grenades?"

"Sure, I'll come by tomorrow morning." "We're busy tomorrow." "I'm going to Panama on Monday." "Can you do it now?" "I should drop all the rest of my pressing affairs and devote my attention to you?" I guess Frank Zappa wasn't a formative influence in her youth in Quito, Equcador. We had a brief stare down. "Carolina." "Jim." "Carolina." "Please?" "Ahh, WTF? Let's go grab a cab." "I rode my bike." "I'm not sitting on the handlebars." "You can use the Casa Verde bike." We went out front, Carolina asked the receptionist, "Where is the Casa Verde bike?" "Nikelda is out on it." "Here, you can use this one."

The bike was black, the handlebars askew, the drive set was comprised of three sprockets but was absent a derailleur. The rear derailleur was missing, the tires were half inflated. It was a sad state of affairs, what a bike would look like if it took to using meth. "It has no brakes."

Laden with my body mass the tires were on the verge of being pointless. We rode for a few blocks and stopped at Nikelda's house where here brother topped off my tires, asking for the princely some of $1 upon completion of the 20 seconds of labor about four times the going rate.

We rode the side streets. "Carolina, pay close attention to my boots." "Why?" "Well, when I fly through the windshield of a taxi the only thing that will be sticking out will be my feet. I want you to recognize me." I got cut off a few times, swerved and tried to brake with my feet. Everybody seemed to have pushed erratic behavior to the limit just to test me.

Eight blocks from my house Carolina's left pedal fell off the bike. I returned to find her trying to rethread it into the hole. "It's a left hand thread, you have to turn it the other, oh, just give me the peddle." I threaded it in as best as I could but it was obvious that the lack of lubrication would ensure that this would not stay in place long. Two blocks from my house the peddle fell off again. I instructed her to walk it the rest of the way, dropped of my bikes and secured such tools as I had that would facilitate execution of the task at hand. After exiting I walked next door to look for my neighbor and knocked on his door. Grant repairs bicycles as a means of subsistence augmented by other activities. I found a 9/16" open end wrench in a five gallon bucket and snugged the pedal to the crank.

We took off again and she stopped in front of the graveyard. "Do you want to take a shortcut through the graveyard?" Thanks for the notice. A couple of hundred feet later I came to a stop, turned around and followed her. "Carolina, if you stop suddenly with me behind you we are going to find just how far up your ass this bike is going to go." Past the above ground graves we exhausted the planned section onto a trail that wound its way through a haphazard collection of resting places exiting directly in front of the gates of the hostel.

"Ricki doesn't know I locked the door, don't tell him." "Sure, no problem, I'll just take you upstairs to a private room and he won't raise an eyebrow." Sure enough that's how things turned out. I picked the lock clockwise but couldn't get it to turn counter clockwise, the door was not reverse hung so the pins for the hinges were on the inside. I asked her for a piece of flexible metal. She returned with a massive stiff block laying trowel. Good thing she's a hell of a bookkeeper. I dispatched her again and she returned with a putty knife. I inspected it, turned around and said, please get that screwdriver, to divert her, popped the latch, by the time she turned around, about a second later the door was ajar.

I snapped off the rod that is activated by the internal knob to preclude locking this lock and obviating a return trip for this particular door. Oops, I should have put it in the unlocked position. I walked over to the pagoda. "Ricki, do you have a pair of needle nosed pliers?" He offered some wire strippers. "Ricki, these were wire strippers yesterday, they are wire strippers today. Do yourself a favor, find everything that looks like a tool, put it in a big box put a padlock on it for which you have no key and store it away." He gave me a good natured laugh and offered me a ratchet. Damn, I'm glad I raised my kids to be self sufficient.

One of the two machine screws that hold the lockset in the door was not in evidence. "What are you looking for?" "A two inch #8-32 round head brass plated machine screw." I was offered a nail, a 1 1/2 blued sheet rock screw, a pan head half inch #10 sheet metal screw, everything but a rock.

I managed to get the lockset in the unlocked position with an improvised tool and reinstalled it in the door. Next, lubricate the pedal.

Do you have any grease? A can of WD-40 was promptly located and copious quantities were sprayed into the pedal, dissolving the heavy axle grease flushing the useful lubricant and signing a death warrant for this pedal. "WD-40 este malo. Malo! Malo! Necessito grisa, no aciete!"

Back to the other end of town to resume my activities. A cute young woman asked if the seat next to me was available. Well, of course. She ordered a chicken dinner to go. "You are going to leave this beautiful waterfront locale and eat this elsewhere?" "Yes." "Where would you go that is better than this?" "Where I am staying." "Where is that?" I don't remember the name, I know where it is though." "Sorry, I'm not trying to stalk you." She flushed when her game was up. "I don't tell people where I stay." Turns out she lives "here" if you call Isla Popa here. "Isla Popa? You don't get to town much do you?" Turns out she lives in a hut without electricity. "How long have you been with the peace corp?" This was not a brilliant deduction. She warmed up we chatted until her meal was ready, she took it to go, I packed my stuff and headed towards the exit, running into Nikelda.

I started recounting the story of Carolina. Nikelda was in peels of laughter, she knows these people, she knows the bike. I didn't have to say much, she could visualize everything. The day I was masterkeying the locks she was pulling the locksets and calculating the tumblers and reassembling the locks. The mechanical ineptitude of our mutual friends was a source of great amusement though little surprise.

I stopped by the pharmacy to buy a piece of crap pellet rifle as the one I had ordered from Amazon would not be forwarded by Mail Boxes Etc. from the Miami drop box. Three weeks later they still had no pellets for the gun. No, I don't want the gun without ammo.

Further down the street I ran into Chris and told him I was headed out to Panama to attend to several matters including buying a boat. "Why are you buying a boat?" "Because I don't have one." "Why do you need a boat?" "I am buying a house on another island, I scuba dive, I fish, I snorkel. To get a boatload of women one should have a boat." Chris told me that Maria's father was a boat maker. I continued down the street to Tropical Markets and spied Maria entering the area behind the bar and locking up. The place was empty. I walked through the kitchen. "Hey Maria!" "Hi, Jim." "Rumor has it your father is a boat builder." "Third generation, my grandfather was a pioneer in building fiberglass boats." I got her email address, phone number, her fathers website and headed off to the chino to buy some chicken and potatoes for dinner, cooking as I detail yet another day of unscheduled activities.