The Unexpected Visitor Revealed

So the 'someone' from my last post is my mom! After she got caught up on the important things, like how I hardly ever wear shoes, now have tattoos, and has met the new beau, we had lots of beer and wine, and lots of scrabble playing. Our combined score is just under 600 but "those were interrupted by lots of catching up and basically practice games" says my mom.

She's a very excited-about-everything vacationer, from being a die hard fan of the Casa granola, which is a staple for my breakfasts, to becoming the next spokesperson for great mattresses and fitted mosquito nets. I'm happy to see her relaxing on the dock and settling in nicely with the bugs. The occasional bursts of "GHA! What was that?" remind me of my first nights of jungle life (see Does the jungle love me?) and how easily I live here now.

We've talked about my early influences of Panama, and maybe I hadn't remembered, but a lot of family things may have set me up to come to Panama. My grandparents visited Panama with their children almost forty years ago and I grew up with a wall hanging of about 30 Panamanian molas sewn into a quilt. My mother also wrote a short story about why she speaks Spanish but not Polish, and contributes it to her early influences of coming to Panama (hopefully she'll let me share it here).

I also reminded her of the very influential reason I needed to come to Panama, to live with monkeys. My all time absolute favorite book as a kid (Amelia Erhart picture book biography, a close second) was There were monkeys in my kitchen, Written by Sheree Finch, Illustrations by Marc Mongeau. Over and over I begged my mother to read this book to me. I think of it often when I hear the monkeys swinging from trees, and although there are no monkeys directly in my kitchen they are right outside and always hanging around...
Maybe someplace with elephants will be next...