Chinese Medicine

During a midnight downpour about a month ago, holding a chihuahua, I tripped and fell into a low lying concrete wall. The next few seconds were set off with a startled shriek from the chihuahua and then filled with obliterating pain in my shoulder.

Above me, my friends were asking things in Spanish. I had enough wits about me to picture myself as an injured football player who had just caught the game-winning touchdown pass. The chihuahua was okay.

"Get away from me," I said in English. Spanish and pain didn't seem to go together. After a few moments of silence, they supported me into the car and we drove home after I brushed off suggestions to go to the emergency room.

The trip to Hospital National came the next day. I'd been to the hospital's emergency room a couple of times for rehydration IVs and had always enjoyed my time there. The doctor's are calm and it has proved a good solution for me as I lapse in my health insurance coverage. For $120, I shared a curtained room with a wonderful lady, was x-rayed and received a week's worth of muscle relaxers.

Although not dislocated, the pain persisted into this month helping me to understand the moodiness of chronic pain sufferers. At Dany's suggestion, I went to the Da Cheng Centro de Terapia y Curacion in El Dorado. The offices were brightly lit with several attendance rooms. Two doctors scurried back and forth between the rooms which intermittently emitted loud sounds of pain relief. One doctor was tall and lanky of indeterminate age, a calm and serious expression on his face. His hand's hung at his side, locked in relaxed poses, as if resting from channeling energy. The other doctor bore a strong resemblance to a 1940s housewife and had a reassuring smile. Both wore smart white doctor's coats.

When it was my turn, the energy channeler nodded at me. After a quick analysis, I took my shirt off and laid down on the papered exam table. Without any notice, he began pricking me with needles and applying small suction cups, sucking my arm fat and muscles into little bulbs. And then he left and I wondered when he would be back. The 1940s doctor came in awhile later to increase the suction and then she left promising she'd be back in five minutes. My arm, back and shoulder were immobilized so I had trouble turning around to check on their whereabouts. Blood trickled and formed rings around the rims of the cups.

There were two more rounds of pricking and suction followed by the application of medicinal patches. I was ushered out, given natural tablets that smelled like the medicinal patches, and given instructions to go easy and stay out of air-conditioning for the next two weeks. I've yet to research what they actually did to me or what is in the natural tablets, but the shoulder seems to be doing much better.

GQ Magazine on Panama

GQ writer, Darius Sanai, describes Panama:

Panama is a strange destination.  Part of it is the kind of Americanised non-place you'd flee to if you were pretending to be dead, part-transit zone and part-central American wilderness - making it a very compact place to visit for an all-in-one experience.

More on this later.

A Gym with a View

After 5 months out of the country, I signed up for a year membership at the Miramar Hotel gym, paying almost double what I was paying at the Key Biscayne Community Center. It seemed worth it if I could incorporate it into a steady routine and my Panama lifestyle.

After signing up and going only a handful of times in January, a college friend who had lost 120 pounds since our gin rummy playing days wrote to me from Berlin that the secret to motivating people like us was not too be too hard on ourselves. I couldn't reasonably stand to lose 120 lbs. so I assumed he was talking about people that could be hard on themselves. I'd just paid a bunch of money that could quickly become demotivating if it was not exercised. So, with those simple words, I started going to the gym.

The Miramar is a 7-minute walk from my apartment, down Har Sinai street, lined with palms and men in black suits, passed the synagogue, around the Spanish colonial building, across Parque Urraca, and a skip through the congestion of Avenida Balboa traffic.

When the semi-appropriately named 25-story Miramar (translated as Seaview) was erected in 1996, it very effectively blocked the ocean view from Frederick Boyd, an avenue reminiscent of a well-planned boulevard - tree-lined, relatively pedestrian, and with what was once a spectacular ocean view for cars flowing down to Avenida Balboa.

Now, this high-rise, sheltered yacht, ocean, busy Cinta Costera bulldozer-view is enjoyed by me from the second-floor gym.

Also motivating, are all those things that I do not have at home: CNN International, air-conditioning, rich people, massages, jacuzzi, sauna, steam bath, and hot-water showers.

Halifax, The Parakeet Escape Artist

Yesterday, coming back from Lung Fung dim sum, we chanced upon a neighborhood parakeet wandering apparently aimlessly, following the rim of the sidewalk, foot-bathing in dirty curb water and covered in large black ants.  It seemed lost, discombobulated, its clipped feathers a bit ruffled, and in need of rescue, or so we thought.    We pushed it into a recently emptied bag of purchases from the new two-story Arrocha 'pharmacy' in Albrook Mall, but not before it nabbed a finger and drew blood.

Upstairs, a large old ampliance box was quickly set up in the laundry room, outfitted with a thin blue towel to give it that parakeet homey feel - water in a plastic Estrella Azul ice cream tub cover and two day old papaya retrieved from the trash, sprinkled with Special K.  It was a pretty nice set up but Halifax was already itching to get out.

He waddled and rolled in moments of frenzy.  It was pretty much clear from the outset that Halifax was a bit crazy or a Parakeet genius.  After the initial moments of agitation, he nestled his beak into his green coat, and napped deviously.  To be continued...

Lazy Panama Afternoon

A breezy Panama Saturday is usually a good day for lunch, gym, pool and movie plans.  After a slow start to the day which included cleaning up the wine stains of last night's dinner party and streaming several Cold Case episodes, it seemed wiser to pour a chilled glass of red wine and start a blog than to venture out.  So, welcome to the Asia in Panama blog.