Cocktails In Boquete

All right then, I guess I got to write something today to keep this thing alive. 'I got,' for grammar sticklers, is the way I talk, and I try to write the way I talk. I'm from Jersey, wudya gonna do?

Mychael came by today and enjoyed the pizza and lemonade, which we substituted for the beers, which meant she drank for free. It's Pizza Sunday, eh? (I haven't heard an 'eh' uttered by a Canadian in quite a bit, what's up with that?)

We put on a Shakira video for the girls today and Maria stayed quite a while after her shift to sing along. They said that if I played Shakira when there was a crowd they would 'shake' the cocktails to the music. Can't wait for that.

They're all studying a picture cocktail book I have that is written in Spanish and are asking to add more cocktails to the menu. Sounds good to me. I like initiative.

Tomorrow, Monday, is off day so I'll be working on lowering the benches a little and making a saw-dusty mess of things. See you Tuesday.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:16 PM | Permalink

Last night was almost boring from a distinct lack of customers. We had a few, but if it wasn't for Lolita and Bob coming by and stirring things up it would have been dead. We did have two brand new clients that accidentally stumbled upon the place, one of which is a socio of Christophe of el Hibiscus fame. They said they'd be back tonight.

If it wasn't for the whole money thing I'd be happy with just a few visitors a night and getting sloshed on the stock, but I've got to pay the bartendresses so it would be better for all of us if you'd get your sophisticated selves down here and help educate them in a respectable and 'paying' profession. We wouldn't want Yaris to get bored, would we?

Posted by petefredbob at 12:00 PM | Permalink

I know I promised pictures today but there was too much going on and having left the camera upstairs I just plumb forgot to take some. Just imagine that the pile of rocks in last night's photo has disappeared, the front roof is finished, we have chairs and tables, the air conditioner is installed, the grout is done, the pictures are sitting on the floor in front of their places waiting for me to drill holes and other stuff.

Roca Phil stopped by with a fella (whose name has just escaped me) who was talking about looking forward to drinking some Crown Royal and commented about reading on the blog the drawn out drama that was building the benches. Welcome uh, guy, we'll see you Monday for cocktails. Gotta work on that name remembering thing.

Tomorrow is push day and who knows what will get done before Monday. I've got lights to install on the roof (a high wire act if there ever was one), curtains and pictures to hang, mirrors to install in the bathroom. Speaking of installing the roof lights Claudete brought them from Costa Rica along with some Flor de Cana and other goodies. Sadly she'll be gone by the time we open Monday but she got to meet Punja yesterday and we have photos.

Pretty Kitty.

Hold me.

KILLKILLKILL!!!!

Posted by petefredbob at 10:25 PM | Permalink

Lorem Ipsum...or whatever.

OK. It works again guys. Thanks Sheila.

Posted by petefredbob at 08:42 AM | Permalink

Wanting to get rid of the last trash pile that just wouldn't go away I gave the guys a choice to come in on Monday or Tuesday and earn a flat fee, and when they were done with it they could go home. They picked Tuesday. It's Carnaval time and it's two days enforced vacation. Then I ran into Primo on the street yesterday and he wanted to change it to Monday. OK, but I want him 'and' Hidalgo to do it at the same time. He agreed to talk to Hidalgo.

At seven this morning I heard my name called and ignored it. The wheelbarrow was outside and they didn't need any further instructions, it's just a habit. Then the radio started outside the back window. I got up to make coffee.

They got most of it done and called me downstairs and I brought a trash bag. There was more cleaning done. Then I pointed out to Hidalgo the broken water pipe that he had fixed on Saturday. Twenty minutes later I went down to await the test. Not even close.

Ten minutes later he came to me holding a piece of PVC explaining that it didn't work. He tried to walk away. I called him back and we went next door for another piece. They didn't have one. I rummaged through my collection and found an adaptor. Try again. Nope.

Otro vez. There is now a small group of kibitzers down there and they are trying all sorts of permutations. The hardware stores are closed for the holidays. There's fire and bent tubes and extensions and lots of cutting of plastic. It's now 10 AM. I just heard a call out to have someone open the valve up the hill. Waiting.

Later: So far so good. We have water, though the installation isn't finished. We'll need to put some concrete in there to hold the pipe. The spigot gets a lot of use. Not today though, the guys want out.

They made a big mistake though because they pointed out two problems in the back; a bunch of pieces of two by four and other wood scrap, and trash in the cebrada (the little stream that runs in back). They also pointed out that there were mucho bichos (a lot of bugs) hanging out in the water, to which I replied, "This is because you haven't cleaned it and the water isn't running. When the water runs all you get are cangrejos (little fresh water crabs)." They picked at it a bit. Then they filled the wheelbarrow with the wood scraps and glass.

Primo disappeared.

I began to clear a channel to let the water run and Hidalgo came back. I asked him if he knew of a place to dump the stuff in the wheelbarrow. He smiled that little 'you got me' smile and went off to empty it.

They still left a bunch of stuff lying around, but it's only about five minutes of my effort, which is a small price to pay to get the trash gone and the pipe fixed.

In a bit I'll go downstairs and make the final decision on the tile layout and try my hand at mixing the mortar. I've got some long cuts to make on the paneling to finish with that, and if I have the energy there will be an attempt at a jig to hold the tile so we can see if the diamond saw will work. If not, on Wednesday I'll go buy one of those old fashioned score and break contraptions and see if I can get somebody (like Gary) to show me how to use it.

Posted by petefredbob at 10:40 AM | Permalink

As happens here sometimes things just don't go as planned. Still no cement blocks from El Constructor and Hidalgo couldn't bring the ladders for placing the metal crossbeams. Plus his woman decided she didn't really want to come in to clean today.

So we switched up a bit and had the guys clean the bathrooms and seating area in exchange for getting to use the circular saw and cutting the wood for the second bench. We also did some patching to get ready for paint.

I'm heading into David with Bob today to pick up the materials I ordered on Saturday, and maybe a ladder and the plywood for the benches and sheetrock for the wall. Maybe paint, though Sandi says I shouldn't join forces with Bob in that adventure (see Sandi, I told!). We'll just play it by ear when we get there.

Looks like I've got another sucker that wants to pitch in and contribute to the place. Gary from the Boquete dot ning site left me a message. I'm waiting for him to click 'add' as a friend so I can give him private directions to the site.

Much later, after a nap:

Picked up a sink for the men's room, sheetrock, plywood, center punch, hot water heater, washing machine and two ladders. No tile. No paneling for the bar. Tile guy says tomorrow, wood guy says Friday.

Folks living here know what the deal is, for those of you who don't this is as typical as a bajareque breeze. And just try to get your money back if enough time passes so as the item in question is no longer useful. I actually raised my voice at the wood guy over the phone. Hope I didn't put off my delivery even further.

No cement block so far either. The owner of the El Constructor is always hanging out making sure all the gringos get attended on so I'm going to attempt to make life hell for a certain delivery guy with the stink eye when I go talk to him. Lunchtime tomorrow is the cutoff for that. I'll have to be diplomatic, as El Constructor is one of those places that comes in real handy at times.

Bob and I had to dance a little to get the stuff. Rodelag, the place with the washing machine and water heater had made no attempt since Saturday to get the water heater from the warehouse to the store. They pulled the washing machine from the floor. The warehouse over by Java Juice wasn't open as it was lunchtime (close to 2 PM), so we headed to Home Depot/ Do It Center, as Plywood (or Playwood as the signs in the parking area out front say) didn't have sheetrock.

I had priced a ladder locally in Boquete for just over a hundred bucks last week and the Do It Center was having a sale for $55. I bought two, and Bob may buy one from me when the job is done. There was a stack of sheetrock about chest high on the floor, 'on sale' also. It was 3/8 inch, and close enough for government work so I asked the guy to write me up a ticket. He asked, "which size?"

Sure enough the bottom half of the stack had 1/2 inch sheets for 50 cents more, so I took some of those instead. Went to the check out, finally joined the frequent buyers club, had the guy help us out to the car with the ladders and began to wait for the sheetrock.

Twenty or so minutes later I went to Rey to get us something to drink. A little while later I went back in to get the mounting bracket for the sink- which was not included as the nice man had previously told me. At around the 45 minute mark I walked to the back of the store and noticed two guys un-stacking sheetrock. They actually stopped when I got there.

I pulled another guy and told him I'd help. We started throwing sheetrock. Then one of the original guys came back and he grabbed somebody else. I said I'd be waiting outside. It was well past lunchtime when we got back to Rodolag for the water heater. There's more, including the speed trap motorcycle cop, but you get the idea.

Back at the ranch the guys had finished cutting all the wood for the north bench and had tentatively pieced it together oh happy day.

No progress pictures today but I think Sieg will get this one. Hasta manana.

Posted by petefredbob at 08:23 PM | Permalink

Clean up and get ready day today. All extraneous stuff has been removed from the bar area except for tools and materials I might need. Cleaned the dry mold off of all the paintings and pictures before I dragged them upstairs (getting crowded up here). Did some real drudgework as well sitting on the ground with a nail puller and a hammer scraping stray cement off of the tiles out front.

Months ago I had spent a solid week and went through three wire brushes cleaning up some 'found' tile along the side of the house. I then raked the area where it was to be laid toward the back of the building where I wanted to direct the runoff. I also angled it away from the house into the garden area. I hired a guy to put it down, then I got the flu, bad. I was laid up in the house for three days.

Without going into details let's just say it didn't work out that way and he disappeared halfway through the job. Some time later I hired Hidalgo and another two workers and handed the job over to them to finish. The result was the tile matched up so bad to the existing sidewalk when they were done that over a weekend I took a sledgehammer to it and then poured a new one to better match where the tile wound up.

During the course of all this a number of pieces of tile got covered to varying degrees with cement splotches. After today I probably have another half day of cleaning to get it all done, sometime when I have the time.

I was up early today for some reason and round about eight o'clock I was almost ready to go downstairs and I noticed- no noise. After last week's Sunday morning photo essay and this weekend being the last official days of the Coffee and Flower Fair I fully expected a full house. I poked my head out the door and saw that the crowd was pretty far down the street past Recuerdos, and I continued to get ready.

Then I heard the landlady screaming and I looked out in time to see a pending fight being broken up and her walking away giggling back into the bar (which was packed an hour later around nine A.M.). I went downstairs and set the sprinkler in the garden, which was my grand plan to keep it unoccupied and noticed the cops already on the job rousting a few lay-abouts on the corner. In other words, a very quiet Sunday morning.

Posted by petefredbob at 03:03 PM | Permalink

Today I went to David with Bob to pick up tile and wood for the bar covering and a hot water heater. I managed to order everything, but not bring it home. After two years living in San Jose, which is the big repository of all materiel de Costa Rica, I forget that David is the 'third' city in Panama, and as such not much of a repository per se. Everything has to come from the capital after you order and pay for it.

So Wednesday afternoon Bob gets to drive me back down in the pick 'em up truck to get the stuff. An unexpected purchase was also made of one of those tiny washing machines for cleaning bar towels and the odd uniform. I figured well, being that we've got the truck- but, that's coming on Wednesday too.

Pulled all the decorating stuff out of the bathrooms where it'd been hiding so I can start in there next week. I'll have to make room temporarily for the stuff upstairs after I give it a good dusting off.

Posted by petefredbob at 07:20 PM | Permalink

Nothing fascinating to talk about today except that Muneco showed up without his machete, and not wanting to buy one for him I fired up the Weedeater. He cleaned out the cebrado out back too. Tomorrow I'll be amused to see if he remembers how to mix up mortar to fix the bricks and concrete to plant the final roof post. His Primo is supposed to show up as well to deal with the recently assaulted garden and help get rid of the rest of the wind-downed vegetation. Alice is working the flower and coffee festival so I won't see her this week.

More plywood was applied to the bar, and tomorrow will finish that up as I jigsaw the final pieces in place. I could actually use a jigsaw. Then on to framing out the benches.

Thanks to Phil for the Flor de Cana last night.

Posted by petefredbob at 06:43 PM | Permalink