Cats go to Panama City

I went to Panama for about 72 hours this week. This was the view at sunrise from my hotel room. Many of the skyscrapers in Panama City have cranes on top of them which tell me that there are either a lot of large buildings being built or that Panamanians have a different aesthetic relationship to cranes than we do in the US.
Here is my super-cool team that I will be working with for the next 4 months: Hugues, Jorge, Ben, Anita, and myself. On our first dinner out we played "one lie, one truth" where each person relates 1 truthful fact or story about themselves and also 1 lie. One of the people at the table spent a year in an African prison.

Look! - its me getting ready for day 2 of work in Panama....I am avoiding learning the real definition of business formal - so polka dots are still fair game...Sun setting on Panama city.

More cranes!!!

I'm doin' it!

In the words of Bill Murray, as he was tied to the mast of a moving sailboat, in 'What About Bob': "I SAIL!"
Here is Rittenhouse square in Philadelphia (right in front of my apartment building) on the first day of spring. Philadelphians are picknicking and playing frisbee and all is right with the world.

Here is the view from my office window. In the foreground we see a lot of train tracks which are pretty cool and the beige building in the center is Philadelphia's Museum of Art which is currently housing a Frieda Kahlo exhibit that I am looking forward to seeing.

Here is my fabulous kitchen featuring my first home-cooked meal: tofu, spinach, whole-wheat tortillia, and cheddar cheese. Dinner for the next two nights looked remarably similar.

Good friend competing in his first chicken wing eating contest...apparently the winning strategy is to only eat about half the meat on the chicken wings: this seems wrong to me and I am now jaded about the prospects of this alternate profession.

Emma meets me after work at a Japanese restaurant. My ice cream is "black sesame" and tastes like peanut butter....eh...no serious stomach problems but also no developing superpowers: I would say I am indifferent.

Stay tuned friendlies because this blog is being posted from NY and tomorrow we're off to Panama City!

A Cat's guide to moving

Step 1: Load worldly belongings in 15 minutes from friend's parent's basement in haphazard manner filling only 1/3 of truck volume.
Step 2: Find second friend to share driving responsibilities so that important activities such as radio control, hydration & snacking, and blackberry mapping of route can be attended to.
Step 3: Make bathroom break on the New Jersey Turnpike and buy more liquids.
Step 4: Find local friend's parents to stay with the first night in town and then engage Friend #3 to move all worldly belongings into new abode.
Step 5. Slowly push items toward walls and loosely group items by color.
Step 6. Your Cat is now ready to start living a fabulous new life in Philadelphia. Thank you to all my friends - come visit...I may even have a bed by then.