Bienvenidos a Casa Ingaso, Altos del Maria, Republic of Panama

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DECEMBER 2008: “A Time To Laugh, A Time To Weep”

(NOTE: Newcomers, who'd like to get an idea of what this site is all about, would be well-advised to click on "2005 Pages" and read that introduction. Enjoy!)

Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry, but lately my heart just breaks. She is the sweetest, gentlest kitty (unless you're a gecko), yet she suffers the most traumas. And, here again, we're not sure what happened, though we have a pretty good idea: culebra (snake).
Of course, it couldn't have been a venomous viper or else this paragraph would have been a whole lot harder for me to write. Nonetheless, the odds are very good that Tipper was bitten by a snake, probably a vine snake, since that's what we have, and it bit her on her blind side. Otherwise, we've seen her bat a striking snake away before it hits—very quick reflexes!
[Click the image for a larger version.]
I noticed on a Thursday that Tipper wasn't herself, and that the fur under her neck seemed more ruffled than normal. Usually, when the cats act glum, they sleep for a day then feel fine. So, we watched and waited.
The next day, however, I noticed she had developed an intermittent limp, and that there was a parting in the fur on her right-front shoulder. We examined it, but at that time there didn't appear to be anything wrong: no swelling or discoloration. Still, it was obvious she wasn't feeling like herself.
On Saturday morning, things were worse. There was a larger opening in her fur and the revealed skin had turned very dark. Honey is the cure-all for animal woes here, at least that's what everyone, including our vet, tells us. So, we applied honey to the dark skin. Within an hour, the skin had ruptured, discharging blood and puss down her side. That's when we called the vet and made the trip down the hill to Coronado.
After cleaning the wound, the vet pointed out two punctures very similar to a snake bite, although they were enlarging as the wound drained. Over the course of the next four days, the puncture wounds broke open, leaving a raw patch about the size of half-a-pack of cigarettes. We cleaned it three to four times a day, and gave Tipper antibiotics twice a day. Then, on our next trip to the vet, he knocked her out and stitched up the area, creating a long, Frankenstein-esque line of sutures running down her shoulder.
And that's where things stand as of this writing...poor kitty.
Okay, on another front, so to speak, and following the devastating rains Panamá suffered near the end of November, we finally learned what causes our wet and dry seasons: the Intertropical Convergence Zone, better known to us Altoids as the ITCZ. (Yeah, I can hear you saying: "Huh?")

Here's what Wikipedia as to say about it: The ITCZ, "...also known as the Intertropical Front, Monsoon trough, Doldrums or the Equatorial Convergence Zone, is a belt of low pressure girdling Earth at the equator. It is formed by the vertical ascent of warm, moist air from the latitudes north and south of the equator. The air is drawn into the intertropical convergence zone by the action of the Hadley cell, a macroscale atmospheric feature which is part of the Earth's heat and moisture distribution system. It is transported aloft by the convective activity of thunderstorms..."
("Huh?")
[Click the image for a larger version.]
In other words (you're welcome!), there's an equatorial band of clouds and moisture circling the earth that slowly shifts north and south—over Panamá—depending on the seasons. Since Casa Ingaso sits about 8-degrees north of the equator, when the USA has summer, the ITCZ moves north and, more or less, parks over our neck of the woods—read "Holy shit, build an ark!" When the USA has winter, the ITCZ moves south, finally setting-up shop over Columbia, and then we have our dry season. As simple as that.
Closer to home, we suffered another loss here at Ingaso, although this time it was a voluntary one. TC decided she didn't like the variety of fishtail palm growing in the round planter of our driveway, even though in a mere three years it grew from a 3-foot weakling into a 20-foot monster!
"It's not the spreading kind," she complained, "and I want it to create a canopy over the driveway." Well, there's no denying our little lady what she wants—except where I'm concerned—so she found some willing donees, Barb and Judy, and they made a date to excavate.
[Click the image for a short fishtail-transplant gallery, complete with two embedded videos, a new Ingaso feature!]
Now, the palm's gone, but the new one won't be ready to plant until April, the beginning of our wet season. So, lucky me, I get to turn one of our pots into a fountain. I mean, we can't just have an ugly, muddy hole in the planter for all that time, can we? My reaction is, "Why not!?!?" But, my reactions don't count, ergo, the fountain. I suspect there will be pictures in our next update...
Meantime, I'll leave you with one last gallery of Casa Ingaso Odds 'n' Ends. (Click those words to see it.) There hasn't been enough picture-taking, since our last update, to warrant separate galleries, but there's been so much else happening here that I felt an update prudent, if for no other reason that to prevent a wordy, weighty tome of an update (yes, bigger than this) in January or February, whichever comes first...
Well, hope you enjoyed all our latest shenanigans, and we'll be seeing you all next time, when it's a brand new year!

“¡Próspero Año Nuevo, Amigos!”

[click here for 2009's first home page]