Patsy Pridgen

I’m back from my mid-winter trip to Panama, where it was 90 degrees and very humid. It felt like August in eastern North Carolina, but I was near or on the water quite a bit, sightseeing and riding on the Panama Canal.

Yes, the man-made Panama Canal is without a doubt the number one tourist attraction in the small Central American country of Panama. This 51-mile waterway through the Isthmus of Panama connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific, providing a huge shortcut for ships.

I’m not particularly interested in engineering, but I did pay enough attention to the tour guide to understand the basics of how the Canal operates. Locks at each end of the Panama Canal provide enough water to “lift” ships up to the artificially created Gatun Lake, a big body of water in the middle. Ships coming from both the Atlantic and Pacific meet here and pass one another. Then locks lower the ships at the other end of their journey.

Our tour group visited the Miraflores Locks, where spectator stands were set up for guests to witness the locks in action.

The Panama Canal was one of the most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. Before the United States successfully completed the project in 1914, the French tried and failed, losing an estimated 22,000 workers. Many died from malaria and yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes, a scientific fact unknown at the time. Plaza de Francia in Casco Viejo, the Old City part of Panama City, pays tribute to these fallen workers. The statue in front is of Pablo Arosemena, one of Panama’s founding fathers.

As fascinating as it is, the Panama Canal is not the only attraction in Panama. Our tour group left modern civilization in Panama City to visit an Embera tribal village in the heart of a rainforest. This Panamanian indigenous tribe attempts to preserve its culture by maintaining a simple lifestyle, fishing and selling handmade crafts (see my earrings in the first picture above).

Our tour group arrived via a motorized dugout canoe.

A lunch of fried fish (very fresh) and plantains was prepared for us, and we were entertained by dancers.

There was time to shop and pose with the medicine man.

As a garden club lady, I’m always interested in what’s blooming everywhere. Since most of my winter yard at home is without color right now, I was happy to see all the beautiful flowers of Panama. I recognized bougainvillea, but extensive research will be required to identify all these other exotic species.

The animal life of this tropical country was often entertaining. What’s more fun to watch than monkeys?

Panama is known for the sloth. Not a lot of activity here, hence the term, slothful.

Panama City itself can be all shiny and new. I was not expecting so many skyscrapers.

But the city has a history. There’s something call Old Panama, which is now just ruins after the English-sanctioned pirate Henry Morgan ransacked the place in 1671.

There’s also another old Panama City a short Uber ride away from the current capital. This historic district is called Casco Viejo (Old City) and has a great deal more to see than in Old Panama. Casco Viejo was built not long after the destruction of the first capital and features plazas, ornate churches, museums, shops, and restaurants. A fun day can be spent in Casco Viejo.

Our tour group leader arranged a couple of special dance performances for us. Panamanian dancers are lively and colorfully attired.

Our tour group spent a day and a half at the Playa Bonita Resort, so the eight-day excursion to Panama was a nice blend of educational activities, fun, and relaxation. My favorite type of trip!

Like many people, I suspect, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to de-clutter. I fully believe junk expands to fill the space available…and then spills over. Just take a look at a shelf that I designated to store gift wrapping boxes, paper, and bows.

At least that shelf is hidden away inside a bedroom closet. Still, every time I go to get supplies to wrap a present, something inside me shudders. I want to live a simple, organized, clutter-free life. And by Jove, I’m getting started on this goal.

I’ve decided to save the gift-wrapping shelf de-clutter and tackle the kitchen first. Part of what’s prompted this urge to purge is that I’m bringing in even more stuff. My mother-in-law died a few months ago, and the family is tasked with emptying her house. A lot will undoubtedly go to the Salvation Army Thrift Store, but there are items to be saved.

Such as these Corning Ware dishes. The kind that you can cook in on top of the stove, serve from, and then put in the refrigerator with the leftovers. I don’t think you can find these anywhere today except at yard sales and occasionally, if you’re lucky to be there at the right time, secondhand stores.

I cleaned out a kitchen cabinet and organized a shelf of Corning Ware, adding my mother-in-law’s dishes to the few pieces I already had.

To make space for the additional dishes, I took out a few that I’ve had for years but never use. The avocado green Pyrex dish is divided, with neither side holding much. I don’t make pies from scratch, and I’ve never liked the handle on that small Corning Ware dish.

If my daughters don’t want this stuff, it’s going to the thrift store.

To make room for a couple of my mother-in-law’s glass tea pitchers that I think I’ll use, I took out two items in my glass-front cabinet that have been mainly just for show.

Confession: I wavered and put back the pitcher on the left. It matches my canisters, and I have used it occasionally when I’ve remembered I had it. That big jar on the right in the picture above, though, is going to be repurposed as a planter in the spring. (Take the clutter outside?)

The pitcher also adds some color to that glass-fronted shelf in my kitchen. (The glass door is open for this picture.)

I know, you’re thinking, one step forward, two steps back. But I am parting with some tiny juice glasses from my husband’s grandmother’s house. I have other mementos, and I seriously doubt anyone but me knows where these glasses came from.

And that yellow candy dish I once picked up at a thrift store just because I thought it was pretty? Gone. That tiny cup from Cuba that I bought because I felt sorry for the lady selling it? Gone.

Hey, I’m making progress. Baby steps. If I can get rid of five things a week (without adding five things), that will be 260 items I’ve eliminated from my home in a year’s time. I’m not sure the math adds up favorably this week, since I added two tea pitchers and several Corning Ware dishes, but just getting that big canister out of my cabinet (the one I’m going to turn into a planter) seemed to free up some space.

I’ll keep you posted on how this de-cluttering, re-organizing project goes. Happy New Year!

Tech support arrived this weekend and updated my blog. My youngest daughter has a blog herself and being a Millennial, is better skilled in technology than Wilma Flintstone here. In a matter of minutes, she added the picture of the cover of my new book along with an Amazon link on the sidebar.

I’ve completed the process of changing the covers of my first two books in the Narrow Creek series to better show that these novels are cozy mysteries. My techie daughter swapped out the old pictures posted on this blog for the new ones, something I’d been afraid to try to do myself.

As you can see, for my first book, Ms. Dee Ann Meets Murder, the new cover on the right is brighter and more playful. I like the picture of the truck, which Dee Ann, the narrator, describes in Chapter One as being loaded with “a good portion of what we owned….” as she and husband Joe move to the small town of Narrow Creek for his job as “the new man at the bank.”

My second novel in the series also got a facelift. This updated cover of Life and Death in Narrow Creek has a picture similar to the original cover but a style that matches the revised cover of the first book. Colors are more vivid, and the font style is less fussy, don’t you think? Readers will discover the significance of the poison sign on the front door of the big house, the home of Dee Ann’s landlords.

My daughter also tested the Amazon links for these books to make sure they still work properly, landing a potential customer on the purchase site. And she created a tab for the new book, Money and Murder in Narrow Creek, at the top of the home page. Readers can click on this tab to read a synopsis of the book.

Bam! Done! She was in and out of my blog lickety-split and on her way to Chapel Hill to catch the Carolina/Duke football game.

Other News:

There’s nothing like a fall foliage mountain trip. My husband and I love the Banner Elk area, especially Beech Mountain, where there’s an impressive overlook and Fred’s General Store.

This trip, though, we decided to venture from our Beech Mountain base to somewhere new. I’d read about West Jefferson in Our State magazine and convinced my husband that the three-hour round trip from Beech Mountain would be an adventure. (We probably could have shaved off some road time, but we took a scenic, road-less-traveled route.)

We found a charming downtown in West Jefferson, filled with shops, restaurants, and an impressive stone church, all surrounded by mountains glowing with the colors of fall.

Many of the shops had eye-catching displays outside their front doors. Here’s one that’s unique.

Besides author duties and taking a trip to the mountains, what else have I been doing this fall? Volunteering! This year, I agreed to be president of the Rocky Mount Garden Club. You may be thinking of ladies in white gloves sipping tea while discussing their roses. I know that’s the stereotype of garden clubs. We do talk about flowers–minus white gloves and tea sipping–but there’s a lot more to the club. We have interesting speakers on various topics related to gardening at our monthly meetings, and we’re involved in several community projects.

For example, this fall, garden club members filled a planter at the entrance of the new Red Oak Elementary School with pansies and ornamental cabbages. We also spent a morning at Peacemakers, a local nonprofit serving an underresourced area, putting out pine straw on the grounds.

I’m telling you about these activities because as president of the Rocky Mount Garden Club, I’m recruiting new members. If you live in the area and are interested in joining (or finding out more about the group), contact me. My information is under the Contact Patsy tab. We’d love to have you!

Okay. The join-my-club pitch is over. I’ll leave you with pictures of two trees, resplendent in their fall attire. The photo on the left was taken in West Jefferson a couple of weeks ago. The photo on the right was taken today in my front yard, which goes to show there’s beautiful fall foliage at some point just about everywhere.

The Scandinavian countries consistently come out on top in surveys of the world’s happiest people. The tour guide on my recent trip to this part of the world certainly helped prove these studies true. Perla, a citizen of Iceland, radiated joy.

The bag you see on the shoulder of this beaming thirty-five-year-old was inscribed with the words, “Don’t look for happiness. Make it.” Perla did just that throughout our trip. She was our Nordic Visitor logistics coordinator, getting us on and off all those modes of transportation I talked about in my last post. When faced with a double-booking on a train, she didn’t panic but declared the situation, “very strange,” and worked it out with a train attendant. I can still hear her lilting, enthusiastic voice in my head.

She was the most cheerful person I encountered in Scandinavia but not the only friendly one. The warm, welcoming people, almost all speaking English, helped me feel secure and appreciated as a tourist. The safe and upbeat atmosphere of Scandinavia made it into my top ten list of reasons to visit this part of the world.

Perla told us her favorite city of the trip was Copenhagen, and after visiting, I have to agree and add it to my top ten list. The capital of Denmark, this city has quite a few attractions and just an overall good vibe. Our tour group floated down the Nyhavn, the famous canal that’s on postcards and refrigerator magnets. This area was once known for seedy bars and brothels but is now restored with waterfront restaurants in colorful old buildings.

Copenhagen is also the location of the Little Mermaid statue. This is not the Little Mermaid from the Disney movie, but the one featured in the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, the famous Danish author. The plot of Andersen’s fairy tale is more complex and not quite as “happily ever after” as the Disney movie. The statue is perched on a rock in the harbor and has become a must-see for Copenhagen tourists (including me).

Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest amusement park in the world, is also in Copenhagen. Although I wasn’t game for any of the rides, I did enjoy people-watching in this well-maintained, upscale park.

Another favorite activity of the trip was eating Scandinavian food. I’ll admit some dishes were a bit strange for my taste, but I always enjoy trying at least some of the cuisine of any country I visit. It’s part of the cultural experience, right?

So even though this Scandinavian lunch of raw herring with raw onions and beets wasn’t what I call delicious, I did taste some of everything on my plate (except the onion). If only that herring had been fried and those beets had been some good ol’ Eastern North Carolina slaw….

The fish soup was more to my liking as were the open-face sandwiches, called smorrebrod in Denmark. These sandwiches are made with the diner’s choice of a variety of toppings on Danish rye bread. The main toppings are usually some type of fish, meat, or cheese. The sandwich pictured here has chicken salad with sprigs of something green and a piece of bacon.

The Scandinavian countries may not have the collection of world-renowned art found in European countries such as France and Italy, but Oslo, the capital of Norway, does contain one very famous painting: “The Scream.” Seeing a version of this in the National Gallery in Oslo was one of my favorite moments of the trip.

I learned that Edvard Munch, the artist, created more than one version of his masterpiece. The most well-known version is the one I saw, which, incidentally, was stolen in 1994 but recovered three months later.

Reading about “The Scream,” I found Munch’s explanation of what prompted this painting.

I was walking along the road with two friends. The Sun was setting –
The Sky turned a bloody red
And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood
Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black
Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire
My Friends walked on – I remained behind
– shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in Nature

I can see all that in the painting.

I’ve yet to mention Estonia in these two posts about my trip, but the country’s capital, Tallinn, made it into my list of top ten. Finland and Estonia were part of a pre-tour package before my small group joined a slightly larger band of tourists for the guided tour of three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

I didn’t have high expectations of Tallinn. Estonia borders Russia and spent the years after World War II under Soviet domination until the breakup of the USSR in 1991. While I could see the Russian influence in the onion-domed architecture and even the type of souvenirs sold (those Russian nesting dolls), the Old Town of Tallinn was quite Estonian.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Old Town is known for its preserved structures and city wall dating to the 13th century. The 13th century! Here in America, we think the 17th century is historic.

What’s not to love about cobblestone streets and an entrance with 13th century towers?

Again, here are the last five picks to round out my list of top ten reasons to visit Scandinavia (and Estonia): the safe and upbeat atmosphere, Copenhagen, Scandinavian food, “The Scream,” and the Old Town of Tallin.

There were other highlights. If you haven’t had enough, below are some captioned pictures.