Between checking out of the hotel and getting a cab to Albrook airport to go to Bocas, Rick checked his email in the lobby of the hotel. So I checked out the available tourist information. I collected a map of Panama City and a 
“Bocas Breeze” newspaper. And the Bocas Breeze had a picture of a kitty on the front, and I love kitty cats. This kitty was an ocelot. I read the whole story. I was fascinated. It wasn’t 
until we were in the tiny plane that Rick noticed what I was fixated on and casually said something like “oh yeah, that’s Dave and Linda, they’re the ones who had the margay”. The margay was another cat, and one that Rick visited, and subsequently bragged in an email about, and thus fueled my desire to go to frickin’ Panama and see the things he was talking about. But the margay died (they say, killed by another cat). And now the mysterious Dave and Linda (mysterious because Rick never really gave me a context for them, he just talked about the kitty) had another cat! And Rick knows them!
We were busy tromping through jungles and looking for Cubans for the first few days. But then, one sunny morning in Bocas, we went on another jungle stomp that just sucked (it sucked because a) Rick was grumpy at the state of cleaning in some tree plantings; b) we picked up some sort of banana/plantain (but neither) crop that was huge and heavy and full of ants, which bit Rick while he was carrying it; c) I lost my boot in the muck of a freshwater stream and had to expose my bare foot to all sorts of jungle terror while I dug it out; d) the last part of the walk involved hacking our way through nastiness and climbing over magroves). After the jungle, after the fruit had been dumped on the deck and I’d jumped into the ocean fully clothed to try and rinse the worst of the muck of my clothes, and I’d already peeled off my outermost layer and dumped it on the deck and was now swimming for the sheer fun of it, Rick declared himself to be done with the jungle for the day, and proposed we do something not dirty for the afternoon. I was ambivalent – because any afternoon without real plans meant I could just splash in the water and stick on mask and snorkel and watch the coral. So I said, sure, what? And he said, want to go visit Dave and Linda and see the ocelot? I got out of the water, showered and dressed so fast that Rick said, “I meant, later, after lunch”. Oh, I said, and sat down on the picnic table. Which prompted Rick to conclude that intruding between 11 and 1 might be forgivable after all, and he went to get the boat.
It turned out that we did show up at Green Acres just as Dave and Linda were having lunch – and they laughed and accused Rick of deliberately trying to get a free meal (which might just 
be true. We didn’t have any bread, ok?) and inviting us for a delicious lunch. And then! Then we went looking for the kitty! No, really, we looked for it. We followed Dave through the manicured rainforest at his house, and he was calling here kitty, kitty, kitty. And out of nowhere, this amazingly pretty kitty leaped at Dave and wrapped its huge paws around his leg. He picked it up, it purred, and then it started swiping at him. He grabbed its loose neck fur with his teeth. The kitty purred some more. And then it noticed us.
Unlike Dave, *we* were not wearing long pants (I *asked* Rick if we should wear long pants. *He* said, don’t bother, the worst terrain you’ll walk in is three inch high grass. So *I* wore a sundress and sandals! Rick wore shorts and sandals.) The kitty loooooves bare legs (the Bocas Breeze had already told me that, but I had ignored this. This is how much I trust Rick’s advice! I am such a fool.) It 
ricocheted among the four bare legs on offer, clawing and play-biting and generally being super happy to have the attention. I danced a lot. I did pick up the cat, but it was heavier than I’d anticipated – and its teeth and claws a lot sharper than Dave’s cuddling with it made it seem. Rick was much bolder than I. I stuck to taking pictures, with a stick in my hand (the cat has retriever tendencies. No matter how tasty it seems to think your legs are, if you throw a stick, it will go investigate.)
The ocelot kitten is the most beautiful kitty I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t stop looking at it, even while I was dancing to have it avoid my legs and attack Rick’s instead. It did everything you expect a kitten to do – who cares that it was the size of a small dog? It pounced. It purred. It climbed a tree. It chased the dog. It rubbed itself against Dave’s legs affectionately. Picture a kitten with claws and teeth big and sharp enough to make even my sturdy leg as vulnerable as a cooked chicken wing with a football player around if it *wanted* to get cranky. But it didn’t, it just wanted to play.
The similarity with the domestic cat ended when we got to the stream. The ocelot liked to sit in the water and play with whatever was swimming in it. Dave told us stories of visitors that ran away from the sharp claws and teeth, and the kitty (who they’ve named “Mitts”, on account of the big paws) jumped into the boat after them, investigating why they didn’t want to play.
Mitts is the perfect pet for Dave and Linda, really. See, they’re really nice, and interesting, and they have a beautiful property. Some people (like, say, Rick) would probably crash Dave and Linda’s lunches and then never leave, because they’re having too good a time. But with a semi-domesticated ocelot (it comes inside to watch tv, but lives outside the rest of the time), you have to stay on your toes. Literally. When you get tired of defending your legs (and face, if you pick the thing up), you leave. The perfect plan to make sure visitors don’t outstay their welcome.
But man, what a pretty kitty. So pretty, even Rick forgot that Dave and Linda’s place is really a *chocolate* farm, and cacao was never mentioned, no samples were sampled, no purchase were made. It was simply: lunch, kitty kitty kitty, I’m sick of the kitty clawing me let’s leave…