Late Afternoon

Well, after a few days I've finally got my Madeleina back and we were laughing a lot in the car while we went shopping. She brings up the nuttiest topics and for some reason with her I'm loose enough to just have fun. Today she was asking about the size pigs get to and somehow that led her to ask about pigs mating and I went into Maurie and Geraldine, the 600 pound hog regularly slated to mate with the 350 pound pig and next thing you know we were laughing and laughing. I was still dad so I kept it clean, but I can't believe Geraldine would look forward to an intimate visit with Maurie--You put one hoof on me and I'll slap you silly--or that Maurie would find the excessively Geraldine his pig of choice either....somehow it was funny to us. As were a dozen other things, like how when you shoot a deer it's okay to eat but if you run one over and invite your friends they accuse you of serving them roadkill, or how garlic squeals when you pinch it...
So we're having a good meal tonight and Madeleina gets to go see her first symphony at Bass Hall Thursday and can't wait and that's all it really takes to get me out of a funk. Plus three new people signed on for the short January Jungle trip and so that puts us at least at break even and by January we'll probably get four more.
And the last two days I've been trying to answer Italo's challenge. He wants me to have a book published by March 20. He thinks I'm being too arrogant waiting on a big publishing house to come to me. I think I've earned it but I took him on and have spent the last two days--from 3:30 AM till about 6 P--organizing and rewriting my ayahuasca work into a linear read. That new piece you were all nice enough to read is chapter five and while I'm not sure who would want to read so much about experiential shamanism, I do think some of it's pretty compelling. And heck, I've got 280 pages or so of good material so I'm taking Italo's challenge and will go ahead and go to Lulu or somebody and have some books made.
So thanks for everybody's concern that I was blue, and that's going to keep happening for a while with Italo/Sarah gone most of the time and whatnot, but I won't sit around watching tv and sucking down beer. I'll get the work done and get strong and keep making great food even if it's smaller amounts.
Oh, and the pig/dog/birds are fine. No sign of rats in days....though I'm still moving real careful around the office...

PS: Madeleina just spent an hour making up a new song called "You Ain't Got Rhythm, You Just Can't Dance" about me. I have explained that Alan Shoemaker, Chuck DuDell and scores of others have said I'm the only white guy with real rhythm in the world--and I am a fantastic dancer!--and there goes my daughter Madeleina, spawn of my loins, shouting to the world that I can't dance!!!! She's 11-years-old! She doesn't remember the Bee-Hive, our local Disco where Mountain played weekends, or the Cafe Au Go Go where the Blues Project and Cream and Benny King and the double-drumming Paupers played. And where I grew up. And danced, though it was against the rules.
So I've got an 11-year-old making justice on my moves. I'm calling for a referee. I'm calling for a videotape replay. I'm calling on whatever god runs this universe to put my beautiful daughter in her place. Can't dance? Hell, John Travolta used to come to my house just to learn new moves! Yeah, baby. I can dance alright. I move to beats you haven't even heard yet...