Ta-Da!

Hello, all you guys. I'm back. Been gone better than six weeks and I missed you more than you missed me. But I have a very hard time splitting myself in two and when I'm with guests in the Amazon I find it impossibly difficult to just run to the computer and write a blog piece. Heck, I can't even run to the computer or phone to call my Madeleina. So forgive me. I am where I am generally 100 percent and to become the other part of me--an equally important and vital part but a very different part--is just too darned hard.
Which doesn't mean I didn't think about you. I don't even know who you are but I know I sent thoughts out many times telling you all what we were doing, how the trips were going and all that jazz. I just couldn't face going into the internet cafes and being squeezed into a seat next to a stranger reading 50 emails a day from parents whose children are in prison unjustifiably and who want help when I know I can rarely help them from Texas but certainly not from Iquitos, Peru, the heart of the Amazon. And that's how many people need help daily. Just the way it is.
Nuff of feeling sorry for myself. The trips were fantastic. Fantastic. Everything that you want to have happen: Boas and electric eels, magic medicine, monkeys, frogs bearing wonderful medicine, magic mushrooms, surprises galore, swimming with dolphins and all the rest happened as if on cue. Things that might take people 10 visits to see altogether my two groups saw in 12 days each. WOW!!! I mean, I spent hours thanking the spirits, the guardians and finally the White Light or God or whatever you want to name the big power for the gifts we were given. Could not have gone better, I don't believe.
Except for the slightly broken and very dislocated ankle. That hurt and still hurts and happened on day 11 of the first trip, which means I had to walk a couple of miles daily on an ankle/foot that had 13 bones dislocated--three hueseros, bone doctors, reset them viciously, ignoring my screaming--and one small bone crushed and one other broken. Still hurts. Man that hurt. But you know what? Because of the pain, I decided to stay sober and didn't even take any pain killers more than ibuprofin--and that sobriety helped make the trips great. I didn't indulge like I have so often, making a legend and fool of myself at the same time. And that allowed more trust between me and the guests and that worked in both of our favors. Hooray! Lesson appreciated and hopefully learned. Except that the thing still freaking hurts unbearably to walk on and the docs say it's too late to do anything but wait till it fixes itself. Oh well, there's always something in the Amazon. I pray that whatever it is comes to me and not the guests and it generally does, whether poisonous snake bite, murderous spider bite, broken head, exploded intestine or slightly fractured ankle.....give it to me Powers that Be, not to the guests.
Gonna stop praying, I guess.
And then a 30 hour flight home and instead of Italo, Chepa, the wife/ex-wife, picked me up with my Madeleina and her Sierra and Alexa and what a time we had. The little girls acted up a ton, then got to my house and I painted them in Indian paint, fresh achote, and Madeleina dressed up in leaf skirt and anklets and Sierra--who now calls me P Gorman! instead of Dad, at her birth father's insistance--was running around the house touching everything and screaming: "This is P gormans house! This is P gorman's desk! This is P Gorman's dog! This is P gorman's cigarettes...where's mine, P gorman? Where's my cigarette?"
And so on till despite being terribly stretched out and exhausted and sick and ankle hurt I was laughing till my eyes hurt. Oh, how I love kids! Amd little Alexa, just a year or so, was just spinning and spinning till she was drunk with it and Madeleina was trying to be a mother hen till she too broke down and spun till she got so drunk and dizzy she couldn't stand.
And of course the house was/is a mess: No toilet paper, paper towels, food, dog food, pig food, cat food, bird food, garbage bags, milk, soda, eggs....Italo! Marco! Sarah! How on earth did this happen???????
"I don know, dad....must be somebody's fault...not mine..."
That came from all three of the culprits...
So I limped to the car, drove to Walmart and bought $250 worth of basic staples and made them dinner and gave them hugs and let them know how much I missed them all.
And now it's the next day and I've a lot to say but have said enough, eh? So welcome back, everyone. Thanks for visiting. Life is freaking grand, eh? Couldn't be better.