Home Again

I got home from Peru last week, and aside from 22 open sores on my good leg--cellulitis, which is a sometimes dangerous staph or strep infection of the skin--I'm okay. Fat as a hog but okay otherwise. Doc Gritter has me on two antibiotics and after five days the leg is starting to dry up and the swelling that went along with the infection has gone down so that I've got my beautiful calves again. Cool.
    And all of you? How was your six week break from Gorman? Good, I hope, because now that I'm back I'm liable to jump in here every couple or three days with new material. At least I'll try.
    Was weird coming home: Chepa and her babies Sierra and Alexa are up in Maine, visiting the baby's dad and won't be home till next week. Which means I've got all their presents sitting on the kitchen table looking like a forlorn pipe of unwanted food and clothing. No sweat, they'll be home soon enough. But then Madeleina started Band Camp two days before I got home, which means she is gone at 6:45 AM and doesn't get free till 4 PM--and sometimes not till 9 PM. So while she's here, I have not seen a whole lot of her. Italo has brought his baby, my grandchild, Taylor Rain, over a few times and she's been a shining light. Love the kids. Love the mess they make when they paint with watercolors or use chalk to draw on the front of the house.
    And Marco has been over as well. Plus I had a guest for the weekend. So while I've been missing Chepa and the girls, I've still had plenty of company.
    Worst part about coming home: Seeing the house as a stranger would. And when the house has been unlived in--except for four cats--for five weeks, well, it was a stinking mess. Fleas everywhere, and for the first time ever, cockroaches. Man, Italo and I must have laid out five cans of flea spray and two or three cockroach spray cans to get it under control. I think we did. Then we had to get Boots, the blind wonderdog's hair out of everything. I don't even know how it got there since we shampooed the rugs just days before I left and had him shorn closely. Nonetheless, it was a mess of hair everywhere.
    But I worked crazy, got the house cleaned before the guest arrived, stocked the fridge and cabinets, made good food and paid my August bills. So I'm coming out ahead of the game.
    Now all I have to do is buckle down and write a 1,500 word cover story by Monday and a 5,000 word investigative story by the end of August and I'll be back in the swing of things.
    It's hard but good to be home.