Pardon the Absence

Sorry for the lag in entries. I have been in the bathroom almost since the last entry. Seems what ol´Pepino Sauve really needed was The Pink Passion, Peptol Bismol (pause for respect). Leche de Magnesia was an incredible lapse in judgement.
All day Thursday at school I didn´t feel like, well, Pepino Suave. I felt like an imposter. A Pepino Sauve imitator, of sorts. I couldn´t put my finger on it, yet.
Once home, I stretched out for a cat nap. I didn´t wake up until midnight. I felt feverish, and my stomach was making that noise that oatmeal does when it get real thick and it is still over the fire. By morning, it was clear Pepino Sauve had left the building. There was no way I was doing my gig down at the Escuela Secundaria. I called my director, not knowing what to expect. Get this: He shows up a half an hour later with the school nurse. As my symptoms worsened into the afternoon (high fever, high two-way output, if you know what I mean, shivers, zero reaction to Jennifer Lopez singing in Spanish – this was getting serious.) the nurse would return to administor injections into my “pompis” (bottom), and give me different dosages or brands of anti-biotics and anti-viri. After three mildly humilating injections, several pills, and three liters of Gatorade (let´s everybody write them a letter), my fever broke, and I felt that I could inhabit other parts of the apartment than the head. Now, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I was nothing more than jelly. I lay on the couch and stared, slept, and then repeated, throughout the day, and on into Saturday. Fedencio came over to stay with me on Friday night. We watched soccer and he drank a six-pack of Modelo. Actually, I don´t know that I watched that much, but it was sure nice to have company.
The timing was nuts. Ingrid and Talea, the “Pepino Chicks”, were arriving to Durango Saturday night. Fedencio took my welfare personally. It became apparent that he did not want to present this stinking wretch of a gringo to his wife and child the next day. He was much more at ease on Saturday afternoon when he came by to check on me. He didn´t actually say I was handsome, but I passed for living.
So, here is a hearty cheer to the school nurse-who-saw-my-pompis, the good people at Pepto-Bismol, Gatorade, ok, and Leche de Magesia for whatever that´s worth, and, most of all, to my guardian angel, Profesor Fidencio, owner of the motto: ¨Viernes es mio¨ (Friday is mine).

Iregular pero vivo,
Peps