Hello, Everyone. It's back to work time. I caught all sorts of hell for not posting anything new to the blog in the last few weeks...Jeepers, the blog is called "Scotty in Peru" not "Scotty in Da Region"! I promise the posts will resume!
I draft most of this entry while cruising at 550 mph, 35,000 feet above the tropics of Central America. The flight from Chicago to Houston went smoothly and surprisingly left ORD on time. It is now 20:00 or so. Nearly 2.5 more hours on this ride. The sky outside my exit row window is filled in darkness. The only sign of the sun I can see is from it's reflection off of one of Earth's planetary neighbors. I will miss the long summer days back home.
My visit home was fantastic. Quality time spent with family and friends. Parents, nephews, nieces, siblings, aunts, uncles, cuzins, college buddies, friends from grade school...fun times. My nephews stayed at my folks' place the entire time I was in town. Belching, wedgies, wet-willies, finger pulling...we had fun. My sister Kim and nieces April and Amy made it up for a few days too. The open house my first weekend back went great. Hot, sunny and there were horseshoes, bean bags, volleyballs, eggs and water balloons flying all over the place. A well-planned mix of beers, Goldschlager, some lethal jello shots (compliments of my sister) and a few frutti-tutti tequila rose shooters put everyone in a happy mood. My compare Nick and his wife Bethany and my godson Carmine trekked in from Ohio to join in on the fun. It was great to see them and all the family I don't get to see enough.
I swung the stix for the first time in nearly two years while I was home. I played nine holes on two occasions. Joe and I ventured out to my old stomping grounds at Palmira my first week back. We quit keeping score after about the fourth hole because the hacking was so bad, but an honest estimate indicates that I shot about a 57. Pretty rotten. I was shanking and dubbing left and right, but heard the occasional "ping" from a well-struck drive. In days past, a broken club or at least a tirade of expletives would have ensued after one of the shanks or duffs. But alas, I was able to laugh at it all and enjoy being completely content just swinging the clubs and drinking a Stroh's with Joey. A week later I gave it another whirl with long-time friend Greg Schilling and dropped ten strokes and finished the short round with a 47. I won a whopping $0.75 out of it too! Can't beat that...paid for some of the tolls roving back and forth between Chi-town and Mom and Dad's. I rode my bike only a few times when I was home. I was weary and not super motivated to ride. The mid to upper 90 degree temps and high humidity my first week back didn't help. The main thing was that I didn't want to rekindle the good feelings from riding too much, only to have them taken away for another six weeks. When I did ride, it felt great...pathetically slow, but great.
I ate way too much of everything...pizza, dessert, sausage. Food debauchery! Oye veigh. Did I induldge. One of the highlights of good food was some BBQ ribs Uncle Victor made. Man, they were great. As always, Momma Z's grub never disappoints. Thankfully I didn't gain any weight, but I bet that my cholesterol gained a few points!
On the night before my sister and nieces returned home, I pulled out some Youtube videos for the kids to see. The guest bedroom was crammed with four little kids and two big kids...The highlight of the night was showing Michael Jackson's "Bad" and immediately following it up with Weird Al's "Fat"...The kids loved it and we were all rolling and cracking up. So much so that it got grandpa out of bed. He put the kabash to the giggling, but I lobbied for another song on behalf of the kids. I planned to close the evening with "Thriller". The kids loved it except for the part where Michael Jackson turns into a werewolf and the zombies start coming out of the ground! The ghouls and zombies kept the kids on edge. As a bail-out, I closed the night with Bobby McFarrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy" and that at least got the kids to bed for a little bit.
The night before I left Peru to head back to the US, I got a stomach bug again. No sleep and a nasty funk. Just my luck, right? Well, just yesterday, I got hit with a stomach virus of sorts. Both my nephews got the bug and I quickly followed. I was up most of the night before last and I spent most of yesterday curled up on the couch resting. It's gotta be that "bald, Polish, last name ending in Z" thing I guess.
I'll be lodging at a "new" hotel upon my return. The Christopher Columbus. I've stayed there before and though the amenities weren't great, hopefully they don't have any clepto's looking for cell phones! On that note, the old hotel will fork out half of the cost of my old phone that got stolen. Considering I got a deal for renewing my contract with Sprint, that is fair, but that's only half of it. This new phone I got is a piece of junk. I've had it for two weeks and the cover is already cracked, people have complained of loud static when I talk and the battery lasts for a day, maybe. What a pain in my butt. When I went to return the phone, I got the runaround. Blasted hosers. Sprint has some horrible customer service. At least I have phone again.
Now it's Monday evening. I'm back in Chincha and spent the entire day on the jobsite. Not a whole lot went on today. I'm pretty much fully back into the swing of things methinks. Things should pick up later this week. "Moved in" into the hotel and am pretty much set up.
I guess that sums up the last two weeks and my first day back to Peru pretty well. I'll be "talking" to you soon. Take care and God bless.
Scotty
