Dr. Nicholas I presume...

The ad:

"My name is Dr. Nicholas. I have a special gift. My 1st and 2nd Sight has allowed me to assist people worldwide with their love, illness, relationship and business problems. I am a psychic analyst with two PHD's and deal with the unknown, working to remove curses and evil spirits. All calls are direct and confidential. Call Dr. Nicholas today at 720.231.2419 {USA}."

So of course I have to call Dr. Nick to see if he is a true psychic and knows why I am calling.  He doesn't. He has 1st and 2nd sight but I'm looking for some insight not hindsight which in Dr. Nicky's practice is more like hineysight.

I want to have the curses on my life removed and gave him my short list:

• curse of not always being in the right place at the right time
• curse of not ever, EVER, winning Powerball or Megabucks
• curse of having a prosthetic joint
• curse of not having enough joints
• curse of impermanence
• curse of having three decades more than everyone else on the road here
• curse of reading ads in third world newspapers
• curse of psoriasis

There are other curses in my life but I treat them topically or should I say tropically but these were the ones I thought he could help me with. 

He told me that there were ways to deal with these things and wanted to know if there is anyone who would likely lay a curse on me? That list is not a short list so I narrowed it down to-

•  my first wife
•  fundamentalists of any faith
•  Richard Nixon's ghost spirit
•  Republicans
•  the Chinese government
•  myself

He said I would have to make several preparations before he would be able to remove these curses and it started with my bank account. After I was to give him access to my important information so he could better understand my situation I was to go to his My Space page and,

wait a minute, here was my first clue that Dr. Nickel might be putting us on. I thought the only people that still do My Space are wannabe famous bands and pedophiles? I mean if he was on top of his game wouldn't he have a Facebook page? He assured me that Facebook was one of the biggest curses in all our lives and he said that Mark Zuckerberg was the anti Christ. 

After that I should fast for three days which would give him time to get the funds from my bank account, steal my identity and give it to a friend of his here in Panama. If he steals my identity does that mean the other Tom O gets all my curses or just the low credit score?

After fasting for three days he said that I should find an old woman, a goat, a carrot and a bottle of coconut oil. At this point I feared for the future and insisted on a taste of what he could do about my curses. I guess he realized that I wasn't going to be a good mark and reluctantly gave me a few answers to my short list:

• go to the right place and wait...
• don't buy any lottery tickets then it's not just the curse of your shit luck...
• stay away from magnetic fields and rub bath salts on my hip...
• do bath salts instead {I told him I had tried them twice and stayed in the bath tub until the water got cold both times. He said I apparently missed the point}...
• he told me he couldn't help me with the impermanence thing because I am a Buddhist...
• Viagra and "greenies"...
• don't answer any ad in any paper anywhere in the world especially ads for used, stained mattresses and psychic services other than his...
• suffer...

By this time I had enough of Skyping a scammer and gave him my old Yahoo email address so he could send me important updates. So now he'll join the legion of scam artists at that address who want to:

•  send me money that I didn't know I had 
•  share in some one's inheritance
•  lose 75 lbs in one month
•  make my dick into a fire breathing orgasm producing monster
•  meet hot chicas who are waiting to become my next wife

 Dr. Nicholas is not a lot different than a lot of televangelists, other charlatans and most governments. They all want our money and don't really give a fuck about our problems. 

At the end of the day I think the first place we should start in dealing with our problems is the last one on the list, ourselves. 

I'll get to it tomorrow. Just sayin, TmyO...

Early Observations in a familiar place...

• I quickly realize how little spanish I know as soon as I get here. Bobblehead Tomas is back...

• I must look like a drug addict with all the dudes on bikes going by and saying,”psst, psst”. One dude said he had anything I want but got pissed when I told him I wanted world peace...

• $1 cervesas and all day happy hours are the way to go...

• When it rains you get wet and that’s as wet as you get...

• 60 year old Canagringos come down here to drink or run away from something. I run away from winter. I drink to summer...

• Everyone under 40 is hooking up...

• There are 2000 peeps in Bocas and 500 of them are gringos...

• Monday is service industry day at the beach. Pretty much any day at Red Frog with Punta Lava’s $2 version of Poon Juice is a good one for me...

• Besides Spanish, I suck at German, Italian, French, Mandarin and a host of other languages passing through...

• Even in paradise you have to be careful...

• it is only the start of December but it seems six nights a week I can hear the steady bass line of some bar’s beat drops....

• You know it's a monsoony rainy time and you live on the ocean when you have to rescue a little crab from behind the refridge...

• It's slower this year to start but I think it's gonna be the shitz when ti gets it 's run on...

Spinning my wheels while spinning the Wheel of Life...

Time passes, time passes quickly and time passes us by.
A lot of time has passed since I put in any time here. It’s not like I haven’t had the time, more like I haven’t taken the time. There has been inspiration, surely from the events of the last eight months there has been inspiration, but I haven’t taken the time to let it do it’s work here. I guess I thought I had to get back on the road to start again, like it is a place where I have the time.
I look back on the time that I was back in the U.S. and realized I was spinning my wheels. Hip replacement surgery followed by a dislocation of the prosthesis, followed by replacement surgery, followed by another dislocation { I was told by my ortho surgeon that I was a “serial dislocater”}, followed by more rehab. Spinning my wheels while I waited for the time when I could get back on the road and resume the trip. Back to Panama to live most of the year, visiting peeps in Montezuma during Feliz Navidad and finding new adventures on the isthmus. All the time being on hold while I seemed to wait for the right time to find me. 
“Like those who journey on the road,
Who halt and make a pause along the way,
Beings on the pathways of the world,
Halt and pause and take their birth.”
Shantideva
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like there hasn’t been a lot of fun, what some teachings refer to as worldly pleasures, there was a whole world of worldly pleasures these last months. Portsmouth passions, Gilmanton and Alton excesses and Concord consciousness and unconsciousness. All while putting the rest of my life on hold. The non-work blank space was filled with beach time and bar time and buddy time, seeing peeps that are noble friends but out of touch renewing our lives and reliving past life together. A great tan and good times while spinning my wheels as the wheel of life turned.
The wheel of life is the cycle that relentlessly spins all living beings through repetitive states of birth, death, and rebirth. At least the way Buddhists believe. In Japanese Buddhism it is symbolized by a circle made by a single brush stroke, Enzo, the never ending cycle of life and death. Now this is the way I believe, the way my practice sees it and not the way yours does perhaps but for me it was all happening while I was waiting for my shit to get together and something to happen. A spiritual deja vux, you are too comfortable with the feeling that you have experienced this moment before and will again. 
I was moving around but staying in the same place. Waiting for the time to go back to Panama and live there most of the year and come back to see kids, grand kids and the usual suspects. Continue my life on the road, wandering, un-homed and living large. 
In the midst of this came a group of Tibetan monks from India making a sand mandala in a Shaker village. Right before the first dislocation {of the hip, not my life} four days of peace and compassion and the Dharma card of the beginning of a noble friendship. 
Turning the wheel of life I found myself deepening my practice and reviewing my options, where will the road take me? Back to Panama and then where?
35,000 feet I fly through the night now on my way back to Panama as I had planned, spending the next six months in the southern summer, on the beach, hanging out in Bocas and having the fun that I know is waiting there. It’s just that now it’s a little different and it’s life moving forward. When I get back to Bocas besides surfing when my hip is ready, {even though I’m now just a boogie boarder or dick dragger as they say}, hanging out with the crew from Raw Sushi, meeting new peeps from Bocas Bookstore {where you can think and drink} I’ll be volunteering with the Floating Doctors and helping with the residents of Asilo the nursing home. I figure that’s the best place for me to do service as I’m going to be in that audience soon. 
No longer looking to live there in the wonderful world of Bocas del Toro, sort of an international RastafaPortsmouth, I am now coming back in May to really put my shit together and then leave in July for India, Nepal and Mongolia to become a renunciate and monastic.
So I put life in gear and stopped spinning my wheels and am on the path of the last part of this road I travel. 
Yogi Berra once said “if you come to a fork in the road, take it.” So I have and it’s exciting again and going to be quite the trip. I’ll keep you posted.
And if you think I’m going to change who I am and my posts are going to be full of inspiration, spiritual messages and dharma dung, all I can say is, wake the fuck up. Just saying, TmyO...

Making another list...

• Hip dislocations, another hip and the seven week syndrome...
• Summer 2012... 
• Back on the Path...
• Panama and India...
• What the future holds...

I'll get to it soon, TmyO...

Randumb...

• When spellcheck checks my name it offers these as viable substitutes:

1. Foolhardy
2. Offloaded
3. Ovulate
4. Afloat
5. Overheat

• Why is it that every Orthopedic Department is always at the very end of a long hall? This in the land of shitty hips, knees and ankles.

• We were talking about assisted suicide and my boi AJ says, "don't worry my friend when the time comes we got you covered." I asked him if he would really do that? "Fuck that I'll be at breakfast. My brother Joe will do it. Solo estoy diciendo" he said. Nice.

• is there ever a shitty sunset if you see it?
• If I wasn't here, where would I be?
• when I take monastic vows two of them are to not take intoxicants of any kind and the vow of celibacy. Shit it's two of my favorite things.
• why is it that I would text and drive but wouldn't text while walking because I thought it was too dangerous? just sayin, TmyO...

I don't really know what I do for a living...

So the hip puts me at the charity of others. I'm lucky because I have the two best TomO Charities. But I don't have a gig this summer like I thought. So am I really retired or just retiring for the summer? This weekend I was the farm hand feeding the calves out of nipple buckets and trying to get three piles of grain in the paddock with three frisky ponies. Never did I imagine 6 months ago that I would be back on a farm cleaning cow and horse shit off my shoes with the smell of hay, manure, milk replacer on my clothes.
I miss the ocean fierce! I miss the smell of the tides and the feel of grains and stones on my feet and the sound of the surf. The sense of salt on my body most of the day and the color of sun all over me.
In the interim I'm back to where I was five years ago and I re-learn the appreciation for the trees, fields and the large sweet water lake. As much as I love the salt water, there always was the jump in the lake after two weeks on the Island, from salt water to sweet water.
There is beauty everywhere in nature and I am basking in the belly of it it seems.

This is what I see every good night so I can close my eyes and see the sunset reflecting on the sand in Montezuma or Bocas while I smell the fir trees and lilacs in the wind.
It 's sweet watching bees in the blueberry fields and remembering having hives at Goodtime Farm across the lake, raising a family and creating history.
I am a lucky fuck if you look at it. I go from the one great setting to another and all I have to do is go with the flow.
I'll paint barns, drive a hay truck, feed critters and whatever else needs to be done and maybe some time at the bar on the work side.
I don't really know what I do for a living but I know how I'm living my life. Pretty sweet. Just sayin, TmyO...

if I had been a horse they would have shot me. Must be the KDerby and finally the Kentucky Steve and Trish story

So this could also be called "people you meet on the Road dos." This is the story of Kentucky Steve and Trish. It's a long overdue story of a couple of peeps from Kentucky. I first met Steve up at the Ylang Ylang resort. The super funky place a walk up the beach. Steve was holding court at the back garden bar. Now court may be a bit of a stretch as there are only four chairs at the bar and only two of them were filled but Steve was definitely holding court. The man can work a room better than most. I listened to him talking to the people at the bar and he didn't and doesn't talk shit. We got to talking or rather he pulled me into the conversation and I had just finished the usual sunset smokey walk up the beach so I was good for a babble for a bit. We were joined by his wife Trish who could easily hold her own with KSteve. Trish is a senior partner in a firm in Lexington and a funny shit on her own.
At their insistence I joined them for dinner, the first of a week's worth of dinners they had me join them. I have to admit that first dinner had me wondering if they were a couple of swingers with a penchant for old pirates but it was simply two wonderful, gracious people who liked to have a very good time. They have a thoroughbred way station farm for high end racers coming to town for that track that has a race for flowers and horses that are in transit from coast to coast. Steve was also involved with a couple of other enterprises all of which afforded a life grounded in hard work and the opportunity to play hard on the beach, the jungle, wherever. Steve had done the amazon the real way and looking at him you would not think that this was a guy who understood the secrets in the Amazonian bush but he does. Of course all this travel and exotica just armed him with some of the funniest stories and serious reflections on life outside the box.
I would go up to the little waterfalls on the way to Playa Grande and Steve would roll out of his  suite by the beach, jump in the water and then go lie on the warm sand, no blanket, and just lay there in the sun a basic sun loving dude. He'd look like the beach I was he walked down to jump in the water covered in sand and smile.
This boy could catch a buzz. We had long discussions about earnest work in your own environment and great play out in the rest of the world, balancing the yin and the yang.
I really got to enjoy their company and the brief time passed fast. We started to do the dance of, "let's keep in touch and do this again", but it was no backhand see you later and never hear from peeps again. Not Kentucky Steve and Trish. He asked me if I still had a suit somewhere and would I come to Louisville for The Derby Weekend and be their guest at all the VIP parties and the inside track for the famous Run for the Roses. It was a serious offer and I was seriously going to do it. Shit folks I can cultivate a taste for mint juleps! Alcohol, racehorses, 100,000 people and bound to be women in hats there right?
Well I would be there now hanging with Trish and Kentucky Steve in their world and watching him work an event. The scorpion got in the way and I can't fly until the middle of June and recovery is dictated by others and as much as I push the envelope the travel part of it is a benchmark and that can't happen until weeks after everyone is starting to get all excited about a possible triple crown winner.
This is also a mea culpa to Kentucky Steve and Trish for not getting back to you and I can't claim the scorpion took your email, I just lost a bunch of cards in the seat pocket of the escape flight from Panama.
If you stay on the road or if you find a cool spot along the road, you will be open to meeting some very interesting people and Kentucky Steve and Trish were two of 'em. Gracias amigos. Solo estoy diciendo. TmYo...

Pasar a mejor vida, to leave this world..my suicide rant. {I almost lost this like the friends in it}

Pasar a mejor vida, to leave this world..my suicide rant.
Posted: 07 Feb 2012 11:06 PM PST
He took his own life they told me. That's an interesting concept when you get beyond the sadness of the act if it is an act grown from sadness. He didn't take his own life, he took a part of the lives of everyone in his life. Some he took little parts, moments, meetings, an occurrence taken from associates, colleagues, a stranger in the night. For others he took bigger parts like the chance of adding more memories to a friendship, the opportunity to learn more and see the friendship grow. Those closest to him had some of their lives stolen. A big some the closer you get. When he took his life he took yours with him, a lot of it at first, a little of it for eternity.
He took his own life is how we gently say he killed himself like we say someone "passed" instead of someone died. I grew up in a funeral home and everyone there was dead, except us of course, and the only passing was out the door to the hearse. My father did pass a kidney stone once at the Perry Funeral Home and sometimes people pass gas when they are embalmed.
So when you take your own life you murder yourself and in the process you become a mass murderer, you kill something in each of us.
He took his own life is also used after some asshole has killed a shitload of people at his old job and then turns the weapon on himself. I always hope for confusion when the killer forgets what he's supposed to do and kills himself first, I mean passes first.
I've had time this summer here to ponder the issue as I relive a lot of the trip Rocketman and I took years ago. Many of the times, memories, meetings, occurrences, opportunities to watch us and our friendship grow have found time in every day to remind me what he took from me and all of us that were a part of his life big or small.
I oir como oir llover, ignored warnings, as I was involved with his first attempt and spoke with him an hour before his final taking and passing. But faithful promises of not a real taking and a one time occurrence brought security. Unfortunately number two take attempt involved the other of the three amigos and he too was given faithful promises of no repeats of stupid things in drunken moments. We found all this out at his funeral which I'm sure was not unique to just us.
I wonder if these people spend any time in the planning {if there is any} of who is going to find them and how that moment is forever burned vividly into their minds, lives and souls? I wonder how many people that might have stopped?
Recently I learned in an email of another long time friend both professional/personal who had died and when I got an email back to my shocked inquiry I got an even bigger one, he had taken not just his own life but a piece of all of ours. To often it does come as a shock because you either oir como oir llover or it is truly a shot to the blind side. I talked with him before I came down for the summer here and there was still the laugh in him, the enthusiasm for what he was doing {truly compassionate work} and I could see that smile that made him look marvelous as we talked on the phone. He retired, paid his dues in our world and was doing the thing he loved doing the most. On the surface he sure was not on my suspect list but the surface view of any one's life is the cover of the book and not the content and gives us either an idea of the truth of their life or what they want us to believe. Because I'm here I haven't heard anything else about it, how he murdered himself and the lives of those who loved him?Did he leave a suicide note {never referred to as a taking his own life note although often referred to as a note to loved ones which confuses the shit out of me as well} and  who found him? All questions that only bring more questions, unsatisfactory answers and all the Kubler-Ross stages you go through with death and the grief attendant.
Suicide is another way of someone saying, "no te quiero ver nunca mas." I never want to see you again. They won't.
After Rocketman's fuse burned out I promised us both that I would rather lose a friendship not a friend so I will always err on the side of caution if I sense the sadness, mental madness or hear the language of hopelessness in a voice. I've done it once and it caused a gap in time on a friendship clock but I felt it had to be done and he is still here.
Last night I sat with a friend while Elton John sang Rocketman in the longest version I ever have heard and I cried through it all. There was one empty seat on the stadium floor and it was next to me. A guy with a NY giants hat turned to me and offered me a shot of his whiskey. It was Jim Beam, the only bourbon Paul and I drank. I made it through the emotion of the night like I knew I would but shouldn't have, none of us should. I know I will understand the latest piece of my life someone took, most of us do. Time does that.
This may touch a nerve with some because we would rather talk Superbowls than suicides but this is my rant just like my cancer rant. Fuck suicide and fuck you if you think it's a solution and don't call out for another view of your moment but in time I'll still and always will love you. Just sayin, TmyO....

Randoms in recovery...

• watched a NASCAR race from Richmond last night. The epitome of not much to do last night. The thing that struck me was that in an arena of 122,000 peeps the dudes on the tube had to be the only fucking people wearing a tie and jacket. Now no offense to the roundy round world but WTF dudes your television representation is four guys in suits. I'd have four hillbillies with coke bottles with black funky fluid in their hands and not all the teeth in the mouth. Guys that would drop the fuckword to express their delight in a restart. Beards and bellies if you ask me...
• by the time I leave my recovery I'll have a great hip and need a liver transplant...
• in my life there is great delight in the freedom of the road and fear of the responsible future. I've financially figured I'm good for five years until I'm 72. After that it could be the Panamanian version of the Dunkin Donuts cup on the corner...
• But what a fun five years...
• Every day is Saturday and every night is New Year's Eve in my life now...
• I hate fucking Zuckerberg and Timeline and there I am totally updated...
• I'm so lame

    solo estoy diciendo. TmyO...

Mis amgos, mi proveedors de atención médica...

 So I crash back to earth like the Hip Post says and I wind up back in Gilmanton and Alton where I had left over five years ago. The Village Store, mi mejor amigo's farm and mi mejor amigos chica's farm and the lake and Goodtime Farm across the valley. Kind of weird at times but a sweet way to recover watching sunsets around a fire pit or taking steam showers and hanging out with a corgi that I'm training to be part of a payaso act. So far we have mastered the sit and the paw. We are advancing to roll over and some jumping for treats shit.
 This isn't about the location, the view, fire pits, the bathroom, or even the dog. It's about two incredible kind and caring peeps in my life who demanded that I stay with them, him before my surgery and her after I'm out of rehab. I spent the pre-op time in a 233 year old farm and spent my second night back in the US in my old bed, the first person to sleep in the room in 62 years. I had to get up at 0620 in the morning to watch the sunrise given that kind of timing. I have some history in this house with an extremely influential Buddhist teacher in my life and being back in it had an underlying reminiscence that brought a smile to my face and in my head. Mi mejor amigo was there to make it all happen, easily and gracefully. I was once told that I lived my life vicariously through mi mejor amigo and now he was mi proveedor. The hot tub in the milk house was welcomed until the hip got too susceptible to the cold in the walk to and from the mh.
 I couldn't go back to the Farm after my surgery because of the stairs and that's where KtK came in. She was the adamant one who sent emails about where I had to stay and how it was going to work. One floor, no stairs, dog company, constantly, steam showers, no schedule other than physical therapy and the lady who made this all so easy. My concern was awkwardness, feeling like a squatter, the third person but so far never experienced, through their grace we're like the odd trio, the farmer, the pharma and el sombrero.
I'm making plans to go back to Panama in September to take the next step but have to fill space between now and then. No gig at the bar this summer as they needed someone who could be there at the start of the summer and that wasn't physically me. Mi proveedors came up with some barn painting, my new physical and fiscal therapy and the desire to have me hang until I leave. I may have to take the dog to Panama.
I really wanted to make this post a testimony to my friends for what they have done for me before the trips and after. I realize no matter how much Jameson, Corona in the can and medical grade I do to inspire my writing, I can't express my gratitude for what you have done and the graceful and loving way you have done it.
AJ and Katie I am humbled by the experience...

little ants, big ants, scorpians, snakes and the lizard that eats the big ants. An old draft to post because of the irony of it all...

This world today on the road doesn't seem like the place for me bug wise. This trip is all about bugs underneath the fabric of the day to day on the road. I bought very non Buddhist ant and flying little mf 's death spray but fired the can only once and then it was back to zenboi and what is the difference between the fly and the ant Noah or Francis would say? . Sweep them out and the spray stinks, it's aerosol and the can is litter, not that most peeps in the isthmus give that much of a shit about aerosol and litter.
OK so I'm going to spend five months in places where when you turn out the light you know there is a lot of shit going on in the dark. If you are of an age and need to get up in the middle of the night to do whatever old shits do, you know to have a handy light cause it's probably big ants or the lizard that eats the big ants and shits them out by the sink. That comprehension took a week and then it was a quick visual of the lizard screwing behind the refrigerator.
The big ants are just big. They don't seem to do much other than go around and about and I'm pretty sure they are into the grout on the tile by the window.  I know it would seem like Don Tomas get a life as there is too much attention payed to the bugs. Insects. One of the reasons I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I can get along with a lot of bugs right now in my life but I'm not going to be putting on a bathroom light to suck all the bugs there while I try to make sure my mosquito net is secure. I can deal with the big ants and I'm keenly aware of the small ants as  they will fuck you up. Really teeny little bastards but potent. They bite with big mouths and although that isn't the best part, that's the part you remember and not the itch two hours later. Once you scratch you are doomed. If the size of the ant was all you had to consider that would be sweet but you have the bigger ugly critters like scorpions and snakes. Panama has seven deadly snakes and Costa Rica has a few but you really don't see them. All you usually see is big ass Boas with nasty teeth. I had care for two of them back in the start of the seventies Gilgemesh and Ninma, but I don't remember all those fangs. Scorpions? All I have to say is don't try to hang your laundry out in the dark for the next day and anything outside is best inside out so you don't get a surprise in your pants when you put them on. I've seen a couple on the road and one by the cabina but they don't like a lot of attention. {little did I know as this was originally written a week before the scorpion sting that altered the southern summer!}
My neighbor Rivers told me the story of the army ants and his cabina. They came home one day and the entire inside of the cabina was covered by army ants everywhere. They freaked but our landlord, el Jeffe, said that they eat all the bugs in the interior and they will be gone in a few hours and he was right as Rivers said they watched the whole thing and the army ants marched up into the field behind our cabinas and were gone without a trace in three hours save for some ant shit. You just always hope they aren't coming at night.
Big bugs, little bugs, all sorts of bugs here in the bush that I'm trying to live a peaceful life with. Funny how it all works out. Just sayin, TomO...

Randoms, Not Reggae Night II...

• why did I spend time researching; testosterone therapy in the aging process and "What kind of STD testing is best for you? There were two different reasons involved one for each although I realize where your mind can go. To alleviate any concern, confusion or snickering among friends the former was about the loss of muscle mass in people as they are in my age. Even active here this summer I can see it happening. Especially when you get a tattoo and it takes two people , one to stretch the skin and the other to ink. The latter because when I go back for the Northern Summer those lucky moments of lust and liquor will require proper certification I'm sure considering my Del Rey days. Hell I might even take out an ad in Spotlight for the last summer in town. Sun wrinkled old pirate on fixed income back in town for the summer. Certification from Offices of Dr. Saulo T. Dominguez, DPM. "Sure we do feet but we test stuff too."...
• Didn't make Reggae Night on another of those next day is gonna be a big day that turns out to be the foot shift snapping on my one day with the quad trying to down from 5-4 and doing the switchback with brakes with Roiboi riding ass seat. Reggae night of course was live band, wicked pissah fire in tha streets and all jammed up with Eurocanagringo chicas and a healthy gathering of the drop dead Ticas {pardon me do you have your govt card please?}. I was resting for the big loop from here to there and up the hill to over there and then down to after there until we got back to here from there so it was an early night and I was home by sunrise...  
• I'm probably going to have to decide someday whether I want to live in MZ or Bocas? Great friends and times in both but different worlds. I'll ask my various internal and exterior organs where they want to be...
• I'm probably never going to get this post finished or published, solo estoy diciendo...

the hip post...

When you do a brief history of my postings {and I would wonder why?} you see a major portion of postings at the end of 2011. Hit Ano Nuevo and it’s a blank. Plenty of notes and thoughts at this end but no jump to sit down to the discipline of writing. Maybe the little blip at  the end of the Nicoya Penninsula, Montezuma, kept me too busy once I got into the throes of life there with beaches and bars yo.
When I first got there the Howlers would be a welcome alarm at 0520 and tea and writing was the start of the day. Then MZ got so many 'dias a playas' that it was a long and luxurious time with much for the head and body.
But it started with the Scorpion on Christmas Eve and has evolved into a total hip replacement. Looking at my pictures or profile comments  you get the impression that I‘m not living too bad a life in Central America.
 It’s been a good cover I guess, as the sting turned into an infection that needed antibiotics, diuretics and pain management and trust me it was por dolor no por jajaja. I also developed a limp which was a response to the swollen foot. For a shortwhile both legs were swollen and I not only had kankles I had grandma calves. Ruling out all other possibilities like gout, congestive heart failure etc. pointed back to the poor little bug that got stepped on and retaliated. Thank you Santa if I couldn't have my fucking pony when I was little why not a scorpion now?
Pain got to be the single focus. I was now aware of physical discomfort all of the awake times { I say awake instead of conscious as there were times when there was one but not the other} and anytime at night that I rolled on my right side or if I had to get up and pee{it happens }. I have always faced pain before by getting the biggest and baddest pain killers available and for a lot less pain than lives in my life now. It was warranted then and not abused {taken according to instructions except an occasional extra pink one} but a maintainense addiction to serious opiates had developed. It maintained my pain threshold and allowed me to be a lot more physical in life, alive but dependent on that freedom as well.
I came to Central America to live without pain medication that had a fifteen year presence in my life. I had to deal with my arthritic pain with a different mental approach and seek natural ways to treat the pain physically. I was comfortable approaching the mental aspect as I had started the weaning process before I left the States. I knew living in the Third World medical and pharmacutical availability was going to be an issue. I had made contact last year with someone who knew of a nele in the San Blas Islands who was an expert with the use of plants and woods of the bush. A nele is a spirit centered person, a shaman, who would connect with the spirits and understands the language of the plants and trees of the bush. Like the ayahuasqueros in the Amazon who drank ayahuasca to communicate with the bush, the neles use their knowledge to both treat common illnesses and communicate with the spirits. The nele I went to see was a 70 year old albino woman that I paid to spend time with and possibly find a bush medicine that would ameliorate my arthritic back pain but not be an addicting solution. Maybe some bark extract or flower would do the same as oxycontin or the usual menu of opiates and that was the major reason for the trip to see the nele. I know what you are thinking, that I'm also looking for the Panamanian version of ayahuasca and partaking of the local hallucenogenic. Nope, not the case. The nele asked the same thing but I was sincerely looking for something that would work for pain relief as well as learning about the Kuna Yala ethnobotanical pharmocopia. I told her I would like to explore the bush in her knowledge path. She said the ayahuasca has a sister in the Panamanian bush but I would have to come back again for more experiences. So that will be the first 7-10 days when I get back in September. I learned a lot from her and liked her quiet cranky style. She showed me some pretty cool survival plants, plants that would stem the flow of blood, ease my menstrual cramps, make me shit and arouse my "interest" as she said. But no big solution to the pain thing. She said to just trust the spirits and wear the amulet bracelets she put on my wrist and leave them til they fall off. Ask the spirits for patience and ask the spirits for relief. I'm working on it.
Her milk white skin and copper tinged hair made her stand out in the village of typiclly dark skinned indigenous peeps. I was told that the Guna Yala have the highest rate of albinism in the world. The Kuna people call them, "the children of the moon" and they are considered spiritually special. In the U.S. the rate of albinism is 1-30-40K. The indigineous people who make up the branches of the Guna Yala in the San Blass region have a rate of 1-165! Funny thing is that she was the only moonchild I met.
The scorpion's sting finally took it's toll as my ability to deal with the pain was almost gone.
I did finally get bilateral shots of the hips and the recent worst fear scenerio was being played out. Radiology was never a discipline I studied but I have read enough films related to cardiac surgery or my broken body to understand. Like an orthopod I’m looking at the functional left and defining the ball of the hip and how it is set in the socket. Then I look at the right and I could have been an idiot in Radiology to not recognize the hip issue. The next day I’m in front of one of the internationally certified ortho surgeons in Panama and uno doctore que hable ingles. He put  the shots up on the viewer and then just  said “ you have a totally destroyed right hip  and you need a total hip replacement.” Made me feel a little better when he gave me credit for being brave and walking around for 10 weeks with varying pain levels and then saying “Stupido!” for walking around for 10 weeks and not gettig x-rays 8 weeks earlier in San Jose.
I had incredable service at the hospital in Bocas the moment I walked into the session de urgencia. At $2.95 you get a doctor. $15.00 buys you bilateral pics and technician time. A final $2.95 for a MD consult and an injection of cortisone and lidocaine. All for less than $25. Another reason to love Panama.
Long back story but radical change in what’s going to happen in the short term of my life being forced off the road. Trust me not the end of the world but an immediate adjustment, a lot of quick planning and emergency exit stage left. Out of Panama, find a surgeon, call the bar and tell them you won't be available until June which means no gig which means try to find a gig, find another place in Bocas and figure out what is going back with me this time. Trying to go with the flow and be flexible with my expectations.
Do we hit a time when our flexability slows or is more difficult? I’m not talking about being able to bend over and lick your heels. I’m talking turning on a dime and getting shit together to make quick and correct decisions. This kind of shit would have made me a mad man and definitely un-Buddhist 10 years ago with a younger familia and a different attitude, but now it’s just the simple truth to deal with the need to remove my right hip and resurface the socket pocket. I think if you lose the ability to accept change you will not do well living on the road.

I left Bocas and flew back to Boston to get in front of an orthopedic surgeon recommended by a long time business friend. I could have had one of the best in the world if I wanted to wait four months til he had an opening but there was fat chance of that happening given the pain issue previously mentioned. It became a choice of the best guy in the shortest period of time and it worked out well. The ortho operating suite is a pretty violent place with sawing and hammering and cutting off the hip at the femur from the notes; "attention was then turned to the femur, which was opened with a cookie cutter "{WTF?}. Later, "the stem was impacted into place, the head impacted into place and the hip was reduced." Later in his report and my favorite part of medical gibberish, "Three drill holes were made in the posterior aspect of the greater trochanter reattaching the external rotator posterior capsular complex with an enhanced posterior capsular repair." Quite a mouthful of gibberish.
Four days in the hospital three of them on a morphine pump then a week in rehab {read nursing home} on oxycodone and then on to my friend Katie's house until I'm fully recovered with oxycodone as needed for pain. It all sounds like a recipe for a fall back to the old way of dealing with the pain in my body but I still hear the nele's voice, " Ask the spirits for patience  ask the spirits for relief." I do and I'm OK. Solo estoy diciendo. TmyO...

it's starting to look like a journal....

Great gaps in mediocre writing to be corrected later today. Stay tuned for post game ramblings by a mildy influenced individual, just sayin, TmyO...

First a coma and now insomnia...

Ah, i just can't go to sleep
Cause it feels  like insomnia ah ah,
Feels like insomnia ah ah
Feels like insomnia ah ah,
Feels like insomnia ah ah...Craig David

So I didn't fall into a coma or even a punctuation point {always want to throw another m in there} and I ended my NYE yesterday, not really but I bet there are some heads nodding somewhere thinking it's true. I actually walked up Montezuma Hill, HfH, at 0045 on 01.01.12 {the rest of the world puts the day first then the month and year so this is the once of the month sameness day}. On a night of 400 images and constant movement I missed my ride up so it was off up the hill. Under an absolutely stunning celestial sky, with no one to impress I took my shirt off and took the sweaty trek. A thoughtful and accompanied trip for the first moments of the first of 366 to come. Yup it's a Leaper if I had been born on the 29th of Feb I would be celebrating my 17th birthday. Of course I'd be doing it with the ass of a 67 year old. Thoughts of walking down and up this fucking hill once a week to try and rectify {unintended honest} that 67yo ass and accompanied by an assortment of wildlife seen or heard. Not barefoot, puffing away I pushed into the NY. Not barefoot because a lot more happens when you don't use a light unless safety issues come at you so you can't see where you are putting your feet all the time. The rule here is, don't put your hands or feet where you can't see 'em. Puffing away because one thing the summer here is teaching me is that I am sixty six and not 16. The other reason is that it was such a beautiful night that I had to stop a couple of times to look at the beauty of it all and take a couple of puffs, winded you think?.

Breaking News: In no surprise the local man who started the new year thinking about doing it as exercise, has only climbed the HfH three times since and all at night...

I have the night sky en toto again since leaving the world of light pollution and it is the only thing bigger than the Road to me. A huge canopy that will only give way to the phase of the moon. Part of my first walk of the new year was playing with the compass application on my phone {my cool new 4S i got right before I left for the summer here and suspended service until I get back and of course they still have been charging me for service that I don't have and I'm in another country waiting for a "service representative" to be right with me eating up a piece of my prepaid card, thank you Verizon} to get a new sense of direction as the last time I got to see it this dark it was a northern sky. So the compass application on my phone {my cool new 4S i got right before I left for the summer here in Central America where the 4S hasn't gotten as far as I have and in Panama where the "service representative" tried for an hour to unlock it, SIM card it and in Costa Rica the dude for ICE looked at it and went "ooh, es bueno Si? Sorry , no have yet."} is pretty neat for those  walks and standing on the beach trying to figure the night sky. It's not all a rum diary life down here, there are thoughtful moments and times.

One of those other thoughtful moments on the walk up that fucking hill on the first AM was how I was going to be more attentive to my thoughts and not be in a punctuation point kind of way and keep it rolling but then AJ came back to MZ from his eve in Jaco and it did become like a rum diary rocking and rolling... 

but that is for another round of thought provoked insomnia:

Transient insomnia is often caused by a temporary situation in a person's life, such as an argument with a loved one, a brief medical illness, or jet lag. When the situation is resolved or the precipitating factor disappears, the condition goes away, usually without medical treatment.

and,

Insomnia (or sleeplessness) is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties.[1] While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions: "Do you experience difficulty sleeping?" or "Do you have difficulty falling or staying asleep?"[1]

Thus, insomnia is most often thought of as both a sign and a symptom[1][2] that can accompany several sleep, medical, and psychiatric disorders, characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep or sleep of poor quality. Insomnia is typically followed by functional impairment while awake. One definition of insomnia is difficulties initiating and/or maintaining sleep, or non restorative sleep, associated with impairments of daytime functioning or marked distress for more than 1 month."[3]

So the opposite must be sleepmoreness right?

And I don't know the tune ah ah so I don't know if his name is Craig David or David Craig but it smells like American Idol.

just sayin...TmyO