inhale and hold it....

After months of not being able to visit a good friend (our schedules are pretty opposite), I was able to go over this morning for breakfast. We drank tea, peeled roasted peppers together, bopped marbles with her 5-year-old son, and chatted. It was good.

Then she asked me to go up and congratulate her nephew on his circumcision (which is a big deal here - parades, fancy outfits, and lots of party food). After eating a very sweet cake thing made of layers of cookie crackers, pudding, and whipped cream, I was asked to go into another room to look at something. I naturally thought I would be looking at gifts or the traditional costume or baby pictures or something equally easy on the stomach. No, no - I was instead asked to look at slightly infected stitches. That was about as close to my stomach unloading as I´ve come since the 3rd grade. Even now, 7 hours later, I am quite disturbed.

(This is my rational for why I was asked to look: a colleauge from the States is an unofficial health advocate and adviser of sorts...and maybe this woman thought I had some kind of medical wisdom to depart. Hm...although I thought I had blocked this from memory, I was shown other stitches last year by a proud grandma. What a show-and-tell.)

In other unrelated news, my internet and/or computer have not worked for over 2 weeks. I have now clocked a good 30-plus hours into trying to get it fixed - waiting for internet dude 5 times, going to computer repair place, biking to internet provider place, putzing myself, etc. ugh-a-wug, ugh-a-wug...