Ooze 3 (Snail Slime)

My face is feeling better.

My doctor prescribed me a cream to help regenerate the skin cells on my face. The cream feels wondeful. The cream, Cicafarm is a Spanish product. The 1st ingredient is Zinc Oxcide. Sounds normal enough. The 2nd ingredient is Baba de Caracol. Hmmm. In our Larousse Spanish English dictionary baba means either:
1. (saliva) dribble, spittle, saliva, slobber.
2. (de caracol) slime
3. (caiman) cayman, alligator
While numbers 1 and 3 are both good to know, number 2 is what I'm looking for. Caracol slime. Caracol is the Spanish word for snail. So I guess snail slime is good for your skin. I wonder what kind of snails they use? And how does one "harvest" snail slime? The 3rd ingredient is calendula which translates beautifully into marigold.

How much of the 100 grams is snail slime?

In my last post I was joking about building up a base tan.
Like it or not I've invested in a few new hats. Yee-haw!

I will be treating my face for the next 6 weeks. Then I will return to the doc to see how I look. At that time we will talk about what we will treat next. On Tuesday she said I had areas on my arms, back and chest. I think arms are next. Don't worry, I won't bore you with my following treatments.

Still swollen and as Rose likes to say, "crusty"
but feeling much better. It feels better than it looks.

I hope to feel well enough to play with my Cuban friends this Sunday.

I'll keep you posted.

Ooze 2

I am very happy to report that I went to the skin doc today and she says that my skin looks wonderful. She says we have killed all of the cancerous cells. Good news.

Some more good news. On the 6th of November I will be the featured soloist with the Orquesta de Camara Potosinos for their season opening concert in San Miguel de Allende. I will be performing the jewel of trumpet concertos, the Haydn. I'm very excited to get a chance to play this wonderful piece with an orchestra.

Even more good news: I have been booked to perform with my friend and pianist/organist Chris Brunt. On the 5th of December we will be performing Christmas music of many styles from many different eras as part of the Cox Chapel Music Series at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. It will be a treat for me to perform this program in the beautiful Cox Chapel so close to home.

1st Sunday of November San Miguel MX.
1st Monday of December Dallas TX.

Hope you can make it to 1 or both.

Here are 2 fotos from the BUZZ foto shoots.
This is Ricardos favorite. It's a great shot.

Ricardo took 100's of fotos of me.
This "throw away" is 1 of my favorites. 

So for the next 6 weeks I am on a treatment to regrow the skin cells on my face. The timing is just about perfect. I was planning a surf trip in 2 months so that should give me a few weeks to get a good base tan before I hit the surf.

Ooze

For the last year or so I have been bugging Michelle to go to the dermatologist. We are a very white bunch and we have been living a bit closer to the sun over the last 11 years (5 in Colorado Springs and 6 at a slightly higher elevation here in Guanajuato). About 2 months ago we went to see the skin doctor. The doc said she was surprised she didn't find anything on Michelle. Michelle is very pale. Good news, although now I'm thinking my odds don't look so good. It's not a good sign when the skin doc says, "You've been out in the sun a lot!" especialy when you just told her that just a few minutes earlier. After inspecting my upper body the doctor ask me to take off my pants so we could continue the examenation. I normaly don't wear underwear and that day at the doctors was no exception. After alerting her to that fact she said not to worry that we could just start on the upper body and work our way down. I'm a work in progress.

Take 2 they're small.

I stared my treatment with Efudix, 3 and a half weeks ago. Efudix is a cream that gives the paitent a chemical peel. It's also know as chemo-cream. Think of it as chemotherapy in a tube. It's almost as much fun as it sounds. The 1st week you don't notice much. 2nd week you look and feel like you have a sun burn. The 3rd week your skin begins to ooze and sometimes bleed. Ooze is a wonderful word that my girls were unfamiliar with until about a week ago.

It's hard to see the ooze in the foto because it's
kind of clear. And this morning there were no
fresh bloody spots. I'm lookin' pretty good.

This morning when I awoke the areas around my eyes were very swollen. Not sure what that's about. I hope to be done soon.

I have spent much of my 38 years on this planet outside. I would not change that. I would never want to give up all of the amazing things I have experienced in the great outdoors, I would however wear a hat.

A Few More 3 Wheeled Bike Fotos

I was in Leon on Friday so I grabbed a few more 3 wheeled bike fotos. I always see many more than I could safetly shoot from the comfort of a moving car.

In between 2 taxis waiting for a little action.

It's there somewhere.

Walk In The Rain

Earlier today I was looking up at where I store my rain poncho and I was lamenting the fact that I haven't had a reason to use my poncho much as of late. So naturaly I was excited when the storms began to roll through about a half hour before I was planning on walking into town to listen to my friend Betsy Pinover Schiff talk about her fotos that are on display at the Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato. Betsy's exhibit opened on the 5th of July and will finish on the 3rd of September. Guanajuato Sombra de Color is a very cool colection of fotos Betsy took of Guanajuato. The exibit was full of beautiful colors overlayed by interesting shadows. Good fotos, bad description.

Anyways one of the best parts of my evening in town was walking in the rain down into centro. The rain poncho enables one to get out even when the rain is still pretty fierce. I love walking through town when not many people are out. It's an especially nice treat on a Friday at 620 pm.

Guanajuato is such a beautiful place in so many ways. Thanks Betsy for giving me a different lense to look at the colors of Guanajuato and Mexico through. And for getting me out of the house to walk in the rain.

This guy just came out from under the bridge as I past by.
He's selling camote which is like a sweet potato.
I'm not sure how they are cooked but there is wood burning
involved and he some how has a wild sounding whistle
hooked up to the stove that he sounds for advertisment.

I saw this guy on my way back up.

Beautiful grafiti and ugly grafiti.

She comes by it honestly.

Please pardon any more misspellings than normal. We have a newly upgraded computer which is great, but the spell check curently underlines 99% of the words that I type. I'll try to get it fixed soon. Just hang in there.

Thanks the Management.

I'm Back

I'm back.

After a fun family filled 6 weeks in Arlington, Texas I'm back in Guanajuato. It's good to be back. The girls and I arrived at the airport in Leon on the evening of the 15th. The first thing you feel when you step off the plane is the cool dry desert mountain air. Pearl and Rose both commented on how cold they felt as we made our way off the tarmac. Michelle's beautiful smile was the most pleasant sight  as we peered through the customs doors. Wonderful hugs and kisses and talk of Rose's new hair doo. After a 30 minute drive up to Guanajuato where the night skies are much darker and the air has the taste that I have only found up in the mountains, we are home.

If you study the above foto you will see some of what I have been up to for the last 6 weeks. The foto was taken in my mother's garage. Over the last 6 weeks this area is where I began riding a unicycle (I had never sat on much less ridden a uni before 6 weeks ago). It is also where I made some adult and Texas size hula hoops and where I spent many hours practicing my trumpets.    

Now that I'm back and under strict orders not to go out in any sunlight, I will be posting more over the next few weeks. Please stay tuned.

Hope your summer has been awesome.