"We Could Get Used To This..."

Home is where the telly is...

Today I partook of two sinfully delicious things: Oreo Cookie ice-cream for dessert at lunch, and a manicure/pedicure with my girlfriend SANS monsters.

My poor fingers and toes didn't know what hit them, and symbolically I suppose it was the first real ritual 'back into civilisation' after 13 months away (if you don't count my recent Sephora.com purchases...ahem).

Our friends are being truly lovely hosts and there is much swimming, tennis playing, movie watching, cake making, fine dining and cocktail sipping going on at present...bliss.  If they are not careful we're going to have our post redirected here to Panama, set up local bank accounts and move in permanently - manners be damned.

Of course, you could argue that this isn't the 'real' Panama...especially when driving through local areas with brightly coloured shacks, dirt roads and crowded Spanish neighbourhood grocery stores.  Our drive through another part of town today confirmed that certain local parts have much more in common with India than an exclusive Golf Club Resort.

But you know what?  I've roughed it plenty this past year.  I've eaten bugs in my breakfast cereal, slept in sandy, too large sheets which bunched up during the night and always seemed to contain crumbs in the crevices, and showered twice daily in a glorified petrol station.  I bore mosquitos, a four-in-a-bed scenario most nights, and sun damaged dreadlocked hair.  I did a few harrowing stints of solo parenting, survived more than a couple bouts of unpleasant illnesses and kept it together during some rather hellish plane, train and automobile journeys.  (Oh yeah, and I kept my behind small enough to ensure that our five month stint in Bali during which we rode 'four-on-a-bike' several times daily, was even a possibility.  That in itself is some feat, no?)

So you know what?  As I look down at my finely manicured hands and toes (covered in a gorgeous, sexy black cherry colour appropriately called 'Naughty') I say bring it on.  Civilisation that is.  I could get used (again) to this I feel.

Mind you, talk to me in a three or four months when I'm wrestling through pedestrian traffic with two tearing M&S bags ripping into my palms, trying to coerce two bored boys through the hectic streets of London simply by barking commands (so not effective), and you know what?  I might wish I was still sporting dirty fingernails, dirty hair and a sandy bum...if it meant I was staring at the Arabian Sea and not two little hooligans messing about at a crowded bus stop.

Just sayin'...

We could get used to this...