Sun Time

Good Morning. Last night I could not sleep well. Maybe it was the 3 pieces of homemade pizza I ate last night pretty late. Alessandra and I made two vegetable pizzas last night. She says she has never eaten so many vegetables in her life. As a special treat we put a jar of artichokes on the pizza. Alessandra has tried a lot of new vegetables. She almost made it through the evening without trying an artichoke, but Rosalina soon asked her:
"Have you tried an artichoke Alessandra?"
She looked down at her plate with a little smile, as if she had almost made it through the evening without having to eat one and was caught just before she could escape. I had just served myself a piece with a big piece of artichoke on it and soon that same piece was on Alessandra´s plate. She looked doubtfully at it and began to look busy cutting it, separating the layers, and shifting the pieces around on her plate.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It´s like a flower." said Rosalina. Later after Jose and Rosalina had left the table Alessandra was still sitting there. She had managed to eat some of the artichoke piece, but some of it had been well disguised in a small heap of tomato sauce, green and red peppers, and onions in the center of her plate.
"You don´t like it?" I said.
"No! shhhh!" she whispered. The corners of her eyes motioning behind her toward the kitchen where Rosalina was arranging dishes in the sink.
" I´m full." she said.
"What?" I asked.
"I´m full!" she repeated.
"Oh, oh, you´re full." I said.
"What happened?" Rosalina asked.
"Oh nothing, Alessandra is full." I told her.
Alessandra and I had brought home a new bar of dark chocolate for Jose as a little present from our day´s shopping adventure walking around in David. The girl behind the counter at the pharmacy had made a face.
"Ewww. Are you sure you want to buy that. It´s gross. It has no sugar. It´s dark chocolate." she warned.
"It´s for a person who can´t eat much sugar." said Alessandra. (It´s so funny. Here in Panama everyone always has something to say.) She rolled her eyes a bit and smiled, as if to say
"Ok, suit yourself," ringing up the chocolate and a pack of orange flavored gum for me and Alessandra.
Jose was in the kitchen as well and closing the door of the refrigerator, came out with the tin of tiny swiss chocolates his son, Jose Agustin, had brought him as a gift from his recent travels.
"We´ll finish eating these one´s first and then we´ll eat the one you bought me. Are we agreed?"
"mhmm."
He passed the tin around.
"Alessandra?" he said passing her the tray. (hahaha a thin mint Alessandra?)
She selected a milk chocolate one with a tiny wafer inside. He gave me the tray and I took a pure milk chocolate. And finally with a big smile he took a dark chocolate one for himself and ate it with great pleasure.
Soon Jose and Rosalina went to bed. I went into Alessandra´s room.
"Are you ready to watch the X-files?" I asked her.
"doo, dooo, dooo, dooo, do do do...." she sang the theme song. Alessandra and I have been making our way through season 2 of the X- files little by little. We´re on disc 5 now. In the hot afternoons we sometimes watch an episode with the luxury of the air conditioner combined with the fan. 45 minutes of bliss. Sometimes we´ll watch a movie on tv, usually a Hollywood movie dubbed in Spanish which Alessandra will understand better than I do.
"What´s happening?" I´ll ask, watching John Travolta´s mouth continue to move after he finished talking in Spanish.
We watch the x-files in English with Spanish subtitles. In last night´s episode a zoo was going through some financial troubles and animals were escaping somehow and running around killing people invisibly. I fell asleep after learning that Mulder suspected the animals were being abducted.
"Doo, doo doo doo do, do..." I awoke to the ending theme music and the credits rolling.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You fell asleep." Alessandra said.
"What happened to Sophie?" (the gorilla in the show) I asked.
"She died." she said.
"What? Oh my god! Poor Sophie" I said.
Alessandra laughed.
I fell asleep again for a while, but frustratingly, I woke up again and was staring at the air conditioner´s lights. It used to bother me at night when I first arrived. The light is pretty bright, and if you´ve ever seen "Back to the Future," it looks something like the flux capacitor, or part of an alien spaceship, a carnival of red, green, and yellow lights blinking throughout the night. My thoughts were caught in an endless loop. I could hear roosters conversing.