May 18, 2006

• Michael and the girls here in Stephenville.  We have tried to call Lorena several times this week, but each time we have found her in therapy, usually speech therapy with Blanca, and it has been so late that we would simply leave greetings for her with whomever answered the phone and tell them that we would try again the next day.  It is very frustrating not to be able to speak with her -- even as it is simultaneously exhilirating knowing that she is receiving extensive therapy AND GETTING BETTER!!!  We will try to speak with her again tonight...  We have our collective fingers crossed...

  
  

  It is so WONDERFUL to see more of you making comments on here to Lorena.  She will be tickled to hear from Mike and Debbie Odell and Amauri and Barbara Martinez.  Please, if you have special greetings for Lorena, want to update her on what is going on in your life, or would like to share memories with her (and put them on the record) PLEASE CREATE A XANGA ACCOUNT AND MAKE COMMENTS.  This is both a conduit to Lorena and a historical account of the life she is missing as she recuperates.  She misses her friends and relatives not in the Tepic area bitterly, and this is a way to maintain contact with her.  Just click JOIN at the top of this page, create a user I.D. and a password (one of your email ID's will probably work to keep it simple) -- and talk to her.  We intend this to be a written history for her and for the rest of us.

  
  

  Mike and Debbie Odell are wonderful folks, and Lorena loved visiting with them.  They were high on our list of people to spend more time with after she had finished her schooling, and they have faithfully kept up with her progress throughout this ordeal.  As well as being a colleague at Stephenville High School, Mike manages an exotic game ranch outside Dublin, and Lorena loved driving through their pastures and watching their bizarre and stunning menagerie.  She will cry when I read their message to her, but it will be a good cry.

  
  

  Lorena had also wanted to get to know Amauri Martinez better -- and she would LOVE Barbara Martinez.  Amauri was a paisano from Mexico who had come to Texas as a child, become a US citizen, and who teaches computer at SHS.  Lorena found a kindred spirit in him and identified closely with him.  He married his beautiful wife Barbara, who hails from Mexico City, after Lorena suffered her stroke.  Were Lorena here, I suspect that she and Barbara would now be very, very close because they are so very similar.  Again, she will cry when I read your greetings to her, Amauri and Barbara, but it will be a wonderful cry and sweet tears.  Thank you so much.

  
  

  I was supposed to go over this evening to work with Amauri and Barbara on some math for the GRE they are both to take Saturday, but they were both in a meeting until late.  Consequently, I have to go over tomorrow night to help them -- and to eat tinga.  Lorena will cry when I tell her about this, but only because she will be laughing so hard.  The last time I ate tinga, authentically prepared by a Chilango (person from Mexico City), Lorena said I looked like a tall, skinny Christmas light bulb because she said my head was glowing.  All I know is that the tinga was excellent, but I feared for awhile that my mouth was literally going to catch fire.  (I know how Joan of Arc felt at the end...)  Have mercy, Barbara!!!  I experienced a tingaling sensation in my mouth for a couple of days after that last experience...

  
  

  We are well. 

  
  

  We just tried Lorena; she is in therapy -- and will be for another hour or so.  Therefore, we are going to bed, and we will try again tomorrow night.  Remember that if we call too early in the evening, she is often on a ride in the van.  Later she will be in therapy with Carlos or with Blanca, both of whom work with her after their regular jobs so that they come at no set times.  However, we will be able to talk to her again one of these days, and we will update you then.  The important thing is that her miracle continues.  To God be the glory!!!

  • 11:07 pm
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