PANAMA, ASPEN & AN ASS.

So Juan Pablo’s an ass. But what’s wrong with dating? Should he put a ring on it for TV? And didn’t Clair, the hairdresser, know if she had sex on TV someone would see?
But I swear this isn’t a blog about The Bachelor.

It’s about life, death and skiing.

I was flying down the mountain, on my ass. I’m a sucky to intermediate skier. Before I went ass over teacup (never understood that expression till now) I was singing LET IT GO, LET IT GO. The cold never bothered me anyway. Actually it was 45 degrees. Perfect day except for falling on my ass in Aspen.

We took a Mom/Son trip. We never saw the kids. Except when they asked for money. Or when they asked if they could bring chicks back to the condo. Thankfully the chicks never materialized.

And I had that Adele Dazeem song from FROZEN stuck in my head. Poor John Travolta. Idina Menzel is a mouthful. And they changed the teleprompter copy on him so he got nervous. It’s funny because Idina once said to me “no one knows who I am”. Not true. Well…maybe kind of true. But she’s been my girl crush for years. In RENT she played a snarky, sexy bitch. In WICKED she played a snarky, sexy witch. She’s been in Glee and Disney movies. But I think Travolta made her a star.

It was weird to be singing and sitting on my butt in the snow just days after my trip to the jungle.

Just getting to the jungle was a trip. Brooke Bohm, Juan Ramirez (another Don Juan) and me…the Three’s Company of charity…flew to Panama. Or at least we tried to. We missed our first flight and spent the night at LAX. We were there so long they let me drive the Zamboni. LAX has never been cleaner.

Eventually we were sweltering in the jungle. No electricity, no running water, no cars, no Wi-Fi. It wasn’t a vacation paradise. Although they did shoot Survivor Panama on the same island.

The latrine made me long for a porta potty. It was strictly BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper). Brooke took to peeing outside. Until she got a mosquito bite on her vajay jay. Felt like we were starring in Revenge of the Dengue, but we were on a Mending Kids mission.

Mending Kids and a kick ass charity called Floating Doctors went to the island jungles of Panama. The Floating Doctors will go 100 miles by boat to see patients who have never seen a doctor before. We took a boat ride, then hiked into the jungle (with all our crap) to set up a clinic, and our “beds”.

We slept in hammocks. The first night I couldn’t fall asleep. The next night I couldn’t stay awake. The roosters woke me around 4AM. We tired not to get attached to the chickens or pigs because you never knew who might be dinner.

One day a panicked man came to the clinic and told my friend Juan that his 5 day old baby had a white film on her eye. And that the mother had rejected the baby so the baby had not eaten. Dr Kate and I left the clinic and hiked to the hut. On the way she told me the mother probably had a vaginal infection (TMI? or TMVR? Too may vagina references?) And maybe the mother was too sick to feed the baby. But the real cause for panic was a 5 day old who was starving to death. Trudging through mud, stepping over a calf Kate asked “Where’s the baby?” Turns out we were stepping over her.

Because parasites pass between the humans and the hoofed (notice I wasn’t holding the dogs? They were sick puppies) we traveled with a vet. Our “Floating Vet” Dr Dan hiked up to see the “baby”. As I held him down (not Doctor Dan…the calf) Dan gave the calf fluids. We were surrounded by kids. He told me the calf wouldn’t live, but he wanted to show the people we tried. After pumping the calf with fluids Dr Dan stepped back. The calf stood up. Ambled over to Mom and started suckling. It was our tiny (well not so tiny) miracle.

Dr Dan also saved a baby howler monkey named Princess Jasmine. During surgery Dr D notice the Princess was a dude. We started calling him Prince Jazz hands.

Calves, monkeys, pigs, puppies and people were mended.

But a boy named Vincent needed more. Vincent is 15 (same as my son). He loves baseball but couldn’t play. He was born with a club foot. So we took Vincent with us to the hospital. I’d like to say it was the local hospital, but it was 2 boat rides and 1 bus ride away.

Vincent was about as scared as a kid can be.

But his foot was in good hands. We had a surgeon from Cedars with us on the trip. He came on the mission to mend kids like Vincent.

After surgery (oh I hate when they use that saw) I asked if Vincent would be able to play baseball. Our brilliant surgeon said yes…unless he can’t hit.
We laugh on these trips. The laughs, the tears are real. Much more reality than any TV show.

But still I was glad to be back from my travels in time to see The Bachelor Finale. And when Andi D. the ass kicking Assistant District Attorney becomes the Bachelorette, you know I’ll be watching.

Maybe I’m the ass… but I do love my reality TV.