Gecko Fever

The first week of class is going well. We've not been tested yet, so the knowledge flows across our brains in search of a place to seat, root and grow. The basic sciences is potentially filled with very interesting but useless information for the practice of medicine unless you have an NIH research grant, but our instructors are doing a great job of making the content clinically relevant and board appropriate...at least that is my thought now.  Class let our early today and I didn't sleep well last night. So I went home and did something I don't often do, but relish in none the less...napped. It was glorious and will fuel my study the rest of eve.

I love the concept and rejuvenation of siesta. When I briefly worked as a Hispanic construction worker in the South Florida heat one summer, it was our crew's perspective that lunch should be a 2 hour event, complete with a meal from a local Cuban "roach coach" (food truck), and at least an hour "nap". Alexjandro, my ditch digging compatriot, spoke no English, but taught me well about the fine points of siesta. He taught me to sing too. "Los zapato de Alexjandro son de carton." But I digress.

So today, nap, I did. But I wasn't alone. On the walls of my humble abode live geckos...lizards. I became aware of the value of the gecko, and the "luck" of these reptiles while living in Hawaii. We don't kill them. In fact, we tattoo our arms with them. I revere them. I live in symbiosis with these creatures.  They bring luck and eat bugs. I don't kill them. Simple balance in the circle of life. They don't bother me. I don't bother them.  Besides it would take many of them to make a bag or shoes.

But today was different. One of my reptilian brethren dashed down the wall, across my bare chest, and literally jumped onto the floor.  Imagine my surprise at the feeling of those little feet on my body.  I've never seen such behavior in geckos before. It must be the Caribbean air.  I believe it was the site of a fresh meat meal in the form of a live, walking bug that caught his or her attention (it didn't stop long enough for me to ask).  It makes one behave in unusual ways.  But I do understand the feeling of seeing fresh meat on this island. You want to grab it while you can.