Good things come in 3s

These past couple of days have brought three great events during my visit here. The first occured on Monday afternoon when my cousin, María Soledad, gave birth to her second child, Sophía Antonia. We went to visit the family in the hospital on Tuesday and this is a picture of the newborn. She looks really big but she really is just a day old. The second and third events occurred yesterday and are represented in the second picture where clearly my friend, Melissa Kagele, came to visit the house on her brief stop in Santiago. She and Tricia are travelling on an 8 month journey hopping from continent to continent exploring this great planet and, coincidentally, Chile at the same time I am here. My Tia Ximena and I met them at the Plaza de Armas and we came back here for lunch and 5 hours of conversing. My family really liked having the gringas here and were impressed at their bravery to undertake such an adventurous expedition. The third event is inconspicuously represented in the second picture too where you can kind of see my right arm is no longer in a cast but an elastic wrap thingy that is not nearly as bothersome. We went to the clinic yesterday morning where I anxiously waited to be freed from that torture device. The nurse cut it with this saw-looking thing and I guess I just wasn´t prepared for all the grossness of pale dry skin, plaster and loose hair because I got light headed and fainted right there in the clinic. Apparently my aunt called over for the doctor who was just across the hall but he looked over and said I only fainted because I am "norte americana" and didn´t come over to help. I must add that this doctor hasn´t liked me from the beginning when I first came to see him a month ago, but nevertheless after I came to my aunt was angry with him for being so discriminatory but he didn´t even look up from his papers. When my other aunt, Tia Cecilia, found out she was furious and called the clinic to protest saying that I have a step-dad in the states who works for the government so they should watch out (he works for the IRS-- so his occupational influence doesn´t quite extend as far as international injustices regarding inconsiderate doctors). Anyway, we met the girls at the plaza afterward and now the wrist is still in some pain when I try to move it past where the cast restrictions were but given some rehabilitation I will be "all right" again in no time (incorporating Arrested Development lines is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be). So, I hope everyone remains well and I will see most of you next week. Later.