expateek

Stealing books again, or not

2010-06-27T18:54:00.005-05:00

I had time to read while on my long sojourn, but the pickings were slim. Hotels often have a little library in an out-of-the-way spot, consisting of all the books previous guests have read and discarded. It stands to reason that for the most part, these books were the ones not worth bringing home.

Jonathan Kellerman's horrid psychological thrillers, Ruth Rendell's dark and nauseating mysteries, Patricia Cornwall's forensic tomes that are stuffed full of fulminating dead and bloated bodies covered in maggots. *shudder* What choices! Yet one does come across the odd treasure.

The pool cabana at the hotel in Bali had its own weary and water-stained collection, but this was a bit more varied than the usual fare. Mainly because half the books were Dutch translations of best-sellers, a third were Chinese, and the rest a smattering of German, French, and Japanese books. In the end, there were only four books in English, so I worked my way through three of them. The fourth, an Anita Shreve novel, I couldn't force myself to pick up.

Patricia Cornwall's Trace was hideous, and I vowed on my sadly-only-imaginary Chinese-translation Bible to never read another of hers. Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl was amusing and entertaining -- perfect beach reading. But the last one, My Invented Country, by Isabelle Allende, was the best.

I'd tried to read Allende's fiction before, but apparently one magical realism book per lifetime is my personal quota. (Perhaps because I overdid it and read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude either two or three times.) Yet Allende's autobiographical book, about her experiences as a writer, a Chilean, and an expat, was compelling and fascinating. The sensation of feeling oneself "different" or "other" -- and of finding everything in the world quite curious and strange -- she describes it beautifully.

So beautifully and so truthfully that I desperately wanted to steal that book.

Yet once again, I resisted the temptation, because how cruel would it be to reduce the Bali pool cabana's English catalogue by 25%? Really not on. Even I could not bring myself to be so unkind to future reading guests.

Thought of it later: I should have left my copy of Eat, Pray, Love there! But that would have been equally mean. And I'm just not that kind of girl.

Lost my bloggin' mojo somewhere in China

2010-06-26T14:46:00.004-05:00

I know, I know. I left you there, hanging on tenterhooks, in India of all places. When I fell off the Blogger/Facebook grid, some worried that I'd taken the bestseller Eat, Pray, Love too seriously and had run off on a real spiritual quest, to an ashram or something.

Hardly. First, the quality of the bedsheets at ashrams is -- and I'm just guessing here -- abysmal. And second, there's the risk that you'd run into someone just as exhausting and as self-absorbed as author Elizabeth Gilbert whilst there, and voilà, holiday ruined.

With traveling companions, better the devil you know...

Pros:
Pays all the bills
Lots of energy
Adventurous
Funny (ha ha) much of the time
Cons:
Extremely picky about customer service at hotels
Always has to be holding the map or he gets cranky

than the devil you don't...

Pros:
Wealthy, famous and published author
Adventurous

Cons:
Seems like kind of a diva
Prettier than me
Younger than me
More famous than me
??

Anyway, perhaps I didn't "get" the book enough, but all I could think while reading it was, "I'm glad I wasn't her BFF, listening to all that blubbing". I know. Terrible friend, you can say it.

But I'm upset with China as a country, because I found THIS in the hotel room in Shanghai...

and I didn't even get to blog about it, or post it on Facebook, because guess what? No Facebook or Blogger in China! It was a blow, to be sure. I had a zillion things to say, and I was going to catch up on my blogging once I arrived in Shanghai, and NO DICE! It was especially odd because I was under the mistaken impression that Bibles were illegal in China, but apparently my info is years out of date, because there they were, in every hotel room.

Sadly, I did not steal THIS Bible either, because I was having some serious baggage heft issues, and the zip on my rolling duffel was already terribly strained. I will make Mr D bring one home next time he's in Shanghai. Why? I don't know. It has become a rather strange compulsion, I admit.

[And the world record holder for largest collection of stolen dual-translation Bibles is... expateek!]

Temptation

2010-05-13T01:02:00.005-05:00

Many people come to India on spiritual quests. I've come along simply as company for my hardworking husband. Yet I sense a slight progress in my spiritual development, even though I certainly didn't come here seeking it.

Could it be because I'm reading the mega-best-seller, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert? Possibly. It's certainly an appropriate book for this trip, as one third of the book details her search for spiritual enlightenment in India. She was at an ashram, I'm at Le Royal Meridien (with less opportunity for sacrifice and self-denial, obviously).

And yet... Look what appeared before my eyes when I opened the drawer in my room.

Yes, indeed. Temptation in the form of two books. And one, a Gideon Bible! In the past I've had a little bit of a problem with liberating these babies from hotel rooms.

Yet, this time? Not so much. Is it because I am becoming a more honest and virtuous person? Probably not.

Is it because the Bible was not translated into Hindi? Perhaps.

Is it because I have still four weeks of travel ahead of me, and already my suitcase is bulging? Yes, absolutely yes.

The scent of sandalwood, the sound of bells

2010-05-11T09:29:00.009-05:00

Next stop on the Mumbai city tour was the Jain Temple, situated in an old building on Ridge Road ascending Malabar Hill. We crossed the road, dodging traffic, and entered this sacred place.

When we came in, we slipped off our shoes on the porch and put them on shelves to the right. Many simply step out of their sandals and leave them lying right there on the floor.

Worshippers and pilgrims come from all over, and go about anointing the colorful statues with sandalwood paste, ringing the bells, and circumnavigating the premises in a clockwise fashion. The atmosphere is reverent and serene, yet sings with energy.

Every sense is a delight. Monks crush sandalwood into a paste on a small balcony that looks out over the sea. The scent is divine. Visitors carry little pots of this paste around the temple in small trays also filled with flowers, and using the middle finger of the right hand, dab the paste on designated spots on various icons. As they move from room to room, worshippers reach up and give hanging bells a sharp pull. The chimes and gongs reverberate continually through the ornate marble rooms.

And every surface is painted or carved or engraved or inlaid. Polychromatic marble inlay on the floors, brilliant colorful paintings on the walls and ceilings. Even the blackboard schedule of events is exquisitely written.

Here's our guide, Freni, showing us the view of the sea from the upper balcony.

She pointed out that one thing that is special about the place is how many young worshippers are there, just stopping in. Because there is no organized worship service, people are there "just because they want to be"... Families, small children, older folks, white-robed monks and sisters -- the place is buzzing.

In this photo, you can see small low red tables placed about the floor. Visitors pour out a tiny cupful of rice on the surface, and trace symbols into the rice grains, as a kind of prayerful meditation. It's really lovely.

Years ago, when I was about 10 years old, I spent hours poring over The World Book encyclopaedia, choosing my religion. I figured that since my parents weren't churchgoers at the time, I was pretty much free to choose my own faith based on my personal beliefs. Oddly, I remember that at that time the religion that stood out was Jainism. The vegetarian diet would be a trial to my mother, certainly, but the rest of the principles made perfect sense to a pacifistic kid who was into enlightenment, and right knowledge, right faith, and right conduct.

Strangely, when I presented my findings to my mother, she was unconvinced.

"I don't think you'll find many Jains around here. It might be kind of lonely for you."

A few weeks later, we were off to the Unitarian Fellowship. Oddly enough, lessons from Sunday school concentrated much more on eastern religions than on Unitarianism's Judeo-Christian heritage, so by high school I found myself profoundly ignorant of expressions like "pearls before swine" and "the prodigal son" but satisfyingly up-to-speed on Native American smudge sticks and Hinduism's karmic fulfillment.

You have to take what you can get when your mom's still driving you places.

.

Wait, Gandhi? Again?

2010-05-10T23:45:00.006-05:00

I was telling you yesterday that it's such a huge, huge world. But other days it doesn't seem so big after all. That's how I felt during the first stop of our city tour in Mumbai, where we visited Mani Bhavan, the house associated with Gandhi.

Here, he learned to card and spin, he developed much of his philosophy of social activism, non-violence, and self-sacrifice, and he initiated many effective and insightful political moves that changed India forever. The place is now a museum, research institute, library, and memorial to Gandhi's life and work.

Interestingly, we'd already encountered various exhibitions on Gandhi's life and work during our time in South Africa, as he spent 21 years in exile there, working to overcome racism directed at Indians and "coloureds". Yet, as usual, after encountering this giant on two different continents, my knowledge and understanding of his work is still miniscule.

Guides and teachers must wonder what on earth is going on inside their students' heads as we listeners "listen" but don't absorb nearly enough information. [Homework, six weeks from now: read a biography of Gandhi.] For now, I'll also give you a little hint -- Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi were not related... just so you don't fall into the error of my ways. How could I have gotten to my advanced age and not learned that?

This also serves to remind how egocentric and unintentionally parochial we all are. I remember whilst living in England, an American friend was aghast that English school children had no idea who Paul Revere was. But why should they? An American folk hero, yes, but hardly world renowned. And yet American schoolkids bumble along with hardly an inkling about India, or its past and present leaders. Though it's halfway round the world, India is destined to become so much more important in the global economy and in all of our lives as a result.

Time to hit the books and learn something, y'all!

Meanwhile, I'm going to hit the chaise longue out by the pool for a bit. It was already 86F as of 8am (the paper said it "feels like 99F"), and the weather services predict temperatures of 104F by this afternoon. Wonder what that will feel like? Melty, I bet.

I'm off to the markets and bazaar in the late afternoon when it cools off, and shall let you know what bargains I come up with. Perhaps a peacock feather fan would be advisable. I turned one down on the street on Sunday. Now I'm regretting that move, fo' sho'.

India -- so much to see and learn!

2010-05-10T07:10:00.007-05:00

When I travel, two things are revealed to me again and again.

The first thing is, there's so much I don't know. It boggles my mind. I (sometimes) think I have a reasonably good handle on technology, world politics, current events, and so on. But all I had to do was show up on a blazingly hot and humid morning in Mumbai for a city tour to realize that I've only made the very feeblest of starts at understanding the geography, religions, history, and politics of southern Asia. In fact, it was immediately clear to me that I'd slept through the entire Social Studies unit on India in 7th grade. And, it being the American educational system, that was both the first and the last 6-week unit on India in twelve years of schooling. (No need for you to point out that things have changed in the four decades since. I got that part.)

The second thing that always knocks me for a loop is just how blinking huge the world is. What an astonishingly populous and endlessly varied place! And honestly, if you think you're overwhelmed by the number of people in O'Hare, or by flying through London Heathrow, then you might as well go on and land in Mumbai. It will put you over the top.

At half-past midnight on Sunday morning, we stepped out of the warm airport terminal into the even more hot and humid night. Masses and masses of people were standing lined up along the railings separating new arrivals (us) from greeters and drivers (them). Hundreds of placards everywhere, for hotels, for groups, for individuals. We made the circuit twice, each of us, before finding our name on a card and thus our taxi. Good thing Mr D could still remember his own moniker at that point. We were pretty tired after 22 hours of traveling; I wasn't any help at all. Then again, it isn't my name, really. If it had said "expateek" I'd have found it in a heartbeat.

After stopping at an ATM for cash (a quest in its own right), we arrived at the hotel in one piece. Sweaty, tired, and already alarmed by the driving in India. Fortunately we only had to cope with about 15 minutes of roadway at that point. Any more would have been seriously harrowing for the nerves.

Oh, you think I exaggerate, but the roads are everything you've heard about, and more. What you and I would consider a normal taxi is the largest thing on the road, excepting lorries. Everything else is smaller, and probably slower. Motorbikes, tuk-tuks, animal-drawn carts. You name it, it's on the road and probably in your way.

Honking and swerving are de rigeur. Yet after a second day in a driven car, it begins to make sense, and one has the feeling of being flotsam carried along in a river of motorcars, as the stream of traffic burbles and madly hurtles along, lanes sliding this way and that, cars slipping past inches away yet not touching.

Of course it was Sunday.

So there was actually "no" traffic, according to Freni, our guide.

.

I'm off!

2010-05-07T16:07:00.002-05:00

We're at O'Hare, in the American Airlines Admiral's Lounge, having a scotch neat to calm the nerves and watching the planes come and go. All the last minute things got done -- I paid the bills, I played my last tennis for a while, I packed, and I furiously uploaded software to enable blogging and picture taking from afar.

First stop, London Heathrow, and then on to Mumbai. If you want to see what I'm going to do in my first few days in India, check out Mumbai Magic for some gorgeous photographs and great tours.

I'll keep you posted. xxx

On the road again...

2010-05-05T21:37:00.007-05:00

I'm off to the far reaches of the planet on Friday.

To London Heathrow first. That's not so far.

Then on to Mumbai, Delhi, and Agra and then back through Heathrow after eleven days. I'm really hoping that dratted Icelandic volcano behaves itself.

Best Icelandic volcano images so far..., originally uploaded by mccannta.

What a pathetic show off. Puleeze.

Some volcanoes just don't know when to cool it.

Sheesh.

For me, it's onward, after, to Shanghai and Beijing, and I'll finally end up in Bali, for a fortnight's R&R.

It should be lots of fun. Even if Mr D snores and I don't have a hope of a good night's rest for weeks and weeks and weeks. Worth it, really.

Right now, with a day and a half to go before departure, I'm trying to sort out my electronics, I'm finishing prophylactic immunizations and meds, I'm paying my bills, and I'm saying my prayers. Also writing belated thank you notes and telling those I love how much I love them.

Because you can never say "I love you" often enough.

Unfortunately, my prophylactic house-cleaning regime doesn't enter into the mix, so I've made a set-in-stone agreement with my friend Kim -- if anything happens to me, she's coming over to burn my house down. Believe me, it'll be easier on everyone.

Of course, it won't come to "that" -- with "that" being a shoddy Chinese aeroplane diving into a desolate mountainous hillside, or my fevered body shuddering and expiring of malaria in a rural Indian hospital, or Ebola or Avian flu, or a fried chicken foot stuck in my throat or a scorpion stuck in my foot or...

What's your worst travel nightmare?

It won't be that. I promise.

Blogging continues... I swear!

Yet I'm planning to do some experimental eating, so....

Unusual street food, originally uploaded by slack13.

Silk Worm Larvae on a skewer, originally uploaded by diggydog.

100 Year Old Eggs, Appetizer anyone?, originally uploaded by brad.jenkins.

who in the heck knows??

_

Sunday afternoon at the Tattoo and Ink festival -- because Tiger Woods and I are soooooo over, Masters or not

2010-04-15T17:53:00.000-05:00

The money I took out of the ATM in Albuquerque during my little weekend away didn't entirely get spent at the New Mexico "Immersed in Ink" Tattoo Festival. Can you believe it? Me neither. That dough was burning a hole in my pocket, fo' sho'.

I did drop a lot of dosh in restaurants in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, even though I've been diligently trying to lose weight for the last four months. Yet after eating out non-stop for five days and having some of the best Mexican I've enjoyed in ages, I weighed in even another pound lighter. Big surprise. Maybe all those refried beans and beers had some kind of catalytic effect? Kind of like red wine plus anything.

I'm so pleased, though, because I can finally fit into my trousers from two summers ago; last year I couldn't even pull them up one leg! Pretty embarrassing. This dieting has allowed me to enjoy a 200-fold increase in my wardrobe, as I drag out things that haven't seen the light of day for ages. Of course, there are also two hundred folds in all those squirreled-away trousers because they haven't been ironed for two years either.

*sigh*

Looks like Mr D has some housework to do when he gets home!

One of the things I miss about South Africa is Oscar. He was a master ironer. He ironed shirts, he ironed sheets, he ironed blouses with pleats and cargo pants with all their little ties and bunches. He even ironed my underwear, which was strange, because thongs generally don't get very wrinkly. I used to laugh about how unnecessary it is to iron sheets, but I stopped because Mr D always gets wistful and makes a little sad face, which makes me feel kind of guilty. And who wants a wife to feel bad and guilty? Of course he knows I have other good qualities, and would never dream of requiring me to do the ironing. I have blog posts to write! Midget wrestling expos to attend! Tennis matches to play!

And yes, indeed, my sister and I did attend the Tattoo Festival on Sunday. We saw the sign

IMG_9960, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and we had to go. I forced my posse to pull over so I could steal this sign; I plan to plant it in my garden for my next outdoor barbeque. Who knows what hi-jinks will ensue when people see they're given permission to wrestle on my lawn??

And yes, of course you're invited! Did you even think you needed to ask?

Tragically, we missed the midget wrestling, which was just about the whole reason for going, but I did get this great shirt and a new pair of knickers.

IMG_0128, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

The knickers are a bit mystifying, as they're cut the same front and back, and I can't decide which way the motto is meant to sit. They fit equally badly either way, so perhaps I'll refashion them into some kind of goth hat.

At the show I also got even more propositions than I usually do. I figured that I might be tapped as a tattoo model...

IMG_0132, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

but, no. Apparently you need to have some tattoos to qualify. Feh! Details, details! No, all the handsome young tattoo artists were just interested in drumming up business. People were being tattooed at every booth, and the line of the day was, "Hey, ready to get inked?"

I think they sensed my vast expanses of virgin skin, and each one wanted to be the very first. Typical males, really.

I vacillated for a moment...

IMG_9970, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

IMG_9971, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

but then opted to wait. Sitting on a fresh tattoo on that long plane ride home?

No thanks.

Yet the Ink Expo raised more questions than it answered. For example:

what's the difference between hard-core midget wrestling and plain old vanilla midget wrestling?
are you even allowed to say midget anymore?
and where the heck were the midgets, anyway? Obviously we missed 'em, but then friends pointed out that maybe we weren't looking low enough, and that we should have also checked behind and under things. Duh. Lesson learned.
and what in the Sam Hill was this?

IMG_9962, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

(One minute to answer.... tick tock, tick tock .... *Jeopardy music playing in background*)

When I tell you, you'll slap your forehead. "It was so obvious! What was I thinking?!?"

For a moment, even I was confused. Was it to separate the midgets when they went too hard-core, by yanking one up into the air? Was it for training midget aerialists, or for suspending people so artists could tattoo those "hard-to-reach" areas?

Close, but then again, no.

No, people who get tattoos probably enjoy pain, or at least they don't mind it too much. So when you've gotten every square centimeter of your skin tattooed, what's left but to be suspended by hooks through your skin?

Obviously, a different aesthetic.

Yet I enjoyed the jewelry,

IMG_9965, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and the scenery.

IMG_9966, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Pretty tasty. But very un-inked, now that I look more closely. Personally, I prefer naked musculature, as in this specimen. Too much doodling takes away from the overall picture, don't you agree?

.

New Mexico -- is it REALLY part of the USA?

2010-04-13T19:34:00.004-05:00

You know, as an ex-expat, one can become pretty jaded.

Been there, done that. Seen it, saw it, did it, done it, and what else could possibly be new?

I'm here to tell you that traveling in the US of A can be just as exciting as pottering about in the tombs of Egypt's Valley of the Kings, or struggling along with my execrable (non-existent) Polish in forest towns rather too near the border of Belarus.

Because, yes! Albuquerque NM offers new and thrilling thrills for those who seek such things.

On a weekend jaunt away, intent on spending quality time with my lovely sister, I came across some amazing sights.

The first came about on Sunday morning.

Albuquerque, home of the magnificent balloon fiesta every October, also offers tourists the opportunity at any time to experience the thrill of floating up up up and away, into the ether, in a hot-air balloon.

IMG_9931, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Here's a balloon, floating away past us, off to the southwest.

Sunday, about 7am, I was sitting enjoying a cup of joe in M's living room, when I heard outside the deep and resonant whoooooooooaaaashhhhhhh of a nearby balloon. These silken beauties rise up into the clear cold sky from the desert floor, powered only by flaming heaters. The gondolier fires up the heater, and the bursts of propane explode in fiery blasts, heating the air and keeping the balloon aloft.

Yet if the temperature is not quite right, or the winds go wrong, it can all go awry.

My sister and I had discussed this on Saturday.

"Oh yeah," she said. "Sometimes there's an accident. They hit power lines, and the balloon catches fire and dissolves in flames, and the gondola breaks off and tips over. People fall off, and out."

"OMG, no!"

"Oh sure," she continued. "Sometimes people are taking pictures on their cell phones -- people plunging to their deaths, or whatever. Broken bones, you know. Broken necks. It happens. All over the internet the next day."

I sighed. God, the horror.

Whoooooooooaaaashhhhhhh. It was so close now! Impossibly loud, like a dragon sitting right above on the roof, belching out sulphurous, fiery breaths.

I went outside to see.

The balloon that had earlier flown past, high above,

IMG_9931, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

was now coming in for a landing.

IMG_9941, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

I looked up and saw the horrified faces of the gondola passengers as they floated barely 15 feet above the roof next door,

IMG_9943, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

as their gondola was dragged through the center of a young tree at the edge of the property,

IMG_9944, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

as they frantically pushed branches away

IMG_9946, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and as the balloon descended too rapidly toward the street behind M's garden wall.

Lord, was I going to be the one taking the photos of the last living moments of these poor souls?

No, thank God. They landed without incident, and as they were Texans they seemed to take it all in stride.

"Yawwww, that wuz excitin'! Betcha y'all see this kinda thang all th' time."

"Actually, no," said M, in her quietest librarian-type voice. And we went inside for another cup of coffee.

IMG_9947, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

When everything finally shifts, just a little bit...

2010-03-05T16:07:00.003-06:00

Many of you will be surprised when I tell you that I have not always been the glamorous, fashionable and worldly sophisticate you see before you today. No, far from it. Instead, I was the whipping girl of the 7th and 8th grade at Madison West Junior High. Mocked, laughed at, and reviled.

I had the misfortune of having two popular but rather witless friends in junior high school, named Heidi and Cyndy. They began to torment me early in 7th grade, by befriending me, and then turning on me the next instant. In my misguided attempt to be liked, I gullibly took their suggestions and followed their orders, only to be ridiculed for doing so. Cyndy would suggest I go to Gimbel's department store, to buy the latest frock; I would badger my mother into letting me go, spending the last pennies of my allowance on said dress, and would then show up at school in it, only to be hooted out of the room. "Look, she bought that? Gaw!!!! I took Heidi's advice, getting my long and beautiful hair cut very short, and was met with, "It looked better before. I shouldn't have said to cut it!"

This went on for months. I tried to find other friends, I tried to ignore them. Then one of the two would make some peaceful kind of overture, and I would think, "There! It's all over! They've gotten it out of their systems!" And I would be sucked in once more, only to be washed up on the shores of despair again a few weeks later.

I finally hardened myself to their tricks, but they upped their game.

In general science class, midway through 8th grade, I received a folded up piece of paper, passed to me. I'd heard rustling and giggles all through the science hour, and thought it was kids laughing about the "drug education" we were supposed to be getting. It being Madison, I think most of the kids could have taught the class, but there you are.

I unfolded the paper, and saw written, in Heidi's dreadfully hideous schoolgirly handwriting, a long letter detailing all my flaws. I was ugly. I wore stupid and dorky clothes. My skin was disgusting. My purse was out of fashion. My hair was terrible, poorly cut and greasy (not true, I promise you!). I was too smart. I was a suck-up. I was good in Home Ec (!), nobody liked me. My few friends were queer and nincompoopy, just like me.

And then, as I turned over the paper to read page two of this amazing opus, I realized, "It's a flippin' petition!" It was signed by most of the people in my science class! One girl signed her name, and then wrote "sort of" after, which either meant that she "sort of" agreed, or that she was only "sort of" herself. I think she was high most of the time by 7th period science, so maybe the latter.

Heidi and Cyndy were besides themselves with giggles, and I was shocked to death.

I'd vowed not to care about what they thought of me anymore, but this was very hard to take....

Fast forward.... I spent the next 33 years worrying, even obsessing about what people thought of me. Was I rude? Polite? Fashionable? Geeky? Nice? Mean? Friendly? Cold? Everything was an exercise in self-analysis. Who are all those people and what do they think of me? It was tiring and pointless and a waste of time, really. As a friend said to me today, "You can't control what other people think, or how they react to you. You're just responsible for your own thoughts and feelings." EXACTLY.

And then there was the truly freeing moment, when everything shifted, just over four years ago. (If you want to, you can read about it here.) I had the refreshing and life-changing experience of having a heavy black handgun held, just touching my chest, just where my heart was hammering wildly inside. And then again, a few moments later, the gun was touching me again, at the back of my head, just behind my left ear, where all my conflicting thoughts were battling each other inside ("run! stay calm! talk! don't! listen carefully! listen! shut up and do what you're told!")

I lived. Yeah, I lived!!! Just luck really. They could've just as easily shot us all that Monday morning.

And since then, I've been pretty happy about living for today, and mostly not sweating the small stuff. Because after all, what's worse than lying face down with your skull in fragments and your brains splattered all over the walls? Not much, probably.

I got a bloody reprieve.

Every day's a gift, and I'm so glad of it. Life is awesome. And happy birthday to me, all over again! Some days one feels truly reborn.

.

Oh, your cleaning lady knows EVERYTHING....

2010-01-29T19:28:00.005-06:00

I was going to start by saying that most bad behavior occurs at the weekend, but maybe that's only me. Certainly this weekend it's going to be true for all of us, since those of you who watch the Aussie Open and snack whilst doing so will get into big trouble if you're still trying to stick to your New Year's resolutions. Me, I probably won't have much time to watch any television at all, because Mr D returns home late tonight after two weeks away and he rules the remote control with an iron fist. Still, I have a feeling that TV won't be first thing on his agenda. Guess I'll have to put on my running shoes if I want to stay out of his clutches.

And yet.... This girl does love a good cardio workout at home.

And that, my friends -- the idea of running shoes in the bedroom -- reminds me of a saucy tale.

In England, at the Royal Berkshire Health and Racquets club, I played lots of tennis on various teams. The Americans amongst us were noted for being better trained in general, and for coming into the net and being ... yes... rather aggressive. What, me? Well, the English roses, proper and polite as they were, sighed and raised their eyebrows when we Americans were lauded by the tennis pros for our assertiveness.

There was one American (we'll call her Karen) who was roundly despised for being over-the-top in the aggressiveness department. She was a fairly quick player, about my height and weight, and she had the most terrifying overhead smash you've ever seen. She'd race in to the net, and any high ball was furiously slammed down the opposing team's throats. That was bad enough, the bald-faced glee with which she traumatised her victims, but she also had an awful tendency to sometimes let out a kind of Sioux Indian war-whoop at her moment of impact. It was pretty off-putting and frightfully not English. Not done, really.

Too, she was a tiny bit butch, so tongues wagged and people made entirely inappropriate comments when they'd been pasted by yet another Karen overhead and were feeling mightily affronted.

As it happened, all of us expats tended to share household help, trading tips on good repairmen, butchers, and cleaning ladies. Even I, slattern that I am, sprang for a cleaning lady every other week. Three teenagers at home meant I really couldn't keep up. It was expensive, but there were extra benefits that I only realised after some time.

Terri, my cleaning lady, was really the talker. She was very fair, very blond and very plump, and once she got to work her cheeks went bright pink with effort. Yet the house looked sparkling after four hours; I could never believe what a hard worker she was. You know you're paying a lot of money for the service when your cleaning lady has her own horses. She told me that in her younger days, she'd ridden side-saddle professionally, and even been in a lot of BBC (Masterpiece Theatre) dramas as a stunt horsewoman, as side-riding is a fairly uncommon skill. So she was full of interesting tidbits. You couldn't help but learn more than you ever intended to, about whatever she was on about that day.

One day she came in, and fixed her light blue eyes on me, and breathed, "Ellie!"

I looked up.

"Ellie. You won't believe whot I seen!"

"Ummm. G'morning, Terri! How've you been?"

"Oooooo, Ellie. Not so good. Not so good at all. I'll ask ye now, is that Karen a good friend o' yers?"

"Mmm, not really. I hardly know her."

"Ah, Ellie, that's a very good thing. I've just started over at hers, and you'll never imagine whot's in her master bedroom."

"Ummm... gosh, what?"

"Ellie, it's a portrait of her! She had it done fer her husband, and he paid for it! He must ha' liked it, I guess, then."

"Well, that sounds okay. I might like a portrait painted of myself, I suppose..."

"But Ellie, not like this 'un. She's in the nude!!"

"Ooo. Well... there's a whole long tradition of nude portraits, I suppose...." I frowned, thinking back over Ingres, Picasso, and Renoir, Lucien Freud, and Jenny Saville.

"Naw, but Ellie! She's all nude but she's holdin' her tennis racquet and wearin' her socks and tennis shoes. It's ... it's... it's not right!"

Yes, I could see that Terri was entirely correct. As an art connoisseur and historian, I too realised it was clearly not right.

"And you know what else, Ellie? Chocolate body paint! In the dresser drawer. Cor, I never!"

Moral of this story?

If you're going to invest in bad art... (here's a similar example):

then either DON'T have a cleaning lady, or don't wear your tennis shoes for the portrait sitting.

Some things just don't fly.

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RIP David Evans

2010-01-12T18:09:00.004-06:00

If you've been following this blog for a long time, you might remember this post, from early days in South Africa, July 2005. David and Tuppy Evans walked us through much of our acclimatization to South Africa, helping us negotiate household staffing and a plethora of security issues, smoothing corporate workplace transitions, and making us feel at home early on.

It was with such sadness that we learned today that David was killed in a road accident on September 1st, whilst returning to Johannesburg. He was hit head-on by a truck. South African roadways are so bloody dangerous. It's carnage all the time and it seems damned unfair that such a wonderful, great guy should meet this end.

Rest in Peace, David. I hope the golf is really good upstairs.

Rebranding needed, or When good art supplies go bad

2010-01-10T13:59:00.008-06:00

Mr D, slave-driver that he is, made me open a few more packing boxes in my office this weekend. He's doing me a favor, really, because we have to make room for even more boxes to be delivered this Wednesday.

Yes, it's true. The moving company somehow misplaced a portion of our stored goods. Seven long years, these 20 tonnes of items were stored, and in May, upon our return to the states, they were delivered back to our house. (Along with the 18 tonnes of stuff we'd dragged all over the globe with us.) When one of the large crates (6' x 6' x 8') turned up empty, the moving guys shrugged and said, "Awww, it was probably just an administrative error. Ya got all yer stuff, right?"

And we looked around our house and figured, "Yup, we sure did." Because there wasn't another free inch to shoehorn even one more thing into the house at that point.

A month or so later, I remembered we'd had two filing cabinets. And another bookcase or two. And a little table. And ... gosh, what else? I called the movers, and the admin guy said, "Fill out a claim, but really, if the label fell off the crate, we have no way of locating it."

Mentally, I kissed it all goodbye.

And then two days before Christmas, Steve the Admin guy rang saying, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, we found your crate. The bad news is, I don't think you have any room left in your house."

Ho ho ho, Steve. How right you are. Merry Christmas.

Anyhow, in the mad rush to finish unpacking the first and second shipments to make way for the third, I unpacked a box of art supplies and old art projects.

"Mom, what are you doing?" shrieked Tarquin Jr, as he looked at the kit strewn about the place.

"Uh... speedballing?"

Artists. So decadent.

Procrastination is an Art Form. Really!

2009-12-19T12:13:00.004-06:00

Well. So far I have bought all of two Christmas ornaments and a gift card. There are 6 shopping days left until Christmas, including today, so I have to say, I’m not doing very well.

Not on the Christmas shopping, dummy. On my performance art piece!

As you know, I’m tremendously interested in contemporary art, and especially conceptual art pieces. The concept behind my current work-in-progress is this: procrastination is an art form, and the less one does, the more conceptual and high-falutin’ one’s own life becomes. So if I do nothing at all for Christmas, my non-participation in the cultural and commercial Christmas as it’s observed in the Western world will make an artistic statement about everything having to do with holiday rituals, the ephemeral nature of material objects in 21st century society, and the importance of cultural heritage.

Wait. I finished that Museum Studies dissertation, so why am I still spouting academic claptrap?

No, my non-participation in things of Christmas spirit will simply prove that I am an incredibly slack housewife, who can’t be bothered to put up a tree. Yet.

Unfortunately, Mr D is totally unaware of my very important artistic endeavors. He arrived home from Paris at 3:25 am yesterday morning, after suffering through a 12-hour flight delay caused by Parisian snow. He then woke me from my delicious slumber with his thoughtless blundering about in the dark. Sigh. What can one do? And since then, today, he’s made every mistake in the book. Brought up the tree from the basement, which he’s now puzzling over. Put on Christmas music. Ornament boxes are appearing right and left. He’s trying to scotch my great art plan, and aggravatingly, there’s not even any Scotch involved.

Because frankly, this current artwork of mine cannot be successfully realized if I do not in some way equal the exquisitely poignant Christmas 1996 performance described here. [click here to read] The drama! The passion! The lack of initiative! The selfish slothfulness! The uncaring poor parenting disguised as exhaustion!

Oh heck. I’m afraid the die is cast. I’ll be putting up the Christmas tree this afternoon. Thanks for volunteering to help. Oh, you didn’t? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Typical.

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Revelation(s) NSFW

2009-12-11T17:32:00.007-06:00

N.B. This might or might not be safe for work, depending on where you work, whether you're American or European, and how you define obscenity.

IMG_9176 kouros torso, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Well, very exciting week here at the ol' blog. We've established the following:

We don't wipe our butts with torn up newspapers over here in Glen Ellyn, unlike those frat boys down in Peoria who do.
We don't sit on our hands when we pee in furrin' terlets.
Instead, we squat to do our business, or we don't do anything at all. (Definitely the most lady-like choice)
Anything else? We don't break mirrors in ladies' bathrooms, we definitely don't touch the genitalia on Greek statues, and we don't post obscene photos to our Flickr accounts. Not ever.

Which brings me to the following point. I put up this photo of the Greek drinking cup -- I think it's called a kylix -- with its phallically enhanced satyr (now decorated with a holiday-themed modesty cap), and within a few minutes, Flickr had censored it.

IMG_9510 satyr plate--holiday, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

So apparently, it's okay to fly halfway round the world to look at Greek vases in situ, or in the flesh, as it were, but if you want to photograph what you saw and share it with all your friends back home, you can just forget it. Because God forbid anyone should see this kind of ancient pornography unless they can pay round-trip airfare to do so. This is why art historians have such a bad reputation. They have all this great stuff lying around, but they selfishly want to keep it all to themselves.

Oddly, all the rest of the "naked men photos" from that batch I uploaded slid through. Or slipped in. Or something. Perhaps because their penises were in the small to normal range? I don't know. It's a good thing Flickr can't read my mind, because then they'd know the extent of my depravity, and my true and lusty intentions in regards to every single one of those photos. I've half a mind to post a nekkid man in every single post on this here blog. That'd show 'em. It's all art, ain't it?

* Oddly, the original photo now seems to be available again. A pity it's so out of focus.
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Are you kidding me? We paid rent for THIS dump?

2009-12-11T14:28:00.004-06:00

A day in the life... of a frat boy. Produced by my son, a college-going kid majoring in television and video. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy, and proud of his editing skills: look at what he can do with a videocam! Isn't his friend Blaise a stitch? Way to sync the music with the story!

But after the third or fourth viewing, I was like...

Have you EVER seen such a disgusting place to live?

It's no wonder he's living at home again with us. Food's better, and in this house we don't wipe our butts with torn up newspapers. Especially not The Wall Street Journal. Fer cryin' out loud!

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This is why you have children... so they can be creative when you're not

2009-12-11T13:45:00.003-06:00

I haven't taken the plunge into video yet, so I'm borrowing a short that my son made for his video editing class at college.

So glad we kept all that Playmobil stuff! Yay, Tarquin Junior! I'm going to have him do 50 more of these so I can give them away as Christmas presents. They're no work at all for me, and they don't even have to be wrapped!

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People actually DO that?

2009-12-07T05:42:00.002-06:00

Years ago, my sister and I were in the ladies, at some God-forsaken highway rest-stop out in South Dakota somewhere. It was after midnight, the lighting was terrible, and I was complaining about the poor quality of the mirror, which was a simple sheet of polished steel. The steel was wavy and kind of scratched, and its dull surface reflected only my general outline, rather than the exceedingly fine details of eyeliner, mascara, and lipgloss.

"What's up with that? Can't the South Dakota highway department afford real glass?" I asked. It was already obvious that they couldn't afford a real proofreader, because the largest toilet stall was labeled "handicaped only."

Stifling giggles, Martha said, "Well, probably people break the glass ones."

"Wait. You mean women? Breaking mirrors?" I was slack-jawed at the thought. Women breaking mirrors in rest-stop bathrooms in the middle of nowhere? How was that possible?

"Well, it could be anyone, really. I mean, guys could come in here in the middle of the night, and have a fight and the mirrors could get broken."

"Wait." My mind was reeling. First women breaking mirrors, vandalizing public property, perhaps even on purpose. Then, men in the ladies room. My God! What was the world coming to? And why had I never considered any of these exciting options for sh** to do in my spare time? Too much time reading Baudelaire and Ionesco for French V, obviously, and not enough time spent dreaming up acts of anarchic violence. Clearly, my bourgeois ordinariness was holding me back.

I hadn't thought about vandalism for years, until my recent trip to Greece. Because apparently, female museum-goers in Greece are just as rowdy and destructive as those South Dakotans.

IMG_9181 kouros head, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Who knew?

At the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, you can gaze on the Mask of Agamemnon...

IMG_9233 mask agamemnon, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and the golden treasures of Mycenae.

IMG_9234 golden ox, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

You can look at Etruscan pottery...

IMG_9174 etruscan pot, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

or you can contemplate statuary.

IMG_9224 horse and boy, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

But, after all that, if you need to use the ladies, consider yourself forewarned. This is what you'll find if you go to use the loo at the museum.

IMG_9335 not at the museum, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

The women have torn off all the toilet seats, apparently. Fits of rage over poorly interpreted exhibitions? Blind anger over lack of bargains in the museum shop? Apoplectic fits at the sight of inattentive security personnel?

We will never know. But if you prefer to sit rather than squat, I suggest you use the toilet at your hotel before you go out touring. Because there's not a goddamn toilet seat to be found anywhere in Athens. Hope your quadriceps and hamstrings and glutes are fit, girls. You'll be needing 'em.

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Why be an art historian?

2009-12-04T08:15:00.001-06:00

Why study art history? Really, such a difficult question to answer. Of course, there's the social and historical importance of art, there's the economic role of the art market and its influence on artists and patrons, and then there's the expression of religious sentiment and values through visual arts media. All fascinating topics, to be sure.

But for me, the main reason to study art history was and continues to be a completely pure aesthetic motivation.

For aren't we all admirers of the exquisite male physique?

dont look back, originally uploaded by chascow.

IMG_9280 greek guys, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Of course we are.

But as we learned from my last post, some people are sensitive about having their picture taken.

IMG_9274_mask, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Great biceps. Sexy slouch.

IMG_9278 not hot, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

But as soon as he opens his mouth.... Not so appealing after all. All fantasy evaporates. Shame, really.

It is precisely for this reason that museums were invented. Because at museums, we can contemplate the sublime, in the form of the male figure, and even take photographs of naked men. No clothes on! Whoopee! Even better, these naked men don't talk back. In fact, they can't talk at all. Refreshing, isn't it?

So, yes. Naked men. You've got your old fashioned-y stone guys.

IMG_9184 kouros, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Your more new-fangled-y bronze ones. Although the beard leaves me cold. A bit unkempt-looking. He needs a trimmer for Christmas.

IMG_9192 poseidon, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

You've got what appears to be an ancient cup holder? Or is it a TV stand? Hard to tell. Maybe that's why I only got a "pass" on my dissertation, eh?

IMG_9154 naked cup holder, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

And then there's that decorative plate that will have all your guests chatting at your next Christmas cocktail party. Notice how huge I had to make the sticker. Those Greeks! Always exaggerating.

IMG_9510 satyr plate, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

But my favorite thing, as it were, was halfway up the Acropolis, in a small sculpture garden. It's called a stele. I know. Boring, yeah?

IMG_9093 stele at parthenon, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

But when you check out the close-up, just below.... Talk about artistic economy of expression! The artist has deconstructed the male figure and reduced it to its single important feature, and voilà,

IMG_9092 stele detail, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

nothing more need be said.

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My Nigerian Problem

2009-11-30T21:35:00.000-06:00

IMG_9113 more acropolis, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Well. You've been waiting to hear about my lovely holiday with Mr D in Athens, Greece, I know it. But it wouldn't be a story from me without that necessary frisson of danger, that oh shit, we're screwed here feeling. Because I can't just "go out to lunch in Athens," can I?

No, not really, and not ever. You know it.

Mr D and I took in the Parthenon,

IMG_9121 parthenon, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and the agora, and the amphitheatre,

IMG_9094 amphitheatre, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and the whatsis and the whatnot,

IMG_9111 caryatids, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

with a couple of museums thrown in there for good measure. As usual, with Mr D running ops at 110%, all the resultant climbing and scaling of steep Greek acropolises meant that by 2 in the aft we were bushed and ready to have lunch and a long sit-down, with a glass or three of wine. At the very least I can assert that my glutes were well worked out. We don't need any bloody fitness room at a hotel, ever.

IMG_9170 pedestrian avenue athens, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Cut to a quiet pedestrian shopping avenue, where we sat down under shady umbrellas for ages while the waiters decided whether or not to bring us menus. As we waited, we watched the street scene. Here was a drama of Sisyphean proportions (how Greek!) unfolding before us.

IMG_9273 street repairer, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

A curb repairer was trying to restore some concrete at two in the afternoon. Cars whizzed by, honking, pedestrians dodged past him or over him, his supply truck obstructed traffic, yet he gamely toiled on.

IMG_9271 repairer's tough job, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

A few minutes after he completed his work, a motorcycle ran directly over the finished repair. And he stolidly began all over again, re-repairing the botched job.

As I photo-ed this lonely concrete layer, (along with a rather handsome bunch of Greek men apparently hooking up for some later action),

IMG_9280 greek guys, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

there was a sudden commotion. A group of 5 or 6 black guys, all carrying huge sacks, came careening, bounding, leaping over the paver, running past our restaurant's tables.

IMG_9277 street sellers, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

They stopped a little way past, up the pedestrian avenue. I quietly took a couple of photos, and then returned to studying my menu, which had finally arrived.

Then we had the motorcyclist running over the wet concrete, ruining it.

IMG_9274_mask, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Another photo or two.

At that precise moment, there was a frantic outburst of yelling, and as I casually glanced up from my camera's viewfinder, I realised that the gang was shouting, pointing, and all coming straight for me.

IMG_9278 about to go crazy_mask, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

The guy on the far left was suddenly in my face, screaming, "Why, why? Why take pictures? Why?"

Aghast, I started to shut down, just like three years ago.

"Look," I laughed. "Look, here, I'm just taking pictures. It's nothing. Here, want to see?" and I showed him the photo on the camera's tiny screen. "Look, nothing! See?"

"Why? Why take pictures? WHY?" His face was inches from mine. I could only see his lips moving right in front of my eyes. His eyes were fierce and my world was slowing down.

"WHY? WHY? WHY?" He spat the words at me.

A screek of metal as Mr D pushed back his chair and started to stand up from his seat. "Hey! Hey! Hey! We're only tourists! She's just taking pictures. Leave us alone."

I glanced over at him and silently willed him to calm down or shut up. Be quiet, Mr D! Don't make it worse.

"It's fine," I said. "Fine. Here, look!" I laughed easily, carelessly, again. And I thought to myself, "what the bloody hell am I doing, holding my camera out here for him to grab, or hit me with, or... bloody what? Am I able to erase a photo if he demands it, under this kind of pressure? Jesus save me, this is going an entirely wrong direction."

I have no idea what all the other café diners were doing or thinking. No one moved a muscle.

IMG_9268 street cafe, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

And then suddenly, nothing happened, and the leader finally pulled back away from my face, glared at me for another impossibly long moment, and then all of them loped away into the crowd.

Sigh.... Just when you think you're over it.

.

Dear Mishiwaka....

2009-11-28T15:21:00.000-06:00

Class, please open your notebooks and get out your pens. Today we're going to discuss Longfellow's poems. I'll begin by reading aloud.

IX. Hiawatha and the Pearl-Feather
On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Mishiwaka,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O'er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.
Fiercely the red sun descending
Burned his way along the heavens,

Sorry, yes, MLS? What is it? Could you please not interrupt? Just please wait until I've finished reading the poem.

Set the sky on fire behind him,
As war-parties, when retreating,
Burn the prairies on their war-trail;
And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward,...

What on earth is your problem, MrLondonStreet? Just because you went to Oxford doesn't mean you know everything. Oh really? You do? Well, show me then.

Oh. Ahem, I see. A typo in the poem. Hmm, I hate to admit it, but you're right. Well, class, I guess MrLondonStreet* has shown us that it's important to double-check our sources, even those on the internet. It's not Mishiwaka that Longfellow was writing about, it's Big-Sea-Water. Whatever and wherever that is.

Yet, of Mishiwaka, I do know. Or rather, I do and I don't. Honestly, I take that back. I have no idea. Yet strangely, I have concocted a small story about you, my dear long-time follower from Mishiwaka....

Mishiwaka. It's a small town in Indiana. A town near Warsaw, Indiana. Who knew? Who knew there was a Warsaw, Indiana? I'd guess it's a place where emigrating Poles resettled themselves years ago.

What's it like now, Warsaw and Mishiwaka, Indiana? You know, I google-mapped you. Not YOU, per se. But your town, Mishiwaka. I think you found me because you googled "Warsaw" and strangely, my blog came up. I was still living in Warsaw, Poland at the time and I wrote in English on my blog... so you clicked on me. Then you subscribed, and God bless you, you still read what I write. But I'm sooooo curious. Who are you?

I'm consumed with curiosity! Are my guesses right?

* with sincere apologies to my excellent and intelligent friend MrLondonStreet, who is another constant reader, a great encourager, and an outstanding blog-pal. And actually, if you want to know the truth, he probably does know it all.

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Suzy's Cave

2009-11-24T18:28:00.013-06:00

You can tell a story one way.

Or you can tell it another way.

One way, the central character shows herself to be a pest, a nudge, an 11 year old girl who can't see false advertising for what it is, a girl who forces her family to walk far longer than they'd planned, to see a sight not worth seeing.

Another way, it's an 11 year old girl who gets her family to accompany her on a long and adventurous walk in cold quiet pine forests along the shores of a chilly northern lake. Needles crunch underfoot and fragrant soft beds of pine sink slightly under each footfall, the still air refreshes, the path winds forward and the cave awaits, as yet undiscovered.

Ah yes, Suzy's Cave.

I've always had a thorn in my heart over this one.

We went on holiday to Lake Superior for a week. We stayed at a lodge, with its deer racks over the fireplaces, hot oatmeal with butter and maple syrup for breakfast, and the whole long day stretching ahead of us each morning -- only the dark and limitless pine forests out beyond, waiting to be explored. My family didn't believe in Caribbean holidays, with hot sun and coconut sunblock and raffia hats. No, not at all. We went for the more austere kind of trip. The kind where you dipped your toe in the crystal clear lake water, the water that was so deep and so green and so transparent and so fucking cold, that you said to yourself: "Heck, I'll maybe swim... tomorrow." And tomorrow it was, every single day.

So not much swimming on that holiday. Instead, we spent time reading the local ghost stories and pioneer tales, the ones where husband and wife get snowed in late October, and in April only the wife shows up at the boat launch -- her clothes ragged, her hair uncombed and gray. She, gaunt and frail, and a healing axed gash on her forearm. But no husband. No, no husband.

Yeah, that was the kind of mysterious fun our family went for. Creepy. Quiet. Introspective, I suppose.

One morning, perhaps four or five mornings in, we decided to go hiking. And when I say "we decided" I mean something entirely different. I mean, I badgered them, endlessly, constantly, continually to go see Suzy's Cave. It was only 3 or 4, or perhaps 5 miles. Whatever it said on the signpost. It was on the lodge's map. A notable venue. And not so far.

And when we got there? I'd imagined a huge, vast cavern. We'd walk in, our voices muffled at first. Then, our voices would suddenly begin to echo and bounce, and the sounds in the place would stop us in our tracks. As we then delved further into the depths of the cave, the walls would stretch away, and we'd shine our flashlights ahead and see... sparkling rock crystals, and slagtites dripping from the high arches of the roof above, with still pools of ageless water standing before us, and transluscent watered rocks surrounding us.

I had a plan. A long hike to a transcendant place, where we'd all be transfixed, stilled, and utterly flummoxed by nature's incredible, wordless wonder.

So we started out. We were not hikers. We walked. We walked. We walked. It was endless. We came to a signpost: "Suzy's Cave 4.5 miles." We walked on, the path twisting, turning. Up, down. On and on. My mother, "Jesus, Suzy's Cave had better be good!" The path continued. Up a seemingly sheer rock cliff. Grabbing onto scrub pines to pull ourselves up. On a new, higher elevation. Sweat, scratchy clothes. No one had brought water. "Suzy's Cave 2.8 miles."

Holy Lord, how far was this cave, anyway? Every signpost seemed to make it both nearer and farther. Nearer, because the distance was decreasing, but farther, because where the hell was this damned cave, anyway?"

"Suzy's Cave 2.1 miles." My heart was sinking, breaking. My sister was tired, my father was steaming forward, but my mother was bitching. "Where the hell is this thing anyway? What a great idea! I wonder what kind of idiot did the mileage on this map? Goddamn!" And then, "I hope you're happy, Ellen! I can't wait to see this damned cave!"

There's nothing really like trudging the last 2.1 miles with your mother's resentment at your back. It makes it all quite out-of-body, really.

You're hoping that this damned cave will shut her up forever, that its beauty will silence her, that she will be speechless with wonder, and that all this hot travail will be rewarded.

"Suzy's Cave .3 miles"

And then finally, here you are. A clearing, with pines all around, flat bare ground exposed in cold pale sunshine.

"Suzy's Cave," with a feeble arrow pointing toward... a narrow rift in the rock.

Everyone looks dubious.

We creep into the narrow cleft in the rock face. We walk forward perhaps 6 or 8 feet, without flashlights, into... nothing.

That's it.

That's the cave.

That's what we've walked 5.1 miles to see. A big dark indentation in a rock face.

"Well! I'm so glad I got here!" My mom's sarcasm pierces me through.

My father and sister look at me, willing me not to respond. And I don't.

This has been "a story" for our family, for all these years. All you have to say is, "Suzy's Cave," and the old feelings come flooding back. Hot scratchy clothes. Tired legs. No reward at the end of the trek. Not one good thing. Not one. Just shame and uselessness.

I was talking with my sister this evening, and she said, "You know, this could have been framed in an entirely different way. Not as a story where you made us walk for nothing. Not that you were a pest and a nudge and a brat. No, it could have been a story about a girl who wanted an adventure, who got her family to take a long walk in a pristine wilderness, a girl who wanted to explore, who persevered, who reached a goal. A girl who wanted to take a long walk, out in the soft and deep pine forests in northern Michigan, to see what was around the next bend in the path."

I'm going to hold onto that idea.

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yawns ... rubs eyes ...

2009-11-09T17:33:00.004-06:00

Good lord, where in the world have I been? Yes, yes, I can hear you asking. People are begging, simply begging for a new post. I should have named the last post "National Poetry Month" so as to get a bit more mileage out of it.

But mileage, my friends, is something I do know something about, seeing as how I logged in about a trillion airmiles over the last couple of weeks. I feel more at home in an airport than anywhere else these days. That in-transit feeling is so delicious, and the coffee shops and bookstores are so convenient and tantalizing. Not to mention the wine bars and the tasting of single-malt whiskeys in duty-free. And the trying on of perfumes. I usually smell like a French whore by the time I get to the boarding gate.

Mr D and I had planned an exciting synchronized swimming of the air, where he flew round the world westward, via Bangkok, Hong Kong, Malmö and Copenhagen, and I flew eastward through... well, a lot of places actually... and we met in Athens. How romantic!

And yet. My flights were done via frequent flyer miles, friends, so you know what THAT means.

Yep. More legs on this trip than on a centipede.

O'Hare to Toronto to London Heathrow.

London Gatwick to Split, Croatia.

[Water ferry to Supetar, Croatia.]

[Fast catamaran back, from Milna to Split.]

Split to Zagreb to Frankfurt to Leipzig by air.

Leipzig to Dusseldorf to Frankfurt to Athens.

Athens to Istanbul to O'Hare. It's kind of in a straight line, right?

Of course it was all very romantic after we'd slept off all the jet lag and had loads of ouzo and baklava (not at the same time, natch!) We saw the Parthenon and the squid and fish market and the oracle of Delphi and the mask of Agamemnon and you know, all those Greek things. I'll tell you about that another time.

Because you don't want to hear about that, do you? No, you want to hear about my brief stay in a TURKISH prison! Because what would travel with me be, without some frisson of excitement for you? So you can shiver and quake in your boots, and think, "Thank God it wasn't me! Thank my lucky stars it was expateek instead!"

So. I even have pictures.

If you're in the airport in Istanbul, after you have some baklava and try all the flavors of Turkish delight in the Olde Bazaar, you should take a little walk past Burberry, Chopard, Longchamps, Boss and Fendi. Go past the duty-free, testing perfume samples as you wander through, and making sure that you spray each perfume on a different part of your wrists or the backs of your hands. Concentrate deeply to remember which perfume you sprayed where, and stare intently at the bottle of the one you like the most. You will remember the name of this perfume for maybe 2 minutes. Maybe less.

Go through the food court, and take the escalator up. Turn left, and walk through the upstairs cafe, toward the far back left corner of the room. Up three steps, and voilà, you are in the very last smoking lounge remaining in a European airport!

The Turkish government just recently outlawed smoking in many public places, and of course, Turkish restauranteurs, with their hookahs and fiendishly enthusiastic smoking Turkish clientele, were up in arms. Apparently, sales of outdoor patio heaters and cafe umbrellas are now through the roof. And yet, strangely, the government have kindly provided Turkish airport visitors the option of smoking al fresco on airport property. It's like a trip back in time!

And see how appealing it is?

Very prison-like, yes? Reminded me a bit too much of the Woking jail, in terms of confined spaces. Yet I must admit that the Woking jail's air was much cleaner, a clear benefit resulting from the United Kingdom's forward-thinking health concerns for incarcerated criminals like myself.

I just thought you'd want to know, in case you have some time to kill next time you're in Istanbul. Not that anybody smokes anymore. For pete's sake. What kind of girl do you think I am?

.

National Poetry Day

2009-10-08T12:57:00.004-05:00

Mr D arrived home last night from a three-day jaunt out to Beantown. He found me in a bit of a blue mood. I lay on the bed while he unpacked his suitcase, and we talked about what had happened (or what had not happened, in my case, as I'd had a dull couple of days) since Monday.

He finished unpacking, and flopped down on the bed next to me. We discussed our individual successes/failures with our healthful diets, and Mr D noted that if my weight kept going up, and his kept going down, eventually we'd weigh the same. Gadfry! About the same as thirty-four years ago, when we first met: he was fresh off a 6-month starvation tour on a Pacific atoll, and I'd been busy eating all the ice cream on offer in the Wellesley College kitchens. Hmmm.

Mr D = Miss H. Again.

I made a little frowny face, and then Mr D said:

Fatty and Skinny
went to bed
Fatty rolled over
and Skinny was dead.

After I stopped giggling, I hit him over the head with a pillow.

.

night-time

2009-10-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

I sat out on the back deck late tonight. The sky was pale and bright, and the trees were inky black, and a star shimmered, cradled perfectly in the boughs of the fir tree at the edge of the garden. I heard crickets, and a plane growling past overhead, and the whoosh of a car sliding by on the road next to our house. It was all so peaceful and calm.

I thought of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with Mr London Street, who said of a blogger he usually reads, "but she's fallen in love now, and her posts are all kittens and moonbeams and who can read that sh** day after day? It's all so damned dull." He moaned with frustration, just a little bit. Because having a regular columnist go wonky is just ever so frustrating, really. One's usual reading diet is ... altered.

And woe, there is me. Or I. Woe is it all. For I have not much to say at the moment, because I've fallen in love again with my husband, and my lovely life, and the world and its people, and I can't find fault with any of it. How feckin' dull is that?

Two and a half years ago, in the winter, I lived for a short few months in a mansion in Sunninghill. Fourteen rooms, a huge place, vacant. The owners needed someone to make it look "lived in." For £500 a month, it was mine. I volunteered. It was me and the Aga. That was it. The only two warmish entities in the house, with the Aga putting out significantly more heat than I did, my skin and bones just barely alive. I was heartsick, alone, bereft, and definitely a mess. I had ditched my husband, finding him all stubborn and boring and hateful, and I had decided to go it alone.

But why?

Why was I there? Why was I suffering, sleeping in an empty fourteen-room house, radiators turned down to "1" to save heat, sleeping on a mat in an empty bedroom, crying myself to sleep each night. Why?

What was I doing?

Ignoring my children, certainly. Having nightmares about guns and Africans. Avoiding bill paying, college tuitions, dentist appointments. Dreaming and remembering, horrified, the sound of the snap, snap, snapping of our electric security fence in Jo'burg. Evading phone calls from my estranged husband. Hearing all over again the screams of the woman next door as she was attacked, seeing again the SAPS team, scrambling over our walls with their automatic weapons, trying to secure the area.

Unable to read a book, there in Sunninghill. No knitting, no hobbies. No television, no computer, no internet. Just me, in the dark. Crying. Drinking. Sleeping.

What the hell was that all about?

I cried myself to sleep every night, and in the morning I woke up to a dusting of snow across the garden, and windows frosted half-high with starry patterns. The sun crept over my sill, glowing pale and illuminating the room with a wan light that signified nothing more than another wretched day of ... nothing. Work. Talk. Teaching. Nothing.

It was awful. And yet I didn't throw myself off a bridge, or do anything too dire. Because I was just too, too tired. It was really another me, then. Not me. Someone else.

.

A Russian aide-memoire

2009-09-15T02:21:00.003-05:00

Have you ever had the crazy feeling that you’ve remembered something that you haven’t thought of since… well, since the very day you first experienced it? Not the run of the mill stuff, the university paths you traversed, the check-out desk at your town library, the way you walked to your primary school every day, and not the color of your first boyfriend’s head of hair. Not what you wore on your wedding day, or your cubicle at your programming job. Certainly not the off-ramp at Roosevelt Road. No, none of those things.

No, I mean remembering something that happened years and years and years ago, that has truly not crossed your mind since. Something that you’ve only remembered now, just this very day, this exact moment, in fact, because you were reading something entirely unusual for you -- perhaps Chekov’s short stories in a small bound volume -- or Isaac Babel’s description of studying at home with his grandmother in Odessa -- and you let your eyes wander away from your book for a moment, as you remember your own grandmother and her house, and the dark wood furniture in her living room, the cart with her African violets standing at the dining room window, the claret-colored and scratchy bouclé brocade of the single settee with its heavy silken twisted fringe, and the patterned carpet on the stairs that went up.

And upstairs, the room where you’d had to nap in the afternoon as a really young child, with books ranged everywhere, on every surface and every shelf. The patterned wallpaper, its endless repetitious dots soothing you, and the slanting few rays of sunshine sneaking between window sill and the roof of the next house over. A calm somnolence overtaking you after you’d read in quick succession several issues of Fate magazine, with its séances and banshees and visitors from the dark beyond. The sheer curtains hanging dead still in the heat of the late summer afternoon.

It’s a strange and wrenching feeling. Deep inside, you remember, and you feel. Your gut twists. My God! That couch! I remember it! My grandfather, sitting downstairs in his chair, wearing his glasses after cataract surgery, like black binoculars over his eyes, and all so he could watch Laurence Welk on Saturday evenings at six. “Is that a colored gal singing?,” as Aretha, or Dionne Warwick, or someone belted something out on TV. “Yes, Grandpa, it is,“ I answered, already knowing enough to be embarrassed at age 10. Clearly, the glasses weren’t a complete success.

Yet, how weirdly unsettling. You haven’t thought about this since the very day it happened, maybe 41 years ago or so. What the hell?

It’s reading that does it. You get started on one track, reading the stories of this brilliant and eccentric Russian Jew, Isaac Babel, whose life was brutally cut short in 1940, his work only translated quite recently. It’s as if a lovely window has briefly opened into the past, and you’re transported through it, remembering your own history, nothing like that of people in Odessa, but unique and odd and beautiful to you all the same.

And then, that sudden self-awareness: is it possible that I’m remembering this, for the first time, 41 years after it happened? Where’s that memory been all these years? And is it possible, is it really possible, that I’ve been alive and doing things every single damn day since? Forty-one years of doing stuff, every day and every minute, since this moment I’m remembering for the very first time right now?

What is the stuff of life? What are we? Where have the years gone?

And how in the hell can time just go and go and go? My life is just careening past me.

.

Virtual reality

2009-09-13T17:31:00.003-05:00

The place where virtual reality rubs up against physical reality is really rather strange. I’ve been mostly off-line the last few weeks, finishing my paper and then jetting off to London. Mr D and I were competing for scarce internet resources at the hotel in Fitzrovia, so I mostly gave up my dilettantish online existence in favor of his businessman‘s (remunerative) one. And thus I also gave in to the recently mostly untasted pleasures which attach to living one’s life in the real world.

So I was off touring Buckingham Palace and later eating Japanese fare in Piccadilly, and soon after that, examining volume 18 of the complete human genome at the Wellcome Centre for the Medical Sciences, and then, still later, browsing through easel bins of aboriginal art in a gallery near Fitzroy Square. Getting up close, too close in the museum guards’ minds, to portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. Lying on the grass in the park by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, watching the clouds scud by overhead, with all of London below, the Thames winding across the cityscape. All of this, experienced in real life, rather than seen on the 7 inch by 10 inch screen of my netbook. Having traded incipient carpal tunnel syndrome for seriously aching feet, I longed for a nice sit down and a chat. Thus I sent out a few invites to London bloggers I “know,” hoping for an in-person experience or two, once Mr D had left town.

The first? Belgian Waffling. Knowing, via her blog, that she’s terribly shy and awfully busy, I felt a bit stalkerish as I initiated contact. “Care to get together?” We arranged to meet for coffee at St. Pancras, just before her Eurostar train back to Brussels. As I trundled along through Tube tunnels, I wondered if I’d recognise her, or if she’d even show. I mean really, why bother?

And then there she was, raising an eyebrow. A slight wave of the hand. Glancing up from under her thick dark fringe. “It’s you, isn’t it?“ Sitting at a table at Pain Quotidian with her bags and suitcases arrayed around her. All in black, very elegant looking, and much more slight than I’d imagined. Who are these slim young things, anyway? She’s charming and witty in person, and she makes a very pretty pout when expressing dismay or embarrassment or alarm. Plenty of that to be had, to be sure. We covered a multitude of topics, assiduously avoiding fraught things like marital discord (presumably hers) and existential angst (always mine) and kept to the ordinary spheres of work, children, and writing blogs. After all, though we know “of” each other, we don’t know each other. It’s such a funny feeling, to be aware of so much of another person’s inner life, as expressed in written posts. Yet face to face, it’s awkward to broach those tender subjects. Not on, really.

She is very funny and sweet, and whilst laughing and enjoying the moment, I also felt sure that I was but one in a long string of old, dull, blank faces just like the ones she encounters all day long in her corridor of ennui. I so often feel like an extra in everyone else’s busy life, always at the edge of the scene, the shiny foil reflecting the star’s unique qualities. Too much superficial living and moving from place to place, never in one spot long enough to be the protagonist in any of life’s dramas. Sigh. That being said, when I create my own dramas, it’s not a particularly good thing, so perhaps standing at the periphery is better. Jury’s still out on that one.

She soon buzzed off for her train to Belgium, and I rejoined the lovely Mr D, armed only with a curiously inept and non-descript description of the blog meet.

“How was it? Okay?” he asked.

“Mmmm. Yeah, it was… it was fine. Nice, I guess. She‘s lovely. So fashionable. Clever. Very entertaining.”

He gave me a sharp glance. “You seem a bit distracted.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just feel kind of odd. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do. Now I feel funny. I don‘t know if I like meeting people in real life. I feel kind of …weird.”

He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Oh, for God’s sake. You need some lunch. Come on, put your shoes back on and let’s get out of here. I‘m in the mood for Thai.”

A few nights later, it was a quaff with the lovely Pochyemu, of ItsMostlyAboutMe. We met at The Stag in Ascot. Miss T and I came bombing up to the tables outside the pub, thinking we were late. I almost didn’t recognise the luscious Danielle, hunched as she was over her mobile phone, Twittering. Which is entirely my fault, the tweeting, but we’ll get into that in a moment.

She looked up and simply beamed with delight. “Sit out here with me. I’m having an illicit fag. It‘s a fantastic night!” Her earrings sparkled, her lavender pashmina accentuated the roses in her cheeks, and her cloud of hair gave her the look of a modern-day pre-Raphaelite maiden. She’s quite the beauty, that girl is. We restrained ourselves, having only a pint each -- though I was so busy talking I didn’t notice that Miss T drained all of her Stella and most of mine. Good thing, in fact, as I was driving and didn‘t want a repeat of my night in Woking gaol, circa October ‘05. Danielle and I mutually reveled in the fact that I hadn’t actually slain Pochyemu at our last bloggy meet-up in February. Nor had I left her unconscious in a snow drift in Windsor Great Park, to be nibbled at by foxes as she tweeted her last. No, she left our winter evening unharmed, free to go on to finish her dissertation late in the spring. Free to write a paper that received the very highest mark in her class. Thank God I spared her, because the world needs an expert on the Baltic states’ security issues and Estonian national identity. Much more useful than what I’ve been faffing about with, but we can’t all be so prescient, can we?

I took her to task for abandoning blogging in favor of the 140-character pleasures of Twitter, and though she tried to look chastened, she didn’t make a very convincing job of it. She’s unrepentant, I think, and there’s only me to blame. Because I suggested on that fateful night seven months ago that she sign up for Twitter, so she could tweet from my car boot as I “abducted” her. She obliged at that very moment, logging on over pasta and salad, and the rest is history, albeit in 140-character installments. She did promise to make a stab at blogging more often, and I looked daggers at her, which I hope will terrify her into compliance.

All in all, a stupendous evening. We meet again in October, we hope.

Finally, the extremely interesting, entirely different than I was expecting, Mr London Street. What was I expecting? Frankly, I’m not sure. But I had dinner with an staggeringly witty guy who was -- shall I say it? -- even more opinionated than I could have imagined from his blog. Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I kept being shocked and startled, uttering the dumbest things I’ve ever said. I might have been blonde for an evening.

“Goodness, you’re so much taller than I expected!”

“Gosh, you’re so much more three-dimensional than I imagined!”

“Gee, you’re very thin … compared to how you describe yourself in your posts.”

Then he mentioned Ricky Gervais (who‘s also from Reading, as it happens), and I was suddenly fixed upon the idea that he looks a bit like Gervais. Not to mention that he’s blindingly funny. I ended up toward the end of dinner alternately giggling and parroting on about God only knows what. This is how Americans get such a bad rap. Simply can’t keep up in conversation. Or maybe we really are just all a bit stupid, as every third Brit is so happy to tell you. Bastards.

So Mr London Street and I traded compliments back and forth, and ate delicious tarte tatin which set my diet back by a couple of years at least. Whatever he’s doing to lose weight and lower cholesterol seems to be working a treat for him, so if it’s tarte tatin, I say “Bring it on, baby.” And a most gentlemanly guy, making sure I got the last train of the evening out of the Reading station. Left to my own devices, I’d have wandered off toward Slough, most likely. What a ditz I am.

One more point for now. Interestingly, MrLondonStreet wasn’t shy about letting me know what really sets him off, in terms of faux pas in the blogosphere, and if you promise not to let him know I told you, here are the three biggies: txt spk, ALL CAPS, and too many exclamation marks!!!!! I mean, who knew??? So if you want to get a mention on his THE WEEK THAT BLOGGED, be sure that you don’t overuse the punctuation!!!

Srsly!! HE HATES IT!!

Otherwise? I’m still ruminating over the significance of meeting virtual personalities in person. Perhaps because I’ve kept in touch with so many real friends via the internet -- moving from the physical to the virtual realm -- I find that reversing the process feels a bit strange. How do you transition from flat, silent screen to living, breathing, (perhaps even pulsating, in MrLondonStreet’s case) flesh and blood?

I’m not really sure about it yet. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

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30 years plus one day

2009-09-02T04:37:00.005-05:00

The sashes were rattling something fierce last night at the Grange Fitzrovia Hotel. With the sheers blowing in over the sills, and London's silvery city light palely shining on the carpet, there was a rather romantic moonstruck feeling to it all. Or there would have been, had it not been for Mr D's wretched racket of snoring, which was enough to wake the dead as well as the living.

I tell you this, dear Reader, because I wouldn't want you to suffer under the illusion that Mr D is perfect. No, far from it. He has his human flaws, just like the rest of us. You might even agree with me if I enumerate just one or two.

For example, there's his "engineer's mind." Kind of like that "Zen mind" thing that everyone's always banging on about, but much more irritating. An engineer's mind likes to think that it's logical, reasonable, orderly. In this, it's confused. It tries to quantify the unquantifiable, and goes on to make you think that you're the one being difficult.

Imagine, if you will, choosing a house (12 or 13 times, because you keep getting moved by The Company). One half of the married duo looks at 7 or 11 houses, and picks one -- with a back-up plan for a second if the first choice falls through. Naturally, first choice is 1) the most expensive option and 2) furthest location possible from the workplace. But it's close to the school, and has a nice kitchen, and it's really pretty.

The second half of the blissfully wedded pair looks at the same set of houses, and hates choice #1 (too expensive) and abhors choice #2 (brutal commute). But instead of just saying, "Oh, let's look around more, wait a few months, rent something for a while and see what comes up...," he says, "I know! I'll make a chart and we can analyse the problem!"

The chart's drawn up, and houses are given scores of 1-5 for categories such as 1) commute, 2) price, 3) proximity to good golf course, 4) number of rooms, 5) quality of electrical wiring, 6) size of garage, and 7) age of roof . Strangely enough, choice #6, a medium-sized ugly house with a massive garage, circuit-breaker box of recent vintage, within 3 miles of work and 4.5 miles of golf course, wins! Who could have predicted that???

And it's all followed up by that explanation, that parsing of the chart (can charts be parsed?). "But look, my dear, it's all logical, and the best score, as you can plainly see here, is for this one, this house #6. Shall we make an offer on it then?" *sigh*

On the other hand, I can't complain too much. He loves to travel and won't rest until he's seen every sight to be seen in a given location. Since arriving in London on Sunday morning, we've toured Buckingham Palace, the Royal Mews, and the Queen's Gallery. We've gone through the Cabinet War Rooms, eaten lunch at Inn the Park in St. James' Park, ridden the London Eye, and wandered through the Burlington Arcade drooling over sapphires and cufflinks and lovely leather goods. All the things we neglected to do while we lived here for three years. We're better tourists than residents, apparently. We even took in my favorite annual exhibition, the BP Portrait Award show at the National Portrait Gallery. And all this in just three days.

And with that, I'm off to Grant & Cutler for some o' them furrin books. Maybe a Liewe Heksie picture book? Or an instructional text on Elementary Chichewa, for my next trip to Malawi?

Ta ta for now, m'dears! More faults to come, later, as they come to mind.

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My love, 30 years on

2009-09-01T12:38:00.003-05:00

Thirty years ago today, at 4:40 in the afternoon, Mr D and I were walking down the aisle. Or rather, I was walking down the aisle, because he was already there, waiting, at the front of the church. This was to be one of the few times in our lives together that he would be on time, and I would be late.

I was primping in the back, the last minute fluffing up of a terribly ill-advised perm. The pianist was playing, transitioning into the music that was to be my entrance, when suddenly Max, the minister, bustled through the double doors and said, “Just hang on a few minutes. Go back, go back! We’ll have this all sorted out in a second or two.” My heart sank. Was this going to be cinematic-style tragedy? The bride left sobbing, groomless, in the narthex of the church as the husband-to-be skittered off through a side door and ran away for parts unknown? I retreated to the bride’s room, and now worried, stared at myself in the mirror and wondered, “Was it the perm, after all?” And then I felt sorry for myself for a few minutes, as I imagined the sorrow and the embarrassment I’d feel soon enough, as a jilted bride in this day and age, for God’s sake.

Because who even was getting married in 1979? No one, that’s who. Everyone at Wellesley was going off to be a trainee at Citibank or Morgan Stanley, or continuing on to grad school at the London School of Economics, or learning the ropes as an intern at Sotheby’s or Christie's, or doing some other highly important thing. Getting married was the idiot’s move.

“What are you doing after college?” began a conversation in Tower Court’s dining hall.

“Oh, I’m getting married. In September,” I answered.

“Ummmm. Yeah. But what are you going to do?”

Oops. No good follow-up answer for that question. Indeed, what was I going to do? Vacuum? Dust? Work at minimum wage out there in the wilds of Oregon, as a married person? Any answers were worryingly vague.

And now, on the very wedding day, even this lame plan of mine looked to be scotched. Because suddenly it appeared I wasn’t going to have the chance to walk down the aisle at all. Oh, woe!

The music began again, and someone popped a head in and said, “Okay, it’s time!”

My Dad walked me down the aisle, and there was Mr D waiting for me. Pleasant surprise! We were married on that hot September afternoon thirty years ago, fumbling with rings and getting our words wrong, and soon after, we were out into the church garden for pictures and into the reception hall for a light dinner buffet.

“What was that all about?” I asked my sister later.

“What?” said Martha.

“The hold-up? At the beginning. The reason we didn’t begin at 4:30?”

“Oh thaaaaaat. Well, there were lots of bats flying around in the eaves,” said Martha.

My dad laughed, “Yes, and Harlan said, 'Oh, you know my brother Lee – he couldn’t afford white doves, so they made do with bats instead. I’m pretty sure it’s good luck though.'”

And yeah, it probably has been good luck. We’re still married, and happily so. I feel incredibly lucky, especially after almost pitching it all in a couple of different times. I must say, it’s mostly down to him, to my dear husband. He said when we married, “I don’t believe in divorce.”

There’s something to be said for that kind of dogged persistence and single-mindedness. It’s partly what’s necessary, to keep a partnership going, because there’s always going to be one person who’s a little less in love, a little more cranky, quite a lot more angry, a helluva lot more tired. The roles and the moods shift back and forth – sometimes one person’s sick of the whole thing, sometimes the other one has had quite enough for today, thank you very much. Yet the certainty that it’s permanent means that you get up the next morning thinking about compromise, and adapting a little bit all over again.

And of course we remember that we did get married for love, and not because we had to, or because we had no better ideas for what to do that Saturday afternoon. We’ve sailed through the good parts, and slogged through some really grim bits, but underneath it all there’s been the surety that it was a plan for the long-term: the very very very long-term. Until death do us part.

Happy 30th Anniversary to us! Hurrah, hurrah, and hip hip hooray!

My biggest peeve (lately)

2009-08-27T12:10:00.005-05:00

Fine. You can feel free to disagree with me if you want, but I'm just gonna let you know right now that you're wrong.

I've just returned to the US after living abroad for seven years, and I am appalled by the sight of so many people -- so many people -- talking on mobile phones while driving. Every other person, it seems, has their cell phone pasted to the ear, yakking it up. I mean really, what the hell is so important that you can't wait 1 minute and pull over to talk?

You always know the ones who are talking. They're weaving a little, looking in the mirror and picking at their teeth while yammering away. Taking all turns at 3.5 mph because they're steering and holding the phone and probably turning the radio down all at the same time. Unable to change lanes in a sensible way because they're actually visualising a spreadsheet in their heads while talking to some colleague about "those changes in column 7? -- it needs to be re-totaled with the new variables included!" Or talking to a best friend about what color to paint the hallway. Or blabbing about something else, equally mission-critical and totally life-changing.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

And they never think their driving is a problem. Like drunks who stagger out to their cars, stabbing keys multiple times at the door locks, they're "fine." "Oh, I'm a good driver! I really pay attention. I don't think my driving's altered at all." All that stuff about driving extra slow and delayed reaction times and poor assessment of risk? "Not me, buddy!"

I don't care if they're using hands-free technology or those dorky-looking bluetooth things or whatever. Studies have shown that you're many times more likely to have an accident when talking on the phone in the car. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

The driver’s primary responsibility is to operate the vehicle safely. This requires undivided attention and focus on the driving task.

Using wireless communications devices while driving can be distracting and increase the risk of crash and injury. Therefore, NHTSA recommends that drivers not use these devices while driving, except in [an] emergency. This recommendation applies to both hand-held and hands-free devices.

A New York Times article gives background on this study, which is one of many over the last several years. Numerous countries and US states have banned or severely restricted cell phone usage based on accident studies. And texting while driving? Please. Or rather, please don't.

This video went viral over the internet during the last several days, and for a reason. While horrible and graphic, it also shows what disasters can occur when cell phones and driving mix.

[Warning: Graphic and violent visuals]

You don't want to be these people. You really don't. Like drinking and driving, cell phone use while driving is irresponsible and just plain wrong. Just like alcohol or drugs, cell phone usage causes you to be significantly impaired if you use a mobile phone while behind the wheel.

Get it through your head: Just shut up and drive.

UPDATE: http://bit.ly/p2o1m check it out...
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Mission Accomplished

2009-08-27T10:50:00.006-05:00

original art by Ally of Today is My Birthday!

Well!

You've all been waiting with ~~baited breathe~~ bated breath, I know, to hear about what's been happening over here at my house. Specifically with regard to... the dissertation.

After about 3 weeks of non-stop writing, researching, editing, reviewing, revising, and proofreading -- every spare moment spent thinking about "museum communities," "adult aesthetic education," "change management in arts organisations," and similarly riveting topics -- the thing is finally DONE! Sixty-nine pages, including bibliography and appendices, and my house is a mess! Poor Mr D. He's such a neatnik, and he just closed his eyes for the ~~last few days~~ ~~weeks~~ whole summer and soldiered on, weaving his way around laptop accessories on desks, opened books on chairs, scribbled upon drafts on every flat surface, and days-old cups of cold coffee lingering about. What a mec!

So I sent the thing off, pdf style, on Tuesday at noon. It's to be hard-bound and submitted to the Museum Studies Department at the University of Leicester. Yay for me! ~~Six months~~ ~~five months~~ ~~three months~~ 5 or 6 weeks of concentrated study. And bizarrely, I managed to turn it in a full 13 days before the due date. Impossible? You heard it here first.

But before I sent it off, I had my saint of a sister proofread it for me. Even though she only has one kidney, her proofreading skills remain intact. Who knew how "discernible" was really spelled? Do commas go inside or outside of quotation marks? Do footnote numbers go before or after full stops? Are article titles in quotation marks or italicised? Are the volume and number of a periodical italicised too? Or not? Yawn. I know. This is why she's a saint and I'm a ... tired graduate student.

Then there's the whole British English/American English spelling thing, which seems like a lark until you are spelling it "flavour" and feeling all posh and hoity-toity, and then you find you have to spell things like "programme" and "organise" and "analyse" and it's not so much fun after all.

Consistency ≠ expateek

So anyhoo, we're done. And when I say "we," I mean me and my husband and my children and my parents and my sister and her partner and my friends here in town and all the people I badgered with phone calls for interviews and probably the postman/lady and the people who I owe money to but have forgotten to pay and maybe ComEd and the gas company now that I think of it and oh gosh.

Who else? Anybody else out there needing acknowledgement*? Because that's another word that is just feckin' difficult to spell!

* Don't even start. It's spelled both with and without an "e."**

**And I still think punctuation inside quotations marks looks silly.

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Comment FAIL

2009-08-16T18:34:00.003-05:00

Okay, I was getting all bummed out. You know, no comments and stuff. Thinking, gah, here I've flippin' bored everyone to death with posts about homeschooling and vomit and blah blah blah.

Maybe everyone is sick of me. Maybe they forgot I even exist.

Maybe they aren't paying any attention and I'm disappearing into a black hole that is the internetz.......

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHGHHGHH!AGHH!

Existential angst! It's all over! Kill me now!

But then, just now, when I was just talking to Aphrodite (the now 21-year-old vomit-carpet-bomber) she commented about her comments. I was all, "Hell, no one comments on my blog at all any more! Not even you!"

She assured me that she most definitely did, and I had a sneaking suspicion... Remember the other day when Mr. CHINESELANGUAGESPAMMER left comments all over my blog? Yeah, I turned on comment moderation. But neglected to put in a notifying email address, so all the comments were hung up out there in cyberspace, waiting for approval, without letting me know they were there. They might have waited FOREVER. Good Lord! And I would have continued feeling all huffy and you all would have been all insulted, and it would have been a blogging disaster!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments, guys. Now I'm off to read through them over and over again, until I have them all memorized and I've worked all my giggles out. xxx!

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I hate surprises, but I hate suspense even more

2009-08-16T07:52:00.004-05:00

Years of navigating the treacherous shoals of motherhood have given me a serious case of the nerves. Expecting the unexpected? It's all in a day's work for a parent, and to be honest, I've come to hate it.

You think everything is cooking along just fine: laundry's drying on the line, dinner's simmering on the stovetop, radio's playing your favorite song, and then: BAM!

"Mom! MOM! Aphrodite just threw up all over the livingroom carpet! MOM! Come here quick!"

See what I mean? It's awful. So much for those dinner plans. You're scrubbing vomit out of ancient Berber wall-to-wall, all the while knowing that this is just the beginning. Stomach flu has a way of traveling like lightning through a family of 6.

So the suspense! The suspense could kill ya! Who's next? When and where? What kinds of containment policies do we enact, effective immediately? Throw-up buckets distributed throughout the house? Draconian hand-washing policies? Child isolation tactics? The mother's brain immediately shifts into overdrive, formulating and reformulating plans of action, all the while knowing that resistance is most probably futile, and that the next few days are going to be a living, breathing (or holding-one's-breath) Hell.

I've been noticing over the last few years that my tolerance for suspense has diminished dramatically. So dramatically, in fact, that I have no tolerance for suspense at all. None. Perhaps it dates back to the robbery in Johannesburg, but I think it started before that. Years of mini-traumas having to do with vomit on carpet, lost school-outing permission slips, and teenaged temper tantrums have rubbed my nerves down to their last raw end.

Detective stories? Fifty pages into it, and I'm reading the last chapter because I can't stand the suspense. Who the heck did it? I can't STAND this!

Movies? No way. We watched Valkyrie with Tom Cruise on pay-per-view the other night (I know, don't ask, I didn't choose it) and in spite of Cruise's calm demeanor throughout, I was squirming in my seat after 20 minutes and had to eventually leave the room. Could have been Tom Cruise's wooden acting too, but mainly it was the soundtrack that got to me.

Every. Single. Second. Ominous music. More ominous-er now. Even more ominous. And damn, he's just raising one eyebrow in a meeting with Nazi officers. What will happen when he raises both eyebrows? God, I feel sick with anxiety! Time to leave the room and ~~do some crack cocaine~~ play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.

To prove what a wimp I am, I only need describe my behavior during Robert Downey Jr.'s The Ironman. I watched it with 23-year old Tarquin and his friend. Despite the deliciously calming effect of RDjr's chocolatey brown eyes, I was whimpering within 10 minutes. "Oh! No! Tarq! What's happening next? Are they going to be okay? Tarq!! TARQ!!! Ooooo, I can't stand it! Oh no! Don't go in there! No! No don't! Oh no, he went in! Oh, oooo! AAAAAH! Oh NO!!! What happened? Is he going to live? OMG!"

Tarquin was rolling his eyes, laughing. "This movie's PG-13, Ma! Calm down! Do you want me to tell you how it ends so you can relax?"

In case you're wondering, the movie is described as "Rated PG-13, for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content." Maybe I need more suggestive content and less action and violence. I think this pretty much puts everything except G-rated movies off the table. Next pay-per-view? Pixar's Ratatouille or Wall-E.

Although having just read the plot summary for Ratatouille, I'm already concerned:

"Remy is a rat, constantly risking his life in an expensive French restaurant because of his love of good food..."

This might still end up being too much suspense for me. I think I'd be better off knitting.

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Homeschooling, again?

2009-08-13T08:53:00.006-05:00

Yeah, just so you know, we weren't that kind of homeschoolers.

What kind? Oh you know what kind I mean. The families with 15 children -- all the boys dressed in matching khakis and polos, all the girls in hand-sewn, modest frocks. The kind where the dad attends PromiseKeepers workshops on the weekends and the mom bakes pies for the church bake sale while supervising a home spelling bee and doing 4 loads of laundry, all at the same time. I suppose all those things might be good for some people, but none of it appealed to us.

No, we were a bit on the lackadaisical side. We wanted to make sure that there was room to enjoy life, make music, read, and spend time together as a family.

Also, we needed to make sure that eldest son had enough opportunities to dress up as Sherlock Holmes.

Because public school kids just aren't tolerant of sartorial quirks. Black t-shirt, nose rings and eyeliner? Sure. Homemade cape and detective chapeau? Not so much.

He did grow out of this phase after about a year. The library ladies and the grocery store clerks missed it when he finally transitioned toward a regular wardrobe. And we didn't have to worry about catching his cape edges in the minivan door either, which was a blessing.

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Homeschooler success story

2009-08-11T08:05:00.006-05:00

Because I'm all preoccupied with my own schoolwork, here's a quick video showcasing my oldest son's fabulous piano skillz. In case you're wondering, the sheet music on the piano has no relation whatsoever to what he's playing. All the notes come straight out of his clever big noggin.

Years of piano lessons = misspent youth.

Homeschooling for 8 years = plenty of time to fool around on the piano.

And I'll let you know when I learn to hold the videocam correctly.

Vertical orientation=fail.

Damn poor service here, miss

2009-08-02T08:17:00.003-05:00

You'd think, as the daughter of two academics, I'd be the kind who whips out term papers and essays and dissertations with nary a whisper of moaning or complaint. You'd think my papers would get written before I even started writing. I'd be the one from your tutorial that you hated, the one who'd sit down at her laptop, typing out "the whole thing", whatever that might be, start to finish: 15,000 words, 10 hours flat. Then I'd be the one standing up, saying, "There's that, then. I need a cuppa tea."

T'aint so. I'm working on a Master's Degree dissertation, and the words are coming slowly, so slowly. It's like watching a glacier melt. (Quicker now that we've got global warming, but still not particularly inspiring.) And I can't allow myself to do anything else until this blasted thing is finished. So there's not much movement over at my place. Next summer I plan to go outside once or twice. The Vitamin D loss here is worrying.

My slowness? It's something related to perfectionism. I want this thing to be perfect. And I'm terrified that it won't be. Funny, I once (ill-advisedly) wrote a paper for someone else. He was doing a degree in an osteopathic program, but he couldn't write his way out of a paper bag. He begged me, "C'mon, it'll just be a piss-up for you. You can do this sh** in your sleep." True. I wrote the paper for him in an afternoon, knowing nothing about osteopathy other than what I could find on Wikipedia and in a couple of anatomy books, and got two A's and a B on it. Hmmm. I might be a wonderful writer, but you definitely don't want to come see me with any of your medical problems. (You probably don't want to see him either, as I think he washed out.) But it was so easy to write that osteopathy paper, because I knew the tutor's opinion wasn't going to mean anything to me. There was no possibility that I might disappoint.

But now? I'm working on a project I love, about something I've been studying for 3 years, and have been interested in my whole life. And it's just soooooooo slowwwwwww.

I so much want to be finished with this dissertation. I want to drop it in the post and bid it adieu.

Readers: Anyone have any tips, tricks for fooling oneself into writing more, better, faster?

BlogHer 2009

2009-07-26T10:54:00.005-05:00

Guaranteed, if you've lived abroad for seven years, then returning to your home country will be a bit of a shock. It's not just jet lag you have to adjust to, it's culture shock as well. And that culture shock will be especially astonishing to you because it's your own culture, gosh darn it. Who knew things could change so much back home?

I've only really been blogging for about a year (before that I communicated via mass-emailings), so blogging's all pretty new to me. I started my blog while living in Poland and, go ahead and laugh, but at the time I didn't realize that blogging is an industry. Foolishly, I thought it was a hobby. An avocation. Something like scrapbooking or baking or whatever. I simply never had the crucial afterthought: where there's scrapbooking or baking, Creative Memories® and Pampered Chef® can't be far behind.

So for me, the jury's still out on BlogHer 2009. I attended for the first time ever and my feelings are mixed. The amount of giveaway loot was mind-boggling. I've been to lots of trade shows in a number of industries, but this was beyond the beyond. It seemed to combine the worst aspects of America's rampant consumerism with every stereotype there is about womankind's overwhelming desire to shop. And it kind of made me feel sick. Believe me, I'm not perfect. I came home with booty (even after "recycling" a lot of it), but the attention given to swag spread an oily, glistening sheen of greed over the proceedings that made some participants appear grasping and shallow.

As to the additional focus on monetizing your blog, optimizing readership, gaining followers? Well, who doesn't want money, connections, fame, big numbers? It's human nature, for sure. And at a big blogging conference, you certainly want to address the issues that are concerns for attendees. BlogHer provided a venue with lots of seminar options, so bloggers could learn about what they wanted to learn about, and ignore what was irrelevant to them. My mantra is, if you don't like to look (or read, or whatever) then don't. If I don't want to hear about advertising or getting my Twitter follower numbers up over 1K, then nobody needs to make me listen. It's my choice. So I mixed it up: a few geeky sessions on SEO and Twitter basics and social networking, a session on the latest tech gadgets (video, cameras, netbooks), a fascinating session on travel blogging. The outstanding Friday afternoon keynote highlighted 20 blog posts, read by their authors, and was by turns funny, heartwrenching, tragic, and full of joy. The Saturday keynote featuring a panel discussion with Tina Brown (Daily Beast), Donna Byrd (The Root), and Ilene Chaiken (The "L" word) was thought-provoking and empowering.

Still, even though I just said that people should attend the sessions they choose, I was completely unprepared for the shamefully small turnout at Saturday afternoon's session, "Leadership: The BlogHer '09 International Activist BlogHer Scholarship Winners Share Their Work". Bloggers Annie Zaidi (Blank Noise, Known Turf), Cristina Quisbert (Indigenous Bolivia), Pilirani Semu-Banda (The Wip, Pilirani Semu-Banda), and Toyin Ajao (Gender and Me) participated in a panel with Anita Doberman Tedaldi (Ovolina), discussing their activist work and the role of blogging in social change.

The BlogHer organizers were apparently hoping for at least 100 participants for this presentation. There were only 30 in the room. Thirty people, out of 1,500, who were interested in the groundbreaking work of these social activist bloggers from Nigeria, Bolivia, Malawi, and India? That's it? Meanwhile, next door, "Women Writing in the Age of Britney" was packed to overflowing.

Nothing against pop culture and Britney -- it's not my thing, but hey, to each her own. But I'm disappointed and surprised that BlogHer didn't feature these four women, these scholarship winners, in one of the conference-wide keynote addresses. Their work is big. Their work is shocking. Their work is the new wave of news in a post-print world. BlogHer should have chosen to have them present to the conference-wide audience. After all, they paid to bring them all the way here, half-way around the world. Why didn't they think we'd all want to hear their voices?

And it would have been a good stiff tonic for many, after all the goody bags and loot and monetization and whatnot. Families in Malawi subsist on about $1/day. Isn't that something you want to know more about?

Related posts: The Mom Slant, Motherhood Uncensored
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Little children, little problems...

2009-07-19T08:30:00.002-05:00

When the kids were small, babies even, it seemed I could never go anywhere without getting a lot of unwanted advice.

At the shopping mall, there'd be the immaculately turned out mother-of-one, pointing out that my baby -- youngest of four -- had lost a sock, and "oh-by-the-way, your three-year-old just pocketed a packet of gum from the check-out display". Shame.

There'd be a grandma type, asking me why my newborn wasn't wearing a hat "in this weather", or my neighbor across the street saying, "Don't your kids ever wear coats?" Feelings of incompetence.

There was some other kid's father from school, who asked with irritating regularity, "Don't you want to give those boys haircuts?" Upsurge of mulish obstinancy.

And then there was the woman who said, as I complained to anyone or no one about the endless irritation of raising small children, "Oh, you know what they say. 'Little children, little problems. Bigger children, bigger problems...'"

At the time, I felt as if I'd run into some wicked witch in Grimm's Fairy Tales. What kind of thing was that to say? It was meant to be comforting, perhaps, but it sounded like a curse, and full of foreboding. Little children, little problems. Bigger children, bigger problems...

The day before yesterday, at a shopping mall's parking lot, I got out of my car, idly turning round to lock it, and I heard a woman screaming, nay, shrieking at her kids. "GET OUT! OUT! Get out of the Goddamn car! Get out now!" She suddenly saw me from across the lot, and I could see her struggling to regain some self-control. She brought the decibel level down a few notches, and I turned away. And I thought to myself, Little children, little problems. Bigger children, bigger problems... If only she knew.

I find myself thinking much the same thing when reading blogs of young mothers. So much whingeing and kvetching and moaning, and not enough enjoyment of little kids for what they are: little. They're little, and they're yours. Of course children can be exasperating and exhausting and tiresome and just a feckin' handbasket of aggravation. But they're a boatload of fun too, and even though clever complaining ups blog statistics, one has to hope that some of these kids don't ever read their mom's essays, later on. Because they'll feel awfully unwanted and unappreciated. But I digress.

Little children, little problems. Bigger children, bigger problems... Truth to tell, little is so relative. When your oldest child is five, a ten-year-old looks mighty grown-up to you. But when your oldest is almost 26 years old, someone else's twenty-one-year-old son looks little. A little kid, really, twenty-one years old. His whole life ahead of him, full of potential, opportunity awaiting.

Except not in this case.

I went to a visitation on Friday night, and a memorial service on Saturday, for the twenty-one year old son of old friends. He dropped out of university second semester of his freshman year, and was in rehab for long months. This spring, he moved to a halfway house in Florida, part of transitioning back to a new life, free of addiction. He was going to return to school, and was reconnecting with his family. He was a strong, smart kid. An outstanding sportsman. A quick wit, and full of laughter. So well-liked. So loved by his family and close friends. He had everything going for him, all the talent, and all the support you'd ever want.

And then three weeks ago he was found in his room, unresponsive, apparently from a drug overdose. He lingered for 10 days in intensive care, but died a week ago Friday.

How my friends would love to go back to the days of "little children, little problems".

"Bigger problems" are unbearable.

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Famous for 15 minutes

2009-07-12T23:06:00.003-05:00

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
February 2007

Whoo hoo! I'm published over in Passport at the Women's Colony!

Check out the link to my story, and enjoy. Or suffer along with me, as you deem appropriate.

You'll be happy to know that I long ago forgave Mr D for forgetting the mosquito repellent.

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A Museum By Any Other Name...

2009-07-10T20:25:00.013-05:00

Well, it's been busy, busy, busy here. I've been working madly on the dreaded dissertation. Already 542 words written (there's yer introduction, mate!) and only about 14,458 words to go. *sigh* Does it sound as llloooooooooonnnng to you as it does to me?

And.... there are approximately 58 days, give or take a half-hour, in which to finish the whole blasted thing. Did I mention I tend to procrastinate? Gah.

Really, I make it sound worse than it is. Once I get to writing, it does become more interesting. It's just that the siren lure of Word Twist on Facebook keeps mucking with my resolve.

One sentence at a time. One sentence at a time. Too bad I can't bind my freakin' blog in leatherette and turn that in!

Anywhatsit, I should be inspired, because ~~whilst~~ while in Santa Barbara, I visited one of my University of Leicester friends, Lynn.

She does about 50 different art-related things for a living, but she also finished, finished her dissertation!

So it can be done, people. See how gleeful she looks?

She's given me the confidence.

She also let me touch it.

Just a touch of bald-faced envy from my seat over here.

Interestingly, her topic was "A museum by any other name is still a museum" and the premise looked fascinating. Not to mention that she got very high marks. I was slavering all over it.

I do hope she's polished my drool stains off it by now.

Thinking about her dissertation came in handy when, on the next leg of the trip, we visited another old friend up in Oregon who has his own museum. Because Dan has either "a helluva lotta stuff in his barn that he on occasion shows to his very bestest old friends" or "a pretty durn cool very private museum"... and I'm going with the latter description.

Dan's museum mimics the form of an old-fashioned Wunderkammer. Collections of oddities and strange specimens from far and wide are gathered together, compared and contrasted, to the astonished wonderment of the viewer.

Here's the University of California Santa Barbara's version of a classic Wunderkammer, in the on-campus museum. Just to give you an idea of what the classical model is...

Weird things, beautiful things, amazing things, horrifying things...

are displayed in collector's cabinets for our collective awed gaze.

Dan's museum is similar in many ways. Old things, beautiful things....

Mysterious and unnamed things...

The only thing this museum needs is perhaps a bit more frequent dusting?

But that dust could have been Mt. St. Helen's ash, rather than dust, per se.

Because Dan's got some of that stuff too! So he's probably right to leave it all alone.

There were surprises around every corner at Dan's place. Antique cars, anyone?

An unbelievable flying machine?

A thriving watch repair business?

It's all there, and lots more.

And what else? Wait for it...

a DeLorean!

Back to the Future, anyone?

The reason Aphrodite's laughing so hard is that the sound track from Back to the Future is playing from inside the car. Because it's got to be a complete and total sensory experience at Dan's Homestyle Museum!

I've known Dan for about 30 years now, and he's always been full of surprises. The first surprise was that he actually hired me for one of my first real jobs, a decision he apparently didn't regret. I must have made him laugh often enough to make it worthwhile. You can't tell from any of my pictures, but he has the twinkliest Irish eyes you'll ever be lucky enough to see.

It's nice to know I still have a friend in Oregon.

Whilst I traveled, by plashy brink of weedy lake...

2009-07-01T08:39:00.011-05:00

Hey, Sis! Over here!

"Whilst, whilst, whilst, whilst, whilst!"

There. Got it out of my system.

My little sister has just taken me to task for my poser-y use of various British-isms, including using the word "whilst", spelling words like "specialise" with an "s" instead of a "z", adding a boatload of "u"s to words like "colour" and "glamour", and generally being a prattish put-on.

"After all," she said, "you did speak American English for 44 years. It shouldn't be that hard to switch back."

I lied and told her the spell check on my word processor was still set to British and was going to stay that way until I finished my dissertation, but who am I kidding?

She's right, even if she only has one kidney. Not that there's anything wrong with being one organ short of a full set. We can't all be perfect, can we? (And that's the Queen's Royal "we", in case you're wondering.)

So I'm just gonna click reset on the ol' computer, and I'm going back to Americanisms, for real and for ever. Until I change my mind again.

*****

A few weeks ago I was feeling sad that, since leaving Johannesburg, I'd never seen another jacaranda tree. I believed, mistakenly, that jacarandas only live in Gauteng province, and mostly in Pretoria, for that matter.

It would be pretty nice if only the great stuff about South Africa stuck in my mind... but unfortunately, although there are images like this:

F1000006 jacaranda, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

there are a lot more images like this:

F1000008 fence, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

So, Southern California, where have you been all my life?

IMG_7443, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Jacarandas are everywhere, and they're just as beautiful in the northern hemisphere as in the southern. Perhaps more beautiful, because you can enjoy them without palisade fences or razorwire cluttering up your view.

IMG_7600, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

So much for unnecessary nostalgia, then.

Anyhoo, the trip to So Cal was all about this one:

IMG_7570, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and her All Singing, All Dancing, Explosive and Totally Amazing Show,
Aphrodite: The Extravaganza.

We ~~had front-row seats~~ arrived just in time and barely found a spot to alight, due to a multitude of problems involving the application of sunscreen. Whatevs.

IMG_7581, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

There she is! The blonde.

In addition to three years of university tuition and loads of airline flights, we also paid for that double lei draped around her neck. Thirty bucks. But how often do you graduate from UCSB? Right, once. We hope.

Anylei, the $30 was totally worth it, because it enabled her to say, for at least three days following, "I just got leied the other day. Har har har. Get it? Get it? Do ya? Do ya get it?"

IMG_7592, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

For this, we paid out-of-state Cali tuition? *sigh*

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Procrastination AND insomnia

2009-06-30T00:08:00.011-05:00

Ah well. Can't sleep.
More about my West Coast road trip, shall we?

Here's one of my marvelous friends.

I visited Francey whilst in LA.

She lives in a beautiful and weird little house in Glendale.
It's entirely unique.

We've known each other for about 15 years,
and people often confuse one of us with the other...
or they did when we lived in the same town.

Oddly, we've "lived in the same town" on two different continents,
so there've been many opportunities for mistaken identity.
Fortunately, we both live such upright, moral lives
that no incriminating or sordid details were spilled.

You know me: Mrs. Buttoned-Up.

After Francey took me to the Getty,
we zipped over to the Norton Simon Museum.
Of course, you can't take photos inside the galleries,
but once again, the gardens were marvelous.

Look how cleverly the sculptures have been placed
to echo the landscaping.

Or perhaps it's the other way around.

Do you suppose they put in the trees to match the sculptures?

Obviously, what I know about growing trees
you could put on the head of a pin, so...

Apparently someone isn't a big fan of Barbara Hepworth.

Can you tell?

In addition to being a stellar human being,
Francey's also a talented painter.

Here's a painting Francey did of me a few years ago.

Count your lucky stars,
I've spared you the other, a nude.
Because I don't have liability insurance covering accidental blindness for my readers.

Besides, then I'd have to call myself Mrs. Unbuttoned,
and we can't have that.
This is a family blog, folks.

To end on a serene note,
here is Francey's painting of the park at Virginia Water
where she and I used to go walking.

Lovely, isn't it?
Gosh, sometimes I really miss England.

You can see more of Francey's artwork here.

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Procrastination R Us

2009-06-27T14:58:00.006-05:00

Well, I thought about working on my Museum Studies Master's dissertation today, but then that urge was overtaken, around noon, by the much stronger urge to nap. Now it's almost three in the afternoon, so it's probably time to knock off, work-wise, and that leaves just a bit of time to blog before supper. We don't really do the 9 to 5 around here, that's for sure. Well, Mr D does, and more, so I try to help out by keeping the household really balanced, and doing practically nothing. It all evens out I think.

So up top, there's a picture of me, doing my version of Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, but without lying down in a scratchy, scratchy field of grass, or showing you how big my butt looks in jeans these days, or even how quick the security guards at The Getty Museum move when it looks like a middle-aged lady is going to lie down in their very posh ornamental reeds. None of that, please, so we've just gone with the kind of pensive profile shot that ought to be on the cover of The Economist or Vanity Fair or something.

Surely my priorities are skewed.

And I think I'd sleep a lot better if I procrastinated less.

Still, it's probably marginally better to do some blogging that's both procrastinatory® and dissertation-related, so herewith I present... The Getty.

Because it's way nicer to gawp at pictures of a stellar museum and its lovely gardens, than it is to wrestle one's way through essays on the post-modern museum, or discussions about the interpretation of objects and materiality. Or papers concerning authenticity and digital reproduzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzz.

See what I mean?

The Getty Museum just as noted for its stunning setting and marvelous building as it is for its collection. That's probably a good thing, since the museum's collection seems to be diminishing year by year, due to various court-mandated repatriations of many of The Getty's illegally obtained objects.

Every view, every vantage point, offers breathtaking vistas.

I loved how, from so many angles,
the near horizon simply dropped off into nothingness.

You'd never guess that one of the world's largest cities sprawls below,
because Los Angeles is only rarely visible.

Many views have a surreal quality, like a Magritte painting.

Clouds, air, space: framed.

The inside of the building feels light and airy,
and the structural elements appear weightless, floating.

So much of the building is about texture and contrasts,
and though the building is entirely white or grayish,
the play of light on the varied surfaces creates subtle, satisfying differences in tone.

And though I'm not much of a gardener,
I found the flowers utterly captivating.

Especially the truly wacky ones. Calling Dr. Seuss!

And this one made me think of the episode of Star Trek,
where Captain Kirk is cured by the Mahko root.

And no, I'm not a Trekkie.
You can thank Wikipedia for that little tidbit.

I was much more of a Man from U.N.C.L.E. girl.
Ilya Kuryakin? Mmmmm.

A Virtuous Woman

2009-06-23T22:05:00.004-05:00

Well, I feel like an especially wonderful example of womankind these days.

Not only have I sworn off my nasty voodoo-doll habit as of yesterday (now that I've offed my arch-nemesis), but I've apparently gone off stealing as well. Who'd a thunk it?

Check out what I passed up in the hallway of the Marriott Courtyard, Ventura.

You guessed it, a cartload of Gideon Bibles!

IMG_7613, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

You long-time readers know about my penchant for lifting The Good Book. And here there were three (3/trzy/drie/trois/drei/три) Bibles on the maid's cart!

How did I let them all get away?

Was it:

Goodness?

A righteous spirit?

A moment of absentmindedness?

Hardly.

No, my friends, they were all in English, and I'm afraid I'm full up on English language Bibles these days. Had they been in Zulu or Korean or Portuguese or Latin, there'd be no doubt that my returning checked baggage would have been at least 12 ounces heavier, plus or minus a gramme or two.

As it is, I can't be bothered with Bibles in my native tongue. I crave the eccentric, the unusual, the odd. Mr D is planning a trip to Sweden in the fall, so perhaps I'll prevail upon him. Although he's mighty forgetful, and he also hates the idea of having to ship more books when we next move house, so I'm probably out of luck there.

I tried to get Rob, my friend in Moscow, to steal me a Russian Bible, but his upright Episcopal schoolboy upbringing got the better of him, and he couldn't bring himself to do it. I imagined him sitting there alone in the hotel room, opening the drawer, and shutting it. Opening it. Shutting it. Opening. No, shutting. Shutting it. Keeping it shut. At least he was thinking of me, just a little... even if only in a kind of Bible-stealing way. I'll take whatever I can get, attention-wise.

Or perhaps he was worried that the KGB would track him down at a later date? Whatever. Clearly, it's all down to me, this Bible stealing business, at the end of the day.

And come to think of it, I haven't hit up Miss T for a Scottish Bible either. What do they speak there? Besides Dour?

No, silly, it's Gaelic. Possibly a Gaelic Bible might be even more of a downer than the usual. And drat it all, I didn't even think of nicking a Welsh Bible whilst at the Hay-on-Wye Book Festival.

Obviously I need to hone my criminal skills. Opportunity lost, but there you go.

.

Voodoo works, apparently!

2009-06-23T08:02:00.006-05:00

Toothpick voodoo, originally uploaded by Juha-Matti.

Oopsie daisy!

Looks like we got a little carried away over here.

Remember how expateek and Mr D were prematurely ejected from Poland? How, right before Christmas, they had to hear that they were being summarily rejected by The Company's European division? How they had to return to the USA, ~~tails between legs and shame-faced~~ gloriously welcomed home by the American division of the same company? And how, in the dead of winter of Warsaw they had to pack up all their belongings and how expateek cried bitter tears over it all?

And she's still sweeping up the litter from all the ticker-tape parades she's been to, here in the USA, celebrating their repatriation.

Brushing the confetti out of her gorgeous brunette locks.

Pulling at her earlobes a little, trying to adjust her tympani after hearing all the gleeful shrieks of "OMG! You're back! OMG!"

Even Mr D's been a bit verklempt over all the love and attention he's received from his American colleagues. Who knew how much he was appreciated? (Well, expateek did, of course, but very gratifying to have it confirmed that she's not the only one.)

Anyhoo, you may also remember that expateek spent a few dark and wicked hours (more than a few, in truth) wishing the most unfortunate ills upon le French boss of ze bad news, the ~~cretin~~ executive who visited all of this joy upon us.

Using expateek's best virtual skillz, he was, over the course of several months,

eaten by bears,

pecked to death by birds,

IMG_5791 clownboils, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

visited with boils,

crushed in an industrial machinery accident,

5791clownhail4, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

frozen to death in a hailstorm,

attacked by sharks,

poisoned,

mauled by a lion,

drowned by crocodiles on the Zambezi river,

and stamped upon by expateek's foot.

Not that she harbours grudges or anything. She's as willing as the next person to let bygones be bygones.

She'd pretty much let go of all her anger and resentment, especially after her buddy Don reminded her not to be such a hater.

So you can imagine how expateek felt yesterday evening when Mr D arrived home from work and casually mentioned that le French boss of ze bad news had been demoted.

Oooooah. Quel... umm. C'est... uhhh.

expateek was at a loss for words.

Mr D smiled his cat eating the canary smile at expateek, and without much comment, he quietly opened a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

Not celebrating, of course. Because that would be wrong.

No, just the usual peaceful evening at home, in America.

MORAL: Don't cross expateek, because apparently in the voodoo department she's more powerful than she looks. In spite of not knowing what she's doing. At all.

.

Mysterious foreigner at O'Hare

2009-06-21T14:40:00.003-05:00

We made it back from our trip up the entire west coast, only to find this sign posted adjacent to the taxi stand at O'Hare Terminal 3 Arrivals. It seemed quite sinister at half-past-midnight.

IMG_8066 siamese connection, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

What the hell could it possibly mean?

And then I realised that indeed, perhaps I am the Siamese connection.

Because look. New hat, purchased in California. Worn on the flight from Seattle to Chicago.

IMG_8084 hat1, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Probably entirely not politically correct, but hey, that's me. Always looking for new ways, both hi-tech and low-tech, to embarrass my children. Really, it's just soooo easy.

That's strange. Nothing's showing up.

IMG_8067 no shadow hat, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Hang on a moment, bear with me...

Aha. If I turn off the flash.... now that makes the photo of my shadow much more effective.

And voilà, Bob's yer uncle.

There's your mysterious Siamese tourist. Now you see her, now you don't! Or the other way round. Or something. Ach, forget it.

IMG_8068 shadow hat, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

The only question left: shall I wear the hat to the Henley Regatta next year?

Or to Ladies Day at Ascot?

.

On the Road Again...

2009-06-16T10:57:00.003-05:00

Well, not much news from me lately... I left the laptop at home for two weeks and after the first couple of days of painful withdrawal, I've almost adjusted. Almost. I check the Blackberry only 50 times a day, but that's about it.

We're making our way up the West Coast -- first to Los Angeles, to see my artist friend Francey for a few days, and to take in the Getty, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Gamble House. Then to Santa Barbara, where we were bit players in Aphrodite: The Extravaganza, as she graduated from UCSB on Sunday.

Now we're in Oregon, to visit family, and then it'll be up to Seattle, to see Peregrine, our eldest. Nothing like a nice relaxing 6,000 mile round trip!

Should be back to blogging at the weekend, when I've recovered from jet lag. At least it's only 2 hours difference, rather than 9.

Me and my popular friend!!!

2009-06-09T08:04:00.005-05:00

Look what happens when you make friends with the most popular girl at school! And then she does a make-over for you over at her house, so the next day you show up all beautiful and different looking in homeroom! Wowza! Thanks, Vic!

And just disregard that I have, apparently, 735 emails in my inbox. I don't really, I just photoshopped that number in to try to make myself look super popular, like Vic. It worked, didn't it? ~~You were fooled~~ You believe me, right?

Because I haven't racked up enough airmiles this month, I'm off to California today to ~~find Vic and abduct her~~ attend Aphrodite's graduation at UCSB. Should be fun, but I'll be away from the computer for a bit. That'll be me, trying to figure out how to mobile blog during the ceremony. Because there are never enough ways to be an inattentive mother, and I like to be at the cutting edge of neglectful technological solutions.

Ta ta for now, friendies!

How cool is that?

2009-06-06T07:27:00.003-05:00

Wow!

I was reading Vic, at What Were You Thinking? the other day, and she mentioned that she'd designed a blog header for That Blue Yak's blog header contest. I loved her design, and wrote and asked if she'd do one for me.

Incredibly, she put together my new very cool header in about four minutes flat, and even gave me instructions on how to install it. Because even though I did COBOL and Assembler programming on IBM 370 mainframes for six years during the 1980's, I'm stupid like that and need to be walked through the simplest of procedures.

Anyway, her instructions worked (ta da!) which is more than I can say for a lot of the instructions in the IBM 370 programming manuals I used to use, so I'm super impressed.

Here's her explanation behind the design.

... I chose a folk art giraffe because he's not so serious, but a little South Africa. Also a lamp post from Britain, a ruined Polish castle, and a warning sign for travelers.

Perfect! What I love the best is how the giraffe looks kind of crabby and like a total insomniac.

Could anything be more appropriate? No, my friends, no.

But now I'm worried that maybe she's been sitting outside my house, watching my lights turn on and off all over the house from 2 to 5am every night. Stop it, Vic! I know you're out there! I'm drawing the blinds now, for sure. Every. single. night.

Anyway, I told her I'd send her one of my four children as a form of payment, or goodwill, or what have you. Because it's always nice when someone else can ~~feed and look after~~ enjoy your kids. Don't you think?

But I just know she's gonna ask me, What were you thinking?

Go over and check out her blog. She's the funniest thing on the interwebz. Go on! Go!

_

_

My Name is Sybil

2009-06-04T07:47:00.003-05:00

Not really, but boy, is this weird. Yesterday and today, I've started writing various posts in my head, and I get going and then it's all, NO! We're not using expateek today! We're speaking in our own real voice.

And then I get kind of confused, because who the hell is "we"? Is this multiple personality week? Myself, expateek, and some other crowd of people in there? Like Mrs. Staines-British-Accent? Madame Speaks-English-Like-Zees? Channeling Sally Field here, but without the bad eyeglasses, please.

Sybil_DVD, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Uhhh. It's making me confused, which I suppose is a big part of the problem with multiple personality disorder. Of course, it could work to Mr D's advantage. Madame D cooks dinner, but then expateek has to clear the table, and Mrs. Staines washes up. Too bad he's never thought of exploiting this before, because he certainly hasn't gotten a lick of housework out of any of us for years! I was just going to complain to him that he shrank another one of my tennis tops when he did the laundry, but now he'll probably just tell me that he's gotten Mrs. Staines to take over, because you know how those Brits love to iron.

Hopefully, there's also a sporty Afrikaner girl in there with a rippin' open-stance forehand, and a thin and beautiful Polish girl who can teach me how to be thin and elegant, so I can fit back into my skinny jeans. I'm not gonna bet on this, but I'm pretty sure Agnieszka doesn't eat as many pierogis as expateek does.

I'm going to go take a roll-call of all the people in my head, and get back to ya.

First person personal

2009-06-02T05:46:00.002-05:00

Well, today I got a great email from a perfect stranger and a new friend, LC who hails from a place in Belgium that's too small to name. (And if you're wondering where in heck that might be, all I can say is, take out your map of Belgium and your magnifying glass, my friend, and get cracking.)

LC wrote a lovely letter, commiserating on my difficulties in South Africa, and telling me she enjoyed my writing,

I am a South African (please don't let that stop you reading) living in Belgium. I came across your blog a few weeks ago and was transfixed and horrified by your experiences in SA. You made me laugh and cry - the memories, the accents, the funny sayings and your wonderful style of writing. I read all about the SA and Poland experiences and often wondered about the time in between. The gaps made me ache for you and made me so sad for my beautiful country. I left many years ago to go to London where I married a Brit but my heart keeps straying back.

I lived in Natal (in the foothills of the Drakensberg), we holidayed in wild places on the coast and my sister lived in Cape Town where I also spent part of my holidays. I do so hope you went to some of those places as they are so utterly beautiful. I know you went on safaris and to Namibia which I am glad about (although I have done neither!).

I never lived in Jo'burg either and have no desire to. I know there is horrific crime throughout the country and am not sure I would like to live there again, even though I still have family there. By the way, a relative of mine was married to Alan Paton who wrote "Cry, the Beloved Country" - oh how sad he would be to see it now, albeit with roles reversed.

And then she said this:

I notice you still retain "expateek" and refer to yourself in the third person, which I think I remember you saying was a way of detaching yourself from the "you" of JHB and which was so understandable. I hope you don't mind me asking why you haven't reverted to the first person and that I much preferred your way of writing back then. Felt closer to you then, but perhaps that is the reasoning behind the idea!

So perceptive, LC!

I wrote back:

What a wonderful letter!

It's not often that people weigh in ... even comments are hard to come by, and so often I wonder if anyone's really reading. Actually, the little widget-counter things let you know about some activity, but it's really hard to tell whether people are reading or just clicking through. I did notice you, tho... in fact was wondering again today who you were, because it seemed like you must have read through the whole blog from beginning to end. I was impressed by your ability to sit still for so long!

I still love South Africa. It is such a beautiful country, and when I really think back on it and remember... the hot dry air in Jozi, the flowering trees all over, all the people walking in the dust, the hawkers, the cool of the patios in the restaurants, the Afrikaans section of the bookstores.... It makes me weirdly homesick for a place I hardly stayed long enough to call home.

I'm still sorry, in some ways, that I spent most of the second year in London, but I was going through a mess of a time and was terrified in Jo'burg after the robbery. My husband and I were also going through a dreadful bit. I just hated him, as I'd not wanted to go to SA in the first place, and the build-up of resentment of move after move after move had poisoned my point of view.

He also traveled a lot while in SA, and worked impossible hours, so I was on my own a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot. It meant locking myself in, evenings, behind the trellie doors to the bedroom, waiting to hear the gnnrrr of the outside gates and the bip bip bip of the alarm deactivation, which meant that he was home, and that there were now two of us to listen for housebreakers. Lovely.

I had some very nice friends in Jozi, and something of a social life, but mostly I just wanted to be back in London (the prior posting) with my old friends there, living my life as it had been before SA.

Also, having live in help (Oscar and Towela) drove me insane. I like being by myself, rather a lot, having quiet time to read or write... after 25+ years of non-stop childrearing I feel I deserve some down-time. But I'm terrible with boundaries, and I felt like I'd gotten my kids out of the house, finally, and then had adopted two more needy and somewhat child-like dependents.

Forgive me if that sounds horrible, but I just didn't know how to set limits, and suffered from my stupidity as a result. I think Saffers are a lot better at managing that relationship stuff with maids/household help, having done it their whole lives. For me, it was an irritating mystery, and I found myself driving Oscar around, like downtown to the Home Office by Jeppe St, where it's super easy to get hijacked or shot, for example, and wondering what in the hell I was doing.

The truly weird thing was, that once I was back in London (ostensibly to be closer to my daughters) I was working full time and sort of "single-ish" -- i.e., neither exactly "married" nor "unmarried" in other people's eyes, so no one knew what to make of me. "Is she getting divorced? Is she after my husband? What's she doing? Well, there's just one of her, so I won't have her to dinner, it'll make the table uneven.... and besides, she works most evenings anyway." So I ended up slaving away in a dismal rainy country with a very different life than I'd had a year and a half previously. It was pretty odd. I somewhat enjoyed my work (teaching Pilates, which I'd started training to do in Jozi) but worked for someone who wasn't very ethical or intelligent, so that took some of the fun away too.

I finally realised, when my husband invited me to go with him on a trip he was going on to Thailand, from SA, in May 2007, that I was going to be missing out on the times-to-come that we had both worked so hard for. As if, just when things might perhaps get easier and more fun (more travel, more time to enjoy each other again without kids to worry about so much), that I was about to throw it all away in a fit of stubborn, hysterical, post-traumatic pique.

So I went with him to Thailand and had a lovely time, then went to visit him in Poland once he moved there (early August). I spent the whole visit, practically, in bed. (Not like that!) No, just utterly and completely exhausted and could hardly lift my head for a cup of tea. I lay in bed, listening to Chopin and looking out the second story window at the willow branches swaying gently outside, and thought... "what in the feck have I done with my life?" By the end of the weekend, I'd decided to join him in Poland, and went back to London to tie up loose ends and give notice on my flat. What a relief!

Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of time to write that year in London, and honestly, I was SO depressed, it would have just been a misery to read. I wept buckets. Honestly, could never wear any eye makeup because my eyes were teary and red most of the time. My life felt like such a disaster and I just couldn't figure out what to do. When my head finally cleared, in August, in Poland, I could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Guess that's what PTSD or whatever you call it will do to you.

I literally felt like an entirely other person for about a year and a half.

It's really interesting that you mention the 1st person/3rd person thing. I've really been struggling with this. I wonder if it's related to that "not myself" kind of feeling as well. Sometimes I find the construct cloying and irritating... I think I "caught it" from IAMBOSSY and Derfwad Manor (Mrs. G) and have thought often about how to give it up. I think it's kind of a self-protective mechanism, a way of being funny without revealing too much of myself. But it does keep people at a distance as well.

To be honest, you've hit the nail on the head, and I'm actually sick of writing that way. It also doesn't really fit somehow with being back in America (besides the whole expat/expateek business which obviously doesn't exactly apply any more). Perhaps part of it too is the whole unresolved anger at the way we were treated by the French corporation, and giving myself permission to virtually torture "management" with no internet trail....

Thank you for saying you liked the old style better. I have wondered about this, and it's so interesting to get outside input. Any suggestions about how to effect the change (back to my real self?)...

And, ~~readers~~ Reader? Any thoughts?

I'm feeling very naked here, in my first person persona.

Don't leave me standing here all alone...

_

Me and Camus at Yale

2009-06-01T06:17:00.000-05:00

You've heard of Camus, haven't you? Oh puleeeze. The French man of letters? The grumpy existentialist who didn't want his work to be labeled existentialist? Of course you have.

To tie in with the 1st of June, which is officially part of Plagues Week according to expateek, you get to hear a little story from expateek's formative years involving The Plague, by Camus. Then, if there's time, we'll unleash another plague on ~~some unsuspecting victim~~ the French boss of the bad news.

Many many years ago, expateek was going on a tour of universities with her father, in the hopes of choosing where she would spend the next four years of her life. She visited Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr. She dropped by Princeton, Mount Holyoke, and Smith. She saw Brown, Wellesley, and Harvard. And she visited Yale.

She applied to several of those universities, but she most definitely DID NOT apply to Yale, because after she saw the type of students at Yale? Not so interested.

expateek had the obligatory interview with Admissions, while Dad was off colluding with the Yale economics faculty about labor economics or some such esoterica. She finished up her interview, and then decided to go outside to the lovely park in front of the main buildings, so she could read her book, La Peste, by Camus.

Surely, she thought, a lovely girl sitting on a park bench in New Haven, reading a book in the original French, would be ever so captivating. Perhaps some handsome Yalie might even stop and exchange a witticism or two about the banalities of life, or the existential sorrows of university, or..? The possibilities were endless. expateek sat and read about bubonic plague and les bubons in the park. Because she knew how attractive pestilence and pustules could be.

Then, from afar, she heard the clack, clack, clack of someone walking in platform shoes. (Yes, it was the 70's, since you ask.) The clacking slowly came nearer. It was an odd, three beat clacking, though. Two footfalls, and then a third metallic tap.

expateek's curiosity got the better of her. She looked up.

Approaching her from across the park was a tall black man, dressed entirely in a purple three-piece suit. He wore a purple cowboy hat with a huge purple feather plume stuck in the band, and purple glitter platform shoes. And carried a silver-topped purple walking stick, which provided the interesting third tap.

expateek quickly cast her eyes back down to her book.

The tapping and clacking came closer and closer. And closer.

And then suddenly, Mr Purple had joined her on the park bench.

Whatchoo readin', beautiful?

expateek didn't answer. She suddenly couldn't speak. Jumping Jehosephat, what the hell was she supposed to do here? She was too ~~polite~~ terrified to tell the dude to get lost, so she decided on the spur of the moment to pretend she was deaf. Or mute. Or something. She tried to keep reading.

I say, girl. Whatchoo readin'?

Mr. Purple continued, perhaps sensing that expateek had been rendered speechless by his amazing pimp-style splendour.

That book in another language? You read French, girl? Thas' so sexy, baby.

Oh sh*te. Suddenly "sexy" was the last thing expateek wanted to be.

Um. I'm just waiting for my dad. He'll be here in a minute, expateek said in a tiny mouse-like peep.

Yo' daddy? Why, baby, I be yo' daddy. You know, ah gotta whole stable o' beautiful girls jes' like you. Why donchoo come strollin' with me, back across the park, and come see mah house. It's beautiful, baby, jes like you.

OMG! It's the invitation to come to his house and join his business! As a ho'! ~~How awesome is that?~~ What in God's name was expateek supposed to do now?

expateek gulped, closed her book (carefully folding down the page corner so she wouldn't forget where she was) and said in a ~~firm~~ trembling voice, I think I hear my dad calling me. I have to go. Cuz that used to work on the playground ten years before and it sounded kind of plausible and not rude.

She stood up and started walking toward the Admissions building.

Don't be like that, baby! You can have yo' own room, even, at mah house! Jes' come on with me and have a look.

expateek heard the *clack clack tap* of Mr Purple following her. She walked faster.

Come on, girl. It'll be fiiiiine. The *clack clack tap* was keeping pace behind her.

expateek walked faster still. The *clack clack tap* sped up.

Suddenly, expateek made the biggest decision of her young life.

We'll see if The Dude can run in his flippin' platforms.

Short answer? He couldn't. Or wouldn't. And expateek tore pell-mell, all the way back to the Yale admissions building, arriving with heart pounding, and breathless with terror.

And that's how expateek made the decision to avoid a life of vice, and also a life at Yale, and she went to Wellesley instead.

But meanwhile, it's Plagues Week! And the plague of the day is.... HAIL!

Ah, look. Our favorite friend is walking, once again, on the streets of Rueil-Malmaison, just outside Paris. A lovely day, and yet...

What is this? A cloud passes overhead. Are these the blossoms from one of the flowering trees lining the boulevards of Paris? But no, eet ees a bit cold. Non, it cannot be hail. Non! But it is! Hein! How ees zees possible?

Let us try to capture this rare meteorological phenomenon on film!

Look...

5791clownhail1, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

5791clownhail2, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

5791clownhail3, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

5791clownhail4, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

expateek knows what you're thinking to yourselves. Shouldn't she have intervened, when she realised that le boss was going to be buried in piles of hail, dying a cold and painful death on that lovely French pavement?

Sorry, but that question only reveals your ignorance, people. Professional reporters simply report the facts, documenting the news as it happens. They cannot insert themselves into events they are covering. It's simply not done in journalism. Unfortunately, some lives will be lost, but ... how do you say it in French? C'est la vie.

_

Memories of Plagues Past

2009-05-30T03:33:00.001-05:00

One Easter Sunday, ages and ages and ages ago, expateek and her family were in the midst of moving from North Carolina to Illinois. That would have been household move number, oh, say 5 or 6 or 7, expateek forgets.

They'd packed up all their worldly goods (jeez, again with the flippin' worldly goods!) and had holed up in a hotel in Nashville, where Mr D had thoughtfully staged the traditional Easter egg hunt in their Marriott hotel suite. On Easter morning, the four children, aged 10, 7, 5, and 3, gamely filled tiny plastic bags with chocolate mini-eggs. After a pancake breakfast, Mr D and expateek loaded themselves, kids, and cats into the minivan, and drove off toward Chicago.

They reached the promised land hours and hours later, after many pee breaks, unhappy kitty serenades, and endless sugar-fueled bickering from the back seat.

Arriving mid-afternoon at the scrungy hotel in Glen Ellyn (The Four Seasons, which sounded good on paper, but was in fact the most run-down excuse for a hotel ever seen), Mr D, always the strategic parent, turned on the hotel room's TV in order to mesmerise the children and have a few moments of peace. Then Mr D and expateek toted suitcases, and boxes of important documents, and cats and litter boxes and car games and snack bags and a sh*te load of other crap into the hotel room.

Completely bushed, expateek collapsed in a lump onto the edge of the bed, and stared brainlessly at the black and white movie playing on the screen. Seven-year-old Tarquin Jr sat beside her, totally transfixed.

R2_2_010223 10 commandments, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

"What's happening now?" expateek asked Tarquin Jr.

"Shhhh, Mom! Shhhh! That was just the plague of blood."

"The plague of blood?" expateek repeated.

"Shhhh, Mom! Shhhh! Next up is the rain of frogs! Shhhh!"

"The rain of frogs? How do you know? Have you seen this movie before, Tarquin Jr?"

"Naw, but sheesh, Mom, haven't you read the Bible?"

Mr D, choking with laughter, said "So much for your Sunday School teaching career, expateek! You must have skipped the religious ed requirement at Wellesley. Duh!!!"

post3460 red sea, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Check out Cecil B DeMille's The Ten Commandments next Easter, if you want a refresher course.

Or keep reading right here, because damn if we don't have another plague coming right up!

Poor, poor le French boss of the bad news! It is just after lunch, Paris time, and after downing a lovely bistro lunch, le boss feels a little bit feverish. Bad saucissons? Or something more worrisome? He's been plagued by various aches and pains lately, a little bit of la crise de foie, perhaps?

He feels a strange swelling on his lower lip. Non! Not a cold sore, not on the afternoon of the monthly project status meeting. He has so many important things to say today, so many persons to impress and to humiliate, and it will look so, hein, disgusting really, if he suffers a break-out at this moment.

He heads to the lavatory and looks in the mirror.

Sacre Bleu! My God! What eez eet?

IMG_5791 clownboils, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Yes, he's been struck by the Plague of Boils*.

IMG_7313 boils puppet, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Quel horreur! La hônte! Oh, ze shame of eet!

* Thanks go once again to Steamy, without whom this pestilence would not be possible.

_

Play Therapy: The Plague

2009-05-29T08:27:00.004-05:00

Well, and just when expateek thought she'd about run out of wicked things to say about le French boss of the bad news!

Just when she thought she'd turned into JC, with all that turning of the other cheek business!

Or into Gandhi, with his peaceful, non-violent approach to strife!

Or into the Buddha, (not saying anything about the Buddha's weight problem, which expateek seems to share at the moment), but rather about the Buddha's letting go of anger stuff.

Just when y'all thought that expateek was just about right in the head, guess what came in the mail the other day? Go on, guess! Ha, time's up, slow-poke.

Yes, in the mail was the fabulouso fantastico prize from Steamy! And little did Steamy know that she was inadvertently feeding expateek's sick addiction to violent role-playing games.

So, yes, ~~readers~~ reader, look what expateek won. Isn't it AMAZING?

IMG_7305 plagues, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

These will be just perfect for enacting play-revenge on le French boss of the bad news, who thoughtlessly and cruelly forced expateek to once again up sticks and move countries, from Poland to the US. Damn and blast him!

So let's try out one of the 10 plagues on le boss. Here he is, all healthy and happy, strolling down a verdant boulevard in Rueil-Malmaison, just outside of Paris. Ah, les fleurs! Les oiseaux! [Ze flowers! Ze birds!] His life is so relaxed, so lovely, as he mulls over what kinds of fresh and unreasonable demands he can make upon his minions.

But attends! Look! What is this?

IMG_7308 blood, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Why, it is one of the Biblical plagues, right here on this lovely French side-street. And it is... the Plague of Blood!

Argh! Pffft! Guh! Mon Dieu!

IMG_5791bloodboss, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

My God, I am stricken! Ze plague! I die!

Ooooh. That was effective, though a bit too quick and efficient for expateek's tastes. She wonders which of the plagues offers a slower and more painful death. Lice sounds nice and itchy. Perhaps she'll try that one next.

Meanwhile, ta ta for now. expateek has some important things to do.

_

Why? Why?

2009-05-26T09:45:00.003-05:00

Of course, expateek did promise those incriminating photos today.

Never one to disappoint, she's ~~happy~~ embarrassed to show you what she forgot to toss seven years ago. Because she was ~~very very busy~~ totally lazy that long-ago summer, many many useless items were wrongly packed and stored somewhere in the greater Chicago area for almost a decade (expateek likes to round up, for effect).

Here are things that should have been spending the same seven years in a landfill somewhere.

First. Cords.

IMG_7300 cords, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Actually, these are useful, and will save expateek a lot of grief when she finally gets all her euro electrical plugs sorted out.

Maybe. If she can figure out to what these cords should attach.

Next up? Mysterious notes written by 9th graders.

IMG_7285 park note, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Huh?

Firstly: dreadful grammar. D+ for grammar.

And a Mexican park? What child in this family has been to Mexico? No one.

A- for imagination, perhaps.

Next, expateek has ... vintage calendar refrigerator magnets!

IMG_7291 old calendar magnets, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Once again, you know you're sick with envy, but expateek is, sadly, unwilling to share these treasures. Probably because Mr D's already thrown them out while she wasn't looking.

And then it's on to the consumables. Of course expateek stored some food! Of course! Why not? You know those expiry dates are meaningless. Come on, be brave and come over to expateek's tomorrow night for a snack of...

IMG_7201 goldfish and cheerios, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

seven-year-old Pepperidge Farm goldfish! And Cheerios! Yummmmmmmy. She's serving them up in a bin-liner. (The bin liner is clean, by the way. Manufactured in 2009, so it's totally sanitary.)

They look completely normal, don't they? Come on, just one bite. expateek wants to see what happens.

Oh fine, be that way.

If you like, expateek could whip up some toast. She's got some jelly here somewhere. Ah, yes, here it is.

IMG_7297 mint jelly, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

What kind of jelly? Why, it's mint, since you ask. Oh yes, all the popular Brits are having mint jelly on toast these days. It's the latest thing in London. Or Bracknell perhaps. Anyway.

The date? Oh gosh, let expateek check.

IMG_7299 closeup jelly label, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Hmmm. expateek thinks jellies and suchlike get better with age, don't you? Kind of like wines, she read it in a magazine somewhere, perhaps.

But speaking of wine, look what Mr D found!

IMG_7280 wine from 2000, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Possibly 10-year-old homemade cherry wine, created in a flurry of creativity by Mr D ages and ages ago. Cellared for now 10 years!

Watch as the wine is decanted and poured.

IMG_7282 wine/cherry, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Hmmm. Looks fine.

Nice and dry. Colour's still good. Clear, pleasant taste.

An, best of all, expateek and Mr D are still alive and kicking the next morning.

Apparently, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or so they say.

_

Hello Ma'am? We got yer 17 tonnes o' stuff

2009-05-24T17:16:00.005-05:00

Oh yes. You knew it was coming, and so did expateek.

She wept quietly in the corner of the rented Schaumburg flat every so often, but there was nothing to be done. She and Mr D were moving back into their long-owned house in the more southerly western suburbs, and so four ~~lorries~~ truckloads full of expateek's worldly goods were doomed to show up on her old homestead's doorstep eventually.

There was the shipping container from Poland/South Africa/England -- all the stuff that expateek had dragged along with her, from continent to continent to continent, for seven ~~long~~ short years abroad. That amounted to two quick truckloads.

And there was the mystery container, full of the things that expateek had deemed worthy of storage for rather a long time. Another two truckloads.

A week ago Monday, the thrills began.

Look, as the moving men come to expateek's street.

They stretch their legs, and have a smoke, as they wait to begin their difficult task. Ever tried to put 17 tonnes of sh** into a 12 oz. sock? Yes, these men know it will not be easy.

After the unloading of the first, Polish shipment, expateek and Mr D rested for a few days, and expateek wondered why she'd been worried. After all, there was still quite a lot of room in the house, and she hadn't stored that much extra stuff... Victory was nigh! Things were all going so well!

And then the second shipment arrived.

Put it there. No, there. Oh, that corner's full? Maybe there. No? Uhhh..... Maybe if you move the extra bookcases from here to there? No? How about there to here? No? Upstairs? No? Basement?

Gosh, sorry guys. This is terrible.

Okay then. The garage. There must be room there?

*sigh*

Gosh.

Meanwhile, expateek is dealing with her inner b**ch as she picks packing stickers off every d*mn thing in the house.

Here.

Here.

Here.

She's surprised she hasn't found one of these blasted things on her a*se.

Oh wait, she has.

No, really, she hasn't.

Totally NOT skin-of-the-a*se. Though clearly, this skin could use a good exfoliating treatment.

Skin of the mid-thigh, people. Don't get all excited. And send me some moisturising creme, pronto.

And tomorrow?

expateek will show you the things that shouldn't have been packed 7 years ago.

Like, really.

_

Fashion Forward

2009-05-23T12:34:00.005-05:00

Gaw, expateek's finally figured it out!

The real reason that le French boss of the bad news decided to return Mr D to the USA from Warsaw!

Not because Polish sales results were fantastic for 2008. Though they were.

Not because everyone in Poland really liked Mr D. Though they did.

Not because the global economy demanded that cost-cutting solutions be initiated. Though it was true.

No, in fact, it's because Mr D threatened the fragile sense of self-worth of le French boss of the bad news.

Because frankly, people, Mr D is too fashion-forward, even for the French, who have been left behind in the dust, shaking their heads in despair.

"Jacques! Marc! Jean-Paul! Why can we not be as formidable as Monsieur D? Why are we but pale, out-of-date shadows of this great man?"

"Ah, Michel, I am afraid, eet ees ze glasses. Once again, he has made fools of us with his early adoption of the latest fashion trends. How could we be so slow, mes amis? Eet is a good thing we have sent him back to ze States. He makes us all look terrible! La hônte! Ze shame! We may nevair recover!

Et voilà. Here is Monsieur D, in all his scintillating glory.

_

Crank it up - with better fatality photos!

2009-05-20T10:01:00.001-05:00

So, expateek is cranky, and what's new?

She hasn't been blogging, but instead she's been wasting her time sending emails to old friends who can't be arsed to reply. At all.

So she'll be back to blogging, as of tomorrow. Even if you guys don't comment (the "whinge of the week", apparently, but don't look to me for complaining, cuz I just don't complain, I'm too nice, doncha know?) at least expateek can see that you've been by. She's got those nice widgets that track your every move. (No, don't turn and look. I've got you on videocam!) (You look cute, don't worry, and there's no pepper in your teeth and your pants are tucked in....)

And she'll clue you up tomorrow as to why she's been so out-of-touch. It's not the turquoise lapping oceanic lure of the BVI, even though that's a nice excuse. No, more like, re-entry into the land that time forgot -- insertion of all items from European cargo ship into smallish home in suburban Chicago....

Meanwhile, something from an Oregonian darling who does write me, off and on...

Breaking news.... Celebrity swine flu fatality.

And we all knew who gave it to him!

_

Girls' Pirate Club

2009-05-08T09:40:00.003-05:00

Well, expateek's back from her seafaring adventures in the British Virgin Islands, and there was nary a pirate to be seen! No one fell overboard, just a few things got dropped into the deep blue sea, and expateek only cracked her head/legs/arms on various parts of the boat (hatch, grill, stays, wheel, doors, chart table) a few times per ~~day~~ hour.

While she was taking it easy,

IMG_7061 bvi hammock, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

and ignoring the internet for a week, things were still happening in the rest of the world, so you can imagine how surprised expateek was to come home to find she'd been a featured blogger on iambossy's Virtual Peek! Check out the link here.

And thanks, Bossy!

_

Bored yet?

2009-04-29T22:17:00.003-05:00

Clearly, the post about BlogHer was a big sleeper... yawn... expateek knows! She got it!

It's late, and she's still packing for her big pirate adventure which begins tomorrow. She gave Mr D the lecture on how to do the banking and what about the utility bills and here's the cord for the yadda yadda and don't forget to iron my bedsheets while I'm gone.

And then suddenly, he was asleep.

Poor thing. He's all broken up that expateek will be gone for a week. Or something. Clearly, expateek's not as fascinating as she thinks she is.

Anyway, expateek will have very limited internet access, because you know you uncivilised the British Virgin Islands are, and so... yeah. Plus there's no DSL/wireless connection on a sailboat at sea, and expateek is already feeling a little bit sea-sick at the thought.

There's just a little bit of flurrying and worrying left before expateek wakes up tomorrow at o'dark thirty. She's got to charge her phone and camera, and then she has to lie awake worrying about things for another four hours, until she gets to "wake up" again.

And what is she worrying about? Oh, in fact, she's so over pirates.

No, now it's swine flu. What if expateek and her BFF's go out to sea for a day or so, and when they come back, everyone is just an oozing puddle of protoplasm on the pavement, and expateek and her girlfriends are the only ones still alive on the planet? Because that would be just expateek's luck. Like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but with a more lovely cast.

Just speculating. Could be a problem. expateek thinks that pirates sound like a walk in the park by comparison.

And with that, nite nite. See you in a week's time...

BlogHer 2009 -- Chicago //Update

2009-04-28T18:02:00.005-05:00

Hey y'all! I've just gone mad and submitted a proposal to host a panel on expat blogging. I'm trying to tempt the lovely Belgian Waffle to come over stateside to assist. Come vote for us so that we can regale you with tales of Belgian tortoises and Polish pick-up lines!

You'll need to sign-in and create a userid to vote, here. (This is FREE, and only takes a moment. And you don't necessarily need to be attending, in order to vote.)

Then go here to vote. You can choose either I would attend this session or I would be interested in presenting on this topic. Or you can choose both! Vote! Please! We would love to have the opportunity to obsess about what to say for the next four months.

Also, if you'd be interested in speaking, please do give us a shout.

Update: New speaker/participant on board -- ExpatMum (published author and expat expert!)

-

Ben Bernanke! Call me!

2009-04-28T08:19:00.004-05:00

Why, oh why, don't people call expateek and ask for financial advice? Why?

Okay, we all know why, but still.

Here's something Mr D received in the mail two days ago.

IMG_6893 pontiac letter, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Note the date. April 17, 2009.

Also, note that expateek and Mr D sold that 1989 Pontiac Bonneville seven years ago.

And they've been out of the country ever since.

And they have never lived anywhere near Jackson, CA.

Is it any wonder that Pontiac's gone down the drain if they're sending out service letters using inaccurate data that is, perhaps, TWENTY FLIPPIN' YEARS OLD?

But you do have to admire their persistence.

Strangely, just 10 days after this letter was printed, GM announced that they were pulling the plug on the Pontiac brand. Your taxpayer bailout money at work, folks.

expateek is going to write to Ben Bernanke, send him a copy of the letter, and ask for her tax monies back. So, 42 cents for a stamp, probably 50 cents for the envelope and letterhead paper, and oh, say, $9,503.67 for pain and suffering. After all, expateek's back in America.

So maybe she should sue?

_

Brazilian expedition

2009-04-27T09:21:00.011-05:00

Any of expateek's children reading this, please go straight to ~~paragraph 5~~ paragraph 6. In fact, mommy's got some great microwaved popcorn for you out in the kitchen, so why don't you run along there and you can come back ~~later~~ tomorrow, when the grown-ups are done talking?

Well, expateek spent all day yesterday ~~doing on-line research for her Museum Studies dissertation, what with it being due only 133 days from now~~ procrastinating by reading other people's blogs and laughing herself silly. And she noticed that she hasn't been doing enough over-sharing lately, compared to many of her ~~much younger~~ [damn you all!] blogging colleagues. It's way too late to talk about beating her children with the spanky spoon, and also much too late to take tiresome weekly photos of her pregnant belly. Which would have amounted to a massive 160 weeks of belly photos over a period of 6 years, and who the hell needs that? [Actually, 162.5, because Peregrine/Kid 1 was 2.5 weeks late, and completely threw off the office Baby Birthday Pool, so expateek got to keep all the pool money! Just compensation for pain and suffering, she maintains.]

So, really, expateek only has one thing to talk about today that could possibly be considered over-sharing, and that would be her little expedition to the local spa for a dreaded Brazilian, in preparation for the pirate encounters she may or may not be having later this week. And it was painfully pleasant, in the way that going to the dentist is painfully pleasant, and did expateek tell you she loved her Polish dentist too?

Well, Julianna the waxist did an excellent job of hacking her way through expateek's vajungle, so that by the time she was done, things had gone from this...

Jungle, originally uploaded by gg smith.

to this...

Topiary, originally uploaded by Taz etc..

Or perhaps this....

Burned jungle, originally uploaded by Jami Dwyer.

Which got expateek all happy and excited because she knew that Mr D would be so interested in expateek's mad writing skillz! Most especially in how she could start out a post about Brazilian waxing, and finish off with a tirade against global warming and Amazonian deforestation.

Interestingly enough, though, once expateek got home, the last thing Mr D wanted to talk about was the electrical business and global warming. Can you beat that? You try to come up with a talking point, you act all interested in their jobs and everything, and then they go completely off in a different direction.

Sometimes men are just so unpredictable.

_

Pass the ethnic water, please

2009-04-24T10:05:00.005-05:00

Yes, yes, pass the ethnic water, would you please?

The ethnic water.

What's wrong with you, you never heard of ethnic water? Why, expateek is shocked! Where have you been, under a rock?

It's in the aisle with the regular water and the Polish candy. You know, here:

IMG_6864 ethnic water, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Two aisles over from the Bulgarian food and the Polish food.

IMG_6783 bulgarian/polish, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Three aisles from Hispanic.

IMG_6781 hispanic aisle, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

There's more in the Hispanic aisle than spices and candles, believe expateek when she tells you so. But even looking at pictures of refried beans makes Mr D's tummy rumble, so in the interests of global planetary health and reducing gaseous emissions, expateek will spare us all that unnecessary pain.

You're looking for this:

IMG_6766 nalechowianka water, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Yes, ethnic water. Polish water. Shipped straight from Poland. Lovely green bottle, slightly peppery "nose" to it. Light carbonation. Fizzy, a bit. Just like expateek.

And then you can help expateek design a terrific dinner using these very important ingredients that she just had to buy the last time she went grocery shopping. Because life's just not worth living without marmalade and wasabi beans. And South African Mrs. Ball's chutney.

IMG_6777 world food, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

And while you're at it, what in the world is expateek supposed to do with these? They look kind of tasty in a prickly sort of way. Ideas, my friends?

IMG_6780 cactus food product, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

And oh, since expateek's already spilled the beans about Mr D's delicate tummy, this post wouldn't be complete without a potty joke.

Here, come with expateek down the produce aisle, and tell her what you think of these.

IMG_6862 yams, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Personally, expateek just loves yams.

But maybe not so much when they've got the word flush on the label. Ewwwww.

IMG_6863 yams sign, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Terror in Schaumburg

2009-04-23T13:30:00.005-05:00

You ~~fourteen~~ fifteen! fifteen! fans already know that expateek's very security conscious. After all, she lived in Johannesburg, South Africa for awhile, which would put anyone on heightened alert.

At her house in Jozi, she had walls. Nine foot high walls, like these.

South Africa - Security 2, originally uploaded by lemoncat1.

She had electric fencing on top of her walls. There was a generator on the property, to keep the electric fence going, even during rolling power black-outs.

F1000008 fence, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

She didn't have the spear-like pointy bits on her walls, but she often wished she did.

She had an automatic gate, that rolled open and quickly rolled shut. She always checked up and down the road, and in her rearview mirrors, to make sure she wasn't being followed. If another car was too close behind her, she'd go around the block and try another approach. She wasn't being paranoid -- she knew friends of friends who'd been shot and killed in their own driveways in hijackings gone wrong.

She had security cameras trained over the garden and gate. She had motion sensor lighting. She had an alarm system directly linked to a local listening station/armed response service.

After the robbery, security companies came and installed trellis slam-doors at the entrance to the master bedroom, so she and Mr D could lock themselves in at night. All the windows were treated with shatterproofing, so that attackers couldn't break the glass. expateek bought pepper spray and expandable batons for conking people on the head.

And all of that helped expateek feel a little bit safer, but not much.

So yesterday, expateek was horrified to discover that the new security system here, in Schaumburg, was malfunctioning.

The first part of the system worked.

IMG_6865 latch, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

But the second, more technical layer of security, was suddenly all gone wrong.

IMG_6866 hole, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Because expateek had set down the security key, and it had disappeared!

IMG_6868 post, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Fortunately, the thing had just dropped down between the chair cushions.

Breathing a sigh of relief, expateek put the post in the hole.

IMG_6870 post and hole, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

And voilà, she could relax again.

_

Put that python DOWN!

2009-04-22T09:27:00.003-05:00

Any children of expateek's reading this post, don't read the next paragraph. Please go directly to Paragraph 3.

Oh, I know, you thought this was going to be a post about expateek's wild sex life with the amazing Mr D, but of course expateek never writes about that kind of thing, because that would be oversharing which is something that expateek never does, because she values her privacy ever so much, which is why she writes a blog that is read by ~~millions~~ ~~hundreds~~ fourteen souls. Sorry to disappoint, loyal readers, maybe expateek will overshare ~~tomorrow~~ never.

Anyhoo, expateek was reading The New Yorker a few days ago, and was terrified and appalled to realize she must now cross a whole state off her list of places to travel to in the future.

That state would be Florida. Click here to learn why. In short, years of exotic pets escaping into the Florida everglades have created an uncontrollable population surge of highly adaptable Burmese pythons. And they're coming soon to a mall near you, Floridians! As the article points out,

The biologists I spoke to seemed a little surprised at the lack of human fatalities thus far. "If a thirteen-footer can consume a six-foot alligator, it's only a matter of time," Kenneth Krysko, at the Florida Museum of Natural History, told me. "Come on! Kids aren't six feet tall." A child in a secluded park, or along a canal, would be easiest to snatch...

Brrrr. Yet another reason NOT to visit Florida. Along with the cockroaches which are the size of dessert plates, capybaras running wild in the streets, and monitor lizards strolling over suburban lawns.

Alarmed? Frightened? Well, fortunately, expateek is not going to Florida anytime soon, so you readers can breathe a sigh of relief.

However, expateek is going to the Caribbean late next week (flying through Atlanta, where she can get shot, instead of eaten by reptiles), and right after worries about how her dimply butt is going to look in a swimsuit, is the worry about .... pirates.

Yes, pesky pirates have resurfaced as a prime worry concern once again. Because even though expateek is pretty sure that the waters off Tortola are not the waters of the Gulf of Aden, she is still a little bit nervous. Because it would be just expateek's luck to get nabbed by pirates. The only way it might be tolerable is if her pirate looked like this.

Johnny Depp, originally uploaded by smenzel.

And even then, she'd have to think about it.

Maybe she should just do up Mr D's hair in dreads and go with that.

_

New threat to American theatres

2009-04-19T10:24:00.003-05:00

As ~~millions~~ ~~hundreds~~ all fourteen of expateek's readers know, expateek loves the movies.

She's been going to ~~her favorite~~ the only art movie theatre in her old town to catch up on what she's been missing. She saw The Reader, which was great. She saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was fabulous. And then she saw Two Lovers, which was dreadful.

And Two Lovers wasn't just awful because it was depressing and dark, and entirely too full of the excessively gorgeous and blonde Gwyneth Paltrow. No, Two Lovers was extra awful because the sound track was ragged and mumbly and expateek couldn't understand a word.

So even though expateek almost never complains (only when she's breathing, according to Mr D), she decided to have a word with the cinema manager.

Excuse me, said expateek to the guy in the ticket booth.

Yes?

Are you ever gonna fix the speakers in Theatre 3? Because the speakers sound like they're totally blown. I know I'm kind of old, and wear reading glasses, but honestly, I'm not deaf as well! I couldn't make out a word of the dialogue, said expateek in her polite complainey voice.

Oh, yeah, we know. Actually, the speaker repair guy is coming tomorrow. Here.

And the boy in the booth started writing out two free passes to the theatre. Thanks for telling us. And here, take these, and come again.

Not entirely willing to let the point die, expateek continued. Yeah, I saw Slumdog Millionaire here two weeks ago and the sound was awful then too.

Ha! said the kid in the booth. We think that's what caused the problem. You know those Indian movies? They just don't know anything about how to do a sound track.

Hmmm. All the Oscars and Baftas and Critic's Choice Awards and Golden Globes notwithstanding, those Indian films are just... well... wrong. And you heard it here in Chicagoland first.

_

Secret Ingredient, Revealed!

2009-04-15T15:10:00.005-05:00

If you were wondering, like expateek often does, about why it is that your homemade Chinese dishes are never as fabulous as take-away, then today's your lucky day! Because during her back alley ramblings in Peoria, Illinois, she came across this behind the local Chinese joint.

IMG_6848 grease only, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Awesomeness, times twelve! Because not only is the secret ingredient grease, it is recycled grease, people! Obviously these guys are taking the whole greener planet thing very very seriously.

expateek was simply thrilled to learn about this amazing new development in Chinese cooking, and can hardly wait to incorporate recycled grease into her own home cookin'. It won't even matter that there's no Cock Sauce!

The only worry that expateek has is that she might not be able to gain access to the restaurant-type quantities of grease necessary for proper Chinese cuisine.

IMG_6849 grease mobile, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Mmmm MMMMM!

expateek's going green, but not in that good, planet-y way.

_

Scullery maid

2009-04-13T10:58:00.004-05:00

expateek doesn't like to complain, but she was pretty irritated when she realized that Mr D had skipped town for three days, leaving her to clean the roasting pan. Unfortunately, though expateek is a slattern, even she cannot leave a pan with lamb drippings to "soak" for the better part of a week. Never mind that Mr D cooked the Easter dinner all by himself, with roasted lamb, baked sweet potato, sautéed broccoli rabé, salad, and a good bottle of red wine.

Since you ask, of course expateek helped out. She did this by:

~~setting the table~~
~~pouring the wine~~
playing Word Twist on her laptop.

No, Mr D did everything.

It's a wonder expateek puts up with him.

But now that Mr D is flying off to do electrical things in the sparkley global world of circuit breakers and industrial power supplies, expateek is free to blog, and sulk, and do the dishes.

In other exciting news from last week, expateek and Mr D attended a repatriation workshop. Frankly, expateek was skeptical. She figured most of the time would be spent learning how to blend back into American life. Topics might include...

How to gain weight.

A Fat Cat, originally uploaded by *phototristan.

How to wear track suits and trainers 24/7.

He's too sexy for this track suit..., originally uploaded by Justin Hamilton.

How to talk really really loud ALL THE TIME.

Courtesy, originally uploaded by stirwise.

(Apparently, expateek has turned into a phone shouter as well. That's according to Mr D, but who's gonna believe him?)

The repatriation workshop was helpful, and considered things like amending your expectations, setting new goals, and looking at the positives.

Fine. But today, expateek is using the patented Annette Taylor method of coping with an intercontinental relocation, which involves staying in bed with a cuppa tea, Amaretti biscuits, and a good book.

Ta ta!

Or just ta. expateek's too tired for exclamation points and suchlike.

_

Re-branding will be critical

2009-04-13T02:30:00.000-05:00

expateek, as much as she likes fish sauce, won't be putting this one in her pad thai!

And what's up, anyway, with this crazy Cock Brand? expateek is profoundly disappointed, because not only is there no picture of a cock on this thing, there's not even a picture of a rooster. What's the deal? It sounds a lot like false advertising to expateek.

_

Call a Polish plumber, please

2009-04-12T13:25:00.000-05:00

If this guy* can't get the air out of your pipes, then expateek has no idea who to phone.

* N.B. Not a company of Polish plumbers, in fact. Check them out here for some very interesting "English language" text about what these guys do. Also ogle the hot Polish girl in bikini and tool-belt.

Because it's just not industrial without some hard-core drillin' goin' on.

_

Easter Egg... just one

2009-04-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

Because expateek's children are all over the planet,

and because Mr D absolutely refuses to eat hard-boiled eggs,

and because expateek is kind of on a diet,

there won't be an Easter egg hunt chez expateek this morning.

The eggs are thus extremely pleased to be allowed a lie-in this morning,

and are still resting comfortably abed, in the fridge.

IMG_6850 egg, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it!

And enjoy a beautiful Sunday morning...

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No translation possible...

2009-04-11T19:51:00.007-05:00

IMG_6680 kaak logistics, originally uploaded by ehdindigo.

They'll definitely have to change their name if they decide to expand to South Africa.

"Hey, our logistics are kak.* Can we interest you in a taster?"

*kak = sh*t, in Afrikaans.
Okay, fine....
But expateek thinks it's pretty funny.

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Screaming and rending of clothing

2009-03-31T21:14:00.001-05:00

expateek is pretty sure you could hear her screaming and shrieking from wherever in the world you happen to be right now.

Because when she picked up Mr D from work yesterday, he hopped in the car, and said, "Turn the car off for a sec. I have something to tell you."

Oh oh. expateek turned off the car. This conversational opening is never good, not when it comes from Mr D.

Mr D continued, "I met with Chris today, and he told me that it looks like The Company wants to move us to Riga. For the Baltic states pilot programme. It's probably just for the year." Tentatively, Mr D turned toward expateek.

"Whaddya think?"

Mr D looked both excited and afraid. Excited about the opportunity. Afraid of expateek.

expateek sat there. Speechless. The silence grew longer and longer, and Mr D began looking less and less excited and more and more afraid.

Suddenly, expateek exploded.

What? What? WHAT? Are you bloody kidding? We just bought a car 3 weeks ago! We just gave notice to the tenants in our old house! We just heard that our container's arrived and our stuff's been put in storage here in Chicago. Are you insane? Are you bloody flippin' NUTS?

Mr D cringed.

You ARE nuts! You ARE! You are CRAZY! Get out of the car! GET OUT! Get out get out get out get out get out! Get out NOW!

expateek started pummeling the sleeve of Mr D's jacket.

Mr D scrambled to open the door, clawing with panicked fingers for the handle. He jumped out of the car, trying to avoid more slaps and nearly tripping over the curb as he stumbled with his briefcase and laptop bag to an upright position on the pavement. Another employee leaving work glanced toward Mr D and expateek, and then quickly averted his eyes and adjusted his path, giving them a wide berth.

You are absolutely unbelievable! screamed expateek. Simply and totally unbelievable! I suggest you take your stupid Blackberry and call a taxi, because I've bloody had enough. Latvia!? Why not Siberia, fer chrissake?

And expateek turned on the car and yanked the door shut, threw the car into reverse, and gunned it out of the carpark, leaving Mr D standing there on the side of the road with his mouth hanging open and his briefcase spilling open onto the sidewalk. She knew she'd just drive around the block and have to come back to pick him up, but whatever. She was furious.

If you want to see on a map where expateek's probably maybe supposedly going to be living a few months from now, click here. Can you believe it?

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