Etosha National Park

On the morning of the last day of 2008, I am going on my very first game drive.

Etosha National Park is "one of the most important reserves and game sanctuaries in Africa with thousands of wild animals such as blue wildebeest, springbok, zebra, kudu, giraffe, cheetah, leopard, lion and elephant making this area their home. Floodlit waterholes at Okaukuejo and Namutoni campsites attract an abundance of animals throughout the evening, providing us with many amazing wildlife sightings."

Etosha Game park was declared a National Park in 1907 and covering an area of 22,270 square km, it is home to 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and one species of fish.

The massive mineral pan dominating Etosha ("Great White Place") is part of the Kalahari Basin. It covers about a quarter of the national park.

A San legend about the formation of the Etosha Pan tells of how a village was raided and everyone but the women slaughtered. One woman was so upset about the death of her family she cried until her tears formed a massive lake. When the lake dried up nothing was left apart from a huge white pan.

What a place to usher out an old year and in a new one.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Namibia Vacation Travel

Himba

National Geographic once wrote about the tribe we plan to visit this morning: Himba.

In the words of the tour operator, the "Himba are a tribe of nomadic pastoralists who inhabit the Kaokoland area of Namibia. The Himba are actually descendants of a group of Herero herders who fled into the remote north-west after been displaced by the Nama. The Himba have clung to their traditions and the beautiful Himba women are noted for their intricate hairstyles which and traditional jewelery.

"As Himba men and woman wear few clothes apart from a loin cloth or goat skinned mini-skirt, they rub their bodies with red ochre and fat to protect themselves from the sun and also gives their appearance a rich red colour."

Reading over the article, I realize that these were the pictures, the people, for whom every third-grade girl and boy scoured the pages of National Geographic. Half-naked people covered in paint.

I would have missed the article itself. Drought and war in the 80s. Mobile schools. Conservancies.

"With the peace and good rains that came to Namibia in the 1990s, the Himba rebuilt their herds and, working with international activists, helped block a proposed hydro-electric dam that would have flooded ancestral lands along the Kunene."

As a third grader, I would have missed it all. Twenty-five years later, I'm going to meet them and I couldn't care less what they wear.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Road to Etosha

The road is bad. The worst yet. I'm not sure if there's a better one to Etosha but that really isn't the point. Life's a journey and all that. A really bouncy drive.

It's black-chested snake eagles out the window and stopping at robots (traffic lights).

It's cars that melt into the desert, stripped of everything, including the seats, belts and metal, filled with sand and left to rust into the sunset.

It's looking for elephants and seeing giraffes. Klipspringer. Springbuck. Oryx and kudu. White flamingos on the beach.

It's stopping for a plant that lasts, that lives, for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Male and female. Different. Together. Plants with two leaves and if one dies, the entire plant goes with it.

It's cops that stop to ask if we need help when a friend curls up to stretch her aching back. Doing laundry, beer in hand, as kids run around in their underwear and men play poker in the room over the arcade. It's a laundrette with an arcade.

It's burnt broccoli and cauliflower. Champagne breakfast. Christmas treats melting in the desert.

It's getting up too early and staying up too late. It's camel thorn scratches and dirt, smelling like smoke and peeing outside.

There might be a smoother road to Etosha. Somewhere other than here, people have actually showered today. People sit in conditioned air. Farther away, at home, people long for the sun that burns my face and lightens my hair.

There might be a smoother road to Etosha but this is the one I'm on.



Tag: Travel Namibia

Twyfelfontein

The name, "Doubtful fountain," was given by local farmer who doubted that a local spring could support cattle for a long enough time.

Twyfelfontein contains the largest known concentration of Stone Age petroglyphs in the country. Although the area was declared a national monument in 1952 some engravings were damaged and even removed. There are approximately 2,500 engravings in the area. The age of engravings has not been determined precisely but there is evidence that area was occupied 6,000 years ago.

I'm not sure when we'll get here, but the recommended time for a visit is early morning or late afternoon on account of high temperatures and the fact that engravings are not easy visible under direct sunlight.

From here, we'll continue through the the Damaraland region with its "vast and rugged terrain" to the Organ Pipes, a mass of perpendicular dolerite pillars located down the river bed. They were formed about 120 million years ago.

It's not the fountain I doubt but my feeble mind's ability to grasp 6,000-year-old bushmen paintings or pillars dating back 120 million years.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Spitzkoppe

Actually, we're still in Swakopmund. (There's just so much to see.) Later, though, we'll head north and set up camp among the boulders of the Spitzkoppe Mountains.

"The spectacular setting of our remote bushcamp is sure to leave a lasting impression," wrote the tour operator.

Though, the only two words that left a mark prior to the trip were "remote" and "bushcamp."

"What did I sign myself up for?" I wondered and then I kept reading.

"One can go for beautiful walks in this stunning landscape and climb about between the bizarre rock formations. For those interested in flora, there is a lot to look at, like the yellow Butter Trees and the Poison Tree (euphorbia virosa), which leaks an extremely poisonous white juice; the Bushmen use this to poison their arrows.

"San (Bushman) paintings can be found in various places, many in the 'Bushman Paradise' under an overhanging rock wall."

The literature described the "Matterhorn of Namibia" and its granite profile. It talked about height and difficulty and the sheer impossibility of technical climbing in the summer.

"The rock gets so hot, you would burn your hands immediately."

Surprisingly, though, there was a serious lack of information regarding the bush camp.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Bush camp

That pretty much says it all. Tonight, we head into a bush camp. As in a camp. In the wilderness. No water. Nothing. But we're packing water and the bus is actually kind of cush, so it should be OK, right?

Right?

I'm going to be dirty.

We're leaving the desert today and heading into rain. Dirty and muddy and smelly...

Tag: Travel

Swakopmund

After a night in (or near) Swakopmund, we have a day to ourselves. Provided, of course, that we survived the Bohemian and Bavarian, artists, hippies, German settlers, women in Victorian dress, and miners, game rangers, safari operators and fishermen.

The outfitter suggested excursions for the day, sand boarding and skiing, quadbiking, camel rides and off-road driving, skydiving, kayaking, hot air ballooning or scenic flights over the desert.

As for me, I have yet to decide. Sandboarding sounds a bit painful. Skydiving dangerous; though, I profess to have always wanted to try. I'm just not sure where the words stop and the desire begins or vice versa. I don't know if I have always wanted to try, if I could "step out of a perfectly good plane" or if I could go up in a not-so-perfectly good plane. I might have always wanted to try but not necessarily in Namibia on the day after Christmas 2008.

Read: Bock, bock.

I have been up in a hot air balloon - two years ago in Cappadocia. That might be more my speed, perfect for photography and that one time was amazing.

Swakopmund offers a number of other attractions, including boat excursions to see dolphins and seals, shore-based angling, skin diving, surfing and lazing on the beach.

I'm not much of an angler but I do like the beach. Surfing. (Or watching it, anyway.) Dolphins and seals and the sun shining on a late December day. I'm sure I can fill my day.

Swakopmund sounds heavenly.



Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Namibia Vacation Travel

Too little time

I've got pages and pages of handwritten notes, sloppy with scribbling from trying to write on the bus as we bounced down gravel roads for days.

Christmas in the desert. Trees made paint cans. Santa Claus clinging to the railing on balcony of a beach house

Scenery that changed from red sand dunes to rolling green hills filled with slate to white gravelly sand. Flamingos. White flamingos.

My new best friend, Benoit. He doesn't speak much English and I don't speak any French, but we do all right, spending hours on Christmas playing poker in the shade with temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius and I don't know what that means in Fahrenheit but it's hot. Really, freaking hot.

Champagne. Hot air balloons. Sunrise. My body failing and leaving me alone on Christmas because I couldn't climb the dunes. My knees hurt too much. I stayed in camp. Walked. Tried to avoid a local who thought I should be his girlfriend.

I have so much to say. Pictures to share. Words already written but I'm running out of time. I already did once and had to buy more to finish. I have two minutes at an internet cafe and an hour to a flight over the desert. At some point, I should shower.

I should definitely shower.

Did I mention "really freaking hot"?

Tag: Namibia Travel

Pink birds

Flamingos feeding. That's what we'll watch over lunch: Flamingos feeding. Until I see it, though, I can only imagine great fields of pink plastic flamingos dotting suburban yards. Tropical shirts. Florida.

The great pink bird just doesn't seem real, like something one found in nature. After this trip, I might just start believing in unicorns and pixies, gnomes and fairy godmothers. I'll start with the flamingos.

From there, from Walvis Bay, we plan to head to Swakopmund. The German colonial town is an eclectic mixture of Bohemian and Bavarian, artists, hippies, German settlers, women in Victorian dress, and miners, game rangers, safari operators and fishermen.

The night life ranges from casinos to parties, pubs and restaurants, drama, music and cultural events. Unfortunately, I fear I will be dirty, smelly, hot and tired, but there's always a shower.

Exploring might take a while. Believing might be quicker.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Christmas in the desert

Will it feel like Christmas? Will I forget the date and remember only the day as we walk to Sossusvlei and Deadvlei or hike through the Sesriem Canyon?

From my couch on Capitol Hill, I can't wrap my mind around the idea of the Namib desert. I can't wrap my mind around the pronunciation of Sossusvlei, Deadvlei, or Sesriem, much less how they look or feel.

"The Cell," starring Jennifer Lopez, portrayed Sossusvlei as part of the mental landscape of a disturbed kid's mind. It wasn't my favorite movie ever but wow. That's where I'm going to be? Inside that kid's mind? The movie was beautiful. Somewhat painful, but beautiful.

Merry Christmas to all, wherever in the world you may be. I'm not going to be anywhere near a computer. A phone. The people I love. But I will see a bit of the beauty in the world and think of them.





Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Sesriem/ Sossusvlei

Have I mentioned that I have no idea how to pronounce many of the places we're visiting?

Yeah...

I don't.

I do have a handle on "Namib Desert," though, and this is where we'll spend Christmas Eve. It's a far cry from home in Ohio with stockings hung by the chimney with care, a tree in the living room, church and candles and hymns. It's a far cry from DC and trips to my sisters, sharing a bed with my nieces and nephew who kick me all night and awake at four only to stare at the clock.

"Is it time to get up?" my nephew whispered one year.

"No, sweetie. It's not even close."

He lay in bed and stared at the clock, whispering the numbers.

"Shhhh... Hush. Sleep."

"Is it time to get up?"

"No, sweetie. Not before you see the numbers 6:45 on the clock."

At 6:39, he rushed up the stairs, unable to wait any longer.

This year, Christmas Eve will include a journey north to the edge of the Namib Desert and a sunset walk in the dunes surrounding our camp.

We'll rise early tomorrow morning, but not for presents. (With a stringent weight limit, there wasn't nearly enough room for that.) Christmas morning will include the infamous "early departure" for Sossusvlei, stopping in the dune belt to witness the changing colors of the world's highest sand dunes.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Fish River Canyon

The morning is spent on the Orange River. Literally on the river, in fact, for those of use who chose to canoe. Lunch at the site. And then we'll drive to Fish River Canyon to set up camp, talk a walk and watch the sun set over the canyon. Sigh.

At 650 kilometers, the Fish River is the longest river in Namibia.

Fish River Canyon, situated along the lower reaches of the river, is "one of the most impressive natural beauties in the southern part of Namibia." With a depth of up to 550 meters, it is the second largest canyon in the world, before the Grand Canyon. The gorge meanders a distance of approximately 160 kilometers.

The Fish River Canyon probably formed about 500 million years ago. However, the gorge was not only created by water erosion, but also through the collapse of the valley bottom due to movements in the earth's crust.

I've read a bit that claims the canyon a "popular hiking destination," but also one that demands strong physical fitness and timing. Hikes should only be taken in the winter months (between May and September). The hike is 86 kilometers and takes about five days.

I imagine I'll content myself with a walk along the edge and a glorious sunset.

Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: Namibia Vacation Travel

Orange River

It's hard to keep writing from my couch, to try to understand what it means to drive to the South Africa/Namibia border, to understand what the daily "early departures" actually mean.

I envision crawling into bed, er, sleeping bag, by 7:30 each night and restless sleep with the sounds of the wild outside our tent. Lariam-induced dreams. Being hot. Of course, this is going to be my first night in the tent. The early departure might be less than painful.

And we're driving up the West Coast via Namaqualand, to our campsite on the banks of the Orange River, the border between South Africa and Namibia.

For 30 or 40 or even a hundred miles inland, the area consists of sandy desert which stretches east to the Kalahari. The ability to grow depends, in large part, on thunderstorms. Long rains bring rich pastures, and rich pastures bring locusts.

This is the land through which we'll drive and in which we'll sleep. I keep reading the words but I just can't quite grasp it.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Namibia Vacation Travel

Peninsulee, peninsula

Last night, we changed hotels and this morning we meet the group, our traveling companions through thick and thin or dry and dusty or wherever the road may take us. I have no idea how many people are in the group, their ages, their nationalities. I don't know what languages they speak; though, I hope it's my own as we plan to spend the next three weeks together.

We're starting off slow, with the day we, my friend and I, would have had three days ago with a bit of yesterday thrown in. A full-day peninsula tour. We'll drive up the Atlantic seaboard by way of Hout Bay and Chapmans Peak to Cape Point Nature. Back again along the Indian coastline with a cable car thrown in for good measure, depending on the weather.

I'm banking on good weather.

Hoping anyway.

Hoping for good weather and fun travel companions. When I get back in a few weeks, a friend of mine from last year's trip to India, my roommate, will stay with me for the inauguration. She'll be back again a week later for work and I am very much looking forward to it. Thirteen months ago, I didn't know the woman. A few weeks in India and everything changed. We became friends. I hope for the same sort of thing out of Africa but there's no way to know. This is just the beginning.

My mom called it "life-changing." So did my dad. And my stepmom. I still don't know. (Honestly, I'm still at home on the couch writing this, exhausted, excited and anxious. In 24 hours, I'll be over the ocean and on my way.) I'm hoping for that, too, even if I like my life.

Apparently, the cableway to the tops is quite the thing to do. Since its opening, 79 years ago, over 16 million people have taken the trip, including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, Oprah Winfrey, Sting, Stefi Graf, Arnold Schwarzenneger, Magaret Thatcher, Prince Andrew, Brooke Shields, Micheal Buble, Tina Turner, Jackie Chan and Paul Oakenfold.

With any luck, I'll be added to the list. But probably not the brochures.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Vacation Travel

Robben Island

"It's closed," noted the man with the rope at the bottom of the stairs.

We looked at each other and sighed.

"That's what we get for going to the bathroom."

We were just back far enough in the line to miss the upper decks of the ferry. Instead, we took seats near a window inside, resigned ourselves to not taking photos for 30 minutes or so and watched a video about the history of the island - that and what to do if we crashed, but more about the island we would soon visit.

The man next to us explained the song at the end of the video, and I wondered if it were the one in my book about South Africa. He called it a national anthem, one that had been adopted by several other countries, as well as a hymn. Even without understanding the words, it moved me.

He was on a pilgrimmage of sorts, this nuclear scientist with his wife and daughter, to revisit Robben Island, where his father once served as a political prisoner with Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself gave 18 years of his life and some of his eyesight to the island, to the lime quarry we visited with the small gave that grew ever smaller as the quarry expanded. It served as the "University of Robben Island" where prisoners taught one another with fingers drawn through dust in the dark cave. "Each one teach one" served as the motto.

A former prisoner, a political dissident, led us through cell blocks with cells smaller than the dog kennels and we toured the island in a bus, hearing the history of what was once a leper colony, a military base and the infamous prison.

It still served as Africa's third largest penguin colony as home to about 15,000 birds, but that's not why we went. That's not why it was one of the first places we went in Cape Town, before Table Mountain, before the winelands, before anything else. It was important.

We were the only two Americans on the bus.

The next day, we'd see the place where Mandela served the last two years (missing the seven in the middle). We'd see a statue marking the start of his "long walk to freedom," Mandela with a fist in the air, and we'd think of Robben Island.


Tag: South Africa Cape Town Robben Island

Victoria and Alfred

I had to look it up. I had not idea what it stood for, the "V&A" in the V&A Waterfront. I assumed it didn't have anything to do with Virginia or Veterans Affairs, but I didn't know. I wasn't exactly prepared for this part of the trip. I knew more about Chobe and Kruger, Victoria Falls and the Okavango Delta. I wasn't really thinking about a city full of "scenic, historic and cultural attractions." I'm going to be camping for three weeks.

But here I am. In Cape Town. Blushing with a hot summer sun and very good wine. Despite the draw of the pool and my 1,400-page book, though, I do want to visit Robben Island and the V&A Waterfront. Table Mountain. (Though, that comes tomorrow.)

"From the 17th to the 20th centuries, Robben Island served as a place of banishment, isolation and imprisonment. Rebel princes from present day Indonesia, convicts from the Cape, and defiant chiefs from the Eastern Cape were removed from society and brought to the Island in chains," Robben Island Museum.

"The notorious prison on the Island was also used to exile political prisoners of the apartheid era between the 1960s and 1991. Today it is a World Heritage Site and museum, a poignant reminder to the newly democratic South Africa of the price some paid for freedom."

Apparently, if I got my act together (which I very well might have done), we could take a ferry followed by a tour around the island and a tour through the prison - led by a previous inmate.

The juxtaposition with the next suggested locale strikes me as odd, from prison to boutiques. Spartan to lavish? Political prisoners to slaves of fashion? Something seems not quite right but there it is, printed in black and white, posted for all the world to see: On your return, spend a few hours shopping at the V&A Waterfront with its wide selection of boutiques and markets, cafe's and restaurants, so maybe we will.

The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is on of Cape Town's biggest tourist attractions. The busy commercial harbor is set in the midst of a huge entertainment venue with pubs, restaurants, specialty shops, craft markets, theatres and movies. I'm in it for the seal watching, though. With a 26.6-pound weight limit for the rest of the trip and a 26.2-pound bag, I don't have much room to wiggle. But seal watching. Seal watching I can handle. Maybe not at an aquarium. Though, I do have some great pics and video of a sea lion in the Seward SeaLife Center but I prefer my seals outside.

Along the water, there are a number of heritage sites - The Clock Tower, the Time Ball Tower, the Dragon Tree and the list goes on and on. Not that I really know what they are, but I might by the time this posts. I will by the time this posts.

I even learned the history of the name. Prince Alfred was Queen Victoria's second son. Involved in the construction of the harbor. He was involved in the construction of the harbor. With the discovery of gold and diamonds, a second section - the Victoria Basin - was built and added to the original Alfred Basin.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Vacation Travel

Tag:

Jet lag

"Ugh," I groaned and put the phone back down on the desk.

"What time is it?"

"6:15... time has never moved so slowly in my life," I observed. "Normally, I wouldn't mind being up at 6:15 but for falling asleep at the dinner table."

"Dramamine and alcohol didn't help," she said drily.

"Oh. Yeah."

Dramamine for the boat. Alcohol after with wine at the Green Dolphin on the V&A Waterfront in the late day light as my friend cleaned her camera and I tried not to say anything in an already tense, "my camera's leaving black marks on my pictures" situation.

Later, we would check out the rooftop pool, sun chairs and bar (without more drinks) and resolve to come back tomorrow. The next day.

We left at eight, a perfectly respectable time for dinner, which should have put us in bed late enough for a full night's sleep, late enough to avoid awakening at 2:07, 4:33 and 6:15, at least.

One would think.

We wandered in search of an internet cafe and stumbled into a Turkish restaurant. Efes beer, butterbean puree, fresh bread and eggplant, eggplant, eggplant followed by Turkish delight.

If only I hadn't been falling asleep at the table.

Tag: Cape Town South Africa

In vino veritas

According to the old itinerary, "There are an abundance of wine estates to visit, so collect a wine route map from a tourism office or decide where to stop as you go along."

We don't want to pick up a map. We don't want to drive to wine estates. We want to taste the wine.

Though, the "we" might be a bit royal in nature. I don't want to drive. I'm not sure my friend cares one way or the other. We've both driven in a number of other countries – left side, right side, no matter – and I have grown rather proficient at reading a map over the years.

"According to this map, there should be a road to our left. Keep an eye out for it."

"The cow path? Is that the road?"

"I don't know. It doesn't appear on any of the three other maps… Did you notice that they're all different?"

At some point, we discovered that the hand drawn map in the back of the book about cave cities offered the most accurate portrayal of Cappadocia roads, which wasn't very good at all. It was all relative. And at some point we made it back without getting too lost. Without losing anything. Without driving down too many cow paths.

Nevertheless, I don't want to drive in South Africa. Not to wine estates. I want a driver. I'd like Clive Owen in a BMW, but I'll take anyone as long as I don't have to get behind the wheel with jet lag and wine.

Apparently, between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, we will have our choice in estates, restaurants, cafes and bistros. More than enough to entertain ourselves for a couple of days. Breathtaking vistas. Majestic mountains. Wine.

Of course, we could always skip the fruit of the vine and head straight to the flower at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens.


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Vacation Travel

Cape Town

Ages ago, right after we booked the flights to Johannesburg, discovered we were leaving from somewhere else and booked a follow-up flight to our 15 hours up in the air, I found a sample 3-day itinerary for Cape Town.

That's generally how I roll when going to someplace I've never been and about which I know very little – I check out a couple of travel guides, a couple of websites and then I find sample itineraries. Sometimes, they work. Sometime, you find yourself spending hours wandering through the antique stores of Bulls, New Zealand, looking for Susie Cooper pottery in an ivy pattern, hours completely neglected by the set itinerary.

The three-day tour of Cape Town sounded pretty good, though. Reasonable.

Day 1: Peninsula Tour including Hout Bay
Day 2: Wine tasting and/or Kirstenbosch Gardens
Day 3: Robben Island, V&A Waterfront and Table Mountain

What are these things, one might ask if one were other than me. All I knew as that they were the "things to do" so I suggested we do them, my travel buddy and I. She agreed. We made tentative plans. And then I read the itinerary for the 3-week camping safari.

Day 1: Set against the majestic Table Mountain, Cape Town offers scenic, historic and cultural attractions. Depart from the lodge at 08h00, for a full day peninsula tour. Driving along the Atlantic seaboard via Hout Bay and Chapmans Peak, we visit the Cape Point Nature Reserve, returning along the Indian Ocean coastline and make our way back to our well-situated Waterfront hotel. A cable car ascent up Table Mountain is included (weather dependant).

While I'm sure that each of the above, that the peninsula tour and Hout Bay, the waterfront and Table Mountain are all incredible, I'm not sure that we'll want to visit each of them twice. In four days. (Except maybe Dungeons, a recognized big wave spot. I could visit that every day, but my traveling friend isn't really a surfing fan.)

Instead, we very well might be doubling up on the wine. The next three and a half weeks are going to be awfully long with tents and trucks and sleeping in bags, a lack of liquor and little in the way of sugar or water or bathrooms. In the meantime, before we go, in the words of Lord Byron, "Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after."


Written on December 15 and autoposted to correlate with the trip.

Tag: South Africa Vacation Travel

Travel buddies

"Do you know what I'm looking for in a plane?" my friend asked.

"Potable water," I replied without hesitation and she laughed.

"Potable water," she ticked on her thumb.

"Lotion in the bathrooms."

"Lotion in the bathrooms," she agreed before her face fell. "We've talked about this before."

"Not in this context," I protested. "I just know you."

And I did. Do. Know her. I like her well enough to have seen half the world with her and to commit to a month in the desert sharing a tent. I have probably spent more concentrated time with her than any other person in my adult life as we'd shared Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Turkey, Argentina and more over the years.

Nevertheless, when the agent asked if we wanted to sit together, we emphatically stated, "No."

The words were hardly out of his mouth.

"That was adamant, wasn't it?" I asked, embarrassed, but he didn't seem to notice or care. "We both like windows."

"And we'll see enough of each other over the next month."

As we waited, I joked with the agent and teased my friend, dangerously close to the baggage limit for the trip. When the man behind the counter couldn't find a window seat for me, I smiled and shrugged.

"It's fine."

Everything would be all right. We were going to Africa.

"The third thing I need," my friend ticked on her third finger, "is an entertainment system."

I knew that one, too, and she would be pleased with our flight. I watched Dark Knight first, Mamma Mia!, Get Smart, and listened to music that I wanted to hear.

The good humor helped. Not only did we have individual screens, we had two each. The agent or karma or bad traffic keeping people from their flights gave us a pair of seats each, window and aisle.

Everything would definitely be all right.


Tag: Travel Friends

Technical difficulties

Tired. So tired. I wanted nothing more to crawl into bed as I sat on the couch, laptop on lap and awaited data that just didn't come.

I tried to amuse myself. I tried to clean and repack for the 37th time, but my interest waned and I needed sleep.

I tried to distract myself by researching my trip and setting up autoposts that would keep friends, family and stalkers abreast of my activities, my location, what I might see over the course of my trip but as my energy faded, so did my ability to properly set up an autopost and half appeared somewhere close to midnight.

Technical difficulties.

The technicality being that it's completely my fault.

Tag: Writing Sleep

Hot Tamales and Milk

"I think I just lost a significant portion of my tooth," I whispered to a friend as the opening credits rolled.

"Oh, no," she cried. "Does it hurt?"

I drove my tongue into the sharp crevasse and poked experimentally.

"No."

"Do you want to go?"

"No, it'll be fine. But I think I should lay off the Hot Tamales."

I swallowed a solid chunk of my tooth with the spicy cinnamon sweet, which was probably a bad idea. The swallowing. The candy. But I figured that if my tooth broke with a bit of sweet, then my tooth was meant to break, to continue breaking as it had already been broken yet unfixed by my dentist who had said it should be fine. I didn't know what that meant in terms of last-minute prep for my trip.

I'd already planned to pull an all-nighter, wrapping up a project I'd been working for two and a half months with data, for which I had been waiting most of the two and a half months, that was destined to come in on Monday. I didn't really have time for the dentist. And mine made me cry.

"I need more Milk in my diet," I joked to myself, thinking of both calcium and film.

I pushed the former to the back of my mind, the broken tooth, the really broken tooth, and I focused on the latter.

Milk made me cry like a baby. I also fell asleep for a second or five but that might have been the wine or the terrible sleep, disturbed by antimalarials. Sleeping aside, which was more my own poor form, the movie inspired me.

"To think," I said to a friend. "He didn't start any of this until he was 40. He was repressed. Closeted. Just a man living an ordinary, if somewhat unhappy life."

"That gives me hope," she responded. "Some of us still have a chance to make something of our lives."

I did still have the chance to make something of my life. I hoped I still had a chance to make something of my tooth. I needed an emergency repair, something in less than 45 hours. I feared a Christmas root canal in the Namib desert.


Tag: Movies Teeth

30 Rock

"Did you watch 30 Rock?" she asked, the third to ask the question that night.

"Not yet, but I have it in the queue. I was... out. Somewhere. I don't remember but I'm going to watch it soon."

Apparently, I should have seen it sooner. Apparently, I should have seen it Thursday night - do not pass go, do not collect $200 - because it dealt with my new favorite topic: Letters to Santa.

Unlike Tina Fey's Liz Lemon, I worried about giving a family "the best Christmas ever." I wanted to give a good Christmas, to be sure, but I worried extensively about giving entirely too much and setting a bad precedent. Setting the bar too high. Giving kids a Christmas to which no future Santa (or parent) would live up.

I meant to just pick up a letter, maybe two. I walked away with six between two families and through the letters tried to imagine the family lines. I did my financial analytics to make sure we were fair to each of the kids in terms of cost, quantity and quality of gifts, and wondered if I should figure in value versus price, not that the 11-month-old would notice.

I stressed more than I did with my own family. I couldn't help it. I like pivot tables. I like kids and Christmas and the thought of giving one to a child or six who wouldn't otherwise have one. Plus four mothers. And six additional kids through my church with the surplus o' presents.

"How do you know it's not a scam?" more than one friend asked.

"I don't," I replied. "But one of the kids asked for underwear. For socks. Most of them just asked for 'anything.' That's not exactly scam material."

Maybe they were scams. Maybe con men really wanted pajamas in size 4T and 5, toys for toddlers, size 7 shoes, but that didn't matter. I gave in the spirit of Christmas. We gave in the spirit of Christmas. (I wasn't alone.)

In the end, we scaled down a bit, reallocated, pivoted and calculated and packed up everything in boxes. It could be a scam, but it still might be the best Christmas ever.

(There were actually more.)

Eventually, I caught up with 30 Rock and I had to wonder what my friends thought: I swear I am not the "lonely white lady."


Tag: Christmas 30 Rock

What dreams may come

I started new medication yesterday. Antimalarials. Crazy drugs.

"These may make me dizzy," I read from the label. "What do you think my excuse is for knocking over a glass earlier?"

"You're you," he answered.

In addition to the dizziness, the side effects can also include myalgia, nausea and fever, headache, vomiting, chills, diarrhea, skin rash, abdominal pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, and tinnitus. But my favorite part comes at the end of the list, including bradycardia, hair loss, emotional problems, pruritus, asthenia, transient emotional disturbances and telogen effluvium (loss of resting hair). Seizures have also been reported.

The last ones in less than 1% of those taking the pill. I should be fine. Of course, members of my family tends to experience little known side effects of pretty much everything they take, which part of the reason I don't medicate, and further investigation reveals the following:

"Occasionally, more severe neuropsychiatric disorders have been reported such as: sensory and motor neuropathies (including paresthesia, tremor and ataxia), convulsions, agitation or restlessness, anxiety, depression, mood changes, panic attacks, forgetfulness, confusion, hallucinations, aggression, psychotic or paranoid reactions and encephalopathy. Rare cases of suicidal ideation and suicide have been reported though no relationship to drug administration has been confirmed."

And the drug may have played a role in the torture and murder of a Somali citizen whilst in the custody of Canadian peacekeeping troops.

Other than that, though, it is highly effective.

Actually, the thought of Lariam has worried me for months. I followed up with a doctor or two, both of whom told me I would be fine. I will be fine. I'm just a little anxious but I don't know if that's the pill, work or my trip. Maybe it's just me. I'm an anxious kind of girl, especially in cloudy weather.

When I went to pick up the prescription, which I needed to start a week before the trip, take through four weeks of vacation and follow up with four more weeks to make sure I didn't contract malaria and die or anything, I discovered that insurance would pay four only four weeks. I needed at least five to get through the trip so I bought one out of pocket.

"You know they'd pay for treatment if I got malaria," I observed as I paid twice as much for a single uncovered pill as the four pack that was covered. I thought about the polio booster and hepatitis A and B and typhoid vaccinations I'd also covered with my own money.

"God forbid," said the pharmacist, shaking her head.

I went home and started my treatment. I went home and forgot about it. And then I went to sleep. I dreamt that I had taken a cab home but he left me in Anacostia, which looked strangely like my hometown, but far more dangerous. As if were filled with vampires or zombies or obnoxious teens. The more I tried to get home, the farther I went. The more lost I got. The more scared I felt and the sun started to set.

Later, I dreamt that my dishwasher, which actually did break earlier in the week, had been flooding my apartment and I waded through inches of water, not knowing what to do, knowing I needed to leave for vacation with water pouring into my apartment and no way to stop it.

I didn't think much of it but for the lingering dread of two bad dreams, two dreams that felt so much worse at the time than the sum of their parts. On the surface, they weren't that bad – I regularly spend time in Anacostia. It doesn't bother me but my dream left me terrified. The same with the water.

After pancakes and dishwashing, shopping and walking, I remembered the lariam. The dreams. I figured they probably went together. I could only wait to see what came next.

I don't even know what bradycardia is.


Tag: Antimalarial Vaccination Crazy

Crazy cat lady

Sometimes I fear that I'll end up a crazy cat lady, the type of woman who starts talking to cats as if they talked back, someone who surrounds herself with felines for friends and withdraws from polite society as the strays start multiplying and taking over her home, her grocery bill and her life.

At some point, I'll slip and fall. Trip over one of the cats. Or I'll clock myself a little too hard on the bathroom wall, as I am wont to do, and expire like spilled milk on a sunny day in all my klutzy glory.

Nobody will know that I'm gone until I start filling the air with the sickeningly sweet ferment of decaying flesh and even then, it will take a while before anything happens. A couple of notes, phone calls, polite knocking while I decompose on the bathroom floor and cats eat my face.

It's not a pretty picture.

Granted, I don't have cats. I will never have cats. If the mental image alone weren't enough to stop me from going gaga over kittens, my allergies would. I cannot breathe around the little furballs, which would accelerate my certain demise. On most levels, I know; it's not going to happen, but I continue to worry.

What happens if I fall? If I hurt myself? I do hurt myself. Regularly. I have sat on the floor blinking back tears as I tried wiggling my toes to make sure they still worked. Poking and prodding at lumps, cuts and contusions, I have thought, "That's going to leave a mark." More than once, I have crawled to the phone to share my pain with someone else and I not so secretly envy the alert that Grandma Mavis wears around her neck, the one with the booming speakerphone in her bedroom.

On Wednesday night, I skipped the company Christmas party. I was just too anxious to go – work, trip, presents from Santa. Instead, I went on a date, stayed out too late and ended up working 'til four in the morning to pull slides together for a 9 a.m. meeting. I got up early to talk with the client and then, I went back to bed. I napped a couple of hours and forgot to send in my schedule.

"Are you all right?" asked one of my coworkers. She called just for that. Well, that and to tell me that the holiday lunch to which I was rushing was canceled.

"I ended up working late. Early. I'm off-kilter today."

"Are you all right?" another contractor asked, via email. She knew about the date and hadn't yet seen me at the client site. "Just wanted to make sure you survived the date with the Zombie last night. Hope you are well."

"I'll be in soon," I responded. "We can go to that party this afternoon and leave early."

"Are you all right?" asked my boss 20 minutes later. She, too, called just for that. "Normally, I hear from you by now and you weren't at the party."

"I'm just panicky," I said. "I'm kind of flipping out a little with the trip next week. There are just a lot of logistics like mail and bills and cleaning out my fridge. I need someone to come and look for packages. I don't know what to do about my car and I actually called the police about leaving it on the street in DC for a month."

In the end, we decided I'd leave my car at her house and she'd take me to the airport. My boss. Driving me to the airport. She offered to do whatever else she could to help as we talked 20 minutes, as she talked me down.

I always kind of figured I could disappear for a while and nobody would notice. With one missed party and two hours late into the office, three people contacted me. I guess I was wrong. I've never been so happy about that.


Tag: Friends Work Stress

Wonder chicken

I've never actually cut the head off a chicken but rumor has it that the poor bird can run around for a while without his head. I haven't even seen it but I can identify.

For most of the past week, I have been running in circles, spending my precious little free time shopping for kids I don't know, wrapping, and packing. I skipped the company Christmas party, ostensibly to pack. I skipped packing to volunteer and I skipped volunteering for a date. I found myself home and working at four in the morning, prepping for a 9 a.m. meeting.

On Saturday, I need to make cranberry sauce for one of my book clubs. I'm just not sure when because I seem to have volunteered for decorating at church in the morning or doing crafts with kids early afternoon. After book club, I'm going out with a friend. And making cranberry sauce after that would just be silly. I need it for dinner.

My other book club meets tonight. I haven't quite finished the book and I won't by 7:30, but I keep reading it anyway. At some point, I need to think about books for the trip and I've considered Ulysses. Or maybe the Russians. Nabokov. Pushkin. Gogol. War and Peace or Crime and Punishment would last longer than any plane ride, even 15 hours over or 18 hours back. Even the Master and Margarita lasts longer than expected, with everyone bearing more than one name and so many similarities between them all. Alexander Petrovich. Peter Alexandrovich. Or something like that. Plus naked witches. It takes concentration.

I have to finish wrapping my presents and take the gifts to the Post Office. I fear we have too much. I worry about setting high expectations with Christmas Present, leaving room for disappointment in the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, so I've contacted the church. We have an angel tree. I might have to spread the Christmas cheer Saturday morning while I'm decorating or Saturday afternoon while we're crafting.

At some point, I will finish packing. I have to finish packing. And everything will be all right.

Once upon a time, in Fruita, Colorado, a man and his wife decided on Wyandotte rooster for dinner. The ax fell and Mike, the Headless Wonder Chicken, returned to pecking for food. Without a head. He lived for about 18 months after decapitation.

"He was a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head."


Tag: Frenzy I'm a spaz

Customer service

I can almost pinpoint the moment I lost it, when my last nerve snapped and expletives started to rise toward the surface of my telephone conversation.

"What do want me to do after that?" I asked the man on the other end of the line. "If I unplug the phone, the conversation will end and I'm going to need to know what to do next."

"The conversation won't end," he promised and repeated the instructions: I needed to unplug the line from both modem and wall, unplug the phone and plug the modem directly into the wall.

"What do want me to do after that?" I repeated. "If I unplug the phone, the conversation will end and I'm going to need to know what to do next."

"The conversation won't end," he promised and I unplugged the phone.

The conversation ended.

"Hey, hi. Hello?" I said into the dead phone. "What? You're not there? Because the phone's not plugged into the wall? Who would have guessed?"

I switched the lines, turned the modem back on, and walked over to my computer to reboot it.

"Kristin's getting angry."

For the better part of three hours, I had been trying to access one email account or another. It didn't work. Some sites pulled up just fine (if fine meant with some trepidation and oodles of waiting), while others failed to pull up at all. Like my email accounts. The problem had started most of a week earlier, resolved itself and returned just when I needed the internet most, i.e. when I was awaiting a package and working at home.

Prior to the disconnect, I had spent a half hour or so with Verizon customer support, trying to identify the root of the issue and answering questions about whether or not the router was turned on or plugged into the wall.

It was.

I answered questions about hardware and software and whether or not anything magnetic had been placed next to the router. I answered each of the questions many, many, many times as the man on the other end tried to test the line. Twice. Which brought us to the line-switching conversation.

"Can I call you back?" he asked.

"Sure, you can call me back," I replied. "But if the phone's unplugged, it's not going to work."

"Can I call your cell phone?"

As I'd already explained five or six times, I did not have cell phone reception in my apartment, nor did I have another jack for a phone. My temper started to boil as my patience dwindled.

"I don't have reception in here."

I tried asking what to do next, after the unplugging and switching, but he didn't or wouldn't or couldn't tell me what to do next, not the first time I asked. Not the fifth.

"The conversation won't end," he promised, and then the phone died.

After a while, I tried calling Verizon and discovered the sheer impossibility of navigating voice-automated customer service through gritted teeth.

"Isn't swearing supposed to get you to customer service?" I wondered as I shouted "No!" into the phone when asked once again if I wanted to hear my current billing amount.

Eventually, the original customer service guy called me back.

"I apologize for the disconnection," he said. "Can you please turn on the router?"

"I did."

"Did you plug the phone back in?"

"The phone? The one that you called? The only one I have? Yes. It is plugged in."

"Please restart your computer… Would you mind running the line test from your computer?"

He gave me the web address, which I entered into Explorer, which worked just as well as Firefox (read: not at all). As it started to load, we sat in terse silence.

"It's still trying to load," I explained.

"What time on Friday works better for you? We have two times slots: eight to one or 12 to six."

"Honestly, neither one. I have to come into the office because I can't work from home because my internet's not working."

"Ma'am, I need to add a note to your file to say when you will be available for a technician on Friday," he said.

"I understand and appreciate that; however, I am leaving the country and do not have five hours to wait for a technician in one of four working days between now and then, not if my internet's not working."

"Ma'am, I need to add a note to your file to say when you will be available for a technician on Friday," he replied.

"I get that but I cannot tell you when I'll be available because I can't check my schedule," I said. "I can't get into the site."

"Ma'am, I need to add a note to your file to say when you will be available for a technician on Friday," he repeated.

"Fine. Friday morning. I'll be here Friday morning." That might or might not have been true.

"Ma'am, I need to add a note to your file to say when you will be available for a technician on Friday," he said again.

"I just... Friday morning. I'll be here Friday morning." That still might or might not have been true. "It's still loading."

"You can stop that," he said. "I ran a third line test on my side and it came back green. Your internet is fine."

"But it's still loading."

"You can stop that," he said. "Can you load Google?"

I could.

"Can you load Yahoo?"

I couldn't.

He annotated my file as I explained that I used my computer on a LAN most days at work. I ran my system on WiFi in another office. Neither environment experienced the delays I found at home.

"Do you use this computer in other environments?" he asked.

"I just... Yes. And it's fine."

"Is it a laptop?"

I felt as if I were juggling with one hand tied behind my back.

"Yahoo is still loading," I said after five minutes. Maybe six. Seven.

"You can stop that," he said. "I have noted that you will be available from eight until one on Friday."

That still might or might not have been true. I did not have five to 10 hours to waste, without internet, in my last days of work. I would have to make up hours of lost productivity and I didn't have hours to spare. I already *had* made up hours of lost productivity, working until 10:30 or 11 during the on side of the on-again, off-again cycle of my WiFi signal.

"Thank you, ma'am. Have a nice day."

"Yeah. You, too."


Tag: Customer Service Technical Service Frustration

Hook

A million years ago or the winter of 1995/96, a friend and I drove down to my dad's for the night, the weekend, the something, and learned the lyrics to Hook on the ride. Over and over again, we pressed rewind on the old Ford's tape deck and practiced.

It wasn't a particularly good song or all that popular in our college town; I was just impressed with a friend who could sing the whole thing, from "Suck it in, suck it in, suck it in, if you're Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn" all the way through to "the hook brings you back. I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook... On that you can rely."

It was fast. Catchy. Complicated. And the first time I heard Becky sing it in my living room, remarkably drunk, possibly falling over, yet lucid enough to remember all of the words, I was struck with awe. I might have fallen over myself.

Last night, another friend invited me to join her at the DC Film Society's Cinema Lounge, a talk entitled "What the hell did I just watch, a.k.a. 'bad hooks'"; I agreed and started thinking about movies and bad hooks. I also started thinking of the song, which stuck in my head for days.

Going into the talk, I thought it meant marketing and misleading trailers. Movies that appeared to be lighthearted romps and end with cancer, plague, the end of the world. After the introduction, though, I realized they meant more of the left turn that some movies took, the type that started out as a lighthearted romp and ended with cancer, plague, the end of the world.

Unfortunately, with the mush that was my brain on a Monday night, I couldn't think of many examples, but that didn't stop me from talking. A lot. And listening. It was a strange little group of movie fans – some who preferred indies and others mainstream. One man quoted lines from movies I barely remembered, with passion and accuracy.

Our discussion ranged from jumping the shark to The Pirate Movie. Labyrinth. The Dark Crystal. We talked about Ghost Rider, Gone in 60 Seconds and Adaptation. I was alone in my distaste for the film. I earned even greater distrust when I claimed my reason as the combination of Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage, neither of whom I particularly liked (though, I used the word hate) based on their talent and some of the roles they had taken. (Kramer vs Kramer hit too close to home.)

The talk lasted the prescribed hour and a half, filled with discussion and laughter. A little confusion. A couple blank stares. Afterward, the core of the group reconvened at Gordon Biersch for more talk and beer. My friend and I ducked out for shopping, for dinner, for a drink of our own and then I joined the group. I wanted to keep talking. And one of the guys told me I was pretty. And funny.

"Why not?" I thought and joined the group, which slowly splintered and slimmed, leaving just the two of us.

Over the next couple of hours, we drank beer and talked. About everything. Abortion, capital punishment, religion, family and home - nothing was taboo. I discovered that not only were we not on the same page, we weren't in the same book. Which might have been written in different languages. But I enjoyed myself and found the night interesting. I had a passionate discussion, without offense, with a man who thought I was pretty. And funny.

"Perhaps he was the worst hook of all," my friend would write in the morning when told of our differing views.

"You might be right about that," I replied, still thinking of the song that I learned a lifetime ago, driving down I-75.

So desperately I sing to thee
Of love
Sure but also rage and hate and pain and fear of self
And I can't keep these feelings on the shelf
I've tried, well, no, in fact I lied
Could be financial suicide but I've got too much pride inside
To hide or slide
I'll do as I'll decide

Because the hook brings me back. On that I can rely.



Tag: Friends Discussion

Playing Santa

I meant to pick up one letter to Santa. Maybe two. To answer the needs or requests of a couple of kids in the DC area, to help them believe in Santa and Christmas and the underlying goodness of mankind and to help myself do the same.

With that in mind, I went to the Post Office. And then I went back. Then, I called, and then I went back again. All told, I probably spent five or so hours of solid effort trying to get a letter to Santa (and I know I have to go back with packages).

On the first trip, I didn't know what I was doing. The trip revolved more around correcting my own shipping mistakes than anything else, but that's when my interest was piqued.

On the second trip, I wanted to find out more about the program.

On the third trip, I waited in a very long line and then I waited some more for a manager to help me. Eventually, she brought out a stack of letters to review and forms to fill out. They weren't difficult, the forms; we just didn't know what we were doing. Either of us. I think I might have been the first person in the District of Columbia to answer a letter this year.

And then came the letters.

I found myself crying in the middle of my beautiful marble and gilt Post Office. People stared. Some asked what I was doing. One person blessed me while another wondered aloud if she could send her own request.

"I only have one," she explained.

I smiled and shrugged and turned my tear-streaked face back to the letters. There weren't many individual letters but pages stapled together as the Post Office had opened and sorted and entered the letters into their own system, compiling pages into groups of families based on last name and address, and the more letters I read, the more I got to know the families and their situations. Each offered a bit more of the story.

One woman was raising her own two kids plus three of her brother's as he'd lost his battle with AIDS a year earlier.

"I'm just trying to keep my family together," she wrote.

One lived in a shelter. Another mom just lost her job and had moved in with her son, bringing four kids and an infant grandchild hoping for something for his first Christmas.

Some of the letters asked for underwear. Socks. Sleepwear. Others asked for toys. Gaming systems. Electronics that I haven't even bought myself. Many of the letters just asked for "anything" as the writers (either children or moms) didn't know if they'd have Christmas this year. Some of the moms asked for presents for themselves. Some said "God bless you." Most were handwritten, a couple typed and some dated back as early as September.

I couldn't decide. I wanted to take them all.

Who was I to decide who "deserved" Christmas more? How could I pick and choose, not knowing if anyone else would come in for letters, knowing I might make the difference between presents and none in the lives of these children? I tried hard not to judge, not to read between or into a few scrawled lines.

I read and I sorted. I set some aside and came back to them. I filled out my forms, made my decision and changed my mind. I waited for the manager once again and I left, walking back a mile and a half to my office with letters in hand.

"I wondered if you got lost," exclaimed a friend at work when I came back after three hours or so.

"It took a while," I sighed. "But I wasn't leaving without a letter."

I came back with six.

Fortunately, the friend at work had already offered to help and another chipped in when he saw the stack. A third friend offered when I asked for advice and between the four of us, we're making Christmas for six children. We're all playing Santa.


Anyone interested in getting involved can fill out a (brief) application at either the National Capitol or Brentwood post office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. (If there isn't someone at the table, ask a postal worker.) Then, Santas-to-be pick a letter or letters to answer.

Once gifts are purchased, they can be taken to the post office, which will deliver them. The program started December 1 and will run through the end of the month.

The National Capitol Post Office is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave NE (close to Union Station) while the Brentwood office is located at 900 Brentwood Rd NE.


Tag: Christmas

Snow white

It might always be sunny in Philadelphia but in Pittsburgh this weekend, it snowed.


Sometime around three we entered the city and according to Maggie, the handy, little, handheld GPS, we were about 20 minutes from the dress shop. Unfortunately, though, an hour later, we were still 20 minutes from the shop. Snow, ice and construction conspired against us.

"We seem to be stuck in traffic," my friend explained over the phone as her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel and her voice started to quiver. I tried to joke and sang with songs on the radio in my own tuneless way. I couldn't do anything to help but I could try to keep the mood light. The shop would close in exactly one hour and wouldn't be open the next day. We'd already spent four and a half hours in the car and traffic didn't seem to be moving. At all.

Twenty minutes later, we weren't any closer but we did find an exit, which we took.

"Recalculating," Maggie intoned as we sought a faster route to the store. Any route to the store. Something other than the road cum parking lot that we'd later find closed due to the weather and a number of accidents.

"I think we should find the nearest place to get a drink," my friend muttered, making plans for after the dress. The tires started to lose their grip on the road as we fishtailed and slid. An hour, two calls and five miles later, we pulled up in front of the store. They had kept the shop open late just for us.

"Do you have a bathroom I can use?" I asked as my friend changed into her dress, the most expensive dress she'd ever own and I tried to steady my shaking nerves after a drive that, as much as I sang and joked, as much as I pretended everything would be all right, whitened my own knuckles. Wedding dress white. Driven snow white.

Despite the latter and seeing the former, I sighed with relief. Everything was going to be all right. We still had to make our way to the hotel on slick surface streets. We had to find someplace for dinner, for drinks, for the rest of the weekend and at the end of the night, after a bus ride, we'd find ourselves stuck in a restaurant, Soba in Shady Side, plotting to spend the night on the bartender's floor (he offered) or to walk five miles through ice and snow if the cab didn't come. (In the end, we waited 90 minutes or so between call and cab with the bartenders following up four or five times and topping our drinks, staining our lips.)

Nevertheless, everything was going to be all right.

There in the dress in the shop that was closed my friend looked at herself reflected in three mirrors or four and she saw the bride she soon would be.


Tag: Travel Friends Snow

Wonderland

Sometimes, I feel like Alice.

"I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

Sometimes, I channel the Queen of Hearts, roaring and shrill, thundering, "Off with their heads!"

Sometimes, I am more of a Mad Hatter. I do tend to use my own logic and to sometimes use the wrong words, confusing any situation with "tomorrow" instead of "today" or "yesterday."

"No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow."

Lately, though, I feel more like the White Rabbit.

"I'm late. I'm late. For a very important date. No time to say "Hello." Goodbye! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late."

On most levels I realize that I ought to pack. I leave in little over a week and a half for a very long trip with very tight weight restrictions. This is going to take a while, stuffing my bag and weighing it. Pulling things out. Reviewing the list. Buying replacements or things I forgot. Preparing to walk a fine line between rugged and dirty. Packing. And I'm a little OCD.

I need to give myself time, and I need to take it. Time at home. Time alone. Time to focus on my gear and time to pack. It will make me feel better. It will help.

"Don't just do something, stand there... Uh... no no! Go go! Go get my gloves! I'm late!"

Of course, in an hour or so, I'm leaving for Pittsburgh. I'm spending one of two final weekends at home away from the District. It probably isn't in my best interest to go out of state, but a friend's wedding dress is ready, which is. In my best interest. We're going to pick it up, to spend a weekend together in the Iron City with dress, dinner and drinks. I will be Maid of Honor, but I would have gone anyway. (I agreed to the date months ago, before she asked me to be MOH.)

The packing can wait until later. As if there's a later but there isn't. I leave soon and between now and then I have things to do – a film discussion with friends, the company Christmas party, two book clubs, books to prisoners, shopping for kids I don't even know because I picked up not one letter to Santa but six, coordinating the friends I've convinced to help plus the gifts, getting back to the post office. Fortunately, I have traded my week for reading aloud. Unfortunately, that time has filled like a hole below water.

"Curiouser and curiouser!"

Lately I feel like the White Rabbit, rushing and panicky, but when I think about it, I realize that's not such a bad thing. At least I'm in Wonderland, and the White Rabbit's the one who seems to know where he's going. There are worse things to be.


Tag: Worry Travel Time

Lunch lady

I have started to dread the microwave. It's a new phenomenon for me. I grew up with a microwave; we had one of the early models, a giant clunky thing with hot spots in an age that predated the whirly gigs that help cook things thoroughly. It didn't matter as I learned to eat between the still-frozen bits and the hard, overcooked pockets of burn.

Through one of her jobs, my mom taught microwave cooking classes to the masses. Fresh vegetables. Canned. Casseroles and desserts. Want to cook a turkey? No problem – my mom had the answer. She also had the accoutrement to microwave cooking, like a tray that drained grease from bacon, keeping it crisp, and a special bowl with a conical insert for popping corn. The cast iron skillet, our popcorn pan, eventually made its way to the back of the cupboard. (Though, I still have it today.)

I learned the hard way that one cannot boil an egg in a microwave and that casserole dishes with gold leaf inlay were best left to serving. Or the oven. Or anything other than sparks in the microwave. But more than anything, I learned how to cook with it.

These days, my microwave is smaller and far more powerful, even if it's starting to show signs of wear in growing rust spots and the fact that the door doesn't always open with the push of a button. I don't often use it to cook, preferring the oven and stove, but I use it to heat up things in a hurry.

The microwave at work, though, I use all the time as I bring in home-cooked heartiness for lunch. The one in my office is all red and sparkly, shiny and new, after an unfortunate incident with the old one and an untended bag of popcorn. (I wasn't there; it wasn't my fault.) The one at the client site is somewhat less so.

The client site doesn't really come with kitchen facilities. Or rather, it doesn't come with kitchen facilities at all. There's an ancient microwave down by the cafeteria, with buttons that seem to do something different every time I push them, available until two when they shut the gates, and a few donated machines around the building. (It's the same with refrigerators – they are few and far between – so I use a semi-insulated Strawberry Shortcake bag I bought for one of my nieces and seem to have kept.)

The microwave on my floor, the one nearest my desk, comes with rules about keeping it clean. I brought in a canister of wipes, but they don't seem to help with years of accumulated darkness on the side and roof. Nevertheless, I keep cleaning it and I keep using it because I need to eat. And cleaning it keeps the local microwave czars off my case. Unfortunately, it doesn't help with all the users, which is why I have started to dread the microwave.

In the past week or so, I have found myself eating lunch later and later with midday meetings and runs to the post office, and the later it gets, the more likely I am to run into Passive-Aggressive Lunch Lady, aka PALL.

I think PALL hates me.

It all started on Monday when I took my soup to the counter. She stood watching her food turn spin round, right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round, round, round, with a salad beside her and papers spread all over the counter.

When I set my soup down, sealed in its container, she huffed and gathered her papers as if I'd spilt on them. Broccoli on her notes. She puffed and I walked back to my desk. Twenty minutes later, her lunch was still in the microwave, even though she'd been standing right there.

For the rest of the week, every day, PALL left her food in the machine long past etiquette dictated, and I waited longer and longer, listening for the close of the door, waiting to eat. Some people just pull others' food from the microwave, like the daily potatoes that sit on the counter for hours, but I think that's kind of gross, especially with open containers, so I wait.

Of course, by the time I want to eat my own arm, I generally cave. Or if it's the potato man. He obviously doesn't mind. (They really are there for hours. At some point, I want to start exchanging the cooked ones for raw just to see what would happen, while one of my neighbors in my 'hood of Cubeville wants to impale one with a straw with just one word: You!)

If it continues, though, my interaction with PALL (who shoots dirty looks at me even outside of lunchtime), I'm going to have to start eating at noon. At 11:30 with half of the building. Or sometime later, like five. Either I'm going to have to change my habits or find something that doesn't need to be heated.


Tag: Work Food

Valium

"I'm going down to get some water. Do you need anything?"

"Valium."

My coworker laughed but I was only half joking. My heart raced.

A couple of weeks ago, during a conference call, my boss asked if I would be free some December morning.

"I think so," I replied.

"Can you brief on the website?" she asked.

"Um, sure."

I didn't really have an option. If she wanted me to run the demo, it meant that nobody else was available. I was the third choice for that in our very small office, but she was traveling as was the developer. It fell to me as someone who knew both the site and some of the audience.

Of course, I didn't know the site all that well.

I used it occasionally but not very often. Between visits, I forgot how to find my own reports (listed under "Performance Analysis") and found myself hunting and pecking on occasion, following links and thinking, "I didn't know that was there." I asked for guidance from the boss, the one who requested, but she replied rather briefly that she usually just demoed it.

In the days leading up to the meeting, I scoured the site and made notes for myself with an embarrassed nod to the fact that I wouldn't need notes for a website demo. It would be dynamic. We could just follow the links. In lieu of the site, with connection issues, I had the presentation we used at the summit in August. Everything would be fine. I could talk, point, explain and answer questions.

But I still took notes, creating a four-page packet of talking points.

My computer had slowed to a molasses rate throughout the course of the week. I couldn't quite figure it out, but the transfer of very large files on Tuesday did nothing to help. Neither did a disk cleanup. Or defragmenting. Thursday morning, it took me almost an hour to pull up information regarding the time and location of the meeting, which meant that I metroed instead of walking, even though that only saved 15 minutes.

I did get there early. Almost a half hour. I pulled out my laptop and rebooted. I started to work. I found a wifi connection and connected to the virtual private network I needed. I pulled up the website. The presentation. And I waited outside the meeting doors. When the group broke, I entered smiling.

"Look at you, you're all ready to go!"

The coordinator came to take my coat as I set my laptop on the table at the front of the room. Someone else came to connect it and the projector searched for an input. I hit my function/F4 and I waited. And waited.

"Did you hit F8?" someone asked.

I nodded and ran through the prompts again.

"It's F4 on this computer," someone else explained as a woman and I tried to troubleshoot the searching. Searching. Searching.

We cycled the laptop and we cycled the projector in a strange dance of connection, power and output.

"They have the briefing," the coordinator whispered. "Can you just go from that?"

"Sure," I said and pulled it up on my machine while someone else went to find the IT guys.

They took my place at the computer and I talked from my notes, my four pages of talking points, demoing a website without the web. Without a picture. Without a briefing to look at. I followed the presentation from memory because I couldn't get to my computer and answered questions about placement on a site I didn't often use.

It wasn't as dynamic as I would have liked.

In the end, though, I pulled it off. With a little tap dancing and with my heart racing, I did it.

The image never did pull up. The IT guys asked if they could restart my computer sometime during the Q&A session.

"I don't think I'm going to need it now," I replied.

They looked at me quizzically.

"I'm done, but they're going to need the other computer," I explained, pointing at the desktop. They didn't quite get it. "I'm leaving and taking the laptop with me."

They had changed the settings on my monitor and the screen had suddenly separated from its backing. I had to reach around them to power down. I packed up my bag in front of the group that waited in awkward silence for the next speaker: a man who would talk about systems without, apparently, being able to show them. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who'd crave Valium.


Tag: Work Technology Panic

And letters from Santa

Over lunch, I walked back to the Post Office. In hindsight, I might have just called, but the sun was shining, so I walked. I waited in line for a while, six or seven back from the counter plus the man who skipped, jumping in front of me, but there was nobody at the table covered in plastic and dotted with glitter and garlands.

"Next customer, please," called the man behind the counter.

"I just have a quick question," I said, with what turned out to be not such a quick question after all. "I heard this piece on the radio about post offices responding to letters to Santa. Do you do that here?"

"Yes."

"How do I get involved?"

He left for a while and came back with a number for his supervisor. She was on another call at the time.

If not for a series of mistakes - a wrong order on my part, the wrong delivery on another, an issue with a self scan machine at the grocery store - I wouldn't have seen the sign or heard the piece on NPR. I wouldn't have made the connection. I spent much of the night looking for more information, very little of which was available online. In the end, I decided to walk three miles round trip to enjoy a bit of the day and satisfy my curiosity.

I walked back to my office, enjoying the sun, and sat down to a late lunch. Soup. Yogurt. Some yummy almond/dried fruit bark from one of the other contractors... And work. I got back to work. Late in the afternoon, though, I dug out my wallet, the number and I called.

And I called.

And I called.

It cycled between ringing endlessly and a busy signal.

Eventually, though, I got through to a person. A real person. A man! The woman with whom I needed to speak was on another line, so I waited. She answered and I asked my question. She put me on hold and I waited some more.

Finally, I got my answer: Two post offices in Washington, DC participate in the Letters to Santa program. (There wasn't anyone available to staff the table earlier today, when I was there.)

Anyone interested in getting involved can fill out a (brief) application at either the National Capitol or Brentwood post office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Then, Santas-to-be just pick a letter to answer. Once gifts are purchased, they can be taken to the post office, which will deliver them. The program started December 1 and will run through the end of the month.

The National Capitol Post Office is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave NE (close to Union Station) while the Brentwood office is located at 900 Brentwood Rd NE.

I'm not sure if there will be anyone there when I go back tomorrow, but I will go back. I've convinced a couple of coworkers to join me in sending letters (and presents) from Santa.


Tag: Christmas Washington DC

Letters to Santa

I was standing there with my pile of mistakes – the batteries I had ordered in the wrong size, the one that I had ordered in the right size that came in the wrong, and the Christmas gift I had ordered and sent to my house instead of Oregon. I was a little cold, wearing knee socks instead of my tights and tired after a long day at work. I wanted to go home, but I did love my favorite post office – beautiful in marble and gilt and open 'til midnight.

"Excuse me," said a man who joined the queue behind me. I had shifted to move out of his way but feared I appeared to feel crowded.

I smiled over my shoulder and glanced around the huge, marbled room. I noticed the table behind us, covered in red plastic and dotted with glitter and garlands. I noticed a sign to our right reading, "Letters for Santa." When I glanced back at the table again, I apologized.

"I'm just trying to figure out the 'Letters for Santa,'" I explained and he shrugged.

At the counter, I soon forgot to ask, though, talking to the man with the delicious, deep voice, a man who really seemed to mean it when he said "Happy Holidays," which put a spring in my step.

"You, too!" I called and bounced back to my car for an errant, erranding kind of night and the world conspired to keep me out late. To the grocery store for treats for the kids at the shelter, an idea vetted through my sister (a mom), picking up a few things for myself. Yogurt. Ice cream. An onion. Yogurt and self check soon disagreed keeping me in the store. In the car, my phone dialed a friend who dialed me back and I pulled to the side of the street to take the call.

By the time I pulled up in front of the house, the program had changed on my local NPR station to All Things Considered.

"It is illegal to open someone else's mail," the story opened, "But in New York City, starting today, postal workers make their yearly exception. Kids' letters to Santa are piled up in the city's main post office and the public is invited to make someone's Christmas wish come true."

Some of the requests were amusing, others heartbreaking and some darn near impossible. And then, a number of kids asked for the basics. Necessities. Pencils and toothbrushes. Blankets. Anything. A man on the radio had been answering letters to Santa for 18 years. 18 years. Of playing Santa.

I don't remember when I stopped believing in the man in the suit, the one covered in ashes and dressed all in fur with cheeks like roses and a nose like a cherry, with a round little belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. I did believe. At some point. And then I didn't.

It might have happened around the time my parents divorced. It wasn't their fault. I had reached the age when kids stopped believing in things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Happily ever after. Fairy tales and cartoons. Lines were drawn and a world full of possibility shrank.

Though, cynical as I was in my 6-year-old skin, I fell in love with Miracle on 34th Street and the way little Natalie Wood as Susan Walker lost her cynicism, the way she started to believe, to truly believe, and the way Fred Gailey proved Kris Kringle's identity as Santa through all those letters. According to NPR, the post office receives one million letters a year addressed to Saint Nick by way of Santa Claus, North Pole, and for nearly a century, the postal service has helped answer them. For a while now, so has the public.

If I can figure out if DC does it, if the sign I saw meant responses to letters to Santa, I will join them.


"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus."
- Francis Pharcellus Church



Update: Two post offices in Washington, DC participate in the Letters to Santa program.

Anyone interested in getting involved can fill out a (brief) application at either the National Capitol or Brentwood post office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Then, Santas-to-be just pick a letter to answer. Once gifts are purchased, they can be taken to the post office, which will deliver them. The program started December 1 and will run through the end of the month.

The National Capitol Post Office is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave NE (close to Union Station) while the Brentwood office is located at 900 Brentwood Rd NE.


Tag: Christmas

Walk away

A few years ago, I went to a reunion with one of my friends. It was her family reunion. She swears she explained when she asked. I swear I didn't know until the drive down. Either way, I was the only unrelated one at the beach for part of a week over the summer.

One of my favorite stories came from the weekend, a story I retell over and over again, with my friend's dad trying to clarify that I came as a friend - his daughter had just broken up with her boyfriend - by announcing "Kristin and gay are not Cheryl!" over dinner, but more than the story, I remember having fun over the weekend.

We talked and we laughed. I learned Mexican dominoes. Played board games. I heard an anniversary song from her cousin to his wife, a couple who chose to sleep on the beach. While I lost the lyrics at some point, I remember finding it irreverently funny and quite possibly including the word "whore."

The biggest thing I remember, though, more than the song, the story, the trip to the beach and the scary drive home in the middle of a summer storm, revolved around Monopoly. The board game. With my friend's brother and her second cousin, once removed.

I hate Monopoly. My 10-year-old nephew recently asked me to play and I protested.

"I will play anything but Monopoly. Anything. At all."

And I lived up to my word. Yahtzee! and Boggle, Scrabble and Pick-Up Sticks, I played them all, but I kept away from Monopoly. At the store, waiting for his sister to pick out a belated birthday gift, he drooled over Monopoly Here & Now World Edition, which he wanted to buy for his dad and while I would have obliged for the sake of the gift, I wouldn't have played.

I hate Monopoly.

At the beach over the summer several years back, with my friend, her brother and a second cousin once removed, I joined a game, innocently enough. We had fun for the first hour and less fun for the next. By hour three, when the two boys (or one boy and a man) started going, though, it became decidedly less fun. They played fast and loose, egging each other on, heckling everyone at the board.

We considered rules, my friend and I. One more turn at the board. A limit on property. A limit on houses. But the boys wouldn't hear of it. They wanted to play until only one boy stood, at the end of the game, with all of the property and all of the money.

We played through that third hour while the sun beckoned outside. The surf. The rest of the family. And the boys continued to grow their wealth while we held our own through luck of the die, and suddenly, my friend stood. She pushed away from the board and announced she was going outside.

"I'm done," she said. "You can divide my property or turn it over to the bank. I don't care."

I sat in wonder and stared as she walked out of the room over protests of her brother and cousin (second, once removed). I shook the die loosely and thought for a second and then I followed her out of the room.

I don't think I realized 'til that point that I could walk away. Just... walk away. It was only a game. It didn't matter. I wanted more to my day, to my week, to my life than a game I didn't enjoy very much with boys who took it far too seriously.

Years later, I don't know if anyone remembers the game that we played; it still sticks with me. I remember the afternoon on the beach. Mexican dominoes. Dinner with new friends, my friend's family, and laughter. I remember the laughter, and I remember the fact that she walked away. Oh, how I admired that.


Tag: Choice Life Friends Growing up

End or beginning

My glasses steamed up on the walk home, covered in misty droplets of rain and opaque with my own breath. I carried an umbrella in my bag, but it just didn't seem to be raining hard enough to use it.

On the train, I saw men and women with rolling bags, suitcases on wheels and transfer tags. I saw another couple with the same by Eastern Market and I wondered if they were walking from Union Station home or heading toward the Metro and a late Sunday flight. Wherever they'd been, wherever they were going, they were headed home.

I went to a movie, to see Australia, with a couple of friends and somehow neglected to mention what they might have in common. Normally, I peppered the introductions with bits to which one might cleave and my friends had something in common. I meant to say something. I thought I had said something. I didn't. And there was so much to say.

By the time of the movie, one had been happily married for about 49 hours and I had shared in the nuptials as one of few guests. Technically, I might have served as the best man as the best of the friends of the groom present at the very small ceremony. Though, I might have served as the photographer as well, sending dozens of pics to the couple before and after the movie, before and after dim sum. Tony Cheng's. Cupcakes.

The weekend that seemed somewhat empty had filled so rapidly, so completely, with friends, and Sunday felt like the end of something - the weekend, the holiday, November – all of which it was with a cold drizzling rain and overcast skies. But also the beginning.

"Tomorrow is December," I thought as I walked.

At Eastern Market, on the way home, I passed rows of Christmas trees and felt a twinge of regret that I wouldn't have one but the sirens echoing over the Hill reminded me that it would only serve as a fire hazard when I left for a month. After some of the fires in the movie, I felt a little skittish.

A lot of the movie made me skittish, though, with a stampede scene bringing up unfortunate thoughts of Black Friday accidents. The news had reported that a man lost his life to a throng of bargain-shoppers in a Long Island Walmart, and I couldn't stop thinking of that as a man lost his life onscreen. Not even Baz Luhrman's sweeping vision or the beautiful Hugh Jackman could distract me from that. Not entirely. Though, they tried.

They really, really tried, and I enjoyed the movie despite low expectations and mixed reviews. Because of low expectations and mixed reviews. And I enjoyed the time with my friends, even if they didn't know each other going into the show. I was with people I liked and thoroughly entertained. I had eaten too much. I had talked and laughed and eaten a cupcake on the road. I stayed pretty dry but for the damp overcoat and hair and the steamy, opaque glass. It was a good day. The end of something. The beginning of something else.


Tag: Friends Movies