The Shape of My Fears

Last night when I got home I was alone and so I checked all the usual places for monsters in my house. The basement, the main floor shower, the upstairs shower, etc.

I found nothing, and so I crawled into bed with my dog and drifted off to ... and right before sleeping I realized that I didn't look under the bed.

OH GOD.

So I started thinking "what should I be scared of?" and the only thing that came up was the fish/guy from the movie the Shape of Water.

And then I laughed because that is not even sort of scary! And then I went to sleep.

And it's a good gosh darn thing my brain didn't go here:

You Can't Take Me Anywhere

I've been flying back-and-forth to Warroad MN to visit my parents on the Marvin Windows corporate propeller plane since May. It's fun and I feel fancy every time and I love getting there in an hour and 15 minutes vs driving 6.5 hours.

Last month and for the first time I got to ride their jet. No propellers. Leather buttery seats. Fancy fancy. Oh man it goes fast! The same exact trip takes 45 minutes. But let me tell you the take off is terrifying. I have never felt such speed in my entire life and I have ridden the fastest train on earth (Shanghai Maglev China). Anyway it goes one million miles an hour and you go straight up. STRAIGHT up. Seriously. When we got up to cruising altitude I turned to the woman next to me and asked her "are we in space?". I was seated across from her children (this jet had a four-seat-face-each-other-thing) and they giggled the entire time and that was the only reason I didn't bawl my eyes out from sheer terror.

But that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that when I first got in the jet I noticed that same woman in the very very back of the plane with one of her kids. She looked like she was confused and didn't know if she wanted to sit way back there with him and I am nosey and so I already knew from eavesdropping that she was traveling with her husband, two little boys and giant pregnant belly (which was filled with twins as I was to find out later). So I stuck my nose in even further and offered to take the way back so she could sit in the four seat thing with her whole family. I smugly went to take my hero's position all the way in the back. (Seat change explained below). I am SUCH a good person. Ask anyone. I couldn't find the seat belt though? I searched and searched.

Then a man came and sat right across from me and we were sitting so close to each other that our knees were intertwined. Face-to-face. I was like, "oh man I hope I like this guy because this is AWK.WARD." He had a book which was a good sign just in case. But his seat for sure had a seat belt. I stood to look better for my seat belt, which meant he had to stand too to let me look and turn around and stuff. Finally it dawned on me that the seat was probably flipped down and I needed to flip it up to find the seat belt.

NOPE. TOILET.

The Bathroom Door

Hexums. We don't do doors. We don't shut doors. Everybody who has ever been to my parents' one room shack of a cabin of a home knows you don't go in the bathroom without calling out ahead. And if you're in there and your modesty is compromised and you hear footsteps you call out "I'M IN HERE". That's our "door". Most of you "privacy" people from much smaller families will struggle to understand this.

Anyway, tonight my mom and sister Keri and I were watching a movie while my dad push-mowed his couple-acre yard, me knowing at some point he was going to need my help getting under the pine trees my mom refuses to allow him to cut the branches out of the bottom blah blah blah...anyway, I knew this, and I saw it coming and so I yelled outside to my dad that I fully planned on helping him mow under the pine trees, but not until after our movie was done. So anyway I also, for good measure yelled "your belly is big" (it is) and then I ran to the bathroom for sanctuary, knowing my dad would NEVER NEVER NEVER go into the bathroom if I were in there. So I sat, (peeing, yes) but also afraid to not be peeing because I was in TROUBLE, and then I looked up to see my mom's biggest butcher knife, brandished, around the corner. 

A warning.

Terror in the Skies

Nothing like realizing you're going home tomorrow to make you go "oh, I should really write about this trip." I've been busy people, living life!

 

Taking terrifying propeller flights from tiny cities in Mozambique to even tinier towns, for example. The beach in Mozambique where my friends Mark and Annie were a few years back is called Tofo. It's pronounced like Tofu for some strange reason but I don't judge because I call Roosevelt Rooooooosevelt, as you'll recall.

 

Anyways Mark and Annie described this place like a paradise and such a lovely break from grueling overland travel through Africa in such a way that made me really want to go there. You can scuba dive with whale sharks and manta rays, you can surf, you can have $5 lobsters on the beach, etc.

 

The only problem with Tofu is that it's a nine hour bus ride from Maputo (pronounced Maputu) and that's like 9 hours in Africa-hot weather, with 100 people in a 15 seater bus. And so I decided it would be better to just take a flight from Maputoto to Tofo.

 

The only Mozambican airline is called LAM (owned 50% by the president of course) and the South Africans have nicknamed it "late and maybe". In fact my flight to Tofo was delayed by four hours, and the only reason I knew that is because the woman checking me in sort of half-mentioned it off the cuff after she had taken my bag. The Maputo airport was quite a confusing place, actually. I tried to get some wifi so I could call some friends to take me for a coffee on my delay but nobody will let you use their wifi, not even LAM after they delay your flight for four hours. The LAM lounge is called Flamingo. It's for business class only and it's completely empty. I weaseled my way in there, even after the rude woman told me that it would be too dangerous to let me sit in the lounge because "what if I have to leave my desk?" She kicked me out after ten minutes but the wifi wasn't working anyway. ANYWAY I basically sat in the airport for four hours without wifi or even a book because they took my bag and then I had to take this plane and OMG it was scary:

 

 

Never a good sign when the cockpit is open to the rest of the plane. No word on whether the pilot wore crocs.

 

 

 

Sarah and Lydia

In Seychelles, I met up with my old friend Sarah. She lived with me way back in like aught six or seven for just a couple of months, and then headed off for an incredible adventurous life in which she lives in Dubai and works as cabin crew for Emirates and wakes up in a different country every couple of days.

 

Seriously jealous of her life and I might be tempted to join her, but Emirates has an AGE LIMIT and I exceed it. By quite a margin. Frowny Face.

 

Anyway, Sarah and I have been talking about meeting up for years but it just now worked out when I invited myself on her weekend getaway to the Seychelles. She and her friend Lydia from Dubai hopped an Emirates flight and arrived on my third day. Together we boarded a ferry and headed off for La Digue island, home to the most amazing rock formations.

 

 

 

 

 

That's Lydia on the left and Sarah in the middle.

 

Lydia and Sarah are tanned, gorgeous and fun. They've been bronzing their skin on their rooftop pools in Dubai while I've been bundling up against zero degree weather back in Minnesota. And so I was a real stick-in-the-mud, I tell ya, with my sunblock and hats and umbrellas and long-sleeved shirts and "not going snorkeling" (remember my gigantic sunburn from snorkeling in the Maldives?) but we had fun anyways:

 

 

 

 

Morning Run

When I first got to Seychelles, my body clock was so off that I was waking up at 4:30 in the morning. There was nothing to do but start my day. My Airbnb was across from the ocean of the east side of the island and so I was able to watch the sunrise every day. Sunrise is significantly more boring than sunset in my opinion. I can't explain why I think that; I can only say that I've never gotten bored watching the sun set, but I sure got bored waiting for it to rise. I just kept thinking that somehow my dad would be so proud if he knew I was up that early. But, just as a tree falling in the forest probably doesnt make a sound if nobody is there to hear it, me getting up early in Africa is of no significance to ol' Hal back in Minnesota.

 

"Papa, can you hear me?" (Yentl)

After sunrise, I would take off to a beach on the south of the island for a nice run. The tide is a little high in the mornings and so it was a fun obstacle course to jump over and duck under the trees on the beach.

 

 

One time I ducked, but not far enough because my face ran right into a sticky spider's web. It was gross of course, but I didn't freak out until a few minutes later when I saw this:

 

 

Maybe you can't tell but that spider is like AFRICA HUGE.

 

 

 

And then I would go for a little swing...

 

The sand was super soft and squishy, which made for all kinds of soreness in my calves the next day.

 

Look at this cute little lonely manta I saw from the beach:

 

 

The first day, I ended up at some rocks that would have had to be climbed over and through and wouldn't you know it but just when it was time to run over and through them a man who was collecting bottles and cans appeared and went in there and so I didn't feel safe. Instead I ran up to the road to go around, but I was barefoot and so ouch! I ran to a hotel entrance but they WOULDNT LET ME IN because it was private. And so I ended up running for about a mile on the narrow ouchie road for no reason. And then I wanted to climb through those rocks to show that dumb hotel who was boss but I was too scared of the man. And so I didn't. I went for a swim instead. A wonderful refreshing swim in the shade before the sun came out. After that it was only 9am and so I went back to my room for a shower and then out for breakfast and then was back to my room by 2pm.

 

And then I slept for 15 hours.

 

I did that two days in a row. Lived my whole day from 5am to 2pm and then slept until the next morning. It was so delicious.

 

 

Crabby

It's just a tiny bit hard to relax on the beach with this guy and his million billion friends hanging around. Mostly I'm just terrified I'm going to step on one with my bare foot and hear/feel it crunching.

 

 

And what exactly do crabs do? So far I can only guess that they RUN! to the ocean, and then RUN! back to a hole in the ground and DART! inside. And also they hide out on large boulders only to RUN! away when you get close so you almost fall off the large boulder and down into the ocean below.

 

 

Wonder If He's Single...

Phil Spector, Bad Man

It seems Phil Spector hasn't spoken in prison in the last nine months. Painful polyps in his throat or something. Never mind that, he's looking FANTASTIC. Do you think he would date me?

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 7

...And then they wheeled me in to surgery and all of the sudden I got very scared because SURGERY but it was too late and then I woke up. I remember feeling like I had just had a very vivid dream about work. And then I was glad I wasn't at work, and "oh yeah. surgery." So I was like "oh man you guys I was dreaming about work" but then I got back on my game, and as per usual I took it upon myself to brighten the days of the post-op staff with a little hilarity and, of course, as is so common with me, the oh-so-typical resultant accolades taking the form of laughter.

"WHERE IS MY SON!? I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON! WHERE. IS. MY. SON?!?!!" I screamed, in as dramatic a movie voice as I could muster.

Nobody laughed. You know I think now, after all this, that Doctors and Nurses and Anesthesiologists are more concerned about things like "white cell counts" and "oxygen levels" and "blood pressure" and "are you alive?" and "how do you feel?" than they are about having a good laugh. I guess that's why they studied the sciences and we all studied the arts. I heard my post-op nurse say to somebody walking by, "this one's a jokester", as if to explain why her patient was embarrassing her.

Oh man this guy next to me would NOT SHUT UP. He was talking about all kinds of stuff. And he was all like mad and being mean to the post-op people. It was so clear to me what he was talking about and it was SO ANNOYING. I couldn't WAIT to tell everybody all of the details of absolutely everything he was complaining about. Here's me later, telling that story (in my favorite Summer-Grimes-filmed-appendectomy-video that never fails to make me LOL):

The Evolution of an Appendectomy, Volume 6

...So maybe I did, and maybe I did not shove a Vicodin pill up my butt somewhere near the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota -- and maybe my butt did and maybe it did not basically grab that Vicodin pill out of my trembling hand and suck it up into oblivion. Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't fascinated by how well my body seemed to accept and in fact welcome it. I'll never tell. Because I'm a lady. Who reveals nothing.

What I will tell you is that Beata drove like a madwoman from Tiny Town Wisconsin to Minneapolis on a straight shot up the I-94 and we made it there in no time. I slept for most of it. My appendix did not burst, thanks goodness and when we peeled into the ER at Abbott Hospital they were primed and ready for us. All credit to the nice folks at the Tiny Town ER, who called ahead and let Abbott know all the details and that I was on my way.

I was admitted immediately into room 12, I believe, but how can one be sure of such minute details when one is under the influence of a Vicodin one may or may not have shoved up their butt?

Everybody at Abbott was great. They agreed with my decision to come back to Minneapolis and almost everybody I spoke with wondered why a relatively young Wisconsin surgeon "didn't do laparoscopic" "appies". The fact that they called it an "appy" made me feel at ease almost immediately. If you know me well you know I like abbreves and especially ones that end in a "y" sound. Also you don't give a pet name to a surgery you're not performing on a daily basis. At least I don't think you do. 

From here things moved pretty quickly and I think basically I just had to sign a bunch of stuff and then my sister Kasey and niece Miyo arrived and Summer's brother Justin and his wife Kassie got there and we all sat around joking while I tried not to think about what was going to happen to me.

One time my gown feel completely off when I tried to get up from my bed to go pee, and the door was open to the whole ER:

OOH, and I always love it when they ask me if I'm married! Rita, the Nurse Anesthesiologist seemed very surprised that nobody loves me and then when I asked her to "find me a good one" she confessed that there weren't that many single people around Abbott. Which is bull crap because Dr. Mumm was pretty adorable and I might have even told him so. I can't remember.

Appendectomy Aside...

Maybe you did and maybe you didn't notice the weird sink in a previous post about my Appendectomy...

This weird sink:

I am SO proud of myself for figuring out how to get those arrows on there.

We found it very strange and "middle-of-nowhere-Wisconsin"(?) that there was this extra weird sink and so we tried to figure out its' purpose. Upon closer inspection, we found out there was totally a poop-streak in it.

Now...how?...I mean, it's not a place you can sit down for a nice poop, and so the obvious conclusion is that this is the sink where the nurse empties the bedpan, right? So it's like a vicarious toilet. Doesn't that seem like the only logical explanation? And so, then logically, wouldn't it make sense, also, that the SAME NURSE would have absolutely noticed the poop streak and given it an extra flush? 

Is it just me? Or is that what should have happened? 

Exhibit A

This was an obvious photo to stage. Beata was so scared. HA!

"Beata! Relax. You're not going to get poop on you! Now don't laugh."

Most Hilarious Craigslist Text Ever and a Narrow Escape from Being a Silenced Lamb

So I'll make this short story as long as possible, as per usual.

I'm trying to work more from home. I don't really have an ideal situation at the moment, though some may call it that...

Laptop desk? Cereal? Coffee? Check. Check. Check. Fancy Business? Check one million.

The thing is, I am trying to be a fancy business lady and so working in bed, though it has it's benefits (see photo caption above), it isn't a long-term solution. I do have an office, but I also have the world's baddest back -- so my adorable yet hella-uncomfortable little school desk just won't do:

I decided that a corner desk would maximize the little baby office that I have -- and I even created a Pinterest account so I could get "inspiration" for tiny office spaces and stuff like they have in this one really appealed to me:

Isn't that just fantastic? I don't have those stairs of course, but you get the idea.

ANYWAY. I went on Overstock.com and bought a white corner desk from them for $225 that would fit the dimensions of the tiny room. But a week-and-a-half later I realized that my desk wasn't here and then I tracked it on UPS and found that it was damaged in transit. I chatted a customer service rep and they told me that they were out of stock now, sorry. Full refund. Thank you Overstock.com.

So I went on Craigslist and found this little cutie for $95:

Except my office is only 91" long. So I texted the seller:

"Is this desk easily trimmable? And are you the kind of person who has the tools and goes around cutting desks?" and they said yes! 

And then we arranged for pickup, etc. During the conversation, I got the single most hilarious text I have ever gotten from an exchange on Craigslist. Here it is:

"GARAGE IS OPEN AND SAW IS READY."




Of course I responded as you see in the blue above, and thus began a hilarious text exchange regarding my demise:

Don't worry, he didn't kill me. And neither did his adorable daughter.

Instead, he cut 3" off the end of my desk and while we waited gave me and my neighbor Matt (aka bodyguard aka muscles-of-the-operation aka SUCKER) beers and refunded me $30 because I didn't take the chairs and then we all became best friends.

And look at my cute new little office, primed and ready for some fancy business:

Work in progress guys, I still gotta get that staircase installed.

All's well that ends well, am I right, Dad?

"That Was Dirty"

One day at the Mall of America, my friend and I were having a hard time finding parking. I hate that place. I always have a hard time finding parking. There are several parking ramps and several parking lots surrounding the place, but they're always full. We drove around and around the lot right in front of the entrance I wanted to use, and hoped to get lucky. I saw some tail lights illuminating, high fived my friend and waited for the car to leave the space. I put my blinker on in the universal symbol for "I have dibs on this spot." We waited some more. Whoever was in that car took forever to load up and get out of the spot (a huge pet peeve of mine).

During this time, another vehicle approached, slowed down, stopped, and then the driver put their blinker on. For my spot! This woman and I were facing each other, not thirty feet apart, and so I'm sure she and her friend could see my friend and me making the "aw HELL no" faces as we sat there in a standoff. Because we could sure see their "whatever. I do what I want" faces.

They weren't backing down.

I decided that whichever direction the car in the spot backed out would determine the winner because had it backed out toward me, my opponent would have to wait for the car to drive past her, in which time I would easily swoop in before her. But if it backed out toward her and I had to wait, she would win.

When the car in the spot backed up toward me, declaring me the winner I hesitated*. Just long enough for them to take the spot right from underneath me.

Shocked and angry at what just transpired, I rolled down my window and said, "That was dirty."

The driver replied:

"YO' ASS IS DIRTY!"

*Now. This happened probably four years ago. Why haven't I written the story yet? I was afraid to because the women in the car opposite me were black. Black and sassy and urban. The kind of black and sassy and urban that intimidates me. And these girls were definitely intimidating me. I have spent my life trying to fight against stereotypes (or act in a way that at least nobody would think I was a stereotyper), so let me explain something by breaking from the story for a moment and telling a completely different story, for you see, I was once on the winning side of a standoff like this. (But only because my two black girlfriends decided one day to fulfill every stereotype about urban black American women.)

One million years ago I went to a crowded pop concert with one white girlfriend and two black girlfriends. We pushed our way to the front, one of the black girls leading the way. When she got into an altercation with some dummy who wouldn't let us through— you guessed it. The other black girl got right up in there and had her back and they fought it out while I and the other white girl turned tail and got the heck out of there. The four of us laughed and laughed later at the stereotypes that were reinforced in that moment. And you know what? Sometimes stereotypes are true. Never mind that the two black girls were from the city and I and the other white girl were from small town Minnesota Nice. And the point of this story-within-a-story is to explain why I was sure the black sassy urban ladies would key my car if I took that spot. Ha! Kidding. But I was sure they would fight and I would cower and lose. And it was just as much 'small town vs. big city' as it was about race.

**and then we went to Urban Outfitters and totally saw Donatella Versace shopping with her bodyguard and daughter.

Posted with Blogsy

Sending A Man to Jail Was Not One of my Goals For 2013...

Things had been festering for a while in India, bubbling and threatening to get really bad for a while. We didn't know how and we didn't know when, but it was coming and we could feel it. This post describes our no-so-happy New Year's Day, 2013. It's long. A man goes to jail. But at the end, there's a gin and tonic and a hot shower.

 

After we finished with Agra and the Taj Mahal, which was just as amazing as you've always dreamed, by the way, we were to take a big train from a nowhere town called Gwalior all the way to Veranasi, which is where the people go to the Ganges River to bathe and set their dead people on fire. Imagine India in your mind's eye. Veranasi is the place you're imagining. But first we had to take a government bus from Agra to Gwalior.

What a weird bus ride. What was supposed to last two hours ended up being five-and-half. Typical India. Nobody on the bus spoke English. Once, during a traffic jam, the bus started going but then stopped again. A little old lady behind us most clearly uttered one English word: "sh*t". We laughed pretty hard.

At one point a white SUV full of men pulled over in front of us and stopped our bus. They got out and then got in a yelling match with our driver. Then they got ON our bus (and by the way it was the kind of bus where there are sixty-five too many people on it) and passed me to approach the driver. I said, "no, no, no, no, no, no" and motioned to get up and get in between the men to try to prevent any violence, but a man sitting in the conductors seat in front of us looked at me and shook his head, like, stay out of it. So I did. The men started punching our driver! And then they yelled some more and got off the bus.

After that we were on edge for sure and so when another truck pulled up and six men approached our bus with clubs in their hands we kind of freaked out. They boarded our bus but didn't beat the driver or any of us. What was that all about? I'll never know. I don't speak Hindi. Shortly after that our bus broke down and we had to get on another one. The new driver said, "WELCOME TO INDIA!" and I was like, yah.

When we finally arrived to Gwalior, it was already 10:30pm and we had missed our train to Veranasi by two hours. We knew we had to spend the night, but walked straight to the train station to ask what to do about leaving for Veranasi the next day. In India the train station is a confusing place. You can't just go buy a ticket. You have to butt in front of six people at a ticket desk and yell your question and then they ignore you and send you somewhere else with a flick of the hand. The ticket counter told us we had to "enquire" at the "enquiry" desk. So we went over there, where another jerk didn't even look at us. Typical India. His feet were on his desk and he faced away from me. Anyway, I finally asked him why he was being so rude. After all it was an enquiry counter and I had an enquiry. I said, "are you on break?" but it did no good. I finally got through to him by saying, "Look. I need help. If I were your sister, what would you tell me to do?" He smiled, miracle of miracles and told me if I were his sister, he wouldn't let me travel without him. And then he said the best thing to do would be to buy tickets for the same train the next night and sent us back to the original counter.

But first, we had to go pee. The train station bathroom was gross. The squatters had mountains of poop in them, and so the only other option was a tile room with a hole in the corner. Like mouse holes in the floor. There was no possible way to pee in the holes. In hindsight I think it was actually a shower. I squatted as low as possible and peed as slowly as I could, but it was dark and there was no lock and I was so concerned about bracing the door against rapists that basically my entire pants, socks and shoes got wet with tiny dots of pee that had splashed up from the tile. I was humiliated. After THAT, I met Summer at the snack counter. I bought my snacks, used my wallet to pay with cash, and put my wallet back in my tote bag. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two young boys noticing my wallet so I resolved to clutch my bag tight.

THEN, we went back to the original ticket counter, who told us to come back the next day because his desk was for was general tickets and the sleeper car tickets were only available at the reservation desk which was closed for the night. AAAAAAAAAH!! I'm explaining these ridiculous details to give an idea of my mindset. I was tired. It was late. I was also shaken up at the beating of the bus driver and afraid that those men with clubs were going to hurt us but they didn't and I was angry with the train station employees AND I peed on myself.

Anyway, when I was there, I noticed my peripheral assassin, as my Dad would say. He was one of the young boys from the snack counter. He was approximately 17, healthy and well-dressed. He was standing too close. No big thing in India, they always stand too close (because they intend to butt in front of you). But I noticed him and that's the point. After my question was [not] answered I started to walk over to Summer to give her the new details. I felt funny. Strange. This caused me to look in my bag for my wallet. It wasn't there. I looked at him. He looked at me. He started running. I screamed and pointed, "hey! HEY!," and Summer grabbed his shirt, and then two men caught him and started slapping and punching him. Hub Bub. Commotion. He tried to escape. I saw my wallet on the ground (he must have thrown it). I grabbed it. Then Summer and I tried to leave the station to get the heck out of there. "Ma'am!" the people called to me, holding my pick-pocketer. I thought maybe they thought I would want to punch him. I didn't. (I admit I kind of wanted to slap his face.) And then somebody said "police" and I realized I would have to give a statement. Side point: I have NO idea how he got his hand in my bag. I never felt it. And I was clutching it because I was aware and on edge because I just felt something was up. And he still got my wallet out of my bag.

We followed the mob, and I do mean mob. There were fifty of us walking to what I assumed would be the police station. Suddenly we were left behind and at the back of the mob. The boy tried to escape and begged and pleaded with his captors who continued slapping him, and we trod on. And on. It was far. The whole time they were slapping and punching him. I started to cry, because I just didn't want anything to do with this Justice anymore. What did I care? I had my wallet back. But the Police, you have to go to the Police, right? Ugh, in India I have heard they are corrupt, so do you really have to? I don't know! Leave me alone! (Pee Wee Herman).

I remembered a story where my friend Kevin's bag was stolen in Africa and a lynch mob caught the man and they asked Kevin, "do you want us to kill him?" Kevin was like, "no thank you." As we walked, I told Summer, "I don't want to send him to jail." and one of the mob looked at me like I was a crazy person and said, "you don't want him to go to jail???" When we got to the office the fifty men stayed to watch the scene unfold. There were papers and books and statements and all I could see was the poor boy laying on the ground and another man KICKING him in the face with his boot. I didn't want any part of it, none! I wanted out of there. We were asked to sit down on a bench. By this point, I still had not been asked, nor had I told anybody what happened.

They took the boy into a back room and a policeman took a strap and followed. From our bench, I had to hear them lashing him again and again and again and again and I couldn't stop my tears. I buried my head in my hands and sobbed. He got a million lashes and I could hear him crying and begging. I wanted to help him escape! But he stole my wallet! All around me people were talking in Hindi and still nobody had asked me what happened. The man I took to be the main policeman was smirking in a way that made me uncomfortable. It bothered me that nobody seemed to care that we might be upset by any of this. I asked: "what's going to happen to him?" but I couldn't get a straight answer from anybody. Finally I found a man who spoke English and I asked, "Where are we? Is this the police? What do they need from me?" They told me we were at the Train Police, and that the boy was being punished. They confirmed that I had my wallet back and that nothing else was missing. I was still crying and my leg started shaking uncontrollably. Summer held my hand and told me, "this is not your doing". She told the men we were satisfied and we didn't want anything further. I had my wallet and the boy was punished. They let us leave finally, but only after I gave my name, address and phone number. (Sorry mom, I gave them yours.) Regardless if I wanted to "press charges", they were going to "take care of him" and I have no idea what that means, except the man who spoke some English told me that they would make sure he never did this again.

Summer and I left the station, got ourselves an expensive hotel room ($40!), ordered up two double gin-and-tonics, enjoyed hot showers for the first time in over a month and slept until 4pm the next day. Alas, I don't think I'll ever be over it.

I love my mom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Camel Trek

Summer and I spent the better part of four days traveling from Goa to Rajasthan, India for the sole purpose of going on a desert camel trek. We braved trains and buses and creepy starers and even a few mean people to get here. And it was worth it. We took a jeep ride out into the desert at 6:30am where we had a campfire breakfast and then saddled up and rode off into the sand. We saw villages and people and more sand and in general had a nice relaxing time. It was so weird staring at the butt of the camel in front of me, because they truly looked like a CGI thing on some Star Wars movie. They have two knees! One bends forward and the other back. Their leg makes a 'Z' shape when they lay down. And it's so scary when they get up and down! You have to get on them while they're laying down and then hold on for dear life while they stand up.

Walking them on into a village.

Desert Bill Murray.

He wouldn't let me use my left hand or eye either, DAD.

 

I must have said out loud posted as my Facebook status several times that I hadn't been sick in India for 28 days and the devil must have heard me because I got sick. Real sick. While I was supposed to be enjoying a camp out under the stars, I moaned and groaned until I fell asleep without any dinner and woke up at 6am because I had to barf. So I army crawled out of my sleep mat and barfed six inches from my pillow. Then I covered the barf with a little sand and stuck a stick in it so's I would remember where the barf was, and then army crawled back into my mat and fell asleep again until 8am, when I had to get up and go to the bathroom. I barfed again into a tree. Then I went back to bed and here's a picture of round three, taken by my best pal Summer:

Notice the stick. That other thing is my tissue. I burned it, like a good little camper.

 

I would like to remember the trip differently though, like as the time I actually had some fun with animals. (The trick was to imagine I was just riding a horse.) Still terrified, for sure, but a tiny bit less now:

 

Posted with Blogsy