Nothing about nothing

One of my friends thought I should spend my downtime blogging instead of writing him emails and repeatedly sweeping the kitchen floor with a toothbrush (I swear I am not on meth, I am actually this hyper).  OK, it was the Boi and I think I am bugging him with too much attention.  I tend to do that and he isn’t the first guy I have annoyed (Apologies, former boyfriends! I know I can be a bit much, kind of a like a deep fried Twinkie with a Snickers bar incased in it).  That was so gross, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.  Anyone want to kiss me?

So I am consulting (I totally keep writing “consluting” but thank God for Microsoft!) and am running out of things to do.  I can be a bit of a steamroller at work (surprise!), so I am starting to annoy the hell out of them by analyzing their IT and administration systems.  Everyone appreciates that.  “Why don’t you have a universal email directory?  Want me to make one?”  “Why can’t I print PDFs?  Want me to renegotiate the copier lease?”  “Why don’t you redo your policies to cut down on the churn of FMLA claims?  I can do that!” 

Yeah, everyone appreciates advice on how to do their jobs.  I actually tell new employees in orientation to keep their mouths shut and their ears open the first three weeks if they want to be popular.  And by popular, I don’t mean the kind of “popular” I was in high school.  Yeah, don’t be that kind of popular at work.  By this I mean slut. 

So this week I had the opportunity to catch up with three dear friends.  I sat Shiva with Ariella and Kiam for her father’s death.  It was an awesome ritual and I only hope I honored my mom that much at her wacky Irish/Hawaiian wake.  Ariella told us the story of her father’s life and simultaneously told us the story of the Holocaust, founding of Israel, and the immigrants tale.  Her father sounds like my grandfather who was a second generation Irish immigrant – full of love and gregariousness and light and love and acceptance and swagger.  Kind of like Ariella and Kiam.  Little dude wore two different colored boots to my Easter party and told the adults how to play a fake made up game.  Love me some Kiam! 

I also caught up with the HR Goddess from one of my consulting gigs at Daniels.  (That is the cougar pick up spot, yo!  If I scare the Boi away, you can find me there every night looking for 25 year olds in the construction business.  Yumtastic!)  She has great hair.  I wish I was a blonde so I didn’t have to dye my hair all the time.  (Shit, umm, Boi?  This all a façade.  Botox and hair dye and zip ties are keeping me together.  The shoes are real and nothing says I love you like footwear and real estate.  I figured you should know). 

And, I got to see my hero Larry who convinced me to take this giant leap into the void. 

So last night I had to hoop it out in the park after hh with Maureen.  I started to eat shellfish a few years ago (mostly for the clam chowder) and we shared some crab parts, so my hyper went into gazillion and I had to hoop it out.  I look like a freak, but I don’t care.  It is like dancing with shiny things,  and, therefore, makes me happy, 

So, Boi, I am trying not to overwhelm you, but I need a lot to do or I fall into bad habits.  The Devil will find work for idle hands to do.  Not only a Smith’s song, but also a true-ism.  Someone needs to give me a job now.  A really busy job. 

And, Boi, I love the calls from M and story time and the fact that you wore the Chicken Hat and Bunny Nose and impressed my friends with your hockey skills.  Boi, I like you.  You are in for it, sucka! 

Thanks Easter Bunny!

Yesterday, I held my annual Easter Party - Hop, Bok, Chirp, Meow.  I have two annual parties – Easter and Christmas.  The rest of the parties happen organically.  Because I am more than slightly OCD/ADD/neurotic, I start planning for my parties months in advance.  By last week, I had the plastic eggs stuffed, the menu planned, and I had been over-messaging the guests on Facebook.  My other party is a more sophisticated affair with good wine and I let people use the real china.  Easter is all about the candy and the cheap champagne and the chaos.  The beautiful, awesome chaos.   And I am really really into Easter.

I love Easter for many reasons - it is Spring!  Spring!  Spring!  (and yes, I am bouncing as I write this)!  It is such a gift to have survived another winter in Seattle and see my plants start to thrive.  Easter was my favorite holiday as a kid because my mom would make it into an adventure game.  She would hide little clues in eggs written kind of Dr. Suessish and I would have to follow egg trails to find the clue to my next chocolate or stuffed bunny.  It beat the crap out of Christmas.  Most importantly, there is never any drama on Easter.  No one’s weird uncle ever gets drunk at Easter dinner and tries to make you sit on his lap and starts yelling about sports. That NEVER happens at Easter.  Thanksgiving OWNS that sport.  Although I hear Groundhog’s Day is making a run for it.  They got a Twitter account and flyers and stuff.  I think they are in it to win it.

The party has evolved through the years.  Now that we are getting older, people are bringing their kids and the tune is changing from pure Bacchanalia to a mix of kid and adult silliness, although I still crash out at 7 p.m. for an hour and I don’t think that is ever going to change.  I put Ian in charge of the younger kids because he was the oldest that wasn’t legally an adult.  (Look, Sean, I KNOW you want to sit at the kids’ table, but you are 40 years old.  Stop picking your nose – that is gross.)  That worked really well because he is a hard worker like his dad, Mark.  If I ever go back to Burning Man, I am going with Mark because he can tear down a petting zoo in like 5 hours.  Why would one need to tear down a petting zoo in 5 hours?  That is next week’s blog post!   Anyway, Ian rocked his job as Assistant Manager of People Under 18 and asked if he could use me as a reference. 

This was important because there were people and dogs and cats and eggs and chaos all over the place, so someone needed to be in charge – don’t ever send a 40 year old to do an 11 year old’s job.  I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. to start cleaning and found in no particular order:

• A lacrosse stick
• A hockey stick
• A jump rope
• Someone’s underwear
• Peeps in my bookcase
• Sunglasses
• A baby
• A Corgi

This is a diversion, but for some reason I was reading about ANOTHER class action FLSA law suit at Wal-Mart so I looked at their home page and they have the most foxy doctor on their home page.  Remember how everyone fell in love with Kal Penn in Harold and Kumar when he was in the ER?  Indian doctors have some kind of crazy hotness factor that I can’t even begin to understand.  It is like they get an MD in yum. 

Back to reality!  Sorry about that, dear reader.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste. 

So the most important part of yesterday (besides seeing my friends and their kids and their honeys and their critters and my friends – mwuah mwuah mwuah (that is the sound of me kissing you)), was that The People got to meet The Boi.  He will inevitably dump me now that I made him official, so I just have to roll with that and handle.  I hang with Canadians, so I know they can help me if I get into a bind and get emotional.  They will beat the crap out of me with hockey sticks until I man up.  It usually takes about 45 seconds.  Thanks, buddies!  Eh! 

The Boi (gushing like a fricking geyser ovah heah) is awesome.  He wore the chicken hat and The Nose and played Hockey Bunny and taste tested the food and was just standing around being hot.  Haute.  Hawt.  I don’t know how many more times one can describe his hauteness.  Hotness.  Hawtness.  Oh. My. Yum.  AND that isn’t to say I just like him for his body.  I think he can spell and everything!  And he helped Team RDI win the second round of trivia last week.  And he is a fellow HR Guy, so he actually coaches me when I get out of line.  I can’t wait to write him up for a serious violation of law, safety or policy.  He makes me laugh my ass off. I like.  If I get too clingy I will ask my people to scrape me off him like opihi off a rock (yes, you do in fact have to be Hawaiian to understand this sentence).

So the Easter Bunny, the Pope and a rabbi and my mom walk into a bar on Easter.  They play hockey.  Bunny. Wackiness ensues. 

Smarterer

I feel like a dunce.  A real-live-sitting-in-the-corner-facing-the-wall-wearing-a-dunce-cap dunce with a sign that got taped to my back when I didn’t notice because I was standing in line at the cafeteria waiting for my apple crisp that says “I’m stoopid”. 

I have been in HR for 18 years.  I have done most everything, usually because I work for non profits and we can’t afford staff.  At one place, they bought me rubber boots because the basement kept flooding and I had to go down and unplug the drain when it rained or sewage would get all over while I was in the middle of hiring summer staff which is not a retention tool.  Another place took me out of a CFO interview because the coffee maker was broken.  I have negotiated with plaintiff’s attorneys while mopping the floor.  I sued the Feds over not making a decision on a Green Card while uploading a job to Craig’s List.  I can multi task, I am smart.  Or I used to be. 

The last year ate my brain and spit it back out, but it spit it out kind of weird.  Like it had a parasite.  Or a fungus.  Like that really big fungus that is underground and covers all of Michigan.  I had only been back from Indonesia a few weeks when I started to feel lazy.  I was really afraid I would wake up at 6 a.m., do my job search, clean the house and then crack a beer at 8 a.m.

An HR colleague was kind enough to try me out on a contract doing national Leaves of Absence.  I know FMLA, I know WA leave, I even thought I knew CA and OR, but the devil is in the details and I am not detail oriented.  You will know this if you ever come over and use my bathroom.  It LOOKS fine from the door, but if you really crawled around on the floor, you would be horrified.  My friend Dave just told me you have to take the screens off your windows to clean them.  Ohh!  That is why they just get gross when I hose them down and make the windows all foggy!  I definitely need adult supervision on home repair.  Or home disrepair. 

So, as I was saying, I am dumberer than I used to be.  I had a few minutes of flat out panic where I put my hands over my face and cried and tried to give them their money back.  To be fair, there were a lot of hands in this stuff before I came and following the paper and electronic trails back is harder than solving a Nancy Drew mystery, but I still like to add value.  I am not even charming – I just stare at the screen and try to figure out what happened in Florida in 2010 with a leave and then take my obligatory walk to Subway for lunch and checking email on my phone.  (Six inch veggie on honey oat with all the veggies except olives and cucumbers, please!)  Then I come back and have a high degree of stupid again for a few hours and try to figure out how to print (the printer is really really hard.  IT gets confused, I am not kidding.).  I have finally met a copy machine that is more intelligent than me.  I don’t know what this means for AI or for me, but either way, it is scaring me. 

I do think it is finally sinking in, which is good.  I guess five days isn’t that bad of a learning curve and I have demolished the paperwork stack they handed me.  Shredding feels like walking on the beach barefoot, or eating baked brie or your first kiss – that is  how satisfying killing some of this paperwork is. 

The thing about being new in a job is that you always feel like a dork the first few days – you can’t dial your phone, you don’t know how to run the copier, you can’t figure out where they put the tea – I know this.  I tell people this all the time.  I also tell them “I told you that during your orientation and sent it to you on email so you wouldn’t forget” which is exactly what good HR folks do (and in this case did, but it doesn’t matter because it is me and I don’t want to be the dumb one that forgotted everything I was told) but I am THAT girl that didn’t pay attention the first day of class.

Next week, I am supposed to help a company I have worked with for years on some additional immigration issues.  I hope I don’t screw up and have their employees sent to India for 5 months on accident like happened one time before (but that one was NOT my fault).  I sued the government and won – yeah! 

I went to Macy’s for a Dunce Cap because I figured I should own up, but they are too expensive, so I had to get one at Value Village (that is where I shop for my friends and I got GREAT discounts on some of them!).  I will be wearing one tomorrow.  It is mauve. 

Pillow Fight Club

The first rule of pillow fight club is to NOT talk about pillow fight club.  The second rule of pillow fight club is to NOT talk about pillow fight club.  The third rule ……. you get it.  You are smart.  Or you wouldn’t be able to read this blog because it is written at the 6^th grade level. 

Today I got my ass handed to me by a 2 year old, a 4 year old, a 7 year old, a 14 year old and a bunch of writers.  Maybe that is why I am staying home nursing my ego.  Or it could be staying out dancing with the drag queens at Neighbors on Thursday and then having a weirdo contest with my friend B at The Buck on Friday, but I am kicked.  I just rewrote my to do list for the day, canceled any evening events and penciled in “fold clothes”.  That is how I party!  Oh yeah.  Gonna watch X Files reruns and eat some soup tonight – top that Church of Mez!  (I know you can and this is not a challenge.  By the time you read this, I will be in bed sleeping on my kind of icky pillow from the pillow fight today and dreaming of my dream job or how I can rent a steam cleaner.)

This morning, my best HR buddy of mine, Noelle, and I went for a walk and hit the farmer’s market.  Noelle gets into the best friend circle (Dante’s 4^th circle of hell) because she lived with me for 5 years.  We were both HR folks, so we created a behaviorally based interview process for new roommates to share our house.  Behavior based interview questions rely on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.  So we had questions like “tell me about a time you weren’t able to pay the bills.  How did you handle it?” instead of “what are we supposed to do when you can’t pay the bills like every other roommate we ever had?”  It works in work, but it doesn’t work in roommates.  We went through one a year, they had to be men because we thought two women was enough in one house and only survived each other because we are both only children so like to squirrel away and have conversations with ourselves for hours.  (It is what happens when you don’t have anyone to play with, you create a vivid inner world – mine involved a lot of talking cats and flying over the ocean.) 

One roommate used to come home stoned and cook beans and when I would wake up for work in the morning, there would be food on the ceiling.  I have no idea how anyone could even accomplish that, but we wound up just painting over it after we moved out.  Another took all the light bulbs and screwed the light fixtures back in, so when I went to show the upstairs room, the lights didn’t come on.  I called an electrician and our landlord and they discovered the problem.  A third had a room so messy that after the earthquake in 2001, I went to check on his things because we had some damage and thought his room had been destroyed.  I found cans of tuna and socks all over along with a bunch of Kleenex and didn’t ask any more questions.  The last one filled the washer with packing peanuts and the dryer with used motor oil.  Do not hire me to pick your roommates.  To be fair, it was the 90’s, maybe that is just how things went down in cat town back in the day.

I headed up to my friend Dave B’s house to return a plate I had borrowed and to bring the kids some cookies.  Dave has been a friend from high school and I am thrilled to still be able to hang with him and talk about the good old days.  The cookies set off a riot – there was crying, screaming, jumping off counters, trying to ride the dog, and that was all Dave.  Not really, he is really awesome with the kids, but they had obviously had their sugar for the day and were shoving carrots up their noses, throwing bananas, and changing into superhero costumes every 5 minutes.  It was exhausting.  And I am covered in snot carrots, banana pieces, something that may or may not be part of a hot dog, and dog slobber. 

BUT, this is no time for wimps because I have to pick up Joy for Pillow Fight 2011!  Yeah!  I am going to beat the crap out of my friends and total strangers while being filmed by KOMO.  I didn’t know about the KOMO part or I would have worn a better outfit. 

Joy is the most luminescent person I know.  She glows with light.  And she wears a lot of sparkly shit, but her soul is beautiful.  So when a 25 Chilean lead singer of a Nirvana tribute band from Santiago showed up looking for a someone she had arranged to couch surf with at Joy's apartment building, who, oops!, went to Buenos Aires and forgot to leave the key.   Joy stepped in and offered lodging.  OK, we had a full crew for the fight plus a new visitor who is really into grunge – how awesome could this day be? 

Wait, before you answer that question, please remember I live in Seattle. It was raining and hailing.  We met about 15 friends and headed down the street to the pillow fight place carrying pillows.  We looked like hooligans (some more than others) that were going to settle down for a collective nap and stick it to the man.  I love my friends.  We arrived to find the PF going in full force.  I jumped in and started hitting people all punk rock mosh pit style when I met my nemesis – a 14 year old with two pillows and mean one-two punch.  He got me good several times, so I bowed out for a breather.  I ran into one of my colleagues there who, after catching up, showed me who his kid was.  It was the freaking Karate Kid and he had seriously messed me up.  I told my former colleague (whom I had hired) that he better control his kid or something nasty would turn up in his personnel file.  I don’t care how many PhDs you have, call the kid off!

Went back in with a battle cry to find the love of my life (besides my Nikon) in the form of a 7 year old boy hell bent on making me pay for ratting him out for chucking pears at the neighbors house.  I was so busted. I tried to get my friend Piet to save me (because he is like 6 foot gazillion) but he didn’t want to hit a kid. So I tried Lauren (who is the most kick ass pillow fighter in Seattle and my new best friend - sorry, Noelle!), but she was no match for this 65 pound hunk of pillow swinging madness.  I tried to grab his pillow, enlist other help, run, cry, block, hide behind other people, stick small defenseless children in front of me as human shields – but he was relentless!  I must have beat him at Pokemon or something.  LR – you got it coming, better watch your back..... 

After, we went to Eric’s house to unwind.  But Eric was wound. He kept changing outfits like Dave’s 4 year old.  He finally wound up with rabid squirrel outfit (everyone I know has a dress up box - mine is full of weird hats and a lot of tutus) and was trying to communicate with us through chirping.  We decided to have a poetry reading and my ass was so handed to me by the most erudite poets and writers I have encountered in years.  I am going to need my day job, because I don’t measure up.  Stan, Eric, Lauren, Jenny – you guys kick ass.    

Fight Club

Last night, I convinced my friend to teach me boxing.  I thought it would be more fun than going to the gym or walking hills in 3 inch heels (which counts as exercise, if you are wondering).  It likely didn’t bode well for the adventure since we developed the plan in a Chinese bar/restaurant that has free ping pong.  And his only boxing gloves were a pair of Lou Ferrigno look a likes from the Incredible Hulk. 

Well, I like to take a bad idea and follow it to its illogical conclusion.  I have an interview today, so what could possibly go wrong?  Oh yeah, the black eye.  How to explain that to the investment bank with whom I am interviewing shortly.  Thank God for L’oreal, because I am worth it.  Or it can cover up my black eye or whatever.

Full disclosure, I am all talk, I have never been in a fight in my life.  I once tried to intervene between my friends Alison and Shannon in high school, but I just wound up with some ramen on my head while they beat the crap out of each other over some guy.  Shannon was a fighter, but Alison was pretty mellow, so I felt like I should be the peace maker.  They fought anyway and I just had to wash my hair.  I think we all stole some beer and watched Pink Floyd’s The Wall after anyway.  Ungrateful friends, I tell you. 

So my friend offers to teach me to fight.  I am wearing heels, fake pearls and Incredible Hulk gloves.  I start cracking up immediately and he hits me.  WTF?  He hit me!  Wait, I asked him to teach me to box, I guess he has to hit me.  That is how the game is played, apparently.  One must hit and be hit in boxing.  I do not like this idea, it seems barbaric. Can’t I just kick his ass at Trivial Pursuit because I know who Mahmoud Amidinajad is? 

I start getting pissed, I take off my earrings, my pearls, my heels and get into it.  Then the Violent Femmes come on and we are boxing hard.  I start dancing and miss a block to a direct hit to my left eye.  Damn music!  Stop being so intoxicating!  So I have this little black eye problem.  And an interview with an investment bank.  At least I have a few suits, maybe I can wear my glasses to hide the black eye, I don’t know. 

All I know is that I am unsuitable for any job other than the VP of HR for the Chezeburger Network!!!!  Yes!   I know!!!  I must be head of HR over Fail Blog, Lol Cats, Engrish, Failbooking, etc.  I loooooooooove this company and I am a total weirdo yet incredibly good with language and law and therefore perfect for the role.  I am going to stand outside their offices and BEG to be their HR person.  I will submit my own wonky lol cats, I will fall over railings and post them on fail blog, I will get into fights with Lou Ferrigno and put it all on line although he is likely 80 by now and I should be able to kick his ass but know I can’t.  Damn, I am losing the war for feminism.  OK, put gloves back on, go outside, wait my the school bus and start sucker punching 6 year olds,  They had it coming. 

Unbuyers remorse

I did what?  I quit my job and went to freaking Bali?  Because I thought I could write and needed a break? I am a stereotype, a hyperactive stereotype.  And a terrible bureaucrat. 

So picture this - you turn 40 (in mere weeks), your thighs are sagging (your thighs have always been sagging, so quit bitching about it), you are unemployed and you actually asked your parents if you could move back into the basement even though you have a perfectly lovely house in Seattle.  You likely need adult supervision.  You have been single for a year and have two cats and are dangerously close to becoming the neighborhood cat lady - yeah, you know who you are.  You are me.   I bought a rocking chair and a shotgun for the porch so I could sit outside drinking lemonade and scream out "stay out of my yard!". 

So you get this great idea.  You will write a book.  After all, you write policies and emails and contracts for a living.  People like your holiday letter - they loooovvve it.  You get comments on your funny Facebook posts.  You must be a writer, right?  You think you have always wanted to get an overweight Australian mobile phone executive drunk on margaritas so you could do a stunning expose on the evils of the wireless phone industry (wait, you NEVER EVER EVER wanted that) so, you will write a book about something else. 

So you can use any lame excuse you want - your job was hard, your relationship ended, you had to date creepy guys you met online that submitted 30 year old pictures and pulled your hair on the first date, you worked 80 hours a day - it doesn't matter.  It is a self indulgent act.  Narcissism at her finest.  His finest.  You are still a feminist, despite what you did in that bar in Jakarta with your bra and the shot glasses. It WAS happy hour....

Yesterday was my eighth day of being home.  I weeded the yard, planted the garden for summer (lettuce, peas, cilantro, thyme, kale, and flowers), then washed every curtain in the house and rehung them, steam cleaned the rugs, made a casserole, walked to the fruit stand on 65th, tried (miserably) to make watermelon gazpacho, baked some cookies, ironed my underwear, snuck into my housemate's room to clean it, updated my job search workshop, delivered it to a party of 5 fellow unemployed friends and then went to a party.  I can't keep this up for long - I have way too much energy to live this life of leisure. 

Does anyone want a free HR department audit?  Can I update your resume?  Do you want me to landscape your yard?  Cause I am in. 

Holla! Chile

This is an old story, but since I am an unemployed slacker, I thought I should dust it out and post it so I will become famous and not need to work as much.  Famous people just eat apples and go to the gym and get pedicures, right?  That is what US Magazine tells me to do.  Oh, and I think we are supposed to eat yogurt or something.  Now that I am famous. 

We flew into Santiago on February 8, My mom Marcia's 66th birthday. She died the June before and I made a vow to always travel in February to honor her.  She loved to travel and it was my way of honoring and thanking her for the trips she took me on as a kid.  My dad thinks going to Arkadelphia is interesting, my mom took me to Dingle. 

Chile is about a 15 hour trip from Seattle. Nic and I (my non evil ex boyfriend and inheritor of my vast estate provided he takes care of my cats) rented a car and proceeded to drive south. Chile is a very long country. Very long. So long that when you plan a trip using nothing but Lonely Planet and Map Quest, you wind up with some heroic driving distances. Santiago is at the base of the second highest mountain range on earth. It is pretty darn cool.

Our first stop was Termas de Chillan, described in the book as being "close" to Chillan which appeared to be a suburb of Santiago. Six hours after deplaning, we arrived at a lux resort with a thermal swimming pool, water park, pool with a bar, waterfalls, canals - we looked, were impressed and promptly fell asleep after sampling a Pisco Sour and some quinoa which is like a margarita with an earthquake built in.  The Pisco part, the quinoa can go to hell. 

The next day we traveled to Pucon. Pucon is on a lake at the base of an active, smoking volcano. It is amazing that anyone would put a town there, but they did. Pucon is apparently the Ft. Lauderdale of Chile and the teens were on summer break. This meant that the beach and the town were packed with Paris Hilton look alikes, complete with mini dogs en bag. Because the place was so popular, we wound up with a "cozy" room. Think child sized beds on a freeway off ramp. Nic actually fell through the frame on one of the beds because he was the tallest guy in Chile. Pucon was great - we went out into the hills and went horseback riding for several hours, did some hiking and attempted to find vegetarian meals for dinner.

Long story short - Chile is not Mexico. Despite the constant Mexican sounding music, they don't have a taco in town. The food is closer to German only with more meat. The think vegetarians have an illness and are likely armed.  I was lucky to survive on cocktails and a few salads. 

From Pucon we drove south to Puerto Montt - the traditional starting point for Patagonia. Puerto Montt was refreshingly cold after the 95+ heat we experienced since landing. It was on a large bay with a view of the islands and Andes. We then took a ferry to Chiloe, an island about the size of Long Island that is mainly fishing and basic farming that has houses perched on sticks like fishing boats on shrooms.

We took a side tour to the Penguineria (penguin place) and saw the little guys swimming around and eating fish. After driving 45 minutes down a dirt road with one lane filled with 3 lanes of tour busses, cows and locals, we drove onto the beach at which point some nice people jumped in our car and started singing Nirvana songs when they learned we were from Seattle and sold us a one way ticket to penguin town on a flimsy boat with some drunk fisherman. It was about the greatest thing we did.

We then drove to Castro, a beautiful old city founded by Jesuits in the 16th century. Many of the houses there sit on estuaries and are built on stilts so fisherman can tie their boats to the back porch.  Chiloe islanders are fiercely independent and pretty cool folks. They fixed our car for $5 when the dirt roads jiggled all the belts off and had a bar build on a boat.

After several days in Chile, I broke down and ate 3 shrimp - my first meat in 20 years. I was so hungry for anything that wasn't crackers and cheese, a tomato or bread and cheese (which is exactly like crackers and cheese) I felt like I smelled like fish for days afterwards and can't stop thinking about those little shrimps.  Then I realized they used recycled ocean water for the bathrooms, so everyone smells a little fishey.  Bleh. 

We traveled south to the Parque Nationale on Chiloe for hiking on the Pacific Coast which is the only place in Chile where they have any bugs at all. These suckers are about 5 pounds each and bounce when you shoo them off your body and then they call Che Guevera and try to extradite you.

We started north again and stopped in the tourist town of Puerto Varas. Gorgeous setting, beautiful architecture, TWO vegetarian restaurants, cats, everyone speaks Ingles, great craft market – why didn't we stay there? Not on the interwebs.  I suck at travel planning. 

We then headed north to the college town of Valdivia. Valdivia is a gorgeous town at the confluence of 3 rivers. The 16th century battlements still stand. It is a typical college town with political graffiti, occult shops, teens smoking pot everywhere, hemp bracelets and buskers. Pretty cool stuff. They also think Alfredo sauce has ham in it.  But I guess if you are that high, you think pig is cheese.  Been there, bought the t shirt. 

Have I mentioned the Jambon? It is what they call ham. It is in everything. Eggs, sandwiches, cereal, fruit, ice cream, die coke, doughnuts. And, I didn't see one pig in Chile. Or Alpaca. Or Llama.  Lots of cows though.

People in Chile use the freeway like any other road. The freeway is actually a continuation of I5 which is 1 block from my house. We drove to the other end. Bikes, ox carts, families on foot - all use the freeway to get around. The weird thing is, Chile isn't a poor country at all. They just don't have that many roads. So it is a practical matter to take your ox cart, bike, tractor, kids, for a little stroll down the interstate. Driving in cities is another matter. All you need to do then is drive fast with your eyes closed while blaring your horn and abruptly stopping in the middle of the road for no reason at all.

We then made a heroic journey north to Valpariso. The reason I wanted to visit Chile in the first place was the writings of Pablo Neruda and Isabelle Allende. They are both from Valpo. Valpo is a working class port city made rich during the California Gold Rush. Mansions and ornate buildings decorate even the poorest neighborhoods. Imagine living in relative poverty in a tin house with a $1 million view of the Pacific in the city known as the "Pearl of the Pacific". It kind of looks like San Francisco on acid. Bright colors, impossible architecture, colorful mansions, cobblestone streets, dogs and cats and cats and dogs. They don't believe in neutering their dogs here.  So there are tons of dogs that are kind of feral, but mostly just belong to a particular business. Cats are rare except in Valpo. The fish market nature keeps them supplied and mewing. I was happy to see those kitties after so many nice dogs. Around the corner from Valpo is Vina del Mar, a wealthy beach town that looks more like Monaco than South America. Beautiful people,  gorgeous beaches – it is a dream. Really dull compared to Valpo though. Valpo has 20 stories worth of stairs snaking up the hills to the neighborhoods. Valpo has houses stuck on sticks at impossible angles hovering off the cliffs over downtown, marble staircases, Naval officers in crisp uniforms, mansions converted into artist co-op housing, Pablo Neruda's house, an overpowering smell of seaweed and fish, helpful people, dare devil BMXers who tear down the 500 or so steps on their mountain bikes for thrills, old people who look exactly like Picasso, and tourists so lost, they ask us for help. We took the long way back to Santiago.

Hola, Chile! Muchas jambons! 

Bali, hi! Hi!

I woke up the second morning in Bali when something fell on my lip.  It was small, so I didn't freak out too bad, but something fell on my mouth.  I will be sleeping on my stomach from now on.

Day 4 of wearing the same pants, at least I crammed myself into some teenagers short sleeve shirt and a pair of flip flops.  Got up this morning and tried desperately to spell desperate and to call Korean Air.  Since my cell doesn't get coverage in Indonesia, I tried everything - the hotel phone (which actually worked, but it is going to cost me half the budget deficit of California and they told me they weren't open - so why did you answer the phone?).  I downloaded Skype but it failed to load about 20 times, I stopped in an internet cafe and tried Skype from there, no luck.  I stopped at a telecom center but they informed me they didn't do phone service any more.  I swiped my guide's cell, but it was all drama because he had to load $50 on it to just call the damn country of Korea.  I stopped into my friend's travel agency and we got a connection through the fax machine, but when it picked up, the whole message was in Korean and I didn't know what they were telling me to do, so I hung up crying.  That also cost me $50.  I think I might be getting rolled.  

I finally got into another pointless conversation with someone in Indonesia with Korean Air connections.  He kept asking me why I didn't report the bag loss to Korean Air when I was in Seoul and I repeated that they had told me about 10 seconds before take off.  I couldn't jump out of the plane and run to baggage claim.  Plus, my cell doesn't work in Asia at all and I couldn't really google the handy number for, "where the fuck did you put my bag in Korea".  Finally, someone claimed that my bag was arriving tomorrow morning and I would have to pick it up at the airport to claim it.  OK, another pointless hour wasted on a pair of underwear that fits and something a little more tropics friendly than jeans, but I was elated.

We finally got underway to do something other than find a way to call Korea.  Natasha, a friend of mine from Bali, had offered her brother's tour company services to me as a travel gift.  She is literally the nicest person in the world.  I don't know how she does it, but she gives off good vibe and love like she is good incarnate.  

The guide started me off at a museum which was beautiful architecturally, but the inside was a bit gory.  It showed the history of Indonesian independence through dioramas and they spared nothing.  It is a pretty messed up history - first the Dutch, then the Dutch, then the Dutch, then the Japanese, then Suharto - all of whom were pretty cruel rulers.

We then headed to an artist colony.  I was picturing ravers living in a box, but these guys had a gorgeous spread.  Every room had a different artistic style since the Indonesians were influenced by so man different cultures.  There was some trippy modern stuff, flowery tropical stuff, killer classic Balinese work and some flat out porn.  Something for everyone!  

Then we headed to an ancient temple that was built in the 8th century. It was stunning and I wish I had my camera, but....They are all preparing for the day of silence and are doing ceremony after ceremony to prepare.  I couldn't have picked a better time if I just plunked some dates on the interwebs and hit send (which I did).  

We hit a few more places where people tried to roll me for cash, but eventually got to the monkey forest.  The first time I heard the term "monkey forest" it filled me with excitement and joy.  I pictured a bunch of monkeys in the forest and I was right!  Those suckers were everywhere!  Swinging from the trees, jumping down and running up to you, trying to steal things when you sat down, crawling up your leg - it was nuts. The best part was today happened to be a ceremony for the animals, so the locals celebrated it in the forest with offerings, prayer, monkey presents, a monkey play and gamelon.  I was always confused my gamelon because there was too much going on.  I like my music to stay real simple with “ntch ntch ntch” or a nice old school punk drum beat.  Maybe even a marching band.  But simple, uncomplicated rhythms are a must.  This was really beautiful and powerful and most importantly, it made the monkeys dance.  They would go crazy when the beat sped up like over the hill hippies at Folk Life, they would calm down during the slower parts and the baby monkeys were the most spastic of all.  You know when you see a 4 year old just jamming to some beat in their heads with some sweet epileptic dance moves?  That is what baby monkeys do.  Intelligent breaking, they call it.  Now.

I got back to my room and thought about drinking a beer, but they are $30. Each.  That is an ingenious way to keep people on the sober path - price them right out of it.  The Australians are having none of that BS though - they are charging up their debit cards with $100 drinking sprees that only consisted of 3 drinks.  Crazy pants.  

Tomorrow I get my clothes, but more importantly, my camera.  I have to share the crazy beauty of this place with my friends. The entire country is a shrine to the land and animals and people and God and it is ripping that scab right off my soul. 

Vitamin D

It is awesome to be home – I missed my friends while I was traveling and although I can’t talk to any of them since I am only awake at 3 a.m., it is nice to know they are around.  At least the cats have begun to talk to me again and the house is finally clean. 

My roommate moved into the living room while I was gone because it was cold and all man-ified the house.  There are like giant containers of peanut butter, ground beef and Irish Spring laying all over the place.  They probably don’t actually put ground beef in containers, I wouldn’t know.  The bottom line is I am getting outnumbered here by the two guys that share my house and will have to purchase some Glade Lavender Thyme Lemongrass Spring hand soap just to win the war.  Or I could sneak in their rooms and leave copies of romance novels and People on their beds next to some rose petals and diet soft drinks.  But then I will have to charge extra for the ambiance. 

Actually, I have been downtown every day for lunch meetings and interviews, so I am talking to some actual humans, but generally about how much they want to hire me or whether there is a solid market for Pirate Zombie Mustard (don’t even think about taking this idea – me and Mike-D have already filed the patent).  I studied mind control in the army which probably explains why the neighbor just started mowing my lawn, unprovoked.  Yeah.  Or it could be the Vitamin D. I got kicked out of the army for dress code violations.  NEVER wear white shoes after Labor Day.  For reals. 

Something happens in Seattle when the sun comes out.  People come out of their caves and stop wearing black and smile.  At first they look like they are insane or sociopaths, but then you just realize it is their eyes getting used to the light after months of darkness and reality television.  People you don’t know start waving at you and it is like the whole city just took a giant dose of E.  This explains why the grocery bagger hugged me and told me he loved me when I bought some rye bread today.  I told him I loved him too, but only as a friend and then backed away very very slowly. 

Being unemployed for the first time in 25 years is weird.  Things take a really long time to do.  I used to run in to the QFC and do a week’s worth of shopping, get through a spinning class during checkout while writing a policy manual for Andra Pradesh and then save some baby seals on the way home in about 17 minutes.  Now it takes me an hour to purchase a tomato.  This can’t go on much longer.  I am only in week five of unemployment and have already volunteered to be a Master Gardner, president of the PTA, Green Lake soccer club and a cookie mom for Girl Scouts.  I don’t even have kids and I stopped drinking caffeine, so should I get a job and a latte, they are going to need to call in the National Guard to stop my “helping”.  I am afraid I am going to get a cease and desist letter from Craig’s List for applying to so many jobs. 

So, the next door neighbor who is about 22 and some kind of male model construction worker DJ, just started mowing my lawn and waving while his adorable dog scampered around my yard.  I hope this is some kind of karma because last year sucked and it is payback time for Jen.  If it is karma, I am totally ordering a pizza tonight and hoping for a no calorie five cheese I get for free because they are late and sexy delivery driver.  I must have earned this, right?  Now if a Designer Shoe Warehouse falls in my back yard, it will have been a perfect day. 

Dying

I am a little afraid I may actually be dying.  Since I got back from Indonesia 5 days ago, all I can do is sleep.  I am too tired to make an English muffin.  What makes it worse is that my friend from Hawaii is visiting and I have to cart him around.  In my sleep.  I think that driving while sleeping is inherently dangerous, so I may be upping my dying chances.  I love to quantify these things, so will assume I have a 10% chance of dying from a rare and exotic Indonesian disease, a 20% chance of dying from not eating because everything tastes like liverwurst which is only slightly better than fish sauce, and a 30% chance of dying due to a DWS (driving while sleeping).  So I am screwed and will likely die before my job interview tomorrow and therefore blow the interview.

I am really bad at being unemployed except for the sleeping part.  I was born hyperactive and neurotic and am applying for crazy jobs that don’t even make sense.  I got tagged on Linked In for a payroll job and although I know nothing about payroll other than they are the mystery gnomes that send me checks, I applied anyway. 

I don’t even like sleeping, sleeping is for boring people and I do not qualify for boring any more than I qualify for payroll.  Luckily, Tina tagged me to give a job search workshop to all of our unemployed friends because I am funny and good at giving speeches.  And they posted my job at Landesa, so I am getting mad calls from all of my HR people. 

Tina and Max say I am probably just tired and should sleep but that seems lazy.  I quit caffeine a few months ago to deal with anxiety, but I may have to go on a 5 hour energy bender. My friends are planning my 40th birthday in absentia, so it would probably be best if I died prior to attending that.  I think we are having a rave.  Please let it start at 10 a.m. so I can dance for at least 10 hours.

Seattle, I am back!  But half asleep in frog pajamas.  Yes, Mr. Robbins, that is a shout out to you. Call me!  Let's do lunch. 

How to entertain yourself in Incheon airport for 6 hours

Try to figure out how to change the character set from Korean to English in the internet lounge so you know what you are reading and writing.  Ask the guy next to you to explain as he is under 30 and knows this stuff intuitively.  He inadvertently becomes the tech support for the whole place - apologize profusely.         Go the bathroom and push the "etiquette bell" over and over.  It covers up the sound of poop with the sound of ocean.    Try to eat like a local.  Realize you do not like Korean food at all.  You like rice and kim chee and that it.  You certainly don't like the little dish of spicy fish heads.  Oh no, you do not.    Stare at all the people buying duty free.  Figure out why.  Do those people shop Sky Mall too?  Why not just go to Target?    Apply for jobs.  Hope you get one. Attempt airport Skype interview.     Watch the mock Korean wedding the airport has put on to promote Korean culture.  This is actually very interesting.  They have some seriously complicated hair going on for the wedding - I thought Baltimore had some hair, but Seoul has some HAIR.   Think about taking a shower because they have showers here and there isn't anything else to do but look at duty free shops.    Try to figure out how to upload your pics to Flickr in Korean.   Wonder if you type too loud.  Obsess about it.

Homeward bound

Perth is OK if you are into pancakes.  I mean, REALLY into pancakes.  They have a pancake place on every corner.  The Halal place serves pancakes, the Korean place has pancakes – I don’t know what is going on here, but they really like pancakes.  I noticed this is in Indonesia too – tons of pancake places.  They must be catering exclusively to Perthians.  I haven’t had the guts to get an actual pancake yet, so far the food is of such epic proportions that I am terrified to eat anything.  It is like Claim Jumper got the contract on food in Australia. 

I am hardly a little blonde waif, so I shouldn’t be afraid of the sheer volume of food, but I am.  I always wanted to be one of those girls who just sat there being boring and skinny wearing weird shoes while all the cool arty guys feel in love with her.  Until she was carried off by the wind like a little spent dandelion or became a model in Japan or the subject of someone’s dissertation.  “Existential Angst and Mary” was my friend’s dissertation title – quite brilliant.  I hope Mary was wafer thin and asthmatic and really into owls.   I actually left a restaurant last night because I was offended at the portions. 

The footwear in this place is just strange.  People are either wearing flip flops or really huge shoes.  The men are dressed nicely for office work in button down shirts and ironed pants, but then they toss on these ginormous Buster Browns or huge basketball shoes.  Like the really big kind that come up to your knees.  The women are all in these Russell Crowe Roman man sandals that come up to their thighs.  It is hot here, do you really want that much leather wrapped around your legs?   If you want comfort, just go old school and toss on some Chuck Taylors. No need to break out the orthopedics, people. 

There is a certain working class hotness evident in the fashion downtown, however.  All the construction guys are wearing day glo shirts, khaki shorts and work boots.   And they are all incredibly gorgeous.  It kind of makes me wish I lived here and could call someone to fix the plumbing, although that sounds like a really bad porno.   My one true hope is that Gavin McInnes comes out of retirement and does a fashion dos and don’ts spread in Perth for Vice.  I certainly don’t have the right to criticize anyone because all I wear is black shirts and jeans.  Although I do have a shoe problem that is going to have to go away until I get a day job. 

Perth is a gorgeous city, I don’t mean to knock on it.  They have this great park that is a mere 242 steps up the hill (I know, I walked it yesterday) overlooking the river.  The produce is great, I will pretty much kill for a decent tomato and they know their way around tomatoes here.  It is wine country and the sauvignon blancs are yumtastic.  The ethnic food has an outstanding range and the people are incredibly attractive as long as you don’t look at their feet.  They seem to have imported a bunch of people from some country where they look like the Kardashians and have blue eyes.  It is impossible not to drool on them.   I am just ready to go home to my hovel that is likely covered in cat hair and overgrown weeds from the garden. 

I am staying in a cheap hotel without great sound barriers and the woman in the room next to me either has TB or anorexia.  I get to hear her gagging all night.  It will be a relief to be squished into a little row with a bunch of strangers for the next 30 hours.  They don’t generally hack up their lungs or lunch in this much proximity.   I am probably just getting cranky and I miss my friends and cats, but Perth is starting to look like a really big version of Northgate.  The same is true for Boulder, Colorado – it looks exactly like U Village.  I told my friend Pam that when I went to visit her a few years ago and she thought it was an insult. 

So homeward bound in a few hours, although it will be two days before I actually get there.  Why is everything so far away?  Wouldn’t it be faster to just launch into space and then remove gravity and plop back down?  It would be much faster than traveling at 500 mph in a plane.  Can’t we just make an anti gravity device?  Intelligent falling is what you do when you don’t believe in gravity, one of my science friends once said in response to the intelligent design debate. 

So back on an airplane to Indonesia, then Korea (I hate that fucking airport), then Vancouver then home where I can hopefully download my photos to prove I was here, get my unemployed self on the job search train, clean the house and mow the lawn.  Because it is almost time for Hop, Bok, Chirp, Meow XII – the Unemployment Version (BYOB)!  Hockey Bunny!  Hula Hooping!  Quiche!  Soup!  Easter Eggs!  A Bunnification Station!  And my chosen family.   

Oops, got all the way to the end of Australia and forgot to say, “dingos ate my baby!”  

Chicken or fish?

Perth gets high marks for it’s friendly people and sheer hangout-ability of the place.  I took the train to Freemantle yesterday, which is at the junction of the ocean and Swan River and a local favorite for the market.  The market is almost exactly like Pike Place, but smaller.  I didn’t really do much shopping as I am not currently in the market for a didgeridoo or boomerang.  Should I ever be, I know where to find a bunch.

The cafes and pubs are all open air, so it is fun to just sit and watch people walk by.  I was adopted by an older couple from the suburbs and they took me around to all of the local hangouts, which was really cool and incredibly nice.  We headed to the local lunch spot for fish and chips.  They were a bit tipsy by now, but thankfully, they knew where they were going.   We hit the world’s most crowded restaurant and Gerald went to grab a table outside while Marlene and I ordered the food.

I have been a vegetarian for 26 years.  The last piece of meat I ate was a McDLT in 1985.   I didn’t have the most righteous reasons for it other than Morrissey had the Meat is Murder song with cows mooing and I thought he was hot.  One day, I just stopped eating it.  I have to admit I am still disappointed that he hasn’t thanked me or come to visit. I used to sit in the hell that is high school and look out the windows and fantasize that he would come save me from chemistry class.  Apparently, I thought I gave off bat signal or something.  About 4 years ago, I decided to start eating shellfish because I really wanted some clam chowder.  I can still only eat a very small amount of that or I get woozy.  I was at a fish and chips stand, what to do? 

I ordered the smallest amount of fish you could order – shrimp on the Barbie (I so want to see a line of plastic Barbies lined up with shrimp outfits like when Bjork wore that swan).  It was like the Costco of fish and chips places – massive amounts of food.  I got fat just looking at my plate.  I could only stomach 2 shrimp and then started in on the fries.  I don’t eat fries at home (unless I have been hiking and we stop at Red Robin), but I have been on a flat out French fry bender in Australia.  It is like after two and a half weeks of rice, I am trying to reaffirm my potatoey heritage.  So I went to town on the fries.  Gerald finished my shrimp, thankfully.  I hate for things to die in vain.  Train in Vain is perfectly acceptable, even endorsed, however.  I used to apologize to diet coke cans after throwing them away, but now I just let it ride.

I remember hearing a quote from Jessica Simpson where she allegedly said “Is that what chicken or fish?” when confronted with a can of tuna (chicken of the sea) and it made me suddenly like her.  I don’t actively dislike her or any other random celebrity. Except those horrible people on the Real Housewives.  Kandi from Atlanta is OK, but yuck!  The other ones make Snooki look classy.  And don’t ask why I know so much about the Real Housewives or Jersey Shore when I am supposed to be an intellectual.  Now I feel dirty.  Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky.  Whew!  Better. 

Perth is a beautiful city – it is on a gorgeous river, the weather is fantastic and the people are lovely, but I think 4 days here is going to do it.  It reminds me of Austin when SXSW isn’t playing – a great place to live and hang out with your friends.  But my friends are all in Seattle or Hawaii or New York, and I miss them.  Plus, I need to start looking for a job.  I can eek by on consulting for a few companies, but I really do love my day job.  I only hope prospective employers don’t find this blog and decide that I am the world’s most inappropriate candidate to head their HR department.  (I am really good at it though – I am a walking encyclopedia of labor law and immigration in four countries and employees don’t think I am stodgy because I really don’t care what they wear and can speak in binary.  Hire me!  You know you want to – I make staff meetings fun!  And I don’t think employee morale is about giving people a balloon and cookie – it is about meaningful work and taking care of your people so they can take care of their families.  Preachy – sorry about that.  Just hire me so I shut up and start analyzing your compensation structure.)

Where was I?  Australia!  Did I mention they have a Target in Perth?  You can consider that whole unpacking, drug screening and touching a little too aggressively incident forgiven, Australia.  I love you again thanks to your abundance of French fries and Targets.  

Off to the park.  I was told that is where the sailors hang out. I am not really planning on picking anyone up (especially at 7 in the morning – why can’t I sleep in like normal people?  I may as well sleep in a toaster so I can pop out of bed at 4 a.m.  Why yes, that was a Garfield reference.  Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?), I just want to be able to say, “hey sailor!” one time in my life.  But if I get invited on a tour of a submarine, I am going.   I think I am breaking up with fries, though.  They charge extra for ketchup here.  

The flavor of pink

As luck would have it, the bad Australian stereotype guy was on my flight!  I went over to touch his head for good luck.  He grinned and flicked me with a few drops of Fosters. 

At the airport, I sat by some Australians (they were all Australians on a flight to Australia, so it wasn’t like I could head over and convince the Finns to skinny dip) and asked them about Perth.  “So, what do you recommend I do in Perth?  It is my first time there.”

They looked at each other incredulously and stared blankly back at me.  “Perth?” they said together.  Yeah, Perth.  We are waiting to get onto a plane to Perth, everyone here is obviously just coming back from holiday, you are going to Perth, you must know something about it.  They stuttered and stumbled for a while.  Crap. 

That is what happens when I pick some place to go off the interwebs because they had a cheap flight and good advertising.  Don’t ever travel with me – you will wind up in the middle of a blizzard in sunny Arizona wearing nothing against the elements other than a cheap plastic poncho you picked up at the drug store.  Or, you could be really unfortunate and I could drag you almost to Patagonia on a marathon drive only to insist we jump in a boat with a bunch of drunk fishermen to look at penguins because it was cheaper than going on the official tour. 

I jokingly asked them if they worked for the Ministry of Tourism and they cracked up, and started to throw some ideas out.  “Umm, yeah, there is a park or something that is nice.”  Basically they said it was OK but anything really interesting was a few hours or days south.  Well, I am going to Australia, and I am going to like it whether I like it or not.  When the plane started to fly over the continent,  I got all excited and exclaimed, “Look!  Australia!” and everyone looked at me like I had just let my pet wallaby start hopping through the aisle of the plane.  For the record, I always keep my wallaby stowed under the seat in front of me unless I am entering or exiting the aircraft.  My kookaburra, however, is free to roam about the plane unless the fasten seat belt sign is on.

The country by air is really beautiful.  There is a blood red river running in the middle of these crazy fractal looking gorges and tributaries.   It looks kind of like the Badlands in South Dakota, but red.  There is a lot of Australia in Australia – we have been flying over it for a good 45 minutes and haven’t seen much is the way of civilization.  Don’t they do Survivor here?  It looks like a good place for it.  Anyway, I am excited.  I was excited until the woman next to me announced it was 35C today.  35!  Yikes, so 35 times 2 plus 30 equals 100F.   Yet, I am huddled in this snuggie blanket thing because it is so freaking cold on the plane, I am about to ask the woman next to me if I can put my feet under her legs. 

If you are going to Indonesia, please fly Garuda.  It is absolutely sweet!  They give you a little juice when you board, a comfort kit of a neck pillow, black out eye mask, headphones, a blanket and a pillow and the food is pretty good.  They do traditional Indonesian food, but since I am a veggie, they made me a special one.  It came with a fluffy hot pink mousse for desert.  I still don’t know what flavor it was.  You know that red means cherry and blue equals some berry flavor and yellow equals banana, but I don’t know what flavor pink is.   Wait, I am in Australia now – let’s do that again.  I don’t know what FLAVOUR pink is, mate.  Plus, the stewardesses are really beautiful and they get to wear cool outfits and are even nice.  I want them to adopt me and teach me how to do my hair and always maintain grace under pressure. 

We just flew over a really big rock, I am going to pretend it is Ayers rock and that I have now visited it.  It is just like visiting Iran and Afghanistan when I flew over them on the way to India.  Although I do want to go to both for real one day.  Afghanistan looks like Nevada from the air. 

I can’t wait to see what story will lead with the inevitable title, “Dingos Ate My Baby”, but I know there will be one.

Australia, fair warning – you are in for it.  It isn’t just that you decided to unpack all of my bags, touch my underwear, question me about my use of drugs (“not since the 90s”, I said helpfully), swab my wallet for drugs, charge me $30 to store my kitty coffee because I don’t have an import license and take up an hour of my time with your dickish (almost as dickish as Americans!) immigration folks, but your people dress funny.  Really really funny. 

Everyone is wearing Cros, which is a criminal offense.  Those that aren’t dressed like they jumped off the beach at Kuta are overdressed.  They look like chunky store mannequins.  Everything is matchey matchey.  What the hell? Just because the sales person tells you to buy it, doesn’t mean you have to.  Get that damn fake flower out of your hair, lady.  It does not draw attention upward away from your ass any more than my big hair draws attention away from my thighs.  Try wearing mainly black and skip the bedazzles on your jeans.  That isn’t a good look for anyone, especially a larger girl.  All the guys are dressed like this scientist I used to work with, except they are wearing Crocs.  With socks.  Did I mention that is punishable by life imprisonment in Jenlandia? 

I am giving you three chances, Australia.  If you don’t obey me, I will turn you into little bunny foo foo, hopping through the forest, taking all the field mice and making them wear Crocs.  You have been warned.  

Russian Tea Cookie

I hate tsunamis – they scare the hell out of me.  Growing up on an island, we had tsunami warnings all the time.  One time, my mom and I were ordered to evacuate our house in Hawaii Kai, so I grabbed the cats and my sewing machine and we headed up to my friend Teresa’s on Mariner’s Ridge. Nothing happened other than a rumor that one of the surfers had gone out to catch the wave.  Tsunamis are terrifying because they are beyond our control – there is literally nothing we can do.  Last night, I stayed up watching Al Jazeera and emailing friends and family in Hawaii, Guam and the west coast, hoping everyone was OK.  One of the tv stations had some douchebags discussing the potential impact to the stock markets just a few hours after the quake.  Oh, I am sorry!  Did that mess up your stock portfolio?   Is that even ethical?

Screw it.  I am no longer Australian.  All that buys me is ability not to tip.  I still do, I am an ex waitress, after all.  Being Australian means the Balinese think you live really close by and want to invest in a timeshare.  When you explain that you were just lying because you didn’t want to discuss 911 again, they get really excited and start talking about President Obama.  I love President Obama, too, but I definitely do not want a timeshare.  If I need a timeshare on a tropical island, I will just sleep on the floor of my dad’s “basement”.  Our house in Honolulu is on a hill overlooking town and someone added a second apartment to the house in the 1940s.  My dad doesn’t rent it out anymore because he doesn’t like people, so it is just used for my nice and nephew to have nerf gun wars in.  And as a bona fide roach motel.  I saw a big one in there in December.  He needed his own H2 to get around.

So I have decided to just announce that I am Russian and do not speak English.  Nyet.  This has been a huge success!  No one speaks Russian, they think I am part of the mafia, no one tries to sell me a timeshare AND I don’t have to tip!  Why didn’t I think of this before? 

Last night as I was walking home from dinner (watermelon gazpacho – oh my yum!), I was offered sex.  For free!  Now I feel silly for paying for sex all this time, particularly when I can get it totally for free from a 19 year old on a moped.  All those awkward trips to the cash machine in Seattle – solved!  I was just walking along the street when a kid pulled up next to me and said, ”do you need love?  I can give you love for free”.  Maybe he was talking about something sweet like holding hands in the movie theater or some hippie stuff that happens at Folk Life, but I don’t think so.  Now that I am Russian, I merely scowled and said, “Yakov Smirnoff!” and he skittered away. 

I can only eat food that contains watermelon somehow.  I am not sure what happened, but everything turns to dust or fish sauce in my mouth.  Do you know how fish sauce is made?  They take fish guts and ferment them and drain off the liquid = viola!  Fish Sauce.  I read about it in The History of Salt.  You will never eat food with fish sauce in it again.  I have just single-handedly killed the fish sauce industry.  Sorry, economy.

There is a weird punk rock element to the culture here.  There are oodles of references to fairly obscure 80s punk.  A store called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, another called This IS a Love Song, several Punk Is Not Dead t-shirts and last night, I swear, I heard an Indonesian band doing covers of X and the Toy Dolls.   Maybe they are all owned by expats in their mid to late 40s, I don’t know.  Iron Maiden, Xcene Cervenka and Melissa Manchester?  It is fine with me, it doesn’t totally make sense, but I like it all.   And yes, I got a Sid and Nancy shirt at the Indonesian version of Hot Topic because Punk is NOT Dead. 

This morning I got to go to the best temple ever.  I know, there are temples all over this place, but this one was on an island and there were no monkeys!   I am not permanently dissing monkeys, but I am cautious since that one tried to eat my shoe.  While it was on my foot.   This place is called Tanneh Lot, sounds like Camelot.  It is on an island that is walk-able in low tide.  This morning it was high tide, so you couldn’t get too close, but there were fun rocks on the beach to scramble on and a big sign that said “Holy Snake”.  I do not know what that is about and I am not about to find out. 

It started pouring, so I covered my camera and tried to get under a shelter.  About  a million other people were there too, so I could only keep my bag under shelter, I got drenched.   After about 30 minutes, it started to let up, so I walked back to where my driver was supposed to pick me up.  About 15 people tried to sell me an umbrella on the way back to the entrance.  I looked like a wet muppet, don’t you think it is a bit late for the umbrella? 

I looked around for my driver, he wasn’t where he said he would be.  OK, I sat down on the curb and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I was starting to get pissed - it had been like 45 minutes.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I started walking around looking into cars.  I finally found him with his shirt off, legs spread, crashed out on the car seat.  He was not a pretty man.

Because I have lived in Seattle so long, I didn’t say anything, I just got all passive aggressive and sighed a lot and rolled my eyes instead of saying something.  Speaking of my adopted hometown, I realize I have not been giving it enough crap.  I have been knocking on Honolulu like it is going out of style, but have left Seattle pretty much alone at home watching t.v.  Don’t worry Seattle!  I won’t forget you!  And I won’t go easy on you either – no weather or grunge jokes, oh no.  I am going to make Portlandia look like an episode of Northwest Afternoon. 

I arrived at the airport for my flight to Perth and was surprised to learn I had to pay an additional fee to board the plane. I was out of rupiahs and started to panic, but they take US dollars too.  I have never had to pay to leave a country before – paid plenty of Visa on Arrival fees, but never a Pay if You Want to Leave fee.   You also get out processed on immigration – I guess they want to make sure people go home.  Standing in the immigration line was a trip.  There were a group of youngish Australians all wearing tie dyed marijuana shirts and pointy rice farmer hats.  They will actually execute you here for drugs, so flaunting the reference and wearing an incredibly offensive hat seemed beyond stupid and tacky.  There was also a magical leprechaun man who was about 5’2”, skinny, bright orange, with long stringy hair, a yellow beard, a Bintang wife beater and a garish hat that loudly proclaimed “Australia!”  No shit. 

The airport here is very civilized, not like Seoul.  They have pocky!  And newsstands and cafes and drug stores.  They also have a prayer room and all of these enclosed smoking rooms.  They are all glass and in the middle of the terminals. They don’t appear to have any extra ventilation, so they just serve as display cases for smokers.  They look like they are in a little smoking museum or something. 

OMG!  I just spotted a case with Diet Coke!  I think I am in heaven.