Janine's Rovings and Rantings

Temper, Temper

2010-11-27T14:01:00.000-08:00

Years ago, I had a horrific temper. My kids used to run in fear sometimes, and I swear that there were moments where I sort of stepped outside my body, and watched this mad harpie screaming and spitting and turning beet red. It wasn't too fun....

Then, something catastrophic happened in my life and my temper seemed to melt out of me, replaced by a melancholy and hopelessness that was easier (I think) for everyone else to deal with, but it weighed more and never really subsided. It was, however, easier to cover up. That temper stuff jumps and dances around, and you can't really throw a blanket on it and pretend it isn't there; the other, though, is sedate and morose, and it will never try very hard to fight out from under whatever you toss over it. It doesn't have to, because it knows that it has an indefatigable grip on you and it'll never give up. In the case of depression, slow and steady wins its race.

Today, a drop of liquid set me into a rage. One drop. Now, granted, it was a drop of pee on the toilet seat, and so it was annoying, unnerving, wet, freaked me out, you name it. I found myself in the bathroom shouting, "F*%kin' A!" at the top of my lungs, wiped off the damn seat, finished my bathroom business, and then left the house. I was frightened. I haven't felt that kind of anger in years, and it scared the hell outta me. So, I did what any self-respecting post-menopausal almost-50-year-old woman would do: I went to a craft store. Now, a couple hours and $32 later (everything was on sale!), I am back at home, calmed down, and trying to accept the fact that this may not be the last time. Maybe the beast is back. Then again, maybe that also means that all those other jumping, shouting, hard-to-contain emotions are back as well. Maybe even joy?

Well, well, well...welcome home...

Visibility

2010-11-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

One of my sister's highest criteria for rating a new car is the visibility. If she cannot see properly (for her) out the back window, side windows, mirrors, or windshield, she simply will not drive it. As I get older, I more and more agree with her. I currently own a convertible Toyota Solara and, even though I love the car, I am getting crankier and crankier about its lack of visibility.

I think that I also, as I get older, am more intolerant of my lack of life visibility. When I was younger, it was just fine that I couldn't quite see well enough out of the vehicle that is my life. Don't know what's ahead? No problem - I'm sure we won't crash. Can't see behind me, in case I want to back up? Who cares! But now....well, now I just want to have a clear windshield and be surrounded by life's windows.

Even if what I see isn't perfect, at least I'd have time to steer around it, or decide how to navigate. But seeing nothing? It's scaring the hell out of me. I am in some sort of armed vehicle with nothing but a crack in front of me to peer through, and even that is often obscured by the dust of the road ahead (or perhaps battles just fought). I am finally at a place where I need to SEE, dammit! If not, perhaps it's time to pull over, pile out of this car, and go get a new one. Maybe the paint won't be as shiny; maybe it'll be a cheaper car (or perhaps the payments will be so high that I'll find myself really just scraping by). But I'll know what's coming, and when I get into the garage at night, I'll sleep more soundly and be prepared for the next day, and the one after that.

Just sayin'...

Talkin' Bout My Generation (and the one after)

2010-10-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

I had breakfast this morning with my daughter and son-in-law. We talked about Sara's job, how best she could voice some concerns she has at work, how the kids' honeymoon went, and then somehow got on the subject of education (or lack thereof).

Sara recently had the pleasure of attending an event where the speaker was Madeline Levine, who does extensive research on why teenagers from affluent families are experiencing epidemic rates of emotional problems. This prompted a lengthy discussion about over-achieving students, parental pressure to do more, to be perfect, and the tendency of parents, beginning with my generation of parenting, to fill a child's every waking moment with educational and extra-curricular activities. At one point, Sara asked me if I am "ok" with the notion that Alec (my son) may never graduate from college. I thought about it for a moment and said, truthfully, that if he is happy, I'm fine with it. He has a very responsible, stressful, low-paying job, and he excels at it. My 21-year-old man-child has, in one month, taken a retail store in a rural area to a point where he has increased their phone sales by about 700% Yes, I did the math right; I may be just a dumb high-school graduate, but I can do the math. Seven. Hundred. Percent.

I told Sara that, in days of yore, I had two pieces of great advice for first-time parents:

1) Never buy your child a blankie that you cannot easily replace at WalMart or Target. Otherwise, you'll end up with a 2-year-old who is walking around with a dirty, ragged, disgusting, smelly blanket that you can't even wrestle away from him/her to throw in the washing machine. Always have a lot of backups. Wash them all equally, so the silly kid can't tell the difference.

2) Someday, you will feel like taking your adorable infant to Macy's, going to the top floor, and throwing the squalling bundle of flesh down the elevator shaft. It WILL happen. When it does, remember that feelings are OK - it's actions that are crimes. So, it's alright to want to do the tossing; it's NOT quite so OK to actually toss.

Now, I add a third piece of advice:

3) At any given point in time, allow your child to be involved in ONE extracurricular activity - soccer OR piano OR Gymboree OR jujitsu OR junior Einstein science camp.

On the whole, my generation has raised a passle of kids who cannot decide how to do one damned thing for themselves. They have been fed, showered, entertained, scheduled, mollycoddled, driven to school, driven to practice, driven to piano lessons, until we as parents are driven to tears. When I was a child, I spent probably three solid weeks of afternoons and weekends in Felicia Morrow's backyard, the two of us (sometimes four, if joined by Markie and Carla Morrow) with spoons determined to dig far enough to get to China. We entertained ourselves! I cannot once remember trudging into my mom's kitchen and whining that I was "bored" if she didn't fill every waking moment of my time with some planned activity.

Now, there are students whose parents call to drop their kids' college courses for them; parents who decide via phone photo texts which pair of shoes their kid should buy; parents who call or text their 20-something children multiple times a day and expect an immediate response. HELLOOOOOOOO...you are raising a generation of adults who cannot wipe their own noses (or, probably, arses). But they have first-rate expensive educations that also somehow never taught them how to write out a rent check.

So yeah, I am fine with Alec never going to college. In fact, I am finally fine with *my* never graduating from college. I look at my kids - one married, one not; one college educated, one not; one living in a big city, one not - and I realize that they couldn't be more equal in my eyes. And, joy of joys, I couldn't possibly love either of them one iota more.

So please, please, people - give your children a break. Teach them to have fun, teach them how to tie their shoes, encourage them to be all they can be, then support them every step of the way when they don't take the exact path you may have chosen for them.

Oh yeah, and stop calling them every day - they need some time to learn to fend for themselves! They will still call when they need you, but at least it will be for work advice and possibly a food preparation question, rather than to ask you to send them money for rent because they spent all theirs on WOW server memberships.

Remembering a Success Story

2009-10-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

A cowoker of mine has been struggling with the way her manager defines success. Apparently, it has to do with being worth billions at age 35. My friend feels as though she is missing the beat, somehow, and doesn't fit it. I had to tell her a story about Roy....

Roy moved to California to marry me (lucky dude). So, he had to find a whole new job. Here he is, 44 years old and partially disabled, looking for a job as a receptionist, competing with 20-year-old waifs wearing butt-high skirts. So, he goes into a recruiting office who advertised for a receptionist for an interview, and one of the partners, who was younger than Roy, says, "Why would I hire you? You are older than I am and all you want to do in life is be a receptionist?"

Roy said, "Scott, I don't know how you measure success. For me, when I lie down each night to go to bed, I ask myself whether I acted nicely that day, whether my relationships are in good order, and whether I made people and myself happy. Did I treat people right? Did I make my wife and kids smile? THAT is success. Money is NOT success. So yes, I want to be a receptionist. And if I do a good job for you and your firm, then it will add to my success each day. The salary is not how I measure myself."

They hired him on the spot.

And now you know one more piece to the puzzle of, "What makes Janine tick?" It's all the Gospel According to Roy, baby.....

Oh yeah, and he worked there until he finally had to go out on permanent disability. Scott happily and graciously paid for ALL the flowers for Roy's funeral, and called me weekly for a while afterwards to make sure I was OK. He cried like a baby when Roy died. I think Roy made Scott a little more successful, too.

(Roy also got away with once telling Scott over the PA that 'Howie' was on the phone for him. Scott barked back, "Howie who? I've told you a million times, I WANT A LAST NAME!" Roy said softly, "Lichtenfelter. Howie Lichtenfelter." Silence in the office from every room, then raucous laughter from every direction. That man knew how to break tension.)

My Dad

2009-01-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

My father passed away Tuesday afternoon, after a 15-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 81 years old.

Many of my friends either never met my dad, or met him after the disease had already robbed him of his mental faculties. Since most people will never know my real dad, I want to just introduce him to you briefly.

My father was intelligent, eloquent, hilarious, and had an infinite capacity to love. He wrote poetry for my mother frequently, throughout their marriage, and would delight in sneaking a paper with a little verse onto her plate before we sat down to eat, so she'd find it there and read it while we all watched. Most of these poems were about her upper arms, which he said were amazing and better than anyone else's in the entire world. OK, he was quirky, but he wrote great upper arm poems. He allayed my sister's childhood fears by telling her that everything she was afraid of had been sent to Bakersfield. This was a brilliant ruse, but proved a bit sketchy in later years when a detour on the way back to the bay area from southern California resulted in passing through Bakersfield. That must have been an interesting car ride (I was too small to remember, or perhaps not yet born). Dad turned a mostly blind eye when the neighbors tattled to him about my brother's poker parties (held in my parents' absences) and, in fact, didn't even lose it completely when it turned out that the ringleader behind a football betting pool at my dad's high school was (you guessed it) my brother. And, when my complete horse-craziness took me beyond rides around a ring on a pony, my dad learned how to ride a horse so that I could go trail riding. He also started emulating my way of dressing at the time and began a years-long habit of wearing cowboy boots and singing Merle Haggard songs.

He let me come down to his school in the summers and hang out with him, where he taught me Pedro (a great card game) and always let me play with him and the other administrators, even though I think I was probably only ten or twelve when he taught me to play. He taught me how to pluck a chicken, candle pinfeathers off a duck, bait a hook, shoot a gun (he earned a letter at Cal for marksmanship), read the TV Guide (remember those?) and reload shotgun shells. Every evening when he came home from work (school) at about 4:00, he and I would sit downstairs, watch Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas, and have a drink together. Yeah, you heard it right. He would have Jack Daniels or Jim Beam whiskey on the rocks, and he'd mix me a highball with a bit of whiskey (cheaper stuff) and a lot of 7-Up. I have known since I was eight years old that you NEVER mix Jack Daniels; it's sacrilegious.

Dad told me once that my mother was much more generous than he was, but he never really refused us anything we needed. And his generosity came through in other ways. I remember once asking him, while we were watching an old movie, if Sophia Loren was pretty. He said yes, she was. I asked if she was prettier than Mommy, and he said that NOBODY was prettier than Mommy. I asked him some tough questions. I remember I asked him once if he loved us more than he loved God. (Jeez, what a creepy kid I must have been). Rather than pop my bubble, he simply said that it was a really unfair question to ask ANY Catholic, so he wasn't going to answer it. He never complained that I collected pet frogs who would croak at night in the family room and force him to turn up the TV to be able to hear it properly. And he saved up his "mad money", a few dollars at a time, for years until he could buy my mother a huge console stereo one year. She still has it, and always will.

On weekend mornings, he and I would get up early and go to the bakery, and then when we came home he'd make eggs - the best. The only person who can cook eggs as well as my dad did is my son. At night, if we were sitting downstairs watching TV, and one of us simply gave him the puppy-dog eyes and professed a hankering for a fried egg sandwich, he'd get up and go upstairs and cook one up. My dad loved popsicles, and squid, and pickled pigs' feet, and pineapple upside-down cake, and anything my mom cooked. He could grill a steak like nobody's business, but his BBQd chicken was always blackened (hey, nobody's perfect!). He hated casseroles, and would never eat macaroni and cheese. Once in a blue moon when he would have a meeting that took him away at dinnertime, we would have mac 'n cheese or TV dinners (which he also eschewed). He drank his evening coffee from a glass (sometimes with a bit of brandy,sometimes not), but the morning coffee from a mug (sans brandy).

He would send us upstairs to get properly dressed before dinner if we had no shoes on or if my brother had on a white t-shirt (Dad said that was underwear). Going barefoot, ever, for any reason, was against the rules, as was wearing flip-flops or most sandals. No makeup was allowed until about age 16, and I got in trouble once for wearing nail polish. The only thing that saved me from serious trouble when I got my ears pierced at 15 was that my mom got hers done, too. My curfew was midnight until I got married.

Dad worked for years at a job that he ended up hating because of the political bullshit and dealing with parents and students who no longer had respect for the school system or the teachers. He retired at 55, as soon as he could, and spent the rest of his life with my mom in their house at
Clearlake, at one point writing the fishing column for the local paper there. He taught Spanish at a junior college nearby for as long as he was able to remember how, and he tutored people in Italian. He spoke a few languages, and it was very common to have a dinnertime conversation that revolved around the etymology of some word or other. He learned English as a child, when he started kindergarten; Italian was his first language. In the end, he spoke Italian more easily than English.

My dad used to call me "motor mouth," "machine gun mouth," and "The New York Times." He told me that, ultimately, my mouth would get me into trouble throughout my life (and he was right). He used to say to me often, "Come le fai lunga," which means (or would mean, if I knew how to spell it all correctly), "How you make it long," a constant reminder that brevity was NOT one of my strong suits. Clearly, he was right again, since this has gotten way too long....so I will stop here. Thanks for reading.

Black Friday

2008-11-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

I am spending the Thanksgiving holiday with my mother in Clearlake. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, it's north of the Napa Valley and there isn't a whole lot here. But there is a huge lake (the largest in California, actually) and some interesting folks.

For some insane reason, I decided to go to the WalMart Black Friday sale this morning. At 5 am. My mom was going to go with me, but her heart clearly wasn't in it, and I sent her back to bed. Off I went, driving in the fog, and I arrived at the closest WalMart (about 20 minutes away) at 4:47 to find a huge line of people already standing outside the store. As I had left the house, my mother admonished me that "there are people around here who aren't from trailers" (my mom is an example of one of them) but I didn't WANT to stand in line with a bunch of classy people. If I get out of bed at 4 am to go to a WalMart, I want to be entertained by some hicks, dammit!

As I trudged along the line to get to the end, the first thing I heard was a woman saying, "You're lighting your damn jacket on fire!" and I looked over to see a guy batting at his jacket while a lit cigarette dangled from his mouth and a match fluttered to the ground. My wish had been granted.

So, I stood in line for about 15 minutes and learned some cool stuff. If you are "a total broke SOB" you are lucky because people do not ask to borrow money from you. It pays to bring your entire family to a sale like this, give each person a cart, and then plan a strategy of "divide and conquer" so as to get as many great sale items as possible. Somebody's Aunt Irene is going to really get her "come-upance" soon because Uncle Jack isn't going to stand for her drama any more.

Damn, just as I was really getting into the story about Aunt Irene, the line moved because the doors were opening. And then I realized some other cool stuff. The line was really organized, and almost nobody tried to line jump. A really nice woman who was about six feet tall and I joined forces at the huge bin of sheet sets: I found her a king set in every color, and she used her long arms to grab me the one set of full sheets there was because I just couldn't reach it (might I say this was for my mother, who didn't want to come with me! Hah!) A lady who rolled by with a BlueRay player in her cart gave me really good directions on where to find them (I got the very last one). Nobody pushed or shoved, everyone was in a decent mood, and I was out of the store by 5:23 am with everything I had gone there for.

The only thing that I wish I had now is the rest of that story about Aunt Irene....

How??

2008-11-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Today, one day after our elections, I am completely proud to be an American and totally ashamed of my fellow Californians.

HOW can people in this state forget that our constitution is not a religious instrument?

HOW can we inject our religious beliefs into dictating other people's lifestyles and freedoms (or lack thereof)?

HOW could churches, who are there to support and uphold people, give so much money to taking away the rights of people who are doing them NO wrongs?

HOW can I ever set foot in a roman catholic church again, knowing that those people's money was instrumental (along with mormons, fundamentalist christians [I can't even bring myself to use capital letters here], and other churches), in negating my sisters' marriage, a union that is strong, and beautiful, and a glorious celebration of their love for each other?

HOW can I ever, ever apologize enough to Paula, Julie, Jacqueline, Melissa, Jill, Barb, and scores of others for the absolute close-minded pig-headedness born of some unnamed and stupid (yes, stupid!) fear held by people who profess love and acceptance every Sunday and then go home to promote hatred and discrimination?

God help us, people, because my God, a God who is merciful, and loving, and giving, and perfect, wasn't behind this campaign of moronic hatred.

Shame on us.

England (Not) and Home

2008-10-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

So, after my one hour of sleep my last night in Copenhagen, I woke up feeling really ill. I knew that I needed to be home where I had my own bed and a massive bottle of antibiotics, so the following ensued:

I got to Heathrow and BEGGED the United ticket counter to get me home. They did. And kept my upgrades. I love them.

I got disconnected three times while trying to call to cancel my hotel reservations, after which I couldn't use that credit card in the pay phone any more, so had to dig out another one and read it to the operator. I noticed that some guy a couple pay phones away was paying way more attention than he should be, and looking suspicious. Hmmmm

I ran to the gate just as my plane was finishing boarding and got my seat (yay).

I got home, took a megadose of Cipro, and slept for a day.

I got called by Wells Fargo that the jerk in Heathrow had, indeed, stolen my credit card number and was trying to use it over and over for long-distance phone calls. Wells Fargo denied every single bogus charge. I love them, too.

So, now a few weeks have passed, and I am back to work on my contract and thinking about the holidays. Life is good, and my fingers are exhausted from updating my blog all afternoon. More news as it breaks. Thanks for reading!

At Last, Copenhagen

2008-10-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

So, on to the reason I booked this month-long journey in the first place: to see Sara speak at the Internet Research conference in Copenhagen.

Sara was on a panel of four speakers, all of whom (except Sara) are PhD'd academics. They were boring, I have to tell you. And no, I am not being objective, but a couple other people told me the same thing. Sara is a natural speaker (I wonder where she gets that from?) and did an incredible job not only speaking but also being the moderator for her panel.

She's well-organized, brilliant, personable, and wonderful. Ask anyone who was there. Really.

So, after seeing Sara, the rest of Copenhagen was fairly anti-climactic. It was horrifically expensive; lunch was never less than $20, and dinners were astronomical. I felt lucky to get a tiny hotel room for only about $150 per night. Definitely not a place I would like to go back to, but I'm glad I came to see my munchkin speak. (Sara, can you please do a conference in Fiji next time?)

Oh yeah, poker balance at the end of all this: Janine $11,220, Val $10,840. He's catching up, folks...

To top off my Copenhagen experience, I got exactly one hour of sleep my last night there, because a) some idiot was singing at the top of his drunken lungs in the street and b) I was getting sick. Not fun.

Berlin

2008-10-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

So, in Berlin we stayed in a hostel. But, the room we had was more like a studio apartment, had a great bathroom, a working kitchen, eating area, sitting area, balcony overlooking the city - in short, it was a great hotel room at hostel prices. Yay for Wombat's City Hostel!

Things of note that happened in Berlin:

When stopping to offer to take a picture of a large group of girls from Italy, one of them began to talk to us about the most-discussed subject (our election) and they really wanted to know if it was true that Obama was a Muslim! Amazing that rumors and crappy journalism reach so far so fast. I set them straight...

The wall is mostly gone, but you can buy pieces of it in museums, souvenir shops, and from street vendors. However, those pieces are pretty much manufactured in China, so no more authentic pieces are really being sold. If you want one, you'll have to go to the East Side Gallery on your own, preferably after dark, and break a piece off while nobody is looking. I would never do that. Never.

Berlin is built mostly in a very dull, gray, concrete-block style - especially the eastern part of the city, where we were staying. Still, it has a character all its own. The people are great, it's very much like San Francisco as far as being very funky in spots, and it has....shawarma! This middle-eastern staple has become the number one fast food in Germany, and oh how glad I am! It's fantastic, and cheap, and I love it.

I decided one day to take a day to myself and go see Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp located some miles north of Berlin. To do this, I had to take two different metro lines and a train, but it was worth the trip. While waiting for my second metro, I felt a hand going into my jacket pocket and stared right into the eyes of a pickpocket as I pushed his hand away. The truly surprising thing is that the guy same BACK at me and tried again! At this point, I pulled out my pocket contents (a used kleenex) and offered it to him. He walked away, totally unashamed. Sheesh.

I did prove to myself, with my day trip out of Berlin, that I can get around on my own when necessary. Of course, the train and metro systems in Germany are fantastic, and always on time. Believe me, when they say the train leaves at 13:56, it LEAVES at 13:56. The doors will close on your ass if you are late. Be on time!

Oh yes, and I also fell in love with some sort of pastry in the bakery near our hostel that was filled with pudding (the pastry, not the hostel; sorry for misplacing my modifiers). I am seriously going to have to go on a diet when I get home, but for now I am ON VACATION!!!

Prague

2008-10-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

Prague is great; it has lots of history, lots to see and do, and best of all...DUMPLINGS!! I love them. I love what the Czechs call "sweet and sour beef" (which is what we think of as beef stroganoff). I love all this heavy, rich food. Yay for Czech food!

Of course, we are limited by the fact that Val's sisters and niece really don't like to sample "exotic" food so we are eating at places like TGIFriday's, but I am also finding places that have chicken and french fries but also have traditional Czech food as well. There's something so comforting and wonderful about having huge bread dumplings soaking up enormous quantities of stroganoff-like sauce..mmmmmmmmmm.

Prague is a very musical city, but sometimes it's hilarious. Our first evening here, we got talked into going to a "concert" of popular hits from musicals. Sounds good, but it only involved three people: a pianist, a singer, and a guy who played the sax. In addition to the oddness of that, he singer and the pianist (both female) clearly did not like each other. Oh yeah, and the singer had this very loud soprano voice that was clearly classically trained. This would have been great in an opera, but not so much for singing, "I Feel Pretty." To top it off, she also did not speak English, but had obviously memorized the English words (or the sounds of the English words) as well as she could. But, in some cases, what came out were new and innovative lyrics that had never been heard before (or since). There were a few moments where I wanted to laugh out loud, but held it in. To make it worse, I looked over at Val and he clearly was perplexed as to why we were even there! It could only have been more funny if the singer had launched into a rendition of "Puff the Magic Dragon." Thankfully, that didn't happen. I was able to maintain my composure and, soon enough, we were back out on the cool nighttime streets of Prague.

Money-Changers and Thieves

2008-10-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

In addition to being on the lookout for pickpockets, we found the value of not listening to people who offer to change money here in Prague. A man approached Geraldine while she was waiting to change some money and said he'd give her a much better rate. She was intrigued, but of course Val can small a rat from a mile away and told the guy to buzz off (or something like that). It turns out that these guys offer you a better rate, then give you old, obsolete Czech or Bulgarian money for your dollars or euros. Glad we turned them down (I had learned last year in Cambodia to not use money-changers if at all possible).

The best way to deal with money in a foreign country it to use ATM machines; they give you the current rate, and they are dependable and trustworthy. Try hitting machines in banks (as opposed to ones in convenience stores) where possible.

Pickpockets are pretty good at their jobs, too. We were on a metro here and a few guys got on and were all crowding near the door (which is where Val was standing). One started pushing him into the guy behind him, and when the guy behind complained and Val turned to tell him that he couldn't help it, the "pusher" tried to get into Val's pocket. Val was not thrilled about this and made it quite known. The guy finally jumped off the metro and disappeared into the crowd, at which point someone pointed out to Val that his camera case (on his belt) was completely opened up. Luckily, he was wearing the camera itself around his neck at the time! Nothing lost, except a bit of my composure.

In Training

2008-10-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

So, our trip from Bruges to Prague was done via train, with a jaunt to Dusseldorf and then an overnight train to Prague.

Dusseldorf is someplace I would love to see for more than 10 hours someday. We went to the information center near the train station where a great guy gave us a map, outlined where we could walk for a few hours, and even told us where to eat! We also took a short river cruise around the city, to get a feel for what it was like. I definitely want to come back here...

Now, for the overnight train. The accommodations were small but clean, the bathroom had a shower (of sorts), we had a sink in our compartment, and we got to sleep! The overnight trip also was the beginning of a now-marathon poker game between Val and me. Score upon arrival in Prague: Janine $6620, Val $1720. Too bad it's just imaginary money!!

So, we arrived in Prague rested and ready to meet up with Val's sisters and niece (Geraldine, Kathleen, and Cliona). The taxi ride was fairly brief to the hotel, which was situated amongst a lot of run-down, graffiti-riddled buildings. Uh-oh, I thought. But, the room was clean enough, and very large. Plus, who can complain about paying 49 Euro for a room including full breakfast each day for both of us? Everything will be fine...

Robin and the Plants

2008-10-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

No, it isn't a new band name....I have to give an honorable mention here to my wonderful buddy, Robin Fournier. Robin is from Louisiana and is watching my house while I am gone. This became especially important as my landlady (who DEFINES anal) called before I left to complain that the lawn wasn't looking green enough. Grrrrr. (She somehow ignores the fact that the dishwasher is broken and the icemaker has NEVER been successfully hooked up on the fridge that she INSISTED stay in the house).

Lucky for me, Robin (who I met whilst taking my certification course for TESOL) is staying in San Francisco for a while longer, and is apparently taking good care of my lawn because I got an email from her a few days ago that said the lawn was behaving nicely. It was signed with love from Robin and the Plants.

Robin, YAY for you!!!!

Bruges

2008-10-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well, Bruges was all I hoped for and MORE. First of all, the B&B we stayed in was incredible. We had a huge room with bathroom, heated towel bars, lots of space, and breakfast when we wanted it each morning with an array of food that was fantastic! If you are EVER in Bruges, look up the Belfry Bed and Breakfast

So, knowing only what I had seen in the Colin Farrell movie, I found that Bruges is a very small town, but with lots to do. Somehow, in only three days, we packed in a ton of activities. We saw the church from the film and a chocolate museum the first afternoon we arrived. On our second day, we rented bikes and rode out to a neighboring town, along the canals. After riding about 20 miles, we came back to town and climbed the 366 steps to the top of the belfry tower (and then rewarded ourselves with french fries!), then took a brewery tour that entailed climbing another 200+ stairs. It was quite the exercising kind of day! Day three included more sightseeing, and then a great meal of rabbit and flemish beef stew.

As opposed to the French-speaking people in Brussels, Bruges is a Flemish (or Dutch) speaking city. But, everyone here takes FOUR languages in school: Dutch, French, German, and English. So, communicating here has been simple (and it makes me feel quite inadequate for only speaking 1 1/2 languages!)

Can we go back to the french fries??? They are so damn good here, I cannot gush enough. So now, in addition to having gotten used to always having bread and cheese for breakfast every day, I am also eating large quantities of french fries (with large quantities of mayonnaise). I can feel my arteries hardening up even as we speak, but OH MAN this stuff is good. I may have to buy myself an extra seat on the plane coming home! Yummmmmmmm...

While leaving Bruges by bus to get back to the train station, the bus driver suddenly stopped int he middle of the street. Being from San Francisco, I was waiting for him to start screaming at someone (our drivers are pretty surly!) but it was to simply lower his window and chat for a minute or two with a very pregnant woman who was crossing the street. They had a nice little chat and then he continued driving us to the station. Hilarious.

Brussels

2008-10-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, again the keyboards were thwarting my attempts at blogging, but now I have gotten my hands on a standard (to me) board, so I will add a little bit...

My first impression of Brussels was, "hmmmmmmmmm...." It seemed gray, kind of dirty, and not very friendly. Luckily, I got over it pretty quickly. We stayed with a gentleman named Pierre, who was incredibly interesting and always willing to sit for an hour at breakfast and answer questions about culture, politics, language, etc.

Belgium has three official languages - Flemish (which is almost the same as Dutch), French, and German. Brussels is about 85% French-speaking and, as I have been told is the case in France, they really don't want to speak English to us. This is, of course, their right (it is, after all, their country!). But it made communication a bit more difficult that it has been up to this point.

While in the chapel of the EU building, I tried to ask a question and the woman there did not understand me; oddly enough, I asked her if she spoke Spanish and she did! So, I was able to talk to her a bit that way (she had lived in Spain for four years at some point in her life). She called over an older gentleman who spoke English and told him that I was American, and the first thing he said was, "Oh, you have a very important election coming up - are you voting for Obama?" I assured him that I was, and he was very happy. The people here in Europe are pretty unified in their hatred for Bush (smart people!) and they all love Obama. If Europeans could vote in the election, Obama would win by a landslide!

Anyway, we saw all kinds of great stuff in Brussels, and ate WAY too much chocolate!!! Next blog entry, I will tell about my three days in Brugge, but for now I have to go get some dinner. Peace, everyone.

--Janine

AZERTY

2008-10-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog relates to the first 6 keys on the keyboards here in Belgium. That, combined with the fact that all numbers require a SHIFT (as does the period), the parentheses are separated by four other keys and do NOT require a shift, etc, etc... means that I adamantly reFUSE to blog until I get to a more keyboard-friendly place!

So, I am storing up info about Brussels (which I loved) and Brugges (which I adore, and where I currently am) and will blog about them soon!

Frustratedly,
Janine

Amsterdam

2008-10-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

For the last two days, I have been in Amsterdam. I loved Sweden, but I think Amsterdam has to win out (but only by a gnat's ass, as my mother would say) over Stockholm just because of the incredible cuteness of it.

As with Stockholm, the public transportation system here is fantastic. It has been SO easy to get around here, and get around we have! In a very short time, we have seen the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house, the Sex Museum (fascinating!), had a canal tour, eaten WAY too much food, and spent some time in the red light district. I have to say, the Dutch have the right idea when it comes to deciding what to legalize; the sex workers are clean, open, and seemingly drug-free. It's just a business, like any other, and because they can be on the open about it, they can make their rules to remain disease-free, they are regulated and get tested regularly, they pay taxes, and they rarely are messed with by their clientele. Best of all, they have no need for pimps.

Of course, also in abundance are "coffeehouses," which are really places to buy and smoke dope. Again, it seems to work here, The use of illegal (harder) drugs in Holland is lower than most countries, and they aren't wasting their jail space on people who simply want to smoke pot (unlike the U.S., where 700,000 people were arrested in 2006 for marijuana - and we all complain that our courts are overloaded? Come ON, people, let's get our heads out of our bums!) Yes, Mom, I went into a coffeehouse and no, Mom, I didn't buy anything. We just wanted to see what it was like. Basically, imagine your flour and sugar canisters at home filled with pot and out on the counter for people to look at and buy; it's that way here with pot.

There are so many bicycles here that I have to look out for bikes much more than cars. Everyone rides them, and rides them FAST! Also, there are really cool kiddie bike seats for the fronts of bikes as well as the backs; again, I have pics and will upload them when I get home.

I am fascinated by the longevity statistics here and in Sweden. In Sweden, for example, the average lifespan is something like 80 years; that is far above most other countries, and certainly above the USA. HOW do they do it, considering the incredibly relationship they seem to have with cheese, cream, and eggs??? It has to be the exercise they all get, biking and walking everywhere. That's all I can seem to come up with for an explanation. In any case, I have become quite fond of having some bread and cheese for breakfast every day. I hope to God that my walking around all day is working off some of the food, because I have been pigging out! Oh well, I am on vacation and I can start eating better....tomorrow.

OK, I am off to bed; tomorrow, I go to Brussels on the first official "train" leg of my trip. Meanwhile, in a few hours Joe Biden and Sarah Palin will match wits. Well, in Palin's case, i think only one wit. She scares the heck outta me, that one. I was never really on the fence, but if I had been, my mind is made up, now. Obama for President!

Ta-ta,
Janine

Stockholm

2008-10-02T12:35:00.000-07:00

Oh, I have been so bad about blogging, and now I find myself two entire cities behind! I will try to catch up....

On Sunday, I was driven by Carina, Per, and family to Stockholm (thanks, Carina, YOU ARE AWESOME!) after a great visit with them all. I was staying in the IPA house in Rissne, which is a suburb of Stockholm. The price was definitely right (it was only 37 Euros per night!) and it was so incredibly simple to get the metro into Stockholm each day to see sights. As had been my experience already in Sweden, the people in Stockholm were so unbelievably friendly and helpful that all I had to do was begin to look confused and someone would approach me to ask if I needed help.

So, let's see....we took a canal tour (I had never realized how much WATER there was in and around and through the city!) and saw the Grand Palace, Skansen park, and some other sights, but the best sightseeing adventure was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship commissioned to be built in the 17th century, and it sank on its maiden voyage before ever getting out of Stockholm. This isn't really all that fantastic, I guess, but the museum was astonishingly cool. Once again, I have to say that Rick Steves' travel books are the bomb. Anyway, I also finally got Swedish meatballs while in Stockholm - I actually went to the grocery store and bought them and the sauce mix myself, and cooked them up in the guest house. So, my Swedish culinary wishes were all granted (but still nothing compares to the food I had while with Carina and Per...nothing).

My other "wish list" item for Sweden was to buy a warm sweater; in fact, I deliberately didn't bring one with me, and the jacket I brought is more water-resistant than warm. So, I looked around in Stockholm and ventured into some little shop that sold wool sweaters. Now, these aren't fuzzy wool sweaters, but dense, wonderful, intricately designed wool sweaters. The price tags were jaw-dropping, but I tried one on anyway and it fit and I had to buy it. I wore it the next day and, even though our breath was visible, I couldn't feel anything on my upper half other than torrid heat. I actually almost had to remove the dang thing, it was so warm! I have been appreciating it ever since. I shall have to add a picture of it once I get home and upload pics.

Speaking of uploading pics, I am LOVING the Epson viewer that I bought before I left the states. It allows me to back up my photos every day, and then look through them and weed out the obviously bad ones. Maybe I'll only have two thousand pics when I get home instead of three thousand!!! hahahahha

Last but NOT least, I received an email from my lovely daughter today informing me that she has procured employment for herself for when she gets back home from her trip to Copenhagen (remember, SHE is why I am here in the first place - to see her speak at the Association of Internet Researchers conference on October 16). Sara will be working for a non-profit in the city, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Yay, Sara!

At the same time, I have pretty much decided that my current project for California Volunteers will be my last gig in Sacramento. I'm tired of driving, and spending the last 6 weeks on forced unemployed status (thanks to our completely dorky governor, damn him!) has made me realize how much I love my city. I just want to be HOME at night, and ride public transportation during the day. Sacramento can go to hell (oh wait, it's 117 degrees there sometimes int he summer - it already IS hell!) :-)

OK, off I go. Love to all my friends and family.

Cheers,
Janine

Smörgåstårta

2008-09-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

I just had the most amazing food. You can check out the definition in Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sm%C3%B6rg%C3%A5st%C3%A5rta

Basically, this thing was a huge cake-like structure made with layers of Swedish flatbread with many different fillings: liver pate, leek and curry paste, ham, creme freche, shrimp, eggs, tomatoes, dill, kiwi, and who knows what else. It looked incredible, sounded interesting, and tasted so damn good that I ate three pieces of it, had dessert, then promptly fell asleep on my hostess' couch (how embarassing!). Oh yeah, speaking of dessert, it was some sort of chocolate cream cake with fresh whipped cream, and a cardamom-cinnamon cake. This added to my food-induced couch coma. When I woke up, everyone was just laughing at me. Ah well, worse things have happened. :-)

So, today is my last full day with Carina and her family. In addition to going for sleep-inducing food at her mom's place, we also went to a soccer game to watch her son, Andreas, play, and we went to the local castle to get some pictures and a history lesson.

Tomorrow, I am off to Stockholm to continue my adventures. The weather has been wonderful so far (although there were some dark clouds today and it was getting colder than it has been) and everything has gone wonderfully well. I don't know how much internet access I will have from this point forward, but will try to blog as much as possible.

I must go now, as Carina is ironing my laundry and I am feeling marginally guilty.

Be well!
Janine

Nyköping

2008-09-26T01:42:00.000-07:00

I am currently in Sweden, where everything is green and gorgeous. To put it in a perspective that my friends can relate to, it's a lot like the Tahoe area, except with more green meadows between all the stands of pine trees. I have been blessed with great weather since I got here, it's about 70 degrees during the day and about 40 at night.

I am staying with Carina and Per and their two children, Andreas and Emma. Carina lived with me for a year about 19 years ago, when my kids were tiny. We have kept in touch over the years, and she was thrilled to have me come visit when I told her that I was going to be in Scandinavia this fall. Carina is a CADD drafter (and many other things in her company! and Per is a plane mechanic. Andreas is 6 years old and Emma is 3. They are both beautiful and really bright. Andreas is pretty quiet much of the time, but Emma is a serious talker. She reminds me completely of Alec at that age. She has been teaching me some Swedish words in exchange for English words. I regret to say that her retention is about 100% while mine is near zero. I am getting old....

The area where Per and Carina live is a smattering of homes (maybe 130) about an hour outside Stockholm. More than half the homes are summer houses, so not too many families live here year-round. It is quiet and idyllic, with a lake a couple hundred meters away. There are deer and wild pigs in the woods. The sky is blue like I've never seen it, and there are so many huge stars at night - I am enthralled.

Sara, you'll be happy to know that I have taken pictures of some food as well, Carina made some sort of pork loin wrapped in bacon and stuffed with garlic, butter, tomato puree, and green onions that was to die for. Oh yeah, and topped with a cider sauce (I even took a photo of the sauce ingredients, so I can try to recreate it). We need to have a cooking fest when we get home!

The coast here is so different, too. Sweden is a land of islands, and so the coastal areas are full of channels and inlets, with no crashing waves as we know them. We went hiking yesterday on the coast about 15 miles from here, and it was great. I also visited a town called Trosa, where canals go through town and people have a house AND a boat. It all looked like something off a postcard.

So, we are off to buy converters for the Nintendo DS Lites that I brought for the kids (the chargers are, of course, built for 110V currents). I hope that everyone back in the states is happy and healthy. Be well, my friends!

Hej då,
Janine

The Paper Chase

2008-09-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the Stockholm airport, waiting for a train to take me to Nyköping to see my long-time friend Carina and her family. Since I last saw Carina 19 years ago, she has gotten married and had two adorable children. My adventure begins with her family, and I can't wait to get there!

This is the farthest I have ever traveled alone: San Francisco to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Stockholm, and now the train. It's proving pretty easy to get around, and I am good at asking people for help (always have been, it's a blessing [for me] and a curse [for everyone else that I bug]).

I must say, the people in Sweden are phenomenally nice so far. I went into a convenience store in the airport where I could get a printed copy of the train ticket that Carina had reserved for me, and the proprietor told me that he could do it for me, but there was a 20 kronor charge (that's about 3.50 USD) and I could print it for free from a kiosk upstairs. Nice guy. He said, "It's easy to use the machines and if you can't do it, then I just get to see you again when you come back down here to have me print it for you." It was, indeed, easy, and now I sit here at an internet cafe, ticket in hand, and will board my train in about another hour.

People in Germany? I have no idea; four hours in the airport and I don't think I heard more than three people even speak! It was like being in a library. This does NOT bode well for me and my loud, ever-present voice. Ah well, perhaps they are just bored with life and need a good, healthy dose of Janine!

But onto the paper issue....folks, you there in the US do NOT appreciate one of your greatest resources: toilet paper that is kind to your bum. The paper in Stockholm is rough, but the stuff in Frankfurt was downright abrasive. I could have taken some extra squares home to scour my sink. It occurred to me, whilst sitting on the toilet here in Stockholm, that I should collect a t.p. sample from every place I go, and put them all into a sort of "loo roll" scrapbook after I get home from my trip. But, I just can't bring myself to create such a scatological masterpiece, so I will just say it here: next time you go to the john, say a prayer of thanks to the toilet paper gods.

And now, I am off to find the train. I hope you all are happy and healthy, and I will try to blog as much as possible whilst here.

Kramar,
Janine

Comings and Goings

2008-08-31T07:48:00.001-07:00

I have been in school full-time for the last month, earning my certification to Teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). It was a good way to use my time productively while waiting for the damn legislature to get a budget enacted so I can go back to work. It was also an eye-opener, because when I left college at the age of 20 I pretty well detested going to school. Now, I am incredibly sad that I don't have to get up and go to school Monday.

The last month has been revelatory in a host of ways. In addition to packing in a ton of information related to teaching, I somehow rediscovered myself (yes, it sounds cliche, but I cannot think of a better way to describe it). I made some new friends; I cemented relationships with a couple existing ones; I found a new love; I refound the joy for life that I had lost over the last 4 1/2 years; I was so busy that I only could find time to sleep about 6 hours per night, but I didn't mind at all; I traveled all over the city for a month and only started my car four times; I talked to random people on the street and on Muni; I realized that the world really is a fascinating place.

The downside to this is that it truly IS fascinating and now I want to learn more about it. I am dying to go back to school full time and finish up the degree I never got. OK, well, finish up the degree I hadn't even thought of getting (I was a business major when I left school - now I want to study something fascinating like anthropology or linguistics). Could I take a year or more off work and finish up my schooling? Probably. Would I have any money left afterwards? Probably not. Do I have to decide now? No, thank god.

So, a huge thanks to all of my friends and family who supported me in this endeavor to enrich myself. In so many ways, this has been one of the best months of my life. All I can say is: YAY!

Lemmings

2008-07-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

I remember learning about lemmings while in a special science program in college. They are fascinating little creatures, really. People think of them simply as the rodents that sometimes march over cliffs to their deaths, but it’s just not so. Yes, they sometimes go over a cliff, but it’s to get into the ocean and swim to a new place; some get exhausted and die if the swim is a long one, but it isn’t deliberate suicide.

That being said, the lemming population does have huge swells and dips, and it affects the whole ecosystem of the arctic. After all, most artic carnivores eat lemmings, so when lemming populations go way down, the carnivores suffer as well.

So, how does it happen? Well, lemmings are burrowing critters, and they live under the tundra. In order to keep warm, they have a chemical similar to anti-freeze in their blood – cool, huh? (No pun intended). They are also a bit pugnacious, and tend to fight amongst themselves, especially when stressed. As the population grows underground, they get overcrowded, stress increases, and they start really duking it out. When this happens, the weaker lemmings are forced out of the burrow, and out into the sun (if it’s summer). But they have that wicked antifreeze…so their blood gets WAY too hot when they are topside for too long, and they kind of internally boil to death (Thank you, Jerry Smith from SJSU, for making science so INCREDIBLY interesting that I remember all this after 30 years!)

In fact, lemming populations sometimes dwindle to almost zero, but then they always recover, and since only the strongest have survived, the population comes back healthier than ever.

Why am I thinking about lemmings this week? My brother, Marc, who is one of the most intelligent people I have ever known (and, bless his heart, likes to impart his knowledge to others in an always-understandable way) sent me a newsletter he wrote, in which he talked about world population. There are way too many of us…way. I mean way WAY way. Seven billion people on an earth probably geared to sustain maybe two billion comfortably.

One of the things that struck me most about his column was the fact that, given a smaller population, and with the great technology we have, we’d all be really relaxed and have a lot of leisure time if we could use that technology to support 80% fewer people. But, given the growth rate of the last couple hundred years, and the fact that people ain’t slowing down in the baby-making department, we can make technology until the cows come home and it isn’t going to produce more fossil fuels, more land on which to grow food, or more potable water.

In other words, we are basically a bunch of lemmings waiting to see who gets booted up to the surface to boil first.

This could, conceivably, be a depressing thought. OR, this realization can be a catalyst for change. We don’t HAVE to be lemmings, fighting with each other and scratching for our existence.

Conserve where you can. Use common sense and do your part to keep the earth in good shape for as long as possible. But, most importantly, realize that every moment we have is potentially precious. Kiss your kids (hopefully, your 1.2 kids). Hug your friends. Do something nice for somebody. Stay in bed an extra 4 minutes and listen to your heart beating. Better yet, stay in bed an extra 4 minutes and listen to someone else’s heart beating. Smile. Breathe. Breathe some more. Never hesitate to tell people that you love them.

Peace,
Janine

Dad

2008-06-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

I went to visit my father yesterday; he is in an Alzheimer's care facility up in Sonoma. Dad is in the late stages of Alzheimer's, and has long since stopped calling me by name. But, for one quiet, peaceful hour, I sat next to him and held his hand and talked intermittently. His conversations are disjointed and make little sense much of the time, but his grip on my hand was true. Periodically, he'd look at me and I'd smile at him and he would reach out with his other hand and stroke my hand holding his, the same way he did all my life since I was a little girl. I remembered how he'd do that even when I was an adult, and so many more things went through my mind: that he learned to ride a horse so that he could take me riding as a kid; that he taught me to play Pedro (a four-player card game) so that I could come down to visit him at his school during the summers and play with him and the other administrators in the faculty lounge; that from an early age I would traipse into my parents' room sometimes early in the morning and watch him shave while my mom was still asleep. Dad would lift me onto the bathroom counter and proceed to explain the "best" way to shave - first hot water, then soap and water, more hot water to soften the beard, then a good, close shave. He had an extra razor with the blade removed, and sometimes he'd put more shaving cream on his face when he was done shaving and let me "shave" him with the bladeless razor. Luckily, I don't have a beard (then or now), but I still know the basics of a good, close shave. And, to this day, one of my favorite things to do is shave a man's face. It's completely relaxing, it makes me happy, and it's still a great bonding experience.

Seven years ago, I wrote an essay about my dad's disease, and how frustrating it was for him at the time. Now, he has blessedly gotten beyond most of that irritation; he is finally at peace much of the time. It's good for him, because I cannot imagine the horror of that feeling, knowing that your mind is slipping away. It's bad for the rest of us, because the man who we knew and loved is absent much of the time. I have to be (and am) happy that when I walked in and said, "Hi, Daddy," he said, "Hi, sweetie," the way he always did. And when my brother and sister-in-law arrived, and I said, "Hi, guys," he likewise said, "Hi, guys!" He is happy to have the company, and I'd like to think that he knows, somewhere in his heart, that we are people who are special to him.

In any case, here is that essay I wrote long ago. This post is dedicated to my father, who I can say with all honesty and clarity was (and is) a good man. His heart is huge, and he would have done anything for us. I know for a fact that he would gladly have died for us and for my mom, instinctively and with no hesitation. Any of us on this earth would be lucky to have that.

Happy Father's Day.

HOLLISTER

When I was little, my dad would sometimes tell me he was going to Hollister. He wasn’t really going, but he learned from his mom that when someone asked you where you were going and you didn’t want to say, you simply said, “Hollister.” (Of course, my grandmother didn’t really speak English, so she probably said, “Holy-stare,” but that’s beside the point). We actually went to Hollister once; it’s a dry, desolate cattle community that was a couple hours’ drive from our home in the Bay Area of California. My sister was on a softball team, and her team was playing a team from Hollister. I was too young to know or care why, but I found myself in the back of our old gray station wagon with six or eight other girls, my dad driving, my mom in the front seat, all of us singing “100 Bottles of Beer.” I have no idea who won the game. It was a great day.

But even after having been there once, my dad used the same answer when questioned. It took me a while to figure out that he simply didn’t want me to know; I spent a good number of years wondering why he’d ever want to go back to that horrid place. Now, if we went to Hollister, my dad wouldn’t know it. He often asks me where we are, why we are there, and then asks me again a few minutes later. And again. And again. The magical connections that fire in the human brain which allow information to complete the circuit into an area of retention have stopped performing for my father; he remembers things from 40 years ago, but not 40 seconds ago. His lives in the past now; not because he chooses to, but because it is the path his body has chosen for him. Once upon a time, my father spent hours at night lying awake and conjuring complicated and fascinating mathematical scenarios involving the number nine; now, he cannot add a column of numbers because he cannot keep tally in his head. Once, he drove us everywhere (including Hollister); now, he cannot pass his written driving exam because he cannot recall the question for which he is looking at possible answers. Once, he believed the sun rose and set in a woman with whom he could have incredible conversations; now, he believes the sun rises and sets in a woman for whom he believes he can provide no comfort, no conversation, no companionship.

The truly sad fact is that, even though we’d love to believe that he doesn’t, my father knows that his memory has left him. He knows that he was a genius who graduated high school early because he had learned it all. He knows that he was a professor at Berkeley at an early age, and that he fell in love with a student because she had freckles and a gorgeous smile and “great gams.” He knows that he was in control of his life, of his wife, of his children, of his world. Now, he spins out of control along a highway of fear and disbelief; his life, his wife, his children, and his world speed past him and leave him behind, and he can’t know where they’ve been or where they are going.

My dad has gone to Hollister.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear....

2008-06-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

...is fear itself.

Today, the California State Supreme Court ruled that it will NOT grant a stay on its previous ruling to allow same-sex marriages, pending the November election. So, marriages will begin June 17 and continue until/unless the November balloted constitutional amendment passes; that proposed amendment would alter our constitution to specifically state that marriage can ONLY exist between a man and a woman. For more info on the decision, check this out: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/04/BA8V1137HS.DTL&tsp=1

This is all, of course, simply back-story for what I am wondering today:

WHY are people so afraid of other people being different from them?

It is that fear of difference that has sparked some of the most ugly, lengthy, bloody battles of all time; there are religious wars (Jews/Muslims, Catholics/Protestants, Christians/Non-Christians, you name it), ethnic/tribal wars, political wars. I have blogged before about the fact that I am told I am going to hell for having been raised Catholic (by fundamentalist Christians); why do people who believe in a merciful God think it's their place to tell me that I don't get something as good as they do, once I die?

What in the bloody hell are people afraid of?

I am afraid of an abundance of disease and a lack of good, affordable health care; I am afraid of the world being a worse place for my incredible children than it was/is for me; I am afraid of waking up some day and finding that, after years of age and gravity, ALL of my sexually-related body parts are going to be centrally located. These all seem like rational fears to me (really - that whole central location thing has me worried).

But I am NOT afraid of people loving each other and wanting to commit to each other and live happy, productive, coupled lives. Heck, that seems like a no-brainer to me; what is there to fear in that? And yet, I see comments like this one from Campaign for California Families, who claims that "the plague of same-sex marriage will soon spread rapidly across the nation." First of all, for the edification of the CCF (although I never thought that hatred was a family value, so I'm not so much in agreement with their name), a plague is "an epidemic disease that causes widespread death." OK, lexicography aside, what is the issue here? Why are they afraid of homosexuals? (substitute the word of your choice here - heathens, people of color, liberals...)

The fear is that people who are different from them will be happy, productive, and viewed as "normal." Why is this frightening? Because if someone who does not hold their narrow-minded beliefs can be a great member of society, maybe, just maybe, these fear-mongers are wrong?? Then, everything they live their lives for, everything they use as a shield against rationality, everything they use as an excuse for prejudice and hatred, falls away and leaves the simple truth: they are simply mean-spirited, spiteful snots.

But it doesn't have to be scary. We can all be wrong together, or right together, or simply accept that probably none of us has the real answer, but we all have a piece of the solution to the puzzle inside us. What a great world this would be if we respected and celebrated people's differences instead of fearing and distrusting them; if we worked together on the puzzle to try to make all the pieces fit. Think about it. Please?

And finally, congratulations to my incredible sister and sister-in-law, Paula and Julie. They will be tying the knot (finally!) on June 23. Their marriage has been put off until now not because of a lack of love or commitment to each other, but because of a lack of love and rationality on the part of the citizens of this state. Certainly, their marriage will prevail and endure because of their love for each other and the abiding love of their friends and family for them. I am proud to love them both. Mazel Tov!

Us....Them

2008-04-19T07:39:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been three months since I did any blogging. Soon, I will have much to blog about, since I am going on another 4-week trip this fall (details to come). But for now, I have been thinking...

WHEN did DOGS get so darned POLITE?

This weekend finds me in charge of Derby, the mixed-breed pooch of my friends Jill and Barb. Jill and Barb are in Pennsylvania, planting trees on Jill's dad's Christmas tree farm and, hopefully, convincing as many Pennsylvanians as possible to vote for Obama (OK, I doubt that, but an Obama-supporter can dream, can't she?)

So, here I am at home with Derby for a few days. Naturally, since we live in the city, I need to take her for walks a couple times a day so that she can get some exercise and do waste-related things. I recall my childhood days, when we had a dog named Baron. Baron was (for the time) a typical dog, in so many endearing ways. When leashed for a walk, he pulled so hard on the leash that he was known to topple a hefty adult. If let loose in the house, he would gladly eat an entire beef roast off the kitchen counter (which he did, once). When set free in the front yard, he would run screaming for the hills, sometimes bringing back a treat for us (birds, bunnies, you name it). Baron caused the demise of a few neighborhood cats, got into a couple gnarly dogfights in his career, and loved to dig in the backyard. He was a typical DOG. (Incidentally, he was a great hunting dog, except that he ranged too far - that dog could smell a pheasant from a mile away).

So, I expected Derby to be, well, what I thought was a dog. Instead, I find myself with a canine "person" (and a polite one!) in the house. She won't try to wake me up in the morning, until I show some sign of life. She doesn't tug at her leash. She shows no sign of interest, while walking, in other dogs or any humans. Birds can fly right in front of her nose and she ignores them. What is the world coming to?? We have gotten so "civilized" that our dogs sit and listen while we talk to them, stop at the corner before crossing the street, and (in many cases, but lord knows not mine, never) sleep in our beds. Have we turned our dogs into four-legged humans?

Heck, I honestly know some people who speak MUCH more fondly of their dogs than their spouses. I find this sad and disturbing, but I decline to tell these people my feelings, because it arouses great ire within them (of course, the fact that people get angry and defensive if you suggest that they should at least love the husband as much as the mutt also saddens and disturbs me). For some people, spending time "in the doghouse" would probably be a step up!

Conversely, I think of my own situation. At least two days a week, I work from home. During those days, unless I make a conscious effort to get out of the house for a walk, I have no human contact whatsoever. I become oddly excited in anticipation of a trip to Trader Joe's, and I find myself listening intently to determine when the mailman is walking down the street.

ACK! We've switched places! I have become a dog!

Think about it; as we get more technologically astute and civilized, are we teaching the non-human species to also become more civilized, but taking on historical traits of those species? Are we blurring the lines between creatures, here? Dogs are polite, gorillas are speaking in sign language, and dolphins are locating underwater mines for the military. Conversely, humans spend more and more time alone (working from home, getting their communication via computer), suspicious of other members of our species, and longing to go for car rides on the weekends!

Just something to think about................

Incredible Women

2008-01-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

All my life, I have been overweight (I even hate that word; is there some magic number that I have exceeded? Did I "cross the line"? argh) and told that "it's too bad because I could be so pretty." So, this short blog entry is just a huge thank you to two people - one person I have known for her entire life and one person I don't know at all.

Sara Bassett, my daughter, writes a blog on food, fat, and feminism. It's fantastic. Check it out sometime. She has taught me, more than anyone, how wonderful it can feel to be happy in your own skin.

Jordan Matter is a photographer in New York who did a series on topless women in New York - women of all shapes, sizes, ages, and races. It's beautiful. THEY are beautiful. Their stories need to be read as well, so leave yourself an hour to look at it. http://www.jordanmatter.com/view.asp?url=/exhibits/broadband/nudes_01/003_snowy_night,_washington_heights.jpg&path=/exhibits/broadband/nudes_01

Split Checks, not Hairs

2008-01-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

I have the pleasure of being in a singles group in San Francisco that is facilitated by my friend, Jan. She coordinates different activites, which typically end up being dinners out. Sometimes four people show up, sometimes fourteen. But invariably, either everyone wants separate checks or someone gets screwed. Why? Because people tend to not want to simply split the bill up and pay a percentage of the total (including tax and tip). So, in order to save themselves from paying an extra buck or two because maybe someone got a more expensive dinner or had a spendier glass of wine, they try to "figure out" what they owe. People, it NEVER works to do that.

I remember back in the stone age when I worked at Businessland in San Jose. There was a group of about eight of us who went for lunch regularly, and we had a great system: we took turns paying. Yes, sometimes we went to MacDonald's and sometimes we went out for sushi, but nobody in that group ever complained about having to pay at the higher-priced places. Why? Because we all had a similar philosophy: when you die, you're even. Besides, eventually the guy who payed for sushi one day would get a trip to MacDonald's or Burger King on his next rotation, and it all worked out in the end. Even if it didn't, there would be a day when he'd get a good deal with some other group or somewhere else. As I said before, when you die, you're even.

If only everyone could work things out that way. Grab the bill, add a hefty tip (OK, I happen to be a generous tipper, but that's fodder for another blog entry on another day), divide it by the number of people, and nobody has to end up throwing in another twenty bucks to make up for the bloke who can't add, forgot that there is tax on restaurant food, won't tip well, or basically just doesn't mind screwing everyone else out of a few bucks. My friend, Craig, has a great mataphor for those people: "tighter than bark on a tree." (Craig has the best expressions for lots of things; I've never figured out if it's because he's from a different country [Wyoming] or just because Craig is frighteningly brilliant). But, I digress...

So, poor Jan has now had to actually post the group activities with a gentle reminder to bring enough money for a meal, PLUS tax and tip. I'm sorry, this is a 40s and 50s singles group - shouldn't we all be old enough to have figured restaurant etiquette out by now? The answer, astoundingly (and sadly) is no.

My plea for the day: when the check comes, split the bill, and don't split hairs about it. Life is short, my friends, and you ARE even when you die. Besides, remember that after you die it's the people you had those dinners with who will be buying flowers for your funeral and making donations to a charity related to the cause of your demise. What goes around comes around, so rack up some good karma now.

And remember, DO tip well. Food service personnel are poorly paid, constantly harassed, and have a mostly thankless job. Show them some love.

Happy dining! --Janine

Subsidizing Hunger

2007-12-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read the title correctly. We here in the US are actually promoting hunger abroad, through our antiquated system of farm subsidies. How does that work? Let me explain. No, there is not enough time; let me sum up...

The government (that's us, people) pays farmers a minimum price for certain crops - wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans to name a few.

Since farmers know they can get a specific price, guaranteed, for those crops, they produce a LOT of them, as opposed to taking their chances on the fair market value of other crops.

There are huge surpluses, then, in the US, and we can export those crops very cheaply to other countries, where the local farmers are then basically put out of business. Wonderful. We are giving subsidies to our farmers and trashing the economies of many rural nations.

But wait, you say: those farmers need help! They are the good old boys of our country, the backbone of our nation. Riiiiight. Look at who gets the money - almost 75% of total subsidy money goes to about 10% of our farmers - the richest 10%. And some of those recipients are corporations - want some examples?? Recipients of five- and six-figure farm subsidy payments included John Hancock Life Insurance Co., Chevron, banker David Rockefeller, and basketball star Scottie Pippen. Argh.

This whole system started in the 1930s, when it was needed. Today, it's a different story. Besides, why are farmers any more important than grocers, or bankers, or oil rig workers? Everyone chooses a job and takes the consequences; I do contract work because it affords me the ability to have a flexible schedule; does that mean I should get unemployment money if my contract ends, or that anyone should feel sorry for me if I have no work for a few months? NO! It's a risk I take to have the job I have.

One more glitch in the system: by growing the crops (like wheat, rice, corn, and soy) that are subsidized, there's another victim - the globe. Those crops use planting and harvesting methods that encourage and promote the use of huge vehicles that burn tons of fuel and add to global warming (as opposed to crops like broccoli or squash, that give more jobs to blue-collar workers and use lots less fossil fuel for harvesting).

So, when you see the next farm bill come up for vote, write to your congressperson and say NO.

Now, go eat some broccoli and a couple parsnips. :-)

Happy Holidays

2007-12-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got pictures sorted, labeled, and posted to my Flickr account! You can click on the evil-looking square happy face to the right of this post (under My Photos) and you'll be able to see 140 pictures of my trip, complete with (in some cases) descriptions. Please comment at will; I love feedback.

This has been, for me, not one of the best holiday seasons I've had. Still, I love my kids, my friends, and my family. More than anything, I love to see the people I love happy. When I get to sit back and watch someone I love enjoy a gift I gave, it helps to fill in some of those little, black, empty spaces in my soul. During the year, I'd love to just buy things for the people I love, but somehow it's less acceptable if there isn't a "reason" for it. I would like the only reason to be love, but Christmas is a good excuse, too.

I am absolutely not a Christian, but I do have a deep and abiding belief and faith in one God. Since most other religions also believe in one God, I have to logically believe that we are all praying to the same guy (or girl, or whatever). So, for me it doesn't matter if it's Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwaanza, or whatever else. Life is about the gifts that we bestow on others, whether those gifts are happiness, wisdom, an iPod, or a pony. If I say, "Happy holidays," and people are insulted, so be it. Nobody's got a monopoly on giving or on happiness, nor should they. Can't Christians be happy for me that I'm finally in the spirit of the holidays, and leave me to my happy holidays in peace?

I get too caught up in the logic of it all, and try to argue, but to no avail. The next person who tells me that saying "Happy holidays" is an insult is going to get a question from me: "How would Jesus respond to that?" I'd like to think that, being the wise, prophetic man he was, he'd say, "Happy holidays to you, too! Any reason for true happiness is a good thing!"

Then he'd go back to playing heavenly board games with Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi, MLK, Mother Teresa, and Roy Webb.

So, my holiday wish for the world is that we all learn to appreciate and cherish ANY happiness, not just the happiness that is inspired for our own particular reasons. A smile is a precious thing, and a light in our hearts is a huge gift, no matter where it comes from.

Be blessed, my friends. Happy holidays to everyone.

Love,
Janine

Photo Opps

2007-11-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

Saturday, November 10

Yesterday, I took my one-day photo class. Much if it was review, but plenty was new, I learned some things that I didn't know before, and got some good "quick tips" for remembering the most important things about composition before snapping a picture. It was well worth it, and I'm really glad I set aside the time to do it.

We flew back to Bangkok late last night, and between the photo class all day, getting packed up, getting to the airport, etc, I was exhausted. Checked into the hotel at 12:30 am, and then couldn't really sleep well. No problem - I'll sleep that much better on the plane tomorrow morning (which I have to get up at 4:00 am in order to catch). ugh.

Today, I am just hanging out mostly, then seeing my old colleague, Nils, and his family in the evening. It'll be good to catch up with him, and to meet his wife and son for the first time. My stomach is behaving pretty well, thanks to an unmentionable treatment I had at an Ayurvedic spa in Chiang Mai (nothing I can blog about). :-) Sometimes, eastern ways are the best.

I am SO looking forward to coming home, not because I don't like being here, but because I realize how much I like being THERE, too! This is my last posting from abroad, and I hope that all of you, my friends and family (and anyone else unlucky enough to have simply stumbled upon this and silly enough to read it all!) are thriving and I will see everyone soon!!

Over and out,
Janine

Inside the Walls

2007-11-08T02:46:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 8

So, here I am in downtown Chiang Mai. This city has two parts - the outer city and the original inner city, separated from the outer part by a moat and a brick wall (partially still there) about twelve feet thick and maybe 20 feet high, with a catwalk at the top on the inside. This wall is what protected the city from siege in days of yore. It's really quite fascinating and beautiful. There are one or two gates on each of the four sides, with a street on the inside of the moat that runs one-way counter-clockwise and a street just outside the moat that runs one-way clockwise. It seems to work just fine.

We dropped in to a vat this afternoon and brought some food and things for the monks. The elder monk there gave me a very long blessing and a braided cotton bracelet for further blessing. At the end, the familiar question: "Where you from?"

Things that will be odd, when I get home:

toilets that consistently have seats and flush, and where I can flush the paper
phones
driving my car (will I remember? is it like riding a bike?)
working! (which I am looking forward to, believe it or not)
nobody asking me where I am from
not being called "madame"
not getting a wei (look it up) everywhere I go
a washing machine and clean clothes!
walking around without a camera bag all the time
not being meticulously careful about every thing that goes into my mouth

But enough of that...tomorrow, I get to take my photo class that I have been looking forward to all week. Tonight, it's off to the popular Chiang Mai night bazaar, although I don't need to buy anything else (famous last words).

The Road Less Traveled

2007-11-07T01:20:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, November 7

So, we set out this morning after breakfast to see the Botanical Gardens here. I can't even begin to go into how huge, beautiful, well-maintained, and perfectly groomed they were. Astounding. I think I took a hundred pictures. I saw, for the first time, an entire greenhouse of pitcher plants, close up (they are carnivorous plants, very perfectly engineered to catch and digest bugs of all sorts). It was lovely.

We had heard that there was a little village of Hmong people up in the hills, so we set off to find it. We asked for directions at a roadside restaurant, and I got three words - "road," "Mok," and "Kok." Hmmm, I thought, we passed a sign for a town ending in Mok Kok about 2 Km back - was that it? Using hand gestures and some broken English, we established that it was, indeed, that road we wanted, and about 5 Km farther we would find the village.

There are Hmong people in most of these Southeast Asian countries; they tend to be a hill-dwelling people and they do craft work that is exquisite. So, back we went, found the road, and went climbing into the hills above Mae Rim. And climb we did; the view was incredible, the air was crystal-clear, and the sky was the bluest I have seen in a month. The road narrowed...and narrowed some more...and became wide enough for MAYBE on car...and then, around a curve, there was a tiny little village with lots of women selling their crafts. OK, so I bought stuff, what can I say? But I got a handmade, quilted jacket that is perfect (lined, even!), and it was about $20. I did notice two things, which should have been mutually exclusive: I saw no men, and almost every woman there, aged 17 to maybe 43, was pregnant. I wonder how that happened?? In any case, I got some photos and we were on our way again.

On the way back to the resort, we stopped at an Elephant Camp. I was expecting the worst - touristy, dirty place with a few unhappy-looking elephants. Oh, contraire, mon ami. The elephants looked healthy and (if an elephant can look this way) happy. They were playing soccer (yes, they do that when trained) and painting. Heck, one of them painted WAY better than I ever could - I have a photo to prove it! It was well worth the admission price (which, I think was something like 50 cents).

Now, I am back at the hotel, about to have a shower and a nap and do a little reading before going back out for pork soup later on.

I hope all of you are doing well, and I shall see everyone soon (dang).

:-) Janine

The Side of the Road

2007-11-06T05:34:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, November 6

OK, I have totally slipped back into slothdom. I had breakfast, went back to my room, read, took a little nap, then went to the spa here for 2 hours of pampering - sauna, body scrub, aromatherapy massage (yes, Sara, another massage!). Then, some more reading.

I had to find an ATM to get cash for the train tickets I booked today, so we took off on a motorbike looking for one. There's one maybe a mile away (remember, we are out kind of in the middle of almost nowhere), and I got some Baht to pay for the tickets when they arrive tomorrow. Then, we went on a quest for dinner. Someone at the ATM pointed at a side street and said there was a restaurant 2 Km up that street, so off we went. About 1 1/2 Km up, we saw a place on the side of the road - it had 6 tables, 5 of which were taken. So, what the heck; if the locals eat there, it must be good. We went in, and of course the menu was only in Thai, but the manager (owner?) suggested a pork soup that is his specialty, so we said okee dokee. Soon, he brought a boiling cauldron of soup to the table, over a still-burning fire pit, and a plate of pork, liver, chicken, and raw egg as well as a basket of cabbage, rice noodles, lemongrass, and basil. The trick is to put in whatever tidbits of meat, egg, and veggies you like, let it boil for 5 minutes, then eat. Pick, dunk, repeat...until all the meat and vegetables are gone.

To be kind, he only put one chili pepper in the broth, and I was brave enough to add to my bowl some of the chili paste he brought in tiny bowls for us. It was damn good.

One of the locals eating there, who had plowed through about half a bottle of whiskey, came over and asked us where we were from, then proceeded to tell us he was in the Thai special forces. Lo and behold, he was telling the truth. He and Val had an hilarious conversation (hilarious because neither of them understood more than 10 percent of what the other was saying), and then Val paid for his dinner along with ours. Total cost for all three of us, plus his bottle of whiskey: $9.

We are going back there tomorrow. And if any of you ever find yourselves in Mae Rim district of Chiang Mai, find Sang Jan Moo Joom restaurant and have the pork soup and lemongrass salad (which came with a bunch of fried prawns as well). It's to die for. Sometimes, the best things are those that you just happen across.

Tomorrow, a motorbike adventure to see an elephant camp and a huge botanical garden, and maybe some other stuff. Then, back to this same place for dinner. Yum city!

--Janine

Slumming it (Not!)

2007-11-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Monday, November 5

Ahhhhhh, what a great place this is. I have to admit that the fluffy towels, pristinely clean sheets, and abundance of pillows are so greatly appreciated. It's nice to be clean again, after three weeks.

So, today we grabbed a couple of mountain bikes from in front of the hotel and rode out to see an incredibly beautiful orchid farm. It's so hard to keep one orchid thriving (let alone flowering) back home, and here there were thousands of them. Spectacular. I think I took a hundred pictures. Speaking of pictures, I decided to spend an extra day in Chiang Mai, in order to get into the photo class that I want to take (the guy was booked up through Thursday). Then, it'll be the overnight train (12 hours) from here to Bangkok, getting in on Saturday morning. There will still be time to see my friend, Nils, in Bangkok, then out on Sunday morning for home.

The weather up here in the hills is so much different from what I've experienced over the last three weeks - it's cool and misty in the morning, never gets too hot during the day, and then rains a little each evening. At dinner, the electricity kicked off, which means we were limited in food selections, but the cook still managed to whip up some really good pad thai for me, and I was happy as a clam. I wonder how cold San Francisco will seem, after a month in heat and then thinking that this 75-80 degree climate is "cool?"

On the way back from the bike ride, just inside the gates of the resort, I came upon a couple of oxen staked at the side of the road, grazing (very common here). I took a picture of them, and didn't realize until I was looking through my photos this evening that even the oxen are fatter here. Chiang Mai is kind of a "health spa" type of town, on the outskirts were we are (Mae Rim, it's called), and the extra income base shows.

That's about it - tomorrow, I have the day to myself, and plan to nap, read, walk around the grounds here, and have a sea salt body scrub. It's a rough life, but someone's gotta do it.

Cheers!
Janine

Another Day in Paradise

2007-11-04T04:38:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 4

So, we traveled today from Vientiane, through Luang Prabong (also in Laos), and to Chiang Mai in Thailand. There was a delay when the luggage-tag printer at the Vientiane airport jammed, causing a 35-minute wait for everyone while they waited to print my luggage tags. Small airport - one gate.

At Luang Prabong, I ran into a stupid glitch with the money exchange guy, who basically tried to do the math in his head and was too lame to be able to change my money. For some reason, even though I've been incredibly even-tempered all this trip (which hasn't been easy, at times, with Val, let me tell you), I decided to stand my ground. The following ensued:

Money Changer: This is 7 dollars. I don't have anything under 10. I can't help you.
Janine: That's more than 7 dollars, and I have some small US dollars, so we can work it out.
MC: But this is only 6 dollars. I cannot help you.
Janine: That is 85,000 KIP. What is the exchange rate?
MC: It is 9700. That is only 7 dollars. I can't help you.
Janine: I believe that it's more than 7 dollars; do you have a calculator?
MC: Yes
Janine: Well, can I see it?
MC (holding up calculator): See?
Janine: How about we USE it?
MC: I cannot help you.
Janine. Give me that thing. Look, 85,000 KIP divided by 9700, comes out to...almost 9 dollars. MC: Go buy something with KIP. I don't have less than 10.
Janine: I don't want to buy something. That's why I came to this booth marked "exchange." Look, I'll give you two American dollars, you can keep the 71 cents, give me a ten.
MC (glaring at me and handing me a 10-dollar bill): -------- [total silence]
Janine: Cool! Thanks! Here's your calculator back. (huge smile of sweetness)

Turns out he did the "math" for Val's exchange in his head as well, and gave him back 6 dollars too much. Hah.

Anyway, we got into Chiang Mai with no place to go, but I had done some research and had a place in mind. After much verbal wrestling, some interesting conversation, and me coming about as close to homicide as I have come so far this trip with Val, I chose the place (the one I wanted all along) and here we are. It's beautiful - acres of garden, natural lake, huge apartment, loads of clean towels, extra pillows... I am in heaven.

I am now looking into taking a one-day photography class/safari locally with a photographer who works out of this district - that would be a great capper to a great trip.

I hope everyone is happy and healthy!

--Janine

Last Day in Vientiane

2007-11-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday, November 3

It's hard to believe this has been my last full day in Vientiane. Tomorrow morning, I am off to Chiang Mai in the northern part of Thailand. I am SO glad that we decided to make a detour into Laos - it has definitely been my favorite stop so far.

Today was spent tooling around on the motorbike checking out different places and buying a few souvenirs. But the highlight of the day was a trip to Papaya Spa for a 3 1/2-hour extravaganza of pampering. For $30, I had a one-hour papaya body scrub, 90-minute massage, and 1-hour facial. I could really get used to this.

As I was undressing for the body scrub, the scrubber came in and handed me something. Ah, I thought, how nice. She gave me a throw-away shower cap, so my hair wouldn't get all gooped up with papaya scrub. Wait a second, this thing had holes in it. Hey, I thought, I got a defective one. Hmmm...at closer look, it turns out she had given me a pair if disposable underwear. I had a good chuckle to myself, wondering what she would have said if she'd come back into the room to find me there with nothing on but a pair of disposable panties on my head! Gadzooks.

Anyway, the scrub was ok, but the massage was great (although I fell asleep three times during it all, and I may have been snoring one of those times, given the look on her face when I looked up). The facial, though, was beyond compare. Now I am feeling like a rubber chicken, totally zapped and ready to hit the sack. But first, I have to try to pack up all my souvenirs and shove them into the available space I have. Hmmm.

New great food: deep-fried sticky rice. Hey, don't knock it til you've tried it - it was great!

I can't believe I've been gone three weeks already. I wondered today whether I'll even remember anything I was working on, when I get back to work in a week and a half. Heck, I won't have to remember anything for a couple days - it'll probably take me 10 hours to wade though my email. Ah well, no sense worrying about it now; I have another week to go, and lots still to see and do.

Be well,
Janine

I'd Dye for You

2007-11-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

Friday, November 2

I spent today at Houey Hong women's training center for traditional Lao dyeing and weaving. What a blast it was! I dyed a silk scarf (sort of like tie-dyeing, but with all natural plant-based dyes) and then spent an afternoon on a loom weaving for four hours. Result: a piece of fabric the size of a dang potholder. I have a DEEP appreciation now for hand-woven fabric, which is plentiful here.

(Aside: as I sit typing this, there is a gecko squawking about a foot away from me - yes, they make chirping noises. I'm really going to miss that when I get home).

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, weaving. There was one other woman in the morning dyeing class, but she left after lunch and so I was there, at the center, with about 30 young Lao women and nobody else. It was great, sitting there weaving and listening to them chatter and sing, but not understanding a word they were saying. They did come by once in a while and give me a thumb's-up sign to say I was doing fine.

In the morning, the other falang woman there told me that she is a textile designer from Australia. She certainly knew fabric and processes. We got to talking, and she began semi-lecturing me on the fact that she never bargains for room rates or cab rides, since she doesn't want to take any money away from the locals. Hmmm. OK. But she also told me about a place near our hotel that does weaving and sells finished goods. The owner is an American designer named Carol Cassidy. So, I went by there. To put things in perspective, I bought a table runner at the center where I took the class, and it was $20. The same thing at Carol Cassidy's shop was $75. Why? Because Carol pays the same slave wages as what the women at the center are charging, and pockets the rest. So, pay the cabbie the $10 he asks you to take you on a $2 cab ride, feel oh-so-righteous, and then give Carol Cassidy $75 to pay the weavers of the cloth $5. That Carol has a great racket going. I walked away from her shop without buying anything. If she thinks I'm going to line her pockets rather than support a good NGO, she can kiss my Italian arse. Not that I have an opinion.

But I digress...

For dinner, since I am finally feeling as though I once more have a human stomach, we went to Cote d'Azure, a great French place a few blocks from the hotel. I had a lovely cream of mushroom soup, beef burgonoine [sp], and some awesome concoction of meringue and grand marnier cream for dessert. Oh yes, and a glass of red wine (Mom, stop cringing - the wine was with the steak, not the cream stuff!) All for less than $15. Awesome.

This city is great!

Vat's Up, Doc?

2007-11-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

Thursday, November 1

Today we pretty well saw all of the "official" tourist sites in Vientiane, including a host of vats (that's pronounced wat, by the way). It still astounds me that people in all of these countries, no matter how poor, spend so much money for garishly ostentatious temples. Still, they're fun to visit, and each one is different from the others in some small way.

We also went to a wat where there is a sauna and massage for a grand total of $4. We couldn't find the place, but stopped to ask for directions and some incredibly nice guy got on his motorbike and gave us an escort there!!

Never having been in a sauna before, it was a new experience for me. Imagine stripping down to a sheet of cloth wrapped around you, then stepping through a wooden door into a stem-filled room where visibility is zero. You grope your way to a bench, and then sit down to realize that there are two big holes in the floor of this raised building, with steam coming through the holes from open wood fires and vats (not to be confused with vats) of herb-infused water below. Within 2 minutes, I was wondering if I was going to faint. But oh, between the wood smoke and the herbs, the smell was heavenly. I braved it for about 10 minutes before bailing out. Then, a cup of herbal tea and a one-hour massage high up in this stilted building, overlooking dense growth. In the middle of it all, rain began pouring down, and the whole thing was heavenly. I have gotten used to getting massages in cheap places where who-knows-what (who-knows-vat?) has been lying on that table before me. In this case, it was just a mattress with another piece of cloth on it. Ah well, who cares. I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to clean sheets and fresh towels when I get home! (Speaking of clean sheets, Jacqueline, they're in the blanket chest under my window, if you stay at Hotel Janine this weekend).

The rain was soothing to listen to during the massage, but then we had to deal with the fact that we were on a motorbike and 2 inches of rain had just fallen. Hmmm.... It took us almost 30 minutes to get back to the hotel, but I noticed on the way that we passed the same place three or four times. After returning to the hotel, I looked in the Lonely Planet book and realized we had only been about 2 miles away! Needless to say, Val was cranky at getting lost over and over. Hilarious.

Friday, I am off to a one-day textile class. more on that later....

--Janine

Welcome to Laos

2007-10-31T00:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 31

Ahhhhhhhh...peace. I fell in love with Laos before we even landed. There are hills here, and trees, and it's not nearly so hot as it has been everywhere else so far. Even better, no horns honking continuously! In Cambodia and Vietnam, honking a horn seems to say, "I'm coming up behind you..." so, as you could imagine, people are pretty much on their horns the entire time they are driving.

Here, silence. As my friend Craig would say, silence good. And yes, Craig, it's been blissful to be three weeks without a phone, I have to admit.

Before going into Laos and its beauty, let me say that I had the best airline food I've ever had, a full meal, on a Vietnam Airlines flight here. This is even more astounding given the fact that the flight was only 1 1/2 hours! US-run airlines could take a lesson; of course, you might say it's due to the fact that it's government-subsidized, but with all the bailouts that have happened, so are most US airlines these days (think about it).

Anyway, thanks to Cipro and a couple days of eating almost nothing, I am back to good health and enjoying food again. We found a hotel with a clean-enough room, A/C, and free breakfast for $20 per night. Can't beat that. Two storefronts down is a Lao restaurant that filled up so fast after 7 pm that people were waiting for tables. The food was great, especially some deep-fried ribs (yeah, I know, doesn't sound all that healthy, but right now anything that doesn't make me sick is great!). Them I slept from 10 pm til 10 am this morning. Missed my free breakfast, but oh well. After stopping into a pharmacy and picking up some more Cipro just in case I need it again ($1.50 for ten pills, probably 2% of what it would cost in the states), we met up with a family wandering about who happened to be Laotian, but now live in Redwood City. Great people, and good advice. The mom kept telling me not to eat any raw vegetables or any papaya at all; I found it interesting that she is more careful about the food here than even I have been, but I bet she knows. She said that in 1998, before there was readily-available bottled water, she came here to visit her family and got sick for 6 months. Yikes.

Val, of course, eats everything with no caution whatsoever and never flinches. Perhaps I am just a wimp...

Anyway, so far the city seems wonderful, it's drizzly and about 75 degrees, and I am going to pop into a tourism office here sometime this afternoon to see if there's a bus tour that will take me for a day to a national preserve about an hour from here, where there are still elephants roaming free. Sounds like good photo opps.

Also nearby is a cooperative for women's crafts and weaving, promoting local crafts and supporting local women, mostly widows. They offer a one-day class in weaving, where you get to take home the fruits of your labor. For an extra dollar, they'll even come and collect me from my hotel. Good deal. I'll probably, in a day, make something like a potholder, but it'll be fun.

I have noticed that the women here are much more formally dressed than in other places so far. The teen aged girls are in jeans and tops, but the women almost exclusively are in these gorgeous sarongs with silk blouses. Rumor has it that, if you even attempt to go into a government office without being "properly dressed," you will be denied access.

So, I am off to see more of this small city. Five days here, so there is plenty of time to do very little - lots of relaxing ahead of me.

Police here have AK47s in hand - would be intimidating, expect for the fatc that every one of them has a huge smile so far. In fact, people keep walking by me on the street, saying, "Sa bai dee!" (hello) with a huge grin.

And now, a quick comment for my wonderful sociologically-curious daughter. Even in this small (250,000) city, there is a huge mall, lots of cell phone shops, etc. But I also see lots of families going out together, from grandparents down to babies. So, yes, the Western world has invaded somewhat, but the family unit seems to so far be intact, as does a sense of formality.

Kohb chai for reading. --Janine

Bacteria

2007-10-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it had to happen eventually...I realized this morning (when I looked at food and suddenly wanted to hurl) that my stomach issues have progressed well into the realm of something worse than usual. So, I spent the day in the hotel with a bottle of 7-up and some Cipro tablets.

I did venture out for a few minutes to check out some stuff I was thinking of buying before taking off tomorrow for Laos. While out, I saw my "funniest sight of the day" - a local girl wearing a t-shirt that had a huge shamrock on it and said, "Kiss Me - I'm Irish!"

Anyway, I am feeling much more human tonight, ready to fly out tomorrow afternoon. Yay for modern medicine!!

When it Rains.....

2007-10-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. So, today we went on a trip up the Mekong Delta, through some little villages, and I was overjoyed to see just how those sheets of rice paper are made that I use to make spring rolls. Sounds silly, but as I watched them grind rice, mash it into a liquidy starch, then make thin rice "pancakes" and set them out to dry, I said, "Oh, wow! They're making spring roll wraps!" Yeppers, that's what it was. All that labor...I'll appreciate my spring rolls even more when I get home.

While out trekking around the Mekong, it rained. Well, rain is an understatement. Monsoon is almost an understatement, I'm lucky, because this is the first real rain I've seen in two weeks. Within about 10 minutes, paths were muddy rivers, everything was drenched, all of us were soaked, and the locals just went about their business as though nothing was happening. This isn't the kind of rain we get in California; I've even been in huge downpours in Dallas and they were nothing like this.

I also discovered coconut caramel candy, which we watched being made as well. It's delicious, addictive, and probably very dangerous, since I seem to have purchased a large quantity of it. Perhaps a few pieces will make it back to the states (perhaps not).

Another first yesterday: the power went out at around 8:30 pm. And stayed out til almost 8 am this morning. Now, that doesn't sound too bad, but in a place where the LOW temp is often hovering around 80, with seriously high humidity, A/C is a necessity for us wimpy Americans. It was a long, sweltering night. Made me miss San Francisco.

I am off to spend my last day in HCMC - tomorrow, I'm off to Vientiane, Laos, where the population is about 2% of what it is here.

I hope all of you are doing well. See you soon. --Janine

Yakkety Yak

2007-10-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 27

Deciding to NOT go on a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels (I was tired, and also not thrilled with going into underground tunnels that are MUCH shorter than I am!), I spent a day just wandering around HCMC and relaxing. I got a haircut (yeah, yeah, my friends all said I'd break down and cut it, and the heat and humidity got to me!) for the equivalent of $3.50 US (including shampoo, blow dry the works), and also a manicure, pedicure, and facial.

Brian Johnson, stop laughing.

I decided to spent some quiet time sitting a park a couple blocks away - there are incredibly beautiful flowers here the likes of which I have never seen, and also tons of bouganvilla, which grows into trees here. But, to my surprise, there was not a lot of quiet time to be had. About 3 minutes after I sat on a bench, two young men approached me very politely and asked if they could talk to me. They are students at the international university here, and wanted to interview me for a school project on tourism. Sure, I said. They talked to me for about 15 minutes (recorded it, so they could go back to parts they may not have completely understood), took my picture, and went on their way. Within another couple minutes, a bunch of kids came up and talked to me for a bit. Nobody was asking for anything; they just thought it interesting to see me in their park, doing nothing. Anyway, to make a long story short, after a number of conversations and an hour of elapsed time, I wandered back to the block near my hotel to do some shopping.

It was good to spend a day doing nothing in particular.

One interesting thing: people here want to know my feelings and thoughts about their country, but ask them and they clam right up. I asked a couple people what their impression was about how easy or difficult it was for a Vietnamese national to get a visa to exit the country, and the response was always the same: "I don't know about that, I have never tried it before. Maybe you could ask a government official." Hmmmm. I have to wonder whether they all were truly ignorant on the subject, or if they just don't talk about leaving at all. On the other hand, people here continue to be better-fed, happier, and much more healthy looking than the people in Cambodia. One more bit of evidence that the country is in better shape: I've seen people here with prosthetic limbs, whereas in Cambodia all of the mine victime I saw simply were missing limbs, even in the largest city.

This country was among the 20 poorest nations in the world about 20 years ago, and still has a way to go, but they are definitely making strides.

Massage Envy

2007-10-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

Friday night, October 26

Just a quick addendum, since Sara seems to be keeping track....just had another great massage. Does that make 7 now, or 8? :-)

Filial Piety

2007-10-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

So, as we were waiting at the Laotian Consulate today for our Laos visas (heck, already here, why not see yet another country?), I was reading the Viet Nam News (there's an English version), and it fit in so well with yesterday's blog that I thought I'd share it.

Apparently, the Vietnamese government is afraid that, with all the western influences going on, their children will also absorb the western "selfish" attitude of kids. I have to say I think it's a valid fear. I adore my kids and I think they are wonderful, but in general I think American kids are selfish, snotty brats who have no idea what hard work is like and who expect to be waited on and entertained every waking second. Baseball teams, karate lessons, piano, dancing, girl scouts, mom take me here, dad pay for this. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, this article was focusing on one particular Viet girl who has retained her "filial piety" even in the face of westernization. She is 15 years old, gets up at 3:30 am every day to help her mother make soup, sells the soup on her way to school, then goes to school all day, comes home and does housework, helps her younger sister with her homework, and still maintains a near-perfect grade average. She and a host of other teens were being honored by the government for still holding their families in high regard and being good kids; in fact, they were being given scholarships. This girl only goes to a good school because she earns this scholarship year after year.

What a concept! Give kids money for schooling only if they do well in school AND honor their parents and extended families.

In other news, I've learned that metered cabs are NOT the way to go. I caught a guy today going way out of the way because he would make more money on his meter. It's the one time I have gotten perturbed, and I let him know it. He tried to tell me that every street was one way, so he had to turn left, go 3/4 of a mile in the wrong direction, and do the same over and over in order to get me to the Lao embassy, which was about five blocks from the hotel. I showed him the map, and our route, which I had been religiously following from the back seat, and he caved. No more meters.

We spent the afternoon being ridden around in cyclos, which are like bicycle rickshaws. We took the drivers to lunch, which I think shocked the living daylights out of them. I had GREAT pho bac (which is a beef noodle soup kind of thing). Yum city.

We also went to a bunch of museums, etc today, including the Museum of War Artifacts (formerly named the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, but renamed recently to avoid insulting tourists). They should have kept the original name - it was true. What we did in this country, from Agent Orange to napalm to nail bombs to god knows what else, was tragic. Yes, I know, war is always ugly, but it wasn't our dang business in the first place. We were trying to keep the country from becoming communist. SO we lose tens of thousands of good American soldiers and now what? The country is communist. We'll never learn...

All in all, though, these are the friendliest people so far. Even in exchanges with each other, there's constant laughter, much good-natured joking, and just a friendly attitude. If the city weren't dismally polluted (air-wise), I'd love to stay here for a long time. But, Laos awaits. Before leaving though, I am going to spend a day wandering around HCMC doing some shopping, and then a day up the Mekong for a cruise of sorts. I am going back on my original vow to buy nothing while here, and I am getting a thing or two for my munchkins. Perhaps, if they show some proper respect, they'll get the gifts when I get back to the states. :-)

OK, go call your parents, or grandparents, and tell them Janine told you to do it. HURRAH for filial piety!!!

--Janine

East Meets West

2007-10-25T02:12:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 25

Today was a day of travel, from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. I'm glad the trip was by bus, because it was great to see the Cambodian countryside - it was MUCH greener and more lush than the cities (including surrounding countryside) that we have been to already. Oddly, the bus driver was more apt to slow down for cows int he road than for people - go figure. There was a moment of interest at the border, when the Cambodian officials challenged the exit of a middle-aged, paunchy caucasian guy traveling with five young Cambodian girls (not too young, but probably 18 - 20). Who knows what that story was. Eventually, they were allowed to exit Cambodia and had no issues getting entry into Vietnam.

HCMC is huge - millions of people, and (I didn't think it was possible!) even more traffic than Phnom Penh had. The hotel here is iffy, only because the A/C only stays on for 3 minutes at a time. The front desk assured me that it will be fixed in an hour, and if it's not I'm leaving and finding another hotel - there are about a hundred within spitting distance, after all.

Now, on to the subject of the day...my lovely daughter is now making blog requests, and her latest is on the topic of westernization. Well, Sara, here's what I can tell you.

In Phnom Penh, almost EVERY sign (stored, restaurants, even street signs and government signs) were in Cambodian AND in English. The air pollution was in credible, due in large part to thousands of motorcycles all using tons of cheap, watered-down gas bought in Thailand (taxes are less there) and brought over the border to sell. Most places, even street vendors, take (and prefer!) American dollars to the local currency, which is riel. In fact, many menus list prices in dollars first. Most restaurants have taken to offering "western" or "English" food, although it's often an interesting variation. But, I still am totally hooked on pancakes with honey now! Almost all cars are Toyota Camrys or Lexus SUVs (with a few Honda CRVs and some Mercedes thrown in for good measure). Half of the Toyotas are from Brit-influenced Thailand, so are right-hand drive, and half are from French-influenced Vietnam, and are left-hand drive. Those right-hand drive cars make driving a truly frightening adventure, when a driver is trying to peer around a car to see if he can pass, but the driver is on the right-hand side to has to pull WAY out to just peek! We learned early on to get around, where possible, by tuk-tuk instead.

But by FAR the biggest evidence of Westernization is the cell phone. Everyone has one. I mean everyone. And every other shop seems to sell them. It gets truly interesting when your taxi driver is on his cell phone, whilst trying to peer around traffic from his right-hand driver's seat. This is the stuff that horror films are made of!

Most people speak some smattering of English, although the most commonly known words are "sir" and "madam."

Our initial experience in HCMC wasn't the best...and I already miss the lazier life of Cambodia. We got off the bus to the standard huge wave of taxi drivers assaulting us, and made a deal with one of them to be a driver for two solid days, for $40 total. We EACH asked him to repeat it, and clearly there was an understanding, However, while we were checking into the hotel, he called his boss, who apparently said it was too little. So, the boss said it was $40 per PERSON for the two days. Oh come on, as if anyone charges per person for taxi rides! Needless to say, we told him bye-bye. It turned out to be a good decision, since there are many attractions to see here that are all within a mile or so of the hotel, and I could use a good walk or two.

Sara, you can add 1 to my massage count (I got another one yesterday). I think I'll most likely not get one today, until we figure out where a good, clean place is. Oh, how sad - a day without a massage! :-)

I am much looking forward to having real Vietnamese food here - spring rolls, pho bac, you name it. But for now, I need to go check on the A/C and see if we can move our room if it's not working properly.

For anyone still reading my verbose musings, I'd like to request any positive thoughts, prayers, etc. Two days ago, my father had to be admitted to an ER and then moved to a convalescent hospital for up to a couple months, trying to get some sort of medication balance that will alleviate his anger enough to make him able to move to the residential care facility that my mother had picked out and signed him up for. This transition is going to be a rough haul for my mother. It's necessary, but still tragic. My mother is an incredibly woman, and I love her more than I could ever say. I pray for her to find peace in this time.

Thanks, and be happy. --Janine

Of Monks and Men

2007-10-23T01:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 23 (?)

Since my daughter seems to always leave me a comment, and was commenting on the issue of girls having no alternative place to study (boys can go study in the pagodas with the monks), I thought I'd cast a ray of sunlight on what could be a gloomy subject.

Today we visited a Wat in Phnom Penh. It houses 400 monks and 1000 people altogether, including students. We happened to pass a monk, and started talking to him. He was thrilled to explain anything we needed to know, and even took us into their temple there, turned on all the lights for us, and showed us around. I asked him about the issue of countryside girls having no schooling, as they were too far from city schools and could not study in the pagodas. Ahhh, he said, the monks were concerned about that, too. So, now they will (in the larger pagodas) allow the girls to stay in the house with female "lay persons" (cooks, cleaning staff, etc), and study with the boys. It's a small step, but a step in the right direction.

Interestingly, this young man told us that he hoped to someday go to the USA, because everyone there has a job and a home. We explained that even the USA has homeless people, and he was astounded. We also talked with him about the situation in Myanmar. He said that his feelings were hurt that the monks there were being imprisoned, and that his Wat was trying to send them supplies if possible. Never once did he express any animosity towards the Burmese government; it just isn't in his heart to do so. What an incredible religion that teaches (and PRACTICES!) the concept of harboring no hatred. Looking into history, it's clear that Buddhism is one religion that wars have not been fought over - no Spanish Inquisitions, no jihads, no constant conflict with people of other religions. Just a deep and abiding quest for peace and education and help for community. Thanks here to my sister-in-law, Janet, for suggesting a great book on Buddhism written by the Dalai Lama. Reading it along the way here has proven invaluable (and restful).

Along with the Wat, we saw the National Museum, monument to independence, and may tour the Grand Palace this afternoon. Meanwhile, I just got a one-hour foot massage. Heck, by the time I get home, I will have paid for my air ticket in massages alone! These things are amazing; walk all day in this heat, limp into a massage place, and come out an hour later ready to run a marathon. An hour of bliss, plus a head and neck massage, and a cup of tea while listening to relaxing music cost me $7 (I have learned that it's better to pay more for a very clean place, and avoid worry). The same place will do 2 hours of full body massage for 12 dollars. Hmmmm....I think I may have some free time tonight? Sara, are you keeping track of massages? I have lost count...

Nap time. It's rough life. :-)

You Ain't Seen Traffic Until.....

2007-10-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

...until you see it in Phnom Penh

Monday, October somethingth

I like the fact that I have absolutely no clue what the date is.

Yesterday, our final day in Siem Reap, was spent relaxing, changing some money, relaxing some more, and then i got to spend a few hours last night just talking with Savong at the guest house. This was after we went to a bakery and bought about ten pounds of goodies (total: 3 dollars), then took it to the guest house and set it out on the tables in the common area. It was all gone in about 3 minutes. Again, so many people...so little food.

Went to get a manicure and pedicure. While there, I noticed an interesting hair treatment being done on a couple girls. After a while, i realized they were being treated for lice. Hmmmm...am I itchy yet?

I am going to miss geckoes on the walls, frogs on the floors, and bees the size of my fist (well, maybe not the bees). But we are now in Phnom Penh, after a five-hour boat ride down the Tonle Sap river. The guest house we are in is on the river itself, which means there is a nice breeze out on the balcony (and not too many bugs, since the breeze is fairly brisk). We have a driver hired for a couple days. This gentleman, Along, is well-spoken, has the best English of anyone I have met here so far. Over lunch, I asked him where he learned English, and he said a little here and there. I asked about his education, and he told me that he went to university, but before they started teaching English in the universities here. He has a master's degree in Khmer literature, and was an assistant professor at the university. But, he found that he could not support his family (wife and two kids) on his $20/month salary, so now he drives a tuk-tuk. He hustled us from the time we got off the boat, and finally we gave in because his English was great and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. It paid off for him - these next two days, he will earn what he would have made in two months as a professor. What a dismal shame. Until people really value teachers, education will not be taken seriously.

Anyway, I tried something new for lunch - chicken in coconut milk and lemongrass. The color was atrocious, but the taste was incredibly good. I am already paying a gastrointestinal price for all this new food, but hey, that's why God made immodium (which is dirt cheap at any pharmacy here). We were given some sort of sweet gelatin with some kind of sweet masa-like substance in it, wrapped in banana leaves, for dessert. Hey, as long as it isn't dog or spiders, I'm game. It was, as expected, fantastic.

But, on to the traffic. I cannot possibly describe it. At any one time, I can look up and see maybe 50 vehicles, ranging from bicycles to trucks, within 30 yards of us. Maybe even 30 feet. I was closing my eyes, to avoid the fear, but it is so fascinating that I have to open them. Total gridlock appears unavoidable, and then suddenly everyone weaves in and out of each other and keeps going, like a choreographed driving team. These kids put the blue angels to shame, let me tell you. I have pictures.

We did see one moto accident today, but it involved an American driving a rented motorcycle - there is no way any person who hasn't grown up driving in this mess could navigate it. Poor guy - he was dumping his bike and falling into the street just as we passed; I hope he is OK.

Saw the killing fields and a high school that was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge today. I'm glad we got the depressing stuff out of the way first. On a brighter note, the kids here actually make noise, and play, and always have a smile and a wave for you. They look so much healthier than the kids in Siem Reap did. I think they just eat better. I actually saw a couple of overweight people today (a first!). It's good to see.

OK, I am sitting on a barstool typing this (my hotel has unlimited internet access for customers!) and my back is getting sore, so I am going to scoot off to the room and have a shower now. then sit on the balcony and feel the breeze.

As always, life is good. I miss my friends and my family, but I wouldn't give this opportunity up for the world.

Tomorrow, perhaps I'll discuss that fact that boys with no money can study in Pagodas with the monks, but girls are out of luck. I'm sure my lovely daughter will have something to say about that.

Oh, and massages here are the cheapest yet - $1.25 per hour. BUT, I think I'll stick to the $5 variety - cleaner places, fewer lice.

Be happy! --Janine

Whatever Floats Your Boat

2007-10-20T01:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 20

Another longish day, which started for me at 4 am because I couldn't figure out an issue with the A/C and sleeping without it is impossible (unless you are Val, in which case sleep is possible anywhere, any time, in any position). At 7:15 or so, i wandered into the "courtyard"(and I use the term VERY liberally) of our guest house, where the staff were playing one of the first games of pool of their 100 or so daily games. To my surprise, one of the staff introduced me to our guide for the day. This was surprising mostly because I specifically told the manager yesterday that we did NOT need a guide today. Hmmmm. So, after much discussion, I said fine, he could work for us today, and we would wing it tomorrow. We planned the day, to go to Angkor Thom plus one other temple in the Angkor complex, and then to Tonle Sap (a floating fishing village maybe 15 km from Siem Reap).

Off we went at 8:00 am to Angkor Wat, and saw two more huge and interesting temples, one of which has been nearly destroyed by trees growing up, around, through, and out of it. There has been other destruction as well. Until recently, people would cut off chucks of temples and smuggle them into Thailand, where they brought a good sum of money. Now, police patrol every temple int he Angkor complex nightly. Sad, but true.

I have found that it's less expensive for me to just pay kids to take a picture of them, rather than buy whatever they are selling (and I have to carry less stuff around!) Of course, they are always surprised when i give them some money, take a picture, and given them back their trinkets. I'm sure they think I am one stupid sap. Possibly true, but a stupid sap with some cute pictures.

I learned today how this tourism industry has changed the country. People have more money than they used to (but still not enough), but they also have learned that the more they hassle people, the more money they make (evidenced by the guide today "showing up"even though I didn't need one). With anything good comes something bad. I wonder whether these people hate our guts because we come to their country, throw our money around, and invade their space. Still, it doesn't matter as much as I thought it would, because the guide told us that most Cambodians think ALL caucasian people are French (apparently, we all look alike). So, at least if they hate me, they think they are hating the French. No offense, Zeph. :-)

We went to Tonle Sap, which is a floating fishing village. We saw it by rented boat (another bunch of money to the boat driver). It occurred to me halfway through that I am getting used to the smells here. When I get back home, I wonder if I am going to just want to stay inside and sniff things all day and enjoy the lack of raw sewage. If my last post was asking you to hug your shower, I think this one should humbly request that you hug a plumber. Anyway, it amazes me how many adults exploit their kids by having them (on a school day) ride along on a fishing boat, begging tourists to buy sodas for a buck, or just to give them money. Ultimately, school will probably be more valuable, but I also understand that the more pressing immediate need for food has to take priority.

Oh yeah, and kids here do not wear diapers - most just hang around bottomless. I was holding Savong's baby yesterday for an hour or so, just waiting to be peed on, but nothing happened. Then, I realized that I had been watching this kid being held for a couple hours before that, and nothing happened then, either. It all came together, then - babies here are SO quiet, and I almost never hear or see them cry. I think they are just so seriously dehydrated that they don't cry, or pee, or care about much. Even the little kids who wave at me have a hollow look in their eyes. I wonder if drinking water is that precious? It's so sad that a baby under a year old would already be stoic and accepting of this life. It makes me want to cry.

Wow, I just realized this is getting depressing. I guess this has been a kind of downer day, just from the whole "if I make myself a total nuisance, then I can get $20 from you for being a guide"thing to the total poverty seen everywhere. Tomorrow will be a day to relax, maybe take some pictures of flowers, and rest up. Monday it's time to ride a boat down the river to Phnom Penh.

And oh yes, Sara, in case you are counting still, I intend to go get yet another massage tonight (my fourth). Heck, it's only 5 bucks here! Let's see, that will be four massages in 7 days, for a grand total of $35. How can I resist?

To end on an upbeat note: I have discovered fruit shakes - sort of like smoothies, but the fruit here is so fresh that they are incredible. Pineapple shake and rice for lunch, banana shake and noodles for dinner.... life is good.

Please be safe, my friends, and don't forget to hug a plumber today!

Food is a Good Thing

2007-10-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 19

Up at the crack of dawn (yes, again!) to go see the sunrise over Angkor Wat and walk around the temple for a few hours. The Angkor site is immense - can't even see it in a day or two. Today, just the main temple, then through the gauntlet of vendors to get back. Two girls approached me to buy postcards, and I said no. One asked where I am from, and I said United States. "United States capital Washington, DC!" she said. I stopped and said, yes it is. "What state are you from?" "California." "California capital "Sacramento!" Yeppers. Fine, I bought the postcards. Her little cohort also was spouting off facts, such as the population of the US (something kids in the US most likely do not know). ANyway, I showed them my little photo album, we talked for a long time, and eventually bought them breakfast. How hilarious, to see them ordering breakfast from,,,,their MOM (who ran the outdoor cafe). When she served them, she called them "VIPs"and all the other vendors were making remarks about it. Those two girls were so happy they couldn't contain themselves.

Nobody here has enough to eat. As far as I can tell, every kid is about 5 years older than he/she looks. Fifteen-year-olds are the size of the average nine-year-old in the states. They are mostly so skinny they look ready to snap, but they always have a ready smile and a loud, "Hello!"for you. In fact, tonight as I was getting yet another massage, the girl was actually singing to herself. It's amazing how people so poor can be so happy, but they are.

This afternoon, I taught two classes of kids at Savong's School. Some of these kids are smart as a whip, let me tell you. I had them in stitches, trying to teach them prepositions..."Where is the water bottle?" I would ask, putting it on top of my head. "ON THE HEAD!" they would shout. "on the wall...under the table...behind the chair..." I was a smashing hit, especially when I was testing them by picking up a pencil and saying, "Is it a dog?" "noooooooo" and then pointed at one boy and said, "Is it a girl?" That brought gales of laughter.

I had a long talk with Savong about the whole concept of "total immersion" language instruction. I think that the teachers speak too much to the kids in Khmer, but I'm no expert. I do know that once the teacher came into the second class I was in, the kids really relied on her to translate things. But, up to that point, we were doing just fine. I think back to my father, who spoke no English until he went to kindergarten, and then learned it in a matter of weeks.

Three classrooms at this school service over 300 kids, in shifts every afternoon between 1 and 8 pm. They come willingly at their appointed times, even though they have already spent their required time in the state school. These kids are so eager to learn, and it made me think of how much our kids in the US complain about school. Some of these kids ride a bike a couple miles each day, AFTER doing the same to get to their regular schools.

Speaking of bikes...motorbikes are everywhere, plus tuk-tuks (which are like a motorbike rickshaw), and cars, and trucks. Often, some combination of those vehicles is on the road 5 or 6 across. How there aren't accidents is beyond me, but I haven't seen one yet. I have to admit that I have closed my eyes a couple times and waited for a crash, but so far, so good.

Record to date of number of people seen riding on one motorbike: 5 (including an infant). Amazing.

Enough for now. It's already 9:30 pm and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast (which was a pineapple pancake with honey on it - incredibly good - the fruit here is amazing).

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

2007-10-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 18

Up at the crack of dawn to get on a bus to Cambodia. I have to say, the Tales of Asia website was right on, even down to the window number at the bus station for getting a ticket to the border. Unfortunately, it was also correct about the hassles at the border, and the ripoffs attempted (one successfully). After a 4 1/2 hour bus ride, it was a 4 hour ride from the border to Siem Reap and out guesthouse. That's 4 hours to cover 90 miles. Why? Because the road is BARELY paved, with potholes the size opf moon craters. I think the ride may have taken 5 years off my teeth. Amazingly, as soon as we hit Siem Reap, the road was paved and perfect. The driver said that the roads are beuatiful everywhere in Cambpdia excpt for that one stretch from the border (Poipet) to Siem Reap. Why? There are many theories, but one is that the investors who bailed out Cambodia Airlines a few years back are deliberately paying the government to NOT fiux the road, as it would detract from air travel and take a bite out of the profits that the airline is making. Another possibility: The Cambodians are not very big on the Thai people. One Cambodian national suggested that, if the road leading into Cambodia from the Thai border were more passable, more Thais would come into Cambodia regularly. Hmmm. Of course, there is a huge casino just on the Cambodian side of the border. In fact, there were three HUGE lines for Thais exiting the country, but only a 4-person line for all other passport holders. Seems the gambling bug has hit them hard.

Anyway, after a bone-jarring ride in the cab, we arrived at our "guest house,"which is sort of like a hotel but smaller. There's a bed and a bathroom of sorts - basically, the bathrooms here are "wet rooms,"where the shower in on the bathroom wall and you close the door to shower, but spray everything in sight including the toilet and sink. Still, after that many hours in a vehicle and then 85-degree heat with probably 90% humidity, anything with a water nozzle is welcome.

Life here is so laid back it's almost at a standstill (or seemingly so). Order three things for dinner, and they will cook them one at a time. You might wait 10 minutes between the sandwich and the fries (OK, I haven't had fries, but you know what I mean). There are so many unfinished buildings, I wonder if people stop working on them from sheer boredom and want to move on (sort of like contrustion-related ADHD)? On the other hand, the average worker in Siem Reap works 12 hours a day, probably 6 or 7 days a week, for the equivalent of $15 per month (yes, month!) My job is looking mighty awesome right now.

Can you Whistle?

2007-10-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 17

Up at 0545, out at 0630 on a tour that lasted 12 hours...First, to the floating markets outside Bangkok. Loads of stuff being sold from boats - food, clothes, trinkets. I found my latest favorite fruit - somthing called (I think) Lngon fruit. It's sort of like lychee, tastes like a really good grape. Wonderful.

Then, we were all taken (by a minivan, with litle leg room - hours of this) to the Bridge on the River Kwai. Well, that one was bombed down, but we went to the rebuilt bridge and museum, which are on the site of the original. The things those POWs had to endure to build a bridge for the enemy were unreal. We also visited a cemetery for some of the POWs who died building it. In the minivan, I was in the back row, and suddenly started whistling the theme song form the movie. Within a few seconds, I had four people whistling along with me and one woman humming (she couldn't whistle). Hilarious.

Finally, back to the hotel, with time for another massage (same woman, same bone-breaking grip). I am now so realxed I can barely stay awake. In fact, I shall have to sign off, as I have to get up at 0300 to get on a bus to Cambodia tomorrow morning. I'm ready for a few weeks of a more lazily-paced life. Much more later....

Bangkok - First Look

2007-10-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 16

Bangkok is crazy - it is HUGE, and also has a population of 10 million people. I think all of them are on the street at once! Motorcycles (little ones) are everywhere, and they weave in and out of the constant flow of traffic like madmen. Lots of shopping and just walking around looking at the sights and the people.

It's hard to reconcile the fact that lots of good food is sold from push carts on the streets, but under those carts runs (often) raw sewage. "Don't look down" has become my new motto.

Three of us took a trip during the afternoon to tour some of the canals that run around the outskirts of the city. How odd to see shacks made (literally) of cardboard next to temples that are highly-maintained and totally ostentatious. (And, probably, it was the people in the cardboard shacks who helped pay for the temple upkeep). I have great pictures of raw sweage being dumped into the canal, and kids swimming just yards away. They all seem healthy enough.....interesting.

Then, we were served a lot of different kinds of fruit, some of which I had never seen before. My favorite of the day" Dragonfruit, which looks like a red, angry dragon (including scales) on the outside, but is white with tiny black seeds on the inside. Sweet, very sweet.

At the end of it all, a traditional Thai massage (with oil) given by a woman who probably weighed all of 100 pounds dripping wet, but who could (I swear) have snapped any one of my bones with one hand. Pure pleasure. Afterwards, I went to the room to lie down for a minute and woke up two hours later. Who cares - I am on vacation!!

Departures and Arrivals

2007-10-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Oct 14
Left San Francisco, going through Tokyo. Flying business class is incredible; unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever be able to fly coach again! Besides great food (except for that belgian chocolate dessert that mysteriously disappeared while I was sleeping) and lots of leg room, I also had access to United's Red Carpet Lounge, which meant that I was able to actually take a shower during my layover in Tokyo! I needed it, though; Japan's security is so tight that they made us deplane, take all of our belongings, and go back through Japanese security when we touched down (even though we were on the same plane, same seats and everything, on to Bangkok). This means that they told me that I could not replane with the huge bottle of Grey Goose vodka that I had bought in Duty-Free in San Fran for my firnd Nils and his wife. I was a shade perturbed. Needless to say, I poured it out and pouted about it. But the shower helped....

Getting off the plane in Bangkok was like having someone throw a hot, wet washcloth onto my head. Humid, hot, and that was at 11:00 pm! This place is like a sauna much of the time. But it wa an easy cab ride to the hotel, the room was clean, bathroom had a real toilet (don't EVEN get me started on toilet stories!), and it was a blessing to go to sleep after being in the air plus layover for about 20 hours.

Toxicity

2007-10-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I realize this has nothing to do with travel, but I feel a need to write...

This weekend, I had a visit from my friend, Jacqueline. Jackie is probably my most "unusual" friend, for many reasons. She's also the most blunt, outspoken, and brutally honest of my friends, which is probably why I adore her (gee, I wonder who she reminds me of?) In any case, I dropped her off at some dive bar on Saturday night so she could meet up with some of her SF friends and see a show. She was to get back to my house around 2 am, so I figured I'd be long asleep by the time she returned.

At about 11:30, while I was in the middle of reading a Newsweek article about a company that is producing $188 laptops to be donated to kids in underdeveloped countries (much more about that in my next blog!), I heard a car screech away and some very heavy footsteps on my porch stairs. After a brief altercation with the deadbolt, Jacqueline stumbled through the door and announced to me that she had missed the show, almost been thrown out of the cab because she was so sick, and had to bribe the cabbie with a double payment in order to be driven all the way to my house. She was mortified. Why had she had so much to drink? What was she thinking? How could she miss a show she had bought tickets for, and how could she let her friends down? Of course, the answer was obvious: she was having fun drinking, and even though she knew she'd regret it, she just carried on anyway. However, she felt bad enough that she probably won't do that again for a long, long time.

I suddenly had a light bulb come on over my head. "Wouldn't it be great," I postulated, "if the same thing could happen with people? If someone is really toxic for us, wouldn't it be perfect if being around them for any length of time, while seeming to be a fun thing, made us feel bad and throw up? Then, it would be so easy to remove ourselves from those situations, from those relationships that ultimately will do us no good and, quite possibly, a world of hurt." Somehow, in her stupor, leaning there against my bedroom wall and trying to act as though her world wasn't spinning uncontrollably, Jackie didn't see the huge wisdom in my words.

But I did, and that's really what counts. It shouldn't take getting physically ill for me to realize when something isn't right, but it's just so easy to keep drinking (figuratively) and have those few moments of fun (or ones that might seem fun) rather than face the thought of having to live without the crutch. So, for having shown me a sign in the middle of her sloppy drunkenness, my thanks to Jacqueline. And also, this week, to Bob, for doing a similar thing in a much kinder, gentler fashion. Now, enough with philosophizing. Time for more travel and charity writing!!

Be happy.
--Janine

Time Out for Baseball

2007-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

I went to the Giants' last home game on Wednesday night; it was also Barry Bonds' last game ever for the Giants at home. I don't particularly like Barry Bonds; in fact, I pretty well hold him in great disdain, for a host of reasons that I won't even begin to go into.

But, I had nothing better to do, I needed the exercise of walking up to the Muni station, and I felt as though I would be watching a little bit of baseball history. So, off I went, battling the crowds, the complete lack of tickets, and I found myself standing behind the right-field bleachers watching the game. In the course of nine innings, I observed the game from three different distinct places, and I have to say that I am wishing I had spent the whole game at the back of those bleachers. That's where the real fans are - people who will sit anywhere just to watch baseball. And, since I didn't have a bleacher ticket, I was standing behind them and suddenly had a flash of memory back to the days when Roy would go to a ball game and ALWAYS stand behind the bleachers. He always had a ticket, but he just couldn't navigate those steps, so it was easier for him to stand up than to risk tumbling down an endless slope of cement stairs.

Baseball is like life, in a lot of ways. You are always competing, but hopefully against people who are similar to you and who, outside the arena, would sit and have a beer with you and be happy. No matter how bad things seem, there's always a chance, up to the very end, to get it right. And you might have a bad day, and make some pretty gross errors, but there will be other days, other games, and you get another stab to prove yourself.

And so, amid the beer, the fights, the people slapping complete strangers on the back and celebrating every hit (or consoling them when it was obvious that the game was not going their way), I had a minor epiphany of sorts. It's always worth staying in the game until the last inning, and there will always be something to draw people together and prove to them that they are not alone (and it doesn't have to be a disaster or a war). Play ball!

--Dedicated to the memory of Roy Webb 5/18/1956 - 2/2/2004

It's Just Stuff

2007-09-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

I have been in a purchasing frenzy of late; I'm stocking up on the things I need to take with me to Southeast Asia. Backpack, DEET, compressed towelettes, good walking shoes, disposable underwear (yes, folks, it IS made!)...but I am fervently hoping that what I bring back from this trip will be so much more than what will fit into a backpack. I think I am learning that a large part of a journey such as this is trying to decide beforehand what to bring back. Rather than make a list of what to procure "over there," I have decided to bring back little or nothing in the way of material goods. I want peace. (No, not world peace, which I realize it unattainable). I'd like my mind to stop spinning constantly - to be able to be truly at peace with myself and in my life. I hope that, when I return, I will have learned that if I can spend a month living out of a backpack, everything else is just "stuff".

This doesn't mean that I intend to give away all of my wordly belongings and live in an ashram (besides, I am not big on lentils as a dietary staple). But perhaps I can start to understand that there are things much more important than a bigger TV, having the latest gadget, or never having to wear the same dress twice. That's one of the lessons I want to learn.

(Now, I fully expect my children to call me and say that, out of love and in the interest of helping me attain my goals, they will be happy to take any of my current 'things' away so that I won't be distracted by them). Speaking of kids, I think mine are absolutely what I will miss most over there; granted, I don't talk to them every day (OK, in the case of my son, not even every week - ALEC, CALL your mother once in a while!). I wish I could bring them with me and watch this new place through their eyes. Ah well, they'll just have to look at my 4,855 pictures after I get back. I can see them rolling their eyes even now....

Peace,
Janine

Charity Begins at Home

2007-09-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

My mom has asked me many times why I am going halfway around the world to do some good for people. After all, there are so many people in need here in my own country, in my own state, in my own CITY. She's right (moms are always right - learn that lesson now and save yourself some grief!), but I feel compelled to go to other places, and so off I shall go. I have to admit that a sizeable part of it is sheer selfishness; I WANT to travel. I've seen my city, my state, even some parts of my country.

I also rationalize my own actions by retorting to her (again, learn the lesson now - do NOT "retort" to your mother - it really never ends well!) that this country has so many social programs, that people do not have to starve in the USA, that there is a system that can give them food, medical care for their children (it's not great, but it exists on some level). In other countries, people starve all the time, many never see a doctor...shouldn't I start there? The one thing I am determined to realize is that spending time determining WHERE to start means still NOT starting. Pick a spot, Start there. DO what you can.

The group "Five for Fighting" has started a website where people can upload videos, although those videos must be set to a song the group produced (clever, huh? free airplay). But, it's a great deal - watch any of those videos ALL THE WAY through to the end, and there will be a donation made to the charity that the video supports. It may be only a buck, but it counts, and it's only 3 minutes out of your life. Many of those videos benefit Autism Speaks, a charity that recently merged with Cure Autism Now. I dare you to watch some of those videos with dry eyes. Here's a link to one - it is VERY poorly written (I know that many of you will be cringing at the grammatical mistakes!) but the message is like a bombshell. So many of us take for granted that our children can speak, laugh, hug us...and so many parents know none of that. I have spoken at length, so many times, to my friend Craig about these same things, and every time realize that I will never understand his pain, never feel the absolute horror he goes through every day with his son. And yet, his love for his son is no less, has never been less, than mine for my own two gloriously normal children. Sara and Alec have been simple to parent; it is parents like Craig and the woman who made this video who are truly gifted at the task. Watch this, please, and spend someone else's dollar to help an organization promote understanding, knowledge, and (hopefully, someday) relief for 1 out of 166 kids and their parents. http://www.whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com/videos/view/id/246393 When the video ends, you will see another screen with the lead singer of the band on it. You can, if you want, click there to go to ALL of the entered videos and watch more if you want, for the various charities represented.

Be happy. --Janine

Five More Weeks....

2007-09-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed, and I'm that much closer to my trip. Last week, my friend Mary Kay told me about a book she thought I'd like. I bought the book, read it, and it was incredibly good and right in line with this trip I am making, It's called Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortensen. Greg was a mountain climber who, through a series of mishaps, ended up in a tiny little Pakistani village. His experiences with the people there prompted him to eventually start a foundation that has built over 50 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His story is amazing and compelling. Thanks, Mary Kay, for the suggestion!

Meanwhile, I have made four sarongs, bought a shirt infused with sunscreen, gathered some other clothing items, and am feverishly researching travel information. Apparently, crossing from Thailand into Cambodia overland is an adventure, but one that Val and I have decided to take on. Oddly, I am even looking forward to dealing with the border guards, Cambodian security police, crooked taxi drivers (they are affectionately known as the "taxi mafia"), and 12 hours of travel to get from Bangkok to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat. It's all part of the adventure.

Soon, I'm sure I will start to panic, but right now I can only count down the weeks and look forward to this trip. Thanks to those of you who have pledged money for the school. I appreciate your support! More news as it breaks.....

Six Weeks til Liftoff

2007-08-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am six weeks from my month-long trip to Southeast Asia, and decided to set up a blog. I have no idea how often I'll be able to update this while I am traveling, but it's my goal to write as much as possible. After all, I'm 46 and I'll more than likely forget plenty by the time I get home, if I don't write it all down.

I have a few goals for my trip: do something good for other people, make it home in one piece, and try NOT to get lice. That last goal may be the loftiest of them all.

Certainly, my life has taken some crazy turns, but all in all it has been blessed and easy. I am going to help out in a school in Cambodia while I am traveling, and I am also trying to raise some money when I get back to help build a second floor onto that school. Kids in Cambodia have very few choices for their futures: subsistence farming, tourism, and the sex trades. Way too many of these kids end up in brothels, as young as five years old. If they have any hope of working in the tourism industry, they need to learn English, and Savong's School (http://www.savong.com/) teaches them after their normal school hours each day. It's a noble effort by one Cambodian national to keep some of his fellow countrymen out of the sex industry.

Of course, I will also be visiting a lot of places for fun, education, and photography, including Angkor Wat, the killing fields near Phnom Penh, cities in north and south Vietnam, and various places in Thailand. If things go as planned, I will finish up with a visit to an eastern medicine spa in northern Thailand ( http://www.tao-garden.com/ ).

So, check back as I rant about my preparations (the Vietnamese government charges way too much to process a visa!) and feel free to make any suggestions (what shoes should I bring, considering I am traveling for a month with only a backpack and a camera bag?!).

--Janine