i don't eat grasshoppers

there are two other french guys i hang out with at my hotel - the french guy who gets hit on by the wait staff and christian from the UN who just arrived saturday. we'll have cocktails by the pool, talk about france, comment on the weirdness of being here. we're comfortable enough now to make fun of eachother, notably they mocking me for feeding/befriending random animals (just you wait until i go to the venemous snake place next weekend).
on sunday we finally ventured outside the hotel walls on foot. i walked in the middle, these two tall guys at either side. we made it to the end of the hotel driveway and securely scanned the empty horizon for anything of interest. a guy cooking some manioc, some dudes leaning against a wall and people pushing a car, all typical. across the street was this decrepit supermarket that appears to be open only sometimes. there's an overgrown parking lot with busted up cars and some funny beer ads on the walls "turbo king! pour l'homme d'affaires!" but if you go to the end of this vacant lot you happen upon a little restaurant in a cute garden with little huts housing plastic tables and chairs. it's called the Marquis de GB. there's a disgusting outhouse, a small soccer field, a nursery, and a sad grey parrot in a cage who tried to bite me. the service is interminably slow, but it lets us take our african time, around 2.5 hours for dinner. gilles always needs a receipt everywhere he goes, which has proven impossible so me and christian write them out, varying our handwriting, inventing the restaurant logo. the menu has an odd mix of local dishes, unique french stuff like frog's legs and greek food. i don't touch the salad (learned my lesson!), but the kebabs and fries are good - they are served hanging from a metal hook. they also have espresso, something you can't find anywhere else. we eat all our meals there, since the hotel food is iffy. the round trip walk is about 1/4 mile, the most i've walked since i've been here! we stroll very leisurely for this exact reason.
the other night we were walking back after dinner and there were some guys hanging around one of the lightposts, below a swarm of bats and moths. the guys were collecting these huge grasshoppers and stuffing them into jars. i look at the one of the jars closely, the grasshoppers with their gleaming eyes all smooshed up against this old jam jar. what for? i ask. to eat. grilled. tasty! bon appetit! thanks in advance! UN guy tells me how he's eaten huge caterpillars and moths in eastern DRC. a delicacy.
when we got back to the hotel for a nightcap i saw a bunch of grasshoppers drowning in the pool. they're huge, so gross. i don't think i could ever eat one. as i got closer the hawk-like birds that putter around (i found out they're called 'milan' in french, anyone know what that is?) were verrrry interested. i picked one out with a glass, spilled it on the ground and the birds pounced on it, grabbing it with their claws and ripping off the heads and slowly enjoying the rest of the body. edible for most, just not for me.

lingering freshness

my shower was very cold this morning, my walk to work very dusty. i have to say, i don't have much lingering freshness.

bon appetit!

this morning on my way to work i passed the police guards outside the UNHCR sitting on chairs and peeling the wings off the grasshoppers they caught last night. imagine a thick pile of bodies, and then a pile of wispy wings on a plate, like when my brother peels carrots or something. rip, pile. ripe, pile. so weird.

boNObos

ok you were all waiting for bonobos...you can stop reading now if you are expecting bonobos, there were alas no bonobos. but it was still awesome!!
we flew to malebo, a 50 minute cessna ride. the airport we were flying out of was the 'domestic' airport. it resembles more of a dusty open air market with luggage everywhere. there's no check-in kiosques, or anything like that, security consists of guys with guns and mean looks on their faces, but there are guys with huge buckets on their heads, selling peanuts, so, still very airport-like.
we were able to flash our cred and drive right up to the plane hangar. rod, from ohio was our pilot for this plane chartered by some missionary aviation company. he weighed us with his own special scale (with our bags). there were ten rickety seats and harness style seat belts. we each got a window view to an overgrown field of decrepit old planes and guys with machetes 'mowing' the lawn amid cattle egrets. he showed us the "sic-sak" and how to use it, and gently explained the safety features of the airplane, referring to the card in our seat back pocket. my seatback pocket had a pamphlet: "12 ways to be closer to god," none of which referred to the plane, but i thought might still be useful in case of accident. we were shown the first aid kit, what to do "if we go down" and it's good to know there's some food and water in the back just in case we need to wait to be rescued, lost-style.
after the pre-flight checks rod turns around and asks if we minds if he prays. hell no, rod! i don't mind! anything you can do, rod that will make this thing take off and land safely is fine by me. the only thing holding us aloft will be that small rusty propeller?? so he starts his prayer...

thank you baby jesus for this functional airplane - i sure hope so!
thank you for the good weather - looks good to me too
thank you for the chance to fly today - um, ok sure
amen.
what about being thankful that our pilot has his license and the experience to fly this thing? he's doing a lot of double checking, looking at the wings and stuff.

so we take off from this potholed mess of a runway, barely make it over the fish market and then soar above huts on stilts on little islands amidst river and barges, villages cleared in the forest. i notice all these long rectangular cleared fields amid the savanna and forest. so odd! why not square? wouldn't that be more efficient? then we landed on one. a grass runway is actually pretty nice and soft. and this one was well mowed to boot.

we put our stuff down at the lac tumba camp, still under construction, runs on a loud generator but has 4 bedrooms to house VIP guests, and tents and grass huts for the rest. the cook from my birthday was there and she recognized me shook my hand and hugged me and showed me her bucket of fish heads. she sometimes wears an apron it has "grandpa" written on it.

so i was hoping to sleep outside in one of the tents. alas, i would be put in a room with the ladies...which ended up being tents in a room so i got the best of both worlds.

we then set out for the bonobos. it was a bumpy hour-long ride down a dirt road with deep muddy holes and river crossings and rickety bridges. it started to rain. we were told the bonobos don't like the rain, they come down from their nests in the trees and go far far away to where we could not reach them within a day's hike. we would still do everything right, just in case, and tried our chances.
we went to the Boutu village welcome area and waited 2 hours for all the area chiefs to arrive. we were seated in this hut thing, as villagers came from the woods, the fields, everywhere and just sat around the hut and stared at us, totally silent, like WE were the bonobos. when the the chiefs showed (we sent the truck to get some of the slower ones), they each came and looked at us, slowly one by one, right in the eyes. then they were all lined up in a row, all dressed in bright red, wearing various hats. one guy had a knit winter hat with a pompom, hee. my favorite was the guy with the home made sword and metal gear-like thing around his neck. i think it might be a tractor part.

when we were being entertained with the bonobo song or introduced (bruce babbit had to make a speech) we were seated in these brand new plastic chairs and weren't allowed to get up until permission was given. the press was there (they were really annoying actually), as they had come with us to follow the babbits. they got their cameras out and the chiefs started to make these ridiculous baywatch style poses, posturing, as if they had a busom like pamela anderson.

one of the scientists who runs the community bonobo project, a Congolese guy, introduced us, one by one, in ngala. it was incomprehensible jibber-jabber until you would hear 'USA' or 'basketball' or 'Arizona', and then everyone would put their hands up (when you wave hi, you use both hands, like a surrender) and then clap and cheer. and so we went down the line.
blah blah blah john blah, clap.
blah blah richard, blah blah blah, clap.
then it was my turn, it was blah blah satellites blah blah blah maps blah blah blah and everyone was all oooooh! wooooo! and for some reason when i stood up, the musician who i had been nodding my head to earlier, smiling at his beat-up guitar did a little riff for me and everyone was all woooooh! yyyyeah! rrrrrooooooowwww! my colleagues turned around, perplexed, "how did you get so famous?" shurg, dunno.
then we went down the receiving line, like at a wedding. only this wedding had about 300 people in it by now and everyone was pushing, shoving. so you would shake their hand, they would try to say something, proudly show their baby, point to my nose ring, whatever. then they wanted their picture taken. i have never seen people so eager to be in a picture - so the opposite of kinshasa! here, they were fighting, pushing, putting their babies in my face, tapping me and pointing to their face, just to have the camera click and be able to see it afterwards for about 2 seconds. they rarely smiled, they would just stand, stoic so i was all come on guys! yah baby yeah! love the lens! stick your tongue out! and they took my picture too! a bunch of them had cameras, some old point and shoots, some brand new, digital. i still wonder. how do they download the pictures? charge the camera? do they have email? there's no electricity or laptops or a cyber cafe for at least 300 miles....then again, i doubt there's a photo lab, either. oh well.so they would snap a shot of me, with one guy standing next to me (the women only posed with their babies), huge grin. then he would say something in ngala which meant "one more." and so we took one more. and then he would say "just one more" and so we would end up taking 5 or 6, not changing pose or anything. at one point i knelt down on the ground and said "picture with everyone!!!" and kids were jumping on me, crowding, screaming, it was an insane mob scene, and totally awesome.
so then there was a dance, they had these drums carved out of trees and a big metal drum, like a toxic waste thing. and they all started dancing and after a few seconds we were sick of sitting in those plastic chairs and hattie babbit led us to join in with the ladies. everyone went NUTS! screaming, cheering, jumping, everyone joined in. our little police escort guy was terrified of this madness. but it was so cool. i was still dancing, partying, taking pictures when i realized our group was all piled into the trucks, waiting for me. i hugged a few kids goodbye. one of the old guys repeated his one english phrase "good morning to you!" and the guy with the governor O'Malley shirt blew kisses. the kids ran after the car or rode bikes until we exited the home-made gate. the only thing i regret is not bringing my frisbee to leave there. it was stolen out of my bag on my way over here. i'm sure i could return in a year and they'd be my little african experts.
that night we drank palm wine from a nasty old 25-liter gasoline jug. it was a gift from the chiefs we could not refuse...we were a little scared at first, this is like russian roulette with your intestines. you first! no, you! it tasted just like toilet water and banana! EVERYONE got sick, even the congolese. we had a tasty meal though and i chatted with the belgians and got 3 hours of sleep before we decided to try to see the bonobos again at 4 am, and then it rained so we didn't and then we went for a hike through the thick jungle, did yoga, and when we heard the rrrrrrrreerrrrrr of rod's plane, it was back to the landing strip, time to go!

snakeguy

so there were a few wacky scientists here for our workshop. one of them was snakeguy, an expert from harvard who had never been to the congo, or africa for that matter, but is a snake fanatic and knows just about every species on the planet. snakeguy speaks no french and we were quite surprised he came.
snakeguy told us how he has been bitten 12 times by venemous snakes. someone says "wow, you must spend a lot of time in the jungle!" he replies, "no actually, most of the bites were in my house." snakeguy really wanted to bring home a Gabon Viper to add to this collection. it's this huge sausage-like snake that is about as thick as my thigh and 4 feet long and has the largest teeth of any snake on earth. after the conference he sets out from the hotel, alone, to find a gabon viper and somehow get the permits to bring it back to the US. out of the 250 random solicitors outside the hotel, what do ya know he immediately finds precisely someone outside who has one to sell! of course, that person doesn't really have a viper, they just want to steal snakeguy's camera and scam him out of 100 bucks and that's what they do. poor snakeguy. streetsense!

a poem

liquid poo, what would i do without you?
i sure wouldn't be in the loo,
every minute or two,
that's for true.

work the system

so my new hotel suuuucks. i mean, it has a cute side, a bunch of buildings around a pool with little statuettes of 5 of the 7 drarwves around it with their snow white, a life-size Lucky Luke statue, a unicorn and these 3 huge hawk-like birds that mill around like chickens (their wings have been clipped) and eat the leftovers straight from your plate with their claws and treacherous beaks. there's also a sleepy red kitten whom you would think is dead if it didn't change spots every few hours. there are some funny waitstaff, a group of ladies who lean against the bar and invite me to hang out and chit chat whenever i feel like it. lately, they've been knocking on the door of the other french guy from WWF staying here. they rap on his door in the middle of the night, he answers angry, moment of awkward silence, then..."i must have the wrong room!" heehee. if you try to call the front desk however, you get the cell phone of the receptionist, whether she is at work or not, so clearly, you can't get transferred to my room.
the room is full of voracious mosquitos who seem to spring up from the tile and will not die no matter how much you spray them (i'm counting on you, malarone rx!), there's no hot water, no shower curtain - just a tube from the ceiling, unstable power and a window into the kitchen and bar area so there's quite a lot of noise. i presume it's pretty unsafe to keep valuables anywhere, so until i can lock them at the office, i've worked out a little security system here for my laptop, which i'll need after hours and can't take out with me to the restaurant etc. i call it "the circle of trust."
the short young cleaning guy, alain, asked me timidly if i had a computer. no, i certainly do not, i lie. "i need to charge my cell phone" he says showing me a USB cable and his sad, dead nokia. he has the popular blackberry style iphone touch screen thing that just sucks battery life, syncs with a computer, and shows everyone how awesome he is. alain, like most people, lives in a quartier in kin where power is rare - so his social life, communication, his status now depends on me and the ability to charge his phone. i tell alain i will charge his phone for two hours. in return he will make sure no one goes near my room, or he doesn't get his phone back, simple as that. me holding his expensive phone is now enough for alain to do whatever i tell him. can you please buy me a calling card from the one-armed man across the street?
alain, being the cleaning guy has a key to my room anyway. but he cannot steal my computer because it is locked with a special cable to the bedside table which cannot fit out the window. if the mean concierge lady were to see alain taking a bedside table away through the front door you'd be sure he would lose his precious job. there are now two things alain cannot lose: his job and his phone. a job here is survival, (and so is his phone). i have also told him there is GPS tracking on the computer and if he steals it, the belgian police will find him. he believes me. if anyone else were to steal the bedside table and laptop, alain wouldn't have a reliable source to charge his cell phone and so he won't let this happen. he sneaks me the spare key to the room when he is not at work, so no other staff can enter. alain has a lot of friends who are in a similar predicament, so he can now charge them a small fee to have their phones charged. we are "in charge!" that is our little business! i hold the power in both senses of the term. i can confiscate some other guy's phone if anything happens, and alain would be in big trouble. i don't ask for a cut from his profits, alain does whatever it takes to guard the hallway, and my stuff is safe. only thing i hadn't thought of is turning the phones off while they charge...they kept me up all night. but still, pretty smart, eh?

it was bound to happen

well it was bound to happen...sooner or later one of these fancy dinners with the ambassador and bruce and hattie babbit (former secretary of the interior and number 2 at USAID, respectively) was going to get the best of me. this time, it was the duck gizzard salad, which didn't have any gizzard, only what would become stomach wrenching lettuce. thus i learn my lesson to stick to cooked vegetables. which here, mean french fries. sigh. haven't seen any roughage in day. so here i am in my pyjamas watching bad french tv while everyone else is out at the fish market. i did make a noble attempt to go out this morning to see the congo rapids, it might not have been the best idea to star in my own pepto bismol commercial in the outskirts of kin, but it was worth the sight. i have never seen such miserable muddy roads! at one point we were stuck behind a beer truck that must have lost about 4 crates. that's why they have guys in the back hanging out, making sure no more merchandise gets lots. it was nice to get a little bit out of the centre ville though. so since i'm not really feeling so hot right now here are some pictures. actually i am feeling pretty hot. the hotel AC is down, and you can't open the windows. i'm sticking to everything. yar. super muddy roads

foosball anyone?this is the view outside my hotel room. these people are outside literally 24 hours a day. it's a non-stop party.

so now i have a phone

i made fun of my assistants pretty bad today about their phone usage and etiquette (see below). double-guy asked me if american phones use sim cards. sure they do. so he goes out the door and buys one off of some guy on the street for $1. it's the same guy who keeps me up ALL night by partying on the little square across the street. anyway, my students all loaded their pictures and numbers into my phone. they're psyched. and now i have a local phone number. i keep sending them text messages that say "you are total nerds" and they respond with, and i'm not joking, Visual Basic code. i'm now trying to download the most annoying ring tone available. any suggestions?

other funny thing that happened today, frank, a phD student who LOVES red (wears red shirts and pants) was helping me make a powerpoint presentation. he wanted EVERYTHING in red and orange. and green and purple, it looked like a japanese cartoon. i told him it doesn't look that great, we should stick with white and black. then he became very solemn. "i have a technical question...about michele. she's nice isn't she?" uh, sure yes she is. he asked me if she was fianced. i wasn't sure, so then he went up to her and tried to translate his feelings to her in english "i want to know how to gain your confidence. may i email you?"
"sorry, frank, i don't think i understand you"
"i want to know how i can get inside you."
"um, ok frank, i'm not sure what you're trying to say" and walks away. poor frank.

GIS team...assemble!

so i have an awesome GIS team. these are the young guys assigned to help me with the map making, updates, analyses. they're all guys, which is sortof off, i haven't seen a single local woman scientist here. anyway, they're a whole group of nerds, but they're young, funny, good vibes. so there's patrick, frank jean-paul and another with a double name: guy-guy, also known as double-guy. whenever i need them i say, "gis team - assemble!" and they do, and we laugh sheepishly, not wanting anyone to know we're nerds. they compare software extensions and utter double entendres about their memory sticks. they follow me with their laptops and today, i needed them to determine the area of a hexagon with an 8km side. they eagerly calculated away, my GIS team. it's not as easy as it seems, all those triangles! they all argued between themselves before presenting their result. they also argue about whose mercedes is nicer, whose hard drive has more capacity. so then the minister of the environment showed up, even though he had been fired the previous night. apparently Kabila decided to reduce the ministry from 60 to 32 ministers and our guy was one of them. it was noble for him to come. he looked like mohammed ali, had blue eyes and everyone stood when he entered and he gently bowed and let us sit down, like a king or something. then we sang the drc national anthem. it was awesome. it's all about nature and peace and love. and then i gave my talk in french, in front of 80 people and it went rather well. i could have done without the american guy who pestered me for 20 minutes "maybe i don't understand french, but pouvay voo muh deer communt vooz avay dayseeday day ooteeleezay set donnays la?" some snarky girl from my office told me afterwards "you have an accent, don't you, no wonder why i couldn't understand you." yeah, whatever, she can't even order a glass of wine. she says "un bateau de veenyuh, seel voo play" which is a boat of vines. idiot. everyone else loved it. the rest of the questions involved more guys giving their long-winded speeches about something, and then came lunch, the hotel conference room type of lunch. i arrived pretty late, having only a few seats to choose from - do i sit with all the belgians who just got off their overnight flight (and smelled like it)? or that one seat in the corner with the taxonomists (uh, boring)? i'm looking around, trying not to be seen searching for a seat with so many empty before me, when i hear, eh! aurelie! and one of those loud two fingers in the mouth whistles. over here! it's my GIS team, in the back! holding up 7 liter-bottles of primus beer, yesss! those are my guys. we stuck olives in frank's breast pocket when he wasn't looking and made jean-paul spit beer through his nose. what a great lunch. double-guy likes to take pictures of me with my own camera, which is funny, i never have pictures of myself, but now i have tons. so we had to work pretty late to get these maps done and ready to print. the large-scale printer unfortunately, is at the university, an hour away where patrick lives with his parents who are professors. we were in a big hurry to finish our maps because the university is on strike (they're so like the french down here) and it's a congolese style strike, which means military lockdown of the school and mandatory curfew. so if patrick gets home after 10:30 pm, he could go to jail, or get beat up, or both. or he can try to bribe a guard and spend the night at the lab. so i'm snapping my fingers, come on guys, the faster you work, the more beer you get...we were racing against the clock and patrick's mom was calling every 10 minutes. we gave him SO much shit for this. poor guy. then his computer crashed and we had to start all over. i finally sent him away with all he needed to make the prints, along with a 20 dollar bill for the bribe, which i am charging to my expenses as "printing fees." so after this 13 hour day, my last task was to get the door to the conference room closed. i go get the security guard to come lock the door. i'm starving, i'm tired, i haven't even stepped outside since yesterday, i'm holding a million things, i want to go. the security guard comes up the stairs and walks S O S L O W L Y towards the door of the conference room. he looks inside, he inspects some maps, he starts looking at his cuticles and i'm like buddy, please, can you lock the door? oh, i don't have the key. sigh, that's how it is.

cell phone etiquette!

i know exactly what africa needs. vibrating cell phones. it seems everyone has the loudest, most obnoxious ring tone ever, incapable of ever being silenced. i have not seen one person with a vibrating phone. it's a rule that they must all ring louder and wilder than a discoteque in Ibiza. the etiquette i've seen so far (and quite often, so i know this) for mobile phones goes like this - whether you are the moderator of a workshop session, or a photographer following the minister of environment around, this is how it goes:
set your phone to ring and blink and scream loud carnival music whenever you receive a call. if you're in a meeting or somewhere important, well, just pretend it's not yours. shrug, look around, check your watch, it's not my phone making all that racket! when the person stops calling, sigh relief. back to the meeting. oh, but don't worry, they will call again 2 seconds later. voicemail? what's that? now when your phone rings, rummage through your front pocket and react with surprise when you find your phone, like oh! it's a 20 dollar bill! the person calling you will invevitably be an unknown number. look at the number, think, do i know this person? should i answer? all the while your phone is doing a meringue in your hands, echoing off the walls. but you can't take it for long. why is this person calling me? who are they? i must answer. don't bother leaving the room, just answer it right there. it'll be someone you know, it's always someone you know. you gave them your number. but the connection will be bad. you will need to say hello? allo? allllloo? about 10 times before you can communicate. the network is probably down, tell them to call you back on your other phone, which is on another network in your other front pocket. this phone will now ring even louder than the first. this one might sing celine dion or be a loud mariachi band. let it riiiing! and then answer. at last: "allo! mon frere! comment ca va! i am in a meeting and cannot really talk right now..." but before you hang up, you must have a very inappropriate conversation, "how did that rectal exam go?" "someone told me your sister is sleeping around!" and so on. never, ever leave the room, no one can hear you, because in your world you are talking really really quietly, you are invisible!

now imagine this scenario happening about 20 times in a giant hotel conference room. this is our workshop.

happy birthday to me.

so yeah, it was my 30th birthday. on a sunday. started off typical really, slept until there was a knock on a door...groggily answered to a hotel dude dropping my off my two bottles of beajoulais nouveau that i had accidentally left in my old hotel room, before the switch. so i say thanks, and gee, it's early, isn't it? it's 10:25 ma'am. crap! our driver had been waiting downstairs for 25 minutes to bring us to our meeting. a super quick shower and dress, putting on backwards underwear and racing out the door. at the meeting, had to run through my presentation, in french. got assailed on my lack of accents, (i thought my mother had proofread, ha!) other than that, typical african meeting where people stand up and recite dynamic long winded speeches about their childhood, their high hopes for africa that in the end have very little, if any, reference to the topic of interest. my favorites tho, are professor dudu, an old congolian environmental scientist missing a whole bunch of teeth, but has the most giant smile i have ever seen.his doctoral student has a super scraggly go-t and wears a t-shirt with the sequined words "i'm maniac" on it. then there's laurent, a round-faced burkinabe with thick glasses and the excellent long dress getup. he eats with his hands. samy, our leader wears some sweet old lady-style gold rimmed tinted glasses. so the rule is you're free to call anyone (man) older than you "papa." so everyone is papa this, papa that...everyone is my papa! after the meeting we were off to the big boss's house. it was a fun ride in the back of a pickup with all the locals and some camerounians. look, the white girl wants to ride with us! it was dusty, hot and rainy all at the same time. we talked about mosquitos and goats and passed by very similar trucks full of angry military guys with huuuge guns.
we went by Mapao's house - this crazy congolese rocker who re-invents himself quite frequently and changes his name more often than he releases albums- he's been known as papa one, papa noel, benedicte XVI, which he got a lot of flack for, so he changed his name to sarkozy. maybe that makes him more bad-ass? anyway, his house has a huge wall with gold M M on the gate, which is written in the mighty mouse font. funny. so we get to our destination, a huge white square house guarded by high white walls that looked straight out of scarface. there was a huge white patio, pool out front and inside, endless near- empty rooms. it was about 10,000 square feet, not including the servant's quarters, where the cook, gardner, guard and pool boy live, the under-pool bunker and wine cellar - all rented for the same meager price i rent my place in DC. guess it pays to work down here! there was a huuuuge bbq with tons of fish heads, middles and tails. "something for everyone" it was called. i took a middle. there were the requisite gargantuan bottles of primus, skol (that's swedish for "cheers" btw) and other beer, wine, and of course, my beaujolais. we chit-chatted, took pictures, one of my GIS guys jumped in the pool and soaked everyone. it was a great mellow afternoon, the only time i've had to relax. then came the huuuuuge birthday cake. for me. some guys sang happy birthday in a local dialect and then translated: "may god add some more days to your life" only, at first i understood "may god add TWO more days to your life" and i said hey! that's not very nice! we got back in the evening, i had to work some more, and then it was off to the bar with the new visitors in town. i had a few pastis, and realized at 2am there were ice cubes in it! i had night mares about amoebas in my brain, but so far, no symptoms.

cool things i saw today:

-a guy carrying some sort of engine on his head. anything on anyone's head is pretty neat.
-a huge billboard advertising africanus.net (will someone please visit it and tell me what it is?)

-a monkey tied up outside a chinese restaurant. which, in the end isn't so cool. he started freaking out as i got closer. and how do i know i'm eating chicken?-the super famous congolese rock star: faly

-my maps everywhere!

not so cool things i saw:
-everyone coming into the office on a saturday - there's nothing much to do apparently so people just work. ahem, i plan on changing that.
-germans in speedos at the pool
-the price of a pepsi MAX at my hotel: 4000 francs congolais. that's 8 bucks!
-my new hotel room's bathroom (there were two of us, one bed, one bathroom towel. i asked for a double room, which ended up being half the size and twice as nasty).
-the guy with backwards knees who shines shoes outside. he has flip flops on his hands and walks like a gorilla. not cool.

NO PICTURES!

i wanted to go back to the airport to pick with patrick to pick up some colleagues flying in - a chance to see the crazy airport road in the daylight, during friday rush hour. we went through a pretty shady hood full of drunks and card players to pick up moses. at one point, in the middle of all these patio tables we pass all these dressed up people sitting in seats facing a tent (like a huppa) decorated with white satin and flowers. oh, a wedding! i exclaim. patrick doesn't even look, says...uh, actually, that's a funeral. really?? so i take a closer look and yup, there's the socked feet of a corpse in a glass coffin. oh, i feel really bad. "ah, there's actually not much difference," he says, "it's a big party all the same." we pulled over and waited for moses, we stopped the engine and turned up some killer congolese reggae - the funeral wouldn't mind i guess. this immediately drew the attention of all the cassette tape vendors who crowded my window. moses suddenly busted in the back seat "j'ai du chevre!" which to me would usually mean "i have goat cheese!" but here it means marinated bbq'd goat, bones, tendons and all. he unfolded a paper bag and put it on the middle console (threw the empty pepsi can that was there out the window). taaaasty. so we drove off, took a shortcut by careening around a bus and through a dirt field and onto some sort of muddy by-pass. soon, other people figured out the shortcut too, and we were knocking rearview mirrors with trucks, buses with bullet holes in them and about 150 people crowded inside, with "securite et confort" written on the side...i saw a land rover side-ram a minibus and lose its bumper. kids were running out to pick up the pieces, patrick saw an opportunity to escape the potential running over of children and we swerved around everyone on the left - and discovered why no one was using this side of the street- we bumbled through a giant muddy pothole the precise size and volume of my brother's hot tub. we ambled out and the car started making weird noises. people were honking, yelling...there's no acceleration...as soon as i was able to open my window (there was a pedestrian crowd leering and smooshing their faces against the glass, including the guys who have giant bags of little bags of water on their heads, selling them through the bus windows) i noticed we had a flat tire. but not just a flat tire, a totally destroyed blown out tire. i imagine for a moment i am in iraq and i'm going to be dragged out of this car, but no. we pull over to a quiet side street next to, oddly a pile of old blown out tires. patrick goes to get the jack and the spare, i ask moses if he's going to help and he says no way, he's le chauffeur, i am the immigration official! yes, it turns out we pay moses a salary to get people through border control without problems. he's good at his job. moses also had some sweet pin stripe pants and a sparkling white shirt so i guess i didn't blame him for not helping. he chatted on one of his three cell phones, i overheard flight info and the description of my colleague (white, blonde, american passport) while i praised patrick for changing the tire faster than the guys in the paris-dakar. turns out we had ran over a huge key that just sliced the whole thing open. i wanted to take a picture of our crowning achievement when moses goes no no no no NO! and i quickly put away my camera before two military dudes and police officers from across the field come running over, guns pointed, sweating, screaming, shouting, the impression that i was going to be looking at the barrel of a rifle soon came over me so we quickly pretended like we weren't there, threw everything in the truck and sped away.
so, you can't take pictures in kinshasa. i read this somewhere and i see that it's quite true. for some reason, they just HATE cameras. like, really really REALLY hate them. like put you in jail for even trying to capture a moment. i found out some guy visiting tried to take a picture of a building once and had people block in his car, lay on his hood, until the police got in his front seat and hit him with the butt of a gun and dragged him to jail. so, no pictures. so glad i bought a new camera! the only ones i can safely take are inside. like the one of another patrick, my gis assistant, drinking what we call terrorist coca-cola, because everything on the can is written in arabic. i guess they import it from dubai or something. where's my nutritional information?!

thanksgiving in kin

happy thanksgiving to me. i ate a fish stew in a banana leaf, along with 75 cl of Primus (like the band) beer.

so i made it to kinshasa! where to begin...i flew from washington on an overfull flight (middle seat! ugh) arrived in paris at the ridiculously early hour of 6 am. there were no open stores, no people, only vast benches and as i passed out in one, some clingy fat american couple who, out of the million available, empty, vacant! seats chose the one inches from my head to plop their sweatpantsed arses in and rant about the laziness of the french. sigh.
i boarded my flight to kinshasa and was seated in a row with a bunch of homies from philly with huge diamond stud earrings, gold chains and vulgar t-shirts who kept calling me "dawg." after their conversation about dropping beats intruded into my half-sleep, i figured they were into some sort of music. the plane took off and the coolest thing about this airbus was that there's a camera mounted on the front of the plane and you can watch live video of what's happening on your personal screen. once we took off, the view was switched to directly below the aircraft. me and my boy were transfixed. the only phrase that was uttered in the first 25 minutes of flying over paris and its southern suburbs was "this is seriously blowing my shit right now." our trance was ended by the steward who advised us that there were plenty of seats in the back if we wanted to stretch out. dawg announced "hell yeah! to all my peoples who are jetlagged, to all those who haven't slept in 3 days, to all you sleepless niggas i be represENTIN'!" and found a nice four seater row to lay out in. he then whined that he forgot his plush neck pillow but some skinny punky english guy brought it to him immediately. i slept and dreamt, awoke to a coconut chicken and beaujolais nouveau.

i went back to my original seat to get my book when i found dawg #2 curled up in my seat. turns out he's famous.

as i precariously extricated my belongings from the seatback pocket some congolese guy across the aisle asks me if i know De La Soul. "uh, yeah, sure i do."
"you are travelling with them? to kinshasa?"
"huh?"
"that's the dude from De La Soul. and that guy over there, that's the other one."holy crap! so i go back to my 4 seater and ask my boy, are you all really De La Soul? He rolls his eyes and says, well, THOSE guys are, I'm the DJ from the Roots. holy crap! my favorite juke box go to song is the seed! awesome.
so we land in kinshasa some 4 hours later. i have to pee SO bad. we exit the plane, walk between all these UN aircraft and angry looking congolese police when i get my first public bathroom experience - typical, really. no seat, no toilet paper and diarhea smears on the walls and sink. awesome. i don't think i flushed, sorry.
i go through customs and get hassled by the red cross trying to decipher my yellow fever documents. i realize i'm in room with no clear exit. there's a stairway on one end that doesn't seem to go anywhere and on the other side, a thick wooden door with these opaque glass walls on which i see about 50 hands banging incessantly. there's a mob on the other side of this door. no one else is leaving the room. the roots and de la are being quarantined by the red cross. others are chatting, hugging. i'm the only one trying to leave this room. the wooden door is locked. i'm about to turn the key when a police officer starts yelling at me, you! this way! and he unlocks the door next to the door and pushes me through. there are people yelling, tugging, holding signs, asking me about my luggage one after another they are coming right in my face when in the back i see Moses, holding up a card with my name. he ushers me to the baggage claim which is total madness. it's about 1/45th the size of a normal baggage claim, so there's only 25 feet or so from which you can see and gather your bags. meanwhile, there are guys jumping all over the moving carpet, grabbing bags and perching them on this high inaccessible shelf. i figure these are the bags you have to pay to retrieve. i'm getting pushed, nudged. rain is dripping from the neon lights al lover me. moses is talking to his buddies and i'm trying to make sure no one is sticking their hands into my bag. thankfully my bag isn't selected for the perch. moses grabs the light, portable tube of maps and shouts "let's go!" leaving me to carry my 45 pound bag, my laptop, my duty free beaujolais nouveau (gift for tomorrow's bbq), and my carryon. i'm barely able to balance it all as as we get to the door moses says "it's raining, let us wait." so he goes back to talk to his friends and i'm warding off the constant crowd of beggars, scammers, whathaveyou. i'm sick of this, i tell moses i'm not afraid of rain, let's go. we then exit the main door and into mob #2. just like the mob you see on the simpsons, only instead of moe, you have armless guy. and instead of bumble bee man you have severely diseased little boy. kinda creepy. i manage to catch up with moses who is comfortably jogging and passes off my map tube to some other guy and this young boy becomes my personal umbrella man. he meticulously points out puddles and does not let one single drop of rain fall on any part of my body. he also does not offer to help me with any of my 4 bags. we traverse the parking lot, wade through lakes of dirty water, rivers of garbage, at one point i had to jump 3 feet over a calvert. umbrella man is trying to whisper in my ear. "eh! pas de drague toi!" shouts moses (no flirting!). i get to the WWF truck to be introduced to a smiling patrick. WELCOOOOOOOOOOME! he shouts. i ride shotgun, and there's a swarm of people following me, waiting for their pay. umbrella man asks for euros. no problem, here's two (that's worth 5 bucks ya know!). i give a fiver to one buy and moses goes, no, not him! HIM! and there's an ensuing fiasco over my money and i don't care i shut my door and patrick drives away. we drive through an apparent zombie land. there are people EVERYWHERE. barefoot ladies with giant mixing bowls on their heads in the middle of the streets, guys with random t-shirts that say "i'm a proud lady wildcat" with a picture of a field hockey stick and everything in between. there's a bashed up renault with only 3 wheels that drives half off the road. a broken down bus, a truck overloaded with bags of rice, a tractor trailer with no lights meandering between lanes. there are no street lights - well, there are street lights, they're just not on. there are no traffic lights, you just, go. there are eerie candle lit markets, bonfires, bars, patio tables, and umbrellas. there are people pushing cars, changing tires, flipping over sedans. i see a police officer pull a man out of a car and punch him in the face. there are stairs to nowhere - stairs that would be one of those pedestrian overpasses, though they're missing the overpass part. there are busted up billboards. potholes deeper than i am tall. this is crazy. no one honks, all the drivers are very vigilant and courteous. there's a minivan which looks like it has an endless supply of people. it keeps stopping and letting 3 or 4 people out. patrick tells me how they fit everyone. "where your feet are, there are three people, sometimes five. in the trunk, at least 8..."
we talk about thanksgiving and beaujolais nouveau, about how rain is a blessing and politics (he doesn't like bush or rumsfeld), and where patrick comes from - kinsangani which was pretty much empty since the war. he tells me that the streets are actually empty, there are way more when it's not raining - i can't imagine what this looks like. he puts on some great congolese music. he talks and drives, not seeming to care how often we can't see through the windshield. and then i'm here, at the memling. it's basically the level of a best western. most of the clientele is white, working for the UN. the menu at the restaurant has duck, lobster, foie gras. i ordered the one thing i didn't recognize : liboke. my waiter tells me it's delicious, and it is. the only thing cold that doens't come with dysentery ice cubes is primus beer. it comes in one size: huge. and this is what i am eating for thanksgiving.

my name is racoon. i live on the third floor...

i live on the top floor of a rowhouse. there's an adorable little balcony that has a mess of plants, pumpkins, cute candleholders, whathaveyou. lately, my pumpkins have been munched. then my plants got all dug up. then i started hearing sounds in the walls. one morning i heard the quick repetitive thump of what would be something scratching. dang squirrels i thought...until i came home to a total mess - cat food everywhere, little paw prints on everything...and these two 'coons just ambled on over to shred my basil. my cat was trembling under a chair and these guys were just chillin'. even came closer for the photo.

do i have yellow fever?

no, i don't have a thing for asians...i got my vaccinations yesterday for my trip. it was like shopping at a drive-thru window "you want polio with that?" the nurse was happily adding these wonderful concoctions to my menu, when i asked if my health insurance might cover some of the fees. "Sure! want a lollipop? you're so brave!" what joy. when i went to the desk on my way out, they didn't even let me finish my sentence
"do you take -"
CASH OR CREDIT

so there went $300. not including the malaria pills that cost a mere $10 each. that's like 3 falafels! the choice was either hurt the wallet or hurt the brain - lariam has some known psychotic effects - i'm crazy enough already thanks!

the nest day is when the aches set in. ooooh the aches. like someone is driving a nail into my elbow. my arm, i can't lift it enough to scratch my chin and these hot and cold flashes. i'll give it another couple hours to see what happens. so this is what it's like to get yellow fever? happy halloween eh?

here we go

i’m going to kinshasa for three and a half weeks. most people think i’ll be sweating out the rainy season in those khaki pants that you can zip the legs off and turn into shorts, and a safari hat and eyeing bonobo monkeys and gorillas through my binoculars. write a blog, we want to read about your adventures!

hate to ruin the fantasy, but i’m going to spend most of the time in the 5 star hotel (5 stars by Kinshasa standards) running computer algorithms, hoping the power stays on long enough to charge up my laptop and all around nerding it up in French. they’ve even asked me to stay an extra 10 days to be a nerd in another office and teach them a nerdy thing or two.

so i’ll write some updates tho, maybe post a nice screen shot of the little “percent complete” meter, a photo of my breakfast, or maybe bring back some souvenirs made out of flip flops. i'll keep a posted.

monkin' it

during an endless don't-get-to-check-email-or-even-answer-the-phone 8 hour session with a consultant today i glanced out my office window and saw THE dalai lama getting out a limo and pimpin' on into the park hyatt. now THAT dude is a monk. there were all these people and children dancing around him, singing, and he was blessing these dudes with golden tasseled trays on their heads. it was like "serenity now" descended on the entire block. i wonder if hell come to my bbq on saturday. i just came up with the theme of my halloween pumpkin.

devotion

there's a guy outside my office window, in the alley behind the hotel, in between a delivery truck and a dumpster on his rug praying to the north. it's rather bittersweet. a security guard just came out to smoke, and the man snuck away.

my new favorite song

can't get it out of my head! u like?

my only.

me, laura, ken.

i wonder if...

i wonder if my cat realizes we're living in a post 9/11 world?

craigslist is always amazing

i'm playing tennis this weekend against a 74 year old woman with her own court and coach. it was organized by my dad, like every year, and against my will. anyway, the past few years i've lost and it's been embarassing so this year, i wanted some lessons. where else to turn to? craigslist of course. oooh craigslist, with your infinite supply of crazy people - what would we do without CL?
so i met up with "Ron" from precision tennis inc. for our first tennis "lesson" this morning.
he was tall, looked a lot the the statue of David, wore scrubs, and a fanny pack that held one tennis ball, which i presume he stole from his cell mate at the mental hospital. he hit our one ball over the fence on his first swing, and i then had to go into the woods to find more and "learn the true value of the ball." he hacked at every swing sreaming "hiyaaaaah!" like he was a mexican with a machete, or a cowboy on a horse, and would go into this twirling dervish dance when he wasn't swatting at invisible flies. his "serve" was underhand and he swore it was a million miles an hour and would ace Federer. "never saw anything like that, didja! huh?" and then he actually taught me to shit talk against "they" these people who were always after him, ganging up on him....like we were preparing for war. he reminded me a lot of that greek tennis pro Milos, from Seinfeld who totally sucks and asks Jerry to let him win, and then calls him a sissy boy. anyway, he told me to tell 'them' "when to go to bed, and when they're dead." which is golden advice, given the age of this weekend's opponent.
he described three important rules to tennis:
1) timing
2) flow
3) precision flow. which i guess is different from number 2. i was lectured on precision flow for 20 minutes. i still don't know what it is, but i don't have it. there were still a lot of constructive comments like "let it bounce first" or, "whip it more" and "do a little leap after your volley, it will make you feel lighter." the people on the court next to us stopped playing to laugh.
at $15 an hour, it's definitely worth the entertainment. oh, and once i paid (i had to slide the money into his racket cover like it was a drug deal) a cop drove by and he ran full speed into the woods.
Totally. Awesome.

don't think, just jetset

when someone invites you to a castle party in the south of france, and you just used up all your vacation time in france, well i'm sorry, i don't care how you do it, you just suck it up and go. pay now, think later! and you'll find yourself in the company of other people who do this shit all the time, flying from country to country, lavish affairs, and yyyeah. and then you wish you had an outfit from that jetsetter episode of project runway. Uli i needed you!

btw. at castle parties you eat lamb roasted on a spit. pre-dinner prep looks like a murder scene.

how to speed up a transatlantic flight

-first of all, if you're flying icelandair expect to have a really small, really crappy old plane that doesn't have your own personal movies and games. no, it's old school. the tv hangs from the ceiling 5 rows up so you need binoculars. and your sound probably won't work. but then again the movie is ferris bueller or something to that effect which you know by heart so just make sure you have tunes to provide your own soundtrack.
-oh and bring a sweater. it's effing freezing cold in iceland. even in august!
-they charge you $6 these days for a drink. it's craziness. good thing they sell mini bottles of booze and wine at duty free for real cheap. if you're in a civilized country like in Europe they'll let you bring it on the plane in a sealed plastic bag. if you're smart you ask them to put it in a -different bag than the rest of your booze. pop open some vodka for your aperitif, a few bottles of red for dinner, and a nice grand marnier to put you to sleep afterwards. don't make eye contact with the stewardess or she'll know what you're up to.
-when you're done with your plastic cup, slip it under your armpit and turn to the person next to you. "man, my neck hurts, these seats are horribly uncomfortable." turn your head and squish the cup for a nice crrrrrrrunch.
-when they pass around those custom forms asking you how many goods you're bringing into the country ask out loud "does the money paid for that prostitute count as a good or service?"
-make sure NO ONE knows about the pate and saucisson that are stinking up your suitcase.
-cross your fingers and hope the olive oil didn't explode.

things to do with a friday off

my office announced every other friday off this summer. yesssss! this is what i did with mine:

1. pay a visit to a poor friend in an underground cubicle...and happen to see Condi in the hallway
2. go see a summer blockbuster, and then another one in the theater next door. it's hot outside. sit in the front row. have some dude sit down and pass around chicken wings from hooters. then watch him pour rhum in his liter of coke. toast him with your king can of sapporo.
3. bike to the awakening statue and kiss it goodbye before it moves to Maryland
4. chat with some fishermen, count the dead catfish in the potomac
5. lose the key to your bike lock; get cops to cut it for you. imagine how easy it could be to steal bikes in this way.
6. go to the national aquarium. it's actually a lot better than it used to be, though still not worth the $5. especially with the blatant typos, like the exhibit entitled: "CNMI: The Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands." but it's just too easy to sneak in.

costco: your source for pet urns

so i'm on the costco website, looking for a new TV, yes, a super-awesome-flat-screen-mounts-on-the-wall TV when I misclick the 'funeral' category and find myself perusing the pet urns.my kitty is pushing 100 in cat years, and what better way to remind me of her constant puking on my rug and clawing at my eyelids? and at $59.99, way cheaper than taxidermy!
the photo of the orange tabby is particularly disturbing, though. man, if i ever came across that thing, i would say it ought to die.

sexy texting: the SEXT

so phone sex, IM sex, online dating? pff it's all a thing of the past because i'm telling you, blackberry DC! it's all about the texting sex, a.k.a. the 'sext.' it's instantaneous, it's discreet, it's anywhere. calling someone on the phone? well that's just awkward. even checking your messages these days is a pain in the ass " you have 2 new messages...to listen, press one then wait forever..." blah blah blah not fast enough!! and now, with all the new techbology you can add pictures and shit? aw yeah.
it's a whole new world just waiting to be exploited, folks. don't even think twice about it, you can sext in an airport or at work, everywhere but in a metro tunnel for those of us not on Sprint. a friend of mine, he sent a sext to his lady earlier this week, and it's been 48 hours sans reply. as a result, i think he's sextually frustrated. to his lady, that's just harsh babe. unlike a computer, your phone goes with you everywhere, so there's no excuse! are you withholding sext for strategic power? tsk.
so next time you're sitting on the bus next to some nerd who gets a sext and smiles, you can think "well, at least he's gettin' some."

the point is, everyone is doing it. you should too.

what you're doing on friday nite

...going to 9:30 club. why? because it's only $10, and there's going to be cello. and a disco funk band. and because admit it, you have nothing else to do.

friday, june 29th. be there.

leaf blowers [should] SUCK

every morning as i bike down florida past S street some guy wearing a SARS mask calmly blows leaves, dust, dirt and other garbage into my eyes ears nose and throat with his loud, annoying leaf blower. the next day, the maintenance guy across the street will blow the same crap off of his sidewalk with his own infernal machine. oh, he's wearing a mask too, because it's so dusty and nasty, and my face, once again is a filter. WTF?
who invented these things are why are they allowed to be used in DC or anywhere at all? all it does is blow shit somewhere else for someone else to deal with. at least blow it into Virginia or something. what a useless, gas using, polluting piece of SHIT. i can't think of anything worse than sweeping something under the rug. these leaves, they bother me,instead of picking them up, let me just put them over here. and do it really LOUDLY. it's the stupidest shit ever.

might i suggest a leafblower that instead sucks, maybe actually picks up the leaves into some sort of receptacle so they may be contained and disposed of, perhaps composted? now that's a crazy idea. what ever happened to the old fashioned rake? if you ask me, "what is the stupidest human invention ever?" i tell you: the leaf blower. fucking IDIOTS.

what america are you talking about?

on CNN.com today there's a story about Iraqi refugees. there are millions of them in the middle east, yet only 500 are allowed into the U.S. oh gee, right. refugees, forgot about them, sorry dude. i wonder how many refugees the US creates on a daily basis. thousands?
so they interview this family that fled to turkey and though the town sounds quite nice and picturesque (i would go there) they hate it. they can't work, they're totally poor, don't speak the language and they're not accepted. so they've been allowed to come to the U.S. and they're all psyched and here is one of their quotes:

"Whatever is in America," Toma says, "it will be a thousand times better than what we had in Iraq or Turkey because there are work opportunities. There is no discrimination, no hatred."

huh huh, i can tell you what's in America, Toma, a whole shitload of discrimination and hatred. racism, ignorance, too. and the same people who want us over there to blow your shit up who still don't know a sunni from a shiite from a kurd from a sikh. oh man, if it's anything like what those poor lost boys are facing...you better watch your back, buddy!

crazy people who write letters

so, we get tons of letters sent to my organization, and just so you know, we read every single one of them. from the kids who thank us for happy animals and draw tigers and ask if we like horses to the more crazier fans. some of the better ones are happily passed around to our friends for some good hearty laughs.

this was faxed in last week and is bout 20 pages long. here's a lovely except: "Underwear is the symbol for Gods control of the weather and natural disasters worldwide." makes you think.

it was a face melter

if you heard from guitar shredding riffs emanating from the basement of asylum last night, that was me, kicking some pimply faced couch potato ass at guitar hero. kicking over chairs, stepping on drinks, playing behind my head - it's a shame style points don't count. i lost by two notes. two fucking notes!

revenge? it's ON

when i find the rat bastard mutherbitch who stole the front AND back license plates of a car i'm driving whose owner is in europe - there will be NO MERCY! also, it would be useful if i had the keys. their whereabouts are currently 'unknown,' last seen at my yard sale (which generated over $300 in sales thankyouverymuch. aurelgrooves necklaces sold like hotcakes!).

anyway, this untagged car is my moving vehicle to my new apartment and transportation to new jersey wedding. humpf. this is going to be a great week! yes! awesome!

pirates of the CRAP!

saw pirates of the caribbean at the uptown last weekend. within the first 10 minutes of the movie, i was terribly saddened by the content that made the 9 year-old in front of me cry uncontrollably...children at the gallows is so Disney! it was obvious dad really wanted to be here more than kid, thereby ignoring the PG-13 rating...anyway 2 hours later, after a long string of scenes that don't seem to last more than 2 seconds before veering wildly off course i turn to my left
"i have no idea what's going on"
"neither do i"
"why are the chinese guys pissed off?"
"who's that guy?"
"what do they all have against johnny depp?"
"keira knightly is so fat"
"let's go get a drink"

and thus we walked home through the zoo, not knowing it was closing, but then wondering why they would close when they saw us walking there just 2 seconds before, and then we had to climb over the gate, and got stopped by a cop who tried to arrest us for breaking and entering.

but sir, we were 'exiting'

which was probably the highlight of the evening, i can't tell you one good thing about that stupid pirate movie.

and you thought it wasn't possible

my mother-in-law called me last week and asked me to make a necklace to match her dress. the dress at it turns out has a square neckline. so she wanted a square necklace. a square necklace? you mean, a squarelace? yup. even the bead store guy thought it wouldn't work out, not with these heavy chunky lapis beads it won't. oh but it diiiiid.this, my friends is the jewelry innovation of the century. i have conquered the square neckline, which is coming back btw. so get yours now. just don't ask me to mail it express to france. because that's a whole other story...
i went to two post offices, because the one that comes up when you click "locate a post office" on the usps.com website at 2121 Ward Place, is not actually a post office, it's a garage full of postal vans and postal workers on their cigarette break and who are not to be bothered. and the clerk at the second, who took 15 minutes to find me a padded envelope:
"are you sure there are no envelopes there?"
there are no padded envelopes here
"even next to the bubble wrap?"
you're out of bubble wrap too
"that's impossible"
well, i'm not an idiot, i don't see bubble wrap or padded envelopes here
"am i going to have to come over there?"
see for yourself
daaaaamn! greg! what happened to all the bubble wrap and padded envelopes?
greg: dang, don't know.
in the time it took greg and tanya both to look in the back, i counted about 100 padded envelopes plus 13 packages of bubble wrap in the little postal store, that was for some reason at 10:45 am on a monday, closed, and therefore locked behind a gate.
once i got the envelope and declared i needed to have this in Paris by friday, many questions were asked including:
"is this a gift?"
yes
"you cannot send unsolicited gifts by international express"
it's not unsolicited
"you said it was a gift, can't send gifts"
ok, so i lied, it belongs to whom i'm sending it
"too late, you already said it was a gift."

i banged my head on the counter and sent it air mail. and when i got back to my office i realized i had the customs form in my hand. this necklace may never make it to anyone's neck. sigh.

WMATA recycling update

So i got a call back from redline WMATA!
the woman i spoke to, who was very nice but quite hard to understand told me said that WMATA recycles all their newspaper. they have both a trash and a recycling service. according to the facilities manager, the only times they don't recycle is when there is trash mixed in with the newspaper, and that's when they just throw it all together, and that must have been what i saw. she was adamant about telling me that employees are instructed not to go through the recycling to pick out the trash, and so they mix is. so it's the commuter's fault for mixing trash with recycling.
hmmm. really? i asked her what constitutes the trash? she said TRASH! rubbish! i asked, how it is possible to fit that trash in the tiny slit of the newspaper bin but she just repeated herself: trash in recycling gets mixed! mixed recycling is because of trash! we don't take trash out of recycling!
hmmm. i'm perplexed. sounds like it needs more investigatins. tho i don't really commute on metro anymore, i walk...

WMATA recycles newspaper? think again

i'm sure most DCers are like me, when they carry their paper off the metro they go through the trouble of stuffing it in the tiny slit of the "newspapers only" bin at the entrance of every station. sometimes, the things are full to the gills, but still, you stuff it in there, doing your bit for the planet. it's bad enough i'm the recycling police at my building, pulling glossy carboard apart from the rest, taking plastic lids off bottles, but WMATA, our fair city's metro? the symbol of efficient public transit and carbon emission reducing whathaveyou?

for the second time in a year, waiting around a metro station i saw the unthinkable. you see the first time, i thought it was an error, but the second time, well, i wish i had my camera. there went the garbage guy, doing his business and emptying the trash cans of their diverse refuse when he proceeded to the paper bins and threw them in the same bin on wheels. mixing the papers we painstakingly presumably recycle, in with the trash.

hmmmm. so why go through the trouble of having people stuff their news in there? i've had my watch caught on the thin opening, and have even lost a ring...and it all ends up in the regular trash? well F U metro. if that's how you are, you want to lie to people, take us for a ride (metaphorically) well then maybe i'll just leave my newspaper on the seat, maybe i'll spread it on the floor - just to spite you. at least it will get read once, before you decide to put it where it belongs.

because i will no longer be a party to your evil un-earthly deeds!

and now, everyone knows your dirty little secret.

if yer not busy for the next two hours...

check out the perry bible fellowship:

stop killing tigers!

tigers are getting a bum deal in china...i don't advocate using anything's testicles for medicine or anything else.

submit your picture to the tiger mosaic, i did! good luck finding it....

safeway's non-express lanes...

so the brilliant minds behind the customer service desk at the adams morgan safeway, the same people who brought you the "let's not have more than one, maybe two cashiers on monday evenings" have unveiled another brilliant scheme for shoppers: the "every lane is an express lane."
now, it used to be that a few lanes near the doors were express (15 items or less) which is where most of us turn to with that one box of brown sugar, the late night ice cream craving or sunday morning's bloody mix. there's no room for a cart, you just drop your stuff on the rolling mat and you could hopefully be out in a few minutes. most times, you don't even scan your safeway club card, because you don't care, you just want to be out of this store already. well now, according to the new colorful signs dangling in the breeze, EVERY lane at the safeway is express.
yup, every. single. one of them.
and you don't need to be a rocket surgeon to figure out that it inherently makes evrey lane the UN-express lane because now, the guy who buys all the swanson's bratwursts when they're on sale (i've seen him. he ruined my sausage party) gets to hold up any lane he chooses. why safeway, why? do you think this will make everyone's life faster, smoother? it does not. and this is one of the few exceptions in life where segregration must be upheld (unisex bathrooms make me cringe). this is not some bohemian one world, one people philosophy or something, this needs to be stopped. as long as taco sauce remains in the international aisle, separate our aisles. because this all-embracing free for all does no one any service. even the aisle that on sunday morning read: "checks, cash, credit card ONLY"

free lawn!

i now have a lawn. i was walking home the other night and came across a pile of sod with a "FREE" sign on it. it weighed a ton but i brought home 4 square feet of perfectly green grass. i can now sit outside with my bare feet on lawn. my boyfriend waters it everyday, the indoor plants are jealous. my cat rolls around on it, and i might just set up a putting green for a bbq tonight. three cheers for instant lawn.

a HA!

i got my blog back.

the package

on Monday I signed for a package that was delivered to my building. This large, heavy package sat in our foyer, nearly blocking the front door for days…I asked everyone else in my building, do they know who the package is for, are they expecting something? nope. So yesterday, I looked at it closer…a sticker says it contains ALCOHOL. So I opened it! 4 delectable bottles of wine from Orgeon. I downed them on my patio with my neighbors. This morning tho, there was a nasty note on the front door from someone a few houses down (the penthouse of a towering loft to be exact). They know we received their package. What do I do? Drop the empty bottles on their stoop? i say their gentrifying rich arses can buy some more...

toothbrushes

toothbrushes.
you never buy a toothbrush until months after you actually need a new one. everytime you brush your teeth with that wilting plastic mess you think, “next time I’m at the store, i’ll get a new one.” of course, whenever you are actually at the store your thoughts are dominated by hot dog samples in the back, whether you still have garlic and if you want turkey or ham sandwiches this week, or if you have the strength to carry 11 lbs of kitty litter home.
so whenever the idea of a new toothbrush coincides with me actually in a store, this is a moment to pounce. and so there I was at the CVS last weekend, looking for Q-tips and amazed at the light bulb over my head that flashed “toothbrush!!” i jumped on this impulse buy one, and reached toward the collection of oral-b soft bristles in a dazzling array of rainbow colors. yet my hand is prevented from grabbing one. an invisible force field of sorts…wait, is this glass? let me move this glass – wah, this glass forms a glass case, which is locked. only one box of 4 toothbrushes for labeled at $1.99 are outside the case and they are of an unknown brand "COLGRATE."
i look around, like a squirrel who has heard a noise..to unlock this case i would need to go to the front counter, which now has two competing lines of about 8 very impatient people each, with two uncrafty mighty incompetent cashiers fumbling with the scanning devices. if i take a cashier away, i will likely be killed by this mob.
i go to the prescription counter where you have old ladies clamoring for insulin refills and a pharmacist who stares at you like an alien descended from space – like he always does when you say “i’m here to pick up a prescription” as he has just descended from his out of body experience to realize he’s a pharmacist at a CVS in adams morgan.
now, the blogosphere has reviewed a long list of stupid items that are locked to customers: like condoms which, in a city with spiraling HIV rates, should be simple, free of hassle for someone to buy. i understand that electric shavers and hair dryers are big ticket items that deserve to be in a case, as you don’t buy them everyday, you likely want to consult with someone and take your time, because it’s a big investment. but a toothbrush? Didn’t some kid die recently from poor health care? hmmmm.
so i went to safeway. and bought some more beer, US weekly, some yogurt, and like evey single friggin’ time, totally forgot to buy a friggin’ toothbrush.

vday wretch

valentine's day. where to begin. if you read that sunday source article this weekend about V-day gone bad you'll probably want to grab a vomit bucket first. there i was on sunday morning, settling in with the SS in one hand, my delish blueberry waffles, homemade pork and foie gras sausage and eggs sunny in one hand when i take in the feature, written a la YM embarassing confessions (remember those?). low and behold out of the 20 something stories, pretty much every single one was a "i bought him/her ____ and he/she got me ____. [blah blah] and that's why i dumped them." shallow, pathetic, materialistic undescribably mundane. not only about gifts, but their precise dollar values. so i guess that's when i found out this was not just another made-up 'holiday', one where your relationship hedges on dinner reservations (must be made the the man, of course. and be expensive! and frou frou! and just what your lady was imagining! and if you're gay, well...don't know exactly how that works) and then you need the perfect gift (dollar value must match or exceed your partner's!) and ultimately the perfect night...though i don't know how many of you have ever been out on a v-day night with one of those fixed course meals. insert finger in throat. if i'm not out getting drunk at asylum, there's a slim possibility i might look into buying oysters and a bottle of champagne. where does one get oysters? all of which takes work, while walking to chief ike's doesn't, and doing anything only perpetuates this shit for the rest of my life. and besides, at my house, every day is valentine's day :)

more on sudan

there was an article in the post the other day on all the super fancy ultra-rich development in, of all places, Khartoum. so apparently, they are pushing all the poor people further into the desert with bulldozers to make room for more fancy hotels. this process even has a name: kasha. man, look at that crazy egg shaped hotel! you can drink lattes while being sprayed by a delicate mist! i asked a friend who is there now why he keeps complaining about being bored and lonely when there is all this fancy stuff to be outraged at.

and he responded:

"I work 10 blocks from that crazy hotel thing. It is financed by Moammar Gaddafi. And I have had lattes at the mist cafe, it is called Ozone.

There is nothing at all, at all, good about this place. The money being poured in is from oil, purchased from China who could care less about genocide.

I will honestly say there are probably 150 people in this country of 45 Million that are profiting from this establishment. It is hurrendous, or how ever you spell it.

Name a country in Africa that has oil. Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Equitorial Guinea................Oil is a curse. It makes your more poor somehow. It's amazing. This place offers nothing to no one, unless you're soul is rancid then you might profit off of the back of some naked tribe's land.

At least I have an ipod full of punk rock and a case of Stella Artois."

and then i thought, if they have oil and they're arab, i wonder why we aren't bombing them? or at least plotting to?

on birds

1) what's with old people and birds? my crazy old neighbors put out birdseed, crumbs, younameit out on their stoop for the birdies twice a day. there is bird poop EVERYWHERE. why not in the back? or how about a bird feeder? why aren't young people obsessed with birds?
2) has anyone noticed the rival factions of pigeons at 18th and columbia? it feels like you're about to get your eyes and heads pecked out when they're all amassed, in competing flocks, dive-bombing. and which one gets to decide where they go?

west virginny

was in west virginia last weekend. don't want to stereotype, but...it was just like the stereotype. walked into a thrift store packed to the gills with awesome 70's men's shirts that would have made meeps drool. as i peruse the weapons section the deliverance theme echoes over the cheesy tin-can like department store sound system. cash register lady was wearing a pink poodle sweatshirt with curly yarn coming out of it and had a southern drawl i could barely understand.

had a hilarious late nite beer run to bill's, a bar/restaurant/grocery/canoe joint. the grocery area is two shelves of cans, mostly spam. they only take cash and seem to 'estimate' the price of their beer, sort of making an offer, foreigner tax included and rounded up. so, two cases of schlitz cans: "14 dollars?" which, ironically was exactly how much three of us pooled together from our wallets. sadly, not enough leftover to do any shots at the bar with the rest of the neighborhood.
though, sometimes i think DC can be just as...don't know what the word is for it. i went to the adams morgan safeway to get some ingredients for my gargantuan batch of hummus (i'm an expert in semi-solid foods these days, thank you cuisinart!). i'm searching the "international aisle" (though can we admit that mexican/latino food is no longer international? especially the sandinista safeway?). i ask the aisle guy if they have any tahini.
"ta-who? what's that?"
"it's used to make hummus"
"now what the fuck is hummus?!"
"...thanks, you just answered my question."

brunchin it

in order to give asylum a rest for once, release them from our endless peaches and freaks of the industry jukebox selections during peak family brunch time, i hosted my own gangsta brunch.
it was tasty. i substituted my usual waffles for french toast. now the key to french toast i find is the cheaper, more processed the bread, quite simply the better it is. i'm no fan of wonder bread in my sandwich, but the spongy stuff is the way to go for breakfast. whole wheat five grain just won't cut it here.
then, i cooked some spinach and onions and garlic and made little nests atop tomatoes in an oven dish, sprinkled basil, parmesan, goat cheese and bread crumbs on top broke the egg yolks into the hole. baked 'em for 20 minutes. i think you call those shirred eggs. yummmmmmee. and the usual snausages and green onion, and a cucumber dill salad to cleanse the palate. that's easily a 26 dollar brunch people. mix a bloody at the counter bloody bar with the tommy gun vodka (make tommy gun shooting noise when you pour), add some loud gangsta rap to piss off the neighbors and you have yourself a wonderful sunday morning.