God, and Other Things I Like to Play
| April 19, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Uncategorized |
It is creeping up on midnight and the residue of my over-stuffed day is still dripping down my face in the form of impossibly permanent mascara. I throw back the covers of the bed, and adorning nothing but the sexiest of flannel pajamas with a toothpaste smudge, flop with a thud onto the mattress. My capacity for conversation is comparable to an amoeba in a vegetative state. The Man peers up from his I-Read-Smart-People-Books Helmut Schmidt biography and casually announces the following:
“Did I tell you I believe in God now?”
His timing is impeccable, but I’ve known this since he interrupted a perfect appetizer with a marriage proposal.
A little background information on The Man. He attended the Technical University of Berlin and got some smarty pants degree in space ships or interstellar propulsion or star mechanics or something. Prereq: Being an atheist. He grew up so close to socialist Germany, he’d be asked to pass the toilet paper under the stall to the commie side (and as we know, all commies are unbelieving heathens). The last time he went to church, he was probably in utero. And back when we were dating (in the kitchenette at work mostly) and still interested in the ideals of each other, he very clearly told me that we’re all dust and matter and return to dust and matter in the end. God, he said, is just a crutch. Or something like that.
Now, he explains as I begin drooling on my pillow, he believes in God because otherwise the whole universe would really just be pointless. (I’m thinking “like this conversation” but I’ve been married just long enough to know we’re not supposed to say our thoughts out loud.) Meanwhile, I am trying to understand why the existence or non-existence of a god makes the universe more or less pointless. At midnight. In my pajamas.
Of course, I’m a good wife, so I throw myself at this new challenge like any good partner would. First I got to be the mid-life crisis, now I get to accompany The Man through his spiritual infancy and development. If neither of those things land him in hell, then nothing will.
The J Man: Known coffee connoisseur had the wisdom to understand that sometimes even forgiving required a little extra motivation.
So I’m taking applications from religious groups so that he might expand his spiritual horizon. It’s fantastic because usually I’m turning away those Mormons and Jahovahs and Scientologists from the front door with warnings that I have Turrets/Leprosy/Compulsion to Expose Myself. Generally I do this while swearing and pretending I just lost my thumb in my bra. Apparently, some people just aren’t worth saving. But now I’m going to welcome them in and wait to tell them all that stuff until they have a fresh cup of coffee (which, by the way, I’m not wholly convinced is not a deity itself [double negative, I'm from Idaho]).
Obviously, while I want to support his philosophical inquest here, mostly I want to direct him toward a religion from which I would benefit. On this matter, I’m a little torn.
- Mormons have a lot going for them: That whole multiple wife thing has some serious perks. Just as long as I’m not the house cleaning wife. I want to be the cooking wife and the shopping wife. Con: Coffee isn’t in the cards. That’s a deal breaker for me.
- Catholics are just pagans in disguise: What with all that ritual, costume, and icon worship, they are quite possibly the funnest religion out there. Con: Orgies less popular than with the pagans.
- Scientologists: An impressive roster of followers. Con: They’re obviously crazy.
- Jahovahs: No birthdays? WTF?
- Buddhists: Weird haircuts.
- Toaists: Good poetry.
- Jewish: Bagels. Need I say more.
The further I consider, the more confused I become. Try as I might, I cannot find a religion that supports the copious consumption of coffee, the worship of the housewife, and the generous sharing of all credit cards.
So I said, “Honey, now that you’ve come to this conclusion, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you and it might come as a surprise. I am god.”
It was worth a try.
Sweet Like a Danish: How to tell the difference between a pastry and an adventure racing team
| April 2, 2012 | Filled under Patagonia |
What makes Danish people (and pastries) so dangerous is their deceivingly innocent and pleasant appearance. Oh sure they look kind and tempting, even harmless, but do not be fooled as I have. Because Danish adventure racers will encourage you to risk your life, and smile while they watch.
It was a warm and sunny Patagonian afternoon. Which means I was wearing only about fourteen layers of alternating wool and fleece, and a subsequent shield of rain and wind protection and I was still freezing. I had come over a pass in the middle of the night, running in the dark behind the UK team of Adidas (see: Tales of Self-Abuse and Lost-Pride), and stopped at Checkpoint 11 to rest and wait for another team.
A little background information: Every year a small company by the name of Nomadas puts on a raced called the Patagonian Expedition Race. It is a multi-discipline race of ten days. 20 co-ed teams of four from around the globe will bike, hike, and kayak through uncharted (literally) territory on limited sleep and rationed food. They cross rivers, glaciers, mountains, fjords, swamps, impenetrable forests, and at least seven levels of hell to make it to the finish line. Only half of them actually do make it. The rest succumb to injury or the reality that what they are doing is crazy.
The Danish team CUVA sets off across the Strait of Magellan (Photo: Tony Hoare)
Somehow a bizarre chain of events involving me buying a new camp stove and taking the role of a journalist led me to Chilean Patagonia and an organization of some of the most passionate renegade conservationists I’ve ever met. Stjepan Pavicic and his super-hero sidekick, Ann Meidinger (who will tell you her entire life story without mentioning that she’s a world champion rower and PER winner) run the shop like catastrophe around the corner is just salt on your chips: It makes a good thing better
Back to Checkpoint 11: I am waiting for a team and my strategy is to find a group of racers that look tired and slow, or just really nice. I let a few of the leaders go by before I see the Danish team of CUVA coming from a distance. I know they are friendly and have good taste in long underwear, because their female racer and I showed up to an interview wearing the same shirt. I make my decision based on our fashion choices and ask if they mind if I tag along for a while. I think they could smell the beef jerky in my backpack, because they did not hesitate in saying I was free to join.
CUVA from right: Mort, Peter, Thea, & Kim.
The Danish team is made up of Thea Storm Henriksen, Kim Greisen, Peter Villadsen, and Morten Carl. Peter and Mort were late recruits to the team – as in something like five days before the race they got a phone call saying “hey, some of our racers have to change plans. Do you want to run the world’s toughest race with on Tuesday?” I think Peter had some experience in adventure racing but Mort told me his training is made up of 5ks and Crossfit.
I asked him, “Is this race kicking your ass?”
“Pretty much,” he said, but with that misleading Danish grin.
Checkpoint 11 is at the edge of the Valle Profundo: a great chasm in the Patagonian landscape where waterfalls spray rainbows down hundreds of feet of rock and you think a pterodactyl is going to come swooping past at any moment. The only access to the valley is by way of a 70 meter (200ft) abseil over a cliff and into the lush green forest floor below. It only occurred to me once I was standing at the edge of my potential death that I had never really done a drop like that before. And certainly not with a loaded backpack. It was the first time I thought about leaving my espresso pot behind.
Two of the team disappeared into the canyon and I went to rope up. Standing there on the rock was Marcelo Noria – a race volunteer and mountaineering expert that ensures the safety of the racers in this crucial section. I guess he is experienced enough to know that my sheet-white face is the result of fear, but when he asks me if I am afraid I lie and shake my head no. He fashions a prusik, tells me I am making him sweet and promises he’ll fetch me if I pass out. Somehow, this fails to comfort me because it is followed by the information that once I start the descent, I have to complete it as we don’t actually have the tools to climb rope.
The Valle Profundo
Surprisingly, I did not plummet to my death. I went down the rock as fast as I could, which I guess looked rather like slow motion to a team of racers who were going to subsequently bound down the canyon walls like they were rubber. Once in the valley, they grabbed their trekking poles and set off at a steady pace over, around, and through the trees.
As we trekked through Patagonian forest the team chatted pleasantly. One wouldn’t think they’d been racing already for four days. After an hour of trekking along the river, they stopped for water and I sealed our friendship by sharing cookies. As we made our way into the valley, the forest waned away and the ground turned to the legendary tundra of Patagonia.
I thought I’d be smart to stick close to Thea through the tundra. She had a sixth sense for avoiding the hidden pools of water, and a breadth of step that could only come from an expert swamp runner. Or, as I later learned, a world-class cross-country skier. Things were beginning to make sense. It wasn’t until much later I would understand what I had gotten myself into.
Tundra in Patagonia is like a hidden obstacle course. Or like God’s game of Whack-A-Mole in which expedition racers pop in and out of swamp grass, their little heads bobbing through the valley. Every third step or so, you miss the grass or it is simply not there, and suddenly you disappear into the water – sometimes to your knee, sometimes to your waist. In this fashion we worked our way out of the valley as the sun began to drop to the east.
The next checkpoint was around a small range of mountains and across a river. The map recommended a route that went to mostly around the mountains and over a shallow pass. The Danish team were happily chatting in the afternoon sunlight and pointing at the mountains while staring at the map. I should have known something was up because they were clearly pointing at some impassable terrain.
In my head, the conversation went like this:
Thea: “Wow, look how steep that mountain is.”
Kim: “Yeah, if it wasn’t so steep and dangerous and almost getting dark, we could climb over it.”
Peter: “But we don’t have the equipment to safely climb something like that.”
Mort: “And surely we wouldn’t want the race journalist to get killed.”
Based on the events that followed, I think the real conversation went more like this:
Thea: “I could ski right up that.”
Kim: “Let’s climb it in the dark and see if we can parachute down the other side with our tent!”
Peter: “If we’re lucky, there’s a cliff on the other side!”
Mort: “Journalists are overrated anyway.”
Mort and Peter make their way across the turba (Photo: Chris Radcliffe)
Instead of following the river out of the valley, they headed straight for the mountain. The tree line ended about a third of the way up. This was followed by a wide strip of grey rock. And the top third was sort of a mixture of jagged cliffs, death-defying canyons, and snow fields. Best of all, we had about ninety minutes of daylight left, and I was pretty sure we weren’t going to make it to the top by then.
The French team came up behind us as we crossed the valley and began our ascent. There was some further exchange about climbing straight up the mountain and when they asked what was on the other side, all I heard was a pregnant pause and a very French “Suprees!” That’s what I love: climbing hills in the dark just for the surprise on the other side. Apparently French people do too, because they followed us up the mountain in the dark.
Kim tore up the steep rocks as if they were nothing. I had heard rumour that in his real life (the place where people go when they are not adventure racing) he does something called a deca-Ironman. For those of you who don’t believe there is something that crazy out there – it is not only true that people do ten ironmen back-to-back, but Kim actually broke the world record by doing 35 in 2011. The Patagonian Expedition Race isn’t even a warm up for him. Which is probably why he can chat me up while I suck air and cling to my trekking poles for dear life.
It gets cold when the sun goes down and we are climbing in the dark for what seems like an eternity. It is steep and we grapple at rocks (the trees have long disappeared), picking way up the mountain. I can only see what my headlamp lights up in front of me. For this I am thankful because there is a crack in the mountain next to me and when a rock topples over the edge, it clatters its way down into the abyss for hundreds of feet.
It is clear to me as we near the top that this is all very dangerous and that probably I should not tell my mother that I have been scaling a mountain in the dark with no safety measures. The wind picks up near the top and the frozen snow patches make a new challenge. Rocks are loose and tumble down the hill and the only sound in the bitter air is the occasional warning called through the line of lights making their way into the blackness. “Rock!” echoes down the mountainside. Looking behind me, I can see the distant spotlight of headlamps making their way out of the valley. I try to do some Morse Code with my headlamp: “D-O-N-T __ C-O-M-E__ U-P__ H-E-R-E. __T-H-E-S-E__P-E-O-P-L-E__A-R-E__ I-N-S-A-N-E.” But as I don’t know Morse Code, I think I accidentally recommended the Guanaco Stew.
At the top we are less sheltered and the Patagonian winds are chilling my Patagonian swamp-soaked clothes. I put on another layer as we make our way across the ridge but I am shivering in the night air. We cannot see a safe route down the mountain, but we can see the lure of the single spot of light in the valley: Checkpoint 12.
Peter decides to scout a route and I stare up at the stars. There are more stars there than I’ve ever seen and the Southern Cross is high in the sky. Peter comes back for us and we start our way into a wide saddle, across some snow and soft rock. Peter appears to be a mountain goat as he literally leaps and bounds down the rocks with nothing but a bazillion watt headlamp guiding him. And some sort of Danish Kamikaze urge.
The team decides they’ll rest for the night in a gully between rock and snow patches. They want to wait until sunrise to descend so that they can actually see where they are going. As we’re standing there on the icy hillside I am feeling rather like an orphaned writer amongst world class athletes. I wonder how I can get some of their awesomeness to rub off on me. Quite literally. So I point out that I have my own tent, but of course, five people can sleep just as comfortably (and warm) in a tent as four.
I think they maybe would have hesitated except that they’re all so nice. And I promised to share my beef jerky. Later, I began to wonder if they had not lured me into the mountains solely with the intent of me falling off a cliff and them keeping my beef jerky. It would not be the first time the homemade jerky (a la Annabelle) was greatly in demand.
I tugged off all my soggy merino wool and changed into my only dry set of long-underwear, glacier winds chapping my behind. My bag and mat were tossed into the tent, an oasis of coziness in the middle of the Andes. Food was consumed and washed down with water. Headlamps went out one at a time. Soon, the only thing to be heard was the soft breeze against the stones outside, and the deep breathing of four, tough Danish racers.
My chilly sleep is interrupted by some out-of-place peeping sound. It takes a few peeps before I realize that it is an alarm. The tent stirs with the groans of sore and tired racers. My face is stuck to the icy side of the tent and I am determined to leave the rest of my body in the sleeping bag, but the team is wasting no time in getting back on the course. Still in my sleeping bag, I reach outside to find my wool long underwear. It is frozen solid, with little frosty crystals like decorative glitter. I swear in about fifteen different languages because I am fully aware of the level of discomfort associated with slipping into frozen clothes.
Of all the things difficult about this race, it is clear to me that the level of discomfort is the most difficult. It is almost constant after a certain point, and simply increases or decreases, but it is never gone. Eventually, levels of lower discomfort almost feel like comfort. Apparently adventure racers have the mental stamina of people who survived the Spanish Inquisition, because no one else seems bothered by the fact that their shoes are ice blocks. I cannot even get my foot into my boot, but once I do, it feels surprisingly comfortable as if I am icing my swollen feet.
All of this discomfort is quickly dwarfed by the Patagonian beauty lit up by the sunrise. The sky is blue, the mountains of the Darwin Range stretch out before us, and far off in the distant valley is a river. A river we’re apparently going to cross when we make it down the mountain.
The team is off within minutes, tent packed and layers being shed as we descend into the sunny warmth of the day. Anything above freezing feels like warmth at this point. Thea scales down the rocks as if she were on a leisurely walk in the park. She crashes over bushes, tromps through creeks, and slides down muddy slopes. The warmer the team gets, the faster they move toward the valley. Daylight is precious in these races, and CUVA makes the most of it.
Everyone seems in such high spirits that I almost forget they are competing in a world class sporting event. Thea mentions the fantastic weather and beautiful day. Peter is bounding down the hill like a child. Mort is bright-eyed. And Kim, the giant Ironman, is chipper like it’s Christmas morning.
We stop to look over the route, which is much safer than last night’s scaling adventure, and Kim says,” It’s hard to believe how many times we put the weight of our entire lives on a Salomon shoe and the tip of a trekking pole.” It is a realistic assessment of the journey.
Do not be misled by the steam rising off the water. It is not cozy like a cup of tea. Team CUVA + 1 scared writer preparing to swim. (Photo: Tony Hoare)
As we reach the river’s edge we can see the French team completing the cross. The checkpoint staff and photographer Tony Hoare are yelling across the river to us. They tell us we should go upstream and try to swim across, because the tyrolean they’ve stretched across the water is a tough crossing. The current is fast against the rope, and if footing is lost in the deep water, the rope will tend to drag under. This is even harder with a pack on.
We head upstream and follow instructions: Walk into the river as far as possible and then swim as hard as we can until we reach the other side. If we miss the sand bar at the corner, we will drift downstream until we can get out again. This is not, however, water in which one wants to drift downstream. The Rio Azopardo is made up of glacier runoff. There is still frost on the grass.
Thea and Kim are in the river, packs over their right shoulders, and across within minutes. I can hear by their gasping that the water is cold. I waste no time stuffing a few of my things into my dry bag and attaching it to my backpack. I pull off my shirt and sling my pack over my shoulder. I don’t hesitate because I am aware that hesitation will lead to fear, or common sense, and I step into the river.
Crossing the Rio Azopardo (Desperate swimmer: Ammi Midstokke, Photo: Tony Hoare)
The water is not cold. It’s bone-breaking chilly. I feel like my body is being prepared for cryogenic burial as I walk deeper into the river. Tony is yelling at me to swim hard when I lose my footing and then suddenly the ground is gone and I am under water.
I am thinking to myself “This is so wrong!! Bodies are not supposed to do this crazy shit!!!!” Then a sort of survival thing kicked in and I paddled my heart out, kicked my booted feet, and tried to swim across a river at the end of the world. I could hear myself gasping and I could see the corner fast approaching. The current was much stronger than it looked and as I got near to the other side, Thea and Kim were telling me to put my feet down. As I stood up in the water, they splashed in and grabbed my bags and arm and helped me to the shore. I turned to see Peter and Mort making their crossing, and decided that Danish people have no sense of temperature as they came unperturbed out of the water.
Photographer Tony Hoare captures my precise feelings about crossing the river...
This would be where I said my goodbyes to CUVA. As they slipped back into their racing gear and reorganized their packs, I made them some real coffee (a rare treat in these parts) with the help of checkpoint staff, Anh Chu, whose hands were stable enough to actually operate the camp stove. Wrapped in dry clothes and wrapped in a warm sleeping bag, I watched as CUVA headed off in a single-file line toward the Darwin Range.
Their incredible sportsmanship and positive attitude would carry them through the final eight stages. CUVA were one of a handful of teams to complete the 2012 Patagonian Expedition Race, and this with a patchwork team of worthy athletes. Their charisma and happy determination was a highlight of the course and I cannot imagine having a better time risking my life on windy mountains or swimming icy rivers than with a crowd of Danish racers.
Though next time I feel like spending time with some Danes, I think I’ll just spend a weekend in Copenhagen: No trekking poles necessary.
CUVA in the Darwin Range (Photo: Alexandre Buisse)
The Cafe and The Penis: A story of celebrating International Women’s Day
| March 8, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose |
It is hard to command a position of respect when people know you have porn on your phone.
As I have explained in a previous post, I somehow got inebriated at a parent board meeting and was voted as president of a kindergarten. I would like to clarify a few points here:
1. The kindergarten is a tree-huggin’, hippie commune in the forest where emotion and organic meals take the same priority.
2. You have to be seriously inebriated to survive a parent board meeting with beatnik green party members. In Germany. (Which kind of exponentially increases the seriousness to which a human can take their level of devotion to banning atomic energy and the like.)
Now, some things have been going awry at our free-love kindergarten because, God forbid, someone made a decision without ensuring that all parties have found inner peace on the matter first. Communication, open communication and fairness and granola are pretty much priority around here. And so the President (me) and the Vice-President (unnamed victim) called a meeting to discuss these very important matters with our teaching staff before they escalated to the likes of an Elders Gathering or Sage Burning.
We chose a neutral place for our meeting today: A cafe where they serve coffee and organic teas.
We arrived with our points of discussion carefully laid out: Words were chosen specifically to not offend or point fingers or suggest using non-recycled materials.
It’s funny how things come full circle in a conversation. In order to keep things casual, we all somehow began talking about it being International Women’s Day. I complained that instead of celebrating women we seemed to be bashing men (see my post from last year) and one of the teachers told me that in some countries today is a holiday and none of the women go to work. Sweet. My whole life is like International Women’s Day.
I am sitting at a small cafe table with two teachers and the vice president and we are having very serious conversations about things like safety measures below swings, competency of the Party & Celebrations Department, and trust in the value of people’s statements. Because that’s what running a kindergarten is all about.
So when my phone peeps, I ignore it. It is sitting on the small cafe table and I don’t even glance at it because I want the teachers to be aware of how mesmerized I am by the significance of our discussion. I am focused, like a good president. Like when Bush won’t blink during a book reading in class, my “Message Received” notification does not penetrate my concentration on the matters at hand. The people at the table glance at the brief disturbance, but continue the conversation.
For the record, I have an iPhone and I love it like butter. In case you do not have an iPhone and you are thinking of maybe getting one, please do not let the remainder of this story influence your decision to purchase. Because I am sure there is some kind of setting that could be changed to avoid a fiasco such as the one to follow, but as I do not actually know how to use the phone I own, such things occur.
“… and thus it is essential for the socio-emotional development of the children that we continue to provide vegetarian…”
“Peep,Peep.”
My phone, insistent like a toddler, reminds me that I ignored the first notification of a message and so I try, without being noticed, to divert my eyes to the screen to see who is writing me what.
As my husband was, at that moment, taking care of my child and the VP’s two children, it was a possibility that he was messaging me to inform me that someone had chopped off their fingers or ingested a Lego or something of that sort. By now, the peeping of my phone had shifted from occurrence to annoyance. I decided to make an expressions of concerned importance when looking at it so everyone at the table would understand that whatever was being sent to me probably affected everyone and we should probably all be paying close attention.
The engineers at Apple are clever blokes. Just so we don’t have to further distract ourselves from meetings, they show messages on the screen when they arrive. Or when they remind. And so when my phone peeped, sitting in the middle of the tiny table, less than a foot away from everyone surrounding it, the screen displayed the message. Some of us are fast readers, others are not, but in this case it did not matter.
Because the screen of my phone was lit up with the glowing image of a bright, pink, and quite stiff, PENIS.
And I don’t just mean in the background. I mean my phone was like a Christmas light of potential coitus. Proud and pert it stood, for all the wool-wearing people to see.
I reached over, clicked the dimmer button, and said something distracting like, “And are the children singing Tolstoy rhymes during the sunrise circle?”
The VP was looking alarmed now and I wasn’t sure if it was because I mentioned Tolstoy rhymes (if he’d written them, they would have made Shakespeare appear short-winded) or if it was because she likely assumed that my husband was sending me photos of his erection while a) I was meeting with the kindergarten teachers and b) he was supposed to be watching the kids.
Further clarification: Even from across a coffee table, I could identify said protrusion as one I had not yet met in person. And/or had too many cocktails to remember. In any case, I wasn’t married to it.
Mortified, I tried to stop blushing and wracked my brain about who-in-God’s-name-would-send-me-a-picture-of-their-business-at-four-in-the-afternoon?!?!? and focus on more important matters at hand (the security of top secret documents about kindergartner development).
My phone peeped again, and this time I snatched it off the table before it had even finished its peep, fearful that the next image might have me in the background dancing with a bag of rufies.
It was a text message from an unnamed friend (I am protecting your identity for your mother’s sake, but you so.freaking.owe.me.) reminding me that it’s International Women’s Day. Apparently the electronic erection card is a traditional means of celebrating.
Which reminds me, I should forward that message to all my lady-friends. It was definitely worth appreciating.
Spanish for Skeptics: How to linguistically humiliate yourself in any circumstance
| January 30, 2012 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Patagonia, Uncategorized |
I am pretty sure my Spanish teacher believes in magic. Which is why he has one of those impossibly long names like Luis Daniel de la Burrito de Pollo del Casa con Quesa. You never meet a person with a simple name, like Bob Smith, who believes in magic.
When I was looking for someone to teach me Spanish, I had few requirements: The person must know a plethora of swear words so that I may accurately articulate in an authentic representation of my personality, and they should pretend to be very impressed with my progress, no matter how limited. For this, I pay a small fortune. Actually my kid’s college fund because she said she’s going to be a tiger when she grows up and tigers don’t need to go to Ivy League school.
I should have known something was amiss the first time Luis Daniel de la Bodega del Tequila de Rio Grande asked me if I had done my homework. I don’t pay the equivalent of a Saudi princess’ dowry so that I can do homework. For this price, I could have a Spanish chip implanted into my brain. For the first three lessons, I tried to impress him with my vocabulary of cocktail ingredients and Taco Bell drive-thru negotiations. It failed and I left each class with haphazard conjugations of verbs and the ability to request the next bathroom/rescue helicopter/posta medica (uh, three things not as related as they appear here).
Somewhere along the way we had one of those Spanish get-to-know you conversations. I came across as a wholesome American girl because I am linguistically incapable of saying anything true about myself in Spanish (except my propensity for tequila consumption shines through). I did come out with “yo soy caliente” which I was promptly informed is considered the standard hooker greeting on the streets of Mexico City. At least I know that if I run out of money, I will have the language skills to make more. During this unwitting conversation about the state of my libido, I learned that el Senor likes to paint and I was glad to know we had something in common besides our height.
And then things got interesting.
El Senor likes to paint bodies. I don’t mean portraits. I mean bodies. My respect for him jumped from 5’3″ to 6’1″ in less time than it took for me to recall that Jerry Garcia bush-as-beard image I can never erase from my brain. I’ve seen some far-out body painting in my day, and not just at the Rainbow Barter Fair in Eugene, Oregon (where 50% of the visitors wear paint, and the others just wear piercings and tattoos). But upon further inquiry I was informed that we were not discussing the sort of painting that puts a pair of airbrushed jeans on Heidi Klum. Suddenly, a string of descriptive adjectives came flying across the table – word combinations that remind me of my spiritual infancy. Like,
“Mind body connection”
“Collective consciousness”
“Spiritual oneness”
“Intuitive healing”
and the one I fear most:
“personal growth.”
The latter sounds a little better in Spanish: crecimiento personal. But it likely has the same horrible connotations of introverted self-processing and other things I do my darndest to avoid. Which is why I am a virtual Peter Pan of emotional maturity, forever stuck at twelve years old and having a crush on the last boy that made eye contact with me.
So my Peruvian Spanish teacher is immersed in the world of juju stuff disguised with words like “holistic” and “sustainable.” Usually in some alternating combination. At first I was alarmed and concerned about this discovery. What if he tried to convert me or encouraged spiritual growth? Or worse… what if he convinced me to go to a yoga class?!
My concern was exacerbated by our lesson on the six senses.
I thought I heard wrong. There are only cinco sentidos. Unless you consider the Latin American ability to dance a sixth sense for which we have no English word. But my Spanish teacher conjugated it for me:
yo intuyo
tu intuyes…
I humored him and when he left I did some banal Western Civilization sort of thing like play Mah Jong until my eyeballs were sore.
Eventually I got around to doing some of that homework he had told me about. Apparently there is a theory that if you sit down and try really hard to learn something, you might actually learn something. And there I was sitting at my table writing down the future tense of something, my brain totally stuck on some question I had about infinitive verbs, thinking… I better not call and ask because technically I pay like five dollars a minute for his time… when…
He called me.
Creepy synergy brain wave stuff happened. El intuye. He’s pretty good. But if he was really good, I’d have learned Spanish telepathically by now.
The Rucksack Tutorial (or, Real Hikers Go Commando)
| January 14, 2012 | Filled under Patagonia |
I usually travel pretty light. At hotels the bell boy never needs more than two trips to get my luggage to my room. And I have learned to combine outfits with shoes so that I need no more than two pair per day of travel. It’s an art form.
Before I head off on some hiking/racing/writing expedition, I figured it would be prudent to inform myself on proper rucksack packing procedure. This is somewhat inspired from the time I hiked the Himalayas, carrying at least one set of formal wear, three pairs of pumps, and a caipirhina mixing set, only to find their only use was an impromptu Sherpa drag show in Namche. You cannot imagine the fight I had to put up to get those shoes back.
This time around, I wanted to be prepared and efficient. So people take me serious and stuff. Because if there is any way to earn respect on the trail, it’s when you pull out a bag of trail mix that still has M&Ms left in it. After researching about proper pack type and technique, I have composed this informative tutorial for those needing some guidance.
A Brief Rucksack History
Traditional reff without female load.
Backpacks have been around even before Jansport. They developed from prehistoric times when migrating males transported items of ownership, in most cases, a woman. (This may also be the origination of monogamy because carrying more than one woman was associated with a number of spinal injuries by chiropractors of the time.) The modern backpack still emulates this design, though shoulder and hip straps have replaced limbs for comfortable fit. The navigation feature of the female has been substituted by Garmin GPS units, most often employing a female voice and providing only minimally reliable directions while changing its mind frequently.
Fittingly, the traditional Rucksack was created by ze Germans shortly after their foreheads shortened enough to facilitate engineering feats (a trend that began with the Thermos in Munich and continues today with iron-clad union contracts). This coincided with their development of sausage, which coincided with the national increase in BMI, and the invention of the rucksack predecessor: the reff. Reffs were used to carry women more comfortably and had the added benefit of freeing up their hands so they could make sausage during transport.
Eventually the Germans invented the Hausfrau and reffs were no longer needed. Men only required small packs to carry gear when they escaped the Hausfrau on recreational Jaegermeister drinking excursions in the mountains. This led to the invention of mountaineering and the rucksack.
ruck·sack
[ruhk-sak, roo
k-] noun
a type of knapsack carried by hikers, bicyclists, etc.
Today one can find an assortment of rucksacks available for hikers and travelers. Most companies even make female versions which are essentially the same as male versions only in better colors and with an extra compartment for shoes and makeup.
Packed weight distribution model.
Packing a Rucksack
Unlike sausage making, what you put in a backpack actually does matter. First, and following my father’s sage packing advice, a traveler should carefully lay out all the items that are absolutely and unconditionally necessary to survival during the trip. Draw a line in the middle of the items and pick which half to pack, because that’s all there is room for.
To get started, I found this fantastic diagram of efficient weight distribution of a loaded pack and began sorting my things into piles accordingly. There is a phenomenon of a nearly Buddhist nature that occurs when one is packing only the bare essentials: Things previously thought essential for survival (Bowie knife, latest Oprah issue, canned corn) become a burden. One detaches oneself from items that once defined the person (portable DVD player, case of SPAM, hairspray), until one is left with a sort of Feng Shui layout of minimalist camping gear (espresso machine, generator, down pillow).
To avoid unnecessary shifting of items, I created my own packing list and diagram based on the accepted weight distribution model. I was pretty sure everything would fit because I bought this backpack that was on display outside the shop and kept inflated by an air compressor. It is approximately eighteen feet tall and has the capacity of a Volkswagen bus with a surf rack. Should I decide to settle in the wilderness of Patagonia, I will simply inflate my pack, convert the top storage compartment into a loft, and move in.
Unfortunately even my most critical consideration of what is really required to survive in such conditions proved to be a challenge for my pack and I had reconsider the difference between staying alive and staying comfortable. I used a series of logical equations to help me make intelligent and informed decisions as follows:
Coffee makes you strong.
Long underwear is for the weak.
Tough hikers go commando.
Beef Jerky is the protein equivalent of nirvana.
Medication is only necessary in statistically rare situations.
First Aid kits should be comprised mostly of First Aid Jerky.
… and Ambien.
Personal packing diagram.
After employing this proven method of packing priority, I reduced the weight of my pack to approximately that of the Sunday congregation of a Southern Baptist Church and their feast of fried chicken. Now I’m researching the pack-goat renting possibilities in southern Chile as well as sourcing some goat-flippers for fording rivers. Goats are incredible packers. Not such good swimmers. Ultimately I think I might be forced to survive several weeks in Patagonia without underwear or moisturizing lotion. I’ve been training for this possibility by watching Rambo movies and reading up on the nutritional content of lichen. (Wouldn’t you know – I just Googled it and you can eat lichen. My trip is saved, even if the jerky gets confiscated at customs.)
Patagonia for Beginners: Where Starbucks are as Sparse as the Huemul
| January 10, 2012 | Filled under Patagonia |
It wasn’t too long ago that I discovered Patagonia was a geographical region and not just a clothing line. This is likely because my understanding of world geography is based on this map:
The World According to Ammi
Thus equipped with reliable information on one of the world’s last remaining wildernesses, I recently determined to venture to this green-place-on-the-map to hobnob with locals and drink Mate frappucinos. The planning process went something like this:
The Man: “I have paid leave.”
Me: “I’m going to Patagonia.”
The Man: “Do you speak any Spanish?”
Me: “Burrito de Pollo, Chimichanga, Tequila… am I forgetting anything important?”
The Man: “What will you do there?”
Me: “I just told you.”
With my itinerary virtually complete, I was but left with some of the finite details of organizing an excursion south of the hemisphere: The purchasing of every. cool. hiking. thing. ever. Because an adventurer is only as good as her gear. As a result, I now own approximately 14% of REI.com, along with a pretty sweet ultra light tent and something called The Pocket Rocket that sounds like a useful piece of kit for a woman traveling alone, but actually is just a little stove.
It just so happens that for the last ten years, a little race has been taking place in Patagonia right about the time I wanted to go there. By “little race” I mean the world’s foremost Adventure Race and quite possibly the most bad ass competition ever thought up by a pack of lunatics unnaturally attached to things like nalgene bottles and gaiters.
A crash course on Adventure Racing
- People who adventure race are masochists of questionable sanity who thrive on sleep deprivation, water-logged limbs, and chaffing.
- Adventure Racing generally includes a combination of challenges like: Running, biking, kayaking, Guanaco herding, beaver slaying, injury dressing, maimed teammate carrying (similar to the Scottish Highlands version of courting), and isotonic beverage consumption.
- Teams (usually co-ed and comprising of 4 members) must complete the race in unison. I read in the official rules that it was acceptable to drag or pull members. It did not specify whether they still needed to be alive.
The Patagonian Expedition Race is facilitated by some generous sponsors, conservationist/geologist Stjepan Pavicic, and his company, Nomadas Outdoor Services: An organization dedicated to sustainable ecological solutions and preservation of the Patagonia region. This is not any ol’ outdoor service company with a few kayaks, maps of local parks, and guides patient enough to deal with your average tourist. These guys know Patagonia – in fact they probably made most of the maps. They are educators and advocates. And apparently madmen who know how to operate a compass, because they’ve created an event that only the most hardened (and possibly crazy) adventure racers would attempt.
NASA Satellite Image of Patagonia
The course, which changes every year and is kept more secret than tax reports of Republican candidates, is the stuff of Lewis and Clark expeditions: Hundreds of kilometers over areas charted by way of stick drawings in the sand. Racers are given a map and a slap on the back and sent on their merry way on a journey where the clock does not stop ticking. The terrain is, if anything, unforgiving and I suspect that Stjepan takes a sort of sadistic pleasure in finding routes that have maximum bog-wading potential and a snow/ice/rain probability of about 95%. Let’s not forget the roping sections, swimming in glacial runoff waters, and 200 km per hour wind gusts.
Everything about this race says “Fun.” And because it also involves a good cause, I quickly determined I must be part of it so I could glean off some of the good karma they are racking up. Perhaps it will balance out the carbon footprint of my flight to Chile.
I began a campaign to sell my great talents and enthusiasm for all things soggy and gritty to the race organizers. I sent them lists of my inherent skills and experience:
- Ability to communicate via curse words in most languages.
- Ability to get hopelessly lost in wilderness and survive by freakish good luck or the hand of God or something.
- Healthy respect for animals that could eat me.
- Profound appreciation of animals that I can eat.
- I organize stuff muey bien. And write.
- I watched an Adventure Race clip on YouTube
Apparently most of the volunteering world is at a conference in Vegas that week or something, because their HR manager wrote me back and said I could come write some stories about the race. That is, if I can find the teams between the brush and glaciers. If not, I promise to make up a realistic fiction version instead, in which there is a kayak paddle Kung Fu battle for the last PowerBar on a floating ice berg. And a penguin stampede.
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Next week: Long Underwear Is For the Weak and Coffee Makes Strong: How to prioritize packing with simple logic.
Resolutions for the Weak of Resolve and other New Years Survival Tactics
| December 28, 2011 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose, Uncategorized |
Every year it’s the same thing. I pick some sort of lofty goal of self-achievement, personal-growth, or athletic-stupidity to undertake. There have been some real winners in there over the years. Like the year I wanted to read something from every Nobel Literature winner and I made it to Theodor Mommsen’s A History of Rome before I gave up, mostly because I couldn’t stay awake beyond the third page. There was the year I was going to return library books on time (I still have some of them). Take my vitamins every day (still have some of those too). Have sex twice a week (went great until I was single and unwilling to spend my weekends earning extra cash at a bordello). Eat organic. Buy local. Write letters. Drink less. Be better.
In the weeks leading up to New Years I successfully avoid doing anything good for myself by establishing a “right time” clause in my daily behavior. There is, after all, a right time for everything. December appears to be the right time for gluttony, binge drinking, and embarrassing yourself in front of your neighbors (often all on the same night). I go through phases that one might liken to accepting pending death, from hoping that rapture will come on the 31st, to a sort of bloated, pathetic resignation when the first of January rolls around. Alright, New Year, come and do what you will, with all your gym sessions, deprivation, and self-depreciation. I’ll play along until I’m eventually motivated by the much greater fear of being seen in a swimsuit.
Without a doubt there are people in The Circle (this is not a reference to a Nia class, but rather a group of friends and acquaintances) that challenge or reiterate one’s own beliefs about the New Year and New You phenomenon. My personal favorite are those that say they don’t need “January 1st” to make a wanted change in their lives because they are in a constant state of self improvement. I am assuming, for my own sake, that their resolutions are simply too embarrassing to admit (masturbate less than three times a day, stop stealing change from mother’s purse, vote democrat) so they come up with something to remind you that bettering yourself once a year is far from enough. The only thing worse than these non-resolutioners are resolutioners who actually achieve their goals every year. Even Buddhists despise them.
The truth is, after the holidays, you don’t need a New Year’s Resolution, you need fucking Cookie Detox and Relatives Rehab. And let’s not forget the physical/emotional dependency to spiked eggnog most of us have developed. Maybe that’s why the placement of the New Year has us desperate to turn a “new leaf” and set lofty goals for ourselves. There has to be some reason why January the First gets all the good intentions and not September the Fourth.
Once Christmas passes, I find myself in full panic about the pending (but unavoidable) goal I have surely set for myself. So I start early. The Head Start Resolutioner is the elitist little prick who was seen at the gym on December 30th and believes they have grandfathered rights to the treadmill. All the rookie resolutioners that pour in on January 2nd have to draw sticks to get a spot somewhere on the squat machine. I know this to be true because I run year round and that makes me elitist. Rain or shine, I’m out in the trees wearing whatever gear is necessary to not freeze to death or suffocate under a layer of mud. And on January 1st all these sorry, hungover, runners appear out of the woodwork like temporary little termites scuttling across my trails. Yeah peeps. My trails. I smile the encouraging smile of a woman greedy for like five thousand acres of her own running space and think “Wait until the first rain. You’ll cave in, you weak Resolutioner. You’ll never last.” Which is true. But they come back when it’s warm again. Which also seems unfair to me. If I stopped running for three months, I’d look like the wide side of a Richard Simmon’s video. By that rule, the April forest should be full of plump little people in legwarmers listening to It’s My Party on their iPods and shuffling with a wheeze. Where’s the justice, I say?
This year I had good intentions to health kick, go on the wagon, and avoid sugar like it was dirty cocaine at sunrise. (Where do I come up with these analogies, you ask?) I was doing pretty good until I swished with Listerine before bed and swallowed half the cap. I tell you what, that stuff is way cheaper than an ’88 Pinot Noir and gets you slammed way faster. Plus, you’re amazingly fresh and have sterile teeth afterwards. So there I was standing in my bathroom, and on this premature failure of a premature New Year’s Resolution I thought to myself,
Fuck it.
Every year it’s the same song and dance. The year of the lion, tiger, or bear, oh my. The year of Change. The year of Elections. The year I will file my taxes on time. The year I will wear a size four. The year I will finish knitting that goddamn sweater with yarn now so old it will disintegrate before completion. The year of being a better wife, mother, runner…
So this year my New Year’s Resolution is start smoking. Because if I fail at that, then at least I can say I successfully quit smoking.
And if I don’t fail, maybe I’ll fit into that size four by summer.
.
Flammable Parents and Other Christmas Hazards
| December 23, 2011 | Filled under Miscellaneous Prose |
There are some truths that are indisputable even when you wish they were. In this case, the apple not falling far from the tree is one of those laws of the universe dictated by quantum physics or something as basic as Newton’s Law of Gravity. This is a hypothesis about the strength of genetic traits, including the Embarrassing Fiasco gene which apparently is dominant and is passed down through the female line.
I took my mom to a spa retreat for a few days. It was a Christmas present from The Man and I (he’s going for that special Best Ever Son In Law award). I wanted it to be one of those swanky places where you go with your good luggage and shined shoes and pretend that this is your real life.
We had been picked up by a driver at the train station. They hold these little signs with your name on it. I always try to get them to write something like “Duchess Ammi” or “Your Holiness” because names are not very unique and I don’t want them accidentally driving off with the wrong lady. There could be any number of Ammis in a small German village loitering at the train station. It was snowing and beautiful and we were dressed in black because I think rich people always wear black. It makes their gold stand out more. But I didn’t have any gold, so I went with black and decided I’d refer to myself as “humble but wealthy” for the day.
We waltzed into the establishment with our make-up and our excessive perfume with the poise and elegance of ladies that probably have their own private masseuses but temporarily employ others just to keep things exciting. Obviously we were important (or the only guests) because when we strut up to the reception they knew who we were and were obviously preparing things for us. I had visions of people in housekeeping outfits running around in a mad rush to make sure everything was right for our arrival.
Standing there at the reception and making small talk with the receptionist, my mother decided to have a glance around at the fine lobby and the other guests. She leaned easily upon the counter and looked around. I filled out some paperwork and asked important-sounding questions about the spa because, as everyone knows, you’re only important if you can ask important-sounding question.
Then, from the corner of my eye I saw something out of place. It was one of those moments in which all things happen so fast that they suddenly seem rather slow motion. But the only thing really happening in slow motion was the concern of my mother, who had a rather odd expression on her face as she observed the guests of the lobby and wondered why they, me, and most of the hotel staff was gasping in horror and charging her at full tilt.
This is what she looked like, except her make-up wasn't that even.
My dear mother, bless her soul, was virtually unaware of the foot-high flames shooting up the back of her head and lighting her up like she was the very Angel of Christmas herself, halo and all. But one can be blissfully oblivious to being on fire for only a short period and I am not sure which thing inspired her to take on the much more appropriate look of panic first: The crackling of her hair and the realization that her affection for hairspray was a clear disadvantage at this point, or the wretched stench of hair fusing to the polyester of her scarf. In either case, the calm customer expression was gone and several people were about ready to attack her with their jackets.
Which they/we did while the receptionists looked on in horror and the brush fire was extinguished. This was done with the efficiency of women so hysterical they were willing to risk wardrobe damage to save my mother’s life. Or her hair. Unfortunately, the latter did not fair so well. Neither did the Advent Wreath candles.
What was left of my mother’s long, blonde locks was a sort of mixture of less long, blonde locks and matted, chemically volatile dread locks. And a smoky cloud wafting through the hotel for the next two hours. Which we spent in the bar drinking free champagne. This may have been a bad idea.
Because not but a few minutes after we traumatized most of the hotel staff, we headed from bar to restaurant to get a bite to eat. Unfortunately for my mother, Christmas decorations are rather prominent during the holiday season, and in some bizarre concentration of the visible genetic characteristics of the Embarrassing Fiasco Condition, her humility would be further tested.
The crash heard echoing through the lobby was so loud and explosive that every head turned except my mother’s. Because she had, in an exhibit of secret mother super skills, disappeared behind the door and pressed herself against a wall a la James Bond, well out of the sight of everyone. Which left me standing near the eight billion shards of glass that had once been what appears to be the World’s Biggest Christmas Ball Ever.
Therapeutic baking session with new hair do, styled with flame-retardant wax.
Over the teetering of the receptionists I heard my mom say “I am never. going. out. there. again.”
Which probably would have been a good idea because the next day she poured all the coffee into the milk pitcher and then tried to drink it all down before anyone noticed. We decided mishaps happen in three and with that she could finally relax and enjoy our retreat.
Except she was junked up on like a gallon of coffee.
Get Out of My Laundry Room: Men at Home and Other Catastrophes
| December 5, 2011 | Filled under Androgyny vs. Equality, Miscellaneous Prose |
My husband has paid leave. It’s a phenomenon frequently limited to those countries in which employee rights outweigh the greed of capitalism in a strange mixture of social democracy. It’s also the first time I thought “this employee rights stuff is rubbish!”
Normal people say things like “Ooh! Think of all the time we can spend together!” and “Yeah! Sex in daylight!” and “Great! Some help around the house.” These are people who have never experienced the everyone-at-home experience. They are naive. Because anyone who has survived the horrors of a husband at home (with free time) is probably in lifelong PTSD therapy. Or permanent marriage counseling.
I am, if anything, an optimist. So when my husband came home and announced “hey guess what, I get paid leave starting tomorrow until blahblah [what I hear is: INFINITY!!!!].” I thought it’d be great fun with the holidays coming up and all. You know, allows him some extra shopping time in which to find awesome presents for me. I knew the risk of the Man Metamorphosis but I resisted considering it seriously and embraced the “extra help” I would get around the house. Instead, I simply established how naive I also am. I have documented this process for future generations to avoid similar catastrophe. Below, entries from the diary.
Day One: The Man got up early and went to the gym today. He’s gonna be so ripped and fine by the end of his leave. I can’t help but support his efforts for purely selfish reasons. He says he’s going to the gym EVERY DAY. HAWT. Maybe we can take a vacation to Hawaii so he can unpack that hotness in the sunlight for me.
Day Two: The Man didn’t go to the gym today but he offered to get up and take B to school. He did, but not until I got up, woke him up, dressed said child, fed said child, packed said child’s lunch while Man took leisurely hot shower. I wish I had time for leisurely hot showers in the morning. Child waited outside until he was done.
Day Three: The Man hovering at home, decided to buy “Christmas decorations” for the house. Returned with: One plastic Santa for outside. One lit up snowman for inside. One musical snowball thingee. One giant XMAS sign large enough to frame a house. No less than fifty different types of candles. Enough silver streamers to make a ball gown for Lady Gaga.
Day Four: The Man attempted to infiltrate The Girls morning coffee circle by standing in kitchen and drinking our pot of coffee. We tried to ignore him and repulse him by blatant talk of vaginal anatomy and bloating. We kicked him out when he started offering homeopathic remedies to ease menstrual cramps. WTF.
Day Five: The Man has injected meaning into his life by shopping for more Christmas decorations. We are now the proud owners of a Christmas Bell (correct, I don’t know what the fuck that is or why one is necessary), a nutcracker the size of a midget, and Christmas incense. Yes, my husband is burning incense all over the house. And when I tracked mud across the hallway floor, he took out the vacuum and cleaned it up. He’s really starting to creep me out.
Day Six: The “Man” bought potpourri and filled the center of my advent candle wreath with it. Cinnamon, oranges, and dried berries. Because they “smell like Christmas” he said. Then he tried to adjust the candles because crafting is apparently his new hobby. Under the misleading premise of “Christmas decoration” he has slowly begun redecorating the entire house. Almost as if… he’s trying to make it look like… he lives here too. Obviously this is totally unacceptable and someone must put a stop to this nonsense.
Day Seven: I’m starting to suspect there’s competition for my job. The Man folded laundry and cooked dinner. I would have been more concerned if the meal included ingredients beyond canned soup and hot dogs. It’s only a matter of time before he cracks open a Jamie Oliver cookbook and picks up knitting. And then, all hope is lost.
——
The only way to end this madness is to begin a covert reclamation operation. This is done by combining the key ingredients of Man Repelling into a cocktail of such intolerable living that he finds himself either quickly returning to the comfort of his office, or possibly accepting an assignment in another country. And don’t be fooled, dear readers. The House Man is a resilient man and nagging alone will not do it. If this were the case, a lot more of us women would have to be lesbians. I’m thinking about becoming one myself in hopes that I can find a woman less inclined to buy new towels or arrange the pillows on the sofa.
No my friends, you’ll need more than incessant, chronic complaining. You’ll need: A cold.
Nothing scares the bejesus nurturer out of a man like a sick woman. And I mean sick. Bedridden sick. With requirements: pharmacy runs, soups and broths (not too hot, not too cold), teas and tissues, pillow fluffing, sock-putting-on, and more. In addition to being a colossal burden, one must be utterly incapacitated: No rising in the morning to get the kids out the door, no making grocery lists, turning down the stove so the soup doesn’t burn, shifting of laundry, planning of schedules, opening of doors, answering of phones, nothing. You may rotate from bed to couch, leaving a trail of snotty tissues behind you in either direction, and make requests in a tone of drawn out suffering and misery. That is all.
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Week Two: It didn’t work. The man is getting an apron for Christmas. And me? I’m going to Patagonia.
The Christmas Market (aka Things I Commit to Without Really Knowing Why)
| November 25, 2011 | Filled under Knitting and Sewing |
I have this neighbor that manages the local Christmas market. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Germany, live in Germany, or have unsuspectingly traveled to Leavenworth, Washington during the holidays, but a traditional German Christmas Market is a force to behold.
Roasted chestnuts, hand-made candles, knitwear, carved wooden toys, blown glass, the ever-present scent of sausages, and my personal favorite: Hot spiced wine.
I’m guessing the latter had something to do with my willingness to be part of the Christmas market this year. My neighbor asked me if I wanted a stand there, and in my eagerness to be a part of… everything… I said yes, of course.
Let’s establish a few things right here though:
I don’t know how to sew.
I learned how to knit on YouTube.
I have a sewing machine I bought at a discount store. It runs on diesel and swearwords.
Any salable skills I possess are likely not appropriate for family atmospheres or carolers.
But somehow I found myself flipping the pages of the calendar and realizing I actually had to MAKE things to display in my little Christmas hut. The kid was more productive than I, which is why I’m mostly selling a collection of toilet-paper-tube robots and crayon pictures of a “Chilala Dog” (Thank you Skippy John Jones).
So B and I put our heads together and made things. Aprons, of course. Kitchen things, like egg warmers and pot holders. I sew and knit at a rate that earns me approximately 12 cents an hour (euro cents, so that might be like three dollars by now). Along the way we learned a few things. Like my sewing machine runs better when oiled. And that, when sat upon, pins can puncture a buttocks like a hot knife through butter. Creative optimists as we are, we considered turning the wound into a piercing but I was concerned that a stud in my left cheek would make my nylons run.
