Can’t wait to look out a window at some international airlines. Soon. Don’t even know what Emirates looks like? Just that we don’t have seats up by the lounge and the beds and the shower
3AM Up. A little leftover coffee. Last minute packing. Little bottles of special face wash from Whole Foods; hotel shampoo from last time…just in case there is still one single hotel in the entire world without shampoo; the usual face cream, toothbrushes and tiny paste, couple extra combs, etc. I mention this only because there’s eventual drama involved. Took a shower just before bed, laid out airline clothes—stretchy warm attractively-ugly everything.
3:30AM Try to remember why I go deeply in debt and moderately in-stress and use up all my flex and comp time which could be expended on long weekends with Netflix, Nordic Noir and taking photos of the cherry tomatoes I’ve just baked—for this travel obsession I cannot quite shake. Maybe when I have to start taking the little cart thing from gate to gate or have an attendant wheel me around I’ll quit.
4:00AM My kind son takes me to the airport—where I forget my passport at Check In and then discover, as I pick up my bag of three ounce bottle and assorted stuff after security, one or more have oozed their contents onto toothbrushes, combs and the apple I stuck in there to munch—while bad people were eating big greasy things for their airport breakfast I would feel superior—now I’m just throwing little bottles away, washing toothbrushes and the apple and feeling stupid.
5:35AM Boarding a plane that is so narrow I cannot wheel my little bag designed for under the seat down the aisle. Honestly soon we will be standing and clinging to straps just like the subway.
8:45AM (PST) I feel myself getting HAPPY. At San Francisco airport, some time to kill. Don’t really want to eat but maybe I will since I have a couple more hours before LAX and meeting my travel buddies. Right now I’m having Fig Newtons. And that is just wrong because they are so clearly Road Trip Food. And whatever else this trip turns out to be it is definitely Not a Road Trip.
9:00AM Off to breakfast. Maybe I’ll have a Bloody Mary. Nah…I’ll look like a lush.
P.S. The tiny plane is a CRJ700 Canadian Regional Jet. And my very good (but fat and heavy) book is The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince. It’s a respected history from a reputable scholar and, at the same time, quite chatty and juicy. Love it. The best of all worlds.
And just to defend myself I have recently or in the not too distant past, read histories and novels and travel lit for all of the places we’re going. Not quite true, haven’t read a single thing about Kuwait but then we were all present as George the First marched us in there. I do have Lonely Planet for the Middle East with me so I can do that on my 16 hours flight to Dubai.
Cheerio.
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- With Friends in Delaware.
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- Old People at the Beach Dress Differently Don’t They?
Not To Be Considered a Depressing Post but it might be more interesting if you are in a ‘stage’ of life where age is rearing its annoying head. And it is about travel…eventually.
I worked in nursing homes as a resident advocate and as a social worker before returning to Albuquerque in 2000. In the Masters program at Augsburg College in Minneapolis and San Diego State University I partially focused on issues of the frail elderly. During my mom’s last years, I spent a lot of time with her at the nursing home. AND. I. am. getting. old.
Just establishing my credentials to talk about aging.
The first stage for me was when I realized I was strolling down, not up, a mountain of life that peaks at age 40 or 50 or 60—depending on how long you think you’ll live. Noting the physical changes to my appearance, all unattractive to say the least, but not really finding any differences emotionally or intellectually or for that matter in physical well-being. But had definitely started the slow stroll down the mountain of years.
NOW. I believe this Big Trip has launched a next stage of life. I mentioned in an earlier post a feeling of vulnerability I had not experienced before. So I have been thinking about this even as my excitement about the trip builds. Can’t really explain the feeling any better than to say that now I know in my very being that illness or accidents can more readily happen anytime (but the possibilities seem more frightening if I am in unfamiliar territory). I intellectually knew that before, but emotionally I did not comprehend it. Does that make sense? It feels like I’m entering the physical wind-down stage. Only at the beginning, plan to stay healthy and travel a long time, but the stroll ‘down’ might be gathering momentum.
Before my mom died her attention span had narrowed to the regularity of her bowel movements and when her children and neighbors would visit. Interest in world and community affairs, appearance, food, stories and even nature had receded. She did live to 92 so I do have a ways to go before that not-inevitable, but probably likely, contraction.
Now that I have the serious stuff like the Indian visa service and aging out of the way I am back to TRAVEL in the next post.
This was going to be a post about the difficulty of getting an Indian visa and going to Sri Lanka instead. And it included this photo because it is my beautiful boys and me returning my our sojourn in the Philippines. I’m leaving the photo HOWEVER now this post is about Marsha and Robert and me in MELAKA, MALAYSIA.
MELAKA, MALAYSIA AND HISTORY CLASS
Let’s talk about Melaka, Malaysia. And history classes.
I did not initially love history. High school history was taught by a big gruff and grumpy Native guy from Red Lake Indian Reservation who was first and foremost the football coach, and who didn’t like his own or anyone else’s history. I get that, and I’m sure it didn’t improve his mood to be coaching a team named the Northome Warriors, but it did not make me want to grow up and become a historian.
By the time I took a first college class in world history and fell in history-love, I had lived in the north, south and east of the U.S., the Philippines and was temporarily settled in North Carolina. Which is to say I had seen very little of the world but I had crossed that first ocean.
The question is—did even that limited amount of travel make me more receptive to studying world history OR did mom’s old geography book (of which I’ve often written) set off the spark that inspired me to marry an Air Force guy because I thought that might get me everywhere in the world?
History, travel; travel, history? Chicken or egg?
Now it is 2013. After many years of reading general histories AND after 90 different passport stamps, I am starting it all again. I’ve signed up for Coursera’s “History of the World since 1300,” a Princeton University class. Back to school and in the Ivy League no less!
Will I enjoy this history class even more than others in the past because I have the experience of having been more places in the world? Or has traveling the globe made me want to understand more of its history? The chicken and egg question again.
I do see this textbook and class as background for my personal travels and as an excuse to share small stories about small adventures in my life.
Melaka, Malaysia. My textbook calls it the Crossroads of Afro-Eurasia and says: Because of its strategic location and proximity to Malayan tropical produce, Melaka became a key cosmopolitan city. Indian, Javanese, and Chinese merchants and sailors spent months at a time in such ports selling their goods, purchasing return cargo, and waiting for the winds to change so they could reach their next destination. During peak season, Southeast Asian ports teemed with colorfully dressed foreign sailors, local Javanese artisans who produced finely textured batik handicrafts (using melted wax applied to cloth before dipping it into blue and brown dyes), and money-grubbing traders. The latter converged from all over Asia to flood the markets with their merchandise and to search for pungent herbs, aromatic spices, and agrarian staples such as quick-ripening strains of rice to ship out. In a sense, each bustling port represented the cosmopolitan mosaic that Southeast Asia had become. (“Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: Volume Two, From 10000 CE to the Present,” p. 369)
Marsha, looking for dinner.
I was in Melaka in 1987with my brother and sister-in-law on our way from Java, going through Singapore and Malaysia to Bangkok. We spent two nights there and, while I can’t report any flings with ‘colorfully dressed foreign sailors,’ I did return with a blue and brown batik shirt! What I remember is this: Melaka is a historically, visually, atmospherically striking World Heritage site, full of fine rose-colored buildings, glossy-leaved twisty-trunked banyan trees, boats/nets/fisherman and their catches jamming the harbors, and the scent of durian and overripe fish heads (similar) and a potpourri of tropical blooms. Our Chinese-owned hotel (Lonely Planet budget category) locked us in at night because the Malays and Chinese were fighting—as they undoubtedly were doing in 1300 and are still doing in 2013—and there were nighttime raids and attacks. The hotel was accommodating in all other matters. Upon arrival we mentioned we were hungry. No problem. Someone quickly pulled a table out from behind the souvenir shirt racks, ran next door for bowls of fried rice and bottles of local beer and we dined by the trinket tables as shoppers drifted by.
Our second night was even more interesting. A Portuguese (Melaka’s colonial masters) outdoor restaurant was recommended—but it rained. Not a problem. They sat us at a table under the monster banyan tree, and proceeded to bring us platter after platter of various fruits of the sea. It’s all a delicious haze as the rain came down harder and harder and Robert and I got drunk and the in-house band played and sang “Born in the USA” innumerable times with thunder and lightning joining in the chorus.
Today, 1987 seems about as far away as the twelfth century. Isn’t it excellent that we have journals and cameras and blogs AND history books to maintain connections?
And then we got on the bus and moved on. Robert and Marsha.
Almost Time…One of those Sundays to treasure is unfolding. On Thursday the Big Trip commences. Meanwhile writing class is completed (with a really fine paper if I do say so myself); the N4 newsletter is at the printers; last minute clothing items have been purchased at that high-fashion emporium—Costco; my bags are pretty much packed; perishables are dwindling in the frig; AND, BEST OF ALL I am through dealing with the government of India’s designated visa agency.
Today then is a blog; good Sunday lunch (baked cherry tomatoes on fried polenta slices with feta cheese and a nice white wine); maybe a few more episodes of “Orange is the New Black”; and nap day. While drinking my wine I will fill in little travel details—hardly anything in the world is more pleasurable than a glass of wine and travel details.
So I have several travel posts to write before setting off for the airport around 4am on Thursday. There is the revelation I’ve just had in the last few days about stages of “loss” as one ages—you’ll see, it will be interesting; also, my every-country-in-the-world travel goals have been altered—not completely gone away but adjusted; and, not least, the absolute horror story of dealing with an agency called CKGS (Cox and Kings Global Services) to try to obtain an Indian visa (on our way to Sri Lanka instead which is a whole tale in itself) and the story is definitely worth a post, a WARNING post.
Of course tomorrow morning I will take a dawn river walk to say farewell to my ducks and geese. I do not want to leave you without some photos to get you through the winter since I probably won’t walk in the mornings when I return. Back to evenings at the gym and reading on the treadmill.
I have no idea what this photo is … Nice though. Travelish.
Some old photos I found from a few years ago when I roamed about a bit in a neighborhood called Eastern Europe. I have an earlier post from Odessa…which I loved.
Love the food in that part of the world. Especially borscht.
Sick. Can’t sleep. Stomach hurts. Read an entire biography of James Madison. Stop whining. I’ll turn on Aljazeera for awhile, see how the world is holding together. Here’s a little photo spread of a few years ago in Odessa, Ukraine. I have some better photos I think; these were taken with an old cell phone. Odessa is a beautiful city and seems to have missed the worst of this violence. I hope.
Odessa shipyards
Black Sea, extremely polluted. When I stuck my foot in disgusting things floated around my toes.
Strange and wonderful candies.
Loved walking these streets. European but eastern and seafront and somehow a little exotic and sometimes shabby.
Going back for a visit is always nice.
The lime green suitcase still decorated with a sticker from my first trip to Rwanda is open and waiting for me to load the essentials of life on the road. Small suitcase, almost five weeks, a challenge. There is nothing more detrimental to the journey than a big awkward bag. Granted, I will not be traveling alone, but no need to burden my fellow travelers with Granny’s suitcase! My too-heavy backpack with all the accoutrements of a photographed documented trip is another matter.
Five weeks…really?
I have been thinking about this trip a lot. Thinking of it as the decision-making or breaking trip about whether to keep on with the idea of all of the countries in the world before I die. Scott reminds me I’ve said this before and I know I’ve written blog posts about it before (sorry!) but the idea never really gets killed off so why should this time be different. It might be…each passing year gives me less time to get there.
And then there are the dangerous places. Will Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Liberia, Sierra Leone be safe enough before I reach my goal? Most of them I would go to now but with trepidation. Will Russia and Saudi Arabia give me visas? Probably too soon to worry about this since I still have 105 countries to go.
But back to the serious business of travel. The two new pants I bought at Nordstrom’s just for this trip are too wrinkly when washed. How many pants, how many sweaters, three and three, I think. After all they wash clothes all over the world! Only absolute is my big black hoodie sweatshirt that says Washington DC on the front. I’m not that anxious to be spotted as an American but it is the fattest softest warmest sweatshirt I’ve ever had and can double as a blanket or pillow when needed. It’s literally been my security blanket for five or six years. $29.95 Dulles Airport.
Here’s my attitude about travel:
EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD? WHY NOT!
LIFE IS SHORT…AND THE LIST OF COUNTRIES IS LONG. JUST DO IT.
The prize is a book of your choice at Clarke’s Bookshop just down Long Street from our hotel. Or maybe a Devils Peak ‘Kings Blockhouse’ IPA at the pub next door (I’m looking out for you, Scott). Photos from an earlier trip to Cape Town.
Here’s the issue. I’m going to be writing many posts about and during this trip and I should be able to refer to it in a more tantalizing way than The Big Trip.
Isn’t there a name that indicates we are traveling roughly halfway around the world and halfway down the world? Los Angeles is 30° N and Cape Town is 30° S latitude. Los Angeles is 118° W and Mumbai is 72° E longitude or a little over halfway around. The trip could be called “Over, Down, Up, More Over and Way Back,” but that just doesn’t have the right rhythm.
The idea of distance doesn’t have to be in the name but nothing else seems quite apropos for all of us. While Steven the Younger and I get to peruse the best of Gulf states shopping malls, our fellow travelers will be left with only fleeting memories of ski slopes in the Mall of the Emirates.
Mingling with the Great Whites in Cape Town won’t apply to all of us either. Me for example.
While the Backpack Safari will be shared by all, I think it wise not to name the whole trip after something we may not survive. Not the wild animals but the spiders, snakes, hard ground, all the peripheral stuff of budget life in the Delta.
Or maybe we’ll just call it the Big Family Trip of 2014.
OUR FUTURE LOOKS LIKE THIS….
Here it is—the itinerary for Steven, the graduate grandson, and me. I think I already posted this but it’s so much fun to write it all I’m going to do it again, naming the airlines this time. LA to Dubai on Emirates; Dubai to Addis Ababa on Emirates; Addis Ababa to Kigali on Ethiopian Airlines; Kigali to Johannesburg on South African Airways; Johannesburg to Maun on Air Botswana; Maun to Cape Town on Air Botswana; Cape Town to Johannesburg on South African Airways; Johannesburg to Muscat on Emirates; Abu Dhabi to Mumbai on Gulf Air; Mumbai to Doha on Gulf Air; Doha to Manama on British Airways; Manama to Kuwait City on Kuwait Airways and finally home to LA on Emirates again.
All, except for the Maun legs, purchased through my friendly ticket seller, Expedia.com. I am not exactly promoting Expedia—well maybe just a little. I’m used to their website which, of all the alternatives, seems the most user-friendly, and for this complicated of an itinerary it’s nice to have one place to easily check on everything. Their fare listings are pretty standard and, most importantly, when I’ve had an issue with a flight or a hotel they have responded helpfully.
I wish I could have bummed around the world on tramp steamers, graceful dhows, camel caravans or Mongolian ponies. Alas that time has passed—and my time to spend hours on a camel has flown as well. Exotic-sounding airlines, buses, taxis and a four-wheel drive are as adventurous as it will get although there will be lots and lots of walking. In the Okavango Delta game park, up and down Long Street in Cape Town, around Melville in Jo’burg, the back alleys of Mumbai and of course the miles of malls in the Gulf states.
I am so excited. Just have to lose five pounds, go to the gym a lot and pack and repack enough times so that one small suitcase and one small backpack will hold everything for 35 days, half in dead summer heat and half in early spring coolness.
Calm down Marjorie. T-day is 83 days away.
Southwest color from the Albuquerque end.
Thursday June 12, 2014. Yes. Sixteen months. Since I have been on a plane. An interlude. Gaining strength for the last 105 countries. And I’ve had a birthday and no longer have to take off my shoes in the check-in line. Life just keeps getting better and better. Today I even smiled at and joked with Homeland Security. OMG I am turning into a chattery little old lady.
On my way to San Diego for grandson Steven’s college graduation. UC Irvine. Business Econ major. And Barack Obama will deliver the Commencement address. I am excited. We’re proud of Steven and look forward to finally seeing the President deliver one of his fine reasoned articulate speeches of substance and ideas and goals—none of which can become reality because of the CRAZY EVIL REPUBLICANS.
Early Afternoon
A perfect travel day. Slept late. Puttered. Picked clothes, no stress because it is only a weekend for god’s sake. The same suitcase I will use for 35 days around Africa and the Gulf states and India (been added to previous itinerary) is full for a weekend in San Diego. Checked in with Southwest which I’ve avoided for years but there aren’t so many direct flights. Turns out their cheery chuckles (while maybe a little forced) might be a welcome change from the increased surliness of our major carriers. But maybe all that’s changed since January 2013 when I got off my last flight from the Dominican Republic. So I’ve had a break and now I love Southwest?
Checking out working from a gate seat. With keyboard. Love my Surface. And the two wines I just had. And my life. That I can afford to do this. And that all is right with my world. Now I’m Pollyanna…amazing what a morning off does for one’s attitude.
There is a 100-year-old lady a couple of seats over or at least she appears much older than me. She is tiny and so deeply wrinkled her face is all arroyos, no plains. She is the only person in this gate area without a device, happily reading a real book. She gives me hope—I can get to every-country-in-the-world if I have until 100 to do it.
Another woman with a long strong face and small hair says forcefully, “I thought I was voting for Martin Luther King and but I don’t know who I got, not him for sure.” The man she appears to be directing her remarks to is not paying attention. You know who was the best President we’ve had? Harry Truman. He knew where the buck stopped.”
About my particular parasite—The Travel Bug. It feels good here in the airport. I’ve been planning for the Big Trip, buying tickets, finding hotels, etc. but I was a little bit afraid I might get to the airport and think ‘why am I planning to spend much of the fall in airports all over the world, when I could be home with my stuff and books and bed and car and very own food in the frig?’
It’s all good though. Flight hour and a half delayed, late late lunch at the airport instead of Ocean Beach. And I don’t love Southwest, not for the delay, just for all the ABC’s and the middle seat.
Now it’s evening. I’m in San Diego. Family.
The graduate and the Albuquerque cousin.
AND THE GOOD NEWS IS…MY TRAVEL MOJO IS BACK!
A chapter of my life is drawing to a close. I have been a performing arts presenter for many years, involving numerous hours of contemporary dance viewing and thousands of miles of international travel. It has been a perfect job and I have loved and appreciated it almost all of the time. And, when one is very lucky, the opportunity to close such a satisfying life chapter on one’s own terms presents itself at just the right moment.
I knew it was that moment, last fall, in one of my favorite cities and countries in the world, Johannesburg, South Africa, at a dance festival brimming over with brilliant artists, great friends and fascinating performances. Instead of reveling in the richness of it all, I found myself depressed and bored except during performances. I felt tired and gray and disinterested in everything else around me. It was either the flu or time to end the presenting part of my life. Turns out both things were true.
Knowing what I knew, I invited two of the artists I admire most to bring their new dance “Inkomati (Dis)cord” to Albuquerque as the closing act of Global DanceFest. I came home, went to bed for a day or so—and got up ready for the next chapter!
The scariest thing about this change of plans was however—not only did I not want to present dance any more—my desire to visit all of the countries in the world seemed to simultaneously vanish. What a shock. How could a goal so integral to my life just evaporate?
Because of a previous commitment I did go to the Dominican Republic (still bored) and Haiti (not bored) over the end-of-year holidays and then on a very big, road trip spring/summer 2013. But that previously omnipresent travel itch felt all scratched and scabbed. I just wasn’t sure I needed to get to the 105 countries left on my list.
Now, thank god, I feel my travel mojo is returning…that first desire or restless stirring—not desire like you want a new car, more like when your peace of mind is interrupted during the first days of a new love, maybe a suggestion of lust disturbing your calm.
I think that’s what I was feeling today when the Thomas Jefferson biography on my nightstand—read through page 37—was replaced by “To the Moon and Timbuktu” and “The Revenge of Geography.” And I noticed last Sunday I went to the travel section of the Times first. And my map of the Arabian Peninsula appeared back on the coffee table. And I started missing Anthony Bourdain. And and and…. Yes, it is back. The itch, the bug, the fever, the lust, whatever you want to call that desire to be moving through the world… out your window a new scene, tonight a new room, tomorrow a new language or food or smell or sight. Yay, it’s back.
THE REAL BIBLE.
IT IS 2014 AND A VERY GOOD YEAR IS UNDERWAY.
ROAD SONGS
One of the BEST things about road trips is that you can PACK AS MUCH AS YOU WANT.
I need road songs. I didn’t take care of my DVDs and now they are scratched and melted and all used up. But I need road songs because Friday I AM ON MY WAY TO CALIFORNIA. Not so many travels this year but now the urge is getting stronger…I’ll appease it on the 10, 15 and 91 to Teresa’s house and then the 5 down to Scott’s in San Diego. I’m practicing California speak…the 6 to the 3 to the 12 exit at the 86 onto the 17 keep going to the 42 left lane ease onto the 204… I am excited. Haven’t been out of Albuquerque, New Mexico since sometime last fall. Can cabin fever extend to a town, a state?
Maybe I’ll buy a DVD of “O’Brother” tomorrow because it is not possible to drive out of town without “You are My Sunshine” at full volume, a Starbucks in hand with Albuquerque in my rearview mirror.
Maybe my grandchildren can help me out of the DVD age and I’ll have hundreds of tunes on the way back.
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ROAD TRIPS AND FIG NEWTONS
clean car full gas tank I-25 chili fields Hatch meringue-peaked mountain top kitty corner to I-10 big skies big skies big skies blue relentless skies police thriller DVD oh oh Phoenix ugly chaotic west west west mountains now broad valleys rocky stony mountains to 15 traffic multiplies X 1000 south to the 91 west to Redondo Beach Teresa Steven love California
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HERE I AM…975 miles later…AND ONE EARTHQUAKE LATER
I think I took the long way… Yes, I definitely took the very long way. Drove 15 hours. Which was only possible because of a good night’s sleep, two Starbucks, my loyal Mazda and knowing I would get to one of my very favorite person’s house tonight. She’s out buying cinnamon roll ice cream and coffee as I wind down from the last three-four hours of the day in LA freeway traffic.
California girl
OH YEAH, AND WE DID JUST HAVE A REALLY NOTICEABLE EARTHQUAKE. Honest.
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VACA
LA is the only major California city I haven’t lived in—and I am actually sorry about that. I like it here, this quiet Redondo Beach neighborhood, the tai chi performance in the park outside Teresa’s window, the mix of families and young professionals and grandparents in the modest but pleasant houses and apartment buildings. Nice lazy Saturday, pajamas, Steven comes over from Irvine and we trip plan, order-in bad pizza, I meet Teresa’s new friend, eat ice cream.
If I were younger I might describe him as an awesome dude, a little younger, I’d say cool guy. Think I’ll settle for an age-appropriate (my age not his) label…nice boy.
Sunday breakfast at the beach, afternoon at Hula class, leisurely drive down PCH to San Diego—leisurely being a relative term for SoCal traffic.
GIRLS AND MIMOSAS
TERESA WAS BORN IN HAWAII, A NATURAL HULA GIRL
VACATION IS GOOD. And I appreciated the 5.1 earthquake to begin. Today REI to look for a new backpack and then Scott’s fixing Oxtail stew. Hmmm! This must be the ‘good life’ in the golden state.
The unrivaled beauty of the Pacific Coast Highway
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SOCAL
San Diego, California. Looking out over the harbor, runway, freeway from the elegant little house on Thorn Street. Scott and Sandra go to work early so I have these mornings to think about California and family and my life. You can join me if you like for a few sessions of nostalgic sharing.
San Diego was home for a while in the 90s. I actually lived up in Escondido, commuting down here to the city for that MSW I used so briefly and for several of my various jobs—the most interesting of the latter as a night supervisor in a halfway house for men getting out of the pen. My security weapon being one of those giant flashlights that could easily render a large meanie unconscious. The residents were an interesting lot, from the OCD bank robber who stayed up scrubbing floors most of the night to a Charles Keating son-in-law caught up in the Arizona Savings and Loan scandal whose perfectly blonde, tan and expensively garbed wife came to pick him up for weekend leave. The work I did here, both the internships and the survival positions, were uniformly interesting: halfway houses and homeless shelters and soup kitchens and they deserve a blog all their own.
The 90s could be characterized as my furlough from Albuquerque, first to San Francisco then Minnesota and back to California, San Diego this time, and finally to Minnesota. It was a time of professional and educational adventures (and misadventures), financial angst, and personal awkwardness. In many ways the most difficult time was the three years here in this idyllic southland of milk and honey or, better yet, sushi and chardonnay
The California coast in all its perfect foggy rugged beach-rimmed beauty is no place for people in some sort of mid-life crisis to start over. It’s just too pretty and costly and dreamy and fast and self-conscious and self-assured all at once. I couldn’t keep up. I had long passed the blonde beauty on the beach phase of my life (it only lasted a short Florida moment after all) and I had a BS degree in Teaching/Social Studies with experience running small performing arts centers. Not exactly poised for social or economic success in sunny SoCal. I was in this particular place at this particular time to be around my new grandchildren and poor grandmas just aren’t your most desirable immigrants in any location or culture.
Still, there were the good times and even some very good times. The best were with Teresa and Steven. Teresa and dance events and eating out with my friends and both kids and small picnics and a train trip up to Union Station in LA. And for me, driving up to LA land to visit friends and conduct little investigations of that mythical magical place was the best. Kathy and I ate at the pizza place where Nicole had her last meal; and every chance with a visiting friend I drove Sunset Boulevard and up into those famous canyons; and sometimes I just drove up Pacific Coast Highway to feel like an old fashioned pre-freeway Californian.
San Diego doesn’t have that LA magic but I loved a lot of things about it. Downtown, which is now the place to live, was still a bit tattered but Hillcrest was always interesting. Teresa and I roamed about there from time to time looking for book and paper items to which I like to think I addicted her at an early age. San Diego State sat in the hills just northeast of downtown where I dutifully pursued a master’s in Social Work, thinking somehow it would make me financially stable while doing interesting things. Yeah, and how did that work out Marjorie? Well it did in the end I suppose since it’s partly why I have my present generally wonderful job.
There is a magic about this coast. I am forever hooked on the light, which unlike New Mexico’s relentless brightness, is always at least slightly tinged with fog, smog or some kind of cosmic oceanic reverberation. And the built environment is all bright and shiny…at least where we usually view things—from the road. Increasingly all sightlines are filled with red-roofed neat and new and clean malls and the golden hills just behind are increasingly carpeted over with…
Little Boxes Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Malvina and her husband were on their way from where they lived in Berkeley, through San Francisco and down the peninsula to La Honda where she was to sing at a meeting of the Friends’ Committee on Legislation (not the PTA, as Pete Seeger says in the documentary about Malvina, “Love It Like a Fool”). As she drove through Daly City, she said “Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on.”
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GOOD JOBS/BAD JOBS
Another perfect San Diego morning. Out on the Bay the sailboats are bright white. Too sunny for my taste but I slept through early morning rain so it’s my own fault. People from New Mexico should NEVER sleep through rain—we should be sloshing about the streets shouting with glee.
But about those San Diego/Escondido educational/professional adventures I had so long ago. Everyone wants degrees in areas where job security will be found, money will made—‘good’ money we say. My degrees haven’t exactly resulted in either but they do indicate an interest in worthy pursuits: BS in Secondary Ed/Social Studies and MSW (Social Work). I’ll use my job years in San Diego as an example of the worthiness of my interests. Besides they have a good story or two attached.
My first ‘job’ was actually a social work internship with an interfaith social services agency. I was just into a new track in my studies, from Augsburg College in Minneapolis and envisioning social work as an advocacy/activist/political crusader/do-gooder quest to realizing that, at SDSU, it was going to be all about becoming a therapist, possibly with an office in La Jolla as the goal. It did not take too long to guess therapy would not be a good fit but as I began the internship and met my first three clients. I was very excited. Client Number One was dealing with persistent depression, the second was an erotomaniac and the third a homeless alcoholic. I. Had. No. Clue. I was three or four weeks into this new vocational track and had just purchased my first DSM-IV.
The story goes like this. The depressive seemed to enjoy coming to our weekly sessions and declared herself better for them! I somehow doubted that but was grasping at any clues that I might eventually be good at this. The very pretty, very flamboyant young erotomaniac came to me for a few sessions but was referred on when I realized all I was doing was gathering ideas for future novels and really couldn’t help her. Although in all fairness to my potential as a therapist, she did like coming to me and sharing her fantasy life with the handsome Escondido nightclub owner. (He was not as into fantasy obviously, having taken out a restraining order against her nightly stalking.)
The third was my favorite. First of all he really did not need help. He was an alcoholic but of such long duration and so efficiently controlled that there was nothing a student reading chapters II and III of the DSM was going to be able to advise him on. Dave (I’ll call him—I don’t remember his name in any case) was a middle-age man with life so carefully and practically structured we might all envy him. There was one major downside to his situation—he was homeless. He lived in a grove of trees in front of the North County Mall between Escondido and San Diego. But he lived well, being very good at being homeless. Dave described his place in the trees as a two room abode, divided into sleeping and living spaces. He possessed a sleeping bag, few dishes, his clothes and most importantly his books. He did love to read. The agency where I was interning was nearby and they provided much of what Dave needed. Hot meals many nights, donated canned food and clothes, showers, and of course my expert counseling!
Dave received $100 plus at the beginning of each month as a social benefit. He spent this with more care and planning than most of us ever manage. First of all there were some items of food, maybe condiments or spices, and fresh fruit/veggies that never showed up among the agency’s donations so he purchased those at the grocery store nearby. Then there was an essential article of clothing, maybe a pair of shoes at a second-hand shop, and razors and shaving soap. After dispensing with those basics, Dave went to the used book store by bus and spent a fair percentage of the rest of his cash on books. Enough, he hoped, to get him through the month. He read much of each day because of course reading was not a pastime to be pursued after dark; had he kept any sort of light on he would have been rousted by the cops (which happened every few months anyway). Finally with his remaining loot, Dave got really drunk. He went to the same local bar where he felt safe or just brought it home to his lair. There was just enough of his favorite cheap booze to stay drunk for three or even four days. Then he was done until the following month. He did get beaten up or jailed once in a while during his drunks so obviously sooner or later something really bad would likely happen. I wonder how his story ended.
My therapy sessions with Dave consisted of some of the best literary discussions I’ve ever had.
That’s my story for today. I am saving tales from homeless women’s shelter where I was the resident supervisor for later.
Now it’s mid-sunny-breezy-lazy-morning, fifth day of my holiday. I am not counting the 15-hour driving day as part of it. Yesterday Scott and I went to the Fashion Valley Mall so I could have a therapeutic hour or so at Nordstrom’s. I shopped just a little but enjoyed every minute. Nordstrom’s is like Whole Foods. Nice stuff, nicely displayed and lots of helpful informed salespeople. Then lunch at the Cheesecake Factory which is the only restaurant chain with food that is better than mediocre. Today maybe IKEA. I really could be quite happy with a little more money—not that I’m not happy now it’s just that a week like this every other month would be good—and my kid won’t take me out to countless lunches, dinners, stores that often, he seems to think major birthday weeks every five years should do it. He seems to forget the countless Kraft Mac and Cheese dinners I slaved over for him.
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OXTAIL STEW AND B & J’S NEW SALTED CARAMEL CORE ICE CREAM AND OTHER GOURMET STUFF.
Like Luxembourg, I never have to experience this again.
My latest CA foodie adventure began today. We shopped for my birthday present, a new perfectly-sized perfectly-constructed backpack with my final 105 countries in mind, and a ‘messanger bag’ for around town (Dubai, Addis Ababa…just to throw a few names around) big enough for a notebook, lipstick, credit card and phone.
We just made a reservation at a new San Diego restaurant called Juniper and Ivey which seems to be in the fashionable Nordic cuisine model—deliciously eclectic (meaning slightly odd but oh so tasty), esthetically pleasing and very pricey. All because it’s my birthday! I am so excited, have dreamt of eating at NOMA in Copenhagen; this may be even better because they have less Hay and Greenlandic Weeds (I made that up) on the menu.
But TODAY we had a macaroni and cheese sandwich for lunch. Yup. We did. And an undistinguished eggplant sandwich. It was just okay, but now I can truthfully say I’ve had a macaroni and cheese sandwich—for which I get points in stupid-food heaven.
I do love my San Diego holidays. It’s so much nicer to visit and have my kid take me out to dinner than live here and try to figure out how I can survive for the next week on $20—which describes my life here 18 years or so ago.
Finally, I have tasted and I’m in love.
The dinner table view.
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SATURDAY AND ALL THE PRETTY KIDS.
We baked our Parsley cake this morning. It is possibly the best cake I have ever tasted. All herby and minty and moist and sweet. Favorite new recipe. Favorite old recipe. Scott and I took a drive out to Point Loma for a look out over the bay and the city and the surrounding golden sunny mellow place. How perfect it is.
PARSLEY CAKE… highly recommended.
I have this suspicion that there are poor and sad and dying and sick and corrupt and murderous people here. The thing is…in Southern California that all gets obscured by the mellow environment and Golden State mythology.
LIGHTHOUSE, CABRILLO POINT.
Forgot to take pictures of today’s lunch. Must be time to go back to New Mexico where my luncheon food is an Activia and gluten-free crackers and the view out the window is … well if it’s my office there is no window, if my apartment it’s the nondescript house across the street.
This is why people love holidays. It is not that our regular lives are awful, in fact I quite like mine. But there needs to be downtime. And, while some holidays are about exploring, some are about just escaping the routine. About naps and craft beer and lamb tacos at lunch under a waving palm frond. Or at least there was that waving palm frond right outside the restaurant but all the tables were occupied. Holidays with family whom you do not see every day are the best because, if you’re a family elder, you get pampered a bit. Having that family living in everybody’s dream destination doesn’t hurt. And I like this grown grandchildren version a lot. Separate time with each…new tales from the young-side of college/job/roommate/boyfriend/girlfriend adventures…no new tales from the older generation, all just lovely idle chat, semi-healthy snacks, walks and naps. Back in the old days we had to go to child-friendly restaurants (never a gourmet experience) and get the kiddies tucked in early. Now we can go to bed even earlier without any prompting!
Saturday evening and the family is out eating…I played my crotchety granny card and refused to go. Couple of beers and meat sandwiches for lunch with Scott is as far as my sociability can stretch today. Teresa and Steven and their friends are down from LA with their personal and work buddies, a lovely bunch of smart, ambitious and awesome kids. I am anxious to hang out with them in the morning but afraid I’ve aged out of spending time in a noisy Mexican restaurant in the Gaslamp District with much beer and raucous chatter. The kids were in a 24 hour relay race starting in LA sometime yesterday; they’ve each had three or four hours of sleep and are planning a night of partying. What a splendid but exhausting condition—to be young.
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BLACK MOUNTAIN
Black Mountain again. So I’m still not old old. It’s been a perfect California holiday. Lots of time with California son, one of my two favorite people in the world–how very nice that he turned out to be fun to hang around with in addition to being a fine human being. And time with these two amazing grandchildren. HOME TOMORROW. About 13 hours only because I don’t have to fight LA traffic the last three hours.
Photos, yesterday and this morning.
See…it is a HUGE mountain. Well at least medium size. Well maybe on the smallish side of medium.
PROOF! And no I do not have photo shop.
More proof. Not that I think you would doubt me.
Crazy windsurfing dude. He landed in the brush not far from the top. He was fine but Scott got pretty scratched up helping him back up.
This morning in a little canyon near Scott’s.
Who knew, when we were eating Ramen noodles because the pack was 25 cents at the grocery store, that they would become a huge fad all over the US.
I have mixed feelings about Soy eggs. Scott said his are better than the one at the Japanese lunch counter. Odd that I had never tasted them before I guess.
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END OF A TRIP
Those last road photos. The visual diary of the road home, complete with my usual dead bug enhancement.
Still early in the drive. Met the dust storm in Arizona.
Hit the 100,000 mark just south of Flagstaff.
If I weren’t so close to home I would follow the sign.
FINALLY.
PERIPHERIES
“Your days of lengthy solo road trips are numbered,” I said to myself not so long ago. Which led to the following lively discussion.
“No, that’s not true. I have a good car, I’m a good driver, and besides heading out of town in the dawn light, gas tank full, Starbucks next to me, camera at the ready is one of my favorite things in the world.”
“Do you not remember you are getting old(er). Oh sure, maybe five more years of open road but that’s about it! And how are you going to fit that time in with that every-country-in-the-world thing you keep going on about?
“Yeah, I see what you mean. Okay, guess I’d better decide where and when to finish up the road-tripping part of my life”
I have been doing just that for the last few weeks. Driving from Barrow, Alaska, USA to Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina is finally off the table. I’m sad about that but I have a new plan. Not quite as daring but at least half as interesting.
I will drive the entire periphery of the United States. The outside edges, the borders, the boundaries. How many miles I wonder? From Blaine, Washington to Hodgdon, Maine. From Hodgdon, Maine to Key West, Florida. From Key West, Florida to San Diego, California. From San Diego, California to Blaine, Washington. Always taking the roads the closest to the oceans, Canada and Mexico.
I must do this in five, at the most six, years so the east and west coasts can be done in an annual trip each, but the northern and southern borders will have to be divided into two separate jaunts each. Is this possible? Maybe.
Each segment gets a week. After all how many pictures of winding roads and cows and windmills and abandoned buildings can one take? And I’ll become very ill if I spend more than a week at a time living on Cheetos, caramel malts and fish sandwiches from you know where.
Yes, I have a plan. I think it will go into effect with a drive taking the southernmost off-the-beaten-path roads to my brother’s house in Panacea, Florida next spring. South to Las Cruces, then off the freeways and all around the edges of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, right into the Redneck Riviera of the Florida Panhandle. This may be my toughest stretch of all. Except for getting through NYC.
“Can I make a joke?”
“Sure, will it be any sillier than the idea that you can drive the periphery of America AND go to all the countries in the world before you die?”
“So as we age we keep getting more and more peripheral to other people and events. Why not be exploring geographical peripheries as I peripheralize?”
“Funny. Not. And besides peripheralize isn’t a word.”
“Now it is.”
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O’KEEFFE LAND
Lovely trip with my friend Tom to Ghost Ranch and home the back way. I’m nervous enough about The Big Trip coming up to have to remind myself what a perfect thing a road trip through beautiful land with a good friend is…Fortunately it did not take long for me to remember. More about the trip later, including that interesting little village of Abiquiu.
Meanwhile some teaser photos.
An O’Keeffe tree.
This whole area was an endless source of inspiration for O’Keeffe.
I admit it…it is beautiful.
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THE VERY BIG TRIP OF 2014 IS IN MY HEAD
A globe from Susanna, a tepee from Kristine, and beach person from Jonathan Khumbulani Nkala. All good omens for travelers.
A real travel writer is able to describe trip preparations as engagingly as the journey itself. Let me try that.
The Big Trip is a five-week fall adventure with different family members around for each stage of the journey. To reiterate: It begins in LA, on to Dubai, then Addis Ababa and Kigali for the first leg with grandchildren Teresa and Steven. Then sons Scott and Steven join us for two weeks in South Africa, both Johannesburg and Cape Town AND including almost a week in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Finally, just Steven the Younger and I spend a week traversing the Arab Gulf states!
Five weeks of discovery and family fun (especially when we are not bickering or seriously tired of each other—conditions which are fairly rare fortunately). We could have gone on a Disney cruise but it was unanimous that we would all rather eat bat gizzards in a dark damp cave than visit the good ship Disney.
So here I sit…travel stuff piling up around me. Over there confirmations printed from Expedia, Hotels. Com, Emirates Airlines; over here half-finished visa applications, and my new black pants for all occasions when jeans won’t do. There are books and maps all over the house. My mood veers from exhilaration to confusion and we don’t even leave for four months.
The Big Trip can be divided up several ways for planning, spending and writing purposes.
Here’s a rough idea of how it took shape: All very carefully thought out of course.
- Steven the Younger (also known as Steven Y) is graduating from UCIrvine
- I take grandchildren on special trips to celebrate educational milestones
- They get to choose except for the part where some of the countries visited must be new to me
- Steven Y picked South Africa
- Teresa decided to come too
- I needed at least a few new countries
- We could go through Dubai for no additional $
- We decided to do that
- Teresa’s best friend is from Addis Ababa
- We decided to go there too
- Steven and Teresa might want to work in an NGO in Africa
- We have a friend in a Rwandan NGO
- We decided to go there TOO
- Scott and Steven the Older (known as Steven O) were going to take me on a trip to Central America for my Big birthday this spring
- I didn’t want to go to Central America
- They decided to meet us in South Africa instead
- I needed more passport stamps for 2014
- I decided to go to the Arab Gulf States
- Steven Y said he would go with me
- AND THAT IS HOW YOU PLAN A BIG TRIP
- Then you worry about money for quite awhile