About nineteen of them showed up all bright eyed and bushy tailed, carting white paper coveralls (that frankly reminded me of patrick bateman for unknown and best undiscovered reasons). Due to miscommunications, we had to do a last minute paint run while I had the joy of stalling by trying to pull some old peace corps/native english teacher tricks out of my rather small hat. I noticed one gentleman rolling his eyes at my antics, which I couldn’t blame him for. I finally released them to go tape up the clinic and ‘get it ready’ and hurriedly called my paint-runner to demand in a hushed yet fervent tone WHERE THE HELL IS THE PAINT?!?

The military folks (we never figured out the best way to refer to them. what is the proper name? no idea. still.) successfully taped, covered, and prepped the room. The paint finally arrived and SURPRISE! It had to be mixed. With water. Oh, didn’t I mention that the clinic didnt’ have running water??? Oh yeah, no it didn’t. Awesome. We finally rustled up some water, random sticks to stir the paint with, and parceled out the brushes and rollers and everyone got started. I ran around trying to make sure everyone had everything they needed, figuring out what time they’d leave so that they’d make it to the next activity on time. I learned what my life would have been had I been a personal assistant for a D-list celebrity. That’s an alternate future I’m not sure I want to glimpse again.

One military folk (really? is that a singular? but you can’t say folk person…) showed extra kindness to the clinic and enabled them to get a dvd player to play educational videos in the waiting area.

I was shocked and amazed by their kindess and willingness to do for others. They gave up their personal time to go to the clinic and paint (and do other activities in other parts of the city) and fix things and … I was just so struck by their work ethic and desire to do MORE. We had to leave before everything was finished in order to make the next activity and they were all unhappy with leaving things as they were. The village had agreed to finish up the painting and do the next coat. And the village also fixed the plumbing so that the clinic would have running water. Which might not have happened as quickly had these men and women not shown this attention to the clinic.

I wish I could send each of them a note to say thank you.

Communication is never about what one is actually saying or thinking. It is always about the perceptions others have of what you are saying or thinking, and what expectations they have already put on your statements.

I keep hoping that over time all of us will learn to lessen our preconceived ideas of what this person is saying and actually listen and try to see it from their perspective. But in the situation it is very difficult to do that. This experience is teaching me my own personality-driven limitations in compassion and understanding and I HOPE showing me how to move beyond them to a more true sense of empathy.

In my day-to-day life, I take care of myself and my cats and that’s about it. I love my friends and hopefully am able to help them through difficult times and celebrate happy times, but in general I am just myself. Living with my Mom the past few weeks and having her health and well-being my primary focus has been mind-changing. I worry about her eating, her getting out of the house, how far we should encourage her to see my dad versus how much rest she needs to garner the strength that has gone to the care of this man for the past few years, really (intensified in the last six months). Never having truly been demonstrative before, I constantly hug her and kiss her and hold her hand and tell her how much I love her and how happy I am to be here with her. And my mom, who rarely hugs anyone, cuddles me back and pulls me to her to kiss my cheek and tell me she’s so happy I’m here with her. Our mother-daughter bond has intensified in such a way that right now even the thought of going back to my other life makes my eyes well up and I worry that others will not be as gentle with her in their drive to have her feel better. Perhaps that will actually be better for her, someone to push her to go out into the world like never before.

She told me a story the other day. We were watching ‘Supernanny’, a show that televises parents learning methods of discipline from a trained British nanny, and commenting on how awful the children behaved. My dad used to be a golf pro. One time, his course was running a ladies’ tournament and for whatever reason, different households involved with the course took in women players during the tournament. My parents had taken in one of these women and one night she and my mom were sitting around chatting. It was nighttime, so she had already put me, a toddler aged 2 or 3, down for bed. As they were talking, I called out ‘Mama’ several different times, wanting to see my mom for some reason or another. According to my mom, it wasn’t bratty or whiny or anything, just this sweet little toddler voice calling out for her mama. After several times, the woman advised my mom to just let me be and not keep answering my call so that I could sleep. My mom didn’t take her advice because, ‘I just liked you so much and you were so sweet, I wanted to see you, too’.

We visit my dad every few days. Sometimes it is awful, sometimes it is okay. My sisters have described enlightening experiences where he is so kind or funny or what have you. I’m not sure if my experience is different from theirs because I go with my mom or what, but I haven’t had this transcendental experience. He seems old and tired and sad and frustrated. He asks to go home every time. He alludes to having done something wrong to be there and trying to figure out how to fix it so that he can go home. They can get a little house together. And take care of their children.

Regardless of what measure you take when younger, ultimately we’re all alone anyway.

My dad is well aware that he is living in a home that is not his own. He would very much like to not be there. Personally, I have only heard him say this in the most unequivocal terms. Occasionally he also says in a muttered aside, let’s go out the back door. Maybe he thinks that we haven’t put him there, but that ‘Slippery Ann’, the intake person, has sentenced him to this fate. So when describing how we should leave, he sketches his plans in a conspiratorial manner, as we are all in this together. He has even said upon our leaving, now you be sure to wait outside. I’ll be out in five or ten minutes. I’ve tried before, but everyone is always gone by the time I get there.

My sisters take turns visiting him every day. As he has started to adjust to living in the home, he has ceased being angry about being there. He still asks after coming home, but not with the intensity of before. Apparently, he even described his escape routes and plans with a few sisters during visits. He and his roommate, Stan, were going to somehow jimmy open their window, with one on the inside and one on the outside (their room is not on the courtyard so there is no access for either of them to the window from the outside). Then, they were going to sneak toward the bushes and pole vault over the hedge. Dad has narrowed down his transportation options to three: take a bus, catch a cab, or hitchhike. He doesn’t have exact change, so taking a bus is really out of the question. Our town is a ‘no hail’ town, so unless he were able to call a cab, he’s not getting a cab ride home. Hitchhiking is the most reasonable option as we live in a place where people still pick up hitchhikers and as a skinny 78 year old man, my dad hardly looks like a hitchhiker picker-upper killer. If only he could figure out how to get out.

My dad has always been a very…particular man. He likes to keep everything organized and on task and that propensity has not faltered since the disease has begun to affect his brain in earnest. All appointments and visits are carefully written down and saved on multiple pieces of paper that are then binder clipped together and placed in his left pants pocket. In his right pants pocket he keeps two black pens (which are the exact same type of pen that I prefer, though I never noticed this shared preference before). Whenever he leaves the room, he has to have on his black outdoor vest. The other day, it was quite warm out so I suggested he leave it behind. He didn’t want to do that, so I offered to carry it. He held it out like a butler and wouldnt’ let me hold it. The only way I could carry it was on my back. So I did. I wore his black vest all over the home. To the courtyard, to the tv room, through the lobby. At the end of the visit, I placed it back in the closet with him never having worn it.

My dad isn’t the only resident planning his escape. As we stroll through the gathering area right in front of the escape hatch, you can hear various residents telling each other or telling their well-meaning family members that they would like to go home. One woman in a wheelchair was pulling herself along the chair rail and sing-songing that she wanted to get out of there. She was going at a pretty good clip until one of the attendants came upon her and wheeled her to the activity area for song time. They sing show tunes. My dad hates it even though he loves to sing. I couldn’t understand that until I heard them sing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ a capella. After that, I stopped encouraging him to go. You can’t ask that of people. It is too much.

There’s a romantic couple there, who are together all the time. The woman is constantly looking around for new people to talk to. She’s a very close talker and she’ll stare at you with an alarming intensity as she shows you her beads or her red purse. You’ll say how nice or how pretty it is and she’ll stare at you some more with a big smile on her face. Her boyfriend looks at her with so much love in his eyes, his world appears to be almost totally focused on her. He has gentle smiles for those that she interacts with, but his attention is mainly on her.

My dad, being ambulatory with no obvious physical ticks, is quite the ticket in the home. He is often told how handsome he is, how pretty his big blue eyes are (to which he responds with a genial smile and a widening of his eyes). One of my sisters went into his room and found him showing photos to a strange woman. My sisters are very protective of my desirable dad and when they relate these stories to me, I can feel them wanting to shoo away these women. While my dad still knows my mom and remembers her, I wonder if the day will come when he seeks out one of these women. When the disease has changed his worldview and perspective to such an extent that one of these women can bring him more comfort and love in a recognizable form that he starts to be romantically attached to her. It couldn’t be stopped of course, nor should it be. Whatever happiness can be found. But how will we take it?

For now, he calls my mother daily, and wishes he could call her more often. He keeps requesting a cell phone because, in his words, the staff often gets distracted or is too busy to help him call my mom. The staff have told us that if they didn’t stop him, the phone calls would be constant. My dad and my mom have been together for 54 years. How could he not reach out to her?

My mom was telling me of their courtship. They met at a friend’s house and all went to the tavern together (which, for some reason, the word tavern sounds very seedy to me even though it is not an inherently seedy place). After that, my mom and dad talked every day. After a month and a half, he asked her to marry him. After four months, he asked again and she agreed. They met, courted, and married within eleven months. And have been married 54 years. Tell me you need two years to get to know someone enough to marry them. My favorite part of the story is that there was another girl at the party that my dad saw and was attracted to. He would have asked her out, but saw that she had an engagement ring on. So he asked my mom out to the tavern instead. The best part is that he TOLD MY MOM THIS! Who does that?!? Oh honey, you were second choice, wanna get married? I was horrified at this, but my mom said oh it didn’t bother me.

They truly are perfect for each other.

i received an email from my sisters today telling me that they’ve placed my father in an assisted living facility. he has alzheimers and it had all progressed to the point where it was necessary for him to live apart from my mom and where he can have more care.

my father is dead. i don’t know this man emerging from his brain. i do not live where my family lives so i have not witnessed the daily evolution of this new man. this new edition of the man. i don’t know when i will be back where my family lives. i don’t know when i’ll meet him, if i’ll meet him. or if the next time i go home it will be for the funeral.

my first memory of my father is when i was three or four. my older sister had angered me and i went to tell on her. i am sure she was being extremely unfair about tv or a game or something i wanted desperately that she did not want me to have. he chose her side and i told him i hated him. he replied that he hated me too.

i look more like my father than my mother. i act more like him, too. we are both gregarious and judgmental and flighty about our chosen careers (take a long time to decide on those careers). i locked horns with him so many times because my choices weren’t traditional, weren’t what he would have decided for me.

when i was 25 he asked me if i was ever going to get married and get a man to take care of me. this was during one of our many fights about my desire to go out and see the world and his deep desire for me to be practical and logical about the path to get there.

we often fought about telephone calls (i like to talk on the phone, he believed that they were only for transmission of messages, at MOST ten minutes. i tried explaining to him that since i often am away from those i love, i find it very important to check in with them by phone and that i was willing to pay the price for that. he said that made sense, then started in again on how the phone should only be for transmission of information.), my desire to live in foreign countries or go to school far away. or my coloring my hair. or how i was NOT his baby anymore and he did not need to wait up for me when i would visit. as a grown woman clearly over the age of 21, i knew how to get home.

he never stopped feeling responsible for me.

my father’s disease has progressed so far that he is no longer the man i grew up with, the man i feared, the man i sometimes loved and sometimes loathed. i am so far away that i cannot perceive the chips and bits of this man that might still remain. my father is gone. i can only hope to meet the man who took his place. and see if he resembles the father i knew in any way.

Now, to be honest, these sorts of exhortations always kind of annoy me. Perhaps because I often live in cities or towns where expats and locals alike assure me that it is not the REAL fill-in-the-blank, but rather if one goes elsewhere, they will then find the REAL fill-in-the-blank. I assume that these cities and towns are real enough for the inhabitants.

Regardless, I was going to go out of town for several days. Any sort of going out of town is immeasurably exciting. The drive was going to take about five-six hours. We headed out of town, four of us all together. Jimo, our driver, got to pick the music as he was driving. We listened to the same evangelical cd, which I believe consisted of five songs, the entire six hour trip. By the end, I was singing along to the songs which were a mix of English and Yoruba. I almost accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour (again).  But then I realized that the songs were slowly driving me insane.

On the way, we stopped to use the restroom at a mosque/market area. One woman in our group was OBSESSED with mangoes. OBSESSED. Every time we saw a mango stand on the side of the road, we had to stop so that she could buy some. She was searching for the mythical perfect mango. Sweet, juicy, not so stringy. At every stop, her mango dreams were shattered by sour mango, stringy mango, hard mango. We started getting out with her to check them and were all trying to find the perfect mango, mainly so the search could stop. It was to be a theme throughout our three day trip. Luckily, the other woman’s obsession was bananas, which were easily found, purchased, and consumed with much delight. The bananas were different from what I grew up with–smaller, sweeter but with a chewier almost gummy flesh.

Upon learning I hadn’t had much Nigerian food, they made sure I tried suya (a spicy barbecue type of meat dish that we ate with rice cakes that were more spongy than rice cakes i’d had in japan or korea). The suya was quite good, though I have to admit to being leary of eating it as it was in a black plastic bag and I’ve had challenging meals in the past from black plastic bags (see Mongolian adventures with marmot). After I got over my initial hesitation, it was amazing. I love spicy food and after my companions were convinced I wouldn’t choke, they kept shoving suya at me. Next we stopped and bought roasted corn from the side of the road.

I was incredibly interested in the roasted corn because everyone in the car was so excited about it. Even Mango stopped talking about mangoes for five minutes and started waxing lyrical about roasted corn. This was going to be good.

I think one has to grow up with or become accustomed to this manner of corn to truly enjoy it. I grew up on very sweet corn in the states and when it was roasted, it was usually buttered and then had the husk replaced around the ear to preserve the juices, then just roasted to a goldeny color. This corn wasn’t as sweet in the first place, and then was roasted to more of a hazelnut brown, so it was much harder/chewier than I had anticipated. There was no burst of sweet corn juice in your mouth. It was kind of dry and hard. Not unpleasant and something that I think could become very crave-worthy with time, but it wasn’t something I was going to start hankering for immediately.

The last thing I ate that was noteworthy was pepper soup. My friend Banana took us to a famous restaurant and I asked for advice on what to pick out. She said I’d probably like the pepper soup. I asked what was in it. Beef. and spice. Awesome.

She went to the other counter and I stayed at the counter with soup and myriad other things. I should have followed her, in hindsight. So I order fried plantains and pepper soup. They dish me up my soup and plantains and I go to take my seat. I’m trying not to look at my soup because I believe there is a jaw on top of the soup. I sit down, look at my plate and there is in fact a jaw in my soup. This disturbs me on two levels. One, I’m sorry, I’m an American from the city. While I lived in Mongolia, I saw sheep bits scattered around the house, ate meat that distinctly still looked like the animal, but I never really got over the idea that meat was in the shape of a square or a rectangle or sometimes a strange triangle and came wrapped in either paper or plastic wrap and styrofoam. I know it is wrong and a little disrespectful to the animal to forget that you are eating its actual body, but that’s how I roll. So the whole actual jaw in my bowl of soup was a little disconcerting. But ALSO, the jaw was patently smaller than a bovine jaw. I was pretty sure it was a goat jaw. And while I can eat sheep (though after two years of mutton, sometimes I can’t hold it down), goat has just never been something I could get behind. I tried, though. I ate as much broth as I could, but as I was poking around looking for veggies or pieces of meat not attached to teeth, I found other bits and bobs of the goat. White parts with fili-type pieces waving about. Solid and waxy looking brown bits. Rough looking red bits. The soup and my imagining where exactly these bits came from defeated me. I fished out the last of the recognizable bits and asked Jimo if he was still hungry and if so, would he like my soup? He was shocked I didn’t eat more and readily agreed. First thing? He picked up the jaw and sucked the meat right off of it. Again, it is my own squeamish citified whatever, but there is something kinda weird about seeing one jaw engulf another jaw, slurping it clean.

I finished my plantains and nostalgically thought of the days when I would eat blowtorched marmot or boiled horse penis. (Okay, it wasn’t like I liked it or ate more than a bite. But still! I used to be much more adventurous. If Anthony Bourdain ever met me, he’d greet me with nothing but mockery and disdain.) But I’m not that person anymore. It may be obnoxious, but I accept that I prefer to think of meat in a square little packet and not actually hanging on a bone.

Beyond the food, the scenery on the way north and in the north was so beautiful. Trees and red earth and rolling hills. Different types of architecture everywhere–huts, mosques, churches, buildings in the process of falling down and buildings being built. All very active and wonderful. It made me want to see more of Nigeria.

I don’t tend to talk about work in these pages. But there was one thing that happened that just about killed me. We were watching a peer educator give a condom demonstration to some drivers. One driver became extremely agitated during the demonstration and started gesturing very decidedly at his crotch and making all of these diagnal motions with his hands and all of the other drivers started laughing. Then the peer educator’s supervisor grabbed the demonstration phallus with both hands, and while talking rather heatedly, swung the phallus (at crotch level mind) to the right, to the left, straight up, and pointing rather far down. The initial man gestured again and the supervisor performed the same dance. I finally asked my friend what was going on and apparently the initial man was quite firm in his conviction that a man whose penis pointed to the right or left would not be able to wear a condom, because every demonstration phallus is always straight. So he believed that the condoms only went on straight penises. The supervisor was trying to demonstrate that it was only because of the demonstration phallus standard, but that condoms could go on a penis that pointed any which way.

The conversation? Went on for fifteen minutes, a continuous cycle of heated debate and pointing with the demonstration phallus. Awesome that he was getting proper information and great that he felt comfortable discussing it, but HYSTERICAL to see this supervisor who was an incredibly serious man waving about a demonstration phallus at crotch level while speaking excitedly.

The cap on the entire trip was on the way home, when I started noticing signs. One church was named “The Unashamed of Christ Church”

Unfortunately, Abuja is not set up for mass excitement.

This past weekend I arranged for a car to take me to Wuse Market (outdoor market selling many different types of goods), then to Abuja Arts and Crafts Center and finally to Dunes (grocery store).

The driver arrives promptly at 10am and it is Mohammed, one of my favorite drivers because he likes to chat and tell me about Nigeria, Abuja, and all sorts of other things. We start heading to Wuse market and he asks me if I would like him to walk with me through the market, or if I feel okay going through the market alone. I assure him that I will be fine going through the market and leave him to snooze in the car for an hour while I see what’s what. Not being a stranger to the finer points of marketing, and having a large sum of cash on me for my big grocery shopping later that morning, I’d hidden about 30,000 Naira ($200U.S.) in various and sundry locations on my person. I had money in each sock, in my bra, and smoothed into each pocket of my pants. I tucked my phone into the little pocket on the right side of my jeans. I figured that if I got rolled or pickpocketed in the market, the likelihood of all of these places being searched was pretty small.

Wuse market is a dusty collection of brown stalls in a loose grid pattern. Many stalls appear to sell the same things: fabric, jewelry, household goods, and toward the back of the market are the food stalls that sell vegetables, fruits, juice, pop, etc. Walking alone along the stalls I was serenaded with the constant singsong chant of “Free look” and “Come see what I have hear” and “Fwwwp Fwwwwp Fwwwp” (my approximation of the sound of teeth sucking in my general direction. This was accompanied with casual-seeming tugs on my sleeves and wrists to go to this stall or that stall. I had a few gentlemen salesmen who walked with me quite a distance trying to ascertain what I wanted to buy. African beads? African fabric? African jewels? (I find it interesting that even here, in Nigeria, among Nigerians I am asked about my interest in African arts and crafts in general, whereas in my travels in Asia I have never ever been asked if I would like Asian beads or Asian fabric, but always those goods from the particular country or region or town that I am in.) I duck and weave through the parade of men and as I’m doing so, I notice that two of them seem to be following me, but are magically following me by walking in front of me. I think that this can’t be correct because who follows ahead? So I switch direction a few times and indeed notice that they seem to be following me by staying a few steps ahead of me. Kind of magical.

I duck into a shop staffed solely with women and chat with them a few minutes about fabric and headwraps. They try to convince me that I would look very elegant with a headwrap, especially after the woman who tied the headwrap for the president’s daughter ties my headwrap. I think about it for a minute then realize I am not ready to be SUCH a cliche yet and politely decline. I take a trip down a few more lanes of the market then decide I’m exhausted and can’t be bothered to hear teeth sucking or ma’am or be tugged anymore. I arrive back at the car fifteen minutes after I left,  much to the amusement of Mohammed.

The Abuja Arts and Crafts Center is a collection of huts across the street from the Sheraton hotel. The huts are set up in such a way that as you amble around, you’ll follow a path that takes you by every single shop unless you are determined to escape the whirlpool clutch of commerce. The first shop I go into has a collection of wood carvings. The most intriguing is a crudely carved reproduction of a firing squad. At 12 dollars, I am tempted but decide to keep looking.

Wandering through the clutch of huts, peering in the darkened doorways, I stop at one and blink, not believing what I’m seeing. There is what appears to be a long, slender sculpture of gently gleaming white. It looks smooth and cool to the touch. I head in and it is in fact a display of carvings made from elephant ivory.

Stunned, I head outside and as I’m shaking my head at the blatant selling of elephant ivory in a tourist market, I look up and tacked to a tree is a dusty, rather ragged looking leopard skin. Beneath the skin is a collection of small, full-bodied, dessicated crocodiles.

I try to go into a few other places to see what’s what, but keep thinking about the ivory and the skin. As I get into the car, I ask Mohammed about it and learn that this isn’t illegal here at all. You can sell these products from these endangered animals no problem. But I wonder at the cost and who can afford to buy that and get it into their home country without any question. As we drive to the grocery store, Mohammed tells me about different types of traditional medicine that are used as well, things such as lion hearts, lion oil, etc. He laughs at my shock.

Sunday I am bored. Bored. Bored. TV is showing the same things over and over, I didn’t bring a computer, I have read all of my books. I decide to go to the movies. It is an hour walk each way. So I leave the house early, 930am, so that if I get lost (always a possibility, even if I have a map) I have plenty of daylight to find my way home. I trudge along the hot streets, winding past the Hilton and the Central Mosque (which is absolutely beautiful and covered in gold leaf and you are NOT allowed to take photos of it) and walking over fecund greenery below wide, smooth highways and make it to the movie theater. On a Sunday morning in Abuja, I’m the only one who wants to see X-Men Origins. The theater is cool and my face becomes a paler shade of red as I sip my Fanta and watch a scarily ripped Hugh Jackman roar around the Canadian countryside.

That’s it. That’s my weekend. This coming weekend, I’m going to walk to a cafe. Seriously, that’s a plan.

I’ve gotten acquainted with everyone on the team over the course of a retreat. During the retreat, I was taught about Nigerians. Kalada informed me that everyone in Nigeria has an agenda. We came onto this topic of conversation when eating snack and getting ready for a group discussion in the afternoon. He was staring off into space and I asked him what he was thinking about. His agenda for the discussion. We had a long, involved conversation about how you have to figure out your agenda in advance of everything and figure out ways to get people to buy into your agenda without buying into their agenda. And even if you think you don’t have an agenda, that in itself is an agenda. Apparently, Americans ALWAYS have an agenda as well and their playing at innocence of having an agenda is a key component of the agenda.

Then he told me I should have a Fulani style outfit made because I have the figure for it. I suspect Fulani figures are ample in the behind. But I don’t know for sure.

The drivers who pick me up for work and take me home have been fascinating conversationalists as well. Nigeria has a poor image overseas and you would think that people from Nigeria would not like this image and would try to dispel it. I have had more lectures on how I should not trust Nigerians, how they are always trying to do things their way but not the right way, they are crazy, etc etc etc. Then they stop themselves and say, not all just most. Most Nigerians. I shouldn’t fear Nigerians, but I should not trust them either.

One driver took it upon himself to inform me that good Christians do not have tattoos. They are perfect the way God made them. In fact, good Christians do not wear lipstick or decoration of any kind. It is a desecration to the body. He then asked me when I was going to come to Nigeria full time and that the next time I went to the Philippines he would come with me, because he loves islands and the music of the Philippines. He also said that the Philippines must be very holy because it is mentioned in the Bible. You know, the letters to the Philipians.

I went on the hash (running/walking group) this weekend. We wandered all over the countryside right out of Abuja, accidentally walked through some crops, saw villages full of people (Abuja is empty and I’d been wondering where the people are. They are outside of Abuja.), beautiful scenery, and had to ford two streams. Got lost on the way back and had to walk by myself through a dark carpark. I got a little freaked out because I had no idea where I was, had no load on my cell phone, couldn’t tell if I was going in the right direction, and had men sucking their teeth in my general direction. Luckily I caught up to a group of hashers. And vowed never to go on the hash again.

Next weekend I plan to go to Wuse market to look at.. stuff. People here get together a lot because there’s not a lot of activities to get involved with. Every Sunday people play volleyball, every other Saturday they hash, once a month-ish there is a happy hour at the Marine House (where the Marines live. They have foos ball and air hockey and a pool table. What’s up, frat house), and people go to each other’s compounds with their kids to swim and stuff. Kids are definitely the ultimate accessory. If you cant’ have a long conversation about their behavior or their school or their scandalous teachers, you just can’t have a real conversation. Second accessory is a husband and you must talk about how he can’t keep the house clean, he makes everything difficult when he’s around, or something along those lines. There are no problems or issues a single person can have, because invariably you will hear, well at least you don’t have to worry about kids! My arm could be falling off from gangrene and I’m pretty sure I’d hear, well you know my kids just are so hungry and irritable you’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with that! Indeed.

Difficult to listen to, hard to accept that it happens

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=99838343&m=99838315

then the other day i got into the elevator on my floor (near the top of the building) and he was already in there in workout gear. i get in and face the door, not making eye contact because i wasn’t in the mood to have a little chat.

” are you, as they say, going out?”

“yes, i’m going to yell at someone” (which i was, because i had to dispute a bill that i’ve had to dispute multiple times this year)

“oh. i’m doing 30 chest presses. they just wear me out.”

“so you’re taking a break in the elevator?”

“well, i have to do them in sets of light, medium, and hard because they just kill me.”

(door opens, fleeing begins)

“all right, enjoy your workout”

“it’s the same one daniel craig does. see you later.”

he’s older, i don’t know maybe 50′s or 60′s. daniel craig’s workout? really?

also, is he just practicing on me for when he goes out? i live in a place where there are many lovely ladies just waiting for an older gentleman to sweep them off their feet. these ladies are stereotyped as being beautiful, loving family, cooking, doing things to keep their man happy, etc. i’m cranky and chubby and mainly like to have men think of ways to keep me happy. why is he talking to me? he should be talking to those ladies.

though it is amusing. unusual accent. daniel craig’s workout. what’s coming next???

naked children

adam sandler nude pictures

naked combat

how to ask a girl to ride on the back of

WHAT?!?! naked children. oy. yuck.

also, what does the searcher want to ask girls to ride on the back of?

and really? adam sandler? adam sandler? what is going on?!?!?

Watched Valkyrie this weekend. It was all right, but made me desperately sad to watch a further interpretation of war and remember yet again that people always say “never again”. Talk about Hiroshima. ‘Never again’. Talk about the concentration camps. ‘Never again’

Destruction of humanity is happening all over the place. Never again my ass.