slow roll

I was handed a drink the other day with these little eyeballs floating around in the juice.  I wondered where I can find said drink for the upcoming Halloween party.  I mean, look at all the eyeballs!

In totally unrelated news, my mother just pulled out of the driveway.  She called me to tell me she was doing so.  Normally insignificant, this morning’s 4am slow-roll down our sloping cement is her first movement towards Armenia.  Within a collection of mere moments I will be standing face to face with my own mother, bursting at the seams.

I’m hoping to video tape most of her trip here, do what I’d like to call a Kblog (Kim and Brent’s Log) and perhaps you’ll even see it on the interwebs.  But until then, excuse my absence.  I’ll be a bit busy zooming around Armenia with the source of half my self.

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i simply can’t wait to hug her

I’ve been digging through invoices.  Grant related invoices.  IN ARMENIAN.

However, pat me on the back and hand me a hogie, I finished a little while ago, and now it’s time to employ me wee brain towards a more exciting end:  MY MOTHER IS PRACTICALLY ALMOST HERE.  This is my mother’s first solo trip just about anywhere, and she’s going as far as she possibly could go.  Go further than Armenia, and you’re already on your way back home.  I’m proud of her attempting this massive leap, and I feel all that love in my soul knowing she’s jumping on a plane for me.

She texted me earlier wondering if I have a voltage converter.  My cell battery is dead, so I’m guessing at this point that it’s about a hair dryer.  I’m fairly certain my mother hasn’t been hair-dryer-less since the ’70′s.  She’s trying to find a way around it, but I know she’d give up that defining, glowing-blonde do-up for me.

Next week will be a fireball of a week.  I will experience the absolute heart-gush of seeing my mother for the first time in over 15 months.  I will enjoy every tiny moment of her week here, introducing her to favorite people and places and foods and sounds.  And I will cry a bucket or more when I take her back to the airport.

Send out your prayers/thoughts/positive energies for my sweet mom’s journey.  I simply can’t wait to hug her.

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running around smiling wildly and flailing my arms

Y’all.  I know I already cried wolf on ‘the biggest news of the year‘.  And yes, I stand by refried beans as life-changing.  But it’s time to get serious.

Because:

My mother is coming to Armenia.

My mother.  In Armenia.  It’s. All. Happening.

See the incredible woman in this little Skype photo:

You may recall her wonderfulness as mentioned here.

Well, this mom who’s been all pixels and care packages is going to be, within a mere month or so, HUGGABLE.  HUGGABLE, PEOPLE!

I’m fairly certain that when I see her at the airport HERE IN ARMENIA that I will turn into a pile of mush immediately.  I think I’ll prepare a little sign to hold up from the mush that says, “I wish I could hug you right now, but you may have to wait until I become a solid again.”

But now I’m all lists and plans and flurried wonder at what will I think be A Dream Come True.

Can’t deal.  Too excited.  More later.

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you know those times i’m talking about

You know those times when everything seems to go wrong.  It’s not just a day, but whole weeks at a time.  Those sections of the year where things happen one-after-another, like you miss a flight and pay an of-course-highly-unfair price for a new ticket then you return home to find a mouse has eaten through all your clothes and you go to meet your friends for dinner but your tire is flat so you call them and have a not horrible but mostly inedible meal at a restaurant you wouldn’t have chosen all the while watching as two of your friends (one of whom you were just starting to think liked you) display body language that clearly shows they’re already hooking up so you go home.  The next day you spend thirty minutes looking for your keys only to find that at some point yesterday they slipped through the mouse-chewed hole in your pocket.  You spend another thirty minutes looking for that extra house key which you find in a cardboard box next to a sleeping rattlesnake which takes a dive at you right before you pin it down with your foot.  Heart pumping, you contemplate the sweat which seems to have been released in deluge proportions and think about how you’ll have no time for a shower before work.  Having nothing like shovel or ax handy, and needing to keep all of your body weight on the neck of the rattler, you spy a butter knife on a near shelf and go about a far-to-nasty snake beheading while praying for forgiveness for everything.

Later that day your boss scolds you for being late to work and breathes fire that singes your hair to nubs and sets three weeks of file organization ablaze.  Thinking you’re just about over it, you decide to take a bus home but the bus has been rigged by a terrorist or Dennis Hopper or somebody and has to go above 50 mph or it will explode.  You take the wheel after the driver’s been shot and you figure at least you’ll have a love interest to guide you through the ordeal but it turns out to just be Keanu Reeves who looks at you with the same scowl over and over because apparently someone somewhere told him that was reassuring.

After the bus thing has been resolved you figure you’ll write about it on your blog but the internet is out so there you are alone in your house with nothing to do but sort through your mouse-hole clothes.  You take a box of totally demolished shirts and pants out to the curb and just as you’re setting it down by the trashcans a plane engine crashes into the roof of your house totally demolishing the east side along with your neighbors row of freshly planted lilies and possibly their dog as well which may now be under the dog house which is also under the plane engine.

Your neighbors run out of their house screaming about a broken gas line and the whole neighborhood starts scattering.  A few of you end up running all the way to the beach where you find a row of beached sperm whales each with a small group of children next to it, crying and singing to the ocean beasts.  One of the kids is bald and has leukemia.  The whole scene is suddenly backlit when your neighborhood explodes.

You tell all of this to your friend, who once you’ve finished says, “You live by a beach?!”

___________________

Ok… my weeks haven’t been so bad.  And I won’t bore you with the minutia, but I will say that on the third of July I traveled with my dog to the capital to have her spayed.  I then went to a town by the lake to celebrate the Fourth with friends.  However, I ended up with a stomach flu that kept me in bed while they had their lake times.  And I called the vet who was supposed to scoop out the puppy ovaries who instead told me that no scooping could be done on account of the colony of worms living in the puppy’s abdomen (despite the many worm treatments I’ve given her).  So, plagued with wormy guilt, I now have to take her back home, forget the weekend that went totally wrong and figure out when the heck I can make the multi-day trip back to the capital for puppy scooping, a trip that will inevitably involve me cancelling plans and praying pleasejesus don’t let her go into heat any time soon.

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two of them!

Last week found me moving between three cities, meeting new friends and hugging old ones.  And by “old ones” I mean my Peace Corps friends who are now more than a year-old.  My Peace Corps service is nearly half-way over.  [head spins]

And by “meeting new friends”, I mostly mean that I met my new sitemates.

I have sitemates. Two of them.  Two Americans coming to live in my town.  This really changes so much about my Peace Corps service.  I spend so much of my time in my little Armenian bubble up north.  I get out about once a month and have a taste of America, some quality time with other Americans in the capital or in other towns.  But now, two Americans are invading my bubble.

You’ll be hearing about them more soon.  They’re coming for their first visit in about a week.  They’re moving here in the beginning of August.

Does this mean I might not watch so many movies by myself?  Does this mean wil’in’ out to Hot Chip in my living room may no longer be a solo venture?  Does this mean that I might no longer have to premptively eat so much quick-to-spoil food alone?

Stay tuned, y’all.  Stay.  Tuned.

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a great way to spend a third of my life

I have this addiction, see.

I love sleep.  I love to doze off.  I love knowing my bed well enough to lay in it just right and let go of every muscular tension.  I love the weight of my wool duvet and the cool of my sheets.  I love pushing the balls of my feet against the footboard in a full body stretch.  I love waking up in the middle of the night, reading 2:00am on my watch and knowing I have hours more of bliss.
I love feather pillows and pillows stuffed with cotton. I love wool mats and firm mattresses and egg crate foam.  I love my sleeping bag.  I love jersey sheets and flannel sheets and the old flowery sheets at home that are years-thin.  I love my bed here; I love that I can acclimate to sleeping on the floor for months at a time.  I love my bed at home, and I love that I always feel safe and comforted after a nap in my parents’ bed.

When I was in high school, our Sunday Bible class started with highlights of the week.  It became a joke that my highlight-of-the-week always included a fantastic nap.  I love to sleep in cars; I love being carried while I dream.  I remember a specific doze in the back of a van riding from Honduras to Guatemala with road air blasting in through the open window and Death Cab for Cutie coming from my Walkman.  In Kolkata, naps were best laying flat on the cool marble floor while warm air swirled in from the windows.  My freshman year of college I built naps into my schedule, stealing an hour here and there to run back to my dorm room, click on the box fan, and curl up under my comforter.  I actually planned naps for Anthropology 101 and woke up embarrassingly often with drool-wet notes.  Back home, there is not better nap-holder than the big, overstuffed, dark green, corduroy couch, especially after a Sunday meal when the house is quite and all seven of us have found a place to roost.

My recipe for the perfect doze: a place you can sink into, daylight barely wisping in through drawn curtains, a fan gently brushing cool air across ankles and face and a quilt pulled up around my shoulders.

But here’s the thing.  I think sleep has become a problem.  Or perhaps it has always been one.

In my earliest recollection, school nights became school mornings that started with my dad coming into the my brother’s and my room with a tender, “Time to get up.”  This was ignored prompting another attempt before the cruel light was flicked on and covers were pulled back.  Groaning I would slowly slide out of bed and into clothes, and then I would sit for what I’m sure seemed too long in the doorway next my shoes, thinking and thinking about the labor involved in putting them on and how this contributed to the cruelty of the world.

I am always slow to rise.  Every morning is an end.  After the second alarm rings and I wildly and blindly sling my arm around to hit the off button, I consider how I need to flex the right muscles in order to put feet on the floor, stand and dress.  If I don’t act within a millionth of a second it is already to late.  The idea of turning over, curling back into relaxation and warm covers and is too overwhelming.  On the worst days involve quiet groans of, “I don’t want to get up,” and multiple weak resolutions to rise followed by stronger resolutions to nestle a while longer.  It can be a full hour of this before I get to the day.

Truth is, even if I spring out of bed at 6am, I won’t fully wake up until 10.  There is not coffee in the world that would make a difference.  I am really at my best between 3pm and 2am.  But as you know, the world starts working at 8am.  Blessed am I that my life hasn’t groomed me to follow the light to work-wrenching fields.  But shucks if it isn’t a pain for everyone else who’d like to actually like me to get something done before 10.

My Armenian coworkers deserve a more 9am oriented volunteer.  Any ideas?

_____________________________

Sidenote: Peace Corps hosted an HIV/AIDS poster competition in January.  Our office helped over 30 village students participate.  But just check out how great this one is.  Maybe it’s the melodramatic Earth that does it for me.  It’s kind of Scarlett O’Hara maybe with one hand on a hip, the other on the forhead, the tear and the giant, “NO!”  Of course, the Earth is much more justified in her melodrama that O’Hara, I say.  I digress.  The poster is awesome.

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2009makers

Tell me you forgot that I said I’d post a bunch of lists about the decade and the year and resolutions, etc.  I still may post some of them, but a bunch of lists are not really on the way.  However, what is on the way, in just a few sentences actually, is a list of what made up my 2009.  I’d say it was a significant year, on that marked a lot of change, one that solidified some same-olds, and one that will likely be a turning point for me.  So without further ado, my 2009makers:

1. Moving

my roost in kolkata

2009 began with me gearing up for the year after a couple months gearing down on the island in Panama in late 2008.  I had just moved home and was enjoying small town Texas in every way, making some cash at  Mom’s beading table, celebrating an exciting inauguration with the pint-sized sister.  But soon it was off to Kolkata where I lived for a couple of months.  There was teaching of ultimate frisbee to my brothers in the slum, copious amounts of carrom board playing and mango chop eating, and there was the most heart-wrenching cry of my entire life, right there in front of my indian Dada and Didi.  Then it was back home for an intense, take-it-all-in two months, and finally a big heaping move to Armenia.  Through the year I’ve moved from one country to another 4 times, been in six different countries (the U.S., India, England, Austria, Armenia and Georgia), and lived with four different families (including two host family stays in Armenia).
In 2010 I think I’ll be settling-in, planning on staying in the country for the whole year.  It will be the longest I’ve gone without leaving by plane to another country since I graduated high school.  And it’s not even my country.   But at least I’ll be settled for a bit.

2. New Holidays

a renegade band of colored kids on a holi parade

This year I have new favorite holidays.  The one that will stick out as not only a favorite holiday (just under Christmas with the fam, of course) but also my favorite travelling experience, is Holi.  Of course, I’ve only experienced a Kolkata version, but that version was so moving, that I will forever hope to recreate it and likely never will.
Just under that, I’d have to say, is Armenian Nor Tari.  The hospitality is wonderfully overwhelming; days and days of being an honored guest feels down-right humbling and sustaining at the same time.

This was also the first year I’ve experienced holidays dedicated to a town (re: Yerevan Day, Stepanavan Day, Vanadzor Day, all of which I celebrated).  There was also some holiday back in September, I think, through which we celebrated the Armenian church finding Jesus’s cross.  I took home some basil, but to be honest, I’m really not sure what all that was about.

flat me on a pumpkin

This was also the year in which, because I was missing my traditional versions, my family holidays were recreated in new ways.  A paper me was present during Halloween festivities while I hosting my own version with my new Armenian friends. (Flat Me also made it to Thanksgiving and Christmas, too!) Thanksgiving was a 100 person celebration at the All Volunteer conference, and the 2009 American Christmas was both an undesirable in-country event, and one that I will hold dear to my heart thanks to Skype.

3. Family Love

half the Kolkatan family sitting with new dishes in their partially constructed new home

First, I’ll say that this year I got lovin’ not only from my own family, but also from families in the UK (who housed me and fed me when I was stranded in England), India (in so many ways I can’t even count), and Armenia (through dance parties, games of UNO,  laughter and more laughter).

Still, it was a unique and amazing year to be me amongst my wonderful family.  Certainly this isn’t the first year in which I’ve received love from my family.  I’m one of the lucky one’s who’s gotten incredible love since the plus sign appeared (or however that worked in the ’80′s).  But this year was a year so full of family love that it deserves a list within a list.  So, Ways My Family Has Made Me Feel Unbelievable Lucky To Be Alive:

-In 2008, instead of having a usual gift-exchange-type Christmas, my family pooled money and sent it with me to Kolkata in January ’09.  With it, we were able to help Kolkata City Mission build a home for one family in an urban slum.   And I was blessed enough to be both in the living room when my family gave me that gift, and in the new living room with that Indian family.  There’s one 2009 moment I will never forget.
-There was also the parents help with getting ready for Armenia, the shoes, the sleeping bag, the million little things that would make my stay in Armenia so so much better.
-The Farewell Fishfry thrown by my family and my Dad’s brother and sister-in-law, and my grandmother.  The family gathered some of my favorite hometowne-ers for the fiesta.  Love.
-The first softball game in which the little sister pitched.  She didn’t walk a batter ’til the last inning.  And the big sister and I sat and cheered more than I’ve ever cheered for anything, and I forgot anyone else existed outside the three of us and the one striking-out.
-The daily emails from my brother that have kept my soul alive.
-The skype convos late at night (early in my morning) with my Texas fam.
-Packages from home stuffed with the most awesome gifts, like refried beans, socks, cribbage board, flash drives, sesame street coloring book, chips and dip, candy canes and puppy chow.
-Facebook albums of Flat Me enjoying holidays at home.
-Texts, phone calls, emails, letters, and a halloween card that had many Armenian’s giggling and had me explaining the word ‘tentacle’.
-And more.

4. Reading Reneissance

This has been a little while in the making, but I’d say this year has seen me reading more than I have in a long while.  It’s no 133 books or anything, but I’ve read more books this year than I have in any year since probably the sixth grade (I was a REAL reader from ages 5-12.  Then I just… wasn’t.)  This year I’ve found a new favorite (Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury) and found in books a revived inkling to write more and more and more (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).
I’ve also been completely inspired by blog writers and have, in 2009, become a regular reader of a few.  Perhaps its because I’m way the heck away from my culture. But blogs have been the center of my reading reneissance this year and have made me hopeful about the future of the written word.  You’ll find my favorite reads on the right, and here are my best 2009 discoveries:
- Monkey See, NPR’s pop-culture blog.  She’s funny in my favorite, witty, we-should-really-get-over-ourselves-slash-appreciate-each-other kind of way.  And she’s ok with loving Survivor.  Check.
-/Film, read this and you will forever be at the cusp of cinema trivia.
-Circle Me Confused, in the world of Peace Corps Blogs, I really like this one.  Simple, unpretentious, charming.  More blogs should have that kind of voice.
-Hootenannie, as far as blogs-as-journals go, this one is welcoming.  Processing some gritty stuff online can be tricky, but right now she’s doing it with charm, wit, and a determination to keep sane.  And among bloggers who are my actual friends in non-virtual life, I think she’s kind a trend.  Like when a group of friends all love something unique, like fingerless gloves or Parcheesi.  We all love reading Annie’s blog.  And we all want to/are excited about meeting her.   Maybe one day I will?  Until then, reading on.

Alright, that’s enough words on 2009.  Now, onward and upward into 2010…

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Madlobt

Got back from Tbilisi yesterday.  Stayed with another alumnus of my old university.  Didn’t know him before I came.  Wild thing is that my mom back in Texas actually met his sister and sent me this guy’s email.  So, through that email, I contacted him and arranged a visit. At his apartment we chatted about chapel, Bible studies, our “World Famous” cafeteria, and favorite professors.  He’s a bit older than me, not much, but old enough to have hung out during college with someone on whom I’d once bestowed the title, “My Favorite Babysitter”.  (Cue the song… it’s a small world after all…)
He also works as my one of my NGO’s Programs Coordinators for the region I’m currently living in, and we came up with some great work ideas, some program opportunities I’m excited to start working on in my NGO.  I, in fact, had a moment in which we were discussing how to hold village classes on safe migration, and I thought to myself, “Your doing it!”  That I am really living my dream out here.  Of course, then my thoughts digressed to, “You’re doing it, Peter,”  and I imagined the food fight scene in Hook, forcing me, moments later, to awkwardly jump back into conversation as if I’d been completely attentive.

The main streets of Tbilisi are currently covered in Christmas lights.  It puts almost any other display to shame, even College Station’s Santa’s Wonderland (believe it!); the romance of an ex-Soviet city, peppered with evergreens, covered in gaudy light chandeliers and dripping-light icicles is certainly enough to bring a lump of Christmas warmth to your chest.  It might even move you to joy if you are able to keep from thinking about the many Georgian villages without electricity who would greatly benefit from the rumored $2 million spent on the city display.

Still when visiting a city the highlights seem to always be cibarious (new GRE word!  Ուրախ!).  And this trip it all came in twos.  Two trips to McDonald’s, two cheeseburgers, two fries.  My sister said it right over Skype: “Deathfood!”  But what could I do, those golden arches MADE me.  I also had two pieces of cheesecake.  But by far the best was when we ordered-in American style pizza TWICE from Ronny’s.  I couldn’t believe my tastebuds.  Rich pizza sauce slathered below melted mozzerella, italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers and onions!   And get this: The American owners were cycling from Western Europe to Kazakhstan and decided they liked Tbilisi enough to stay.  So, they actually found small Georgian cheese and meat factories and TAUGHT them how to make mozzerella and pepperoni.  I literally stuffed myself with so many slices that I’m still full.

Now I’m back in town, blogging from my desk, thinking about the grant I need to write this week, and the house I’m moving into IN TWO DAYS!

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