Cold Spaghetti

1 wedding.
0 honeymoons.
9 addresses.
2 Master degrees.
2 bouts of unemployment.
50, then
20, then
10, now
5 (?) pinball machines.
4 Michigan winters.
2 kids.
3 houses.
5 countries.
3 continents.
(almost) 1 PhD.
4 promotions.
1 cat on a farm,
1 cat in the back, and
1 cat at our feet.
1 Natural Disaster, followed by
1 Big Flood, followed by
2 months of wandering.
Thousands of really bad jokes that always make me laugh.
1 really good Anniversary gift, followed by
7 years of none.
Hundreds of diapers.
Countless nights with no sleep.
A ton of family dramas.
Many celebrations.
A million happy memories, with
A billion more to come.

Happy Anniversary, Pancho!

I am beginning to feel that the Universe is conspiring to keep me away from my photographs. This weekend, we took the kids on a spur-of-the-moment getaway to the beach at Gulf Shores… using my parents’ house as a base. On their computer, I was able to see some of the photos from the end of the trip that hadn’t been deleted from one of the memory cards. It was a shock to see how different they looked on a decent monitor (as opposed to my laptop) and I vowed not to touch them until I could view them decently.

Paul was going to let me view and organize this afternoon on his computer, but for some reason the thing is off the home network and I can’t get to the archive. He’s only gone for an hour or so in a meeting, so it was my one window of opportunity. There are still many pictures I haven’t seen yet, myself. I’ll petition him to let me borrow one of his four (yes, four, apparently, developers need an entire wall of monitors to work — genius requires desktop space, I guess) monitors and hook it up to my laptop tonight.

The exciting news is that we’re resigned to (FINALLY) get an Apple (no, it probably won’t be a new-hotness, nor will it be a laptop — my 6 year old $500 workhorse is doing fine). This desktop would be mine to primarily use for photo and video stuff and I’m thrilled. It’s a heck of a big move for us to consider this within the scope of us loosing $5000-$6000 on the shitty tile job and with the expenses hitting us in the next few months, but we’re reaching critical mass and something is going to give if we don’t move forward a bit. I’m excited about the upgrade but dreading moving to another machine, since I’ve used this one for years with no need of re-boot or cleaning. (What can I say? When Paul fixes up a machine, it WORKS.)

Moving on to other conspiracies… Michael Stipe no longer puts our children to sleep on car rides. Granted, they WERE calm and quiet and on the way to sleep when Paul reached back and put his hand on Will’s leg, so there is a chance that this disturbance interfered with the typical results. Last night, 2 of the 2.5 hours drive from Mobile to NOLA was spent with cranky kids driving us crazy.

In the past, re-entering the United States after weeks abroad has not went well for us. When we returned from the first Honduras trip, Paul was hospitalized with some malaria-ish condition (they couldn’t get blood at the right time to confirm diagnosis), I was stung by a yellow jacket and had an allergic reaction which made me cough so hard I popped out a few ribs and was bed ridden for two weeks, and Paul was laid off from his job. When we returned from Peru two years ago, we found that we had been victims of identity theft (an HR employee at Paul’s company — he is now in federal prison) and our car was dead.

Not withstanding the fact that Spirit Airlines SUCKS, we managed to get back in one piece yesterday — with ALL our luggage and ALL our delicate ceramics unbroken. We enjoyed a wonderful homecoming with the kids, who we picked up from school on the way back from the airport. Then we got home. And the shoe dropped.

The tile was laid in our bathroom while we were gone… we decided to hire someone on great recommendation rather than have Paul and I try to do this when we got back. We were sure his workman ship would live up to our expectations.

It didn’t. We are very disappointed.

The bottom line is that substantial portions will need to be redone.

We’re working on figuring out the next steps there. We’re also working on 800 other things, including getting settled back into our still-disaster-construction-zone house, planning how to spend the weekend re-connecting with our kids, processing the 4000+ photographs taken on the trip, and trying to adjust back to our actual jobs. Thankfully, I planned to NOT start interviews for my study until week after next… it will take that long to get organized.

Details on the trip and pictures posted soon.

Latinola has a link to an editorial in the T-P regarding pending legislation in Louisiana regarding immigrants. (Have I mentioned how much I love the colors of Latinola´s website?)

I´ve taken the time to write local officials and hope others will, too. Here is some information…

Listed below are all the immigration bills, plus one resolution that have been filed:

Ø HB 1357 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) creates the crime of harboring, concealing, or sheltering an alien. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 1358 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) creates crime of unlawful transportation of an illegal alien. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 25 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) requires police officers to verify citizenship of every person they arrest. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 1365 by Rep. Burns (District 89, Mandeville) requires that landlords verify legal status of aliens (passed Committee waiting to be heard on House Floor)

We leave early tomorrow for Sacred Valley.

Paul here:

We’re back in Iquitos and safe and sound after our jungle adventure. The place we stayed was wonderful and we were able to see many animals and, of course, insects. Holly is going through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken over the last few days and deleting the ones we don’t want to keep in order to make room on our memory cards which are bursting at theirs seams. We didn’t bring a computer with us to Iquitos so we have no other place to store them right now.

A more detailed blog entry with tons of pictures will be coming in a day or two (we should have an afternoon off either tomorrow or the day after). But we wanted to let everyone know that we’re doing great and truly having the trip of a lifetime.

Paul and I are sitting in a hot, sticky internet cafe (El Cyber) on the Plaza de Armas in Iquitos, a city which may hold the record for being the largest city in the world inaccessible by car. Mototaxis rule here, providing the bass to the continued 80s soundtrack of our trip. It´s great… we´re great… and we are safe.

Tomorrow we take off on the Amazon. Over dinner, we learned about several monsters that steal people from the river and jungle. Not counting the mosquitos, crocodiles, and pirranha. So keep your fingers crossed for our safe return on Sunday…

It’s been two very full, very long days… with a very early morning tomorrow (we leave at 4am) to visit the fish market in Callou at dawn.

Tomorrow afternoon is “off,” which will give time to do the numerous TA jobs keeping me up all night… and to catch up here. I tried to upload yesterday’s pictures to Smugmug last night while we slept, and woke up to find it failed. Rat farts. Using a different strategy, we’re trying again tonight.

One thought, though: Did Will’s voice always sound so angelic? Like the clouds opening up and angels singing? It’s all I can do to keep him talking. Thank goodness for Skype.

And a question: Would hearing my voice upset Kate? Apparently, she is missing me… crying periodically for Mommy. Would my singing her to sleep upset her? I’m guessing it might. It’s selfish to want to talk to her, too… but what I would give to hear her!

Lima is situated in an arid, coastal desert — it never rains here. Spaniards settled Lima mostly because of the location of three rivers which rolled full of glacial melt-off from the Andes into the ocean. Those once plentiful rivers are now trickles of water which still are responsible for providing much of the city with water. If I can, I would like to try and take some photographs of one of the rivers (Rimac, in particular, is my hope — it is hard to describe the vision of the homes perched precariously on the edges of the riverside, or cliffside, since the river is so low). Water is serious business here. Run on a water platform and you can get elected! I read somewhere that roughly half of the population of the city of Lima uses less water per day that is recommended for survival in refugee camps. I myself have seen mothers clean their children’s faces with dry rags… sort of re-arranging dust and dirt in want of some water to help the job along. Fights over the barrels of water filled outside of homes in shantytowns are not uncommon, bringing along all sorts of questions about how one develops a new community, how settlement should occur, and how new settlements should be laid out with respect to household water supplies.

It is winter here, cold and damp. La garua, a fine mist that hangs through the air of the city, keeps everything damp… and without the benefit of indoor heating, there is no escape. Imagine living in a tiny crowded tent, with a dirt floor and woven mats for walls and ceiling, with a constant drizzle drifting into your clothes to your skin. Even with relatively warm temperatures in the 60s, this constant cool translates to a cold that sets deep in your bones. Respiratory illnesses, including TB (and more alarming, rising cases of MDR-TB) are widespread.

So far, we’ve handled the weather with fleece and layers. It’s been pleasant, even though the grey skies and near shadowless days remind me of those impossible Michigan winters when I felt that the world existed only in 2-dimensions of grayscale color. Thankfully, the damp air is warm enough for plants… doorsteps and courtyards are filled with geraniums, cacti, ficus, coleus, and other bright and colorful foliage.

Three flights, no delays, Green taxi, no hitches.

Some notes: Spirit does not give anything on flights… no drinks, snacks, or meals. Drinks and snacks are available only for credit card purchase… when their credit card machine is working. Pack a dinner.

Even with lack of meal on 6 hour flight, Spirit was worth it because we booked early and paid an extra $20 for one of 8 “big front seat” seats. Awesome.

Paul and I are sharing a ‘habitacion matrimonal’ with a shared bathroom in One Hostel in Barranco, which has it’s own facebook page. It’s very clean.

So far, the constant soundtrack has been 80s pop… Tears for Fears, Eurthymics, Men Without Hats. Resting and settling tomorrow… Monday morning we start with the course orientation.