Last Thursday

Last Thurs sucked. For one thing, G and I were fighting and being generally snarly with each other. That always sucks. THEN, as we were getting ready for bed - still grumpy - around 10:30 (already getting late for us these days, since we get up before 6 every morning), I sent the dogs out in the backyard for one last potty run. Same old same old. It's usually pretty quick since the guys are almost always passed out somewhere already. But they seem to like the ritual, and go out, do their thing, and then get right back to bed. Except that on Thurs, they went racing out into the yard, barking and excited. Ocassionally, there's been some cat or another out there that freaks out when it sees them, climbs the tree, and then pretty much never comes onto our yard ever again. So I kind of expected it to be that and took a few more seconds than I should have following them out the door.

Well, it wasn't a cat. It was a skunk. And all three dogs were already cornering him against the fence by the time I saw him. Which means the skunk had nothing to do but spray. I called them all back. Mia, who's been skunked twice already in the last year, has finally gotten wise, it seems like, and backed away almost instantly. The other two, not so much. So before we knew it, Tucker was rolling around on the yard, acting totally uncomfortable; and Bandit was STILL running after the stupid skunk. Dude, she's 14 years old, what did she think she could do?

Anyway, the whole yard reeked so badly that we couldn't tell who smelled at first. Our smelly intruder hung around mauling our plants even after the dogs backed off. After awhile, we finally figured out what was what. Tucker got sprayed for sure and still reeks. He hasn't been allowed inside during the day and has been on lock down in the kitchen at night. Bandit got sprayed like crazy, but in a twist of good luck, most of the spray ended up on her cone. Never thought I'd be thankful that she has a skin infection and has to wear a cone to keep herself from chewing herself silly. Unfortunately, the not-so-complimentary cone from the vet . . . trashed.

By the time Tucker got the tomato treatment and we got to bed, it was after midnight. Which definitely did not make us any less grumpy. But we did manage to get some great shots of Tucker looking miserable. He seemed less demoralized than Mia did though. I think what's been harder for him is not being able to come inside. He's pretty much the one dog that follows me everywhere I go, and even sleeps curled up in the crook of my knees. (Believe me, that might sound adorable but its really just super uncomfortable). So for him to be locked out is HUGE. He does though seem to realize he stinks, so he hasn't whined as badly as we had feared he would (well, that could be the Benadryl we've been giving him too).

3 days later, he still reeks. Jumping around in that scummy pond we came across while hiking yesterday didn't help matters any. And the kitchen, where he's been mostly chilling is kind of unbearable.

Call me crazy

So you know how when you start to feel a little sick, you jump online and try to diagnose what you have? You know, list your symptoms on WebMD and recognize that you could maybe have a cold or maybe cancer or possibly the swine flu? I'm actually good at self dianosis. Who isn't in this day and age, right? Er, right? Well, anyway, now that I read a lot of cases about people with disabilities for work, this propensity for self diagnosis has taken a somewhat interesting turn. Reading about other people's various symptoms, suddenly, I start to wonder: is that a pain in my side? OMG, could it be . . . ?

Last week, I was absolutely convinced that I had carpal tunnel. I swear, my wrists actually started to hurt whenever I typed (so I made sure to interrupt my usual work activities with a lot of websurfing just to relieve my wrists a bit, of course). This week, I have the vague suspicion that I might have multiple sclerosis (along with the carpal tunnel). The weird pain in my left leg that I've had for months must be an episode, there's no other way to explain it. And there is that random lower back pain that I get off and on. And then before I know it, I'm thinking about my future life with MS. Would I have kids? What would I do if I needed a wheel chair or had problems speaking?

G is no help. When I mention my MS fear, he says, "So how do they diagnose that?" I tell him, "An MRI." His response: "Maybe you can ask for one when you have your check up this week."

And then I think he might have asked me what they give you for it. At which point, I had to launch into a lengthy explanation of how MS is a debilitating disease with no known cures, that its characterized by lesions in the brain and spinal cord, and pretty much if I have it, both our lives will suck forever. And I mean forever forever, since people with MS typically have normal life spans, just not as nice as every one's else life. I don't know, I'm not convinced that G demonstrated the appropriate level of concern even at that point. I have this vague feeling he might have fallen asleep mid-explanation. Dude, we're talking about a serious neurological condition here!

My boss tells me that they're keeping the fibromyalgia cases away from me.

I'm wondering how people can do this job and not become a hypochondriac.

We're taking a trip (I think)

G and I are going to India towards the end of August. And I'm a little freaked out. Excited, but freaked. For one, I'm not even sure I'll be allowed in the country at this point. I might - just might - have sent my passport in too late. I've had months and months since the wedding to send in for a passport with my new name, and I waited til last week. And didn't think to ask for expedited service. Doh. I'm feeling like an idiot. And its not just that I have to have the passport back, but I also need to send in the passport to apply for a Visa. Suddenly, its looking like there might not be enough time before the trip to make it all happen. AND, even if I wanted to, I can't really go up to San Francisco and do the same day passport and Visa services since I don't have my passport now. So pretty much I'm at the mercy of the federal government. And we all know how confident that makes me feel.

And then of course there's the whole taking a white boy to India to meet my non-English speaking relatives. My brother offered up the opinion yesterday that he thought that I was brave but crazy, that it would pretty much be like hell. And I'll be drawing attention away from my cousin whose wedding we're going to. And maybe it'd be better to not ruin his whole wedding? Awesome, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. He pointed out that even we get stared at when we go, just cuz everyone knows we're from the US (my family lives in the boonies, so not much to do for people other than stare and gossip). Quite a cheerful dude, my brother.

At least we're a little more confident now that we'll actually make it to where my family lives. Last week we weren't even sure about that because the local flight we booked was looking kind of hokey. I was pretty excited to find a cheap flight from Madras to Trichy, where my grandparents are at. Normally, I've always had to take a train or bus over and its kind of a long ride. It was a bit odd. Everywhere I looked, the fare was about $250 round trip per person. Then I saw this for about $50. So I was already a bit dubious. But then the price jumped up to a $100, so I figured I should just book it. I went through the process of entering in all our information (including passport #s, phone #'s, what currency I wanted to pay in, etc). And then, right when we were supposed to pay, it told us to pick a payment method, but there were no options to select from! And it wouldn't let us move forward without selecting an option, so the whole thing was jacked. I waited, tried again from home. Same issue. All the contact numbers were local Indian numbers, so I was gearing myself up for an awkward conversation. G was in the middle of googling credit card issues with the airline, just to see if anything popped up. And all of a sudden, I don't know why but I wondered if changing the currency would make a difference. I hemmed and hawed over having to enter in the info AGAIN, and then finally went for it. G loved it, cuz that's the part where I get all mean and expect him to know the answer to everything and then blame him if it doesn't work. It was a great evening all around.

Anyway, I was entering info for the millionth time and G meanwhile was finding all sorts of people complaining about the website online, specifically this particular problem (the general feeling seemed to be that this airline would be out of business if there weren't so many people in India cuz their site sucked so bad -- totally agree, I don't think I mentioned that it crashed on me a bunch of times too while I was entering in our stuff, which was awesome). Anyway, turns out that changing currency from US Dollars to Indian rupee did the trick! Though our options then were: PG1 or PG2. Um, ok, I'm just going to guess that one of these is to pay by credit card. After it went through or kind of around the same time, G read that the airlines doesn't accept credit cards issued by foreign countries. So pretty much all last week we wondered if the whole thing had been a waste of time. And if everything about the trip was up in the air.

But finally, a few days later, our credit card showed the charge, so it looks like it went through. The cost of all of the drama: a whopping 94 bucks round trip for both of us combined!!

And my cousin says he'll book us a hotel room for the first couple of nights while we're in Madras, and make sure we get on and off the plane ok. So things are already looking up. Now, if only the US passport service could play ball, too . . .

Some things money CAN buy

Bandit
14 years of checkups, vaccinations, flea meds, etc: $2000 (figuring, conservatively, on $100 per year + about 4 years of flea meds -- I'm pretty sure G wasn't giving her regular treatments before I came along)

Several major surgeries, including once when she jumped 15ft out of a window to follow G out of the apartment and at least a couple of falls from the truck: $2000 (approximately? -- I know G's brother and sister-in-law paid one also)

Incidentals - foxtail removals, dog fight drama (that all of course happened on weekends when the vet was closed so that we could pay the extra emergency costs): $600?

Rounds and rounds of tests before diagnosing her with Cushing's Disease: $500?

Continued testing and treatment now that we know she has Cushing's (including meds that cost $100/month and an every-so-often test that runs $300 a pop): $1500

Schlepping around to/from Santa Cruz to see her specialist: who the heck knows, definitely lots of time and gas $

The most recent vet bill from Wednesday (for an extremely gross skin infection and possibly a bladder infection, which apparently Cushing's dogs are prone to): $432

This lovely cone, compliments of the vet (though NOT complimentary, I realized, when I saw the bill), to keep her from chewing her fur off (as she already has done all over her butt): $24



Mia
Two rounds of stem cell treatment for her hip: $4000

Need I say more? Figure in some of the same costs as above for 4 years of ownership (minus the foxtails, but possibly a few more stitiches), several x-rays for the hips, and schlepping to/from Santa Cruz to a DIFFERENT specialist, and she's already probably surpassed Bandit (though Bandit's recent expenses are adding up) with plenty of good years left in her to take us to the poor house.

Our only consolation seems to be Tucker, who gets the short end of the stick:
Adoption fee from the shelter: $30

General costs ownership for 4 years: $400 (using same #'s as above, though I think he's somehow been cheaper than this)

Stitches: None, he does all the biting

Foxtails: None, we wait for him to sneeze them out (though he did get some drops for his ears last year when it seemed like he might have gotten one in there - so maybe $100)

Tumor removal: $200 (we first tried to pull at it with some tweezers at home, no luck)

Despite Tucker taking it for the team, the joy of pet ownership: most definitely NOT priceless. Thank god for Visa/Mastercard.

Good enough for government work

I've been at the new job for just about 2 months now and very quickly discovering the definite negatives of working for the government.

• Its government. Enough said, right?
• I have to clock in and out and pretty much account for just about all my time. This part is still a toss up -- some days I miss billing (and accounting for all my time) and some days I don't.
• My job's pretty darn boring.
• It can be SO disorganized. This made me livid last week - I am supposed to go for a 2-week training class at some point. The class is put together by the main office in Baltimore; classes are held around the county; and every new attorney across the country has to go. So some one at the main office figures out who goes when. Its mostly based on when we started, so seems pretty easy to assign people to a training class, tell them when and where it is and be done with it, right? Sure, make some travel arrangements like reserve a bunch of rooms. But seems like sitting down for a couple of days to figure out all the details should get the job done. Right? Everyone gets notice, they can make some plans and voila. Seems like the nice organized way to arrange it, right? There might be last minute hiccups, people canceling, training instructors having issues, etc. But the majority of it seems straight forward. NOT apparently for the government. First of all, they seem to give people very little notice. If any. I was tentatively signed up to go July 20 - July 31. For like a month a half! No confirmation, no final "go get your ticket" nothing. I organized my life around these dates because everyone told me that "its a pretty sure thing; they're just slow to confirm - they usually just give you about week's notice." OK, does any one else find it disturbing that the federal government is spending thousands of dollars buying last minute airline tickets for people to fly across the country on short notice? When there's a federal deficit of trillions of dollars, seems to me like any amount of thrift can only be a good thing. But no, apparently they like to keep us hanging. So I waited. G wanted to buy tix to come out to meet me during the weekend in between but we couldn't without final confirmation. I was trying to make plans see my family in the east coast but couldn't tell them anything for sure about when I was coming. I'm planning my friend's baby shower and I finally had to set a date (Aug. 8, no chance of conflicting with my potential travel dates). Well, last week rolls around, still no confirmation. During this whole time, our director has called multiple times to check on the status only to get a "nope, not confirmed yet." Well, finally, last week, my boss called again, and was told that actually, I had never been on that list at all. Um, then where did we get those dates from, you f'in moron? I didn't make them up. Why tell me I'm "on the list" for those dates, if its not true. AND to make matters worse, they said that they had actually wanted me to go July 6 - 17, but since I couldn't, I had been bumped to the bottom of the list. THAT made me madder, since no one had told me I was on the July 6 list. And actually, my director and I had a conversation about that date specifically cuz my friend's wedding was that Sun night before, and it would have been tough to be in the east coast by 8 am the following morning. It had actually been a source of quite a bit of stress for me for a while, but we decided there was no point worrying about it in the abstract. And since HE would have been the first one told about my training dates, I figured I was good. So, no word to him or me, but some how they had decided I was going on 6th and since I couldn't (which I guess they assumed I couldn't without asking), I was bumped. That was the story. Though I still have no idea where they got it from. Seeing as they threw out the July 20th themselves. And then why not mention during one of the 5 times my director called that actually, I wasn't on the July 20th dates at all. He asked them if I was confirmed for the 20th. Sounds to me like it was a definite no all along. How hard would it have been to communicate that? My NEW training dates (for which I am of course not yet confirmed) are for Aug. 3 - 17th, but I can't go since I have my friend's baby shower on the 8th. I plan on telling them that just a few days before.

And finally, the bug bite . . . (Part who-the-heck-knows-but-definitely-last)

So after coming back from South America, I had about 3 days of chilling with friends and packing before I took off for 10 weeks or so to India (I was laid off, nothing better to do, so figured why not?). It was during this second trip that I fully realized all of the gifts South America had to offer, well, at least to me. Seems like I was due for one last parting memory. During my few days at home, I went to see my doctor because I had this bug bite on my upper right arm that didn't seem to be going away. She took one look at it and said there was no way that could have been a mosquito. Asked if maybe I had come across any spiders possibly. And the thing is, I don't think she realized how hard it was to keep track of the bugs in the jungle. I had done this jungle tour for 7 days, and seriously, throughout this time, there wasn't a moment when I wasn't being swarmed by an army of everything known to man. This one couple had actually bailed on the tour on the first day because they couldn't take it. Sure, I wore bug spray, and sure we slept under a mosquito net. But there was no possible way I could have really kept track of what I was being bitten by. So anyway, the doc gave me some antibiotics and cream. She would have liked to have seen me a week later, and was pretty concerned when I told her I'd be gone already.

Feb. 15, 2003

I did, though, get to experience the Indian medical system first hand today. That was exciting. Some of you might remember the insect bite on my arm? If I saw you after my South American trip, I'm sure I showed you. Especially if we happened to share a meal. Nothing like pulling a pus infected arm during dinner, eh? Well, it had seemed like it was getting better. Very, very slowly but still. I guess it wasn't though. Because yesterday, it started stinging and bleeding all over again. My mom swore she saw something crawling in and out of it, too. Maybe pus, she said, oozing out but then going back in for some reason. And then, displaying a sadistic tendency I hadn't realized she had, hoped they wouldn't start sawing on it without anesthetics.

The doctor at first didn't seem inclined to (use any anesthetics, I mean). He said it'd just take a minute. He'd just start slicing. There was already a hole there, after all. He'd just have to pull at it and make it bigger. But then he saw my face and suggested that maybe a local might work. I was a little freaked out when I walked into the operating room. The sheets were kind of dirty and the roomed smelled like urine. But the nurse when I asked assured me they used fresh needles and blades, so that helped a little. And really, they didn't give me much time to think about it. Basically, I went in. The doc looked at it. Said he'd have to cut it and did. My mom went back to her normal self as soon as we walked into the hospital room and started clutching my hand and moaning as if I were undergoing a life and death procedure of some sort. My aunt came with us and she's even worse. She told me to pray under my breath the whole time. Really, you'd have thought I was dying if you had walked into this room. To make matters worse, my mom refused to leave when the nurses asked her to. My aunt did but then kept trying to open the door and peer in the whole time. I couldn't really see what was going on because it's on the underside of my arm but my mom says he was hacking and poking into it quite a bit.

And then suddenly he pulls out something. And I couldn't tell you what it was. Some bug though. Maybe larvae. I think that's what my mom saw crawling in and out. My guess is that something bit me and laid an egg or something in my arm. And it's been growing ever since. And the reason it hurt only sometimes was because it was only moving around part of the time. Anyway, I'm sure y'all wanted to know the gory details, so there they are. :) They sent it off to the labs for testing so maybe they'll figure out what it is but I doubt it. I wanted to keep it as a souvenir but they said they wouldn't give it back. Ah well.

So the story didn't really end there. It was a long drawn out summer of visits to doctors in various Indian cities. At some point, they went back in to make sure they got everything and a part of the bug wasn't still left inside. I had this big lump in my arm after they cut it up which made them wonder if there was more. The second cut was bigger, so I got stitches. And now, I have this big ugly scar on my arm to show off at dinner parties.

Weeks later, after I sent this email to my friends, my friend Rob sent me a link to some information about the bot fly, which is what it seems I had. The botfly uses a host (usually mosquitoes which I'm sure they have no problem finding in the jungle) to take their eggs and deposit them in various places, including my skin, apparently. The little eggs burrow into the skin and hatch. The larvae grows inside and slowly worms its way out of the body. Finally when its fully grown, it burrows out, leaving a huge hole behind. I imagine that as painful as my arm was, it would have been a 100x more so if they hadn't taken it out. It didn't look like it was anywhere close to full size yet. Apparently the easier, less painful way to take it out is to put some vaseline in the area and wait with some tweezers for the bug to poke its head out. My mom did say she saw it oozing in and out. But really, then I would have missed out on my Indian hospital tour.

The trip in a nutshell -- the best and the worst

Jan. 20, 2003

On my last day in La Paz, I almost got pissed on, thrown up on, and stolen from. I rounded a corner and there was this guy standing right there in the middle of the sidewalk, peeing. I had to jump to avoid him. A few hours later, a man stumbled past me and threw up a few feet away. And soon after that, a girl came right up to me and tried to grab my bag. I had to shove her away. What, they don't teach thieves stealth anymore? I think about these events going another way and am super glad they didn't. It would have been a messy, unhappy day.

I loved meal times at La Paz. They always consisted of me walking through the outdoor market stalls trying anything and everything. And finishing off with a couple of glasses freshly made fruit juice. All for under a buck.

On Isla del Sol, I was wondering around with this Argentinian guy and we got lost. Who would have thought we could have gotten lost on an island only 15 km long and 2 or 3 km wide? But we managed it. We walked past our hotel and lost the trail. Before we knew it, we had reached the water at the other end of the island. Believe it or not, this actually falls under the best of category. It was so exciting. It got darker and darker and started pouring rain. By the end, we were clutching each other's hands to save our other flashlight. We were fully expecting to have to wander around all night. We inherited a dog along the way and the later it got, the closer to my leg it hovered. I thought at first that it was going to show us the way back. But it was a stupid dog. If we had walked into the water, it would have followed us. I was only truly nervous once though. At some point, we ran into a big cross. And for some reason I expected a dead person to jump out any minute. The dog started to growl. We found out later that it was the site they used for their llama sacrafices. So maybe it would have just been a dead llama jumping out at us. Eventually, we found our way back. And heard that the power had gone out on the island. That's why we had missed our hotel in the first place. We had been looking for the light and there had been none. Some nice women put us back on the right path (after several other well-meaning people put us on the wrong track).

The bus ride out to Cuzco is still my all time worst. It's the only one, after all, that involved vomit. But the ride out to Colca Canyon in southern Peru comes pretty damn close. It's 6 hrs of hell on a completely unpaved road. So you bounce along on gravel the whole way out. What's worse is that it leaves at 1:30 in the morning. At one point, we started sliding backwards because the bus couldn't make it up the mountain. That was freaky.

Colca Canyon itself however is beautiful. It's neck and neck for the world's deepest canyon contest (might be 100m less deep than the nearby Cotahuasi canyon). After climbing to the top of mountains, it seemed only fitting to go down. I'd have to say that one of the best mornings of my life might be the day we climbed out of the canyon (yesterday). We had to leave at 4 in the morning. It was raining. And dark. The trail is filled with loose rock. But it's so worth it. We had reached the top by 7. It was a beautiful morning. At some point, the sun started to come out. And a rainbow crossed the canyon. I saw a couple of huge condors (this place is known for them) flying really close overhead. I really felt like I could go back down and climb it all over again. My travel companion was this super awesome girl I met earlier in the week and ran into again after leaving the jungle. By the time you run into some one twice, we decided it was a sign that we should hang together for a while. We hired a guide to take us into the canyon, and hiked in there for 3 days. We fished along the bottom of the canyon and each night, we stayed in huts that were built for just this purpose, simple but step above tent camping in Machu Pichu. Crazy too, on the way down, we found an adorable puppy that had some how made it half way down a canyon with 2 broken legs!! We spent a part of the first night at the camp trying to splinter the puppy's legs, and I hope the guides kept an eye on the poor little sucker after.

My ankle is still the size of a baseball. I sprained it in the jungle and have been treating it like shit, so it looks like shit. Hopefully having a couple of days at home where I'm not hiking on uneven ground will help. My other ankle actually looks like crap, too. Swollen from bug bites. I don't think I've ever missed home so much as on my 3rd day in the jungle. Don't know why that day really. But all of a sudden, I was tired of the bugs and the heat and everything.

And god, the bug bites -- I'm covered in them. Its been a few days since I left the jungle now, and they seem to be healing. Except for this weird one on my upper right arm that seems to be almost getting worse. I guess I should get some better bug cream when I get home.

You know, I think I've had enough bus rides to last my entire life. The 16-hr one to Lima last night wasn't great either. Maybe because it closely followed the 6-hr hellish one back from Colca Canyon.

For each meal during our Machu Picchu trek, we always came into camp to be met with a bowl of hot soup. Suddenly, I was the biggest soup fan ever. You don't know how wonderful it tastes after a long day of trekking.

When I first came to La Paz on the bus, it didn't seem like anything special. As dirty as any other city. But that's actually not La Paz at all. It's inside a canyon, so the sides drop and all of a sudden, there's La Paz proper, all along the sides of the canyon. It's amazing. The mountains in the background. The first day there, I went walking. And all of a sudden ran into a bridge that we hadn't even known was there. It crossed the two sides. And the view below was awesome.

After coming back from Isla del Sol, I stayed in a nice hotel with GAS showers. So I had hot water for the first time in days. All the showers here are electric. In Isla del Sol, where the power kept going out, that meant no hot showers too. That first shower after coming back. . . omigosh.

Well, that's it for now, I have just a few days back in Lima before heading back home for a few days, then off to India for 2 months.

missing the boat (um, part III?)

Jan. 9, 2003

Quite literally, it turns out. Or was it my bus? I'm not quite sure what happened. But I need to preface the story by saying that several times during my trip, I've been on a bus and been kicked out, sometimes for hours, along with everyone else. I'd grab all my stuff and sit there like a dope, looking around to see if anyone else knew what was going on. We'd wait around for a while and then when the driver seemed to feel like it, the bus would return and we would all get back on and resume the trip. On the same bus, too, so man, it was a great thing I grabbed my luggage only to be able to throw it back on the bus. I'm sure these were all legitimate layovers, but since I don't speak much Spanish, it always caught me off guard to have to leave.

Anyway, having said that. . . coming from Lake Tititaca on the Bolivia/Peru border to La Paz in Bolivia, I was riding a minibus. Basically, a van with lots of people crowded into it. And a little girl next to me leaning over every two seconds to toss candy out to any kids we happened to see along the side of the road. It was great, I highly recommend this form of public transportation to one and all, particularly if you're generally prone to motion sickness. At some point, we happened to stop along the water. And once again, we were all asked to leave. Tired of this game, I stepped out, no luggage this time and wondered how long we'd have to wait this time.

OK, I gotta also add that I was pretty hungry by this point. It hadn't been a long trip but I had missed breakfast. And remember that I'd been staring at candy for most of the way too. So I saw food along the side of the road and was momentarily distracted. And then I happened to run into my friend Mike who i had been traveling with the first week of my trip. Dude, the travel circuits are crazy sometimes. I don't know how many times I've run into the same people over and over again. So anyway, what with one thing and another, I didn't notice everyone on my bus getting into a boat. Well, I guess I did see my bus get onto a boat but figured it was just a nice outing maybe for the driver. All the other buses and cars seemed to be doing it, too. So i sat down to wait. And wait. And wait.

Finally, it hits me (about an hour later - ok, I'm totally slow sometimes, don't mock me) that my bus might not be returning. And no one from my bus was anywhere in sight. At that point, i got suspicious. And consulted my handy dandy travel guide that I should read more closely earlier. Guess what? The driver wasn't getting some fresh air during his break. We were all supposed to cross the lake along with him. On a different boat. And meet him on the other side. where we would then continue the trip. I don't know why there's a separate boat for the passengers and the bus itself, but that's the way they do it. Of course, by the time I made my way across the river, my bus was long gone.

It was ok, though. This way, I got to pay my fare a second time to ride a different bus. One that smelled of fish and had even more people in it than the first. And briefly got to meet some German guys who gave me their bag of chips. AND I got to wander through the bus station in La Paz looking for my bag that had still been on top of the first bus. It all took a little longer than planned but I eventually did get my stuff back. And got to know the bus station well in the process. I don't know if I would really call it a station though so much as an area of about a square mile or seven where buses seem to congregate, pretty much non-distinguishable from the areas where the buses didn't congregate. Basically, the system seemed to be, lets all pick a spot to just hang out and wait for passengers, but just to confuse, you go around the corner, I'll wait a mile down the road, and lets just make sure there are no other buses nearby so as to not suggest anything remotely like a bus stand.

And wait, there's more. The last few days have been a total comedy of errors. I don't think I told you guys about Daniel. . . I should have taken bets on whether he'd show or not. Those of you who have heard me talk about him will be happy to know that he continues to entertain. (If you haven't, its probably enough for now to mention that this is the same friend who didn't show up to meet me in Istanbul on a previous trip. I had pretty much vowed to never count on him again for anything, and was only vaguely expecting him to actually show up in South America, but he kept wanting to come, so I figured it didn't hurt to tell him fine, I suppose).

Anyway, we had a plan to meet at Copacabana in Lake Titicaca. He was flying into La Paz at 7 in the morning. It seemed silly for me to go all the way down there to see him. And honestly, I didn't feel like putting myself out even a little. Which was probably for the best, it turned out. I told him to take a bus that same morning and come to Copacabana. It's only a 3.5 hr ride (assuming you know to follow the bus when it crosses the water, of course). I picked a restaurant for lunch and told him I'd be hanging around all afternoon. And then if he couldn't make that, he should come to the hotel.

So 5pm rolls around. Still no sign of him. So I went back to the hotel. Still no sign of him. I finally went to bed.

Next morning, I check email and whaddya know. I got something from his mom telling me that he got sick from the altitude and went down to a more "comfortable" height. That worried me right off the bat. There was no where nearby where the altitude was lower. You had to travel at least ten hours by bus. Even La Paz is at an elevation of 4000m.

Finally, I heard from him, too, in another day or so. And sure enough, he was in Arequipa, Peru! Ten hours away. He had come to the restaurant before I had. I guess he was feeling the altitude. And rather than waiting, he decided he was too sick to stay. And hopped back on the bus. And found himself on it for 10 hrs. I'm sorry. Who does shit like this? Rather than coming to the hotel around the corner, he took a bus and traveled for the rest of the day? Ok, apparently, he was stumbing and throwing up all over the place. And I can testify that altitude sickness is not pleasant. But really? I mean, I managed to hike for 4 days despite feeling miserable. And I wouldn't really call myself exactly tolerant of any kind of sickness.

And THEN to make matters worse, he decided that he didn't want to take the bus all the way back to Lake Titicaca. He'd rather fly, but the only flights were to La Paz, which again, can I remind you, is at an elevation of 4000m. So I don't know what difference it would have made. It turned out too that he had all sorts of issues catching a flight, but by this point, I had lost interest, so I couldn't really tell you how it all went down.

It turned out he made it after all, but I pretended not to be checking email and ignored him for a couple of day. Came to La Paz early and hung out without him for a while. And now, he has so many restrictions that I've given up on him again. I'm on in the middle of the jungle, about to start a jungle tour. For some reason he decided to come with, though he doesn't actually have time to do a tour. I don't know what he's doing and honestly, I'm not sure he does either. I think we traveled together for a total of 20 hours or so. And most of it consisted of me trying to figure out how to get here to the middle of nowhere, and him tagging along. Now that he's here and doesn't have time for a tour, he's trying to figure out how to get back out, since the flights to and from aren't all that frequent. So I hope he has a better time the rest of his trip. I think he has to be in Chile by Sat where he meets up with relatives.

The plane ride here was exciting. It was on a military plane in an unpressurized; they gave us cotton to stuff in our ears. Never checked our ID once! But we figured that since everyone on there had machine guns, they didn't have to worry about us hijacking the plane. It was either this or apparently riding a "meat plane" with dead carcasses. Since the accident rates on those things seem phenomenal, we opted for the military plane.

Note that even in a little village in the middle of the rainforest, there's an internet cafe.

There's nothing so wonderful as . . . (part II)

If you missed the first installment to this, check it out here.

Jan. 4, 2003

. . . a friend who rubs your shoulders after you've just thrown up on his foot (while having to sit next to me in my post-vomit state on a bus for 12 more hrs - is that a true test of friendship or what? And this from some one who I'd just met less than a week ago!). FYI, general propensity for motion sickness AND high altitude climbing is a terrible combo

. . . being catapulted from the bus bathroom -- while washing the skirt involved in the above- mentioned throw up incident -- and flung out onto the aisle with your skirt in your hand (See, it could have worse, I could have actually been ON the toilet when it all went down, so here's to that)

. . . a hot bowl of soup and nice strong massage after a hard day's hike (who would have expected one of the other women in the tour group to be into shiatsu massage??!!)

. . . falling asleep by 9pm on New Year's Eve and sleeping like the dead (we figured it was at least New Year's in Sweden already so it was all the same thing -- some of the guys in our tour group were from Sweden)

. . . a big wad of cocoa leaves to chew on when you're fighting altitude sickness (I actually needed a constant wad in my mouth to keep me going). For those that aren't in the know, cocoa leaves are the precursor to cocaine. I hear that although the leaves themselves are only a mild stimulant (and great for fatigue, vomiting, and pretty much whatever ails you), apparently studies do show that a tiny amount of cocaine can be found in your blood stream just after chewing. So I can now honestly say that I've tried coke before.

. . . a few meters of flat ground when all you've been doing is climbing and climbing for days (I was at the point where even a step or two was welcome)

. . . standing on top of a 4200 m (over 16,000 ft!!) peak that you'vejust climbed and knowing that there's nowhere else to go that day but down (it ended up being a steep and scary down hill but oh well)

. . . standing of top of a 4200 m peak and knowing you climbed it (i had gone too far to go back at this point. Believe me, I considered it)

. . . standing on top of a 4200 m peak and looking back at the narrow ledge you just crossed to get there (I had to stretch this one, dudes, because in reality, I climbed this thing and then promptly headed down because it was raining and f---ing freezing)

. . . wrapped in blankets with a cup of tea at 3800 meters, gazing at the stars, trying to pool our collective constellation knowledge (at this height, it feels as if you could practically reach out and touch the sparkly things but that could have been the cocoa leaves)

. . . catching the first sight of Machu Picchu from above at sunrise and thinking that maybe hiking for 4 days and waking up at 3:45 that morning might have been worth it after all.

And all this in one week, too! It's been absolutely crazy, definitely a week of extremes. I don't know when I've been more miserable. I can barely walk. I'm covered in bug bites (despite covering myself in insect repellant every day). I have a strange infection on my toe. I've thrown up three times in the last week because I've never been at such high altitudes before, let alone hiked extensively at it. But never mind all that! It's been absolutely amazing! I'm telling you - you have to come here at least once in your lifetime. You won't want to do the trek more than once in your life. That's enough to kill you. And if I were to give you one piece of advice, its to maybe consider the porters for your gear. Yeah, you feel a little bad seeing this little guys hauling ten times their weight in gear. But now that I think of it (too late for me of course) , better them than you, right?

But the ruins were . . . I don't know what I could say that wouldn't make me sound corny. They're huge, for one thing. I got lost in them a couple of times just wandering around. Even with other tourists milling around, they're peaceful. If there are such things are spiritual places in the world, this is one of them. And to think that someone built them hundreds of years ago, it's inspiring to think about. I suppose you could appreciate it without doing the 4 day hike (you can take a train) but I don't think it's the same thing. It's nice to sweat a little for it. Or a lot, in my case. ;) Plus the hike is spectacular in it's own sense. Come on, you're surrounded by mountains and waterfalls and rivers. How could it not be?

Anyway, I'll stop now. I'm back in civilization again. In a little town called Cópocabana in Bolivia. Right near the Peruvian border. It's right next to one of the of the highest lakes (and one of South America's largest) in the world (4000 m - I'm used to the altitude now), Lake Tititaca. My friend Daniel is going to meet me here tomorrow. I got here this morning and have decided to not do much of anything all day. Just recover. Wait for the soreness in my feet to go away. I just saw the most gorgeous sunset. . . did I mention this place is up in the mountains near a large lake?

Down memory lane

So, yet again, I'm lying to you. I promised to tell you about the bug in my arm and yet again, I'm not going to today. I know, I know. I suck. But actually, this is better, I swear. I was going through some of my old emails yesterday to think about which of my hairy travel stories to include in my little tidbits collection of blog posts. And looking through them, I decided that I'm kind of over that particular string of posts. Cuz, come on, don't you feel like you could pass a few "getting to know me quizzes" by now.

The travel stories are pretty entertaining in and of themselves. I wasn't even sure where to begin, and if you think the last few posts have been long, detailing the random stupid shit I've done while traveling will be novellas. So I thought you might be interested, over the course of the next week, in seeing some of the emails I sent while I was in South America back in 2003. I think they're a pretty good representation of my travels in general, though lately I feel like my trips are few and far between. Sure, you'll miss a few stories with these emails. Like hearing about that time my friend was supposed to meet me in Istanbul and never showed. Or my crazy scary border crossing from Turkey into the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Or getting trapped in Dusselforf with no flight out and being as sick as a dog. But if I didn't have something to keep you on the hook for later on, what kind of of blogger would I be?

In 2003, I was in Peru and Bolivia for 6 weeks, mostly traveling alone. During that time, I sent emails to a long list of friends detailing my adventures. My apologies if you were one of ones who actually received these emails originally. Hopefully, its been a while, so they'll seem fresh. Oh, and I do have pics, but since I just thought of this whole string of posts this morning, I can't get to them. This was before I had a digital camera, so I have tons of prints somewhere. Maybe I'll have some time to scan some and put them up before I finish.

So, without further ado, and with some minor edits, here's the start of that trip on Dec. 26, 2002.

My first meal in Lima turned out to be at a hole in the wall Chinese place. How's that for an exciting South American experience? This guy I've been traveling with is vegan and didn't want to eat anywhere else. You know, I always decide that I'll eat whatever while traveling because there's no point going somewhere and not trying everything there. But this happens to me all the time. . . I end uptraveling with people who have way more dietary restrictions than even I do. I've found vegan kosher meals in Paris, vegetarian restaurants in Turkey and Georgia, etc. all because of the people I've traveled with. It obviously doesn't matter. I just think it's funny. This particular meal was an adventure because we weren't quite sure that we were ordering didn't have meat until it actually came out to the table, despite all of our broken Spanish-filled attempts to ask.

So I guess I've found a temporary traveling companion. This guy Mike who'd been on the plane with me since SFO and we finally started talking during a LONG layover in Costa Rica. His Spanish is worse than mine . . . you should have seen us at the restaurant last nite. He sits there trying to figure out every word anyone says to us by slowly looking it up in his dictionary. It seems to take him forever to get ready to go anywhere. It takes him forever to figure out change, what to order in a restuarant, and all those sorts of things, too. He loses even more stuff than I do. But he seems to be pretty good with a map. He's already pulled me out of the way of crazy Peruvian drivers a couple of times already. And he lets me make fun of him as much as I want. :) So I guess it'll be ok for a while. Besides, I can't quite seem to shake him anway. :-) So I figure I'll hang ontil Machu Picchu which is where'll probably split off. He's an interesting guy though, and a lot of fun. I guess in his real life, he lives in Portland OR and runs a small vegan food cart. Already, in the course of a couple of days, I know a lot more about him than some of my friends. That's the nice part about traveling that I've always loved, the instant bonds that develops with fellow wanderers.

Nothing too crazy so far. Lima's not that exciting. We were offered weed several times, just walking down the street. :) I didn't accept, of course. Someone tried to rip Mike's watch off from his wrist. Mostly, it's just like any other big city. But a lot poorer. Kinda dirty. Street vendors all over the place. Kids coming up to you in restaurants while you eat trying to get you to buy pieces of candy. Everything's really cheap. We felt proud that we walked around after our first night and managed to find a kick ass hotel that wasn't on Lonely Planet.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing next. I want to do the Machu Picchu trek before I meet my friend Daniel in La Paz. So I'll probably head out there tomorrow. Originally, I had been planning on taking a few more days to get there because there's this train that goes part of the way. And it's supposed to be a great ride. It goes throughone of the highest stations in the world. The scenery's supposed to be gorgeous. But apparently they've cancelled that train now. So Imight just head straight for Cuzco and start the trek.

Hope y'all are well. Happy New Year!

NOT about the bug in my arm

A few more tidbits . . .

• Growing up, we never had any pets. I was actually a little scared of animals, probably something ingrained in me through my parents. Once my brother and I had to dog/cat sit our neighbor's pets, and I remember rushing in, doing the obligatory feeding and cleaning up, and getting out, staying as far from the big goofy sheepdog as I could. Poor things, they must have hated those days when their owners were gone. I feel bad now that I didn't even really think to walk the dog. In my defense, they didn't ask us to, and I only sort of rarely remember them doing it themselves. So anyway, its a bit baffling to me that I'm now the avid dog lover that I am. The kind of pet lover that berates lousy pet owners, that gets annoyed by people who get a pet because they succumb to peer pressure or cuteness, play at it for a while, and then return the pet when they realize it might require a slight change in lifestyle. The kind of pet owner that rants against people who raise puppies in their backyard because they're too stupid to spay/neuter their dog and because they want the extra cash. The kind of owner that cries a little when I hear about puppy mills or dog fighting. Well, ok, I guess I'm really only a dog lover. Cats are fine, but I'm allergic. I mostly blame my husband's (now mine too) dog Bandit for my relatively new found dog love. She's one of the most perfect dogs in the world, though she did take a while before she decided I was all right (she's utterly devoted to G and didn't like to share). It took a lot of runs and treats before I won her over.


• Once, my brother and I captured what we thought were caterpillars and stuck them in little sour cream boxes to try to watch them molt into butterflies. We stuck plenty of leaves in the box, poked a couple of holes, and hid the box under a bush in our back yard to wait for the transformation. The next day, the little suckers had mysteriously disappeared, and to this day, I have no idea why. No holes in the box other than the little ones we had poked. Every single one of them, gone. That was about the extent of our "animal ownership" as children.


• The first dog I owned all by myself was this Australian Shepherd mix named Rose. I got her off Craigslist, which I've now realized may not be the best place for this sort of thing. She was an all right dog, I suppose. I got her in the Bay Area one summer and then took her back to school with me in San Diego. She was obsessed with the ball, was a little bit of an escape artist and would freak about random things -- a computer cord I had in my hand once when I was moving, baths (a lot of dogs don't like baths, but she needed to be held down by a 2nd person and looked at you like she was going to kill you the whole time). The incidents of her being a little freaky weren't every day. But the few times I'd gotten mad at her, she looked mad right back at me. I wondered why she freaked me out a little. Figured it was me, I wasn't used to discipling dogs. And maybe it was her too, maybe she'd had a rough background. But things were coming along all right. For about a month or so. Then, it happened. I had just come home from walking her. My little brother was in town, we had taken her to Balboa Park in San Diego. We were hanging out in the kitchen after, making dinner. My roommate (whom Rose knew and loved) walked in, and we were talking about our days. And all of sudden, with absolutely no warning or provocation, Rose lunged at my roommate, snarling and ready to bite, standing on her hind legs, her face almost level with my roommate's. We were lucky that day. My roommate liked dogs and remained calm. She grabbed Rose by the neck and waited for her to calm down and go back down on all fours. Aside from a few scratches where the dog's nails grazed against her, she was ok. But I had never seen anything like that before or since. The dog's eyes took on this glazed look, and it seemed almost as if she was seizing. It was over as quickly as it started, and for the rest of the night, she stayed subdued, looking almost guilty and even slept in my roommate's room that night. But after that, I knew it was a done deal. The next day, I took Rose to the Humane Society, where I knew they would most likely put her down. Before I did, I called the old owner to let her know what had happened and offered to drive the dog back up to her. She swore that something like this had never happened before and didn't even considered the possibility of taking her back, even after I bluntly told her what was likely to happen to her. And I was right. The lady at the humane society said that 1) the chances of that never happening before is pretty zilch, so the old owner was full of shit and 2) Rose was too far gone now to save her, that they couldn't trust her to adopt her to anyone. I had been up all night the night before trying to see what could be up with her and came across a kind of "dog rage" that can be common in some breeds. And the symptoms described were exactly what Rose had demonstrated -- the glazed look, the seizure, etc. Apparently its a genetic condition in dogs and somehow relates to a pituatary malfunction. I don't know if that's what Rose had, but in any event, there didn't seem to be anything to be done. The whole time we were waiting at the Humane Society, Rose put her head on my lap. I think she knew what was going to happen to her. And I couldn't stop crying.


• Despite these traumatic first attempts at pet ownership, I did go on to get a beautiful puppy named Mia, who is only sometimes a turd, and kind of adorable.


• The last thing I would expected though would be to now be the proud owner of 3 dogs.

Sigh. I never did get to the travel stories. Next time? And the next post will be hopefully be more cheerful too.

More random tidbits (Part II)

• By the way, my dad found the porn searches in the internet history, so clearly, the guilty brother wasn't the brightest sometimes. I think some sh-- might have hit the fan that night.


• Being an immigrant, one might expect that I have strong opinions about hot buttons issues such as affirmative action and illegal alients. And as a matter of fact, I do. Against both. My parents came here, worked hard, learned English, and built lives for themselves. . . legally. I have no patience for people who can't. Or for people that come and never bother to learn English.


• The first time I changed a diaper, I was 9 years old. It was my baby brother's. The first time I changed a poopy diaper I was maybe 9 and a half? And I would have left it except that my parents stepped out for a few minutes (i.e. hours, it turned out) and the diaper started to stink and then the poop started to leak, so pretty much I had no option but to figure out how to change it and clean him up.


• My writing career peaked in the 12th grade when I won an award for Creative Writing. The prize was $100, and I think I submitted a collection of one short story and two poems. I have no idea where any of that stuff ended up, which is unfortunate. If I had known that those pieces would be the only thing that drew any attention, I would have held onto them like a kangaroo mom holds her kid (um, ok, I was hoping some funny analogy would strike me; instead I ended up with something that might not even be accurate - sorry). For a while, I could continue to call myself a "writer." I took writing classes in and after college, belonged to a somewhat elite writer's group, and acted generally snotty about my writing abilities. I even (unsuccessfully) applied to an exclusive writing fellowship at Stanford where they pay you to do nothing but write and try to publish for two years. These days, I don't write much of anything aside from legal opinions and this blog. But I'm strongly convinced that I will write the great American novel yet; its sitting inside me and will one day write itself. Absolutely positive of it.


• In the 9th grade, my girl friends and I were at the school auditorium, casually having lunch and arm wrestling each other (there's a couple of things you never thought you'd hear in one sentence, right?) one afternoon, when all of a sudden, we heard a loud snap coming from my upper arm just as my friend was forcing it down. I don't remember a ton after that, except for a lot of chaos, a frantic trip to the nurse's office, some one calling my mom, and her rushing me to the emergency room. In the end, it turned out that I didn't just have a fracture (and it wasn't because my friend was Arnold Schwarzenegger as some hilarious people would try to ask me over the next few weeks). I had a cyst in my arm, a little area where instead of bone, I had no fluid. So the arm had been weak to begin with, and that's why it fractured. Apparently its something old people get. Awesome. They put a cast on my arm and waited for it to heal, then had to go in and inject something that would help the bone grow back. I must have had an x-ray every 4-6 weeks for the remainder of high school and 3 different procedures where they drilled a hole in my arm and injected some fluid (cuz it didn't all grow back on the first shot). My orthodpedist and I became excellent friends.


• My very first car accident was when I was 19, home for the summer from college, and taking a class at the local university. I ran into a biker with my parents' car. It was completely my fault. I spaced while sitting at a traffic light and just slowly mosied up to hit him as he was crossing . Later, as I was walking into my class, I saw the guy I had run into walking into the building next door, telling his friend the story of how some crazy chick ran into him. His name was Jon and he won my heart when several days later, he called to tell me about the damage to his bike and told my mom (who answered the phone) that he was just some one in my class (you know, as opposed to the guy her daughter had hit with her car). Since then, I have been in multiple accidents, some of which have been my fault (including one in Thailand) and some which definitely have not.


• If you noticed that I never said anything about my middle school years anywhere up there, its not a mistake. Frankly, I'd like to pretend my middle school years didn't really exist as they were mostly awkward ones where only the thickness/ridiculousness of my glasses and the atrociousness of my braces/head gear really stand out. Let's move on, shall we?


• Taking my role as big sister seriously didn't stop me from cheating at cards when my brothers weren't looking or blackmailing them with things they had done that only I knew about. What kind of person would I be if I didn't seize a good opportunity when it came my way? The older of my two brothers was particularly accommodating and made sure I always had something to hold over his head.


• As a kid, and actually pretty much until the end of high school, my favorite past time was reading. If anyone is a living example of how reading under the covers with a flashlight can blind you, I'd be it. And I must have gone through every kick imaginable -- a mystery frenzy (starting with the Nancy Drews to Sherlock Holmes to pretty much whatever else came out as I got older), a girly romance phase (hey, don't knock 'em til you tried them), a fantasy flurry. You name it, I was probably into it for at least a little while. Nowadays, I've settled down with the reading, slowly working my way down to a more comfortable level of about a book or so a year.


• When we were young, my brother C and I would create schedules (hour by hour, of course) for ourselves to keep ourselves busy during the summers. I wish I'd kept some for the laughs. Not too surprisingly, I think the majority of each day was usually scheduled as "free time" or "play time" or possibly "tv time." I imagine it was quite difficult for us to squeeze anyone or anything into our busy days -- we were booked pretty solid for 3 months.

Next up: hairy travel stories, or how I came back from South America with a bug in my arm

Getting to know me (Part I)

A while back, I created one of those “How well do you know me?” quizzes on Facebook, and was dismayed to see that no one scored above about 40% or so. Dude, I have a blog! And I talk about myself constantly! How could people not know me? I stop paying attention when the conversation doesn’t revolve around me! So I have a great excuse for doing poorly on other people’s quizzes, but can’t fathom people not knowing me. But since then, I’ve thought about it a bit more. And I can see how it can happen. And really, if one person scores poorly that’s her fault. But if everyone does, it must be me and/or the quiz. In this case, I think its both.

The quiz definitely had something to do it. It was pretty obscure, I’ll grant you that. I’m not even sure G would have done that well on it. Though I’ll never know since he was stubbornly resistant (or lazy) about taking it (just like he is about reading this blog, even though he signed up as a follower just to seem like a loving, supportive husband to the outside world; he’s quite devious that way). Anyway, the quiz was hard. And I guess I don’t actually have a lot of friends who know everything about every aspect of my life. I’m certainly not one of those people who have had the same friends from the time that I was 6 or anything like that. My friends seem to fall in discrete categories: high school friends, college friends, current friends, family, etc. So it’d be pretty impossible to create a quiz that even a couple people would kick ass on. Also, I do a lot of talking about nothing. And I guess my quiz questions didn’t revolve around things like that time G and I demonstrated our incompetence with a kayak. Even among the vast majority of my friends who don’t read my blog, I’m not a really big sharer of other things.

So I thought that it might be a good time to do a few “getting to know me” posts. Probably kick it off today and continue during the rest of the week. Not sure how many exactly. I guess we’ll see how it goes as I go along. If there’s ever another quiz, you guys will have the inside track. You can come back to these entries and use them to cheat on the answers. J

Anyway, in no particular order, here are some random bits and pieces of my oh-so exciting life:

• I come from an immigrant family. I, myself, was born in India also and moved to the US when I was 6 years old. To this day, my parents – aside from the relatively new addition of Italian food and wine into their lives – live in an Indian household. This made for some confusing times for me growing up. From packing my lunch with sandwiches made of orange marmalade and American cheese to sending me to birthday parties in dresses and tennis shoes (bright blue with Velcro because that was what was on sale), my parents struggled with the nuances of American life. Often, the very characteristics that helped them to come to and succeed in the US were the ones that embarrassed me the most – their frugality, their total commitment to the Indian culture, education, and hard work, their stubbornness. It was hard to fully appreciate their qualities when it resulted in me having the same Sesame Street comforter up until the end of high school ("Why get rid of it? It's not in tatters yet." If anyone’s interested in seeing it, come on up for a visit to my folks sometime. They do occasionally bring it out for guest use). Or when we were all sitting in the Disney Land parking lot eating our Indian picnic lunch before going back in for more rides. Or when my brother and I would be stuck inside on summer days, reviewing the next year’s math curriculum so that we could get ahead. Those were all some wonderful times.
• To this day, I’m convinced that I will be permanently scarred by my parents for reasons I can’t even begin to describe. But on the other hand, I can’t imagine anything more amazing or difficult than traveling across the ocean and starting your life in a completely different world. I think of my dad working at 2 casinos in Reno (while on summer break from grad school) so that he could save up enough $ to bring his family to US, or I think of my mom coming out - speaking no English, coming only for my dad - and I'm pretty impressed. I don't think any of travel stories can compete.
• Two of my favorite people in the world are my 2 younger brothers. One shoplifted when he was young. And tried to lie his way out of everything and anything. One of them checked out porn on the family computer (we still don't know who that was, probably both, I imagine). I take my role as big sister very seriously, though these days, they don't seem to need me as much as they used to.

Can you please check my eyes while you're cleaning my teeth?

Sigh. So I spent the morning looking through my insurance paperwork and trying to find a dentist and an eye doctor (one of each, I mean, not one that does both though that would be awesome). After hours of boredom, I'm absolutely sure of just one thing. Insurance brochures are written in some weird code that I can't crack. They are not meant for ordinary people to understand. Dude, and I say this after I've spent the last few years honing my "reading dry and obscure documents" skills. And I'm convinced that the people answering phones for insurance companies have been specifically told to do everything possible to make sure no questions are ever answered. Ever.

Some of you may have already heard of my continuing eye saga. I wear rigid gas permeables (RGPs), which apparently no one else in the world does anymore. I've always worn them, and until about 5 years ago, I never had problems getting myself examined and fitted for them. Until I started law school. Stupid me, I figured I could get by without any eye exams for a while and never got one. I didn't have vision insurance in school, and eye care can get pricey even with insurance. So it was one of those things that just went by the wayside.

Anyway, so in my 3rd year of law school, one eye started to hurt like hell everytime I put the contact in. I think I was in the middle of finals, so I switched to glasses and decided to deal with the problem later. When I did decide to deal with the problem, I went to Costco for my eye exam months later. They gave me the wrong prescription (after asking me if I'd ever considered switching to soft lenses), I got headaches everytime I wore my contacts and so I haven't. For like years. Actually this might have happened a couple of times. What can I say, I'm lazy, and sometimes it takes me a while to learn from my mistakes. And I ended up getting a cool pair of glasses on one visit, so the thought of wearing glasses didn't horrify me as it used to, so I had absolutely no incentive to fix the problem. Now, my glasses are all scratched, so I gotta do something.

So earlier this year, I went in again, this time to the eye doctor down the street. I didn't have vision insurance with my last employer either, but I figured I at least had a regular income, so there was no excuse to not take care of it. I showed up. Oh, and I'd like to point out now that I told them when I called for the appt. that I wanted rigid gas permeables, but I hadn't worn my old pair in a couple of years. They didn't seem to think it mattered one way or the other. Anyway, I showed up, and they did my eye exam. And then the optometrist mentioned that she couldn't fit me for contacts unless I had them in already. Um, they couldn't have mentioned this before I spent an hour there? Not to mention they dilated my eyes while I was there, so I was useless at work for the next couple of hours too, all for nothing! They asked me if I had ever considered switching to soft lenses. Frustrated, and not wanting to walk away with nothing, I said I'd give them a shot. I walked away with some sample pairs, and another appointment (ages later because apparently, I got stuck with the one person at that office who only worked one day a week). And seriously, she looked about 12, and I kind of wondered if she'd ever heard of these kind of contacts before, the way she went on about needing special equipment to measure my eyes for the RGPs, and advanced notice, etc.

I tried them for about a month, decided I preferred the RGPs (I can see SO much better), and wore my old pair when I went to my next appt. Before I went to the appointment, I had faxed over old eye records from my last regular doc, and told them that it was from 5 years ago and they were my last correct prescription. Perfect, they said. But when I got there, the optometrist said no, actually she needed to know the prescription of the contacts actually in my eyes. Dude, really? My eye sight hasn't changed all that much over the years. Sounded to me like she just needed a starting point, and those are probably still pretty close. But apparently not. She decided to make the best of it anyway. So you gotta note that at this point, I was already kind of fuming a bit and just wanting to get the whole thing over with. Seriously, I'd never had these kinds of issues getting contacts before. Did something happen in the last few years that made optometrists completely incompetent?

Anyway, then they decided to start going over pricing with me. And it turned out they wouldn't just write a prescription and let me get the contacts. I had to buy thru them. The optometrist kept saying that she would probably need to make adjustments and couldn't be sure what she'd be getting if we got the contacts from some where else. Um, yes you do. You'd get the contacts that you prescribed. And it wouldn't have been a big deal except that they were charging like 600 bucks from their place, and I could get them from Cost-Co for about $40 apiece. She seemed concerned about me coming back to get re-checked after I got them, but of course I was planning to. I want to make sure they fit, especially after she made such a huge deal about the prescription probably not being right the first time and her needing to make adjustments. Needless to say, I walked out of there (after they ate something like a couple hundred bucks in examining fees) and never went back. Honestly, it was all I could to not throw a fit. It was right around the time I was planning my wedding, so I was already on a pretty short fuse.

Anyway, now, I have all kinds of vision coverage with both my health and vision plans at work. So it should be easy to find some one and get some stupid contacts, right? But no, first, I got the run around when I tried to find out if I needed a referral to see an ophthalmologist (holy H's and L's - had no idea that's how you spelled this word) through my health plan and then use my vision plan to cover the contacts. Then the first place I called had to check, before coming back to tell me that yes, they did carry "my brand" of contacts. Um, well, ok, its not so much a brand name as a different kind of contact lens altogether. So I was a bit worried already. Then the optometrist himself called me to get more info on exactly what kind of RGPs I'd had and asked if I'd ever considered switching to soft lens (which I've now come to realize is code for, I have no idea how to fit you for this, can't you make it easier on me?). He also asked if I could fax over my eye records for the last million years.

I finally found an ophthalmologist (i.e. a real MEDICAL doctor as opposed to a hack") in my vision plan whose office actually seemed to know what RGPs are. We'll see how it goes.

Finding a dentist through my health insurance plan was no picnic either. The online provider directory didn't have any "network" dentists, so I wasn't sure who I could see. When I called, I was given a subscriber number and told that dental reimbursements were subject to their policy. Um, ok. That was as clear as mud, but they did say I could see any dentist I wanted (and then they'll decide if they want to pay for it???). So I went with the first dentist with positive reviews on Yelp (yes! Yelp has more than just restaurant reviews!) who had an appointment before Oct. and assured me that they'd talk to my insurance before I came in.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Passing moments

Within two hours of me opening my twitter account last week, work restricted access to both it and facebook. The federal government employs thousands and thousands of people. Man, I really hope they're not basing what they restrict and don't restrict on what I'm checking out online. Cuz that would mean that they're also fully aware of the numbers of hours each day that I spend on non-work activities, such as email, blogging, booking airline tickets, etc. The thought actually had me freaked out at least long enough to restrict my web activity for a few hours last week. But then I got to thinking of how many emails I might have gotten during that period and that ended that. But anyway, there goes any chance of me keeping everyone updated on the minute-by-minute excitement of my life.

Road rage = driving behind an annoying blond chick driving 40 mph in a 55mph 2-lane highway, unable to pass, watching the huge truck in front of her even driving faster than her and finally disappearing into the distance, while already late for work. Wonderful way to start a Mon morning.

Sitting in on a hearing not too long ago:
A woman came in claiming various mental disabilities. She brought her 2-year-old son with her because of course its a great opportunity to bring in a little boy. Anyway, the claimant was a heavy black woman who seemed to have very little awareness of her own health care. And this fact being amazingly apparent early on in the hearing. The judge had a medical expert on the phone who had reviewed the lady's records and was prepared to reach some conclusions about her abilities based on the records. That's what he was supposed to do in theory anyway. The doctor is confused as to why additional tests weren't done -- I guess she had been referred for an MRI at some point and the results weren't in the record. The judge attempts to ask the claimant if she'd had the MRI done. Response: I don't know. I had some x-ray done for my back. During which time they might have also scanned her head without her knowledge??? Is that what she meant to say? Judge: Well, I can order that an MRI be done. Is that your recommendation, Doc? Doctor: Well, I don't know. The record also says she's HIV positive. Um, come again? Utter silence. The judge asks her if she's been recently told that she has AIDS.

And the woman bursts into tears. Like seriously, sobbing uncontrollably. I mean, I was confused by the relationship between HIV and getting an MRI also, but her reaction seemed a bit extreme. But no, actually, it turns out that the woman had no idea she was HIV positive!! Absolutely none. For the next five minutes, it's complete chaos in the hearing room. The woman is bawling. Fortunately, some one took the kid out of the room before he fully realized what was going on. The judge is trying to figure out how this woman could not know, and anyway, where does it even say in the record that she is HIV positive?

The medical examiner is unable to figure out where he got the information from, so there's a fair amount of searching. Finally, it all becomes clear. The doc was reading one line out of a 150 page record that identified the lady as having HTN (i.e. hypertension) and somehow got HIV out of it. Even though there was no other reference to it in the record, and there were plenty of references to her weight and blood pressure. Doh!

But I'm thinking this might give you an idea of the kind of people that come to our office. These definitely aren't your average I-know-when-I-got-my-last-HIV-test kind of people. Of course we do get the normal people too, who worked all their lives until being struck with some disabling conditions. But so far, most of the ones I've seen appear to missing a few screws. And its hard not to feel bad for them. In this particular case, the doc never even apologized for scaring the lady shitless. He moved on with a simple, "Oh I couldn't read the handwriting. But yes, an MRI might be in order." Fortunately for the claimant, I think the whole interaction kind of ruined the examiner's credibility, and the judge found the lady disabled based on the extensive other evidence.

All a-twitter

So as always, I'm a little late to the game, but I've finally decided to twitter. Because you know, I'm always updating my facebook status but its just not enough. I know there's loads of people just dying to know what I'm up to every second of every day.

Sigh, actually, its cuz I've been a little short on blog material lately. Life's (and therefore the blog) been a little slow. Relaxing for me, but not very exciting for my adoring fans. I'm sure y'all have noticed. I mean, come on, you must have realized that I was digging deep when I had to go back 3 weeks to comment on that one random guy we met at a fundraiser. Anyway, I decided to join twitter for the reason I do a lot of things in life, in hopes of a good story.

I know what you're thinking. Really, twitter was the best, most exciting thing I could come up with? It's a bit sad, I know. But don't dismiss it yet! Apparently, Demi Moore had some exciting stories to tell after she saved some one's life through Twitter! Reading about it, I'm curious. First, really, Demi Moore? You wanna kill yourself and you tweet Demi Moore? That's the first name that comes to mind? I would go for some one cooler or hotter myself. Second, I wonder what Demi was hoping would happen when she retweeted the suicidal woman's message to her fan base. That they'd all descend on her en masse and keep her from killing herself? Seems to me that a simple phone call from her to the cops would have been way more helpful. But I can definitely see how tweeting about it can make for a better story. Clearly, she's in the same boat as I am with respect to her blog content. And then, I wondered: is cutting down your entire arm really more effective? Wouldn't it just leave a longer scar? Isn't the whole point trying to hit an artery in your wrist or something? I'd love it if some one could explain to me the whole wrist/arm cutting thing works. I tried to google it a bit but only got a lot of "don't commit suicide" helpline type stuff. Which is awesome but not very informative.

Anyway, I'm tweeting now. It worked for Demi. Once I figure out how it works exactly, I'm hoping something equally exciting will happen to me. Stay tuned.