notes from the underground

So I'm still here and still loving it. On Wed afternoon, I was walking to the bathroom and just randomly tripped over my feet and fell. Now I have this big rug burn on my elbow and a bruise on my knee. Several people happened to be walking past, and I'd have to say that was probably my all time low point. Until Thurs morning rolled around, and I realized I still had 7 more days of training fun.

A few glasses of wine at lunch goes A LONG way towards tuning out the instructors for the rest of the day. I think my goal this weekend is to find a flask so that my mornings become a bit easier to bear also.

Surprisingly (or maybe not if you know me), my fall on Wed was completely unaffected by alcohol.

I think I've been experiencing some serious racial profiling. The annoying security guard at the front door always seems to single me out for not wearing my badge (this ugly green thing that weighs at least a pound) around ALL the time, instead of just carrying it and holding it out as I walk in. At least I thought it was racial profiling until the instructor mentioned she had had an issue with him, too. She also pointed out that he didn't have much else to do, one of the truly funny things she's said all week.

I discovered who the crazy person was in the other class. By asking loudly who the crazy person was. She was sitting just a few feet away, so it was easy for people to point her out.

I have a new favorite website. And you guys, its not just cuz I'm bored. Its seriously the funniest thing ever. You have to check it out. Its called dickipedia, and its a spoof of wikipedia (though unrelated to it). Its from the writers at Huffington Post (also a great site) and they basically have entries on various famous dicks. The ones about Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, and Mel Gibson are absolutely hilarious. Its made my week so much more bearable. There have been moments when I thought I might actually start cracking up during class (especially when I was buzzed yesterday), and since class is not at all funny, that might have raised a few eyebrows.

Another distraction has been something G sent me this morning. It turns out that not only is Walmart known for helping people, they're also great for attracting some serious white trash. Big shocker, right? And there's a site where people submit pictures of classic Walmart shoppers that they've seen.

I'm telling you guys, this whole training has been so educational. I think the class has more than surpassed what I'm sure were the government's expectations. By the end of next week, I should be very well prepared for a career as an alcoholic (possibly pot-smoking and morphine-injecting) celebrity junkie with a deep appreciation for the world of useless Internet surfing. Well worth the thousands of dollars they're spending to have me here.

a taste of hell

So I'm in a training class near Seattle for a few weeks, and so far its been excruciating. Wait, did I say that? I meant exciting.

First off, its not in Seattle. Its in Auburn, about 45 minutes south of Seattle, in this amazing industrial area that's full of awesome things to do. On our first day, my co-worker and I ventured out for lunch and downtown Auburn was largely boarded up, clearly having been affected by the economy. Before the economy tanked, I'm sure this was a booming town with lots of life. On Yelp, there were a whopping 3 places with reviews within a few mile radius, and one of them was called Big Daddy's. I suggested going there and C, my co-worker, thought she wouldn't have enough singles to pay the dancers. Thank goodness we have 8 more days here, so plenty more opportunities. Fortunately on that first day, we were able to find the one restaurant that served alcohol, and I got right to it.

We're staying in Federal Way, Washington which is as amazing as it sounds. When asked about our best dinner options in the area, one of the girls in the class who lives locally suggested "McGrath's Fish House." And I think the training class did get together and go there that very night. Being anti-social, I decided to skip the group outing, though the whole fish house thing was tempting, I admit. But our options don't end there. Actually, Federal Way has proved to be a thriving metropolis complete with a Pho joint, a Denny's, and even an Indian restaurant. So we really lucked out. (Actually we kind of did, I heard the last time they had a training session here, the class stayed at a hotel that had nothing for miles around. The hotel shuttle took everyone to Safeway and that was about it.)

The government doesn't pay for rental cars. Instead, they provide a shuttle that takes everyone to and from the training class every day. Which is so much better. Especially with the class being in this industrial complex, there's a little stink of high school to the whole experience, or maybe summer camp. For those of us that loved that period and want to relive it. Except I'm loving it SO much more this time around. Cuz OMG -- I totally have a rental car and can go off campus for lunch. And don't have to take the bus to school. C and I decided to split a rental car, and I have to say that it's probably the best decision we've made. Walking past the losers waiting for the shuttle yesterday was so worth it. And of course we totally have the option of hitting Big Daddy's for lunch which no one else does.

Training itself consists of the instructors reading verbatim a manual I already looked at when I first started work 3 months ago. But I hear it'll get much better next week, when we get to work on actual practice cases. You know, a lot like what we do at our jobs normally, except watered down for training purposes. So I got tons to look forward to. We have 2 instructors. One is this uptight lady pretending to be fun. The other is an older ready for retirement guy who seems about as bored teaching the material as I feel listening to him. There's a second class, and they seem to have gotten the stand up comedian lecturer. So I'm bummed about that. Plus I hear they have a crazy lady, and I'm bummed about that too. Think of how much more exciting this blog post would have been. People come from offices all across the country to attend the class, and a surprising majority of them seem to think this is the best job in the world. So I'm very curious about where they used to work.

About the best thing about the whole experience is that my co-worker C had to come at the same time. Of all the people at work I would have liked to come with, she's the one. For one thing, she's pregnant and will never be too drunk to drive. And, as has been pointed out by our co-workers, we're kind of work BFFs. So omg, how perfect right? We can totally pass notes during class! And she ran into an old co-worker of hers who now works at a different social security office and was lucky enough to comee to training at the same time. So the three of us spend a lot of time griping. And act better than everyone else by taking off in the rental car for trips into exciting Auburn. And C and I spend most of the day chatting through our interoffice communicator. Which has been a godsend. At moment we're trying to decide if we'll get asked to prom and by whom. Plus I noticed early on that one of the instructors is a little grammatically challenged so now we spend our time pointing out her verbal mistakes. And I will admit, the instructor provides great fodder in general with an unending supply of random phrases, which when you're bored out of your mind, is at least something to focus on. For example, yesterday she said something about Walmart being known for helping people. Really? Since when? Have you guys heard about this? Last I heard, Walmart was known for gender discrimination and skimping on health insurance. On another ocassion, she told us about how great morphine was. How awesome would it have been to have had some on hand? I mean, the drinking at lunch is all right, but it made me want to pee constantly and get sleepy. And unless I'm doing shots, I can't drink fast enough to get sufficiently drunk.

And its nice to have some one help pass the time. Yesterday, for example, when I was so bored that I couldn’t even think of something to google, C mentioned that she saw that it was Prince Harry's birthday (I had noticed that too, I'm suddenly very current on celebrity gossip). But she took it furher and started to wonder why Prince Harry looked so different than his dad and brother, so googled "Prince Harry's real father" and ran across an entire conspiracy theory about a Princess Diana affair. That had me entertained for a good 20 minutes. I think I can safely say that I would have never thought to google that on my own.

Plus, I'm working on my sarcasm font which I'll hopefully be able to patent and make millions. I've needed one a lot these last few days and am amazed there isn't one already. So I got all kinds of things going on right now. If my blogging is slim the next few days, you know why.

Still, despite the hours of entertainment, training has taken its toll. Yesterday, I emailed G and casually mentioned that I discovered 6-7 white strands in my hair (mostly to point out how bored I had been at the hotel and how terrible the lighting was). He immediately figured it had to do with the nightmare I've been forced to endure. Which is a whole new point I hadn't considered. Training is giving me gray hair!!! And at the end of the day yesterday, one of the coordinators saw me and said, "Oh wow, you look so beat down." I think that sums up my current state pretty darn well - beat down and deflated. On the plus side, its almost the end of the day Wed and the first week is almost half over. Only 7 days and five and a half hours to go.

Indian wedding

An Indian wedding is a bit of a free for all. Back when G and I were sending out invitations to our American ceremony, we had a bit of a problem with my mom’s friends all wanting to bring their neighbors and second cousins twice removed. And we had to politely explain that it wasn’t an Evite, that they couldn’t just add whoever they wanted to the RSVP card. I griped about it a lot, but honestly, this was what they were used to. At a typical Indian wedding, EVERYONE comes. And I mean anyone and everyone. The neighbors, the milkman, co-workers’ inlaw’s grandkids. In my cousin’s case, that entailed 750 of their nearest and dearest at its height. The guest list included everyone from my dad’s childhood friends to distant cousins. And actually the final number ended up being fewer than expected – 1000 invitations went out. And that didn’t even involve my entire family. They held a 2nd reception closer to where my family is from to make sure that those who were unable to travel for the wedding were still able to take part in the post wedding festivities.

Earlier this year, G and I had an awesome but relatively minor version of the traditional Indian marriage ceremony. It was cool to see it now in its full glory at my cousin’s wedding. It has been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to attend a relative’s wedding, and this was a first for G. So it was fun for both of us.

At a typical Brahmin South Indian wedding, it takes just moments to tie the knot. And literally, there’s knot tying involved. The guy knots a necklace around the bride’s neck. Of course he gets to walk around completely unhindered, picking up chicks as long as they’ll have him but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, the heart of the ceremony lasts just seconds. And it’s almost always at some inconvenient time. We almost missed it (actually both my cousin's wedding and our own, now that I think of it) for example because we overslept. All of this stuff (like pretty much everything in my family) has to be done at the most “auspicious” moment. And apparently the gods have deemed the most auspicious moments to be the most inconvenient ones. G’s and my ceremony was on a Fri morning at 8 am, very conducive to having guests attend.

So seriously you could blink and miss the main event. But the pre and post wedding festivities can last days. Our own ceremony was scrunched into one day. My cousin had pretty much the same elements but spread out over a couple of days. People come when they please, and talk throughout. The bride and groom go through their own thing, which involves reciting religious chants after the priest and being covered in smoke. The rest of the guests spend the time catching up. They go home in the middle of the day when everyone breaks for a nap, then change and come back in the evening.

And they eat. The food ROCKS. Well, it certainly did at my cousin’s wedding (ours did too but it wasn’t quite the same experience). The caterers set up shop at the wedding hall and served regular meals for 3 days. And I mean regular as in enough for a cow that munches constantly throughout the day. Food is served cafeteria style. People can show up anytime during the meal periods. They take a seat. The caterers set a long line of banana leaves and walk down the line slopping food on the leaf. It defies all logic because you’d think there’s no way this food can be good, but it kicks ass. I got sick one whole day at the start of the wedding and was SO bummed cuz I couldn’t eat (plus I got a lot of shit – no pun intended – from G since he was the white guy and totally fine).


The caterers setting up shop at the wedding hall.

The bride and groom eating their first meal together as a married couple.







The food trough








So anyway, overall, it was a good time. If you missed my Indian wedding, sucks to be you. If you ever get a chance to attend some one else's, I'd take it, cuz the food is THAT good. If you're really lucky, you might get to attend some other type of Indian wedding that involves drinking and dancing. But I don't know how good their food is, so I guess you take the good with the bad. :)

Flu-induced ramblings

The last time I went to India, back in 2003, SARS was all over the news. I flew through Hong Kong, and about 90% of the people at the airport were sporting face masks. I laughed at how silly they looked, of course. But soon after I got to India, I got terribly sick, a flu like I'd never had before. It knocked me down for about 2 weeks, and those weeks are a jumbled haze. I remember sleeping, waking up with the chills, ocassionally eating, throwing up, and feeling generally like I'd rather be dead. Soon after I came home, I was sick again, and I would get so cold with fever that I'd crawl into my -20 degree cold weather sleeping bag and wait to sweat it out. Of course it must have been SARS. What else could it have been, right? I flew through Hong Kong both going and coming, and wasn't SARS especially rampant in Asia? Plus it served me right for not wearing a dorky mask (which by the way, I don't get -- a lot of people who wear them don't cover their noses with them - doesn't that defeat the purpose). Years later, I regretted not writing a memoir of my experience, because really who else could say that they'd had SARS twice and lived to tell the story. My stories of being at death's door would surely have been inspirational to many.

For this most recent swine flu epidemic, I've been more prepared. Back in May, I volunteered at a local middle school to teach a couple of classes about the American legal system. The night before I was to go, the group's organizer emailed all volunteers and informed us that a small handful of the students at the school had just been diagnosed with the swine flu. The kids hadn't been in school for days, and it didn't look like anyone else had been affected. But she would completely understand if we chose not to participate, she said. Several of the volunteers did opt out at that point, citing small children at home so they couldn't afford to get sick. Not me. In my mind, I was already preparing my self deprecating remarks, my book deal detailing my battle with the world's newest deadliest disease, the press conference. No way was I about to let another great opportunity pass me up. OK, if nothing else, it would make for a great blog entry. But you of course never heard about this volunteer experience because I survived it, completely unscathed. Not even a sniffle. Sigh.

On our trip to India, swine flu panic seemed widespread, as Asian countries see it as something coming in from the US and Mexico. So when we landed at the Chennai airport, all passengers were asked questions about our health, and a health department official took everyone's temperature before letting us through to customs. People departing at Hong Kong had to go through the same procedure. Somehow though, they must have let some one slip through the cracks, because somebody got me sick. Now. When I wasn't ready for it.

Since coming back, G and I have been both miserable. G started getting sick on Fri, me early Sat morning. Fever, chills, congestion, diarreah for him, vomiting for me. He's a little better now which is good because I'm a terrible sick person and need all the attention I can get. I've been coughing up a lung and have been pretty much bedridden since Sat. My temperature went up to 104 degrees on Sun night too, which might have actually sped up G's recovery a bit just with him being so worried about me. We went to the doctor after that, and I was ready for a quarantine. Maybe a little panic at who I've been in contact with since coming back into the country. Maybe a little write up in our local paper.

Sadly, none of these things happened. In fact the doctor seemed unimpressed. I repeated the 104 degree temperature spike several times even but he just nodded with this little faux sympathetic smile. He even shook my hand even though I had just coughed into it. And then reached for the door handle on his way out. Clearly, he was not at all concerned. Man, what does a girl have to do to get a little attention around here? (Though I will say that G's been giving me plenty, so I guess its not a total waste). And in fact, walking out of the urgent care, I realized that the room was filled with people coughing and looking like they were at death's door. All probably convinced that this was the worst sickness of their lives.

So anyway, I guess there are no book deals in my future. And honestly, I doubt I even have swine flu (shocker, huh?). I've been reading all about it since I slept all day so can't sleep anymore. And do you know that there's really no way to tell the difference between swine flu and anything else? So I don't even get what the big deal is anymore. And anyway, all they seem to care about now are pregnant women and swine flu. So I could be dying from it and still wouldn't make the local papers.

This stinks. And I still feel miserable.

Back!!

So, anybody miss me? Come on, admit it, just a little right?

OK, I have lots of stories to share but its not going to happen today. Today, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm back in one piece and will be returning to my usual every-other-day or so posting shortly. As much as I wanted to blog while I was in India, it was hard to get my thoughts in order without my morning commute. And something about sitting in an internet cafe rushing to check all my email as quickly as I could somehow didn't work for me.

Today, I'm at work, telling all my co-workers about my trip (like a broken record, the same stories over and over again to each co-worker as they see that I'm back), catching up on my emails and blogging, grabbing coffee with everyone, I guess doing some work, etc. So at the moment, I'm a little tired of my India stories. But I'm SO glad to be back in the land of toilet paper (and Western plumbing), hot water showers, eating with utensils, reasonable weather (i.e., I'm not dripping with sweat two seconds after showering), ACTUAL showers (instead of filling up a bucket and using a mug to clean up), running water and electricity, and beds. I know, it sounds like a horrible trip, huh? Chances are, you'll mostly hear about the difficulties over the next couple of posts, cuz that makes for much funnier posts. But actually, despite it all it was a pretty awesome trip, and the wedding was beautiful.

This weekend, we're meeting G's brother and his wife up kind of near Tahoe. But by towards the end of the weekend or early next week, I should be back on my regular blogging schedule. So more soon . . .

Bored and tired at the airprot

So I don't have much to blog about really. And I hate being one of those people who blogs about everything from what they had for lunch (unless they made it and have pictures that make me drool -- I LOVE food blogs) to the size of my toe nails. But I'm kind of thrilled to have free wi-fi at the Hong Kong airport, and feel like it would be a waste to not take advantage of it. Actually, its very sad. I remembered the free wi-fi at the HK airport from the last time I passed through here 6 yrs ago and must have told G about it at least a half dozen times. Maybe you're seeing a bit of a technology-freak trend going on here? I mean, yesterday, it was my phone, today the internet. What's even more awesome is that on this trip, I have my little lap top with me, so I don't even have to wait in line at the free computer station like I did last time. Seriously sad, I know. But it sure beats my other HK memory which is of people walking around in face masks because SARS was spreading like wildfire the last time I was here. Hmm, actually, there are lots of swine flu signs now, and what do you know, people walking around in masks. Curious coincidence? Or the price I have to pay for free wi-fi?

Anyway, so we've endured the 14 hour leg of the plane ride. We have a four-hour layover here in HK and then another 5 hours to Chennai. G keeps reminding me that its even longer than our trip to Thailand, and even made a little spreadsheet documenting the difference during a slow day at work. So definitely he's ready to be there already. And I hate plane rides in general, so sooner the better for me too.

But I gotta say, as far as 14-hr miserable rides go, this wasn't half bad. Not sure, the seats felt a little less cramped. And the on flight entertainment was actually kind of awesome. They have almost like a DVR-type set up with a whole bunch of movie and tv selections. No waiting for the next movie to start. No missing stuff cuz of bathroom breaks, cuz you can just pause. And actually the selection was almost as good as our DVR at home, which is saying a lot, especially with how crazy G gets with that thing. Though after 3 movies, several sitcom episodes, and a couple of Project Runway re-runs, I'm beat.

The food wasn't bad either. But they made us wait 9 hrs between meals!! Between lunch and dinner, too, wasn't like we were supposed to be sleeping or anything. We were starting to wonder if they'd forgotten about it, or if maybe all the flight attendants had overslept or something.

Also, I was kind of amazed by how many old people were on the flight. The guys with the wheelchairs were working overtime getting everyone on the flight. And a lot of kids. So it was a good thing we had a long layover, cuz we were sitting in the back and it must have taken about a million years to get out. A lot of old Indian people actually, so I guess HK is a popular layover destination. So that was the other thing that sucked about it -- a ton of people got the veggie meal. G ordered it too cuz he's always a little bitter when my food comes out first and he has to wait til they serve the rest of the flight. But guess it didn't do him much good on this flight seeing as how half the flight ordered the same meal, and we were in the back. The couple next to us got a different special meal (there were about 30 options to choose from, I think, when we booked), and they must have gotten served a full hour before us. So especially when we were dying waiting for that second meal, it didn't help to keep looking over and smelling their food. By that point, it could have been dog food probably and still would have smelled good.

Ok, I have nothing else to ramble on about.

Going dark

Ugh, today was definitely a crazy day. It's late, and I'm tired, so I'm not going to get into it really. Except to say that I was busy at work trying to finish up before I took off for two weeks. I snapped at an annoying co-worker. I was busy at home packing and running errands. And to make life fun, I had a doctor's appt this afternoon that I was 25 minutes late for. So late that they told me that I'd probably be waiting for over an hour, so I might as well reschedule. Except that I can't reschedule since I'll be gone. And I forgot my phone, so I was running around late all day but no way to communicate to anyone. Not to the doctor's office, not to G. I ended up rescheduling for their last appt of the day and then tried to run a couple of errands in Gilroy while I waited. I had to call G using a PAY PHONE. Can you imagine the trauma??? I barely knew how to use it, and I'm pretty sure it took advantage of my confusion and stole more money from me that was necessary. Either that or pay phones or more expensive than I remembered. Man, when did life get this way? For a long time I didn't even have a cell phone. I was one of the last hold outs. But here I am, completely useless and lost without one.

Oh, you know what was even better? I was running errands in Gilroy and hit SO much traffic that I was AGAIN late for my appt by almost half hour. By the time I got back to the doctor's office, the whole place was dark and pretty much everyone had gone home. Fortunately the doc was still there and agreed to see me. But only after some begging. Sounding like I was about to start crying might have helped also.

Anyway, life's much better now. And speaking of being incommunicado, I'm going to be out of touch for the next two weeks while I'm in India. Seeing as how I can barely handle a day without technology, I wonder how a couple of weeks will be!!!! I'll try to blog whenever I can, but I doubt it'll be more than every 3-4 days or so, if that. But hopefully I'll have some good stories for y'all when I get back.