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Amazing Grace - 10 May 2008
So I brought Grace, my cat, into the vet - she needed three shots and an international microchip put in her. She is stressed by people and other animals, and hates being in her cage, right? And *I* am stressed by trying to make sure she has everything (papers, shots, etc) to get to the other side of the world .. and myself, too, right?
So I made an appointment in the late afternoon, asked to be the last so that there would be minimum disruption to our worlds. I sped from work to home to shove an eight-pound, resisting, potato-shaped cat into a giant cage, yet she somehow has herculean strength and eight arms to cover each corner and leg from going into the cage. Somehow she had the death grip and it was a very unpleasant scene - she must have lost 3 lbs of fur in the process, but I digress.
So I get to the vet with her unhappily in the cage. The vet's office is packed - they're way backed up. Dang it.
There are a lot of couples and families in the gargantuan reception waiting area; fine. I misanthropically choose the chair along the windows that is separated from everyone else. The cat is terrified; this way she can sit in her cage (laden with toy mice, catnip, barbituates, etc) and wait for the endless hour in peaceful captivity.
Then this lady brings in her mid-sized dog and is talking to the receptionist as the dog strains every fiber of its leash to stick a wet nosemark (or seven) onto Grace's cage. The cat is stressed enough without a dog sticking its face into her zone, so I slide her cage to my left and frown at the dog.
The lady catches my distain, but may have mistaken it for what I was reading (I was reading a collection of short stories by Dot Parker, but I *thought* I had picked up that one book by Flannery O'Conner, so I was thinking: "oh this isn't so bad.. I like Flannery O'Conner just fine, who cares if she looked down on higher education"; could you blame her? In her time period, higher education was supposedly like hell, but without the advantages. At least according to Forster; not that I believe everything EM Forster says, but you get the idea).
Anyway, the lady pulls the dog back to her and goes to take a seat. In walks a big, baying dog whose every bark, and there were lots of them, had a pitch that went right up your spine, and made every other dog in the menagerie go off and start barking. Fine; it happens. Plus that dog was really a cool dog, and I want one. He looked like he was going to go chase a fox or something. Definitely not a thinker, that one, so probably would be more like an Irish Setter mix.
Here's where I finally went off (to make a long story short [too late]).
This couple from Corbett (I'm guessing: missing some teeth, etc) came in with their 3.5 ton chocolate lab, and sat down cadi-corner from Grace. Then, as I was watching them cautiously outside my periphery from the book, the dog pulls its slack leash and GALLOPS up to Grace's cage and does that frozen-stiff "buff buff" bark with ears perked and eyes intent ON MY CAT. The wife of the couple says, "Oh dingo* loves his cats - he has sooo many caaats - he just loooooves his cats"
So I gave her the true look of death as I have never given a stranger in my life, and said, very cooly and calmly:
"My cat. Is stressed. Enough."
And went right back to my book. The 4,670 foot long leash snapped back like a rubber band so fast the dog let out a little yelp as my words echoed across the reception area loud enough to drown out the xerox machine in the back.
EVERYONE heard it and got SILENT it was SO FUNNY but I was very serious at the time. You could hear the proverbial pin dropping. How are they going to let their dog just run up to a cat in a cage?! And I have NEVER been so rude in my life in public, but seriously.
So gradually, as the Aryan families with their snot-nosed children gained their confidence, they started talking to each other again. I think they were confident that the mean guy along the window was absorbed in his book (which, to be fair, was starting to get interesting, but I think I was still waiting for that ironic, gruesome twist that O'Conner supposedly throws into every short story: I wouldn't know; this is the second book I've read thinking it was hers: the last one was a biography of DH Lawrence - VOMIT, stupid Powell's mis-labeled used books).
Then a boy and his mom and dad (supposedly; he looked nothing like the dad, hahahaha, broken family), walked in with their little dog and sat down pretty far away from me. The little boy let the slack out, as people in this Stepford nightmare are want to do, and the little 12-year old boy (I'm guessing he was 12; children all look the same to me when they're in the larval stage), asked "can she see your cat?" as the dog approached Grace's cage.
The whole reception room got silent, you could hear the dog sniffing the cat through the thin plastic dividing the two. I didn't say ANYTHING, just kept reading. The boy pulled back the dog. Another few minutes of tense silence in the waiting room. I'm laughing now, but I was not in the mood for discussion at the time hahahaha.
During this time, a mother and her two kids walked in and sat down near me. Both little girls were well behaved and sat in their chairs and waited patiently for their pet. The little girl asked her mom in Spanglish if she could pet my cat. I turned the page, smiled at her and said that she could, and would she like to know the cat's name. Every single eye was on me reading and the little girl sticking her fingers in the cage. When she was done, she sat down, and played with her book and talked to her sister. WELL behaved kids. I made a bit of broken English small talk with the mother and figured out they had a Pomeranian. Probably well behaved one, too.
Grace was seen, and they microchipped and made sure I had every single paper I needed, and were REALLY great - I absolutely recommend Paws & Claws in Troutdale, because they have taken care of everything I need to get the cat to the Middle East and gave me extras of the de-wormers (if those really work for cats: I'm skeptical), and flea stuff for free, and extra original copies of certificates etc.
And everybody in that waiting room will think twice before letting their dogs torment a cat in a cage, or a guy trying to read his damned, early-twentieth-century, female, American writers.
So yeah, I was really, really stressed yesterday, I think.
* - yes, Dingo was the name-o. I wanted to ask if it was going to eat my baby (get it? I hope so, otherwise this would be a weird comment. Google "Dingo Ate My Baby".).
Mein Deutsch ist Scheiß - 5 June 2008
So today was the day for my flight. It was a long flight, but not without some funny things happening. I hope I don’t bore you to the death with details.
 So Lamonica picked me up and took me to the airport, around 9:30. I had a lot of bags, and wanted to get there early, but when she picked me up and we stopped at the post office to fill out change-of-address info, there was a Village Inn – crappy, cheap diner, and I knew I had to have some coffee and a disgusting omelet. I bet you care.
Then we headed to the airport. As we pulled in, a heavy rain (it never rains hard in Portland, they say) and gusty wind picked up and the four check-in and two carry-on bags felt like 47,532 bags, because, as usual, wherever I am in Portland when it rains, there’s mysteriously insufficient eaves to cover the rain. I have the worst luck in this. So it was 53° and raining. June 3rd. I finally got in, and was lucky to stand in the first class line for Lufthansa. There were some hot Germans that came in at the same time (Lamonica texted me to make sure I saw them), but they got in the “coach” line, pfft. Oh well, good riddance.
The total cost for my extra baggage, etc. was only a couple hundred dollars (I had nightmare scenarios in my head). Which is fine, because there are some things I simply cannot live without.
I would like to add that there is nothing quite as nice as a first class lounge, especially on a rainy day. They made the mistake of having free cookies. I ate my plane-ticket’s-cost worth in cookies, so I think they’re regret having done that.
The flight to Frankfurt was mostly uneventful. I tried to do some web work, but I had my new laptop on ultra power-sucker mode, and it signaled this to me only *after* my hour or two typing stuff. In the reflection on the screen, I could see the man behind my left shoulder straining to see what I was doing. Want to take a picture? It'll last longer. Yeah, it’s called HTML and Java, mister. I’m not “hacking into the airplane’s mainframe” for the love of the Internet.
Thank goodness the pregnant lady (I’m guessing she was pregnant; I learned not to make assumptions after the noodle incident) did not feel the need to give me her life story, at least not while she was awake, and she slept the whole way there. First class chairs go flat 180°. Somewhere above the Hudson Bay, she said, “it’s all wet,” in her sleep.
 Sure enough, looking out over the bay, it was all wet, but how she could be so cognizant in her sleep, without being by a window, is entirely beyond me. And of all the secrets of the dreamworld that she transmitted back, it was the liquidity of the surface seven miles below us that she felt like sharing. If my eyes weren’t wide with surprise, I would have responded with something witty, like, “and here I was thinking the bay would be a veritable desert,” or if I weren’t so surprised I could have responded with something contrary, like, “no, you’re magical powers of observation are not correct. It’s an arid biome below us; believe me: I have the window seat.”
But I didn’t. And she resumed her delta brainwaves and never uttered another word.
The airport in Frankfurt was under construction. The German language came back to me very quickly, and I realized that I hadn’t been in Germany since 2002. Six years ago almost to the day.
The flight from Germany was in German and Arabic. I boarded (the plane) and the steward asked me, auf Deutsch, if I wanted anything to drink and an appetizer. Although the attendants surely spoke English, I decided to be nice and speak German. “Bitte, ein Coke light, und kann ich mitt mein Coke, Rum gehaben? Der Flug ist shon langweilig” Yeah that’s right, I ordered a Rum & Diet Coke, and told him the flight was boring.
What a linguistic genius. Until he asked if I wanted “mach-mach-mach” (that’s what it sounded like) and I couldn’t understand him. I promptly responded, “das tut mir leid, aber mein Deutsch ist Scheiss. ”
WHY did that come out of my mouth?! He pushed the cart past me. I’m sure he muttered the German equivalent of “ooooookay, there buddy”.
The rest of the flight was fairly uninteresting. I was assigned a different stewardess, who was very friendly and allowed me to practice using my broken German and broken Arabic with her, who just laughed when I said that I like to remove my feet when I’m on airplanes.
This flight had a stop in Ad Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Flying over Kuwait was an experience. To see the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates and the flaring oil fields was amazing. I wish a camera shot could do it justice. The person I flew with was very pleasant, from Saudi Arabia. His son was just ready for college, and was looking to go to school in California. He had gone to school in Nebraska, and had asked if college tuition was pretty much the same as when he went to college. I nearly blew ginger ale out my nose when he said this.
I told him student loan payments were my favorite thing on Earth.
Sitting in the airport in Ad Dammam was not pleasant. We were informed that while on ground, we could not have images of naked people nor unsealed bottles of alcohol. Jeez, remind me never to live in Saudi Arabia. I wondered aloud if that meant I should throw out my IV of wine and my four suitcases of fetish pornography. Just kidding, I don’t joke around when religious fundamentalism is involved. Well, not usually.
Finally I arrived (late) to Abu Dhabi. The Passport lines were a complete breeze .. except for my line.. the woman took forever for each person, but I knew if I got in another line, I would get "Office Space"'ed and the old line would start moving quickly.
My driver rocketed down Airport Road (I need to google how fast 185km/hr really is) and I got home and crashed .. for 14 hours.
Pictures
Daring First Days - 6 June 2008
What can I say? I love it here. The hotel they put me up in is a suite with a kitchen, flat screen, etc. and they'll actually accept my cat. Unbelievable. It's walking distance to work, where everything is modern (except the interim bathrooms while they reconstruct our offices. These were very.. Algerian). Everything in this city is either one year old, being torn down, or waiting to be torn down (lack of construction workers and machinery).
At work, the pace is incredible. They have us completing entire planning projects and work programs in months. We're embarking on a revolutionary public involvement technique. While it's nice to work for a benign monarchy, it's even nicer still to see an involved public turn out to the charrettes.
Crash & Burn
HA HA HA HA OH I saw the FUNNIEST thing today for this whole week. So I was outdoors of a shop (oh you're going to laugh at this) which had that semi-frosted glass on the doors, and I was looking in the windows (this is so funny), and if you can imagine this:
(1) Woman is looking at something on a shelf
(2) Woman turns quickly, and trips
(3) Woman flails in six directions of free motion and brings a hanging decoration thing down with her
(4) Woman smacks hand on frosted-glass doors with an enormous "THUD"
(5) Woman eats it on the white tile floor
(6) Michael chokes on Falafel
(7) Woman slides horizontally a bit while store-keeper rushes to aid
(8) Michael, paralyzed, opens mouth for air and opens eyes wider as though they could inhale oxygen, too (trying not to laugh; trying to breathe even)
(9) Woman gets up slowly, unhappily while Michael turns to look at any possible quotidian thing nearby: fixates on sidewalk furnishings
(10) Woman allegedly okay; Michael too inhumane to check -- just couldn't breathe.
Please imagine this woman flailing in every possible direction. She went from normal stance to full flail in .02 seconds. it reminds me of other people falling in my life and how thankful I am for that [if I hadn't had my own share of falls, this wouldn't be as funny] The lady is fine so stop glaring at me.
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