OhhHappyDay

2010-03-29T02:56:00.000-07:00

I took the train into Philly to meet a friend for breakfast. He met me at the 30th St. station, a beautiful building, and then we took the subway! I'm excited about that because no one else here seemed to even be sure there is a subway in Philly. I liked finally taking it and seeing how it works. The Tenth Street Pourhouse was perfect -- good food, good music, nice staff. I'm so glad to be getting into the city more.

2010-03-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

Philadelphia has the second oldest parade, of any kind, for St. Patrick's day. It was started five years before the Declaration of Independence was signed! They have it the Sunday before St. Pat's. We took the train in to catch the parade and ended up here at this cool old Irish pub tucked in a side street. They're celebrating their 150th birthday! I love all the history up here. I had the traditional Jameson's, corned beef, and cabbage. Yum!

2010-03-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

We went to The Standard Tap at 2nd and Poplar in the North Liberty area of Philadelphia for Peggy's birthday. This place was so cool -- the food, the beer, the architecture, the crowd -- all great. We slid into a big solid dark wood booth in a room of deep red walls. The floor was little black and white tiles. Flickering above us there was a double gas lamp perfectly situated in a dark wood coffered ceiling. Some of the beer choices were "hand pumped" and not carbonated, creamy even. It was SO good. The little town I live in is lovely but I miss city life. I never thought I'd say that!

2010-02-27T16:29:00.001-08:00

February 25, 2010

Friday was another "snow day". Or I guess it was an "icy bits suddenly blasting sideways day". The wind was unbelievable; gusts of 50 mph. As the dogs leapt over a snow bank, I wiped out and landed head first, flat on my back, splayed out in a huge pile of fluffy snow. It must have looked hilarious to anyone who saw. The snow whooshed up from the impact and then landed back all over my face and glasses. I blew out of my mouth to clear a breathing path like a dolphin, except snow shot up instead of water. Then I carefully got up and tried to clear my glasses. The problem was that the temperature difference on the surface of my glasses had caused the fluffy snow to instantly melt and refreeze as crusty ice obstructing my vision. That was in the first five minutes of an hour-long walk. I am ready for spring.

2010-02-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

February 21, 2010 - Longwood cabin fever

We stumbled upon the Simon Pearce glassblowing studio and had a great meal. Shrimp and arugula frittata -- yum! It came with "petit bread salad", or as I like to call them, croutons. From there we went on to Longwood Gardens. This is a shot inside the conservatory which was full of orchids and all kinds of blooms that smelled wonderful. One of the orchids actually smelled like chocolate.

2010-02-27T16:13:00.000-08:00

February 7, 2010 – looky there….more….snow

But a friend is coming over to hang out so that should be fun. I hope there’s somewhere for him to park. Seriously. That’s like a thing up here. There’s nowhere to put the snow so the plows mostly pile it up along the road blocking the parking spots. My car was under a mound of snow and all I had was a dust pan. I started scooping away at it. I heard a sound and looked up. Three college students were helping me shovel my car out! I was so grateful. The South does not have a monopoly on chivalry.

2010-02-27T16:10:00.001-08:00

January 10, 2010 – McAvoyage to NYC

Julie gave me the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, tickets to see one of my favorite actors, James McAvoy, get interviewed in NYC. We took the train in and got to have lunch with my nephew, Jed, Mi Soon, and their unbelievably cute baby, Maia. It was great to see them. Then we cabbed it over to the event. The Times was hosting it so we got to go to their headquarters, which I thought was really neat-o. I’m usually frozen when it comes to talking in front of a crowd but, thanks to Julie poking me, I popped right up and got to ask him the first question. You know what the coolest thing about it was? When something abstract, like what a movie star represents to you, turns into something real, like there's an actual person and I'm talking to him, you get this great sense of possibility. I don't mean possibility with that person; I mean possibility in the world. Do you know what I mean? Like when you see the Eiffel tower in person. Suddenly something that was only an idea is a real thing and the world comes more alive or something. I don't know if that makes sense. Aaaaanyway, it was great fun.

2010-02-27T16:09:00.001-08:00

January 1, 2010 - Happy New Year!

2010-02-27T16:03:00.001-08:00

December 30, 2009 - Baldwin Book Barn

Peggy found this cool used bookstore. It’s huge and used to be a dairy barn. When you walk in it smells wonderful because of all the books and a woodburning stove. As you walk around the floors creak and crazy looking old books catch your eye. They have new books, too, but the really old volumes were the most interesting with their enigmatic references and peculiar illustrations.

2010-02-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

December 22, 2009 - Making a gingerbread house with Lucas

I have to say, when you start out with the blank house and all the mismatched plastic gee-gaws and candy, it doesn’t seem very promising. But Lucas really got the hang of the icing funnel and went to town on the shingles. It turned out great.

2010-02-27T16:00:00.001-08:00

December 21, 2009 – I’mmm dreaming of aaaa White Christmas….

Dream fulfilled. We’ve gotten more snow this winter than the past four combined. I have no idea what to do with this stuff. I was pet/housesitting for Julie and Steve and suddenly heard the sound of a snow blower in the driveway. One of their neighbors came down and cleared the way! Their neighbors are so nice.

2010-02-27T15:49:00.001-08:00

December 5, 2009 - Move in day

The POD is delivered. Moving help is lined up. Aaaand it starts snowing. First snow of the season. But that’s okay. Everything is in and I have my own place. The dogs seem happy, too.

2010-02-27T15:44:00.001-08:00

November 11, 2009 – new job, new place

I got a job at West Chester University in a lovely town called West Chester. It’s about 30 minutes from Julie and Peggy and 60 minutes from Philly. The photo above is where I work.

My apartment building used to be an elementary school. It's small but it has huge windows and high ceilings that make up for that. There are two sets of stairs outside and carved into the stone in two-foot high letters it say “Girls” and “Boys.”

2010-02-27T15:43:00.001-08:00

November 8, 2009 - Keb Mo and Kelly

I went with Julie and Catherine to see Keb Mo at the Keswick last night. He had a little bit of a sore throat but he was still great. He’s a charming man. So much so that Kelly, the completely trashed nutball two rows back, felt compelled to make advances between and, as the set progressed, during songs. I know her name was Kelly because one of her favorite refrains was “What about me? What about KELLYYYY?!” and then she would make a strange gargling sound.

2010-02-27T15:42:00.001-08:00

October 31, 2009 – Boo!

This neighborhood has two fun traditions for Halloween. Little kids leave a little poem, a bag of candy, and a picture of a ghost at your door. They ring the doorbell then run away. You're supposed to make a big deal over it so the little kids hiding in the bushes get to see your reaction. Then you put the ghost in your window so everyone knows you've already been "ghosted" and your kid has to do it to three other people. The big kids have "mischief night" the night before Halloween (tonight) mostly they run around doing pranks to each other and toilet papering houses. Here are the pumpkins I carved.

2010-02-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

October 30, 2009 – Ta da!

Wow, autumn is more amazing than I imagined. The trees look like someone plugged them in. And people tell me this isn’t even a good year. One of the craziest things is every once in a while there’s a leaf that turns white, actually devoid of any color. I didn’t find the source but here’s a single leaf that drifted onto another shrub.

2010-02-27T15:24:00.000-08:00

October 6, 2009 - Brandi Carlile at the Keswick

Peggy and I went to see Brandi Carlile at the Keswick. It was great! She was celebrating her new CD release and the crowd was electric. The Keswick is this cool old theater like the Paramount. It’s in a quaint downtown snuggled up next to a beautiful old neighborhood. I think it’s considered a suburb of Philly or maybe part of Philly? I haven’t figured out the geography up here yet. There are townships and towns and “unincorporated communities” and all the lines seem to overlap.

2010-02-27T15:21:00.001-08:00

August 11, 2009 – Magic Gardens in Philadelphia

Chris brought me my car! Yea! South Philly is so cool. We ate at a corner deli where I had some of the best pickles and a KNISH. These things are fantastic. There are a lot of different kinds but this one was like a battered and deep-fried Reuben. We wandered around until we came to the Magic Gardens. This artist has being doing this wacky tile-work, beautifying his neighborhood for several decades. You’ll be walking along and then, bam, there’s a whole wall of mosaic two stories high down an alley.

2010-02-27T15:19:00.001-08:00

July 26, 2009 - Things don’t look the same here.

I can hardly believe I’m here. Everything, from the way people drive to the kinds of berry formations on shrubs, is different. Went to Stoudt’s Brewery, one of Pennsylvania’s first micro-breweries, located in Lancaster County. Julie is on a quest for an antique side table so we had some authentic spaetzle, cruised the huge flea market for furniture, and reflected on the fun house mirrors.

2010-02-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

July 18, 2009 – Boatload of fun on the Chesapeake

Wow, this took me back to when we were teenagers and Steve, Julie, and I would go skiing on the bayou in Slidell, LA. It was a beautiful day skiing, swimming, and wakeboarding with some neighbors.

2007-05-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here's my video of my trapeze fun! It even has sound. It's pretty dark because the sun had gone down. Unfortunately my other video in daylight was too big to upload and I don't know how to make it smaller.

2007-04-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Hi yall!

Julie came to visit and we got to do this superfun thing - we were "secret shoppers" at a wellness spa called The Crossings! That means we stayed overnight, ate, got massages, used the pool and stuff and then it was all free in exchange for filling out a 4 page questionnaire. Market research. The place was absolutely beautiful. I should have taken more pictures but my photo card got full with the video of my trapeze lesson. I got to fly on a trapeze!! It was SO freakin fun and Peter, the instructor, is a master teacher, a real pleasure to learn from. I highly recommend it to anyone.

As with all the pictures here, if you doubleclick on them it brings up a much bigger version.

Cheers,
Charlotte

Here's the rig! Oh my gosh, I'm really going to do this!

Practicing on the ground. Peter is a professional and a fantastic teacher. His wife is also there and is a contortionist in the circus. They and the rest of the instructors were wonderfully encouraging and positive.

OH my gosh, this is WAY higher up than it looks.

Here I go! Julie got two videos of me flipping and catching but I haven't figured out how to upload them to this blog yet.

And this is how you get down out of the net.

Julie and I at the sanctuary off in the woods.

The "infinity horizon" pool overlooking the lake.

My room with a balcony overlooking the hill country. Everything was gorgeous and the food was great.

2007-04-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, after wanting to do this for 6 years, I finally removed the wallpaper in the guest room!

This is what the old wallpaper looked like. Bleh.

And here are some before and after shots.

2007-04-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

Check it out! Julie and Steve are on the jumbo-tron in Times Square! Steve's company is now being traded on NASDAQ so they got to do the closing bell ceremony.

Congratulations, Steve!

When the ceremony started, my web view switched to the internal cameras.

Yea! Doing the countdown! This is what everyone out on the street is seeing on that giant screen.

And back out to the street view. There's George's signature 7 stories tall!

How totally freakin' cool!

2007-03-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

St. Patrick's Day Crawfish Boil 2007

Hi yall,

Shane had his annual crawfish boil at my house this year. It was SO fun! Don't they look great? The photos with particularly good lighting and composition were taken by Kirk's friend. I'm sorry I forgot her name or I would give her credit here.

Cheers,
Charlotte

Zataran's and propane consultation

Shane (the cook - thank you for another great feast!), Stuart, and Jay

Grace bravely holding some live bugs

Waitin tuh git berled

A batch is ready!

Digging in. By the way, thank you so much, Erin and Tiger, for the use of the tables!

I think my hammock is eating people.

Lone Star beer chickens

Thank you, Kirk, for cooking up the sausages and chickens!

And thank you everybody else who brought sides, especially Joni who couldn't make it but still sent along crab stuffed fish!

What St. Patrick's Day gathering would be complete without the traditional log toss competition....

....and the traditional regalia

Kirby completely surprised me! I had no idea she was flying in from Atlanta. She interviewed for a job that week and got it. She and Jimmy are moving back to Austin in June! Yea!

For those of you who've only heard me talk about this part of my circle of friends - that's me, Kirby, and Jim Lackett - not to be confused with Kirby's Jim Flores.

Dominic is getting his pinata strategy worked out. We used Lee's gigantic Guiness hat as the blindfold.

Lee also made a pinata for the "grown-ups" that had beer holders, tiny bottles of alcohol, and air fresheners for the car.

Thank you, Lee, for bringing the pinatas! They were really fun.

Happy Birthday, George! Bernie, you look entirely to serious. Have another beer.

Daniel and Zaylyn in the background. Good luck in Seattle, Daniel!

Daaaaaave....what are you going to do with that whoopee cushion?

Crawfish races - first one out of the circle wins

Shade people

Hi Cindy and Lee!

Another batch is ready

Grace and Benjamin

Some of the kid-o's

2007-03-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody!

Here are some pictures from my trip to India. I went to the Southwesternmost state called Kerala for 2 weeks and stayed with my friends Mark and Asenath who are living/working over there for a year. I'm new to Blogging so formatting is a struggle. I'm trying to put captions by each picture. I hope it works! :o)

Love,
Charlotte

Holy cow! I'm really in India. Asenath and I are on her roof drinking Vodka with lemons squeezed in it to celebrate and talking excitedly about everything we've been doing and want to do. My luggage was lost but I don't care. It's 4am and some explosions have just gone off in the distance to ward off evil spirits. Then some chanting begins over loud speakers. I think it's Muslim although the area I'm in is predominantly Hindu. The daily smoky haze of coconut husk fires begins wafting through the palm canopy. That's what everyone cooks with and I love the smell.

Here is their house. They live on the second floor. Swank, huh? The owners live on the first floor, a nice family of four. The lady of the house stands in her doorway, just under this balcony, and visits with her neighbor who sits on the concrete wall I'm standing in front of to take the photo. And then another neighbor has a perch further down the walkway, and so on like that. I am very impressed by the strength of family and community in India. They seem very solid, kind, reasonable, tolerant and well-adjusted. That's a funny word to use but I don't know how else to describe it.

Here is the inside of the house. No screens, air conditioning, or hot water. Electricity randomly stops. We each have mosquito nets and the temperature is roughly 75 degrees year round. Other than for the occasional computer use, electricity didn't seem very relevant. About 1/3 of the people I saw didn't wear shoes but didn't seem to mind or maybe even chose not to. Their feet are clearly much tougher than mine. People would work digging ditches hacking away at the rocky ground with sharp hoes -- no shoes. It didn't seem to stop them from accomplishing just as much as someone with shoes. I'm stunned by how full lives are here with so few material possessions. I don't think of myself as a materialistic person but when I see a whole city functioning smoothly at such a productive level having to make do with so many tattered ramshackle repaired things, I realize I'm overly attached to my stuff.

Mark, Asenath and Justin waving in the Arabian Sea getting ready to boogie board, which is like surfing on your tummy. Indians don't swim so all the bathers you see are tourists. The Indian men try to be respectful but seem rather stunned and just stand there staring when they see a Western woman in a bikini.

Indians go to the beach in the same clothes they wear in the city - saris, long pants, tucked in shirts, and shoes. They seem formally dressed for the beach compared to what I'm used to but that's the norm here. The dogs on the beach are adorable. There are quite a few that live here just happy and free. Someone took it upon himself to have them spayed/neutered and maybe he feeds them too. They seem very independent and play with anyone who will throw a stick into the waves. The dogs in the city look like their lives are significantly harder than these beach dogs.

They use squat toilets, which I now wish we had in the States. They really make much more sense. I heard that the babies don't wear diapers and are potty trained way earlier than Westerners. I can see why. It's much easier for a child to squat than to climb up on a pedastal. So you have two options, you can toss cups of water at yourself or use the spray hose. Nifty, eh?

I guess this is a goofy picture but I was struck by the frankness of the instructions. I love that they encourage you to hum a tune and enjoy.

The houses are a jumbly close arrangement all higgledy-piggledy. Every morning I hear the sounds of goats, chickens and dogs. Shortly after I hear the slap of laundry as the women beat the living daylights out of the clothes. Each house has a well and a tall slab of concrete where they do the laundry. Then it's hung on the roof or wherever. The houses are made of concrete or brick. Traditionally roofs are tile but more commonly now are made of metal. The whole town is under a canopy of coconut palms which they use in so many ways.

Like this roof for example. They take the fronds, which can be like 10 feet long, split them down the rib, weave the leaves without taking them off of the rib, then layer them like shingles.
They spin the fibers into a rope called coir that is used to fill all the mattresses. There are ladies on the side of the road with machetis and a pile of coconuts. You can walk up to them and they lop off the top of a big green coconut and pop a straw in it. They cook with shredded coconut and everything in Kerala is cooked with coconut oil.

Kovalam, our home base, is a small fishing town. There is a tourist strip only a couple of blocks long along the beach that has shops and restaurants. Otherwise it's like this.

Two lines of men are hauling in the fishing nets. In the evening the restaurants will have fresh fish and prawns lopped up on display along the boardwalk to advertise what's cookin'.

Everpresent Spirituality

Every day throughout the day I see evidence of people expressing thanks, making gestures of respect, or praying. These extremely fragrant flowers are carefully sewn together with tiny knots in perfect strands. The women wear them in their hair but they are also frequently used to adorn shrines. They only last a day or two so people buy them fresh every day. He is wrapping them in a giant lily pad.

This shrine is along the road to the beach. I can't remember all of the Hindu deities. I wish I had something like baseball cards to keep track of all the fantastic stories for each of them.

This is referred to as a tank and is located at the base of the temple in the next picture. Before people had plumbing this is where everyone came to get their water. I think the water is considered holy and feeding the fish is good karma.

This huge temple is located in the heart of the oldest part of the capital of Kerala, the city of Trivandrum.

This little shrine is on the path from the street to our house. One night it was spruced up with a bunch of fresh flowers and candles. An old gentlman saw us admiring it and stopped to gleefully explain why they were celebrating. The people in Kovalam are so friendly. As they pass on scooters they call out helllloooo and wave. Little kids approach you with big smiles and say "hi, please where are you from?" So sweet.

As you walk through town you can see a Muslim mosque and in the next block a Hindu shrine and in the next block a Christian church. There doesn't seem to be any tension or difficulty with so many beliefs co-existing. With all of the hub-bub and conglomeration everywhere I look there is a feeling of fluidity to the interactions of the people. In New York the energy felt more like a pulse. In India it feels like the current of a river.

This is a 2000 year old temple for Shiva that was tucked away in the residential area of Kovalam. Shiva is the Supreme God of Hinduism. All other Hindu Gods and Goddesses are part of him. He is static and dynamic; oldest and youngest; the beginning and the end; creator and destroyer. He's formless, timeless and spaceless.
Sounds good to me!

Street Life

This is the bazaar in Trivandrum. Instead of malls or department stores, there is a little store for everything. There are also people with card tables or just sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk selling things. It could be anything from underwear to gooseberries to raw meat hanging on a pole ready to be cut to order.

The shops have an open front and don't go in very far. What you can see in this picture is the entirety of one of the larger shops.

The chai guy! I drink chai about 5 times a day. They make it scaldingly hot then repeatedly pour it like this to cool it off. They serve it in glasses which you stand there to drink and return the glass. No throwaway cups.

When you are purchasing something you can sit on one of the little chairs they have crammed in the side of their stall. We're getting sharjas which are sooooo good. Milk is sold in small bags in India. To make sharja they toss a frozen bag of milk in a blender with cashews, bananas, cinnamon, and sometimes protein powder. Yum!

This is the equivalent of a convenience store. There's one on every couple of blocks and they have all the usual stuff like cigarettes, sodas, candy, magazines, and bags of milk. The tan pile on the ground by Asenath's leg is the coconut husk rope, coir, that I mentioned earlier. I guess they use a lot of rope because I see piles like this all over the place. The other thing I see is piles of the coconut husks cut in half drying out so they can be used for cooking. I'm tellin' ya, ya can't go anywhere without seeing coconuts here.

This lady has a cloth circle on her head that she is balancing that big silver pot on. They don't even need to use their hands to keep the load up there.
This is back in Kovalam, in the residential area. You can see it's not crowded at all. One of the things people told me before I came here was that I would be constantly packed in people. That hasn't been my experience.

At the end of the day, street vendors sweep little piles of debris into the gutter and burn the trash. I like these fires and I like that nobody is freaking out that there are open fires all over the place in a busy thoroughfare.

Transportation

This is a really common site. Most people use motorcycles and scooters instead of cars. As a matter of fact, there are almost no cars where I was. The women ride side-saddle. Often there is also a kid-o between mom and dad and a baby in front of dad looking as chill as you please. No special child safety seats. Just a baby straddling the fuel tank with his little hands in front of him looking totally capable and calm. Isn't that amazing?!

Auto rickshaws! My favorite! I love these things. They're a total blast. This is not representative of how it normally looks. Normally there are rickshaws, three abreast, jockeying for position with scooters, motorcycles, trucks and buses. Everyone almost continuously taps friendly beep-beeps. Then all of a sudden there are two big trucks competing with each other for the road and headed directly at you! It's HILARIOUS! It seems impossible but everybody just adjusts their positions. There's that fluid thing I was talking about. No shouting or getting angry. No accidents. Just a crazy fun ride. Fascinating.

Here's the inside of a rickshaw. These baby posters are popular. They say things like "I'm so happy every day!" There are also usually stickers of gods and sparkly jangly decorations hanging across the front window. My favorite one is a plastic bird that is mounted on the outside. When the driver drives the wings flap.

Mark is in the dark blue shirt at the counter trying to make train reservations for us for tomorrow. He is talking through a hole in the plexiglass. See the guy in the light blue shirt? He has started trying to conduct his transaction with the same agent through the same opening. If you're not politely persistent, the agent will actually start working with the interloper. I love a lot of things about India but this is not one of them. It makes me coo-coo. Also, they're not really into lines. People just generally make their way to the front. Waiting your turn seems like such an automatic way of conducting business that I can't even get my mind around doing it any other way. It will just have to remain one of the mysteries of India for me.

Random observations

This is the kind of posh store you go to to buy your wedding sari and a special piece of cloth like the orange one Mark is wearing but fancier. There were beautiful silks and embroidery. The gentleman sitting on the platform displays whatever you request, pulling folded sari material from shelves behind him. The sari is one loooong piece of fabric. After you pick out what you want, the tailor cuts off a couple of feet from the end and makes the little mid-driff bearing t-shirt that you wear with the sari.

I found the fitting room at the sari store to be very encouraging.

Jackfruit is about the size of a loaf of bread and grows straight out of the trunk. Crazy, huh? I kept looking for it for sale or for a ripe one on a tree so I could try it but didn't have any luck. When people talk about eating them they have an unusual response which made me really curious. Their response is something like "it's strange and you won't like it but I do." They don't seem to want to say what it tastes like.

Big ol' pink and white bougainvilleas growing like mad.

The blue sign says this is a surgeon's office. People wait in that caged porch. I think surgeon must mean something different here, like, just a regular doctor's office.

The red sign on the ground is some sort of street marker. I see them sticking out of the sidewalk, although usually white and usually next to the street instead of the wall.

Some wacky hotel architecture so we are eating lunch here.

The two red pails say "Fire" and are filled with sand.

Mark and I are out on a scooter ride around Kovalam and stopped to get gas. I took this picture because the dude in the cage represents another common experience I'm having here. I look at the way something is arranged and can't for the life of me figure out what's going on. Why is the guy in the cage? There's a building behind us (the one in picture above) where an attendant could have a counter. Is the cage meant to secure the cash register? But there's two feet of open space below him. Nobody else thought it was unusual. They probably thought I was unusual for staring at the guy in the cage. Anyway, it made me giggle so I thought I would show you.

They paint their huge work trucks in this fantastic detailed way. Isn't that the coolest?! I love it. The trucks are owned by individuals. Having one is a great source of livlihood for the family. I don't know if you can read it but up at the top it says "Donate blood." Mark explained to me that if they include a public announcement in the decorations they get a tax break.

This is the palace in the center of Trivandrum. I can't show you the inside because we aren't allowed to take pictures. The wood on the second floor is actually an enclosed verandah. There are slits too small to see here but when you're in the verandah you can actually see out. It goes all the way around the whole palace. Nobody has lived in it for a long time but when they did the women were sequestered. I would imagine these slatted verandas were frequented by them trying to get a glimpse of the world outside the walls of the palace.

Restaurants aren't really common here I guess because everybody eats at home. This is a kind of utilitarian vegetarian meal hall where we're having lunch in Trivandrum. That's a banana leaf I'm eating off of and also lining Asenath's metal tray. They really eat off of banana leaves. This isn't just something done for tourists. So they put a pile of rice in the middle then splat about six different things around it that you dip your rice in. There are no utensils. Everyone eats with their hands only. There's a sink in the same room with the tables where you wash up before and after your meal. No paper towels. I'm surprised by how quickly my hands dry. I have absolutely no idea what I'm eating but it's delicious. When you finish it off, they come around and offer you more.

In Kovalam, in the couple of blocks of tourist area, there's this Western restaurant. Check out the French breakfast.

Here's one of those sinks in the dining room of the Western restaurant.

Oh man! This traditional band is amazing. She's doing vocalizations I've never heard before. There is a drummer, a guy behind him with some unrecognizable percussion instrument, the fiddler and that little white box emitting a sound like a sitar, I think. All together they take me into a dreamy trance. We're in the civic auditorium where traditional dance and music is performed a couple of times a week.

The bats in India are the size of cats. I was walking down the street in the middle of a busy part of town and a whole flock of them about 10 feet from my head just took off into the evening sky. So cool. The one is this picture is mummified, poor thing. It is at the entrance to a B&B we are staying in. It seemed like it just had to be a bad omen but nothing untoward happened so I guess we got lucky. :o)

Here is the inside of the B&B. It's a 100 year old traditional home with rosewood ceilings.

The proprietor says these long arms are for holding your coffee while you read.

Going to a place to get on the internet is part of our regular itinerary since there's none at the house. Plus the electricy is unreliable at home anyway. This one is pretty fancy compared to where we usually go. Usually it's just a table with a computer or two. I like the simplicity of it, the almost complete lack of marketing and flash.

Houseboat Adventure

We're in Aleppey now getting ready to rent a houseboat. The canals go all around town and continue into the countryside. Mark is haggling like a pro to secure the best deal. Asenath and I are observing and being kept entertained with small talk by guys that are like business wranglers.

Okay, 3.5 hours of haggling later we're under way! The dynamics of haggling are fascinating although if I had to do it I think I would have a caniption fit. Thank YOU, Mark. So we have the food we requested plus 3 bottles of wine that they will have to send out on another boat to us because they have to go to a special store and stand in line. We also have a cook, a captain, and a back up guy. In the picture on the right that's three pirogue-like boats lashed together hauling rocks.

We're now further into the farming community. on either bank is a single row of houses nestled among the trees. Directly behind them are the far reaching rice paddies. I'm on the deck upstairs. Downstairs is another open seating area, two bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a dining area in between the bedrooms and a galley on the very back. This boat is so totally freakin cool! Surprisingly, there don't seem to be any mosquitos.

Ladies on the left bathing. They kind of soap up under their clothes then just sit down in the water. Lady on the right wacking the daylights out of laundry. Isn't that house cute?

Our boat stopped so we could look at stuff. Each village has a "snake boat". (That's the English name for it. Their name for it has nothing to do with snakes.) It's super duper long and holds about 120 paddlers plus a group that stands and sings and drums to set the pace. Each village has one they race annually. This is a special barn just for the boat.

Lunch! We're docked next to a rice paddy. There's a path right there that people who live here are walking to and fro on. Occasionally a goat wanders by. There's another opening like this on the other side so it catches a cross breeze and helps keep the bedrooms on either side cool.

Maxin' and relaxin', eating fried bananas for dessert and playing cards while we float along.

Here's Mark and Asenath!

I want to take this opportunity to thank them so much for their generous and wonderful hosting! Yall are the greatest and I love you lots!

It turns out that in India people don't really drink alcohol at all. This wine is made here is good but I get the impression it's a novelty. We asked them to be sure to have a wine bottle opener in the provisions they put together for us. They said "yes, yes, of course" and waved us off. Well, now we're in the middle of rice paddies and they give us a beer bottle opener. So this is Asenath working on it with my tooth brush.

Two broken pens and a destroyed tooth brush later, she got the bottle open last night! Yea!

So today we're floating along, la la la, and the captain goes under a bridge. Then, kind of in slow motion, we hear crrrunnnnch! Whoops, Mark and Asenath's bedroom wall got scraped off! We decide we don't care so the crew continues on. Then a little later the chain that goes under the boat from the wooden spoke steering wheel to the rudder goes Pop! and we start drifting into a tree on the bank. Another crrrrunnnch! So I guess we're going to hang out here a while. I feel bad for the crew because, even though it's not their fault, what a pain in the neck.

A bunch of curious kids came up to check things out. Asenath is taking their photos and showing them. They were adorable and charming. It seems like all the kids here are.

We got back to Kovalam and I got really really sick for 5 days. Dadgumit! But, thank goodness, I got well enough to travel by the time my flight was leaving. My flights had multiple problems that came to about 36 hours of delays. Air India put me up in a 5 star hotel and paid for my meals. I got home and slept for about 24 hours straight. Went to work. Got the flu and was sick for 4 more days. So things were kind of rough there at the end but it was worth it!!!!

And that concludes my presentation. Any questions? :o))