Day 3: The Land That Time Forgot

In the eye of the storm. The hurricane swirling around me is sure to pull me in at a serious level sooner rather than later. Till then, a little this, a little that and a lot of nervous anticipation.

Beyond the mundane that now rules our lives - when is lunch? five minutes before noon or noon exactly? when is dinner? 5:55 or 6? mayo on the sandwiches? heresy! unidentifiable fish? probably fodder for food poisoning. Airplane sized bottled water? are we lawyers or are we gnomes.. don't answer that - the issue that is cropping up is an acute home sickness. Or rather home being sick for us. The pull of people's lives is already making itself known on a regular basis. Calls requiring attention to matters that cannot be deferred or cannot be given proper attention from hundreds of miles away. Daughters, husbands, birds and plants missing folks. None of those things are an immediate pull on me (yes, requisite touch of melancholy), but do have some amigas missing me and have a lovely bouquet to prove it.

[I was trying to insert a picture of said bouquet of lovely tulips here, as I managed to take a picture, ever so fuzzy of the loverly flowers with my camera phone. First camera phone pic - woohoo! Welcome to the 21st century! But I can't figure out how to insert the pic into the middle of one of my postings. Go straight to jail, do not collect $200 for passing GO. Am clearly a Luddite at heart. Horses and buggies. Yay. So please bear with me and just imagine the flowers - pink, pretty and perfect in every way.]

Some random potpourri:

VOCAB OF THE DAY: Forgot to mention it yesterday, but unbeknownst to most of the world's populace and as I recently discovered, the word quashal is actually a word.

Quashal. n. An act of quashing something (opposed the quashal of the indictment)

"To the quashal!" Hip, hip, hooray!

Also, the difference between empathy and sympathy. As we eventually understood it (or decided we understood it) -

Empathy: I understand and recognize your pain. Sympathy: I feel your pain

INABLE-MINDED, INABLE BODIED: I cannot catch anything thrown at me, and chances are it will bounce off of some soft exposed flesh resulting in bruising. Also, accumulate random bruises. Latest addition to the collection a big ol' welt on the knee which I vaguely recall having slammed against my nightstand early one morning. Not entirely sure how I managed that. What can I say - I have a gift.

SO THIS PRIEST, THIS RABBI, AND THIS GUY WITH SMALL POX WALK INTO A BAR: Note to self. Hell, note to everyone: Small pox = not funny. Not ha ha funny. Not knee slapping funny. Not even forced smile, courtesy laugh funny. Not a matter to be joked about or entertained hypothetically but in the guise of seriousness.

TV in hotel bar. On mute. Close captioning on. Newsbulletin re. release of smallpox by Islamic fundamentalists. 50 reported cases in Europe. 10K expected by the end of the month.

Not funny.
Panic inducing.
What the fuck?

Apparently on TV they are showing a gathering of world leaders discussing what to do next. OMG, what to do next? Look there is Madeline Albright representing the U.S. - okay. No wait, Madeline Albright? Isn't she 1 and a half administrations ago? Okay, close captioning just says she said she is president of the U.S. and that she is making decisions.

Clearly, what we have here is a failure to communicate. And what apparently was a mock exercise as to how the world would react to such a catastrophic event, as presented by Nightline. Not funny. Not amusing. Not informative.

Even if we had sound. Flipping channels mid-way through program = panic attack waiting to happen.