The most important personality in my Cairo life right now (since Thomas is now safely "under the watch of the VIP/Presidential guard unit" in Marial Bai, Southern Sudan) is my roommate Marisol’s dog, Galleta. Some of you may remember her from the reeeaaaallly adorable picture I posted of her on the blog months ago when she was feeling sick and made herself look extra cute to get more sympathy. She has grown up now and we have really fallen into step this past month.
Marisol moved out officially a couple weeks ago but she was already spending most nights at her new boyfriend’s apartment for another couple weeks before that so I’ve been in charge of the dog for about five weeks now on my own. I was always the one to spend the most time with her but Marisol, for the most part, took care of the day to day responsibilities (food, water, fresh newspapers). I got the benefit of the constant cuteness and the only price I had to pay were nightly walks a few times around the block so she wouldn’t be too hyper in the evenings and would stop eating the furniture. Thomas was here to help me out with the walking and furniture protection duties until he left for Sudan on the 20th but it has been just me since then.
I was crushed when Marisol decided to go back to Mexico way earlier than expected and I had literally two months less dog time than I thought I would. Galleta has been my constant companion this week and, since Marisol moved out and Thomas left within a week of each other, she has been my only company at home in the evenings.
I have had to say goodbye to dogs before. As a one-lab family for my entire life, we’ve seen pets pass away. I haven’t always handled it well. When our yellow lab, Kelsey, died in 2004, I was living in New York and only found out afterwards that my parents had had to make the tough decision to have her put to sleep or else suffer through bone cancer. My mom, who didn’t have the hang of the whole answering-your-cell-doesn’t-mean-you’re-somewhere-appropriate-to-receive-bad-news thing told me while I was on a public bus coming back from the movies and I bawled the entire 20 minute walk home (which New Yorkers didn’t seem to think was that crazy), then drank a bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz and nearly fell down my Grandma’s stairs.
But this departure is different. Unlike my other dogs, I have raised her from a puppy and been her primary caregiver during that time so it is a totally different kind of awful than losing dogs who saw my dad, much more than me, as their parent. Plus, Galleta is going to a (hopefully) happy life in Mexico (Marisol’s sister is a vet, she has a young son and Galleta LOVES kids, and her parents have two little dogs who have the run of their yard) so I cannot really grieve for her. Meaning that there is a tinge of selfishness to my sadness because except to the extent that she loses me as a mom, my loss is mostly her gain (who wouldn’t want to live in a sunny yard in Guadelajara?). It makes it even harder to let go with a good bawling fit without feeling like a melodramatic moron (which hasn’t prevented me from crying every time I imagine Monday, when I come home from work and she’s not here, it just ensures I feel like a drama queen during the crying).
Either she is reacting to my emotions or she senses something is about to change (we do have a travel crate in the house now, which she has been eyeing suspiciously) or she is starting her heat cycle again (despite my objections to a dog that has her period in the house, Marisol refuses to have her fixed because she thinks some female dogs can experience “a trauma” if they don’t have puppies) but this weekend Galleta has gone from preferring to be in the same room with me to needing to be four or five feet from me at all times and preferring to be in contact with one or both of my feet. Even to the point of kicking in the bathroom door (yes, she is like 2 feet tall…it is a flimsy door) to come sit at my – somewhat surprised and embarrassed – feet.
By Wednesday, it will be all over. Marisol is leaving early Tuesday morning so I should hear by Wednesday that Galleta survived the SEVENTEEN HOUR flight and arrived safely at her new home. The vet here sold Marisol a travel crate so short the dog had to duck to even get into it and couldn’t sit or stand up straight or turn around once inside (leaving her no option but to lie down the whole time). I found this unacceptable-bordering-on-insane and took the drastic action of spending over $100 of my own money to buy her a size-appropriate crate so she’ll be comfortable. I’ve also been wearing the same gross old tanktop all weekend so I can put something that smells like me into her crate with her to comfort her since she will be traveling alone in the cargo hold with so many other unfamiliar smells. I feel like I will have done all I can and just have to hope the airline treats her well and she makes it through the ordeal okay.
The question I am grappling with now is, should I get another dog? I thought it was grossly irresponsible when Marisol first bought Galleta because we were sharing a two-bedroom flat and neither of us were home much but she turned out not only okay, but a really wonderful, good-hearted and well-behaved (except for the furniture-devouring) dog. This was largely due to my willingness to prioritize her by walking her each night and spending a lot of time with her on the weekends, which I would also be willing to do with another dog. Plus, now I have the whole 2 bedroom place to myself so there is more room for a dog to roam and one less person to work around. There is a Sudanese high school student I can hire to come by each day during the day to play with or walk the new puppy so I won’t feel as guilty about being at work for so long and the puppy can get some exercise and play or training time and socialize with someone else.
But on the other hand, I know I lucked out with Galleta, and her little heart of gold, and I don’t know that another dog would be as sweet. I don’t know if I am just reacting to the loss of THIS dog and just want to fill the hole I know I will feel in my life (i.e. get a Galleta-replacement) and how much I would be buying/raising/loving the new dog for its own sake. Is this just a philosophical question that doesn’t really matter as long as I am giving a new dog a happy home in a country that ostracizes and abuses dogs as religiously “unclean”? Is there something secularly unclean about the fact that if I could find a dog that looked exactly like Galleta, I would prefer that dog above all others? Am a walking freakshow for spending my Friday night drinking a beer, baking biscotti, listening to country music, and pondering these questions?
Speaking of, I am signing off to attend to the bi (twice) part of biscotti (twice-scorched) and take my own little Cookie (Galleta in English) for one of our last walks together.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Light at the End of the Tunnel
It is the dawn of a new age. My roommate moved out today (her stuff is still living here, her dog is still living here, but she has officially moved in with friends about fiteen minutes down the road and will no longer be leaving wads of gum in the sink and on the counter, not buying her share of the toilet paper, and smoking inside instead of on the balcony like we agreed). It will be more expensive living alone (not exactly alone since I still have the puppy until at least mid-July when she moves to Mexico) but well worth the calm and quiet of returning to only the manageable amount of mess I create, paying for my expenses and no one elses, getting to choose what stupid movies to watch on TV, etc.
Sadly, I got a little more alone-ness than I wished for, as my brother is moving out this week too. He finally got the green light to head to the village of Marial Bai in Southern Sudan, the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, refugee and hero of Dave Eggers' amazing book What is the What. To get there, he must first fly to Nairobi, where the Southern Sudanese Consulate will (hopefully) grant him a travel permit (the visas you can get to visit North Sudan are worthless for entering the South). He will spend a few days to a week in Kenya until he meets up with Valentino himself, who will fly with Thomas to Juba, Sudan. From Juba, they will take a UN charter flight to Aweil, basically an empty field in Southern Sudan and then make the trek to Marial Bai by as-yet-unknown ground transportation.
The school where he will be volunteering to teach newly hired and untrained Sudanese teachers classroom management, lesson planning, curriculum strategy, etc. just started last week and they are still building the dorm they have planned to draw more young female students to the school. Parents who otherwise might give their daughters into early marriages could afford to consider education instead of the girls' accomodations would be provided for in the dorm, which had also hired a dorm mother to act as a role model and parent to the girls.
In addition to his teaching duties, Thomas may get to help build the dorm and he'll be sleeping in a hut that Greg, the guy in charge of coordinating his trip and communcations with Valentino, built with his own two hands on his last trip to Sudan. So, little by little the school's infrastructure will build up and Thomas' impact on the teachers and students who will fill the classrooms and bedrooms will hopefully be even more permanent and long-lasting than the buildings themselves.
Forgive me the advertising, but he does have to pay all his flights and his stay in Nairobi on either end of the trip out of his own pocket so if anyone wants to support him on his adventures, you can donate to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation and specifically earmark the funds for Thomas by using this link: http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/pledgedrive_maffai.php
I will be sad to see him go and biting my nails down to nubbins while he is out of all communication taking malaria pills that cause hallucination and possibly epilepsy, and isn't getting his yellow fever vaccine because finding the vaccination center in Cairo sounds "complicated," but I am glad he will have this life experience and have the chance to positively impact the lives of so many others. Also, after eight weeks, he will no longer be living on my floor. So there's something to that to be sure.
At work, I feel I have finally turned a corner. I am still working on the same case, of course, but I am getting different tasks every few weeks, none of which I like or find interesting, because that is the way of construction law, but at least now I am doing a variety of boring things instead of just one really, really boring thing. I will get to start drafting hopefully as early as next week and I am doing this monstrous job now where I spend each day going through five enormous notebooks page by page, comparing each sheet to an Excel spreadsheet, which seems to have nothing to do with the pages it is supposedly coordinated with. Awesome.
So after this week, when Thomas leaves, Marisol is gone, and it is just the dog and I at home, and I finally start doing something at work that requires more than a high school education and basic secretarial skills, I will have a better idea of what life will be like for me here for the rest of my stay (however long that may be...hello? US economy? Are you listening?). I am excited. A little nervous. I know I'll be lonely without a full house but hopefully it will push me to make more friends and get out more often. And, I'll have more room for GUESTS!
If Egypt would only start selling microbrews, life would be perfect...except...I'd still be in Egypt.
Sadly, I got a little more alone-ness than I wished for, as my brother is moving out this week too. He finally got the green light to head to the village of Marial Bai in Southern Sudan, the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, refugee and hero of Dave Eggers' amazing book What is the What. To get there, he must first fly to Nairobi, where the Southern Sudanese Consulate will (hopefully) grant him a travel permit (the visas you can get to visit North Sudan are worthless for entering the South). He will spend a few days to a week in Kenya until he meets up with Valentino himself, who will fly with Thomas to Juba, Sudan. From Juba, they will take a UN charter flight to Aweil, basically an empty field in Southern Sudan and then make the trek to Marial Bai by as-yet-unknown ground transportation.
The school where he will be volunteering to teach newly hired and untrained Sudanese teachers classroom management, lesson planning, curriculum strategy, etc. just started last week and they are still building the dorm they have planned to draw more young female students to the school. Parents who otherwise might give their daughters into early marriages could afford to consider education instead of the girls' accomodations would be provided for in the dorm, which had also hired a dorm mother to act as a role model and parent to the girls.
In addition to his teaching duties, Thomas may get to help build the dorm and he'll be sleeping in a hut that Greg, the guy in charge of coordinating his trip and communcations with Valentino, built with his own two hands on his last trip to Sudan. So, little by little the school's infrastructure will build up and Thomas' impact on the teachers and students who will fill the classrooms and bedrooms will hopefully be even more permanent and long-lasting than the buildings themselves.
Forgive me the advertising, but he does have to pay all his flights and his stay in Nairobi on either end of the trip out of his own pocket so if anyone wants to support him on his adventures, you can donate to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation and specifically earmark the funds for Thomas by using this link: http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/pledgedrive_maffai.php
I will be sad to see him go and biting my nails down to nubbins while he is out of all communication taking malaria pills that cause hallucination and possibly epilepsy, and isn't getting his yellow fever vaccine because finding the vaccination center in Cairo sounds "complicated," but I am glad he will have this life experience and have the chance to positively impact the lives of so many others. Also, after eight weeks, he will no longer be living on my floor. So there's something to that to be sure.
At work, I feel I have finally turned a corner. I am still working on the same case, of course, but I am getting different tasks every few weeks, none of which I like or find interesting, because that is the way of construction law, but at least now I am doing a variety of boring things instead of just one really, really boring thing. I will get to start drafting hopefully as early as next week and I am doing this monstrous job now where I spend each day going through five enormous notebooks page by page, comparing each sheet to an Excel spreadsheet, which seems to have nothing to do with the pages it is supposedly coordinated with. Awesome.
So after this week, when Thomas leaves, Marisol is gone, and it is just the dog and I at home, and I finally start doing something at work that requires more than a high school education and basic secretarial skills, I will have a better idea of what life will be like for me here for the rest of my stay (however long that may be...hello? US economy? Are you listening?). I am excited. A little nervous. I know I'll be lonely without a full house but hopefully it will push me to make more friends and get out more often. And, I'll have more room for GUESTS!
If Egypt would only start selling microbrews, life would be perfect...except...I'd still be in Egypt.
Friday, May 7, 2010
UN-lazy Friday
It could have been the pefect lazy Friday. Spent last night in my friend's amazing apartment in the soon-to-be Hilton drinking whisky (a lot of whisky) on her balcony overlooking the Nile. Should have been able to sleep in until noon, read my book, watch TV, then go see Clash of the Titans in 3D with my brother and the same friend tonight. Unfortunately, I couldn't relax enough to enjoy a lazy day.
I was actually awakened around ten by this creeping, claustrophobic feeling that my apartment was the dirtiest hole on the planet. And on a planet that includes a city as dirty as Cairo, this is saying something. My roommate, who is moving out next week if all goes well, makes the strangest messes. Last week, she was chewing gum, poured herself a bowl of chocolate granola, then STUCK HER GUM ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER to eat her granola. The gum stayed there for a day, then she put it IN the bowl on top of the inch of leftover granola where it stayed over the four day weekend. Thomas and I did not clean it up just on principle and when she came back from her Nile Cruise, instead of scraping the chocolate paste with gum topping into the garbage, she PUT WATER IN IT and left it for another three days. This kind of thing happens all the time, such that the usual messy roommate behaviors like not taking out the garbage or leaving your clothes on the line for a week pale in comparison. I don't even notice anymore when I wash her dishes because I am distracted by having to clean up entire fourteen ounce bottles of hair mask she drops in fluffy pink swathes of GOO on the bathroom floor and leaves when she goes out for the night with friends.
So today I resorted to my new friend (and a longtime acquaintance of Melanie's), CLOROX and scrubbed down most surfaces in the apartment. The corner of the room where the puppy pees and poops on newspapers because my roommate can't be bothered to walk the fifteen minutes home from her office during the day to take her out to go, was infested with ants feasting on cashew speckled turds (the dog got into my roommate's plate of nuts she left too close to the edge of the table) so I had to spray Raid and THEN mop it up because if the smell makes me ill, I can't imagine what it does to little puppy lungs.
So for the last few hours, I have been basking in my squeaky, sparkly haven of my own creation and have actually enjoyed the lazy afternoon that should have stretched all day. She just got back from work though, so my bleachy, ABC gum-free party is over.
For those of you who enjoyed the mystery haikus, I enclose the following hot, steamy romance haikus in the hopes, again, of being discovered and offered a multimillion dollar advance to write for five minutes a day until I retire at 35.
Enjoy!
Perfect connection.
Long distance relationship.
We are breaking up.
(two cell phones)
Six pressed together.
Hard, slick skin, steams and shimmers.
Sweat beads, drips, pulses.
(cold six pack out in the hot sun)
I was made for you.
I fit inside perfectly.
I twist, you open.
(key, lock)
We fold together
Tight, firm, one. Spent and sweaty,
I shower with you.
(socks)
You are softer now
Than when we met. We wrinkle,
age, joined at the hip.
(two rotting bananas)
I was actually awakened around ten by this creeping, claustrophobic feeling that my apartment was the dirtiest hole on the planet. And on a planet that includes a city as dirty as Cairo, this is saying something. My roommate, who is moving out next week if all goes well, makes the strangest messes. Last week, she was chewing gum, poured herself a bowl of chocolate granola, then STUCK HER GUM ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER to eat her granola. The gum stayed there for a day, then she put it IN the bowl on top of the inch of leftover granola where it stayed over the four day weekend. Thomas and I did not clean it up just on principle and when she came back from her Nile Cruise, instead of scraping the chocolate paste with gum topping into the garbage, she PUT WATER IN IT and left it for another three days. This kind of thing happens all the time, such that the usual messy roommate behaviors like not taking out the garbage or leaving your clothes on the line for a week pale in comparison. I don't even notice anymore when I wash her dishes because I am distracted by having to clean up entire fourteen ounce bottles of hair mask she drops in fluffy pink swathes of GOO on the bathroom floor and leaves when she goes out for the night with friends.
So today I resorted to my new friend (and a longtime acquaintance of Melanie's), CLOROX and scrubbed down most surfaces in the apartment. The corner of the room where the puppy pees and poops on newspapers because my roommate can't be bothered to walk the fifteen minutes home from her office during the day to take her out to go, was infested with ants feasting on cashew speckled turds (the dog got into my roommate's plate of nuts she left too close to the edge of the table) so I had to spray Raid and THEN mop it up because if the smell makes me ill, I can't imagine what it does to little puppy lungs.
So for the last few hours, I have been basking in my squeaky, sparkly haven of my own creation and have actually enjoyed the lazy afternoon that should have stretched all day. She just got back from work though, so my bleachy, ABC gum-free party is over.
For those of you who enjoyed the mystery haikus, I enclose the following hot, steamy romance haikus in the hopes, again, of being discovered and offered a multimillion dollar advance to write for five minutes a day until I retire at 35.
Enjoy!
Perfect connection.
Long distance relationship.
We are breaking up.
(two cell phones)
Six pressed together.
Hard, slick skin, steams and shimmers.
Sweat beads, drips, pulses.
(cold six pack out in the hot sun)
I was made for you.
I fit inside perfectly.
I twist, you open.
(key, lock)
We fold together
Tight, firm, one. Spent and sweaty,
I shower with you.
(socks)
You are softer now
Than when we met. We wrinkle,
age, joined at the hip.
(two rotting bananas)
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Jinx
I am cursed this week. I can feel it. Too many good things are happening. A big bad is coming.
My karma antenna first started jangling on Monday when I went out to run errands and actually got everything I needed at the first place I stopped for each item. I dropped pants off at the tailor and he didn't even need to measure the pair I needed hemmed, he just compared the inseam to the pair I needed hemmed so I didn't have to try anything on. Dropped my shirt at the dry cleaner, who is the sweetest Egyptian lady with very beautiful English who always holds my hand and tells me to say hello to my brother.
I got an extra set of keys made in case I manage to find a maid this week, since our last maid's sister got married and the whole family had to move out of the building to go do something about the animals demanded by the groom's family. The guy who made the keys was the guy who changed our lock for us when our old one was sticking and he remembered me. I got his phone number in case I ever have lock problems again and he looked over my shoulder as I typed in his name and insisted I put "Locksmith" in the last name box on my phone. Like some foreigner had taught him this word and he was so proud of it. His shop is a wooden shelf covered by two shutters on the side of a store that sells tupperware.
I went to a stationery store and bought the standard form contract foreigners use to rent furnished apartments in case my landlord came this week (which he did, but I'll get to that in a minute) because my roommate is moving out and I wanted to be the only one on the lease (right now the girl who used to live here is still on it). They actually had a bilingual Arabic-English copy of the contract!
On my way back to my apartment, in the space of two short blocks, I saw the brother of our maid, who used to live in our building and he waved and said he was happy to see me and wished me a nice evening. And I saw our plumber, who likes to rail against corrupt politicians who are stifling his dreams (he is an engineer, his friend who works as an office boy in a phone company is also an engineer, and his friend's garbage man got his degree in the Faculty of Investment and Trading), and who I might need to call again soon because the interior of our toilet tank is cheap Chinese-made plastic crap that he literally used a knife heated on the stove to melt back together the last time he came over.
So basically I started to feel like part of the community. And it really freaked me out. After being unemployed for so long, getting not-great grades, losing my health insurance, etc. I haven't been a big believer this year in good things happening to me. Okay, so I was never really an optimist of any stripe but now I'm downright suspicious when things start to go well. So I told my roommate I thought I was headed for disaster and she told the puppy I was being ridiculous.
The thing is, I am bad at guessing what will go wrong and if something big enough has gone wrong for the looming danger to have passed and karmic balance to be achieved again.
For example, I went through two laptops this week at work and then FOUR today. The first one, which I've had for five months with no problems started freezing early in the week. Then it started shutting off by itself with no warning. IT thought they'd fixed it, gave it back, and it crashed again losing several hours of work. So IT gave me another laptop while they worked on mine overnight and on into the morning. The new one shut off three times before noon. They told me it was just the normal process of installing updates and since I hadn't actually lost any work, because by then I was saving compulsively, I didn't insist on a new laptop...
Until it crashed another three times after lunch.
I called IT and they absurdly insisted it was just normal updates. I asked why there were so many updates and why the computer shut off without warning when a) most computers ask you if you want to install updates and b) when it was shutting off it wasn't actually installing the updates, it would turn back on and there they'd be!!! The guy told me the laptop hadn't been updated in several months because it was a spare. I asked, "you mean I gave you my laptop because it was shutting off without warning and I was losing work and you gave me this laptop in its place KNOWING IT WOULD SHUT OFF REPEATEDLY WITHOUT WARNING?!?!" And there was this long pause on the phone and he goes, "I bring you another."
So the third laptop, which IT hilariously calls a "floater," was fine for about four hours, when, yep, it turned off without warning. Since it had been good for most of the afternoon, I was lured into a false sense of security and had slacked off on my bi-minutely saving regimen and so lost another hour's work. I yelled at IT again and they brought me computer number 2, supposedly all updated, around 5:30.
But I'd learned my lesson. By then I'd given up on saving at all and didn't do any work on the computer for the rest of the day.
Was plowing through four computers, all my goodwill with IT, and losing four hours of work bad enough to have been the big bad I sensed coming? I didn't think so.
In my heart of hearts what I truly dreaded was the meeting with the landlord tonight. We had to tell him 1) that Marisol, who he has known for two years, is moving out of the apartment, 2) that I, who he only met a few months ago, wants to stay for at least another year at the same rates and conditions he gave Marisol, and 3) that Marisol's dog ate a Marisol's dog-sized hole in the couch last weekend. I just knew he was going to say no to everything and I was going to get stuck paying for a ton of dog damage or have to find a new place out of the blue or something.
Nope, totally normal. He agreed to everything, accepted Marisol's offer to have a furniture repair place GLUE a "piece of material" over the hole, then sat and had a beer with us, chatted, gave us some phone numbers to call if anything goes wrong in the apartment since he lives in Alexandria, and kissed our cheeks when he left. No big deal at all. So that wasn't the big bad either.
But there is one more REALLY bad possibility.
My firm has been working on this case for years. Now there are seven attorneys on it full time (five of us little guys and two senior associates). But technically the tribunal still hasn't awarded jurisdiction. It is totally normal to do this much work before the tribunal says a peep but then, yesterday, they peeped by sending a really cryptic letter that has about five different interpretations ranging from "swiss arbitrators are anal retentive about regulatory housekeeping details" to "you are the weakest link, good-bye!" Despite how much we all don't want to be working on just this one case anymore, the letter has everyone on edge and we might not find out for days or weeks what it all means.
So I have decided, as a vocational back-up, to become a mystery writer. Only I don't have the attention span to write novels. WAAAAY too long. And honestly, short stories are usually like 20 pages. That's not short at all! So I've opted for mystery haiku. But I could only scrape together a handful before I lost interest. Seventeen syllables wear a girl out.
Thus, I sign out with the following opus in the hopes that big time publishers are reading this blog while fanning themselves with extra cash they can't think of how to spend. And, knowing that my readers have a similar attention span to my own (especially so far down a long blog post), I've included the answers to the mysteries right below each poem.
The killer stabs through,
Distributes me piece by piece
With a shiny spade.
(pie)
I am crushed, smothered,
Drowned, evidence washed away.
Skid-marks the sole clue.
(poo)
My blood runs freely,
Stabbed with a sharp spear, tortured
In flames and hot oil
(kebab)
Systematically
We are counted, added, and
BURNED… to your delight.
(calories)
I am broken, breached,
Violated, compromised,
Rendered null and void.
(construction contract)
Whew, that was sooooo nerdy. Random House, you know where to find me!
My karma antenna first started jangling on Monday when I went out to run errands and actually got everything I needed at the first place I stopped for each item. I dropped pants off at the tailor and he didn't even need to measure the pair I needed hemmed, he just compared the inseam to the pair I needed hemmed so I didn't have to try anything on. Dropped my shirt at the dry cleaner, who is the sweetest Egyptian lady with very beautiful English who always holds my hand and tells me to say hello to my brother.
I got an extra set of keys made in case I manage to find a maid this week, since our last maid's sister got married and the whole family had to move out of the building to go do something about the animals demanded by the groom's family. The guy who made the keys was the guy who changed our lock for us when our old one was sticking and he remembered me. I got his phone number in case I ever have lock problems again and he looked over my shoulder as I typed in his name and insisted I put "Locksmith" in the last name box on my phone. Like some foreigner had taught him this word and he was so proud of it. His shop is a wooden shelf covered by two shutters on the side of a store that sells tupperware.
I went to a stationery store and bought the standard form contract foreigners use to rent furnished apartments in case my landlord came this week (which he did, but I'll get to that in a minute) because my roommate is moving out and I wanted to be the only one on the lease (right now the girl who used to live here is still on it). They actually had a bilingual Arabic-English copy of the contract!
On my way back to my apartment, in the space of two short blocks, I saw the brother of our maid, who used to live in our building and he waved and said he was happy to see me and wished me a nice evening. And I saw our plumber, who likes to rail against corrupt politicians who are stifling his dreams (he is an engineer, his friend who works as an office boy in a phone company is also an engineer, and his friend's garbage man got his degree in the Faculty of Investment and Trading), and who I might need to call again soon because the interior of our toilet tank is cheap Chinese-made plastic crap that he literally used a knife heated on the stove to melt back together the last time he came over.
So basically I started to feel like part of the community. And it really freaked me out. After being unemployed for so long, getting not-great grades, losing my health insurance, etc. I haven't been a big believer this year in good things happening to me. Okay, so I was never really an optimist of any stripe but now I'm downright suspicious when things start to go well. So I told my roommate I thought I was headed for disaster and she told the puppy I was being ridiculous.
The thing is, I am bad at guessing what will go wrong and if something big enough has gone wrong for the looming danger to have passed and karmic balance to be achieved again.
For example, I went through two laptops this week at work and then FOUR today. The first one, which I've had for five months with no problems started freezing early in the week. Then it started shutting off by itself with no warning. IT thought they'd fixed it, gave it back, and it crashed again losing several hours of work. So IT gave me another laptop while they worked on mine overnight and on into the morning. The new one shut off three times before noon. They told me it was just the normal process of installing updates and since I hadn't actually lost any work, because by then I was saving compulsively, I didn't insist on a new laptop...
Until it crashed another three times after lunch.
I called IT and they absurdly insisted it was just normal updates. I asked why there were so many updates and why the computer shut off without warning when a) most computers ask you if you want to install updates and b) when it was shutting off it wasn't actually installing the updates, it would turn back on and there they'd be!!! The guy told me the laptop hadn't been updated in several months because it was a spare. I asked, "you mean I gave you my laptop because it was shutting off without warning and I was losing work and you gave me this laptop in its place KNOWING IT WOULD SHUT OFF REPEATEDLY WITHOUT WARNING?!?!" And there was this long pause on the phone and he goes, "I bring you another."
So the third laptop, which IT hilariously calls a "floater," was fine for about four hours, when, yep, it turned off without warning. Since it had been good for most of the afternoon, I was lured into a false sense of security and had slacked off on my bi-minutely saving regimen and so lost another hour's work. I yelled at IT again and they brought me computer number 2, supposedly all updated, around 5:30.
But I'd learned my lesson. By then I'd given up on saving at all and didn't do any work on the computer for the rest of the day.
Was plowing through four computers, all my goodwill with IT, and losing four hours of work bad enough to have been the big bad I sensed coming? I didn't think so.
In my heart of hearts what I truly dreaded was the meeting with the landlord tonight. We had to tell him 1) that Marisol, who he has known for two years, is moving out of the apartment, 2) that I, who he only met a few months ago, wants to stay for at least another year at the same rates and conditions he gave Marisol, and 3) that Marisol's dog ate a Marisol's dog-sized hole in the couch last weekend. I just knew he was going to say no to everything and I was going to get stuck paying for a ton of dog damage or have to find a new place out of the blue or something.
Nope, totally normal. He agreed to everything, accepted Marisol's offer to have a furniture repair place GLUE a "piece of material" over the hole, then sat and had a beer with us, chatted, gave us some phone numbers to call if anything goes wrong in the apartment since he lives in Alexandria, and kissed our cheeks when he left. No big deal at all. So that wasn't the big bad either.
But there is one more REALLY bad possibility.
My firm has been working on this case for years. Now there are seven attorneys on it full time (five of us little guys and two senior associates). But technically the tribunal still hasn't awarded jurisdiction. It is totally normal to do this much work before the tribunal says a peep but then, yesterday, they peeped by sending a really cryptic letter that has about five different interpretations ranging from "swiss arbitrators are anal retentive about regulatory housekeeping details" to "you are the weakest link, good-bye!" Despite how much we all don't want to be working on just this one case anymore, the letter has everyone on edge and we might not find out for days or weeks what it all means.
So I have decided, as a vocational back-up, to become a mystery writer. Only I don't have the attention span to write novels. WAAAAY too long. And honestly, short stories are usually like 20 pages. That's not short at all! So I've opted for mystery haiku. But I could only scrape together a handful before I lost interest. Seventeen syllables wear a girl out.
Thus, I sign out with the following opus in the hopes that big time publishers are reading this blog while fanning themselves with extra cash they can't think of how to spend. And, knowing that my readers have a similar attention span to my own (especially so far down a long blog post), I've included the answers to the mysteries right below each poem.
The killer stabs through,
Distributes me piece by piece
With a shiny spade.
(pie)
I am crushed, smothered,
Drowned, evidence washed away.
Skid-marks the sole clue.
(poo)
My blood runs freely,
Stabbed with a sharp spear, tortured
In flames and hot oil
(kebab)
Systematically
We are counted, added, and
BURNED… to your delight.
(calories)
I am broken, breached,
Violated, compromised,
Rendered null and void.
(construction contract)
Whew, that was sooooo nerdy. Random House, you know where to find me!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Vacation poisoning
I am suffering from a terrible case of vacation poisoning.
Lest anyone think that this is an actual gastrointestinal disorder or that "vacation" is also the latin name of some sort of amoebic parasite, let me put your mind at ease: I am talking about the pit-of-the-stomach anxiety that comes from having to go back to work after two nearly back to back vacations at resort towns on the Red Sea.
My brother arrived in Cairo about four weeks ago and we immediately left on a six day trip to the Sinai Peninsula town of Dahab for some SCUBA diving and relaxing. Thomas was coming from a month in Brazil and had the kind of tan you'd expect from such an adventure. I on the other hand was the exact color of his butt.
My week in Dahab and the following weekend in the far snootier resort town of Sharm el Sheikh as given me a toasty glow but my brain now rejects the mundane tasks I'm assigned like work as if I am now allergic to office-induced boredom. I keep pretending my pen is a hand grenade and energetically pull off the cap again and again.
We are now reviewing the comments we wrote as we went through our correspondence review. We are reviewing our review. Which, although it is less boring, as promised, is only marginally less boring when I think we were all hoping for significantly less boring. Another highlight of my day was correcting punctuation. You know how tables and graphs often have a line or two beneath them listing the source of the data? I was correcting those mini-paragraphs for extra spaces, missing commas and the occasional hyphen. Good thing I got that expensive law degree.
Keeping my life interesting are the people in my office, and of course my brother.
Thomas has picked up three volunteer jobs with three different refugee aid organizations here in Cairo while he waits (ahem...on a mattress on my bedroom floor...indefinitely) for the Sudanese "elections" to peacefully resolve. Unfortunately, for the elections to conclude, they have to actually begin, which they seem to be having trouble doing. Voting for Bashir (since the primary opposition candidate withdrew two weeks ago) was extended for two days because by the day the elections were suppose to end, they had not even begun yet in some areas. It is possible that the US is supporting these "elections" and that the Southern candidate withdrew as part of a deal with Khartoum to get the promised referendum for Southern independence on the ballot next year and uphold the terms of the 2005 ceasefire. But it is also more than possible that the Sudanese people are not in on the deal and conditions could be too unstable for Thomas to safely go to Sudan.
In other news, my German coworker accidentally adopted an owl yesterday. The boys in her supermarket found it on the street, a helpless lost baby, and took it in to show off to customers and generally parade around as an oddity. They weren't taking care of it though and it seemed distressed and frightened so my coworker took it away from them but now she is stuck with an owl. A FREAKING BABY OWL!!! She tried to feed it small pieces of veal last night but it seemed more interested in pecking at her thumbs. Do baby owls eat living food? Do their mothers descend to their nexts with squiggling baby mice? Or thumbs?
Lest anyone think that this is an actual gastrointestinal disorder or that "vacation" is also the latin name of some sort of amoebic parasite, let me put your mind at ease: I am talking about the pit-of-the-stomach anxiety that comes from having to go back to work after two nearly back to back vacations at resort towns on the Red Sea.
My brother arrived in Cairo about four weeks ago and we immediately left on a six day trip to the Sinai Peninsula town of Dahab for some SCUBA diving and relaxing. Thomas was coming from a month in Brazil and had the kind of tan you'd expect from such an adventure. I on the other hand was the exact color of his butt.
My week in Dahab and the following weekend in the far snootier resort town of Sharm el Sheikh as given me a toasty glow but my brain now rejects the mundane tasks I'm assigned like work as if I am now allergic to office-induced boredom. I keep pretending my pen is a hand grenade and energetically pull off the cap again and again.
We are now reviewing the comments we wrote as we went through our correspondence review. We are reviewing our review. Which, although it is less boring, as promised, is only marginally less boring when I think we were all hoping for significantly less boring. Another highlight of my day was correcting punctuation. You know how tables and graphs often have a line or two beneath them listing the source of the data? I was correcting those mini-paragraphs for extra spaces, missing commas and the occasional hyphen. Good thing I got that expensive law degree.
Keeping my life interesting are the people in my office, and of course my brother.
Thomas has picked up three volunteer jobs with three different refugee aid organizations here in Cairo while he waits (ahem...on a mattress on my bedroom floor...indefinitely) for the Sudanese "elections" to peacefully resolve. Unfortunately, for the elections to conclude, they have to actually begin, which they seem to be having trouble doing. Voting for Bashir (since the primary opposition candidate withdrew two weeks ago) was extended for two days because by the day the elections were suppose to end, they had not even begun yet in some areas. It is possible that the US is supporting these "elections" and that the Southern candidate withdrew as part of a deal with Khartoum to get the promised referendum for Southern independence on the ballot next year and uphold the terms of the 2005 ceasefire. But it is also more than possible that the Sudanese people are not in on the deal and conditions could be too unstable for Thomas to safely go to Sudan.
In other news, my German coworker accidentally adopted an owl yesterday. The boys in her supermarket found it on the street, a helpless lost baby, and took it in to show off to customers and generally parade around as an oddity. They weren't taking care of it though and it seemed distressed and frightened so my coworker took it away from them but now she is stuck with an owl. A FREAKING BABY OWL!!! She tried to feed it small pieces of veal last night but it seemed more interested in pecking at her thumbs. Do baby owls eat living food? Do their mothers descend to their nexts with squiggling baby mice? Or thumbs?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
White Taxi Blues
So this morning I waived down a cab at my usual spot, took the usual route, arrived at my usual destination in front of my office and got charged over 1/3 the usual price. Now, granted, I should have been paying closer attention on my ten minute ride to work. I shouldn't have relaxed and read my book. I should have compulsively checked the meter and told the driver immediately when I noticed the cost was rising at 130% its normal rate. But silly me, I assumed my driver was an honest guy and his meter hadn't been tampered with and didn't notice the cost "adjustment."
I pay 10 pounds on a 7 pound bill every day to and from work because I'm a nice girl and know drivers are poor so I tip well. Still without noticing the meter, I asked if the driver had change for a twenty and he said he didn't. This is absurd because most rides are at least 5 pounds so the idea that he didn't have ten pounds already by ten in the morning just from fares is impossible, not to mention he had to have his own money on him separate from his fares. So, still assuming the meter was the usual price, I gave him the seven pounds I had and walked off. He started honking and screaming at me like crazy and I, still not realizing the meter price was way high, walked back to see what his problem was, after all, I'd paid the cost of the ride, just not the tip I usually give because I was pissed he wouldn't give me change.
So then we got in a big fight out in front of the bank across the street from my office. Two guards came over to help and I said that I wanted to pay ten but he wouldn't give me change and they said I should go into the bank to get change. This is total bullshit, as the custom dictates that the driver is the one who has to get change, since it is his job, but still, I'm flexible, so I agree to go into the bank. In that instant two things happen. A very nice, adorable (he looks like Woddy from Toy Story as a teenager) Egyptian lawyer who works in my firm came over to ask what the problem was, and the driver pointed out that I owed him 10.95 pounds, not 10. I was horrified because not only was this way over what I normally pay, it is also not possible on a working meter since they go up in increments of .25.
Plus it was embarrassing that I was having this argument over about 80 cents in front of the lawyer from my firm but he and the guards didn't believe the meter was rigged. Every foreigner I know has experienced a rigged meter at least once. The white taxis are part of a government initiative to get the ancient and probably dangerous black and white taxis off the streets but the meters give the driver a lower rate than they could probably negotiate with tourists (i.e. white people) in their old black and white cabs. So they get the meter "fixed" so they can hit a button during the ride and increase the rate of the meter. Drivers don't do this to Egyptians so Egyptians don't believe it happens. The lawyer I know translated what I said to the guards at the bank and they all had a good chuckle and said "He'd be very smart if he could do that." Right. Like the same mechanics who keep black and white taxis working day after day for over 30 years with nothing but coathanger wire, tape, and a copy of the Koran holding them together couldn't also rig a white taxi meter.
So the lawyer gave HIS 20 pounds to the driver who went into the bank and gave him 10 in change and I paid him back. But THEN I got a little lecture about how if I think the driver is cheating me, I should tell him right away (again with the whole watch the meter and recalculate the fare every kilometer to make sure you're not being cheated on your whole ride to work scenario). This despite the fact that when you tell a driver his meter isn't working he says "it's fine, if you don't like the fare, talk to the government." The lawyer also told me that if I wanted the price to be negotiable, I could always take a black and white taxi, which I often do, but I pay them the same ten pounds I pay the white taxi. There's no "negotiating" about it because it is a very good price and much more than an Egyptian would pay for the same ride. Finally, despite the fact that the whole fight in the street had been in Arabic, including me telling the guards that the meter was too fast, that I take the same route every day and never have to pay more than ten pounds, etc. he also said "and you should speak a little Arabic." I know he just doesn't want to see me have problems in his country and he is saying these things because he wants the best for me, but right then I wanted to smoosh his adorable, carefully coiffed head!
Karmic justice - the driver, by being dishonest, cheated himself out of the feeling of getting a good tip. Because if he'd charged me the 7.5 pounds he was supposed to, and given my the correct change like he was supposed to, he would have driven off happily with ten pounds, freely and peacefully given. Instead, because he got my tab up to almost 11, he has the bad feeling of having almost got caught cheating, on top of the bad feeling of, in his mind, having been cheated out of that one pound he didn't earn in the first place.
Angry angry angry.
I pay 10 pounds on a 7 pound bill every day to and from work because I'm a nice girl and know drivers are poor so I tip well. Still without noticing the meter, I asked if the driver had change for a twenty and he said he didn't. This is absurd because most rides are at least 5 pounds so the idea that he didn't have ten pounds already by ten in the morning just from fares is impossible, not to mention he had to have his own money on him separate from his fares. So, still assuming the meter was the usual price, I gave him the seven pounds I had and walked off. He started honking and screaming at me like crazy and I, still not realizing the meter price was way high, walked back to see what his problem was, after all, I'd paid the cost of the ride, just not the tip I usually give because I was pissed he wouldn't give me change.
So then we got in a big fight out in front of the bank across the street from my office. Two guards came over to help and I said that I wanted to pay ten but he wouldn't give me change and they said I should go into the bank to get change. This is total bullshit, as the custom dictates that the driver is the one who has to get change, since it is his job, but still, I'm flexible, so I agree to go into the bank. In that instant two things happen. A very nice, adorable (he looks like Woddy from Toy Story as a teenager) Egyptian lawyer who works in my firm came over to ask what the problem was, and the driver pointed out that I owed him 10.95 pounds, not 10. I was horrified because not only was this way over what I normally pay, it is also not possible on a working meter since they go up in increments of .25.
Plus it was embarrassing that I was having this argument over about 80 cents in front of the lawyer from my firm but he and the guards didn't believe the meter was rigged. Every foreigner I know has experienced a rigged meter at least once. The white taxis are part of a government initiative to get the ancient and probably dangerous black and white taxis off the streets but the meters give the driver a lower rate than they could probably negotiate with tourists (i.e. white people) in their old black and white cabs. So they get the meter "fixed" so they can hit a button during the ride and increase the rate of the meter. Drivers don't do this to Egyptians so Egyptians don't believe it happens. The lawyer I know translated what I said to the guards at the bank and they all had a good chuckle and said "He'd be very smart if he could do that." Right. Like the same mechanics who keep black and white taxis working day after day for over 30 years with nothing but coathanger wire, tape, and a copy of the Koran holding them together couldn't also rig a white taxi meter.
So the lawyer gave HIS 20 pounds to the driver who went into the bank and gave him 10 in change and I paid him back. But THEN I got a little lecture about how if I think the driver is cheating me, I should tell him right away (again with the whole watch the meter and recalculate the fare every kilometer to make sure you're not being cheated on your whole ride to work scenario). This despite the fact that when you tell a driver his meter isn't working he says "it's fine, if you don't like the fare, talk to the government." The lawyer also told me that if I wanted the price to be negotiable, I could always take a black and white taxi, which I often do, but I pay them the same ten pounds I pay the white taxi. There's no "negotiating" about it because it is a very good price and much more than an Egyptian would pay for the same ride. Finally, despite the fact that the whole fight in the street had been in Arabic, including me telling the guards that the meter was too fast, that I take the same route every day and never have to pay more than ten pounds, etc. he also said "and you should speak a little Arabic." I know he just doesn't want to see me have problems in his country and he is saying these things because he wants the best for me, but right then I wanted to smoosh his adorable, carefully coiffed head!
Karmic justice - the driver, by being dishonest, cheated himself out of the feeling of getting a good tip. Because if he'd charged me the 7.5 pounds he was supposed to, and given my the correct change like he was supposed to, he would have driven off happily with ten pounds, freely and peacefully given. Instead, because he got my tab up to almost 11, he has the bad feeling of having almost got caught cheating, on top of the bad feeling of, in his mind, having been cheated out of that one pound he didn't earn in the first place.
Angry angry angry.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Garbage, snot, and shopping.
The garbage man just came to the door. We are supposed to either pay our doorman (actually a family of teenagers headed by what appears to be a single mom) or pay the zabaleen, the very poor, very old men who sweep the garbage from the streets and take it away. We aren’t supposed to have to pay both and we’ve been paying the door-family but I just can’t bring myself to tell the garbage man. The zabaleen are the closest thing Cairo has to a recycling/waste management system, as they pick through the garbage by hand and find every item with a potential use or value. The organic garbage used to be fed to pigs but last year the authorities killed all the pigs out of fear of swine flu. Pigs are unclean in Islam and in a country without healthcare for the poor, swine flu created quite a bit of paranoia that the government resolved by convincing people that the pigs were the source of the danger. Kill the pigs and the flu goes away. Unfortunately, now organic trash goes with the leftover inorganic trash (the stuff with no use or value to the zabaleen) to the outskirts of Cairo where the very, very poor live in plastic villages made out of tarps and garbage and stink. We pay the man who came to my door ten pounds ($2) per month. I will keep paying him because I can’t tell him I’m already paying someone else. What’s $2 a month to me?
I was hanging out my laundry the other night when I heard a short, loud whooshing noise in the dark above me and to my right. It happened again and again and I felt a little cloud of dampness on my cheek. My upstairs neighbor was blowing his nose farmer’s style off his balcony! “Hey!” I yelled. “SNOOSH” came again. I stepped back a little out of range and yelled again. “HEY!” “Oh!” came the startled reply (he didn’t know he had an audience). “Sorry. Sorry.” He said twice and then hurriedly stepped back to what was apparently an apartment bereft of Kleenex, toilet paper, paper towels and rags of all types. In the morning, I noticed that although his balcony was set off to the right of mine and that therefore my newly hung laundry missed the brunt of the snot shower but the apartment below me has a balcony that lines up perfectly with Mr. Snotty McSnotfest upstairs. And the woman who lives downstairs had her laundry out too!
The constant stress of living in Cairo is having a surprising effect on my health. I’ve lost around twenty-five pounds. Unfortunately, I’m still too big to wear most off the rack clothes at the mall but I am now a little too small to buy off the rack in the XXL shops either. Which means I go naked most of the time. No. Kidding. I still go to the mall, it just takes me forever to find clothes. I had a particularly Egyptian shopping experience last weekend when my roommate and I walked into a store on our way to H&M (the only H&M in Egypt is more expensive even than in Europe, but the clothes don’t have weird frills, sequins, mirrored buttons, build in “bodies” (these are skin-tight long-sleeved shirts women wear under what would otherwise be Vegas showgirl outfits to make them acceptable to wear out and about), or any other Egypt-fashionable accessories).
A young employee who obviously works on commission saw two foreigners stroll in and rushed over to help us, which meant demanding our size whenever we paused to look at an item and then looking through each one on the rack until he either found our size or didn’t. Basically what we would do if we were permitted to shop on our own. I was looking for basic dress shirts, a surprisingly elusive target, and extra frustrating since most of the men’s shirts here look like women’s shirts. They’re often pink or lavender, slightly tailored in at the waist and just generally seem to be rubbing it in that there are no women’s dress shirts that don’t seem to come complete with gills or lizard-like ribbed collars. Anyway, I digress. So I pause in front of a white, collared button-down shirt with black pinstripes, the only flaw of which was spherical shiny black buttons, that I could get my tailor to replace. The boy asked what my size was and I told him 48. His eyes went wide like he didn’t even know sizes went up that high. “No, no 48,” he said, without even checking through the rack. Then, he sort of roused himself from his shock and thumbed unenthusiastically through the few shirts. “No 48,” he said again, “44.” He actually made a counter-offer! Like we were going to negotiate about what size shirt I wear and inevitably compromise on 46. If only my pot belly would go along with the plan, we (my belly and I) could have made a killer deal!
I was hanging out my laundry the other night when I heard a short, loud whooshing noise in the dark above me and to my right. It happened again and again and I felt a little cloud of dampness on my cheek. My upstairs neighbor was blowing his nose farmer’s style off his balcony! “Hey!” I yelled. “SNOOSH” came again. I stepped back a little out of range and yelled again. “HEY!” “Oh!” came the startled reply (he didn’t know he had an audience). “Sorry. Sorry.” He said twice and then hurriedly stepped back to what was apparently an apartment bereft of Kleenex, toilet paper, paper towels and rags of all types. In the morning, I noticed that although his balcony was set off to the right of mine and that therefore my newly hung laundry missed the brunt of the snot shower but the apartment below me has a balcony that lines up perfectly with Mr. Snotty McSnotfest upstairs. And the woman who lives downstairs had her laundry out too!
The constant stress of living in Cairo is having a surprising effect on my health. I’ve lost around twenty-five pounds. Unfortunately, I’m still too big to wear most off the rack clothes at the mall but I am now a little too small to buy off the rack in the XXL shops either. Which means I go naked most of the time. No. Kidding. I still go to the mall, it just takes me forever to find clothes. I had a particularly Egyptian shopping experience last weekend when my roommate and I walked into a store on our way to H&M (the only H&M in Egypt is more expensive even than in Europe, but the clothes don’t have weird frills, sequins, mirrored buttons, build in “bodies” (these are skin-tight long-sleeved shirts women wear under what would otherwise be Vegas showgirl outfits to make them acceptable to wear out and about), or any other Egypt-fashionable accessories).
A young employee who obviously works on commission saw two foreigners stroll in and rushed over to help us, which meant demanding our size whenever we paused to look at an item and then looking through each one on the rack until he either found our size or didn’t. Basically what we would do if we were permitted to shop on our own. I was looking for basic dress shirts, a surprisingly elusive target, and extra frustrating since most of the men’s shirts here look like women’s shirts. They’re often pink or lavender, slightly tailored in at the waist and just generally seem to be rubbing it in that there are no women’s dress shirts that don’t seem to come complete with gills or lizard-like ribbed collars. Anyway, I digress. So I pause in front of a white, collared button-down shirt with black pinstripes, the only flaw of which was spherical shiny black buttons, that I could get my tailor to replace. The boy asked what my size was and I told him 48. His eyes went wide like he didn’t even know sizes went up that high. “No, no 48,” he said, without even checking through the rack. Then, he sort of roused himself from his shock and thumbed unenthusiastically through the few shirts. “No 48,” he said again, “44.” He actually made a counter-offer! Like we were going to negotiate about what size shirt I wear and inevitably compromise on 46. If only my pot belly would go along with the plan, we (my belly and I) could have made a killer deal!
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