happy birthday big sis!

today my big sis amy is, god, i don't know how old, but she sure doesn't look a day over thirty!
here we are in rhonert park, i think. which should make her about 9 or 10 years old in the red hoodie. of course, abbie in the center with the ever-identifiable dark hair....

quote of the day, or 'how my work day is different than yours'

me, while completing an internet order: "how many cicadas do i order?"

boss: "depends on how much they cost. i don't want to spend more than 50 bucks on bugs!"

an i love new york moment followed directly by an i love google, you tube and the internet moment

yesterday i climbed down the steps of the subway platform, stiffly, limbs frozen and cold. i heard a familiar song playing. is that the instrumental beverly hills theme? i thought, suddenly smiling. sounded funny though.

is that....?
yes, it was being played on the accordion.

even better, when i came around the corner, the accordion player was wearing a cardboard robot helmet complete with antennae. brilliant.


now for the i love the internet portion. i went to you tube to double check that it indeed was from beverly hills cop. and on a whim i typed in 'robot accordion beverly hills cop'.

and lo and behold, there he was!!!! so i can share this moment fully with you even without the time to write this well. you tube will do it for me! behold: i heart new york.



later...

okay, so apparently i'm behind the times. i mentioned this dude to jade and he was like, 'the guy who wears the boba fett mask?'. um. oh yeah. so i guess i missed that reference. and i'm sorry i can't even spell boba fett. that's someone from star wars, right?

irritating random fact about me #654

photo still courtesy of a movie i have no business watching....
apparently my imagination hasn't progressed beyond the age of 6, when your parents have to ban you from watching scooby doo because you're having nightmares about masked crooks. oh, but that couldn't have been me because i wasn't allowed to watch cartoons anyway. maybe that's my problem. didn't get the scary stuff out of the way at an early age. as a result, i can't even watch a parady of a horror movie without being plagued by night terrors.

this is something i am very aware of. i have really scary dreams on my own, without the help of hollywood effects, thank you. it started with the re-occuring nightmare from age 5-18 featuring a kidnapper chopping me up into tidy chunks and feeding my parts into a blender. i could feel it all. it continued on to seeing my death 99 different ways from the golden gate bridge.

i know to stay away from the gore and spooky stuff. every now and then i can't resist, and the nightmares are worth it: lost, the blair witch project. both terrifying and nightmare inducing. both worth it.

zombieland: not worth it.

every now and then, usually when i have a new boyfriend, i push myself beyond my known comfort levels, just wanting to be easy-going, figuring at 34 years old i can handle some fake blood. especially when it's over the top and mocking. this is untrue and unwise.

case in point: last night we made our second attempt at watching the aforementioned 'zombieland'. we'd first tried it on christmas eve. i'd come straight from a 100 hour work week, followed by 24 hours of traveling from the middle east, directly into the kitchen to bake christmas gifts, pack and be at the airport at 5am the next day.

within 30 seconds of gut munching i vetoed. 'nope, this is not what i want to watch on christmas!'
blame it on christmas. but it was true! it was super depressing and i was a wreck already.
so last night we tried again. i made it about 4 minutes in. my fork full of rice and tofu hovered somewhere between the bowl and my contorted face. i literally couldn't find a window of time long enough to chew a bite without simultaneously watching zombies chewing on bloody flesh.
jade graciously turned it off in favor of family guy. much more appetizing. (hah!)

and sure enough, four minutes of zombieland brought the most heinous night of dreams. when jade finally woke me up at 6, i was grateful, having been finally confronting the ghosts that inhabited the place i was housesitting, busted in on nightly by some freaky looking red-eyed ladies...

so, i'm sorry, but that's enough horror and gore for 2010 already! can somebody cue up an episode of barney for me?

sunday snow day

there's nothing like a lovely snow flurry hanging around long enough to stick to the cars to make you feel okay about staying in all day and .....i almost said, "doing nothing", when in fact, i've been cleaning and re-organizing my apartment since i woke up at 4:30am. that's right, 4:30 AM. don't ask. something about the boyfriend ailing from a saturday artists football game leaving him unable to sleep any longer. and suddenly we were up cleaning.

this is how i'm 'lazy'.

quote of the day

jade: how do you get up so early, dad?

jade's dad: i have to get out of that thing after a few hours. people die in there!

yay for christmas!!!

four wheel sledding on pewauke lake, wisconsin just before we hit a
slushy patch and opened the lake up a bit. had an indiana jones moment
as we barely escaped our own wake...

greetings from doha

18 december 2009 thursday

walk out of the ofice trailer and you can feel the impending rain. isn't this a desert? already this morning there have been two torrential downpours and sure enough, the tin roof of the restroom calls out the first drops and then it's a cacophony of sheets of rain. we run through the sand and mud.

it doens't feel like the earth here. it feels like they've colonized the moon. and as robert said to me--they built it, they continue to build--construction in all directions--even though it sits empty. they colonized the moon before anyone was ready to come.

today is national qatar holiday. the flags are everywhere. cars are covered with them. incessant traffic. the cars all all luxury and suv's. and they are all driven by men. an avalanche painted in glittery burgundy to mimic the flag rolls by. just for today?


note: i did not take this picture, but it's very representative of what i saw. except i never saw such a normal car. only luxury here.

i was picked up from the airport in a damn jaguar for chrissake!
but i couldn't take pictures. my camera doesn't leave the hotel because it would be confiscated....bummer.

the roads run straight like arteries through the expanse of flat desert. on either side, ceremonial tents have been erected just for today, surrounded by rims of uphostered armchairs and a sea of carpets. horses and camels stand waiting. camels.
and men in their distinctive dress. banners depicting someone royal. the sheik? someone we will serve.
the desert spans around us endless. paperflat, without vegetation. subdivisions stand empty. there is no sense of supply and demand. just supply. surplus.
all is orderly. there is no chaos.

welcome to doha

customs, qatar palace style

at the base of the airplane stairs a smiling woman held a sign proclaiming "miss kitty" and "miss margaret". she guided us onto a shuttle bus. once inside, i grin. the men who aren't wearing their thobe--their long white robes and turbans, are dressed identically to me. i've nailed the local dude dress. the immigrant to qatar dude dress: flair pants, long sleeve patterned button down shirt and a sweater vest. all of us. but i'm jealous of the guy's vest that looks like it's make of shiny blue spun plastic.

we pull off the runway up to the airport. instead of the standard mile long custom lines, we are whisked to a lounge of comfy chairs and espresso. she takes our pastsports and baggage tags and we barely have time to use the restroom before she's returned. but we do go to the restroom. what we see there feels so instinctively wrong. the local women have left the purses on the public airport restroom sink while locking themselves inside of the stalls. just leave 'em on the counter. whoa.
so five minutes after landing and we're being walked past the customs line, and welcomed to the country. i haven't touched my luggage since new york and it remains that way. everytime i reach for a door handle i am tsked away.

kitty joe's journal flies to qatar. part two

kitty joe, learning about foreign culture in the dubai airport.

couldn't decipher much as we landed in dubai. all apparant was an in-organic development. the gridded uniformity to the shape of the city and enrivons. like a cartoon world. the airport was posh. i felt like a ragamuffin even in my 'nice' 7 jeans that i swear i never wore to the rink, my vintage blouse and a pilled up sweater vest. i suppose i'll just need to get used to the feeling of being a ragamuffin, because, essentially, that's what i am.

you can feel disdain for a set of values, a superficial way of being or judging. you can stand by the person that you are. but it doens't stop you from squirming when enveloped in opulence and all slickness.

we laughed at the lavish luxury car giveaway displays in the city making daily world news headlines of financial collapse. we laughed at the christmas tree displays in a muslim country. christmas trees so perfect and artificial. like those on a set of a soap opera. just know that if there were gifts beaneath, with big bows atop, they'd be the kind whose individually paper-wrapped box tops would lift right off for the ease of the scene.

wait! stop. the plane from dubai to doha is lifting off and i think i'm looking at the tallest building in the world. whoa.

we wander through gift shops and my heart breaks. i have enough money to pay for my cab to and from the airport, and my visa. these are all re--imbursible business expenses and every meal and lodging and transportation from hotel to palace will be covered. but there is not a dime for shopping or exploring. now, being uber-poor --since i now carry the combined weight of student loans cutting off, credit cards maxed out and said run out student loans suddenly due for payment STARTING ON CHRISTMAS DAY--maybe doesn't bother me so much in regard to myself. what's killing me, especially now that its xmas, is that i see little tschotchkys and i want to buy them for all of the kids in my life. i see the camels wearing santa hat cheesy ornaments and i want to pick them up for my sisters. and i can't. it's not even that i shouldn't. it's that i can't. should just avoid the hsops altogether. aw, and with that positive spin, we start our descent into doha.

i am thrilled. i need not be a greedy consumer. because even to desperately want to give came sometimes be selfish. this guilt is selfish.

balls of fire glow in the sea below me. they are bright in the pitch blackness like i've never seen. some kind of oil extraction? what is the fire? my own ignorance astounds me.

usually i do quite a bit of research before traveling, but to this country, even to its pronunciation, i am a stranger. i simply haven't had the time. welcome to doha! welcome to adventure! i land a day early. a luxury of time to acclimate, to luxuriate at the ritz carlton.



holy glitter! i've never seen such a sparkly city! the buildings are literally glittering like disco balls! such strange contrast to the surrounding sand.
welcome to adventure. i've already in twenty four hours eaten more that i had all week, it seems!

the flight attendants begin the flight with a hat attached to a white gauzy veil. when the flight begins, they take them off. it seems odd.

dubai airport: prayer rooms beside starbucks.