Harmony

I was watching House of Cards with Hubby last night.  I'm on Season 1, Episode 8, so please no spoilers if you're further than me.  The writing on this show is magnificent.  Frank Underwood aka Francis, is such an ass, but he's a likeable ass.  Who knows why?  Maybe because you always know where you stand with him, and he has that incredible smile even when he's plunging the knife into your back. 

This blog isn't really a review about House of Cards though.  This blog is more about one line Frank Underwood says in that particular episode that really stuck with me, and I bet it hit home to a lot of people.  At the dedication of the library, Frank is talking about harmony and he says, "It is about individual voices coming together for a moment. And that moment lasts the length of a breath."  He's using the quote in reference to his time at the Sentinel, known in real life as the Citadel, and about how people come in and out of your life. 

Harmony.  Coming together for a specific purpose and then moving on. I think about this, because so much of my time is spent thinking about the past.  I try to be a goal oriented person.  I plan ahead, and I look to the future often.  I have pangs about the past: lost loves, lost friends, or almost a craving for the way things were when things were at their best, or maybe when I was having the most fun, or maybe when my feelings of love and life were so heightened I felt on top of the world. 

In Episode 8 of House of Cards, the look on Frank's face as his friend (possible lover) walked away from him showed that Frank struggled with the feelings of loss and difficulty of letting go.  Why is it so difficult to let go?  Each relationship or friendship lost is almost like a mini-death and takes a grieving process in order for an individual to move on.  The feelings regarding that particular person or that particular event in your life are still imprinted in your memory and recalling them can be a sweet but painful nostalgia, almost like you're reliving the loss every time you think about.

How wistful to think: it's for a moment, and then it's gone, and then you move on.  Some people work this way, repressing painful thoughts and memories, and even repressing the good thoughts and memories because sometimes recalling them reminds you of how different you feel today.  You look back on your past sometimes and think, "Oh if I could only do that again then I'd be happy."  Let's face it, living life is hard, and sometimes we all wish we could back to the easier times.

This weekend I went out with a young friend of mine who is about to graduate from high school.  She was talking about college and said, "Well I'm going to have a lot of free time."  And my heart was suddenly jealous that she gets to swing through those carefree days of making friends, about being idealistic about the future, looking for a job and soaking up knowledge like a sponge while I'm stuck washing dishes and forcing kids to do homework.  My heart wanted to go back to that moment in time, but that's all it was: a moment.  A moment that taught me a lot about myself, about my capability to learn, and about who'd I be in the future. 

I think living life is so much about being in the present moment and not being stuck in the past and not looking too much into the future.  I think for the greatest chance of happiness you must look at your past mistakes, you must think about your past loves with fondness, but then you need to move on from there.  I'm still learning how to do this.  And one of my favorite quotes of all time reminds me, "Hindsight is like foresight without a future."  Nothing comes from wishing that something that WASN'T IS, or that something that WAS still IS, except a special kind of pain.

Remember the individual voices with fondness.  Think about today, be happy about yesterday, and walk in the present.

 

Saint Patrick's Day Memory

Eleven years ago today, I met him.  My perception of reality, which may or may not be true, was that I had been visiting my sister in Massachusetts.  I came home.  A guy I worked with in the library called my cellphone (yes, I had just bought a little blue AT&T cellphone—it was horrid!), and he invited me to a kegger.

I had a lot on my mind.  I was done with Wish He Was My Boyfriend.  I was moving on with my life.  I needed a change. I thought going to a party with some people I didn’t know might be the way to achieve that change.

I asked my roommate Tiffany to accompany me, but she was tired or maybe she had other plans.  I called a few of my other friends, and they all declined.  I hemmed and hawed.  I didn’t want to be stuck in the house all night, thinking and analyzing my life.  I wanted to leave, to party, even if it meant going out by myself. 

I hopped in my car, the 2000 Toyota Camry, and drove the few blocks to the house where the party was being held.  I believe he lived on 42^nd Street in one of the townhouse apartments.  Walking in, a long dark staircase led up the stairs to the party apartment.  I could hear the noise on the 2^nd floor, drunken laughs and boys guffawing.  I built up the courage of one single girl going to a party where she only really knew one person, and was semi-acquainted with the other, and I walked up that long staircase, knocked on the door and was let in by unidentified boy.

There were only boys at the apartment, so you can imagine their thrill to see a girl show up.  Their entertainment had arrived.  They told me the keg was out back.  I could get a drink, and I immediately did to “chill” my nerves.  Some of the boys assured me that “Rob” (whoever that was) had left to pick up his friends, including a few other girls.  I made my way out to the back porch, (also known as Rob’s bedroom!) down some rickety white steps to the backyard and somebody helped me fill up my red Solo plastic cup with beer. 

When I walked back in, I found Sid my friend from the library had arrived.  We talked for a bit, and then I sat down on the loveseat in the main den, unsure of what to do with myself.  From there guy after guy came, sat down beside me and talked to me for a while before moving on.  It was like being in a speed dating round with alcohol. 

Before too long, a drunken boy came in with another guy and a girl!  Imagine my surprise.  He stumbled over to the loveseat and introduced himself to me as Rob.  He was obviously drunk.  He had brown fuzzy hair, and he smiled at me a lot.  We discussed writing and music.  He told me he really liked writing poetry.  It served as an outlet to him.  I also think this is where the nagging began, because I told him he shouldn’t drink and drive.  He never has since—or that I know of.  Soon, we needed another beer, so we walked out to the backyard and sat on the cinder block wall drinking from our Solo cups.  We looked up at the sky and stared at the stars together. 

When it was time to go, Rob walked me out.  He saw my car, and he said “Ooh—I’d like to drive that one day.”  I was still unsure of him.  I said, “Um, yeah, maybe.”  I think we kissed, and it was a drunk sloppy kiss.  We exchanged phone numbers, and I left.

I remember arriving home at the house on Albemarle.  Tiffany was there.  She asked how the party was.  I told her I met someone, and she asked if I thought I’d date him.  My reply was, “I don’t know.  He’s nice.”  

The next day I had to work at the library.  I really didn’t expect to hear from Rob for three days, as boys seem to have this requisite amount of time to wait so they don’t seem too eager.  In the afternoon, around 3:00 PM I received a phone call from Rob. He asked if I wanted to come over and watch the Simpsons. I declined because of working.  I remember telling Tiffany I couldn’t believe he had called so soon.  I didn’t know what to do with a boy who wanted to be with me after playing on and off games with Wish He Was My Boyfriend for two years and not letting anyone else serious into my life.

Tiffany said, “What’s the harm in hanging out with him?”  They were all pleased I’d be letting go of my obsession with Wish He Was My Boyfriend.

And so I thought, what’s the harm?  That evening I went to work and about an hour into my shift Rob showed up at the library with toys for me: a rubber ball and bubbles. 

He said, “I brought you some toys.”

“Um thanks.”  Yes, Lauren was not so good at this relationship crap, even though I’d been in a few serious relationships beforehand.

From then on, I pretty much saw Rob every day.  I didn’t really ever decide to see him. He was just there, and he grew on me.  I was happy to be with someone who really wanted to be with me and who showed me that he did.  I was happy to meet his friends and to feel joy in my heart when he walked in the room.  I remember telling Tiffany about Rob’s eyes, and how they were green with specks.  I remember thinking I liked him a lot, but still holding back.  I wasn’t quite over Wish He Was My Boyfriend.  I *maybe* told Rob this, but I’m not sure he heard me.  He was head over heels in love with me, and we all know what that feels like.  Then a part of me decided the relationship worked, and I was so glad to have someone to journey out of college with, to help me discover what I wanted to do with my life, to laugh at my jokes, to make me smile after a long day at a job I didn’t necessarily like or want.  We were there for each other.

It’s been exactly eleven years since the Saint Patrick’s Day, and life has taken off.  Rob and I have been through a lot of tough times together.  We have survived our marriage thus far, not necessarily enjoyed it all, but we’ve supported each other through the tough times, even with arguments, silent days, passive aggressive behavior, withdrawing completely from one another and finally reaching out and trying to find each other again.  Searching for our twenty-one year old selves in each other’s hearts to see what brought us together in the first place: love and companionship.

Wayback Wednesday: The Blades and the Monster

While I was digging through boxes last week, I came across my chap book from Mr. Franek's
English class in tenth grade.  Our chap book was a collection of our work from the year, typed up and bound.  Mine had a green cover, and I entitled it "A Bird's Eye View."  Here's a photo of it, very much disheveled now:

Mr. Franek was the best English teacher I ever had.  He wrote in the back of my book, along with my grade (B+/A-, because try as I might I rarely ever received an A in his class) "writing, I suspect, is a release for you," and "I don't worry about you.  You like to read & write. Don't ever stop."  Boy, he had me pegged, and those words were so inspiring for me back then, as they are now.

Here is a rewritten story, pulled from my chap book, about an incident that happened to my sister Allison from my sister Kelsey's point of view:

It was the summer of 1983, and my cousins had come for a short visit.  My mom made me and my cousin Sarah sleep on the floor in Allison and Lauren's room, because Aunt Karen was sleeping in my room.  My mom gave me a sleeping bag from the little closet.  The air conditioner was broken, leaving the house unbearably hot, so my mom put a small electric fan in the room to circulate air.  She placed the fan between Sarah and me and warned us not to sleep to close to it, because the blades were sharp.

In the middle of the night, Allison woke up screaming from a nightmare.  She had dreamt Jesus was sitting on the end of her bed drinking a Pepsicola and told her to be careful. We all laughed about her and went back to sleep.  About an hour later, she awoke frightened again.  She said, in her dream, a man had kidnapped her and killed Lauren.  She was afraid, and she crawled out of bed to sleep on the floor in between Sarah and I, and extremely close to the fan.

Around one in the morning Allison woke up.  She felt something wet on her hand, but couldn't tell what it was.  Allison tried to wake me up, but I groaned.  She walked over to the light and turned it on.  The first thing she saw was blood on the wall.  Allison peered down at the ground and saw a trail of blood leading towards the light switch.  Blood streamed down her arm, and she saw a huge gash on her hand.  She began screaming, as she realized what had happened.  I sat straight up, saw the blood, and I began screaming too but Lauren slept soundly.

My mom ran upstairs when she heard Allison's screams.  She burst into the room yelling for Allison and me to stop fighting, but then she saw the bright, red blood stain on the wall.  Allison was cuddled up in the corner, crying, and there was blood everywhere.

My mom called my dad (he was on call that night and was on a call at the hospital), and she told him to bring Allison directly to the emergency room. 

Mom told us to get in the big, brown van, and she went back upstairs to pick up Lauren and bring her downstairs.  Lauren woke up, bleary-eyed and half asleep, and Mom whispered something about going to the hospital.  Uninterested, Lauren quickly fell back to sleep.

My dad came outside to help my mom carry Allison into the ER.  She was still screaming and bleeding.  They left Lauren and I in the van with Aunt Karen.  The doctor on duty sent Allison to x-ray to make sure she had not injured her bone.  The blade in the fan had cut her hand deeply, but luckily missed the bone.  Her hand wasn't broken, but she did need stitches. 

The doctor made sure that Allison had not cut any tendons.  He, with my dad looking on, then proceeded to sew up her hand, placing twenty stitches into the skin.  Allison left the hospital with a lollipop in her mouth, holding my mom's hand and skipping.  She was happy again.  Allison climbed up into the big, brown van and sat down next to me.  Lauren rubbed her eyes, waking up, not knowing where she was or what happened.

"Where are we?" Lauren asked.

"At the hospital," Allison said.

"Why?" Lauren asked, curiously.

"Well you see, a big monster came in the middle of the night and ate my hand off!  But it's all better now, because Daddy fixed it!"

Wayback Wednesday: Cross Country Trip

Disclaimer: I have a total of TWO photos for this post.  I have somehow managed to lose the album that these were in, and unfortunately my friends weren’t able to send me photos of the trip in time.  Oh well, enjoy this extravagantly long post!

The summer after my junior year in college, my friend Jon came up to D.C. to work for one of the Alabama Senators.  I was working for an environmental organization at the time.  We decided to take a cross country trip from Washington D.C. to San Diego, California for Jon’s Circle K convention.

The day we left we drove eight hours through the mountains.  Jon and I stopped at a little state park to eat our peanut butter and jelly lunch (the first of many).  We walked around on the hiking trails a little bit to stretch our legs, but the mosquitoes were bad, and we wanted to make some good time that day so we kept driving.  I’m not sure what part of the country we stopped in that night, but we stayed at a KO in a little cabin.  We were the only people there without an RV.  We were super excited about our adventure!

We got up the next morning and drove to pick Cassidy up in Kansas City, Missouri.  We were meeting her at the airport, and that night we would stay with her cousin.  We saw the arch, which looked the same as it did when I saw it as a child!  The next day our adventure continued.  We drove to Russell, Kansas and stopped to have lunch there so Jon could see Bob Dole’s birth place.  We joked about the bugs on the windows in Kansas, because the highway was so boring.  We didn’t stop to see the largest ball of twine, but I wish we had!  We had a long drive ahead to Colorado Springs where we would stay the night with “Wish He Was My Boyfriend.” (Remember him?)

We had a fun night.  We all went to a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a few margaritas.  The DD driver, whoever it was, drove us to a bowling alley next where we encountered a friendly brown bear of the blow-up variety!  We were living it up.  We went back to Wish He Was My Boyfriend’s apartment to sleep.  The next day we went to Garden of the Gods.  We were all a little bit tired, but the scenery was beautiful. 

Our drives from here on out became smaller, and we began to make more use of campgrounds.  On the way, we stopped at McDonald’s quite a few times, and I partook of the fish sandwich quite often because at that time I was vegetarian at the time. I know—fish is not a vegetable, but I would allow myself to eat seafood!  We also made much use of a certain Texaco card, much to my friends’ parents’ chagrin!  Do you know how much you can actually buy with a Texaco card?

The next day we drove to Steamboat Springs.  I remember on the road passing the exit for Littleton and talking about the Columbine shootings.  The incident had happened only a year before.  Steamboat Springs was a little town.  We stayed in a campground there, and we went to the rodeo.  Jon, Cass, and I were chatting as the rodeo was beginning and I looked down the bleachers and Blue Eyed Guy was  sitting right next to me.  Blue Eyed Guy was an acquaintance of my ex-boyfriend who lived on the 6^th Floor of Leonard Hall.  I often saw him at American, and we always talked casually, but I never knew much about him.  Turns out he lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and just happened to be at the rodeo when we showed up there: strange indeed.  Reminiscent of running into Robin in Spain.

When we left Steamboat Springs we headed up through Wyoming and we drove through the Flaming Gorge National Park.  This was breathtaking, and was not even on the map we had.  The bright orange rocks were beautiful, and the gorge circling down to a crystal clear lake at the bottom was breathtaking.  I highly recommend exploring this area if you have some time.  I wish we had been able to spend more time there.

We drove through Jackson, and then we went through the mountains that separate Wyoming from Idaho.  I remember being terrified driving down the mountain with a huge Mack truck on my tail.  I kept imagining it running us off the road.  We arrived in Idaho Falls late.  It was a strange place.  We ate at a steakhouse, and the people all struck me as odd and quirky.  I think Cass and Jon felt the same way.  We went to our hotel late, around midnight, and we pull in on a fairly cold night and some girl is riding her bike around the parking lot in a bikini.  We all laughed at this, but it sort of creeped us out and made us feel glad that we weren’t going to spend anymore of our time in Idaho.

The next day, we drove down into Utah.  Jon had left his pillow at the Idaho Falls hotel, and we weren’t going back there, so we stopped at a rest area.  We asked the information guy where we could find a Wal-Mart.  His response, “That’s a woman’s store.  Perhaps I should call my wife.” This was my first encounter with a Mormon in Utah.  We found one on our own, and Jon was able to buy a new pillow. 

We drove through Salt Lake City.  We didn’t have time to stop at the Mormon Temple.  I regret this decision, as my parents went there this past year and said it was beautiful.  We were on a timetable though, and our stops were pre-planned with a certain number of days in between.  I loved the rocky landscape in Utah, but we all commented how we’d miss large Oak trees and grass if we lived in Utah.  I couldn’t even do a description of the red rocks of Utah justice.  They are beautiful, and majestic.  Driving into Zion National Park seemed to me like driving into another world.

The day we arrived in Zion, it was hot.  Very hot.  We were not allowed to build a fire to cook any food, so we resorted to our old standby for dinner: peanut butter and jelly.  We walked around and hiked a little bit, but we were rather unprepared for the narrow hiking trails and my fear of heights did me in, so mostly we just admired the scenery around us, talked, and played cards. That night, I insisted to Jon and Cass that since we were in the dessert the temperature would drop significantly.  We went to bed with our tent completely zipped up, and we almost died of heat prostration (literally!).  We woke up sweating, and Jon and I unzipped the tent to let some fresh air in, but we still woke up in a pool of sweat.  I didn’t take into consideration that we were at the bottom of a canyon and the hot air was trapped like a bowl around us.

Hot, and in bad need of a shave, at Zion National Park, Utah 2000

We drove down the back roads, the famous Route 66, and reached the Grand Canyon the next day.  Who would have thought that a giant hole in the ground could be so amazing?  Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon makes one feel infinitely small: a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things.  The power of nature is forceful enough to cut through rock and carve a vast canyon into this earth.  In one word: breathtaking. Our visit to the canyon was the highlight of my trip.  We pitched a tent that night, and Jonathan insisted that we leave the screens, but I told him it would be cold since we were on top of the canyon.  He didn’t believe me, and in the middle of the night he had to rustle in the car for his larger sleeping bag and close up the vents in the tent because we were all freezing!

Cass and me in front of the Grand Canyon, 2000

After the Grand Canyon, we drove to Las Vegas stopping at the Hoover Dam on the way.  I was depressed in Vegas.  I missed the nature we had just left.  Cass and Jon enjoyed themselves there, but what can I say? Gambling is just not my thing.  Was it then that I went up in the mini-Eiffel Tower and almost had an anxiety attack due to my fear of heights?  It may have been my second trip to Vegas.  Heights are not my thing.

After Vegas we made our way to San Diego.  I LOVED San Diego.  It is beautiful.  It cracks me up how everyone calls the interstate, “THE 5.”  Not, take Interstate 5 to ________ road, but take THE 5 to _________road.”  Jon had convention stuff to do in San Diego, and I was interested in doing separate things than Cass, so I sort of had some alone time there.  Also, Cass and some other friends had decided to go to Mexico, and my mother told me (I listened for once) that I was not, under any circumstances, to cross the border and go to Mexico!  I went to the San Diego zoo by myself, which was amazing.  The pandas were incredible, and by far it is one of the best zoos I’ve ever visited.  I also explored the Mission District, and ate delicious fish tacos in a Mexican restaurant there.  We visited a haunted house too, although I didn’t see any ghosts.

After San Diego it was time to go home.  We drove straight through (almost), but we stopped to surprise our family in Montgomery.  They were happy to see that we had made it back safely from our trip.  Then we went back to DC to the real world.

Wayback Wednesday: Vive Espana!

Our FORSPRO Group--Spain 1995

I wonder if it’s possible to have writer’s block on one particular subject.  I have sat down to write this story of Spain so many times, and I have not been able to do it.  I have so many memories, but my memories of Spain are rather fuzzy.  Certain things stick out, but I have no idea of the chronological order of events.  Maybe this is because I went to Spain 16 years ago (SIXTEEN YEARS, can it really be?).  The memories are not so fresh.  Plus, I didn’t actively write in my journal  the way I did when I went to Peru and Argentina years later, but here goes.  Wayback Wednesday: Spain.

The summer after my sophomore year in high school, a school group of mine signed up for a FORSPRO trip to Spain.  There were six of us at first: Senora Baker, Andrea, Whitney, Anne, Ashley, and me.  We would study abroad in Salamanca for a portion of the summer. 

We flew from Montgomery to Atlanta to JFK and then over to Spain.  I remember being excited to be IN New York when we arrived in JFK, even though we never left the airport.  This was the first long trip I had taken without my parents, and I was going overseas.  Sure, I’d spent many a summer at Camp Seafarer, but I had never been abroad without them.  This was probably every sixteen year old girl’s dream: freedom!

We flew Iberia airlines to Spain, and we arrived in Madrid.  We met up with another group of students who were also members of our FORSPRO program.  This is when we met Andrew, his brother Chris, their dad, Karyn, Shelby, Adam, and several other people we would become friends with over the next weeks.  They were from Virginia (Andrew and his family was, at least). 

We went sight-seeing first in our air-conditioned motor- coach.  We traversed the countryside of Spain staring out at burnt sunflowers lining the landscape.  That summer was HOT.  It was the same summer that all of those people died in Chicago.  For almost the entire time we were in Spain, the thermometers read between 40-45 degrees Celsius.  Hot, hot, hot. 

We went to Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, and Burgos.  We walked through a walled city, and I remember feeling like we were walking back into time.  We watched a man make and sharpen a sword.  We went to the Alhambra, and I remember the beauty of the gardens and the architecture.  We laughed and had fun, getting to know our new friends and adjusting to the new culture, amazed at how different our culture was from theirs.  We were asked several times if we were from Los Angeles and if we knew Melanie Griffith.  This was about the time that she had become engaged to Antonio Banderas.  The Spaniards looked at us funny when we answered we were from Alabama.  Most of them had no idea where it was.

Regarding Columbus in Burgos

Whitney, Anne, Ashley, me, Andrew (top row), Dina and Andrea (bottom row)

The Alahambra -- Moorish influence in Spain

The Court of the Lions -- beautiful Muslim artwork.

Chains on the Cathedral in Toledo

The Town Hall in Toledo, Spain

After this initial period of travel, we arrived in Salamanca to begin taking our classes.  My group stayed in a building that was used as an all boys’ Catholic school during the school year.  There was a monastery behind it, and we (or at least I) thought it was so funny to see the monks walk around in their brown robes.  We were each assigned a room with a bed.  The rooms were small and simple: one bed, a tile floor, a sink (where we washed our laundry!), and a large window that looked out onto a back courtyard.  Andrea’s room was next to mine.  We quickly realized that in order to not wake up in a pool of sweat we needed to put our mattresses on the floor.  This way, at night, we could sleep with our arms stretched out onto the tile floor, thus cooling our bodies.  Having no air conditioning was a major adjustment at first, but we all became used to it by the end of the summer.  An odd smell emanated from behind the school, and there was a park that we started calling "Shit Park," because a manure plant emited nasty smells throughout the day. Senora Baker did not like us to go to Shit Park, because she thought it was dangerous.

Our Dorm: Colegio Calasanz

Anne became homesick, and she actually ended up going home.  Andrea, Whitney, and I were all placed into the same class with a professor named Julio. Whitney reminded me that we also had a large lecture-style class on Civilization, but we rarely attended this—somehow figuring out how to rig the attendance records.  The class was early, and we were usually too tired to attend after tromping around Salamanca at all hours of the night.  One of the few things I remember about actually attending school that summer was that we read a book about Francisco Franco in Spanish.  I remember thinking it was the most boring thing I’d ever read.  Julio, our professor, had good sense of humor though and he took well to his completely female class!!! 

Our Class with Julio.

We also made several other friends, Colleen and Jennifer, as well as a few French kids, Little Goman, Alice and Florence, who loved our Southern accents.  The first week we were trying to cool down and adjust our body to no air conditioning.  I remember sitting on the lip of the second floor window looking out at the courtyard and talking to Andrea who was sitting in her window.  Senora Baker came into the courtyard and had a horrified look on her face.  She told us that we could do anything in Spain, except sit in those windows.  We took her literally, and we did everything in Spain!

The food in the dorm cafeteria was horrible.  The only thing edible was the salad if you somehow managed to scrape off all the globs of some gross mayonnaise-based dressing it was drenched in.  We fairly soon came to depend on the bakery immediately across the street from our dorm and school for our meals.  We would arrive in the morning to have French baguettes.  In the afternoon, we’d usually walk down to the Plaza Mayor and I often would buy a tortilla espanol.  This became my staple diet while in Spain, and I actually lost so much weight there that at one point my underwear started sliding off!

Friends: Colleen, Jennifer, Andrea, me and Whitney

Many of our nights were spent roaming the city with Andrew and our other American friends.  We were “so” American.  We were young, and we wanted to drink.  We had two regular spots: the Chupeteria and the Liter Bar.  At the Liter Bar, we would usually buy a drink called an Orgasmo.  The bartender at the Chupeteria came to know me that summer too, and he would often cut me off. We also like to frequent Burger King, where you could buy a cheap burger and beer.  My parents wondered why I ran out of money while I was there!

Lauren, Whitney, Jennifer, Andrew, and Andrea

We listened to the Tunas play in the Plaza Mayor at night.  We enjoyed churros and chocolate, and we enjoyed each others' company. 

The Plaza Mayor -- Salamanca, Spain

La Tunas (musicians) in the Plaza Mayor performing at night.

One evening we were watching TV in the Rec Room of the dorm, and a bat flew in the window.  After initially panicking, and trying to shoo him out of the door we came to enjoy his company, and we even named him Roger. 

Roger -- the *other* dorm resident!

One night, our group was going out to drink as usual.  We stopped at Burger King for a bathroom break.  We had been there earlier for dinner and a few cervezas (yes, they served beer at Burger King in Spain!).  I went into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror.  I glanced at the girl next to me and she looked familiar, but I didn’t say anything at first.  I went into the bathroom stall, wracking my brain trying to figure out where I’d knew her, and it came to me.

“Robin?” I questioned.

“Oh my God, Lauren.  I thought that was you, but what are the chances?  What are you doing here?”

In the bathroom of Burger King in Salamanca, Spain I ran into Robin Freeman, a girl I had known from Camp Seafarer in fifth grade.  She was on a study abroad too.  She normally lived in North Carolina (I think).  It certainly is a small world, and I wondered what the chances of actually running into someone you know in a foreign country are?  Strange occurrences like this have happened to me since, including the fact that Jennifer Hinckley (who we met in Spain but who lived in California) ended up being roommates with one of my childhood friends during their freshman year in college at Vanderbilt completely randomly.  I digress—back to the story…

Towards the end of the summer, we (Andrew, Andrea, Shelby, Karyn, and me) decided to go to a REM concert in Madrid.  We bought tickets, and we arranged for a ride on a bus that would take us from Salamanca to Madrid.  We were super excited, until we learned that Michael Stipe was sick and had canceled.  Instead of refunding our tickets, the Cure stepped in and took over as the main group for the concert.  We took the bus to Madrid.  The day was so HOT.  I remember seeing the HUGE digitalized thermometer in front of the Plaza de Toros as we shuffled in for the concert and it read 45 degrees Celsius.  This translates to roughly 113 degrees Fahrenheit, and honestly people will tell you Spain has dry heat so doesn’t feel as hot but when it is 113 degrees it is HOT, especially when you’re in an outside mosh pit with a bunch of sweaty people.

The concert started, and we were in a mosh pit.  I didn’t drink that day.  It was too hot.  I was worried about dehydration.  One of the girls with us drank though, and she drank a lot.  About halfway through the Cure concert she seemed to have a nervous breakdown and wanted to leave.  We told her we had no way of leaving, but we all managed to get her onto the motor coach and we waited for the concert to end, giving her water to alleviate her dehydration.  I learned two things at this concert: 1) I don’t like mosh pits—they are scary and dangerous and 2) don’t ever drink alcohol when it is 113 degrees outside and you’re surrounded by a ton of people.

Senora Baker also took us on some separate excursions, away from the main group.  Our small group went to el Escorial.  I’ll never forget the “wedding cake” tomb where the Kings and Queens of old had buried their small children who died from various diseases.  She also took us to el Valle de los Caidos (The Valley of the Fallen).  We went up on top of the giant cross, and on each corner, North, South, East, and West was a HUGE statue of each of the four Saints. 

Valle de los Caidos

As the summer came to an end, I was dreading going back home.  I missed my family, but I loved being on my own in a foreign country.  I loved the Spaniards, Salamanca, and my friends.  We had a little mishap in the airport with our plane being overbooked (never good), but luckily one of the adults on our trip had some clout with the president of Iberia airlines and soon we were on our way home.  For the next few months I HATED the air conditioner.  When it would blow on me I felt like I was freezing, but I loved Dr. Pepper, which I had dearly missed while I was gone.  Oh the life of a sixteen year old.  I also had to repay the debt that I owed Andrea (from running out of money) by working in my Dad’s office for the rest of the summer.

Wayback Wednesday: Argentine Bike Wreck

From July 1999 to November 1999, I attended a study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I was an International Relations major in college, so a study abroad was pretty much required.  I would finally be able to polish off my Spanish speaking skills!

I arrived in Buenos Aires, after a few weather delays, and I moved in with my host family (familia) on Calle Manuel Ugarte.  My host family was unique.  I had a host mother named Patricia.  She had long blonde hair, obviously dyed, and she loved to laugh at me.  She was married to a man named Rupert, who I never really got along with.  He was my “Step Host Father,” and not the father of Patricia’s two daughters, Paz and Sol, who lived in the house.  Yes, I lived with Peace and Sunshine the whole time I was in Argentina! 

My host family taught me how to play a fun card game, and for the life of me I cannot remember what it is called!  One day I came home for dinner, and she fed me tripe.  I felt like I was going to vomit.  She disapproved of my friends coming over, mainly because they were boys.  In most families in Argentina, the daughters live at home until they are married.  In the beginning, they really made me feel at home, but as time went on they began having problems and stopped taking care of me and their other host daughter, as well.  For me, it wasn’t a problem, because I had a lot of friends whose host families were more than willing to adopt me!

Argentina was beautiful, fun, and a great learning experience.  I met a lot of great people, some of whom I’m still semi-friends with today (via the benefit the amazing world wide web and, of course, Facebook). 

We did a lot of sightseeing.  We saw the cemetery in Recoleta where Evita Peron was buried.

We saw the Obelisk.  I thought it was funny how I went from one city with a monument (Washington D.C.) to another with a similar monument.  Ironic.  Coincidental, or maybe men just really like to build tall, sharp-looking buildings in large cities in order to exhibit their extreme power!

We went to Iguazu Falls. 

We also had school at the Universidad de Belgrano, which meant studying.

One afternoon in September, I left my house on Manuel Ugarte to walk down the block to one of my friend’s apartments.  A group of us were writing a paper for an economics class.  I had walked to this particular friend’s apartment about a hundred times that year, and I knew the route well.  The street was lined by shops and was usually bustling with cars and pedestrians.  Argentineans are not great drivers.  In fact, more than once that year I feared for my life inside a taxi! 

Well, I’m walking down this street just trying to make it to my friend’s house so we can finish our paper, and I see a car just slam into this guy on his bike.  The guy crashes off of his bike, flies through the air over my head and slams onto the sidewalk, almost right beside me.  I was in shock.   The driver of the car that hit him, slams on his brakes, jumps out of the car and comes up on the sidewalk next to me.  He stares at the man, lying and bleeding on the sidewalk next to me.  He then gets down on his hands and knees, sticks his face right in front of the injured man’s face and proceeds to yell at him.  I kid you not!  He yelled at this man that he had just hit.  I was horrified.  I could not believe what I was seeing.  I stood there for a few minutes as people began to crowd around.  They began shouting in Spanish for someone to call an ambulance.  I stood there, watching this man bleed, and then I just looked at these Argentineans who I couldn’t completely understand, and I walked away.

When I arrived at my friend's apartment, he and another friend asked what had taken me so long.  I told them about the incident, but I think they were more interested in just getting to work on the paper at hand.  To this day, I remember every detail of that day.  I remember the bicyclist face as he flew off the bike.  I remember the angry face of the driver.  I remember the ladies coming out of the store, and the terrified looks on their faces.  I remember how I kept replaying it in my head, over and over again.

Such a strange memory and for some reason it stands out amongst my memories in Argentina.  It is a sad memory in a sea of good times.  I will never know what happened to the cyclist or the angry driver.  The rest of my memories of Argentina are somewhat more mundane, like going to Coto, a large supermarket in our neighborhood Belgrano, and eating and studying.  Late nights, drinking and hanging out with friends, and then stumbling into an internet café to email friends from home.  Hours of walking around the city, seeing the bright colors of La Boca, attending a Tango dinner, movies in Recoleta, and shopping at the little markets that would be set up in the parks on the weekends. 

Thinking of this trip makes me yearn to travel again. 

It also reminds me of the nature of humans.  For me, to just walk away from the accident, as if nothing happened.  For the driver to be so angry over something that he did, instead of just admitting that he had done something wrong. 

*Please excuse the absence of accent marks on the Spanish words.  I cannot figure out how to add them!  If anyone knows how, feel free to comment.

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Wayback Wednesday: A Cat Tale

Every Wednesday I'm going to explore my past.  Oh, memories.  I figured this would be a good method for me to write down some of the memories I have, and it would also be a way to explore my creative side a little more.

Today it's a cat story.  Bear with me, non-cat people. 

Ritz was born in a barn someplace in Maryland on April 22, 2000.  Sometime, roughly eight weeks after that, I decided I wanted a cat.  I cleared it with my roommates, all five of them. Then I answered an ad with one of my close college friends tagging along to help me pick out the kitty. 

The lady who was giving them away had a little apartment close to Spring Valley, Maryland, and we hopped into my 2000 Camry and drove over there to see the cats.  The lady really wanted to sell me this bright orange cat who was frolicking and playing all around the apartment, but I wasn't really interested in him.  Hiding underneath one of the tables was a cat, the color of a Ritz cracker, and when I went up to him he crawled out and right onto my lap.  I knew he was the one I wanted.  The lady hemmed and hawed because he was the cat she wanted to keep, but finally she gave him to us (or maybe I bought him for his shots-I don't remember).

Driving home we named him Ritz, after the cracker, not because of some ritzy lifestyle he was going to lead or anything. 

And yes, I’m about 21 in this photo, even though I look 15.  Sorry for the quality, I still don’t have the scanner hooked up and this was pre-digital photos!

Poor Ritz had a tough life at first.  Within the first few weeks of coming home, he somehow got himself stuck on the window crank, hanging there by his break-away collar, and whining for dear life.  He was also tortured by one of my roommates, though I'm not naming names, and chased by a three year old boy, the child of one of my friends.  To this day poor Ritz cannot stand children, much to my kids' chagrin.  Life kept going on and Ritz grew.

I graduated from college, and I moved into a little basement with Hubby (who was not Hubby at the time).  Ritz loved to sit at the top of the stairs and look down at us.  He also loved to go roaming around the D.C. neighborhood at night, and I was always afraid he'd get hit by a car.  Of course this never happened.  He's a pretty durable cat.

In November 2001 we moved to Gaithersburg.  We needed a bigger place, and the flooding in our basement apartment had given us a bad taste for our landlord.  It also gave us an out.  We found a great second-floor apartment in Gaithersburg and moved right in.  We also adopted a beagle, Beasley, the same day as the move.  Both of these incidences proved to be traumatic events for Ritzy.   After hiding in our closet for a few days, Ritz saw an escape when Hubby left the door to the balcony open.  Ritz made a run (and a jump) for it, and Hubby could not find him.

When I came home from work that evening, Hubby told me he thought Ritz had run away.  I was so upset.  I loved that cat.  He had made me a pet parent.  He was my first baby, and I was so sad that he was gone.  Hubby, several children who lived in the apartment, and I put flyers up with a photo of Ritz.  I looked around for him, called his name, and called shelters, all to no avail.  Time went by.  The winter dragged on, and Ritz did not come back. 

The weekend before Martin Luther King Day, I sat down with Hubby and I said, "I guess it's time to get a new cat. Ritz is gone, and I'm pretty sure he could not have lived through this winter."  (It was incredibly cold and snowy that winter).  Hubby agreed, and the next weekend I went away to visit my sister, thinking that the weekend afterwards I’d adopt a new cat.

One night, while I was visiting my sister, my phone rang.

I answered, "Hello."

Old roommate says, "Hey Lauren.  I just needed to call you, because some lady in Silver Spring just called here saying that she has your cat."

I said, "That is not funny.  Why would you even call me, knowing how devastated I am about him being running away." Yes, I seriously thought she was shitting me.

She says, "I'm serious, Lauren.  He still had the collar on that had our phone number on it.  She called here looking for his owner.  At first, Michelle answered, and she had no idea what this lady was talking about.  Michelle took down the lady’s number and asked me about it, and I said that it had to be your cat!"

I was in total shock.  I think I may have even cried.  My old roommates were kind enough to have the Lady drop Ritz off at their house and get him so medical care.  I called the Lady, and this is what she told me:

"I often feed cats in my neighborhood.  Usually I leave a bowl of water and food outside, and there is this one cat who I like to call Mama Cat who brings other cats around to eat.  They live near a large garbage bin behind a grocery store near my house.  Well that particular day, I was putting food out for Mama Cat and her gang of Ferrell cats and I saw her sneaking up with this tiny cat behind her.  I thought I saw something on his neck and stuck under one of his armpits, like a collar, and I wondered if he belonged to someone.  I could not grab him though.  The next day, they came back for more food, and I was able to corner him.  He hissed at me (something Ritz usually did not do), but I was able to contain him in an area and get the collar off of him.  It had a number on it, so I called and, voila, it was your roommates!"

When I came home from my vacation a few days later, I went to my old college house to pick up my long lost cat.  I sat on the floor, and he immediately crawled into my lap and starting rubbing his head all over me.  He knew me instantly.  He was home again. 

The break-away collar had become stuck under Ritz's armpit when he had attempted to remove it.  Miraculously, it did not come off all the way.  When I took him to the vet, they said he was very dehydrated, and he had lost half his body weight.  He'd been a 12 pound cat, and he weighed 6 pounds when he came back to us.  The collar had rubbed a hole underneath his arm, and he had to have surgery to debride the wound.  He had walked approximately 30 miles from our apartment in Gaithersburg, over many a large highway to some lady's house in Silver Spring trying to find his home.  Overall, the vet said he was in amazingly good health for being a mainly indoor cat and surviving the winter on his own.  He's tough and still is. 

Now he's an old cat of 11 1/2.  He has some quirks from his adventures: he won't wear a collar and he won't touch water if it has the least bit of dirt in it.   He's been through six moves since those first two, and he's never strayed far from home since.  I love my Ritzy.

*Please note: I have changed the name of the roommate in this story.  Also, I took creative license and dialogue may not be exact.  My memory from 9 years ago isn't perfect!