The Twilight Zone

If you blinked, you might have missed this story about a fire at the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok. I would have missed it too, except J-P gave me the heads up.

So let's review the timeline here, shall we?

May 2, 2008. Cyclone Nargis hits Myanmar (Burma), causing massive destruction and killing tens of thousands of people and leaving millions homeless. Since then, the military junta has refused to grant visas to relief workers, intimidated journalists, and seized shipments of aid, in some cases passing that aid off as assistance provided by the government itself. Three weeks pass thusly. Who knows how many more Burmese people die because of the government's callous, self-serving actions in the wake of the storm.

May 23, 2008. After meeting with the head of Myanmar's military junta, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, obtains an agreement that will finally allow international relief workers into the country. Most of these workers will enter the country via Bangkok after being issued visas by the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok.

May 26, 2008. Just three days later, a fire breaks out at the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok. The office that issues visas sustains the most damage.

The news reports are suggesting that foul play is not suspected. And I don't tend to be a conspiracy theorist, but really? A fire? Three days later? In the office that issues visas to relief workers? After the government refused visas to aid workers for three weeks? The same government that held up and stole aid shipments to advance its own image within the country?

Please. Either that's no accident, or that's just the most unfortunate freaking coincidence ever.

Keep your eyes on the prize, belay!

A friend snapped this pic on our rock-climbing trip a month or so ago. I love the perspective, and J-P's relaxed grin while I'm up there on the rock sweating and swearing to high heaven (what, you can't tell from the picture?!?).

Well, well, well

Something tells me it's kitten season, judging by the squatters we have living underneath our porch. There's a fourth one, but s/he's at the bottom of the pile.

I've been a little preoccupied

Oh crap.

I missed my own blogiversary. Can you imagine that? For god's sakes, I started planning my birthday a full two months in advance, and here I let this milestone just blow by unawares.

Well, not entirely unawares. I did know it was in May, but I really thought it was the END of May. And I was planning all sorts of fun and excitement to be unveiled on the big day. But I never bothered to pin down when exactly the big day was. And as it turns out, it's not at the end of May, but rather smack dab in the middle of May. May 18, to be precise.

So, I'm belated. And I have no fun and excitement to share. Except to say HEY! HAPPY FIRST BLOGIVERSARY!

Housekeeping

I finally got sick of that old picture from Lookout Mountain that had been gracing the header up top there and switched it out for a new one. I also started messing with a few other design-related things, like the font for the title and subtitle. I'm a little worried that it looks kind of newspaper-y though, but I'm going to live with it for a little while before changing things around even more.

Also, in case you don't keep close tabs on the labels I'm using over there on the right-hand side of the page (what?!? you mean you don't pay attention to the labels??? blasphemy.), I've added a new one called "banners" which will pull up all of the pictures that I've used in the header (or banner, or whatever you want to call it). So now they are there for all posterity. Yay.

My head...it spins

Oh god, this was one of Those Weeks. When I think back to what my universe looked like a week and a half ago, I barely recognize it. This week was nothing like what I expected, and the next few weeks aren't going to seem very familiar either. In a flash, so much can change.

(I know, you're thinking, what in the hell is she talking about? Don't bother skipping to the bottom, I'll tell you straight off that no one died, everyone's fine and happy and healthy, no marital or familial problems, nothing like that. Just change, you know? I'm talking about those times when you're going about planning your days / weeks / life and you have one set of expectations, and then things suddenly and unexpectedly change and all of a sudden your plans look wildly different. Not necessarily worse, just different. That's all.)

So you've heard a bit about our surgical adventure last week, but here's a little more detail. On Thursday morning, I went to work and left J-P in bed with a belly ache, already thinking ahead to our weekend trip to New Orleans. And then the belly ache got worse. Things changed, and we ended up spending the rest of the day in the ER. Twelve hours later, we were still in the ER, but J-P was feeling better and we were deciding what to have for dinner, when we learned that this was no ordinary belly ache and that surgery was imminent. In a flash, things had changed again, and the next twenty-four hours were a blur of IVs, calls to the nurse for morphine (seriously, it felt like General fucking Hospital), calls to the family to keep them updated, cancelled travel plans, and scavenger hunts for snacks from the hospital vending machines (save for dinner on Thursday, because two of my co-workers, in a breathtaking show of thoughtfulness and generosity, packed up their dinner and brought it to the hospital to share with me).

So, yeah. Things change fast. Our weekend, which was to be filled with Sazeracs and oysters, was instead filled with chicken soup and weekend movie fare. (A Few Good Men and Air Force One, if you must know.) On Monday we dug out, I went back to work, and we started thinking about rescheduling the trip, planning the next few weekends, and getting back to our regularly scheduled programming. A returned sense of normalcy seemed within reach.

Then, J-P gets a phone call from his old boss at UNICEF. They may have a temporary position in Bangkok relating to the Myanmar cyclone relief effort, and they want to know if he's available. It's not definite yet, but they'll know by the end of the week. As you may recall, his job search in Nasvhille has been, shall we say, less than fruitful, and this phone call did more to perk up my husband's spirits three days post-op than all the Percocet in the world.

So now it's Friday. The job is a sure thing, and as soon as J-P gets the word, he'll be on the first plane to Bangkok. (So to speak, because I'm pretty sure there are no direct flights from Nashville to Bangkok.)

It's a fantastic opportunity, and it's perfect for J-P.

But the complexion of the next month is now completely different than it was less than a week ago. I'm going to go camping with a bunch of couple friends -- solo. I'm going to have kale coming out of my ears, because our CSA provides enough to feed a family of four. I'm going to have more time to read because I won't have J-P to distract me. Maybe I'll get around to emptying the last few moving boxes. And hey, maybe I'll take a week off and go hang out in Bangkok.

So, not worse, just...different.

Mad Libs!

We're doing Mad Libs today because of my [noun], which [verb] me from [verb]ing about [noun].

So anyway, did you see today's [adjective] news out of California? I think it's pretty [adjective].

It is a/an [adjective] day for [noun]!

[interjection]!!!!!

Bounty

That would be strawberries, Red Russian kale, Siberian kale, beets, and lettuce: our first share of produce from Delvin Farms. I feel healthier already.

Monty, I'll take what's behind door #2

Let's have a little pop quiz here, shall we? The question is:

Where would you most like to spend your first wedding anniversary?

a.) In a bungalow on the beach in Mexico.
b.) At a chateau in Provence.
c.) In a cabin in the Great Smokies.
d.) At a B&B in New Orleans.
e.) In the hospital where your husband has landed for an emergency appendectomy.

[Jeopardy theme plays -- duh da duh da duh da duuuuh. duh da duh da DA da-da-da-da-da...]

Tough one, isn't it?!?

The surgery went fine and we are now back home recovering from the 36-hour hospital vortex. And the experience provided us with yet another you-know-you're-in-Tennessee-when moment when the surgeon walked in the room and I realized that his first name was Jimbob. All one word. I shit you not.

And anyway, in J-P's defense, we didn't spend the actual night of our anniversary in the hospital even though it scuttled our anniversary-celebration plans. And hey, the timing could have been worse. It could have happened at this time last year. Jesus H. Christ would THAT have sucked.

The ecstasy and the agony

Now that we live in Tennessee, we've made an effort to do things that we didn't have the opportunity to do when we were living in New York. Like Graceland, which we saw a few weeks ago. We haven't seen Dollywood or Loretta Lynn's birthplace yet, but they're on the list. And I want to go to NASCAR, but J-P is balking at that one. But, of course, the big kahuna, the grandmama of them all, is the Kentucky Derby. So when friends of a friend, who live in Louisville, invited us to bring an air mattress and crash in their living room with six perfect strangers, how could we pass up that opportunity?


We got to Churchill Downs early Saturday morning, and made our way toward the gate for the infield, the province of the unwashed masses.


Once inside, we found a nice patch of grass and set up some tarps and lawnchairs, and the sun finally made an appearance. We spent the rest of the day like so:

1. Watch race.


You can't actually SEE the track or the horses from the infield, so we're all craning to see the big-screen TV through the crowd. I'm not sure what Addison is looking at.

2. Drink mint julep.


Come to mama.

3. Check out the crazy hats.


Whoa, nelly.

4. Pick horses for next race.


I got your horse right here, his name is Paul Revere...

5. Place bets.
6. Bathroom.
7. Repeat 1-6.

Pretty good stuff. We ran even on most of our bets for the day, winning often enough and big enough to off-set our (many) losing bets. Which we were pretty happy about.

For the Big Race, AKA Race 10, AKA the race that you watch on TV, we placed a few small bets and also pooled money with the group to place one Big Bet. I'm not sure what type of bet the Big Bet was, but we picked five horses, and would win if any three of those five were the top three finishers in the race.

And... (this probably won't come as a big surprise, because why would I have described the type of bet if I was just going to tell you we'd lost) ...we WON! BIG. Like, FOUR FIGURES BIG. (Divided by 12, of course, but still, that's a lot of dough.)

So here we all are, dancing drunkenly around the infield, giddy with excitement. We picked the right horses! We called it! There was Big Brown in first, the favorite, which was certainly the smart bet. Then there was Eight Belles, the upstart filly, chosen on the strength of the scouting report and a strong feminist streak in our group; she was the first filly to race in the Derby since 1999, with a chance to be the first filly to win since 1988. And finally there was Denis of Cork, the darkhorse ridden by the jockey Calvin Borel who won the Derby with Street Sense last year.

Of course, we couldn't see anything from the infield. We just watched the races on the big screen and could only see the tops of the horses' heads for about two seconds as they ran by. Otherwise, we were in the dark as to what was happening elsewhere in Churchill Downs. But then, someone in our group got a call from his mom, who was watching at home. Had we seen it? she wanted to know.

Had we seen Eight Belles go down?

Our friend shouted us all down, told us to stop making so much noise, and relayed the details as he learned them from his mom. Eight Belles had collapsed after finishing the race. She had broken both of her legs. And she had been euthanized. Just like that. Within minutes. Just as we were celebrating our win, which we owed in no small measure to Eight Belles' stellar performance.

Well, that sure put a damper on things. Sure we were still excited, but it reminded us what a dangerous sport this is -- for the horses more than anyone. And since then, I've wrestled with it. Are we complicit in a sport that condones and even encourages the cruel treatment of these animals? Or is this just an inherent but reasonable risk, given the fact that these animals are (otherwise) treated exceptionally well, enjoy running, and are treated compassionately when injured (because euthanizing this horse was absolutely the humane thing to do)?

I don't know. But I will tell you this much. Every year come Kentucky Derby time, I will raise a mint julep in memory of the filly Eight Belles.


[I can't take credit for all of the pictures -- a few were taken by other members of our group. Also, not sure why they aren't all appearing the same size, but I guess you'll just have to deal with that.]