What Time?

When it comes to planning there are two kinds of people: The "What-timers" and the "Wheneverists." At some point I migrated from the former to the latter group. This realization came when I analyzed my annoyance with the repetition of the question, "What time?" Most often, my answer is simply, "I don't know yet," or maybe a guess, "...around this time-ish." Most of the time I'm good with that. I have to be.

True, there are times when time is vitally important. Like, for example, when trying to squeeze in one more beer at Irish Village in the Dubai airport before your flight to Kuwait, or when dealing with Americans. We Americans have got to know what time. It's the knee-jerk response to any invitation. In Kuwait, and in many other countries I suspect, time is as inconsequential as the weather. It comes, it goes, it doesn't matter what you have planned.

Take this spring/summer for example: My flight leaves Kuwait on April 24th at 8:15am. Doug does not have his ticket yet. We are planning to be in Beaumont, TX on June 6th and in St. Cloud, MN on June 13th. Everything before, after, and in between is a big question mark. Along with all the other details in life.

Where are we going to live? In either a house, condo or apartment; somewhere in Chandler, or Mesa, or Gilbert, AZ.
When will we get there? Sometime in July, mid-August at the latest. School starts sometime in August and we should be there for that.
When are you going here?
When are you going to make it there?
When will you stay with us?
When will you see them?

The answer is: I don't know. Even if I did know, it would probably change before the actual when actually happens. I know it's hard for all you What-timers, but try to relax... not knowing is fun. Not needing to know is even more fun.

Becoming a Wheneverist is sort of like becoming a nudist; only less embarrassing for your friends and neighbors. Sure, you may need to carry a towel to sit on and have your cats declawed, and, sure, you might irritate less liberated individuals, but you don't give a damn. Cares to the wind, quite literally.

In truth, I'm just guessing - I've never tried nudism, but Wheneverism is quite nice.

That's yoga, Baby. Flexibility of the mind.

Screwtape Bird's Nest

It’s spring in Kuwait. Well, according to the calendar, it’s spring everywhere, but it’s been spring in Kuwait for a while – despite the occasional emails from home with news of the latest snowstorm.

The birds and bees in Kuwait are ignorant of snow falling on other continents. How could such knowledge possibly affect them, and, really, should they care? The birds of Kuwait are busy doing what they do best; nesting.

As I walked from the parking lot to my office building the other day I saw a modest brown sparrow bobbing between car tires, carrying a single, dried palm blade in her beak. The clack of my shoes sent her into the air, fleeing in awkward busts with the narrow leaf tagging along. Life, for this bird, is not unrelenting text messages, guiltily avoided gym sessions and financial worries; it is a simple mission, repeated year after year.

A few days later, driving to work, I saw another bird gathering materials to build a better nest as I slowed to roll over a set of speed bumps. She bounced and pecked, gathering the ribbon remains of a cassette tape before flying over the hood of my car. The tape flickered like a string from an Autobot’s kite.

I imagined speckled bird eggs hatched onto a bed of cassette tape ribbon and other bits of modern waste. Paper napkins might make a nice nest lining and the recycled-paper-brown type would be nature-camouflaged. Cigarette butts could act as lightweight filler for mud dauber’s adobe nests. Innovative and avant garde architects hype the genius of building with “found materials.” Perhaps a little bird told them where to look.

Bothered hippies see the downfall of the planet in a cassette ribbon bird’s nest, but I think they’re missing the lesson here. Take the human example of computers: sure, they may very well lead downfall of humanity, but imagine of all the other possible uses for such equipment, post apocalypse.

Cannibalized laptops could provide keyboard lettering for store names or residences. People would either fight over the A’s E’s and R’s or get creative combining the leftovers of X’s, Q’s, V’s and J’s. I see bicycle paths of flat screen monitors and stairs made of CPU's. Pagers will still be useless, but the nice artist-type woman living in the water bottle house next door might make a hobby of decorating them as Christmas tree ornaments.

The little bird with the cassette tape ribbon reminded me of a stand-up routine by the late George Carlin when he claimed, with all effing certainty, that "the earth will be fine."

"The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...a**hole."

3 Hours in Istanbul

I've got three hours. Tell me your life story. How well could you know a person in three hours? I can usually tell if I'm going to like a person in about three minutes, but I still learn new things about my husband after ten years of marriage. For better or worse, in the rain and after an exhausting girl-trip to Europe, I had a three hour window into Istanbul, Turkey and I took the chance.

Not one for planning ahead, I texted a few friends who had recently visited the city, asking for their recommendations as I waited in line at the visa desk. My coveted blue passport was all the credentials needed for entry into the country. Yusra, my traveling partner with the ugly green passport, was not trusted outside the confines of Istanbul International Airport: A dirty terrorist whose civilization once ruled the world with technology so advanced for its time they were thought to be aliens from another galaxy. Today, their hand-written official documents denote a fall from grace and long, boring stays in airport cafes while their friends go exploring. I did let her borrow my new Neil Gaiman book.

$20 and a what looked like a 1994 postage stamp in my passport and I was on my way to The Blue Mosque... as soon as I figure out how to get there. The only map I could find at the airport was an Istanbul shopping guide with all the luxury brand outlets marked with color coded circles. No good. Where's a Metro map? The lone white-girl tourist turning an over-sized map clockwise in 90 degree increments at the arrivals area must have been a sight for sore tour company eyes.

"You looking.... for what?"

"The Blue Mosque." Question marked face in response. "In English we say Blue Mosque."

"Come, come. My friend, he have shuttle bus. Free for you. Come."

It wasn't a shuttle bus and it wasn't free, but it was a guaranteed taxi ride to the touristic center of town, Sultan Ahmet, and the Blue Mosque. The taxi driver, Mustafa, was born and raised in Istanbul. Fighting through a formidable language barrier, he pointed out the significant landmarks on our twenty-minute drive to Sultan Ahmet; the protective wall that still stands around the city, the fish market and the "other side" of the city where I should never visit. Mustafa dropped me off in the parking lot between Istanbul's two most famous mosques.

"Eight-o'clock. Here. Taxi to airport." I put the receipt for my prepaid return ride in the left breast pocket of my jacket and pulled up my hood. I had forgotten my trusty green floral umbrella in Yusra's backpack... secure at the airport.

As a gray dusk settled around the mosque I stepped carefully along the wet marble stones made slick from the wear of so many feet visiting this spot before my trusty Converse ever left their box - before the poor parents of the poor kids who made my Converse were even born. It was prayer time and I stood outside the courtyard, eating a banana and watching men of all ages roll up their sleeves and pant legs in the damp cold to wash before entering through the ancient doors.
"Bon appetit." A man in a rain coat with an umbrella called from behind me. "Where are your friends? Don't you remember me, from yesterday?"

"No. Not me. Sorry." The hecklers had noticed I was alone. It was time to move on. A building built before rain gutters has no concern for protecting visitors from water balloon sized rain bombs as they pass through arches and doorways. I was getting soaked and it was now too dark for sight seeing. Time for one last beer before Kuwait.

"Hello. Do you speak English? Can I talk to you for a while?" Another man with an umbrella followed me across the street. "I just want to practice talking English. I not selling anything."

"Find another tourist," I said without eye contact.

Walking up the hill from the Blue Mosque was a veritable buffet of foreigner delights: restaurants with their pictured menus displayed in lighted cases facing the sidewalk, hand-made jewelery shops selling earrings and barrettes, falafel stands and rug stores. Everyone wanted to know where I was from and if I would like to take an authentic Turkish souvenir back there. I was not afraid or offended at their forwardness; it was their job to hassle me and it was my job to ignore them or coyly decline.

In a quiet corner a man sat under a work light, cutting pieces of metal into the beautiful jewelery pieces on display. He looked contently busy, unconcerned with the passing of a red-haired American. I took a step closer to some sparkly green and red drop earrings.

"There are more inside," he said without looking up. He kept his head down, but smiled as I pushed back my hood and stuffed my gloves in a jacket pocket. I bought several pairs and he agreed to let me take his picture. Nice old man.

A few blocks farther and I found a shop selling glass lamps like the ones I'd been searching for, without success, at Kuwait's Friday Market. The owner of the store was a young Turkish man who spoke Turkish, English, Spanish and Portuguese. He offered me green baklava covered in clear sugar syrup as we tested the light from different lamps.

"How old are you?" He wanted to know after I told him how many years I'd been married. He was several years younger and looked visibly disappointed with both discoveries. Regaining his graciousness after giving me a long hard look, he offered me an apple tea and his thoughts on bearing children. I paid for my two lamps with a combination of US dollars, Euros and Turkish liras and waited while he ran to a neighboring shop for change.

Also waiting under his glass lamps was a girl, about my age, who had just moved to Istanbul from Rio de Janeiro to write for the Star Tribune. We talked about working in journalism and living abroad and my plan to fly helicopters. For a second I thought of inviting her to join me for dinner and a brew, but changed my mind. I get tired of telling my life story in abbreviated Q&A and thirty minutes of saying nothing sounded nice.

The rain had softened. Rug vendors and jewelery makers were packing up their genuine authentic Turkish wares as I retreated towards The Blue Mosque. A few called to "come look," but their pleas lacked enthusiasm. They passed their verbal torch to the restaurant hecklers and the relay to win foreigner's business got a second wind. I chose a nearly empty restaurant with with pictures of beer bottles I didn't recognize.

The dinner was good. The beer was better and it was time to go. Down the hill, across the street to the parking lot between the city's two most famous mosques; I searched for my return ride receipt from the left breast pocket of my jacket. A taxi's headlights blinked at me and I smiled at a familiar face.

"Hello Mustafa." I tossed my backpack and lamps in the backseat. "Do you mind if I sit in the front?"