Happy Columbus Day, Fellow Adventurers!

Did you ever wonder what it’s like celebrating Columbus Day in another country? Me either. I’m going to tell you a little story anyway.

The following is a (mostly) true conversation that The International Man of Intrigue had with his co-workers on the subject of Columbus Day. One co-worker is an American we’ll call Glenda the Good Witch. We do have a Wizard of Oz theme going on in this blog, and also Amelia Earhart and Gertrude Bell think she really is Glenda the Good Witch, just in hiding from the Wicked Witch. Why do they think this? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because Glenda the Good Witch told them so. The other co-worker is Sri Lankan and perfectly dapper, with an impeccable British accent. We’ll call him Sri Lankan James Bond, because he is also ex-military and I’m pretty sure he likes his martinis shaken, not stirred.

Anyway, on Friday, The International Man of Intrigue, Glenda the Good Witch, and Sri Lankan James Bond had the following conversation:

Glenda The Good Witch: “We have Monday off work!”

Sri Lankan James Bond: “Why?”

International Man of Intrigue: “It’s an American Holiday.”

Sri Lankan James Bond: “What holiday?”

Glenda the Good Witch: “Columbus Day.”

Sri Lankan James Bond: “But Columbus didn’t discover America.”

Glenda the Good Witch: “Don’t tell anyone or we’ll have to go to work.”

Sri Lankan James Bond: “Understood.”

International Man of Intrigue: “I plan on observing Columbus Day by rowing out to a sparsely populated island in The Maldives and claiming it for God and Country.”

I should let it be known that The International Man of Intrigue did not, in fact, take over an island in The Maldives. Instead, he took time to sit back and enjoy a day of leisure. By leisure, I mean we cleaned out closets and went through the kids toys and got rid of things they don’t use any more. I’m not sure how Glenda the Good Witch spent her day. Probably hiding out from flying ninja monkeys.

Did his plane crash? You tell me.

I just got this little partial blog post gem e-mailed to me from The International Man of Intrigue in Thailand. Do you know what happens? I don't, and since it's past everyone's bedtime on this side of the world, I'm left with a cliffhanger ending, too. Sorry about the bold--I just copied and pasted from my e-mail and Blogger won't let me undo it. Don't say I didn't warn you about the ending:

Bangkok and Sri Lanka Air

 

I saw a show a few years ago that said full planes, planes with all their seats occupied, never crash. Since then I've taken selfish gratification when I find myself sitting next to south Asia's only 7 foot tall sumo wrestler. However, today was to be the exact opposite.

 

I should have prepared myself for trouble when I asked the counter agent at Colombo's airport if the flight was packed or if I could get bumped to business class. She sad only two business seats on the Airbus 300-it's-not-a-Boeing-so who-gives-darn were booked but upgrading my economy ticket would cost more than my original ticket no matter how many zillion sky miles I have with the carrier. Well, as about 95% of the time it was worth a shot.

 

I made my way through immigration and security, grabbed an airport beef burger, and went to the gate. In this part of the world one must go through security (for at least a third time) at the actual gate and beyond the final check your boarding pass is verified by the carriers reps. I asked one last time if I could get bumped but it wasn't happening, even though the crew recognized me from my other zillion miles.

 

No big deal. They said the flight was almost empty and I shouldn't have trouble stretching out. What was that about not full flights?

 

I sat down in row 33 seat K and I had to wonder if I'd gotten on the wrong plane as ten or so other people scattered about. We were pushed back from the gate and on our way...or so I thought.

 

The plane clunkered along like my old 1979 Pontiac LeMans. And I mean clunkered. It sounded like some one was running beside the plane trying to get a luggage door closed: slam, clunk. slam, clunk. slam, clunk.

 

The noise continued as we made the turn to line up on the runway. Something's not right, I thought to myself, but I was the only person at all alarmed. Instead of announcing a delay due a wobbly wheel nut the pilot ignored it too! He actually directed our attention to the safety brief, and for the first time in two decades I paid close attention because I thought I'd be putting that info into practice as I envisioned this plane sliding off the runway and plowing into some squatter's house.

 

But the joke was on me. I bet the pilot and crew had money riding on who would freak out. We did make it off the ground, and the air was rougher then I remember it being recently, but I could have been imagining things from the safety pamphlet that was seared into my brain.

From then on the flight wasn't too bad. I finally made good use of the kick ass Bose headphones Dorothy gave me for Christmas. I broke out my laptop and did a little paperwork. I even caught a few z's...until we were on approach.

 

Now, I didn't see a little gremlin on the wing or an old lady in colonial dress, but that plane aged a lifetime while I was enjoying all my elbow room.

 

I sat above the wing and the strangest, most aerodynamically wrong sound vibrated through the cabin as the flaps maneuvered to their landing positions. Did no one else hear this? It sounded like the hydraulic fluid had leaked out over the Bay of Bengal. That couldn't be good.

 

Then a strange whining came from what I imagine was the landing gear cover. For an eternity the devil played his cover of Dave Matthews "Crash".

 

The whining stopped only when the loudest metal-on-metal collision ever recorded on a still-flying airplane caused me to almost jump out of my seat. I swear the landing gear ejected because they knew how this flight would end. And still, the flaps, THE FLAPS screamed.

 

Please, I thought, just give me some ball bearings and 10W40 and take care of it. I'll climb out there myself and oil the crap out of those things. Please!

 

Am I asleep or is everyone else? WTH?! I was surrounded by sheep, by cattle heading to slaughter. My God, what if I was surrounded by zombies?!

 

For the love of all things holy will some one show some concern?! I swore the oxygen masks would drop down as the cabin vibrations grew stronger and stronger.

 

If this is it why can't I die in business class?! Why am I going to croak back here with the weird smelling bathrooms and 30 year old trust fund hippie that hasn't showered since his dad bought him a ticket out of civilization to Lackohygieneistan? I bet the life jackets are under the seats have a personalized "Enjoy the afterlife Mr. Intrigue. Your crash will be credited to your sky miles account." I doubt my seat cushion even floats.

The Latest Diet Trend

Since we moved here, I’ve lost a lot of weight. It’s weight I gained while pregnant with Gertrude Bell and then with Arthur Dent and just hung on to. Most of you mommies can relate, right? Well, it turns out my days of wearing those pre-kid clothes in the closet aren’t so far off. Jealous? Don’t be. You can do it too. I’m thinking of turning my success into a series of sure to be bestselling books and dvd’s. Working title: The Third World Developing Nation Diet. Lucky for you, Fellow Adventurers, I’m going to let you in on the basics. Ready?

1.Cut back on dining out.

Most restaurants here don’t open until 7 or 8 pm and that includes delivery and takeout. Since The Little Explorers go to bed at 7ish, the last time we loaded the family up and went out to dinner was…oh…never.

There’s not really any fast food here, either. No mouth watering Chipotle, no controversial Chik-Fil-A, no cool In-N-Out Burger. There is McDonalds. I find it very meh, though, so there is no temptation whatsoever there. As a matter of fact, on more than one occasion The International Man of Intrigue has offered to go pick it up and I’ve said, “Nah, I’d rather cook dinner in our unairconditioned kitchen. How do tacos sound?”

Speaking of our unairconditioned kitchen, that is my next secret:

2.No evening snacking (or not much).

See, that hot kitchen does, in fact, cool down once it gets dark outside, but it’s s-c-c-aaarry! I’m not much of a fraidy cat. I actually feel quite comfortable in our house alone, except for the kitchen, and especially that kitchen after dark. The kitchen is connected to the rest of the house, but it’s really more or less a separate building. I’m sure it was open at one time. There are still a lot of spots where I can see daylight coming in and the windows really don’t keep much out. I’m not entirely sure the roof does, either. Before we knew we were infested with squirrels, squirrels, and more squirrels I’d hear scratching up on the roof, like zombies trying to get in. Then there was the first visiting squirrel—he came in through the kitchen. There are also at least four different species of ants living there. I know there are roaches and spiders too. When I slam that door between the kitchen and the rest of the house after dinner, it stays closed until morning. I’m still kind of scared of what I’ll find in the morning, but at least it’s light outside and the monsters (or ninja monkeys) have probably clocked out for the day. Even going through the dining room to get water is scary. There are these huge reddish brown ants that only come out at night. When you turn on the light, there are always one or two walking across the table. I don’t see them do it during the day. Are they vampire ants? I can’t be sure. So, every evening after dinner, I load up my arms with a pitcher of water, a clean glass, a sippy cup for Arthur Dent, and anything else I think I might need. Once I balance a beer or a Pimm’s Cup on that, there isn’t much room for snacks.

3. I work out, kind of.

If there is one thing I hate more than working out, it’s working out while Jillian Michaels tells me what to do. I don’t like her one bit, but girlfriend knows how to get results fast. I love/hate the 30 Day Shred
because I saw results almost immediately, although I had to look at Jillian Michaels to see them. Granted, yelling at Ms. Michaels from the other side of the TV probably ramps up the cardio of the workout a bit.

When I can’t be at home to shout at my television in the evening, I find other, more insane ways to burn calories. One time I strapped 30 lb Arthur Dent to my back and climbed up around 1,000 steps to the top of the ancient ruins of Sigiriyia, mostly without the assistance of handrails, because there weren’t any. Unfortunately, I didn’t think through the part where I had to climb back down 1,000 stairs with almost no handrails and a 30 lb Little Explorer strapped to my back. It all worked out in the end, but my legs were sore for days afterward.

I admit, that is not the first or last time I’ve used Arthur Dent as a workout. He helped me sweat off several inches at the ridiculously hot Taj Mahal and was more scared than I was climbing the eighty or so stairs and in and out of passages of the Bara Imambara labrynth in India. Even here at home, I often jog up and down the stairs with him more often than I’d like, but my arm muscles do look seriously fine. Too bad no one sees them since it's considered improper in this country to show one's shoulders in public, but not to show one's midriff. True (but another) story.

4.Get sick. Really sick.

I got a touch of a stomach parasite in Dhaka, but recovered easily. Then, there was that trip to Nepal…I loved Nepal. I’d go back in a heartbeat. However, I hope that intestinal parasite that came home with me has been permanently deported from the country. I was pretty close to getting an IV on the floor of an airport in Pokhara at one point. As a testament to just how sick I was, I actually was looking forward to the idea of it. My face was numb and I was giving thoughtful consideration to the idea of just laying face down on the floor of the airport in a third world country. The stream of consciousness in my head went something like, “Oh, God, I am so dehydrated that this water isn’t even helping. I wonder if there is an IV around here? That would really hit the spot. No, probably no IV, but this is a great place for altitude sickness. There has to be an oxygen tank and mask somewhere. Who could I get to give me one of those? Would they make me pass out first? I wonder if I look sick enough. The International Man of Intrigue just looked at me from the ticket desk. Yes, based on his expression I clearly look sick enough for oxygen. My face feels funny. I can’t feel my hands. I really would like some oxygen. If I put my face on the floor would it feel better? Then I wouldn’t have to sit up either. OH, GOD! I MIGHT DIE! I AM SO SICK I’M THINKING ABOUT LAYING ON A 3RD WORLD AIRPORT FLOOR, AND IT SOUNDS GOOD! Somebody just get me a freaking Diet Coke and some oxygen. Why is there no Diet Coke or oxygen in this country?”

Those 6 kilos I lost in two days? I’m not going to lie, while they were totally not worth it, I’m not about to take them back after going through that, either! Oh, and for the record, I did not put my face (or anything other than the soles of my shoes) on the airport floor.

5. My deep, dark secret.

It was bound to come out sooner or later. The fact that I’m telling you makes me a little nervous. Please, don’t hold it against me. Don’t judge me or think crazy things about me. I know where I live. I knew how it was going to be before I moved here.

I hate curry. Not Ann Curry. I actually quite enjoy her (although I gather in my 7 months abroad that she has become as controversial as Chik-fil-a. What is going on over there, you guys?!??). I’m talking about the South Asian diet staple, curry. I hate curry. There. I said it. I am so embarrassed that telling you this is making my stomach hurt. I like naan. Rice is good. Tandoori anything is delicious. I had biryani in the city that claims to make the best biryani in the world, and it was really, really good. I could drink that green chutney stuff out of the dipping dish it’s served in. But curry? Ugh. I’ve tried lamb curry and chicken curry and cashew curry and chickpea curry and fish curry and lentil curry and vegetable curry and potato curry and just about any other kind of curry you can think of. I’ll always try new things. The problem with curry is, even though I’ve tried them all, I dislike them all almost equally. I’m not going to insult this part of the world by telling you all the reasons I don’t care for it, Fellow Adventurers, I’m just going to tell you that I don’t, and that, therefore, anywhere curry is served, I only eat a polite no-thank-you helping and hold out for the next meal, which is usually breakfast.

At breakfast in South Asia, there are donuts. They know how to make some delicious donuts over here, Fellow Adventurers. That’s one little tidbit that won’t be in the dvd or diet book. Now, the real question is, do you think anyone will buy my diet book?

Homesickness and Randomness

Yes, I know, Fellow Adventurers, AWOL again. I’ve been pretty grouchy lately and it’s hard for me to write a funny blog post when the only humor I have is the biting, sarcastic kind. Nothing is really wrong, I’m just generally kind of out of sorts. Kevin is gone. I haven’t heard her since we got back from India. I miss her wakeup call. I miss America and stuff like cheese and Target and restaurants that open for dinner before 7:30 pm. I don’t need that stuff to be happy, I just kind of feel a bit nostalgic for all of that lately. I love living overseas and I will be sad when our time here ends, but I think it’s part of the human condition to miss one’s homeland. I'm pretty sure people have been doing it since the first cavemen walked over ice floes to other continents. That’s why people call their home countries the Motherland and wax poetic about it throughout human history. I totally understand why people kiss the ground when they return to the land of their birth. It doesn’t matter how rotten things were in your motherland, it’s somehow part of your soul. I think the Irish are the biggest offenders. (See Angela's Ashes or pretty much anything written by an Irish expat.) Lucky for me, I’m about 98% German. Luckier for me, part of that other 2% is Irish and is enough to give me a really cool maiden name and the ability to wax poetic with the best of them. The jury is still out on which side gave me my mad alcohol consumption skills. (See, that was pretty funny…now we’re getting somewhere.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that I haven’t been very inspired by the idea of blogging lately. I did start writing a piece about the henchmen working on our plumbing. They’re still at it, so I’ll save it until all the hijinks are over, hopefully sooner rather than later. It’s been going on for almost three weeks now, though, so it could be a while. In the mean time, how about some random weird snippets of our life that really don’t fit anywhere else?

-When we first moved here and were staying at the residence hotel, I was very worried that our kids’ large inflatable pool rings would seem like “too much” in the hotel pool. One afternoon, we saw a family give something to the pool boy to inflate. The poor kid spent the next thirty minutes blowing up an inflatable raft with his mouth. When I say inflatable raft, I don’t mean the kind you float around on, napping. I mean an actual boat. After the pool boy finished and went inside (I’m assuming to find an oxygen tank), the family climbed in and proceeded to use oars to paddle around the pool. Tiny inflatable inner tubes? Yeah, we’re good.

-Remember that time Amelia Earhart threw up just before we arrived at the Taj Mahal? I neglected to mention that she rallied and ate four plates of Chinese noodles for lunch.

-Did you know there are thousands of varieties of bananas? In the U.S., almost all the bananas we eat are Cavendish variety, and the small percentage of the rest are primarily made up of what we call plantains. In Sri Lanka, Cavendish bananas are much harder to find. While there are many different kinds of bananas eaten on the island, including red ones, most of the bananas here are the Kolikuttu. They are much smaller than Cavendish bananas, about four inches long, and about a half inch to an inch thicker than what we’re used to. They taste different, too. They’re not bad, but after growing up on Cavendish, I’m sick of the short, fat little buggars.

-Pretty much everyone in this country wears flip flops all day, every day. Case in point: Almost every road construction worker I’ve seen is wearing a hard hat and flip flops. Safety first!

-Everywhere I go in Sri Lanka, I see mothers out with their babies. The babies are usually wearing shorts or sundresses and a knitted stocking cap. Now, this is a tropical island. It’s hot here, Fellow Adventurers. The average temperature is 80 degrees, and these poor tiny things are wearing toasty warm knitted woolen caps with little pompoms on the top. I always want to pull up next to them and snatch the hats off the babies and drive away, eventually collecting a car full of little knitted stocking caps that I would send to babies in Siberia, kind of like Robin Hood for sweaty babies. Babies wearing hats on 90 degree days is such a normal thing that the other day, when we were out driving and I spotted a baby without a hat on, I screeched at The International Man of Intrigue, “LOOK! That baby’s head is uncovered!!! It’s going to catch pneumonia! Someone call Lankan Social Services or whatever they have here!” The International Man of Intrigue sighed. He’s used to me by now. For what it’s worth, he thinks the hat business is weird, too. His theory is that if babies wear hats when they’re small, they get used to being super hot, so once they grow out of the hats, the blasting tropical island heat doesn’t seem so stifling.

- The Little Explorers might be too well traveled. They enjoy playing “airport.” They’re actually quite detailed. They check bags, go through the metal detector, get a wand and do pat downs and check passports and stamp boarding passes. They are more thorough and a whole lot nicer than TSA.

I think that's all I've got for today. My driver just came to the front door, delivering beer that The International Man of Intrigue sent home. I think it's time for a cold one! Have a great weekend, Fellow Adventurers!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Back in May, my wonderful and beautiful super-smart engineer friend who we'll call Hedy Lamarr came to visit. As the first visitor to the Intrigue home in Sri Lanka, she won a rather fabulous prize: the opportunity to guest blog. I really wasn't sure Hedy Lamarr was going to accept it. The prize didn't come with an expiration date, happily, so when I found this in my inbox this morning, I was excited to share it with you. Oh, and no matter what she says, she's qualified to write. I made a couple of very minor corrections before posting this. I told you she was smart. Also, growing up, she and I had a series of English teachers who were very serious about their craft.

Warning: The following blog post was written by an engineer. Given the choice between classes where one wrote papers and classes where one solved difficult math problems, I always chose latter. Aside from my ability to correctly use the words their, there, and they’re, I’m not really qualified to write a blog. So when Dorothy asked me to guest blog, I laughed. Then I realized that she was serious and being the good friend that I am, I decided to give it a shot…

When I learned that the Intrigue family was moving to Sri Lanka, my first thought was, “Cool, I should go visit!” My second thought was, “Where exactly is Sri Lanka?” After consulting my trusty Google map, I was able to confirm that it is very, very far from Houston, TX. It is also relatively close to Singapore where another friend of mine is currently residing. A little coordination, and I had a trip to Sri Lanka and Singapore planned. A couple months and a few vaccinations later and I was on my way.

About 23 hours and a quick stop in Moscow after leaving Houston, my plane landed in Singapore. It was 6 am on Saturday morning. Since my flight to Colombo wasn’t until 17 hours later, I had made arrangements to hang out with my friend in Singapore for the day.

It was a busy day which thankfully started with a shower (24 hours on a plane and you really, really, appreciate a nice shower), and included cable cars, Merlions, shopping malls, a short nap, casinos, and of course, food. I did get stranded in a subway station when my friend jumped on a train before I could follow. Luckily he’s a good friend and came back for me.

Later that night it was on to Sri Lanka.

Day 1 started off according to schedule with some GoNuts donuts. (Did I mention that The International Man of Intrigue provided me with an hour by hour color coded schedule for my visit? I’m glad someone did some advanced planning because I sure didn’t!). They do know how to make some good donuts in Sri Lanka. A great start to my visit! Then on to the National Museum where I learned important things like Sri Lankan history and the proper proportions for a sitting Buddha. Later that day Dorothy, Amelia and I got to take a tuk-tuk to the Gangaramaya temple. Everyone should get to take a tuk-tuk at least once.

Day 2 in Sri Lanka started off with some shopping (I believe this was the “chick shopping stuff” part of the scheduled activities) and included a little fashion show for Amelia and Gertrude. They didn’t like anything I tried on that wasn’t pink. I bought the yellow skirt anyway. It’s cute when 3 and 5 year olds dress themselves, maybe not so cute when they dress you.

The next couple of days were a mini vacation in Bentota, starting with a quick stop at the sea turtle hatcheries. The baby sea turtles were cute but I couldn’t help wondering if they were anything like the box turtles we used to play with as kids, the ones that peed on you when you picked them up. Oh well, we played with the baby sea turtles anyway. (Thank goodness for wipes and hand sanitizer!) After that we headed for our hotel and spent most of the afternoon lounging around the pool overlooking the Indian Ocean. The day ended with the grownups drinking beer on the balcony. Vacation doesn’t get much better than this!

Day 5 was supposed to be a tour of one of the china factories but we were never able to get it scheduled so instead it was more shopping but this time the kiddos stayed home with dad and it was just Dorothy and me, just like old times! It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten to shop and spend money with my former roommate. Clothes shopping, china shopping, all kinds of fun! We did go and run a few errands later that afternoon with the rest of the Intrigue family at the local shopping mall. On that excursion I learned that there are three types of stores in the Columbo shopping mall: one third are DVD stores, one third are cell phone stores, and the remaining third are everything else. Really? How many cell phones and DVDs do people need? Of course DVDs are only $1-2 so I guess that helps. I thought the fact that they are all on DVD-R was a little unusual but apparently that’s just how it is in Sri Lanka! (I’m not sure you could buy a legal DVD if you wanted to.)

Day 6, my last day in Sri Lanka. It started out with rain and a leaking roof. Fortunately there were no leaks over my bed. Unfortunately there was one right over Amelia’s bed. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day at the Intrigue Compound. The highlight of the afternoon was the scooter/bike/foot races around the dining room table. (I swear I would have done better if I hadn’t been scared of breaking an arm or leg and ending up in a third world hospital.)

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and late that night my visit to the Intrigue family came to its conclusion as I headed back to the airport and on to the next leg of my journey. I had a wonderful trip and can’t wait see them again!

Bangladesh passport stamp? Check.

We just got back from a five day trip to Dhaka. For those of you who aren’t fluent in geography or political history, Dhaka is the capitol of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is almost completely surrounded by India, other than touching a tiny piece of Myanmar (Burma), and, until 1971, was part of Pakistan. It’s a third world country.

There were several high points of our trip. The first was the airport in Delhi, India. The restrooms were clean. In a third world country developing nation, most restrooms are on the shady side of filling station clean, so this was a very pleasant change. There was also a myriad of fast food and other things to eat and buy. We got McDonald's! The International Man of Intrigue had a Chicken Maharaja Mac and I had a spicy veggie burger that was delicious. The Little Explorers were content with chicken nuggets, fries, and a Sprite to share. All that, and still time to catch our flight to Dhaka.

Oh, there was one more bright spot. All the way home from the Colombo airport, I was terrified of unlocking the door and finding who-knows-what going on in our house. I pictured the squirrels building a lakeside resort in the flooded dining room. Nope! The house was dry and squirrel free. I guess they’re good at cleaning up their post-party messes, at least.

The rest of the trip? With the exception of lots of time with our friends, the Madlingers, and bringing back a cooler full of cheddar and jack cheese from the American Embassy’s commissary in Dhaka, it was no fun. Really, it was all that we expected it to be. It definitely lived up to its hype as a third world country. I’m going to need a few days to find the funny in it all, besides the part where Dhaka rhymes with caca. As you know, Fellow Adventurers, a poop joke is always funny.

Squirrel Update

Happy Earth Day. We celebrated yesterday and today by helping to release squirrels into the wild.

That’s right, apparently sealing up the attic only resulted in the squirrels coming into the main part of the house. The first was yesterday during lunch. I walked around the corner to get Arthur Dent some water and saw a squirrel in the kitchen. I squealed, it squealed. I ran, it ran. Unfortunately for it, and us, it ran through the family dining room where we were eating and there was more squealing. The little guy ran into the sitting room and disappeared. We opened the front door and tried to find it to chase it out, but it was nowhere to be found. A half hour or so later, The International Man of Intrigue found it cowering in a window gate and helped it out the front door, like a proper visitor.

Tonight during dinner, we heard a high pitched whistling sound coming from the formal dining room. It was at this point my mind flashed to the gopher in Caddy Shack. Were the squirrels out to get us? Upon further investigation, we discovered a squirrel running around the skylight area and back and forth across the rafters. We tried to encourage it to leave, but the high whistling sound continued. It was obvious the little guy was in distress for some reason. We assumed it couldn’t figure out how to leave, until The International Man of Intrigue went to the other side of the dining room for a better look and discovered another squirrel hovered in the doorway. It had either fallen or climbed down and couldn’t get back up. The International Man of Intrigue walked softly closer, speaking in a calm voice, assuring the little squirrel he was only going to open the door so it could go back outside. Too bad she wasn’t buying it. She darted across the dining room as he opened the door. Luckily, she seemed young and confused and didn’t hide, so she was quickly herded back outside.

It’s at this point I have to wonder where this whole squirrel hotel business is heading. Do they expect continental breakfast? It’s possible they only come in because Arthur Dent’s angry scream sounds exactly like a squirrel distress call. If that’s the case, I need him to figure out how to screech, “I’m fine, please go back outside.” If they’re here because they’re staying, I’d like them to pay some rent, or at least move back into the attic.

Interestingly enough, as I was researching these little guys, it turns out that some Sri Lankans keep them as pets. I think I’ll pass on that one, if I’m given a choice in the matter. Happy Earth Day to you, Fellow Adventurers. Go forth and make friends with a squirrel today.

By the way, "squirrel" is one of those words, that, after you type it a dozen or so times, suddenly looks really weird and wrong, like when you're a kid and you say a word over and over until it sounds like nonsense. I'd almost convinced myself I'd misspelled it, but it's just a weird looking word.

Our House is a Zoo

I don’t think it’s come up in conversation with you, but I am not what you'd call an “outdoorsy type.” I would rather hike through the pages of a good book than along a trail. I grew up in the country, practically the middle of nowhere, so you’d think I’d have an appreciation for the great outdoors. Nope. When my mom would force me outside, I would often take a book and sit and read on the front step, when I wasn’t convincing my little brother that it would be epic if he’d take his Big Wheel and do a Dukes of Hazard style jump off of our 6 foot tall front porch railing. Since that story has lasted well over 25 years, I’d say it was epic, indeed!

All of this hasn’t changed much as I’ve gotten older. I do have an appreciation for nature, but hiking and bird watching aren’t my thing. That being said, we have gotten to live in some amazing places when it comes to nature. Our last home was in Monterey Bay, California. We saw whales, otters, sea stars, and more in the wild. Sri Lanka is really determined to one up that. We have seen monkeys and monitor lizards in the wild. My kids have held newly hatched sea turtles. Gertrude Bell even got to take one fresh from the sand to the tank. The International Man of Intrigue and I saw a giant saltwater crocodile swimming down a river once when we were driving. It still makes my stomach turn, as I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t this guy, although I do think the one we saw was bigger.

So now we’ve established that Sri Lanka is an amazingly biodiverse ecosystem. The really interesting part is that our house is as well. Just before I sat down to type this, I was rocking Arthur Dent to sleep before his nap and I could see a parrot out in the tree. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the really interesting biodiverse ecosystem lives inside of our house. There are all kinds of bugs, including mosquitos, ants, and, most disgustingly, roaches. Once, I ran downstairs to let our gardener in to sweep the balcony. When I ran back up the stairs to our family room about forty seconds later, Arthur Dent had a tropical roach clutched in his little hand. I screamed and grabbed him, but I couldn’t bring myself to pry his fingers open and touch the roach. I shook his arm at the elbow and shrieked . The gardener looked at me like he wasn’t sure whether to offer assistance or go sweep. He finally raised one eyebrow and headed out to the patio. I’m sure he was thinking, “There’s a whole lot of crazy in this house.” Eventually, after a grueling 10 seconds or so, Arthur Dent dropped the roach and I took him to the bathroom to scrub his little hand until it was pink and germ free.

We also have little geckos that live all over the house. Arthur Dent delights in them and points and babbles every time he spots one. The rest of us enjoy them as well. I say, as long as they promise to enjoy the all-you-can-eat mosquito buffet our house offers, they are more than welcome to stay.

As I type this, the landlady’s henchmen are on the roof and the wraparound balcony trying to seal up the holes that are allowing tropical squirrels (which look a little like chipmunks) to nest in our attic and family room. Yes, adorable little tropical squirrels have taken up residence in our house. One day one was running industriously back and forth from a little hole high up the wall in our family room, along the rafters, through our bedroom and into our bathroom and presumably up to the attic. Gertrude Bell exclaimed, “Get me a ladder and I will climb up and catch it!” I sighed and hoped the thing wasn’t about to have babies in the wall. Last night after The International Man of Intrigue and I went to bed, we could hear the squirrel chirping in the attic. My big fear today is that the landlady’s henchmen have sealed up the openings to the outside without driving out our little friend. The last thing I need is a dead squirrel in the attic. I much prefer my attic squirrels alive, thank you.

The final animal I want to tell you about doesn’t live in the house. She’s my favorite, though. She’s some sort of tropical bird whose loud call is pretty distinctive. She must be semi-nocturnal, as I sometimes hear her during the night when I’m awake with Arthur Dent, and she used to wake me up every morning at the crack of dawn, rooster style. Since she has such a distinctive call, and try as I might, I’ve never seen her, I named her Kevin. The International Man of Intrigue finds my naming of Kevin alternately amusing and crazy. (Luckily, he also finds my particular brand of amusing and crazy to be irresistible.) I’m thinking of trying to catch a glimpse of Kevin by baiting her with chocolate. I’ll keep you posted.

Monsoon Dinner Theater

Who wants to go to a boring snooze fest of a dinner party and sit around and stare at the other guests, trying to make polite conversation without yawning over dessert? Not the Intrigue Family! We decided to gather up a couple of families with kids and have a casual, kid friendly afternoon and evening at our place. In that regard, we invited a couple of friends over. For the sake of anonymity, how about we call the first family George and Martha Washington, due to their Virginia/D.C. connections? (Yes, I know that D.C. wasn’t the capitol when Washington was POTUS, but it is named after him, so work with me.) The second family, we’ll call The Livingstones since they lived in Africa for a while. We also hosted a friend on leave from attending a school in Pakistan who we’ll call Ed, because…that’s not his name. With a combined half dozen kids, that rounded out the evening’s attendance.

I planned on keeping things simple, which is unusual for me. Stateside, I look at having people over for dinner as having a captive audience to try a new recipe and make a bunch of appetizers. Over here, I seem to have lost my cooking mojo, so I made pasta salad and decided to marinate and grill some chicken breasts. Since we didn’t bring our grill with us, I bought a one time use grill at Arpico Supercenter. That’s also where I did battle at the meat counter for the last of the boneless chicken breasts. Shopping over here is a lot of work, Fellow Adventurers.

Anyway, after we sat around enjoying each others’ company and some frosty adult beverages for a bit, it was time to fire up the grill. That was the first folly in our little dinner party. Once out of the package, it was apparent the thing was thinner than a single use aluminum pan. Hmm. It also included charcoal and “special igniting paper” and looked like it might hold two chicken breasts at a time. We all got a good laugh out of it as I sent The International Man of Intrigue outside to try to light it while I dodged scootering, biking, running and crawling children to get to the kitchen to fire up the oven as a Plan B. It’s a good thing there was a Plan B because the “special igniting paper” on the grill didn’t even light, let alone the charcoal. Into the oven went the chicken.

Thirty minutes later, the chicken was done and it was time to convince the house full of Little Explorers to stop moving for five seconds and at least eat a bite before running off to play again. About that time, it started raining. Good thing we went with Plan B—I don’t want to grill outside in a monsoon! Just as the grown ups started filling their plates, it happened. It started with Mrs. Livingstone and I putting chicken on our plates and saying, “Did you feel that mist coming down from the ceiling?” The next thing we knew, Mr. Livingstone and Mr. Washington had sprung into action, grabbing the “Waterfall Preparedness Kit” aka, buckets, (leftover from this crisis the other night)stacked in the corner and shoving them under the stream of water coming in from the skylight. All the gentlemen got the table and chairs out of the way and got buckets set up while we moved the Little Adventurers upstairs for movies and the grown ups into the family dining room to eat.

This was when the biggest tragedy of the evening struck: The chicken was bone dry. It tasted like sawdust with Italian seasoning on it. Ugh. Never mind that the steady stream from the roof had turned into a deluge, forcing Mr. Washington, Mr. Livingstone, The International Man of Intrigue, and Ed to empty 10 gallon buckets and 16 gallon tubs, lest they overflow and add to the lake forming on the tile floor of the formal dining room. The chicken was dry, people. Dry.

Despite that obstacle, dinner went on and soon enough it was time for dessert. The waterfall in the dining room had even turned back into a small stream. Perfect. Rich people pay big bucks for water features in their houses and we have one that everyone can enjoy over dessert. Then, just as I was brewing coffee and passing out water for tea, the power went out. Total darkness engulfed the house. Luckily, before we could even find flashlights to go out and fire up the generator, it was back on.

Once the power was on and dinner was finished, the Little Explorers all figured out that splashing in the dining room was oh, so much fun. The little Washington boy was even jealous that he didn’t have a waterfall and puddles in his dining room.

After everyone packed up and headed home to deal with their own ceiling drips, I put our Little Explorers to bed while The International Man of Intrigue finished bailing the water on the floor. While we did the dishes, we remarked that, even though it wasn’t your typical dinner party, it sure was funny.

(In all seriousness, as I post this, tornadoes are ripping through my home state of Kansas. I hope all my family and friends are safe and sound and not hosting a dinner party.)

What? You Don't Have A Waterfall In Your Dining Room?

Well, on Monday I was going to write a nice blog post about Easter Sunday here, but instead I ended up updating my Facebook status with this little gem:

“All cycling and scootering in the formal dining room has been immediately suspended due to the current water level. Wake boarding or swimming will replace normal activities until further notice.”

Yes, our house here is big. Bigger than we’ll ever have stateside. The formal dining room holds a table that seats 10, a china hutch and a sideboard and still seems empty. At one point The International Man of Intrigue and I only half jokingly debated taping off a half court basketball court and holding three on three tournaments. Friends have suggested trampolines or a trapeze. The International Man of Intrigue and a friend insisted that with its second story balcony, it was impossible to eat at the table and not imagine an old west style shootout, complete with bad guys being shot and falling over the banister. Instead of turning it into a gymnasium or movie set, we opened it up for the Little Explorers (and just maybe their parents as well) to scooter or bicycle around. Until Monday night, that is.

The reason the formal dining room is so big is that it used to be an open courtyard. It was closed in and a plexiglass skylight was added before we moved in. That skylight has been the least of our worries. We have had the landlady’s “henchmen”, as I like to call them, over here about every other week working on our roof. We had powder post beetles (or more likely, termites) and they kept replacing parts of the ceiling and roof. The whole setup over our heads is sketchy at best. There are a lot of places in the house, especially in the kitchen, where you can see right outside. I guess all those decorators who want to bring nature indoors should come and check out this idea. Our ceilings are all exposed wood beams and really gorgeous, except for the powder post beetles or termites or whatever finds them tasty this week. On the other side of the ceiling, ostensibly protecting us from the elements, is tin sheeting and a bunch of broken terra cotta shingles. That’s all. Really. It looks like this:


Sketchy, huh?

Amazingly, we haven’t had too many problems, except for Monday night. Monsoon season is starting here, and while we’ve had some heavy rains off and on in the past, we’ve had rain every night for almost a week. In the past, we’ve had some leaks, but nothing that couldn’t be mopped up and moved on with. Monday, we got this:



Mind you, that bright red bucket holds about 10 gallons and filled over the halfway mark in a few minutes! I was pulling buckets and storage bins from wherever I could think of and The International Man of Intrigue was bailing, still in his work clothes! We called Facilities emergency number and someone headed out right away. We knew there wouldn’t be much he could do after hours while it was still monsooning outside. Unfortunately when he showed up it was just a guy in a tuk tuk. Not exactly helpful. He assessed the situation and told us he’d get in touch with the landlady so her henchmen could come and fix it. Then he asked if we had any more buckets or a squeegee or anything. Ummm…noooo…that’s why we called you!

Long story short, the henchmen were up on the roof the next day doing a temporary fix that should get us through the extra long weekend—it’s Sri Lanka’s New Year. Now if only they would evict the tropical squirrel/chipmunk that has taken up residence in our family room ceiling. But that, Fellow Adventurers, may be a tale (or tail) for another day.

You Say "Tip", I Say "Bribe"

So, I realized in reading back through it that my last post (here) sounded kind of grouchy. Totally unintentional. Sorry about that. I actually really enjoyed going to the movies and thought the experience was as interesting as the movie itself.

The International Man of Intrigue and I often chuckle about what I like to call "The Synonym Game". Sri Lanka was a former British colony and English as a language got deported but never went home with The Crown, so many people speak it as a second, but very familiar language. The funny part comes in when these people, who most days are very fluent, look at you like you have nine heads if you use a word they aren't familiar with. Last week we were asking our driver about getting a ticket for traffic violations. It took him a few minutes to figure out we were talking about what he calls a "chit". If someone asks your phone number and it is, for example, 700-549-332, you have to say "seven, double zero, five four nine, double three, two." If you say "seven zero zero, five four nine, three three two", I swear to you, your phone number will not be understood. (I also swear to you that I made that number up, and if you try to call it, I don't know what will happen or who you'll talk to.)

All that is to bring me to the point of my post, the garbage service. Don't say trash, or refuse, or rubbish, or poopy diapers (poop again!) and empty Diet Coke cans and dirty tissues, or no one will understand you. The garbage in Colombo is partially privatized, but the government took it over after the end of the thirty year civil war to give soldiers something to do, and to see to it that it actually got done instead of not done, which was apparently the case. (I'm not sure how close to the truth this last sentence is, but I'm sure that if you asked seven people who would know, you'd get seven different, but similar answers. That's Sri Lanka, Fellow Adventurers.) ANYWAY, here's the crazy part about our garbage men. (And they are all men. I have seen women sweeping streets with a garbage cart, but all the people who come to actually pick our trash up from the curb are men.) They come several times a week. One of them runs ahead and rings all the bells, because no one leaves their trash ahem, garbage, on the curb. I have no idea why. After he rings the bell, someone, usually our driver, Kumar, if it's during the week, takes all the garbage to the curb and brings back the bin. If the garbage collectors help, they literally dump the contents of the bin onto the sidewalk and then pick the trash up off the sidewalk and put it on the truck.

All of this only happens because we "tip" the garbage men each month. We moved into our house in mid-February, so we didn't tip them right away, but we did give them more than the typical monthly tip to haul off our boxes. At the beginning of March, they showed up, asking for a tip more than three times the going rate from The International Man of Intrigue. When he gave them the amount that is the going rate, the foreman rubbed his belly and said, "But we're hungry." Since the dude looked like he might actually be eating for two, it was hard to be sympathetic. The International Man of Intrigue was even less likely to be sympathetic when the head garbage dude asked if we were Russian. My husband is a child of the 80's and loves the movie "Red Dawn," so you could say he didn't exactly take this as a compliment.

The kicker of all this is, after we paid them, the garbage collectors refused to come back and didn't pick up our trash for over a week. The International Man of Intrigue was ready to climb our wall and scream "WOLVERINES!" every time they passed us by. This is one of the reasons we have employees like our driver, who is five feet five inches of awesomeness. He went to straighten things out with the garbage men and when they tried to tell him that we hadn't "tipped" them this month, Kumar called BS. The guys have never missed our house again and are extra polite and carry all the trash out for me if Kumar isn't around. Of course, the first thing out of their mouths on April 1st was "Money, Madame?" which proves what I have been saying all along. If I have to pay it or you don't do your job, it's either a salary or a bribe. Since I don't get a bill and I'm just supposed to know how much to give them, and they are supposed to technically pick it up whether I pay them or not, I'm going with the latter. Anyway, it sounds so much more glamourous and fancy to tell The International Man of Intrigue over dinner that I remembered to bribe the garbage men this month.

Our first Road Trip

We just got back from our first Sri Lankan road trip, or as we call it in the Intrigue family, ADVENTURE! As anyone who has ever attempted a road trip with three small children knows, this was no small undertaking. Add on the fact that we are currently leasing a Daihatsu Terios and packing the car becomes an adventure in itself. A Terios may sound like a breakfast cereal, but it is a small SUV that seats five. On a regular day, Amelia Earhart’s booster doesn’t fit in the back and she has to settle for a lap belt-don’t judge unless you’ve lived in Sri Lanka, Judgy McJudgerton. I mean it. For one thing, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten out of third gear, for another, there are no carseat laws here, or even helmet laws that seem to be enforced, as evidenced by seeing a parent and three kids riding a motorcycle, a common sight around here. Also, don’t think it doesn’t bother me, but cars here are ungodly expensive, even used, and we just don’t have several TENS of thousands of dollars in cash waiting to be thrown away on a not so gently used 1982 minivan. So, you can sympathize or you can judge, but if you’re judging, kindly keep it to yourself.

Anyway, we piled everything in the car, tightly packing so much stuff around the Little Adventurers that they wouldn’t be able to move, much less poke each other, for at least the first 20 minutes. The International Man of Intrigue dumped a log book, the Lonely Planet guide, a handful of maps, and his old (non-talking, non-direction giving) Garmin in my lap and proclaimed me Chief Navigator. I wondered if this was the best idea, considering I had just tried to get in the wrong side of the vehicle. Darn right side steering wheel and left side driving!

It seemed like we had barely watched the gates shut behind us and turned off of our street when we were lost taking a detour. We were driving through parts of Colombo I’m not sure any westerners had ever ventured near. I’m pretty sure as people saw us they were thinking, “White people?!? There goes the neighborhood!” The problem with being lost taking a detour through Colombo was that driving here is less than boring. While there is a method to the madness, at first glance, it can seem like there are no driving laws at all. Two lanes painted on the road can mean three driving lanes. Drivers will drive on the wrong side of the street if it will get them around a car that is driving slower than they are, then come to a dead stop in front of that car to make a right turn. The powers that be will change the direction of a one way street, or make a two way into a one way seemingly on a whim. In short, it’s crazy.

The major problem with being lost taking a detour before we even got out of Colombo was that traffic got crazy. The International Man of Intrigue had a death grip on the steering wheel and I was wearing out my imaginary passenger break. I kept screaming things like, “BUS!” and “There’s a guy walking with his scissors point up!” Cars zipped around us with abandon. Motorcyclists in their standard black windbreakers we dubbed Lankans Only Jackets wove in and out of traffic. We tried to figure out where we were in a town where maps are sketchy and roads change names whenever they feel like it. We dodged busses. Busses in Sri Lanka are terrifying. Did anyone have the game Simpsons Road Rage for Playstation 2? Those busses were modeled after Sri Lankan ones, I’m sure. If you didn’t have the game, let’s just say all busses are homicidal and driven by a not entirely sober person. Red busses are the worst. Soon any form of danger had me screaming “RED BUS!” The absolute worst moment came when we found ourselves with a bus on either side of us and they were both jockeying for the position where our car happened to be located. I’m pretty sure the laws of physics state that one bus can’t occupy the space occupied by a Terios, let alone TWO FREAKING BUSSES! One bus was two inches from our right bumper and closing in. The other was two inches from our left and closing in. The International Man of Intrigue swore. I swore. I screamed. He honked. The Little Adventurers kept poking each other in the back seat, oblivious. By some miracle I in no small part contribute to the two St. Benedict Medals in the car and our guardian angels, the busses returned to their own lanes and we came out alive. I was shaking and almost started crying when it happened: an improper emotional response. Apparently I was so completely stressed that some wire crossed in my brain and instead of crying, I started laughing hysterically. I laughed and laughed. The International Man of Intrigue looked worried but he was too busy driving to do anything about it. This was around the point we figured out where we were, but things were still crazy. I screamed “That van is going to t-bone us!” as a van decided his red light was optional. The International Man of Intrigue asked, “Tebow?” as he obligingly slammed on the horn and accelerator simultaneously. I thanked him and said if we got out alive, we should all consider Tebowing for a while.

Now that we were found, we high-tailed it out of the city at a brisk 40 km per hour. That translates to about 25 miles per hour for you non-metric speaking people. Luckily, our destination was a mere 60 km away. For some reason, the laws of motion do not apply to Sri Lankan “highways”, so that meant we were about a half a day’s drive away. This gave us plenty of time to take stock of our driving injuries thus far. Turns out the International Man of Intrigue had developed a blister from gripping the wheel too hard and my leg muscles were twitching from trying to shove my feet through the floorboard. Other than that, we were fine, so we enjoyed looking around at the surroundings. A KIK Cola billboard proclaimed, “Lankan to the Last Drop” and I proclaimed, “So is her headband and matching plastic earrings.” We saw a business that advertised itself to be “Volunteer Caterers.” What the heck does that mean? They cater for free? They only cater for volunteers? They are from Tennessee? We also got to stop to take the Little Explorers potty on a fairly regular basis. Lucky for us, you can’t just pop in somewhere and use their facilities. For one thing, there’s a good chance they don’t HAVE facilities, or the ones they have aren’t “western style”. For another, they just don’t let you do that here. Luckily, we have the coolest travel potty ever made. If you have small children, you need it. Look here. As we drove, we also realized that each town seemed to specialize in selling something: ceramic tiles in one, clay pots in another, inflatable kids’ toys in another, and one seeming to specialize in Lankans Only Jackets. So that’s where they come from…

Finally, after hours of driving, we turned off of the main road toward the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. That’s when I saw the most shocking thing I’d seen all day. Two women in saris were walking along the roadside. They held leashes in their hands. The leashes were attached to PORCUPINES. I SWEAR TO YOU, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. These women were walking porcupines on a leash. Large porcupines. I still can’t get over it. And with that, I’m going to end this chapter of our trip. Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of the Intrigue family as we do exciting things like eat lunch and visit orphaned elephants.

The Rest of The Perahera Post, weeks later.

Yes, I’ve been absent for a couple of weeks, but I brought you the International Man of Intrigue, so we’re square, right?

Oh, my pictures of the Perahera? That’s what you’ve come to see? I was hoping that The International Man of Intrigue’s guest post would distract you. Hmm…well…how do I put this? Let’s just say after agonizing over the pictures, and after much soul searching, I came to grips with the fact that I’m a writer, not a photographer. I think rather than water down my blog with a bunch of crappy pictures I’ll just stick with what I do best and write for you. I really struggled with this because I feel like a good travel blog needs lots of gorgeous pictures. Really, a good travel blog, a good travel magazine, a good travel book, they all have great pictures. I don’t. Then I realized, Bill Bryson doesn’t clutter his books with lots of pictures, and people still love to read his writings. I know I’m no Bill Bryson, but I do think I’ll just go with my strength on this one. I will still include the occasional picture, it’s just not going to be a focus, or in focus for that matter.(Ba-dump-bump-ching!)

Anyway, do you still want to hear about the Perahera? It was amazing! We walked the two blocks down from the hotel. As we got closer, a carnival atmosphere filled the air. There were vendors everywhere. There was all kinds of food and some of it smelled delicious. Wooden carts filled with corn had little platforms with flames burning on them. The salesmen would roast the corn right there and hand it to you. Of course, being westerners, we didn’t eat any of it, since we had no desire to spend the next week living in the bathroom. As anyone who has done it can attest, when you move, or even travel, to a Third World Country Emerging Nation, you spend a lot of time thinking about poop, enough time to devote an entire blog post to it. Anyone interested in reading that? That’s why we don’t eat street food, even though it often looks and smells delicious. Sometimes it doesn’t look and smell delicious. I still regret not photographing the fish cupcakes we saw on one of our first days in Colombo. FISH CUPCAKES, PEOPLE. Yes, little cupcake looking things with dried fish, complete with eyeballs, on top. Eating one of those would definitely result in a blog about poop, no question.

I’m the master of distraction today, no? Blame it on the fact that my kids have interrupted me about every third word. I’m not a slow typist, so that’s pretty often. As I was saying, the Perahera was amazing. We had VIP seats on a raised platform, so everything was up close and personal with a great view and none of the elephant poop that could hamper a good time if one was sitting at street level. (Poop again, I know.) The parade started off with young men in local costumes with what I first thought were huge pythons wrapped around them. The pythons were actually whips and the young men started cracking them with such speed that they sounded like firecrackers.

Well, crud. I stopped after writing this paragraph a couple of days ago, and here I am, trying to blame it on my children and the fact that the movers came Wednesday night at 7:30 and brought our stuff and I’ve been unpacking ever since. This is officially the longest blog post ever. And by longest, I don’t mean number of words. I mean amount of time per word. The Perahera was on February 7th. It’s now February 25th. You’d think that would make the writing better, since I’ve spent about a day per sentence. I’m a good writer, but not that good. Anyway, tonight is the night. I’m finishing this blog post and this beer I’m drinking and then going to bed. Now if the International Man of Intrigue calls me over to see another picture on Facebook of a friend of his I’ve never met or some cool thing he’s done on the Playstation, I’m going to scream. I have to write this Perahera stuff and then never promise you I’ll write about something again, because it just gives me writers’ block on the subject and makes me want to write about all kinds of other cool things, like the people who work for us or the room under our stairs.

ANYWAY, the parade, which I think was actually considered a procession since it was marching a relic of Buddha from place to place, went on, with the first elephants coming by. They were completely decked out from trunk to toe. They even wore masks. Many of their gowns were intricately decorated, beaded, or embroidered. The first elephants and the ones at the very end of the procession, nearest the Buddha relic, had little lights running up and down their masks. I set Amelia Earhart to the task of counting the elephants. I figured it would be good practice for her to keep track of something while she was excited and there was lots going on, and I knew I’d immediately get distracted and forget to count so I could tell you how many elephants marched in the procession.

There were lots of other amazing sights. Kandyan Drummers dressed up in their intricately beaded red and white costumes, Buddhist monks, some not much older than the Little Explorers, marching two by two, and my favorite, Cane Dancers. I searched the internet to try to link to a video, but I couldn’t find anything. I had seen these dancers when I watched from the breezeway at our hotel. From that vantage point, I was impressed by the rapidly spinning and spiraling groups circles of dancers, weaving in and out of one another. From the ground, it was an entirely different story. It turns out that these male dancers, who were in two concentric circles, with one guy in the center of the smaller circle, were all connected and interconnected to one another with bendable pieces of cane. The guy in the very center of both circles seemed to be holding the ends to all the pieces. They all walked along in formation until it was time to perform. Then, the guy in the center dropped to the ground and began spinning. All the other dancers in the two concentric circles began twirling and weaving in and out of one another at a dizzying speed. It was like the most insane Maypole dance ever, but the guy in the middle was the Maypole. I couldn’t believe it!

The Perahera went on for hours. The Little Explorers enjoyed it, but we could sense it was getting dangerously close to a melting point. One spilled water, one miscounted elephant, and this was over for us. We rounded up the kids and got ready to make our way back to the hotel. There was only one problem. The procession went down to a certain point, turned around and came back down the same street. Right now the beginning of the parade was just making its way to the point where we were sitting. It was double parade right down the street we needed to walk up. We did what we had to and walked two blocks in the *opposite* direction of the hotel, dodging elephant poop and people who wanted to touch Gertrude Bell’s blonde hair. When we turned off of the main parade route to double back, there were plenty of tuk-tuks waiting to rip off tourists. Normally, we wouldn’t consider letting the kids ride in the three wheeled, open sided cabs, but it was late, we were as exhausted as the Little Explorers, Gertrude Bell was going to have a meltdown if one more person touched her, and there wasn’t much traffic. Lucky for us, we didn’t show up in Sri Lanka yesterday (more like a month ago), so when the first driver tried to charge us triple what a fare should have been, we laughed and kept walking. We’re the Intrigue family. We know better. Sure enough, ten steps later, there was another driver who was willing to take us for a decent price. We all squished in the back seat and held on to the kids as tightly as possible. The girls decided it was almost as much fun as a ride at Disneyland, rushing down the back streets of Colombo toward our hotel. The full moon was bright and the breeze helped cool us all down.

So, there you have it. The Perahera. I am sure we’ll do many more exciting things during our year here, but I think I’ll always look back on the Perahera as a big deal. Walking through the crowds, experiencing the sights and sounds, that was what I really imagined it would be like to live here.

And, on that note, it’s way past my bedtime, and I’m out of beer. But, hey, I finished this post, right?! Oh, and Amelia Earhart counted sixty elephants. That's a lot of elephants for one parade!

Grocery Shopping

I feel as though I’ve been remiss in not describing Sri Lanka in better detail. I had these delusions that I would go out with the good camera and take lots of pictures and show you. Then I remembered I have three kids, one of whom is generally strapped to my back and two who are holding my hands every time I go out, and I realized it’s probably not going to get crossed off my to-do list any time soon. How about I use the old method where I use some descriptive words and you use your imagination? As a reward, I’ll post a few pictures of food and things from our apartment at the end.

The first day we were here, we walked to a grocery store adjacent to our hotel. As we approached, the door opened seemingly automatically. In actuality, it was an old man in a flowing white outfit ushering us inside. Wal-Mart greeters be warned, this guy is gunning for your job, and he will be awesome at it.

My initial impression was that the store was dirty, crowded, and small. I sucked in my breath. I knew from co-workers that this was a good store to frequent. How was I going to make it through a year? The produce section looked like a slightly shady booth at a farmers’ market. There were wide open bins of grains like rice. There were fruits and vegetables I recognized, like apples, green beans, and bananas, and lots I couldn’t place, despite the fact that at one point in my life I watched the Food Network almost exclusively.

Past the produce were narrow aisles packed with things I couldn’t always identify. There was a large section of spices, some in little containers, but mostly in bags. Brightly colored cellophane bags of ramen noodles filled much of one aisle. The cookie aisle was called the “biscuit” aisle due to the British influence. The only thing I recognized was, blessedly, the soda aisle. There it was, not exactly the same, but enough to make me comfortable: The Coke Light. For 95 Sri Lankan rupees (rs.), approximately 85 cents, I could have a 500ml bottle of Coke Light.

I was confused when I looked at the freezer section. Down the center was the low kind of open freezer open on top, and it was almost completely filled with various kinds of chicken sausages. Really? Just chicken sausages? Yes. Turns out Sri Lankans love chicken sausage. Without speculating too much, I’d say it’s because they really don’t eat much pork here. The population is primarily Buddhist, followed by Hindu and Muslim. None of those folks really eat pig, which is dandy with me.

The one thing that still has me a bit frustrated is that there is almost no frozen or refrigerated food here. Nothing prepackaged. You can’t just pick up a frozen pizza or a pack of deli turkey. I really like to have frozen veggies on hand for dinner, but they really don’t have that here, either. Turns out when you live in a developing nation, electricity isn’t always reliable. So far in Colombo, we haven’t had problems with the power, but local grocers sometimes turn off their freezers and refrigerators at night to save money. Luckily, you can tell so you don’t shop there by looking for ice buildup on the frozen food. Unluckily, that means no shortcuts for me. If you want it, you’re making it from scratch.

Dairy is interesting. We buy our milk in the UHT boxes. Try getting your kids to drink that. I’ll admit to taking a bite of Cheerios and milk that Gertrude Bell walked away from. I didn’t exactly gag, but I did wash that bite down with a swig of Coke Light and a grimace. Fresh milk goes bad quickly, and cheese costs an amazing amount. Think $7 for a brick of cream cheese or $9 for a package of shredded cheese. Once we’re in our house I’ll definitely have to rethink my “normal” rotation of recipes.

We have found a few things we enjoy. Milo is delicious, and thankfully, even though it may contain a lot of sugar, it does claim to be low on the glycemic index. Whatever. It gets my kids to drink milk. We’ve enjoyed trying lots of different kinds of chips, called “crisps” here. Some have been better than others. One was called “Jays” and looked exactly like a Lays bag, but not. The International Man of Intrigue and I found an instant soup made by Knorr that we like. The best part was that it came in a three pack with a free bowl.

When I look back on that first trip, I think the only things we bought were Coke Lights and a couple of packages of biscuits. In the time since then, I’ve been to that store and another grocery chain many times. It doesn’t seem dirty to me any more. Maybe it’s because everything here is a little dusty. I’ve found things I like and tried new things that I didn’t care for. I’m a bit anxious to see how we’re going to manage to eat healthily this year and still have food we’re comfortable with. I’m all for trying local foods and really want to immerse myself in life here, but I do not have any desire to eat curry three meals a day, seven days a week. I have a feeling it’s a good thing we brought a year’s supply of peanut butter with us.

Gertrude Bell and Amelia Earhart drinking Milo.

Jay's- Betcha Can't Eat Just One!

Coke Light. Mmmm.

Not Pringles. Mister Potato.

Not Pringles quality control, either.

Our new fancy soup bowls. Hope the kids don't break 'em.

Bonus photo: Hotel water, because you can't drink the water in this country.

Oh, and I have no idea about the spacing on this post, and I'm too frazzled today to figure it out. So, if you don't like it, feel free to offer your layout and design services, or keep it to yourself. Also, I know my pictures aren't super blog perfect and worthy of Pinterest or something, but you'll have to wait until I'm done raising kids before I become an expert photographer.

Carnegie Hall

“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” –Al Gore

How do you get to Sri Lanka? Practice, practice, practice! What? That’s Carnegie Hall? Well, I think it might actually be easier to get the five of us to Carnegie Hall than it was to get us to Colombo. (Colombo is Sri Lanka’s capital. It always made me think of the TV detective, until the International Man of Intrigue pointed out that the show was actually “Columbo,” and now it just makes me think that he ruined it for me.) Our entire trip, door to door, was about 36 hours, if my math is anywhere near correct. Math is not my strong suit, so give or take 12 hours on my calculations. Even though I’m sure you’d just love to read every word of a blow by blow account of our trip, I’ll hit the highlights.

We lived a 5 minute car ride away from our small airport. Cinch, right? Nope. Getting 14 suitcases, 6 carry-ons and 5 people there proved to be a major hurdle. Seems no cab company had a mini van available at 4 a.m. Fine. We’re the Intrigue family, we can deal. So, one poor cab driver got to make three trips to get all of us and all of our crap there.

I know some of you are immediately annoyed at reading the amount of luggage we were taking. Not as annoyed as I was. Oh, and not as annoyed as the people standing in line behind us, trust me. The International Man of Intrigue and I fancy ourselves travelers. In college, we traveled Europe for weeks with only a backpack and a tomato box. (What? You use luggage? Well, obviously you’ve missed travel enlightenment if you aren’t using a tomato box. True.) Here’s the thing I had to get over: We weren’t traveling. We were moving. We have children. Small ones. We needed a pack and play, diapers, tons of baby food (because it can’t be ordered through the mail), and lots of OTC medicine. We also had Christmas and Gertrude Bell’s birthday to celebrate after our household got packed up and before we left the U.S., and Amelia Earhart’s and Arthur Dent’s birthdays to celebrate shortly after our arrival. Oh, and we had to pack a box containing 2 high back boosters and one convertible car seat (which will come back to haunt us later in the story). So, we had a boatload of stuff. It was still one less bag than we were authorized, so maybe I should have packed more shoes…

Well, I just got all defensive, and no one has even made any snarky comments or anything. Sorry. Moving on…

Can I tell you, while LAX is the scourge of the Devil, Cathay Pacific Airline is awesome?! Immediately upon boarding, our girls were given Disney themed activity kits and we were handed a diaper kit for Arthur Dent, which even contained sample sizes of Mustela baby goodies. I’m a sucker for free sample sized toilitries, so Cathay had me right there. They also had a pre-installed infant seat for Arthur Dent, as promised, and their flight attendants were so in love with the kid, I thought the biggest problem might be that they’d have to say goodbye to him in Hong Kong.

It’s at this point I have to wonder how people like the Pilgrims crossed the ocean on ships with no in-flight on-demand movie and game system. That thing was a lifesaver. Amelia Earhart got to watch Alice in Wonderland twice in a row. Gertrude Bell enjoyed playing an episode of Handy Manny on repeat because there was a baby in it. (She’s almost as big a sucker for babies as those Cathay Pacific flight attendants.) I got to watch THREE WHOLE MOVIES! And, since they were my choice, I could pause them every five minutes to take one of the little explorers to the lavatory! I watched “Our Idiot Brother” (HILARIOUS!), “The Help” (predictable but endearing), and “The King’s Speech” (totally get the Oscar hype).

And then we got to Hong Kong. Late. And discovered that the infant seat we had been repeatedly promised and had gotten on the first leg of our trip was unavailable for and incompatible with the plane we were riding on from Hong Kong to Bangkok and Bangkok to Colombo. Talk about two grouchy parents. For the next 7 hours, we were going to have to hold Arthur Dent. The folks at Cathay were very apologetic, even offering to get our gate-checked carseat out of the plane in Bangkok. Unfortunately, it wasn’t gate checked, it was under 17 layers of packing tape in a moving box with who knows what else we shoved in there, since they had assured us during no less than five phone conversations that we would have their handy-dandy infant seat. So, we sucked it up and made it through the next 7 hours and arrived in Colombo sometime in the middle of the night.

Arriving in Colombo in the middle of the night after a 36 hour trip is kind of like partying at a club all night and then having the lights come up after last call. You’re left squinting and wondering how bad your hangover is going to be the next morning. Two weeks later, and I’m still wondering. I’m going to take some asprin and a Diet Coke and get back to you.

In Other News

I don’t want my (hopefully) loyal readers to think I’m going to post every day. I don’t want you to get tired of me! I do have to share this, though. I’ve been laughing about it for a full day. This little tidbit appeared in the Colombo Sunday Observer yesterday. It was hidden a few paragraphs down in an article about cobblers (who, in Sri Lanka, are street vendors that spread out a blanket on the sidewalk and fix shoes and bags).

Legend has it that shoes of soldiers in the American Army were repaired by the elders of an American tribe, called “Cobblers”. The tribe “Cobblers” was living in the Southern part of America during the early part of the 19th century. They killed animals for their livelihood. The hard skin, they removed from animals was used to produce clothes and slippers. A platoon of the American army during their routine in this tribal village had spotted old men mending clothes out of hard skin of animals. The legend further says that cobblers thereafter gradually practiced the 200 year old art of mending shoes and had done a tremendous service to people by repairing shoes, leather belts, bags and hats.

Now, I am no history major, but the International Man of Intrigue is, and he concurs with my assessment that, if his memory serves him correctly, this is a load of made up craziness. Honestly, the paper here has something laughter inducing every day. I’m going to miss it when we move out of our hotel into a house and it’s not waiting tucked in the doorknob every morning. The story does bring up the deeper theme of perceptions of America and Americans, but I’ll save that for another blog post (or twenty).