Life Is Scary...Let's Go Shopping!

Isn't this just the most awesome picture? I found it .here. It looks like TG and me this week as we gallivant from one thing to the next. I'm really not a social butterfly and we have a small circle of friends versus a herd of chums who spend every waking moment of leisure with one another. Which I think of as one of the many "Lesbian Behavioral Traits" and one I lump in the category of cats and sensible shoes: not for me. I don't like spending that much time with anyone except maybe myself and then she gets a little whiny and self serving and preachy and obsessive a lot of the time and you have to pointedly glare at her and say something like: "STFU, K? You're not only annoying but you are super boring, too!"

So between the necessity of a job, our surprising social events, the teenager and young adult rodeo that seems to be my household; I'm running headlong into a big project that I've invested actual real money into so I can't turn back or quit because I'm scared. And whenever I invest actual money into a dream the first thing I want to do is go shopping. Just like those precious slogan tee shirts say: "Life is scary, let's go shopping."

So I want to grab TG and go shopping like these jaunty girls swinging their hat boxes. TG isn't exactly a clothes horse (not room for two in a relationship) but she likes to go shopping and she has beautiful taste. Her bubbling enthusiasm and sense of fun is infectious, too. It's especially fun to watch her in places that play dance music because she is prone to stop what she is doing and dance. In the aisles of any given store. And when she dances, she doesn't dance like she normally does, it's a caricature of how white people dance. I have witnessed the stopping in tracks and dancing in two foreign countries, and three separate states. The Khmer stall keepers in Psar Chaa didn't think we were funny as danced to Lady Gaga in the middle of their market.

See the disapproving stare?

But usually people just give us a wane smile as they move on with their lives…quickly away from the obviously deranged dancing middle-aged women. She did induce one of the Sephora goddesses to dance with her a week or so ago. This woman was a gorgeous sixy-something and could bust a move. Sometimes, I pretend to be all eye-rolly but really I'm charmed. The funniest thing she does when she shops is pointedly keeping her hands in her pockets. The woman stops at the door of the shop and you can hear the dialogue: “Now Girl, keep your hands in your pockets so you don‘t touch anything.” I asked her about the whole pockets thing and she told me: "I have to or I'll just touch everything and I don't want to break stuff." TG has the most remarkable self-insight into her behavior. That we all had such insight…therapists would be forming bread lines because I watched her stores when she forgot her rule and she really does have to touch everything while she whispers to herself: "oOooohhhh that's nice...I like that...ohhhh I like that..." It isn't particularly dangerous if we are looking at sweaters or blouses or lawn mowers but the other day she made me really nervous in Crate and Barrel. I had to ask her to put her hands in her pockets but she didn't because she was too busy swinging the little brass watering can back and forth . I gave her a "mom stare"and then belly laughed at her as she was about to swing the damn thing into a giant wine glass with a microscopically thin stem standing in the middle row of the precarious Pyramid of Big Glasses That Would Shatter Into A Million Pieces If Dropped. In fact, I think Crate And Barrel should be renamed that: "Pretty Things That Break Easily". I feel much safer with her when we are in the Cephalon section…but it just occurred to me if we actually bought one those behemoth pans I would have to carry it so she wouldn’t be tempted to take out a display of glassware and china with one big swing of a frying pan as she sang to herself and grooved to “Rock That Body“ or Ke$ha.

Yeah, I think we need to work in a trip to the mall this week because she’s just so damn fun. And frankly, I need to dance.

Housewife Posse

She looks in the mirror and stares at the wrinkles that weren't there yesterday
And thinks of the young man that she almost married
What would he think if he saw her this way?

She picks up her apron in little girl-fashion as something comes into her mind
Slowly starts dancing rememb'ring her girlhood
And all of the boys she had waiting in line

Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev'rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me

The photograph album she takes from the closet and slowly turns the page
And carefully picks up the crumbling flower
The first one he gave her now withered with age

She closes her eyes and touches the house dress that suddenly disappears
And just for the moment she's wearing the gown
That broke all their minds back so many years

Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev'rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me

Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev'rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me

I know…I know…totally sexist. Totally. The line: “she picks up her apron in little girl-fashion” makes me shutter like Sideshow Bob when he sees Bart Simpson. But I remember hearing this song when I was a little girl and being completely entranced by this secret society of Housewives and I wanted to be a part of it when I was five. It was the ultimate girls club. I’ve more or less been in this girls club for twenty years. There is a sense of ease in this club, setting our own hours and making the household rules. But up until ten years ago it was really hard and really boring. The hardest part was the constant interruptions. I felt much like one of these damsels in distress in the picture above (It's a photo I took in San Francisco a few years ago) The marauders in the background are our children and husbands. I don’t think Ms.A and I had an uninterrupted conversation the first five years of our friendship. Much less a conversation that followed a steady stream of thought because somebody needed their butt wiped, their nose wiped or their hair patted. Oh. My. God. It’s amazing we knew as much about one another as we did. Given most of our conversations went something like:

“So E told me the curriculum is about to be decided and it looks like trees and flow--Billy, NO!!! NO!!! You and Wally may not climb up the stairs like that!” “What were we talking about?”

“Flowers? Oh, did you get the primroses or the hybrid tea roses for the garden?” “Beav, if you want a cookie ask. Ask Ms. A politely with a please and a thank you, don’t just grab”

“Did I tell you theMr. found that Bulgarian tea we like…Where’s my baby [The Prince of Darkness was his nickname at the time]? Where did little Prince of Darkness go? Billy? Have you seen your brother? …

If reading that stream-of-consciousness didn’t make your head hurt, try living it. I lived those disjointed post preschool pre cocktailnap conversations.

But now we have real conversations and speak in complete sentences. Like grown ups. The only time we are interrupted is if Kipper is barking in the background and I have to pause and tell him to simmer down or knock it off or hush. I’ve enjoyed our long conversations and our leisurely walks and coffee dates but alas, another child is on the way and we are naming her The New Career. Ms. A has a sweet new job that’s a cross between Nina in the film Office Space and the chick featured in Cake‘s “Short Skirt and Long Jacket“ song from eons ago. I’m very happy for her and she is just one of several friends who are starting careers again in their 50’s. It’s exciting and amazing to watch. But…but…but…what about me????

sigh sigh sigh


I’ve no one to have coffee with now. My Housewife Posse are all employed outside their homes from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and will be having cases of the Mondays, looking forward to Hump Day, TGIF and asking themselves if they are working hard or hardly working. And what do ya’ know? Me too! I’m going to be working consistently three weekdays with few weekends like a normal person. What the hell happened here? Posse when poof!

I guess I’m gonna have to get busy and you know…reinvent myself, too. I might as well because there isn’t anyone available for coffee next Wednesday.

Musings From The Back Porch or No, Really I'm Writing Today

This is my last day off of five, a mini vacation at home (I refuse to use that stupid computer generated word that begins with an “S”). I did manage to accomplish a few things and had some fun, too. Just this minute I’m on the porch enjoying our unseasonably cool day, reminiscent last year. I’m also contemplating ways to legally kill the squirrels that are knocking all the apples off my tree. This is the first year we’ve had apples and now most of them are ending up, green, hard, sour with the seeds picked out all over the ground. Have I mentioned how much I loathe squirrels? When we lived near a large city park, the squirrels almost outnumbered the people and they were bold and aggressive. I would cheer if I almost hit one and then when the boys were older and into a gross out stage I would act like I was going to hit them if they were in the road, just swerve a little and tap the accelerator. I’ve never actually hit one, though. Don’t worry, I’m not running up the street to Walmart for a small rifle so I can shoot the buggers. Having never shot a rifle I would probably kill the dog or a neighbor aiming for a squirrel. Wally’s a pretty good shot; he could do it for me. . .

Anyhow, the gardening is done; I’ve battled the dandelions and weird groundcover succulent looking things today. I contemplated taking a machete to the Bee Balm that is threatening to eat the front flower bed and our living room but TG likes it and so I’ll pull it out in October. I also harvested more carrots and two, TWO small golden beets. I’m waiting for TG to come home for lunch so we can have them with a salad of mixed greens and a vinaigrette I invented this morning. I’m very proud of this dressing: its balsamic vinegar, my herbs d’Provence infused olive oil, fresh pepper, garlic, a mixture of ground tarragon, chives, and oregano, topped off with a dollop of honey and yellow curry. This is an epic event because I really don’t like to cook and Kraft Mac-n-Cheese feels like a lot of damn work. My lunch was a roasted tomato drizzled with the dressing and topped with a sprinkling of Swiss cheese. Again, an epic event because the tomato didn’t come in a package or from a restaurant or as a result of The Girl. Not that I want a cookie for fixing lunch (although a cookie would be nice right now). I must confess I do like working with the fresh ingredients that come from our garden. It’s immensely satisfying to walk outside and pick things to eat. Which is why I am very excited our city has changed the zoning and is allowing people to keep chickens and pigmy goats in their backyards. Wow! Maybe someday we can have a Yard Cow and an elephant! I love elephants and fed one in Cambodia last month. Made my life complete! And when I stop foolin’ around and actually write the novel living in my head, there will be a yard cow based on a story I heard from an old friend of Ward’s.

I hadn’t even heard of a pigmy goat until we were in Texas last April. My stepmother’s brother (Step Uncle?) is a rancher in south Texas and told us during the drought people got rid of their cattle and started raising these goats. I asked him if he had become attached to any of them. He gave me a curious side long glance and quietly said: “Up until I take them to slaughter. “ Yeah, just as I suspected, he thinks they are adorable, too. Probably names them, worries after them like pets if it’s too hot or too cold or too rainy. They are cute little things, and always look at you like you’ve just said something wise which had never occurred to them and could you please elaborate on your philosophies and ideas. In other words, these little animals looked intrigued. My guess is they have an IQ lower than the average retarded dog but they still look intelligent. I’m not sure what we would do with this goat. Probably tie it up just on the other side of our fence in the green space and let it graze on the weeds. Little Goat would also eliminate the need to mow. Hopefully if the coyotes carried it off they would have the decency to eat it far far from the back fence so I wouldn’t have to clean up a carcass. Or listen to the crows as they fussed with one another over the carrion.

The coyotes are the most compelling reason why I haven’t found plans for a tiny chicken coop. Well there’s that and the dog. I have a hard enough time wrangling a wily old dog much less a clutch of chickens. But we could get those pretty little hens with the fancy feathers and free range them in our backyard. The poo would be great for the garden, too. Too bad I would be fighting the dog for the eggs and ultimately probably the chickens. So my adventure in urban animal husbandry is going to have to wait until the dog is dead.

This could be sooner rather than later because I’m going to leave him out for the aforementioned hungry coyotes if he doesn’t leave the damn trash can alone. I would like to blame his naughty behavior on the fireworks this past weekend but the fireworks are over and the behavior continues. Because I would actually miss the old goofball dog, the only other solution we came up with is just strewing the trash on the kitchen floor because that’s where it ends up anyhow. So last night before we went out for an hour or so, I put the trashcan on the back porch. TG thought she was pretty freakin’ funny when she calls downstairs to me: “Well the dog didn’t get into the trash but the squirrels did…Not really!” If I printed what I said before she alerted me to her joke, everyone’s net nanny’s would go “ping”.

But the idea of chickens has enormous appeal to me. When we heard this fortuitous news the other night, TG just looked at me and mouthed the word: “NO”. Butbutbut she is the one who in a moment of tropical fever or tequila induced insanity told me she would like to move to Mexico and raise chickens in the jungle a few miles from the coast. And then this spring we discussed the goats in everyone’s yard along I-10 in south Texas and again the idea of chickens was raised. I suppose wintering the chickens here would be an issue. I’m not too keen on the idea of leaving one of the cars outside so they can stay in the garage. The health department would look askance at us keeping them in the basement. Another dream dashed against the rocks of reality.

I suppose I’ll just buy my eggs at the store like most people. And mow the lawn. And dream of an elephant of my own.

image found here

Happiness Is

Today is one of those perfect days. The sun is out and it isn’t super hot like it has been so the dark clouds around us might yield rain, something we haven’t had in a week or so. My water bill and my vegetables will be most appreciative. Whenever I’m finished working in the yard, I always reward myself with flower arrangements. It feels completely decadent to have a house full of cut flowers. My perennial garden is amazing and we are blessed with monarch butterflies as well as honeybees. There is a working farm nearby and I wonder if they are keeping bees which would rock to find local honey. A few weeks ago, we were discussing the lovely alchemy of keeping bees and wouldn’t it be an interesting thing to do. Deadly in her case because she’s very allergic, but in theory it would be so very Zen. Handling bees you must absolutely be in the moment. I have a hard time being in the moment so tasks and jobs feel mysterious and sacred to me. Bees and butterflies are two signs of a healthy garden. I’m not sure I could stand the bliss if I had frogs, too. Poor frogs are dying off all over the world. We did see huge frogs at Angkor Wat in the reflecting pool and heard them at night and in the early morning at our hotel outside of the city.

Tending the garden, yard and flowers never fails to make me smile; even when it’s hot dry and dusty. This year’s beds aren’t as lush and varied as last year’s when we had a wet and temperate summer. But I am a little concerned about the front flower bed, everything bloomed way too early and is now dormant. I’m wrestling with setting more things out, annuals and such. I do have zinnias (the most cheerful flower, according to Oldest Friend) which will bloom in a week or so but otherwise the terraced bed looks a little woebegone and sad. Even the 4 O’Clocks are being stubborn and refusing to grow and bloom. Much to be joyful about today despite my worries.

My step-mother’s granddaughter (my--what--step-niece?) is an amazing artist and keeps a lovely blog, today she listed pictures of things that make her happy. This being a perfect day it was easy to find things that make me happy. Here are eleven (I like prime numbers) as they occurred to me.


Summer days when it’s not blazing hot, dry and windy so the back porch is “Command Central”


My flowers

The Girl is making chicken and polenta for dinner tonight and C from next door is coming over, maybe with her new beau who isn’t terribly handsome but he adores her and thinks she is the most amazing woman on the planet.

My Oil d’Provence (an infusion of my own herbs d’Provence in olive oil) was a huge success.

Tending the vegetable garden and worrying over the delicate tomato plants which were set out a little late and on a very hot day. Finding big sweet carrots, sweet peas, three habanera peppers, four cucumber blossoms and the golden beets which will be ready any day now. I’m boiling them and serving them on their greens cold with a pungent blue cheese and pine nuts. I. Can’t. Wait. I have fantasized about this beet salad for a year.

Getting to spend the whole day with TG.

Honey bees.

Butterflies.

The dog hasn’t turned over the trash can or escaped from the backyard today.

Wally let me take a picture of him.

Frogs And Snails and Puppy Dog's Tails

Twenty years ago tonight, about this time I was sitting in our stifling hot living room in a wee bungalow listening to the rain as the fifteen day record setting heat was finally broken. I also felt my contractions start as the weather changed. Our dear friend and neighbor, B, was sitting up with me. She wasn’t sleeping well, the heat coupled with a recent lay-off was insomnia making. I appreciated the company, too. I had been home waiting to have a baby for four days and I was bored even though I was relieved to be on maternity after struggling to continue working. I was a NICU/New Born nurse at the time and had to shuttle between the nursery, the mom's rooms and the labor deck. Each unit was positioned down a long long hall and the distance from the nursery and the labor deck was getting longer with each passing hour as my edematous sausage legs and I trudged the stuffy hot hallway as I checked on the babies and moms. I insisted on having the walking job: hoping the activity would stimulate labor so I could just pick up my bag and drive to the hospital down the street. My sweet patients--most of them Spanish speakers--were prone to leaping from the rocking chairs in their hospital rooms so I could sit in my “delicate” and “advanced” condition. They would cluck and carry on about how huge I was and ask me if I was delivering twins. It never failed to make me laugh despite my misery. B and I discussed my last week at work, the grace these Mexican women brought to my life with their ability to care for their caregiver. We talked about how I had been disappointed I wasn’t having a girl. How much I had wanted a girl but I had come to terms with a boy. Because a girl was going to turn 13 and suddenly hate my guts for a decade a so; a son would only hate me for a year or two. I would try to live vicariously through a daughter: pushing and prodding until she was a puking anorexic mess on a therapist’s couch. I didn't tell her how impossibly young I felt in the face of having a child because I couldn't tangibly name what it was that made me feel so terribly young and unprepared. When I look at that picture of me and Wally, he seventeen days old and me younger than my nephew is now, I am alternatively consumed with relief I am twenty years older and seized with a desire to turn back the clock and fix terrible mistakes. But what frightened me most, that night, how would I relate to a boy? I, being so innately feminine and female…what would we talk about?

I was a quick study: We talked about Bear and how much he loved Wally and about road construction, dump trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, trains and dinosaurs. Snails and puppy dog tails stuff. But it wasn't all fun and games and rubber and steel for Wally. He was a deep thinker, that one. He was about two when he had an epiphany at dinner. Wally thoughtfully and reverently intoned:

“My Dad is not a fire dog.”

A big existential moment, to separate one’s parent into the category of human from beast.




I’m not sure how successful we have been staying in the human category. I know I’ve moved back and forth between the two. Tonight I said as much when I reminisced about sitting up the night before he was born. Wally was polite and indulged me as I told him the story of that evening with B. I also told him how thankful I was I had boys even though I wasn’t sure how well I had done relating and how parenting was a really hard education into adulthood for me. We were in the car when I told him all of this. That forced intimacy of a car ride at night made it easier to talk to him about these things. That, and he was a captive audience, too and listened probably because I was giving him a ride some place. He rarely asks for a ride so I volunteered to pick him up later,too. It won’t be the first time I’ve stayed up late waiting for him. I was doing just that, twenty years ago.

"There Is Never Enough Time To Do All The Nothing You Want"

image here

“What I heard then was the melody of children at play.” Nabokov

I love summer. Lovelovelovelove Summer. I love how the sun comes up around five and it isn’t dark until nine at night. I like the sound of the cicadas. I remember the crickets and frogs from Texas, a sound rare here. The trees are lush and green; flowers are in full bloom and it is blissfully hot. Everything looks healthy and robust. I like the way wind sounds as it brushes the cottonwood leaves. It’s my favorite time of the year and yet only lasts twelve short weeks. Last summer I discovered rising early every summer day away from the hospital allowed me time to accomplish more “nothing”. Too bad this summer is the exception. Not only am I accomplishing absolutely nothing but I’m sleeping in like a teenager. I did manage to knock back the weeds, deadhead the flowers and plant a few more things after we returned from our vacation. But that was with help and only because the yard, garden and flowerbeds were in rough shape after two weeks of neglect. But suddenly, I’m seized with a complete lack of interest in doing anything other than lying in the sun on the lounge chair and reading. Mind you last summer I did this, too but only after my chores and projects were accomplished. My summer work ethic has flown far far away. I hope it’s landed and someone is putting it to good use.

I think my generation is the second generation to enjoy summer, free of gritty hard work. I grew up in the suburbs so it wasn‘t like I had to work on a farm, either. Always the suburbs, the halcyon place of comfort and ease. Especially during the summer: no school, a few chores and plenty of time to wander the wild spaces just on the other side of the fence or swim in the local pool, cruise the neighborhood on my bike, or lounge around the boat dock. The only thing I had to worry about was going to the swimming pool, getting a ride to the library, which trashy reruns was I going to watch and if I was eating dinner at my friend’s house or my house. My father’s generation worked from a young age, either odd jobs in town or on the farm. When I am sentimental about my childhood it is summer I remember. Not winter, spring or back-to-school autumns. Playing hide and seek in the Big Thicket just on the other side of our yard in SE Texas; when it was safe to let your seven year old out of your line of sight, untethered by a cell phone with GPS, barefooted no less. My child’s memory thinks we wandered miles from home but if I were to return to this place I would find it much more compact and nearby. That is, if it were there to explore. The Big Thicket is almost completely gone except for a few acres the Indians managed to hold away from the developers. That wild space in summer taught me the names of flowers and that I must be immune from poison ivy and oak because it was rampant in the piney woods. I stopped wandering around barefooted after a snake bite (in our front yard) when I was eight. But it’s still an act of God’s grace in action OF (oldest friend) and I didn’t turn over a rock and awaken a dozing rattle snake in New Mexico. Blessed be, not even a scorpion sting, only a honey bee sting. Perhaps I had my due with a venomous snake bite? I was almost a teenager when we moved back to Texas and a creek ran close to our home with a marshy bit of woods but I was too old for that and preferred just walking the neighborhood streets with a friend or two. This, and one of my good friends had a pool in her backyard Wandering the creek was for little kids. But once my incarceration at the lake began, I would wander around the fields near our land. I hated going to the lake with my parents; it was made bearable if a friend came along. My two best friends’ parents were convinced their daughters were taking advantage of my parents. Years later, I explained to one of my friends’ mom (the friend with the pool) that T didn’t eat much and it kept me from driving my mother insane. One would think, that my love affair with summer would have made weekends at the lake even sweeter. Or that a lake was way better than a swimming pool. Not so much.

There was plenty of nothing to do that first summer at the lake. For me at least. I certainly wasn’t going to build a retaining wall or help pour cement for the boat dock. Or move dirt from one pile to the other. I was way way too busy being miserable to help with the work. I think by August we had a television in the trailer. If I remember correctly it a miniscule black and white set with a terrible antenna. Maybe. We did have a radio but my father had me convinced the only station it would get was an AM Country station. What, being SO FAR from the city and all. I think I was in my thirties when I figured out he had lied to me so I wouldn’t bother touching the radio to find another more suitable station. That first summer at the lake, I read War And Peace. I was thirteen and I read Tolstoy. That’s freakin’ bored. And I wrote probably the most anachronistic historical romance ever written by a young girl. I found a copy of it when we moved to The Fabulous House In The Suburbs. I very systematically ripped the spiral notebook into tiny pieces, a time consuming task which offered up plenty of time for me to wince and throw up a little in my mouth as I read each astoundingly bad word. Dad foolishly tried to get me interested in fishing. Again. A few years before, he tried to take the family fishing. I was not having any part of it and so noisy no one was catching fish until he rigged my line and for forty years (yes, 40 not 4) I thought I had caught that fish. “Catching” the fish probably only kept me quiet for an hour or so but that’s better than nothing. So he thought maybe I was a grown up enough to enjoy down time, sitting in a boat at dawn staring at the water and a small piece of nylon string. Because, yeah, that is way way more interesting than watching a snowy version of the Match Game or reading Tolstoy at the decent hour of ll:30 in the morning. And to my credit, I tried but I stopped trying because I did have a few minutes of mature, empathetic clarity, and felt sorry for Dad because it seemed like all he did was untangle my line. Is it any wonder the second and third summer we had a lake place, my parents let me stay with my sister in Southern California for a few weeks? I’m sure their ears stopped ringing from the complaints, sighs and whining after about ten days of being blissfully teenager angst free. I never asked them what they did while I was gone that month: I probably don’t want to know.

One of the best summer’s ever was the summer of ‘82. My hours as a nurses' assistant at the hospital had been reduced and I was living with my best friend, her boyfriend and Jack. That July, BF-boyfriend and I camped our way to the Texas coast, with stops in Austin and San Antonio. BF couldn’t go; she was starting her career as a nurse that summer. It was also the summer I read Lolita with Jack. We took turns reading it out loud to each other. This came about because I had been reading Tess Of The d’Urbervilles and was so depressed by it, my three housemates took it away from me, sick of my tears and rants about the injustice of it all. I‘m not sure why Jack thought Humbert Humbert‘s fantasies of a young girl were going to make it all better. I wish I could ask him. That summer was the beginning of Jack’s untimely and premature march towards a senseless and completely preventable death. Because he is gone, the memories are a little sweeter and more precious. I’m thankful the two most painful episodes in my life happened in the summer months because I know they were made more bearable by the simplicity and generosity of the season. Besides that, the painful stuff always seemed to happen just before school started again and the new school year made everything new in one episode and the other episode just gave me courage to start a new life one autumn.

Final Thoughts On The Whole Thing

I think we have been home for almost 48 hours and I'm still unsure what day it is. The jet lag feels like the first six weeks of my sons' lives when I slept in fits and starts for no longer than two hours and to top it all off: I have very stubborn bug bites (thankfully nothing more exotic or persistant than sand fleas from the beach)so I'm a bit of an itchy sleep deprived mess. But a happy sleep deprived itchy mess because I got the best news while I was away: the candidate they originally picked for the job I wanted did not respond to their offer and after a week they decided to give it to me! w00t! With a touch of a raise, too! Our last day (Wednesday? Tuesday? wha-?) was especially celebratory.

When The Girl announced she made the executive decision we were staying in a five star hotel versus a three star guest house part of me was a little: OMG just how much is this going to cost and the other part of me was "phew! luxury after the big long bus ride!" Luxury beats economy when you are a Pretty Pretty Princess. Luxury beats economy in the third world when you have saved money for almost a year for a really big holiday. I've never stayed in such a beautiful place, either. I'm a princess but I'm cheap and the idea of going to a spa style hotel and spending four figures on a hotel and pampering treatments makes my stomach and head hurt simultaneously, I like my creature comforts but I have also become a sensible princess. But really who could resist this.

Added to these beautiful surroundings was an amazing restaurant that did everything right at $-$$. Not to mention, TG had worked her negotiating magic and had procured us some extra deals. The big down size is I'm now ruined for any other hotel experience. The only disappointing thing about this experience was the FCC was never a Foreign Correspondents Club like the one in PP. So instead of rubbing elbows with grizzled, road worn journalists, content to tip back their tumblers of scotch as they mulled over the scene they witnessed in Bangkok; tapping out stories on laptops or trading stories about coups covered back in the '80's. Nah, the only people we rubbed elbows with were other "holiday makers." The "FCC" thing was all for show. And showy it was.

Part of me feels "white" guilt over staying in luxurious places on our vacation. Yesterday morning as we made our way across town in the triple digit heat to finish buying trinkets and such for friends and family, we walked past the Angkor Children's Hospital and I peaked inside the gate and witnessed the day long wait. Women and children sitting outside in the Big Heat on concrete chairs waiting to be seen by practitioners. It's the only place in the region which offers immunizations. My source told me people travel as far as Battenbang (about 100km) to see a pediatrician. We were told the hospital receives enough vaccine to immunize 100 children a day and people come before dawn to be seen hoping to be seen. The very idea of sitting in the heat after riding on a bus all night long with a toddler and a baby exhausted me. The heat exhausted me as it was and all I was doing was messing around buying scarves and spices and had a swimming pool and a cold beer waiting for me.

It was easy for me to sit on that hotel balcony and ruminate over what could be done to help the people in the country deal with their horrendous trash problems, water problems, public health issues. Sure, they burned the paper trash but their ditches were filled with plastic products, most of which appeared to be empty beverage bottles. Thankfully they weren't burning the plastic bottles. But why haven't large waste management companies started working with the government to organize recycling services in the provinces? This would eliminate the trash filled ditches, not to mention the jobs and the materials the recycled plastic could provide. So easy for me to sit back and fix it; my ethnocentricism really started to show. It's also easy to forget this country's democracy is only fifteen years old. That last night as we checked in with security, the guard was a bit bored and it wasn't very busy so he was chatting with us. He asked us what we thought of the Khmer people, did they smile, were they helpful and friendly? We gave him a hearty yes to all his questions. I think a traveler in the US would fall over dead if a TSA agent asked such questions. Our national assumption is we are the best brightest, bravest, richest and strongest country on the planet so we don't feel like we have to work a little longer and try a little harder. It's the sort of arrogance I'm hoping I no longer suffer after this eye opening vacation.

(to add to my "guilt" I just met a young nurse from Tennessee who just spent ten days in remote villages teaching hygene and the like...yeah, I need to come back and give back)