If the nuts wanna go

One cannot start a rumor if there is no one to tell it too.  City power is unavailable today.  Why?  I heard the Taliban blew up a transformer.  Where did you hear this?  I didn’t hear this, I made it up.  Why don’t you ask one of your Afghani colleagues?  I did ask and no answer comes.  Either you know or you don’t know or it’s none of your business.

My left knee is not cooperating in today’s yoga sitting meals.  I had a terrible sleep, the heat and the mosquitos did me in.  I need to take a nap before my five pm class.  

A student told me the heat wouldn’t subside until after Eid.   And it is hotter to wear the local garb in stuffy hot enclosures than shorts and t-shirt but I don’t want to offend, I see propriety during the meals and men who don’t see other men’s hairy legs. 

It’s nice to reconnect, all the memories good and bad return and the wonderful gift of hindsight is there to make sense of it all and correct when necessary, my own misunderstandings.  Ten years ago I was in transition overdrive.  Shall we recap quickly here?  From July 2004-August 2005

I Ieft Al-Ain in July 2014, flew to Michigan rented a trailer and drove to Seattle where I lived until I left in February for a job in Huizhou which I left in June and returned to Michigan where I stayed until I returned once again to Al-Ain in August, 2005.  Whew. 

Huizhou was a last minute and slightly ill-timed leap out of the US in the beginning of 2005.  One regret at leaving was having to do so on the day of a Steve Earle concert on 1^st Ave on my birthday.  My tickets sold in seconds on Craigslist.  This could be called an inauspicious coincidence, right?

http://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/en/welcome-home-innocenzo-x/

So I’ve been doing a little research.  October 31, 2017.  I’d like to be in Wittenberg Germany for the day.  Have I ever booked a room that far in advance?  I know if I don’t book something now it will be gone, how soon, I don’t know.

8.24.15

I was right. Generally speaking.  The Taliban destroyed electrical lines to the city.  A student told me this morning Kandahar is without power.  Sons of bitches they are.  The heat makes me drowsy and I got two more classes today. 

Is there anything you could do in case, ya know, the building was stormed?  If the bad guys did that there is a safe room, my toilet.  The door is thick heavy metal and nothing they’d be carrying could penetrate it.  The window above the squat toilet also has a heavy metal door that closes one in pretty good.

And if you got a call to evacuate in twenty minutes what would you take?  Twenty minutes to put into a day pack your most important junk.  That my friend, is the ultimate purge.  Let’s put on Who’s Next and come up with a list.

passport, diplomas, external HD, laptop, Mister Leica, the three new underwears, two shirts, the hat, the trekking pants, the new shoes or the Merril sandals, wait a second….one book, no, two books.  I have these orange handled scissors, made in Denmark, that I’ve had for almost 25 years, if I take them, security at the airport will take them because I’ve got only a carry on, and if I leave them and discover I’m not coming back….bummer man, ebony Buddha, money, all ID’s, going through the medicine will take a minute here, one of each is all,  what about the bag of pistachios, you don’t know when or what you’ll eat next.  The junk lastly packed are the first items to leave behind.  If the nuts wanna go…travel adapter, the three bags of cords and plugs for the laptop, camera and oh yes, the smartphone.  Should that be a priority?  It should and you’re just thinking of it now. 

And yes, I was reunited with ol blue today.  A fella from Kabul delivered it to me personally and I am grateful.  The new visa is a six month deal with multiple entry.  That is always good, really.