Gender Confusion

I enjoy my walks. Now that the dry season is sort of here, there’s a lot less humidity and it’s not the sweat-inducing trek it was previously. There’s sweat involved, but it’s not too bad.

It’s also not the only minor annoyance. I’ve become pretty familiar to most people along the walk. Some of them, I think, take a little joy in the fact that I speak and understand no Indonesian.

There’s one guy who, without fail, asks if I want a motorcycle taxi – an “oh-jet” – and I always smile and shake my head. He tends to laugh and then shout the same thing at me as I continue to walk. I’ve no idea what he says, but it brings a hearty laugh to the other guys sitting with him.

It’s all harmless, but sometimes it can be annoying. I met some children the other day and after the routine “My name is” and “How are you?” they started chanting “money, money!”

Again, though, it’s harmless. I never break stride, and there’s always more people in sight.

On my errand walks – when people don’t know me – I’m starting to he hassled for money, but it’s not like in Morocco where kids chase you and chant “un dirham! Un dirham!” Or “Une stillo!”

No, I don’t remember if it’s “un” or “une.” Darn gender-oriented nouns.

That’s not my only gender-oriented issue these days, either. Seriously, on any given walk, I am “Meester,” “Meessus” and “Meece."

It does get confusing. I mean, granted, I am taller than about 90 percent of the population, but I am clearly not a “Meester.” Except, I guess, to people who are as knowledgeable about their English pronouns as I am with the darn French ones.

Today’s a day off, and I had to go to immigration this morning. I thought this would totally complete the process but I still don’t have my passport back so I guess it’s not done.

The visit was, shall we say, overwhelming. My God, there were people everywhere in this building. Nothing in English whatsoever, which I thought was a little odd because a good chunk of people in there are English speakers who haven’t a clue as to where to g or what to do.

I had a name of a guy I was supposed to me, and I was thinking it’d be like the Singapore run, where I walked into a hotel lobby with eight people and I could pick out the one I needed. (There, to be honest, Mustaza was my second choice, but I did find him.)

This time, there were just so many people it was insane. I couldn’t tell who was there working, who was getting paperwork done and who were the go-between people who were basically doing the legwork.

That’s the kind of person I was looking for. After showing a helpful employee my note, he shuffled me to the third floor, where another guy took a look at my paper and pointed me to a guy sitting in the crowd.

“Globe” meant nothing to him, so I showed him the paper and he promptly called the guy listed, told me to sit down and a few minutes later, another person appeared and asked me if I was “Jakarta Globe.”

Happily, I was, and he took me back down a floor, told me to wait in the corner, where there were fewer people and then he delved into the crowd.

A little while later – I’d brought my MP3 player and was listening to something – he appeared again and told me to stand in something between a line and throng. When some doors opened, he indicated I was to move on through with another group of people, who were very clearly either as WASPY as I was or very much sub-Saharan African.

We waited around again in the mug shot and fingerprinting room to get our info taken for whatever step is next in the whole process.

It very much reminded me of PC, when you have the staff there doing all this stuff on your behalf and you very clearly have no knowledge of what is happening. I remember in Ras Lma thinking I could very be being sold into slavery and I’d have no clue. Today, it was quite the same.

But quite entertaining, once you got over the stifling heat.

The throng is by no means limited to English-speaking (and mostly Australian) WASPS. There were tons of Indonesians there, I guess either renewing their passports or seeking visas or something, and they were also being herded into small groups to get their pictures and fingerprints taken.

It seemed each group had a designated mug shot/fingerprint taker, and the “clearly not Indonesian” photographer was right next to the unfortunate soul who drew “kiddie photographer” for the day.

This poor man spent about a full five minutes trying to take the photo of a boy who was maybe 10 or 11 and kind of husky. The kid never uttered a word – I wondered if he was a tad slow – and wasn’t crying or anything but he just didn’t get it.

He was with his dad, I think, and between the dad and the photographer, the WASP/African group was pretty much ready to crack up.

The boy had a hard time with understanding he needed to keep his head level and have has face pointed at the camera. But that was nothing compared to the “look here, not at the computer screen” command. Every time the photographer would get him in the right position, his eyeballs would dart to the computer screen so he could see himself.

He never made a sound, but he just kept doing it. Our photo guy even came over to help and try to get the kid’s attention, and his father tried to hold his head in the right spot while the other two were snapping their fingers to get his attention so kiddie photo guy could take a picture.

It didn’t work. I guess they don’t allow parental hands in official photos.

Finally, once they decided to turn the computer screen away from the child so he couldn’t peek, the photo guy figured he got it won. Not so. About the time the photographer finally caved and not only turned the computer screen but pulled back the camera physically, the kid decided to slump back against the wall.

It was just so hard not to completely bust a gut laughing.

At some point, the photographer finally got his photo, and man, did he earn his paycheck today

Ace is the Place

I’ve now made it halfway through June, which is a nice personal milestone. For some reason, anyway. I’m not really sure.

My goal is to make it to the 29^th, and then I feel like I’ll be just fine. There are reasons for that, but it’s best to leave them unblogged.

This week, I have a real weekend – two days off in a row. It’s always welcome, although honestly, it’s kind of nice to work three days and then get a day off, too. Tough call on which is actually nicer.

Last week, I really only had one day off because I had to go to Singapore, so today I ran the errand that got waylaid last week.

Again, I just walked. For some reason, that just shocks everyone here. I was talking to some people at work and when they found out I walk over 30 minutes to and from work, it just stunned them. I guess there aren’t all that many people who actually walk here – most people are on the overcrowded roadways.

Me, I’d just prefer to walk if at all possible, and it seems that we might have come into the dry season, which means it’s not quite as humid as it has been before. It’s hot, though. I checked the forecast and it lists 92/77 every single day. Compared to the 105 that it is in Florida right now, it seems like it’s not such a big deal, but remember right now I am on the other side of the equator, so technically this is my winter.

If Wendy wants to move to Jakarta, here's her place of employment.

Really, though, there are only two seasons here, wet and dry. And although I think we are finally entering the dry season (it’s running late), I still felt the need to hunt down an umbrella. I’d bought one before, but it pretty much crashed and burned the first time I used it. I still have it and will keep it as a backup, but it’s not that great.

And this week, it did rain lightly on the way home once, so even though it’s going to be dry I wanted a decent one.

Now, you’d think in a country with just “wet” and “dry seasons,” umbrellas would be easy to find. Not so. I’ve had a devil of a time.

And the selection – God, they’re ugly. All the fold-up ones are just so frou-frou. I mean, my other one is pink.

I didn't lie, did I? Just as I describe.

But I found one. It’s pretty horrible. Little green hearts and lace on the ends. But it seems to be well-made. I hope it lasts.

And I got it at ACE Hardware, really. Our ACE is just awesome. It’s like a Bed Bath and Beyond on steroids. It’s got absolutely everything, from custom insoles to these cute little kitchen spoons that have faces and feet.

The only other thing I did in the grand mall was hit up Pizza Hut. I had a free coupon for what I thought was a personal pan pizza. I figured I’d just get a cheese one, but for whatever reason that wasn’t even on the menu.

This is the statue at the roundabout that's pretty much a landmark. I don't see the big deal, although this is a bad photo.

What I got wouldn’t even be considered pizza in America. It did come in a little pizza pan, no bigger than a grits bowl, really. Four little pieces, but they were little BIG pieces.

That’s mostly because it was almost all bread. Not pizza crust bread, but almost just roll bread. The topping was a thin bit of cheese – not even a real layer. I got the “Idaho,” which was a snap judgment mostly because I didn’t recognize the names on the three other options. There was no pepperoni, no sausage. I went with what I knew.

And, as you might expect, the Idaho had potatoes. Now, not a lot. I figure each piece of pizza – there were four, it wasn’t even 6 inches across – had about three little squares of potato about the size of an individual hash brown piece. And there was a tiny dab of what I am guessing as hamburger, but if it was something more evil there wasn’t enough of it to worry about – not quite the size of a regulation marble.

The parking lot in the area where the Hard Rock is. Mostly, judging by the lunch crowd headed there today, these belong to people who work across the street, not to patrons of the Hard Rock.

But it was free, and it came with a pony can of hot Coke. The coupon was from two Coke bottles, which is kind of odd since Pizza Hut, so far as I know, is a PepsiCo holding. Maybe that’s old news. But hey, it was free. I have another coupon for tomorrow, too.

My splurge after lunch was a Magnum bar. For those who don’t know, this is an amazing ice cream bar. It’s just plain old vanilla ice cream wrapped in chocolate, but it’s REAL ice cream and REAL chocolate. They had them in Morocco and I was pleased to find they’re here, too, although I did learn today they’re considerably smaller than they are in Morocco.

We have Hagaan Daaz here, too, but it’s incredibly expensive. And I’ve learned that my freezer doesn’t do such a fabulous job of keeping things frozen, so it’s best if I stay away from buying larger containers of ice cream.

My other splurge was some beef. It’s very rare for me to cook beef. Not sure why, other than I guess chicken is cheaper. I think I bought beef a total of three times in Morocco, and this purchase is my first here.

I am varying my regular meal and trying to make a little roasty thing tonight. I’ve encountered some problems already, such as first of all, not really knowing how to make a roast without a Crock Pot, and not having cream of mushroom soup, which really holds it together.

But another issue is my potatoes. I buy about 6-7 a week and I was going to use two. Well, I cut up two and they were pretty darn nasty inside. I did eventually get enough taters to cover, but then I pulled the frozen veggies out of the freezer and they don’t look so good. I’m going to pick through them and use them anyway.

Fairly typical of traffic. I make more progress by foot than people in cars.

Thanks to my previous splurge, I do have some spices now. I was getting tired of salt and pepper, so I bought some Louisiana spice and some chili spice. The former is for special things, and the latter I’ve been using on my hash browns that I make pretty much 4-5 times a week for breakfast.

The other night, I finally caved and placed an order when people at work ordered. Every night, someone from the crew takes orders and calls it in. Consistently, there’s an Indian place, and Italian place and this burger joint called Fat Burgers.

Thursday, it was Fat Burger, which is owned by Queen Latifah (I think I told someone Aretha earlier – I messed that one up). I had a milkshake from there once and it didn’t turn out so nicely but yesterday a burger sounded really good. And I figure I do need to order now and then or they’ll stop asking me!

The burger was pretty darn good, too, though again the milkshake was a bit runny. I have no idea where the restaurant itself is, but I’d definitely go in and order. It’s not 5 Guys, but it’s a really good burger.

(Aside: I did learn that I have a Wendy’s just across the World Trade Center from me, but I haven’t been there yet)

In the FB bag, they had some “chili sauce.” I am considering putting that in my roasty meal this evening, too. I have no idea what it is, but garlic is listed as an ingredient. That’s usually right in my book.

And in all the excitement of having a burger, I realized on the way home I left my PB sandwich in my desk.

That’s going to be a nice surprise when I go back to work on Sunday.

Back from the Little Red Dot

So, as most reasonably intelligent people have surmised, I’m back from the city-state, Singapore, S’Pore, the Lion City and the Little Red Dot. I’m sure it has more nicknames but so far that’s all I’ve learned.

Quite a long day, but mostly things went well. Both my flights – Lion Air – were late, which put me in at the meeting spot about an hour late, but machi muchkil – no problem.

Surprisingly, the flights themselves went well. LA is a LCC – low-cost carrier – and had no food, but I was tired both ways and just tried to sleep anyway. I got good seats on the plane, which was the surprise since my ticket had only been purchased the day before.

Once in Singapore and after meeting the visa guy, I mostly just walked. I failed in my attempt to see “Pirates” because it was only showing at 10:30 at one theater – I got there around 1 – and then the other theater had a showing at 2:50, but I had to pick up my passport at 4, so that didn’t work either.

As a result, my entire spending came to a $2.50 magnet, a $2 Pepsi, $1.40 for tea, $1.20 for milk, $2.80 for a Coke, $2.05 for a litre and a half of water and $1.45 for a Hershey bar. That’s Singapore dollar, which is close to the USD.

The place is freaking expensive. All I did was the Orchard Road, or whatever the name of the tourist street is, and it’s like Rodeo Drive, except instead of single stores there are malls. With all the same stores, I might add. I can’t tell you how many Louis Vutton stores I saw.

Sightseeing was brutal because it was just malls. Next time I go – and since my visa is only eight months, there will be a next time – I’ll skip the shopping area and head to the zoo or something. I just wasn’t into the shopping at all. Beyond the fact I don’t need anything, I just wasn’t about to fork over $250 for shoes, even if they were Timberlands.

I had a nice lunch (paid for by the company) at some place touting itself as an American burger joint, but was really much fancier. I didn’t see many good burgers on the menu, so I got the special, which was cream of carrot soup, baked fish with some kind of cheese sauce and cauliflower, broccoli and carrots in some kind of sauce plus carrot rice and a Coke. It was very good. Even the soup, which I was a little leery about.

Met a nice Croatian-Australian fella who was working on one of the escalators. I didn’t have a lot of information about S’Pore and had to ask where the hotel was. Fortunately, he knew and then I ran into him on the way back from my little errand, too. His name was Stan.

A couple of other new-to-me things I saw: a urinal in the women’s bathroom – do not even begin to ask me how to use it; I wondered if it was a foot-washing thing but it had a urinal cake in it – and a mashed potato dispenser at the 7-11. That thoroughly disgusted me.

Toward the end of the afternoon, I started developing one of those I-didn’t-drink-enough-water migraines, hence the purchase of the litre and a half of water.

Unfortunately, I got it right as I was headed back to the airport on public transportation (Yay! Public transportation – Jakarta has none!) and they don’t allow eating or drinking on the trains or in the stations.

This being Singapore, land of caning, I didn’t risk it and as a result my headache got worse until I got to the airport. I pounded the entire thing of water but it was too late. The migraine set in and it was brutal.

My flight home was about 45 minutes late, and I thought I was going to die by head explosion in the airport. I just wanted to sleep so the headache would go away.

After waiting a while in the airport, I got up and walked around. When I got back, my seat was taken so I had to sit somewhere else. By this time, it was much closer to scheduled takeoff and there were lots of people around. I had to sit directly between two men, or at least men-children.

Oh, my God. As soon as I sat down, it I realized it was a mistake. Seriously bad BO hit me from both directions, and the talkative man-child on my left started flirting with me. Not only was his BO compounding my migraine nausea, but his breath almost killed me.

And he wanted to chat and chat. We’d both done visa runs and therefore he just bonded. Oh, man. How does this happen to me?

My head about to explode, I tried hard. He couldn’t have been over 24. Nice enough, but I can’t describe accurately how bad I was feeling at that time.

Finally we got on the plane and I managed to nap enough to get the headache to subside a little, but it didn’t go away.

Back in Jakarta, I cleared immigration quickly (although I’ve since learned I have to go into some immigration office soon to do more paperwork) and got a cab to get home.

The guy drove like a bat out of hell. On the one hand, I was thankful because I felt like my head was going to explode, but on the other, a speedy cab ride does not help migraine-induced nausea.

Fortunately, I didn’t leave anything in the back seat and got home and to bed. I took a RelPax, knowing it was probably too late for it to do any good but figured once I woke up it’d be gone. But no, I woke up at 6 with my head still pounding. I took what I think was an ibuprophin but I’m not sure – it might have been Sudafed. I dozed back off until 10 or so and then was absolutely fine.

Headed back to work Friday and now I’m off today. I’m headed back into the fitness center in a minute to get back on my routine.

On this lovely day off, everything else is domestic. I’m going to do laundry (sink) and then head to the grocery store.

I’m so glad Singapore is over. I’d go back for fun or a doctor appointment, but I’d like a little advance notice so I can bank up on the rest. The whole day I was just dead on my feet.

It's a retail center. What more did you expect?

Some photos of Singapore. More to come.

An anarchist’s* dream

*I had to look up the spelling of “anarchist.” I’m not too proud to admit it.

There is officially nothing on TV. I am bummed. I’d gotten addicted to “Bones,” which came on one of the versions of Fox I have, and it’s pretty darn good. “Mad Men” has been on, too, and I’ve pretty much caught up with that one.

Early last month, they had the whole “Mad Men” marathon, which was basically MM, all the time.

Now it seems there’s another marathon going on: “Sons of Anarchy.”

I have never heard of this show and have no interest in it. As a result, there’s just nothing on. The movies this month are crap.

But I did get lucky and borrowed all three seasons of “Arrested Development,” which was utterly fabulous. I’ll wind up getting those on DVD, I just know it. They seemed to be the kind you watch over and over. Just so well done.

Ron Howard is a genius. Yeah, he’s had some flops, but overall, the man is gold.

Other than TV, all else seems to be going all right. I’m still battling work, but I feel I’m getting the hang of it.

As a compromise to the learning curve, I’ve kindly been put on the 2-10 shift, which means more features, more fixtures, more wire services and less in-house copy.

That’s the killer stuff for me: there’s a lot of fact-checking involved and even more re-writing stories that were translated into English by someone else. It leaves a lot of questions, and I’m trying really hard to grasp all that stuff.

But for the next month, I am on the slightly earlier shift, which I really do like. I feel much better walking home at 10:30 than I do at 11:30. I haven’t seen one rat while on this shift.

I did dodge water today. It had stopped raining, but I opted to walk in the street to avoid my power-friendly utility pole. There’s not as much traffic on a Sunday. I had a couple of slippery spots (not in the road), but nothing dangerous, hamdullah.

I’m actually getting spoiled, financially, on my commute right now. I fully expect to have to cab it, but so far – other than the electrocution thing – I’ve been lucky.

This week I am supposed to finish the visa process. I’m told I have to have it done by Thursday, so I probably should figure out what there is to do in Singapore.

All I know is it’s clean and expensive, with lots of high-end shopping. I’m not really in the market for anything, so I am considering just finding a movie. I don’t have that option here since Hollywood hasn’t caved into some Indonesian bribes.

But I don’t know. I’m not really looking forward to it, but perhaps it will be fun. Since it’s a company thing, I hope the transport to the airport is covered in some way. That’s the real part I’m dreading.