En route to legality. And maybe Singapore.

In the days leading up to 2012, I suddenly found myself illegal in Indonesia. This wasn’t my fault, honestly. I’d taken my passport and turned it into HR a couple of weeks ago so they could do their thing with immigration.

I’d offered it earlier, but they didn’t want it. My visa expired on Dec. 27, and I guess they foolishly thought they’d buck their trend of being slow as molasses and actually get it done in time.

Naturally, that didn’t happen. I went into Christmas somewhat panicking that I’d be deported come Tuesday but developing nations don’t move that quickly. Plus, I think my passport was being processed, as this week, I had to go to immigration and get my fingerprints and photo done again. As if either had changed in the what, eight months I’ve been here? Sheesh.

Had some logistical issues trying to get that done: I was to meet the driver at work at 9, but once at the office the administrative people weren’t there and I didn’t know where to meet the driver. Or where I was going, for that matter.

Fortunately the mystery unraveled wit ha little help from one of the longer-term ex-pats, who just advised me to catch a cab and head on myself. I did that; never figured out where the driver had been. Likely waiting for me somewhere.

Anyway, I was glad the guy had told me where I was going, because it was not the overcrowded place I’d gone before. It was just a 20-minute or so walk from the office and the whole process didn’t take long at all.

I opted to hoof it back, even though it was super hot, and stopped and paid my cable bill along the way.

That was the same morning as the bowl game, which I am ashamed to say I completely forgot about. The previous night had been rough and I was just glad to crash; I forgot to set my alarm for the next morning.

When I got up, I logged on and FSU had just scored. Before walking to work, I was able to listen to FSU go ahead for the first time, and then once I got to work, I GameTracked the last two minutes, which took forever. (I’m thinking this might have been why I missed the driver – it went a little beyond 9, but no harm, no foul.)

After being fingerprinted and photographed, I had nothing to do but sit in the office, so I cranked up the highlights of the game. Ah, Orlando. I miss Florida.

But I’m back on the road to legality here. I still have to do the Singapore run, which I am now told will be next week. This stinks because we are so completely short staffed that I had to cough up my day off this week (Sunday, tomorrow) plus see if I can schedule the visa run on my other day off (Thursday) just because we don’t have enough warm bodies to go around.

And to top it off, I am stuck back on the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, which means not off until midnight. Oh, I’m so looking forward to 2012. I mean, after that start, it has to improve, right?

So this is Christmas

It sure doesn’t look like it. It’s technically Christmas Eve, Saturday, so I headed to the grocery store today. The walk there was pleasant enough, but by the time I got back (same CD as last week, but it took me two more songs: I had to hunt for bleach and forgot sugar and had to run back for it) I was again drenched in sweat.

It’s consistently 90 degrees outside. How can it be December? I just can’t get used to it.

And the workload is the same, so it just doesn’t seem like a holiday.

Christmas is a holiday here, but we’re publishing the day after so we get to put it together on Sunday. Not a huge deal to me, but apparently people felt like we were getting Sunday off and not publishing Monday, either.

I have no idea why there was a rumor like that – perhaps something based on previous years? – but from early last week, I’d asked the higher-ups if we were working and got a “yes” for an answer. So did others, so I’m not really clear on why the rumor that we might not work would persist.

So I’m working tomorrow. And I’m working the day shift, too, because one of the day guys asked me to switch so that he could go away on Saturday-Sunday morning with the rest of the fellowship kids.

As far as I know, there is another person – another fellowship kid – scheduled to work but from what I understand he was trying to arrange it to be off so he could go on said getaway. No one asked me about it, like to ask if it was OK with me if I was alone on a day, so I figure he’s probably going to be there.

Of course, having said that, it’s not like communication abounds in a news organization. Or any other business, I’ve found.

So I’m just going to show up at 10 a.m. tomorrow and whatever happens will happen. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me. And at 6 p.m. I’ll head home.

My Sunday walks are a lot lighter than other days. There aren’t all that many people around and there are far fewer food stalls to dodge. Less traffic, too, so that’s nice.

I see the same people every day, which is kind of cool in a familiar sort of way. I feel like they look out for me.

There are groups of people, mostly always guys, sitting at the same spots – in front of the kosts (“My Name is Earl” residences), at this food stall or that one, at this barber shop (open at 10:20 p.m. – weird) or that Circle K.

There are little routines. This group will ask me to come in and eat and I shake my head and keep walking. One older man at one food stall and two young guys at a food booth insist on high-fiving me every time I walk by. Another guy in particular – he’s there coming and going – ALWAYS smiles and says hi.

Down the last leg, I pass portable restaurants – they’re there on the way home, but not the way there – and shout out to the group working there, then I get to a smaller food tent and chat with the husband and wife. Sometimes I slow down, but I don’t stop.

But on my very last turn before I cross the overpass, there’s one more temporary stand to greet. In the middle, there’s this young kid – he looks all of 13, so he’s probably 20 – and it’s almost like a rehearsal. He is the only person I will come to a complete stop and talk to, and it’s always the same dialogue, though it gets botched and out of order.

In a perfect world, what happens is I stop in front of him (he’s usually cooking) until he sees me. We’re at a point now where the people he works with know it’s coming and will poke him to get his attention if he’s too into his work. Then they sit back to witness it and giggle.

“Hi, how are you?”

“I am fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine, too. Good night”

“See you tomorrow.”

We’ve *almost* gotten this down. Earlier, it was much like the Brady Bunch Christmas play, when Alice reports someone said “Who goes there?” before someone else says “Hark!”

I’m not even sure if he knows any other English, but he’s such a sweet kid I indulge him.

One day last week he wasn’t at his spot and it threw me, but then I saw him a little farther down, on the phone. I stopped and we went through it. I noticed a police car slow up and flash its lights – I’m sure they thought the poor kid was harassing the bule. I ignored him, which is what most people do to the police around here.

The cops are allegedly out in mass this weekend, except they’re really not. We had one story on the fact that 6,000 police officers would be “safeguarding” the area churches from attacks on Christmas day. I went to clarify that was extra police officers and the guy was like, no. Um, what?

Turns out, it’s not extra officers. Usually there are 9,000 law enforcement officers on patrol (Jakarta encompasses 650-square kilometers), so basically this means that if you want to commit a crime tomorrow here, just don’t do it in the area of a church.

So happy holidays!

PS -- writing this thru to note I just got back from a Christmas Eve buffet. I am fairly convinced I gained all the weight back I've lost in the last few months. I ate salmon, grouper, some other kind of fish, turkey, ham, pork, some other kind of meat (though I passed on the duck), rice, mashed potatoes and roasted potatoes. Oh, and carrots and a little Japanese salad. I went back for more salmon.

Had desserts, too: a little chocolate mousse, two strawberry cheesecakes (hi, Dorothy!) and a fruit cup. I wanted ice cream but also wanted to walk home alive.

Two Cokes, an OJ and two glasses of water.

I am FULL. Like uncomfortably full. I really hope my fitness center is open tomorrow morning.

I fear I will have weird dreams tonight. Perhaps involving Christmas songs as sung by Toby Keith, which, oddly, was what was playing in the background of the Intercontinental whatever hotel it was. The dreams will probably involve salmon and pigs hunting me down.

Saturdays and Super Heroes

I’ve got Saturday down to a boring routine.

It’s my consistent day off during the week, so I’ve set it up to where that’s the day I restock the groceries, do random laundry and cook for the upcoming week.

And yeah, sadly, it’s as exciting as it sounds. It’s a complete routine.

At the grocery store, I even pretty much buy the same stuff, which makes it easy on days like today when I forget the list. It’s not so much a list of what I need as how much of what I have left.

After all, the daily food intake is basically a hash browned tater and a scrambled egg for breakfast, the rice/onion/carrot/garlic concoction for lunch and a PB sandwich for dinner on work days.

On off days, I try to eat out but sometimes that falls flat and I just eat macaroni elbows with alfredo. I can’t find fancier pasta and the noodles fit into an old Coke bottle for food storage purposes. I’m seriously still in PC volunteer mode over here.

I do splurge calorically on shopping days and get chips and fake M&Ms. Sometimes a donut, too.

And I check if the juice is on sale. Tropical fruits are awesome, and I love the mango juice. But since I have to lug it all in one bag, I have to keep those purchases down, especially considering I mostly buy liquids. I get about three liters of chocolate milk (it’s gross – you don’t even refrigerate it until it’s opened, like you do ketchup) and six cans of Pepsi. Well, five cans of Pepsi and one Coke – again, sometimes you *need* a Coke.

The entire shopping routine is completely automatic. I knew that, but I guess I didn’t realize how rote it really was until today.

I got the new Toby Keith CD, “Clancy’s Tavern,” last week and have been listening to it here and there. (Also got a couple others, so I’m spreading it out.) So when I left today, I put it on and walked out to the first release, “Made in America,” which is the first cut on the CD.

I came, I saw, I shopped. As I walked back and got to the main street, I realized I was still only up to the last regular cut “Chill-axin,” and hadn’t even made it to the Incognito Bandito extras. By the time I got home and up the elevator to my apartment door, I was only on “Truck Drivin’ Man.” Still had two more songs to go.

Didn’t get to them, though. Opted to start on the dinner, and as a result developed a new cut – smack into my thumb as I was chopping an onion. Or maybe it was the garlic.

A fine time to realize that I do not have a single Band-Aid in my possession. I grabbed a cloth and smothered it but it bled and bled. As any successful cook, though, I worked around it and finished the latest batch of my rice concoction with no added ingredients. Success.

The boo-boo isn’t too bad now that it’s clotted. It’s much better than the four-inch welt on the back of my leg, acquired when I debuted the rain boots this week. Silly me tried to go -- crap, what’s another word for “incognito”? Can’t use the same odd word twice in a 1,000 word rambling but my brain is fried --- unnoticed (yeah, unnoticed!) in what are obviously men’s boots, so I pulled my pants over them instead of tucking them in. Since I only have short socks, they rubbed. By the time I got home it was pretty painful, and now it’s just nasty.

People are a bit pickier about men’s and women’s clothes here. This week I went to a shirt store intending to buy a batik shirt. I got the ER bill paid off so now I want to celebrate. But I’m MUCH taller than Asian women (and many of the men, to tell the truth) so the shirts aren’t really made for me. Plus, I am choosey about the shirt I want. Nothing TOO bizarre since I intend to have it for awhile and at some point, in “awhile” I will be back in Uh-merika.

So I want either something based in green or a garnet-and-gold-ish one. And I found one of the latter that wasn’t too bad, but it was a men’s, and a men’s large at that. I tried to ask if they had it smaller and the lady was like, “But that’s a man’s shirt. Who is it for?” Upon hearing it was for me, she was completely appalled and essentially sent me away. I’ll try later. I'll make up a man if I have to.

Too bad this new guy in the fitness room didn’t get the men’s/women’s memo. I’ve seen this dude a few times now and, like me, he wears the same thing every time. Unlike me, though, he doesn’t wear a Lands’ End tank top, US Air Force shorts and sandals. (It’s the only outfit I own that is entirely made in the U.S.)

This guy. Oh, man. I’m amazed he goes out in public like this.

Unless he really is Spider-man. He might be. The first time I saw him, that’s who I thought of. I’m unconvinced he’s NOT Spider-man. Or maybe his cousin, the super hero speed skater.

This guy is a little fella and appeared for the first time last week. I’m still working nights, so I’m in the little fitness center around 7:45 in the morning. He wanders in maybe 8:30.

It is not possible to miss him.

Unlike myself, he obviously spared no expense on his getup, but I think he put about as much thought into it as I did. My big regret is that I do not have a picture, but I’ll try:

The long-sleeve tight-fitting shirt isn’t bad. It’s solid black and by far the most muted part of the outfit. He could have bought one that fit, but it’s not too bad. That shiny material; not sure what it is, mine’s just US cotton.

But from the waist down, I cannot even look for fear I burst into laughter. I sneak glances here and there to make sure I’m not hallucinating.

He wears two pairs of pants – the speed skater tights and a pair of shorts over them. The tights (if they’re marketed as pants, they’re lying) are primarily black, but have this not-a-lighting bolt-but-something-close design down the legs, which was the first thing that reminded me of Spider-man, though I’m not sure why. It’s horribly tacky and cannot possibly be intended for a man.

The shorts. Oh, man, the shorts. They are NOT tight little workout pants (which is kind of a shame) but are primarily black with multi colored POLKA DOTS.

Yes, you read that right. It’s insanity. And, for whatever reason, in the world where he bought these things, they are men’s shorts. I know this because they have that little logo that you see on the back of semi-truck mud flaps – silhouettes of women sitting back to back. No woman would buy that.

Guys, here’s a note: no woman on earth is going to be impressed if you wear black polka-dot pants, especially when you pull them on over black tights with bizarre lines down the sides.

And then, fellas, if you top (or bottom, as the case may be – the top, was a Daddy-eque ‘do rag on his head fashioned out of a towel) that entire outfit out with LIME GREEN workout shoes, well, it’s just best if I don’t even make eye contact.

I cannot look at this guy without laughing. I almost feel like I’m doing a disservice by not telling him out ridiculous he looks.

Lime green shoes, folks. He’s the one that bought that pair.

I’m pretty sure they help him scale the walls, though.

Scratch that

OK, so what I wrote last week about the day shift … it’s irrelevant now. I’m back on nights.

So, for those keeping score, I was on nights, then went on days for two days, then had to move back to nights for a week because we had a spare day person due to a non-publish date on the Islamic New Year (a Sunday). After that, went back to days for real, but it wound up only lasting a week.

Through this month – and possibly longer – I am back on nights because we’re short staffed (again) and people are taking Christmas leave plus the last two weeks of the year, we will not publish on the two holidays, both of which fall on Sunday. We have a small paper that day (new since I arrived) and one person copy edits it. Since she won’t be doing that those two weeks, she will be able to assist on days.

So all those pluses are out the window. Oh well. I just hope I do get to eventually go back to days. I really liked being able to craft, rather than perfect, the stories. It was more editing than copy editing.

But, come Dec. 28, I will still get a paycheck. At this point in the game, that is what matters. Eye on the ball, etc.

Since I haven’t re-set my alarm clock to reflect a later start time, I am completely exhausted after a week of being back on nights. More or less, I’ve left pretty much on time, too, so I might have to rejigger the alarm.

But I also need to work on Word. I’m hoping to take a Microsoft Expert certification test at some point and, although I am a typing machine and can format text, I am not a bells-and-whistles, dog-and-pony-show, whole-nine-yards type of person. Uncomplicated, please.

But for the certification, you have to be an expert so I need to practice. I’m already in a hole because what I need is the 2007 certification but I only have Word 2003. That could be a problem.

Anyway, I’ve penciled in playing with Word for about an hour, so that’s why my alarm is still set for an ungodly hour. But honestly, I’ve done the Word game twice and have opted for naps after working out in the mornings. I’m just whipped.

Oh, I did learn today that Grunter is from Cameroon, so I was right in my Sub-Saharan Africa guess. He told me today that he has family in Washington. He bothers me less. I see him less and although he still grunts sometimes, he’s cut back.

Today, my day off, I have the usual routine plus washed my sheets, which still aren’t dry but what can you do? It’s lightning badly outside and raining a little.

One of my goals for the weekend was to see if I could finagle a refill for the antibiotic I got for the it’s not-ringworm-but-something-close. The doctor had given me a week's worth and it worked, but I don't think I had enough -- the fungus never went away and now it's getting bad again. I'd taken two pills daily for a week. I think I needed two weeks worth.

In Malaysia, I was able to just go to the pharmacist and buy a prescription drug, so I thought I'd try it here to avoid a doctor visit. The visit, which was paid for by insurance, was Rp 800k, I think. (Not that it matters for comparison, that's about $90). I believe my prescription was included in that fee. I did have to pay an additional for the cream because it was considered "cosmetic," but it wasn’t too bad.

Well, neither pharmacist had the exact drug, but one had a different brand name of it. They had six pills and said it would cost 100k. Uh, no thank you. I didn’t have near that much on me and really didn’t think a three-day supply would do a lick of good since a week’s worth didn’t kill it off last time.

So now my dilemma centers around health insurance. It’s a PITA here, too.

I can go to the doctor and have it cost another 800k but have someone else pay for it or I can just go the cheap route and pay out of pocket. So, America isn't the only place with health insurance issues. Overall, fiscally it is smarter to just go cheap. But if I return to the doctor and have insurance cough up another 800k, that drives up overall costs.

What I will probably wind up doing is going back to the doctor and also scheduling an X-ray for my hip, which has been hurting on and off for awhile now. It originally began during PC and has flared up frequently since then but is now a fairly constant pain. Not sure why. It might be sympathy pain for Kocur, who is also having hip trouble. My poor old girl has trouble jumping and off Zippy's bed these days.

Sigh. Always something. My next day off is Wednesday, so that might be what I wind up doing.

A belated Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came a tad late to the Americans at the Globe, but not too late.

Apparently, in the three-year history of the paper, one of the American higher-ups has opened his penthouse to the lost US-based employees, and this year was no different.

Well, maybe a little different. I’m not sure since this was my first, but it’s the first time there have been seven fellowship students working on the copy desk, so it might be that there were a few more people than in previous years.

It was, however, a wonderful meal and a fun evening socializing with colleagues, including a few I don’t see too often. And a nice view from a penthouse. It faced the wrong way to see my apartment, though.

Yes, we had turkey and ham. Everyone contributed something. One person spent Friday *baking,* which made me jealous. She, like I, doesn’t have an oven so she went over to the higher up’s home that day to bake like a mad woman. Biscuits and pies – oh, my!

I can’t stress how much I miss biscuits. They’re easy enough to do, I know, but I don’t have an oven. I’ve even thought about buying a toaster oven just for biscuits. (Enter an I-don’t-have-access-to-Cracker Barrel-lament here.) However, since the only outlet available is the one that gets overpowered with 30 seconds on the microwave, I’m thinking it would be a waste of money. I don’t think this place has the juice.

So the entire evening was pretty cool. I made a mistake in turning down leftover ham, though. What was I thinking?

The Christmas season is in as full swing as it gets here, I guess. Fortunately, it’s not much. I went to a mall yesterday and saw some decorations, and Ace Hardware was decked out in full. But I sure don’t miss the consumerism of the holiday and I hope this is it.

I’d gone to the mall to see a movie. I wound up with my third choice, since although “Contagion” is showing at some mall here, it’s not showing at that one. “Rum Diary” was, but apparently they don’t stay here long.

So I saw “The Adventures of Tintin,” which was really fabulous. It’s based on some comics I’ve never read that were written by Hermes. Steven Spielberg did the film, and it’s a CGI film. I’m not sure it’s fair to call it a cartoon specifically, because cartoons, in my mind, are supposed to look like fake people. Except for a few exaggerated features (specifically noses), these characters looked like real people. It was so freaky. The dog looked a bit artificial but everything else was freakishly real – in a cartoonish way.

Trust me, that will make sense if and when anyone sees the movie.

Enter an in-real-time moment here: Just as I type that, something landed on my back. Scared the heck out of me, especially when I went to smack it and realized it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Somehow, a very large cricket infiltrated my apartment. Far better that than a roach, mouse or rat, but man, it scared me.

Good enough time to segue into another topic…

I’m now on the day shift at work. Not sure how this happened but I don’t mind all. The pluses far outweigh any minuses.

It’s completely different – conveniently enough, like night and day.

On the night shift, I did a lot of wire copy and tried to do things like check for style more than anything. On the in-house produced stories, there was a lot of checking to see if the news was right and if there were any “holes” in the story.

That’s more along the lines of the day, but the stories are features, not news. It’s a lot more editing than copy editing. I completely rework the stories and work more closely with the writers, as opposed to the translators.

I’ve only been on there a week so far and I’m still trying to get the hang of it, but so far it’s nice. And I pretty much leave on time daily, which is pretty special.

So far, there are three downsides, none of them insurmountable. One’s the fact that the shift is 10-6 and one of the other two people comes in never before 10:30. That’s going to stop. (It wouldn’t bother me so much if he worked late or did a thorough job, but neither of those is the case.)

The 10-6 also puts me on foot during the rest of the city’s commute, so there are FAR more vehicles on the road. Mostly, this isn’t bad, but it’s a lot more stressful. I can’t say hi to everyone I pass because I have to constantly watch my step and for those annoying motorcycles.

And I do make them move for me. Thursday, I smacked three of them and knocked aside a couple of rearview mirrors. Stay off the sidewalks, idiots.

Same thing happened on my way to the mall, actually. It was raining, not hard enough for a raincoat, boots or umbrella, but enough to make me opt for the cobblestone (less slippery) pavement over the straight cement.

Well, at one point, crossing a driveway, I was still in the path of the sidewalk and a guy on a bike came, riding on that cobbled path. We met and I just stood there. He did, too, for a second. I just crossed my arms and glared at him, never even turning down the MP3.

He turned aside. Success! I swear, I would have stood there until the rapture. Dude, it’s MY sidewalk.

The other schedule alteration I have to make for the day shift is doing half the workout routine in the morning and half at night. The room just isn’t open either three hours before or three hours after work, so this is it.

It’s not bad, really – I do the running thing and then swim in the morning and bike and do the weights at night. But man, there is nothing more boring than spending a solid hour on the stationery bike in a half-lit room as while staring into the dark – and then knowing you still have 20 minutes once you’re done.

And man, I get so hungry! Basically, I roll out of bed at 6:55 a.m., swap one tank and shorts for another set and then head downstairs. I come back and make and eat breakfast and then leave for work.

When I get off work at 6 p.m., I head home, change clothes and head down again. I eat lunch around 2 p.m. and don’t finish with the leg press things until after 8:30 p.m.

It’s a long time to go without food.