Semi-indecent proposal

First, the backstory:

I'm single. Most everyone knows that. I'm not exactly looking for man, since I'd rather have a job. There's also the whole EC factor, who, while still in Morocco, still turns up like a bad dirham here and there.

I'm fairly content holding off on men, at least for now. Afer all, I am still crashing at my parents' place, and between my stuff and my brother's stuff -- not to mention Daddy's hording -- there's no place to put one anyway.

Even though I'm not in the market, well-meaning people try to push.

Over the summer, this happened at my old shop. I'd taken off Thursday from job-hunting to stuff envelopes at FLW, which really hasn't changed much since I've been gone. The same core people who were there during my 1987-1996 tenure are still there and many, many things are the same, including the tradition of allowing any Tom, Dick or Harriet come in and stuff envelopes on Thursdays.

(There are fewer envelopes now than when I was there -- some cutbacks to the economy, and some to online editions. FLW, unlike newspapers, doesn't give away its online content, though!)

Continuing the backstory, one of the people who comes in weekly -- I'll call him Lester -- is a friend and neighbor of one of the Print Shop Boys. Lester is an older man and seems to be friendly and outgoing. He hosts a summer Fourth of July Party for his neighborhood block, which I'll get to in a minute.

We chatted that first week I stuffed envelopes beside him, just making small talk. Some of the small talk involved this other guy he knows and I'd met by happenstance -- Print Shop Boy Neighbor's office birthday party, thrown a day I wandered in off the streets.

I'd been under the impression that both Lester and ...let's call him Divorce-in-Waiting stuffed envelopes weekly, so I asked where DIW was that particular week. Well, turns out, DIW has some other job and is merely PSBN's neighbor. Oh.

Lester continues and tells me what a nice guy DIW is, and how evil his soon-to-be ex-wife is. My former boss (who's never met him personally) PSBN and Lester all mention that DIW is a really nice guy and his wife cheated on him, threw him out but hasn't yet filed for divorce.

OK. Enough drama for my first day stuffing envelopes.

Well, enough until the next day, when Former Boss calls me to first ask me to come in and do some more work but also to add that Lester stayed late the previous day to ask if he could get my number to give to DIW. FB asked me if it was OK to pass on my number, and I, having nothing better to do and not really having an excuse to say no, agree.

Well, nothing happens, and then I got the job at the overnight camp. Something like two days before camp (over a week and possibly close to two weeks after the number handoff) he calls. Lord.

Up until then, I probably wouldn't have minded having lunch or something. But at this point, I was committed to the YMCA Camp From Hell (I'm liking these acronyms -- humor me), so I really wasn't free. I was there five nights a week, leaving there Friday afternoon and returning early Sunday morning. All I wanted to do on my days off was nap with my dog.

On the Fourth, I made an honest attempt to meet DIW at Lester's party. Sadly, I am inept at directions and could not locate the party in question. I literally drove in circles for an hour trying to find it. I asked directions ("It's right down the hill. You can't miss it.") and missed it. I grew frustrated and left.

And I called the next day to apologize, which was maybe the second time I'd spoken to DIW. I'd had one conversation and a few back-and-forth emails but no far, not a single spark emerged, at least from my side.

See, all I know of this man is he's "a nice guy," is separated but not divorced, and has two children. (I learned this week that bother are daughters: one's in college and one's in high school. Stay tuned.) He's also 9-10 years older than me, which, as Dana and I would agree, isn't in my decade. I asked him what he did for a living and it involved some kind of -- I think; I didn't really understand -- large equipment repair. It did not interest me, but of course, "former sports writer" is a buzzword for any man.

So I went all through the YMCA CFH without being able to spare a moment, and then I dispatched myself to Wyoming for two more months. About mid-June, I got an e-mail from him asking when I'd be back and "Around October" was my reply.

Of course, by then, I'd taken another contract job and darted off for Morocco, and truthfully, the thought of DIW hadn't even crossed my mind since about then.

--------end backstory-----begin proposal------

But I'm back to joblessness and ventured back into FLW this week to stuff envelopes. Lester's there, a permanent Thursday fixture.

I work at a different table than him and we finish extremely early (this happens when I am there -- man, I have a God-given talent for stuffing envelopes) and we're making small talk.

"So, you're in and out of town a lot, right?" he asks.

I tell him yes. I'm back until something else emerges.

He continues, "Do you have a place to stay while you're here?"

I explain that I stay with my parents (if I had money to live someplace else, I'd move out of the state, but for now Tallahassee's great).

He then, completely serious, tells me he has a friend -- "You know [DIW]." DIW, Lester explains, has two daughters (this is when I learn their ages), and while the older one is a good kid, the younger one is a "troubled girl."

DIW, as I know, has to be gone overnight sometimes. (Lester tells me this, but honestly I didn't know because the whole job description thing bored me to badly I guess my brain glazed over this fact. I didn't understand it.)

What DIW needs, Lester goes on to say, is someone who will move in and take care of his daughter and keep her in line.

My jaw about hit the floor. What exactly does this proposal entail, seriously? I mean, I don't know DIW from Adam's housecat, but given that I am positive he is the nice guy people credit him as being, I seriously doubt he'd want Lester advocating some strange woman moving in and taking over.

And Lester was heart attack serious. He honestly thought that I'd jump at the opportunity to become a rent-paying adjunct member of a pre-existing family.

Can you imagine? I imagine if DIW hears about the proposal, he'd collapse (or at least down a beer) in embarassment. In what world does a roommate -- especially one someone's been trying to set up with the homeowner on a blind date -- jump in as Surrogate Mom to "troubled" teenage girls?

I'm sure that'd go over well.

-----

Well, I guess it is the best job offer I've had in the last week.

2010 ends with manna from heaven and a 10-win season

Got back from South Carolina again last night. Karen had one more catering event and since I didn't have anything else to do, I went back Monday to help prepare.

It was a drop-in party for about 150 people, so I spent two days making things like bacon-wrapped dates (so Moroccan, and yet so not!) and ham biscuits with Jezebel sauce. Thursday morning, we completely busted it until about 11:30 a.m., then we took a break until leaving to set up at 1 p.m.

After that, it was rush rush until about 8:30, when we loaded it all to lug back home. There really weren't all that many leftovers, either, but man, the serving trays. I washed and washed before we left, then once we got back to the house loaded a ton of punch cups into the dishwasher.

But it went well. The event had been a man's 90th birthday party, and he was quite the celebrity. During the entire party he sat in the living room in a big recliner as people came to wish him a happy birthday. One person said it was like waiting to see the Pope.

One of his guests was a Dr. Watson, who, at 101, is the oldest practicing doctor in the country. Amazing. He got his driver's license taken away, but he is still good to look after people's health. And he drinks regular Coke.

Zippy went up to the Carolinas with me, but she kept going to Charlotte. She returned when I was at the party and we left together Friday morning.

Since there's no direct route from Havana to North Augusta, it means taking back roads. Initially, we hit U.S. 1.

Shortly into the drive, I saw something odd in the median. As passed it, I noticed it was a fairly intact loaf of bread. Weird, I vocalized, assuming it fell off a truck or something.

A couple of miles down the road, there was another one on the other side. Bizarre. A bit later, another appeared.

The pattern continued, and at one point we saw a guy stopped on the side of the road. I thought I saw two loaves next to his truck, and it looked like he was picking him up.

Well, goose - gander and all that crap. At the next loaf sighting, I hit the brakes and pulled over. Zippy got out of the car and ran back to pick it up. I could hear her cackling all the way back to the car, which was something since I was laughing uncontrollably, too.

I guess the bread truck had run low about then. We only saw one more loaf, and yes, I stopped. Zippy popped out and ran back before the car came to a complete stop. I watched her in the rear view and noticed her reach down to the side of the road even before she reached the original loaf -- she'd found another.

So we returned to Florida three loaves of bread richer. It was hysterically funny, honestly, and the bread (three different brands) is perfectly good. It had to have fallen off a truck destined for a homeless shelter or something.

Once reunited with Kocur, I watched the Chick-Fil-A bowl. We'd thought about going, but beyond the $80 ticket barrier, we didn't think FSU would win. Happily, E.J. Manuel (who should have had the start in the first place !) had other plans and the Noles have their first 10-win season since 2003.

Other than the whole unemployment thing, the end of 2010 was pretty darn awesome.

Back to South Carolina

Merry Post-Christmas and happy pre-New Year's.

The holiday came and went with visits from Barry and Mackenzie and Wendy and Sean.

Kocur freaks out when Wendy comes over. She's a chicken. Just like Thanksgiving, Wendy showed up and Kocur just started visibly shaking. She refused to socialize and eventally went outside, which she normally hates to do.

Eventually, she came back in but when Wendy went to leave she ran off into the computer room to hide. I called her and she cowered. She refused to come and even hid in the fireplace. I decided to torture her and went and picked her up and carried all 35 pounds of her to Wendy's truck so I could pretend she was going with her.

Boy, the sausage ball just quivered. She is such a spoiled monster.

She's going to be abandoned tomorrow, when I head back to South Carolina. Karen is catering one more huge party and needs help, and since I'm no longer going anywhere Jan. 3, so what the heck?

Zippy might tag along, but mostly to head up to Charlotte, but she's not sure yet. I have no idea when she'll decide whether or not to go, but she has until about 10 a.m. to figure it out.

I'm trying not to think further ahead than next week, because it's depressing. No job,no prospects. I have faith it will come together, but at the moment it's not something to dwell on.

I'll be back to Havana, inchallah, before the Chick-Fil-A bowl kickoff.

Again with the nephews

I'm done with South Carolina for the present and am back in Orlando babysitting nephews. Apparently we sent them back slightly damaged and Zippy and Papa aren't qualified to keep them for awhile.

It would help, of course, if the nephews would actually heed warnings, such as "If you're going to go outside, put on your shoes," but they don't.

Anyway, as it turns out, Zac ratted out Uncle Sean And His Motorbike Ride, so even though everyone in Havana has "Mud" attached to their name, I can now post the photos of the boys on their fairly tame ride.

So I'm now keeping them in Orlando, and God, it's going to be a long week. I've somehow already misplaced the gate opener thingie, and Chris is more freaked out than I am. Since I haven't been anywhere, it's got to be here. And since I have no money and no desire to wander around in Christmas traffic, I have no plans to leave the house. I figure it'll turn up.

The boys are asleep now, and I'm watching "The Men Who Stare at Goats." Amazingly odd. I'm amused at the Jedi references, but only because Ewan MacGregor is in it. And also because I understand some of the Arabic.

This week's plans are skimpy. I'm checking out some potential online purchases, but since I am again without a job, the possibilities are not exactly endless.

Yes, without a job. After I accepted the verbal offer and worked a month, it somehow went away. They reneged without much of a reason, not that it would matter. I'm trying not to get mired down in it or anything but it's dejecting.

I leave from Orlando either Thursday night or Friday morning and then go to Havana for Christmas. Shortly thereafter, I will go back to South Carolina to help with a party on Dec. 30. At first I didn't think I'd be able to, but since I have no job, I have no place to be Jan. 2, so why not?

The third photo here is from the Greenville opening of Ben's Yogurt Mountain store.

A rented mule

Right now, I am in North Augusta, SC, helping my aunt with her catering business. She's got eight parties in a 10-day span and needed an extra pair of willing hands to throw together some awesome food dishes.

Due to the fact I can work remotely and have hit all my known deadlines, I managed to become that rented mule. I've been put to work slicing, dicing, washing dishes and serving food at Christmas parties all around the North Augsta area (which, truthfully, equates to Augusta.)

In the process, I've eaten some good food, too. My God, have I eaten good food. The beef burgundy was to die for and I can't wait until lunch Sunday when I get to have leftovers from tonight's party -- herbed chicken.

We've dined out thrice and there's an upcoming visit to Chic-Fil-A to inhale one of those peppermint chocolate chip shakes.

I'm really having a blast here. Yes, it's been busy, but it's also been nice to catch up with my aunt and uncle and hear everything about family members I don't often see.

And the house is fabulous with great gardens. Kocur got to come and she is also having fun, but hers alternates with being terrified.

This ties in with Percy, Karen's dog. He's a Great Dane, with the emphasis on "Great." It's funny, because if dogs understood irony, Kocur would finally get she's being treated like she treated Bucky the chihuahua.

But she doesn't get it. What she gets is that Mama leaves her out in the cold a couple times a day so she can work, and when Mama frees Missy K from her pen (which is larger than my yard in Detroit), the Koke-a-Doke guilts Mama big time. She sits in my lap and just whines for 10 minutes.

I've tried to explain to her than when I let her out of the pen, she needs to remain calm and collected, because Percy has a *really strong* chase instinct. As soon as Kocur breaks into a trot, Percy is there to play.

He's just playing, but having your back nipped by a mouth as large as a football is a little terrifying if you only weigh 35 pounds, so Kocur takes exception and gets her little Mohawk up. Percy is just bewildered because he's just trying to play with his new toy.

They're really accustomed to each other now, but some things are trigger points -- like food.

Kokey guilted me into giving her a cookie one day, but, as is her pattern, she didn't eat it. She hoarded it, and I realized Percy was going to figure out she had one. So, I called him into the kitchen in order to be fair and give him one.

He got as far as Kocur's bed, where she was sitting and protecting her food. I kept calling Percy, and he just looked at me like, "Well, gee, you're calling me in there to get a cookie, but there's a perfectly good one sitting right here, and no one's eating it."

And he wolfed it down.

Oh, my, Kocur was SO mad. She jumped up and growled and tried to attack him, and of course he's just swallowed the cookie and looking at her like, "Gee, you weren't doing anything with it, what's the problem."

I tried to make it right by giving her another cookie, but two days later she still hasn't eaten it.

My girl dog is just so twisted.

Back in the saddle, sort of

Well, I've been back to America for about a week now and am trying to figure out which end is up. It's definitely weird, and I am almost to the point where I am more comfortable in Morocco, but this is how it goes.

Oddly, I left Morocco on 11/21 -- a year and a day after the last time I left. This time, I had much better closure and feel good overall about the whole mess.

I am officially employed with Rustic Pathways and unofficially am drowning. I came in late to the program and most (ie: all but me) people in my position have been with the company for awhile, so they know what they're doing. Or at least have a clue. I have little, and I am trying to decipher the emails and get my work done with as little harassment to others as I can manage.

Most people are on vacation now, since you get six weeks a year but it has to be taken from something like October to December. That hasn't stopped people from piling on the deadlines, and I am muddling as best I can.

My title is country director, which in the future will have more meaning but right now it means One Who Stumbles. There is so much to do!

Today, I am struggling through budgets, which are in Excel files. I have four of them, and they're closely related but still require individual input on 165 different lines. Hoo boy.

Two are for real and existing programs but two are for phantom programs. They CAN be real, if someone orders them. They're two programs for Australian teachers, and I am having a devil of a time trying to figure out what exactly that means.

Saturday, I am driving north to South Carolina and will stay at Karen's and help her with some catering. Fortunately, I can work remotely and it doesn't matter if I'm in Havana or North Augusta.

Kocur doesn't know this yet, but she is going. I've bailed out on my baby girl enough so she gets to make this road trip. I hope she is a good doggie while we're staying at Karen's.

Camels don't buck, they spit

Well, I am in the desert now, the place with sand and no water. Excecpt there really is water, just not a lot of it. (Not that I ever saw it, but there were a few things growing here and there.)



One of the cool things about this job is I now get to travel to the places that most other PCVs visited during service. I loved Midelt and therefore didn't bother to leave unless I had to; now I have to.



And it has been cool, honestly. And this desert trek is something I should have done, and even though we'll be back in summer, having done it now, I think it's something the students will have to experience. The desert is a beautiful sea of sand, disturbed only by footprints, camel tracks and the annoying 4-wheelers. It's just amazingly beautiful, and the thing to do is arrive in the evening and then trek out to a Berber tent, to watch the sunset, have dinner, sleep, then get up and watch the sunrise, drink tea and come back for a shower.



And that's what I did. I wasn't ready for it, really, because I'd spent the day in transit, but once at Nassar Palace (chosen at random, but definitely the place I'd bring the students to), I had about two hours to get ready to leave.



It was a bit awkward, though. Essentially, I am traveling alone but thought there'd be others with me. No. There were supposed to be others, but they had car trouble and didn't show, so it was me, my guide and, once at the site, two other men. It made me feel a bit out of place, like they had to enterain me or something. (And honestly, after staying with friends and family for the last four nights, all I wanted was a bed of my own.)







The camels themselves are ugly beasts. The ride for me was rough. I didn't like the mounting and dismounting. What happens is you get on while the camel is seated, then it stands up, two feet at a time. The butt comes up first, lurching you forward and as soon as you regain your balance, the front comes up suddenly.

There are no stirrups, either, and no reins or bit. You're led by a friendly nomad (my guide was Mohammed) and you just hope that nothing happens and he loses control. I can't imagine being lurched off a camel, but I kept telling myself the sand was softer than the ranch's dirt.

The ride isn't so smooth. You kind of get used to it, hanging on to the metal "T" that's the saddle horn, but then you hit softer or harder sand and the ride changes.

Getting off, which we did to play in the dunes, is just as bizarre as getting on, just backwards. The front goes down first and you feel (or at least I felt) like tumbling over the long neck and ugly head, but then the back comes down and suddenly you've level again.
The tent was surprisingly comfortable. I think in randomly picking my hotel I got a great one. The beds were off the ground (which is really cold) and there was a little toilet and running water. (Running from a big jug set up, but hey, I had soap, so I didn't care.)

The tagine dinner was faulous and the sky -- you just can't imagine. It's so vast it's inexplicable. You recall God's words to Abraham about having more decendants than the stars and suddenly you feel so inconsesquential!

I saw one falling star and something that must have been Laurie's space junk or ET's cousin. It was just a tiny spot, but it was definitely moving across the sky. I lost sight of it after about three minutes.

I'm back at the hotel now, plugging through paperwork. I got the bundle of stuff that applies to January-March planning, and man, it's a lot.

My visit in Midelt was a lot fun. I met with my old tutor, who made some great suggestions about the job, but more importantly to me, I met my host mom and EC. I miss both of them.

Naima, the horrid sister, is just the same. Nothing to say to me, not a nice word for anyone. When the four of us sat down to eat, she, Mimoun and Rabha just went at it. Crabby bitch, she is. I don't miss her -- or Mimoun, really, though he's nice enough -- but I do miss my host mom. She's so open and friendly. I never, ever would have finished service had I not had her to support me. I also met with some of the children from the dar chebab. I didn't intend to, but ran into a few of them and was obligated to visit, even though the dar cheban was technically closed. (But open, as usual -- the king was visiting.) It was nice to get some closure. I think now they realize how much I meant to them and they meant to me.