When the whole goal is half

One of Istanbul’s half marathons was a couple weeks ago, and I made it a goal to participate. Again, I’m not going to pretend I was going to run the whole thing, but I intended to finish. My No. 1 goal was not to die. I felt I met that one, although once I got home I swigged Airborne after a cup of hot chocolate. It was 55 (tops) and cloudy and windy. Just awful weather in which to be outside. I felt worse on this one from the get-go than any of these yet. Getting minimal sleep the night before didn't help. But I did it! 

 

I got home and soaked in a hot bath with a cup of hot chocolate.

BUT my ultimate goal was do it in under 2:45, and I came in at 2:42:48 so I'm thrilled. The bad thing for the competitor in me if that since I felt so awful and the weather was terrible, I know I can do better. I do NOT need to do another of these things. 

Usually, I can run about 2km before needing to walk. Last race, I went 3k before needing to catch my breath. This time, I barely made it to the 1k mark and I started doing this pattern of once I hit a marker, I'd run until whatever song was on ended, then walk (briskly) for an entire song, then run. That worked pretty well. My walk, seriously, is not slower than my jog. A couple of places the markers were on a slope so I kept going, but once I got to the 20 I had to pull up mid-song. It finished on a slight incline and I had to walk from the 300 to the 200 meter mark; couldn't even turn it on at the end, which I usually do. Going to sit down after it, I almost fell over. I sat down next to some other lady, and I noticed she almost fell over when she stood up.

And Big Brother being what it is, as soon as I sat down I got a text with my time on it. That's scary.

 

But I made it! I am so relieved to have finished it. I know I could do better, because I hadn’t been “training” much since I’m still doing physical therapy on the shoulder.

Yeah, that’s not fun. First, it irritates me to pay someone to watch me lift weights, the same weightlifting I would be doing in the gym if I wasn’t in the physical therapy place. I’m just tired of it.

I’m also concerned it’s not working because the same movements hurt of just feel weird. I had a follow-up appointment, though, and the surgeon assures me it’s OK. He also suggested swimming, which was good since I started doing that the day before he said I could.

It gives a different type of resistance, so that’s good. He told me to do the over-the-shoulder swim method, which I never do and now I don’t like doing it because it hurts! I’ve been trying to experiment with stretches  and holy cow, I have done something twice that has caused more pain than I can ever remember being in.

One happened when I was doing some kind of butterfly-ish backstroke. I held my hands together at the top of my head to stretch and I swear, I felt stuff rip. Apparently, this is what was supposed to happen but man, it hurt.

Yesterday, in another move, something like that happened again. You know what it sounds like when you pull up a weed that has a bunch of little roots? That’s the sound.  It hurt so bad I screamed, but once it was over, the pain stopped. However, I was not even remotely tempted to try that move again. I just could not believe the pain.

I guess is normal. I’m supposed to go back to the surgeon in another week for another checkup.

In other news, I’m down to about two months here and am trying to get started on the get-ready-to-move process. Trying to sell my car. It's a POS and the odds of selling it in the consulate are slim since I am departing before most people arrive. Per the customs guy's suggestion, I listed it on what's basically Istanbul's Craigs List.

Oh my. Ad in English, specify it's diplomat-owned and owner needs to be eligible for duty-free purchase. Specify I'm a foreigner and don't speak Turkish. 

My phone has run off the hook. Not a one speaks English. At work, a friend helped me but they continued until 11:30 last night --- I stopped answering them. It is a nightmare. For those who grab, for example, a broken English-speaking uncle and ask me details of the sale, I don't know since that's why I put the "diplomat-owned" and "must be eligible for duty-free purchase in it." If you are not one of these, I cannot explain what you can do, as I have no clue.

The customs guy sent me a paragraph in Turkish explaining who's eligible so I've Whatsapped it, and I've sent pictures to many. (One guy, who spoke zero English, called me baby and, after sending 14 photos of the car to him, he responded "picture yourself?" I blocked him.)

I've had Google Translate open and I've tried to answer questions, but I just don't understand some of it. And when I run "I don't understand, please call tomorrow so someone can help translate" into Google and run it back, they follow up with more questions in Turkish.

I have no idea how this will go down. In the two weeks or so I’ve had it listed, I’ve probably had 200 calls/texts or emails. I guess only blocking three of them so far isn’t such a bad track record.

A nice prelude to Easter!

Last week, I took a tour to the three Baltic states. It’d been planned for awhile, as I wanted to take off one more week before departing Istanbul. I usually try to go somewhere for my birthday but couldn’t swing that week. I have a project I work that eats up April and May, and since I leave at the end of June, it seemed like the last week in March would be perfect. When I planned it, I had no realization that Easter would be on April 1, the day the tour ended and I’d head home, but it was available for the Baltics, my preferred destination.

The other thing I hadn’t realized was how dang cold it would be there at the time. This dawned on me months before I left, but certainly had no impact on booking the tour. The silly thing was, the “Stans” are also on my list but I was pretty sure they’d be too cold. So although I considered weather when booking, I didn’t consider it enough.

Still, I did fine in packing. Three pairs of pants (one lined Redhead pair of jeans, the other two LL Bean), one pair of long johns courtesy of Eddie Bauer, three LS button-down shirts and three LS T-shirt-ish shirts, plus the wonderful LL Bean coat I got for living in North Dakota. Normally, I don’t pack more than a pair of shoes but threw in boots at the last minute (also LL). Debated the snow boots but am glad I didn’t opt for that. Was fine with the clothes, plus the hat, gloves, scarf and whatever those things are that are wide tubes of fabric you can use as hats, scarves or what-have-you. I got on in Helsinki and it was perfect.

We met in Vilnius, which I still cannot say, in Lithuania, which I still have trouble spelling. I’d researched airport transport before, which was pretty much the extent of my research for the trip, and paid a whole euro to get from the airport almost directly in front of the Radisson Blu we were meeting at.

The tour, run by Baltic Visions, was perfect for what I was looking for. I missed the get-together the evening before because my flight was a little later than everyone else’s; they all had long journeys. We only had nine people because it was basically offseason, so that was cool. There were three singles, me, a guy from Brisbane, Australia; a stereotypical New Yorker I had my fill of by Thursday; a young Australian couple from Canberra; an older Irish couple from Dublin and a mother-and-daughter from Germany. The daughter was older than me, and the mom didn’t speak English, but everyone else did. I can’t imagine flying from Australia for just one week anywhere; the couple had gone something like Canberra-Perth-Doha-somewhere else – Vilnius. The single guy, who was a physical therapist, was traveling in the region for the following week, so that wasn’t so bad. But boy, that is a long, long way to go for a week.

The routing was Vilnius-Riga-Tallinn with a couple of sightseeing stops on the travel days. It was nice to be in Christian countries around Easter, and I was able to go into churches celebrating Easter. I couldn’t understand a word, but I spent the night before Easter in some cathedrals listening to music, seeing weird rituals (a priest going through the standing crowd – no chairs – chanting and waving smoke at people) – and just being at peace.

My favorite stop, which I had no idea about before I booked the trip, is this site in northern (I think) Lithuania called the Hill of Crosses.

Here’s a link to the history of it: https://sacredsites.com/europe/lithuania/hill_of_crosses.html

“The tradition of placing crosses dates from [the 1200s] and probably first arose as a symbol of Lithuanian defiance of foreign invaders. Since the medieval period, the Hill of Crosses has represented the peaceful resistance of Lithuanian Catholicism to oppression. “

In case the name wasn’t clear enough, it’s literally a hill that is filled with crosses people have put up. And by “crosses,” I mean thousands upon thousands. One university class attempted to count them but stopped when they hit 100k. In a small area, there might be one big cross that has smaller crosses and rosaries hanging off the T part and then scores of smaller ones planted at the base. It’s a combination of spiritual, peaceful, eerie with a good dose of “wait, isn’t this just litter?” thrown in.

It’s a little walk off the highway, and you go under an overpass to get there. On the parking side of the overpass, there are several booths where you can pay 1E for a little cross, maybe six inches high, with a spear to spike it in the dirt. As you walk through the site, you can see them starting to decompose when you look closely at the bottom layer.

Stuff made of wood was big in the Baltics; driving through, it’s forest upon forest. Stupidly, I did NOT buy a cross at the Hill of Crosses. They had the little cheap ones to plant, sure, but I didn’t want that. I collect nice ones but I have to also like them. It’s not like “Oh, I’m here; I need a cross so let me just grab … this one.” I have to like it, and the only one I saw there was pretty dang expensive, so I didn’t buy it, reasoning that since there was wood stuff everywhere, I’d eventually find one. No. Oh well.

Still, it was my favorite part of the tour, even though it was basically just a 30-minute stop. A very good place to just stop and reflect.

Ahead of the deadline

April 15 is a big day in my world. It’s the end of my employer’s rating period, which signals a month of frantic writing of evaluations.

They’re horrible things, really, and a great exercise in both quasi-fiction and writing around topics. If our EERs – what we call these things – were movies, they’d be “inspired by real events.” A few could be classified “based on a true story” but barely any are hardcore documentaries.

If anything comes good out of anything you were involved in – even loosely or peripherally involved in – you can take full credit. If you didn’t sign the contract, you “contributed.” Doing nothing but showing up and nodding can be defined as “contributing.” Even if you as an individual did absolutely nothing but boss and order people around for 365 days, you are able – and even encouraged – to take the credit of what they accomplished.

It’s really sickening because the people who read these things base promotions off of them. Since people aren’t honest and embellish up the wazoo, these things sound phenomenal and louses get promoted. It’d be nice to see people write, “Soandso so is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year” when Soandso is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year. Instead, they’re scared of getting sued so it comes out more like, “Soandso gets along well with her peers and subordinates and her section has accomplished X, Y and Z during this rating period.” Except there’s also a comma after “Y” because we have to use the Oxford comma.

That’s another thing about these. The junior officers are so freaked out over them that they really believe something like the use of the Oxford comma, using two spaces vs. one after sentences or spelling out what “TDY” will make a difference between getting tenured/promoted or not.

Seriously, people, if your promotion depends on putting a comma after the “white” in “red, white and blue,” do you really want to work there?

Me, I just don’t care. I’ve written how I liked and barely made any suggestions to the other two people who have to “rate” and “review” me and I’ve done fine. I just don’t think it’s worth stressing over. It’s really amazing the amount of time spent on these. There are people who have to write 15+ of these things (my Guanghzou bosses were on the hook for 25 or so every year) and that’s a giant time suck, especially when you get high-maintenance officers who want to control every word of what two other people write. It’s painful, and parts of the department shut down for two months to work on them. My first big boss literally blocked off four hours of each day for over two months to write them. Nothing else gets done.

Since my job is to push these through the HR process, it also will take up much of my day from here until May 15, the deadline. My goal is to get mine done and then get out the whip to crack on everyone else.

I’m very much into getting the pain over with, and that goes for the other April deadline as well. Taxes are just horrible. This year hasn’t been fun. I don’t understand the new tax laws – I never do – but between the fact that the charitable check I write annually didn’t clear until January 2018 and that I got a promotion, I got socked with paying four digits instead of getting back anything. I’m not sure how it happened but it’s really annoying.

What is also annoying is tax software. I’ve used TurboTax for 10-15 years and have been fully satisfied with it, but last year they dumbed it down. I think using the phone/tablet software things have made things so much worse. I hate scrolling and miss having it all on one page. TurbotTax has done that in spades. It’s just a series of “duh” questions that aren’t relevant with cutesy responses.

I hate clicking just to click and that's all TurboTax is now. It takes forever to get through a single subject. To answer one question, you go through a series like this:

Let's see if this applies to you click we'll ask you some questions click are you ready click are you sure click ok click here's option one click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option two click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option three click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click one last chance to verify your answers click are you sure click do you want to review your answers click are you sure click ok, are you ready for the answer click here it is click do you like the answer click great! Click.

And then you get to No. 2. It’s lather, rinse, repeat and it’s made a laborious process even more laborious.

This year I cut the cord and moved to H&R Block. It cut the clicks by maybe 30 percent. Still a PITA, and I had to pay slightly more in taxes but it was worth it to cut the clicks. I’m just glad it’s over with.

Signs of old age, I guess

Happy birthday to me! I’m now officially on the road to 50 and just hope I make it.

For my No. 49, and this was premeditated, I celebrated – or whatever the right word would be – in Acibadem hospital, getting my shoulder fixed. Not the same shoulder I got fixed two years ago; the one I hurt picking up a jacket.  No kidding. My suede Timberland jacket fell off my chair at work last year and, when I went to pick it up, an evil gremlin ripped it out of its socket, twisted it and then crammed it back in.

It’s been over a year, several topicals, a shot, steroids, a couple MRIs, X-rays, PT, two cortisone shots and more PT, and finally it came down to surgery. And at that point, after all that, to think I could really be on the road to recovery in a day, well, that was a birthday present. I found out I’d need the surgery last week but they couldn’t get me in until Saturday. I was fine with that.

So for my birthday, I headed up to the hospital, decked in green. I got a lot of weird stares. Oh well.

The hospital, someone at work told me, was like a six-star hotel. I gotta say, it was really swanky. There was a room service menu, but I couldn’t eat anything prior to surgery. Gosh, that’s the worst. I couldn’t eat or drink from midnight to surgery time, which meant 12 and a half hours. No tea for 12 ½ hours – that’s criminal. And I was just so hungry!

There was a giant clock above he TV and I was just counting down until I went under so I didn’t have to think of how hungry and thirsty I was. Finally they took me to the room, which didn’t seem like an OR to me. It had a bunch of equipment in it and I felt like it could have been a warehouse except everything was clean. I almost expected more people to be in surgery at the same time; there was that much equipment.

Anyway, they put me under intravenously. Took no time at all. When I woke up, some two hours later, I was just shaking uncontrollably, but I guess that was normal. No one looked panicked, and there were a bunch of people there.

Back in my room, I was still thirsty more than hungry but when the guy brought food I got hungry again. He brought two meals; I guess because I missed lunch. I had both soups but only the roasted chicken meal. Felt so much better after that.

Everyone in the hospital was nice, but you can’t get a lot of rest with people checking up on you constantly. One person kept coming to ice my shoulder and another would do the IV thing.

I hate the IV thing. It’s preferable to needles going in and out; I get that.  But the idea of a needle living under my skin just gives me the heebie jeebies, It limited me more, too, because I had on arm immobilized and a needle in my other. I couldn't hold the phone to my ear at all.

I was mobile, but when they had the IV hooked up, it was a pain. You think grocery carts have bad wheels? They had nothing on this. I had to drag it from here to there and it would just get stuck on one of the bad wheels. I even resorted to just picking it up but since I had a needle in that arm it creeped me out. I really didn’t want to drop I and rip the needle out of my arm, so I mostly drug it, feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The rounds continued through the night so I didn’t get a lot of sleep but I haven’t been in real pain yet. One of the IVs was a painkiller but they didn’t send me home with any drugs. The doctor said to just take Advil.

After a tiny breakfast of a piece of pineapple – no tea, no milk, no toast – and the an amazing lunch of salmon, potatoes au gratin and chocolate cake, I got the OK to leave. I was still trying to find out some details and I was walking to the nurses’ station to ask when I saw a lady with tea. She must have caught a glimpse of the look on my face because she offered me some. Did I want tea? Of course!

Now I’m home and doing fine. I have a sling more complicated than one of Wendy’s saddles and a massive ice pack. Playing work by ear but plan on going just out of sheer boredom.

Right now, though, I am curled up with Butch and Sundance.

Running out of time

 I’m down to about four months left here in Istanbul. One some days, I can give an exact account. That tends to happen on bad days at work. Last time that happened, it was 115 days, so it’s less than that. On *really* bad days, I can tell you the number of working days left.

That’s going to change. Well, obviously the number will, but I did the counting thing before scheduling a handful of days off. I have a ton of leave and after the end of June, I won’t be able to take annual leave until 2019, so I need to burn some.

Absolutely no idea.
These guys were in our Antalya 10k hotel
lobby - some kind of promotion.

That means I get to do my favorite thing: plan trips. I’m stepping into the AirBnB waters for a couple of upcoming ones. In the days of Peace Corps, I did CouchSurfing but haven’t tried this yet. As Leila and I are looking forward to a week in Switzerland in 2019 and AirBnB seems cheaper than hotels, so we’re looking to that for options. I figured trying now might work.

There’s a week off I’ve been planning for months. Well, I’ve done very little planning; I’m doing a package tour of the Baltics. It’s going to be so very cold, but I was kind of limited. The other week trip I wanted to plan would have been colder – the Stans. That gets saved until later.

Anyway, the Baltics still isn’t for a bit, but it’s the next one scheduled and I tried to do some pre-packing today. The weather will necessitate a lot more clothes. A backpack won’t suffice for that one.

In an effort to check off more countries, a couple more trips will be the kind where you fly into one place and then figure out transport to another, where you have your outgoing flight. There are two of those coming up, and they’re the ones I’m doing with AirBnB. My hope is that my hosts will be able to point me to a bus schedule or something.

As amazing as Turkey is, I feel like I’ve done the stuff that I want to outside of Istanbul. Inside Istanbul, that’s another story but I’m kind of limited here. However, there’s one more trip I would do if I could: the Seven Churches of Revelation. I have two more weekends blocked off and could do it but I have to work out some logistics.

Even with the planned time off, I’m down to under 100 days, I suppose. It’ll speed up (and slow down) down the road, but I have another thing that might take me out for more: shoulder surgery. Yeah, that tune again. Different shoulder this time.

A little over a year ago, I dropped my jacket at work and went to pick it up. It was like you pulled my shoulder out of socket, twisted it and stuck it back. Now, first, I was stupid to not immediately jump to legalese and crap and file a workers’ comp claim. I was at work, and I did get injured in the workplace, not that the injury is in any way related to my job. But I didn’t do that, so no sense in mourning it.

 I just have a thing for boats.

What has aggravated me since is by four months after the injury, when it wasn’t getting any better, I figured I’d need surgery. However, the medical rigmarole is just as bad here as in America. It’s now over a year later and I’ve seen something like six doctors. I’ve had creams, anti-inflammatories, rice, some kind of shot, steroids, a round of PT, two MRIs, X-rays, two cortisone shots and another, longer round of PT. It’s not any better. I mean, it’s better than it was, say, six months ago, but it’s not any better than a after the injury itself. It’s one of those random ones that it is fine when I do “this,” “this” or “this.” It’s only when I do “that” that it hurts, and it’s not like a little tweak – it’s a world of pain.

I’m at the surgery step now, but it’s never that easy. The hospital doesn’t take my insurance, and even though I can file afterwards, I have to somehow pay up front. So far, I don’t know how much it will be, but my problem is that I live and die by AmEx and it’s not called “American” Express for a reason. Not accepted here. But it’s just an annoying detail and I’m going to get this done as soon as I can. Unfortunately, it requires an overnight.

It’s the recovery that’s going to be a PITA. More PT, yah. Groan. I’m told it will be six weeks before I can lift my arm over my head, but I can start doing the hang-down PT the day after. What I don’t want to mess up is the preparation for my next goal: a half marathon.

I realize when I ran the 10k in Siem Reap a couple of years ago that would likely be my only one. Well, I’ve done maybe 3-4 of those (one last weekend in Antalya – those are the photos), a 14k and a 15k. I want to do this. I am totally realistic in that it will take me 2:45, but I’m fine with that. I just want to do it. (Remember, I don’t use the term “run a race.” I say “participate in a 10k.” I’m not racing anyone.)

I'm liking the B&W settings for pictures.
Everything looks better in B&W.
Well, maybe not the sci-fi couple above. Red's their color.

The shoulder thing, as well as the week off, is going to hamper my training, but that’s really sort of an informal thing anyway. I don’t properly train any more than I warm up or stretch afterwards. (Which might explain the leg cramps, but whatever.) Some guy at work temporarily was a marathoner and he suggested that what I should do is over the weekends is to extend my regular 12k-ish run, so I did that this weekend. I ran 14k on Friday night, 15k on Saturday morning and 16k this morning.

There’s still so much I want to see in Istanbul, or see again. It took one of our temporary workers out yesterday and we ate fresh see bass and some kind of mussel, then took a bus to one of the walking areas. After the morning run, I walked another 7k. I really think my calves should be like steel by now. I also bought some little touristy things, but it now occurs to me that I don’t yet have a magnet that says “Istanbul” on it. I have 2-3 from Turkey, but nothing specifically from Istanbul. Oh well.

Lucky to go to Luxor

This really is my favorite part of the world. For whatever reason, I’m comfortable in the Middle East, even if I get hassled a lot. Let’s face it, the food is wonderful.

Stereotypical Egyptian photo.
From the museum.

When we in Istanbul granted a second R&R (meaning taxpayer-funded flight), I had limited options for when to go. I’d previously booked a week off in March and bought a plane ticket to go with it, and taking a week off after that would run into the “get extra approval for” territory, because you’re supposed to use your R&Rs before you have six months remaining at post. I leave at the end of June, so I was already cutting it close.

After toying with other days and locations – I wanted to go somewhere with a flight that cost more than the usual $250 or so – I finally decided to do the cruise itinerary in Egypt, which is from Aswan from Luxor. Note I tacked on “itinerary” after that, as I did not take the cruise itself. I priced a few (they’re all the same) and they seem reasonable on the face but when you figure in the single supplement they were about $700.

I contacted ASTI travel (I think it’s American Star Travel Inc. or something like that) and got them to price me an itinerary that allowed me to see everything on the cruise itinerary, plus do a few things in Cairo that I wanted to do. (Museum, souk and Coptic Cairo – I went to the pyramids in 2009.)

And it worked out well. I got to Aswan, way in the south, around 7:30 in the morning and immediately headed to the dam with my guide and driver. Had no idea the Nile had a dam, but has since the 1960s. The Nile, as you might know, floods annually, which is about the only water Egypt ever gets. The dam allows it to be regulated.

The dam is the second largest in the world, behind one in China that apparently I missed the opportunity to see. Wiki blurb:

Greatest hotel sign.
Ever.

“The High Dam has resulted in protection from floods and droughts, an increase in agricultural production and employment, electricity production, and improved navigation that also benefits tourism.

“Periodic floods and droughts have affected Egypt since ancient times. The dam mitigated the effects of floods, such as those in 1964, 1973, and 1988. Navigation along the river has been improved, both upstream and downstream of the dam.”

Right on the lake created by the dam (Nasser), there’s a temple called Philae, so that was the next stop. It was moved from a couple kilometers away, something about the dam. (It’s a lot of history. I can only absorb so much, especially around 9 a.m.)

From Wiki:

“The most ancient was a temple for Isis, built in the reign of Nectanebo I during 380-362 BC, which was approached from the river through a double colonnade. Nekhtnebef was his ancient Egyptian royal titulary and he became the founding pharaoh of the Thirtieth and last native dynasty when he deposed and killed Nepherites II.

“For the most part, the other ruins date from the Ptolemaic Kingdom, more especially with the reigns of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Ptolemy V Epiphanes, and Ptolemy VI Philometor (282-145 BC), with many traces of Roman work in Philae dedicated to Ammon-Osiris.

Cool photo but I have no memory of what this was

“In front of the propyla were two colossal lions in granite, behind which stood a pair of obelisks, each 13 metres (43 ft) high. Beyond the entrance into the principal court are small temples, one of which, dedicated to Isis, Hathor, and a wide range of deities related to midwifery, is covered with sculptures representing the birth of Ptolemy Philometor, under the figure of the god Horus. The story of Osiris is everywhere represented on the walls of this temple.”

Also went to the “Unfinished Obelisk,” which was begun in some century BC but abandoned when they cracked it wrong.

The next day, I headed to more temples on the way to Luxor, and can I just say I’m really tired of Chinese tourists? Oh my gosh. There were just packs and packs of tourists everywhere, some land and some cruise-going. I was one of very few who were not with groups.

At the Luxor hotel

I took a ton of pictures over the six days I was gone but am not one of those Instagram fiends, so I’m only posting a few, including the greatest hotel “clean up room” sign ever. That it was from the Happi Hotel makes it all the more awesome.

The sights on the way to Luxor included a lot of speed bumps and Kom Ombo Temple Edfu Temple, then I got to Luxor to the Maritim Jolie hotel (off Expedia) that was utterly fabulous. No, it didn’t have aa “do me” sign, but it was quite a resort. I could have camped out there for a week, easily.

But the itinerary called and Luxor temple … oh, wow. Plus, the Valley of Kings – tombs of Tut, several Ramses kings, and so on. Just incredible. And Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, too. Man, just incredible.

On the drive, I noticed a couple of hot air balloons and asked the guide about them. I had no idea it was an option, but he said he could try to get me a spot and, around 6 p.m., he finally called to confirm.

I’d done one in Cappadocia and it was phenomenal, so I wasn’t freaked out or anything. The big difference between there and Luxor was that in Cappadocia, it’s a thing. There are scores of balloons up every morning, but in Luxor there were fewer than 10. I was lucky to get a seat!

Screaming mummy
(In case you hadn't guessed)

Sunrises are always beautiful, when you’re watching one come up over the Nile from a balloon, well, all that comes to mind is that God is awesome. Seeing the Valley of Kings and Queen H’s temple from the air was just incredible. I mean, those ancient Egyptians were amazing engineers, architects and scientists. And seeing the contrast where the Nile regularly flooded to the limestone was amazing – it was just a line with green on one since and brown on the other, just as far as you could see.

Cairo, too, was incredible. The traffic, for one. Man, Istanbul is bad, but I really think Cairo is worse. I went to three places and it took from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. But the museum was completely worth it. They’re opening a new one in a year or so (maybe this year, I don’t remember) and I will totally have to go back. From what I understood, they have something like 5000 more pieces in storage because there’s no room for them now.

I bought the extra ticket to see the mummy room. Although you couldn’t take pictures in there, they had one mummy in another room that was “screaming.” Here’s a link to a story on that: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/02/12/mystery-screaming-egyptian-mummy-which-has-baffled-archaeologists-for-years-finally-resolved.html. The mummies in the no-photo rooms were fascinating and nauseating at the same time. I mean, I really was queasy. Looking at 4,000-year-old toenails, teeth and hair can do that to you. Or at least it did it to me.

One of the dead had been buried with a small mummy, which had been assumed for years to be her child. Here’s that story, pasted from https://cowofgold.wikispaces.com/Animal+Mummies:

“In the early days of archaeology animal mummies were regarded as mere curiosities, often ignored or even thrown away after evacuation. Some were misidentified as the mummies of children. The most famous example of this is Queen Maatkare’s pet baboon. When her tomb was discovered, there was a small, mummified bundle present at her feet, which was initially believed to be her child. This puzzled archaeologists because Queen Makare was a high priestess who had taken a serious vow of celibacy. If this had been her child, it would have meant that she had, at some point, broken the oath she had taken as high priestess, raising a slew of other questions regarding her life. Whole stories, even a novel, have been woven around what seemed to imply an illicit relationship. Finally, in 1968, an X-ray was done on the small mummy, and it was determined to be her pet female baboon, not a child.

“The ancient Egyptians loved animals and preserved their beloved pets in hopes that they would accompany their owners into the afterlife. When a pet died before its owner, the animal was often mummified and placed into the owner's tomb to await them so that they could be buried together.”

You know, I really have nothing to add after that. There’s no easy segue from “mummified pet baboon,” so I will just call it a night.

An endorsement for Cutco knives.

Since I finally have an adult job and like to cook, I decided last year to invest in some decent knives. After asking around and reading reviews, I went with Cutco, which are made in the United States. (Big selling point with me.) All the reviews I read were from people who’d had theirs for years and raved about them, like someone having been married for 180 years who’d gotten them at a bridal shower. (Yes, an exaggeration, but only a slight one.)

Not quite the same as mine, but close. Endorse fully.
He's adorable. Available from Missing Digit Workshop
through Amazon.

Even prior to settling on the Cutco knives, I bought a cute little knife holder off Amazon. It’s from a seller called Missing Digit Workshop, and it’s an awesome little Spartan holding a shield. The shield has slits in it, and you hang your knives in them. In addition, Sparty has his arm pulled back so you can arm him with a spear, which is held up by a magnet. It’s similar to the one pictured, only I went for the lower-priced model. My little guy is all light wood.

He’s also only got two knives attacking him so far, and he’s wielding off his enemies with a bread knife, not a knife sharpener. That’s all I’ve bought so far. And, to be honest, I rarely use the three knives on there because I use my ulu for most of my cutting.

I use this every single weekday for my PB sandwich.
It also slices fingers superbly.

What I do use – every single weekday – is my spreader knife. I paid around $60 for it, and it’s basically one of the greatest kitchen buys I’ve made. (Slightly off topic: another wonderful purchase has been the Zeroll ice cream scoop – also made in the U.S. -- bought to replace another not-to-be-named brand that snapped in half.)

It’s marketed as a bagel slicer/spreader and I use it to make peanut butter sandwiches. (Yes, even with an adult job, I still eat a middle school lunch.) As a result, I never bother to attack Sparty with it and just leave it in the utensil bin thing on my dish dryer rack. And, in the year or so I’ve owned it, it’s worked out rather well. I am careful with it and only put it in the dryer rack handle side down, just like I do the fork, spoon and butter knife that also pretty much reside there. And until this morning, never gave a fleeting thought to how I let my utensils dry.

In spite of this, the pancakes
turned out nicely.

This morning, I changed up my routine to make pancakes during the week. Usually it’s a Saturday-Sunday treat, but I have to work this weekend and I decided to move pancakes up in the lineup. (Geez, I feel like I am channeling Zippy in really winding up for what will inevitably turn out to be a letdown story.)

Pancakes from scratch are the easiest thing. Flour, salt, sugar, powdered milk, Clabber Girl’s baking powder, oil and an egg. I don’t measure and just throw the stuff in there, then add water and mix. Have to do the water a little at a time – there’s a method. This time, I was mixing with a fork (whisks are a pain to clean) and since it was still a bit thick, I added a bit more, then quickly shut off the water.

Owie. My sink isn’t very big, and my dish dryer rack sort of leans over. from the little side to the big "wash dishes here" side. The utensil bin hangs outside it and my wonderful spreader thing was a bit too close to the sink faucet handle. When I snapped the faucet off, I sliced the bejesus out of my finger.

Moral of the story:
This is a very bad idea for a kitchen setup

It’s not a terribly bad cut but boy, it bled a lot. I had to take time out from making the pancakes to dress the wound because it just bled and bled. I finally got it stopped, but since my bandages are so old I then had to use Scotch tape over the bandage to hold it on.  And I realized it was bleeding through since the little fingertip bandage hadn’t fit right in the first place. I got to work and got a proper bandage for it and have been dealing with the boo boo-on-the-index-finger situation ever since.

It’s a highly amusing injury because I keep telling people the truth – I cut my finger making pancakes. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed. It’s one of those dumb luck injuries because there’s just no way this could happen (God, please take note: Not a dare!) again. I mean, the spreader is only serrated on one side. Had I whacked the butter knife, the spoon or the fork, I’d still have my blood. Seriously, what are the odds?

And really, if it had been any other knife, it probably wouldn’t have broken the skin. It’s a weird endorsement, but hey, slicing yourself in a freak accident while making pancakes is a sign of quality.