With winter fast approaching, the immediacy of getting up high and taking advantage of snow free ridges is starting to outweigh the cold, drizzly weekends we've gotten used to. Bryce asked us if we were interested in trying a one-day blitz of the Bomber Traverse, and we agreed in an instant. We've been foiled on two winter attempts, once by rotten snow, and another time by 2' of fresh, last April. Early September seemed like a great time to try, and Bryce mentioned he'd heard of a group who had just completed the trip less than two weeks back. Let's go for it!
After a bright and early start, we reached the Gold Mint Trailhead and were away by 9. We had braced ourselves for rain all day, but the skies were teasing us with patches of blue, and sun was threatening to peek through as we made our way upvalley alongside the Little Susitna River. The route follows the Little Su to its heaedwaters at the Mint Glacier, where it climbs up and over Backdoor Gap, and onto the Pennyroyal Glacier. The trail has received extensive work this summer, but the brush was still wet from the week's rain, and beavers can outwork even the most productive trail crews, so we arrived at the top of Heartbreak Hill with wet pants and wetter feet, but with our shadows in tow! After ages apart, it was nice to get reacquainted, and we spent some time enjoying each others' company below the Mint Glacier.
The Mint Hut was hard to find, tucked neatly onto a ledge in the jumbled terrain left behind by the receding Mint Glacier. We poked around for a few minutes, signed out names in the register, and then turned our attention to Backdoor Gap. As we climbed higher, the snow started to get deeper, and I started wondering what the Pennyroyal Glacier was going to look like. None of us had ever done the trip before, so we were uncertain what to expect. With no snow, the route was supposed to be very straighforward, but a new blanket of white added to the unknown.
After a prolonged discussion, we decided that the route looked good, and pushed on. The snow was soft, and almost 6" deep. It was a bit of a downer to realize that skis and snowshoes would have been more appropriate than running shoes. I love winter, but having missed out on any type of summer this year, I'm not yet ready to embrace my snowboard quite yet...
We slogged across the Pennyroyal Glacier, aiming to hit a high pass to the Bomber Glacier instead of the normal route down and around the ridge separating the two icefields. We initially aimed for the more obvious of the two gaps, but changed course to hit the higher one. It turned out to be a very good choce, since it led to a steep but straightforward descent to the Bomber Glacier, while the other pass would have left us stranded in snowy talus above 50' cliffs. Thanks for researching the route, Bryce!
The Bomber Glacier is named after an Air Force Bomber that crashed in 1957, killing 6. The wreckage is surprisingly raw, even after 50 years. In my head, I'd imagined a few peices of aluminum protruding from the ice, but instead was confronted with wreckage strewn across an area the size of several football fields. I wasn't expecting to find a real crash site. The writing on the wing was still legible, and the tattered cloth lining the fuselage was fluttering in the breeze. Levers were waiting to be pulled, and the wheels still lay at the bottom of the slope, looking as though they'd just now finished spinning. I've been up Wolverine Mountain in Anchorage many times, where another fatal crash occurred around the same time. The wreckage from that plane consists of nothing more than a few rusted pieces of steel, laying quielty and unobtrusively high on the tundra. The bomber crash site is not at all the same, and I kept imagining the movie Alive.
My feet were starting to really bother me from the cold, and I wanted to get off the snow so I could change my socks and get some blood flow back to my toes. We headed across the remainder of the ice, and started up towards the pass separating us from Reed Lakes. We misjudged the route a little, and ended up too high up the ridge. With snow covering the steep descent, we decided to head back onto the glacier and work our way further down towards the proper pass. Point releases started letting go, and I set off a little wet slb that travelled 50' before getting caught up in its own slushiness. Nothing dangerous, but a sobering reminder that winter isn't far off.
The view down to Reed Lakes was breathtaking. I haven't spent much time inthe Talkeetnas, but they have a completely different feel than the Chugach. Much more rugged, and raw. They seem bigger. We picked our way down below the snow level, and wasted no time ditching our soggy socks and massaging some life back into our freezing feet. Almost three hours on snow with wet running shoes isn't the most comfortable way to spend an afternoon, but fresh socks and some more miles on the trail back out to Archangel Road quickly warmed them up. The descent back to the car passsed by quickly, finishing with a 4 mile road walk back to our car.
20 miles, 11 hours, and another item checked off the list!
For more pictures, check here.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pictures from Everest Base Camp Trek
Hey there, I just finished uploading all of my Everest pictures to the web, so you can look through them at your leisure. We had many many photos, but I tried to pull out the ones that gave an overview of the whole journey. Hope you enjoy them! And for those of you who care, there's a cool feature at the bottom left corner of the Picasa page that lets you see where the photos were actually taken. Click on the "photo locations" titlefor more info.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Indian Guide to Street Meat
India, it seems, eats all of its meals on the road. This I mean literally, as every path in India is catered to by street vendors, the roadsides chock a block with any and all type of food stand. The resourcefulness of people is amazing, and kitchens take on a whole new meaning here. Strap a basket to the front of your bike, a stove on a platform to the back, hang a propane tank off the handle bars and you've got a mobile chai stand! Men wander through the streets with a basket of food on their head, a collapsible tray stand in hand, and set up shop wherever hunger beckons. Women spread blankets on the ground (very clean blankets, spread over very clean ground, ahem) and a vegetable market sprouts overnight. For a street meat connoisseur like myself, India's roadside eateries present a not-so-little piece of Heaven.
After 6 months on the continent, I'm a perfectly trained street-eating beast: fast, fit and able to spot a snack vendor at 200 yards, through a foggy, crowded Delhi afternoon, no less. The assortment of foods available is truly astonishing, and I've made it my mission to try them all.
Fresh fruit bursting with sweet nectars, crisp veggies overflowing in colour and abundance, "Chaiiiiiiiiiiii!" stands, lassi stands, soda stands, popcorn stands. Corn roasted fresh over red-hot coals, marinated chicken sizzling aromatically above a homemade portable brazier. Fried dough makes the world go 'round: puris, samosas, jalebis, gulab jamon - I never understood the true potential the combination of flour, water and boiling oil presented, but I've started to perceive the possibilities. Roasted nuts, roasted sweet potato, mix and match your own chat mix - all sprinkled liberally with the ubiquitous masala and splashed with some freshly squeezed lime. Lime is something I'm taking home with me; visitors to my kitchen beware: you will feel the wrath of lime!
Tonight, on our second-to-last night in India, we were treated to the grand finale of street meat eating: the Sikh festival honouring their tenth and final guru, or holy man. The Sikhs as a whole are a rather...portly group, and business success has led to no shortage of caloric intake. They have a very charitable culture, and serving food to those in need is an important part of their faith; at the Golden Temple, their holiest shrine, more than 20 000 visitors are fed daily. Clearly, the Sikhs know how to put on a feast. This afternoon the city was transformed, entire neighborhoods becoming festival grounds, with tents unfurling everywhere, and kitchens being conjured out of thin air. Pots big enough to cook a man bubbled over with all sorts of Punjabi favourites: creamy lentil stews, deep fried sandwiches, assorted curries and sickly sweet treats. A parade appeared, everywhere at once, and the serving of the food commenced. Every stall was thronged with people, but the gringos were always enthusiastically pushed into the crowd, and at every block we emerged happily from the mass of eating bodies with food in hand.
On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed that my stools have been a little loose of late. Hmm, must be something going around...
I've decided to save India one snack at a time, and to date I've pumped more money into the food service economy than any gringo previously. It's my way of giving back. With so many tastes and smells and textures to sample, it's hard to pass up a new one, or a good one, or a particularly spectacular one, especially now, when I have so few days left to embed their flavours in my palette's memory. As a result, there have been days when I've been forced to trudge home humbled, my stomach simply unable to fit any more food into its solid-packed chamber. GASP! Full? Full, you say? Abby endorses my attempts wholeheartedly, and is quick to point out any stalls I've missed, or which I've subtly tried to pretend I hadn't noticed. "Not even ice cream?" she asks with a mixture of incredulity and contempt. You call yourself a man, her tone of voice demands. "Ice cream ALWAYS fits - it just slides into the cracks." Sorry, no cracks exist to fill. Full is full. It pains me to be full - turning down food goes against every fibre of my being - but sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do.
Take South Lake Tahoe, for instance. Halfway through the Pacific Crest Trail, we spent three days in this resort town that caters to the casinos just across the California-Nevada border. Their all-you-can-eat buffets are stupendous, and with 1000 miles of trail behind us our hungers were unstoppable. Or so I thought. Plate after plate went down the hatch, heaped high with all sorts of Food That Wasn't Hiking Food. I finally reached the point of bursting, and as I pushed my plates away in defeat and shuffled uncomfortably to the bathroom, I spied a dessert bar I had missed on my many laps around the restaurant.
- Pause for interlude, cue relaxing muzak, take five. -
Bulimia is real, and furthermore, it works; the blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream was delectable. I've learned my lesson, I swear: always save room for dessert. However, that was then, and this is now.
After 6 months on the continent, I'm a perfectly trained street-eating beast: fast, fit and able to spot a snack vendor at 200 yards, through a foggy, crowded Delhi afternoon, no less. The assortment of foods available is truly astonishing, and I've made it my mission to try them all.
Fresh fruit bursting with sweet nectars, crisp veggies overflowing in colour and abundance, "Chaiiiiiiiiiiii!" stands, lassi stands, soda stands, popcorn stands. Corn roasted fresh over red-hot coals, marinated chicken sizzling aromatically above a homemade portable brazier. Fried dough makes the world go 'round: puris, samosas, jalebis, gulab jamon - I never understood the true potential the combination of flour, water and boiling oil presented, but I've started to perceive the possibilities. Roasted nuts, roasted sweet potato, mix and match your own chat mix - all sprinkled liberally with the ubiquitous masala and splashed with some freshly squeezed lime. Lime is something I'm taking home with me; visitors to my kitchen beware: you will feel the wrath of lime!
Tonight, on our second-to-last night in India, we were treated to the grand finale of street meat eating: the Sikh festival honouring their tenth and final guru, or holy man. The Sikhs as a whole are a rather...portly group, and business success has led to no shortage of caloric intake. They have a very charitable culture, and serving food to those in need is an important part of their faith; at the Golden Temple, their holiest shrine, more than 20 000 visitors are fed daily. Clearly, the Sikhs know how to put on a feast. This afternoon the city was transformed, entire neighborhoods becoming festival grounds, with tents unfurling everywhere, and kitchens being conjured out of thin air. Pots big enough to cook a man bubbled over with all sorts of Punjabi favourites: creamy lentil stews, deep fried sandwiches, assorted curries and sickly sweet treats. A parade appeared, everywhere at once, and the serving of the food commenced. Every stall was thronged with people, but the gringos were always enthusiastically pushed into the crowd, and at every block we emerged happily from the mass of eating bodies with food in hand.
Part of my feeding frenzy has been out of necessity: our time in Nepal was spent either trekking or sick, and all my bulging muscles have mysteriously disappeared, along with that insulating layer of butter I've been storing under my skin for several years now. It's much colder when you're skinny. Hopefully, my focused efforts are beginning to pay off, and the man who returns home will be recognizable as the man who left.
The festival is over, and the free food has run dry. I'm full from dinner, but there's this guy on the way home from the internet cafe who sells skewers of mystery meat I've been dying to try. No time like the present, especially when the present is soon to be gone.
On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed that my stools have been a little loose of late. Hmm, must be something going around...
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Holy Cow
I just finished reading a book, Holy Cow, by Sarah McDonald, and her ability to describe India is uncanny. She makes no attempt to explain it, but decribes it bang on. It makes me feel better for going through the same issues, confrontations, and facing the same ethical, philisophical, and moral conundrums. No answers, but plenty of food for thought... Here are some excerpts:
"Jonathan drags me from their party, for as I ride the aftershocks, I begin to regurgitate my repressed memories of why I never wanted to come here again. It's a vomit of hatred and a rambling rage against the bullshit, the pushing, the shoving, the rip-offs, the cruelty, the crowds, the pollution, the weather, the begging, the performance of pity, the pissing, the shitting, the snotting, the spitting, the farting.
As I hear myslef rant I begin to hate myself for hating - for being so middle class and pampered and comfortable that I should now be so shell-shocked. I am shaken to my core; the ground, that stable and strong bed beneath me has moved and it's stirred something once rock-solid within. I put my head in my hands and cry."
"It's a bizarre scene - full of foreigners trying to figure India out. I'm beginning to think it's hopeless. India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is also true. It's rich and poor, spiritual and material, cruel and kind, angry but peaceful, ugly and beautiful, and smart but stupid. It's all extremes. India defies understanding, and for once, for me, that's okay...India is in some ways like a hall of mirrors where I can see both sides of each contradiction sharply and there's no easy escape to understanding."
Matt and Emma sit staring out the window with their mouths agape, much as I did nearly two years ago in the taxi to Rishikesh. They're aghast at the putrid-smelling mokeys beside the road, the psychedelic movie posters, the scarecrows keeping crows off partially built buildings, the tough female road workers shovelling bitumen, the matted hair of the street shildren, and the towns with more temples than Chinese take-aways. They scream 'Fuck' and flinch every time the car swerves to avoid head-on collisions with trucks, cars and slow-moving tractors. They take photos of the chillies drying on the road and the people stacking hay. They attempt to plug their ears to the blast of the horns and endlessly politely repeat 'no thank you' to the people who push and invade their space every time we stop and get out of the car."
"When we open the creaking door and turn on the single light bulb, the floor moves as cockroaches scatter. It's then that I realize I've made a huge mistake. Rebecca and I are used to India, and are almost unshockable, but for Emma and Matt this is all too much, too soon. Matt is concerned about the filth, the lack of sanitation, the chance of disease...Emma is suffering from chemical poisoning, overheating, dehydration, and sensory overload - she also has a bad cold and is covered in a film of sticky black dirt...
'What the fuck are they doing? They're worshipping the Virgin Mary like she's another god. She's the bloody mother of Jesus. And why have they shaved their heads? There's nothing in the Bible about giving God your hair. Christ, this is just berserck, it's too bizarre.'
She begins to sob. I've hardly ever seen Emma get upset about anything."
"Jonathan drags me from their party, for as I ride the aftershocks, I begin to regurgitate my repressed memories of why I never wanted to come here again. It's a vomit of hatred and a rambling rage against the bullshit, the pushing, the shoving, the rip-offs, the cruelty, the crowds, the pollution, the weather, the begging, the performance of pity, the pissing, the shitting, the snotting, the spitting, the farting.
As I hear myslef rant I begin to hate myself for hating - for being so middle class and pampered and comfortable that I should now be so shell-shocked. I am shaken to my core; the ground, that stable and strong bed beneath me has moved and it's stirred something once rock-solid within. I put my head in my hands and cry."
"It's a bizarre scene - full of foreigners trying to figure India out. I'm beginning to think it's hopeless. India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is also true. It's rich and poor, spiritual and material, cruel and kind, angry but peaceful, ugly and beautiful, and smart but stupid. It's all extremes. India defies understanding, and for once, for me, that's okay...India is in some ways like a hall of mirrors where I can see both sides of each contradiction sharply and there's no easy escape to understanding."
Matt and Emma sit staring out the window with their mouths agape, much as I did nearly two years ago in the taxi to Rishikesh. They're aghast at the putrid-smelling mokeys beside the road, the psychedelic movie posters, the scarecrows keeping crows off partially built buildings, the tough female road workers shovelling bitumen, the matted hair of the street shildren, and the towns with more temples than Chinese take-aways. They scream 'Fuck' and flinch every time the car swerves to avoid head-on collisions with trucks, cars and slow-moving tractors. They take photos of the chillies drying on the road and the people stacking hay. They attempt to plug their ears to the blast of the horns and endlessly politely repeat 'no thank you' to the people who push and invade their space every time we stop and get out of the car."
"When we open the creaking door and turn on the single light bulb, the floor moves as cockroaches scatter. It's then that I realize I've made a huge mistake. Rebecca and I are used to India, and are almost unshockable, but for Emma and Matt this is all too much, too soon. Matt is concerned about the filth, the lack of sanitation, the chance of disease...Emma is suffering from chemical poisoning, overheating, dehydration, and sensory overload - she also has a bad cold and is covered in a film of sticky black dirt...
'What the fuck are they doing? They're worshipping the Virgin Mary like she's another god. She's the bloody mother of Jesus. And why have they shaved their heads? There's nothing in the Bible about giving God your hair. Christ, this is just berserck, it's too bizarre.'
She begins to sob. I've hardly ever seen Emma get upset about anything."
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The Spaces Between
India has a billion people. Stop and think about that. Look at a map of the world, compare the size of India to the rest of the world, to Canada, to the US, to the UK, and now imagine squeezing one fifth of the world's population into that space. It's not easy. One billion people eating and sleeping and shitting and buying and selling and doing all those things that people do everywhere in the world, except here, they never do any of them alone.
On our walk back to the hotel tonight, we passed life being lived all around us, out in the open, shared with anyone who had the courage or desire to watch.
I was asked if I wanted a shave from an enterprising man who'd set up shop against the wall of a house. He had a mirror hanging from a nail, a small wooden shelf leaning up below it, and a battered chair waiting empty beside him. In Kajuraho I had seen the same thing, this time with a tree for a hanging post and the road shoulder providing the necessary empty space. They both had their regulars, the customers who returned day after day to have their early morning stubble removed as they watched the reflection of India commuting to work behind them.
We saw a pair of men pull down their pants and squat to take shits beside the main road leading into Old Delhi. Oblivious of the traffic, the people, the cows, each other, they settled in comfortably and went about their business as normally as you or I tuck a paper under our arms and saunter off to the downstairs shitter. Apart from us, no one noticed a thing.
Entire lives are lived in the spaces that we take for granted - the distance you drive from your house to the grocery store, say, here encompasses whole universes. Peoples' lives consist of the small concrete garage where they eat, sleep and earn their livelihood, wedged in a narrow, dirty alley, where they eat the same food, at the same times, and have the same routine, day after day. Blink, and they don't exist, their existence irrelevant to the India you've discovered.
That thought is a very difficult one for me. Irrelevant people, living irrelevant lives. Millions and millions of people struggling daily to survive until tomorrow, with no thought of different, or better, only the immediacy of selling ten more oranges so they can have enough food to feed their family tonight. They don't mean anything to me. They have no bearing on my life. They are irrelevant. How arrogant, how fortunate, how privileged, and in the end, how true. I can ignore the overfilled spaces and keep walking; blink, and carry on. Those spaces between will disappear as soon as I leave, and return home to the emptiness of the West. If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it? Or better yet, if you watch a tree fall in the forest, then walk away and never return, did it really happen? Or did it matter if it did happen?
I'll take any comments...
On our walk back to the hotel tonight, we passed life being lived all around us, out in the open, shared with anyone who had the courage or desire to watch.
I was asked if I wanted a shave from an enterprising man who'd set up shop against the wall of a house. He had a mirror hanging from a nail, a small wooden shelf leaning up below it, and a battered chair waiting empty beside him. In Kajuraho I had seen the same thing, this time with a tree for a hanging post and the road shoulder providing the necessary empty space. They both had their regulars, the customers who returned day after day to have their early morning stubble removed as they watched the reflection of India commuting to work behind them.
We saw a pair of men pull down their pants and squat to take shits beside the main road leading into Old Delhi. Oblivious of the traffic, the people, the cows, each other, they settled in comfortably and went about their business as normally as you or I tuck a paper under our arms and saunter off to the downstairs shitter. Apart from us, no one noticed a thing.
Entire lives are lived in the spaces that we take for granted - the distance you drive from your house to the grocery store, say, here encompasses whole universes. Peoples' lives consist of the small concrete garage where they eat, sleep and earn their livelihood, wedged in a narrow, dirty alley, where they eat the same food, at the same times, and have the same routine, day after day. Blink, and they don't exist, their existence irrelevant to the India you've discovered.
That thought is a very difficult one for me. Irrelevant people, living irrelevant lives. Millions and millions of people struggling daily to survive until tomorrow, with no thought of different, or better, only the immediacy of selling ten more oranges so they can have enough food to feed their family tonight. They don't mean anything to me. They have no bearing on my life. They are irrelevant. How arrogant, how fortunate, how privileged, and in the end, how true. I can ignore the overfilled spaces and keep walking; blink, and carry on. Those spaces between will disappear as soon as I leave, and return home to the emptiness of the West. If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it? Or better yet, if you watch a tree fall in the forest, then walk away and never return, did it really happen? Or did it matter if it did happen?
I'll take any comments...
Monday, November 26, 2007
The War Room
Beers in hand, burrowed deep into the warmth of our sleeping bags to ward off the winter chill that's seeped into the air, Abby and I face each other across our hotel room. We each have a copy of the India Lonely Planet, and we're trying to figure out how to spend the final three weeks of our vacation. The floor is littered with our meagre belongings, scattered evenly throughout the room as though a cyclone blew through, or perhaps our bags exploded upon arrival - we just got here yesterday but it already looks like we've lived here for months.
We've been throwing ideas back and forth for over an hour now, and I've made two return trips to the corner store to replenish our planning fuel; a thirsty traveller is not a happy traveller. India is big, REALLY big, and we've barely seen any of it. Three weeks sounds like a lot, but put it down on paper, trace the train rides, the buses, the city stops on the map and it disappears in the blink of an eye.
How quickly things change: before we left for Everest, I could hardly wait for the trip to be done. I was anxious to finish our trek, to head back to Delhi, to board the airplane that would take us home to Canada, to Christmas. Now, with less than 20 days left, I feel like it's all passed by too quickly. There's too much left undone, too many places to see. I need more time! Sitting here like this, sipping cheap beer in a ratty room in a dirty city, planning my immediate future makes me want to dance. The air in the room is alive with possibility - so many choices, so many roads, so many lines on the map that lead to anywhere, to everywhere.
We leaf through our respective books, Abby flipping the pages of our battered, war-torn tome while I try not to crease the spine of the pristine copy I borrowed from the lounge. It was sitting there, lonely, and besides - two heads are better than one. We trade page numbers and intriguing destinations, pointing out restaurants and beaches and ashrams and mountains. We're quickly working ourselves into a rabid feeding frenzy, ready to devour the entire country in a dozen emormous bites. We play off each other as the sights coalesce into various potential routes zigzagging across the green triangle. They grow and grow until finally they collapse like a house of cards under the sheer weight of their ambition. We have only 20 days. We start all over again.
What will we do? Where will we go? The beers are empty, day has become night. We've reached a decision: we're heading to the beach!
We've been throwing ideas back and forth for over an hour now, and I've made two return trips to the corner store to replenish our planning fuel; a thirsty traveller is not a happy traveller. India is big, REALLY big, and we've barely seen any of it. Three weeks sounds like a lot, but put it down on paper, trace the train rides, the buses, the city stops on the map and it disappears in the blink of an eye.
How quickly things change: before we left for Everest, I could hardly wait for the trip to be done. I was anxious to finish our trek, to head back to Delhi, to board the airplane that would take us home to Canada, to Christmas. Now, with less than 20 days left, I feel like it's all passed by too quickly. There's too much left undone, too many places to see. I need more time! Sitting here like this, sipping cheap beer in a ratty room in a dirty city, planning my immediate future makes me want to dance. The air in the room is alive with possibility - so many choices, so many roads, so many lines on the map that lead to anywhere, to everywhere.
We leaf through our respective books, Abby flipping the pages of our battered, war-torn tome while I try not to crease the spine of the pristine copy I borrowed from the lounge. It was sitting there, lonely, and besides - two heads are better than one. We trade page numbers and intriguing destinations, pointing out restaurants and beaches and ashrams and mountains. We're quickly working ourselves into a rabid feeding frenzy, ready to devour the entire country in a dozen emormous bites. We play off each other as the sights coalesce into various potential routes zigzagging across the green triangle. They grow and grow until finally they collapse like a house of cards under the sheer weight of their ambition. We have only 20 days. We start all over again.
What will we do? Where will we go? The beers are empty, day has become night. We've reached a decision: we're heading to the beach!
Everest, Day 1
(Journal entry November 8th)
After a week of waiting and hoping for Steve to get well, we finally boarded a Yeti Airlines flight in Kathmandu this morning, bound for Lukla. The flight was pretty amazing - I'd heard it was good, but having flown in many small airplanes and helicopters around Alaska, I didn't expect to be as blown away as I was. It was a small plane, and we were on the wrong side to have window views of the Himalaya, but I still spent the entire trip straining and shifting to glimpse the snow capped peaks. Clouds covered the valleys, so all you could see were the jagged tops of the tallest shear-faced ridges. The mountains grew in size and number as we got further from Kathmandu, and when I heard a lady in the front row whisper "Everest?", I was sure the plane was going to fall out of the sky as everyone practically lept out of their seats to catch a glimpse of the famed mountain. Unfortunately, no one could confirm the sighting - the mountains and ridges were too numerous and widespread to pick the tallest among them.
After about 30 minutes of flying, we were fully immersed in the mountains, and I began to lose sight of the clear path through (or around) them. The pilot began banking left and right, between narrow passes, barely above high mountain plateaus, and around knolls and peaks. It felt like I was in a video game, or maybe a Star Wars battle scene, as we seemed to barely skim over and through the ground below us. Complicating the diverse terrain were whisps of cloud and fog that were rolling through the scenery, but the pilot manuevered through it all with complete calm and ease. Suddenly, with a quick turn to the right, the clouds broke and several buildings could be seen, cut into the mountainside directly in front of us. We picked up speed as the pilot aimed the nose of the plane directly at the small village. I was a bit worried that we were heading for a crash landing on top of a sod roof, when, incredibly, a tiny runway appeared, cut directly into the side of the mountain like a terraced field. We touched down at it's edge, and somehow managed to slow down with just inches to spare, saving us from slamming into the concrete wall that marked the runway's end. It was incredible. No descent was necessary; our cruising altitude was exactly the same as the runway's altitude.
There were two Nepali ladies on the flight - a mother and daughter -who obviously hadn't flown in an airplane before. It was an odd thing to witness - coming from the western world, you just take it for granted that people are comfortable with the sites, sounds, and feeling of being airborne. The older lady clutched the seat in front of her the entire trip, looking down at the floor instead of admiring the views, and the younger girl had a vice grip on a Japanese lady's arm and hand throughout the trip. When we banked or swayed at all, she would reach out with her second hand and grab another appendage with equal strength and furvor. I think the Japanese lady was a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing, because she kept trying to gently reclaim her arm(s), but the Nepali girl was way too strong for her. Needless to say, both ladies were quite exstatic when we landed safely in Lukla.
We only made it a few hours down the trail today (stopping even for a glorious nap in the semi-sun). No need to tempt Steve's sickness to return, plus the Everest trek is meant to be taken slowly because of the altitude. Consequently, it's 3 pm, and I'm already cozy in the sleeping bag, ready to dig into one of the three books I'm lugging with me.
We really debated doing this trek at all, mainly because I (we) felt guilty about retreating to the mountains - what we love, but what is also easy and comfortable - instead of heading back to the heat, touts, smells, corruption, and assault of India. But, now that we're here, I'm incredibly happy with our decision. Already, the Everest region seems more rustic and raw than Annapurna, and looking at the map, it looks like there are several day hikes to remote glacial valleys and scrambles up to view points that look quite appealing. And, the scenery is fantastic, the fall colors are emerging, there's a cool mountain briskness to the air, and I'm very happy with life!
After a week of waiting and hoping for Steve to get well, we finally boarded a Yeti Airlines flight in Kathmandu this morning, bound for Lukla. The flight was pretty amazing - I'd heard it was good, but having flown in many small airplanes and helicopters around Alaska, I didn't expect to be as blown away as I was. It was a small plane, and we were on the wrong side to have window views of the Himalaya, but I still spent the entire trip straining and shifting to glimpse the snow capped peaks. Clouds covered the valleys, so all you could see were the jagged tops of the tallest shear-faced ridges. The mountains grew in size and number as we got further from Kathmandu, and when I heard a lady in the front row whisper "Everest?", I was sure the plane was going to fall out of the sky as everyone practically lept out of their seats to catch a glimpse of the famed mountain. Unfortunately, no one could confirm the sighting - the mountains and ridges were too numerous and widespread to pick the tallest among them.
After about 30 minutes of flying, we were fully immersed in the mountains, and I began to lose sight of the clear path through (or around) them. The pilot began banking left and right, between narrow passes, barely above high mountain plateaus, and around knolls and peaks. It felt like I was in a video game, or maybe a Star Wars battle scene, as we seemed to barely skim over and through the ground below us. Complicating the diverse terrain were whisps of cloud and fog that were rolling through the scenery, but the pilot manuevered through it all with complete calm and ease. Suddenly, with a quick turn to the right, the clouds broke and several buildings could be seen, cut into the mountainside directly in front of us. We picked up speed as the pilot aimed the nose of the plane directly at the small village. I was a bit worried that we were heading for a crash landing on top of a sod roof, when, incredibly, a tiny runway appeared, cut directly into the side of the mountain like a terraced field. We touched down at it's edge, and somehow managed to slow down with just inches to spare, saving us from slamming into the concrete wall that marked the runway's end. It was incredible. No descent was necessary; our cruising altitude was exactly the same as the runway's altitude.
There were two Nepali ladies on the flight - a mother and daughter -who obviously hadn't flown in an airplane before. It was an odd thing to witness - coming from the western world, you just take it for granted that people are comfortable with the sites, sounds, and feeling of being airborne. The older lady clutched the seat in front of her the entire trip, looking down at the floor instead of admiring the views, and the younger girl had a vice grip on a Japanese lady's arm and hand throughout the trip. When we banked or swayed at all, she would reach out with her second hand and grab another appendage with equal strength and furvor. I think the Japanese lady was a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing, because she kept trying to gently reclaim her arm(s), but the Nepali girl was way too strong for her. Needless to say, both ladies were quite exstatic when we landed safely in Lukla.
We only made it a few hours down the trail today (stopping even for a glorious nap in the semi-sun). No need to tempt Steve's sickness to return, plus the Everest trek is meant to be taken slowly because of the altitude. Consequently, it's 3 pm, and I'm already cozy in the sleeping bag, ready to dig into one of the three books I'm lugging with me.
We really debated doing this trek at all, mainly because I (we) felt guilty about retreating to the mountains - what we love, but what is also easy and comfortable - instead of heading back to the heat, touts, smells, corruption, and assault of India. But, now that we're here, I'm incredibly happy with our decision. Already, the Everest region seems more rustic and raw than Annapurna, and looking at the map, it looks like there are several day hikes to remote glacial valleys and scrambles up to view points that look quite appealing. And, the scenery is fantastic, the fall colors are emerging, there's a cool mountain briskness to the air, and I'm very happy with life!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Kathmandu Revisited
I first visited Kathmandu as a mere youngster, in travel terms. It was the first city to captivate my imagination, and grab my soul. As soon as I set foot outside the airport, I somehow felt more alive, and the feeling didn't go away until I waved goodbye to the dry brown valley on my return flight, the snowy peaks of the Himalaya towering in the background.
I'd visited a couple places in Central America, but the assault of the Third World, commingled with such a bustling and established tourist scene was fascinating, and I recall spending days on end wandering aimlessly through the grungy labyrinth of Thamel, being amazed that shop after shop after shop after shop sold nothing but tourist junk! The entire neighborhood existed for no other reason than to keep travellers like myself fat and happy, and I indulged.
Fast forward five years: Now a veteran of the world (or so I sometimes like to think to myself), Abby and I arrive in Kathmandu after an unbearably uncomfortable 7-hour bus ride, having spent the entire day trying to determine the proper technique to staying seated in the back row, with overhanging backrests due to the rear window, and seats proper that are all sloped slightly downhill. Every small bump in the road found me sliding uncontrollably forward, trying to avoid banging my shins on the seat in front of me. I also felt myself becoming sick. As we start and stopped our way into town through rush hour traffic, Kathmandu captivated neither my imagination, nor my soul.
We've been here almost a week now, and I still haven't found that same old magic. Some of my memories are completely accurate – I found the tiny hole-in-the-wall where I had the best tandoori chicken of my life, and the same two bakeries gracing the main intersection are still chocked full of the same delicious pastries – but I also remember being less…annoyed. Overwhelmed, and wide eyed, certainly, but it was all so new, and vivid, and alive, that I never stopped long enough to think about what was around me. It's still that wonderful, energetic place that initially captivated me, full of sights and sounds and a mystery that makes it different from every other place I've been, but I also find myself looking deeper into the fabric of the city, seeing things I didn't see, pondering issues that never occurred to me on my first visit. I'm trying to figure out if it's Thamel and Kathmandu that have changed, or me.
I'm wondering if I'm getting old. Old, and serious. Old, serious, and cranky. Not really, but kind of. Mostly I think it's a function of comfort zone – the bigger it gets, the more it takes to stretch it. Packs of street dogs, sadhus taming cobras, the filth of a third world urban river – these are all things that I've become accustomed to seeing. They no longer shock me. I've come to expect them upon reaching a big city, developed a way of steeling myself for the brace of contact with the vendors, the touts, the beggars, the street kids.
I've also been quite sick. I spent the first three days in town tossing and turning in my unbearably uncomfortable bed. My neck was on fire, my knees throbbed, and my head felt like it was splitting apart. Halfway through the day, Abby helped me shuffle the few blocks to the doctor, where I was asked a few questions, pricked for some blood, and given a ridiculously small stool sample bottle (ever tried to fill a thimble with mashed potatoes from a big pot - with no utensils?). After a 20 minute wait, my diagnosis was ready. I had giardia – a lot of giardia. The doctor assured me that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the symptoms that I was currently exhibiting, but gave me some "atom bombs" that would "destroy all those little critters inside". Uhh, what about the other things. You know, the things I came to see you about? "Ah, viral. I'm pretty sure it's something viral. Wait and see". So I waited, and saw. I saw fevers, and shakes, and sweats, and a blistered brain, and burning forehead, and pain – lots and lots of pain. The next day, I returned to the clinic. Different doctor, similar questions, same prognosis: Virus. "Could be anything. Not typhoid, not meningitis, not encephalitis – nothing major – so we'll just have to treat it with Ibuprofen." Awesome. What about malaria? "Maybe a 1 percent chance." The matter resolved to his liking, he packed me off with some overpriced pink pills and a heftier than imagined bill. I hope insurance pays for things like this.
I feel much better today. Abby and I, along with our friend Rose, went on a little road trip across town. We were excited - Jane Goodall, one of the world's foremost wildlife biologists is in town for three days, and was supposed to give a talk this afternoon. We made the confoundingly confusing trip across the river and upon our arrival were greeted with an ominously quiet building. We walked eagerly up to the ticket counter, were told with a happy little smile that the talk had been moved, and that it had actually been from 10-11, not 4-5. Didn't we read the paper this morning? Yup - Abby checked it at breakfast, and it had definitely said 4-5 pm, Patan Museum, Patan. We were now standing in the Patan Museum, Patan, and there was definitely nothing to be seen, other than a small, sad poster pasted deep in a corner of a side alcove, and some small, sad-looking gringos. It started to rain, and a single lonely tear rolled slowly down my face.
It turns out that the afternoon was quite interesting. We found a café and talked about moral responsibility and begging, and social consciousness, and all these troubling issues that have been hounding us for months across the subcontinent. Rose works for a non-profit in Ladakh, and is trying to build a career in the field of international development. It was good to hear a well-informed third opinion to stretch the bounds of what Abby and I had already gone over again and again between ourselves, although in the end we resolved nothing. We decided the issue is unresolvable. There is no right, there is no wrong, and there are certainly no magic bullets.
With the rain dissipating, and the light quickly fading, we climbed in a shared taxi back to Thamel, and here I am sitting in front of a computer. Of course, the internet isn't actually working, but I've been assured for the past hour that it will be coming back online in "5-minute". That hasn't stopped the business from welcoming customers with warm smiles and inviting them to sit down and try their luck, but hey, who's being cynical?
I'm feeling healthy again (my best guess is that it was something viral) so we've decided to go trekking again. We've arranged to get flights to Lukla, in the Everest region, and go up to Base Camp and around. We've also planned to climb another mountain – Island Peak (6189m), an offshoot of the Lhotse ridge that looks out on the massive Lhotse Face. A little mountain air, a couple of peaks bagged – I'll be good as new and ready for… The Return to India, Part II. Stay tuned…
I'd visited a couple places in Central America, but the assault of the Third World, commingled with such a bustling and established tourist scene was fascinating, and I recall spending days on end wandering aimlessly through the grungy labyrinth of Thamel, being amazed that shop after shop after shop after shop sold nothing but tourist junk! The entire neighborhood existed for no other reason than to keep travellers like myself fat and happy, and I indulged.
Fast forward five years: Now a veteran of the world (or so I sometimes like to think to myself), Abby and I arrive in Kathmandu after an unbearably uncomfortable 7-hour bus ride, having spent the entire day trying to determine the proper technique to staying seated in the back row, with overhanging backrests due to the rear window, and seats proper that are all sloped slightly downhill. Every small bump in the road found me sliding uncontrollably forward, trying to avoid banging my shins on the seat in front of me. I also felt myself becoming sick. As we start and stopped our way into town through rush hour traffic, Kathmandu captivated neither my imagination, nor my soul.
We've been here almost a week now, and I still haven't found that same old magic. Some of my memories are completely accurate – I found the tiny hole-in-the-wall where I had the best tandoori chicken of my life, and the same two bakeries gracing the main intersection are still chocked full of the same delicious pastries – but I also remember being less…annoyed. Overwhelmed, and wide eyed, certainly, but it was all so new, and vivid, and alive, that I never stopped long enough to think about what was around me. It's still that wonderful, energetic place that initially captivated me, full of sights and sounds and a mystery that makes it different from every other place I've been, but I also find myself looking deeper into the fabric of the city, seeing things I didn't see, pondering issues that never occurred to me on my first visit. I'm trying to figure out if it's Thamel and Kathmandu that have changed, or me.
I'm wondering if I'm getting old. Old, and serious. Old, serious, and cranky. Not really, but kind of. Mostly I think it's a function of comfort zone – the bigger it gets, the more it takes to stretch it. Packs of street dogs, sadhus taming cobras, the filth of a third world urban river – these are all things that I've become accustomed to seeing. They no longer shock me. I've come to expect them upon reaching a big city, developed a way of steeling myself for the brace of contact with the vendors, the touts, the beggars, the street kids.
I've also been quite sick. I spent the first three days in town tossing and turning in my unbearably uncomfortable bed. My neck was on fire, my knees throbbed, and my head felt like it was splitting apart. Halfway through the day, Abby helped me shuffle the few blocks to the doctor, where I was asked a few questions, pricked for some blood, and given a ridiculously small stool sample bottle (ever tried to fill a thimble with mashed potatoes from a big pot - with no utensils?). After a 20 minute wait, my diagnosis was ready. I had giardia – a lot of giardia. The doctor assured me that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the symptoms that I was currently exhibiting, but gave me some "atom bombs" that would "destroy all those little critters inside". Uhh, what about the other things. You know, the things I came to see you about? "Ah, viral. I'm pretty sure it's something viral. Wait and see". So I waited, and saw. I saw fevers, and shakes, and sweats, and a blistered brain, and burning forehead, and pain – lots and lots of pain. The next day, I returned to the clinic. Different doctor, similar questions, same prognosis: Virus. "Could be anything. Not typhoid, not meningitis, not encephalitis – nothing major – so we'll just have to treat it with Ibuprofen." Awesome. What about malaria? "Maybe a 1 percent chance." The matter resolved to his liking, he packed me off with some overpriced pink pills and a heftier than imagined bill. I hope insurance pays for things like this.
I feel much better today. Abby and I, along with our friend Rose, went on a little road trip across town. We were excited - Jane Goodall, one of the world's foremost wildlife biologists is in town for three days, and was supposed to give a talk this afternoon. We made the confoundingly confusing trip across the river and upon our arrival were greeted with an ominously quiet building. We walked eagerly up to the ticket counter, were told with a happy little smile that the talk had been moved, and that it had actually been from 10-11, not 4-5. Didn't we read the paper this morning? Yup - Abby checked it at breakfast, and it had definitely said 4-5 pm, Patan Museum, Patan. We were now standing in the Patan Museum, Patan, and there was definitely nothing to be seen, other than a small, sad poster pasted deep in a corner of a side alcove, and some small, sad-looking gringos. It started to rain, and a single lonely tear rolled slowly down my face.
It turns out that the afternoon was quite interesting. We found a café and talked about moral responsibility and begging, and social consciousness, and all these troubling issues that have been hounding us for months across the subcontinent. Rose works for a non-profit in Ladakh, and is trying to build a career in the field of international development. It was good to hear a well-informed third opinion to stretch the bounds of what Abby and I had already gone over again and again between ourselves, although in the end we resolved nothing. We decided the issue is unresolvable. There is no right, there is no wrong, and there are certainly no magic bullets.
With the rain dissipating, and the light quickly fading, we climbed in a shared taxi back to Thamel, and here I am sitting in front of a computer. Of course, the internet isn't actually working, but I've been assured for the past hour that it will be coming back online in "5-minute". That hasn't stopped the business from welcoming customers with warm smiles and inviting them to sit down and try their luck, but hey, who's being cynical?
I'm feeling healthy again (my best guess is that it was something viral) so we've decided to go trekking again. We've arranged to get flights to Lukla, in the Everest region, and go up to Base Camp and around. We've also planned to climb another mountain – Island Peak (6189m), an offshoot of the Lhotse ridge that looks out on the massive Lhotse Face. A little mountain air, a couple of peaks bagged – I'll be good as new and ready for… The Return to India, Part II. Stay tuned…
Monday, November 5, 2007
Pictures from Nepal
Some rural Nepalis playing cricket on market day in their village.
Terraced rice paddies in the Himalayan foothills.
A Maoist checkpoint along the Annapurna Circuit trail. They're asking for "voluntary donations". Wouldn't that be called a tax? "No,no. No tax. Donation." Smile, wink, sneer.
Beans drying in the sun along the trail.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Understanding Abby
Let there be no ambiguity: rupture is imminent. The bladder is about to burst. Our trusty water bottle, hard working and completely reliable, until now, is about to undergo a leaky death. A tear has appeared in its side, a chink in its armour, and its working its way closer and closer to the soft vulnerable inner flesh where water is held.
The question is, how to deal with it.
Abby and I were both sitting in bed this afternoon, relaxing after our trek, reading our respective books. I raced breathlessly through the final pages of my murder mystery, pretending I hadn't figured out the plot 200 pages previous. I set it aside, and decided to snuggle with my wife. She's reading a real novel, by Edward Abby, and looked like she needed some comforting. Or some caressing - he is a fairly sexual guy... As I rolled towards her, her radar went off, and her attention, until now so completely engrossed by her book, was suddenly turned to the emergency at hand.
"Stop!", she cried.
"What?"
"Be careful of the water bottle! It's about to break and spill water all over the bed." She gave me a look like I had just peed all over the toilet seat, deliberately.
I peeked down from my frozen half-turn and saw the water bottle, innocent and oblivious, lying casually next to Abby's legs. She gave me a look of satisfaction, happy to have gotten through, and went back to her reading. I was left to ponder how to snuggle with my wife without making her angry while staying true to my stance that the bottle of water was no immediate threat. I also had to make sure to stay on the water bottle's good side; it was, after all, about to burst. As I pondered how to not pander, it occurred to me that Abby and I had completely different approaches to the soon-to-be-ruptured bladder.
To my way of thinking, there was no thinking. We'd had the thing for months. It was tough as nails. I'd dropped it, poked it, folded it, unfolded it, filled it, emptied it, dozens of times, each, with not a single problem. It hadn't once leaked, not even a drop, and when it eventually did, we'd deal with it. Besides, it was guaranteed. If it broke, we'd bring it back for a free replacement.
To Abby's way of thinking, the water bottle represented a dark, malicious, serious, and dangerous threat. It was liable to go off, at any second, and when it did, it wasn't going to be pretty. It needed to be watched, monitored, kept under tight surveillance at all times. A single moment of laxity could result in complete disaster. Since I first discovered the leak almost a week back, I don't think a second has passed where some part of her brain, on some level, has been on "Water Bottle Alert: Code Red". Where is it now? What's it doing? Has the rip gotten bigger? Can it reach any of my stuff? Her worry center has been put on call, and the only way to calm it, to placate it, to allow it to relax, is to resolve the issue.
Except she'd never do that. Instead, she makes herself continually aware of the despicable demon's whereabouts and intentions, and carefully plots how to be least affected when the inevitable occurs. This way of thinking frustrates my way of thinking to no end. If I were her, and thought as she does, there would be three options.
1. Shoot the damn thing. Put it out of its misery. End the suspense. Cut the tension. No almost-broken water bottle, no almost-wetted bed. Most importantly, no source of worry.
2. Actively alter reality. Move the water bottle. Instead of keeping one eye nervously on it for the next day, week, month (year? It's Reliable, and Dependable...), do something about it. Physically pick it up and place it on the floor, out of harm's way, where it can burst to its heart's delight with no ill effects. Better yet, refer to Option 1.
3. Make ME do something about it. That's what husbands are for. The water bottle has been my responsibility for months now, and until the cursed tear was discovered, the arrangement seemed to be working out very well. Since "The Tear", however, her faith in my water bottle management skills seems to have been entirely eroded. In her eyes, I can no longer be trusted to do "whats' right" with our leaky friend. No more does she believe my claims that the wondrous receptacle can change water to wine, can miraculously survive falls of thousands of metres, unscathed. The water bottle has lost its magic. That said, she also hasn't been willing to make any demands of me, to ask for specific changes in said faith-uninspiring water bottle management skills, to admit she no longer has the trust. "Please keep the almost ruptured water bottle off the bed", or perhaps "Please keep the accident waiting-to-happen away from my stuff". Instead, it's the eye, always the eye.
I suppose the issue might just be that she wants to worry. She gets it honestly: her mother worries incessantly, and the gene seems to have been passed on. Regardless, it baffles me. Isn't NOT worrying better than worrying? Isn't the absence of stress preferable to its presence? I always thought so, but maybe I was wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, more likely just misinformed. What if-
I decided not to worry about it.
The issue resolved to my satisfaction, I carefully completed my rollover, taking care to avoid the twitchy-trigger-finger water balloon, and successfully napped on my beautiful wife's shoulder. As my eyes were closed, I wasn't able to see how she dealt with it, but we all escaped unscathed.
The question is, how to deal with it.
Abby and I were both sitting in bed this afternoon, relaxing after our trek, reading our respective books. I raced breathlessly through the final pages of my murder mystery, pretending I hadn't figured out the plot 200 pages previous. I set it aside, and decided to snuggle with my wife. She's reading a real novel, by Edward Abby, and looked like she needed some comforting. Or some caressing - he is a fairly sexual guy... As I rolled towards her, her radar went off, and her attention, until now so completely engrossed by her book, was suddenly turned to the emergency at hand.
"Stop!", she cried.
"What?"
"Be careful of the water bottle! It's about to break and spill water all over the bed." She gave me a look like I had just peed all over the toilet seat, deliberately.
I peeked down from my frozen half-turn and saw the water bottle, innocent and oblivious, lying casually next to Abby's legs. She gave me a look of satisfaction, happy to have gotten through, and went back to her reading. I was left to ponder how to snuggle with my wife without making her angry while staying true to my stance that the bottle of water was no immediate threat. I also had to make sure to stay on the water bottle's good side; it was, after all, about to burst. As I pondered how to not pander, it occurred to me that Abby and I had completely different approaches to the soon-to-be-ruptured bladder.
To my way of thinking, there was no thinking. We'd had the thing for months. It was tough as nails. I'd dropped it, poked it, folded it, unfolded it, filled it, emptied it, dozens of times, each, with not a single problem. It hadn't once leaked, not even a drop, and when it eventually did, we'd deal with it. Besides, it was guaranteed. If it broke, we'd bring it back for a free replacement.
To Abby's way of thinking, the water bottle represented a dark, malicious, serious, and dangerous threat. It was liable to go off, at any second, and when it did, it wasn't going to be pretty. It needed to be watched, monitored, kept under tight surveillance at all times. A single moment of laxity could result in complete disaster. Since I first discovered the leak almost a week back, I don't think a second has passed where some part of her brain, on some level, has been on "Water Bottle Alert: Code Red". Where is it now? What's it doing? Has the rip gotten bigger? Can it reach any of my stuff? Her worry center has been put on call, and the only way to calm it, to placate it, to allow it to relax, is to resolve the issue.
Except she'd never do that. Instead, she makes herself continually aware of the despicable demon's whereabouts and intentions, and carefully plots how to be least affected when the inevitable occurs. This way of thinking frustrates my way of thinking to no end. If I were her, and thought as she does, there would be three options.
1. Shoot the damn thing. Put it out of its misery. End the suspense. Cut the tension. No almost-broken water bottle, no almost-wetted bed. Most importantly, no source of worry.
2. Actively alter reality. Move the water bottle. Instead of keeping one eye nervously on it for the next day, week, month (year? It's Reliable, and Dependable...), do something about it. Physically pick it up and place it on the floor, out of harm's way, where it can burst to its heart's delight with no ill effects. Better yet, refer to Option 1.
3. Make ME do something about it. That's what husbands are for. The water bottle has been my responsibility for months now, and until the cursed tear was discovered, the arrangement seemed to be working out very well. Since "The Tear", however, her faith in my water bottle management skills seems to have been entirely eroded. In her eyes, I can no longer be trusted to do "whats' right" with our leaky friend. No more does she believe my claims that the wondrous receptacle can change water to wine, can miraculously survive falls of thousands of metres, unscathed. The water bottle has lost its magic. That said, she also hasn't been willing to make any demands of me, to ask for specific changes in said faith-uninspiring water bottle management skills, to admit she no longer has the trust. "Please keep the almost ruptured water bottle off the bed", or perhaps "Please keep the accident waiting-to-happen away from my stuff". Instead, it's the eye, always the eye.
I suppose the issue might just be that she wants to worry. She gets it honestly: her mother worries incessantly, and the gene seems to have been passed on. Regardless, it baffles me. Isn't NOT worrying better than worrying? Isn't the absence of stress preferable to its presence? I always thought so, but maybe I was wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, more likely just misinformed. What if-
I decided not to worry about it.
The issue resolved to my satisfaction, I carefully completed my rollover, taking care to avoid the twitchy-trigger-finger water balloon, and successfully napped on my beautiful wife's shoulder. As my eyes were closed, I wasn't able to see how she dealt with it, but we all escaped unscathed.
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