Newlyweds Crushed by Flatulent Elephant

I am constantly on the lookout for situations that will result in my death being reported on Yahoo’s News of the Weird. In moments of possible danger, headlines appear in my brain: American Tourists Brutalized by Charlie Chaplin Impersonator, or, Slasher Monkey Disembowels Students at Taj Mahal. It’s my brain’s way of telling me, “So the Roman mime just hit you in the ass with a riding crop. Best not to retaliate. He looks like he does judo in his spare time.” (Or in the case of the monkey, “Run. Run now.”) But sometimes this warning system kicks in a little too late, when there’s no escape option. And such was the case this week, when these words flashed through my mind: Newlyweds Crushed to Death By Flatulent Elephant.

Thailand is the mothership of weird news. Drugged Owls Found in Man’s Pants. Cache of Pygmy Marmosets Escape from Guitar Case at Bangkok Airport. Smuggler Dies After Cobra in Underwear Bites Buttock. OK, I made up those titles. But Thailand does produce a staggering number of stories in which air travelers alert the authorities because someone’s pants are chirping. As I have zero interest in joining an international crime ring and even less in stashing fruit bats in my skinny jeans, I wasn’t too worried. Which is why my alarm bells didn’t go off when our tour guide suggested we ride an elephant up a mountain.

I did have a bit of trepidation. After all, I’ve been on an elephant before. In India, my traveling companion, whom we shall call Mango in this post (she now has multiple pseudonyms on this blog), and I rode an elephant named Rangmala. Rangmala was the Ferrari of the elephant world. I’m pretty sure we broke the land speed record at one point, as she bolted for the cliff’s edge while trumpeting like a lunatic. Naturally, we interpreted this to mean, “Enough with hauling things up the mountain! Up, down, up, down! Who am I?! Sisyphus?! I’ll jump! I mean it!” In fact, what she really meant was, “Excuse me, please, but I must pee.” It was terrifying, and I truly hope that is the only time in my life I‘ll be glad to be enveloped in wisps of pee steam.

This time our elephant (whom we will call Bang, because in the adrenaline haze I forgot the second syllable of his name) was definitely not built for speed. Bang was built to digest. Two minutes into the ride (when I was already gripping the safety bar like a sailor clinging to the mast of a sinking ship) Bang stopped to eat a thicket, after which he expelled an equal amount of waste products. A short time later, Bang stopped again to eat large quantity of reeds. He then paused to release a gas pocket so powerful I’m pretty sure birds dropped out of the sky behind us due to lack of oxygen.

Eventually we came to a harrowingly steep and narrow part of the path, which had turned entirely to goo thanks to the monsoon rains. It was covered in elephant foot slide marks. It was on the edge of a cliff. It was easy to imagine the elephant tumbling backward, smushing us flat like cartoon characters. That’s when the prospective headline popped into my head: as Bang opted to take his next meal, in the middle of this death slope, us leaning precariously backward in the rickety elephant saddle. He munched away while the mahout tried to urge him onward. Bang’s only response was to make huffing sounds as if to say, “Screw you, I will eat this tree.” We were there for what felt like the better part of a decade, the blood slowly draining out of my head, allowing the next elephant a chance to catch up. Bang waited until the elephant’s head was only a couple of feet away, before releasing The World’s Most Epic Fart. There are operas performed in less time than that fart. It reverberated. It is the sound used in the making of horror movies when some ancient, cursed tomb has been opened, unleashing the beast within. When it was finally over, there was a long silence. Then the stunned reaction of the couple behind us: “Wow.” They didn’t utter a word for the rest of the trip.

Bang’s intestinal pyrotechnics continued up the mountain, prompting the mahout to turn around from his perch and say, “He eats many bananas.” Which at once made me a) never want to eat bananas again, and b) feel very guilty for having fed some to the elephants back at the camp. Eventually we made it to our destination, very much alive and three-dimensional. Which just goes to show that you can face your fears, with the only appreciable reward being a new addition to your mental library of nature sounds. (Seriously, not everything can lead to an epiphany.) But at least it gives me the perfect excuse to avoid future pachyderm riding opportunities. Because I can already see the headline: Blogger Crushed by Elephant Forsees Own Demise.

Us with Bang, who is actually very cute. You can see me gripping the handle bars. You can also see the unfortunate couple behind us.

This Traffic Circle Does Not Exist

I am hopeless at navigation. I could get lost in a shoebox. I have gotten lost on the street where I live. I once pulled over at a motel for directions, and discovered, to my surprise, that I had landed in West Virginia. Very often I have no idea where I am.

Some people have told me this is a blessing in disguise. “If you’re wandering around clueless for hours, you’ll encounter all kinds of wonderful and unexpected things” they say. Lies. It’s a great way to find the places where someone will either try to purchase you for the night or assess how much ransom they could demand from your family. I submit as evidence the following quotes:

“Man, there are a lot of hookers on this street.” (My friend Chris, in Berlin, Germany)

“That’s the fifth chop shop we’ve seen on this block. I’m pretty sure the house on the corner is a mafia stronghold. I think we took a wrong turn somewhere.” (Oso (formerly known as Pulpo), in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

But the biggest problem doesn’t come on foot. It’s in the car. Yes, that’s right. The GPS. “Wait,” you may be thinking, “the GPS is supposed to help you!” It’s true, the GPS is capable of finding a route to your destination. It inspires your trust. You just have to follow its instructions. And that is exactly what makes this device so subtly evil. (Well, that and it receives its information from space, which leaves you vulnerable if aliens ever decide to claim your Volvo.)

My first GPS was named Federica. She got her name because her voice sounds like a phone sex operator who moonlights as a professional assassin, and obviously such a person would be named Federica. To her credit, Federica did actually get us to Mount Rushmore. But not before taking us up the wrong mountain, directing us into a picnic area, then taking us back the way we came for twenty miles. It was an early lesson: the GPS will get you there eventually, but it will do its damnedest to make you give up first.

And so it was on Part One of our honeymoon. Pulpo (ugh, I mean Oso) and I rented a GPS-equipped car for a few days in rural France. Now let me tell you something about PulpOso. He is from the country (and very proud of it). His celebrity doppelganger is Paul Bunyan. He is one of those people who can tell you your exact latitude and longitude just by mentally cross-referencing the local bird songs and species of moss. He says that is an exaggeration, but I have seen this rural magic. So when my husband exclaimed halfway through our four-hour trek to the cottage, “Where the hell is this thing taking us? It’s like France by goat path!” I knew we were in for it. The GPS had gone rogue.

Our path across the map looked like a sugar-high kindergartener had drawn it on an Etch-a-Sketch. And as the trip went on, we discovered that sometimes your GPS aspires to be a murderer. Exhibit A: Its suggestion that we drive 90 KPH on gravel mountain switchbacks only wide enough for a large cow. Exhibit B: Its demand that we drive up a claustrophobia-inducing alleyway, straight into a pedestrians-only farmer’s market. And lastly, Exhibit C: The directions that took us up a staggeringly steep cobblestone path, which had been closed off due to deadly rockslides. Oh, and did I mention this path was on the edge of a cliff? If you’d like a visual of the scene inside the car during that ordeal, go find a cat. Then pick it up. Take it to the seaside. Try and throw it in the ocean. Look at the cat. That’s what I was doing in the car.

On the other hand, there is one major benefit to that devious dashboard parasite known as the GPS. You can never have enough ridiculousness in your travels. Maybe it’s just me, but I enjoy whenever life borders on the absurd. Like this scene in our car:

PulpOso: I’m coming up to a traffic circle. Which direction do I go?
Me: There is no traffic circle.
PulpOso: What do you mean? There it is. There’s the traffic circle. It’s huge.
Me: Not on the GPS. It made up its own road.
PulpOso: The traffic circle doesn’t exist. Great. So where do I go?
Me: Maybe go straight? If the road on the GPS existed, it looks like it would go straight.
PulpOso: What?
Me: I don’t know. Just go straight.
PulpOso: Right, cause the traffic circle we’re on right now as we speak doesn’t exist.
Me: Exactly.

I admit, I have to appreciate a machine that pays homage to the work of George Berkeley, Abbot & Costello, and Rand McNally simultaneously. A little bit. Maybe. As long as it stays away from the cliffs.

Mini Monsters, Snowballs, and Shots

As Pulpo (AKA Oso) and I have been planning our honeymoon, we've fielded a lot of questions about our choice of destinations. Most often it's something like, "You do realize that France and Thailand are nowhere near each other, right?". Yes, we do, but I think we've established by now that Pulpo and I are a little nuts. Another common one has been "Why go to Thailand? Don't you think you'll get sick there?". And I have to admit, that question leaves me a bit perplexed.

I have never been to Thailand. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Thailand. I used to send stacks of papers to Thailand for my old job, but to my knowledge, viruses haven't figured out how to fax themselves. So it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to run into a whole universe of pathogens I've never encountered before. Mini-monsters lurking in a bowl of coconut soup, plotting an extended vacation in my digestive system. Squadrons of airborne bacteria released when someone sneezes next to me in a spice market. Monkey-riding insects with cartoonishly evil Latin names, trying to hail a human taxi. Yeah, I think there's a good chance we might catch something.

I do not have an invincibility complex. There are lots of those people traveling the world. Sometimes they fit the stereotype: a 23-year-old college dropout who goes by the name OakFish who hasn't washed his hair in three months and doesn't own a pair of shoes. OakFish will walk off alone at night with any person who offers an invitation. He will eat raw sheep eyeball, if the opportunity presents itself. He thinks common sense gets in the way of "the experience." But let's not pick on OakFish. I have met plenty of well-educated, well-dressed, well-informed people who proudly proclaim, "I didn't get any vaccines or malaria pills before I went to Kenya, and I'm just fine." And they are just as crazy as OakFish. Survival is not proof that you used good judgment. It just means you were lucky. I, on the other hand, am I human pincushion. I'll list my vaccines at the bottom, in case anyone is interested.

Still, no matter how well you try and protect yourself, infections and injuries will still happen. And unfortunately, sometimes they snowball. Take for example, my trip to India with my friend Sneezy (Obviously Sneezy is not her real name, but it works for this post). When we got off the plane, Sneezy already wasn't feeling so hot. By the time we got to our host family, Sneezy had a full-on nasal/respiratory/swamp monster cold going on (which she had obviously caught in the U.S., but would now have to deal with in India). That night we accidentally knocked down the privacy curtain shielding our room from the other household occupants. While trying to put it back up, I managed to fall off the wobbly chair I was standing on and slam my ribs on the backrest. I spent the entire trip trying to breathe like a hamster, because if I inhaled completely, the pain was like being stabbed with a pitchfork. Meanwhile, Sneezy's immune system, already overwhelmed by the swamp monster cold, fell prey to everything else we encountered, including (but not limited to): a second cold, a sore throat, a stomach bug, and finally, some lovely intestinal parasites. I managed to stay comparatively healthy until we started traveling outside Delhi, when I was overtaken by some kind of fever. I remember dragging myself through the Taj Mahal, cold and miserable. It was my sickest day of the whole trip. It was also the day we got attacked by a monkey.

These things happen when you travel. They're also just part of life. (Well, maybe not getting attacked by a monkey, but you know what I mean.) The sickest I've ever been, without comparison, was in Western Europe. There are no special health hazards there. I just happened to pick up a nasty stomach virus, which, thanks to appallingly bad medical care at a Swiss clinic, got worse and worse, until I ended up hospitalized in Germany. I was ferried from doctor to doctor for two hours at the German hospital, trying to communicate in a pathetic mixture of German and English ("Ich bin sehr, sehr krank. Doktor bitte."), before getting to a wonderful internist, who explained that my kidneys weren't working. She gave me tons of IV fluid, and for the first time in days, I was able to sit up without the room spinning. It was a miserable experience.

But aside from the language barrier, it could have happened anywhere, even at home. At least if I'm traveling I get to see cool things while I'm ill, like pagodas and catacombs. I mean, seriously. Pagoda vs. bedroom ceiling? I'll take the pagoda anytime. I don't mean to be trivial. Obviously there are some bad diseases out there. But I'll take that risk over not getting to see the world.

So fingers crossed neither Pulpo nor I will get sick on our honeymoon. Obviously, trips are more fun when you're healthy, especially on a honeymoon. But if we do, it's OK. After all, true love isn't roses and champagne. True love is taking care of someone when they have food poisoning. And we've traveled enough to know that from experience :-).

NOTE: As promised, for those of you interested, here are the vaccinations listed on my yellow card: Hepatitis A (1st dose), typhoid, the adult polio vaccine, typhoid again, Hep A (2nd dose), Tdap, Hepatitis B Booster, 2 flu shots, and yellow fever. This doesn't include my pandemic flu shot from 2009, my three doses of Gardasil, or my childhood vaccinations. Told you I'm a human pincushion.

The Idiot's Guide to Accidental Swimming

If there's one thing I learned in Scotland, it is this: I have no skills. Scotland is the land of intense and bizarre skills that I had a) never heard of before the trip and b) don't have a prayer of attaining at any point in the future.

Take, for example, the gentleman at the left. At first you may think, "this man's skill is looking awesome." And while he is clearly rocking his muscle shirt and kilt ensemble (because when you look like you eat raw puma meat for breakfast, you can wear whatever the f@&# you want), please direct your attention to what's in his hand. It's a big metal thing that weighs [mumble]billion pounds, which he flung across a field after spinning around a few times like a big, bearded ballerina. It was seriously impressive. This man later went on to throw a medley of objects across the field, including a big rock, a giant log, and something that looked like a anvil on a stick. I, conversely, couldn't arm wrestle a squirrel. Puma-eating-ballerina: 1; Lani: 0.

For exhibit two, I submit the preschoolers in the photos to the right. First, I have to congratulate them on their sock choice. I totally want a pair. But more importantly, take a look at how they're all moving in sync with each other. Have you ever seen little kids do that? I babysat in high school. I've worked in a preschool. Usually when little kids are corralled together with music on, about half of them do a weird squat-stand-squat-stand dance with their arms up, and the other half mills around aimlessly like the ghosts in Pacman. These kids moved in perfect timing, gracefully hopping up and down like tiny, plaid-covered kangaroos.

But the mini-highlander to the left really took it to the next level. First of all, she looks like something out of The Matrix. (Seriously, compare her to this picture. Uncanny.) Secondly, did you notice what she's jumping over? That's right, she's leaping over swords. The four year-old is leaping over swords. When I was four years-old, I tripped over my own feet so much that my parents were actually concerned that I had a neurological problem. This girl, on the other hand, is a fairly competent ninja. Tiny ninjas: 1. Lani: 0.

It's not really surprising, though, that I don't have those skills. Unfortunately, however, Scotland also taught me that I'm lacking skills I really thought I had. Like knowing how to read. Or more specifically, pronouncing the letters I read. How do you say Druim na Droichaid exactly? Yeah, no idea. Driving is another example. I thought I knew how to drive. But then the steering wheel moved to the other side, and I had to drive on the left, and there were 8,000 roundabouts, and before I knew it, I had smashed the side-view mirror on a gate. Thank god for the "peace of mind" insurance package.

But I was still pretty sure I possessed the ability to decide for myself when to go for a swim. Not so. Nothing could have made me voluntarily go for an open-water swim in chilly, drizzly Scotland. I'd have been even less likely to go for said swim in my jeans, shoes, and shirt, while carrying my camera. Did I end up going for such a swim? Yes, I did. Where? In Loch Ness. Thanks to a horse named Moss. We had made it about halfway through our lake crossing when Moss stopped. He turned to the side, with that unmistakeable horse facial expression that says, "I'm freaking out, man!" Then he tried to launch into orbit, flinging me sideways into Loch Ness, much like what the puma-eating ballerina did to the big rock.

So here's my advice should you unexpectedly find yourself swimming in Loch Ness.
1) Enjoy the moment! You're in Loch Ness! I mean, if you had to fall into any lake, this one makes for the best story.
2) When walking out, try to move fast. That mud has some sucking power.
3) Start laughing. That way you can join right in with your companions on shore, who are by this point doubled over and red in the face.

So what did I do when I finally got to dry land? I pet Moss and slung myself into the saddle. I have realized after all this that I do have one skill. I may not be able to keep myself on the horse, but I'm pretty good at getting back on. And for the Disaster with a Passport, that's a useful skill to have.

Me, having just crawled out of Loch Ness.

Me, back on the horse post-swim



















And just to provide a more equitable comparison with the little highland dancers, here's a picture of me at age five, showing off the proudest accomplishment of my life to that point: losing my first tooth. And I didn't really lose it. It wouldn't fall out on its own, so the dentist had to pull it out. Yeah . . . they win.

The Zombie Goes to Tea

In theory, I possess the ability to sleep on airplanes. In practice, I almost never do. No, it's not because the seats were designed by medieval torturers. I'm pretty much OK with folding myself into a small cube and passing out. It's the one place where being built like a dachshund is actually a plus. (If you have never seen a dachshund, this is what they look like, dressed as hot dogs: click to see) No, the reason I don't sleep on planes is because I'm always seated next to people who are either a) crazy; b) smelly; or c) possess some kind of sleep disorder that turns them into a space invader.

Allow me to illustrate. In category A, we have the man who kept me awake for seven hours while trying to convince me to come to Greece and meet his mother. In category B, we have the algae-covered man I shared a row with on a flight from Japan to Detroit. His carry-on was giant trash bag full of socks, and he smelled like the small mammal house at the zoo. Lastly, in category C we have the Rasputin look-alike with narcolepsy whose unconscious head bludgeoned me every twenty minutes on a flight from DC to LA. (If you don't know what Rasputin looked like, this is him: click here. I ask you, would you be able to sleep next to that?)

And on my flight to London last Tuesday, I was once again given a less than ideal seatmate. She also fell into category C. I should have known things were not going to go well when she piled her jacket, blanket, and pillow on top of me in order to buckle her seatbelt. I should really have known after she fell asleep twice while eating. But the moment I actually realized I wasn't going to get any rest was when she started tilting further and further to the side, like a stinky-breathed Leaning Tower of Pisa, until she took up more of my seat than I did. Where was I, you may ask? Pressed flat to the window like a tree frog. Eventually a flight attendant came to the rescue and woke her up. And then we repeated the whole process for six and half hours. Leaning Tower of Pisa. Tree Frog. Rescue. Repeat. All night long.

If you've ever flown east across the Atlantic, chances are you've arrived at the crack of dawn, about eight hours before you can check into your hotel. Such was the case for my arrival. It was hour 20 of being awake. Wrinkled and cranky, I left my bags at hotel reception and set out into the city to kill several hours. As time crept on, the sleep deprivation began to take its toll. My eyes got redder and would only open one at a time. This affected my depth perception, so I tripped a lot. I became too tired to focus, which caused illiteracy, aimless roaming, and an inability to speak in anything but moans. In short, I become a zombie. (Since I was in the U.K., think either 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead, depending on your taste.)

Technically, I could check into the hotel at 3:30. But I was meeting friends. They had made high tea reservations for four. I didn't have time to go back to the hotel. So I went, in zombie mode, to tea at Fortnum and Mason. I looked like hell. I could hardly sit up. I'm sure the waitress was surprised to see the bedraggled semi-conscious heap look up at her with one eye and say, "I'd like a pot of rose pouchong, please." After that, I mostly remember consuming lots of miniature food. (I'm somewhat concerned that the kitchens at Fortnum and Mason are staffed by Lilliputians.)

As the day, and then night, went on, I kept saying, "I should really go check in after this." And for reasons I don't quite comprehend, it just never happened. By the time I finally got back to my hotel, it was 1:30 in the morning. I had been awake for about 36 hours (at least I think it was 36, I lost the ability to count in the afternoon). I was surprised to discover that the woman who collected my bags was still on duty. Her coworker, who we will call Igor, eyed me suspiciously as I dragged myself into the lobby. I put my head down on the counter and said something like, "Left bags in the morning. Must need room. I sleep." He smiled and said, "Come with me. They are in the back. I must open [lengthy pause] the vault." Um, creepy. It was at this point that I noticed the dirty flickering overhead lamps and dark red stains on the floor. The dusty windows. The creaking doors. And the fact that the staff seemed to work all night without needing sleep . . . I am staying at a hotel run by Nosferatu, I thought. (I read the Twilight series three years ago, so clearly I'm an expert on these things.) They're were definitely vampires. I should have been concerned. Igor the Undead was about to turn me into his own personal Jamba Juice and all I could think was, "Damn it, now I'll never get to brush my teeth."

Needless to say, I survived. Igor handed me my bags, and I went to my room. I was still fairly sure I was going to be murdered in my sleep, based on the state of the room. That was obviously what had happened to the last occupant. But I was so exhausted I didn't care. "They can have me," I thought, "Just as long as I get to take a nap first." And with that, I, the tea-drinking zombie plopped on the bed and fell fast asleep.

Snuggies at the Studios: A Birthday Story

Here are some things I don't usually do on the weekend: a) hug a rapper; b) wear false eyelashes so long I could thresh a wheatfield by blinking (or really, wear false eyelashes at all); and c) drink frozen cocktails dipped in liquid nitrogen by a reality TV star. Did all of those things happen last weekend? Yes, they did. It was very, "Toto, I don't think we're in Washington anymore." But in an awesome way, not a flying-monkeys-are-coming-to-make-me-their-bitch kind of way.

Don't get me wrong, I love Washington. And I'm sure I'm used to things that would make other people have that Oz-like feeling ("This is the longest presidential motorcade ever! Can't I cross the street yet?!"). But it's kind of like veggie pad thai. I love veggie pad thai. It's my staple Thai food. But sometimes, you want something different. You want the evil prince curry with fried tofu. Los Angeles is evil prince curry with fried tofu. But as it happens, I wasn't in Los Angeles for a change of scenery. I was there for a far more important reason: celebrating my cousin's 18th birthday!

If you've ever spent any time with my family, you know that they could make an appendectomy fun. I mean that literally. When family members have had surgery, we have been known to turn hospital rooms into party suites. (We're pretty sure restricted visiting hours are detrimental to recovery.) So for actual celebrations, like Ariana's birthday, just imagine. After all, 18 is big deal: (Insert Rock the Vote PSA here). Now, I'd like to go on and on here about how talented my cousins are, and how fabulous they were at the birthday extravaganza: Frankie was hilarious, and Ariana's voice is even more astonishingly awesome than this fish: (click here to see the fish). But there's a problem. I am so proud of them, and was so blown away by their show on Saturday, that I'm alternately gushy or speechless about them, and neither works very well in a blog. So sufficed to say, however wonderful they are on stage, they are just as amazing off it. I'd consider myself lucky to have them as cousins, even if they were tone-deaf garage collectors instead of brilliant performers.

In addition to their awesomeness, there were other recurring themes to the weekend. Here are three of them:

1. Nonna
Our grandmother is a very special woman. When you think of Nonna, don't picture an old granny sitting in rocking chair with her knitting, waiting for the roast to be done. Nonna is the matriarch. She wears stilettos and swears like a sailor. She has uncanny luck at three-card poker. She wears sunglasses indoors, because she can. She is Nonna, known universally by the one name, like the geriatric Madonna. She is, in short, kind of a badass. And after she was introduced to Patti LaBelle this weekend, a legend of the music world, Nonna came back to her seat and said, "She was thrilled to meet me." Later on in the night, she was asked not once, but twice, for her autograph. She signed "Nonna."

2. Snuggie vs. Slanket
A few of us got into a conversation, after a few cocktails, about the merits of the snuggie versus the slanket. (The party favor was a pink snuggie.) We ultimately decided that the snuggie wins, not because of any real benefits over the slanket (they're both just blankets with sleeves), but because the word "slanket" sounds either like a murder weapon or something from a porn movie. For four of us, "Slanket, baby, slanket" became the catchphrase of the night.

3. Interesting Answers to the Question "What do you do for a Living?"
In Washington, there aren't many answers to that question. Usually it's something like, "I'm a lawyer with [complicated acronym]." I discovered that in L.A., you get answers like, "Oh, I'm a figure skating coach" or "I'm a Ferrari broker" or "I'm a pet masseuse." (Two of those three were real answers I got this weekend. You guess which two.)

Now, before I finish this, I just want to state that I'm aware I've mentioned wheat twice in two posts, which is bizarre. But since I may have offended some wheat enthusiasts last week, I thought I'd include something to make amends. If wheat is your passion in life, take a look at this video, which shows wheat threshing, just as my Grande ancestors may have done: Party time in the wheatfield.

Nonna and Grandpa. If I told you how old they are, you wouldn't believe it. Also, Nonna would kill me.

The Birthday Girl and I before her party (I've exercised great restraint in not using her childhood nickname)

There are few genes more dominant on this earth than the Grande jawline and eye shape. Here are Frankie, Grandpa, and I displaying said characteristics.

Spin the Globe, Point a Finger

When Pulpo and I first moved into our apartment, the first thing we did was put up a world map. (Actually, the first thing we did was paint. But then we put up the map.) We covered it in colored coded pins for places we've been, and we stuck in big white flag pins for the places we wanted to go. The debate over which countries would receive a white flag pin was intense. These were going to be our priority countries. Funds would be allocated. Lists and timelines would be drawn up. We took it seriously. I campaigned hard for Mongolia (I had just seen The Story of the Weeping Camel), but alas, my bid was rejected. Pulpo countered with Morocco, but I vetoed (mostly out of despair over the crushing defeat of Mongolia). Mysteriously, Greenland managed to get a white flag pin. In the end, we had about ten white flag pin destinations . . . And we've never gone to any of them.

We could have. We've gone lots of places since The Great Map Debate of '08. But instead we went elsewhere. Inevitably, when people see the map in our apartment, they say, "Oh, are these the places you're going to go next?" And we don't really have a good answer, other than, "No. In fact, we think the white flag pins might be cursed." We came to this realization one night while tossing around ideas for our honeymoon. We were talking about a place we'd both like to go and I said, "Hey, maybe we should put a pin in the map for it!" Horrorstruck, Pulpo said, "No! Then we'll never go there!" My reaction: "Ooooh, that's true. Nevermind."

When I think it through though, I'm about 99% sure that evil spirits haven't possessed our map. I think the problem is much simpler: we took it too seriously. We almost always pick our travel spots based on what we're excited about in the moment. Sometimes they come out of the blue. And there isn't much discussion. When Pulpo was working overseas last year, we planned to meet somewhere in the middle for a week. Here's how we decided where to go:

Me: I'm not sure where we should go.
Pulpo: Let's go to the Philippines.
Me: Why the Philippines?
Pulpo: Why not the Philippines?
Me: Good point. Let's go.

This is pretty much how we make every travel decision. There's no debate. I could get excited about a trip to our backyard, and Pulpo is up for anything. Which is good, because some of my ideas are a little out there. (If you're ever in Szentendre, Hungary, there is a marzipan museum, and in it there are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a life-sized Michael Jackson made out of marzipan. Amazing.) Anyway, the point is that it's much more exciting to decide on a whim than to consult the methodically negotiated map. So that's what we do. The big white flag pins are a buzzkill. Which pretty much makes them useless. Which means maybe there's hope for Mongolia yet!

Of course, the budgeting, booking, and logistics are not done on a whim, but that's a whole other subject, about which I will never write a blog post. Why not? Because it's about as riveting as an encyclopedia on various kinds of wheat. (Translation for wheat geneticists: Not very exciting at all, but have a good time with your freaky wheat.)

And now for two side notes . . .

When I first started the blog, I thought maybe five people would be reading it, so I didn't think there was a real need to consult Pulpo when I came up with his pseudonym. I was wrong on both counts, so I have to state for the record that Pulpo strenuously objects to being named Pulpo. He would have preferred Oso. And he has a point. He bears a greater resemblance to an oso than a pulpo. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest Google Translate (Spanish to English).

And the second note: I have written and posted this whole blog entry while on a flight to Los Angeles. I have never been on plane with internet access before. I bet this is how the pilgrims felt at the end of winter.