Karen, This One's For You

The one picture I got before my camera died at N.'s play. We were very excited about the beers and the fact that we could drink them in our seats.

Fixed

On career day in seventh grade, I opted for the session with the heart surgeon. He showed us a video of an open-heart surgery. I thought it was fantastic. For the next few years, I decided I would be a heart surgeon.

This morning the vet came to the house to tie our kittens’ tubes. Not in love with the idea of surgery being performed on my writing table, I asked if there was another alternative. The vet said he could take the two kittens away and bring them back when it was all over - i.e. our house or his. J and I discussed it and felt better about one of us being there with the kittens rather than sending them away. So I cleared off my table and held each of the kittens when their turn came to go under the knife.

I’m not sure where the heart surgeon in me has got to, but I couldn’t watch.

As I write this, it’s been a long afternoon. They can’t seem to settle down and sleep. They’ve been wandering back and forth across the apartment on unsteady legs, falling over every few steps and in the process breaking my heart repeatedly. They seem to be looking for something; I suppose they want their brains back working normally. Or their ovaries?

The Worst Blogger

That’d be me. Last Thursday we went to the opening of N.’s musical, “Hope,” to which I brought my camera so I could take pictures to show all my faithful readers. Only, I forgot to charge the battery. You will have to go to N.’s blog and take a look at the photos his friend took (who was sitting right next to me, so it would have been the same view anyway).

The musical was fantastic, and N. fantastic in it. Put on by the Kampala Amateur Drama Society, it told the story of Hope, a young Ugandan woman who has just spent the past few years at a Midwestern American university. She returns to her village with a (white) friend/potential love interest, played by N., and a number of other international aid workers she has recruited to help build, among other things, a well and a new school. The play perfectly captured many of the customs both good and bad peculiar to each of the races represented, in ways funny and touching.

It was a light-hearted rendition, the crowd was into it, and you could see the actors relax and start to enjoy themselves as the night went on. I particularly enjoyed N.’s portrayals of a cow and a cowboy, in addition to his more formal role as your run-of-the-mill, clueless Muzungu.

While I Was Away

J didn’t want to worry me, so he didn’t tell me until we were in the car on the way home from the airport last Wednesday that our car got broken into while I was away. He had parked it in the parking lot at his office, where there were no guards, a problem they have since fixed. Our window levers, sideview mirrors, and anything else not bolted down were taken.

So J got everything bolted down. And had our license plate number etched into every conceivable scrap of metal that could be removed.

Notice the metal thing holding our sideview mirror in and the plate number etched on the bottom.



Here you can see these plastic covers are bolted down. (The etching should be just visible, too.)



Also, J had new locks installed. This is like a bicycle lock and, so I’m told, harder to break into.



For some reason, the thieves decided not to take our crappy stereo or our fuzzy dice with the American flag on them that N. gave to us.



Or, I suppose, the car itself.

It’s funny, because normally I’m the bad luck charm when it comes to things being stolen. I always imagined I would be the one this would happen to.

Love Letter to America

Welcome back to me. As this is a blog about Uganda, posts from the States somehow didn’t feel right. In two and a half weeks I crammed a lot of people and places into my trip. Not at all focusing on those people or places, here are some things I discovered:

Things I Didn’t Realized I Missed Until I Got Back to the States
1. Vitamin Water—The white one, lemonade flavored. So good.
2. Veggie Chips from Whole Foods—The carrots are like candy.
3. Whole Foods—A true wonderland.
4. 250 Channels and Nothing On—This is just not true when your parents have HBO On Demand, and when you can download Lost from iTunes, and when it’s Red Sox season.
5. Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches—140 calories of tasty goodness in a variety of flavors. Makes you believe in frozen yogurt again.

Things I Knew I Missed and, It Turns Out, for Good Reason
1. The Red Sox—Youklis batting .340? Dice-K and Papelbon? For the first time since, like, 1946 more than 11 games up in their division? We picked the wrong season to leave the country.
2. Bagels—If you are ever in the Portland, Maine, area, you should head into South Portland and find the Scratch Baking Co. in Willard Square. They’re not “real” bagels, but they’re freakin’ delicious bagels.
3. The Sunday New York Times—more so when there’s an acrostic.
4. Starbucks—I know it’s expensive and I know they’re a big ol’ chain, but they make really tasty drinks.

For My Husband

In March, my in-laws went on safari in South Africa. Now that I'm on Cape Cod visiting them, I've been able to look at their pictures while J still cannot (it takes forever for one picture to load on Kodakgallery when we try to view albums online in Kampala). Since it's much easier to view photos on the blog, I'm posting these safari photos for his benefit, but they're pretty darn amazing, so everyone else should enjoy them, too.

Story

As my brother pointed out, my first publication with my new name, which you can check out here: www.failbetter.com.

Hiatus?

I will be back in the States from Saturday, May 12 through Tuesday, May 29 with brief appearances in New York, Boston, Cape Cod, and a not so brief appearance in Maine. If you live in one of those areas and I do not call you, it is because the appearance is too brief and not because I don’t love you. I do.

I have 24 hours of Ambien-filled travel time to work out my response to “So, how is Africa?” Suggestions welcome.

I don’t know how often I will be posting from the road, but feel free to check back often.

Spiderman, Interrupted

Sunday night we skipped the free film festival movies and opted instead to pay to see Spiderman 3 in the mall movie theater. Really really disappointing. Like, cover your eyes embarrassing. But I bet this has never happened to you: 45 minutes into the movie, the power went out. When we lived in J.’s house in the Bukoto neighborhood, the power went out often, at least every other day. It would often be out all night. But, since moving into our new place down the street from the U.S. Ambassador’s house, our power has only gone out once. I’ve gotten used to having power all the time.

You’d think the movie theater would have a generator.

We sat in darkness for about ten minutes before we decided to go out to the lobby and see what the deal was, if the movie was starting or we could get our money back and go home. In the lobby we found lots of other people from the audience milling about, but not anybody who actually worked at the theater. Did we forfeit our collective Ush33,000 and call it a night? Or wait it out? Or track someone from the theater down?

Before a decision could be made, the power came back on, we went back inside, and finished watching an unwatchable movie. I almost wish we had left when we had the chance.

Redesign

Pictures of the table and chairs and bookcase, as promised. Here they are BEFORE in the unfinished apartment:



And here they are AFTER in the (best) new writing room (ever):



The paint has finally dried in the other half of our apartment. We moved in on Sunday and set up the new living room:



In case you were wondering, we did not paint the birds on the wall; our friend gave us a very thoughtful gift certificate to Blik, a company that makes these wall decorations—we got the restickable kind. Next week the birds could be flying in a different direction.