Sylvia's Journal

While I was away (this to establish I had nothing to do with what follows) Axel and Tessa emptied the living room in preparation for our new fireplace project. When she opened the kauri shell holders of the African mankala game she found a wriggling mess of maggots (imagine the screaming!). They appeared to be coming from a thing that Axel described as a piece of a cow’s hoof. (I think it was a piece of the devil, as we have forgotten our good intentions about alcohol and computer use). How the thing got there and why it was crawling with maggots remains a mystery. Then, as they removed stuff in the neighborhood of this mess that was sitting on the old blanket chest it turned out the maggots were everywhere: in the plants (thrown out), in the piece of Turkish rug (banned outside in subzero temperatures) and the chest itself (banned to the unheated porch).

Last night, several weeks after this unpleasant experience, while I was eating my Nepali chicken with rice I noticed a wriggling rice kernel on my placemat. It was another maggot that had fallen from the ceiling. It made me wonder how many others had fallen in the rice and blended in with the food.

“Gross,” was all Tessa could say while we all looked at the ceiling and examined our food more carefully. Armed with the vacuum cleaner Axel started to inspect the ceiling of all the downstairs rooms. We found a few more of the creatures, tucked in the crease where walls meet ceiling and even some brazen ones slowly moving across the ceiling. Tessa and Steve happily returned to their nest in the studio across the driveway – even without plumbing on a winter’s night, it was more appealing than the main house with its unknown and invisible production center of these little white worms, so many weeks after Axel and Tessa’s discovery. We will not have a Christmas gala in our house this year I think. I also hope that the source is in or near the fireplace so that the workmen will get to find it.

Although we left the ceiling clean last night, this morning we found another wandering maggot which went the way all its brothers and sister have gone. We now walk around the house looking up – which balances out my walking outside which is down.

This experience has answered two questions: (1) should we get a cleaning lady to come in once in awhile? (Yes, this would be a nice Christmas present together with the new fireplace roof work) and (2) what kind of ‘surprises’ and rhymes to create for our Christerklaas celebration on Christmas Eve. I also think we should not eat rice for awhile.

While we were preoccupied with the crawly creatures the first big snowstorm of the season came in and left us with a perfect Christmas landscape and the first entry on a snow shoveling bill that will be presented later this year and shared with the neighbors.

No flying today and none tomorrow as another storm is heading our way.
 

The other day, during my commute home, I listened to a chemist who is also a baker. She explained the chemistry of cookie making. Last night I tried her recipe while home alone with the puppy who licked up everything that I dropped on the kitchen floor. The chocolate crinkle cookies came out perfect because I treated the project like a chemistry experiment. I call them my ‘npr-cookies’ which gives the illusion that the cookies are wholesome and healthy (they are neither), but they are the best I have ever made – everyone in the house agreed!

We are bracing for a winter storm – from the description it sounds like the one that produced the ‘commute from hell’ which I described in my blog exactly one year ago: a 10 hour ride from Cambridge to Manchester. I had been asked last week to go to Washington today but I had misunderstood the date and thought the request was for Tuesday – a day already fully booked. Now I thank my lucky stars that I misunderstood the date. This is how, I believe, the universe comes repeatedly to my aid. Meghann, our new program officer is going alone and although I would have been happy to accompany her, I am glad I am not on this day. Working from home on a snowstorm day is so much better.

Today is a day for calls east: first Bangladesh where the day is already over and then Ghana where the morning is in full swing. I have to present on results of work we did in the later and prepare for a retreat I will facilitate in the former.

Yesterday I went to see the orthotics specialist at Brigham’s – as suggested by the last orthopedic surgeon I saw. I think I have come to the end of the line and the visit was rather disappointing because no new ending to the foot drama was produced. First I had worn the wrong shoes to my appointment (Dansko clogs do not allow for orthotics). In addition the technician did not think orthotics would do anything more for me than a good pair of shoes. He had a keen eye and made a quick prediction about my troubles with walking that was right on (maybe he was informed prior to my visit). He made it clear there was no magic here and that the best sort of shoes for me were probably hiking boots or high end sneakers. In a way I already knew this – the shoes that give the most support give the most support – it is not rocket science! But I don’t think I’ll wear hiking boots or sneakers to work.

What I need is a ‘straighter lasted’ shoe than the Dansko clogs and, presumably all my other shoes. For some reason Europeans make these better and more of them. I was referred to some very expensive shoe stores around Boston (the locations gave that away: Newbury Street in Boston and Wellesley) and when I went on the web to see their wares I was stunned by the prices which were double the highest prices I have ever paid for shoes in my entire life. Still, I suppose it is cheaper than the orthotics which I also would have had to pay out of my own pocket since insurance does not cover such things.

The visit was in a way also the final dashing of hopes that my foot problems are transitory or can be corrected and that this is just a phase. Hiking in the mountains, and, in general walking over uneven surfaces, or even long walks on flat surfaces will remain difficult for the rest of my life. The neuropathy in my foot is also there to stay. The hike from summit to summit in the White Mountains we had investigated as a summer activity years ago is probably not in the stars and will remain a fantasy. And I will probably also continue to walk looking down, like an old person, afraid to trip. But then again, given the range of other possible outcomes, I can’t be too picky and am still grateful that we are as OK as we are.

Yesterday was a little stressful at work so the yoga class at the end of the day was exactly what the doctor prescribed. The stress came from getting back into a working relationship that hasn’t worked for some time, like a leg coming out of a cast, a little stiff; the Dutch word is ‘stroef,’ something that doesn’t move like it is supposed to; friction and resistance limiting forward movement – a crying out for some grease.

The word ‘Now’ pops up as it did at Quaker Meeting last Sunday, when there were some messages about ‘now’ – being able to say ‘today is a good day’ – and I remembered that I had forgotten all about this, letting stress slip in and take over; my mind never focused on ‘here and now,’ but rather on what’s around the corner (like: Christmas) or far away in the past (like: how it used to be).

The yoga mellowed me although the left brain chatter was hard to stop at first, during our opening stretch which has a complicated Indian name and required a long belt and a bolster. After one hour the chatter had subsided and I was in the flow, not noticing how fast the time went and feeling taller, longer and thinner by the minute.

It was just Peggy and me again, a threesome with teacher Michelle, practically a private class. Peggy and I are in roughly the same league when it comes to size and flexibility, so we can relax in our limitations; besides, the teacher constantly remarks how great we do and how great we look. Even if these 90 minutes did nothing for our bodies, they are great for the soul.

I don’t push myself the way I used to before the accident. Some poses are just not possible without considerable adaptation. I used to be able to balance on one foot for a long time. That’s a thing of the past, at least on the right side and I have come to terms with the fact that this is the way my body is now. There was always a certain pride in doing well in some of the yoga exercises – but pride (of that kind) turns out easy to shed. It was the kind of pride that created separation, rather than connection.

Trips are stacking up like planes on the runway; their contours increasingly clear through the fog of next year. Which ones will really happen/take off remains to be seen. There are too many ways that things can change. I am now waiting for clearance for the first two: Cambodia and Bangladesh.

My requests for extra passport pages, a second batch, as well as a second passport are in the mail which should increase the flexibility on my part to take off when the signal is given.

We have a motion sensor floodlight mounted on the studio across from our bedroom that tends not to work when you need it and it turns on when it rains or when a cat or skunk slips by. It was lighting the driveway all through the night. I know this because I woke up every hour after I had put in my 7 hours of sleep. The rains triggered must have triggered it. This time it also backlit the frost flowers on the windows and so it was a pretty sight until the rains erased them. Now I am worried about the floods that were predicted.

The weather has been atrocious since I have come back. I keep my fingers crossed for Saturday when Bill and I are planning a flight to Long Island and Block Island.

I ended up seeing Axel yesterday – ahead of schedule – because he had not completed his homework and left for class very late. The teacher doesn’t seem to mind him coming in late or at least there appear to be no consequences. We are very different in that respect. I also saw Axel again at about 3 AM when he emerged out of his study in the middle of the night, having worked on his next homework assignment upon returning from class, just when I was starting to wake up hourly. We could actually have a decent conversation in our pre- and post sleep states.

At work I am starting to slug away at accumulated tasks that are now all clamoring for priority attention. Our project ends in about one and a half year so nothing can be postponed anymore. Worse, since we are not ‘burning’ our money at the required rate, we are encouraged to do things now, not later. It is a nice problem to have but it worries the leadership because it looks as if we cannot handle the work. To some degree that is true, we have too many assignments for too few people and we are hiring like crazy (unlike the rest of the American economy where people are laid off). But new hires will not have an easy time to get themselves oriented and slowly slide into the work; besides, they have no guarantees to be employed after July 2010. Actually, that would be true for me as well, according to my contract.

The contours of my spring travel are beginning to appear more clearly on the horizon but scheduling remains somewhat of a challenge; especially since all travel has to be organized around an official evaluation mission by our main client sometime in February that has no firm dates yet. This makes it hard to plan. Usually I have all my trips for the next three months lined up and confirmed by this time in December.

It is hard to get used again to (a) the early commute, (b) the darkness and (c) the cold. But it is nice to be back in the office. This is the good thing of traveling that much: one can enjoy/appreciate people and things anew after each trip – nothing/no one to be taken for granted.

I managed to get through my first day back in the office without even one yawn, as if I had not travelled across 11 time zones. Apparently the 10 hours of sleep on my first night home got me back in the Cambridge groove and helped me hit the ground running. That was a good thing as most of the day was spoken for: a four hour training, designed on a napkin on my tray table between Dhaka and Dubai, of a new batch of program officers, one other meeting and suddenly it was 4 o’clock and time to go home.

I crossed paths with Axel, somewhere along route 128 or 1; he on his way to his Wednesday night class and me going home via the hairdresser. Since he has another class tonight we won’t see each other until Friday morning, if he gets up before I leave for the dentist. If not he will see me, all new and sparkly, with my hair cut and shiny white teeth, on Friday at the end of the morning; a very different appearance from the dazed traveller he picked up at the airport on Tuesday .

At work I handed in my passport for extra pages. After three years of citizenship it is full – this includes the extra pages that had already been added a little over a year ago. I have requested a second passport. According to the official passport website, second passports may be requested by frequent travelers like me. This should reduce both the stress and the cost of obtaining last minute visas like the one for Bangladesh.

My travel schedule for the spring of 2009 is beginning to emerge after several false starts (Ghana, yes then no; Nigeria, yes then no, Pakistan, maybe…). Now it looks like I will be going to Cambodia which is a country I have not yet visited in my 22 years at MSH. I have always been an ‘Africa’ person (if such exists) and only lately been venturing out eastwards. I know very little about the far east and look forward to exploring that part of the world, with my brand new passport in hand.