Congratulations Kyura and Inno Part 3: Almost Ready to Say I Do

I was amused. That was not the reaction he was going for, but there it was: amusement. The pastor stood at the front of the church admonishing the bride and groom. "What time did I say to be at the church?" "And what time is it now? All heads turned to look at the clock. "He has got to be kidding," I thought. But he wasn't. Stern and lecturing, he went on. And I was so, so very amused. The wedding had started ten minutes late. Ten minutes! This was Nigeria. In any other context, probably even any other wedding, ten minutes late would be early. But Kyura and Innocent are polite, good natured people and were so happy just to be there at the altar, they let him lecture, nodded some conciliatory yes, sir's and waited patiently for him to finish so they could get on with the wedding.

It wasn't really Kyura's fault we'd arrived late anyway; we'd set off from the assistant pastor's guest house in due time, but friends and family needed more pictures, and then a series of transit vans bringing guests from town had blocked the way from the pastors' yards to the church yard, so we couldn't get to the church.



Day 3: The morning had begun like any wedding morning. The bride woke early and the requisite flock descended on her with all the plumes of fancy necessary to transform her and themselves into momentary oddities of perfection: the hair stylist, the make-up artist, the maid of honor, the photographer, and all the helper-friends. We burst into the serene morning and bustled about the room and yard helping, getting out of the way, getting in the way, getting beautiful, getting excited. The hairdresser started her work first, finger-rolling Kyura's long extensions and pinning them into tight pin curls.



Hairdresser finger-curling and twisting the hair for pinning
 

Adding the finishing touches

The make-up artist wasn't far behind, and once the hair was finished, the make-up could begin. No electricity, so Kyura sat near the window for the best light. Contouring is very in in Nigeria right now, so even though Kyura's not much of a heavy make-up wearer generally, for her wedding, she was getting the full contouring treatment. Her Maid of Honor was getting the same make-up treatment outside. For someone who doesn't do contouring make-up or watch YouTube instructional videos on it, this was quite a scene to behold. Sometimes their faces were green, sometimes yellow. Frequently, there were harsh lines and strange spots. But as the artists worked their magic and their spongy blenders, faces reappeared from the wavy lines and strange colors; slightly altered faces, but still pretty. The room didn't have a mirror. The make-up artist had brought a small one of her own for Kyura, and someone had fetched a large mirror shard from the house for others. Someone turned to me, "Are you going to put on make-up, too?" "I already did mine." Like I said, I don't contour, and it was unlikely anyone here was going to know the right combinations of colors, or even have the right colors, for my face. I was satisfied with my usual powder, eyebrow pencil and mascara.



Contouring the bride's cheeks



Maid of Honor getting her makeup done outside

All of this doing-up took several hours. In the meantime, the photographer and videographer slid in and out of the commotion, capturing moments for posterity and designing beautiful settings to showcase important elements of the day. I trailed the photographer and tried to make myself useful, carrying things for her, holding things, and for a bit, using all my weight to pull a plastic-twine clothesline taut so she could get photos of the wedding dress hanging in the breeze without the dress's train dangling in the dirt of the dusty courtyard.



Photographer setting up a shot with the dress and bouquet

The church does not allow women to enter without their heads covered. Kyura, of course, had her veil. The guests would all have elaborate hair wraps. Kyura had someone collect a red-orange shawl from her old closet at her parents' house for me. One of her other friends wrapped it tight around my head for me, despite others' arguing that the church wouldn't turn me away if my head were bare. I had no desire to offend anyone or play my oyibo card like that. The Maid of Honor had a special hair piece with a little mini veil of its own. The silver tones in the white lace went perfectly with the silver beading on her long pink dress.

The Maid of Honor looks in the mirror while her hairpiece is adjusted

All of us friends, aside from the Maid of Honor, wore outfits out of the same matching fabrics as is the custom in Nigeria. The tailor made mine in advance, a fun 1960s-style tent dress that was nice and cool. Even while we were getting the bride and ourselves ready, the tailor was back at the house finishing dresses for wedding guests, whirling away on the treadle machine in a room next to the one that had been Kyura's up until last night.

Soon, we were all ready.

The bride.

Kyura ready for her wedding

And her friends.

(I particularly love this photo because the brilliant photographer turned the camera at such an angle that I don't look like a giant freak.  Notice the window in the background; imagine if the picture were turned so that the window frame were level...)

It was time to go to the church!

Congratulations Kyura and Inno Part 2: Good-bye Home

There comes a point in most people's lives when their home becomes their parent's home. Growing up, it is collective, my home, meaning mine and my parents and my siblings and whoever else lives there with us, it's ours. But at some point, that group doesn't include you anymore, and your home is no longer yours; your home is some other place where you stay without all those other folks. For myself, and I think for a lot of us in the U.S. who first leave home for college, that transition happens sort of gradually. You have a dorm or maybe even an apartment where you stay at school, but home is still your home. Maybe you have still have a room there, or at least most of your stuff accumulated during your first 18 years, possibly even still being added to with new accumulations that you just don't really need in your dorm. Eventually, you go, move to another place, take a few more things. At some point, your parents turn your room into a guest room, or an excessively gigantic sewing room bursting with fabric, patterns and sewing machines. You start confusing your friends by calling that place, where you used to have a space, and wherever you stay now "home," meaning it equally for both. And someday, you find yourself saying to your sisters, "are you going to Mommy and Daddy's today?" and you realize you're quite dispossessed of your home and you aren't even really sure how it happened. For Kyura, however, that transition was a big bright line that she could mark almost down to the minute.

Day 2: Good-bye Home

Good Friday had been a strange mix of lackadaisy and bustle during the day. Kyura's family's home in Jos was as full of people as the house in the village had been, perhaps even more so.

Friends bustling and chillin

All the female friends were posted up in the room Kyura and her sister had shared growing up. Lounging on the beds; taking tea from trays, sipping sweet gulps of Milo and chewing soft white bread; taking turns disappearing to bathe with buckets of water scooped from the large plastic cans stored in the corner of the large bathroom, plastic cans restocked throughout the day with fresh water drawn by two young men hauling rubber bag-full after rubber-bag full of cool refreshment from the well in the side yard; helping Kyura style her hair, iron her dress---when the power was compliant enough to course through the padded copper wires and into the iron---, and prepare for the day.

Drawing water

The rest of the house was alive with it's own activity. Kitchen staff prepared a constant stream of food for family and guests. The seamstress for the wedding whirled away on a treadle machine in the next room, producing and altering dress after matching orange and yellow dress in an array of styles. 

Like any other bride the day before her wedding, Kyura needed to get her nails done. And like so many other brides, she'd been talked into fake nails that were so very un-Kyura but manageable enough to last through the wedding. We trooped along with her, to the side porch where the manicurist pulled up a stool to do her work in the natural light of the sun. The tube of Chinese nail glue the manicurist bought turned out to be empty, so she ran out to a small shop and quickly returned with a new, and better stocked, package. Relatives came out to the porch to say hello as they passed through the house, aunties and young cousins. A few of us sat on chairs brought out from the sitting room or leaned against the porch rail, chatting while the manicurist did her craft and the boys in the yard hauled up water. Kyura fielded phone call after phone, mini-crisis after mini-crisis: calls from friends looking for places to stay for the wedding, the printers not having the programs ready for Inno to collect, the reception decorators not seeing the transferred funds in their bank accounts due to the Easter banking holidays. Kyura handled it all calmly from her porch throne.

Later in the afternoon, the groom's family would be coming to ask for Kyura. Inno's uncles would apply to Kyura's uncles for their niece to leave her home and come to theirs. If there was a set time for this, I have no idea when it was, but being Nigeria, if there was a set time for this, it's unlikely the uncles came anytime near that time. The sitting room filled with family elders from both sides, arranged on the thick sofas and chairs in a large circle. Kyura's sister brought out snacks and beverages and served each person. home, no longer her home.

Dancers

Outside, male elders with jingly metal bands fastened around their ankles sang and danced in a circle. Others joined, from the house? from the town? There were so many people everywhere I wasn't sure where most had come from. I joined, we danced until the group suddenly fell quiet.  Discussions began. I snuck in the back with the seamstress, hiding rather conspicuously on a tall bar stool behind a pushed-aside dining table, watching, not really understanding much more than that this was important and solemn and emotional. Kyura was called in and kneeled before her parents. Before long, she was being led out of the house, shrouded in a veil, another

Procession (to the car) to the church

procession of singing and dancing, another car ride away from home to a new place. Away from

At the request of the groom's family, Kyura's family had given her over to the custody of the church until the wedding morning. She, her maid of honor and her eldest aunt would stay at the church, in the care of the best man and the groom's family, until the morn. We followed on foot. The church where the wedding was to take place was separated from Kyura's parents' house only by a lane, and a very large cement wall on the edge of that lane. For tonight, Kyura had no home; her parent's house was no longer hers, and her husband's house was not yet hers. For tonight, she was to make do in the guest house of the assistant pastor. And make do it would certainly be.

The assistant pastor's guest house, or perhaps it was to be a servant's house, was a small one-room cement building out back of his home on the church property. It had an en-suite restroom divided from the room by a curtain. Kyura's wedding dress was hung from the curtain rod, tulle and beads pressing against the protective coating of the clear garment bag, saving the pure white dress from the dust of the walls. There was no furniture, just two old mattresses, one on the floor and one against the wall, the one against the wall in far worse condition. Kyura's aunt took one look at it and sent someone for a mat from the family home. A mosquito net hung matted in a twisted ball and low above the laid-out mattress. Agreement was quickly made not to let the net free for fear of what might fall, or crawl, out of it. Another runner was dispatched to the home for bug spray. The room had a single window next to the door. An electric fan was courried from the house. There was one outlet. Even when the power was on, it didn't work.

Best man trying to make the fan work

The best man arrived with a screwdriver, removed the outlet and attempted to wire the fan's plug directly to the wall. It still didn't work; probably a blessing that these wires were lifeless! A solution was concocted in the form of multiple power strips and strings of wire run in a line over from the assistant pastor's house, a plastic bag wrapped around the part where bare wires were twisted together on the ground outside. It worked, at least when there was electricity in general. A battery lantern was fetched from the house.

The groom's family brought dinner. Rice and some sort of soup or stew, tea. Dishes were fetched from the house. We sat on plastic lawn chairs that had been brought in. Kyura and the maid of honor sat tepidly on the floor mattress. We chatted and laughed and amused ourselves with the ridiculousness of this place as a bride-to-be suite. We laughed at the Nigerianess of everything about the room and the on-and-off electricity and the broken outlet and the creepy mosquito net and the scary mattress against the wall and the huge number of friends and family helping with everything and the perfect-despite-it-all haze that surrounded every piece of the events leading up to the big day. And we bid goodnight to Kyura, her aunt, and the maid of honor, to sleep as best they good, as we retired to our own lodgings until the morn. Sheets and blankets were fetched from Kyura's parents' house.

Congratulations Kyura and Inno Part 1: A Proper Village Send-Off

Back in April, I went to my friend Kyura's wedding. We hadn't seen each other since attending a conference together in Uganda in 2010, so when she invited me to her wedding, I just had to go, even though it meant postponing an already long-overdue visit back to Zambia. But I have found that attending friends' weddings is really important to me. Even if I hardly get to see them during the festivities, just showing up often means so much. This one was extra special because I actually got to spend a ton of time with the bride.

The wedding festivities took place over four days, beginning with a send-off ceremony and celebration for the bride, culminating with the wedding itself, and ending with a special thanksgiving for all their blessings.

Day 1: The Send-Off

I arrived in the village with one of Kyura's friends, shuttled there by a trusted driver who was willing to take us hours down the road from Kaduna and off the paved highways to the family's village. Looking around, I could see how much wealthier Nigeria is than Zambia. I'd never been in a Nigerian village before. There were powerlines running through the sky, nevermind that they probably were lifeless more often than live; metal roofs on every house I could see; everyone had shoes, even the children; and the roads, though dirt, were in decent condition. The family house was large and cement, with elegant columns lining the porch, like a plantation home, or a country estate for old British landed gentry. Of course, either of those would have been lacking the corridors full of stored water in 50-gallon drums and 20-liter gerry cans, the rumbling of the generator whirling electricity to cell phone chargers and lightbulbs, and the plastic patio chairs on which village women sat pouring local maize drink into empty plastic bottles. Nonetheless, I was impressed.

Kyura and her friends were inside. The house was full of people, many of them bustling, preparing food and drink and clothes. Others, like myself, lost in the action, sitting on plush sofas in the dim parlor, chatting tentatively to strangers who would be good friends in a few days, eating lunch? dinner? a snack? something anyway, from plastic plates on our laps. A giant bowl of cooked cucumber and tomato salad(?) makes for an interesting whatever that insert-appropriate-eating-session-here was. I eventually found my way to the real action, where Kyura's closest friends, and the day's chiefmate, were helping her get ready for the send-off celebration. This would be the day for her family's village to officially say good-bye to her, to send her from her home to the home of her husband. It was like a giant wedding reception for just the bride. There was even a cake cutting.

Kyura wore a long green skirt decorated with lace and beads, an intricately beaded ivory top and a head wrap bordering between yellow and ivory dotted with green rhinestones. A group of elder village women arrived at the family house dancing and singing, yellow wrappers with orange stripes and white shirts a unifying dress code, corn-husk-and-seed rattles tied around their ankles provided percussion to accompany their voices as they stepped forward and back, holding long sticks in as they sang. They led the procession from the family house to the school grounds where the send off would be. As they danced, Kyura rode behind in a car, saving her long dress and new shoes from the mud of the morning's rains.

Dancing at the Send-Off

The school grounds were decorated with canopies and bunting in white, seafoam and evergreen. Guests of honor---family, friends, local dignitaries---sat under the canopies. Rows of villagers lined the edges of the school yard. Kyura's close friends who were accompanying her sat under a white canopy, surrounding the satin covered sofa where she and her chiefmate sat. An MC in the center of the yard led the celebration: dancing and prayers, one group then another, dignitaries, father's family, mother's family, friends of the bride, the groom's family, etc. Each was called up in their turn to dance with the bride-to-be, to shower her in cash, everything from 10 naira notes to 1000s, none of which the bride deigned to pick up. There was a special cadre of pre-teen girls for that. Dressed in black and white, they would swoop into the dancing masses and scoop the bills into cardboard box lids, taking their full lids to a special side place where they'd empty them into bigger boxes and return to the dancing for refills.



Prayers are offered for the bride

Village leaders, politicians, religious leaders and family members came forward to say a few words. I couldn't understand all the words as much of it was in the local language and some in Hausa, but the happy and joyful sentiments were obvious no matter the language. Kyura's parents told her how very proud they were of their dutiful daughter. She wasn't the only one crying.

Dinner under the canopies

While the dancing continued, plates of jollof rice, chicken, moin moin, salad, and I-don't-even-know-what-else-cuz-it-all-has-meat were passed around to those under the canopies. As the festivities wound down, brightly-colored styrofoam take-away containers of food were passed out to the villagers. Notebooks, buckets, plastic basins, and other keepsakes we would refer to here as swag were passed out to attendees on behalf of the bride's family, the groom's family, friends of the bride, aunties, etc. Guests were also giving presents, bringing them to the white canopy with the satin couch, wrapped packages in all kinds of shiny paper, and even a bright pink potty-chair---can't beat planning ahead.

As the celebration at the school grounds ended, the festivities continued back at the family house for those who weren't exhausted. The rest of us, including the bride and most of us friends, hit the hay, or foam rather, for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we would travel into Jos.

Homemade Gifts Keep on Giving

Usually when I post about sewing, I post about my own projects. But today's a little different; this is one of Munchkinhead's amazing creations.

Munchkinhead is queen of pattern-less wonders, so I was extra surprised when my birthday box contained a blouse sewn by her from a retro pattern. Mommy helped, but Munchkinhead's careful attention to detail was evident in many places where I could tell Mommy or I would have been like "forget that step; that's too much work!" It's a sheer cream chiffon with butterflies, hummingbirds and flowers.

Seam binding on the hole for the head to go through.

The side seams are French-seamed so the delicate fabric won't unravel. The collar and arm-hole seams are completely covered by seam binding in a perfectly matching color. The collar ties lie flat and straight with no pulls or tucks, their exact evenness giving me my best possible chance at tying a half-way decent bow. And all the stitching lines, even the hem, are straight and even. Mommy used to have me practice sewing straight lines by running lined paper through a threadless sewing machine; I wasn't any good at it then and I'm only slightly better now. Munchkinhead's lines look like someone's called "ten-hut!" and they're ready to march.

It's one of my favorite blouses now.  I wear it almost every week, and every time I do, I get a new compliment from someone.  "Thank you, my sister made it for me."  And then I call or text Munchkinhead to tell her, especially when that compliment is from someone famous.

Me in my fabulous Munchkinhead blouse.

Angelfood Cake with Rose Glaze

Growing up in Wisconsin, it was customary for schoolchildren to bring treats to class on their birthdays. I always assumed this was true for everyone, after all, it happened on all the tv shows on Nick at Night, too. After living on the coasts, however, I've learned that in fact this was one of those holdovers from a more innocent age that middle America was able to keep while big-city coastal folks gave into fear mongering about razor blades and allergies. I get the sense even middle America has sadly gone that way now, too. But not me. I still take treats for my birthday. Granted it's to work rather than school, and as my coworkers are adults who are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether my food will purposely or inadvertently kill them.

This year for my birthday, I decided to try one of my old favorites from growing up, with a new twist of my own. Mommy used to make me the most wonderful confetti angel-food cakes. Spongy and spring-like, I remember how the mix from the box would foam as she put the beaters into the bowl. This came right before my favorite part, licking the beaters.

My top criteria for any recipe is not needing to run to the store. Luckily, I seemed to have all the ingredients I needed. The recipe called for egg whites not by egg, but by cup. After I separated enough egg whites, I saw why. 8 eggs. Eight!

Egg yolks ready for the fridge. There were a lot of custards in my future

I usually do all my mixing by hand with my sturdy nsima stick from Ba Joyce's grandfather, but it was clear I was not going to successfully beat egg whites with a thick slap of wood. I tried using my egg whisk, but that was also insufficient. So, I pulled out my pretty pink handmixer from Mommy and went to town on those egg whites.---But not too much to town because that would cause them to collapse.---I think I did ok; the cake came out fluffy. I didn't have a tube pan, so I used my bundt pan. Getting the cake out was a little difficult, but not too bad. So by this point, so far so good. I have a warm and fairly whole fluffy angel food cake. Then I got a little too creative.

Foamed egg whites

I decided to try not just a rose glaze, but also a rose butter cream frosting. I found basic recipes for glaze and butter cream frosting and added rose water and red food coloring to both. The butter cream frosting would not cream. I don't know if it was the store-brand butter or adding the rose water to early or something else, but it would not cream. The butter stayed globbed up, globs of butter rolled in sugar, which is still yummy.---My specialty is tasty mush disasters.---I sliced the cake in half horizontally and spread a layer of the sweet gobby goo, putting the top of the cake back on to create a gigantic sugary sandwich. "Angel food cake with rose butter filling." It's all about the presentation, right, verbal included?

And then I kept going. The rose glaze turned out like it ought to have. Win! Except I did something a tad foolish. I put the cake on my cake carrying platter and drizzled the cake with the glaze. Sounds perfectly fine and dandy, except this was the night before I was taking the cake to work. The glaze had .all. .night. to soak into the cake, and boy did it ever. The next morning, when I opened my cake carrier to set up a little come-and-get-it-station in our break room, whole sections of the cake were bright pink and the bottom of the cake was rimmed in pink syrup. Mmmmm.

Birthday cake! Angel food cake with rose butter filling and a rose glaze (the night before all the glaze soaked in).

Actually, it was quite delicious, just best in small portions. All the better for work, more to go around!

Africa

Africa is raw.  Tangible, raw life.  Every box, every line we draw in the West is washed away in a cloud of red dust.  Africa is freedom.  Freedom of the truest sort where life is burrowed so deeply into the very essence of the world that one becomes the expanse of the deep blue sky, breathes the heavy deep rustling of the large mango tree leaves, is powered by the strength of the ancient volcanic rocks that dot the landscape like hoards of mythical sleeping beasts, and wears that deep red dirt that creeps into every nook and cranny of every being and everything.  Distinctions between seeming opposites, such as indoor and outdoor, disappear altogether.  Everything comes from the earth in ways in which one cannot help but be acutely aware.  Water pulled from the earth, dinner roaming the earth, the sun being the best and most reliable light of all.  The earth is yours and you are the earth’s.  And everyone moves together in it, all a part of it.  What appears to be narrow two-lane roads become four or five or six lanes as pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, three-wheel scooters, cars and lumbering lorries surge together, sweeping between and past and among each other.  People cut through when they have a chance and make way when others need room in a gracefully understanding manner one would never see in places where people feel entitled to whatever bit of road they’re on as though it belongs to them and only them simple because they are there.  Life has not had the living sanitized out of it.  Numbness cannot survive.  Alertness, awareness, oneness with everything around you is a must.  But such exertion is not exhausting; it is invigorating.  It is living.

A Reprieve in Geneve

I spent most of last week in Geneva.  I’d gone to visit WIPO.  This is a pretty big deal, visiting WIPO.  As a Midwestern city girl, WIPO is much like Harvard or New York, one of the places on tv that doesn’t really exist in real life.  But it does, and like Harvard and New York, now I’ve seen it.

My three favorite things about Geneva were the roads, the silence, and the shutters.  The cheese definitely deserves an honorable mention.  And I mean the cheese at the grocery store, the big blocks of hefty, strong Swiss-made cheeses, and maybe a few of the soft French cheeses.  I could easily get by on meals of bread and a bit of cheese.  The cheese was priced about the same as American brands of cheese back in DC, so it was still a bit of a splurge.  (In DC, these are usually from Pennsylvania and Vermont and occasionally from Wisconsin.)  But of course, these types of cheeses would be imported back home and thus far more expensive.  My big find for the cheese was a tube of mustard that went splendidly with the Emmantaler and with fresh rolls and baquettes.  I wasn’t completely sure it was mustard, but “moustarde” and “Dijon” both sounded like mustard-y words to me, so I took my chances.  Boy was that a good gamble; it was so delicious!  Cleared the sinuses and woke you up really good too, perfect for a bright breakfast.

The skyline in Geneva is an odd mix of glassy new, blocky mid-century and quintessentially Swiss.  The different styles nearly all had some type of exterior window covering.  Some had awnings that could be dropped down, others had horizontal blinds that rolled down.  A few had metal doors similar to the ones on mass storage units in the U.S.  But my favorite were the shutters.  Real shutters that opened and closed instead of being silly ornaments stuck to the sides of windows for which they are clearly far too small.  I loved to walk down the streets and look at all the variety of shutter positions, latched open against the building, shut tight, flung open and hanging ajar high above the bustling roads.  Someday, I would like a home with shutters.

The streets were narrow and made of all sorts of different materials, sometimes pavement, sometimes brick, sometimes cobblestone.  I struggled to tell street from sidewalk from bike lane from tram line.  At first, this made me very nervous as I had no idea if I was supposed to be where I was in any given spot.  But then I realized, everyone was okay pretty much everywhere.  People were sharing the space, paying attention, deferring to others as needed.  Everyone seemed to acknowledge that others needed to use the same space.  It was so much nicer than the I-have-a-right-to-be-exactly-where-I-am-wherever-that-is-all-the-time mentality from back home.  Much less ground was needed to accommodate the movement of massive numbers of people.  And with narrower streets, it felt less like one was traversing a big city or long distances; it was easier to walk a mile surrounded by buildings and activity than across stretches of pavement and parking lots.

And with sharing the space and moving all those people came an immeasurably pleasant silence.  Oh, there was talking and laughter and engine rumbles and tram dings and the noise of a city, but there was no incessant automated yelling like one must endure on a daily basis back home.  No “STEP AWAY FROM THE DOORS!  THE DOORS ARE CLOSING!”  No “THE FARE FOR THIS BUS IS ONE DOLLAR AND SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS!”  No “THE WALK SIGN IS ON TO CROSS!  THE WALK SIGN IS ON TO CROSS!”  Even at the grocery store automated check-outs, no “UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!  UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!”  No glaring signs screaming at you to don’t do this or not do that, to stay away, to go this way and to not go that.  No we-must-put-warning-labels-on-everything-or-someone-will-sue-us-signs.  It was so nice.  So refreshing.  So amazing to be in a place where people were left to get by on their common sense; and you know what, they did ok.  Don’t want to get hit by a tram?  Move when the tram is coming.  People open the tram, bus and train doors themselves by pushing a button.  If the door is closing, push the button and it will open again.  And the people are so polite.  Not in the Southern or Midwestern smiling and speaking nicely polite.  In a very matter-of-fact way that said “I acknowledge your existence and your need to get where you’re going, too.”  And that was that.  It was so very pleasant.  I want to live in a world like that all the time.

These are a Few of My Favorite Seats

My favorite seats on the airplane are the front row.  As part of the insiders club (see prior post) of people who fly Southwest so much they know how to work the system, I’ve developed a strategy that gets me one of those seats about 90% of the time I fly.  Sharing that strategy puts it a bit at risk as it may increase intelligent competition for my desired seats, but I’ll do it anyway.  After all, there’s plenty of flights I’m not on, and it could help people on those, too.

The short version is: pack light and be nimble.  When you get on the plane, you have to act quickly and get out of the aisle.

As I said, I like the front row.  In order of preference, 1A, 1F, 1C, 1D, 1B, 1E---window on the left, window on the right, aisle on the left, aisle on the right, middles.  These seats are desired because they have tons of legroom, but they have downsides that temper this.  A lot of people don’t realize the  downsides until they try to take the seat.  If someone is attempting to go for one of my favs, I wait patiently until they are situated.  There’s a decent chance they will give up and move.

After a few flights, you start to see what prevents people from being able to sit in the front row. 

1) They don’t want to forgo a tray table.  I don’t mind this and I consider that I will not have a table when choosing what I want to do on the plane (knit, read, write, etc.). 

2) Their rollerbag does not fit in the smaller front bins.  I don’t carry-on a rollerbag.

3) They have too much luggage.  They may not have a rollerbag, but they have one small item and one larger item.  Both have to go up in the front row, but they often can’t find space for the larger bag.  If I do not check my luggage, I carry two small bags---my purse and a bag the size of my purse---that can both easily be tucked into small spaces left in the overhead bin.

4) They haven’t figured out what they want to use on the plane and aren’t ready to store both their bags, so they give up and go for a seat with under-the-seat-in-front-of-you accessible-during-flight storage space.  I choose what I want to do on the flight before boarding and keep that one item in my hands when boarding.

5) The aisle or window is more important to them than the row.  I’d rather have the middle in the front row than a window or aisle elsewhere.  Because middle seats are generally less desirable but are fairly high up on my list of preferences, I can often get a front row seat even if I’m boarding at the end of the A’s.

I make some decisions before getting to the airport, primarily whether I will check a bag or not.  This depends mostly on the speed of baggage claim at my destination and whether I will be leaving the secure area on a layover.  (I love layovers in Kansas City; hi, Alfred!)  I know that baggage claims at OAK and DCA take ages but that it’s relatively quick at MKE and MCI.  If I’m flying into MKE or MCI, I may check a bag so I only have my purse to carry on.  If my trip will involve flights into OAK or DCA, I try to avoid checking luggage. 

I also have backup seats in mind in case the front row is full.  I consider the likelihood of needing to go to these at two points, when I get my boarding position the night before and when everyone lines up for boarding.  Having to go to backups depends partly on my boarding number but also on where the plane has come from (likelihood of large number of through passengers), number of preboarders and their ailments---preboarders are likely to take the front row, especially if they have leg injuries or canes.---, the number of Business Select passengers (boarding spot 18 can actually be boarding spot 3 if there are no Business Select), and the amount of rollerbags in front of me, which as discussed above generally disqualifies people from the front row.  I know that a flight out of MKE is very unlikely to have many Business Select passengers unless it’s going to LAS; every flight to Vegas seems to have lots of Business Select people, as if they’re saying “hey, I’m already throwing away a ton of money on this trip, let’s go big all the way!”

Considering all these things, I pack for the goal of the front row based on my calculated likelihood of getting it.  If I’m in the B group on a flight with a layover or stop in Vegas, I’m going to pack for not getting the front row and probably just pass it up even if it is available.  But B group and flights going through Vegas are rather rare for me, so I’m in pretty good shape for getting a nice front row seat where I can stretch my legs.

The Democracy of Southwest Air

When Mr. Trizzle dragged me on my first Southwest flight, I hated it. I didn’t understand the system, it made me feel like a cow being led to slaughter, I panicked about what seat I would get. I hated it. Over the past nearly-decade, I’ve come to love Southwest. (Now I have all those feelings, including the cow bit, on other airlines.) I’ve also realized something about Southwest. Southwest is the quintessential representation of how a democratic society actually works in practice.

Theoretically, every passenger on a Southwest flight is equal. Every chair is the same, every section of the plane receives the same service. Everyone has an equal opportunity to obtain the spot that is best for them. No seats are assigned; everyone is free to take any seat once they board. You board in the order of check-in. Check-in opens to everyone at the same time. Anyone can have any seat. Theoretically.

Whether you can get your ideal seat depends on a number of factors, the two most important being how many other people are vying for that same seat (competition) and your spot in line (your starting point in the community).

Spots in line, starting positions in the society, are determined by check-in. Everyone can check-in for the flight beginning 24 hours before departure. The sooner you check-in, the closer to the front of the line you are. Everyone has an equal shot. Except they don’t.

Within that theoretical equal playing field of checkin, there are a number of factors that give people advantages. At the most basic level, those with the free time and the best support networks have the best shot at a good starting position. checking in right at the 24-hour mark. These are the folks who can make themselves free in a location with internet access on a computer or phone exactly 24 hours before their flight or who can call on a friend or relative to be so. Those who do not have easy internet access or who do not have the flexibility in their schedules or people available to help them out are at a disadvantage. I.e. there are certain basics the society takes as a given and those who do not have those basics start off a bit behind.

Then there are groups with actual advantages, those who get better starting positions because they have something beyond the norm. Some of these advantages are obvious, some less so. First, there are those with money, those who can buy their way to the top, whose money gets them special privileges and access to places ahead of others. These are the Business Select customers who pay a premium up to 3x the regular fare for the first 15 spots in line. They also get a bonus of special treatment in the form of a free alcoholic beverage.

There’s also the slightly lower-class-trying-to-be-rich folks who don’t fork out the full amount for a Business Select ticket but can pay a small premium for the airline to check them in before people can start checking themselves in. These are the folks who purchase Early Bird Checkin.

These moneyed privileges are well-known. The privileges and how the privileges are obtained are obvious. Theoretically, anyone can join these groups. Everyone is offered a Business Select ticket; everyone is offered Early Bird Checkin. Just as anyone can buy a ticket to that fundraising dinner or purchase that season ticket next to the big-wig they want to meet. What matters is not that the privilege is offered, what matters is that the conditions on which is offered make it accessible only to some.

But there are additional ways to obtain advantages, privileged groups that are less apparent. These are the insiders.

First are the folks who have earned special treatment, the equivalent of folks with connections. These are those who have achieved A-List status (this is where I am now and holy cow is it fabulous!). In some ways, this is purchased because it requires earning a lot of points, which means buying a lot of plane tickets, but it is not an extra cost beyond the plane tickets. A-List members are checked-in automatically without purchasing either the very pricey Business Select or the premium Early Bird Checkin. In fact, they are checked in before the Early Birds, getting the best non-Business Select spots possible. (And I imagine this connection gets even greater when you obtain A+ status and certainly when you earn the companion pass that allows someone to fly free with you on every trip.) These people are so connected to the system, by virtue of their flying with Southwest so often, that the system works for them.

Second are the folks who know the system so well they know how to work within it so that it works for them without outright privileges being given. These are the folks who move through the relevant parts of society so frequently, who fly Southwest so often, they have learned the tricks to getting their ideal outcome. They know their routes. They know the planes; they know what’s likely to benefit them. I have been in this group for a long time, but I will save my strategy for a later post.

Lastly, there are the protected classes. Those who might otherwise be run-down by the masses if the system did not offer them special protections. On Southwest, these are the Preboarders: the elderly, handicap and young children travelling alone who board the plane before everyone else. At first glance, they may seem privileged, but being a protected class comes at a cost. There are seats in which they are not allowed to sit, there are places within the system they cannot go, and they must wait for assistance from the system before they can do anything, before they can board or deplane.

Southwest’s egalitarian boarding system puts everyone on equal footing, except for those that have the money, connections or insider information to give themselves a better chance of getting what they want. In this case, it’s just a seat on an airplane. In society, it’s quite a bit more.

I Guess I Need a Book Club

If I am ever going to have any hope of reading another book again, I must write about this one.  The characters have moved into my head.  Brought their knapsacks and their dishes.  Heck, brought their own futons and set up house in that crowded, cobwebed maze that calls itself my brain.  They throw house parties.  Invite their friends, strangers, other characters.  I won’t be surprised to find Lizzie Bennet throwing a glassful of water in Furo Wariboko’s face.  They have infested my being and will not let me be.  So I must write about this book.

Blackass---I can hear my mother’s “ahem,” with its pushed-out air emphasizing the m.  It’s the opposite of what I imagine that African term “sucked his teeth” to be.  I could try to call it Blackvampire, but that hardly works.  It is in fact Furo Wariboko’s bum that is black.  His other ass-ness however, the part that could be described as vapmire-ness, is all white.  Oyibo white.

Furo Wariboko is the main character in this Kafka allusion.  I guess it’s not really an allusion as the author, A. Ignoni Barrett, acknowledges Gregor before we meet Furo, acknowledges his tribute to Metamorphosis.

Like many American high school students, I endured Metamorphosis.  Endured is the right word.  I did not endure Blackass; I devoured it.  And then it devoured me.

Furo Wariboko awakes to find himself transformed---expressed far more eloquently than that---into a white man.  An oyibo man in Lagos, Nigeria, in not-so-well-off, Nigerian’s Lagos, Nigeria.  And his adventures begin.

In an inverting of my Americanah experience, I struggled to picture Furo as a white man.  His physical appearance was described frequently as he discovered and rediscovered and was reminded of himself.  Yet I kept picturing a Nigerian man.  Until Furo’s insides began to match his outside.  As Furo accepted his whiteness, as he adapted to, embraced and abused the privileges suddenly in his possession, the Furo Wariboko in my head more and more matched the description in the book.  As Furo’s soul became oybio, so did the vision of him.

One of the reviews on the back of the book says “it will scorch your fingers and singe your eyelashes.”  The reviewer is not lying.  There is so much more I want to say about this book, but I cannot without leaving hoards of spoilers armed with pitchforks.  I need more people to read this book so I can talk about it!  Be one of those people? Pretty please, with sugar on top, and a black ass?

 

P.S. The use of Twitter in this book is amazingly delightful.  I tried to follow one of the character’s handles from my phone and was surprised to receive their last tweet, a tweet saying goodbye to the author.

Birth and Death

A message with an apology and “I didn’t know how else to reach you,” is never one with good news.  Especially not when it comes from someone so far in your past you honestly probably wouldn’t have remembered them if someone had asked you to name everyone that was part of your life that particular year.  You might have remembered them with respect to their role in your life---oh yes, and there was the new volunteer who replaced me at my site---but not by name.

Yet, when that name popped up on my Google Chat, I knew exactly who it was.  I knew the name lingering inside the chat window’s large block of text even more: Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

One of my bamaamas, my Zambian moms.  Bamaamas are like kids I think; you’re not supposed to have a favorite.  Maybe there’s an exception for the one that bore you; that one can be your favorite.  But the ones that are your other bamaamas, the ones that help raise you (even when you’re already grown), and feed you and teach you how to cook and wash and speak Tonga, and live.  The ones you wish you’d asked to teach you how to pee standing up.---I understand the concept; I was just never gutsy enough to try it.---Those bamaamas, I don’t think you’re supposed to have favorites.  But I did.  I had two, and Ba Joyce was one of them.

“I was in Zambia…”

Zed!  Oh, Zed! Just the day before I had been describing Zambia to someone, “Zambia itself will crawl in your heart and never leave. It will burrow like a panya in the grass of your roof, with a scratching that forbids you forget it’s there no matter how infrequently you actually see it.”  At the sight of “I was in Zambia,”  every bit of burrowed Zambia burst forth. 

And then it exploded.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.”

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce bore her second son the week I moved into the village.  Her passing through my life bookended by childbirth.  One of those many things we take for granted here.  One of those common, everyday, planned things that used to truly be a miracle.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.” 

“The family is still clearly mourning her loss.”

Ba Joyce. 

Ba Joyce.

The family.

The family without Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

My eyes welled up as my body filled with ambivalence.  Not the American ambivalence of not caring; the British ambivalence of feeling two conflicting emotions at once that I learned from Kryten.  A strange taffy pull that brought even more tears.  Devastation that Ba Joyce was dead.  Elation that others were not. 

Ba Timmy was out in the village, visiting us.  We were nearing close-of-service (COS in Peace Corps parlance), pack-up-your-bags-and-say-goodbye time.  “When are you coming back to visit?”  Ba Lenix had asked.  “Oh, probably in about five years,” Ba Timmy had answered.  Ba Lenix let out a sort of snorty chuckle, a chortle if you will, “We will all be dead.”

I feared he was right.  At 36, he was already past what was then the Zambian average life expectancy.  At that time, the HIV rate in the country was hovering at about 20%.  Simply statistically speaking, a family with one husband and four wives was not an optimistic proposition.  It had only been a few months since I had sat in the shade shelling beans with my favorite bamaamas asking about why one of their others wives had gone to the mission hospital some 20+ km away, since deep and serious eyes had looked at me as a voice tried to laugh a laugh that caught in a throat, since I had heard  “tuyakufwa.”

There was something else, too.  I knew my situation was not like Ba Timmy’s.  Funding a trip to a quasi-remote African village would not be in my near future.  Not in five years, probably not in ten.  When my mother and grandmother came out to visit the year before, it truly had been a once-in-a-lifetime trip.  Even if I were to move back to Africa, I doubt Mommy would visit again.  But then, going to see your twenty-four-year old daughter in a small community she’s made home is very different from visiting your nearly middle-aged child in a block of flats in some bustling metropolis.

I used to write to them, my family, my Zam-fam.  I used to write letters and Christmas cards and little notes to say hello.  I’d send along pre-paid postage vouchers from USPS so they could write back.  “Ndamueya!”  I’d write, “ndamueya maningi!”  I was not lying; I think about them everyday. 

To get mail to the village, I would send it to the post box in Monze, the nearest town, for the government school in Chona, about 10km from our village of Cheelo.  There was a wonderful family who lived in Chona.  The parents taught at the school and the older sons ran the family transport business, carrying things and people and goats to and from Monze.  They would collect the mail and send it over to Cheelo with a passenger who might be going that way.  Perhaps another Cheelo resident or someone passing through on their way to somewhere like Namateba.  But the mail started coming back, unopened, months later, having gone across the Atlantic, through Lusaka, to Livingstone, to Monze and back.  The school had closed its P.O. box. 

Occasionally, I’d meet a Zambian or someone who was traveling to Zambia.  “Can you take a letter for me?”  And I’d hope the magic informal mail system of people who know people going that way would work.  I don’t know if my letters ever made it.

We lost touch.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Years.  But still, ndabaeya maningi, everyday.  Sometimes, I see them in my dreams.  I see them running towards me as I run towards them, coming up the path past the cattle stall and Ba Lenix’s special cisyu field.  I see them around the fire as we munch on roasted mapopwe.  I hear them yelling “Ba Nchimunya, Ba Nchimunya!” and laughing while my face aches from the stretched smile I simply cannot contract back into fitting on my face. 

Even when I am not asleep, I talk to them.  Imaginary conversations in the shower and on bike rides and in the car and walking down the street.  “Ndaunka ku mbeleka kwa ciinga.”  I’m sure my Tonga is worse than ever, but my thoughts are always in it.  There is no one here to know if I am accidently yelling “prostitutes!” into the air or asking if someone’s menstruated.  I imagine introducing them to Mr. Trizzle, standing sort of scared and unsure on the packed dirt, afraid of what allergens might jump out and bite him.  “Ah-ah, where is Ba Mr. Mindala?”  I try to punt the question.  “ezyi Ba Trizzle, bali benzuma.  Ndabayanda.  Bali kabotu maningi.”  “Ba Nchimunya, muntu isiya?”  Ba Fare would laugh, not really asking a question.  And they would make him feel so welcome and stuff him full of nsima.  The good nsima made from mbusu ground in the village, not that tasteless store-bought mealie meal from town.  And Bay Joyce would hang back a little bit, a huge smile on her face, “Banina Daddy Bunny.  Mwabola?” before coming in for a hug.  “Inzya, ndabola”  I have come.  Finally.  At last. 

But I have not.

And there is no Ba Joyce to smile and greet the mother of stuffed rabbit.

No Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Ba Joyce.

No Ba Joyce.

Mazoka, bamaama benu babolide.  Ino, mwakalona lyoonse, antomwe.  Amudokamane.  Pesi, mebo,ndaousa.  Ndamueya, bonse.

Say Hello to Chester

Vehicles are supposed to be female.  There’s a rule somewhere, probably in some old seafaring guide, a Viking legend or buried deep in a dusty pile of books in an etymologists’ study.  But this time, this time that just didn’t work.  I took one look at those wide-set eyes and pointy grin and knew immediately, his name was Chester.

I found Chester online, through some sort of search that lead me to Woodbridge Auto Auction.  A 1994 Cadillac Seville with barely 90,000 miles.  That pointed grin smiled from the ad.  “Black,” read the advert, though I could clearly see this Cadillac was not black.  Burgundy?  Brown?  Rustic bear?  Not black.  More like latte inside, ‘spresso out.

He was going up for auction on Saturday.  I would be in Orlando.  The auction house offered an option: pay for a hold to keep it off the auction; if you like it, the payment goes towards the cost of the car, if you don’t, refund. 
Getting a hold on Chester turned out to be much easier than getting to Woodbridge.  An airplane (from Orlando), Metro, a bus, and a strange walk along the highway with a Hungarian in search of cowboy boots later, I was peering under Chester’s hood.

I brought him home on a Wednesday.  He spent the next two weeks in and out of the mechanic’s.  One does not buy a 22-year old car from an auction house and expect it to be in working order.  No, one buys a 22-year old car from an auction house at a nice as-is price and gets a list of repair needs with the title.
Chester went to the mechanic who had managed Betty’s transition to hospice.  Woody’s an excellent mechanic, and most of all, understands attachment to a car.  He and his team replaced two broken engine brackets, sealed a hole in the exhaust pipe, located a tiny leak in the oil pan and generally tidied him up into tip-top shape.

I took him home and parked him behind Betty.  “This is your new brother.  I know it’s strange to be replaced by a sibling, but it’s what we have to do now.  Tell him all about the area, where we usually go, and what it’s like to ride with me, ok?”  I patted her hood and tried to ignore the pinch in my chest.

For the next several weeks, I moved Betty and Chester around the neighborhood.  Every Tuesday and every Wednesday, for Wednesday and Thursday street sweeping.  Sometimes they rested together, one in front of the other.  Sometimes they were on different blocks. 

Slowly, I moved things from Betty to Chester.  First the crate of fluids---oil, brake fluid, windshield washer fluid, engine coolant, bungee cords, rags, the large sheet for hauling things on the roof.  Then odds and ends---maps, the car seat I’d recently gotten from a friend at church so I can drive other people’s children (and scare dates as a side-effect, apparently).  Putting Betty’s mixtape in Chester just seemed wrong.  He has a cd player, so I put in one of my favorite cds, U.S.D.A.’s Cold Summer.  He ate it.  Just ate it.  Wouldn’t play it.  Wouldn’t give it back.  Just gulp, gone.  I tried everything to get that cd out.  Paperclips, pens, every button on the stereo.  Eventually, I gave up and put in a mixtape I’d made before Betty’s that turned out to be too depressing.

Emotional music, songs like Low Man’s Lyric, November Rain and Landslide are great for moody nights when the darkness of your apartment matches the darkness of your soul.  They are not great for driving around traffic-clogged cities.  Chester needed a mixtape of his own.

I went out to him, “Chester, I made you your own mixtape.  I’m going to take this random one out so you can hear yours.”  I hit eject.  Chester was so happy to have his own mixtape, he spit out the depressing tape and my U.S.D.A. cd!  I smiled and knew we were going to get along just fine.

Chester is doing well so far.  Someone took a gouge out of his front bumper, about two feet over from where John at the local hardware store drilled the front license plate on (no charge; such a sweetheart!).   I may color it in with marker.  This past weekend, he took a piece of road debris to the face and will now need to have a doctor’s visit, but it looks like that shouldn’t be too costly.

Chester’s very spacious inside, so much so that if I put the seat all the way back, I can’t reach the pedals!  (So that’s what it feels like to be Munchkinhead.)  His trunk is a bit smaller than Betty’s, but it does well enough.  His hood is longer; he’s packing a V8.  And my goodness does he purr on the highway.  Slowly, I am learning him.  Learning how he handles, learning his size, learning his quirks.   We’ve managed to parallel park on the left-side of a narrow one-way street, now it’s just a matter of making it second nature.

I still miss Betty---she was laid to rest in July---but I am very glad to have found Chester.  We have many adventures ahead of us. 

Are Those Ruffles Under Your Skirt?

Ruffles!

"I call dibs on the bloomers in Mommy's sewing room!" I yelled to my sisters over Twitter.  I'd found them lying around, probably on a pile on the large cutting table that had been pushed to the wall to make room for Munchkinhead and me to share an air mattress on the floor.  It was the ruffles that first got my eye.  Ruffled eyelet against more ruffles in a sort of softened army green.  I love ruffles, almost as much as I love sparkles.

"What's this?"  I picked them up and unfolded them.  "Bloomers!"  Mommy quickly informed me that Munchkinhead had already told her she couldn't get rid of them and very well might have plans for them.  Like an eager toddler yelling "MINE!", I pulled them on, over the skirt of the black suit I was still wearing from playing grown-up at work earlier in the day.  But that was hours ago and 1,000 miles away, literally.  Now, I was home, in Mommy's house, where no one ever grows up,  delighting in the ruffled bloomers with the elastic that easily went over my skirt and rested snuggly against my waist.  "They fit!  They fit!"  I jumped up-and-down.  That means they won't fit Munchkinhead.  I call dibs!"  I tweeted Munchkinhead and Alfred to let them know.  Alfred more as a courtesy, in case aliens had invaded her brain and made her suddenly interested in ruffled bloomers.

Toro toro toro!

Munchkinhead was glad of my excitement.  She had been disappointed that the bloomers did not fit her.  Like many things in Mommy's sewing room, no one had any idea where they'd come from.  Munchkinhead had forbidden Mommy from getting rid of them not because of some grand plan in mind, but because she did not want to see something so wonderful as bull-fighter-covered ruffled bloomers tossed away.   Yes, upon examining them more closely, later in the evening while playing board games with family and The Great Ecclestone, I discovered the pattern on these darling things was little bull fighters waving soft army green cloth in front of angry stamping dark green bulls.  How deliciously what-the-vampire.

I wore those bloomers most of the weekend, sometimes as shorts with a t-shirt---because Mommy's house is the only place one can look that ridiculous---sometimes under my dresses like proper bloomers go.  Then I could tumble in the grass and hang from the swingset to my heart's delight.  And Mommy didn't need to worry about saying, "get down from there, you have a dress on."  I love bloomers.

Bloomers or the clothesline

Bye Bye Betty?

Goodbyes are so difficult.  I am not ready to say goodbye, but it looks like it may be time.  Betty is at the car hospital.  I had to call the AAA emergency line on Saturday.  We were heading home in the early evening when she suffered a loss of gas to the engine.  (See map; click for points of interest.)

She wasn’t out of gas--I gave her 8 gallons that afternoon—but the gas was not getting where it needed to be.  There was no power to the engine; there was no power steering; there were no breaks.  We coasted until she came to rest on the front lawn of a large house in Davidsonville, Maryland.

An hour or so and 23 miles later, a very nice tow truck driver was unloading Betty from the flatbed ambulance to the corner of a tiny mechanic’s lot in Southeast DC.  (Conveniently, and coincidentally, down the block from my work.)  I said goodnight to Betty and climbed back into the tow truck cab for a ride home.  I haven’t seen her since, and it’s not looking good.  The mechanic is having difficulty locating the part she needs—a flex coupler.

Betty and I have been through a lot together.  8 years I’ve had her.  8 years and 5 months.  That’s longer than any other vehicle I’ve had.  That’s even longer than any home I've had.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for kicking me out for college.)  When I bought Betty for $2200 on New Year’s Eve in 2007, Daddy told me she wouldn’t last a year.  My amazing mechanic in Cali said I’d probably get at least another year when I moved in 2013.  In that light, making it to 2016 isn’t too bad.  But still, I don’t want Betty to go.

Betty has carried me through my life in four states.  Together, we did the move to three of them.  We’ve been across the entire country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and many parts in between more than once;  Highway 40, I-80, Route 66, and of course the gorgeous drive down Route 1 with Munchkinhead.

Betty and me in Wisconsin winter-before-last.  She looked good in snow (it hid all the missing paint).

There was that time in Iowa, when Orgfish’s neighbors called the cops about this unsightly car parked in their neighborhood and the police left a giant florescent pink “WARNING” on Betty’s windshield.  (I sent it to Orgfish as her birthday postcard some years later.)  The adventures with Daddy moving from Cali to Wisconsin when we spent an unplanned day exploring Ephraim, Utah while the hose connecting Betty’s coolant overflow tank to the engine was replaced.  And that infamous time we got pulled over for DWB, also in Utah.  I guess we should have stayed out of Utah.

Daddy and me being the statue outside Ephraim City Hall while Betty was being repaired.

She’s had some tough times, my Betty.  There was that incident where I sort of backed the side of her into a pole trying to get out of a parking spot in Cali.  And that time a week later when I did it again in a different garage.  That first incident was the one that resulted in my having to go in-and-out the window for awhile until a body shop could get her unlocked.

After that, I couldn't lock Betty anymore.  She was ransacked at least once in every town in which we lived, but it was never that bad.  In El Cerrito and D.C., they just made a mess.  But in Cudahy, they took my tape adapter.  I had to fork out another $5 for a new one from Amazon. 

Betty after being ransacked in Cali.

But that was back before I made Betty her very own mixtape.  We've been listening to it a lot less these past few months.  One, I was getting a little tired of it, but more importantly, Betty hasn't been feeling well a lot of the time and it's important for me to listen to her as we putter around town.  She gets especially cantankerous on damp or rainy days and left turns.  I check her fluids at least weekly and keep a storehouse in the trunk of every liquid you could need to put in the car, plus spare clothes and an astronaut blanket in case we get stranded, and bungee cords and sheets for unexpected hauling adventures.  She can really carry stuff!

Taking home my new queen-size bed.  The frame was in the car.  Sometimes going in-and-out the window is a good thing!

Betty hasn't really had a radio in a few months.  The antenna was knocked off by a carwash back in Cali years ago.  The mechanic disconnected the auto-expander and quasi-fixed the antenna to the car.  A few months ago, I walked past Betty on the street and noticed it was gone completely.

Betty with antenna quasi-fixed back in 2014 (after we lost her front trim on who-knows-what).

Betty sans antenna in snowy DC this winter.

DC is rough on Betty.  Besides the antenna loss, the swampy humidity caused the fabric on the ceiling to start detaching.  I pinned it back in place with a decorative pattern of thumbtacks.  Sometimes, they fall off, too.  Backseat passengers, beware.  Parking outside with no shelter these past two years hasn't been great.  The mohawk on her roof that had developed slowly over the years has quickly gone, leaving just a small patch of white amid a mess of unpainted grey and rust.  Whenever AAA asks what color the vehicle is, I say, "well, where there's still paint, she's white."  AAA came out a lot the past year.  In addition to the tow, there were several dead batteries. We eventually figured out the culprit was the glove compartment light, which wouldn't shut off correctly ever since Munchkinhead broke off the latch on a very cold WI night coming home from the theater.  I braided some yarn, looped it through the inside hook and the hole in the door where the latch used to be and tied the door shut, but it wasn't enough pressure for the light switch.  A mechanic took out the bulb and Betty stopped dying.  Somebody took out a taillight with who-knows-what.  (I replaced it.)  Oh wait, that was me.  I backed into a tree trying to do a Y-turn; dented my bumper sticker.

And then there was that time a few weeks ago when Betty got shot.  Just her tire, luckily.  The police tape is still in her backseat, next to the blanket I put in her for when homeless people use her as a warm place to sleep.  (Tho I would prefer if they'd put the seat back upright when they're done.)  The tire shop had to bust off one of her hubcaps in order to rotate the tires when I got her new one.  That put her down to two hubcaps.  We'd lost one in Cali when the mechanic had to bust it off.  She wears the two she has left on her back tires.  The recently removed one rides in the trunk.  I always have to call AAA when I have a flat tire, not because I can't fix a flat, but because I can't jack up the car.  There's no frame left for the portable jack to lift; it just goes right through the car.  AAA has to come out with their big fancy jack and lift her from the frame underneath.

Betty's got character; there's so much that's still so wonderful about her. She floats down the highway--when her engine's getting gas anyway.  I can parallel park her like you wouldn't believe, even on the left-hand side of the street.  Her heater is amazing--the air-conditioning hasn't worked since at least '08, but I hate air-conditioning anyway.  She's very polite--no horn.  Her interior is spacious and comfy.--At least I think so; Daddy thinks her front seat is broken, claims it's lopsided.  He may be right, but since I weigh about 100 lbs less than him, I can't really tell.  The thing I notice more is that one hole in the floor by my left foot that my stiletto will slip into if I'm not careful.  It matches the hole in the seatback from the previous owner's dog.  But I digress. 

Betty is so spacious, Munchkinhead turns into a t-rex when she tries to drive her.

And most importantly, she gives me an amazing freedom.  Not just the standard freedom of a car that allows me to go places far or near whenever I want, but the additional freedom of going places I otherwise couldn't or wouldn't.  I never worry about where I park Betty, if she'll get scratched--who'd notice? or that she'll be stolen--that'd be a very weak joy ride.  I get the prime spots in the grocery store lot, right next to the cart return.  Her heft makes her a great option for snow-covered streets (ok, my Wisconsin training helps a little with that, too.)  And I'm safer in neighborhoods where I otherwise would stick out like a blazing red target.  The combination of Betty and my white privilege allow me to go anywhere.  Betty helps me blend in where it's rough, and being a white girl gets me a pass when Betty raises suspicions in the fancy places.  In a city like D.C. where neighborhoods can change from one to the other in half-a-block, and where it's so easy to get lost, this is especially important.

Betty and I have travelled a long way together and we're both a little worse for the wear.

Betty and I both looking shiny, if not new, back in the summer of '08.

 



Betty turning 170K just over a year ago.

 

 

I'm just not ready to give up.  Not yet.  Not quite.  Not without a lot of tears.  So here's hope that somehow, a 1993 LeSabre flex coupler shows up in D.C., and that the mechanic can then figure out why gas stops going to the engine sometimes.  The flex coupler isn't for that; it's so the steering column doesn't detach from the wheels.  That's why she's been hating those left turns.