today, on the ides of march...

...thirty one years ago,

the best big brother was born.

he taught me how to ride a bike, 

gave me hands that easily flex and bend from countless minutes of 

silent but strong hand squishing during prayers, 

helped me understand the value of questioning everyone and everything 

(including said prayers), 

and put with endless amounts of crap and screams 

all in the name of getting him in trouble.

happy birthday, colin!  

i love and miss you 

and am very proud to be your little sister, 

always.

when i was four

one cold morning in november 1989, one month after my fourth birthday, my parents woke my brother and me up incredibly early, grabbed bags they'd pre-packed, and told us we were going to salt lake city, a short two hour drive, for the weekend.

not very excited, we slept the first four hours away, oblivious to the changing scenery and lack of arrival and stoppage in salt lake.  somewhere along the way, my brother, eight and half years old, must have realized something fishy was happening, and pried the truth from my parents.

in reality, this was a surprise family road trip to disneyland.

i can only imagine the endless minutes of screaming from pure excitement that must have poured from us, nearly deafening our parents in that small, enclosed car.

i can also deduce how impatient i must have been at four, taking into account that our traits generally soften and lessen as we mature, and how unabashedly annoying i had to have been for the duration of the ride thereafter.

sorry family.

over two decades later, my strongest memories arrive only in flashes and have been mostly supplanted with stories and the only scrapbook my mother ever made in my childhood.  but isn't that how our personal histories always play out?

..............................................................

the things i know for sure:

.cool, grey metal, associated with that falling feeling we get on roller coasters.

.dropping a penny through the thin wooden boards of a footbridge, and staring up into the infinite sea of immeasurably tall adult heads to report the mishap.

.a terrifyingly long line, for some seemingly important reason.

.sheer terror at mickey's face.

the things i know from countless sunday afternoons spent avoiding dusting the living room by immersing myself in the watts family disney scrapbook:

.dumbo's flight.  an undying love of dumbo, born of years of consecutive watchings with my daddy, videocassette thrust into his arms the second he walked in from work, demanding to played, logically ending in half a dozen dumbo rides over the course of four days.

.swirls of multicolored sugar.  giant lollipops leading to sticky fingers grasping mickey mouse ears, embroidered with our names, worn while jumping on hotel beds.

.stacks and stacks of pancakes.  two picky palate's forcing the hand of choosing restaurants that would be sure to sell both pancakes, for her, and hamburgers, for him.  a week of two children eating one food and one food only at every meal, excepting for the two hour line leading to the turkey meal on thanksgiving evening, wherein the family dined on a traditional feast, yours truly fell asleep and enjoyed the only food beyond pancakes eaten on the entire trip- one hot dog, no bun, extra ketchup.

.sheer terror at every disney character wandering the park, save for peter pan, spotted from daddy's shoulders thanksgiving night as we walked toward main street for the parade, stopping the young man (no doubt heading out, to conclude his work day) for just one picture with the little girl who cried and avoided every.other.disney.character in the park except for the handsome young man in green tights?

........................................................

we still have that mylar balloon, deflated and carefully tucked into the dusty scrapbook. that overflowing scrapbook that, even now, i can close my eyes and feel in my hands. i can feel the colorful park map poking out of the top right, and the thick cover, with the iconic castle and disney's name on the front.  i can see my mother's handwritten journal entries, written on hotel's notepaper, chronicling all the stops along the way, and our ultimate journey throughout the theme park and nearby sea world.

i can close my eyes and bring together the composites of my memory and the stories i've seen in pictures and been told through the years and i see a little girl with golden blond-brown hair, in her favorite yellow shirt with poofy sleeves and ruffles, hands atop soft, darker brown hair, taller than anyone and anything, taller than the world, suddenly spotting one green hat with one red feather, small hands unconsciously grasping, pulling that dark hair, squealing and hyperventilating, asking please, just please, it's peter pan, can't i meet him, please, can't i just talk to him?


so let's marvel- look at how handsome that peter pan was, way back in 1989!

what old photos do you have that bring out your stories?

let's {not} get physical, physical

over the course of the last few years, topher and i have been increasingly less and less physically affectionate in public.  when you combine emotional maturity with a home of your own with work schedules that leave you tired with the general realization how disgusting overt displays can be, you come to realize sometimes, mainly in public, less is more.

but we've always been a hand holding couple.  in line at the movies. in the car. as we run on the treadmill.

one of the greatest impacts living in cambodia has had on topher and me, i'd say, is the lack of physical touch that occurs and is condoned between people of the opposite sex.  it is very, very, very rare for a boy and girl- dating, engaged, married- to display their love via any sort of physical contact in public.

i've only seen one khmer couple holding hands, and it was in phnom penh, in the large mall.  i've never seen it in our town, and never between the couples we see often- like our host sister and her husband.  there is no kiss on the cheek, no playful shoulder bump when they're getting fresh.

physical touch between a man and woman just. doesn't. really. happen.

which means, in our attempts to be respectful of our new country's culture, to integrate successfully, to understand so that we might be understood, topher and i have severely limited our physical touch in public.

in many ways, it's spilled over into our private life as well.  not consciously, mind you.  but when you spend your days not holding hands, not hugging, not kissing each other goodbye, it becomes...

habit.

it's one of the hardest parts i've come to find in respecting the culture here.  sometimes, our old selves will pop out and we have to quickly move from what would have been a kiss on the cheek to an awkward high five, or we rely on quick arm touches or hand squeezes to suffice for general public affection.

it's been a struggle reminding ourselves to maintain a close physical distance inside our home as we've become more accustomed to not doing so outside, or using our times in the capital to get in as much hand holding as we can.

this is not to say that outward affection isn't common in cambodia.  it's rampant- amongst people of the same sex.  i can safely say i've had more women touch me in public than topher has done in the last seven months, and i can also safely say most of the women are what we'd call strangers.  women i don't know stroking my arm, or giving me a side hug, or touching my nose, or grabbing my hips.

and now i've begun to do it too. i touch women i don't know on the hand or arm when we talk, where in america i would never have initiated contact.  topher has had to get used to men reaching out to him the same ways, and we've all had to not blink twice when we see two boys or two girls riding down the street on their bikes, hands clasped to each other.

however, khmer people absolutely love it when i call my husband "bong" (older person, sign of respect) in public and he calls me "oun" (younger, same same).  at first i fought referring to my husband as anything that entailed being wiser/smarter/better, but now, its my favorite thing.

mostly because he knows it's completely tongue-in-cheek and it's like our secret display of public affection no one but us understands.

so there's that.

expletive deleted

a very old picture, circa college years.

i am making myself brownies for dinner, which in itself is probably enough of an explanation about the kind of afternoon i had.

it started as a wonderful morning, full of jaunty walks to buy chris some peach-ring-delicious-imitators and flouncy bicycle rides amongst cambodian drivers that have no real understanding of a traffic circle, and the best beefy macaroni and cheese with two fantastic gals.

which led to the following text conversation with husband:

"you make it on the bus honey? miss you"

"on. it's the broken hot bus. and the woman sitting next to me just called me french."

("barang" is the word all unknowing cambodians call all foreigners. it actually means french. i corrected her, telling her i was, in fact, not french, but american.)

"expletive deleted. sounds like a nice day. sorry honey. trying to figure the logistics of bring you home some barbecue or brownie."

"ha, don't worry about it!"

two hours later

"hows it going, frenchy?"

"well halfway through she began asking me questions in incomplete khmer despite me asking her to please speak more clearly and then another woman asked me the same questions and then original lady told me i would not be so hot if i wasn't fat so i told her i wasn't fat, thank, and skinny is ugly. also it's as hot as van we took last week and the bus driver is going so fast i am terrified we are going to crash and i may die. i am in an incredibly terrible mood and i feel like punching the next person who talks to me and i still have to bargain with the expletive deleted tuk tuk drivers to get home. how are you?"




and that, dear friends, is how the small things that normally are tiny, laughable annoyances- the heat, being called french, the assumption i do not understand khmer, the marvel that i do, the bargaining for everything, lack of safety while traveling, and the lack of any modern conveniences that we take for granted in america- can become an onslaught creating a near breakdown when one does not have the presence of mind or presence of a level-headed husband to serve as a buffer.


but now, there are brownies, and partially reformed-from-melting cookies 'n' creme chocolate bars, and back to the future on asian hbo*!


so, really, we have a good day here people. if you leave out that middle part.  expletive deleted style.


*edited to add: turns out we're talking a back to the future MARATHON people.  my frown is officially upside down!

what healthy looks like...

today was a good day. i had the surprise of fitting in my mid-service medical evaluation while i'm here in phnom penh for other meetings, which i had not planned on.  suffice to say, hello speculum and scale, you arrived months earlier than i imagined!

part of the check up was a trip to the dentist wherein a few funny and some wonderful things happened:

on the wonderful end, my dentist (the doctor!) was a WOMAN and nice, at that.  she was even kind enough to tell me that i spoke khmer clearly, the sweet woman.

on the funny end, she also didn't check my four front teeth, top and bottom, for cavities, because she thought my permanent retainer meant i had plastic teeth.

i only realized this as she finished up, said the word "plastic" and i connected it to her not probing those eight teeth at all.

so here's hoping!

i also learned the khmer phrase for "rinse your mouth" and promptly forgot it, got bit by a nasty little ant as i waited to cross the street on my bicycle, and really wanted to take a picture of myself in the dental chair but didn't know how to do so without looking like a total moron.

"oh yes hello, thank you for suffering my open mouth for twenty minutes, can we pause while i attempt to capture this for posterity and my blog's sake? oh, no? oh, ok then."

it should also be noted i've been in the capital far too often lately (we're talking three weekends in row) and the best part is that this means i've gotten to eat indian food three weekends in a row! i don't care that my stomach punches itself for hours afterward, garlic naan and chicken masala, you are my sweet chariot of saving grace and i love your fiery tastiness burning my tongue back into flavorville.

(the worst part is that i have no money after buying said indian food three weekends in a row.)

in other news, this is the first time i've been anywhere without topher in seven months, and the longest i haven't seen in his face in the same seven months.  and it's weird and sad and strange and i miss his face.

now it's time to go eat some pasta and tell that scale it can suck it even more! speculum has nothing to do with it, so she's staying out of it.

cheers to friday, world!

happiness and hilarity, chicken feet edition

happiness is:
a giant burger on a buttered, toasted bun, eaten after you devoured the best chicken masala ever.  yes, that is two western foods in one day.

hilarity is:
being hit with shock at a twelve dollar price for two giant cheeseburgers, fries and two sodas.  i'm going to die when we go back to america.

happiness is:
the serenity of an ipod of song shuffle, a self imposed no skipping songs rule, and a working air conditioner on a bus.

hilarity is:
seeing a woman on a moto drive by with a chicken foot tied to her handlebar, only to see the same exact sight not an hour later. same woman, same chicken foot? different woman, different chicken foot? i'll never know.

happiness is:
an amazing husband whom i love even more every day.

hilarity is:
explaining your one weakness- mainly, having no willpower- and using it as an excuse for why you most certainly DO get to eat one of the two snickers that have been in the fridge for two weeks, but he most certainly does NOT get to eat any chocolate that belongs to you.  laughing about it, telling him your joking, only to go home and eat his hershey's with almond.  sorry husband!

the rice connoisseur

no i am not eating rice. this is a cheeseburger. and it was delicious. it seems one can be a burger AND rice connoisseur simultaneously. topher and i = living proof.

and then then the day came in which i knew far too much about rice.

some rice is too sticky.

some rice is too clumpy.

when rice is overdone, it forms smalls balls of overdoneness.

when rice is burned, it tastes like ass.

one scoop plus a little is the perfect amount for one meal.

noodles made out of rice are deceptive and fill your tummy faster and expand upon impact of fluid than anything i've yet to discover.

and, if you live in cambodia, angkor rice is best.

and don't bother asking if brown or basmati or wild rice exists.

that rice is awt chingaing (not delicious).

so now you know.