Sunday, December 13, 2009

I’m Home! Sort of…

My circadian rhythm and appetite are still somewhere else, but my body and about 70% of my brain are home. I had a good trip to Farawayzistan. A few things I missed/are still missing:

Eating: Why does jetlag render me unable to eat? Chewing food reminds me of communion. In my childhood experiences (a practice I have long since abandoned) one of two things occurs always with communion wafers: 1) You chew and chew yet they prove resistant to saliva and mastication, becoming smaller and smaller pieces of cardboard in your mouth that must be swallowed as an one large uncomfortable body of Christ lump; 2) They instantly stick themselves to the roof of your mouth, forcing you to spend the rest of mass attempting to pry the body of Christ off the roof of your mouth with your tongue.

English: That foreign language I learned in 6th grade really wasn’t very helpful. The only thing I really remembered was “Where is the library?” I never felt compelled to inquire about the location of a library. And come to think of it, even if I had wanted to know where a library was, I wouldn’t have understood the directions unless it required only right and left turns at obvious landmarks such as banks, fountains, bridges, butcher shops, bakeries, police stations, and hotels.

Credit Cards: Carrying around large sums of cash because credit cards are not accepted anywhere? Not so good. It makes it rather difficult not to appear as a rich American asshole.

*Now what the hell happened to my house? At least you left me some cheetos this time…but I’m not sure how I feel about the redecorating. What exactly was the thought behind all the purple feathers?

11 comments:

  1. There's Cheetos? WHERE?

    Oh, those feathers........YAY! You're back! Hope you had a lovely trip and you are rested, got plenty of REE-LAX-AY-SHUN, sun, surf, sand, coconuts, cabanas, nice breezes, fine grillin and chillin, so good to have you back, sit right down and tell us about those wads of cash.
    jc

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  2. Well, you know that Inky and I just LOVE purple, and we thought you needed to girly up the place a bit!

    Welcome home, Dr. No! Eravate in Italia?

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  3. Welcome back! We missed you.

    I'm glad I'm not the only one whose Obligatory Language Skills have deteriorated so badly. Yesterday my sister asked me how much I still remembered (um, none) and then told me proudly that she had gotten me a job as a translator at a jewelry convention. Even at the peak of my Obligatory Language Skills, I was nowhere near jewelry-translation capability! I think this is a flaw in our education system--why do they bog us down with "Excuse me, sir, could you direct me to the library?" and never even introduce the fundamentals like "If it's not at least three carats, I'm going back to your brother" or "The diamonds are inside the upholstery of the Aston Martin, but hurry, the KGB is on its way"?

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  4. Purple feathers are the new black. Word, Annie.

    Welcome home! We missed you.

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  5. Oh, and I know you are diggin' those pink flamingos with Santa hats. Festive, n'est-ce pas?

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  6. Welcome back!

    I had the same experience on a recent trip, where my knowledge of the local language was just enough to ask for responses I couldn't understand. Always a good time. Hopefully you enjoyed your trip.

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  7. Have you found your Snuggie under the tree yet? It would look smashing embellished with purple feathers.

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  8. Whew, sorry for my silence everyone. I returned from far away place and then left town again. All very fun and very tiring.

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  9. 1) You chew and chew yet they prove resistant to saliva and mastication, becoming smaller and smaller pieces of cardboard in your mouth that must be swallowed as an one large uncomfortable body of Christ lump; 2) They instantly stick themselves to the roof of your mouth, forcing you to spend the rest of mass attempting to pry the body of Christ off the roof of your mouth with your tongue.

    Yes and yes. I have a confession to make: as a newly-minted communion-receiving 7-year-old, I was so appalled by the issues of the body of Christ that you describe above that I would take the communion from the priest, put it in my pocket, and throw it in the bushes upon exiting the church.

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  10. Damn. I wish I had known you as a kid, I never thought of that solution.

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  11. At least we didn't change your font to Snap ITC.

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