Traveling with Grandma

   
                                                                                                                                                                                           

Family dance marathon, mid 1970's!  My dad, grandma, brother, me and my sister!

I am driving down a road I have traveled hundreds of times when suddenly my grandmother appeared.

Not so easy since she died in 1996.  But there she was, traveling along with me.  Well, she wasn’t exactly there, but her smell was.  Sounds odd and not so flattering, but to say fragrance would be incorrect, and odor just isn’t the word either.

What permeated the car was the smell of mothballs, bad German cooking, and old.  And I mean that in the most endearing way.  My grandmother was not a rosewater type of woman.  I almost had to stop driving as this was so unsettling, even if there was a level of comfort to it.  What was it in that moment that made her presence so present?  Was I in fact dead and didn’t know it?  If that’s the case then I am really okay with death as everything so far appeared to be the same as life

As time stood still for those few moments it got me thinking back on being a kid and going for visits to my grandparents’ house.  Thank God that is finally a good memory, now that it is hazy, distant and has been rewritten.  Not to say I didn’t love them, but they were old and not much fun from day one; not like today’s grandparents who are hip and cool, and surprisingly my age (how did that happen by the way?)  The photo attached, however, captures a spontaneous moment of fun, dancing to Kool and the Gang at their home in Leisureville (you read that correctly), Pompano Beach, Florida back in the 1970's! 

Dinner at their home was terrifying because my grandmother was not a cook by any means.  I think it was just a duty for her to make sure her family stayed alive.  Everything tasted stale, smelled musty or had freezer burn. And those were the days of Swiss steak, round steak, liver and onions and numerous other horrid meals that can still break me out in a cold sweat if I dwell too long on them.  I hate to not be appreciative, but I’m just not.  My mom inherited a husband whose taste buds had not developed beyond spaghetti, and she embraced him as a full-time, lifetime project to get his palate developed to a socially acceptable level so they could go out in public.   I suppose on the flip side though it might be one of the things that inspired me to take on cooking full force and really embrace the culinary arts. Can I send her a thank you note in heaven?

Speaking of heaven, I know she is there because she was such a genuinely kind and caring person and as full of faith as she was of Sauerbraten.  It saddens me to think that she's in heaven though as I know I won’t be seeing her, what with my track record and all.  I am at peace with this however, and as long as I can have the occasional visits with her while I'm driving along I know we'll always be together...

Dear Comcast...

Dear Comcast HR Department,

After spending approximately two months dealing with the transfer of my mom’s telephone, cable and internet service from one address to another just a few blocks away it suddenly dawned on me how highly qualified I have become in most aspects of what I would consider to be excellent job qualifications for an employee in, actually, most departments of your company! 

Having spent untold hours on the phone with your representatives in divisions like customer service, billing, technical support and now even online chat support I don’t think you could find a more capable prospect to start immediately in any of the aforementioned departments.

I would like to share with you some of my skills and attributes that I feel would make me the best candidate for your company.

First of all, I don’t have any idea what I am talking about when it comes to helping a customer who has called in with a simple request to have her (or his) phone service transferred from one address to another, a mere three blocks away.  This has stood out to me as one of the top requirements that you must use in determining whom you employ, and I can promise you that you won’t go wrong selecting me to work in any of those fields.  At this point I do feel, after spending two months on the phone with various departments, that I now know more than what I probably should about the way your company works.  I hope you will not see this as a negative when considering me for one of your job openings.

I also bring to the table the ability to pretend that I am listening and understanding what the customer is explaining.  I'm sure I can keep the customer engaged while offering hope (albeit false hope) that I will be the last person they need to speak with in order to have their phone service reinstated.  To top it off, I am not a particularly good reader, so even though there may be copious notes already in the client record about what has transpired to date, I promise I will not read any of them so the customer has the opportunity to explain it to me again (and again and again). 

I do, however, write well, so I guarantee I will do an excellent job recording what the customer is saying, and of course I will use ALL CAPS when emphasis is needed to convey anger, frustration and near hysteria on the part of the client.  

Because I also have an inordinate gift of gab I feel I will be able to keep the customer on the phone for much more than thirty minutes at a time.  I know this is critical to you as an employer because the customers have the option of taking an automated survey on the support received after the call is finished. 

If the problem is not resolved within thirty minutes I know they will receive the survey call while still on the phone with me (as I did with them) and will not be able to share their experience. What a great way to avoid negative feedback. 

I realize this is also a very coveted skill required to be considered for employment.  The teams I dealt with did an excellent job as I personally never got to answer a single automated survey call because of being on the phone for 45 to 75 minutes every time I contacted any department.  I could hear the call beeping in while chatting with a CSR, and I think I may even have that 800 number memorized now.  Unfortunately, I never got to complete a survey as I was always STILL on the phone with one of your employees.  This is probably the only area in which I will need some supplemental training.

Another skill I have that qualifies me to be an excellent employee is the fact that I speak two additional languages, French and Spanish, and I can successfully mimic accents in several Indian dialects, so whatever unintelligible accent you would like me to use when making my follow-up calls just let me know, cause I’m your girl!  If the client receives a voice mail message from me I feel certain they will have to hit the number one to replay the message no less than five times, and with any luck at all they will still be left wondering if their service has been permanently cancelled or if a technician will be arriving at their home between the hours of 6 am and 9 pm sometime within the next three days.  It has become obvious to me that as a company Comcast is doing their best to help keep people off the road during this busy holiday season by keeping them chained to their homes in anticipation of the field technician arriving.

 In fact, just yesterday my mom didn’t even walk her dog for over five hours because she was so terrified of missing the technician and quite possibly having to repeat this scenario again.  Anyway, she has tile floors so urine and feces are really quite easy to clean up.  Might I suggest that the team start asking some qualifying questions along those lines when scheduling a service call.  Like "do you have a dog, tile or carpet, do you have backup food and water in storage, and how is your penmanship, just in case you need to resort to handwritten notes again while the computer is down?"  This would probably be really helpful.
 

Another question that I have also thought might be valuable to ask your clients when they are on the phone with customer service is “are you self-employed, retired and on a fixed income, or gainfully employed and on a company’s payroll?"  I know those self-employed folks can get a little testy (actually downright violent – speaking from my own personal experience) as they see their own dollars flying out the window on days when they have to spend 4 – 6 hours dealing with customer service.  Those who are retired actually find the process to be rather engaging as they are in fact often looking for someone to chat with for extended lengths of time since the kids never call home anymore.  And obviously those who are on someone else's payroll are the best of the best to deal with because they WANT to stay on the phone for as long as possible so as to not have to do their own work.

In signing off I want to thank you for taking the time to read about my request for employment and why I feel I would be an asset to your company.  I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience!  Please contact me via my email address above as my phone is not working.

Kind regards,

Cynthia Adams

My best friend is co-ming...to town! (please sing along to the tune of' Santa Claus is Coming to Town!)

Here we are, drinking champagne of course!

Ooohh...You'd better watch out, cause we're gonna cry,
and laugh so hard that spit might fly....
My best friend is coming, to town!

She's seen me when I'm drinking,
She knows when I am fake,
I've been in all her weddings and...
she knows I hate to bake!
 
She worked out until giving birth,
I have no kids, just cats,
I am 6'1 she's 5'1",
We are a perfect match!



Well, I am just so darned excited to see Kim I can hardly stand it! We are so alike and at the same time so different it is one of the keys to the long term survival of our treasured friendship.



Me - talking on the phone with Kim many months ago... "OMG it has been sooo long since we've seen each other - seems like forever!  I can't even remember the last time we were together!

Kim - "It has been eight years, four months and,,,three, no wait, four days since our last visit". 

She has a very organized brain, and I don't.  Not to say I don't have some sense about me, but I see things loosely in colour and shape and she is like a Swiss clock.

She is a fashion maven, always accessorized, flawless make-up and yet totally natural.  I have worn the same pair of earrings for the last two years and I don't own any close-toed shoes.

We share a mutual love of champagne, brie cheese, laughing so hard until you cry and snort, travel, roasted vegetables, ...finding the perfect chips and salsa ( a lifelong mission).  We also share a love of cooking, and even more so a love of drinking while cooking.  No doubt the majority of our time together next week will be spent talking about food, planning our meals, shopping for the food, cooking the food while Latin music blares in the background, drinking wine, and eventually sitting outside on the lanai to enjoy our dinner on a warm Florida evening.
 
Hmmm, I wonder what Steve is going to be doing next week, seeing as I have big plans!

To do list before Kim arrives:

Find my waist
Lose 10, if not 30, pounds
Locate stabilizers for arm flab
Order a case of Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noir Champagne (ok, two cases)
Brie cheese - buy lots of it
Find Chi Omega senior class composite picture so we can talk about everyone
Bring out photo album from the summer of 1980 when we went to school together in Spain
De-fur entire house of cat hair dust bunnies
Remember to get food for the refrigerator
Change out all dead plants
Boxes of Kleenex strategically placed at all points around house where crying or extreme laughter may occur.

What a grand week this will be!  

More tales of some not so exotic travels...

As last mentioned in my January newsletter "The Mixed Media Chronicles" I promised to entertain you this month with a little redneck incident involving Steve while in Sarasota last November. 

Now Steve generally comes across as pretty laid back and a happy guy most of the time.  But when the Alabama in him surfaces I usually hide in another room, or at least pretend I have no idea who he is.  Almost 25 years of marriage now and this strategy continues to work well for me.  Seems like I rely on this approach more often now than , oh say 10-15 years ago in the earlier days of wedded bliss, but we'll save that for a future blog.

A laid back Steve during happier times!  With Veronique Stalmans, Rabat, Morocco!

After a nice weekend exhibiting our art at St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota we ended up with a delivery on Monday morning out on Longboat Key (hi Jo Ann, hi Ed!).  A morning spent hanging two of our paintings in this very pretty home was a great way to wrap up our art show weekend.  Finishing that, we headed to the Columbia Restaurant for a fabulous Cuban lunch, then off to the art store with plans of heading back to Naples soon after..

That's not what happened.

Leaving from the art store with our cargo trailer attached to the jeep we pulled out into three lanes of busy Sarasota traffic, only to have the car quit running while it was in lanes one and two, and the trailer still in the parking lot.  It wasn't a mere three seconds later before cars started honking, yelling at us to move our car.  We would love to have obliged them, but it's not possible when THE CAR IS NOT RUNNING!  I know it appeared that we had just decided to park perpendicularly in the middle of three lanes of traffic and get out of our car and stand there on the curb to have a little chat on the phone.  Really, doesn't everyone do that once in awhile?

Although the engine was in fact still running (we found out later the shifter cable snapped so we could not put it in gear in order to move) there was nothing we could do until AAA arrived and had to configure some very tricky towing due to the fully loaded trailer still attached.

Lots of people were quite helpful driving by, suggesting very loudly with their windows rolled down that we get the &%$#@%* car moved out of the way.  I don't know why we didn't think of that! 

Steve was getting madder by the minute.  Not only frustrated at the predicament that we were in, but also that people were so rudely yelling at us.  He was getting very testy, and soon was yelling back at anyone kind enough to make those comments to us.  And he was using the same kind of language too, just so they could all, you know, relate and be on the same page.

Finally I had to start yelling too - partly to defend Steve, and partly at Steve trying to get him to calm down.  Which of course had him snapping back at me.  It was quite the fun afternoon if I do say so myself!

Knowing that AAA was on their way gave Steve some peace of mind and a little extra redneck bravado, knowing that if he really let loose we would be saved soon and out of there shortly.  Unfortunately, the last person to experience his full-fledged rage (and I'm on Steve's side - she deserved it!), was a well-dressed, bouffant haired, manner-less woman in her seventies driving by in her convertible BMW.  She decided to let loose a barrage of scathing commentary about how we were parked and Steve lost it.  He went running towards her, yelling loudly and angrily, and gave the appearance that he was going to jump in her car and give her "what fer!".  This scared the bajeebers out of her as this crazed lunatic headed her way, arms waving in the air as if he was suddenly Italian.  She floored her car, bouffant flattening in the wind like a dog riding with it's head out the window, and she was out of there. 

It was one moment later when AAA showed up which was good for all of us, and Sarasota in general.  We got to spend another night there waiting on our part to be delivered the next day.  And we were forced to rent a minivan which in Steve's world was kin to living in the suburbs with a white picket fence, 2.4 kids, a dog and an empty revolver.  I thought he was going to cry.

So, it's not Morocco, but it was an adventure!  Bravely we went back to Sarasota again at the end of January for another show and I am happy to report we had sales and were incident free!  I guess all's well that ends well!

Mom does Dallas!

The whole fam damily!  Hilton Head, SC 2006  Fiftieth anniversary trip.

 Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013

My clock radio went off at five a.m. today, screeching some unidentifiable song as always since we are not able to get it to lock on a station no matter where we put it in our bedroom.

If choosing to see the positive side first thing in the morning I can take comfort in the shrill static and tell myself "good, the worst of the day is already over!"  On the flip side, I can view it as a sign of things to come, which is what this morning turned out to be.

The early rise today was due to me volunteering to take my mom to the airport this morning to catch her eight a.m. flight to Dallas, Texas.  Of course I really didn't mind at all as I certainly didn't want her driving herself there in the dark, and accumulating a hefty parking fee after eight days.  And I didn't want Steve to take her and then have to pay up with sexual favors later.  With odds like those it was easy for me to make the decision I did.

A quick shower and a cup of coffee and I was ready to leave to go pick her up.  After putting the garage door up I walked briefly out onto the driveway to smell the humid, tropical air of this predawn late July morning.  The sky was still black, a few stars remained, and the full moon had almost completed its descent, low on the western horizon.  Our black and white feral cat, Crooked Head (due to a neurological disorder and aptly named) sat on the sidewalk and stared me down, ever hopeful for another delicious dish of dry Friskies
.
This would not be his morning, however, as I had an agenda and wanted to be at my mom's house by six a.m.  So far I was on time
.
The first two minutes to be sacrificed from the ETA were spent on a quick pitch, toss and reorganization of the car prior to departing.  At the risk of hearing comments from my mom with a slight innuendo regarding the state of my car interior I thought this was best.  Pat on the back, however, as I had proactively gotten gas the night before.

Ten minutes later I arrived at my mom's house and parked in the middle of her driveway.  Walking through the courtyard I let myself in through the sliding doors and was greeted first by Lily, the shih tzu, who is considered to be the fourth child in our family and has far more toys than us three kids ever did, cumulatively!   I had to step over three stuffed hedge hogs and a yellow monkey, a loon, and several tennis balls in order to give my mom a hug.

She looked so cute in her matching lime green Capri slacks, short sleeved sweater and fun accessories.  Still trim, beautiful and well-put together at almost seventy-nine I am hopeful that I will hold up that well as I age.  I know I inherited her experimental cooking gene, but the fashion gene was apparently on hiatus during conception and I have struggled to put outfits together ever since day one.

1957.  My mom pinning on my dad's Navy wings of gold!

My mom was leaving on her first big trip since my dad passed away one and a half years ago, to spend time with her sister and mutually discuss what had gone wrong with all of their kids.  It was going to be a grand reunion no doubt, after getting all of the tears out of the way first that had been held back during these difficult eighteen months.  That, and lots of chardonnay.  I was very happy for her! A quick run-down of what she had packed, what was in her carry-on that wouldn't be confiscated, a review of Lily's daily schedule, and then several unexpected minutes of discussing the upcoming fall adult continuing ed classes, none of which she has ever taken, and we were off!

Well, not really, as she decided we would be taking her car, so now I had to shift a few things from my car to hers, then back out of the driveway so she could back out of the garage and into the street, and then I had to pull back into the driveway.  Which now meant that I was going to have to come back to her house after the airport to get my car so I could go get Steve so we could go to the gym and then come back to her house to get her car again and the dog.  Oh, never mind!  I'm going to keep that next thought to myself.

So now we're off, again!  But slowly, really slowly, as the warm humid air collided with the cooler temperature of her car windows and fogged them to the point I couldn't see a thing!  Fortunately we were not even a block away so I was optimistic that this would clear up shortly.  I put the wipers on which made a difference, but it only lasted for a second after passing over the glass.  I hunched down a little where the window seemed a bit clearer thinking this would at least be an okay position until it cleared up, probably by the time we got out of the subdivision.

Turns out I stayed in this position the entire way to the airport.  Seems like we would have stopped along the way to clear this up, but early on in the drive I looked at the clock in her car and in horror realized we were now twenty minutes behind schedule and I was going to have to do what it took now to get her to the airport on time.

We flew like the wind up the interstate!  Well, not really, as there was lots of traffic and the glare from the headlights made the fogged windows look like ice crystals and prisms.  I raced along at about sixty-three miles per hour with the wipers on full blast, hunched over like a blue hair, looking out of my one square foot of true visibility.  No matter what we did, air-conditioning, no air-conditioning, defrosters, wipers, no wipers, windows open, windows closed, it made no difference.  I was a little annoyed to say the least, but who knows what I would have written about for this blog had it not been for this!

Finally we arrived at the airport just in the nick of time.  Well, not really, as it was at this point that I learned that the clock in her car was about fifteen minutes fast!  Yay!  One accomplishment so far -- we were in fact early!

We pulled up in front of the American Airlines curbside check-in and I helped my mom get her bright cobalt blue bag to the attendant and made sure everything was in order for her to head on into the airport.  I left the car running hoping that those few extra minutes might make some sort of difference with the fogged windows.  I hugged my mom good-bye and watched her walk with a little pep in her step into the airport.
Turning to walk back to the car I saw no improvement whatsoever.  Now I really had to address this situation.  Deciding I had better start by at least wiping the windows as dry as I could I looked throughout her car for maybe some napkins or tissues, a rag, maybe an item of clothing.  Nothing.  In my car of course all of those things would have been readily available and visible to boot!

Alas, I rummaged through one of Lily's toy bags in the backseat and found a furry, rather grotty, chewed up, saliva covered, stuffed hedgehog that I was banking on being absorbent.  I grabbed that hedgehog and started cleaning the windows as best I could.  I know I looked silly wiping them down with a rodent, but most likely it would have gone unnoticed by everyone around me if it weren't for the fact that this hedgehog had a squeaker in it.  Of course.  I wiped and squeaked, squeaked and wiped, sadly with no positive results to share.  Just embarrassment.

So there I was, finding myself on a Tuesday morning in late July, wiping the windows of a car down with a squeaky, non-absorbent hedgehog in a busy, public setting and wondering, just for a moment, what the hell had happened to that life I had planned?

And then I asked myself, is there anything I would change?  Well, not really….

Our first night in Morocco...

The entrance to Chellah Gardens - Steve, Antonella, Veronique and Vincent

Isn't it amazing to reconnect with friends from a long ago chapter in your life and find out that you can pick-up where you left off, twenty-five odd years ago?

One of our main reasons to visit Morocco, apart from sharing the journey with our dear friend Veronique, was to see our mutual friends Antonella and Vincent who were at one time a big part of my life when I lived in Belgium in my twenties.

I moved back to the states in 1988 at the age of 28, and we all went on with our respective lives and careers, staying in touch a little here and there.  Between my three friends above, they have since then collectively lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Jordan, Hungary, The Philippines, Malta, Turkey, and now Morocco and I suppose I am forgetting a few places along the way.  Can you imagine how jealous and cheated in life they felt upon realizing that I had been in Atlanta and Naples that entire time?  I know, I know...I hate it when it is so much more obvious that my life has been super-duper exciting compared to theirs.  Being the friends they are though they bore me no ill will and pretended that they were happy for me.

Arriving in Rabat was so exciting I was actually without words, a phenomenon that rarely happens to me.  Here I was, about to reunite with dear friends, I was in Africa, I had been up at least 36 hours while traveling from Naples, and I still had good hair!  That in itself was most remarkable, and between you and me that counts for just about everything these days.  It takes something like seeing old friends on a distant continent to knock that out of first place.

We pulled up curbside, in front of their four story apartment building, and began unloading our bags.   I closed my eyes and paused for a moment to take in the humid smell of the cool evening air, interspersed with fragrant and exotic aromas of food cooking from the restaurant across the street.  I then turned and looked at the handful of steps I was going to have to navigate to get in to the lobby and lost my train of thought about the smell of the air and the food from the restaurant.  Now I was just thinking "good God I have a lot of luggage with me!"  I had not even been in Morocco for two hours before I started questioning what all I had packed.  I would continue to entertain that thought daily for the rest of the entire trip.

Caretaker of cats and chickens at Chellah Gardens, Rabat

In our excitement to get up to their fourth floor flat Veronique, Steve and I decided we would all three pile in the lift with our bags, our carry-ons and backpacks, our cameras and our purses (although Steve prefers a small clutch so that didn't really count as a space taker-upper).  Seeing as we are all about six feet tall, maybe more, this posed a load bearing risk for this tiny lift.  In fact when we arrived to their floor we had to wait for Vincent to open it from the outside as none of us could move easily enough from inside to open the door. Even getting out of the lift proved comical, as the first two of us had to extract ourselves backwards and sideways.  It reminded me so much of silly things that Veronique and I had done in our twenties and I was glad to see that we had not matured much since then.

Waiting in the hallway to give us a big hug was Antonella -- still the beautiful, dark haired Italian girl I remembered from her twenties.  She and Vincent had met right around the time I moved to Bruxelles, and they were still together and madly in love, getting close to thirty years now.  A testament to the possibility that relationships can and do endure. We all began chatting simultaneously and didn't pause for a breath until Sunday morning when we departed for Fes.

Antonella and Steve on the balcony

 After hugs we then went through the brief ritual that all of us women now do in our fifties, which is to pretend that none of us have aged a bit since we last saw each other.  "Oh my gosh, you look fantastic!  You don't even have any wrinkles, and you are so thin!"  This is one time when lying is highly recommended, but in our cases, of course, it was all true and we didn't even have to cross our fingers behind our backs.

Breakfast is served!  Fresh apricots, pastries, jams and fresh juice!

We gladly set our bags down in our respective rooms and walked out onto their large balcony.  Night had fallen, but the glow from the street lights illuminated the bright fuchsia bougainvillea that climbed out of the pots and on to the rails.  The smell of jasmine perfumed the night air, and as we looked over the balcony we could see Rabat unfolding, down this street, out over the rooftops, and beyond the hills to the faint ribbon of orange red from the remnants of sunset.


A jumbled mishmash of buildings lined each street as far as we could see.  Traffic honked and beeped and scooters rattled on by, four stories below.  Conversations drifted upwards and then floated away, and then the coolest sound I've heard began.  Something was being broadcasted live in the streets.  It sounded ancient, primitive, masculine and hypnotic.  In that moment I realized I was hearing the muezzins perform the last of the evening's call to prayer.

Mosques were in view wherever we looked, and the muezzin is the man who calls the Muslims to prayer from the minaret of a mosque.  What I also found interesting is that wires spanned from one building to another everywhere, and speakers hung from these wires.  When the prayer call went out from the mosques it was in fact being transmitted live, and it traveled from mosque to mosque, street to street, throughout the city, creating the sound of a swarm of insects that had a lot of inflection in their voices.  It was mesmerizing, and most mornings we were awake enough to hear the first call of the day, just before sunrise.

Steve and Veronique in the medina

Eventually it became part of the background and blended in with the sounds of the street, the people and life in the cities and villages. It is that sound that will always make me think of Morocco and my time spent with dear friends in a fabulous country.  I am ready to go back!

Hilly streets of the medina, Rabat Morocco

Wide Awake in the Sahara... a journey by camel.

 

Sunset in the Sahara

The Sahara Desert -- how does one even figure out how to think about it?  3.6 million square miles.  Almost as large as China or the United States.  Sand. Nomads. Dromedaries. Scorpions. Snakes. More sand.  In its harshness and severity I ultimately saw extreme beauty and solitude.  I would go back in a heartbeat.

Having crossed the Atlas Mountains days prior, we had been working our way south and quite a bit east, getting deeper and deeper into Morocco.  Our destination was the village of M'hamid, the last outpost at the edge of the Sahara, and the last town before the Algerian border about 25 miles away.  If I were still in my twenties I might have found a way to cross over into Algeria to get another stamp in my passport.  That, however, seemed like more effort than I wanted to make, not to mention I would probably not be able to re-enter the U.S. and then who would feed the cats and our one remaining fish?  That's part of being in one's fifties -- you actually think about the consequences of your actions before you do something stupid.

Fortunately I was extremely content at being in M'Hamid and near the Algerian border, not to mention the compound where we were staying for part of the time had a pool and a spa.  It was also owned by the French which meant there was wine available too.  Algeria dropped off the radar in no time.

Arriving at Dar Azawad, our small kasbah style hotel, we dropped off our bags and prepared a quick overnight backpack of clothes to take with us into the desert.  What does one wear while riding a camel and sleeping in the desert?  This was a fashion question that I had never dealt with in previous years, and seeing as I have no fashion sense whatsoever I actually didn't give it too much thought.  In fact, not thinking much about what I was wearing had been my modus operandi regarding my clothes during the entire trip, which I would unfortunately live to regret when I later saw all of the photos from the journey.   And having to listen to Steve tell me "I told you so" when he questioned my attire I put together before leaving the states.  Another regret.

With bags in hand we were back in the car, headed to the rendezvous point to begin our trek into the desert.  More dust and sand, our Berber guide and a couple of camels awaited our arrival. A handmade, hand-painted sign with an arrow indicating 'Toumboktou' swung from a post.  Veronique dropped us off and I noticed her speed quickly back down the road knowing that there was wine and a comfortable bed awaiting her.  I was beginning to wonder if we had been tricked.

Tombouktou Market

After a fifteen second lesson on how to mount a camel we were positioned and ready to go.  Our guide took my scarf (called a chesh) and twisted it, wrapped it and spun it around my head and face to block the sun and sand for the journey.  Steve didn't want to be mummified like that so he wrapped the chesh around his neck so he could pull it up if needed.  He also had on his cool leather outback hat which on its own created a dashing "Indiana Jones" kind of look.  However, with the chesh wrapped around his neck and flowing behind him it sort of took on the appearance of "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", but I didn't tell him that.  He'll find out when he reads this blog.  I had to get rid of some of those photos too.

Steve, before the scarf

We set out on our journey with our guide leading our camels as we paralleled the town of M'Hamid for some time.  To our left was the Sahara.  To our right was, sadly, the negative effect of civilization with trash littering the way, the occasional single sandal that must have fallen off while on a camel, tires, big pieces of scrap metal, and plastic bags galore that swirled in the dust storm and desecrated the beauty of the countryside.  None of us probably think about the impact of those plastic bags from the grocery store that we use regularly, but when you are in Morocco and see the direct repercussion on the landscape you will vow to never use one again.

We couldn't do anything about the trash, so we chose to look to the left and focus on the austere beauty of the desert.  A light sandstorm whipped up and we watched it sweep and swirl across the desert floor, listening to the ghostly sound of it whooshing in the otherwise silent space. We soon turned east and now were heading directly into the Sahara.


Once the remnants of civilization disappeared, except for the occasional mud-walled kasbah, I slipped into my suspended state of disbelief that I was actually where I was.  The vastness of the desert and its beauty engulfed me and I was without words.

Beautiful, ancient kasbah along the route...

We continued on in silence, interrupted sometimes by the grunt of a camel or the squeak of our saddles.  The lilting rocking rhythm of the camels' gait was somewhat meditative and every step of the way I felt connected to a higher source.  It is such a timeless feeling being in the desert; the past, present and future all intertwined at once.

After an hour or so of rhythmical plodding through the sand we arrived at our camp and a beautiful, mystical and exotic scene unfolded.

A few small, mud-walled buildings made up a communal area, and spread out on the sand were enormously beautiful Moroccan rugs, one scattered on top of another.  Small, low tables with leather poufs and stools were scattered about, and the traditional pierced tin lanterns sat atop the rugs, waiting to illuminate the night after sunset.  We immediately stopped in our tracks, sat on the poofs, drank our mint tea, and took in the beauty of the palm trees and sand dunes and gnarled and twisted trees shaped by the winds over time.  It was magic.

I love this tree!

Rosa joins Steve for some mint tea!

 Our camels, taking a well-deserved rest.

Beautiful rugs and pillows, ready for us to relax...

Asking our Berber host if there were others that would be joining us he said “Ah, yes, the Swiss will soon be arriving by camel”.  It was delivered in such a matter of fact way; as if the Swiss are always arriving daily by camel.  Statements conveyed in that manner amuse me.  It seemed a very English way of stating the obvious, and I felt for a moment as if I was being filmed by David Attenborough for a PBS special.



Sure enough, within about twenty minutes, the Swiss did arrive by camel.  We made our introductions to Judy and Roger, and were quite happy to learn that English was a common denominator for us all.

The Swiss, arriving by camel!

Finishing our tea we made a quick trip to our individual campsites to drop off our bags.  These sites were made of mud walls, and the roofs were handmade woolen tarps from goat hair that were impervious to the weather.  The floors were sand, covered with rugs, and two single cots were pushed together to make one larger bed.  We found out that it would be okay to haul the beds outside and sleep under the stars, so that was added to the list of things to do after dinner.  In fact, it was the only thing on the list of things to do after dinner.

Our cot, moved out into the open...

Dinner was another traditional tagine cooked in the open air kitchen at the camp.  It was good, but the meat was unidentifiable and none of us wanted to inquire as to what it was.  Judy just ate the potatoes.  I couldn’t identify the taste and I knew right away there were several things that I hoped it wasn’t.  Never did find out - somethings are best left unknown.
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After our leisurely dinner we wound our way back to our campsite.  There were no lights anywhere, no glow on the distant horizon, just an inky, midnight blue-blackness and a trillion stars above our heads.  In fact, the sky was so crowded with stars and the Milky Way itself that we had trouble picking out the constellations.

With nightfall the desert grew cold and we ended up wearing everything we brought all at once.  While putting on our layers in the walled hut a small, quick motion caught my eye.  I looked at the wall but didn’t see anything.  Then the motion again, and now a scorpion came into view.  And might I point out it was where my side of the bed would have been had we decided to sleep inside.  This was not good, and as much as it goes against our nature to kill anything except mosquitoes this little guy met his demise from the heel of Steve’s shoe.  It actually made us both sad because we were the guests in his town.  But then we got over it, …sort of.  We weren’t afraid of it coming outside but rather taking up space rent free in our backpacks or tennis shoes.  Neither of us like those kind of surprises.

Layered in all of our clothes, we also dragged several heavy, handmade woolen blankets outside with us.  I had my paisley pashmina from Italy with me and as I wrapped my head up in that I thought I probably look like a homeless person who has done their clothes shopping from the dumpster at goodwill.  I was very glad that Judy and Roger’s site was over the next sand dune.

Crawling under the covers on the cots we laid there and looked up into the sky, trying to take in the magnitude of what we were seeing.  Rightly so, the first constellation that came into focus was Scorpio, and it was huge and bright and pulsated, emitting its disapproval of our recent actions. Ironic, isn’t it?  

The wind was blowing and a light spray of very fine sand covered us in no time. We lay there, not saying a word as there really are no words to describe sleeping outside at night in the Sahara.  There was a three-quarter moon that kept us company, the Milky Way blazed a brilliant trail across the sky, a trillion stars twinkled and pulsated and sometimes fell from the sky while we watched them shoot across our heads, and we lay there in silence all night, wide awake in the Sahara.

Early morning view from the cot, just after sunrise...