Snowjob

I've often sacrified warmth for the sake of fashion, but I found out the hard way that fingerless gloves are not worth the frostbite. My big booted snowprints were followed by a pack of pawprints belonging to naieve kanines who thought I looked kind enough to give shelter to stray dogs. They found out the hard way I am not as kind as I look. You'd think the iditarod stretched between the taxi and my front door.

Its hard to believe that just last week I was sifting sand out of my bikini and worrying that my peeling nose was a sign of skin cancer. But that was Thailand, and this is Istanbul. Just when I decided that sun worship was the closest I'd come to divine revelation, a huge snowstrom came into my forecast.

Around Valentine's Day snow is always in the air. Not for the lovers, but for the loveless. Maybe the broken hearted need something spontaneous and pure to restore their faith in love. Something like snow They can absorb the swirling white beauty and replace fragile hearts with unbreakable snowglobes, the fresh flakes beating new life into stale memories, making them crisp and beautiful again. It is still February and I am already in a Spring state of mind, what with my my newly renewed vow to get in shape and a brand new juicer - my new toy, my personal Jamba Juice, my symbol of endless summer - sparkling in my kitchen.

I was told that Istanbul has four seasons, just not to the extremes as, say, the ones in Chicago. Not as extreme in temperature perhaps, but more extreme in degree. It has more to do with circumstances than temperature. If its hot, its sweltering, if there's traffic, its at a standstill, if you're going out at night, you're coming in with the sunrise. If it snows, the pace is slower, the cold is more bitter, and the world is harder. On me, specifically. Hence, the day of a blizzard, I ran out of gas.

Its not that I haven't noticed the odd looking tank under my sink for the past six months. I just didn't realize how gas got from that tank into my stove. Perhaps I subconsciously thought the little gas faries kept refilling it. Or I simply haven't used an entire canister of gas yet, the times I turn on the stove being few and far between.

This being Istanbul, a city of extreme degree, I ran out of gas the day of a blizzard, the same day I had sudden, insatiable craving for Mexican food. No Mexican is not Tapas from the mall you people who have never been south of the boarder. It was the day I trudged to the store in the snow to purchase tobasco sauce (picante), cliantro(fresh) cajun seasonings,(ow ow!) lavaş wraps (as close to tortillas as I could get), all at imported international prices. The day I chopped and sauteed and soaked until the moment when the beans were nearly cooked, the rice was nearly soft, and my gas totally, absolutely, completely, fully empty. The phase now your cooking with gas came to mind, except I wasn't.

But back to my new love: the juicer. (My friend got engaged and I got a juicer - whose the lucky one?) After ten days of fresh tropical juice in Thailand, I decided I couldn't live without it. My juicer eats everything - even broccoli - and makes it palatable when mixed with oranges and carrots. Juicing and watching the snow makes me disproportionaltely happy, in the same way that eating alone makes me disproportionately sad. But I guess it has to with living in a city of extreme degrees. At least I can drink my meals from now on.

An Airport Triplet

Place: Doha, Qatar
Signage: Arabic and English
Purpose: Passing through

Birkenstocked hippies and Arabs in dishdashahs and shumaggs and British boys in board shorts and women adjusting their headscarves, saris, jeans, children’s diapers in the bathroom and a wife in a burka and does she wonder why her husband can wear jeans and a tee-shirt? East or West? White or brown? Bible or qur’an? Fate, free will, or manifest destiny? Coming or going? Busines or pleasure? Divisions that turn to schisms, oh count the ways. Indians and Arabs and Asians and Africans oh my! Perhaps they would rather I identify them as sunni or CEO or Bahrainian, but my eyes are not trained to to distinguish such subtlies of humanity they way I can spot an American on vacation (and likely guess their state) from a mile away.
So I couldn’t spot a Qatarian from a line-up.
Its clean! Its new! Its in the middle of the desert!
Doha Airport=Muslim country=no alcohol=disgruntled friends. There was, however, an A&W, and root beer had to suffice.

Place: Bangkok, Thailand
Signage: Thai and English
Purpose: Home base

Moving walkways, check, flat screen televisions, check, flight attendendants in modified traditional Asian dress for a pseudo-authentic image, check, entrance to VIP lounge with my Bangkok Air ticket stub (free popcorn!), check, “Long Live the King” posters commerating the bespecled Monarch, check, the international vibe in which everyone kinda fits in an no one really belongs, check, a Boots store, (the British equivalent of Walgreens) check, infinately long lines at passport control, check, suffocating smoking lounges, check, smooth check out of international and check into domestic for the last leg of my journey, check, check.

Then I see it. It hovers high above the check-counters like a mirage. After 11 hours, one stopover, and final 3 hr. layover to go, the frosted glass sliding doors could be the gates of heaven, the cashier could be St Pete. The Sky Lounge. It exudes exculsivity, but in reality it turns out to be an upscale cafeteria. Still, it is the closest thing to Whole Foods I have seen in months. There’s the bakery block, sushi section, traditional thai dishes and western cuisine. Anything your heart desires. I opt for a muffin and a tropical fruit plate. So clean, so efficient, so streamlined. So what?


Place: Ko Samui, Thailand
Signage: Thai and English
Purpose: R&R

The roofs are thatched, the walls are empty space, the luggage carousel is small and dainty. There are no fast food chains, no PA announcements, no endlessly long terminal, no confusion as to where the baggage claim is because there is only one. Skanky men pick up their hired girlfriends, who look classier than their pot-bellied purchasers.

The runways are sandwiched between endless palm trees, like a smooth tarmac band-aid squashing all the hairs beneath it. The tram ride from the runway to the main building is more of a senic drive than a mere transfer of people. It is tropical local first, airport second.
There is none of the how much, how to, what time business to worry about. There are shuttle busses to all of the various tourist destinations around the island for a few bucks. It is a big island, but a small place as far as place go.The hustle and buslte associated with airports is gone. I am struck by this fact: It is easy, laid back, and reminded of why people (i.e. myself) like to get away from it all.