You can have lunch, but you’re going to have to sell your plasma to afford it.

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My family has instilled in me a great number of strange habits and beliefs; among them is the notion that food shouldn’t cost much money. As is their wont, my family has taken this belief to the extreme. Most flat-out refuse to ever go to restaurants (their logic: “You just pay more for stuff that you can get at home!”), and many of their groceries are purchased on clearance, from those weird discount bins at the end of aisles (you know – the ones filled with seasonal cake decorations and dented canned goods).

And then came along Rand, and turned that idea on its head (honestly, if you told me that his sole role in my life, besides all that making out and romance stuff, was to make me question EVERYTHING, I would totally believe you). He loves going out to eat; he adores expensive and boutique grocery stores, filled with local products and fancy cheeses. He’s consistently suspicious if something edible is on sale.

“I just don’t trust it,” he once said of some discount chicken I brought home from Albertson’s. I ate it alone.

Over the last decade, I’ve tried to strike a balance between these two forces in my life. I like buying things on sale, but I’ll willing to spend a little more for something local, or organic, or ethically-produced. I’m fine with eating out at cheap places, and I’m even okay with splurging on an expensive dinner every now and then, provided I think it’s worth it.

But despite all the leaps and bounds I’ve made, the prices of food on Hayman Island left me clutching my heart. The thing is, they had the same effect on Rand.

There were three things on Hayman Island that were free:

• Water
• Breakfast
• Apples

Guess what we consumed a ton of?

That’s right! Water!

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Pancakes! Uh, … I mean breakfast! (Which was mostly pancakes!)

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Apples!

-

Seriously, I think we each ate something like 3 apples a day. Which is crazy, because we all know that I prefer my apples surround with pie crust, and baked.

But a gal can’t subsist on breakfast and a shit ton of apples alone. We had no choice but to eat at the resort restaurants. And they were expensive as hell.

There were three options for lunch – we could order a picnic lunch and take it out with us to one of the islands (prices started at a whopping $58 AUS, or about $63 U.S., PER PERSON), or we could eat at back at the resort, at either the pool cafe or the tiki bar lounge. Most days, we chose the latter.

The tiki bar offered some gorgeous salads, which were actually pretty reasonably priced.

This salad, with mint, watermelon, and feta, was $9 AUS, which seemed like a bargain at the time.

 -

We ate so many of these, and though they were delicious, I’m now actually kind of sickened by the thought of them.

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And there were little sliders, which came with a small side of fries, for about $27 AUS, or close to $30 U.S.

Itsy bitsy burgers. Note the absence of lobster tails.

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Were the burgers delicious? Yes. Absolutely. Do I think it is even remotely sane to pay $10 per mini burger? NO. NO, not unless each one comes with a free lobster tail or something (and despite my numerous pleas to our server, I can tell you: these did not).

With tax and tip, the meal above cost us about $75 U.S.

-

The good news is that we aren’t big drinkers. Because then things would have gotten really crazy:

For $22, you’d better bring me a bucket full of margarita, you hear me?

-

On any given night, three of the resort’s four restaurants were open, and room service was also available. Unfortunately, I don’t have too many photos of those meals, because we often skipped them and headed straight to bed. When we did manage to stay up and eat dinner, we found that the bill hovered around $150 AUS for two entrees and an appetizer (excluding drinks and dessert). Some restaurants were far pricier – the seafood buffet at AZURE was $100 AUS per person. Like lunch, these meals were all fantastic, but spending money on food is not something that I’m used to. Each time we got a bill, I found myself gasping for air.

I realize I must sound like a total ass complaining about the prices of things. After all, it was an amazing experience, and the food was excellent (and don’t forget: free apples). But since we were on an island, with literally no other options for food, we started to feel rather trapped by the whole situation. Rand and I both agreed that we’d much rather the hotel had been all-inclusive. We’d have paid more upfront, but we’d at least have known what we were getting into.

The one advantage of the costly meals was this: they made leaving Hayman Island slightly easier. There was no way we could stay there any longer, because we’d either go broke or starve.

En route to Sydney, we stopped briefly on Hamilton Island, and already we felt liberated. We no longer had to pay Hayman’s crazy prices. I spotted a vending machine and decided to buy myself a bottle of water. I felt giddy at the prospect. It would be affordable! And cold! And hydrating!

I was rummaging in my pocket for a few coins when I saw the prices.

-

I walked back to Rand empty-handed.

“I thought you wanted a drink,” he said.

“I decided I wasn’t thirsty,” I replied, and began searching my bag to see if we had any apples left.

The sink in our hotel in Australia. SPOILER: the water went straight down.

-

I have some disappointing news.

Are you sitting down? You should probably sit down. You aren’t going to like what I have to say. This piece of news is up there with learning that Santa and professional wrestling are not real (if I just broke the news about either of those things to you just now, then I am very, very sorry. Life is easier when you believe that men come down your chimney armed with presents, and that karmic piledrivers do happen to bad people).

Instead, my sad revelation is this: the direction in which water goes down the drain (clockwise or counterclockwise) has absolutely nothing to do with where you are on the planet.

I realize that this is in direct opposition to everything that we were taught in 6th grade science class. If you are anything like me (pear-shaped, bad at math, and in your 30s), it was instilled in you at an early age that water goes down the drain in a counterclockwise direction north of the equator, and in a clockwise direction south of the equator.

This phenomenon, which I never bothered to test, was explained as being a result of the Coriolis Force.

Are you ready for some potentially inaccurate, woefully explained amateur physics? Wonderful! (Also, I dare you to find another travel blog that tackles stuff like this. THERE ARE PROBABLY NONE. Why? Because other travel bloggers don’t have the time or the inclination to flush their toilets repeatedly and record the direction of the putrid water. But I do, folks. I do.)

Let’s talk about the Coriolis Effect, which is a result of the earth’s rotation.

Here’s how it works (note: this example is totally not sound and could not be replicated in the real world, but I need you to work with me, people):

Let’s say you shoot a canon ball from the North Pole, with the goal of hitting Florida, which is directly south of you (Don’t worry – I lived in Florida for the better part of a decade, and can assure you: it has it coming). The canon ball will obviously take a while to get to Florida from the North Pole, and during that time, the earth will have rotated.

Of course, we’ll have rotated, too, but our canon ball, which is airborne, won’t. Since the earth is rotating, Florida will actually be further to the left of where it was when first shot the canon. Our projectile will land to the right of our intended target. Instead of hitting Florida, it’ll plunk down somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

Because of the Coriolis Effect, it seems to those of us on earth as though our canon ball has shifted and moved to the right (really, it has moved in a straight line. It’s the earth that’s moving). This is known as the Coriolis effect. In the Northern hemisphere, it causes objects to seem to deviate to the right, and in the Southern hemisphere, objects seem to deviate to the left.

Okay, are you still with me? No? That’s good, because I’m sort of confused, too.

The Coriolis Effect can be seem most notably be see in anything that’s hovering above the surface of the earth and moving long distances. So planes, missiles, and air masses can all be influenced by the Coriolis effect. And because of high and low pressure systems within an air mass, you’ll often get spiraling that results from this. If you ever see photos of hurricanes or low-pressure systems from space, you’ll notice that north of the equator, they move counterclockwise. South of the equator, they move clockwise.

What about if you are on the equator? Well, that’s where it gets crazy: hurricanes don’t form within 5 degrees of latitude of the equator because the Coriolis Effect isn’t strong enough.

When I was small, I was taught that you could see the Coriolis Effect in everything, including our toilets and sinks. Hell, my brother even had a book as a kid called Impossible Unless You Know How by Shari Lewis (yes, she of Lambchop fame) that corroborated this fact.

But now that I’ve visited the Southern hemisphere on four separate occasions, and having flushed numerous toilets while I was there, I can definitively tell you: Shari Lewis and my science teacher were both full of it.

-

Here’s why: There is simply too little water (and it drains far too quickly) for the Coriolis Effect to be seen on a scale as small as a bathroom basin. The direction that the water goes down is determined by the shape of the bowl and the direction of the jets shooting water into it. Consequently, you can find toilet bowls that flush clockwise or counterclockwise in both hemispheres.

So why, then, does everyone seem to think that water goes does one way in Northern hemisphere, and another way south of the equator? Often times, it’s simply confirmation bias. We believe something to be true, so we only notice evidence that supports that fact. We ignore evidence to the contrary.

As for me, I’ve gotten into the habit of putting the lid down whenever I flush. It’s more hygienic. And that way, I can pretend the water is moving in whatever direction I want.

Spoiler: this skybridge will get you NOWHERE.

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This WTF Weds takes us back to London. But I start out with a little anecdote about Portland. It’s cool if you get confused. That’s how I spend most of my life.

Last weekend I was in Portland, and despite being a city that I know and can navigate quite well, the following happened:

• I walked four blocks in the exact opposite direction that I needed to go, and didn’t realize it until I literally collided with a posted map of the city and saw that I was no where close to where I needed to be.
  -
• Despite Rand telling me to “Keep going straight”, I kept asking him if I should take every single turn that we passed. At one point he just stared at me and said, “You are joking, right?” I wasn’t.
  -
• We’d been to our hotel so many times that the valets recognized us. I still required directions to get there.
  -
• Even while in possession of a map on which directions had been traced out for me in black ink, I got lost.
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• I forgot where I parked the car and so our friend Matt had to drive us around for 20 minutes in the middle of the night trying to find it. Even though I knew the name of the street where I’d left it, I still couldn’t figure it out.
  -

The point is that I have zero sense of direction. I would like to note that mine is far better than my mother’s or my beloved auntie’s (it is a miracle that they haven’t gotten permanently lost while walking to the mailbox and back), but still manages to be absolutely abysmal. I have an excellent memory, but my spacial awareness, my ability to envision how a city is laid out, to get my bearings and understand where things are in relation to each other are virtually non-existent.

You’d assume then, that if we stayed at a hotel with a ridiculously and non-intuitive layout that I’d get ridiculously lost, right? Especially if that hotel were in a foreign country where jet lag and exhaustion were clouding my senses even more, right? But amazingly, quite the opposite was true.

When we were in London last month, we stayed at the The Montcalm Hotel at the Brewery. It is like an M.C. Escher painting come to life. There are staircases that wind up to nothing. The numbers on the rooms – hell, even the numbers on floors – seem to be assigned rather randomly. Room 323 is several long hallways and three flights of stairs (2 up, one down) away from Room 324.

Notice that certain consecutively numbered rooms are nowhere NEAR each other.

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As best as I can understand, this is how the hotel came to be:

• An old brewery was purchased, along with three other nearby buildings, which together form a sort of square O-shape when seen from above.
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• Whoever purchased the brewery started devising a way to link all of these structures together, presumably after imbibing whatever beer had been left in the building (for it could not have been a sober endeavor). A few skybridges and walkways were incorporated, but the original structure of each of the buildings wasn’t touched. Unfortunately, the different floors of each of the buildings don’t line up.
  -
• Nor do the elevator shafts.
  -
• And come to think of it, the skybridges don’t really line up properly to any of the floors either.
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• Whoever assigned the numbers to the doors of the suites may have done so under duress. I assume they were being chased by a pack of wild animals.
  -
• Meth-amphetamines may have been involved.

The result is a building that feels a little bit like Frankenstein’s monster. Disparate pieces have come together to create a sheer abomination. A cautionary reminder that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.

I don’t mean to suggest that the hotel lacks any redeeming characteristics. Like the crudely stitched monster, it most certainly does. But they are often hard to find – literally. The restaurant was excellent; we spent 20 minutes looking for it every morning. Eventually we found it was easier to just walk outside of the building, head down the block, and enter through a different doorway.

Actually, come to think of it, that might not have been the same restaurant each time. Whatever. They still fed us.

We found that it was virtually impossible to get to any room in the hotel without taking at least one elevator and one flight of stairs. Most rooms required two different elevators and numerous flights of stairs.

Rand and I took an elevator …

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Walked down a flight of stairs …

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Crossed this skybridge …

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Walked up another flight of stairs …

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And headed down this hallway, before finding our room, which was on the 1st floor above the lobby.

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This is one of those situations where my explanation of it will do absolutely no justice, so here’s a video that Rand snapped of the entire thing.

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Watch carefully for the following: (also, have you noticed how many lists are in this post? I’m really into lists lately. This next one is even numbered!)

1. I tell Rand to calm down when he starts to panic that we’ll never find our room again.
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2. A brief discussion about the size of my butt.
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3. I seem to sort of know where we’re going!

You’d think, in a scenario like this, where left is right and up is down and there are at least 14 ways to get from your room to lobby (and 57 ways to get lost in between), that my sense of direction would doom me to wander the halls for the rest of my days. Blissfully, that didn’t happen.

Everyone else got lost or really confused, but I was okay. Why? Because that building is my life. My hopeless sense of direction means that my entire world looks like that, all the time. So while everyone else was thrown for a loop because the hotel had rendered reference points and logical layouts useless, I was totally fine because I’ve managed to forge an existence without those things.

I just obeyed the signs, even when they defied logic. I even followed the signs that seemed to be fighting with themselves.

Okay. Sure. Whatever you say, crazy sign.

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Don’t get me wrong: it’s not like I knew where I was going. I was hopelessly lost; we all were. I’ve just had more practice.

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Years ago, my friend Rachel was telling me a story about her then-boyfriend (and now husband) Adam. I can’t quite remember what it was about, but she paused halfway through and said, ”Do you ever have those moments where you look at someone and realize how much you love them? Well, I had one of those moments.”

I, of course, knew exactly what she meant.

I should warn you right now, that if you are in no mood to read about how lovesick I am, you should probably visit another blog and come back to this one later. Or possibly never. Sorry.

But if you do go, never to return, you will miss out a great deal of awesomeness. Behold:

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I should explain how all of this played out, and how I found myself staring at my husband at the end of Portobello Road, thinking, “Holy crap. I love this man.”

As is often the case with Rand, this outpouring of heartfelt emotion was followed shortly thereafter by, “This is really weird.”

We’d just walked through the antiques market in Portobello Road and, miraculously, the clouds began to part slightly. There were even moments where we could see blue sky overhead.

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And as we strolled, we could hear music playing over a screechy speaker system. The sound quality was awful, and we couldn’t understand why it was being blared through the street, until we neared an intersection and saw them.-

There were two gentleman, emphatically lip-synching “Monday, Monday” by The Mamas & the Papas,

“Wow,” I muttered to Rand. “These might be the two worst street performers on the planet.” Rand nodded, but pointed out that it was kind of impressive. Despite a complete and utter lack of talent, and no real instruments to speak of, they had found a way to busk for money. It was somewhat ingenious.

I asked Rand to give them some money so I could take a photo. Obligingly, he walked over and plunked a coin in their bin (they’d set it on the ground in front of them, along with a book entitled How to Drink).

Enthused by my husband’s generosity, the lead singer (can I even call him that? I mean, he was wearing a napoleon style hat with a stuffed animal skull on it, and was barefoot save for one flipper, so he was obviously in charge, right?) pulled Rand over and handed him a toy guitar. And then this happened:

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And this:

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I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s one of the greatest things, ever.

I watched my husband, half in awe. Not only at his stage presence (which, as you can see, is beyond reproach) but at his ability to not take himself too seriously. I marveled at the manner is which he stood there, absent of any self-doubt, and played a toy guitar with gusto, along with two gentleman who may or may not have been drunk.

And all I could think was: Wow. I really, really love him.

And also: This is weird. 

Rand stayed and performed until the end of the song. He handed the toy guitar back to the lead singer, and found me in the crowd. Wordlessly, he took my hand, and we walked on through the crowds at the edge of Portobello Road Market.

For a long time, neither of us said anything. We just walked, Rand holding me close, and looking off into the distance. Finally, he spoke.

“Holy shit. Those guys are nuts.”

We both laughed and I brushed a bit of hair from his forehead, and thought about how he is my beloved. And it wasn’t weird at all.

I know this picture is blurry, but it’s still kind of magical. My mom was angry because I was doing dishes in her house.

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Dear Mom,

Please don’t read this post, okay? No, no, it’s not because I talk about how crazy you are. Sheesh, mom … Yes, I know you aren’t crazy. Yes, I realize I make you out to be crazier than you actually are on the blog. The reason I don’t want you to read this post is because it’s about your Mother’s Day gift. We don’t want to ruin the surprise, right? Of course we don’t.

So go browse some other site, okay? Like Facebook! You love Facebook.

…

Is she gone?

…

Yes?

…

Good. Because, you guys, I need to tell you how crazy my mom is. I mean in conjunction with telling you about what I’m getting her for Mother’s Day, so it’s not a total lie.

Here’s the thing about my mom: she is very, very easy to shop for. This is because she doesn’t have all sorts of useful, everyday objects that normal people have in their home, and she flat-out refuses to buy them for herself (her reasoning: “They’ll just get ruined.”). I could get her a new cutting board, or a roll of tape, or a pair of pajamas, or basically anything anyone would ever need, ever, and she will just be tickled.

Last time I was over at her house, I needed to borrow a tiny pair of scissors. My mother returned with – I kid you not – one of those semi-circular metal dentist picks.

“I don’t know where my scissors are,” she replied.

Of course. Yes. When I lose something practical, I, too, like to use professional dental tools in lieu of it.

“Honey, have you seen my screwdriver? No? Well, just hand me that tank of nitrous oxide.”

When I was a kid, we never had a pencil sharpener in the house (I’d buy one for school, and it would vaporize within minutes of crossing the threshold of our home. It was like someone put a curse on our house that nothing useful would ever be able to enter it. I suspect that this might have extended to people, too). So my mother would pull out a paring knife and hack that poor pencil into some misshapen abomination of a point. The next day at school I’d rush to the sharpener in a desperate attempt to erase all evidence of the butchery that had happened the night before.

Sometimes, I’d succeed. Other days the deep grooves would remain through sharpening after sharpening, lingering evidence of my own personal shame. (Parenthetically, it amazes me the stuff that I thought was important in elementary school.)

But damn it, she tried. She’s always tried to help, even if she never, ever, EVER has anything even close to the right tools for the job. It’s easy to criticize, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to be angry about it. She’s my mom. I owe her. I mean, this is a woman who saw me EMERGE FROM HER OWN VAGINA, and she still talks to me.

And after said vagina-emerging, she let me snack on her boobs for, like, a year. And she rarely brings it up in order to win arguments.

Hell, she actually seems to enjoy my company, which is something she has in common with approximately one other person on this entire planet. That’s love, you guys. Pure and simple.

Here’s a photo of her throwing me out of her kitchen because she didn’t want me to do any more work. She’s yelling “GO.”

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So in thanks for all of this, I am pleased to say that I know exactly what to get her for Mother’s Day.

It began with a trip to IKEA. A few months back, I took my mother there. If you haven’t been the the Swedish home megastore, it is where many relationships meet their end. Rand and I have seen some desperate times inside that windowless blue and yellow dungeon. So taking my mom there was, knowingly, a risky venture.

Nor does it help that she has the attention span of a fruit fly.

But I knew was I was in for. I’d gone there before with her in tow. On that ill-fated trip, I saw a bookshelf I wanted. IKEA keeps all of its furniture unassembled in boxes, so if you see something on display that you like, you usually have to write down the aisle number and go find it in a massive warehouse at the end of the store. (After which, you will have to spend several long years assembling it. But that is another story). I saw the bookshelf about 20 feet away from me.

“Mom, I need to go write down where that bookshelf is located.”

“Okay.”

“No, mom, I need to go over there. So I need you to stay here, okay? It’s really easy to get lost in this place.”

“Okay.”

“Stay right here with the cart. I’m going to be right back.”

“Okay.”

What happened next, as best as I can understand, is that my mother waited until I turned my back on her, and proceeded to run, frantically, in the opposite direction as quickly as she could.  I was gone a total of 30 seconds, but when I got back to our cart there was not a trace of her.

I thought for a second she might have been raptured, but then realized that was impossible because she loves leopard print and the gays waaay too much.

I frantically looked around for her (my cell phone didn’t have reception in the abyss that is IKEA, so there was no hope of calling), and after 20 long stressed out minutes during which I contemplated just leaving her there because, seriously, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK, MOM, I was gone for like 30 SECONDS AND I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO ANYWHERE, a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Would customer Geraldine De-garble-garble please come to the Service Desk near the storeroom? Your party is waiting for you.”

That’s right: she had me paged. LIKE I WAS THE ONE WHO HAD GOTTEN LOST. So I stormed off to meet her, and when she saw me she was just gently shaking her head.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

Because, you know, I’m the crazy one.

On our next trip to the IKEA, having learned my lesson, I decided to take a different tactic. I threaded my mom’s purse to the cart, so she couldn’t run off, and told her that if she behaved, I’d buy her a present.

I know some of you are probably scandalized by this role-reversal, but whatever. It totally worked. I actually ended up buying her a crapload of stuff (all of it totaled something like $2.99 because IKEA is magical like that. Good thing, too, because my mom thinks that anyone spending any about of money on her is too much), and most of it fell into that category of practical stuff that my mother never has in her home, so we both felt quite good about it. I think she got about a half dozen toilet brushes, which is amazing, because she only has three bathrooms.

Plus, she only ran off once. We were near the closet section, and I turned to ask her something and found that she managed to untangle her purse from the cart and make a break for it.

“Damn it.” I muttered. Next time: bike lock.

I finally found my mother standing on one of the many raised displays throughout the store, trying on a pair of rubber rain boots.

“Honey,” she said, “I think I want to get these. I’ve been needing a pair of rain boots.”

“That great mom, but you really need to get down from there and … wait, where did you get those boots?”

“They were just sitting up here. I want them.”

“Mom, those boots are – oh, good god – THOSE ARE PART OF THE DISPLAY.”

“So?”

“So it means you can’t buy them. Please get down from there.”

“No, I think I can. They were just sitting here.”

“Mother, please get down from there and take those boots off. They are not for sale.”

“What? No. Of course they’re for sale.”

At my insistence, she finally stepped down and took the boots off. Sure enough, there was a huge sticker on the bottom that read, “FOR DISPLAY ONLY. NOT FOR SALE.”

“See?” I said, pointing to label. My mother was now pouting.

“But I wanted them.”

A lady who had seen the entire exchange chimed in. “They looked really nice.”

“STOP ENCOURAGING HER,” I hissed, and then led my mother away before she could start eating wax fruit.

Anyway, the point is, I’m going to buy my mom a pair of rubber rain boots for Mother’s Day (I’m thinking of going with these). And also a pencil sharpener. And a tiny pair of scissors. She’s going to say I spent too much. Whatever. She’s my mom and, crazy or not, she deserves it.

Also, she’s freakishly strong for her size. Despite my efforts, I could not stay in that damn kitchen.

A powder is mixed at a township apothecary shop.

-

I need to relay to you the events of the last few hours. In doing so, I hope that these events will somehow seem more real, that I will have less cause to deny that they ever happened. Because right now, they seem to be the fabrications of a madman.

Here they are, in more or less chronological order, and nearly in rank of ascending madness:

• Last night, I made a batch of cookies. In an unprecedented fit of willpower, I ate only a small number of these, and packed the rest away for Rand to bring to some friends of ours.
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• This morning, upon seeing the cookies that I had designated for our friends, I only removed one single cookie and ate it. The rest arrived at their intended recipients.
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• I went for another run today, from which I have just returned. It is my third run since returning home on Sunday evening. Contrary to what one might be tempted to conclude from this, at no time during these runs was I 1.) tied to a moving vehicle with a long length of rope, thereby forcing me to jog so as not to be dragged across a stretch of pavement or 2.) being chased by any number of wild animals or those people who you always see downtown, collecting signatures for obscure causes (I hate those guys. Even if I agree with the cause, I hate them).
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• Upon my return home after said run, I made myself a smoothie. Not only did the smoothie lack any semblance of ice cream, caramel, or chocolate, at one point I took a taste of it and concluded – VOLUNTARILY – that it needed more spinach.
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• In case you missed it above, this means that I, being of allegedly sound mind and body, thought it was a good idea to put spinach in a beverage in the first place.
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• I am now drinking the smoothie, seemingly of my own free will.
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• I kind of think it tastes sort of yummy. This frightens me.
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• Over the course of my run, it seems that I may have gotten a little too much sun. In Seattle. IN APRIL.

Needless to say, this last point is perhaps the most unbelievable one. I’m well aware of the truism about how you can get sun damage even on an overcast day, but this is the Pacific Northwest we’re talking about here. It is incredibly difficult to get sun in this part of the country, period, much less get too much sun.

But my cheeks are a little too red right now for my liking; I should have worn sunscreen. And it is this realization that, in an absolutely round about way, has inspired today’s post.

It is about sunscreen.

In South Africa, I doused myself with it. I would slather on thick layers before going out, which eventually found their way onto my hair and clothes and, for that matter, every single surface I can in contact with.

Including my poor husband who at one point tried to hug and me and recoiled his hand in terror.

-

I looked like a professional body builder.

(I mean in the sense that I was covered in grease and wearing very little clothing. Not in the actual body-building sense. Because the only thing I’ve built my body out of is cupcakes.

Ba-da-dum!)

The sunscreen, which I applied liberally with a trowel, was labeled as “water-resistant”. If you are unfamiliar with that term, it simply means that the sunscreen will wash right off when you are swimming, but it will not come off in the shower, no matter how long you spend in there, shampooing and quietly weeping. On some days, I simply gave up.

Thankfully, after his original aversion, Rand seemed to grow accustomed to it.

-

I wondered how the locals managed, but didn’t think too much of it until we toured a township a few days later. That’s when I saw a woman walk by, her face colored a bright orange. I’d seen several other women with brightly colored faces walking about. I asked our guide about it.

“It protects her from the sun,” he explained.

“It’s sunblock?”

“Yes. All natural.”

Just as I began to think, judgmentally and unfairly, that she looked kind of ridiculous, I caught a glimpse of my reflection. My hair was still slick with grease, as was the collar of my shirt. My skin, slowly suffocating, had begun to break out (perhaps as a last ditch effort to get me to STOP APPLYING SUNSCREEN and stay inside).

And, perhaps worst of all, I realized I didn’t have the faintest clue of what I was putting on my skin. The ingredient list on the back of the bottle looked like the periodic table of elements.

I caught our guide’s attention.

“So … about that all-natural sunscreen …”

Rand, sniffing my coat. Though to be fair, it kinda looks like he’s licking it. Which is gross.

-

I had hoped that I would be able to get my post about our visit to the townships of Cape Town up before we left for Australia, but that didn’t pan out. I was rushed for time, and found that I just couldn’t give the tour the attention that it deserved. Rather than draft a post that didn’t do the experience justice, I figured I’d wait until I got home.

Also, between researching the history of Apartheid in South Africa, and Wednesday’s post about the epidemic of rape that’s currently plaguing the country, I needed to switch gears. To talk about something lighthearted, if only for a little bit.

So I want to tell you about how I freaked out and was convinced that I sat in pee last week in a Dublin cab.

Which means, of course, that I was in Ireland last week. And that our travel schedule is now officially reaching crazy-pants territory (no, I’m not complaining. Shut up, I’m totally not).

So last week (at least, last week at the time I wrote this), we were in Dublin for a day, and London for four or five.

Rand had recently finished this book by one of his investors, Brad, and Brad’s wife Amy (you may remember them as the folks who decorate their guest bed whenever we come visit). It talks about what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone who is running their own startup – the difficulties that emerge from it, the conflicts, and ultimately, how to make it work. Rand even wrote a small contribution for it that appears in an earlier chapter.

Brad and Amy note that during every international trip, each person in the relationship is allowed one major and one minor meltdown (or, if major meltdowns are not your thing, two minor meltdowns can replace it). In Dublin, I used up one of my meltdowns. I labeled it as a major, but Rand claimed it was minor, because he’s a mensch like that.

Either way, it was ridiculous.

Dublin and London were scheduled to be cold, so I lugged my parka with me on the trip. It isn’t the prettiest of coats, but it fits over my hips (nothing short of miraculous, if you’ve seen my waist-to-hip ratio, which is evidence that God isn’t subtle. Also, he has a weird sense of humor), and it has a hood, and it’s grey, which I find to be a good neutral and excellent camouflage if you want to blend into a Pacific Northwest sky.

While he is usually swamped, Rand actually had a bit of free time on this trip, so we walked around downtown Dublin together. We popped into a few museums, grabbed lunch, dipped our heads into some shops, and then decided to take a cab back to our hotel on the other side of town.

That’s when things went awry. I realize the infinite number of events that had to happen for us to catch the cab that we did. An extra minute spent at this museum, a bit more time lost to the bathroom. Had we skipped the gift shop, or spent more time in it, or decided to get dessert (let this be a lesson to you: always get dessert) – any of these things would have led to a different cab. But no. We got into the cab that we got into.

I maintain that it was a toilet on wheels.

I did not notice any of the signs: the cabbie’s windows were open even though the day was cold, and there were an unreasonable number of air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

But I’m not in the habit of (prior to climbing in a cab) checking to see if the seat is wet or anything like that. I just assume that’s dry and relatively clean AND NOT SOAKED IN AN UNIDENTIFIED SUBSTANCE. So I climbed in (still wearing my parka) and sat, thinking about how lovely the day had been, even though it was ridiculously chilly. And goodness, did it get even chillier now that I was sitting in the cab? Yes, it certainly seemed to. The cold felt like it was seeping through my clothes and into my bones.

We arrived at our hotel, and Rand generously tipped the cabbie, because we’ve decided that if Americans are going to be known for something in Europe, damn it, it’s going to be that we’re good tippers.

We walked through the hotel lobby to the elevators. That’s when I noticed something was wrong.

The cold that I had felt in the cab hadn’t dissipated. I felt downright damp and chilly. I pulled up the hem of my parka, and felt my jeans. The back pockets were wet.

“Babe,” I said, unable to quite wrap my head around what was going on, “I think my jeans are wet.”

Rand soon realized that this was not a veiled come on. I insisted he feel the seat of my jeans. That, also, was not a veiled come on.

“Huh,” he said. “Yeah, they’re kind of damp.”

I tore off my coat, and began examining the back of it. Sure enough, there were darker streaks where the fabric had been saturated.

Now, a reasonable person might, when faced with a situation like this, look at all the evidence in front of them and draw a conclusion. For example, if it’s pissing rain out, and you later sit in something wet in a cab, you could safely assume that it was rainwater. Or if there was an empty Sprite can on the floor of the car, you’d conclude that it was soda on the seat.

But I’m not a reasonable person. NO. I’m a germaphobe. That means that my thought process was something like this:

Also, if I step in anything, ever, it’s poop. It’s always poop.

-

I immediately started to panic.

“I just sat in pee,” I said, starting to shake.

“You did not sit in pee,” Rand said, already knowing that trying to reason with me at this point was futile.

“I did. I just sat in pee and the cabbie didn’t tell us and we fucking tipped him for it.”

“Babe, please -”

“I need to change my clothes. And I need to burn this coat. Shit. I didn’t bring another coat. I’m just going to have to freeze for the rest of the trip.”

“Honey, please, please don’t be crazy about this, okay?”

“That’s really easy for you to say, isn’t it, Rand? YOU DIDN’T SIT IN PEE.”

“NEITHER DID YOU.”

“THEN WHY IS MY COAT WET?”

“It’s Dublin. The entire town is damp. Someone got caught in the rain, or spilled something.”

This answer, obviously, did not suffice. The day was sunny. There was no rain, except for the golden showers that I now imagined had saturated my coat. When we got to our room, I stewed and steamed for a while. Rand acted like he was locked in with a caged tiger. He eyed me warily, and every time I made a movement, he jumped out of the way.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked. I was now both crazed and tearful. Whatever answer he gave, it would be wrong.

“Um, I’m really freaked out about upsetting you more right now,” he replied. This, of course, was the wrong answer.

“You think I’m overreacting,” I snapped.

“Well, yeah -”

“You think I’m behaving like a crazy person.”

“Um …”

“God, you don’t even want to be around me right now, do you? Because I’m crazy and covered in pee. FINE. FINE. I’ll just go sit in the bathroom so you don’t have to be around me anymore.”

I marched over to the bathroom and slammed the door.

“THERE,” I yelled. “NOW YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LOOK AT ME.”

“You know,” Rand said, his voicing finally betraying a bit of impatience, “I wasn’t the one who peed on your coat.”

“I DON’T KNOW THAT FOR SURE,” I yelled back. And even before the last word had left my mouth, I started giggling. And I could hear him laughing just outside the bathroom.

I waited a beat, opened the door, and he was standing there. I rammed my face against his chest.

“Dime sowwy,” I breathed, my voice muffled by his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he said. And then he told me about Brad and Amy’s meltdown rule. Everything that had happened was allowable, and forgivable.

“Anyway,” Rand continued, “We need to go – we have to get to dinner.”

I nodded.

“I’ll get your pee coat,” Rand said.

And once more, I laughed.

As for the coat, it’s now sitting in a bag at the bottom of my closet back home. After I had numerous parties sniff it (all of whom maintained that it did not smell like pee and that it was, in fact, probably water or some other innocuous clear liquid), I decided to quarantine it until I could clean it.

Or burn it. Whatever.

A road in one of the townships outside Cape Town, where rape is an epidemic.

-

I loved South Africa. I really did. I had a lovely time there, and I sincerely want to go back to both Cape Town and Bushman’s Kloof. I’d like to see more of the country, and, if possible, more of the continent of Africa as a whole.

But I feel like I’d be doing everyone a disservice if I didn’t discuss the issue of rape in South Africa.

In recent weeks, rape has come up a lot in news, particularly in the U.S. The recent conviction of two high school athletes who raped a young woman who was passed-out drunk (while texting, tweeting, and filming their crime) has led to a lot of discussion about how much we tolerate rape as as society. How much we overlook, how much we underreport, how much we blame victims.

Recently, CNN’s Poppy Harlow came under fire for seeming too sympathetic in her discussion of the high school rapists – reporting that their lives were ruined after the conviction. People are demanding that Harlow apologize. Kelly McBride of the Poytner Insistute recently came under fire herself for saying that railing on CNN and Harlow is a waste of time.

I have a lot of feelings about all of these issues, of course. I do believe we live in a rape-tolerant culture (there was even a shocking thread on reddit a while back during which rapists had the opportunity to explain themselves). It’s a serious problem, and universally uncomfortable to talk about. While I think that Harlow did sound sympathetic towards the high school rapists (which was understandably disturbing), McBride makes an excellent point about that: if we constantly see rapists as heinous, inhuman monsters, we will fail to identify them in our everyday lives. They can be our neighbors, our classmates, our coworkers.

And while I don’t know if there’s anything conclusive to be said about all of these recent stories in the U.S. news (besides the obvious: that rape is abhorrent and widespread), I’m relieved that people are discussing the issue. We’re talking about rape, and as difficult as that conversation is, I think it’s an important one to have.

And so, while I don’t necessarily want to spend the afternoon writing about rape in South Africa, I think that it is an important thing to talk about.

The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is the highest in the world. Estimates say that a rape occurs every 17 seconds in that country, and that a woman born there is more likely to be raped than to learn how to read. While 144 cases of rape are reported to police every day in Cape Town, rape is nevertheless notoriously under-reported (some estimates say that less than 10% of all rapes are reported to police, and of those, roughly 10% of rapists are convicted. So rapists have a 99% chance of getting away with their crimes).

The situation is even worse for children. In one of South Africa’s largest townships, Khayelitsha, it’s estimated that one in three children will be raped before they turn 18. One in three. Not even the school that Oprah opened in South Africa was immune to this violence. Part of the problem is the “Virgin Cleansing Myth” – the widespread (and obviously inaccurate) belief that sex with a virgin will cure you of HIV or AIDs.

This means that as the AIDs epidemic spreads, younger and younger children are getting raped.

Are you sitting down? Because this next piece of information is fucking horrifying: infant rape is a growing problem in South Africa.

Infant. Rape. I literally cannot think of two words that should have less business together.

After a few hours of reading all of this, I’m not gonna lie: it all sounds kind of hopeless. It’s ghastly and terrible in a way that I can’t really fathom. And it’s very tempting to turn a blind eye to it and ignore it.

Obviously, that mentality is part of the problem – we need to draw attention to this issue. And it seems like that’s starting to happen, at least a little bit. There are groups that are organizing rape awareness rallies in South Africa. There are clinics which offer care and hope to rape victims (many of whom have contracted HIV or AIDs as a result of the crimes inflicted upon them).

There is, in the midst of all of this violence and brutality, some hope. It’s not much. But it’s something. The conversation has started. And as difficult as it is to do, it’s up to all of us to keep it going.

-

A few photos were staged, of course, and they are not without their merits:

-

-

Others weren’t quite planned. I’d just been taking a photo of a group, or of the scenery, and it wasn’t until later that I noticed Kurtis’ expression.

-

-

-

A few of these photos were unnerving.

-

This one in particular creeped me out.

THIS IS UNWHOLESOME, KURTIS.

-

I am delighted to say that I still managed to nab a few really nice photos of him and his lovely fiancee Courtney.

Yes, he is wearing a t-shirt on his head. Whatever. It’s still adorable.

-

-

Gorgeous, right? Don’t worry. His composure was short-lived:

I cannot WAIT to see their wedding photos.

-

Which is fine, since I’m fairly sure none of us would have it any other way.

Rand, just prior to our miracle berry dinner.

-

The other day, I was lamenting to myself (and by extension, to my long-suffering husband) about the death of wonderment in my adult years. How there were now so many known variables in our lives, so many answered questions. There were very few decisions to make. Very little was new.

“I just remember high school, and thinking I had all these opportunities in front of me, and all these choices to make. And now those choices have been made. And I’m not upset how life turned out, you know? I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made. I’m just sad that I don’t have all of that in front of me anymore.”

Rand politely disagreed with me.

“That’s bullshit,” he said. “We’re still young. We could go back to school. Or move to another town. Not everything has been decided yet.”

And I nodded. Logically, I understood that he was right. But I still felt saddened by all of it. I missed how new and exciting everything felt the decade before.

Enter the miracle berry.

In all fairness, the name is an overstatement. The miracle berry never given sight to the blind, or cured anyone’s leprosy, or filmed a decent movie that starred John Travolta and/or Nicolas Cage.

But it reminded me that not everything in my life has been decided, which, given my stubbornness and negativity, is nothing short of miraculous. That even at the ripe old age of cough-cough, there are things left to discover. Even the stuff that you’ve done a hundred times before can seem different and fun.

Good heavens. I sound just like someone who’s had sex while high on ecstasy, don’t I? Which, for the record, I have never done, unless by “ecstasy” you mean “red velvet cake”. (And then I’d need an intervention.)

Before I go further, I should explain. But, man, the chemical process behind the whole thing is kind of complicated, you know? And chemistry, besides the natural one that I am absolutely positive would occur should I ever meet Jeff Goldblum on a rainy night, is not really my strong suit.

Simply, the miracle berries (which are entirely natural, and native to West Africa) contain “a rogue glycoprotein that tricks the tongue’s taste-bud receptors into believing a sour food is actually sweet.” The protein binds to your tongue, and is slowly washed away by your saliva over the course of about an hour.

And so you have a brief window when your sense of taste goes a little crazy. As do many of your other senses, because they can’t really reconcile what’s going on.

The berries are entirely legal, safe, and natural, but difficult to find. The FDA listed the berry as a “food additive” in the 1970s, effectively quashing the market for it (some claim that this was due to pressure from the sugar industry, who didn’t like the idea of a little berry making them obsolete). But in the recent years, the berry’s popularity has grown, achieving a weird kind of cult status among foodies. Flavor-tripping parties, where people eat the berries, and proceed to down a smorgasbord of usually-unpalatable treats (Tabasco, unripened fruits, pickles), are becoming all the rage.

We were given a pack of ten berry pills (just as effective as the berry itself, I’m told, but with a longer shelf life) as a Christmas present from our friend Nicci, who works with Rand, along with her recommendation: “Try them with citrus.”

They sat in our pantry for a few months, waiting for a special occasion.

-

When our friend Lauren popped up to visit us from San Francisco, and was game on trying the berries, we decided that was more than reason enough.

And then we had the weirdest dinner, possibly ever.

-

The tablets themselves are pretty innocuous. They taste a little like the chewable aspirin I remember taking as a kid, or like the chalky roll candy we’d get during Halloween (the one we’d eat only after we’d consumed everything good, but still needed a sugar fix). We let them dissolve on our tongues, which took a little while, but led to some delightful photo opportunities:

My beloved being … well, being my beloved.

-

Yes, that’s a Zappos box behind me. Don’t you judge me.

-

Lauren is probably going to strangle me for posting this, but I think she looks adorable.

-

Rand’s pill dissolved first, and he went straight for the limes. His reaction was thoroughly enjoyable.

“Ith madneth!”

-

Lauren and I figured he was putting us on until we tried it ourselves. And then … wowzers.

The limes and lemons tasted, as Nicci had said they would, like sunshine. They had a rich, honeyed sweetness and a hint of tartness at the end – better than the best orange I’d ever had. Ditto with the kumquats.

-

Oh, lordy, and the mangoes. They were velvetly and sweet, like creme brulee. The usually-tart apples tasted like sugary, overripe pears. Goat’s cheese became cream cheese frosting. And the spiciness of a jalapeno was gone; it was now as a mild as a bell pepper. We ate slice after slice, impervious to any heat (Note: the next day, our tongues were positively raw, and our stomachs were a little bit on the delicate side. But that night, we were invincible).

I slurped up a spoonful of balsamic vinegar, and it was reminiscent of blueberry syrup, with a slight metallic aftertaste. My unsweetened cranberry juice, usually undrinkable on its own, tasted like the sugar-laden Ocean Spray variety.

Everything was different. Everything tasted new.

But the limes remained my favorite.

-

It got a little frenzied. My understanding is that this is not uncommon at flavor-tripping parties. We frantically tried everything, dismissing some things as awful (ginger, starfruit), other things as relatively unchanged (sunflower seed butter, chocolate), and others as slightly blander (the flakes of sea salt that we let dissolve on our tongues tasted a bit like that fake salt that my grandmother used for a brief time in the 80s.)

-

We each ended up taking two pills each. The effect lasted about an hour for Rand and Lauren, and about 40 minutes for me, before it started to wear off. Afterwards, I scanned the mess of the dinner table, the plates now empty of fruit, the copious lemon and lime rinds that were everywhere.

Just as I was lamenting the fact that there were no more unknowns in my life, something came along and made the familiar unfamiliar. The old became new. I felt young and alive and-

-

Um … well, anyway … it was nothing short of a miracle.