April Fool's Solemnity

Tom·fool·er·y

[tom-foo-luh-ree]

noun, plural -er·ies.

1.

foolish or silly behavior

So tomfoolery is absolutely one of my favorite words. It's one of those great words that sounds exactly like what it means and just has a great, silly zing to it. Plus it's perfect for today, April Fool's Day, (still 32 minutes left of it!).

I thought of doing a really lame joke type post, but couldn't come up with something silly yet still (a little) believable. So instead this is like a part 1.5 of Kaitlin and my Epic Road Trip Adventure! This is some of the very strange (sad? terrifying? disturbing?) billboards we drove past, mostly in Missouri (or was it Mississippi?). I wasn't quite quick enough with my camera to catch them all.

And I know what you're thinking, "what do weird billboards have to do with jokes and April Fools?" Well, I find some of these signs to be a lot more enjoyable if you just imagine they were written/made on April Fool's and it's all just one big joke.

And here they are....

Just joking! We love religious tolerance!

And we love porn!

Yay! Christ for me!

But does anyone love cancer? But still, I'm all for hating cancer.

Yay life! Oh wait....

(On a side note this is particularly chilling because of the header text: "your vote is their voice" because your vote for "life" (sans choice) is also silencing you know, women. I just think the rhetoric for Pro-Lifers a lot of the time is really eerie.)

And there you have it. Possibly the most depressing April Fool's Day post ever.

Let's just end on a happier note shall we?

OMG this is the cutest thing I have ever seen ever.

This and that: life after college is so "hard"

Halcyon

[hal-see-uhn]

1. calm; peaceful; restful

2. rich; wealthy; prosperous

Well it's been a week since I've departed the US and almost a week since I've been here! I get my first day off on Sunday and Brandon and I are going to go into town, which I'm really looking forward to.

Things here are still really calm and wonderful. The kids are so busy that it looks like I'll have quite a bit of time to myself. Which as a writer, is absolutely perfect for me!

So on Wednesday I had until about 3 pm or so to myself. I was feeling inspired (and after looking at grad schools, a little panicked about my writing sample) so I thought I would do some writing. And I found the most beautiful writing spot.

Part of the backyard: a wood deck with water below it. Plus there was a gentle breeze and birds chirping. Perfect!

After I spent a few hours chopping and re-writing the beginning of a story, then trashing the re-written beginning completely, I decided it was time to take a nice little walk around the neighborhood. There's a great field area with an (artificial) lake and river in the center of it, but it's teeming with wildlife.

I made a friend with this adorable and very friendly cat.

Soo many ducks! These are young--you can see that they're still getting their real feathers.

And itty bitty baby turtles!

Then I walked around the street area of the neighborhood some more. It really is beautiful.

How beautiful are the colors of the houses?

A 600 year old Ottoman waterway (or so the parents say--I think it's an aqueduct).

Then I relaxed, watch some tv and read. I had dinner with the family, talked and played with Barkan a little, talked to Dilara and then it was time to sleep!

Thursday was much the same--I walked, relaxed, talked to the kids a bit. Then Brandon and I went with our families to the kids end of the year party. It was almost in the center of the town, so we drove through the poorer areas (which I thought was very interesting because they were teeming with colors and people) and I saw the Bosphorous, the asian continent and Europe's tallest building. Aylin keeps apologizing to me for not showing me around more because they've been so busy with Barkan's tournament. She's so sweet! Really I've enjoyed having some time and getting over the jet lag.

The graduation party was very fun. Everyone was dressed up nicely and the food was delicious (no idea what it was but yum! There was this delicious rice with roasted almonds). They played several slide shows of pictures of the kids, and there was wine and dancing. Brandon and I caught up, which was also great. No pictures though; I thought it might be rude if I went around snapping photos of random things.

Today has been very chill too. Ate breakfast with Barkan, then he went off to tennis and I took a walk into the mini town area with Brandon. Then we lounged around by his pool and then I had lunch with him. Dilara's last day of school is today, but she's not home yet. Barkan won his tennis match today, so I think he was at least one more game to play tomorrow.

I think tomorrow I'm going to Ankra (sp?) with Dilara, which is where she swims. It's also where Europe's largest (second largest?) mall is. So that should be fun.

Pointless Phone Palavers & Packing

Melange

[mey-lahnzh, -lahnj]

A mixture; confusion

So today was the last day before I leave for Turkey. Which meant it was busy!busy!busy! But really it was a semi-successful semi-productive day. Which is really an A+ in my books, so I'm happy.

So I had(still have!) quite a few odds and ends of things to do. Like calling the LA County Jury Service people...which really resulted in 6 calls, being put on hold for 20+ minutes and being told that being out of the country thousands of miles away from LA County is in fact not a valid excuse for postponing Jury Duty.

The conversation went something like this....

JD Lady: You can't postpone your duty past September.

Me: I'll be in Europe until mid-October.

JDL: You can't postpone it.

Me: Uh...so what do I do if I physically can't be in LA?

JDL: Uh.......?

Very helpful. Her response eventually was: you can be fined $250-$1150 and become sanctioned. (Doesn't sanctioned sound like a privilege and not a penalty? Like, "she was sentenced to death, but at the last minute she was sanctioned"). Then she said I should have taken care of jury duty earlier (I was initially called to do it last August). It went like this....

JDL: You should have done this. Why didn't you do this earlier?

Me: I was in Wisconsin.

JDL: And before that?

Me: I was in England.

JDL: And before that?

Me: On an island of 6,000 people 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador?

As you can see, this was a very productive use of my time. But....I got it all worked out eventually, with some....creative thinking we'll say. ;) (And they said my Creative Writing major would never be useful!)

Today I also discovered that if you have a flight with United Airlines and want a Vegetarian Meal option you can't in fact chose that online even if you search their site for half an hour. What do you have to do?

Call their toll free number, twice, have a pointless conversation with a computer until you end up yelling, "Meal options! Meal Options!" for five minutes and the automated systems says "I"m sorry I don't understand. I'll connect you to an operator now", then talk to a very nice man with a very thick Indian accent and have a ten minute conversation with him about vegetarianism.

Duh.

Anyway, what I also did today was pack! Which brings me to the word of the post.

I think the picture really says it all. As you can see my cats thought they would "help" me.

That or perhaps they wanted to come to Turkey too?

And alright, I have a bit of a confession. For the 3 weeks I've been here I kept thinking of books I wanted to bring to Turkey with me. And then I would tell myself to be realistic and decide not to take those books. So I thought I was in good shape--I was bringing only a few books, right? And this is what my book stack looks like....

In my defense, some of the books are to read to the kiddos. But I also have a 600+ book about Ottoman history. But I need that. Right? Really what's surprising to me is how much nonfiction I have--that one about Ottomans, a travel book, the best of science writing in 2010 and a book about string theory. Yup, that's what my summer reading looks like.

Anywho, I take off tomorrow at 5:55. I have a 10 hour flight to London, a 4.5 hour layover (and I have a fiver from last time...think I'll be able to be something for only 5 quid?) and then a 4 hour flight to Istanbul. Then an hour drive to my family's house.

Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Next post will come to you from Istanbul!

Ciao!