Misadventures in Purple Tights

This is going to be long, and no amount of pictures will make it feel less long. I’ve tried and tried to figure out a shorter, punchier way to tell it, but to no avail. I thought of posting it in sections over several days, but whatever, read it all if you want, skim it all if you want, skip it all if you want.

I’ll try and condense some of the background story into snippets.

Fact 1: I was in Hungary for 2 very dear friends’ weddings, one on September 25 and one on October 2.

Fact 2: Friend 2 (Lídia)’s wedding reception/dinner was on October 2nd from 8 pm till 4 am.

Fact 3: My flight back to America was leaving October 3rd at 7 am.

Fact 4: It was determined that I should leave from Lídia and Gergö’s dinner for the airport.

Fact 5: Gergö’s apartment was very close (walking distance) to the place where they were having the dinner.

Fact 6: I was staying at Friend 1 (Krisztina)’s apartment while she and Balazs were on their honeymoon.

Fact 7: I’d been using an old phone of Krisztina’s dad’s.

Fact 8: I had to, upon departing Krisztina’s for Lídia’s, leave her dad’s phone and drop her keys in the mailbox, which once you drop in you can’t get back out.

Fact 9: There was to be an interval of undetermined time in which I would be phoneless and keyless.

There are still quite a few facts to go, but I thought I’d do a little fact intermission with one of my fav pics from my first week with Krisztina. This was during one of her dress fittings, and she was on the phone with Balazs.

Here’s is another pic to show you what I did for almost 2 weeks solid, besides tying bows with tulle and ivy.

Coffee . . . lots of delicious coffee in marvelous European coffee houses.

Back to the facts . . .

Fact 10: I had 3 HUGE pieces of luggage, HUGE (I was bringing home the last of my stuff that’s been in Hungary since I left in 2004), plus a camera bag, plus a purse.

Here’s a pic of all the books that didn’t make the cut and got passed on to Lídia’s library (which is probably one of the very, VERY few places I would be willing to pass them on to—a fellow bibliophile).

Fact 11: I was wearing a very short dress. (Work was CRAZY before leaving for Hungary so I bought my dress for Lídia’s wedding in such haste that I didn’t really assess its length.)

Fact 12: I was wearing very bright pink-purple tights.

Fact 13: I was wearing shoes that were a tad too big for me. (I can’t find shoes in America that fit me, so my shoes are typically a bit too tight or a bit too big.)

Fact 14: I had to be at Gergö’s appt. between 7 and 7:20 pm, from there we would leave for the dinner.

Fact 15: A taxi had been arranged to pick me up at Krisztina’s at 6:30 pm and it was supposed to take about 30 min to get To Gergö’s (traffic can be insane.)

Fact 16: Gergö lives on one of the main walking streets, meaning cars can’t go on it—it’s full of gorgeous architecture, street vendors, and tourists—meaning, I couldn’t get dropped off, with my bags, at his doorstep (this will be important).

Before we get to that here’s a pic of Lídia and her dad at the wedding, so beautiful, even if I didn’t understand a word.

So I was majorly anxious leaving Krisztina’s appt with all my stuff, because of the whole dropping in of keys and leaving behind of phone—it had a strong element of finality to it, point of no return and all that jazz. So I checked and double checked my stuff. Passport, yes. Tickets, yes. Heart medicine, yes. Xanax, yes. Three bags: first, oversized, and weighing 50 lbs (23 kilos); second normal size but still weighing 50 lbs; and third, carryon, packed full to 40 lbs (18 kilos), YES.

In my anxiety at the prospect of how many hours I was about to be up and the maneuvering of bags, etc., I decided to go ahead and start taking my stuff down early. I very inelegantly hauled my bags into the little room where the mailboxes are. It’s still in the building, next to the last door that leads outside. I looked, assessed, felt confident, and dropped the keys in the mailbox. Then I started hauling out bags 1 and 2. As I lugged bag 2 out, I let the door close behind me. If you’ve ever lived in Europe or probably any apartment building that requires a key to get in, you can guess my mistake and the wham with which my heart hit the bottom of my rib cage. My last, and hugest, bag was still inside, with the keys irretrievable in the mailbox. I muttered several inappropriate, yet so appropriate, words. I had no idea what to do, and just stood staring at all the Hungarian names on the buzzer that I could buzz and then in a language they wouldn’t understand try and convince them that they should let me into the building. Then I heard the elevator start in the building and someone came down and I hand motioned my predicament to them. They looked at me blankly but let me get my bag.

Fact 17: The taxi was there early, so we left early.

Fact 18: Instead of taking 30 minutes it took 10.

Fact 19: I arrived at the street at 6:30 pm.

Fact 20: Taxi guy unloaded my bags and zoomed away.

Fact 21: It’s just a bit of a walk to Gergö’s door.

So there I am on this street:

With this luggage:

In a really short dress and shoes that are too big (which there is no picture of). I stood there irresolutely for a bit, because there was literally NO way I could get down the street.

Fact 22: If you leave anything unattended, it will be stolen. If you attend it, it could still be stolen.

So all I knew to do was drag 2 bags 2 inches, go back, drag the 3rd 2 inches, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. This, as you can imagine, was getting me nowhere. So I stopped again and just stood utterly uncertain of how to proceed.

Fact 23: No one passing me offered to help.

I finally realized I could strap the smaller-huge bag, to the medium-huge bag, but as they were all at their max weight and I was in a really short dress, it was very hard to finagle. After much awkward struggling and after probably flashing who knows what to who knows who, I got the bags strapped together.

So then I started pushing one huge bag in front of me and pulling the double decker behind me down the street. They were veering all over the place and the double one kept toppling over. People were having to move out of my way because I couldn't control the veering.

I wasn’t exactly sure where the apartment was, I’d only been outside of it once, so I of course passed it. In my effort to get turned back around, I was standing about 1 foot from a vendor guy who was watching me as in mid turn, while trying to guide the turn with my foot, my shoe flew off and my bags completely turned over. As I was trying to get everything righted and my shoe back on he said “Can I help you?”

Me: Well I’m just going to that door right there.
Him: But do you need help getting the bags up.
Me: No, my friends are there so they can help.
Him: You need to be careful, that bag is unzipped.

I then, again, in my short, short dress tried to get the zipper zipped. I finally struggled my way over to the door and realized I was 20 minutes early. They said they’d be making it back to the apartment around 7 pm, but I went ahead and hit the buzzer to their apartment, but no one answered. So I set up all my bags, in my short skirt and blazing purple tights, and waited. The vendor guy came back over.

Him: No one home?
Me: No. But they should be here by 7.

He then told me some really long story about how he bought his watch off some Muslim guy in Spain, and how it’s always slow but works decently well.

Me: (awkward laugh)
Him: What are you doing? You’re all dressed up, with all these bags.
Me: Yea, my friends got married and I’m going to their party and then after that, the airport.
Him: You got married to your boyfriend and are moving in?
Me: No, my friend, a girl, married her boyfriend.
Him: They are American?
Me (looking at clock tower; isn’t it 7 yet): No.

Here’s a pic of the clock tower:

Him: Well, would you join me for a drink? (there was a little outdoor restaurant directly opposite us)
Me: No thanks, they should be here ANY minute.

He went to drink and watch me, and I went back to trying not to look so conspicuous in my short dress, purple tights, and massive amounts of luggage.

Fact 24: I was standing on the step, slightly above my luggage.

Two sets of boys walked by and openly gawked at me. And by gawk, I mean intake of air, mouth hanging open, gawk.

Fact 25: I jumped off the step and hid behind my luggage.

The first set came back a bit later but I gave them the most withering of stares and they walked, chagrined, on by.

The vendor guy, as the minutes ticked by and my friends still didn’t appear, came back:
Him: Are you sure you won’t have a drink? You’ll be right there; you’ll definitely be able to see them.
Me (at now 7:15): No thanks, really, any minute they’ll be here.

Fact 26: My bags are old and well traveled, meaning they have holes and worn places.

As the vendor guy went and sat back down to watch, a very tiny little man from Spain walked up to me, pointed at my bags, and said, “How much?” I started, and trying not to laugh, said, “sorry, they aren’t for sale.” He shrugged and rambled off.

By this time it was after 7:20 (which is when we were supposed to leave for the dinner). I got to thinking, what if they are here and I just buzzed the wrong apartment earlier. I didn’t want to buzz again while the vendor guy was watching me because I thought, if they don’t answer, he’ll be back over trying to get me to have a drink with him. So I watched him closely and as soon as he got up and went into the restaurant, I high-tailed it over to the buzzer and buzzed, and LÍDIA ANSWERED. I was like, “WHAT?!!”

She sent Gergö down to help me get the bags, but before he got there a guy was coming out of the building and opened the door for me and I started trying to haul my bags in, and of course my shoe, AGAIN, went flying in the process. But I made it in.

Me: Sorry I’m late.
Lídia: We were beginning to wonder.
Me: Yea, I’ve been downstairs for the last 40 minutes. I lost my shoe several times, was asked by someone if he could buy me a drink, and nearly sold my luggage to a man from Spain.

The rest of the evening was far less bizarre and much more beautiful. I haven’t edited any of my pics of Lídia’s dinner, except this one, which I really like. (After midnight, Hungarian brides can change into a new dress, hence her black dress.)

Childhood Plays

Sadly, these pictures were taken with my phone and aren't very good, but hopefully you'll get the gist.

When I was at my friend Heather's recently, her daughter Molly Kate (who's been featured before), aged 8, and her cousin Mia, also aged 8, prepared several plays for us. There is a fab, dramatic curtain between the dinning room and the foyer that is perfect for performances. They spent the morning getting ready and then Molly Kate stepped in front of the curtain to set the scene.

Molly Kate: Presenting Tom and Jerry, when Tom gets drunk.

she jumped back behind the curtain

Mia (whispering from behind the curtain): You mean hydrated.

The curtain then opened on a classic Tom and Jerry tableau. At one point Jerry fell into what we were later told was a vat of root beer. His equilibrium seemed to have been compromised by this encounter as he subsequently ran into a wall and tripped over a pillow, but he was in fact hydrated and not drunk. Which means root beer is far more dangerous than we ever thought.

Geographically Challenged

Once upon a time I kept very tidy journals. I had a perfect pen in the perfect shade of blue black; sadly, one day, this pen ran out. Now this pen was from Hungary and I was in America, so I could not replace my perfect pen. And, as I could never write in my tidy journals with any ordinary blue or black pen, I was forced to move to make-shift notebooks and countless scraps of notebook paper. It was my hope that these mediums would serve merely as repository journals till I could obtain another perfect pen, upon which time I would transpose all my thoughts back to my tidy journal in my perfect shade of blue black ink. Well, that was almost 5 years ago and my perfect pen and I still haven't found each other.

So recently I decided to just move everything to my laptop. And that is how I came to discover how very hard it must be sometimes for my Mensa sister-in-law (holla Lori) to hang out with me and my brother, whom she loves dearly (you can read about them and my lovely niece Lucy here).

I remember the below exchanges quite well, but didn't realize they happened the same exact day or that they both had to do with mine and my brother's geographic prowess till I started gathering up my journal bits!

January 16, 2006

Morning
Lori and I went shopping and I was wearing a shirt that said Sri Lanka on it. I went into an Old Navy dressing room and had the following conversation.

Old Navy guy (looking at my shirt): I want to go there.
Leah: Yea, me too!
Old Navy guy: You wanna go? Let’s leave tonight.
Leah (delighted): Okay! Do you know how to get there?
Old Navy guy: We could figure it out.

I was completely enchanted by this conversation, which I felt was extremely clever and whimsical. I went and told it to Lori, who said:

Lori: Did you tell him you’ve been there?
Leah (shocked and slightly confused): I’ve never been there.
Lori: You haven’t?
Leah (bemused): No; it’s a mythical place; nobody’s been there.
Lori: Sri Lanka’s a real place!

Leah: .................................................
(light dawning): SHANGRI LA! …………

(rethinking conversation with Old Navy guy) Oh no!

pic of Sri Lanka, which looks pretty magical!

Night
Later that evening Bryan, Lori, and I were watching The Bachelor Paris. The bachelor was having a one on one date with one of the girls. He called her mom to find out what her favorite food was. It was Italian.

Bryan: That’s good considering where they are.
Lori: They’re not in Italy.
Bryan: Right…no…I know.
Lori: Bryan, where is Paris?
Bryan: Rome…?
Lori and Me (which in light of the above is somewhat laughable): WHAT?!
Bryan: No, no…I mean…
Lori: Bryan, WHERE is Paris?!
Bryan: Spain….??
Lori: BRYAN!
Bryan: No, no….
Lori: FRANCE! PARIS, FRANCE!
Bryan: I know that. I was just having brain freeze. I know it’s in France. “Oui” that’s French. “Bonjoir” that’s French. I know Paris is in France…………………………..I’m just foggy. I drank most of that wine by myself.

"Sacre bleu! What do they teach these kids in school?"

My Friends are Funny!

I feel incredibly fortunate to have so many truly clever and eccentric people in my life. It makes this journey so much more interesting. Here is a brief dialogue from my recent time in Tulsa with my delightful Gilmore-witty-esque friend Jeni Copelin.

Jeni (to me): I have a haircut at 1:45, help me remember.
Me: Okay, but you know I can't remember things either.
Jeni: I know.
Julie (Jeni's aunt): Write it on your hand.
Jeni: Yea, I'll write a little note in marker. Oh, I'll draw a line for a hair. When I look at it I'll wonder, "Why do I have a line on my hand? Oh yea, it's a hair. Why do I have a hair? Right, I have a haircut." And I'll put a 10 by it, because 1 plus 4 plus 5 is 10.
Julie (sarcastically): that makes sense
Jeni: I don't want everyone knowing my plans.

We took almost no pics while I was there and as I feel most blog entries should have at least one pic I'm including these from our fav Gilmore Girl epi.

I want to go to a secret gauzy tent party in the forest!

And I REALLY want to jump off a tall scafoldy thing with an umbrella...

while wearing a fancy dress!

(photos of Season 5, Episode 7 You Jump, I Jump, Jack)

Non-readers Beware

It's 2:42 A.M.; I'm awake and my mind is roaming wide plains of thought, and so I anticipate a wildly stream-of-conscious blog. The first roam being that the use of pen and paper has become, in my life, highly obsolete, resulting in an odd clenching of my entire arm and hand as I write. I have an absolute death grip on this pen. And yes that means this was first a hand written blog entry, because its 2:44 A.M. and I've heard that the light from a computer, much like that of a TV and hand-held video game (another option I considered), interrupts the cardia rhythm, which is entirely the wrong term. But word on the insomnia street is that those lights are decidedly bad for inducing sleep.

The reason I'm awake at this awful hour is because my stomach is killing me, and by stomach I don't mean the euphemismly vague catch all term of stomach, but the actual organ located here (I did write that on paper in anticipation of a google image search):

I had/have (?) H.pylori. You can get it in America, but my stomach pain seems to date back to sometime after a trip to Mexico (94 or 95 ?). And it's pretty much the worst pain in the world (at least my world) and I've had malaria.

It's panic-inducing pain; a pain that I've always been certain ought to kill me. I've thought, one can't be in this much pain and continue to be alive. At its worst it feels like a creature, made of fire, trying to eat it's way out of my stomach (yes, think Aliens). I actually passed out a couple of times, but I think I was just hyperventilating.

I saw an ER epi once about a severely burned guy. His breathing got really odd and the docs ran around trying to figure out what was wrong and toyed with the idea of intubating (any ER fans notice how in every epi at least one patient was intubated?). (Okay, I've no idea if that's actually how the scene played out, but I'm going with it.) My memory is vague but I think the dialogue ran thusly:

doc 1: He's hyperventilating.
nurse 1/intern doc 1: Why?
doc 1: He's in so much pain.

Anyway that's this kind of pain, well not right now since I'm able to write out a blog, but that's the kind of pain this can become. I used to have an absolutely beautiful, divine, sent from heaven pain pill that nipped it in the bud, but I recently ran out and when I went to have it refilled, discovered that it's been taken off the market because of adverse side effects; like what, sweet relief?! There's nothing to take it's place, so the doc gave me a dif pain pill, and since I took it two hours ago and I'm still awake and my stomach still hurts, I'm going to say it's not sent from heaven.

So with that monstrously long disclaimer on why I'm awake, at now 3:04 A.M. I'll move off this old lady ramble of ailments and drugs.

I need a new phone with a higher pixel camera, or, here's a thought, I could keep my actual camera on me at all times. I took this pic many months ago. You can't tell, but there's a fawn outside the window (I wanted to write baby fawn, but that's rather redundant):

This is roughly what it looked like. (I stole this off the internet).

Where I work I frequently see wildlife. I've seen a doe, rabbits (personal fav), chipmunks (another personal fav), turkey, and the fawn. I feel like a Disney character, except I can't sing and these animals run from me rather than help me clean my humble, yet homey, cottage in the forest. But anyway, I stopped my car so I could just bask in its little fawn sweetness. This was a bad idea as that meant stopping here:

I nearly caused a three car pileup; embarrassingly, all three were coworkers.

Coworker 1: I thought your car had broken down.
Me: There was a fawn.
Coworker 2: I almost plowed into the back of coworker 1.
Me: There was a fawn.
Coworker 2 (as Coworker 3 silently looks on): That was a really bad idea.
Me: But there was a fawn. A FAWN!

I later told Jen, who really is a Disney character. She can sing; and once, we visited a sheep farm and while they wouldn't come within a mile of me, they were draped across her lap looking languidly and adoringly up at her.

Me: (fawn story)
Jen: It was alone?
Me (sensing she has made a keen and undesirable observation): Yes. It was just on the edge of the woods.
Jen: That's not good; it shouldn't have been alone. That means something happened to it's mother.
Me: ....oh, that really changes my feelings about this story.

Months and months later, while carpooling with Rachel, we were recounting all the animals we've seen driving up to the building. The fawn story came up and she said, "Oh yea, I saw that fawn too. I called animal control since it was alone." (the good animal control, the kind that takes sweet, abandoned fawns and rehabilitates them, resulting in email chains of little fawns curled up with the center's cat, dog, or rabbit, as the case may be).

So, Jen, I don't believe I ever told you the ending to this story, but it's a happy one...I think...I hope.

I doubt anyone is still reading this; it's WAY too long, but I've tried to throw in pics for today's word-adverse society.

So my tum still hurts, my mind's still roaming, and my death-grip-clenched hand's spasming; I think I'll just stare at the ceiling for a bit, and/or rummage through my drugs and see what other treats I can find.

"Adieu, to you and you and you." (My fav movie)

Well, except for this one:

And this one:

And this one:

And:

(I hate that they didn't make a sequel. I LOVED the gothic feel to this. It was visual amazing!)

So anyway, Sound of Music is "one of the top thirty [movies] of our time. Anyway, at least." (a nod to, yes, another top fav)

For real, I'm done.

(shoutouts: Google earth; random internet images; copyright infringement; photoshop; Samsung camera phone; wikipedia, which all my copyediting friends will scoff at, with good reason; stong barbiturates, even when they don't quite remove the pain they still make you chatty)

The Inner Workings of a Child's Mind

Setting: abode of dear friends of many years Heather, Bill, Kenzie, Molly Kate, and Landon Duncan

Time: few weeks ago

Players: myself and Molly Kate, very newly aged 7

I was passing through the kitchen on my way to the bedroom when Molly Kate asked, "Ms. Leah, did you know about me?"


Did I know about her? I've been friends with her parents for over ten years, and I've been visiting them over the last several years with some regularity, perhaps not as much as we all would like, but still I don't feel myself a stranger at their house. We've been camping together. We've been to museums together. I've been her chaperone to and from the bathroom. I've played Nintendo DS with her and her older sister Kenzie.

Did she mean did I know about her before she was born? Children so often want to know if you knew them when they were still in their mommy's tummy. That blows their minds!

I walked back into the kitchen and confusedly asked, "Did I know about you?"

"Yea," she replied. "Did you know about me? That I've been making eggs since, like, last year."