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Little Sherpas

Not to be outdone by it's giant neighbor, India, Nepal has offered us an equal amount of absolutely-darling kid clothes; lots of sweet patchwork overalls, handknit sweaters perfect for swathing a tiny baby body in warm wool, and an abundance of slipper, hats, pants, and jackets all made up in traditional Newari fabrics and styles. And we have, of course, obliged ourselves by buying an entire suitcase full of Nepali styled baby wearables; including two pairs of little teeny shoes.

I dare say our babies will be better dressed than we are.

Punk rock hair

So...I went to the salon today to rid myself of my blonde locks.
I'm tired of coloring my hair and although the last time I actually saw my natural color (hmmm, I guess I was maybe 17?) it was still blonde of its own accord, the stuff that creeps in at my roots these days is far from it.
So off I went to the most expensive coif shop I could find in Kathmandu; always relying (too) heavily on my theory that paying more will protect me from disaster.
With the help of the, uh, technician, we chose a light brown/dark blonde shade and named the whole process 'lowlights' with a plan to keep a bit of my existing blonde all mixed in with a more natural color.
They put this rubber hat with little holes all over it on my head and used what looked like knitting needles to pull strands of my hair out over the top of mon chapeau. By the time they were done I looked like a white Tina Turner and I smiled at all the girls who fawned over me in pairs, working up a lather on my rubber-coated head with the brown goo that was meant to transform my brassy mop into something lovely. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself.

I sat and read tedious reports in glossy fashion mags about who's who in the U.S. celebrity scene these days and what they're wearing, about the new jeans for 'every body' (happy to see my own favorite Goldschmeids on the list but feeling a bit lost at not recognizing a single other designer), about whoever's adopting whoever from the third world, and whatever else they think is important at InStyle.

When I noticed that the pile of gunk on top of my head was getting awfully dark I kept my mouth shut and mentally prayed my 'spend more, get better service' mantra whincing slightly at the memory of how this philosophy has failed me oh-so-many times here in the third world.

The cap was peeled off my head, my hair was washed and I was once again seated in front of the mirror. My hair was very, very dark...but I reassured myself that it was still wet and would transform into a delicious mix of blonde and brown as soon as it was dry.

Finally, my hair was dry and I could see very clearly that something was wrong. When I pointed out to the stylist what looked like exceptionally dark ends she simply said 'This never happens.' and turned away quickly to tell her girls to dry my hair some more; perhaps hoping that the heat would magically evaporate the very dark deposits of color that had cemented themselves from my jawline down.

The girls dried, and dried, and dried some more. My hair stayed the same. They checked and double checked color tubes, talked over me in stressed Nepali, and apparently came to no real conclusion. No one offered me an apology.

I'll leave the conversation that followed to your imagination but I will tell you that I refused the offer of a color removal and fresh attempt, but hautily accepted the suggestion that I not pay for my ruined head.

I walked out, took a deep breath and accepted my fate. I decided I'd just pretend it was on purpose - one of those very punk rock styles that starts out doing its thing at the top and then fades to black at the end. I'm trying hard not to relate to Lita Ford in the 80's and lean more in the direction of Jennifer Aniston after a dark wash, but it's a tough call.

I'm home now and Hamid has been telling me he thinks it's 'gorgeous' - but he says that even when I'm up at five a.m. with a fever and haven't had a shower for two days, so I don't necessarily trust his judgement.

No, I'm not going to show you a picture either. When you see me again, just smile and nod and pretend to think I did it on purpose, tell me it's very cool...assume I was looking to put a bit more edge back in a style that had otherwise gone very hippie as of late; the rock star look; whatever....

After my own heart

I received an email via thesuperheavy a few months ago from an American woman living in Iran with her Persian husband. An artist, she was looking for my recommendation of a seamstress in Tehran to help her with a textiles project she's working on. Considering the disaster that was my wedding dress our conversations quickly turned to other things: namely what it's like to live in the Middle East; how interesting, charming, and downright suffocating the closeness of family in Iran can be for a Westerner more accustomed to and trained for autonomy to the hilt; what it means to have to don a uniform each and every time one wants to leave the house; how ironic it is that, as women, we must obey the law dictating what we wear but that as Iranian citizens we are allowed to not only vote but run for parliament. We talked about art and philosophy, travel and family.

Through the course of conversation I learned that like me, she has a hard time with the scarf-business but otherwise loves Iran; that, like me, she is seven years older than her darling; and that, like me, she is an insatiable travel addict.

I casually invited her to meet me for lunch here in Kathmandu, offered the couple a room in our house, and assured them that the tourist visa process for Iranians in Nepal was a piece of cake.

I've invited quite a few people to come stay with us here in Nepal, friends, family - and although many started out excitedly researching the possibility of a holiday in the Himalayas not one was able to rationalize the lengthy journey and close to $3,000 plane ticket. But this woman whom I'd never met packed herself and her husband up and flew all the way to Nepal from Iran (a solid 24 hours journey each way) for a ten day visit.

We met at Mike's Breakfast, a local joint run by an American midwesterner and a new favorite, and while sipping Bloody Mary's over lunch she gifted me an exceptionally beautiful piece of her original art - in Persian script, it is a talisman on paper, embodying the energy of movement and travel, the joy and love of new experience. I made her sign it at the table and while she was doing so I was struck by just how small this world is, and how precious the adventurous spirit.

Truly, after my own heart.

What it's like

The neighborhood kids are constantly trying to sneak in through our garden gates, I'm pretty sure they think it's a park. The walls are far too high to climb, at close to six feet, so they creep up to the open spaces in the iron fence, little eyes peering in at us, transfixed and glassy, like watching television. I wonder what they're thinking, while they're staring like that. They try to coax Mooshy near enough to feed him their homework, which I always find ripped to shreds and spread all over the place; English and Math lessons half digested.

"Namaste..." I try on the old 'Oh-aren't-you-cute-yes-I-love-kids' voice I used to be so good at. I am careful and quiet in my approach; pretending they are flighty birds or wounded things, but they scatter, running into the road with nervous giggles, stopping only when safely behind an open door or a mother's skirt. If I have chocolate they last only slightly longer; long enough to reach their small brown hands forward before scurrying off to devour the prize. They stand in windows, craning their necks to get a better view into our massive fishbowl of a house. They call to their friends, and amass in a convergence of little hyper bodies and heads, practically falling the two or three floors down just to get a better view. I catch them out of the corner of my eye and a gust of wind has taken them all away at once, the curtains fluttering only slightly in evidence that they were ever there at all. I smile to no one before I draw my own curtains closed with a sigh. Our neighbors may as well be ghosts; nosy or otherwise.

We are, apparently, interesting but terrifying.

It's been like this pretty much the whole time I've lived abroad. I'm used to getting almost run into by cars, bikes, and motorcycles - the driver turned idiot in the distraction of blonde hair and tattoos and pale skin. I'm used to it, but that doesn't mean I like it. I'm used to people taking a good few minutes to stop and just stare at me from the road outside my garden and chat amongst themselves about whatever it is people say about the neighbors. They do not look away or change their facial expressions when I find their eyes on me. They are not ashamed in the least to be caught in the act.

They are ghosts, all of them. They may as well not even exist for all the impact they have on my life and I secretly resent them for not being what I expect of a neighbor - of any human in close proximity day in and day out.

Why can't they just smile and say "Hello."?

It's a strange kind of attention, the whispering and laughter that follows the local foreigner down the street. It was worse in India where I was just as likely to wind up in the society section of the local paper; as if what I did with my weekends was all that fascinating. They've seen you often enough the past few months but still can't seem to get over the sheer fact of your existence.

I try to be kind and patient and smile in an all-knowing, self-deprecating kind of way, like, yes, I understand I'm the weirdest thing you've possibly ever seen in your life. But then again, sometimes I just stick my tongue out at people.

Pretty, pretty spam

It seems the spammers of our world are getting more and more creative about their efforts at inspiring the average, unsuspecting user to click their oh-so-lame links. I still get the usual array of spammy emails crammed with a mishmash of words that make no sense at all, or pictures of Cialis tabs for $129,95 or whatever - but there is this new breed of spam that has a sense of aesthetic behind it, and some of it is quite nice, actually...

Like the one I received today with this little piece of art displayed so prettily - it looks like a blurry Klimt, but I don't really know and anyway, I liked it so much I grabbed a screenshot and tucked it away in my graphics folder. I have lots of these little images, snagged from spam. They make me happy and remind me that there are hidden gems of beauty and goodness amidst the garbage of the world - even the digital kind.

The text of the email was in Russian and even though I went to all the trouble of learning their funky alphabet when I was in high school it was for the sole purpose of writing notes in school with friends who had also memorized the lettering; like a cipher, each letter relative to our own alphabet. We found it all the better for thwarting discovery of the secret, gossipy contents of our illegal classroom communique. So even though I can sound out the words phonetically it doesn't help at all in determining what this particular email was inviting me to do or buy - not that it matters, I'd never click the links either way...but I'm grateful for the little piece of art they gifted me.

The Real World, season two

By the time we arrive in the States in October (we finally bought our tickets!!) I'll have been gone for four years, almost to the day.
Four years is a long time to be out floating around the planet and I'm feeling excited and anxious all at once about a return to the 'real world' i.e. America. However unrealistic it may be I do tend to view the majority of the rest of the globe as some kind of Monopoly game; complete with play money and get out of jail free cards. Life outside the U.S. has it's own set of complications, but in many ways just seems much easier all the way around.

At the moment, I've got an array of bills in my trotter: pounds, Euro, Indian rupees, Sri Lankan rupees, Thai bhat, Turkish lire, Nepali rupees, American dollars...none of which seem to hold any weight at all with the exception of the Benjamins. And even though they're worth less than the European currencies they're crumpled up with they do give me a bit of a thrill, I guess because they so blatantly represent the next stage of the game.

I know I shouldn't be spending so much time obsessing over our upcoming arrival but it's something of a habit now; my desire (or is it need at this point?) for planning has been gratified these past few years with moving around so much and I'm thrust into yet another binge as we finally decide where to plant ourselves initially.

We've been talking about going straight to Portland for so long I hadn't even considered any other options. But when my parents asked us to spend the holidays with them (a fair request, considering) we decided to just plunk ourselves down somewhere relative to their winter house in Arizona. I've never lived in Arizona, never really had any desire to sit around in the American desert for an extended period of time, but I'm in a 'what the heck' kind of mindframe these days.
After living in this expanse of better home and garden that is our Kathmandu place I'm spoiled rotten and wouldn't even consider one of the many cookie-cutter condo or rental house options scattered in the area. I had my heart set on finding something special, with a bit of land maybe, and so I went about manifesting what would be our next semi-permanent stop.

It's getting almost ridiculous, the way this stuff works - always 'Ask and ye shall receive' in it's purest translation - but here we go again; looking forward to a fabulous three bedroom, two bath ranch style vacation home on an acre of grape vineyards and fruit trees in the lush Mohave Valley, complete with desert-hill views and sunsets worth gasping over. The house is fully furnished (down to the linens and silver) and the six month fee includes every conceivable utility, so we're all set.

The Kingdom of the Blonde Ninja

I realize the title of this post isn't going to make any sense at all to anyone who reads this blog with the exception of my husband who will understand all too well, and that's OK with me. On to bigger and better things that do make sense.

I never write about business here, aside from the random screenshot of a few websites I've colored in and like, but as is evidenced by my glaring lack of posts for three entire weeks, business is good. We've been busy building our empire, not to mention doing behind-the-scenes work on a number of other people's empires. It's fun, this business stuff and I'm as shocked at myself as I've ever been to discover I have a real talent for it, but there it is.

I went from disdaining the very idea of work (I mean, shouldn't I just be paid to be alive? Come on...) to being literally addicted to the growth of our business. We've moved in the last year to a referral *only* based practice, which means no more wild-cards in the deck of our clientele. It's safe to say that when you're a freelancer, a consultant, or anyone else who makes their living marketing themselves to other people, a referral based practice is *the* way to go. That can be a difficult place to find though, and we're oh-so-lucky to have amazing clients who pass our names around like trading cards.

Aside from building up other people's empires, we've gotten down to business on our own with major developments at two of our other websites and the purchase of three more (granted, one is the namesake of our future boy-child, but still, it's a meaningful addition to the lot.) I've spent every waking moment these past few weeks drafting ideas, designing advertisements and writing and submitting press releases while simultaneously mainlining hot tea into Hamid's exhausted body as he coded his gorgeous heart out to create the things I'm imagining.

I've always taken our business seriously, from day one realizing it was the literal thread that held us together - not because the business is our common bond but because it was what financially allowed us to remain together all this time. Ah, it was the work of destiny, bringing forth that Craigslist ad that invited me to apply for the magical job of being someone's virtual assistant, and the rest is history. Without that first client we'd have run out of money and had to separate at some point - I was almost tapped out from lazing around the world for a year when we met and Hamid wasn't really in a position to 'keep' me at the time. Couple that with he's Iranian, I'm American - well, you do the math.

Fortunately, the universe has been conspiring behind my back for ages - working out the details of my life and placing them before me in perfect order; each on a platter more golden and shiny than the one previous. I have no doubt that our business success, our own little empire, is an integral part of that grand scheme, but I'll still take the credit.

With love, from India

In preparation for our leaving India in favor of Nepal The Mommy set about purchasing all the goodies she was always oohing and aahing over. Usually bent on stocking her own wardrobe with locally crafted garb she instead found herself indulging in an entire traditional Indian wardrobe for The (future-definite-just-not-sure-when-exactly) Baby.

With prices starting at a third of the cost to buy the same handcrafted garments in the States The Mommy went a bit mad in her selections and literally could not decide which designs to buy in which sizes - so she bought them all.

There is a collection of 2 piece pattus (heavily embroidered or mirror worked skirts with matching halter and backless tops) all made of gorgeously colored Indian sari silk, as well as a few salwar suits (matching cotton short sleeve tunic/pants sets) in vibrant mixed patterns edged in complimentary sari silk.

As much as we'd love to share images of our purchases with you, they've already been packed up for shipping to the U.S. along with a fun collection of hand carved and painted wooden figures of a number of the Hindu gods and goddesses, some handmade pillow covers from Sri Lanka that remind The Mommy of something Pottery Barn would try to pass off at ten times the price she paid in Colombo, and of course little plastic replicas of the local-to-Southeast Asia mode of transport: the autorickshaw, complete with plastic barefoot driver and fare meter.