Back at the Barn

I went to Greece.  That solves the mystery ending of Michael:  Where did I go on vacation?  I had a fulfilling trip to Athens and the Aegean, and came home with lots of photos I'm currently editing to accompany some entertaining stories, one hopes.  My body is also recovering from the trip, since I'm not bouncing back as well as the last time I travelled to Europe 30 years ago.  Shouldn't surprise me but still, it has.

I'd like to write jolly anecdotes, beginning with my first TSA checkpoint in Portland; when I held up traffic unpacking liquids and removing shoes.

"Go ahead - I'm still getting my act together."

A young airport employee chuckeled behind me.  "Did you say you're getting your act together?  Tee hee hee."

I guess that expression's gone the way of manners and the Do-Do Bird, but I was happy to make her smile.

"Do you have any tablets?"

The TSA officer was a little intimidating.  I'd done considerable research while packing since last July, and was careful to keep my teeny bottles of various liquids in an appropriately-sized clear plastic bag.  I also brought along the prescription for my muscle relaxers, but rather than packing entire bottles, I opted to pack my Excedrin Migraine and Ibuprofen in little plastic baggies, identified on pieces of blue Painter's tape, should anyone question.  I got scared.

"You mean medi-ca-tions?"

He was dumbstruck.  "No, Ma'am, elec-tron-ics..."

Yes, I did...why didn't he say so?  Words can have more than one meaning.  I was stopped or held up at EVERY checkpoint in whichever country.

"Do you have something sharp in there?"

"Tweezers, maybe...feel free to look."

She eventually tired of examining whatever it was from this backwards traveler who couldn't possibly come up with a decent smuggling strategy if my life depended on it. (Turned out a broach from my hatband fell off and landed, opened, in the bottom of the bag, and the pointy part was almost 3 inches long.)

"Can I pat down your right leg?"

"Sure, you can pat down the left one, too."  Can't remember my last 'date'.

"Can I see the bottom of your socks?"

"What's in your pocket,"  Bilbo?

"Step over here, please," quickly followed by a chorus of, "NO, not here..."

Even my vintage Clinique travel-brush, a tiny plastic thing which folds in on itself, had them scratching their heads.  I kept telling them to take a look, which usually prompted my, "Pass."

Or I can tell you about my Origami class on the cruise ship, where everyone's frog hopped forward except mine, which made an entire flip.

"Yours is drunk."  I shoulda been.  The next class had other shapes but the same damned frog, with the same result:  "It must be the way you press," (...it's backside to cause the forward motion).  I did my best and brought the blue one home.

But the instructor did admire the way I split my tulip's accordian stem and folded up the ends like leaves, I'll bet he uses that in the future.  I've wondered before about the possibility of being a craft-director on a cruise ship (like a friend from Puerto Rico), but then I'd have to deal with 'students' like me.

I thought the room stewards were impressed with my Origami and therefore left a cute towel-Swan on my bed; until I learned the harsh truth from other cruisers.

So I wanted to start writing about my trip like that, but ever since my return flight from Munich, my heart has been increasingly sick from news I've been deliriously ignorant of since April Fool's Day.

I sat next to a young fellow returning to Vancouver B.C., accompanied by the largest cat I've seen up close.  We primarily spoke pleasantries, I thought he sounded German; but it wasn't until our final approach that he explained he was from the Ukraine but had emigrated to Vancouver 5 years ago.

No, the cat belonged to his friend, who'd left the country with so many women and children, and took along her cat.  They stayed in Poland until she was able to go to Vancouver, but she had to leave her cat behind with friends.

So my seat-mate flew to Frankfurt, rented a car, drove to Poland, picked up the cat, drove back to Frankfurt, and was on the final leg homewards, whatta guy.  Thus far the cat had travelled just fine, and he assured me it was drugged for the 10 hour flight to B.C.  He was able to place the carrier on the seat between us, and while I'm not a cat-person, it was sweet and obviously loved.

What would YOU have said?  I expressed my sorrow about the war and asked after his family.  They were still in Kharkiv along with many friends; but no, they weren't planning on leaving because they owned a business and people were depending on them.

Congress had not yet approved the Foreign Aid package and I wanted to sink into my seat.

"I'm so sorry, and I'm sorry about our delay in helping."  He gently nodded and thanked me.  I was at a loss for words, and am SO happy now, I'm tearing up just remembering. Ukrainians are finally getting the help they so desperately need and which we so vehemently promised early on.  Remember, for the most part they're not fighters, so short of supplying troops it's the least we can do to help.  

But more and more, people are willing to turn their backs on doing the right thing or believing bold-faced lies spewed by megalomaniacs.  I came home to headlines like, "Moscow Marjorie," and "Hamas Touting Demonstrators as Our New Leadership."

How can that not turn your stomach?  How many high-schoolers in America would give their eye-teeth in order to attend Columbia, Yale, Brown and USC, God knows why?  Ivy League schools have an average of 10% of foreign students enrolled.  Why don't they first exhaust home-grown applicants of merit regardless of their ability to pay?  We ought to concentrate on advancing those with the highest IQs rather than the highest bank balance.  At least their 'quality' educations could be put to use HERE rather than taken abroad; perhaps agreeing to perform Goverment service for a certain number of years before heading for Wall Street or Silicon Valley.  Theoretically at least we'd ALL benefit. That's my version of America First.

I have feelings for Innocents on both sides of the Middle-East conflict, but it seems the Israeli's, like the Ukrainians, can use all the support they can get.  Enabling monsters like Hamas in any way is intolerable.  I don't believe the majority of university demonstrators are truly interested in solving the situation so much as wanting an excuse to become Agitators for Selfies or just plain anti-Semitic, of course they're insisting they're not.  I'm not buying it.

Why not demonstrate fiercely for the hungry and unhoused in our backyards?  If we can solve this problem, it'll help solve others such as crime, mental health and inequality, finally.  Why not volunteer for Feeding America or World Central Kitchen?  Jimmy Carter at 95 was still helping to build for Habitat for Humanity.  The only thing our embarassingly out-of-condition former president can manage is mocking President Carter, how rude.

Rather than pitching a tent on manicured college campus lawns, why not go down to Skid Row and pitch a tent in solidarity with our own unfortunates being swept from view by insensitive City Counsels.  That's not a solution.

Quit hiding behind fashion-statement scarves if you can't even identify Yasser Arafat.  Are you truly proud for chanting, "From the River to the Sea," wrapped up like a terrorist and causing fellow classmates distress?

Wait - this sounds familiar.  I think back to our Vietnam protests, buying MIA bracelets even in High School.  At least it was for our own sons, brothers and boyfriends.  Remember the photos from Kent State; and how our traumatized soldiers were greeted at airports, at home, anywhere in public: with distain?  Remember Hanoi Jane?  Hell, if Watergate happened today, do you think Nixon would have resigned?  Have we learned nothing?

No one has the right to minimize someone else's fears.  Twenty years ago, following the publication of Abu Ghraib photographs, I was subjected to people screaming insults at me, and one man actually spit on my table at an international art show, because I was representing the USA.  The anger directed my way during that week-long festival upset and scared me.  People might say, "They wouldn't have done anything to you," but I wouldn't bet on it; and was grateful the show organizers arranged for a Policeman to stroll by my table every half hour.  Which is one reason why I support Jewish students and can understand, in a very small sense, their justifiable, very real fears in the face of a an angry mob, excuse me, protestors.

And may I just say, consider Gen-Z's definition of 'excessive force' (by Police) - from those who have never been spanked.

I won't get started on the Right to Life issue, for I'll let younger women fight that fight for their daughters and granddaughters, of which I have none.  I have other gripes, but correct me if I'm wrong:  I haven't yet heard any proposal for compensating medical costs; or monetary support for children women are forced to deliver; or mandatory vows from abortion opponents to adopt said Unwanteds.  If you have the money you can skirt the issue, once again condeming the underprivileged.  Come on, walk it like you talk it.

Ahhh, that feels better.  Now I can get on with my storytelling with a lightened heart.

And I did: Athens and the Acropolis