Connections: Paper Sleeves in Alabama and Istanbul

 

Warm pretzel in sleeve at OWA, Foley, Alabama. January 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

At my maiden visit to OWA Park recently,  I savored a warm, buttery, salty, soft pretzel. I ate it slowly, pulling away limbs from the main body, sitting in the full sun, watching passersby pass by. 

As I looked at this yeasty golden oven, balanced on my thigh, tucked in its paper sleeve, I remembered another sunny day, but in Istanbul, where I ate something else in a paper sleeve. On that day in Istanbul, I'd contemplated the paper wrap and compared it with the little blue plastic bags in Caucasus Georgia and Ethiopia.

 

Paper food wrap in Istanbul, Turkey. June 2012. Credit: Mzuriana.

Mobile, Alabama: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 8888: Bag o' Masks

 

Bag o' masks for COVID. January 2022.

 

Doing my part to contribute to the historical record for COVID, I present my bag o' masks, above. 

Each has a history. 

My daughter, Kit, made the yellow and aquamarine-navy masks for me. I like the cheery fabrics she chose.

The sage green terry masks below were the first cloth masks I bought, back in Tucson. 

Sage green cloth masks. Tucson, Arizona. May 2020.

 

The Alabama mask is one of three I collected at Alabama welcome centers. 

Alabama state mask. March 2021.

 

I have others, including a Black Lives Matter mask that I bought from an employee who made them, at an enlightened Best Buy in Jefferson City, Missouri. Some employees at that Best Buy wore this mask, and it impressed the hell out of me that the Best Buy management in Jefferson City supported their employees in doing so.

Black Lives Matter COVID mask. Made in Jefferson City, Missouri.

I had a lovely mask that a friend made for me; it had a watercolorish fish design on it. I gave this mask to my mother; it was so beautiful. Alas, it's been lost to the unknown somewhere. 

Other bags

April 2014: My Louisiana Dance Bag

In COVID's early days: March 2020: Tucson, Arizona: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 9: A New Kind of Dance Bag

In Silver City, New Mexico, January 2013, my dear festival bag on the motel room door:

Hat and bags, in for the night. Silver City, New Mexico. January 2013.

I still have the hat. And the small black bag.

 

 

Connections: Capicola and Capybara and Lent

 I saw this sign on the Jimmy John's store window in downtown Mobile: 

Out of capicola in Mobile, Alabama. November 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

The sign grabbed my attention because I didn't know what capicola was. 

But it reminded my of this: 

 

Capybara at Alameda Park Zoo in Alamogordo, New Mexico. March 2010. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

Capybara. Which were new to me when my mother and I encountered them in Alamogordo, New Mexico, more than 10 years ago in March, when we fled from a midwestern winter that wouldn't let loose its frigid fingers. 

Which led me to learn that one can eat capybara during Lent.

Unlike capicola. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mobile, Alabama: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 8888: Additions to COVID Artwork

 

Banksy?

This work, attributed to Banksy, passed through my newsfeed recently: 

Anarchist's mom during COVID. Attributed to Banksy.

The COVID Art Museum

While trying to confirm the artist of this mural, I discovered The COVID Art Museum. 

You can visit it at this frenetic website or on Instagram. 

My own COVID artwork archive:

Harriet, ER nurse during COVID. Artist: Tom Croft.

Harriet debuted in my July 2021 post: Missouri: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 8888: False Hopes Unmasked.

The work below appeared in my April 2020 post: Tucson, AZ: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 16: COVID Artwork.

COVID art: Ethiopian Orthodox Easter. Tentative artist: Habesha Expat. April 2020.

The friend of an Ethiopian friend posted the Habesha Expat (fka as Habesha in Dubai) image on a social media site several days ago. I was really taken with the marriage of culture and message in the artwork.


Below is a forlorn Mother Georgia stuck at home. It made me laugh out loud. 

Mother Georgia quarantining at home. Artist unknown. Source: I Am Tbilisi. March 2020.

Another art piece via I Am Tbilisi, a picture of a mural by artist Gagosh:

"Less Than 2m," a mural by artist Gagosh. Source: I Am Tbilisi. April 2020.

Via the Washington Post to the Art-Eater (Richmond Lee) Twitter account to the Tensor Chan Twitter account, there is this work on the Ghana Pallbearers' meme, in which the message is: Stay home or dance with us:

COVID art: Stay at home or dance with us. Tentative artist: Tensor Chan. April 2020.

And another take on the Ghana pallbearers below from Yuki Geriawan aka anzuarden.art:

COVID art: Stay at home or the music starts. Artist: Yuki Geriawan aka anzuarden_art. April 2020.

Additions subsequent to original post:

COVID Facebook meme. Artist unknown. May 2020.

10 Years Ago: At the Baku Airport En Route to Dubai, And a Cat

 

In-flight movie from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Dubai. January 2012

 

Ten years ago, I was at the halfway mark in my Caucasus Georgia year. On the Christmas break. Caucasus Georgia was cold. I craved warmth. I decided to venture to Dubai. 

This throwback post tells the story of my layover from Tbilisi to Dubai, in Baku, Azerbaijan, at its airport, which has a cat. 

 

Monday, January 16, 2012

To Dubai: Baku Airport

Heydar Aliyev Airport cat. Baku, Azerbaijan. January 2012.

 
The Heydar Aliyev Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is where I spent six hours of my life today.

It doesn't take much to entertain me, and I felt quietly adventurous when I found myself culled from the transit herd after we debarked from the Tbilisi flight in Baku, and was the recipient of that carefully noncommittal phrase, "have a seat, please" which can be the precursor for anything from a few moments of mundane delay to a full-blown, meltdown-worthy travel crisis.

I learned in Ethiopia that the best course is usually to relax and let the local processes unwind as they need to do. So while a gentleman carried my passport and boarding pass hither and thither, I pulled out one of my classic sci-fi paperbacks and read. I had six hours to kill, and this was as good a way to do it as any other.

In due course, I was escorted upstairs, pushed through a security check, then squirted out into the international gate area.

A curious place. Several duty-free shops and kiosks, one open cafe-bar, but other than that, mostly wide and empty corridors. A smallish lobby for travelers; not many chairs. Some travelers consumed more than their share of the limited seating by stretching out and sleeping.

A paucity of electrical outlets.

No means to exchange money. I was given to understand by the somewhat sullen cafe guy that he only took AZN, the Azerbaijan currency. I checked with the duty-free shop; confirmed there was no place to change money. This seemed to be borne out by the fact that no one in the waiting area was eating or drinking anything. Found out hours later that the cafe guy does, indeed, take USD for purchases. I got something to drink, at least. And lesson finally learned (hopefully): Pack some sort of munchie for these plane trips with long layovers - never know what, if anything, will be accessible to me, plus saves money.

I found an electric outlet in the wall in one of the corridors, outside a store. Nothing to do but to plop myself down on the floor and plug in my laptop. The airport does have free public wifi.

And then I saw a cat.

Heydar Aliyev Airport cat. Baku, Azerbaijan. January 2012.

Friendly, too. He cuddled right next to me on the floor and took a nap.

And then I made friends with a 16-year old girl from Kazakhstan. She's been studying English for two years, and I was her first chance to talk with a native speaker. She's going to Dubai for a shopping trip with her mother and aunt. We talked about terrorists in Kazakhstan, school, Kazakh food, and making it big in Hollywood. She introduced me to her mom and her aunt.

Ran into a Texan couple who work in Baku, one for the embassy and one as an English instructor. They've been in Azerbaijan for two years and like it there.

Eventually, our waiting room time ended and it was time to go. The in-flight movie looked like it was a 1960s Hollywood Western, the colors kind of faded, set in a mountainous, steppe-y sort of place with horses and the like, only it was Azerbaijani. Cool.

 

 

 

 

Word of the Year 2022: Disciplines 1: Introduction

 

 

Tai chi lesson in Upper Tom Lea Park, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

There are:

1. Skills I want to master, 
2. Creative works I want to produce,
3. Fitness levels I want to sustain or achieve, 
4. Financial goals I want to meet before I retire, 
5. Relationships I want to nurture,
   
6. "Greater societal goods" to which I wish to contribute, and
7. Serenity I want to achieve and sustain notwithstanding storms that might pass through and around me. 

 

Tai chi lesson in Upper Tom Lea Park, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

 

All of the above require a discipline. 

A intentional regular daily, weekly, or monthly practice - in other words, an action - designed to achieve or sustain a goal, whether that goal is physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual.

If I compare a discipline to a bank account, it's about me depositing money into an account every day, even if the amount is small. The more reserves I build over time, the more money I have to work with to meet my needs and desires.

2022 is to be about practicing regular disciplines that will transform my wanna-do's to my doing. 

 

My barriers to discipline practice

1. Too much screen time. Doesn't matter if I spend squander my time reading serious news or fluff - it's time I will never get back. It's time I could use to create, learn, practice, produce. 
2. Too many distractions. Like writing this post, for instance. I look out the window. Make lunch. Watch a brainless youtube about babies' reactions to seeing their dads without a beard for the first time. Sweep a floor.
   
3. I tend to do not-urgent/not-important things in my daily life before (or instead of) the not-urgent-but-important things. My daily to-do list is helpful, but it's just an unweighted list of tasks. In other words, visually, sweeping a floor carries the same weight as completing this post. Pennies equal dollars.

 

7 Habits of Highly Effective People time matrix. Source: Franklin Planner.

 

These barriers are not new for me, of course. Hey, look at this vintage post that I forgot I wrote until now: Getting Things Done (September 2012). And this one, Portable Tai Chi, in 20 fucking 10.

Building a new skill is uncomfortable. I am averse to discomfort. I feel a little distressed. I feel awkward. Annoyed. Frustrated. I feel like I'm just not going to get it. I have the desire to flee. And it takes so. much. fucking. time. The hours it takes to reach even the beginner stage. The hours it takes to move past the discomfort phase into the I-think-I'm-getting-it phase, when it becomes more satisfying. 

Hope

Although I've had certain goals on my "I want to do...." list for years - without putting in the requisite labor hours to get me there - I do have the ability to get them in my Ongoing or Completed columns.

Because I have, in fact, knocked a number of items off the bucket list that I wrote in my early 30s, at a time when I was a single parent of a very young child, with very few financial resources. 

I've also realized a number of adolescent dreams, albeit in ways I did not anticipate back then. 

And I learned to dance, didn't I? Who would have ever thought that could happen? Not me! 

But a hard home truth: I ain't getting any younger, so I better get crack-a-lackin'.