Favorite Mideast memories, stream-of-consciousness (aka, How I spent my stimulus check and tax refund)

• The warm, gooey perfect falafel we bought just outside the Western Wall
• Making a human pyramid at the pyramids
• Referring to any food we didn't recognize as "wikipedia"
• Singing hymns in the matchless acoustics of Saint Anne's church
• Laughing, talking, sipping lemon tea and eating wikipedia crackers and white pomegranate at the hostel in Petra, afternoon sunlight streaming in through the perfect window
• Matt's spirited rendition of the Lion King in the Petra monastery
• Floating down the Nile talking with dear friends and watching a slow sunset
• Wandering through the tunneled streets of Acco at night
• Dumping piles of dust out of my shoes after a day in Petra
• Falling asleep on a horse and buggy ride around Luxor from sheer exhaustion
• Sinking in up to my knees in mud at the Dead Sea
• Paging Andrea over the airport intercom in Amman
• Praying in the church on the Mount of Beatitudes
• Getting lost driving in the West Bank … I'm not sure where we are but there’s a sign to Ramallah … yikes ...
• Rusty and Dave pelting each other with olives all along the Jerusalem city wall
• Jewish men and boys singing and dancing their way to the Western Wall at sunset
• Wading through knee-deep water in Hezekiah’s tunnel
• Camels everywhere! I heart camels
• Getting proposed to by my camel driver (he offered 1 million camels for me!)
• Being told by my donkey driver that my donkey was slower because I was too fat
• All the homos – I mean hummus – I could eat. I heart hummus
• Being nearly accosted by Egyptians for money
• Melt-in-your-mouth Egyptian pizza
• Randomly meeting someone from the Cairo ministry of culture who got us reserved seating at the whirling dervish show
• Matt reading us select verses at Biblical sites in and around Jerusalem
• Walking smack into a wall in the Masada museum
• Shekels!
• Dinars!
• Hearing the call to prayer virtually everywhere
• Sprinting through the old city with a djembe and a backpack full of dishes and scarves
• Losing half my body weight in sweat at the Valley of the Kings
• Gaining it all back eating pita bread and every kind of salad imaginable

The Big Easy

New Orleans top ten highlights (I attended the AAPOR annual conference last weekend, and also found plenty of time to play tourist. I became unexpectedly fond of this city):

10. Being in New Orleans during a flash flood warning

9. Not tripping over my feet or my words in my first professional conference presentation

8. Bourbon street. Yikes! (Anyone who has been there knows exactly what I mean.)

7. Room service :)

6. Getting trapped momentarily in an elevator just below the 27th floor of the hotel (hey, it could have been worse)

5. Balconies! Everyone in the French Quarter seems to have them. I want one. With plants.

4. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Have I ever told you that I love cemeteries? New Orleans cemeteries are known as Cities of the Dead because they look like streets with rows of buildings. This one is in the beautiful garden district.

3. Sitting in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant watching a man at the next table use his shoe to smash a giant cockroach on the wall, then hearing the bartender scream out a moment later, "What did you do to Frankie?!" (Seriously, though, the food all weekend was excellent. Jambalaya, gumbo, seafood and po'boys, mmmm!)

2. A driving tour, offered through the conference, of areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, most of which are still in various states of disrepair. Conducted by a non-profit group called Women of the Storm. Sobering and inspiring all at once -- these ladies saw something that needed to happen in their community and just started doing it. I want to do that. (I also heard heartbreaking stories from my taxi driver and others I met along the way who lost friends and family, who tried to rescue who they could, who pulled together with others through the storm. It all put my life into perspective. I thought my basement flooding a few days before this trip was something, but compared to this, I am not complaining.)

1. Live jazz. I can't describe this in words. Click on these links to have a listen yourself:

• New Orleans Jazz 1 (Panorama Jazz Band playing at the Spotted Cat)
  

• New Orleans Jazz 2 (Preservation Hall Jazz Band playing at Preservation Hall)

And I didn't even get to take the plantation tour or the swamp tour or help rebuild a school or house! All in all, I highly recommend N'Awlins as a destination. Interesting history and culture, great live music, and they need the money coming into their economy. Let me know when you go and I might even come with you!

Big Fat Loser

So, my excuse for not posting for more than a month is that I am a big loser. No, seriously. Just when I got rolling with this blog, I also became involved in an intense Biggest Loser competition. Who knew trying to be more healthy could be so time-consuming?

This is the point in the conversation where people start in with, "Oh, you don't need to lose weight! Why are you doing this competition? You look great!" And I want to say, "Spare me," but instead I explain that it's not just for weight loss, it's to be more healthy.

I say, "See, there are these eight things that you try to do every day (like eating five fruits/vegetables, working out for 30 minutes, sleeping seven hours, drinking 6-8 glasses of water, not eating after 8pm, and so forth) -- and you get a point for each one. So you can get eight points a day, and at the end of the competition, you get a little bonus for any weight you lose. So really, it's more about being healthy than losing weight."

(I always say that last line, but let's be honest, it's not really true. It really is more about losing weight, and about competing with other people. Especially in the moment when you're chugging two glasses of water before bed just to get that point for the day. And hoping your seven hours of sleep won't be too interrupted by it.)

At this point, people often interject one of two things: 1) "I could never do that. There's no way I could not eat after 8pm," or 2) "Oh, I would love to do this! Is it too late to sign up?" (The answer is yes. Sorry. We do have about 60 people participating -- and with each person putting $10 in the pot, it makes for some serious high stakes!)

Anyway, my point is that this competition has taken over my life. Sleeping seven hours a night takes a long time! Plus trundling back and forth to the gym all the time ... which brings me full circle to where I started this post. If you'd like to see what I've been doing instead of updating my blog, check out my progress here. And stay tuned for The Big Reveal, coming up next week ...

Peep Wars

For the record, I had a very grown-up, nice Easter/birthday dinner party: cloth napkins, crab cocktails, coordinated place-settings with assigned seating -- not to mention an amazing spread of all the ham and funeral potatoes and orange rolls you could eat. We even participated in a Romanian Easter tradition and I read one of my favorite poems after dinner.

Unfortunately, none of this was captured on film. What was captured was this slightly less mature, somewhat degenerate, but, well, hilarious after-dinner activity:

Yes, those are pink chicks and blue bunnies flying through the air. As Jenn said afterwards, "I stopped for a moment to consider the cumulative educational level of everyone in the room, and had a good belly laugh." A memorable birthday for SO many reasons.

p.s. I can't resist adding that I also received a very grown-up birthday gift that I LOVE. After fourteen years of living on my own and chopping all my vegetables with a dull knife and a cutting board, I am now the proud owner of a brand new KitchenAid food processor! It's so dreamy. Peep salad, anyone?