Monuments, funerals, and a flying disease wagon

After the Air Force Monument we headed to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s. The statue itself is a stern one, and I felt it highlighted the severe nature of the struggle more than his compassion. Though it honestly reminded me a bit of the Soviet monuments I saw in the Baltics, I would be more offended by a fluffy-light monument, and the quotes engraved on the wall behind him are a clear testimony to the caliber of the man.

I was in Washington DC for the funeral of my step-grandfather. After a career in the military spanning three wars and three decades, his ceremony was held at Arlington National Cemetery, with full military honors. I may not agree with every one of those conflicts, but it is a clear thing to honor the life of someone who gave so much of themselves.

The ceremony was held on a chilly morning of crisp air and even crisper salutes, and the 21 shots from the honor guard were felt as much as heard. The familiar taps military funeral melody was suddenly far more poignant than I’d ever heard it as it echoed over the headstones of generations of servicemen and women. We drove out past tombstones from World Wars I and II, rows with dates only days apart in 1864, and some reading simply “civilian.”

It’s a sobering place to be, and I can only hope that our leaders will rise to be worthy of these sacrifices. Lobbyists and profiteers need not apply.

The primary occupation of my time however was meeting the step-family, which proved to be an entertaining endeavor. Faces bearing familiar resemblances spoke with accents from New York to rural Texas. They have some strong women in that branch! Why not climb Mt Kilimanjaro for one’s 60^th birthday, and why not still swim half a mile at age 91? You go, gyrlz!

My brother and I went for some quick sightseeing our last morning. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to remove the pocketknife from my bag when I left home. Having a thumb-sized precluded me from entering 95% of that most fearful city, and I was not allowed to even wait inside the building while my brother checked out an exhibit by Ai Weiwei.

Luckily there was a work in the courtyard.

The flight home featured some impressive turbulence over Missouri, nearly sufficient to overwhelm the symphony of enthusiastic coughing that erupted relentlessly from bronchial tubes all around me. One guy behind me apparently believed that the key to coughing was not just the expulsion of air, but the simultaneous vibration of the vocal cords, so he basically shouted his coughs.

So this morning I am nursing a waterfall of a nose and squishy sneezes. Three cheers to an unending cup of hot green tea.

Whale watching with Winston Churchill

Our first day in Puerto Lopez we met Winston Churchill on the beach.

He's a lean man with kind eyes, a ready smile, and a helluva sales pitch for whale watching tours, informative without being pushy. Monday morning K and I joined a young Ecuadoran family of 6 on one of the ubiquitous little blue fiberglass(?) lancha boats.

They're perfectly fine boats, but not for whale watching seemed a little...small. But our intrepid captain (is there any other kind?) steered us out into the choppy bay, where we all stared out over the blank waves intently.

As with all wildlife watching, there was no guarantee, and one by one the pairs of eyes got bored of looking for fins like the one that suddenly reared up shockingly close to our bow.

The fin came up like Poseidon's elevator, sinking back into the water with grace that still astounds me on such a massive creature. Suddenly the boat seemed small indeed. A large adult humpback whale. Two. And then, their baby. And we were right on top of them.

Too close in fact. I resolutely oppose boats getting too close to the whales, especially with a baby, but when it was me in the boat...it was kinda hard to tell the captain to back up. I could only nod agreement once the captain of the other boat shouted that we were too close, and we backed off a bit, but I mentioned it to Winston later.

We gaped for an unknown amount of time as they reached fins into the air and slapped them down on the sea, cleaning off the parasites and gloop that accumulate on the deep sea blubbery ballerinas. (And given the number of oil tankers on the horizon and plastic on the beach, I fear the gloop levels are only increasing.) Occassionally black blobs that had presumably been knocked off would float past.

One of the adults flipped over on its back and just lay there at the surface, looking for all the world like it was sunbathing. And we were very close to one half-breach, which splashed us with a salty spray of leviathan gymnastics.

The whales were of course incredible, but one of the best parts was the driver's obvious pleasure and pride at the animals. "What a beauty! He's saying hello! What a show! What a beauty!"

They disappeared as suddenly as they'd come, so we went snorkeling, where I was amazed to see two eels, a Spanish stingray, schools of florescent fish, and a rather large octopus. I told the family about each, and when the boat crew heard about the octopus, the young assistant asked me to grab it, and when I declined, grabbed a knife and dove in after it.

I watched, hoping he wouldn't find it, and hid my smile when he surfaced to inform us that it was too big, and his little knife hadn't bothered it much. Another boat showed up, and their boathand jumped in with a bigger knife. Luckily they didn't find it again.

As we were about to leave I climbed out on the beach to collect a plastic bottle that had washed up there, and saw a second octopus close to shore, but didn't tell anyone about it this time.

Poseidon, that glorious ingrate, sent a pair of wee jellyfish to thank me, one on the shoulder and one on the ankle. The sting was pretty slight, and only lasted an hour, so added to the experience.

Hatchoo

Some mornings the staggering Beauty of the World leaks into the familiar environs of our apartment and provides a startling beginning to the day, complete with ill-advised attempts to photograph it.  (I have been so busy with school and work that my poor camera is getting all dusty, though taking it out still feels familiar and savory.)

Anyway, I opened our kickass Euro-window-shutter things to take a picture and had just enough time to look at it and be disappointed before I sneezed.  Then again.  Two more.  Today’s revelation: I have allergies in Belgium.

In California my allergies were kinda hit or miss, some years yes, some not so much.  The year I spent backpacking throughout Europe and Northern Africa I had nary a sneeze (I have a theory for that) and last year it hit me in Northern Spain, especially when I was working on that religious cult’s farm (remember those blogs?) planting corn, green beans, and giant gooey gobs of snot in every row.

Apparently Belgium is a sneeze-positive country.  Frickin great.  Not to sound too germaphobic, but when someone sneezes in the confined space of the train, I get annoyed and want to confine them to the weird little door-vestibule area.  Now the sneezer is me, and I barely resist the urge to stand up and explain in every language at my disposal (including enthusiastic sign language) that it is only allergies, not actual germs.

The really amazing thing though has been how suddenly and textbook accurately Spring arrived.  March 19 was cold windy winter, March 20 less cold, and boom! March 21^st, frickin gorgeous.  Sunshine and light breezes.  Cherry blossoms.  Flowers in the bushes, sexual tension in the masses, and pollen in the nose

Not long ago it was too cold to smell anything in the mornings, so I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination that that second block smells like foot-cheese about half the time, and now I still can’t tell through the face-faucet that I now bear.  Time to learn the Dutch words for allergies, medication, and snot-rag.