birthdays

Our miniature schnauzer, George, turned six yesterday.  Poor guy got more than he bargained for on his birthday:

I think he has a skin infection, because he's been scratching like there's no tomorrow.  He also likes to chew on his nails, so his very sharp nails have just torn apart all the skin on both his flanks.  I'm going to try a vinegar rinse in a few days, but I want the open wounds to heal first, hence his fancy new outfit (which he loves, by the way).

Sadly, vet care here is abysmal, so George is going to have to rely on my internet research to ease his itchiness.     

Speaking of birthdays, I celebrated my 28th about two weeks ago, and it was a much better birthday than the year before.  M gave me a coffee mug, O. made me a really sweet card and my good friend, Lauren, humbled me with a shout-out on her blog.  Not only did I get the undivided attention of my husband all night, our friends Lena and Omar and Brian and Nadine joined us for my birthday tradition, lemon cake (as baked by Joey - who also had an easier time than last year with the cake), and prosecco.  

It's my birthday, and I'll wear my comfy African pajama pants that make my ass look huge if I want to.

christmas

We celebrated Christmas a day early.  Saturday morning M., her daughter, O., and her husband, G., came over for breakfast and presents.  We devoured cheesy scrambled eggs, thick bacon and soft, gooey, Cinnabon-style cinnamon rolls that Joey and M. made from scratch with cappuccino and fresh-squeezed soursop juice.  Bellies full, we moved to the family room to open presents.

M. and O. loved their new outfits from Old Navy, and M. almost cried when she opened her new cookbooks.  She kept saying to G., "Do you know how expensive these are here?  I could open my own restaurant!"  G. was super excited about the movie tickets we bought him since he's never been to a movie before!  They wouldn't stop thanking us and repeating "God bless you."  It was pretty sweet, and truly our pleasure.

Not to be outdone, M. and G. and O. had presents for us too!  They had a dress made for me and a shirt from the same fabric for Joey.  Here we are modeling our new gifts.

I didn't want to post any photos of M., O. and G., just in case, so click here to see the rest of my Christmas photos.

Christmas Eve we went to Mass at the Embassy of the Holy See.  We've been avoiding churches all year because of this, so it felt really special to celebrate Mass for Christmas, even with the very loud, Nigerian baritone belting out carols from the pew behind us.

Sadly, many Nigerians did not share the same privilege on Christmas.  It certainly put a lot in perspective for me, as I moped around the house on Christmas, utterly depressed until I got a very close reminder how truly  lucky I am that the only cross I had to bear on Christmas was celebrating without my family.  It's a damn shame what happened here yesterday, and my heart goes out to all those families who lost loved ones.

a follow-up

The tailor of the confiscated fabric came over this weekend.  Let's call her B.  B. outsources embroidery to a different tailor whose workspace is located somewhere outside of Abuja.  Apparently the embroiderer set up in an illegal structure, so when the government came to tear down the shanty, they confiscated all of his fabric. 

What does it say about my life that after B. explained the story, I said, "Ooooh, that makes sense,"  because it totally did? 

Anyway, the two pieces B.'s working on for me needed some minor adjustments, so she's working on those.  I'll be sure to post my sweet new threads when they're finished.

things that make you go hmm

Our internet plan ran out today.  This happens about once a month, unless we download more than 5 GB of data.  But considering I'm trying download Picasa on our new laptop and the estimated time to download 76 MB is over one day (read: extremely.  painfully.  slow.), it's pretty hard to go through that much data.  Anyway, renewing the internet plan consists of counting out a little over $50 in little over $1 bills (the largest bill available the last time we got cash was 200 naira, which is about $1.25), walking down the dirt road to the shack built into the concrete wall, requesting "five - one five" cards and "one - five hundred" recharge card (because if you ask for 8000 they will tell you they don't have it), walking back down the dirt road and then scratching off each card (they look just like scratch-off lotto tickets) and entering each card's sixteen-digit code into the computer.  All for super-fast speed.  Or not...So that was my fun activity today.

Joey and I were invited to a wedding back in late August.  True to tradition here, we bought the fabric from the bride and contacted a tailor to make our outfits.  I ended up going home and missing the wedding, so the tailor only finished Joey's outfit.  We told her we'd pay her once my outfit was finished.  In October, when we still hadn't heard from the tailor, I called her and said I'd like to pay her for her work.  She told me she'd have everything finished within a week.  Today, the tailor called Joey.  She apologized for taking so long and told him that the government had seized my fabric.  She was too embarrassed to tell me before, but she'd gone to court and gotten it back, and assured him would have my outfit done by next week.  Um, ok?

On a different note, part of the reason I haven't been blogging is because I've been totally consumed by two major investment purchases.  First problem: a camera. Ever since Canon G11 v. African rain forest, I've needed a replacement.  (Lucky for me, my friend N. was generous and trusting enough to allow me to borrow her G11 for our trip to Cape Town.  I took good care of it.)  I figure now is as good an opportunity as any to upgrade to a D-SLR, but I cannot decide for the life of me what to buy.  Canon?  Nikon?  One of those new, slim, interchangeable lens cameras like a Pentax or Panasonic?  Do I buy the entry-level or shell out an extra $100 for the better entry-level model?  Or do I invest a little more so that in two years I don't need to replace this model?  Ugh.

Then there's the extra battery, the camera case, the memory card and the requisite waterproof camera for use when the humidity is above 10% because I'm a clumsy mess.  That's a good chunk of money.  My warranty should cover the rain-dominated G11, which I'm hoping is damaged beyond repair and will thus result in a new G12 that I can try to sell on Amazon or eBay and recoup some of the cost, but it's still a lot of money and so I want to make sure I'm making the right decision!  I have spent hours researching online and I'm pretty sure I'm even more confused than when I started.

Then lies the question of when I buy the camera(s).  Do I buy now during the post-Thanksgiving sales?  Or do I wait until after Christmas and risk the prices going up or the cameras going out of stock?  Dilemmas!

Problem number two: shoes.  We're planning a trip to Italy late January, and I don't have any good winter walking shoes and I can't decide what to buy.  Do I invest in a pair of leather riding boots?  I found a pair that  I love (Frye Melissa Button Boot - of course it doesn't hurt that the shoes have a great name - it's like a sign), but the soles are leather too and I'm worried about slipping and ending up on my butt (like Joey did yesterday when he fell in a manhole).  I'm also worried about wet weather ruining the leather, but the average precipitation is fairly low for January, and I'm sure I could buy a weather-proofing conditioner. Still, I don't want to invest in gorgeous leather boots only to have them ruined the first week.  

Then there's the issue of comfort - they're flat and have some measure of support, but they're not soft by any means.  And I'll be traipsing around cobblestone streets all day.

The worst part is that if I buy the boots, I have to break down and finally buy skinny jeans.  Ever since my charming husband helpfully told me in the dressing room of Banana Republic that, "those skinny jeans really emphasize your pear shape," I've had a hard time plunking down $100 bucks to emphasize my hips. Plus then I'd have to buy at least two pairs to justify the cost of the boots, and I've already tried ordering two different versions of the Levi's curvy skinny jeans.  This resulted in paying return shipping and being in an exceptionally bad mood all day.

So now I'm trying to decide if I should just buy the cute gray Converse wool sneakers and hope they'll be warm and supportive enough.  I mean, isn't it time for skinny jeans to go out of style already?   It's really quite the conundrum.

lagos

This post is three and a half months overdue.  We went to Lagos in beginning of March for a wedding and I never got around to blogging about it.  I took a ton of pictures and haven't posted those because I wanted to blog about the trip before I posted the pictures and then everything got away from me and here we are at the end of June and I'm getting caught up.  I figure I'd better write everything down now since we leave for an incredible vacation a week from tomorrow and by the time I get back any attempt to post such old stories will be completely futile.

I digress.  So we went to Lagos in early March.  Joey and I were both really excited to get out of Abuja - it was our first overnight trip away and everybody said Lagos, albeit crazy, was this great, fun and exciting place. We were also both so excited because we'd heard the Lagos Commissary had lots of good cheese and meat, so cooler in tow, we headed to the airport.

Our flight to Lagos was blissfully uneventful, and as soon as we got out of the airport I could feel a shift in energy.  Lagos already seemed so lively!  Like Abuja on steroids!  So many people, so many little houses and shops and buildings, all built on top of one another out of concrete and cardboard and tin roofs for miles and miles dotted with colorful umbrellas and bright yellow taxi buses - I've really never seen anything like it.  It was a lot more of the African chaos I'd imagined.  We drove past thousands of tin roofs until we came to a long bridge - and the ocean.  God I can't even tell you how seeing the water lifted my spirit.  Even amidst all the chaos that was Lagos, just the sight of the water made me instantly happier.  As we made our way along the bridge and I dreamily looked out over the water, Joey touched my arm.  I hadn't even noticed the view from the other side of the car:  the city had continued into the water; the shacks were on stilts!  The sight of the colorful floating houses and long wooden fishing boats in the haze of burning trash so foreign and so cool, I felt like we'd been transported beyond Nigeria, beyond Africa to somewhere truly exotic, like Bangkok or Mumbai.

Then we hit the traffic.  Everyone, from our steward to our peers to the driver to the Abuja airport, warned us how horrible traffic is in Lagos, but we figured nothing could be worse than the gridlock of DC.  Well we thought wrong.  Who would have guessed that at 10 am on a Thursday morning there'd be so many cars on the road?  Once we reached the other side of the big bridge, the car crawled at the most painfully slow pace for over an hour.  We eventually arrived at the Consulate, from where I hoped to be taken to our hotel.  I knew Joey had to work and I was perfectly happy going to the hotel and relaxing by the pool with a cocktail in one hand and book in the other.  Unfortunately it was still too early to check-in so I got to tag along with Joey.  Luckily it at least involved a boat ride, which felt amazing, but I was starving, tired, and felt bloated and greasy after the flight and just wanted to veg out.

A view of our hotel from the boat.

Finally we both headed back to the hotel where we'd been assured our rooms would be ready.  HAHAHAHAHA.  I mean I should have known after three months in Nigeria that just because someone tells you something is done or ready or taken care of doesn't mean it is and you'll have to ask at least fifteen more times to even get an answer and then wait even longer, but I was optimistic:  this was a different city which was supposed to be the hub of business in Nigeria and it was a brand-new Sheraton.  Anyway we got to the hotel and surprise!  No room.  After another thirty minutes of hemming and hawing and going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth at long last we were told we'd have a room.  Said room would be ready in an hour and why don't you head to the buffet in the meantime.  Buffet?  Well duh you could shut bitchy Melissa the hell up a long time ago if you'd mentioned her fat kid heaven earlier! 

Holy dessert table I didn't care when our room would be ready, I finally got to go to a restaurant that was cute, the food was continental-style and they even had an awesome salad bar and a chef preparing pasta dishes to order.  Sure it was $50 per person for a lunch buffet but we oohed and aahed over every single bite.  We even wondered why we hadn't bothered to eat at the hotels in Abuja.  What a difference a nice restaurant makes!

One food coma later we finally made our way to our room - it was gor- geous!  Huge windows, big bed, high ceilings, modern bathroom - and clean, too!  This was the start of a great weekend.  We relaxed for a while and then decided to scope out the rest of the hotel.  I wanted to see the pool where I planned spending all of Friday.  Enter major disappointment number 1:  not only was the entire pool area smaller than most people's driveways, but it was completely shaded and the pool was broken.  There goes my idyllic afternoon sipping Pina Coladas (not that I could order one of those here anyway - Pina what?). 

So I suggested we dive into the city.  Let's walk around, see some sights, take some pictures!  We're in a new place, let's explore!  Ahem, I'm informed by my lovely husband, walking around is probably not a good idea.  Additionally, we are banned from using any form of public transportation and the motorpool is restricted for official use during the workday.  And thus we were stuck in the hotel room until dinner unless we were willing to attempt a walk.  Well I didn't travel all that way and pay for a plane ticket to just sit around a hotel, so I decided to go for it.

About four blocks and one total-Melissa-freak-out later, we turned around.  With no sidewalks, no traffic laws, the craziest drivers in the world, a ton of people everywhere and no real map or landmarks by which to judge, I lost it.  Waaaay too overwhelming, and frankly, I was convinced if we kept walking one or both of us would be run over by a car or shanked.  So back to the hotel we went, and after several hours in a white room and temper-tantrum number two, motorpool picked us up for dinner.

The car dropped us off at Bottles, a highly recommended Mexican/Tex Mex restaurant.  What a difference two margaritas make.  And two margaritas that actually taste like margaritas!  My second margarita was even strawberry and blended!  It was amazing.  The food was pretty good too and it just felt great to go somewhere different whose proprietors understood ambiance and real cocktails and Mexican food.  I definitely had taken for granted the amazing Mexican food always available to me growing up in Iowa.

Friday Joey had to go to work again and I was left with absolutely nothing to do. So I got a manicure and pedicure in the morning and then sat in our white room.  All day.  Joey was supposed to be able to pick me up to visit a market but because of the traffic he wasn't able to get back in time.  So I watched TV.  At least the hotel had more channels than we do at home but most of them were Nigerian, which pretty much left me with CNN or BBC and unfortunately the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan the same day.  Obviously my problems pale in comparison to those poor souls and my heart goes out to them, but 24 hour coverage with the same five video clips is enough to make you go crazy.

Finally Joey returned and my dear husband, just like my father, manages to make friends wherever he goes. He'd made friends with another American guest at our hotel traveling with another government agency.  Joey's new friend invited us to check out the nearby "mall" with him, so we went and explored the African version of Walmart and a real grocery store.  Exhilirating.

A Chapman

Upon our return to the hotel we shared a drink with our new friend (he encouraged us to try "Chapmans," Nigerian's drink of choice, for the first time) before departing for a sushi dinner.  We were a little leary about ordering sushi in Nigeria, but we knew some people who'd ordered it before and figured we wouldn't be able to get it again for a long time so what the hell.  It was good!  The restaurant had a lovely ambiance too and the service was great!  It was nice to remember that such things still exist in the world.

The next morning was our last chance to see the market (or anything cultural for that matter).  The wedding didn't start until eleven and so we (I) planned to wake up early, go (drag Joey) to the market and then come back and get ready for the wedding.  But when we walked to the hotel parking lot motorpool wasn't there.  We called motorpool and they assured us a car would be there in half an hour - to take us to the wedding!  Apparently because the traffic is so bad we had to leave two hours before the wedding to make sure we got there on time! (Don't even get me started on the fact that the wedding invitation we received listed the wedding on Friday which is why we had plane tickets to Lagos on Thursday to return Saturday and we didn't find out until the day before we left that the wedding was actually on Saturday and we'd have to change our tickets to Sunday!)  So after temper-tantrum number four about having to leave home and the dogs to sit in a hotel room and not experience any culture, I pouted while we quickly changed into our new wine wedding wear and departed for the wedding.

Along the way to the wedding I saw a dead body on the side of the road.  At least I'm pretty sure it was a dead body.  I guess by that point it was more of a torso but it was black and kind of bloody and when I said, "Did you see that?" Joey didn't but another American going to the wedding did.  And when I said, "Was that what I think it was?  Please tell me that was a black deer."  He told me that it was not a deer.  Shudder.

I already blogged about the wedding a little - but to recap, the wedding was hot, but short and sweet, despite the sermon on how a wife needs to obey her husband.  And it started on time which was amazing.  All of the outfits and headresses were gorgeous and I even got to pose for pictures with babies (?).  The bride's family said they were really honored by our attendance and our outfits were a huge hit.

We proceeded to the reception which was totally decked out with fabric, a beautiful cake and even a costume change from the bride!  We witnessed some more of the fabulous aisle dancing that we first saw at the baptism, only this time it was a lot more people and hip hop.  Unfortunately we slid to the other end of the temperature spectrum when we sat directly in front of the air conditioner; I was so cold I had goosebumps.
By the time the reception reached full-swing, I was exhausted and felt sick (not sure if it was the sushi the night before, the new malaria medication, the drastic changes in temperature or a blood sugar thing from not being able to eat until the reception at 2 and then stuffing my face with rice), and quite relieved when we were informed it was time to go home.  On the way out, Joey and I received our party favor (tupperware, which Joey told the gift giver he wasn't interested in buying before realizing it was a gift) and purchased our paparazzi photo (random photographers show up at the ceremony, then develop their photos to sell at the reception).

Two hours and a car accident later (our driver took the car through some gulch full of other cars and cabs and minibuses and got side-swiped.  The other guy didn't even notice), and lots of praying that I wouldn't throw up on everyone in the car, we finally returned to the hotel.  Poor Joey had to get dinner with his new friend because I couldn't get out of bed and was relegated to several more hours of tsunami coverage.

Sunday we attempted to shop at the Commissary before our flight home, but after the traffic-filled drive there we discovered it was closed.  So empty cooler in tow, we made our way back to the airport.  Several hours and several delays later, none of which were announced (when Joey asked the airline agent about our flight status (no electronic boards here), he received her most incredulous look, like why in the world would the airline have that information?), we were finally back on a plane to Abuja.  Nothing like home sweet home.  I think.

So without further ado, here's the link to the rest of my pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/100586084762366858227/201103Lagos?authkey=Gv1sRgCLys3cik3ub5eg&feat=directlink

my husband is an accidental comedian

I'll start with today.  Joey had to go to the dentist.  This is what his pants looked like when he was done.

Joey also baked me a cake for my birthday.  He is a wonderful husband.  Not so much a wonderful baker.  Actually the cake tasted delicious.  It just didn't look so pretty.

You may recall my birthday post complaint about the lizard in my bathroom.  You may also recall one of my first posts here about the lizard in my bedroom.  A. The first lizard was significantly bigger than the lizard in this photo.  B. Joey laughed me out of the bedroom when I appeared with a cup, water bottle and piece of paper.  Note the large mixing bowl and pot lid he brought up to catch lizard #85.

Don't forget the file folder.  Makes all the difference in the world when catching lizards.  Also, don't mind my swimsuits.  They were drying.

My steward is hilarious as well.  The other day I came home and she had braided Moe's hair.  Moe, our so-ugly-he's-cute dog with a mohawk, now had a corn-row instead.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture.  I'm really hoping she'll do it again.  I still don't know how she got him to sit.


Her reaction to our new garbage can was also comedy gold.  After cleaning up one too many messes in the kitchen courtesy of our dogs, I ordered an infared garbage can. You wave your hand over it and it automatically opens.  No germs.  Wonderful.  Well our steward was beyond amazed.  "Wooooow!  Oh wow! You oyibos think of everything!"  Then she asked us if she could bring the neighboring steward over to see it.  Um, ok?


Finally, I believe this to be one of the funniest pictures I've taken since arriving in Nigeria.  Apparently, as the token white people at the wedding we attended, one of our roles including holding babies and posing for pictures.  This little guy was only ten months old.  As they shoved him into my arms, Joey exclaimed "He's adorable!" 

He got very concerned looks from the mother and grandmother.  "He's HORRIBLE?  O he said the baby was horrible-oh!"


"No!" said Mr. Comedian.  "I said he's adorable!"


Sighs of relief were breathed by all.  Except me.  Because I was still holding the very adorable, very heavy baby.

going to the chapel

Our appearance at the baptism on Sunday garnered us an invitation to a Nigerian wedding.  Which means I have to get a new dress.  Ordinarily a wedding invitation sparks the following conversation:

Melissa: “I need to get a new dress for that wedding.”

Joey: “You have thirty-eight dresses in your closet.  You do not need a new dress.”

Melissa: “No, this is an evening garden-party wedding and absolutely none of my dresses are evening garden-party appropriate.  I will look ridiculous if I do not get this $$$.$$ dress.  And, by the way, I certainly don’t have any evening garden-party shoes.”

Joey huffs and puffs and about blows the house down when he gets the bill but that’s beside the point.  The point is that right on this wedding invitation it says I need a new dress.   No argument.  And guess who else is getting a new outfit for the wedding?  The same person who calls weddings “dog and pony shows.” (Do you think our destination wedding had anything to do with that?  Not that our wedding was any less a “dog and pony show” but for its size.)  So in keeping with his theory, Nigerian weddings take it to a whole other level.  You don’t discern the guests by whether they sit on the bride’s side or the groom’s side in the church; you discern the guests by whether they’re wearing the bride’s color or the groom’s color.  And since we were invited by the bride, our color is wine.    Joey said the bride told him it would be okay if only I wore wine and he just wore a matching tie, but he told her he’d go all out, so this weekend we’re off to find some wine-colored fabric and have our outfits made. 

I know I don’t have any wine colored shoes.