Summer in our National Parks

Last fall I read a good book that I happened across on the PC bookshelf, Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress, a collection of essays by Susan James Gilman, a New Yorker with a deliciously insightful chip. One of her essays was about when she, as a teenager, discovered making out with boys. How do people work, or go to the bank, or even walk down the street when they could be making out with cute boys?—she opined. Yeah…

But to my point today, I’ve found national park jigsaw puzzles to complete on the internet. I do them to take little breaks from that crazy to-do list. Just now I put together the pieces of Tuolumne Meadow. The caption only said “Yosemite from the Tioga Road.” But some of us know its true name. And those of us would be park junkies. So my question is, “How do people work, or go to the bank, or even walk down the street when they could be visiting national parks?” And why would you visit them, when you could work at them and live that every day? And then go visit more of them because you have friends there? And what are those friends up to this summer, as we speak?

a. Dispatching rescue crews to lightning-struck climbers on the Grand Teton
b. Firefighting at the North Rim
c. Wrangling oil at Gulf Islands National Seashore
d. Overflight patrol in Denali
e. Researching and documenting historic fire lookouts in the Santa Monica Mountains
f. Playing in tidepools at the Redwoods
g. Continued excavation of Merritt Park at Manzanar
h. All of the above

Of course the answer is h. Yes, literally, that’s what my friends are reporting on facebook and other places. Never a dull moment in a National Park in the summer. Get thee to one immediately!

And thanks everybody for keeping us safe out there.

My To-Do List

I thought I would spend my summer getting out in the park. But between a month of solid rain and now the hot and humid weather, I haven’t been much in the mood. Mostly now it’s the thought of spending an hour and a half each way on a bus without air conditioning. And, too, I have plenty to do here in my home office. Here’s a sample of what I’m up to this week:

• Uncle Wiggley
o Find a name for the game in Romanian
o Finish the accompanying poster with images of the animals featured in the game
o Print samples of the cards and red and white card stock
• New Lessons
o Mapping lesson to be used with our table-top park model
o Oral history lesson, interviewing grandparents
• Junior Ranger
o Make some changes based on feedback, finalize
• See my friend Mary
o Tuesday game day with kids
o Thursday night bible study
o Connect her with Habitat for Humanity about flooded-out families down near Constanta
o Plan park trip with older kids
o Discuss donation for Matei
o Talk about when we want to go to Istanbul
• Work out details for Donna to make a donation to cover our co-pay for Matei’s new wheelchair
• Talk to Jared about trail markings in parks
• Find out from Luminita when we’re going camping in the Apuseni Mountains
• Send Misty a birthday card
• Clear out my email box
• Work on my social capital presentation
o Finish the book “John Dewey meets Ceausescu”
o Type up all my notes
o Organize the presentation
o Write a one-pager for Sheila
• GAD (Gender and Development committee, a Peace Corps initiative)
o Finish a draft of the GLOW/TOBE camp brochure
o Finish a draft of our 16 Days Campaign poster
o Print those and our draft nomination/certificate for Gender Role Model to take to MST
• Prep to go to MST, our mid-service training next month
• Pay 120 lei for six months more internet on Friday
• Walk around the lake, and meditate, every morning
• Go the piata for fruits and vegetables
• Go to Kaufland for groceries
• Have Mary and Steve over for nachos and peach crisp
• Photocopy chords from my guitar book for Daniel, one of our kids with an interest in the guitar

Yeah, don’t worry; I don’t expect to get all of that done this week. But like everything with planning, in my opinion: If I put it on the list, it may not get done; if I don’t put it on the list it will SURELY not get done. ---Oops, Mary just called and I think they want cobbler, not crisp. Hmm. And it’s going to be half apricots because my peaches are rotting faster than I can use them. I’m actually really enjoying the process of eating what is in season. Winter was a fun challenge of celery root and cabbage. But now, during our feast of summer’s bounty, we all go a little crazy. Really, I bought 7 pounds of tomatoes at the market and I’ve made salsa and pasta sauce.

I suppose there’s more to tell. I’ve got some good reading right now—another Orhan Pamuk. I went to Bucuresti last week and got to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant; they have amazing carnitas tacos, but I have to say, I like my pico de gallo better. I’m playing my guitar a little bit every day. One morning, walking around the lake, I watched a cormorant eat a frog, which nearly defies the laws of physics. The stork babies are now teenagers and often all stand up in the nest as we drive by. I usually start every morning boiling my coffee then boiling a pot of tea which I’ll drink iced all afternoon. I bought some Raid because Charlie, my friendly roach-like insect, appears to have had babies. Bought a pot and some potting soil so I can plant the cilantro seeds Aurelia bought me; she’s away now on vacation in Moldova visiting her family.

So I’m keeping busy and getting out. Nothing too exciting, but maybe that’s a good thing. It’s fire season back home; I’ve seen the pictures on facebook of a fire south of Mono Lake. Gotta keep those firefighters dirty. Maybe that’s it; I’m not accustomed to a drama-free July. On that note, I think I’ll enjoy my day of to-do lists and making cobbler. Drama will come again soon enough, it always does.

Rock Stars and Minor Saints

So I've gone on and on about my wonderful Aurelia. But I may not have mentioned that when she was in high school, back in the mid-nineties, she had a Peace Corps Volunteer as an English teacher in her small city in Moldova. She often has a nice story to tell about Mark and about the small light he shined into their little world, not really so long after the fall of Communism. Yesterday she was lamenting that she hadn't kept in touch with him. All of his students received a photograph of his wedding (yes of course to another PCV) about a year after he left, then not much more information.

As an aside, I'm at least the third PCV that Aurelia has tutored here in Tulcea, part of paying it back (certainly not for the small amount of money).

Yesterday Aurelia mentioned Mark again and her wish to somehow find him and find out what he is up to these days, this wonderful man who shared his gift of language and friendship with her. She also told me a wonderful story how friday class became music class when he started bringing his guitar and singing all kinds of songs: Goodnight Irene to Yellow Submarine. But she did not know how to spell or even maybe pronounce his last name and hadn't had any luck on the internet. I told her I'd give it a try, maybe having more access to returned PCV networks.

Oh, google. We found him. And he's a rock star. Sort of. In that way that any RPCV should aspire to. I'll let Aurelia take it from here. I'll send our fan letter to Pioneer Woman thanking her for the good she puts out in the world. And Aurelia will have the opportunity to come full circle with an important person from her past, and maybe make his day in the process.

Mark Sheehy, PCV Moldova, Rock Star and Minor Saint.

Back to the Beach

I’ve been in a funk now for about a month. More about that in a minute. For now, let’s say that I’m well on my way to recovery, or as is more realistic here, the upswing of the rollercoaster ride of Peace Corps service. I’ve meditated five mornings this past week; well, let’s just say sitting because my little mustang mind has galloped all over the inner prairie. But any sitting is progress. And this morning, after weeks of wishing it so, I actually hopped out of bed, put on some shoes and did a good morning walk around the lake. Note to self: with the rain gone and the temps rising 6 a.m. would be better than 7:30.

In addition to the regular course of a roller coaster, my improved spirits come from my friends. Mary is back from her daughter’s wonderful wedding in California. We had lunch yesterday and got caught up on all the important stuff. Also, can’t give enough credit to Aurelia. We’ve decided to write a fan letter to the Pioneer Woman.

And yesterday we went back to the beach. Maybe I mentioned before, Aurelia’s company does free bus trips sometimes (maybe once a month) for their employees. Yesterday we went to Mamaia, the beach down near Constanta, the same place she and I went on 4th of July. Did I mention that Aurelia’s husband, Gabi, is away for the summer? Each summer during his break from teaching, he goes to Norway to work. These days he gets up at 3 a.m. to deliver newspapers then goes to work at a turkey farm all day. Anyway, that’s why Aurelia has more free time to spend with me, and a free seat on her employee bus trips. So we got to the beach around 8:30 and it was already around 85 degrees. We immediately went in the water which was warm and calm. Really heavenly actually. The following pictures show how crowded it gets, but the water is absolutely fantastic—salty and with waves but less salty and calmer than the ocean.

Around 11, we packed up and put our clothes on and headed down to center Constanta. Aurelia remembered that the bookstore would be open today. When we were there before we tried to go to a bookstore written up as carrying books in English and French, but being Sunday it was closed. Yesterday was Saturday. Yay! And since we’re now old pros with Constanta and the city buses, we got there easily and had a great time. Alas, they no longer carry many English books, but Aurelia got a Jules Verne book in French. Ugh, could she be more brilliant? French too?! I found something too, a book for young people about the universe. The language is just about right for me, so I’ll give a crack at my first book in Romanian. Then we very smartly asked the bookstore woman for a lunch recommendation and she sent us around the corner for Turkish food. Again, YAY! We started out with a salad/spreadie thing and pita bread. The spread was a mashed up spicy mix of roasted peppers (probably multiple kinds), onions, garlic, some parsley and maybe oregano, and oil. Yummy. Called esme salad, we think. Then we had Izskander, I think. A main dish of meat, we think mutton, cooked in a spicy tomato brown sauce served over chopped up bread with yogurt on the side. Heavenly although much too much since it was quite rich. With a couple of tomato slices on top and a thin green mildly spicy pepper to crunch on. We made our way back to the beach for the afternoon go-around and lucked out to find a nice spot under some trees to set up. We both spent more time in the water and time being incredibly lazy. But doing it outside so it doesn’t count as lazy. Our bus left at 6, at which point the temperature was still around 95. On the way home, since the air conditioner wasn’t working, the driver opened the back door of the bus which was great, but people complained about the curent. We HATE a breeze here. So he closed the door, then opened the door, then… You see. I was browsing through my new book and came to a section where they talk about temperature. The highest temperature ever recorded was in Libya in 1922. I actually knew that statistic having lived in Death Valley. But I joked to Aurelia that that was no longer true: the highest temperature ever recorded was in a bus in Constanta in 2010. Anyway, we made it home and I loaned my big scarf to a woman and her daughter who were afraid of the curent. My good deed for the day. And another wonderful day. I mean being out in that water was JUST GREAT.

In other news, more salsa—can’t get enough. I think I jumped the gun a little on watermelon. It’s good, and I’m so happy to have it. But I think it maybe isn’t quite season. I’ll know it’s time when the man is on the corner with his little wagon-load. Went to the office on Thursday and presented my director with my progress on the board game for little kids. He was excited about it, or feigned excitement which is good enough for me. He had some ideas, which I’ll follow up on. Now it’s hotter and still humid, so I did turn on my air conditioner a couple of times when Aurelia came for tutoring. Usually I’m ok with the fan. I’m afraid to use the AC because of the perceived expense but one of my neighbors told me they don’t use much electricity and I should use it whenever I want. We’ll see. Courtney’s coming at the end of the week and I don’t mind using it for company.Again, YAY! Courtney’s coming. I go to Bucuresti on Thursday for my annual physical and we meet up there. Then she’ll come here for maybe a week. My goal is to take her around my communities with her camera. She’s a great photographer. Then we’ll have some fun, with luck get out to the delta. Or to the beach. The only downside to our timing is that I’d love Courtney to meet Aurelia but Aurelia starts vacation after work this Friday and is heading home to see family in Moldova. She’ll be gone a couple of weeks I guess. She had wanted to try to go to Norway to see Gabi but he’s working constantly these days.

No word yet on whether he will be offered a permanent job up there. He wouldn’t mind it, and I’m sure Aurelia could find something. This the face of immigration as I know it here. Many Romanians, especially now in the terribly debilitating financial crisis, have gone abroad to find work in places like Spain, Italy, and England, and in Gabi’s case, Norway. Gabi and Aurelia are well educated, employed, highly talented people, who are having trouble staying in Romania. With all government salaries, including teachers, now cut 25% this year with no improvement in sight, even more people are looking outside of Romania, despite the fact that they are treated very poorly in these other countries. I think that’s why Gabi likes Norway—they are not discriminatory. Although I imagine Gabi busts his ass, and he’s a really nice guy. Anyway, we’ll see what happens with his work.

Oh, and I said I’d talk about my funk. But I don’t know what to say about it. The one good thing is that I’m normally so hyper-productive that even when I’m at half or quarter-speed, most people can’t tell. Also, I did feel very Romanian. Oh, I have low level chronic ennui; my integration is complete! Alas, I suppose I am given to occasional bouts of melancholy. Me and Ed Abbey. I take it all so hard, this little life. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I’m not worried about it. I was really sad to come back from vacation and it took a little while to get back to reality. Back to the beach. Some generalities about Romanian beach life: women of all ages sometimes are topless, young children are usually naked, men of any belly size generally wear speedo-style suits, young couples make out in the water just like on park benches in the cities, people are generally very polite so the intense overcrowding works just fine, little planes fly overhead with banners here too, ice cream is overpriced but we buy it anyway.Above, a scene from our bus ride--windmills and sunflowers; below, my gloxinia is treating me to a show.

Slow Week in Tulcea

Wish I had an adventure to recount or even some less-than-pithy insight to share with you, but hard as I try, I can't really muster anything, so I'll ramble a little. It's been raining a lot. I've been inside a lot. I've been too lazy and have been feeling too sorry for myself lately. It somehow reminds me of my later life in my Brooklyn apartment knowing I had stayed to long and not knowing what to do about it. Wondering about the other roads I could be on.

Fortunately, I've gotten better at arming myself with good resources, and I read this in my latest Tricycle magazine: "The unequivocal resolve not to move away from where we are is essential. Once we abandon the belief that there is a more spiritually useful moment than the one we are in, we have embraced our life and infused it with the energy for awakening." Think about this: spiritually useful moment. Not fun or materially- or ego-rewarding. Spiritually useful. Can't argue with that one.

In spite of myself, I'm getting stuff done. Made a lot of progress on my rip-off of Uncle Wiggley for kids around my park. Aurelia and I have had fun with local animal characters. I'm progressing on my social capital project. I'm ashamedly not doing anything with the oral history project, despite the generosity of friends and family on that front. I have some good leads, thanks to extended National Park Service connections, for my university woman on rangeland management. I'm trying to hook her up with a like university in the states, and I hope to talk to her more about this when I go camping with her family in the big mountains later this summer. And today I sewed some decorative bling on a second-hand dress I bought recently.

Summer has arrived in my kitchen with salsa taking a leading role. Despite our lack of cilantro, I do pretty well with tomatoes, white onions, parsley, mildly spicy peppers, and a kick from my jarred Hungarian pepper paste. I can get pretty darn delish chips at Kauflands and I had a little feast on Saturday. Bought 2 kilos (4.4 pounds) of tomatoes at the piata today to start all over again. Also bought my first watermelon today. I followed some recently-obtained-inside-scoopage and looked for one that was heavy for its size and had a nice "field spot." Worked well, it's good. And as I write I've got sweet potatoes on to boil. From the USA, found at Kaufland. And when my friend Mary gets home from vacation (which I hope is soon!), I owe her some stuffed peppers, which ranks even higher than mici in my book.

And a few notes from facebook:

I'm thinking it's my mission to bring cornhole to Romania.

Can't help it...my Americanness is slipping out. Gas money and the ability to spend it must be the most wonderful invention of all time. Oh, the open road, mi-e dor de tine! (Put down the Kerouac and step away from the Tom Russell, you Brooklyn Cowgirl, you).

Spending my rainy saturday with The Brothers Karamazov and a pot of russian tea.

The sun is shining, the rooster is crowing, the dogs are barking, the oriole is singing in the big willow tree out back, the kids are playing soccer in the schoolyard, I smell something meaty and delicious cooking from outside, and it's raining. All at the same time. This seems to be Romania summer this year. Oh, and I'm looking at furniture on the internet, plotting my return to capitalism.

Today (July 12th) I remember the blackberries. And my infinite gratitude.

*******************
Here's my guy, out singing (and dancing) in the rain.And here's the Capitalist's bed. Nice, huh?

Hey Baby, It's the 4th of July

In lieu of dance, pancake breakfast, 5K, parade with military overflight, pie social, art-in-the-park, bbq with Rose's beans, and fireworks--which one would find in my old hometown of Independence, CA--I spent my Romanian 4th of July hitting the big town of Constanta with my favorite non-American in Romania, Aurelia.

Constanta's about a 2.5 hour bus ride south of here on the Black Sea. We started with the centru, the center of town. We visited the museum of history and archeology, walked past an interesting aquarium and an anticlimactic lighthouse, ate as American a lunch as I could muster (with mustard), and climbed the minaret of the most important mosque in Romania. Then we took a bus up to Mamaia, really northern suburban Constanta, with its noted beaches. We didn't stay too long at the beach because it was kind of late already, and--oh--it started raining. That was actually cool, because the beach (wall to wall plastic lounge chairs) emptied out immediately. Alas, it was in fact raining. The water wasn't too cold and the surf is very gentle. Maybe another time. Then home on the bus and wishing tomorrow wasn't Monday. That's right--no holiday here. But today was wonderful.Mici--hot dog, hamburger, italian sausage all rolled into one. Let's just say, we WISH we had invented mici.Inside the museum where, alas, they still believe more is more. Above, aquarium. Below, the mosque. Aurelia and I up near the top of the minaret, enjoying a nice breeze.Two views from the minaret (which, by the way, had 140 steps). Above, Piata Ovidiu, named for the poet Ovid who is buried under his statue in the middle of the frame. Museum to the left of Ovid. Below, the Constanta waterfront.I don't know; Romania makes a pretty good donut. And one more in the category of YCMTSU*, seen on the Constanta city bus.


Even though I discovered this song my first summer in Boston, it reminds me of 4th of July in NYC where the whole city empties out for the holiday except for those Loisaida punks down blowing up the streets, and us on the roof drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

*You can't make this s...stuff up.

Crunchy, Grainy Goodness

It's not too hot here yet, but it seems like a good time to break out the summer salad-making. Here's my latest recipe--not really Romanian, but using healthy available ingredients. And a new siting at the piata--yellow snap beans. Lots of substitutions can be made, but here's the basic idea.

Lots of grains. I'm using barley, brown rice, and buckwheat.
Lentils. I'm using green lentils because they hold their shape and are readily available here.
Vinaigrette. I use olive oil and cider vinegar, but lemon juice would be good too.
Herbs. I use dill and flat-leaf parsley, lots.
Vegetables. I'm using chopped green onions and blanched yellow beans, chopped small. Cucumbers would also be good, peppers, carrots, fresh blanched peas--anything crispy.

I cook the barley and brown rice for twenty minutes then add the lentils for another twenty minutes in salted water. At the end, I add the buckwheat for just a few minutes. Drain. Cool. Add stuff. Play until it tastes good. I also think it would be good with fruit, maybe sliced red grapes. Good side dish for a bbq, or dinner all by itself to us aspiring vegetarians. Mmm, serve it with a nice tomato and mozzerella salad.

The buckwheat is something Aurelia first gave me because it is very popular in Moldova and Ukraine. It is known here as hrisca. I like it because it's so easy to cook, but it also goes very nicely in this salad with the other grains. In other food news, the loveliness of summer is upon us with lots in season. Ate myself silly on sweet cherries last week, but this week they are gone and we only had sour cherries at the piata. I'm not in the mood for pie, so I skipped them. Also, ice cream is back in season, and strolling ice cream works just as well in one's own town. Yes, we have an ice cream season. Unlike Alaska, Romanians only want to eat ice cream in hot weather. And I had a good melon the other day, a small yellow one. Waiting with impatience for the beginning of watermelon season. When that's in season, I can eat a whole watermelon every day. Without the help of my cat*.

*For those of you Trent Harris fans, both of you.