Too stressed to focus

otherwise known as Attack of the Monkey Mind. What, never heard of a Monkey Mind? It's a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable"

Yup, that's me. We are SO close to being done, and yet still so far away. Instead of focusing on one thing at a time my head is ALL over the place. Result: I'm getting nothing done.

So here goes a brain dump. Hopefully a little word therapy will help me settle my thoughts. And if doesn't, expect to see another post today.

Cheers!

Signs this move is making me crazy

I look at a Franzia box and think, "Good box, wonder what I can put in it"

I order items from amazon on two different days so two more boxes will come in the mail

I have a favorite brand of packing tape

I have a favorite tape gun

I call going on errands with friends "girls night out" because I don't have any time between now and when I actually leave to have a girls night out. 

To be continued.... 

I ♥ twitter

Tweeting in 2009

Ok, so this post isn't really move related, but it kinda sorta is. I ♥ twitter and I have since I moved to Lawrence, Kansas in 2008. We rented a place for 3 months about 10 miles out of town. Since it was a short term rental we didn't want to put money down for a permanent internet solution. I figured I'd just drive into town whenever I needed internet access. After all, I had an IPHONE (cue the ooh, ahh), why did I need internet access at home?

Um, yeah. This was 2008 and there weren't many mobile-optimized sites back then. But there was this really cool really awesome way to keep in touch with people and make new friends in my new home and I could do it totally via text message. Voila, it's Twitter!

What? Twitter has SMS commands? Why yes, it does ☺Here's a handy dandy list. You're welcome.

So, follow me on twitter. When I get Suva it's probably the only social media I'll be engaging with until I get settled in. It'll probably be light on the photos but high on entries, because I tweet. A lot. Follow @amerikag

Cilantro

This is Cilantro. It's awesome stuff. (If you don't think it is, it's probably 'cause of your genes. But I digress.)

This is Cilantro

Cilantro

This is flat leaf parsley:

Flat Leaf Parsley

Except for a year as an exchange student (I'll link to those stories once I write them) I lived in Texas from birth until 2003. In 2003 I ended up in North East Tennessee and suddenly couldn't find any of the groceries I was looking for. I was fairly adept at hunting down Indian groceries (another story I'll link to once I get it told) and all those skills came into play in Johnson City, TN when I needed to find the ingredients for the wonderful Tex Mex I was raised on.

I knew it was going to be an interesting place to live when I walked into the Ingles grocery store,

now that's "Een-gulls," not "Een-GLESS" and tried to find cilantro in the produce section. The stocker gave me the most confused look, said he'd never heard of it. I showed him the label on the bin in the produce section and he dutifully went into the back.... and came back with flat leaf parsley.

We eventually did find our places to get Indian groceries and cilantro and make-your-belly-happy menudo (the soup, not the boy band) but along the way we discovered some yummy foods and sometimes interesting foods like Bojangles bo-berry biscuits and Dr. Enuf. I'm wondering what foods will be a challenge to find after this move and what gastronomic adventures lie ahead.

Oh, and I'm looking for a good recipe for dalo aka taro. I figure any dish that's a food staple in African, Oceanic and South Indian cultures and is believed to have been one of the earliest cultivated plants has got to be delicious in some form. I just haven't found it yet.

taro

Update Saturday, August 9, 2014

Cilantro is $1FJ/bunch at the market here. At today's rate that's about 54 US cents. I think I'm going to like it here. 

 

UXO

Taking a boob tube break from packing, we came across a show about the islands of the South Pacific. The narrator mentioned that Solomon Islands were the site of intense fighting during WWII and hub casually mentions that one of the big tasks with the new campus is that they have to have unexploded ordnance aka UXO cleared from the site of the campus.

Quick google search turned up some interesting reads about past UXO removals:

Solomon Islands and issue of unexploded ordnance (UXO) from WWII

COMPLETION-MUNDA AIRPORT, SOLOMON ISLANDS – UXO CONSULTING

Navy Clearance Divers Mentor Royal Solomon Islands Police In Explosive Ordnance Disposal

Australian Clearance Divers clean up unexploded ordnance in the Solomon Islands

I'm gobsmacked. Here's one quote that I just can't get over:

“Many of the UXOs had to be destroyed in situ as they were too dangerous to move. In one case a village had to be evacuated while a naval shell was rendered safe with a carefully placed shaped charge. The fuse of the shell in question was in such an unstable state that the slightest nudge could still have set it off."

72 years later and this is still live ordnance. Wow.

It looks like this move and this job isn't going to be anything like the others. 

Oops. That awkward moment experienced while packing

In Tennessee I stepped in a bucket of blue paint. Superman blue to be exact.  Turns out paint cans are not good substitutes for step stools.

Today I balanced a cup of coffee on top of a stack of boxes. That didn't work out so well :/

But it makes for a funny story.  And blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves for we shall never cease to be amused.

Ghosts

After every move one of my guys will ask me where an item is. I can see ever so clearly where it is.... In the old place.  Occasionally I'll need an item at the store and I'll remember which aisle it's in, but that store is in a different state. Lately I've been seeing my dog out of the corner of my eye or I'll go into rooms wondering where he is even though he made his last visit to the vet weeks ago. 

As we pack up everything we own in preparation for this move I keep wondering what ghosts will follow me on this next trip.  New York is so different from Suva.

You should write a blog

People keep telling me I should write a blog.

So I started a blog.

 Here's me before I ever went online: