No Tickey-No Laundry

The majority of travel bloggers will tell you about the glamour of travel. Multi-star restaurants, spas, wine tours, nightlife. Others will highlight the free stuff. Churches you can tour without a guide, opera houses with midweek freebies, petting zoos for the kiddos. None of them ever mention the ugly, fatty underbelly of travel. For some, this means a city without Uber. For others, it might be an airport without a luxury lounge. For the solo-budget-conscious-multi-week-hump-it-in-hump-it-out-catch-a-daily-workout traveler, it's laundry.

Yes, laundry. Let me tell you how quickly one person can run through underwear. Ok, let me not. It's not pretty. Even in Scandinavia in the late winter. I can only imagine traveling in a sweaty climate at a sweaty time of year. It's production would be terrifyingly exponential.

I can hear the objections now -

• Pack more? If it doesn't fit on my back it doesn't travel. Given that there's only so much room in my bag (my only concessions to space are for my running shoes and running clothes) and I have to wear more than underwear, bras, and socks... I'll let you do the math. I usually pack enough for a week and I usually run out around Day 6. 
• Buy more? I don't know about other places, but everything is expensive in Scandinavia. Including bras and panties. Not saying I haven't bought new on previous trips when I got monumentally sick of living in a Chinese laundry (more on that...) but I'm determined not to go over-budget this time. And barely a week in, I can already see it on the horizon. Yes, I'll pay any amount of money for a guided run through a new city......even if it means eating at 7-11 while wearing dirty underwear. 
• Wear them inside out? No. Just no. Not that I haven't by accident. You get dressed in a windowless hotel room and see if you can get it right. 
• Go to a laundromat? Since they are pretty much non-existent in Sweden, I actually considered finding one before I left Copenhagen. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon one while walking the streets of Vesterboro. Let me tell you, even something as simple a washing machine becomes mind-numbingly complex in Danish. For reference, a couple days later, in Sweden, I struggled to determine if a bottle was laundry detergent or fabric softener and I can read a modicum of Swedish (For the record, I'm making the fabric softener work).  There was no way I was going to successfully launder anything if it meant doing it in Danish. And cash. I'm pretty sure I was going to need some and I seldom carry it abroad. Why? So until I traveled, I never understood why the non-English speaking customers at The World's Largest Home Improvement Retailer where I work invariably pay for even the smallest purchases in $100 bills. First, you don't have to understand the amount the cashier tells you. Just hand over the big bill and trust him/her to give you the correct change. Second, foreign money can be a mind-fuck unless you pay super close attention. Thus, I love and rely exclusively on my MasterCard. From what I could tell, the laundromat was cash-only. Of course everything was in Danish so I could be wrong. 
• Find someone pretty and act helpless until she/he does it for me? You've met me, right? 
• Use the hotel laundry service? One, I don't stay at the kind of hotels that offer laundry service. Two, even if I did, I couldn't/wouldn't squeeze it into the budget. If I can't afford new, I can't afford to have someone wash the dirty, old stuff for me.

Thanks to one fortuitous tennis weekend when I roomed with a friend who had been in the Peace Corps, I learned how to do laundry in a hotel room. Wash in sink, ring out, hang over shower curtain rod. Easy, right? Except when your hotel room bathroom is smaller than a closet and lacks a shower curtain rod (my current shower curtain runs in a track along the ceiling). This set-up is common in the European budget hotels I usually stay in. Yesterday, as I was contemplating hitting up a Clas-Ohlson (a home improvement-type store in Sweden) for a some clothes line and clothes pins, I saw it snaking down the wall in the bathroom - a towel warmer. Hey, Scandinavia is cold. Can't put a price on a warm towel. Or, as luck would have it, dry laundry.

So, I skipped the hardware store and headed to a grocery store to find laundry detergent. I wanted a bottle of something small and cheap that would be easy enough to transport city to city. Because of the tiny and somewhat blurred writing on the bottles and my inherent laziness (in my defense, it was late in the day on a travel day), I didn't bother with Google Translate to determine exactly what I was buying. I twisted off the cap and took a whiff. It smelled good enough, especially since the price was well within budget. Ok, turns out it's fabric softener and not detergent. Last night, I rationalized in my exhaustion that my unmentionables would at least soft and smell decent. This morning, after a good night's sleep, I washed a "load" - a long sleeve base layer and a pair of panties - in body wash then used the fabric softener. Boom! Clean and soft. You won't read that kind of advice in your typical travel blog. 

Because I seem to produce it as fast as I can wash it and dry it, I'll be running a Chinese laundry out of my bathroom for the remaining ten days of my vacation. Not even a week in and the glamour is already gone. Not that there was much to begin with. 

***  I thought maybe my reference to a Chinese laundry might be less than inclusive so I checked with Google. The entire first page was about a brand of women's shoes and a nightclub in Sydney. Moreover, according to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase " No tickey, no laundry" is a catchphrase in Northern NY meaning that commitment is preferred over a one-night stand. Yeah, I think I'm ok. ***

Now Serving Tribe, Party of One (original post Dec 2017)

 My very first first day of school, I went alone. No mom, no dad, just me. At the time, I guess, I didn’t think myself weird or even independent. It’s just what I wanted to do. And my mom let me. With a full forty-three years of perspective since that day, I realize that it couldn’t have been easy for her. I can’t recall if I took the bus or she dropped me off. For the record, I was the only lone wolf that day. Everyone else had a mom fawning over them (maybe a few dads were fawning but we are talking the early 70s so I’m skeptical) and drying tears. It wasn’t a seamless plan on my part. Teachers don’t pay attention to kids sans parents on the first day of kindergarten. Lost in the shuffle, I sat down on my lunch box (I think it was the Partridge Family – early 70s, remember?), elbow on knee, chin on fist, and waited. Before too long, someone noticed me.

Mom probably got judged pretty harshly for placating such independence in a five year old, but, man, that day was seminal in my early childhood development. It was the first time in my life that I knew I was different. Ok, strange. It was the first time I knew I was strange. And I assure you, it wasn’t the last. And believe me, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s not that I don’t care what other people think. I do. I am human after all, and while I doubt that it’s exclusive to humanity, there is something to be said for giving a crap about how you interact with others. Maybe that makes me even stranger. I dunno. My goal is to be unobtrusive and polite. Always. This means that even though my hair might be askew, I’ll still have good personal hygiene. It also means that even if someone frowns or gets pissy, I’m still going to smile and say excuse me. You can ask me if you’re in the correct restroom (which – let’s be honest – is your way of asking me if I am) and I will nod and smile to acknowledge that you indeed are in the right place all the while swallowing and shouldering your close-minded assumptions about where I fall on the gender role spectrum.

And here we come to the crux of it, don’t we? The expectations that others have of me – and the roles they expect me to play – mean absolutely nothing. Think I’m strange? Different? Odd? Abnormal? Think I should be something or someone other than who I am? Keep on, keepin’ on because after nearly forty-nine years of riding this path, I’ve got this old saddle pretty worn in. It’s not that I’m impervious. It’s not always easy being the square peg in a world of round holes and sometimes I wish I could be more like everyone else. Occasionally I even wish I had a tribe.

Ponder for a moment what that tribe would look like. Too straight to be gay but too gay to be straight; too atheist to be spiritual but too spiritual to be atheist; too feminine to be masculine but too masculine to be feminine; too poor to be wealthy but too wealthy to be poor; too fit to be unfit but too unfit to be fit; too goal directed to be so unaccomplished but too accomplished to be non-goal-directed; too moderate to be fanatical but too fanatical about moderation to be moderate?

Eh, who needs a tribe anyway? Besides, if I had one, I’d no longer be different and that is totally unacceptable. I can’t imagine looking around and seeing carbon copies of myself. Even if the carbon had slipped a little and the copies were imperfect, I’d still end up feeling nauseous.

Here’s the thing, though, I don’t try any of this. Much like that first day of kindergarten, I just do what I do. I am who I am. Exclusively. It just so happens that at every single turn and blind curve, I end up being different. I’m used to it and, thankfully, ok with it.

I know others who are not. When they’re different, they feel like a stranger in a strange land – self-conscious, apprehensive, out of sorts. They retreat until they can put on the right shoes and fix their make-up. Well, that or they scurry back to the insulated safety of their own tribe.

I was speaking to a friend recently about my desire to leave the U.S. and live abroad. She’s originally from Argentina but has lived in America for more than a decade. As she prepares to return “home” for the Christmas holidays, she feels a bit apprehensive. After so many years away, she no longer feels completely Argentinian – in many ways, she’s become too American – however, she feels too Argentinian to be American. She is stuck somewhere in the middle – neither truly Argentinian nor truly American. Her caution to me was that one day I may find that I don’t fit anywhere. Too Swedish to be American, but too American too be Swedish, for example.

But isn’t that where I’ve always lived? Somewhere in the middle? Too much of one to be another and too much of another to be one? Take right now. I’ve lived in Texas almost fifteen years and yet I don’t feel Texan. I was born and raised in Southern California – lived there for 23 years – but I’ve been gone so long that I no longer feel native. I’m no longer from there. So if I’m not from Texas and I’m not from California, where am I from? Nowhere or everywhere, actually. Call it Differentville, USA.

What my friend doesn’t understand about me – not that she wouldn’t if I explained it to her – is that I have spent my entire life being a stranger in a strange land. While we often say, in a perfunctory  manner for the most part, that each experience of our lives leads us to the place we currently stand, I believe this to be absolutely true for me. Forty-eight years of different and not quite fitting in give me a strength few possess. I haven’t fit in San Diego, LA, Manhattan, Kansas, Muskegon, Michigan, Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas, or Austin, so whether I move to Las Vegas, Olympia, Washington, Stockholm, Prague, or London, I’m going to be odd. And I’m not going to find my tribe.

The great thing is (most people say it with a ground swell of derision but not me) wherever I go, there I am – different as all get-up and stronger for it. Oh, I may sit on my lunch box, elbow on knee, chin on fist, for a minute while I organize the chaos and find my bearings (wherever I go, I am still an introverted mess), but once I stand, look out.

Now serving Tribe Party of One. 

Valentina (original post Sept 2016)

I spent the last week on a farm-cation, a fancy way of saying I helped a friend on her alpaca farm. She billed it as a 'writing with the alpacas vacation' and I bit. What could be better? A week on a scenic farm in Western Washington where the weather promised to be a lot cooler than in central Texas? The decision was easy. I didn't even care that I might have to do some 'farm work' around the writing and researching I planned to focus on.

What I didn't count on was Valentina.

She was about two and a half weeks old when I met her and three weeks, two days old when I had to say good bye. I knew her a sum total of seven days. That's it. And she completely changed the way I view my life and my survival.

Valentina was born with a nasal abnormality that affected ability to breathe and eat. As alpacas breathe almost exclusively through their noses and only use their mouths when agitated or excited, Valentina's prognosis from the beginning wasn't very good. She struggled from her first breath to her last.

But even though life was tough, she seemed to enjoy the short life she had. Valentina loved cool evenings, a big green pasture, and the feel of the sun on her face. When she felt well enough, she also loved to run. Back and forth, back and forth across the pasture.

The vet told us, when we were trying to decide her fate, that all animals have an undeniable desire to live. They don't know anything different. They will struggle and fight until the very end. It's how they are wired. Humans, I guess (ok, I know), are wired a bit differently. When the going gets tough, we (well, some of us) are tempted to give up the fight, sorely tempted. I know this...because I've been there. I've nearly given up. I have.

In the end, the decision had to be made to stop Valentina's suffering. She lost consciousness once and we thought she was gone. After weeping our goodbyes, she hopped up and proved us wrong. The vet, though, said it was the beginning of what would become a horrible path. My friend, her owner, chose to end Valentina's struggle. It seemed the most humane thing to do. We couldn't be there 24/7 and we didn't want her to die alone in the pasture. She left this world with gentle hands upon her and loving words in her ears.

As an atheist, I don't know where the good little alpacas go when they die, but I'd really like to believe that Valentina is running through a sunny, green pasture somewhere with a fully functioning nose. But even if there is no heaven for baby alpacas, she will live with me and I will never forget what she taught me.

1. Run, even if you don't feel perfect.

2. Enjoy the warmth of the sun every chance you get.

and

3. Struggle and fight for life like it's all you know.

It wasn't exactly what I expected I'd get out of my farm-cation. Not even close. And even though, the week ended on a sad note, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

A little while is always better than no while at all. Always.