"Zeeee" said the woman (9/24/2018)

“Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee” spoke the woman in a low, somewhat low husky but hushed voice to me. The owner of the restaurant asked me: “Can I buy it from you?” What the heck was going on? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

I was in Blacksburg this week; home of Virginia Tech. I was teaching two different inspector classes and as usual consulted Yelp for a place to go out for dinner. I have found Yelp to be a fairly reliable travel companion when it comes to finding good to sometimes even funky places to eat. Well, when Yelp told me there was a Tibetan restaurant nearby called Himalayan Curry Café that has four and a half stars, this former dweller of the Himalayan Mountains had to go and try it out.

As my regular readers know, my wife and I lived in Nepal for about a year and a half. My job took me up on the Tibetan Plateau of the Mustang district at regular intervals. I have written about my wonderful encounter with a Tibetan scholar/Lama and about my experience getting dehydrated in a snowstorm at 12,000 feet elevation. There are many more stories I can tell from being up there. I sometimes feel that his blog is turning out to become somewhat of my personal memoire, combined with observations of current events and some of the more natural things around us.

Getting back to the story. When I got to the restaurant, it was obvious a place for a university crowd. A cut above one of those take-out Chinese restaurants that your see in every strip mall, but less than a regular Indian restaurant. You either get takeout, or they end up serving your food on styrofoam plates and you eat it with plastic utensils. To me, the menu looked very Indian; however, in fine-print on the side were some Tibetan dishes which immediately caught my attention. I ordered momos, a dish of Tibetan steamed dumplings; lentil soup; and a samosa (yes that was Indian). While paying, I asked the proprietor if he was from Nepal. “No” he answered, “we are from Tibet.” We made a little additional small talk and that was it. 

With the lentil soup finished it was time to attack the momos.  The black sauce is a hot chili sauce which is very good.

All dishes were out-of-this-world delish (later, I rated the restaurant a five star on Yelp). The momos were filled with beef, in Mustang mine were filled with Yak meat or mutton, but boy did I recognize the taste. Tibetans are Buddhist and they will eat beef (or cows) unlike the Hindus, for whom the cows are considered holy. I remember so well being with the Buddhist population and Tibetan ethnic groups in Nepal; they are so very different than the Hindu population of the lowlands. One of the more interesting memories is that of sleeping with an entire family unit in their home during a very cold evening. I was taking a visiting scientist around the districts I was working in. Everyone on mats on the floor, of course, with their head towards a central fire. In the beginning I was somewhat distrustful, but that was completely baseless. When we woke up in the morning, the first thing that happened was the passing around of a cup of warmed up peach brandy. This brandy was distilled at an agricultural experiment station nearby. After that the lady house started making the famous butter tea, made from tea leaves, yak butter, boiling water and salt (an acquired taste for sure). Memories of a night and early morning I will always carry with me. 

The one time we visited the area we landed smack in the middle of a Buddhist ceremony.  Here monks are tooting their long horns in a procession.

Another picture of the ceremony male and female monks in the ceremony while the villagers are looking on.

But I digress again. After finishing my dinner, it was time to leave and I walked over to the trash bins to deposit my dirty plates and dinnerware. In the meantime, a Tibetan couple had come in and sat down in the far corner and the owner of the restaurant had joined them and they were talking. I waved at them and the owner asked me if I enjoyed my food. I told him I did and decided to walk over and show them the ring I bought from a Tibetan gentleman when I was in Nepal some 35 years ago and that I wear on my right hand. The instance the lady of the couple saw my ring she hissed those words to me: “Zeeee, zeeee, zeeee.” We knew the stone in the ring was a Z-stone, but her reaction was amazing, and it was the first time I had an independent confirmation. 

Here it is, the ring I wear every day with the Z-stone.

The lady continued: “That is a precious stone.” This was where the restaurant owner asked me if he could buy the ring from me. The lady’s husband chimed in telling me that a Z-stone gives the wearer power and the bigger the stone the more power it has. According to the owner, the power flows from the shoulder to the hand and goes “pow.” It seemed none of them had a Z-stone and it is very desirable in their culture, because it gives you power and fends off evil. We talked a bit more about things. It seems that I met all the Tibetans in Blacksburg that evening; a fun, interesting and delicious evening indeed. A wonderful throw back to a time 35 years ago, but still fresh in my memory.

Some of the things you can only remember when you travel.  To quote Mohammed: "Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled."

Meditation and frogs (9/16/2018)

Living next to a nature preserve, a natural area, woods, or whatever you want to call it, has its positive points and negatives. For one, we will never have any development behind our home. Secondly, I have a place to practice my forest bathing; if not just by standing in our yard and meditatively stare into the woods, I can just disappear into it. I also have a lot of material for my classes; especially the wetland class I teach. In addition, I take a lot of pictures in those woods and my Instagram page is replete with them. Finally, they are a rich source for some of my blog posts.

Here it sounds that I am using the woods for selfish reasons; but that is far from the truth. While I am still debating whether to allow advertising on my blog, for right now I don't make a penny by writing it. My objective was and still is educational and sharing some of my photographs, my thoughts, life experience, philosophy and love for the natural world. Isn’t that what the internet was intended to be, a free exchange of ideas? But then, who could not use some extra money.

But I digress. To me there is almost nothing better than to step out of our back door on a Saturday morning after my morning coffee and reading the newspaper, to walk to the edge of our very small plot of land and just stand there for maybe five minutes and take it all in; to absorb it all. I may even walk 30 or 50 steps into the woods to this small hill, most likely a remnant of a redoubt that was constructed by Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War. It is at this point where everything I experienced the past week starts making sense. I look up at the top of the trees and watch the warblers hunting among the leaves in the top of the canopies. I listen to the calls of the blue jays which sometimes sound like a hawk; the calls from cat birds which, you guessed it, sounds like the meowing of a cat; the towhees that invite me to “drink your tea”; red-bellied woodpeckers; and chickadees.

“Oh”, you might say, “isn't that a selfish reason, dumping all the weeks thoughts, worries and troubles in the woods and on to those poor birds?” I promise you they can handle it. Nature is much more resilient than us human beings. They are not faced by me standing there and taking it all in. Actually, the chickadees sometimes get pretty annoyed with my presence and they are the first ones to let me know that, in particular when I bring my dog Jake with me to just take it all in. They’ll come to a branch close to us and sound their nasal alarm, as in “we see you; now go away.” Jake knows the weekend routine. He gets up and walks to the back door the second I am done reading the newspaper and get up; it is time “to walk the grounds” or “explore the out-back” as I call it.

This past Sunday the “out-back” was amazing. But I must take a step back. In a previous post, I mentioned that the weather Gods have it out for me. Well, they must have known that we were at a concert in Williamsburg on Saturday night and that I was driving back. The skies opened up on the way home. I could not see a thing while driving. The way I drove was from dashed line on the highway to dashed line, saying out loud: “there is the next line” and keeping those lines under my left tire. A neighbor with a rain gauge told me later that we got 5 inches of rain that evening. All that rain must have fallen in maybe an hour or so; our neighborhood was partially flooded. 

This is what the woods looked like in the morning.  Part of the yard were flooded.  In the far left you can see the bee-hive we have in our yard

We walk our dogs in the evening before going to bed. We could already hear what was going on. Frogs had come out of hibernation immediately! It was amazingly loud. Later, even with the windows closed you could hear them inside our home. The next morning, we saw why. Our back yard was still under water. The noise was amazing (I made a recording and will try to imbed it <here>). This was one of the few times that it was so loud in the 18 years we have lived in our home. The interesting part is that the next day it was quiet again behind our home. The frogs had either gone back to bed or done their thing and were exhausted after a night and morning of debauchery. They are so opportunistic.

Nature is wonderful, the wetlands or Grafton ponds behind our home are a unique ecosystem. This is why the area was designated as a nature preserve. It protects the endangered Mabee salamander and a sedge. Obviously, the frogs do not mind this arrangement. At night we have them on our windows and sliding door, waiting for unsuspecting insects to fly by, attracted to the bright interior.

But let me also come full circle and get back to the start of this post. As I mentioned there are positives and negatives of living next to these woods. The possible negatives of living where we live include deer, ticks and mosquitoes. At times we have enough of them, but for right now the positives still outweigh the negatives, especially those evenings and mornings when there is a cacophony of frogs, or when I can go and explore the out-back.

Travelers and moonshine (9/4/2018)

So now and then the motel chain I frequent sends me a survey asking me what my impression was of the latest motel I stayed in during my travels throughout the state. While I am generally fairly satisfied with the Holiday Inn chain, their Express motels can be all over the map. My latest review reads: “Convenient Mediocrity.” Based on my latest stay, I really need to try to find a better motel chain in those areas where I can only find some hotels where I have that specific experience as my latest one. Maybe I should be more like Edward Abbey, and find a cabin in a mountain village as he describes in his book “Appalachian Wilderness: The Great Smoky Mountains.” He wrote:

In the restaurants blue gas fires burning under stacks of ceramic logs that look almost real until you get close. Omni present in the background that bland tapioca-like sound my wife calls ”department-store music.” Décor by Holiday Inn – all the motel lobby furnishings, all the restaurant tables and chairs and lighting fixtures, look as though they came from the same factory somewhere in Sothern California. Everything designed by a neurotic suffering from a severe case of social irrelevance.

What’s the alternative to this comfortable mediocrity? A grand European-style luxury that most of us would not be able to afford? Or a return to the mode of a century ago, coming into a mountain village on horseback, having a cold supper by lamplight in the cabin-kitchen of some morose mountaineer, while savage coon dogs howl, slaver and snarl on the other side of the door, and going to sleep in the early dark on a cornhusk matrass, prey to a host of bloodsucking vermin?

Which would you prefer? Which would I really prefer?

You won’t believe me but I’ll tell you: I fancy the latter, i.e., the horse, cabin, dogs and bugs. 

It would fit, sometimes. During my latest visit to the western part of the state (Appalachia) last week, one of my students handed me a McDonalds paper take out sack and told me to be careful with it. On further inspection it contained a mason jar filled with moonshine; a different kind of happy meal! Now that would fit right in with that mountain village cabin, the howling dogs and cornhusk matrass. He described it as moonshine (95 proof he told me) made from corn. I can just imagine the corn kernels making the libation and the husk making the place to sleep off the hangover, the after effects of drinking the results of the fermentation and distillation process of those ground up yellow seeds. I tasted it when I got home, it was somewhat syrupy and did not taste half bad! 

Moonshine anyone?  Chilled and ready to go.  I discarded the packaging.

The motel I stayed in in Fairfax is a sentimental favorite, although every time I end my visit it feels like I need to stay at the Hilton, which cost more-or-less the same and is a heck of a lot cleaner and more luxurious. Believe it or not, but I used the description "Convenient Mediocrity " before I read Abbey's words.

I have been coming to this motel for ten years. I have even been stuck in there during two snow storms. We had to cancel classes and I was imprisoned in a room at that place for more than 36 hours. Entertainment existed of either some panicking individuals on television discussing the current weather conditions in and around DC; another TV station with some superficial garbage masquerading as news or a show; a book or magazine I had brought with me; or some form of digital entertainment. At times I may actually have done some work. I eventually ended up trudging through 12 inches deep snow across the street to a Hooters restaurant for lunch. Honest to God, one of the few times in my life I have eaten at Hooters. I am a real testament that the Hooters chicken wings are not half bad. My waitress was Russian, and she was wearing some very skimpy revealing outfit while it was snowing outside. I somehow thought that to her it must have felt just like Moscow or Siberia in winter at that moment; it did not seem to faze her at all. My nightly dinner was at Red Lobster next to the motel. That was how far I ventured from the motel, I waited out the storm and extended my stay a day or two, so I could finish my class: a dedicated instructor, indeed. 

These snowstorms always seem to start around four in the morning and wind down around eight in the evening, to have reasonably clear roads by the next morning. One exception was what is still known as “snowmageddon” in the Washington DC area. I was stuck in that one as well in northern Virginia but not in that motel. That one struck at 3 pm and was so bad that by the time rush hour started everybody was stuck. I made it to my hotel and we ended up making snow men in the hotel parking lot.

Traveling can be fun and interesting. In previous posts I wrote about noisy neighbors and about some of my naughtier thoughts about the furnishings in motel and hotel rooms. I try to make the best of it. It can be lonely, that’s for sure. In the past, I was able to meet up with a good friend, break bread and have a pint with him. That has gotten a bit more difficult since he changed jobs. But I still don’t want to live like a hermit when traveling. It would be too easy to buy a TV dinner, order a pizza for delivery, or get Chinese take-out and mope in my room. For one, I hate to sleep in a room filled with the smell of stale food. Moreover, I hate to walk through a motel and see dirty dishes piled up in the halls. That’s not my style either. So off I go to a restaurant.

I generally do not eat in my motel or hotel. The places I stay are not of the highest class and the food is only average and predictable. I also like to people watch. Nothing better (or sad) than seeing a couple come in with their two kids. Sitting down at the table; hubby and wify grab their cell phone and start staring at it, not communicating with each other, nor their kids. Kids of course don’t have a phone or anything else; they just stare in front of themselves, they may talk to each other, but that is rare. They just sit there as logs, waiting for dinner to arrive, contemplating how best to become the best next mass murderer or high school shooter. Just some of the interesting and sad things one sees when traveling around. It aggravates and upsets me. However, as I mentioned before, traveling can have its good points too, especially when you get to enjoy nature, the sounds of nature next door, the sights or just the (fermented) results and tastes of nature. Cheers!

I actually had a chance to take a picture of this scene in the restaurant.  Father and mother are staring at their phones and had been doing that for a while.  The kids are bored and just staring ahead, not knowing what to do with themselves, waiting to be fed.