This time tomorrow I'll be traveling!

Tomorrow morning I set out on the next stage of the grand adventure that is my life. I'll be leaving Waycross mid-morning and heading down to Jacksonville, FL to catch my first flight. Assuming all goes as planned, I'll be flying Jacksonville-Chicago-Istanbul-Bishkek, and I'll be arriving in Bishkek at 2am (Kyrgyzstan time) on January 1st. The temperature will be roughly 9F when I get there! (see forecast) I won't have internet access in my apartment (sigh), so chances are I won't be able to update every day... but, since you all know how addicted I am to the internet, I promise I'll be updating as often as I can. In case you've forgotten, I'll be working at The London School. And if you'd like to send me things (I do love presents...) my address will be:

Jane Keeler
The London School
Baitik Batura Street 39
Bishkek, 720005
Kyrgyz Republic

Of blinds and beasts and ballots cast...

I'm leaving for Kyrgyzstan on SUNDAY. Having only two days left to enjoy life in the Deep South, how do you think I spent my afternoon? Hanging blinds. No, this was not my idea. Since the only substantial bit of home improvement I've conducted at my house in the four months I've been home was the hanging of new blinds and curtains, mom thought I'd be an expert. Little did she know... We did manage to get four blinds hung in her bedroom, although it took pretty much all afternoon. Then I went home and took a nap. Oh, the excitement!

Success!


Pewter took it upon himself to guard the blinds.

Look out... it's the Mongrel Horde! (Get it?)
Shiva (second from left) has totally taken the puppies under her wing.


I cast my advance ballot for the presidential primary today, and filled out the necessary paperwork to have my absentee ballots shipped to Kyrgyzstan. I'm not entirely convinced that I will actually receive said ballots, especially given my past experiences with disenfranchisement, but we shall see.

Update.

Well, I'm certainly feeling a lot better than I was a few days ago... but unfortunately, my mom caught it from me, and came down with symptoms last night, and she's currently in the position I was in two days ago. Yuck. :-( Additionally, I was doing my three final loads of laundry pre-Kyrgyzstan, and the washer died in the middle of load three. Granted, the thing's about as old as I am, so this shouldn't be surprising. Luckily, I'm pretty sure that everything I need to pack was in loads one and two. I think. So much to do, and only three full days for doing them... I leave on Sunday!

I have stomach flu...

...and it is horrible. Also, I leave for Kyrgyzstan in 6 days. I really need to finish my last minute K-stan shopping and packing, but instead I've been alternating my time between my bed and my bathroom. Aaaack.

I'm back in the Deep South...

I spent the past week in upstate New York visiting my friend Youngmee and her family. It was a very laid back and totally awesome trip... we ate tons of Korean food (kimchi for breakfast, anyone?), went to a Korean Chinese restaurant (jiajianmyun!), took a belly dancing lesson (oh, how obvious it was that I hadn't done that since June 2006), ate really chocolatey stuff all the time, baked a pecan pie, watched Cheburashka, Vinni Pookh, and The Italian, AND she and her mom have gotten me hooked on Jumong, the most addictive TV show since Battlestar Galactica. Awesomeness.

It barely got above freezing once while I was there...


Look! Moosh and I are in non-Russian snow!


Can you find the Konglish? Are the shrimp frightened?


Youngmee baked a totally delicious pie.
I contributed the south GA pecans and my eating skills.

Fund Raiser!

I'm heading to upstate New York to visit my friend Youngmee for a few days, so I won't be blogging again until Saturday at the earliest. In the interim, I'd like to ask that if you enjoy the content of this blog, please consider donating to help support my journeys and daily blahgging. (My soon-to-be job in Kyrgyzstan only pays $500/mo plus accomodation, so any little bit helps!) Thanks in advance; I'll see you on Saturday!

PseudoSolstice 2007 Part 2: YouTubeTastic

After Rob and his Very Normal Friend left and Alex went to bed, and the rest of us got out of our bizarre garb (see previous post), Chris entertained me, Melissa and Gwen by singing his various folk songs. Chris has been writing folk songs for years, and below are several. The first three are political and the last two are pagan solstice songs. Enjoy!

This one's on the politics of Bushomomics.

This one's on Iraq

This one's on immigration.

This is a pagan song; he's still working on it.

You might notice he has some horrific background singers in this one :-)

PseudoSolstice 2007

For roughly eight years now, some of my friends and I have been having Solstice celebrations in lieu of Christmas parties. Our very first Solstice party, back in December 2000, consisted of rather earthy-mother-goddess-pagan stuff. Over the years, however, this event has evolved in absurdity, such that it now has little to do with pagan solstice celebrations, and rather a lot to do with dressing strangely and being weird in public. It's a lot of fun. Pictures from previous PseudoSolstice parties can be viewed here, if you're interested. This year we had a few additions to our usual PseudoSolstice crew - Gwen, who is currently home from Korea, and Rob, whom I met in Korea and who is now back in the States. Rob also brought a friend of his, who unfortunately seemed REALLY normal and very uncomfortable having to be part of our shenanigans. (You might understand why, once you see our photos!) And now, without further adieu....

We tried *really* hard to get Alex to wear this, but he refused.


Instead, Alex and Chris sported nearly-matching,
too small thrift store jackets and bizarre hats.


Then there were the ladies: Me, Melissa and Gwen
(At one of my ghetto ass street signs. Yay, ghetto.)


We hung out on my front porch, playing with swords...

And posing for pictures...


The neighbor kids seemed to take the whole thing in stride...


...as did the people in WalMart, who were oddly friendly. Whenever we dressed like this and went to the Lake City, FL WalMart, we would get dirty looks and people ushering their children away from us as though we were emissaries of Satan. Here we got smiles, cat-calls, and had a nice conversation with the woman who took this picture.


Rob and his Very Normal Friend arrived while we were at WalMart.


Then we went to Wong's Palace for some Chinese food.


Melissa would like everyone to know that she is not fat, she is pregnant.
One day, these photos will utterly mortify her daughter.


Rob acquired Chris's hat, and morphed into the kung-fu Boy George.

Also, I really love my house :-)

To see the full set of PseudoSolstice 2007 photos, CLICK HERE :-)

Ponies, Kittens and Parties

So, for the THIRD time since I've been home, I willingly got on a horse. This time it was actually for an extended period, at Kickin' K Stables, the place where my mom has her weekly lesson. I've been planning to go pony-trekking at some point when I'm in Kyrgyzstan, and I figured I should probably do some riding here first. I rode a short, fat, and adorably cute pony with the unlikely name of Rambo. I don't have any pics of me on him, although I do have some shots of him once our ride was finished. (Also, I am really sore from just an hour of riding. Pony trekking is going to kill me. Er, no physical harm.)

Isn't he adorable?

I wish you could tell from this how fat he really is!

The barn also had kittens... and you know how I love kittens. Don't worry, I didn't take any home, I just took some photos:

Such cuteness!

And speaking of catness, apparently my utter stench of catnip extends all the way to K-stan, even though I'm not there yet. Check out this email I got from someone over there:

I meant to write earlier, but for some reason, a lot of the internet cafe computers can't fully access facebook, to my routine frustration. When do you arrive in our fair city? I noticed that you worked at the America Home in Vladimir a couple years ago - do you know Sara [...]? She's there now on her second year, I think. Also, as it appears you're quite the cat-lover, would you be at all interested in adopting a couple darling furballs living at the school with me now? Hope to hear from you soon!

Sigh. There is no escape. I *am* a cat lady.

I'm having friends coming in from out of town for the weekend for our vaguely annual pseudosolstice party. The weather here has been gorgeous the past couple of weeks: blue skies and temperatures in the 80s. (I know we're in the South, but it is not supposed to be this warm in December!) Well, sadly it seems that the weather gods have decided that this is the weekend to rectify the temperature situation. Check out the forecast. And keep in mind that our "festivities" are scheduled for Saturday. Boo!

Old Train Stations

If you're driving west along US-84 from Waycross, you'll reach the small town of Argyle. If you look to the left through the trees, you might see an interesting looking structure:

If you go into the woods, you'll discover the old Argyle train station.

It was moved to this location for some unknown reason. (You can tell because it's facing *away* from the tracks instead of towards them, and because it is on new concrete blocks.)

I'm not sure how long it has been here...
but no one is doing anything with it.

If you continue heading west, you'll reach Homerville.

The old Homerville train station is still in its original location...

...although it, too, is in decay and no one is doing anything with it.

On the edge of the Okefenokee: a JPG submission

As you may have noticed, I'm a big fan of the Okefenokee Swamp and the surrounding swamplands of southeastern Georgia. One of the themes for Issue 15 of JPG Magazine is favorite surroundings. The above shot is my favorite Okefenokee related images. As always, I'd love your vote... either click here or on the photo above! Thanks so much :-)

Islam and Politics in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

It's fifteen minutes long, but you should definitely watch it - I found it absolutely fascinating.

Need a personal trainer in San Diego, CA?

Check out Move Your BODy (MYBOD), run by a good friend of mine.
(If you get an error message, just refresh the page and it *will* load)

Okefenokee!

Yesterday afternoon, my mom, aunt and I drove down to Folkston, GA to visit the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. We just missed the 2:30 boat tour, so we spent the first hour exploring the visitors' center and hiking the short trail along the Suwannee Canal. (This canal was dug in the late 1800s when someone had the absurd idea of digging a canal to drain the swamp into the St. Mary's river. After digging something like 12 miles of canal at great expense, they realized that the swamp was - however slowly - flowing in the OTHER directions, towards the Suwannee River. Whoops.) Anyhow, the hiking trail takes you Mizell Prairie, which is quite scenic:

The 3:30 boat tour is the last tour of the day (unless you reserve a special sunset tour). It takes you down the Suwanee Canal and into one of the larger prairies and lasts about 90 minutes. We saw alligators, herons, egrets and sandhill cranes. Below are a few of my photos; the full photoset can be seen here.

This is the dock in front of the visitors' center.


Alligator!


The Okefenokee is very colorful in the fall.


Tree-island reflection


The sandhill cranes weren't very cooperative when it came to posing; this was the best sandhill shot I got. (Gwen - this is what we saw last time we were here!)


Taking the Suwannee Canal back towards the Visitors' Center

After disembarking from the tour, we ate at the small cafe located next to the Okefenokee Adventures gift shop (right next to the dock, you can't miss it). The food was yummy, fresh and cheap. Excellent! We had chosen yesterday to venture down to the swamp as they were having their annual Chesser Island Christmas... which involved the decorating of the Chesser Island Homestead in allegedly period holiday decor, and providing free refreshments and live music. Yes, we went for the free refreshments. I snagged some yummy freshly baked cookies. I wasn't too excited by the music. I was expecting Christmas carols. Now, I'm not particularly into Christmas, but carols are songs everyone knows, and I wouldn't have minded standing around the bonfire, caroling. Instead there was some crazy woman who sang a very animated song about shooting an armadillo. I wish I had remembered that my camera takes audio (minus video); I didn't make a video of it because it was too dark by that point. Also, at first I thought it was going to be a love-the-wild-creatures kind of song, instead of "Blast that aaaaaaaarmadillllllooooooooooo! Put him in the ground!" I would just like to state for the record that I am against the killing of armadillos. Also, if you see one in the road when you're driving, don't try to straddle it to avoid killing it. Its defense mechanism is to jump when it is threatened (its skin/shell is quite tough; it could totally knock a predator out), and it will likely splatter itself all over the undercarriage of your car. So swerve around the little guy. There. I've done my part to counteract the crazy anti-armadillo woman.

Remember to check out my full photoset from the swamp!

The dark and seedy underbelly

The latest theme over at JPG Magazine is Noir: the dark and seedy underbelly. I've actually uploaded a picture of a dead dog. I know that a lot of you probably don't want to see such a thing (although I think it's a damn good shot, myself), so I'm not posting the photo here. However, if you've got a strong stomach, I'd love your vote... so click here! :-)

Something cool for travelers and/or photographers

If you love photography and/or travel, you should definitely check out Everywhere Magazine. It was created by the same people who created JPG Magazine, and it operates on the same principle: User Created Content. You can upload photos, stories, or simply names and locations of interesting places. I've been uploading as much as possible (you're limited to 20 photos per day) since in a little more than three weeks I will be in the land of spotty internet. My Everywhere travelogue is here, if you're interested. Sadly the themes for Issue 2 of the magazine (which is published as a full color magazine on high quality paper) are Los Angeles, Places Reborn, Turkey, and Hotel Bars, for which I don't really have any submissions. (Here's hoping they choose Russia and South Korea at some point!) Anyway, I definitely recommend the site... it's tons of fun. And if your photo or story gets published, you'll receive $100 plus a free subscription to the magazine! (If you create a travelogue, please send me the link.)

Doggie Day

Mom and I took the three mutts (whom we are calling Brownie, Blackie and Brinny, as we've run out of name ideas) to the vet today. They are generally healthy. Emaciated and wormy, yes, and Blackie and Brownie had fevers, but there were no serious illnesses like heartworm or parvo or mange or anything. Since Brinny didn't have a fever, he got his initial shots, but the other two have to get theirs after their fevers go down (they're on antibiotics now). After we took them home I washed them, then we wormed them and gave them their meds and Advantage... I was thoroughly filthy by the time we were finished. I took some decent pictures of the three of them... so if any of you are interested in a dog, let me know. (The vet says they're probably about six months old.)

Blackie (male, 6 mo)

Brownie (female, 6 mo)

Brinny (male, 6 mo)

Doggone it!

This afternoon I decided to take a dirt road west past Ruskin to investigate a small cemetery which I'd noticed when my dad and I were driving around last weekend. It's a small cemetery, with a couple of stones from the late 1800s, but most from the early to mid 1900s - although there were a few fairly recent graves, contrasting with others marked solely with crosses, containing no dates, and a couple which had caved in! I got one distance shot, but didn't really have the opportunity to explore the place fully.

I was wading through the high grass toward those stones you see there to the left when I heard the most menacing barking and growling coming from the woods. I uttered Oh, shit! and began heading for my car, when the vicious noises emerged as three fairly young, emaciated mutts. At first they were quite intimidating, and I was quite concerned that they would get to me before I could get to the car... and how fitting that my corpse would already be in the graveyard. Well, I began speaking to them nicely, and they immediately transformed from terrifying beasts into the sweetest, friendliest mutts imaginable. I tried to continue exploring the cemetery, but with three exuberant beasts, I ended up with little more than shots like these:

Look how skinny she is!

He was begging me to take him home...

There were three of them - a black male, a brindle male and a brown female - all nondescript mutts, all thoroughly emaciated, and all incredibly sweet. I really, really, really did not want to bring them home with me. Really. But I didn't think I could just leave them out there either. So I took them to my mom's house. (The fence around my yard has numerous holes; the dogs would be out in an instant.) Obviously, she's not too excited about adding three dogs to the three she already had (in addition to her 15 cats!), but luckily these guys not only don't chase cats, but they get along well with her dogs. Tomorrow I get to take them to the vet to see if there is anything seriously wrong with them, and if not, get them vaccinated and wormed and whatnot. We estimate that they're six to eight months old - definitely less than a year - so they'll probably get a little bigger. They're totally nondescript mutts, but very sweet... so if you or anyone you know would like to adopt a dog, please let me know! In the interim, I've been tasked with getting mom's new land fenced in so we can see about relocating some of these beasts!

My father's visit and my trip with my mom to the range and the swamp

My dad drove up to Waycross from Tampa on Friday. That in itself is a long drive; the last time I did it, I took an hour and a half nap in my car in a rest area. But he didn't just drive any old thing, he drove up in his new Harley. I can't imagine seven hours one way on a motorcycle, although perhaps that's why I drive an Echo. The two little boys who live next door for me, and who are usually completely fascinated by me and everything I do were overwhelmed with interest in my dad and his motorcycle:

I feel bad for these kids. They are so sweet and super cute, but I don't think anyone pays any attention to them whatsoever. Their family is incredibly poor, and the mom seems much more interested in her boyfriends (she has at least two) than in her three kids (she has a toddler, too). The kid on the right has some kind of speech defect and/or learning disability, but I suspect nothing is being done about it. We asked if they had a football, but all they had was a flat basketball, so later when we went to Wal-Mart, my dad bought a football for me to give them for Christmas.

Here I am trying to look like a kickass biker chick...
Instead I just look crazy.

While most of my cats were totally freaked out by the arrival of A Strange Person in their house, Alley Cat, Daddy Cat and Mia (!) all seemed to enjoy his company:

Dad and Alley Cat

Dad, Daddy Cat and Alley Cat

Dad and Mia!

I wish I'd had my camera out... Daddy Cat tried to go out the cat door and GOT STUCK! His ass is too big to fit through the cat door. It was like Winnie the Pooh trying unsuccessfully to leave Rabbit's house; his rear was bulging and his little legs were just kicking in the air. Poor guy. It was totally the funniest thing I'd seen in a long while.


We went out to mom's land, and found a deer jaw!
Just like old times :-)

Dad left this morning to make that long drive back down to Tampa, and then my mom came and picked me up to take me to the shooting range. She has a Taurus 22 Magnum Revolver, which she hasn't had much of an opportunity to shoot. A coworker of hers and his wife go to the shooting range regularly, and they invited us to go along with them, so they could help mom get used to using her gun. That gun has as opposite of a hair trigger as you can get - I could barely fire it! Anyway, I took a TON of photographs, as usual. Three are below, but the entire set can be viewed by clicking here.

Ear plugs are a necessity!

Mom shoots!

Mom's coworker brought quite a few guns.

After leaving the range, we decided that since it was such a beautiful day (and crazy uncharacteristically warm for December - even this far south), we decided to go try to find Hopkins. Hopkins used to be a small community located on the north-western edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. It no longer exists, although we've been told that there are still remains which can be found. We'd tried to go out there last month, but the roads were too muddy for either of our little cars. The roads were definitely drier and passable today, but we did have some trouble finding the road we needed, Old Hopkins Road. Instead of a street sign, there was a paper plate tacked to a power-pole with the road's name written on it in marker. And of course, the first time it rained, that plate folded itself in half. We did, however, successfully find the road. Then we managed to get completely lost in the midst of the woodlands bordering the Okefenokee National Wildlife Reserve. The first road we tried (which turned out to be Old Hopkins Road) descended into a swampy area that we figured we probably shouldn't drive the Ford Escort into. After that, we drove down an innumerable succession of small dirt road through the woods. The lands bordering the wildlife reserve are all owned by hunting clubs, and eventually we stumbled upon a hunting party - a crew of rednecks straight out of the cast of Deliverance, but very friendly - who gave us nearly incomprehensible directions for how to get back out to a paved road. We never did find Hopkins.

Mom examines the "road sign" for Old Hopkins Road


This was where we stopped driving, for obvious reasons.


It was the middle of nowhere!
(The figure in the distance is my mom.)


The edge of the Okefenokee!

We saw this along the paved highway on our way back to Waycross: