Monthly Archives: April 2012

Since returning from Burma…

April 19th, 2012

I’ve been busy writing articles on our trip.
Several websites have published features, which I thought you’d like to see.

I’m especially proud to be featured on Matador Network, with one of their few articles on Burma. This one’s a guide to how to do the trip Bernard and I just did. The piece has gotten a really positive response. I worked closely with the managing editor on this piece, and I have to say his input and edits were a tremendous help to crafting a readable and info-packed feature. More Burma pieces are shaping up for Matador.

GotSaga picked up my feature on the joys of hairwashing, Burma style. I think you’ll have fun with this one.

The wonderful founders of Better After 50 are more aware than many of what’s going on in Burma, because one of them was there in 2010. They reprinted one of my dispatches in its entirety. In case you missed the original, here it is. BA50 also has a piece of mine pending, on our almost encounter with Thein Sein, Burma’s current president.

And the great website GoNomad, which publishes such compelling writing, has taken another of my essays, this one on the Chin State Day festival we attended at the start of our journey. That’s in the queue for publication some time in the next month or so.

So, I’ve been busy, despite the allure of an early spring outside my window.

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Spring

April 7th, 2012

Part I
Life is not all about Burma these days. Take Friday night, March 30, for instance.  Bernard and I spent the evening at Paradise Lanes. There were perfect whiskey sours, handmade by Ms. Regina. A basket of what I know I’ve already labeled the world’s best french fries. And… and…and… I discovered a new favorite taste sensation: deep fried mac & cheese. Golden crispy on the outside, velvety salty starchy on the inside. I could make a meal out of those critters. Oh wait.  I just did!!
Part II
Defrosting a Bird:
Bernard saved a bird! When the temperature plummeted the afternoon of April 3, he noticed a little grey bird hunkered down in front of the garage. He bent over to inspect it, thinking it would fly away, but it didn’t move. So he took it inside and put it under a collander with some water in one of those little bowls that usually hold soy sauce. The bird pooped in gratitude.

Later, when I came home, we shifted the bird to a quieter corner, placed him on a pizza sheet (I whispered that as we would need 3 and 20 more of him in order to bake pie that he needn’t worry), covered him with an airy gauze umbrella that normally keeps flies off of cheese trays, added a little dish of grass seeds for his dining pleasure, and waited. He executed a few modest hops of joy, showing he was recovering.

With the temperature reaching the level of “mighty cold” we wanted to keep him indoors for the night, but not at the expense of him bashing into his gauze umbrella. So we flung cheese cloth over it to darken the interior, the way you do with canaries and such. The cheese cloth let enough air in so he wouldn’t suffocate. That was my idea!! Lo, he went to sleep!

Next morning when we came down for breakfast he was having a good lie in, but the noise and the sound of OJ being pressed awoke him. When we sat down for breakfast, he sat down for his. Or rather he hopped about, nibbling seeds and flinging them hither and yon. So we took the pizza tray and umbrella abode outside and offered him freedom. He took it, never looking back.
Part III
THEY’RE BACK!!!
Never before seen this early, 50 elk came over Custer Mountain before dusk on April 6. Normally we don’t see them for 6-8 more weeks. What a strange season it’s been. Does this mean we’re going to have Spring, rather than just going directly from Winter to Summer?!

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