From where I sit, forest fills the frame of every window. How nice to be in the middle-of-nowhere Oregon again. Right now, I snuggled up on a couch at Zach's mom's house in Sweet Home. Zach is rolling around on the floor with a beautiful brown dog named Max. Some things I like about Max are: he doesn't smell terrible or drool on me, he doesn't stick his nose in my private places (usually), he doesn't bark, he is smart, and his head/ears are really soft and pleasant to pet. I understand why people love their pets. And the more love in the world- the better, right?
During our trip to Washington D.C. and NYC we ate Indian, Tai, Burmese, Italian, and Brazilian food. How lucky am I?! Everything tasted delicious except the sour vegetable dish Stephen ordered at the Burmese place. After one bite, the spices latched onto my lips and burned like crazy. I probably couldn't tell you where Burma is on a map but I can say that most of their food speaks the language of my stomach. Yum!
New York reminded me a lot of Barcelona but without the beautiful architecture or the romance of the Spanish tongue filling my ears. About three seconds after we stepped off the bus at Penn Station, I glanced at an old man wearing very short shorts and noticed three non-public body parts hanging out the leg holes. Shocking! Next a man, with half of his face swollen and appearing to hang two inches lower than the other half, started yelling about the newspapers he was trying to sell. People pressed on every side and when we finally made it to the corner, Zach says, "I don't think I like big cities."
We ended up having a great time exploring New York though. Time Square swarmed like a beehive and Little Italy definitely reminded me of the real thing but the best parts were the hole-in-the-wall Tibetan shops, musicians in the park, and reconnecting with our friends. Most of the time I just walked along, marveling at the mass of people whom I will never know.
The last thirty minutes of our drive, from Buffalo to Kirksville, it sounded like we were driving through a terrible rain storm. Turns out it was just the bugs hitting our windshield. Some were glow bugs, which left nickel-sized splats that glowed neon for a minute or so. Others left giant dollar-bill sized splats. The windshield wipers were covered in wings, legs, and goo. We had to turn the music on full blast and sing along to drown out the noise. When I mentioned this to my brother, he told me he made the mistake of driving his motorcycle that time of evening and that his entire body was plastered. I'm definitely only riding my bike during daylight, non-bug hours when I live there.
On the plane from Missouri to Oregon, I sat next to the creator of "Sally", a character in the movie Cars. He's an animator who works for Pixar and we talked through the whole flight. I love hearing other people's stories. I love plane rides too. You throw a bunch of people in a tight space together and you know at least a few are going to have a good conversation. For those non-claustrophobic types, it's good because it makes the world a bit smaller and instigates the feeling of connectedness.
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