Sinister Knickknacks

A few weeks ago, I got a new roommate.

Hi. I'm Sarah G.: A Sarah so cool that usually
any other Sarah in my presence
ends up being referred to merely as "Other Sarah."

Initially, things were going well. Then a few days later, like a Trojan Horse, she brought something sinister, something terrible, something horribleawful into our apartment.

It was a knickknack.
  *gasp*

Hi. I'm an ultra-creepy knickknack effigy of Emperor Yong Zheng,
5th ruler of the Chinese Qing Dynasty from 1722 - 1735 A.D. 

Apparently, her family has been passing around this hideous porcelain monstrosity since 2006. Every Christmas, he gets wrapped up and inflicted on someone, who then carries the burden of ownership for the next year. This thing is going to be in my home, uninvited, with his creepy tiny glass hands hovering over me and his spooky glass eyes watching me until Christmas 2014.

Taking lemons and making lemonade, we've decided to make this very the best year in the Emperor's life. He's going to see the world. He's going to have adventures.  (...and as an ulterior motive, maybe he's going to get broken or lost in the process. Victory!)

For starters, yesterday we took him out in the middle of a blizzard.

The snow was up to the Emperor's thighs, but he bravely forged ahead.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

As more snowfall accumulated, he had to be
rescued from a 3-foot deep snow bank,
but he remained admirably calm and brave.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

He rode a dinosaur with impressive skill and finesse. 

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

But he proved himself to be completely useless at making snow angels.
Tough luck, Emperor. I guess you can't be good at everything.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

Later, he coldly pushed Sarah G off a cliff
when she teased him about the snow angel thing.
Never insult the Emperor.
Let that be a lesson to you.

 

Does Science Ruin Pretty Things?

Anyone need to name a baby? My sister wrote a baby name book, hopefully heading toward publication soon!

For the past two weeks, she's been stuffing my inbox with potential book cover designs, including this one...



 

...which set the stage for the following conversation:

Bonnie:  What do you think of the cover art?
Sarah: It's nice. But the flower looks like a virus-infected cell covered with surface receptors.

Bonnie: Does not. Only your nerd brain would think that.

Sarah: Does too. The resemblance is uncanny.

 

 

 

Bonnie: Is not.

Sarah: Is too.

 

Bonnie:  Medical science ruins every pretty thing.
Sarah: Does not.


Awesome eclipse is still just as awesome
even though it looks like a dislocated intraocular lens implant.

Bonnie:  Does too.

Artisan white chocolate cappuccino truffles vs. Chocolate cyst in an ovary with endometriosis 

Sarah: Ewwww. Medical science ruins chocolate forever. I think you win this round.
 

The very best hug

Planes, Trains, and Zombiemobiles



 

My name is Sarah, and I'm a recovering All-Christmas-Music-Station-aholic. Sometimes, I still relapse, getting absorbed right back into perky Jingle Bells, shmaltzy Harry Connick Jr crooning about when his heart finds Christmas, and good old Elvis having a Blue Christmas. To my credit, I usually snap out of it and change the station when they play that horribly oversappy song about the kid who wants to buy shoes for his mom, but I'm still a sucker for "I'll be Home for Christmas." It gets me every time.

The thought of people longing for home--looking for any possible way to make their way there even if it's only in their dreams--is very touching. It explains why we brave the airports and tolerate the crowded lines.

 

There is, however, one airport I hope to never brave again. Not for all the Christmases in all eternity. Chennai International Airport: The place where travelers' hopes go to die.

 

On November 20th, halfway through the India trip, I took a tuk-tuk cab from the hotel to the Chennai International Airport.  (In my head, I like to acronym it to CHIA. It makes it seem so much friendlier.)

As a very special surprise, there's an airport regulation that forbids tuk-tuk cabs from entering airport property, so the driver stopped about a half mile away from the terminal and unceremoniously left me on the roadside with my 73 pounds of luggage.

 

For the record, 73 pounds is not an exaggeration. It had been weighed in New Orleans, New Jersey, and New Delhi, tipping the scales at 73 pounds every time. Why so heavy? Because I was carrying 600 pairs of reading glasses to donate to the eye hospital in Patna.

 

In case you've ever wondered what several hundred pairs of glasses in a suitcase looks like, consider your curiosity satisfied! However, on the airport X-ray security scanners it apparently looks a lot like a bomb. On a related note, you really haven't lived until you've narrowly avoided a cavity search at an airport in India.

 

From the roadside tuk-tuk cab drop-off, I followed some mutually-contradictory signs toward the "Domestic Terminal," which seemed like a fair bet since I would be flying from one Indian city to another Indian city. The signs brought me to a dead-end on a desolate sidewalk in front of an abandoned building. Taking a 50/50 guess, I turned right and kept walking northward. After about another quarter mile of abandoned buildings, I passed an empty café with stainless steel tables, a rusted metal fan slowly spinning in one corner, and a Coca-Cola sign glowing on a refrigerator case half-filled with moldy food.



 

 

There wasn't another living soul in sight. It was like a post-apocalyptic hellscape straight out of a sci-fi movie. It was Zombie Airport Nightmare (...not to be mistaken for this rather bizarre old-school computer game).  I kept walking north along the sidewalk, with the humid wind blowing the trash around my feet.

 

My bags were so heavy. The place was so abandoned. My left foot was starting to blister and bleed.

In another quarter mile, I reached the Domestic Terminal. A guard with an assault rifle stood at the door, blocking the entrance to the terminal. He looked at my itinerary then pointed further north and said "Two doors." I kept walking. One door: locked. Two doors: locked. Optimistic that maybe the guard had miscounted, I continued to the third door: locked. I returned all the way back to the security guard at the entrance. He looked at my itinerary again then pointed south and said "International Terminal."

"International Terminal? For my domestic flight? Are you sure?" I asked politely.

In reply, he gripped his assault rifle with both hands, looked at me in disgust, then turned away. I took that to mean he was sure.

 

 

The International Terminal was nearly a half mile back in the direction I had just come from. The stray zombie dog was still following me, probably waiting for me to fall down dead so he could eat my brains. I trudged southward past all the abandoned buildings again. Both of my feet were bleeding now. 

 

I finally reached an area with human beings again, found another assault-rifle-toting security guard, and asked him how to find the International Terminal (...for my domestic flight). He pointed down the sidewalk to a building another 200m south and said "Past the food stand. Turn right. Take the lift (elevator) to the 2nd floor."

I walked south. I passed the food stand. I turned right.
There was no lift. There was no 2nd floor. There was just an open latrine with a man peeing, and two more stray dogs.
My bleeding feet were soaking through my socks. My shoes had started to make bloody wet squelchy noises with every step. The stray dog was licking my ankles whenever I stood still.

"Brains! I want delicious brains! But feet will suffice for now."

I did eventually manage to find the International Terminal (...for my domestic flight). 
I did eventually manage to get through security ("They're eyeglasses! I swear, they're eyeglasses! I have paperwork!").
I did eventually manage to catch my plane out of Chennai.
I did all of that without having any limbs gnawed off by stray dogs.
Nearly a month later, my feet have nearly healed.
We'll call that a happy ending.

 

May your holiday travels be easy by comparison.

May you find a way to be Home for Christmas.

 

 

The Christmas Bird

 

What?  Like you've never seen a Christmas tree
decorated with beaded chicken keychains before?

It's totally festive.

 

 

Happy Holidays!

Colorful. Chaotic. Complicated.

The last few months have been busy, and I have unapologetically failed at blog life. Getting back on track now that I'm home from India and the jet lag has simmered down, here are some letters from the road.
Have you ever had an experience in which nearly every moment left you feeling like it had been a mistake to get involved? Yet when all was said and done, the trip was the right thing to do. It's impossible to describe, really. It was an amazing learning experience, just with plenty of interesting bumps along the way.

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Dear Hotel Delhi37,
When Bonnie and I stepped out of the airport into the smoky chaos of New Dehli in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar country that has a reputation for being somewhat unsafe for women, it was a comfort to know that the hotel reservations had already been smoothly arranged online and paid in advance.
It was slightly less comforting when we called your hotel from the taxi cab for directions and learned that its true location was a half hour away from where it had been mapped, and that even though you had my reservations you did not actually have a room for me to stay in that night.
It was a nice touch that you politely wished me a pleasant evening after informing me that I would (a) be homeless for the night, and (b) not be receiving a refund.

The warmth of that welcome literally brought tears to my eyes,
Sarah

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Dear Hotel Saptagiri Employee,

It was with great relief that we arrived to your hotel, found a vacancy, and booked a room for the night after our change of plans from Hotel Delhi37. We appreciated your help escorting us to the oddly windowless room, and your many words of advice to remind us that women should not be traveling here. I admit I found it terrifying slightly unorthodox when, instead of allowing us to keep our room key, you wordlessly stuffed a piece of paper in the key card activator slot then took our actual key away with you for the night.

Four restless hours later, we awakened to happily realize that we had not been part of the movie plot from Hostel.

 

Thank you for sweet dreams,

Sarah

 

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Dear Sathya Sai Ashram Bookstore,
When we visited this commune idyllic peaceful village founded on Sai Baba's teachings, populated entirely by Sai Baba's believers, decorated on every surface with Sai Baba's pictures, funded by zealous donations to Sai Baba, designed to house all of Sai Baba's pilgrim visitors, with all activities scheduled around Sai Baba's worship services, and all road signs inscribed with various sayings from Sai Baba, I was worried that I might not be able to find any books by/about/dedicated to/obsessing over Sai Baba. What a delight to find your bookstore with 800 square feet of wall-to-wall quality Sai Baba literary masterpieces. Not weird at all.

Enriched by variety,
Sarah

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Dear Indian Toilet Paper Branding Experts,
My concept of desire will never be the same again.

Thank you for this paradigm shift,
Sarah

-------------------

 

 

Dear Madras Crocodile Sanctuary,
Although I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see the particular species of crocodile with wings growing from its skull-base, I was very impressed by the crocodilian biodiversity within your sanctuary, and likewise impressed by the many reminders not to place my hands, feet, or head inside the crocodiles' mouths.

Appreciatively,
Sarah

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Dear Mahabalipuram Shore Temple World Heritage Site,
It was surreal to be able to walk through the grounds of this beautiful structure, in awe at the workmanship, and knowing that the effects of time, weather, and the ocean will likely eventually sweep away any trace of it. To be there at this moment in time and experience this was a memory I will keep forever.
As an aside, when the guidebook mentioned that *one* of the beaches near the Shore Temple is used as an open latrine by the locals, I do kind of wish that it would have also specified *which* beach. If one beach is a relaxing tourist attraction and the other one is a toilet, you just never know when a little detail like that might be important.

Sincerely,
Sarah

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Dear Bodhgaya Mahabodhi (Mahavihara) Temple,
Thank you for my single most colorful, tranquil, beautiful day in India. I wasn't sure what to expect, arriving at the peak of pilgrimage season, but within your walls people were polite, safe, kind, and seemed driven by a deeper cause. I was amazed by the confluence of believers from all over the world, with different languages and backgrounds, serenely coming together here.
As the Buddha holds a significant place within Buddhism and Hinduism, I was impressed to find that the two religions seem to coexist side-by-side here in a fairly unstrained way. I sincerely admire that example.
Can I move in?

Thinking it over,
Sarah

----------------------

 

 

Dear Lawyers of the Bihar High Court,

We normally do outreach clinics for the poorest people in the city each afternoon. Many of them sleep in rough tents on the streets, cook their food over fires built from burning dried cow manure, trudge through raw sewage to get where they need to go, and subsist for a year on less than you spent on a single pair of shoes. The impoverished, unwashed, uneducated patients at our outreach clinics line up quietly, they move their weak and elderly to the front of the line so that their frail bodies won't have to wait so long, and they thank us for even the smallest gestures like giving them a pair of reading glasses.

We took a day away from them to come serve you instead. When we arrived to do an outreach clinic for your group of High Court Lawyers, I expected that such educated people in charge of establishing law and order would be the very example of civilized manners. What I encountered instead was a horde of self-important men, yelling, mobbing, spitting on the floor, throwing things, elbowing to the front of the pack, pushing your hands through our gated dispensary window to take anything within reach. By the end of the clinic, I had nothing left but exhaustion and disgust.

 

Questioning humanity,

Sarah



 

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Dear Dr. Ajit Sinha,

You are one of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever met in all the world. At 82, you still wake up every day wanting to find a way to serve others. You go to the worst parts of the city to work for the most neglected population you can find.

That Wednesday after outreach clinic in the downtown central slum, you noticed a woman standing at the pharmacy shop window who couldn't pay for her eyedrops. I saw you reach into your own pocket and pay. I saw you insist that she keep the change so that she could have something to eat that night.

I saw what you are trying to do for the world around you, and that was worth the entire trip.

 

Thank you,

Sarah

 

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Dear Man with Bilateral Peters Anomaly in the Eastern Slums of Patna,
Thank you for bringing us your hope and your trust. I can't even find the words to describe how sorry I am that we couldn't help you. I wish you hadn't been born with eyes like yours. I wish an ophthalmologist had found you when you were an infant while your eyes and brain were still learning to see. I wish cornea transplant tissue was readily available in your city. I wish the world were fair. I wish I could stop thinking about you.

I wish it weren't so complicated,
Sarah

 

Great Horrible Art

My high school History teacher used to say that the political spectrum isn't a linear construct with Conservatives at one end and Liberals at the other.

 

 

Instead, he pointed out that the radical ideas at either end of the spectrum tend to bleed across into each other. Picture it more like a circle: 

(Or maybe a Mobius Strip.
Who doesn't love a good mind-blowing Mobius Strip?)

When you think about it, that concept applies to all sorts of things. The spectrum wraps around and brings together two things you thought were polar opposites, but they turn out to be perfect neighbors.

Think of food combinations that are so wrong they're right:  banana bacon cookies? curly fries dipped in a chocolate milkshake? salted fruit?

Think of how things get muddy at the extreme ends of the emotional scale: you laugh until you cry? cry until you laugh? One state connects right across into the other, and even though it all seems to happen through some weird backchannel that makes no sense, it still happens.

 

That brings us to art. Art can be so horrible that it's brilliant. So brilliant that it's horrible.

 

Two years ago, while walking through an all-comers amateur art show on the med campus, I came across a hilariously bad painting. A black jaguar on a green background that made me silent-laugh so hard I coughed a little. Since that moment, it has stood out in my mind as one of the most wonderful pieces of terrible art in the history of wonderfully terrible art.

 

Three weeks ago on call, I was walking into the hospital in the middle of the night when I turned a corner and there it was, like it had been suddenly resurrected from memory and hung up on the wall again:

 



 

Look at its awesome finger-toes! And hind hooves! And the way its initially-deformed rump has been painted over with a green that will never match any other green on that canvas. The crinky tail. The red watermelon-slice mouth right smack on the front of its creepy human face! The nearly-neckless head sprouting straight up out of its right shoulder, and the faint silhouette of a fifth leg. 

It's clearly the unapologetic work of a genius.

Or a 3rd grader.

Or a genius!

Or a 3rd grader!

Or a genius.

 

And there's more!

Like this gem featuring Abraham Lincoln, some sort of Star Trek Frankenstein, a blue duck, Shakespeare and robots:

And the jaguar's companion piece, The Rhinoceros:

Plus this one entitled After Dinner Chat:

 

Take a closer look at the painting above the couch there. Wouldn't your life be more complete if you had a sofa-sized painting of a blonde lady running away from a deranged hybrid fox-mongoose-orange-crocodile on a beach? It's weighty stuff.

 

Congratulations Steven Sorscher, whoever you are.

For what it's worth, I vote "genius."