Big Carbon Footprint and Our Rugs

At The Rug Co-op  

In the past 10 days, we have driven to Fort Lauderdale or farther north 8 times. What happened to our stay on the key and not use the car plan? One trip was a doctor appointment, twice was my having lunch with friends, Grant facilitated the Men's Group at our congregation, we both went to our covenant group, we gave in and attended the auction fundraiser, even though it was on a Friday evening which meant 2 hours of stop-and-go rush hour traffic, Sunday a baby shower in Lake Worth, and our marriage enrichment meeting Wednesday evening, another rush hour traffic slog.

Plus I took the bus and ride-share to and from Art Basel, which probably would have been a quicker bike ride with no worries about being hit because traffic barely crept along.

In Our Condo  

Today I got back on track and rode my bike to the post office after riding with Grant to his work. The cold front and its rain hit the key just as we left our apartment. Even with my fancy rain jacket, I got soaked from cars going past and from water tossed up by my fender-less tires, but it's south Florida, not a state with much hypothermia. I mailed the first set of our Christmas cards and letters, another non-carbon-free activity which I get much pleasure from.

I am also getting much pleasure from our Moroccan rugs which arrived yesterday. Every time I look at them, my heart is happy. Cat Annie was not as impressed. She sniffed around, laid on the biggest one for a few minutes, then moved on. As I enjoy my rugs, I'm ignoring that they were shipped by air, rather than by sailboat, the new guilt-free way to travel.

I Made It

The Girls are Ready to Party
in Costumes from Aunt Betsy

To quote Casablanca, I am shocked, shocked...I am 70 years old today. How did this happen? I know it’s trite, and every person before me, if they are lucky enough to live to 70, says exactly the same thing. Still, it is flabbergasting.

I am also grateful and amazed. I know I have good genes and a great environment. I work to take care of myself. Most of all, I’ve been lucky.

I haven't had the courage to read my mother's diaries because I don't know if I have the strength to know what she wrote when I was born, and my twin brother died. (At first I wrote, "my twin brother didn't live.") It wasn't a subject we ever talked about, so maybe it never happened. Maybe he didn't even exist, yet my birth certificate says he did.

Mom With Baby Shower Gifts  

Did my mother know she was carrying twins? Were they so enraptured with one baby (me) that the lost of an unexpected second one (him) just was a vague idea to be dismissed and forgotten?

To complicate matters, boys carry on family names. Until he died, my mother's father bemoaned his lack of a son to keep the family name alive. Now her only son didn't survive to bear his father's name. I never felt my father, an only child, cared that he was the last of his lineage, but it was a point of stress for my mother. Perhaps my father was less interested, because his father had changed his last name (Why he did is another mystery not talked about. We were already in America, so it wasn't a reaching-the-new-country renaming. Some intra-family feud?), so there are only eight of us in the family with it: grandpa and grandma, my dad and mother, my step-mother, my two sisters, and me.

I considered all this when I divorced. Married in 1969, of course I dropped my middle name and stuck on my husband's last name. Just a little too early and conservative to either keep my own name or have ours hyphenated, the latter becoming a royal pain for women at the beginning of the computer era when no one knew how to enter hyphenated names. After 14 years of being Mrs. S, but no longer married to Mr. S, I had to decide what my name would be. Should I return to my childhood name?

Pamela Jean Coe
December 20, 1955

But I wasn't that girl any more. Take a last name from one of my grandfathers and keep that lineage alive? But what about my grandmothers' last names? Do men always get to have the last word?

Another thought would be to make up a name like Judy Chicago and my friend Elaine Elle, who each decided on a last name she wanted for herself. I was enamored of this concept but not creative enough to choose one for myself. I ended up being Ms S, because my young daughter was Miss S. Who would think that, when she married, she would take her husband's name? She did, both times, and I am now the only S in my family. I've kept family names alive by using last names for my sons' first and middle names. I wonder what my mother would think.

A Sour Jdid at Rick’s Cafe
in Casablanca

In any case, I am lucky, lucky. We went out to eat at a local restaurant, and I proposed a toast to me. I know there aren't seventy more years, but as Grant said, "Here's looking at you, kid.

Another Worry

Tour Guide Hicham with 107-Year-Old Man 

MCI, Minor Cognitive Impairment, is my latest worry. As we age, our brains shrink and work less well. Perhaps we even become demented. MCI is a measure that a brain is aging faster than its body. I don't think either Grant or I have it, but then, would we know?

Of course, the suggested actions to prevent, slow down, maybe even reverse MCI are the war horses of eat less, exercise more. Why can't it ever be sit on the couch and eat potato chips?

We met a man in Morocco who claimed he was 107 years old. Each day he walks with his donkey up the mountain trail to sell herbs to tourists and locals. He was in great shape and sharp of mind. I have my doubts about his claim of being born in 1912, but could be true. He's not worried about MCI.

Since we aren't likely to follow in his footsteps, it's back on the diet and bike riding program. We came home at peak weight, and I am resisting ordering XL pants to replace my lost ones. All my clothes fit better if I'm about 10 pounds lighter. And now it seems my brain would benefit too. Rats.

Moroccan Cooked Veg Salad 

The suggestion is the MIND diet, a blend of Mediterranean and Dash diets, with emphasis on whole grains, berries, green leafy veggies, olive oil, poultry, and fish. That all sounds good. Not as much fun is the lack of sugar, fat, and alcohol.

Grant has been trying Moroccan cooking, and many of the dishes actually meet the MIND requirements, so maybe we will enjoy living to an old age with our brains intact.

Disoriented

Marrakech Medina 

We both still startle awake and momentarily don't know where we are. I think partially because of remnants of time-zone mismatch and some because the images of Morocco are floating through our minds. Such a strange, beautiful, foreign place. I am dealing with winnowing the hundreds of pictures we took down to a manageable few. First all uploaded to the cloud, then narrowed down to a slide show and coffee-table book.

Earrings My Sister Betsy Gave Me  

I am also dealing with claims for my lost luggage. Trip insurance, credit card benefit and airline responsibility all potentially going to reimburse me. Getting the paperwork done is tedious. Iberia Airlines does not seem to have an online claim form, so I filed a request for assistance from them, to which they emailed that they would analyse my request and respond in 21 business days or less. Until then, I'm trying to remember what I had in my suitcase. Thank goodness I didn't throw in my kiwi earrings at the last minute like I had intended.

When I packed, I thought about taking a picture of the suitcase and its contents. Thought, didn't do. I also thought about sharing our clothes between our two suitcases, just in case one got lost. Also thought, didn't do. One would think a person of my age could learn from other travelers' tips.

Perhaps just having enough to fit in a carry-on bag is the answer. I certainly did fine with the few clothes I had. And always tuck extra underwear in my purse.

Everything Costs Something

Al Haour On The Way to Marrakesh 

 As I understand it, traditional Moroccan life centers literally and figuratively around a mosque. Five times a day, the call to prayer is broadcast from the minaret. The men stop what they are doing and gather at the mosque to pray. That boggled my mind. Five times a day, the men got together. That builds community. The women are more separated, however they use communal ovens to bake bread, and our guide Hicham told us that every village had a spot where they met daily to sit and chat.

Village Near Ouarzazate  

Pre-electricity, back when the muezzin actually had to climb to the top of the of the minaret and shout out the call to prayer, villages had a natural radius of how far the human voice can carry. Once that limit was met, a site for the next mosque was chosen, and a new village grew around it. Repeat, repeat, and the country is covered in small villages with a minaret sticking up in the center. Hicham said each village was about 200 homes.

Now the calls are amplified, with no particular concern of the aesthetics of black loudspeakers attached to ancient tiled minarets. Easier on the muezzin I guess, but fairly jarring when we were in larger towns with mosques every few blocks. Competing voices slightly out of sync.

Outside of Casablanca  

Can this small village model translate into modern life? As we drove from Casablanca, I saw groups of high-rise apartments, bedroom communities for city workers. Built by companies speculating on growth, there are still central mosques, but not communal ovens for women to gather at, not groups of men who meet five times a day.

How do you build community in condos? In my experience, horizontal communities lend themselves to meeting neighbors; vertical ones do not. Walking around a neighborhood, with or without a dog, gives us chances to interact. Elevator rides encourage silence. With the exception of the condo president, I do not know the name of anyone in our building. Even the members' meetings are handled by video calls.

On the other hand, living in our little apartment has been easier than dealing with a house and yard and perhaps more economical. Our monthly electric bill is averaging $55.00 ($29.52 while we were traveling!), and since we are renting, no internet, garbage, or water bills. Ditto property tax, and our property insurance was $800 rather than $1,800, which didn't even include wind or flood coverage. The monetary downside is that we are paying $2,250/month rent and not building equity. Now that I have 6 months of expenses, I think I can figure the monetary cost/benefit of renting versus buying. We have until December 31, 2020 to claim our homestead exemption and the portability of our low house valuation.

Should we look at small villages of about 200 homes? A couple on our Moroccan trip live in one in Oregon that was designed especially to facilitate community. Perhaps we can find something like that in Florida. Not at the Villages, which currently has 122,460 people living there, but maybe a townhouse community within a larger town. There wouldn't be a central mosque, but with a pool that calls to me.

Good, Bad, Ugly

Secluded Garden  

The good of our Moroccan trip was our terrific OAT guide Hicham, who showed us his country with deserved pride, the lovely people we met because of OAT, the amazing food, and the varied scenery.

The bad was my suitcase never arriving from Madrid, so I had to buy clothes, which is trying in the best of times, much less in a Muslim country where, although fairly liberal, women wear long sleeves, no matter the temperature. Definitely not my style, nor the weight of clothes I need at home. I'm tall so the pants looked like capris, and the stores in the mall were full of the latest winter wear. I managed to find a pair of polyester pants and a long sweater, just in case the desert was cold. Those, plus a probably unauthorized AC/DC 1981 tour T-shirt I bought at a teen store, another T-shirt from the modern art museum in Rabat, and some underwear, rounded out my clothes. The frump-o-meter was spinning. I definitely learned I can travel with a lot fewer clothes than I had packed. I donated the unworn sweater to a women’s association in Marrakesh. The rest plus the skirt and blouse I had on when we flew to Morocco may be ritually burned when I get home.

One of My 2 Outfits 

The ugly was getting pink eye in not just one, but both eyes, half way through the trip. I couldn’t be satisfied with a bad cold and sore throat. No, I added pink eye. By the last day, two more tour members had caught it, and several more were looking possible. Fortunately, in Morocco, I could go to the nearby pharmacy and get OTC antibiotic eye drops without a prescription. Easy, peasy. I speak no French, and the pharmacist spoke no English, but after taking one look at my weeping right eye, she immediately knew what I needed. Back at the hotel, I consulted with the three doctors in our group about using the drops. Interestingly, the two internists were more cautious than the oncologist. I wonder if that's from the type of patient they saw in their practices. After waiting 24 hours at the suggestion of the internists, and my natural inclination, with my left eye now crusty, I began using the drops. I didn't dare ask what else could go wrong and temp the fates to answer.

People We Met

Showing Us His Irrigation Canals 

Visiting in a Home 

Gnaoua Musicians 

   

So far we’ve stayed in a riad in Rabat, had dinner with an Arab family, learned about Gnaoua music, and visited with a nomad family. We have also spoken to shepherds tending their flock by the roadside, a widow in Meknès-Tafilalet who survives by helping at parties and weddings, and a farmer in the desert who created an irrigation system and now grows olives and vegetables. Everywhere we went, we were served delicious, very sweet mint tea. Even the poorest home has at least a couple of dozen tea glasses, a teapot, and a footed serving tray. At the Berber Museum, I saw antique boxes for carrying tea glasses on camel back. A wonderful custom.

Three Generations of Nomads 

Today we spent several hours with a Berber family near Ouarzazate in western Morocco. After a tour of their home which includes a large special room with banquet setting for at  least 40 and the floor covered in carpets, the father led us out to his olive grove where he made us mint tea and served flat bread just cooked in the communal oven. His 7-year-old son and 4 other boys helped, then sang a couple of songs before heading to their afternoon school session. We returned to the house where his wife and her friend served us home-made couscous. Of course all these people are paid by OAT to accommodate us. It seems a more genuine way to help their economy than buying trinkets and souvenirs that I don’t want to add to my life. 

The Ever-Presented Mint Tea 

Making Couscous 

Traveler versus Tourist

Making Copper Pots in the Médina 

Olives 

Grant Eating Snails
While Hicham Watches. 

 Overseas Adventure Travels (OAT) prides itself on providing contacts with locals (being travelers) rather than just driving by and taking pictures (being tourists). To that end we have spoken with venders about their businesses, hopped off the bus and discussed herding with nomads, and eaten dinner with a Moroccan family.

At first, I was meh about this, but it has grown on me. I remember our family hosting college band members and other students when I was growing up. We were pleased to share our home with them for a meal or a stay.

Berber Nomads 

Dinner at a Local Family’s Home

On the other hand, sometimes, like going through the Fez Médina, we have been tourists, hurrying  along and just getting a brief glimpse of the area.

Saltwater Fish For Sale

Buying Camel Meat

  Our guide, Hicham, has herded us like baby goats. Even when he turns us over to a guide for a special area, he trails behind, making sure no one gets lost or left behind.
Actually, we are more like 14 not-too-unrulely cats who are easily distracted by all the things around us. Hicham gently nips at our heels to get us back on the path we should be following. There isn’t much slack in our schedule for us to wander off, and he consciously keeps us on it.

On To Morocco

We climbed down the stairs one last time at Charming Lavapiés, then rode the Metro to the aeropuerto for our plane to Casablanca. Grant, his suitcase, and I all made the trip easily. Now, three days later, and my suitcase still hasn’t arrived. I bought a T-shirt at the Rabat modern art museum but have resisted buying anything else, washing my underwear out each night, in the hope that my own clothes will show up soon. I am starting to loose faith.

To add insult, my glasses fell apart and are now held together with a staple until I get to an optometrist who can fix them.  Amazingly I found the screw. Plus my throat is sore, and my gut thinking about going down. Of course all our first aid and drugs are in my suitcase, now known to be in Madrid. As a woman on the tour said, “You really are a mess, aren’t you?” So true.

The Rabat Restaurant Cat  

But I'm glad we are here. Who knew there would be cats everywhere? We met the first one at the restaurant where we had lunch in Rabat, then noticed others all around the city. There were dozens at the Roman necropolis Chellah, cats waiting to be fed in the Kasbah, and cats sleeping in the royal stables. Traffic is amazingly terrible; lanes usage seem to be considered just a suggestion, people and cats walk everywhere, yet the roadside is not littered with bodies. It all seems to work.


 They seem to be cared for or at least tolerated. Somewhere between feral and house pets. Perhaps in the original cat role of rodenticide.
At lunch today in Meknès, a cat roamed around our table as we sat on the second story terrace. Waiters just walked around it as it checked to for any fallen food bit would have gladly taken hand outs.

Morocco Trip Route