Mom's Visit

The laundry situation here is tough, especially when it's cold out. Nobody's got a dryer. What you've got instead is a really wicked spin cycle on your washing machine that kicks out most of the water. Then you line dry. Except that it's raining out, so you set up your little drying rack inside, where it's a balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and wait until next week when you can put your clothes back on. With only two pairs of long underwear to my name, I was forced to choose between warmth and hygiene.

Thankfully, Mom was scheduled for a visit. She lives across the way, in Syria. Stuff is generally a lot cheaper over there owing to a really solid trade policy, or so I've been told. Apparently, the Syrian government has mandated that Syria is not to import any more than it exports. The sum total is no trade deficit with lots of homegrown goods for cheap. Add to that good clean water and abundant natural resources and you've got all the qualifiers for inclusion in the Axis of Evil.

So Mom's on her way and if she hopes to see us alive could she please bring us more long underwear. Al'hamdu'lillah, she did. She also brought lots of yummy treats and socks.

I don't know why, but she brought me socks with pictures of spaceships. Actually, not just spaceships. There's a picture of Saturn and what I take to be a comet streaking over the whole mess. The spaceship is obviously in full throttle, flames shooting out the back and all. I asked Mom about it. She said she hadn't noticed the pictures.

Hadn't noticed!? Good gravy! The whole scene from flame tip to comet tail takes up the palm of my hand! These aren't subtle starscapes, a few dots hinting at the Milky-Way. No sir, this is Buck Freakin' Rogers raising intergalactic Cain on my ankles! This is the Empire Striking Back at my Achilles tendon!

They are comfortable, though.

We had a nice time with Mom. She stayed for two or three weeks, mostly just hanging around town. I was busy with classes, so we couldn't really get out for any sightseeing, but we had our meals together and the kids got to spend time with Nana, and that's really the important thing. Afterward, Mom and I took a cab to Damascus, Syria's capital, and from there we caught a bus back to her home city, Aleppo.

The bus ride to her place was OK. We were sitting right up front which had two serious disadvantages. There was nothing blocking the driver's view of us, so I got busted for trying to put my feet up, twice. Also, there was nothing blocking our view of Dolph Lundgren.

Remember comrade Dolph? He made his debut at the height of the Cold War as Stallone's Soviet nemesis in one of the Rocky movies. In the end, he went down, like Mr.T and Apollo Creed, subdued by Sly's big, honest American Fists. But few of us will ever forget that moment, when, locked eye to eye with the Italian Stallion, Dolph's mouth twisted into a wry, Bolshevik sneer to meet Rocky's palsied pucker, he muttered with thick, rolling Russian inflections:

"I will break you."

He didn't break Rocky, but he sure put my lights out about 3 minutes into his on-board screening en route to Aleppo. He was the star of some post-Apocalyptic B-flick, alternately flexing and blowing things up. I couldn't take the similarities to my own life, so I did my best just to check out.