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| Commander in Chiefess...ready to rock and roll and get this shit done |
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| 2nd in command not giving one f*ck about any of this... |
scene last night: Nearly 1:00 am and desperately need to sleep due to agitated sleep the previous night (more later here in this post about THAT night, which shall go down in infamy in the timeline of my life). Flopping violently on the bed, I spy my glass vial of organic lavender (because you NEED to have organic essential oils in order to feel like you're getting the total experience) next to the bed. Triumphantly I open it and start tossing it about my sheet and pillows. I mean why not, that's what this shit is specifically for, to better sleep- and sleep pleasantly at that with none of this nightmare shit. Why stop there, I asked myself. Light some incense, procure a little nibble of a Valium, and throw in a dash of da kine to help chase it all down. Oh, and put the phone on vibe. POOF my work is done for the day... Magic. Magical Realism. Now that's how you get real shit done.
Fast forward to now. Ten luxurious hours later I wake up groggy yet refreshed simultaneously. Knowing I needed coffee to work its magic, I spring outta bed (yea, feeling spry and agile in fact) and jump into a cold shower. More luxury. Day is just starting out and I'm already winning. Brush those damn teeth too. Yea, they feel like a cement truck ran over them sometime in the middle of the night. Ready for action.
Trotting down the stairs (if you know this apartment you should know that NOBODY trots down my stairs- mostly because they are DANGEROUSLY angled) I begun to conduct my zen-coffee weekender routine; my french press and (chocolate soy) milk frother are begging for some attention so I immediately put them to work. Minions. It's good to have minions working for you (more on THAT later as well, yet with a different more 'fucked-up current political scene in Turkey' kinda vibe). I hear a sound. Realizing it's coming from my bottle of Glucosamine Chondroitin on the counter, I obey this law of my universe and pop one into my mouth, chasing it with some ORGANIC orange juice. Satisfied with the knowledge that this alone has likely allowed me to trot down my perilous staircase with minimum Patella discomfort and maximum ease. BAM. More winning.
NOTE: If you want to get 'ultra spiritual' too, check out J.P. Sear's YouTube Channel- this shit is hilarious & then you will understand my organic oj & essential oil comments :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kDso5ElFRg
And that folks brings me to this moment, frozen with writers block suddenly. More so because I don't really know where to start. I still have too many images in my head to focus on one important one such as the inception. Whoa now this is serendipity because I'm lamenting on not knowing where to start and then I throw out the 'inception' bomb...
My story begins... It's Friday night, late. Earlier in the evening 3-Gra and myself were texting (LoGra and HoGra here in Istanbul and ViaGra in Arizona sojourning) and I started lamenting that I hadn't been watching enough movies in the past few years. Our subjuct-du-jour was what new tv series were we all watching currently. I had a tale stemming from my recent sojourn to Portugal to visit Solo_ojo & joCid. We all reunited in Solo_ojo's sweet Poaires village house he had bought a few years earlier. As we were all sharing hard-drive secrets, I realized mine was sorely lacking in the movie genre compared to Solo_ojo's. He had a completely new quiver of both recent and older movies on his and I felt lacking. Lacking because I realized I hadn't been watching any movies- for a few years. I was up on most all current tv series but movies???
Critical thinking dialogue started concerning this frighteningly increasingly worry-some 'trend'. Since we had a 30-something among us, we used him as test subject- I did anyway. We came to the conclusion that in these generations with so much technology at our fingertips and so much multi-tasking going on not only in work life but social life as well, that it should follow that we can't stay holding our attention for such a long period of time as to start/finish a movie! Can you believe this shit? I couldn't- at least not on that evening (of course adult beverages were in attendance and such to help alter or heighten our thoughts on this matter).
But I digress... Friday night. After my communique with 3-Gra I decided to turn on my VPN and turn on Netflix (thanks again L'il D for the gift of Netflix hacking). Moments later I was engulfed in "Inception", remembering that it was one of the movie's on Solo_ojo's hard drive that sounded intriguing. Man I was sitting pretty on top of the world, it felt like; movie, two purring cats aside me, a glass of Vinho Verde (brought back from Portugal), da kine, food. Nothing to interrupt this sweet slice of life I was experiencing.
Nothing until two texts rang from my iPhone. Dammit, I thought. That was the missing ingredient in the night's indulging. I had forgotten to turn my phone to vibe. LoGra's came up first; a possible military coup going down in Ankara- the seat of government in Turkey.
Things quickly escalated from there; turn on TunnelBear (VPN par excellence) and just let the shits-how begin. Periscope early on was my source for a video showing videos of military action inside the capital and in Istanbul as they were closing down both bridges that connect Europe to Asia. My thoughts were that soon the national broadcasting stations were next, as that was how it went down in Tunisia when I was stuck there for that one...
I must say here that the (faux?) military coup allowed me to check out new social media that I was only briefly familiar with previously; Periscope, Snapchat, Reddit being my top three suddenly useful choices. I'm sure that there are already some Pokemon Go virtual creatures set up within this coup framework... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, with my limited knowledge of the app, that it is just a lame, cyber rip-off for Geo-caching- a real sportsman's sport... Heh heh
Anyhow... seven hours later it was 6am and I felt like I had just played out a dramedy Turkish style. As of yet, I still don't really know what is real, what is fabricated, etc. All theories seem logical in the right context...
What I do know are real are the feelings associated with this coup event. Immediately I scanned the recesses of my memory banks and traveled back in time to Tunisia. Everything was so surreal- then and now. I couldn't believe what was happening was happening. You think about these possible scenarios while living abroad from time to time, but that is it. Usually just good 'hanging out with friends' conversations. Now it's happening. Coups involving iron-grip rulers have been en vogue for a long time, but when it happens where you reside, it just seems like history being re-told for a new generation in an updated style.
Soon I was hearing from friends I worked with back in Tunisia. We all keep in touch whether loosely or more actively. KK was a doll and relaying events to me from back in the deeps woods somewhere in Canada! Also I had my cache of friends I worked with when doing archaeology on Kahoolawe- where EOD techs were cleaning up UXO on the island.
I had so many dialogues going at the same time from so many different social media sites as well as my phone What's App texts along with Face-timing family in Oregon that I also had to break out my iPad so I could do everything simultaneously. Never have a felt so much more a part of the 'now generation' in terms of being able to efficiently multi-task as that evening. I was IT activated for sure. Would of been great to additionally tie-in some old school tech by using a short-wave radio!
The bottom line is that the events of this attempted military or otherwise coup acted itself out like a ping-pong tournament. Left, right, left, right... Everything was happening so fast. Player A winning, Player B winning, No, Player A winning again. Wait, there is Player C too? Where the hell did this arise from? Is Player C just a figment of Player A's imagination that Player A wants to project onto citizens- local or expat? Player B seems divided in spirit. Player A seems weak and on the verge of ruin. Player C just waiting in the background a bit, to perhaps surface later on. Player B seems ill-prepared, really. Who am I rooting for? Who are the Players? There are way too many spin-doctors to deal with in terms of sifting through the information that is literally tearing the track up. This is a Formula-One speed of information infiltrating the playing field(s).
I literally seek all types of friends' opinions: the hippy friends- who are a large framework of my circle; the bomb guys- who I have a long past history of camaraderie with on a project involving scientists & military (a strange mixture indeed but throughout the years produced many great friendships & intimate moments together) and a bevy of other circles of close friends and family. What results is a crazy network of ideas that I weave into my most logical working theory. Well done everybody. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.
My brother and sister-in-law decided to just sit it out with me on FaceTime for a long time while we were both cooking food and drinking wine from different sides of the planet. It was fun actually; we just went about doing our normal business, but the camera was rolling still. That helped certainly. A calming effect. The kitties? Well, they were also a calming effect. Somehow they slept through all the sirens, screams, fighter jet planes buzzing the area super low and creating sonic booms that were have said to broken many windows throughout areas, and the sheer noise of all my electronics going off sporadically. They know how to shut down instinctively I suppose. Good on them. Good role models for me.
As it turns out, my FaceBook thread of the series of events in those first 6 hours serve as a timeline in making history for this country and the world watching. I swear I will do something with all this, just as I swore I would do something with all my Tunisia social media events... Although I haven't published anything of serious interest concerning Tunisia, I did blog as well as put together the events into a Word file to be used at a later time; a time when I have time to figure out how to write a book effectively... I guess now I will have another coup to focus on for that endeavor. As a matter of fact, I actually have another military coup I can share- although I don't remember much about that first coup, back in 1987...
That would be the military coup in Fiji while I was there with my ex. I don't remember much exactly honestly. That was a long time and much less recreational playtime ago... I do remember getting gas one day and the dudes there wanted us to drink their Kava (look it up). Twas a good day I suppose. Again, I can't remember. I remember remotely being annoyed, but that's about it. Oh how grand it was to just be concerned about surf, bikinis and sex...
Back to now... here is a good link to an opinion article from The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/07/16/you-thought-erdogan-was-bad-before-the-worst-is-yet-to-come/
I've learned a lot from all this, as well as my time spent in Bahrain. While I am certainly no expert in any of this, I've been able to cultivate enough of my own experiences and learn how to express them and gather insights from them. There is still a lot of unknowns- in fact, it's all still ENTIRELY unknown as far as I can tell. Tomorrow will be an interesting day back at work as I'm sure we will all bring stories to the table...
Anyway, no specifics today folks as it's just too soon to start re-creating the string of events I've decided, especially since they are still on-going. Last night, for example, as we are told everything is trying to return back to normal but new developments are happening- specifically around Adana and the NATO base... New embassy bulletins continue to emerge; the last one coming in at 4:00 a.m... This is interesting to more than a few of us. Yesterday I received a text message from RTERDOGAN (da kine head honcho of this country) telling citizens in Turkish to hit the streets to oppose illegitimate coup attempt... A few of us expats got this message- how strange.
Anyway, conspiracy theories are flying and it's only 1:45 p.m. so I have my afternoon cut out for myself... It's been an interesting weekend folks. I wonder if the penguins have returned to grace Turkish broadcasting :)
signing out and posting yet again without editing... Have to say that it's so liberating to write something and just post it, without desiring to edit. After all, this is my blog and my rules. Contrary to my 'normal' life, I like to keep this one flowing in the moment. Sometimes I feel compelled to make edits, but it honestly just feels wild and free to not have to edit! Yep, I'm living on the edge folks. Girl Gone Wild Without Edits kinda gal right here coming at y'all...
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