And the penguin exclaimed, "coup coup, whose coup are you?"

Commander in Chiefess...ready to rock and roll and get this shit done

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...

my version of Groundhog Day: 8/28/09

What is it- that feeling you feel when you step off an airplane to a place you haven’t seen for many months and you call home? Arriving home from an extended journey used to be so bittersweet for me and I suppose it still is: Maui No Ka Oi. Translated to Standard American English (SAE) from Hawaiian that’s Maui is the best. Translated from SAE to Hawaiian Creole English that’s Maui stay ono. (ono = delicious). Bittersweet because it is incredible; beautiful shades/textures of sandy beaches, streams, waterfalls, jungles, hiking and… and… beauty every step of the way. I have an incredible career here that keeps me stimulated within the scientific community. Great friends, endless outdoor activity: the intimacy of knowing a place, really knowing a place. Knowing that I can arrive back on isle without a place to live, without my car, without much money, still spaced out from an 11-hour journey by air back in time (6 hours back in time BTW), and just needing to chill out. That’s the sweet part. The so-termed bitter is that I know I need more. I always have. I have always had to travel for extended periods of time. To escape this fantasy island & experience the grittiness of another expression of life- a more common expression for most people. Seasons are so subtle here. Most can’t recognize but my body is tuned in to Maui’s frequency. The sky was light, vibrant blue with huge extremely dazzling white cottonball clouds marching like saints down the SE side of Haleakala’s slope into the sea and across to Kahoolawe Island looming in the distance as a once fading and now renaissance=like symbolic image of the steadfastness of the Hawaiian people stemming back to ancient times. A constant reminder of how things could still be… The sun was low on the horizon even though it was late afternoon. I could just tell, that’s all, that the last days of summer were already set into motion.

My heart sings. Pre-sunrise in the jungle: heavy rain downpours turning into lighter spasms of intermittent showers, the sudden cacophony of birds chirping- I can hear 4 separate songs as I type. My return to Maui has met all expectations indeed. A good friend, who took me under her wing and let me stay at her place until my new shack was available, greeted me at the airport. She drove me around and listened to my ranting about my time in NYC First thing post airport pick-up she carted me off to Baldwin Beach so I could jump in the water and we could walk the most beautiful stretch- well certainly the most meaningful stretch of beach for me as I have gone through so much on this beach. Every emotion possible has been encountered at this beach. My first impression was that summer storm damage eroded the sand away again this year down at the cove. Sighting the trees fallen onto the sand and buried in water since last season and now exposed w/their mossy green brilliance sagging off them as Dali’ clocks/images hung dreamlessly off objects within a Catalan landscape. With the late afternoon sun, the whitecaps on the seas in the distance creeping closer to the shoreline and a graveyard of fallen pine trees tossed along the shoreline like one’s dirty laundry at the foot of the washing machine, a lone fisherman casting his ulus pole from the waters edge, the lifequard on a sunset run for one last check over, Maui life was picturesque in that moment. As we walked the shoreline my toes found themselves strenuously crushing deeper into the sand, down to the moist, cool to touch coarse-grained granules that massaged my feet- who were so exposed to the entirety of NYC this summer and so graciously took me everywhere in those 5 boroughs and now they felt rejoiced, reinvigorated, regenerated.

We spoke of our summer highlights, lowlights, and the typical streamlining down the middle of the road everyday occurrences that carries us all through the largest chunks of our lives. She was on the high of starting a new job with another company- who I had once worked for. I listened & was genuinely happy for her. As well as she stimulated renewed interest in archaeology for myself as well. Now I was looking forward to returning to work come Monday. All those long, arduous hours spent under the sun that threatens to invade any exposed area of your body, all the sand spitting back at you in the dunes when the trades are blowing incessantly, the miles of thorny brush you have to hike through and hack away at w/machetes during surveys as well as all the resulting cuts & bruises- the hours of mapping sites- just all of the bounty that archaeology offers!

I relived NYC stories- all incredible moments experienced. School had empowered me to yet a higher degree. I can’t help it, I am one of ‘those’ people who has always enjoyed what academia can provide if you let it- or ‘get’ it more accurately- not just go through the motions of ‘going to school’ but really get off on the challenge of studying theories, and coming up with your own interpretations, and then can challenge prevailing theories- not to be right or wrong, but to succinctly state & support a hypothesis to be refuted, revised or simply revealed. I do love this regardless of if in school or not, but to just challenge myself continually and see what I can come up with- this drives me.

We both had tales of lost loves and new lovers. She always looking for love, or imagining love more so. Every encounter is an optimistic possibility. Myself, ever the scientist, I look at the picture as a whole and break it down into individual components immediately. So exciting to delve into the mysteries of love/lust through scientific knowledge- this is my high. I am hopeless as I know right off if time is going to be invested- real intimate time. I’ve never been one to ‘date’ casually. The anthropologist in me sees contact as something primal and instinctual & it should just be allowed to develop on its own course with as little interference/words as possible to disrupt the vibration that should be developing & most often drowned out by sounds & words that just add confusion. Of course this means that body language must be meaningful & truthful- not always the case. I watch cats and when meeting a cat for the first time… it either comes up to you or it doesn’t. You meet eyes and lock into each other. It is that initial encounter that explains a lot of how a cat thinks. It doesn’t necessarily need a pet, or want a pet from just anybody. It senses first. If it is a sudden introduction, well I guess I’m saying I’m a bit like this cat.

Ok sidetracked. Maui, like anywhere, has its pros/cons. Right now I am riding the wave high on the crest of the developing wave just before getting tubed. The elusive O. It’s a great state of mind. I’ve seen stars, rainbows, afternoon showers, sunrises, sunsets… I didn’t see any of these things in NYC except rain showers. My body sensed this disharmony & even though it was obscured by all there is offered up to do in that incredible city, by day and into the night, it is these essential elements that make my body sing.

My new shack & myself are introducing ‘ourselves’ to each other. It is like a living entity in that I need to become intimate with all my environments. I am starting to make it ‘mine’. I saw a moonbow last night inbetween squalls. I am looking out into thickets of bamboo and ferns & wild gingers & just too much to individually rattle off but the desired effect has been achieved- my mind is blown. All this lushness- there is a sensual beauty of being a solo witness to the rush of feeling a breeze walk through and reach out and touch your arm so the hairs briefly react to the touch, but there is also pleasure to be had experiencing this w/a lover and I’m thinking that is exactly what’s missing from this scene this fine Thursday morning as I prepare to get up & greet the day…

hypnopompic ponderings on a crisp Sunday morning in the jungle

Greetings from 20°55′14″N 156°18′45″W 

So I woke up early (roosters, birds, owls) and greeted the day on my lanai listening to sounds. No human activity to distract me from these moments- only the biorhythms of my Mac and me are witness. How strange.

 Resorted to some instant coffee in the fridge from a camping trip years ago. I am reminded of Chile now. I recall how difficult it was to find a cup of coffee that wasn't Nestle... And the strange phenomenon of these stand-up coffee bars in Santiago where only business men went to get served by exotic females. And then there was Hilary- she enjoyed instant coffee, and seemed to be genuinely addicted to the packet coffee mate creamer stuff. She used to pilfer them from basecamp when we worked on Kahoolawe Island (archaeologists). After that project ended she continued her love affair with artificial creamer by resorting to purchasing large tubes of them at Costco. I could never manage to bring myself to go to Costco. Something about seeing too much of people I suppose. Or at least too many Costco people. I don't support it. I have so much on my mind lately and ideas unexpressed verbally or even written (except for the brief musings posted on Twitter (MauiHollyday). 

Work weighing heavy lately & wearing it like a tightly cloaked increasingly heavy veil wrapped around my body and yearning for a loose Polynesian pareo to take its place. Turtles; unidentifiable (extinct) turtle carcasses found in a trench buried deep beneath a cultural layer on the south shore consumes my world as of late. Explanations that no one wants to hear- or at least some choose to ignore. It's big. Tiring of CRM (cultural resource management) work, or more appropriately tiring of with context which goes with it. I initially (14 years ago) thought science was about sharing ideas and coming to educated theories by talking with other experts in the field. This is so but there is an element of secrecy that exists because of this 'taboo' or exposing too much. It is increasingly difficult for me to not express my views and receive validity or criticism- I would welcome both.

At the moment all this noise is melting off of my bones. The deafening cacophony of the morning sounds feeds my need for solace. Here is some visual stimulation for you guys so you can get into my head trip... Ok ok, I can't figure out how to change the pictures to get down here. Damn, sorta ruins the effect I was going for but... 

So it is time to come out of the fog and get rolling. It's been an extremely sweet morning and now the clouds cloak the sun to add more texture to my dimension. I feel honored to not only internalize this but be able to express it. Let me know what you think.