::evbeff: there are many things...

....which have happened.

i just didn't feel they were blog worthy.

well, i take that back. here are the updates:

Cuz the monkeys weren't enough.

With no real change in our health (read: we aren't dead yet) - we were jonesing for a because my life isn't ridiculous enough fix. Yes yes, the hair is still falling etc....and although that may be exciting news to some of you - i am kind of over it. bald, and over it.

Because we are creative educated type women, we have taken to hunting the cockroaches hooking up on my bathroom floor at night. The little buggers hide inside the floor drains, and when its dark and quiet, the residents of drain no. 1 venture out to slut it up with the loose ladies of drain no. 2. That is, until I caught on. I hadn't yet done anything about the nightly party in my bathroom - im terrified of cockroaches. And these ones are big fat juicy suckers. I once peeked out from behind the wall and watched one struggling to smush itself back into one of the tiny drain holes - its ass wriggling around in the air - until it succeeded and returned to roachland below. disgusting. angry at being scared to enter my own bathroom after 8pm - i made the decision to overcome my enabling nature of cockroach city, and implemented a plan.

i will kill every last one of them.

The slaughter occurs while babies sleep. We whisper "Shhhhhhhhhh, we are hunting cockroaches..." and then tiptoe in the dark...slowly...calculated...and then SPLAT!! They ooze fear. you would too.

don't be too jealous.

The blogging fast is also in part to work picking up. quiet moments at home are spent napping off sweaty days- instead of writing about them. Just when i was convinced life was becoming normal and boring, I looked down at the back of my hand and noticed a rash forming. little raised clustered red bumps forming a long line, traveling throughout the web of my fingers.

there is no use lying to myself. this is no typical bug bite. i have scabies. of course. because i didn't feel unattractive enough. no adventure would be complete without the one skin rash that carries the weight of the world screaming 'you are dirty'. i feel like some character out of the Grapes of Wrath. "Elizabeth, bring me the lie - gonna scrub yew down. haven't had a scrubbin' since paw lost the harvest." I know this is a bit dramatic. and i know lie is for lice. and i know im not in cali or a sharecropper. but i am allowed to say it. scabies depresses.

I probably picked it up from some kid in a school, or in a village, or some friendly dog. Scabies is everywhere - everyone gets it - its no big deal. right? There is dirt and mites and bacteria - what do you want? yeah, I WANT TO NOT HAVE SCABIES.

To kill this mite crawling around under my skin - laying its little baby mite spawn - i have been applying Neem Oil. i am also scalding my hand each night with boiling water in hopes to seal the fate the damn things. its a difficult balance. purposefully burning the shit out of my hand, while making sure the temperature isn't hot enough to result in a skin graph. I thought i would give the Neem Oil and boiling water a couple days to see if there was any improvement. sorry sucker no go. it is still spreading. Neem Oil (dark brownish in color) smells a little something like.....dirty fermented ass...on a hot summer day.

it is actually kind of amusing. while i am dealing with my own oil issues- anna has hers. in her effort to do everything short of a scalp transplant to prevent the big head shave, she has taken to using Parachute Therapie hair fall solution - a hair growth treatment used by the local ladies who have had their olfactory glads removed. Anna religiously oils here hair every third night and then washes it the next morning. When she first started the treatment, i would sit in bed at midnight and wonder why i could suddenly smell the trash pile rotting outside. got a little closer, and realized it was her. Honeybucket eau de toilet, literally. one month in, it isn't working. but at least our night smells compliment each other. if you have a sensitive gag reflex (or you don't like friends who smell like shit) we are not your kind of people. you will throw up, and probably get scabies as well. athena and anna both have started itching.

tomorrow i plan on getting some 'real' medicine, the kind with western chemicals in it.

(we smell like the train toilet. mom are you ready?)
(yes the brown blob is what you think it is)

uptight americans need not apply.

Deepmala's son (i call him Beta meaning 'son') has been coming over more frequently. He is the most adorable 3 year old, full of curiosity, silliness and little boy attitude. clear gender differences are strongly defined at an early age (like any culture). The preference of boys over girls is no secret. Beta will run jump, get into trouble, demand pani tanda (cold water) from his mom - and get into a whole bunch of mischievous trouble. When Deempala is finished cooking, he will sit at the table and eat with us - slurping his dhal with one hand - munching on roti with the other. His sister (Gudia) sits quietly and smiles, does what she is told, much more under control. both are very sweet children. very intrigued by us ladies, our computers, our strange lives. We watch a lot of Tom and Jerry on youtube.

Beta is just a little younger than my nephew Devin in Seattle. And like my nephew, i am constantly overwhelmed with the fear that the child is going to hurt/kill himself and i could have done something to prevent it. Devin jumping on a trampoline gives me a heart attack. I was half terrified half overjoyed when rode his bike without training wheels. i had to hold my breath. i have nightmares of him poking his eye out as he furiously plays the drums (he is a drummer boy). i am a worrier. i blew on his food to make sure it won't burn him, gave him plastic spoons to play with, and sat with him with a whistle around my neck during his bubble baths - making sure he stayed above the water at all times. My poor poor children will be bubble wrapped until their 18th birthday. Can't you insert some sort of chip underneath the skin to act as a tracking device?

So you can imagine my shock when helping mommy time in the kitchen turned into a mantra meditation exercise for elizabeth to calm herself. i did end up storming into Anna's room to express my fear and concern. she of course calmed me by recalling the story of when she lived in africa, her mother would send her outside with some matches and a tin can to learn how to make her own fire. le sigh. I am so american.