Back in the Swing

Work is starting to ramp up again.  We were temporarily distracted by the bidding season and assignment drama, but now that we know where we're going, we have to get back to work.  On Saturday I'm off to a little district in Kandahar, and should come back with some photos, or at least some shrapnel wounds.  After that it's off to the East; there are several districts I need to get to before we're due to go on vacation at the end of the month.  And we have the Marine Ball in a few days.  I'm wearing a tux with a bow tie no less.  Jody is wearing an Indian dress.  We rarely wear that to work, so this will be a nice change of pace.  On the down side, this makes three straight Fridays I've had to work, so no days off those weeks. 

New Post

In our line of work, "new post" means different things.  In this case, based on an email I just got, it means Panama, for where we're going next.  I understand there are certain slight differences in geography between there and here.  All I have to do is avoid getting blown up over the next 9 months.

Kathakali Show

 According to the ticket stub, Kathakali is the classical dance form of Kerala, dating from  the early 17th century.  Two guys play drums and one guy plays very loud cymbals which, for good measure, have a microphone right in front of them.  The dancers themselves are two men, and while we're talking about the Dupont Circle High Heel Races, as you can see, they have a bit of makeup on.  The ticket goes on to say that "the actors do not speak or sing but enact the story through graceful movements and facial expressions."  The facial expressions were the best part.  The guy playing the girl - he's the one who doesn't look like a frog - did a warm-up act to illustrate the type of facial expressions they do.  It involves a lot of intricate eye-rolling, come hither looks, don't come hither looks, wait a minute maybe you should come hither after all looks, maybe I should go thither looks, holy crap what's that smell over thither looks, etc.  Anyway, after about 30 minutes of absolutely deafening drums and cymbals, the frog guy, who's actually some sort of heavenly prince, kills the guy in drag, who's actually the evil daughter of some infernal demon.  I guess you had to be there.  Anyway, the tickets cost four bucks, so it was worth it.

Monkee See, Monkey Doo

I had heard stories before about monkeys being mean, throwing their feces at people and doing other things people I know rarely do without having a few beers first.  We had only one prior substantive experience with monkeys, not counting our wilder college days, which I don't believe should be fair game for security background checks anyway.  Long ago in Bali, we went to the Monkey Forest.  We had a lovely time; the monkeys were funny, and our younger daughter, maybe six at the time, enjoyed holding out bananas to the monkeys, who took them and sent her thank you cards within two days.  Jody did not enjoy the experience - perhaps because she happened to be the one wearing the backpack stuffed with bananas, the monkeys got wind of it, and two of them climbed up her back and helped themselves.  Well, these monkeys in the nature preserve were jerks.  I'm sure there's some fancy scientific name for this particular species, but we were told they were - I don't have a delicate way of putting this - "blue-balled monkeys."  And in fact, not that I was staring or anything, they were.  Well, they were also aggressive little shits.  The one in the photo sitting on top of the fence, as we were standing in line to buy tickets for the lake boat ride, suddenly rushed right at me, bared its fangs and hissed.  The Indians in line parted like the Red Sea, so the bugger had a clear shot at me.  This was before I took the photo, mind you; I had done nothing to provoke the little bastard.  So even though later we saw several dozen baby monkeys swinging on vines, just like Boy in the Tarzan movies, and that was cute, monkeys still left a bad taste in my mouth.  Luckily, feces were not involved, so I am speaking metaphorically, but still.

Size Matters

Tortoises seem to be a bit bigger in India.  This one is from the tiger and elephant preserve near Thekkady.

Meanwhile Back in Kabul

Another minor earthquake yesterday morning around 8:30, said to have been 5.7 on the Richter scale.  I was at work and didn't feel it, but someone else in the office said he did.
In what was undoubtedly a complete coincidence, I think the annual DuPont Circle High Heel Halloween Race may be been happening at about that time.

http://www.google.com/images?q=dupont%20circle%20high%20heel%20race%20photos&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1253&bih=575

For some reason, these types of races don't take place here.

Views from the Elephant

 Trudging around the tropical plants, when there wasn't the drama of suspiciously loud thuds dropping behind us, we examined the plants with a higher vantage point than from the ground.  The first two are banana trees, and what struck me was, bananas don't hang down - they point up.  You might have to click on the photo to enlarge to see it well, but trust me, they do.  I don't remember that in the Jungle Book movie.
The third photo is more coffee beans - nothing very different from photos already posted.