Traveling to Guatemala City

** Please forgive my grammer and spelling in this posting.  Apparantly my computer has figured out I am in another country and the spell check is trying to make everything spanish.

Traveling for work is vastly different than traveling "Holly style" in many, many ways.  As I write this, I am perched in my Westin bed.  This Westin Bed, is located in the Westin Camino Real in Guatemala City.  I do not want to ever ever leave this Westin Bed.  There are 5 pillows of varying degrees of firmness.  The sheets feel so very silky to the touch.  The entire set of bedding is solid white.  So white I am afriad to lift my laptop and see what damage it might have done.  Perusing the room literature, I discovered I can also own this complete bed ensemble with 100% Egyptian cotton 300 thread count sheets for $3195.  This does include the box springs, matress, skirt, sheets, down blanket, duvet with cover, 5 pillows and 5 pillow cases.  I could cheap out and get 230 thread count cotton-blend sheets for $2870, but I say when you go, you go big.  I also have a 50" LG LED TV hanging on the wall.
Holly Travel usually involves utilzing Trip Advisor reviews to locate the most desierable location with the most economical spend.  I buy my hotel rooms like I buy my wine - you find the cheapest bottle, then get the bottle one step up.  My hotels are usually small (my preference), may or may not include an elevator, typically has a continental breakfast, and has a 19" TV that only receives 2 channels. It also typically involves an extensive search for any possible sign of bed bugs. (NEVER put your suitcase on the floor in a hotel room). 
I am down in Central America to teach a training class.  I flew in on Saturday evening because we need to set up the room for the class on Sunday.  One of my wonderful co-workers that had been a participant in a previous session of the course offered to pick me up and take me to a handicraft market and then to a historic town about an hour away called Antigua.  As we pulled away from the hotel, Jenifer's husband says to me, "the vehicle behind us is your bodyguard.  I just wanted to let you know in case you notice a guy following us around".  OK - Holly Travel DOES NOT involve the use of a bodygaurd.  I have heard of people with Colgate having bodyguards when they travel but myself have never had one.  I think my trip to Colombia must have been under-the-radar because I stayed with Tatiana's family for several days, went out to her Aunt and Uncles' farm, shopped, dined, everything - all with no bodyguard.  And if you need a bodyguard anyplace, I would think it would be Colombia. 
We picked up 3 other people from the airport and began our adventure to this beautiful colonial town.  We dined at the restaurant La Fonda de la Calle Real.  The food was typical of the area - they cook with a lot of pumpkin.  Bill Clinton dined at La Fonda in 1999 (as you can see from my photo below).  There is a beautiful town square and a picturesque volcano in the distance.
I arrived to perfect 75degree weather.  The "city of eternal spring" one person called Guatemala City.  One of the exercises in my class involves M&Ms.  I was afriad if I purchased them in NY, they would melt before I could get to Guatemala, with our temperatures running over 100 degrees on Friday and Saturday of last week.
Holly Travel usually involves tagging on a few extra days to explore the area when a work trip is involved.  That is how I have seen Warsaw & Krakow, Amsterdam, Brussels & Bruges.  Unfortunately my life between now and November is dedicated to the NYC marathon, so I scheduled my trip to ensure I could get in the training runs with my group.  I really wish I had more time to spend in this beautiful area.  I will definetly be back to spend more time in Guatemala.

The Pledge of Allegiance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBTyTWOZCM

I missed my blog entry this week because I was celebrating my niece's 1st birthday.  A very bittersweet occasion because I am so happy for Dean and Jamie and their little Kadie, but I missed my mom terribly.

As I was driving to El Dorado, I heard this monologue by Red Skelton played on the radio.  It struck me that the words "under God" had been cut from the recording.

I do not voice opinions on most anything that can cause an opinion.  But I will ask you to listen/watch this utube clip.  It honestly brought tears to my eyes and gave me chill bumps.

Where are those damn elves when you need them?

I am a mess.  Not as in "she is a hot mess", but my apartment is a "hot mess" (only because the AC is not working (remember the post about the AC leaking into my apartment?)).  I think about the Grimm Brothers fairy tale about the shoemaker.  He was a good person, but he had a hard time getting shoes made.  He cut out the leather and planed on making the shoes the next day.  Alas, along come the little elves and they make the shoes for him.  I really don't think that is fair.  I am a good person too, but I just can't seem to get my apartment orderly.  Where are those damn elves when I need them?

Over the weekend I tidy the apartment.  I wash clothes, I put most of them up.  I run my dishwasher every Sunday.  The part I struggle with is all the crap that accumulates during the week.  I can never get through the entire New York Times paper over the weekend, so I keep it.  I am absolutely sure that I will get to it.  Of course you know exactly how that goes.  Actually, you probably don't.  You probably think I toss it because, as you correctly guessed, I never get around to reading it.  Of course, I never throw it away.  **Disclaimer - when I say "throw it out" I always mean "recycled" or "gave to Salvation Army"**  I have a couple of Style sections from May.  I only read 1 column in that section.  "Modern Love".  I WILL READ IT.

I have created a vicious cycle.  I let my work clothes build up on my bed, then on Friday night I decide if it can go back in the closet or needs to be washed.  (Yes people, you can wear clothes more than once (or twice) before you wash them).  This bed thing has been an issue my entire life.  When I sleep, I take up approximately 13 inches of the bed.  Throughout my life, the rest of my bed was filled with clothes, magazines, books, cassette tapes, etc.  Until I moved into this apartment, my bed had always been against my wall - all the better to stack stacks of stuff.  My other trick from childhood is stuffing stuff under my bed.  My mom would send me to my room to clean up and EVERYTHING would be shoved under my bed.  Far enough back so you could not see it from the vantage point of the door.  Of course, she caught on to that trick pretty quickly.  I had a huge amount of junk and one small closet and a desk with 4 drawers.  I was not Sabrina from Bewitched.  I did not twitch my nose causing the broom to jump to life and sweep the room clean 10 minutes (which is actually about how long it took me to shove it under my bed.)  After college, I wised up (and made more money) so I actually bought containers to slide under my bed.  And mom wasn't around to check under there anymore. 

When I moved to New York, along came the "under bed tubs".  When you have a house, you get used to many luxuries.  For example, TWO sets of sheets, THREE bath towels, etc.  I moved to New York in October along with the contents of my linen closet.  I needed towels for all those folks who were coming to visit.  I quickly learned that in bedrooms, as in life, real estate comes at premium cost (or it did until 2008).  And nobody was probably going to visit. Traveling home for Thanksgiving, half of my suitcase was filled with towels, and my 2nd set of sheets.  If someone did come to visit, I nicely asked them to bring their own towel.  That also saved me from paying to wash it when they left - BONUS!

I have cabinets empty in my kitchen.  I have empty shelves in my closet, yet I have junk still sitting around in my living space.  I think in my mind, if I place something in that cabinet I am commiting it to that location.  Crazy, I know.  Every piece of furniture I own serves as extra storage.  Seemingly antique trunks masquerade as my coffee table and end table - storage.  A giraffe patterned footstool stores magazines. My entertainment center looks like something you would find in an apothecary shop, instead you find it on page 68 of the Pottery Barn catalogue. I bought a bench for my bedroom with a lift top lid.  My jewelry will go in there if I ever get it moved from my closet shelves (see - committed).  I actually bought a bed with drawers underneath it to render the under bed tubs obsolete.  Now the under bed tubs are empty, stacked up and under my desk.

I may sound like a hoarder, but I really am not.  I take more stuff to Goodwill than anyone I know.  I keep my wardrobe paired down to what will fit into my closet.  I have sworn off wearing shoes that don't fit for the sake of fashion.  Those are being auctioned off on ebay.  My issue is junk.  Magazines, like the newspapers, I will read them.  Let me ask this, who came up with this "auto-renewal"?  I get about 9 magazines and 4 of the 9 are weekly.  And they just keep showing up.

Flylady recommends spending 15 minutes a day tidying and your clutter will stay under control.  Of course, this is the same woman that said if you "shine your sink" you will be motivated to clean the rest of the kitchen.  I did read about Flylady and her cleaning system in RV Magazine.  The average age of their target audience is 67.  In their retirement, these folks probably look forward to the 15 minutes of cleaning each day.  It is probably sanwiched in between "Cash Cab" and "Paula Dean"

My biggest issue is when I start to clean, I inevitably am distracted by a bigger project.  Last weekend it was the refrigerator shelves and drawers needing a good cleaning.  One shelf and the two drawers are still in my kitchen floor.  Today, I went in to unload the dishwasher and complete the refrigerator.  I decided it was more important to declutter the counter top.  Sounds like an easy task, right?  Not with Holly. First I should mention that I have 20 feet of counter top.  I decided to start with the small section on one side of the cooktop.  I moved all the junk mail (to the other side of the cooktop), placed all the canisters, utensils and electrical appliances on the floor.  I wiped up the dust, then I used the special granite cleaner.  After the cleaner, I used the special granite polish.  The polish needs to be sprayed on, given time to dry and then "buffed to a sheen". While I was waiting for the polish to dry, I decided (project #2) to move a part from one set of blinds to the kitchen blinds (the thing that opens and closes the slats).  I broke it.  This brought on project #3 - super gluing everything that had broken in my apartment over the last year, including the blind thingy.  After gluing all the broken items, the polish was dry and I set about my buffing.  Finally, project #4 - re-arranging everything that lives on that side of the counter top.  Can you develop ADD at 40?

Today I made a list of my "must do" tasks for the weekend.  This does involve reading many magazines and hanging up many clothes.  I hope the satisfaction of the checklist that I enjoy at work when finishing a task will drive the same behavior at home. 

As far as the elves go, they probably knew that when I left out those cleaning products in hopes that they would come clean, the reality was, I got distracted and forgot to put them up. Or maybe I needed to sew them some tiny little elf clothes, like the shoemaker did.  Just another project to start and be distracted from.

The internet is a wonderful thing, I think . . .

This morning I decided to cut up some mangoes I bought.  My mangoes always end up mangled and mushy so I decided to go to the universal reference guide - the Internet.  Google up "how to slice a mango" and you get 5.6 million search returns to select from.

Remember the good old days, when you had to actually ask a human or use a book when you wanted to know something?  Typically it was your mom or dad, and the conversation went something like this,
"Mother, how long is a giraffe's tongue," asks the precocious blonde haired, blue eyed fourth grader (me).
"I don't know honey."
"Mo-THER.  I have to finish my diorama of Africa's Masai Mara for extra credit so I get the highest grade in the class.  It's important!"
"Can you ask your teacher?"
"NO!  I can't ask her!  It's due tomorrow!"
"Honey, what have I told you about waiting until the last minute?  Why don't you CALL (not google) the library and see what time it closes tonight.  You can go look in The Encyclopedia Britannica and  find out the answer to your question." (Mom secretly crosses her fingers and hopes it is one of the library's late nights so she can drop the kid off and have a little quiet time.
"Thanks, Mother.  Can we go by WalGreens on the way home so I can get some glitter and construction paper?"

A giraffe's tongue is 18-22 inches long according to ask.uk.co

Everything you could ever want to know is on the other side of your computer monitor.  Almost every vacation I book is based off of Trip Advisor reviews.  After each trip I go back to the website and leave reviews of tours I went on or hotels I stayed at.  I research cookware: non-stick vs stainless steel, how to clean and season cast iron skillets.  I research places to purchase upholstery fabric in New York (they are mostly on the Lower East Side which is a hike from my apartment, but close to an awesome gluten free bakery).  I research prices on ANYTHING I buy.  I love Amazon.com, Ebay and Craig's List.

My refrigerator was making a clicking noise and a high pitched squealing noise.  I googled "refrigerator clicking and squealing" and was able to make a diagnosis.  seriously, there were several question on this exact noise out there.  It was the condenser fan and it needed to be replaced.  I sounded somewhat intelligent when I called to get it repaired. I also determined the reason my AC was leaking INTO my apartment was the drainage hole was plugged.  Granted that one wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, but I enjoy being validated.  My friends and I needed to cut up a whole chicken.  We watched Justin Wilson flay a chicken on YouTube.  Our Grandmothers would be mortified.

Since my Mom passed so quickly, I have become a hypochondriac.  If someone I know becomes ill, I quiz them on their symptoms and compare to any aches and pains I have.  If I get a new freckle, I think it might be skin cancer.  My running caused a blister under my toenail (gross and painful if it hasn't happened to you).  I went to the Doc in a Box at Duane Reade to make sure I didn't have some horrible infection that would cause my toe to fall off.  WebMD has a pop up that says, "Hello, Holly - what are you researching today".
After a business trip and mini vacation to Thailand, I spent the better part of an hour trying to determine whether I had a brain tumor or I just jetlag.  Before you roll your eyes, let me explain.  (I probably wasn't quick enough.  You rolled your eyes)  I have traveled what I think is pretty extensively.  I have been out of the country for 10 days at a time.  I come home, I wake up really early for 3 or 4 days.  I get tired in the afternoon.  That is jetlag.  I returned from the 2 weeks in Thailand.  Everything seemed normal for the first day or two.  Then I noticed that I felt woozy and drunk all day.  And not a fun "I've had a few glasses of wine" drunk.  Things were happening in slow motion.  I couldn't walk in a straight line.  Something was not right.  The first thing that jumped into my head was brain tumor.  I don't know why.  I guess that seemed like a reasonable explanation for my woes.  So I googled - first brain tumor then jetlag.  My research was inconclusive - I could have either or neither.  So I asked my travel partner.  She was experiencing the same symptoms - thank goodness.  Internet research also enlightened me to the fact that you need to allow 1 day for every time zone you cross.  Twelve time zones is a lot of recovery time! 
When I picked up my glass I noticed my hand was shaking, then I saw the movie Love, Sex and other Drugs so I researched Parkinson's. 
Could all this access to information actually be a bad thing?  Do we spend too much time obsessing about things we normally wouldn't without access to the information?  Whether it is obscure museums to visit on an upcoming vacation, unidentifiable illnesses or finding the perfect beige and peach fabric print lamp for your bedroom, how much time is spent on our pursuit of information?
Going to the library and checking out reference books wasn't so bad, was it?  Dialogue between parents and children over crazy trivia questions still happens, I hope.  Maybe they look the answer up on the Internet together.
Anyway, I found out I had been slicing a mango all wrong.  Apparently you don't peel it first.  You use the skin to aid you in the cubing process.  So glad I had the Internet to look that up.

The woes (costs) of being female

There comes a time in a woman's life when she has to make some hard decisions. I have just made one such decision. I am not talking about things like whether to have a baby or take the plunge with marriage - this is something not quite as life changing. But, it will literally shape my future. I have decided to let my eyebrows grow back in and start over with shaping them from their original state. Over the years they seem to have become smaller and smaller. Much of this can probably be attributed to going to the asian nail salons and getting an eyebrow wax. After a few horrorible experiences, I learned that you should ALWAYS look at the eyebrows of the waxer your brows are going into the care of. Flash back to college, pre-eyebrow grooming. (see photo below:  before and after)  When I walked into a party wearing sunglasses a male friend commented, "Wow, what's up with those eyebrows?" What followed were many years of attempting to purchase sunglasses that covered up the caterpillars living on my face in close proximity to my eyes. This of course, was pre-Olsen twins, so large frames were virtually impossible to find. So when you next see me and my bushy brows, remember it is a journey in re-inventing my self. Ok, so that isn't necessarily true, but it sounds very lofty, progressive and high minded.

This brings me to my main topic - how expensive it is to be a female. Do guys with their $20 haircuts where the toughest decision is "number 2 on the sides and number 3 on the top" realize the expense, time and perpetual maintenance involved in our everyday good looks? I just got my hair straightened today. It is supposed to reduce my frizzyness and speed up drying time. I bought the treatment on groupon.com at half price. So, only $149 - what a bargain (to be read with a sarcastic tone.) When you actually redeem any special discounts, just like at restaurants, you tip 20% on the regular price. Which means $60 to cover the $300 regular price. THEN, I took an airconditioned cab home because I am not supposed to wash it for several days to prevent the keratin from washing out. Now I am sitting in my apartment trying not to sweat so as to preserve this major investment. Trips to upscale salons where you have individual people for every event always requires a trip to the ATM it seems. I "treated" myself to a cut at Bumble and Bumble one time. My appointment introduced me to a large group of people that were all critical to the success of my visit and needed to be tipped for their services: coat check, girl that washes hair, stylist that cuts hair, flunkie that dries hair (apparently a stylist in training). I considered whether I should tip the girl that brought me my tea, but then realized it was said blowdrying flunkie. You feel like a cheapskate if you hand the folks with more menial tasks a couple of dollars since they actually did work. Gone are the days in the shampoo room where a fishbowl was in the middle of the room and you just dropped in a dollar.

Speaking recently to a friend, she had her hair styled by a woman that owned her own salon. The typical rule of thumb is, you don't tip people that own the joint because all the money is going into their pocket. The other stylist at the salons usually "rent" their space and provide the owner with a portion of service revenue (I think - please correct me if I am wrong). In the city of New York where it seems everyone has a hand out, she was unsure whether to tip the owner or not. Faced with the uncertainty, of course she tipped generously. Faced with this issue, I am sure I would have done the same.

Manicures, pedicures, hilight, low light, color jobs, perms (if these even exist anymore) unmentionable in a blog waxing, eyebrow threading, spray on tanner, blow outs (for those folks in Arkansas - and I am only assuming this because I came to NY and thought this was the craziest thing - people do pay to actually have their hair BLOWDRIED!!!!).

I am not sure where this madness ends, but I hope that our male counterparts appreciate how much money and effort go into looking "natural". Those sunstreaked tresses are not from a week in Aruba, they are from sitting in a chair in a salon for 3 hours with a heat lamp focused on our hair. You should have your hilight touched up every 8-12 weeks. I typically stretch mine out for a few months because I read in INSTYLE magazine last year that "roots are IN!" with several photos of supermodels with 3-4 inches of dark roots showing in their beautiful blonde manes. WOO HOO! Save myself a little money there!

By the way, to use the brow shaping guy I have been recommended will set me back $75. Just add another line to the Income Statement line item called "Grooming".

Honestly, I think that we women really engage in this upkeep for the approval of other women. Other women can appreciate the effort that goes into the expensive haircut. Questions of "who is your stylist?" and "where do you get your brows done?" triggers a proud reaction. "Wow, she noticed!" you think to yourself. So, whether for yourself, your girlfriends or the male population - our upkeep keeps getting more expensive and more complex and ellaborate. So please, men, appreciate and compliment women when you do notice a difference, even if you have to say, "somehow you look different, did you do something with your hair?" It makes us feel like all this work is well worth it.

The Curse of the Dirty Blonde Hair

I want to go darker - I'm thinking my natural color, brown, with gold tinted hilights. Think "warm", I said to my beloved colorist. This man has been keeping my golden tresses golden for the last 8 years. "But, Holly, you are not brown, your hair is blonde." I look at him, shocked, and point to the 3 inches of roots crowning the top of my noggin. "Look at this, this is SO brown - look how dark it is. UGH, and look at all those grey hairs gleaming at us. We HAVE to get rid of those too". He bends his very dark hair down close to my head to force the comparison. "My hair is brown" he tells me. "You, my dear, are a blonde". and there lies the curse of the dirty blonde. actually, the term dishwater blonde really is the better descriptor. My original hair color does has the same hue as water that has had lunch scoured off the plates and the soap bubbles have fizzled to nothing . to me, the color is reminicent of camping. You have just finished cleaning up the hobo dinner mess (because you have to save that alumnim foil to use again) and you sling that yucky water as far as you can without actually leaving the perimeter of your campsite. A lovely greyish/brownish/whitesh hue. and it is all mine.

apparantly it would look really weird if my roots grew in lighter than the rest of my hair, so a lovely shade of chestnut brown was instantly nixed. Could it look any stranger than my multi-month grown of dark roots contrasted against the straw yellow hair below. i saw an article in In Style or Vogue or some other fashionable magazine showing several photos of hot young starlets declaring "roots are in". I figured if Kristen Dunst could go a couple of months without a touch up then I could push it a few more too.

So after 2 hours of striping and foiling and heating lamping, I am back to my original shade of dirty blonde hair with highlights and lowlights and gloss. i would say that I am excited to experience life as a non-blond. But apparantly I am blond and always will be. i guess now when people apoligize after making a blonde joke, I can no longer point at my roots and say "I'm not blond - I only pay to be this way"

Weight Watchers is one of the most successful and respected weight loss programs in the world. Their simple "points" tracking system and focus on "filling foods" (basically, anything that only has one ingredient: apple, turkey, tomato) and support network have helped millions of people lose unwanted pounds and keep it off. It is also my program of choice. This brings me to my question. Why do so many people EAT during the Weight Watchers meeting? Saturday after saturday I see people step off the scale then proceed to unpack their meal of choice. You cannot imagine what comes out of those New York City tote bags. You know those bags we all carry with our wallet, water bottle, latest InStyle magazine, book of the week, lip balm and apparantly, food for weight watchers meetings. Is it a form of rebellion? The evil scale sits behind the desk, watching slowly as the line shuffles forward. Once their turn to face the beast, they climb on and hold their breath. Will it be Victory? Or Defeat? no matter how many times our fearless leader tells us "it's not about the scale, its about how you live" we all know that it IS about the scale and our day can crash in an instant if the evil scale belches out a higher number then it did the week before. Once they have conquered the scale, for better or worse, the assume their seat for the meeting. then the unpacking begins: fruit, yogurt, egg sandwich, hard boiled egg - needing to be peeled-and cans of tunafish. I almost expect a tablecloth and silverwear to join the plastic containers on display. Are they saying, "ha ha! i made it through the week, I starved myself all day on friday, and now that I have faced the beast at 9:30 Saturday morning - I can eat!" Or is it defiance - "Yes I need to lose weight, I know that. But I also have the self confidence to pull out an egg sandwich and eat it for the world to see." Or maybe they feel that the WW meeting is a safe place, where they can feel comfortable eating in public because everyone is there for the same reason and there is no judgement. I have to admit, I am proud of those people and just a little jealous that they are comfortable enough to plow through a bagel and container of fruit during the 45minute meeting. i personally don't like to eat in public, except in a restaurant. I feel like people are watching me eat my sandwhich and wondering why I am eating the sandwich, since I obviously don't need to. So die hard Weight Watcher meeting eaters - rejoice in your self confidence, just please don't let your egg shell land in my lap again.