As much as I love this country...

... it's time for me to go home!

I've been busy getting things ready to go home for a few weeks!  Whoo hoo!  I'm not excited at all, no, not me...

I lave on Tuesday morning to go to Uganda, and from there, I go on Wednesday morning home to Canada!  Tomorrow a good friend who used to live here is coming to stay.  So we're hosting a bit of a dinner party tomorrow evening.  Which means I not only have to get all my own stuff packed up and ready to go, along with packing up my stuff that I'm leaving behind, because it gets destroyed by rats and dust if you just leave it all out, I also get to welcome my friend to our house and make a pot of spaghetti for our dinner party :)

Should be a good day.  Considering it's already after midnight, I guess I should try to sleep. But I'm so excited, I'm finding it a bit hard to be sleepy! 

I love this country!

Was it Balki Bartokomus who used to say that on Perfect Strangers?  What does that say about me that I still think of quotes from characters on sitcoms that ended almost 20 years ago!?  Yowzers, I'm getting old!

Anyway, I love this country!  I had a bit of fun today.  After coming up with some new terms for things like "conjunction" and "noun" in one of the languages here for most of the day, we had to have some fun after work.  While we were preparing for our fun, I was chatting with the women who work in the guesthouse.  Man, I love those girls!  They are so funny, and I'm getting to the point where I can chat with them in Arabic, and actually understand their answers :)  (that is, when they think about speaking a bit on the slow side for me - when they're chatting and laughing together and getting all excited about something... I can hardly understand a word... which makes it difficult to get the punch line of any of their jokes :(  ). 

Anyway, we were chatting, and they figured that it's about time I got a proper name from this country.  So the first name they picked out means something like, "second born girl", which is a fitting, and very pretty and appropriate name here.  But then one of the guys from the language group that we're working with this week piped up and said that the word means 'snake' in his language.  So, back to the drawing board on the whole naming thing.

Actually, one of the other language groups here has given me a name, "Tanga".  Of course, it's very similar to my own name, but it means "cow" in their language!  Now before you start laughing, I have to say that these people in these parts hold cows in very high regard.  They sing songs to their cows.  They whisper sweet nothings in the ears of their cows while brushing and bathing them.  I probably wouldn't be far off the mark if I told you that they value their cows more than their wives sometimes.  So being called a "cow" is actually quite a high compliment around here!  Just don't get any ideas of what you can start calling me when I get home (yes, you know who you are...!).

So after the naming committee went back to the drawing board on finding a proper name for me, Jackie and I piled into the Landcruzer and headed over to Montana Gardens.  We took 6 of the guys that we're working with out for ice cream!  These guys live in the village, normally, so they had never had a chance to taste ice cream before.  So, we thought since we were coming up with new terms for things in their language, we might as well have a whole new experience to go along with the new words.  I wonder how they'll translate "ice cream" into their language when they go tell their families about it!

It was good fun to just sit around with them and chat and see their faces when they tasted the really cold ice cream.  They quite liked it, and said that it cooled them down nicely, because this city is much hotter than the forest that they come from!  Anyway, we have to eat all sorts of different things and have all kinds of new experiences when we visit their home area, so it's fun to be able to give them a completely different cross-cultural experience, as well.

So tonight, I was just thinking about how much I love this country - well, at least I love some of the people that I get to live and work with in this country!

The New Digs

Well, maybe, someday... this will be my new little home:

It has quite a long ways to go yet.  So I'm not really holding my breath.  But I am impressed and very happy with how the frangipani tree is coming up, right outside my windows!  It's going to be lovely... someday... if it ever gets finished.

Zane is already starting to make himself at home, which is nice to see (though shouldn't be surprising, since this place is just a tiger trap's length away from my current abode).

This, by the way, is the tiger trap separating my current abode from my future-someday-perhaps-here's-hoping-abode:

Yes, that is what you think it is. And yes, a lovely little, um, er, pond, will be right outside the verandah living room of my current home, and just outside the windows of my future-someday-perhaps-here's-hoping-home!  I am still hoping to catch a tiger in it, though, before it fills up with... um... well, you know!

Adventures in Domestic Goddesity

The adventures in becoming a domestic goddess are continuing!

Last night, I was invited to a South African meal, hosted by my South African neighbor, and attended by two South African friends, myself and British Jackie.  Of course, being the considerate guest that I am, asked what could I bring to contribute towards the meal.  Philip, my neighbor, asked me to bring Beer Bread (a fancy cowboy recipe from my Montanan buddy Grace) and also to cook some funky wheat thing.  The Beer Bread was no problem, though I did have to send an urgent SOS text message to Uganda to get the recipe from said Montanan.  Thankfully, the recipe came on time and I was able to bake a lovely loaf of beer bread.  The recipe was supposed to just take 1 can of beer, but the dough was amazingly sticky after adding just one can, so I opened a second can of Heineken and poured about 1/4th of that in there, too.  The rest of the Heineken... well, we won't talk about what happened to that :)

Unfotunately, I learned that you're not supposed to wrap warm-ish bread in plastic, because it makes the crust tough.  Who knew?  I just knew that I didn't want the dust or the flies to land on my bread, nor did I want Zane to get curious about it!  But I ended up with some pretty chewy crust :(

Anyway, I also had to cook this South African pearl wheat barley thing.  Philip had made it for us for a BBQ a few months ago, and I raved about it.  It was so good!  So he brought me some from S. Africa, and then asked me to bring some for the meal last night.  He gave me verbal instructions on how to cook it, but I have to admit, I was a bit  nervous about cooking a South African specialty for a group of South Africans, after never even having seen it cooked before!

But I bravely squared my shoulders and figured that it couldn't be THAT hard!  And in fact, it wasn't hard - you just boil the water with a bit of salt and thow in these wheat kernals.  Philip had told me to put in about a handful for each person.  So I did.  And I boiled.  And I simmered.  And I boiled some more.  They were supposed to boil for about an hour, according to the package directions and Philip.  But after an hour - there didn't seem to be a whole lot of wheaty stuff and it was a bit crunchy.  So I boiled it for a few more minutes, but then figured, well, they all said 1 hour, so...

I took it out of the pot, put some butter on it, and served it up in a little bowl (a little bowl, because there wasn't that much of it!).  My good natured South African friends informed me, though, that it probably could have cooked for another 30 minutes to make it good and soft and big and fluffy!  Anyway, they appreciated my first try at it. 

And there was more than enough lamb stew from a giant cast iron pot to go around, even with a meager portion of wheaty-thing.  Man, was it every good.  The meat was just falling off the bones and tasted a bit like my granny's pot roast!  I ate so much!  Then we had nice coffee and banana bread (which I had also baked, and only burned slightly on the bottom :(  ) for dessert. 

The best part about it was that we ate outside on the patio at my nieghbor's house.  She has been doing so much gardening, and the garden looks beautiful - flowers, herbs, veggies, and little bits of artistic things strewn about.  The garden is just so pretty and it was lovely to sit outside and enjoy a good meal with friends.

Today, since it was a bit cooler and overcast, I figured it was a good day to play in my own garden.  The paths have become so overgrown with weeds in the past few weeks, that I was getting bitten by bugs every time I went out there to do any watering or anything.  Plus, since I found that last snake in the garden, I have been fearing walking through the long weeds when I go out there, especially in the evenings.  So my goal today was to clear some pathways through the weeds so I can get to the areas that are planted.

Man, that was a LOT of work.  Even though it was cooler and overcast (and probably only about 30C), it was humid, and I was sweating!  Swinging the hoe and pulling the weeds... phew.  I was wearing a pair of gloves, which was a very good thing, because I came across some seriously crazy looking insects as I hacked my way through the weeds and pulled out the roots!  At one point, some tiny little red things started biting my toes, but I managed to dance around they left me alone.  I finally had to quit when my arms started breaking out in a crazy itchy red rash!  But I did achieve the goal of making some paths and clearing through some of the brush.  While I was out there, I also harvested some leaves to cook up into a little veggie side dish for our potluck tonight!  I was rather excited to be able to bring an offering that came straight from my garden :)

However, my domestic goddesity still has one flaw - the gardening gloves and garden tools are stored in Richard's house while he's away.  And while I was in there getting the tools today, I smelled a smell that makes me want to run away - something has died somewhere in that house :(  If I were a true domestic goddess, I would sweep out the corners, move the bed and the chairs, and sweep that dead something right out of there.  But I really fear coming across a very dead something.  And by the smell of it, it is very dead.

I might go and ask for assistance tomorrow from a real domestic goddess - one of the women who works in the guesthouse!  If I have some moral support, I can face that dead rat... I think! 

By the way, no luck yet on trapping my own house-rat.  I still hear him scampering in the ceiling, but he hasn't been caught in the trap yet.

Eating out

I haven't had any more adventures in the kitchen this week, nor have I (nor has Zane!) been able to catch the pesky kitchen dwelling rat.  But he doesn't seem to have done any damage to anything in the kitchen, so maybe he's just happy eating the insulation in the ceiling boards, and is leaving our actual food things alone.  As long as he doesn't start munching on my travel coffee mugs like he did last time...  poor Tim Horton's doesn't know how to make a rat-proof travel mug.  I wonder if they give refunds on lids that the rat chews through?!

We did sort of eat out tonight, which was good fun.  After work, all of us from the compound went out to get some ice cream at Montana Gardens.  Yup, it's neither in Montana, nor is there a garden anywhere nearby.  But the place is, for some odd reason, called Montana Gardens!  It's run by Lebanese people, actually.  They have the most luscious looking pastries in their display case - even real croissants.  But at $3 per croissant (with nothing on it!), I haven't tried it yet.  I was disappointed with their coffee, too, so it doesn't seem worth it to pay so much for a croissant without a good coffee!  The gelato, though, is quite good!  It's still the only place in town where you can get ice cream other than the soft serve stuff (which you can only get at 2 places still!).

Tonight, though, since I was out of energy for pumpkin wrestling, Jackie and I decided to try Montana Garden's pizza.   I wanted to see a menu, to see what else they had, too, and to choose a good pizza, but when I asked where the menu was, the waitress pointed to her head and said, "It's right here!"  So she told me what there was for pizza toppings, but didn't know the prices.  She also said there were some sandwiches and stuff.  But was a bit hazy on the details of what might be in those sandwiches, as well! 

There was a Montana special pizza, but she didn't know what was on that one.  There was also a "meat" pizza, so I asked her what kind of meat was on it.  Her immediate (and only!) answer to that question was, "not pork".  The only other option was tuna pizza.  So we opted for the "meat" pizza, and were pleasantly surprised, actually.  It had some nice mince meat on it, with onions, green peppers and tomatoes. So the pizza wasn't bad, though maybe a bit pricier than some of the places where you can go and actually get some sort of pork product on the pizza!

I think Montana Gardens is trying to break into the wedding cake business in town, though, as they had stacks of wedding cake decorations - huge bright flowers and lots of white brides in white dresses and white grooms in black tuxedos.  Surely there is a market for wedding cake toppers with African people, rather than pasty white folks, isn't there?  Anyway, from the looks of their pastries in the case, I'm sure the cakes would actually look quite nice, when all is said and done!  So, if anyone is in the market for a wedding cake, go to Montana Gardens and tell them that I sent you :)  Maybe I'll get a free croissant out of the deal!

I think I'll eat out tomorrow

The excitement in the kitchen never seems to end these days!

My goal for the evening was to make something with the pumpkin that was left by a former housemate about a month ago.  It's been sitting up on top of our fridge collecting dust for about 2 months.  Today was the day to do something with it.  But my goodness, that pumpkin did NOT want to be eaten!  I don't know if pumpkins get tougher the longer they sit or what, but I tell you, my life would have been much easier if had had a kitchen axe tonight!  I used my biggest, sharpest knife (and it is a very big, very sharp knife!), but man, did I ever have to wrestle with that pumpkin!  I had it down on the concrete floor, using two hands and two feet, trying to get the knife through the silly thing! I was fearing that I would lose a foot to the blade before getting that pumpkin cracked open. 

I eventually did get it open - only after working up a pretty good sweat though (yes, you may laugh here, Sean!)!  I couldn't manage to cut anymore, so I just chucked the entire half into the pressure cooker and let it boil for a while.  Once the pumpkin meat was all mushy, I took it out, and lo and behold the skin wasn't even slightly softened!  I could use that half a pumpkin shell to dig in my garden, it's still so hard!  And that's after being pressure cooked for 30 minutes!  Anyway, the meat was lovely and soft and deliciously "nutty" smelling, so I scooped it all out, and into the soup pot it went, together with a bouillon cube, sauteed onions, minced garlic, tomato paste, and chopped fresh basil.  It smelled SO good.  But I had to wait for the generator to be turned on at 7pm so I could get out our blender and smooth it all up.

After blending, I returned it all to the pot, to heat it again and to add a little plain yogurt.  All the yummy looking recipes I saw online called for cream at this point, but that's just a dream here, so a little plain yogurt is usually a decent substitute...

But as I was adding the yogurt, the gas quit on me :(  So then started the adventure of procuring the proper crescent wrench to use to wrestle with with gas cylinder.  All of the rummaging through one absent neighbor's tool box came up fruitless, so I had to go and ask the neighbor to borrow his crescent wrench.  While I'm an independent woman who can take care of herself, I'll never deny a man the opportunity to practice a little chivalry - especially when I'm hungry and gas bottles are involved.  Changing a gas bottle here isn't difficult - quite simple, really - but you do have to have a bit of strength to get the regulator unscrewed, screw it tightly onto the new bottle, and then open up the nozzle on the new bottle.  Not to mention the fact that these bottles are HEAVY, and you have to wrestle the silly thing into position near the stove before you can attach the new one.

Of course, there was no chivalry here tonight, and all I got from the neighbor-man was, "Bring back the wrench when you're done!".  So off I went to wrestle the gas bottles.

I was successful, and pretty soon, my lovely soup was bubbling away again.  In the meantime, I had also put some bread in the oven to toast a bit.

I was just opening the oven door to take the bread out, when I had the opportunity to scream while cooking dinner for the second day in a row.  My opening of the oven door must have scared a rat from out behind the stove!  So while I took the  bread out of the oven, the rat scampered up the brick wall and into a hole that he had chewed in the ceiling board above the stove.  I'm just so thankful that he didn't fall back down into my pot of lovely soup (did I mention how delicious it turned out... without the rat inside?!).

So tonight the before-bed-chores included setting the trap for the rat.  I'm waiting, and hoping that any minute now... SNAP!  And my rat woes will be over for another day.  I'll update you tomorrow on the success or failure of tonight's hunt.

A bit more excitement than usual

I'm starting to think that having a fire extinguisher in the house would be a good idea.

Sensibly, we cook using gas here.  There's not really any other choice, if you want to eat when there's no electricity, unless you want to cook outside on charcoal.  However, our little stove has been having a few issues lately.  I don't know what the problem is, but it was a cheap chinese stove to begin with anyway (it was what was sent to us from Uganda :( ), and after 4 years of use in this place, it's starting to show its age.  The flames get a bit wild once in a while, and I've been somewhat surprised that I haven't caught anything on fire yet.

Yet.

Until tonight's dinner of sausage flambe!  My potatoes were happily boiling on the stove, my sausages were happily frying in the iron skillet, and I was happily chopping an avocado... when the whole kitchen lit up with a rather large flambe from the sausage pan!  Thankfully, I wasn't standing right there, or I'd probably be eyebrow-less tonight.  I did have the presence of mind to turn off the gas burners right away, and since there was nothing else close to the flames they burned themselves out pretty quickly!  But t he thought did occur to me that the closest fire extinguisher (that I know of) on the compound is a pretty far hike (including a stop at the key box to unlock the keybox to get the key to the office where the extinguisher is...).  So, I might start thinking about a bit of fire safety here!

Anyway, it was a rather exciting start to our dinner!  Thankfully, the flames burned out before they burned the sausages, too, and they were perfectly cooked - hot on the inside, crunchy on the outside!  And I still have my eyebrows.

Store in a cool, dry place

As I was reading the label on my toothpaste this evening (what else am I supposed to do while brushing my teeth?!), I learned that toothpaste is supposed to be stored in a cool, dry place, below 30C.  That got me thinking to all of the other products that have warning labels on them, stating that they should be stored in a cool, dry place, below 30C.  There are a lot of them, you know.  Just read a few labels someday, and you might be surprised.

Of course, that also got me thinking that perhaps humans need to come with the same kind of warning label!  I think I should be stored in a cool, dry place, below 30C.

It was a beautiful, cloudy day today, and I think most of the day was below 30C.  It probably got up to 32C in the mid afternoon, when the sun peeked through the clouds for an hour or so, but basically, it was hovering around or below 30C today.  At the moment, it's only 27C in my bedroom, and with the fan on, I'm feeling positively chilly!  It's SO nice!  It made me realize how much better I function when I'm stored below 30C.  I got so much done today, and am not even completely exhausted at the end of this day.  I woke up relatively early (for a Sunday!), cooked a quiche and some scrambled eggs, plus coffee and fixin's for 10 of us, helped to set up tables and chairs and dishes for a potluck brunch that we had this morning with a bunch of us, enjoyed brunch without breaking a sweat, cleaned up, downloaded and watched a good sermon from a church back home (all about U2 and God's plan of Creation and Redemption), dug in the garden with a hoe (even though R told me that I dig like a 6 year old girl!), planted two different kinds of greens, watered the other greens that are happily growing, sorted out my laundry, tidied up my room, went to Bible study, made dinner, skyped with some friends... and here I am.  Not even breaking a sweat or feeling completely exhausted! I almost don't even know what to do with myself.  It's a good, good feeling. 

The last few weeks

So, as I may have mentioned, I've been pretty busy with a few workshops over the past few weeks.

One of those workshops was with a group of guys (many of them full-time team members with us here, and some from local churches and communities) who came to translate a story book and teacher's guide about HIV and AIDS.  I actually learned quite a lot about a lot of things I wouldn't dare to normally ask these guys that I work with on a daily basis!  I have to admit, there were a few moments when I was glad I was sitting in the back of the classroom, instead of up front, because, well, being in a room full of African men while they're having some rather frank conversations about HIV and AIDS and the transmission thereof can make a single girl blush a bit!

That being said, though, I'm really glad that these guys (most of whom are pastors and school teachers) are able to talk openly about some of the issues surrounding sex and marriage and HIV.  It's becoming a serious problem here in this country, but people are very un-informed here about the whole issue.  Hopefully this book and guide that the guys translated these past two weeks will be a good tool to help people understand a few more things about it.

So here's the group of us, waving to all of you.

They worked so hard to translate the books and get them all prettified in the computer.  I helped with that part for some of the teams, but I'm so impressed that my colleagues' computer skills are improving and they are learning how to prettify books all on their own!

Of course, we had to stop to eat once in a while, and it was SO nice to have someone cooking us a wonderful lunch every day.  Izzy is our cook during the workshops, and not only is she as pleasant as can be, she's also an amazing cook.  She even makes the slimy stuff (okra and another slimy vegetable leaf thing that I don't know the English name for!) taste good!

Kathie came from the US to help facilitate the workshop.  Part of the workshop was also for these guys to learn how to teach the workshop to others, so here they were practicing a skit, to show how HIV attacks the white blood cells and lets all those nasty diseases like TB take over your body.  By the way, translating "white blood cells" was quite a challenge for some of these language groups, but they all managed to find a good way in the end.

After working on helping to check the content of the translated books (using back translations and lots of questions - was SO much fun to be a translation 'consultant' for a few days!) and doing desktop publishing and lots of other little bits and pieces during the day, I went with one of the language teams to their church in the evening to help facilitate a Writer's Workshop for them!

I happen to love Writer's Workshops, because I happen to LOVE to see people writing things in their own language.  Surprisingly, we had a handful of women come to the workshop who are just in the very beginning early literacy classes.  They can't quite write a "story" yet, but they were SO enthusiastic to learn all about how to write and to start thinking about what they want to write.  I didn't want them to go away without seeing their stories down on paper, so I recruited a few of the literate guys to sit with them and write down their stories as the women dictated their stories to them.  Really, it was so amazing to see these women get so into the workshop!  Very rewarding, even though it was exhausting!

Our Writer's Workshop was also a good chance to read the newly translated HIV story to speakers of that language.  Each day, we brought a new section of the story, and Maurice read it to the class.

It was a very good way to get immediate feedback on what they had been translating that very day.  Of course, I don't understand the language itself, but I could keep track of where the reader seemed to stumble a lot and correct himself as he went along, as that could indicate there's a problem with the translated text (or it could just be a problem with the fluency of the reader!  But at least it gives you a basis to start asking a few questions!).

On Thursday, I spent some quality time with the photocopier and riseograph machine.  The photocopier decided to take a holiday, and needs a technician.  The closest technician is currently in what is practically a different country... so, I had to switch to using the riseo.  In the end, though, I think the effort was worth it, to see a stack of books in 5 different languages, all produced in the span of less than 2 weeks!

And these are just some of the reasons why I really, really love my job!

In celebration of the city power...

... I shall compose a short blog.

Plus, one of my friends who actually seems to read my blog (I'm amazed there are still some of you out there!), mentioned that, well, I've been neglecting my duties lately (not THOSE kinds of "duties", Grace!).

So, without further ado... a blog post by me.

This, by the way, is my 1001th blog post!  That in and of itself should warrent a post, no?

There are several reasons I haven't been blogging lately.  For starters, we haven't had city power in 6 days.  Which means at 10:30pm each night, I'm plunged into darkness and sweatiness.  Yes, there is a battery back up to our internet, but there's just something unappealing about sitting in the dark with a hot laptop on my already sweaty lap.  Plus, I've been SO busy.  Tomorrow marks the end of 4 consecutive weeks of workshop faciliation.  Three workshops in 4 weeks in two different countries! 

But they've all been great workshops.  The workshop in Ethiopia was focusing on bridging activities and helping to flesh out the new curriculum in that country for Grade 4 for 3 different language groups.  I learned a ton from the woman that I was working with and just from interacting with the guys there.   We also had some good fun!

I got to go with the Ethiopian chaps that we were working with for pizza one night.  It was the first time EVER that they had eaten pizza!  They were a bit puzzled by it at first, but ended up loving it!  They ate a LOT of pizza.

After the pizza, we all went together to the Sheraton Hotel where they do this dancing fountain light show.  It was so cool.  One of the more quiet guys in the bunch was standing next to me, and the look of awe and wonder on his face was so priceless!  I asked him if he liked it, and he just said, "It's wonderful!"

I had to agree with him - it was pretty wonderful.  When you're coming from the place that I live (which is actually quite similar to the place that these guys that we were working with come from), walking into the Sheraton Hotel, seeing these dancing lights and fountains with music... it was pretty amazing!

I also went to my favourite "cultural" restaurant in the city to enjoy some nice food, coffee and dancing.  I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the "mixed dish" bit of food.  I've turned into a bit of an Ethiopian food snob, but you know, I know what I like, and why bother wasting time on all the rest that I DON'T like.  But I was along for the ride with a crowd of short-term volunteers, and their pack leader/host ordered the food.  So what could I say?  I have, however, found that if people aren't too keen on Ethiopian food, there are better things to order than the "mixed dish", plus, when you're eating with a whole group of "newbies", I also must admit that I don't like it when everyone puts their grubby paws all over ALL the food!  If you get a few choice dishes, you can dish in such a way that every one has their "own" little pile on the plate (like how we used to eat where I used to live!), and then you don't have to worry about other people's spitty fingers in your little section!

But, that being said, I realize I can be a bit bossy and a bit of a food and etiquette snob sometimes, so for the sake of the pack, I grinned and beared it. And enjoyed my nice dark injera, which the rest of the pack didn't like.  I was still munching on the dark injera and leftover shiro long after they were all finished eating!

Of course, after the dinner comes the dancing! It never ceases to amaze me.  I don't know how those dancers make their bodies shake like they do without losing an arm or head or some other appendage. 

I have also decided that if I ever move to Ethiopia, I'm going to learn to play the little Ethiopian flute.  It's probably completely against the culture for a woman to play that flute, but it sounds so nice, and would be such a simple little instrument to pack up and take along with you anywhere you go.  I also really like the sound of Ethiopian music, so in learning to play the flute, I would learn a bit about the traditional music, as well! 

The day after we enjoyed dinner and dancing, I went along with that same pack to see a monestary and a canyon.  It was a spectacular day - amazing scenery, interesting history, a short hike through the forest, and lots of opportunity to take some good pictures (don't worry, I won't post them all here!)

(Grrr.  Why does Blogspot flip my pictures around the way they're not supposed to be?!)

Anyway, we had a lovely day trip outside the city.  It was just so nice for me to be out of a city!

But that being said, it's also nice to be back in my own city here, especially now that the city power has come, for the first time in 6 days!  There's a bit of an issue in town with diesel, so the city had stopped running their big generators. I had given up hope of seeing power again... so when I stepped out of the shower and the lights came on... I would have done a very happy dance, except that everyone else on the compound is asleep and I was wearing nothing but a towel... (yes, I know, you're glad you don't have a picture of THAT!).