For those of you who are always making fun of my home state, please refer to this map. You'll notice that WV prohibits marriage between first cousins, whereas, say, New York and California both allow it!

Nepal - Days 1 and 2

Korean Air really manages to make flying more civilized.

Yeti Air, on the other hand...

Actually, we didn't fly Yeti Air, but who could resist that photo op? We took Guna Air for our Mountain Flight, an up close and personal view of the Himalaya Mountains. (Mount Everest is just to the right of the center of this picture)
Immediately before taking this flight, we posed for pictures with a ton of Nepali police in riot gear (mine wasn't one of the numerous cameras used, so you'll have to wait until someone sends me a copy of the photo). They were all assembled for some training flight over the mountains and were just hanging out, joking around, happy to pose with the crazy tourists. Good thing we jumped at this opportunity, since the police we saw that weekend, during the bandh, probably weren't in such a jovial mood.

We spent the afternoon in Bhaktapur
Many temples, beautifully, intricately carved wood, and, unfortunately, beggars.

That night we went to my sister-in-law's family shop to meet the parents, then had a lovely moonlit dinner outside.

Next up - wedding festivities!

Well, at least my uterus has a strong sense of timing - Fair warning, this post is seriously TMI

I have no internal clock. I need an alarm clock for everyday of my life, and I never know what time it is without consulting my watch. My theory is this is why I'm not very sensitive to jet lag - given a few external clues (sunlight, or lack thereof, a meal) I can pretty easily convince myself of any time of day.

My uterus, though, is like clockwork. For most of my life I have had very regular periods, even without birth control pills. So yesterday, at the DC airport, I was particularly annoyed to discover that I had started my period, one day early. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the calendar that it occurred to me that with all the time zone crossing my body was actually in the future and my regular cycle was just on time.

Our President makes me giggle (again)
(via Boing Boing)

Quote of the day: "As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything." --Barack Obama, speaking to Washington D.C. schoolkids on Monday as part of his science education initiative. (Thanks, Aaron Ginoza!)

Distance - psychological and geographic

My parents are a bit of a study in contradictions. Dad is loud and talkative in crowds and handles himself quite well among new people. Yet he has very few friends - it's almost like he made this conscious decision that grown-ups have families and perhaps write cards once a year to close friends from college, but that's about it. Mom, on the other hand, is painfully quiet and shy in groups, yet has several friends and is fairly good at making new friends.

I offer this background because somehow it eluded me how lonely Dad has been these past 2.5 weeks in Japan. To me, it seems just like normal. Sure, he's far away, and there's now a 17 hour time change between us, but we send e-mails and skype about once a week. We're in each other's lives about as much as usual.

This morning he skyped me at 4am his time. He isn't jet-lagged or having trouble sleeping - he just got up to use the bathroom and, like a good nerd, took a quick glance at his laptop before heading back to bed. He noticed I was online and skyped me.

I was chatting with Mom about how sweet but crazy that was and she said she thinks he misses us terribly.

Well, duh. I mean, of course he misses us. But like I said, my read of these past few weeks have been par for the course - various family members in various locations and time zones, keeping in touch through technology. But suddenly it became clear to me that his read of the past few weeks have been 1) being away from his wife for the longest period of time since, I think, they were married and 2) getting home in time to spend one week with her before she leaves for another two weeks on the other side of the world and several time zones away. Even if we do get to chat often (which is fairly unlikely, because even in a swanky tourist hotel electricity and internet will probably be iffy) we *feel* far away.

And there's also Dad's lack of friends thing. Of course, coworkers are often a poor substitute for real friends and family, but, for example, I wasn't lonely or particularly homesick while in CO because I spent practically every waking minute with my colleagues. But that's not just a poor substitute for Dad - that's no substitute. He's spent the past 40 years crafting his life such that his family are about the only people he's close to. No wonder he's lonely. Poor guy.

More Nepal Stuff

Well, the bad news is the Maoists took over a government building a few days ago. The good news is the protests still appear to be relatively peaceful. And the I-guess-it's-good news is my sister in law is totally unphased - she says, yeah, that's pretty much Monday in Kathmandu. So I guess I will follow her lead and try not to worry about it too much.

It helps that I have totally awesome friends offering up their relatives in neighboring countries should the shit really hit the fan.

Faaaabulous.

Kathmandu, Nov 8 (PTI) Maoists' supremo Prachanda has warned that his party may declare a "parallel government" in Nepal if the ruling coalition fails to address the key dispute over "civilian supremacy", which has forced them to take to the streets.

Prachanda, who headed Nepal's first post-royal government, said even as they had withdrawn their plan to announce "autonomous states" the party may declare a "parallel government" if it was forced to move into the next phase of its protest to dislodge the alliance, the Nepalnews online reported.

Responding to the stepped up security and threats to mobilise the army to maintain law and order in the face of the Maoists agitation, Prachanda warned the government that they would be compelled to take up arms if force was used to quell the protest.

I leave for Kathmandu in 17 days.

And I was in such a good mood...
(via Ezra)

An amendment, expected to pass, added to the healthcare bill:

The amendment will prohibit federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

You know what? Just fucking make it illegal. Because either abortion is legal, and is a medical procedure, between a woman and her doctor, and not subject to arbitrary legislation, or it's illegal. Emphasis in the above paragraph is mine. I am, sadly, not surprised by the first bit. Of course pandering politicians had to assure anti-choicers that their precious tax dollars wouldn't be spent on that horrible procedure for bad women. But to go another step and prohibit certain individuals (those individuals who, by definition, are least able to afford an abortion - but hey! I'm sure having a kid is cheaper, right?) to prohibit those individuals from choosing a plan (NOT the public option) that covers abortion? But really, why does even that surprise me? We spent the past eight years (and another eight under Bush I) forbidding NGOs that receive federal funding from even talking about abortion.

Books and Exploration

I've been getting out in the city a bit again (new intern = new buddy for city adventures). Last night we went to Mission Muralismo, a celebration of decades of artwork in the Mission district at the de Young Museum. The music was great, the projections of the murals were fabulous, but since we weren't willing to spring for a museum ticket, we couldn't really get beyond the lobby. So instead we had a couple of drinks and I impulse bought Museum Legs, a collection of essays on why museums matter and why people get bored in them. Then we headed out for dinner, passing Green Apple Books, where the intern insisted I needed a copy of Tales of the City. The problem now being that I'm only about a third of the way through Settling Accounts, I'm still not enamoured with it, but I feel obligated to finish it (ocd) and I have these two shiny new books I'd rather be reading!

This afternoon we biked nine or ten miles all over Inner and Outer Richmond and Golden Gate Park, led around by the SF Bicycle Coalition. In theory, we were trekking around looking at examples of Reid Brothers architecture, but really the natural views were much better!