I emailed my Dad a few days ago from work in Swisher where the temp was -18 degrees with windchills below -30.

He emailed me back: It made me so sad that it was warmer in the cartoon than where I was right then.

Thanks Dad.

People wonder why I like horses

It's super snowy and cold in Iowa right now (as in I actually saw -8 first hand) so that means it's time to break out all the green and navy blankets at the horse barn where I work. I've been spending most of my time in the office and haven't been out to the pastures to visit in a while so today, it was beautiful with a light drifty snow coming down, I decide to make the trek.

I get to the gate and there are our two biggest horses, Chance and Griffin. Chance is an ex-crowd control police horse and Griffin is a huge retired Thoroughbred racehorse, both are quite beautiful and majestic and all that. Anyway, Griffin is following Chance as he makes his way over to greet me at the gate. All the sudden out come the teeth and Grif. grabs the butt end of Chance's blanket. Chance seems completly unphased at first and attemps to press on, but Griffin hunkers down almost to the point of sitting completly on his haunches. Because the snow is too slick for either of to gain any ground in the tug of war, they just sit there, Griffin pulling back with all his might while Chance strains against his now firmly anchored winter blanket.

Eventually Chance does break free and heads towards me, but at this point it's too cold for me and Griffin is already sneaking up for round two. I head back to the office for a coffee.

Trust me, it's worth it in the end

I slipped and fell today. I’ve slipped and fallen twice already, but twice I’ve slipped and fallen in the snow and this was the only time on the ice. I skinned and bruised both knees.

I slipped because I was rushing to be ready for Ofer to pick me up and take me to the airport at the beginning of (another!) ice storm. We drive 40 miles per hour down the interstate.

At security I am a spectacle. I remove my hat, my coat, my scarf and my boots. I take my computer out and place it in a grey bin and put my leather suitcase on the rolly-bar conveyor. I extract the kitty from his carrier and remove his collar before finally walking both of us through the metal detecting awning. Everybody tells me what a big and pretty cat he is.

I put my boots on first.

****

I am on the plane watching ice build on the windows and wings.

For one hour.

“We are overweight, will the following passengers please collect their things and exit the plane.

“Edsall going to Boston.
Ray going to Philadelphia.
Stewart going to Philadelphia.
And Johnson going to Boston. “

Fuck.

I pick up the cat, put on my best Charlie Brown slouch, and exit the plane.

Oh shit. Wait... I’m going to BALTIMORE. I throw Johnson going to Boston a reasonably sincere sorry-it’s-still-you look and get back on the plane.

There is another long wait while nobody says anything. Since Edsall, Ray Stewart and Johnson all just happened to have been sitting in my own immediate area, I now have an entire row to myself and spread out accordingly. After a while longer the pilot tells us the plane needs to be deiced and that it’s a two step process, and adds some more details. Then a dude in a cherry picker comes around and squirts the plane with a hose. The liquid is clear and runs down the sides of the plane. He circles once and comes back around again. This time the liquid is neon green and wonderfully gelatinous. It sticks to the outer surfaces of the plane like a lime flavored shield of Jello protection. I can no longer see clearly out the window.

Our plane leaves and lands and, in his excitement, kitty loses control of his bowls. Goodbye pee pad, enter the first in a series of restroom sink baths.

Six of us miss our connection to BWI by 7 minutes. One of them strikes up a conversation with me while we wait in line for rebooking. Assigned different flights for then next morning, I expect him to leave for his own hotel. He doesn’t, I dawdle. I adjust the cat. I call my mom. I walk all the way up the terminal and then all the way down it. All the while he tags along. We compare flights. He jokes we should just rent a car and drive through the night. We’ll get there before either of our flights leave the next morning. Suddenly he isn’t joking anymore. I laugh it off because that is my response to any horrendously awkward social situation. His name is Chris.

****

[This is the part of the story where I get a phone number]

I’m not going to pay for a hotel so Chris is not going to pay for one. We need food. All the stores are closed hold one magazine shop that sells Coke and has a wall of nuts in baggies. The man behind the counter mentions to Chris and I that the security guards get pizza delivered sometimes. Counter man goes to the back for a minute and Chris goes in search of a security guard for menus and phone numbers. Counter man comes back and asks about the pizza.

“Oh, I’ve got people on it.” And I point off in whatever direction in the distance. Counter man takes an instant liking to me and chats me up like I haven’t been chatted up in a very long while. Chris comes back with menus and we order.

The store needs to close. Chris tells counter man goodbye and tells me we have to return the menu before we sit down. Counter man says, “Oh no man, I can watch your stuff while you do that, you don’t need to be carting around all this baggage.” I am only mildly annoyed by being lumped into the “your stuff” category (and possibly baggage?), but totally stoked when he pulls out a paper and quickly jots down his name and number. Larry.

“Call me, you know, when you’re out there in DC. Maybe I’ll come visit you, I’ve always wanted to see DC.”

Chris comes back just as I slip the number into my bag. I tell Larry I’ll see him later.

****

The wait begins.

Chris and I find a row of seats right next to one of the few late night arrival gates.

This is what we look like:

In the first seat Chris sits, poorly dressed, nerdy white guy, next to him a large, open box of delivery pizza. I’m sitting next to the pizza, always overdressed and still wearing my hat and coat, I'm dressed like Amelie if Amelie was a Nazi. And finally, Kitty, sitting all by himself in the last chair. One girl actually dropped her phone when she saw us.

Yes.

We begin a rousing game of questions.

“Do any sports?”

I did crew and I ride horses.”

“Ah…”

(pause)

“So, you play soccer?”

“No.”

“Oh… Do you ski?”

“Um. No.”

“Snowboard?”

“…Nope”

And so it goes.

****

At some point in the night the cat disappears. Sometime later I finally notice.

Let’s think about the range of emotions one goes through when she loses a live animal at the airport.

Mild amusement: Pesky kitty.

Slight annoyance: Is he actually farther than 20 feet from me? Where the hell does he THINK he’s going?

Embarrassment: “Have you seen an orange cat?” “Wait, you lost your cat?” “…Just let me know if you see one.”

Major annoyance: I ask airport security for assistance. “Have you looked under the chairs? Cats like to stay low, you know.”

Anger: Chris thinks we need to expand our search. If he’s not right here he must be at the other end of the airport by now. We need to walk all the way up and down (at least a quarter mile long). I have no patience for this idea. If anything my cat is a pillar of docility. Not one to dart off in a mad dash of fear, if anything happened to him I would expect his standard response: assess the threat, roll over, show tummy, and hope damn hard for the best.

He never was much of a sprinter. (Chris and my relationship is suffering).

Relief/more anger: After 40 minutes of pacing and searching the night janitor catches my attention. Behind the garbage can she's just emptied something is moving. I extract the cat from the tiny compartment in the gate monitor’s desk. By extract I actually mean I just look at him and tell him to get his ass out here. He saunters out, nothing but love and happy to see me. I throw him in the box. We are no longer speaking.

After a short period of angry brooding I pick up the cat and the box and parade him around the airport. I show him off and tell all my new friends, “I found him!” and “I’m just so happy and relieved!” They are happy too and flood me with attention. Kitty and my relationship recovers.

****

[This is the part where I make my mother cry]

Morning comes and Chris changes his flight to be on the same one I am, flying an hour out of his way into DC.

We have and entire row to ourselves, but that doesn’t matter for me apparently, because he decides to sit in the middle seat anyway.

The flight takes off and within seconds I know something is wrong. Terribly terribly wrong. Kitty is meowing. Kitty is crying and yowling. Kitty never talks and this only ever means one thing.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

KITTY CAN’T HOLD IT ANYMORE.

About halfway through the ascent the smell hits. Immediately Kitty begins his desperate attempt to escape. He cries, claws, flips around in the little cage, anything to get away from the pee seeping into his fur. I can’t do anything as he frantically begins licking his paws, the bars, the pee collecting in the bed of his cage. My heart breaks in the middle of my own anxiety attack.

i am so sorry i am so sorry i am so sorry i am so sorry

i am so sorry

I stare at the seatbelt sign. I wring my hands. I lean forward. Then, I lean back and wring my hands while I stare at it from slightly farther away. It doesn’t go off. The stewardesses bring out their drink carts. Oh no you don’t. I grab kitty and we Tetris our way down the aisle to the bathroom, the stewardesses with their big metal carts try to avoid me and my pee cat. It is slow going.

BATHROOM SINK BATH #2:

The sink in the bathroom is about the size of a cereal bowl. Kitty is 15 lbs of pure Lankiness. We manage a full body wash. He still reeks of cat piss. Now I reek of cat piss. I get back in time to order a drink. I want tomato juice.

“Well, whatever is left is all yours.” The stewardess tells me cheerily as she fills the cup about 1/3 of the way full, sets it down, and quickly moves on.

Everything is cat piss.

****

“Well folks, we’re almost to Washington DC, but it looks like there is a weather advisory and no planes are being allowed to land right now anywhere on this part of the east coast. We’re going to go into a holding pattern for about 30-40 minutes until the weather clears up a bit or we start running low on fuel.”

We hold for 40 minutes.

“Well folks, looks like the weather isn’t going to get any better so we are just going to go ahead and turn this plane around and head back to the Detroit airport.”

My hands have been shaking since the bathroom. Now it’s everything I can do not to start crying. My new friend Chris, (still in the middle) looks at me, “Looks like it might be getting to you.” Chris is no longer my friend.

“It’s not funny anymore. It was funny for a while, but now it’s not. Now it’s bad.”

“Well, without my humor, I wouldn’t be able to survive anything bad.”

At this point my ex-friend Chris attempts to show off his humor. Surprisingly, Chris’ humor does not seem to be helping my survival.

****

We are just outside Detroit, Chris is finally quiet, and we are getting geared up to land On cue the turbulence starts. Literally the worst turbulence I have ever experienced... and I fly A LOT. There is the worst turbulence ever and we have just flew from Detroit to DC, dicked around for a while, and flew ALL THE WAY BACK again on one tank of gas. The woman in the seat across the aisle from me starts crying.

[OMISSION]

We land.

****

We are scattered to different planes. Chris and I finally split up. We take our ten dollar meal vouchers (compensation for our recent flying troubles) and say our goodbyes. I buy a nine dollar turkey sandwich, which kitty and I split.

Here’s how we split it:

Kitty eats the turkey

and I eat the sandwich.

Our next flight is delayed 40 minutes. I find a corner and wallow on the floor.

“Well, I figured it was either Yoga or something isn’t going right.”

I wish I was five years old again so I could kick an old man in the shins.

The plane finally boards.

“Well folks, let me fill you in on what we know. First, we are missing our pilot. Second, that’s all we know.”

We are then told our pilot will arrive in fifteen minutes. Four times.

15min x 4 = 1 hour.

In an hour he comes. We taxi.

“Well folks, it looks like we have a little bit of a hold on us down here, so we are going to sit tight until we are cleared. It should be about fifteen minutes.”

15 minutes = 1.25 hours

****

This is where I am now. We are about to take off. My knee has been throbbing since the last time we landed. Kitty is asleep for the first time in two days.

I suspect the plane will crash.

(before it does, though, I think I will order another tomato juice… this time spicy… with vodka.)

****

Epilogue:

The plane didn’t crash. Kitty and I made it to DC. My bags made it to Baltimore. Kitty and I caught the tail end of my aunt’s once a year visit, both took long hot showers, and now smell like the same lavender/vanilla shampoo.

I'll be flying back to Detroit for a quick 3 day visit in less than a week.

Dirty Hookers --- David Dahl

I implemented an applause rule after every Christmas present this year.


Most feel good Christmas to date.

To expand:

About a month ago Kitty gets into some kind of fight and comes home with two big, gaping wounds on his ears. I feel terrible.

A few days later I leave for a weekend trip to Tucson and by the time I get back one of his ears has become pretty badly infected. Again, I feel terrible.

He finally gets over the infection, but has little red scabs on his ears for almost a month. I feel bad/a little embarrassed for it is a walking testament to my bad pet ownership abilities.

Well, after a week in Virginia I come home to find both scabs completely fallen off. Unfortunately, however, they leave bald spots on both ears and a not-so-tiny teardrop shaped hole in one of them.

Now, I feel kind of bad about spots (I'm sure they are going to get rather cold in these winter months) and the hole, but am way too distracted by fantasizing about/stopping myself from sticking an earring in there to dwell too long.

(I give myself another 24 hours before I crack)

You are the worst person to own a pet.

The plan: raise ‘em up to have low expectations

So, Iowa gives me an entire week off for Thanksgiving break which is great and wonderful and naturally, I take advantage and plan to spend the entire time in Virginia. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as my planning went last week when really I should have been getting ready for a week away from home. Instead, I put everything off until the very last possible minute. I have a spare key made in the ten minutes between my class and leaving for work where I just hand it to my co-worker/neighbor so she can take care of Kitty. That night is a desperate scramble to buy cat food, write instructions, find enough money to pay my neighbor, pack, and clean my apartment well enough to not be an embarrassment. But I do it and all is well the next morning when I leave and let Kitty out to play because the weather is actually rather nice.

All is well until the next morning when my neighbor leaves me a message, “Um Carina, the key you gave me doesn’t work.”

Goddamnit.

So I call and we work out a plan. Kitty will roam the halls for a week, sleeping on the stairs and eating twice a day from a bowl my neighbor leaves in the laundry room next to the dryers.

Homeless Kitty.

I get back last night and call my neighbor this morning. She is amazed that living in the hallways for a week by himself didn’t even phase the cat. “He’s just like John Wayne, totally laid back. He’s so independent, like he doesn’t need anyone.”

I don’t know if this should be considered good parenting or very bad parenting.

Oh Yes

Somebody found my blog by Google searching "Carina caliente."

But what about a starch or, perhaps, a vegetable?

My extended family consists of two parts: One part lone wolf uncle who comes up from Georgia once a year to spend Christmas quietly drinking, pays a visit to the Air and Space Museum, and occasionally declares that he “digs” this or that. And one part Rosier Gang, made up of my aunt who I love, my little cousin who is delightful, but only eats bread products and, as a result, takes a slew of vitamin pills everyday, my other cousin who is in a heap of trouble, and my slightly sexist uncle who gives me endless satisfaction every time he visits and inevitably hits his big head on the low hanging chandelier in the front foyer.

Holidays are divided like this: Thanksgiving my family makes one pie then drives three hours south to my aunt’s house where she slaves for hours while Amy and I ‘help’ by occasionally stirring or removing something from the oven when explicitly told to do so. My mother usually chats and my father, being a good sport, kind of watches football with my uncle. At Christmas my mother picks a color theme and spends weeks buying paper and coordinating each package, bow, and ribbon so when my aunt and family come up their dollar store paper clashes so profoundly we are forced to open presents almost immediately.

This year, however, thanks to my troublesome cousin, my aunt has decided to forgo the holiday altogether and head far South for some sort of vacation from life and family.

This, of course, leaves my family stranded and puts the weight of an entire Thanksgiving celebration on each of our shoulders.

...

Ok, here’s the plan: Jim gets pecan pie (which is kind of a cop out because Jim always gets pecan pie because he is from Georgia and actually uses the pecans his brother sends him picked from their childhood home-farm), I am stuck with gravy (because I’m the only one Aunt Sue could ever talk into spending half an hour stirring turkey fat non-stop), Mom takes turkey (natch), and Amy calls pumpkin pie. This is all decided a few weeks ago.

Sunday I make it back to Virginia. My mother is out of town and Amy moved to Rosslyn, so it’s just Jim and I. I poke around the kitchen a bit.

My mother thought of everything. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I love her. Outside is an entire box of homegrown pecans, hand shelled and ready for pie making. There's a brand new pan on the stove complete with some kind of special rack where a turkey is supposed to sit. From a cabinet, Jim pulls out a new and strange-looking gravy separator and we argue technique (neither of us actually knowing anything about it) and (here’s why I really like my mom) stuffed in the depths of the freezer she’s carefully hidden a fully prepared just-in-case pumpkin pie.

I can't wait til Thursday.

Long Overdue

It's official: BFF

Aww

Gallery

Alter

Gaunt

Day 7

Creativity is running low.


(Also, lets all notice just how much time I am spending in this editing lab)

I am feeling very pleased with myself

I just wrote this in a film I'm working on:

"Too much weight is being lost
in the war against hips."

Where is Hank to help me be self congratulatory while editing?

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

If anybody was wondering what grad life in film school is like

We actually planned and executed a surprise wedding in the hour before colloquium.

Here are Ben and Arpita's wedding photos.


Writing the Vows


Happiest Day of Her Life


Of Course We Filmed It


Ring Bearer


The Reverend


It's Official

So as part of my teaching assistantship I am required to attend a sexual harassment orientation/warning thing with about 150 other graduate students.

I cannot believe how much of the presentation was directly relevent to events from my life.

Day 3

Photo credit: Deon Kay

Temporary hiatus from challenge for a digital photoessay

ROLL CALL:











WALK IT OUT:













KITCH:



Sorry for the blurriness/lameness of digital photography. A Polaroid edition is soon in the works.

Day 2

Photojournalism!

Challange Day 1:





Oh yes

(Photo Credit: Hank Knaack)