Random "I feel strange" entry.

So there are times when people tell me that I must be depressed. That I look depressed.(They're all weird and should go and mind their own business ha!). I am the kind of person you hardly see sulking. Or look depressed. I may be depressed, but won't let on, even to myself. I'm more like the "sweep the stuff under the carpet" type. In my everyday life as well. One doomed Friday night I found a bunch of raisins stuck under the carpet (Arda's bidding, Tunca's action, I later found out), apparently, three months after the act. And, as I wrote in previous entries, I am lazy and shallow so I let them be until Monday when the maid would be in.

In this book that I am reading, the main character describes her depression as not the "blues" but the yellows - a never ending hiatus of piss. It seems quite a strange way to express depression, but come to think of it, the mellow temperance, the lukewarm feeling and the hazy outlook is quite fitting.

I think of my depression to be transparent, like saran wrap (hmm, here's something else to analyze my dear shrink - first the Bounty then the saran wrap, there must be something lurking in that weird subconscious of mine - let the housewife out of her chains for gods sake!). I tend to get wrapped in it (oh the irony) but the depression in itself is expertly crafted because -yes- it has these handy little perforations and even though I may look like those securely and tightly wrapped sandwiches they sell in cafes, the pickle or the tomato or the mayo is just waiting for the right moment to burst out. Thanks to the perforations. So just like I get distracted from everything else, I am too scatterbrained to even get truly depressed. (Don't make me eat my words, fate, please).

Analyze that for me please.

Anyways, my shrink (whom I haven't seen in over three years but still really respect and even like) had said that during the construction of my character the foundation was placed pretty well, so slight tremors like 4.5 earthquakes would not knock me down but a stronger one might do enough damage to require renovation. Knock on wood for no earthquakes anytime soon.

The bugs have gone.

I forgot to mention that the recent additions to our ever lasting list of aquarium pets are with us no more. I am glad we never named them.

Burak thinks they passed away from grief over our leaving them behind to go on vacation. The sentimental guy that he is.

THE vacation.

Well, it was an interesting one.

It started out with my brother calling and saying both he and my nephew were sick, so they would probably arrive two days later. Then our flight was delayed for more than two hours in the shittiest airport seen on the face of the earth. Then we arrived to NOT drizzling, but pouring rain, at the hotel, exhausted, and found out the rooms we requested right in front of the playground were being renovated and we were to stay somewhere else in the village... All this aside, we got our towels, bathing suits and walked under pouring rain to the enclosed pool - with every step we got closer, Burak said he had a bad feeling and guess what - NO POOL! Well, the pool was there but the cover ceiling thingy flew off in a storm four months ago and they never got to fix it and yes, forgot to mention it.

So here we were in pouring rain, with stupid towels in our hands and our bathing suits underneath. Instead of the pool we decided to have lunch and take pictures while we looked for a- another hotel with an indoor pool, or b- a flight back home!

Check out the storm outside!

The kids refused both ideas vehemently, so we decided to ask the reception to send us a golf cart to take us to the pool in the spa. Now this is a very hoity toidy spa that has a nice indoor pool, lots massage and facial/treatment rooms, a big Turkish bath, saunas, jacuzzis and what have you. And you're supposed to be quiet there. Ha ha good luck with that one with my children! Might as well ask them to read Peace and War (edit - thanks dad, see how well read I am? War and Peace). From memory.

Upon entering, we asked whether we would disturb anyone (usually, no children under 18 allowed, and that's not because of naked people walking around) but they assured us that since the other pool was closed we were more than welcome to use this one and no one would mind.

So our adventure began, and the kids were actually very quiet (compared to their usual decibels). Oh, they were also the only children in the whole hotel anyways.

The next day was the same, lots of rain, lots of time alternating between the pool, the jacuzzi, the hamam, but they opened the mini club for the kids and they made t-shirts, painted and played mini golf and board games with Tanja, a very nice Belgian woman who spoke English as well as a little bit of Turkish.

Let there be sunshine. Now! Please!

Tunca had various mishaps, as did Arda, lots of falling, getting muddy, splinters etc but we were able to only picture Tunca's wonderful fall into a pool of mud after a jet speed slide ride, being the wonderful parents we are. I still can not stop laughing. We should have taped it.


The next two days were wonderful and sunny, and we even got to make dams (no, my children are truly realistic and do not build castles, signed, sanctimommy) in the sand.



My brother and his son Ali joined us on Monday and as my brother put it, the whole vacation was like a three day (five for us) birthday party for the kids - they have a great time and you just sit around being bored. I actually had a very relaxing time, even finished a whole book, but my sun allergies did not help at all, have always been very adamant about making me miserable. But such is life.

New family members.

I was reading Peppa Studio's blog when I realized I haven't introduced our newest members to the family.

They have been with us for about two weeks now, and are not named yet (for fear they would pass away in a hurry) but here they are:
I don't exactly know what they are, mini lobsters? There also was a mussel - you can see it in the photo above - but the babies ate that. So sweet. They keep shedding their whole skins (crusts?) and eating then, too. They are growing nice and plump. If I were a lobster person, they probably would look yummy in a few months... Thank goodness I don't eat anything that comes out of the water. I wish we had a dog.

We are going to Bodrum for a short vacation, so I will not be updating until next week. The boys are very excited, but my brother and his son Ali are sick and will only be joining for three days so I'm a bit bummed about that. Here are a few pictures from previous years:
I don't know what's with my mouth in that last one - I may be eating something. These are probably from 2005. We always go to SeaGarden Hapimag for spring break - no one's there, prices are low and Bodrum is greener than ever this season.

Bounty

Today, I finally got to see my beloved friend Ahu, and her very shy daughter Maya, who returned from the US to live here in İstanbul.

A thousand entries would not be enough to describe what I went through when I came to live here. Mixed feelings of finally being close to my family combined with longed for relationships, new friends, leaving all that was young and New York behind and living, finally, in where I thought I belonged - the beautiful, beautiful İstanbul... My shrink thinks I still have to live through those feelings of "migration" (why yes, I am a bird) after all these years.

A thousand entries will not be enough for her, either. She just has to live through them. And brace herself. And her family.

Anyways, we were talking about how we end up pulling everyone around us together (and believe me, I am actually looking forward to her pulling me together, just like she did in college :).

And I realized, we are Bounty. The quilted quicker picker upper. My life was so fine when I used paper towels to clean an entire apartment. Bounty was all I needed. Now there are different scraps of cloth for the windows, the tiles, the rugs... It is all so complicated. Yes, I may be shallow, but yey for me because the maid has to deal with all that is complex.


See Ahu, we have that in İstanbul. No need for paper towels. And remind me to give you the number of my shrink. She's quilted as well.

Emo Kid Continued

You probably read about Arda's feelings toward inanimate objects. He also has a tendency to get very emotional while watching movies as well. He was only 4 when he first saw Ice Age and to this day, every single time he watches it, he runs to his bedroom and tries to occupy himself with something.

Since he was sick all of last week, we had our share of watching movies - Nanny McPhee is very popular with Tunca - what child doesn't adore kids who call themselves poop bum anyways. So the three of us are sitting/lying down on the couch right in front of the TV and Arda, with all his fever, gets up and runs to his room, crying, "that evil, evil woman!" It was the scene where the soon to be new stepmother of the kids breaks the baby's rattle left by their dead mother.

The next day, we're watching a movie about a crow, and the crow, after being locked up and put on live TV (no idea how the plot goes, I was playing Puzzle Quest on the DS) flies to some backyard and steals a toddler's toy, so the toddler toddles (ugh) off the yard into the street looking for it, leaving, yeah you guessed, Arda, to run back to his room, screaming, "the kid's gonna get lost!!"

Is it too early to see a shrink, or should I feel blessed to have a child "in touch" with his feelings?

Traffic traffic everywhere.

Traffic in Istanbul is becoming ever more chaotic. When we moved back here 7 years ago from the US, we were not flabbergasted with it - after all, we were "New Yorkers" and hey, avoid rush hour and weekend soccer games and we were set.

Not anymore.

Traffic is everywhere, every minute of the day, and we are actually surprised when there isn't traffic.

So here I am today, amidst uncontrollable fits of coughing thanks to the wonderful virus Arda gave me as a pre-April-fools day present, trying to get to a bookstore to buy a something for a friend's daughter (as well as music notebooks for both the boys for Arda's guitar lessons, and why, we have to buy one for Tunca as well, so he doesn't feel left out) at 2PM on a weekday and waddaya know - traffic.

It takes me more than a half hour to drive a distance that should take less than 10 minutes, and 45 minutes on the way back thanks to the Fenerbahçe's Champs League game tomorrow - everyone just HAS to stop by the stadium store, double parking and making the already senseless traffic even worse.

I am a big Beşiktaş fan, and don't mind other Turkish teams having European victories but darnit - find somewhere else to park, you mean mean fans.