The Evil Eye Olympics

About halfway through the 2012 Summer Olympics, the air conditioner in my sweltering Istanbul apartment became possessed by Satan.  Back in London, the medal count of the Turkish Olympic Team remained cemented at zero.

I'm not saying these things are necessarily connected.  But I can't help thinking that if I was sitting in New York or Beijing, the A/C would have been working flawlessly. 

The wall-mounted air conditioner, known in Turkish as a klima, decided on the sweltering Friday night a week into the Games that, until further notice, it would be turning itself off and on when it damn well felt like it.  All frantic button-pushing attempts to stop and/or start the klima would be mocked accordingly.

All right, I can't absolutely state that the air conditioner is possessed by the Satan.  For now I'm willing to call it extreme mechanical freakishness and leave it at that.

Still, if the temperature control turns itself to 666 degrees, I'm telling you I'm out of here.

Meanwhile back on the TV screen, the Turkish Olympic coverage team -- which seems to consist of two guys with hand-held microphones and a studio host with his laptop computer standing in front of cardboard backdrop -- is asking yet another Turkish athlete yet another time why they finished 15th in a 16-man competition.


This explanation is much the same as others previously offered: there is no explanation. And they feel really bad about it.

I don't know what happened the athlete tells the Turkish nation, and I'm really, really sorry.  Or words to that effect. 

The klima turns itself on, blows on high for 10 seconds, then switches off again.

Thank you for those comments, the interviewer tells the dejected athlete before turning to the camera.  Now, back to our coverage of medals being won by Mongolia, Moldova, Malaysia, and a Caribbean island apparently named after a four-door sedan from the 1980s.

You remember the Ford Granada.  Sure you do.

*     *     *   
By current estimates, Turkey has a population of about 75 million. That is significantly larger than the populations of France, Italy, Great Britain, South Korea, North Korea, Kazakhstan, Hungary, The Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Denmark, Romania, Belarus, Cuba, Jamaica, Poland, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, The Czech Republic, Sweden, Kenya, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Lithuania, Colombia, Spain, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belgium, Armenia, Mongolia, Norway, Serbia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Taipei, Greece, Moldova, Hong Kong, Qatar, Singapore, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.

After the first week of competition, all of these countries had won at least one Olympic medal, in something. Meanwhile, Turkey was still waiting for its first. In anything. 

Anything at all.

Judo. Fencing. Synchronized swimming. Women's Weight Lifting. Broomball.  Please, we'll take anything. Have mercy and just throw us a bone.

Tunisia, a country of 10 million that just last year went through the turmoil of a revolution, already had won a medal. Georgia, a country of 4 million on Turkey's northeast border that most people would mistakenly place between Florida and South Carolina, already had a gold.

On the other hand, in Turkey's defense (I guess), Bangladesh, the world's eighth most populous country with 130 million people, had yet to win a medal, either. And India, with a population more than 10 times that of Turkey (around 1 billion), itself had taken only three.

But that kind of makes it worse, doesn't it? It's hard to whip up much national pride with a rallying cry of, "Yay! We're tied with Bangladesh! With zero!"

Yet as the week goes on, the medal drought continues. The woman's volleyball team, featured as a serious medal hope in bank and MacDonald's ads on Turkish television, gets bounced after the first round.  The woman's basketball team, also counted on for medal contention, is ousted shortly thereafter.

On Day 6, Nagahan Karadere, a female sprinter who holds the Turkish national record in the 400-meter hurdles, leaves the starting block early, disqualifying her from her event.  She is unceremoniously led away from the track by a race official (dressed, inexplicably, like a leprechaun), to the waiting microphone of the Turkish TV sideline reporter.

If they handled out medals for self flagellation, the Turks would be raking them in.


"I don't know what happened," Nagahan tells the reporter as she wipes tears from her face. "I worked so hard ... and I'm really, really sorry."

You're sorry, I'm thinking, as the klima switches itself off again.  It's the middle of August, and my air conditioner doesn't work. 

And I don't know whether to contact an appliance repairman, or an exorcist.

*     *     *

Turks are big fans of the nazar boncuğu, a blue and white eye-shaped amulet that hangs over doorways and off of bracelets, necklaces and ear rings across the country.  The purpose of the nazar is to protect those under it from the unwanted consequences of the Evil Eye.

It's hard to get a consistent answer on what exactly the Evil Eye does, where it comes from, or what is necessarily evil about it.  But it's pretty commonly accepted that whatever the Evil Eye is, it's not a good thing.

Bad things happen.  Weird things.  Inexplicable things.

And if you can a stave off a curse, or even run-of-the-mill bad luck, by hanging a 75-cent piece of blue glass around your neck?  You know, what the hell, you probably should do that.

At my previous apartment in Istanbul, a nazar hung over the outside door of the building, and on a door frame inside the apartment.   Not once in the entire six months I was there did I have a major appliance adversely affected by demonic possession.


There are no nazars in my current apartment, however.  And from what I can see on my TV screen, the Turkish athletes aren't wearing them, either.

You can call it a ridiculous superstition if you want to.  But if I was the head of the Turkish Olympic Team currently 0 for 778 in medal attempts?

You know what I'd be going out and buying at the trinket store.

*    *    *

Here's the scary thing about the current state of the possessed air conditioner: it can not be unplugged. There is no plug.  It is mounted in the wall without any controls, or even a simple on/off switch.

 And before you ask, this is not a case of the remote not working because the batteries are dead.  I have taken the batteries completely out of the remote, and the klima still turns itself on. And off.  And on again. 

I eventually figure out that the only way to stop the madness is to cut off the electricity entirely, by throwing Switch Number 3 at the fuse box.  Yes, this cuts off the electrical current to the klima. It unfortunately also takes out the TV, the hot water heater, and half the lights in the apartment.

As the weekend starts, the klima is turning itself off and on every few minutes, signaled each time by a series of happy little chirpy chimes.

Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
(Air conditioner is on).

Biddledy, biddledy, bong!
(Air conditioner is off).

You wanted to sleep? Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
Oh no. There will be no sleep. Biddledy, biddledy, bong!
You might want to invest in some earplugs. Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
Talk to you in few minutes! Biddledy, biddledy, bong!


Gradually, like a glue-sniffing mental patient, the klima begins to pick up the pace of its mood swings as the weekend progresses, until the off/on sequence comes in seconds instead of minutes, eventually becoming instantaneous.  
Biddledy, biddledy, bing! Biddledy, biddledy, bong! Biddledy, biddledy, bing! Biddledy, biddledy, bong! Bing! Bong! Bing! Bong! Bing! Bong!

On TV, another Turkish athlete, this time a weight lifter, is being asked why he failed to qualify and is going home early.  I already know the answer, having heard it so many times before. I head for the fuse box to shut off the chiming madness.  

Because the TV and the klima share the same breaker switch, this will end our Olympic broadcast for the day. 

Or at least until I can go down to the amulet store.

*    *    *  

 Clearly watching the Olympics in Turkey is not the same as it is in the U.S., China, or Russia, countries that expect to count up their medals like dollar bills at a cock fight. 

"What'da we got now? 95? 100? Crap, only 95?"

Of course the Turks know they are not going to out-medal the super powers. Still, being shut out of the medal table entirely is not something that going down the national gullet particularly well.

The hunt to televise a national athlete being competitive in something does lead to some odd event coverage decisions for the Turkish national network, TRT.   Early on a U.S. men's basketball game is pre-empted to show women's weightlifting, where the Turkish women were given an outside shot at receiving a medal.

They didn't.

Likewise women's gymnastics, which receives nearly round-the-clock coverage on U.S. television because of the success of the American team, is almost impossible to find on TRT, especially when the Turkish athletes might possibly, maybe, still get a medal in boxing! 

They didn't.

The overall lack of competitiveness does seem to defy explanation.  If Belarus can produce a 300-pound woman to throw the shot put 50 meters, is there any rational reason why Turkey can't do the same?

Some Turks are criticizing the government for the poor Olympic record.  Others are claiming the athletes don't receive enough support from the public in general. 

I don't know, maybe.  But I'd be looking into the Evil Eye thing all the same.

*     *     *

New batteries now have been placed in the remote control of the klima, and I flip the electric breaker back on to see what happens.   Sadly even with the new batteries, the klima continues to operate on its own accord.  

But there is some improvement.  Now at least, I find that if I point the remote and randomly push enough buttons, I can silence the bings and the bongs for stretches of five or ten minutes before it starts chiming again.

I sit watching the Olympics with the klima remote in hand, like a nurse armed with a hypodermic and a strong sedative at the bedside of a schizophrenic metal patient.

I've even begun talking to it now, attempting to soothe it into submission.

"Shhh.  (Bing) Shhh.  (Bong) It's aaall right.  It's aaaaall right.
Yes, that's it.  Shhhhhh.
Now calm down and let me watch the hammer throw."

*    *    *

On Day 11, I watch as a Turkish Roman-Greco wrestler named Rıza Kayaalp grabs a large Georgian man by his hairy shoulders and pushes him a half-step outside of the wrestling ring.  This gives the Turk the lead in the match, 1-0.  

Apparently this is the Roman-Greco wrestling equivalent of a slam dunk, or a right cross to the jaw.   The Turkish commentator on TRT is getting more and more excited as seconds tick off the match clock.


"We are just seconds away!"  the commentator yells in Turkish, anticipating a victory.  "Just seconds away!"

Cheers go up from the arena's Turkish cheering contingent as the clock hits zero.   Rıza Kayaalp has just taken bronze in the 120 kg (265.5 pound) Roman-Greco Wrestling weight division, Turkey's first medal of the games of any kind.

The country's long national nightmare is finally ended ... by a 265-pound, baby-faced 23-year-old kid in blue leotards.

The next day Turkey wins a second medal -- this one a gold -- by 23-year-old Servet Tazegül in the taekwondo flyweight division.  Granted, most Turks would have trouble pronouncing taekwondo, let alone tell you exactly what it is, but a medal is a medal.  And this is a gold one at that.

A day later, Turkey gets a second taekwondo medal when a female welterweight named Nur Tatar takes a silver. 

Then on Day 13, Turkey shocks the world -- or at least the part of the world that includes Turkey -- by placing first and second in the Women's 1500 meter run.   Aslı Çakır Alptekin takes the gold, while the woman with my new, all-time favorite name, Gamze Bulut -- which in Turkish literally means "Dimple Cloud" -- wins the silver.

With not one but TWO Turkish women at the head of the pack of runners sprinting to the finish line, I am almost sure the announcer on Turkish TV is going to hyperventilate and/or have a heart attack.

It is the first Olympic gold medal for Turkey in a track and field event, EVER.   I don't know much about history.  But I do know that ever is a really, really long time.

Yes, it took a while to see it.  But in the end two tiny Turkish women named Aslı and Gamze blew away the competition and proved that, at this moment in time, at this particular thing, they are indeed the very best in the world.

This a pretty astonishing feat for anyone, from any place. But maybe it's easier to appreciate in a country that is deliriously happy when its athletes win one medal, in contrast to those that are disappointed when its athletes fail to win them all.

*    *    *

As I watch the ecstatic TRT reporter interview Aslı and Gamze  (when was the last time you ever saw Bob Costas congratulate an American athlete by hugging them?),  I look up to see the klima is humming away without incident.  I push the "on" button it goes on; I hit the "off" button it goes off.   

As quickly as they came, the air conditioning demons that  tormented me for days have moved on.  I have no idea why.  Some things you simply can't explain.  

But for now it's safe to put the amulets away.  Until further notice, I think the curse is over.

































 


 

The Adventures of Sunstroke Boy

I am lying motionless in the Mevlana theme room of the Villa Aşina Hotel, a few kilometers outside the Turkish village of Datça.  The air conditioner above the bed blows mercifully over the sizzling surface of my skin, already baked a rosy red in less than a day and a half. 

The first day on the beach here I slathered myself with 35 SPF sunscreen, thinking that would keep me safe.   Instead, you would have thought that I had smeared my body with cocoa butter and fallen asleep in the tanning bed.   The next day I bumped the SPF up to 50.  Surely SPF 50 (50!) would protect the pastiest of pasty white skin.  

This might be true, most places on Earth.  But not, apparently, here on the surface of the planet Mercury.

By mid afternoon of Day Two I have retreated from the beach back to the air-conditioned shelter of my mauve-colored theme room.   I lie on the bed in a semi-delirious state with heat radiating off my back. I don't want to move, despite the waffle pattern being imprinted into the side of my beet-red face by the itchy textured bedspread.

My mind wanders. With my head turned sideways, I stare at a framed inscription on the wall of my room, labeled "The Seven Advice of the Mevlana."  

Advice Number 1:
In generosity and helping others,
be like a river.

Okay, be like a river.  Got it.

Advice Number 2:
In compassion and grace, be like sun.

Ugh.  Please don't mention the sun.

I continue down the list as the air conditioner hums on the wall behind me.  At last, I reach the final advice:

  "Either exist as you are, or be as you look."

In my delirium, this otherwise nonsensical wisdom becomes clear to me.  Yes, I see now.  With my beet-red back and my waffle-coned face, I am not a pretty sight.  Yet I exist as I am, not as I look. For I am not a pasty white-skinned American tourist trapped in his air conditioned hotel room on the coast of Turkey. Oh no.

I will rise above the adversity of my affliction.
I am a super hero.

I am Sunstroke Boy.

*     *    *

Datça is a village of about 14,000 in southwest Turkey, located on a narrow peninsula that features the Mediterranean Sea on one side, and the Aegean on the other.  A perfect spot for people who want to stare at a different beautiful and idyllic body of water on alternate days of the week.

Of course there are tourists in Datça, mostly Turks from other parts of the country, with a few Americans, Brits and other Europeans sprinkled in.  But unless you are arriving by yacht (unfortunately not my personal mode of transportation), Datça is not particularly easy to get to. 

The village is a three-hour drive along a twisty mountain road from the nearest airport in Dalaman, Turkey.   So if you want to spend a few days on a secluded rocky cove with crystal clear water overlooking a Greek island in the distance -- you know, if you're a freak that's into that sort of thing -- then you have to work for it a little bit.

Truly, I can't say enough about the water.  The sea is unbelievably clear, cool, and beautiful.  Upon sight of the coast it takes a certain amount of restraint not to immediately tear off your clothes and run naked into the sea.  In fact I'm sure this would happen more often than it does, if there wasn't the surprisingly unpleasant matter of the sun. 

My God, the sun. 


Yes, it is the middle of summer and I realize that it is supposed to be hot.  But not this hot. The locals say it has never been so hot.  In addition to no clouds and a scorching sun, for three days a steady wind has been blowing in from the south, coming right off of the desert on the Arabian Peninsula.

In most parts of the planet, a summer breeze makes things cooler.   But here, for the moment at least, the opposite is true.  Instead, the wind is blazing, like a giant hand-held blow dryer with the switch set to "frizz."

With this heat lamp/hair dryer combo, the midday temperature each day has been coming in right around 40 degrees.  Yes, this sounds like a typical summer day in San Francisco, until you realize that we're talking about 40 degrees Celsius.  That's 104 to you and me, my American friends, and I don't care where you live:  104 is frickin' hot.


But from my balcony at the Villa Aşina I can see the turquoise water of the Mediterranean, with the Greek island of Symi in the distance.  Of course I'm going to the beach.  I have a hat.  I have sunscreen.

Hell, upon arrival my skin is probably white enough to reflect the sun all together, like one of those heat visors you fold across the dashboard of your car.  I'll be fine.

The first day it's not even 10:30 in the morning before I retreat back into the shade for the rest of the day.   Day Two is even more abbreviated than that.

It's not until an alter ego is invented in my Fortress of Solitude (otherwise known as the Mevlana Room) that I am prepared to challenge the sun again on Day Three.

*     *    *
Sunstroke Boy emerges from his air-conditioned sanctuary on the third day prepared to save the world, or, at the very least, get to the beach after breakfast. To accomplish this feat, he is wearing his Cloak of Invincibility, which might be mistaken for a stretched-out and faded T-shirt, bought years ago on sale at The Gap.

Protected by the cloak (along with a straw hat from Hawaii and a pair of Turkish sunglasses found in the back-seat pouch on the flight in from Istanbul), Sunstroke Boy strides out into hot wind and early morning sun.   Distracted by the view of the sea in the distance, Sunstroke Boy promptly walks into a poolside chaise lounge, bashing his shin into its heavy wooden frame.

Apparently the cloak of invincibility may work against sunburn, but is no protection against painful klutz-related injuries.

His shin is now bleeding, inches below another cut apparently inflicted the day before. Sunstroke Boy can't remember where the previous injury came from.  He briefly considers wearing shin guards, or at the very least compiling a bruise journal.

Undeterred, Sunstroke Boy leaves the hotel area and strides down the concrete stairs leading to the stony cove below. A cheap snorkel and scuba mask had been purchased the previous day.  He walks over the hot stones on the beach into the water, wearing the mask, snorkel, and Cloak of Invincibility. 


If you added a pair of Water Wings or a Dora the Explorer life preserver, Sunstroke Boy would look exactly like an overly protected 3-year-old, standing in a backyard wading pool.  

But Sunstroke Boy can not be defeated by mere shame and ridicule.   Wearing the cloak into the water he snorkles away from the cove along the coast, between the rocks, and through the amazing crystal clear water.

Sunstroke Boy paddles his way toward two large off-shore rocks, apparently split in two a millenium ago.   He swims through the three-foot space between the rocks, watching a large school of sardines.   The water is so clear Sunstroke Boy can see straight to the sea bottom, a good 50 feet below.

Sunstroke Boy climbs up on the rock, finds a perch a few feet off the water, takes off the mask and snorkel, and dives in.   He climbs back up, ventures to a spot a few feet higher, and dives off again. 

On the third climb up on the volcanic rock, Sunstroke Boy sees blood running from a gash in his left knee, to match the pair of cuts on the shin.  Another 3-inch cut runs horizontally along the back of his right calf as well.

No one explained to Sunstroke Boy that coral and volcanic rock tend to be sharp.   Caution and common sense are not among his super powers. 

Emerging from the water on his return to the beach cove, a Turkish family sitting nearby looks up and stares at the legs of Sunstroke Boy.  

Perhaps they are wondering if our super hero just swam through some barbed wire.
 
*     *     *

As you might suspect, Sunstroke Boy is not the most successful of super heroes.   He tends to curtail his activities in the summer, unless shrouded in the fog of northern California.  Cries of "Help! Save me, Sunstroke Boy!"  too often are answered with a response of  "Listen, I'll get back to you around eight thirty when the sun goes down.  Until then, I'll be sipping a cool beverage and fighting evil over here in the shade."

Understandably, this has led many of those in distress -- or those just looking for someone to hang out at the beach with -- to turn to other super heroes with a little more crime-fighting flexibility, and better tans. 

Sunstroke Boy doesn't take it personally.  He still gets around, albeit on a limited basis during the middle of July.

But he knows his limitations.  If you need someone to help you drink a frosty beer in the shade on the veranda, he's your man.  For the Fourth of July barbecue or the all-day inner tube float down the Guadalupe, it's probably best to call somebody else.

*     *     *

Delirium returns later that evening in the air conditioned sanctuary of the Mevlana Room.  From my standard, face-down position on the waffle-iron bedspread, I turn my head sideways and stare at the photos of the famed Whirling Dervishes of the Mevlana Lodge that decorate the wall.

Again my mind wanders. I contemplate how the dervishes can twirl like that for a full hour during their Sama ceremony without getting dizzy.   



Or, more importantly, without throwing up.

I wonder if dervishes can take themselves out of the evening's Sama line up, like a baseball player with an unexpected pre-game groin pull.

"Sorry, my brothers, but I can not whirl today. I was weak, and just succumbed to the MacDonald's strawberry shake/sausage biscuit combo."

I assume a weak stomach would be a major drawback for aspiring mevlana. Surely a propensity to vomit would at the very least bump you down to the minor league of dervishes. A spirited but much less awe-inspiring demonstration of faith.

The Hurling Dervishes.

The sun has baked my brain past delirium, straight into blasphemy. 

I roll over, look down at the cuts and bruises on my legs and feet, and contemplate tomorrow's climb on another rock. 

Fear not, Sunstroke Boy, for you are not alone. Tomorrow, you snorkel through coral, step over sea urchins, and jump off of sharp volcanic rocks as one with yet another alter ego. 

Again, I will exist as I am, but not as I look.
Once again I will rise above the adversity of my affliction.
I am yet another super hero.

I am Sunstroke Boy.  As well as Hemophiliac Man.

*     *     *

I walk out to the pool side of the Villa Aşina late on the afternoon of Day Four.  Mercifully, the scalding sun has disappeared behind the back of the hotel for the day, leaving the chaise recliners in the safety of the shade.

There is no bar at the Villa Aşina.  But I have learned that if you ask, they will make any drink you want, and bring it out to you on a little silver tray.  After settling into the chaise lounge, I signal to one of the Turkish college kids working around the pool side.   

Can you make me a gin and tonic? I ask in Turkish.   Yes, he can. 

With ice, I specify.  Buzlu.  Çok buzlu.  Lots of ice.

There might be something better in life than sipping a gin and tonic after a long day in the sun, while you lie on a chaise lounge in the shade poolside on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.  But at this particular moment, I could not possibly tell you what it could be.




I take another sip, and say a silent prayer for limes, tonic water, Mr. Gordon's distillery, and the invention of the ice cube.

My skin is still red, and cuts and bruises cover my legs.   But I'm no longer feeling any pain.   Maybe time does heal all wounds.  But a gin and tonic with ice does a pretty good job of that, too.

Yes, I think I'll have another, and not move until dinner.

Sunstroke Boy can always save the world tomorrow, sometime after breakfast.


  

A Ride on the Screaming Baby Express

I should have known something was up at the Lufthansa gate at DFW Airport when they mentioned the word "family."  

"You wouldn't mind switching seats, would you?" the suspiciously cheerful gate agent asks as I'm about to board my flight back to Istanbul by way of Frankfurt.  "We're trying to seat a family together." 

Both my original seat and the one being offered were on the aisle, so why would I possibly care?  And yet ...

Even while my lips are saying "Sure, no problem," a silent alarm has begun to ring somewhere in the back of my brain.   Families, families ... Families often involve children don't they?
 
I simply wasn't quick enough to ask, "Now, there won't be any screaming babies in this section, will there?"  Not that she would have told me.  But at least later I could have taken comfort in the fact that I had done everything in my power to save myself.  

*     *     *

Before anyone starts in on me, let me just say right off that I like children.  Really.  I know this may be hard to believe, coming from someone who has neither kids nor a desire to acquire any in this particular lifetime.  

But truly, I am not "anti-child."  I am, however, pretty staunchly "anti-child screaming on an airplane."  Particularly so, if I'm anywhere on that airplane.  And feverently so, if I'm trapped on that airplane for a 10-plus hour intercontintental flight.

Whenever this happens I can't help but feel that some kind of human rights violation is taking place.   No, not the human rights of the child; the human rights of me.   If there isn't some kind of international law in place covering this, there ought to be.

If you fly with any frequency at all you know exactly what I'm talking about.   Don't act like it doesn't bother you, as everyone tries to do as the three-year-old bangs on the tray table behind them, or the three-month-old wails across seven contiguous time zones.  

You can smile tolerantly and deliver a disingenuous "oh, he's fine," to the parent if you want.  But I know you hate it as much as I do.   It couldn't be more irritating if a mime in a Ronald McDonald costume blowing an air horn walked up and down the aisle and passed out religious pamphlets.   

See, that we would complain about.   But when a baby three feet away screams for eight hours, the typical response is look away, reach for the in-flight magazine, and spend the next several hours fighting the urge to go hang oneself.

No more, I say.  I think we've suffered enough.

*     *     * 

I spot the trouble in Row 25 of Lufthansa Flight 439 as soon as I board the plane.  In the middle of the row sits a frazzled looking young woman and three (count 'em, three!) little girls, all I'm guessing to be under the age of 5.   The youngest might be 2.  Coloring books have already been distributed and are currently in use.

Mom is positioned on the aisle closest to where I'll be sitting, with the three girls on her left. Dad sits across the aisle on the far end of the row.  He occasionally looks up from the book he's already pretending to read, waving to the wife and kids across the aisle like he's on the other side of the plexiglas at the San Diego Zoo.  

I can already tell that for the duration of the trip mom is pretty much on her own. 

Distracted by this potential trouble, I initially fail to notice a second two-year-old seated on another mom's lap three rows back.  She's already in her jammies, I'll find out later.   This was apparent wishful thinking on her mom's part that jammies would be needed for when the child goes to sleep.

But sleep is not on the agenda for Jammy Girl -- nor in anyone in the vicinity -- on this particular flight to Germany.

Meanwhile, the two-year-old in my row already has squirmed out her seat and under her mother's legs before the plane even leaves the gate.  The polite German flight attendants gently insist that the child be belted in somewhere before the plane takes off.   When Mom tries to corral the little girl and hold her on her lap, the first screaming of the evening begins.  

As instructed in the safety video, I turn around in my seat to look for the closest emergency exit.  But it's too late. 

The girl three feet away continues to squirm and scream as the plane lifts off.  I look at my watch.  Only nine hours and fifty eight minutes left to go.

*     *     *

No, of course it's not the kids' fault.   I know toddlers cry because they are stuck in a boring and restrictive environment and told they can't move until they reach the next available continent.  Who wouldn't be cranky?

And the babies?  We're told babies cry because they are tired and/or hungry, but I suspect they just scream because they know they can get away with it.   I'm not a certified child-care expert, so please don't quote me.

Listen, I completely understand; half the time I'm on a plane I feel like screaming, too.  And that's before I find out that the only in-flight movie features Adam Sandler in drag playing his own twin sister.

But where are all these children going, exactly?   I can understand a Disney-bound plane to Orlando, but Dallas to Frankfurt?  Is there a giant Weiner World amusment park somewhere in Germany I'm not aware of?  Are they all off to an important meeting of 3-year-old investors at the headquarters of Deutsche Bank?

I want to grab the parents by the shoulders and demand answers: Why in God's name are you transporting three children under the age of five from Texas to Germany?  Why are you doing this to them?

More importantly, why are you doing this to us? 

 *     *    *  

An hour and a half into the flight, the area around Row 25 already looks like a dysfunctional day care center on the verge of being closed down by the state.  Broken crayons and the crumbs of half-eaten cookies are crushed into the carpet.   Discarded blankets, pillows, a sippy cup, and miscellaneous toys have been kicked under the seats and into the aisle. 

The two-year-old in Row 25 has been emitting blood-curdling wails on about 20-minute intervals.  Mom has interpreted each of these screams as a desire for food.   If she's right, all I can say is this is one hungry two-year-old.

Of course it's a liquid diet at Mom's Cafe, and there's only one beverage on the menu.  In order to breast-feed the child as modestly as possible, mom for about the fourth time now drapes herself with a tent-like contraption, and then, lovingly, shoves the child's head underneath.

Dinner!

This doesn't exactly end the screams, but it does seem to muffle them for a few minutes.

There seems to be a lot of kicking and thrashing around during feeding time, but for obvious reasons I don't want to watch too closely what's happening under the Big Top.   At the far end of the aisle Dad continues to pretend to read his book, oblivious to the elaborate tent-feeding ritual going on nearby.

Meanwhile, the pajama-clad two-year-old from three rows back has developed a wanderlust that her mother shows no interest in discouraging.  She seems particularly fascinated by what's going on behind the curtain leading to business class (hey, who isn't?), along with the drink selections of every passenger seated on the aisle within toddling radius.

When I'm not looking, the little girl wanders by and decides for reasons only she could tell you to reach up and tug on the cocktail napkin at the edge of my tray.  I look up just in time to grab my moving glass and prevent Jammy Baby from dumping a gin and tonic on her head. 

Lucky for her I had opted for booze and passed on another cup of scalding-hot coffee.

If mom three rows back notices any of this, she's content not to say anything.  At least she's not screaming, I'm sure mom is thinking.   Apparently for this reason alone she thinks it's best that children be allowed to roam without constraint, like free-range chicken.

True enough, the child is not currently screaming.  That, of course, is being saved for the upcoming non-existent bedtime.

*     *     *    

The stereophonic screams of the two-year-olds start somewhere over Nova Scotia and continue all the way to continental Europe.  As sleep has become an unobtainable fantasy, I have plenty of time to stare at the back of my seat and contemplate the issue currently confronting me.

I realize there are many inconveniences, irritations, and indignities of life that you just have to deal with when you venture out into public.   People answering their cell phones in movie theaters, schizophrenic panhandlers, gaseous seatmates on crowded subway cars ... Yes, given the time there's a long list of things I can sit here and bitch about regarding our interaction with the rest of humanity.

But unlike most of these things, I have a solution to this particular problem.  I'm not saying I can get the financial backing, or if the idea would withstand a constitutional challenge.  But hear me out before you pass judgment.

What the world clearly needs -- more than peace, economic stability, or a cure for the canker sore  -- is an adults-only airline.   As a working concept, let's call it Air Sanity.

Okay, to fly our airline you don't have to be an actual voting-age adult;  it's not like we're inducting people into the army or distributing porn.  We can set the age at, say, 14.  But anyone under that age is not allowed on board, accompanied or not.  If you are a parent and you absolutely, positively must travel with the kids, you can fly any airline on the planet, except this one.  Sorry.

The only people screaming on our flights will be drunks and those with above-average personality disorders.

Everything else about our airline is exactly the same as any other:  Same crappy food, bad movies, and surly flight attendants.  Our seats are still jammed together to challenge your pain threshold, and all departure times are approximate.


But there are no blood-curdling screams.  No running in the aisles.   No kicking on the backs of chairs for six continuous hours. 

No kids.


Is this practice discriminatory?  Absolutely.  Would it eliminate a large segment of the consumer market?  I'm sure that it would.

But Air Sanity would get my money over the Screaming Baby Express for every single booking.   I haven't done the marketing research, but I personally would pay a premium for the ticket, and I'm pretty sure I am not alone.

I'm telling you, there is money to be made here.  If you are a billionaire looking to invest, call me.

*     *     *

I've always wondered why it is that when a two-year-old cries out, it comes with such intensity that the immediate reaction of anyone within a 50-foot radius is that a murder is currently in progress.  It's not a cry that says "You know what?  I'm hungry and/or tired, and this has made me somewhat irritable."   To me, crying always sounds more like "Help me! I'm being dropped off at the Manson Family Day Care Center!"

Yes, these are the sounds that accompany me, in stereo, all the way to Germany.

Maybe 10 minutes before the plane lands, both screaming two-year-olds finally fall asleep.  When the wheels touch down in Frankfurt,  I am exhausted and disoriented, like a sleep-deprived guinea pig in an undergrad psych experiment.

Where am I, again?  The flight attendant on the intercom is saying something about a flughafen.  In my semi-delirious state I deduce that either I've arrived at an airport in Germany or I've suffered some kind of a stroke.   

As the plane taxis to the gate I look around my seat, trying to remember where I put that ... you know, that thing that I have to give to the, um, guy in order to get on another plane to go to that ... that place where I need to go.  Boarding Pass!  Yes, I need my connecting flight boarding pass.  Where the hell is it?  Come to think of it, where are my shoes?  I'll probably need those, too ...

I look again at my watch.  The connecting flight to Istanbul will not leave for another four and half hours.  My kingdom for an airport nap room.

Meanwhile the father of the family in Row 25 is now standing across the aisle, tucking in his shirtails and hoisting up his pants after an apparent good night's sleep.   Mom is folding up the feeding tent, and helping the girls shove the coloring books and belongings into their Little Princess backpacks.   Dad puts his hand on his hips and smiles proudly as he looks down at his family.  Then he looks up and makes a general announcement.

"I hope you were able to tune us out last night!"  he says cheerfully to no one in particular.   It seems intended as an excuse, an apology, and a plea for forgiveness all rolled into one.    Given that the guy did nothing to help his wife and slept through the whole thing regardless, I'm not about to say anything to alleviate his guilt.

Dad's announcement at first is greeted by complete silence.  Finally an elderly woman who had been sitting one row up clears her throat.

"Oh, well ... we have grandchildren," she says.

I'm not exactly sure what that means, and no further explanation is offered.  But that's the best response Dad's going to get from this particular group of air travelers.  

"We have grandchildren."  In other words:  Yes, we understand how this works; over the course of 10 hours babies and small children confined in a small area tend to scream.   But no, you moron, we were not able to tune it out.  And no, we're not particularly happy about it.

I don't think any further market research is really necessary. I leave the plane disoriented, but content in the knowledge that Air Sanity customer list continues to grow.





 

   

Letting sleeping dogs lie (on the sidewalk)

They say a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members. You also might want to take a look at how it treats its over-sexed cats and its fat stray dogs.  

You don't have to look for very long to find the strays in Istanbul. In my new neighborhood of Teşvikiye, the homeless dogs spend most of the day sleeping under a tree in a nearby park, or in the middle of the sidewalk near the dolmuş stop. People walking by slow down to step over and around them, like fur-covered pedestrian speed bumps. The size of the dogs' bellies demonstrate that they are well fed, if not particularly well exercised.

The neighborhood stray cats, meanwhile, are on constant prowl behind my apartment building, apparently looking for food and, um, a good time. The screeching sounds I hear make me wonder if I am living in one of Istanbul's wealthiest neighborhoods, or a forest in Madagascar. Seriously now: are these cats, or are they howler monkeys?

Perhaps at one time the stray dogs would have kept the cats honest, or at least forced them to be more discreet in their mating rituals. But the dogs aren't moving. They are back at the dolmuş stand, taking another nap and waiting for more kibble.

Urban wildlife is just not what it used to be.

* * *


Sad dogs in the street are nothing new for the İstanbulu.  When Mark Twain came to then-Constantinople he wrote that he had never seen such "doleful-eyed and broken-hearted stray dogs" anywhere else in his life.

In 1910, the Ottomans made an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the strays by rounding them up and shipping them to an uninhabited island in the Marmara.  Ten years after that the Ottoman Empire disappeared forever. The wild dogs of Istanbul returned and are still here, providing further evidence that: a) karma's a bitch, and/or b) there really is a reason that "Dog" is "God" spelled backwards.

Ever since the ill-fated dog deportation, Istanbul has been trying to figure out what to do with its homeless dogs and cats.  It's clearly still a work in progress.  

Not that Istanbul is the only city in the world that's ever had to deal with a stray animal problem.  In America, our solution has been to round up the strays and put them not on an island but in a cage, euphemistically called an animal "shelter".  Sometimes, a lucky stray gets adopted from the shelter. More often than not it doesn't, and then you know what happens. True, the strays are no longer living on the street.  Unfortunately, they are no longer living at all.

So far that's the most humane idea we've come up with.

There are animal shelters in Turkey, but that's not where most of the strays are.  Instead they are all over the city, lying on sidewalks and napping under bushes.  This is the compromise the city has made.  It is not exactly a policy of live and let live.  It's more like, live on the street, but at least let them live. 

I'm not talking about complete animal anarchy. The stray dogs at least, are (in theory) caught, spayed or neutered, and like prisoners on a work-release program let back out into society to fend for themselves.  The street dogs also get a different colored plastic chip clipped in their ears.  I'm assuming this is not for fashion purposes and that someone, somewhere, is at least keeping track of them.


If there is a similar spay/ neutering program in place for cats, all I can say is that it doesn't seem to be working very well.   The male cats are out screeching on a regular basis, either while entertaining a special "lady friend" or protecting their territory from interlopers.  

In the spring you can see the resulting litters of kittens all over the city.  Meanwhile, the Tom Cats wander off, looking for another free meal and next season's conquest.  The deadbeat dads of the urban animal world.


*     *     *

I'm not trying to argue that what they do with the strays in Istanbul is necessarily better.  I'm just telling you that what they do is different.  And I can't help feeling that what they do is somehow reflective of a general attitude that doesn't exist everywhere in the world.

With the stray animals living on the streets, for the most part it is up to the people of Istanbul to take care of them.  From what I have seen, they actually do.

Yes, part of this care is still done by the government.  In Teşvikiye, the local municipality has constructed several dog houses for the strays.  The dog house closest to my apartment comes complete with a door mat, because, you know, you wouldn't want the stray dog that's been sleeping on the sidewalk all day to track mud in the house.

Granted, I've never actually seen a dog in one of the dog houses, but if nothing else these serve as a central location for people to drop off food.  Signs on the dog houses ask all Hayvan Dostuları, or "Animal Friends," to please only leave dry food.  Food always seems to be there.  Judging from the size of some of the dog bellies, it looks like they've gotten their fill of it.

Seeing this, you might be tempted to think that the stray dogs have a pretty sweet deal in Istanbul.  But keep in mind that Teşvikiye is one of the city's more better-off neighborhoods.  Not every mahalle has people with the time and money to be continually topping off dog food bowls. 

Also, the strays in Teşvikiye have to be constantly reminded of how the Other Half lives. This is a neighborhood where the dogs that sleep inside - the purebred silkies, pugs, and golden retrievers - get gourmet food and their own paid dog walkers.  Then again, in the window of a pet supply store around the corner from my apartment hangs a silver lamé, fur trimmed dog coat, just in case your schnauzer has nothing to wear to the Lady Gaga concert.   If this humiliation is the price of domestication, I have to believe most of the strays would just as soon sleep in the park.

Still, even the stray dogs in the less-affluent neighborhoods are taken care of.  Near my old apartment in Cihangir, there was a sweet old dog whose home was a piece of cardboard she slept on, outside of one of the neighborhood gida stores.  She was so old and arthritic she had trouble getting up from the ground.  But she was well-fed, and still good natured enough to wag her tail if she recognized you. 

She had survived a long time.  She certainly had survived a lot longer than she would have left unadopted in a typical animal shelter.

*     *     *  

People in Istanbul may be slightly less sympathetic to the stray cats, if for no other reason than there are so many more of them.  At the outdoor cafes the begging cats can get so numerous that they eventually have to be shooed away like pigeons, or overly aggressive squirrels.

But all around the city the İstanbullu put food and water dishes out for the cats as well.  Some people set up little shoebox-like cardboard cat houses outside of their apartment windows.  The more industrious will cover the cardboard houses with plastic, so they don't disintegrate after the first rain storm.


In other places, the volunteer care is more centralized, if somewhat haphazard. On a scruffy little hillside parklet called Gümüşuyu Parkı off a busy street in central Taksim, a virtual cat shantytown has sprouted up, complete with a covered feeding trough and a slope-roofed metal shed containing nine little shoebox kitty apartments.

The park apparently is the Club Hedonism for all male cats in the greater metropolitan area, with plenty of food, water and, you know, companionship.  Walking by this spot every morning during the spring I witnessed so much cat sex that I began to wonder if Barry White music was being piped out of the feeding shelter.  

I have to tell you, even if you love cats, the cat village is not really a pretty sight.  Many of the cats are living a hard life, and they look it.   Tails are bent, ears are partially bitten off, and many look as if they decided fur grooming was a luxury they could no longer afford.  

Still, every day someone comes to the little park, puts out water in a makeshift plastic bowl, and pours out cat food for all who want it.  Again, from what I can tell, no one goes hungry.  Often the dry food is just scattered on top of a concrete wall, but I've not seen any of the cats complaining. 

True, this ain't the Ritz.  But it's not the pound, either. 

*     *     *

Walking home on a recent afternoon, I spot a big, shepherd-mix stray sitting atop a brick wall in the shade of one of the city's mini parks.  He pants while he watches me cross the street and walk toward him.

A stray dog on the wall!  How wacky and quaint, I think.  These Street Dogs of Istanbul are living quite the life, aren't they?   A perfect picture for the blog.

I stop about six feet from the dog and reach into my jacket pocket for the camera phone.   The dog stops panting.  As I hold the camera up, he starts to growl.  I lower the camera.  He resumes panting.

After a few seconds, I again raise the camera and once again try to take his picture.  This time he stands, snarls, and begins barking at me like I'm breaking into the auto parts lot after dark.

A man walking by, with no discernible connection to the dog at all, goes to the dog's side, puts his hand on the dog's back and shushes him.  The dog stops barking and lies down.  I put the camera away, and he's fine again.  The panting resumes like nothing happened. 

The message seems clear enough to me:  No pictures, pal. We're just dogs that live outside. Just because we sit on park walls and sleep on the sidewalk all day doesn't make us freaks.

All we're asking for is some food, a place to lie on the ground, and perhaps a little dignity.  Other people around here seem to understand that.  Pay attention, and you might figure it out, too.