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| Not Africa....Dry land in the Salton Sea, California |
We leave for Southern Africa in 9 days. By training I do not mean we are hiking across vast sweltering deserts armed with cameras while protected and guided by the same man and his rifle. I do not mean we are keeping our eyes out for killer crocs and rampant hippos. We aren’t even packing.
We are training our bodies to exist (and function) in terminal heat. And by function I mean sleep.
We live in San Diego. “America’s Finest City” is our motto. Fine is far from the mind right now. At least in our house. Built circa 1940’s, sans insulation, with an empty, dirt bottomed basement below and zero breeze flowing through despite multiple windows on all sides of the house, our lovely home is the worst place to be on a hot day. Or a cold day. While outside our front door the perfect weather San Diego is known for gets on in a fashion, we suffer in our sweat just inside the front door. In fact, you can actually tell the difference in temperature in mere feet: inside front door =105, outside front door = a balmy 80. I know I have no right to complain--I do live in Southern California, after all. But everyone has a right to bitch, no? So while I lay atop blanket and sheets, fan a full blaze, staring at the ceiling with little chance of sleep in this stifling, albeit charming house, I dream of Africa. And listen to my boyfriend’s positive take on the situation: We’re in training for Africa. Indeed.
If only there were a lion roaring outside my window.
As an attempt to get away from the heat, and because we are still riding the World Cup high, we headed over to Blind Lady Ale House for a screening of “Pelada,” a lighthearted, interesting look at football (soccer) around the world featuring a man and a woman who are in between playing worlds, having finished their careers in university football but were not picked up professionally. The film sees them traveling to over 25 countries in a year, playing pick-up games with the locals (pelada is Brazilian for naked, or stripped-down), everyone from prisoners to children to Iranian women in burkas. A great little film, and Gwendolyn, one of the film makers and a featured cast member, was in attendance, introducing the film and answering questions after the screening. Well worth seeing, and as they still have a massive debt accrued in making the film, we were happy to purchase the DVD. Who knows, after the weather cools down, maybe we’ll have a screening of our own, and maybe a pick-up game out front.
We are training our bodies to exist (and function) in terminal heat. And by function I mean sleep.
We live in San Diego. “America’s Finest City” is our motto. Fine is far from the mind right now. At least in our house. Built circa 1940’s, sans insulation, with an empty, dirt bottomed basement below and zero breeze flowing through despite multiple windows on all sides of the house, our lovely home is the worst place to be on a hot day. Or a cold day. While outside our front door the perfect weather San Diego is known for gets on in a fashion, we suffer in our sweat just inside the front door. In fact, you can actually tell the difference in temperature in mere feet: inside front door =105, outside front door = a balmy 80. I know I have no right to complain--I do live in Southern California, after all. But everyone has a right to bitch, no? So while I lay atop blanket and sheets, fan a full blaze, staring at the ceiling with little chance of sleep in this stifling, albeit charming house, I dream of Africa. And listen to my boyfriend’s positive take on the situation: We’re in training for Africa. Indeed.
If only there were a lion roaring outside my window.
As an attempt to get away from the heat, and because we are still riding the World Cup high, we headed over to Blind Lady Ale House for a screening of “Pelada,” a lighthearted, interesting look at football (soccer) around the world featuring a man and a woman who are in between playing worlds, having finished their careers in university football but were not picked up professionally. The film sees them traveling to over 25 countries in a year, playing pick-up games with the locals (pelada is Brazilian for naked, or stripped-down), everyone from prisoners to children to Iranian women in burkas. A great little film, and Gwendolyn, one of the film makers and a featured cast member, was in attendance, introducing the film and answering questions after the screening. Well worth seeing, and as they still have a massive debt accrued in making the film, we were happy to purchase the DVD. Who knows, after the weather cools down, maybe we’ll have a screening of our own, and maybe a pick-up game out front.
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| Gwendolyn of "Pelada" at BLAH |
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