Gokova here and here is funtoosh

Happy belated Rosh Hashana to all my friends who celebrated – sorry for not keeping in touch this past year; it's hard to connect to reality when you're dodging dodgy salesmen and trying not to describe everything you see as 'mindblowing'.

I'm trying to spread this word funtoosh.  It's Urdu. At least I think it is.  It's been borrowed liberally by Hindi, but it's down and downer Urdu.  I'm trying to see if I can transmorgify it into a saying, like "Awesome!" or "Cool beans!" that may absolutely be totally different from the original meaning (contentment/fun).  I want it to be a stand-in for 'shit.'  You heard it hear first – in three years or so, when kids in Texas surburbias start saying 'Aw, dammit! Funtoosh!' you know where it came from first.

Now. Back to the original meaning.  Everything is funtoosh where I am.

Funtoosh?

Gokova. The town. The town of Gokova is in Turkey, southwest to be exact. It sits on a hill and also next to & under the aforementioned hill.  The hill sits in a valley of pine trees that wave and gossip over the ocean (as I wrote before) indigo and not just a little blue.

I've rented an apartment from a nice dentist here in town – population 250 to be exact.  Actually Yuppie Nomad trudged through the rain knocking on doors and finally – she found a waiter who recommended her to a dentist who lived next door to his restaurant... I was given the heavy task of guarding our bags under a canopy of a locked cell-phone store.  So... we/YupNo rented an apartment and we've been staying (happily I must add) here for three days.

First day, sun-drenched. Second, rain-soaked. And now our third and fourth, more sun.  After the rain, the skies are penetratingly blue.  And by that I mean, it's so blue that you can see inside the blues, that you can look and the different depths of blue will pull you in and up and on and on until you realize – woa.. that's the indigo sea out there...

I wake up each morning with shafts of sun invading, pummeling, and finally succeeding in cracking my eyelids open. Then I settle into the routine (happily again, I must say) of a housewife. Me the housedude.  I make breakfast with the usual suspects: eggs that crack, sausages that sing, loaves of bread that crumble, and cereal that drown (in milky tears) under heat, pressure, and the combination of my hands and fingers.. The table is set. The salt finds its place along with the pepper.  Juice (or mmm.. Coke) meets plastic. And instant coffee – only the best Nestle powder – stirs and wakes and fills the round moon china cups.

And hopefully, at this time, the fork also finds YupNo's now awake mouth, and she's talking and then we're talking and that fat cat, the one that glowers at us hoping for crumbs, the one that sings with his minions during the night, he scampers along the vine-clad walls and I shoo that fat cat and we're on our balcony eating breakfast . That I made.

The laundry (that I did! I washed and squeezed and wrung them into a plastic soap-sud filled tub) hangs from lines over the balcony -- flap flapping under the sun -- or the rain or the clouds and yes, that blue blue blue sky sky sky.

Gokova. The small Turkish town next to the sea. Our neighbor pops round the corner and hands us a plate of Turkish red rice spices and something tingles on our tongues. "Good day," she says.  "Thank you," we say.

And then we go off into town, down the hill, and find ourselves.. what do we find? Empty cafes (it's Ramadan).  Old ladies peeping out of doorways in their shawls. Cute.  They look like hags from fairy tales.  What is it with Mediterranean women as they age? They bend, the stoop, they grow Mt. Everests on their wrinkled faces, chins jut out, eyes sunk in... old cute crones they are. We also find a black sand beach and some tourists sunning themselves pinker than they already are. We find boats, and fishermen (idling) and little hermit crabs scampering among the rocks -- and yes!!! we find a couple of men selling fresh fish/gullets maybe. Thwack. The head lops off.  Thwack! Goes the tail. Szztack zztack -- off departs the scales.

Then?

Then YupNo sits at the balcony (sun-drenched) and writes her treatises and I make lunch. Yes, me the chef. What's left? Eggs, canned tuna, rice (?), pasta (?), cheese tomatoes and onions and lemons.  I make lunch, with spaghetti and tomato-tuna-cheese sauce.  I call it Spaghetti al Gokova.  Instant coffee, and now Coke, and then.. grapes.  I can now plop grapes in my mouth, tossing them in the air (high high!) and snatching them from harm into the relative safety of my widening jaw.  Just like Taysa, my friend from years ago.  Except YupNo can catch twelve grapes in a row with her mouth while I stumble at eleven.

Oh and of course, all that dish washing.

And then I write. I doodle. And then write. Write write and more. I write to friends to myself to moms and dads and even a little something for future publishers maybe. Maybe.

Would you like some coffee? YesI'dlikesomecoffee. Oh and maybe some Doritosandgrapes please.

And then we write together. Talk talk & write scribble scratch "Is this good?" write.

I won't bore you with what's for dinner (fried fish, fish sort-of paella, tomato soup, and ice cream).  We clean out our just-bought supplies. What's left? What can we do with a chunk of onion, a wedge of cheese, leftover sausage, rice, and tomato paste?  Why, that's breakfast and lunch tomorrow!

So yes, everything is funtooshed, funtooshing and funtooshes here.  Reality be dammed, this is the life - or is it? - and so it must end and we'll move on and then I'll come back and yes yes, Gokova – Gokova will come funtooshing again whenever there is spaghetti, cheese, tuna and tomatoes.