End of Days...

Well Folks,

It is now May 22nd, and unless I missed something I'm still around and so (hopefully) are you.

I may have slipped through a dimensional time warp while on the airplane from LA to Frankfurt, but if I did I have no recollection of it.  Suffice to say that the "Judgement Day" predicted by Mr Harold Camping didn't occur on time.  No earthquakes occurred of significant value while I was in the air, and mankind (All 7,113,760,400.00  of us at the time of this writing) is still happily polluting the earth and living life in the blissful ignorance that nothing s/he does makes THAT much of an impact on earth. Ah well.  Perhaps the end will be near another day.  2012 is coming, and maybe the Mayans will deliver.

Despite all of the worries about the end of the world, I have more pressing concerns...like the present moment, and reflections of the recent past, which I like to review from time to time.

I left my home yesterday (my hubby graciously drove me to the International Airport in LA), and boarded the German airline Lufthansa, bound for Frankfurt and then Nuremberg. The destination for this part of the trip being a small U.S. Army base on Vilseck.  Now, interestingly on Lufthansa, all drinks are free including the beer, the cognac and the wine.  Quite a few Germans were imbibing before meals, with meals and after meals and most of the people on board were either sleeping or very happy.  German Flight Attendants (I almost typed Stewardess cause, yes, that's my generation) were an interesting lot.  To provide some comparison, Japanese Flight Attendants are generally very quiet, gentle, and subtlety persuasive when they need or want you to do something.  You hardly know they are there.  German Flight Attendants bustle through the airplane cabin with a large noisy presence.  They are loud when they address you, and phrases emitted from them are more like orders that you dare not disobey for fear of some type of reprisal, such as withholding your pretzel ration, or skipping you when they go down the aisle with the drink cart.

Ten hours on a plane can be hell.  Particularly when you are trapped (such as I was) between an overweight older Hungarian/American (who I shall call Hugo) and a tiny slip of an American/Eastern Indian looking woman from San Diego who was 28 weeks pregnant.  Yes, the pregnant girl had a seat next to the window, and Hugo was on the aisle side.  Needless to say, the 28 week pregnant girl had to get up every couple of hours to urinate (sometimes more frequent), and when she did...as Hugo and I waited for her return...I was pelted with stories from the Hungarian/American about how he first came to the U.S. in 1969 after being in refuge camps in Austria.  (I didn't get exact details of how he came to be there, amazingly...) Hugo described his first American job, cleaning toilets.  Later, cleaning for a rich family.  After that, a construction job, and then he went on to join in with another group of individuals for an architectural company and had just recently retired with his wife (his second wife, who is Filipino) with a two million dollar pension.  I was privy to listening about their amazing adventures around the world, and got to see his passport, which he proudly displayed to me with extra stamped pages (48 to be exact) because he'd been such an extensive traveler (He was very proud of it). Hugo explained to me he was getting old and tired now though, and that his traveling will soon be limited to his trips with his wife to Las Vegas, something he and his wife do regularly.  "You can live good in Las Vegas," he said.  "Eat good. Good Entertainment.  It's the life."

Prego girl, whose descriptive name I shall shorten to "Pregs", was anxious about childbirth.  She was amazed, when we first met, because I looked at her belly and said "28 weeks".  "How did you know? I'm exactly 28 weeks." she said.

"I'm clairvoyant." I replied.  The look on her face was priceless as awe filled her eyes.  For a moment, I was living proof that the third eye existed.  I wish it were true.  Coming clean,  I confessed....  "No, really, I'm a midwife.  I've seen several pregnant women, and it was just a guess."

A strange mixture of both disappointment and pleasure filled her face.  Glad to be riding alongside a midwife, but disappointed that I probably couldn't tell her baby's future along the way...she waddled next to the window with an armload of baby magazines.  "I'm in nursing school." she said. "And I haven't had time to read about babies at all."  Up towards the front row, a mother tried to console a 9 month old as she wailed, screamed and cried during the ride (the baby, not the mother).  I nodded my head in the woman's direction.  Pregs looked that way and then looked quizically at me. 
"That's all you need to know." I said.

Yes, I have a habit of being more than less than unhelpful in a pinch, and more helpful than some people deserve when not in need, but still...it made the flight go by faster.  Pregs was from San Diego, and flying to Salzberg Germany to see family before coming back to have the baby in the U.S.. She was two years away from finishing her nursing degree, and wasn't sure what she wanted to do after that.  I listened to her talk about things she wanted to buy for the baby, looked at some of the magazines with her, and on occasion thought perhaps the rapture had happened, and that this was my life of hell on earth for the next five months before 'the end'.  Then, miraculously, both Pregs and Hugo fell asleep, and I (sandwiched in between them) had a couple hours of bliss (and a cognac) while I listened to Joe Hills "Horns" novel on audiobook, and wrote a little more of "Dr Stench" for my novel.
One thing is for certain, when the plane eventually touched down on the Germany ground, I heard angels sing.

The Frankfurt terminal was a very odd place.  Disembarking the plane, there is really no one to tell you where to go, or how to get there.  I wandered from terminal A, trying to get to terminal B, in a massive labyrinth of gates, walls, corridors and such.  Eventually I ended up at the gateway to terminal B, and found that it was another customs check/search.  I showed my passport exactly 3 extra times, was searched in a "security room" because I had extra electronics (which were, apparently, very suspicious), and my computer equipment was tested for ballistics residue, and with that I FINALLY made it to terminal B.  My flight to Nuremberg was a little less hectic, and I arrived at the terminal finding someone who was holding up a little paper sign that said "Dr Cynthia F."  I almost missed him and it, because the name on the paper was barely legible.

A 45 minute ride in a faded blue van, along some beautiful German countryside, with houses that have roofs as sharp as freshly ground number 2 pencil points, and I was at Vilseck.  Needless to say, after not really having slept more than a couple of hours in more than a 14 hour trip, I was giddy and not very lucid as I made my way to my little room.  It was 3 PM in Germany, and I threw my things on the floor and climbed into the bed after quickly typing a note to my family to let them know I'd arrived OK.  I slept from 3PM to 5AM the next day.

Now, I'm here at Vilseck as an Expert Witness for the Defense on a sexual assault case.  Later this afternoon, I will go over the case with Army JAG and they will determine how I can provide the best information possible for the courtroom.  As an expert for the Defense, one of my roles is to make sure that statements provided from the Prosecution expert/examiner (from the medical side) are 'evidence based', meaning they are grounded in the researched science of today.  It is a rewarding process, because now and then, I'm able to help dispel myths and set the record straight so the courtroom can make a logical decision.

Despite being north of towns like Munich and Stuttgart, I was unprepared for how warm the weather would be here.  It's sunnier than I expected, with huge cotton-ball white clouds and occasional black thunder heads that sneak in and dump a pound of rain on your head and then move off to splatter gallons of water elsewhere.  I don't know if I'll have time to go out into town and see any sights.  The courtroom process can be a long one, and usually I need to sit through each of the testimonies in order to provide any thoughts about the medical portion of the case.  But perhaps I will have the opportunity to see the countryside.  We will see.

~Cin