I landed in Cairo, and, as I walked through the airport, heard an American voice. As a rule traveling, I avoid Americans at all costs. It wasn’t until I walked by him that I realized the man was calling my name. I was, quite literally, shaking and just walked right past him. He stopped me, gave me his card and I kept walking. The card was white and crisp with dark blue writing. It was from the US Embassy in Cairo. They were waiting for me. I think. I’m sure they were there to help. I think. I’m sure they wanted to ensure my safety. I think. I’ll never know, because I bolted as fast as I could, making my way through a rough customs transition and into a parking lot where a man grabbed my backpack, offering a taxi and instead tried to ram his tongue down my throat. Even that didn’t convince me to turn back toward the American dude calling my name. Forget that. I was safer with the Egyptian French-kissing hoodlum.

I’d been sick for a few weeks with a parasite. It took me awhile to figure out that it was something I needed real medical care for and I chose to check in to the best hotel I could find. I loved traveling, but a girl’s got to get a bubble bath and a doctor every now and again. I found myself in the street during an insane rush hour in Cairo. In the middle of the street stood a tall, broad Egyptian man. To this day, I refer to him a “Abuud,” although I never knew his name. He took my backpack, wrapped himself protectively around me, screamed at cars between us, and walked me to the door of The Four Seasons hotel. Finally, I felt safe. Safe in Cairo.

Despite being the season of Ramadan, I was taken care of beautifully over the next several days. I went on a pre-arranged date with a very nice grad student, and despite the fact he took me to “TGI Fridays” on the Nile (no joke), I had a wonderful time. I received medical care from a serious doctor and her nurse. I walked the streets without fear, tried foods, bought goods and drank warm Coke. I laughed at the insanity of the cars bolting without order through the streets, and watched the  seemingly organized chaos between people in the stores and grand mall. I was not afraid of the military presence; I liked it. I wrapped myself in the beautiful sound of the call to Muslim prayer and the pure, unfaltering dedication to faith and fasting. I found Cario to be crazy, beautiful, western, eastern, unique.

Happy somewhere in southern Egypt

I traveled to the southernmost part of the country and up the Nile and was struck by the stench and dirtiness of the Nile. I asked about public service announcements that droned on and on — they were to warn Egyptians to not bathe or wash clothes in the Nile. The contamination was causing disease and death. The more remote, the sadder I became. I drove through rural desert,  often, with military stops ensuring my safety. This was not Cairo. Not so safe.  Area after area was filled with extraordinary history, mind-blowing artifacts and edifices,  combined with desolate poverty and signs for Internet cafes. It became confusing.

I had one moment in time where I became angry. I saw a man hitting his children after I’d given them pencils, candy and small Legos. I watched him beat two of them, throwing — literally throwing — one of his children into a makeshift house. The children had black in their mouths, ripped jeans, no shirts. They smelled. I made eye contact with a couple of kids and my adrenalin starting rushing. I saw a nearby white delivery van. I thought I’d steal the kids, throw them in the van, pay with my big American dollar bills, my jewelry, whatever and beg the driver to scram. I’d drive to the embassy and claim refugee status for the kids. I’d adopt them, bring them home and raise them with dental care, clothes and vows that in my home, there would be no beatings by a half-dressed uneducated man. But reality hit me as the van drove off -- it is not my place to force my reality onto those of anyone else.

It still isn’t.

I’ve been watching the destruction of Cairo and Alexandria for seven days — the images of places I’ve been, streets I walked, people that all look familiar. I watch the protests against their leader and against our own leader for not renouncing the Egyptian government and I can’t help but think of that day in Abu Simbel where I learned that my reality is not the reality of others. I know that everyone is awaiting what America will do for the Egyptian people, but the truth is the same today as it was for me in that small town: the Egyptian people must take care of their own reality and we must ensure we are doing our best to respect their quest without forcing our democratic style on them.

The good people, like my “Abuud,” will rise to the top. Those are not the looters, the burners of buildings. The true Egyptians are making human road blocks to protect their national treasures, their history, their culture and museums. The good people of Egypt are where I choose to focus my mind this week. As the city burns and the protests become uprisings and the government becomes uprooted, I am reminded how safe I felt in Egypt, how strong the people are, how full of faith and history the Egyptian youth are. I choose to remember my love of Egypt and how dearly I hold it in my heart today and hopefully, can show to my own children someday, in-tact, full of freedom and peace.

My family and friends with cancer are ass-kickers. They are true take-no-prisoners type women. I don’t feel sorry for them. It seems irrational, incomprehensible that in my 30s (still for another few weeks), I can have friends who are in remission from very serious cancers, two that are still fighting like hell, one that moved onto his next life, one that is cured and several that are not. What the F? Stupid f-ing cancer.

Susan’s latest post about feeling lucky as she plows her way into the first days of a new, experimental treatment, was one of the most inspired I’ve ever read. I sent it to the women I know — not for sympathy for Susan, but in hopes that they too, surrounded by cancer as we all are, would see what living means.

If you want to know what true living is like, read WhyMommy’s written work or participate in her brainchild, working to give  Lymphedema Sleeves to cancer patients. You can leave a comment on several blogs where friends of Susan are donating $1 toward Cricket’s Answer, the organization working with Susan to provide needs to women with breast cancer.

Hey Susan, all the way from California: No Princess Fights Alone.

I suppose coping mechanisms for disaster happen all the time. As the aid flies in toward the complete devastation zone, I think about the survivors more than I think of the dead. Not the ones that might survive or that we’ll see plucked from the rubble, but the ones who survived just fine. I have lived in California most of my life, where earthquakes are common and I’ve survived just fine but not without being shaken to my core with fear. On January 17, 1994 at 4:31 a.m., my world rattled when the Northridge quake hit my community with an angry fervor.

The mattress on my bed slid off the frame as the picture above my bed crashed onto my back. I tried to scramble out of my apartment while the seemingly endless jerking motion pushed me into the wall.  The contents of my apartment were literally flying across the room. I climbed over the toppled heaps on my floor and made it to my front door. From there I could tell the power was out and a smell of sweet gas in the air. I ran down the hall toward the emergency exit, not even noticing the cuts on my feet. Before making it to the stairs, the earth shook so severely that I was knocked into a doorway of another apartment. There I found a dozen or so Vietnamese students I’d never met, huddling in the door jams, crying and shaking. We all held each other in the deepest dark I’ve ever known. I will never forget the smell. Moments later, we held hands as we tried to get down the fire escape. The stairs had separated from the building. Together we made our way down the damaged exit and ran to an open parking lot with hundreds of other apartment dwellers. I looked around in complete shock and fear  and then, started uncontrollably laughing. Everyone was in their underwear! For some reason, this struck me as hilarious! Coping mechanisms, like I said before, are your brain’s way of not simply dying of fear.

In the end, my apartment was orange tagged. Most of my stuff was gone, but really, I didn’t have much anyway. And the clothes I did get out of my apartment were donated, since I couldn’t get the smell of gas out of the fabric. It made me gag. For years — literally years — I woke up at 4:31 a.m.

What will the survivors be like after the dust settles in Haiti?  How long will they wake at 6:21 a.m. with the deepest fear? Will the smells change the way they breathe forever? What is the life ahead for them? I simply got a new apartment and decked it out with new things. What if there was nowhere to go? What if I couldn’t get rid of my soiled clothes because those were the only ones I had left. During the Northridge quake, we rationed food and water. Some people were selling batteries, bread and milk at a 500-percent markup; others were standing in the street handing out the items for free. There are good and bad people everywhere. Just like Haiti, the dregs and heroes of society will rise during crisis.

There is so much that Haiti will need. There are so many places to give, so many resources, social media communities and volunteer groups that will help. I feel so hopeless for them all. Not surprisingly, I woke at 4:31 a.m. this morning. For now, all I can offer is the empathy I have for the survivors’ fear, for the rattling noise ringing in their ears.

The Joker, originally uploaded by Thing Family.

My very least favorite holiday of the year. Well, sorta.

I don’t mind the kids and the candy (even with 1000, yes one THOUSAND) trick-or-treaters annually to our house. I don’t mind the dressing up, my kids’ endless search for the right costume or even the crazed sugar highs and lows that go hand-in-hand with 10lbs of candy my kids collect.

What I don’t like is the scary stuff. I don’t like the freaky dead people costumes, the devil costumes and the people from the crypt with bloody faces. It scares me. I don’t like mean, scary looking clowns and I sure as shit don’t want to take my kids up to the door of some freaky house with a fake body hanging from a tree from a noose.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. I liked it when trick or treating was cute and fun. I liked it when we knew the people whose houses we went to. I really liked the community of it all. We’re a far cry from that life now.

I took this photo a couple days ago at the Halloween Spirit store where my son and I went looking for costumes. He literally ran away from it and then didn’t want to find a costume to wear for himself because he was so scared of the masks and axes and noises coming from around the shop.

I’m not going to boycott Halloween, but don’t come to me if you think scaring the shit out of my kids or me is your idea of fun. We’ll have our annual chicken chili and play Charlie Brown’s The Great Pumpkin and that’s gonna be it. It’s enough for me.