Turkey | Janine Donoho

Famous, Infamous, and Notorious Firsts Revisited by Janine M. Donoho

23 Feb 2016 2 Comments

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: author, backpack, best girlfriend, besties, Cowgirl, dog buddy, Egypt, Europe, Famous, Firsts, Greece, Infamous, Janine Donoho, Malaysia, Morocco, Nevada, Notorious, Pedicure, Portugal, quarter horse, rescued greyhound, son, Spain, Turkey, Washoe Valley, whippet, whitewater rafting, writer

Self portrait

When this website launched, I introduced myself via firsts, and a giddy lift-off it was. Never fear, the navel gazing implicit in attempts at age 7 to write about planets (of which Pluto no longer qualifies), my angst-riddled teen poetry, and my first produced play at 16? Omitted. In fact, I didn’t want to write about writing at all. Instead, consider this my hand extended to those who relish a shared virtual journey.

Cowgirl resolve

So, ahoy, fellow voyagers. Let us cast off from the shores of Mundania and make this fun. There will be pictures…beginning with my 1^st cowgirl hat.

Springer spaniel Pete & me

1^st best dog buddy: Springer spaniel Pete, who saved my diaper-clad butt by grabbing onto it as I rolled out the car door on a corner in South San Francisco.

1st best girlfriend: Teresa Giles, with whom I fished for catfish and carp, rode horseback through the Ponderosa pine forests and sagebrush steppes of our youth, and survived the first 10 years of schooling in Washoe Valley, Nevada.

Swing in Washoe Valley – Polly Jo, Robbie, moi, Shell, Teresa

1st amazing son: Chad Elliott, young man extraordinaire, who finds his joy with his equally brilliant and beautiful companion Shannon. He spins and mixes incandescent music, then prepares incomparable meals paired with

My oh-so-cool DJ, chef, & sommelier son

the perfect wine.

1st best horse buddy: Jumpin’ Jack Flash, who I miss daily; great-hearted beauty of thoroughbred and quarter horse ancestry.

My very own Jumpin’ Jack Flash

1^st whippet: Amanda Pandemonium, a washed-out show dog at birth, who brightened my day with her liquid gaze and joyous attitude even as she proved lethal to rodents.

Patrick & Mandy

1^st rescued greyhound: Patrick, a magnificent companion gone from this world. This greyt continues to romp through my dreams.

1st girlfriend trip through Europe: Backpacks and public transportation saw us through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Gnocci, anyone? Here we are at Der Hofbräuhaus in Munich.

Besties in Munchen at Hofbräuhaus

Land of extravagant gates

1st trip to Malaysia: I emptied my backpack to bring back gorgeous fabrics and other lush trifles.

1st trip to Morocco: Yes, I went to Morocco and all the boys at home got Moroccan soccer jerseys. For me, mint tea began to equate with stunning rugs.

Rugs and mint tea

Intrepid Guy, dad & adventurous soul

1^st Class whitewater rafting: We began in Tumwater Canyon on the Wenatchee River—and yes, I went for my first swim. Here’s a river picture with the Captain of my Heart.

1^st trip to Greece: History, anyone? Also, dogs & cats galore with all their bits attached—so shocking to Americans, who spay and neuter most domestic critters.

Nafplio – Dog, butcher shop, guy with opposable thumbs–perfect

Clockwise in the thumb hole to make a wish

1st trip to Turkey: Cities carved from the earth and amazing textiles became my focus along with a millennia of sustainable agriculture. I once considered living there…

1st trip to Spain: Otherwise known as the sangria tour. We wept at the beauty and rhythmic poetry of Andalusian stallions, who danced just for me.

Seville April Fair

Hiking along the Portuguese Med

1st trip to Portugal: Can tiles be more beautiful? Also, we experienced the best calamari ever eaten.

1st trip to Egypt: Baksheesh demanded and sheesha experienced; Bedouins on the Red Sea. ‘Nough said.

Donkey drover & me

1^st pedicure: Yep, and most likely the last. Too much lost life in maintenance, don’t you know?

Now let us raise a glass to all the firsts in life—and perhaps to those finales we’ll have before we’re done. What’s on your list of firsts?

1st & perhaps last pedi offset by Moroccan carpet

Twitterpated with Wild Turkey by Janine Donoho

15 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: aurochs, Aztecs, bobcats, brood, conservation, cows, coyotes, domesticated turkeys, Europe, fossils, golden eagles, great horned owls, Grit, habitat degradation, hen, iridescent bronzes, Janine Donoho, Meleagris gallopavo, MIGgy, Okanogan National Forest, plumage, poaching, ponderosa pine, reptilian ancestors, Spaniards, success stories, Thanksgiving, tom, Turkey, twitterpated, understory, wild turkey

Flock of wild toms

During our nearly 200 hikes yearly, we revel in seasonal birdlife, although twitterpated spring and wildcare summer offer choicest viewing times. As avian couples woo and mate, then raise their young, you glimpse variations on parenting themes. For wild turkeys, commitment shy toms have all the fun while hens band together to raise their broods.

Full plumage tom

Treed tom

A slow-mo hike along an old logging road in Okanogan National Forest with our fourteen pound predator, otherwise known as Mighty Italian Greyhound (MIGgy), prompts spontaneous flushing of a Meleagris gallopavo from the underbrush. As often happens, this wild tom exceeds cartoonish expectations by being quick on the wing, cunning, and beautifully feathered in iridescent bronzes and greens with the hallmark scaled legs and wattle reminiscent of its reptilian ancestors. Its verbal complaint while flying resembles gobbled outrage rather than the silly preschool sound human throats make. Once the tom alights on a ponderosa pine branch, MIGgy takes a victory lap. Wild turkeys protecting their territory can be aggressive. Who can blame them when so many end up on dinner tables? So give the hound a nod.

Why does the turkey cross the logging road? It’s all about food, water, and shelter. Like us, turkeys appreciate the finer things in life. For our local populations that means established ponderosa forests, where turkeys feast upon seeds and fruits along with occasional insects and a chaser of grit—yum! Hens hollow out ground nests in debris at bases of trees and shrubs, but roost on higher limbs due to rapacious coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, mountain lions, raptors, and—yes, us. They’re also one of this nation’s few conservation success stories, returning from populations of 30,000 birds in the early 1900s to over 7,000,000 today. Evidently the idea of facing an empty Thanksgiving platter roused our national fervor to deal with habitat degradation and poaching.

Wild thing, I think I love ya…

With their dense bone structure, turkey fossil records date back to over 5,000,000 years ago. Undomesticated birds are no more like their meal-on-the-talon version than cows are like fierce and extinct aurochs. Today we incapacitate domesticated turkeys by favoring massive breasts that overbalance the poor beasties—and no, we’re talking meaty breasts versus silicon here. This trend began five hundred years ago, spreading to a global phenomenon when Spaniards made off with turkeys domesticated by Aztecs. The bird’s eponymous name may originate from early transport through Turkey on their way to Europe.

Wily tom heading for deep cover

So today, up with turkeys. Yes, call me twitterpated.

Turkey hens & brood

What local birds raise your spirits? How do you enhance their habitat?

Open Arrivals by Janine Donoho

11 May 2015 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: Algarve, April Fair, Greece, infinite perspective, Italy, Janine Donoho, language submersion, Lao Tzu, Lisbon, mint tea, Morocco, Open arrivals, Peruvian musicians, Plains Indians, Plan A, Portugal, Seville, Spain, The Atlantic, Turkey

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu

Infinite perspectives

Seville April Fair

Travel tactics adapt well to life in general and writing, specifically. My favorite journeys coincide with few fixed plans and an open view of what can be experienced in the moment. Yes, I relish travel books that highlight the amazing, and even rank options according to what I hope to explore.

Fishermen of the Algarve in Portugal

Dependent on the time available, Plan A receives the most attention, then on to B, C…what I call ‘guerilla tourism.’ That equates with focusing on impactful choices first. This approach leaves ample room for unexpected delights and curiosity-driven jaunts, which often lead to the road less traveled along with amazing connections. It helps if you’re open to making animal sounds when language fails.

There have been places where I considered living for a while—say six months or more. Areas of Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, and Italy still call to me. Wouldn’t it be exciting to absorb language through submersion? My attitude? Not dead yet, so who knows what the future holds.

Hiking along the Atlantic in Portugal

Is there a place you’d like to inhabit for a time? What keeps you from doing so?

Peruvian musicians dressed as North American Plains Indians in Lisbon

Winding through old city Lisbon

An experience permeated by the scent & taste of mint tea

Travel as Gateway to New Worlds by Janine Donoho

27 Apr 2015 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: Aegisthus, Agamemnon, Anatolian, burial site, Clytemnestra, doors, gateway, Greece, Hilaire Belloc, history, horizon, imagination, incest, invectives, Janine Donoho, language, murder, northern Africa, Orestes, Peloponnesian, Pemukkale, rape, spirit, travel, treachery, Trojan Wars, Turkey, windows

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. – Hilaire Belloc

Egyptian passageway

Doorways, windows, and gates always feel like a call to adventure. This proves especially true while taking in the view in Peloponnesian Greece while pivoting

Bronze age bath

around in Agamemnon’s ruined bath chamber. Experience delicious shivers when you remember that this is the scene of ancient crime. Upon Agamemnon’s return from the Trojan Wars, his wife Clytemnestra killed him to be with her lover Aegisthus. Then Orestes, her and Agamemnon’s son, murdered his mother in revenge before going mad with guilt.

History’s rampant with rape, murder, incest, and treachery—the substance of legend, myth, and story. Discoveries arise when you take a much needed break on

Anatolian burial site

an Anatolian burial platform outside Pemukkale, Turkey. Or as you stand outside one of Malaysia’s ornate gates, where invented stories feed into your creativity about who lives behind them.

In Northern Africa I learned the phrase, “Your mother would be ashamed,” after inescapable brushes with roving gangs of

Valley of the Kings

menacing boys. For those interested, it’s سيسبب عملك هذا الخزي لأمك! Sadly the pronunciation has moved beyond recall. My rendition usually garnered laughter while temporarily redirecting hooligans from tormenting innocent animals. Useful, huh?

Travel feeds spirit, imagination, and stretches your world view. You bump up against cultures and languages that expand your horizon exponentially. You gain language skills, especially polite ones, although I confess to a joy in adding foreign invectives to my vocabulary, too.

Portal to ancient Egypt

Welcome to another view of travels with moi. Enjoy and allow me to wish you joy in your journeys, too.

How have language skills expanded your travel? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

Beautiful door & man

Doorways

Cattail gate

More beautiful doors – Morocco

Red gate Kuala Lumpur

Egyptian passageways

A Change of State by Janine Donoho

20 Apr 2015 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: agora, Amalfi Coast, Anais Nin, Athens, automobiles, backpacks, BFF, Blue Mosque, Cappedocia, Capri, Change of State, Ephesus, Greece, Greek ferry, hardiness, humor, Intrepid Guy, Italy, Janine Donoho, mishaps, Mycenae, Naples National Archaeological Museum, Napoli, Pamukkale, Perseia fountain, planes, Pompeii, resilence, Samos, Selçuk, soccer, trains, trolley tracks, Turkey

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. – Anais Nin

Intrepid Guy hiking the Amalfi Coast

When I finally coaxed Intrepid Guy to take a full month to travel with me, we chose a more ambitious route than my BFF trip. Yes, still backpacks, but Italy, Greece, and Turkey via planes, trains, and automobiles.

Capri

Consider the taxi in Napoli as our driver popped onto and off of active trolley tracks all the while exclaiming, “Is okay, is okay.” Yes, the Naples National Archaeological Museum was worth it. The same can be said when Greek ferry system imploded during a soccer match.

After that, it took us three attempts to cross from Athens to Samos, then on to Selçuk on the Turkish mainland. Along the way, we experienced the plush travel of Turkish buses,

Gateway to Ephesus’ agora

complete with attendants and hot towels, and the disrepair of their 1960’s trains. Visualize a midnight lurch to the bathroom with gaping holes in the floor.

Between worker strikes for trains leaving Italy, taxis in Athens, and ferries running aground, we developed resilience and our senses of humor. As with most pursuits, at some point you consign yourself to whatever passes for a higher power and go with it. Let the joy begin.

Bus to Cappadocia

How have you developed hardiness during your travels? What mishaps turned into singular experiences?

Blue Mosque Dome

Ancient kitchen – Pompeii

Mustafa and I – Pamukkale

Passage to the Perseia fountain in Mycenae

Happy travelers in Pamukkale

Passageways: Breaking through to the other side by Janine Donoho

07 Dec 2014 1 Comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: Alhambra, call to adventure, conflict, Egypt, entryways, gate, gateway, Greece, invitation or deterrent, Janine Donoho, Malaysia, Morocco, passageways, plot, portals, Portugal, restrict access, Spain, story arc, transitions, Turkey

While hiking in the snow today, a freestanding gate materialized from the mist. Not intended to protect livestock, this was another silly human attempt to restrict access. It clamored “mine, mine, mine” even as deer, coyote, and bobcat prints infringed on its periphery. My response? Gateways offer a way in—a transition between this side and the other. In other words, a call to adventure.

Written transitions elicit the same sense of excitement for me. No, I’m not talking about those boring, yet necessary, expressions that unify your opus via “and, whereas, because, yet, immediately…” Yawn. I’m more interested in the movement between one action and the next, which eventually develops as conflict, plot, and story arc. Those, I want to be dynamic, elegant, and somewhat imperceptible.

Now back to corporeal entryways. During international journeys, each culture’s approach to either invitation or deterrent fed my curiosity. Thus I’ve filled albums, both virtual and concrete, with photos of portals between one space and another. What insights I’ve gained animate my writing.

So enjoy this visual of portals. May they rouse your inquisitiveness and make you want to explore what’s on the other side. Our efforts as storytellers aspire to invite readers in, after all, and travels to the other side can enrich that experience.

Moroccan Sighthound by Janine M. Donoho

19 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: backpack, Casablanca, Egypt, Essaouira, Forged in Mist, Janine M. Donoho, Marrakesh, Morocco, Rabat, Sahara, Sighthound, Turkey

I keep only those objects that captivate. Many come from my travels outside this country. Exquisite Moroccan, Egyptian and Turkish rugs; hand-painted papyrus, singular jewelry and textiles, handmade paper–you get the idea. Since all travels occurred via backpack and public transport, size mattered. Except rugs and kilims, which arrived via slow camel–or so it felt.

This sinuous sighthound has remained a perennial favorite. Found during a circuit through Morocco from Casablanca to Marrakesh, she recalls heady scents of mint tea and pastry, the alkaline feel of the Sahara on skin and tongue, and the intricate amalgam that is Moroccan culture. The souks of either Essaouira or Rabat offered her to me. I give thanks.

A prolonged study of this sculpture along with lingering touches to her back and sides has refreshed me. Now I’m ready to dive back into my edit of FORGED IN MIST. This sojourn also serves as reminder to move other less cherished items along to new homes.

Later. Right now, I’m writing.

Famous, Infamous, & Notorious Firsts by Janine M. Donoho

03 Oct 2008 Leave a comment

by janinedonoho in A Change of View Tags: Cowgirl, Dogs, Egypt, Firsts, Girlfriends, Greyhounds, Horse, Janine M. Donoho, Malaysia, Morocco, Pedicure, Portugal, Rafting, River, Sons, Spain, Turkey, Whippets, Whitewater

Ooh, ah. My first website as an author. I’m actually giddy with it. Since it’s a first, my brain immediately switches to firsts that led to this one. Never fear, though. You will not be inundated by my attempts at age 7 to write about planets, of which Pluto no longer qualifies, or my angst-ridden teen poetry or even my first produced play at 16. In fact, this won’t be about writing. Instead, let’s make this an intro into firsts that shaped me on a seismic level. There will be pictures…including me with my 1^s^t cowgirl hat.

1^st best dogfriend: Springer spaniel Pete, who saved my diaper-clad butt by grabbing onto it as I rolled out the car door on a corner in South San Francisco.

1st best girlfriend: Teresa Giles, with whom I fished for catfish & carp, rode horseback through the Ponderosa pine forests & sagebrush steppes of our youth, and survived the first 10 years of schooling in Washoe Valley, Nevada.

1st amazing son: Chad Elliott, young man extraordinaire, who finds his joy with his equally brilliant & beautiful wife Trina. He spins & mixes incandescent music, then prepares incomparable meals.

1st best horse buddy: Jumpin’ Jack Flash, who I miss daily; great-hearted beauty of thoroughbred & quarter horse ancestry.

1^st whippet: Amanda Pandemonium, a washed-out show dog at birth, who still brightens my day with her liquid gaze & joyous, although deleterious, attention to rodents. We blondes stick together. 1st rescued greyhound: Patrick, a beautiful companion gone from this world. This greyt continues to romp through my dreams.

1st girlfriend trip through Europe: Backpacks and public transportation saw us through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Gnocci, anyone? Here we are at Der Hofbrauhaus in Munich.

1st trip to Malaysia: I emptied my backpack to bring back gorgeous fabrics & other lush trifles.

1st trip to Morocco: Yes, I went to Morocco and all the boys at home received were Moroccan soccer jerseys. For me, mint tea began to equate with stunning rugs. 1st class 4 whitewater rafting: We went to the end of Tumwater Canyon on the Wenatchee River–and yes, I went for my first swim. Here’s a river picture with the Captain of my Heart. 1st trip to Greece: History, anyone? Also, dogs & cats galore with all their bits attached-so shocking to Americans, who spay & neuter their domestic critters.

1st trip to Turkey: Cities carved from the earth and amazing textiles became my focus along with thousands of years of sustainable agriculture. Note the picture of Mustafa and me. I could live there…

1st trip to Spain: Otherwise known as the sangria tour. We wept at the beauty, rhythmic poetry & sadly narrow lives of the Andalusian stallions, who danced just for me.

1st trip to Portugal: Can tiles be more beautiful? Also, we experienced the best calamari ever eaten.

1st trip to Egypt: Baksheesh demanded and sheesha experienced; Bedouins on the Red Sea. ‘Nough said. 1st pedicure: Yep, only 2 weeks ago.

Now let us raise a glass to all the 1sts in life–and perhaps to those finales we won’t know of until we’re done.

Janine Donoho

Famous, Infamous, and Notorious Firsts Revisited by Janine M. Donoho

Twitterpated with Wild Turkey by Janine Donoho

Open Arrivals by Janine Donoho

Travel as Gateway to New Worlds by Janine Donoho

A Change of State by Janine Donoho

Passageways: Breaking through to the other side by Janine Donoho

Moroccan Sighthound by Janine M. Donoho

Famous, Infamous, & Notorious Firsts by Janine M. Donoho

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