So,
I arrived in Lebanon and was picked up at the airport by one of the drivers who are employed by my school. He drove me along the waterfront to my new home: apartment 31 of the Fadlallah Building, located on a relatively quiet (this is Beirut, after all) side street.
Imagine my delight, and wonder, as I walked across the marble floors and explored not 1, but 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies, a kitchen, and a foyer! All this space, and furnished with the latest sofas and tables from what looks like the Lebanese equivalent of Pottery Barn. Mind you, the resident of this unit spent many wonderful months living on Dorland Street, in the Castro, in a room which was 6' x 13' and included an old laundry sink (which was converted into a nice lil' table, thank you very much). I remember dreaming back then, more than a few times actually, about finding a door under that sink, or a small Alice-in-Wonderland-like trap door that lead to a big room that I hadn't discovered. I'm sure there ARE apartments in San Francisco, somewhere, that are as large as the place I'm living now, but I think they're kind of like unicorns - dreamt of, wished for, but never making an appearance in reality.
And so the first thing I do is go out and by art supplies! These tasteful gray-blue walls CANNOT be allowed to stay this way! I think for a day or two, and decide that the perfect complement for my Pottery Barn-esque living area is a giant psychedelic octopus on my wall. It makes me so happy to have it right in front of me. And it's so big too!
So here it is:
I arrived in Lebanon and was picked up at the airport by one of the drivers who are employed by my school. He drove me along the waterfront to my new home: apartment 31 of the Fadlallah Building, located on a relatively quiet (this is Beirut, after all) side street.
Imagine my delight, and wonder, as I walked across the marble floors and explored not 1, but 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies, a kitchen, and a foyer! All this space, and furnished with the latest sofas and tables from what looks like the Lebanese equivalent of Pottery Barn. Mind you, the resident of this unit spent many wonderful months living on Dorland Street, in the Castro, in a room which was 6' x 13' and included an old laundry sink (which was converted into a nice lil' table, thank you very much). I remember dreaming back then, more than a few times actually, about finding a door under that sink, or a small Alice-in-Wonderland-like trap door that lead to a big room that I hadn't discovered. I'm sure there ARE apartments in San Francisco, somewhere, that are as large as the place I'm living now, but I think they're kind of like unicorns - dreamt of, wished for, but never making an appearance in reality.
And so the first thing I do is go out and by art supplies! These tasteful gray-blue walls CANNOT be allowed to stay this way! I think for a day or two, and decide that the perfect complement for my Pottery Barn-esque living area is a giant psychedelic octopus on my wall. It makes me so happy to have it right in front of me. And it's so big too!
So here it is:
Now, many of you who knew my decorating scheme in San Francisco know that I have a soft spot in my heart for taxidermy. I was planning to bring with me to Beirut my favorite pieces, so I packed some of them up: a fish, a scorpion, some deer heads. Now my school was paying for all shipping, and I decided to just go all out and bring it all with me, but the only proviso was that, for insurance purposes, I had to list on the boxes what was in them and how much it was worth. So, some of my precious dead things were labelled as "Decorations" and other were called "Taxidermy". I sent my 6 boxes of possessions to Ms. Barbara M (who I nicknamed, in my head, Babs - and found out later that a few other new teachers called her this too), an employee for an international schools service, who was collecting all the boxes of the 8 new teachers from my school. She was going to fill out all the paperwork, and then send them on one pallet to Lebanon.
Everything was going well, until I started to get emails nearly EVERY day, all of them a variation on "Mr. Arnold, please tell me, what is this 'Taxidermy?'" I would explain, and then a day later get another email. I helpfully included the Wikipedia entry on taxidermy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxidermy) in one of my emails, explained how I came to owning them, how I purchased my pieces, their measurements, etc. Eventually HR at my school was CCed and THEY started asking the same questions. For about 2 weeks, most of my email correspondence was about taxidermy. I was requested to look up online, and then email, and then call Lebanese customs and find out their policy on taxidermy. Answer: There isn't a policy, but that didn't stop Babs from insisting that some paperwork had to journey along with my deer heads.
The solution was to send me a 6 page form from the US Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries to fill out. This was a document for exporting LIVE wildlife from the US, so it had all sorts of questions like "What is your animal breeding license number?" and "In how many states do you keep animal care facilities?" Oh yeah, and Babs said this form had to be filled out WITHIN ONE DAY otherwise all the boxes of all the teachers would be delayed indefinitely. At this point I threw my hands up, cried uncle, and told Babs to just go ahead, open my boxes, and go ahead and decorate her office with my taxidermy. That was a month ago. No new teachers here have received any of their boxes yet.
At our first Fadlallah Building rooftop (sea view!) Friday social, the question on the tip of every new teacher's tongue was "Who on Earth was trying to bring BEAR HEADS into Lebanon??" Yes, apparently Lina in HR was even more confused over taxidermy than Babs was, and when the new teachers would inquire as to when their possessions would arrive, Lina would sigh, and relate how some crazy person was trying to bring bear heads along with them. My only guess is that she too saw the Wikipedia entry I provided on taxidermy, and saw the big ol' scary stuffed bear and thought that's what I was bringing with me.
Sigh.....
