Mari Ness - The Ten Things Meme

The problem with the "Ten Things I've Done That You Probably Haven't Meme" is that either you haven't done ten things, or you've done many, many things that other people haven't done, in which case most of them are either a) stories you wish people would forget about or b) stories that people have already heard. But, by special request, here is the Ten Things meme from me:

12) Sipped green tea in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, thereby giving myself major insomnia despite having walked up and down about 5000 stairs during a day of walking around Buddhist temples.

11) Been unable to count to ten when doing a ten things meme.

10) Woken up on the Masai Mara plain in Kenya at 5 in the morning to the sounds of hot tea being prepared, then pouring hot tea on my brother before heading out on safari to look for cheetahs.

9) Hung an elephant prick on my wall.

8) Walked through a snowfall in the Himalayan mountains.

7) Searched for a Bible and car keys in a graveyard after midnight.

6) Injured my knee badly enough while watching television that I required knee surgery afterwards. (Yes, really. So place yourselves carefully while watching TV, folks, because you never know how long you might be hopping about on crutches afterwards.)

5) Tried to explain to an unsympathetic police officer exactly why I was searching for a Bible and car keys in a graveyard after midnight.

4) Attended an elementary school class with students representing eight different countries -- in a group of 25 students.

3) Tossed a vibrating rubber ducky up in the air while singing, "I'm BOUNCING in the RAIN, just BOUNCING in the rain!" (And aren't you all now sorry I started telling you about this?)

2) Seen snow at Epcot -- real snow, not Disney's fake snow.

1) Stood in Masada in the rain.

Masada is the citadel next to the Dead Sea where a group of Jewish freedom fighters (Josephus's version) or scummy rebels (the Roman version) withstood a three year Roman siege before finally committing suicide. The most remarkable thing about this story is that for three years it didn't rain. Not a bit.
This is because Masada is next to one of the lowest points on land -- an area well below sea level -- and is surrounded by desert. In a typical year, Masada and the Dead Sea area receive .2 inches of rain for the entire year. Umbrellas not a big thing.

So there I was with a group of travel agents from Miami. We got out of the bus. We looked up at the sky. We got our umbrellas. The guide told us to put our umbrellas back in the bus.

"But it looks like rain!" we told the guide.

The guide shook his head. "It never rains on Masada," he said, positively. "I have been guiding groups here for 25 years, and it has never, ever rained on Masada. For three years the Zealots prayed for rain, and not a single drop."

"It really looks like rain," we repeated.

So about half of us left the umbrellas in the bus, and we all went up the cable car, and started walking around as the guide declaimed the great story of Masada and --

We looked up at the sky.

"WE TOLD YOU IT WAS GOING TO RAIN!" we said.

In fact, it poured. The guide was stunned; everyone else at Masada was stunned. (Apparently the .2 inches of total rainfall come down as a light trickle.) The half of the group still carrying umbrellas opened them smugly.

The moral of the story is: when hearing stories about Masada, trust the guide. But when making a weather prediction, trust the people from Miami.