comfortably upset

living on the other side of the world, especially in a place that goes out of it's way to make people believe that everything must follow rules that make no sense, can get frustrating. the worst of those times are when you don't feel well and you crave the comforts that you left in the patriot homeland. it makes you focus on the things you wish you had, but can not get.

i have gotten used to not having access to certain things. not big things, little things, things that a pampered amercian would have at all times, things like medicines that work, services that serve and comforts that provide comfort.

panadol doesn't work for me, it does less than nothing, and taking 8 pills for a headache and having it pulse away is just no fun at all. so i stock up on pink jelly-coated tablets when i am in the US and hope the number of headaches between each trip, multiplied by 3 or 4 tablets needed to combat each, is less than the stock count of pills i carry back to the land of strange and ineffective drugs.

the fact that i have headaches and have a solution doesn't change the fact that i have other needs like stomachaches, which are called oddly gastric here. this of course also means that i need a solution for acid reflux, again i have to import and manage my own supply of pepcid AC because the bottles of chalky white liquid and the pills the pharmacist will offer also do nothing to stop the acid that chews my stomach and wakes me up while i sleep. the list continues, but the solutions begin to run out.

it might be possible that i am difficult, or that i simply like products which work for me; even if i need to carry them from the other side of the world. but there are limits to the things i can bring here. my favorite wine, beer, whiskey, swim shorts, bicycle, pizza, pasta, yogurt, classic DVD and head bands are a few of the items i can not get here, and have almost no acceptable replacement. the fact that i can't get them is something i am normally okay with. the reason i can't get them is beyond me. a country that says it is trying to become a high income economy sometimes tries to have high quality items and good service as the backbone of the system. crappy service, bad products and lack of access is the hallmark of a dysfunctional system.

as my day progressed today, my stomach started to grumble and pressure built in uncomfortable ways. i began to think the best thing for me was to go home, lay on the couch and eat some comfort food. i didn't need much more than time to recover from this, but i wanted to feel comfortable and happy as i laid down with a grumbly tummy and waited for it to pass. the bump in my plan was that i had no food in the fridge and no desire to eat the standard dinner choices, sadly indian, thai, vietmanese and chinese foods are just not comfort food for an irish american with an upset intestinal track.

room service is a company that delivers dinners to expats all over KL. they have a strangely shaped catalog that collects the menus of the restaurants you can order from. i read the menu front to back, and found a single restaurant to order from. there was pizza with false sausage i almost ordered, there was chicken in strange sauce that i could have ordered, but i went with german/swiss pork and whipped potatoes with a gravy that tastes like ketchup. if you don't know it potatoes are like children, they should never be whipped and gravy should never, ever, ever taste like ketchup; even if it is a german kitchen.

there was no comfort from the dinner. it was just not what was needed to settle me down and allow me to feel better. so i am laying on the couch, watching an 11-year old television show about american politics, and thinking about the lack of access to quality items that help improve life and comfort. i am looking forward to the day that KL has all of the quality and comfort that the rest of the world enjoys.

until then, i have a headache, i need to go take a couple pills.