Sand in my eyes

Big News!

2009-03-16T04:20:00.001-07:00

I'm growing up! My bags have been packed, I've been making multiple trips back and forth, the clean up and set up has been completed. Now, I'm settled into my new home over at :

www.sandinmyeyes.com

Come on over! That's where the action will be from now on. I'm looking forward to hearing from you there. I can assure that the comments are up and running!

Rubber Ducky You're The One

2009-03-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Bathtime is definitely a highlight in our house and a must-get-to attraction whenever we travel out of country. Water restrictions don't weigh on my mind and I don't have to clean up the water spots afterwards (not that I have to clean at home, anyway, I know! Don't ruin the illusion with all your technicalities!)

The presidential suite in paradise was amazing. It had everything I wanted and more: a huge dining room table perfect for playing games and eating our room service meals in style (rather than huddled up on the bed, trying not to smear ketchup on the duvet while watching trashy tv). We also enjoyed the glorious soaker tub with a beautiful view of the golf course (there really is nothing like pooping on the pot and watching someone tee off). One of the first nights in luxury, Charlie and Lola begged me to have a bath. How often does that happen, hey? Children begging for a bath! Actually, if I'm going to be honest, I use baths as a reward. They have their scheduled semiweekly bathtimes, but there could be extra times if they clean their room, eat their food quickly, leave mommy along for just one freaking second so she can read about what Tara Reid is up to in her train wreck life. You know, those regular incentive moments. This time, with no water shortage to nag at my conscience, I filled that tub quite few times, happily and guilt free. The first time that Charlie and Lola asked for a bubble bath, I didn't really know how much bath gel to use. I've never had a tub with jets before! So I pressed a whole complimentary size bath gel tube until it was dry into the tub. At first, the bubbles were delightful, but once I got the jets going, they became a bit "Attack of the Bubbles"ish.

The kids had a great time, making themselves into snowmen and "dressing themselves up" in the latest bubble fashion. I neglected to open the drain when the two of them got out (it's a bit distracting trying to dress two exhausted children into their night clothes and then attempting to convince them that combing their hair before morning is a wise decision - plus Tara Reid is Back. On. The. Television again! What is with this girl? She's made one movie. I swear.) so when I woke up the next morning, the bubbles had deflated and I was able to see that my perception of a "full tub" was slightly skewed by the fluffiness. The water level was barely above the jets - about 10 inches. Apparently my water conserving ways kick in whether I want them to or not! Hopefully the bubbles had exfoliating properties because the kids sure didn't do any soaking in the soaker tub.

Baby, Don't Hurt Me

2009-03-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Coco Cola has been banned!

Did you hear me, y'all? Banned!

For the last three weeks, we have been searching every store in the city for Coca Cola to no avail. After leaving empty handed time after time, we finally settled for Coca Cola Zero. Slowly, but surely, this product, too, has been disappearing from the shelves without replenishment. All that is left for purchase now is Coca Cola Light. It was a huge mystery until last weekend when we went out with some friends and saw a poster hanging in a cafe. It was "Don't buy these products!" propaganda designed to hurt those companies that are supposedly helping the cause of Israel. I'm sure they are really feeling the pain of us not buying anything Coca Cola, even though we are still able to buy other Coca Cola Company products like Sprite. It doesn't really make sense, and actually in the end it hurts me more than it hampers the plans of Israel. All I want is a cold full octane Coca Cola on ice. I want all the sugar. I want all the caffeine. I'm being deprived! They are hurting me! I want my Coca Cola back!

Leave it to me to turn a country's response to another country's decisions in war into a personal matter. But, do you know what? When you take away one of my final vices (it's not like I can find a cold beer or a nice bottle of wine at the local shop) have no other choice than to take it personally. There is a serious justice issue at hand.

What Was I Thinking?

2009-03-14T00:00:00.001-07:00

I'm an idiot. A big fat doh doh head.

Lola's birthday is coming up on the 26th. She will be 4 years old. My husband and I have always had the rule "You can invite as many guests as the age you are turning." We've been really good at strictly adhering to that rule, but this year has been a year of breaking old convictions. Charlie's birthday was in February and he had 10 friends over, even though he was turning 8. Two over the limit is fine.

But 41?

Okay, fine, 43?

Oh yes, you read that correctly. I have committed the unthinkable by blindly inviting people always thinking, "What's another 3 to the list?" Apparently, another 3 over a period of time adds up to 47. FORTY SEVEN!

Granted, the entire number is not exclusively children. I invited the mothers of the children because I figured that 4 is still young enough an age that the children wouldn't want to be dropped off at a stranger's home for a few hours without mommy - not even taking in account the fact that our family is uber-strange in the culture department. I think in total, close to 30 children have been invited and then there are 19 mothers. I can't really remember the exact breakdown, but at this point, would accuracy really change anything? It would still be madness.

My husband had already planned to be out of the house because it is a women's party and in order for my female guests to feel comfortable enough to deveil and dewrap, I must assure them that my husband is not on the premises. When I told him about my slight miscalculation and lack of wisdom, he said, "Wow. Well, I won't be here, so I don't really care. I am going to roll up the center carpet in the living room, though."

So this past weekend, I wrapped up sambosa upon sambosa upon sambosas and made a cake. I only have about 6 more cakes to make and some other savoury dishes. Thankfully, I left myself a LOT of time to prepare and other than finding something for the kids to do, I think I might actually be able to pull it off! I have looked into renting extra tables for food. I have arranged with Blessing for one of her friends to come and work for me for one day. Besides helping me with preparations, I will ask her to take care of the filling of trays and making of tea, which really is the biggest stressor during a party. I can handle making things ahead of time, but the constant tending to the refreshments can be exhausting. I would like to have the chance to visit with the guests, which really was the motivation behind inviting everyone. Mornings are always so busy and hectic, I rarely get the chance to meet other mothers of the kindergarten class. I'm hoping with some good planning and setting up a support crew during the party, I will be able to make some new friends and throw a great party.

The complication is that there are so many children. Generally, parties take place between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. People like to pray in their own homes and the time of prayer that is quite strict on praying exactly on time is the prayer around 6 p.m. (the exact time adjusts with the sun) because the next prayer time is only an hour later. There isn't much time inbetween the two to dilly dally. So what I'm trying to say here is that, likely, the party will only last for 2 hours. From 4 until 6, with a few stragglers hanging on until 7 or 8. With so many children, organized games and such would be a real hassle. I'm thinking that we have a fabulous garden, the children will be able to entertain themselves outside, and barring that, I can have a movie set up in the other room that they can pop in and out of at will. At about 5 p.m. will be the candle blowing tradition of the cake, and then following that, I was thinking of doing a "fishing" game where each child "fishes" by throwing a line over a hung blanket and they "catch" a prize. This will take a considerable amount of time with each child taking a turn. If we do this after the cake "ceremony" at 5 it will take until close to 6 just for that part of the party, which means that they would really only have 1 hour of free play time before that. Am I being delusional in my break down of events or does that sound reasonable? I'm wondering if I should plan for another activity. And if so, what would that activity be?

Drinking doesn't count because a) they are underage b) alcohol is forbidden here and c) the slight stash that I have (shh! Don't tell!) I will not be sharing freely. That activity will by solely mine at around 9:30 that night. I'll deserve it by then, I'm sure.

That is, if I haven't passed out already by then from party psychosis and exhaustion. I am, seriously, my own worst enemy.

What was I thinking?????

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

2009-03-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Comments have been enabled. Being a lover of the limelight myself, I know that writing a comment is more about how witty I can be in a comment than about stroking the author's ego. In that spirit, I have opened up the comments with one catch: I have to approve the comments first so I have robbed you of a certain aspect of instant gratification, like the "instant" part.

I love the interaction that can happen in the comments section among the readership and I'm hoping that at some point I'll have more than 13 readers who will develop some entertaining banter.

So go on! Click on the comment link and dazzle me with your wit!

Sidebar: don't miss out on the previously published post for today "Mmm... Tastes Nutty" You'll regret it if you miss it. Or you might regret it if you don't.

UPDATE: I'm not sure why, exactly, but the comments are not working. I have tried everything, saved the changes and, yet, the comments option is not showing up at the bottom of the post. Maybe it needs a couple of days and a cup of coffee before the system updates. I'm really sorry. I'll keep working on it. Think of it as delayed gratification. One day you will get a surprise! You are SO lucky!

Mmm... Tastes Nutty

2009-03-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

I was sorting through some picture folders and found some that reminded me of things I had wanted to share about our trip to paradise. There is no way that I could keep these gems to myself.

The island we were staying on belongs to the country of Indonesia. There is a delicacy available that is expressly unique to this region: Kopi Luwak coffee. It's a rare coffee - only 1,000 pounds of it are release to the worldwide market - and very expensive - anywhere from $120 to to $600 USD per pound. The truly unique aspect of the process that the coffee beans go through has to do with the digestive tract of a certain jungle cat, the Asian Palm Civet, or luwak. The luwak eats the coffee berries, leaving the beans inside the berries undigested. Some sort of enzyme or magic dust in the luwak's system affects the taste of the bean, namely the bitterness that can result in the coffee. The luwak passes the beans in its excrement and some lucky person gets to sift through the turds for "treasure". The beans are then cleaned, and lightly roasted so that the delicate taste is not scorched.

Man roasting kopi luwak beans

Courageous and adventurous, we decided that it was absolutely necessary to try this coffee in the very land of its origin. The price was definitely much cheaper than in other areas of the world. I have heard of a cafe in Australia that sells this coffee for $50 per cup. They sell approximately 4 cups per week. We payed $20 for 2 cups - $10 each. Still a hefty price when compared to non-poop coffee, but a much more affordable than down under (*snicker*).

We tried to rope a few others into being part of our adventure. Selling the outing with the phrase, "We are going to drink poop coffee," I'm really surprised that we only managed to convince 5 others to join us.

Blessing, my house help lady, makes a MEAN cup of coffee. I have had several cups of coffee made by her hand, a rigorous process of re-pouring the coffee upwards of 7 times. Culturally, if you don't say, "This is GOOD coffee" upon your first sip, the hostess will go back to the kitchen and re-pour the coffee another 7 times because "it must not have been very good." Personally, upon tasting the first sip of Blessing's coffee, I get chills and I lean back in my chair, eyes closed, savouring every nuance of taste as it rolls across my tongue. Knowing that this experience with coffee is possible, I was really expecting to have a similar sensation for $10/cup.

Obviously, by my tone, I was disappointed. The taste wasn't smooth. After a few sips, my tongue began to tingle and become sort of numb. The after effect was a SUPER high. My voice was elevated more than slightly and I felt a bit dizzy. What goes up, must come down. The crash was swift and devastating. One of the people in our crew felt like throwing up. We all felt a bit ill.

All in all, it was a weird experience. We went to a coffee plantation and saw a luwak sleeping in a tree. The plantation's store had kopi luwak coffee for sale - $50 for 100g. I was not even close to being tempted to purchase it. There are definitely some things in life that are better when freely given - love and Blessing's coffee being two prime examples.

The luwak dreaming of making as much money off of his poop as the humans do

Who's Your Daddy?

2009-03-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's become a pop culture cliche, but kids truly do say the darndest things and the most @%*& darndest times.

Some of our friends came to visit two days ago in order to vent, cry, and gnash our teeth over learning Arabic. That day, our lesson had taken a very different turn (perhaps slightly manipulated by the students in the class *cough*). The vocabulary list became a lot darker and, well, more a list of curse words and inappropriate hand gestures. You would not be surprised to find out that I have inadvertantly used one of these signs on a regular basis because I tend to talk with my hands. You will also not be surprised to know that I've decided to not be change a thing about myself.

As we giggled and chortled about learning bad words and lude gestures, I totally forgot that Charlie was sitting in the corner of the room, quietly working on his homework. Suddenly, a soft voice said, "My mom says bad words. Sometimes. Not too much, but she says them."

Laughter ensued, of course.

"She says the bad words to Daddy."

Boom. There is no recovery from something like that. Charlie owns me.

So Bright I Have To Wear Shades

2009-03-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Things are looking a little brighter around here, wouldn't you say? I got a comment from a reader, using the email on the sidebar over there ==>>that both praised (she graded me an A+ overall) and complained (white writing on black background = blindness). This is what the email address is for! Complaints and Praise! I'm hoping the the complaints will remain at a minimum and as constructive. I do prefer praise, of course. My ego is rather fragile and needs the constant attention of stroking to stay strong.

Now that I know how to find my way semi-blindly around a certain design program, I'm going to try my hand at developing my own template. All my searches have come up with 0 results from the free sites, and I'm too cheap to pay the $25-$60 for a custom design. We'll see what comes of my efforts, if anything.

I am happy to report, though, that I have had a successful result from one of the pictures that I've taken. My husband read a book recently that describes how great people become great. Contrary to popular belief, the author states that prodigies do not exist. There are people who are naturally inclined to be good, but in order to break into the "GREAT" category one must stick to the task of practicing, training, researching, developing, whatever it takes for a magical number of hours. Of course, this is a coarse over-generalization of a more complex theory involving culture, timing and luck. Read the book for yourself and see what it takes. In the spirit of greatness, though, I'm determined to pick up my camera more often. I identified a fear early on. I felt afraid that I was going to look back at a lot of the pictures and think, "Those are crap! What was I thinking?" Thankfully, I have nothing to fear because exactly this thought will be the reality. No matter what happens now, it's all a learning curve and eventually I'll be looking at my pictures from a more weathered, experienced perspective. I sent a few of my attempts to a friend for some constructive criticism. He responded with grace, and didn't keep his words too soft even though I'm in the beginning stages, which I greatly appreciate (one critique used the word "sucky" at least 3 times. A friend who does that is truly a friend). With some tips bolstering my confidence, I tried out some tweaking in a special program and voila! A beautiful photo of my friend's baby. You'll have to trust me that it's awesome since I won't be posting it here in honour of the baby's privacy.

Not sure how bright my future is, but I know that for certain, in the desert, I have to wear shades anyway.

Watcher In The Sky

2009-03-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

Judging by the reactions of many men around here, you'd think that a woman driving is akin to seeing a being from another planet. They stop. They stare. They hang out of windows of vehicles driving past with their mouths hanging open. Mostly, the PDI (public displays of idiocy) don't interfere in my day and can easily be ignored. Usually, my husband is around and drives me around like the princess that I am, so I don't often have to deal with the intrusive staring. However, my husband has been traveling more often of late for business and so I'm left to my own devices for getting around.

One morning, we were already running a few minutes late, and I was trying to get Charlie and Lola to school as quickly as possible. Making good time, I felt pretty good as I was slowed down to make the turn onto the last and final street (the same steep hill that took me to the anchoring wire of a previous adventure). As I turned, I saw a male pedestrian making his way across the street. My driving habits may have evolved into being more aggressive, but I still do value human life, so I slowed to a stop as I waited for him to make it out of my way. This man was looking in a different direction when I first approached, but as he became aware of my vehicle's presence in close proximity to his being, he looked first at the huge bush bar on the grill and then his eyes moved up to the driver. Distinctly, his facial expression changed when he saw that this large vehicle was being driven by a woman. His pace slowed down, so considerably did he slow that he began to move BACKWARDS. Still in my way, I wasn't able to move forward as he reached back, grabbed the wrist of his friend, and the two of them meandered across the road, and stopped in the direct center of my grill, STARING at me. I returned their gaze with a dead pan stare and then pointed with my right index finger to the sky, essentially saying, "God is watching you." Giggling between themselves, they skittered off to the side of the road and I was able to continue on my way. Inwardly, I wanted to scream, "You are grown men! Do you HAVE to behave like a juvenile who just discovered that his winky tingles?" Thankfully, I have an index finger on my right hand and I live in a culture that inherently believes in the existence of God. A God that is watching every moronic, immature move and with a slight movement of my hand, I can communicate that I know that He's there too. So, get out of my way, already!

Overheard

2009-03-07T00:00:00.001-08:00

Lola singing to herself as she gets herself a cup of water, "One day I'll step on their freckles!"

Maybe it's time to switch the Annie dvd for something else.

A Small Hill of Rocks

2009-03-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

During our last break, my husband had some business meetings in the capital. Since the children's school was still in session and Charlie's report card had the comment, "He's a very good student but the amount of absences needs to be reduced," we decided that the three of us staying home was the better decision. My husband flew so that I could have the truck for driving the kids to school and opening up my world a bit more than 5 feet past our gate. On the first morning of my single-parenting responsibilities, I drove Charlie and Lola to school. As I was driving down the hill towards the school, I watched as a car drove into my usual parking spot. Picking a parking spot, especially at the school, is tricky because not only do I have to think about where my truck will fit with the least amount of maneuvering, but I also have to think ahead about 15 minutes. Forethought isn't a common characteristic among the general population here, so if I park my car too far into the spot, someone will inevitably park and abandon their car behind me so that I have to wait for them to return in order to leave. I have a particular spot picked out that allows me to be out of the way but at the same time giving me the advantage of not having to parked too far in towards the curb, thus avoiding being blocked in. When I saw that my beloved spot was being filled, I restrategized quickly. Living where we do, in every situation we always have a back up. We have a generator so that we don't have to wait for hours for the electricity to come back on when it's cut unexpectedly. When we go to a restaurant, we have 3 choices picked out in case our first choice is somehow not available even though it's listed on the menu. We also have a back up parking spot. Unfortunately, by the time I went through the realization to restrategy to reaction, I had advanced down the hill a bit further than necessary to make an approach into the spot smoothly. I swung out a little to make the turn into the spot, and that was when I saw the anchoring wire for the electricity pole. Unfortunately, again, I didn't see the wire until it was too late, and I had bumped into it. Trying to reverse, I saw the wire pulling and I wasn't really moving. I heard a "pop" and some girls walking past screamed out. I got out of the car, and to my dismay, I saw what had happened. When I had bumped into the wire, it had slid under my bumper and popped up behind and when I reversed, the wire, being of the sturdy, anchoring variety, held it's ground and pulled my bumper off slightly.

I may have said a bad word. Or three.

Locking the door, I took the children to their classes and immediately called my husband. He was in the taxi on his way to the airport. He hadn't even left the city limits and already I had destroyed the car. For those that know me, I have a sliiiiiight penchant for the dramatic. "I wrecked the car!" I breathed into the phone (one has to be very aware of being too obviously dramatic in public). Thinking that I had been in an accident with another car, my husband told the taxi driver to turn around. He needed to cancel his trip. When I heard him say that, I quickly clarified the situation, "There's no need to come back! I'm stuck on a wire and the bumper is kind of off, but there is no other car involved." A huge sigh of relief from the other end of the phone, my husband said, "Don't freak out. Ask the men at the gate to help you," and then, "You really need to calm down." That's when I realized I was breathing really heavily into the phone, "I'm walking up a hill! I'm not freaking out." I asked a man to help me with my car because I was stuck. "All you have to do is wait. The cars will clear out and then you can move your car." How I appreciate people thinking that my only trouble is being stuck in a traffic jam. "Umm... no. I'm stuck on a wire and I can't move my car." He got another man to come with him and they took a look at the situation. Using rocks, they made a "hill" behind the front passenger side wheel, and drove up onto it so that the wire would be able to slip out again from under the bumper. Voila! The situation was resolved. The bumper was still hanging a bit but with some elbow grease and banging of fists, it was mainly put back into place. Again I called my husband, "Everything is okay. I don't think there is really any damage except for some frayed plastic underneath. There are no bribes or fines to pay. I'm okay."

Only in the desert can my vehicular mishaps be solved by a small hill of rocks.

Where Have You Been?

2009-03-05T00:16:00.000-08:00

My apologies for the very long, dry silence. One thing that you can take to heart is that if I'm not blogging, I'm most likely living. Some things that have been occupying my time and brain space:

- Catching up on two weeks of material from my missed classes and cramming constantly for the immediate exams. I'm pleased to say that I finished the term with "Honours" and "High Honours". A much better feeling after the defeating results of the past. I'm happy to say that part of my success is due to the fact that I've discovered the my most effective studying style. To know oneself is highly empowering.

- We had a two week break from school after the exams. "Why didn't you update your blog then?" you scream. Yes, this is a good point. A lot of my time was spent rediscovering friendships, making new ones, having tea, belly dancing in front of a room full of women, spending loads of time in Arabic conversation, planning and pulling off the BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER for my 8 year old Charlie, and also discovering my talents as a salsa recipe creator.

- While in paradise, a new toy was delivered to me from afar through the influence of my husband. A lovely camera that I must pay through alternative favours every time I use it since I haven't (as of yet) completed the Photoshop Classroom in a Book. I'm feeling utterly overwhelmed by this fine piece of machinery. The weight of it is wonderful and the click of the shutter is purely delicious. I will take pictures just so I can hear it. I have so much to learn and each picture I take I think, "I'm going to look back at this at some point and think how awful it is." I really have no idea what I'm doing. I do, however, have one of the best photographers at my beck and call. I just have to start the becking and calling to get this mentoring and learning on the go.

- We have hosted 3 poker nights at our house since being back from Paradise. Seeing that people play differently when they have something to lose (I may have gone "all in" on the second hand just because I was caught up in the moment), we considered a "buy-in" of $5. One of our friends was morally opposed to the use of monetary funds so we changed the buy in to physical product. The first night was chocolate. My husband won the entire pot. Delicious! The next time we had a "Sam's Club Buy In", which meant that a case of something had to be brought. My husband won again, and reclaimed the case of gross strawberry milk drink boxes that he brought as his contribution. My contribution was a box of Kit Kat Chunky, although the case of mayonnaise was a temptation, as was the large pack of toilet paper. Last night was the 3rd tournament, which was a "Pringles Buy In" and my husband won again! Throughout the game, I hissed (a word usage in honour of Stephenie Meyer because she LOVES the word 'hissed'), "You have to stop winning! We won't have any friends to play with anymore." He didn't listen to me. I was buoyed by the fact that someone else saw through is strategy as playing the "poor me" card at the beginning of the game only to turn around and rip out people's souls with his ruthless claws. He's an annoying force to be reckoned with.

- Did I mention that I made up my very own recipe for salsa? My husband reached over and held my hand during class the other day and whispered, "I love that salsa." You know it's good when the husband not only takes part in, but initiates P.D.A. Okay, maybe YOU don't know it but I do.

- Today, I'm having some friends over for tea and tomorrow morning we are meeting some new friends at the local amusement park for some family fun time. My friend's husband's childhood friend moved away last week and he's desperately lonely now. She called me two days ago and basically asked, "Can your husband come out to play?"

Now it's time to play again. I'll try not to be so quiet, though.

Which reminds me of our poker night last night. I was the last girl standing in a crowd of boys. As time went on, they seemed to forget that I was playing, all saying "Check" and the dealer burning and turning the next card while I was still reaching for my chips. After the 3rd time of being passed over, I said, "Just because I'm the last girl doesn't mean that I don't have a voice in the game!" The player next to me mumbled, "I don't think that's possible." When I have justice issues, my voice may tend to get a leeeeeeetle shrilly. I hope his ears heal.

Just Call Me First Lady

2009-02-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Leading up to our trip, things couldn't have been more stressful. From a surprise midterm "exam" in Arabic (I got 100% Thank you very much!), to Charlie needing to prepare for an assessment exam, to my dear husband getting into a car wreck in the capital just days before our trip, the stressors just seemed to add up and up and up. Thankfully, the car mishap wasn't very serious at all - even though my emo ways blew the situation way out of proportion for a number of people. On a side note to defend myself: one would be prone to thinking that the situation is really serious when one is told, "I can't talk right now! Just got into a care accident. Dealing with a lot of people," and then the line goes dead. You can't really blame me.

Due to our car being in the shop in the capital, my husband had to fly back home, take his "exam" and then we flew out that afternoon again to the capital. We met some great friends for dinner, slept over in a guesthouse, and then flew out the next day. The trip itself was non-eventful, except for running into some friends unexpectedly at the airport. Our kids played together and the adults chatted the time away as we waited for our flights. Twelve hours in the air is not always easy, but with individual TV sets, and amazing children that sleep for the majority of the flight, it went as smoothly as could be anticipated.

Once we arrived at the venue of my husband's conference, we were delighted to see that we had been set up in a suite! Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, living room area and dining area. We were disappointed, however, to find out that my husband would actually be spending a majority of his time on the other site. Charlie and Lola are often in bed by 8 p.m. Once they are in bed, I would be stuck in our room, alone, while my husband had all the fun of hob-knobbing (that's an official term, by the way). Sensing my sadness, and also hearing that there were suites available at the main hotel site, my husband set on his mission to negotiate our way over. Enquiring about the possibility, he learned that there was just one suite left: the presidential suite. The dream seemed to have been squelched. "Do you want to take a look at it?" the kind employee asked. "Sure. Why not."

Touring through the massive suite, my husband resigned himself to the fact that we would just have to stay over in the other location and somehow make it work, but just for shits and giggles, he asked, "How much for this room?" Expecting to hear "$350 per night" as the employee breathed sharply in through his teeth, my husband was shocked to hear the words, "It will be an extra $50". Duplicating the sharp breath through clenched teeth maneuver, my husband slowly replied, "Okay," and then added, "but I want breakfast and Internet included." Of course! was the reply.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up spending a number of beautiful days in the presidential suite, complete with jet tub overlooking the golf course, and access to the Club Room.

I told you I was spoiled.

A Voice Shouting From the Desert, "Don't Hate Me!"

2009-01-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Some may say that I'm indulged and spoiled. Judging by the amount of traveling I've been privileged enough to do in the past few months, I'd have to agree with them. Once again, I'm finding myself sorting through clothes and daily necessities, trying to organize my life enough to fit into a suitcase. I'm headed off to paradise for two weeks, and I'm not sure when or if I'll be able to update while I'm away. I'm sorry that my interaction here has been sparse at best these past weeks. From a friend being captured and then released, school starting again, a family that always needs to eat (gosh!), and my waking up at 4 a.m. every day, I've been left at the end of the day with not much left in my reserve.

My husband has a networking conference to attend and I would not allow him to go to paradise for work without taking me along so I could take advantage of the pleasure. Somebody has to be able to fill out the feedback form accurately when it comes to the room service, spa facilities, and guest activities right? Sunrise jogging tour, anyone? I'll be up anyway. I have important work to do!

A little guilt ridden, I bid you all adieu again for a short time. I'll be back before you know it.

Growing Up

2009-01-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

For the past two weeks, I have been waking up naturally, ready to start the day at the unearthly time of 4 a.m. The first time that it happened, I squished my eyes close really tight and tried to force myself back to sleep. I was pressing my eyes shut so tightly that my eyelids hurt. Giving up on any more zzz's, I threw back the covers, put on my workout gear and headed down to the treadmill. I might as well try to get rid of these excess pounds I gained in Africa. There are people starving in Africa and I gained weight. There is a serious justice issue in there somewhere. Surprisingly, I felt great after speed walking on the treadmill for an hour and catching up on "Instant Beauty Pageant" and "Clean House" on my new favourite channel. A few more times of this routine, and it suddenly became a habit! What is that all about?

This morning, I decided to try to let myself sleep in, perhaps until 6:30! I dream big. Well, sure enough, 5 a.m. rolled around and I was squishing my eyes shut, trying to get back to sleep. Frustrated, I threw back the covers and made my way down to the treadmill. By 6:30, I had walked 5 kms, burned over 400 calories and had sweat dripping through my hair.

Another new development in my life since returning from Africa, is that I have switched to drinking coffee without any sugar and no milk! This is a big deal for me, since I basically made my coffee into a mug-full of confection - a literal tumbler full of liquid candy. One morning, I woke up and it was like something clicked in my brain. "I'm going to refrain from adding anything to my coffee today." My husband was delighted because we have identical travel mugs that we use for our coffee and he inevitably takes a big swig of the sweet goodness that was my concoction. As he spits and sputters, he manages to croak out, "This is yours." This unfortunate and unpleasant experience is no longer a threat to my husband's happiness because we both take our coffee the same way - straight up and black.

This morning, after my big walk and a rewarding shower (with raspberry body wash followed by raspberry butter! I smell pretty!), I made my standard oatmeal, flax seed and raisin breakfast. Standing next to the stove, keeping a careful eye on my oatmeal, I caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee. "I'm going to treat myself," I thought, "I'm going to put milk and sugar in it today!"

I ate all of my oatmeal, and then settled back into the couch, cupping my steaming mug of candy, watching the news. I took one sip and my face puckered in on itself. Horrid! The milk tasted terrible. And the sugar was too sweet! What happened to my trusty confection? The only answer can be that I've grown up. My taste buds have matured and I'm no longer seduced by the lures of sugar. I didn't think it was ever possible.

I guess the old adage is true: Once you go black, you never go back.

M.A.D.D.

2009-01-14T05:33:00.000-08:00

I love the stage that Charlie is in. He's so inquisitive but it goes beyond the gathering of facts. He is now drawing his own conclusions and observes situations independently, revealing more and more of his worldview and character. Recently, he was confused as to why I refused what seemed to him to be a brilliant idea of taking the Jesus cookie from the gingerbread nativity scene to school as a snack. That sparked a brilliant conversation about religion and being sensitive to other people's views. We also have had great discussions with him about history of slavery. While we were in Tanzania, we drove along the beginnings of the "Trail of Tears" - the road where the slaves were gathered and forced to walk hundreds of miles to the coast in order to be put onto boats. His heart is still heavy with the thought of such injustice.

My favourite, though, was this week when my husband and I were enjoying a glass of wine with our dinner. Obviously, the subject of alcohol and responsible consumption came up. I said, "And you should never, ever, ever drink and drive." Charlie's shrugged and scoffed, "Of course you shouldn't drink and drive. You might spill!"

He's my son, through and through.

Africa Part 2: Life's a Beach

2009-01-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

There are times when hearing someone else's opinion before you experience something for yourself ruins it completely. Has that ever happened to you? You hear from a friend how FUNNY a movie is and then when you see it, you didn't laugh yourself to tears and squeaked out laughter like you were expecting from your friend's review? Or there is that book that you heard was so AMAZING, but when you read it, the claws of intrigue neglect to pierce your heart? Especially when the person who held the high opinion is special and close to you, it's hard to be honest about what you really think. So when we were going to Africa, I was a little afraid because my dear friend had told me about how this place was the most beautiful place on earth. I was peppered and seasoned with descriptions and reviews, "Just wait until you see it!"

Imagine my relief when we rounded the bend and set eyes on the beach from the deck of the boat:

This really is the best beach on the face of the earth: fresh water that is clean and safe to swim in (no snail parasites) and sand that is neither too rocky nor so fine that it gets into everything. Once dry, the sand just brushes off and leaves us alone! It's fantastic!

One would be hard pressed to hold on to the stresses of life looking out at this:

Soon after we arrived the first time, Charlie and Lola and I were delighted to see monkeys hanging out in the jungle! I must admit that I was a bit fearful because this was the first time that I had seen a monkey without bars separating us. I imagine it would be the way that I feel when I meet an ex-con. Being the naive tourists that we are, we exclaimed, "Look! Monkeys!" and threw them a piece of our banana before our hosts could shout the words, "DON'T FEED THE MONKEYS!"

We soon learned why they were so insistent because soon word got out that the weird white people were handing out free banana snacks:

You have to look closely for this little guy, but he's there. My monkey banana stalker.

Not like I haven't experienced that before.

(Not sure what that meant, exactly, but I'm snickering anyway)

Africa: Part 1 The Arrival

2009-01-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Hours driving to the capital: 5

Hours in the capital before we flew: 34.5

Hours in the airport: 6

Hours in Dar es Salaam: 18

Total hours spent in the air: 6.5

Getting to Africa felt less like a journey and more like a lot of sitting around - hours moving (11.5) as opposed to hours waiting to move (58.5). It's been a life long dream of mine to go to Africa and so when I saw this sight from our window:

I forgot all about the long night in the airport and Lola peeing on me in the taxi on our way to the guesthouse in Dar. Seeing the land of Tanzania in detail below me, I couldn't help but feel like this:

The guy behind me is thinking, "Africa, schmafrica. But, hey! I'm looking good and this moment will be immortalized. Forever this gorgeous look I am sporting will be documented in this silly white woman's photo file."

Happy 2009!

2009-01-02T05:44:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve is probably one of the most consistent let downs of my life. I always build it up in my mind into this colossal, romantic, emotional moment complete with harp music and fairies. In reality, though, the clock strikes twelve with no carry-through that reflects the build up. Sure, I have a guy that I'm crazy about to kiss, but there are definitely much more poignant and emotionally romantic moments that I could mark down on my calendar. The first minute of the year is rarely "It".

We thought about having a blow-out bash with our new friends to commemorate the new year as well as celebrate our one year anniversary of living here in the desert. I made a couple of phone calls (in fact, just two) and found out that those people were traveling. The feeling of wanting to keep things low key won out, and I didn't fight for the big party any further.

The plan: a fantastic dinner with just our family.

The experiment: make our own grill out of fencing material.

The near-flop: finding out that the butcher was closed which translates into "no steak" for our grilling experiment!

The solution: discovering a small roast in our freezer and cutting that into "that will do" steaks.

The mistake: leaving the salt meant for tenderizing on the meat for oh... 45 minutes too long. The meat was a bit salty.

The redemption: forgetting to put salt on the roasted potatoes, so when the steak and potatoes were paired up, the too salty and no salty cancelled each other out, creating perfect taste.

The appetizer: sauteed shrimp in garlic butter, sprinkled delicately with Parmesan and oregano

The result: barbecue steak topped with garlic butter, grilled vegetables and roasted potatoes. Minus the over-salt, I'd say this meal rivals even the greatest of grill houses. Sometimes, I fall in love with myself.

While eating dinner, Lola declared, "I am soooo tired," so she was in her pj's, teeth brushed, last potty stop, and fast asleep by 8:30 p.m. The rest of us watched a movie. Charlie fell asleep, and even though we were trying to keep a close eye on the time, we missed the turning of the year by 2 minutes. At 12:02 a.m., my husband and I leaned across the pillow cushions to quickly wish each other a happy new year before getting back to living vicariously through treasure hunters.

On New Year's Day, we Skyped a bunch of our family and friends and even crashed one party right at the countdown! Nothing like ruining "the moment" for those you care about from across the miles.

Happy New 2009! My wish for all of you is peace and health. May mankind wake up to the fact that no matter which side we are on, we can all commit terrible atrocities in the name of our cause, which doesn't help anyone.

Shop & Fly

2008-12-28T05:30:00.000-08:00

As soon as our exams had been turned in, marked, returned to us,and we had stained the pages with our tears, we turned on our heels and shot out the door. A quick stop at our friends' home to pick up their luggage and a pause at the kids' school so that we could throw them into the backseat, and our 5 hour journey to the capital began. Our flight to Africa didn't actually leave until the middle of the night the following night, so we had an evening free for bowling! It's our favourite way to determine who is going to rule and make decisions for everyone else. I never win if you judge by points. Judging by team spirit and hilarity? I'd own you.

At 11 p.m. the following night, we trudged our way into the airport. Our flight didn't leave until 2:30 a.m. but the check in counters close much earlier so we were lucky enough to endure a long wait for our flight. Thankfully, there is a shopping area for my perusing pleasure to distract me. I was awed by the merchandising skills:

Nothing says "buy me" like a whole jumbled up clump of rings. I instantly wanted to pay 10% above the ticketed price just because I knew what the ring would look like at the bottom of Lola's toy box. This would save me hours of searching because I would instantly be able to spot my ring among the clutter; it was the way that I had found it in the first place! Ingenious!

Moving over to the cosmetics counter, I was not disappointed. Again, the merchandisers had put my mind at ease. Rather than buying a lipstick and needing to use it in a precise fashion in order to maintain the integrity of the original shape, or hiding it from the grubby hands of Lola, I could buy a malformed lipstick.

"And if you buy now, we'll include these teeth marks for free!" Thank you, airport merchants. You have identified one of the pressing needs of the female traveler: stress over keeping cosmetics in pristine condition while traveling. Remove the pristine, remove the stress. Brilliant.

The Eagle Has Landed

2008-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Less than 24 hours after returning home, and I had already accomplished whipping up this goodness:

Pumpkin scones with a spiced glaze, shortbread, gingerbread, and nanaimo bars. It feels really good to be back in my kitchen again, and slowly settling back into a routine.

Merry (late but still tasty) Christmas!

I Know I Said I Wouldn't Post Again. I Lied.

2008-12-04T07:19:00.000-08:00

I came out of hiding for this public service announcement:

Happy Birthday, Mom!
I love you and wish that I could be with you today to spoil you, make you an omelette, watch a movie while we bundle up under some heavy blankets with a big cup of steaming cocoa. And a big box of chocolate!

I love you and miss you.

Love,
Your little girl-gone-awol.

"Ohh! Christmas is RUINED!"

2008-12-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

"I'm leaving on a jet plane! Don't know when I'll be back again..."

Actually, I do know when I'll be back. We land in the capital on the 24th and drive back home on the 25th, just another day here in the desert. But I'll have sugar plums dancing and the sound of sleigh bells ringing in my head.

Charlie and Lola have a Dora the Explorer DVD where she travels the world. When we told them that we would be going to Tanzania for Christmas, they both shouted "Tanzania! Yay!" because this is one of the countries that Dora visits. Thank you, Dora, for saving Christmas!

Our friends have invited us along on a family Christmas. She was raised in Tanzania, and her parents are still there. She is absolutely thrilled to be going back home for this special season since she hasn't been there for more than 2 years. I'm thrilled to be able to see with my own eyes the places that mean so much to someone that has grown to be very precious over the past year to this heart of mine. I'm relieved to be invited to a family Christmas where there is a collection of ornaments, festive music and the necessary bustle of family to drum up the Spirit of Christmas that is mysteriously missing in the dusty, sandy landscape of the desert. It's amazing how much of my traditions are wrapped up in sub-zero temperatures, dark nights, candles, and snow (or the hope of snow). There is definitely no hope of snow here, even though I was caught wearing a wool sweater the other day. It's 20C degrees! I'm freezing! Don't laugh!

I will be out of coverage for next number of days. No matter how many times you hit refresh to check for a new post, there won't be one until after the 25th. Just warning you!

I hope that my friend's family has been amply warned that the whitegirl is about to be unleashed on them. They don't know what they are in for! Here's to never forgetting Christmas 2008!

Twilight Is More Like Nolight As In "This Book Will See No Light From My Opening It"

2008-11-29T02:00:00.000-08:00

One of my quaint quirks is that I can't leave a book unfinished once I've started reading it. It took me months to read "Anna Karenina" even though it was the darkest, slowest moving plot line known to mankind. I even stuck through to the end, though it did slow my progress and motivation down slightly, when a friend came over, saw the book on our coffee table (with the bookmark clearly in the MIDDLE of the book, mind you) and said, "You know she dies in the end." I have faced many an obstacle, read many a series of words strung together that didn't necessarily please me (no need to mention 'The Kite Runner' is there?) but I stuck it out to the end. That has all changed.

The book 'Twilight' changed me.

I had heard from a great friend, one that I would permanently ink myself with if I had the chance, that she had loved this book series. She said she had enjoyed these books so much that she had become relatively reclusive, shutting herself away from the world with her nose stuck between some pages. Buoyed by her review, I bought the book while we were in Thailand, and thought of starting it while we were still there, but wanted to give the respect to the other books that had been brought to me by a friend. I don't like books "jumping the line". They need to be managed.

When its turn came, I gladly picked up the book, fully expecting to fall in love with the story from the beginning. How could I not? It was the classic tension-filled love story, this time between a teenage girl and a hot vampire. How could it be bad, right? After Chapter one, I nearly forgot that I had started reading a book; its grip on me was that loose. With each passing chapter, I became more and more annoyed by the author's writing style. Days went by between putting the book down and picking it back up again. It was not the page-turner I had been expecting.

First complaint, she used the word handsomer. While I have come to find out (I did research because it bugged me that much. Yes, I'm that much of a geek.) that this is a grammatically correct term; it is old fashioned. I do personally prefer "more handsome". Secondly, why must every spoken sentence be qualified by "his eyes narrowed" or "she said coldly" or "he growled while gripping his hands tightly into fists"? One thing I learned through reading many well written works is that a good author will respect the intelligence of his/her audience. If a scene is appropriately staged, a conversation doesn't need qualifier after qualifier after agonizing qualifier. It became so annoying that I found myself rolling my eyes after each spoken sentence when I read the words, "she hissed", which was also uncreatively overused. I understand that this book was written for a younger audience. The iconic Harry Potter series was also written for a younger audience. I was impressed by Rowling's ability to paint an incredibly detailed canvas with words while at the same time not alienating her young nor her adult audiences. Thirdly, I often got the impression that the author came to a point where she just knew that she couldn't use the word "hissed" one more time on the page, so she had to find a different way to explain to the reader that there was this ANGST and TENSION brewing between her characters because she just didn't think YOU WERE GETTING IT, so she had to turn to her thesaurus to find words like, "infinitesimally" when describing how his eyes were narrowing yet again when he was glaring at the girl he loved but couldn't love because he shouldn't love her, but gawd!, did he love her and he couldn't help himself.

I only made it to chapter 5. My husband sat back slightly after I complained again about the writing style and the author treating me like an idiot and said, "If it bothers you so much, why don't you just stop reading it?" But I can't stop! I have a personal policy against not finishing reading a book. "Don't waste anymore of your life on it." He was right! And he gave me the permission I needed to release myself from my personal expectations.

I re-gifted the book to my neighbour's 17 year old daughter who LOVED it. She is, obviously, in the right age demographic for this book; I'm happy for her that she liked it so much. For the first time in my life, I'm just going to wait for the movie. My inner book nerd is gasping and clutching at the pain of her heart breaking in her chest. I never thought I would say those words, but there they are for the world to see: Waiting. For. The. Movie.

Thanks a lot Stephenie Meyer for writing such a terrible piece of fiction that I had to change my policy. I look forward to not reading any of your books in the future.

Legacy

2008-11-28T02:00:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours is married to a wonderful woman. She's sweet, thoughtful, and because she's not from our friend's "home" culture, she is often the victim of his jokes. Early on in their marriage, he stuck his index finger out towards her and pleaded with her to pull it. With no pop-culture reference or stupid boy humour experience to refer to, she naively pulled his finger. Of course, he let one rip ("one" being air of the flatulence nature, for those not sure what I'm getting at). He laughed and then stuck his finger out again, asking her to pull it. "No." "Oh, come on (giggle)! I promise (giggle) I won't fart again. (giggle-giggle)" She pulled it, and *shaking my head* he farted again. The gales of laughter could be heard from across the city. He was enjoying himself way too much. Inching his index finger closer into her personal-bubble space, he wiped away the giggle tears with his other hand and gasped, "Pull my finger." "No, you'll just fart again." "There is no way that I could fart three times in a row!" She pulled it. He farted.

For some reason, I told this story the other day over lunch. Charlie thought it was so funny, and laughed and laughed. Slowly, he raised his hand to eye level, and extended his index finger. With eyes wide and full of wonder, he pulled it. He farted. It really works.

Could You Repeat That, Please?

2008-11-27T02:00:00.000-08:00

It goes without saying that from one language to another, there can be a combination of sounds that resembles something offensive in one language, while at the same time describing something of the mundane in the next. I have admired myself for being able to keep a straight face in the times that I hears words like faqat that sound a lot like something rather crude to my English ears. I do admit to giggling a bit when I learned the words for "bird" because I used it in an English sentence: That's mighty big assfoor a little girl. For the most part, though, a word will strike me as funny, but all you will see is the silent shaking of my shoulders as I quietly try to get my immaturity under control. There are moments, though, when the word hits without warning and I can't, no matter the mental exercises and relaxation techniques I utilize, regain my composure.

A classmate was telling his traveling story in front of the class. Noticing that some of us (read: me) were not fully paying attention to other students when they spoke, the teacher required us to write down any mistakes that we noticed. I was paying close attention to this particular student because he, like my husband, is a whizz at language and to find a mistake would be glorious! He must have sensed my overzealousness for error finding because he threw out a word that sent me into a spiral that I just could not recover from:

CM (classmate): We drove from this city to the other and our.... how do you say travel guide?

Teacher: mumbles something I didn't hear

CM: Oh yes, right, 'morshit'...

Me: inward shock. Did I just hear what I think I heard?

CM: ...'morshit'

Me: inward giggle.

CM: ...'morshit'

Me: pffffffffft! HAHAHAHAHA

At this point, I buried my face into my notebook and folded it up over my face while I roaringly laughed into the pages. My laughter continued long and loud, much longer and louder than ever before. I laughed at first because of the shock and mounting amusement with each repetition of the word, but then my laughter bubbled up on top and over itself because I just couldn't believe how much I was losing control in class!

With class ending, and the sounds of shuffling papers filling the space as students shoved books into their bags in preparation of going home, my classmate asked our teacher if she knew why I was laughing. Amazingly, he knew the Arabic word for "poop" and was able to communicate what I heard. She giggled.

I'm pretty sure there is a "What whitegirl did today in class" poster in the teachers' lounge. They certainly have enough material to fill an afternoon, if not a book.

Oooo, You Said 'Falafel'

2008-11-26T02:00:00.000-08:00

Rollercoaster is an accurate descriptor for language learning. One week, like last week, I could be in the pits of despair when it comes to language acquisition, linking my failure to all the other perceived failures in my life, and then the next week, like this one, could be feeling pretty good about myself again, and even having fun in class. It has the potential of wreaking havoc on my emotional state, as if I don't do that enough myself as it is.

In class recently, we had to do an oral assignment where we verbally recounted a trip that we took or would take in the near future. I decided to talk about Thailand because it was awesome, of course. I learned that you can't say "I had an appointment with the beach" in Arabic, which I don't necessarily agree with. You can't really say it in English either. I don't have an appointment WITH the beach, but the concept of necessary relaxation is communicated. I think I can do the same in Arabic, play with the words and expressions to get my point across.

At the end of my little story, the teacher went through my mistakes. The first thing she said was that even though I say things correctly at times, and she understands clearly what I'm saying, my accent is mia fil mia (100%) English speaking accent. As soon as she said it, I literally had to bite back my words because I wanted to retort, "You have an accent when you speak English!"

Sitting at home this afternoon, I was watching a business makeover show. The business owner's mother spoke little English, and when she did speak, she had the sweetest Spanish accent. I loved it. Why can't my accent be cute? When I was reorganizing Charlie's toys the other day, I was listening to BBC Food in the background and giggled with delight over the French chef's accent. There are some accents, such as the Irish accent, that make me swoon and I have to hold myself back from asking the speaker to "Please read this fast food menu?" There is nothing sexier than the words "Value Meal" spoken with an Irish accent. Why can't my accent incite delight and the giggles in other people?

I kind of wanted to punch my teacher in the face-veil, but then again, I don't. I know her motivation is to make sure that I speak as well as possible because my success and ability is a reflection on the institute and, more importantly, on her skills as a teacher. There is no way, though, that I can get rid of my thick accent completely. I'd rather that she be thrilled with my accent, and giggle girlishly while asking me to "Please say 'falafel meal' again."

Culturally Confused

2008-11-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

I lived in Europe for nearly 8 years, so the ups and downs of adjusting to a new culture are not new to me, and it's not necessarily adjusting to the new country that is an issue. I found the adjustment back into how things work in my "home" country sometimes more difficult, confusing and stressful. Then, of course, there were the humorous and embarrassing moments when it was glaringly obvious that I just didn't "get it" anymore. Like the time that I stood thisclose to the next guy in line at the grocery store while he was paying for his groceries by credit card. I was so close, that I could feel his body heat. In Europe, if you don't stand that close to the next person in line, someone will butt in front of you. Taking notice of the non-verbal signals from the guy beside me and even the cashier, I took a look at the next person in line who was this-------------------------------------------------far from me. "Oh!" I said to myself, "I shouldn't be standing so close." Resisting the urge to "over explain", I simply stepped away one or 5 steps, and quietly pretended that nothing weird had happened. Nothing to see here is the motto of my life.

One evening, I was driving to the convenience store with my sister to pick up a late-night slushee-soft ice cream treat, aptly named "Screamer" because it can cause a brain freeze of such proportions that the only way to deal with the pain is to scream. As we were coasting down a long, steep hill, we passed our brother's car. He was pulled over to the side of the road and a police car was parked behind him. Like only good sisters can, we laughed at our brother for getting what we thought was a speeding ticket, and continued on to buy our beloved beverage. We didn't want to miss our chance to get it before the store closed, plus, mocking our brother for getting a speeding ticket would be so much more entertaining with a snack.

Driving up the hill (without a Screamer because the store was already closed - I guess the gods were on our brother's side and the mockery was on us), I circled the car around so that I could park behind the cop and we could see what was going on. "What? Are you doing?" my sister shouted. "I'm parking! I'm pulling off to the side so we are out of the way, why?"

"We don't park on sidewalks here."

Ohhhh... right. Sheepishly, I put the car in reverse, and repositioned the car so that it was parked nicely, neatly and properly on the side of the road, off of the sidewalk.

The other day, as I was looking out the window during class (which I often do, especially when I stop understanding what the heck is going on because all of a sudden we are talking about vowelling, and, frankly, who cares!) I saw this:
And I laughed! At last, my justification for why I believe it's perfectly normal to park on the sidewalk has been documented.

For further irony:

A police car with 3 officers inside, driving past the clearly visible car-parked-on-sidewalk without as much as blip from the siren or a side-long glance.

I am going to be printing out these pictures and putting them in my purse along with my passport and driver's license the next time I go back to my "home" country. That way, if I get caught by law enforcement for inappropriate parking, I can produce evidence that the way I am is not my fault. I am just culturally confused.

Like A Virgin

2008-11-24T02:21:00.000-08:00

Not wanting my week of firsts to end, I added another "first" to my list. Needing some vegetarian inspiration to make a meal for some vegetarian friends, I put out an internet beacon for help. One tip led me to Moroccan cuisine, which is largely made up of vegetarian, and delicious!, fare. During my investigation, I came across a recipe for apricot and prune chicken. I decided that this recipe was the exact excuse I needed to do something that I've been wanting to do ever since we moved to the desert. I bought a fresh chicken. How fresh, you ask? So fresh, that it squawked at me while I was trying to make a decision between him and his best friend. I chose him.

The whole experience reminded me a lot of the Christian horror song:
Two men walking up a hill, one disappears and one is left standing still. I wish we'd all been ready.

"Were you ready, chicken little?"'

Shortly after I dumped chicken little from the pink, plastic bag into the bowl in preparation for further butchering, I witnessed a very disturbing phenomenon that I have never had to endure with frozen chicken: post-death flesh tremors. If my husband had not been in the kitchen with me at the time, I'm nearly certain I would have screamed, vomited and passed out - all simultaneously. It takes talent, you know. I suppressed my instincts (and talent) and my ground stood firm. It only happened that once, even though I prodded it a few times with my left index finger while holding the camera, poised and ready to get some video footage for you to watch. Blessing laughed at me, saying, "This must be the first time you have a fresh chicken." Yes, I am a fresh chicken virgin. Or I was. Now I'm not.

I so wanted to document the whole experience via photo essay, but with my husband being sick, I didn't think it was prudent for me to be alone, taking pictures of the butcher. Imagine the conversations at his dinner table? I'm sure it was spectacular enough to see this large car pull up to the rinky dinky chicken crate place and an incredibly beautiful woman breeze her way down from behind the steering wheel. (Yes, I have an overactive, grandiose imagination) Now that the proverbial cherry is no longer, I'm sure that I'll be playing God with chicken lives and picking up another fresh chicken. I dare say that I may even revel in the fact that a chicken's destiny is literally in my hands. It is advantageous not having to wait for the meat to thaw out, even if it does do a post-mortem dance, but feeling the warmth of the flesh, knowing that I had been the cause of this life to be no longer was a bit unnerving. If this doesn't make me turn to vegetarianism, nothing will.

Got Fluids?

2008-11-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today was a day of firsts. Up until this point, I've been terrified of driving. For one, our vehicle is big and intimidating. Secondly, the streets are narrow as is, but add more vehicles not only driving but parked along the way, and throw in a few motorbikes darting dangerously through the mix, and it's a recipe for disaster, not to mention stress.

My husband has been sick for the past three days. Typically, he's stubborn, so it takes a lot for a sickness to get him down. "I just told that virus that it wasn't getting the best of me and it didn't," I've often heard him preaching after I've asked for the millionth time why I'm the one that is sick and he isn't. When a virus doesn't fall prey to his mental games, I know it's something serious. He drove to the capital for a meeting, was away for one night, and when he returned, I knew as soon as I laid eyes on him that he wasn't doing well at all. Before the water even had the chance to boil for tea, he was changed into his pajamas and buried under 4 blankets, shivering and desperate to get warm. I made tea, poured water into the hot water bottle, and settled my mind into the role of nurse.

This morning, when his temperature was still 103 degrees, we called a fellow student who happens to be a doctor. He stopped by and recommended that my husband go to the hospital to get tests done. One look at my husbands barely conscious, puffy eyed state, and I knew that I would have to force myself past my fears and get behind the steering wheel. With all the obstacles and challenges on the road, the point of the drive that caused me the most pre-action anxiety was the backing out of the yard part. We have a huge gate, and I was terrified of taking a large portion of vehicle off with the wall's edge.

After gulping down a few spoonfuls of mashed potato, packing up some toys for the kids, and getting ready to go out, I opened the gate, and settled myself behind the wheel. With a little coaching, I was able to turn the vehicle and navigate my way through the narrow passage with little to no drama! How is that for overcoming fears? Now that I was out of the gate, the rest seemed easy, and it was. I had a little moment of panic when my husband said that I would have to drive over the 4x4 section where there is no pavement, just a rise and fall of loose dirt and rock, but I mastered it like an old pro.

I dropped Charlie and Lola off with some great friends, and continued along the way to the hospital. I couldn't help but notice men and boys stopping in their tracks, watching our vehicle going past because I, a woman, was driving. Yes, boys, a girl can drive. Geez. It's not like I was growing a baby on the side of my face or something.

We spent a number of hours at the hospital, getting the tests done, and I did a lot of running back and forth to the hospital pharmacy. Now I understand why it's so important for family members to sit with their loved ones in the hospital day in and day out. It's not just for the company, but it's so that the able-bodied family member can be a runner for all the medication that is necessary for the treatment of the patient. Over the few hours that I was at the hospital, I was handed 3 or 4 prescriptions which I had to go to the pharmacy to get filled, including an I.V drip for rehydration. That was definitely a first. I had never bought an I.V. bag before. I may have some fresh new Christmas gift ideas for friends and family back home!

The sweetest male nurse from the Philippines took care of us for the most part while we were there. Also, a guy that I didn't know approached my husband, started talking and then took over all the negotiations and figuring out where we needed to be. I thought he worked for the hospital, but it turned out that he was the brother of someone that my husband knows and recognized my husband, even in his diminished state.

Three pokes to the arm, a chest x-ray, numerous runs to the pharmacy, a long nap (on my husband's part) and studying (on my part! How good am I, right?) behind us, and the diagnosis was finally in: bronchitis. My husband now has a patient file number at the hospital. Wanting to clarify, I made sure to find out if this number was for my husband only and I would have to get a number of my own if I ever had to come to the hospital for treatment. I said, "God willing, I won't ever need a number. I actually don't want one." Yeah, I'm a knob cross-culturally, too.

I'm tired. I still have to do some homework for my classes tomorrow. I'll also have to drive the kids and myself to school in the morning, but after today, it's old hat. It's not big thing.

Anyone want an I.V drip? I have an extra.

If I Didn't Go To School, I Couldn't Skip!

2008-11-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

I skipped school on Wednesday, called our housekeeper and told her to stay home, and took the morning for myself. I can't remember the last time I was at home completely alone, without anyone demanding my attention or a list of must-do's crowding in on my brain space. I took the morning to go for a run on the treadmill, do some Christmas shopping online (I can't wait for the new Polly Pocket set! I mean, Lola can't wait, even though she doesn't know about it!), and then I sat outside on top of the rock that is hollowed out as a cave (I told you we had a cool garden!) with a cup of coffee, 2 chocolate chip cookies, the sunshine and my thoughts.

After our big fight, and my dictionary shredding fiasco, I identified some issues that I was dealing with. Mainly, significance, or rather insignificance, is something that I am always struggling with in my mind. There is nothing that I have done in the past 1o years that I can put on resume that screams, "Accomplishment! Hireable! An asset to the outside world!". I can't very well put "good friend, good cook, randomly wise, funny, even-more-randomly inappropriate" on my resume as marketable skills. Admittedly, there are things that I do well at, like cooking, but I see that as something that everyone can do. It comes to me so effortlessly and I enjoy it so much, that everyone must also be able to achieve the same results that I get with as little or even less effort that I put in. So what if my husband comes to me for intuitive insight? It's not like I took a course. I have no formulaic method that I can teach to anyone, and it's not like I have accurate insight every time I put my mind and opinion to something. I can't teach someone what I've experienced. So, yeah, I have strengths, but what value are they really? I've been taught through the feminist movement that being a mother and caring for my family is "just" - "I am just a mother. I am just a housewife. I am just supporting my husband as he goes through school/advances his career/begins a new path" I am just. The feminist movement has been wonderful in opening the doors to opportunities that were not afforded to my mother or her sisters when they were thinking of entering the workforce. At the same time, my culture and society has taught me that to be a mother is of no real value in the modern arena. I feel marginalized by the very women who want me to feel liberated. Oh, sure, the media (especially approaching a certain day in the month of May) will say that the virtue of motherhood is honourable, but have you seen a mother being honoured at any of these "Great Women of our Times" events for being a mother? No, she was a woman who wrote a breakthrough work, or developed a feeding program for the homeless, or paved the way for equal pay among the genders in the workplace, and she also happened to be a mother. Motherhood is not an honourable vocation in its own right. How many times has it happened that I have been asked, "What do you do?" and eyebrows are raised slightly in veiled disgust that I am just a mother. "But certainly you have a degree, yes?" No. I don't. Further disapproval.

Then again, maybe that's what my struggle is: approval. Everyone wants to feel that they have acceptance and approval from the people that mean the most to them. I have been accurately accused in the past of caring too much. I care too much about what people think of me. Have you seen the movie "Mother"? The mother, played by Debbie Reynolds, can not resist the temptation of over-sharing every intimate detail of her and her sons' lives with everyone she encounters because she is so worried about what people think of her, so she needs to "set the record straight". To prove his point, her oldest son takes her into a store and says to the sales clerk, "I would like to buy a pair of crotchless panties for my mother." The sales girl doesn't bat an eye, "What is your size, Ma'am?" Sputtering and each word falling over the previous, the mother pulls her son out of the store, rambling incoherently about some "experiment" that her son is doing because he is a writer. I laughed long and hard through this whole movie mostly because there was so much of myself (and my grandma! heee!) that I see in this movie. The most damning disapproval is my own. No matter what I do or don't do, it's never good enough. It's never perfect enough. It's never inventive, delicious, ample, interesting, fluent, or intelligent enough.

"I'm not you, and I never will be!" I screamed at my husband. One of my greatest downfalls is comparing myself. Especially to my husband. I must be just as good as him, at any given activity, or I'm just not measuring up. I'm not sure where this thought came from because I don't think my husband has ever started a contest or a star-chart. Maybe it's the feminist-bent again saying things like, "She beat a man at tennis!" or "She is paid the same as a man!" or "Let's honour this woman who outshone all the other male contenders and is now the head of some great big company!" Regardless of the source, somewhere along the line of our history, I am the one that pegged my husband as the stick that I measure my progress against. My husband, though, did shed light on my practice by saying, "But you never measure those areas that you are better at than me." Like cooking, or nurturing, or intuition, or sensitivity. But then, again, those aren't areas that are viewed by the western world at large as being particularly valuable. I can't get paid for being nurturing. Unless I want to work in a restaurant, which I don't, my cooking skills aren't particularly fabulous (unless I invite you over for dinner). I'm not inventive, paving the way in new cooking techniques or even developing my own recipes and menu plans that can be marketed in the next book sensation. I can read, that's basically the secret of my cooking skills. I can read a recipe and follow it. Big deal. My husband, however, is highly intelligent. He has a photographic memory, which comes in handy for language acquisition and remembering new vocabulary. His thought processes and the way that he works through information to come to a creative solution is astounding. I can't tell you how many times I've heard (and thought, myself!) the words, "I've never heard it put like that before," or "I've never met anyone who thinks like you." Honestly, he's brilliant. Recently, he completed his masters degree with a 4.0 average. I, on the other hand, changed innumerable diapers, successfully toilet trained a child, coached my 7 year old to read chapter books, and got him to correctly spell the word "scissors". I bandaged many cuts and scrapes. I researched and successfully carried out an antibiotic-free solution to an earache, and I go through my Charlie's backpack everyday looking for any homework he might have, and encouraging him through the difficult struggle that is Arabic. I've also read Curious George out loud more times than I like to admit, caught myself humming "One Elephant Went Out To Play" to myself, and played with Lola's Polly Pocket boutique even after she was tired of it.

My thoughts on the rock then moved to guilt and identity. What has changed in what I used to hold as my identity? I used to see myself as a housewife. I was the CEO of my homestead. Taking inventory of everything that was needed, from supplies to tools to maintenance. I was the one that cleaned. I was the one that cooked. I was the one that was there for my kids 24/7. What has changed now is that I don't clean anymore. Even on my day off from school, my housemaid comes to the house and irons my babies' uniforms and my husband's business shirts while I sit on Facebook and chat with my friends or I go running because I want to stay out of her way. I come home to a spotless house that I can't sit back and take credit for because it wasn't my hard work that got it to look that way. "I hate housecleaning", I said one day during the break at school. "But you don't do any cleaning! Blessing does it for you!" came the rebuttal. I know, but I still don't like it. I used to do all the cleaning, and I used to be with my children from morning until night. Now, I spend 4 hours a day in class (5 + hours away from the house), apparently trying to a learn a language, and I'm not succeeding at it. And by succeeding, I'm clearly measuring myself against the husband-stick (that doesn't sound good! ha! See? randomly-inappropriate). I'm not as polished in the language as my husband, so clearly, I'm failing, and I'm wasting my time. I'm not cleaning my own house. I'm not caring for my own children. I'm not excelling at school. Every category that I inventory is an area that my identity was squarely rooted in, and I'm not succeeding in any of them.

Sitting on the rock, I sifted through my emotions to try to find the roots. There is no point in dealing with topical issues when the roots are still lodged firmly in my heart. I can solve my way to a blue face all I want if I'm dealing with a topical problem, but it will only resurface again in a different circumstance.

Ironically, my husband pointed out, I have my Phd in womanhood here in the desert: a pudgy, wealthy husband, I cook, I love hosting guests, and I have a firstborn son. I'm a traditional woman living in a traditional society, mentally working within a feminist paradym. I'm in a pressure cooker of a sandstorm over here, wrestling with my own identity, my self worth, my significance in and to the world. And I still don't know what to do with it all.

Inspire Me!

2008-11-20T05:00:00.000-08:00

The wife of one of the new students at our language school just had a baby two days ago. She gave birth in the car on the way to the hospital! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one struggling with modesty.

A dear friend of mine (you know who you are! Hi! I'm saying hi to you on my blog! Wave at your screen because I'm waving at you!) organized meal's for this sweet family for the next two weeks. Isn't she amazing? She's so thoughtful and encouraging. When I got the email about who was assigned to which day for dinner, I was a little surprised to read the words, "they prefer vegetarian meals." We ate beef for three different meals this week! I don't do vegetarian, unless it's breakfast-for-dinner (we love pancakes!). Do eggs and omelettes count as vegetarian since they are unborn chickens? See what I'm dealing with here?

I'm pleading for some insight! I'm responsible for 2 meals. I have one idea for one meal, but I don't want to bore them with two of the same meal. What is your favourite vegetarian meal? This has rocked my world nearly as much as when I first heard someone say, "I don't like chocolate cake." What? *sputter* *hack* How is that even possible? Seriously! I still think they were lying to me.

I Know What I'm Missing

2008-11-19T05:17:00.000-08:00

After many tears the other day, I sucked up my sorrow, threw on my spandex and went downstairs to run my troubles away on the treadmill. It felt great to get some of the tension and stress out through sweat. We have quite the set up down there. There is the treadmill and a television hooked up to the satellite. It's my very own gym set up that I'm very happy to enter nearly every day.

I was channel surfing as I was getting settled into my run, and as I was paused on E! Channel, I dropped the remote onto the treadmill accidentally and my stride kicked it across the room. Well, I sighed to myself, I guess I'm stuck on E! Channel until the end of my run.

"This is the American dream! Putting pictures of yourself in your underwear on the internet for everyone to see."

Well, that solves all of life's mysteries. I'm so glad I went for a run and switched the channel to such informative programming. If I hadn't inadvertently kicked the remote to the curb, I would never have learned that what I'm missing in life is the American dream. This is why I'm struggling in language and feeling like I have no significance. There are no pictures of me in my underwear on the internet! And, apparently, this is also why you, dear reader are suffering from depression and winter blues. Thank you, E!

On another note, I finished my Christmas shopping for the kids. We have planned a trip to Africa, so the gift exchange between hubs and I will be our boarding passes, but I still wanted to get the kids something. Their squeals and eyes filled with delight are what the gift exchange is really about, don't you think? I'm really excited about Lola's present in particular. I can't wait for her to open it and then I can get started setting it up and playing with it. I mean, SHE will play with it. *cough*

Sand Blast to the Eyes

2008-11-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

This has been a week of frustrations, I tell you. From an unfair exam, in my opinion, and a teacher that is measuring my fluency not based on how long I've been studying but rather against the fluency of native speakers, to the audacity of stupid drivers, my nerves and emotions are nearly spent. I'm about ready to lock myself in the house, never to face the day ever again! My bed covers are calling to me, "Climb on under! Throw me over your head! You'll feel better!"

Our morning routine goes something like this:

6a.m: alarm clock sounds

6:04 a.m: alarm clock sounds again

6:08 a.m: alarm clock sounds again

6:12 a.m: alarm clock sounds and we drag ourselves out of bed.

breakfast for the kids, get ourselves ready, get snacks ready, nag Charlie to brush his teeth and get dressed, brush Lola's teeth, get her dressed and do her hair.

7:15 a.m: put on our shoes (my scarf and covering), grab school bags, and pile into the car

7:20 a.m: drop the kids off at school

Usually, at this time, we make our way to our language school and sit in the courtyard for an hour before class starts, doing our homework or extra review while drinking coffee and trying to finally become conscious. Today, however, as we were about to arrive at our school, I remembered that I had forgotten to give Charlie the equivalent of $1.50 for a book about origami that he wanted to buy.

My husband kindly turned the car around and we made our way back to the children's school. A car was ahead of us as we waited to turn left onto another road. This car made the turn, and we followed soon after, slowing to a stop behind it because we had to wait for oncoming traffic to make its way through the narrow passage (cars were parked on both sides of the street making the space available for driving very narrow). As the last of the cars made their way through, all of a sudden the car in front of us begins to reverse. My husband made the culturally appropriate response of making the horn yell long and hard. The car continued to reverse. The horn continued to wail, unrelenting, and the car continued to reverse. Finally, he stopped. More honking. And then the man got out of the car and began to yell. We didn't understand at first, since we hadn't felt anything, and then a passerby said, "You've had an accident." Um... what? We have a large vehicle with large bush bars along the front bumper. The car reversed right into our steel bush bars, causing no damage to our vehicle at all. My husband yelled, "I don't care about my car. Just move out of the way, I have to go!" The man said, "But it is your fault!" EXCUSE ME? Our vehicle was stopped, as in not moving. The other car, reversed, as in it moved, into our vehicle. And this is supposed to be our fault?

My husband put our car in reverse, moved back, and then put it into gear to drive away. As we moved forward, the driver of the other car hopped ONTO our bumper and sat with his arm casually draped over our hood and gazed at us through the windshield with blithe indifference. My husband pulled over to the side of the road, in front of this man's car and stopped. I got out of the vehicle to walk around the corner to the school because I still needed to deliver the money to Charlie.

While I was gone, some young guys got into the vehicle with my husband and explained to him (keep in mind that all the arguing, explaining and negotiating was happening in Arabic before coffee) that the law was that the car at the rear of the accident was automatically at fault. My husband, seizing his opportunity to get his point across, saw that the offending man's car was now parked behind our vehicle. He put the gear into reverse, placed his hand behind the passenger seat's head rest and said, "So what you are saying is that if I reverse into his car right now, it's his fault?" The boys laughed and said, "No, no, no." But that's exactly what happened earlier! We were at a stop and he backed into us. How moronic!

Looking at his bumper before I left, the only damage I saw was peeling paint that was peeling from the top down. There is no way that happened from bumping into our car. That was damage that took place over time, exacerbated by rain and heat. When I returned from delivering the money to Charlie, I saw that the paint had been removed so that all that was left was a patch of missing paint. Hmm... That's when the thought occurred to me that this was all a ruse to get money out of the "rich foreigner." I'm nearly certain that this man looked in his rear view mirror, saw foreigners sitting in a large vehicle, and caused an "accident". When I climbed back into our vehicle, the latest offer was, "Okay, half and half. Half your fault and half his fault." We are at fault for waiting in traffic and warning the vehicle that he was about to back into our car? I don't think so! "No. Absolutely not," was my husband's answer. As the time wore on, the final offer was made, "$10" Okay, we'll pay $10 just to get you to leave us alone. "And $5 to the police officer." Okay fine. As we were about to drive away, someone shouted, "Stop, wait! So-and-so needs money too!" Bingo! Now everyone was seeing my husband as a cash cow and trying to get their piece before he drove away. "No," my husband stated firmly, "Enough!" They relented and we drove away, lighter by $15 and heavier with a deep sense of injustice.

Discussing the situation with a friend who has weathered many a storm in the cultural game, my husband said, "I just don't know how much I can get away with. I would have left or I would have really hit the guy's car." Our friend laughed and said, "You can get away with a lot. If a guy jumped on my car, I would have headed towards a wall to scare him off." Apparently, the game is a little different here, and I think it's pretty clear that we got taken, and I'm still seething inside, scorched from the white hot heat of injustice without the ointment of justice to soothe away the pain.

Cookie Cutters From ... ?

2008-11-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

Charlie and Lola and I made more cookies using a recipe from a friend. After this batch, I realized what was bothering me about our cookies. The cookie cutters that we have are really lacking in creativity and interest.
Who wants to eat a cookie that looks like a sad excuse for a spade? Have you ever heard of a child saying that their favourite cookie was a spade? Have you ever heard a child coo, "Oh Mommy! Thank you for the club cookie!"? Have you? And what is the shape of the third cookie supposed to be exactly? An amputated cactus? Of course, the 4th cookie is a star, but that's so boring and cliche. A star cookie. I figure that what I need are new cookie cutters. I'll just run out to the local Walmart and pick some up... oh wait... can't! Because I'm in the freaking desert. The biggest store in town is so crammed full of food-stuff that there isn't enough room for a person holding a basket at their side, let alone accommodate a shopping cart. I doubt very highly that a shopping expedition in pursuit of some lovely cookie cutters will be anything close to a success. Maybe another care package will come my way. There is always hoping! (I'm smiling sweetly, can you see?)

I may have mentioned my anal-retentive ways in the kitchen when it comes to preparing meals and baked goods. I carefully measure the ingredients out, using a knife to level off the flour and such, and then make sure that every bit makes it into the bowl for mixing. When Lola says that she wants to help me, I have to mentally take a step back and tell myself that the important part is the memories that we are making and there will be plenty of time for perfect cookies or cake later in my life when Lola has a kitchen of her own. We had a great time decorating cookies together. The inside of my cheek was a little sore from biting back my comments and stress. The end result was a bit, um, well, stuck to the table. But Lola had the time of her life, deeming her creations the most beautiful in the world.
And I must agree with her. Through her mommy's eyes, these cookies rival Martha Stewart.

Need a Dictionary? Me Too.

2008-11-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

I really debated blogging today because I don't like to admit that there are difficult moments in my life. I pride myself on being the life of the party, making people laugh, and having a smile on my face. When I go through times that are less than desirable, my tendency is to retreat into myself and not talk about anything that is going on until after I feel that it's "over". Then after a lot of retrospection, I will have analyzed the situation down to a capsule of wisdom that I learned about myself and I will sound very wise and securely grounded in self-awareness. It's not that I don't want people to know that I've struggled, it's just that no one needs to know about the crazy that goes on before the self-awareness.

Yesterday was really awful. Generally, people will go through a period of remorse after purchasing a high-ticket item. I don't, so much. If I know that I can afford something, and I wait long enough to make sure that it's not just a passing feeling, when I buy it, I feel confident in what I bought. However, I go through severe remorse after an examination. I rethink everything that I did, stress over my mistakes, and, especially in the case of oral exams, I will rethink and restate my answers until I drive myself crazy. Yesterday was no different.

The written portion wasn't so difficult, which was expected. I am, admittedly, much stronger in the reading comprehension and written aspects of language than other skills like listening comprehension, even though I had to return to the test and redo part of the written section because I had misunderstood the instructions. Doh! Good thing the teacher was still in the other room, distracted by a student in an oral exam, so I was able to slip in and slip out without being detected, thus necessitating the need to explain that I'm even more stupid than previously suspected. The oral exam, though, was the most difficult and frustrating for me. Our teacher gave us a "review" and "highlighted" vocabulary, the majority of which didn't appear anywhere on the exam and there was nothing given for direction in the verbal section other than "it's all fair game". Well, for someone who has difficulty with retention anyway and struggling in conversational fluency, to be faced with the overwhelming task of being able to produce 200+ words was debilitating. Coupled with the fact that I have trouble thinking up good, intelligent answers or sentences on the spot in class when the pressure of performance isn't as high, it was pretty much guaranteed that I would not excel in this part of the exam. Sitting in front of the teacher as she asked me questions like, "What do you think is the biggest problem facing the world and why?" knowing that I was being marked on how relaxed I was, my fluency, grammar and use of new vocabulary was really stressful.

When I got home, I just kept thinking about the exam, my answers, how I felt it was an unfair expectation to be able to answer questions that had never been posed to me before - it's not like we had a written exercise in the past that I could access in my knowledge bank. It was all on the spot and I had better get all the grammar correct, along with feeling relaxed, speak quickly and use new vocabulary! The more I thought about it, the more upset I got. My husband, bless his heart, tried to offer sympathy, but it was really hard to hear it for what it was when I know he was posed more difficult questions, gave more detailed, highly intelligent and grammatically perfect answers on the spot. "Why can't I recall past vocabulary like you can?? Why is it so easy for you?" I screamed. Feeling the frustration rise and rise, I ripped my Arabic dictionary to shreds while crying, "I hate this language! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!"

Ever the example of poise, maturity and grace, that's what I am. Look to me as your role model. Sign up now and you'll get this free cheese slicer!

I'm ashamed at my reaction. I'm ashamed at my poor performance. I'm frustrated by my limitations. I'm sick of being compared and comparing myself to my husband, the ambitious overachiever with the photographic memory and barely audible accent.

I looked in the jar that is my life, and there is presently no capsule of wisdom from this experience. No self awareness, other than to say that I'm not my husband, nor will I ever be. I'm searching for a sense of significance that is fleeting, and the reality of me is constantly coming up short to the ideal me.

Mumilla Al Bakhee

2008-11-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

The joys of learning a new language in a formal education system is the regular accountability structure that has been developed through testing. I do think that some of our teachers glean a sick sense of pleasure from test day and watching their students squirm under the pressure of needing produce strange sounding words from their iceberg of knowledge. We did have one teacher openly giggle behind the stack of exams as she was about to hand them out. She wasn't very good at hiding her true feelings behind a stern, no-nonsense demeanor like other teachers.

Some of the words I'm required to produce on this test today:

country
continent
to be addicted to
addict
smuggle
tricky person
solution
pyramid
culture magazine

A part of me is wondering if there is a secret agenda and if I'm being programmed for some sort of devious work. I wonder if I get one of the words like "addict" wrong, can I make a case that I don't want to dabble in any work on the dark-side as my excuse for not having all my vocabulary nailed?

One thing that I enjoyed from this term was the creative story writing that we were assigned each week, using the new vocabulary that we had learned. I really struggle with coming up with a plot line. Even in class, when I'm called on to produce a sentence using a new word that we have just learned, there is often a long silence as I struggle to come up with the sentence itself. It isn't the Arabic grammatical construction that I struggle with, it's the sentence! Why do my ideas fail me under pressure in class? I have no idea. But my creativity is also dampened when I'm sitting at home, trying to come up with a storyline involving a list of vocabulary words. Once I came up with a plot line, I decided to stick with it from one vocabulary list to the next, creating a series of sorts, hoping that my teacher and classmates would be eager to hear each new installment. The heroine of my story was named "Mumilla Al Bakhee", directly translated "Boring The Leftovers". There is a history to this name, which is too long for this already lengthy post, but you can rest in the fact there is humour involved and much giggling (and maybe a little dying inside on my part).

Mumilla Al Bakhee

Once upon a time there was a girl named Mumilla Al Bakhee. Her grandmother lived in the forest, alone, and one day Mumilla Al Bakhee was walking through the forest to go to visit her. She was carrying a bag with juice and bread inside. There was a snake that also lived in the forest and he was addicted to drugs. When he saw Mumilla Al Bakhee walking in the forest, he thought she had drugs in her bag and he waited for her. Mumilla Al Bakhee sat in the grass to rest, and that is when the snake smuggled himself into her bag. When the snake saw that there were no drugs in her bag, just juice and bread, he became so angry that he died.

(end of installment #1)

When Mumilla Al Bakhee opened her bag to enjoy her juice and bread, she saw the snake and was very afraid. She began to beat the snake. Mumilla's grandmother was walking through the forest and heard Mumilla beating the snake. "No! This is snake abuse," her grandmother shouted! She insisted that her granddaughter repent of this great sin. Mumilla refused because the snake was dead before she began to beat him.

(end of installment #2)

Mumilla's grandmother thought her granddaughter was a murderess, and took her to prison. Telling the prison guard what she thought had happened, they threw Mumilla into jail. Mumilla Al Bakhee sat between the trees of the forest prison and read tabloid magazines. She cried every day, and the prison guard heard her crying. One day, he asked her what really happened. Mumilla told him about how the snake was already dead when she hit him, and the prison guard yelled, "You are innocent!" He released her from prison, and when the prison guard saw Mumilla outside of the prison, he fell in love with her. Mumilla, however, decided that she was going to go to Hollywood because she thought that life in Hollywood was better than in the forest because she had read the tabloid magazines. The prison guard decided to wait for her because "Love is Blind".

(end of installment #3)

Mumilla Al Bakhee arrived in Hollywood and saw that there were many malls everywhere. She went into one store and looked at the dresses. She asked the seller how much one dress was and he told her that it was $800! She asked, "Why is it so expensive?" He said, "It is a designer dress." Mumilla asked for a discount and the seller refused. He said that the price is the price. Mumilla began to cry and said, "Do you know who I am? I am Mumilla Al Bakhee! I am very famous in the forest." The seller replied, "When you step out from your door, you aren't as important as you think you are."

The End

Cutie Cutie

2008-11-15T05:00:00.000-08:00

Look at what Lola found in the garden!
Isn't he just the cutest thing you've ever laid your eyes on! It's the tiniest lizard I've ever seen! I wish we could have kept him and made him stay that size forever, but we were wise and let the little guy go free in the jungle that is our garden. I hope to see you again sometime, little guy! Have a great life!

Guava Gate: The Successful Edition

2008-11-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, my track record with the froo-its of our garden have been anything but stellar. I haven't had much experience as a farmer and so the habit of doing a walk-through of the garden for the purpose of picking fruit is something that I have to consciously schedule into my routine.

Two days ago, our landlord's son-in-law phoned to speak to my husband. He asked me, "Are there a lot of guava's?" My chest puffing with pride, I felt confident in answering since I had come inside from checking on the guavas just moments before the telephone rang. "There isn't much fruit out there," I answered, "I found only 4 or 5 today." He was puzzled by my answer and told me that we have to check on the fruit everyday or else the bats will eat all the fruit during the night. Yesterday, I mentioned my conversation with the landlord's son-in-law to my husband and asked, for clarification, "There is just one guava tree in the garden, right?" Laughing, my husband said, "No! There are like 5 or 6 trees!" Well, no wonder son-in-law was puzzled and concerned by my low fruit count. I requested a guided walking tour of the garden so that I would be able to recognize the guava fruit trees on my own in the future. All of a sudden, my eyes were opened to the fruit laden branches! There are guavas everywhere! I couldn't believe our wealth!

Look what I made!

Fresh Guava Juice!

Methinks the mango fiasco will not be repeated during the guava season. How jealous of me are you? A lot, right? I know! Because look at my life! I can make fresh guava juice from my very own fruit from my very own garden! Desert life isn't all sand and eye irritation. Sometimes, it's rather sweet.

Call Me Nurse Betty

2008-11-13T23:30:00.000-08:00

Sickness is never easy in any context, especially when you are a mother and you have to watch your child deal with discomfort and pain. In the desert, the stakes are a little higher because the medical system is not anywhere close to great so seemingly minor situations can deteriorate quickly into disaster and tragedy.

Earlier this year, one of Charlie's classmates, previously diagnosed with asthma, collapsed at school. The ailment was not clear, and even to the foreign doctors, the solution remained elusive. The situation spiraled downward at such a rapid rate that even though she had been evacuated from the country to receive medical attention elsewhere, it was too late. On Thursday, there was a healthy girl in our midst, brilliant and caring. By the following Tuesday, she was gone.

During the month of Ramadan, my neighbour's husband went into the hospital for a "minor procedure" as it was explained to him. He had cysts in or on his stomach (I'm not really sure what the issue was) and the extent of the surgery was supposed to be just a small 2-inch incision. When he awoke from the surgery, the incision was considerably larger than what he had expected from the surgeon's earlier explanation. Complications arose with infections, necessitating his wife to take on the role of nurse, learning how to administer injections and clean the wound at home. Multiple trips to the hospital were of no use, the complications were compounded by flesh that died and needed to be cut off! Finally, they left the country to seek medical help in a more reputable system. They have been there for over a month, trying to repair the damage that has been done by a supposed minor day surgery.

Another story I heard was of a girl that fell and broke her leg. The break was so severe that she needed surgery. The leg was not healing properly afterwards and she was experiencing uncommonly severe pain. Upon further inspection, they discovered that some gauze was mistakenly left behind in her leg, and the infection had spread so much that not only was her leg in danger but her life.

Sickness in my home country is not something that I take lightly, but it also doesn't carry the weight of potential devastation because there is a capable medical system that I can rely on.

This last week, Lola came down with a cold. A cold isn't a major deal. Many people are sick with colds and flus due to the weather changing from hot to cold (a shivery 16C - I need socks!), which is standard in all autumn seasons in every climate. One afternoon, Lola began to complain about her ears. "My ears hurt, Mommy," and by the evening she was crying from the pain. Not wanting to resort to antibiotics, and yet also wanting to find some sort of solution for her pain, I turned to the trusty internet searching for "natural remedies for earache pain." Sifting through the options that varied from "warm cloth held over the ear" to "drops of urine", I finally settled on a suggestion to crush garlic and soak in olive oil for a number of hours. Warm slightly and then drop a few drops of the oil into the affected ear and cover with a cotton ball. It was a long night. Lola was so uncomfortable and so desperate for sleep. Children's Tylenol only touched the pain temporarily, its pain relief effectiveness lifting long before it was safe for a new dosage. All I could do was hold Lola and cry along with her as I wore a path in the carpet from all my pacing. We ended up setting up camp in the living room in front of the television as the distraction of cartoons lulled her long enough for the safe, healing hands of sleep to grip her. She didn't sleep for long stretches of time, and for a mother's heart, it was agonizing to see her face pained by the desperation for sleep and her body trying to squirm away from the pain in her ears.

I do have faith in a power unseen whom I can pester with my pleas and I believe that God hears me. I'm not going to lie to you, though, I was scared. With so little in my arsenal against this earache, I was powerless. What if things turned from the seemingly minor to something major? Would I wake in the morning to a burst ear drum, or damaged hear loss and wish that I had just gone the route of the antibiotics? Would I have to live with what-ifs?

The next morning was still rough as Lola and I were both living with the effects of a tearful all-nighter. As I pulled the cotton puff out of her ear to add another few drops of warm garlic oil, I saw a large mass of yucky (yes, that is a medical term) stuck to the cotton. The infection was working its way out! We were still working our way up the hill to recovery, but I was confident that it wasn't a slippery slope.

At this moment, Lola is gleefully running around the living room playing her brother's harmonica as accompaniment to her children's music cd. The healing has taken place, in part to garlic oil and many a tearful petition heavenward. I am thankful that this time, the sickness has passed without complications. My heart aches for those families I know that have been touched by complications and death for things that wouldn't even be an issue in our home country. I'm humbled to dependence and a state of trust knowing that there is a real potential for a spiral out of control, aware that my arsenal is so very limited. I pray that the next time our family is touched by sickness, again we can be thankful for finding our way through to health.

T.G.I.W

2008-11-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

The Holy day in the desert is Friday. This, of course, has implications on the days of the week that become our weekend. When we first moved here, I woke Charlie up in the morning to get ready for his first day in his new school, "But it's Saturday!" Charlie protested. Our first day of the work/school week is Saturday, moving on to Sunday and then through to Wednesday. Instead of saying TGIF, I shout, "TGIW!" It just doesn't have the same ring to it, and Monday is hump day. After a number of months, I have gotten used to Thursday and Friday being my weekend. However, I still get mixed up and refer to Wednesday as Friday in conversation, which can have disastrous consequences when making plans with friends. Thankfully, people are used to this mix-up from all the foreigners and so make sure to clarify exactly which day we are meaning.

I said all that to say, "I'm going away for the weekend!" It's Wednesday today! While we were in Thailand some of our classmates went to a coastal town not far from here and had a very enjoyable time. We haven't seen much beyond the main highway, so we are ready to take in some more of the sights of the country. From what I've heard, there are bungalows not far from the beach and the area is isolated, meaning that we can be free to swim without worry (not that I'm worried about modesty, clearly). I've also heard that the food is really good and large portions. We've bought fruit and snacks to take along. Charlie's excitement for the trip was clear when he directed our attention to the special items from home that he had folded and packed carefully. He wanted to make sure that we didn't forget them.

This morning, we are skipping school to host a pancake eating party while watching the election results and then leave early to the beachside. I have the TV on right now, and the election has already been called. McCain called to concede the victory to Obama. Our friends haven't even arrived and the griddle isn't even heated up yet. Oh well.

Happy Weekend to me! Happy Hump Day to you!

Happy Barack Obama Day!

2008-11-04T02:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not stating my political affiliations since I'm not an American, myself, and my opinions don't really hold any chance of affecting the election outcome. However, it seems obvious to me from the international opinion who seems to be the stronger candidate.

If you are American on American soil, adopt my political philosophy, "Vote! If you don't, you won't have any right to complain later."

Happy Barack Obama Day!

Got Bugs?

2008-11-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

The desert isn't a place for the squeamish. If just looking at the above picture makes you begin to shake and have to explain away vomit stains on your shirt later, then you should definitely not move here. I would even go as far as questioning the wisdom in coming for a visit. Admittedly, we don't see many of these fellows very often. They are nocturnal creatures, only venturing out when the sun has hidden itself, and we don't make a habit of wandering around our garden after dark. Occasionally, though, necessity causes us - read: husband - to put on our brave faces and risk a brush with potential death.

Some may think me dramatic, but the little/big guy above has enough poison to land little Lola in the hospital and cause adults much more than discomfort.

One to take care of his family, my husband was outside after dark, hanging laundry. Under the cover of night, it's possible for him to do domestic work without damaging his manly reputation. Looking down at his feet, he noticed a millipede and then suddenly a centipede shot out from behind a rock and attacked the millipede. Curling up into a ball for protection, the millipede was safe for the time being, but how long can a relatively defenseless creature withstand poison when curling is its only counter measure? I have always hated millipedes, and once I get the courage to break away from my fit of screaming and convulsing to reach for my camera, I will post a picture of one of our very own. If I was in my husbands shoes, I would have screamed and ran inside to my own personal protection. Deathly afraid of spiders, my husband actually loves millipedes and when he saw that the millipede was under attack, he grabbed a broom and used the handle to smash in the centipede's head. The millipede could live another day.

Two days later, the centipede, even though its head had been completely removed by ants, was still moving instinctively when we poked it with a stick. As I stood off to the side, paralyzed with fear, Blessing picked up the centipede using a plastic bag and unceremoniously dropped it into the trash.

Some people, and creatures, are stronger than others. The intense environment of the desert only magnifies the weakness.

Shh! Don't Tell Mom!

2008-11-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

Growing up, one of my chores, along with the monthly fridge clear out and washing, was washing the dishes. I was responsible for the actual washing while my younger sister was the one stuck with drying and putting away. Looking back, I can see that it was this very chore that concretely established my competitive nature. It may not have birthed this character flaw, but it certainly was an enabler, and has influenced the way that I go about washing dishes to this very day. I could not STAND it when my sister had nothing in the drip tray. As the dish-dryer, all my sister had to do was keep up with what I placed in the drip tray after doing the final step of rinsing. At first, the steady flow of cups and plates and bowls was enough to keep her busy. However, once those pots and pans hit, the ones needing elbow grease deep scrubbing, my blood would boil when my sister not only caught up with everything needing drying, but she had the audacity to stand and wait! That meant, in my mind, that she was getting a break! How dare she? I had been working just a long as she had, if not longer because she had nothing to dry until I had washed those first few glasses, and now, at the height of my physical labour, as I'm sweating through the scrubbing and the heat of the water and bubbles, I'm also slapped in the face by my younger sister getting the easier end of the job! She got a break! And it's not like she went somewhere else so that it was an "out of sight out of mind" concept, but she was arrogant enough to stay right there and lean against counter waiting ever so patiently for me to get on with bringing her more dishes to dry. Of course, by the time the pot was scrubbed spotless, the amount of time that it took to dry the pot was minuscule in comparison to the amount of time it took to return it to pristine condition. Not a bead of sweat decorated that sweet, young forehead of hers. Theories and justifications flooded my mind. There are always those moments at the end of dish washing when the one who is drying is finishing up the final few dishes and the one who was washing can stand back and savour a job well done. In fact, no, that is not what happens because the dishwasher's job is not fully complete until the sink is rid of all bubbly foam, rinsed clean and wiped dry, including the outside edges, the taps, the back-splash and the basin. After months of standing side by side, I devised a plan of strategy to slow my sister down from the beginning: cutlery. If I started with the cutlery, which are, admittedly, not too difficult to wash and yet naturally meticulous: dry one, put away, dry another, put away, dry another, put away, and so on - I could gain a substantial lead! My plan succeeded and I felt a rush of adrenaline when after I had finished all the cutlery, the drip tray began to pile high with glasses and cups as my sister struggled to keep up with how fast I was pulling ahead in the chore race.

An objective observer may wonder where the dishwasher, as in the machine, was in our house and I honestly can't remember if we had one all that time and my mom was trying to instill responsibility into our characters or if there really was no dishwasher at that time. I do know that at some point a dishwasher did appear. However, the value of washing dishes myself is one that I'm glad my parents insisted I grab a hold of because other than the 6 months in our first-owned home before we moved to Europe, I have never had a dishwasher in my home and have had to rely on the very hands that are typing these words to provide clean dishes, cutlery and pots and pans for my family to use.

Now that I'm in school full time, I find that I fall behind very quickly on the very basics of housework and early on in my return to school I quickly spiralled down into a wonderfully emotional breakdown. It was at this point that my husband said the wise words, "You can't do it all yourself. We need help." In actuality, we got more than help. We got a blessing. I sing her praises every time I step through the door for not only are the dishes done, but the ironing is completed upon request, beds are made, toys are tidied, tables are wiped clean, surfaces dusted, bathrooms cleaned, floors are mopped and carpets are vacuumed. On Wednesday, Blessing said to me, "I want to make you lunch on Saturday. Okay? And invite your friends." We were so excited! A homemade ethnic meal and she did not disappoint! I had enjoyed a similar meal with a friend back in my home country about 2 years ago, and while the tastes were close there was really no comparison. DeeeLish! So, not only was my house clean but lunch was waiting when we got home. I felt like a spoiled princess!

Just to give you an idea what a blessing Blessing is to me, take a look at Exhibit A:

Dishes piled high from the weekend

Now take into account Exhibit B:

The magically transformed kitchen upon my return

My favourite thing that Blessing does - slapping the Ziploc bags on the wall to dry

I really could not keep up on everything with school, social obligations, family obligations, internet obligations (hello, friends!), important TV watching (if I could only figure out when Moment of Truth airs, I'd be a happy camper), vocabulary memorization (ha!) and treadmill running if I didn't have Blessing in my life doing things that return to me moments and hours so that I can relax with my family rather than trying to grab hugs and kisses while I'm scrubbing and sweating over the toilet bowl.

I do, however, miss washing dishes. When Blessing started working for us, I was overcome with guilt and a crisis of identity. I had always been the one to do our house work and I enjoyed the feeling of pride and accomplishment when I stood back to survey the clean house that was clean because of the work of my hands. My husband tried to alleviate my guilt with his words, but his voice was just not as loud as the tape recorder in my head that was shouting that there must be something wrong with me if I can't keep up with it all. I'd sneak into the kitchen in the evening and wash up the pots and pans. Catching me in the act, my husband would scowl and say, "What are you doing? You are taking work away from Blessing!" I would guiltily respond, "I'm just doing the hard ones so that there aren't so many for her." Catching me for the umpteenth time up to my elbows in bubbles, my husband threatened, "Fine. I'm going to stop paying Blessing if you are just going to keep doing her work. We pay her so that you don't have to do it." But his words met no success in breaking through. It wasn't until I had succumbed to the temptation to do all the dishes one evening rather than kicking back and relaxing after finishing my studying, and was met with dismay and disappointment from Blessing when she arrived the next morning. Later, I learned, that having done the dishes, I was communicating that I didn't think she was doing a good job and decided to do it myself. By no means did I want to communicate that! But how do I bring resolution to this guilt I'm feeling and wanting to honour someone's hard work? For me, time has been a great healer. I have just had to get used to allowing someone else to help me where I was previously ferociously independent and self sufficient. I've had to let go. I pray that I will never become numb to this feeling of thankfulness.

Thank you, Blessing, for blessing me and my family. Please don't tell my mom that I don't do my own dishes!

Where's the Beef?

2008-11-01T06:20:00.000-07:00

Spontaneous love-bloggery right here.**

This is a conversation that Charlie and I just had 5 minutes ago:

Me: Charlie? Are you watching Rachael Ray cook?

Charlie: Yes! I want to learn how to cook, too. I don't want to always have to need you to cook, I want to learn for myself!

((pause))

Charlie: Anyways, where do we get steak?

My question, exactly, Charlie. You've now entered into the seventh circle of hell: watching a cooking show and knowing full well that half of the called-for ingredients are not available where you live. Including steak.

** 100 points to the person who can tell me which movie this near-quote is from. I'm not sure what the points will be towards, but maybe this is the beginning of a game! Wee! I love games!

Soap Stings Exposed Flesh

2008-10-31T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm thirty-three years old with a lot of experience under my belt (and a fat roll) but I never thought this could happen to me. I thought I was beyond it, frankly, but I guess an old girl can still have first-times.

I have a blister on my hand. Much to a certain man's dismay, it's not from what you might think. In fact, it's from something that is a dirty little secret of mine.

I play video games.

This weekend, after a year of hiatus, I dug out a game that I had nearly completed. Only one blasted race remained and dang it! if I couldn't get that stinkin' Darius to bow down and call me queen. As I set up the gaming device, I was determined to make him submit to me, vehicularly speaking. After three hours - I didn't believe husband at first that I had played for so long until he reminded me that he had watched an entire movie and an episode of Law and Order - I finally claimed victory. I must say, it felt great to watch the cut-to-movie clip when that punk kid who had framed me for stealing money and then rubbed my face in it by telling me he had used that money to buy things that I couldn't for the girl that he stole from me, hand over his keys and admit that I OWNED him. Own-Ed. And I got the girl back, too.

No victory goes unpunished, and I now sport a shiny, red circle on my left index finger as a war trophy. Darius has been defeated and the Spiderflies reign in video-racing land. Hmh. Spiderflies. What sort of racing-gang name is that? The year ago me was so lame.

My blister. Yes, that is a sexy, red nightie in the background. I told you already, I'm struggling with modesty.

Tea Party

2008-10-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Two classmates and I planned a ladies' tea party on Wednesday afternoon (the desert-equivalent of a Friday night) for the new students that started their Arabic-learning journey 6 weeks ago and our tireless teachers. Sharing the load, the three of us offered an amazing spread of eats and treats: homemade mini-pizzas, oat cake with a cream cheese icing, tea sandwiches British-style (cucumber; walnut/cream cheese; salmon), chocolate cookies, nanaimo bars, swedish thumbprint cookies with passion fruit jelly, fruit salsa with homemade cinnamon pita chips along with 2 types of tea (sweet mint and spiced tea with milk) and freshly ground, strong coffee. Of course, we also served fruit juice upon our honoured guests' arrival.

For about an hour and a half, there was a lot of great conversation and laughter filling the room. As the energy began to wane just a bit, I knew the time had come to break out the video equipment and break out the "Luscious Belly Dancing" dvd! Oh yes! We learned to belly dance! At first, it was just me trying to keep up with the girl on the screen while sending the other girls in the room into fits of laughter. Thankfully, one other girl took pity on my pitiful attempts and joined me to offer me some much-needed moral support and coaching. She's from a Latino culture, which means that she was born with the necessary hip-popping skills and is able to defy all logic with her body movements - all the while making it look effortless. Two of our teachers joined the coaching (I needed a LOT of help) and then a flood of willing participants chose to brave their own personal humiliation, women trying their hips at belly dancing. If only the hidden cameras that my husband threatened to have installed had actually existed. I would have GREAT blackmailing footage, but, alas, the events live on in our memories only. One thing is for certain, a desire to practice and learn more belly dancing moves has been birthed in many a skittish heart.

The next day, I did the "my mom is Martha Stewart" thing and baked sugar cookies with Charlie and Lola. Their interest lapsed about 1/3 of the way through the batch, which was welcomed by this perfectionist heart. It's really hard for me to "let go" in the baking department and really let my kids enjoy their baking experience. I'm really anal when it comes to baking - carefully measuring each ingredient, using a knife to level off the flour - so when Lola dumps the dry ingredients a little too quickly and some of it lands on the counter rather than in the bowl, I literally bite the inside of my cheek and chant internally "It's about the moment, It's about the moment, It's about the moment."

Friday afternoon, Charlie and Lola each made a selection from among the food colourings. Lola chose purple (of course!), Charlie chose orange, and I chose yellow. They oohed and ahhed over the changing colours of their icing. If you ever want your kids to think that you are truly magical, have them watch you mix in food colouring. Eternally, I am a wizard in the eyes of my children.

The results were not Martha worthy, but they weren't destined for a magazine shoot either. Instead, we staged another tea party. Much more low key this time, with a smaller menu and only one type of tea (spiced with milk), but just as sweet with only our family.

Just A Day At The Beach

2008-10-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, we fell into the most amazing schedule of eating, lounging, swimming, enjoying massages (only $12/hour at a reputable place with NO "happy endings" offered), and hanging out at the beach. Charlie and Lola couldn't decide which they liked better, the beach or the pool. Both were equally as fun and different enough to have their own individual appeal. At the pool, we had water "sploosh" balls to throw at each other, trying as hard as we could to hit each other's faces. We were delighted to realize that these balls could be skipped like flat rocks on the surface of a lake. Naturally, a family competition began to see who could skip the balls across to the length of the pool. At the beach, Lola spent most of her time dealing with sand relocation.

I spent most of my time reading. My nose was constantly in a book, much to my husband's dismay as he didn't have any books so he was forced to interact with the family while I disengaged into the lives of fictional characters. "Completely luxurious" is my description of the ability to experience the joy of reading without interruption. Of course, I did manage to peel my ever-expanding back-side off of my lounge chair to actually play with my kids. Charlie and I love jumping through waves. As luck would have it, Charlie got stung by a jelly fish while he was standing right beside me. I didn't get touched at all. This picture was taken just after he had collapsed and clung to me from the pain and I was heroically taking him back into shore:

That's heroics in action right there, that's what that is.

As the welts began to swell on Charlie's feet, his daddy talked to a local person working at a nearby massage shack. She called over another guy who came up with a jerry can of some sort of clear, magical liquid and a handful of green leaves. Dousing Charlie's feet with the liquid, the man then crushed the leaves with his hands and placed them over the welts. He instructed us to leave them in place for 15 minutes and assured us that by the next day, Charlie would be as good as new.

This man's word was not rooted merely in hopeful whimsy, he knew what he was talking about. Within 15 minutes, Charlie was feeling much better, the stinging pain alleviated somewhat and by the next day he was ready to return to the beach, albeit tentative to enter the waters again for fear of meeting up again with a jellyfish.

I had never considered myself a beach person before but Phuket has definitely left me a changed woman. I will always remember my time there fondly. The people were warm and friendly, especially thrilled at the sight of children. The food was delicious and fresh. The weather was splendidly humid, leaving my skin soft and smooth. I will definitely be escaping mentally to this scene many times in the months to come:

Goodbye, Phuket. God willing, our paths will cross again.

Sucker Tourist

2008-10-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure when the ultimate destination sees my name on the arrival's list they pull out all the stops because the memo has made its rounds: A sucker is on the way!

During our drive from the airport to the hotel, the large billboards trumpeting the existence of the FantaSea show could not be ignored. "If you miss FantaSea, You miss Phuket" it shouted. I turned to my husband and said, "I didn't come all the way to Phuket only to miss it." I'm pretty sure he deflated just a little bit at that comment. There is no way to save me.

Always aware of what we were talking about in hopes of making another quick buck, our taxi driver offered to book our tickets for us at a discount of the advertised price, because he would then be qualified to receive a commission. I'm not sure how that works, exactly, we pay less than the listed price and our taxi driver makes money and, of course, the show makes money. Somehow, it didn't matter what discount I got, I still felt ripped off.

But it's a holiday! And we are only here once! I can't miss Phuket!

The show ended up being so much more than we expected. Everything was painted in faux-gold and made to be as shiny and colourful as possible. There were elephant rides (for a price) and fountains and fish and carnival games and a zoo exhibit. This was all before we stepped in the theater and the show began! Shopping, of course, was available at astronomically inflated prices if you chose to afford it and if you could fight the inner, debilitating fear from the creepiest mannequins ever:

If anyone could cure a shopaholic:

"Buy this shirt! Be like me! You will look as cool as I do! That's what you want, isn't it? It's EVERYONE'S goal! To look like me! And be HAPPEEEE!"

You should accept the slightly veiled lesson offered by this mannequin. None of the tourist trap apparel looks as cool outside of the park as inside the park. As soon as that piece of clothing is taken off the park grounds, the Joker spell wears off and all you are left with is a cheap bit of cloth with a cheap ironed-on, flashy font for which you paid WAY too much. That goes for you, too, lady-who-was-in-the-airport-wearing-the-"cowboy"-straw-hat-with-"Bali"-stitched-on-the-front. It doesn't look as cool in air conditioning as it did on the beach.

There is a time to be a sucker and times to nail the sucker punch.

Coconut Surprised!

2008-10-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

Our favourite eating spot was at a place called Preeda Kitchen not too far down the beach from the hotel. Modest in appearance, they boasted a family-friendly atmosphere complete with their own children running around and a handy "crib" where you could confine your rambunctious toddler for a few minutes of peaceful eating. The food was substantial in quantity and very delicious, with the added bonus of being about 1/2 the price of the hotel cafes. My husband actually had some meetings for our first few days in Phuket (our legitimate reason for going, but we extended our stay for some relaxation) but once those were over and everyone we knew had cleared out, our family fell into a glorious routine of waking up late, having a big breakfast at the buffet, moving to the pool, taking turns watching the kids so the other could go for a massage, having a nap, going to the beach, and then eating dinner on the beach.

Our biggest regret was discovering this mango drink too close to our departure day:

I didn't drink nearly enough of these glasses of goodness.

Traditionally, if a restaurant is good and wants to honour its patrons, they serve fresh fruit at the end of the meal, free of charge. (Again, don't talk to me about how the cost of the fruit is actually hidden in the cost of the meals. I don't want to hear it. I got something that I like without having to ask for it and there isn't an extra line item on my bill. I'm happy in my delusion. Leave me there.)

One of my favourite things in the world is to read menus written in English by someone who doesn't always get everything exactly right. There was a time when it really bugged me and I wanted to offer my services to edit and correct menu mistakes, but I've since matured and grown to love the errors. My time in Phuket just wouldn't have been the same if this menu item had been stated any differently:

And you know that I had to order one!

I usually love surprised! But I had no idea that my surprised face looked so stupid. I think the coconut was as surprised as I. Surprised! The person consuming you doesn't actually have an IQ! This is the first case in human history where someone scored in the negatives.

That poor coconut. All it had wished for in life was to be enjoyed by someone who could at least have the appearance of being able to wipe his/her own butt. Maybe next time, coconut surprised, maybe next time.

For the remainder of our trip, I did not once feel the rumblings of hunger. Instead, I relied on my watch to tell me when the appropriate times were to eat, regardless of the cues my body was telling. In fact, I once punched myself in the stomach to get the message across to my body that there's a new boss in town and I'll eat whenever I @%&$ well please!

I've Got Mail

2008-10-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

In honour of my birthday at the end of August and our genetic predisposition to procrastination, my father mailed me a package on October 8th that had been given to him about a month previously. Knowing that S (my dad's wife) had intended that the package had been mailed already, I was worried that it had been lost in the mail and wrote to her about it. Investigating further, she found out that although she had given my dad the package weeks before, it was still in his possession. In this case, I can shoot the messenger because he delayed my gratification! I was told that even though it was really late, the contents of this package would be well worth the wait. Unlike free prizes at the mall, these words didn't set me up for a let down!

Contents:

Two People magazines, just to ensure that I will not be getting any smarter this year. Exactly what I need!

Fruit-to-Go, which is for Charlie and Lola, I imagine, but I'm willing to share generously.

A CD with pictures of nature taken by my dad! Not only will I have pictures in my house of my home country in all its beauty, but it's my dad's perspective. Two very special aspects.

And the best part:

Fake eyelashes embellished with shiny! I was just invited to a wedding next week, so these beauties arrived just in time! Definitely suitable. Definitely romantic. They are perfectly over the top and I'll be the belle of the ball - apart from the bride, of course, I don't want to steal from her day!

Thank you, Dad and S. Receiving a care package today was the best feeling ever. I love you!

P.S. This is my second post for today (I know, two! I'm shocked as well!) because this package was just too good to not post about plus it was a surprise. Don't forget to click on "older posts" to check out the earlier post from today. Package for me = everyone wins!

Arrival

2008-10-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

This was the view from the plane as we approached Phuket:

Yes, I am one of those cheesy tourists, snapping pictures from the plane window. So what? Look how green it is! I couldn't help myself! There is no sand to be seen except where it's supposed to be - next to a body of water! It was gorgeous.

I thought this island was so cute, and probably overlooked much of the time because it's grandeur doesn't quite match it's surroundings. I wanted to honour its existance. "Hello, cute island! I would live on you!"

And this scene is what started the tears as we drove from the airport to the hotel:

Do you see how green it is? And filler green! The nature was so thick with greenery in places that there was no way of seeing through it. We have green in the desert, but it's not the same. We have trees that have a few desperate leaves of pallor green that are straining to stay alive. Vainly holding on to any bit of health, they are beaten by the merciless heat, barage of dust, and lack of water. To drive by plants that were not only alive, but thriving and lush was much too emotional of an experience for me. It's in overwhelmingly happy moments like this that I step back mentally from the situation and take special note of the blessing that is at hand. Often, I will say to myself, knowing that there is more to come, "Even if this was all there was to my trip/experience, I would be happy." I try to live in the moment and let the joy of it wash over me and take presidence over anything else. No pressing matter, future schedule, hopeful wishes or even promise of chocolate can break my grasp on that particular experience. I must FEEL it and make it mine forever. I felt the nature. I felt its effect on me and I'll be escaping to that moment at least 300 times in the next months.

At this point in the trip, I was still behaving myself in the dietary sense: listening to my body and avoiding as many carbs as possible because they just didn't make me "feel good." As a matter of fact, I had sent the flight attendant into a spiral of confusion when I refused the dinner and only wanted a glass of water. "You don't want to eat?" "No, thank you, I've eaten a lot already, thank you."

Things were about to change.

How to Use Me

2008-10-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Shopping in the airport is always entertaining. Even if I don't buy anything, I can always find some sort of eye candy to satisfy my entertainment appetite until my next flight takes off. This time around, I was spoiled with a perfume purchase, which qualified me for a free gift! I like presents! I'm such a sucker for the "surprise" gifts, which I inevitably build up in my mind to be much more than they realistically could be (a perfume sample? some lotion? Oh! A necklace? A car? A house!) and then I'm disappointed when all I get is a leather, magic wallet.

Yep, that was my free gift. A magic wallet. What a freakin' let down. So glad I shopped in KLIA.*

My favourite part of the wallet was the handy instructional paper:

I would hate to tell you how you can use me. *snigger*

*In actuality, I really enjoyed the Kuala Lampur airport. There was plenty of shopping, cafes and even a short-term hotel where you could rent a room for 6-hour blocks rather than for a whole night. Perfect for those awkwardly long layovers that are long enough to be uncomfortable in the terminal but not long enough to warrant a trip to a hotel.

Hotel Layover

2008-10-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

I love hotels. I know there are people out there who are grossed out by hotel rooms because there have been some outlandish documentaries showcasing people going into the rooms with CSI-like black lights and showing all the mysterious stains on the bed covers and such. I prefer to ignore what I can't see, plus, most hotels we have stayed in remove the decorative bed covers and use the sheet-like blanket covers that can be removed and laundered.

While some would use the black light to rate the hotel room, I use a different method. I walk into the room, throw my bags down, take a quick glance around the room and then flick on the bathroom light. I have stayed in a number of hotels in my lifetime and no matter the nightly rate, the room layout is generally the same, or at least the contents of the room: bed - check!, desk - check!, television - check! It's all pretty standard, even if it is a higher class room with a sitting area, the room doesn't usually impress me much. But the bathroom! That is a different story. I always inspect the bathroom first and save my "This is a nice room!" exclamations until I have done so. There have been some bathrooms that have been much less than appealing, causing me to sleep fully clothed, with jacket, shoes and shower cap in fear of catching something because if the bathroom is THAT bad? WHAT, pray tell, is on the sheets?

When we stayed in Malaysia overnight, we were escorted from the arrival terminal to our hotel, and, of course, upon entering the room I commenced with my ritual: throw bags down, flick on the bathroom light, inspect and then exclaim, "This is nice!" I was delighted to find some salon-esque toiletries. The organic box packaging lined along the shelves made me feel like I was helping myself to an array of goodies from a store for FREE!

After my bathroom inspection ritual, I took on the next task at hand that is on my "settling in" to-do list and perused through the hotels folder of services. I was delighted to see that there was a salon in the hotel that offered eyebrow shaping for a decent price. Seeing as my eyebrows had taken on a life of their own and were even required to produce their own passport at customs, I figured it was time to take some action. I quickly made an appointment, which to my delight was only 15 minutes from when I phoned. I love the low season.

As I was about to leave for my appointment, I began to look through our pile of luggage for my purse. Another delight of being in an airport is being able to use my visa card. In the desert, we can only deal in cash (the biggest bill being the equivalent of $5, our car purchase made us feel a bit like 50-cent or P-Diddy laying down a deal, yo, with our suitcase of money). Each time I make a purchase in the desert, I lament the fact that I'm losing precious Visa points to redeem at a later time for wonderfully free things. (Don't start preaching to me about how these benefits aren't really free. I prefer to live happy. Plus, we don't carry a balance, so the credit card company doesn't make ridiculous amounts of money on us in late or interest charges, so in that sense, YES, the benefits ARE free. For me. Someone else is paying for my free plane tickets through their late and/or interest payments. And if you are that person, "Thank you.") I looked next to the large suitcase for my purse. I then moved to the other side of the room where the two smaller suitcases were standing, no purse. I went back to the large suitcase and searched above it, behind it, below it, inside it. No purse. "Where is my purse?" and then that dreadful, sinking, awful feeling set in. The "I'm about to pee out my actual stomach and colon" feeling. I must have forgot it on the plane! But, no, that can't be because I distinctly remember feeling it under my arm as we were dealing with the kids and waiting for our luggage, and then I went to the bathroom where I... set it on the shelf behind the toilet... and... OH MY GOSH! I forgot my purse in the luggage claim bathroom in an INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT! Of course, I did the rational thing and immediately crumpled to the floor in a flood of tears and full-body convulsions. Charlie and Lola gathered around me and assured me that they would take care of me while my husband called down to the desk and arranged for someone on the other side of security to check if my purse was still in the bathroom. Calmly and kindly, my husband informed me that he had removed all my identification (driver's licence, marriage certificate, and birth certificate) BEFORE we left on our trip so it was really just my visa card that was missing. But my WALLET! I love my wallet! It was a gift from a friend, a very special friend and I think of her every time I pull my wallet out of my purse and see the pretty ballerinas dancing upon their blue background. Also, my PURSE! I loved that purse. It was beautiful. And mine.

Reluctantly, I shoved some cash into my pocket and made my way to the appointment I had made, tears still lingering in the corners of my eyes. I tried to make myself look as pathetically hopeless as possible as I walked through the lobby, but nobody paid me any mind, much less asked what my drama was all about. As I entered the salon, the telephone rang and the receptionist handed it to me. My husband was calling! They had found my purse! In tact! Exactly where I had left it! Nothing missing! To be delivered in 30 minutes! I was as light as air! The burden and fear had lifted. I could have flown like a bird! Too bad the Malaysian girl that was waxing my eyebrows had to ruin it all by saying, "You are very hairy."

Travel Tips Not Included In Lonely Planet

2008-10-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

There are some things in life that one would assume don't need instructions, for instance, straws or window drapes, breakfast cereal or toilets.

On the rare occasion I'm wrong and I stand (or squat) corrected:

This misunderstanding of toilet etiquette would probably explain why I experienced the very unfortunate and cringe-worthy "wet bum" after using the relief facilities on the plane while traveling to Malaysia. Why this sign could not become an international phenomenon, I have no idea, but I may just take it upon myself to print out this picture and install it in several airplane restrooms.

Another necessary note follows:

Dear Large Lady,

While the aisle is a spacious and convenient place for you to stand, please, in the future, refrain from standing just as someone is approaching to return to their seat, especially if you made eye contact with this person and have made it obvious that you know he/she exists. Also, while essentially behaving as a live-barricade of said airline aisle, please don't go through your carry on luggage, pull out a stack of papers and s---l---o---w---------l----y peruse through each one. I'm sure your eyes work just as well when your keester is mashed into that economy seat of yours.

Thank you,

White Girl

And one more open letter for good measure.

Dear Rude Man,

Complaining loudly that the airline staff did exactly what you wanted and you still aren't happy isn't going to get you a free upgrade to a first class seat. If you want a first class seat that badly and you prefer to be immeasurably picky, purchase a first class ticket ahead of time and save us all the trouble of listening to your pitiful rant.

Dear Rude Man's Wife,

After your husband has started on his illogical tirade against the airline staff for doing exactly what he wanted in the first place, please do not bring an innocent 3 year old into the mix, loudly declaring that, "The baby will cry for the entire flight!" If you had paid closer attention, you would have seen that the child was passed out from exhaustion and was not heard from until 5 hours into the flight and was distracted without as much of a whimper from that point on by cartoons. It is also an interesting point to note that when you had been offered new seats in the first place, you sat in them for a full 15 minutes with no complaint about being seated in front of a child.

On second thought, if you were referring to your husband when you made the statement, "The baby will cry for the entire flight," then I apologize for my sensitivity and applaud your candor.

Thank you for flying "I love to kiss your big butt, is my nose brown enough for you?" airlines.

There are No Words

2008-10-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

The neighbour boy just saw me in my underwear!

Oh yes, you read that correctly! In. My. UNDERWEAR!

We have a bit of chaos going around our house at the moment because our landlord thought that a great way to welcome us back home from a wonderfully relaxing trip (that I still have to write multiple posts about because OMG! awesome) is to invite a jackhammer into our yard for two days in order to prep the front yard for a new driveway. While I appreciate the thought of a new driveway without rocks and gravel, I don't appreciate the far-from-musical sounds of the jackhammer being a constant part of my day from 7 a.m. onwards.

Charlie and Lola have been invited to a birthday party this afternoon, and I was getting myself ready for the affair when I stepped out of the bathroom wearing only my bra and underwear. Hurrying to leave the bathroom and slip into my bedroom undetected by my 7 year old son, I ws surprised to see a boy of very different origins standing in my son's doorway down the hall. I froze. He froze. We both took on looks of shock and grimace. I ran into my room and called for my husband.

"You didn't tell me that Little Joe was here!" I breathed through clenched teeth.

"I thought you knew! Charlie said to me earlier, 'Little Joe' here' and I thought that you had agreed to let him come over since I wasn't part of that conversation." Due to the jackhammer dominating all other sound travel in the house, there was no way for me to have overheard any such conversation as a warning.

Later, I talked to Charlie, "Charlie. You HAVE to tell me when your friends come over so that I know they are here. Little Joe saw me wearing just my underwear!"

"Well, then, you knew he was here because you saw him," Charlie reasoned.

"I didn't know he was here! That's why I was in my underwear. If I had known he was here I wouldn't have wandered around like that!"

"Ohhhh" came the classic 7 year old response.

I can just imagine what sorts of conversations are going on at his house now. This definitely tops my previous cuticle-ripping embarrassing moment when I sat down to a conference call thinking that it had not yet started and exclaiming, "This place is a frickin' mess!" only to discover that we were already being broadcast over speaker phone. Lovely.

Somebody asked me the other day how I'm readjusting to life in the covering now that I've had a sunny holiday without having to worry about extreme modesty. I guess my answer is, "Not that well."

Checking In

2008-10-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is, literally, the first time I've had access to the internet since I left the desert 2 weeks ago. It's not like I was sitting in a tropical paradise, enjoying the spoils of the land, the beach, and the leisurely pace all while purposely ignoring my responsibilities to provide juicy insights into my life. Don't get me wrong, I WAS sitting in a tropical paradise and I WAS enjoying the spoils of the land, frequenting the beach everyday and delighting in the leisurely pace. I drank in my new-again freedoms: hair free, flaunting my white body for all to see (or shield their eyes from), and eating bacon every morning for breakfast. I also read 3 whole books. From start to finish! It was lovely.

I thought of my blog often, and I have several posts written in my mind. I just need to get home to my computer, dump the photos from my camera, and get on top of updating again.

At the moment, we are in a lounge at the airport in Malaysia. The time is 2:20 a.m. I have had 3 cups of coffee. Charlie is passed out on a couple of chairs that we pushed together. Lola, hopefully, has also joined him in blissful slumber. She'd better be sleeping since she pilfered away my towel that was keeping me warm. I'm freaking freezing!

Our next flight should be boarding in about an hour and the flight will last for many hours. Then we get to stay in the next airport for TEN hours! Can we say, "What a great end to a wonderful trip?" Anyone?

Not likely. And I can't feel my fingers.

Bad Test Day

2008-09-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

My last week or so has been overwhelmed with Arabic words, and I've had my nose stuck in books all these days. I rotate my books - Arabic for a bit of studying and then I read an English book to give my mind a break and then back to the Arabic. Our current term technically doesn't finish until Wednesday, but we are taking off a bit early for a trip outside of the country. My husband has some meetings with his company and I have a number of appointments lined up with the beach and the bar. I'm only half joking. You can choose which half.

So instead of having a leisurely week of review and loads of time for studying like my fellow lucky-duck students, my husband and I have been cramming for two tests that took place today. Thankfully, I'm eating again, so this wasn't as difficult as it potentially could have been.

Our one class was difficult to study for because, frankly, I'm finding it really hard to build up the motivation to actually care about classical Arabic. I don't have a television, so I don't watch TV shows that use the classical Arabic, and the Arabic that is around me is, of course, the local dialect. (ask me what the Arabic word for dialect is, I totally know it). There was one exercise on the test that left me sweaty and stumped. I had no idea what I was doing and just ended up madly circling and underlining things, hoping that I got at least one correct answer. I was relieved to learn later that my smarty-pants husband also felt like he had bombed on that part.

The second test was much more difficult to prepare for because we were given 4 topics, of which we would pick ONE on test day and then immediately have to start talking about the topic. In the past, we've been given a myriad of topics to choose from and we can prepare one to talk about on test day. The previous way is much more nerve wracking because I had to prepare all 4 ahead of time. I spent a lot of time on the vocabulary for television and media and also language. I had cute little stories, quips and even the use of a new word in a sentence that went something like "expressions are connected with culture because it is through expressions that I can understand the culture" Genius! Instead, however, I chose "home and family" one of the most boring topics suggested. How could this happen to me? I thought Ramadan was supposed to be kareem (generous)! To top it all off, I was disappointed and flustered, so I forgot my ingenious phrase to go along with this topic that went something like, "we enjoy the view from our balcony" It would have been beautiful, too, because I had actually read over one of my previous written assignments and made a conscious effort to note the grammatical corrections. Once again, the cherry on the top of my misery sundae was when my husband said, "The written section was so hard because of having to change everything to plural." Change everything??? To plural? I so failed.

I'm trying to be excited about my impending travel (tomorrow morning we drive to the capital city and then fly out in the evening), but I keep thinking about the terrible performance I made on my test. I feel like I've bought something impulsively that is way out of my price range and I'm now regretting this decision, but there is no way to reverse the situation because the store's policy is no exchanges or refunds. I feel like I could puke and pee simultaneously. I'm a wreck. Could I be kicked out of school for being the stupidest student? Could I? I'm pretty sure they will make a plaque in my honour warning future students to "Beware of becoming a pinnacle of stupidity like White Girl."

Just like a local hospital whose name is "The Typical ((City name)) Hospital," where typically people die when admitted to the hospital regardless of the seriousness of their original condition, I am "The Typical Arabic Student" - brilliant in study but clams up in the test.

Oh! Guess what showed up? The other half of the joke about the appointments with the beach and the bar. It's the circle of life.

The Great Happiness

2008-09-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

Another school year has begun and with it a brand new list of necessary school supplies. Even though he's in Grade 2, this was the first time I had to go shopping for school supplies for Charlie because last year in my "home" country, I opted to do the lazy thing and simply write a cheque for a flat fee. The school, miraculously, took my $40 and provided Charlie with everything he needed. I didn't have to buy him one crayon.

In the desert, they don't have flat fees that cover everything. In fact, they have what is termed as "Pay this amount now and then we'll come back to you later for more and then again, and again and again." It's called the never-ending-bill-plan. Take our rent for instance, we paid an entire year's worth of rent up front (because, generally, that's how it's done) and when the valve on the water tank broke, it was up to us to pay for the repairs. "You use the water tank," was the reason. "But it's a fixture of the house," was our rebuttal. "You use the water tank." End of story. Or the time that the sink backed up and when my knight in shining armour tried to take apart the plumbing underneath to clear it out, we discovered that said plumbing was held together by elastic bands and sealed with plastic bags. Seriously. When my knight couldn't get the hardware back together (we just don't have those plastic-bag-sealing-technique classes in the west), we had to call in more support. Again, the bill was our responsibility because "You use the sink." "But we weren't the ones to use plastic bags! It's not our fault!" was our rebuttal. "You use the sink." Boom. End.

No flat fee. Once you've paid, you can most certainly expect to pay again. And maybe even more later.

Last night, at 8 p.m., the family (meaning us) jumped into the car and headed downtown for some good ol' school supply shopping. I don't know why I didn't review my vocabulary words for things like, "blue plastic folder" or "molding clay" or "crayons" but I didn't and so a montage of grunting and wild hand motions ensued until the list was complete.

One word that I do know well is the Arabic word for notebook. The kind man brought over a few to show (sidebar: the stationary store is set up in such a way that everything is behind the counter and I must describe what I want in order to get it. Why? Why must this country require me to actually USE the language I'm learning? I just want some freaking CRAYONS! sidebar over) Charlie was delighted to see Superman notebooks and promptly picked out four with different designs.

I, on the other hand, nearly peed my pants when I saw this notebook:

Oh my gosh. The notebook says "Pee Pee" The notebook has Pee Pee on it. My inner 8 year old could not resist. I HAD to have it. I took it to school with me today and showed everyone my pee pee book.

But it gets better:

"PEE PEE, I love all the Beauteous Thing The Great Happiness."

I couldn't have said it better myself, frankly. Whenever I really have to go PEE PEE and I finally have the chance to visit the restroom, the words that always sing their way through my mind are, "I LOVE ALL BEAUTEOUS THING THE GREAT HAPPINESS!!"

Counting Down...

2008-09-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Only two more days until I can eat food.

Technically, I ran out of maple syrup today and drank my last bottle of the lemon, maple syrup, cayenne pepper concoction. I can't say I will miss it. Then, the most magical thing happened. I was able to go off the cleanse and introduce a new taste to my now de-toxed taste buds: diluted, freshly squeezed orange juice. It was sublime.

Tomorrow, I will subsist on said diluted orange juice and then the next day I get to drink the broth from vegetable soup and then in the evening, I will break my fast by eating some vegetables from the soup. The next day, I will introduce fruits, vegetables and nuts to my colon. I can't wait. I keep looking at the bag of cashews in the cupboard, and drooling.

I could, also, really go for a big bowl of porridge with some sliced peaches on top.

I gave Charlie the big news today: Mommy will be able to eat again in two days. He gave me a very enthusiastic two-thumbs up. Charlie has been very concerned about me during this whole process, asking me each day how much longer I won't be eating, and pleading, "Why can't you just eat with us! I want you to eat with us!" I had no idea what an affect it would have on him. It's not like I've been requiring him to drink the "fast" as he thinks my drink is called, and I do join the family for meal times, I just don't eat anything. It does seem sweet, though, that Charlie can't quite enjoy his food the same when Mommy isn't eating.

Back to food, soon, Charlie. Don't worry!

The Cleanse

2008-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

So this is it, I'm on the home stretch of the world's worst cleanse. There were things that I cut out - the salt flush, because: ew, ew, and Eww! I tried it one day and it was the worst I've felt this whole time. It wasn't just forcing a liter of water mixed with sea salt down my throat (I cried a little and needed the bathroom mirror for moral support), it was the aftermath that I won't lay out in detail here, and the terrible chill, flu-like feeling I was left with for the rest of the day. Do you know how disconcerting it is to have the chills in the desert while everyone else is sweating? Let me tell you, very. And I may have fallen asleep a little in class to comfort myself.

Awww, Mom! I said "a little"! It wasn't a full blown nap.

Speaking of blow, we've been learning the words for the weather in class this week. One of the words is noun meaning "strong wind" and I would be lying to you if I said I haven't turned that noun into a verb. "Excuse me, did you just strong wind?" I'm not sure what it is about learning a new language, maybe it's the classroom setting that's taking me back a half step in maturity, but it doesn't always bring out the "best" me. *snicker*

So I'm past day 10 of my cleanse, and I'm feeling pretty good. I do miss chewing, though. I'm looking forward experiencing that sensation again. I have, however, had many interactions with food since my family wasn't willing to eat only beans from a can this entire time. The menu so far has included: barbecue chicken with pineapple pizza with a herbed thick crust, chili, homemade chicken vegetable soup, and a very simple crockpot recipe involving ground meat, pasta and vegetables that my family is NUTS over (sidebar: I neglected to bring the recipe book with me containing said recipe and had to make it from memory, which had marvelous results. Or so I hear). I also went to my neighbour's house to learn how to make samosas and experienced first-hand the frenzy in preparing the breaking of the fast feast. Multiple dishes in preparation, oil for frying nearly half of what is to be consumed, lots of activity, women moving here and there in the kitchen, calling out to each other and engaging each other in conversation. It's quite the ordeal. It reminded me a lot of preparing the big meal for Christmas, but they do this EVERY night for a month!

After I had learned samosa prep, I convinced my husband to buy me a deep fryer because I don't like the mess that deep frying can make when done in a pan or pot. Also, I figured that the best way to break my cleanse was eating a deep fried Snickers bar. ha! I joke. (but my heart does cry out a little in the darkness) I made my own filling (potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic with curry) and assembled my own samosas. Lola came into the kitchen and expressed her dismay, complete with furrowed brow, over the lack of cheese samosas. So, I obliged and made her several samosas stuffed with mozzerella cheese.

One thing I've found is not that being around food is torture. In fact, smelling is half of tasting, so I often breathe deeply around their food (they do find it slightly disturbing to have me hovering over their plates while they are trying to eat) and cooking helps me feel that at least I'm interacting with food. Also, I tend to think that everyone is always hungry. You know the saying, You have to wear a sweater when your mother is feeling cold. I've been overfeeding everyone. So, as I've been losing weight because I'm not consuming anything but lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper, my family has undoubtedly been gaining weight from the deep fried goodness I've been making.

Overall, I do think this cleanse has been beneficial. I feel good, albeit a tad snacky. And my pants are fitting a little looser, which is nice after my cheesecake binge over my birthday. I am thinking about doing this cleanse again in March. With all the white flour and sugar that I consume with the other desert dwellers, I imagine I will need a spring cleaning.

Who's with me?

Anyone?

Hello? Where did everybody go?

Road Trip!

2008-09-10T22:35:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to the capital, we ran into the strangest (to us) traffic jams. A herd of camels! There had to have been about 150 camels, leisurely walking along the road, oblivious to the speed maximum and our intended schedule. At the point when this picture was taken, I had noticed that the camel-farmer(?), camel-herder(?), camel-boy(?) was dutifully milking one of the camels. No better place than the middle of the highway, I always say. (I often speak of the ideal location to milk a camel) Did you know that camel milk is said to make a man more virile? It's the word on the street, or highway, yo.

September 2

2008-09-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary, my love.

Thirteen years.

I'm so glad it's you.

Fasting vs. Feasting

2008-09-02T06:04:00.000-07:00

It's official. The month of feasting, I mean, fasting is upon us. I must say, that of all the differences and various traditions, this is one that confuses me the most. The month of Ramadan is traditionally the month where during the daylight hours nothing enters the body - no food, no water. Some especially devout will even spit out their saliva to avoid swallowing anything. This part doesn't confuse me at all because I've been raised to fast from time to time for spiritual discipline as well as physical well-being. The part that does confuse me is that although this is a month of fasting, the amount of food available and being sold is multiple times more than any other time during the year. The fasting only lasts during the daylight hours, which means that families get together after sunset and break the fast together each day with a feast of food. After the meal, they visit together and go about what they would usually do during daylight hours until it's time for another meal just before daybreak, which will be the last time anything is consumed (water included) until sunset. Essentially, what happens is that the days and the nights get switched. Sleeping during the daylight "fasting" hours. Eating and regular life activities during the nighttime hours. After some thought, I realized that while I was living on the west coast of North America, I fasted just as my friends here do, but every single day! When I'm trying to watch my calorie intake, I will not eat from 6 at night until breakfast in the morning. This break from eating could, potentially, stretch for up to 16 hours. EVERY DAY! If I want to be technical, I could claim that I'm much more spiritual than I had previously thought!

Perhaps my confusion is more a symptom masking the real issue: jealousy. The tradition I live in when it comes to fasting looks like this: independently choose when the fast will begin and end, choose what will be fasted (all food, meat only, television, etc), and the fast continues day and night for the length of the chosen fast. The breaking of the fast takes place when the entire fasting period has been completed. I've taken part in one meal, one day, one week and even 2 week fasts. Each is difficult in it's own way, and personally I prefer to take part in a longer fast because I find the first 3 days the most difficult regardless if the fast is for one day or 5. I have never taken part of a 30 or 40 day fast, and I know few who have. So, I understand the need for breaking the fast each night.

In the spirit of camaraderie, I decided to independently designate some time for fasting as well this month. Also, in the spirit of health, I've decided to try a cleanse using readily available ingredients. So, for the next number of days (it's still ingrained in me that I shouldn't divulge for how long I'm fasting for fear of being branded a show-off with a white face and pouty demeanor - I have failed this already in real-time, but this is my blog and I can hold onto the facade of piety if I like), I will be on the lemonade cleanse. And I may just document every little thing that I experience.

Right now? I have a headache and I'm feeling rather sleepy. The previously mentioned jealousy is coming into play as the aromas of my neighbours' soon-to-be-had feasts waft their way up in through my windows. I, on the other hand, get to "feast" on the juice of limes, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. Oh! And diuretic tea. Fun!

Dear, God, It's Me, White Girl.

2008-09-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of the perks of entertaining out-of-country guests is that these visitors can double as packing mules, hauling treats and essentials from abroad that aren't available to us in the desert. Things on my list of dreams included a variety of spices, chocolate chips, certain products to maintain my level of beauty (and hairlessness), and swimming suits. Being the planner that I am, I bought Lola a couple of swimming suits in bigger-for-her-at-the-time sizes thinking that she would use them in the future. Much to my horror, the poor girl experienced severe swimming attire wedgies and the size 4 was more like a size 3. I, too, had to put my swimming suit aside in the waste bin because the elastic on the tummy area began to disintegrate and was no longer offering the modest coverage that I was looking for in a tankini.

Lacing up my virtual walking shoes, I set out on the mission to find new bathing suits for myself and Lola. It didn't take me long to be seduced by the bright, flashy promises from one large department store for the greatest prices on EARTH. How can you argue with that? I found two cute little tankinis for my daughter (I have abandoned the idea of a one piece because a) the aforementioned butt wedgie and b) it's much easier to go "baffwoom" with a two piece). One tankini was Tinkerbell and the other Strawberry Shortcake. I'm not sure if Lola is so crazy about these characters but the inner-three-year-old me was cheering with joy.

I, again, cheered with joy when I found a cute tankini for myself from the brand that I had fallen in love over the past year. Thinking that they only had their own, independent store, I was pleasantly surprised to find them listed among the offerings at the department store. Equally surprising was finding that the bathing suit I loved was listed at an incredibly good price! So good, in fact, that looking back, it should have given me some cause for alarm, alerting me to the need to read further into the details. Instead, I was blinded by the seduction of the site's "lowest price on the planet earth" claims and placed my order without another thought.

Two months passed between me placing the order, my inlaws picking up the order, and me picking up the bathing suit from among the other splendid treats in the only suitcase dear friend brought with her (you know that a friend really, truly loves you when she travels with a suitcase packed with goods for you and resorts to packing all her necessities for a 10-day stay into her carry on. That is love.)

At first I was confused, "Maybe there is a second package under all these other things?" Then I got worried, "Did the store mess up my order and, now, two month later, I'm just getting wind of it? Are they going to do anything about it at all?" Finally, I got active, checking my email confirmation and the dread set in when I realized that it was clearly stated that I had, indeed, only purchased the bottom half of the desired tankini set.

The down-side to shopping online is that there is no sales associate to scream at or cry to or stare at with a gaping wide mouth when you find out that there are no longer any of the tops available that match the bottoms that you bought two months ago. There is no one to listen bemusedly as you cry your way through the sob story that is your life; one dramatic story of adjusting to a very modest culture only to be smacked in the face with the European culture that you had thought you'd left behind.

I now have two choices. One, I can hope beyond hope that my dear, generous, beautiful, sweet, kind, loving, affectionate, incredible (do you think she's reading this, yet?), funny, intelligent, compassionate friend will be able to find a top that matches the bottoms. I sent the bottoms back with her to be sure that if there is anything remotely close to matching, all the guess work will be taken out of the venture. Second, I could just become culturally schizophrenic - covering my hair, arms, legs, ankles, and (occasionally) my face in one country and then showing everything along with my jiggly bits in another.

If there ever was a time to pray, it's now.

Dear God, It's me, white girl. I need a shirt.

At This Point, What's Another Year?

2008-08-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday.

I am now the rich, old age of 33. Depending on the perspective I hold at any given moment, I can either view myself as still quite young with a full life of potential in front of me, or, I can throw myself into the pit of despair because I am old. I can honestly say, "I remember twenty years ago..." and actually have real, live memories of twenty years ago, not just made up memories from the newspaper slider at the library. Also, my "twenty years ago" memories are nearing the point where I was an adult when I made them. I'm not quite there, but it's getting close. At this point, my twenty years ago memories are limited to jelly shoes, mile-high back-combed bangs, and acid washed jeans. Not entirely stellar.

My husband asked me yesterday if I felt like I was 33. My answer struck even me as profound. I said, "I'm not sure what 33 is supposed to feel like, but I've lived quite the life already that I really should be 33 by now."

The dawning of my birthday found me in the capital city, suffering with a terrible cold. The night before, I had hinted to my husband that I would like to be given a cup of Echinacea and Raspberry tea upon waking. Barely had I cracked my swollen eyes open, when I was presented with a steaming cup of freshly steeped tea. Already, it was a beautiful day.

After getting ready to go out, we piled into the car and ordered coffee to go from an American-style cafe in town on our way out to a popular tourist attraction. Armed with a sweetened-to-perfection Cafe-Americano, I relaxed back into my seat, enjoying the sights of an ancient village. We wandered around a long-ago palace, imagined what it would be like to live in a place with such steep stairs (buns of steel! no cellulite!), and moved on to the center of the city for some shopping. We ate a simple lunch of grilled meat, bread, and tea literally in the middle of a traffic jam while balancing ourselves on a rickety old metal bench.

Sufficiently knackered from a carb-rich lunch (is there any other kind in this country?), it was time for the well-loved birthday nap. Ninety glorious minutes of uninterrupted sleep were followed by bath time for the kids (never a chore to get Charlie and Lola into the tub - they usually have themselves stripped down to their knickers before I have even turned the water knobs) and a leisurely shower for myself. I got dressed and even make-uped in time to be taken out on the town alone with the love of my life. Charlie and Lola went on a date themselves with two especially attractive women for a pizza feast. I, on the other hand, mmm'ed and ahhhh'ed my way through my first spinach salad in 8 months and enjoyed a plate full of mushroom steak, grilled vegetables and fries - all for less than $10. That's what I'm talking about!

We met up with Charlie, Lola and their entourage at our favourite amusement park. Our plan was to take in yet another game of bowling but our plans were foiled by a massive party put on by VW to launch a new car model. I did, however, sit in the new car, allowing my inner sweet-16 self to squeal with delight... "You bought me a car?!?!!!!"... even if it was just for a moment. This was all followed by another indulgence at our new favourite dessert/coffee cafe run by miracle workers of chocolate mousse. If everyone could have a bite of this dessert, there would be no conflict in the world. Seriously, the words that went through my mind were "world peace" and "Oh Gawwwwwwwd".

Our dear friends gave me the best present ever of moving the Charlie and Lola's mattresses from our room in the guesthouse to their room, leaving us free to have a late night nibble of Belgian chocolate without the need to muffle the sound of package crinkles. We might have kissed a little.

All told, my birthday was fantastic. But, in reality, the celebrations spanned the length of a week, which just nails the coffin shut in my theory that I'm a princess worthy of epic celebrations of my life. Firstly, my out-of-country friend made me a delicious cheesecake with a contraband ingredient that was to die for. In fact, there are two pieces in my freezer awaiting my future enjoyment. Then there was a surprise birthday party with some loved ones in the capital city, complete with homemade carrot cake and pressies! Today, we rushed home so that we could celebrate with another special family with fresh made omelets (with bacon! shameful but fabulous!) followed by a massive cup of coffee and cheesecake.

One thing is clear, as the numbers are added to my age, my life is just getting richer and richer. The places I've seen and lived in, and more importantly, my family and the friends that have been added to my collection have made my life one that I never regret aging in.

Here's to seeing 34!

Mango Gate - The Stupid Foreigner Edition

2008-08-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

After a lot of theorizing, charting, and a randomly added flannel graph, the mystery has all but been solved. The nanny was ruled out. The gardener was ruled out. And my new theory (that I backed with much passion and fervor) about wall jumpers was ruled out.

The landowner's son arrived from out of town and requested a walk-through of the garden. Of course, the topic of the mysteriously disappearing mangoes came up in conversation. After presenting each theory, the final and more accurate "stupid foreigner not collecting the mangoes in time before they rotted" theory was presented and enthusiastically accepted. Apparently, during mango season, the one in charge of the garden is supposed to check the mangoes EVERY DAY and collect the mangoes off the tree, perhaps only one or two each day. Well, I checked on my mango faithfully until I forgot for a number of days and then it was gone, but I don't remember seeing any mangoes under the tree. That part of the mystery was solved when the gardener shared he'd taken 4 - 5 mangoes out to the trash each time he'd been here to take care of the greens.

Looks like I've got mango on my face!

Next year, I'm setting up camp under my mango chosen. When it falls, I'll feel it.

My Must Read

2008-08-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

If I had to choose one book of all the books I've read to suggest as one to read, it would definitely be "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. I love books that have a unique story line and leave me whirling in the wake of the story, wishing that I could grab hold of it again for the first time. My husband often wonders why I cry at the end of a book I've really enjoyed. He reads for knowledge, indulging himself in facts and theories that will prove helpful in future debate or practical application. I, rather, read to enjoy the complexities of characters and the struggles they experience. Their challenges become mine, their losses rip my heart apart, and their mysteries leave me bewildered. As the story draws to a close, I find my eye lingering over words much longer than necessary in order to delay the inevitable: The goodbye. It's the tragedy shared by every book lover. Losing a character that we've grown to love, never to have the chance to peer into their lives through the looking-glass of paper, left to imagine what might become for them. I read "Life of Pi" when I was newly pregnant with Lola. Now, 3 years after her birth, I'm still crashing around the waves of the story's wake.

I pose this question to those that have read "Life of Pi", do you think it really happened? Or was it the tale dreamed up by a boy's mind trying to cope with the trauma of loss?

I, for one, believe in the magical.

Pages and Pages

2008-08-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

Forgive me for the silence. My inbox is not filled with any hate mail, so either my readership is just patiently waiting for a new post or they've given up. I do have a good excuse: international guests. A good friend living in a relatively nearby desert country visited for 3 beautiful days filled with activities such as a chilly mountain-top picnic, dancing in the hail-rain storm, playing a much-loved strategy game multiple times, and enduring a long, potentially dangerous car ride. Our current guest also endured the same car ride but in the opposite direction, plus she lived through a beauty-torture of waxing the armpits followed up by plucking any remaining hair with a tweezer.

I appreciated the feedback that I got on my last post about reading suggestions. I was surprised to see that 3 of the suggestions were already in my wish list, which did uplift my confidence in being able to judge a book by it's 3 line summary. The suggestions included the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer, 'Eat, Pray, Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert, and, of course, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I read an article online about must-reads. I'm not sure who compiled the list or where they got the suggestions from, but one of them was 'Gone with the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell and another 'The Stand' by Stephen King.

Breathless and grateful, I accepted a gift of three brand new books specially purchased just for me by my first guest. Having given her no clear direction in what I liked in books, she chose to introduce me to a favourite-of-hers series by Anne Perry. I've been savouring each word over the past few days, not wanting to read too quickly and take advantage of this special treat. I have been known to take 2 hours to eat one piece of cheesecake in the past - taking a nap mid-eating in order to prolong the experience - because, at the time, cheesecake was something to be cherished. I like to draw out the pleasurable. Reading is definitely pleasurable especially when the novel is deliciously wordy.

Today, I received word that another book is on the way, scheduled to arrive in two short weeks. More importantly, this book will hail the return of a great friend. Almost as sweet as a well told story is the company of an understanding friend. Coupled together, it may well be the opening of the heavens and the flooding of blessing.

Fearing further empty silences, I return to the pages of Anne Perry's pen and a plate full of fresh chocolate chip cookies.

I need something

2008-08-14T04:16:00.000-07:00

If I didn't know any better from the various sources and ears to the ground I have around the world, I would think I have only one or two faithful readers. That is, if I reserved my judgement based solely on the emails I receive in response to something I've written. I know it's hard not to have the comments section activated because, like me, many people comment not so much for the comment's sake but for the attention that is garnered from said comment. When the comment is made for an entire audience of one, the gratification isn't quite as sweet. I get it.

I feel a bit like a big elephant peering down at a small spec, beseeching a small creature to come out of hiding, "Come on lil fellah! Don't be afraid!"

The reason I'm asking for some feedback is because when it comes to books, I'm completely lost, but I really, really, really want to read something. I've been visiting Amazon.com, searching through the bestsellers and the bargain bins, and I'm really not sure what is great reading and what isn't. One of my two faithful ego boosters wrote to me recently about how she's nearly finished reading a book series. This comment got me thinking, "What are other people reading?" So, I kindly request for an email listing your favourite books, your personal "must reads" and your "currently reading".

I can't tell you what a feel of desperation ensnares a book lover when there are absolutely no books in a familiar language available for purchase, borrowing, or theft. Not that I would steal, but I'm nearly getting to that point. I won't say that I would be able to leave a book untouched that I spotted abandoned in a coffee shop. I'm a desperate reader with nothing but Charlie's book collection to raid. Have you seen my "currently reading" in the top corner? Lemony Snicket? One, it's a children's book. Two, they are utterly and entirely depressing. I feel guilty for forcing Charlie to read 2 chapters a day of these books. How can a 7 year old stand under the pressure of such gloom every day? Those poor orphans never get a break, and I can only ever picture Jim Carrey with one big, gray eyebrow whenever Count Olaf is mentioned. The journey is getting a bit tiresome and I need a reprieve. Help me!

I will now begin to hit refresh on my email account until I have a sufficient amount of choices that I can confidently add to my wish list.

In advance, I thank you. My eyes thank you. My imagination thanks you. And this weary, vocabulary-dry mind thanks you.

**edited to correct spelling mistake. drrrrr

The One Where He Totally Didn't Get It

2008-08-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

Remember when I wrote about how my husband and I are so compatible that we have the same thoughts about our hotel plans (chocolate mousse!)?

Today, he came into the kitchen and offered to do a guest spot on my blog about this little situation with a dude from another country calling our home phone number to flirt with me. I said, "You've aready been mentioned on my blog recently," which was met by surprise on his part and then pitter pattering of feet to go and read what I said about him. A few minutes later, he comes back and says, "I didn't know our night away was for our anniversary!" So much for being connected and finishing each other's thoughts.

But this miscommunication (or rather, complete brain-out on white boy's part) explains his lack of being sweet to me this morning. I really thought that he'd do something special for breakfast - make the coffee at least! Rather, my morning looked something like this: be pestered by the kids incessantly until I finally get up (I want breakfast, I have to pee, my ankle just detached from my leg and I'm bleeding on the beige carpeting in the living room! You know the drill). I stumbled around, getting breakfast together: cleaning out the french press from the previous day's coffee, firing up the stove to fry eggs, slicing the buns, putting jam on them, getting juice out (for myself ) because I was pissed and wanted to subtly show him that I was and have him GET it - "No juice? Ohhh... she's mad about goes into great detail and understanding about my beef with the ish at hand." Twas a brilliant plan, except that he didn't get it, and just happily got his own juice and even carried my plate and coffee out to the balconey as if that was going to make me forget about how he didn't make up for the dashed plans of the previous night (or morning - remember my favourit part of going away? Easing into the day? Enjoying a quiet, no-hassle breakfast?)

Apparently, my passive aggressive techniques need some work and my husband needs hearing aids. I distinctly remember telling him that "we should celebrate our annivesary before the big month of fasting because then it just gets awkward with eating in public and all that." Maybe he thought I was referring to the anniversary of a large computer software company's research arm. That figures.

Well, maybe we do need these extra 14 day after all.

**edited to close a bracket. drrrr

Which way do I go?

2008-08-13T04:15:00.000-07:00

I am going to a girlfriend's house this afternoon for tea and a movie. I haven't been to her house on my own before because in the past she has sent her driver to pick me up. I phoned her for directions, and it reminded me of how much I love directions in the this country. No one really has an address because there are not many streets that have names and no buildings have numbers. It would be a bit difficult since the buildings are built on top of the other.

Directions to my friend's house:
- Go down from the hospital
- You will see a cemetery.
- If you walk a little down from there, you will see a big blue door.
- Enter big blue door and go upstairs.

When we first moved here, my husband called a friend for directions to Charlie's new school. One part of the directions was, "when you see a bumpy road on your right, turn down there." I still think of those early days, looking at the directions with a "WTF???" expression on my face and wondering how the heck we were going to find our way with the verbal equivalent of a paper clip spinner as a compass. But it works! I have no doubt that I'll find my way to my friend's house and have an enjoyable afternoon. I even know my way home! (my husband is on speed dial har har)

Getaway Fail

2008-08-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

Our big plans for a getaway have been set on the back-burner. My friend, the one that had offered to have Charlie and Lola over for a sleepover so that we could have a night to ourselves, called me to say that she would have to cancel our plans because her grandmother had died and she was trying to find tickets to fly out tomorrow morning.

Of course, I was the supportive and understanding friend. The way she talked about her grandma remined me about how I feel about mine. When we moved to the desert, we knew that it would be a harsh adjustment, and in the hardest of times any excuse to return to our homeland would be a good one. That is why we made our "short list". As morbid is as it sounds, we have a list of people that we will return home to attend their funeral. If they aren't on the list, we won't return home. I must say that I was tempted to return home when I heard the Mr. Baskin of Baskin and Robbins ice cream fame had died. Instead, I bought a gallon of ice cream and counted it a joy to celebrate the achievements of his life. Plus, calories don't exist when honouring someone's memory, right?

Anyway, my grandma is on my short list. I missed my maternal grandmother's funeral and I've always regretted it, so I understand why my friend needs to go home for her family.

Laying in bed after a swim and eating chocolate mousse while watching the Olympics: FAIL

13 Going On 30

2008-08-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

This time of year brings two special occassions: my birthday and our wedding anniversary. My husband has lucked out because he can do one special event that covers both. This year, we've taken our friends up on the generous offer of having both Charlie and Lola over for a sleepover while we stay at the only nice hotel in town. My big plans include swimming, eating two bowls of chocolate mousse, and watching the Olympics. My favourite part of a night away is the breakfast. I can leisurely wake up, adjusting to the fact that I must leave the precious land of dream to face another 16 hours of reality. Then, when I'm good and ready, I make my way to the breakfast buffet where I can stroll along, casually looking at the food and choosing what I feel like eating. I don't have to contend with children running from one end of the restaurant to the other and whining, "I want pancaaaaaakes." Instead, I head to my table, pour myself a cup of coffee and immediately start eating! I don't have to cut anyone's food. I don't have to deal with any table-dramas. I can dig into my food while it's still hot. It's my rare chance to be selfish and self serving without any consequences.

Our anniversary isn't actually until the beginning of September, but since the month of fasting that turns life here upside down begins at exactly that same time, we decided to celebrate early. After 13 years of marriage, what's an extra or minus 14 days?

Yes, you read that right. We've been married for thirteen years! Our marriage is now growing little pubic hairs of its own, getting embarrassed when it's voice cracks, making daring, yet, unfortunate fashion choices, having awkward conversations with other marriages its age, and just passed the babysitting course for baby marriages! Don't get me started on the oily skin and acne!

Thirteen years, that is a significant length of time. Do you know what? I wouldn't change my choice of spouse. I still get belly butterflies when I see my husband - especially if he's wearing his hot, power suit. He's the one that I run to first for advice and support. I can relax and be myself, share my dreams even if they are unrealistic, and I love it when I get him to really giggle. One thing I can't do is share my mourning period with him after I've finished a book. He doesn't get how I can be so emotionally involved with people that are "just characters. They aren't real." I'd like to see what Harry Potter would do to him if he heard that bit of nonsense. Just characters. Pffft!

All in all, though, I'd say that we are pretty compatible. So compatible that as I was in the midde of typing the words "chocolate mousse", my husband's voice cut through the silence from across the room saying, "All I want to do is lay in bed and eat two bowls of chocolate mousse. Maybe even some chocolate cake."

To my love: I'm so glad it's you.

Charlie's War : The Fridge

2008-08-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know where it came from, but Charlie got it into his head somehow that he wanted to buy a mini-bar fridge for his bedroom. We told him fine, as long as he paid for it himself. He seemed to take the offer as a great idea and stood up straighter in light of the challenge. However, reality hit him like a ton of bricks when we went to the appliance store to pick out the new fridge. As we looked our way through some models, Charlie also purused through the selections, carefully opening each door an noting the various features of each one. He was devasted to learn that the fridge of his choice cost $250, but the real blow came when he realized that he had less than $5 in his wallet. Instead of asking himself, "Why did I get sucked in by the wiley ways of the girl that I love and buy all those shells that I could have gotten for free at the beach on my own?" Charlie kept dragging me back to that fridge, hoping that either the ticket price would magically change itself or mommy would relent and buy it for him anyway. The embarrassment for me began when he folded his arms over a glass-topped deep freeze, smearing his snot this way and that as he sobbed over the injustices of this world (when he should have been throwing his fist in the air and shouting, "Get far from me, harlot, I will not be taken by your charms and give you my money. Ever! Again!") One of the salesmen came by to ask what was wrong, and again, I found myself in a situation where I had to haltingly try to explain an awkward situation in a language that I've refused to practice for the last 2 weeks because I'M ON HOLIDAY! Charlie did end up getting a free soda out of the his sobbing from the shop keeper. Usually I don't accept such gift-in-the-face-of-crying offerings, but I felt inclined to accept the offered soda as three were brought - one for Charlie, one for Lola, and one for my husband (it's not polite for women to drink in public, not even water, unless you are in a restaurant behind a "family section" curtain, but I was in an appliance store. No soda for you!).

People here really can't stand to see children cry. They will give the child anything to stop crying because? It's painful to hear them cry? They just want to make them happy? God didn't create children for sorrow? I'm not sure what the logic or philosophy is behind shoving candy and whatever else it is they are crying over into their faces to just STOP THE CRYING ALREADY, but it really isn't something that is helpful to a parent that holds to the thinking that we shouldn't give a child everything they want. Especially when the child is crying! I'm sure there are many a wagon-filled-with-candy merchant in the downtown core that think I'm the nastiest woman alive because I will not accept candy when my children are crying. When Lola sees one artificially coloured sugar pop that she desperately wants, asks for it and is denied, her immediate reaction is to open her mouth and let out the greatest squeal known to man that you would think her leg is being pulled in such a way that the flesh has ripped, yet the tendons are still in tact but being stretched out and out and out until they finally SNAP! No, I will not reward this type of behaviour with exactly what she wanted in the first place just so that she will stop crying. And, yet, some people wonder why their children throw things, yell incessantly, don't listen, won't obey, etc, ect. (I'm not saying my kids are perfect because oh-my-gosh they aren't because oh-my-gosh I'm not)

*breathe*

Charlie slumped his way out of the store, reality weighing heavily on his shoulders as he grasped the bottle of free soda that he hadn't even touched. Lola bounced along behind him with a mouth stained pink from the weeping soda. She didn't have to throw a tantrum this time and she got sugar!

The conversation about the fridge in Charlie's room is still on-going. I don't think he understands how long it's going to take to save up for such a large purchase. Even today, he went with his dad to buy some eggs (so I could make banana pancakes for lunch! Num!) and just before leaving he said, "I should get my wallet in case I see a fridge that I can buy."

I wonder how many more free sodas I can get out of this life lesson.

Stupid Foreigner, She'll Never Guess!

2008-08-10T08:07:00.001-07:00

Living in a new culture, no matter where you are from and where you are settling, can pose many challenges especially when adjusting to the new culture also brings along the daunting task of learning a new language. It's all fun and games at the beginning when you can learn charming facts about your neighbour and impress the local merchant as if you were a dancing monkey. But there always comes a point in the learning process when the student realizes that he/she doesn't know very much at all. This dilemma usually presents itself when one is feeling angry towards an injustice, most likely personal, and to explain oneself is especially difficult.

I usually find myself faced with this when dealing with money. See, a lot of people here don't work on an hourly wage, rather relying on the generosity of the temporary employer to determine the amount given. This system lends itself to all sorts of problems, especially when one does not know what a good price is, but it is especially frustrating when one knows an appropriate rate, yet the person is insisting on a ridiculously inflated price.

Sometimes, with limited language skills, I come out the other side a winner. Take for instance story #1:

I was taking a Photoshop course (the poor instructor realized as the class began that he was the only male, teaching a class full of women. He didn't laugh when I tried to suggest that I didn't know how to turn on the mouse for my laptop) for two days. The first evening I caught a cab with a girlfriend, she being dropped off first and me being driven up the mountain to my home. (It was a bit disconcerting when the taxi driver said that he knew my home. How does he know my home?) Our taxi cab fare was the equivalent of $2. The next evening, I again caught a cab home with a friend, but a different friend this time. Her home was more on the way to my home than my friend's house from the previous night. I haltingly told the cab driver where we wanted to go and he gave me the price equivalent to $6! I wanted to shout, "Just because I'm a woman and a foreigner doesn't mean that I'm an idiot! I know the going rate." I argued with him for a moment, and even told my friend to "Walk! We can find another cab!" Finally, he relented to the price I requested - $2.50. It was a win moment for me! I had successfully argued with this MAN on the price of the cab fare, and came out the other side of the argument successful.

Other times, the situation doesn't resolve itself so nicely for us. Take this story from two days ago:
My husband likes to randomly and spontaneously take on new tasks. He could be sitting, writing emails and at a moment's notice decide that now is the time to defrost the back-up fridge! This time, however, he came shuffling back into the kitchen, shoulders slumped, looking defeated. He looked at me sadly and said, "I killed the fridge." I'm not sure what he had been doing exactly, but he punctured the freon line. We knew the day would come when this fridge would breathe its last because the door had never sealed shut properly, causing the motor to run constantly, but we didn't expect its end to come so soon. A few days later, we found a replacement fridge and anticipated its delivery later in the afternoon. Much to our surprise, the fridge was delivered close to the time previously negotiated (a minor miracle in a land where the "will of God" is the excuse for everything agreed upon with no intention to complete the task). Two men were present for the delivery - the driver and the lifter. After the job was done, the time had come for payment. We have only lived here for 7 months. Not enough time has gone by to make us forget that when we ordered a crapload of appliances (fridge, stove, washing machine, etc) we paid a certain amount to the driver and a certain amount to the man that lifted everything. This time around, in a spirit of generosity my husband paid the lifter 5 times the amount that he remembers paying last time. Does the man offer words of thanks? No. He turns to my husband and says, "This isn't enough. I need more." My husband's reply was, "I might be a foreigner but I'm not stupid, yeah?" Even the driver was saying, "It's enough. Stop." But the guy kept insisting. When I saw my husband come inside to grab an extra bill, I was livid! The extra amount wasn't very much, but that wasn't the point. The point is that I knew what we had paid previously. I knew what the fair price was, but still this man was demanding more! Demanding!

It's been bothering me a lot the past couple of days. This injustice of the foreign tax and my inability to really rebut the unfair treatment. In response to my frustration vent, my husband relayed another story of an attempted "cash grab from the foreigner" and he said, "Whenever someone here sees an opportunity to get more money out of me, they take it." From the guy who washes our car, demanding more money when we already pay above his regular rate to someone in high up places lying about the payments he gets from another company in a greedy attempt to flush out some extra cash, it can all get very overwhelming at times. Now is one of those times.

I'm not a smart man, Jenny, but I know what love is.

And I know how much I should pay for a freaking cab fare!

The Miniatures

2008-08-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

The world being what it is today, I've decided not to publish the real names of my children. This is to protect them from whatever boogie men this paranoid mind can conjure up, and to also, well, just to protect them.

Instead of their true monikers, I have decided to use their favourite television characters as host names: Charlie and Lola. These characters are also a brother and sister team; their age difference very similar to my own children's. Charlie is a good brother that often finds himself in the position of needing to guide Lola through the trials and lessons of life, and he's so sweet about it. The only thing missing in my own children is the adorable British accent. If my daughter really spoke like Lola, I just might smother her and squish her to her demise. Lola's accent is just too much. I love it! I guess the good Lord above knew what he was doing when he didn't bless my children with sweet British accents**. He knew they wouldn't survive. They are lucky to have lived as long as they have under my parentage as it is!

**side note: Has anyone seen the movie "August Rush"? And was anyone else confused how a small boy, raised in a New York orphanage for all his life, managed to have a British accent? If we are supposed to believe that his accent is genetic, then why didn't he have an Irish accent like his father, or an American English accent like his mother?

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

2008-08-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

Look what we did!

Little Lola just wouldn't listen, so we pierced her.

No. However, I did bribe her with a bag of Skittles and said, "Look how pretty and shiny these earrings are? Wouldn't it be nice if they were stuck to your ears always? Oh look! A purple Skittle!"

She sat on my knee, and very bravely waited for the first round. The look of shock and betrayal on her face was heartbreaking. Her daddy had "prepared" her for the pain by softly pinching her arm and saying, "It will feel like this." You don't want to know how he prepared me for childbirth (he dropped a feather from ceiling height and as it touched my belly, he said, "Contractions will feel like this.") I didn't want Lola to go around with only one ear pierced. How lame would that be? So, I did something that was justified in the moment: braced her head still against my chest and bit my lip really hard.

After 1/2 an hour in front of the mirror gazing at her lovely earrings, and some Children's Tylenol, Lola is finally happy with the assault and trauma that she had to endure.

Now I understand why people here pierce their daughters ears when they are babies. The smaller the head, the easier the hold.

Mango-Gate 2008

2008-08-05T06:14:00.001-07:00

Do you remember this?

Well, so do I and now that's all I've got: just my memories, my tears, and this rottenly photo-shopped photo.

My mango has been stolen! But that isn't the end of it. There were many, healthy sized mangoes on that tree. I went out to check on them often. Now, two weeks later, they are all gone, save 4 tiny ones. Where have the mangoes gone? That is the real mystery. We aren't sure if we can blame the bats/monkeys because there are no mango carcasses left on the ground underneath the tree, as has happened in the past. My husband suspects the nanny because there was one time when she took a bag of mangoes home. I don't agree with him because the nanny showed me the bag of mangoes before she took them, explaining that they were the ones that had fallen from the tree. I don't think she would start simply taking mangoes without saying anything. She talks to me about everything (even asking if she can take my husband's discarded shirts from the garbage for men in the prison). I think the gardener did it. In the conservatory. With the candlestick. He is mostly blind. He didn't sweep the back walk-way today. He sings weird songs while he works. See? The gardener.

The nanny will be returning tomorrow to do housework, at which time, I will ask her about the mangoes. I'm sure that my non-suspicions will be confirmed and then I can turn my eyes toward the gardener and squint while imagining deep, ominous music playing loudly.

He will pay!

How I Wash Apples: The Poop Edition

2008-08-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Being that we are situated between a sandpile and a pile of rocks, obtaining water can be a challenge. We do have indoor plumbing, but the water only arrives once a month, or more accurately (as of late), every 50+ days. When we hear the water rushing through the pipes, my knight in shining armour dashes out to the garden and opens the valves of the complicated piping system, allowing the water to fill the 5 tanks that we have on the property in order to store the water until we get another refill 50 days down the line. Unfortunately, the two water sources aren't highly ideal. One is highly brackish and the other is polluted with sewage. Nummy! When brushing my teeth in the morning, I often hum a song to myself about poop water. Nothing starts a day quite like the poop water brush-a, brush-a song.

Poop water isn't so bad, as long as you don't drink it, but it can cause some other complications, like, "How do I wash my fruits and vegetables?" Well, my friends, there is a solution. I must admit, the idea for this post came from my sister-in-law (who I affectionately refer to as "pea-ness") when she emailed me and asked how I clean my produce. She likes to obsessively clean each grape thoroughly, so I thought she'd find this post amusing (and also breathe a sigh of relief that she doesn't have to live here).

STEP ONE:
after rinsing dirt, dust and debris from the apples with infected poop water, place them in a large bowl.

STEP TWO: take out your trusty "brown vinegar" from the cupboard and dilute it with FILTERED water.

STEP THREE: Fill the bowl with your very own poop water from your OWN tap! Weee!! Poop water!

STEP FOUR: Pour a generous amount of diluted vinegar into the bowl of poop water and apples. Let it steep for 20 minutes.

STEP 5: remove produce from now clean but vinegary water, and leave to dry on a tea towel. Drain leftover water into a bucket in the bathroom to be used later for flushing the toilet once the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" is too rancid to stand much longer.

Shoes and Chocolate

2008-07-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Weddings in the desert are loud, chaotic, hot, flashy, and above all - segregated. Men party with men, and women with women. Finally, women are able to let their hair down, so to speak, and show each other just how fashionable, wealthy and beautiful they are without having to worry about an unrelated male catching sight of them. More than a celebration of the bride, especially before the bride enters, it is a celebration of femininity.

Upon entering the hall, women can be seen primping themselves, from adorning more bright coloured make-up to their eyelids, to pulling out their curling irons and unraveling, unraveling, unraveling the cords from their purses to put the finishing touches to their overall look. The dresses are more than ornate, often to the point of gaudy, with sequins, sequins, sequins and see-through mesh just like the figure skaters' outfits I see at the Olympics. Gone is the phrase "simple is beautiful". I'm not sure the phrase has disappeared from the desert as much as it never existed in the first place.

Perhaps it is because the desert is so mono-coloured. The lack of water makes greenery, the way that I know if it in my homeland, and bright coloured flowers a rare luxury held only in the gardens of the truly wealthy. Perhaps it is because on an average day, a woman's world is limited to the four walls of her home, or those of her neighbour's home. Going out on the street, one woman to the next looks generally the same, head to toe in black. There is no colour, individuality; save the few sequins, or slight embellishment on the corner of the black head scarf. Perhaps this is the reason why women lean away from the simple and towards the extravagant.

Admittedly, the lack of colour has sparked in me the extreme and insatiable desire to express my femininity through fashion. When I get the chance, I dress up. Even when there really is no reason, a pretty dress seems in order. Jewellery, once seen as frivolous and against my personal style, has become an important part of my day; sorting through what I have and making it work splendidly with what I want to wear. Shoes, the love of which is not new to me, have found a justifiable place in my wardrobe. The one thing, or two if you want to get technical, that truly sets a woman apart from the rest and boasts of fashion taste is her choice in shoes. I have been told that I'm different from other foreigner women because of my shoe choices and I "take care" of myself. Since I don't exercise and I eat an excess of sugar, I assume that the meaning of "take care" in this context is that I pay attention to and execute fashion sense.

For the wedding, my fashion sense led me to wear a simple (I have not lived here long enough to lose the simple), long red dress with beautiful jewellry and leopard print high, spiked heel shoes. My close friend dubbed them "hooker shoes" the first time she laid eyes on them. I knew I was in love (with the shoes! not my friend). With toe nails painted red to match the dress, my toes looked especially sexy peeking through the peeakaboo toe opening (I did catch sight of a woman checking out my shoes/toes out of the corner of my eye at one point, so chalk that up as "1" for moi).

A wedding is an opportunity for young single girls to parade themselves in front of the mothers and sisters of potential future mates. The dating scene is different, at best, from western cultures, non-existent in reality. Generally, as I'm speaking in generalities for most of this post please don't be angry with me if you can think of a few exceptions** to my observations, it is the responsibility of the mothers and sisters to bring suitable prospects to the attention of the man, and upon his added approval, movements towards marriage can be made.

Throughout the event, the music is blaring, so loud that my ears ached. Women get up randomly to take part in various styles of dancing. How they can tell which songs accompany the dance from the local area, another area in the country, another country entirely or the general geographic region is beyond the ability of these novice ears. I attended the wedding with a couple of foreigner friends of mine, and we were emotionally manipulated into attempting to dance in front of all these strangers. Entertaining everyone with our jerky, self conscious movements, I was wondering if I should tell anyone that I was raised to believe that dancing, especially with the use of hip "pop and lock" motions, was considered evil and from the devil. Later, when I noticed a girl of barely 3 years popping her hips from side to side as her mother and aunties looked on and cheered, I decided that talking about my past would be beyond the ideal of sharing. Had I shared, I would have traded my sexy shoes for combat boots and trampled my way through and over a well-loved custom of celebrating the feminine. At once, I was aware that in this context, it was safe. Safe to move our bodies in ways that in clubs, surrounded by sweaty, leering men, would have been deemed sexual and seductive. In this environment, the feminie body moves and the female eye is attracted to other qualities of the dance, the texture and behaviour of the dress material, the arch and beauty of the feet, the friendship between women.

Finally, the bride enters the room and the focus shifts to adorning her with praise. Shouts are let out in her honour. The women cover their mouths as they run their tongues quickly from side to side, creating a noise for which I have no words of description. After some time, an announcement is made that the bride's male relatives will soon be entering the hall, which is our cue to put on our coverings (this was when I was given the infamous veil lesson). Once again, I am in a sea of black. Where once there was individuality and femininity, the black material is a replacement in favour of modesty. I played a game with myself as the others watched the bride get pictures taken with her family, and later met her husband at the end of a runway to be joined together at last in celebration. Now that the women were completely unrecognizable from their glory merely an hour before, I tried to identify them by their shoes, or by the hem of their dress that perhaps peeked out slightly from the bottom of her covering.

If I can claim to have learned only one thing since moving to the desert, I would have to say that I've learned that no matter the circumstance, geographical location or language, women are women are women the world over. Chocolate and shoes. That's what it's all about. Even if our faces are 90% covered, we notice the shoes.

Mango Watch 2008

2008-06-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

This is my favourite mango. It is hanging from one of 3 mango trees in my garden, and I have dubbed it my "prize mango". I check on it every day to make sure that the bats or monkeys (or whatever the creatures are that chitter chatter all night in the darkness) haven't stolen it. I may have prayed over it, but you can't prove it. I have heard that once the mangoes show even a hint of yellow, the monkeys/bats will steal it. Criminals.

Many have asked me what I do with my time - "What does a typical day look like for you in the desert, white girl?" Now you know. I stare at and obsess over one mango.

Hope with me, will you?

P.S. my son is reading over my shoulder as I type this and he read "Hope with me, will you?" out loud and then chuckled while muttering "That is just sad." Who told the 7 year old he could be so smart?

Lost in Translation Part 1 "Haram"

2008-06-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

As I'm in the long process of learning a new language, and as I've gotten to the point where I've learned just enough to get myself into trouble, I figured now is as good a time as any to begin a potentially-ongoing series about the "lost in translation"moments that come along. Let's be honest, those that know me well (and even those that don't) can confidently attest to the fact that I have lanugage mishaps in my own mother tongue. Add in a whole new set of vocabulary and inuendos, and I've got a great recipe for disaster.

Obviously, I have had a remarkable moment, or I wouldn't begin the series.

My husband I attend school for 4 class hours a day, 5 days a week. Between each class, we have a 10 minute break and then one longer break for 30 minutes. Often, especially during the shorter 10 minute breaks, the teachers will stick around in the common area to chat with the students. On one particular day, I walked out of the class, and my teacher offered me a stool to sit on that was directly in front of her. Seeing that the stool was, literally, right at her knees which created a "close talker" scenario, I decided to try out my new vocabulary. Attempting to say, "I'm face to face with you," I mistakenly conjugated a different verb entirely and ended up proposing marriage!

My teacher's face fell and she screamed, "Haram! (forbidden)!"

No. Actually, she laughed and accepted my proposal, thinking that I knew what I was saying, but the situation became much more amusing for her when she realized that I had no clue what I had said. Disgusted with myself and wanting to pick up the few pieces left of my honour, I tried to tell her that this is forbidden. We live in the desert! My efforts only made her laugh harder. At least I kind of know how to be funny in Arabic. A funny lesbian. Awesome.

Veiled

2008-06-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

For the first time since moving to the desert 6 months ago, (and for the first time wearing it seriously, not as a lark) I went out in public last week hidden behind a veil. A large portion of fabric,the face veil is fashioned in such a way to provide an opening across the eyes for the user's visual purposes, leaving only the eyes exposed and the rest of the facial features up to the imagination. There is an extra, nearly transparent piece of fabric that can be thrown back, or pulled forward to cover even the eyes, for added anonymity.

The reason I chose to wear the veil was because I was wearing a crap load of makeup, much more than I ever would when going out in my western-home country, and the idea of going out in public with my face exposed while so made up was enough to make me want to hide. What better way to hide than right out on in the open. With a veil.

My initial impression was suffocation. I haven't had material so close to my face, apart from that time my mother tried to kill me with a pillow.

I jest.

Once my breathing became more regular and I avoided inhaling the fabric and gagging on it as it tried to enter my esophogus, I was alright. Looking in the mirror, I was shocked to see that I looked just like so many women I had seen on the street before. My son entered the room and exclaimed, "My Arabic teacher wears that!" He seemed oddly amused. My husband thought it was hot and asked if I'd wear just the veil for him later. Trust him to turn an instrument of modesty to the exact opposite.

I enjoyed driving through public, in relative anonymity. My husband is well-known, so by association I am as well. I'm sure the stares we were getting were related to curiousities such as, "Is that his wife? Is he giving a local woman a ride somewhere? If so, why is she sitting right beside him? The nerve!" And so on.

Later, in the wedding, when it was necessary to put on the veil once again after I had already entered the wedding and taken it off, I was given quite an intrusive lesson on how to wear it. By intrusive, I mean, an older woman came to me, smiled, grabbed my head on either side, and pulled it down so that the top of my head was resting on her belly. She untied the knot I had just pulled tight, pushed my head back up, readjusted my veil, pushed my head back down and retied it. Pushing my head up once again, she threw the extra, transparent veil back over my head and exclaimed, "Better!" My eyebrows were now sufficiently hidden. Heaven forbid a man sees ANY of my hair. I didn't realize eyebrow hair was that seductive. I learn something new all the time. Except, that the readjustment wasn't "better" as in "I can see better and more clearly." In fact, the veil now pressed on my upper eyelid (just the left one, though) in such a way that my vision was distored in a way I imagine it would look if I was sticking my finger in my eye, just beside the lens. Warped and warbly. I spent the rest of the evening trying to relieve the pressure by pulling back on the veil, but not too forcefully in fear of showing that all-too sexy eyebrow hair.

Now that I know how to wear the veil correctly, and I am confident that I look very much like one of the local women when I wear it (my neighbour didn't even recognize me when I passed her in the grocery store, even though she knew I must be inside because our vehicle was parked out front), I am thinking that perhaps, from time to time, I might just wear it in public even when I'm not wearing a crap-load of makeup. When the staring gets to be just too much, I am tempted to hide.

I just wonder if it would be appropriate to cut out an emergency breathing hole.