Qaatteri Cat’s Sunrise
The Qatteri Cat had the cat crazies as the sun came up this morning. Racing around the house, coming to our bed and saying “day has started! You don’t want to miss this!” and by the time I am up, I have to laugh, every carpet in the house is rumpled up from his scampering and racing about.
He was right. The humidity has disappeared, even if temporarily, my windows are clear (too clear, as you will see!) and it is a gorgeous sunrise.
Isn’t that GORGEOUS! No, not the photograph, the sunrise! Blue sky! Clouds! A hint, in the middle of summer, that winter is coming!
But this photo is the do-over. I took a previous photo. When I uploaded, I laughed out loud, and immediately took another – you can see why:
It is 97°F/36°C at 0700.
Strange Practices
This is from the Kuwait Crime section of the Arab Times:
And in an unrelated development, Interior Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled Al-Sabah should look into the alleged immoral practices on Kuwaiti islands, National Assembly Comptroller Dr Mohammed Al-Huwailah told Alam Al-Yawm. Urging the minister to take stringent measures to curb ‘immorality’ in these islands, Al-Huwailah wondered how could some people engage in strange practices under the supposedly watchful eyes of security authorities, particularly the Coast Guard. Asserting he will closely follow up the issue, Al-Huwailah warned the minister’s lenient attitude on the issue will lead to the destruction of Arab and Islamic values. He called for the strict implementation of the law to protect the Kuwaiti society.
I am guessing these strange practices are alien practices? What kind of practices are taking place on Kuwait’s islands?
Grin for Today
I’ve always loved this joke. It is making the rounds again; thank you dear friend for forwarding it to me. 🙂
“The Obedient Wife”
There was a man who had worked all his life, had saved all of his money, and was a real “miser” when it came to his money.
Just before he died, he said to his wife…”When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. I want to take my money to the afterlife with me.”
And so he got his wife to promise him, with all of her heart, that when he died, she would put all of the money into the casket with him.
Well, he died. He was stretched out in the casket, his wife was sitting there – dressed in black, and her friend was sitting next to her. When they finished the ceremony, and just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said,
“Wait just a moment!”
She had a small metal box with her; she came over with the box and put it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and they rolled it away. So her friend said,
“Girl, I know you were not fool enough to put all that money in there with your husband.”
The loyal wife replied, “Listen, I’m a Christian; I cannot go back on my word. I promised him that I was going to put that money into the casket with him.”
You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him!?!?!?”
“I sure did,” said the wife. “I got it all together, put it into my account, and wrote him a check…. If he can cash it, then he can spend it.”
Steamy Sunrise
Last night, I was working on a project, and was wondering why sweat was just streaming off me – I wasn’t working THAT hard. And then I noticed the windows – it was as if we were in the middle of a rainstorm, only it wasn’t raining.
Ahhhh. . . . the humid days are setting in. Good for settling dust. Bad for getting anything done. Generating tons more laundry . . . two minutes outside, and you are soaked, from the inside out. Your sunglasses fog, cameras fog . . . not my favorite time of year.
This morning, WOW. It’s as if it were Seattle fog rolling over the water, except it is Kuwait steam – this is what sunrise really looked like – it’s hard to photograph steam when your lens keeps clouding. What looks like waves – you can’t even see the Gulf this morning, that is steam/fog, rising off the waters. The whole area is covered with rolls and wisps of steamy fog.
Today’s Kuwait Times: Monday, 21 July
First, to give credit where credit is due, the Kuwait Times has become better and better during my time here in Kuwait. The grammar is better, they have (most-of-the-time) stopped using “red handed” in every crime report, and the captions under the photos match the photos.
Until today. I think an editor must be on vacation.
Here is the photo:
And here is the caption under the photo: KUWAIT Director of Public Relation and Moral Guidance department COL Adel Al-Hashash receiving Deputy Chairman of Police Sports Association COL Mubarak Al-Mubarak and head of police Karate team to the Arab championship LTC Waleed Ghanem Al-Ghanem over the weekend.
Now down at the bottom of the page is the same caption, with this photo:
Also on page 2 is the following article – please read it closely and tell me if I am reading it correctly – that this will compel women, but not men, to go to the reconciliation committee before filing for divorce? I hate divorce. I am all in favor of family counseling. I am in favor of any law helping families, as long as it applies equally to men and to women:
Family Court will halve divorce rates in Kuwait
Published Date: July 21, 2008
KUWAIT: Judge Faisal Al-Mirshid has revealed that family court should be up and running in Kuwait within one year, predicting that its existence would halve the country’s divorce rates. The Appeal Court head, member of the Higher Judicial Council and chairman of the committee entrusted with establishing the family court said that the court’s establishment would reduce divorce cases by 50 percent because those asking for divorce will first have to go to the reconciliation committee, otherwise their cases will be automatically rejected in all courts.
Al-Mirshid said that a ministerial decision has been issued to establish the family court, and the committee has already begun working on the regulatory legal framework which will control its decision making process, reported Al Jarida.
He explained that the committee has already contacted the Awqaf Ministry’s Secretariat General regarding the allocation of a building to house the family court, which will include several departments and sections, including a shelter for women and children fleeing domestic violence.
He explained that it will also establish a fund to help Kuwaiti families and provide financial aid for divorced Kuwaiti women or those whose husbands are imprisoned.
Al-Mirshid said that there are some impediments to the success of the family courts, including a need to amend the current divorce legislation in order to compel women seeking a divorce to first resort to the reconciliation committee before filing for divorce.
He said the family court law will be applied to followers of the Jaafari Shia sect followers just like other personal affairs legislation, emphasizing that there is no contradiction with the idea of Jaafari courts which call for reconciliation before resorting to court for divorce.
He said that there will also be a fund established to provide expenses for families within the Jaafari rules.
Last, but not least, on the very same page 2 is this intriguing article. So you tell me – what are they saying DID happen?
MoI clarifies erroneous rescue operation
Kuwait: The Ministry of Interior clarified an erroneous report published in some local dailies recently. It referred to a report on the rscue operation of four persons whose boat sank off the Kubbar island.
It said the coast guard acted promptly the minute they received the call, while the delay in rescuing them was actually caused through wrong coordination.
That error resulted in the team having to scour the entire square area around the island in their search for the missing persons.
Help was sought from a helicopter from the US search rescue team to assist in the operations, it added.
Ministry officials also disclosed that the four persons of both sexes were not in any way related to the Al-Sabah family, and that the search operation succeeded in locating them and getting them safely ashore without any casualties.
They said contradictory reports of the rescue operations published in newspapers was due to the fact that the media did not source the correct information from the concerned authorities.
A statement released by the ministry said rescue teams from the fire service department as well as central operations (777) participated in the rescue.
Kuwait’s History – for Children
Thank you, Little Diamond, for your sharp eye spotting this story:
Children”s books about Kuwait”s history translated into English
Al Watan staff
KUWAIT: A new and rare series of stories about Kuwait”s history and
the nature of life in Kuwait in the past can now be found on sale in
Kuwait. The books, written by Dr. Yaqoob Yousef Al-Ghunaim and
translated into English by Dr. Shaban Afifi Abdulaziz, have been
printed by the Center for Study and Research in Kuwait and contain
illustration by artist Suhiala Hussein Al-Jundi.
The stories in the books are written in a simple manner that interests
children and that allows them to learn more about the history of
Kuwait and how Kuwaitis lived in the past. In the stories AlÜGhunaim
discusses traditional Kuwaiti society and the importance of fishing
and the rearing of animals.
The first story entitled Kuwait”s Wall is about a group of children
who ask Abu Abdullah questions about Kuwait”s wall and the reasons
behind its construction.
In the second story, AlÜGhunaim relates in a dramatic style the
stories of old Kuwaiti ships and underlines how society was based on
conservative religious values.
Al-Ghunaim also discusses life in the desert and how people were fond
of hunting gazelles and other wild animals which were commonly found
in the country.
A story about Burqan oil field was also added to the series to show
how the discovery of oil changed the Kuwaiti community.
http://www.alwatan.com.kw/Default.aspx?MgDid=652853&pageId=473
Bad Dream
Do you ever have a bad dream at night and you can’t shake it off? No more coffee for me after dinner!
The Qatteri Cat also had a restless night, and it was nearly dawn before we both drifted off into deepest sleep.
I dreamed I was living in a new place, a very spacious place, and then the doorbell rang and people came to deliver new furniture. It was like when I was an Army wife – I had no notification, and had not made any arrangements for where the new furniture would go. And yet the furniture was here and I had no choice and had to quickly make a place.
The furniture was awful! Awful! Stuff I would never have chosen in a million years, and I felt so depressed thinking “how am I supposed to live with this furniture? I don’t like this furniture!” And I wanted to send it all back.
Now that I write it down, it sounds absurdly funny, but I woke up feeling powerless and angry and sad all at the same time. Now what’s that all about?
Loving and Losing Hurts
Scientists are proving something we already know in our guts – love hurts. From BBC Science News:
Love really does hurt, just as poets and song lyric writers claim.
New brain scanning technologies are revealing that the part of the brain that processes physical pain also deals with emotional pain.
And in the same way that in some people injury can cause long-lasting chronic pain, science now reveals why some will never get over such heartbreak.
Emotional pain can take many forms; a relationship break-up or social exclusion, for example.
You can read the entire article HERE.
One Step Beyond: Baan Sabaidee
We all have our limits. When it comes to food, my limits are farther out there than most – I like taste. I like most cuisines, or at least most of most cuisines. I do have my limits.
One limit is okra / ladyfingers/ bamyi:
One time, at a buffet in Jordan, I told my husband I was going back for something I found totally delicious, and he laughed and said “You know it is okra?” No, I didn’t know. I did go back and get a little more anyway, but it no longer tasted the same – I knew it was okra. It’s the texture; okra is, to me, slimy, gooey, in my mouth it gives me shudders. It’s like raw oysters. Shudder.
Deep fried okra in a spicy tomato sauce was OK – until I knew it was okra.
I was visiting with a friend, working on some projects and we decided to order out from a nearby newly opened Thai restaurant for lunch. She’s a crazy woman, like me. We are not alike – she says “tomahto” and I say “tomato” and somehow we get along just fine. We decided to order things we have never ordered before.
We ordered two safe things – the first was Gai Sate (chicken sate). It was gorgeous and delicious. The sauce is one of the best sauces I have had with Thai food, hot, sweet, and sesame. Delightful.
The second safe thing was Pad Thai, which was also beautiful and tasty:
We ordered Pad Ka Phrao, because we had never heard of it, and because it has basil leaves in it:
It was delicious.
We loved the way the food was packaged. The green curry and the soup was packed in sealed plastic sacks, inside the normal plastic containers. Not a single drop was spilled in the bag. I’m impressed. I love soups, and I hate the mess when soups spill in the bags:
This is the green curry (Gaeng Khew Wan). It is totally delicious.
You know me. I love fish. We had never tried the Tom Kling (smoked herb soup) so we ordered that, with grilled smoked fish. It came beautifully packaged, like the above curry. When we went to eat the soup, however, although it was delicious, I had to fish out the fish. I am not normally squeamish, but their little fishy eyes were too much for me:
AdventureMan and I later made a trip to find the restaurant. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth the trouble. Tucked back behind some of the behomoth apartments on the Southern Gulf Road, it only has maybe six tables, but it is tiny and exquisite. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make this little place beautiful and serene. Although it is a new restaurant, it was already packed when we got there, but a table opened up just as we arrived.
We asked for recommendations, and tried the Tod Mun (shrimp cakes) and a dish I loved. Pad See Ew, which was vermicelli noodles stir fried in soy sauce with shrimp. We also had the chicken sate again – delicious. We were busy watching other people with big pots of something in front of them, shared by groups. We have to go back and try that, whatever it was.
Their take out menu has a nice feel to it – heavy paper with good photos so you can guess what you are ordering:
And- the bonus – it has a map of how to get there on the back, so I don’t have to confuse you trying to figure out the directions:
If they are full, I noticed across the street is another branch of China Queen, one of the best kept secrets in Kuwait for Chinese food with authenticity.
Love and Money
I love this article, from the July 13 Business Section of the New York Times. The author looks at love from an analytic point of view. Good reading, interesting ideas. Altogether, a delightful and intriguing read.
By BEN STEIN
Published: July 13, 2008
AS my fine professor of economics at Columbia, C. Lowell Harriss (who just celebrated his 96th birthday) used to tell us, economics is the study of the allocation of scarce goods and services. What could be scarcer or more precious than love? It is rare, hard to come by and often fragile.
My primary life study has been about love. Second comes economics, so here, in the form of a few rules, is a little amalgam of the two fields: the economics of love. (I last wrote about this subject 20 years or so ago, and it’s time to update it.)
•
In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship.
If you invest caring, patience and unselfishness, you get those things back. (This assumes, of course, that you are having a relationship with someone who loves you, and not a one-sided love affair with someone who isn’t interested.)
•
High-quality bonds consistently yield more return than junk, and so it is with high-quality love. As for the returns on bonds, I know that my comment will come as a surprise to people who have been brainwashed into thinking that junk bonds are free money. They aren’t. The data from the maven of bond research, W. Braddock Hickman, shows that junk debt outperforms high quality only in rare situations, because of the default risk.
In love, the data is even clearer. Stay with high-quality human beings. And once you find that you are in a junk relationship, sell immediately. Junk situations can look appealing and seductive, but junk is junk. Be wary of it unless you control the market.
(Or, as I like to tell college students, the absolutely surest way to ruin your life is to have a relationship with someone with many serious problems, and to think that you can change this person.)
•
Research pays off. The most appealing and seductive (that word again) exterior can hide the most danger and chance of loss. For most of us, diversification in love, at least beyond a very small number, is impossible, so it’s necessary to do a lot of research on the choice you make. It is a rare man or woman who can resist the outward and the surface. But exteriors can hide far too much.
•
In every long-term romantic situation, returns are greater when there is a monopoly. If you have to share your love with others, if you have to compete even after a brief while with others, forget the whole thing. You want to have monopoly bonds with your long-term lover. At least most situations work out better this way. ( I am too old to consider short-term romantic events. Those were my life when Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were in the White House.)
•
The returns on your investment should at least equal the cost of the investment. If you are getting less back than you put in over a considerable period of time, back off.
•
Long-term investment pays off. The impatient day player will fare poorly without inside information or market-controlling power. He or she will have a few good days but years of agony in the world of love.
To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.
•
Realistic expectations are everything. If you have unrealistic expectations, they will rarely be met. If you think that you can go from nowhere to having someone wonderful in love with you, you are probably wrong.
You need expectations that match reality before you can make some progress. There may be exceptions, but they are rare.
•
When you have a winner, stick with your winner. Whether in love or in the stock market, winners are to be prized.
•
Have a dog or many dogs or cats in your life. These are your anchors to windward and your unfailing source of love.
Ben Franklin summed it up well. In times of stress, the three best things to have are an old dog, an old wife and ready money. How right he was.
THERE is more that could be said about the economics of love, but these thoughts may divert you while you are thinking about your future.
And let me close with another thought. I am far from glib about the economy. It has a lot of pitfalls facing it. As workers and investors, we know that many dangers lurk in our paths.
But so far, these things have always worked themselves out and this one will, too. In the meantime, they say that falling in love is wonderful, and that the best is falling in love with what you have.
Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.
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