Dean Koontz: The Face
Dean Koontz writes a lot of books with children in them, usually children in very vulnerable positions, abandoned, neglected, or at the mercy of a cruel adult, or at best, a negligent adult. Adults do play positive roles in his books, but the positive adult is usually damaged in some way – maybe a history of alcoholism, a history of broken relationships – in short, a lot like most of us. Real people, who make mistakes along the way, and try to learn something from them.
I like Dean Koontz. It makes me sad to say that this is just another great escape. Young boy, lost in his famous father’s huge mansion, beautiful-model mother who spawned him and then walked away, like a cat leaves her kittens – it’s a sad, lonely life for a child.
There is the usual creepy, badly twisted bad guy.
There is a good guy in pain, mourning his dead wife, and a ghost who intervenes in human affairs. There are deus ex machina aplenty, and a couple page-turner moments where you don’t want to stop reading, not yet!
It was not a bad book, but if I weren’t so desperate for escape reading, I would not have wasted a minute on this book.
Light Haze Sunrise
At six in the morning, it is already almost 90°F / 32°C. WeatherUnderground says there is a “light haze.” I can’t imagine what they call a heavy haze. At least the light haze is white, not the orange of yesterday’s sandstorm, but there is still an awful lot of the “light haze.”
Hamd’allah, I have air conditioning. I feel human again. The Alaska girl in me has it turned up to 72°F / 22°C, and I am comfortable.
It took me a long time to capture a glimpse of the sun, early this morning, through the “light haze.” Even as I write, the sun is a great big hazy ball, high in the May sky, oh-so-early on a Friday morning.
I happened to be up early this morning, and was shocked to see busses arriving and laborers – Moslem laborers, like from Pakistan and Afghanistan, getting off buses, carrying shovels and picks and tools to go to work. I thought all Moslems in Kuwait got to take Friday off. Guess I was wrong – and I so often am.
Have a sweet, quiet day, Kuwait. We will be praying for you, in our little church, and for your leadership and your upcoming election, this Friday morning. We wish you only the very best.
Real Time Sandstorm
I’m in my living room, currently the only air conditioned room in the house, the other area A/C is broken, and even in the living room, things are hotting up. Packing boxes, suddenly the light dims and I look outside.
Oh thank God! You might think that is a strange reaction, but when I am packing, any distraction will do. And the light is fantastic! Who knows when I will see another sandstorm rolling in like this? I shoot lots of shots, then scoot off the balcony because it is heading right for me.
I won’t show you what it looks like now. You know what orange looks like. It is totally a bright ochre orange outside. The shoreline is visible, but dimly. The street lights have come on and the smarter drivers have their headlights on. Just in time for drive-time home – be careful out there, Kuwait!
Sanitary Germans
After all my years living in so many different places, I’m fairly blase about toilets. In Tunisia, there were no such thing as public toilets, and while exploring Tunisia, we always had to look for “the potty in the wadi”, i.e. a bridge with no-one in sight. I would run, pee as quickly as I could, and finish just before some curious child – or children – showed up. No matter how remote the place, I can’t remember a single stop that a child didn’t come running about sixty seconds after we stopped.
So I got a big smile at the public toilet in Germany – they started installing these about 20 years ago – that even cleans itself. I thought “I wonder how long these would last in Kuwait?” where they could put people our of jobs.
Yesterday, I used a public toilet in a very nice mall in Kuwait, but when I got there, a woman – I am guessing the “cleaner”, and I put it in quotes for a reason, was stretched out and sleeping. I looked in several stalls, no toilet paper, no problem, I carry my own. It didn’t seem all that clean, no paper for drying hands, either, and as I am leaving she holds out her hand and asks how I am, how is my health, etc. I usually tip – but I didn’t tip yesterday, why tip someone who is not doing the work she is paid to do? She didn’t even stand up, just held up her hand!
Neuleiningen Castle and the BurgSchanke
For many many years, we have been going back to the BurgSchanke in Neuleiningen. We would see the ruins of the old castle, high on a hill, as we would be driving by on Autobahn A6 between the Heidelberg area and France. When AdventureMan got his company command (it was a big deal) I saved up my money and treated him to dinner at the BurgSchanke.
This is where we sat:
The menu doesn’t change much. Most of these entrees were the same ones on the menu many many years ago:
Here is what AdventureMan likes to have – Franzosiche Entenbrust, or French Duck Breast (I think the French part is all the vegetables)
I don’t eat meat very often, but when I do – this is what I had – the Knoblouchsteak (garlic steak)
It used to be served on a wooden platter. I am guessing that health and sanitation standards now require porcelain or something less porous and prone to bacteria than wood.
And here is what we had for dessert. We totally hate the presentation, but it never fails to make us laugh, long and loud, and in spite of how it looks, the mousse is truly delicious.
We talked about all the years we had been coming to this restaurant, all the guests and friends we had brought with us, where we had been sitting with different people – including, more than once, my parents, coming back for their own sentimental journey. Ahhh . . . sweet memories. 🙂
One time, my youngest sister and her family came for a visit, and their son also tried the duck, and thoroughly enjoyed it. His father ordered the Eisbecher Burg Neuleiningen, and we didn’t tell him . . . we waited to see his face when they brought him a bowl the size of a punch bowl, filled with fifty scoops of ice-cream. 🙂 Oh, what fun!
We stayed in a truly darling hotel, and felt very lucky to get the last room. “Two hours ago, we had four vacancies,” the very nice manager said, “but now, we have just one!” In a heartbeat, we took it. The view from the Burggraf was amazing.
KTAA Exhibit Opens Tonight at Dar Al Cid
Thanks to my friends in the Kuwait Textile Arts Association for passing this along:
Breakfast in Schwetzingen
German breakfasts are anything but light. There wasn’t a piece of fruit to be found! We were lucky to be guests at the hotel, because most of the tables were reserved, and people were turned away, even at nine in the morning, the breakfasts at the hotel Cafe Journal are so good.
You could have smoked ham, cold cuts and cheese, too, but we chose not.
Breakfast bread basket:
Yummy condiments:
Fresh orange juice:
Herb and cheese omelettes:
We were astonished – in Germany and in France – that there is absolutely NO SMOKING in any of the restaurants. If you are sitting outside, you can smoke, but we could not believe how well enforced this law is. We had heard about it, but frankly – the French not smoke in restaurants? We would not have believed it possible! Germans are very law-obeying peoples, but the French??? Never, not once, did we see a person smoking in a restaurant. It was amazing.
Sunrise Tuesday, May 13, 2009
Every sunrise now is poignant – I will not have this kind of view in Doha. I will have palm trees, and sometimes parrots and / or parakeets who migrate through and love the date palms. I will have a yard, and two colored bougainvillea, and pots of home grown basil. I will have a neighborhood where I can walk freely, all by myself and never worry about being harassed, and a pool where women gather and joke around while doing water aerobics. But oh, I will miss these glorious Gulf sunrises!
Living our Religion
Today’s reflection from Forward Day by Day is a tough one. In the Gulf, there is a tradition of thfadl and thfadli (the second is what you say to a woman) which means, literally, “you are to be preferred.” You are supposed to outwait the other, to allow the other to take precedence.
I have one Kuwaiti friend – you know who you are – who simply cannot be out-thfadle-d. She out-thfadle-s me every time. 🙂
But when I read this passage, and think of how I live in Kuwait, I find myself thinking “Guilty! Guilty as charged!”
When I see a long line in front of me at the health department, and someone comes and ushers me to the front, yes, I have gratefully taken advantage, taken preference over those who continue to wait. I have scowled when people try to shove their basket in front of me in the supermarket. And in traffic – when I “thfadl”, it has nothing to do with politeness and preference, and everything to do with sarcasm and frustration.
Today’s reading reminds me I still have a long road in front of me when it comes to learning to love my neighbor, and put others first.
Romans 12:1-21. Outdo one another in showing honor.
The Episcopal Church (and some other denominations, too) is vexed these days by rancorous disputes about authority and sex. Name-calling, smirking, and thinly veiled anger sometimes characterize church gatherings. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that we ourselves are faithful and true, but those others are faithless and false. We demean and dismiss other Christians. It’s hard to find a Christian today who outdoes others in showing honor (except honor shown to those lined up on one’s own side). Is it any wonder that many people outside the church want nothing to do with us?
I long for the day when we will approach those who differ from us and say: “I agree with almost nothing you are advocating. I see God, the world, and our faith through different lenses than you do. But I know that God loves us both and has sent his Son to forgive and redeem us both. I know that Christ lives within us both. Therefore I honor you and join you in prayer and in worshiping our common Lord. I shall remain silent today so that you may speak and I may learn from you. I thank God for you because I see Jesus when I look at you.”
Revisiting Romance in Schwetzingen
When we met, AdventureMan and I, we didn’t date for very long. We knew, almost as soon as we met, that we were going to be married.
We met in Heidelberg, one of the most romantic cities in the entire world. My sister was getting married in the Heidelberg castle. It was a grand wedding, and AdventureMan and I were both supporting characters.
One of our first dates was going to the castle in nearby Schwetzingen. Schwetzingen has a beautiful castle, but it is not as famous for the castle as it is for its white asparagus, called spargel. It may sound funny to you, but this is a great delicacy, only served from mid-April to early June.
Schwetzingen really celebrates their white asparagus; this is a statue in the city square of an older woman teaching younger ones how to sort spargel:
Spargel is served a hundred different ways, in soups, in salads, and in big bunches, with vinaigrette sauce, hollandaise sauce, bernaise sauce, or sometimes with just butter. You can have it with schnitzle, with ham, or just with new spring potatoes. Who would believe asparagus could taste SO good?
So here is the story. We were so young, and had so little money. AdventureMan had taken me to the Schwetzingen Castle to walk, and as we walked and talked, I could tell he was really talking about getting married. He had planned on having enough money that we could sit afterwards, in a little cafe, and have a glass of wine, but we were both hungry. We dug into our wallets, and between the two of us, we came up with just enough for two glasses of wine, one bunch of spargel and one tiny little schnitzle. It was enough. We were in love.
That night, he asked me to marry him.
We go back to Schwetzingen and eat spargel every chance we get – and we have been blessed, through the years, to have lived nearby, or not so far away, and the thrill of our memories there never wears off.
OK Ok, enough of the mush gush stuff. On with the spargel!
This is my spargel with hollandaise. I just had it with potatoes, because I knew I also wanted dessert. 😉
AdventureMan had his with schnitzle. He had spargel with hollandaise and potatoes for lunch, too, and he didn’t plan to have any dessert.
While we were waiting for our spargel, we had a little sunshine, and watched the brides as they came out, every thirty minutes, from their weddings at the Schwetzingen castle:
Here comes the bride:
And here is my dessert, called Heiss Und Eis. As soon as I saw it on the menu, I had to make a decision – whether to start with the spargel or to start with the Heiss und Eis. The Eis part is the vanilla ice cream, and the Heiss part (hot) is a hot raspberry sauce poured over the cold vanilla ice cream. Oh YUMMMMMM.
We stayed at the ErbPrinzen, where we stayed before once when we were going to a ball in Heidelberg. It was wonderful. We were right across from the Schwetzingen castle, they have a fabulous restaurant and we ate all our meals right at the hotel, sometimes outside, sometimes in.
I had tried, unsuccessfully, to make reservations online. Good thing AdventureMan said “just run in and ask! What have we got to lose?” They had a room, it was a wonderful room, and parking was FREE! That’s our room, at the top right corner. We were on the no-smoking floor, which meant hauling our bags up two long floors. I guess the put the non-smokers on top because they don’t worry so much about us having a heart attack.
Here is one view from our corner room:
And here is another view, towards sunset, with some weather drama going on in the background:
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