As It Snows . . .
Catching up with the news, I was looking at the Thursday Kuwait Times when I came across a photo. I am not going to print the photo in my blog, but if you want to look at it, or one like it, you can see it at Yahoo News, just click here on the blue type.
The photo of the execution, titled Iran hangs 13 on a single day is extraordinary enough. I don’t think we print those kind of photos in American newspapers. Maybe in the tabloids; these photos are considered disturbing. I know they disturb me. This one in the Kuwait Times has big white balls in it and the caption reads: QOM, Iran: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses as it snows in a square in this central city yesterday.
I remember cutting out a similar one from a paper in Saudi Arabia when I lived there. It didn’t have a photo, but the article was about the Taliban hanging of a convicted man in the stadium in Kabul. It stated the man was wearing a blue sharwal khamis. There was no mention of why this man was hung, of what he was convicted.
The Yahoo version of the same hanging of 13 states: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses after being executed in a square.
To me, the mention of snow falling as people are executed, of the executed man seems . . . maybe poetic? Maybe some way of softening the horror? I don’t know. It’s not something we would do. Bad news is left bare, without a lot of dressing it up. I would love to get your input on this. For me, it’s a different way of thinking.
Feeding MY Soul: Blog comments
Today, on the day we honor the Wise Men following the star, I got the following comment on a blog entry I wrote back in August, on Buck Naked and the Yemeni Star from PetroOps, no hot link, so maybe he/she is a blogger and maybe not. This kind of comment feeds my soul.
Well that Star is called (Sohail) it is a Yemeni Star because it holds its place on the southern sphere’s sky. so it is to the Yemen side for Kuwait and other GCC countries. on the opposite side there is the (Thoraia – Star) to the northwest of our Sky and that was mentioned together in some poetries as the lovers that will never meet with each others.
I never knew that! I have sort of kept Sohail in mind as a name for the next female cat that comes into my life, and now I can see that the next cat will probably have a brother, whose name will be Thoraia. If those names are male and femaie, and I have assigned the wrong sex (in English, if a name ends in an “a” it is most likely a female name) somebody please clue me in so I don’t make a terrible mistake. Anyway, I don’t see adopting another cat any time soon, as we have our hands full with The Qatteri Cat.
A week after the first Yemeni Star entry, I wrote another, Yemeni Star to which I received all kinds of great informative comments.
A lot of time on blogs, every blog, it is just blah blah blah. What feeds my soul are comments like this one above, and the ones to the Yemeni star entry, comments that add something to my knowledge base, often comments that help me think in a totally new direction. You do that for me, my readers, my commenters. Thank you for delighting my heart.
Epiphany (2)
While looking for an image of the Wise Men and the Child that appealed to me, I came across a website, Farsinet.com that has more information about the revelation of the child. Here is a quote from Farsinet.com from the Ronald Latham translation of The Travels of Marco Polo, from an article by H. Behzadi:
In Persia is the city called Saveh, from which the three Magi set out when they came to worship Jesus Christ. Here, too, they lie buried in three sepulchres of great size and beauty. Above each sepulchre is a square building with a domed roof of very fine workmanship. The one is just beside the other. Their bodies are still whole, and they have hair and beards. One was named Beltasar, the second Gaspar, and the third Melchior.
Messer Marco asked several of the inhabitants who these Magi were; but no one could tell him anything except that they were three kings who were buried there in days gone by. But at last he learnt What I will tell you.
Three days farther on, he found a town called Kala Atashparastan, that is to say Town of the Fire-worshippers. And that is no more than the truth; for the men of this town do worship fire. And I will tell you why they worship it. The inhabitants declare that in days gone by three kings of this country went to worship a new-born prophet and took with them three offerings -gold, frankincense, and myrrh – so as to discover whether this prophet was a god, or an earthly king or a healer. For they said : ‘If he takes gold, he is an earthly king; if frankincense, a god; if myrrh, a healer.’
When they had come to the place where the prophet was born, the youngest of the three kings went in all alone to see the child. He found that he was like himself, for he seemed to be of his own age and appearance. And he came out, full of wonder. Then in went the second, who was a man of middle age. And to him also the child seemed, as it had seemed to the other, to be of his own age and appearance. And he came out quite dumbfounded. Then in went the third, who was of riper years; and to him also it happened as it had to the other two. And he came out deep in thought. When the three kings were all together, each told the others what he had seen. And they were much amazed and resolved that they would all go in together.
So, in they went, all three together, and came before the child and saw him in his real likeness and of his real age; for he was only thirteen days old. Then they worshipped him and offered him the gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh. The child took all three offerings and then gave them a closed casket. And the three kings set out to return to their own country.
After they had ridden for some days, they resolved to see what the child had given them. They opened the casket and found inside it a stone. They wondered greatly what this could be. The child had given it to them to signify that they should be firm as stone in the faith that they had adopted. For, when the three kings saw that the child had taken all three offerings, they concluded that he was at once a god, and an earthly king, and a healer. And, since the child knew that the three kings believed this, he gave them the stone to signify that they should be firm and constant in their belief.
The three kings, not knowing why the stone had been given to them, took it and threw it into a well. No sooner had it fallen in than there descended from heaven a burning fire, which came straight to the well into which it had been thrown. When the three kings saw this miracle, they were taken aback and repented of their throwing away the stone; for they saw clearly that its significance was great and good. They immediately took some of this fire and carried it to their country and put it in one of their churches, a very fine and splendid building.
They keep it perpetually burning and worship it as a god. And every sacrifice and burnt offering which they make is roasted with this fire. If it ever happens that the fire goes out, they go round to others who hold the same faith and worship fire also and are given some of the fire that burns in their church. This they bring back to rekindle their own fire. They never rekindle it except with this fire of which I have spoken. To procure this fire, they often make a journey of ten days.
That is how it comes about that the people of this country are fire worshippers. And I assure you that they are very numerous. All this was related to Messer Marco Polo by the inhabitants of this town; and it is all perfectly true. Let me tell you finally that one of the three Magi came from Saveh, one from Hawah, and the third from Kashan.
(LLLLOOOOLLLLLLLL: It took me forever to find an image of the three Wise Men/Magi that didn’t look European or Western instead of Persian and Yemeni, as the legends state!)
January 6 The Feast of Epiphany
I have always loved Epiphany. The vision of the three wise men riding on camels, following a star to find a baby in a manger delights my soul. There is a flip side, of course, as the wicked King Herod sends his soldiers to kill all the male children under two years old, and the Christ child, whose parents Mary and Joseph are warned by an angel, have miraculously escaped to hide in Egypt.
Friday, in church, I learned something I had never known before: The Feast of the Epiphany was traditionally the second most important celebration in the church year, just after Easter. I had always assumed it was Christmas. I was wrong!
Not only is Christmas not the second most important, it is also not the third most important – that is, if I remember what Father Andy said, the Assumption. He said that we didn’t begin to celebrate the birth of the child in Bethleham, as a church, until around the 4th century.
Here is the story, in one of our readings for today:
Matthew 2:1-12
2In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men* from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,* and have come to pay him homage.’ 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah* was to be born. 5They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd* my people Israel.” ’
7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men* and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,* until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped,* they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Every Sunset is a Beautiful Sunset
We were walking along Clearwater Beach, in Florida with a couple who had been our friends for years. We have so many stories with this couple, stories that make us all double over in laughter.
There was the time we were dining at a castle in Germany, a very lovely place, and when we ordered dessert, it came . . . chocolate mousse, but carefully placed, a la nouvelle cuisine, and striped with a chocolate syrup. As it was being put before us, we didn’t dare to look at one another. Only when the waiter left did the giggles start, growing into full grown guffaws, as we laughed helplessly.
The mousse looked like dog poop.
My husband was laughing so hard he had trouble breathing for a while. The gales of laughter, the whoops of laughter continued as we remembered the utter shock as the dessert was placed before us. To this day, we still don’t know if this was seriously supposed to be haute cuisine or if it was some kind of German joke. It still makes us roll with laughter thinking of the horrified surprise we each felt, and our fear of laughing in the waiter’s face.
There are other stories, stories funnier to us than they would be to you in the retelling.
Bill had a heart attack earlier in the year. AdventureMan and I were going through career transition issues. It was a time of struggle for both couples, and we were talking about what we were going through as the sun began to set. We all stopped and watched.
“What a beautiful sunset!” AdventureMan said.
There was a pause, as we all watched the last fading rays of the setting sun.
Bill took AdventureMan’s arm and looked at him intensely.
“Every sunset is a beautiful sunset,” he said, and added “when you think you may never see another.”
It changed how we see the sunset. It changed how we see the sunrise. Bill died this last year, having had many more sunsets after our sunset in Florida, and we still miss him grievously.
Saturday, 5 January Sunrise
Clear horizon . . . . looking for snow clouds . . .
Scary – that’s not the horizon the sun is over, it’s the veil of (smog?) (pollution?) (fog?) that seems to hang over the Gulf perpetually.
Why all these sunrises? Well, for one thing, because I can, because when I wake up I usually can’t get back to sleep, I am AWAKE and ready to go. My best time of the day.
Bundle Up!
If you’ve been following the weather forecasts, this week to come is going to get very very COLD. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be getting down to freezing, below freezing in remote desert areas.
It’s so humid . . . is it possible to have snow in Kuwait? Has it ever snowed here?
Swedish Pot Roast
You don’t think of fine cooking when you think of Sweden, and yet this pot roast is one of my family’s all time favorites. It has a unique flavor, sweet and rich, and you need a pressure cooker to fix this. It is old fashioned, but the taste is amazing. It’s a great January kind of meal, served with potatoes and maybe some Rot Kohl / Red Cabbage.
3 lb. beef pot roast (7 bone preferred) or chuck or brisket
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
2 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
2 T. cooking oil
1 cup water
2 onions, sliced
4 bay leaves
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup red wine or vinegar
Combine nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, salt, pepper; rub into meat.
In pressure cooker, brown meat on both sides.
Add onion, garlic, brown sugar and water, wine and bay leaves. Close cover of pressure cooker, place regulator on vent pipe and cook 35 minutes with regulator rocking slowly. Let pressure drop.
4 – 6 servings over egg noodles, or cooked potatoes.
Freecycle
There was an article within the last few days in the Kuwait Times about Freecycle but this is not the recent article. It was the only article I could fine, from April 2007. The important thing is that it exists, and that setting up a Kuwait freecycle would be of benefit to many.
In the expat community, we do a lot of Freecycle on an informal basis. When we come, people help us out with things, and when we leave, we pass our things along. Sometimes we sell them, but often as not, we give them away and would love for them to fall into the right hands. We all hate waste.
(Oh my gosh! I just went to the Freecycle Website and found the Kuwait group and it has 122 members! Holy Smokes!) Click on the blue type and you can join the Kuwait group, too!
Don’t throw it away, someone might want it
Published Date: April 25, 2007
By Pete May
Our houses are full of them: old computers, fax machines, video players, fridges in the garage, vinyl records, unwanted armchairs – things we don’t want but still work. Research by gumtree.com reveals the British dispose of over £5.6bn worth of usable household items a year, including 1.35m working fridges and freezers, and 2.6m sofas. People out there want our redundant stuff – but how do we find them? A few weeks ago, I tried to shift a 10-year-old Apple Power Mac and a similarly ancient (in computer terms) Mac laptop. Both worked, so to throw them in a skip would have been wasteful and created toxic waste (computers can contain heavy metals and chemicals). I’d checked the likes of Computer Aid International (computeraid.org) and the Community Recycling Network (crn.org.uk). Both accepted PCs, but the words “10-year-old Apple Mac” resulted in polite rejection.
So I tried Freecycle, an online forum where people give away and pick up unwanted stuff, free of charge. It has 4,009 communities worldwide and, according to its online counter, 3,401,532 users. I joined my local group and tentatively posted my message: “Offered: Power Mac with printer and Powerbook laptop, bought in 1997 but working fine, need to be collected.” Within three hours I’d had 30 replies. Suddenly my Macs were seen as a valuable resource. Jenny wanted the laptop for her 11-year-old son who was “a Mac fanatic”, while Julie wanted it for her soon-to-be daughter-in-law; Ben needed computers for his charity in Zimbabwe. It wasn’t easy to decide whom to give them to.
Freecycle etiquette dictates that you don’t necessarily give things to the first emailer – and you must reject anyone you suspect wants to sell the goods. I opted for friendly sounding people who could collect immediately: Andy, who’d been on disability benefit for three years, and Ruth, a cash-starved student. Since then I’ve used Freecycle to shift two fax machines, a Zip drive, an office desk, a child’s desk, a malfunctioning Hoover, some kitchen shelves, a washing machine and my local vicar’s sofa bed. Our fridge-freezer went to a woman with cancer who was on a special diet and needed it for her store of juices. Our rubbish was helping someone fight for life. Then I visited SwapXchange, which offers items to swap from all over the country via its website (swapxchange.org). I exchanged a juicer and a Kenwood mixer for a bottle of organic wine apiece.
(Read the rest of the article by clicking on the BLUE Kuwait Times type, above.)
Pass it along. . . !
Travel Plans
We are in the process of setting up travel plans, business, family and leisure. When I came across this today on ICHC, I couldn’t resist:
moar funny pictures
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