Qatteri Cat Gets Bored
The Qatteri Cat remembers what it was like to live on the streets. He doesn’t remember the hunger, the thirst or the danger. What he remembers are the smells, and the great adventure.
When he first came to live with us, he often escaped. He could run out the back, up a tree and once over the wall, he was GONE. He always came back . . . unless, of course, he was stuck in someone’s back yard, or up a tree so tall he couldn’t figure out how to get down. We always knew when that happened – we could hear him yowling all the way home.
But now, he can’t get out. There are days when he yearns for the street, for the smells and strangeness of the great outdoors. We try to amuse him, and he humors us.
We hid one of his “babies” under the sack. It’s driving him crazy:
He pushes the sack, trying to get his baby:
Finally, he wins!
777
This week I saw an accident, and called 777. My experience was very positive – my call was answered on the first try, and although the lady didn’t speak English, we managed. The ambulance people called me, the police called me multiple times, the ambulance showed up, the police showed up. All in all, not bad.
It would have been better had I spoken better Arabic, but we all managed. One guy put me on the speaker phone and had everyone listen to me and then someone said what I was saying. It was one of those Woh is der Bahnhof experiences where they would keep asking me “Where? Where?” and I would tell them and tell them, and then they would say “”Oh! You are saying . . . ” and it would be EXACTLY what I had been saying! Exactly!
But I could also hear them smiling as they talked to me, and I was glad I knew a few words. I probably sound like a four year old, but a four year old with enough sense to make a much-needed call and get the police and ambulance where they are needed, al hamdullah!
Oxo Salad Spinner
The first time I ever used the Oxo Salad Spinner in Kuwait, I became a fan. Do you ever buy the Kuwaiti Salad Greens at the Sultan Market? I hope you wash them before you use them!
The Oxo Salad Spinner has three parts; an outer bowl, and inner bowl like a seive, and a top that you press on and it makes the inner bowl spin very very fast inside the outer bowl, and the centripetal force makes all the water fly off the leaves and fall to the bottom of the bowl. So you can just lift out the inner bowl and empty the water out.
No electricity needed, it is entirely mechanical, and so well engineered that the bowl will spin on and on and on unless you stop it.
Before I spin the salad, I put all the salad greens in the inner bowl, put the inner bowl in the outer bowl and run cold water over the greens until the bowl is full. I leave it a couple minutes, then pull the inner bowl out, and empty the water from the outer bowl. The water is BROWN with dirt! I put the inner bowl in the outer bowl and rinse again, and again, until the water comes clear. Then, and only then, do I spin the lettuce/greens dry.
After emptying the spin-off water, I can actually put the spinner in the refrigerator, with the greens inside, or I can transfer them to another bowl or sack. They don’t last too long in our salad-eating house.
This is what the Oxo Salad Spinner looks like:
The part sticking out can be locked in the down position for storage. There is also a button that stops the salad spinner’s spinning motion, otherwise it takes a long time for the spinner to slow and stop.
If you are a reader who does not live in Kuwait, but who buys from local markets or farmer’s markets, you will still find this honey incredibly handy.
You can find the salad spinner by Oxo at Amazon.com for $24.95 plus shipping.
“Make This Case Go Away”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times.
MP Intervenes to save rapists
by Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait: Two men accused of kidnap, rape and assault were let off the hook after pressure from a lawmaker and a senior police officer. A captain from the Traffic Department was on duty in Khaitan when he saw a parked car with an Asian maid in it and a man standing next to the car. The maid suddenly pointed to the officer and cried for help, so the captain rushed to the car and found another man inside with the maid.
The captain asked the man outside what the problem was. The main replied that this was a runaway maid and he was a detective. The captain asked for his ID but the man refused. The captain then realized that the man smelled of alcohol.
The men suddenly assaulted the captain and bit his hand, injuring him severely (emphasis added by blogger.) After the captain subdued both men, they confessed that they were drunk and that they had tried to rape the maid. The captain then tried to file a case at the Khaitan police station against the two men, but the MP intervened and tried to stop the captain from registering the case. The captain persisted and kept pushing to file a case for a week, until his superior intervened too and told him to “forget the incident.”
My comment: If I ever stop getting outraged when I read reports like this, God forbid, I will be dead.
First, the maid’s life is seriously damaged. Any victim can tell you that the terror of abduction, with or without rape, resonates through your life. When you are in a situation where you have no power, and are at the mercy of someone stronger or more powerful than you are, it is a life-changing event. And would her sponsor accept her back, even though it were no fault of her own? Would they not be afraid she might be diseased? They might even accuse her of inviting the assault – and this was an assault.
Second, these young men lied to the police, impersonated a police officer, resisted arrest and caused bodily harm to a senior police official. Did you notice – THEY CONFESSED.
Third, the police captain had the guts and integrity to persue filing this case against these wicked young men, inspite of pressures from above. WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO on you, brave one, for your integrity.
Last, kudos for Hanan al-Sadoun who does such a great job presenting so many of these outrageous stories in an objective manner, letting us fill in the details and express our outrage in our blogs. Brava, habeebti.
Evidently this air tight case will never get to court.
And what have these young men learned about accountability? That their name and wasta will make their despicable actions go away? What is the fitting punishment for what they have done? C’mon readers, check in on this one.
OK, OK, I’ll take a deep breath and stop now.
The Best Tomato Salad
The best tomato salad starts with my friends’ home-garden-grown Kuwaiti tomatoes, little tiny cherry ones, that we cut in half. We mix up some of the best olive oil and balsamic vinegar, we cut some fresh basil leaves from their garden and chop them and throw them in.
Then we add cubes of this:
We grind fresh salt and fresh pepper, add the dressing, and oh! It is almost a meal in itself. Perfect with “sheem” and rice and zucchini. Coffee in the garden, while the nights are still so moderate and pleasant.
If there is someone making fresh mozarella in Kuwait, I haven’t been able to find him/her. This is about as close as I have been able to come. It is horrifyingly expensive, and worth every fil. You find it at the Sultan Center, in the dairy section.
My Addiction
Even though I know it is hopeless, I always look. It’s never there, or only once in the entire time I have lived here, and that was at the BIG Sultan Store in Salmiyya. But without any real hope, I looked and there it was!
When I was a kid growing up in Germany, there was something called PX rules. PX means Post Exchange, it is the place where American military people, or state department, or Canadians or British peoples would shop for things that the local German economy didn’t carry. The first rule is “if you see it, buy it.” The second rule is “if you see it and like it, buy several, as you may never see it again.”
So I bought all four bottles:
Even knowing that this behavior is known as “hoarding” and that hoarding leads to shortages and that is probably why I see it so rarely, and knowing I should leave a bottle or two for someone else . . . knowing all that, I still bought all four bottles. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been conditioned. The rules are too strong; I can’t resist.
When I first go back to the US, and see it plentifully on the grocery store shelves, it is still hard to just buy one . . . except that there, you can even buy a litre size, and that usually lasts me a week or so.
Vanilla Caramel . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .
ATV Man
Why would a grown man – this guy must’ve been in his 40’s – drive an ATV to the Sultan Center?
Google Earth Fantasy Flight
The same good friend who shared the quotes with me, sent this connection yesterday to an 8 minute video compiled with music by a GoogleEarth fan who takes you to some of the oddities you can see with the high resolution of GoogleEarth, including sunbathers and what I can only describe as EarthArt.
When the Experts are WRONG
This started my morning with a big grin. A friend sent it to me, and I hope it delights you as it delighted me.
Below is a nice collection of quotes that turned out to be very wrong. Many of the quotes are from very famous and respectable people. Maybe we should stop underestimating ourselves so much?
* “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
* “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
* “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
* “But what … is it good for?”
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
* “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
* “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union internal memo, 1876.
* “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”
David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio
in the 1920s.
* “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”
A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.
* “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
* “I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.”
Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”
* “A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.”
Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.
* “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
* “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
* “If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.”
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads.
* “So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And
they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’”
Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.
* “Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”
1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work.
* “You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.”
Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus.
* “Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
* “The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.
* “This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.”
Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.
* “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
* “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
* “Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.
* “Louis Pastueur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.”
Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
* “The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”
Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873
Saudi Dies in Court
As an ironic tie-in to an earlier blog article today about Kuwaiti women seeking legislations on Women’s Rights, here is a related article from today’s Kuwait Times 23 April 2007:
JEDDAH: An elderly Saudi man dropped dead in court after it banned him from stopping his three daughters from getting married, newspapers reported yesterday. The man apparently had a heart attack once the cassation court judge in Makkah told the three women, aged 36, 39 and 40, that they could marry over their father’s objections, Okaz reported.
The women, whose father had on several occasions turned down their requests to marry, can now marry “honest men” who follow their religious duties, the Islamic court ruled, according to Al-Madina newspapers.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on A Lawless, Authoritarian … Kuwait Someday on A Lawless, Authoritarian … intlxpatr on Oh Thank You, Amazon! Rivergirl on Oh Thank You, Amazon! intlxpatr on Give to Those Who Ask Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 