“I’ll be home for Christmas – if only in my dreams”
This is a nightmare year for people trying to get home for Christmas in the United States – weeks of storms have caused snarled schedules and cancelled trains and planes, stranding passengers eager to be home with family for Christmas.
Worse – my friends tell me – many groceries have not been resupplied, but that’s OK because many of their customers can’t get to the stores anyway. It’s hit merchants hard in what is already thought to be one of the most dismal selling seasons in a long, long time.
Here’s a write up from National Public Radio:
Winter Storms Frustrate Holiday Travel Nationwide
by Scott Neuman
NPR.org, December 23, 2008 ยท Bitter cold temperatures and snow have placed the northern half of the nation in a deep freeze, affecting travel in planes, trains and automobiles just as the holiday season gets under way.
Some of the worst winter storms on record have cut a swath from the Pacific Northwest to New England. Across the country, tens of thousands of people are without power after freezing rain and strong winds caused transmission lines to come down.
Heavy snowfall in western Oregon has caused traffic to come to a near standstill along Interstate 5, and state highways through the northern edge of the Coast Range are closed.
Amtrak’s Cascades passenger train service between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia, was halted, but officials said they expected it to resume on Tuesday. Greyhound bus service in Portland and Seattle was also shut down.
At the Seattle-Tacoma airport, thousands of people have been waiting in hours-long lines to re-book canceled flights.
“There’s no flights going into [Las] Vegas that has any available seating,” Air Force Airman Alex James told NPR’s Morning Edition.
James said he and three other Air Force buddies hope to avoid driving from Seattle to Las Vegas, where their families are preparing for the holidays.
“We leave on our deployment on the first of January,” James said. “So, however long it takes us to get back from here is how much reduced our time at home is.”
Alaska and Horizon airlines, the West Coast’s principal carriers, resumed limited service Monday and the carriers said they hoped to resume near-normal schedules Tuesday at Seattle-Tacoma and have things normal flights by Wednesday.
In the East, the town of Eustis, Maine, got nearly 3 1/2 feet of snow. Snow and sleet โ but no additional accumulation โ are expected Tuesday in the Northeast.
In the nation’s midsection, the situation is just as bad.
In Illinois, which has experienced subzero conditions and wind chills as low as minus 35 degrees in recent days, temperatures are expected to rise into the 20s Tuesday. But with the reprieve will come several inches of snow, according to the forecast.
More snow is expected across the upper Midwest. Michigan could get as much as a foot of snow, while ice, snow and sleet are in the forecast for Indiana, where many people have been without electricity.
Travelers have been stranded in airports as they wait for flights to resume so they can make their way to friends and families for the holidays. Routes to much of the Pacific Northwest have been canceled, and flights to the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey, have been delayed by hours.
You can read the entire article by clicking HERE.
Night Flight
Arriving at the next airport, we find our flight is delayed, while a seat is found for every single passenger. As I look around, I feel dismay – this flight is like 3/4 college students. We thought with Eid having ended, the plane would be half empty – NOT so! The lounge is packed with twenty-somethings headed home to Kuwait on Christmas break from their universities in the USA.
I used to be one of those. My parents lived in Germany; my sister and I would travel home. One difference, we were flying military planes, so they would wait until a whole planeload of college students had gathered and then send us all off to Frankfurt on one plane. It was party party party, card games, laughing, talking, catching up with friends from all over Europe, some flying on to bases in north Africa and Greece . . . I don’t think we had any bases in the Middle East at that time (It was a LONG time ago!)
But payback is hell. Now I am about to board a flight full of young people like I used to be. I can kiss a good night’s sleep goodbye! Every single seat on the plane is taken, and it is a BIG plane. I prepare for the worst. I remember those days . . .
Here is what really happened: this was the nicest, most polite group of college age students I have ever met. When they gathered at the food places, they talked quietly. Most of them slept or quietly watched movies the entire flight. The flight was one of the quietest I have ever been on. The bathrooms stayed relatively clean. I was so totally impressed.
If there are Kuwaiti parents reading this blog whose college students are flying home around now, you can pat yourselves on the back. You raised young people with excellent manners. ๐
Seattle Sunset
“Quick! Look! Look at the sunset!” AdventureMan pulls over. “Don’t you want a photo for your blog?”
We’ve both still got colds and I am tired. At this point, I just want to get home. But . . . he is right, it is a glorious sunset.
Yes, that is me holding the camera.
When we got to the airport to pick up our Seattle rental, the helpful, courteous man behind the counter asked if we would like a small SUV.
“For the same price?” I asked. Part of me remembered by May rental when I ended up paying $70 every time I filled the tank.
“Same price, small Jeep” he said with a smile, and handed me the folder.
When we got to the rental cars, it was not a small Jeep. It was a Jeep that looked like a Hummer. AdventureMan loaded all the bags in (it’s Christmas, remember? We are loaded with bags.) We get in the car and AdventureMan starts driving out of the parking garage.
“I don’t think I like this car.” I say.
If you are married, especially if you have been married for a long time, you can keep reading. You are the kinds of people who understand how much a marriage has to survive to endure.
“It’s too big. I can’t drive this car.” I say.
“What do you want to do?” AdventureMan says patiently, but any wife who has been married a long time knows that whatever happens next has to be quick and relatively painless.
“I want to see if we can get something I can drive, too.” I say.
“You want us to go back and park and get another car?” he says, to clairify.
“Yes.” I say, knowing he is very tired and I am walking a fine line here, but I HATE this car, it feels cramped and you can’t see all around, it is sort of squashed feeling.
I quickly go to the Fast Counter, and the man, God bless him, has a Rav4, just one, and I can have it at the same price.
“You don’t want the luxury car?” he asks me as I am signing the papers.
“It was supposed to be a SMALL Jeep.” I countered. “That is not a small Jeep.”
“No,” the counter guy said “You almost got our top of the line Jeep for the economy car price.”
“I don’t care,” I reply (not as rudely as it sounds) “I don’t like it.”
I take the new keys back to AdventureMan, who gamely pulls the bags out of the big huge luxury Jeep and loads them into the more modest Rav4.
It was a smart decision. We both enjoyed the Rav4, being a little high up, having space, but still being small enough to fit into the narrow, short Seattle parking spaces. Anyway, that’s the Rav4 in the photo with the sunset.
Shivering in Seattle
AdventureMan isn’t sure he wants to settle in Seattle. He promised me a long time ago that since I had been such a good wife, following him all around the world, we could settle where I wanted, he didn’t care.
You know how promises like that are . . . as soon as I could, I quickly sold our Tampa Bay area house and bought a house in Seattle. ๐ Even with the dramatic fall in house prices, our house is still worth more than twice what we paid for it. House prices are not slipping fast in Seattle. The market is slow, but the prices are holding at relatively high levels.
When we go to Seattle, AdventureMan shivers, and talks endlessly about Pensacola. He makes jokes about Seattle’s “two days of summer” and he wears caps that cover his ears. I know he will be a good sport about living in Seattle, but his heart is in the South.
His heart is one of the reasons I want to live in Seattle. In his little town in the South, most people his age are suffering seriously from heart disease and diabetes. The food is SO good in the South – but the major food groups are fat and sugar. We both love seafood, but I am not so sure it does us that much good when it is all deep-fried. Fortunately for me, there are usually also grilled grouper sandwiches, grilled tuna and blackened swordfish, etc. but when give the choice – AdventureMan will usually go for the deep-fried option. ๐ฆ
Today, however, he has every right to be cold. Seattle is shivering. This is not my photo, it was sent in to the Seattle Times, and I like it because it has the snow and the Space Needle:
The streets are covered with ice, and people are afraid of more snow is coming, with high winds. When that happens, trees fall on the electrical lines, many of which are still all above ground (ruining the views!) and leaving people without heat or electricity for days.
AdventureMan yearns for the relative heat and sunshine of Kuwait. See you soon!
TrueBlood
For so many reasons, we thank God for our son, and one of the most trivial – but most fun – is that he introduces us to series we love, like The Wire, like My Name is Earl, and like True Blood..
Sookie - Anna Paquin
You would not think True Blood is the kind of HBO drama that would appeal to seriously grown-up people like AdventureMan and me. I mean honestly, vampires have “come out of the coffin” because blood has been synthesized, and they no longer need human victims. Sounds pretty far fetched, doesn’t it? And the main character, a lovely and a little spacy waitress named Sookie, has a bad habit of overhearing other people’s thoughts . . . and then, she saves a vampire’s life and they fall in love . . . It all sounds like something we would not find interesting, doesn’t it?
True Blood is totally addictive. We watched it with our son and his wife, the way we do with other series, two or three a night. When it came time we really really really needed to go to be, we all groaned, and looked forward to the next night. The writing is that good. The series is very funny, at times gruesome, and WARNING, the sex is energetic, in-your-face and frequent. The writers are good – even great. You find yourself repeating the lines – some of the lines are totally priceless.
There are so many great pieces of writing, small jokes, funny self-deprecating humor – but our all time, hands-down favorite is when one of the waitresses talks about a fight she had with her boyfriend and says “Fine! Men always say ‘fine!’ and walk away! If every fight is going to end in ‘fine!’ why do they even bother arguing in the first place?” We totally love that line.
Part of the funkiness of the whole vampire-in-real-life scene is the setting, in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and all the Southern accents, Cajun characters – and vampires, etc. Bee-yill, (Bill), Sookie’s vampire heartthrob, is a Civil War veteran, who speaks to her Grandmother’s group, the Descendants of the Glorious Dead. I mean the writing is FUNNY! AdventureMan says it would be better to be a vampire in places like Seattle, where the weather is gloomy and dark, but he forgets that in summer, the sun doesn’t go down until 10 at night, so vampires might do all right in the winter, but the summers would, ahem, fry them.
The characters have some of that deep southern charm, they have known each other most of their lives, they talk about the people they come from. Sookie’s sex-addicted brother is twice accused of murder, and begins to believe (he is not too bright) that maybe he is the murderer. There is a lot of anti-Vampire rhetoric, while the Vampires are fighting for “equal rights.” We don’t really know what those rights are – the right to vote? to marry? to own property? Do the dead have equal rights to the living? Some interesting areas for thought . . .
The themes are adult, and – well, vampires are a dark subject. These episodes are not something you want to watch with children around. Nonetheless, there manages to be moments of utter hilarity, and the good manage to maintain their goodness, even in the face of evil. We love the writing. We can’t wait for the next season.
Criminal Justice
One of the great thrills in life is for a moment when you see that your life has had meaning – and many of those come when your children turn out OK. My husband and I wept together at our son’s graduation from high school – not that there was ever any doubt, but it just felt like maybe we had done something right.
Then came graduation from college, and later from law school. We wept for joy. We didn’t weep at all when he chose a sweet, thoughtful and beautiful bride – we danced for joy, and we are still dancing.
We had another of those life moments when we were able to observe our son in court, functioning as a responsible adult. What a thrill.
At the same time, I realized I have never been in a court before. It was sentencing day, and an entire parade of sad sacks paraded before us. These were men who have done bad things – sometimes violent things. None of them looked evil; they all looks shrunken and pathetic in their prison jumpsuits and chained feet. Each one had to answer to the judge – he had already been tried and convicted, and this was the day the prisoner would find out what the penalty would be.
The judge took his time, and also spent time educating those in the courtroom. One question he asked over and over – under what circumstances were you arrested for this crime?
Every prisoner was arrested when being stopped for some traffic infraction. When a crime is committed, even after a sentence is served, many times the prisoners are on probation. If they live without any violations for the probation time, they are free and clear. If they disregard some rule of probation, then the probation is withdrawn, and they have to go back to jail. A warrant is issued for their arrest. The warrant is entered into a computer, and, when the system works, every state in the United States has a record of that warrant.
Each and every prisoner was caught breaking another law, and then imprisoned on earlier violations when run through the computer. Each one had a history of making bad decisions. Not evil decisions – just momentary bad decisions – running red lights, speeding, weaving, having fake license plates on the car . . . each one had a pattern of living as if the laws of the land pertained to everyone else – but not to him.
One man, who was going back to prison because while on probation he had used drugs again, had his wife testify on his behalf. She cried, and said it was her fault, that they had a fight and because of the fight, he had used again. The judge was furious, said that unless she held a gun at his head and forced him to use, it had been his choice and his alone. He would serve his full sentence. This judge is big on personal responsibility, personal accountability.
Some of them were going away (going to prison) for a long time. In the midst of the joy of seeing our son doing good work was a lot of sadness at the waste of lives, as people are warehoused in prison.
But what else can you do with people who persist in breaking the law? How many times can you give them the benefit of the doubt? How many times can you show mercy before they do something truly awful? Is there any alternative to prison that can truly help people to learn to make better decisions and choices?
At one time, as part of my work, I had to go into prisons and deal with prisoners. Many of the people I dealt with were pretty scary. One had stabbed his wife’s girlfriend – like 97 times. I will never forget, at this time of year, hearing the prisoners singing Christmas carols, punctuated by the sound of the heavy gates crashing shut.
It still gives me shivers.
Thank You Every Day Heroes
You know how I feel – the firefighters and the police risk their lives every day to keep us safe. And you know I love I Can Has Cheezburger.com – so this is the best of both those worlds:
more animals
Mangaf, Paradise Garden and Beit Ash-Shar
Last week, AdventureMan and I were out looking for the private farm in Mangaf / Abu Halifa that blogger Bu Yousef wrote about. Imagine – fresh produce, locally produced. It is unbelievable that it exists in a burgeoning house-to-house suburb like Mangaf. Once Bu Yousef wrote about it, we couldn’t wait to find it and try it for ourselves. We LOVE local, and I am waiting for Yasmine Farms spinach to re-appear in the Sultan Center.
It is an OASIS!
AdventureMan said “it looks like Paradise!”
We got a little lost trying to find it – thank God! As we were driving around, looking for this farm/garden we spotted this:
In Jordan, these were called Beit (Beyt) ash-Shar, House of Hair. The panels of the tent were woven on small looms by the Bedouin women – the looms were made of sticks that could easily be assembled and disassembled. They had herds of sheep and goats, and the tent panels were woven of hair from their own sheep and goats. In Jordan, the nomads lived in these tents, picking up and moving as it was time to pasture their sheep and goats in the next place.
I can’t tell you how much this thrilled our hearts. Someone is using this tent – we believe – as an outdoor diwaniyya.
It’s a great day in Kuwait.
Stonehenge a Center for Healing
This is from BBC News: Nature, and you can read the entire article by clicking on the blue type, but I wanted you to know about the upcoming BBC Special on Stonehenge, September 27th.
Archaeologists have pinpointed the construction of Stonehenge to 2300BC – a key step to discovering how and why the mysterious edifice was built.
The radiocarbon date is said to be the most accurate yet and means the ring’s original bluestones were put up 300 years later than previously thought.
The dating is the major finding from an excavation inside the henge by Profs Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright.
The duo found evidence suggesting Stonehenge was a centre of healing.
Others have argued that the monument was a shrine to worship ancestors, or a calendar to mark the solstices.
A documentary following the progress of the recent dig has been recorded by the BBC Timewatch series. It will be broadcast on Saturday 27 September.
The mystery of Stonehenge, it’s origins, is purpose, has fascinated people for centuries. How amazing that one twelve day dig has discovered so much information – new pieces for a hugely complicated puzzle with lots of work left to be done.
As I write this post, I am also reminded of one of the all time funniest movies I have ever seen – This is Spinal Tap, one of those mocumentaries, this one about a rock group. Not a very bright rock group. It is a very funny movie.
They ask a set designer to create a magnificent recreation of Stonehenge, and give her a napkin with how they want it to look. The result is . . . hysterical:
Namibia, A Bleak Kind of Beauty
This is an excerpt from the New York Times Travel Section on Namibia, a country AdventureMan and I visited a few years ago.
We landed in Windhoek, and our first night, we ate dinner at Joe’s Beerhouse, a little disorienting, as we had flown in from Germany, and found ourselves in a very German restaurant. The Germans colonized Namibia for a very few years over 100 years ago, but their influence lingers on in names, on streets, statues and cuisine.
Our trip through Namibia was unforgettable. It was unlike any other African country we have ever visited. It has a very long coastline with cold Atlantic currents called The Skeleton Coast. It has the world’s highest sand dunes, unbelievably beautiful. When I think of Namibia, I think of dryness – it is the thirstiest country I have ever seen, outside Kuwait.
Much of our time in Namibia, in Etosha and in Demaraland, we were camping, with CCAfrica (Conservation Corps Africa), but at the end, we stayed in one of the most spectacular private lodges in the world: Sossusvlei Mountain Lodge. It was a total WOW. We rode ATV’s to the top of the dunes for sunset. They had an astronomical observatory, because at night there is NO ambient light and you can see the sky so clearly. The food was fabulous and creative.
Namibia, a country of stark beauty and riveting contradictions, should be at the top of any serious travelerโs want-to-visit list.
The landscape is otherworldly, from the ocean of blood red crests along Dune Alley at Sossusvlei (pronounced SOSS-oo-vlay) to the gravity-defying rock formations and petrified forest of Damaraland, in the countryโs center. Even beside the main highway, there are enough elephants, giraffes and springbok to satisfy those who canโt imagine a southern African trip without big game.
And the mind-boggling juxtaposition of women draped in skins that covered animals a week earlier against shopping malls offering a full selection of Ray-Bans, or of face powder ground in a mortar and pestle cheek by jowl with shiny Hummers, leads you into the heart of a modern Africa tangled by time, defined by the collision of centuries and traditions.
Namibia isnโt easy, especially for travelers whose notion of a vacation is dashing from one sight to another, or for urbanites who need regular fixes of bright lights and noisy streets. Except for those with pockets deep enough to arrange chartered flights between the dunes and the Damara homesteads, it demands patience with corrugated gravel roads and mile after mile of what poets are fond of calling terrible beauty.
You can read the entire article HERE.
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