Pensacola: Fiesta of Five Flag Parade
I’ve never lived anywhere with so many parades, and as Pensacola cools down a little and an offshore breeze blows away the heat of the day, a parade sounds like fun. Tonight is the Fiesta of Five Flags Parade. I can’t think of a parade since Lent, so maybe this is the kick off of the new season. Pensacola has an active and lively social scene, with all these Mardi Gras Krewes, and the older our grandson gets, the more of the parade we get to see! I think we got through three quarters of the parade tonight, and oh what fun.
The people on the floats are having a great time. They have these great alter-egos, get to wear elaborate costumes, and there may be some alcohol involved, LOL. The people on the ground are having a great time, you can really get into the waving and trying to catch the beads. Some of the beads are prettier than others, but as AdventureMan says, it’s all plastic. Having said that, you should see him scramble! He is good at catching beads.
And oh my, they are so good to the kids, with stuffed toys, beads, ice cream bars, frisbees, trinkets, including pieces of eight!
Honestly, there are some things in life I will never get tired of – parades and fireworks. I feel so blessed to live in Pensacola.
These photos are not in the right order because I just did a group dump into the photo gallery, and it scrambled them when they were inserted into the blog entry.
The parade always starts with the Pensacola motorcycle police, with flashing lights and roaring engines!
I love that they decorate the horses tails:
And then AdventureMan pointed out they also rubbed glitter into the horses haunches to make them pretty 🙂
So many beads! We got to the parade a mere ten minutes before it began, but it was more lightly attended, and we were able to be right up front. Our little grandson had a great view, and people were so kind giving him beads, throwing him beads, toys, etc.
Look at all those beads they plan to throw! There was a throne on this float with King Tut!
These ladies were having a grand time!
The Mayoki Indians seemed to be the Krewe having the best time of all, with two floats loaded with beads, and more ‘foot Indians’ handing and throwing beads into the crowds:
The flame throwing baton twirler got lots of applause:
We saw our little grandson rubbing his eyes and asked if he was ready to go home, and he was. One of these days he will be old enough we will see an entire parade. I had a minor concern that Tropical Storm Andrea would blow in bad weather and make the parade unlikely, but nothing of the sort, we had great weather, a lovely evening and a wonderful time making good memories with our little grandson.
Forty Years Wedding Anniversary
“You’re going to celebrate your anniversary for three days?” my friend asked incredulously.
“No, no, actually, it’s in two parts, we are celebrating the entire weekend, three days, but it’s because it is too hot to walk around New Orleans; so this is just part one, and in December we will celebrate part two with a trip to New Orleans when we can walk around and enjoy all the Christmas decorations and stay somewhere nice.”
It’s what we do.
There have been some years, particularly years with moves, or new positions, or new contracts in them, when anniversaries have sort of fallen by the wayside. We are enjoying making up for all the missed anniversaries, now that we have the great luxury of time.
We have all kinds of fun plans, a hotel stay, a dinner in a fine restaurant, star gazing out at Ft. Pickens, maybe a dolphin cruise, and a trip up in the very large beach ferris wheel, while it is still at Pensacola Beach. We plan a day in several pools with our son and his wife and our little grandson. All. or part, or some of this may really happen, depending on what the weekend weather looks like. Ft. Pickens has already evacuated all the campers with concerns over this Tropical Storm Andrea coming in, and a dolphin cruise or a trip up on the great wheel may not be such a hot idea at 40 – 50 mph winds, LOL.
AdventureMan and I knew when we married that we were in it for the long haul. We also knew it wouldn’t be easy. We come from different cultures, different life styles. We both had independent lives and responsibilities. We moved a lot. It wasn’t always easy, but then whose life is, when you know that life from the inside? We’ve had some great adventures, and some fabulous, astounding experiences. We’ve met extraordinary people and made very special life-long friends.
When I told AdventureMan our weekend might not be as exciting as planned, he laughed and said “we can bring our books.” He always knows how to make me laugh, and taking books is exactly what we did when we first got married, and would take weekend trips to a lakeside resort called Chiemsee; it would be snowing and cold and we would go into this large old lodge with it’s double doors and double shuttered windows, with it’s eiderdown comforters and huge fireplace, and we would pack books. We would sleep and read, and sometimes go eat. If that’s how this anniversary turns out, it’s a very comfortable and familiar way to celebrate.:-)
AdventureMan loves this blog. He always looks for his name. 🙂 Happy Anniversary, dear husband.
It’s Why We’re Here: Lunch at Taco Rock
There is a graciousness in Pensacola that reminds me of life in the Middle East, although the local Pensacolians would be astounded to be compared with the Middle East. If you look closely, though, you can see the similarities.
There is politeness and civility toward others, even strangers. When workmen are in your home, you offer them ice water, or iced tea, and you ask about their families before they start work. It seems to us that when we call for help, we get the same service people coming to our house; I don’t think it is an accident.
People chat a little before they get down to business. I think many a Pensacolian would feel comfortable in the souks, sitting and drinking a little tea before they start to discuss the appropriate price level for the bauble they are considering. They ask about a person’s health, and they ask about your family. They take meals to those who are suffering or recovering.
People spend time with family. Families go to church together, families have meals together, families share child rearing. Multi-generations live near one another. People who went to school together more than fifty years ago form their own kind of family, sharing deeply, attending the funerals of one another’s kin. Funerals are well attended. Very Arab, if only they knew.
There are pockets in the United States where you find groups of Arab nationals; Pensacola has these groups, even a discreet mosque or two. There are stores selling international supplies, including zaat’r and sumak and harissa, chana dal, bulger, wuhammara . . . and restaurants billing themselves as ‘Mediterannean’ whose food would be recognizable to those in the Levant and the Gulf.
There is almost always a breeze off the Gulf to fight the heat and humidity and mosquitoes, and, by the grace of God, there is air conditioning and ice water coming out of the refrigerators. Life is sweet.
Life is all the sweeter because we can get together with our son and his family on the spur of the moment, and end up at a great family place like Taco Rock, where our little grandson can get down when he gets restless, and where there is plenty of time for us to chat, discuss Django Unchained, discuss new developments in entertainment technology, discuss upcoming vacations and arrangements – there is that great luxury of time together, and tasty food at reasonable prices. LOL, this is the Pensacola equivalent of a Michelin Red R, good local cuisine at reasonable prices. Hmmmm, Mexican is probably not qualified as good local food at reasonable prices, but close enough . . .
He is such a delight, our little grandson, who calls the coming baby “that little girl,” as in “when that little girl comes, I’m going to teach her how to float on her back!”
This week, there is another parade! Pensacola must be the parade capital of the world; so many parades! We’ll pick up our grandson, stand on the corner and wave our arms until they throw us some beads. Great fun and good exercise. 🙂
This post is really a great excuse to post some new photos of our grandson 🙂
Economy Class: The Worst of the Worst
LOL, I have flown a lot of miles, but I have never flown any of these airlines in the ‘Worst of the Worst.” We used to fly RyanAir when we lived in Germany, and if you know to expect nothing, you get what you expect :-). It’s a lot like Jazeera, only without reserved seats and without leather seats. Oh, and people shoving to get on; I guess it was pretty bad, but oh, it was so CHEAP! Awful, but the flights were short, so you just gut it out and get there.
This is from the Frequent Flier Crier:
Economy class is pretty bad, even at its best. And at it’s worst, it’s truly horrendous, a toxic mix of too-tight seats, rancid peanuts, and don’t-bother-me service.
So which airline’s coach class is the worst of the worst? Business Insider Australia set out to answer that question, using data compiled by airline reviewer Skytrax on such measures as seat comfort, inflight entertainment, meals, and inflight service.
Such perennial service underproviders as Spirit and RyanAir made the list, at 18th and 11th worst respectively, but the other contenders for the title of world’s worst airline will be mostly unfamiliar to U.S.-focused travelers.
The envelope, please …
1. Turkmenistan Airlines (rated 30.8 on a 100-points scale)
2. Sudan Airways (rated 33.3)
3. Ukraine International Airlines (rated 36.3)
4. Uzbekistan Airways (rated 37.5s)
5. Air Koryo (rated 39.2)
6. Bulgaria Air (rated 41.8)
7. Rossiya Airlines (rated 42.7)
8. Iceland Express (rated 42.8)
9. Tajik Air (rated 43.3)
10. Syrian Air (rated 44.8)
Regarding Turkmenistan, the report noted that “terrible rankings on Skytrax for in-flight entertainment, seat comfort, service efficiency, staff response to passenger requests, and staff language skills make it the worst airline you can find.”
So next time you’re tempted to dub Spirit or US Airways or Frontier the worst airline ever, find some solace in the fact that the flight could have been worse. Much worse. It could have been Turkmenistan bad.
Making Idols
A confluence of events happened at a period in my life when I was paying attention, and those things coming together have influenced me enormously. The first was participation in a bible study conducted in a branch of Christianity not my own, whose dogma is occasionally repellant and repugnant to me, but whose study of the chapter in the bible is thorough. The second was my move back to the Islamic world, and my choice to study Arabic at the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam.
In both cases, what I learned is that we have more in common than we have differences. I also learned that if we focus on the differences, it can be devastating.
Both groups know the Bible. My Moslem sisters knew the bible better than I did, and when discussing such issues as covering hair and wearing abaya, could quote me verses from my own book which re-inforced their argument. It was mortifying – and edifying.
My Baptist friends also surprise me. For every one who rails against gay marriage or ordination of women, there was another who would laugh and quote scripture saying “did you notice the same penalty for a woman who cuts her hair? or wears pants in public?” I learned a lot about my own religion, my own beliefs, and the goodness of others by my interactions with both these groups.
One of the differences in the Moslem world was that many houses I went into (I was honored to be invited into their homes) were very plain. The furniture might be basic or elaborate, but often, the walls were bare. Maybe there might be a calligraphy with a Quranic verse on the wall – that was it. No paintings, especially no human figures – no idols, no images.
In my house, I am surrounded by images, photos, paintings, weavings – they give me joy, but I do not worship them. They are not idols, they are merely art or family – things that make me smile. I distinguish between idols and gods. Yesterday’s reading from Deuteronomy sticks with me, however, and I can hear my sweet teachers at QCPI saying to me “But doesn’t it say in Deuteronomy 4 that you are to have no idols?”
Deuteronomy 4:25-31
25 When you have had children and children’s children, and become complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol in the form of anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and provoking him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to occupy; you will not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you. 28There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. 30In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him. 31Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.
League of Women Voters
My friends and I had an animated conversation about Florida politics as we sat around the table having a late breakfast at Adonna’s Bakery, down on Palafox in Pensacola. We were explaining how in the last election, if it were not for the voters handbook the League of Women Voters published, explaining exactly what a yes or no vote would mean for each proposed amendment, Florida would be stuck with constitutional amendments voters never intended to approve.
The League of Women Voters cuts through all the baloney and explains the issues, clearly and objectively. Without their clear, cool voice of reason, voters would be blown to and fro by the turbulent election rhetoric which blows at hurricane force during each election in Florida, obscuring the clearest issues. The League is neither liberal nor conservative, but contains members of all parties. Their goal is getting people to vote, and to understand the issue on which people are voting.
So grown up. So mature. So wise and clear sighted. Way too grown up for me, all these years, until, after that conversation, one of these friends sent me an invitation she had received for an upcoming League of Women Voters annual luncheon. As an added attraction, a local NPR reporter would be the speaker.
I hate meetings. It brings out the ADD child in me; I fidget, I wish I were anywhere but in the meeting.
And yet . . . this is a group I have long admired, and I want to support them. So I agreed, and we attended.
It was so much fun. These women – and men, about a fifth of the attendees were men – are people focused on ISSUES. They have study groups for how juveniles in the local area are arrested and treated in our jails and custodial facilities. They have groups which study the impact on the environment of legislative and local government decisions. They go to civic meetings, speak out, and report back to the League. This is a group of people who take positions and recommend actions! Exciting stuff.
You know I am a believer, so I might see things differently from you, or others, but I met some really cool members, people I believe I was meant to meet. One said wonderful things about my son as he practices his profession. There is no Mother’s Day gift on earth that means as much as the words she spoke, praising his ethics and integrity.
An elderly man sitting next to me was leaving this week to go to Heidelberg.
“Are you going for the closing down?” I asked, and told him I had graduated from Heidelberg American high school, lo, these many years ago. “Yes,” he replied, he has family who have lived there many years, and he has been back many times. It led to a discussion around the table, where I discovered two other women who had been in DoDs schools in Germany. What an unexpected blessing!
Every now and then, as you lead your life, you get the feeling you are exactly where you are meant to be at this very moment, and I had that feeling as I left the meeting. I am so thankful for the serendipity that led me there, and for the rush of blessings the meeting provided.
LOL, the group I thought might be stuffy and staid played this wonderful Lady Gaga video:
Rovaer Norway: The Best Wedding Proposal Ever
The groom-to-be was able to rope the entire village into participating in his proposal to his girlfriend. He knocks her socks off – no matter what the highs and lows of the marriage to come, she will never forget this proposal:
Miracle Birth in Kuwait
Found the following on AOL News / What to Expect:
Clinically Dead Woman Is Revived After C-Section Birth
A pregnant woman in her ninth month was admitted to a hospital in Kuwait with an acute blood pressure condition, suffered cardiac arrest, and was pronounced dead. Doctors rushed to deliver her unborn child. The cesarean section was performed without anesthesia since the mother was presumed dead, and a healthy 6.8 lb baby boy was delivered. Then with one last attempt to revive the 36-year-old Filipina woman, doctors were astonished when she started breathing again.
“This is a scientific miracle at all levels,” hospital manager Dr. Hmoud Al-Zobi told theKuwait Times. Three days later the 36-year-old Filipina (or Pinay) woman named Zuraida remains unconscious at Al-Farwaniya Hospital, but doctors say she is in stable condition and are hopeful that she will return to health.
Zuraida’s husband, Verdadero, remains by her side. “When I visited her today, tears were rolling down her eyes. I felt she could hear me, she could feel my presence and was trying her best to communicate. ”
Said Verdadero, “I brought her to the hospital because she experienced blood and the water discharged at that time. Of course, I knew that she was already in pain and it was about time for her to deliver our second child. I was very happy. But my happiness changed to uncertainty when I heard that she was vomiting blood and was in danger and only a miracle could save her. I prayed hard for her to survive.”
Verdadero is a truck driver who is often away for days in Iraq and elsewhere. He feels lucky that he happened to be in Kuwait when his wife was ready to deliver their baby. “At least I was with her when it all happened and I really pray that she will be okay.”
During pregnancy, it is recommended that women and their doctors keep a close eye onblood pressure. There are many reasons for occasional spikes in blood pressure and most are nothing to worry about (in fact, worry only contributes to elevated levels). But chronic high blood pressure during pregnancy is something that should be monitored and treated to ensure that mother and baby are as healthy as can be.
Sunrise in Seattle: A Quick Trip
Oops!
Sorry! I intended to keep writing, but as it sometimes can, life just got away from me. I took a quick trip to Seattle to see my Mom on Mother’s Day, stayed with my best friend from college, ummm . . . when I count the number of years we have been friends, I am shocked!
Flying out of Pensacola, we flew over Bayou Texar:
I had a great seat, but the lady next to me sounded like she had terminal pneumonia, so I kept my face toward the window. Everything went smoothly, arrived a little early. Two hassles: I had decided for just a short trip I would use a shoulder bag/suitcase, and even though it was light, it gets heavy lugging it from gate to gate. On the good news side, it sure is a lot easier to travel with just cabin baggage, easy on – easy off.
Second, I just hate it that Seattle has relocated all the rental cars to an off-site location. The buses only stop at one end of the terminal or the other so again, there is a lot of lugging, whether it is wheeled or shoulder. You have no control over when the bus will come or when it will leave. It used to be so easy, just dropping the car off and walking directly into the terminal; now I have to calculate extra time for unknowns in the rental return process, oh aarrgh.
Traffic to north Seattle was horrible, even on a Saturday, it was like a normal work day when all the workers are streaming out of the city. On work days, there are windows when traffic is less, but a Saturday! Aarrgh!
It was not raining, or not much. That was a really good thing. Temperatures were lower than Pensacola. That was a good thing. We had a great Mother’s Day brunch, with my sisters and their hubbies, and Mom and I did some shopping. The next day, more errands and catching up on banking and bureaucracies. Those were all good things.
My good friend and I had time to catch up and – as we are wont to do – analyze and strategize. We spent a good amount of time laughing at ourselves and our dilemmas. We laughed at the problems of aging. We laughed at who we thought we would be (who ever thinks they will get old??) and who we have become. Here is what sunrise over Lake Washington looks like from my friend’s house:
Flight home uneventful; arrived in Atlanta a few minutes early and I was out the door in a flash, running running running down one concourse and up the other to see if I could get on the earlier flight to Pensacola which was leaving in MINUTES! “No, no, not possible” the gate clerk said without even looking up; she was already working on two other women, I am guessing flight attendants trying to get back home. I waited a minute, bushed from the long run and lugging the shoulder luggage, then said “I think I will just go find a barbecue” and the gate attendant said “Wait!” and I thought she was going to tell me where to find the best barbecue, because I had like three hours, but no . . . she was printing me out a ticket! I got the last seat, back, back, way back in between two great big United States Marines, but it was a fun 45 minutes and I was home three hours earlier. All that is really good!
Even though it is not Seattle to Kuwait, I still like to shower after a long flight, I just feel germy! AdventureMan made me a beautiful salad with sauteed Portobello mushrooms on top, oh yummmmm and we delighted to be together again. Woooo HOOOOO, home again 🙂 Sorry to be out of the loop, but when you are one day out, one day back with two days in between, time just swooshes by.
Bloggers Create Freedom Friday in Oppressed Eritrea
I heard whispers of this on National Public Radio, and found this write up on The International Business Times website. The message is simple – in a country where even a glance can be interpreted as treason, express your non-support of the government by STAYING AT HOME ON FRIDAY, the day Ethiopians usually go out and visit with friends, gather together and mingle. Ghandi would smile; this is civil expression at it’s most civil 🙂
Let the empty streets speak for you. LOL @ a tyrant making staying at home a crime against the government!
Eritrean bloggers outside of Ethiopia started it, smuggling an old Eritrean phone book out of the country and making calls to acquaintances – and strangers – in Eritrea. People didn’t even have to respond. they could just listen . . . then they developed a robo-call to help them enlarge the number they could reach.
Eritrea is considered one of the continent’s most opaque countries. National elections have not been held in the Horn of Africa country since it gained independence in 1993. Torture, arbitrary detention and severe restrictions on freedom of expression remain routine.
President Isaias Afwerki does not tolerate any independent media, the internet is strictly controlled and Reporters without Borders recently named it 179th out of 179 countries for freedom of expression.
It is illegal to criticise the government, prompting the Eritrean diaspora to set up a campaign to reverse the Arab-style call to take to the streets every Friday by emptying the streets in protest.
“We made phone calls from diaspora to Eritrea,” Meron Estefanos toldIBTimes UK. “We have a phone catalogue and called random numbers every Friday, telling them to stay at home and think about problems in our country.”
The phone calls “give them [Eritreans within the country] an opportunity to protest without risking too much”, according to Freedom Friday’s coordinator in the UK Selam Kidane.
The activists turned to a computerised auto-dialer called robocall to spread hundreds of thousands of taped messages to Eritrean phones. “It is time to restore our liberty and dignity” messages were sent automatically.
In another message, the mother of renowned political prisoner Aster Yohannes recalls the fate of her daughter, who was arrested in 2003 and has disappeared.
After two years, the movement is finally gaining momentum inside the country.
“Now they trust us inside the country, we have our team in Eritrea that puts out posters and leaflets late at night,” Estefanos said.
“The plan now that we have their trust is asking them to go out and demonstrate.”
About 1,500 Eritreans leave their country every month, according to the United Nations, paying up to 30,000 euros ($39,500) each to seek a new life free of grinding poverty and repression.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International put the spotlight on Eritrean asylum-seekers who are kidnapped from Sudanese refugee camps by the local Rashaida tribe, sold to Bedouin criminals in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and severely abused while they are held for ransom.
One thousand refugees are held captive in the Sinai, according to reports. About 7,000 people in total may have been tortured and 4,000 may have died as a result of the people-trafficking in humans from 2009 to October 2012, according to recent data. A total of 3,000 people disappeared from 2007-11.
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Early Voting in Florida
