Foolish Worries
I am a believer. I am not a superstitious person. Neither am I a big worrier. Having said all that, and I think it is important to put the forementioned on the record, so you have context, I have recently suffered a series of losses, and it troubles me.
First, I lost my YMCA card, which I always keep in the same place, and suddenly, it just wasn’t there. Not only was it not there, but it wasn’t in any logical place, where it might have dropped, or where I might have placed it in a careless moment. Just gone, totally gone.
Second, my credit card disappeared. I know exactly the last time I used it, and I remember seeing it NOT in my wallet, in its accustomed place, and picking it up and thinking “I need to put this in its accustomed place, so it doesn’t get lost.” Then, I noticed it wasn’t there. Just not there. There isn’t any other place I would put it, even to keep it safe. I spent a couple days going over just about any place it could be, and it is simply gone gone gone.
Third – and I hope last, because we have a saying that bad things come in threes (yes, yes, I know, it’s pure superstition) I can’t find my treasured silver thimble from Oman. I bought it at the Al Bustan Hotel gift shop, and I paid way too much for it, and I have never regretted it. It fit perfectly. I love using it. It has beautiful silver filigree embellishment, not a lot, just right, so it is both beautiful and useful. It’s not that I LOVE my thimble (I really do) but I appreciate that it is so beautiful, and it works so well for me. And it is gone. I always keep it in the same place, and it is not there. I am thinking I might have put it in “a safe place” as I was cleaning off my quilting area to be able to quilt a large quilt, but it’s been a couple weeks I’ve been looking, and it isn’t in any obvious ‘safe place.’
I am a very organized person, bordering precariously on obsessive-compulsive. I think about where to put things, and then I put them there conscientiously. It sounds prideful when I say it this way, but I always know where to find things. If they are not in the first place, they are always in the second or third. I am not in the habit of losing things.
It’s just my husband and me in the suite of rooms where thee things went missing. Oh yes, and the Qatari Cat, who shows absolutely no interest in my Y card, or my credit card, or my silver thimble. I totally know these losses are on me, and I am at a loss. Am I beginning to lose my mind?
No! No! I won’t even go there!
I trust that I have thoughtlessly misplaced, even lost these items. I replaced the Y card, and the credit card, but my silver thimble is irreplaceable, and I can only hope that it shows up, once again, in a place I never expected. I do have other thimbles. Still, I mourn the loss of my beautiful Omani silver thimble.
Pantone Releases Fall Colors 2011
Each season, the Pantone Color Institute unveils the fashion industry’s primary color palette after a survey of the designers of New York Fashon Week. The top 10 colors selected for women this fall 2011 appeal to a vibrant, romantic ideal. Designers artfully combine the brighter colors with the subtle neutrals, setting the tone for a feminine fall reminiscent of glamorous Old Hollywood, enchanting Chinese operas, lively cityscapes and peaceful countrysides.
Fall 2011’s color palette consists of: Bamboo, Emberglow, Honeysuckle (the ‘it’ color of 2011), Phlox, Cedar, Deep Teal, Coffee Liqueรบr, Nougat, Orchid Hush and Quarry. Of course, all designers have their own trendy names for each of these colors — for example, Chris Benz refers to his Bamboo yellow as “Sponge” — and there are varying shades of these chosen core colors, but the use of this palette on the runways and in designer ready-to-wear collections in stores is unmistakable. Pantone is the color authority in fashion. Take a peek at how these top 10 colors have manifested across products and fashion labels this season, and see how you can best combine the colors for a chic fall 2011 look. These are the top 10 colors and these are some of our favorite combos.
Hmmmm. These may be the ‘newest colors’ but the ‘it’ color for Fall, Honeysuckle, was also one of the main choices for Pantone’s Spring 2011 Choices. The purple is a little red for my taste, and the green a little too yellow. I’m waiting for a deep emerald green to come back, and I will buy clothes to wear for the next twenty years. ๐
I found this on AOL’s Shopping News.
The ExPat Dilemma
A short while back, I told you about a book I read and loved, Cutting For Stone. You know it is a really good book when, months later, you are still thinking about it.
What I am thinking about today is how the main character writes about when he got to New York, and was homesick for Ethiopia, a country where he was born, but was always an expat. He spoke several Ethiopian dialects, he ate Ethiopian foods, he was affected by Ethiopian politics – but he was never Ethiopian. He was an Indian expat, working in Ethiopia, with Ethiopians, but always an expat.
He is in the US, and is desperately homesick for Ethiopia, and at the same time, he wryly notes that he is homesick for a country-not-his-own.
We’ve been away from Kuwait for two years now, but every now and then I am disoriented, missing Kuwait. It is hot now, for one thing, and it is so hot on some days that it feels like Kuwait. There are times my mind slips, and I am crossing the street near the Afghani shops, heading into the Mubarakiyya.
Today I am working on a new quilt, and I need a purple. I see just the right one, lurking on my purples shelf, and as I unfold it, a note falls out, from my good friend, and it says “(Intlxpatr) With love I dye this for you.”
I never cry, or hardly ever. I’m not crying now. I am in that fragile state where I COULD cry, my throat is a little thick and my eyes are a little watery, and I never saw it coming. It totally caught me by surprise.
I miss my friend. I miss Kuwait. I am home, and yet, I am homesick for a country-not-my-own, and a life I used to have.
Monday Night Blues at Five Sisters Blues Cafe in Pensacola
We kept wanting to go to Five Sisters Blues Cafe – everyone tells us it is a really fun place with great food – but it takes us a while to find it. I’m printing the Google map for you; it is at the corner of Belmont and DeVilliers. Not that hard to find if you know Pensacola, but we are still learning Pensacola.
Five Sisters exterior:
“Where’ve you been?” our waitress, Lisa, asked as we were seated. We must have looked goofy, we’ve never been there before, so we said, “this is our first time” and she laughed and said “I know that! I haven’t seen you before! We’ve been open a year! Where’ve you been?”
We just laughed, she had really caught us off guard. The place was packed, on a Wednesday afternoon, people all around us eating giant salads, plates heaped with fried chicken, everything we saw coming out to the tables looked delicious. Lisa brought us iced-tea, and I lost my heart, look, REAL mint in the tea, just like home . . .
We were overwhelmed. There is a lot going on in the restaurant, people laughing, art works on the walls, a new menu to peruse and we don’t know what we want. We finally decide to share the sampler platter with two fried green tomatoes, 4 crab cakes and 4 shrimp, which came with three very tasty sauces – WOW. Wowed right off the top:
AdventureMan even said, in wonder “This crab cake really tastes like crab with a C!” and it was. You know, the other kind, that calls itself crab, but is really flavored Alaskan pollock, and not crab at all? This was real crab, and it tasted crabby. Yummm.
AdventureMan had a vegetable platter. Now this is Southern cooking at it’s best, so don’t expect ‘vegetable’ to be Vegan. Even Mac and Cheese qualifies as a vegetable, and beans usually have some pork to flavor them, etc. He said the entire plate was delicious.
I tried something I had never had before, catish over grits. I never thought I liked grits until our daughter-in-laws stepmother (I know, I know, it sounds complicated, and it is another thing we have in common with people all over the world; we all have complicated relationships) made Smoked Gouda Grits one night with her Barbecued Shrimp and a whole new world opened up to me. Wooo HOOO. Anyway, I didn’t eat all the grits; the catfish was filling, but this dish knocked my socks off and I don’t think I could duplicate it, so I’m just going to have to go back to Five Sisters every time I get a craving for it:
If we are what we eat, we are becoming very Southern. ๐
Lisa, the waitress, was a lot of fun, helpful in making recommendations, quick when we asked for anything, and she told us about an upcoming special jazz night that we really needed to attend. OK. That sounded like fun.
Lisa was right. It was really fun. We walked in, early, and every table was taken. There was a Jazz Society of Pensacola membership table at the entrance, and the lady just laughed and said “Look! There are lots of chairs empty, just go to a table and ask if you can join them.”
Hmm. We’re actually used to that, living in Germany all those years, but I didn’t know you could do that here. ๐ We ended up at a table with another couple, and as we chatted, we had a really good time with them. They were so gracious and welcoming to people they had never met and who aren’t even members (yet) of the Jazz Society. We laughed a lot. He told us that they didn’t have a lot of rules, but that when things got lively, no oxygen machines were allowed on the dance floor because they might explode, LLOOLLL!
This place was ROCKIN’. People were dancing between the tables, people from young to old, just having a great time listening to some very very good music. Within an hour, there were no empty seats at all, some people were standing, and others were eating out on the covered patio. It was raining (rain in Pensacola during a drought is a good thing) and the evening was called Monday Night Blues. How cool is that? The atmosphere was perfect.
Of course we had dinner. AdventureMan had BBQ on Red Beans and Rice and I had the Shrimp Basket. No Mom, I did not eat the French Fries.
I did eat ONE of the hushpuppies. I could not resist. ๐
Five Sisters Blues Cafe is just a really fun place, immaculately clean, great food and great service. We can’t wait to go back again.
Jeannette Walls: The Glass Castle
The Glass Castle was a hugely popular best seller in the USA, and it must have been while I was gone. A part of me remembers reading a little bit about it and deciding it wasn’t my kind of book, but after reading Half Broke Horses, I had forgotten what the subject matter was and was excited to have another Jeannette Walls book I could read.
Big mistake. This book is nothing like Half Broke Horses.
Or maybe it is. Maybe what I loved about Half Broke Horses was the voice of an amazing woman, and maybe what kept me reading The Glass Castle is the voice of an amazing child who tells a heart breaking story. Or maybe it isn’t so heartbreaking, because the children survive. They are scarred and damaged, but never so damaged or loony or self-deceived as their parents.
I don’t like reading books about kids whose parents don’t take good care of them. Oprah chose a lot of those books in her book club. These books depress me. I cannot imagine how parents can be so self-absorbed, how they can take on the responsibilities of children and then not put those children first. How can they?
The Glass Castle stars the daughter of Lily Casey Smith, who is the mother of Jeannette Walls, and her husband, who is Jeannette’s father. The book opens with little three year old Jeannette proudly cooking up a hot dog. Her mother is busy painting and has told her to find something to eat. Her nightgown catches fire, and she is terribly burned. She spends a long time in the hospital, which ends with her father taking her out in a hurry, bundling her into the car, already loaded with her family, and “doing the skedaddle” which is leaving town just in front of the bill collectors.
This is her life. From time to time, their alcoholic Dad will take a job and bring home some of the paycheck (he drinks and gambles most of it) and when he won’t work, on rare occasion, their mother will take a teaching job, but the kids have to get her out of bed in the morning, have to grade her papers and make her lesson plans. Often there is not enough for the family to eat. They don’t stay in one place; they ‘skedaddle’ before they are evicted for non-payment of rent. They eat cold food – when they eat – because the parents didn’t pay the electric bill.
The Dad is smart, charming and cajoling, and when he is sober, the kids learn amazing things from him, and educated engineer. Unfortunately, he is not often sober. He chases after alcohol and he chases after women; the people in the towns where they live know it and the children learn to know it, too, to their constant humiliation. When he wheedles money off his kids, and promises to repay, he asks “Have I ever let you down?” The answer is so stunningly obvious as to be heartbreaking – Yes. Yes, again and again and again.
The Mother is equally irresponsible. One time, when the family is starving, she is in bed and occasionally goes under the covers, where Jeannette discovers her mother has a chocolate bar hidden that she can eat – while her children go hungry.
The author’s voice is never self pitying, she just lays it all out and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. Each child escapes the family as soon as possible; the children plan and save their money to get out, first sending off the oldest sister, then Jeannette, then the son. They all head for New York, where they find work and support themselves. Like bad pennies, Mom and Dad show up in New York, cadge meals and money and join the ranks of the homeless in New York, going from food pantry to soup kitchen, and diving dumpsters for their worldly needs.
This is not a feel good novel. The good part about it is that children can survive this kind of criminal neglect, and become a successful author as Jeannette Walls has done. I am so glad I read Half Broke Horses first, because her grandmother is such an admirable character, whereas her parents are scum and I just felt so angry when I read the matter-of-fact descriptions of their behavior that I was glad they were not where I could get my hands on them.
I don’t know any parents as bad as Rose Mary and Rex Walls, but I know I believe this – if you choose to marry, and if you choose to have children, know that children require time, and love, and energy, and patience. Know that if you have grand ambitions, or an addiction, or a character flaw, you won’t be able to provide for your children’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs, unless you are willing to sacrifice your own needs and wants. While the children in the book loved their parents, they recognized that their parents were sadly lacking in the parenting roles. The way these children were neglected will make me remember this book for a long time.
Would I recommend it? Yes. It is a gripping book, at times even horrifyingly humorous, as when Jeannette figures out how to find lunch food in the garbage cans when all the other kids have finished eating. It is not a feel-good book. It is a horrifying indictment of self-absorbed, neglectful parents, parents you will love to hate.
If I sound a little overwrought, it’s because I worked with the homeless. We were able to help many, but I also ran into families like this family, families who would prefer not taking any help if it meant they had to play by the rules, you know, rules like “you have to take care of your children.” We had all kinds of classes and forums and mentors to help with learning skills, like feeding children well on a small budget, learning to discipline, simple skills, survival skills.
The problem is that these skills require self-discipline, and many of the parents would rather not take help than have to exercise self-discipline. I saw women who would sacrifice their children for their current boyfriend, a woman who was severely angry with her daughter for reporting a family member had molested her, a man who didn’t want to take a job that would ‘tie him down’ when his family was starving. I saw this, with my own eyes, and there is no way you can MAKE people take good care of their children. You have to ask if the children are better off with these parents, or ‘in the system.’ Not a pretty choice.
This book, too, is on Amazon.com. Reading it is like watching a disaster on CNN. You don’t want to believe it is happening and you can’t look away.
The Church Brew Pub and Downtown Pittsburgh
Now this is courage. In a strange town, one set of friends says they know a great place for lunch, and we need to come through this tunnel to come out for a great view of Pittsburgh. And, they volunteer to be the lead drivers. That takes courage.
It all went beautifully. We made all the right entrances and exits, and while our route was a little eccentric, so as to take advantage of a particular view, we got where we intended to go, wooo hoooo.
Here are some views of downtown Pittsburgh:
Our goal for lunch was the Church Brew Works, where these friends had eaten a few days before with our Doha-Pittsburgh friends.
It’s an old Catholic church, de-consecrated, de-sanctified, now a restaurant and micro-brewery.
Here’s what you see when you enter:
Here’s brewery works, in the old Sanctuary:
Here’s the indoor dining area:
And here is where you can eat outside, in the hops garden, with a feel a lot like Germany:
This is the bar area and souvenier sales:
The food was pretty good, not particularly memorable, but that is often the case where the setting takes precedence over everything else. One set of friends had the beer sampler, which they shared: ๐
It was another of those great days. It didn’t matter where we went or what we ate, what mattered was doing it together.
Islamic Architecture from YouTube
I still get e-mail from I Love Qatar.com and even though I no longer live in Qatar, I love their e-mails, I love hearing about what is going on in Doha socially and culturally, and I love this fresh, enthusiastic group of people who promote having fun and learning more about Qatar.
In today’s e-mail was a reference to this lovely video collection by Mballan which I recommend you watch when you have a few peaceful moments to enjoy it – he – or she – has found some magnificent sights, and the collection is beautiful. I only wish more of the selections were identified; I could recognize several, but far from all. Enjoy . . .
Did you Tell Him We’re Going Dancing?
I was laughing as I heard AdventureMan talking with his Saudi friend, making a time when they could get together. I knew he had called about tonight.
“Did you tell him we were going dancing?” I laughed as I asked him.
“Uhhh . . . no,” he said.
This is new to us. We are taking dancing lessons, ballroom dancing, at the YMCA. We both had those lessons you take in eighth grade, but we’ve forgotten most of what we learned. I don’t care about going dancing, or fancy dresses, or competitions. I don’t even watch dance stuff on TV; I just don’t care that much. These classes are something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it really takes us out of our comfort zones.
We really are having fun. The first lesson – not so much. It is hard work! It doesn’t come naturally, it comes with PRACTICE! Lots of PRACTICE! It’s like fencing lessons, or horseback riding, or karate, or gymnastics – After a while, your body knows what to do, but at the beginning, it can be a little excruciating. As for AdventureMan and I, we mess up a lot, but we laugh a lot too. We are getting better, but best of all we are having a lot of fun. These kinds of things rewire your brains; it may not be easy, but it is good for us.
And I am still laughing, thinking of AdventureMan not telling his friend that he was going dancing with his wife, LOL!
AdventureMan’s New Adventure: Cinco de Mayo
When he ‘retired,’ AdventureMan chose Thursdays as his day to cook. It’s worked out well. Recently, he has perfected Naan, baked on our grill. We’ve had it several times – it just tastes so good, fresh off the grill, and he bastes it with either olive oil and garlic, or olive oil and sesame seeds. Oh, yummmmmm.
“I’m feeling stressed,” he admitted yesterday morning. “It’s my day to cook and I don’t have any ideas.”
“It’s also Cinco de Mayo,” I said, and that was all I had to say, he was off and running.
All I can say is BRAVO. BRAVO, AdventureMan, Cinco de Mayo was a taste treat. They were fabulous.
He found his recipe on AllRecipes.com, and made it pretty much just as they said to make it, serving it with a small bowl of home-made pico de gallo and a small bowl of sour cream. Oh YUMMMM. This is the recipe he used:
Pico de Gallo Chicken Quesadillas
By: Tony Cortez
Ingredients
2 tomatoes, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
2 limes, juiced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into strips
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 (12 inch) flour tortillas
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup sour cream, for topping
Directions
In a small bowl, combine tomatoes, onion, lime juice, cilantro, jalapeno, salt and pepper. Set aside. (This is the pico de gallo)
In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add chicken and saute until cooked through and juices run clear. Remove chicken from skillet and set aside.
Put the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the hot skillet and saute the sliced onion and green pepper until tender. Stir in the minced garlic and saute until the aroma is strong. Mix in half of the pico de gallo and chicken breast meat. Set aside; keep warm.
In a heavy skillet, heat one flour tortilla. Spread 1/4 cup shredded cheese on the tortilla and top with 1/2 the chicken mixture. Sprinkle another 1/4 cup cheese over the chicken and top with another tortilla. When bottom tortilla is lightly brown and cheese has started to melt, flip quesadilla and cook on the opposite side. Remove quesadilla from skillet and cut into quarters.
Repeat with remaining ingredients. Serve quesadillas with sour cream and remaining pico de gallo.
I’ve never seen him so happy as he has been the last couple months.
Hissing on Easter and other Rambles
The 0815 service this morning was glorious. We got there early, because those who had gone to the early-early service and had stayed on for breakfast would be leaving, and this is Easter – we needed a parking place. The front of the church was laden with flowers, so many flowers it looked like a private garden, and the flowers scented the entire church, an odor of sanctity.
Getting there early was a really good thing – just after we entered, the brass trio started serenading us, exultant music, full of joy and triumph, perfect way to start an Easter morning service. It’s a special treat, having music and the full choir at the 0815 service, but a member of the choir told me earlier that this is the only Sunday of the year that they sing at all three services. If you like music, oh, what a treat!
The church filled up quickly. I couldn’t help it, I had to look around to see if there were any Easter bonnets. I remember being a kid – a girl kid, that is. We always had hats for Easter. Being kind of a snotty kid, I was often critical of the one I got and somewhere along the line that tradition was discontinued. I guess it must have been discontinued widely, as there were only six ladies wearing hats (we couldn’t help it, we counted), but very nice hats they were. The little girls were all dressed in lovely dresses, some even with chiffon and lots of ribbons.
As we reached the offering, people behind us were criticizing the parents whose children were making noise.
“They should know better! Why don’t they just take them out, so they won’t bother the rest of us?”
“It’s SO disrespectful!”
There is child care available, but I personally love having the children in the service. Maybe it’s a little disruptive, but you know – we’ll live. And I just thank God they are there! I want them to be welcome! I want the parents not to have to leave, but to know their children – and their antics – are welcome! I miss our noisy services in Doha and in Kuwait, with the babies, the children. Even though they left, there was always a little serendipitous bedlam in the service to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously.
As we left, we also sighed – we miss the gorgeous colorful displays of all the saris on the high holy days, the saffrons and fuschias and peacock blues and greens and golds.
Later this afternoon, when the Happy Baby wakes up from his nap, we’ll be having Easter Dinner. He got going too fast this morning and split his lip when he fell. I remember our son at that age, and the doctor who looked at me meaningfully and asked “does your son often have bruises?” I was so offended, but all I could do was laugh – when they start running, they fall down. Once, I was right there when he tripped – inches away from me – and fell against a sharp edged table. It all happened so fast there was nothing I could do (except take him to the emergency room for stitches).
Actually, we were at a school friend’s house in Jordan, his father owned the hospital, his driver drove us, he Dad-the-doctor put in the stitches and we were back at the party before ice-cream and cake were served.
We try to protect them. We do our best. We try to teach them how to behave at public gatherings, like parades, like church, like change-of-command ceremonies, things we are not born knowing. It takes practice. Like parenting. ๐
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