Good Night, Kuwait
It’s been a great day in Kuwait.
I needed to go into Fehaheel this morning. Why Fehaheel? I know Fehaheel, and Fehaheel is so much more manageable, to me, than driving downtown to find what I need, and I always have a list. Feheheel is more concentrated, and, if you can find what you need, the prices are often better.
All my secret parking spots are already taken, and it is not even ten o’clock. People! What is going on here?
After circling several times, I found a spot and headed to a shop where there is my kind of guy. He lit up when he saw my camera, and not only did he have the card reader I needed – for less than I would pay in the US – he also had a card with DOUBLE the amount of space on it. Well, I don’t even use all the space on the cards I use, but I appreciated his enthusiasm, and that he keeps up with all the latest advances in photo technology.
So I asked him where he changes his money, and he gave me directions, AND he told me not to take less than 27.700 – 27.750 per dollar, that it holds fairly steady.
As you might have figured out by now, I am a western woman, so the first price I get is often not the same price my Kuwait or Indian friends might get. Armored with the quote my photo-nerd friend gave me, I fought the good fight, when the money-changer would look at me and say 27.500, I knew better! I would just laugh and tell him I am going next door. Finally, when I said that, one guy said OK, OK, 27.900, and I didn’t blink an eye, just changed my money, WOOO HOOOO. I know, I know, it is a primitive response, the hunter-gatherer still present in my lizard-ego, but I love not getting taken.
I found all kinds of wonderful things to take back today, including a Kuwait flag that I can fly on Liberation Day, and when Kuwait friends come to visit. 🙂 I had one when I lived here before, but it was windy, and it blew away!
And here is a final photo for today – today’s sun going down into an Ethel tree. (When I was a kid, there was a gas called Ethel; I think it was special, but I never hear anyone talk about ethel anymore. I can’t imagine Ethel-the-gas and Ethel-the-tree are related.)
Another Gorgeous Day in Kuwait
Oh my friends, I am having such a good time. I have been getting together with my friends, one on one, and we have talked so much – or maybe it is the particulate content of the Kuwait air – that I have lost my voice, LOL.
Last night, I slept the entire night. I was able to get up early and have breakfast with my poor hard-working AdventureMan before he rushed off to another day of high level decision-making and problem solving. Me? Another play day in the great land of Kuwait. 🙂
Here is what life looks like at seven in the morning:
It is another great day in Kuwait.
When I checked Weather Underground for the Kuwait weather forecast, I found an ad for Wataniya’s Give Kuwait.com where people are submitting their own videos to celebrate Kuwait’s upcoming celebration, a four day holiday, February 24 – 28, celebrating 50 years of Independence, 20 years since liberation and 5 years under the rule of the current Amir. There are some really fun videos, some with old photos (you know how I love the historical photos!)
Good Morning, Kuwait :-)
“Bring lots of warm clothes,” my Kuwaiti friend warned me, “it’s really cold!”
When I stepped off the plane, in mid-day, it was a little chill, but gorgeous, my very favorite kind of day in Kuwait. AdventureMan was there to meet me, although the plane arrived a full hour ahead of its scheduled arrival, and he took me downtown, while the Friday traffic was still light. A BEAUTIFUL day in Kuwait.
I even have the photos to prove it, but they are on my other camera, the one I didn’t bring the right card reader for, oh aaarrgh. I will find one soon.
It is so sweet to be back.
We took a long walk along the water, and hit the spa, where I had aqua therapy on all my travel-sore muscles, and I slept fairly well through the night.
Today, it is another beautiful day in Kuwait, a sweet Saturday morning.
Good morning, Kuwait. I’ve missed you. 🙂
Breakfast Delight
One of the best things about breakfast is that we have all kinds of visitors at our backyard feeders. I love all the tiny little birds, but oh! the flashy splendor of the male cardinal!
“You’ve Brought the Sunshine!”
As I was running errands in my old home town, people kept exclaiming on the weather, and they would say “You’ve brought the sunshine!”
They would say the same when I would come in from Kuwait and Qatar. I’ve forgotten just how grim and grey Seattle can be in the midst of January. When I arrived, I drove in a cold, steady drizzle; I’d forgotten how much fun it is to drive in the rain . . . . especially on the narrow lanes of Seattle’s freeway with water sheeting off the big trucks rushing to make their deliveries with 300 miles or so yet to go. No, I prefer the sunshine.
The first glimpse we had of sunshine was early in the morning, as the sun came up and turned the mountains pink:
Later in the day, the light changed and everything went gold:
I guess this little guy just wanted to get in my photo, and it tickles me that a part of him did:
Star Wars Paradise
One of my bible study friends and I were talking about our study, and she asked me “What is it they are saying when all the people drop everything and go pray in those countries?”
The expat dilemma – most people don’t want too much explanation. And you never know who is a rabid anti-Islamist, and I don’t want to argue. But this time I took a chance.
“They are saying different things depending on the time of day, like first thing in the early morning they say ‘come pray! come pray! It is better to pray than to sleep!’ and then they say ‘God is Great! God is Great! I testify that there is only one God, and Mohammed is his prophet.'”
I sort of held my breath, as she thought about this, and then she said “Well, I guess that’s all right.”
Then she asked me if I ever thought about heaven. I told her about our churches in Qatar and Kuwait. I especially miss them at this time of the year. I told her I thought Paradise would look like our churches there, all peoples from all parts of the globe. I told her how on Christmas, all the Indian women wore their most beautiful saris, and the African women wore their dresses and fancy headpieces, and we westerners wore our nicest winter clothes, and we all worshipped together in peace, and to me, that was just a tiny slice of what I think paradise will look like.
My friend is fourth generation Pensacolian, and has never travelled. She proceeded to blow me away.
“Did you ever see Star Wars?” she asked me. I nodded. “Do you remember the bar scene?” I nodded again. Who could forget? But where is this discussion going?
“When we think of heaven, we think of what we know, but there is so much out there we don’t know, and God is creator of all the universe.” she said. “We can’t limit God to what we know; he is so much more! I think it’s going to be like that bar in Star Wars, that we will be with creatures we cannot even imagine, and that we can have celestial homes wherever we want, like a cabin in Alaska, or a hut beside the Ganges or maybe we can be here for a few thousand years and then on another planet, whatever we want.”
Her vision is huge. It took my breath away. The more she talked, the more blown away I became. I was shocked at my own smallness, my lack of imagination, and thrilled with her vision and the possibilities. She’s right, you know. We can’t begin to imagine what our heavenly home will look like, but her idea gave me food for speculation for months – maybe years – to come.
Santa Lucia / Saint Lucy
Today is the feast day of St. Lucy, or, as I was growing up in Alaska, surrounded by Scandinavian fishermen and their families, Santa Lucia. In Swedish families there is a tradition that the eldest daughter, on Santa Lucia day, wears a wreath of candles and brings her parents coffee and special saffron buns in bed. People always make jokes about someone following her with a bucket of water, but I can imagine there were mishaps – imagine, mixing candles and hair. As you can see in the photo, thought, the candles are tall – at least at the beginning.
Never kid yourselves. Children love blood and gore, and love to be a little bit scared. The Grimm Brothers knew this, and if you have ever read their original stories, the hairs on the back of your neck would rise and you would say to yourself “How can these be stories for children??” Think about it – Hansel and Gretel abandoned by their own parents to starve in the woods? Girls with really mean stepmothers, who treated them unfairly?
Back before all the romantic literature on zombies and vampires, we children would stand out in the bus stop (in winter, the sun barely rises during the long Alaskan winters) and tell each other stories of the saints in the bible. Many of them died horrible deaths, and this one ended “and then they took her eyes out of her head, and she was still alive!!!!” I don’t remember ever hearing the miracle of the restoration of her sight, in fact, I thought she was killed, martyred, but here is her story, for those who want to know what Santa Lucia’s day is all about.
LUCY
VIRGIN AND MARTYR, abt. 304
The early Roman lists of martyrs commemorate Lucy, virgin and martyr, on 13 December, and her name, with that of Agatha, appears in the Roman Liturgy as an example of those who have gone before us, in whose company we join in giving thanks and praise to God. Aside from this, little is known of her, except that she lived in Syracuse in Sicily, and probably died around 304. Her name, which means “light,” probably accounts for the story that her eyes were put out and her eyesight miraculously restored, and may be connected with the fact that her feast occurs near the time when (in the Northern Hemisphere) the nights are longest.
In Sweden and elsewhere, the day is observed by having one of the daughters of the house dress in a white robe with a crown of lighted candles and go singing from room to room (presumably followed by an adult with a fire extinguisher) early in the morning when it is still dark to awaken the other family members and to offer them St. Lucy’s Cakes and hot coffee.
Ember Wednesday (of the winter season) is defined as the Wednesday after Lucy’s Day. (An equivalent definition would be: the Wednesday preceding the last Sunday before Christmas.)
The above in dark type is from The Lectionary which publishes daily readings and these stories of the Saints put together by James Kiefer.
The Christmas Lights of Pensacola
Last night, after our son and his family left after dinner, AdventureMan had a gleam in his eye. (No! not that gleam!)
“Want to go out and look at the Christmas lights?” he asked.
“Oh! Yes! Yes!” He knows I love the lights.
Pensacola isn’t so over-the-top as the Tampa Bay area used to be. Pensacola uses a lot more white, a lot less music and moving displays. Pensacola is more restrained, and more traditional.
Just so you will know where I am coming from, here is my favorite:
Thoughtful, restrained, elegant. There are a lot of this kind of display, and I love them. I also love the others, although many are more exuberant. There seem to be a lot of white deer, and . . . some of them move their heads. Yes! I am telling the truth!
Some people just get totally into the spirit of the season, and go all out. Here is a sampling of what we saw:
I can’t help but find this funny; Frosty the snowman and the Creche juxtaposed:
Along with Santas on rockets, LOL!
This is a Christmas Snoopy as an aviator on top of his doghouse. What does it have to do with Christmas? LLOOLL!
A lot of people are using balloons, with varying results. Santa on a motorcycle, Santa on rockets, all kinds of balloons, problematic because sometimes balloons loose air.
Here are Santas, and then a Santa loosing air, LOL
I love the way WordPress has put snow on all the blogs for December (you can turn it off if you don’t like it) but with these photos, snow falling is perfect. 🙂
Pantone Names Spring Colors for 2011
I’m a total sucker for colors, especially wonderful names like Regatta and Blue Curacao, Honeysuckle and Peapod. 🙂
It may only be early winter, but it’s never too soon to start thinking about spring. If you’re among the trendsetters who like to keep things “au courant” in your interior, take a look at the spring fashion color report, courtesy of the expert forecasters at Pantone.
Each season, Pantone surveys the designers of New York Fashion Week to identify the most directional colors to guide the season. Take a look at these hue choices — and what inspired them — then pick a hue or two and start thinking of ways that you, too, can get inspired and revamp your style for the coming seasons.
You can read the entire post at AOL News Shelterpop
Camellia
Camllias are new to me. I didn’t even know what one looked like, but I saw a particular flower blooming EVERYWHERE, in many many different colors, so I asked one of my DIL’s aunts what it was and she said “Camellia!”
I think I need to grow camellias. 🙂
This is what they look like in bud:
My roses are blooming merrily once again, and I even see a stray magnolia blooming from time to time. Now that the hottest of the heat has broken, gardening is fun once again.
We are in a real seesaw weather season, one day it is hot and sticky – with big booming thunderstorms – and the next day will dawn COLD and clear and bright.
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