Big Mistake – Early Morning Eid in Doha
After all these years living here, I still have so much to learn.
Jet-lagging, wide awake and the sun is just up – it’s Eid, and I am betting that with everything closed, the roads will be mine.
Almost immediately after leaving the compound, I get the idea that I am very very wrong. Cars are racing past our entrance as if it were night-time, when I rarely drive if I can help it. There is a feeling of unrestrained energy in the driving, a release. As I circle the nearest roundabout, I watch two cars crash. One, a woman, is exiting the roundabout, the other, a man whose car was parked just outside the roundabout which is also outside the mosque, just drove right into one another. Neither would yield.
All this, and it is not even six in the morning. It’s kind of like everyone is up for sunrise service on Eid in Qatar.
But I really want to capture some of the early morning light. Not taking the hint, I head downtown, and traffic is heavy. I get to the old spit Where-Bandar-restaurants-used-to-be, and as soon as I exit the car, my camera lens fogs up and I have to wait for the camera to heat a little before I can shoot anything. Oh yeh – me and all the other camera-toting people with the same idea. I shoot The Pearl, and then I shoot a young man just coming from prayers with his very nice camera – a Nikon digital.
The spit is crowded – everyone is there. Some guys in cars are just sitting there smoking in public, just because they can. Entire families are all out enjoying the breezy morning temperatures (LOL, in the 90’s Fahrenheit)
This is my absolute favorite shot:
Actually, I love the water in this one, but I can’t take any credit for that.
This one I call Scrambled Eggs, because there is so much going on, but it is definitely a Doha kind of chaos:
This is taken where Al Rayyan Road begins, at the mouth of the entrance to Souq al Waqif, sheer chaos:
And this is my own palm tree shooting out some new shoots – maybe it is a sign that winter is on its way?
How it is Meant to Be: Symmetry vs Asymmetry
As I was growing up, I learned asymmetry. I learned rules like “you never put even numbers together, you use three items here and one here” and that you vary items in height. I am guessing it is semi-cultural; there is a lot of Scandinavian influence in my background, and a lot of Japanese influence on the west coast of the USA, where I was raised.
My housekeeper didn’t have my Mom, or my upbringing. I am the boss and she is the housekeeper, right? Shouldn’t I be getting my way?
It’s not like these things are right or wrong, it is a question of style and what seems right to you – and a lot of that is cultural.
When I lived in Africa, my housekeepers would say “it wants to be here” or “it is meant to be there” and at first I laughed, and then somehow the ‘wants to be’ crept into my way of thinking. How can an object WANT to be somewhere? On the other hand, you place it and all of a sudden you know that’s where it ‘wants’ to be.
My current housekeeper likes symmetry. I carefully place objects; she dusts and she puts them where they tell her they want to be. I can tell in a heartbeat when something has been moved; it just doesn’t look right. I can change it back, but it will go back to being symmetrical within a week.
Most of the time, I just let it go. When you have a housekeeper who really cares about her job – and mine has helped me out many times with good ideas for how something can be done better – I just let it go. If I have people coming over and it really matters to me where things are, I can change it for that one occasion if it is really important to me, otherwise – I just accept that placement is a battle I am not going to win. And I really, really like my current housekeeper, so I will let her be the boss of placement.
What about you? Are you a symmetrical or an asymmetrical?
Family Worship
One of the great blessings of visiting our son and his wife is just spending time together doing the normal things that families do when Mom and Dad don’t live many time zones away in a far and distant land earning a living. This last weekend, we were able to attend church together, which was one of the highlights of my visit with them.
We found a lovely church, Christ Episcopal, in downtown Pensacola. It has organ music, and as my husband says “they sing REAL hymns!” We smiled to see so many families there, from the youngest babies to older folk – the church welcomes us all.
And then AdventureMan spotted the Lutheran Church next door and said “Oh! They have a church souk!”
It was a truly glorious day.
Leaving Seattle
It’s hard to leave. The last few days have been filled with pre-departure must-dos – spending time doing some things with Mom, seeing old friends I won’t see again for a while, packing (aargh) and preparing for the next leg of the journey.
I have an early flight, early enough that I zip right through Seattle, and there is no one to check my car in at the drop off place and I have to trundle over to their rental location to turn in my mileage, etc. Aargh again.
From there on, however, everything is smooth. It is a beautiful day, and leaving Seattle is a gorgeous departure:
I arrive just in time to capture the sunset over the Bayou in Pensacola 🙂
Misty Afternoon, Beach, Log and Seagulls
One of the best things about being at the beach is being at the beach – just being there, just feeling the sand between your toes, grabbing a beach book (mine was Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen) and listening to the steady rolling roar of the waves hitting the beach . . .
As I strolled down to my favorite log yesterday, it was weirdly magical – the sun was shining bright, and there was this huge MIST rolling along the beach. It wasn’t cold, it was just magical and weird. I took a few shots of mist and beach and log:
Maybe this is what’s left from the seagull’s fish yesterday?
So I crawled up on the log and was reading my book and I hear a sound . . . and out of the corner of my eye, I could see a seagull land, like 5 feet away. I didn’t want to move too much and scare him, so I took this photo:
Yes, I had to hold the camera upside down, but then, slowly, slowly, I turned right side up, as more and more seagulls landed, groomed, and went to sleep. I guess I must have found the beach hot spot:
I quietly slid off the log to head back to the cabin, telling them not to worry, I meant them no harm. They didn’t flicker a feather:
Ghost Horses
As Mom and I were stopping at one of the public access beaches, a whole group of horse-carriers turned up and all these horses got out. We don’t know exactly what it was all about. It appears they are trying to get the horses used to being near the surf. Some found it very scary, some wanted to taste it . . . and there was all this mist, so it was a very ghostly experience:
The Moonstone in Moclips
Moclips is one of the northernmost beaches on the Washington coast, not a far drive from Seattle, maybe 3 hours. We stopped in Aberdeen for cold groceries – milk. orange juice, salads, etc. so it took us a little longer, and we weren’t in a hurry.
We have reservations at the Moonstone. The Moonstone is not your five star kind of place, it is a very old timey Washington beach kind of place, the kind you stay when you are clam digging.
We have a little two bedroom cabin with a kitchen and bathroom, not fancy, actually, you could sleep six people if you wanted to. It would be a tight fit, but families do it.
It is a great beach for clams. Here is what clams look like when you go clam digging:
See those holes? There are clams beneath the surface. You stomp; a clam squirts and then you dig like crazy, with a “clam gun” which is a special narrow shaped shovel, or with your hands if you are really really fast and don’t mind losing all your fingernails. When you grab the clam, it is really hard to pull him out, because he is digging down like crazy.
This is what it looks like when a clam is digging down – a tiny fountain of water behind him bubbling up:
This is what the beach looks like from our cabin:
And this is what it looked like at SUNSET!
Not even a shiver
This was the temperature this morning when I went to pick up my Mom:
I think AdventureMan would be wearing his long johns and a fleece vest, but to me, it feels great. 🙂
In late August, early September in Seattle, the day often starts off cold and grey and foggy, but by noon, all the clouds and fog burn away and it is a glorious, warm beautiful day.
Here’s the WeatherUnderground Webcam photo for Seattle today:
Is that gorgeous or what?
Sunset on Sunset Avenue
I arrived in Seattle just in time. My dearest, oldest friend’s father died as I was en route, and the service was this week. On a cold and dreary day, fortunately I had a dark dress with me, and I quickly ran and bought stockings, which are so irrelevant in the heat and humidity of August in Doha, and so necessary for a relatively formal occasion in Seattle.
Last night, we got together and walked, something we have done through the years, and then grabbed a bite to eat. We walked along Sunset Avenue, in Edmonds, just as the sun was setting.
In one of the yards, we saw this wonderful tarted-up piece of driftwood:
The light was glorious:
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