New Stats on WordPress
When I went to my Stat page today, I found a new presentation – the countries my visitors are from, listed and in color codes on a map:
Pretty cool, hmmm?
While most of my visitors are from the US, I still get a substantial number from Kuwait and Qatar. 🙂
Depends Who Writes the Obituary . . .
I am sorry, but this totally cracks me up. I found in on AOL Huffpost and it is about a Tampa family, where the one writing the obituary gets to insert his point of view. We all have families; they each have their points of view.
When I am reading the obituaries, the ones that crack me up are the ones who have clearly written their own obituaries and had them ready to go when their time is up. Many of the ones written by men are a little grandiose, the ones written by women are more matter-of-fact. You can usually tell what they found most important about the life they lived. Now and then, you find someone original, with a sense of humor and proportion about themselves, who talk about hunting, or their dogs, or sailing. There are people I wish I had met when I read their obituaries; maybe we should all publish pre-death summaries of our lives so far . . . Oh wait . . . that’s a blog, LOL!
When AdventureMan says “that’s not how I remembered it!” I always say (you’ve heard it before, you can say it along with me) “Get your own blog, AdventureMan!” But it is true, the one who is doing the blog gets to skew the history, LLOOLL!
By Laura Rowley
One of my first assignments in my first real job in journalism was writing obituaries for The Milwaukee Journal. I found it a little daunting at first, this job of writing about the dead. But that changed after a phone call with a woman whose daughter had died in a car crash overseas with her husband and toddler.
It was my job to call the family for the story, and I assumed the mother would hang up on me. Instead she spoke for an hour, sobbing, telling me stories about her extraordinary daughter and son-in-law, and the grandchild she had barely gotten to know. At the end of the call she said, “Thank you, my husband won’t talk with me about this.”
In every call I made after that I had a different attitude. I realized that the obituary is a place where ordinary people have the opportunity to honor the people they love in a very public way.
That is, unless the survivor is self-centered enough to believe the obituary is about him, as appears to be the case with Angelo “A.J.” Anello of Florida. Anello placed an obituary for his mother Josie, who died on February 11, taking the opportunity to insult his siblings Ninfa and Peter with the following line:
“She is survived by her Son, ‘A.J.’, who loved and cared for her; Daughter ‘Ninfa’, who betrayed her trust, and Son ‘Peter’, who broke her heart.”
The source of this rivalry between these post 50 siblings? Money. Ninfa Simpson told the Tampa Bay Times that her brother A.J. became more controlling over their mother once their father died, which A.J. denied. The two told the paper that the third sibling, Peter, has been estranged from the family for more than 25 years. The Tampa Bay Times also reported that:
Simpson says Anello drained the mother’s savings and maxed out her credit cards. Anello says Simpson and her husband used their mother’s Social Security checks to go on vacations to Branson, Mo., and Alaska.
Both siblings deny the other’s allegations.
A.J. told the Tampa Bay Times that he was merely conveying what his mother said through the obituary; nevertheless, an alternative version of Josie Anello’s obituary — which does not include evidence of the siblings’ feud — has also been published.
What do you think about Josie Anello’s obituary? Let us know in the comments, and watch the below video to hear more about this unbelievable family rift.
Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis
This is a photo from Katie’s blog: Kisses From Katie.
Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God believes in you? Then how do you live your life? Do you commit 100% to God and trust him to provide as you leave all your riches behind and follow him, serving the poorest of the poor, speaking for those who have no voices?
I will warn you, this unforgettable book has a lot of talk about God in it. A part of me watches in horror, wondering how long Katie can continue to serve God with all her heart, with all her soul, and with all her mind? How long she can work against all odds, trusting in God to lift her and provide for her and her children. This is a true story, an ongoing life. A part of me fears a terrible crash, but the greater part of me prays for Katie, and stands in awe of her courage and her commitment.
I don’t know who told me about Kisses for Katie, the blog. As soon as I started reading it, I was addicted.
Now for the shocker: Katie is only 23 years old. A year before she graduated from high school, she felt an undeniable call to do a 6 week mission teaching in a school in one of the poorest parts of Uganda. At the end of her six weeks, she couldn’t bear to leave. She returned, finished out her senior year in high school (HIGH SCHOOL!) but she never felt entirely ‘home,’ her heart was with the children of Uganda, the poorest of the poor.
Although her parents had her doubts, the strength and consistency of Katie’s belief that she was called to serve in Africa brought them around, and they agreed she could go work for a year in this small, poor village, before starting university. At eighteen, Katie was teaching, raising money for food, tuition and uniforms for over 100 children, and working to prepare all the meals, bathe all the children, and teach them about the love of Jesus.
When I saw, a month ago, that Katie had a book published, I had to buy it. Kisses from Katie is inspirational and unforgettable. Her story continues on her blog, but the book lays all the groundwork, the heartaches and the joys, the delights of her 13 adopted daughters, the horrors of the Ugandan bureaucracy, Katie’s dogged day-by-day fight to claim and save lives. She is a remarkable young woman, powered by an awesome God.
If Katie were going to burn out, I think it would have happened earlier, as she suffered terrible disappointments, and made truly amazing sacrifices to raise her girls, to be their “mommy” and to insure the educations of over a hundred children. With a growing foundation, Amazina, and a growing group of contributors, she carries on, and the miracle of this book is that she doesn’t seem to sense the amazing woman that she is at all, she seems to believe that she is a simple woman following God’s will for her life, and reveling in it, joyfully surrounded by her 13 adopted daughters and frequent foster babies. She feels blessed to have the life that God created her to live.
I stand in awe.
You can order this book from Amazon.com for $12.49 plus shipping. It might even change your life, or how you view your life. Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com. No, I make no money from recommending this book. 🙂
Oops! Five Year Blogaversary Almost Slipped Past
Holy cow, how could I forget my own blogoversary? Five years. When my son and daughter in law got married, they had a cake that totally knocked my socks off. I wish I could think of a good occasion to have a cake like this made . . . not so much to eat, but oh, they are so beautiful!
We’ve been through so much together – three years in Kuwait, a move to and another year in Qatar, and then the move, about 18 months ago, to Pensacola. These cakes are good reminders of all three countries, loaded with the blessings of blue skies, sand, glorious seas and seashells. Join me in a bite of cake 🙂
Pensacola, with the light house 🙂
Beaches I’ll remember 🙂
The Value of the Trivial
“Be sure to use your full name, First, maiden and married, on your quilt labels,” our presenter instructed us.
Oh-oh. I’ve been lucky just to get labels on my quilts, and I haven’t used my maiden name at all.
“Years from now, if someone is trying to track you as a quilter, it will help to have your maiden name to distinguish you from other quilters who may have similar names,” she continued.
OK. So now I will include my maiden name. (For my Moslem friends, it is our custom to take our husband’s names when we marry. Some women don’t, but even now, the majority do. I know, I know, it seems backward to you, it is irrational, it is just the way it is. We also don’t have marriage contracts.)
At lunch with a long-time friend this week, she mentioned she still has her mother’s diaries. I suggested she offer them to a major university near where my friend grew up, to their historical collection, and my friend said “oh, it’s just daily weather, who’s sick, stuff like that.”
Stuff like that is just exactly what historians treasure. When I was at university, I worked for a time in the copying department of the library, and I specialized in the historical collections, many of which were from people who came west. The papers were fascinating – letters home, lists of supplies they asked to have sent West, to-do lists, old photos. The scraps of paper you and I throw away – there in the Northwest collection.
They become valuable, at least for historical research, for writing period fiction, for medical research – because we do throw them away, and so few survive.
Keeping up with this blog has become more problematic. I just don’t have the time in my life I used to have. My life is interesting to me, but now that I am no longer living in exotic locations, I don’t believe I am so interesting to others. My internal debate is whether or not to continue. I would let it go in a heartbeat and not miss the time, but . . . I think I would miss your feedback.
I’m not writing this for you. I’m sort of writing more for my own record-keeping, it’s why I include news articles and scraps of daily life (not my own) and all the oddities and irrationalities that catch my eye. I love having a place to store it all (this blog) and I love your comments, which can sometimes completely turn me around in point of view; you give me perspectives I hadn’t considered.
The point of all this is the ephemeral nature of our daily lives, and the records of our lives. There are things worth keeping.
I wish someone in Kuwait were doing oral histories on the older people who were living there ‘before oil’.
Statistics Anomaly
Yesterday, I had over two thousand hits on the blog, after a year of sliding statistics, which I attribute to being less interesting now that I no longer live in exotic locations, post the Kuwait sunrise (I used to have a loyal clientele of Kuwaiti students off at university who loved seeing the sunrise in Kuwait every day), and that blogging is not so new and exciting. I’m not blogging as conscientiously as I used to – I don’t have the time I used to have.
This morning, as I check the blog, I can see I have almost as many hits by nine this morning as I had yesterday. It makes me smile – here is what the most hit-upon posts are:
Ramadan is coming! Ramadan Mubarak, Ramadan Kareem to all those waiting so eagerly for Ramadan to begin.
Last night we had a big dinner for my Mom’s birthday, and got to hear a shred of conversation I wanted to share with you. I was sitting next to an old family friend, famous for asking questions that will start a conversation that could last the rest of the evening, and across the table was Little Diamond, my niece, actually now Professor Diamond. 🙂 If we were German, we would call her Professor Doctor Diamond 🙂
Our friend asked her what had surprised her the most about teaching on the college level and she answered that as she is teaching her culture classes, she brought up plural marriages, and it was simply a non-issue. She said there are a couple of shows, Sister-Wives and Big Love, and all the kids have seen them and know what plural marriage is all about – at least in the United States. She said it was a big change, that plural marriage used to be a hot topic, but now, not-so-much. It was fascinating.
Speak Kuwaiti
Thanks to commenter Zak who recommends a new book available in Kuwait. Wish it had been available when I was there. I had to learn by asking friends. I’m still tempted to answer the phone “Weynich?? Weynich?” (Where are you – to a female)
“SPEAK KUWAITI”
I liked the idea of this new book “Speak Kuwaiti”, unlike any other book, this book has been compiled and designed to focus on the spoken Kuwaiti dialect in the easiest and most interactive way possible. I have many expatriate friends who often ask me “How can I speak Kuwaiti ?” or “How to say I’m hungry, tired, happy in Kuwait?” Well this book is the answer
The price is 3.600 K.D and can be found at Virgin, That Al Salasil, and Jarir bookshop, Kuwait Bookshop.
Zak
A Year’s Supply of Kleenex from Kuwait and Mrm.
When we returned from our roadtrip to the Doha reunion and wedding in Pittsburgh, I found this waiting for me:
Yes. Yes. Yes, you see it correctly. A year’s supply of oud-scented Kleenex from Kuwait. I am guessing these are the ones sent by my friend Mrm . . . and oh, what a laugh it gave me. Mrm, it’s the little things that count, and it is your big-hearted generosity that matters, sending me FIFTEEN boxes of oud-scented Kleenex. I just can’t stop laughing, it is so extravagant and so sweet, and just exactly what I wanted. Mrm, I think this is your doing, and thank you.
I only met up with three bloggers, and Mrm and her friend were two of the three. It was an equally funny beginning, meeting up at the Starbucks in Fehaheel and each of us thinking we had been stood up because we were at different Starbucks. Soon after, they came to my eyrie in Fintas, and what great times we had from then. 🙂 I would have missed a whole layer of life in Kuwait had I not met up with Mrm, but – as those who know Mrm know – she has a way of getting what she wants, and making everyone around her glad at the same time. I had so much fun with you and Chirp, and I learned so much from you.
Thank you, Mrm. For everything. 🙂 I will think of you more than a thousand times as I use this Kleenex. Thank you. 🙂
Happy Mother’s Day
There is this thing on FaceBook where for Mother’s Day you put a photo of your own mother as your profile photo. I don’t do a lot on FaceBook, but I did this one, and I thought I would share an early photo of my mother with you:
I just love that mischievous little smile that says “Don’t you want to come play with me?”
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.
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