Directions to Northgate Mosque, Seattle (Idriss)
Today I have had many hits – over 20 – on a post I wrote a year ago about the Northgate Mosque. I am guessing that people in Seattle are looking for directions to the mosque, to celebrate the Eid. Here is a map:
I must be doing something wrong, but if you click on the blue print, it will take you to a Google Map that shows you how to get to the Idriss Mosque in the Northgate Area of Seattle.
Charity?
Today I found this in my spam. Again, folks, this is satire, not a recommendation that you “support me and send more and more money.” It is so straightforward and so manipulative and so fraudulent that it gave me a good laugh:
I WANT FINANCIAL HELP FROM ALL WORLD
DEAR SIR/MADAM,
I’M A INDIAN POOR AND LONG DISEASE MAN MY FINANCIAL CONDITION IS VERY POOR
MY LIFE DEPEND ON THE CREDIT SYSTEM BUT AT PRESENT ANY PERSON DON’T PAY ANY
MONEY SO I’M VERY STRESS AND SAD I’M ALONE IN THE WORLD. ANY BODY DOES’T HELP ME.
I WANT HELP FROM MONEY/DONATE MONEY. SO I APPEAL TO ALL WORLD PLEASE YOU HELP ME FROM
MONEY /DONATE MONEY YOU SEND ME CHEQUE/DEMAND DRAFT/MONEY TRANSFFER AT MY A/C NO.
9648 AT UNION BANK OF INDIA.
I’M GLAD TO YOURS ALL LIFE. YOU SUPPORT ME AND SEND MORE & MORE MONEY AT MY
A/C. NO. 9648. MY A/C BAL. IS $5 ONLY.
MY BANK ADD:
UNION BANK OF INDIA(SAVING A/C NO.9648)
PURANI MANDI, RAIWALA
DISTT: SAHARANPUR
STATE : U.P. PIN CODE- 247001
COUNTRY: INDIA
PH NO. 0091-132-9758559422
WWW.UNIONBANKOFINDIA.COM
THANKING YOU
Yours truly,
AYAZUDDIN
Blog Header
My friend and frequent commenter, Abdulaziz, created a new blog header for me. I don’t have a customizable header with this format, and while I have looked at the customizable ones, I don’t understand enough to make the leap. But I want to share with you what he created, using the photo Adventure Man and I took last week.
Isn’t it beautiful?
“Where’s The Bag, Daddy?”
My friends, please be kind. Adventure Man loves plays on words. So last night I could hear him and the Qatteri Cat playing in the bedroom, the Qatteri Cat’s favorite game, Dad hides him under a laundry sack and the Qatteri Cat thinks no one can see him. Then Adventure Man dangles his belt and the Qatteri Cat slashes at it from under the bag. It doesn’t take much to amuse these two; they love this game and can play it over and over.
I can hear Adventure Man saying “Where’s the Bag, Daddy? Where’s the Bag, Daddy?” and dancing around, and he is totally cracking himself up.
“Wouldn’t that be a great blog entry?” he asked.
I dutifully grabbed my camera and tried to get some shots, which is not easy under low light conditions when the Qatteri Cat is swatting at a swinging belt.
So it’s kind of an action shot – that’s what we call it when some of the sharp edges go a little blurry 😉
This cat adores his Bag, daddy.
Post Warrior Thank You
This falls under “Go figure.”
On September 3, I wrote a post called Levantine/Gulf/Persial Warrior Women because I had just finished a section in Sarum that featured a warrior woman, and I asked if there were women warriors in this culture.
I owe huge thanks to:
Kinan
N.
Magical Droplest (whose blog appears to have been hijacked so I won’t put in the connection)
forzaq8
Because their answers to the questions generated a huge response. This is one of those toss-off posts, where an idle question on my part brought forth an undeserved wealth of information (follow their references and you will see!) Sometimes you can get a little cynical about the shallowness of the internet, and then you get such a treasury of information that it blows you away.
Bloggers, it wasn’t my question – it was YOUR answers. In the WordPress seven day summary, it ranked number one, even though it was written weeks ago. In the 30 day summary, it ranked number two, just after Ramadan for Non Muslims. Whoda thunk?
“Could be Very Fatal”
Last year, six officials resigned from Kuwait Air when an assistant pilot without proper credentials was promoted to pilot in spite of having failed the qualifying test. I wrote about it HERE.
This is from yesterday’s (1 october 2007) Kuwait Times. No, it was not in the crime section.
Assistant Pilot Promoted Without Proper Qualifications
KUWAIT: An assistant pilot at Kuwait Airways was recently promoted to become a captain pilot despite the fact that he had failed the tests qualifying him for the promotion for the maximum times allowed. Informed sources stressed that such a mistake of having incompetent and inexperienced pilots fly civilian flights could be very fatal.
The sources noted that his promotion could cost lives of at least the 300 passengers all because of this man has an influential wasta (backer). The sources explained that this particular promotion had been tried upon several times and that it only got through during the transitory period after the resignation of the previous board of directors and before appointing the new board.
“This inexperienced pilot has already started flying to various destinations,” warned the sources expressing astonishment of the approval of the Civil Aviation Authority of such a promotion, particularly since it was the highest control over following safety precautions by various carriers.
———————————————————————-
Last night, over dinner, Adventure Man looked at me sadly. We were discussing my blog, and I had asked him if he had any concerns. He said his only concern was for my safety. I asked him if he saw anything that made him uncomfortable. He said that he worries about my quoting newspaper articles, he has a concern in could get me in trouble.
I have promised I would not comment directly on the articles.
I am willing to bet that there is a possibility that there are unqualified pilots flying for other national airlines, in countries with less of a free press than Kuwait has. The difference in Kuwait is that the newspaper can report this and maybe the person writing it will not be fired for holding the airlines ACCOUNTABLE for providing safe flights for their customers.
Moon over Kuwait Towers
Celebrating 100,000 hits:
(Truly, just a lucky shot, with AdventureMan’s help)
Thank you, friends and visitors, for your visitsm your comments and your insights. Thank you for being a part of my virtual family.
Ramadan Futoor
I was invited to a friend’s for Iftar the other day. We played, and as the day lengthened, she napped while I read. Her husband came down yelling “get up! get up! It’s almost time!” and had the radio on so we could hear the sound of the cannon, announcing the end of the day’s fasting.
We had water and dates, and then soup. Because these are dear friends, and because they love me, we also had Kuwaiti fish!
It was stuffed with parsley, onions and garlic, oh WOW. It was delicious.
As we ate, they were telling me about the thin thin pancakes you can buy at this time of the year to make a special stew. They are made on a dome shaped pan, with a very liquid dough, and evidently you can buy them at the co-op or along the side of the road (I have got to find one of these women!) because the thin pancake you can get during Ramadan is very close, I think, to the brik skin that you use for the Tuna Tunisienne which, hmmmmmm, could also be made with just about any leftover fish.
You have to be quick, because the dough is so fragile. While the photo shows all the ends tucked in, I was never that good, and neither are most Tunisiens – most of the brik I ate in Tunisia were all just folded over and fried in olive oil. So you have to have the oil hot before you put the brik in, and it sizzles, but it can’t be too hot because it has to cook long enough to cook the egg (if you add egg) or to heat the tuna through. Ohhhh, yummmm!
I was also asking about Swair’s Ramadan Soft Dumplings / Lgaimat and they were laughing and telling me how hard they are to make well, and that you have to eat them all the same day they are made, they are so fragile.
Later in the meal, as they were showing me low to roll the rice and fish into a ball together and pop it into your mouth in the old gulf way, my host mentioned the act of making that ball is called “ligma” and – – – ta da! it is the same root as Swair’s lgaimat!
I don’t know about you, but making a connection like that is like having a big light go on in my head. I love it. I can’t always remember words correctly unless I write them down, but this one – making balls to pop in your mouth/ making sweet dumplings balls – don’tcha just love it when things come together like that?
(I am posting this early in the day because you won’t feel hungry for fish this early if you are fasting – I hope – and it might give you a good idea for tonight’s Futoor!) Ramadan kareem!
National Punctuation Day
Under Who Knew, or maybe under Who Cares, comes something I got in my e-mail from A Word a Day:
Nine out of ten emails seem to contain at least one typographical error,
better known as a typo. Never before have so many words been mangled. Is
it caused by carelessness, keyboard clumsiness, or just plain ignorance?
The U.S. will celebrate its fourth annual National Punctuation Day on
September 24. Let’s make it a worldwide affair, when we name and shame
offenders, and return faulty emails to their senders, with mistakes
highlighted in red. More about this in The World’s First Multi-National
e-Book: http://www.bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/world_punctuation_day.htm
And a question. In blogs, I can see that punctuation marks are used in informal Arabic usage, but when someone is writing in classical Arabic, do they use the same punctuation (like periods, exclamation points, quotation marks?)
I Will Never Understand You
When I came online this morning, I got a big shock. Yesterday, I had the highest reader count ever in the history of the blog. I can usually count on Saturdays being a very low day for readership, and Sundays are usually a little better, so I am totally at a loss as to why yesterday would have attracted so many readers.
I posted book reviews. You never read my book reviews! I do it for the few readers out there like me, addicted to really good books, really good authors, and then we talk about books BEHIND YOUR BACK! You never even see the really good book discussions, or us getting together and furtively exchanging our books!
The last time I had so many readers was back in December, when I posted Mom’s Fruit Cake and the Divinity Candy recipes. Overall, that Divinity Candy keeps going and going. Go figure! I had only been blogging 3 months at the time, and oh, what a thrill it was to see that spike for December, but it left me desolate as your attentions shifted elsewhere and I couldn’t figure out how to get you back.
But Go Figure is my constant refrain. You are a fickle audience. I can’t help but be intrigued. I will never know what you are thinking; maybe 1% of my daily visitors comment. The rest of you drop in and snorkel around a little, and then leave, a swirl trailing behind you but no tangible evidence of your visit, other than the little tick in the stats that show you were here.
All I can deduce is that the best bet for blogging is to be content to start small and build slowly. Don’t worry about statistics. (And don’t worry if you ARE worried about statistics, as you can tell from the content of this post, we all are aware of our statistics, that was a purely hypocritical word of advice on my part.)
Honestly, I have come to the conclusion that my very safest bet is to blog for myself, and that is what I do. I blog about what catches my eye, what strikes my funny bone, what grabs my intellect, what inflames my heart, and I blog about the trivialities of my daily life. I love your visits, and I love hearing your point of view, even if it doesn’t agree with my own. I ask only that you watch your language, as my Mother reads this blog, and that while you are passionate, you steer clear of hate language toward any race, gender or nationality. Bureaucracy is fair game.
I am happy you came by, sorry if I was sleeping!
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