One Year Today
(Photo above from a very cool website called Coolest Birthday Cakes.Com. Oops, no, it is not the 50th anniversary of this blog, only the 1st, but I love the cake!)
One year ago today, I gathered up every fragment of courage I could find and joined the blogging world. You can’t imagine how nervous I was. I had a lot to learn about WordPress to start, it was a steep learning curve.
I had done my homework. When moving to Kuwait, I discovered the information-rich world of blogs, and while trying to figure out what life in Kuwait might be like, also discovered several women bloggers I really liked: The Queen of Kuwaiti Bloggers Jewaira, a highly literate and often cleverly funny Alflaila / Zin / 1001 Nights, and a bravly funny MiYaFuSHi. Ladies, what I liked the very best about your blogs was that when I would go to the comments sections, I would learn all kinds of things, things I didn’t even know I didn’t know!
And the men – Don Veto(he has a sharp eye for inconsistencies), Hilaliya a Third Culture Kid with an entertainment/political/social issues blog, Skunk who talks about money and culture with irreverance and wit and enormous insight, and of course Purg whom I found scarily intimidating until I found out he was a sweetie-pie. There was also Gastronomica / the Equalizer who used to write lyrical and beautiful posts, but who opened his own restaurant and doesn’t seem to blog anymore.
Thank you all – you inspired me and helped me have the courage to jump in.
Zin, you most of all. I remember a post where you asked if you should even continue, that you knew there were a lot of viewers, but few responses, and boom! you got all kinds of responses! When you blog, you kind of put yourself out there, and that can be a little scary. You were an inspiration to me.
Thank you all, old friends and new, for making me so welcome. One year later, I feel like I have a whole new world of virtual friends. 🙂
When I started blogging, my niece, Little Diamond, was a frequent visitor, and just one short month later, she also started blogging. Then my nephew Earthling blogged for a while on the Google campus and the food there. My sister, Sparkle also blogs sporadically. And, just so you know, my Mom reads the blog, so I am very careful about language!
I hope you are having as much fun with Here, There and Everywhere as I am. I love the times you jump in and give me the information I need to answer those useless questions that buzz around in my head, like with the Yemeni Star. Now I know something new! I love it!
The only bad surprises I have had were the occasional nasty comment and the garbage bins full of spam. I have to go through the spam, and I try to do it quickly, to make sure good comments don’t get lost, but oh, what horrid stuff there is out there, and I am offended they would want to put it on MY blog. It makes my skin crawl!
As for the occasional nasty or aggressive comment – mostly, I let them stand. I figure it tells you more about the mentality of the commenter than anything about my blog. Some people just carry a lot of baggage, more to be pitied than condemned.
Thank you. My time here in Kuwait is so much richer for knowing you through your blogs, and for the good and bad times we share.
Yemeni Star
I give up.
I am throwing myself on your mercy.
A week ago, Adventure Man heard a morning radio show on 99.7, “Superstation”, in which a meteorologist at the Kuwait Airport mentioned a particular star, which when it appears above the horizon in Kuwait, the ancient inhabitants would know that cooler temperatures were on the way.
Adventure Man is sure he called it The Yemeni Star, because it appeared over the horizon in the general direction of Yemen.
I’ve google’d it to death and can’t find anything. I called in the superstar Googler, Little Diamond and even she had to admit defeat.
Kuwaiti friends and bloggers – please, ask your elders if they know of the Yemeni Star. I think the weatherman said it was the nomadic peoples who would watch for it. I am guessing that in Kuwait, there are few nomads left, but a great number of descendants of nomadic peoples. Or, if you have an astronomer, or weather person in your family, could you ask them?
I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does.
WordPress: Where Did Feedback Go?
When I first joined WordPress, there was a place you could click at the top of the page and write FeedBack. What was really really cool was that WordPress was small enough that you usually got an answer on the same day, even if your question was really stupid, like a lot of mine were, because I was just beginning.
There is a great FAQ place, but I couldn’t always understand the answers. Like you know when you know the meaning of each individual word, but when they are strung together, it might as well be an alien language from outer space, you just can’t get the meaning?
So today I wanted to give them some feedback – and FeedBack is GONE! They didn’t even say anything! It’s just gone! Or . . . . am I missing something? At the bottom of my dashboard, it says “use the feedback link at the top right of your page” but . . . am I going blind? I don’t see the feedback link anymore?
Here is what I want:
I love it that I can see statistics for each individual post. Some of my wierdest posts – like Tudo’s Vietnamese Restaurant in Pensacola written back in March can still get a high number of hits, and I like being able to see a post’s history.
And what I would really like is to be able to see ALL my posts in rank order by the number of hits. So like then I could see at a glance what my Top 10, Top 25 were, all time, through the history of the blog.
But . . .WordPress, you no longer want any feedback?
DementoCat
OK, OK, No more after a while, just this one last one. Yesterday, as I was uploading the photo of the Qatteri Cat and his babies, he was zonked out on the couch, and dreaming.
With his eyes partially open, but totally out, little paws going, mouth going, making those inarticulate sounds we make when we are in the middle of a very active dream . . .
And he looked so funny! I promise, I promise, this is the last one for a while:
Thank God Adventure Man doesn’t have a blog! I don’t want any photos me me, when I am having a bad dream!
Think I should submit it to I Can Has Cheeseburger? I know it is not socially relevant, but I love this site. At least one caption gives me a laugh-out-loud, a great way to start the day.
Big Red
Adventure Man and I have an agreement. We leave each other’s lives alone. Like I don’t try to tell him how he should work (I do try to tell him how to drive, or how not to drive, he hates it and I can’t help it; I don’t want to die!) and he doesn’t tell me how to run the house (but he does make “helpful suggestions”, he can’t help it.) We cut each other a lot of slack – it’s the only way you can stay married for a long time.
He monitors my blog closely. I don’t mind, he is like my personal security agency, making sure I don’t tell you too much about myself. I know he is protecting us and I honor that. It also helps me to think about what I am writing as I write – he has never asked me to change anything, but the awareness that he is watching helps me remember to be careful.
But I draw the line at him telling me what to blog. Here is what I say:
GET YOUR OWN BLOG, ADVENTURE MAN!
Yesterday he brought me some Big Red, with a complaint and with a compliment. Many of us in our family are addicted to Big Red, a cinnamon chewing gum. I like it because I drink coffee, and coffee can make your breath bad. Adventure Man just likes it because he likes it.
“This Big Red is not the same!” he complained. “It tastes wrong!”
I tasted it and I thought it tasted normal, but I have been buying Big Red here for a while and maybe my “normal” has gotten skewed.
“And look!” he said, triumphantly “Big Red is supposed to be RED!”
And he was right – this Big Red is WHITE?? How can that be??
But here is the compliment – look what is printed on each individual gum wrapper. (You have to read it from left to right!)
Pretty cool, huh? And this blog entry is for you, Adventure Man.
Qatteri Cat Keeps Busy
Thanks to all of you who have been asking for updates on The Qatteri Cat. He finds himself very busy these days, in fact, as you can see, fully extended with all his activities.
He helps me with my projects. He helps me with my household chores, especially keeping the Qatteri Cat fed and watered. He works hard to keep Adventure Man fit, waiting by the door for him to return from work and forcing him to run and chase, or to throw his ball. He is a constand companion, day and night. At night, he is the watch cat, alerting us to every strange noise, and, from time to time opening the door-to-the-world so that I can get MY exercise, running after him as he escapes.
So here, for you, is where you will typically find the Qatteri Cat:
Helping Intlxpatr blog:
Helping in the project room:
Alert and guarding the house:
The Road to Damascus
I am dancing for joy! Adventure Man and I are taking a trip soon, back to Damascus! We spent many a happy weekend, even a couple weeks there, way back when, driving from Amman whenever we could. We loved Syria.
I would sit in the old Hammadiyya Souk, drinking tea and feeling the ghosts of the centuries of traders who had sipped tea in the same place. There is, for us, something special about Damascus.
I know there are a lot of Syrian bloggers out there. And it has been a while since we have seen Damascus. I would love to know a couple really great places to eat (we eat in local dives and we eat in the best hotels; we look for good food and atmosphere and know that cost and value are not always the same so recommend whatever YOU love), a good shop for the silk brocades, and anything else you think we really should see.
The Arab Way (2)
Here is when the Arab way doesn’t work. . .well, it does work, but not in your favor. I was taking my car in for some repairs a couple weeks ago; they told me “just bring it in, we will take care of it” and fool! I believed them!
So I get there, seek desperately for a parking space, and go inside. I take a number. Not too bad. Only five people in front of me.
Five people. But here comes Bashir, and he sits himself down right at the counter, no number. The clerk finishes with number 34 – and Bashir shakes hands with him, greets him, makes small talk with him – and takes care of him.
Meanwhile Ali and his four brothers walk in. They have a number. They want to sit down, but I am on the far end of the couch so only Ali sits down. He tells his brothers they can sit, but with a big wolfy grin – like a dare. Let’s see which one of you will sit next to a WOMAN. And not one of them will. The manager walks over to Ali, greets him and they chat and then Ali and his brothers are all taken to another area, where they get specialized service.
Old Abdul shuffles in next, and I know I am screwed. OK, OK, I tell myself, you have a choice, you can laugh or you can stew. If you stew, you just ruin your own day – it’s not going to change anything. So I just laugh.
Eventually, I get seen, and the dealership makes the problem go away, and I think to myself that in the US this would have cost a lot more, I would have waited a lot longer, and I wouldn’t have all this material for a blog entry.
The Arab ways works – but it works best if you are an Arab, if you are a Moslem, and if you have connections. I am betting it also helps to be male, but I have seen women who knew how “to be preferred”, too. 😉
GoogleEarth – and SKY!
OgleEarth, one of the best blogs in the blogosphere dedicated to Google Earth, reports a new beta version of GoogleEarth is now available for download with one incredible difference – it also has views of the heavens, a layer called GoogleSky.
I have a hard time believing Google provides so much to so many – FREE. GoogleSky is awesome.
Here is where you can download the new GoogleEarth (and sky!)
How Security Police Say “Sorry”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times. I know you are all dancing for joy that journalist and blogger Bashar Al-Sayegh is free, and we as a blogging community can all celebrate his release.
His arrest was a mistake.
It says so in the article. Pay attention! You have to read carefully, because security police speak a language all their own.
This is how they say “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
Responding to calls to dismantle the state security department, Rujaib stressed that the department was very vital for any state. “It forms the eye that never sleeps in protecting the nation’s security, in political, social and economic fields,” he explained, pointing out that it existed all over the world.
Asked whether Sayegh’s arrest was meant to convey a message against the freedom of the press, Rujaib stressed that press freedom was fully observed, yet reminded that journalists could be arrested for other reasons. “Meanwhile, police officers could be arrested for any reason as well,” he added, underlining that no violations took place during Sayegh’s arrest. On whether he believed that the issue had been politically motivated by some MPs, Rujaib said, “I am a security official and a politician should answer this question.
Do you think he is implying that there might have been another reason? Does it sound like deflecting blame? I think he is saying “We screwed up. We’re sorry.”
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