Back to Gas Tanks
Remember when I printed the e-mail about how the handle of the fuel pump on your dashboard points to the side of the car where the tank is, and it wasn’t true?
Ever since then, I have been conscious of checking the dashboard.
I had a rental car in Seattle, and again, the fuel tank was on the opposite side of where the fuel pump on the dashboard showed, BUT underneath it, I saw some lettering “Fuel tank on the left” and an arrow pointing left. And sure enough, the fuel tank was on the left.
Here is what is funny. When I got back to Kuwait, and I was starting up my car, I looked at the fuel gauge and noticed the fuel pump – and underneath was the same lettering – “Fuel tank on the left” with an arrow.
I had never noticed it before.
Now I wonder if it is on all cars. Will you take a look at your dashboard, check the fuel gauge, and see if there is lettering or an arrow or some indication where your fuel tank outlet is?
Surviving Family Functions
As my Mom and I were driving along, on our way to Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up having a surprising conversation about family Thanksgivings. I was telling her how I grew up hating Thanksgiving, that Dad and I always had a big fight because he was mad at me for taking a book along, I was meant to be interacting with the family.
I think parents forget how noisy and intimidating family events can be. I don’t know about your family, but in most families there are a few weird ducks, or maybe they get weirder when they all get together. Taking a book and finding a quiet place to read helped me survive these events. As I grew older, and got to know family members on an individual basis, quiet, one-on-one – I learned that there were several of them I actually liked a whole lot. There is one aunt who is probably my main role model, and one cousin who is one of those I would trust with my life secrets.
Mom doesn’t remember the fights, she doesn’t remember my taking a book. “Why would you?” she says in absolute incredulity. Mom never met a party she didn’t like – she is a very social being, to her very core. I still feel her hand at my back, slightly pushing me into the room with a big smile pasted on all our faces, saying “Mingle, girls, mingle!”
I love being a grown up. I love being able to say “no,” and I even love the growing grace to face situations I hate and get through them. I love meeting up with fellow introverts in other cultures and learning, that under the skin, we all face a lot of the same problems.
“Ach! Birthday parties!” exclaimed my German friend, a fellow Mac-user and graphics designer. “I would love to be you, to live somewhere else, and never have to attend another birthday party!” In my little village, where, by the grace of God, they included me in everything, I came to understand what she meant. On a person’s birthday, every woman in the village brings at least one cake, and oh man, these cakes are special. Most are loaded with cream, whipped, and imbued heavily with alcohol. Every person must take a slice of almost every cake (and my body doesn’t like all the fat in cream and rebels) and you sit for hours having the same conversation you had at the last birthday party. I was just an outsider in the village, not even a family member, and it was hard for me to say no. The force of tradition has so much weight!
My Kuwaiti friends also occasionally confide their impatience with expectations that you will show up regularly and stay – maybe at grandma’s every Friday for the mid-day meal, maybe there are a whole bunch of weddings all at once and you end up attending several nights in a row and feeling like something the cat dragged in the next day . . . I think every culture has these expectations, and every culture has those who thrive in a social environment and those who – like me – don’t.
Oh, if you saw me now, you would THINK I am in my element. I have learned how to fake it! My social Mother’s training has paid off; I LOOK fluent in social events. Underneath, however, I am the same old person who does best one-on-one.
AOL Healthy Living (you can read it HERE has published a list of tactics for surviving the inevitable family / group functions you can’t avoid.
1. Expectations
Holidays are all about expectations. Will mom love my gift? I hope we do a group sing-along. You want the holidays to be perfect, but cut down the fantasy. Instead, think about what you want to get out of it all — relaxed Thanksgiving with your in-laws or a New Year’s Eve that doesn’t end with a hangover.
2. Arrive Late, Leave Early
The traditional seven hour marathon — drinks, dinner, presents, television — is too much “together time” for most families. Shortening the party can make a dramatic difference. And if you’re in for a sleepover, take breaks from the crowd. It’s as simple as walking around the block or crawling into bed early with a good book.
3. Don’t Drink too much
Many people use the holiday as an excuse to eat, drink and be merry to excess. Rarely a good idea around family. Alcohol, in fact, can be a real serious problem in a lot of households. When the drinking gets out of hand, all the old animosities come out to play, and hostile, regrettable or embarrassing things are said — or worse.
4. Presents
You spend hours selecting the perfect present for your sister and she hands you … a candle. And a re-gift at that. Newsflash: Not everyone’s as thoughtful as you are. The best solution here is to discuss gift-giving — how much to spend, what you’d like — with her and the rest of the clan beforehand.
5. Don’t Get Sucked into the Craziness
Holidays can cause otherwise sane adults to revert to their worst childhood selves. And that’s not accounting for dad’s sarcasm and mom’s incessant pleading. If you find yourself falling into the same old roles, do (or say) something to derail that train. Don’t get sucked into the craziness again.
6. Focus on the NOW
Your big bro was mom’s favorite. Okay, but after 30-odd years, that’s not going to change. Focus on the now. You’ll have a much better time if you practice forgiveness and try to accept family members as they are, even if they don’t live up to all your expectations.
7. Seek Out Those You Love
Your relatives spend the holidays in the mall. That’s not for you. Rather than sulk, seek out the people you really love and miss, and ask them for a little face time. Also, urge your host to set smaller tables so you could sit with your favorite cousin without listening to your uncle bluster on all night.
8. Things Won’t be Perfect
Don’t deny it: You’re thinking you have to be an ideal daughter in-law and hostess; make the consummate green bean casserole and buy the best gifts. Not gonna happen. Stop trying to be perfect and comparing yourself to others, and realize that all you can do is try your best.
9. Focus on the Positive
In the end, think about exactly what you’re celebrating here. Joy. Caring. Sharing. Think about your family gatherings as if you were in church, synagogue or a mosque. You wouldn’t be bickering with or judging others, right? Okay, maybe you would. But let’s keep that on the DL — at least while you’re all together.
And I would add one more – 10. If you are one of the more social types who LOVE family gatherings, have a little pity on the introverts, who find large gatherings a little overwhelming! Try to get a little one-on-one time with them, try to have some opportunities for quiet conversations.
Blog Content
I have a feeling I already know the answer to this question, but here goes. In WordPress, you can see when people have referenced your articles in their blogs. Recently, I’ve been getting lots and lots of references. The websites that are quoting me are not bloggers like the Kuwait Blogs aggregated by Safat, but are blogs selling – in particular – Paxil, which I don’t even know what it is, but also some gambling sites, sites my content really has nothing to do with. Sites I am not sure I even want to be associated with.
Some actually give me credit, as Intlxpatr or Here, There and Everywhere, but some – even while they give a trackback to my blog – say something like MillionDollarWinner today posted on Christmas in Seattle . . . and there is one of MY blog entries.
So my question – is there anything I can do to stop this? (I think the answer is probably “no”) I have left comments on a couple saying they shouldn’t be stealing my content, but then nothing changes, and they have a valid blog address for me . . . What is my best course of action/inaction?
Do any of you have this same problem, people stealing your content?
Three O’Clock Musings
Part of the problem is that for a few days I am totally on my own – without AdventureMan, my life is more free-form. So if I fall asleep at 7 p.m. who cares? As long as I get seven hours of sleep, it isn’t a health issue, is it? Does it matter when you get your sleep? I awoke shortly after I went to sleep however, my bed was shaking – was it just me? No, my bookstand was also rattling, and it went on for what seemed like a long time. Got my adrenelin pumping, but maybe it was just my imagination, not an earthquake. It FELT like an earthquake.
AdventureMan calls at 9:00 pm, we talk, we say goodbye and I read until 10, but am able then to go back to sleep. And then, at 2:30 am, I am wide awake. I didn’t sleep all day yesterday, but neither did I go out – most of the day I was feeling that dopey-almost dizzy headachy kind of feeling when your body knows it is supposed to be sleeping. Not a good time to be out on the road. 😉 I don’t want to endanger my Kuwaiti friends!
So I make myself stay in bed, but I can hear a roaring sound. Is someone pouring gravel, because that is what I think I am hearing? After a while, because I can, I get up and make a pot of coffee, close the kitchen door so the Qatteri Cat can’t come in, and go out on the balcony. No traffic, but I can still hear that roaring. I look out – and it is the pounding surf, I am hearing, one of my most favorite sounds in the world. There is a chilly wind, it seems to be coming from the east, and the pounding surf. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
AdventureMan and I laugh – we both relish our time on our own – but only for a short time, and then it gets old. We talk a couple times a day or more on the phone; it isn’t the same. We have such great conversations, when we are in the same room together, or even the same city or the same country! I wonder what my life would be like without him, and I can honestly say it would be calmer, less complicated, quieter . . . and that I would miss him terribly.
He tells me his life would be more chaotic – empty refrigerator, clothes on the floor, that without me (nagging) to remind him of things, his life falls apart on the domestic front. I believe it!
I think I get over jet lag faster, though, when he is around to provide my life with greater structure. I WANT to get back on local time, but I succumb to temptation when he is not around, I take the easy way, I don’t make so much effort to adapt. I have to admit, three o’clock in the morning is MY time. I’m not the kind of night-owl who wants to stay up this late, but I love sleeping early and getting up this early, as long as I don’t have anywhere to be or anything to do in the next few days that requires my attention. At three in the morning, the world is mine!
*shares the sound of the pounding surf*
The Qatteri Cat follows me around, so happy to have his house-companion (me) back. We watches for me to sit, and if I have been running around (doing inexplicable things like unpacking, doing laundry, etc) he complains, after all – who wouldn’t rather be snuggling up with the Qatteri Cat? When I sit to blog, he snuggles as close as he can and does his singing purr . . . it’s a normal cat purr, but with the added element of cat joy; it sounds like he is singing and purring at the same time. Life is sweet.
Is it it just me, or is the internet running slowly?
Happy Birthday, Law and Order Man
Thrills change as life goes on. We had a big thrill this week. We got a call from our son, a felony prosecutor, and we could tell from the second we answered the phone that he was happy, more than happy. You don’t hear this kind of happy all that often – it’s exaltation. It’s the call when he met “the ONE,” the look on his face when he graduated from law school, the sound of his voice when he snagged the exact job he wanted – prosecutor – in his field, his joy on the day he was married, and now, putting a bad guy away.
He just won a major case. You would think that this is a common occurrence, but it isn’t necessarily. The police have to gather the right evidence, the chain of custody has to be flawless, your witnesses have to be strong . . . one time, for example, his prime witness against the accused got on the stand and said SHE did it, not the gal she was supposed to be testifying against. She changed her story. Our son thinks they may have been watching Law and Order, or something, and figured out how to screw with the court.
This time, though, he had a major win, and put a bad man away for a long time. Every now and then, you get that exhilarated feeling that you are doing exactly what you are created to do – and we could hear it in his voice.
Thanks be to God. As parents, all you want is for your children to find their happiness, to find the purpose for which they were created, to find a good mate/partner to walk through life with. We don’t wish our children a life without struggles – struggles help you become who you are meant to be. Struggles are normal. Oh, how we dance with joy when you struggle and you prevail. We are dancing for joy for you, son.
Happy Birthday, dear son. We wish you a year full of wonderful new experiences.
Signs, Signs
I love signs. The very first sign I remember photographing was in Kenya, where it said “Elephants have the right of way.” This is a couple signs we came upon while walking along the waterfront, and it occurred to me that in this very law-abiding community, there were all kinds of signs telling you what you can’t do . . . LOTS of them!
And because we ate at the Rock Tavern, I keep hearing this song going through my head and thinking my sign says “Thank you very much, Lord!”
Do You Know These Men?
Adventure Man and I took an early morning walk along the waterfront – a week gone from Kuwait and we are still jet lagging, awake at 5 a.m. and it is a great time for a walk. As the sun comes up in the east, the moon is setting in the west, out over Puget Sound. At the pier, we see this poster:
This was an issue when I was here last summer, for Mom’s birthday. Security has tightened on the ferry runs.
Warden Notice Kuwait
Normally, the warden notices are so oblique you can hardly glean anything of use from them, or they refer to incidents that are old, although there are recent aggravations that cause problems. This one is unusual for its clarity.
My niece in Beirut says she is glad to get the Kuwait ones, because the AmEmb in Beirut hardly sends anything at all, and it is never timely!
The Embassy would like to highlight two recent incidents in Kuwait and recommend how to handle similar situations:
Incident 1 – Recently, an American spouse was at the Carrefour store at the Avenues Mall when she was harassed by an Arab male making inappropriate comments. The spouse departed the store to avoid the harassment and was followed by the man to her vehicle who tried to enter it. The spouse was not hurt during the attempted vehicle entry and the she departed the area.
Recommended action: In a case as this, attempt to contact the store management or security personnel or go to an area where there are cashiers or other patrons. Do not go to a location where there are no other people (the parking garage) or lead the individual to your vehicle.
Incident 2 – An American observed what appeared to be an Arab male harassing females walking. The American stopped his car to assist the women, which enraged the Arab male, who then chased him with his vehicle. The American was cut off by the Arab male, at which time the American exited his vehicle to engage in conversation. The Arab male reversed his vehicle and drove over the American, breaking his leg.
Recommended Action: Although the American acted with a great degree of chivalry, there is no upside to getting involved in a situation like this. It is better to report the behavior and location to the authorities, stay in your vehicle, get a license plate number and physical description of the vehicle and driver, and never attempt to engage the other party.
Here are several best practices you can use to help stay safe while living in Kuwait:
♂ Keep your car windows closed and doors locked when driving, and always leave room to maneuver your vehicle in traffic, not allowing yourself to be blocked in.
♂ Always let someone know your travel plans if you are traveling alone, including what time you expect to return and how they can reach you.
♂ Carry your cell phone and keep it where it is quickly available (do not use it while driving).
♂ Have several contact numbers pre-programmed into your phone so you can call in the event of an emergency. Dial 777 for Kuwaiti police and emergency services.
♂ If confronted by a stranger while driving, remain in your vehicle; this will provide a considerable
level of safety and mobility.
♂ If you believe you are being followed, DO NOT DRIVE TO YOUR HOME; go to a safe area such as a police station or a public area such as a mall. Make noise and draw attention to yourself to ward off suspicious persons. On your next trip to a place you go frequently, take note of where you might go if you were being followed. Playing the “what if” game could save your life and will give you something to do while sitting in traffic.
♂ If someone approaches you claiming to be a police officer, ask for identification. Even when shown ID, remain vigilant.
♂ If told to go with someone to a police station, insist on going in your own car and following the officer. Use your mobile phone to call someone and tell them to meet you at the station; also provide the police car license number to your contact, especially if it is an unmarked vehicle.
It is important to remember most criminal or terrorist activity begins with some type of surveillance. This surveillance may last a few seconds (purse snatching) or months (planning an attack on a building).
Pay attention to your surroundings at all times, especially when entering/exiting your vehicle. Mentally record license plate numbers and physical descriptions of suspicious persons or vehicles, and use your camera phone or digital camera if possible to document suspicious persons or vehicles in Kuwait. Common sense will go a long way to keep you safe.
If a situation does not seem right, attempt to get away and call for help. Your personal security takes priority, but if you are safely able to record information of harassing or suspicious individuals, this can greatly aid investigative efforts.
Big Statistics Change
Two months ago, one of my regular readers Elementary Teacher who has a fascinating blog about teaching elementary school in a Middle Eastern country, wrote to me and told me that when I set up my blog page, I forgot to add back in the widget for Meta, which contained the RSS feed.
The truth is, I still don’t know entirely what that means, but I did as she suggested, and added the Meta back in.
And watched as my visitors nearly doubled overnight.
Who knew?
There is so much I am still learning, and I thank all of you who write to be, back channels, and give me hints. Thank you, especially, Elementary Teacher for your kindness in sharing such good information. I really enjoy reading your blog!
“Madam, Too Many Words”
We were working together in the garden, and I was explaining what I wanted done with the bougainvilla starts I had collected from various colored shrubs on the compound. It doesn’t take much to get bougainvilla going, but you have to do it right.
When I was done explaining, I said “was that clear? do you understand?”
He shook his head sadly and said “Madam, too many words.”
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