Tradition of Aunthood
We have a tradition of aunthood in my family. I remember my aunts with so much admiration and fondness. They took me to art museums, taught me about having lunch out with the ladies, taught me about civic commitment and good works, set examples for us with family celebrations, dinners, and even contests. We had an annual dinner on Christmas at which we each, no matter how young, had to come up with a poem for someone whose name we had drawn at the feast of Thanksgiving. Oh, the laughter! And each of us had our first exposure, at that time, of having to speak publicly, as we read our poems.
And now, my sisters and I get to be aunts in our turn, helping to raise, and now mentor, one another’s children – children? Young adults!
As my son and I were IM’ing the other day, I came up with a dream team – all our young people in the next generation. My superheroes.
LawNOrderMan: He wanted to be Superman when he was young, and put away the bad guys – now he is a felony prosecutor.
AmbassadorGirl – she speaks several languages fluently, gets published with regularity and loves living in Beirut and Damascus.
GlobalGuy – he holds nations accountable by exposing them, in graphic detail, to the rest of the world.
BrethalyzerLady – She manages a state-wide program and instructing others how to install alcohol detecting devices which disable cars.
BioGenius – Fearless explorer of the human body on a molecular level
EnviroGirl – Working to make the world a better, cleaner place.
Can you feel my pride in this next generation? Not that we are willing to pass the torch yet, but we feel such joy in seeing these young people achieve their full potential. WooooHoooooooo!
Date Night in Kuwait
Because my husband’s weekend is Friday, Thursday night is our date night in Kuwait. We have a tradition of going out for a nice dinner together.
We used to drive our son crazy. We would say “Hey, want to go to Rio Bravo (Mexican) with us?” and about a third of the way there, my husband would say “You know, I just have this yen for sushi!” and I would go “Oh! Me too!” and our son would pipe up “No! No! No! That’s ‘bait and switch!’ No! That’s not fair!”
(Now he laughs and tells us that it runs in the family; that he and his wife do the same thing – and, he now also eats sushi. My sisters’ families tell me they do it too – it must be a family culture thing.)
So last night we were on our way to Biella’s at the Marina Crescent. But oh, the traffic on the Corniche! Maybe we should just eat Chinese in the neighborhood? What about the seafood buffet at the Crown Plaza? Or . . . finally we decided on Paul’s down at Fehaheel, and hoped there was a parking space.
They have a new mall opening just across the main street from the Al Kout Mall, Al Manshar, with a great big apartment building and a great big new hotel, a Chili’s, a Johnny Rocket’s and a food court – a few of the merchants and restaurants are already open – but only like 40 parking spaces???? Go figure! Even worse, it is right next to a beautiful mosque, so at prayer time, there is NOWHERE for anyone to park. And the driving in Fehaheel at night is crazy . . . minimally better than Gulf Road. Take another look at the photo – those two outcroppings are perfect for a bridge, a la Marina Mall – connecting one mall to the other, and sharing parking spaces.
At Paul’s in Fehaheel it was comfortable enough, with their fans, to eat outside, by the big shallow water-fountain pavillion. Great food – we had the Camembert – noisette salad, onion soup and the smoked salmon pasta, most of which we brought home because the soup and salad had been so good. Best of all was just being together, sharing our week and having a relaxed, delicious meal together.
And it was there I told him about my blog. I don’t like keeping secrets from my husband. I wanted to see if blogging was something I really wanted to do before I told anyone. Last weekend, when he was asking me to explain blogging to him, I was afraid he was on to me. He wasn’t; it was a co-incidence, but I knew someone was bound to figure it out sooner or later, and I really wanted to tell him. I was ready.
Last night when we got home I showed him the blog and he was amazed. It is so cool to have such a great evening together, great meal, great conversation, and, after all these years being married, to be able to surprise him now and then – in a good way. It was one of our best dates.
Get Out of Jail Free Card
Who could be whispering my name?
I was in the Jarir bookstore, on my way to the airport after a three week visit to Saudi Arabia. My husband wanted me to get a feel for the place before moving there to be with him. To my surprise, I really liked Saudi Arabia, what little I had seen of it. And I really wanted to be with my husband. But who could be calling my name?
“I can’t believe it! Is that you, teacher?”
I turned to see a traditionally garbed man, whom I instantly recognized as my former student in classes I had taught back in the US.
“Khalid! Khalid! I am so glad to see you!” I exclaimed, and I was. Khalid was one of my very best students, before he disappeared from classes. He was bright, he studied hard, and from time to time, he would even practice hard and tell a joke in English. He was a student any teacher would remember. He had more maturity than the other students, who treated him with respect, but he also had a delightful sense of humor.
Instantly, my husband and two other men who had come with us to the bookstore were standing between Khalid and me. I knew they were protecting me, so I quickly explained who Khalid was, and introduced him to the men with me.
“You remembered my name!” he said with an astonished look.
“Of course!” I assured him, “You were one of my best students. I missed you when you left.”
“Truly God works in mysterious ways,” Khalid looked dazed. “I never dreamed I would see you again, and here you are, in my country.”
We had to leave. Khalid gave me his card, and asked that I call so his mother could invite me for tea. I told him I wouldn’t be back for a couple months, and he said he was hoping to start legal studies in London in January.
In the car, my husband and the other two guys were cracking up, slapping their knees, almost howling with laughter. I was annoyed; what was so funny about my running into an old friend?
“He’s a muttawa!” they exclaimed, continuing their cackles, “You’re friend is a muttawa!”
The muttawa, the religious police in Saudi Arabia, are kind of the boogeyman, and we scare one another telling Muttawa stories. The problem is that you never know what new rules are going to go into effect, or what old rules they will begin enforcing. Our embassy guidance, for example, was that we were NOT to cover our hair, that it was a choice made by Moslem women, but not a requirement for non-Moslem women. We were also told to carry a scarf and not to argue if a muttawa told us to cover our hair, but to cover, and to take it off again when out of sight.
We were told that if our abaya was too short, a muttawa might hit our legs with sticks. We were told not to laugh, and to keep our eyes lowered to the ground to avoid problems. We were told that sometimes you might be arrested and not even know what you were being arrested for, and to always carry your cell phone with the embassy number on speed dial. In short, we lived in terror of arbitrary powers of the dreaded muttawa.
“Khalid is muttawa?” I couldn’t believe my ears. My husband explained how you could identify muttawa, the short robes, the lack of egal, the sandals, and that Khalid had probably broken the rules he was in Jarir to enforce by having spoken to me.
I never saw Khalid again, not in the Jarir bookstore, not anywhere. I am guessing by the time I returned to live in Riyadh, he was in London studying. But I often think of his amazement, and my own, in that one-time encounter. I often think, as he said, that “God works in mysterious ways.” I wish him well.
For me, I was never again terrified of the Muttawa. Khalid was muttawa, and he was a good man. I carried Khalid’s card with me, and figured if ever I was arrested (never even came close) that I would tell them to call Khalid, and he would help me. I thought of it as my “Get out of Jail Free” card.
Going back to the Locard Exchange Principal . . . knowing Khalid as a student and as a person made a difference to me. It colored my ideas about the muttawa, made me less afraid. If the Locard Exchange Principal works on a social and spiritual level, I wonder if knowing me has colored his perceptions?
Would you even know you’d been INSULTED?
A friend sent these in today’s e-mails. Some are so smooth I wonder if I would catch them just hearing them spoken . . .
When Insults Had Class
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” — Winston Churchill
“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” — Winston Churchill
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
— Clarence Darrow
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
— William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
— Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” — Moses Hadas
“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” — Groucho Marx
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” — Mark Twain
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” — Oscar Wilde
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
— George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” — Winston Churchill, in response
“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.” — Stephen Bishop
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” — John Bright
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” — Irvin S. Cobb
“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.” — Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” — Paul Keating
“He had delusions of adequacy.” — Walter Kerr
“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” — Jack E. Leonard
“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
— Robert Redford
“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
— Thomas Brackett Reed
“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.” — James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” — Charles, Count Talleyrand
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
— Forrest Tucker
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”– Mark Twain
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”– Mae West
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”– Oscar Wilde
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”– Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
— Billy Wilder
Getting Started Blogging in Kuwait
Honestly, don’t do this at home. Don’t do it like I did it. I am SO slow, I watched different bloggers, I read my favorites, I even read bloggers I really didn’t like. Did I say I am really slow? I have been reading different blogs for about a year.
Finally, inspired by two Kuwaiti women who blog – Jewaira and 1001 Kuwaiti Nights – I decided to explore what it takes to blog, so I looked at both e-blogger and WordPress. Actually, I looked several times. What is really scary to me is that you click something and Voila! here is how you sign up. I ended up with a blog and didn’t know half of how they function, even after all this time exploring. I’m still trying to figure a lot of things out, and the train has left the station . . .
Technicalities – how do you put something in an entry so that others can just click on that entry and go there? Why do some bloggers have such gorgeous pages; I don’t see “gorgeous pages” as an option under presentation? I don’t think I understand “trackback” at all, even though I have read the explanation on WordPress several times. And how do feeds work? (You don’t have to answer these, these are just things that still puzzle me.)
Blog ettiquette – if you want to put someone else’s blog on a sidebar, do you write and ask them if they mind?
I’m sort of glad I was forced to jump. . . I could spend a lot more time exploring and never understand how it’s done. To me, it’s all about communicating. I can see that other blogs have other purposes – self-exploration, religious prosletizing, attracting friends, political commentary, talking tech stuff, talking food, talking children, talking health . . . Mostly mine will be travel, books, current issues . . .any insights will be accidental.
If you have suggestions for this blog that are technical, please use small, very clear words and short sentences!
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