You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Today’s Grin for today, from, no kidding, The Kuwait Times, page 6:
Brothels’ raids continue
Raids launched against brothels and suspected love dens continued unabated all over Kuwait. A security force yesterday raided two apartments in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh where 34 Asians were caught red-handed in the most uncompromising positions . . . .
Philippa Gregory and Catherine of Aragon
Being sick has one advantage. . . you can catch up on some of your reading. Philippa Gregory is one of my favorite writers of historical fiction.
To my great shame, I have a very difficult time reading history. Unless it is vigorously written, it puts me to sleep. It is particularly embarassing when my husband has a degree in History, and his eyes light up discussing battles and strategems and who said what to whom and why it matters. It has to do with my hard-wiring, it’s not even a gender thing.
So I gravitate toward historical fiction; give me people and motivations and interactions any day, and I can remember it. Sometimes, I even learn something. Philippa Gregory never lets me down. She researches, she documents, and she might speculate, but you always have a clear idea what is real (historically documented) and what is a good story, putting meat on the bones of the history.
Out of sequence, I read The Queen’s Fool and The Other Boleyn Girl. Each of these books is peripheral to the story of Catherine of Aragon. The first features a woman chosen to be a Fool at the court of Queen Mary, Catherine’s daughter. She is of Jewish descent, hiding as a Christian, escaped from the fires of the Spanish Inquisition. She lives in fear of being caught out in her deception. With her father, a printer, she tries to secrete and maintain many of the books of Moorish Spain, the knowledge of the ancients, which the church begins to declare heretical in England. The second book, The Other Boleyn Girl, is about Anne Boleyn, but told from the perspective of her sister, Lady Mary, who was also mistress to Henry, King of England, while he was married to Catherine of Aragon. The Boleyn girls are portrayed as mere pawns in the great game of power in the English court.
So this newest book, The Constant Princess, opens in Spain, as Queen Isabella of Castile, Catherine’s mother, and King Ferdinand of Aragon fight to eliminate the Moors and to unite their lands into one Kingdom. The little girl, whose mother is the chief strategist and who fights in armor alongside her husband, learns battlefield tactics at her parent’s feet and in their camps and learns diplomatic skills in their throne rooms.
We follow Catherine to England, married first to Arthur, then after Arthur’s death, to Henry. She assures them her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that Arthur was too young, and impotent. Gregory assumes this was a lie. We don’t know. I would guess that it was one of those lies that nobody believes but was convenient to all to pretend to believe, for money, for power, for alliances.
We stand with Catherine as she sends Henry off to fight the French, then leads her own troops up to vanquish the Scots. We agonize with her as she strives to become pregnant, to carry an heir to the throne full term to birth, and as she loses a seemingly perfect baby boy to infant death. We sit with her in stragegic councils, watch her balance the budgets for court and state, and scheme to protect the English borders against all threats. Whew! Being a Queen of England is hard work!
The book ends with Catherine facing the eccliastical trial as her own husband disputes the validity of her marriage to him and seeks to set her aside for his freedom to marry Anne Boleyn.
I don’t review every book I read, but I was captivated by the cross cultural threads in this book, and by the fact that while we all know the basic facts of the story – Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boeyn – Catherine’s history, her talents, her strengths and victories were news to me. The influence of her upbringing in Moorish Spain and the influence it played on her growing understanding of the world is a golden thread woven throughout the story.
Early in her first marriage, the young princess tells her beloved husband of her childhood in Grenada:
” . . . We walk in their gardens, we bathe in their hammams, we step into their scented leather slippers and we live a life that is more refined and more luxurious than they could dream of in Paris or London or Rome. We live graciously. We live, as we have always aspired to do, like Moors. Our fellow Christians herd goats in the mountains, pray at roadside cairns to the Madonna, are terrified by superstition and lousy with disease, live dirty and die young. We learn from Moslem scholars, we are attended by their doctors, study the stars in the sky which they have named, count with their numbers which start at the magical zero, eat of their sweetest fruits and delight in the waters which run through their aquaeducts. Their architecture pleases us: at every turn of every corner we know that we are living inside beauty. . . . We learn their poetry, we laugh at their games, we delight in their gardens in their fruits, we bathe in the waters that have made flow. We are the victors, but they have taught us how to rule. . . .”
I can hardly wait for a trip to Spain!
Men on Choosing a Wife: Pure Fluff
My husband hates what he calls “male bashing jokes.” I read this one to him this morning, and he snickered, so I guess it is safe to share with you. If you are very sensitive, however, skip to the next blog – I don’t want to hurt your feelings.
A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of $5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.
The first does a total make over. She goes to a fancy beauty salon gets her hair done, new make up and buys several new outfits and dresses up very nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be m ore attractive for him because she loves him so much.
The man was impressed.
The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent all the money on him because she loves him so much
Again, the man is impressed.
The third woman invests the money in the stock market. She earns several times the $5,000. She gives him back his $5,000 and reinvests the remainder in a joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future because she loves him so much.
Obviously, the man was impressed.
The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the money he’d given her.
Then, he married the one with the biggest boobs.
(There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research. This means that by 2040, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.)
What is YOUR Comfort Food?
You know how it is. You’re not yourself. Your throat hurts or your tummy hurts and Mom fixes something something you love, and it happens so often throughout your childhood that when you get to be an adult, and you find yourself sick, it’s the food you think of.
And, of course, it depends on the illness. For tummy things, I remember chicken broth and jello. But for colds and flu, it was always tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, even if I just had a bad day, grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup can still cheer me up.
For my husband, raised in another part of the country, it is vegetable soup and cornbread. After we married, I learned to make cornbread in an iron skillet, and it is pretty good. He breaks it up and puts it in a glass of milk, though, and I can’t even watch him eat it.
Our son grew up in Tunis – when he has a sore throat, nothing will do but mint tea.
So what is YOUR comfort food? What did your Mamma (or Papa) make you when you were sick as a child? What do you dream of even now, all grown up, but sick and miserable?
We Never Saw it Coming
Tomorrow, November 9th, is a very special anniversary for me. The night of November 9, 1989, I was in a car with three other women, escaping from our cold-warrior duties. We were on our way to the border towns of West Germany for some shopping in the crystal factories. We really needed the get-away.
We had a drive of several hours, and on the way, we noticed the strangest thing – an unusually heavy numbers of cars coming FROM the border, and most of these cars were POS – old, slow, rusty, spewing black smoke, made of fiberglass – but full of people. The West Germans only drive new, shiny cars – where were these cars coming from?
We turned on the radio, and learned that the Czechoslovakian border had opened. When we got to our little gasthaus, we sat in the common room and watched, spellbound, as young people danced on the Berlin Wall. It was the most amazing, stunning sight you could imagine.
There were signs this was coming. No one seriously believed it really would happen, and happen so fast and so dramatically. The American government was pouring millions of dollars into Germany to renovate housing and offices and services, assuming the status quo would endure for the forseeable future, and American forces would be there a long long time. A mere fifteen years later, American presence had decreased dramatically, entire bases have closed, those renovated offices and houses turned back over to the Germans. Whoda thunk?
The reunification of Germany has been painful, continues painful. The integration of the former Soviet states into the European community moves at a snail’s pace, but it moves. It’s a new Europe, one currency, goods traded freely, young people from all countries free to move and work in other European countries. It’s an amazing new world.
The frustrations of getting the political system to work are mitigated by the occasional tipping point when the world changes in a heartbeat, and the people dance on the Wall.
Thanks to Wikipedia for sharing appropriate photos!
The Hem of His Garment
With one of my good friends, our conversations almost always veer to spiritual issues. If I am ever about to do something that a little voice tells me I might not want to do, I call her. I say “this is the situation, this is how I am thinking about handling it, but I want to check with you . . .”
She will always tell me the truth. She will say “hmmmn . . . why don’t you sit on that idea a couple days first?” or “sounds like the right thing to do, even if you think you might be doing it for the wrong motives” or . . . I may not want to hear it, but it will be the best truth she can give me.
She never repeats my confidences to others, and I trust that right or wrong, she will give me the best advice anyone would give. Friendships like that are priceless.
So this weekend, we were discussing how we can ALL be saved, i.e. how we will make it to heaven/paradise/jenna. Our book says we’re the only ones who are going to be there, and that unless you believe exactly the way we believe, sorry, you’re out. Most holy books say the same thing – this is the true path, and if you follow it, you’re in. If not, you’re out. It seems like a great cosmic gamble, with your soul and life everlasting at stake.
My friend told me about another friend of hers, a Native American woman, a wise woman, a very spiritual woman. One of her friends died from a virulent, fast-spreading cancer, and the Native American woman dreamed of her. In her dream, her friend appeared, radiant and shining and bright. The woman asked her friend “what is it like on the other side?” and her friend said “It’s SO BIG! We had NO idea! We were barely touching the hem of His garment!”
It’s just a dream. Just a vision. . . and yet, it sticks with me, I find myself taking great comfort in this story. I want us all to be there.
Prediction: Kuwaiti Best Sellers
(Whooping with laughter!) I’m on a roll today – again, Kuwaiti Times, page 6
There is no surer way to guarantee books make the best-seller list than to ban them. Imagine the fun you will have smuggling books by Kuwaiti writers Mohammed Abdul Qadar Al-Jassim (Sheikhs of Dignity) and Zaid Jlewi Al-Enezi (25 Constituencies . . . The Best Choice) into the country.
Al-Jassims book is banned because it “discusses taboos concerning Kuwait’s political leadership and the ruling family.” Al-Enezi’s book is banned “for discussing sectarian and tribal issues concerning the electoral system followed in Kuwait.
Even dull books are bought once they are banned. Maybe the Ministry of Information is using reverse psychology?
Judicial Staff Immunity (??) (!)
Page 6, Kuwaiti Times News In Brief
“Major General Thabit Al Muhanna has instructed officials of the traffic department not to issue any tickets against members of judicial staff such as judges, prosecutors and investigators, reported Al-Qabas. He said that they were also not authorized to report any of these members to police or any other officials for investigations. He said the traffic department officials in these cases should only record the civil ID details of said members.”
The judiciary is held to a LESSER standard than the average citizen? In most countries, the judiciary (my son is a prosecutor) is held to a HIGHER standard, because they are the ones who must dispense justice with wisdom . . . How can they prosecute, investigate, judge with clear conscience when they are exempt from the laws they implement?
Little Diamond
My neice is blogging! She started just as I did, without telling anyone. When I saw her on Friday, she very casually mentioned it in passing. Woooo Hoooooo! She is beautiful, and articulate, and always full of amazing information, and a lot of fun. Her website is A Diamond in Sunlight.
What Am I Missing Here?
“Yes to the waiver of loans” read the banners of 50 citizens rallying in silent protest in front of Parliament to request a bailout of private debt. What am I missing here? As I understand it, these are grown-up people who have taken out loans, many loans greatly out of proportion to their income, and who now don’t want to pay the loans back. Am I understanding this correctly?
So who pays? If the loans are waived, who pays the banks? If a loan is waived, does that person forfeit the right to ever borrow again? And what discourages a person whose repayment is waived from making the same mistake again, borrowing more than they can re-pay?
And who is making these huge loans to citizens with limited salaries? Why would they give a loan that the borrower could only repay with hardship? Are there laws governing banking practices in Kuwait?
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