Pet Peeve
Well, it’s not so much a pet peeve as a personal preference. When I arrived in Doha, I found “sets” in all my bathrooms.
They weren’t garish, as you can see, they were just there, thick and fluffy, a toilet seat cover, a toilet mat, a bidet mat and a bathmat. None of them had rubber backings, which I consider a basic for a bathmat, which I DO like.
The others, I just consider dust catchers, and worse – unsanitary. Germ catchers. I took them all off, even though they were all brand new, I like the cleaner to be able to really clean all the bathrooms.
When I went to put them in the cupboard, the cupboard almost exploded with totally new “sets” all of which had been taken off by former corporate occupants. It is a total hoot.
I have asked AdventureMan to ask what is needed to get rid of these – if the sponsor wants them back (eeeewwwwwwww!) or if I can put them out for the trash guys who can sell them to someone who will sell them in the weekend market?
We also have a cupboard full of used DVD and Video players; I think previous occupants have been afraid to get rid of them. Another cupboard with four broken coffee makers, LLLOOOLLL.
Safely in Doha
Yes, my friends, we are safely in Doha, with the normal out-of-touch sort of things that happen when you move. For some reason, and partly it’s because I am a technology dunce, unless things are clearly spelled out in the instruction booklets, I could never figure out how to include the plus sign in phone numbers, and without them, things don’t seem to be working. I still have my Kuwait phone, but I all my messages fail, and the only ones I am getting are from advertisers.
Just after I wrote the last entry, a team of FOUR customer service – or maybe three and some slightly more elevated personages – a guy in a suit with a radio – came to get me in the lounge; they were taking me to see my cat. The lounge – God bless them abundantly – came up with a plate of salmon for Pete, and with my escort, we went down to immigration.
This is the really funny part – and it’s all technicalities, but my residence visa has been cancelled, and I have been stamped out of the country, so I cannot go to Lost and Found where Pete is being held pending our flight, the immigration police are very clear about that, but since he is just baggage, they can send someone to bring Pete to me.
Surrounded by my escort, and now also by four or five immigration policemen, they bring Pete to me, and I get to give him a little scratch under the chin and collar, he gets to hear my voice. He is not terrified, but he is healthily intimidated by all the unknown persons and noises – and he is alert, so alert. He is not hungry. His pupils are dilated. I only keep him for about three minutes when I send him back; I am holding up about ten people at this point, all of whom dropped their duties so that I could comfort my cat.
When it came time for my flight, I asked the lounge to call Lost and Found and find out when the cat would be loaded, and the answer was – he was just being loaded now. I checked again at the gate, and they were prepared. Everyone apologized profusely, and explained that the pilot on the first flight just could not take a chance; the ventilation in the pressurized cargo compartment was not working and he didn’t want to put Pete at any risk. God bless him. I don’t mind the inconvenience; I honor his carefulness. Sometimes what appears to be an inconvenience is really a protection; the blessing I had this time was to know and understand that this, truly, was a blessing.
But I also needed to tell you about it, or you might have the wrong impression. It was not an airplane annoyance. It was a conscientious pilot. Thanks be to God.
Pete was carted separately to and from the plane, and hand carried to me in arrivals. LOL, I had no other baggage, just Pete! I got through the screening quickly, AdventureMan had schmoozed his way into arrivals and was there with the importation paperwork, and we were out of the airport in a flash, and in our villa a mere ten minutes later.
Another LOL, by the way, at all of you who like the name Qatteri Cat better than Pete! Honestly, one reason I don’t unveil is that as long as I am Intlxpatr, married to AdventureMan, I am so much more interesting than the very ordinary person that I really am!
Pete will always be the Qatteri Cat, because he was found, as a small, tiny, hungry kitten, wandering on the Doha Corniche by a family who had to give him up when he was around 5 months. I loved him the minute I saw him, but he only had eyes for AdventureMan. And poor AdventureMan, he was so worried about Pete he was in a nervous tizz when we arrived, he had been so afraid something would go wrong.
Seeing the two of them reunite in Doha was a beautiful sight. Pete’s food and cat litter were all set up, and he has a whole new environment to explore.
Even When You Do Everything “Right” . . .
The most amazing things can happen.
“Just bad joss” says my inner Chinese guru, as I sit for another seven hours in the lounge, waiting for a flight on which I am assured, my cat will also fly.
“Woooo HOOO!” we whopped and hollered and danced around our house with Qatteri Cat when we were told that YES, the flight we had booked had a compressurized baggage compartment, necessary for transporting a cat.
QC was a great sport this morning when I wouldn’t give him any fresh water or food – it’s just a short flight to Doha; he can survive without food and water for this short time. He wasn’t such a great sport about going into his cat cage – that usually means going to the vet, and he struggles and moans loudly, so loudly we were afraid he was going to wake the neighbors.
He quiets down on the drive to the airport. He can hear AdventureMan and I talking quietly, and he is calm. He is calm as we go through the long check in process. We like to travel light; this time we are burdened with bags and bags – one bag just for QC’s food, bowls, blanket, cat litter and babies. AdventureMan has to pay excess baggage, and, of course, cat passage.
From the Gate, I can see him carefully loaded on the plane. AdventureMan and I take our seats, the plane fills, we are beginning to breathe easy . . .
And then . . .
Everything changes.
The customer service rep is in front of us; the gates are closing, Qatteri Cat is being offloaded because the compartment is NOT pressurized – or something. The story shifts. AdventureMan talks with the CSR, he talks with the captain – in Arabic – and nothing works. They say they will fly QC to us on the later flight.
QC has had nothing to eat or drink. Now, he has to remain confined in his cage for seven more hours, no food, no water, on the chance he will make it on the plane later in the day. No. I tell AdventureMan “You go ahead, I will stay here with QC to make sure he gets on the later flight.” AdventureMan likes that idea. He will get the cat litter set up and meet us at the plane.
No, they will not allow the Qatteri Cat in the lounge with me, no matter how nice I am, no matter how concerned I am, even when I get a little angry, no, he has to wait in Lost and Found. That just breaks my heart.
They are being as nice and helpful as they can be – considering they screwed up, right up to the last minute we thought everything was OK and it wasn’t. We don’t even know what the real reason is, but meanwhile, I am sitting here steamed in the lounge – no, the A/C is working overtime, I am just royally annoyed that we did so much forward planning, and all for naught, AAARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
I feel so sorry for the Qatteri Cat (whose real name is Pete, by the way.)
This is the same airlines – a really good airline – that lost my bag for three days last year when I flew to Doha, during a time when I had a whole weekend full of social things, and I had to wear my same clothes to all the things – I didn’t even have time to go to the stores and buy anything, I just had to buy what I could in the hotel gift shop.
It makes me wonder if I just have bad karma on this airline? I don’t want to complain too much, because what if it were a protection? What if some other airline might have transported Pete without thinking about pressurization and what if he had been badly hurt, or died or something? There’s a part of me that knows this might have been a good thing, it’s just hard to see it now. It’s hard to see clearly when you are feeling angry.
One good thing in all this is that AdventureMan gets to handle all those bags and get the cat litter set up and cat food out and then come pick up the Pete and me when we arrive.
There he goes:
Bye, AdventureMan. See you in Doha, Insh’allah . . .
Hotel Souq Waqif Summer Promotion! (Doha, Qatar)
This is a lovely boutique hotel with a view in the heart of the new and lively Souq Waqif, where the nightlife in Doha is happening! It has its own good restaurant, and is surrounded by more.
Kuwait Paper Dump Badge
I admit it. When I saw Ansam on her new blog had a Kuwait Paper Dump certificate, I was green with envy! I knew I didn’t deserve one – I have only contributed once, and even my contribution wasn’t truly acceptable because I don’t have a fax, so I took photos and sent them to Abaid.
Yesterday, when I opened my e-mail, I almost cried. He sent me a badge for my support and positive mentions. Honestly, it is the best badge I have ever sported on Here, There and Everywhere.
I’m from Seattle, remember, where recycle cans are issued, and sorting and recycling is mandatory. I’m also from the hippie generation, the back-to-the-earth movement that springs up every now and then, you know, make your own paper, make your own soap, grow your own tomatoes and basil. That my son, his wife, my sisters and my nieces and nephews and this new generation of Kuwaitis are all into saving the environment – it is just icing on my cake. And the candle on my cake is the new badge. You can see it here, and you can see it for the rest of the life of the blog under Kuwait Paper Dump in the Blogroll.
For those of you not familiar with the website, 3baid gathers up paper from around Kuwait from restaurants, service providers, Kuwait resources, events, etc. and publishes them all in one place, eliminating our need to keep track of all those papers. When you want to know what the possibilities are from a particular restaurant, you will find the menu there. When you want to know who has mushroom pizzas, you can click on “mushroom pizzas” and find out which places have them. It is an amazing public service they provide at Paper Dump, and they do it entirely as volunteers, serving the community.
I am so totally honored. Thank you for the badge. Thank you, too, for your quiet, persistent leadership in the Kuwait environmental/Green movement.
WordPress Special – Post by E-mail
New function out today by WordPress: Post by e-mail where you create a secret address, and can send a message to that secret address WITHOUT OPENING A SPECIAL SERVER – like from your office, you can send a post from your office computer, even when WordPress is blocked. It gets published, just like that.
Pretty imaginative new function!
Sanitary Germans
After all my years living in so many different places, I’m fairly blase about toilets. In Tunisia, there were no such thing as public toilets, and while exploring Tunisia, we always had to look for “the potty in the wadi”, i.e. a bridge with no-one in sight. I would run, pee as quickly as I could, and finish just before some curious child – or children – showed up. No matter how remote the place, I can’t remember a single stop that a child didn’t come running about sixty seconds after we stopped.
So I got a big smile at the public toilet in Germany – they started installing these about 20 years ago – that even cleans itself. I thought “I wonder how long these would last in Kuwait?” where they could put people our of jobs.
Yesterday, I used a public toilet in a very nice mall in Kuwait, but when I got there, a woman – I am guessing the “cleaner”, and I put it in quotes for a reason, was stretched out and sleeping. I looked in several stalls, no toilet paper, no problem, I carry my own. It didn’t seem all that clean, no paper for drying hands, either, and as I am leaving she holds out her hand and asks how I am, how is my health, etc. I usually tip – but I didn’t tip yesterday, why tip someone who is not doing the work she is paid to do? She didn’t even stand up, just held up her hand!
Spit for Brains
From today’s Kuwait Times:
Idiot Apprehended
A drug-user was caught thanks to his own stupidity after pulling over to gawp at a traffic accident scene on the Salmi Highway. Police at the scene were suspicious of his demeanor and asked to see his ID card. on producing it, police found a piece of hashish stuck to the back. He has been referred to the relevant authorities.
I am just quoting this. I don’t make this stuff up.
But did you notice – the Kuwait Times has made a major improvement; the police suspected the idiot’s demeanor. They used to say the police “suspected” the idiot, but did not say what drew their suspicions – this is a major breakthrough. Also, red handed was only used once, and it was used very cleverly:
Prostitutes, Punters arrested
Four Asian prostitutes and three of their customers were arrested ‘red handed’ when a vice squad team raided a brothel in Hawally. The officers acted after receiving a tip-off from an informer about the goings-on in the flat. The three customers confessed to paying KD10 each for the women’s services. All have been referred to the relevant authorities.
First, wooo hoo, Kuwait Times, for the ‘goings-on’ – the crime news has seriously taken a jump in the grammatical direction. 🙂 Second – 10KD??? It occurs to me that these women could be earning a lot more doing manicures and pedicures, and have a much less dangerous life at the same time.
Horseback Riding Camp
“Whatever you might have heard from your kids” the camp director started, and AdventureMan and I looked at one another with concern, “it is just rumors. The counselors did not have a big drunken party, and we have the situation under control.”
We hadn’t heard anything. We were there to pick up our son and his best friend from Horseback Riding Camp. They were eight years old and this was their first time away. We had dropped them off a mere week before, at the clean clean little chalet camp in Southern Germany, where they would learn to ride and take care of their horses.
“So, son,” AdventureMan starts with that casual voice grown-ups use with their children when about to launch an interrogation, “tell us about the camp!”
We were driving back, and wanted to get a campers-eye-view of the week. Our eight-year-old son was exhausted and not very talkative; it was only during the following week that most of the details came out.
He hated horseback riding. He hated taking care of horses. The instruction they got was minimal to non-existent. Most days they missed their horse riding lessons because the counselor overslept. The kids got up and got their own breakfast – cereal – until the milk ran out, and then they ate it dry.
Horrors. We had done everything right. We had checked the camp references, had visited and inspected the camp before deciding to send him there, had met the counselors – horrors! In fact, our son enjoyed the week, but mostly because they had a TV, and no supervision. They spent most of the week watching TV.
In the following years, he went to other camps – adventure training camp, karate camps, Space Camp (that was the best organized) and then became a camp counselor himself, teaching karate. Our most graphic memories as parents, however, are of picking him up at horseback riding camp and learning how loosely organized and supervised it was, compared to what the brochure said and the inspection visit promised.
56,660 Kuwait Car Accidents: 2008
This is a totally breathtaking statistic. Kuwait just isn’t that big. That is more than one thousand car accidents, every week, in Kuwait.
We had three accidents in front of my house this morning. One included a school bus. Thank God, there were no children on board.
I would love to see a statistical breakdown on age groups, nationality, whether speed was involved, and whether the person was using a mobilephone while driving when the accident occurred.
One of my readers reported she had been in a car accident shortly after her arrival in country. A car going too fast rear-ended them. In almost every country in the world, if someone hits you from behind, they are charged, immediately, with following too closely and inattentive driving. You are supposed to be driving carefully enough to anticipate the car in front of you slowing down. Here, after six months, and several trips to the police station, it was determined that her husband was at fault. Unbelievable.
She adds that thanks be to God, no harm came to the infant traveling in the front seat of the car that hit them, on his mother’s lap, or they would have been liable for that, too. Unbelievable.
56,660 car accidents in 2008 alone
Staff Writer Al Watan
KUWAIT: Head of the Traffic Safety Department Bader AlـMatar has warned that the number of annual traffic accidents is on the rise. An estimated 56,660 car accidents and 410 cases of accident related fatalities occurred in 2008. AlـMatar added that the United Nations reports that car accidents claim more than 1,300,000 fatalities around the world each year, most of whom are young men.
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