Jungle Bell Rock in Kuwait :-)
If you remember, the Qatari Cat is a former street cat, a rescue cat. I wish I could be there to support this wonderful event and the good work that K’s Path in Kuwait is doing. They have some illustrious sponsors, and a host of great volunteers supporting their efforts.
Not-So-Real Housewives
Over Thai food, I confessed my guilty secret – I can’t help it, I watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the Real Housewives of New York. I expected a horrified response from my sweet smart niece, Professor Little Diamond, but she just laughed.
“Oh we all watch them,” she reassured me, “It’s like watching a train wreck, you are appalled, but you can’t look away.”
What makes me really, really nervous about these ‘real’ housewives is that I think that the Bravo station is carried in Qatar and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. While the more educated have travelled, and know that these ‘real’ housewives are not the norm, there may be many who think that this is the life of the American female.
I remember when I shocked my Qatari friends as I told them I was going home to take care of my Dad while my Mom had a knee replacement and spent a few weeks in rehab. They didn’t know we take care of our parents; they thought we just put them in grim warehouse like nursing homes. How did they know? From television, of course.
So you can understand I have a major concern that these women are representing us normal people in the homes of our friends in the Middle East. These women spend a lot of money on scanty clothing, these women have people who come in and do their make-up before a dinner party, these people have nannies taking care of their children (many of whom are really bratty) and they all seem to be designing handbags or creating make-up lines or (oh-no!) cutting records to try to get a singing career started.
Ask yourself this – who do you know in your own circles who would agree to have camera crews follow them around in their lives, filming their most intimate conversations? Who do you know in your circle who creates drama and conflict? Who do you know who needs the affirmation of an audience to believe her life is worth living? Who in your circle is addicted to plastic surgery or throws charity events to get attention? Those are the women they are filming.
You never see these women go to church. You rarely see them cooking up a normal dinner for their family. You don’t see any of them heading off to an 8 – 5 job. You don’t see them doing all the normal things we normal American housewives do (a lot like our sisters do in every country of the world) like laundry, running the kids to school, doctors appointments, soccer matches, paying the bills, scrubbing the floor, making appointments at the veterinarian, getting the car serviced, buying groceries, going to PTA, or doing their volunteer work. You don’t see them running over to their children’s house to babysit, or going to their exercise classes.
But then again, if they were doing all these things that us REAL housewives do, who would watch, LLLLOOOOOLLLLLLL! I understand there may be some sister Real wives series coming up from foreign countries. It will be interesting to see how their lives look.
Male on Male Sexual Abuse on Law and Order
AdventureMan teases me about my loyalty to the Law and Order Series . . . “Ripped from the headlines!” he will taunt me, when I flip the channel. We often watch separate TV’s when he wants to watch one of his droning military history channels and I want to watch Law and Order re-runs. But tonight’s L&O will tackle a topic no-one talks about – male on male rape and abuse.
I was so naive. I thought it only happened in prisons. While I was living in Qatar, I started hearing horrific stories about young men abducted and taken to the desert, often gang raped. Most of them lived, but had to deal with the aftermath of the violence and humiliation. In Kuwait, it was reported almost weekly in the papers, it was so common. I had a friend whose son was abducted, and walked with her through the horrors of the aftermath. Her greatest fear was that her son would commit suicide. He overcame his abduction, and is happy now, but the path was long, and full of perils along the way.
Male on male rape, like male on female rape, or any kind of rape, is not about sex. It’s about power. It’s about humiliation. It’s bullying taken to the extreme. It’s just wrong.
From AOL TV:
The second episode of ‘Law & Order: SVU’ Season 13 is one for the TV history books. Not only does it feature guest stars Dan Lauria, Mechad Brooks, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, but it’ll also tackle the taboo issue of male-on-male sexual violence.
In ‘Personal Fouls,’ a basketball coach known as a trusted mentor and figure in the community comes under suspicion of molesting a number of his players.
“This script was very exciting and I think the cast felt honored and excited to be able to talk about this issue because obviously sexual violence is something people are scared to talk about,” series star Mariska Hargitay said at a recent press event on the ‘SVU’ set.
Hargitay’s The Joyful Heart Foundation, Wolf Films, NBC, 1in6 and A Call to Men are partnering in an effort to raise awareness about male-on-male sexual abuse.
“It takes so much courage to come forward and male-on-male sexual violence is even more swept under the carpet,” she said. “The statistics are frightening.”
According to statistics from 1in6, an organization that seeks to help male sexual abuse survivors, 19 million men in the United States are victims of sexual abuse.
“It’s exciting to do a show about it because obviously when things are on TV somehow they’re made OK to talk about and that’s been exciting.”
The partnerships between the organizations hope to spread awareness about the subject. Hargitay said one of the objectives is to “let male survivors know they’re not alone and there are so many people that want to help them.”
“It’s not a shameful secret that you should keep to yourself, that the blame belongs with the perpetrator, not the survivor,” she said.
Weekend At the Beach
We didn’t go far – just out to the beach, Pensacola Beach, for a weekend. It was so much fun. It rained our entire drive to the beach, LOL all twenty minutes it took to get there:
But it started clearing, and with all the clouds, the sunset was spectacular:
We all have such a good time together. We took a drive out to Fort Pickens and I saw so many butterflies!
We had to watch THE game later in the day, which the Happy Baby calls “buttball,” LLOOLLL!
Here he is at breakfast with his BaBa:
It was a beautiful day, with another beautiful sunset:
AdventureMan asked me if I wanted a house overlooking the Gulf. I said ‘no, it would never be so interesting as Kuwait.’ In Florida, I think I would want a house up high over a bayou, where there are birds and wildlife. High enough to not flood when there is a hurricane or a storm surge. . . It still was a thrill to spend a couple days high above the beach, and watch the sun set. 🙂
It’s funny the things that make a marriage succeed. It’s the little things. We both wanted to go to Barnes and Nobles because the 2012 calendars are out and we like to have calendars we love to look out through the year. You can take a chance on waiting until New Year’s week, and sometimes you get a cool calendar at 50% off, but mostly the one you really wanted is already gone gone gone, woe woe woe.
Besides that, we always like to get what we want, then the other one hides it until Christmas. By then, we’ve forgotten what we picked out, so it is a really good surprise. 😉
I told AM that I was going to have to have a chocolate fix and he said he would have to have a chocolate fix, too. We decided we could share an Oreo cake:
It was a fun idea, but it didn’t taste as good as it looked. We didn’t even finish it, it just wasn’t that great.
Contagion
As we rushed into the house, we both headed immediately to our bathrooms to wash our hands. Twice. And I also washed my face.
Contagion is a very intelligent movie. It is scary, but not in the Friday the 13th kind of scary, or in the Night of the Living Dead kind of scary, although come to think of it, there were some elements in common with the original Night of the Living Dead. No, what makes Contagion scary is that it could happen so easily.
I had no idea that we touch our faces, on the average, of three to five times a minute, more than 3,000 times a day, and that with every surface we touch, we transfer (germs) (bacteria) (things that could make you sick) close to an entry to your body, like your nostrils and your mouth. Once you start thinking about NOT touching your face, you become aware of how often you touch your own face, unaware. Like flipping hair out of your eyes, or covering your mouth when you laugh, or a million other things like that. You become aware of all the things you touch between the time you wash your hands and touch your food. You think about who may have touched your fork, and how well it was washed.
For me, the scariest part of the movie, beyond how quickly the virus mutated and spread, was how quickly civil society broke down when cities were quarantined, when people were concerned food was growing scarce, when people thought they had to fight for survival. The rules for avoiding spreading the virus were not to meet, not to touch, to stay apart. It’s hard to help one another when those rules are in play, but those rules make it easier for those without rules to attack and take what they can.
I liked the music in the movie, too, very edgy.
Before I ever saw this movie, I heard an interview with the author on NPR. She was saying that when they came to her wanting to make this movie, she said “it cannot start in Africa. . . (there were a whole bunch of rules, which were hilarious because they were like every plot for a movie like this ever made) I knew I needed to see this movie, to see how it could be done and still be dramatic, and follow her rules.
There is one hilarious quote. A blogger in this movie gains enormous following. As he is tracking down one of the scientists for information, the scientist says to him:
Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation.
Excuse me, gotta go wash my hands again.
20 Pounds of Diaper
In Pensacola, there is a wonderful fountain at the foot of Palofox, at the turnaround, and it is the perfect place for a toddler on a steamy day. They have all kinds of spurts of water coming up. The water changes height and force, so it is full of surprises for the young ones.
Scandalous, I know, that we just let him wear the diaper, but they get SOAKING wet!
There are also big fat pigeons and swift little sparrows to chase, and even a big egret out coaching the fishermen and women, hoping for a handout.
At the end, as we were getting ready to go, we changed the diaper and it weighed about 20 pounds, all water.
New Generation of Readers
Nothing could make me happier. The Happy Baby loves books! When he was born, one of my sisters sent a box, full of almost every classic book children love to read. Since then, AdventureMan and I have been supplementing with all our own favorites. Happy Baby loves to sit in a lap and read a book, and he is also happy reading on his own.
He LOVES trucks and buses and cars, LOL, he is all boy:
This weekend the Happy Baby discovered heaven-on-earth – the Pensacola National Aviation Museum. He loves the cockpits, with all those buttons and levers and wheels. He only screamed when it was time to move on to the next exhibit.
I was babysitting the other day and they left us with the iPad, which he also loves. I thought I knew how things worked, but I was wrong. I didn’t know anything about Angry Birds or Zombies in the Garden, and he showed me. 18 months old. I just had to laugh. Already, I am learning from him!
Monday Night Blues at Five Sisters Blues Cafe in Pensacola
We kept wanting to go to Five Sisters Blues Cafe – everyone tells us it is a really fun place with great food – but it takes us a while to find it. I’m printing the Google map for you; it is at the corner of Belmont and DeVilliers. Not that hard to find if you know Pensacola, but we are still learning Pensacola.
Five Sisters exterior:
“Where’ve you been?” our waitress, Lisa, asked as we were seated. We must have looked goofy, we’ve never been there before, so we said, “this is our first time” and she laughed and said “I know that! I haven’t seen you before! We’ve been open a year! Where’ve you been?”
We just laughed, she had really caught us off guard. The place was packed, on a Wednesday afternoon, people all around us eating giant salads, plates heaped with fried chicken, everything we saw coming out to the tables looked delicious. Lisa brought us iced-tea, and I lost my heart, look, REAL mint in the tea, just like home . . .
We were overwhelmed. There is a lot going on in the restaurant, people laughing, art works on the walls, a new menu to peruse and we don’t know what we want. We finally decide to share the sampler platter with two fried green tomatoes, 4 crab cakes and 4 shrimp, which came with three very tasty sauces – WOW. Wowed right off the top:
AdventureMan even said, in wonder “This crab cake really tastes like crab with a C!” and it was. You know, the other kind, that calls itself crab, but is really flavored Alaskan pollock, and not crab at all? This was real crab, and it tasted crabby. Yummm.
AdventureMan had a vegetable platter. Now this is Southern cooking at it’s best, so don’t expect ‘vegetable’ to be Vegan. Even Mac and Cheese qualifies as a vegetable, and beans usually have some pork to flavor them, etc. He said the entire plate was delicious.
I tried something I had never had before, catish over grits. I never thought I liked grits until our daughter-in-laws stepmother (I know, I know, it sounds complicated, and it is another thing we have in common with people all over the world; we all have complicated relationships) made Smoked Gouda Grits one night with her Barbecued Shrimp and a whole new world opened up to me. Wooo HOOO. Anyway, I didn’t eat all the grits; the catfish was filling, but this dish knocked my socks off and I don’t think I could duplicate it, so I’m just going to have to go back to Five Sisters every time I get a craving for it:
If we are what we eat, we are becoming very Southern. 🙂
Lisa, the waitress, was a lot of fun, helpful in making recommendations, quick when we asked for anything, and she told us about an upcoming special jazz night that we really needed to attend. OK. That sounded like fun.
Lisa was right. It was really fun. We walked in, early, and every table was taken. There was a Jazz Society of Pensacola membership table at the entrance, and the lady just laughed and said “Look! There are lots of chairs empty, just go to a table and ask if you can join them.”
Hmm. We’re actually used to that, living in Germany all those years, but I didn’t know you could do that here. 🙂 We ended up at a table with another couple, and as we chatted, we had a really good time with them. They were so gracious and welcoming to people they had never met and who aren’t even members (yet) of the Jazz Society. We laughed a lot. He told us that they didn’t have a lot of rules, but that when things got lively, no oxygen machines were allowed on the dance floor because they might explode, LLOOLLL!
This place was ROCKIN’. People were dancing between the tables, people from young to old, just having a great time listening to some very very good music. Within an hour, there were no empty seats at all, some people were standing, and others were eating out on the covered patio. It was raining (rain in Pensacola during a drought is a good thing) and the evening was called Monday Night Blues. How cool is that? The atmosphere was perfect.
Of course we had dinner. AdventureMan had BBQ on Red Beans and Rice and I had the Shrimp Basket. No Mom, I did not eat the French Fries.
I did eat ONE of the hushpuppies. I could not resist. 😉
Five Sisters Blues Cafe is just a really fun place, immaculately clean, great food and great service. We can’t wait to go back again.
Red Robin – YUMMMMM
“I think I need a hamburger,” I said to AdventureMan as we were tucking in to bed. I can’t even remember the last time I had a hamburger, but I think it was in April, 2010, at the Red Robin in Pensacola.
Red Robin . . . YUMMM. One of the best ad campaigns in history, in my mind. Pure repetition, a little humor to re-inforce the memory, all positive. Anywhere you go in America, you can say “Red Robin” and someone will say “Yummm.”
I have a personal relationship with Red Robin. When I was a student at the University of Washington, long, long ago, the Red Robin was very near the university, near enough we could walk, even, and even though it was a bar, they weren’t very strict about carding people, and oh, they had the best burgers. It was pure comfort food. They also had a wonderful deck, so on the rare and beautiful spring days when final exams were coming and we just needed to blow off some steam, the Red Robin was one of the places we headed.
It wasn’t like the Red Robin chain. It was the original, and it was a little seedy. Here is what the original Red Robin looked like:
Yep. . . a little stoned.
Here is what he looks like now, he cleaned up good, LOL!
There were old wood floors, not the shiny kind of good wood floor, but the old fashioned cheap kind, sort of spongy when you walked on them, and usually covered with stuff that had been spilled. No, not exactly your family kind of place, it was a college student kind of place.
So for my once-in-more-than-a-year hamburger, we went to Red Robin.
Compare that to the original:
And here was my peppercorn burger:
It was YUMMMMM. Now, I won’t need another burger until September 2012 or so. 🙂
Sadly, as I was looking for some photos of the original Red Robin, I learned that they closed down the original on March 21, 2010. So sad, but I suspect it just didn’t suit the image of the new, family oriented Red Robins, more than 400 of them around the USA. But they still serve a good burger.
A Different Kind of Sadly Hilarious
I was just checking if there might be anything on TV tonight worth watching, and I got caught watching – in horror and fascination – Rock Pop and Do-Wop, on National Public Television.
Horrified – because these 60’s and 70’s bands are playing to full concert houses full of people who look OLD like my parents – oh wait – they look like me! Horrors! The music still makes me feel like a teenager! All these people in the audience are looking like true believers, singing along with the songs, getting up and dancing, like they can’t resist the music. No dignity! They are acting like teenagers! Horrors! I still know all the words, even to songs I don’t even remember any more, once they play the first few notes, I know all the words!
Hilarious, because these acts have to strain a little to hit all the notes, but most of them have had eye-lifts, and some of them can even still dance. They can still rock the songs, and they are totally wowing the audience. The hair styles – so awful they are almost cool again. It’s just wrong to have OLD people singing these young love songs.
Poison Ivy! One Fine Day! Blue Moon! I Only Have Eyes for You! Step-by-Step! This Magic Moment! Only You! Twilight Time! The Great Pretender! (Holy Smokes!The audience is going crazy!)
The costumes – oh my heavens. I remember when my high school BF was in a band and my father was horrified by his turquoise blue band jacket, and now . . . I can sort of see what he meant. Pretty awful, but oh – what fun. I remember the fights over whether we should be listening to this music, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the bad boys of rock. They all look so innocent a hundred years later.
There is a part of me that is still 12 years old, listening to this music, and there is a part of me watching me watch the program that is horrified at my fascination.
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