The Worst is Over – Eid Mubarak!
Last night, even early last night, we could hear the fireworks begin – a sure sign that the new crescent moon had been sighted and the long hot Ramadan was over.
Eid Mubarak, my Moslem friends.
I have been congratulating myself for not jet-lagging, but yesterday, after running errands in the hot humid heat of September in Doha, I was lagging, I don’t know if it was climate-lagging, or jet-lagging, but I napped and then I was still having a hard time staying awake until 9 last night. I slept HARD, it felt great. It felt great until about 3:30 this morning, when I could no longer sleep.
Since I no longer have that gorgeous sunrise coming up in front of my house, I decided to walk this morning, and at 90°F/33°C it is about the coolest it will be all day. I walked and walked, relishing the safety of the compound, where at 0400, there is not another soul in evidence until, near the gate, a guard comes out on his bicycle, making the hourly round. I felt so free.
I also felt so tired. Walking in the heat and humidity is hard work. My socks were soaked and my clothes were soaked by the time I finished. I came in, put the coffee on to brew and showered. I know today will also be loony, most stores closed, heavy traffic as people make their Eid calls on friends and family. The thing that gives me a grin – because I truly do not like exercise very much and I only do it because I want to live a long and healthy life – I know the worst part of my day is over (insh’allah!)
Here is a photo from the Peninsula of all the people out last night celebrating the end of Ramadan:
Ghost Horses
As Mom and I were stopping at one of the public access beaches, a whole group of horse-carriers turned up and all these horses got out. We don’t know exactly what it was all about. It appears they are trying to get the horses used to being near the surf. Some found it very scary, some wanted to taste it . . . and there was all this mist, so it was a very ghostly experience:
Sunset on Sunset Avenue
I arrived in Seattle just in time. My dearest, oldest friend’s father died as I was en route, and the service was this week. On a cold and dreary day, fortunately I had a dark dress with me, and I quickly ran and bought stockings, which are so irrelevant in the heat and humidity of August in Doha, and so necessary for a relatively formal occasion in Seattle.
Last night, we got together and walked, something we have done through the years, and then grabbed a bite to eat. We walked along Sunset Avenue, in Edmonds, just as the sun was setting.
In one of the yards, we saw this wonderful tarted-up piece of driftwood:
The light was glorious:
Think Pink Walk October 30th
This is what I love – advance planning and advance notification so I can mark my calendar now and look forward to the walk on October 30th. Not only that, I can tell all my friends, so they will be there, too. This is a grand event, a great way to exercise and show support for a worthy cause at the same time.
Women all over the world die because they are afraid to talk about breast cancer, afraid they will be shunned, afraid they will be treated as damaged or inferior. Fear can kill us. Silence can kill us. Supporting one another and encouraging one another can be part of the coping process and the healing process.
Please – mark your calendars, too. I want to see you there.
Breast cancer support group gears up for annual event
Web posted at: 8/9/2009 2:57:6
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Think Pink Qatar, a Doha-based support group for breast cancer patients and survivors, has set the ball rolling for upcoming events it will be organising.
Drawing approximately 30 volunteers to an organisational meeting yesterday, the group initiated the process for one of its major annual events, the Think Pink Breast Cancer Walk of Life. Due to take place on the evening of October 30 at the Corniche, volunteers have been mobilised to make the event as much of a success as last year’s event.
The recent meet will lead up to other events the support group will be undertaking in September and October include a Pink-Out Day at schools, the Think Pink Benefit Gala, a Pink Hijab Day, and Proctor and Gamble sponsorship. There will also be a Harley Davidson Women’s Ride for Life, organised by Margarita Zuniga, courtesy of the Harley Davidson’s Women’s club.
Due to growing interest from community members, Think Pink Qatar is organising its 1,000 plus volunteers and members into a coherent line-up in time for event. “Today’s meeting is to start organising for this event, as many have volunteered, and we have now found it necessary to devise teams, covering sponsorship, music, event planning,” said Karen Al Kharouf, Founder of Think Pink Qatar. “Because the group has grown from 200 to 1,000 members, there is the need for consistency and a centralized system.”
More volunteers are hoped for, to take the currently part-time organisation full–time, and to add to numerous out-reach programmes the group currently runs. This includes adding more to the survivors groups, and the Pink Candies, a group of older teenagers who provide morale support for breast cancer sufferers. Al Kharouf underlined the need to create greater awareness in Qatar, as many women dislike talking about the disease, hence its high death rate.
PS: I see Peninsula says the walk is on the 30th, Gulf Times says it is on the 31st. Hmmm. . . .
Condiments Make You Fat
Here is an article I read a couple days ago, and decided not to share with you because . . . I didn’t like what it said! It kept coming back to me, however. I still don’t like it, but I am sharing it with you because I know it is true.
I love condiments. AdventureMan and I are addicted to condiments, like Major Grey’s Mango Chutney, and Sharwood’s Bengal Hot Chutney, and sweet pickle relish, and A-1 sauce. And . . . yep, I bet I eat more because of the condiments.
The essence of this article from Real Age is that if you eat boring food, you will eat less.
Can Condiments Make You Fat?
Put down the ketchup. Set aside that pickled relish. And leave the sauces and salsas in the fridge.
New research suggests that by leaving your condiments in the cupboard, you could end up eating drastically less, overall.
Can the Condiments
In a small study of college students, dressing up fries with ketchup and brownies with a topping caused the nibblers to eat from 25 to 40 percent more of these waist-padding foods. But the theory behind the additional bites isn’t just that a few extras make food taste better. The extras actually increase the amount of time it takes for your palate to get tired of the taste of a particular food. So you end up eating more, regardless of whether you’re hungry or full. Eat this type of fat to stop hunger in its tracks.
Keep It Simple
In fact, a good strategy for curbing overeating is to minimize variety in meals. Focus on a few fresh flavors, not every side dish under the sun. YOU Docs Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen even recommend eating the same thing for lunch every day. And try these additional appetite-busting strategies:
Keep your mind on your food. Paying attention to your food — and only your food — will help you eat less of it.
Diversify your workout.
Overindulge in fiber. Try this root vegetable that’s especially high in appetite-controlling fiber.
Here is the original, interactive article from Real Age with other tips you can also click on. Whether we like the advice or not . . . LOL!
Sunrise In Doha, Green for Daggero
Daggero wrote on my Rav4 post about how GREEN Doha looked. It wasn’t Doha. I think the photo was taken in England, but the car looked just like my beloved little Rav4, so I used the photo.
But it got me thinking – my little spot in Doha IS green. And you have mentioned taking sunrise in Doha . . . my blind side of the house faces the sunrise, but this morning, I took some sunrise photos for you.
During the week, the sky in Doha is mostly white, I don’t know why. On Friday and Saturday, it was a brilliant blue. Sunrise, most days of the week, is a sort of non-event, like it’s hard to tell where the sun is!
But here are some photos of the sun through the trees in the early morning, and my little section of green in Doha.
Sunrise:
There are some treats – the dual color bougainvillea I planted five years ago is growing lushly against the garden wall. The two lemon trees are taller and lusher. Some other new plants were given to my by my departing friend from her garden, and so my garden doesn’t have that sad, barren look. When the cooler weather comes, I will plant basil. 🙂
36 and Counting
I’ll be your pool-buddy,” AdventureMan said, as we lounged against the side of the pool. It was the best, the very best anniversary present he has ever given me.
My pool buddies are gone. One is coming back, one is not. The pool is big and beautiful, but being alone at the pool isn’t a lot of fun. Although AdventureMan doesn’t like pools as much as I do, he is willing to make the sacrifice – make the time – to make me happy.
We’ve been married 36 years. We didn’t go out last night, instead we had artichokes and tacos, and burned the wedding candle my parents gave us 36 years ago in Heidelberg. Artichokes, because at the first family dinner AdventureMan attended, my mom served artichokes as a first course, and AM thought it was some kind of a test. Tacos because in our 36 years together, it has always been one of our favorite meals, and because I found all kinds of Mexican food supplies in Qatar.
Then we walked over to the pool, swam, bounced around, talked, and when we got out – even though the temperatures were still high – there was a breeze, and we even felt just a tiny bit chilly! Chilly in the blazing heat of the Gulf summer is GOOD!
Just for our 36th anniversary, there was also a full moon. We walked home, cool and breezy, under the light of a great big romantic full moon. 36 years, and it just keeps getting better and better. 🙂
Some Are Silver and the Others Are Gold
Life gets funny when you move. Like 5 minutes after I landed, my Kuwait phone stopped working except for advertisements. The company provided me with a loaner, just so AdventureMan could keep in contact with me, and then like a light bulb going on in my head, I checked to see if the problem was lack of money – yep.
I used to have a phone plan. I am not a big phone user. I discovered those wonderful Hala cards, and at the very max might use 10KD per month – I really am a light user.
When I arrived, my good friend two villas down had her movers – she is leaving. We had like six days of overlap. Three of those days, she had her movers there and I had people here helping me get the new villa set up. We would grab a few minutes when we could – not even enough time for a cup of coffee, but as I left, I thought “this is just like old times.” We’ve both always had busy lives, and we would grab time together when we could.
In the USA, when kids go to camp, we learn songs. It occurs to me that many cultures transmit cultural values in songs – I know I can still remember French and Spanish songs I learned in language classes . . . there must be something about singing that imprints things in your memory. One of the songs is:
Make new friends – but keep the old,
One is silver and the other is gold.
You sing it once, all together, and then you divide into four groups and sing it as a round until it is all finished. You sing it when you are leaving camp, and you cry.
Of course, we are all grown up now. We don’t cry when friends leave. (Liar! Liar!)
The movers are gone, my friend SMS’d me “how about a swim tomorrow?” and I SMS’d back “Sure!”
We lolled around in the pool, sort of theoretically exercising, but her equipment is en route back to the USA and mine is en route from Kuwait, so we were pretty lax, sort of bobbing around and laughing and catching up. She is trying to bring me up to speed on what is going on in Qatar, and I am trying to remember everything she is telling me. We walk home, head in our separate directions again. I have a loaner car, and I get to go grocery shopping ALL BY MYSELF!
I am down to putting away my last two bags of groceries when my loaner phone rings and it is my good friend saying “I have to drop my son at school, have you eaten, want to have a late lunch?” and I laugh and say “sure” and we plan to meet at 1:30, but the QTEL (Telephone) man comes (the company sent him so I wasn’t expecting him) and the problem is too complicated, so he will come back and I just barely have enough time to get to the meeting-up restaurant.
Ooops – no, forget that, I am going to be late, I had forgotten about the traffic, so I break the law and call my friend on my mobile and say “I’m going to be another five minutes at least, I am so sorry, go ahead and order for me” and she just laughs.
We have a great lunch together, still catching up on all I need to know, and I ask if they have plans for dinner tonight and she says “no” and I say we would love to have them come to our house for something simple. Like I have napkins; the ones she gave me because they were leaving, but I don’t even have a tablecloth with me, it will be something casual like spaghetti and salad and garlic bread and she says she thinks they would just love that kind of evening but she has to check with her hubby.
We talk talk talk and then her hubby calls and she forgets to ask if he can do dinner with us, but then my hubby calls and says we need to do blood work for our residency and can we do dinner another night (we already have another date set up with them) and so I get off and have to say “uh, I am sorry, but I have to take back that dinner invitation.”
This all seems convoluted and round about, but this is where those GOLD friends come in. She just starts laughing (I love it when she cracks up) and says “OK! But I’m NEVER going to let you forget this! You WITHDREW an invitation!” and then we are both laughing and oh, Lord have mercy, I am so thankful just to have a little overlap with this crazy friend, and oh, how I am going to miss her.
Some friends are just THERE, they know what the important things are. This friend has me all set up with a really good cleaning lady who will start on Saturday, she told me the really good tailor she has found, the best car rental place, and which car wash guy to keep far away from. She borrowed a cup of laundry soap. Tomorrow, she needs to come here and iron her son’s shirt for graduation, and she and her husband are bequeathing to us their leftover (legal! legal!) booze. Here is what takes it beyond gold – our husbands like each other, too. Our cats . . . not so much. Her cat wants to make nice, my cat gets all hissy.
Inside this grown up expat body is still the little Girl Scout from camp, making new friends, and treasuring the old . . .
Breathless Day
The air is still, and there isn’t a single wave on the vast, flat glassy Gulf. At eight in the morning, it is already breathlessly hot:
It’s not getting any better. Maybe by the beginning of next week, as you can see, a little “cold” weather will be moving in 😉
The only way you can determine the difference between water and air is the layer of yellow tinged haze on the far horizon:
Here is what my life looks like right now:
Yesterday, a sweet friend dragged me away from all the packing and focus on moving and treated me to a day at the Aquatonic Spa. I admit it, she had to drag me – I can get so immersed in my misery that I don’t even want to do something fun.
In spite of my churlishness, we had a great time. Playing around in that fabulous pool, and then having beauty treatments afterwards – it just took all the misery out of me. I felt great for the first time in weeks. I slept last night without waking, and awoke refreshed, thanks be to God, and thanks to my friend who knew what I needed better than I did.
“Let Her Get Fat” in Saudi Arabia
Sometimes, either you laugh, or you’re going to cry. This is from BBC News: Saudi Arabia
Saudis clamp down on women’s gyms
Saudi women are largely constrained to the home and single-sex environments
Many women-only sports clubs and gyms in Saudi Arabia face closure under a government clampdown on unlicensed premises, Saudi media have reported.
Women’s gyms have become popular in the ultra-conservative Muslim country where the sexes are heavily segregated.
But only clubs linked to medical groups can get licenses and others will be closed, the Arab News newspaper said.
Saudi women were reported to have launched an online campaign in protest called Let Her Get Fat.
Government departments are not allowed to issue licenses for commercial gyms and sports clubs for women, unlike facilities for men, the newspaper reported.
It quoted club manager Bader al-Shibani, who tried to open a women’s sports club along with the one he runs for men in Jeddah.
“I ran into a stone wall at every turn. Every department I visited denied that they had the authority to give permission to establish a women’s club,” he said.
Many clubs are registered as beauty salons, and offer fitness facilities and even exercise classes in addition, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs told the newspaper that commercial clubs do not have registration for the provision of sport and health services.
“It’s clear that one department is now taking the decision to put an end to the increasing number of unlicensed clubs,” lawyer and community activist Abdulaziz al-Qasim told Arab News.
A group of women launched an internet campaign in protest against the move, saying facilities linked to medical clinics were too expensive, and their health would suffer as a result of the closures.
Women in Saudi Arabia are banned from driving, must wear a head-to-toe cloak when out in public and must obtain permission from a male relative to work, travel, study or marry.
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