Qattari Cat Goes Wild
It was like the ninth circle in Hell. We had been told this was the best clinic in town, so when we thought the Qatteri Cat was having a problem, we made an appointment, and braved the Doha drive-time traffic to get there, only to discover that there were like 25 people milling around the waiting room, most holding animals loose in their arms, and a feeling of desperation in the air.
The customer service was shocking. I watched one man, big guy, football-player type, sway and his knees nearly buckle as the curt woman behind the desk said in her loud voice “Oh! Your cat didn’t make it! Your’s was the little grey cat, right?” He was devastated. I was horrified that the news could be delivered so callously, and so loudly.
Many of the people without appointments had kittens bought at the Souq al Waqif. You know I love the Souk al Waqif, but if you buy an animal there, you are buying an animal who already has strikes against it, and people who breed them just for sale, with no regard for ethical treatment of another living creature. You are buying trouble, and big veterinarian bills. It’s gotten so bad for me, I can’t even walk through the bird/animal area anymore. I can’t bear to see the way the animals are treated.
We got to see the vet over an hour later. He was nice, very professional, very knowledgeable, and I cannot imagine what it is like having to run a veterinary service under these hellish conditions.
One of his handlers walked in, looked at me coldly and said “Is this your cat?” I said yes, and she continued on “this is the worst cat I have ever handled. He is EVIL! He is VICIOUS! He is the cat from hell. Is he like this at home?”
Imagine saying something like that to a customer!
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. The Qatteri Cat had a rough beginning in life. I met his first owners, and the women in the family didn’t like him. When he came to live with us, he loved – and trusted – AdventureMan from the beginning, but it took me a long while to win his trust. He was skinny and always watching my feet and hands; he would flinch if I moved too quickly. He had been mistreated.
He has bitten me twice, in his seven years living with us, both times when other cats were around and he was scared. When he is scared, or when he is in pain, all his natural instincts kick in. I give him a short time-out in a confined environment (the bathroom!), and everything is fine. He’s a cat. No, he is not vicious at home. He is a SWEET cat!
He has never misbehaved at a vet clinic, never. At the clinic in Kuwait, he couldn’t wait to get out of the cage; the female Italian vet told him what a handsome big boy he was and he was putty in her hands. I have to admit it, I felt a twinge of jealousy. He had eyes only for her!
The Qattari Cat is a cat who wants to co-operate. It doesn’t matter how good the vet is, if the staff is unprofessional, discourteous to the point of rudeness, and ignorant about handling animals, we won’t go back. We won’t risk him being handled cruelly. I cannot imagine why they keep this woman on their staff.
But I couldn’t resist taking a flash photo of QC to illustrate this post, with demonic, gleaming eyes, LLOOOLLLL!
The Law of the Harvest
A small group was huddled, talking about volunteer work, and how people are afraid to commit, when the duties are actually very light, and easily accomplished, then we drifted into giving generously . . .
“It’s called The Law of the Harvest” one of my favorite women popped in as I was trying to explain that when you give, open-handedly, give with your heart, it all comes back to you multiplied.
We all turned to her. “Remember the seeds? You sow the seeds and then it is multiplied?”
Of course! It’s so simple! Why didn’t I think of that?
Ruby Necklace
One year, AdventureMan bought me a ruby necklace. Yeh, it sounds glamorous, but it wasn’t one of those sparkly ruby necklaces you wear to the ball, it was a rough cut ruby necklace, the kind I like. I was thrilled when I found it in the tip of my Christmas stocking.
I put it on to wear to dinner that night, and as soon as I put it on, my neck started burning, and AdventureMan said “Your skin is all red!” I wore it anyway; I really loved the necklace.
The rash took about a week to fully go away. I figured they must have used some compound to polish it that I was allergic to. I didn’t wear it for a year, and then got around to washing it. And washing it. Nine times, I washed it:
The rubies in these necklaces are not the high quality kind, just rubies, rough cut. I guess they must have thought I wouldn’t like it unless it were really bright ruby red . . . it took nine washes before it stopped bleeding red. I am hoping it was the dye I was allergic to – I’m still afraid to put the necklace on, afraid I will get big red welts again.
Gulf Women Twice as Likely as Men to Die of Heart Attack
Women face greater risk of heart attack deaths: study
You can read this entire article in today’s Gulf Times by clicking on this blue type
Women throughout the Gulf are almost twice as likely to die in hospital after a heart attack, as male patients, a new regional study published by the American Journal of Cardiology has revealed.
The research involved looking at the death rate of 8,166 males and females hospitalised in 2009 for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) โ which includes heart attack and unstable angina.
It was found that female patients who suffered ACS were 1.75 times more likely to die while in hospital than males with the same condition.
Delayed diagnosis of ACS in women, and failure to prescribe the correct cardiovascular medications, and not carrying out the necessary interventions after the event, were behind the increase in the death rate.
The research project was called the Gulf Registry for Acute Coronary Events (Gulf RACE) and the study was titled Comparison of Men and Women with Acute Coronary Syndrome in Six Middle Eastern Countries, 2009.
Amazon Kindle Global Wireless – Wooo HOOOO
My book friends have all been wishing for a global wireless Kindle – and here it is!
From Amazon, and yes, I own stock in Amazon, but not so much as to make me a rich woman. ๐ What I wonder . . . is how this will work in the Gulf countries, where books are heavily censored? Will people have free access to any book they choose (gasp!) with a Kindle?
(Update: Here’s the answer – ‘global’ does not mean everywhere. Saudi Arabia is covered, but Kuwait and Qatar are not!)
)
Say Hello to Kindle DX with Global Wireless
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Carry Your Library: Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents
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Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go
Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages
Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable
Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy
Large Selection: Over 400,000 books, including 101 of 112 New York Timesยฎ Best Sellers, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary. Check your country.
Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items. U.S. customers will be charged a fee of $1.99 for international downloads.
Doha 2003 – Doha Now
When we came here in 2003, I was still shooting film. I did a Doha skyline, in 2003 from what we still call the Bandar spit – where the dhows are harbored, and there used to be restaurants remotely shaped like boats and a wide terrace where you could sit out (when it isn’t too hot) and eat, or have coffee and dessert, with the vast Doha skyline to gaze upon.
Then, one day, the restaurants were gone!
You can still go out on the spit and take photos of the Doha skyline.
I cobbled together a bunch of photos to show the entire Doha skyline in 2003:
This is what the Ritz Carlton looked like in 2003:
Doha Skyline from the Ritz Carlton in 2003:
The Pearl and Doha skyline in 2003:
Same Pearl 2009:
Trade Expo and AdventureMan
“Hey! I’m coming home early and I’m taking you to the TradeExpo!” AdventureMan told me with excitement in his voice. He doesn’t often like going places at night after a long day at work, but to him, this sounded like fun.
Jockying for a parking place was not so much fun. We’ve been here long enough, though, when AdventureMan spied a free sidewalk space, up we went, perfect parking spot, right under a streetlight. Short walk to the Expo.
I watched his face as we walked around, changing from excitement to confusion. “Where are all the booths with little flags?” he asked, “and all the booths with home cooked foods from other countries?”
LLLOOOLLL; he thought this was the DIPLOMATIC Bazaar!
Some years they do the diplomatic bazaar and some years they don’t; depends on if the diplomatic wives have the time and energy to get it all organized and bring in all kinds of specialties not normally seen here.
This was a trade expo. There was a lot of underwear, and children’s clothes, not the expensive kind, this was the utilitarian kind, and not-very-nice furniture, and overly ornate but not nice bric-a-brac. Really bad perfumes and some really awful, cheap make-up. The whole thing was over-hyped and low quality, schlocky, and we didn’t spend a dirham. The only food was Costa Coffee!
So not every Doha adventure is such a fun one, but better to try than to miss something wonderful.
One visitor to the Trade Fair actually took some really good photos and posted them on QatarLiving.com. They are very nice photos, and when I saw them I thought “this makes the trade fair look a lot better than I remember it!”
Bu Yousef’s Haiti Challenge
My Kuwait blogging friend, Bu Yousef, is about to send a donation to the World Food Program designated to help Haiti. He has set a challenge to all bloggers and blog readers. Please, go comment on his post. For every unique comment he gets on his post (one per person), his donation will go up $1 from a minimum $50 to a maximum of $200. It’s up to us.
I would love for BuYousef to hit his maximum. I would love for him to be so overwhelmed, that he ups his maximum to $250. ๐
Please go say good morning/good evening to BuYousef, and do it NOW! Thank you!
Bu Yousef, AdventureMan and I will match your donation. ๐
Thank You
At some hour, while I was sleeping, the blog hit 1M hits. Pretty cool, even though it is just a number.
AdventureMan said “how about if I take you out for dinner tonight to celebrate.”
(Thursday night is always date night. We always go out for dinner. He was being funny.)
But he reminded me that I used to thank my readers, and I haven’t done that for a long time.
Most of us who blog, and who continue blogging (it’s the continuing part that is hard work) blog because that’s the way God made us – he created us wanting to share the written word. For me, it’s sort of like thinking out loud, and many times I throw out ideas hoping to get other points of view to help me see things more fully, from more perspectives.
You, my readers, have given me unexpected points of view many, many times, and I thank you. Months after I write an article, you will read it and comment – and I read every comment. Thank you.
Coming soon, AdventureMan and I are starting a whole new adventure. I’m not so sure I am going to continue blogging. I won’t be living in an exotic country; I will be living a more normal American life, as a Grandmama. I know it will fascinate me, but I am not so sure you will find it all that interesting, LOL.
Again, thank you for your support and input these three years of blogging, and for finding me and my ideas and my fascination with current events much more interesting than I find myself. ๐
And, for those of you who always ask, yes, the Qattari Cat will be going with us, and yes, he is till with us (crying right now because AdventureMan has left for work and his heart is broken), I just haven’t taken a lot of photos lately because mostly he sleeps, and he looks pretty much the same.
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