GoogleEarth – Make Your Own Maps
You, too, can make your own maps, and get where you need to go, thanks to GoogleEarth. If you are a landmark driver, like me, this will make your day.
A friend gave me a map to her house that blew my mind – it was a GoogleEarth map, with lines and arrows and landmarks – everything I need when I am driving. I could see the roundabouts! I could see the major landmarks! I knew EXACTLY where to turn, which mosque where I would turn right, and which field to drive across.
She said her husband had done it; she didn’t know how. I opened GoogleEarth and figured it out. Now – oh my! I have maps to everywhere! It is so totally cool!
You open Google, find EXACTLY the image you need to use for your map (be sure your major landmarks are in the frame) and you go to File on the toolbar and scroll down to Save – there is an arrow, and you choose Save Image.
You open your drawing program – in my case, Appleworks, but it will work with your drawing program, too.
You paste your map into your drawing program, and then you add your arrows showing the route to take, and you add text identifying the landmarks, and perhaps writing out the directions.
And then you print. It’s that easy. And holy smokes, the maps are totally usable.
Parking Wall of Shame
At the Al Manshar Mall, where there are only about forty spaces for a huge mall:
Emergency Lane Rant
It’s not your arrogance that drives me totally crazy, as much as the fact that your arrogance puts us all at risk.
First, you are driving too fast, and weaving between cars. Yep, it looks like fun, but you’re cutting it a little close, brother. And if you are young and have all your wits about you, you might do OK, but if you are tired, if you are drinking, if you are on drugs, your reactions are impaired and so is your judgement.
We can’t help but bear witness to your carnage along the sides of the road. It’s not like they sit there for weeks. The tow trucks haul them away, and they are replaced overnight with new, bloodier, twisted wreckage. The highways are littered with your crumpled bumpers, and shards of your shattered windshields.
Worse, as traffic piles up, and ambulances arrive to try to save those who survive the impact, no-one moves aside! When time is critical, when seconds can literally mean life or death, the ambulances are stuck trying to get past cars which won’t move out of the way.
As for the rest of us, stacked up along the highways, waiting for the wreckage to be cleared, it doesn’t help to have these drivers zipping by in the EMERGENCY lanes. Hello???? What part of EMERGENCY is so hard for you to understand?
You’re not special. We all have places we need to be. And – you are in the emergency lane. You endanger us all.
Widad Kawar’s Passion
Many years ago, in another life, I was honored to visit the collection of Widad Kawar in Amman, Jordan. I was so young, and so completely in awe of Widad, who had made it a life mission to collect traditional clothing of the area, Palestinian, which was her own heritage, and nomadic.
It was like being a little girl and getting to play dress up as we oooohed and aahhhed over these gorgeous old dresses and head dresses. I had no idea she had become an institution, until I began to research a style of hijab I had seen there which I found very elegant.
LIttle Diamond, these are for you. They are from several sources, including The Arab Heritage site on Widad Kawar which I urge you to peruse when you have a spare hour or half a day or . . . a lifetime. She has created a monumental body of work with her passion for preserving these fabulous textiles.
From Widad Kawar’s collection: North Jordan
Shows a little of the glitz – this one is from Salt, photo from Widad Kawar’s collection:
I love this photo. The woman has a plain version of the headdress, and is wearing a double dress . . . and her husband is holding her hand!
Blog Complaints
My family and friends outside Kuwait tell me I don’t publish enough Kuwait photos. These two are for you, and I will try to work on this. 😉 These are from a recent trip to the Al Kout mall in Fehaheel, just south of Kuwait.
Ladies leaving the Al Kout Mall
I think this mosque is one of the most beautiful I have seen:
Is this not one of the most beautiful Starbucks you have seen? It sits on overlooking a small marina. Greetings to all my Seattle friends.
Palestinian Embroidery
There is a richness in the textile heritage of this region, the clothing, the embellishments, the techniques . . . influences from Africa, from India, from Europe all meeting and blending in the most spectacular ways. This is textile heaven!
Today I was trying to find an example of a traditional Jordanian head-dress so I could show Little Diamond but instead I found this blog Arabesque Rhapsody and her beautiful article on everyday Palestinian embroidery. When you look at these women, wearing dresses that took hours, days and months to create, it is a feast for the eyes.
Heat Lagging
The heat has hit me like a building crashing down around me. It changes everything I do. Somehow I don’t remember last year being so hot, but I know it was, and I think I just didn’t go out very often. Now that I am driving all over town, man, the heat KILLS me.
I just checked Weather Underground for Kuwait and the temperatures (Fahrenheit for my US readers) is going to be between 107 and 114 for the next five days. Kuwait DOES cool down at night more than Doha, but if you are outside after nine in the morning, you feel like a steak thrown into a hot frying pan to sear. It is sizzling hot!
I find myself trying to get everything done I need to get done early in the day. Sometimes when I get home, get the groceries put away – I need a NAP! I feel like I’ve run a marathon! It’s embarrassing to be so effected by the heat, but I am.
If I have had things going on and don’t get a nap, then by nine my head is nodding. I can be in the middle of a great book, a thrilling movie or a nail biting tv program . . . it doesn’t matter. Sleep calls me like a siren; I can’t resist, I crash. Around three in the morning, having had six hours of great sleep – Hey! here I am! wide awake!
Even my husband, born in the heat of the south, who gets cold easily, even my husband who never complains about the heat – told me this morning he hated the thought of having to walk today from here to there because of the heat. I can hear him wheezing a little at night. We no longer have the dust storm of earlier this week, but the residual dust has made breathing a little harder. I hear a lot of my friends wheezing mildly, too.
It’s just like jet lagging. I’ve got to get it under control, and I’m at a loss. I think most of my friends cope with the heat – by leaving! Others stay inside most of the summer – even the thought of meeting up with a friend for coffee during the day just seems like too much trouble, when I think of the hot hot hot walk from car to air conditioned mall or restaurant!
How do you cope with the heat?
Does your life change?
Do your hours change?
Black Magic Chocolate Cake
No, no, no sorcery involved in making this chocolate cake, althought you might think so when you taste it – it’s so good! The magic in this cake is using a lot of cocoa powder (not cocoa mix, which has milk and sugar added – cocoa powder, which is all chocolate) and some very strong coffee to boost the intensity of the flavor. Everything you need is available here in Kuwait.
This is the very best chocolate cake I have ever tasted. The batter seems thin when you make it up but it cooks to a very moist chocolate cake with a fine crumb. And best of all – it’s EASY!
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup Hershey’s cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup strong black coffee (secret ingredient!)
2 cups buttermilk or sour milk (In a pinch, 1 Tablespoon lemon juice plus milk to equal 1 cup, let stand 10 minutes)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Combine dry ingredients in large mixer bowl. Add remaining ingredients – beat at medium speed 2 minutes. Batter will be thin. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan and bake at 350 degrees (180 degrees Celcius) for 35 – 40 minutes. Cool completely and frost.
Black Magic Chocolate Icing
(makes about two cups)
1 stick butter, softened
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup Hershey’s cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 t. salt
milk
Cream all together until smooth.To thin, use just a little milk at a time until you have the right consistency.
HINT: After you grease the baking pan, use cocoa instead of flour to sprinkle in pan, and shake really good until it adheres to the butter or Crisco you greased the pan with. This helps the whole cake release without those pesky stuck spots.
Storm Rolling In
This is what a storm looks like rolling into Kuwait. The normal day is on the right, the storm rolling in is on the left. Nothing has been enhanced; this is the way it really looks:
You really can’t imagine what an orange sky looks like:
Cat Meat Rumors Refuted (Ho ho ho ho ho)
Front page of todays Kuwait Times is this article:
KUWAIT: A ministry of Commerce official denied rumors that a local restaurant has been closed for selling cat meat. According to Ali Baghli, assistant undersecretary for commercial supervision affairs at the Ministry of Commerce, no violation has been registered against the Arabic restaurant in the Jahra governate as of yet. . . .
My comment – So here is what we know for sure:
A ministry official says the restaurant has not been closed for selling cat meat.
He says no violations has been registered AS YET.
He does not say the restaurant was not selling cat meat; he is saying the restaurant was not closed for selling cat meat.
What was interesting, is that both the Kuwait Times and Arab Times, when they reported this cat meat restaurant closing, said that because of connections in the government, this restaurant was unlikely to stay closed.
It is not unlike Make This Case Go Away where two youths are caught with a maid they have abducted and raped, they fight the arresting officer and bite him on the hand, they confess to what they have done . . . and no violation is registered, because the police officer is pressured by his superiors to drop the case.
It’s not like your next schwarma is guaranteed not to contain fresh cat meat. It’s only guaranteed not prosecuted.
If I sound angry, I am. Police and law enforcement officials are supposed to protect the public – that’s you and me. When the system is broken so badly that laws are not enforced against the transgressors, and worse, when courageous policement are punished for doing their job, it is a very very sorry state of affairs.
And I am convinced that God has a very special place in hell for those who abuse the trust the public places in them.
I sure wouldn’t eat any schwarma in Jahra.
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