Back in Kuwait
No, No don’t get excited. It’s a metaphor.
When I lived in Kuwait, I would tell my friends it was a lot like living in Alaska, and I loved the look on their faces. Then I would explain – in Alaska, people wait eagerly for good weather, and when it comes, they can’t get enough of it. We are outdoor people.
For much of the year, Alaskans are trapped inside, and have to be good at finding things to do to keep themselves from going crazy.
In Pensacola, as it was in Kuwait, the temperatures are very hot. Kuwait was mostly very dry, and had sandstorms, unlike Pensacola, but shared having a long coastline, and heat with humidity in the summers.
So now, as in Kuwait, I am up early, to get to the pool and swim my laps, so lovely and cool. If I need to grocery shop, I try to shop on the way home, so as not to have to venture out again as the day heats up. I get home, and tend to the Little Free Library while it is still in the shade. Most of the rest of the day I spend inside, except for picking up grandchildren at their camps.
It is a great time to do some quilting. I am just about to start when Ragnar, my helper, comes in to join me. (Also, AdventureMan is outside weed-eating and edging, which is of endless amusement and torment to Ragnar, who forgets he was once a feral, outdoor cat, and was lucky to survive.)
I do a couple more things to set up, hoping Ragnar will take the hint and move off to find something more interesting. He doesn’t. In the end, I have to lift him (lovingly) and place him in another room on a blanket we call Blue Mama, because Ragnar particularly loves sleeping on this blanket.
He doesn’t come back, and I spend the morning “back in Kuwait,” enjoying my confinement by working with fabrics and colors I love, patterns I would never wear but enjoy the challenge of working them into quilts.
Chasing Petroglyphs, the McConkie Ranch
Imagine a ranch at the bottom of a huge long red cliff, a private ranch, which allocates land to public parking and has created a path about a half a mile to the cliffs and then up the cliff itself, to the shelves where the petroglyphs are.
I hope they had volunteers helping, as there were steps and a well-cleared path to help us make the climb. To top it all off, there is no charge. There is a donation box in the parking lot. There is signage, there are marked trails. This is the generosity of the human spirit in action, making these petroglyphs available to those of us who take an interest in them. Not charging us anything, trusting we will donate. Creating paths and a place to park. God bless the McConkies.
We are delighted we can still make this sort of trek. While the path zigzagged, it felt like we were going straight up. In places, we needed to climb up rocks. We were both panting when we reached the top, but oh, it was so worth it. These petroglyphs, were Fremont people petroglyphs, some very simple and dramatic, but many glyphs of people with elaborate necklaces, headdresses (or else they were aliens), and clothing. It was worth every minute of the climb. These are some of the loveliest petroglyphs I have ever seen.
We were very conscious as we climbed that it was dangerous. There were slippery spots, and other places which required some climbing. It isn’t just a matter of fitness, it is also a matter of acclimation to the altitude – AdventureMan and I were both very aware of how vulnerable we are, making these climbs. And we are so exultant when we make it to the top. We can still do this!
What does it mean that there is a circle around so many of the figures? Does it mean they are living? Does it mean they have moved on to the next life? Is it some kind of ancient hula-hoop? What I love are the bodies, the way these figures are more modern, with wide shoulders narrowing to a smaller waist.
Culturally, we tend to think of people wearing earrings and necklaces as female – are these female? No sign of breasts. Are they warriors? Priests? We don’t know.
A purse? A warrior decoration? A metaphor for seeds and falling rain? This is a fertile field for speculation.
Circles. Ear decorations. Necklace. Eyes and Mouth!
I am fascinated by the creature to the left. Some kind of skirt – corn husks? What would constitute a lower covering with separate strands? Gives a masculine feeling, but shoulders not so broad as the others. (Can you see why we chase petroglyphs? So much mystery!)
Parts are lost as rock cleaves and sheds . . . this head appears square, but what is this decorated halo-like circle around the top of the head? What is in his hand – is that a bell of some kind, with a clapper? The head of an enemy? A space suit helmet?
Look – horns! AdventureMan, who loves to yank my chain, says this is clear proof of aliens among us from earliest times, with their space suit and buttons and elaborate decorations.
So many questions. Feathers? What is he holding? What are the extra lines from shoulder to waist? Is that a helmet on his head?
AdventureMan would say that this is proof of jet-propulsion suits. I think it may have more to do with procreation . . . But what about this guy in the lower right, his head is more rounded and he looks like he has antannae?
These crack me up. It looks like a scratch-pad to me, practice for something else. But wait – see below – an entire section appears to have been cut away! Where is it? What is missing? I don’t even begin to know where to start looking for answers.
For me, this interlude, at the McConkie Ranch, physically challenging, in the heat of the late afternoon (but what great light for photos!) was one of the highlights of our trip. I look at this work by an ancient people and I marvel.
We have chased petroglyphs in Botswana and Namibia, in Saudi Arabia, in France, and in the United States. None have enchanted me the way these have.
JoAnn Gives Me a Breath of Hope
Just when I had begun to think our USA culture of tolerance and inclusion was a thing of the past, I opened my e-mail this morning to discover an ad from JoAnn fabric with Ramadan offerings.
It doesn’t get much more middle-America than a trip to JoAnn fabrics, where people are buying fabric to make their own clothes, re-upholster their own furniture or make their own quilts or Easter wreaths. I was delighted.
Here are some of the fabrics they are offering for our Muslim friends who are about to celebrate their month of fasting en route to the Eid.
How cool is that?
NATO and Balalaikas
I could hear AdventureMan laughing as he read his book, and he called out to me “You’ve got to hear this!”
He’s reading an old Philip Kerr novel, Greeks Bearing Gifts, and he has come across this quote that is only funny in a gallows humor sort of way, considering current events in the Ukraine.
“Listen!” he begins to read:
Garlopis put the car in gear and we moved off smoothly. After a while he pressed a switch to operate the car’s electric window.
“Electric windows. Isn’t it wonderful? You look at a car like this and you think of America, and the future. When Americans talk about the American dream it’s not a dream about the past. That’s the difference between the American dream and a British one, a French one, or a Greek one. Ours is a dream that’s always about the past; and theirs is a dream that’s always about the future. A better tomorrow. Not only that, but I sincerely believe they’re prepared to guarantee that future for us all, by force of arms. Without NATO, we’d all be playing balalaikas.”
The story starts in 1957. It came out in 2018. It could not be more timely.
I’m having a hard time with this invasion, this invasion of the Ukraine to “defend the Fatherland.” Ukrainians say they are NOT Russians, the same way Iranians say they are not Arabs. They voted to be an independent country around the same time the Soviet Union collapsed. I heard the Ukrainian President say that “the Russian bear was going to have a very hard time digesting the Ukrainian porcupine.” I am praying that the Russian bear backs off in dismay, and respects the porcupine’s boundaries from now on.
Insh’allah
One of today’s readings in the Lectionary always brings a smile to my face. I can hear my teacher at the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam (where I was studying Arabic in Doha, Qatar) saying to me “don’t you know your own book? It tells you never to say you are going to do something without adding Insh’allah (God willing) because we never know even what the next minute will bring.”
James 4: 13-17
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
It’s a perfect reading for the last day of a troubled year, preparing for a year in which we have no idea what joys or troubles are in store for us.
Today, I look back with gratitude to that whole period in my life where I lived in the Middle East and was forced to confront my own ignorance. I was not only ignorant about my Muslim neighbors, I was equally ignorant about my own religion. My years among the Muslims motivated me to learn more about what I believed, and why.
This month, my religious mentor died. She had an enormous influence on my life, on bringing me to where I am today. When I returned to the United States, understanding how little I knew about my own religion, I enrolled in a four-year seminar in theology through an Episcopal Church program called Education for Ministry. It was life-changing. The first-year students read Old Testament, the second-year students read New Testament, the third-year students read Diarmaid MacCulloch’s book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, and the fourth-year students read a variety of theological perspectives.
(MacCulloch’s book is thick and intimidating – and surprised us all with how much fun it was to read.)
My mentor was a skilled counselor and guide; she led us through all-year discussions of our weekly readings, so in the four-year program, we not only were reading our own year but giving input on the other’s readings. The discussions were lively and provocative. Slowly, even without realizing it, the students bonded closely with one another. We learned a very important lesson – how to disagree with people, especially when you felt strongly about an issue, and remain respectful.
It has served me well, living as I do in another alien culture. Although I was raised in a hunting culture (Alaska), when I lived there people kept their weapons locked away when not in use. There was no open-carry. As kids, we were lined up at school and given vaccinations, which we accepted as being necessary for our own well-being and the well-being of the community. I don’t believe we had a single black person in town, but we had the original inhabitants, Inuit, Haida, Tlingket and we all went to school together peaceably. My father worked for the government, he served. Service to country is a tradition in my family. I am aghast at elected officials who mistake staging political drama for good governance. I struggle to achieve civil discourse about issues about which I feel strongly.
And so I am thankful for all the years living among others; among the vanquished in Germany, among the desert people of Tunisia, and among the people of Abraham’s other son, Ishmael. Their patience with me taught me so much about myself, and that even my strongly-held convictions may not be nuanced enough to capture what passes for truth. It serves me well to this day, and, I hope, will continue to humble me as we enter this coming new year, Insh’allah.
Going Postal
We have a great insurance company who sent us this notice this morning:
USAA is a government-friendly organization, providing insurance to people associated with the military. They have a first-class reputation.
It is a sad day when even government-friendly conservative organizations have to take notice of the disgusting failure of our current postal leadership.
As we were growing up, living in Alaska and in foreign countries, we had opportunities to compare our system to others. Americans put a priority on getting the mail delivered in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost. Other nations admired our efficiency, and our emphasis on the public service our postal system provided to the American people.
We need to get back to these very public-service-oriented values. The postal system is worth subsidizing to provide valuable services to citizens of the United States of America.
Into the Great Wide Open: Day 5 East Glacier to Helena
AdventureMan and I have different perspectives on this day. He thinks it wasn’t so bad. I think it was the worst day of our trip.
It started off great. We slept in – well, until 0730, which for my body time is 0830. We ate breakfast, packed out, thoroughly appreciating our three nights at Traveler’s Rest and the spaciousness and convenience of our beautiful cabin there.
AdventureMan suggested one last drive to Two Medicine, and it was beautiful, a totally different day from our first drive.
On the way back, we stopped at the glorious Glacier Park Lodge, and then for our last time at the Glacier Trading Post and picked up two pieces of huckleberry pie for the road. The crust on these pies is as delicious as their fillings!
As we head out of Browning, AdventureMan says “We can turn off the Bossy Lady now; we have been on this road so often we know the way without her, and you can turn her back on when we get near Helena.”
Long story short, an hour or so down the road, AdventureMan says “None of this looks familiar!” I say sure it does, because it’s all rural stuff, grain and storage for grain, railroad tracks, but it nags at me that AdventureMan might be right.
When I check, we are on A road but not the road we had intended. This road takes us to Great Falls and the interstate. We near Great Falls around lunch, find the Bear Diner and have what we agree is the most forgettable meal of our entire trip.
AdventureMan is right, it wasn’t a bad place, the service was good, I was just grumpy to be in Great Falls and eating calories that didn’t thrill me.
It is August, and nearly 80°F and this is at the entrance of the Bear Diner. It gave me a chill knowing winter can arrive suddenly, and it is best to be prepared.
This is also a day when there is a lot of haze, and I am a little nervous about breathing the particulate matter from the burning wildfires.
We get back on the road and arrive in Helena at 2:00, early for our B & B reservation. Fortunately for us, the room at The Carolina B&B is ready, and the hostess is very gracious, welcomes us, shows us to our room, The Anisette, and shows us around the beautiful mansion, full of beautiful furniture, carefully gathered, curated with care, and china, and exotic curios, full of artistic works and models and framed art. Everywhere you look is something of interest.
Tonight AdventureMan chooses a place for dinner, and we head downtown to one of the trendiest restaurants in town, Hokkaido, where we feast on Japanese cuisine. They specialize in Ramen and sushi, so I order some broth and a poke’ salad and a sushi roll, AdventureMan orders a seaweed salad and a couple rolls, and we share a large pot of green tea. Every table around us is filled with happy customers, old and young. It was the most varied demographic I have experienced, old and young, foreign and domestic, all economic levels, and the food was delicious, the service efficient and also friendly and helpful.
After dinner we explored Helena in the glowing late evening sunlight. We found a “mosque” which turned out to be the civic center, and AdventureMan found a statue of Theodore Roosevelt which turned out to be a statue of someone else in front of the Capitol building. We were staying in a very old neighborhood full of spectacular houses and a gorgeous old Catholic church, so we were able to spend some time walking before we turned in.
We were so glad to have chosen a room with its own bathroom. All through the night we could hear doors opening and closing, people using the bathrooms next door to our room. You could hear couples whispering to each other, which warned us to be careful because if we could hear them, they could also hear us.
Intlxpatr Celebrates 15 Years of Blogging
How could I miss my own blogaversary?
Fifteen Years! Whoda thunk it?
Remember when we all got started? 2005? 2006? I was reading blogs like Waiter Rant, Jewaira’s Boutique, Hilaliyya, Fonzi – and the lively Kuwait blogging scene inspired me to take a chance.
I’m not a big risk taker. My style is more uner-the-radar. The Kuwait bloggers welcomed me in, provided lively and stimulating feedback, we encouraged one another and we never looked back.
All these years later, I’m astonished to find I am still blogging. I remember a lengthy conversation in one of the comments sections about why we blog. I am still convinced that we blog because . . . that is what we are wired to do. We cannot other.
So really, I have an excuse for missing the exact day – September 6th – of my blog’s beginning.
I’ve been traveling. I bought a new computer, and you know those steep learning curves . . . I learned that when you buy a new computer, you no longer have compatible card readers with which to upload your photographs. If I’ve taken a photo with my iPhone, I can AirDrop it to my photo files, but anything taken with a camera to a SanDisk is just (pardon my language) SOL.
I also discovered that my good friends at Amazon don’t always tell me the truth about compatibility, so even though I bought an Apple gizmo that promised me to work with my new computer, it did not; it never even had the possibility. Go figure.
As a hint to what is coming, instead of Champagne, or Vouvray, or Sancerre, or a fine Bordeaux, this year we are going to have some refreshing, delicious Flathead Cherry Juice.
Thank you for coming by, thank you for your faithfulness and support these fifteen years and thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for reading, and for commenting, whether online or behind the scenes. Thank you for following. You, and our conversations, are what keep me going. Many thanks.
People Who Smell Like People
I’ve just finished a run and I’m lying flat on the floor under the ceiling fan to cool down. This little Alaska girl is not wired for running in heat and humidity; I run on a running trampoline between the air conditioning outlet and the ceiling fan.
As I lie on the ground, hot and sweaty, the cats can’t get enough of me. Uhtred in particular, loves body smells. When we go on vacation, AdventureMan leaves dirty underclothes to keep him from getting too lonesome. To Uhtred, my sweat seems to be like some rare purfume; he is rolling and bumping on me, purring, kneading, clearly out of his mind with delight.
I find myself thinking back to the days in the early 1960’s when we moved to Germany. The war had been over for years, but it was still a post-war country, where we couldn’t eat ice-cream because there were brucellosus outbreaks among cow herds. And people smelled differently.
Our first housing was in a hotel on a busy street with a street car, and we learned to take the street car everywhere. For a young teen, it was a world of freedom. But people . . . smelled. We could smell their perspiration. The women didn’t shave and neither men nor women washed or dry cleaned their clothes as often as we did.
As a girl, our culture taught us that we were never to have any smell other than shampoo, soap or a light perfume. As teen-agers, we had an utter horror of perspiration, or any other kind of personal odor.
We got used to it. At some point, we just accepted the difference. It was just a part of riding the streetcar, or shopping, the people smelled like people. We didn’t even think about it.
Years later, we found ourselves living in Tunisia, and once again, people smelled like people. We noticed, but we understood and accepted that it wasn’t right or wrong, it was just a difference.
Now, there are times when I miss Tunisia, I miss Zambia, I miss people who smell like people. It also occurs to me that we Americans may also not alway be so hygienic in the future, where world-class fires destroy huge portions of large states, where water is increasingly scarce, where hurricanes destroy electrical delivery systems and pumping systems. We may not wash our clothes as often, we may wear our clothes longer between washes, we may bathe less frequently – and we may smell like people.
Stream Julia Childs Season One
I am so blessed. Late in life, AdventureMan has discovered he loves to cook.
I always thought I was a good-enough cook, but another military wife and I would joke that after preparing thousands of meals on demand, to meet the needs of a picky but not very discerning family, our skills devolved to a more survival meal production than anything that could be considered fine dining.
When my son would come home from school and smell a dessert, he would say “Oh, are we having company for dinner?”
Not so AdventureMan.
Right now he is binge watching Julia Childs on Amazon Prime. It starts with her very first show, and it is both charming and hilarious, as she goes on and on about these new coated pans (teflon introduced around then.)
Tonight he fixed us a Salad Compose´with salmon and grilled asparagus, red peppers, purple potatoes, snow peas and garlic, and green beans. Very Mediterranean, and oh, so delicious.
You Can Now Binge-Watch Every Single Episode of The French Chef with Julia Child
AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
If you’ve always dreamed of cooking along with Julia Child, now’s your chance! The French Chef is streaming on Prime and PBS.
Julia Child wasn’t the first TV chef, but she’s certainly the most memorable.
Her iconic cooking show, The French Chef, was taped live. It dominated the televisions of home cooks from 1963 through 1973 and taught many a viewer how to cook like the French do. With her down-to-earth personality, Julia made dishes we could hardly pronounce—like beef bourguignon, bouillabaisse and coq au vin—seem doable.
She’s always with us in our hearts, thanks to her quick kitchen wit. Now, she’s back on our screens, thanks to PBS!
How to Stream The French Chef
In mid-March of 2019, PBS launched its PBS Living service, which includes classic cooking shows. PBS Living is an add-on service that you can access through your PBS membership, but you can also access it through Amazon Prime Video.
To access through Amazon Prime Video
To watch on Amazon Prime Video, you have to be a Prime member. You can sign up for a free trial for 30 days, after which it’s $12.99 per month. Then, join PBS Living, which is a paid opt-in channel for Prime subscribers. You can enroll in a free trial for 7 days, after which the cost is $2.99 per month. In addition to The French Chef, you’ll be able to access episodes of other iconic shows, including This Old House and Antiques Roadshow.
Don’t miss these timeless cooking lessons from Julia Child.
How to Watch Julia Child—Without Paying Extra
If neither of the above options works for you, you can still enjoy Julia Child on PBS via the free Julia Child Video Collection, consisting of full-length episodes of select Julia Child programming (including some early The French Chef episodes) as well as shorter interviews, behind-the-scenes clips and other snippets.
You can also catch reruns of all of Julia Child’s best French Chef episodes with celebrity chef commentary during Dishing with Julia Child!Must-Make Recipes Inspired by Julia Child
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