Pathetic and Divorce
When I saw this cartoon in the New Yorker, I laughed out loud. I have a friend whose husband is leaving her. No, that is not a laughing matter. He wants to be young again, he seeks (to no avail) younger girlfriends, and she has discovered he has a page on MySpace where he tries to make himself younger and cooler than he really is.
He is about to be wifeless, desperate to regain his lost youth, and pathetically eager to attract young women who really prefer hot young men. The “EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW Factor” is just too horrendous to contemplate.
He also has two teen aged sons. I can’t imagine how they must feel when they see Dad is leaving Mom, and has his own MySpace page.
Ya gotta love the The New Yorker.
Mom’s Rosemary Tree
One of my philosophies – no, no, don’t run away, this isn’t all that deep – is that things have a way of working out. No matter how too horrible everything can get, things work out, this passes, and in today’s hurried, bustling, transitory world, even the worst events fall into oblivion much of the time.
Mom phoned with a request – Lowe’s was having a sale on Rosemary trees, only $8.97, could we get one for her? She likes to have a sweet smelling Rosemary tree outside on her balcony. We went to Lowe’s immediately, first thing in the morning, and . . . they were already gone! There were more expensive ones – like double the price – but all the on-sale ones were already gone. Honestly, there must not have been very many to start with.
(You are probably asking why I didn’t just go ahead and buy it for her anyway. It’s not allowed. She gives her daughters envelopes of money and when we buy things for her that she has asked for, we have to pay from out of that envelope, or she won’t ask us anymore; it’s a matter of pride.)
From that day on, I kept an eye out for Rosemary trees (just maybe 16″ high), Home Depot, Fred Meyer, some of the larger local floral shops – nothing, or double what she wanted to pay.
Then, on my very last day in Seattle, I took Mom to Trader Joe’s. We all like Trader Joe’s, who carried foods and candies and cookies and wines that other more conventional grocers don’t carry. Mom needed to stock up for all her Christmas guests and Christmas entertaining. And there – for only $8.64, not even on sale, was the perfect Rosemary tree. It smelled divine. Here it is, safe in Mom’s basket:
Hussein Hustle, Montezuma’s Revenge, Etc.
The holiday season, and holiday travelling, is a peak time for food poisoning illnesses. Here is some information, and some reminders, from BBC News: Health on how you can avoid getting – and giving – food related illnesses this season:
Food Poisoning
What is it?
It’s estimated there are more than 9 million cases of gastroenteritis each year in England. For an increasing number of people, it’s due to food poisoning, something that’s preventable.
Gastroenteritis describes symptoms affecting digestion, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach pain. Food poisoning is the type of gastroenteritis caused by eating or drinking something contaminated with micro-organisms or germs, or by toxic substances produced by these germs.
These illnesses are often accompanied by fever, muscle aches, shivering and feeling exhausted.
What causes it?
Micro-organisms enter the body in one of two ways:
In the food – the food isn’t cooked thoroughly, so the micro-organisms aren’t killed off, often the case with barbecued food.
On the food – the person preparing the food doesn’t wash their hands before handling the food, for example.
Campylobacter infection is the most common cause of food poisoning seen by GPs. It likes to live in milk and poultry.
Other common causes include salmonella, listeria, shigella and clostridia. Some take a few hours to cause symptoms, others a few days. Serious infections with E.coli are, fortunately, uncommon.
How can I prevent it?
Always wash your hands thoroughly before preparing food, after going to the toilet and after handling pets
Keep kitchen work surfaces clean
Make sure food is defrosted completely before cooking
Keep pets away from food
Ensure food is cooked thoroughly before eating. Meat shouldn’t have any pink bits
Serve reheated food piping hot
Keep raw meat and fish covered and store at the bottom of the fridge
Store all perishable foods at 5°C (41°F) or less
Keep raw food covered up
Rinse fruit and vegetables under running water before eating
Throw away any food that’s past its use-by date, doesn’t smell right and/or has fungus on it
The Big Fight
AdventureMan and I had a big fight last night; I made it worse because I wouldn’t fight. It only made him angrier that I laughed and walked away.
Too much information? Sometimes, most of the time, a fight isn’t about what it seems to be about. When you have been married a LOOOONNNNGGGG time, you learn, thanks be to God.
AdventureMan is jet lagging, and working too hard. He takes all his responsibilities so seriously. He needed to go to sleep. And that is exactly what he did. Right after dinner, he fell asleep. The Qatteri Cat (he told me this morning) knew something was up and took two of his babies in to AdventureMan to make things better.
We were both up early this morning, laughing. He came up with a wonderful idea for date-night tonight, one of my favorite restaurants, and then . . . (if we can stay awake) we are going to watch this:
I know ya’ll have seen it, but we haven’t, and it just came out on DVD last week in the US.
Dubai Rape Case Update
Here is an update on the case where the 15 year old French boy was kidnapped, taken to the desert and raped, and then the accused said it was consensual. The parents took them to court – and two have now been convicted; the third has yet to be tried. The doctor who examined this boy told the boy he was a homosexual, that there were no signs of rape. The parents were outraged, and pursued the case.
You can read the entire BBC Story HERE.
Emiratis jailed for raping youth
A court in Dubai, in the UAE, has jailed two men for 15 years for the abduction and sexual assault of a 15-year-old French-Swiss boy.
The men, one of whom is HIV positive, took the teenager to the desert and raped him at knifepoint.
The victim’s mother, Veronique Robert, says the authorities lied about the defendant’s medical status to hide the fact that Aids is present in the UAE.
“Fifteen years is nothing for someone who knew he had Aids,” she said.
A lawyer for the family said they would appeal against what they saw as a too-lenient sentence. A juvenile court is trying a third suspect in the same case.
The defence had claimed the victim had consented to sex and had lied to the authorities.
Treatment missed
Ms Robert has been campaigning to change the law in the United Arab Emirates to recognise homosexual rape as a crime and for more openness about HIV and Aids.
Big Diamond’s Bat-about
Oh Big Diamond, you can’t imagine. You have an eye for the very best gifts.
I’m sorry the shot is not clear. We can’t get the Qatteri Cat to stay still when he has the bat-about toy. This was the best of all the photos – most, the bat-about disappeared just as I was shooting. *dying laughing* He loved it from the minute it came out of the suitcase.
When we all woke up – around 3 this morning, it was the first thing the Qatteri Cat went for, even before his food. He loves the bat-about, and AdventureMan and I are rolling with laughter, watching him play with it. It is great exercise, and such fun for him – and for us.
It is one of the BEST Christmas gifts ever. Thank you!
Take That, Paxil!
One of the blog sites which has been using my blog content to attract people to its pages is Paxil Online. Here is the comment I left on their page today:
You seem to be lifting the content from several of my blog entries. I do not want to be associated with Paxil, which is an antidepressant associated with violence, suicide and anti-social behaviors in young men.
The young men who shocked the world in Columbine both had taken antidepressants. The most recent mass killing in the US was also by a young man who had been on antidepressants. The use of antidepressants by young men must be closely monitored; the big pharmacological firms don’t want you to know how often these medications are associated with thoughts of suicide, hallucinations, violent and anti-social behavior.
I don’t think they will be lifting this content! 🙂
Kuwait: Making a Difference
I want to share with you a comment on my environment day post from one of our local bloggers, NicoleB / Rainmountain. She is a professional photographer, and describes below her one-woman (successful!) effort to clean up, and keep clean, the Mangaf beach. Brava, Rainmountain! Because of her example, others are taking their own trash to the trash cans, rather than leaving it, the trash collectors are encouraged, and working harder, and the beach is visibly cleaner. Brava! Brava!
Here is her comment from my environmental blog day post:
I’ve started cleaning our small beach here in Mangaf and now, half a year later, it’s almost clean at any time.
The trash guys are doing more and some people seemed to have picked up and do some cleaning too.
Sad part is to come down there and see that someone had a party and left all their stuff there.
So, you just go and start all over again.
It makes me sometimes wonder if people a) have no common sense and b) no pride in their country.
I had various weird conversations about this topic.
Here’s a copy from my blog of one of them:
Man: Excuse me, do you speak English?
Me: Yes?!
Man: What are you doing there?
Me: Collecting trash….?!
Man: Why are you doing that? They (pointing at that poor guy still waiting) do THAT.
Me: And the beach is still dirty….
Man: But that is the way it is.
Me: No. It’s not.
Man: Since when are you here?
Me: Six weeks and since then the beach is much cleaner, don’t you think?
Man: How do you like it here?
Me: It’s beautiful, if everyone would pick up his trash.
End of conversation. It seems he didn’t know what to answer, or thought it would be useless, but maybe he got the idea
Surviving Family Functions
As my Mom and I were driving along, on our way to Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up having a surprising conversation about family Thanksgivings. I was telling her how I grew up hating Thanksgiving, that Dad and I always had a big fight because he was mad at me for taking a book along, I was meant to be interacting with the family.
I think parents forget how noisy and intimidating family events can be. I don’t know about your family, but in most families there are a few weird ducks, or maybe they get weirder when they all get together. Taking a book and finding a quiet place to read helped me survive these events. As I grew older, and got to know family members on an individual basis, quiet, one-on-one – I learned that there were several of them I actually liked a whole lot. There is one aunt who is probably my main role model, and one cousin who is one of those I would trust with my life secrets.
Mom doesn’t remember the fights, she doesn’t remember my taking a book. “Why would you?” she says in absolute incredulity. Mom never met a party she didn’t like – she is a very social being, to her very core. I still feel her hand at my back, slightly pushing me into the room with a big smile pasted on all our faces, saying “Mingle, girls, mingle!”
I love being a grown up. I love being able to say “no,” and I even love the growing grace to face situations I hate and get through them. I love meeting up with fellow introverts in other cultures and learning, that under the skin, we all face a lot of the same problems.
“Ach! Birthday parties!” exclaimed my German friend, a fellow Mac-user and graphics designer. “I would love to be you, to live somewhere else, and never have to attend another birthday party!” In my little village, where, by the grace of God, they included me in everything, I came to understand what she meant. On a person’s birthday, every woman in the village brings at least one cake, and oh man, these cakes are special. Most are loaded with cream, whipped, and imbued heavily with alcohol. Every person must take a slice of almost every cake (and my body doesn’t like all the fat in cream and rebels) and you sit for hours having the same conversation you had at the last birthday party. I was just an outsider in the village, not even a family member, and it was hard for me to say no. The force of tradition has so much weight!
My Kuwaiti friends also occasionally confide their impatience with expectations that you will show up regularly and stay – maybe at grandma’s every Friday for the mid-day meal, maybe there are a whole bunch of weddings all at once and you end up attending several nights in a row and feeling like something the cat dragged in the next day . . . I think every culture has these expectations, and every culture has those who thrive in a social environment and those who – like me – don’t.
Oh, if you saw me now, you would THINK I am in my element. I have learned how to fake it! My social Mother’s training has paid off; I LOOK fluent in social events. Underneath, however, I am the same old person who does best one-on-one.
AOL Healthy Living (you can read it HERE has published a list of tactics for surviving the inevitable family / group functions you can’t avoid.
1. Expectations
Holidays are all about expectations. Will mom love my gift? I hope we do a group sing-along. You want the holidays to be perfect, but cut down the fantasy. Instead, think about what you want to get out of it all — relaxed Thanksgiving with your in-laws or a New Year’s Eve that doesn’t end with a hangover.
2. Arrive Late, Leave Early
The traditional seven hour marathon — drinks, dinner, presents, television — is too much “together time” for most families. Shortening the party can make a dramatic difference. And if you’re in for a sleepover, take breaks from the crowd. It’s as simple as walking around the block or crawling into bed early with a good book.
3. Don’t Drink too much
Many people use the holiday as an excuse to eat, drink and be merry to excess. Rarely a good idea around family. Alcohol, in fact, can be a real serious problem in a lot of households. When the drinking gets out of hand, all the old animosities come out to play, and hostile, regrettable or embarrassing things are said — or worse.
4. Presents
You spend hours selecting the perfect present for your sister and she hands you … a candle. And a re-gift at that. Newsflash: Not everyone’s as thoughtful as you are. The best solution here is to discuss gift-giving — how much to spend, what you’d like — with her and the rest of the clan beforehand.
5. Don’t Get Sucked into the Craziness
Holidays can cause otherwise sane adults to revert to their worst childhood selves. And that’s not accounting for dad’s sarcasm and mom’s incessant pleading. If you find yourself falling into the same old roles, do (or say) something to derail that train. Don’t get sucked into the craziness again.
6. Focus on the NOW
Your big bro was mom’s favorite. Okay, but after 30-odd years, that’s not going to change. Focus on the now. You’ll have a much better time if you practice forgiveness and try to accept family members as they are, even if they don’t live up to all your expectations.
7. Seek Out Those You Love
Your relatives spend the holidays in the mall. That’s not for you. Rather than sulk, seek out the people you really love and miss, and ask them for a little face time. Also, urge your host to set smaller tables so you could sit with your favorite cousin without listening to your uncle bluster on all night.
8. Things Won’t be Perfect
Don’t deny it: You’re thinking you have to be an ideal daughter in-law and hostess; make the consummate green bean casserole and buy the best gifts. Not gonna happen. Stop trying to be perfect and comparing yourself to others, and realize that all you can do is try your best.
9. Focus on the Positive
In the end, think about exactly what you’re celebrating here. Joy. Caring. Sharing. Think about your family gatherings as if you were in church, synagogue or a mosque. You wouldn’t be bickering with or judging others, right? Okay, maybe you would. But let’s keep that on the DL — at least while you’re all together.
And I would add one more – 10. If you are one of the more social types who LOVE family gatherings, have a little pity on the introverts, who find large gatherings a little overwhelming! Try to get a little one-on-one time with them, try to have some opportunities for quiet conversations.
Winter Storm at Taqueria Guaymas
“I think you had better drive me to the airport,” Adventure Man said as the flakes came down more thickly and stuck.
I just laughed.
“The time to have driven to the airport was this morning,” I replied. “Have you even packed?”
(I knew he hadn’t!)
“The snow is coming down too hard right now. It’s supposed to be better in the morning.”
As the snow came down, harder and thicker, he tried to call all the airport shuttle companies, but they were all fully booked – or not answering.
“How about one last Mexican dinner?” he asked.
We went to one of our favorite hands-down authentic Mexican restaurant, Taqueria Guaymas. Adventure Man had a combo, which you will see photographed below, and I had the shrimp with garlic, but I was so hungry I just ate them and forgot to take their picture!
(This is not taken during the snow-storm)
Can you read the menu? It is the honest-to-God real thing:
Adventure Man’s Chili Colorado combo, and look at that salsa – very limey, lots of cilantro, and hot peppers – oh WOW:
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