Before and Now
No, my house is not undergoing a ‘remodel.’ It is undergoing a rewiring. About the best that will happen is that when it is finished, it will look a lot like it looked before, except with invisible copper wiring instead of aluminum wiring, which, as it turns out, is problematic.
Sigh. And then again, what better time to have this all done than BEFORE you move in? If it had to happen, it couldn’t have happened at a better time, and we have some truly great contractors. How many times have you ever heard someone say that?
Today I went by the house to pick up the mail and holy smokes – the garage is full of ceiling, and my house is bare bones!
Here are some before and after shots:
Family Room Before:
Family Room Now:
Kitchen Before:
Kitchen Now:
Living Room Before:
Living Room Now:
And last but not least – the Garage before:
And the Garage now:
“Health Care Could be Fixed Overnight . . .”
Today, AOL ran commentaries on American health care and whether the new proposals will make a difference. The comment of one CEO who runs an enormous health provider, caught my eye. As I read it, I thought “he is talking about the USA, but the exact same thoughts apply to Qatar, to Kuwait, to Germany, where an epidemic of self-inflicted health problems is growing wildly.” And it also occurs to me that he is laying the accountability squarely where it belongs – on our shoulders.
David Feinberg, M.D., M.BA.
CEO, UCLA Hospital System
“The debate they’re having now in Washington is the wrong discussion,” says Feinberg. “They’re not talking about health-care reform. They’re talking about health insurance reform. The bill in Congress has nothing to do with health care.” He explains that health care could be fixed overnight if people would stop using alcohol and drugs, eat right and exercise.
“I have 800 patients in this hospital today, and I bet 50 percent of them have illnesses that could have been completely prevented,” Feinberg says. “That situation is not going to get better with a ‘public option.'”
He points out that even people without health insurance can receive care when they need it in the emergency room, and, while it’s not ideal, they’re not being denied care because they don’t have health insurance. “It’s impossible to give high quality, low cost care to everyone. What we need is to decrease demand for health care.”
According to Feinberg, some 75 percent of illnesses are treated at home, whether that’s a bad cold or a sprained ankle, and he says that health-care reform should be focused on home care. “When you compare us to other countries with similar Gross Domestic Products, they spend half what we do on health care because they have a different lifestyle,” he says. “We either need to change our lifestyle, or it’s going to be very expensive.”
“With all due respect,” he adds, “the surgeon general is obese. I don’t think the President of the United States should be solving this.” Rather, he says, each individual needs to come to terms with the fact that eating right, exercising, and avoiding smoking and alcohol will transform not only their own lives but the ever increasing cost of health care in this country.
You can read all the commentaries on AOL Health News. I know most of us in my age group need more exercise (not you, Big Diamond!) and are beginning to stave off the common age-related problems of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, aches and pains, etc. We all KNOW we could be eating better and exercising more. We are smart educated people – but do we do what we know is best for ourselves? NNoooooooooooo!
I see the same epidemic striking in Germany, in Qatar and in Kuwait, people who have enough to eat are eating too much. Yes. Yes. I’m guilty. And I exercise a lot less than I need to. I was so happy to get back into a house, with stairs, so at least I would get the exercise of going up and down stairs a few times a day.
Japan has instituted a national policy of health, measuring citizens waists and penalizing them for carrying too much weight. I will be interested to see how it works out, if it pays off in health benefits and lowered costs down the road. It’s an inspired mandate.
Babies Love to Dance!
Now here is a study I love! Scientists studied babies movements to music and discovered – babies love rhythm, and love to move to the rhythm! Get those babies dancing!
If they find rhythm and music more engaging, sing to them!
They Got Rhythm, Study of Babies Finds
Lauren Frayer
Contributor
AOL News
(March 16) — Babies innately respond to rhythm more than speech, according to a new study that found dancing comes naturally to infants.
Researchers in Britain and Finland tested the responses of 120 babies ages 5 months to 2 years and found that infants are much more physically responsive to music than to speech and find it more engaging.
In the experiment, which was recorded on video, babies were perched on their mother’s or father’s lap while psychologists played a recording of music. The babies moved their heads, arms, legs and bodies in time to the beat of various different genres of music.
“Our research suggests that it is the beat rather than other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the response in infants,” one of the study’s authors, psychologist Marcel Zentner of the University of York in England, said in statement.
In order not to influence the baby’s movements, the parent wore headphones to block out the sound of the music and was asked to stay still during the experiment.
The recordings included classical music, rhythmic beats and also speech. They also hired professional ballet dancers to analyze the babies’ movements and determine how well-coordinated they were with the music. All of the babies responded more to the music than to speech.
The findings suggest humans may be born with a predisposition to move rhythmically in response to music.
“It remains to be understood why humans have developed this particular predisposition,” Zentner said. “One possibility is that it was a target of natural selection for music or that it has evolved for some other function that just happens to be relevant for music processing.”
Zentner and Tuomas Eerola of Finland’s University of Jyvasklya also found that the more the babies’ movements were synchronized to the music, the more they smiled.
The study appears in the March 15 issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rapist Given Reduced Sentence
This is from the Gulf Times Court RoundUp
Life sentence commuted
A Doha appeals court has commuted to five-year imprisonment the life sentence given to a local teenager, who was convicted of raping a Sri Lankan housemaid.
Two Sri Lankan men in their late 20s were sentenced in absentia by a Doha court of first instance to 15 years imprisonment for helping the accused to perpetrate the crime.
The court heard that the two Sri Lankan accomplices who worked in a car washing facility told the main accused about the woman.
The rape took place soon after midnight on August 14, 2007.
According to the chargesheet, the main accused impersonated as a policeman and dragged the victim to his car, before they drove to a remote area.
“The two accomplices were paid money for their help and they left the car leaving the teenager with the 25-year old maid alone in a remote area.”
The court heard that the woman was too weak to resist the rapist, which was why no trace of violence was visible on her body.
“I shouted for help but in vain,” she said.
Explaining the commutation of the sentence, the court said that it took into consideration the young age of the convict and his clean record.
OK. So two Sri Lankan men tell a ‘local’ man about an Ethiopian house maid, and they plot to kidnap her, take her far out into the desert and to rape her.
Their plot succeeds, only somehow, they are identified and actually brought to trial.
The two Sri Lankans escape, and are convicted in their absence. The ‘local’ man is given a life time sentence. But wait! His sentence is commuted to five years because of his youth and clean record?
If I were a Qatteri father, I would want to know this man’s name. I would not want a man marrying my daughter who had a history of kidnapping a woman and raping her against her will way out in the desert. This man may be young, but he has already shown himself capable of doing something hugely WRONG, according to his own culture, and the law of the country. He plotted. He went to the trouble of impersonating a policeman to intimidate her into his car. He took her to a place where there would be no help for her, and she endured a terrifying experience, an experience she did not know she would live through, and an experience which will haunt her life and make her feel unsafe forever.
And this unnamed ‘local’ teenager gets five years in prison. Here is a good example of where a female judge might make a substantial difference in delivering justice for the Ethiopian housemaid.
First Woman Judge in Qatar
I am delighted to hear that Qatar has appointed its first female judge. I have to points of contention with this article. First – while I want women to have the same opportunity to be judges as men, I do not believe that because they are women, they can solve family rows better. I believe some female judges may be better than some male judges, but I don’t believe women will be better with family issues just because they are women. Women have agendas, too.
Second, one female judge does not fill a void. It sets a precedent. It breaks new ground. It IS a great and wonderful thing for Qatar.
It does not fill a void. Take all the judge positions in Qatar, and divide them by the percentage of females in Qatar – say like 50%. The void for female judges is equal to 50% of the positions. The void is not yet filled. Filling that void has just begun.
A woman judge can solve family rows better, say female lawyers
Web posted at: 3/13/2010 6:15:3
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Family courts in Qatar which hear marital disputes and claims for the custody of children from divorced or separated couples were in bad need of women judges, so with the appointment of Sheikha Maha Mansour Al Thani as an assistant judge, the dream has come true, say prominent women lawyers.
Being party to marital disputes or disputes involving the custody of children, women can be better understood by judges from their ilk.
So with Sheikha Maha having been appointed as judicial assistant, the void has been filled, said lawyer Neda Al Sulaiti.
She, however, clarified that she did not mean that women should be appointed judges only in certain courts.
“Women are capable, so they can be judges in all types of courts. It is another thing, though, that family courts here were particularly in bad need of female judges,” she told a local Arabic daily.
According to her, Sheikha Maha’s appointment to this elevated judicial position is a tribute to the rising clout of Qatari women. “They carry out in an excellent way whatever responsibility is assigned to them,” said the lawyer.
Qatari women are highly qualified and talented. They are in the ministry and the Central Municipal Council (CMC). So it was high time they were represented in the judiciary as well.
When women can be good lawyers why they cannot be good judges, she argues.
Flat Stanley: Oh The Places You’ll Go!
This title refers to two classic American books that most kids are familiar with. The first book,
Flat Stanley (at Amazon.com) is about a boy who is flat and figures out that he can go places by envelope. The second book is a book by Dr. Seuss, Oh! The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss (at Amazon.com) one of those books parents read to their children and at some point the children say “Look! I can read!” and they will appear to be reading the book because they have heard it so many times.
Some really smart and creative elementary teacher figured out how to turn Flat Stanley into a lesson combining writing and geography, and now kids are making flat versions of themselves and mailing themselves to far-away places. My friend, Grammy, has received requests to help with these projects at least twice – and oh, the fun we have with these flat kids.
You take pictures. You explain what Stanley is doing. You make a slide show and send it to the kid to share with his class. What a wonderful way to make another country come to life! These kids will know where Doha, Qatar is! They will know some of the sights in Doha. Can you imagine? I wish geography had been so much fun when I was a kid!
It also reminds me to tell you, our friends in the states, that living in places like Doha is NOT SCARY. Look at the faces of all the people who helped us with Flat Stanley. Every single person we encountered was delighted to help us. No one ever said no, and some even volunteered extra ideas. In the souks today were some school children groups, and they helped too, although I am not posting photos because I don’t have their parent’s permissions, but it was one of the sweetest moments of the day, with these adorable children holding Flat Stanley.
Stanley visits the maker of lutes:
Stanley rides a camel:
Stanley takes a ride on a dhow:
Stanley visits the falcon souk, only sadly, falcon season is over, so there are no live falcons 😦
Stanley takes a rest in an incense burner:
Stanley visits the scribes:
Stanley hitches a ride with a souk cop on his Segway:
Stanley tries out a model tent at the tentmaker’s souk:
Stanley visits our friend, the Yemeni honey man, who also sells some of the worlds most wonderful baskets from the Asir in Yemen:
The weather is perfect. Take a trip to the souks. Get outside your normal boundaries and explore a little. Doha is a sweet family city, with lots to do, lots of family activities, great places for walking (the Corniche, Aspire Park, the beaches). Do it now, before the weather gets intense!
Unexpected Blessings
Yesterday I received an unexpected thrill – a letter from a publishing house in Zambia asking to use a photo of a quilt I made in a textbook they are publishing for Namibian children. We have traveled often to Zambia, and once to Namibia. Namibia is a thrilling country, as hot and dry and dusty as Qatar and Kuwait, and as rich, due to diamond deposits.
This is the quilt they will be using. I made it for my husband when I first started quilting, and more experienced quilters said I was crazy. It is a huge quilt, ample for a California king sized bed, but I knew I needed 3″ squares (I had some giraffe fabric I wanted to use) and as the quilt assumed a life of its own, it ended up much larger than I had planned.
It has many African fabrics, one a piece I bought in Tunisia about 30 years ago. I put a piece of it in all my map quilts.
Here are a couple of my more recent quilts. The first is the one I made for my new grandson 🙂
This one is one I started many years ago, but didn’t know how to make it work the way I wanted it to. Twelve years later, I pulled it out and knew exactly what to do and had it pieced together in one morning. 🙂
All these years of living abroad, with AdventureMan working long hours and often traveling, quilting has kept me sane. It provides me with friends who speak the same language – patterns, textures and colors – no matter where I go in the world. It is so absorbing that sometimes I look up and an entire day has passed while I work on a quilt, and it’s time to fix dinner . . . Dinner? No! No! I am going to sew for another hour and order out!
One of the things quilting groups do is to help you stretch and to try new things. Literally, the groups hold CHALLENGES. This was a challenge where it was to show you and a facet of your personality – so this is how I see me with the green Gulf in the background. I made this while living in Kuwait and participating in the quilting guild which is part of the Kuwait Textile Arts Association there. 🙂
There is a wonderful guild in Qatar, the Qatar Quilters. They meet once a month and have nearly 100 members – imagine! Women who quilt come from all Qatar to attend. At the meetings, they show what they have been working on, and teach one another new ways to create quilts. They share information on where to find quilting tools and which shop has recently received a new shipment of fabrics.
You can learn more about the Qatar Quilters by visiting their blog: Qatar Quilters The lady you see in the first photo is one of the Qatar Quilter founders.
Doha – Pensacola – Doha
I was always a KLM frequent flyer, when my destination was Seattle, the Amsterdam – Seattle direct flight was the least hassle from Kuwait. From Doha, however, there is an annoying stop in Dammam. a ghostly airport in Saudi Arabia, where all the men who have been working on the oil rigs and in isolated locations get on. Some families also board, but most of the passengers are men who like to drink and talk talk talk in loud voices when the rest of us just want to sleep en route to Amsterdam.
Now that we are flying to Pensacola, we could still go KLM, but one time when KLM cancelled my flight and didn’t tell me, they put me on an Emirates flight out of Kuwait around six at night that got me to Dubai in about an hour, and then put me on a Delta flight that landed early the next morning, not in Amsterdam, but in Atlanta. In another couple hours I was in Pensacola.
Hmmm. Let’s see – 23 hours of flying plus seemingly endless layovers in airport lounges and an additional annoyance factor of the landing in Dammam, OR a short flight + a very long walk in the new Dubai airport to the next terminal + checking in again because the airlines are not partners (bags are checked all the way through, though, so it is only a ticketing issue) and then a very very long flight that gets you there the next morning . . . I’ll opt for the long flight. Now that Delta and KLM are partners, all my miles still count.
Downside. It is a very long flight. There are also a lot of women and children on board, and the first time, I sat next to a little boy who threw up. I felt really sorry for the little boy and his Mom, and I was nice about it, but the smell of throw up makes me feel very much like throwing up. Memorable flight.
This time, because we needed to accomplish a lot in a hurry and needed to be at our best from the moment we arrived, we went business class. Wooo HOOO. I love the Business Class on this flight. All the things that matter to me – Privacy . . . Comfortable Sleeping . . . Quiet cabin . . . relatively clean restrooms . . .
This is what the sleeping pod looks like:
En route back to Doha from Pensacola, when I got to the departure terminal, there was an extra delight – a live pianist in the food mall. I don’t know if this is a paid pianist or a volunteer but she was GOOD! She was also enthusiastic and lively, and played a bunch of old Beatle’s songs. It brightened up what might have been a dull time.
After all that Grandmama-ing and house buying, I was exhausted, and I really slept a lot all the way home. I am paying for it now. I have never had jet lag so extreme or so long. Almost a week later, I am still unable to sleep through the night, falling asleep at weird times, like 8 p.m. and waking up around 2 in the morning. Aarrgh.
Other than that, my life is very dull right now. Packing boxes. Toting things I won’t need – 220v appliances, for example – to people that might need them. Packing more boxes, clearing out cupboards, trying to figure out what I need to keep and what I can freely freely give. Didn’t I just do this? Like yesterday? Leaving Kuwait for Doha?
Some nights I cook, some nights we go out to old favorite restaurants we want to hit one more time – The Majlis. The Little Sailor. The Beirut. Beijing. Royal Tandoor. Places we know we will miss when we are living in Pensacola. Trying to figure out what to take with me in suitcases, what to ship in our limited air cargo, and what I can live without for three months (!)
Of course, the carrot on the end of this long stick is living near our son and his bride and our little grandson. 🙂 Makes it all worthwhile.
Some ‘adventures’ are more irksome than others. This moving stuff is getting old. For those of you who are asking in the background, yes, the Qatteri cat goes with us. He is a member of our family!
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