Qatteri Cat in the Pensacola Sunshine
Haven’t done a shot of the Qatteri Cat for a while, and I am always getting requests. He is sleeping with his Dad (AdventureMan) right now, keeping him company while he takes his JetLag Nap.
Here’s a shot from earlier in the day. We get the early morning sunshine, and the QC takes his morning sunbath, watching the world go by:
He is losing a little weight, slowly, the way the vet recommended. When you know how many people in the world are going hungry, it is obscene what a Diet Cat food costs. 😦 The QC now weighs under 20 lbs; this is a good thing.
This is a tiny little Qatteri street cat, found wandering, cold and hungry, with an eye infection, on the Corniche in Qatar about 7 years ago. We have promised him no more long airplane trips; it was just too traumatic for him. But – that was yesterday. As long as the sun is shining and the Qatteri Cat is warm, hey, life is good. 🙂
Crabs on Pensacola Beach
We love seafood, and after hiking around on Ft. Pickens, we were ready for a late lunch. We did something we rarely do, we deliberately chose a very touristy restaurant surrounded by people on Spring break, lots of college kids, lots of high school kids, lots of parents with very young kids, maybe the elementary schools are also having Spring Break, but also – it’s Saturday.
And it is gorgeous on Pensacola Beach, temperatures in the low 80’s (F), a nice breeze, some fluffy clouds now and then, and the Crabs looks like just the right place. It is huge. It says it can take ‘large parties’ and it looks like it has seen a large party or two.
They have a huge sign. It says “We’ve got CRABS!”
It is right on the beach. It has several levels, and I am guessing, based solely on my observations of the demographics, that young things in swimming suits, couples, and people with small children get seated on the beach level and people wearing clothes (us) are seated one floor up. That’s fine with us, by the way, we got this gorgeous table with a view that goes on forever, overlooking the entire beach scene.
We also decided we’ve lived in the Middle East too long. We keep thinking those women need to put on some more clothes! And they ask us if we are missionaries! Think maybe my skirts are a little too long?
There was a huge crowd. Service was very friendly, but SLOW. When our food came . . . we were so hungry. I forgot to take photos. We were half way through when I remembered . . . 😦
This is what half of Crabs Shrimp and Fish dish looked like:
This is what AdventureMan’s Southern Mixed Seafood looked like:
We have so much left over that we are having it for dinner tonight!
Olive Oil: Reading the Labels
Ever since I read the New Yorker article on The Olive Oil Scandle I have been goosey about olive oils, reading the labels. My friends (Palestinian) tell me I should always buy Palestinian olive oil, and from the oils they have shared with me, holy smokes! I think they are right.
Try finding Palestinian olive oil in Pensacola. Honestly, sometimes I am afraid they are going to arrest me in the stores as I stand for a half hour, turning all the bottles and trying to read the labels, some of which are in very very tiny print. One thing the Gulf States (Arabian Gulf, my friends) have going for them is some excellent labeling on the foods they import.
When I came across this label, I could hardly believe it. I am sure they probably don’t like me photographing in the stores, but as long as no one says anything to me, I do it. Often I am saying something nice, anyway.
So here is the front of the bottle; it looks promising:
Here is the reverse side, showing the origin of the oil, or at least where parts of it might come from . . .
Horrors! What a mess! Every bottle could be different, it’s like cat food and dog food, it’s what the oil bottler could find that was the cheapest at the moment, and maybe it is from Spain, or maybe from Tunisia or who knows where? I will NEVER buy an oil that looks like that!
Meanwhile, the search for Palestinian olive oil goes on . . .
Pensacola Navy Exchange and Customer Service
One of the things that totally blows us away in the United States is customer service. Every now and then you run into bad customer service and it is so noticeable because most of the customer service is so GOOD. It is so good so often that you take it for granted, if you haven’t lived in countries where sometimes they treat you like you are lucky they notice your existence and maybe you aren’t good enough for their product, LOL!
I have a sweet, very elegant Indian friend in Kuwait. One time she told me she wanted to buy a beautiful pen for her husband, but when she went to the store, the man behind the counter didn’t want to show her the pen she wanted – because she is Indian. She said “here he is, working behind the counter, and he treats me like he doesn’t think I can afford to buy the pen I want to look at!” How insulting is that??
Oops. I digress. Sorry.
We decided to check out the Navy Exchange in Pensacola. Pensacola is a big military retirement area. It is a beautiful place, beautiful white powdery sands, green to turquoise to blue to purple waters, green palms and trees and right now azaleas blooming everywhere – many military people think it is heaven on earth, and come back to retire here. It’s a fun place, the Blue Angels practicing on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings; you can hear them thundering through the skies and over the Gulf, practicing their moves.
We get to the exchange (the souks, for my Gulf readers 😉 ) I am disappointed – it’s small. There is another building, but it is also small, and I am looking for big appliances, like a clothes washer and dryer. As we are leaving, a store guy asks us if we found everything OK, and we said ‘no, not really’ and he listened to us and then laughed and told us we were at the wrong place, and he took his time to tell us how to get to the right place, and to make sure we understood.
When we got to the right exchange (and it is HUGE!) there were lots of parking places – I love this place. We parked next to a reserved space. There are lots of reserved spaces – remember, this is a military base. The commander of this, the commander of that, a space for flag officers (generals) and then . . .this space. It gave me a big grin. And there are TWO of them, right in front of the Naval Exchange:
In my seven years in the Gulf, in Qatar and in Kuwait, I saw some amazing changes, including going from total disregard of handicapped spaces to increasing respect for the handicapped spaces. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a couple Expectant Mother spaces reserved in front of the Co-ops, and maybe in front of Toys R Us, and the hospitals?
Once inside, I was looking at washer and dryers, and a lady asked if she could help me. I said no, but then I couldn’t find the ones I was looking for, the ones recommended by Consumer Reports and I saw the lady behind a counter so I asked her. She said if we didn’t see them, we could order them, looked them up and told me the price, which was only minimally lower than I had seen them off base, except that on base we don’t have to pay the sales tax, which would make a difference.
But then, she started telling me more. Right now, we could take off 15% for this sale, and get a $50 mail-in rebate (better!) but if I could wait to order until April 12, the price would be 20% off for three days (woo hoo, even better!) AND if I used my Navy Star card for the first time, I could take an additional 10% off anything I purchased on the first day (WOOO HOOOOO, better and better!)
We are about to set up an entire household in a country where we haven’t lived for 12 years. We need EVERYTHING. We’ve been saving, so this isn’t going to put us in debt, but it’s like God just handed us this huge gift when he sent this woman our way to explain how it all works. So I applied for the credit card and was instantly approved, and I asked if I should put AdventureMan on the card and she laughed and said “no!” because what if we wanted something else BIG down the road, then he could apply for his own card and we would get the 10% all over again.
Now, my friends, THAT is customer service. What a woman!
Washer
Dryer
Vacuum Cleaner
2 Plasma TVs
wireless BlueRay/DVD player channels Netflix
All-in-one fax/scanner/printer
etc.
We are going to save a bundle.
First, AdventureMan is coming with me to our Water Aerobics class at the YMCA. He has toured the Y, met the instructor, and no longer thinks this is going to be ‘girly’. From there, we will head for the NEX (Naval Exchange) to make our purchases and place our orders.
Next week, the major start-up grocery shop. Imagine, starting your kitchen once again from scratch. No, I have pots and pans and tools, but the basics, from salt and pepper, through olive oil, flour, sugar, etc . . .everything. oh, AARRGH.
Ketchup Entry
“It’s been five days since you blogged,” my friend wrote to me. “Isn’t that some kind of a record?”
Well, no.
Back when I went to Damascus for Christmas, it was also the Eid al Kebir, and I was gone for a week and everyone was so busy with their own celebrations that no one really noticed. 🙂 Well, maybe my Mother. 🙂
This time, it has to do with AdventureMan.
AdventureMan became semi-retired this last week. He and the Qatteri Cat flew to Pensacola, where we met up and now the three of us are staying in a hotel while our heroic contractors are battling to have us in the house by April 15th. Will we make it?
The Qatteri Cat was totally freaked out by his long long trip to the United States. First, for all my annoyances with KLM, we have to tell you that they are totally superb when you are shipping an animal with you. At every stage of the journey, they kept AdventureMan informed on QC’s progress, and he was in great shape when he arrived, except that he was really, really scared. He didn’t understand any of this, the long flight, all the noise, the vibration and then the hotel room full of strange smells of a 1,000 previous guests. (If you are a cat, you can smell things we can’t even dream).
He is OK now. He has a short memory.
Meanwhile, AdventureMan and I have been doing the business of getting ready to get settled, and at the same time, AM is jet lagging. I tell him I think he is catching up on months of sleep deprivation, and he says he thinks it is just jet lag. It makes me happy to see him sleep.
Today, we went by the house so I could pot a cherry tomato, a very special heirloom tomato that I found at the Emerald Coast Garden Show this last weekend. It is a black cherry tomato, and I have never seen one! I have sent for some other heirloom seeds; I love cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, tiny little tomatoes with intense flavor. I love to mix them all together with some green onion tops and just a little lemon-y vinaigrette dressing, maybe on some lettuce. YUMMM!
Anyway, AdventureMan likes gardening, too. He comes by it honestly, both his grandfathers gardened. One of them had chickens, too, and grew peanuts, and corn as well as a garden full of vegetables. I garden on a much smaller scale. Mostly I plant things that will take care of themselves – lavender, rosemary. Here, in the mild climate of Pensacola, basil becomes a perennial (I saw that in Kuwait, too, at our Kuwait gardening friend’s house) and I have planted some bougainvillea, which I am hoping will be hardy enough to weather an occasional cold winter or two like the last one.
When we got to the house – and this is Sunday, in the heart of the Bible-belt deep South – the ceiling and drywall people were there, working on a ceiling. We were surprised to see them there, but we know they are all trying really hard to get us into the house as soon as they can.
I was thinking AdventureMan was going to kick back and take it easy, but it hasn’t turned out that way – we are up and at-’em every day, and we have accomplished amazing things. More about some of that in future posts.
Just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you – just haven’t had the opportunity to sit for very long to organize my thoughts.
Car Seat Base
My new little Sand colored Rav4 is a workhorse! I lug groceries, furniture, boxes, bedding plants and soil, huge pots, and even bookcases, with just a flip of a lever, the middle seats fold down and I have a long flat bed to carry longer items.
The accessory I like the best doesn’t come with the Rav4. I had to buy it separately. It is a Chicco car seat base, so that I can load and lock my little grandson in my car when we need to pick him up or take him somewhere. 🙂 We had our first trial run taking him to lunch at the Jordan Valley Restaurant in downtown Pensacola, where they had decent baba ghannoush and hummus, bland olives, and felafel – but it isn’t the Beirut. 😦
There are camels on the wall. There are some fabulous cushions. They have some gyros platters and I had a chicken shish taouk . . . it isn’t the Gulf, or – it isn’t the Arabian Gulf – but I am thankful there is one place in town that has felafel and tabbouli. 😉
The good news is, baby Q slept the whole time. 🙂
Easter Dinner
I can’t remember when I was last in the United States for Easter, but it was probably back when our son married . . . I remember a church service held at the hotel where we were staying, just down below our room, and I remember Easter Brunch, but barely – the wedding had been held the day before, and everything is a little blurry in my memory, it all happened so fast!
So this year was a lot of fun. We had a small family dinner, with all the traditional foods.
My son’s wife loves sweet potatoes; these are baked in balsamic vinegar and olive oil with a topping of pineapple:
We all love a green salad with roasted walnuts:
Cole slaw, oil, vinegar, poppy seed, no mayonnaise:
Yummy green beans (my favorite):
And after dinner, we had the traditional clogged sink, and spent hours running to the only store open (Easter Sunday in the South, remember?), first for plungers, then later for a plumber’s snake. We tried Liquid Plumber – nothing worked. So I am waiting this morning for the plumber to come and do his magic so our water will run out of the sink again. 😦
If you think you hate cole slaw because of all that mayonnaise, try this dressing – we love it!
Poppy Seed Cole Slaw
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup oil
1 Tablespoon poppy seed
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon onion juice
Bring all to a boil. Cool before using. Enough for one medium large head of cabbage, shredded thinly.
A Day in the Sun
Pensacola weather is shifting, from an unusually cold winter into it’s normal steaming summer. The day after I arrived, I headed for church, but while dressing I discovered I had nothing climate-appropriate, and ended up going to church on a cold day with bare legs.
Now the sun is shining, the big-box stores are advertising garden specials and I cannot resist. Even if I can’t live in my house, I can get some things started, and I am eager to start some bougainvillea; I love the way it doesn’t need a lot of water – it grew in the ground in Qatar, and flourished!
It is hard for me to go into a Home Depot, or a Lowe’s; I am still so greatly lacking in sales resistance. The garden section is loaded with temptations:
There is also a beautiful local market, Bailey’s, where I found some gorgeous and irresistable bougainvillea. Just enough, not too much. They also provided me with a six-pack of basil, and a couple gorgeous rosemary starts.
After getting the plants potted and in places where, God willing, they will flourish, I spent another hour pulling weeds out of the lawn. 😦
All in all, it was a great day in the sun. 🙂
Publix Helps Us Cook At Home
Through blogging, I became a fan, and then in the way things happen in this wonderful virtual world, a friend of another blogger, John Lockerbie, who writes about many things, my favorite of which is Islamic design. He writes about the architecture, the boats, development in the Gulf, and behind the blogs, we have had our own correspondence.
Recently he commented on the post I wrote about how American health problems are mostly self-inflicted, and could be turned around with proper diet, exercise and preventive visits to the doctor to deter the serious illnesses from showing up. He sent me a reference to a speech made by Jamie Oliver, when he won the TED prize, on changing one small thing in the modern world – teaching us to cook once again in our own homes instead of eating out, eating highly processed, highly salted, highly sugared and highly fatted foods.
There is a Florida chain of supermarkets called Publix, and they are marvelous. Publix is making it easy for people to cook at home. They have a program where they do cooking demos, give out the recipes, and have all the ingredients gathered in one place – at the same price as throughout the store, just located conveniently in this one place – to encourage people to cook at home.
All the ingredients for several recipes:
Close up:
The signage:
Pick a recipe!
I find I am enjoying cooking a lot more here, where shopping is so easy and everything looks so good. Oh yes, and the prices are so low!
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