Brisk Morning at the Souq Al Waqif
“My husband hates shopping and hates the souks” said one of my friends, and my friend Grammy and I just grinned – any excuse for a trip to the souks, especially to introduce someone to our own particular joys. Early breakfast at the Beirut, walking here and there, finding small treasures and great pleasures, and ending up with coffee at the Cafe Tasse, which has divine Cafe Mocha with real whipped cream. It’s OK, I don’t have real whipped cream every day, just . . . have a problem resisting on those wonderful sunny winter mornings in the souks.
Some sights to share with you:
Dashing souk policemen on horseback, an early morning treat
The hardware souk, in the ‘guy’s souk area’, i.e. camping, hunting, fishing, falcons, hardware . . .
Falcon Hood Maker
Tiny little falcon hoods
Handbook for 2010
Thank you, Dear Friend, who sent this to me this morning 🙂
HANDBOOK 2010
Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2.. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants….
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
Personality:
11. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12 Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake..
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
Life:
32.. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up..
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, be thankful for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy..
Last but not the least:
40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did..
Stieg Larsson and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
I needed some escape time, so I started The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a mystery by Stieg Larsson, set in Sweden. I love these detective stories set in other countries; I can learn something as I pass the time reading an exciting mystery. And part of my heritage is Swedish, so I thought this should really be fun.
It wasn’t, at least not at the beginning. At the beginning, I didn’t like any of the characters, and they were always eating sandwiches that sounded awful, like liverwurst and egg. I felt like the characters didn’t have any moral center, like they drifted from day to day without neither conscience nor a plan. The main character, Mikael Blomkvist, is about to go to prison for libel; he printed a story about a major industrialist which turned out to be false, and he protected his source. We don’t really know the whole story, not until the end, which makes it hard to evoke a lot of sympathy for Blomkvist.
He is contacted by another industrialist, and asked to solve a mystery, if possible, about the disappearance, 40 years ago, of his niece, Harriet Vanger. Blomkvist would investigate under the cover of writing an autobiography of his employer and his family. There are members of the family who object. In many ways, it isn’t a very nice family.
Blomkvist gets an assistant, a deeply troubled and flawed young woman, Lisbeth Salander, with a gift for investigation. There is a lot of violence, sexual violence, and mutilation of animals. One of the points I credit Larsson with making is the amount of violence against women in Sweden, which goes on under a seemingly civilized veneer. The truth, as I see it, is that there is violence against women in every society; in some it is better documented than in others. In some, it is better punished that others. It exists in all societies, in all countries.
Another think I ended up liking about the book was that the main character, Blomkvist, who writes financial analysis, takes the press to task for printing what passes for financial news without critically reading and evaluating, which he feels is a responsibility of the press. At one point, as people quail with fear that the stock exchange will drop dramatically, he is interviewed and explains that the stock market is based on perceptions, while the Swedish economy is based on production and services; that while the markets may fail, the economy can still be going strong.
Slowly, the book tightens up. Actually, by the end, I was hooked. The only question in my mind is – did I like it enough to read another?
The book is available, new, from Amazon.com at $6.00 plus shipping.
New Qatar Traffic Violations and Fines
Update: LLOOLL, I went to QatarLiving.com and discovered that these “new” laws came out in 2007. These are great laws, deterrents to bad driving and aggressive driving, but the laws mean nothing without enforcement. Do I still see many many children sitting in the front seat? Are people driving while talking on their mobile phones? And not a word about one of the worst offenses these days – texting.
A recent study showed texting is even more dangerous while driving than talking on a mobile phone:
The crash risk attributable to texting is substantial. One possible explanation is that drivers who text tend to decrease their minimum following distance and also experience delayed reaction time. For example, in the Drews et al. study, drivers’ median reaction time increased by 30% when they were texting and 9% when they talked on the phone, compared with their performance in a driving-only condition.
Notwithstanding the safety risk of texting while driving, previous research by Drews and colleagues at the University of Utah — not to mention crash data and widespread legislation — makes clear that using a phone while driving is dangerous.
(To check my source, just click on the blue type, above)
We were talking about people who were saying “Qatar is the most dangerous place to drive in the world” and wondering where this is coming from? Most of us have driven in more dangerous places, but this is the new quote floating around, with no foundation, no statistics, no studies, at least not any I can find with a simple Google.
The topic of new laws came up next over Christmas dinner. New laws? New fines?
“I never saw a word about this in the paper,” I said, peevishly.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said AdventureMan.
People who have been married a long time will understand the urge to kill . . .
Someone else jumped in,
“I think the different companies are passing it around. The Education Foundation has it. Some of the universities have it. That’s the way it is in Qatar, news of new laws filters out.”
LLLOOOLLL. News of new laws “filters out?”
I found it online HERE, at Team BPH and it looks exactly like the copy AdventureMan brought home yesterday, but there is no attribution. Who put this out? There is no kind of official marking on it at all.
IF ENFORCED, these laws would have a serious effect on Qatar traffic.
In theory, these went into effect in November 2009, just last month. Who issued these? Has there been any coverage in the newspapers? TV? How can people be held accountable for violating laws of which they are not aware? Or is this something one of the companies printed up, anticipating new laws?
Christmas Eve Hilarity
All of a sudden, life slows down and friends can gather, relax, share stories and share laughter. We were full of hilarity as we sat down to make Christingles, which, as it turns out, none of us have ever made before and none of us have a clue what they are supposed to look like.
Here is an explanation of a Christingle from NationMaster.com encyclopedia:
A Christingle is a symbolic object used in advent services in churches of many Christian denominations. It has its origins in the Moravian Church , with the first recorded use, in Germany, in 1747.
This is the story of the first Christingle:
One Christmas time back in 1747 at a town in Germany, Pastor John sat at home in front of his fire. He was thinking how he could explain the love of Jesus, and what Christmas really meant to the children in the church. He decided to prepare a simple symbol to help make the message of Christmas fresh and lively for them. Pastor John gave each child a lighted candle wrapped in a red ribbon, with a prayer that said “Lord Jesus, kindle a flame in these dear children’s hearts”. This was the first ever Christingle service.
Many years later, in 1968, Christingle services were introduced to the Anglican Church in Britain, and the custom spread quickly; each year there are more and more Christingle services in England and Wales, although today’s Christingles are a little different.
The Christingle consists of:
- an orange representing the world with
- a red ribbon around it representing the blood of Jesus
- fruits and sweets (usually dolly mixtures) are skewered on 4 cocktail sticks which are pushed into the orange representing the fruits of the earth and the four seasons
- and a lighted candle is pushed into the centre of the orange representing Christ, the light of the world
Here are some illustrations I found online:
Here is where the hilarity begins – have you ever tried to tie a red ribbon around a sphere? Have you ever tried to determine the proper “Anglican angle” for the fruit filled cocktail picks? Worst of all, how can such a simple assignment end up looking more like Sputnik than an object to teach children lessons in holiness? We struggled to meet the challenge, and, in the end, had fulfilled our mission, but not one of us was confident that we had produced the real thing. Our results:
After so much stress and hilarity, we needed to unwind, so off to the Ritz Carlton once again, where we discovered that the disappearing Christmas Tree is back in all its glory:
You can opt for a plate from the Ritz Carlton Christmas food yummies buffet:
Or you can order the Ritz special Christmas Tea, which comes in towers (and you can actually order coffee with it if you prefer coffee to tea)
A lovely beginning to Christmas.
We wish you a Merry Christmas, and unexpected joy in the coming year.
Shaking Things Up
First, you have to understand how quietly AdventureMan and I live. He works long hard hours. He gets home, we eat dinner. Most nights we watch some TV together, usually some season of a program we enjoy.
But after dinner last night, we decided to take a walk, instead. While our family in the states is braving out a variety of winter storms, the weather here has become – WONDERFUL! There is a hint of freshness in the morning and evening, and while days are warm, they are comfortable. We walked our compound, enjoying ourselves thoroughly, looking at all the Christmas decorations, and Eid decorations still up. It was a great walk.
Once we came home, we settled in – or so we thought. We were about 15 minutes into the newest season of Lost when our doorbell rang, and a group arrived to give us a very special caroling session. It was so much fun – and thank goodness, I had some cookies on hand to share with the people who came caroling! It was a delightful and moving evening.
We settled down once again, and once again the doorbell rang, neighbors coming to tell us some very good news, a miracle, really, something we had all prayed for, and that they were going home briefly, and would see us in a week or so. We had a wonderful visit with them, were able to send them off with joy.
We looked at each other and grinned. All this was so totally out of the ordinary for our usual week-day nights, but wonderfully out of the ordinary. We like it when things get shaken up a little bit. 🙂
Baby Shower Diaper Cake
I wasn’t there. AdventureMan and I would have loved to be there, but it wasn’t possible. We spent Thanksgiving apart from our son and his wife. We also missed the BABY SHOWER! Her sweet aunts arranged a wonderful shower for them, and sent me a photo of the “diaper cake.” I don’t think this is a real cake . . . but I am not sure entirely what it is. I know only that it is adorable!
Doha Sunset
When I lived in Kuwait, every day I was thrilled by the sun coming up over the horizon. I never got tired of it.
Today, thanks be to God, I was out when the sun started getting low in the sky, and the colors have added dimensions – what a treat.
Some views of Doha at sunset:
Glorious View in Qatar
Yesterday I was invited to an all-gals party, and normally, I don’t accept any outside invitations on Friday, which is AdventureMan’s only day off the entire week, but this date was special, and I went, and I had a wonderful afternoon, full of laughs and good friendships.
When I walked in, I had a moment’s nostalgia for Kuwait, and my endless view from my mustard colored tower – this woman had the Qatar equivalent – the view that goes forever.
The windows were open, the breezes were blowing, the laughter was infectious and the food was delicious – what is not to love?
Only six years ago, when I first came to Qatar (almost seven years now) the building from which I took these photos didn’t exist. Looking north, only a few low buildings, the Intercon and the Ritz Carleton existed – and now, it’s almost like another Corniche in the making out at The Pearl. The speed with which this has happened is breathtaking.
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