Unexpected Pleasure
As I was leaving Seattle, my niece, Little Diamond, passed a book along to me. It’s part of our family culture – we read, and we pass along.
When my son was in university, I remember him telling me that I had addicted him to books. His first memory of books was living in Tunis, and when we would be going on a long trip, or when he had done something particularly good, I would pull down a new book from the shelf high up in my closet. Knowing he was approaching reading age, I had stocked up on books before we left.
As a student, he told me that as he approached final exams at university, he would motivate himself by telling himself that as soon as his last final was over, he could go to the bookstore and buy whatever the newest book out was that he was eager to read. Reading – for fun – during his school breaks was his great reward.
It’s that way for all of us. Before any trip, we stock up on good books to read. Before I left Seattle, I stocked up books for my Mother to read! We seek out places like Half Price Books (I do NOT own stock in Half Price Books) and Amazon.com to feed our habits. In our concern against running out of good books, we all have piles by our bed of books we intend to read. Some of my books have been there almost a year – since I moved to Kuwait!
So I accepted the book, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love, although I looked at the cover in dismay, and actually took it off for the trip. It’s about a Lebanese-American girl who goes in search of her ethnic roots. While at first I didn’t like her, I kept reading in spite of myself – the book drew me in. Little Diamond reviews the book here, (as well as several others that sound really good.)
This book was an unexpected pleasure – as are many of the books my book-voracious niece reads. The main character in this book has an unexpected wryly objective view of herself, is painfully honest, and you find yourself hoping she will find herself, and true love, in spite of her clumsy attempts.
1906
This was a forward I received today. I don’t know where the statistics come from, so I can’t verify. If true, it is pretty amazing what a difference 100 years can make.
The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes !
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906
************************************
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa , and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California .
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union .
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !
The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year .
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year,
a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,
and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at HOME
Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION !
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as “sub-standard.”
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair
once a month,
and used borax
or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
entering into their country for any reason.
The Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona , Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30 !!!!
Crossword puzzles,
canned beer,
and ice tea
hadn’t been invented yet.
There was no Mother’s Day
or Father’s Day.
Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine
were all available over
the counter
at the local corner drugstores.
Pharmacists said,
“Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”
Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders
in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !
Diamond Chip
Is there anything sweeter than a new baby? Diamond Chip isn’t even one week old.
This is his quilt:
Transitions
This week, my Mom bought a new bright red, lightweight suitcase for her trip next week to Portland. We went to the train station yesterday to buy her ticket. She can get on the train here in our little home town and off the train in Portland, Oregon. It’s her first trip all by herself in a long time. She will meet up with her brother and friend in Portland.
Little Diamond is presenting at a conference this week, and then will head back for Seattle en route to her apartment in Beirut. She is SO excited.
Mom and I will go see Precious Diamond and her little Diamond Chip this morning after dropping Mom’s car off to be serviced. Precious Diamond is experiencing that huge transition called Motherhood. Whew! I remember that one! No one can tell you ahead of time how your life will change, how utterly and completely a tiny infant can become the center of your world.
And I am packing up in anticipation of my own transition back to Kuwait. I am flying a new route, as I had to reserve my flight so late that my regular route is totally booked. More take offs and landings, fewer hours. Go figure. I am guessing that with all the holidays falling in the same time frame, I am competing for seats with Eid travellers as well as Christmas/New Years travellers.
See y’all soon.
Blogging: The Opinion Explosion
Today there was a lively discussion on National Public Radio about news, and the great enormity of it, and how news reporting is changing. It used to be, so they said, that news reporters reported the facts, as best they could find the information, and they kept their opinions to themselves. The goal was objectivity.
Hmmmmm. In the US, it seems to me we had an entire period when the press was seen as “muckracking” or seeking scandal. The tabloids have always been with us. Even in the HBO TV series Rome, there were cartoons on the wall, a sort of primitive newspaper, entertaining, whether true or not-true.
So my speculation would be that as objective and fair (or as Fox puts it “fair and balanced” reporting which totally makes me want to throw up because FOX is SO SO slanted) as we would like to think our news is, bias has always crept in, and it is always a case of caveat emptor when it comes to news.
Here were some priceless quotes and ideas from the today’s NPR discussion:
“Not everyone’s experience is that interesting.”
Two rules for basic research:
1) Not every authority is right. Don’t believe someone just because they claim “authority”. Authorities can be wrong.
2) Just because you agree with an authoritie’s opinion does not make it true.
When you blog, podcast, SMS, etc. information, be sure to give your source of information and some evaluation of how reliable that source is likely to be.
Wikipedia is not necessarily a reliable source to be quoting. You have to double check the sources of information there, too.
My favorite piece of verbiage: We are experiencing a cacaphony of unfiltered information.
My comment: It’s exciting to hear people discuss the new ways in which we are getting – and sharing – news/information. I was in traffic, trying desperately to write phrases and ideas down at every red light. (How often do you say “alhamdallah” for the red lights??) We have access to so much more information, but how much of it is “hard” and how much is opinion? I love hearing people discussing information and dissemination of information, and how it is changing our lives.
And how much harder it is for any nation to keep a big secret – the containment walls have become more porous, information seeps through. Cell phones transmit real time dramas, bloggers share information (and misinformation), news can be SMS’d before it hits the airwaves by official sources. Governments which like to control information are fighting a losing battle, and it will increasingly change the faces of government (oops, my opinion!).
As our actions become increasingly public (cameras tracking vehicles, bank withdrawals, parking lots, cell phones broadcasting private moments, etc) we will all become, privately and publicly, increasingly accountable. (I am extrapolating here!) What an interesting new world . . .
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
For two days now, it has been rainy, oh! sheets of rain coming down. If you have an umbrella, it doesn’t help. You are soaked before you can even get your umbrella up, and the wind keeps blowing in gusts from different directions so the umbrella goes inside out.
The perfect day for Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse, a recipe from a cookbook my aunt gave me, published in 1946 – no longer even in print. But the recipe is a winner – easy, satisfying, and with a salad and French Bread, a complete stormy day meal, warming and satisfying from the inside out.
A bouillabaisse is flexible, and relies on slow simmering and some reduction to obtain its deep, rich, complex flavor. Fishermen use what they catch – the more, the merrier, in a bouillabaisse. For extra credit, serve with a rouille, a red, peppery mayonnaise. (Yes, blenders make any mayonnaise do-able.)
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
From Mary Cullen’s Northwest Cook Book, 1946 (with alterations)
This is one of the all-star recipes if you like seafood and if your friends do, too.
1 1/2 lbs. cod, halibut or red snapper, or good solid white meat fish like grouper, cut into bite sized chunks
1 large hard shell crab, cook, take meat out (or two or three small Kuwaiti crab)
2 lbs. small clams in the shell, or if you are stuck, you can use canned clams
1/2 lb. mussels, if available
10 – 12 medium large shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cups fish stock (I use the water from cooking the crab, and cook the fish heads etc. until you have a good, tasty stock)
1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
1 green and 1 red sweet pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon saffron
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
Prepare fish, removing bones and cutting into bite sized pieces. Several kinds of fish can be used, if preferred. Clean meat out of crab legs and crab body, put aside.
In large pan, sautee onion, peppers and garlic in olive oil, add bay leaf and cut up fish and fish stock, cook very slowly, without boiling, for about 20 minutes or until fish is tender.
Add crab, clams, shrimp, mussels, seasonings, and lemon juice. Let cook 3 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. It is tradition that on cold winter’s days, the bread can be dunked in the broth!
This is a photo from Wikipedia, showing genuine French Bouillabaisse. The Pacific Northwest version doesn’t have a tomato-y broth, but more clear broth.
Farewell Old Year
I’m ready for a new year. I’ve read your blogs, I can see that most of you are ready too, we are all ready for a new start, new hope, a better tomorrow.
2006 was a full year for us – a move to Kuwait, our son’s wedding to a wonderful young woman, and several trips back to take care of family business. My husband and I looked at each other and laughed – this year we haemmoraged money. We thank God we had the money we needed when we needed it, but the sheer volume of it, going out, stuns us. We hope this will be a better year, a more stable year, as we squirrel around, hiding our nuts for the winter of old age.
By the grace of God, my Mom is doing well, and thank all of you who have expressed concerns for her. She is grieving, she misses him so much, but none of us would choose for him to suffer one more minute on this earth when he could be in a better place. She spends her time right now surrounded by family and friends. We know she is going to have some bad moments, but she is amazingly resilient, and we see all sorts of signs that she will do well, once the grief abates.
Here is a photo of the photo I told you about earlier in the blog – Dad holding me up so I almost look like I am sitting on the mountain. Those old black and white photos were SO crisp; they enlarged without any serious loss of resolution.
I tell my friends this set the pace for my life of thrill seeking behavior . . .(just kidding, folks)
I wish you all a great day, tieing up loose ends, and a wonderful new year.
Beautiful MidWinter Day
Today was my Father’s Memorial service. My Mom chose to invite old friends, relatives, people who knew and loved my father on a boat ride. In the midst of a gloomy, dark wintery week, the morning dawned bright, clear and bright. The sun made everything crisp and clean, if not warm.
Our guests arrived, and the boat departed. People spoke of my Dad, and told stories about him – how he had influenced their lives, funny stories from his childhood, things they remembered about him. Then we shared a buffet lunch. The weather held. it was a beautiful day.
This is a photo of the freezing fog to the south, and a shadowy Mt. Rainier:
This is a photo of the Olympic Mountains, in the other direction from Mt. Rainier:
This is a photo of a boat on Lake Washington – I loved the RED against the neutrals:
After the boat ride, the family went back to my sister’s house, where I am staying, where we watched a hysterically funny movie, Kung Fu Hustle, and then went out for Thai food. As we were eating dinner, we got a call – my sister’s daughter had just delivered a baby boy!
We celebrated the full circle of life in one day – my father’s passing, a new life, the joy of being all together . . .it’s been a full day.
The Family Gathers
The flight from Amsterdam to Seattle runs around 10 hours – more or less depending on headwinds and tailwinds. Thanks to my almost-fully-flat seat, I was able to get about 6 good hours of sleep, just exactly what I needed to face immigration, customs, car rental and a drive through Seattle (four to five lanes of traffic in both directions) to a northern suburb.
It is COLD in Seattle – like the high is about one degree above freezing. It is also a damp cold that makes you shiver, and when the wind blows, it feels freezing. It is supposed to drop down below freezing tonight. I just hope it doesn’t snow again; driving can get problematic in the snow.
Grabbed a quick Pepperming Mocha (I don’t know why they don’t do these in Kuwait, but they tell me there would be no market. How do they know? Have they ever tried it?) and headed for my Mom’s. One sister, her husband, and Little Diamond were also waiting for me there, Little Diamond’s sister, Precious Diamond (sometimes called Pregnant Diamond; she is due to have a baby any minute!) and my other sister, her husband and son came by a little later, and we all had dinner together.
Mom has asked me to make a kind of photographic tribute to my Dad for the service on Saturday, so we got out all the photo albums, collections, boxes and had a lot of fun going through and remembering all the good times with Dad. I have a stack of photos from different times in his life, and will take them in to get them copied, enlarged, etc somewhere where they can do it FAST. Little Diamond will help with the graphic design and Fonts – she wrote the obituary for the paper and did a truly masterful job.
Thanks to the sleep I got on the plane, I was fairly fresh . . . well, I did fall asleep for a while after dinner, but rallied and got another couple hours of work done.
I am guessing I will get a good night’s sleep and dive in to all the work that needs to be done tomorrow. With everyone in the family taking a part, it should all work out smoothly. I found the photo of me sitting almost on top of the mountain. I will see if there is a way I can blog it.
Two Photos
I have a photo of my Dad and me when I was only five or six months old. I am in my snow suit, with a big hat on my head. My dad has lifted me high on his right hand, high above his head, and I am oblivious to the danger, and out of my mind with delight – you know how babies are. I have a look on my face of delerious happiness. I am almost as high as the mountain in the background. I am – almost literally – on top of the world. My Dad is young and thin and strong. He was a great skiier in those days.
The second photo is of my Dad and my Mom, on a visit to Germany, only eight years ago. Dad was 80. They flew to Germany and rented a car to visit us, and to tour some of their old haunts from their own ten years of living in Heidelberg. He and Mom crawled up on the fountain at Deidesheim to stand behind the bronze costumes for a photo. Their faces are effused in smiles; they are still young in spirit if not in body, and having a wonderful time.
In recent years, my Dad was less and less able. His big project every week was to program the video recorder to record two tapes a week of prime time American television for my husband and I – we would watch it whenever we wanted and had time. He was known at the post office as the man who came in twice a week mailing these videotapes to us, and he loved it that he was so well known by the folks at the post office.
Dad died last night. He was 88. I’ll be going back for a short time. Dad, I know you’ve gone to a better place. Alhamdallah.
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