Pensacola Ramadan Lanterns
Have I mentioned how low my shopping resistence is? Oh? More than once? LLOOLLL . . . . it is a serious problem for expats coming back to settle. It is even a problem these days for expats coming back just for a few weeks! You see all the kinds of things available that you never see, or you see things you never buy at prices you cannot believe, and if you are returning, you return with a ton of chocolate chips (if you are me) and Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix, Knox gelatine, colored sugar crystals, and . . . well, you get the idea.
At one time, we could take two big duffels, even in economy. At one time, when you checked in overweight bags, the people checking you in just looked the other way, most of the time. So we brought stuff back, books, computers, printers, whatever you could get in a duffel – and trust me, you can get a LOT in a duffel.
There was one thing, though, that I couldn’t resist in Doha, and in Kuwait, the Ramadan lanterns. I loved those lanterns, so beautiful, so exotic. I bought many, different styles, I loved them.
So imagine, I walk into the local Pensacola TJMaxx and what do I see? These are advertised as ‘garden’ lanterns, but many of them bear an amazing resemblance to ‘Ramadan’ lanterns:
“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.
Places I’ll Remember . . .
I’m not very good at being sad. Today is one of the saddest days of my life. I’ve been weeping all day, and I’m not one of those women whom the camera loves when they weep. My throat gets thick, so clogged with emotion that I can’t talk clearly, and my eyes get all red and swollen. My cheeks get all blotchy. I hate it, my eyes are leaking, and my nose is running. I think I’ve got it all stopped, and it all starts up again.
Most of the house is packed, the kitchen cupboards cleared out and all the goods not going with us distributed. I weep as I pack my bags. I weep as I take out the garbage. I weep as I load one last load of wash into the washer.
“What is it in particular?” AdventureMan asks me, as I weep, yet again, as I start to write this entry.
“It’s the end of an era,” I choke out, and the tears start rolling once again in spite of all my efforts not to succumb.
“We’ve lived our lives as nomads ever since we met,” I continue.
“It isn’t like we want to live in Doha forever, Doha is changing, too, old friends are leaving.”
“It isn’t like I love packing up and starting over in a new place.”
“I shouldn’t have scheduled to leave on a Friday after church,” I philosophized, but it’s too late now. The waterworks started in church and have turned on and off with ever fresh goodbye.
I steeled myself to smile cheerily at my oldest friends, knowing we’ll meet up again – a wedding, a retirement, a gathering of old hands. But small things defeated me. The friends who switched their normal place in church and sat beside us. The communion hymn “Lord of the Dance” sung as a duet. One of our friends provided our very very favorite meal for lunch. The priest blessing my travels and sending me on with the prayers of the people. The difficult ceremony of saying goodbye to the people we love in a place which has nurtured us, spiritually and socially.
And one young woman painted a watercolor for us of our new grandson.
It is a stunning watercolor, I can hardly wait to have it framed. There is something very special in it – I have a friend who knits, but is constantly telling us how badly she knits. She knit a blanket for the grandson, and it was COLD in Pensacola, and that blanket was used over and over again. The blanket is in the lower left corner of the watercolor. 🙂
It’s going to be a long trip to our new life. We are going to a happy place – sunshine, but not so much heat. Humidity and lightning, but also four seasons and seafood. Our son, his wife, our grandson. All these are happy things. Our new house, a new life, closer to our families. All good things.
I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to my Palestinian friend, like my sister, and she shared all her children with me through these years of friendship. Saying goodbye to her was horrible. We know we may never see one another again. Her daughters assure me they will help us correspond; they will help her use modern technology to stay in touch. 🙂 I don’t know when I will ever see her again . . . and it breaks my heart. I guess I kind of thought she would come visit me. “No,” she said sadly, “no, I will never have the right papers to visit you.” Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how devastating are the restrictions on her life. And I’m just a friend. She hasn’t seen her own father, in Palestine, for years. Sometimes they can meet up in Egypt. . .
I’m not the first expat to leave here. One good friend left Doha last summer, she led the way. We all know that leaving the nomadic life is charting new territory. We’ve had a lot of fun, we’ve loved (most of) the expat experience. We know it’s time. It’s just the inner twenty-five year old is not ready.
AdventureMan’s company keeps saying “when you’ve had a break . . . ” and AdventureMan laughs and says “I’m not taking a break, I am RETIRING!” His company is savvy; they know that three months down the road the domestic life may get a bit old for these high testosterone kind of guys and they will invite him back for a special project or two. He promises me, if it is Doha or Kuwait, I can come with him. Even just a week or two, to see old friends . . . I’ll take it!
Thanks be to God, for creating us, and for giving us this wonderful life we were created to live. Thanks be to God for all these great adventures, for the exotic, the sights and smells and sounds, and for the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Thanks be to God for the generous spirited friends called to his life, who have shared the path with us. And thanks be to God for this outlet, this blog, where I can share the good, the bad and the ugly with friends from all countries who have ever lived as strangers in a strange land (even when that ‘strange’ land is the USA, LOL!) Thank YOU, friends.
Buying a Car the Civilized Way
“Did you know USAA has a car buying service?” AdventureMan asked me. Well, yes, sort-of, but I’ve been not wanting to think about buying a new car with all the house-buying stuff and paper-filling out stuff and packing stuff and making lists.
On the other hand, every day I have to rent a car is money down the drain.
“I’ll just check it out,” I thought to myself.
It was so easy. You go online and tell the car buying service where you live and what you want to buy. They send your name and phone number and e-mail (since I don’t want car salespeople calling me in the middle of the night because they don’t understand about time zones, I only gave them my e-mail) to dealerships who participate in USAA’s program.
USAA also sent me a list of car dealerships in my area and a Certificate for me to print with their agreed upon price. That simple. The certificate prices were significantly lower than anything I had been offered at the dealership I visited, and these were guarantee.
Within hours, three dealerships had e-mailed me. I chose the closest, worked with a WOMAN to get what I wanted at the price I was willing to pay, and not one item more. She was courteous and helpful and respectful! She got me everything I wanted. She named an out-the-door price that I could live with.
The only downside is that the dealership is 35 minutes away, in Fort Walton Beach. The upside is that they have been known to deliver, and 35 minutes just isn’t that far. Like from Fintas to downtown Kuwait City in heavy traffic, or from my house to the Ritz Carleton in Qatar. I can live with that.
Yes. Yes, Daggero, you guessed it right, I am buying another Rav4, one with brakes that work. I’m not scared off by Toyota’s troubles. It’s like eating in a restaurant that has just re-opened after being closed for health violations; you know it’s never going to be cleaner than it is right now. 😉 I love the way the Rav4 is sort of small, I am sort of small, too. I love that it turns on a dime, and that I am high enough to look over most of the traffic, but small enough to park in a tiny parking spot. It’s an SUV, but a modest SUV, with good mileage per gallon, and a great record for reliability and repairs.
Here is what I love about this transaction. I did my homework. I know what I want. I know what is a reasonable price to pay. I am getting a better price than I expected. There are no games – here’s what I want, here is what I am getting and here is what it is going to cost, and that includes title and licensing. How cool is that? I feel like when you do business like this, everyone is a winner.
And a shout-out to Marisa at Quality Toyota at Fort Walton Beach for making the process easy and non-threatening and civil. Working with her to buy my new car was a pleasure.
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!
Daiso No longer Allowed to Sell Toys in US due to Violations
From U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on AOL News: Wallet Pop
Daiso To Pay $2 Million Civil Penalty for Violations of Federal Safety Laws and Must Stop Importing Children’s Products and Toys Into U.S.
(Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:40:00 GMT)
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced today that Daiso Holding USA Inc., Daiso Seattle LLC, of Seattle, Wash. and Daiso California LLC, of Hayward, Calif. have agreed to pay a $2.05 million civil penalty and stop importing children’s products and toys into the United States. Due to alleged violations of federal safety laws, the company must now demonstrate to the Commission that it has sufficient knowledge of and is in compliance with CPSC safety standards and testing requirements.
I didn’t even know we had Daiso’s in the US, stores where you can find amazing things at very cheap prices. I know them from Qatar, where there is a Daiso at Hyatt Plaza, and I also think there is one in Kuwait.
Qatar Initiates Solar Energy Plan
Woooo HOOOO, Qatar, for not depending on a non-renewable energy source, but continuing to develop strategies for survival into the future. And Qatar definitely has an abundance of solar power. But then again – so does Kuwait.
Qatar to tap solar power in a big way
Web posted at: 3/2/2010 6:29:33
Source ::: THE PENINSULA/ BY SATISH KANADY
DOHA: Qatar is all set to tap its abundance of solar power. Two leading international agencies yesterday announced their decision to partner with two Qatari entities to produce the green energy in the country.
SolarWorld AG, one of the world’s largest solar companies, will partner with Qatar Solar Technology (QST), in which Qatar Foundation (QF) has a major stake. Separately, the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, German Aerospace Centre (DLR), will partner with the country’s ambitious Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP).
Qatar Solar Technology marks the entry of QF into the solar energy sector. QF will have a 70 percent stake in QST, with SolarWorld holding 29 percent and Qatar Development Bank the remaining one percent.
The initial investment in QST is valued at over $500m, QF said.
Through the joint venture, solar grade polysilicon, the essential ingredient of solar panels, would be produced in the first phase.
QST will develop a new plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City, in the northeast of Qatar, which will be one of the first operational polysilicon plants in the region. The plant will produce well over 3,500 tonnes per annum of the material and will be designed with future expansion in mind, which will enable it to significantly increase production capacity.
You can read the rest of the article, including contributions by Texas A&M, by clicking HERE
Americans Sing for the Liberation of Kuwait
My sweet Kuwait friend sent me this today. It made me cry.
We all have memories of the invasion. I remember it well. We had just moved to Tampa, AdventureMan was working with CENTCOM. He had just brought his very old grandmother to visit with us, and the next day, Iraq invaded, and his grandmother and I didn’t see him again!
We have had a long history with Kuwait, longer than our time living there. Kuwait matters to us. This song makes me cry; the effects of this invasion linger on, resonating and affecting so many lives:
Grabbing a Half Day
While most of my time has been spent joyfully grandmama-ing, I was feeling increasing anxiety about one thing. I am flying back to Doha to pack, and then I am flying back to Pensacola to close on the house, and wait for AdventureMan to join me, and then all our furniture and household goods that have been in storage a lifetime – twelve years – will arrive.
Oh oh. Where do we sleep until our bed arrives? We COULD invade our dear son and his sweet wife once again, but don’t you think enough is enough? Would you want your parents and in-laws living with you, week after week, with all our well-intentioned advice, and stories about our son when he was young?
No? LLOOLLL, me neither!
So yesterday, I took an afternoon to myself.
First, I had learned that the Pensacola Quilter’s Guild was having their bienniel (once every TWO years) show this weekend, Friday and Saturday. There is little that can take this adoring grandmama away from her most adorable brand-new grandson, but I will admit it – a quilt show – that is beyond temptation. I had to go, even just for an hour. I went, joined the guild, hurried through the exhibit, which was GLORIOUS! and then I went furniture shopping.
Furniture shopping is not what it used to be. I have some lovely furniture in storage, but not a huge amount of it. Some of it we sent off with Law and Order Man when he went off to law school and needed some basics. Some of it is just outdated – like televisions from the 90’s! I figured I would just look for the basics – bed, mattress and table and chair. We will have a place to sit when we are not sleeping, and we can buy the TV’s together, later, with our son’s help. We need the help of the high-tech-savvy to get us up to speed on what we will be needing, phones, TV’s, cable connections, phone plans, internet connections, oh, it is as bad as buying a new car!
When we were still in the military, we found a dining room table and chairs, gorgeous, at an auction, for $169. We found marble topped antique oak nightstands, gorgeous, at the flea market in Metz, and paid $60 for the pair. We found a gorgeous buffet/credenza in a used furniture shop in Leavenworth, KS for $50 + $10 for delivery, all these are furniture pieces we still treasure. I am telling you this so you will understand what sticker shock I get when I go to look at new furniture.
I am quick and clear about what I want and need, but the prices require me to summon all the courage I can summon when I go to write the checks. I am good at saving. Letting that money go is so HARD. It took me the entire afternoon to find pieces I knew would work for us.
Here is where you will sleep, the guest room bed, when you come to stay with us:
It was on sale. I love it because, with the inlay, it sort of reminds me of the Middle East, of Damascus:
I also bought mattresses. It was difficult, too, because I don’t like these pillow tops. We like a good, firm bed, and I like to sleep cool, I can’t get to sleep if I am too warm, and these pillow tops are too warm. It took me a long time to find a good, firm mattress set for the bed.
Then I went looking for a table and chairs for the family room/ casual dining area. I knew what I wanted. My long-time Chinese friend told me the best table for families is the round table, no one sits at the head, everyone is equal. My sister Big Diamond (Little Diamond’s and Sporty Diamond’s Mom) has a HUGE, gorgeous round table, and I have seen how people love to gather there. So I knew I wanted a round table that would be inviting and comfortable, but not so grand as my sister’s. I have been looking online, checking out a lot of models. When I found one here in Pensacola, at a reasonable price, I was hooked. It is light teak – light in color, heavy in weight. OOps. Then she reminded me I would need chairs. Aaarrgh.
There weren’t any other customers in the shop at the time, so we took our time. As I learned from you, my Middle Eastern friends, we dickered a little, comfortably and amiably – and she gave me a discount, and free delivery.
The chairs are amazing. You would not believe wood could feel so comfortable. The table and chairs together remind me so much of all our times camping and in lodges in Africa, in Zanzibar, in Zambia, in Botswana, where the furniture is both comfortable and well made. But I almost choked, writing the check. Some things are just worth buying new; sturdy, comfortable furniture is one of them.
Here is the guest bathroom:
It has a spa tub and a walk in shower. 🙂
Last but not least, I found some farewell gifts for friends I have had in Doha for a long long time, and a bolt of muslin for a friend who knows I am coming back with suitcases almost empty. 🙂 It was a long day, and a fruitful day, and I am resting easier knowing all these little details are coming together.
Today, however, my son and his wife are taking me to the kinds of places I LOVE buying furniture! The Waterfront Mission Store and Loaves and Fishes! Wooo HOOOOO!
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