Easter Sunday 2007
For the second year in a row, we were able to celebrate Easter in the United States. Today was so special to us. We went to church surrounded by many families. Although we were strangers, people were very friendly and happy to see us. We were very happy because we were with family!
Although it was our style of worship, every church does things a little differently – and this church does two things I have never seen done before. As the priest entered the church, he knocked at three different doors and said . . . something, and the entire congregation responded with “Allelujia! Christ is risen!” and then as the priest and choir processed down the center aisle, they made a joyful NOISE – and it was a huge noise, every choir member and many members of the congregation had BELLS which they rang as they sang the opening hymn and it was unexpectedly marvellous!
Here is a photo from the entry to the church:
The church entry has several shadowboxed collections of crosses from around the world – totally gorgeous. This is just one part of the collection:
After church, we had a wonderful family dinner with the parents of our daughter-in-law. The dinner was fabulous. We are in the Southern part of the United States where the cooks have a reputation for being THE BEST. They are the best because they use all the ingredients that make food truly tasty – fat, sugar, eggs, real cream, etc, things that we forbid ourselves most of the year, and oh, how delicious everything was. We had a big green salad with a choice of dressings, green beans with slivered almonds, a big ham, scalloped potatoes and freshly baked biscuits with butter and jam.
I would have to say, this was a wonderful Easter meal; fabulous food, great conversation, lots of laughter. For dessert, the hostess made two of my husband’s very favorite things, coconut cake with a white/coconut icing, and banana pudding with a baked meringue topping – oh oh oh! We hated to leave.
A note of interest – my neice, Little Diamond says that this is one of the rare years when Easter is celebrated on the same day by all the major Christian religions – a rare occasion indeed.
And for those of you who are going to ask, no, I am not going to take up swearing again just because Lent is over. The whole goal was to break myself of a very bad habit that crept into my life on the roads of Kuwait. I will continue to strive to clean up my act!
In Passing
“Uhm, Mom, I have to sit there” said my son as I slid into a booth in our favorite Vietnamese restaurant and prepared to order some of those tasty salad rolls with peanut sauce that we love.
“Why is that?” I ask territorially, unwilling to move.
“I like to see who’s coming in,” he states flatly.
“So do I” I argue back.
“But I’m the prosecutor,” he says with a sigh.
I move. His need trumps my preference.
He has to watch his back. It’s not one of the happier realities in life. People you “put away” don’t always stay there. And they’re not always happy to see you when they run into you in the gym, or in the Target, or in the grocery store.
My son laughs and tells stories of running into former associates, usually when you are unarmed, and vulnerable in some way. Most of the time it is OK. We’re glad he is careful.
The Important Messenger
In most ways, my husband, Adventure Man, is a very kind man. He is a big-picture kind of guy. Most of us attend to the details, but he is good at seeing how to get from A to Z, even when everyone else is saying it isn’t possible. I love that about him – most of the time he can see possibilities.
He is VERY unkind about my Arabic.
For example, I would be telling him how we learned such and such in Arabic, and he will interrupt me and correct my pronunciation.
So I would go back to my teacher and say “Adventure Man says we are supposed to say it like this!” and she would laugh and say “oh those Lebanese men say it that way but we Qatteris say it like this.”
So when he would correct me, not being as submissive as I ought to be, I would say “Oh you Lebanese men say it like that” (but he is not Lebanese) “but we Qatteri’s say it like this.” (I am not Qatteri) and I could make him fall out of his chair laughing.
But he really hurt my feelings. I was telling him about my problems on the road and how this “important man” who must have been in a big hurry was driving so rudely and he started laughing at me which totally annoyed me.
“What is so funny?” I demanded.
“I think you mean ‘rajul muuhim'” he gasped out, between spasms of laughter.
“That’s exactly what I meant and that is what I said!”
“No, you keep talking about some rude ‘important messenger'” he croaked, and rolled over on the floor because he is laughing so hard he can’t stand up.
Razool sounds a lot like rajool to me . . .
Adventure Man is SO rude. He thinks he is so rajul muhim!
Mouth Guard
Last summer, my dentist told me I needed a mouth guard to wear at night to keep me from clenching or grinding my teeth.
I’m a little cynical about what I think of as “dental fundraising”. There always seems to be something beyond teeth cleaning now that my teeth no longer develop cavities. Whitening? Special electric toothbrush? Gum treatments? Hey, lets dig out all those old fillings and replace them with gold? And then let’s replace the gold with porcelain? He is always pushing for something new.
And I think my husband would have said something if I were grinding or clenching my teeth.
But on my way down seventh ring the other day, as one guy whooshed by me doing 40 km/hr over the speed limit and the guy on my right zipped right through the RED light as if it weren’t there, and the Gucci sunglassed dame got right on my bumper even though the passing lane was clear as could be and I had a cement truck on my right, I noticed I was clenching my teeth.
For one thing, although I have not succeeded in my Lenten goal of not saying ANY swear words on the road, I am down to only about one per long trip. For example, I hardly ever swear on the way to go grocery shopping, just a short trip to the co-op.
It is only on the ring roads or the speedways that sometimes a bad word pops out before I can stop it. The exercise in NOT swearing has been good for me in that now I am very aware, even alone in the car, when a word just popped out or almost pops out. And down to one per trip and holding back the others – hey! – all this is good. The goal is still zero-defects. But I have to applaud my progress.
So I am thinking I should probably wear my mouth guard while I am driving, because that is where I am clenching my teeth. But I wish they also made one that would guard my mouth from those very bad words that want to come out.
TanUrEen in Fehaheel
A friend asked me if I had ever been to TanUrEen, in Fehaheel. Not only had I never been there – I had never even heard of it! When she took me there, I was astounded. I had driven by it a million times, and never even knew it was there.
TanUrEen is at its best at this time of the year, when you can sit outside in the gardens. The night we were there was very comfortable, not too cool nor too hot. This is the perfect time of year for a visit.
There are tables all through the gardens as you enter, in the “see and be seen” section, and then, off to the right, there are private cabins and to the upper right, larger family cabins, near the children’s play ground. Although any given evening there are a LOT of children, they are all behaving themselves (at least they have been when I am there) and there isn’t a lot of noise. For being near a major road, and in the middle of a city, it is a very quiet restaurant, even with lots of people, and if you get there early enough to choose a cabin, quiet AND private.
The food is Lebanese, with a concentration on mezzes and grills, but being Kuwait, they also have a good selection of fish and shrimp. I can promise you that both the grilled shrimp and the hamour are excellent. The mezzes are all freshly made, and, of course, they have their own baker, and the thin, hot, puffy bread is delivered to your table fresh from the oven. It doesn’t get any yummier.
The service is excellent, very personal, and the waiters are all in suits and ties. We find this a great place to go with friends, where we can enjoy one another’s good company and excellent conversation.
Above are the tables in the open garden area, where there is also a waterfall.
These are the cabins in the family section, open so you can keep an eye on the kids. There is another section of cabins that are more circular, more private, if you don’t have children with you.
U.S. Continues Proud Tradition Of Diversity On Front Lines
Funny in a very sad way . . .from The Onion. Note the Kuwait dateline – folks, this is satire, one of the bleakest forms of humor.
CAMP COYOTE, KUWAIT—With blacks and Hispanics comprising more than 60 percent of the Army’s ground forces in Iraq, the U.S. military is continuing its long, proud tradition of multiculturalism on the front lines of war. “Though racism and discrimination remain problems in society at large, in the military—especially in the lower ranks where you find the cannon fodder—a spirit of inclusiveness has prevailed for decades,” Gen. Jim White said Monday. “When it comes to having your head blown off by enemy fire, America is truly colorblind.”
Bad Laws Encourage Breaking the Law
Going to university in Seattle, I did a paper on Washington State “Blue Laws” and how they were repealed. In Washington State, they have some really cool ideas that encourage citizen participation – one is called the initiative, and the other is called the referendum.
What this means is that citizens, just common, ordinary citizens like you and me, can gather support and signatures, and initiate proceedings to get a proposal on the ballot, in front of all the voters. They can also refer an existing law to the voters to get it repealed (made not a law anymore.) It’s hard work – but citizens do it all the time.
I just used my internet phone to change my car reservation, because KLM has “delayed” my flight by one night. I broke the law. It’s a bad law, and I am not by nature a law-breaking kind of person.
I also break the law by bringing in real vanilla flavoring when I enter Kuwait. Yes, it contains alcohol. I only use it for cooking, and I never serve it to Moslems. I have alcohal-free vanilla, too, that I use for when I cook for Moslems, but it doesn’t taste the same.
I probably bring in books and DVD’s that I am not supposed to, although I have never seen a list telling me what books might not be allowed. Most of my books are about ideas, and yes, ideas can be a dangerous thing.
Bad laws force normal law-abiding people to break the law.
(This does not apply to speed limits, which are good laws, and if they were obeyed, would save hundreds of lives in Kuwait every year. Think of every life as something precious, a resource, and you will see that disobeying the speed limits is like throwing resources down the drain.)
I know this entry is really all over the map, but I have all this angry energy and I don’t have anywhere to expel it. If I could, I would kick KLM all over Kuwait for what they have done. They have robbed us of one day with our son and his wife and I am really really angry. They didn’t even tell us, just changed the reservation. One flight was “delayed” 24 hours, so all the passengers on the next flight were also “delayed”. That’s not a DELAY! You cancelled a flight! And now you are going to have hundreds of angry passengers, angry phone calls, and people PO’d at KLM. Shoddy way to do business.
Blue Light Special
Back in the United States, there is a store, K-mart, that from time to time makes an announcement:
Attention, K-mart shoppers. We have a blue light special for the next fifteen minutes on (vacuum cleaners/ school supplies / men’s clothing / holiday wrapping / . . .ad infinitum) on Aisle whatever.
So when I saw this at the local co-op, I just had to grin:
Stormy Weather
This was taken minutes ago, through my dust encrusted window. For my non-Kuwait readers, although we have rain throughout the winter (and winter does get cold here, down to almost freezing at night) the “rainy season” is late March – April. We have had truly spectacular thunder storms, amazing lightning, and rainy days.
Even on the rainiest day, the sun breaks through at some point in the day. We are already beginning to feel hints of the heat to come. The rain, combined with the heat, makes it increasingly muggy. Most of the year, it is dry, not terribly humid, even living at the coast.
But my windows! You would think that the rain would wash them clean, but no! The rain carries dust, and my windows are streaked and caked! You can see it if you look at the darker part of the clouds – but you grab the shot you can when you can, and although this one is flawed by the dust, I love the contrast of lights and darks.
A Male Theory
I read this op-ed piece yesterday in the Kuwait Times, and found it heartbreaking. And yet . . . I read hints of these stories in your blogs, too. I am printing this with the author’s permission. Tell me what you think – and make a copy and send it on to Fouad Al-Obaid, whose e-mail address is at the end of the article.
A Male Theory
By: Fouad Al-Obaid
In recent talks with many friends, I heard rather spine chilling revelations on how my fellow males (Kuwaiti that is) perceive their fellow Kuwaiti girl counterparts! Today I will try to rationally touch upon a matter that is highly irrational in nature. I will discuss the Kuwaiti male theory on women, dating and relating.
The average Abdallah I have noticed is a person filled with great ego, an individual who has a desire to control and manipulate others. In his desire to manipulate, often encourage by both elder relatives and society at large, seemingly has developed a tendency to project power over his friends, enemies, and concubines alike.
The desire of power is inherently something that most men aspire to. However if everyone in society was a leader then it would be hard to govern. Hence men in local custom, and to an extent projected in religion are deemed to be sovereigns of their possessions, which could be understood as leaders of their family and of the people that directly report to them. In this social order, a concubine is yet another person the average Abdallah can project his power upon.
A dilemma however constantly surrounds the average Abdallah for despite his desire to grow his “harem” he is conscious that perhaps other ill-natured people: people at the end of the day similar to him, are likewise on the look for yet another conquest.
Abdallah aware of the situation realizes that people out there could try to make any-given number of his female relatives likewise concubines in their respective “harems”. At this point if one question’s Abdallah’s rational of wanting other female yet at the same time if one transgressed his “sovereign kingdom” he would not hesitate to decapitate the fool who would have dared come close to any of his female relatives. Yet he like a lion in a jungle after a long day preying on Gulf Street and Marina, nevertheless is proud to share details of his hunt with fellow kings at their weekly roundtable or more correctly speaking “diwaniya”.
Moving to the next illogical notion that many have in recent times developed, if a girl accepts to even talk “innocently” on the phone it is seen as a big problem by many, yet most if not all people I have come to known do it on a rather consistent basis. Following the initial contact, a relationship develops usually, and more often than not, it would be an open one, unless off course prince-charming is eloquent in speech and threatening in nature. If the later is the case, then another highly illogical matter arises. Brining back the concept of power and control, guys I have noticed have this inherent nature to have the final word on most of everything. This is applied to “dating” for I have witnessed many irrational actions based on the later notion.
I recall once being with a friend cruising around when he called his “girlfriend” and asked here where she was. Upon knowing that she was out with her mother, he started to literally scream and shout at her, telling her how she disobeyed his command to not go out, and ordered her to return home immediately, he further instructed her to make an excuse in order for her mother not to doubt anything was wrong with her! I for one was shocked by the conversation and so I intriguingly asked the given friend about the rational of his action.
In all calm and serenity he replied that he had to teach her how to respect him. Furthermore he went on how it made him feel good, and that it was her fault not to ask permission from him to go out! What made the situation that much more unusual was the fact that they were “phone-dating”, needless to mention the irony of the situation!
On the one hand you have the guy ordering a girl he physically isn’t close to. On the other hand you have a girl who naively believed that the guy was overprotective and saw it as a gesture of love, or simply plainly put happened to be stupid, foolish enough to abide by the rules of a guy she barely knew; certainly a guy she will not end up having any meaningful relationship with.
For thoughts and comments fouad@kuwaittimes.net
So here is my question – would a man marry a woman who had a phone relationship with him? Is a phone relationship enough to ruin a woman’s reputation?
Recent Comments
Kitchen on Isiais: Winding Down intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
