Rain, Dear
My husband called me this morning from Germany and said “I am so glad we don’t live here anymore, it is all dark and grey and rainy today.”
I laughed and said “That’s the exact weather we are having in Kuwait.”
I have only recently started driving, really driving, the way I used to drive around Qatar. (One time my husband took a day off to take a trip around Qatar. We left early in the morning. We were back in time for lunch.) I was fearless, at least during daylight hours. Traffic was heavy, but much calmer, much tamer than in Kuwait.
When I first got here, I thought I would never drive. Then, little by little, I would drive here, drive there, mostly for groceries or meetings, then, little by little, more. Now, I am actually pretty good, or at least getting pretty good.
Or so I thought until today. I had to drive home in the rain. I am confident and also cautious as a driver. I was surrounded by two kinds of drivers – nervous and UNconfident drivers, and drivers who were totally oblivious to the dangers of a newly slick wet highway and driving their normal fast, weav-y way. That makes for a hair-raising ride, especially when you are caught between the nervous brak-ers and the cavalierly speeding weavers.
Did I mention school had just gotten out, so many of the cars were Mums with children, and the others were young bloods who had been trapped in the classroom and were eager to break loose? Deadly combination.
Made it home, mentally designing a medal. Soldiers get medals just for participating in a campaign and living to tell about it. I think the Kuwait freeways and ring roads should be combat-medal qualified. Maybe black, with a yellow stripe down the middle . . .and you get stars for acts of extraordinary bravery?
Happy Birthday, Law N’ Order Man
We drove to the hospital the night of December 2nd – it was a very cold clear night, and it seemed we could see every star in the sky, bright, twinkling, as excited as we were about the coming of this child. We were such kids, and we thought we were all grown up.
You, dear son, you taught us what being grown-up was all about. We thought we were ready for parenthood. We didn’t have a clue.
You were such a pretty baby, born early that cold cold morning in the hospital by the Chesapeake Bay. So pink and delicate we could see your veins through your skin.
We still marvel at you. After all these years, we still thank God for sending you to us, and we wonder at God’s mercy and sense of humor. You taught us everything we know about being good parents.
Oh! The fun we had! You were so funny, and so serious. We are so eager to see you, and your lovely bride.
And son, we are so proud of you. Happy Birthday, dear one, and thank you for being our son.
What is YOUR Comfort Food?
You know how it is. You’re not yourself. Your throat hurts or your tummy hurts and Mom fixes something something you love, and it happens so often throughout your childhood that when you get to be an adult, and you find yourself sick, it’s the food you think of.
And, of course, it depends on the illness. For tummy things, I remember chicken broth and jello. But for colds and flu, it was always tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, even if I just had a bad day, grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup can still cheer me up.
For my husband, raised in another part of the country, it is vegetable soup and cornbread. After we married, I learned to make cornbread in an iron skillet, and it is pretty good. He breaks it up and puts it in a glass of milk, though, and I can’t even watch him eat it.
Our son grew up in Tunis – when he has a sore throat, nothing will do but mint tea.
So what is YOUR comfort food? What did your Mamma (or Papa) make you when you were sick as a child? What do you dream of even now, all grown up, but sick and miserable?
Lisey’s Story: Stephen King
Mostly I wait for books to come out in paperback, so that they don’t hurt me if I fall asleep while I am reading (!), but for a few authors I will make an exception. One, James Lee Burke, I told you about in a previous post He Had Me From Hello.
My most recent exception was for Lisey’s Story, the newest novel out by Stephen King. It’s a departure from Stephen King as we know him, and yet, there are resonances and echoes of earlier writings. Stephen King is brilliant at capturing the terrors of childhood, and the diaphanously thin membrane separating reality as we know it (not that we agree on what “reality” is! 😉 ) from the “otherworld”. In the Dark Tower series, the otherworld was where all the bad things were created and passed over to this side through leaks, places where the membrane holding worlds apart thinned and even disappeared.
This book is covered with flowers, bright pink and fushia and purple peonies, lupin and daisies, shading into blacks, whites and greys at the top, so that the holleyhocks are only faintly blue. It’s a very odd cover for a Stephen King book, but this is a very odd book. Early reviews say it is about as autobiographical a book by Stephen King as he has ever written, and I believe it. Stephen King writes what he knows – from Misery, written shortly after his nearly fatal accident as he was walking along a road near his Vermont farm and was hit by a van and nearly crippled for life, to this one, Lisey’s Story, in which we spend a lot of time in a dead author’s writing loft in an old barn in – you guessed it – Vermont.
As Lisey’s Story opens, we learn that she is the widow of an author (an author a whole lot like Stephen King) who has made a fortune writing fantasy/horror books. As the book unfolds, we walk with her through her devastating grief, bitter anger, and the endless exhaustion of trying to clear out her husband’s study. Every time she tackles the task, she is distracted by vivid and disturbing memories, memories she has tried to keep deeply buried because of their troubling implications.
King is writing on multiple levels. On one level, it is about a widow coming to terms with the death of her life partner. On another level, it is about a woman who doesn’t know her own strength and who comes to understand more about herself and about her relation to the world, and to her family of sisters. We’re there. We walk with her. If you’ve ever had sisters, you will particularly appreciate King’s treatment of how sisters relate to one another, and how that relationship both stays strong and loyal, and also evolves as sisters become adult people facing adult crises.
Throughout the book are whispers reminding us that the dead are all around us, leaving hints and reminders that their reality, too, is only a thin membrane away from our own.
And, on the most obvious level, King is writing about a boy and the source of his nightmares, the same source of his healing powers, the real life nightmares that haunt us all, and how with bravery and goodness and tools we don’t even know we have, we can triumph over evil.
Stephen King taps into the child within us all. He knows the terrors of our childhood, and he knows that evil gains power from the ability to terrify. Stephen King believes good can triumph over evil – when good people band together, evil can be beaten. In every book, there is a moment when one has to make a choice to stand against evil or be crushed by evil, and while his heroes and heroines are flawed and human – they are good, and they choose to stand against the evil. They may come out scarred and bloody, but they also come out triumphant.
It may not be great literature, but it’s a fine read. Stephen King’s books also are great vocabulary builders. He uses unusual and precise words to paint his word pictures.
Sweet, Sweet Luxury
My husband whisked me away for the weekend yesterday, a break we both need badly. We arrived early, checked in, had lunch in an old favorite restaurant, and took a driving tour around Doha, our former home. Whew! Little Doha is all grown up! Continuous building of high rising towers on the Corniche, huge road building and traffic improvement program, and of course, amazing new construction for the upcoming Doha games. We joked that we would love to have had the contract just for the signage for the games – they are awesome, and they are everywhere.
(I forgot to bring my photo-uploading-stick – I will upload some photos when I get back.)
And then, back to the room, to continue enjoying the sweetest luxury of all – time alone together. Just for today, no dinners with friends, no planned activities – we have the books and magazines we have been intending to read, there is a spa and great masseuse here, but best of all – just time together, time to catch up on all the little conversations we haven’t had time to have, time to dream a little about the future, time to give thanks for what we have.
Today, we will attend services in our former church, meet with old friends for brunch and then again for dinner. These are the friends who walk through the tough times with one another, who laugh together and cry together, and who know where all your skeletons are hidden – friends you can trust, friends who wear well over a lifetime. Tomorrow, a big charity bazaar and an evening event. In between – more time together. Thanks be to God for the luxury of time and for our good friends!
Doha Dhow and Skyline Before
Kuwait’s Ms. America
It was a loooonnnnngggg trip. There were what we call “travel mercies” – blessings. On two very crowded flights, I had an empty seat next to me. I ran into some really caring cabin crew members, people who looked like they really like what they are doing. For a trip with a lot of potential for disaster, it went well. As my husband says – any time the number of successful landings equal the number of take-offs, it’s a good trip.
The flight into Kuwait had a majority of two kinds of people – Dutch soldiers, who came onto the plane already drunk (and REEKING of alcohol) who were drinking all the way to Kuwait, and tired businessmen, who sacked out – I was surrounded by a symphony of snores. I didn’t mind that at all; I am betting they work hard and have families waiting for them, and just needed to catch up on a little sleep before getting back to Kuwait.
We all have our little pet phobias. I have a horror of airplane lack-of-cleanliness, and I have little slippers I put on as soon as I get on the plane. Arriving in Kuwait, I changed back into my boots, but horrors! My toes feel all cramped up; I am so used to wearing sandals. I think my feet swelled during the flights!
Everything goes smoothly, even another line opening up as I get to immigration, and my bags come off the flight right away, customs doesn’t ask me any questions, not even about the canned Alaska smoked salmon – now these are more travel mercies! But then, with my poor little feet screaming in dismay, I have to make the long walk down what I think of as the Miss America runway.
For those of my readers who do not live in Doha or in Kuwait, who have never visited me and experienced this for yourself, I will explain. Imagine, when you arrive, as you exit customs, you have to walk about 100 yards to where you will be met. Imagine along the route, there are hundreds of people waiting for others to arrive. Their full attention is on whoever is on the “runway” at the moment. My toes behave; I will NOT limp as I stride down the runway, refraining from doing a queenly wave at those along both sides of the the parade route.
But I can’t help but have a big goofy grin on my face at the hilariousness of running this ordeal at the end of a long trip, skin alligatored by hours of moisture-sucking airplane air, feet swollen, clothes rumpled, make-up worn off . . .now this is where having an abaya and veil makes a lot of sense.
And the greatest travel mercy of all, my husband waiting at the end of the long walk, the car nearby, and a quick exit and trip home. It is well after midnight, but we have so much to catch up on, even though we talked twice a day while I was gone. Today, I slept until noon and I am making a very very slow start on the day.
The Golden Crown
I was folding the laundry, and I could hear my Dad scolding my Mom in the next room.
“Those health care workers are for me! They’re not supposed to be ironing, or vacuuming, or helping you, they are supposed to be helping ME!”
She had just finished asking him for a check, so I could take her out to buy a couple new pair of pants. Back in the house now, he is busy retaking lost territory and asserting who’s the boss.
In the car, she weeps.
“What am I going to do?” she asks me.
Inspiration strikes.
“Mom, remember the golden crown you wore at the rehersal dinner, the night before the wedding? I saw it on the top shelf of the linen closet when I was putting things away.”
She looks at me like I am out of my mind.
“Mom, when he talks to you that way, don’t talk back. Just go get the crown and put it on. Don’t say anything, just wear the crown.”
She starts to giggle. Good. Got her laughing.
“Why would I wear a crown?” she demands.
“Because it will drive Dad crazy. Eventually, he will have to ask you why you are wearing the crown, and you can just tell him it reminds you of a time when you were treated with respect, and you were happy.”
At this point, we both dissolve in giggles. I don’t think she will ever put the crown on – she has her own ways of dealing with Dad. But at least she remembers that things have not always been this way, and she can hold her head high.
My husband reminds me that one day, we too will be facing the challenges of being, we hope, very old. He says we will probably be nasty and angry, too at losing control over our lives, at losing independance. Having that kind of input is one of the benefits of having been married to the same person for a long time. Hope someone gives me a golden crown.
Date Night in Kuwait
Because my husband’s weekend is Friday, Thursday night is our date night in Kuwait. We have a tradition of going out for a nice dinner together.
We used to drive our son crazy. We would say “Hey, want to go to Rio Bravo (Mexican) with us?” and about a third of the way there, my husband would say “You know, I just have this yen for sushi!” and I would go “Oh! Me too!” and our son would pipe up “No! No! No! That’s ‘bait and switch!’ No! That’s not fair!”
(Now he laughs and tells us that it runs in the family; that he and his wife do the same thing – and, he now also eats sushi. My sisters’ families tell me they do it too – it must be a family culture thing.)
So last night we were on our way to Biella’s at the Marina Crescent. But oh, the traffic on the Corniche! Maybe we should just eat Chinese in the neighborhood? What about the seafood buffet at the Crown Plaza? Or . . . finally we decided on Paul’s down at Fehaheel, and hoped there was a parking space.
They have a new mall opening just across the main street from the Al Kout Mall, Al Manshar, with a great big apartment building and a great big new hotel, a Chili’s, a Johnny Rocket’s and a food court – a few of the merchants and restaurants are already open – but only like 40 parking spaces???? Go figure! Even worse, it is right next to a beautiful mosque, so at prayer time, there is NOWHERE for anyone to park. And the driving in Fehaheel at night is crazy . . . minimally better than Gulf Road. Take another look at the photo – those two outcroppings are perfect for a bridge, a la Marina Mall – connecting one mall to the other, and sharing parking spaces.
At Paul’s in Fehaheel it was comfortable enough, with their fans, to eat outside, by the big shallow water-fountain pavillion. Great food – we had the Camembert – noisette salad, onion soup and the smoked salmon pasta, most of which we brought home because the soup and salad had been so good. Best of all was just being together, sharing our week and having a relaxed, delicious meal together.
And it was there I told him about my blog. I don’t like keeping secrets from my husband. I wanted to see if blogging was something I really wanted to do before I told anyone. Last weekend, when he was asking me to explain blogging to him, I was afraid he was on to me. He wasn’t; it was a co-incidence, but I knew someone was bound to figure it out sooner or later, and I really wanted to tell him. I was ready.
Last night when we got home I showed him the blog and he was amazed. It is so cool to have such a great evening together, great meal, great conversation, and, after all these years being married, to be able to surprise him now and then – in a good way. It was one of our best dates.
Breaking Out the Sweaters
This morning, checking the weather forecasts, I exclaimed to my husband “Wow! 100 degree (38 C) maximums for the next five days!”
“Break out the winter sweaters!” he exclaimed.
It’s a family joke. We’re from the same country, but different cultures. I was raised in a very cold climate, he was raised in a very hot climate. I need it to be cold enough to sleep; he sleeps in a nightshirt with an extra blanket.
When we were first married, he looked at me one night and said “Don’t you ever fry anything?”
I looked at him in horror. “No! – and you’ll live a lot longer! We only grill and occasionally saute!”
When I first met his family, they fixed all their best dishes for me.The food was wonderful, but used a lot of cream and lard and butter. Not used to eating such rich foods, I got really sick. Later, I did learn to cook several of the dishes that he grew up with, and he learned to like grilled fish and shrimp.
Although I do not think 100 degrees is “cool,” I am seeing changes in the weather – it is lovely at night, sweet for sitting outside. The color of the sea changed yesterday, from it’s normal jade color to a more blue color. There are huge flocks of birds, landing, resting and taking off – migratory birds? Two days ago, I could see silvery fish jumping in the waters, and last night, late late into the night, there were fishing boats just yards off the shore, with their lights gaily dancing up and down. I grew up on fishing boats – a part of me yearns to be out there with a line in the water.
Think I’d better go pull out the winter boxes.;-)
Chicken Nuggets and Big Macs
Brava, Chicken Nuggets, you have taken what was apparently meant to be an insult, and turned it into a badge of honor. And well you should.
Kuwaiti has been a major trading crossroad for centuries. It would follow that there has been a lot of mixing, as traders pass through, people travel to foreign lands, historically, as well as now. As genetic testing becomes more acceptable, we are all bound to discover that we are much more mixed, and much more alike, than we ever knew. And, there are bound to be surprises, as men and women don’t always fertilize within acceptable societal boundaries.
When you walk around, you see Kuwaitis with the faces of India, Iran, Iraq, Africa, even possibly faces from the earliest adventures of Alexander the Greek. This is a good thing, the intermingling of cultures and bloodlines build strength, resilience and flexibility.
There is a wonderful book you will enjoy reading –
-
Third Culture Kids
by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken. While the focus is on young people raised outside their own culture – diplomat kids, oil kids, missionary kids, international business kids – the findings apply to all those who learn to function in more than one culture. You learn that feeling alien and weird is NORMAL for TCK’s during adolescence, and well into their 20’s and even their 30’s.
At some point, however, you realize that every culture you understand, every additional language you master, every new experience brings a whole new tool chest to your life, new perspectives and additional ways of thinking through life problems.
You, dear ones, are the hope of tomorrow. You are international citizens, having a larger world view because of your mixed upbringing. You have MORE THAN double the advantages (culture 1 + culture 2) you have the additional advantage of the (C1xC2) blend. (Hearing strains of “We are Nuggets; hear us roar in numbers too big to ignore . . !”)
. . . . So. . . if you are (golden, delicious, juicy) little chicken nuggets, what are the men of mixed Kuwaiti and western heritage – Big Macs?? Burger Kings?? (cracking myself up)
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