Eid al Adha on October 15
From The Peninsula – Qatar:
Eid Al Adha on October 15
Sunday, 06 October 2013
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court yesterday announced that today is the first day of Dhul-Hijja, 1434 Hijri. The court said in a statement carried by Saudi Press Agency SPA that standing at Mount Arafat will be on October 14 and thus the first day of Eid Al Adha will fall on October 15.
Why, you ask, are you printing this when You live in Pensacola?
Today, at TJMaxx, the Saudi woman in front of me was talking with the Palestinian woman behind me in line – they were talking about sweets and special dishes they were preparing for Eid. I grinned to myself and thought for a few minutes I was back in Kuwait or Qatar or even Saudi Arabia. But no, as we exited, each woman headed for her own car, and the Saudi woman drove competently and confidently out the parking lot. Only thing is, they were thinking Eid is on the 17th. Maybe it is the 16th, here?
The Peninsula also states that sheep are at a reasonable price leading up to the great sacrifice. I wonder where people but sheep in Pensacola? I wonder if it is legal to butcher them in your driveway? I am imagining the horror on the neighbors’ faces were that to happen. I am sure there is a halal butcher in town who is very busy this week and next 🙂
This is the only shop I could find specializing in Halal meats, and it is in Tallahassee, a good two and a half to three hours down the road.
Possibly Four Winds has halal meats:
Four Winds International Food Market
6895-F N 9th Av, Pensacola, FL 32504
My Kind of Day . . .
Tropical Storm/Depression Karen blew herself out before she ever got to Pensacola. We had a glorious sunny Saturday, a Sunday with frequent spells of rain, and today dawned with high skies and sunshine. It looks like rain on the weather map, but the skies are blue. Even better, the temperatures have dropped. It is 62° as I write. Wooo HOOOOO!
This is an exciting time of the year for gardeners. Tomatoes blossoms will ripen into tomatoes once the temperatures go below 70° at night. For two years we have had our own tomatoes well into January, even February.
When we went downtown on Saturday, a beautiful breezy day, there was no market on Palafox – I guess they had been cancelled by fear of the storm blowing in. It was quiet, but a good lunch crowd.
Sunday I finished a charity quilt which turned out better than I had thought it would. That sounds funny, but sometimes I play around, try something new, and about three quarters of the way through I figure out that I am not happy with it. Sometimes it is hard to finish a quilt you don’t particularly lilke, but I have learned to press on, that sometimes once it is pieced, sandwiched and quilted, once it is washed, it looks better. That’s the story with this quilt. I had time on the rainy Sunday to finish up the quilting and binding, and once I washed it, I was happier with it than I had been. It is going to a youngster aging out of the foster care system.
Off to water aerobics and whatever else keeps me outdoors on this beautiful day!
Palafox One of ‘Ten Best Streets in America’
From today’s Pensacola News Journal, the best parade street I have ever seen is recognized nationally for parades, restaurants and community spirit.
Palafox named one of Ten Best Streets in America
Written by
Julio Diaz
and Kevin Robinson
Need more proof that Palafox Place has become a thriving thoroughfare? Here it is: Palafox Place is one of 10 “Great Streets in America for 2013,” according to the American Planning Association.
The independent, not-for-profit educational organization — affiliated with the American Institute of Certified Planners — named Palafox Place alongside streets in Philadelphia; Galveston, Texas; Honolulu; and Corning, N.Y., on its 2013 list.
“For hundreds of years, Palafox Street has been at the center of life in our city,” Mayor Ashton Hayward said in a news release. “Over the past three decades, our community has reinvested in Palafox Street and, as a result, Palafox has once again become the anchor to a thriving, vibrant downtown and a city in renaissance.”
The organization recognized the eight-block stretch from Wright Street to Main Street. Locals will note that Palafox Place addresses run from 1 to 400 south of Garden Street, so this honor additionally includes parts of North and South Palafox Street (from Wright Street to Garden Street and from Government Street to Main Street).
The selection cites the historic architecture and character of the street, as well as popular events such as Mardi Gras parades and the annual Pelican Drop on New Year’s Eve; management of public events and street closures by the Downtown Improvement Board; private investment, including the Al Fresco food trailer court; and a variety of planning and preservation achievements.
You can read the entire article by clicking here.
Or better yet – come for Mardi Gras! See for yourself 🙂
Not The Day We Expected . . .
And once again, we have to laugh at God’s perfect timing.
I love Thursdays. Thursdays are the only day I have unscheduled. Once a month on a Thursday I have a meeting, but other than that, Thursdays are mine, and I luxuriate in them.
This morning I slept in an hour, then went leisurely through my Lectionary readings and scanned my e-mail. AdventureMan had other plans, but as we talked over our day, decided he wanted to come with me to the commissary. It’s fine with me. We have always had some of our best conversations in the car, and he doesn’t follow me around in the commissary asking questions like “do we really need this?” the kinds of questions that drive wives to homicidal thinking. There are some benches in the commissary, AdventureMan calls them the Old Farts benches, and he picks up his specialty bird seeds and supplies, then settles in to watch for me coming down the last lane.
Four minutes after we left the house, we got a call from our son, tied up on a case, that little Q broke his arm on the playground, could we go pick him up? We were only about five minutes from his school and were there in a flash. AdventureMan/BaBa rode in the ambulance while I drove over to our son’s home to care for the baby while Q’s Mom zipped to meet them at the hospital emergency room.
It took all day. Between the transporting and the paperwork and the x-rays and the setting of the bones (yep, two bones broken), by the time we all met up again, I no longer had any interest in hitting the commissary. I will try again tomorrow, God willing.
Meanwhile, we marvel at how wonderful it is to be here in Pensacola, to be on call for emergencies like this, and that we were just minutes from his school when our son’s call came. We love it that we can be useful in these emergencies, that we are here to help and that we can be helpful. Once again, we thank God for his perfect timing.
Meanwhile, Mom called and gave me no sympathy whatever. She laughed! “Remember your sister broke both her arms before she was six, and you both broke legs skiing!” she chortled. Ouch! I guess little boy Q comes from a family of risk-takers. His dad broke exactly the same arm in the same place jumping to grab on to a high bar once. His son said “I thought I could fly. . . but I can’t.” It’s in the genes. :-}
My View at Flounders on Pensacola Beach
“They’re all asking to have what you are having!” the waiter shouted across the aisle as I saw eight people watching me eat a Baja Fish Taco, not a pretty sight. They caught me with a mouth full, so I could only smile and nod good-naturedly, trying to indicate it was delicious – if messy. AdventureMan had a grouper Po’Boy and a bowl of their matchless seafood chowder.
In spite of the messiness – Baha Tacos was a three napkin meal, all the lettuce and tomato and jalepeno slices keep falling out, it is so stuffed, and holy smokes, it is so delicious. Four people at that table ordered the same. It is a wonderful dish. It is on the appetizer section of the menu, but it comes with three huge fish tacos, more than I can ever eat, so they bring me a box when they bring the entree. Yes, it is just as good later in the day. It tastes so fresh.
The weather is perfect now, crawling up into the 80’s, cooling down into the lower 70’s at night, sea breezes blowing, humidity . . . well, bearable. Reminds us of November in Kuwait.
Here is my view at Flounders:
Here Comes Karen
As I’ve watched Pensacola weather over the three years we have lived here, I have seen a hilarious co-incidence. If there is ever going to be a cold spell, or a lengthy rainy spell, it is going to hit for the weekend. It’s a pity, the beaches in Pensacola are at their most glorious in October, no tourists, just locals enjoying the God-given beauty of sun, sand and surf. The restaurants are accessible, you can find parking . . . and then the rain hits.
Long term forecasts for the summer were that while the rest of the USA would have record highs, we would have cooler, overcast skies. I don’t remember them mentioning record rains, that would rot the crops in the fields.
Last night, at an event, a friend said she and her closest 300 friends were going camping, but she had heard there might be something blowing in this weekend. Sure enough, when I checked WeatherUnderground this morning, there are bit warnings for Tropical Storm Karen to hit – you guessed it – on Saturday. Oh aarrgh.
Batten down the hatches, matey. Oh wait, Talk-like-a-pirate-day was last week.
“Is Your Cat Always Fractious?”
“Fractious” isn’t a word you often hear. Clearly the veterinary tech had just read the word off the record, perhaps there is some warning in there about the Qatari Cat.
The Qatari Cat was born on the streets of Qatar, and had a bumpy start with another owner. While the man and his daughter liked him just fine, the wife and her mother did not. When the Qatari cat came to live with us, he was very wary of me. It took a couple years for him to fully trust me. He watched my feet all the time. He quailed in fear, ears back, if I used a loud voice. He was terrified of the sound of plastic bags.
Slowly, slowly, we built a relationship. Today, ten years later, he is a sweet cat.
He is a sweet cat every single day of the year, but he still has his street instincts. AdventureMan has learned that you can’t play rough with the Qatari Cat; you play rough, you lose. I never speak loudly to him; it just won’t work, it just gets his back up. Because he knows I am the boss, I speak sternly, but softly to him and he will do just what I ask him to do.
Our first visit to the vet went badly. You can read about it here. He was fine until the buzzing razor hit his bottom and then all his survival instincts kicked in. He’s been back twice, and he has been as good as gold, but somehow . . . that notation has stuck.
“No!” I replied, maybe a little bit too loudly.”No! He is a sweet kitty! He is snuggly and loving and quiet and good! But if he is scared, he wants to defend himself.” I told the tech about the Italian vet the Qatari Cat fell in love with in Kuwait, she snuggled him and told him how beautiful he was and how much she loved him and he was putty in her hands. I was almost jealous. I thought maybe she distilled some catnip and mixed it with her perfume or something, Qatari Cat’s eyes glazed a little in sheer adoration when he was around her, and he even drooled a little. She could take his temperature, give him a shot and check his innards and he never complained, just looked at her adoringly.
The tech shot a skeptical look at me and exited the room. I could hear her repeat this to the vet, and muffled laughter before she entered the room again.
So the vet came in and snuggled Qatari Cat, and told him he was pretty, and while she did not say it with an Italian accent, Qatari Cat was clearly intrigued – and on his best behavior. It doesn’t take much . . . he’s a male. Snuggle him a little, rub his fur the right way, chat him up . . . it doesn’t have to be rational, it’s all in the tone of voice and the flirtation. He totally digs it, he eats it up. A little grope here, a quick look at the teeth, a quick injection and he’s finished, not a fractious moment in the entire visit.
On the way home, we laughed thinking of our sensitivity at having our cat called “fractious.” We remember the indignant response of friends whose cat was annotated as “vicious” by a German vet. The cat was diabetic and objected to the roughness with which the vet wanted to take his blood. I think if you are a veterinarian, you might have an understanding that a sick animal, or a scared animal, might act unpredictably or defensively, there are big thick gloves you can wear if an animal seems wired up.
Does this look like a fractious cat to you?
One Thing Leads to Another
“I’m afraid to go home,” AdventureMan told our son. “She’s moving the furniture.”
“She can do that without consulting?” our son asked.
“Yeh, she can,” AdventureMan responded, “And I count myself lucky that she hasn’t bought another house and said we’re moving.”
Moving furniture is one of those things I do. I get tired of everything the same-old same-old. If I’m not moving, it gives me a chance to re-think things, and try something else to see if that works better.
We have a dining room we hardly ever use. We have never eaten a meal in there. We had too much furniture, and besides, in the family room we have a huge circular teak table that seats eight. It’s less formal and a lot more fun. The dining room is in a very quiet part of the house, so we talked about turning it into a library (see! we talked!) and that is what I did. But when you move a piece of furniture, or get rid of another, or both, you end up also having to evaluate all the things inside that piece of furniture, and having to think through where things need to go.
Life is so different. As an Army wife, we entertained all the time. I hit the sales in Czechoslovakia and have bar ware and wine glasses for our 48 closest friends, and we just don’t entertain like that any more. We don’t even drink like that!
We do entertain; we host the monthly book club some months, I have my quilting group in frequently, and we have dinners for family and dinners for visiting IVLP delegates. We entertain people we like. It’s a whole different world when it’s a choice. I’m getting rid of a lot of pieces I’ll never use again and I’ll never miss once they’re gone.
I’m getting rid a lot of irrelevant things, including an old TV cabinet, you remember them? They enclosed an old fashioned TV, had shelves for videos (remember them?) and little drawers for CDs? I’ve been using it as storage for art work and a thing that plays music from an iPod or two. I’ll hang some of the art work, get rid of some, and find another place for the MP3 player.
Yesterday was the big work, the figuring out how to change furniture and carpets into new positions. Of course, once you move something, you have to clean the places no one ever sees, so it takes more time, but you’ve got to do it right.
Today was the small but time-consuming work of getting things put away in a kind of order so that they can be found again. When I put books on the shelves three years ago, it was like fiction here and non-fiction there, and I never went back. Now, I have them sorted into subjects and country, art related, or religious. Got rid of about half my CD’s but still have too many.
It’s a messy process; you take something fixed, turn it into chaos and slowly, slowly, bring a new pattern into being. Tomorrow I need to hang some more art work. It’s been three years.
Then we live with the changes and see if they work for us. If not . . . the process starts over, but in the meanwhile, got rid of some stuff! One of these days, need to tackle the closets . . . Have an entire closed full of evening clothes I never wear, and can’t bear to part with . . . yet.
Zen Chinese Food in Juneau, Alaska
I felt so bad, I felt like I was betraying my heritage, but after nearly two weeks of eating salmon and halibut and crab and shrimp and scallops . . . we were ready for a change. AdventureMan spotted Zen, a restaurant in the Goldbelt Hotel, and it looked interesting. When we went inside, there were a lot of people there already, but many of them were busy accessing the internet, waiting for friends, arranging upcoming parties, etc. We were ready to EAT.
It gets worse – they have a really good menu. There are halibut dishes, shrimp dishes – I could have stayed true to the traditional and had ginger halibut, or something, but no, when I backslid, I backslid all the way.
We looked around, everyone was ordering the lunch specials. There are so many to choose from!
AdventureMan settled on the Hot and Sour Soup and the Cashew Chicken. When it arrived, he was impressed. Not only was there an abundance of cashews, they were also deliciously roasted:
I had the Miso soup and Vegetables with Garlic – perfect!
Might as well go all the way, once you backslide. You can always pick yourself up and behave tomorrow! 😉
The food came quickly and was beautifully prepared. We were surprised at how much care had been taken on dishes that were part of the daily specials. Service was prompt without being intrusive, and friendly. We were glad we ate there. We lament the lack of really good Chinese food in Pensacola; sadly, Zen had the edge over the best that Pensacola offers.
A Weather Anomoly
As I lay reading the newspaper yesterday afternoon, my afternoon sparkles were back. I have a variety of shiny surfaces, including a couple Swarovski crystal stars (lacking a piece or two) hanging in my office window; most of the year I have afternoon sparkles and rainbows on my office wall when the sun starts heading west toward sunset. It’s a small thing, but it gives me a jolt of joy.
I lose them just when the Pensacola weather starts hitting “hot and humid” on a regular basis. It’s a double whammy.
Although the temperatures remain hot, nightly temperatures are getting a little lower and the angle of light is different. The humidity is lower. The plants in the gardens know it; we have African iris blooming again, the white roses I love so much are back blooming their beautiful heads off, and the crepe myrtle is in full bloom, the swan song. I’ve even seen some magnolias blooming. It’s a little weird. I’m feeling like planting some tomatoes – last year we had tomatoes even through the coldest part of winter.
What is also a little weird, and there is a superstitious part of me that even hesitates to name it, I don’t want to invite it . . . we have had no hurricanes. It is mid-hurricane season, still plenty of time for angst, horror and destruction, but in spite of dire forecasts of one of the worst years yet, we have had not one single hurricane. Thanks be to God.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 