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.
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?
The Kuwait Beauty Sisterhood
We love the Kuwait Airport. I love it that you can get a cup of coffee and just sit and wait for your arrivals to make that long long walk as you exit customs and head toward the exit. We love watching the families so excited to see one another. We make up stories for ourselves to explain what we are seeing. Sometimes, we cry, too, because it is so moving. We love it when the women ululate on seeing a new arrival, when brides arrive with their husbands, when Moms come back from Hajj.
A few nights ago, my husband was meeting late arrivals at the airport and he saw something we have NEVER seen before. He saw four women, all with identical bandages over their noses. He figures they must have gone somewhere for plastic surgery. All four at the same time? We figure they must be sisters, or cousins, or very very good friends, all having their noses trimmed at the same time. He said they weren’t at all self-conscious about it, rather they were grinning with pride. I think when there are four of you with the same big bandage, it must take the self-conscious factor WAAAAAYYYYY out.
We’re always laughing at what we call “buying hope in a bottle.” For me, it might be the next luxury face cream that promises me “visible results in 7 days”. For my husband, it is always the next super camera. For some, it is the hot motorcycle, or the next hot car. For some, it is the hottest new computer, or the tiniest, biggest gigabyte iPod with all the bells and whistles. We’re all looking for a little hope. It just gives me a big grin thinking of those four brave girls going under the knife together for better noses.
Early Christmas Preparations
Did you know that Thanksgiving used to be earlier in November, and when it was moved to the 4th Thursday in November, the merchants objected because it shortened the Christmas shopping season? It seems to me that the season gets started earlier and earlier every year, in spite of the Thanksgiving change.
In Germany, many people used to put up the tree on Christmas Eve day. We usually put ours up around December 15th – we wanted to have the beauty in the house, but also wanted to be sure it would last without drying out and becoming a fire hazard. It was cold enough that we could buy the tree and keep it outside, and then put it up when we had the time and energy.
And our tradition was that the tree had to be down by the Feast of Epiphany, on January 6th, the day the church celebrates the Wise Men (probably Persians) who came seeking the small baby born in Bethlehem.
We are having a smaller Christmas this year. With my Dad so ill, I don’t have the psychic energy to go all out as usual. Last year, we were all together; Dad and Mom bought tickets for Christmas Eve Day for all of us, the huge entire family, to go see the Nutcracker Ballet together. It was hugely fun. The production was lively and beautiful and delightful, all our plans went smoothly, and then we gathered back at Mom and Dad’s for finger-food dinner and a cut-throat game of Hearts. So much laughter, so much fun.
So I have the packages wrapped and my husband, God bless him, will get them in the mail today to insure they will arrive in time for Christmas. Although we are not going back, our son and his bride will be with us for Christmas here in Kuwait – alhamdullah! In my heart, I think of her as “the Seaside bride” – they were married on a gorgeous late afternoon in April on a snowy white sand beach in Florida. She was glowing and beautiful. He was beside himself with happiness. It was one of the happiest days in my life.
It was a bright, sunny afternoon. The minister, in his black suit, had sunglasses on. When we posted the photos, all our friends asked if he was FBI. He looked like a “man in black”.
On our way to church last night, I saw people who already have Christmas trees up and ready, all lit up in their windows. I remember last year in Qatar, where the word “Christmas” is never mentioned in the ads; stores advertise “seasonal decorations”. We celebrated 50 years of the church in Kuwait last night, and I thank God to live in a sophisticated country, where we are free to worship the same God, but in our own way.
(Qatteri Cat thinking about getting ready for Christmas)
But for me, it’s still too early to put up a tree. It is too bright, too sunny, the Christmas tree looks diminished in the bright light. I have my boxes labled so I can pull out the early decorations first, without having to go through everything. Just a few baubles, a few little lights, and a little more next week.
(Thought I would go silver this year, courtesy of some cool stuff from IKEA, but it was too cold and hard, softened up by adding just a little additional color)
What is This?
Does anyone know what this is? On the right of the (whatever) in the foreground is some kind of station with a shack and machinery. A boat comes and visits it from time to time. Whatever this is stays a few days, and then the boat comes and moves it somewhere else. At one point, maybe they were drawing nets up, but it was night. I could see silvery flashes – fish? – but it also may have been moonlight. . .
The two pieces shown seem to be related. The closest seems to be rusty pipe on floats. The second is linked floats . . . but I cannot figure out what they are doing.
Top Posts
The Top Posts column in WordPress statistics disappeared for a few days, and oh! I really missed it. I’m not so interested in the total numbers as in what people find the most interesting. I love the new Top Posts system, where you can click on a little icon that looks like a graph, and it shows you the total history of that particular post – how often people look for it and choose it, not coming from some aggregator, but from somewhere like a google search. I like it that WordPress keeps improving itself, and listens to our feedback.
Targeted
On my way home from a meeting today, there was a guy in a big hurry. First he was behind me, in his great big beat-up black Chevy SUV, then passing me, and then, there he was, right in front of me at the next light. Here’s what gets my attention. On his lower left rear, just above the bumper, are three bullet holes, pretty closely spaced, too. It’s not easy to place three bullets that close together, and I can only imagine that it was done while at least one car was in motion, if not two.
So I’m impressed; someone around here is a sharp shooter.
But why would anyone be shooting at another car here in Kuwait? I can’t remember seeing another car with bullet holes.
Bloggers and Productivity
A teeny note found at the bottom of page 36 in the October 9th
-
New Yorker
(yeh, I’m a little behind in my reading . . .)
“A report last week by Advertising Age Editor at Large Bradley Johnson noted that about 35 million workers – or one in four people in the U.S. labor force – spend an average of 3.5 hours, or 9% of each work day reading blogs.”
I’m not all that great in math, but wouldn’t 3.5 hours of a work day be more than 9%? Depending on whether you work a fairly standard seven – eight hour day, that would be nearly HALF your working day. They must have meant 9% of the work week . . . still, significantly cutting into productive working time.
Fundamentally Green
Yesterday on National Public Radio, they did a segment on evangelical churches going “green”, i.e. environmentally conscious, and the problems it was causing the Republican party, who count on fundamental support.
Many of the churches are focusing on our stewardship of the environment, and setting up all kinds of recycle programs, calling in their “environmental tithe: (10% of your income.)
The problem is, the Democratic party is the party focused on the environment. So with the November elections coming up, NPR was examining how the shift in thinking will influence the voting.
There are other issues on which Democrats and Republicans differ – my guess is that those issues will have more influence on how people vote. But it is interesting that the “green” issue was raised – it could be a growing influence. The baby-boom generation are still a big voting bloc, and things may shift as they near retirement, and focus differently.
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