Icons Challenge, The Locard Principle 2: The Middle East and Me
The best thing, the very best thing about blogging, for me, is what I learn from my commenters. The old Locard’s Exchange Principle is a constant in life – with every interaction, a part of you rubs off on me, and a part of me rubs off on you. It’s why we’re careful about the people, books, movies, blogs and ideas we spend time with. . . we either feel better for hanging around them, or slightly uncomfortable. Sometimes, hugely uncomfortable. The internet is a microcosm, good and evil all mixed in together and we make our choices.
Fragonard: The Reader
Above: that is me. That’s pretty much who I am. I am quiet, I am a reader. I still get input, from newspapers, books, e-mails, the internet, friends, groups, etc.
What I love about blogging is that I throw something out, and you throw something back. Many many times, what I get back is unexpected, and forces me to re-examine my assumptions. Many times, I have to force myself to stop. Not to respond. I have to force myself to let the new information, new point-of-view sink in, percolate, settle. Minds don’t change in an instant, but . . . they do change. New information brings new, often surprising, perspectives. When I find myself getting angry, I have to step back and ask myself “what is going on here? What are you reacting to?” It helps me to know myself better, and it helps me to understand whatever-little-corner-of-the-world-I-am-living-in better, too.
There are about six different blog entries radiating out like a spider’s web from the thoughts I am now thinking, fed by your input and comments, and behind the scenes e-mails back and forth with new thoughts.
So here is my challenge for today. I’ve shown you one of my life icons, this Fragonard paining, The Reader.
Your mission, your challenge – identify / find a piece of art that shows us who you are. Post it on your blog and link here with a comment, or send it to me, and I will publish it.
(No graphic violence or pornography; I won’t publish it and I will break the link if you publish it on your blog and link to me.)
“I’m Melting! I’m Melting!”
At our church this weekend, our priest was making a point, using water, and he sprinkled various members of the congregation, to a series of “eeeeekks!”
I was reminded of several years ago – we had bought a new house, and our church has a special ceremony of blessing for a residence. As the priest carefully points out, he/she is not actually blessing the house, but blessing the inhabitants – nonetheless, every room has a special prayer, and the priest sprinkles a little holy water in each room.
more animals
As he sprinkled the water in one room, some hit my youngest sister, Sparkle. I watched her struggle not to do it, but she couldn’t resist.
“Ohhhh, I’m melting, I’m melting!” she cried out, like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.
Thank God, the priest was a good friend. He paused, looked at me and said “she is YOUR sister?” I nodded. He sighed, before continuing, and said “why am I not surprised?”
Words Strung Together in New Ways
I have a wonderful friend – she speaks English fluently, but it is her second language. Every now and then, she will say something that gives me a grin. It’s not because what she say is funny, but because I truly love language and words, and she strings words together in new ways, and when you put words together in new ways, you think new thoughts.
The first was Christmas “wrath”. She caught me totally by surprise. I knew what she meant, Christmas wreath, but the image of Christmas wrath totally caught my imagination. Holidays are volatile. Christmas wrath happens. I imagine Ramadan wrath happens, and Eid wrath. I think I laughed, not because I would ever make fun of her – I wouldn’t. After all, we are speaking English, not French, and I know how amusing the French find it when I speak French. This woman is way ahead of me.
Yesterday, she mentioned having a “pitch” in her stomach. I couldn’t help it. I grinned. She knew immediately, and asked, so I told her that we say “pit” but the truth is – when things are out of control and your stomach registers fear, it is as likely to pitch as it is to have a pit. I love the imagery.
Forgive me if I grin when you (very rarely) use the wrong word. I am not mocking you. I am smiling in delight at the new way you have put words together, that give me images I would not otherwise have had. And I look forward to all the future occasions when you will delight me with new concepts, new words strung together. đ
NonStomped Roses
Thanks be to God for a sweet husband. He knows I love white roses, and that’s what he got me, with one mischievous red red rose stuck right in the middle. đ
There is a shop in Kuwait we love, Au Nom de la Rose, where the flowers are always fresh, and beautiful, and put together naturally. AdventureMan says on Valentine’s Day, they were SO busy, but that the man in front of him, holding a bouquet, was trying to get a discount.
(whine! whine! whine!) said the man in front of him.
“Sir! This is not Mubarakiyya! This is fixed price! And you have already paid, why are you asking now for a discount?” said the polite but very very busy and professional manager. LOL!
We asked the manager how she liked working in Kuwait. (I am telling you this because her response was so totally unexpected, and delightful.)
“I LOVE working here!” she said. “The woman I work for, who owns the store, is wonderful to work for. I love my job, and she trusts me.”
She also gets paid a decent wage, and she gets paid on time. This is one of the happiest women I have met in Kuwait.
Au Nom de la Rose has more than one location, but the one we go to is next to Chocolat, next to Tumbleweeds, in that stretch of stores and restaurants near Bida’a circle. Expensive. Worth every fils. đ
No sunrise today. I can’t even see the sea. Whatever this is socking us in today – fog? sand? it is not orange, but it is THICK.
Life Lessons from a 90 Year Old
Thank you, Momcat!
Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90, in August, so here goes:
1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first p aycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry
13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.
“It seems before Truth sets you free, it puts you through the wringer…”
When AdventureMan Retires
“When we retire,” AdventureMan begins as we are driving down the street, “I want a tree like that in our front yard.”
This isn’t the first time he has said such a thing.
You know, where you live there are rules, and sometimes those rules aren’t written down. If you violate the rules, people say mean things like “they must not be from around here.”
Like in my neighborhood, most of the houses have some grey in their color. It’s the Pacific Northwest. The sky is grey. Sometimes the sea is grey. People get used to grey, and they paint their houses grey, like blue-grey or brown-grey or green-grey, but always some kind of grey in the color. It’s just the way things are done.
Here, sometimes a house is painted very brightly, like egg yolk yellow, not a hint of grey. Bright bright orange, not a hint of grey. At first, it is shocking to the eye, but in six months, the color mellows with the bright sunlight, and fades to a soothing sand-yellow, or sand-orange.
This is what AdventureMan thinks would look great in our front yard:
Or maybe he is just yanking on my chain? đ
“Ban Valentine’s Day Celebrations”
(Yawn)
I hate it when I can’t find the entry all typed up for me in one of the local online versions of the newspaper; it means I have to type the whole thing in by myself. I guess all the newspapers felt this was to ho-hum to put on the online edition.
Live from the Kuwait Times:
Ban Valentine’s Day Celebrations
KUWAIT: MPs have spung to action earlier than usual. They have urged the government to ban any form of Valentine’s Day celebrations on February 14. Lawmakers have asked the MInister of Commerce and Industry to see it that Kuwaiti traditions and values are fully observed, reported Al Watan. Speaking in this regard, MP Mohammed Hayef al-Mutairi urged the Commerce minister, Ahmed Baqer to ban the import of merchandise related to celebrating the “heathen occasion” (allusion to Valentine’s Day). He also warned local companies against displaying any of these goods for sale.
“This is against Islam and misleads our youth” he said. MP Abdullatif Al Omairi said that celebrating this day was a ‘blind imitation of the West.’ It is something that does not belong to us, something that is completely alien to our society, morals and traditions,” he warned. He urged the government to interfere and preserve Muslim values. “There are only two Eids in Islam. We should not celebrate Christians’ festivities because they do not celebrate ours,” he said.
As if celebrating Valentine’s Day could be stopped! As if a loving husband doesn’t invite his wife to dinner, or as if a loving wife doesn’t fix something special for her husband just because, just because. As if you won’t buy chocolates for your sweetheart, or flowers, whether or not there is a Valentine’s Day (February 14th) advertisement in a window. As if you can forbid the joyful celebration of a relationship. It’s not about a Christian holiday; this stopped being a religious holiday long ago, if it ever was, this holiday is purely about the joy of living. Not unlike Liberation Day, or a national day, neither of which are Islamic, and both of which are joyfully celebrated.
When will these lawmakers (and I include the lawmakers in all nations) learn that when you forbid something, you only make it more attractive?
In my country, we have some very serious national issues to tackle. I prefer that my lawmakers focus on national issues and not issues-of-choice to private individuals. (AdventureMan already knows where he is taking me on Valentine’s Day. đ See you there!)
Empty Nests Make for Happy Marriage
LLOOLL. To everyone’s great surprise, the results found the empty-nest marriages are HAPPIER than families with children. I think the message is HANG IN THERE! The study found that marital happiness plunged with the first child, and went further south with each addition. Children take time and attention, the more, the more chaotic. The study doesn’t say don’t have children, it just says there is a great satisfaction to having children who successfuly transition to adulthood.
This compilation of studies is reported in today’s New York Times. Clicking on the blue type will take you to the entire article.
The study is important because it tracks the first generation of women to juggle traditional family responsibilities with jobs in the work force. In the empty-nest study, researchers compared the womenâs marital happiness in their 40s, when many still had children at home; in their early 50s, when some had older children who had left home; and in their 60s, when virtually all had empty nests. At every point, the empty nesters scored higher on marital happiness than women with children still at home. The finding mirrors that of a report presented last year at the American Psychological Association, tracking a dozen parents who were interviewed at the time of a childâs high school graduation and 10 years later. That small study also showed that a majority of parents scored higher on marital satisfaction after children had left home.
While the Berkeley researchers had hypothesized that the improvement in marital happiness came from couplesâ spending more time together, the women in the same study reported spending just as much time with their partners whether the children were living at home or had moved out. But they said the quality of that time was better.
âThere are fewer interruptions and less stress when kids are out of the house,â said Dr. Gorchoff, at Berkeley. âIt wasnât that they spent more time with each other after the children moved out. Itâs the quality of time they spent with each other that improved.â
She notes that the lesson from the empty nest may be that parents need to work to carve out more stress-free time together. In the sample studied, it was only relationship satisfaction that improved when children left home. Over all, parents were just as happy with children at home as in the empty nest. (What happens when adult children move back home, their job prospects having evaporated in a brutal economy, has not been extensively studied.)
âKids arenât ruining parentsâ lives,â Dr. Gorchoff said. âItâs just that theyâre making it more difficult to have enjoyable interactions together.â
A New Dawn (and Glimpses from the Inauguration)
“Are you able to watch the inauguration from work?” I type an IM to my son.
“Nah, I’ll have to catch some of it later,” he types back. He has victims to interview and briefs to prepare – it’s a normal day, not a holiday in his state.
I am glued to the screen. AdventureMan comes home and joins me, just in time for the swearing in and Inaugural address. WOW. Our new President is inspirational. He doesn’t tell us it is going to be easy. He says we are all going to have to work hard to turn things around. He reminds us that together, united – we can do it. Wow.
AdventureMan said what was most exciting to him was that we are celebrating 200 years of peaceful transition of power. The pendulum has swung right and left and center, administrations have changed, and by the Grace of God, it has happened peacefully.
Taking the oath of office:
Crowds watching in Kenya:
Inaugural speech:
An estimated 1.4 million Americans stood hours to watch Obama become President in temperatures below freezing:
Singing the national anthem:
Signing his first documents as the US President:
What? You thought I forgot? Here is the new dawn in Kuwait – a pearly morning, another great day in Kuwait. Thanks for your patience. đ
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