Girl’s Night Out
Sorry AdventureMan, I have had my first Mexican meal, and it was wonderful. You could have come! You could have come to wedding with me! You could have had Ivar’s seafood, and you could have had Las Brisas wonderful Mexican food.
My Mom insisted my sister try my new camera and take some photos of me. Of course, we got the giggles and every shot she took of me was worse than the one before. She said the photo gene skipped her, and – Sparkle – I agree. Those were some pretty awful photos. Of course, being hit by that great train jet lag didn’t help me to be a great subject.
Mom had the Camarones al Diablo, her long time favorite, and Sparkle and I had Chicken Mole. It was good, and we are looking forward to some time in California, with non-dumbed-down Mexican food, spicy!
The camarones (shrimp):
The chicken mole:
Wish I could bring you some, AdventureMan!
Law of the Garbage Truck
A good friend sent this to me. I hadn’t seen it before, and thought you might like to see it, too.
I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.
So I asked, ‘Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!’
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, ‘The Law of the Garbage Truck.’
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks.
They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger and full of disappointment.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.
Don’t take it personally, just smile, wave, wish them well and move on.
Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.
Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so…..
‘Love the people who treat you right.
Pray for the ones who don’t.’
Coen and No Country for Old Men
AdventureMan and I watched No Country for Old Men last night, and oh! it held us on the edge of our chairs. At the end, we ran for the phone to call our son and ask “Whoa! What happened??”
In short, we loved the movie (and I can hardly wait to read the book, although Cormac McCarthy goes a lot darker than I care to go). The Coen brothers also go darker than I care to go, but we find ourselves drawn to their movies because there is so much thought put into them, so many references to other genres, other films, and because the characters are so true to life. We first met them in Fargo, a movie we pull out and watch again from year to year – that’s a rare movie. We love the characters, even the bad guys are so human.
It’s the same in No Country for Old Men. Set in the desolation of West Texas, there are whole minutes when you listen to the wind whistling in the desert as the hero hikes down to a drug-exchange-gone-bad.
There is a good guy, a sherif played by craggy-faced Tommy Lee Jones, and an ordinary guy who finds a whole lot of money, and we really want him to get away with it, and then there is a really really bad guy, who is also smart, and . . . well, something inside of him is just bent. He’s not right. The Coen’s have a way of making him both appalling and just a guy doing his job very well. It’s not personal, but we wish he wouldn’t enjoy inflicting harm so much.
What I love about the Coen films is that they can capture the essence of a character so sparely, with just a few words, a few lines. There is a trailer park manager who refuses to give the very very bad guy an address. You hold your breath; she could get blown away, she doesn’t know it. She holds firm. In another scene, an older woman tells a Mexican man who has just helped her “You don’t see too many Mexicans in suits.” So so so politically incorrect, and so ordinarily normal, the plain-spokeness of the elderly. The Coen’s capture the West Texas-ness which permeates the film.
This movie is worth watching again.
Lightness of Being
We prayed for Kuwait today. At great length, we prayed for your elections, for your leaders, and that wisdom and wise choices will prevail.
(I am sure you will be glad to know that we didn’t interfere in any way by praying for any specific candidates!)
In the sermon, our priest talked about God and his glory, and the WEIGHT of his presence, and I was really listening, but that was a new concept to me.
Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven, and one of the things he said, sort of one of those mysteries, is that he says the Kingdom of Heaven is all around us “if you have the eyes to see.”
When you think of God, what do you think?
I don’t think of weightiness, although the weight of my own sins might weigh on me. When I think of God, and when I think of the Kingdom of Heaven being all around me, I close my eyes and envision sparkling lights surrounding us, lights we can’t see, and energy, boundless energy, enough energy to create paths and opportunities we don’t even know exist. I think all we have to do is to believe, and to breathe, and we breathe in the Kingdom of Heaven, that he feeds us just by our believing.
All of a sudden, the very irreligious idea of an old computer game – one of the very earliest – came to me. Do you remember PacMan?
Mostly PacMan existed to eat energy dots. He would eat all these energy things and gain energy and win or not, I don’t really know, I never really played it because AdventureMan and LawAndOrderMan hogged the computer all the time to play the early games.
So where do ideas like this come from? Maybe the creator of PacMan had a vision and got part of it right, maybe if we have the eyes to see, maybe we gain sparkling spiritual energy from the Kingdom of Heaven surrounding us? Maybe prayer is like one of the magical tools you find in these games that opens doors, that allows something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen.
Sorry, RevQ8 if I got a little off topic here, I honestly was listening as you gave your fine sermon! Sometimes, the mind will go where the mind will go (and I guess mine is going fast . . . 
)
Feedback
As I am chatting on the phone with AdventureMan, he brings up the blog.
“I don’t get it,” he says, “You get like fifty-seven comments on any article about the Qatteri Cat, and you get NO comments on a perfectly wonderful article like the Lemba and their DNA link to the lost tribes of Israel!”
I just laugh. I’ve gotten used to it.
“Months from now I will get a letter from some academic who has been looking for that article and can’t find it,” I tell AdventureMan. “And months from now, that article will still be getting hits while the Qatteri Cat entry is long forgotten.”
Chatting with my Mom on the phone, this morning, she mentioned how she was working out in the water these days, trying to build strength in her legs and knees and hips, and how when she gets discouraged she thinks of the entry on The Magic Bullet and how she really does feel better and have more energy when she finishes. I’m so proud of my Mom. She is 84, living on her own, and had one of her old best friends as a houseguest this weekend, and they attended a fashion show in which my sister Sparkle was modeling. They had a great time. I can only hope to be as fit and active as my Mom when I am her age, and, God willing, still living on my own.
This morning I got an e-mail from Kuwaiti Woman / Dirty Dinar letting her regular commenters know she is back in the blog world once again. I am so glad she wrote to us – I had deleted her from my list of favorites when so much time went by without an entry. Her blog is about the great adventure of learning to manage your own money. She is a very courageous woman, lets us in on all her failures as well as her successes, and because she does not spare herself, she is totally addictive. Who hasn’t had to make tough financial decisions from time to time that blow the budget?
These feedbacks – and the wonderful, additive feedback of your comments – are what keep this blogger going.
Yes, I am having fun. How cool is it knowing your own Mom copied out the recipe for Penny Carrot Salad? How cool is it learning that there are Arab wolves in the desert, and that they are in danger of extinction because they are interbreeding with feral dogs ( R’s comment on Total Crack Up) This blog has made me feel connected in Kuwait, and connected to like-minded people around the world.
I still protect my anonymity, and at the same time, I have a realistic fear that I am getting closer and closer to the day when one of my good friends will look at me sharply and say “I think you are blogging. Are you Intlxpatr?” I don’t know what I will do when that happens. I’m not a good liar, and why would I want to lie to a friend? I just don’t know how long I can expect to keep my identity a secret.
Qatteri Cat’s Great Adventure
This morning, as AdventureMan left for work, I was busy reading incoming e-mails and didn’t jump up immediately to lock the door behind him. The Qatteri Cat, as usual, was crying – he hates it when “The Fun Guy” leaves, and he got his baby and cried by the door for a while. Then – I heard a dreaded sound.
We hear it sometimes during the night. The Qatteri Cat is one smart cat – he has learned how to jump up high enough to hit the door handle on his way down, and his weight is enough to open the door. He jumped. I’m up and running, but it is too late, the door is open and the Qatteri Cat is out.
Other people with long-haired cats will know what I am talking about here – you don’t get dressed until you are just ready to leave, and you keep your clothes in closets that stay shut, so you don’t have long cat hair clinging to you as you go about your daily errands. So as I run to the door, I am rapidly calculating whether I can run outside and round up the Qatteri Cat, or whether I have to get dressed first.
It is still early. My Kuwaiti neighbor probably isn’t up, and if his maid sees me, I can claim she was delusional, that I would never be outside in my nightgown. If I get dressed first, the Qatteri Cat could disappear! So out I run, chasing the Qatteri Cat who thinks this is one GREAT game, Mom chasing him. He is making that little “Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh” sound that cats make when they see birds, or something else irresistable.
I chase him and cut him off, forcing him in a circle and back to the door. He resists, but he also knows when I am serious, I am SERIOUS (it has to do with cat “time-outs” in a room with just his food and litter box, and short term withdrawal of affection) so he reluctantly complies.
Now, he is sulking. He has his baby. He isn’t crying, he has ME in time-out, he has withdrawn his affection, I spoiled his fun. Even though the door is now locked, he tries every now and then, remembering there was a time when it opened.
Not New News
Just as the Qatteri Cat monitors traffic in front of our place, I monitor my blog traffic – a lot like Qatteri Cat, sort of lazily, desultory.
Yesterday, I got the most hits – a lot – on MOC bans Porno Film Sites, a post I wrote almost a year ago.
80 hits. That’s a lot for a post almost a year old. Why so much interest? Are there new movements afoot in the Ministry of Communication to ban undesirable content? Are there new technologies available that make that possible?
I knew exactly the kind of photo I wanted to include here, so I googled “saudi censorship image” and found this wonderful blog: Your World Today. I really like his blog.
Un Joyeux Anniversaire
Today is one of those happy-sad days for AdventureMan and I, happy because our son found a sweet, beautiful, smart woman with whom to share his life and with whom he was married two years ago today, and sad, because we can’t be there to take them out to celebrate.
It was a beautiful day, we all had so much fun!
The Event Planner at the Panama City Beach Marriott, when she learned we were coming in from Kuwait, told us she has many Moslem wedding parties at that hotel, and that her biggest problem is finding enough female servers to take care of the bridal parties. Who knew? There is a huge Moslem population in PCB, enough to support private a private, segregated school.
We are missing you too much, and we wish you the happiest celebration!
Election Excitement
Coming home from church on Friday, we saw a Ministry of Interior Land Rover at a stoplight, with its lights revolving. That got our attention immediately, because if the lights are flashing, it usually means someone is in a hurry, but this guy was waiting patiently for the light to turn. As we noticed him waiting patiently, we also noticed he had his window open, and . . . he was wearing a balaclava, a face mask worn while skiing to keep your face warm but you can still see and breathe. The temperature was at least in the 80’s, and a ski mask to keep your face warm in Kuwait . . . well, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe if he was using his air conditioning, and it was too strong, and hurt his sinuses, well maybe . . .
Saturday we read this article from the Arab Times, which explained a little about what we were seeing:
Two Kuwaitis, officers hurt in Sabahiya clash; ‘Awazem’ battle securitymen
KUWAIT CITY : Two Kuwaitis and a number of securitymen were injured in a violent clash during which the Awazem tribesmen used sticks and stones against security forces, who were trying to stop them holding a primary in Sabahiya. The fighting took place Friday when about 5,000 securitymen from the Special Forces and Riot Police, supported by vehicles and helicopters, surrounded the Diwaniya of former MP and candidate in the upcoming elections from the fifth constituency, Ghanim Al Mei. The securitymen used tear-gas and rubber bullets to disperse the rioters. No arrests were reported. A similar incident some time back had prompted the then Minister of Interior to recall his forces from the Diwaniya of a former MP.
Sources said a large number of securitymen and CID officers were deployed as backup at a nearby cemetery. Security forces and election candidates are exchanging charges, each pinning the blame for the incident on the other. Former MP and candidate from the fifth constituency Abdullah Rai Al-Fahma in a press statement said, “Tribes are an integral part of the Kuwaiti society. They have the right to consult and choose their representatives to the National Assembly like the political blocs and other political organizations.” The government must stop this repressive measure before things take a serious turn, Al-Fahma added. Some observers and a number of candidates have opined the government is exacerbating the issue intentionally to prolong the election indefinitely by issuing ‘emergency decrees.’
My own country is also in an election year this year, and we have our own very strange ways of doing things. We have things like caucuses, and primary elections and delegates, and conventions to choose our candidates.
It is fascinating for me to watch what is going on in Kuwait and to try to figure out what is going on. Even reading reports in the newspapers, even gleaning from the blogs, it is hard for me to figure out why certain things are significant.
So I am guessing here that the tribes/families are acting as political parties and attempting to narrow the field by voting in secret diwaniyyas (diwaniyyas are spaces built in houses for either males or females to gather for visiting back and forth, but not mixed groups, or only very very rarely. They function like the benches on the town square, where people – mostly men – come and discuss issues, often reaching consensus on how an issue should be approached) for candidates that they can agree are electable. Once all the tribe/families have a chance to vote, they will select a slate of candidates to run in that district. This is my guess, based on what I read and see.
But in the districts, there are more than one family/tribe . . . so how do you agree to vote outside your tribal / familial boundaries? It is hard for me to understand how one tribe can gather enough influence to win. I am guessing that these diwaniyya “primaries” are being so actively discouraged because if one family wins too much, then they distribute favors among their own members, and others go without help? Is this a wasta issue? How do the tribes form alliances to win elections?
I would love to tell you that modern western countries don’t have these problems. It would be a lie. We have our own names for “wasta” and one is a term I can never imagine being used in Kuwait, Pork Barrel Legislation which means it doesn’t make sense from a big-picture point of view, it is legislation passed to benefit a few, and to insure that the elected guy can get elected again.
Will banning by-elections make a difference in the outcome of the election? What is the goal of the diwaniyya elections? How do the females get to vote if it is only men attending? What is the government’s goal in banning the by-elections?
Parking Problem
From the Arab Times:
Kuwaiti brothers critically hurt in gang attack over parking row
KUWAIT CITY : Eight persons broke into a Kuwaiti family’s house in Salmiya and attacked three brothers with knives, machetes, sticks and similar weapons just because the brothers did not allow a female student of a nearby institute to park her car opposite their house.
The brothers were critically wounded and had to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital.
Securitymen, who rushed to the scene after receiving a call from their mother, managed to arrest one of the attackers but the rest of them bolted from the scene.
A case was registered.
By Mizyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times
People here can get pretty riled up over parking. One time, my husband and I were attending a social event, and we parked on – well, it looked like a public street to us, and public streets, unless they have numbered, private parking, you are allowed to park on public streets because you are the public. That’s what we thought anyway.
When we came out, we had cars literally blocking us, forward and rear, from getting out. My husband approached the owner of the house in front of whom we were parked, who was around the corner in his diwaniyya (on the public sidewalk) and when my husband said he was sorry, the man said he could put his “assif” (sorry) in his pocket!
Not one to give up easily, AdventureMan schmoozed for a while. The man said he would have his driver take me home, and AM asked him if he would put HIS wife in a car with a strange driver. That got an appreciative grin. Long story short, finally he allowed us to leave. He had some legitimate gripes – the facility where we had attended the performance has people who block his parking access to his house all the time.
My husband visited him again the next day with a parcel of dates to express his appreciation for the guy having let us go, and visited the facility and helped arrange to insure that people would not park in front of this guy’s house again. He and the man became – well, not friends, but cordial acquaintances.
I’ve always been glad AM handled it in a gentlemanly fashion. Imagine, breaking in and stabbing people over a parking spot!
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