Creepy Leading Men
Eeeeeeewwwwww! I just half watched an Academy Award special on BBC. What caught my attention was interviews with Peter O’Toole and Clint Eastwood. Can’t remember a word they said – and both these guys did some amazing and memorable movies – but I watched in horrified fascination because they look so awful. Their faces have been lifted a time or two too often, and their faces don’t move when they talk. Clint Eastwood, in his 70’s, has no lines at all around his eyes, just this smooth white skin that makes him look like he has a mask on.
I remember seeing a movie with Michael Douglas a couple years ago, with some hot flash-in-the-pan, and he was wearing MAKE-UP. It was so bad you could SEE the make up.
It’s like Aerosmith performing in Dubai – isn’t he like 60 or 70 years old? Great that he has the energy, but isn’t it time to move on? Keith Richards looks like the portrait of Dorian Gray . . .
and then there is Robert Redford, who just let age happen, and looks natural and graceful.
Is it just me? I like the natural look on men. I think grey hair is handsome. I love those little crinkles around the eyes (on men, not on ME!! Yep, totally hypocritical.) Men with facelifts, men with bronzer, blusher, mascara and eyeliner give me the creeps.
Travel Karma Failure
I have really good travel karma – most of the time. Even when things go wrong, something good comes out of it. And before you read any further, you must know that during this trip, I had a really good time, surrounded by friends, good conversation, a lot of laughter and a very understanding husband – it had a happy ending. But this was a serious travel karma failure.
Oh, I had planned to carefully – fly out early, my friends pick me up, we loll around the pool catching up, grab a bite to eat, and eventually they drop me off at my hotel where I hook up with my husband.
Only this is what I saw on my way to the airport:
And this is what I saw as the plane was delayed – and delayed – and delayed again:
And this is what the airport looked like as more and more planes got delayed:
After – literally – hours, we board. We are rolling away from the airport when a guy a couple seats up from me says . . . something . . . to the stewardess and the guy across from him. As the plane continues rolling, I watch the guy across the aisle get up, go to the galley and make a phone call. The plane keeps rolling rolling rolling, but . . . rolls to a stop and all kinds of vehicals come out to the plane.
They all have a discussion:
But you know this part of the world, everyone has an opinion and wants to be heard. Back and forth up and down the aisle. The entire Qatar soccer team weighed in on this one:
Somehow, it all got resolved. I get to Doha – not early morning, but six at night. I’ve already told my friends to forget picking me up in peak traffic time, but I would see them the next day – we already had plans. But the topping on this perfect day is that my suitcase didn’t come. People were sent looking here and there, and another hour passed.
No suitcase. No explanation, but they assure me the suitcase is still in Kuwait. Get it here, I tell them, I need it. Send it to my hotel. And I rush to duty free to pick up some face cream and mascara and lipstick – you know, the essentials. When I get to the hotel I realize I have nothing, but the gift shop, thank God, has very large T-shirts I can sleep in, a hairbrush, a toothbrush and even underpants.
My greatest fear, as the suitcase continues to NOT show up, is that I will never see it again. It is a great suitcase, and inside it is my computer power cord. Normally a balanced, easy going person, I have bad dreams, angry dreams, frustrated dreams and I wake unrested, and wanting clean clothes.
My husband, not normally known for his patience, was very tenderly patient with me. I think he was more than a little bewildered to see me so bent out of shape. It was probably funny – if you weren’t me.
For three days, for every event, I wear the same clothes. Three days. The bag finally showed up this morning – still at the airport – just in time for my return trip to Kuwait.
Now that, my friends, is a SERIOUS travel karma failure.
Anya Seaton and Avalon
Avalon, by Anya Seaton, is an amazing book, a book I almost didn’t read, but once I picked it up, I could hardly stop reading until I had reached the end. It took me to a whole new world.
It opens in England, around the turn of the first millenium, when people had names like Aethelred and Aelfrhryth which is enough to make me NOT want to read the book. But I read another book by Anya Seaton, Katherine, and I really liked it. It, too, took place in very early English history, and had such an authentic feel. It wasn’t like you pick up the book and all the lords and ladies are in gorgeous clothes, Seaton captures the primitive life many lived in “castles”, freezing cold most of the winter, no plumbing – many of the poorest laborers in Kuwait live better, in terms of food, a roof over their head, toilet facilities – that these early nobles. And the life of villagers was even more basic, a true scrabble for survival, and under filthy conditions, not a lot of time of opportunity for bathing, so people had quite an odor most of the time.
Avalon begins with a chance meeting of a young man and a young woman, a tragedy, and a journey. Their story, as first one love and the other doesn’t, then the other does and misses the opportunity – takes us from the southernmost part of England to Iceland, to Ireland, to Greenland and to the new world, all in the space of these two intertwined lives. They never marry, and yet the book, and their relationship, is a romance.
As you can see, once I got into the book, I couldn’t put it down until the last page. These people are so real, so genuine and so human – and Seaton makes you care about them. She manages to throw in enough detail that I could almost swear I visited these places – a thousand years ago. I have spun wool to buy necessities for our sod house in Iceland, I have embroidered tapestries in the Bower of my husband’s castle, I have sent my son off to settle with his Irish bride in the new world – yes, I think I have done.
The political situation in England at this time is chaotic, with Vikings raiding their coastal cities, and deep up the rivers into the interior, feuding over who will wear the crown, and problems with the capabilities of rulers to rule. There is a constant friction between the church and state, for land, for power, for wealth. The majority of the novel takes place during the reign of – I am not kidding – Ethelred the Unready.
At the very end, I found to my astonishment, that this book also concerned the ramifications of a big lie, just as my previous book reviewed. This is a total co-incidence, something that surprised me, and this book ends in a totally different way, as the main character comes to grips with her deception, owns up to it, willing to suffer the consequences.
Is this what I want? Merwyn thought, and at once came the answer. Yes, it is. There would be boring days ahead, but never again the depressions and miseries of before . . . She felt cleansed, peaceful, and there was much gratitude. . .
That totally cracked me up, but this is a romance of a different nature, a very real romance, with the real kinds of choices that real-life romances entail, and the real life consequences. The hand of God is a major player here, and the beliefs of the characters shape events in a way consistent with the times. Dreams are taken very seriously, and the power of curses, and sorceries, which I never give two thoughts in my daily life in the 21st century.
The main characters have their own nobility, based on their choices, their growth, and their coming to terms with their lives and situations. I learned a lot reading Avalon, and I also had a great time while learning.
All in all, a fascinating read.
Life Unfair? Also bad for you
If you think life is unfair to you, just the perception could mean you are at higher risk of heart disease and stroke.
Unfairness ‘increases heart risk’
Unfair treatment outside the office could increase risks of heart disease
People who feel they are treated unfairly, including in the home and community, may have a higher risk of developing heart disease, a study says.
University College London researchers studied 8,000 people, says the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
They found those with a profound sense of injustice had a 55% higher chance of suffering serious heart disease.
Experts believe a sense of unfairness engenders negative emotions which may prompt biochemical changes in the body.
This is from BBC Health News, yesterday, and you can read the rest by clicking here.
Rude Awakening
In the wee small hours of the morning, my husband and I had a rude awakening. While we were sound asleep, the Qatteri Cat figured out how to open the front door and walk out. Awakening and seeing light, my husband jumped out of bed, and yelled “Qatteri Cat is gone!” but as he wasn’t wearing much, he couldn’t go look for QC. Sheer panic. We know the QC would not last long on the mean streets of Kuwait.
I’m paranoid about sleeping in nothing much, like what if there is a fire or something? So I am wearing a little more, not much more, but enough that I can go look for QC, but as soon as he hears us exclaiming, he comes back in, like “hey! glad to see you up! Did you notice my food dish is empty?”
And it was empty. I have noticed if I can remember to feed him before we go to bed, we have fewer howlings in the middle of the night, fewer jumping at the door handle. Hunger makes him wakeful and energetic. And we normally lock the front door, but when we came in last night we were both carrying packages and I must have gotten distracted, I am usually the obsessive-compulsive one about making sure the door is locked.
And the Qatteri Cat? After all the commotion, he is sleeping in this morning, while I am walking around bleary and tired. But he is so sweet when he is sleeping.
Emergency Service in Kuwait
I had an emergency. Now YOU may not consider it an emergency, but I have a piece of equipment, and I have a major project and a deadline, and to meet that deadline, I need that piece of equipment. And, of course, that piece of equipment began to fail me.
Not to worry. I had heard of a place in Kuwait that could fix my machine. I had that pit in the stomach feeling, like “why didn’t I do some homework and find this place before my machine needed fixing. . . ” Do you ever say things like that to yourself?
And of course, because I was desperate, when I would go into stores and ask if they knew where this place was, I was told, over and over, there was no such place.
Until one brave young Pakistani guy contradicted his employer and told me where he thought the place might be. Because of one way streets, and a convoluted traffic pattern, it took me several more passes before I spotted the place – which fortunately had one very small sign in English, as I can’t read Arabic very quickly, I still have to sound out all the letters until it sounds like a word I know. Like I am really good at “sharia” being street, but not very good at things I don’t see all the time.
And, by the grace of God, not only do I see the store, but there is – and this is truly a miracle – a decent parking spot fairly close to the shop. Thanks be to God.
I went into the shop, and there is another woman there, with her machine. I tell the man behind the counter that I have a small emergency. He doesn’t understand me, but he understands my tone, and sends a man to help bring in my machine.
It’s like the stand-off at the OK Corral. She looks at my machine, evaluating whether her’s is better, or mine. Seconds tick by, and she smiles, and the crisis is averted. She tells the man she will be back for her machine, which he sets aside to take a look at mine.
My machine is one of those simple machines, you are supposed to be able to do almost everything yourself. He does everything I have already done, and sits back, stumped. We both know what the problem is, and I know he can’t fix it. He calls a friend. He orders tea. We sit and talk as customers come in and out, checking on their machines, asking prices on new machines. We are speaking in Arabic, a language we both speak badly, so conversation often lulls. I’m not sure his friend is coming.
Finally, I pack up my machine, and of course, as soon as I get ready to leave, the friend arrives, and we need to unpack it again. Ten minutes, and my machine is good as new. He tells me what the replacement part would cost in Kuwait (if he hadn’t been able to fix it) and I gasp in horror – I will have to look for a replacement part this summer, back in the US, because I have checked online and yes, they are expensive, but cost about the same in dollars as it would in KD – i.e. $49 vs KD 40. Aaarrgh.
I’ve spent two hours sitting and drinking tea in a shop that is sort of air conditioned, but the door was always open. I am hot, and sweaty, but my machine is fixed, at least enough that I can work on my project.
This is not the way it would happen in the United States. In the United States, I might get some sympathy, but I would not get same day service. I would have to leave my machine, I would have to be served in order, and I would not get my machine back until it were fixed, if it were fixed – people are not so good at fixing old things in the United States, you have to be really lucky. Mostly, when machines break, you buy a new one.
So I am feeling really lucky, really lucky, really blessed, to have had my machine emergency in Kuwait, where things are done differently, and my machine could be fixed on am emergency basis, while I waited.
P.S. The man who fixed my machine earns KD 80 a month – $280 for my US readers.
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Rember the post Lying Hurts The Liar? In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the whole plot revolves around a huge lie, and the toll that protecting that lie takes on the lives of everyone it touches.
in the middle of a huge snowstorm, Dr. David Henry’s wife goes into premature labor and he is forced to deliver her in his nearby clinic because he can’t get to the hospital in the snowstorm. To his surprise, he delivers twins. The boy is fine and healthy, the baby girl clearly has Down’s Syndrome. It is the 1960’s.
He hands the baby to the nurse, and tells her to take the baby to a home for Down’s syndrome children and adults. When his wife, Norah, regains consciousness, he tells her she had twins, but that the girl was born dead.
Meanwhile, Caroline, the spinster nurse, takes the baby to the home, but when she sees the lack of caring in the “care” of the patients, she makes an instant decision to walk away. She keeps the baby. She never goes back to the clinic. She drives away and creates a new life for herself and the baby, a joyful life, the life she was waiting for.
To protect his secret, Dr. Henry maintains a distance between himself and his grieving wife. Norah never gets over the loss of her daughter, and she never gets over the change in her relationship with her husband. She knows something is not right, and no matter what she does, she can’t fix it. For a while she drinks. Later she pulls herself together, gets a job, ends up taking over the business (a travel agency) because she has thrown herself into her work.
The son, the healthy baby, grows up in a family where things are not right. His mother loves him, but is distracted by her grief. His father loves him, but is distracted by the energy it takes to protect his terrible secret. It is a family, but a family whose connections to one another are damaged by the tragic secret.
The discarded daughter, meanwhile, grows up surrounded by love and a family who makes a life out of creating opportunities for Down’s Syndrome children.
Late in the book, there is both some resolution and redemption. Things work out, but I find myself thinking of all the wasted years, years of unhappiness and loss, years of happiness sacrificed, brought about by one great big lie. When you read the book, you understand his reasons, and you know how easily, given the times, you and I might have made the same decision.
I think the doctor would have been happier had he risked telling his wife. He often wanted to. He didn’t.
Available for $8.40 + shipping at amazon.com
Best Mother’s Day Story
In honor of the upcoming American Mother’s Day (I don’t know why we have it on a different day from the rest of the world) a friend sent this hysterical story, which I am sharing with you.
So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently
died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on
him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long
on this mat in our bathroom.
Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years
old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves
chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing
it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my
chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put
it right back in the drawer when he was done.
Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around
and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My
two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse
my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a
mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor
me and the amazing job that is motherhood.
We finally have the older one and and the baby loaded in the car and
I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the
corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my
chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my
eyes and said “chapped.” Now if you have a cat, you know that he is
right–their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn’t
seem to mind.
And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it
was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.
And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds
us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little
creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using
your chapstick on the cat’s butt.
“Who Am I?”
As DNA testing becomes more and more common, surprises are popping up everywhere. This article from BBC is about two Englishwomen who discover they have Native American blood when they send their DNA in for testing.
It’s fascinating to think that migration and trade has left it’s traces generations later. I love the work that is being done with bloodlines these days.
Native American DNA found in UK
DNA testing has uncovered British descendents of Native Americans brought to the UK centuries ago as slaves, translators or tribal representatives.
Genetic analysis turned up two white British women with a DNA signature characteristic of American Indians.
An Oxford scientist said it was extremely unusual to find these DNA lineages in Britons with no previous knowledge of Native American ancestry.
Indigenous Americans were brought over to the UK as early as the 1500s.
It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?
Doreen Isherwood
Many were brought over as curiosities; but others travelled here in delegations during the 18th Century to petition the British imperial government over trade or protection from other tribes.
Experts say it is probable that some stayed in Britain and married into local communities.
Doreen Isherwood, 64, from Putney, and Anne Hall, 53, of Huddersfield, only found out about their New World heritage after paying for commercial DNA ancestry tests.
Mrs Isherwood told BBC News: “I was expecting the results to say I belonged to one of the common European tribes, but when I got them back, my first thought was that they were a mistake.
“It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?”
You can read the rest of the article at BBC Science/Nature News, here.
Dark, Disturbing Road
Do you remember the happy books you read? Those that are light and breezy? Those with happy-ever-after endings? Most of the time, my bet would be you don’t. You read them, and they’re gone.
Not this book, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I found myself hesitating to even review this book, it is so disturbing to me. The prose is simple, even stark. The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak. The main character, whose name we never know, spends most of the book foraging and scavenging to feed himself and his starving son. The cover says it takes place in America, but it could be anywhere.
It is post-apocalyptic literature at it’s bleakest. All we know is that there were huge balls of light and then everything burned, and kept burning. It is still burning, in some places, during the time span of this novel. It rains or snows most of the time, and the rain is grey and the snow is grey. It is bone-chilling cold, and gathering wood for a fire to keep warm is a constant task.There is never a clear sunny day, only lighter or darker shades of grey. The nights are dark, no moon, no stars, just blackness.
It’s another one of those books I grabbed on the way to the airport without looking too carefully. I saw this was an Oprah Book Club choice and didn’t even read the cover. These books I just grabbed have grabbed me in return – I have read five in a row, books I have to talk over with my husband while I am reading them, they are so full of ideas I need to explore, unsettling settings, shaking to insecurity all that we take for granted.
This one, though, is seriously dark. I read until past midnight last night, adrenaline pumping through my system, as the man and his son evade marauders, thieves, and cannibals. I needed the human warmth of my husband’s body next to mine to drive away the alienation of this book. Even safe in my own bed, though, my sleep is troubled and I wake feeling scared and depressed. As you read The Road, you realize how very thin the veneer of civilization is that holds us together in community, and how that veneer rips when there is no longer law holding back the more powerful, those with weapons, those with more resources. When food becomes scarce, when people become very hungry . . . the rules break down, in serious and unthinkable ways.
If one book can have such an impact on my emotions and feelings of security, I can’t help but think how the trauma of the Iraqi invasion must still be resonating, invisible, below the surface, but an uninvited guest in the daily lives of those who experienced those horrors and trauma in Kuwait. You wonder if you will ever trust in “normal” again?
When your world suddenly shifts in a heartbeat, when your wealth disappears, when you suddenly have only your wits to survive on, how will YOU do?
As the Father and Son travel The Road seeking a warmer climate, and “the good guys”, goodness is remarked by its absence. Our protagonist refuses to help a lost child, a cellar full of people being kept as a food supply, and a couple of men along the road whose situation is even worse than their own. His son, born just after the event which forever changes the world, begs his Dad to share, but the Dad, knowing how spare the food supply is, refuses.
Beyond a crossroads in that wilderness they began to come upon the possessions of travelers abandoned in the road years ago. Boxes and Bags. Everything melted and black. Old suitcases curled shapeless in the heat. Here and there the imprint of things wrested out of the tar by scavengers. A mile on and they began to come upon the dead. Figures half mired in the blacktop, clutching themselves, mouths howling. He put his hand across the boy’s shoulder. Take my hand, he said. I don’t think you should see this.
Yes.
It’s OK Papa.
It’s OK?
They’re already there.
I don’t want you to look.
They’ll still be there.
He stopped and leaned on the cart. He looked down at the road and he looked at the boy. So strangely untroubled.
Why don’t we just go on, the boy said.
Yes. Okay.
They were trying to get away, weren’t they Papa?
Yes. They were.
Why didn’t they leave the road?
They couldn’t. Everything was on fire.
I dropped other things I really needed to do so that I could finish The Road. I can’t spend another night wondering how I would survive in this dog-eat-dog world. I need to move on with my life. I need to shift my focus.
And yet . . . I recommend McCarthy’s The Road to you. It is dark, it is brutal, it is relentlessly bleak, but still there is a thin golden thread of the father and son relationship weaving through the tapestry of despair, which redeems the book. You can’t help but admire the determination to persist, when the signs are all around you that nothing is going to get better. Somehow, in spite of all the despair, there is redemption, and even hope.
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