Everything Old Comes New Again
I love the Sephora ads, even if they won’t mail anything to me in Qatar. I have to use all my points when I am back in the USA. I still love seeing what I am missing, and if I really really want something, I can usually find someplace to order it or someone to take a run to Sephora to get it for me, especially when I am getting low on just-the-right-shade-of-eyeshadow. And no, no, the Sephoras in Kuwait and Qatar don’t carry all the brands that a full-fledged Sephora in France or Germany or the USA will carry. No Urban Decay for sure.
But this – this has a familiar ring to it. When I was young, even a kid, I think there was some lipstick that made the same claim, you put it on and it turns the right color for you.
So how does it do that?
Carnage on Karabaa
Running errands today in the heat and humidity gave me a new insight into these last few days of Ramadan. I briefly got annoyed with myself for forgetting to bring water, and then realized ‘oh no!’ I had left the water on purpose so I wouldn’t unthinkingly violate the no-eating/ no-drinking-in-public-during-Ramadan laws. When it is SO hot, and SO humid you sweat! You just ooze moisture! When I got home, I was exhausted. (It might also be a little bit of jet lag) I was so tired, I had to take a nap.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to try to live a semi-normal life and fast during this kind of heat. I cannot imagine how it will be next year. And the year after that. It is brutal.
I knew Karabaa street was going to undergo some changes for the new ‘Heart of Doha’ project, but the reality was shocking. Old landmarks are gone. Just gone.
The Garden Restaurant, where they had the purely vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor and the more elaborate carnivore restaurant upstairs:
This rubble is where the Garden used to be:
When visitors came to Doha, one of the standard stops was always the Yemeni Honey Man (he also sold baskets from the Asiri mountains in Saudi Arabia, gorgeous baskets, in a building I always thought of as the Beehive Building, because of the honey, and also because of the shape of the multiple domes on top of the building:
You can see a tiny remnant of the building in the right corner – all the rest is rubble. All the surrounding buildings are also empty, ready to be demolished:
Here is the parking lot which used to be full – there used to be another restaurant, not a fancy restaurant but a very tasty restaurant called The Welcome – it was torn down, only five years ago, and now the building that replaced it is also being torn down:
All the little shops are just gone, all the little jewelry shops and textile shops, gone:
I wonder how long these old shops will remain?
Eid Confusion
After writing that I don’t get a lot of phone calls, my VOIP started ringing. Four times, it was AdventureMan – we always have a lot to talk about. Once, my Mom, who calls just because she can and because the number we got is her area code, so it is like calling next door, and we all like that. Last, one of my friends in Kuwait – we have discovered we can call VOIP to VOIP. It’s like double the trouble – VOIP phones don’t always have the best connection, sometimes they are echo-y, sometimes one person can hear and the other can’t, sometimes you get other people on the conversation with you – so when you talk VOIP to VOIP, you have double the risk of technical difficulties, but still, an cost-per-phonecall that encourages long conversations (if you can hear and understand one another.)
“Has Eid started in Kuwait?” I asked at one point.
“I don’t thing so,” she replied. “I think it starts like Monday or so.”
It’s confusing to me. I know that Ramadan started four weeks ago tomorrow, so it is likely Eid will be 28 days later, like tonight or tomorrow or Sunday. But Kuwait started the Eid holidays on Friday, the official holidays, so that people will have nine full days of Eid celebration. (two weekends and a five day week). I don’t know if it is the same in Qatar.
It is also confusing as to just who gets the Eid holiday. When I lived in Tunis, lo, these many years ago, the entire country got every celebration. Those of us at the Embassy were doubly blessed; we got all the American holidays AND we got all the Tunisian holidays. So did just about everybody; the country shut down. For at least three days, no restaurants were open, no stores were open – you had to know about this in advance and bring in provisions to last until the Eid celebrations were over.
I wonder, did it used to be that way in Qatar? In Kuwait? That everything shut down, at least for the first day of Eid, and often longer?
In Kuwait and in Qatar, occasionally – like the first day of Eid – the stores will be closed a day – some just half a day. So many workers here are non-Muslim that it makes it possible to keep places open without intruding on someone’s celebration of Eid, in fact, I would think being able to go to restaurants and pick up a few items in the stores enhances the Eid experiences. I know most of my friends in Qatar are leaving town, just as I am getting back, beating feet for Europe, for Africa, for the Maldives, celebrating by traveling.
All the same, I am not sure when exactly Eid is expected to start officially, like according to the lunar calendar. Anyone?
T’fadl(i), God Whispers
Arriving back in Doha, it’s Ramadan, and it’s like Christmas. Not the way Christmas is supposed to be, but the way Christmas sometimes brings out the very worst in us. At the grocery store, the very first indication is the parking – I suppose it might be this bad from time to time, but today it felt like everyone was in the ME FIRST mode. The parking lot was congested with guys just sitting and waiting for their riders to come back, and people afraid that the parking spot they had their eye on was going to be taken by someone else. There were moments of gridlock, and impatient honking.
It’s easier for me to handle than for those who are fasting.
Inside the store, the faces are stern and their is an air of desperation. Women are looking for new ways to provide special meals (imagine, having to come up with an entire month of special meals!) and I imagine the budgets are strained right now, especially with the big Eid coming up.
We all know that we are to humble ourselves and to give way to others. We are told to do more than just give way, but to give way willingly, and with grace, with a smile. It’s something our two religions share, the emphasis on humbling oneself to serve the greater good. The meaning of the polite Arabic t’fadl (to a man) or t’fadli (to a woman), it means, literally, you are to be preferred (over/before me). It is my spiritual exercise during Ramadan, when everyone else is pushing and shoving and grabbing and taking priority, that I am relishing deferring, elaborate politeness, and giving the hand sign for patience (palm up, fingers together, thumb on middle finger, pushing upward) to those who are honking at me while I wait for someone to back out of the parking space I don’t even need.
It probably doesn’t get me any points, spiritually, to be so aggressively polite; I am enjoying it too much.
The New Apple Market
I’ve written before about The Apple Market in Pensacola, but on this trip, I had a thrill – the Apple Market has grown. The aisles are wider now. They still have an incredible variety of things that are available, but their ready-prepared food section has grown, they have a separate coffee section – the whole place is larger and more spacious, but still neighborly and friendly. I love that place.
Not Seattle
Just looking at these photos, it would be easy to think I was still in Seattle. It gave me a big grin. The rest of my group were still shopping, so I took a few “not-Seattle” shots:
Look! Salmon!
Trout!
Looks pretty PWN to me, except maybe he needs a sweatshirt!
OK, here’s your big clue:
And here is where we ate really good Chinese food (no, sorry, no photos!)
We had spring rolls and crab wontons, then Hunan Beef, Orange Shrimp, Dali Chicken and Cashew Chicken with steaming hot green tea. After Iftar, you can read P.F. Chang’s Menu here. 🙂
Barnes and Noble Reward
I’ve been so good. I haven’t spent much money at all, I have kept my shopping under control, even though there are things I see in the stores that make my blood run faster and give me the urge to pull out my credit card.
So I rewarded myself. I knew Philipa Gregory had a new book out called The Other Queen and so I allowed myself a trip to Barnes and Noble. I only came out with four books, and one is for someone else! Woooo HOOOOO on me!
A long time ago, I read a book by Katherine Neville called The Eight. It’s kind of like the Da Vinci Code would be if it were written by someone who kept track of his plot thread, researched his topic a little better and had something important to say about how international finance operations are run. I’ve read it more than once, I like it so much, so I am eager to see how this one works out. I like her characters, I like how they develop insight and put the puzzle pieces together.
Philippa Gregory writes total page-turners, and I always hated English history, but she makes it come alive, makes all those historical characters into flesh-and-blood human beings, so I feel like I know them. (Some of them I want to throttle. That’s a good author!)
LeCarre – he is amazing. He is brilliant. Have you read The Constant Gardener? This man has something to say, and what he says is deep, and troubling.
The Will Shortz New York Times Puzzle book is for someone a lot smarter than I am.
The Edmonds Market
The Edmonds Market is one of my favorite things in my hometown, just north of Seattle. Street vendors set up early, and by nine in the morning the market is already going strong. I like to get there early, to get a good choice and – to get a parking space.
It was a wonderful, cool, cloudy morning, but there was no rain. I stopped at Celebrations, a bakery/catering booth, and bought chocolate covered brownies for a gathering later in the day, and an orange/cinnamon roll for my own sinful indulgence. (It was sticky and wonderful!)
All of the people photographed here gave permission for their photos:
The honey man who mixes all his own honeys and brings his bees to pollinate crops for various farmers:
The relish makers – a variety of homemade chutneys, condiments, relishes, made by them from herbs and vegetables they grow:
This lady sells wonderful lotions in divine fragrances – sandlewood, ginger and lime, etc.
This woman and her daughter knit and crochet darling little clothes for babies!
I found these wonderful squash / pumpkins:
There are all kinds of vendors selling flowers, at wonderful prices:
Just outside the Edmonds Street Market is the gazebo round-about, and every now and then, some kids think it hysterically funny to pour a little detergent into it, making it bubble over:
There is a Starbucks by the fountain, with several tables outside to accommodate dog walking patrons:
Stocking Up At Starbucks
I save space in my suitcases for special coffee blends I can’t get in Doha – like Gazebo blend. This Starbucks had TWO bags! As I was paying for all the coffee – after I had taken the photos – I still had my camera in my hand and the barista said “Oh! Starbucks has a strict no photo policy!”
I said “I did not know that!” and I did not take any more photos. No one has ever stopped me from taking photos in the Starbucks. Never! And no one has ever said anything!
Here is a blend from back when we used to go to the Starbucks – the only Starbucks – at the Pike Place Market. This was around the time the Seattle Champber of Commerce wanted to tear the market down to make way for downtown development. 😦 Thank God, that was roundly defeated – it is such a draw to downtown Seattle, now.
When you buy this coffee, a dollar of your purchase for each bag goes directly to African charities:
Some specialty coffee displays:
New Seattle travel cups:
And – coming soon – one of my very favorite Starbucks drinks, Pumpkin Spice coffee. 🙂
Whether you love Starbucks or hate Starbucks, you’ve got to admire their marketing genius.
Here There and Anywhere
It’s not like “Here, There and Everywhere” is something I made up and trademarked. No. It was an old Beatles song I liked a lot:
And when I started blogging, I couldn’t think of one area I wanted to specialize in, like news commenting, or recipes, and my life isn’t so fascinating that I can just spin tales and keep you dazzled, so Here There and Everywhere just sort of expressed the serendipity that I wanted, and gave me the space that I needed to tackle lots of subjects – and, more important, to me anyway, to get feedback and input from others who might know a whole lot more than I do about things. I was always ready for things to take a wild jag, and, to my utter delight, they sometimes do. 🙂
It’s worked for me. It keeps life interesting.
But I have to admit I sometimes get a twinge of proprietary feeling about the name. One time BitJockey sent me a reference to a blog – a Kuwait blog! and the author had a name so similar that if it was a coincidence, it was a very eerie coincidence. It sort of totally annoyed me, but I didn’t want to give the blog any attention or thought at all, and actually, so far ignoring it has pretty much worked for me, too.
But today, in my very own home town, I saw this big orange van:
“Oh!” I said! “Oh, Look at that van! It says ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ on it!” and my Mom said “Oh, that’s the Here and There and Anywhere Grill” and we order things from them all the time. They are only here on Wednesdays. After two or three weeks,” she added, “I get a little tired of the food and then stop for a while and start again later. They have really good food.”
I love it that Mom is stepping out, taking college seminars, ordering from the Here and There and Anywhere Grill, doing her physical therapy, keeping active.
“How can I help you, Mom?” I asked, and she had a good list ready. At the end was “Buy a new chair” so today we went searching for the perfect chair. In one store, we were the only customers so the saleslady suggested we push Mom around the huge, cavernous store in a dining room chair with wheels. Only problem is Mom has to hold her feet up off the floor, it’s not like a wheelchair with a base you can rest your feet on, but she was a really good sport, except for the one time maybe I was moving too fast and I hit an edge of carpet and almost dumped her by stopping too abruptly.
She found a totally great chair, one I don’t think my Dad would have approved of at all. I love it that she made the decision herself, and bought the chair and it is going to be delivered tomorrow – a gorgeous cherry RED leather chair. Wooo HOOOO on you, Mom! 😀
(You are going to have to imagine the cherry red part; the only photo I could find online is black.)
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