A Breath of Winter
I am a happy camper.
AdventureMan’s teeth are chattering and he is rummaging through his drawers in search of long johns and his fleece jacket, the Qatteri Cat is nestled as close to me as he can get and there is a slight chill in the air (remember, I am an Alaska girl 🙂 so it doesn’t feel that cold to me!)
Yesterday, I even wore long sleeves, first time since December, when we had a couple chilly days. January in Doha – until yesterday – was more like March in Doha, with warm nights and warmer days. I appreciate the freshness of a little coolness.
The Snowflake Man
From a wonderful website on Parenting, iMom, full of ideas, comes this lovely video on a man who photographed snowflakes:
Snowflake Man from Family First on Vimeo.
With thanks to my wonderful daughter-in-law, EnviroGirl, for the reference. 🙂
Doha: The Best Time of the Year
We have the windows open and the A/C off, well, most of the time. Some times it gets humid, and we have to turn the AC on to keep our carpets and textiles from molding. Aarrgh!
Yesterday dawned a crisp 60+°F, clear, sunny, the birds are singing and I have errands to do but . . . it’s also a great day for taking photos. I decide maybe I can do both, but I give the photos a priority and get myself down to the Corniche.
There is also a part of me that wanted to see if I COULD drive on the Corniche; it has been on-again-off-again as people prepare for the grand parade at – oh yes, 0800 Friday morning.
0800 Friday morning? No one in Qatar is up at 0800 on Friday morning. You are going to START a parade at 0800 on Friday morning? Like soldiers will have to be up early? Pilots flying those cool fast little planes – up before dawn? This is Qatar – no one is up at 0800 on a Friday morning!
The weather is gorgeous and the photos take themselves. There has been so much building on the Corniche and over in the West Bay Business district:
Off in the distance, glimmering like Shangri-La, are the buildings going up on The Pearl:
And look at the minaret on the new National Mosque! It’s as tall as many of the taller buildings! Do you think they will have an elevator? Will the muezzins be able to call out the call to prayer after climbing 37 stories?
Ya Gotta Love the Qatar Press
OK, bear with me. I am picky about language. I dance with joy to see that the Qatar press no longer uses “flay” on a daily basis; it is a strong word, a word that literally means ‘to skin’, and it was often used when one team triumphed over another, like Arsenal Flays Manchester, or some such, even if the victory was just points.
“No! No!” I would shake my head in horror, “please stop! Use some restraint! Choose the right word!”
But when it comes to rain, the press vocabulary seems stunted, and once again, predictably, we were treated to a ‘lashing’.
Think about it. It’s a strong word. What does lashing rain look like?
A lashing rain is blowing in bursts, coming at you sometimes at almost a 90° angle, an umbrella is useless. A lashing rain can hurt your face, it hits so hard, a lashing rain is heavily wind blown. A lashing rain has FORCE behind it.
What we had in Doha was a steady, drenching rain. At no time did it exceed an angle of maybe 15%; almost 100% of the time the rain came steadily down. Maybe it streamed. Maybe it soaked. Maybe it even flooded. But lashing? No. No. It was never lashing. There was no great wind behind it, no great force. It gently, steadily dripped. It accumulated. It never never lashed.
Peppermint Meringues
Last week, at the MegaMart, I saw some boxes of true peppermint candy canes. I grabbed three, did not even look at the price. There have been candy canes around, but weird – fruit flavored, even chocolate flavored. At Christmas, I am a purist when it comes to a candy cane. It has to be peppermint!
And then I look for recipes to make a little peppermint candy cane go a long way. This is one of them, from allrecipes.com:
Peppermint Meringues
Ingredients
• 2 egg whites
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 peppermint candy canes, crushed
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 225 degrees F (110 degrees C). Line 2 cookie sheets with foil.
2. In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar to soft peaks. Gradually add sugar, continuing to beat until whites form stiff peaks. Drop by spoonfuls 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Sprinkle crushed peppermint candy over the cookies.
3. Bake for 1 1/2 hours in preheated oven. Meringues should be completely dry on the inside. Do not allow them to brown. Turn off oven. Keep oven door ajar, and let meringues sit in the oven until completely cool. Loosen from foil with metal spatula. Store loosely covered in cool dry place for up to 2 months.
A warning – meringues work a whole lot better if you DO NOT make them on a rainy day. The humidity in the air interferes with making a good dry meringue. You can make these and keep them a short while in an airtight container, but in humidity, they lose their crispness.
We are having our third full day of intermittent, drenching rain in Doha. Thanks be to God.
Doha Gets a Drenching
A wonderful day, a day that started with a downpour, and never cleared up the whole day, with intermittent showers continuing to give the soil the moisture it so desperately needs. I love the thought of Doha getting a good wash with Qatar National Day being celebrated this entire week. 🙂
Some Rainy Day photos from Doha:
For my Kuwait friends – you are WELCOME, see! There is even an Al Kout coffee shop!
Snug and warm having breakfast at Tagine:
Rain Drenches Doha
No, rain is not lashing Doha, but we woke up this morning to a God-bless drenching of Doha. I know my friends in the great Pacific Northwest will not get it – but rain here is rare, and wonderful. Just seeing the rain dropping heavily on the streets, the children running around screeching for joy – oh, what fun!
The laborers are all bundled up as if it is the middle of a snowstorm in Chicago – two sit shivering under an umbrella while one brave man continues sweeping:
I have to run around checking all the windows. Fortunately, today the rain is coming straight down, but when the rain is truly “lashing” Doha, our windows are not so good at being watertight, and I have a supply of old towels I use to sop up the excess which burbles inside:
A wonderful, wet Friday, a great day for a drenching when people don’t have to get to work and can stay safely inside. Because Doha doesn’t often get drenched, the drainage systems don’t work well, and parts of streets are flooded.
Compare Kuwait and Doha Weather
People are always asking me, “which do you like better, Doha or Kuwait?”
It’s apples and oranges. Kuwait is big city, with big city problems and big city shopping. Kuwait is just bigger, with faster roads. Doha is growing, solving a lot of problems Kuwait has still to face, but the two are so different that they just don’t compare. I like them both, for different reasons.
One of the things that is hard to get is that while they are so close, the weather is not the same. Kuwait gets hotter in the summer and colder in the winter.
Here is the forecast for the next five days:
Kuwait 5 day forecast December 8 - 12
Doha five day forecast December 8 - 12
“Rain Lashes Doha!”
After lunch and a good visit, my friends were leaving. Sauntering to the car, the very few small raindrops didn’t even touch us, but we were exhilarated by the joy of these first drops, the first we had seen after long, dry months.
“Rain lashes Doha!” one of the quipped, parodying the local press, exaggerating the tiny things while leaving out major crimes. They danced toward their cars, yes, it’s a western compound and once in a while you might find one or two of us dancing in the street, we wild women of the West.
The Tribal in all of us – Prayers for Rain
I know it is about that time of the year . . . clouds are gathering, you can almost smell rain coming. And yet it holds off. Every year, in Qatar, and also in Kuwait, the national leader gathers with his people and prays for rain.
What country doesn’t need rain? Even in the Pacific Northwest, where jokes are made about the abundance of rain, when the rains fail to fall, people pray for rain.
I remember living in Monterey, California during a drought; it didn’t rain for a couple YEARS. When it rained, people danced in the streets for joy.
There is no sweeter smell on earth, I think, that the smell of the first rain hitting the dusty earth.
From today’s Gulf Times
Prayer for rains
HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani joining the worshippers to perform the Istisqa (rain-seeking prayer) at the Al Wajbah prayer ground yesterday morning. The prayer is in line with the Sunnah (sayings and deeds) of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), who performed Istisqa prayers when there was a delay in rainfall.
Recent Comments
ExpatAlien on What Country am I Living … intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 