Friday Sunrise, 20 Feb 2009
Good morning, Kuwait. It looks like it may rain. The clouds obscuring the sun this morning were the kind that if enough of them could get together, we could have some rain. We need it.
Weather Underground: Kuwait tells me it is clear this morning:
It is not clear. It is very cloudy, and there is a haze over the water. It is not clear.
On the other hand, I remember barely a month ago when the temperature right now – 55°F/13°C – was the high expected for the entire day.
Have a great day, Kuwait. 🙂
A New Day
We groaned as the alarm went off – too early – this morning, but AdventureMan had a full plate and needed to get an early start. I also got an early start, and even caught a breath of fresh air, out on the balcony this morning snapping the sunrise.
I wish you all a great weekend! 🙂
Sunrise, 18 February 2009
As you can see, there is a very thick band of something . . . clouds? pollution? that the sun could not break through until it was inches above the horizon. The haze is diminished today, but still there. It isn’t orange, so if it is sand, it is more local sand, not that orange stuff that comes down every now and then from the Jordanian / Iraqi desert.
It is also starting to get hot. Yesterday, the forecast high was 80°F, but with all the haze, I don’t think it got there. This is the forecast for the rest of the week:
Sunrise: As Good As it Gets
I’ve been waiting and waiting. It’s been days since there has been a good sunrise, or even a visible sunrise. This morning, this is as good as it gets. Please forgive my rain streaked (woo hooo!) windows:
Weather Underground: Kuwait says it is going to get up to 78°F/27°C today. Sigh. I have the air conditioning still off. I don’t want to turn it on again, but with 77% humidity . . . it just makes me sad, turning on the a/c in February. 😦
Today, there really is a light haze; I can see maybe 500 meters off the coast. Maybe the sun will burn the haze off.
The Sultan Center is packing away all the Valentine’s Day supplies, and has brought out all the Kuwait Independence / Liberation Day supplies – have you stocked up?
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. 😉
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. 🙂
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.
Better, Still Sandy
Once again, we have “light haze.” This is better than yesterday – we can see the shore – but this is not what I would call a light haze. Taken around 7:30 a.m.
There is a 20% chance of rain on Monday. We surely need rain to damp down all this new orange sand.
My sister, Sparkle, asked if people don’t wear gauze masks when the sand blows in like this. Yes, Sparkle, you see them everywhere, but most people who can, stay home, stay inside. Even inside, last night when it was time to go to sleep, it felt like breathing underwater, the air feels thick and heavy. It gives you a little headache after a while, trying to breathe.
This morning is a little better; maybe there has been some shift in atmospheric pressure. Even though the sun is up, you don’t see a lot of orange like yesterday, but the thick haze in front of my house is more a tangerine-tinged cream color.
Weirder still, there are two new layers of sand on the beach in front of our house, orange and oranger:
Light Haze at Noon
That light haze just keeps getting thicker and thicker and oranger and oranger. It is surprisingly cool and damp; I am used to most of the dust storms being HOT. A cool and damp dust storm means the orange dust is sticking to everything, to windows, to car windshields, to pavement. AdventureMan says it is piling up in drifts on some of the major roads. Be careful out there, my friends.
Qatteri Cat Gets Crazy
A windy night plays havok with getting a good night’s sleep, if you have a cat. It is just the way God made cats – any little strange noise and watch what happens – their ears go straight up, their eyes go on high alert and their posture is ready-for-action.
We had one cat, a cat born wild in Tunisia, and on a windy night in Germany, she would make us totally crazy. “I must go out! I must go out!” she would cry as the wind blew leaves fluttering across the patio and tree branches made strange motions in the shadows. I would struggle half-awake down the stairs, let her out the patio door, and 15 minutes later she would be crying down under my window “I’ve made a big mistake! It’s cold out here! Please come down and let me in!” and I would struggle down the stairs and let her in and tell her to settle down, that I wasn’t going to let her out again.
Her little brain can’t remember all that. An hour later, she would forget “cold” and was crazy with desire to be out where all the action was, once again. And the cycle continued. She had me trained. I was her door opener.
The Qatteri Cat doesn’t go out, but he gets wound up by the wind, as any cat will. AdventureMan calmed him down last night, and he curled up and went back to sleep. Guess AdventureMan will always be the favorite with the Qatteri Cat.
This is what Weather Underground Kuwait calls a “light haze.”
My windows are streaked with dust and humidity.
Transition Sunrise
I was shocked when I looked at the five day forecast and saw that the high temperature for tomorrow is 80°F / 27°C. Holy smokes. Winter is over. 80° is about as hot as I can handle without A/C – around 80° in Florida, fleas eggs start hatching, and it is time to flea-proof the house. We don’t have the same problem with fleas here, probably due to the air conditioning, on most months of the year.
This morning’s sunrise is barely less murky than yesterday’s. The weather reporter says “light haze” but sometimes it says that in the middle of a heavy dust storm, so I don’t put a lot of credibility in what it says.
The days are getting perceptibly longer. In our neighborhood, when the meuzzin “chants” for the dawn prayers, it is not so hard to get up. We are blessed to have a tenor muezzin, who loves the morning call to prayer, and does it with great melodiousness and passion. It is a wonderful way to wake up.
Have a great day, Kuwait.
Murky Morning
It is one of those transitional weather days, not raining, not clear, somewhere in between and it could go either way:
I was sleeping soundly and happily this morning when I heard a very very loud “AAACCCCKKKKKKK” and I jumped out of bed, adrenaline pumping, thinking “Is someone strange in the house?” I listened, didn’t hear anything else, so went to the living room where the Qatteri Cat was lying on the floor. Maybe a blade of grass tickled his throat (I make bowls of grass for him to help digestion; long haired cats get clogs sometimes) or maybe he sneezed, or jumped down from his high perch by the window, I don’t know. I patted him and he followed me back to bed where we both snoozed a little until time to get up.
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