Search Engine Terms Challenge
Little Diamond, now en route to her home in Beirut, posted yesterday on blog search terms and her mystification at how some people end up on her blogsite when what they are really looking for is something else entirely.
I have found the same experience. I think the search engines must scan words, and no matter that they are in posts months apart, maybe even years apart, if you have written enough, your post may qualify. For example, if in November, you wrote a diatribe against porn, and in January you wrote an entry about stars you can see in the evening sky, then someone looking for “porn” and “star” is going to end up on your blog (equally mystified!)
So here is my challenge. Take a look at your statistics and tell us what terms people used to find your blog today (or yesterday.) To start off, I will share mine:
+wordpress +snap
choosing a wife
what are the political issues in france
do i have to refrigerate leftover peca
“how do feeds work”
here there and everywhere
my+way+hemingway+tshirt
wherever you go
sugar cookies evaporated milk cream of t
good pirates
Spicy Foods Kill Cancer
Sadu House
divinity candy
rosette irons history
locard\’s exchange principal and its imp
tunisia love marriage
Larry Steward – secret santa
milton on freedom of thought
Zoe Oldenburg Ansiau et
Zambia expats life
african lion poop
Of course, my hands down favorite is the last one! Check your search engine terms, and post here in comments or on your blog. It’s a dull rainy day – let’s have some fun!
Three Turtles
My husband called; he leaves for work early. He saw THREE cars “turned turtle”* on his way to work. One was a huge water tanker that had been hit by an SUV; he said he can’t imagine anyone getting out alive.
The roads are wet and slick. Not matter that Kuwait gets ample rain in the rainy season, there are months and months worth of accumulated grease and oil on the highways, and people who don’t take the weather conditions into account.
Be careful out there. Please, please, slow down. Buckle up. And please, tell your children that the car doesn’t go unless they are buckled up, too. Please. Keep them safe. We know you are being careful. . . but there are others who are not.
*”Turned turtle” is what they say when a car ends up upside down.
Blame it on the Rain
(I apologize to Milli Vanilli, whose music and look I really liked, even though they were totally frauds.)
I thought I had it beat. I am getting about six hours of sleep a night, pretty normal, not bad. But . . . wide awake around four every morning – four if I am lucky, 3, 3:30 sometimes. So up at 4 this morning, do you know how quiet it is in Kuwait at four in the morning? Its like quiet-squared. Stopped by the French bakery for some goodies, spent time with a good friend from 8 – 10, we had intended to walk but too much rain! We explored photo management and uploads for a while and then I headed home.
I didn’t intend to nap. The Qatteri Cat got cozy and the next thing I knew . . . I had slept from noon to 4:30, slept like a dead person. Of course now I am WIDE AWAKE. I can’t imagine how I will sleep tonight. When will this end, when will I be back on local time??
Alhamdallah for the Trip from Hell
Remember what my husband says? A good flight is where the number of landings equals the number of take-offs? Alhamdallah, I am safely arrived back in Kuwait and the safe landings equalled the take-offs.
Having said that, this trip back to Kuwait was not a trip I want to do again any time soon. It’s all small stuff. Small stuff adds up. (Sigh.) It gets old.
There’s a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam. Because I booked so late, I couldn’t get on it. I kept trying, KLM kept laughing and saying “it is BOOKED!” I made use of that “weather window” to drive to the airport a little early, hoping a seat might open up, someone might now show up. No such luch. Even as the flight boarded, I asked if there was any possibility of getting on and they just laughed.
No big deal. My flight to Minneapolis was just a little later, and it was uneventful, except for leaving late enough that I had to RUN from one end of the Minneapolis airport to the other to reach the gate for my Amsterdam flight, and it was a long long way! Most people were already on board, but I had an aisle seat and I was just happy to make the flight. This flight, too, was fully booked. I didn’t see a single empty seat.
And that was not good news. I was tired, so quickly fell asleep, only to awake to the sound of a flight attendant using her loud voice to say “Sir! Sir! Can you hear me? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, you need to respond!” and when the man sitting behind me didn’t respond she was about to call for medical assistance. At that moment, he vomited copiously all over himself and all over his seat. Pretty awful, awful for him, awful for everyone sitting around him. Ummm, remember when I told you there were no empty seats?
They did their best to clean things up. Oh well. Safe landing.
Boarded the flight to Kuwait in Amsterdam, uneventful, smooth . . . “hmmmmm, haven’t we been sitting here a while? We were supposed to take off half an hour ago . . .?” The pilot comes on and says the plane has been loaded with contaminated fuel and they are trying to figure out what they are going to do. Three hours after we boarded we are deplaned, given vouchers for dinner and a phone call and 50 Euro coupon toward our next flight. We are told to be back at 9 to reboard.
So I go once again for the upgrade – I really need more space to sleep, and I really need some sleep. I tried to use that fancy-schmancy 50 Euro coupon but the ticketing office said it is only good for booking a totally NEW ticket. Ah well, I paid 100 Euro to upgrade, worth EVERY centime. I was asleep even before the plane taxied down the runway for takeoff. My sweet husband was there to meet me at the ungodly hour we landed in Kuwait. The air was cool and fresh and smelled clean.
OK, OK, nothing major, just a lot of small annoyances. The number of safe landings equalled the number of takeoffs. Alhamdallah.
Weather Window and Scent of Pine
This morning we had a “weather window” after last night’s wind storm. On our way out to dinner last night, we took a slightly round-about way to the restaurant to avoid the large major road on which all the traffic lights were out. Seattle motorists are so civil; the lights go out, they take turns going through the lights. Even so, traffic backs up to kingdom come. I figured out a way we could avoid that dogpile, and we got the the restaurant with no problem. The wind was sending the rain in lashes, but at one of the most popular restaurants in town, a parking spot was available right in front.
On our way in, a group of women on the way out hollared “It’s a 45 minute wait!” and we just laughed – my Mom is a smart cookie. We had reservations.
Finally, I am on local time, and when we got home, I slept like a baby. Early in the morning my sister came to my room and told me how she had been up most of the night, worried about the wind blowing. Trees were falling everywhere, and she was worried about the house. She said the wind didn’t die down until the early hours of the morning. She has lived in Seattle thirty three years and had never experienced a worse storm.
But there was a “weather window” this morning. Bad weather behind us, bad weather ahead of us, but for right now, right this minute, the sun is shining and the roads are clear of ice. As I drive, I smell pine everywhere, and in our neighborhood, the road crews have already been out clearing trees off the roads and pushing all the debris to the sides. The smell is pure heaven, pure sweet pine scented air.
The wind and rain have washed all the dust away, the air itself sparkles, and the trees still standing are an amazing shade of green, a green so dark it is almost black. It’s a morning to delight the senses.
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
For two days now, it has been rainy, oh! sheets of rain coming down. If you have an umbrella, it doesn’t help. You are soaked before you can even get your umbrella up, and the wind keeps blowing in gusts from different directions so the umbrella goes inside out.
The perfect day for Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse, a recipe from a cookbook my aunt gave me, published in 1946 – no longer even in print. But the recipe is a winner – easy, satisfying, and with a salad and French Bread, a complete stormy day meal, warming and satisfying from the inside out.
A bouillabaisse is flexible, and relies on slow simmering and some reduction to obtain its deep, rich, complex flavor. Fishermen use what they catch – the more, the merrier, in a bouillabaisse. For extra credit, serve with a rouille, a red, peppery mayonnaise. (Yes, blenders make any mayonnaise do-able.)
Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse
From Mary Cullen’s Northwest Cook Book, 1946 (with alterations)
This is one of the all-star recipes if you like seafood and if your friends do, too.
1 1/2 lbs. cod, halibut or red snapper, or good solid white meat fish like grouper, cut into bite sized chunks
1 large hard shell crab, cook, take meat out (or two or three small Kuwaiti crab)
2 lbs. small clams in the shell, or if you are stuck, you can use canned clams
1/2 lb. mussels, if available
10 – 12 medium large shrimp
1/3 cup olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cups fish stock (I use the water from cooking the crab, and cook the fish heads etc. until you have a good, tasty stock)
1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
1 green and 1 red sweet pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon saffron
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
Prepare fish, removing bones and cutting into bite sized pieces. Several kinds of fish can be used, if preferred. Clean meat out of crab legs and crab body, put aside.
In large pan, sautee onion, peppers and garlic in olive oil, add bay leaf and cut up fish and fish stock, cook very slowly, without boiling, for about 20 minutes or until fish is tender.
Add crab, clams, shrimp, mussels, seasonings, and lemon juice. Let cook 3 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. It is tradition that on cold winter’s days, the bread can be dunked in the broth!
This is a photo from Wikipedia, showing genuine French Bouillabaisse. The Pacific Northwest version doesn’t have a tomato-y broth, but more clear broth.
Desperately Jet Lagging
The shift from Kuwait to Seattle is 11 time zones. It means that no matter what time it is, my body time is almost exactly the opposite. Sometimes I hardly notice. This time, it has been miserable. I am like a newborn baby, up and wide awake at all the wrong times, and falling asleep at all the wrong times.
Not one of us made it until midnight last night. My son and his bride are also jet lagging from their trip back from Kuwait, and also their red-eye special to Seattle for Dad’s services on Saturday. We are all fairly wrung out with the emotional toll. By nine last night, everyone was asleep. My son and his wife and Little Diamond all had early early morning flights, so my day started early – I never could get back to sleep.
So early on this New Year’s morning, I headed over to my Mom’s, stopping first at the little local Starbuck’s – yes, open even early on New Year’s morning.
Parking was plentiful, a welcome surprise, but I was not the only customer. There were several people and a city policeman having a get together so early on New Year’s Day. It is cold today, windy, rainy, cold and damp, it penetrates and chills your bones. Ahhhh, yes, a perfect time for a Peppermint Mocha.
You can see the Olympic mountains in the distance, with a fresh coating of snow. Can you feel how cold it is?
Photos in the Bleak MidWinter
As I was waiting for the shot I wanted, I had a visitor:
Not for long:
It is SO cold here – this is 3:30 in the afternoon, it feels like the sun will set any minute, you can see it sparkling on the snowy mountains:
The Family Gathers
The flight from Amsterdam to Seattle runs around 10 hours – more or less depending on headwinds and tailwinds. Thanks to my almost-fully-flat seat, I was able to get about 6 good hours of sleep, just exactly what I needed to face immigration, customs, car rental and a drive through Seattle (four to five lanes of traffic in both directions) to a northern suburb.
It is COLD in Seattle – like the high is about one degree above freezing. It is also a damp cold that makes you shiver, and when the wind blows, it feels freezing. It is supposed to drop down below freezing tonight. I just hope it doesn’t snow again; driving can get problematic in the snow.
Grabbed a quick Pepperming Mocha (I don’t know why they don’t do these in Kuwait, but they tell me there would be no market. How do they know? Have they ever tried it?) and headed for my Mom’s. One sister, her husband, and Little Diamond were also waiting for me there, Little Diamond’s sister, Precious Diamond (sometimes called Pregnant Diamond; she is due to have a baby any minute!) and my other sister, her husband and son came by a little later, and we all had dinner together.
Mom has asked me to make a kind of photographic tribute to my Dad for the service on Saturday, so we got out all the photo albums, collections, boxes and had a lot of fun going through and remembering all the good times with Dad. I have a stack of photos from different times in his life, and will take them in to get them copied, enlarged, etc somewhere where they can do it FAST. Little Diamond will help with the graphic design and Fonts – she wrote the obituary for the paper and did a truly masterful job.
Thanks to the sleep I got on the plane, I was fairly fresh . . . well, I did fall asleep for a while after dinner, but rallied and got another couple hours of work done.
I am guessing I will get a good night’s sleep and dive in to all the work that needs to be done tomorrow. With everyone in the family taking a part, it should all work out smoothly. I found the photo of me sitting almost on top of the mountain. I will see if there is a way I can blog it.
Rain, Dear
My husband called me this morning from Germany and said “I am so glad we don’t live here anymore, it is all dark and grey and rainy today.”
I laughed and said “That’s the exact weather we are having in Kuwait.”
I have only recently started driving, really driving, the way I used to drive around Qatar. (One time my husband took a day off to take a trip around Qatar. We left early in the morning. We were back in time for lunch.) I was fearless, at least during daylight hours. Traffic was heavy, but much calmer, much tamer than in Kuwait.
When I first got here, I thought I would never drive. Then, little by little, I would drive here, drive there, mostly for groceries or meetings, then, little by little, more. Now, I am actually pretty good, or at least getting pretty good.
Or so I thought until today. I had to drive home in the rain. I am confident and also cautious as a driver. I was surrounded by two kinds of drivers – nervous and UNconfident drivers, and drivers who were totally oblivious to the dangers of a newly slick wet highway and driving their normal fast, weav-y way. That makes for a hair-raising ride, especially when you are caught between the nervous brak-ers and the cavalierly speeding weavers.
Did I mention school had just gotten out, so many of the cars were Mums with children, and the others were young bloods who had been trapped in the classroom and were eager to break loose? Deadly combination.
Made it home, mentally designing a medal. Soldiers get medals just for participating in a campaign and living to tell about it. I think the Kuwait freeways and ring roads should be combat-medal qualified. Maybe black, with a yellow stripe down the middle . . .and you get stars for acts of extraordinary bravery?
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