At 0700 it is 73°F / 23°C, and it is very hazy (look how the haze magnifies the size of the sun) but the sea has some color, a light hazy green. The haze looks like it may burn off a little later and the high is expected to be around 95°F/35°C.
I really did take this photo.
And now I will tell you, I tried to take photos of the lightning the other night. Most of it was just cloud-to-cloud and all I got were black photos with slightly lighter spots in them. AdventureMan instructed me that if I wanted lightning shots, I needed to set up a tripod and a timed exposure, but I think there is too much ambient light where I live to make that effective. So I found a great dramatic shot online and used it to illustrate. I sure didn’t mean to deceive you. I sure wish I had taken that shot!
Yesterday had a little color, a little less haze, and I could see the hazy green of the Gulf. Late in the day, AdventureMan asked “are those car lights flashing?” and we looked outside and could see lightning, but it appeared to be only over the Gulf, and never close enough for us to hear any thunder from it. Hours later, the same storm was still going on. The wind rose, and whistled through the cracks in our “luxury” building; lightning continued to flash – but we never saw a drop of rain.
This morning, there is some color, but a lot of haze. It is 77°F / 25°C at 0800. I don’t have asthma, but I feel a little like I am breathing under water today.
From the Arab Times:
Kuwaiti brothers critically hurt in gang attack over parking row
KUWAIT CITY : Eight persons broke into a Kuwaiti family’s house in Salmiya and attacked three brothers with knives, machetes, sticks and similar weapons just because the brothers did not allow a female student of a nearby institute to park her car opposite their house.
The brothers were critically wounded and had to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital.
Securitymen, who rushed to the scene after receiving a call from their mother, managed to arrest one of the attackers but the rest of them bolted from the scene.
A case was registered.
By Mizyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times
People here can get pretty riled up over parking. One time, my husband and I were attending a social event, and we parked on – well, it looked like a public street to us, and public streets, unless they have numbered, private parking, you are allowed to park on public streets because you are the public. That’s what we thought anyway.
When we came out, we had cars literally blocking us, forward and rear, from getting out. My husband approached the owner of the house in front of whom we were parked, who was around the corner in his diwaniyya (on the public sidewalk) and when my husband said he was sorry, the man said he could put his “assif” (sorry) in his pocket!
Not one to give up easily, AdventureMan schmoozed for a while. The man said he would have his driver take me home, and AM asked him if he would put HIS wife in a car with a strange driver. That got an appreciative grin. Long story short, finally he allowed us to leave. He had some legitimate gripes – the facility where we had attended the performance has people who block his parking access to his house all the time.
My husband visited him again the next day with a parcel of dates to express his appreciation for the guy having let us go, and visited the facility and helped arrange to insure that people would not park in front of this guy’s house again. He and the man became – well, not friends, but cordial acquaintances.
I’ve always been glad AM handled it in a gentlemanly fashion. Imagine, breaking in and stabbing people over a parking spot!
On the front of the Friday Kuwait Times (kind of the weekly tabloid edition) there is a headline article about Saudi Blogger Raed Al Saeed, who made a 6 minute video picking out verses from Samuel, Numbers, Deuteronomy, etc. to illustrate horrorific illustrations from the Bible, to parallel Geert Wilder’s movie, Fitness, which picks out verses from the Qura’an to illustrate the violence of Islam.
He says” It is easy to take parts of any Holy book that are out of context and make it sound like the most inhuman book ever written. This is what Geert Wilders did to gather more supporters to his hateful ideology.”
He’s right. It’s easy to point fingers, and to create fear and hate. It’s a whole lot harder to try to build bridges of understanding and compassion, to find similarities, to find ways to respect one another, to work together, to try to build a better world, and to agree to disagree when our books take different directions.
I had total sticker shock when I bought my ticket to go home this summer – I paid for an economy class ticket what I used to pay for a business class ticket. Ulp. More money, less legroom, more headaches . . .
The Washington Post ways we have more unpleasant surprises in store:
Airline passengers, already enduring persistent flight delays and other customer service headaches, are confronting another aggravation: mounting fees for everything from checking a second bag to sending a child alone on a trip.
Carriers are turning to the fees and charges — some of which are built into the cost of a ticket — to help them cope with rising fuel costs, which account for increasing portions of their budgets.
Just in time for the summer travel season, airlines have tacked on a $25 fee to check a second bag, and yet another carrier announced last week that it was adding a fee for curbside baggage check-in. Others have steadily brought back pesky overnight-stay requirements to help them better separate business fliers from penny-pinching leisure travelers. Most have tried to slip fuel surcharges into the cost of tickets — fees that have climbed past $150 each way on some international flights.
Passengers won’t be feeling the squeeze just in their purses. Most major carriers have also announced reductions in flights by the fall to help improve efficiency, a move that will cram more passengers onto already crowded jets.
You can read the entire article HERE.
I’m fascinated with the concept of trying to eat “local” and there is an article in Wired: How to Shop and Eat Locally that tells us more about it. Below is an excerpt:
Innumerable books and other media extol the virtues of eating food that’s grown and processed near you: it benefits the planet, it benefits the farmers, it tastes better, it’s better for you. ReadMichael Pollan or Barbara Kingsolver for examples.
But piecing together a local menu isn’t as easy as going to the Local aisle of your supermarket. Here are some tips for bringing your meals closer to home.
Start small. Shopping locally goes against the grain (pun intended) of our globalized economy, so it’s not the easiest thing to do. Even if you live in a region that’s rich in vegetables and meats, chances are you won’t have easy access to staples like sugar, salt, oil, and flour. Just focus on what you can get, and keep an eye out for sources and/or substitutes for what you can’t.
Personalize. If you want to try the classic 100-mile diet, you can find your personal 100-mile radius at 100milediet.org.
Get a supplier. You can find farms, greenmarkets, and locally oriented stores in your area using web tools offered atEatwellguide.org and Localharvest.org. If you live in a city, investigate CSA — Community-Supported Agriculture. Citydwellers pay a fee to subscribe to a farm, and get a share of its output delivered in weekly boxes of joy. Just Food offers a listing for New Yorkers.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a sunny day, sunny and no clouds. This is actually a color photo of what it looks like this morning:
The cloudiness has lowered the daily temperatures about 10 degrees, giving us just a tiny bit more Springtime – we thought the Spring was over when the temperatures started hitting 100°F. This morning it is a refreshing 73°F / 23°C.
Here’s the problem. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. OK, OK, we have our holy books, and they give us character guidelines. I am talking about specifics here, when life hands you those lemons, how do you make lemonade? Specifically!
When we move to Florida, we thought we were in Paradise. We had a house with a big pool, surrounded by shady trees, families of racoons, beautiful gardens – what’s not to like?
Paradise came with chamaeleons, lizards, cockroaches, even in the best houses. And fleas. We had to learn how to deal with them.
During our first and only flea infestation, at first we blamed the cats. Being a terrible mother, I asked my son to help, and he went into the walk in shower (No! Not naked! He was wearing swimming trunks!) to bathe the cats with anti-flea shampoo. I would get the cat trapped, put the cat in the shower, he would shampoo them, let one out and I would hand him the next one. Both cats loved him the best; he had chosen them from the litter.
When I saw this photo on LOLCATS, I really had to laugh.
see more crazy cat pics
Just so you will know, the solution is to take the cats to the vet and have them treated for fleas professionally. While the cats are at the vets, pour 20 Mule Team Borax over all your carpets and in all your upholstered furniture, let it stand overnight, and vacuum it all up. After you vacuum, bring the cats back. It really works. The borax creates a saline environment in which the fleas (and cockroaches) can’t survive, but it doesn’t hurt pets.
SAN FRANCISCO — The Olympic torch arrived at the airport here from Paris in the wee hours Tuesday morning, exited out a side door and was escorted by motorcade to a downtown hotel. There it took a well-deserved break in a room complete with cable TV, room service and views of the city’s popular Union Square shopping district.
“It has very comfortable accommodations,” said Mike McCarron, an airport spokesman, who said the flame — ensconced in a handsome brass lantern and accompanied by several backup flames — was “treated similar to a head of state.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the flame will be under no such bushel as it makes its only appearance in the United States on an increasingly tense international tour en route to Beijing. It will star in a two-and-a-half-hour relay along this city’s waterfront, involving six miles of pavement, 79 runners and untold scores of law enforcement officials.
The precise route remained in flux on Tuesday as the torch extravaganza threatened to become more civic migraine than celebration in the face of potential protests by those upset with China’s human rights record and recent crackdown in Tibet. Mayor Gavin Newsom met with police and relay officials amid concerns that disruptions in London and Paris this week not be repeated here.
“I can only confirm that the route is dynamic,” said Nathan Ballard, a city spokesman.
Whoda thunk?
I am (almost) speechless!
Can this be a turning point in Kuwait? Are we going to have laws that might actually be meant to be followed? Wooo Hoooo, traffic police, Woooo Hoooooo, court of law!
From The Arab Times: Kuwait Crime:
‘Deport motorist’ – Driving on E-lane
KUWAIT CITY : Assistant Undersecretary for Traffic Affairs, Major-General Thabet Al-Muhanna has ordered the deportation of an Arab man who was caught driving at 140 km/h along the Fifth Ring Motorway, reports Al-Seyassah daily.
According to a security source Al-Muhanna saw the motorist driving along the emergency lane and ordered his immediate arrest.
After his arrest the man admitted to committing the offence. He apologized and said he was in a hurry. However, the man will be administratively deported, say sources.
Questions and Comments: Woo Hooo, al-Muhanna!
Suggestion: With the great advent of tiny, easily carried cameras and cell phone cameras, photographic evidence is easy to provide. How about the Ministry of Interior setting up a website where we can send them photos of people WE see in flagrant violation of the laws?
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