Hey, folks! To any of you who've stopped by to see what's up, I've started a new blog that you can find here:
http://givemecupcakes.blogspot.com/
Okay, so maybe I could have just moved things around here and changed some titles and stuff, but I thought that I needed real change (please, don't expect me to make sense... that's too much pressure). Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to keep blogging.
So, if you feel like stopping over, it'd be great to see you!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Back from my sojourn in the non-blogging world...
Well, it sure has been a long time since I've been anywhere near any blogs, including my own. In a way I suppose that it's a good thing because it means that I've been busy with life, but I've actually missed being around other bloggers, especially the ones with whom I've connected over the past year and a half. I think that it's time for me to get my hands back in it now that I've had a rather colossal break from blogging.
So, to answer a comment about my last post, no, I haven't actually run off. Much of my time has been spent with friends and then the inevitable time spent with my immediate family. Much of my time has been spent climbing, also. There were the Tuesdays, where a friend, D, would come over to train with me on our home wall and then we'd cook dinner afterwards for fun (my friend is interested in cooking as much as I am, whereas The Mister is only vaguely interest in learning more about food preparation). That came to an end, though, because it's time to get ready for roped climbing outdoors and the only way that he can train for that is at the gym. I was bouldering (climbing on, well, boulders instead of rock faces) outdoors or at the gym on some of the weekends, too, and on Thursday nights, I've still been going to the climbing gym and out to dinner afterwards with several other climbers.
Just recently, I went back down to Alabama with a friend for another climbing competition at the same
place that I took my trip to in November. The trip there wasn't quite as magical as the first time that I went, but it was still a most wonderful place and I'm still looking forward to going back. The trip definitley had some high points. For one, I won my division, but that's not all that impressive because there were only two of us and the other guy wasn't very far behind me. I also got my ego boosted from a handful of men, some young, some closer to my age (one of whom looked alarmingly like Kyle MacLachlan, whose photo I've included here), some holding a handshake for decidedly too long, some making flattering comments directly to my face, and one very young man making a comment as I walked away that I'm quite sure I wasn't suppose to hear.
However, I also got some criticism from friends and strangers alike. The stranger retracted her criticism when, affronted by her bold attack, I pointedly explained why I was doing what I was doing and she realized that she had wrongly perceived my motives. Then again, I really couldn't give a toss what she thought of me. The criticism from the friend, however, has been a bit harder to shake. I was told that I often said really negative things and after he brought it to my attention and mentioned that I should take note of what I was saying, I noticed that he pretty much was right. The unhappiness that I've been feeling this past year has been seeping into the conversations with those closest to me and I've come to realized that I need to wall myself up again, even around friends with whom I had originally felt comfortable enough around to be myself.
My friend also mentioned, in a moment when I was actually genuinely unhappy, that he could never tell whether I was unhappy or not because he thinks that I always look unhappy. That stung. I'm not an unhappy person at all and I find great joy in life and in my friends; it's just that I've always been very, well, serious in countenance. I smile when the situation genuinely warrants it, but I'm not just walking around with a big smile on my face all the time even if I'm content. If you look at pictures of me as a little girl, in a great deal of them I was just looking quietly off into the distance, contemplating things and observing things around me, not being a perky, bubbly little girl. It's just the way that I've always been.
As I got older, however, I did realize that people don't respond as well to that as to someone who is all cute and bubbly and who goes around spewing sunshine all over everyone all the time. In an effort to make a more favorable impression on people, I've tried over the years to be more of that kind of bubbly sunshine girl, even trying again as recently as this past year. It's always the same, though, and instead of winning lots of acquaintances I came off as shallow, forced and insincere (or I've found that, if you're blonde and bubbly, people commonly perceive you as less intelligent, regardless of whether the blonde is purchased or not). It's a bitter pill to swallow when you find out that you're perceived as being something that you aren't by those close to you (in this case, always unhappy) just because you can't fake the facade that they're looking for and there are few people with whom I feel comfortable enough with to let down my guard enough to not have to "fake the sunshine"; my friend was one of them, but ironically enough, I guess that it backfired on me after all. Oh, well. It is what it is, and, as Popeye so succinctly put it, "I yam what I yam," whether I like it or not. I've just got suck it up and deal.
As for my home life, I have no solutions. I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do at this juncture. I have nobody to confide in. I'm a little scared, yet a little numb and a little bored by this whole mess. That pretty much sums it up. It remains in a state of uncertainty.
So, there we have it. I'm here again and am going to try to keep in touch and search for an outlet in writing. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I can find a happy place here in blogland.
So, to answer a comment about my last post, no, I haven't actually run off. Much of my time has been spent with friends and then the inevitable time spent with my immediate family. Much of my time has been spent climbing, also. There were the Tuesdays, where a friend, D, would come over to train with me on our home wall and then we'd cook dinner afterwards for fun (my friend is interested in cooking as much as I am, whereas The Mister is only vaguely interest in learning more about food preparation). That came to an end, though, because it's time to get ready for roped climbing outdoors and the only way that he can train for that is at the gym. I was bouldering (climbing on, well, boulders instead of rock faces) outdoors or at the gym on some of the weekends, too, and on Thursday nights, I've still been going to the climbing gym and out to dinner afterwards with several other climbers.
Just recently, I went back down to Alabama with a friend for another climbing competition at the same
place that I took my trip to in November. The trip there wasn't quite as magical as the first time that I went, but it was still a most wonderful place and I'm still looking forward to going back. The trip definitley had some high points. For one, I won my division, but that's not all that impressive because there were only two of us and the other guy wasn't very far behind me. I also got my ego boosted from a handful of men, some young, some closer to my age (one of whom looked alarmingly like Kyle MacLachlan, whose photo I've included here), some holding a handshake for decidedly too long, some making flattering comments directly to my face, and one very young man making a comment as I walked away that I'm quite sure I wasn't suppose to hear.However, I also got some criticism from friends and strangers alike. The stranger retracted her criticism when, affronted by her bold attack, I pointedly explained why I was doing what I was doing and she realized that she had wrongly perceived my motives. Then again, I really couldn't give a toss what she thought of me. The criticism from the friend, however, has been a bit harder to shake. I was told that I often said really negative things and after he brought it to my attention and mentioned that I should take note of what I was saying, I noticed that he pretty much was right. The unhappiness that I've been feeling this past year has been seeping into the conversations with those closest to me and I've come to realized that I need to wall myself up again, even around friends with whom I had originally felt comfortable enough around to be myself.
My friend also mentioned, in a moment when I was actually genuinely unhappy, that he could never tell whether I was unhappy or not because he thinks that I always look unhappy. That stung. I'm not an unhappy person at all and I find great joy in life and in my friends; it's just that I've always been very, well, serious in countenance. I smile when the situation genuinely warrants it, but I'm not just walking around with a big smile on my face all the time even if I'm content. If you look at pictures of me as a little girl, in a great deal of them I was just looking quietly off into the distance, contemplating things and observing things around me, not being a perky, bubbly little girl. It's just the way that I've always been.
As I got older, however, I did realize that people don't respond as well to that as to someone who is all cute and bubbly and who goes around spewing sunshine all over everyone all the time. In an effort to make a more favorable impression on people, I've tried over the years to be more of that kind of bubbly sunshine girl, even trying again as recently as this past year. It's always the same, though, and instead of winning lots of acquaintances I came off as shallow, forced and insincere (or I've found that, if you're blonde and bubbly, people commonly perceive you as less intelligent, regardless of whether the blonde is purchased or not). It's a bitter pill to swallow when you find out that you're perceived as being something that you aren't by those close to you (in this case, always unhappy) just because you can't fake the facade that they're looking for and there are few people with whom I feel comfortable enough with to let down my guard enough to not have to "fake the sunshine"; my friend was one of them, but ironically enough, I guess that it backfired on me after all. Oh, well. It is what it is, and, as Popeye so succinctly put it, "I yam what I yam," whether I like it or not. I've just got suck it up and deal.
As for my home life, I have no solutions. I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do at this juncture. I have nobody to confide in. I'm a little scared, yet a little numb and a little bored by this whole mess. That pretty much sums it up. It remains in a state of uncertainty.
So, there we have it. I'm here again and am going to try to keep in touch and search for an outlet in writing. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I can find a happy place here in blogland.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
A Snowy Night/Morning
Driving home from dinner on a climbing night, late at 1:00am, technically the next morning. Pillows of snow droop on the branches from a recent storm, framing the outer edges of the light from the headlights as a multitude of large, new flakes of snow descend from the unseen clouds in the darkness above the trees. So quiet. The road noise from the tires muted, nearly eliminated by the snow that lays unplowed on the streets and roads. The sound of the fans softly blowing warm air into the car and music playing very softly on the radio accompany the faint engine noise and the intermittent swish of the windshield wipers.
Nobody else is out on the roads in the storm except for the two plows that I pass as I make my way deep into the suburbs. A desire wells up to drive all night in this quiet. Longing to do just that, driving away, stirs deep down inside, to drive until I could drive no more. Waking up somewhere else, the light from the sun falling on new surroundings. Change. A new place. The chance to shake things up again and see where it all settles. A new life.
How long would it be, I think to myself, until it's noticed that I'm missing? At home, minutes, hours, as soon as someone wakes up and realizes that I'm not where I'm expected to be. And outside of home, how long until anyone notices that I'm gone? A week? Several weeks? In some cases, months or even not at all.
Temptation bristles. How many times have I moved to someplace new? How long has it been since I've done that? I've been in the same place for almost twelve years now, which is longer than I've lived in one place since my family pulled up roots and scattered itself all over the globe when I was 14. I never knew where "home" would be next, for me or for any of my family. Life was a grand adventure and moving someplace new became a part of the fun, alive with possibility and new experiences.
But responsibility shackles me in place now. Responsibility chafes at my longing for different surroundings. Responsibility keeps me from heeding the wanderlust that directed so much of my past. Three people need me and, apparently, that's enough to steer me home. Navigating the maze of streets, yet taking a circuitous path to prolong the moment of wishing for new things, and then finally pulling into my driveway. I sadly, reluctantly, turn off the engine. For a few minutes I just lean my head against the headrest, unmoving with the keys sitting in my upturned palms that are resting in my lap, just watching the snow falling softly outside of the side window of the car.
Then, with a deep breath, I gather my things and head inside to face my life.
Nobody else is out on the roads in the storm except for the two plows that I pass as I make my way deep into the suburbs. A desire wells up to drive all night in this quiet. Longing to do just that, driving away, stirs deep down inside, to drive until I could drive no more. Waking up somewhere else, the light from the sun falling on new surroundings. Change. A new place. The chance to shake things up again and see where it all settles. A new life.
How long would it be, I think to myself, until it's noticed that I'm missing? At home, minutes, hours, as soon as someone wakes up and realizes that I'm not where I'm expected to be. And outside of home, how long until anyone notices that I'm gone? A week? Several weeks? In some cases, months or even not at all.
Temptation bristles. How many times have I moved to someplace new? How long has it been since I've done that? I've been in the same place for almost twelve years now, which is longer than I've lived in one place since my family pulled up roots and scattered itself all over the globe when I was 14. I never knew where "home" would be next, for me or for any of my family. Life was a grand adventure and moving someplace new became a part of the fun, alive with possibility and new experiences.
But responsibility shackles me in place now. Responsibility chafes at my longing for different surroundings. Responsibility keeps me from heeding the wanderlust that directed so much of my past. Three people need me and, apparently, that's enough to steer me home. Navigating the maze of streets, yet taking a circuitous path to prolong the moment of wishing for new things, and then finally pulling into my driveway. I sadly, reluctantly, turn off the engine. For a few minutes I just lean my head against the headrest, unmoving with the keys sitting in my upturned palms that are resting in my lap, just watching the snow falling softly outside of the side window of the car.
Then, with a deep breath, I gather my things and head inside to face my life.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Memories of Night
Originally posted 8/24/06
Night time again. Cool. Quiet. Still. Most people are starting to think of going to bed if they haven't already turned in for the night. I just can't do it. The dark night tends to make me feel rather feral and restless. That's left over from bygone days, though, and isn't something that I'm going to go into here. These days, more often than not, I end up getting out of bed to enjoy the stillness, the quiet and the darkness of the house after everyone else is asleep. Given the fact that I've been a lifelong night owl, I suppose that it's appropriate that some of my favorite memories are from the night, then, isn't it?
There was one night soon after we arrived in Saudi when the company arranged for us to have a picnic on a beach by the Red Sea. They called it the Goat Grab, though I'm not sure if they had any goat there, but you never know, eh? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing that I ate while I lived there. The beaches along that part of the Red Sea were different than they are here. Sure, there's sand, but that's abundant through much of Saudi anyway. What made it different was that the Red Sea had extensive coral reefs along the shoreline that slowly build on themselves as the old coral ages and dies, so you sometimes had to walk through a shallow water area of old coral, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs (and sometimes even a lost pufferfish) for about 50 to 100 feet (or sometimes more) before you get to the drop-off where the waves were breaking. It was strongly advised to wear shoes in the water because there were all sorts of sharp or poisonous things to step on. Another oddity of these beaches was that there were often parts of the beach that were mostly enclosed on the land side with cinderblock walls, as if someone were claiming it as beachfront property, but without any houses on them. Just walls around the beach in the middle of nowhere. Odd, but typical.
In one of these "courtyards" at the beach that night, they spread two long rows of table cloths with oriental carpets along each edge to sit on; on the table cloths were spread dish upon dish of the most mouth watering middle eastern food that I had ever seen in my life. We took off our shoes and sat on the carpets to eat while some of the Saudi nationals who were along with us were playing traditional music. What a great experience. However, the most memorable part of the evening was when we first arrived at the beach. All the kids (myself included...hey, I was only 14) ran down to the waterline as kids always do when they get around water, and we stood there listening to the waves breaking against the coral somewhere out in the inky darkness at the edge of the reef. Eventually, most of the kids ran back to the group, but I stood there, intoxicated by the smell of the sea air and enoying the feeling of the night breeze on my face.
And then I looked up and saw something that I had never seen before: a sky full of stars completely untouched by any trace of man-made light. It was unlike any sky I had seen before or would see again, painted by seemingly thousands of stars, like a barrel full of diamond dust had been poured from horizon to horizon across a sky of black velvet. There was not one place where you could point your finger and find blank sky. I was awestruck. Unfortunately, I only saw this for a few minutes. They fired up the generators and much of the sky was lost as the light haze in the humid air bleached out the dark sky.
Those few minutes have stayed with me throughout my life, though. Every time I look at a starry night sky now, I think of that night and what the sky looked like, glad that for one time in my life I could see all that lies hidden from our eyes in much of the western world.
Night time again. Cool. Quiet. Still. Most people are starting to think of going to bed if they haven't already turned in for the night. I just can't do it. The dark night tends to make me feel rather feral and restless. That's left over from bygone days, though, and isn't something that I'm going to go into here. These days, more often than not, I end up getting out of bed to enjoy the stillness, the quiet and the darkness of the house after everyone else is asleep. Given the fact that I've been a lifelong night owl, I suppose that it's appropriate that some of my favorite memories are from the night, then, isn't it?
There was one night soon after we arrived in Saudi when the company arranged for us to have a picnic on a beach by the Red Sea. They called it the Goat Grab, though I'm not sure if they had any goat there, but you never know, eh? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing that I ate while I lived there. The beaches along that part of the Red Sea were different than they are here. Sure, there's sand, but that's abundant through much of Saudi anyway. What made it different was that the Red Sea had extensive coral reefs along the shoreline that slowly build on themselves as the old coral ages and dies, so you sometimes had to walk through a shallow water area of old coral, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs (and sometimes even a lost pufferfish) for about 50 to 100 feet (or sometimes more) before you get to the drop-off where the waves were breaking. It was strongly advised to wear shoes in the water because there were all sorts of sharp or poisonous things to step on. Another oddity of these beaches was that there were often parts of the beach that were mostly enclosed on the land side with cinderblock walls, as if someone were claiming it as beachfront property, but without any houses on them. Just walls around the beach in the middle of nowhere. Odd, but typical.
In one of these "courtyards" at the beach that night, they spread two long rows of table cloths with oriental carpets along each edge to sit on; on the table cloths were spread dish upon dish of the most mouth watering middle eastern food that I had ever seen in my life. We took off our shoes and sat on the carpets to eat while some of the Saudi nationals who were along with us were playing traditional music. What a great experience. However, the most memorable part of the evening was when we first arrived at the beach. All the kids (myself included...hey, I was only 14) ran down to the waterline as kids always do when they get around water, and we stood there listening to the waves breaking against the coral somewhere out in the inky darkness at the edge of the reef. Eventually, most of the kids ran back to the group, but I stood there, intoxicated by the smell of the sea air and enoying the feeling of the night breeze on my face.
And then I looked up and saw something that I had never seen before: a sky full of stars completely untouched by any trace of man-made light. It was unlike any sky I had seen before or would see again, painted by seemingly thousands of stars, like a barrel full of diamond dust had been poured from horizon to horizon across a sky of black velvet. There was not one place where you could point your finger and find blank sky. I was awestruck. Unfortunately, I only saw this for a few minutes. They fired up the generators and much of the sky was lost as the light haze in the humid air bleached out the dark sky.
Those few minutes have stayed with me throughout my life, though. Every time I look at a starry night sky now, I think of that night and what the sky looked like, glad that for one time in my life I could see all that lies hidden from our eyes in much of the western world.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
History of the Girl: Part I
Originally posted 8/1/06.... these four posts below are in chronological order from the top down (which may be pretty confusing for regular blog readers... I'll have to work out some other way as I put more posts back up). These are actually four out of my first five posts from when I was just a blogging newbie, but this is what I started with. :-)
There's a lot of information that I never really tell people about myself. I know that we all self-edit to one degree or another, but I intentionally leave out huge chunks of my life until I know someone a little better. I don't lie about it, I just don't offer up any information unless necessary and, even then, rather sparingly. One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog is so that I could have an opportunity to just get it all out, as a way to talk about it for a change. Whether anybody is actually there to read it is entirely secondary.
My brother and I were born here (our parents were WWII refugees from Europe who actually met in NJ... funny, that) and we spent the first part of our lives in upstate New York. Life seemed pretty normal to me... y'know, blood sausage and sauerkraut for Christmas dinner (none of that for me, thanks, give me a hamburger, really), along with shredded veal in a meat gelatin with vinegar and/or hot mustard (yum... or not, but it's really not all that bad), Santa coming to our house on Christmas eve while we were over at the neighbor's or while we were at church (woohoo! presents on Christmas Eve hours before our friends got theirs!), and all those normal, assimilating kinds of things that immigrants do. You can bet that we were the only family on the block burning real candles on the Christmas tree as a treat. But we also had the cat, dog, fish, gerbils, all that typical kind of stuff and our parents had us doing lots of sports (though baseball and football were suspiciously absent from the list... hmmm). We didn't have much money because of the whole "war/refugee/immigrant" situation. Still, camping, hiking, kayaking and xc-skiing were mainstays and we spent an amazing amount of time in the Adirondacks. A kid could do a lot worse. Odd traditions aside, I had great hopes of becoming any one of the endless variations of a normal American.
Then, just as I was rounding the corner to 14, it happened: my father sat us down and announced that he had the opportunity to take a job in Saudi Arabia.
That was when I should have known that I could pretty much kiss any hopes of being "normal" goodbye...
There's a lot of information that I never really tell people about myself. I know that we all self-edit to one degree or another, but I intentionally leave out huge chunks of my life until I know someone a little better. I don't lie about it, I just don't offer up any information unless necessary and, even then, rather sparingly. One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog is so that I could have an opportunity to just get it all out, as a way to talk about it for a change. Whether anybody is actually there to read it is entirely secondary.
My brother and I were born here (our parents were WWII refugees from Europe who actually met in NJ... funny, that) and we spent the first part of our lives in upstate New York. Life seemed pretty normal to me... y'know, blood sausage and sauerkraut for Christmas dinner (none of that for me, thanks, give me a hamburger, really), along with shredded veal in a meat gelatin with vinegar and/or hot mustard (yum... or not, but it's really not all that bad), Santa coming to our house on Christmas eve while we were over at the neighbor's or while we were at church (woohoo! presents on Christmas Eve hours before our friends got theirs!), and all those normal, assimilating kinds of things that immigrants do. You can bet that we were the only family on the block burning real candles on the Christmas tree as a treat. But we also had the cat, dog, fish, gerbils, all that typical kind of stuff and our parents had us doing lots of sports (though baseball and football were suspiciously absent from the list... hmmm). We didn't have much money because of the whole "war/refugee/immigrant" situation. Still, camping, hiking, kayaking and xc-skiing were mainstays and we spent an amazing amount of time in the Adirondacks. A kid could do a lot worse. Odd traditions aside, I had great hopes of becoming any one of the endless variations of a normal American.
Then, just as I was rounding the corner to 14, it happened: my father sat us down and announced that he had the opportunity to take a job in Saudi Arabia.
That was when I should have known that I could pretty much kiss any hopes of being "normal" goodbye...
On the Threshold of a Brand New Life
Originally posted 8/2/06
Okay, so, in the story of my young life, I had reached one of the major turning points: I was leaving the only town that I had ever lived in and was moving to, of all exotic places, Saudi Arabia. Expatriate life. What an adventure!
Now, the company figured that the hardship benefits for taking a job like this had to be very generous because, when you live in a place like that, you make considerable lifestyle sacrifices. Everything becomes more difficult, from food and clothes shopping to getting medical care, but things can be particularly hard if you're a woman or a girl... being unable to work or drive, unable to go out without being covered up, being isolated on a compound in the desert with limited things to do. These things can really wear on you. So, other than covering all your living expenses and giving you a generous food allowance, how do they sweeten the pot even more? Travel. Lots and lots of travel. One home leave a year back to the States and three vacations a year any place else in the world but the US... with the company paying airfare and providing a very nice spending allowance.
In my 13 year old mind, we had hit the JACKPOT. My first time out of the country! I had a shiny new passport in my hand, ready to see the great cities of the world. Dreams filled my head of seeing London, Paris, Rome, all the great places in Europe... and beyond! And we were taking that first vacation on the way to moving to Saudi. Oh, the possibilities! Where would we go?! The suspense was killing me... where would my parents choose for that first trip?!
When we were finally in Saudi and I was meeting the other expat kids from the company, we were comparing notes about our European stopovers. The other kids had all been to places like London and Paris and other celebrated places in the world. Where had we gone? What was the first country outside of the US that I stepped foot in?
Iceland.
Shit. Even among the misfits we were misfits.
Okay, so, in the story of my young life, I had reached one of the major turning points: I was leaving the only town that I had ever lived in and was moving to, of all exotic places, Saudi Arabia. Expatriate life. What an adventure!
Now, the company figured that the hardship benefits for taking a job like this had to be very generous because, when you live in a place like that, you make considerable lifestyle sacrifices. Everything becomes more difficult, from food and clothes shopping to getting medical care, but things can be particularly hard if you're a woman or a girl... being unable to work or drive, unable to go out without being covered up, being isolated on a compound in the desert with limited things to do. These things can really wear on you. So, other than covering all your living expenses and giving you a generous food allowance, how do they sweeten the pot even more? Travel. Lots and lots of travel. One home leave a year back to the States and three vacations a year any place else in the world but the US... with the company paying airfare and providing a very nice spending allowance.
In my 13 year old mind, we had hit the JACKPOT. My first time out of the country! I had a shiny new passport in my hand, ready to see the great cities of the world. Dreams filled my head of seeing London, Paris, Rome, all the great places in Europe... and beyond! And we were taking that first vacation on the way to moving to Saudi. Oh, the possibilities! Where would we go?! The suspense was killing me... where would my parents choose for that first trip?!
When we were finally in Saudi and I was meeting the other expat kids from the company, we were comparing notes about our European stopovers. The other kids had all been to places like London and Paris and other celebrated places in the world. Where had we gone? What was the first country outside of the US that I stepped foot in?
Iceland.
Shit. Even among the misfits we were misfits.
Culture Shock in Saudi Arabia
Originally posted 8/3/06
So, imagine that you've been plucked from your comfortable, temperate home of lush greenery, tall trees, winding rivers, lakes and been spun around until you were dizzy then plonked down in a 125 degree Fahrenheit desert. If you were like me, you'd stand there, slackjawed, dazed, trying to absorb what just happened.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There we were. The new Jeddah airport was still being built (that's why we were there in the first place), so we arrived at the old Jeddah airport close to, or even in, town... I can't even remember anymore. But if ever there was a time to mutter the oft overused quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," this was it.
Anyone who has ever gone through Saudi customs can relate to what an alarming experience it can be for a first-timer. After claiming your luggage, you brought it to the customs area, which, at the old airport, was a cavernous white room with long, low counters and bright overhead lighting where they would rifle through all your bags to determine if you were trying to bring in anything forbidden. Pornography. Pictures of women with any skin other than hands, faces, or feet showing at all (to them, the same thing as pornography). Pork. Alcohol. Even, in one story we heard, mentions of pork and alcohol. The customs agents had black markers and used them with impunity to black out anything that they deemed offensive. That is, if they didn't take it away from you instead. After a while, you learned what things to avoid bringing into the kingdom so that you could get through customs with the least hassle. To add further enjoyment to the customs experience was the clear, plexiglas barrier where the people who were meeting you stood. On those counters, before the throng of onlookers, all your dainties and not so dainties were spread out for everyone to see.
But this is something that you eventually get used to and, over the years, you tend to rack up customs stories. Like the friend who was bringing in her precious contact lens solution (a hard to find item there at the time) and frantically trying to stop the customs agent from squirting the entire bottle all over the counter while he was feverishly trying to light it because he was convinced that it was alcohol. Or the time when I was coming back from a european ski vacation and the agent reached into my ski boot bag where I had also packed my furry boots (all the rage in the french alps at the time). With his hand still in the bag and looking into my eyes, he started slowly fondling the goat hair with a lecherous smile on his face and a look that I can still see today. I doubt that I even tried to hide my disgust and there's no way that I can emphasize the word "eeeew" in print to accurately describe what I was thinking at that moment. It's a good thing that I wasn't as outspoken then as I am now or I might have made some crack about his last date and then I would have really been in trouble.
But back to that very first time. It was an eye opener to have my things treated so roughly by a stranger and it was a taste of how different life was going to be now. Finally cleared through customs, we made our way past the armed guards at the barrier into the teeming mass of people from seemingly every possible corner of the globe; once we finally found the company driver who was there to pick us up, we walked out the airport door into the hustle and bustle of the hot, steamy Jeddah night.
"Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, folks. Enjoy your stay..."
So, imagine that you've been plucked from your comfortable, temperate home of lush greenery, tall trees, winding rivers, lakes and been spun around until you were dizzy then plonked down in a 125 degree Fahrenheit desert. If you were like me, you'd stand there, slackjawed, dazed, trying to absorb what just happened.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There we were. The new Jeddah airport was still being built (that's why we were there in the first place), so we arrived at the old Jeddah airport close to, or even in, town... I can't even remember anymore. But if ever there was a time to mutter the oft overused quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," this was it.
Anyone who has ever gone through Saudi customs can relate to what an alarming experience it can be for a first-timer. After claiming your luggage, you brought it to the customs area, which, at the old airport, was a cavernous white room with long, low counters and bright overhead lighting where they would rifle through all your bags to determine if you were trying to bring in anything forbidden. Pornography. Pictures of women with any skin other than hands, faces, or feet showing at all (to them, the same thing as pornography). Pork. Alcohol. Even, in one story we heard, mentions of pork and alcohol. The customs agents had black markers and used them with impunity to black out anything that they deemed offensive. That is, if they didn't take it away from you instead. After a while, you learned what things to avoid bringing into the kingdom so that you could get through customs with the least hassle. To add further enjoyment to the customs experience was the clear, plexiglas barrier where the people who were meeting you stood. On those counters, before the throng of onlookers, all your dainties and not so dainties were spread out for everyone to see.
But this is something that you eventually get used to and, over the years, you tend to rack up customs stories. Like the friend who was bringing in her precious contact lens solution (a hard to find item there at the time) and frantically trying to stop the customs agent from squirting the entire bottle all over the counter while he was feverishly trying to light it because he was convinced that it was alcohol. Or the time when I was coming back from a european ski vacation and the agent reached into my ski boot bag where I had also packed my furry boots (all the rage in the french alps at the time). With his hand still in the bag and looking into my eyes, he started slowly fondling the goat hair with a lecherous smile on his face and a look that I can still see today. I doubt that I even tried to hide my disgust and there's no way that I can emphasize the word "eeeew" in print to accurately describe what I was thinking at that moment. It's a good thing that I wasn't as outspoken then as I am now or I might have made some crack about his last date and then I would have really been in trouble.
But back to that very first time. It was an eye opener to have my things treated so roughly by a stranger and it was a taste of how different life was going to be now. Finally cleared through customs, we made our way past the armed guards at the barrier into the teeming mass of people from seemingly every possible corner of the globe; once we finally found the company driver who was there to pick us up, we walked out the airport door into the hustle and bustle of the hot, steamy Jeddah night.
"Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, folks. Enjoy your stay..."
Jeddah: Let's Talk About the Weather...
Originally posted 8/4/06
When I've told people about how hot it was in Jeddah, the first thing that they usually say is that at least it was dry heat because it was the desert, but this wasn't true at all. Jeddah is on the Red Sea and therefore very humid, sometimes even 80-90%, so couple the high humidity with 125 degree temperatures and you may just be able to imagine how hot it really felt.
The adaptability of the human body is simply astounding, though, and by the end of the first week there, I was spending most of the day at the pool despite a temperature spike that week to over 130 degrees. So, how was the heat not oppressive? There was a constant desert wind blowing that helped to keep you cooler. Not a breeze. A wind. And that made all the difference.
Factoring in biological adaptation, our house was air-conditioned to a chilly 80 degrees and if it were any colder than that we might have had to put on sweaters. So, the relative temperature felt no different from a typical hot August day at home. One man's 125 is another man's 95, right? But we can also talk about absolutes. In absolute temperatures, it really was hot; the heat was enough to make the pool water the same as a warm bath by the end of the day and the shallow water at the beach could become even uncomfortably hot. And, at its worst, losing your air-conditioning in the summer could make your food spoilage quick and catastrophic. Returning home from a vacation one summer, we found that a breaker had tripped, knocking out our AC and rendering the refrigerator totally beyond any hope of repair because it was dripping with blood from the festering, spoiled meat in the freezer. So, yes, in absolutes, it was hot. Of course, these are the summer temperatures. In the winter, it was in the chilly 70's and the pool area was deserted.
Jeddah's in a desert, getting rain maybe only twice a year on average when we lived there, usually in the winter, sometimes heavily, but never for very long. To give you an idea about what the weather was generally like, I can give you a rundown of the weekly weather pattern during the summer:
Monday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Tuesday: Sunny, hot , humid, windy.
Wednesday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Thursday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Repeat this for every day all summer and, well, you get the picture. When you first get there, you look out the window to check the weather when you get up in the morning, but it's always the same, so after a while you just stop looking. You would think that it would be ideal to have a summer of perfect days (and thinking back on it, it was kinda nice), but you would be surprised at what you miss. Try to explain that to the people you see when you first come back to the States after spending the summer in the desert... try to get them to understand why you are running barefoot on the grass, laughing in the pouring rain.
And because it's 75 degrees out, you have on a sweater.
When I've told people about how hot it was in Jeddah, the first thing that they usually say is that at least it was dry heat because it was the desert, but this wasn't true at all. Jeddah is on the Red Sea and therefore very humid, sometimes even 80-90%, so couple the high humidity with 125 degree temperatures and you may just be able to imagine how hot it really felt.
The adaptability of the human body is simply astounding, though, and by the end of the first week there, I was spending most of the day at the pool despite a temperature spike that week to over 130 degrees. So, how was the heat not oppressive? There was a constant desert wind blowing that helped to keep you cooler. Not a breeze. A wind. And that made all the difference.
Factoring in biological adaptation, our house was air-conditioned to a chilly 80 degrees and if it were any colder than that we might have had to put on sweaters. So, the relative temperature felt no different from a typical hot August day at home. One man's 125 is another man's 95, right? But we can also talk about absolutes. In absolute temperatures, it really was hot; the heat was enough to make the pool water the same as a warm bath by the end of the day and the shallow water at the beach could become even uncomfortably hot. And, at its worst, losing your air-conditioning in the summer could make your food spoilage quick and catastrophic. Returning home from a vacation one summer, we found that a breaker had tripped, knocking out our AC and rendering the refrigerator totally beyond any hope of repair because it was dripping with blood from the festering, spoiled meat in the freezer. So, yes, in absolutes, it was hot. Of course, these are the summer temperatures. In the winter, it was in the chilly 70's and the pool area was deserted.
Jeddah's in a desert, getting rain maybe only twice a year on average when we lived there, usually in the winter, sometimes heavily, but never for very long. To give you an idea about what the weather was generally like, I can give you a rundown of the weekly weather pattern during the summer:
Monday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Tuesday: Sunny, hot , humid, windy.
Wednesday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Thursday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Repeat this for every day all summer and, well, you get the picture. When you first get there, you look out the window to check the weather when you get up in the morning, but it's always the same, so after a while you just stop looking. You would think that it would be ideal to have a summer of perfect days (and thinking back on it, it was kinda nice), but you would be surprised at what you miss. Try to explain that to the people you see when you first come back to the States after spending the summer in the desert... try to get them to understand why you are running barefoot on the grass, laughing in the pouring rain.
And because it's 75 degrees out, you have on a sweater.
It's Time
In light of the new year and in the spirit of getting back on track (as the last post indicated that I had wanted to do), I've decided that I'm going to start putting a few of my old posts back up, y'know kind of like bringing some of the more favorite pieces of furniture out of storage.
For the few of you who have RSS feeds, I'm sorry if this is will be a barrage of old repeats, but I would like to have a few of the old posts back up.
Thank you for your patience.
For the few of you who have RSS feeds, I'm sorry if this is will be a barrage of old repeats, but I would like to have a few of the old posts back up.
Thank you for your patience.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Christmas Preparations
Here it is, late at night (or early in the morning depending on how you look at it), and I've been working on decorating the humongous, fake Christmas tree that I dragged down from the attic today. I'm having a hard time getting in the spirit of things this year and feel like I'm just going through the motions. I have yet to put on any Christmas music at all; I'm just not in the mood. I feel so... so... Grinch-ish. Still, every once in a while I come upon something that stirs some sort of memory from Christmases long ago: The Swedish angel chimes, the candle holders that clip to the branches of the tree and boxes upon boxes of white candles for them, or some glittery glass ornaments that remind me of the ones that we used to have when I was a girl. Despite the fact that my heritage is largely ignored by my husband's relations (I'm not from a proud Chinese heritage, like they are... I'm just "white," right?), Christmas is one of the most important holidays of the year in Estonia; before the Christians usurped it, the celebration of the Winter Solstice was a huge thing for my pagan ancestors, too, so perhaps some of it is hardwired in me. Anyway....
Sorting through the various bins and tubs of Christmas decorations and things, I felt a pang for the Christmases of my childhood again. A myriad of memories from my childhood came flooding back to me, like the fragrant smell of spruce hanging in the air (we only had real trees as a child, balsams with the wide open branches and small needles), the smell of freshly snuffed candles, the colorful glass ornaments, opening our presents Christmas Eve while still dressed up from a candlelight church service, the smell of spritz cookies or cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. There wasn't always snow on Christmas day, but from the bay window in the front of our 1930's house in upstate New York, you could look out over the rhododendron bushes to the huge beech tree that was right in the middle of our front yard and practically see the cold. It was usually nice and warm by the fire, though, where it was nice to warm up stocking feet that were a bit cold from the hardwood floors.
Tonight, as I continued to decorate the tree, I kept flashing back to the one thing that I knew would be a balm to my aching soul right now: Körp. This is my ultimate comfort food from my childhood and, though we ate it at all times of the year, it reminds me mostly of Christmas. It's a sweet-ish type of cookie-like crust pressed into a 9x13 pan and filled with a mixture of cream cheese, cottage cheese, and I think egg, along with sugar and whatnot, and then sprinkled with cinnamon and baked. When cut up, it's like an extremely light sort of cheesecake with cinnamon on top, a cake that you can cut up into easy-to-handle pieces. It's simply delicious (this is seconded by my non-Estonian friends who've tried it).
Of course, it's got butter, cheese, and possibly egg in it, so that rules it out completely right now because of Second Son's egg and dairy allergies. I'm, well, sorrowful. My mother had given me a recipe for it long, long ago and I have no idea what happened to it (this was after she finally figured out ingredient amounts... before she did that, the instructions were more like "put in flour until it looks right," or "add enough [ingredient X] so that it looks/feels right"... very specific instructions, you know). Of course, it's a moot point because I can't have most of the ingredients in my house and I suppose that only makes my longing for it worse. If I actually had the recipe, I suppose that I would probably try to borrow a friend's kitchen just to get a few squares of Körp. That would be a happy thing indeed.
Sorting through the various bins and tubs of Christmas decorations and things, I felt a pang for the Christmases of my childhood again. A myriad of memories from my childhood came flooding back to me, like the fragrant smell of spruce hanging in the air (we only had real trees as a child, balsams with the wide open branches and small needles), the smell of freshly snuffed candles, the colorful glass ornaments, opening our presents Christmas Eve while still dressed up from a candlelight church service, the smell of spritz cookies or cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. There wasn't always snow on Christmas day, but from the bay window in the front of our 1930's house in upstate New York, you could look out over the rhododendron bushes to the huge beech tree that was right in the middle of our front yard and practically see the cold. It was usually nice and warm by the fire, though, where it was nice to warm up stocking feet that were a bit cold from the hardwood floors.
Tonight, as I continued to decorate the tree, I kept flashing back to the one thing that I knew would be a balm to my aching soul right now: Körp. This is my ultimate comfort food from my childhood and, though we ate it at all times of the year, it reminds me mostly of Christmas. It's a sweet-ish type of cookie-like crust pressed into a 9x13 pan and filled with a mixture of cream cheese, cottage cheese, and I think egg, along with sugar and whatnot, and then sprinkled with cinnamon and baked. When cut up, it's like an extremely light sort of cheesecake with cinnamon on top, a cake that you can cut up into easy-to-handle pieces. It's simply delicious (this is seconded by my non-Estonian friends who've tried it).
Of course, it's got butter, cheese, and possibly egg in it, so that rules it out completely right now because of Second Son's egg and dairy allergies. I'm, well, sorrowful. My mother had given me a recipe for it long, long ago and I have no idea what happened to it (this was after she finally figured out ingredient amounts... before she did that, the instructions were more like "put in flour until it looks right," or "add enough [ingredient X] so that it looks/feels right"... very specific instructions, you know). Of course, it's a moot point because I can't have most of the ingredients in my house and I suppose that only makes my longing for it worse. If I actually had the recipe, I suppose that I would probably try to borrow a friend's kitchen just to get a few squares of Körp. That would be a happy thing indeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
