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 physical 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.

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.

I've pulled all of my posts. They're not gone; they're just pulled. This post may also be pulled very soon, but not before I've had a chance to get it all out there before sending this post off into the ether with a few keystrokes.

I don't really know why I did this. I don't want to delete my blog or at least not right now. If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it already. After all, Blogger makes it as easy as two mouse-clicks to delete a whole blog, as all you blogspot bloggers are aware. No, I've just pulled the posts until I figure out what I want to do. And for those of you who've been around long enough, I've reverted to my original black background.

As you may have guessed lately, I'm not happy. As a matter of fact, I've not been happy for over a year now, but have been increasingly unable to blog about it. In all honesty, that's why I've posting so infrequently. I've been unable to put on a happy face and try to blog about something unrelated. I've felt as trapped and unable to express myself on my blog as I have been in real life.

Basically, I'm tired. I'm tired of having to be the strong one all the time and would love, for even one lousy day, to have someone hold me in their arms and say, "I'll take care of you. I'll be strong for you. I'll protect you," and that I'd actually feel taken care of, able to lean on them, and actually feel protected and, for once, safe. Perhaps I can feel safe if I wrap my arms around myself. I'll be in the arms of someone who's used to having to take control, to carry their own weight and other's. That's the only solution that I can come up with.

So be it.

Muse has been serving as a soundtrack lately. Most of you will probably not like these two videos at all (right, Mom?), but I've been immersed in their music for the past few weeks despite the dark places that they take me.



That perfectly symbolizes the free-fall my mind's taken lately.

And this one is the Muse video that got me hooked, though I first heard Muse in the van from Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia, when I did an iPod swap with someone else. On the one hand, Justin Theroux, the actor who is featured in this video, is quite nearly the physical ideal in my mind with his very lean, muscular build, but I've been on the receiving end of male rage like that a long time ago and have mixed emotions. It's at once terrifying, yet hard to look away from despite bringing back some ugly times. But the body, oh, the body... the irrepressible libido speaks yet again...

A Dark Horse

If we had any doubts about our younger son not being able to compete with his older brother in the creation of awkward moments, they were officially laid to rest. A male friend of mine was over eating dinner with us last night when our five year old son offered this interesting tidbit very audibly for all of us to ponder:

"I beat my penis!"

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a new winner, folks. And of course I exhibited my usual grace under pressure with my response of "most males do." Um, oops.

So, the younger brother has raised the bar, at least temporarily. It will only be a matter of time before one of them bests that one.

Happy You Know What

Yup, it's Thursday and I thought that I'd post an old photo of myself that I found in the small suitcase of photos from long ago. And yes, I'm half... um...well... I'm in a state of partial dress. Oh, well, whatever. Guess it's technically an HNT photo, as some folks were egging me on to do. To me, it's more a tribute to the long, hot, uninhibited days of summers past.

I used an old photo because it's what I had. I had something different and current in mind, but what I wanted to shoot was a bit complicated to do by myself. Maybe some other time. As a sort of a side note, this was taken before I started climbing, so I'm in a bit better shape now. Funny, that's not how it's supposed to work, is it?

Summer again. Great.

If you don't want to read about sex-type stuff, then this isn't the post for you. Sorry, I'm just in that type of mood today and sometimes you just need an outlet. If you find this kind of thing to be offensive or don't want to ruin the pristine image of me, then maybe you should just stop here. Just thought I'd mention it.


"Did you do those today?" The Mister looked more closely at the kitchen counter.

"Yes," I coyly answered. "I wanted to see if I could still do it."

"Um, why?" The Mister sounded a little suspicious. Oh, sheesh.

We all know what tying a cherry stem in your mouth is rumored to signify, but I don't know what the fuss is all about. They're only cherry stems and I don't know how it could possibly mean anything. But I must confess the truth: warm weather gets me thinking about sex. Of course, I can't really blog about it because The Mister very clearly spelled out that he doesn't want to read about any exes (I don't blame him) and I don't think that he wants to broadcast our own business on the internet (especially in front of my mother, Egads!).

Still, as the temperature starts to rise the heat triggers memories of older days kind of like the way that smells trigger memories. Temperatures increase, clothing decreases, skin wears a thin layer of dewy sweat (this is the nicer version of ewwwy sweat and infinitely more sexy), and bodies become more languid in the heat. Now I watch passively as others go through the whole rituals of seduction and attraction. They participate in the hunt and they get to feel the spark of chemical attraction, to experience the thrill of that first touch or being able to finally get the chance to breathe in the intoxicating scent off the skin of a new lover's neck.

This kind of stuff is for other people now, but, like a phantom limb, my libido surges forth in the warm weather and brings back distant memories of when it was my constant companion, best friend, and worst enemy. If love is a battlefield then lust must be a four-star General. There will be no more battles for me these days, but it's nice to know that I still know some of the maneuvers.

Hee hee.

Father's Day

I couldn't let this day go by without posting at least a little something about my father. This is one of those weekends where Father's Day and his birthday fall on the same day, followed the day after by the anniversary of the day that he passed away. He would have been 73 today, but unfortunately he died the day after his 59th birthday. These kinds of weekends used to be very raw in the beginning, but it's been 14 years now and it has mellowed to merely a remembrance.

My father wasn't perfect and it wouldn't be right to turn him into a saint. He had really grumpy moments. It was my father who once, when he didn't want to speak to his mother when she called, added the phrase "tell her to go sh*t in her hat" to the family lexicon. (In his defense, she wasn't very nice.) He rigidly held to the attitude that his opinion was always the right one. He was not very patient at times.

There were many good things about him, too. Even in the grumpiest mood, he was never, ever negative. He could be lots of fun and he definitely knew how to laugh at himself when it was required. For example, he and I went food shopping during a trip to France and he bought a huge can of what he took to be mixed fruit ("Apples and apricots, what an interesting combination," he had said at the supermarket), but when we got back to the chalet, my brother took one look at it and said, "Dad, do you know what you bought? 'Confiture' is jam." Now realizing what a silly mistake he had made and faced with the most enormous can of jam that any of us had ever seen, he laughed, got out four bowls, dished out several spoonfuls of jam in each bowl, poured mineral water over his and sat down to eat. "Come on, kids, it's great with mineral water!" Of course he didn't expect us to eat it, but we gamely took a bite each when we weren't laughing. Making light of these kinds of mistakes was really his way of dealing with them.

He devoted himself to his family despite not having much patience for the nuts and bolts of child rearing. Instilling honesty, a good work ethic, cultural appreciation and excellent manners were of utmost importance to him. Academic achievement was really important to him. Over the years, he made a lot of sacrifices for his family and always worked really hard. When we were younger, he would often be gone for work before we got up and come home from work after we had gone to bed so that he could support his family. Weekends were always about family and because of his love of the outdoors, much of our childhoods were spent in the Adirondack Mountains, hiking, kayaking, x-c skiing, or camping, all on a shoestring budget. When we were a little older, he finally switched to a corporation which eventually gave him the opportunity to work overseas, which, with the excellent pay and hardship benefits, would earn enough money to pay for college and offer the opportunity to show us some of the world. He strongly believed in trying new things and he encouraged me to take flying lessons, learn to scuba dive, and study abroad during college.

I have many really good memories of my father, but I'm going to share one of my favorites. Right after I graduated from high school, I met my parents in Vienna, Austria, before we headed to the middle east for the rest of the summer. Early one evening, we went to the Stadtpark (City Park) for some cake and wine. There's an ornate, old building there where a small orchestra plays on the terrace where they've put a dance floor and my parents got up to dance a waltz. My father was a really wonderful dancer and I sat and watched them disappear and reappear amongst the other couples. At other times, I watched the peacocks wandering amongst the beautiful flower gardens and across the lawn. It was lovely.

As the sun was setting, we finally got ready to go and were only a little way down one of the gravel paths.

"Why didn't you dance?" he asked me.

"I don't know how to waltz," I confessed.

"You don't? Here, let me show you." He showed me where to put my arms and hands and there on the path in the twilight, to the orchestral music that was floating across the gardens, he taught me how to waltz. Of all the memories of my time with my father, those several minutes, dancing on the path in the twilight with my father is the one that makes me smile the most.

Happy Father's Day and Birthday, Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.

Night of the Living Food Protein

I was standing in the waiting area at my son's gymnastics class on Monday, uneventfully waiting for the hour to tick away. It's a comfortable waiting area with spacious, carpeted riser-like steps for you to wait and watch the classes through the wall of windows that looks into the gym. From there you can see your kids do their graceful cartwheels and handsprings or, alternatively, trip over their own feet and fly through the air in an impressive display of flailing limbs. Whichever.

Anyway, the first thirty minutes had gone by quite uneventfully. That was until I glanced over to the entrance of the hallway that leads to the front door and I saw it on the floor:


The Cheez-It Square of Death!!! (cue Psycho shower scene music)


My pulse raced and my breathing quickened. I broke out in a cold sweat. I kept looking over my shoulder at the bright orange, one inch square cracker. It sat there looking all innocent as it mocked me, just waiting for the right moment to strike! Aaaaagh!!

Okay, so that seems a little bit extreme, but it really is true that those things really wig me out. Cheddar cheese goldfish crackers? They're like the piranhas of the snack world to us and they and their inevitable shower of crumbs are simply everywhere where you find kids.

Still seem a bit extreme? The bottom line is that it's hard to have a child with a deadly milk allergy in a world that's littered in cheddar cheese cracker crumbs. They're everywhere from playgrounds and sports venues to regular retail stores where they're knocked off the stroller trays of snacking children and then are selectively ignored by the young child's parents so that someone can step on them and spread the crumbs all over the store from the bottom of their shoe. And if anybody's going to find that trace bit of crumb, it'll be my son. He finds them often enough that I lament that Benedryl doesn't come in a multi-vitamin supplemented formula, y'know, to kill to birds with one stone, so to speak.

Anyway, the place where my son goes for his gymnastics class is no exception to the ubiquitous goldfish cracker rule. The carpeting is a veritable smorgasbord of cheddar cheese cracker crumbs, cookies, sandwich crumbs, and spilled milk. We watch the kids scarf down all this milky goodness and then go running into the gym without so much as wiping their mouths or hands on a napkin, subsequently spreading all that milk-protein all over the equipment. This is why my younger son can't take a gymnastic class even though he'd be quite good at it, but has to sit out in the waiting area in a stroller the entire time.

Yes, he's turning five years old and he still sits in a stroller while we wait, but only because the last time that he was out of the stroller at the gymnastics place, he was gagging on his tongue by the time that we got home. There's nothing like giving shot of epinephrine into your kid's thigh, taking a scenic ambulance ride, and enjoying the hospitality of the hospital overnight to give you the reason to dread kid snacks when you see them.

So, as we got ready to go at the end of the class on Monday, I looked back and the cracker was gone. Gone?! I hustled off to the car just in case it had snuck off and was waiting to pounce.

Musical Interlude: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Ooh, two posts in a day! I really like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and when I found this, I knew I had to post it. Hope you enjoy it.



(Oh, and if you liked that, check out the video on the bottom of the video screen for "Gatemouth Brown- Pressure Cooker". It was a toss-up which one to post.)

Call me Delilah

It's been another long absence. Um, oops. The Mister was out of the country for most of last week and I usually don't sleep very well when he's gone, so I ended up too exhausted to be able to construct a coherent sentence. Not only that, Sasha and JP were over for movies many of those nights to keep me company, so there goes that blogging time as well. As for this week, I've been working in the yard or just recovering from last week.

Anyway, enough excuses and on to the subject of my post.

I hardly ever talk about my younger son. He's the biggest pill on the planet sometimes, that is, when he's not being completely charming and happy. He can go from "joy" to "headache" in a heartbeat, usually over something really minor like changing clothes, eating, toilet training, or leaving the house when he doesn't want to, or, as the case has been lately, letting me cut his hair.

It's been months since he would let me cut his hair. We were jokingly starting to call him "Hippy". He would whine, protest, thrash and even throw himself off the haircutting chair if we tried to get him to sit for a haircut, running a great risk of my severely cutting him with the scissors and making it necessary for The Mister to hold him down so that I could finish the haircut that my son, by some miracle, had reluctantly let me start. It usually makes me break into a cold sweat just thinking about his next cut. We had eventually resorted to begging, time outs, even bribes, but they were all useless and it looked like I was losing the battle until I happened to read a post by Heart in San Francisco at Guilty With An Explanation where she wrote about how she used to cut one of her son's hair while he slept. Ingenious! So, that's what I did last night or at least attempted to do and I'm happy to report that, while I take no real pride in the quality of the cut (not one of my better ones... no surprise there), I got the job done.

One thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the scene that he was going to make when he woke up and found that his carefully protected locks were gone. I had the aspirin ready and waiting for the inevitable stress headache. As it turns out, he didn't even notice. Ah, sweet victory.

(Thank you, Heart in San Francisco, for the idea that had never occurred to me. You're a genius. Oh, and I have no idea how your blog disappeared from my links list, but I've fixed that. Your blog is fantastic and I want to spread the joy.)