Boomerang

I'm back. Not that anyone has missed me, I'm sure, since it's been nearly a year since I've updated this blog.

I promise to make a concerted effort to behave better in the future.

My Goat tends to blog about the things we do together, so I haven't bothered. Besides, blogger had locked me out, and I've only just got it working again.

Watch this space. Or not.

Oaty-Goaty

In response to Keefieboy's recent post about Terry Bull's queer brother, I've got a goat that could hold its own in that barnyard. In my endless quest to bring back souvenirs from my travels for His Grumpiness (and gifts of a caprine nature are always well-received), my mother and I spotted this through a window in Paris. Sold. What I saw was a funky statuette by some weird German artist. What I didn't realize until I gave it to him was that this goat is a total poof -- note the gold shoes, bracelets around the hoof, earring, and eyelashes -- the Grumpy One was wondering if I was trying to tell him something. I confess I didn't notice 'til much later the design on the goat's back with (oddly) an arrow pointing to his tail...shudder....

Upupa epops

My dear, indulgent husband agreed to let the new gardener put a lawn in over the dust bowl that was the backyard of the Crumbling Villa. It’s thriving, and I love it. We had originally intended to have a desert garden -- cacti and aloes and various plants that need little water -- but between the last gardener watering the cacti to death and the neighborhood cats deciding the sand box was a perfect, well, sand box, we decided to go a bit more conventional. Or rather, I decided, and he didn’t object. Well, not until he saw the first water bill.

Our new gardener a bit of a madman. He’s Afghani, I think, and speaks about six words of English; however, he has a brother who speaks a bit more, and we manage to communicate more or less. His jaw dropped at the sight of his new charge. I think he expected we “English” to have a veritable forest in the back garden, and was shocked by the desolation of the dust bowl. Indeed, our few scrubby aloes weren’t terribly impressive.

The first thing he wanted to do was carpet the yard with camel dung (or whatever the foul smelling stuff they use here is) and put down sod. We let him. Who was I to argue (and how?)? Besides, without the sand box, the nasty neighborhood cats might find another toilet-cum-bordello to hang out in. Bonus. Once the lawn was in, the gardener decided we needed flowers along the borders. He ignored the spiky plants that were already there and merrily stuck in purple and white petunias. Very cheery for a month, but then they started frying in the sun and smelled worse than the cats or the camel dung. He moved on to some brightly colored, rather ugly zinnia-type-things that grow way too high and attract bees and gnats. At least most of the cats stay away.

But the bit I love is the grass. I know it’s silly to want to grow grass in the desert. I know I should be concerned about the atrocious wastefulness of keeping a garden green during the 45C+ heat of the summer in the middle of a desert. I also know that the Crumbling Villa came with two trees that are perfect for hanging a hammock between, so I’ve got my grass. It’s marvelous to run my toes through. Even the Grumpy One joins me under the trees when the evening is cool enough, so he doesn’t dare complain (much). And the cats don’t like it nearly as much as the sand, so most have moved on to other, drier gardens. Bonus.


Friday morning I was making breakfast (which I do from time to time) and went to the sink to wash up a couple of dishes (which I do somewhat less frequently). I looked out of the kitchen window to enjoy the newly mown lawn and saw this lovely fellow strutting up and down and flexing his wings, looking for all the world like he owned the place. I was wildly excited to think that something so rare and exotic had been drawn to my precious lawn, and nearly burned the sausages gawping at him.

I made the Goat get his camera and take photos of it so I could ask the Natural History Society people whether they’d ever seen such a magnificent bird, only to find when I proudly showed them the pictures that my rare, exotic treasure is as common as muck, at least around here. So common, in fact, that Upupa epops, or the hoopoe (as he is called) was the bird that the Queen of Sheba (which is right next door) sent to chat with King Solomon in the Koran,according to my students. Kind of the messenger pigeon of his day, I suppose.

Still it would be nice if this little hoopoe moved in. Perhaps he will if we can keep the last of the neighborhood cats out of the yard. I wonder what the Pashtu is for "Go ahead and turn the hose on the cats if you want to"?

Mayfair

Mme Cyn has never been much of a drinker. I rarely drink and don’t care for drunkenness, which, I confess, can make socializing difficult in this town. Everybody seems to drink to excess around here, and I get odd looks when I spend an evening in a bar drinking nothing but softies. Never mind zero tolerance for drunk driving and having to get up to teach in the morning. Everybody boozes around here. But I digress.

At college parties, I was usually the one who kept the car keys and made sure everyone else got home and safely poured into bed. In spite of growing up among the vino imbibing Italians, I rarely even drink wine with dinner (unless it’s champagne of course—Veuve Cliquot is my secret vice), preferring water or (I can see you wince) diet Pepsi. However, in spite of what may appear to some as my generally appalling taste in beverages, I firmly maintain that one of the great joys in this life is a good cocktail.

Neither of my parents ever did much in the way of cocktail drinking, even in the cocktail-swilling, samba dancing 1960s, but I do remember being offered cocktails by my father on special occasions at the age of seven or eight. Of course, my cocktail at that age was a Shirley Temple (grenadine and ginger ale with a cherry and slice of lemon) or a Roy Rogers (the same, but with Coke). As far as I was concerned, they were real cocktails – fizzy, sweet, and served icy cold in a Manhattan glass. I graduated to sloe gin fizzes (sloe gin and 7Up) at about twelve, when it was deemed I should learn how to hold liquor (we were amongst the vino imbibing Italians at that time), but they were still pretty mild. Even so, they were special. I have been known to order the occasional ST even now, when I’m the designated driver, though I generally have to explain to the bartenders how it’s made.

As far as I’m concerned, cocktails fall into two categories: Aperitifs and Restoratives. Viewed as a first course at dinner, I like my cocktails dry; that hard shot of really top quality alcohol whets the appetite, and ought to be drunk very quickly. After work or instead of dinner, I like my cocktails sweet. Sweet, cold and sipped slowly. The purists would say I’m unsophisticated; I say bollocks to them. Sunset in the hammock with a sweet cocktail is the perfect way to restore a bad temper after a long day yelling at the binat. I am determined to do it more often.

So I recently went to the new Raffles Hotel Dubai with a friend in search of a Singapore Sling. We found one. She was not impressed, and thought the sling in the Singapore Raffles was better. Not having been there I couldn’t compare, but I found it a bit dry for my taste. I think anything pink containing cherry Heering ought to be sweet, and have always thought of Singapore slings as sweet by definition. However, if Raffles Hotel doesn’t know how to get it right, then no one does. I found instead something they’ve invented called a “Dubai Sling” Sounded awfully gimmicky, but I thought it was worth a shot anyway. As far as I can tell, instead of a cherry fruit theme, it’s based on syrup of figs. Surprisingly good. I will have to go back, get the ingredients off the menu, and try to concoct it in my kitchen.

My current cocktail of choice is the Mayfair. I found it in a cocktail book put out by the Savoy Hotel in London, and I must say that, sweet or dry, it does not disappoint. So, in my campaign to get people away from boring old G&Ts or the trendy Caipirinha and into something a bit more interesting… herewith, the Mayfair, as made at the American Bar, Savoy Hotel, London:

2 parts London gin
1 part apricot brandy
1 part orange juice
dash of clove syrup.

Or, my own sweet version:

1 part Bombay Sapphire or Plymouth gin
1 part apricot brandy
2 parts orange juice
1 coffee-spoon of clove syrup

Either way, shake it vigorously with ice and strain. Share it with your husband only if he’s had a worse day than you have.

Tagged!

I’ve been tagged by the Goat. So here’s the game:

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.

The Floating Brothel by Siân Rees The extraordinary true story of an 18th century ship and its cargo of female convicts.

2. Open the book to page 123 and quote the fifth sentence.
“With nothing in the way of detergent, the dirt was boiled and then beaten out of the linen.”

3. Post the next three sentences.
“Stripped to the minimum required by decency, the women did the washing. The top deck trembled as rows of them, up and down the waist of the ship, thwacked its timbers with shirts, shifts, sheets, hammocks, trews, and a vast pile of sanitary napkins. Rivulets of filthy water trickled down the sides.”

I must add that this is a fascinating history of one of the first shiploads of female convicts (1789) sent out to Sydney Harbor to help populate the new colony. Rees gives individual stories of these women--from their crimes and trials, to their prison sentences, to their transportation -- and the ship's voyage from Portsmouth to Rio to Cape Town to Australia. Meticulously researched and unputdownable.

4. Tag five people.

KSA Woodchuck
Little Yellow Duck
TM
TGL
Koos
(Non-bloggers can respond here!)

Parochial

You hear all this talk about “globalization” and the world being “a smaller place.” Everything is international this and global that. First air travel shrank the globe, and now the internet has made distances between people and places virtually nonexistent. Yes, with the internet, you have information at your fingertips 24/7. You can get instant weather, news, or opinions from all over the world, in a myriad of languages. Best of all, in cyberspace you can buy all of those things from all of those places that perhaps you only dreamed of visiting in the real world. And all through the miracle that is the internet.

Yeah, right. Unless the company you want to buy from is in America and you live somewhere else.

I am an American abroad, but an American nonetheless, with an American bank account, an American credit card, and even an American mailing address. So why is it that, for most of the US sites I want to shop from, my billing address being in the Middle East is a huge problem?

In the past week, I have made or tried to make on-line orders from four different companies. The only one that never has a problem with me is Amazon.com, which always merrily takes my money and sends me my goods no matter where I want them sent or which international credit card I use. Amazon wlll sell to anybody.

So what about the rest of the websites I try to buy from? Oh. Well. Sometimes I get websites where the billing and shipping addresses must be the same (I guess there’s no buying a surprise present for someone else from those sites). Sometimes I’m forced to provide a fake zip/postal code, because Americans simply cannot fathom a country that doesn’t use zip codes. (I wonder what would happen if I told them we don’t have street addresses either?) And sometimes I run into a truly hopeless situation where I want something that has to be paid for through Pay Pal, which apparently doesn’t recognize any place outside Canada or the US. On-line ordering from abroad is a messy, mixed bag.

But I digress. As I said, this week I did a lot of on-line shopping. It was a maddening experience. OK, in the end I got what I wanted, so why am I so steamed? Just let me tell you a story…

I wanted to buy a hundred bucks worth of sugar-free chocolates from a major US chocolatier -- with a US credit card, delivered to a US address. Not the biggest order they ever got, but not chump change, either. Their on-line form only allowed US or Canadian billing addresses.

I keep running into that or, even better, a website that has a button for “international orders” that isn’t really. Case in point: I tried to order some lingerie on line two days ago. Nothing scandalous – silk slips, as a matter of fact –and the website listed an option for international addresses. Good. I duly chose my goods, filled in my shipping and billing addresses, and hit “international”. I was given a drop down pick list. Which included Canada, Bermuda, Japan, Germany and not much else. This is international?

Again I digress. I phoned the chocolate company, since person-to-person usually gets results (it did with my slips). This time, however, I get this guy on the line. I briefly explain my problem. He laboriously takes my order and shipping address, and then we get to the billing address:

“Oh, I can’t put that country on the form.”

“Yes, I know that,” I reply politely. “As I said, that’s why I didn’t just order on line.”

And instead spent seventeen minutes on long-distance to put in an order by phone, I mentally added.

“Your billing address has to go on the form.”

“Surely you can type in any country you like there in the office?”

“No, it has to go on the form. It’s not a choice.”

“It’s an American card and a US shipping address – it’s just that I live in the Persian Gulf and that’s where my bank statement goes. Surely you only need the billing address so you can call my bank and they can tell you I'm legit? They've known me since I was twelve.”

“Well, it’s not on my form.”

“Please let me speak to your supervisor.”

So I go back on hold and eventually get the supervisor, who says:

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t take your order if I can’t fill in your billing address. We could take down your order and hold it until we get a check —in US dollars, of course.”

Now, it’s hard enough that I live in a place where I cannot just go down to the mall and pick up what I want (in spite of this place being a so-called shopper’s paradise), and that I have to pay a premium to get what I want express-delivered because I cannot trust the local postal service, but really – I can’t place an order for goods because I get my bank statements in Dubai instead of in West Podunk, USA? Still, I was desperate for decent sugar free chocolates.

I had to ask my Mommy in North Carolina to pay for them.

The US purports to be the world leader in information processing. So when will companies located there finally get it into their tiny minds that there is a whole world out there eager to buy their products? We are not big, bad, scary, un-American entities – we’re customers. Or would be, if the American on-line companies weren’t so damned parochial.

Gardener

Dubai has been under several inches of water the last few days. Feet, in some places. Oh, it happens just about every year, and it really isn’t all that much rain, but when the Powers That Be do not see fit to dredge the sand out of the road drainage system during the dry season (or a least keep the curbside drainage covers rotated so that sand doesn’t blow into and fill them all year), everything gets soaked and flooded when it rains. And it's not just the roads. A new shopping mall has had a roof collapse, and I’ve been told that a fairly new building of my acquaintance again has foul water seeping through the ceilings and running down the inside of the walls… I seem to recall the same problems with leaks in that roof last year around this time. Poor planning, materials and construction, anyone? So we’ve had two days of swimming pools all over town. And not pleasant ones, either. Apparently in the Greens Community, ground-floor dwellers are up to their ankles in backed-up sewage in their own living rooms. Of course, that’s not the city’s problem. According to the local rag, the Greens is private property and therefore a private problem. And people keep asking me why I don’t buy property in this country.

My own little patch of Dubai has been impassable in anything but a 4x4 until this morning. I had to take a friend to the hospital for surgery at the crack of dawn Tuesday and did manage to get her there, but just. It took forever to traverse the roads home during the rush hour, of course, since people here seem to be totally incapable of dealing with rain on the roads (oh,wait – aren’t most of the drivers in this town from the Indian subcontinent? Do they stay at home during monsoons? And don’t tell me it never rains in England (US/EU/AU/CN/NZ/SA) either). By the time I finally did get home, Mirdif was completely awash and my little sports car had to retire from service. It only got into the driveway via the not-yet-swamped sidewalk. Good thing it's a broad sidewalk.

So loads of people have not been at work, including the man who takes care of my garden, whom I have been trying to get rid of for some time. Fair enough him not being here this week – my garden has been six inches under water, and the succulents have begun to rot in the damp. Not much for him to do this week, since what he mainly does is water the bougainvillea and rake the dust.

No, we’re cutting him loose because manages to kill plants with some regularity. He is also uninterested in washing the cars (for which I'm happy to pay extra), feels that the brick path “is not garden” and therefore does not need to be swept or tidied of fallen leaves or pigeon poo, and I think he thinks the rampant weeds look “pretty and green”. I confess I did not really want to have to fire him. He (or rather his brother's firm) had come recommended by a friend. I thought he needed a chance, and I had hoped at first that a few hints and instructions--whenever I could find him to talk to -- would sort him out. Of course, conversations that go:

"Why have you left that plant to grow out of the middle of that aloe vera?"
"Oh very good plant, madam! Smells nice!"
"Ah, yes. It's basil. Then shouldn’t you dig it up and move it out of the cactuses? And surely it will die in the direct sunlight."
"No,no. Nice plant."

should have given even me a clue that this was not the gardener for us. Still, I hated to put the man out of a job. But the Goat (who has less tolerance (or is less of a wuss) than I) finally got totally fed up found another man who would do what we wanted done, so that was that. Since I’m the one likely to be here when the gardener comes for his ten minutes a day, the job of getting rid of him fell to me. And I’ve been dreading it. I hate confrontation, and always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and as much help and time as they need to straighten themselves out. Somehow "it just isn't working out" doesn't seem a good enough reason to fire someone. I know, I know. Others in my place might rant and scream and hurl abuse, so "I'm sorry, but" is mild. Still.

I was wondering just how I was going to put it when and if I ever managed to catch him in person, when I heard a sneeze in the back garden around 8:30 this morning. Ah! The gardener! I went out to do the deed and pay him out the month, trying to think of a kind and gentle way of letting him go as I waded through the last of the puddles.

The man was actually watering the cactuses. Firing him was surprisingly easy.