This is by far the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. All I can say is crank it up and embrace the pain. You have to listen all the way through it just keeps getting better!
O Holy Night.mp3
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
The King's Birthday
So today is the King's birthday. He is 44 if anybody really wants to know. But how that is important in this context is simple, no school. We have officially finished our first week of school and got today off. Great times.
Just a sidenote about school before I go into my interesting, thought provoking story: School is hard! I always dreamed of being able to communicate in Arabic when I was in the States, and I always had that wonderful picture of me laughing and enjoying a converstaion with some Bedouin in a tent somewhere in the Arabia, but I never really invisioned that long road marked with speedbumps, detours, car bugglers, and sharp glass that it took to get to speaking Arabic. So if I seemed to fall off the face of the earth and don't resurface til June, know this: I am fighting the Arabic Bear and he is probably eating me.
But back to my musings for today. So the weekend was good. Much needed. B has been sick these past few days, so I've been trying to keep the house clean and study and relax. B laid down for a nap after lunch today, so I did the dishes and sat down to rest and thaw my hands out (we don't have any hot water in our kitchen and its 40 degrees outside).
My mind began to wander to all these milestones in life. You know like your parents. They've been married longer than they were single. They've been parents longer than they haven't been parents. My grandparents have been married twice as long as they were single. You know things like this, so I was thinking about me. We came to live overseas on Aug. 12th last year. So we've been here for about 5 1/2 months. We've been pregnant 3 1/2 of those months. I've been pregnant longer overseas than I've been not pregnant overseas! That is a milestone!
So I'm sure that most of you just ran off to mark your calendars of this huge day in history or you are just sitting there reading this wishing that you had just check the news instead, but I just wanted to share with you the mind boggling revelation that hit me today.
Just a sidenote about school before I go into my interesting, thought provoking story: School is hard! I always dreamed of being able to communicate in Arabic when I was in the States, and I always had that wonderful picture of me laughing and enjoying a converstaion with some Bedouin in a tent somewhere in the Arabia, but I never really invisioned that long road marked with speedbumps, detours, car bugglers, and sharp glass that it took to get to speaking Arabic. So if I seemed to fall off the face of the earth and don't resurface til June, know this: I am fighting the Arabic Bear and he is probably eating me.
But back to my musings for today. So the weekend was good. Much needed. B has been sick these past few days, so I've been trying to keep the house clean and study and relax. B laid down for a nap after lunch today, so I did the dishes and sat down to rest and thaw my hands out (we don't have any hot water in our kitchen and its 40 degrees outside).
My mind began to wander to all these milestones in life. You know like your parents. They've been married longer than they were single. They've been parents longer than they haven't been parents. My grandparents have been married twice as long as they were single. You know things like this, so I was thinking about me. We came to live overseas on Aug. 12th last year. So we've been here for about 5 1/2 months. We've been pregnant 3 1/2 of those months. I've been pregnant longer overseas than I've been not pregnant overseas! That is a milestone!
So I'm sure that most of you just ran off to mark your calendars of this huge day in history or you are just sitting there reading this wishing that you had just check the news instead, but I just wanted to share with you the mind boggling revelation that hit me today.
Living In A Cooler, Stinks!
The houses here as you know are made of cinderblocks. During the winter there are freezing cold and humid due to all the rain we have. We have to little gas heaters that we roll around to whatever room we are in. They usually stay in the living room where we have adapted into our "we do everything in here" room. We come in and turn the heater on and do our homework in there. If we need to use the restroom we run back to the cold part of the house and then run back. Our back to bedrooms we've just shut the doors to them. We only use them if we need to hang up the laundry.
Well a couple days ago we did the laundry and hung it up in the back rooms to dry. Well, today we went in there and guess what!?! We have condensation on the ceiling! No joke. No heat, plus moisture equals rain inside the house. So we are going to have to start rotating our heaters to knock the chill off our back rooms once a week or so to keep the rain from our ceiling from washing us away.
Well a couple days ago we did the laundry and hung it up in the back rooms to dry. Well, today we went in there and guess what!?! We have condensation on the ceiling! No joke. No heat, plus moisture equals rain inside the house. So we are going to have to start rotating our heaters to knock the chill off our back rooms once a week or so to keep the rain from our ceiling from washing us away.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Arab Cultural Poker
The game is poker for chairs. The setting our family's house. It is a ritual that has gone on a long time in Arab culture. Here is the background: The youngest daughter of the family we live with and her husband were moving to Europe for a couple of years. So last night before they went to the airport the entire family came to the house for tea and coffee and one last goodbye. There were so many people there that there wasn't enough chairs for everyone to have a seat. This isn't a big problem because usually the kids are off running around and everybody is up and down from the kitchen or bathroom or outside to get something. The rule in my house growing up was simple. If you got up, you lost your seat.
Here it is like poker. Picture everyone in the family with cards. Mama, it being her house and being the oldest usually has the upper hand. She would be a Staight Flush. If she walks into the room she pretty much beats out whoever and they give up their seat. She doesn't have to ask, everybody knows who has the better hand so they just get up, but Mama's older sister was there and since she is older she has a better hand so she never had to get up even for Mama.
Next, I would say would be the men. They all have Flushs or Straights depending on age. They always get the seat from the women, except from Mama or her sister. If Mama's eldest son walks in the room the younger sons or the younger daughters husbands always give up the chair unless their is a women or kid in a chair, then the women or kid gives up theirs. So if Mama's middle son/duaghter's husband gets up to go outside for a minute and his oldest son jumps in the chair when he comes back his son gives up the chair. But if it was Mama who took his chair and not a younger then he is out of luck on that chair and someone holding a lower hand gets up.
Myself being the foriegner and always, no matter what, being an "outsider" I am always the guest of honor. So I have always got the Royal Flush. When I walk in everybody offers me their chair. So once I got in the room I get to stay in the same chair. Of course I try to play by the rules too. When Mama or a man older than me walks in I stand up and offer my chair, but they always "see my hand" and accept another chair. So I stay in the same chair all night.
My neighbors all night kept changing. Well on my left side they did. On my right was Mama's oldest sister. She and I stayed in the same chairs all night. I started off with the oldest daughters husband next to me, then he got up and his wife took his chair. Well the chair next to her on the other side came open so her oldest daughter took it, so when "BaBa" came back who got up? The daughter not his wife. Why? Because kids are holding hands like a pair of 6's. The pair gets better as you get older, but you never get anything better than a pair of Ace's unless you get married then your "status" is better and you get dealt a better hand in the Arab Cultural Poker Game.
So I sat there all night and watched people get up and down and down and up and youngers giving way to elders and kids hoping up in chairs thinking they finally were a Full House but really realized they had overbet when someone new came into the room.
Here it is like poker. Picture everyone in the family with cards. Mama, it being her house and being the oldest usually has the upper hand. She would be a Staight Flush. If she walks into the room she pretty much beats out whoever and they give up their seat. She doesn't have to ask, everybody knows who has the better hand so they just get up, but Mama's older sister was there and since she is older she has a better hand so she never had to get up even for Mama.
Next, I would say would be the men. They all have Flushs or Straights depending on age. They always get the seat from the women, except from Mama or her sister. If Mama's eldest son walks in the room the younger sons or the younger daughters husbands always give up the chair unless their is a women or kid in a chair, then the women or kid gives up theirs. So if Mama's middle son/duaghter's husband gets up to go outside for a minute and his oldest son jumps in the chair when he comes back his son gives up the chair. But if it was Mama who took his chair and not a younger then he is out of luck on that chair and someone holding a lower hand gets up.
Myself being the foriegner and always, no matter what, being an "outsider" I am always the guest of honor. So I have always got the Royal Flush. When I walk in everybody offers me their chair. So once I got in the room I get to stay in the same chair. Of course I try to play by the rules too. When Mama or a man older than me walks in I stand up and offer my chair, but they always "see my hand" and accept another chair. So I stay in the same chair all night.
My neighbors all night kept changing. Well on my left side they did. On my right was Mama's oldest sister. She and I stayed in the same chairs all night. I started off with the oldest daughters husband next to me, then he got up and his wife took his chair. Well the chair next to her on the other side came open so her oldest daughter took it, so when "BaBa" came back who got up? The daughter not his wife. Why? Because kids are holding hands like a pair of 6's. The pair gets better as you get older, but you never get anything better than a pair of Ace's unless you get married then your "status" is better and you get dealt a better hand in the Arab Cultural Poker Game.
So I sat there all night and watched people get up and down and down and up and youngers giving way to elders and kids hoping up in chairs thinking they finally were a Full House but really realized they had overbet when someone new came into the room.
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