Care to Wager?

The international movers come tomorrow.  Last week, I had to email an itemized spreadsheet to them, listing everything that we're bringing, down to the socks.  Now tonight, I have several huge piles o' stuff spread out across the house.  At some point in the past, I had hallucinated myself into a magical realm wherein I had a real count/value for everything we're taking...but then reality hit and my well-traveled cousin who has moved internationally several times noted that just an estimated inventory/value is typically fine.  I'm acknowledging her as the expert and just letting all those insane thoughts of precision fly out the door.

So here's our game for the next 24-hours.  These are the photos of the stacks/piles.  How much do you think the total weight will be?  The winner gets praise and recognition for weigh-guessing awesomeness.

This is the clothes for a family of five.  My laundry basket is hidden behind the garbage can full of my shoes.

The box on the left is Hannah's toys (most of them), with a stack of posters (mostly unframed) in the middle, a small Mexican cat bench on the right, and a buck-toothed dragon turtle (all of wood, not heavy).

The kitchen stuff--two cast iron skillets, a paella pan, an egg frying pan, three knives, a set of juice glasses, a five-piece wine opening set (red box), and an antique ceramic Christmas tree.  Yes, that's random, but it's my prerogative!

And finally, the biggest pile of all.  From left to right: box of wall clocks, door stops, pillow cases, basket of small stuffed animals, basket of food (including 36# of dried pinto beans and 8 boxes of fiber cereal), a box of books, a box of Wii games and accessories, 20 towels, four comforters, a box of sporting goods for those who ski and those who swim and those who surf, a box of office books/decorations for John, and two laundry baskets of John's shoes and socks and random stuff.

So there's an overview of what's contained.

How much do you think it weighs?

Did I mention how freakin' happy I will be when the movers LEAVE tomorrow?

Tea Service

Yeppers. I'm in the right place.

Every morning when I walk into the office, our Tea Boy, Prasanth, brings a fresh cup of black coffee in a gorgeous china cup and saucer, and a glass of water in crystal to my desk. When I've finished them he collects the dishes and brings a second cup of coffee. And he'll keep bringing coffee until I say calf-rope. He knows that after lunch I enjoy a cup of arabic tea, and that when I'm on the phone not to distract me. He knows when I have guests to use the Texas A&M at Qatar china, and to include cream and sugar.

This service shocks some, and makes others mad. Most are simply uncomfortable with the inequity of the arrangement. I have decided not to deny the force of hundreds of years of British influence, and go with it. I think, in fact, that I could get quite used to it. Keep calm and carry on. Pip pip.

Regional Delicacies

The best parts of life are in the subtleties. Notice the sign for this restaurant - you don't have to read arabic, because the pictures on the sign show the menu.

Sri Lankan Barbers, or Life in the Saloon

Barber shops here are called saloons. No they don't have poker or serve whiskey, but they do have some talented barbers in them. My new barber Ramesh is Sri Lankan and talented. Let's just say I needn't have been worried about missing my buxom-sancha-barber-lady back in Texas.
I'm pleased with the haircut (I won't say I'm any prettier, but the raw material dictates the outcome anyway) and i enjoyed the shave. I haven't been shaved at a barber shop since the morning I got married. But I digress.

The scalp, face, and shoulder massage wasn't shabby either, and no Nancy there was no "happy ending." What there was as an ending was a sudden and unexpected chiropractic procedure when he jerked my head around backwards and my neck produced a series of loud CRACKS. I'm pretty sure I groaned really loudly because the other patrons all turned to look what the blue-eye was grunting about. So I recieved an haircut, a shave (bona fide with a straight razor. You haven't lived until someone with whom you can't directly communicate comes at you with a razor), a massage, and a chiropractic procedure - all for under $10. And that's including a large tip.

Last thing: Notice the 1950's retro dapper dude on the sign in the top picture.

Yves Saint Laurent. Oh really?

Rules for Small Children, or Alternatively, British WWII Propaganda Posters

We, in the House of Small, are always looking for parenting advice and tips...anything to make the daily struggle of keeping three "precocious, energetic young people" (hellions) from hurting each other or the property that is now sitting stagnant on the real estate market (HELLO?  ANYONE WANT TO BUY A HOUSE?).

Parenting experts inform is that advice for children needs to be...

• succinct, 
• easy to understand, and 
• applicable in a variety of situations.  

But what is a mother to do?  In a moment of sheer dumb luck, I have found a solution!  I know the Today show is going to be calling me at any moment.

Think of these as "sayings to live by" or "sayings to remember when you don't want the evil eye from your mother" or "sayings to revert to when your mother's head is exploding into a zillion pieces of radioactive glitter."

This first one I found as a poster at Hobby Lobby.  Because what do  you do when  you need to decorate a rather large house with 12 foot ceilings over 8,000 miles away?  Why of course, you buy lots and lots and lots of posters (all at 50% off! WHOOOOOOOP!).

It was originally for Hank's room:

This then got me wondering about the origin of the saying.  Thanks to almost two decades with my smart husband who knows a wikipedia-worth of stuff about an Western war prior to 1990, I knew the crown indicated it was most likely British, which made me think of WWII.  Indeed!  It is from the British Archives.  I'll post a link with more info at the bottom of this intriguing essay/commentary/thing-that's-keeping-me-from-doing-housework.

This is the only poster Hobby Lobby had, so this morning I got online and ordered two more.  Cause  you know, I have to have the set.  Plus there is a graceful symmetry to having three people and three posters.  I like numerology like that.  That's why I have three cats.

And the third...

I can just feel the enthusiastic response rushing forth from the attitudes of my people.

Here's some history on these posters:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7869458.stm

I may have to take this in my suitcase.

WHY WHY WHY WHY didn't I buy this in time for the official shipment?!?

http://countrystore.tabasco.com/prodinfo.asp?number=00052

Let the Packing Begin!

The international shippers arrive on Tuesday the 1st.  My "preparation" list is written on all sorts of paper scraps, legal pads, and the back of my hand.  That last spot I reserve for "emergency" items only.  And I write them with a permanent Sharpy.

Today was BEAN BUYING DAY.  I went to HEB and got the essentials:

That is 36 pounds of dried pinto beans (9 bags X 4 lb. each).  Yes, this drew quite a bit of conversation at the store.  Of course, I explained by saying, "I'm from South Texas, and I'm moving to the Middle East.  They have all sorts of beans but no pintos.  I cannot be without my pinto beans."  At least four different college-aged kids asked me about this pile of beans, and ALL of them completely understood my answer.   Good Aggies. :)
That is 7 bottles of Tabasco.  I ran out of time to get the gallon size ordered.  Dammit.  It may have to go in my suitcase.
That is 15 bottles of sun screen.  Take any one of those, and it would cost ~25$ in Doha.  With the current temperature at 111 degrees, we stocked up.
All of this will go in that international shipment.

Not pictured:
56 pairs of new underwear.

I'll do a lot of strange things, but I will not ship previously-worn underwear in a box to the Middle East.

TATA's

Man, these things are everywhere, jacking up traffic and clogging the round-abouts. Everywhere you look are TATA's.

Buying Paint (or Home Depot in a bread box)

Our contractors, Edsal and Bong (I am not making this up - and my gardeners' names are Guru and Babu), are really good guys and extremely professional in what they do. But buying the paint is not in their job description, so I got to do that part. No problem, there are paint suppliers all over Doha. I chose LuLu Supply in New Rayyan (Rayyan used to be a seperate township near where we live, but has been gobbled up by the city), which is a JoTun Paint supplier. Here's a shot of Thibodeaux out in front of the store:

They have a very good selection of paint and painting supplies, and I was nicely surprised to find they had a high tech laser color-matching machine. They got every color correct except maroon. Go figure.

You can see the size of the store in the picture - it's not quite as deep as it is wide, and it stays fairly packed with people. People and STUFF. While I was waiting on the paint to mix I played a little game with myself called "Do they have everything a Home depot would have?" And the answer is YES. Wide array of tools? Check. Exhaustive plumbing supplies? Check. Bathroom fixtures? Sinks, toilets, and yes Bidets? Check-check-check-check. Lawn Mowers? Yep. Garden sprayers? check. Duct tape? In large quantities. Power Toools? Die sets? Lighting? You name it, it's there. I did not find one single thing that a Home depot would carry that wasn't in that store, which is the size of my LIVING ROOM. Hence the title:

Home Depot in a bread box

House Painting

Someone told us when we visited that we could have the inside of the house painted for very little money. I'm beginning to question what, exactly, "very little" means, but that is another post. For now, just know that I am having multiple adventures in contracting the work, buying the supplies, and dealing with fumes in the house. I'll have several posts over the next day or so about this, but to satisfy my curious chitlins, here are some quick pictures:

Hank's Room (sorry, a little blurry)

Jack's Room (we need another set of sheets)

Hannah's Pinkolicious Room

This Is Gonna Cost Me A Fortune

One of the nice things about this part of the world is that off-the-rack is not the predominant way to buy clothing. There are tailors - really good ones, mainly from the subcontinent - all over the place. I went with Thibodeaux to his tailor, and was amazed at the low cost of having made shirts, slacks, ties, or whole suits. As in Seville Row. No, better than Seville Row. Women's dresses likewise. Take them a picture, pick out the material, they measure you, and presto - you have your suit/dress/whatever. So I decided a linen dress shirt was in order. Just to test this sitchy out, you know. Hence my trip to the textiles store.



Oh my God. There's no way I can show Nancy where this place is. I've never seen anything like it. Never. And they served me Turkish coffee (my growing issues with Turkish coffee I'll save for another post).



It'll be our little secret. Me and Pashmina (below).

Doha sunset

So one evening this past week I went with the Kent family to watch one of their daughters, Abbey, play in a tennis tournament. It was exceptionally nice for me, because it lent just a bit of family normalcy to my somewhat bizarre existance here in Doha. The Kents, in fact, are much like Nancy and I in that bystanders think we're arguing when we're really just having light conversation. Hard to explain why this made me feel so utterly at home, but it did. Anyway, afterwards we went to Bennigan's (yep, even here) and on the walk over this was our scenery.

Tea in the desert

The Desert
































The Fortress

The Tea

Gear to Go.

Hannah's new car seat.  Boosters are now available that go up to 100 pounds *and* use a 5-point harness.  Once you see the driving in Doha, you will understand why this is important...  Plus: no barf stains! Of course it's pink.  What did you expect?

Three suitcases for three traveling monkeys: tall, medium, and small.

Graduation Day for the Class of 2028

Just in time for Papa Doha to wake up for his Friday morning (the first day of the Qatar weekend), here are pictures of Hannah's graduation (help Thursday PM in Texas).

The morning of the last day of school.  Hard to believe that nine months has already gone by!

Hannah and Sofia right before graduation.  The only two girls in their half of the three year-old class.

Audrey, Hannah, and Sofia (Hannah's two favorite friends).



As all the other kids sang, yelled their colors and numbers and ABC's, and did the Hokey Poky, Hannah stood with her eyes aimed right at me the whole time.  She may love to dance, but I don't think she necessarily loves the stage...at least when there's a large audience of strangers.



Hannie B. Gracie Lou, a.k.a. Goozie Magoo, a.k.a. Lovey, a.k.a. Farty Pants, a.k.a. Papa's Girl No Mama's Girl gets her pre-school diploma.  (In Franklin, we are blessed to have full-time public "official" four-year old pre-k through the elementary school, so the kids won't come back to this Methodist school.)  On a sidenote, a girl can never have too many pseudonyms...



Required cap and gown portrait #1.

Required cap and gown portrait #2.

 While we were at pre-k graduation, Hank had his end-of-year band concert.  Once again, P & B save the day.  They took the boys to the concert, and I'll get to listen to the CD.  The 7th graders played music from Harry Potter!  :)

John: notice the boots.

But Let's End with Something Else Colorful!

Jack's full/queen comforter (86 X 86), reversable in two-tone blue. My spell check is telling me I don't know how to spell "reversable." WTF? At this point, do I care? Jack doesn't care. He just wants me to leave him alone so he can go back to gettin' crafty on The Facebook. And no, I'm NOT DRUNK.


Ah, and Hannah got a quilt/sham/pillows set in a very girlielicious explosion of flowers and plaids and dots. She and her huge, hairy pet spider are all about this with the pink walls that are in process...and the Princess posters that are getting dry mounted for the walls... John, I think there are enough pinks here to work great with the color you picked for her room. :)

Skype, Love Letters, Motorized Scooters, Automatic Doors, and Bright Orange Vomit

Hannah and I had a good day together. I worked several hours getting my end-of-term stuff organized while she had a Dora marathon followed by a quick Max and Ruby fix (where the hell are Max and Ruby's parents?). Then we got to talk to Pop.

[Break for cute photos.]

Hannah on Skype with her Papa.
11 AM our time, 7 PM Doha time.
Hannah spent part of our hour-long talk making him a bead bracelet...

...which is good, because we needed one final item to put in our first love letter to Doha. Here Hannah is putting it in the mail.Thankfully, the university provides us with a P.O. box for flat mail only (no packages). So for the cost of a stamp or two it gets 1/3 of the way around the world in about a week, give or take. We'll see how long this first trial run takes.

[Continue on with the tale...]

So after our morning together, we picked up the boys (Jack had Field Day and got third in the LONG JUMP?!? for a small kid, this is pretty fantastic!...I always knew he was part kangaroo) a little early to go in for Hank's orthodontist consultation and a couple of errands.

We got through the gas station, the appointment, and the HEB without major incident.

[Now let me insert a brief side note: Hannah has been having allergy drainage for a while, usually only at night, and we control it just fine with a snort of Benadryl and some saline mist. But I think she pretty much exists with gunk in her throat. When it's bad, she can have coughing fits that lead to gagging.]

After HEB, I had some groceries in the trunk, but Hannah and I needed to go in Target for bedding-related stuff. So the older boys waited in the running car (hurrah for Hank being old enough to "legally" leave him in charge for 10-15 minutes!). We got what we needed and headed towards the exit doors.

[Side note #2, because I cannot tell a linear story: we bought comforters for Hannah's and Jack's new beds. Hannah was very excited over that *and* the Little People set that she had "bought" with money her Dad gave her in her pink heart change keeper box. Yea...she paid 70 cents for the Little People set and then says to me, "Will you pick up the rest of the bill?" Back to the story...]

However, we didn't make it out of the store because a man was trying to steer one of those motorized scooters in through the exit doors (the Target people had parked them between the two sets of automatic glass doors). He completely blocked the exit, trying to turn inside. This was no problem. Hannah and I just paused to give him some space.

Hannah happened to pause standing with her back right in front of one of the automatic doors. So we stood there...very still...for a count of 10 or 15 (the chair was having battery issues or whatever), no problem. Hannah was rather fascinated by this gentleman trying to steer an electric vehicle into the store. I could see the gears turning in her head.. "Why does he have that? Where did it come from? I like pink and red! Look it has circles on it! I wonder if they have those in the Barbie Jeep model?..."

Then the automatic sliding glass doors tried to close.

All that really happened was that one gently bumped her back and then retracted immediately.

But the real consequence was that it startled the crap out of her. And being almost four and being a very girly girl, this immediately leads to public humiliation, which leads to immediate hysterical crying, which leads to a coughing fit, which leads to me trying to shush her as we hurry towards the car, which leads to more coughing, which leads to gagging, which leads to a huge loogie (sp?!?), which leads to a huge pile of neon-orange barf in the middle of the Target parking lot (no not Cheetos, orange-flavored juice).

She recovered and we got our act together, and life went on. I went in and got a wet paper towel and told the oh-so-pleased college student behind the customer service desk that we had made a bright orange Rorschach and they might need a bucket of water. Then upon wiping Hannah's face, I saw the literally hundreds of tiny, pin-prick bruises. She had broken all of these blood vessels with the force of getting sick--they're all around her eyes like a mask and around her mouth.

This has happened to my people before, but never to this extent and so quickly. I'm posting the picture out of amazement and so her Papa can be prepared to tell her she was a brave, good girl.

Hank's Trip to the Orthodontist

The fact of the matter is that it's time for us to re-mortgage the house...I mean sell the cars...I mean invest in the structural health and cosmetic presentation of Hank's teeth! (That last part was read with an increasingly enthusiastic tone, exactly like saying, "Act enthusiastic and You'll Be ENTHUSIASTIC! YES!"

However, one in-progress trip to live in the Middle East complicates this. So today, I took Hank to a highly recommended orthodontist here in the big city, for a consultation over (1) what needs to be done, (2) should we act now or wait, (3) can orthodontics be started in one country and finished in the other, and (4) can I just sign myself up for a year of indentured servitude, starting now? "Indentured servitude." That's a pun. Get it?

So I'll spare you the details, except to say that this doctor was awesome--straight forward and smart and didn't treat me like "the little lady." When have I ever been little or a lady?!? Sorry Mom.

But the best part was this. The "appliances" used to correct Hank's overbite come in two flavors. The first is the traditional "head gear" worn at night that has been around since who-knows-when. He showed Hank the basics on what that would look like. He then said that lots of kids just can't be bothered and won't "follow the rules" and wear it, so it won't work on them.

In those cases, here's what they get:


The doctor actually had a model of gums/teeth with this on it, so Hank could see it in real life 3D.

As we got in the car, with a general plan in mind for how to do this with the two-year "adventure" oreoed in the middle, Hank proclaimed: "I don't care what else you do. But I swear I will wear the head gear. We cannot, no I WILL NOT, put those springs in my mouth."

I think we have a willing orthodontic participant.

Acts of kindness

Adventure often carries either great tragedy, or great humor. Sometimes both. But no worries, there's no tragedy here, just some really funny things to tell.

I would however be remiss, Dear Reader, if I did not have as my first real blog post (after a week on the ground here, sorry) some story representative of the kindness and love that have been shown me in my first few days of utter tenderfootism. There have been many, so I will relate only one.

I have become fast friends with an Indian man who I will refer to as Thibodeaux. Because he's a Coon Ass. No, really, he lived for 20+ years in Louisiana (cajun country) before coming to Doha. He has taken care of me, as have many others, in a thousand ways. He cooked me lunch the first weekend I was here, and then he taught me to eat it with my hands, like the people in southern India do. Did I mention that it was chicken curry with lots of gravy? Let's just say I was not adept, and so there's a mental image for ya.

Anyway, it was the best curry I've ever had. He made it from scratch. If you ask Nancy, she'll tell you that home cooking is synonomous with love. Someone cooks for you, it means they love you. I know Nancy (and my Mom) really love me, because I'm fat.

His cooking was a great kindness, an act of love, and indicative of the reception I received in Doha. What else do I need, except my family to SCHUM ON NOW.

The House

Here's the crib. Big and lonely, waiting on the fam. I gots lots to talk about. I've been here nearly a week now, and have a whole list of stuff to post that I'm just not sure how i might explain. Like pastries with the Sheik, the one way road that leads onto an off ramp of a freeway but with no signs saying you're about to have a head-on collision, and the overwhelming paucity of M&M's. Everybody mind the gap, because the adventure has begun. Mo' shoatly.

No Habla Espanol o Arabic. Sometimes I cant even tawlk good regler werds.

We have a list of Arabic words and phrases taped to our freezer. This is supposed to "encourage" me/us to learn some new things. I'm working on "please" (min fadhilk). Jack has learned most of these already. Hank is still mastering the English version of "Make more noodles?" And Hannah is going to rely on her good looks and shin-kicking ability to communicate.

...and then the Goodbye (or at least Goodbye #1)

We took the boys to school this morning, then P&B took Hannah, and then we left for a day of last-minute errands and then the drive to Houston. Everyone except me held his/her composure very gracefully. I, on the other hand, have been crying...I mean having eye leakage due to, um, allergies...for the past three days. I hate saying goodbye. And I'm pretty sure I get this from my Mom... :)

Very, very strange to think that John will never come "home" to this house again.
The past 8 years have gone by so quickly. When we moved here, Hank was Hannah's age (almost 4).

The last hug. Look at all that hair...
I, of course, was having significant allergy-eye issues.


Did you notice how clean the garage is?!?

Here We Go...Starting with the Yard Sale

John boarded the plane for Doha at 8:45 CDT this evening (I left him at Intercontinental around 5:30). He's safely in the air for the next 18+ hours, and of course, I have some horrible superstition that if/when I go to sleep, the plane will suddenly fall out of the sky. Now THAT'S hubris, huh? To think that my mere wakefulness is keeping a 777 afloat? Well, that and my voodoo tutu.

So as I wind down from a very long day, I'll fire up the blogging again. I've sent John with his digital camera, a cord to connect it to the computer, and strict orders to get busy telling me all about it as soon as he has a spare moment. I'll begin by setting a good example...

THE YARD SALE

When we found out that John's departure was delayed by 24 hours, I decided to have the garage sale. This was a big activity day for our community, and I firmly believe that all the traffic helped me sell the stuff very quickly.

The sign said it started at 8 AM, but people were here at 6:15 AM and about 75% of the stuff was gone by 7:45 AM (!!!). Here are before and after shots of my garage:

Before: Actually, the real before was a mountain of piled up stuff...I wish I had a picture of that!

After: The fish tank/stand has a home, and that stack of boxes is going to Goodwill (God Bless GW). That leaves only the table of stuff on the right and a couple of bookshelves left. We're having a second sale in June for the "final stage" stuff...

Big helpers that they are, Jack and Hannah decorated the driveway to attract buyers and entertain the neighbors...