Clyde's Face Lift

Oh, Clyde.  How jarring it is to see you every day and give a little start that your hubcaps were stolen...only to discover that they are really there, they are just BLACK. 

Well, I decided that I couldn't live with the black hub caps anymore.  We were at a store called Saco World the other weekend - it's kind of like a hardware store, toy store, and furniture store all in one.  I saw a shelf of spray paint while we were there and invested $2 in some silver gloss.  Fifteen minutes during naptime and voila!  Clyde looks much better!

Not a bad job, if I do say so myself.  You're looking much more respectable these days, Clyde.  Now, when the children shout, "Clyde!  I see Clyde!" when coming out of the commissary, I don't cringe anymore.  Phew. 

The Boy Who Lived...in Saudi Arabia

So I realize that it's been a while since my last blog posts...I've been delinquent for the last week or so.  There's a reason for this!  Mike and I made a commitment to watch all of the Harry Potter movies, in order, one every night, for eight days.  This has sucked up all our evening time, but it has turned out to be really fun.  Here's the (long) back story:  (I am only going into all this because it has been our whole life for a week now, and I am totally subsumed into HarryPotterville at the moment.)

I saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in graduate school.  I was dragged there by a friend who swore that I needed to see it.  I had never heard of Harry Potter before that, and I was skeptical.  She was using all these words I didn't know, like quidditch and muggle.  ("You have to see the quidditch scene!" she insisted.)  Turned out that I thought the movie was great!  I was really pulled into the story.  And music by John Williams, no less!  I went right out and bought the book.  And I thought the book was great, too.  So great that I bought the next book, and the next.  I think I was on the fourth book when the second movie came out.  It was ok, but not exactly like I imagined.  And they left out a lot of details from the book.  I went ahead and read the fifth book, but when the third movie came out, I knew it was a mistake.  I was disliking the movies because I had read the books first, and I already had a mental image of what the scenes looked like when I walked into the theater.  My general complaints were, "That's not how I imagined it at all."  and "They left out so many things."  I decided that I liked the first movie and book because I experienced them in that order - movie first, then book.  That way, the scenes didn't appear wrong because I had never imagined them before, and when I went back and read the book, I was happily enlightened to even more details than I had learned in the movie.  So I quit reading and began waiting for movie releases.

Movies take a long time to make and to release.  I have been waiting for a long time.  So long, that I gave up waiting and just decided that one day, after the last movie was out, I would go back and watch all the movies in order from start to finish.  That way, I was not hanging in suspense for years on end while I waited for the last movie to come out.  Unfortunately, by the time the last movie came out this past summer, it had been more than a decade since the first movie and our lives had changed so much that it made it hard to actually GO to the movies.  Instead of a free and independent graduate student, I had a full time job and a husband and two small kids and I was deathly sick from bring pregnant with the third.  So my plan went unfulfilled and the last movie came and went without us even noticing much. 

Then for Valentine's Day, Mike suggested that we watch them all now, and that we make time to do it.  So that's what we've been doing.  We have no TV, so we watched them on our laptop.  It was a small screen, but it was really fun!  And I did like the movies, right up to the last three minutes. Then it all fell apart. 

NOTE:  The following is commentary on the plot!  I think I am the only person on Earth who didn't know what happened to Harry Potter in the end, but just in case you also do not know the end of the story, do not read any farther!

The last three minutes - WHAT THE HECK?!?!  OK, so we spend all this time and energy working to defeat Voldemort.  At last, Harry has his epic battle that we have all been waiting for.  And there are NO witnesses, NO swelling of music, NO sigh of relief, and NOBODY seems to notice??  Not to mention nearly everyone of importance is already dead, a la X-Men.  Harry defeats Voldemort in the courtyard by himself, walks inside to the Great Hall, and everyone is having tea and chatting.  He doesn't tell anyone what just happened.  No one seems to know or care.  He gets a cursory hug from Hagrid (I was expecting more since Hagrid just bore his dead body back to the castle), and then he stands outside with Ron and Hermione.  This is where we needed John Williams back!!  Where is the emotional musical theme that overwhelms the viewer with pride and a sense of accomplishment and memory of the journey over seven long books?  And then it's 19 years later  - he married Ginny and Ron married Hermione (oh, please!!!  Life is not that neat and tidy.  ugh!) And it's over.  Harry Potter saved the wizarding world, did what no other wizard could do, was braver and truer than anyone, was famous the world over, and he end up as some regular middle man accountant pushing beans at the Ministry??  What??  It's all just too FLAT for me.  All that emotional investment.  And temporal investment, too!  We all knew that Harry would win, but I think it still deserves notice from those around him.  What a cruddy ending.  Come on, J.K. Rowling - this is a seven-book SAGA.  Give it a proper saga ending.

Ok, enough.  One more Harry Potter thought, though.  About two weeks ago (before we started watching the movies), Mike came home for lunch one day and said "Well, it happened again."  He told the story about how he was in some meeting with people at work, and somebody was there from another department.  When he got introduced, the extra person said "Benchich.....how long have you been here?"  When the answer was two months, they said "I know that name...Larry Benchich!  Are you related to Larry Benchich?"  Of course, that was Mike's dad who used to work here for 20 years.  Then they usually proceed to ask about his family members by name and tell stories about his dad.  This happens all the time.  "So good to have you back, Mr. Benchich" and "I remember your father, Mr. Benchich" and "You'll do great things, Mr. Benchich."  Sound familiar?  Mike noticed at lunch that day that you could scratch Benchich and put in Potter.  Forget Aladdin - Mike is really our own Harry Potter, "the boy who returned." Or better, "the boy who lived...in Saudi Arabia."

Hopefully the ending to OUR saga will have a really great soundtrack.

Quick update

OK, so I can't get the camera to download the pictures tonight, but I just want everyone to know that:

1) I gave Clyde a 15-minute facelift with a $2 can of spray paint and he looks much better!  Pics to come soon.  Very happy about this.  Makes me feel a little less....conspicuous.  You'll see. 

2) Baby update coming soon!  I tried to scan the two latest ultrasounds, with no luck, but I'm going to make it work soon.  The most recent one you can kind of see her face, a little, maybe.  It's not a great ultrasound, but, as the doctor suggested, "if you use your imagination, you can see it."  Only 5 weeks to go!  And just in time, the commissary got in a small shipment of Dreft.  Yeah!  So I paid up for it (aggh!  $60 for three *small* bottles!) but at least now I can do all of the baby laundry before she arrives. 

Also, in other big news, Mike got fed up with the Company (I'm not supposed to say the name of the company) telling us that our shipment was still sitting in port in Savannah, so he emailed the shipping company himself.  They got right back to us with a ton of details!  Our shipment is on a ship named (something I can't remember because it's not English), and it just finished rounding the straight of Hormuz.  Yes - it's practically here!  It will arrive in port here TOMORROW, leap day!  HOORAY!!  He called Housing, and turns out that the current time for customs is 10 days to two weeks.  And I've been told that if he goes to the Housing office and says "My wife is having a baby any day now and we need our stuff" then it can get here in as little as five days to a week.  So we've gone from thinking it is still in the US and we won't get it until June, to wow, we may have our stuff next week!  HOORAY HOORAY!  Lots of pictures to come if we get our stuff!  I bet that is one busy day - looking forward to absorbing all our belongings back into our house.  My washer and dryer!  Our rugs!  The couches!  The TV!  The piano!  All my kitchen gear!  All the kids' outdoor toys!  And indoor toys!  The books!  Our own bed!  Yes!  Will keep you posted as soon as we know anything. 

PS - Thanks all for enduring my censorship rant in the last post!  Sorry to be such a downer - I guess I just got caught off guard.  Never imagined that living here would be so much like living in a cage.  I'll get used to it soon! 

Censored

Unfortunately, I have removed the second part of the abaya post.  Mike felt that it was too negative toward Arabic culture, and apparently "THEY" are watching.  

They read all our emails and monitor all our internet traffic.  They know and take note when we accidentally go to a blocked website, like Netflix.  They monitor our facebook posts and have keep tabs on what I post on the blog.  They have tapped our phone lines and listen to all  phone conversations.  If they don't like what we do or what they hear, Mike can lose his job.  

This is a real blow.  So much for honestly telling it like it is.  From now on, I suppose I will join the ranks of the various state-run media outlets, and report about how living in Saudia Arabia is perfect and wonderful, with sunshine and fairies and happy leprechauns dancing on rainbows. 

So it's a joy to get the privilege to wear my abaya, and the road to Khobar from camp is the most beautiful road I've ever seen.  Everyone here loves the government and appreciates the fact that they are so loving toward and protective of their women.  

I suppose nobody back home wants to hear all the negative stuff anyway.  But if you want the real story, I'll be happy to tell you in person when we're back in the land where we gratefully acknowledge that people gave up their lives for certain unalienable rights, like free speech. 

Bored at Home

This is what we do when we're at home.  We've really played out all the toys we brought, and we are hungry for entertainment.  Can't wait for the shipment to arrive!

The first video is at our neighborhood playground.  It's a good representation of how I spend my days.  Lawrence loves to haul his borrowed push-car up to the top of the slide and slide it down.  This is quite the feat for a one-year-old.  Everett slides all kinds of things down.  This is VERY amusing if you're three.  

The second video is in our living room.  Hugs for my sweet boys!

 

The (Accursed) Abaya

Big news!  I finally bought my own abaya.  Not that the delay was for the lack of trying.  I had been borrowing one, and every time we went into Khobar I would look for my own, so that I could return the borrowed one.  Well, we looked and looked, and we found lots of really expensive ones - like $400 or $500  - which was no good, since I want the cheapest thing I can get away with.  I don't really care what it looks like, as long as I'm not paying through the nose for it.  The other day, we finally went to a store that started with a Z (I have no idea how to pronounce or even spell it) and they had abayas for sale pretty cheap.  The one I got was only 95 riyals, which is about $25.  In fact, it was the cheapest one in the store.  It has some purple embroidery and fake bling on the sleeves, and the sleeves are so wide and open it's like something from an early-medieval princess dress (but this thing makes me feel very different than a princess!), but I don't really care.  It's huge - a big black bag that I can go out in.  I think it fits me pretty well now, but when Baby Girl is born, I may have to move the snaps to make it tighter around.  Here are the pictures:

E on camp.  Normal clothes!  YAY!  (BTW, I got this odd haircut right before we left where one side is longer than the other.  It looked great for the first month, but now it's just weird and I think it looks terrible!  I tried to cut the long side shorter tonight...more pics of that to come.)  (Also, remember I am 8 months pregnant in this picture!  Baby update and side pictures also to come.)

E off camp.  This is what I look like to go to the grocery store.  Well, I do put shoes on, too.

In case we run into a matawa (religious policeman) (yes, they have an entirely different police force that goes around enforcing the religious rules!), I carry this head scarf with me.  It was knitted by a dear friend's grandmother for me.  It's very beautiful!  I am really glad to have it. 

This is what all the other women in the grocery store look like.  (How do they see???) ("Sorry, honey, I accidentally got canned tomatoes instead of black beans, BECAUSE I COULDN'T SEE!") (Also, I've thought of this:  if you are a toddler and you get separated from your mom in the mall, GOOD LUCK finding her again!!  All the women look exactly the same!  What a horrifying experience that must be.  And if you are old enough to talk to a security guard:  "My mom is the one in all black."  Not helpful.)

Food for Thought

One of the fun and interesting things I have noticed since we've arrived is all the foreign lands from which our food is delivered.  Some of the produce they do grow here, but a lot of it is imported as well.  Some are both - for example, you can get US apples or local apples, but the local apples are really small.  Same for imported limes, lemons, and strawberries.  (Mike isn't crazy about us buying local produce anyway, because if they are watering it with the raw water that they use around camp to irrigate, it has too much radioactivity in it.  This isn't all that bad in small doses, but over time it might be bioaccumulating in the soil, so he has asked for a Geiger counter for his birthday so we can test the produce.  Nerd gifts.)

When we are at home, I'm used to citrus from Florida, peaches from South Carolina, blackberries from Mexico, cantaloupe from California, etc., etc.    In the winter, a lot of our produce comes from South America.  Meat, bread, and most everything else comes from somewhere in the States. 

Here, it is a crazy - but logical - range of countries.  Our apples come from the States.  Lemons come from Turkey.  Avocados come from Kenya.  Baby spinach comes from Italy.  Pear juice comes from South Africa.  Beef comes from Brazil.  (Although I am still not sure why Brazilian beef is so much cheaper than US beef.  Seems like an equally long trip!)  Dairy and poultry are local.  And dry goods come from all over.  One of the things I have noticed is that very little comes from east of us.  Almost all the food comes from west of us.  Why?  Does China have nothing to offer, food-wise?  India?  Australia?  Hmmm, things to ponder.  But it's still amazing to think of the well-traveled food we eat. 

Avocado from Dhahran commissary.  It says "Avocado - Kenya"  It cost 3.41 riyals, which is about 85 cents.  They wrap all the produce in saran wrap after they weigh it.  These people are saran-wrap-happy.  They put saran wrap on EVERYTHING. 

PS.  New mattress and box springs arrived today...still doing laundry, but hopefully this problem is fixed!  The guys who switched out our mattresses were NOT wearing deodorant.  I had to open all the windows after they left to make it breathable again.  So I had to laugh at myself - honestly, we are living in a third-world country!  What was I expecting, the Ritz?

PPS. Funny quotes overheard at our house yesterday:

"You know it's been a long day of potty training when you go to the bathroom and accidentally put the potty seat on for yourself."

"I have a Raffi song stuck in my head.  And here we are in a country that doesn't allow hand guns."