Here are a few updated pictures of Catherine!
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Seriously??
Check out this article from the Gulf Daily News (the "Voice of Bahrain"):
Gulf Daily News
No, really - go read it. It's worth it, I promise.
Really? Really?? 158 degrees? Come on. The hottest temperature EVER RECORDED ON EARTH was 70.7C in the Lut Desert in Iran in 2004. Honestly. Even the weather guys over here are sensationalist. :) Just goes to show that astronomers shouldn't pretend like they understand meteorology!
PS If it does get that hot by any chance, I will let you know!
Gulf Daily News
No, really - go read it. It's worth it, I promise.
Really? Really?? 158 degrees? Come on. The hottest temperature EVER RECORDED ON EARTH was 70.7C in the Lut Desert in Iran in 2004. Honestly. Even the weather guys over here are sensationalist. :) Just goes to show that astronomers shouldn't pretend like they understand meteorology!
PS If it does get that hot by any chance, I will let you know!
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
SCORE, AGAIN!
Just in - Christmas (!!) M&Ms at the Safeway in Khobar!
Hoarding them for next year....
Hoarding them for next year....
The Land Without Time
Another weird thing about living here is that it's hard to mark time. It's hard to get a sense of time passing, and time in general seems off. This place, in many ways, is like being Alice and living in Wonderland because everything is so odd and backwards, but to have your sense of time be thrown off really makes living here feel surreal.
The biggest part of this feeling, and the reason I'm noticing it more now, is that there are no seasons here. I guess it's a lot like living in Florida. We've lived here for nearly six months now, and this place looks exactly like it did six months ago. The only change is that it got hotter. The plants all look the same in December as they do in June, and we have seen very little blooming going on in the spring. (Oddly enough, our banyan tree in the front yard did lose all of its leaves - a la autumn - in April.) I think I keep waiting for something to change to mark the seasons, but nothing has or is going to happen. So it feels like we are stuck in the same place in time forever.
This goes for daylight hours, too. I suppose we are far enough south that the duration of daylight to stay fairly constant over the calendar year. And it doesn't help that we are on the wrong time zone. The entire country is on the same time zone (which I can understand, for convenience purposes), but this country is four times bigger than Texas. So the time zone for the western part of the country is ok for their daylight, but over here on the east coast, we should be one hour earlier. The Sun comes up at 4:45 and goes down right at 6:00 pm. It hardly feels like summer when we are eating dinner and it is dark outside! Much better would be sunrise at 5:45 and sunset at 7:00 pm. Or even 6:45 and 8:00. So it still feels like it did when we got here in December.
Then there's the days of the week. Over here, the weekend is Thursday and Friday. Saturday is like Monday and Wednesday is like Friday. This is MOST CONFOUNDEDLY CONFUSING THING EVER. People will say "my daughter has piano lessons on Sunday and Tuesday." ??? Um, ok, let's see, Sunday is like Tuesday, so that means that Tuesday is like Thursday, so that's really like Tuesday and Thursday. I have to sit there and think about it every time. I am not a dumb person. I have an advanced degree in astrophyiscs, for goodness sake! Why can I not wrap my brain around this?? I think it is because the feeling you get with each day of the week (i.e., when I say "Friday" you think good thoughts about work being nearly over and the approaching weekend, and when I say "Monday" you think "ugh") is SO ingrained that it is hard to change. Monday is now hump day and Saturday is the "ugh" day and Friday is for church and brunch. So, let's all sing together: "It's just another manic Saturday. I wish it was Friday. That's my fun day, my I don't have to run day. It's just another manic Saturday." or "Saturday, Saturday, ba da, ba da da da, so good to me, Saturday morning, it was all I hoped it would be." or "Another pleasant valley Friday." Anybody want to watch Thursday Night Fever with me??
(Aggh! To be honest, I have just recently quit trying to change. I just say the day of the week I mean and I leave it for others to figure it out. I give up.)
Since the days of the week are different, it makes marking our normal holidays a little off, too. For example, Easter was (of course) on a Sunday, which is a Tuesday here. It was not a day off, and Mike really did have to go to work like normal, and of course there are no Easter decorations up around here, no Easter anything on camp, and the day just passed like any other normal work day. So it makes it hard to think that it really happened. (Whoops - Easter is over? I barely remember it.) Same for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and all the weekend holidays - they all happen on weekdays.
Couple that with no TV or radio for six months, barely any contact with the outside world (it's a lot like college in that respect - Vandy friends will remember the "Vandybubble") and it seems like time stands still here. Nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes, we just live each day hour by hour and then do it all again the next day.
So I'm having a hard time believing it's JUNE already. I hear through the grapevine that CMS is out now - wow. Hard to believe that that much time has passed while we've been over here.
Coming soon...more pictures of Catherine (2 1/2 months now! Again, where does the time go?), pictures of Everett's Fourth Birthday Party, and pictures of our attempt to actually fry an egg on the sidewalk (preview: I have broken my own personal record for highest temperature experienced - 119 degrees in Abqaiq the other weekend! Still loving the heat!)
PS Everett is on a HUGE dinosaur kick these days, so it's like we really are living in the Land Before Time!
The biggest part of this feeling, and the reason I'm noticing it more now, is that there are no seasons here. I guess it's a lot like living in Florida. We've lived here for nearly six months now, and this place looks exactly like it did six months ago. The only change is that it got hotter. The plants all look the same in December as they do in June, and we have seen very little blooming going on in the spring. (Oddly enough, our banyan tree in the front yard did lose all of its leaves - a la autumn - in April.) I think I keep waiting for something to change to mark the seasons, but nothing has or is going to happen. So it feels like we are stuck in the same place in time forever.
This goes for daylight hours, too. I suppose we are far enough south that the duration of daylight to stay fairly constant over the calendar year. And it doesn't help that we are on the wrong time zone. The entire country is on the same time zone (which I can understand, for convenience purposes), but this country is four times bigger than Texas. So the time zone for the western part of the country is ok for their daylight, but over here on the east coast, we should be one hour earlier. The Sun comes up at 4:45 and goes down right at 6:00 pm. It hardly feels like summer when we are eating dinner and it is dark outside! Much better would be sunrise at 5:45 and sunset at 7:00 pm. Or even 6:45 and 8:00. So it still feels like it did when we got here in December.
Then there's the days of the week. Over here, the weekend is Thursday and Friday. Saturday is like Monday and Wednesday is like Friday. This is MOST CONFOUNDEDLY CONFUSING THING EVER. People will say "my daughter has piano lessons on Sunday and Tuesday." ??? Um, ok, let's see, Sunday is like Tuesday, so that means that Tuesday is like Thursday, so that's really like Tuesday and Thursday. I have to sit there and think about it every time. I am not a dumb person. I have an advanced degree in astrophyiscs, for goodness sake! Why can I not wrap my brain around this?? I think it is because the feeling you get with each day of the week (i.e., when I say "Friday" you think good thoughts about work being nearly over and the approaching weekend, and when I say "Monday" you think "ugh") is SO ingrained that it is hard to change. Monday is now hump day and Saturday is the "ugh" day and Friday is for church and brunch. So, let's all sing together: "It's just another manic Saturday. I wish it was Friday. That's my fun day, my I don't have to run day. It's just another manic Saturday." or "Saturday, Saturday, ba da, ba da da da, so good to me, Saturday morning, it was all I hoped it would be." or "Another pleasant valley Friday." Anybody want to watch Thursday Night Fever with me??
(Aggh! To be honest, I have just recently quit trying to change. I just say the day of the week I mean and I leave it for others to figure it out. I give up.)
Since the days of the week are different, it makes marking our normal holidays a little off, too. For example, Easter was (of course) on a Sunday, which is a Tuesday here. It was not a day off, and Mike really did have to go to work like normal, and of course there are no Easter decorations up around here, no Easter anything on camp, and the day just passed like any other normal work day. So it makes it hard to think that it really happened. (Whoops - Easter is over? I barely remember it.) Same for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and all the weekend holidays - they all happen on weekdays.
Couple that with no TV or radio for six months, barely any contact with the outside world (it's a lot like college in that respect - Vandy friends will remember the "Vandybubble") and it seems like time stands still here. Nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes, we just live each day hour by hour and then do it all again the next day.
So I'm having a hard time believing it's JUNE already. I hear through the grapevine that CMS is out now - wow. Hard to believe that that much time has passed while we've been over here.
Coming soon...more pictures of Catherine (2 1/2 months now! Again, where does the time go?), pictures of Everett's Fourth Birthday Party, and pictures of our attempt to actually fry an egg on the sidewalk (preview: I have broken my own personal record for highest temperature experienced - 119 degrees in Abqaiq the other weekend! Still loving the heat!)
PS Everett is on a HUGE dinosaur kick these days, so it's like we really are living in the Land Before Time!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Transit of Venus
Did anyone get to see the transit of Venus?
We did! It was almost finished when the Sun rose this morning. The Sun rises at (yes) !! 4:45 !! here , and Lawrence was up by 5:something so we all dragged out of bed and I pulled the telescope down to the sidewalk in front of our house. It was really great to see it, but I accidentally melted our eyepieces because we don't have a Sun filter. ("What is that funny smell? Why is the telescope smoking?" Um, yeah, brilliant astronomer here, basically caught her own telescope on fire while pointing it at the Sun. (Which, incidentally, you are not supposed to do. See the Shamals post.)) Won't be admitting that one in my next job interview.
So I say "we" but I really mean me, Mike, and Lawrence. Catherine was taking her morning nap, and Everett didn't participate in this momentous event because he refused to put on his shoes. So when his grandkids ask him, "Granddaddy, did you get to see the last transit of Venus, more than 100 years ago?" he'll have to say "No, I didn't because I wouldn't put on my shoes." Ha! Yay, three years old!
Anyway, it was a fun diversion, and our lovely next-door neighbors came over with their kids to see, and their houseboy, too. I love how everyone loves astronomy. :)
We did! It was almost finished when the Sun rose this morning. The Sun rises at (yes) !! 4:45 !! here , and Lawrence was up by 5:something so we all dragged out of bed and I pulled the telescope down to the sidewalk in front of our house. It was really great to see it, but I accidentally melted our eyepieces because we don't have a Sun filter. ("What is that funny smell? Why is the telescope smoking?" Um, yeah, brilliant astronomer here, basically caught her own telescope on fire while pointing it at the Sun. (Which, incidentally, you are not supposed to do. See the Shamals post.)) Won't be admitting that one in my next job interview.
 |
| This is an image of the Sun. Venus is passing in front of the Sun. It is the small black dot on the right. |
So I say "we" but I really mean me, Mike, and Lawrence. Catherine was taking her morning nap, and Everett didn't participate in this momentous event because he refused to put on his shoes. So when his grandkids ask him, "Granddaddy, did you get to see the last transit of Venus, more than 100 years ago?" he'll have to say "No, I didn't because I wouldn't put on my shoes." Ha! Yay, three years old!
 |
| Sulking. |
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
All About Water
Sometimes Mike and I used to talk about how it would be really handy if one of us (or both of us) had different professions. You know, something practical that would be helpful at home. Like if Mike was a pediatrician. WOW, that would be convenient! He could check for ear infections, or write us prescriptions, or reassure me about the frequency of baby poops. Or whatever! How nice that would be. Or if one of us was an OB, or any kind of doctor for that matter. Or a lawyer. That would come in handy too. Or a veterinarian, or a car mechanic, or a carpenter. You know, anything that would actually help out around the house. Civil Engineer is great, but not helpful in the pediatrician sense. It doesn't translate to plumber. You should have seen the plumbing job Mike attempted once in our house. When we finally caved and called a real plumber, he asked if he could take a picture of the piping Mike did to add to his "hilarious things that I see customers do" scrapbook. (Not kidding!) And Astronomer just doesn't have very many practical applications AT ALL. (Did you know that the Stingray Nebula just formed about 20,000 years ago? Fascinating! But what am I going to do with that?)
Well, it turns out that since we've moved here, Mike's job is actually VERY handy! We live in a desert. It pays to understand about water! Lots of people have lots of questions about the water here (including me!) and it's been really useful to be able to call Mike at work and ask things like "Is it ok that Lawrence is playing in the water from the in-ground sprinklers?" You might think that this would be a silly question, but there are three kinds of water here: sweet, raw, and tertiary. Sweet water is the drinking water. It is cleaned with reverse osmosis, and it tastes fine to me. Lots of people here do not like or trust the sweet water, so they drink bottled water instead. I personally think that the bottled water is scarier, because how do we know where THAT comes from? Anyway, sweet water is safe water. We all get one tap for sweet water, and that is located at the kitchen sink.
Raw water is the water we use for everything else. It is cleaned, but not as much as the sweet water. It is salty, and it tastes nasty, but it won't hurt you. Raw water is what we bathe in, do laundry in, wash dishes in, water the plants with, and wash the car with. All the other taps in the house, including outside, are raw water. Yes, that means that we cannot drink the water in the bathrooms! This is VERY INCONVENIENT! We have pitchers that we fill with sweet water at the kitchen sink and carry upstairs every day to brush our teeth with. We always seem to be toting sweet water in pitchers, rather like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. And the salt builds up on everything. Our tubs and shower curtains are COATED with layers of salt, and the spigot outside has salt crystals seemingly permanently attached. Not to mention my hair! (One of the things I am really looking forward to is washing my hair at home to get all this yucky, frizzy salt out of my hair!) This water wreaks havoc on clothes, too. I have t-shirts I have had since....I am unwilling to say! Hmm, let's see...probably about 7th grade? Er, no, wait, I do have one that I got in fifth grade. The Bearden Elementary School Fifth Grade Chorus t-shirt from 1989. Yes, I have had this shirt for 23 years (!!!) and it looked great UNTIL I put it in the washer here. Now it is falling apart. Literally. A bunch of my old t-shirts are like that, and I sadly made the mistake of putting some of my dresses from when I was a baby in the washing machine, too. The thread that holds the pieces of fabric together just dissolves. (But the fabric is still ok, so I have been able to sew them back together. But what a pain!) All my tye-dye shirts from summer camp have developed huge holes, too. OK, well, you get the point. Raw water is really awful.
Then there's tertiary water. This is the non-potable water that they use to irrigate. So back to my original question....Is it ok if Lawrence plays in the sprinklers? If my husband had any other profession, I would just guess "no" because it's irrigation and tertiary water, but ah ha! I called up his office and asked. How lovely! Actually the answer is "yes" because those particular sprinklers are fed by raw water. So it's like taking a bath! Hooray!
Another strange and new thing about living here and the water: the default temperature for water here is HOT. HOT! It's hard to imagine, but when you turn on the water anywhere, it comes out hot. This is because the pipes in the road get so hot every day that the water gets hot before it reaches your house. So when we play outside in the hose, I have to check to make sure the children are not being scalded. I keep giant blocks of ice that I make in the freezer to put in the washing machine so that the clothes can be washed on "cold" (but this does not really work because I can't make enough ice to cool down the big volume of water that fills the machine. But I do it anyway because it makes me feel better.) And It's getting to the point that in the evenings, I will have to donate some of my laundry ice to the kids for their bathtub because the water is too hot. So why do we even HAVE a hot water heater? It's because we need it in the winter. But we also need a hot water cooler for the summer. Do they even make such a thing?
I'll go ask Mike.
Well, it turns out that since we've moved here, Mike's job is actually VERY handy! We live in a desert. It pays to understand about water! Lots of people have lots of questions about the water here (including me!) and it's been really useful to be able to call Mike at work and ask things like "Is it ok that Lawrence is playing in the water from the in-ground sprinklers?" You might think that this would be a silly question, but there are three kinds of water here: sweet, raw, and tertiary. Sweet water is the drinking water. It is cleaned with reverse osmosis, and it tastes fine to me. Lots of people here do not like or trust the sweet water, so they drink bottled water instead. I personally think that the bottled water is scarier, because how do we know where THAT comes from? Anyway, sweet water is safe water. We all get one tap for sweet water, and that is located at the kitchen sink.
Raw water is the water we use for everything else. It is cleaned, but not as much as the sweet water. It is salty, and it tastes nasty, but it won't hurt you. Raw water is what we bathe in, do laundry in, wash dishes in, water the plants with, and wash the car with. All the other taps in the house, including outside, are raw water. Yes, that means that we cannot drink the water in the bathrooms! This is VERY INCONVENIENT! We have pitchers that we fill with sweet water at the kitchen sink and carry upstairs every day to brush our teeth with. We always seem to be toting sweet water in pitchers, rather like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. And the salt builds up on everything. Our tubs and shower curtains are COATED with layers of salt, and the spigot outside has salt crystals seemingly permanently attached. Not to mention my hair! (One of the things I am really looking forward to is washing my hair at home to get all this yucky, frizzy salt out of my hair!) This water wreaks havoc on clothes, too. I have t-shirts I have had since....I am unwilling to say! Hmm, let's see...probably about 7th grade? Er, no, wait, I do have one that I got in fifth grade. The Bearden Elementary School Fifth Grade Chorus t-shirt from 1989. Yes, I have had this shirt for 23 years (!!!) and it looked great UNTIL I put it in the washer here. Now it is falling apart. Literally. A bunch of my old t-shirts are like that, and I sadly made the mistake of putting some of my dresses from when I was a baby in the washing machine, too. The thread that holds the pieces of fabric together just dissolves. (But the fabric is still ok, so I have been able to sew them back together. But what a pain!) All my tye-dye shirts from summer camp have developed huge holes, too. OK, well, you get the point. Raw water is really awful.
Then there's tertiary water. This is the non-potable water that they use to irrigate. So back to my original question....Is it ok if Lawrence plays in the sprinklers? If my husband had any other profession, I would just guess "no" because it's irrigation and tertiary water, but ah ha! I called up his office and asked. How lovely! Actually the answer is "yes" because those particular sprinklers are fed by raw water. So it's like taking a bath! Hooray!
Another strange and new thing about living here and the water: the default temperature for water here is HOT. HOT! It's hard to imagine, but when you turn on the water anywhere, it comes out hot. This is because the pipes in the road get so hot every day that the water gets hot before it reaches your house. So when we play outside in the hose, I have to check to make sure the children are not being scalded. I keep giant blocks of ice that I make in the freezer to put in the washing machine so that the clothes can be washed on "cold" (but this does not really work because I can't make enough ice to cool down the big volume of water that fills the machine. But I do it anyway because it makes me feel better.) And It's getting to the point that in the evenings, I will have to donate some of my laundry ice to the kids for their bathtub because the water is too hot. So why do we even HAVE a hot water heater? It's because we need it in the winter. But we also need a hot water cooler for the summer. Do they even make such a thing?
I'll go ask Mike.
SCORE!
Oh yeah, SCORE! The Commissary just got a big shipment of Valentine's Day candy! Even better, it is getting ready to expire, so it's all on the "clearance" rack.
Better late than never, I guess...
Better late than never, I guess...
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