Naps

August 30, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 5 Comments

That’s what Ramadan is good for.

I get to leave earlier than last year (because our CEO no longer spends time at the Kuwait office) so I get a nap between 4 and 6pm. There’s nothing else to do anyway. Everything except grocery stores are closed until 7:30 or 8pm. And the grocery stores are PACKED in the afternoons. I could go to the gym, but there is no water allowed (and old folks need to hydrate). I have to wait until the sun goes down.

So – napping it is. I mean, I could go out and see the sites….but there aren’t any.

In the Desert

August 23, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

It’s August 24th. Seven more days and this month is over. I will have survived another August.

I have been trying to understand my time out here in the desert. Not “Time” in the abstract. I mean the minutes, the hours, the days. Work takes up most of it. The gym rates about five hours a week. Then shopping and driving. Sleeping, of course. And running the combination washer/dryer takes up to four hours per each tiny load. But the vast majority of my “free time” in the Kuwait has been spent in front of the TV. Watching movies. I haven’t read an entire book yet. Short stories and plays only. I haven’t written anything at all. I have had no impulse for that – no creative thoughts going from me to a page (though there has been a false start or two). No – my focus has been the movies. I get cable and I have brought things from home. The good and the bad. Classics and horror movies. The Oscar winners and the “straight to video”. I figure by the time I get home, I will have seen every worthwhile film ever made (I get Turner Classic Movies out here).

These are the terms of my captivity. Keep it short and shallow. Why settle in with a novel or a piece of your own work? Don’t settle in. Keep it transitory and time will go by and then you’ll be out. It was always a risk coming out here and getting stuck – captive by the job. This isn’t unique. A lot of people are captive by their employment. Captive to the pay. You have a family to support, so you’re stuck with it. Or – as I see all the time out here – the money is too great. You can’t make it anywhere else. So you have to stay. Everyone’s job does that. Or you can be captive to the incentive – that pension somewhere down the line. We have a great one here, though it’s not as good as a government job back home.

But in the desert, I have a few special effects to add to the paycheck basics. I’m captive to the distance, which makes home and anywhere else so far away. Captive to the heat because when it is 120 degrees eight months or more out of the year, the outdoors is pretty much off limits. Captive to the lack of air. It’s either the dust outside or the constant, frigid AC inside (and how often do they clean those filters?). And captive to the culture around me that makes a single man without a family (and not on a compound) separate from the herd and looked on with suspicion. Really – how much time can you spend out in the malls if you can’t socialize? Somewhat captive by the language barrier. I was told the other day to beware of classes that teach Arabic because they turn into religious conversion sessions. Good to know.

So this is how it goes – what movie do we watch tonight? Maybe something’s on TV or I just pull out one from my DVD stash. This is how we go one day at a time. Keep it shallow. The days, the hours and the minutes go by faster that way. Then, hopefully, the captivity will end.

Ramadan Again

August 19, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

Almost. It should be Saturday if that lonely shepherd sees the moon. It might be hard considering how hazy everything is (dust). And humid. And 120 degrees (a standard).

As a reminder – Ramadan lasts for a month and you are not allowed to eat, smoke or drink in public during the daylight hours. It’s illegal. Restaurants are closed (though not grocery stores). However, when the sun goes down they eat and drink until the wee hours of the morning. They party like it’s 1999. Banks are only open for three hours a day during Ramadan. Supposedly I get out at 2pm but it usually works out to be 4pm. That’s two less than 6pm so I’ll take it. My favorite part is the lack of traffic in the mornings. Granted – summer is good for that anyway, but the month of Ramadan just extends the joy. No one gets up in the morning in Kuwait… except those of us who work.

You’ve probably read a lot about Kuwait recently. First – we seem to have quite a few swine flu cases, mainly amongst our own US Military guys. Then there was the capture of suspected Al Qaeda members who had plans to blow up one of the US Military bases. They caught them buying a truck. That’s it. All they had was a truck and delusions of grandeur (or maybe they wanted to wipe out the swine flu…). Finally there was that horrible fire at a wedding in the Jahra region. Turns out the guy getting married had only just weeks before divorced another woman. That woman got into a taxi with a container of gasoline, the taxi took her to the wedding site where she got out and poured the gas on the tent, lit it and then got back in the taxi and left. And since men party separately from the women and children, all the dead were women and children. The “scorned” woman said she didn’t plan on hurting anyone… except the groom’s sisters. The government is considering banning tents.

Political Jokes

August 13, 2009 | Filed Under Main, Politics | 8 Comments

I saw Hillary’s little outburst in the Congo last night (that you, Jon Stewart). It was very funny. Here you have some poor guy who has this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, gets his question mangled by a translator and then gets snapped at by our Secretary of State. Where did she think she was? Did she actually think this guy was a Fox News plant trying to make her look bad? If she’s going to be so touchy, maybe diplomacy is not her strong suit. In other words – there was a reason why she didn’t win the nomination.

There are many funny things about the current Health Care Carnival, but here are two:
I find it very amusing to see all the noisy crowds at the various Town Hall meetings. Mainly, because many in the crowd are over 65 and, um, their healthcare is ALREADY COVERED BY THE GOVERNMENT! So obviously they must be worried about the children…. Or America… or school prayer… something. Just not healthcare.

And I find it hilarious that the Democrats have agreed to have these Town Hall meetings. Because none of them know what’s in the bill! Or which bill they are talking about. From what I’ve heard, there could be as many as six bills on the table. Everything they say is thoroughly incomprehensible. I hear nothing but babbling on the TV. There could be death panels. There could be pet insurance. There could be provisions to only treat children with lollipops. How would anybody know? The rumors are easier to follow than the facts.

Finally – Sarah Palin. A good laugh anytime. If she thinks the government insurance will ration her care, she obviously hasn’t met Oxford Insurance. Do these yahoos think actual doctors and nurses answer the phones at these companies? Truth is – their previous jobs were working the phones for Time Magazine subscriptions. In India.

At least it’s a distraction from it being August…

Let The Right One In

August 9, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

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A twelve year old boy lives in an apartment complex with his Mom. He has no friends and gets beat up a lot because he is slight and studious. He dreams of getting revenge on his tormentors, but can’t find the nerve to stand up to them. A twelve year old girl moves in next door. She too is an outcast with no friends. She lives with her father. The boy and girl find each other, at night in the playground behind the apartments. They become friends – the only friend they each have in the world. But as young Eli says to Oskar, “I am not a girl.” Too true. Eli is a vampire and she has been twelve a long time. Let The Right One In – a Swedish film – is easily one of the best horror movies of the decade, but manages to transcend the genre entirely. The friendship between Eli and Oskar is the heart of the picture. You watch them go from basically punching each other in the shoulder to a full blown, unconditional affection. This could be one of those Disney coming-of-age flicks except for the dark, snowy Swedish days and nights… and the blood. Though the film is in Swedish, neither watching with subtitles nor dubbed takes away from the movie. The words are few. Most of the emotion comes through the acting and the cinematography. The two young leads are astounding – just simple and honest, every emotion coming through their face. The direction is very atmospheric. And don’t get me wrong – this is a horror flick. When Eli needs to feed, nothing gets in her way. But instead of a bunch of scenes to shock or make you jump, the gore is just an integral part of the story. AND it’s probably the most faithful movie regarding vampire lore I have seen in some time. Let The Right One In succeeds on so many levels I can only pray that no one tries to do an Americanized version of it. Hollywood is too ham-fisted to find the balance this film reaches so effortlessly. Very well done.

It’s August – I’m Lazy

August 9, 2009 | Filed Under Main | No Comments

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

August

August 1, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 3 Comments

Today begins the month of August.

I hate August. August is one of the rings of Hell. Dante actually wrote about August, though he didn’t call it that specifically. But I knew…

August is a dead month. Our grass is always dead. It is always too hot and muggy (and this is always true despite the fact that Seattle and Jersey have switched weather patterns this year. Seattle is having its first true August). But most importantly – nothing happens. Nothing. No one is at work. No one answers emails. No one answers phone calls. Offices are closed. No one pays bills. No one makes decisions. No one’s around! For students – you’re just waiting to go back, start school again. Your parents are waiting for you to go back, too. Waiting , waiting, waiting….

This is why most people vacation during August – and why it is too expensive to vacation during August because EVERYONE is vacationing during August! Because this month SUCKS! It is the tail end of all Life. Think of it as the last month of the true school year. A school year is from September to September. And work is the same. In September – everything comes alive! Phones ring, people are at their desks, new jobs come through! August is a whimpering slog going from the first to the 31st. A misery. For me, one August in Boston was so bad I was having massive panic attacks. Often at restaurants or at work (panic attacks in public are a joy). I think I even had an inhaler that month to help me breathe. The sense of not knowing and not being able to do anything about it is hard on a control-freak. This August will be no different as both Kerry and I try to see our way clear of this little experiment.

August first means there are only thirty days left until the end of August. Here’s to looking forward to Labor Day. Here’s hoping I learn to breathe through this month.