Dog Problems

Can you believe I got all the way through the winter without complaining about my emotionally-damaged Ajlouniyya guard dog, Tasha? She’s starting to shed, tho, and it isn’t a pretty sight.
It’s about time to rant again, as we need someone to look after her for a time this summer again.  Last time, my house-helper was going to house-sit. But, the dog was on hyper-alert when we left, and barked at anything she thought MAY be moving outside, ALL night long. House-helper couldn’t sleep, so she came twice a day to feed her and take her out. What an angel, that woman. What a pain, that dog.

Next time I am so flipped out about our serial night prowler that I am obsessed with getting a dog,  someone remind me that you take the ugly puppy who runs up to you with a wagging tail, not the beautiful one who runs away howling.

No one will take her in. I even offered $200 too some teenagers, no deal. They have heard stories of this barking dog.  No one else has a 3am neighborhood creeper who rattles doors to remind folks he is there, and freak-out foreign mommies with traveling pants.

Next step…find out how much the two kennels charge. I already know how much, and I am choking over it. I emailed my sister about it, since she is a dog-lover with what, TEN Great Pyrenees and four mutts?

My sister claims it would be cheaper to FLY THE DOG TO AMERICA and let her daughter care for her at UC Davis. Can you believe THAT? Smells a little too jet-set for this middle-class mom/reluctant dog owner. Imagine if she barks the whole flight, then the whole time at SFO? If we didn’t have a schizophrenic dog now, we would certainly have one then. Plus claustrophobia and all the other phobias  that would attach themselves to her through the terrors of travel.

We are desperate enough to talk to the travel agent tomorrow. I really can’t believe I am doing this.

Real Snowfall!

OK, can’t resist yet another snow post. Especially since it is Still Coming Down at 10am!

Last night, I thought there was no way it would snow, pressure and tempurature were rising and the storm system on satellite showed us just in the bare fringes (ya muskeen, Armenia, what kind of snow did you get there!?). LOL, like Nas posted, even I have become Mrs. Junior Meteorologist. I grew up with a recording barograph, a contraption that measures and graphs the rise and fall of barometric pressure; it would always do this major dip when we would get Real Snowfall.

Musta dipped after we went to bed. I really didn’t think this would happen, since for the last three years it has been disappointment wara ba3d. The kids prayers are answered, and although I wasn’t going to pray for snow that would leave so many cold in their homes, God chose to do His winter thing. May He supernaturally warm Bedouins and those with no heat. But for my kounouz, I am thrilled that they are experiencing snow as I know it, measured not in slushy smoosh-smoosh millimeters but in crunch-crunch centimeters!

At 6:30am, you would have thought it was Christmas all over again. ProjectBoy woke everyone up with his chirpy “IT SNOWED!! HEAVY!! CAN’T SEE THE TILES!!!”. Then came the call, no school; then another, no work. Skeeter, ever kind, let me attempt to go back to sleep. Ever prepared, he had purchased lamb bones and beans to make a hearty winter soup just in case.

Who can sleep when the excitement is coursing through the house like electricity? When all the kounouz are bundling up, the dog is wild with excitement, the cat wants a turn in the house? How is it on school days it can take forever to get them out of bed and dressed, but with snow they have managed to get up, eat, find everything and even tie shoes w/o help?

The radiators are draped with every coat, sweatshirt, glove and hat we own (even tho they aren’t on!). Even I have been out in the stuff, only because they dragged me, but it was worth it to feel dry pellet-like snow flakes that stay on my nose and eye-lashes…silver white winters that melt into spring…oops. I’m thinking about The Sound of Music, as my bud Urdani Babe has a fun tradition with their best friends: every first snow of winter, no matter what, they get together for fasuulia and watching the Sound of Music together. they will walk the 2 ks if the road is closed..it’s tradition. TRADITION!!!….oops, I feel another musical coming on, but I will spare you.

The kids made me go inside when they realized the only dry winter clothes were mine, so they are now wearing my boots, coat, gloves and hat on their THIRD round of snow play. The dog wants to be anywhere the kids are, I wish I could have captured her face when she was beaned with a snowball.  Like every victim of abuse, she puts up with way more than she should from those she loves. The cat retreated to her little cat-house in the shed, as it is now too deep for her delicate taste. I made sure her little house was ready yesterday, as  the outside place she lives in is regularly invaded by fighting toms that mess everything up, knocking her house over or even squatting! I can see her looking very cozy from the window.

Maher wins the prize for first snow greeting…at 5:15am, he left a comment for the Kounouz! And yes, Maher, I promise not to be a Grinch and we will be making chocolate chip cookies with NESTLE chocolate chips (THANK YOU EMILY!!!) and the kids will have unlimited time.

I thought I was going to get off the work hook, too, but at 9am my editor called, cheerfully looking for that first blog column! AH, the joys of working from home.

My neighbor is off at work. That is what 4×4 SUVs are for, indeed. Not for posing in Sweifiyya, nor parking at the mall, but for the work of snowy travel. He MUST though, as last time there was a big snow his car-lot was damaged big time.

Well, back to work. I’m having fun going through all your archives for “I”’s first blog review. Muhahahahah…

It’s Gonna Be a Loooooooooong Month

Alhamdulillah, il akher empty-haan bukra. Ya muskiin, ProjectBoy, kaan kull hi-yato il shahar ‘able diraasi, diraasi. Kayyuffna ma3ba3d, kullana, lemma kaan empty-haan Ijtima3iaat mkhalas. I just hate ijtima3iaat.

I just don’t get WHY there is a month long break in the middle of the school year. The kids totally go back to summer mode, and February is as bad as August except that it is cold and they can’t play outside. My life has not been normal since Dec. 17, when empty-haan schedule started. Different pick-up times (yup, I even forgot one once), having to sit on the poor kid to study while the others are playing XBox.

He gets his revenge, though. In the morning after tests, when we are alone, he waits until I am totally concentrating on a writing project and then runs in declaring he is hungry. Hobbit boy, he wants 3rd breakfast! He knows how to work the mommy-guilt, too: “Mom, please read me a book. It has been SOOOOO LOOOOOOONG since you read me a book” (yea kid, since yesterday). “Mom, you never bake me cookies, could you bake me cookies today?” (excuse ME, dude, we still have Christmas cookies in the jar). “Mommy, can I watch a movie? I haven’t gotten to pick my one in SOOOOOOOOOO long” (HAH! Now that we have the XBox, on movie nights we have 3 different movies going: on the TV, the kitchen computer and now, the Xbox. He did indeed pick his own).

I’ve had a pretty heavy writing load since Dec. 17, and have discovered it is just impossible to write when all the kids are in the house. What takes me one hour bidoon awlad takes eight with. The minute I get the inspiration flowing and fingers begin to fly, children’s voices escalate and there is some argument, someone’s hungry, or the dog wants to come inside with her muddy paws (yea, it’s that season again, thrice daily canine pedicures).

I just got word that an article I busted my behind to get in on time is now delayed not one but two months. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I’m steaming. That one cost me; cost me sleep, cost em kid-time, cost me BLOGGING time. And I know the editor doesn’t really care, has done it before and will do it again. I better not let Spikekid know, or he will start an obnoxious Facebook group about it and recruit all his 13 year old buddies worldwide to join it and I’ll get sued for slander, or whatever they call it here. He thinks I should retire from writing and just play ping-pong. Babe, ping-pong won’t put braces on your teeth.

Sam, Salam and MommaBean are already hatching plans for Mommy Escape times at Galler and blogger-kid gatherings to we can commiserate about this break.(Summer and 7aki, we’ll keep seats open in your honor). At least my husband doesn’t sequester the lap-top and keep me from blogging. THAT would be rough.

And life will not be normal again until Feb. 4. Whatever normal means, anyway. Ya Rab, sa3idni!

Christmas Bits and Bobs, Part I

Finally, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Except for no snow, of course. Tonight, I finally got the last of the decorations on the tree and the salon tidied up. NEVER, never has it been Dec. 21 and my home so NOT ready for Christmas. Never have I had not one gift wrapped at this late date. No Fruit-Nut Cake, no gingerbread, no plates of cookies ready to give to neighbors and co-workers, no plans for who to spend the Big Day with, no invites to our home given (well, to be honest that was set up a couple days ago, not today).

Losing Um Skeeter has really been hard. It brings me back to four years earlier when I lost my parents. Now I understand why my Jordanian friends do not put up decorations when there has been a close death. There is something about loss and mourning that takes up all your mental and heart energy. It has been such a blessing Skeeter came back just in time for the Eid, as the time off allows him the freedom to sit with a mug of coffee and contemplate life and death as he looks out onto the garden. He is getting used to talking about Mom in past tense, spending a lot of time journaling and writing his dad . Not many of you have lost parents yet, and it is so strange how positively orphaned one feels, even as an adult. Not to mention the reality that we are next.

But, for the kid’s sake, all the traditions are happening again. We had our first candlelight dinner last night with the Christmas dishes and a festive table runner. The kids actually got started on the present wrapping for me! Funny, how loss keeps you from majoring on the minors. Normally, I have a system for wrapping, and enjoy doing a gift-store quality job (why, you ask, when it all gets ripped off anyway? Rententive, I guess). But today, Little Project Boy brought me his first endeavor and it was just delightful. A delightful mess, but delightful. They are hired.

Listening to Christmas carols by the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been Spirit-led therapy. How can the soul not rise with the horns and strings? I had a very interesting sort-of answer to prayer yesterday, also.

I was playing around at Dan Fogelberg’s website, going through the lyrics of my old favorites and seeing what he had recorded after I traded him in for Michael Card (a Christian theologian balad writer much like DF). To my surprise, DF recorded a Christmas CD in 1999 I was unaware of. As I read the lyrics, I was astonished that all the songs were not just Christ-centered, but of the most sacred sung doctrine of my faith. Not one Jingle-Belly modern classic, all music that was meant to lead the soul to worship the Almighty God. Hardly music one would choose without believing it’s content.

I leave Dan Fogelbeg in God’s merciful and mysterious hands afresh, but with a joy-filled and thankful heart that I now will have a recording of his music with which to praise my Creator. An answer to a twenty-seven year old prayer. How gracious of God to reveal that He answered that prayer eight years ago; but I found out just when I needed a special touch from His hand

Random Remnants (See #6)

1) Thanks SO much to all who expressed their condolences to our family. It was like having a virtual 3azza! Skeeter sent the link to our family, and many American friends, who got a taste of the kind of folks we live around (or blog around). Most importantly, Abu Skeeter was very touched. I can’t believe my father-in-law read my blog. Makes me happy.

2) Skeeter got back just in time for this big MidWestern ice storm, which makes it very cosy to sit in a warm home with family and remember happy times with Mom. All his siblings and their kids were there, making it an extended pre-Christmas gathering. He said everyone really missed us, which made me even sadder to be missing my man and his family. Worst of all was the thought the kounouz are missing their cousins. 1995 was a banner year, as Spikekid and three other cousins arrived. You should see the 20 of them, there are always enough for a game of baseball, frisbee golf or football. Those precious nieces and nephews help my kids navigate the American Way, and have even learned some Arabi.

3) My sweet landlordess has already offered to rally the neighbors and make qahwa sada when the real-time 3azza when Abu Kounouz gets back…just in time for Eid Al Adha. She did this for me when my parents died, the house was packed out with our friends and neighbors we didn’t even know we had. You know what makes our own 3azzas special for us ajaanib? No one mentions American foreign policy.

4) I’ve got my 3azza wardrobe together, figuring every appropriate social fashion combination. I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to wear black without looking either hot, or like a frumpy grandma. I don’t usually wear black, unless it is time to be elegant, which only happens a couple times a year. Beige is black for blondes, but it doesn’t work for mourning.

5) I’ve had a hard time enjoying the Christmas season. The tree remains half decorated - that is one Jordanian tradition I can’t do, forgo the decor. No cookies made yet, and it is near the 15th! Other than family, no Christmas cards ready, no gifts for my pals. Thank God all the kounouz gifts are purchased and ready to wrap. How organized am I? I even have all their little stocking stuff and their gifts sorted and bagged. This had never happened, I’m usually up til 1am 12/25 wrapping and sorting.

6) I went out for a goodbye party for a mag editor I’ve enjoyed working with. Now that was wierd, going to a party without my husband. I was able to balance hot and frumpy, but was seated next to a group of young men I had never met. Great. I had to pretend they were bloggers to feel comfortable. They started talking about girls then, and I groaned. But, all they said was stuff I had already learned from Blanet Beople until one guy said “Yea, things will get better when we handle relationships like you all do in the West. When we have the freedom to live together, it will be much better”.

Sputter, choke, cough. “Better for who?” I asked. “All the way around, you know, there is nothing like living together first to know one another”. I said “You mean, it is better for the guy. She agrees cause she wants to marry you. She splits the rent, cleans the place and cooks, and you get free sex. Then, when things calm down, you decide she isn’t the one and do it all over again. Yea, GREAT deal for guys. And you think that is going to happen HERE?”. What blanet did they live on?

So we had a very lively debate. They assumed my husband and I had lived together, and when I explained we had a ‘hands-off’ policy until marriage, jaws dropped, and they asked me how we got to know one another. Golly, we got to know each others minds and souls before bodies. I told them: WE ASKED EACH OTHER LOTS OF QUESTIONS. Not the romanciyya lovey-dovey stuff, but the: so how much discretionary spending would work for you?, Do you put the cap on the toothpaste? Clean the mirror after you floss? Snore? How much time with which family which holiday? How many cooked meals a day? Which kind of church? What is your doctrinal position on glossalalia? (yes, I wrote him an 8 page paper on the gift of tongues) How many kids? Pets? Hayki. Anyway, it was worth going. I learned that young men trust young women to be who they really are about as far as they could throw them. Pity.

7) Spikekid and I watched the latest HP movie. Was anyone else bored? SO glad we didn’t go to the theater. One redeeming point: I figured out WHO our emotionally damaged dog reminds me of: DOBBY the house elf. She is a furry blonde Dobby. She is so eager to please, so mortified when she blows it, destroys stuff when she gets overzealous. Her ears, oh my her ears, do just what Dobby’s do. Now don’t tell me Dobby wasn’t in this film, I know that, it was seeing Kreacher that got me thinking.

SO, I think I used up my 15,000 words today. Ciao!

Food, Pet & Excuses Post

It’s smelling pretty delicious in the kitchen right now, and if I can smell it as congested as I am, we are going to have some pretty zaki chili tonight for dinner. Skeeter is the Chili Man, and bless him, knows that some fire-engine hot chili is what his sweetheart needs to clear her sinuses. What a love…he knows a cold this severe just ain’t gonna be helped by that weak chicken soup. I’ll be making the cornbread (and brownies) to add to the menu.

My hubby is also the Turkey Stock Man. Our kitchen has been smelling great about all week since Thanksgiving, as he has cooked down those turkey frames and made his famous stock to be used as a base for soups in the winter. He breaks the bones, adds a bit of vinegar, bay leaves and some secret ingredients. Then he boils it down SO thick, and freezes it in just the right amounts to make healthy and rich tasting soup. OOwwww, doesn’t that just make you hungry?

This makes our cat, Dora, go crazy. She tries to climb the windows in her desperate attempts to reach the succulent cast-offs of the carcass. I have to close the window due to her relentless meowing and half-starved antics. Skeeter is a kind-to-critters kind of guy, (he’s the reason we even have this stupid cat anyway…I’ll have to blog about Dora someday) and he saves all the gristle-y bits of the old bird for cat and dog food.  The aroma also attracts every other cat in the neighborhood: old No Tail, Ugly Tom, Hormone Crazed Tabby Boy, so poor Dora literally has to fight for her place as Privileged Cat.

Tasha Dog really  likes having a little boost to her normal dry-doggy fare. In fact, when it runs out, she will not eat the dry stuff for days. She will follow me around the house begging, she will bump my elbow when I am trying to type and she will give my shoes flat tyres following so close behind me.

Speaking of the Dog, she is on my good side again. After the first rain, I took the advice of commenter/writer Lucia and now keep a small bowl of water and towels behind the front door. When Tash comes in from her normal morning barking duty, she gets a little foot bath right there and then before she can muck up my floors and put me in a Very Bad Mood. My neighbors must REALLY think I am crazy now, as I must look like I am either trying to milk the dog, or give her a pedicure. But hey, I live in West Amman, kul shi mumkin, sa7?

Speaking of pets, I invented a hilarious way to make sure Mr. Fat Hamme Hamster gets his exercise, since he disdains the wheel and is too fat for the exercise ball. Now I hope this doesn’t get me in trouble with PETA, it’s um, a little naughty (no one tell Margaret Ledger, ok?). According to the hamster care website, hamsters should spend an hour out of their cages every day. Spikekid will come into the office and put one of those hamsters on my shoulders while I am typing when he wants a computer turn, and the silly thing will get a Spiderman complex/death wish thing going and start climbing down my arm vertically.

I  realized the bathtub would be a great place for the rodents to get their exercise. It’s high enough they can’t get out, and if they mess, a little hypex and swooSH, all clean. We put him in, and he was all over that place investigating. He soon realized it was just another big white cage with no top, and looked for a way out. He started climbing up the sloped end, would get half way, then slllllllllliiiiiiiiiide down again. So he started again, revved up and hit the incline at good hamster speed, only to slide, little legs sprawled, back down again. He tried again, but this time, his little backlegs were peddling as fast as they could as he slid back. We were watching this escapade dying of laughter, the kids a rolling on the floor with tears streaming. After each performance, he would stand up on his hind legs and look at us as if to say: “You think this is funny. This is CRUEL. If you were in America, you’d be in trouble!”. We put him back in his cage and he went promptly into his little house and hid.

So ANYWAY, can you believe, after 66% of the family fell to the flu, a different 66% got nasty colds too. Tain’t fair, I say. Skeeter, Mr. Hand Washer (no, he’s not OCD, he’s a Med Tech, he knows how germs do their business) and Mr. Constitution of Steel, has remained well.

This coincided with Crush Week, what happens when I haven’t finished what I was supposed to turn into editors in the 1st of every month, and which is why I usually TRY to stop blogging the last week. I failed this month, again. It is ALMOST becoming a sin I need to confess, this wasting time surfing around reading stuff that has no eternal significance. BUT…I could hardly help it, as Dear Husband told me The New York Times is free on-line again! Had to catch up on over a year’s worth of my favorite op/ed pieces!

Thankfully, I got 3 out of 4 pieces done, someone prayed for me to be able to write even through the fog of sickness. God was merciful in granting me both words and a sense of humor and even editorial favor.

Thanks for visiting. There are times I can’t believe this many people stop in to read about my cur-aaaazy life. Several of my off-line friends read my blog now, and tell me how much they love these stories which spurs me on to tell them. 

Bichon Frise & Great Pyrenees Puppies for Sale!!

Looking for a darling curly lap dog to adore every move you make? My gal-pal Angel-Face has ONE  pure-bred  Bichon Frise  puppy left from  a recent litter.  Pronounced  “Bye-shawn Freeze” (not  ‘pitchen  fries’) these dogs are perfect for kids, don’t shed and have a big enough bark to keep burglars away. For a mere 300JD, you can own one…but since you are a devoted blog reader, I’m sure I can make you a deal.

Now if you want a REALLY big dog, and have UNLIMITED funds, my sister is expecting TWO litters of Great Pyrenees puppies! As far as I know, there are no GPs in Jordan. These dogs are about the size of Bichon Frise at BIRTH, and get to be about waist-high to me fully grown.  My sis has at least six of them that guard  her sheep ranch; they can fight off bears and cougars that attack the flock at night. But they are sweet shepherds to the ones they guard: when we visited, two of them  walked on either side of little Kinz everywhere she went, then slept outside the door of the guest house all night. It drove her nuts, but made me feel secure that my adventurous girl wouldn’t wander off into the woods.

Silly post, I know, but I do love puppies.