Au Revoir, Abu Dhabi

Well goodness. It has been a long time since I last wrote here; so much has happened and so very much has changed. As you will see, the original raison d'etre of "kittens" no longer exists. To blog or not to blog; we must decide that later.

My last entry was about our delayed vacation. There were pros and cons to our postponing it by two weeks though I would not recommend letting your passport expire and thereby shaving several years off your life to anyone. Since we moved overseas we haven't been coming home in the summer at all; we normally come back at Christmas because it seemed hard to make my poor mother-in-law face the holidays totally alone. But travelling at that time of year is a major hassle. There are gifts to bring - oh I can name any number of inconveniences. So this year, with Norris's blessing we decided to make our annual pilgrimage in the summer and save our Christmas trip for something fun, like skiing.

At this point we are still reflecting upon the echos of my selfishness. By coming home in August we were in a position to notice that Norris, already thin, had lost a noticable amount of weight. When pressed about it she admitted she couldn't eat a bite before the late afternoon. Of course we told her she needed to see a doctor but she angrily demanded to know what a doctor was going to do for her. And that was kind of the end of it.

Which didn't stop us from going to the doctor. Connie went a few doors down to have a physical with the same doctor who has been treating him and his family all his life. A couple of weeks after we returned back to Abu Dhabi, Norris went to pay Dr. Bolton for his visit and at that time she confessed that she wasn't eating, she was very tired and things weren't right.

He ran some tests and after that Connie got a call from him saying that Norris pretty much had cancer, and a lot of it. In her liver and maybe her lungs and probably she had six to nine months. We knew immediately that we had to move home. When we called Norris she said she would be fine and she was mad at Doctor Bolton for calling us and the last thing she wanted was for us to move there. (More about Norris's incessant worrying at another time).

More tests were done in Memphis. We started the process of detaching from our Abu Dhabi existence. Her prognosis kept shifting; it went from months to weeks. First we were going to move in November. Then she went into the hospital to have a stent put in her liver to help her enzyme count. We speeded up our plans. Then they found they couldn't operate. Should we just come now? Then her cancer doctor said he wasn't giving up just yet. The things they were doing for her couldn't help her much, they were just trying to slow things down and give her, and us, some time. "I hate to tell you", she said, "everyone is waiting for you to show up here like some white knight".

We sold our boat, our truck. A friend agreed to take over my sweet little Filipina maid. The cats had to get shots and carriers and documents. We had to sell everything that plugs into the wall because the power is 220 over there. We had movers in the house for a week because they had to squeeze us into their schedule. Robert had to be withdrawn from school and enrolled in a new one here.

And everyday Connie would talk to Norris. Sometimes she would sound pretty good. She wasn't alone; people visited her everyday. She had a big tumor on her bile duct. The plan was to bring her home with hospice care. "Are you going to make it til we get there?" I asked her. "I don't know" she said, 'I really don't". Every giant step we made, she would slide a few steps back. Connie's cousin Johnny told us, "Just get here as soon as you can".

So on October 18th at 11:55 pm we flew out of Abu Dhabi airport for probably the last time, with four cats and seven bags. On the 19th of October at around 6:00pm we showed up at Memphis International. By the time we made it through customs, rented a vehicle large enough to hold all of us and all our stuff and made the hour long drive to Covington it was 8:00 at night, too late and too tired to turn around and drive back to the hospital in Memphis.

Connie called the hospital and talked to his Mom for a little bit, just long enough to let her know we were here. She didn't sound good, and then she put the phone down. When he tried to call back, it was off the hook. And the next morning she was gone.

So jet lag and a funeral. And lots of questions. The answers so far:

Robert is in a good school here and likes it. We'd like him to go to one high school for all four years, so it looks like we're staying at least that long. There is also the matter of Mama Irene, Connie's 97 year old grandmother currently residing in a nursing home. She needs to be looked after so we need to be close-by for that. Honeywell has worked with Connie and he will have a new position and work from home. Norris's house will never fit all her stuff and ours too so we are buying ourselves a house and eventually selling hers. The cats are fine. We are okay. Everybody misses Norris and can't believe she just left us like that.

Now this would be no fun without any pictures so here are some of the things I will miss most about Abu Dhabi:

The fashion


the chickens


the signs


the souvenirs


the camels


my pretty white truck


the architecture


the bling (if you can, zoom in on the "Range Rover" logo)


So, au revoir, Abu Dhabi, bonjour, Covington. It's nice to be back, it's nice to be home. To all of you who have sent condolences, prayers and good wishes, thank you.

I'm pretty sure this is not the last of it.

love,
Jaimie

Holidays in the Sun and More

It's hot and it's Ramadan, which puts me into a bit of a lazy stupor. When I finally decided that a month was plenty of time to recover from even the very worst case of jet lag and that I had really better get this blog working or risk losing touch with reality altogether, I realized that I had enough raw material for two posts. Or at the least, one very jam-packed exciting one. So let's get started, shall we?

When I last left you, we were nervously anticipating our departure on our painfully delayed vacation to London and the States. I am happy to report we made it safely to London. There was a lot of patting down of pockets and endless checking and rechecking that we hadn't forgotten anything. Fortunately, all our papers seemed to be in order and all proceeded according to plan until we arrived at our hotel in London and were informed that not only was our room not ready for us (no less than I expected as it was only 9:00am) but the current occupant was not obligated to vacate it until 4:00pm. Whew. When you've been wedged into a seat in economy all night that is not the most welcome news.

Of course we were determined to make the best of it as we only had a few days in London, so we went for breakfast and then headed out to see what London was like these days. The day was sunny and temperate so we walked up towards Picadilly Circus, bought some guidebooks at the bookstore and then headed over to Trafalgar Square and then Westminster. We were just doing a ground tour, so no museums or visits. As we approached the river we saw the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel built for the Millenium celebrations. It was stunning. We decided to come back to it later in the day.

Instead, we took a ferry from Embankment, and had a nice long boat ride up the Thames to Greenwich. I've always wanted to do this and thought the guys would enjoy a visit to the Royal Observatory. Once we got to Greenwich it was still a bit of a hike through the town, across the park and up the hill. The observatory itself is fascinating with a collection of old telescopes and a camera obscura among other interesting things. But my main objective was to see the dateline. When you live overseas you spend so much time calculating hours +GMT before you can call anyone, well I wanted to see the damn thing. You can stand with your feet on either side of the line and be in both the eastern and western hemispheres at once. It being such a beautiful summer day, I should have known there would be a line to see the line. People were politely queuing up, even though there was no fee, to have their pictures taken, standing on the line. And that's when I realized what I had forgotten - no menehune! How could I have left him behind? I only have about six of them! The menehune astride the international dateline, his feet in both worlds; it would have been perfect! Ah, me. (There is actually a Trader Vic's in London as you may recall from Warren Zevon's famous song, "Werewolves of London", but I wasn't about to go there. Though, tempted!)

I, on the other hand, in my exhausted condition and condescending frame of mind (tourist - moi?) would not wait on line even a nanosecond to have my own, no doubt hideous, picture taken straddling the dateline; so I did what I consider to be the next best, or even better, thing: I took photos of other people doing it.



People waiting...

to do this,

and this.


After that little adventure we made our way back to the river and had lunch in a nice pub. We took the light rail back into town and found our way again to the gigantic London Eye, only to find a line, just to wait in line, for tickets. This was pretty late in the afternoon and I had a mini meltdown. Quickly though, I discovered a solution to my problem. I basically paid double to jump the queue and go immediately on the Eye. To be quite honest, I was exhausted and hot but judging from the photos it was a memorable experience. Afterwards, we flopped around in the park like a bunch of hippies, people watching and drinking soda, gathering our strength for our journey back to the hotel.





It's like the Eiffel Tower of London!



When at last we turned up tired and expectant around 6:00pm, long after the room was supposed to be ready and awaiting us, we were very discouraged to find that the occupant had only just checked-out and had left it in very bad shape. We had to wait another hour in the bar during which I was rapidly losing the will to live. We did finally get our room and a very nice one it was. We had room service and passed out.

Which turned out to be our routine. Early to rise, breakfast, sightseeing, a nice lunch somewhere, making our way back to the hotel late in the afternoon, a drink in the bar, room service and lights out. We had great plans of shows and concerts but we were always too tired to do more than order up dinner and try not to fall asleep before it got to us.

We went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. Robert and I went to Harrod's where he spent almost all his allowance on candy. We spent a very memorable morning at the Nottinghill Market on Portabello Road where I bought some prints which only just fit into our suitcases. But mostly we just walked around, looking at London and the people who live and visit there.

Filming a movie of "Gulliver's Travels".



Notting Hill Market. Not for the agoraphobic.


On to Houston. But first we had to spend an excruciatingly long layover in Miami International Airport. There are a lot of terrible airports out there and suprisingly, Miami has one of the worst. We had grand plans of a day in Miami but honestly, after a nine hour flight and another hour waiting for baggage we were just too shattered and paranoid to leave the airport. Then our flight was delayed an hour. But we made it to Houston at last and spent a few days relaxing, and socializing with old friends who we haven't seen in awhile. Then it was off to Connie's hometown of Covington, Tennessee.


I really wanted this sign but the price was exorbitant.


So I guess I'd better tell the "Klutek Fi Derklan" story. (Hope I spelled it right). When we let Connie's friends know we were coming to town, his friend Tim started sending out e-mails that were, to our eyes, complete gibberish. What we didn't realize was that far from gibberish, this was a new language. A language without meaning , but still, a language. Anyway, on our first day in Covington, Tim and his lovely wife, Linda, and their embarrassed daughter Lana, stopped by with a gift: Matching yellow t-shirts for Connie and I. On the back, printed in big capital letters was the logo "Klutek Fi Derklin"; on the front, Summer Tour 2009 with line drawings of the senior pictures of Tim, Connie, Andy and David. You must see to believe. This is the gang that went to see Twilight in December and apparently we were all going to wear matching shirts on our next group outing...


Andy and Denise in day-glo orange.


Which turned out to be a visit to a local winery the very next day. We sat on the lawn, drinking the local harvest, listening to a band play classic rock (You gotta appreciate a group that plays "Sweet Home Alabama" followed immediately by "Southern Man".) There were kids and dogs, motorcyles and barbeque-on-a-stick. It was great. However, it was a little warm for our beefy-T's and I had to change out of mine. At the end of the day, one cute little bartender finally mustered up the courage to ask Connie what the shirts meant. "Everybody is dying to know", she told him, "It's a band, right?"

That was our vacation: three holidays in one, and none of them quite long enough. We don't like to wear out our welcome. So maybe we can come back next year. KLUTEK FI DERKLIN!


Connie enjoying the day and his shirt.

Arts & Life, 23 Jul 2009. Page 1

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Arts & Life
23 Jul 2009

Hamlet Ate My Brain (apparently)

Hi, all. By now, most of you know that I recently played Hamlet in an all-female adaptation of the famous Shakespeare play. With only five weeks to prepare, I spent most of my time cramming lines and going to daily 4 and 5 hour rehearsals. The massive effort this required from my poor brain seems to have sapped it of any feck it once had. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Our director, Maggie, a theatre instructor at our local Abu Dhabi branch of the New York Film Academy, produced this version of the play in London using paid actors, so I was very honored that she entrusted me with this part. Her reworking of the play is meant to present the story through the eyes of the women involved, some of the most passive in Shakespeare's canon. Naturally, the play was shortened and all extraneous characters were removed, ie. Horatio, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Yorick, etc. The ghost of Hamlet's father appears to him in his own mind so I spoke all those lines myself. I also performed the play within the play, using large puppets. There was sword fighting; I was very mean to Ophelia and very rude to Polonius whom I strangled instead of stabbed. I tried my best to act like a guy but I'm not sure that was the point really. I would like to say it was fun but rehearsals rarely are, and I was mostly just paranoid about my lines. No one ever wanted to "run lines" with me because everything I said was a big long speech. Hamlet has the most lines of any character in any Shakespeare play. What a chatterbox.


Here are Angie, who played Laertes, Mira who was the real Polonius (I had to strangle the dummy Polonius, pictured above), and Tamar who played an amazonian Ophelia to my napoleonic Hamlet.



The staging of the show was also unusual, certainly by Abu Dhabi standards. Though we were in a small auditorium with a stage, we set the action down on the floor, with tables for the actors to sit at and chairs all around us on risers so the audience was looking down on us. There were even some bean bags in the middle for brave folks who really wanted to be part of the action. I had to step over some legs more than once and nearly kicked someone's drink over. That kind of setting is guaranteed to add intimacy to your production!


These are the dolls I used for the "play within the play". See what I have to work with here? Sheesh.



Intimacy was definitely the vibe we were going for. We only ran the show for two nights, with about 30 people each night. I thought I would be terrified with the audience so close but in the end I found that the energy really carried me through. The people who did show up were well entertained and fairly surprised by the whole thing. I found it extremely invigorating and quite the interesting summer "project". A local paper , "The National" seemed to find it interesting as well. They ran a video interview on Abu Dhabi TV and mentioned us in a news article about live theatre in the UAE. ( Hey, its a small town.)



My only cast photo. I look like an urchin and the toilet to the side is a nice effect. All I can say is I didn't take it.



The plan was, once the play was finished, I would focus on getting the family ready for our summer vacation: a few days in London and then off to the US for a couple of weeks. Let me tell you, we were the model of travel efficiency here. Boarding passes printed out, seats selected, tickets to Billy Elliott in London, Astros tickets in Houston, cars rented, hotels lined up, bags packed up, taxi on the way. Every last detail one could possibly think of, met with and dealt with. Except for one.

I was upstairs putting the final things into my carry-on bag (can I bring my knitting or not?...) when Connie called to me to come downstairs. Now he is very OCD and paranoid and always blows things out of proportion, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that something very bad indeed had come to pass. And for once he was right -- Robert's passport had expired.

How could such a thing happen? You may well ask. A child's passport is only good for five years, so his is not in sync with ours. Our visas expire in 2010, so perhaps I had that date stuck in my brain. When we returned from our vacation in January I knew his passport needed to be renewed, but in January, June seems a long time away. So, I just forgot. The only explanation I can muster is this: Hamlet ate my brain!

The rest of the evening is best not related in too much detail. It was like the stages of dying: denial, bartering, trying to cheat our way out of it, at last acceptance and getting our affairs in order. Much, much time was spent on the phone. A word to the unwise: if you think your travel plans might get screwed up, don't use Travelocity. BA wouldn't even talk to us because we had used an "agent". After much begging, admission of guilt, re-telling of our pathetic story to various call center idiots, being at one point HUNG UP ON, and just plain refusing to give up or take "you are so screwed" for an answer, Connie was finally able to get the trip pushed back for two week. They wanted to charge us $2000 extra for the privilege, but we agreed to fly through Miami and sit there all day until we fly to Houston, all for the low, low price of $500. I had to pay to not lose our frequent flyer points we used to book our flights to Tennessee. The hotels had no sense of humor at all until I told them I would rebook for two weeks later. Thank the Lord, the ticket broker in London was able to resell two of our three tickets to "Billy Elliott", and the Astros, through Ticketmaster, kindly refunded our money for 10 tickets.

The embassy says Robert's new passport ought to be ready tomorrow, but if not, we can get him an emergency passport, good for ninety days. The trip, therefore, is back on. The bloom is somewhat off the rose, but we are determined to enjoy ourselves nonetheless. There may even be dividends to our being forced to postpone for two weeks. I do believe the weather in London will be better.

There is an expression in Arabic, "inshallah", that gets tossed around here a lot. It literally means, "God willing", but people tend to use it as "well, it's in God's hands now, so don't blame me if I don't do what I said I was going to do or when I said I would". But lately, I've grown to appreciate that it really does mean, "everything is fine and will happen as it should; unless, of course, God decides differently". Though I'm not an overtly religious person, I can say to you now, inshallah , we will be flying to London on Thursday night.

I'm sorry I don't have many pictures for you this month, but here are the links to the news story and the TV interview if you didn't see them before.

Hmmm. Well, I tried, but I can't seem to perform this bit of multimedia magic. Another time perhaps.

Enjoy the last bits of summer. I will write again when I get back.

x's and o's,

Jaimie

What the heck, I'll raid the archives for you; surely I can come up with something.

My friend, Alanda, poses with the charming menehune (still nameless) at Pappasito's in Houston. It's okay, I don't think she ever reads my blog. (Cue outraged response).



It don't mean a thing if it aint got that bling. Click on photo to gaze on swarovski crystals.

Enough. Bye.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I remember saying I was bored. Since then I've been to the states to attend my niece's wedding in New Orleans. Then I had jet lag. Then I got sick. Not swine flu or hiney flu or whatever they're calling it, still, I felt pretty crappy. But the really crazy thing that happened is this: I went to an audition for an all-female cast version of Hamlet thinking at my age I could only really be suitable for the part of Polonius, or Claudius, maybe Gertrude in a pinch. Well lucky me, I got cast as Hamlet and ever since I've been frantically learning lines and going to daily rehearsals. But more about that later.

When my niece, Amy, or Amanda as everyone else seems to call her, told me she was getting married there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would attend the wedding. First of all, she's my first niece, and there are not too many nieces in the Aldridge family. Secondly, she's the first to get married. Thirdly, I'm crazy about her, fourthly the wedding was to be held in New Orleans, etc.

Amy, the lovely bride "insisted" on posing with the menehune.



Mostly everyone in our family has been married at least a couple of times. When Amy was engaged at eighteen, I recommended that in view of our family history she might consider skipping the first marriage and wait for the second. Apparently, I also suggested that seeing how everyone in our family is very immature, that none of us should get married at all before thirty. So it seems she took my advice; at least she didn't get married in her teens. So I for sure wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to cast eyes on this guy and help welcome into the family. Did I mention the wedding was in New Orleans?

My only worry as my plane touched down in the Big Easy was that after three days hanging out in the French Quarter, eating and drinking with my family, when it came time for the actual wedding I would look like a zombie stuffed into a party dress. Oh well. What can you do?


Here is my brother Jim. I'd like to say he's just being a good sport, but actually he acts like this all the time.



We left very little undone. We roamed up and down Bourbon street, rode the bull at Bourbon Cowboy (the groom's stepmom insisted - and I'm telling you it aint as easy as it looks even after a shot of something that comes in a plastic test tube) ate barbequed shrimp, red beans, boudin, gumbo, oyster po boys and muffellatas. Every time I would escape for a little time on my own, as I'd be heading back to the hotel, I'd get a message on my cell phone: meet in the bar at the hotel in (what was usually) one hour. God! No rest for the wicked. I even went to the casino two nights. The first night I went with Adam and his family, the next night I dragged some of my nephews along. I actually won at black jack and the second night at craps. Not a lot, but enough to walk away happy.


Duh, just my favorite shop sign ever!



The wedding itself was beautiful. Held in the courtyard of the Hotel St. Louis, the ceremony was brief but lovely. We ate, we drank, we danced to famous disco hits. Towards the end of the evening, one of the bridesmaids handed me a nicely pressed white napkin from a basket she was carrying. Assuming it was to blot my sweaty brow, I wiped my face with it and set it aside. Moments later, she chastised me for losing my hankie and gave me another with instructions to hold on to it this time. Then I noticed we were all being herded into the lobby from which I could hear strains of dare I say, marching band music?

What happened next is a little tricky to describe. I was swept along with the other guests, out into the street, where we found the bride and groom dancing to the accompaniment of a four piece marching band while holding parasols over their heads. We then formed a procession behind them, dancing and waving our hankies over our heads, along Bourbon Street and around a full block of the French Quarter, on a Saturday night. I wish my elegant but dainty evening bag had been large enough to hold my camera because the people who stood on the sidewalks watching US (including a rather large party dressed entirely in their pjs and slippers) was a show in itself. I couldn't stop laughing to think that we were part of THEIR New Orleans experience!

After all that I just didn't have that much left in me. My feet were numb for days afterwards. I really need to rethink the whole dancing in high heels thing.

Here he is, liking it HOT. I've noticed that some folks have given their menehune a name, but alas mine does not have one. Suggestions?




Of course I made it back safe and sound and can report to you that New Orleans is still a wonderful place to go, especially for a wedding, and doubly especially if you happen to be there with any or all of the myriad branches and offshoots of my crazy, wonderful family.

I've gone on too long again so I'll have to get back to you on that Hamlet thing. Don't worry; I promise it will be soon.


This is Tamar, who plays Ophelia, my love interest in the play. Har har.


Stay cool, stay classy (LOL),
love,
Jaimie





Bob graduated from Middle School amidst all the hubbub. Way to go sweetie, it was rough sailing there for a while!

Chairman of the Bored

One of my favorite Iggy Pop songs is "I'm Bored". It goes like this: "I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored.....I'm the chairman of the bored!" ( I think it's on the same album as "Lust for Life". Back when we were pogoing to the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers, we never dreamed that one day in our dotage, Iggy would be shilling for Carnival Cruises. ANYhoo...).

It's not that I haven't got anything to do. I have a sweater to knit. Pictures to cut out of all the decorating magazines I hoard. A novel to write (snicker). My guitar to practice. The yoga mat sits in the corner tightly furled. An unfinished pastel drawing beckons me from the easel in my art room. (That's okay, it's been sitting there since we arrived.) There are nice little stacks of self help manuals, encouraging me to help myself. It all sounds so... so... well intentioned. Unfortunately, I need OUT!

As usually happens this time of year, the temperatures have finally passed the 100 degree mark, so it's the movies or blog. You win. For now. I may go to the movies later.

Robert, however, knows how to amuse himself.
Here he is doing some recon before a paintball battle.

And here he is trying his uh, hand, at indoor skydiving.


I do have a few adventures to relate. I somehow managed to botch any chance of our having a real vacation over Robert's spring break by leaving it to the last minute and not talking to the right people. As a result we went to the east coast of the UAE for a few days, Fujairah and environs. While most of the time we stick to the coast for beach and diving purposes, this time we decided to do a bit of what is known as "wadi bashing". A wadi is a dry stream bed found in the foothills of the Hajar mountains. Since they are usually dry, they are used as extremely bumpy roads (think about the bottom of a river bed) in all the small villages of the area and can take you to some interesting places. One of these places we decided to check out is called Bithna Fort, a three hundred year old fort in the middle of an oasis. It is in the process of being renovated; it's only made of mud, rocks and palm fronds so some restoration is required to keep it from crumbling away.


Mountains, oasis, old fort. Very nice.


As we were leaving Bithna behind, a man in a jeep on the main road slowed down and honked a greeting at us. I guess he was being friendly, plus he wanted us to see the good sized MONKEY he had riding shotgun. I am sorry but I could not get my camera out in time. Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you.

There are all kinds of wild life romping about freely in these villages: goats, sheep and if you can believe it, wild DONKEYS! I'd see one just sitting by the side of the road sunning himself and say "Stop! Stop! Donkey!" But we'd be too far past to get a picture and when we went back, it would be gone. I make this promise you here and now: I will not rest until I have a picture of one of those donkeys for you.


Inside Bithna fort. Sorry, can't think of anything funny to say here. Suggestions?


After the monkey sighting we headed to another village to view a place called Hayer Palace of similar vintage as the Bithna fort. There we had the misfortune to fall into the clutches of a tour guide not unlike the one who tortured us in Berlin last summer. He met us at the car, took us into every nook and cranny of every room in every building, made us squeeze through narrow passages up tiny dark ladders, spoke very fractured english and wouldn't take no for an answer for anything. For instance, "I don't need to climb up this latest scary, dangerous looking , dark ladder to nowhere, I'll wait down here" , "Yes madam, just go. Yes go now. Yes madam, you go." Then, at the end when we attempted to pay him off to get out of there, he wanted dollars or euros! The mind boggles, as they say.

Aside from that exciting expedition, we have managed to do a bit of local diving. The seas have simply been too rough for us to take our little boat out, but perhaps this weekend. I had a little Twilight party at my home for my friends who didn't get a chance to see the movie. And this last weekend we had something genuinely special here in Abu Dhabi: WOMAD, or World Of Music And Dance. This is an international festival of World Music that was started by Peter Gabriel some years back and travels from country to country. It was a three day line-up of some incredible music and dance acts that you simply wouldn't see anywhere else, set up on two stages on the beach. It was very well organized and very well done. The first night I went with a girlfriend and we saw a Brazilian group, Marcio Local and a couple of Algerian singers, Souad Massi and most notably the famous Rai singer, Khaled. It was all wonderful but the final act didn't even take the stage until midnight. Gluttons for punishment, however pleasant, we went back the second night to see a crazy-good Chinese singer called Sa Ding-Ding (otherwise known as the Bjork of Mongolia) and the headliner, Youssou N'dour. We were so thoroughly exhausted by the third day that we couldn't summon the strength to go back and so missed Robert Plant singing with some English folk musicians which was probably the best act of the whole festival. But I did give it my most valiant effort.


The flags of WOMAD. The artist designs new ones for each location. Beautiful.


Sa Ding-Ding.


So you see, while I am bored at present and longing for escape, it's only because I have grown so used to the excitement that is my life. Ahahahahahahahhahhahah! I think I'll go eat a cookie. And maybe I will go to the movies after all.


Love,
Jaimie

If it weren't so funny I'd cry. I would not recommend that you buy this particular product.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder...

Well hey now, here it is almost the end of March and I very nearly let the month slip by without a message to you. Per the usual, I don't really have all that much to say, but I suppose I can come up with something.

Our bit of excitement for March was a trip to the eastern coast of the UAE to do some diving. Connie and I are in the process of obtaining our Sports Diver certification which requires us to perform a series of (underwater) tasks in the company of a qualified diving instructor over the course of several dives. Even though the water is still what I would call FREEZING but to others may only seem chilly, we had an offer of training from a fellow member of our dive club so we decided to take him up on it. A group of us met up at the dive club villa in Khor Fakkhan on Thursday night with plans to set off bright and early the next morning.

Well, around these parts, there is always a story. Several weeks ago, in some choppy seas, due to high winds, a fishing boat got stranded. I don't have the exact details but it seems that a coast guard member fell and was lost while jumping from his boat to the disabled one. Since that time, if the weather is good, they will only send the fishermen out decked in bright red life jackets. Contrary to what would seem to be common sense, none of these guys knows how to swim. On other days, if there is even a breath of wind, nobody at all whatsoever is allowed out by the coast guard. Never mind that diving is a huge tourist draw here. Or that we are all certified divers, swimmers, boat handlers and first aid givers. Or that we typically set out with enough food, drink, oxygen and flotation devices to see us through any minor disaster. Or that if by some strange twist of fate anything should ever befall us, the absolute last people on earth we would be remotely tempted to call would be the local coast guard.

Understandably, it was with fingers crossed that we launched our boat into the water on Friday morning. Everything looked to be okay but things can change pretty quickly on the ocean. By the time we had gassed up the boat and made it to the coast guard shack, the breeze was up and the waves were a bit choppy. Nothing that we couldn't deal with. But the answer was sorry, no, and no amount of pleading, yelling and talking to supervisors on the phone was going to change that. So back to the villa we went and alternative plans were discussed.

In the end, since Connie and I were there on a mission, we made the decision to try a shore dive from the public beach. This is not ideal since you have to trek down to the water with all your gear on your back through ankle-deep sand. I felt like I was training for some special ops mission. And though I was wearing a wet suit, it was really cold. But we completed our tasks and even saw a couple of unusual sea creatures including a hermit crab transporting a sea anemone on its back.

For the next day we had the following choice: try the coast guard again, or drive to Dibba, in Oman and hop aboard a dhow for the day. A dhow is a large traditional boat which lends itself very nicely to leisurely sea excursions. Read comfy, but slow. In other words, we would start out early, be gone all day, and have to make the 3 hour drive back to Abu Dhabi that night.


These are dhows.


I guess it wouldn't be much of a story if we didn't take the dhow would it?


Bob drinking coffee. On the dhow.


It was a lovely day. Dhows are perfect for diving because there is lots of space to store gear and tanks. Plus, even though it's slow ( it actually took us 3 hours to get to our diving site) you wouldn't want to make that trip at all in a little dive boat because it's the open sea. There was plenty of food and drink and places to stretch out and snooze or read. And the scenery is nothing short of breathtaking.


The port of Dibba.


Since, again, Connie and I were in training, we didn't set out to do any underwater sightseeing but we did have the bonus of seeing a huge school of squid, a couple of nice moray eels and some tiny rock lobsters. We performed all our necessary assignments with skill and aplomb (or so I am told) and now only a couple of items stand between us and our sports diver credentials.

Sailing into the sunset.


The trip back to port, back to the villa and then back to Abu Dhabi was exhausting and in the end I caught a mini-flu which doesn't sound bad but it was. I'm over it now and finally well rested enough to complete the rest of our requirements. But first I am going to see COLDPLAY at the Emirates Palace on Saturday which is going to be awesome and I'm seriously psyched or at least I will be as soon as I can off load these 2 extra tickets that I bought for some inane reason. Let me know if you want them!

love Jaimie


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