Lizards, Turkeys and Beaches......Oh My!

Scott & I want to say that we hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. We did! We started our day off by volunteering to feed the young troops. We signed up for the first hour which started at 11am so that we could get home in time to set-up for our friends. We had a great time volunteering. The young men and women were so grateful & excited to have a good Thanksgiving meal. For many of them it was their first time away from home for the holidays. I was in charge of serving mashed potatoes & Scott had the gravy & sweet potatoes. It was interesting to see how every person likes their food served differently. For example, some wanted gravy poured over everything on their plate. Others wanted their corn on top of their mashed potatoes. It was cute. In my family on Thanksgiving we didn't have mashed potatoes & gravy until about 10-years ago. I didn't know you were allowed to put gravy over anything but mashed potatoes. Good thing Scott was in charge of the gravy because he automatically asked, "What do you want the gravy on?" I would have never thought to ask that. My family had turkey, stuffed grape leaves, rice with nuts, roast beef with broiled potatoes, peas & fettuche (Lebanese salad). Stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy & cranberry sauce were all added after my sisters & I married American men. Scott & I are looking forward to volunteering again next year. It was very heart warming & I thought I would cry about a dozen times. These young men reminded me of my nephews & I just wanted to go give them a big hug. Some dressed up & were so excited.

After we were done volunteering we walked home....we still don't have our car!!!!! I cleaned and cooked. Scott relaxed & took a nap. Doesn't seem fair. Don't worry he made it up during the clean-up afterwards. We invited a few people over, it was very small. I made turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, mac & cheese, corn bread & salad. I really impressed myself. It tasted really good. Everyone really liked the food & our guests were happy to be with friends since they were away from their family. We missed being with family, though. This was my second Thanksgiving away from my family. Scott is used to being away from home during the holidays. I'm trying to get used to it. Christmas will be hard because it will be my first Christmas ever away from home :( I'll get through it. We're not sure what we'll be doing for Christmas. We're thinking of going to this 5-star hotel for brunch. It's supposed to be an amazing brunch. We'll see!

Scott does not believe in the evil eye & thinks I'm nuts to believe in it. I will always believe in the evil eye. I've seen it in action! Thanksgiving was a perfect example & I think I almost made Scott a believer. One of our guests was going on & on & on about how lucky we are to have a dish washer because she doesn't have one. I mean she really went on & on about this. I didn't think anything of it. I just agreed & said it's a must for me. I hate washing dishes by hand, especially after cooking a Thanksgiving meal like I had. Well, after we loaded the dish washer & could barely stand any longer, we started the dishwasher & were heading upstairs when all of a sudden the dish washer flooded the kitchen. Coincidence? I know not!!!!! Why of all things to get messed up would it be the dish washer? Now, this lady is a very sweet person & I don't think she meant for our dishwasher to flood the kitchen, but the evil eye is the evil eye! Fortunately Scott is a handy guy & fixed the problem the next morning.

Every weekend we take Benny to the beach. We found a secluded area where he can run free & we don't worry about him getting away. It's the beach area where Michael Jackson's compound is. He LOVES it. To be at the beach playing fetch with Scott is like being in heaven for him. It's as if I don't exist. Benny never brings me the ball, no matter how much I try to get him to bring it to me. So, I usually go shell hunting. I've collected quite a few shells. My favorite is this beautiful orange one. I also found a starfish last week. The water is gorgeous. It's a beautiful shade of turquoise. There are no waves, just calm, still water. I'm so used to hearing the waves crash along the shore, so it's weird to be at such a quiet beach. We didn't go this weekend because we are car less. We returned our piece of junk rental last Saturday because we were told we were getting our car on Sunday.....well gullible me (& Scott) again. It's Saturday of the following week & NO CAR!I can't seem to get used to how they do business out here! I'll learn eventually!

Good news on the home front! The grass is down, we have light, internet & satellite & the doggy door has been installed. I was told that someone was going to be coming by to measure for the doggy door. Well, two Indian men showed up & took the door away with them. They took it at about 9am and brought it back around 4pm. They taped up some sort of long plastic, which was really like saran wrap over the opening. Fine. Whatever. I just wanted it done at this point. They brought it back & I wasn't quite sure what to think. They cut out the opening but instead of installing a "doggy door" they reutilized the piece of door they took out and attached it with screws so that it opens & shuts. It works fine. The problem, though, is that it is so heavy that Benny doesn't want to push it open himself. He's used to a real doggy door. The other issue is that there's about 1/2 an inch opening along all 4 sides of the door & creatures can get in. The creature I'm most afraid of is a lizard. There are lizards all over the place here. They are small and thin and run really fast. I must have a dozen heart attacks a week when one scurries in front of me. So, I tape up the door at night & untape it in the morning. I will die if a lizard gets in the house. We had a dead one along the side of the house a few days ago. Scott got rid of it. He's very useful to have around!

Hard to believe that we're heading into December & that we've been here close to two-months already. Time is just flying by. Until next week, stay well & walk off those extra Thanksgiving pounds!

Isn't Tomorrow Supposed to be Twenty-Four Hours from Today?

We moved into our villa on November 6th. Boy were we excited! Finally, we could really unpack our suitcases and settle down for the next two years. I am aware that I am gullible, however, I have been trying to get better about that...which involves not taking people at their word...which I don't like. I have a long road ahead of me because I fell for every line I was given this last week and a half! Kasim, our house watchman was the first to get me. He is a nice, middle-aged Indian man, on the short side, who smells like a spice cabinet with all the really stinky spice jars left open. He is our "go to" guy for any and all problems. Well, I noticed immediately that there were many touch-up areas to be re-painted and I asked him to please re-touch them. He said, "No problem. Tomorrow." Well, that was over a week ago & I'm still looking at the areas that need to be touched up! About half the lights have burnt bulbs. "Tomorrow" Kasim said he'd have them replaced. I'm still peeing in the dark downstairs. Internet and Satellite service were supposed to be set-up "Tomorrow." but we just got the satellite service yesterday & I'm still jumping on to someone else's wireless internet provider out there. Tomorrow never seems to get here!!! Even Benny is tired of hearing about tomorrow!

We really like our place, though and are happy to be here. Our landlord is laying grass out front (unheard of over here) for Benny & he's putting in a doggy door. Once the doggy door is in & I can leave Benny for extended periods of time, I will start job hunting. There are quite a few opportunities here, I just have to decide what I want to do. Last week was spent waiting around for workers. I read two great books, Say You're One of Them & The Lovely Bones. Both sad but inspiring. I've never read two books in a week, but without satellite or internet what was I supposed to do while waiting around the house?! Included are a few pictures of the house. Once we have it set-up like we want, we'll add more.

Kasim comes to clean the house every Monday which is nice. I have to keep Benny out of the house while he cleans because he's afraid of Benny. So, we sit out front & talk to whoever walks by. The street sweepers here are actual men with brooms and a trash can that sweep the streets. There are two of them on our street & they stop by to say hello every day. The labor force here is made up of primarily Indians and Philipinos. Everyone speaks to eachother in English. So a Philipino can speak to a Bengali in English who in turn turns around and speaks to a Bahraini or Saudi in English. It's pretty funny to watch them all talking to eachother. So after Kasim finished cleaning and we came back in the house, I thought to myself, This place stinks! What the heck does he clean with? I opened all the windows, which I normally don't do because of the heat and the fact that there are no screens & I have about 11 mosquito bites on me. The smell was horrible & I was trying to think about how I could tell him.....& then I realized what had happened. He left the gas to one of the stove burners on. So, the house could have blown-up! Now, I have to watch everything he does. A funny story about getting gas here. You have to hook up this big gas tank outside with a hose that sends gas to your oven/stove. When Kasim was setting this up, he could not tell if gas was getting to the stove/oven so he asked me to smell & see if I could smell any gas. The problem was that his body odor was so strong it overpowered the gas smell. I had no idea. He kept asking, You smell, you smell? and I kept saying, I don't know. I really couldn't smell anything but him. Needless to say, it's all working now. I've been cooking up a storm! On the menu tonight: chicken tortilla soup! Even though I'm cooking, we are still going out to eat whenever we have a chance. We went to an area known as Shawarma Alley. It's a long street with Shawarma restaurants all along it. As you walk down the street each restaurant has a worker outside that practically pushes you into their restaurant, which really is like a taco stand in LA. We decided on one and they really treated us like royalty. We LOVED it. Oh was it so, so, so, so good! The meat was so tender and fragrant! We ordered mango juice as our drink. The guy juiced it right there. It was unbelievably fresh. We also tried the falafel & hummus which were to die for.

The malls here are gynormous! They have every store you can imagine and then some. One store they have is called: The Home Store. It's like a high-end Ikea. Our landlord told us to go there and pick out a new sofa & to get new bedding for the bedrooms. Well, how excited was I to shop on someone else's dime? I dragged Scott there & we spent about 2-hours trying to decide and coming to a fair compromise. I found it interesting that they put up signs letting you know what's not on sale, so you don't get confused!

There is a bridge that connects Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Saudi Arabia but not forbidden in Bahrain. Every weekend bahrain is flooded with Saudis (men & women) who cross over to drink. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Once they enter Bahrain they rent cars and drive like maniacs. The unspoken rule here is, do not go out on weekends because you might be struck by a drunk Saudi! The excessive drinking they do is really sad. They start drinking at breakfast & they really don't stop. We went out with some friends who had a Saudi friend visiting. He was in his 50's and is apparently worth $6 billion bucks! He payed for everything!!!!!! Scott & I were very uncomfortable around him though. When we first met him at our friend's house he did not want to talk to you unless you had a beer. He & I didn't talk much. He spoke to Scott, though. Anyhow, in the 2-3 hours that we were with him, I witnessed him drink 15 beers. He could not even stand up. Alcohol is not sold in stores here, but is served at restaurants in hotels. I don't know where they get all the beer they drink when they are not in hotels.

Our car is not here yet! We rented a real piece of junk, but it gets us around. I drove a few times. It's pretty easy here. The only danger seems to be at 4-way stops. Noone stops. They all slow down and maneuver around eachother. Scott keeps yelling at me when I stop. That scares the heck out of me. I've been honked at a few times....oh well I just honk right back, but I do not add hand gestures :) I was walking back from the store two days ago & I was crossing the street at one of these 4-way stops. I was 3/4 of the way through the cross walk when this lady all burka'd up decided to turn left without stopping and missed me by about 2-feet. I put my hands up & yelled and she smiled and waved. I think she thought I was saying hello. The guy driving behind her, an American in his pick-up was shaking his head and put his hands up in the what are you gonna do? motion. I just kept walking.

Thanks to everyone who sent those nice messages to Scott thanking him for his service on Veterans Day via facebook & e-mail. I passed them all on to him. We are grateful to have so many wonderful friends! On a sad note, we can't get Glee over here. I am so bummed out about it. We have the upgraded satellite package & the Armed Forces Network which adds extra channels, but no Glee. I am also unable to stream shows via Hulu or other on-line networks. they don't stream outside of the USA. We have one last trick to try & that is to purchase the episodes via i-tunes and play them from the computer to our TV. We will be trying that soon. If not, we'll wait and buy the first season on DVD. We are slowly realizing all the little luxuries we took for granted and are starting to miss!

Well, I guess we're all caught up for now. Sorry about the delay in this post. Now that I have access to the internet, things should be back to normal! Hope you all have a great week!