This is Proof Positive my hubby loves me!
This was waiting for me when I arrived at his house in Bahrain...Pepsi and Lay's Mesquite BBQ Kettle Cooked potato chips.
Heaven!
Ahhhh, Pepsi - the taste born in the Carolinas - New Bern, to be exact.
So yummy with the extra crunchy, super barbeque-ey potato chips.(They are truly divine...amazing crunch!)
Mmmmm....tasteeee.
Check this out...all you need is a Pick Up Truck and NASCAR.
Yeeee--haw, ya'll!
If you click on the picture, you can see more detail. The red and white flag is the Bahraini flag.
I mentioned that hubs and I went driving around Bahrain.
(I also mentioned that I meant that quite literally...we did a loop around the island - AND stopped to see sights.)
This was one of the more unusual things I saw: Bahraini camping.
This is their version of: Back to Nature.
They go into the center-ish area of the island on the weekends and put up what were, to me - elaborate tents - nomad style. (Mind you, many of these tents have electricity of some sort - I saw antennas.) They also had access to water - some of it looked like the kind you'd see on sailboats.
Here's a picture of what you'd think of as a "stereotypical" Arab tent with carpets.
Hubs has heard that the weekend camping festivities are mostly a "males only", "boys club" kind of weekend....meaning that part of the reason they go out there is for purposes of hanky panky, ie prostitutes.
Frankly, I was never much of a roughing it kind of gal --- that's probably not much of a shocker, and out here, not only are you camping, but there's all the dirt and dust. (No bugs, I bet.) Shoot, I can't even walk outside without my feet getting filthy.
So, I don't know if the wives would be that upset to be left at home.
I wonder how "accepted" the prostitution really is. Apparently, the Saudis come to Bahrain on the weekends in part for the prostitutes, and then there are the tent weekends so the boys can get their prost-tent-utes. (Give me an "e" for effort there...I could have said something about tents and tatas...I'll save it for the breast cancer site.)
From what I've gathered of the lingerie stores...things might be covered and subdued in public, but it doesn't look like it's that way at home! Pretty racy stuff...very Frederick's of Hollywood. So, if that's the outlet...what's up with the prostitution??
Anyway...back to the Rednecks...
I did see some families out with their four wheelers. If you're into that kind of thing, this would certainly be a fabulous place to do it...lots of desert, lots of hills, lots of dust.
And last picture...I had to throw this in. This looks like an entrance to a race track...reminded me of NASCAR.
I just love that there are rednecks everywhere! Up in New England, they call 'em Swamp Yankees...lots of 'em in this parts. (More than I'd ever imagined growing up in the South.)
This is actually a compound.
If you look closely, you can see a structure in the background, in the center. If I recall correctly, that's one of the water towers...if not that, it's an antenna.
I mentioned NASCAR...but being Bahrain, they don't do NASCAR, but they do have Formula One Racing. We drove past the track.
Hubs says it's crazy busy when the races are open.
Just a little over a month ago, I was on the phone with a good friend of mine. We were talking about one of our favorite topics...creating our ideal life.
We were making a list of things and experiences we wanted to add to our lives.
We both put the following two things on our lists:
1. Maid Service The maid, Mimi, lives in the building, comes once a week, does an amazing job and is a really nice person. I've only cooked a couple of times here...every restaurant delivers, and I mean every restaurant - even fast food like Burger King. (And, no, we haven't been eating fast food.) I've been enjoying Al Abraj and the Indian butter chicken from a place called Georgia's. When I want breakfast, I've just walked onto the base. (Tonight, we actually going to Al Abraj with friends for dinner...Al Abraj is the place where I get the lemon mint juices...got one again today after lunch, and I watched the guy make it so I'd know how.) My point here is not to say, "Neh, neh, neh. Look at what I have." My point here is look at how EASY it was to get. I'm not making any more money than I was when I made the list. I didn't even have to go out and interview anyone. Yet here I am in another fabulous house, with an amazing maid, and meal service...ordering out for great food whenever I want. I became fascinated with "how the universe" works and with success and health and money during my run-in with cancer. I saw things happen in my own body that were not supposed to be possible. I had great doctors, but I created that health in my head first. I decided in my head how I wanted the surgery to go...and what's funny, is that my four-hour surgery ended up taking less than two...when I imagined the surgery, I didn't know all the middle part so I would "fast forward" through those steps. Doctors and attending said it was like some simple outpatient surgery - not a double mastecomy with reconstuction! Turns out that my daddy was right. Life really is, "Mind over Matter." He would always say that. That's what's going on here with the maids and the meals. All I did was declare what I desired...and here's the key, I imagined myself having it. I was excited about having it. We get things in out HEAD first. If you can think it, you can have it, do it, be it. Our HEART brings it to us. Feeling is the fuel. It is really that simple. But, I had thought about having a maid for a while...especially after I recovered from the mastecomy and was reevaluating how I wanted to spend my time...cancer will make you think hard about how you spend your precious time, and I didn't want to spend mine cleaning! I even had gotten business cards from a couple of services...but I hadn't made the calls or taken action. (Part of the problem was that "having a maid" didn't fit in with the Puritan ideals of hard work. Having a maid seemed decadent...even for me. Again,the feeling wasn't supporting belief or even wish.) So, what was different this time? Why would this declaration about having a maid be any different? Here's what it is...I declared it. I tried to picture it in my head - I've never had a maid so I didn't know what it'd be like, but I imagined it, and I got excited about it...and let it go. As long as you WANT something, you will never have it.(Reread that until it sinks in.) I started acting as though I already had one. I would think about my life as though the maid were already present. ...And a few weeks later, I'm in Bahrain with a maid - and an amazing one at that. She's great! Cleans really well - and I'm picky! I expect someone to do the kind of job I would do. Having the maid here has given me a "taste" of that experience, of what it would be like to have a maid. (And it's pretty great.) Every night for dinner it's just a matter of deciding whether we want Thai, Indian, American, Mexican, or fast food. The Trick - or the place where people get tripped up - What's been interesting is that I found that I was actually uncomfortable having someone do things for me that I'd normally do. I'd said for a long time that it'd be nice to have a maid, or I'd say how much I really wanted a maid. Yet, when I actually got one, I was uncomfortable. I didn't know how to act. This is important because if what we say we want doesn't agree with how we feel, we'll never get anywhere with the goal. Your feeling is the fuel, remember? So it was important for me to notice that I was uncomfortable and then learn how "to be" with a maid service. It was important to "learn", yet again, how to be taken care of. The first day Mimi was here, I spilled something on the floor. I grabbed a paper towel, and as I went to wet it, Mimi - who was doing the dishes - insisted that she would take care of it, and shoo-ed me away. Notice that I had to get "used to" the experience. Know that you can get "used to" an experience even if the only experience you've got of "the thing" is in your mind and feeling. Notice also where I first created this experience...in my head and with feeling!! I'm realizing that we are all making this so very hard, and it was never meant to be that way. Once I got the idea, image and feeling, I didn't DO anything or work harder - just the opposite. It came to me. Important: If you aren't getting what you desire, I can guarantee you that there's a mismatch between your thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Now that I've had this experience, I'm in a situation to recreate it - and something better - at will, and might I point out, without struggle and effort. You are the supreme creator in your own life...God can do no more for you than you will allow to be done, no more than you are willing to receive.
2. Meals - i.e. eat out or order in any time we wanted - or go to one of those dinner prep places...or perhaps have a maid that cooks when she comes in. (I used to tutor for a family whose weekly maid would throw together the most wonderful soups while she was there.) I arrived in Bahrain and have had both of these experiences for the past 3 weeks...and I am LOVING it.
People who know me well know that I am not a big fan of "Breast Cancer Awareness Month", and I find the word cancer "survivor" distasteful...and dangerous.
I'm plenty aware of breast cancer, thank you very much. (They need to spend more effort on prevention and on helping and treating young women with the disease where it has a tendency to be most dangerous.)...and the word survivor implies that I was at some point a victim...that kind of attitude will at worst get you killed, and at best, it won't help you get any better when faced with a disease like cancer - actually when facing anything in life.
That's why I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE seeing people do amazing, creative, fun things like these bras! There's joy and creativity and positivity in these works of art!
These bras are AMAZING!!! Wow!
Here's her email:
Subject: Interesting Project by the Quilters of South
Carolina
OH MY GOODNESS. What these quilters from South
Carolina have done with
bras!! It is amazing of the creativity and hilarious
too:
http://www.quilters ofsc.org/ artfullbras/ artfullbras. htm
I found this the other day while looking for information on the Bahraini Dilmun cat.
After my experience at the grocery store, I'd love to know what the kid's comments to these gals were...I can only imagine. I'd want him to define what he thinks are "flirtatious" remarks.
Anyway, it made me laugh...Here it is. (My comments are in blue.)
Spurned 'Romeo' files case
By SARA SAMI
A TEENAGER reported three Bahraini women to police for allegedly seducing him, but then getting into a Kuwaiti man's car and making fun of him.
The Bahraini, who was walking in a Manama street, spotted the three girls (prostitutes perhaps?) and started following them, sources told the GDN.
"He started making flirtatious remarks (define flirtatious...my grocery store guy probably thought he was being "flirtatious") and apparently the girls did not mind it (just because someone doesn't deck you, doesn't mean they don't mind)," they said, based on his statement at the police station (keywords - "his statement").
"He said it was not fair that they led him on until finally going with a Kuwaiti man (perhaps the Kuwaiti could actually pay for them)."
"Before driving away, they all laughed at him including the Kuwaiti driver (catch a clue, buddy)," said the sources.
The teenager claimed that the Kuwaiti man asked him sarcastically if he wanted to get in the car as well. (Think he was calling this kid a "girly boy"?)
"In anger, the boy went to the police station and filed a case against the girls for making fun of him and for choosing a foreigner over him," said the sources.
(Puh-lease...call a spade a spade. He went to the station out of frustration - and we all know what kind. I can't believe he'd have the nerve to publicly acknowledge such a blow to the bravado... wierd and twisted to advertise and "tell on yourself" in this way.)
Hey, at least he filed charges and didn't shoot anyone...in the US, this kind of crazy leads to mall shootings.
Source: Nov 2007 http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=16400051
This is Tylos on catnip.
I gave him the ham from the pizza..and shared it with the orange cat, although she didn't seem to care for it. I felt bad because I didn't see that the other cat that was there, or I would have given him some, too. (It all worked out though...He ate what I had given to the orange cat.)
While I was petting Tylos, a guy walked up and Tylos shot out of my lap and made a beeline to this guy.
He had kitty drugs.
The cats went nuts...nothing like "kitties on catnip" for entertainment.
Thanks to everyone who's sent info about cats...I really appreciate it.
I'm going to head to the vet's office in a minute and see about paperwork.
This is the latest of me and Tylos (aka Henry, aka Joker). Hubs and I took some ham with us and went looking for him. (You can see the leftover paper in my purse pocket.)
I'm going again today...I saved some ham off of hub's pineapple and ham pizza last night.
It was really chilly here yesterday thanks to a shamal that had blown through. When I fed him, he went and got out of the wind. I followed, and he decided to make himself at home. When it was time for me to go, I tried to move him...you should have seen the look of irritation on that cat's face when I disturbed him!
I actually stopped because I thought he was going to nip me (he wasn't and didn't)...he looked really irritated at being moved!
I think I broke a "cardinal rule of cats"...the cat decided when they are "through" with you...not the other way around - but it was chilly and I had to go.
If you have info on cats and flying them or on cat allergies with the Bahraini dilmun cat, please feel free to send it to info@soulfirstliving.com.
Hubs and I never got to the craft center the other day.
Actually, that's not true. We did get there, but it was very near a Shia neighborhood.
Now, there's nothing wrong with Shia's, but the government had put out an advisory about the fact that it was a shia religious holiday and that there would most likely be demonstrations - which have been known in the past to get violent - therefore, they advised to stay out of, and away from, the shia neighborhoods.
This is a picture of a shia mosque. Their colors are green and black. You can see the green flag in the foreground. If you click on the picture, you can see the black flags on the right hand side of the driveway. The other way to tell it's a shia mosque - the onion bulb dome. Here, that indicates a shia mosque...it's especially easy to spot a shia mosque when that onion dome is painted green. (Hubs has pointed that out to me, and I have seen the domes painted a light green.)
I've learned that the black flags are how you recognize a shia neighborhood. That - and from what I've seen, the shia neighborhoods are poorer and not kept up as well.
A Little Background...
Islam is divided into 2 major groups: Shia's and Sunnis. It's kind of like the split between Catholic and Protestant. Shia's and Sunnis differ over the order of the caliphs amongst other things. (Shia is where you get Shi'ites.)
Just as with the Catholics and Protestants, there are different branches of each...I suppose that the different "branches" is more prevalent amongst the Protestants with the Baptists, the Southern Baptists, the Methodists, etc. The most predominant group of Shia's are the Twelvers who believe in a particular group of twelve Imams.
Here in Bahrain at least - and I think it applies elsewhere - the Sunnis are the ones who typically have more power and more money. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni, for example. Many Palestinians are Shia's. Osama bin Laden is of another group entirely called Wahhabis, and this is the predominant sect in Saudi Arabia.
On the recent religious holiday - called "Ashura" - the shia's commemorate the death of Hussein ibn Ali...the grandson of Mohammed. He was travelling when his party was attacked at Karbala by some Sunnis in 680 AD, and Hussein was killed.
The shia's mourn and grieve his death, and like certain Christian groups at Easter, they will walk through the streets tearing their clothes and flailing their backs with whips until they bleed. (There are Christian groups who do something very similar at Easter.)
Ashura means tenth, and the ashura occurs on the tenth day of Muharram in the Muslim calendar.
Unusual Sighting outside a Shia Neighborhood
What I found interesting...typically, in Muslim art and architecture, you will not see pictures of people or animals. It's completely free of any of this type of ornament. Their decoration consists of Q'uranic scripture - done in various calligraphic styles - and other graphic ornamentation. (There's is a beautiful written language. Gorgeous.) They take the commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me very seriously." Thus, no people or animals in the decoration.
You will NEVER see a picture of Mohammed or any of their prophets. From a Muslim perspetive, many of them consdier it rude or disrespectful to show pictures of Jesus as Christians do...different cultures.
I remember being at a museum in San Diego viewing some special exhibit of far eastern art work. The faces in one of the pictures had been scratched out. Someone had dared make an image of Mohammed. So someone else, out of respect, had scratched off his face.
That's why I found it odd when we drove by a Shia neighborhood on ashura the other day, to see images of Hussein ibn Ali on banners. I had never seen this before. Perhaps the forbidding of images of prophets is more of a Sunni thing. (It caught me by surprise, and we were driving - so I didn't get a picture. Hubs wasn't keen o stoppin gor turning around so I could snap a photo.)
Here is a picture of a storefront all done up for Ashura.
Again, notice the black and green banners. (It looks smeared because I took it from the car.)
I actually got to see some of these also written in English - basically, telling the story of Hussein's death and that he died not just for one person or one group, but that his sacrifice was for all.
As we drove, each banner had a bit of text on it. You'd read one and then the next and the next.
The way bits of each story was told on succeeding banners reminded me of the back roads of the South where instead, each sign has a Bible verse - and it's a requirement that at least one of those signs have Johnn 3:16 on it. "For God so loved the world...".
That's the impression I got from one of the Shia banners - that God so loved the world and Hussein so loved humanity that he gave his life in sacrifice at Karbala.
Made me feel at home.
Here's another picture of the Shia neighborhood with the black flags.
Once I learn the significance of the black flags, I'll share. I haven't looked into that yet, and surprisingly, my hubs - who knows many things - did not know the answer to that question.
I find the back flags ominous - but that's my cultural bias. Different colors mean different things in different countries.
To me, the black flags aren't particularly welcoming, and it doesn't seem they'd do much in the way of good P.R., you know?
I can't help but be reminded of the Raid commercials from when I was a kid...
Remember those Black Flag commercials?
Every time I see one of these black flags I remember that commercial and imagine one of these flags hauling back and going "THWAT"...."Smack the Infidel"...
I should put a disclaimer here saying that I truly believe people are people...some are crazier than others, but we all get attached to our beliefs. Hey, there are people in the south who still wear white robes and masks and who think that the things they believe are justified by God in the Bible.
They'd quote you scripture as the burned that cross on your lawn.
I guess I can admire the conviction.
I think if everyone would heed the, "Judge not" commandment, we'd all be okay.
Last note...I managed to snap this shot of a demonstration as we headed home from the mall the other day. (We went to the mall due to a shamal - a wind storm. I'll show pics of that later.)
We were obviosuly on the other side of a fence - and once again, we were driving, and hubs didn't want to do a U-ey so I could get a better shot.
I believe they were protesting Israel's attack of Hamas...and that's how they see it.
All depends on what side of the fence you're on...or on what side of what line in what country.
In the previous camel post, I mistakenly said that this gal here was in the "ready to breed" pen. I got that wrong.
This very friendly camel is in the "give birth at any time" pen.
Just FYI...all the camel pics are now posted with captions on the side of the page.
I apologize to all the lady camels in this pen for errantly mislabeling their pen.
Good luck, ladies, and may you give birth to happy, healthy babies!
Here's another shot of the same gal with her keeper. What a happy camel!
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