5 hours to Costco

Montgomery gets it's very first Costco in five hours. Not a milisecond to soon. Would have been handy for it to be open at the start of Ramadan, but hey we takes what we gets.

I now have great respect for the large meals my Mom puts together at Christmas. It'snotjust the cooking, it's the cleaningup too.

Tonight's Eftar: Roast Chicken, mashed potatoes, parker house rolls, something green and healthy, cucumber dill salad, and something sweet from Fresh Market. Will probably also set out some hummus with the dates.

Wake Up CNN!

I've been sluggish this month, I know, and sorry for that.

So I got the new iPod nano. At 150 bucks and with video capability, I no longerhad an excuse to avoid the incredibly addictive allure of Apple hype.

Well, let's start out by saying it's not hype. I LOVE this thing. It's adorable, tiny, and the screen is surprisingly clear. Plus, it really opened up the whole iTunes fun for me.

I found Podcasts. LOTS of Podcasts. From all over the world. And that segues nicely into my current topic.

When I first moved to Canada, I was really stunned by the news. I had gotten so used to US news that I had almost forgotten the rest of the world was out there. All of a sudden we weren't doing the right thing. Iraqi children were bleeding in the streets, not bouncing along after HumV's that were throwing candy out the windows. Women weeping streetside werento weeping out of joy, but because they couldn't purchase or prepare food for their families. This was a VERY ugly America. Totally messed up my head. I mean America's the country of free speach, we have rules that protect the press and let them say whatever they want about America. And they still sugarcoat things for us?

I think I had almost forgotten about that moving back to the US. The news feeds us, and we forget, as it's pretty much constant, that it is not a perfect unbiased look at anything. We get lulled into the news. It's our lullaby, our coffee, but it never truly wakes us up.

So I found a podcast called Mosaic, which is produced by LinkTV. It takes chunks of news from Middle Eastern countries and mushes them together into a neat little 30 minute show. Want to know how bad the American Bias is?

The Iranian President shows up for the UN and gives a talk at Colombia U. Good. I like hearing what people have to say, especially when they are on the other side of a war from us. All three major news channels: CNN, Fox, and MSNBC reported on this pretty momentous occaision. There was hype as he wanted to give his anti-America speach at Ground Zero. We were all jazed up. And I imagine most of America got great chuckle when all three news networks reported that there are no Gays in Iran. Which, byt the way, is the entirety of what was reported.

So I catch the Mosaic podcast for the same day. Al Jazeera, Israel News, Dubai, Palestine all covered the same event. But what do they report? Not the gay remark. Not one single word of it. Instead they showed the VERY scary things he said about their nuclear program. They showed the French President calling him out on it. Wait a minute? Why didn't one of our networks cover this? Egypt, one of Israel's first (and few) arab Nation supporters is starting to buckle under the influence of the Islamic Brotherhood, a fundamentalist movement seeking to restore Sharia to Egypt...on the surface. They're also a very anti-Israel movement. Don't know if anyone noticed but (a) Egypt is RIGHT NEXT to Israel...and (b) They have fought with Israel before over borders that are still a little sketchy. Does anyone else think Egypt going anti-Israel is a bad thing?

Where the heck is this on the American news? Quit trying to make Iran and the Arab world a joke and start seriously looking at who is coming into power. That's news to wake up to.

Second time down the aisle?

I’m often asked if or when will I marry again. Did the first time leave such a bad taste in my mouth? I don’t know really. So I’ll write it out and see if it does.

I met the Ex when I was 19. Not so much one on looks, I was seeking substance. I mean this in the least possibly vain way, but hot guys with no brains were a dime a dozen to me and I would inevitably lose patience with them and drop them, making them feel worthless and making me feel insensitive. The Ex was attractive, but he was smart too. He was also 25.

I strung him along for a couple of months, keeping him as a friend but not letting the relationship lapse into “Dating” per se. Mind you, he wasn’t allowed to date anyone else, but I was. God I was a selfish spoiled little brat at 19.

Eventually I got tired of that, and figured he wouldn’t hang around forever, so we started dating, and dating lapsed into living together. I found myself shedding a lot of my own life in favor of adapting to his. I ate like him, slept like him, read like him. He was, honestly, my very best friend, and in retrospect, we loved (and still love) each other dearly, but lacked that….chemistry that makes a married couple married, you know?

We had the big wedding. We went through some incredible tragedies, but we had each other, and stuck it out. Then, when there wasn’t anything wrong anymore…no more joint adversary, we turned on each other…hard.

10 years of relationship, five years of marriage fell apart because nothing was wrong…

So the idea of marriage kind of weirded me out after that. I’ve been through my “Marriage is a tool of the devil” phase and my “all marriages fail, so what’s the point?” phase. Add in a “I like him too much to marry him” phase, and well I come out on the other side.

I know how much work it is. I know how much of a personal sacrifice it is of space, privacy and individuality. Most importantly, I know where I went wrong, and see how I could easily avoid making that mistake again. I want to have a family someday, so I suppose that means getting married.

But the idea is scary as hell, the investment of time, money and emotions is staggering, especially when you’re concerned those are three things you don’t have enough of for yourself.

The Fella and I are coming up on being together for eight months. In that time, I’ve decided things are really good. He’s a wonderful kind person, calm, bright, polite and well-mannered. I find him incredibly attractive. His pace is a LOT slower than mine. I’m more of a “Make the decision, execute the decision” kind of person…he takes his time…something that I know drives me bonkers.

I have to decide if the things I don’t like about him are things I can live with for the rest of my life. Because the only thing I can tell you for certain today is that should I get married again, I will become a widow before I will be a divorcee`.

Say what???

And they say that Southerners are racist pigs....


Critics Ignored Record of a Muslim Principal
A quote from the article:

“I hope it burns to the ground just like the towers did with all the students inside including school officials as well,” wrote an unidentified blogger on the Web site Modern Tribalist, a hub of anti-immigrant sentiment. A contributor identified as Dave responded, “Now Muslims will be able to learn how to become terrorists without leaving New York City.”

Oh. My. Dear. Sweet. Lord.

Why I'm a Multi-Culti Junkie

My father tells me, when I get married next (he's hanging on to the hope of grandchildren), I should marry someone with as much in common with me as possible. His image of that is a Nice well-to-do Southern man with a little more education than is good for him who likes to hunt, fish and play golf. Which, technically is more in common with my dad than with me...but who am I to argue? I'm a miserable golfer.

I point out that he and his wife have little in common. He's travelled, she hasn't. He loves tromping around in the woods, she'd rather stick pins in her eyes. He likes beer, motorcycles, guns, boats, the beach. She hates those things. So what's so comon between them? Their background, he tells me. They were raised in similar situations. Rural, not that wealthy. They climbed trees and got chigger bites picking blackberries as kids. They came from church-going southern protestant families. So this is the groundwork of commonality he means.

Okay so I need to find someone who was raised like me. Oh dear. Someone who saw more of the world before they could do long division than most people see their whole lives. Someone who was raised with absolutely no sense of racial division (Thanks Mom, Steve, Willie and Debra!). Need a man who's education is a mishmosh between the elite ivy league and the barely literate. Yeah...like that's going to happen.

So I'm apparently a hard fit if I try to match up background-wise. But my formative years were spent in non-American cultures. So I love other cultures. Not just to read about. But to eat like and dress like. I have a Kimono Collection. I know how to make at least four different dishes using Bacalhau. I like the Shisha (sometimes). I can say "Hello" "How are you?" "Please" and "Thank you" in seven different languages. If I ever had a dream job, it would be as a Travel writer.

So when it comes to a life partner, I think I need someone from another culture. I need someone who I can learn from, who challenges my brain and sensibilities. Someone who I can take care of in terms of protecting them from boorish insensitive Americans. Someone who likes to travel.

The Portuguese guy in Canada seemed a good fit. His family was basically mine, if we lived in Portugal. His parents were both remarried after an icky divorce. But he was, I think, more happy being sad than I could cope with. Portuguese people has a beautful sad nostalgia to them that makes great food, music and poetry. But being depressed all the time is bad for me.

So now we have the fella. He's Egyptian. But he's cheerful, pleasant and calm. Calm I need. I can be a ball of rumbling chaos sometimes. He's polite, which I LOVE. But where the Portuguese guy had at least been raised Catholic and his father was a C&E Catholic; the fella is Muslim. Strangely I find that a benefit. It gives me something new to learn about. And I am a rapid absorbing sponge when given something to latch onto and learn. He practices his faith. He prays and fasts and is kind and charitable. But he's not scary at all. By the way, I don't mean that Islam is scary, I mean that any religion that consumes the mind beyond intellect or reason is scary to me. Fundamental Christians scare the bejeezus out of me. He approaches his faith with a sense of practicality and logic I admire. "There is no compulsion in religion," he says, "And your religion should be simple. It's not a hardship. It's a part of your life, one of the best parts." he's told me. I like that thought. If all of Islam were like him, I would have converted in a heartbeat.

So here, I have to point out that I can't follow my dad's advised. Children are not raised like me. I can hear the "Army brats are raised like that!" and I can only say, yeah, but I haven't met one who clicks with me. Most I have met (And living near two AF Bases, I have met more than my share) resent the travelling and moving. If they have lived abroad, they resent coming back to America.

Besides, I need the exotic in my life. An Army Brat, god bless and love them and their families, only carries a shadow of that, and I like living my life in technicolor.

Just needed to be said

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Monkeytoes

I dunno. I couldn't think of a title for my post.

So I think I'm basically working out someone's two weeks for my job. Not too surprising. I hate these kind of things. When you interview, you look your best, you seem competent and you can talk about how competent you are. When you're working the job...well, you don't always look perfect.

I'm not sure what to do with this information. I mean basically I hope my boss is happy with his choice, since that's the most important thing, and I suppose, despite the nausea, that it's good that I have some advance notice so that I can get rolling on getting another job lined up.

Sucks because I liked this one. I guess privately I hope that she'll crack. The boss is a tough nut and can be rather difficult at times. But I understand where the difficulty comes from, and so I don't sweat it. I know it isn't personal, even when it seems like it is.

I'll miss the people I work with. I like them an awful lot.

Guess I'll go ahead and get the filing caught up.

Not sure where things are going or what I'll be doing. But I'll keep folks updated. I'll admit to being more than a little scared.