Month: January 2011

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea how many they ate — the entire bag of marshmallows disappeared, all the chocolate was gone, but only a few graham crackers were missing from the box. They must have gone straight for the good stuff.

On a different note, when Camille isn’t kicking our butts by not sleeping, she’s a lot of fun to have around. 

So have I mentioned that my house is quirky? I love it, but it certainly has a lot of “character.” You have to fiddle with the latches to get the windows to open and close and sometimes the closet doors stick and every bathroom has a different type of fixture. Not to mention the many switches in the wall that don’t seem to do anything at all. Oh and I still can’t figure out how to turn on the light in the dining room. There is a chain pull and a wall switch and it takes about 30 seconds (seriously) for that particular light bulb to turn on so I never know if I have the right combination in order to make light. The other day I thought the bulb had burned out and I gave up and then walked back in the room 10 minutes later to find the light burning brightly.

And then there is my special “sewery smelling” bathroom. Yuck! All the bathrooms have these odd circular vents/drains and one of them smells like sewer. I have resorted to putting 2 air fresheners in there, keeping the door closed and using one of the other 5 bathrooms instead. At least that is also the bathroom with the sticky door that is impossible to open unless you get a running start and throw all your weight into it. Win. Win.

So all that to say that I am used to things not working uniformly in our house. This morning Caleb was in my shower and I was getting the baby dressed. I asked Calvin to tell Caleb to get out so he didn’t use up all the hot water in my bathroom. We have 3 or 4 different water heaters so I could go shower in the downstairs bathroom, but that shower head flops down so you have to duck your head to get under it and I didn’t feel like hiking all my stuff downstairs while Madiha was down there cleaning. I know, such a tragedy, huh?

So Calvin knocks on my bathroom door, calling, “Caleb, get out!” no answer. So he bangs loudly on the door, “CA-LEB!” no answer. I tell him to just go in the bathroom and talk to him instead of yelling, but he calls back, “I can’t! The door is locked!”

I go to the bathroom door grumbling about kids locking me out of my bathroom and start pounding on it. No answer, but I can hear the water running. Why would Caleb lock the door? I have a sudden vision of him slipping in the shower, falling on his head, and lying passed out in the tub with water showering down on him. How am I supposed to get in the bathroom? There isn’t a keyhole, the walls are cement, we’re on the 4th floor, no window access, Josh is at the embassy . . . in desperation I bang loudly on the pane of glass in the top of the door: “CALEB!”

He answers! Whew. He’s not dead. “Honey, open the door. Why did you lock it?”
Caleb: “I didn’t lock it. Mom, it’s unlocked.”

Um, not good. Calvin and I both attempted several times to get in. Throwing my shoulder into it didn’t do a thing except to hurt my shoulder. Finally, in one last attempt I pulled the door toward me, pushed down on the lever and threw myself into the door and it opened.

By now Caleb had gotten a little concerned and was getting out of the shower so I quickly tried to cover, “oh, you were right. It wasn’t locked at all. You can go back to showering.” But I could already see the familiar elevator panic in his eyes.

I said, “I’ll just try shutting the door and opening it again . . .” to which Carter and Caleb yelled, “NO!!” And Carter planted himself firmly in the doorway so I couldn’t close the door. Great, now I’m going to be treated to open door showering, pottying, and dressing until they feel safe again. Which, based on how hard it was for me to get that door open, isn’t a bad idea.

So we’re having 15 people over for dinner tonight (including the 5 of us). Adding to the excitement is that our power has gone out several times today, including one stretch of over 2 hours when I had something “cooking” in the oven.

At least right now it looks like we won’t be eating by candlelight, but you never know around here. Our power goes out all. the. time. The clocks on our stove, microwave, tv, etc are perpetually wrong and/or flashing because after the first week I got tired of resetting them multiple times a day.

I have baked beans in the oven, but it’s my first time making them so I’m crossing my fingers they turn out OK. Of course they have bacon in them, so that means Carter will eat them, no matter what they taste like.

Josh is grilling tri-tip, onions and peppers for tri-tip sandwiches. We have 2 little Weber grills so at least he can grill without power. We’re also doing some sort of salad/coleslaw with Napa cabbage. I haven’t exactly figured that out yet, but I better get on it since it’s almost time for everyone to show up.

Last up is my berry cobbler that you’ve probably had if you’ve ever eaten at my house. I don’t have my recipe or measuring cups so I’m guesstimating for the batter and hoping it tastes good in the end.

Baby girl started screaming every time I left her sight today — isn’t it too early for separation anxiety? So I had my little helper strapped on my back during this culinary adventure.

 

Don’t worry, once she fell asleep I pulled the wrap up around her head to support her neck. See?

 

I bet the Top Chefs never had to cook with a baby on their back. That could be a new Quickfire challenge — make an appetizer without using electricity while babysitting Padma’s toddler.

Gotta get to chopping!

Most Christians in Egypt are part of the Coptic Christian tradition and follow an orthodox calendar so they celebrated Christmas today. There was extra security everywhere because of the bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria last week. Have I explained that our Sunday here is actually Friday? The Muslim holy day is Friday so the work week runs Sunday through Thursday and our weekend is Friday and Saturday.

Most Muslims go to services on Friday mornings. Our church meets on Friday evening because they use the building of a church of a different denomination. There are actually several church congregations that all meet in the same building so services are running back to back from Thursday evening through Sunday morning. I was told it’s virtually impossible to get a building permit to build a church here so they all use the church that is already here. St. John’s

This is the congregation that we attend: Maadi Community Church

It’s a beautiful old building that was built in 1920. Our congregation doesn’t actually meet in the building, but under a permanent tent that has been set up in the courtyard. We like that it’s close enough to walk to church — it takes less than 10 minutes to get there.

Walking with daddy. Love the babywearing, not loving the scruff.

Getting ready for another round of Frogger. Thankfully we only have one busy street to cross to get there.

seriously studying the ladies sitting behind us.

Out under the tent. There are probably 400ish people there at our Friday evening service. The really interesting/amazing thing about going to church there is that we are in the middle of a neighborhood. So when a congregation of 400 is singing “Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other” it is inevitably heard by everyone in the surrounding area. That takes on a special significance when you hear the Muslim call to prayer during a quiet part of the service and when the streets around the church are barricaded and extra police and dogs are patrolling in response to the bombing in Alexandria.

I’m thankful that we are able to attend a Christian church while living in a Muslim country. It’s something that we easily take for granted, but shouldn’t.

Camille was fussing and screeching so we bought her a bottle of water at Starbucks so I could give her a few sips to keep her happy. I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of nursing her out in the open since I don’t know what is customary here. I was assuming a country where the majority of women cover their heads and necks wouldn’t be too accepting of possible nursing exposure.

See the Toys R Us sign behind me? We had to go buy our princess a cup to drink out of since she was loving the water. But then that novelty wore off so I did end up having to nurse her. No one seemed to notice or care. And as long as we were sitting in the food court, we had to eat something, right?