January 2013 – Page 3 – robinchartier

pork room

We don’t eat a lot of pork (except for birthday bacon) so I rarely visit the Pork Room when I go to the grocery store. A new British grocery store opened near our house and Josh and I went to check it out to do some price comparisons. Since we were exploring the place we wanted to see what their pork room looked like. We did find some interesting looking bacon that we’ll have to cook up at the end of the month for Josh’s birthday breakfast and at “only” $6/lb it wasn’t overpriced.

I have no idea why Tostitos are in the pork room. I suspect they ran out of shelf space in the main part of the grocery store and someone got creative. I guess the flavoring agents in their “touch of lime” seasoning blend could have traces of pork, but . . .

I know there’s nothing piggy about plain Tostitos (except for the way I eat them with my favorite salsa).

In the background, Josh and other non-Muslim customers are sampling ham. The best part of the pork room is the sign outside that says, “For Non-Muslims only,” but I forgot to take a picture of the sign. It’s crazy how this stuff is becoming normal.

The Forbidden Meat

I don’t know if this is a British thing or what, but who eats pig ears? (Besides my dog.) Seriously gross. I think I even still see earwax in them. Ugh.

And pig feet? No thanks (though I’d rather eat the feet than those icky ears.)

In the parking lot, accidentally blending Arabic and English to get ‘Thank Godness.’
(Josh said the Arabic is technically ‘Thank Allah’ or ‘Thank God,’ but the phrase is used similarly to the way we would say ‘Thank Goodness.’)

DAB loop

Kristy (my sister) requested some photos of our neighborhood. Since I walk the dog everyday, that was an easy wish to grant. A few weeks back I started listening to the Daily Audio Bible when I walk the dog. As much as I intend to, I don’t take the time to read the Bible every day, even though I wish I did (not disciplined, remember?)

Since I love to multi-task so there’s no “wasted” time (leaving me plenty of time to waste watching TV while I knit and eat chocolate) I decided that I could listen to the Bible while I walk the dog. He’d get exercise, I’d get exercise, I’d be motivated to keep walking as long as I had something to listen to that occupied my mind, and I’d be working time in God’s word into my daily routine. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win-Win.

What I didn’t anticipate is that Genesis and Matthew are filled with references to ISRAEL and the God of the JEWS and since I walk around with the Bible playing through my speaker, I’m often flinching and trying to jam my fingers into the speaker holes to muffle the “offensive words.” Invariably it sounds like this, “[soft, soothing voice] I am the Lord God of [super loud] ISRAEL.” And always when I’m walking past a group of Muslims on their way to the mosque. Oops.

That thing that looks like a covered wagon is where the blimp hangs out. It looks like it’s out flying right now, since it’s not in the “barn.”

We live in a mostly residential neighborhood that is surrounded by major streets on 4 sides. I try to walk in the middle rather than on the perimeter because the traffic noise gets so loud that I can’t hear what Brian (DAB narrator) is saying and I have to hold my phone with the speaker holes right to my ear so it looks like I have one of those old fashioned ear horn things. (Josh told me that’s what it looks like. That’s a cute look, right?)

Since Micah pulls when he walks with a collar, I walk him on a harness with the leash clipped to the front. It keeps him from yanking on my arm since if he does take off after one of the many cats in our neighborhood, when he hits the end of the leash it turns him around to face me.

Dirt lots, huge villas, and cruddy apartments all in the same neighborhood.

There is tons of construction going on right now. Tis the season I guess. (The season of bearable temperatures where workers won’t end up with heat stroke.) They start hammering at 6am every day but Friday.

The hammering doesn’t bother me since the Call to Prayer from the super loud mosque near us goes off even earlier than that (before sunrise). You learn to sleep through it all. The tall towers are where the loudspeakers are contained so the sound of the prayer is sure to travel far and wide.

Do I see a cat?

Almost an accident — 3 cars, no stop signs, no rules

Heading back toward home. By now I’ve finished the Bible passages (He reads from Old Testament, New Testament, a Psalm and a few verses from Proverbs every day and finishes the entire Bible in one year) and have moved on to a podcast (Dave Ramsey or Wait Wait! Don’t Tell Me! usually) or an audiobook.

No matter how many times we do this walking thing, the dog can not figure out that cars are not his friend. He has no concept of staying out of the street and if a car drives straight at him he’ll just keep trotting along like it’s made of marshmallows and poses no danger to him at all. I’m constantly easing him toward the shoulder of the road.

almost home

This used to be our dirt lot where the boys would come walk the dog. Now it looks like they are turning it into two villas.

Home!

To this charming princess (who was mad that I gave her dry Cheerios and kept screaming “I want dry cereal!” Okaaay . . .

death wish

Someone forgot to tell our dog that he’s not supposed to eat chocolate. Yesterday I made my chocolate banana bread with chocolate chips and a bunch of dark chocolate baking powder. Since I can’t turn on the oven (not wanting another arm hair removal episode) I pushed the two pans to the back of the stove until Josh came home and went off to hang out with the two year old.

Thirty minutes later the dog plopped down next to us upstairs making some odd wheezing noises in his throat. Since strange noises aren’t that unusual for him, I didn’t think anything about it until later when I saw that the dumb dog had put his front paws up on the stove, stretched out his neck, and chowed down on my chocolate batter, including part of the parchment paper that I used to line the pans (I’m assuming the wheezing was him trying to clear the paper bits out of his throat). He ate one entire loaf and half of another. That’s a lot of chocolate for a dog.

Since he’s still on the “survival of the fittest” health insurance plan I didn’t bother to call the vet to ask about stomach pumping or other medical treatment that he may or may not need. Instead I fed him some peroxide (which didn’t make him throw up) so I figure he must have a cast iron stomach.

I’d say he looks fine. Lucky scavenger.

joyful noise

I’m listening to James Blunt right now. And a little John Mayer. Not on the radio, but in my living room. Calvin has been on a piano kick since we took down the Christmas tree and hooked up the digital piano in its place. He hasn’t really played since he stopped taking lessons 3 years ago, but the way he’s playing this week it’s as if he never quit.

We moved the piano overseas with us because we hoped he would continue to practice/play, but this past year he was busy learning to play the guitar and saxophone (his school band instrument). Since we moved to Bahrain this summer our piano hasn’t been working (fell victim to a 220 power surge) and I was afraid it might be fried, but Josh the amazing handyman/electrician/fixer of all things went and bought a new power source, rewired it, and it works perfectly now.

Calvin has been looking up music (he likes to play by chords, like you would play a guitar) on the iPad, propping it on the music stand instead of sheet music, and playing and singing all of his favorite songs. It makes me happy, especially because he sounds good. It’s much more soothing than listening to him practice the saxophone.

“So you’ve had a bad day . . .” No, it’s actually a pretty good day. Especially when you’re playing. Keep making music, baby.

Born To Run

One of the hardest parts of having a dog (besides dealing with his crazy), is that there isn’t anywhere for him to run. Dogs aren’t allowed in any parks and since we’re in a city without a yard there isn’t anywhere for him to stretch his legs and sprint. We found the the beach was a great place for him to run, but it’s about 1/2 an hour from our house and isn’t practical for everyday. But . . .

Near our house is this huge undeveloped area of land that runs between the water and the highway. We decided to take the dog out there and see what happened.

It’s not the greatest video, since he’s so far away you can only see a speck of a dog, but it was impressive in person.

The kids all had fun and aside from a little mud, the only other drama was that Caleb lost his shoes. He took them off somewhere out there and couldn’t ever find them again. I even offered a reward (paid from Caleb’s allowance) to whoever found them, but no luck.

traumatic encounter with mud

She bounced back pretty well once she got her hands clean

Calvin found this fossilized seaweed embedded in a rock

By the time we left, Micah had chased the thousands of birds off the land and into the water. Job well done.

Finding things to love about Manama