Month: August 2013

Some observations with a side of hypocrisy

Another Saturday morning, another movie. Whose life is this?! I guess it’s a happy compromise: we get out of the house, the kids get to experience a bit of American pop culture, and we stay out of the heat.

It feels a bit ridiculous though as I eat a breakfast of nachos and Coke while Josh, who has a will of steel (Steele), keeps to his paleo diet and munches on almonds and black coffee. The cleaner he eats, the faster my diet deteriorates. I ate half a bag of BBQ potato chips yesterday just because I could.
Meanwhile I look around the theater and am amazed by how many kids have their iPads out, entertaining themselves via small screen before the big screen entertainment begins. What happened to old fashioned fun? Stuffing kids with junk food and soda to kill those endless minutes before the curtain rises while they rattle off irritations like, “how long til the movie starts? I gotta pee! I’m bored! Carter drank more than half of the Sprite! I hardly got any! Uh-oh, my popcorn all spilled on the floor. Can I get another one?” 
Now these little automatons silently play their apps, completely oblivious to the sound of my children fighting over Twizzlers. Thankfully I have my own small screen and can escape to an alternate reality right alongside them. How long til this movie starts anyway?! I’m out of nachos…

I might be in trouble

because the last thing this household needs is another living, breathing creature added to it, but my kids fell in love with these kittens today. 
A friend has been fostering a litter of 4 kittens since they were less than two weeks old (the mama cat was hit by a car) and is bottle feeding them every 3 hours.
I knew my cat-loving boy would jump at the chance to snuggle and feed some kittens so we went over to her house today. 
They just started walking and have needle sharp claws! 
They’re about 4 weeks old now — 2 more weeks of bottle feeding. 
She thinks she’s an excellent cat mama. Poor kitty. 

Caleb’s favorite kitty, Sweetie. 
Carter’s favorite is Simba. They both want to adopt “their” kitty. 
Caleb has been wanting a cat since we left for Egypt — he wanted to adopt the millions of street cats that we saw there. I told him that as long as we had a cat (who was living out her old lady days in Santa Cruz with my parents) that we couldn’t get another cat. But now that Daisy has gone on to kitty heaven, he thinks it’s perfect timing. I was thinking perfect timing would be after our next move . . . but he’s been waiting almost 3 years. That’s 1/3 of his life. Poor kid. 
Armfuls of fuzz. 
It would be totally stupid to get a cat now — especially with our dog, all the extra paperwork and expense trying to get it off the island when we move, so of course we’ll probably end up with one. Good grief. 

Bahrainageddon

Today is “Rebellion Day” in Bahrain. A new holiday — code for a day of protests. According to my resident expert, August 14th is the day that Bahrain became independent from England, so this year the Shia are declaring August 14th as a day to exercise their independence from their government. All I really know is that we’ve been told that we have to stay home. Again. And I just got an email that the boys’ boat trip to the island was cancelled tomorrow because of all the “unrest” on the island. Boo.

Last year we didn’t have the pleasure of celebrating this holiday with the Bahrainis, but Egyptian Revolution Part Deux has fired everyone up again. Last year the heat kept everyone home and quiet until November when things cooled off here weather-wise, which signaled it was time for things to get heated up politically.

The most irritating part of it all is that the severest clashes are contained in areas that we aren’t even allowed to go. Oh wait, more irritating than that is that the areas we are allowed to go on the island just keep getting smaller and smaller. It’s like they took a blob of red paint and slapped it all over the map. It makes me want to leave — not because I’m concerned for my safety, but because what is the point?

I’ve been spending all this extra free time watching old episodes of The Mentalist and knitting. This project is going to be a tube shaped cowl and the “pattern” is called A Few of My Favorite Things. It isn’t a pattern as much as a concept:  find charts of things that you like (example of a knitting chart is in the top right corner of the photo) and knit them into a cowl. So far I have sheep, suns, robins, and cups of cappuccino (of course!), but this photo was taken the other day when I wasn’t as far along. I don’t normally do colorwork, but this has been a fun change of pace. 

Self-diagnosis

I’m in a slump. I’m pretty sure I’m depressed. Not the depression that is accompanied by tears and sadness, but my old frenemy apathy. I’ve realized this week that I’ve retreated to numb, unfeeling robot mode again. The only emotions breaking through are irritation and exasperation. 
Everything seems like too much work and not worth the effort. Dinner? Nothing sounds good to eat so why bother cooking. We’ll call and order something or let the kids eat on base. 
Getting up in the morning? There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, it is 100 degrees and 98% humidity so we might as well stay home and hibernate. Especially since all the kids want to do is lie around and watch TV anyway. 
I’m hoping this week, now that Ramadan is over, that I can find some things to do that will make all of us happy and that something will crack through this shield that causes me to be there, but not PRESENT.  
I’m fine. I’m sure this will pass. It’s just the soul-sucking mental and physical  exhaustion that comes with living overseas that rears its head every so often. I vaguely remember feeling like this last summer . . . And yes, the summer before that. Bahrain has been hard for me. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it . . . It’s just, meh. . . . Anyone else sensing a common theme here? 

At the movie Planes, trying to act my way into a feeling. The arguing over popcorn, sodas, and questions about how long until the movie starts aren’t helping. 

Bad timing

One of the casualties of our vacation was Camille’s sleep routine (rough as it may have been). She actually is sleeping until 7, which is great, but the price we’re paying is she doesn’t want to go to sleep at night. Mostly because of inopportune 5pm naps like this one.

She fell asleep just as we pulled into our parking spot on base — dead to the world. Head flopping as I carried her through the building, only stirring long enough to curl up into a more comfortable position as I set her down in the recliners outside of the boys’ TKD class. I guess tonight will be another episode of her famous “party all night sleep all day” routine.