Month: January 2018

I’ve been working on a blog post about mini-me and her mental issues, but managing them has taken a lot of my writing energy. Picture me as the exasperated psychiatrist from What About Bob? and you’d be close. Except my Bob cries a lot more. If you would pray for peace in her brain and for her to be able to enjoy life instead of being fearful, I’d appreciate it. I knew coming back from Christmas break would throw her, but I didn’t expect it to be like starting over.

Oh well, onto things that bring me joy and fit seamlessly into my life: carpets. Josh and I have been on an unintentional carpet buying fast since moving to Abu Dhabi. We no longer pass our friends’ carpet shops on our daily commute, we have no personal connections to carpet sellers, and the few times we have browsed, the prices were obscenely expensive compared to what we were used to in Bahrain.

Of course rent here is twice as much so it’s reasonable to expect that rugs would be similarly pricy and since we don’t actually need any more carpets, we’ve been in a drought. Until last night. A friend hosted a rug flop and I was looking forward to just browsing carpets, the way a book lover finds joy perusing the shelves at a bookstore. 

Ah my beauties. I was surrounded by Isfahans, Kashans, Qums, and all of their Persian brothers and sisters. And then he started quoting prices and they weren’t half bad. It was partially what I call The Avocado Effect: I spent 4 years not buying avocados because I couldn’t bring myself to pay 2 to 3 times what they cost in the US, but eventually I got over it and accepted that I like them enough to pay what they cost here. And if I find them on sale for $2 each, it feels like a bargain. After being quoted 10,000 aed ($2700 usd) for a Kazakh (a tribal style that is beautiful, but not expensive) from previous dealers, his 10,000 aed quote for a beautiful Persian sounded like a steal. So it came home with us. And I smile whenever I look at it. It’s an old wool Qum that has never been used so it’s in pristine condition. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to buy anymore big carpets, but I couldn’t resist this one. Red, navy, cream and blue — all my favorite carpet colors wrapped up in an elegant tribal design. The above photo is a more accurate reflection of color, but the bottom photo (under the fluorescent lights in our bedroom) is after bringing it home.

I’m pretty sure there are a few more carpets in my future, but future acquisitions might have to be the result of trading my less favorite ones for new pieces. I don’t have much floor space left!

 

What did I do on my Christmas vacation? I knit a sweater. I cheated a bit because it’s short sleeved rather than long, but that’s infinitely more practical for Abu Dhabi weather so I’m going to pretend that was my plan all along.

It started here . . .

And grew to here . . .

Hmmm . . . now I can’t find a photo of myself wearing it . . . I remember standing in front of the mirror so I could snap a photo to send to my sisters (since they saw it in progress), but I must have imagined that. Or I intended to, but got distracted. It happens.

More knitting adventures. Yes, that is a sweater that I knit and then cut.

My vacation sweater success inspired me to take on a too big sweater from a few years ago. I created side seams on my sewing machine, taking it in about an inch on each side. Now all that’s left is to reknit the hem so it doesn’t look like it’s been taken in so dramatically. I think I’ve got an 85% chance of having it turn out to be a wearable item. Before surgery I only gave myself a 10% chance of success — it’s looking much better than I hoped.

And my other creative work of art from this fall? My clock. At school we were redesigning our library and I thought it would be fun to make a wall clock using books as the numbers. I found titles with numbers (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Three Times Lucky, etc), copied them, and then one of our art teachers applied the images to discarded books (bye, bye Gossip Girl). I sourced a motor and hands online (and learned that you need a high torque motor to run the larger hands) and it finally all came together last week. I love it.

And no, I didn’t find it on Pinterest, but years ago when we used to go to Pizza My Heart in Monterey, they had a huge wall clock made of movie posters and I always thought it would be fun to make one myself someday, using books. (And yes, it actually keeps time!)

I love memoirs — not the dry biographies that I remember from elementary school, but first person stories told in a way that brings me alongside the author, shoulder to shoulder with them in the experience. My current listen is Bryan Cranston’s A Life in Parts, a collection of stories about his life both before and during his success on Malcom in the Middle and Breaking Bad (among other acting successes). Each chapter is about a different part of his personhood, with sections titled: Son, Explorer, Celebrity, Flea Marketeer, Father, and Walter White. I’m a bit jealous at this bit of creativity as he intersperses the parts he has played, both real and fictional, throughout his life and turns each one into a story.

I was thinking of the different chapter headings I could use If I were going to tell my memoir that way — the easy ones are Daughter, Wife, Mother, Reader, Crafter, Knitter, Librarian, and Writer. A more interesting one might be Nutter (affectionately referring to my life with Zoloft, of course). Biologist would be all about my love of Anatomy and Physiology and dissecting a cat with my sister in college. Cheerleader (a season cut short by a faked sprained ankle so I didn’t have to perform in public) and Marijuana Harvester for that time I got in trouble for picking the weed that our neighbors grew and making a “salad” out of it in our backyard.

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually join the ranks of memoir writers, but my working title at the moment would be: I Don’t Know Where We’re Going, but I’ll Tell You Funny Stories Along the Way.

Now to figure out my chapter titles . . . maybe Brown Avenue, Skyline Blvd, 955 La Paz Road, Highway 40, Fort Sill, Mustafa Kamel (our street in Cairo, Egypt) — lots of potential here.

I wrote this when Calvin started college and we left him in California to fly back to Abu Dhabi. Back then it felt too soon to post about it, with too much unknown, but after almost 3 fabulous weeks with my baby/adult son, I’m ready.

I didn’t cry at your birth so it only seems fitting that I don’t cry as you leave. Both events were marked with wonder, amazement and awe of new life.

You were a stranger then. I know you better now, but the man you’ll become is still a mystery — though growing clearer by the day.

I had no idea what it would be like to parent a newborn and I’m just as lost today. You’re my first to cross over into adulthood and again I’m a new mom to this era of life. Every day with you is a first.

Never stop texting.

Love,

Mom