Robin Chartier – Page 126

mish-mash

Another week down, and we’re almost to November. This time of year the weather cools off and time speeds up. Before I know it I’ll be packing for our (still to be determined) next duty station. Unreal.

I did a lot of things this week in my attempt to make the most of the time I have left in Bahrain. I went shopping with friends (both old and new), toured a museum, went out to lunch at a new restaurant, and showed a new crop of Bahrain gardeners where my nursery is. I didn’t take photos of it all, but this is what ended up on my camera.

This shirt — so wrong. It may be pronounced “cor,” but it’s not spelled that way. Add in blue camouflage, and some rank stripes and that’s a perfect example of “not quite right.”

Riot police on the corner — they gather every night waiting for stuff to start up.

Another belt test — the boys were all promoted to green belts

Josh was sick this week. Zeki made sure he didn’t sleep alone.

I guess this is what she was doing during the boys’ basketball games

Working on her Mylie Cyrus imitation

First trip to the dentist: She didn’t want to sit in the chair and let the hygienist clean her teeth until I told her that if she didn’t get her teeth cleaned she couldn’t have birthday cake at the party we were attending later in the day. She replied, “I want cake” and hopped into the chair without another complaint.

Warm Bahraini nights

It appears the Nutella Fairy left handprints all over my kitchen floor — hmm . . . .

On our way to ballet class. She fell asleep just as we got on base and it was like trying to wake the dead. She eventually rose and danced her heart out.

Showing off her new necklace from mama’s shopping trip.

We had to buy some fancy clothes to go with the new necklace, of course! (This one was too small)

A winner!

More pretty saris

Shopping for Indian clothing means Indian food for lunch

$2.60 gets you a huge pancake, potatoes, and several curries and sauces to dip them in.

Beaded dresses look even better with rain boots.

Long week — we’re all tired out!!

sari shopping

Here in the Gulf we’re right next door to India (I’m looking at you, Wendy), so there are not only a lot of Indian workers here, but also opportunities to explore Indian fashion. For dressy events some of the expat women get saris made for a fun twist on formalwear.

I’m not one to go for costumes, but for this upcoming Marine Corps ball I decided to take the plunge. Josh is going to be traveling, so I’m taking Calvin as my date to the ball and we might as well stand out. (Several other friends are wearing saris as well so it’s not like I’m a trendsetter or anything).

The thing about saris is they are just one ridiculously long piece of fabric that gets wrapped around the lower part of your body twice, then the next section gets folded into pleats at the waist (see the draping of the white one in the above photo) then the last length is wrapped around the body and across the front and over the shoulder and it’s all held together with pins (or the tailor can presew parts of it and then you create the folds and draping using tiny hooks that the tailor has added). Either way it can be a production to put on and often one of the Indian housemaids is called into help people into them. Does that sound like me? Walking around with yards of fabric hanging over my shoulder? Nope. Fortunately there is a “minimalist” version for those people who want Indian style without all the work. It’s called a “choli” and there’s an example of one in the above photo. (Sari on the left, choli on the right. I don’t know if that’s the actual name for it, but that’s what they call it here). The choli is a skirt with a zipper and a top and the drapey scarf/sash can be wrapped across the chest and over the shoulder, loosely draped over your arms, or left on the back of a chair (I forsee option 3 in my future).

The thing I love about the choli skirts is the dressy ones are heavily ornamented with beads, rhinestones, and embroidery. This is a close-up of the skirt from the above photo.

My choli (autocorrect keeps wanting to change this to “my chili.”)

When shopping for both saris and cholis the salesman pulls the packets of fabric off the shelves and unfolds them. They all come in sets. The sari comes with matching fabric for the small shirt that is worn under the wrapped fabric and the choli comes with fabric for the top and the matching wrap. He pulled this pink and brown one off the shelf and I decided it had to be mine.

I also really liked this one — the millions of rhinestones sparkled like crazy under the shop lights.

Close up of the sparklies

The next step is to take the fabric to the tailor and he will sew the skirt for me (It comes completely open on one side and then is sewn to fit), and create a top. The traditional Indian tops are cropped so the stomach is exposed, but I’m not going for that look. I’m going to have it made so the top hopefully meets the top of the skirt or I am going to want to have the wrap draped around my middle all night.

This would be considered a long top. I’m going for even longer than that, but I do like the shape of her skirt. Pretty, huh?

Busy day with church and Taekwondo belt testing (everyone moved up another level to green belts). Josh has been sleeping all evening because he’s sick with a cold/crud and the kids are all across the street playing with friends (the reason he’s been able to get so much rest). Zeki and I are hanging out watching NCIS and knitting. He slows down my knitting because he picks fights with my yarn, but his soft rumbly purrs agains my neck more than make up for that. Happy Weekend!

divergent

I like Pink. Not the color (though I’m kind of a fan of that too), but the singer. I don’t listen to all of her songs, but the ones that click with me? I love them. They are windows down, volume up, singing along, watch out other drivers because here I come songs.

Unfortunately, Pink doesn’t always choose the cleanest lyrics to express her passion so I have to be careful when making selections from Spotify (internet music) to look for the “radio version” because my 3 year old loves Pink too. One day she kept asking for “a little bit,” “a little bit” over and over again until she started crying because I had no idea what she was talking about and kept exasperatedly asking “A little bit of what?” It was only later in the car when I put on the music and I heard these lyrics:

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

When it finally clicked: “Just a little bit” like in the song? That’s what you wanted?! She nodded and beamed at me from the rearview mirror.

There’s something about driving around this island with Pink cranked up that makes me feel powerful. Maybe because religious Muslims aren’t allowed to listen to or play music so I’m a rebel? Maybe because I’m in a big old car with the windows down and that makes me stand out even without the music? Maybe because the music makes me forget where I am when I’m sitting in traffic? Whatever it is, the weather cooling down (low 90s) has made living here much more enjoyable and driving around with the wind in our hair has become our thing.

(The tank top isn’t exactly appropriate wear here, but I took off my sweater for driving).

So the other day we were driving along, playing my favorite song and we passed a Saudi family.

I’m presuming Saudi based on what he was wearing and the fact that the women were completely covered, including veils over the face. (I have no clue if it was mother and daughter or 2 wives.) Their maid was covered too, but her face wasn’t veiled. Just as we passed them, the chorus of our song started blasting and I can only imagine what they were thinking (or would have been thinking if they understood English) of us singing loudly:

So raise your glass if you are wrong
In all the right ways
All my underdogs, we will never, never be

Anything but loud and nitty gritty, dirty little freaks

Yep, Meelie and I sing our hearts out to maintain our sanity. This is actually a two way street. Tough luck to you if you want to come the opposite way during certain times of day. This is definitely a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” kind of situation because if I stayed to the right I would sit there all day long while everyone else uses the left lane for merging.

See my green light? Does it look like I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon? This happens because one block to the right there is a major intersection where they have a guy manually switch the lights during peak periods. He gets sidetracked either texting or chatting and the traffic backs way up. Then people start honking and then he remembers it’s time to switch the lights and then the intersection clears until it happens again a few minutes later. This is when all the songs with swear words seem appropriate (just kidding). It’s no wonder that people run red lights here because it might be 5 minutes before the green comes around again. Time for one more song!

Mom of boys

This week the boys have vacation from school (Happy Eid! Time for sheep sacrifices!) so we’re playing catch up doing all the things I couldn’t bring myself to do before school started — doctor visits, dental appointments, etc. Today I took the two older boys for their sports physicals because they have to be cleared by a doctor before they are allowed to try out for the school basketball team. What kind of world do we live in where as a parent I’m not allowed to vouch for my child’s health? To make it doubly ridiculous, they’ve been playing basketball with the base league for weeks and running up and down the court for an hour at a time. Whatever, doc has to sign off on their paperwork, so off we went.

I actually really liked their doctor today and it was great practice for them to manage their own health care — check in, turn in paperwork, answer questions about their health history (or listen to my answers if they didn’t know), good reminders for taking care of their bodies with diet, exercise, hydration and my favorite, making good choices. Like she said, one bad decision can change their future in a matter of seconds. Always a good reminder for teenage boys to hear. And even better is that I didn’t have to be the one saying it this time. Big surprise, they were cleared to play sports.

After the appointment, they ran into some youth group friends and joined them for lunch while I ran errands on base. When I came to pick them up I saw one of my boys writing down his email address and then as he stood to leave, the girl he was talking to gave him a hug and said goodbye. This is a familiar scene for us as friends are always coming and going, but I hadn’t realized these friends were moving so soon. As we walked to the car I asked, “So the XXX family is leaving?”

“No, why?”
“Well, I saw you writing down your info and she gave you a hug before you left so I figured they were moving.”
“Oh, she just likes hugs.”

Mmm-hmm, I’m sure she does . . .