they’ve been shut down all day and night and now that things are up and running again, my post about cliff jumping still hasn’t come back.
Supposedly, they are working at restoring missing posts and comments . . . I’m sick tonight anyway, so I’m heading to bed and will figure things out tomorrow. Happy weekend everyone!
So the other gift I got for Mother’s Day was the nasty cold from the baby. Who got it from Calvin. Who got it from an unnamed source. So I have my sore throat and am all stuffy and Lucy says, “I will make you ginger tea. Ginger is so good for you. Indians use it all the time.”
She took a piece of ginger, peeled it and minced it and put it in water on the stove to simmer. Then she went out in our backyard where we have lemongrass growing (who knew?) and picked a stalk of lemongrass. She minced up the lemongrass, added it to the pot and then took the pepper grinder and added some black pepper. After the mixture simmered for a few minutes she strained it into a mug, added a spoonful of honey, and stirred it in. Then she said I needed to inhale the steam and drink the tea.
It was mildly sweet and surprisingly peppery. The spiciness helped to numb my throat and clear my sinuses. She said another way to do it is to take warm ginger juice and pepper and put it in brandy and it works really fast, but she doesn’t like brandy. Just the smell of it makes her dizzy. And since we don’t have liquor stores here I’ll have to stick with the AA approved version.
I said I hoped that she didn’t get sick and she replied, “Madame, when I feel like I’m not well I take fresh coriander (cilantro), a little onion, several small dried chilles — VERY spicy, and a cube of chicken bullion. I drink it and it’s VERY spicy (and she runs her hands over her forehead and face like she’s breaking out in a sweat), but then I don’t get sick. I wanted to make it for you, but TOO spicy!”
I told her Josh would probably like it. “Ah, Sir likes spicy? I make it for him if he gets sick.”
Get ready Josh. Doctor Lucy is in the house.
My reluctant, struggling reader is now . . . a reader! When we moved to Oman he was barely reading Frog and Toad books and other “I Can Read” books and even those were a fight. He kept saying that he hated reading and would flop and sulk when I required him to read to me. But the first week here we were browsing in Borders, looking for Oman travel books, and he came up to me with the first Harry Potter book in hand. I really (secretly) didn’t think he could read it, but he wanted it, so we bought it (and yes, it cost twice as much as it would have cost to order it from Amazon, but if this kid was interested in a book, I was buying it right then and there, no matter what the price!)
So the first few chapters were slow and painful as he would read aloud to me and I would help him pronounce the hard words (there were a lot of them), taught him to decipher Hagrid’s crazy dialect, and valiantly fought to stay awake. At first he was ready to quit as soon as I was each day, but after a while I noticed that he would continue to read to himself after I had to go take care of the baby.
Then two days ago he started complaining that his neck and back hurt and I realized it was from READING! He has spent so much time with his head buried in that book the past few days that he was getting a kink in his neck. He asked Calvin if his neck ever hurt from reading and Calvin said, “Oh yeah. That’s totally normal.”
Today he was determined to finish — he was up reading until 1am last night so he slept until 10am and went right back to the book, even before eating breakfast (Thus the bedhead in the photos). After he finished all 300+ pages, he proudly handed me the book and then I did a happy dance around the living room. Then we hopped in the car and immediately went to the mall to buy Book 2 and stopped at ColdStone to celebrate.
The ColdStone employee must have transferred in from Benihana, because I’ve never seen ice cream tossed around like this: He threw the scoop up about 10 feet in the air and caught it in his paddles several times, then he mixed in all the cookies and chocolate sauce like he was holding Ginsu knives, reshaped it and flung it to the other employee who caught it in the cup, stuck a spoon in it and handed it over. They must have known it was a special day.
a sick baby. Only I didn’t know it until today. She’s been exhausted, but every time we lay her down she screams until someone pats her to sleep, but then she only sleeps for 20 minutes. Except for yesterday when I wanted to go shopping at the sook. That time she slept for 2 hours. I can’t decide if that would be an example of irony or poetic justice — either way, it was a pain in my behind. In between times she’s been mostly fine, but you can tell from her face rubbing and hair pulling that she really should be napping more than once a day.
Last night we were going to go out to dinner, but she fell asleep as I was nursing her so I put her to bed. Josh offered to stay home while I went out to eat with the boys, but I thought a quiet house was more of a gift than a dinner full of “Mom? Can I ask you a question?” or “Mom! He’s eating my french fries!” and “Stop chewing with your mouth open. That’s gross!”
Of course 5 minutes after they walked out the door I heard baby yelling coming from upstairs, and I still couldn’t figure out why she only slept for 15 minutes. But it all became clear in the middle of the night when a very hot baby joined me in bed and then nursed and fussed for the next many hours. Poor Camille.
On the bright side, this morning I came down to have breakfast and Lucy whisked her away and has been playing with her for the past hour while I’ve had a peaceful bowl of cereal and am contemplating taking a nap. I also woke up to a clean kitchen and shrimp marinating for dinner tonight. Sounds like a Mother’s Day to me!
ETA: Carter couldn’t wait until dinner to eat shrimp so Lucy made them for lunch. They were huge prawns that she marinated with garlic and then floured and magically cooked them so they were crunchy/crispy on the outside and perfectly shrimpy on the inside. (I hate the word “moist.” Also not a big fan of “tender.” Ew.)
Add in some sauteed eggplant and squash and we had quite the gourmet lunch! She already has plans to make the boys meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken breasts cooked the same way she cooked the prawns, some of her favorite Indian dishes . . . they are going to be fat and happy.
This morning Josh went out with the other FAOs (foreign area officers) to do some sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately Camille fell asleep 10 minutes before we were going to meet them at the sook, but after her nap we drove to old Muscat and joined them for lunch at the Oman Dive Center.
So we drive out of old Muscat and head through these rocky hills and it doesn’t look anything like where you’d expect to be driving to go to the beach. Especially since I picked Josh up at the harbor and then he headed inland. (I actually made it to Muttrah sook on my own with only one small wrong turn — but as soon as I ended up in a dirty alley I knew enough to turn around and head the right way. Baby steps.)
After a few ups and downs and arounds and “hey! Are we back in 29 Palms?” later, we came out at this beautiful private cove. I admit I haven’t traveled a whole lot, but it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
Clear blue waters, rocky cliffs, and a long stretch of pristine sand. We sat on a covered outdoor patio and had lunch — spicy pineapple salad with grilled fish for me, but all the food looked really great.
After lunch we went down to the water and it was WARM — bathtub warm. If Monterey had warm water, then it could compete in the “my favorite beach category,” but it gets disqualified for unhospitable water and air temperatures.
Wouldn’t you love to vacation in one of those huts on the beach?
The boys splashed around in the water and tried to catch fish with their bare hands, but none of us brought swimsuits and baby kept taking her hat off so we headed home promising the boys that we would come back SOON.
Especially once I found out that you can lie on lounge chairs under a tent canopy down on the sand and order food and drinks from your chair.
