Author: Robin Chartier

In an attempt to retain my peace, I’ve decided that I’m taking an absence from Facebook and Instagram (and I don’t Tweet, so leaving Twitter is a non-issue). Between local online groups arguing about the vaccine, American friends arguing about politics and the 25th amendment, and the world arguing about covid, I need a safe space from all that discord. So I’m limiting myself to only reading Mumsnet, where the arguments over whether it’s classless and grim to have a toilet brush in the bathroom are a lot less personal. (Yes, that’s a real example.)

The final straw for me was this new vaccine mandate for public sector workers and for the service industry here. People are arguing over whether it’s fair or legal to force individuals into a vaccine by making their job dependent upon it. (It’s not fair, but it’s definitely legal here.) For example, the vaccine “isn’t mandatory,” but at least one major company has said you can’t come onto the premises to work unless you’ve been vaccinated. And in most cases here, leaving your job means leaving the country as your residence visa is tied to your employer. I’ve decided it’s not healthy for me to read all the back and forth and try to figure out when the rules will creep my way (into private schools — Josh thinks it will be soon) or into Josh’s place of business. They are still working from home, but if he’s not allowed to enter the military bases or meet with other government entities without the vaccine, then he can’t do his job.

Anyway, I’ve decided I can’t control it and I don’t need to feed my “what ifs” so I’m cutting myself off from all that. As things change so fast here and flip back and forth, I’m better off waiting until all of this has been ultimately decided and then we can figure out what we will do.

My latest local adventure/hassle has been trying to get a package delivered to my house. I ordered some yarn from the UK and it came into the country. It has my address on it, but someone always calls to ask for my address and set up a time for delivery. And they usually want me to send their driver a pin so they can locate my address. And if there’s no phone number on the package? They send it back without even trying (been there, done that 3 times over).

So, I had a missed call a week before New Years and I called right back, but it’s an automated system and supposedly they would return my call in a few hours when they weren’t so busy “because of Covid,” but nothing ever happened. When I finally filed a complaint online someone called me back and said my package had been transferred to the local postal system and I would have to call them to schedule delivery. Of course she had to give me a reference number to the package and I was out in public in a noisy space so our conversation went like this:

“ay bee eight three seven vee vee”

Wait, ay bee eight three seven vee vee?

“No, ay bee eight three seven vee vee“

What? Ay bee?

“No, ay VEE“

And continue like that for eight more painful digits. And the last two letters were “zee, zee” which I figured out after process of elimination ruled out vee and cee . . . I hate talking on the phone here.

So I’ve called — operators are busy, “because of Covid,” and I’ve logged multiple requests on the website which have been received and will be followed up within “3 business days,” but nada. How difficult is it to deliver a package with an address on it? But it won’t happen until I confirm that the address they have is correct and I can’t do that if I can’t talk to a human. I’ll be so annoyed if they send my package back to the UK without contacting me . . . #YarnWatch2020 has become #YarnWatch2021

In case anyone was waiting around for the resolution to the cat story, I won by eventually getting the cat outside, she won by leaving diarrhea and pee under my couch before she exited the building. So I guess it’s a draw? (Thankfully no carpets were harmed in the cleanup process.)

I know the world’s attention is on the dumpster fire in DC today, but all I’ll say is I’m thoroughly disappointed that our election and transfer of power this year looks like something out of a developing country. I expect that garbage from some of our neighbors over here, not from my home. I feel like a mom that wants to say, “you’ve all misbehaved, you’re all in trouble, and you all need to go home until I can think of a suitable punishment!”

Meanwhile, over here . . . my country of residence is cranking out the vaccine like it’s a newly discovered oil well. (I’m intentionally saying my country of residence because I don’t need a bot trolling the internet and finding this post and reporting it to the government. You think I’m joking . . . nope). In world record setting fashion, they’ve set a goal to vaccinate 50% of the 10 million residents by the end of the 1st quarter and in order to reach that goal they are making it extremely onerous to do anything other than line up and get the jab.

Since what they’re giving out hasn’t been approved by any internationally recognized body and they won’t publish the results of the trials that they conducted this summer AND because they still require people to be tested every two weeks even after having the vaccine, that’s a firm, “no thank you” from us. It may mean that we may have to exit the country as Josh won’t be able to do his job without the vaccine eventually, but we are praying that it won’t come to that. (They’ve already mandated it for public sector workers, but not for us yet.)

We’ll continue to hold everything loosely and be flexible, but I’m getting so tired of uncertainty. I thought that retiring would give us something to hang on to and that we could put stakes in the ground, but in spite of living in the same house for 2 1/2 years, I’ve never felt more unsettled month to month.

https://youtu.be/K2c-xTOQinc

And to end on a happy note, two things from my girl. First, her broadcast debut on the school webcast. She will hate that I made this public, but someday she’ll be happy that I saved it. And second, wintertime walks with her girl. Two things that brought me joy today.

First day back at “school” (online) and we wake up to a stray cat that came into our house last night and has taken up residence under the couch. At least it explains why the dogs were both barking and pacing in our bedrooms at 5am.

She’s a cute and quiet thing, but I’ve spent all morning managing riled up dogs who keep sniffing, whining, barking, and pacing. Just what Josh needed for his first day back at work and the kids’ first day back at school. At least I’m working from home today and can take on the job of animal wrangler. Currently I have each dog locked in a bedroom with a kid so things stay quiet in Josh’s “office” (corner of the living room).

The plan for later today is to lock both dogs in the bedroom, open the back door and gently encourage her to leave with a broom. Then we’ll be down to only 1 cat that the dogs try to antagonize. If only I could get them all to chill together . . .

It rained today! Our first rain of the year and our first rain in almost a year. We got a lot of rain last winter (when I say “a lot” I mean for here), but once Covid started, it dried up. Right before Christmas, the mosques all prayed for rain as part of their Friday service. I don’t know if it’s an annual thing, but it’s something they’ve done a few times since we’ve lived here. I’m going to start praying for rain because I miss it. And when it only lasts for 5 or 10 minutes, it leaves me wanting more. If we’re home for 2 weeks with remote school, we could at least have a rainy couch day to enjoy along with it.

Last year UAE did a bunch of cloud seeding — they fly planes into the clouds and shoot salt crystal flares into them to try to attract extra water so they get heavier and rain is released. I don’t know how much of it is due to the cloud seeding and how much is due to natural rainfall, but we did have more this past year when they did more seeding (over 200 attempts).

Star was not a fan of the mysterious wet stuff falling from the sky. She ran around a bit, slipped on the tiles, and then rapidly headed back inside to safety.

We finished the year by getting out of the house and out of the city. Camping overnight is pretty easy these days as we have a big cube shaped bag that holds the tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, dishes, kettle, flashlights, and all the other odds and ends we need to keep us comfortable. Then when we decide to go, we put the the bag in the car, grab the grill and ice chest, some firewood and GO. Oh and swing by the baqala (cold store) for a 5 gallon jug of water on the way out of town.

We went with several families this time, but only knew one of them before we went. Friends who used to live across the street from us in 29 Palms when Caleb was a baby — 16 years ago. Now they live here and the husband is doing the job Josh used to do. The Marine Corps is a small world and a few years ago when when my friend Rachel saw Abu Dhabi as an option for orders she messaged and said, “should we do it?” Um, YES. 100% YES.

Last time we went camping Camille spent the entire time following Star around because she was afraid she would wander off and get lost. This time she was a little less anxious and only followed her 1/3 of the time.

We climbed to the top of a very tall, very steep dune to watch the sunset. I thought I was in good shape, but climbing up the vertical hill of sand was a reality check. Of course the dogs and Caleb fly up it like it’s nothing. (everyone else struggled though so I wasn’t alone in my heavy breathing.)

If it weren’t for the power lines, this view would be so much better. But I’m sure I’d rather have an obscured sunset and cell service, A/C, and all the other modern comforts that those lines bring to me every day.

The last time we went camping and it was a full moon, the brightness kept us awake half the night, as if someone was shining a flashlight in our faces. Thankfully the light didn’t keep me from sleeping this time. Credit for that goes to the people partying somewhere nearby who had their Arabic music turned up to 11, the military aircraft taking off at 4am and the Bollywood discotheque that started up at 6 am on the dune that overlooked our tents. That’s the cost of camping close to home over a holiday (rather than driving 2 hours into the desert, we lazy camped 40 minutes from home on a hard packed path right off the paved road).

Campfire while we wait for the midnight fireworks. You can see the super steep dune behind Caleb.

This doesn’t give a good perspective on the height, but look how tiny our tent is down below . . . we hiked to the top of the largest dune again at midnight to watch the fireworks from the Sheik Zayed Festival. They were attempting to set a Guinness World Record for the Longest Firework Display (35 minutes) AND the Longest Straight Line of Fireworks. Everything here is “the best” or “the biggest” or “the first” or “the highest rated.”

You can barely see the fireworks in the distance, but they were more visible in person. And they were looong. The world record setting time of 35 minutes is way too long for a fireworks show — I think 12 minutes is just right. Yes they were huge and over the top and would have been even better in person, but it was worth it to not be stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam trying to get out of the area after it was over. We just climbed down the sand dune, went to our tents and then listened to party music all night long as we tried to sleep.

The next morning we lit another fire, made breakfast over the coals (scrambled eggs and sausage), and then packed up and headed home around 10:30am. Camille was trying to finish the water from the jug, but almost poured it all over herself before her dad gave her a hand.

A fun start to a new year. Tomorrow all the Christmas decorations come down and we put the house back to normal. Welcome to January 2021. I’m not even going to try to guess what this year will bring . . .