Jenyfer Matthews

As I said, I’m not particularly superstitious. I didn’t see any black cats, no open ladders, and no birds acted strangely towards me on Friday. I thought I was in the clear for bad luck. However, I would have been well advised to stay home anyway.

Instead I accepted an invitation to go out to a bar with some friends of mine.

How could I resist? A bar, in Egypt? That’s a part of life here I’ve never experienced so I just had to go. Besides, this place had a live band playing and I kept hearing how much fun it was. I’ve never really been much of a bar-goer, but that seemed all the more reason to go and see what it was like.

I did it for you.

The bar itself was very small. There was a 50LE (about $9) fee to get in, which I thought was a cover charge, but the ticket was actually good toward two “free” drinks – after which the drinks were exorbitantly expensive (as they are in most bars the world over). It was a small space with a very low ceiling and the crowd was mixed between Westerners and Egyptians, with slightly more Egyptians. The band played raggae music that night so there wasn’t so much dancing as group swaying. All in all it was a pretty typical bar.

Except for the smoke.

Nearly everyone in the place was chain smoking, compounded by the fact that there was next to no ventilation. It’s not as if I’ve never seen anyone in a bar smoking before (though I am very happy that it isn’t the case in most of the US anymore), but this was taken to new levels. Smoke hung in layers in the air and was so thick that I actually coughed a few times. How anyone could actually actively continue to smoke in such an atmosphere seemed almost ridiculous – why bother? I must have smoked a pack of second-hand smoke just sitting there for a couple of hours.

I knew that my clothes and my hair would stink when I left but I didn’t anticipate how sick I would feel the next day. When I spoke I sounded like I’d had a 3 pack a day habit for the last decade, and I felt as if I had a cloud of smoke lingering in my chest. I could taste smoke in my mouth – it was as if I just kept exhaling it – had a headache, and was generally so debilitated by the toxins I’d taken in just by breathing that I spent most of Saturday in bed.

What a waste of a day.

One of my companions was giving me names of other bars I might be interested in visiting. The only one that sounded remotely tempting was one located down on the Nile – which is open air. I’ve always found the air in Cairo hard enough to take, but it really does seem quite fresh by comparison to that smokey bar. Ugh. I’m definitely too old for bar hopping.

Friday the 13th wasn’t my best day, but I suppose it could be argued that I brought that on myself. Anyone else have bad luck on Friday? How did you spend the weekend?

I’m not normally a superstitious person, but even I think that two Friday the 13ths two months in a row is just a little freaky. In honor of the day, I thought I’d post a list of common superstitions:

* If a bird flies through your house, it indicates important news. If it can’t get out, the news will be death.

* If a bird flies towards you, bad fortune is imminent.

* Crows are viewed as a bad omen, often foretelling death. If they caw, death is very near.

* If an owl looks in your window or if you seeing one in the daylight bad luck and death will find you.

* Sparrows are thought to carry the souls of the dead and it is believed to bring bad luck if you kill one.

* A bird that comes in your window brings bad luck

* To kill an albatross is to cause bad luck to the ship and all upon it
(All in all, there is a lot of bird prejudice here…)

* A bat in the house is a sign of death.

* If you feel a chill up your spine, someone is walking on your future grave.

* A person born on Halloween will have the gift of communicating with the dead.

* If the flame of a candle flickers and then turns blue, there’s a spirit in the room.

* If your palm itches, you will soon receive money. If you itch it, your money will never come.
(That’s what I’m doing wrong!)

* A hat on a bed will bring bad luck

* If you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck

* If a black cat crosses your path you will have bad luck

* To break a mirror will bring you seven years bad luck

* To open an umbrella in the house is to bring bad luck

* Step on a crack, break your mother’s back

* You can break a bad luck spell by turning seven times in a clockwise circle
(It’s also a good way to make yourself very dizzy!)

* Garlic protects from evil spirits and vampires

* Toads cause warts

* A cricket in the house brings good luck

* It is bad luck to sing at the table

* It is bad luck to sleep on a table
(Not to mention it sounds very uncomfortable!)

* To refuse a kiss under mistletoe causes bad luck
(That’s what they all say…)

* For good luck, wear new clothes on Easter

* When a dog howls, death is near

* It is bad luck to chase someone with a broom

* To find a penny heads up, brings good luck

* To drop a fork means a woman will visit
* To drop a knife means a man will visit
* To drop a spoon means a child will visit
* To drop a dishcloth means bad luck is coming

(Or it could just mean that you’re a klutz!)

* Washing a car will bring rain
(This is not a superstition but a fact!)

* You must get out of bed on the same side you got in on or you will have bad luck
(Not to mention that my husband wouldn’t appreciate it if I climbed over him to get out on his side)

* Evil spirits cannot harm you when you are standing in a circle
(Which is why you should always carry chalk in your pocket, for emergency circle drawing)

* Wearing an opal when it is not your birthstone is bad luck

* To give someone a purse or wallet without money in it will bring that person bad luck

Do you have any particular superstitions? Any plans for how to spend Friday the 13th?

On just about every corner and in nearly every intersection in my neighborhood, there is a little shop that sells all manner of junk food, soda, water, ice cream bars, and cigarettes. Sometimes there is more than one. They all seem to do a booming business round the clock and if you are really lazy, you can take it a step farther and just drive up and honk. People will come out and serve you.

You can get a can of locally produced Coke and a small snack-bag of Doritos for about $0.50.

My daughter and I were walking along the other day and I said I’d stop and get her a soda. She then asked if they had little shops like this in the US. I took a moment to answer. Yes and no. I mean, there are convenience shops of course, but the ones I’ve dealt with in the US have mostly been set up along with gas stations. And the size and glamour of most of those make even the big grocery stores here in Egypt look pretty pitiful. There are probably little shops that operate like this in bigger cities like NY, and I know I saw them in Athens, Greece when we visited, but I don’t think shops like this are very common in the US anymore. How could it possible be worthwhile once you paid the overhead for the facility and the salary for someone to work there?

Then it hit me. In the US what we have instead are called vending machines. I laughed when I told my daughter that and it made her laugh too.

Behold, the Egyptian vending machine:
Exact change isn’t necessary but it does help. I’m pretty sure that these places will even deliver to nearby apartments – assuming that you have their phone number and can speak Arabic of course! Can’t get an American vending machine to do that…

I didn’t need to take a test to know this answer…

You Are Tea

You are mellow and reflective. You don’t allow yourself to feel in a rush and frenzied. You’re likely to appreciated the ideas or connections that come up over a warm cup of tea. While you do enjoy the energy of a caffeine boost, you love that it allows you to take a break. You’re not in a rush to do anything. You’re content with your life, and in no rush to change it.

My book HERE TO STAY was released in paperback December 9th, and very quickly appeared on Amazon as well. Only it wasn’t *really* available there. They only added it so that they could torture me by then changing its status to “temporarily unavailable.”

I’m happy to say I got an email over the weekend to say that now it is available on Amazon.

Tah-dah.

Not only is it eligible for free shipping, but you can even have it gift wrapped. That’s great, but I’m just happy that it can actually be purchased…

That’s right – you’re stuck with me this weekend. Deal with it

Thought I’d share a quilt with you, which I made on commission for a four year old boy. The mother told me that his favorite color was pink. Yes, pink. The boy and his brother told me that his favorite color was orange. Well, it just so happens that pink and orange look pretty good together – I wouldn’t recommend wearing the combination in equal amounts, but in a quilt it’s extremely bright and cheerful. See for yourself:

And how cool is it that I happened to have a piece of pink frog print fabric on hand?

Bright isn’t it? The good thing is that on the off chance my customer doesn’t like it, I’m sure that my daughter will!

I rode the bus to school with my children the other day to go to my water aerobics class and the radio was tuned to the local western music station. “Borderline” by Madonna was playing, followed closely by “We Are Family” by the Pointer Sisters. My daughter was sitting there singing along and I astonished her by joining in.

“You know this song?” she asked incredulously.

“These songs were popular when I was a child riding the bus to school,” I replied.

You should have seen the look on her face.

We had a similar experience earlier in the week with the movie Ghostbusters. My husband found it in a sale bin and bought it, thinking the kids might enjoy it. He and my son started watching it one evening while I was out. When I returned my son was very excited to tell me all about it. I didn’t have time to sit and watch with him at that point but I explained that I’d seen it before and I knew the part he was talking about. He was completely taken aback that I already knew all about it.

It’s funny to realize just how in the moment these small people are – everything begins and ends with their own (limited) experience of the world. Life before the span of their short memories just doesn’t compute. I’m still not quite sure that they comprehend that I myself was once a child and that the woman they know as their grandmother is actually my mother. The world is all about them, after all.

I guess that means I have a few more years of seeming omniscient in their eyes – before the teen years set in and the eye rolling sets in…

I got a metaphorical eye-roll from an Egyptian lady at the library the other day when I admitted that I used canned chick peas to make my hummus. I was curious whether or not there was that much difference so today I decided to try it her way.

Or should I say yesterday, because I had to start by soaking my dried chick peas overnight. It looked a lot like a bowl full of tiny brains, covered in water. This morning I boiled them for a little more than two hours, at which point I had to let them cool so that I could shell them. The cup of dried beans had expanded to about three cups cooked and I had to peel every last one of them. There is a bit of a technique to this which I’m sure that I didn’t master. First you roll a few in your hands, then pinch the end to get the hull off. As you might imagine, it took me a while.

(If you are curious, once they are cooked and shelled, the chick peas look a bit more like tiny turkey carcasses. Or maybe that was just me seeing things because I was bored)

I dropped them in the food processor as I went along and when I was done, I made hummus. The result? Pretty much the same as when I make it with canned chick peas, only it took much, much longer.

Will I do it again? Probably – but only because I still have half a bag of dried chick peas!

Maybe I’m just feeling crabby, but I have to say there is one question that really is a pet peeve of mine – no matter what tone of voice is used when asking What do you do all day? the underlying subtext just comes across as patronizing. No, I don’t have a formal title and an 8-5 office job to point to, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t work my butt off each and every day.

So, just for the record here is the run down. Obviously some days differ from others based on whatever activities are going on that day.

* As a mother I am on call 24 hours a day and my duties include but are not limited : feeding, cleaning, and clothing two small children, packing school lunches, reviewing homework assignments, parental representative to the school / volunteer slave labor, costume design and construction as necessary, keeping up with medical needs, refereeing (’nuff said), counseling for all of life’s little disappointments, delivering motivational speeches, and general cheerleading for achievements big and small.

* As a wife and homemaker I am in charge of keeping our home running smoothly which includes house work (and delegation thereof), grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking nutritionally balanced meals, laundry, book-keeping, paperwork, and keeping everyone going to the proper activity at the proper time.

* Taking children to tennis practice – this gets its own category as it represents a large portion of my time: 5 days week (for a total of 10 hours between them)

* Substitute in the local elementary library – at the drop of a hat, as necessary

* Freelance proofreading / editing – when duty calls

* Quilting diva – as the whim strikes me and when the orders flow in, which they are at the moment

* Writer – lately whenever the hell I have a few quiet moments I can squeeze it in

* Miscellaneous – taking care of my own mental and physical state by participating in yoga, water aerobics, and pottery classes.

That’s the overview – the daily schedule would bore you and basically would demonstrate that, in fact, I could use several more hours each day to accomplish all I have to do.

So don’t ask me what it is I do all day. I have more than enough to keep me busy and entertained. Besides, it’s really none of your business and it obviously just pisses me off.