Jenyfer Matthews

Where I hear to what lengths other parents have gone to entertain their children during school holidays, I sometimes feel a little guilty that I don’t try a little harder myself. Not having a car limits us, but I *could* make arrangements if I really wanted to. So that’s what I did this last week of their school holiday. A friend and I arranged for a van from her husband’s company and we took all of our children ice skating at a mall in another part of Cairo called Nasr City.

It’s not that far to Nasr City but once we got on the road I was immediately reminded why I don’t do such things more often – it took us a little more than an hour to get to the mall with all the (scary) traffic on the roads. The mall itself looked fairly nice – and oddly enough was decorated for Christmas. There was even a large Christmas tree right in the middle of the ice rink (which itself was in the middle of the mall) I didn’t have any time to look around however – the van needed to be back and available for employee transport by 4pm. Once we finally arrived, the children had an hour to skate before we had to jump back in the van and drive the hour back home.

But what a fun hour it was. The children had an absolute blast. They started out hanging on the rail around the rink and by the end were playing ice tag. Our time passed much, much too quickly. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t take so long to get back there. But since it does, I think next time I’ll arrange our transport a bit differently so we have the option to stay a bit longer if we wish. Skate, lunch, skate some more.

Any maybe next time I won’t have twisted my ankle the week before and will be able to join them!

The children each received a few new DVDs for Christmas so on Christmas night we decided to do a family movie night, complete with Chinese delivery and popcorn. (What? We were supposed to go caroling??)

The movie we decided to watch was Back to the Future, with Michael J. Fox. I loved loved loved Back to the Future when I was a teenager. I recorded it on a VHS tape from cable and played it repeatedly one summer. My routine was to set up a lawn chair sticking out of our front door and then turn the TV set a bit so I could watch it while I lay on the chair sunbathing. Since we lived in southern Louisiana and I didn’t bother to switch off the AC while pursuing my tan, it’s not an activity that I think my mother would have approved of (sorry, Mom!) The point is, I have very fond memories of that movie and probably could have quoted it at one time.

It seemed an obvious choice when it came to shopping for my daughter, but when it came to sitting down and watching it I started to have my doubts. Would it have aged well? Having had my memories of old favorites like My Fair Lady and The Thorn Birds totally ruined by watching them again recently, it was entirely possible that the same thing would happen here. You just can’t always trust Amazon reviews (how do you think I ended up buying The Thorn Birds? We have only ever watched the first episode it was so horrendously bad)

I am happy to say that we all enjoyed the movie very much – even my husband who somehow had never seen it the first time around. It starts in “present day” 1985, but since it very quickly switches back to 1955 it didn’t seem too dated at all – the children certainly didn’t notice. It held the childrens’ attention throughout (my husband too and he’s a tough audience) and it was very cute to see how anxious my daughter was toward the end, worrying whether everything was really going to work out or not. All in all a success on all fronts. What a relief!

(I have a strange compulsion to watch it again when everyone is out for the day, only this time I will quilt instead of sunbathe)

For the New Year holiday I think we’ll do another family movie night with her other new movie: The Karate Kid, yet another classic from my youth. Fingers crossed we’ll have another hit!

This picture makes me smile. I worked retail (way back) when I was in college and I used to volunteer to work all night on the 25th while the store was closed to clean up the tremendous mess from the last minute shopping just so I could avoid working the day after Christmas when there would be lines out the door with people coming in to return things.

Christmas morning came very early as the children got up to see just how many presents had appeared while they slept. Santa fills stockings and leaves one present per child in our home, the rest of the presents are from family. I wait til Christmas Eve to put everything out to minimize temptation – and because it makes more of an impact on Christmas morning that way!

The night vision goggles were a hit, as I suspected they would be. The snag? One pair works great, one pair does not. They waited all day to be able to test them out in the garden after dark. Imagine how disappointed my daughter was when she came upstairs within a few minutes to report that her pair didn’t function properly, but her brother’s were perfect. Not my fault, but I felt so badly for her. To make matters worse, I can’t even exchange them because they are currently out of stock where I ordered them. I keep messing with them, hoping that it is just a matter of flipping the switch just right. But I’ve also printed out a return label. Hope the relative that is coming to visit in a few days doesn’t mind packing them in his baggage for the return trip and popping them in the mail for us!

(After a quick consult, daughter opted to get the money back for the goggles and apply it to a cell phone of her very own – probably a present with more longevity anyway!)

The children also received half a dozen new DVDs between them. Problem? Our DVD player has decided that now is the right time to die. Oh, it still sort of works – it got us through movie-night on Christmas. But often it only thinks it is closed before it starts to ‘read’ the disk. You have to push it closed, which can’t be good for it. It wasn’t an expensive unit and it’s definitely been used with great regularity over the six or seven years we’ve had it, but it could have picked a better time to crap out. I’ll have to take it to see if can be repaired soon. Why bother? Because it’s on the inventory list we were compelled to complete when we moved to Egypt and whether it works or not, it has to leave with us when we do. Nice huh? It’s cheaper to buy electronics elsewhere and bring them in with you, but if you do that then you are stuck taking them out again even if they are broken just to prove you didn’t sell them while you were here. If you buy them internally, at least you can ditch them if they break (and if they are also made locally, they will) All I can say is that at least the malfunction isn’t something subtle and hard to describe!

All in all, it was a satisfying day. The children seemed genuinely pleased with their presents. They didn’t get too much and so didn’t get over stimulated, and they got a nice assortment of things that will amuse and entertain them in the short and long term. Phew!

I did finally get my cookies baked and distributed on Christmas Eve, though there are still more than I’d ideally like to have in the house. I can resist gingerbread but toffee bars? Just like crack. Now that Christmas is over, I’d also like to take down all the decorations and put the whole holiday behind me. I never really was able to get in the mood this year and twisting my ankle on the stairs and dropping a cake pan full of treats on the big toe of the opposite foot (big bruise) on Christmas Eve and Christmas day respectively didn’t help anything. Bah-humbug! The children are still enjoying the tree though so I suppose I will leave it up til New Year.

My mind has now turned to planning for my trip to Thailand. I. CANNOT. WAIT.

Wishing you a magical Christmas!

Found a link to a fascinating word tool on Terry Odell’s blog – Wordle. Check out the word cloud I created using the first several chapters from my book ALL THE WAY HOME:

(click to enlarge image)

The larger the word in the cloud, the more frequent the occurrence. As an author, you could use this as a way to help edit your writing for those pesky word-crutches that all writers lean on (mine tend to be “that” and “just”) Or you could just play with the layout and the colors to kill time and amuse yourself as I did.

Caution: it’s addictive!

ETA: I was thrilled to discover that ALL THE WAY HOME is now available for the Amazon Kindle and so is HERE TO STAY.

I was rummaging through my cupboard the other day, taking stock of my baking supplies, when I ran across an unfamiliar package. Turns out that my husband bought himself some brown sugar by mistake – then left the opened package in the cupboard. It’s a miracle that it wasn’t totally infested with ants, however it was hard as a brick. So hard that I had to cut and tear the packaging to free it!

It’s not the first time I’ve had brown sugar go hard, but I’ve never had it go quite THAT hard. I did a quick search on the internet and found a tip that suggested putting the hard sugar in an airtight container with a slice of bread for a few days. The sugar would absorb the moisture from the bread and soften – problem solved.

I wasn’t sure it would be quite that easy but I didn’t figure it would hurt anything either. What do you know – worked like a charm!

I love the internet

There are several differences between doctors in the US and in Egypt, late night office hours being one. Another is that if you have an x-ray or MRI, they will interpret the results for you and then give you the films. I used to think it was because the population was fairly transient, it didn’t make sense for them to keep the films when the patient might move on in a year or two. And it’s kind of handy to have them sometimes – makes it very easy to get a second opinion!

But it’s not just things like scans and x-ray films they will give you. My husband had a mole biopsied and when he went back for the results, they gave him the slides. Most recently, I was given the slides from my last gynecological exam. When I asked why I would want them, the doctor said that it’s too much hassle to store them all for every patient so they just give them back to you. Mystery solved.

My daughter got a microscope for Christmas last year. I have often thought that I ought to get industrious and show her how to make interesting slides to view. The mole slides *might* be acceptable but there’s no way I’m donating my cervical cells! Just explaining where they came from would probably traumatize her for life…

This advertisement almost makes me wish I had a car, just so I could interview this guy and see if he really has the rules of the Republic (and the cafes??) on his heart:

(click to enlarge image)

The children’s tennis coach is a funny guy. One of his main objectives with younger children is to make them “love tennis” and to achieve this, he rewards them with various things. Once in a while he comes up with something practical like a tennis bag or wrist bands but most of the time he gives them candy and inexpensive stuffed animals that make LOUD animal noises and have creepy flashing eyes.

This week, the coach had an impromptu mini-tournament in my son’s group. Since my son won 4 of his 4 games, he was #1 in the tournament and won the grand prize, to be given to his mother.

(click image to enlarge – if necessary!)

As you can see, he stuck to the animal theme! They are at least a size too big for me and the sole is pretty insubstantial and squashy so my foot is always slipping off to one side – not to mention that the bottom is sort of sticky and loud when I walk.

I have a couple of nice pairs of slippers from L.L. Bean and Cabelas, but the little man is so proud I just have to wear these for a while, even if they make my feet sweat.

I suppose it could be worse – at least I can make an argument for not wearing them in public!

I was chatting with one of the Egyptian ladies I work with at the library a while back and she was trying to convince me that it was less expensive to live in the US than in Egypt. Her reasoning? She declared that one US dollar was the same as one Egyptian pound but you can buy a lot more with a $1 US. That’s true, you can buy more with $1 US, but only because the current conversion rate is 1 Egyptian pound = $0.18 US. In the end, I think she was talking more about per capita income and percentages of income spent on living expenses rather than straight conversions, but no matter how I approached the subject she wasn’t convinced so I gave up – with her.

Instead, I will present some examples from my grocery bill here and let you decide. I’ve said it before, but one of the things I love most about living in Egypt is the produce. Each new season brings with it a delicious new assortment of tempting fruits and vegetables. Right now we have pomegranates, strawberries, and citrus fruit as well as new carrots and potatoes. Best yet? It’s all so affordable there’s just no excuse not to eat well.

(1 Kg is 2.2lbs)

cherry tomatoes : 0.75 kg for 9 EGP ($1.64)
10 bananas: 1.2 kg for 11.40 EGP ($2.07)
5 mandarin oranges: 0.61 kg for 2.77 EGP ($0.51)
5 clementine oranges: 0.54 kg for 2.43 EGP ($0.44)
5 Gala apples: 0.97 kg for 17.06 EGP ($3.11)

I didn’t buy strawberries this go round, but they generally cost about $1.50 for half a kilo. And this is shopping in my “upscale” expensive neighborhood shop where I’ve been told the prices are at least 1/3 higher than they are elsewhere. It boggles my mind to think things could be any cheaper. Is it any wonder I suffer from sticker shock when I am in the US all summer? I have never been able to get this much fresh produce in a store in America for so little money.