Jenyfer Matthews

My son went on a play date over the weekend, during which the hosting parent decided to direct some charitable activities. It’s Ramadan, a month-long Muslim holiday during which they fast in daylight hours, and this parent decided to put together some bags of groceries to distribute to poor families.

My son came home with three bags of groceries to assemble his give-away bags. Each bag ended up having 500g dry lentils, 500g red lentils, a bag of pasta, a 1kg bag of sugar, a package of dried apricot sheets, a 1kg bag of rice, and a small pack of biscuits. We assembled the two bags and my son was very excited about the idea of finding someone to give them to.

There is no shame in begging in Islam. In fact, from my limited understanding of things, it’s part of a Muslim’s religious duty to care for those less fortunate. Part of the reason for fasting during Ramadan is so that they can experience the deprivation that poor people suffer on a daily basis.

There is always a catch of course, this one being strictly cultural. One is that being on foot, I don’t often give money to beggars unless I can make a speedy getaway. I’ve been in situations where you give some money to one person and suddenly ten more come out of the woodwork. A friend of mine said she gave some money to a woman with a baby one day and found herself being followed home by a small posse of beggars. There are so many poor people in Egypt, you could stand on the street corner and give out money steadily until you yourself were impoverished and still there would be more people with their hands out.

The other thing is that I myself feel very awkward about going up to people on the street and offering them charity. I don’t want to make any faulty assumptions about a person’s income level or offend anyone’s pride. I would prefer for someone to approach me, thereby removing all doubt. However, I live in a rather affluent suburb of Cairo so there aren’t so very many beggars on the street here anyway. I know of a couple of families who live in tumble-down shacks on vacant lots, but again I feel strange going up to their door and offering them charity they may or may not want.

I also wonder about how best to include my son in this activity, or whether to include him at all. Surely, it’s not a bad thing for him to know that not everyone is as fortunate in their circumstances as he is and to teach him compassion, but how does including him in the equation change things? Would people be more willing to accept an offering from a well intentioned (and adorable) little boy? Or might they think that I’m using them as some sort of object lesson? I don’t want to humiliate anyone in the process.

It is, of course, entirely possible that I think too much.

Still, I have these two bags to give away so I took one bag with me on Saturday, to look for a likely candidate while we walked to our club to take our children to their tennis lessons (just the contrast in those two very different activities makes me squirm) The bag was ridiculously heavy and of course I did not see anyone who might have really needed such a bag. I did not want to carry it home again so a friend and I took it to a family who lives around the corner from our club, in a vacant lot. They were extremely gracious and seemed pleased enough to have it. I was extremely pleased not to have to carry it home. Win win.

I took the other bag with me when I went out to grocery shop the next morning. Lately there have been a least a couple of ladies who have been begging on my route to the shops, and failing that I figured I would be able to find a street sweeper. Where are the all beggars when you need them? There was no one out either going to or returning from the store. I’d leave it outside a poor family’s house if I didn’t worry that they would be suspicious of who left it there and reject it for that reason. I ended up carrying the damn bag home again where I weighed it (once I got the strength back in my arm). It weighs nine pounds. I feel like I’m doing my own sort of Ramadan penance, just carrying the thing around.

I’ll give it a couple more tries. Surely I can find someone, somewhere who would appreciate it before Ramadan ends…

I’m very happy to say that the children started school yesterday – yeah hooray! You might think that after having spent all day, every day with them for the entire summer I might have done something fun with myself like go and have a pedicure or a coffee morning with the other moms. Nope. I know how to really have fun.

I came home and changed no less than seven light bulbs, a few of which required me to stand tip-toe at the top of a six foot ladder. In my stairwell. If that’s not an adrenalin rush, I don’t know what is.

One of the first things I did upon returning home from vacation was to change all the bedding, including quilts. I washed and stowed the Broken Star quilt for another year and put on what I think of as my late summer quilt.

I made this quilt at least five years ago using a variety of bali / batiks and marble fabrics. It’s a fairly simple pattern that really lets the gorgeous fabric sing. My original plan was to use black sashing between the blocks but once I had all the blocks done, black seemed too harsh so I opted for navy blue.

It’s a bit difficult to see, but I hand quilted swirly suns using rainbow variegated thread in the center of the blocks.

I backed this quilt with a large scale bamboo and hibiscus print that is all in shades of blue. It was a print I fell in love with at first sight while fabric shopping in Dubai one day and bought acres of, figuring that one day I would use it as for backing. This quilt was just the perfect candidate.

I was sort of thinking of making each of the children a Halloween quilt this year, but somehow I think that’s a project I should have started in May if I was going to finish this year!

One of my favorite things to do is haunt thrift / consignment shops – 1) because I love a good deal, and 2) because you just never know what you’ll find. It’s just lucky that even the tiny little town that my mother lives in has two thrift stores.

I didn’t have as much time to browse as I would have ideally liked and I had to keep my limited remaining packing space in mind, but I still managed to find some fun things. Unpacking was that much more fun for gloating over my goodies.

One of the thrift stores is attached to the local recycling center and it isn’t very particular about what people donate, but since it is conveniently located they are always getting new things. Because of the never ending donations, things are priced to sell. I found:

A “vintage” Corning stainless steel pie spatula with serrated edge – $0.35 (made in the USA so you know it’s old!)
A girls tennis trophy – $0.35
A pair of denim shorts for my son – $0.50
A pair of stone colored chinos for my son – $0.50

Limited Too reversible windbreaker my son chose
St. John’s Bay cotton blouse with 3/4 sleeves in scarlet (me)
a wine purple cotton blouse from The Gap (me)
an Adidas tshirt in lime for my daughter
a pumpkin orange Cherokee golf shirt for my son
ALL OF THE ABOVE FOR $3 on “bag day”

A linen skirt in variegated red / purple tones (me)
A pair of red leather NEW Aerosole sandals (me)
Sponge Bob t-shirt for my son
Underarmor sport shirt in coral for my daughter
A big, floppy stuffed dog for my son
ALL OF THE ABOVE FOR $1 on “bag day”

I love the red sandals because they are comfortable and fun, but even more because they only cost me $0.20! Who could not love a deal like that??

And I can’t wait to use my new pie spatula

My trip back to Egypt went smoothly enough, in spite of a surprise re-route through Paris. I was worried about that – can you blame me after the trouble I had on the first part of my trip?? – but it all went well enough. I am almost positive two of my bags were over the weight limit but with the distraction of re-routing me and the children either the gate agent didn’t notice or chose to let it slide. Phew.

I arrived in Cairo three hours later than originally scheduled, just before iftar (the sunset breaking of the fast during Ramadan) and was a little concerned about that timing because typically nothing happens for about two hours after that. It was in fact the most efficient arrival I’ve ever experienced. I was through passport control in about five minutes and all of my bags came through one after another, bam bam bam. I was through customs and driving away in half an hour. Unheard of. The call to prayer (and the signal to eat) came as I was waiting for my driver to bring the car around. The timing worked out in another way as well: the roads were nearly empty so we cruised home in no time.

I can almost hear you thinking what’s the catch. Well, let’s just say I would advise you never to assume an airline with have the sense to throw a tarp over your luggage, even if it is raining steadily for a five hour layover. All of my bags were damp and the contents of two were actually wet. One quilting magazine and some other assorted paperwork were soaked. It could have been worse I suppose – at least all my new books were well protected (I tend to pack with lots of plastic bags, against interior explosions of shampoo, etc)

I’ve been back a day and my bags are unpacked and put away, until next time. I am however still settling in. After being in the quiet of the north woods for six weeks, things here seem really loud. Air conditioners perpetually blowing, two toilets running, traffic noise – not to mention the children. It will take me a little while to tune it all out again.

It’s quiet in other ways though. Two of my closest friends moved away at the end of June. No more girly chats, no more wine nights. No more silly text messages throughout the day. I’m sure I’ll find ways to fill in the gaps and distract myself but for right now it all feels a little hollow.

School starts on Sunday. I’ve been ALONE for more than half an hour since the end of June and I’m looking forward it. I haven’t been able to write since two nights before I left Minnesota and I’m itching to pick up the story again…

As you read this, I should be somewhere over the Atlantic, on my way back to Egypt. I don’t think I’ll truly be able to relax until I have all six of my stuffed suitcases checked and I’m settled in my seat on our non-stop flight from NY to Cairo.

One thing I always enjoy about summer is getting new books. There aren’t very many bookstores in Egypt, and the ones they have are not particularly satisfying, at least for the authors and genres I enjoy the most. Since I wouldn’t necessarily be willing to pay for international shipping even if Egypt had reliable mail service, normally I just send everything to my father’s house for summer pickup. It’s a little bit like Christmas as I open all the boxes and see all the pretty new books, some of which I had forgotten ordering.

I ordered The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne on the basis of a great review on Smart Bitches. It was every bit as good as the Smart Bitches’ review suggested it would be. There were very few times when the heroine did what I expected her to do and she surprised me in the most delightful ways. There aren’t so many books that can do that. I had also ordered My Lord and Spymaster (The Spymaster Series) at the same time, which I read immediately after finishing The Spymaster’s Lady. It was also very well written, however it suffered a bit by comparison because the characters and the story were very similarly done and I kept getting them mixed up in my head. They were meant to be in a similar vein because there were a couple of overlapping characters, but I’m sure that the author didn’t intend for them to be totally indistinguishable. I’m going to keep it anyway because I have the feeling I’ll enjoy it at another time, read fresh and on its own terms.

A friend of mine sent me a box of goodies in which she included the book Flirting with Forty by Jane Porter. She had enjoyed it and thought I would as well. I don’t want to give too much away, but, in a nutshell, it’s about a fairly newly divorced woman who is trying to figure out what her role is in life now that’s she’s a single mom, staring her fortieth birthday in the face. A friend suggests they take a girl’s weekend to Hawaii for her birthday – and then her friend backs out. Let’s just say she has a better time than she expected to. The ending was a tad unrealistic, but what’s so great about constant reality anyway?

Having enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl (Movie Tie-In) so much, I bought The Queen’s Fool: A Novel (Boleyn) by Philippa Gregory for the plane right home. It’s a nice, fat historical and at 500 pages it ought to be long enough to entertain me for the entire flight, in case my e-reader and my netbook both lose their charges. Heaven forbid I should have any big delays – I think I’ve already had my share of those!

With luck, I’ll be back live by Wednesday as usual, jet lag permitting, though it may take me longer to get back to you with my thoughts on The Queen’s Fool.

I’m in my usual stressed out, pre-travel packing mode at the moment. You might think that I’d be an expert at packing by now…yes and no. Stop by friend and author Shelley Munro’s blog to find out what special packing challenges I’m facing this year. Leave a comment and you’ll have a chance to win a PDF copy of SEPARATION ANXIETY.

I’ll be back with you, live from Egypt next week. Have a great weekend and send me positive thoughts for a smooth trip back!

Summer started so early in Northern Minnesota this year that most of the berry season was finished before I even arrived. I’ve had many fewer raspberries this year than usual and even the blueberries we picked a few weeks back were nearly a month earlier than the typical season.

As warm and sticky as it was last week, it seems that summer is ending a bit early too. The wind started howling a few days ago, whipping up the water on Lake Superior to nearly surfer sized waves. With the wind came cooler temperatures. Much cooler temperatures. Cool enough that many more deer are beginning to show up in the yard in the mornings and evenings, looking for corn. Cool enough that I’m wearing socks to bed and pulling on a thick quilt at night. Cool enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see the leaves changing color next week.

Too bad I won’t be here to see it.

The children and I will be leaving for Egypt on Sunday, where it most definitely still summer. I’m trying hard to look forward to that – to the fact that in Cairo I still have time to wear the two new sundresses I ordered for myself that only just arrived in the mail here. I’m looking forward to the start of the school year and having a little more time to myself during the day. A change of scene has given me the time to recharge my creative juices and I’m bursting with new ideas for writing and quilts and cooking and…well, lots of things.

But I still wish I could be here in Minnesota to see the change of seasons from summer to autumn and from autumn to winter. I wonder how my husband would feel about commuting…

I have less than a week before I reverse my course and go back to Cairo. Where did the summer go? I feel like I just got here. And need I say that all my plans for my summer education program for my children went right out the window? I had planned to make my daughter do 10 minutes of math a day, my son read and do a bit of writing. To date we’ve done absolutely nothing. Since school starts about a week after we return and we’ll all be settling back in and getting over jetlag, I’m guess that nothing will change once we get back.

Sigh.

My bedroom at my father’s house is a very stressful place right now, surrounded as I am by a mountain of Amazon boxes. I’ve been in denial, but I won’t be able to keep that up. I really need to make a start on packing. And I know that I’ll feel better once I can see the floor again.

I am happy to say I’ve made good progress on my next book while I’ve been here, in spite of falling asleep while writing the other night. I woke up a short time later to four pages of k’s. Overall, I’m going home with about 20K words than I came with – best yet, they don’t weigh a thing

Just in case you thought I am only taking pictures of foxes and other wildlife, allow me a moment to brag on my daughter. She played her very first tennis tournament last week and won the girls under 12s category.

I admit that I was on pins and needles much of the time. Since it was her first tournament, I wanted so much for her to play well and have a good experience. She lost to a girl she should have defeated in her first match in the under 14s category and was very upset about it, so it was doubly thrilling to see her come back so strong in her second match in the under 12s category.

Putting it in perspective, there was only one other girl in her category she had to beat, but they were both very good players. They had to play the best 2 of 3 sets. My daughter won the first set in a tie breaker and took the second set easily.

Considering that it was her first tournament, she was playing on a hard court (rather than clay, which is her usual surface) in front of an audience, and she came back after a defeat, I was tremendously proud of her for doing so well even if she did only have to play one opponent. She won a $20 gift certificate to a local store for her achievement.

Her first prize money

I keep hearing from everyone here how hot it is. Frankly, until they mentioned it, I didn’t really notice. Compared to what I’m used to in Cairo, it’s been absolutely heavenly. I think I’m in the minority though.

The foxes are either hot or very, very relaxed.

I think they mistook the function of this pool of water – or maybe they like the bird flavor!

I love this pose. It makes you wonder what he was thinking as he gazed at his own reflection. Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

How would you caption this guy?

Today it’s cool and damp and drizzly. Uncomfortably sticky, perhaps but NOT HOT.