Jenyfer Matthews

The boy went back to school this week, and I was looking forward to a little alone time before the upcoming long weekend – this year Thanksgiving and Eid fall at the same time so the children have off Thursday – Monday. I had planned to do a little cleaning then maybe curl up on the couch with my current hand-quilting project and get some quilting done while watching a “House” marathon. I want that quilt ready to use by January.

I haven’t heard from them in at least two weeks, so of course the library called me in to work yesterday and today. Oh well, a couple days work never hurt anything. If one of the professional staff were to fall ill, I’d get a higher hourly rate though…

I am glad that I made some progress over the weekend on a new baby quilt that has been living in my head for a while. A friend of mine was cleaning out her cupboards a few months ago and gave me three different 1-yard pieces of some Noah’s Ark cotton print, as well as several 5″ wide strips, leftover from a project she did of her own. Lucky for me it perfectly coordinated with a brick red star print that another acquaintance gifted me when she moved away.

(click to enlarge)

The only fabric I added to the mix was the brick red, gold, and muslin in the stars. The back and binding will be the same red star print as the narrow sashing between the body of the quilt and the printed border.

Thinking of quilting it in a large meander / stipple – though I’ll have to teach myself how first! It’s perfectly color coordinated and cute, but honestly I’m not that crazy about it. It’s not a color palette I would have chosen on my own. Or maybe it’s *too* perfect. Also, it’s very printy. But since I have enough of this sort of fabric left to make at least one, if not two, more Noah’s Ark baby quilts, guess what I’ll be doing? You guys know how I hate letting things go to waste! Someone out there will love it, right?

Not that I’m much good at predicting what people will like…but more on that later.

I hadn’t been out of the house a whole lot for any length of time while tending to the sick boy, so let me tell you it was a nice change of pace to go to my daughter’s tennis lesson Wednesday night. Only when I got home again I noticed a distinct smell. Not a rotten smell, just sort of musty. I am fairly sensitive to smells – I don’t like strong fragrances and avoid detergents and paper products with scents – so this smell, mild as it was, was disturbing to say the least.

I had been parked in front of my computer working on various writing tasks for most of the week, but yesterday I spent the morning cleaning. I had to get rid of the mysterious funk.

I went a bit above and beyond my norm. I changed my sheets and washed the shower curtain. I sprinkled baking soda on the carpets – and if you knew how much that stuff costs here, you would know how drastic a measure that was. I bring it back in my suitcases and hoard it. (I was really annoyed when I returned one summer and found that my former housekeeper had taken it upon herself to open a box in my spice cabinet to absorb odors. What odor? It’s a spice cabinet!)

I dusted and vacuumed and opened the windows briefly. Opening the windows in Cairo is a mixed bag. The air isn’t all that fresh and leaving them open for any length of time just undoes the dusting and vacuuming in record time. The last thing I did was light a scented candle – drastic measure indeed. I love candles but really can’t be trusted with them. I get distracted and leave them unattended. I’ve had a few minor fires start as a result of unattended pillar candles. This one was in a jar so it was less of a hazard.

Now it smells of “sweet pea” in here, which is a vast improvement. And my floors are clean, for now.

My children decided the time had come to make their Dear Santa Christmas lists. They were a few hours too late as I had already hit the “submit order” button at Amazon, but I left them to it to see what they came up with and whether anything on their list matched what I had chosen.

My Son:

-a pet turtle
-spiderman toy
-a big tent
-cannonbolt (ben 10)
-guitar
-”trumpit”
-sunglasses
-scooby doo 3 (does not exist!)
-a “bezuca”
-police sketchers (shoes)
-lego fire station
-lego star wars
-American football helmet and clothes

My Daughter:

-a big tent
-police sketchers
-a ds game
-a gameboy (why??? she just got a Nintendo DS for her birthday!)
-Shrek movies
-goal keeper gloves
-a gun
-a “trumpit”
-sunglasses
-Phineas and Ferb collection
-American football helmet and clothes

Okay, some of these I can work with, but in my house Santa does not give pets as presents and where exactly they thing they are each going to pitch a “big tent” is a mystery to me. And a bazooka? When I questioned that one, I got an eyeroll and the answer “just a toy one.” Like that was what I needed clarification on!

I have already done some shopping and gotten them some things they didn’t even know they wanted. Tell me – what kid wouldn’t want night vision binoculars???

Now I have to find a way to “post” the letters while secretly keeping them for posterity…

I have always loved Twain, and this quote is particularly inspiring:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

The grocery store where I do the majority of my shopping is sort of controversial in my neighborhood. They carry a lot of imported items – at the expected mark-up – and have a reputation for being thieves. I buy a mix of local and imported and am willing to pay for the convenience of shopping there than elsewhere. Truly, I’ve done the comparison shopping and they aren’t so much more expensive than other shops are AND I can walk there. I just watch the cashier closely

They put up this sign in the last year, but I have yet to hear of anyone actually “getting lucky” in the mystery sale – in any sense of that phrase, ha ha! Until recently I’d been doing most of my shopping in the early mornings, but I’ve recently shifted to Saturday afternoons. Still no luck. I’m beginning to think that it’s (gasp!) all a big hoax!! I may have to do some sort of expose and call them on it. Maybe I’ll get 25% off my bill just to keep me quiet…

I have a bit of a cold this week. Or maybe it’s allergies. It might even be a bit of both. Whatever it is, it doesn’t inspire me to be very energetic about much, and it’s fogging my brain for anything to write. Instead I thought I’d share a picture I took yesterday in Garden City downtown while I was sitting in traffic, on my way to meet a friend for dinner.

I love this sign. The combination of the name and the gigantic portrait of the president is so Soviet Block somehow – I felt sort of disoriented for a moment, as if there should be a hammer and sickle mounted somewhere nearby as well.

I amused myself trying to figure out just what “social solidarity” means? Public morale? I was imaging all sorts of interesting and fun social programs they could institute to keep everyone happy and content. Like line dancing. Or picnics. Maybe trips to the zoo for school children. My friend, who grew up here, said it was more akin to the American welfare department. I suppose that would also contribute to morale, but so far as I can tell it hasn’t led to “social solidarity”.

Maybe they should try the line dancing…

Last night was the Halloween fair at the children’s school, the last big costume event for the season I hope! It had been unusually cloudy all day and even sprinkled a few times. The sky looked very ominous by late afternoon and I was sure we were all going to be drenched at the fair.

(Click image to enlarge)

In fact it didn’t rain – or if it did, it never reached the ground – and we had a good time at the fair. The children played games and collected their “spooky prize” at the end. My daughter got a jumping rubber bat, but was upset she didn’t get trick chewing gum like her brother. My son kindly traded with her. He got the better end of the deal though since the bat is still jumping but the trick gum has already broken.

When my daughter brought it to me for repair I got a good look at the label:

Not sure which is worse, the outside of the package or the inner warning label:



Don’t joke the sickman indeed. The translator for this was the sick one. I love the image of the tiny lips along with “no entrance”. I am fairly surprised the party organizers didn’t notice the label before distributing it to small children however. The children haven’t caught on but not all parents have a sick sense of humor like mine!

The gum is proving difficult to repair so I may just quietly dispose of it…

From Engrish.com – I often take pictures of amusing signs when I’m traveling – but I rarely see them as funny as this! (Click to enlarge)

One of the funniest signs I’ve seen recently was in the bathroom of a tour bus. On the back of the door there was a sign advising “No Crunching On Toilet”. I interpreted that to mean “No Crouching”, which is what you would do on a non-Western toilet since it is essentially a hole in the ground (What do you call a non-Western toilet? An Eastern toilet?) I regret not having taken a picture of that sign now, but you know – it just didn’t occur to me to bring my camera into the bathroom with me. And just think what the other passengers would have thought if I’d come out, retrieved my camera, and gone back in again!

Happened to have my camera handy when this lady happened by. You should have seen me trying to get up close enough behind her to get a good shot without alerting her!

You can’t see it in the picture but the English writing under the Arabic on the bag she’s carrying says “Step into Fashion”.

Pictures like these are why I should always carry my camera with me!

When we left the US ten years ago and moved to the Middle East, one of the first Arabic phrases I learned to say was “post office” because I spent a fair amount of time going there in taxis to pick up packages. Those experiences were fairly stressful – imagine walking into a hot, loud, crowded bureaucratic office where you don’t know the language and no one stands in line. Though it was a great training ground for learning to be pushy and standing my ground, in the years since I’ve done what I could to avoid going to the post office. I would rather pay inflated courier service prices than try to mail a package regular mail!

Cairo is the first place I’ve lived abroad where they do actually have home mail delivery – though I’ve never figured out exactly what their system is. I’ve had large packages delivered to my doorstep with the carrier only too happy to collect the import duty (and tip!) – sometimes coming back multiple times in one day if I’m not home the first time they try to make delivery. Other times they simply leave a package notice in my box for something small like an envelope containing a CD of photos as they did this week.

I’ve been to the post office here once before – to pick up a different CD of photos. Not sure why they make such a fuss about discs, but they do. The post office is only about a twenty minute walk away, but I might as well have been in a different city, the atmosphere of the street changes so dramatically as you cross over an invisible barrier from expat-land to local Cairo. I was the *only* Westerner on the street and though no one around me made any special fuss, I felt fairly conspicuous in a way that I don’t often feel this close to my neighborhood.

The post office set-up has changed a little since I was last there but I waved my pink notice and found the window where I needed to be – manned by the same woman as was there the last time I visited, three years ago. I showed her my notice and she asked me who I was since my husband’s name was on the notice. She then asked to see my passport. Huh? Once she asked me, I vaguely remembered that nearly every time I have been to the post office I am asked to produce my passport which always strikes me as ridiculous since I didn’t even need my passport to get into the US Embassy when I went to meet my friend for dinner earlier in the week.

Needless to say, I didn’t have my passport handy. She asked for another ID. I gave her an old driver’s license I still have from my time in the United Arab Emirates. What? It’s not yet expired and better yet, has some Arabic writing on it. Funnier still, she accepted it immediately. (Note: That is the real reason I never remember to bring my passport – because I can get away with giving them my gym membership card and still get what I came for)

The duty on the CD came to 7 Egyptian pounds, 85 piastres. Three years ago when I went to claim the CD, the duty was 7 pounds and when I gave her a 10 pound note and she claimed she had no change. Right. Lack of change is a national epidemic apparently. This time the duty was slightly higher, but one thing you have to know about Egyptian money is that though the amount for a transaction could be any amount, usually the cashier will either round up or down to the nearest .25 piastre. One Egyptian pound is only worth about US$0.18 so they don’t produce small coinage anymore, the only current notes / coins being quarter and half a pound increments.

I thought I would be clever this time around so I gave her seven pounds and seventy-five piastres in notes and I dug what I thought was an old 10-piastre coin out of my purse. My triumph was short-lived though because it turns out it wasn’t an Egyptian coin afterall! She wasn’t the sort to round down so I ended up giving her eight pounds. No small coins means no change this time either!

I did at least get the package. And an even greater appreciation of the overall efficiency of the US postal system

Even though I let myself off the hook by not hosting a big “friend” party for my son’s 7th birthday, I still spent a lot of time running around on Saturday and Sunday preparing for his big day. As a compromise for not having a party, I sent cupcakes to his class which meant I spent much of Saturday afternoon baking them and then got up early on Sunday to frost them. Sunday there was more baking to be done.

Every year the little man asks me for a cake “with fruit on top.” One year I did a white cake with whipped cream and slices of kiwi and pomegranate seeds on top which was both lovely and tasty but he didn’t care for it. Turns out he doesn’t like whipped cream (little freak!) Last year I did a pineapple upside down cake – again lovely and tasty but he didn’t even try it! This year I decided to give him what he didn’t know he wanted: a pumpkin “donut” cake with cream cheese frosting. It was a big hit with everyone, and he was over the moon with his presents.

If I thought that this week was going to be calmer, I should have known better. It isn’t enough that in addition to Halloween this month, the school scheduled Victorian dress-up day last week – next week my daughter is doing Tudor dress-up day. I really should have seen this one coming. She has decided to be a boy rather than a girl, which I am totally in favor of because I have many of the basics already: she can wear a long sleeved white shirt with her baggy black soccer shorts (which I’ll gather with elastic bands at the bottom to make them puffy), and she can wear her long white soccer socks for tights. But it all comes down to the vest and the hat again. The cop-out in me who is tired of designing costumes is sort of thinking she can wear the vest I made last week and I’ll stick a long feather in the corduroy “Victorian” hat. But the overachiever in me found a pattern for an authentic Tudor style hat and I happen to have some green velvet in my fabric stash from which I could probably make both a hat AND a drapey vest / robe. I still don’t have a feather, but who would care if she were wearing velvet?

Tuck a pillow in her shirt and add a turkey leg as a prop and she could be Henry VIII for Halloween

It’s hot and dusty and miserable here at the moment and I have no water yet again so what else have I got to do but spend all my time making a hat, right?