We Are Famous People

We made it into Khaleej Times.  According to their web site, "The highest circulated of the English language newspapers throughout the Gulf."  A proud day.  I don't think I've had my picture in the paper since...well...I can't remember ever having my picture in the paper.

Shop-a-lot

It's Friday today, and we spent the whooooole day shopping. First we went to Lulu and stocked up on necessities like mayonnaise and bread. Then we went to Dragon Mart and picked up some cheap art:


That's real canvas stapled to a wood frame, for you folks at home. $21 per piece. Ahhh, Dragon Mart.

After that we rolled up to Pinky's furniture warehouse in Sharjah to check this place out (word on the street, they've got all sorts of big solid wooden far eastern furnishings for cheap.) Well, it wasn't THAT cheap, but it was pretty good. We found a pretty sweet bench for like $400 and a pretty sweet bar for about $500, but we're not too interested in spending real money on unecessary furniture at this point, so we didn't buy anything. Priorities, priorities - I told Dan we're on the Obama budget - this fiscal year we're gonna invest in new work clothes, take a trip home to America, buy some art every now and then, AND reduce the deficit. But in order to accomplish these goals, we'll have to make some sacrifices - like continuing to bomb around in the Seat, aka Dubai's cheapest car.

I'm a little concerned that thing is starting to fall apart - it doesn't always start right up, having a little trouble shifting into 5th gear, there's that minor oil leak mentioned in the last post. Luckily only one of us has to depend on it to get to work. :)

The Les Schwab of the Middle East

It goes without saying that when you're in this part of the world most of your interactions are going to be conducted in ESL or maybe even ETL.  It's part of the fun.  Really.  As we keep telling the more whiney expats, "What? You came here hoping everything would be exactly the same?"  It can require a little patience sometimes, but it's amazing the number of times when you would think that both parties need to speak the same language to accomplish a goal, but it turns out a few words in common and hand gestures are sufficient.  

I set forth into the industrial part of my neighborhood today in search of a reliable mechanic.  Although the Seat (I always feel the need to explain: That's the brand of car we own) dealership is shiny and clean and everyone speaks some English, it's on the other side of town and likely to be expensive.  Instead, I figured I'd try the local flavors.  Afer a few minutes of slowly cruising the streets where nobody goes unless they need a car fixed or an air compressor serviced, I had identified literally 20 or 30 mechanics and body shops, but most tended toward the charactaristic crooked garage door, painted sheetmetal sign and 4 or 5 cars in various states of disrepair in the sandy lot out front.  I was holding out for better.  Finally I found what I was looking for:  A relatively large and stable looking building.  It said Al Safer Auto Service Center.  The sign was in neon.  The door was not crooked.  This seemed to be my best bet.  

I tenatively stepped through the front entrance and wandered to the back where a man was trying to hammer a dent out of the hood of a Mercedes.  I greeted him with the standard "aSallam-u-alaikum" (I'm starting to feel more comfortable being polite, rather than fearing mispronounciation), he replied in kind.  So far so good.  I ventured, "I need my car worked on?" 

"something something Arabii.."  He smiled.  

"Ah Arabii..." I shook my head.  Trying to be cool, I added a couple of words I happen to know that could in no way help me: "Kalimaat qaliil. (a few words)" He brightened right up.  

"Qaliil! something something!  Ok!  Try! something something."  Shit, I thought.  Now I convinced him I speak a little Arabic. I tried to tell him I didn't know enough to get this figured out, but he insisted, and we soon found enough words in English that he knew to establish that he could not help me, but he knew a man who could.  He gave me directions via hand gestures and told me the name of a shop run by a "good man".   I thanked him heartily and said goodbye in my woefully inadequate Arabic. 

Turns out he was right.  The "good man" was Syrian, spoke a little bit more English, and established that there was nothing wrong with the car that I should pay him to fix.  It leaks a little oil, but not enough to worry about.  The clutch makes a funny noise, but no reason to take it apart.  He explains: "You take it somewhere else, they say 'Big Problems!'.  Me I need the work...but I will not rob you." 

Sports Day!

I'm posting from my e-mail since my site is apparently now blocked in this
country. I can't for the life of me figure out why. There's no gambling,
terrorism, drugs, pornography, subordination of the government, nothing but
praise for Sheikh Mo, so what's the rub?? I just ain't seein' it, boss.
Somebody tell me what I did wrong. I wanna be in full compliance, I swear.

Well, tomorrow and the next day is "Sports Day" at work, which means I get to wear my jammies and a special T-shirt to work for two days in a row.

Also, this reminds me that I've been here for over a year, since I was here for Sports Day last year (some of you may recall the ladies playing darts in stilettos).

This year, I'm on Tae Bo - and I'm not sure -exactly- how that's going to work, since I've never done Tae Bo, but I theorize I'll be able to just pop in a tape and encourage the girls to punch me and we'll all have a rolling good time.

Surprised and dismayed...

Look what I found today. :)

Sandy sandy sandy

We've been having quite a little sandstorm over here in the UAE. Although the winds are scarcely felt here in the city among all the tall buildings, the sand is sure in the air. Our car, which is dry washed every 24 hours, sports a healthy coating of dust every time we go out. 

In addition, our poor laundry also sported a healthy coating of dust after being hung to dry outside. I contemplated re-washing it for a few minutes, then just decided to beat each piece for a few seconds to get it mostly un-dusted and call it good. I think until we buy a dryer, this is just going to be a fact of life.

The sky is white; visibility is low, but it's nice and cool at least, which I am remembering to appreciate.

Freedom: Our Most Profitable Export

We were at the movie theater the other day buying tickets for Slumdog Millionaire when this poster caught our eye.  Nothing special about the poster itself, but “David Fincher and Spike Jones Present” WOW!  Could this be a brilliant partnership between the directors of some of my favorite films?  The smooth, uncompromising expert behind Fight Club and Zodiac teaming up with the quirky genius behind Being John Malkovich and Adaptation?  How did we never hear about this?  How could we be lucky enough to have this playing in the U.A.E?  We briefly considered changing our ticket order. 

We got home and checked on IMDb to get a better idea of how we could have missed this.  First, the film was made in 2006.  Spike and David, it turns out, were not directors or producers, just “Presenters” of this film.  Presenters?  What the hell does that mean?  And why is it on the movie poster?  And are Miss Leesha and I the only people in the Middle East to ever see that poster and actually care what names appear as “Presenters”?  We are convinced that we are.  We believe that if that poster continues to hang on the wall of Sahara center until Rush Limbaugh admits that government spending by a Democrat could be an effective way out of an economic crisis, we will still be the only ones who saw it and actually cared about those names.  In some trivial way, we were that poster's destiny. 

Speaking of which, I’m frequently disturbed at how little my years of developing a hip, alternative, eclectic taste in film and music benefit me here in Dubai.  Everyone here LOVES Bryan Adams and Mariah Carey.  Everyone.  Even the cool kids.  This depresses me beyond all measure for some reason.  While we in the U.S. are  in the process of homogenizing the world, can’t we export our alternative culture too?  Or is that just not cost effective?

A Brief History of the American Civil Rights Struggle: ESL Version

My Filipina co-worker has a 13 year old son.  It was National Day at their school this week so all of the students were asked to come to school wearing their traditional national dress.  The lad proudly donned the traditional garb of the revolutionary army which fought for Philippine independence: The Kataas-tasan, Kagalang-galangan ng Katipunan, or the KKK.  So the innocent boy went to school in a KKK hat, which caused  a lot of questions from his classmates, who know something vaguely negative about those letters.  I asked my co-worker if she knew the significance KKK had in the USA.  She did not.  She has never heard of MLK or Malcolm X or the American Civil War or Texas.  She is aware that Obama is black and that this is significant for some reason.   After I explained that the KKK is an evil group in the U.S. that hates all races besides white Christians she had some questions.

 

Q: Are they young people or adults?

A: It’s a very old group.  So people in the group raise their children to be like them.

Q: Is it true that people in the U.S. were sometimes killed just because they were black?

A: Um…Yes….

Q: How long ago was this?     

A: Ummm...(a stumbling explanation of the Civil War, reconstruction, segregation, and enduring racial animosity which I’m sure made about fifty per-cent sense to my co-worker.  How do you explain something like that?)

 

Q: The black people in the U.S., are they Americans?

A: Yes.

Q: Like Obama is an American?

A: Yes.  Just like Obama.

Q: So now that Obama is president everything is good for black people!

A: Ummm.....

I TOLD you Sheikh Mo drives #1

Full Story: http://gulfnews.com/nation/Society/10281983.html

Lo and Behold Part II : Attack of the Clones

The ID card is delivered to Myself today. Hooray! It's like a miracle. I can't believe we were successful. Believe me, if you had any idea what kind of a panic-ridden bureaucratic rumor-mill-ish nightmare this process has been and still is for thousands of people, you would think the two of us were really charmed.

Etisalat (local cellphone service provider) just signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone the great nation of UAE. What are the implications for me?? As of press time, it's unclear.

Lo and Behold

The ID card is delivered to Dan-O. There it is, all official and watermarked and micro-chipped and everything. And what does it do? We haven't a f@$#&'n clue.

Woke up this morning at 3am to watch the superbowl, only to pitter patter around the house for 90 minutes while someone else (hrm?) attempted to actually get the game streaming. We cut in right around the 2-minute warning in the second quarter, so we got all the exciting stuff in the end and got to eat some yummy leftover tacos for breakfast during halftime while watching Bruce Springsteen parade around like an epileptic chicken on crack. (Maybe a chicken with unlimited enthusiasm). Exhibit A, he's trying to like throw his leg up in the air like he just doesn't care, and it's like John McCain trying to get a can of string beans off the 2nd shelf from the top. Not happening. No disrespect, your limbs just don't go that way anymore, Bruce. You're gonna hurt yourself, buddy. Although he did a pretty special job of getting that guitar to swing all the way around his body at the end, what with the limited mobility. Now, I know there's a lot of people out there who think Brucey really rocks, and I understand the importance of nostalgia (hey, I'd go to a Misfits show if they showed up in their ridiculous 80s gear with all their gray hair dyed out and their Tums hidden in their freshly laundered socks and their eye-bags masked by hardcore black horror makeup) so I'll limit the criticism there. All I'm saying is, it was tedious. Back to the football. As we all know by now, the end result of the game was surely a disappointment to God, the American People and both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but we just keep our heads up and look forward to next year.