que maestro

happy birthday

being jorge quiroz

OBGYN's office

For real?

addresses

It has been a target of some jokes that in Amman we do not have street addresses. Mail is not delivered home, but to a post office. Bills may be delivered to your door and folded into the space between the doorknob and the door frame like a take-out menu. People refer to places based on landmarks and on major street or neighborhood names.

So, it was with some surprise that this visit to Amman, I saw street signs. Houses and buildings now have a big blue street number, probably placed there by the city because they are all in the same style.

I pointed this out to my dad when I arrived- there are street signs. He said, yeah, they put up these numbers on the houses a while ago. I said, no, the street signs on the corners. He said- oh, those, I never noticed those.

Street signs and nobody even noticed!

It's just not part of the culture. And it's not useful if there is no map that captures all the names- I could tell you the address, but there are no city maps for you to figure out where that street is! (Even Google maps of Amman include only the main streets.)

Well, mail delivered to your doorstep is out-of-fashion (all we get is junk!)- Amman just skipped that step. Just like I never owned a VCR player and went from nothing to a DVD player...

love defined simply

From Atmospheric Disturbances:

I found that I just wanted to tell her I loved her... I felt within me those proverbial butterflies, the desire to have her think well of me, the desire to lay myself out beside her, the desire for the world to see her next to me, the flittering conviction that she in fact was the whole world, was all worlds, all those desires.

For those who have a difficult time with the definition of love, this is a simplified version perhaps, the little things that matter, the parts that summed up come to mean love in the grandest sense.

amman

The Good:

- Rita who sat next to me on the plane giving me her number while we waited for her luggage. Come and have a cup of coffee while you're here. She lives near my aunts and uncle- in the neighborhood next door. I plan to call her and stop in if I have the car one day and am passing by.

- Eid lunch at my aunt's house. The stuffed lamb that gets put in the center of the table, the frenzy of people handing plates to those at the center of the table to have rice and lamb served to them (two pieces for Rana, they say, to welcome me back, and I happily accept). Then each person walks around the table and finishes serving themselves the yoghurt sauce on top, the mulukhiya, the salads, the olives and pickles, the meat pies, and whatever else I didn't even get to register because I was too full to make my way all the way around the table. Each person takes a seat- at the table if you are among the adults and want to sit at the table, otherwise on any of the couches in either of the salons. Aunts calling out to the younger generation- regardless of whose child- bring me a glass of water, a spoon, a fork.

- Eid visits to friends and family. Dressed up, stopping for a short visit at each house as we make our way through the ones on our list, drinking tea or coffee (Arabic for these occasions more often than Turkish- Gulfi cardamom or black Jordanian style), a Eid cookie, a piece of chocolate, and on we go.

- The hills, Mount Nebo, the Dead Sea, eating delicious food while sitting out in the beautiful breezy evening as the sun sets, with an argheelah and tea with mint.

The Bad:

- When putting my luggage on the belt to be scanned at customs on my way out of the airport, some guy walks up from another belt, puts his bag in between my first two bags, and pushes his in the way as I'm trying to lug my big bag onto the belt. When I say, what are you doing, there's a line? the guy with him says, patience, patience. That's rude, I say, it's rude, coming back to your country to have to see this, it's rude. Leaving the airport already frustrated by the special treatment that comes with some family names and some backgrounds.

The Ugly:

- Amman-style self-promotion. Nothing more needs to be said here- if you know it, you know it. If you don't, it's hard to explain because each example seems so trivial, but altogether it's hideous.

naipaul revisited

Following up on the note on A Bend in the River, I found the following information online at absoluteastronomy.com (my first stop for information):

Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small, growing city in the country's remote interior. Though born and raised in another country in a more cosmopolitan city on the coast (likely Mombasa) during the colonial period, as neither European nor fully African, Salim observes the rapid changes in his homeland with an outsider's distance. Although Salim never identifies the country where he lives, the events closely parallel the Belgian Congo's transformation into Zaire under Mobutu Sésé Seko (the novel's "Big Man") - with the unnamed city in which the novel is set having some similarity with the Zairean river port of Kisangani. Others see a resonance with Idi Amin's Uganda - however, as Uganda is referred to multiple times in the book as being a place people go to, or hear news from, this seems unlikely.

There must be only a handful of people who have wondered about the setting of the book- how funny that they can find each other and be friends.

upsets

Federer lost the US Open? And to Del Potro??

Patrick Swayze died?

A summer dress to an evening wedding in New York?

The world has been turned upside down. Just sit back, brace yourselves, and wait for the blip in the cosmos to pass.

americanos and summer

It seems only appropriate that I should mention coffees again on the last day of summer hours, the last half day, the last day of a summer vacation in which I did not partake.

Americanos- the answer to my coffee needs- two shots of espresso with hot water. None of the back-of-the-mouth taste, the puckering of lips and the grimace that come with drip coffee. Only the appropriate bitterness (not all is bad- pecans can be bitter, yet enjoyable, for example) that comes with good espresso. No dairy since I'm on a dairy vacation- although I do check in regularly because I love cheese! Americanos are the solution to a problem I feared would only be resolved with me leaving coffee behind completely.

These afternoons were spent walking around the city, hangin in Hoboken, drinking coffees (you know I don't mean drip), working on my projects.

Unfortunately my projects are mid-stream, and my goal of finishing before the end of summer (not official, physical summer) can no longer be met. But there will be weekends and cold long nights of winter.

Fall's almost here!! LOVE the fall feeling!!

in a free state

Just finished another Naipaul book. I need to know where these are set- which country? Anyone?

And a Bend in the River I thought was Uganda until Uganda is mentioned as another country. Anyone?

Both excellent. Although I did have to wonder during this one- why am I reading this? Where does it take me? Maybe it was just the book didn't go anywhere novel (pun).

A good friend turned me onto Naipaul- he's growing on me (Naipaul, not my friend- we've known each other for over ten years).

Searching around for the country in which the book is based (a generic African country? like Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book about the dictator was based in a generic Central/South American country?), I found that I have one of the ugliest editions- the cover has some Soviet-inspired design on front, which really bums me out.

inspiration

I was feeling dull. So I went to The Village. Dull no more.

the hills

... of Jordan. Remind me of the mountains of Colorado.

the mountains

Some pretty places out there. Some nice drives. Great weather. Open skies. My favorites (no surprise to many of you) are the alpine lands (colorful but vast and open). Openness so you don't lose sight of the sky. I breath more deeply.

The drive begins...

cosmo

From Cosmo magazine. A magazine for women with an article telling women where men are going to meet women.

moon shots

The moon over Manhattan. Hoboken definitely has the best view.

duty

That wicked, wicked word.

khalil gibran khalil

There is no greater testament to Khalil Jibran Khalil than an afternoon at the beach. I broke free of social restraints when I read a line that said, in other words, the wind longs to play through your hair- saying it was truly a denial of the natural order to live otherwise. It was a longer than average stride in my journey out into the world. Few people, perhaps even no one, know the role he played in my committment (philosophy) to living my life as sincerely as I try to do.

By chance, as I write this, a family with women in hijab are setting up a blanket near us. I cannot help but feel they have missed out on one of the most essential, basic, fundamental joys of living, of being. And have denied the ocean air its natural right.

beach

I love the colors in these- the storms, the water, the flowers, the sailboat, the grays, the greens, the blues.

kiss of light

The love affair with Hoboken continues. The kiss of sun on the tip of the Empire State building while the city is muted in a shade of gray. Like a violin with the muter- what is that piece called? It makes you take a step closer and lean your ear in- feel someone is whispering in your ear, a secret, an intimate exchange.

Walking home today I stopped at Les Dames for coffee- the owner remembered that I had been looking for an apartment near there a year ago- literally a year ago when it was still her (almost said 'their' because of Les Dames) first week in business. Still the best coffee. And delicious chocolate croissant- the Friday summer hour treat. I heard a bit about Hoboken politics- if you don't know people who can do you favors (very mafioso), it's tougher to have a business.





And the local bakeries. First I've never heard a bakery refer to itself as 'antique'. Secondly, couldn't this scene be from a whole list of different countries and from a whole range of decades?



And this little place. It looks like someone put up a sign outside of the door to the kitchen.

Then the local doctor's visit. But the doctor doesn't live in Hoboken- too expensive!

And bought a cute ruffly summery dress.

Ahhhhh..... Let the weekend begin.