Wherein I get myself into ridiculous situations

This photo has nothing to do with this post (but remember my New Year's resolution about every post having a photo?), but it is our new favorite place for take out.  And that reminds me of this story.  In the car the other day, Tommy's friend said something about 'take out' and Tommy said, "What's 'take-out'?"  And the (very clever) friend said, "I can't believe you know what 'ambush' means but you don't know 'take-out'."  (For the record, prior to this conversation, Tommy called it 'take-away'.)

***

I had quite the day on Thursday.  It was busy -- all with things that were in my calendar, so not in a surprising way.  But there were some lovely little twists that made me feel like an idiot.

Story Numero Uno:

I took the kids to school on Thursday morning and went to get my hair done.  This would have been quite a huge relief except that it looks striped when it's in a ponytail so it's only a partial relief.  (I think I'm going to ask her to remove some of the highlights but I will let you know when I have decided for certain.)  Anyway, then I went to get Lulu, and then we went to the grocery store so that the kids could eat dinner.  We rushed into the house to find Aileen (the woman who cleans our house three times per week) repairing our blinds (this is another crazy story but I will save it for now) and then noticed that she had brought her cat along with her.  I also noticed that there was a large mound of cat gear near the front door, but I thought nothing of it.


"Oh," I thought to myself, "that's so sweet of her.  She knows how much the kids will love to play with him."  And so I made Lulu lunch and let Lulu squeal over the cat (and generally terrorize it with her love).  She was thrilled.

So after I got the groceries unpacked and made Lulu's lunch, I chatted with Aileen a bit and it ought to be explained here that we do not communicate overly well.  We understand the gist, but it's not really like having a proper conversation and I'm certain that we each miss a lot of what the other is saying.  So.  We started chatting, and she was explaining to me that she puts the cat out at night because otherwise he wants to sleep with her, and that he meows when he wants to go to the bathroom so she lets him out, and then it became clear that Aileen was planning to leave the cat at our house for the weekend.

Here I will have to interrupt myself because I have not explained on this blog that we lost our cat, Lola. We put her out before we left for 36 hours (we put out food and water OF COURSE) to go renew our visas in Dubai (so before we had even moved into the house).  Long story short, she never returned, leaving me to imagine the awful things that could have happened to her.  Aileen is certain that some other lucky family caught Lola and has confined her indoors, but I am not nearly so certain.  I think that it's possible that a pack of wild dogs ('wadi dogs') caught her; I think it's also possible that she was poisoned or hit by a car.  So I have been living with a fair amount of guilt for quite a while now.

So back to the moment wherein it becomes clear that Aileen is planning to lend us her cat for the weekend.

"Leave him here for the weekend?!?"  I exclaimed loudly enough for Aileen to start laughing.  "Yes, ma'am," she said (she calls me "ma'am" or "Madame Laura" and Eli is "Sir Eli"; this took some getting used to).  Anyway, we struggled through a conversation in which I was attempting to (a) remember whether the conversation we'd had about her cat the last time she'd cleaned had led her to believe that I wanted to borrow him,  and (b) decide whether to allow the cat to stay as I knew that Tommy would be disappointed to have missed him.  In the end, my fear that something horrible would happen to the cat outweighed my desire to constantly please my children, and I asked her to take the cat home.

And now, Lulu gets mad when Aileen comes sans cat.  Of course.

Story Numero Dos:

Lulu had a birthday party on Thursday at a restaurant that is well-known among the kids in Muscat as it is a popular birthday party venue.  The truth is that there are some nice aspects of this restaurant, but that it's nothing overly special.  So I walked into the party and met the mother of Lulu's classmate.  The first thing I said to her, as I pulled a cardigan out of my bag, was that I always bring a scarf or layer there because they always have the AC on quite high.

"Oh, really? Interesting." she said.  "You've been here before?"

"Yes," I said.

"How many times?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, maybe five?" I replied.

"Do you like it?" she asked.  [Note:  I understood that this woman had decided to have her daughter's party there, so I knew that I shouldn't say I found it underwhelming.  But, I could have made some negative comments and I did not.]

"Sure."  I said.  "It's fine, and the kids seem to love it."

"Do you eat when you come?"  she asked.

"Yes, I have a couple of times."

"What do you usually order?"  [And here I was pretty sure that something about this conversation was odd.]

"I'm not sure -- there's some sort of wrap I get, I guess."

"Oh," she said.  "My family own this restaurant, and I was just looking to get an unbiased opinion."

!!!!  While this story would have been better if I'd said what I really thought, I felt quite relieved to have played it safe and not said anything overly controversial.  But talk about a set-up!