Nizwa Fort

Eli took a few hours off on Tuesday and we drove to Nizwa, where there is a wonderfully restored fort and a souq.  It's quite a drive down and back, but it was well worth it and is something we have always planned to do.

Nizwa is atop an oasis -- you can tell from all the green.

We had lunch at Pizza Hut.  Isn't that embarrassing? 

The Souq

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger!  Sid and Ollie have been here for a week now and I have been busy!  One morning, the kids and I took them to the Souq.  We all had a lot of fun.  Here are Lulu and Grandpa Ollie with a pretty part of the Souq ceiling above them.  She enjoys being on his shoulders because he is so tall!

Ollie wanted a kuma (the Omani hat), Tommy needed a new one, and Lizzie wanted this head piece because one of her classmates has one.  They really shook me down at the souq; they also each came home with a magnet.

These photos (except for the top one) were taken along the corniche - you walk back into the buildings to the left of the Mosque to get into the souq.  Tomorrow's post will include some photos of Grandma Sid.

On Books and Empathy

The kids' school has book sales which look very much like those I remember from my own childhood except that the books are far more expensive and there is a mixture of British and American books.  Otherwise, same experience.  They send home a pamphlet that is the main entertainment for the few days we have it before the order is due, the kids each pick out a book or two, I pick out a book or two and then we deliver it to the library.  A couple of weeks later, the book orders are sent home.

The book orders were sent home yesterday in Tommy's class.  I discovered this when he burst off the school bus with the very saddest face you've ever seen.  This is abnormal for such a cheerful guy, and imagine my shock when he said, "EVERYBODY except me got their book order today!!!"

I knew I'd placed an order and quickly remembered that I had put Lizzie's name on the order, because I pick her up every day and Tommy takes the bus.  It seemed more considerate not to weigh him down with books when I could put them in the car myself.

It turns out that this attempt at consideration was quite hurtful.  I apologized and told him I'd never make that mistake again, and I thought we were mostly over it until Eli came in while I was reading to Tommy and asked him about his day.

"Well, there was one horrible part, but don't make Mommy feel bad because she already really does, but everybody else in the class got their book order but not me because Mommy had it sent to Lizzie's class but her class doesn't get their orders until tomorrow."

Eli turned toward me to tease me and started saying, "OH, MOMMY" in a shocked voice but Tommy sat up and said, "No!  Don't make her feel bad!"

Don't you think I have the sweetest kid in the whole wide world?  I totally do.

(And also, don't you think it's hard to predict what things are going to feel really important to kids? I like to think I'm pretty good at it, but sometimes I blow it completely.)

(Also again, Sid & Ollie arrive late tonight. They are currently flying over Romania.)

Missing: Sense of Humor

When you're an expat, a sense of humor is essential to making it through the day without losing your business.  In situations which are ridiculous, or infuriating, or baffling (or all three), you must always remind yourself that you're living a story that you can one day tell to others (much of this happens for me on this blog).

Friends, I have now had a few too many frustrating experiences in the span of too few days and my sense of humor is EXTINGUISHED and now, I just snap at people, including my own children (one of whom peed all over the floor this morning, mid-fit because her daddy wouldn't let her play on the iPad).

She peed all over an already filthy floor, because yesterday we had three guys come and paint over places in our house which had bubbled, or molded, or chipped off.  These guys that came - one of whom the landlord hires to maintain the property - had no tape, plastic, drop cloths or cleaning supplies.  They did a terrible job (see photos below) and left a huge mess.  I am furious, especially because we pay high rent for a nice house.  We have emailed our landlord and received a wholly unsatisfactory response as it's one month after we renewed our lease so why would he care?

They left my house trashed, and the ultimate insult is that I GAVE THEM THAT ICED TEA.

This is not the only door that was painted on. 

Yep, that'd be the stool my dad made for the kids which they used.  They also got paint on Lizzie's stroller while working in the garage.  (Yes, still need a stroller for Lizzie occasionally; I know she's too big.)

This morning, still smarting from yesterday's painting experience, I arrived at the Hyundai service center to have work done on my car - and despite the fact that I made an appointment when he told me I needed the work done two days ago, the guy trotted off to see if the part was in stock.  On Thursday he said he could finish the work in one to two hours, but today he evidently did not have the part, and did not want to tell me that, so left me languishing in the waiting area for more than three hours.  I had to cancel a haircut and have someone else pick up Lizzie.  I dealt with these things after screaming at the clueless Omani man helping me.  Don't worry, I apologized before I left because that's not how I want to behave, and I see this guy every 5,000 kilometres.  (Yes, I know you don't need an oil change that often, but I want to get as much money as I can for my car when I sell it.)

And last week, Lizzie was sick yet agin, and I went to the nearby hospital yet again, and was yet again given three prescriptions (one for antibiotics) and charged as much money as they could possibly charge.  Also, this hospital used to accept our insurance cards but now only does for a select list of companies.  After making them bring all the Aetna directives to me and confirming that they were indeed correct (miracle!), I had to go home and file all the paperwork for reimbursement for an appointment that was absolutely useless.  I was tempted to draft an email for Eli to send to his HR department, asking for Eli's company to be added to the list, but as I won't return there unless someone is in danger of death in the ten minutes it takes to get to the other private hospital, I've decided to skip it.

In better news, we had a party on Thursday night and it was fun.  Phew.

Another tooth, another pillow (and other random items)

Guess who lost a second tooth?  And guess who had a second "fairy pillow" as Lulu calls them?  Lucky kid.  I'm hoping he loses two teeth on the same day, at some point.

Do you also like seeing Lulu up on the counter? She is perched up there a lot - I have no idea why I allow it.  Also, see where the real organization of my life occurs?  Inside that cupboard door...

I had an epiphany about blogging the other day.  I think that my life feels so normal to me that I don't think to snap photos and put them on the blog.  But I had coffee near this ice skating rink on Monday and all the girls in their uniforms complete with hijab made me stop and smile.

And on a much sadder note, I read about the mudslide north of Seattle in many other places, but it was in our paper this morning, which just made the world feel very small.

The Weekend

The kids had Wednesday and Thursday off last week, for parent teacher conferences, which meant we had a four day weekend with lots of fun. Here is a random assortment of things from the weekend.

First, let me show you an article from our paper (not from the weekend - it's been in my 'to do' pile since February sometime):

 Next, let's look at some work samples, want to??

We live in a complex called the Wave, and Oman Sail is here too.  They hosted sailing races this weekend, and we went yesterday.  It looked SO FUN that I told Lulu we're going to try to sign up for sailing lessons in the afternoons.  I'll keep you posted.

 A rainbow!

There were camels at the sailing races.  I have no idea why, but there was also a bouncy castle which would have been very fun except that it was black and too hot to jump on.

We had a birthday over the weekend

Friday (March 14th) was Eli's birthday.  He is now 38 years of age and as he correctly pointed out, I make a big deal about that because it freaks me out that in six weeks, it will be my turn to reach 38.  Yikes.

Sid and Ollie are coming to visit, and with them are coming Eli's birthday gifts (we thought that their trip would be a bit earlier, so I wasn't intentionally mean).  We DID, however, bake him a flourless chocolate cake that was quite good if I do say so myself, and we also went out to dinner at the restaurant I most like in Muscat (yes, I know it was Eli's birthday but he didn't pick a place) and then we went to the beach for the day with the kids on the actual day.  This was fun except for the part where our feet all got cut up by sharp rocks.  Remember aqua socks? We're buying some of those this summer.

In a truly classy move, I took no pictures of Eli, or the cake, or the beach, or ANYTHING.  Here is one from Seattle; he still looks like this except that he never wears a coat here.  In case it is unclear from this blog normally, I will state on the record that I am awfully fond of this guy.