A Weekend of Fishyness

I went to see Fishgirl this weekend. Her room is FULL of flowers. There are 2 arrangements from Bobarino’s employers which are actually bigger than she is (ok, she is short, but still). Our former employers – who we spent hundreds of dollars sending flowers to over the past 18 months (deaths in family, sickness, etc.) haven’t bothered to send anything. Cheap!

Fishgirl amazed me. She was standing on her walker when we went into the room. She says that it hurts to sit and she can either stand or lay down, so she is alternating. She has an enormous cast on her entire leg and another around her shoulders. Her front tooth is broken, but nothing that can't be easily fixed. She’s got a knot on her head the size of a golf ball (no concussion), broken pelvis, shattered knee, broken fibula (leg), broken collar bone, and yet her color is good and she was walking on her own to the bathroom. I think she is amazing. She must have so much strength! I would be a whiny coyote.

They moved her from Razi hospital to Mowasat. The wastah was good (thank you, F – you THA MAN!!) because stupid Razi hospital didn’t want to discharge her on a Wednesday saying, “The doctor is off this weekend. We have to wait until Saturday until he gets back.” After the phone call, the staff was converging on Fishgirl’s room saying, “ANYTHING she wants…” They hadn’t even give her any medicine to keep her blood from clotting when she arrived!! People must die there all the time. (My friend died in Amiri Hospital after a car accident the same way; a blod clot killed him at the hospital after the accident.) Bobarino counted multiple discrepancies in international standards. AND – get this – the government hospitals here don’t even give you drinking water, soap, or shampoo. Yes, one of the wealthiest countries in the World doesn’t provide patients with basic hygiene. Fishgirl said that the gown they gave her was dirty-grey with blood stains on it. The sheets were dirty and the orderlies drop patients on/off gurneys like sacks of potatoes. She also said that kids were roller blading down the corridors, shouting. The nurses said, “Kuwaiti, what can we do?” Smack them – that’s what! At Mowasat Hospital, Fishgirl has a pretty, clean private room clean with a big sofa (in front of a wall-sized window).

Anyhoo, Fishgirl has had lots of visitors from her many friends which she calls the "Pilipino mafia". As frequent fliers at the Crowne Plaza hotel, I let them all know - they sent chocolates the other night and one of the girls took an enormous tray of fruit. Fishgirl said that the Pilipino Mafia ate all the mangos! :) Marlyn has a new best friend, a gay nurse who Bobarino has promptly started to mimic.

Here is something that I found out – there are six Pilipino maids at Razi hospital with broken bones – having been beaten by their employers. They have left their sponsors without any ID (civil IDs or passports). Even if the hospital workers are told their names, they are listed as “unknown” on the paperwork. So – if they are unconscious, no one knows who they are or how to find them. How sick is that (pardon the pun)? If you want to do something nice, take them some soap, water, and shampoo – because you’d better bet the hospital isn’t giving it to them.

Reaching beyond the realm of hospitals and accidents and all things god-awful…

I had a really weird weekend. Yes, I had sushi (at SAKURA – the BEST SUSHI IN KUWAIT), which added normalcy, but other than that – it was just weird.

I had some very insightful conversations which left me physically and emotionally drained. I would like to be able to say that anything fruitful came of it, but other than creating an insatiable desire for alcohol; I don’t believe much was accomplished.

The conclusion was that I am to blame for everything, everywhere. I make calls that I don’t remember and I do strange things to people even though I don’t know where they live. Go figure.

The Romanian is ready to kill me. I’ll take her to Bahrain and she’ll shut up. She was trying to do a nice thing for me and it ended up giving her a terrible headache. For some reason, I wasn’t alone in asking her to be my weekend psychiatrist; it happened several times and her line became, “Leave me alone, I just want a drink, ok?” As a psychiatrist, she did an okay job, however. She has a unique perspective.

I ran into Slapperella’s boyfriend and his friends (who talked non-stop) at the Hilton with The Romanian (we were bored). Kind of strange because I couldn’t even remember what he looked like and I walked right past him. We stayed and had a drink with them and then left.

I saw Slapperella briefly this weekend (when she wasn’t too busy studying or being a ho – God only knows what she really does with her time). We went to A-Z to buy her towels. I always spend too much money in that store. They do a great job at merchandising.

Don’t ever buy towels at The One. I spent over 100 kd on a set and the very first time I put them in the wash, the colors stained living big blotches all over them. No, it wasn’t the soap I use either because I am really careful about that. Anyways, I love The One; it has everything that I always wanted and never needed. Plus, The One café rocks. Their food is awesome.

Psychic Bedu took me to meet his spiritual adviser in a very cool gypsy-esque apartment off of Shaar al Mataaem. While we were waiting for him to show up, the Romanian and I were invited into a men’s saloon for coffee (as IF!). The Lebanese Gypsy adviser girl offered me ab-so-lutely nothing that I didn’t already know, but offered to help (for a rather sizeable fee) by providing me with quartz. Gee… thanks. I can dig up my own rocks. I was not impressed. Psychic Bedu has the best of intentions, however, and I adore him. He is such a great brother-dude.
Sometimes you meet people and you immediately know that you are going to be life-long friends with them. Psychic Bedu guy is like that; he instantly knows how I feel and tries to make me comfortable. This, without asking for a thing in return; he is just genuinely kind and without malice.

We went to the desert and that is always fun. Our Bedouin girlfriends had a good time and I laughed so hard I almost lost a contact lens. It hurt.

Those girls are so funny, and yet some of them have very hard lives. One of the girls’ husband has “disappeared”/abandoned her for over a year. She still stays married to him. I thought I had problems. What is it with men in this part of the world abandoning women? I thought only our peeps did that (and then we divorce their asses and take it ALL). Another girl is married to he spends all his time with his 1st wife (who he divorced long ago). 1st girl lives in a mansion while my friend lives in a crappy apartment. Anyhoo, long-story-short; sometimes you laugh to cover the pain.

I found a really good place close to home that serves eggs and chapatti at 5:30 am. Thank GOD because I have been on a serious egg addiction for months and months; usually in the wee hours of the morning when everything is closed. I can’t figure out why, but I think it has something to do with magic and keeping away all-things-bad. If anyone out there in blogland knows any other reason why I might be addicted to eggs, please inform me. I made my girlfriends drive around with me for an hour one time, looking for eggs at 5:30 am. They love me and yet, they were not happy having to do that. McDonalds doesn’t serve eggs until 6 am and Fauchon doesn’t open until 7:30.

I had WEIRD dreams all weekend. Oh my God – I had one about watching some boys try to drown kittens at a seaside village that a sheikh owned. The water was dark and murky, but shallow and all the kittens were at the bottom. I saved (doing mouth-to-mouth; don’t even get me into the Freudian ramifications!) four of the kittens (which were all black) and then went back and rescued two more the same way. The last two turned out to be the strongest – the most powerful was a tabby. I don’t even like cats. WTF?