Happy Place.... Go to the Happy Place....

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a whole lot of time to blog – which I can’t really determine is a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve had to work on prequalification tenders (with people who are unwilling to provide me with information), our annual report, and at the same time, dealing with the Chinese. It is all very confusing – oh, and that is just in my business life.

Personal life has taken equally as confusing turns of late. I’ve been meeting men left and right (again – good thing or bad thing?). Colonel Boring is most definitely out of the picture. He was a boring PERV and I had to deal with that and get rid of him. Ick. I don’t know what the deal is with the men in uniform again, but I’ve met policemen lately in droves – and they’re all higher-ranking officers. As Bunny says, “Never date below a Major.” Tee hee. I love him. The Romanian says, “Never date below a Range Rover,” which is equally as funny. Anyhoo, I’ve met some really really nice people lately and I’m grateful for that. There is one guy in particular that I like a lot; we’ll have to see what happens before I jinx myself or someone gives me the evil eye. He's just dreamy....

I feel really bad about something that happened on Friday night. I was driving on the Gulf Road (is that the proper name?) in Salwa almost at Messila Hotel in the left lane and there was a cat that had been hit by a car. I was in heavy traffic and very late to meet our company’s CEO and wife for dinner. I couldn’t safely stop. (These are all excuses.) The cat looked up at me with “help me” eyes. Slapperella was with me and not being a big cat lover, I don’t think she wanted me to go back to try to get it. Anyways, I continued on; and ever since, have been haunted by those eyes. I feel so bad even thinking about it, I am getting teary-eyed. I drove back the next morning and there was no sign of it, so I hope that someone else stopped to pick it up somehow. I don’t even like cats, but I always try to help any living creature, so I now feel awful. I have tried to make up for it by cooking chicken to feed to the neighborhood strays. There were about 400 of them (I exaggerate) around the chicken when I looked back. Then, I started to wonder if I had done something equally as bad by feeding whole cooked chickens to cats: would they choke on the bones and die in some horrific manner? I have such a guilty conscience.

I met with a rep from United. He is a really nice guy and says that he is going to try to make me feel better about being punched by a passenger on one of their flights (yes, you read it right): She punched me after I moved her bags from under my feet and then must have accused me of being a racist (to the best of my knowledge because I can’t figure out what happened) ; no one did anything. She said, "How would you feel if a black woman touched your bag?" Um, I probably wouldn't want her feet on it, so I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't care if the person was green or blue either. The worst thing was that the United staff did nothing to help me – even when I told them I was in pain. As it turns out, we made the local news in Washington, DC that night because they called security, TSA’s, United ground staff, and the local police. I was so traumatized by all this that I don’t even want to get further into it. The Kuwait side United staff is trying to make it better; I have heard nothing at all from United state-side. It may just take time.

I don’t know if I want to get into the concept of racial issues in the States vs. what we have in Kuwait. It is all so weird. Ok, we do have other issues in Kuwait (other than black and white), but still . . . Why can’t we all just get along?

Go to your happy place, Desert Girl.

Ok, I’ll go there in a minute, but not before mentioning other weirdness that happened this weekend. Why does this kind of shit happen to ME?: I was peacefully asleep at 8am on Friday morning, when I got a call from an Iraq number. It went to voice mail. 10 minutes later, the same number called again (waking up Desert Dawg also), so I picked it up. It was an American guy who I knew from (that logistics company I used to work for). He got fired from there; I helped him get his next job at KGL; where he also got fired. I helped him get a job with a Kuwaiti friend’s logistics company; where he had a dispute with my friend and moved on. I helped him with several consulting jobs also before he moved up to Iraq. This all happened within a period of 4 years. So, Dude calls me and says, “WHAT did you send to my wife? She’s ready to divorce me! You sent her something that said we were having an affair? How could you be so cruel before Christmas?” Holy shit – what did I do? I shook off the sleep and said, “Dude, we have a business relationship. I sent out 200 Christmas and Eid cards this year saying exactly the same thing, ‘Best wishes to you and your family for a Merry Christmas (or Eid or Hanukah or Kwanza), (Desert Girl).” Pretty straight-forward, no? {sidebar: Why doesn’t MS spell check recognize “Eid” and it does recognize “Hanukah”? Is it a conspiracy?} He said, “My wife thinks we are having an affair. There was some girl’s name on the card!” WTF? Is it just me or is someone’s imagination running away with them? I said, ‘Dude, my name is (Desert Girl). That is the way I sign my correspondence. Your marital problems are none of my business. You definitely won’t be receiving another Christmas card from me. Why don’t you have her scan the card and e-mail it to you so you can see exactly what I wrote? Further, if I were a male business associate, would you be calling me up accusing me of something?’ I went on to tell him that he was a sexist pig and that if he ever contacted me again for anything, I would consider it a form of harassment. Weird, cause I met his wife. Maybe she thinks I’m hot and she’s insecure (?) Dunno.

‘Best wishes to you and your family for a Merry Christmas (or Eid or Hanuka or Kwanza), (Desert Girl) can be translated (apparently) to: Dude, I want to rip your clothes off and make wild passionate love to you. I so enjoy our affair because I love tall, skinny, long-toothed, red-haired white guys with no redeeming personality traits. Yeah, that’s right.

Why are people so phucking stupid? I still don’t get it.

Happy place, happy place, happy place. I ate a mountain of chocolate this weekend (its ok because it is close to Christmas when calories don't count). Yum. Oh, and some sushi. And I flirted with handsome sexy men. And I am going on vacation in a few days…. Ooooooh saaaaaaah…..

Take Control of Eggs!

That sounds vaguely dirty, doesn't it? Me likes.

“Ministry Official Calls for More Control of Egg Market…”

I love eggs and now that they have a lot of controversy over egg prices in Kuwait, I feel that this would be an appropriate time to discuss them. I mean, WTF – forget the corruption and human rights issues that should be big news (but often isn’t), let’s talk about eggs in Kuwait!

The Undersecretary of the Commerce and Industry Ministry (who I’ve met and is actually an articulate and very nice guy), stated that authorities would not stand idle from now on and watch the price of eggs continue to rise and get out of hand. YEAH BAYBEEE! You go, boy! He’s my new eggstraspecial egg hero.

First of all, why tha phuck don’t they have big eggs in Kuwait? Who wants to pay big money for little eggs? I’m not a small egg kind of girl. Why are all of them small and nasty? In the USofHey we have bigass eggs; the kind with TWO yokes in them.

I am one of those people who likes my eggs cooked “sunny side up” with the yokes left relatively uncooked. I know, salmonella fans, it is probably not a healthy choice, but it is my preference. (Just like my unhealthy preference of “bad boys” over boring.) Anyhoo, I can never eat a sunny-side-up egg without toast underneath to sop up the yoke. Yummy; Getting hungry just thinking about it. Therefore, the idea of double yokes is quite appealing to me.

So, it brings me back to my question of why Kuwait has small, smelly eggs? Why can’t we get some big chickens over here? Why can’t we get companies to properly wash eggs so they don’t shtank when you get them? I don't mind paying more for eggs if they are good ones.

I have eggzactly 1 week left before I fly to Virginia and I can have a choice of eggs. I'm on short-timers so everything is sounding funny to me right now.

December 6, 2007

Happy Birthday, Shamlan.

It has been 10 years since you passed away and there is still not a time when I don't think of you. I see you in that place between asleep and awake. You hold my hand and laugh with me and I know that we will see each other again on the other side.

Ten years have passed and it seems like yesterday. Love always goes on.

I miss you.

On the Subject of Kisses

Ironically, CNN online today posts an article about kissing. This follows an encounter I had last night with "Smash Mouth": a very tall, very gorgeous guy who attempted to kiss me by imposing my head in a death-grip and smashing his closed mouth against mine, rubbing back and forth. Ew and ouch. Needless to say, Smashmouth will never make it out of The Friend Zone. End of story.

I agree with CNN that the best relationships I've ever had were with guys who were really great kissers. Even if they needed work in other areas, if they could kiss, we were compatible.

The Man was a great kisser. I miss those kind of kisses; the kind that wrap around you and make you feel like you're floating off somewhere. ..... I digress.....

CNN Say:

(LifeWire) -- Bad kissers -- we've all locked lips with one: the lizard, the washing machine, the cannibal, the spelunker.

"I knew this girl that I'll call Big Tongue," recalls Craig Hinkle, 38, a Westminster, California-based network administrator. "Her tongue was massive, and she insisted on trying to put the entire thing in my mouth. She was very forceful with it, and I started choking."

You can guess that relationship didn't last. And now, what Hinkle knows from experience is actually backed up by science: Bad kissers have little chance of getting to second base.
In a study published recently in the scientific journal "Evolutionary Psychology," 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women said they've been in the position of being attracted to someone -- until they kissed the person.

"At the moment of the kiss, there's a very complicated exchange of information ... that may tap into underlying evolved mechanisms" cluing us in on whether we're genetically compatible, explains Gordon Gallup, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany. "A kiss can be a deal-breaker in terms of whether a relationship will flower or flounder, so to speak."

Rachel Myeroff, 26, can attest to that. On a second date with a guy, says the New York City-based sales manager, "he just went in for it and attached himself to me in the sloppiest, most horrible kiss ever. He was just consuming my mouth. I most definitely did not call him again."

Gallup's research suggests that men and women have different agendas when it comes to kissing, an act that occurs in 95 percent of human societies and is believed to have been first recorded in Vedic Sanskrit texts around 1500 B.C. in India.

For men, kissing is more often used as a means to an end -- namely, to gain sexual access. Men also are more likely to literally kiss and make up, using kissing to attempt reconciliation.

Women on the other hand use kissing as a mate-assessment technique, Gallup notes. They subconsciously evaluate mating potential from the chemicals in their partner's saliva and breath, for instance.

Women also use kissing as a bonding gesture, as well as to monitor the status of the relationship. If her partner's kissing frequency or technique suddenly changes, that perhaps is a sign of his waning interest.

Other gender differences uncovered by Gallup's research:

• Men show a greater preference for tongue contact and open-mouth kisses.
• Men are more willing than women to have sex with someone without kissing, as well as to have sex with someone they are not attracted to or consider to be a bad kisser.
• Women place more importance on kissing throughout a relationship, whereas men place less importance on it as the relationship progresses.

Improve your kiss

If you've ever been told to kiss off after smooching someone beneath the holiday mistletoe, fear not. Like other skills, one's kissing technique can be improved upon. Michael Christian, author of "The Art of Kissing" (under the pen name William Cane), offers classes, and there's a myriad of how-to books and DVDs.

To improve your technique, Christian suggests switching up your repertoire with different types of kisses:

• Vacuum kiss, in which you suck the air out of your partner's mouth while kissing
• Neck kiss, in which you kiss up and down your partner's neck
• "Lip-o-suction," in which you kiss the upper lip while your partner kisses the lower lip, and then you reverse.

Bad kisses, on the other hand, are relatively easy to pinpoint. "Bad kisses trigger the gag reflex," Christian says. "Bad kisses are also static and repetitious. Varying the speed, intensity and style can help."

Spontaneity also can help you get out of a slump.
"The best kisses are always the ones that happen accidentally," observes New York City resident Benjamin Kayne, 25, a digital media sales director. "(Planned kisses) are just tedious, and I'm sitting there thinking, 'Is this over yet? The commercial is over and I'm missing "CSI".' "