Surreal

I had one of those surreal weekends. Hold onto your chair, folks. Its gonna git bum-py….

I thought I would blow off some blood pressure after yet another stressful week by having a “relaxing” manicure/pedicure. OMG. NOT. First, I love paraffin pedicures – they leave your feet so soft. The woman who did mine, however, cranked up the heat too high and my feet burned (you have to dip your feet one at a time into a tub of hot wax). She also plucked away with the cuticle scissors to the point that it was painful (and I’m sure that I will get little finger infections later). You never know with these salons – do they sterilize their equipment? This is a place that I have been to before with no problems, but this woman was just baaaaaad. Ouchies. "You come back!" NOOOOOOOOOOO

Then, I couldn’t get into my neighborhood because of the erection madness… uh… I mean “election”. My bad. One dude had set up his erection tent right in front of the villa and was blasting his angry-speech. Why do they ALL have to sound so angry? Are any of the candidate dudes funny at all? Do any of them have any character? Charm? Poise?

Ok, DG Pissed-Off-Peave number 4,567,893: Does the media in Kuwait think that the English-speaking population of Kuwait isn’t interested in Kuwaiti politics? Might it be that I’m not reading the right newspaper or that Radio Kuwait hasn’t had anything about the candidates? My English-speaking friends have also mentioned this to me. We would have liked to have known what the candidates’ stands were. There was nothing in the media that I could tell. WTF. And then, yesterday, all Radio Kuwait had was information about the erections IN ARABIC. 99.7 – aren’t you supposed to be an English radio station? Why not inform people in say…. ENGLISH? Kuwaitis are always interested in American politics, for example. What if all the information they had received about our voting process was in a language that they couldn’t understand? Wouldn’t that be FRUSTRATING MAYBE?

This is the same BS that the Ministry of Dis-Information pissed me off with in 2003: When the scuds were dropping, 99.7 only ran the same message in 4 different languages, saying if there was an emergency, that we would be informed. No info. No updates. Nada! Dudes – I think when a scud lands someplace in Kuwait and you can feel it when you are either in bed or in your chair – that would be a good time to inform people of like – what is happening maybe. I had to call my Kuwaiti friends to find out what the hell was going on.

And why the heck are they broadcasting fuglies? I watched KTV1 last night at Sheikha Minor’s place and here is a thought: It’s a digital age, right? So, someone over in Peoria, Illinois can be picking up the broadcast from here in Kuwait (mithilin). Aren’t they going to look at it and say, “Those are some butt ugly folks over they-er.” I mean, put your best face forward – literally. Why put on fuglies when pretty people are available? Why wasn’t Halima Bouland broadcasting (HATE HER!). If she had been, then it just would have been unprofessional, uninformed, uneducated and not ugly. In reality, it was a combination of all.

I passed the 4 Dudes’ tent on 6th Ring Road. I’ve been told it was the Mutairi election site. Holy snap! There were SO many cars that some were parked in the emergency lane of THE HIGHWAY! I was tempted to stop and Bluetooth, but alas, we were not alone.

I went to visit friends-of-friends in outer bumfuck Kabd. I’ve never been to the remote stretches of Kabd before and I was wondering if the lead car was actually taking us up to Basra via the desert. I’ve been to a lot of places in Kuwait before, but never that far up and the landscape got… um… weird I guess is the way to describe it. It was definitely no place for Kenneth Cole shoes.

We ended up at a farm with every imaginable kind of animal – most starving to death. I was given the “tour” by the owner who was very proud of his stock. He casually mentioned how the mate of this one had died and the babies that that one had died.

This guy has 2 rare white German Shepards (their litter of 10 puppies all died), sheep, goats, chickens, an emu, peacocks, deer, a long-haired cat (maybe Persian) in a CAGE, and deer. The herd of deer (about 10) are slowly starving to death. Their pelvic bones and ribs were showing through their fur. As dudes are sitting on their fat well-fed asses, the deer searched for water in the cracks of the terrace.

Of course, any animal deaths in Kuwait are blamed the weather (not the downright stupidity and neglect of their owners). As in – if you didn’t keep them in a tin shed in the middle of the desert in the middle of the summer with no food or water, the weather is to blame. What makes these MORONS think that a long-haired (4” coat) German Shepard living in a tin shack is going to make it? (Put your kid in one wearing a heavy coat.) What makes tin shacks acceptable? I can’t tell you how many “farms” I have been to with pompous, arrogant, fat-bellied owners beaming with pride over their dying animals. Morons: When a dog has dug a burrow in the dirt floor of the tin shack/cage you have kept it in, that is not natural – it is because it is seeking cold. It is because you are not CARING for the animal properly.

What can I do? I try to tell these people and I try to educate, but it falls on deaf ears. How could they sit there and laugh and have a good time when animals are dying around them – and they don’t even SEE it? Horrific.

I had to get out of there, leave, bolt – just when one of the major dust storms came through. I have never driven in anything as bad. Well, maybe once on a mountain on the way back from Kentucky in a heavy fog years ago. This was really, bad, however. It looked like something from a dream – it was as if we were transported to a ghost town. Have you seen the movies, “The Mist” or “The Fog” – it was like that, and real quiet. There were figures in the fog, but you couldn’t see past the sides of the road. I was having a hard time getting my bearings. I know 604 pretty well, but sometimes I couldn’t figure out exactly where we were (to avoid potholes and oh yeah – circles). We passed Bu Merdas’ farm and I thought about stopping there for a while, but I don’t want to open that door again. Usually, dust storms don’t last very long, but this one was intense all the way back to my house (which is now covered in dust that looks like ash from nuclear fallout). By the time we got home, The Romanian and I both had headaches from squinting to see the road.

More dreadful animal news (sorry)
Yesterday, I made a heart-wrenching discovery. I was with The Romanian on our way to Ikea and off the service road between LuLu Hypermarket and 5th Ring Road (on the same road that is actually on the back side of the Avenues) , there was a pack of dead dogs right next to the tent market. They are clearly visible from the road on the right. I think someone shot them. There must have been more than one shooter because the others would have run if they shot only one. I know from one of the animal groups that the police routinely shoot dogs here (and apparently don’t bother to inform the municipality to have the carcasses cleared). I know these particular dogs because I work in the area – they are not mean. They are skittish and run from people (with good reason). Thank God I told The Romanian to turn away. After we found the field of dead horses in 2007, she didn’t sleep for a week and she surpassed my high blood pressure. (I just bought the coolest wrist-band blood pressure monitor. It is my old lady toy. Very cool.)

I so need a vacation in civilization. I’ve seen too many barbaric, inhumane acts of outright cruelty lately – to both man and beast.

I went yet another someplace new this weekend: Mahboula. I have driven past it and through it, but I never went into the inner bowels of it. Sheikha Minor just emancipated herself from the control of the Horrible X-Husband. After he divorced her, he moved her and her 5 kids into an apartment under his name and he took one of the rooms. She didn’t have enough money to leave and her divorce lawyer is dragging his feet (I think he’s a phucking moron). She saved for a year to get a place of her own and when she was moving out, HXH had her arrested for theft of “his” belongings. The court sealed their apartment (changed the locks so that neither of them could get in) until after the court rulings. Her eldest son (11) chose to go to live with his father. The younger kids are with her. They are HELLIANS. I threaten to smack them all the time. They are the most unruly, obnoxious, bad-mannered kids I’ve ever come across. Yet, at the same time, I love them – especially the little boy who I want to take home. He seems to know that he’s Bedouin (he’s 4) and will only eat with his hands and wants to wear dishtashas instead of trousers. Anyways, I guess I can only blame their behavior on their parents. If you never discipline your kids and they have no structure, there will always be trouble. Sheikha Minor asked me to speak to her downstairs neighbor. She said she needed “American wastah” as the American guy downstairs has already started complaining about the noise. I told her, ‘The only thing I am going to tell him is to move. I’ve seen your kids….’

Oh, Mahboula…. New Jack City…. It is a weird little area, isn’t it? It is a non-place: The buildings have sprung up out of the desert and although there are lots full of busses, there are no cars around many of the buildings (because they are full of laborers). I don’t believe it is a place to raise children. There are so many bachelors there and the hairs on the back of my back were standing up. I told Sheikha Minor that she has really got to keep an eye on her 2 pretty little daughters running around in the pool area. Personally, I don’t think my dog would be safe there. Plus, the area is just inviting deviant behavior: There are about a gazillion mahawils….
“Do you know that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy who F’ed you behind the mahawil.”

And speaking of deviant behavior… I found an old Turkish Bathhouse in downtown Kuwait. Fascinating. I didn’t know there were any in Kuwait. I wonder about their clientele. It is in an old building with mosaic blue tiles at the entrance. Directly behind it is one of the huge new glass office buildings. It looks very odd there.

Maybe they can wear a men’s version of the bathing suit I found in Debenhams… a “modest” bathing suit for a mere KD27; you can simultaneously swim and dehydrate yourself. Sassy!