42 Days till My Birthday and Counting...

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with my birthday, but I'm just reminding people.

I had another nice weekend with good friends and food – and unfortunately another crummy head cold. Where the hell am I getting colds and flus and almost-pneumonia? I’m not kissing anyone and IF I were, I wouldn’t be complaining about being sick as much because then, perhaps, it would be worth it (depending on the kiss, duration, etc.)

I feel very very very guilty about not being in the States for my mothers operation. It went well, but she doesn’t respond well to anesthesia (makes her very nauseous) and she had some serious pain yesterday. My sister and brother-in-law are there with her, but I’m her best friend. I should be there. But I’m not and I feel guilty. There are times when I really feel guilty for living here in Kuwait, so far away from my family; especially since my mom and dad are getting older. I know everyone has to live there own life and I love Kuwait, but I wonder if I am being selfish.

(Heavy sigh….)

For the sake of consistency (and cause I like it better), I am changing L to "SheeshaGirl".

Wednesday night, we ended up at the Hilton for their barbecue night. It only took 2 weeks and something like 14 phone calls to confirm our reservations. I know I have a relatively feminine voice – how is it then that the Filipina waitresses call me “Mr.” all the time? What is UP with that? I know that their staff can’t be that stupid. They have to be messin with me. Anyhoo, went with MuslimArtist, SheeshaGirl, Naz, Bunny (yeah, believe it or not), and my friend, Hisham showed up late and had coffee with us. I have to say – the food was fantastic. The Mongolian barbecue was the BEST. Thank God, Teatro didn’t kill the meat beyond all recognition; their meats usually taste like leather, but this time, all the food was perfect. It is 8.5kd, but they get you on the drinks and sheesha. Anyways, it was still a good price because they had all kinds of different food stations. The deserts were also wonderful.

Thursday, we went to Mohammed’s farm in Kabd. Desert Dog had a blast – running around and chasing rocks I threw for her to fetch (I didn’t have a ball). (She gave actually picking them up after the first one – her momma didn’t raise no stupid dog). Again, we had barbecue and everything was great. Thankfully, we had some Kuwaiti boys with us who knew how to barbecue the right way. SheeshaGirl was going on and on about how we were lucky to have Hussein with us because he is from a big family and whose dad is a MP, so incase there were any checkpoints, he could get us through (as if I, as a blonde, would ever have a problem at a Kuwaiti checkpoint!). SheeshaGirl tends to be a name-dropper. Gotta love her, but she is. Anyhoo, we were on the way back (at 2:30 am) and 2 things happened:

First, I saw a gorgeous guy in a white Range Rover right next to us in the line leading up to the road block. I was checkin him out, he was checkin me out. Could this be The Prince…. Then he noticed CineDude in the back seat and looked at me like, “Who’s that guy????” and then SheeshaGirl says something like, “What the phuck is that guy looking at?” and I’m like, “Hopefully, me.” And then… the unthinkable happened…. The cops waved him through and the car in front of us got stopped. I lost my prince!!!! DAMN. Foiled again, Batman. That could have been my last chance at happiness, at a relationship, at love and marriage and children (it is always almost the last chance, isn’t it?).

In 1989, a stupid guy asked me to marry him. He was tall and handsome and charming (and wanted to use my car to “look” for a job while I was at work – as if). My dad thought that he looked like JFK Jr. Anyhoo, my mother says to me, “This might be your last marriage proposal.” Mais bien sur, it wasn’t, but for some reason, I always remember her saying that. He married someone else for the green card and is now down in Dubai swindling sheikhs – still with no gainful employment.

(And now, back to our story.) Why did the car in front of us get stopped? It happened to be our friends, Mr. Son of an MP, and his friend. And guess what happened! Hussein got arrested. Not stopped. Not at ticket. They took his butt to the police station. “Big family… no problem with checkpoints….” I told SheeshaGirl it was all her fault (it was – she jinxed the poor guy). Turns out that it was actually (really honest) a mistake. But anyhoo, then the poor guy gets back to his car and his transmission went out. By that point, the checkpoint wasn’t there anymore and, of course, who is going to stop for someone by the road that late at night/early in the morning in Kabd? I don’t know why he didn’t just call us. They were stuck out there till 7:30 in the morning.

We were supposed to go to Mutlaa yesterday for a sunset-over-the-bay picnic. MArtist and I went out and bought all kinds of desert picnic equipment and then the weather was crap yesterday, so we cancelled. Getting all the friends together to do something is really a pain in the butt. 400 phone calls and SMSs were driving me nutty. “Where is Mutlaa?” Look at a map. “What should I bring?” Food. You know – these kind of stupid questions. Then, you get the Kuwaiti questions: “Who’s going? Where are they from? What family are they from? What religious sect are they from? Inside or outside the gate? Bedu or hather? What is their family’s net annual income? What type of assets do they own? Where were they educated?” It is YES or NO, dumbass! Who cares! Ok, I can kind of understand the first 3 Kuwaiti questions – IF the person inquiring is a female Kuwaiti, but many times – these are stupid guy questions. Ok, and then there are the people who consistently say, “Not this time.” Or “I’ll pass this time” (I HATE that one) and then have the nerve to say, “But please keep calling for next time.” Listen up, dumbasses – why don’t YOU call me next time to invite me somewhere? I’m not going to call you and invite you if you just want to see what I’m doing and if you have nothing better to do, you might come with us. Thanks, but no thanks. One of my friends sent me an SMS this weekend, “Call me if you are going to breakfast tomorrow.” I replied with, 'Why? So you can reject me and humiliate me again? Thank you for your message.' Peoples got some nerve, don’t they?

So, since we didn’t go – MArtist, SheeshaGirl, and I went to eat machboos laham at Shatea Al Watea downtown. It was ok (although I couldn’t taste very much because of my cold). Then, we went outside so that SheeshaGirl could get her sheesha fix and we could check out the hailag dating shenanigans. And, my God, what shenanigans there were. There was a group of women close to us who we thought were lesbian ho's. I don’t know how to better describe them. They were very pretty, but paid too much attention to us and were very loud. (MArtist thinks that lesbians would look more butch – ha ha ha ha ha ha. Not in this country.) At one point, one of them shouts out, “Yeah, baby” with lots of giggles. That is kind of an attention-getter. There were also all kinds of stealthy comings and goings of various couples. This was in the middle of a big windstorm, by the way.

Definitely Not Future Husband And Father Of My Children didn’t call back: not that I wanted to talk to him or even continue messing with him, but I just wanted to see him desperately calling me, so that I would feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But he didn’t. No fun there.

OH! Major Desert Girl faux pas this weekend! I complain about other people being stupid, but I really take the cake (so to speak): One of my X’s got married about a year ago. Good for him because he’s a loser and I didn’t like him anyways. (He called me 4 days before his wedding, desiring a booty call – ICK!) I don’t know anything about who he married. I’m guessing it is someone “traditional” (in other words - SHE wouldn't be up for a booty call 4 days before their wedding). I forwarded him an SMS that I received: When u feel that nobody loves you; nobody cares for you; everyone is ignoring you; You start to ask yourself…. ‘Am I a Syrian?’ I get this message back, “Thank you for your message. I am (Flan’s) wife and I’m Syrian.” OOOOOOOOOPPPPPS! Desert Girl moment!