8/07/2004

WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK…….

Lee, my buddy over at Oh No, the Blog! does this "What I Learned This Week" thingie every Friday on his blog. Well, I don't have a bizillion readers like some of my lovely blogsphere friends yet, but, I like the whole thing on looking back on your week.

If you think about it, you really pretty much DO learn something new everyday. Maybe we just don't take the time from our busy schedules to stop and appreciate it. I think that maybe we should.

So, on that note, From this week on.... and y'all had better comment, cause it makes me feel all loved and special and needed..... (so make me happy, will ya? Gimmie a little blog love!) I'm going to copycat Lee. And if you haven't checked out his blog yet, please do so! He is a great guy, with a fabulous sense of humor and a big old sweetheart! He is also a new Daddy. Super Daddy.

Without further ado, since I KNOW you are all chomping at the bit to know what I've learned this week.....

1) I learned that when you wake up with a migrane, and you look and feel your worst... after finally having passed out thankfully after 3 nights of insomnia.... THAT is the morning that the employment agency will call you (all perky and loud) and say "Hi! you have an interview in an hour and a half in the middle of nowhere, Good Luck." As you look at your reflection in the mirror in horror still in your pj's with bed hair, head threatening to explode and you realize "Oh my GOD! I'm so fucked".

2) I learned that if you cuss loud and long enough at the lizard staking out territory and running laps in your bedroom, it will hide from you in fear.

3) I learned that even with a migrane and getting lost on the way to an interview that I had no time to prepare myself mentally for (what with the exploding cranium, bed hair and all), I can still impress the shit out of a potential employer!

4) I learned that when my regular blog visitors start NOT leaving comments like they used to... it really depresses me. (and you ratfinks, you know WHO. YOU.ARE!) I love you guys-some of you I even LINK!-... I'm STILL not getting any blog lovin! Sniff sniff..... look what you made me do? Cry like a baby. I'm SO broken hearted.

5) I learned upon finishing reading the latest book in the Harry Potter series (for the second time, yes, I read them all IN ORDER...again), that I was upset that the new book isn't out yet. I mean REALLY UPSET. Come on J. K., you lazy bitch, get yer Oh-MY-I'M-RICHER-THAN-THE-QUEEN-OF-FREAKING-ENGLAND ASS in gear and get that new book out! People like Amalah and myself are waiting. Jeez!

Well, that's about all from me this week. I didn't get out much.

Please tell me what you learned. Come on, I know you learned SOMETHING!

8/06/2004

Just Plain STOOPID

Well hello my lovelies! Lady Scarlett is freshly back from viewing King Arthur. (yeah smartasses, that would be ME!) Guess what? More silly shit to regale y'all with, naturally!

I know I have been really ripping the local arab men up on my blog lately, and, well, I'm all for equal rights and all that good stuff. So, therefore, without futher ado...... time for me to start up on the ladies of the region.

There is really so much for me to say. Where to begin? Sigh.

Ok, some ladies cover, in varying degrees for different reasons. The country I live in, it is not, I repeat NOT MANDATORY to cover, regardless of what some stupid asswipe might have said on tv. Got it? I don't cover here. If I cover from the neck down, it's usually cause, well, to be honest, I can't be bothered to change to go to the pharmacy or grocery store for milk, ya know? Hell, you can throw that black abaya on over your pj's and you're good to go. The new style is much like a black silk long sleeve bathrobe down to your ankles, very lightweight, and personally, I think it's FUCKING FANTASTIC that you can go out in the equivalent of your bathrobe and be considered respctfully dressed!

Some of them, most really, cover due to their strong religious beliefs. Well that is fine and dandy. You go girl! Some cover because of their husbands or father's religious beliefs, not necessarily because the want to. This, I belive, is shitty. Don't go there girl! Just say no! (excecpt they can't. But it was a nice dream.) There are varying degrees of cover also. Some just wear everything long, skirts (down to the ground) and shirtsleeves, buttoned up to the neck and a scarf on their head. Some wear the previously mentioned DAMN SKIN TIGHT, which to me, WHY BOTHER? Everything shows anyway since you look like you can't breathe dammit! Others wear the new abaya cut quite fashionably, snug and amazingly tailored.... with no scarf. Fine. Some with. Also fine. With varying degrees of hair hanging out, front and back. Whatever. Then there are the types you've probably seen on tv, the abayas that look like a damn tent... the old fashioned ones. Again, whatever. There is every combination of what I have mentioned that you can think of. Some with no makeup, some with some makeup, and some... that quite frankly, look like drag queens they have so much packed on. Honey, RuPaul & Boy George have NOTHIN on these women! Girrrrrrrrlllll! *snap snap*

Then we come to my favorites..... the Lulu's. The Ninja Turtles. The ones that cover their faces. Now what you might not know is that there are also a couple of this type as well. There is the one with only the eyes showing, which is kinda sexy and mysterious if you think about it.... frequently, you will see these pretty, beautiful big eyes, perfectly made up peeping out at you. I have seen some of these ladies in the public bathrooms, when they remove it to fix things.... MY GOD, SOME OF THESE WOMEN ARE SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL you just want to stare at them. The Saudi ladies in particular, a lot of them are as pale as I am, beautiful features and skin! Now on to the second type..... the ones that wear a complete black veil, not exactly thin either, over their entire fce.... nothing shows, even if you look closely.

And that last example, my darlings, is what walked down the aisle before the lights went out at the movies this afternoon. I was just staring at her and her husband. I couldn't help but think to myself..... "how the FUCK is she gonna watch the movie in the dark with her WHOLE FACE AND EYES obscured by that thick veil? For the record, I kept looking at her, I thought maybe in the dark, she would remove it, but no, she kept it down the whole time!

And before any of you ask how they eat like that in public..... Both types of face veils are short and fall to the breast area. They put food in their right (always) hand and cram it up under. FYI.

Why did I post about this? Well, a little education never hurt anybody. AND, well, I thought it was pretty shitty to take somebody to the movies with the equivalent of a sack on their head.

Class dismissed.

8/03/2004

Oprah and the Trolls

Actually, I had a hard time even typing that header for this post, if you must know. I'm sitting here laughing my lily white ass off.

Z is not a native English speaker. Even so, after 15 years with me, it is WAAAAY improved, but still, we get little glitches now and then. Tonight is a prime example of a glitch.

See, in his office, August is low season. Dead. In his office, the guys have 2, YES 2 (!) 45" Plasma Screens hanging on the wall. Attached to a satellite dish. The guys alternate between the news and various music channels throughout the day. As he works technically in Saudi, the office is ALL MALE. This is an important fact in my story.

See, apparently, everyday at 3pm, the boys watch Oprah. Yes, Oprah Winfrey. Isn't that a hoot?

Z was trying to tell me about the topic of Oprah's show today, asking if I saw it. No, I didn't. Enlighten me. So, he goes on to tell me like so.....

"Well, Oprah's subject today was people that overcame some type of problem in their life, an adversity, and she had these, um, trolls on that..." (and he makes a hand gesture to make his troll point places his had about maybe 2 foot off the ground) and that my darlings, is when it clicked in my head....as he continued saying.... "yeah the trolls, this one troll, he had a problem wi....WHAT??" I can ONLY IMAGINE what my face looked like, but I think my eyes had bugged out and my mouth was gaping open and I said:

"TROLLS???? DO YOU MEAN TO SAY DWARVES?????" and he replied, "Oh yeah, trolls, dwarves, same thing..." At which point, I went into hysterical laughter and said "no they are not the same thing!!! First, there is no such thing as TROLLS! They are some fairy creature that guard bridges and, well, are generally evil mean things. Dwarves are NOT TROLLS!" He keeps insisting there is no difference. I keep insisting there IS A BIG DIFFERENCE.

Now before I finally get some comments from people ripping me a new a-hole for laughing at dwarves, I want to tell you that, I WAS NOT LAUGHING AT THE DWARVES! I was laughing at his grammatical MURDER. GOT IT? He managed to use the word "adversity" properly, but ffed up the word dwarves? no. no. no. No hell. (another one of his beauties, instead of Hell No!) Cat, back me up on this!

Of course he went on calling the trolls to irritate me, and told me that this dwarf couple had 6 kids (of which 2 were twins!) and I said "and they were all normal size, right?" "Yeah! How did you know??" "well, cause it happens all the time!"

The dork is still calling them trolls though.

8/02/2004

Things That Make You Go......... WHAT THE HELL????

Before I get to the subject, I'd like to reiterate my comment of a few weeks ago. To all you lurkers out there..... I. DO. NOT. BITE. (ok, maybe I nibble a little) Leave a damn comment already. I'm feeling so UNLOVED here! *sniff sniff* You have no idea how happy I get when I see comments.

My goal is to be a 'Comment Ho'... just like Genuine!! He's MY IDOL. Ok, So is Mindy. (love ya Min!!) Hell, Hula Doula has whooped my ass too! (you GO Girl!) Allright. I admit it..I'm jealous. There. Happy now?

Now on with our scheduled programming.................

In case I forgot to mention it... 2 weeks ago I lost my job. I. Am. JOBLESS. (I really hate this shit) In August. August in Bahrain is..... well... deserted. Everyone in the country scoots out on vacation for a month. Yes, people get 30 day vacations here. Quiet YOUS! My vacation just got screwed all to hell....now it's postponed. Ugh. ie, how am I gonna get a job when most of the employers are ON VACATION???????? Yeah, exactly. I'm SO FUCKED. I went on ONE interview last Sunday.... at a company I've been DYING to get a job at for over 6 years. Pray for me, willya? I could use all the help I can get.

So, today, my mobile phone rings...(cell phone for the Americans out there) guess who? My boss - Mr. 'F' -that just decided to let me go 2 weeks ago.. checking on me to see if I have a new job... that he's thinking of me.. WHAT THE HELL?????

He let me go, why? Cause there wasn't enough work in English for me, really, to justify paying me my big fat cushy salary.... that's why. He realized this a little late dammit. I left a job where my boss ADORED ME. Like... LOVES ME.... I could DO NO WRONG IN HIS EYES PEOPLE! The rest of the staff loved me. I was IN CONTROL. I was an OFFICE MANGER. I made decisions with almost no interference (excecpt final sign off approval from the owner.. my boss...)on a daily basis. Why did I leave? Cause...... 62% higher salary darlings, thats why! Stupid, stupid me. Sigh. I mean, my prior boss, we shall call him T, has been calling me during the past 6 months to check on me and see if Im happy. He was so bummed when I left, really hurt... he gave me the puppydog look dammit every day from the day I resigned... and it took him almost 4 months to replace me, cause he wasn't happy with anyone.... I FOUND MY OWN REPLACEMENT FOR HIM! The employees would go to her, my friends sister mind you, and tell her that "no offence, but I really miss Cyn". Well shit.

So now, today, I have my last boss, F, calling to check on me. Attack of guilt? Probably. It WAS nice of him though. He didn't have to.

But the bottom line? I'm still shit out of luck with a job.

8/01/2004

Adventures At The Mall....part 2

Bonjour Y'aaaaaalllllllll!!!!!!

Sorry. I watched "Slap Her, She's French!!" last night on cable. That is some crazy funny shit. I reccommend that you all run off to your friendly neighborhood DVD shop and rent it posthaste! Cracked my ass up. Especially the girlfight. Heh. Arianna was laughing so hard, she fell off the sofa!

Anyhoooooo, we went to the mall again tonight for a little walk and (for me at least) looking for some blog victims to post about. Do I sound hard up for a topic? So sue me. I'm out of work and not getting out much at all since my car, my BABY CAR, has been at the mechanic back and forth ATTEMPTING to fix the busted air conditioning. Sigh. Sigh. SIGH. So, tonight....... we hit the mall!

No funky man whores in thongs tonight that I saw. BUT! I did see something completely stupid. I mean, waaay stupid.

Arab men, the white "robes" that they wear that you've seen on TV, they are called THOB. The material with the black band they wear on their heads is called Gutra and Agaal respectively. Bear with me, this is part of my tale people! So, some men wear the headgear, others don't.

Now, there has been a trend in the past couple of years that I just could not stand.... younger guys in their teens and early 20's wearing BALL CAPS on their heads with the thob. I mean, it looks lame. Not stupid, but STOOOOPID. Tonight I saw a guy sitting in the food court in his own little fashion. Fashion nightmare more like! He was wearing a pristine white thob and on his head.....

A black beret.

A. Fucking. Beret. BONJOUR Y'ALLL!!!! Well fuck me... twice. I thought I was hallucinating. I kept staring, blinking. Thinking it would just. go. away. Nope, no such luck. He also had way below the collar dark curly hair flowing from beneath the beret. And he was strutting. and I ? Well darlings, I was laughing. Then I said....

"Slap him he's French....NOT!!!!!!!!!!"


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Also, as a side trip to my mall adventure... what is the worst thing, ladies, and well, for the men out there that understand (Amy, I'm referring to your man Jason here!) that could happen to me being out of work, assets pretty much frozen in the bank till I have a new work contract to present to the Fuc*ers at the bank ??

SHOES babies. Shoes. Lots of pretty new shoes. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I'm being TORTURED. To those of you that understand, namely the members of the Imelda Marcos Society for Shoe and Handbag Addiction, follow me.

In ONE DAMN STORE. I found, countem...... 7 pairs of shoes I wanted. In my size. (9 1/2 for the yanks, 41 for the Europeans) How FUCKING UNFAIR IS THAT???? They were pretty. I think I might be losing my mind also. Most of them were 40's Movie Star GORGEOUS. Which is TOTALLY ME! Faux Crocodile in Camel color, Black, and a lovely chocolate brown. Suede Slingbacks. Beautiful, dainty, girly, slingbacks. Have I mentioned how much I lurve slingbacks people????? I wanted them. They were in TWO colors that I have no idea WHAT the hell I would wear them with, but I want them. Baby Pink and Baby Blue suede. I saw the blue ones first. Found myself singing The chorus to "Blue Suede Shoes" under my breath while petting them.

Oh, and the sexy stacked wood wedge heels with spaghetti thin ankle straps? Black, Dark Chocolate Brown, Beige, aw hell.... so many styles, colors........Oh my GOD! Thin heels, low heels (um low to me is 2 inches high) high heels (pushing 4 inches). Do you have any idea how often such a miracle as me finding so many shoes in in one shop that I WANT badly- in my size no less- happens? Never. Maybe I have a gizillion shoes... but I'm still very picky about my shoes when all is said and done. Now, I'm sad. No retail therapy.

And no, the measely lip gloss I bought does not come anywhere NEAR retail therapy. (but it IS so very pretty!)

Sigh.