Lost: My sense of humor.

If found, please return. We miss it dearly.

In order that this blog survive the threat of extermination I periodically make, it must change. You can’t stop progress. Or de-gress, which is the more likely case. Lack of time, material and intellect means stuff around hyah is gonna have to get shorter and dumber. I know, I know, is it even possible? We’re gonna find out.

First of your half-brained updates is this.

I will paraphrase an interesting discussion we had in our Aeraybya-orientation or ‘weird questions whities will ask’ meeting at work. The queries were fielded by a very nice and smiley Iraqi coworker who had just returned from the US after working there for many years.

Q: “How come Arabs stand so close when they’re talking to you?”

“Yes, de aerabs, when dey talk to yew, dhey like to stand close. Wery close, like four inches close. Do not be scared. It is narmal. I don’t know why ve do it. I tink we likes to smell the peoples. We feel more comfortable dat way.”

Q: "I’ve seen local men touch noses when they meet. Is that common?"

“Yes, ve like to touch each others. Vhen ve meet, we kiss each others on the cheeks and hug. Vhen I studied in Spain I learned this was not what the rest of the world did. I grabbed my friend when we were talking and I did like this, put my arm around him shoulders. Suddenly he got wery scared. He stopped talking. He got tense. I was worried. I said, 'are you ok? What is wrong?' He look at me and says wery nerwously, ‘the mens don’t do this. Only certain kinds do.’ I was sad but I newer did that again.”

Q; What should you do if a man is harassing a woman?

“Dhis, I don’t know. Vhen I lived here it was 20 years ago tings were different dhen. Back then you never saw a woman. Ve used to go very far, to the subermarket, just to see a woman. But there was nothing even to see! All black, tob to bottom. I think maybe we went so far just to smell the woman. Hahah, yes, again to smell.”

(as asked by a female colleague) Q: What should we do if the police stop us when we’re driving after drinking? A girlfriend of mine started crying and she got off the hook.

“Oh no, newer do that! It is forbidden! If you have any alcohol in your blad they will throw you in jail and you will be banned from the kantry. But yes, if you do get stopped, please, cry all you want. Dhe ayrab mens, dhey have the weakness for women. We cannot stand tears. For all aerab men, dhis is true. I don’t know why, but if you cry they’ll send you home. For dhe men though, I say you should pray to God for help.”

Wise words. I hope you all took notes. There'll be a test on this on Monday.

(A hand emerges from the rocky mountain of perused newspaperage. It is ink-stained, paper-cut, over-typed and off-colored. It is the hand of the Owl. Slowly it drags out what appears to be the remainder of the equation. The other hand lifts the rumpled edge of a disheveled headscarf to let to red eyes peer out. The following face cracks a tired wry smile.)

Hello.

My office Mac and I have agreed to disagree. It still hides all my programs and ignores my keyboard shortcuts and I'm still a raving techno-idiot, but we get by. Amazingly, I have even become the one-eyed-king on the news desk. Whodathunk reporters were so computer un-savvy.

The commute to work remains killer, but thankfully, with the lil bro driving, I manage to get some sleep. That is, granted I ignore the loud rock/rap and bat-out-of-hell driving. And I do. If I'm lucky, I'll add a good half hour both ways to my nightly tally of say, 5 hours of sleep.

The puce coloring in my exhausted face is fading to yellow. It matches my desk. I should take to wearing it on my head for contrast.

And I'm rumored to be alive.

How's that for an update?

Our last shipment has arrived. Congratulations, we now have stoveage. Baking will soon commence. Well-wishers can expect celebratory cookies and cake as soon as Raju, apartment superintendent, remembers to turns on the gas. In order to speed your share along, please feel free to call him with threats of violence, or rather, at least some serious poking.

I now live in what looks like the captain's quarters of an old ship. We have approximately five rooms of polished wood furniture for a three room flat. That means I've got artfully placed night-stands in the hallway, a captain's bed in the living room, walnut book shelf clogging the entry way, oddly grouped arm chairs along any empty walls, wardrobes standing sentinel, extra dining set in the kitchen and more nightstands idling in my room. And all this is NOT counting the proper furniture already in place.

What with the low ceilings and now cramped passageways, I feel a bit of a stowaway. Or rather, like an unwilling hand that's been shanghaied. My only consolation is that methinks this ship, the SS OVER STUFFED, is a pirating vessel. I finally now have a proper excuse for my sailor's tongue, bad posture and Ahab-ular attitude. Now all I need is a thieving monkey or obnoxious parrot on my shoulder, a sun-blinded squint and wooden or leather appendages to seal the deal.

As far as aquatic buckets go though, ours is sadly undermanned. There is only me – unwilling first mate - mom - captain-cum-cook and lil bro - chief mutineer. I think that leaves about 30 pirates unaccounted for. I should start taking resumes. We definitely have the furniture for a few dozen more hands on deck. All hands on deck!

What am I doing here again? I forget. Not yet having internet access at home, or even a behaving computer, me and this blog o' mine have gone disconnected. Me from it. It from normality. Comment box from entry.

I no longer have 'potential blog thawts' that I file in my sieve-like mind to hopefully be found when I have the time and presence of mind later. Now all I have is 'why is this country so jacked up and do I require a friggin residence visa to say that thawts.'

But yeah, you all still seem to be here, so I ought to try and reconnect.

I tell you things.

I went on a safari. I'm in Ay-rabia, tis expected. Hitting all my cliché targets gives me something to look forward to. *stares*

So yeah, I took my buds on a safari. Alas, our 'ship of the desert' was not the noble ornery camel but instead a Landcruiser. I am muchness behind the times. The four-wheel off-road SUV replaced the comfort-forgiving livestock approximately 20 years ago. This was soon forgotten though. What our steed lacked in traditional novelty it made up in sheer insanity - our route to the desert ranch was carved through an ocean of sand. It's called dune-bashing and a more apt-name has never been given.

When I signed on for this adventure I assumed dune bashing involved putting skittish tourists behind the wheels of run-down four-wheelers and letting them drive themselves in circles. That is child's play and not worth your time unless you're an aficionado, the locals say. What's real fun is allowing an inhumanely talented driver to whip the mountains and valleys of the desert into submission. Or defy physics anyways.

Never before have I seen a vehicle do the things ours did. We took near-90-degree vertical drops. We skidded sideways down towering dunes. We kicked up sand like tidal waves. We took hairpin turns while sliding backwards to avoid the wreckage of unsuccessful predecessors. We played follow-the-leader in a caravan of 12 other white Landcruisers, sometimes tailgating, other times over-taking, always at risk, and never far away enough from the nearest bumper. We made my friend Sabah, 'The Queen of Rollercoasters' scream "WE'RE GONNA DIE!!!!!" at least five times. Beat that.

Then we stopped at a camel farm. Yes, you read that right. Smack dab in the midst of the endless sea of yellow was a farm full of my least-favorite beast of burden. From a distance of about 30 feet, they weren't so bad. They were even a little cute as they attempted to eat their own pens and shared the plastic roof from one. Aw, giant locusts! Adorable!

After the car had sufficiently cooled down and we had gotten enough pictures of the disinterested camels, we moved on. We were then taken to the desert ranch, from where the majority of the action was to take place. The place kinda looked like a desi haveli plus Arabian nights stage plus circus big top complete with camels to welcome us.

At the ranch there was a giant stage, probably 30-30 feet across with a small round dance floor in the middle. Stationed all around it were giant floor cushions and beyond them were more low tables with cushions and then some more seating alcoves. Sprinkled here and there were little tents and seating areas for sheesha (hubble-bubble), henna painting, Arab dress, bar and cafe. Taking one look at the now well-watered dancing enthusiasts who were sashaying (male though they were) towards the stage center, me and my bud went in search instead of the fabled sand-boarding.

Apparently, for 100 dirhams down you get a sand-board, not to be confused with a snow-board. They're probably the same thing except for ours were covered in sand scratches and probably never felt a chill wind in their lives. Boards in hand, we began set off for a dune.

While there may be some similarities between snow and sand-boarding - where they stop is in the mode of ascent. There were no lovely cushy ski-lifts to carry us to our summit, nor even were there stairs like one would see on a sled hill. Here they had vertical meters of hot, shifting sand dunes and only our feet to carry us up them. No wonder why they say this sport isn't for the faint of heart. If you haven't got the constitution and stamina of a horse, you're liable to die mid-climb.

I managed to get a few runs in, as well as mandatory surfer-pose-photos, before we decided it wasn't worth the strain. The heat had given my Amreeki friend mild heat stroke and turned us both a lovely shade of caution red. It was definitely time to cool down. We hijacked the Landcruiser keys from our driver, cranked up the AC, and proceeded to chill.

We rejoined the party a little while later, just in time for the Arabian buffet. I shouldn't have been surprised to find that our supposedly authentic fare included daal (desi lentils), samosa and pilao considering that the majority of the other musafirs of the safari were Indian, both veg and non-veg, as they call themselves. It was good all the same and much needed after our exertion on the sand hills.

After dinner the professional belly dancing began. We took that as our cue to exit, and grabbed the camel guy just before he took his beasts home for the night. One camel had already been unharnessed and the other was being awoken from its sprawled out slumber when we asked for our go. That should have been a warning to us. It was asleep and was not at all interested in giving two slow ajamis a ride.

Though we got up easily enough, (extreme dip back, extreme dip forward and final lurch upwards), it didn't want to let us down. Maybe it was the click-happy camel handler's insistence that he take at least seven pictures of us. Maybe it was the fact that I landed a bit too hard when I vaulted over the grip into the saddle. Maybe it was just the camel. I dunno. But when time came to go, the camel wasn't having it. The handler would make odd growling/huffing noises to the animal, which I take was camel-talk for "sit down" and the camel would respond in harsh tones of its own. They battled wills while Sabah and I hung on for dear life. When the handler suggested I jump down from my Himalayan perch on a camel's hump I began to wonder if it was time to panic. Eventually though, I did get down, and I can assure you that no animals were hurt in the making of this blog.

After a quick dash to the irritated henna lady, who sloppily tattooed us with ‘authentic’ Arabic scorpion and dragon-chikken designs, and a nerve-wracking escape from a rampaging dung beetle, we headed home. All in all it was a goodly adventure, but next time, I think I’ll skip the camel ride.

Working. Sleep deprived. Commute-killed. Mac-confused. Puce-green. Dead owl.