A moment

I had a beautiful moment on my drive to work this morning. As I was waiting at a stand-still on Dhiyafa in the leftmost lane next to the grassy median, I noticed a bird very close to me. It was a small bird, brown and black with bright yellow rings around the eyes and a yellow beak and legs. It was quite a slick little bird… until it chirped, when it would puff up like a pufferfish with feathers fluffed up in all directions!

I watched him for a while, totally entranced, with my mind rather numbed by the previous night’s work on infrastructure asset operating models until 3am, with the window open in the mild morning heat, with the sun on my face, with Willie Nelson on the iPod.

I think that was one of the only times thattime stood still for a moment while the Dubai traffic stood still.

My brother, Tarzan

In the midst of his current deployment in Okinawa, Metro is out in a jungle training course for a few weeks. He called to give me an update on his recent activities, which include paintball combat simulation, fending off poisonous snakes, ... and swinging from vines. Now, at first I thought, "yeah, swinging from vines seems like the obvious thing to do in the jungle." Then I realized, I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone who has actually swung on a vine before. That's pretty cool. Like, Tarzan cool.

I'm impressed!

No support for female athletes

A sports bra, a sports bra, my kingdom for a sports bra!

I’ve been in Dubai now for over 2 years. This is of course 2 years of fairly regular exercising, though I’ve only recently started running again, thanks to the miraculous appearance of a real running track on Russian Beach (those of you who are non-Dubaians might not realize what an incredible thing this is for the municipality to create a non-profit generating thing which encourages bipedal activity, this in a city with no sidewalks). Anyway, this 2 years of athletic activity naturally indicates a time to upgrade various sportswear necessities.

New running sneakers? Check.
A few new comfy, stylish sports trousers? Check.
New sports bra? … ? … ? NEIN.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (four of them, if memory serves) in Mall of The Emirates and did not find a single sports bra, I was annoyed.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (another two of them) in Bur Juman and was directed to racks of stretchy spandex shirts, I was beginning to get offended.

When I checked all the sporting goods stores (another three of them) in Festival City and found two stores bereft of anything resembling a sports bra and one Nike store with an unwearably misogynistic range, 80% of which were sold out leaving only 32A and 40C (neither of which would suit my bosom anyway), I was indignant. I was incandescent. I was full of fury at their ignorance of what they are selling. How dare they expect to sell me their overpriced wares when they decorate their walls with motivational action shots of sweaty female athletes and fail to stock the basic necessary items for any form of rigorous exercise.

Argh.

But then when I checked a random sporting goods outlet store in Deira, and reduced the middle-aged, amply-moustached Indian store attendant to hysterical giggles with my explanation of what a sports bra is… well, I guess that was pretty funny.

But still, really, I need a new sports bra.

An unexpected treat at Ice Pack

Tonight after a long walk in Satwa, we stopped at the glass-fronted milkshake shop, Ice Pack, on the ground floor of our building. What stopped us was the rare sight of a large group of kids in dubai -- the benches were full of adorable kids in football uniforms emblazoned with ICEPACK on the back, all happily sucking on jumbo sized milkshakes and vaguely paying attention to a guy at the front of the room who looked like he was presenting a large round trophy.



We were quite content to sneak peaks and pics from around the corner when a young employee and an older Iranian woman ran up to me and started to get very excited about my scarf. Earlier in the evening, I grabbed my mom's old gold and neon green scarf to throw over my orange tank top (a yay-ish yet somewhat modest outfit suitable for Satwa, I figured). I was a bit perplexed at first, mildly annoyed that they might be protesting to my rather garish color combination, and concerned that they didn't like that we were taking pictures of their ice cream guzzling soccer boys.

But it turns out that the woman who owns the shop was desperately looking for something to wear as a headscarf. Ice Pack is an Tehranian franchise and there were camera men there who wanted to interview her and take photographs for distribution back in Iran, which is possible of course only if she were dressed to Iranian norms. This is what we found out while waiting and chatting to the older woman, who was the owner's mother, and was also at the Googoosh concert (and nearly kissed my hand when I mentioned that I listen to Googoosh CDs in the car all the time), and was intent on showering us with free milkshakes.

So. There you go. Two mothers, 1 bright green and gold scarf, distribution in the Iranian press, and loads of milkshakes. It was a good end to a good night.

a little thought

When I'm driving down a palm tree-lined street, past the villa walls overflowing with bourganville, listening to hindi music on the radio, I am really quite happy.

Googoosh Live in Dubai!

Last week I went a massive, chaotic, and wonderful concert by Googoosh, the biggest Iranian singing/acting diva. She's a smoking hot 57-year-old with an enormous voice and a decades-long discography.

I went expecting to have a good time because I like her music (and damn can she belt it out live), but I did not expect the added benefit of cultural observation, getting immersed in a 4-5,000-strong crowd of excited Iranians. Definitely the most Iranians I've ever been around. And I was definitely the only non-bleached blonde in the arena.

I was with Mahboyfriend and my Iranian friend, Sara, who promised me as we walked in that, in a crowd that size, we would get to see "the best and worst" of Iran.

My observations:

(1) Shimmery metallic shirts and rhinestone-studded clothing are a passion, perhaps even a wardrobe necessity. For men and women.
(2) Iranians do not like to stand in a queue. Rather like Indians, they tend to move like a river, flooding all available space around a gateway / ticket counter / etc., piling partly on top of one another, and then spilling out backwards. It was immensely chaotic.
(3) There is a striking diversity of complexion and facial features.
(4) The middle-aged women in headscarves tend to be rectangular in shape.

Here's a clip from the concert. I hope the sound quality is good enough to hear the grown men wailing along with her:

A Subprime Primer

This link is amazing: http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true


I feel smarter already.

No love from Saudi this year

I was kind of shocked to learn that Valentine’s Day has been banned on 90% of the land mass of the peninsula on which I reside. Apparently, all symbols of the holiday are banned, punishable by arrest.

Surely this is a gesture of defiance against the western commercialization of sexuality, which seems pretty clear on an abstract level but I find it difficult to articulate exactly what they object to on a tangible level. Is it the sale of chocolate? I think that is generally allowed in Saudi. Ditto the sale of sentimental greeting cards. And they can’t possibly be objecting to the principle of buying gifts for one’s wife/wives (what a revolt there would be if GCC women weren’t having diamonds, mahnolos, and solid gold bricks lavished on them). So is it the imagery of fleshy cupids? Is it the possibility of flirting via candy hearts between 2 unmarried, unrelated people? Is it the vestigial prefix “Saint”?

I’m hoping it’s one of the above. Otherwise my only conclusion is that the same town leaders who banned dancing and rock music in Footloose moved to Riyadh and joined forces with the Grinch to steal Valentine’s Day. Boo.

And on a more serious note, what does this mean to ban symbols of something?? Is this not a terrible can of legal worms to open? It's easy enough to say "red roses = valentine's day, so no red roses allowed" but doesn't this pave the way for next year's rule to be "anything red is a symbol of a red rose, so no red allowed" or "you're wearing a pink shirt which means you must be thinking about valentine's day, so i will arrest you" or "you're considered a social dissident so i will find something in your house that symbolically refers to a heart, a piece of chocolate, a greeting card, the color red, or the color pink, so i will arrest you." ?? Slippery slope...

pittar, patter - part two

This is what happens when it rains for 3 days in Dubai.

pitter, patter

I arrived back from New York late last night and awoke this morning to a surreal Dubai (even more surreal than normal).

There are epic traffic jams due to security sweeps of certain areas in preparation for George Bush's visit tomorrow and it was just announced that 4 major roads will be closed entirely tomorrow. This essentially cripples the city so most companies are declaring it a day off. Kind of like a snow day. Thanks Dubya, I guess?

In addition to that, it's raining cats and dogs.

So, I'm sitting on the balcony, enjoying the rain's pitter patter on the pool, feeling a little sorry for the palm trees which look quite confused and a little embarrassed to be so wet, and wondering if I'll go to work tomorrow anyway...