hey, long time no see

I'm back!  See, what happened was, I was in the States for the holidays, and then I came back to Saudi for I think 3 days, and then Bear and I went to Cambodia for our anniversary trip (we've been married for 4 years, we're getting to be pros at this), and then we came back here and I've been unpacking and putting the house back together and catching up on work. 

Bear went on a business trip last night and will be gone for several days, so I am working on ways to keep myself busy and distracted from the excruciating loneliness.  So far, I have plans to go to the commissary, have lunch with some people at the embassy, and go to a Mardi Gras party, which is super early but whatever.

It's cold here!  At night it gets super chilly, and it was almost freezing a couple nights ago.

We have an official end date for our Saudi Arabia post - June 2013.  But, who knows what will happen after that.

What else?  I need to finish the posts about our trip to Jordan.  Then I need to go through the 839 pictures we took in Cambodia and blog about that.  It's gonna take me awhile, I'm not gonna lie.

how am I supposed to get anything done?

Working from home has some major disadvantages.

Buffy is really not concerned about it.

as far as she's concerned, my only job is to provide body heat and that does not require any typing.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Buffy enjoys my blog

One year ago: the desert

this better be good

Happy New Year y'all!  I had black eyed peas (in the form of Hoppin' John) and collard greens last night, so I fully expect this year to be prosperous and lucky.

I added some leftover ham to the hoppin' john, and some fried chicken and biscuits to my plate.
It's an important investment in my future.

So.  I'm all set for 2012.  It better be good.  I am hesitant to say that because the last time I said anything about hoping for a year to be good was 2009, and boy was that the worst year of my life.  So lets just do a little experiment and see how 2012 turns out to be.  Hopefully the world won't end.

Other exciting goings on that I have yet to mention are this sunset:

as seen from my Mom's backyard

The last night of Hanukkah, which we celebrated by having my mom (who is not Jewish at all as far as any of us can tell) read the service while I and my sisters stacked gelt in tall towers for Spooky to knock over with his swishy tail and my stepdad (Jewish) lounged on the couch with a pillow over his face:

behold!

A bachelorette party and bridal shower for my friend KC, who is getting married in March.  A couple of us live pretty far away, so we wanted to celebrate for her while we were in town for the holidays.

This lovely thing is a pear souffle from the restaurant where we had the bachelorette dinner.  Sooooo delicious.

And some quality time with KC's dog Rosie, who is basically as cute as it gets, but who also likes to raid trashcans and hampers, and savagely murder stuffed animals by ripping out their innards and strewing them about the house:

cute n' bad

So, as you can see, it's been a busy weekend.  I'm outta here next week - headed back to Saudi and then almost straight to Cambodia for a short vacation.  Also, work is going to be insane this week, so I'm not sure about the blog.  But I'll do my best!



Three years ago: happy new year!

catinabag

Fenway condescended to pose for a photo shoot after all the Christmas gifts were unwrapped.  He might be too cool for almost everybody and everything, but he can't resist a gift bag.  Especially if it has tissue paper in it.

completely cross-eyed

completely annoyed

too sexy for this bag

One year ago: pomegranate tutorial

mt. nebo

First of all, it's Gmaw's birthday.  All she wants is a fish sandwich from McDonald's for lunch, and some fried chicken for dinner.  Also, some erasable pens.  I guess when you're 91, life gets pretty simple. 

Anyway, back to our tour of Jordan.  We are totally still talking about the same day that we've been talking about for almost a week and a half.  

Our next stop was Mount Nebo.  This is where Moses led his people after 40 years in the desert, beheld the Promised Land, and kicked the bucket.  I guess he was pretty tired.  

the summit

Unfortunately, the church there has had some problems with the roof caving in, so it's under renovation and we couldn't go in.  We did get to see this model of it though.  I have no idea what all that stuff is surrounding it.

church and stuff

To protect the original mosaic floors from being damaged while the church's roof is being worked on, they picked them up and moved them to another building on the grounds.  So we did get to at least see those.

And, I suppose more significantly, we saw what Moses saw - the Promised Land!  The Dead Sea is over on the left, and beyond that is Israel.

promised land!

We tried really hard to soak in the significance of the moment, but we were rushed, as we had been all day.  I also couldn't help wondering if Moses saw that big body of water and thought it would be a source of life, food, green, etc.  I wonder if they all expected this glorious fertile land, and were horribly disappointed when it turned out to be the Dead Sea. 

I didn't wonder about it for too long, because we had to go.  On our walk back to the car, we came across this turkey and his chicken friends.  

kind of a coincidence for the day before Thanksgiving.  I think this one probably made it through the week safely.

We got in the car and went.  And went and went and went.  We went past the Dead Sea, and this is basically all we saw of it:

dead n' shiny

Our driver really super duper wanted to get to this one spot high up in the mountains in time to watch the sunset and drink tea sold by his pal the tea-seller-guy.   He got us there just in the nick of time, and it was beautiful.  It was so cold though.  We definitely appreciated the hot tea.  Bear also appreciated the opportunity to practice his Arabic with the tea-seller-guy, who Bear said spoke weirdly perfect textbook Arabic with no slang and no dialect. 

the day is done

So, after the Roman theater and its museum, the Citadel and its museum, the mosaic workshop and the Chinese food,  Mount Nebo and its turkey, the long drive past the Dead Sea, and the sunset, we were freaking exhausted.  So when we finally got to our hotel near Petra, we ordered some mezze and fell asleep with our faces in our plates.

nom, zzzzzz

One year ago: happy birthday Gmaw!!