Meet the Two Loons!

by on Oct 12, 2011 (Comments Off on Meet the Two Loons!) Comments

Pam and Kae will be at the 23rd annual Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 14-16. The fesitval is located at Legislative Plaza and the Tennessee Capitol building in downtown Nashville. We’ll be smiling and waving from booth #30 so come and say hello.

Festival hours are:

  • Friday noon-6pm
  • Saturday 9am-6pm
  • Sunday noon-5pm

We’ll have plenty of books available and we’d be happy to sign one for you. Come on, we know you’re curious to see whether we’re as crazy in person as we are in our blogs!

Hope to see you there!

Pam and Kae

Who likes salami?

by on Oct 10, 2011 (Comments Off on Who likes salami?) Comments

Months before we left on our adventure to Egypt, I purchased a CD for$29.95 guaranteed to teach me the necessary phrases for a tourist in Egypt.  I figured hello and goodbye would serve me well in the pleasantry department.  Then I thought that since I am travelling with my mother-in-law, who is notorious for her potty stops, I should attempt to learn the phrase for “Where’s the bathroom.”  I listened to the lessons on the CD for quite a while.  I was a fairly good student.  As long as I had the little lady in my computer and the pictures associated with the words, I was doing a great job.  Once I stepped foot on Egyptian soil, the only phrase that I could actually remember was how to say goodbye because to me, it sounds like “I like my salami.”  Of course, once in Egypt I wasn’t about to use this phrase pronounced the only way I could get my southern accent around it.  I was worried I would be completely misunderstood or be taken to the nearest butcher shop.

One phrase that I didn’t learn in my lessons but kept hearing over and over was the Egypt equivalent of “God be with you.”  I was reading in my book on Egyptian culture that it is considered a failure for an Egyptian to not be able to accommodate your requests.  If it is something that they think they can do, they will say yes.  If it is something that they don’t think they can do, they will say yes, with “God willing or God be with you” after the promise.

After travelling for the past week with my two 80-year-old in-laws we began to hear the phrase quite a bit.  We have put Paul in bobbing boats, walking gangplanks to disembark small motor boats, had him traipsing through the desert sand and riding in a donkey cart.  When we went to Abu Simbel we pretended to be mountain goats climbing up crudely carved rock stairs to a sandy trail that a donkey would have a hard time staying on, all the while trying not to look down the tumble of rocks to the waters of the lake below.  Once this part of the journey was mastered we had about 100 stone stairs to climb before we started the somewhat long walk to the temple itself.  Couple that with the fact that we did it in complete darkness once for the sound and light show and then again at dawn the next morning to watch the sunrise on the temple and the ordeal just got more and more harrowing.   On our second trek to Abu Simbel, Dad refused to turn a corner and ended up trying to climb up the cliff face.  David, who is petrified of heights, was trying as gently as possible to talk him down all the while panicking at the thought of his Dad throwing an elbow and sending him careening off the side of the cliff.  Luckily for us, there was a huge body-building Frenchman in the next boat.  He saw the situation and basically lifted Dad off the cliff face and put him on his feet going the correct way on the path.

It was during one of our sunrise excursions to the temple that I kept hearing the familiar phrase from different cruise personnel that we passed.  Egyptians must be as good at gossip as we in the south are.  It may have been my imagination but by dinner that night I felt like everyone on the boat had uttered this phrase to us.  This is when I realized that “God be with you” in Egypt is the southern equivalent to “Bless you heart.”  Unfortunately, the only thing I could respond in Arabic was “I like my salami!”

The yard sale

by on Oct 07, 2011 (Comments Off on The yard sale) Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with hosting yard sales. They require a tremendous amount of work, your plans can be ruined by weather and you never really understand the whole pricing/haggling thing… at least I don’t. Although I’ve never gone to a yard sale myself I know there’s a sport to finding that treasure amidst the trash and haggling to get it for a bargain. I just can’t haggle. I figure that whatever price the owner placed on the sticker is what he/she thought it would be worth paying. So, in the wee hours of the morning as I sat in in my garage, cleaning, organizing and pricing items for sale I frequently heard my husband saying “raise the price because people will haggle.”

So I went on the internet to research yard sale pricing and to gain some insight into haggling. What I learned is that no one agrees on pricing. For everyone who said to price higher so you can negotiate, there was some other yard sale expert claiming you should simply price fairly.

I went with the fair pricing camp. Apparently though, everyone else in my neighborhood is in the haggling camp. I hadn’t even stepped five feet out of my garage to start placing items on a table in the yard before several people negotiated on paying half the marked price. The sun wasn’t even up yet and I realized I was out of my league.

So for two mornings I stood outside and watched people tear up on my lawn as they parked every-which-way, felt bad when I refused to let countless people inside my house to use my bathroom, fought off unleashed dogs who attempted to either jump on me with their muddy paws or pull items off the tables, and rehung clothes that were yanked off hangers and left on the ground. I also chatted with neighbors and made some new friends, smiled as people rejoiced at finding the one treasure they had been searching for and kept the hand sanitizer close by to keep my OCD under control while handling money.

As the yard sale came to a close and I started packing the unsold items in boxes, to my husband’s dismay, I took out my marker and wrote “items for 2012 yard sale.” I’m going to take haggling lessons in the meantime.

Kae meets King Tut

by on Oct 05, 2011 (6) Comments

The exhibit of King Tut’s tomb was fascinating.  All the items the King would need in the afterlife had been buried with him.  Clay vessels filled with fruit, vegetables, milk, honey and beer had been left for him to nourish himself on his journey to the “paradise”.  I was impressed to see that beer was one of the essentials for a King to pass to paradise.  I reminded David that this was a necessary item and that my favorite would be Heineken.  The most amazing part was the death mask of King Tut.  I have seen it in pictures my whole life but it was so much more impressive in person.  If this was a pre-revolution time, we would have maybe gotten within 5 or 10 people peering over their heads and more specifically for me under the underpits of a crowd of sweaty tourists to catch a glance of one of the world’s most famous treasurers.  Instead we walked right up to the exhibit and spent as much time as we wanted observing this amazing site.

Later in the evening we went to the hotel’s Arabian Knights dinner.  We sat poolside in a wonderful Egyptian breeze, smelling the aroma of the wood fire where they bake their bread in the same fashion as it was baked thousands of years ago.  On David’s wish list while in Egypt was to dine on the local delicacy of stuffed pigeon.  David and his Mom both ordered the pigeon while Dad and I chickened out and had the fish and shrimp.  The pigeon was actually delicious, a little short on meat, but absolutely delicious according to the two partakers.

After dinner, we got the parents put to bed and headed down to the front desk to once again secure our wayward luggage.  We were thrilled to find out that it was indeed in Cairo.  We were set to fly to Aswan in the morning so getting the luggage was imperative.  Since we were staying in one of the swankiest hotels we have ever been in, I got the Brainy Smurf idea to ask the concierge to send someone to the airport for our bags.  It was amazing.  David and I were asked to please sit in the bar area, have a cocktail and let the hotel handle the details.  Sure enough, at 12:30 in the morning our bags rolled through the automatic doors.  I have never been so happy to see two pieces of luggage in my life.  We clinked our beer glasses and saluted to the fact that we could leave for Aswan in the morning with our travel gear fully in tow.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to navigate the Cairo airport’s domestic terminal.

My Mommy Mii

by on Oct 03, 2011 (10) Comments

The other day my children showed me a “Mii” they had created for me on their Wii. For those of you who are as clueless as I am, a Mii is a personalized character that you can create when playing the Wii games.

My children had created their own and they looked adorable. The Mommy Mii, however, left me feeling a strong need to visit the gym, the hairdresser and maybe even a plastic surgeon.

With all the selections you can make when creating a Mii (eyes, eyebrows, eye color, hairstyle, etc.), my Mii looked as if she had never used a drop of sunscreen and had the wrinkled face to prove it. My personalized Mii also had eyes that looked as if they belonged on a rabbit instead of a human — so big and very far apart. Actually, in thinking about it, I guess the eye position is a reflection of how my children think I can see everything they’re doing even if I never turn my head in their direction. If there was an option on the Wii to create a Mii with an eye on the back of her head I supposed my kids would’ve chosen that one.

My Mii hairstyle? Well, the best description is zigzag. My Mii looked as if her hair was styled with a chainsaw.

One of the unfortunate options available when creating a Mii is the ability to change the body size. If you’re thin as a string bean that option is great but when you’re a mommy whose bikini days are behind her, that option isn’t pretty, especially when your children are the ones in control.

So as I look at my Mii as created by my children, I get a glimpse into how they view me: a chunky rabbit-eyed women with zigzag hair, eyebrows that have never seen a tweezer, wrinkles, a nose that seemed to have missed landing in the center of her face and a pair of glasses that must’ve belonged to someone’s grandfather. There was one thing they did put on my Mii that made it all worthwhile though… a big smile.

Drive like an Egyptian

by on Sep 30, 2011 (10) Comments

We started our day with a visit to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities.   Our faithful driver, Abod, was at the hotel exactly at 10am as we had requested.  The ride to the museum was entertainment in and of itself.  We all watched in fascination as the traffic on a super highway started, stopped and shifted before our eyes.  It appears that there are no rules with regard to lanes or blinker usage.  Cars were parked willy-nilly sometimes as many as three deep in what we would consider the right lane of traffic.  At one point in the congestion we were actually passed by a man driving a donkey cart.  We were terrified at the number of people hanging out of bus doors or sitting on top of moving vehicles.  In some places our driver actually drove either up on the shoulder of the road or in the oncoming lane just to avoid a pothole.   We held our breath as cars in front of us weaved in and around one another.  Tailgating is obviously an art form and apparently their horns are used instead of their brakes.  Maybe there is some sort of code in the honking.  One honk for watch your right, two for the left, three to say hello, and one long blast indicating that someone around the vicinity of your car is being an idiot.  The vehicles ran the gamut from huge tour busses to brave motorcyclists riding sometimes as many as three on a bike with not a helmet in site.  In the midst of all this vehicular chaos were pedestrians crossing the road.  These crazy Egyptians just take off through the traffic, literally sauntering the entire way.  We never one time saw someone even pick up their pace much less run across the six lanes of traffic. We even saw a wild dog make its way across six lanes of traffic only to reach the other side and come back across the road again. This chaos was even enough to make even Mom and Dad pop on their seatbelts.  This doesn’t sound like a great feat but they both absolutely refuse to put on a seatbelt.  Mom, because it wrinkles her blouse and Dad, because he never remembers having to use one before.  David is the most motion sensitive person I know.  He had his sea-bands that work on the acupressure points on, plus he had downed a hefty dose of Dramamine as soon as he noticed that this was going to be one wild ride.  One look at the green tint around his gills and I started dumping our prescription bottles out of their little plastic bag into the deep dark abyss that has somehow become the interior of my carry-on bag so David would have something to throw up in.  Since our luggage was MIA and we had no idea when or if we would ever see it again, I thought it prudent to make sure that the pair of pants David had on made it through our journey to the museum unscathed.

We got to the museum without bumping into a single other motorist or hitting any wayward pedestrian that crossed our path.   Slowly David began to return to his original color.  We met our tour guide, Rasha, in the courtyard.  As we started on our private tour, I wanted to make sure that Paul stayed with us.  This is what we brought Mom to Egypt for so I didn’t want her to be distracted while she was enjoying the sites.  Instinctively I reached out and took Paul’s hand.  I was worried at first that he would be insulted that I would want to hold his hand, but the way he grasped my hand and kept hold of it made me realize he was just as comforted as I was.

Kae and Pam are guest-blogging again!

by on Sep 28, 2011 (Comments Off on Kae and Pam are guest-blogging again!) Comments

You just can’t keep us contained on our own blog. We’ve been asked to guest blog on a wonderful site called Insignificant at best. Read about how we each view the end of summer.

Best laid plans

by on Sep 27, 2011 (1) Comments

The day I left for Cairo, Egypt is the day I realized what the most horrifying words in the English Language are:  Ladies and Gentlemen it appears……

We got to Nashville with time to spare.  I was worried about taking Paul (David’s father) through security since he fell last year, shattered his shoulder and had metal plate and nine screws put in to hold everything together.  Thankfully, even though we practically had to disrobe at the security check point we were put through the new body scanner.  It was fun to watch the TSA guy try to explain to Paul why he had to put his hands in the air like he was the victim of a NY robbery.   We were safely at our gate with sandwich and latte in hand one hour before our flight to New York was due to take off.  David and I had stayed up late the last several nights getting our work done, packing, making sure details were ironed out so our trip would run as smoothly as a trip to a hectic foreign country with two 80-year-olds in tow can.  Our flight boarded on time.  David and his Mother made their potty break early so I wasn’t freaking out when they called our flight to board while those two ran off to make water.  We boarded the plane without incident, got all of our flight safety instructions and headed down the tarmac.  As the plane neared the end of the takeoff runway, David and I smiled at each other and said “here we go!”  Then the plane came to a dead stop. The disembodied voice of the pilot came over the loud speaker and informed us very politely that our flight was going to be delayed by…..at this point I was thinking oh poop, surely not more than a few minutes, I mean we are already on the runway for goodness sake.  If our pilot decided to go rogue he could just gun it and make a clean getaway…… an hour and a half (which eventually turned into over two hours).

From that moment on, our trip spiraled slowly out of control.  We finally reached JFK airport one hour before our flight to Cairo was to leave.  David and I flew like the wind through the maze that is JFK, alternately dragging and prodding our poor elderly parents as fast as they could go to the Egyptair check-in for our boarding passes only to find out that the only representative had left 15 minutes before we got there!  With no boarding passes all we could do was listen in dismay as they called our flight over and over for boarding.  After more than few choice words we regrouped and David remembered in all his research he had seen a flight that flew from JFK to Amman, Jordan and connect through to Cairo.  I spent the next 20 hours sitting in airplanes, eating things in cellophane wrappers, using washrooms with no toilet paper and using caustic amounts of hand sanitizer instead of lounging by the pool and getting the massage I was so hoping for.

You would think once we got to the Cairo airport our troubles would be over, but no, not so much.  After navigating the customs check in, getting entry visas and finally meeting our hired driver we found out our luggage that we checked at JFK was missing in action.  We spent the next two hours using our driver as an interpreter, trying to figure out where to look, who to talk to, and eventually where to file a claim to get our luggage tracked! 

Dave and I finally fell into the wonderfully luxurious bed at 3am.  Somewhere around 4am I woke up because our white noise machine cut off.  Okay, so there is this pesky voltage issue.  Even if you have a converter, if your electronic device is not wired correctly it will literally burn up.  Luckily, I am addicted to the white noise so I woke up immediately.  Dave took the smoking device and put it in the bathtub, set his cell phone to white noise and off we went to lullaby land again.  Tomorrow has to be a better day.  The driver will pick us up at 10am for our tour of the Egyptian Museum.  We are exhausted and emotionally drained but so ready to start our exciting tour of Egypt!

The problem with purple

by on Sep 24, 2011 (2) Comments

There’s a rule in my house that nobody but me seems to follow: all permanent markers are to be kept in the drawer and are only for adult use.  Having stepped on more than my share of crayons, colored pencils and other writing instruments, I laid down the law that anything capable of leaving a permanent mark was to be closely guarded and monitored. Nobody, and I mean nobody paid attention to my rule so it’s not unusual to find Sharpies perched precariously on the edge of the table or hiding in the pockets of shirts that have been tossed in the hamper.

So when Jack announced that Griffin (our dog) was chewing on a marker it caused a wave of panic to go through me. I raced down the hall and saw the dog lounging on my nice light beige carpet with his back to me. From the sound he was making it was obvious that he was indeed chewing on something. I called his name and he turned his head to look at me. His face was purple. He stood up and turned around to walk toward me. His front paws were purple. The area of carpet where he was chewing was purple. And in the middle of all this purpleness was a mangled white piece of plastic that at one time was a marker.

As I ran toward the dog my mind raced. Permanent or washable? Was it a Sharpie or one of those lovely Crayola washable markers? By what was left of the marker I couldn’t tell. I carried the dog to the tub and thought about the potential outcome. If it’s a permanent marker the upside would be that I could probably guilt my husband into replacing the carpet in that room. The downside? I’d have a dog who was half purple.

Thankfully, Griffin chose the washable marker as his afternoon snack that day. All the purple was safely removed from his coat, his mouth and my carpet. I watched the dog carefully for the next couple of days and there seemed to be no ill effects from chowing down on a washable marker. Not even a purple poop showed up on the lawn .

We dodged a purple bullet on this one but just to be on the safe side all Sharpies are kept in my office in a locked drawer.

David vs. the Details

by on Sep 22, 2011 (2) Comments

There are so many things I absolutely adore about David.  He brings me coffee every morning in bed when he wakes me up.  I can’t announce that I will be doing a project around the house the next day because David will get up early to make sure he gets the project done before he brings me my coffee.  With that being said, let me tell you, David is so not anally retentive enough to be the planner for this trip.  Yes, he is brilliant when it comes to researching the hotels, cruises, tour guides and flights, but when it comes down to what I consider the finer details, David is not your go-to guy.

After several attempts, I got David to print out an itinerary for the trip.  Finally I had a game plan.  Now it was time for me to go to work on my part of the vacations.  First in line: money.   According to the travel guides, if someone looks at your sideways, they expect to get a “tip”.  The exchange rate is roughly 5 Egyptian Pounds to the dollar.  The poverty rate in Egypt is heartbreaking.  The country thrives on “tips”.   You are supposed to tip the taxi driver, the bag boy, the doorman, and especially the lady that stands at the entrance to the public washrooms and hands out the squares of toilet paper.  Legend has it that if you give her a big enough tip she will point you in the direction of the cleanest stall and toss you a couple extra squares of toilet paper.   Usually a good tip would be about the equivalent of a quarter.  From what I’ve read about bathroom hygiene in the country, she will be getting a full dollar from this southern girl.  If paying a buck gets me a few extra squares of TP and the potential of a stall that is not going to put me off my feed for the rest of the day, I’m all in. 

Earlier this month I cornered David and made him go through the itinerary.  We went over, in detail, all of the times that a tip would be appropriate, what tour groups took credit cards, which hotels had to be paid in cash, who preferred to get paid in US dollars and who preferred Egyptian Pounds.  David spent the majority of this time with the same look on his face that I’m sure he wore in his 8th grade algebra class.  I painstakingly went through blog after blog trying to narrow down how much an “average” person would spend in a day.  The only reason I am so over the top with the cash is that I have read many blogs saying to have your money with you when you go.  Unfortunately, some Egyptians want US dollars, some want Egyptian pounds, some take credit cards and some do not and they absolutely do not take travelers checks.  So unless I magically find an ATM up my rump, I figure I probably better have the cash in hand when we land.

  

Now it is the day before our trip.  I was up until 3am in the morning meticulously folding all our clothing into neat little squares that would fit perfectly into either a quart or gallon-sized storage bag.  Then the packing began.  I have one bag that we will be checking and one bag that we will carry on the plane.  I packed the smaller bag with the essentials for the first day, just in case the checked bag ended up in Bangladesh instead of Cairo.  The rest went into the bigger bag with the ever watchful eye that it could not exceed 44 pounds or Egyptair would be charging us an extra fee.  Like clowns in a Volkswagen, all the clothes, shoes, medications, toiletries and snack foods tucked into our two brand new red suitcases.  Finally I sat down and programmed the numbers and ringtones into our new international cell phones (in case of emergency), made sure our new digital camera would play nice with my little laptop and finally painted my finger nails and toe nails.  It’s 3am and finally I think all the pesky “finer” details have been ironed out.