The past 5-6 months we have found that our Gulf News paper has been missing on certain days. Paying promptly for a 12 month subscription, one would expect the paper to be on the front door step by 6.30am, when we get up to have our coffee. But every week - at least once or twice, no paper! Contacting the delivery guy, he assured me he delivers every day, to the door. This was beginning to smell like a case for Sherlock Holmes. I told him someone must be taking the paper and asked that he place it inside the carport, in front of the cars so if they want to grab it, they have to come all the way up to the carport entry door - a pretty gutsy move (as we sleep tight and Slim somehow hasn't learned to bark at strangers). So the delivery guy has put the paper at the carport door. That helped. We had a few months of error free days. So we relaxed our guard and so did the delivery guy - he started throwing the paper at the front door again (which is closer to the street than the carport door) - I can draw you a diagram but I think that's too anal.
Then, after returning from holidays, the same thing started again....I was considering putting up CCTV or sitting awake all night with a flashlight to catch the sucker. But it remained a consideration - who really sits all night with a flashlight to catch a newspaper thief. Instead, I asked the delivery guy to put the paper at the back again. Last night he rang the door bell. With much pride he told me, "madam, other houses have been missing papers, number 35, 41, 66 and yesterday I saw a guy looking strangely at your paper which was placed by the car, so I followed him quietly and sure enough, at number 66 he took the paper and I stopped him"! Holy cow, I was right, it was a thief in the night - or rather - early hours between guard shifts, exactly at 6.30-6.45 am when nobody is around. Security and police was called and it turns out it's a Filipino man in number 51, helping himself to a year's free subscription of Gulf News!! My delivery guy was so happy, because he no longer has to go to the carport entrance with the paper - shaving off 2.3 seconds at our house means he can finish sooner before the sun comes up and heats up the neighborhood. I may even renew my subscription now!
The past month has been spent assisting Aidan with his college applications. I do not recall it being such a complicated task when I applied to Southern Illinois University, with a paper application and a regular stamp! It's now all on-line and you have to have a Masters Degree in Computer Science to figure out the website manuevering and uploading of documents. Try doing that for eight (8) !! universities. Aidan is going for the shotgun approach to get in to a school with a decent Industrial Design program. His essays and personal statements make me laugh out loud - the kid is brilliant in his very own AD/HD sort of way, with logic only he could think up. When he says he's "a unique and rare individual" (no argument there) I can only imagine what the admissions counselor will think when he/she reads that phrase. On the other hand, I shudder when I look at the admissions info page where "tuition and fees" are listed. It surpasses my 401K plan! Anyway, today is D-Day - all the transcripts and recommendation letters will be couriered from Dubai International Academy to each university in the States. Fingers crossed we will have a positive response from either Arizona State, North Carolina State or Appalachian State - his top 3 choices. Southern Illinois University will no doubt take him due to sheer family history - I mean with two parents who survived Playboy's number one rated party school in the 80's - who wouldn't accept an Ault? But somehow I feel he should go somewhere else....North Carolina is close to Mark and Amy, and to his God-Father Bruce (another SIU graduate who survived with us :) and with us so far away, in Dubai, it's nice to know he is close to someone we like (read: mother who is having separation anxiety!!)
My neighbor Jill (the Canoodian across the street, whose dog Crosby, named after the hockey player, Slim pounces daily) talked me into joining her newly founded book-club. I've heard about these clubs...bunch of desperate housewives sipping wine and gossipping about the neighbors and other mothers in the school! But she assured me this one was different. She lured me with a free book - making the choice an easy one. So I read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon, in two days and loved it. Was I prepared to discuss why I loved it? Well, let's just say I met a group of very nice and fun ladies, from UK, Canada, Sweden and survived! So we're on again next month, with "The Sandfish" - a novel by a local author, set in Dubai.
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