Just missing the National Anthem

Finally! After 11 months of training and building myself up to the challenge (only interrupted by a hysterectomy) I nailed a half marathon! Well, there was that 'small insignificant' half marathon in Durban, South Africa, in October - but mentally that really doesn't count as I only did half of a half! It's all my mate Steve's fault. He said to do the run with he and his friends and he also said that there would be a few hills. A few hills!!! Starting the first 2 km like I was climbing Mount Everest is not really "a few hills"!! The jelly beans I brough in my back pocket for self reward and motivation every 5km, had melted into a goopy mass and from there it went downhill -- literally...the downhills killed me (or my knee) so I finally gave up at the 11 km mark.

Fortunately Dubai is flat as a pancake (aside from the world's tallest building) so I figured I could handle that run to the end. Running for Aric's heart kept me going - along with The Black Eyed Peas and their Boom Boom Pow songs. I finished the run in 2 hrs 27 min, according to the clock (2.29 according to the mat computer) - so I made my goal which was under 2 and 1/2 hours! A well deserved breakfast afterwards with real pork bacon made the day for me. Bexta finished in 2.03 but she is fitter than me (not that we were competing ;-)

Got the medal and wondering if I should run the full marathon in Copenhagen in May. I can evaluate that after the Christmas dinner and a few glasses of champagne!

We are all so ready, gifts have been wrapped and hidden until we get the tree up. We weren't going to have a tree, but the kids changed their minds as they got more and more in the spirit, so now we are going to see if we can source a real pine tree in time. Aidan and Mutti have spent all morning rolling marzipan and dipping the goodies in chocolate. Aidan is certainly giving Godiva a run for the money as master chocolatier! YUM!!

Merry Christmas 2009

One little Indian, two little Indians, three little Indians....

As if Aric's heart attack didn't stretch us enough mentally, we also moved home the same week he was just out of the hospital recovering. Fortunately Mutti (Pia's mom) came to the rescue from Copenhagen and has been an absolute God send in her help with packing, cleaning and organizing all the things. I do recall a year ago when we moved from the temporary housing (hotel apartment) into the penthouse, right after I was sick in Nigeria. Deja vu??

There was a relocation agent involved last year and somehow she was missing this year. I never thought those agents worked hard for their money....boy have I changed my mind! You wouldn't think something as simple as switching Elec and Water from one place / account to another, would be a difficult and timeconsuming event. What was I thinking - this is Dubai!

Three separate visits to DEWA (Dubai Electric and Water Authority) - each time taking a number "you are number 1223 - now serving number 1167" AAARRRGGHHH.....

"No Madame, it's not possible to change the name on the account, you must close the penthouse account, pay the final bill and then apply to open the account for the villa!! OK, so let's do that...." -- "Madame, it takes 4 days to request the final bill. Come back in 4 days and bring cash!"

4 days later, taking a number "serving number 1183, you are number 1298" AAARRRGGGHHH..... "Madame your final payment due is 7342 dirhams (WHAT?????) ...and what is "housing fee"? "Madame that is a 5% fee of your total rent, charged by the Dubai municipality on your bill". But I pay rent already!! What is the housing fee for? "Madame I don't know, please go to Dubai municipality to ask them"! AAARRRGGGHHH....

You get the drift. Changing from one CableTV / internet provider to another was also a breeze. DU told me that they could have me up and running on December 1. That was until another DU guy told Aric that DU doesn't service our neighborhood. Etisalat is the service provider! Hmmnn, so then let's get Etisalat to hook up the stuff. "Madame, we will forward your request to the CableTV dept and they will let you know if it's available." TV is not available?? What about internet? "Would you like dial up?" DID SOMEONE SAY FLINTSTONES????

56 hours later three Indians knocked on our door and told us they were the internet people. Right, good - this is where we would like our outlets activated. "Madame it is not possible to have more than one!" AAARRRGGGHHH -- what???? But we have 4 PCs and a million wireless devices! "Madame we have to put just one outlet by the main box ... (behind 17 moving boxes in the small storage space under the stairs!!) Then you just pull on the wires to find out where they lead to!" Oh of course we do that! Start pulling the spaghetti, kids!!! We haven't heard from the CableTV dept yet, but the satelite dish on the roof sort of gives us the verdict already!!

One of the positive things of moving from the penthouse to the villa, is that we can re-use our curtains - they just needed to be taken up and refitted slightly. 5 days later, 7 Indians knocked on the door. I like their efficiency... one to put up the ladder, another to hold the ladder, one person to put all the hooks into the curtain tape, one to drill holes; one person to install the curtain rods and tracks, one person to hang the curtains - another to have conversations on his mobile phone with the boss, to make sure the curtains go in the right room. Finally one person to keep an eye on the van parked out front. The sheer teamwork is just so impressive we Westerners could learn from this process!

All in all, we do love the house and the yard. Slim more than anyone as he gets to pee on grass rather than concrete. We are still decorating. Aric shouldn't really strain himself with lifting the drill and hanging pictures, so we wait patiently for the January stress test when he gets the green light to start DIY projects. Meanwhile, we have a "boxed look" going on!

My dog ate my homework!

Tom laid very still with his chest up. It was dark and wet around him and not a sound could be heard in the maid's room, where he had been laying for 2 days, while thawing his frozen body! The brine marinade of salt, onions, orange, salt, pepper and other spices, seeped slowly through his skin and penetraded his entire flesh! What a journey he had been on, from the farm in the US, to the cargo ship and onto the dusty truck who finally dropped him off in Dubai. It was his destiny to end his days here with the Aults - he was as dead as a headless turkey can be! The only remainding pleasure Tom would enjoy, was to get as tan as possible, so people would admire his pumped up physique before plunging their fork and knife into his thighs and breast!

Aric had proudly marinated Tom the Turkey for days and with 12 guests arriving Thanksgiving evening, we were all looking forward to sinking our teeth into a real traditional US meal with all the trimmings! Sadly this was just not in the cards this year. As most of you already know, Aric found the ultimate excuse to get out of cooking that day -- he suffered a heart attack in the early morning. For 2 days prior he had complained of chest pains and pains in his arms down towards the elbows. Because he had manhandled the 20 lbs turkey, as well as done push-ups, we just kept thinking he might be sore from working out or perhaps having a bit of heart burm / indigestion. While I was handpainting the name cards for the seating arrangement, the night before, he had a very severe pain attack and we made our way to the car to go to the hospital. Then the pain stopped abruptly! With pies in the oven and a turkey to stuff, Aric changed his mind about going and went back to lay down. Two more attacks in the middle of the night and at 6am and we were on our way to the hospital by 7.30.

The admitting nurse put him on the EKG immediately and 30 minutes into the monitoring one more pain attack occurred right in front of the cardiac specialist. Aric was admitted and brought to the cardio operating room so fast there was hardly time to sign the consent form - they had him under local anasthetic and performed a coronary angioplasty and inserted two stents where the blockages were detected.

We were fortunate that the doctor on call was the leading surgeon for this in the Middle East region and fully educated in the US. Dr Hallak did a wonderful job in 2 hours and told us that if we had waited even a few hours longer to come, it would have been too late and Aric would have had a major heart attack, rather than a minor one which left only little damage on the heart. He is now home and relaxing, reading, putzing around enjoying life. We are all grateful and happy that he was taken care of fast and efficient and that we reacted fairly quickly despite not having any supicion that it could be a heart attack. This seems more stress related than health / eating issue related, so we are evaluating what choices we now have to make Aric's "work-life balance" more focused on life.

What happened to Tom? Well, I had to cook the beast! Couldn't leave him in the brine solution forever, so in true American spirit of "going on for the team and the greater good" - I invited just half of the guests who I knew would be good company for the kids and I in such a difficult situation. Besides - two homemade cheesecakes and two banana-cream pies were also at stake here!! So my faithful running partner Bexta, her friend Christophe, our Swedish-Irish friends Peter and Lorraine and my friend from the US, Lori, joined the boys and I for a succulent dinner! Aric was presented very tasty leftovers the next morning and while munching on the moist breast meat, wowed that Christmas Eve will see Tom's offspring: "Tom Junior" cooked the right "Aric way" !!

No excuses will be accepted this time and one can expect the gravy to be made from low-fat drippings!

A day with Flipper

Sometimes it just takes one person to move a mountain....and get rid of stress and anxiety! Thanks to Bexta's friend Christophe, we participated in a wonderful day trip to Musandam in Oman, where we boarded a Dhow with a group of 30 friends and sailed back into time.

Leaving glitzy Dubai behind, crossing into Oman at Tibat, we were soon in a more peaceful and slow paced Hattan mountain setting. That was after 40 minutes of red tape at the border which as usual increased my blood pressure to 210/150.

I don't know why I have such an issue with incompentence and inefficiency - I must work on that. But going through the procedures nearly paralyzes me.

Armed with car registration, car insurance, National ID, Passport and residence visa, National ID card and 25 dirhams, the whole car load (Simon, Bexta, Aric and I, plus Murat - a stray guy from Algeria we picked up at the border) worked our way through all the steps of getting out of UAE and into Oman. It's a bigger nightmare than US immigration - and I thought that was a endless process of bureaucracy!

Who has the patience for one guy to look at the passport, another guy to stamp the passport, a third guy to type the info into a 1984 computer, and the first guy to take "no cash, only credit card"....of course the entire ordeal would have been faster if this rude "Miss Lebanon" didn't jump the queue and constantly go in front of us to get her entry permit...the biatch!

Well, finally on our way around the mountain and into the small fishing village port (which doubles as "Smugglers Cove" at dusk, with fast open boats that do a runner of cigarettes to Iran). Illegal? Yes, but noone seems to care; even the police boat lays idle and ignores the smugglers.

Musandam is part of Oman, a peninsula above UAE to the North East, which sits between the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, just south of the Strait of Hormuz and not far from Iran! We took off from Khasab and sailed around a point into a 14 km long fjord surrounded by rocky barren mountains. Shortly after the entrance to the fjord we were approached by dolphins and they followed us for a while as we headed towards several small villages.

Most of the villages we passed are completely cut off from roads and only reachable by sea. The inhabitants are less than 100, often just 2-3 families where the kids have to sail to Khasab for school (they stay from Sunday to Weds). Talk about cave dwellers and Flintstones! Must be very lonely and isolated. We stopped a few times for snorkling and swimming, and had a nice lunch on-board. It was a full day of socializing, napping, swimming and enjoying nature. Not until dusk did we set off for Khasab again and then had another two hour drive home. A great full day we simply must do again.

Ya ya ya ya ya Yalamba

Oh boy! Another brunch at Yalamba - where you only have one glass of champagne (but that one glass keeps getting filled and re-filled and re-filled....). Dangerous place. I know you think we do nothing but go to brunch and drink out here in the sandbox....and that's pretty much true :)

They are so much fun with a group of friends. The food is fabulous and it always helps after a series of stressful weeks at work. Not sure why we only get invited by Lorraine and Peter when they have Swedish visitors? Must be that Scandinavian connection and the fact that they actually like us!

Not much more to say other than that - a picture is worth a 1000 words so I'll just post a few.

Thanksgiving coming up next week and we've invited 14 people for Turkey and the whole nine yards. It will be our first real Thanksgiving in about 7-8 years, where we are actually off work like the rest of the US - and cooking as well. We will raise a glass for all you yanks back home!

Cheers!

A Dog's Life!

Slim is growing and filling out at 14 months and is currently blue – literally! While I have been to South Africa recently, the boys thought it would be fun to dye him blue. They talked about this a few weeks ago, but I always tune out their nonsense. Guess my response “whatever” was mis-understood as an OK to go ahead and give my puppy a new punk look.

No wonder Slim is developing a bit of an attitude, thinking he is the Alpha male of the Ault household. The way Aidan and Hunter treat him, he is acting just like the youngest brother on “Malcolm in the Middle”. Every time the boys near the kitchen cabinet where the dogfood and treats are kept, Slim goes completely bonkers, jumping up and snapping at their arms. It looks absolutely hysterically funny.
We get such a laugh out of this charade - Slim takes his food protection very serious.

I am convinced Slim thinks his real name is “Leave-It” – because that’s what I repeatedly yell when we walk around the Marina. His little nose is into anything…garbage, cigarette butts, construction debris; you name it he has to check it out for any edible value. So I sound like a broken record….leave it, leave it, LEAVE IT!!! He’s learning slowly but surely though he still eats the flowers and leaves off our plants.

The jumping has me worried. No doubt he could make it over the balcony railing if he took a running leap. So I’m relieved that we are moving to a house in a few weeks.

Our lease is up – can’t hardly believe it’s been a full year. This time around it is not as difficult to find a place, thanks to the recession. So I didn’t have to threaten Aric with my trip to Africa and the possibility of getting food poison again, in order for him to find us a place. After several viewings of various apartments in the Marina, and with the knowledge of Aidan leaving in June, we decided we don’t really need a large luxurious penthouse. True, that causes the “cool factor” to go way down but we like that we save money on rent. As a result, we have decided on a villa in one of the neighbourhoods closer to the school. The area is called The Lakes, because of several man-made lakes between the housing compounds. The boys can walk to school and that in itself eliminates roundtrips for me every day. Slim gets to pee on real grass! He can walk around the lakes and chase the ducks. The villa is owned by a Danish couple who are returning to Denmark. How perfect is that….we scored a couple of Ikea bookshelves in the deal. Moving day is around the 28th of November when Mutti (Pia’s mom) arrives to help pack all our stuff. We should be well settled, in time for Christmas!