Leffe at the Maadi House

After about a year and a little more of haven pleasures, I was told today at the Maadi House that I’m having the last bottle of Leffe Blond. It is a sad thing, and let me tell you why.
I didn’t even like beer when I came to Belgium in the mid-90’s, but 11 years of residence in the world of beers, with more than 300 different kinds, will convert even the most adamant non-beer drinker, and when we left, there were several kinds of beer that I loved.
Beer in Belgium is part of the culture, and everybody drinks beer. Biking through the town of Leuven on Friday mornings, I would see elderly women in their 70’s meet up for an early morning Kriek before the market started. After work, at lunch, for special occasions; there was always a special kind of beer served, and everybody was part of it.
When I think of beer in Belgium, I think of good times after work, wonderful weekends, graduations, celebrations, quiet evenings, and everything I loved about living there. Beer is very much a part of all aspects of Belgian culture.
At the hospital in Mechelen, after I had given birth to my boys, the nurses would ask if I preferred this or that beer with my meal. They all agreed that the dark Leffe, or a Hoegaarden, would be the best “to help the milk come in.” Yes, they served beer in the hospital maternity ward, because it’s part of the culture, and because people are convince that it is good for you to drink beer. As those of you who have given birth may know, the moments following a birth are going to stay in your memory for a long time, and the sentimental value of the sips of beer I had following both August’s and William’s births were very much present when I was due with my third son in Egypt. But where was I supposed to get a Belgian beer here?
Enter my good friend and, at the time, manager of the Maadi House: he is very interested in beer, mainly microbrew, and did we, oh beer lovers from Belgium, have any suggestions? We mentioned a few of the big brands, and lo and behold, a few months later, crates arrive at the Maadi House. Just in time for the birth of Abraham, my friend, having heard the stories about our birth experience in Belgium, gave me a bottle of Leffe Blond to have in the hospital. I was moved to tears.
Since then, for a little longer than this past year, I’ve been able to enjoy the occasional bottle of Leffe – dark and blond, depending on my mood and state. Today, however was the end.
Good Bye Leffe, and thank you for some lovely moments. I hope we see each other again, soon. Tot dan!

My precious, beloved laptop

Last night, late, I was running downstairs with my laptop to call my friend in Boston on Skype, when suddenly the computer slipped out of my hands and fell to the floor. Crash! “Holy Mary!” What a devastation! I really had no hope. Surely, a laptop cannot take that kind of a blow? Especially since it was on, and the hard disk running. But when I put it on the table and turned it on, the power came on, and eventually I heard the Windows chime that prompts the log-in window. It wasn’t dead! Only, I couldn’t see anything. The screen was black; dead. “OK, this is better than it could have been,” I thought. “If I can restore the content, it won’t be the end of the world, right? [only the end of $600 – Argh!]” Then Courtney came up, and suggested we take the screen part of the laptop apart. “It’s probably the thin tape-like strip that connects the bottom part of your laptop with the screen. It might have got torn, or it might just have come out.” It couldn’t be that simple. Without hope, I unscrewed the screws and gently pried the screen apart. Courtney carefully pushed on the little cable, “Look! It has come out,” reconnecting it to the port, we pushed the on button, and – lo and behold – my laptop started back up, screen and all! Halleluja!

The lesson? If you are to drop your laptop, make sure to call on the Mother of all, as it hits the floor, and keep a smart husband on hand.

You know you’ve been busy when…

...your blog posts are a week apart, and mainly consist of pictures.

I don’t really leave my kids with baby sitters, they don’t leave the house for school, and I don’t have anything particular that I do outside of the house, so I don’t spend a lot of time away from them. When Courtney is home though, I go out by myself, to run errands, to go for a run, to pick something up, maybe not every day, and never for very long, but still. And then sometimes he takes them out to play ball, or run an errand. These are little moments I get for myself, and I didn’t realize how important they were – they seem so short and insignificant - until Courtney was gone for practically three weeks in a row. I spent every day and night, 24/7, with the boys, and I love them – I love spending time with them, and I love having them around – but there came a couple of moments when I had to ask them to go into their room and shut the door for 20 minutes, so that for once (as a treat) I could go to the bathroom uninterrupted.

And it’s not even so much about spending time alone, it’s the ‘being the only one around’. If I am doing something, anything, like finishing an e-mail, washing the floor, taking a shower, cooking spaghetti, reading, and one of the boys needs me for anything; when Courtney is home, I can ask him to help, but when he’s not, I have to stop what I’m doing to help the boy in need. Never being able to do anything without interruption can, over a period of time, make the most calm and patient mother a little nervous.

I know mother here whose husbands travel all the time for work, and they tell me you can get used to not having them around, but 1/ their kids go to school, which gives them a short break every day, and 2/ I’m not used to it.

Apart from not having someone to share the child care responsibility with, I also miss Courtney’s company when he’s gone. Hearing his comments, stories, thoughts, and having him around to discuss things with, cooking and eating together, watch movies, being close – all the things we do together.

So I’m glad this year's traveling spell is over. Courtney had a great time at the conference in Pisa, and fun in Beirut (we'll know more in a couple of weeks). He needs these kinds of professional boosters every year. But now we’re back together again, and I’m happy about that. Next time we get on a plane, it will be together.

Prof. Husband bought a new camera in Italy

Courtney came home with a new camera from Italy. It's a much more advanced Canon than we've ever had, and it took me a while to figure out how to make sure Abraham wasn't a big blur in all the pictures. Eventually I hit the right setting: "party mode." That's what it's called. If people are in your picture and they can't ever be still, you choose "party mode." How fitting!

Another interesting feature shows it's so obviously a camera sold in Europe: the user guide came in five different languages, but none of them was English. Between German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch, I picked the last one, which was just as fine as any.

Below you find a couple of my favorites of the test pictures we took when Courtney got home. What do you think?

Ketchup Boy

How the International Kant Conference got our house cleaned up

Courtney left for Pisa on Thursday night. We very rarely travel without each other, so in a way it’s unsettling not to have him here. Mainly though it’s nice to be apart a bit; not because we need a break or anything, but because I think it’s nice to miss each other a bit, and I get a bit of extra time to myself, with the added extra bonus that the house stays nice and tidy. Courtney is a mess maker – he has no sense for organization or each thing in its place - and I am a neat freak. In our living together, we meet somewhere half way, resulting in a constant slight mess in the house. When Courtney goes out of town, I get to live out my neatness fully, and it’s very liberating.

Now though, after having cleaned out our closets, sorted the books and papers, got all the laundry strewn around the house (Does your professor stuff sucks behind the couch pillows too?) washed and put away, tidied the shelves (Really? Five (5!) coffee cups in the book shelf upstairs?), and done everything else that is usually undone the minute I’m finished with it when Courtney is home, and after having properly admired the tidiness for a while, I’m ready for him to come home. It will still be a few days though. The International Kant Conference is long, and he is spending a couple of days in Florence afterwards, because he is there, and we both love Florence. He promised to bring me back some wine and a couple of Caravaggio prints, and hopefully lots of great stories. Until we’ll keep busy, and the house neat.

The end of the baseball season

The boys had their last game of the season this weekend; it was a great game and fun party afterwards. Too bad Coach Courtney, who's in Pisa for the International Kant Conference, had to miss it.

Rotten eggs!

This morning I made oatmeal porridge and boiled eggs for breakfast. We eat this fairly often, and everyone likes their eggs soft boiled. They’re always freshly purchased, because we go through them so fast.

I didn’t get much sleep last night; the boys didn’t sleep well, my mind wouldn’t shut down as it always does, and I was still a bit out of sorts when I sat down to breakfast. I also had not blown my nose yet - which is something you have to do every morning when you wake up in Cairo - so my sense of smell was impeded. I therefore didn’t detect it immediately: I had a bite of egg, and then I quickly had another big bite, with runny yolk and all, but as it went down my throat I realized that it was rotten. I’ve actually never had rotten egg before, although I’ve tasted rotten meat, but there was no question about it: I had just swallowed a big bite of rotten, raw, Egyptian egg yolk.

Courtney suggested I have a shot of alcohol, such as vodka, but if you’ve ever tried to chase a rotten egg with a shot of vodka at 9 am, you might agree that it sounds easier than it is. As is making yourself throw up. I made a few attempts, but the egg had reached my stomach to stay. I had some water and said a quiet prayer. I’ve been feeling queasy all morning, but that could just be psychosomatic, or my lack of sleep. I’ll keep you posted.

Campus or carnival?

Yesterday I took the boys to the AUC campus. Abraham needed to see the pediatrician for his shots, so we all went in with Courtney on the bus. After dropping him off at his office, we ran a couple of errands and then we went to Subway for lunch. After lunch we walked over to the bookstore, then caught the last few minutes of Courtney lecturing. The boys enjoyed watching him work, and whispering ran a commentary outside of the classroom, “What is daddy making that student write on the board? Look, that student is playing with his phone. Why are those students leaving when daddy isn’t finished? What is that student asking daddy? Look, daddy is getting up but he’s still talking.” We gave Courtney his sandwich and then went over to get Abraham’s shot out of the way. On our way the boys kept asking to buy candy at the candy stands that we passed. They were all really busy. Since we had to wait for the shot a bit longer, I got the boys ice cream. After the shot – Abraham screamed, it hurt, but was over in a second – the boys wanted soda. I found myself telling them that this isn’t a carnival, it’s a university campus. “But mama, all those students are having candy and soda! They’re laughing and playing with their friends, and they’re even eating McDonald’s for lunch!” Well, yes, I suppose it has its resemblance.

Lice treatment #2

After we got rid of lice a couple of weeks ago, they came right back. This time we caught it early enough though, that there were no nits. Only a couple of bugs jumping around on the boys' scalps. Nonetheless, I went though the entire process again, of washing everything, and combing through the boys' hair with coats of conditioner over several days. After the first session with William, he decided that there was a better solution. Here it is: a brush cut, 2 mm.

Looking forward to a weekend in Ain El Sukhna

We made one attempt at a beach holiday earlier this semester, with our good friends who have lived in Egypt for almost two decades, but it wasn’t a great success. Courtney & I spent most of the time bickering about stupid things, and neither one of us could relax and enjoy ourselves. We both concluded afterwards that it had been silly to try to get away like that in the middle of extreme stress. Courtney had tons of work piled up, we were starting to get seriously discouraged by all the rejections, we had account complications in the US, and in general, we were very nervous about our future.

This weekend we are going for one night only, but since we are not entirely without options any more (yes, our immediate future seems to have lightened up a bit – more on this when it is official), we know we will be all right at least for a while longer, we are a bit more relaxed and can perhaps enjoy ourselves. There’s still a lot of work to be done – Courtney has finals, conferences, papers, and his translation to do, and time is running out; I have everything else – but at least we know we’ll be living under a roof next year with food on the table.

The hotel looks really nice. I look forward to the water, the beach, watching the kids play, not having to do housework, talking to friends, and getting out of town for a couple of days. Hopefully we’ll come back rejuvenated.

My Red Sox boys off to play a game