Luncheon is Served

The retirement lunch (artist's impression)

My office can sometimes seem like a bit of a backwater; oh, we're busy enough, but one way or another, many of us are not exactly the hard-charging Type-A types one thinks of as minions of a busy multinational. What it can seem like, from time to time, is like a prelude to life in a well-run sunset home. And in general, that suits me fine.

A Very Mary Easter

Having now perused several galleries of vintage stills for this weekend's holiday (including this very special one from which the treasure above is culled), I can tell you one thing:

Heat and Dust (and Rain) (and Cheese)

Summer returned to the Sandlands this weekend.  It does so, of course, every year, generally in April, but it decided to do so in more dramatic fashion than usual this time around.

Normally, you see, I realize that our far-too-short cool season has ended when, one weekend morning, I have to finally shut the windows and rev up the aircon by 8:00 a.m. or so.  This weekend, instead, we had a two-day dust storm of Griffithische proportions.  The above actually does give one an excellent impression of the expression on my face when I was foolish enough to open an upstairs window Friday around sunset and got a full-on blast of the nastiest, wettest, hottest air I'd felt since, well, last November when the hell-weather finally broke.

Since then, the barometer has been all over the place, reminding me of an especially schizophrenic version of how it would behave in my Great Lakes childhood just before a storm came down from Canada - except this has gone on for something like three days, the air growing ever dustier, clammier, more ominous.  Finally, last night at sunset, while Mr. Muscato and I were sitting in the kitchen having an-I-must-say rather successful supper (I got How to Cook Anything for Christmas, and recommend it highly), we heard what at first sounded like a distant explosion.  Thunder is rare enough in these parts that it actually took three or four peals before it really registered.  Then, to steal a phrase from nigh-forgotten novelist Louis Bromfield, The Rains Came.

Rain is a rare phenomenon in the Sandlands; we may get a sprinkling three or four days a year, but it can easily be years between downpours of the kind we had last evening, and then again overnight, and then again this morning.  Usually, rain is a blessing, cleaning the air and taking some of the dust off the roofs and everywhere else it implacably lodges.  People drive even more insanely than usual, true, but for a day or two at least the air is clear.  This time, though, somehow the sandstorm managed to continue in between the rains and even, it seemed, sometimes during them.  As a result, the city looks as if it were caked, randomly, in badly mixed and quixotically poured concrete.  My poor little car, crouching in the adequate shelter of our carport, gives the appearance of having been abandoned for months, and we won't be able to look out the windows at work for weeks, until the next cleaning.

One upside of the bad weather, however, is that it gave Mr. Muscato an opportunity to indulge in his latest hobby.  Yes, dear readers, it's true: I now live with a man who makes his own cheese.  This has been going on for several weeks now, and I have to admit he's getting quite good at a kind of ricotta of various kinds, most recently venturing out into assorted flavors (of this weekend's batches, one, a black-pepper-curry mix, was a definite success.  Alas, the second, a daring - some might say reckless - experiment in mandarin-orange zest and chili, was less so).  I used one batch last week to make a bang-up cannelloni, and we've taken to having the occasional cracker with his creamy version and a dab of homemade strawberry-tomato jam.  Every once in a while I look at the man I met ten years ago, who quite literally had never boiled water, and think who are you?

Mind you, I'm not complaining.  At least about anything but the weather.  This evening, as the weekend's odd confluence of storms goes on to plague areas south of us, it's left behind the heavy, wet air that feels all too familiar, and while it's not yet really hot, we know all too well that summer is here to stay.  This year, though, at least we have the consolation of knowing we'll be well out of it by midsummer, if all goes as planned.  I look forward to seeing what the Mister will accomplish in the kitchen when given free rein at a Whole Foods...

Mystery Shopping: the Limits of the Infinite

Yesterday being the end of the weekend, Mr. Muscato and I went shopping.  Because it was the end of the weekend, we decided to avoid the mad hordes that descend on Saturdays upon the aggressively Britannic supermarket not far from the Villa Muscato; we went instead to the vast and always amusing Cooperative supermarket on the other side of town.  It's been nearly a month since we've been to one, and for this particular foray, we chose the very largest of them all.

The Coops are the kinds of store aimed squarely at an audience looking for discount beauty products, as above...

...and that takes its chickpeas very seriously...

On our way in, we had to admire the pluck of this fine young fellow.  Given his affinity for Grace Jones hairdos and Joan Crawford lips, he probably knows a lot about Rising Above Hate in this part of the world...

As always, I made for the toy department.  Mr. Muscato is nothing if not a discerning produce buyer, so I always have plenty of time to fritter away while he's making grave decisions of state about bell peppers.

There's something about Headscarf Barbie that never fails to amuse.

The range and sheer bizarerie of playthings (and their hapless packaging) are a steady source of bemusement.  On this trip I noticed a hitherto overlooked theme among them - an obsessive occupation with superlative enjoyment.  This mutant elephant pull toy, for example, is advertised with a bold promise:  "It will give you infinite pleasure!"  I understand that it's a New Edition, but that still seems a stretch...

This undoubtedly thoroughly licensed piece of Smurfiana, meanwhile, announces that "It will string along with you a pleasure childhood."  I'm sure it will, even though that sounds thoroughly illegal in most jurisdictions.

This hallucinogenically awful Lovely (???) Bee is apparently dedicated "To the children brought infinite happiness."  The honeydripping font, I can tell you, was even more unnerving in person.  As for the toy, I don't have any idea what it is, but it's definitely not coming to my house.  I'd never sleep again.

This mystifying Pooh-Bearische game (Little Bear Put the Fruit, indeed) can't settle on just one slogan.  Less focused on happiness, it is still hyperbolic, being "Infinite of innovative design" (which, if by "innovative," you mean "utterly bewildering," I might agree with).  At the same time, it wants to make sure you know it offers "Fairyland/The paradise of the dream/Let us playing together!"  Okay, but only as long as we can leave behind those frightening citrus creatures on the left...

While the parade of Engrish is for some reason worst in pre-school toys, those aimed at a moderately older set aren't immune.  It's not infinite, and it won't make you any happier, it seems, but this wall climber is "Smooth on the wall, the panel, the ceiling, the glass with a taxi."  Only a taxi?  Curious.

On our way out, we paused to admire/shudder at the kiddie attraction - a vast bouncy labyrinth, grubby and slowly but inexorably deflating - that fills the store's central court.  After everything I'd just seen, even that thing in the center - bear? mouse? hellhound? - didn't seem all that unusual.

Which is why, I suppose, we only go to the Cooperative once a month.  Anything more and I'd never be fit for re-entry to the dull world of Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, and Giant supermarkets that will someday seem so pedestrian by comparison...

Reading Rainbow

A lovely quiet weekend day here in the Sandlands; our friend The Teacher came in from her self-imposed exile out in a remote community a couple of hours from the capital.  She makes good use of our capacious guest quarters, and who can blame her?  When the biggest attractions of the community in which you live are the proximity of the border with Saudi Arabia and the even closer proximity of the vast barrenness known as the Empty Quarter, you deserve the more-than-occasional trip to the Big City (or what passes for it).

She had some shopping that needed taking care of, and so even though we had done our marketing yesterday (on the first day of our long weekend), we took her to the supermarket.  When it comes to groceries out here, there are several kinds of choices.  At the top are the glossy markets that cater principally to Western expats; these tend to have a British gloss, to carry a wide range of oddities like horseradish sauce and fresh raspberries, and to be wildly expensive.  Then there are the mall hypermarkets, which run to the vast, chaotic, and Subcontinental.  Smaller, if equally chaotic and frequently even more Subcontinental, are the myriad little corner stores, which have been the subject of some controversy locally (in a nutshell, the government wanted them closed as potential health hazards that also don't adhere to the carefully groomed overall appearance of the metropolis; they tried closing them en masse at the new year, after which there was a mass outcry, because suddenly there was nowhere to go to get that late night liter of milk or to have a loaf of bread delivered, and most have reopened).

Occupying a middle ground between the mall marts and the corner mom-n-pops (or mamaji-n-daddyjis, I suppose) are the Cooperative stores, which are aimed firmly at local nationals and those seeking a shopping experience less expensive than the Britemporia, less enormous than the malls, and more comprehensive than the corner shops.  Like the mall shops, they offer everything from boots to butter, but in reasonable quantities and in styles and sizes of both appropriate for large Arab families.  We tend to get to one every few weeks, as they offer some things, especially really good chicken, that can be hard to find elsewhere.

So there we are, introducing The Teacher to the glories of Coop chicken, when I notice that they've recently enlarged their book and magazine section, adding several racks of children's books.  Now, that's a very good thing, as literacy (in any language) is a real concern here, as is a nearly total lack of a reading culture at any age, but especially for children.

A quick look at the rack, though, showed me why children might want to shy off from the products on offer.

First we had this puzzling book, which appears from the cover illustration to be a manga-style retelling of Saturday Night Fever, but which bears the wholly enigmatic title Serenity (leading all three of us to immediately bellow "Serenity now!").  The subhead ("Rant and Rave") only adds to the general confusion.

A quick whirl of the rack, however, really set us off...

Yes, this exists.  Tinkle, a primer for young readers in double digest periodical form.  Where learning meets fun, indeed.  We only managed to snap two of the covers before a wary staffer descended, but I think you'll agree they hardly look appropriate for young audiences.  I don't know what these three gentleman are up to, but the last time I saw that pose in a magazine, I was standing in a shop at 44th and Eighth Avenue at 2:00 in the morning in 1996.

As for this one, what can I say?  I don't know why the monkey looks so pleased, nor what the irate gentleman has been up to with his index finger.  All I know is that it's on the cover of a publication called Tinkle, which is ostensibly aimed at children.

And yes, I have been brave enough to try and check out the website.  I shudder to think what anyone looking through my search history would think of "www.tinkleonline.com", but now I have plenty of time to find out.  It's still under construction, but it doesn't disappoint when it comes to the (possibly) inadvertent double-entendres that are apparently Tinkle's speciality.

After that, as you can imagine, the rest of the day has seemed something of an anticlimax...

A Foggy Day...

January is always an interesting time out here in the Sandlands.  We're now in the midst of the brief, sudden Not Hot season, when for a few weeks we get just a touch of what it's like to go outside without flinching.  This morning, for example, was downright chilly by local standards (all the way down to 60 degrees or so Fahrenheit) and featured what was, I believe, the thickest fog I've ever seen.

Above is a snap of the Villa Muscato's little front pocket garden, taken this morning from the second-floor sitting room window.  Over there, beyond the bougainvilleas where there are just some ghostly streetlights, ought to be a moderately busy street, a parking lot, and the tantalizing park across from us (a constant annoyance, as it's open only to women and children, and very definitely not to dogs, which means that not only can we not make use of its broad paths and pleasant greenery, but neither can Mrs. Galapatti-da Silva use it to walk Koko and Boudi).  It stayed dark for what seemed an inordinate time, and such was the sheer density and almost sentient resolve of this fog that, at 6:00 a.m. or so when I first opened the front door to push out the dogs and pull in the morning papers, wisps and tendrils of it slunk into the front hall, and when I reached the front gate, the open door not thirty feet behind me gleamed palely, suddenly seeming a very long way off.

While we enjoy the change of pace these few weeks bring, we do dread the foggy mornings, for second only to the even rarer rainy mornings, they bring out the very worst in local drivers.  This was much on my mind today, as I had to head to meetings about two hours out of town, and I just knew the roads would be littered (sometimes quite literally) by drivers who thought the only appropriate response to having visibility of something like four yards is to go as fast as possible. Perhaps they think that if they speed sufficiently, the fog won't notice them (a process aided, I suppose, by the constant weaving from lane to lane); perhaps they think that they can outrun it.  Perhaps they're simply not very bright; I don't know.  I just know that I am grateful for the extraordinary skill and even more more outstanding patience of our office drivers, who manage to remain wholly unfazed even when totally surrounded by hordes of the single greatest menace on Sandlandian roads: Lexus drivers.  I don't know what it is about this specific brand - at heart, after all, not much more than over-blinged Toyotas - but it universally brings out a level of terrible road-safety approached only by local teens in Dad's Maserati (itself a remarkably common phenomenon out here).

Fortunately, by the time we were returning to the capital, the fog had lifted and the usual midwinter sun had returned.  It would have seemed quite cheerful, if not for the fact that this afternoon not only I, but both the dogs had dental appointments.  As a result, we are having a quiet evening, one in which Mr. Muscato is showing remarkable restraint, not mocking our aching gums by eating especially tough, crispy, or crunchy foods.  Instead, we had a supper of one of Mrs. G-da S's excellent soups, and I plan to slowly fade in a pleasant haze of Pinot Gri.

We are entering yet another long weekend, the very last of the long string of local and international holidays (which some years can mean we scarcely have a full week of work from mid-October on); ahead lies the long slog to summer and yet another Ramadan.  With luck, before the weekend's over, while we won't be having taffy or peanut brittle, Koko, Boudi, and I will be restored to something like dental health.  If nothing else, I'm pleased to think that at least for the next three days, I can enjoy the foggy mornings without having to dread the commute. Soon enough, the cool will be a fading memory, and we'll be back to the usual round of hot, hotter, hottest, so this is no small thing...

Halt!

The dreaded screen of doom.

I never cease to be amazed, amused, and annoyed (in turn) by the censorship that is rife in the Sandlands.  Print censorship is annoying enough - if a book or magazine is simply unavailable, that's frustrating, but unless you're the author or engaged in a very specific research project and not able to travel, it's not something that you're constantly aware of.  One rung up that ladder is the occasional censoring still seen, mostly in magazines, but occasionally on consumer-product labels and elsewhere; that usually takes the form of Sharpie-swipes creating impromptu fichus, sleeves, and/or skirts for inadequately covered female models.  More rarely yet, you'll get this month's copy of some glossy monthly, only to note a suspicious lacuna, in which, say, page 64 is mysteriously facing page 73, and flipping back to the table of contents you realize you won't be reading the latest seriocomic diatribe about the bizarerie of Dubai or exposé of the more colorful doings of some member of the royal nomenklatura.

Online censorship, though, takes things to a whole different level.  You notice it so much more frequently, for one thing, and it's so widespread and, at least in part, so seemingly arbitrary.  The various filters in use are clearly meant to protect delicate local sensibilities, and so the Wonderful World of Pornography is put beyond the pale, up to a point.  Religion is sensitive, so don't try to find sites that ridicule (some of) it.  And of course we can only say good things about the glorious state of this glorious nation, and why on earth would any good citizen (or resident, since we're all under the same watchful eye) want to read anything different?

But today, these attempts to keep us good and pure (and docile) are increasingly irrelevant and quaint.  Annoying still, but quaint.  Anyone with the slightest techno-savvy can with relative ease set themselves up a proxy and surf away at even the vilest filth or wildest calumny against Sheikhs X, Y, or Z.  Beyond that, the censorship itself doesn't really work - there's plenty of naughtiness that slips around, past, and through, of all kinds.  Meanwhile, though, the breadth and indiscriminate nature of the blocks interfere with all sorts of perfectly respectable and practical online activity - doing research on breast cancer is perhaps the classic example of this, almost impossible since the operative word is frequently, as it were, on the no-fly list.

After so many years out here, one mostly gets used to it, putting up with the slight reduction in speed that comes with surfing via VPN (virtual private network, for those who live in freer climes).  Still, even so, sometimes something will still surprise.

This week, for example, home with my cold, I've been, as previously noted, Youtubing a lot.  So there I am, working through snippets of What's My Line? and enjoying the ever-changing array of obscure movies that come and go.  All wrapped up, a terrier on each side and, within the limits of feeling lousy, having a marvelous time.  So far, so good.  Then I say to myself, "Self," I say, "let's find another bizarro Christmas video to post.  Dear Thombeau has already beat me to one holiday favorite [Andrea Martin as Ethel Merman singing "Silent Night" way back on SCTV's Liberace Christmas Special], but let's think... I know!  I bet Shirley Bassey has some really cringeworthy yuletide goodies out there!"

And so I duly type her name.  And then:  the dreaded screen of doom.  Blocked.  Shirley Bassey?  For God's sake, in the last year or so we've had Amy Winehouse (pre-mortem, not that many in the audience could tell), Madonna, and JLo play live in this country, not to mention the Scissor Sisters - but Shirley Bassey is too risqué for online viewing?  I tried it again.  Same thing.  I tried a different browser.  Same thing.

I tweeted out my puzzlement (as one does - and by the bye, are you following me on Twitter?  You really ought to, you know.  Go do that, but then come right back.).  One kind soul tweeted back: "Because believing that diamonds are forever is blasphemous?"  It's as good an explanation as any, I suppose.

Actually, it turns out, it's still puzzling, but not really anything to do with the tigress of Tiger Bay.  Having done a little more fiddling around, I quickly established that one could watch the full range of Dame Shirley offerings, as long as one didn't search by name.  I tried her first name: no problem.  I tried her last name: blocked.  I tried lots of variations on it: mostly blocked.  For a while, I thought that perhaps there was some local cultural taboo of which I was unaware against things like bassists, bassos, and bassett hounds, when finally lightning struck.  Of course; I had been blind.  It wasn't B-A-S-S-E-Y or any other variety of it that was the problem - it was, in fact, just three of it its component letters:  A-S-S.  That's what the delicate flowers that live in these parts aren't supposed to see on YouTube.  Ass.  Fine, fine ass.

If it's any consolation, this particular oddity is limited to YouTube.  I've discovered that one can quite easily head over to Google, search on "ass" and "site:youtube.com", and lose as many hours as you like viewing bootie in all its many forms (I think Mr. Peenee might particularly like this intriguing playlist, elegantly and concisely titled "hot men ass", for example).

Sigh.  It's this inconsistency that makes the censorship, ultimately, so pointless.  Since it can't really work, all it does is make the self-righteous feel more so, while causing those bound and determined to check out the forbidden fruit all the more eager to do so (and clever at doing it) and simultaneously inconveniencing those who just want to watch some bassett-hound puppy videos (very cute indeed, but not I'll wager where we'll find Peenee for very long).  I don't really see the point, and trying to see the point of the people who think it's a good idea just makes me tired.  Just another reason, as this old year wend its way to the finish-line, that the Sandlands and I may need to find a way to part ways in the new year.

And you know what's worst?  Dame Shirley, it turns out, is one of the few Entertainers With A Capital E who appears not to have ventured too frequently out into the dangerous realm of Christmas specials.  Don't worry, though - plenty of others have, and we still have four days to go...

Working for the Weekend

If there's a slight somnolence in these parts, it's because Mr. Muscato and I have escaped the National Day madness and holed up at our favorite little place in Dubai.  It's not quite what Messrs. Rodgers and Hart had in mind in terms of A Small Hotel, but we enjoy it.  The Villa Muscato pays, once a year, for its enviable location by being in the very heart of this annual celebration, which mostly consists of local youth backfiring their enormous SUVs and tiny, exotic sportscars all night long while covering any unwary foreigners in silly string and foam.  It's terribly pleasant, if you like that sort of thing - which, of course, being sane people (most of the time) we don't.

Meanwhile, today has been memorable in the Sandlands because we've had rain, and not just a drop or two - great sheets of it, for hours at a time.  In a place where there is simply no drainage whatsoever, and people have no (but no) idea of how to drive, this poses some problems.  Let's just say the drive up was fraught.  Fortunately, our Hotel specializes in what local custom forces us to refer to as "free-flowing bubbly grape."  We feel much better.

We're Soaking in it...

The Muscato beauty regimen (artist's impression)

Oh, dear.  Trying days in the Sandlands, kids.  This is the week before The Beloved Country's national-day celebrations, and the hyperbolic leader-praising that's going on would make pikers like Tito or Ceausescu just a little bit throw-uppy at the overkill.  Sometimes I think the local copywriters have been studying at the Pyongyang Academy of Obsequious Loquacity, so effusive are the encomia and so perfervid the prose ("Grateful Sons of the Union Greet Sheikh's Boundless Generosity with Joy" is a not-atypical kind of headline).  Portraits of the various dear leaders are being tacked up everywhere, and you can tell those houses occupied by local nationals (a minority, even here in the capital), as they are draped (sometimes literally and completely, Christo-style) in flags and banners in the ubiquitous national colors.  It's all rather hard to take with a straight face, which is absolutely necessary.  And it only gets worse for the next week or so.  Oy.

On top of that, things are being even more than usually diffy at what passes for my place of employment.  I mean, wouldn't be nice if sometimes, just for a moment or two, people wouldn't insist on being so stupid?

All of which makes it all the more endearing that this evening when I arrived home (late, hungry, irritable, and all-around All In) I discovered Mr. Muscato lying on a sofa, terrier on lap, face hidden most uncharacteristically* under a mud mask.  "I got you one," he said, pointing carefully without moving his face.  "It says on the package it's relaxing."

It was, and so we've had ourselves a little soir de beauté, and I must say we do feel the better for it.  Any calming beauty secrets you'd like to share?  We're clearly in the mood for more...

* Our pal Miss Rheba once confided to me that when she thinks of Mr. Muscato, she is reminded of those nymphomaniacal women in '40s movies (frequently played by Judy Canova and her ilk) who exclaim "It's a MAAAA-yun!" whenever they see a hot soldier walk by.  He actually used to be a hot soldier, but that's another story.

The (Not So) Mysterious East

While Mr. Muscato is off with the family in Egypt, I've been blessed with a visit from My Dear Sister, en route to Very Important Meetings in India (the Sandlands being, if nothing else, an excellent stopping-off point).

She makes an excellent house guest, as we have remarkably similar tastes, dislikes, and bedtimes (three crucial things, I think, for anyone sharing quarters, even briefly, even if Mr. Muscato and I have long since reconciled ourselves to very different thinking about the third of these important qualities).  As this is a very long weekend hereabouts, celebrating the Eid al Adha (the second of Islam's two principal holidays, and in terms of its effects on local life, essentially Christmas Week), we've been revelling in our leisure, reading a great deal, eating tremendously well, and only occasionally doing something in recognition of her status as, more or less, a tourist.

Today, for example, we went exploring up in the Big City, driving up to Dubai early enough to have some hope, mostly realized, of missing the heaving holiday crowds of vast families out for a good time.  In the course of our day, we enountered the charmingly Moorish court above, with its graceful arches and fountain topped with sculptures of flyin falcons, and I only wish I could tell you it was in some forgotten corner of an obscure traditional souq.

Instead, I must confess, it's a relatively quiet corner of the otherwise relentlessly futuristic Dubai Mall, home to a vast skating rink, a vaster aquarium, and something like a dozen Starbuckses, one of which is more or less just out of the frame (as are a Pinkberry and the local Forever 21 - the shops at Dubai Mall being a genuinely mixed bag, running from Dior to, well, Forever 21).  Nothing, really, in Dubai, is quite what it seems.

I did score on the shopping front, as the Mall also features both what is likely the best bookstore in Arabia, a huge and entrancing branch of Kinokuniya, Japan's finest bookshop, and an almost equally large branch of Virgin Megastore, a shop that feels increasingly retro in a world of music downloads and streaming movies.  At the former, I picked up the newly published volume of the selected letters of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (I had no idea she was such a prolific correspondent - it's thick as a brick, and I can only hope its chockablock with choice barbs about the Duchess of Windsor), while at the latter I got a bargain-basement price on a DVD of Death on the Nile, a film that, given its rather extraordinary cast and its association with my favorite place (or at least my favorite river), I'm ashamed to say I've never seen.

So that's what we're up to, on this pre-Halloween weekend that looks to be the start of a stormy week for any Gentle Readers on the U.S. East Coast.  How about you?

Run for the Border

The world "border" aside, no real connection.  Still, a rather compelling image, no?

Pardon the long silence, kids, but Mr. Muscato sprang a weekend getaway on me, and after a long, fraught week, away we got.

We visited our dear old friends from Sultanate days, a lovely couple who are probably the closest thing we have at the moment who appoximate that somewhat dated concept, Circuit Boys.  Except that they're funny and nice and smart, as well as indefatigable.  They're now living in the very pleasant city of Manama, in a very glam development completely built on reclaimed land and somehow as a result quite surreally artificial. 

As is true of most places out here in the Sandlands, for example, they have what would be a stunning view, were it not for the abandoned half-finished towers, forlorn construction cranes, and several additional, as yet unoccupied, artificial islands between them and the sea.  Their flat came furnished in a style that veers wildly between Bond-esque High Modern and English Cottage - dangerously low white-leatherette sofas and lots of chrome, against a background of cabbage-rose wallpaper.  Oddly successful, taken on its own terms.

Their particular development is one that tries to offer all things to all tenants, so they live in a very contempo midrise building of flats called Terrazo Venezio Mansions, which is sandwiched between a complex of highly Arabesque villas lining quaint canals on one side and a very strange set of rowhouses done up in a style that can only be described as post-apocalyptic Chinoiserie, as if Frank Gehry were designing The Mikado.  It all makes the staid old neighborhood of the Villa Muscato seem very dull indeed.

As, really, does their city entirely next to ours.  Throwing ourselves into our hosts' quite capable hands upon arrival on Thursday evening, we sampled the nightlife in a series of low and lower dives that kept us quite merrily occupied until something like 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning.  Things are distinctly less discreet up in that part of the world, and, if nothing else, fashions are far more extreme.  Local boys swan about in skintight jeans, acid-colored chiffon shirts, Cuban-heeled ankle boots, and two varieties of all-the-rage coiffures.

I really wish I'd been able to take pictures.  The first, and ever so slightly more butch 'do is a sort of sideways Mohawk along the back of the head; it looks as if the wearer had a kind of hair-tiara made up of all the hair from the ears back; the front consists of a stiffly gelled sweep that ends in face-framing swirls.  It's quite complex, but not nearly as ridiculous as Hairdo Number Two, which is really nothing more or less than a mid-sixties Barbie Bubble Cut, achieving at its most extreme dimensions approaching that of a beach ball.  Worn on a fashion doll, it's nostalgic.  Appearing on well set-up mid-twenties Arab boys with wispy moustaches, it's alarming.  They look as if they've been rummaging in the wig-trunk of the Vandellas, actually, and I tended to giggle.

Needless to say, we found it all highly diverting.

The difficulty of the place is that they are going through a spot of bother politically, disconcerting if you live in our part of world, which is so calm as to seem sedated - we're just not used to tanks in the streets, towers of smoke from burning tires in the distance, and having to recalculate routes to the mall dependent on which roads might be closed for rioting.

The rest of the weekend was a tad calmer than our first night, although it is to an extent in even such recent memory a haze of martinis, shisha (Mr. Muscato's particular weakness), and running from place to place with the boys' very cosmopolitan crowd (come to think of it, we had quite a few cosmopolitans, too), which runs to glamorous Lebanese girls named things like Zizi and Mimi, elegant German boys called Manfred, and a raft of JohnAbrahamesque Indian men.

The brief flight home this evening felt rather like decompressing after a deep-sea dive, but the sheer joy of the terriers, as always, helps reconcile one to our rather quieter existence.  I'm being very naughty and taking tomorrow off, and am quite happy to let the mayhem of my offices take care of itself for a day.  Perhaps I'll dig out some heavy-duty haircare products and see if I can back-comb myself into a middle-aged interpretation of a Bahraini boy's night out...

Jammin'

In the kitchen of the Villa Muscato (artist's impression)

It happens perhaps three times a year.  Mr. Muscato gets a sort of distant expression; he seems preoccupied.  Eventually, he disappears for a couple of hours, with no explanation.

A lesser, or at least less experienced, man would jump to conclusions, imagining a tawdry affair at the very least.  Me, I know better.  It's the jam, and it's got him bad.

So where's he been?  Why, the greenmarket of course, the chaotic and infinitely tempting labyrinth of market stalls and tailgated trucks that's as close as this artificial place comes to being a real, lively, Middle Eastern city (I can only imagine how disappointed the few people who sat through Sex and the City 2 and then show up here as tourists feel, presented with the slab-concrete-and-shopping-mall reality).  He comes home weighted down with flats and sacks of various fruits and veg, for all of which he's paid significantly less than the average housewife here pays for a kilo or two of carrots in one of the horrifically overpriced supermarkets.

And this week, it's happened again.  The house is steamy, the kitchen is sticky, and the dauntless Mrs. Galapatti-da Silva and I have been cajoled into the role played by the Demon Tots above, half helpers and half drafted admirers.  The dogs hang out beneath the kitchen table, alternately seduced by the smell and the occasional dropped dollop of hot syrup and terrified, for reasons unclear, by the low, guttural sound of the jam-to-be on a slow boil. 

Now, a tidy row of jars line one cupboard.  The current offerings are mango, a staple much in demand by people in the know and the base for Mr. Muscato's Legendary Mango Mousse (which makes strong men weep), along with a new experiment, a strawberry-tomato-clove combo that is, simply put, dynamite.  It's basically crack on toast. 

I would say that the fever has now subsided, but there is still a suspiciously large quantity of guava in the fridge, and I thought I heard him muttering something about trying out a fig-and-banana mix.

Of course, I really don't mind a bit, not least because Jam Week is frequently a prelude to a siege of baking.  If I play my cards right, this could carry us right up to the holidays, just in time for our annual round of experimental turkey roasting.  I've always thought waistlines were awfully over-rated...

Weekend Update: Wretched Excess Edition

Well, it's been busy days around the Villa Muscato, kids, and I thought perhaps a little local color might be nice.

First, the above.  No, it's not a set for the new John Waters movie (and wouldn't it be nice if there were one?).  Nor is is it Mattel Presents Lipsinka Barbie's Dream Dressing Room™ (although I'd pay good money for that).  No, this is - and I'm still recovering - a vignette snapped at an actual retail furniture store during my recent jaunt to a nearby Sandland mini-monarchy.  It wasn't even the most extreme set of items on offer (that honor, I believe, goes to the rhinestone encrusted, cut velvet, zebra striped Louis Farouk lounge suite, but by then the help had caught on to me and were watching me like hawks).  Consider this a fair representation, then, of local taste hereabouts.  And people wonder why I drink.

Since our return from points abroad, Mr. Muscato and I have been busy entertaining my longtime pal Miss Rheba, whose trip out to Arabia with her enigmatic companion, The Computer Programmer (who is also a fast-food heir, it seems, so they flew business) ended last night, alas.  We had a lovely time showing off the limited charms of our dusty capital (more so then ever after yet another three-day sandstorm this week), with highlights including a charming and distinctly bibulous dinner party with friends who live on the 68th floor of a new seaside tower (I suspect that most of their neighbors decorate en style the above), a depraved brunch at one of the ridiculous new hotels that's recently opened for no discernible reason at all (there were, counting us - a party of six, all told - exactly twelve people in a dining room fitted out for 200, with enough food for 400 slowly going bad on the buffet), and - I have to admit - a lovely long day midweek in which the houseguests took a daytrip to Dubai. 

I adore having guests, and really there are no friends like old friends, but after a month of travel and 'flu and other lower-level ongoing annoyances... let's just say that I'm much enjoying a quiet morning with the dogs, now that we'll have a whole day to ourselves before it all starts up again tomorrow with the workweek.

And how's by you?

Domestic Bliss

At Home at the Villa Muscato (artist's impression*)

Well, Mr. Muscato made it back from his roadtrip in one piece, and I survived PowerPoint Hell, which was followed by a carefree getaway weekend in a fairly dismal conference hotel down with the very last round of the disgusting bug that's been plaguing me for the last few weeks.  I have, however, at last pried loose some good drugs from my far too cautious medical professional and all's getting right with the world.

So we're home again, and enjoying it.  The weather in these parts has been almost suspiciously mild for this time of year (in part because of the three weeks of sandstorms that have been shielding us more or less entirely from direct sunlight), but it's some measure of having lived here too long that I stepped out at lunchtime today and thought, "well, yes, it is starting to warm up a little," and then got into the car and discovered that it was in fact 104° in the shade.

We do enjoy, Mr. Muscato and I, our quiet times at home.  It's really rather dull, I suppose, but we sit placidly in our upstairs sitting room, some old Egyptian movie or soap opera playing in the background, me doing a crossword or tapping away on the laptop and him with one or more dogs draped creatively over his large brown chenille easy chair, and we're really happy as clams.  Sometimes I wonder whatever did happen to those chandeliers I used to swing from...

There is, however, a little stir heading our way, for my old pal Miss Rheba is jetting out this coming weekend, bringing along her Longtime Long Distance Companion (a surprisingly sensible arrangement - they share everything but a Zip Code), and we'll have to make an effort, get the guestroom tidied, think of places to show off, and all the things that are attendant with having houseguests who've traveled halfway 'round the world to see one. 

One drawback of this sandland capital of ours is that there is really remarkably little to do.  Take visitors to the mosque and to the trademark Insane Showcase Hotel (highlights: the gold vending machine, the gold foil that features heavily on all the tea salon baked goods, and the acres of - you guessed it - gold leaf adorning every exposed surface including the bathroom taps. Subtle, it's not - although it is, for what it's worth, the original of what was reduced to but a pale approximation in the lamentable Sex and the City II), and you're basically done.  There are grand plans for museums, theatres, quaint faux-bohemian Arabesque going-out districts, and much more, but they're all years or decades off, and for the moment, after mosque and hotel, it's all malls, all the time.

Fortunately, after 30-odd years (and some of them very odd indeed) of acquaintance, Miss Rheba and I are are remarkably self-basting (as it were), and Mr. Muscato has welcomed her and hers as just more of the bizarerie that came into his life when I did.  Come this time next week, we'll probably all just be sitting in the upstairs sitting room, desultorily working crossword puzzles, dogs snoring, the only real difference being that the Egyptian films will have been temporarily replaced by Miss Rheba's speciality, unexpectedly amusing exploitation pictures.  Truth to tell, we'll probably have as good or even a far better time than we did swinging from those chandeliers all those years ago.

* Replace the Hanoverian sprogs with terriers for greater verisimilitude. Also, while Mr. Muscato always looks dashing, I rarely go for anything so low cut until far later in the day.

Oh, all right.  This is of course not, in fact, chez nous. It's Mr. and Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and their progeny, by the divine Mr. F.X. Winterhalter, my guilty-pleasure favorite portraitist.  It always reminds me of the apocryphal story of the Eminent Victorian who, at a performance of Antony and Cleopatra, was heard to exclaim, "How different, how very different, from the homelife of our own dear Queen!"

Call Me Madam Freedom

Well, I bet you thought this was the last place in the world you were going to encounter a World Cup post, didn't you? Guess again, darlings, for Mr. Muscato and I have been caught up - as much as one can on the benighted shores of Massachusetts - with the goings-on in Capetown, Jo'burg, and thereabouts. Of course, it hasn't been the same since the team I was rooting for - North Korea, natch - was so unceremoniously ousted, but we've soldiered on.

Even better, I've got not one but two ways to tie the (it must be admitted) unaccustomed athletic theme into topics more regularly found herein.

First up, the video seen above - a regionalized version of the omnipresent tournament song, "Waving Flag", featuring my favorite Arab-pop ultrastar, that Kylie of the East, Miss Nancy Ajram. It's both an improvement on the original song and actually rather a fun little clip.

Second, as part of my ongoing effort to broaden your horizons, I'm proud to bring you a snippet of news from our once-and-future part of the world that may have escaped your attention. The National, a UAE-based English rag, has passed on the rather fascinating news that local religious authorities have declared via fatwa that the World Cup's signature contribution to noise pollution, the vuvuzela, is - at least in certain conditions - haram, or off limits. That'll learn 'em, but I doubt it will do much to quell the mosquito-like hum that has been the background to our lives for the past four weeks or so...

In Local News: Censorship Strikes Again

UPDATE: Well, how very interesting; following a major blowback from local blogs, the site is suddenly, in mid-evening, unblocked. Certainly a turnaround in record time from our beloved monopoly Internet provider. Bravo to the local cybernauts!

This one's mostly for readers here in the Sultanate, but to those outside - enjoy freedom. It's a precious, fragile thing.

I've written about this before, but now our Local Information Overlords have really lost it, blocking just about the most interesting local expat voice on the Internet and, potentially, giving the country a real black eye in the estimation of people everywhere who care about freedom of expression. Yes, blocked as of this morning is Muscat Confidential, an invaluable resource and a great read.

Fortunately, on the Internets, everything is possible (almost), and it's my joy to do for MC's Undercover Dragon what he did for another site that recently faced the censor's axe: provide a link that, through the miracle of Google, allows local readers who don't have their own ways around the dungeon walls to make their own decisions about what they read.

Here it is: Muscat Confidential for all, Muscat Confidential forever! If things don't improve, I'll add a link over there on the right for more permanent use, but for the moment, I hope any local readers who stray by find it of use.

Thieves in the Night

One of the surprises of running the Café, I've discovered, is that despite being only at best intermittently about topics local, we still quite steady draw traffic from Gentle Readers here in our little Sultanate.

I therefore take the liberty of appealing to those in this part of the world who haven't already done so to pay attention to the current posting by fellow blogger Suburban, who is looking for insight into the realities (which seem very likely to be harsher than we realize) of crime in this generally idyllic place.

That I can do so while reminding myself of one of my favorite Kay Francis pictures is just a little of what my Lousiana pals would call lagniappe. Fortunately, the Villa Muscato features very little to attract a jewel robbery; now, if there were evildoers out to steal biographies of minor royalties or Garbo DVDs, we'd have something to worry about...

Local Color

This really is the most perfect time of year in our little Sultanate - long warm days, balmy evenings, and the most wonderful cool, crisp nights. While there are apparently prospects of more rain (making this the wettest winter in a very long time, with upwards of eight or even more rainy days), for the moment things are blissful.

The above was snapped during Miss Rheba's Christmas visit, in the garden of the Grand Mosque; the profusion of flowers everywhere is one of the distinct features of the local winter, not just in snazzy public places like the Mosque, but along the roadsides, in massed quantities on hillsides, and decorating intersections and traffic circles (the latter an endangered species as they are replaced by red lights). That they're all the sort of northern flowers - petunias and such - one finds in suburban English gardens only makes it that much more picturesque.

As usual, Mr. Muscato, Koko, and I have spent part of our weekend at our favorite seaside spot, joined this week by visitors from Europe (stunned at the sunshine) and the Emirates (stunned at the dire local nightlife). There is always great people watching at the beach - the Western tourists cluelessly wandering about in inappropriate swimwear, the gaggles of subcontinental gentlemen and local youth ogling same, and the wide variety of family outings - from nuclear families of three to extended clans of ten or more times that - enjoying sun and sand.

I'm particularly interested in how women deal with the competing and contradictory demands of modesty, fashion, and comfort. One solution is standard sportsclothes under the enveloping black abaya and headscarf - teen sisters racing along the beach after smaller siblings with the abaya sailing behind them, inevitably recalling comic pre-Vatican II images of nuns at play.

Another, very common in the Muslim world, is to try and meet all three priorities via layering. When I was living in Cairo, the fashion among junior misses was to go with the then-stylish strappy mini-sundress - over skin-tight jeans and turtleneck, creating a kind of slightly slutty (but totally covered-up) jumper effect.

Yesterday we encountered a remarkable local variation of that look that saw both the comfort and fashion angles taken to new extremes: a matron frolicking on the beach with her tots, resplendent in an ensemble that consisted of a scarlet tracksuit (the type with stripes down the sides, previously more familiar to me on elderly Italian gentlemen in South Philadelphia or perhaps on third-tier rappers) worn under a form-fitting metallic-silver jersey cocktail frock, complete with ruffled handkerchief hemline, the whole completed up top with a gold fishscale-pailleted scarf and down below with rainbow-striped platform espadrilles. Yes, the combo led to a certain amount of unavoidable lumpiness, but on the whole, whatever else you can say, Madam was fierce.

On a different note - why is it that, whether in times of boom or, as now, shall we call it lack-of-boom, that local building contractors don't seem to take any special advantage of the more comfortable weather? A very high percentage of the many high-profile projects around town seem more or less stalled - not only the ones with reputed Dubai-related money woes that clearly have been knocked awry by the financial crisis, but the publicly financed ones like the long-pending opera house.

A few are proceeding apace, but in general the city presents a silhouette of still cranes, a six-story high mini-version of Dubai's sixty-story skyline. If previous years are a model, come the summer, things will rev up significantly, because, of course, as much as possible has to be done and perfect by National Day in November. I think it would be a mercy to the workers, if nothing else, to reassign that deadline to the July accession anniversary, just so the rush could be going on now, when it's not pure torment to be outdoors.

Shopping Mall Confidential

Consider this a private note to the Café's local (or any other dishdasha-wearing) male readers:

If you feel like stopping for a cup of coffee at the Starbucks tables located outside the Border's Books at the top of the escalator shown in the pre-opening sketch above - and yes, I know, they're the only ones at that Starbucks where you can smoke* - that's all well and good. But please - for the love of God, please - remember that if, while watching the world go by, you decide to get comfortable by, say, putting one foot up on an empty chair and swinging your other leg over just so...

Let's just say that the kilt effect goes into play, and your dishdasha and wissar** ride up, and ...

On a clear day, those lucky folks coming up the elevator get an excellent view of your Ras Al Djinn, if you get my drift.

Frankly, I'd think the draft would have gotten your attention, even if the giggling girls (and not a few interested-looking gents) going for multiple escalator rides didn't...

* for the moment, kids - this town is going smoke-free in a couple of months, and not a moment too soon!

** the local masculine petticoat-equivalent; think a wrapped half-slip.

Meanwhile, at the Bargain Center

During her recent stay, Miss Rheba was treated to all the highlights of local tourism: we took her to forts and castles; she went on a dolphin-watching excursion; we visited the Grand Mosque and the capital's steadily expanding Royal Palace. She saw the souq, smoked a shisha, and ate in restaurants brimming with local color (experiencing one oddity of life in the Gulf: the more atmospheric, thousand-and-one-nights the restaurant, the likelier it is to serve Lebanese food. For very good reasons, mostly, if you've ever tried the actual traditional foods of the Arabian Peninsula).

And, of course, we took her to the One-Rial Store.

...where she experienced the legendary Wall of Knockoff Colognes, an ever-changing array of horror and splendor. This time the highlight was this I'm sure entirely coincidental hommage to one of the region's signature buildings. If you can't actually stay at the $1,000 a night Burj al-Arab Hotel, why not wear a $1.50 parfum that vaguely looks like it?

None of the dozens of Walking Angels on display showed even the vaguest sign of the promised flapping wings (and we wondered whether, in this part of the world, her prayers would be particularly welcome). Nonetheless, we were taken by the way in which she resembled nothing so much as a L'il Edna May Oliver doll and were briefly seized with the idea of a whole line of infantilized character ladies (Baby Marie Dressler, Toddler Magic Margaret Rutherford...).

And this particular offering made us laugh and laugh. We didn't feel good about that, but we did. I know it's just a set of tumblers and pitcher, liberally gilded. But still: golden water set.

Somehow, when inevitably we return to the dear old shores of North America, going to Costco or Target is going to seem awfully dull...