My life in song? A medley that starts with long-haired folkies, morphs into midwestern hair bands, detours into the cul-de-sac known as the 80s, then shakes itself out into…well I don’t know. Let’s just say that when I’m trying to cook in my awful congealed-oatmeal colored kitchen, I often stream WMVY on my computer. It’s great sing-along music–plus I get to hear about the wintery weather, the wait-lists at the ferry docks, and the various goings-on all over the island.  Music and cognitive dissonance, all at the same time.

1. Buffy Sainte-Marie. I think maybe only about ten people in the world ever listened to this record and most of them lived on communes in the North Woods. I have no idea why this record floated into my parents’ staid suburban home (I blame their hippy siblings), but I loved it. Had no idea what any of it meant, but I loved it (and her hair).

2. Another long-haired hippy chick:  Joan Baez.  Yeah. I was seven. Do the math. At least I’m not as old as she is. I played the grooves off this thing (grooves are things that used to exist on things called records, for those youngsters in the reading audience).  She sang one of my favorite songs, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” on “The Midnight Special” — which I wasn’t old enough to stay up and watch. So nice of youtube to allow me youth’s forbidden fruit.

3.  My growing-up summers were spent in Northern Michigan–not on a commune, except I guess in a way it was: one house, four aunts, twenty cousins, a lot of wine-in-a-box. For a while we had a record player at the house (this was a big deal, given that there was no television–or at least not until my grandparents wanted to stay abreast of the Watergate hearings).  Of course, we had a record player and only one record. Or at least, I only remember one record, which played pretty much continuously for about ten years.

When he died, my mom cried. It was the first time I realized that singers and famous people were real–and thus, mortal.

4.  The first real “rock-n-roll” song I ever knew the words to was “Black Betty,” and I wish I could say it was the original Leadbelly tune. But no. It was the of-course-you-remember-them Ram Jam. 1977. Bad era for hair, male and female; I was in sixth grade and miserable. But oh that Black Betty. I felt so cool knowing the words–and knowing that they were somehow inappropriate.  Much the same way that Caleb now wiggles around to Kesha’s “Tick Tock” and in-between saying he wants to “wake up like P Diddy” says “what’s a P Diddy?”

5. High school. The early 1980s. I went to highschool in the same town that spawned Cheap Trick, so “Surrender” might as way serve for at least some of those dark years.

6. I took Latin for all four years of high school; three years of French; AP English, History, Economics…and dated boys who thought that the pinnacle of culture–and a good birthday present–would be tickets to see these guys play together.

Yes. That is Ozzy Osbourne, pre-lovable-reality-TV-dad and more a bite-the-head-off-bats kind of guy. One of those hairdos belongs to Randy Rhoads, an apparently awesome guitarist (this fact was lost on me), who died a little while after we saw him in concert. When I was first teaching high school and trying to corral a class of mainstreamed special ed kids (including a boy named Tony who was about a foot taller and seventy pounds heavier than me, and was on his second tour of 9th grade), I told them that I saw Randy Rhoads play before he died. They were like totally impressed.

7. I escaped high school with my life, barely, and hightailed it to college. Women’s college, New England…yep. There was a lot of Joni Mitchell, clove cigarettes, and Indian patterned skirts. And Joan. Not to be confused with Joni.  Joan made us stand up and sing, jump around, hug each other and swear to be friends forever. Joan made us love ourselves and our padded-shoulder outfits and our permed hair and our pointy faux-jazz shoes.  This is not the soft R&B smoochy smoochy Beyonce song. This is ME MYSELF I. Loud and dancing.

8. God, college. The endless packs of cigarettes, cups of coffee, conversations about all of it, and occasional studying.  There was some Marshall Crenshaw, “Someday, Someway,” a lot of Elvis Costello, and a little Boston band called the Del Fuegos. We all had a crush on the lead singer, then forgot about him…and then he surfaced in our lives, decades later.  You probably know him too. Heck, maybe you even have a crush on him now. And that would be fine. Whatever gets you through the morning.  Yes, that would be Dan Zanes, he of the wacko hairdo and funky kids music:

9. Let’s fast-forward, shall we ? Skip over the Sinead O’Connor, The Cure, U2, Bruuuuuce.  Let’s zoom past high-school teaching, bad break-ups, graduate school, even worse break-ups, then happiness, a soul-mate, and then…children and the particular brand of hell known as:

Even looking at this makes me break out in a rash.  Although OMG did you hear? They fired the yellow wiggle. Out. Bam. On his daughter’s birthday, no less. Doesn’t seem very Wiggle-worthy, does it?

10.  And now? All these years and records music later? Well. We’ve been singing along to Adele in the car, and the boys dance around to crap music like Kesha and Katy Perry.  I thought maybe the song for now should be the Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere,” but that’s gloomier than I actually feel; and then I thought maybe “Once in a Lifetime,” but that’s pretty gloomy too. So I think my song for right now will be the song that makes me heave into a trot on the treadmill these days: “The Cave” by Mumford and Sons.  Here’s a clip of them playing at last year’s Grammys.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for a well-played banjo, a strong rhythm section and a soupcon of brass. I guess I’ve come full circle (or not moved at all): toddler-sized folkie to middle-aged hippie with earrings too long for her age. Ah well.

So that’s it. A sound track for the life thus far.  Now ‘scuse me while I go dance around a bit.

Then someone who lives in Abu Dhabi read my blog (imagine! an actual reader who isn’t my mother or my sister!) mentioned Maria to me, and then a friend in my building mentioned Maria, and then someone else mentioned “Maria…” They sounded like maybe they’d found the Grail—a Grail made of masa, chipotle, and black beans.

Maria doesn’t have a website or a restaurant or even one of those New York-style high-end food trucks.  She’s more like having a friend who also happens to be a fabulous chef. To order from Mari, someone has to give you her email address, then she sends you a menu, you  put in your order, and then once a week, you go collect your delicious, home-made Tex-Mex meals.

Maria’s salsa makes even rice cakes taste good

When I went to pick up my order, I had a moment of cultural confusion: sitting at a low table was a dimpled woman wearing bright-red lipstick and wearing full hijab: black abaya, black sheyla. She was checking orders and handling the money while three teen-age boys in dishdashes gathered each customer’s cartons and containers.  The food smelled delicious—but how on earth had an Arab woman learned to cook really authentic Mexican food?You’d think that after almost five months in this part of the world, I would stop leaping to conclusions based on what people are wearing, wouldn’t you? Here’s the secret about Mari: she’s from Texas. Born and raised in El Paso—“you don’t get much more Tex-Mex than that,” she said with a laugh.

Mari took time from her busy cooking and catering schedule to have breakfast with me last week, because I wanted to know more about her story: how does a nice Catholic girl from El Paso end up in Abu Dhabi speaking fluent Arabic?

The beginning of her journey starts, as journeys so often do, with love. She met an Emirati man at Fort Bliss (what a name! what an omen!); they got married and moved to Abu Dhabi in 1989, when the tallest building only rose about ten stories (I live in a fifty-story residential tower, and it’s not the tallest thing on the skyline) and traffic jams were unheard of.

When Mari first moved to Abu Dhabi, she did not wear the hijab, but, she says, she dressed “modestly” out of respect for her in-laws, with whom they were living.  Her long-sleeved shirts and long skirts gradually were replaced by jellabia—long traditional dresses, “like nightgowns,” Mari says, and then, finally, she began wearing the abaya and headscarf.  Her mother-in-law was pleased, she said, when she finally converted to Islam, mostly because it meant that the grandchildren (five boys and two girls) were being raised as Muslims.  The lovely boys who were helping Mari the day I picked up my order are her sons—all of whom have helped out with “mom’s business.”

I asked if her mother-in-law, or anyone in the family, frowned upon her entrepreneurial spirit and she said not at all. Her oldest son, who is now twenty-three and working here in Abu Dhabi, told her “it’s your drum, mom, go ahead and beat it.”  Her mother-in-law supports the work Mari does because that extra income helps provide extras for the kids—and with seven kids, there are a lot of “extras” (not to mention shoes, books, diapers, and all those other kid-related essentials).

During our conversation, I fell victim to yet another assumption: that all Mari’s recipes came with her from El Paso. “Oh no,” she said. “I learned to make tortillas from a Latina woman who was living here but was originally from Seattle.”  Another assumption bites the dust.  It seems that when Mari moved here, she found an entire community of Latina women here, including some from El Paso.  Although Maria now counts herself as an Abu Dhabi “local,” she also says that it’s only in the UAE that she has justify being “American because she doesn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes.”

So how does a Tex-Mex Emirati learn to cook Mexican food?  She reads cookbooks, talks long-distance with her mother, and good-old-fashioned trial and error. Over the years, Maria has developed an entire repertoire of Mexican recipes, so everything on her menu is made by hand in her kitchen—just Maria and her Indonesian maid, Itoh.  They’ve been cooking to order for about nine years and have inspired a devoted following—so much so that when Mari tried to retire last year, due to health reasons, her clientele was willing to drive out to her house, pick up the food, deliver it themselves, and even serve as sous chefs, if she needed.

Thinking about my own futile attempts to find Mexican ingredients in local Abu Dhabi grocery stores, I asked Mari where she got her raw materials.  She smiled and said that sometimes, on her rare trips home, she will bring back chipotles and other spices; but the tortilla chips and a few other things are made by two companies in Sharjah, of all places (Sharjah is a much smaller, less Westernized Emirate).  With the help of Itoh, all the sauces, fillings, salsas, and guacamole are made right in Mari’s own kitchen and stored in one of three refrigerators she’s accumulated over the years.

On Thursday and Friday, Mari processes the orders that have come in through the week, while Itoh does prep work. On Saturday, they do the shopping and more prep work; Sunday they make sauces and tortillas; Monday morning they put together the enchiladas, salsas, guacamoles; pack up all the orders, drive into Abu Dhabi (Mari lives about ½ hour outside the city), and deliver their Mexican deliciousness to their hungry clientele.

In addition to her deliveries to people in the Khalidiya area, Mari delivers to the Emirates College of Applied Education, and—as if that’s not enough—she’s now at the Ripe Food Market every Friday.

Now that I’ve met Mari, I can see why the expats who live here are so protective of her culinary expertise—if she tried to retire again, I’d be one of those people lining up to help her in the kitchen.

if you’re interested ordering from Maria’s Kitchen, please email me or leave a note in comments, and I will get you the ordering information.  Maria is at the Ripe Farmers’ Market in Khalifa Park on Fridays.

When Liam and Caleb were little, they both loved Going on a Bear Hunt. Remember that?

Going on a bear hunt.

We’re going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared!

And then there’s the long tall grass to get through, swishy-swashy; and the mud, squelch-squerch…and pretty much every other obstacle known to human kind, each with its own sound effect.

And the refrain, of course is “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it… oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”

They do get through it, find a bear, are afraid of the bear, run back through all that crap, and climb into bed with the covers over their heads.  Very satisfying. Except for the poor bear, who is left alone to wander the seashore.

I’m thinking about bear hunts these days as older son tries to adjust to his new school.  It’s his second new school in six months–not easy to do, by a long shot, I know–and he’s pretty clear that we’ve ruined his life.  I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s only eleven. The life-ruining hasn’t even begun. Wait till he’s sixteen and I show up at some party where he’s all cool with the hair gel and the soccer jersey and then I trill from the front hall that it’s time to come home and practice the euphonium. That will be life-ruining.

He has forgotten the lesson of the bear hunt. He can’t believe that he won’t be in the middle of a rocky transition forever. As far as he’s concerned, his new school is an abysmal failure, a prison, a nightmare from which he will never, ever awake. And we’ve ruined his life.

School is stupid and British spelling is stupid and English history is stupid and oh by the way, we ruined his life.

Here’s the thing about Liam: he hates not knowing. He’s a perfectionist in pretty much everything and as a result of that (says moi, armchair shrink), when he explodes because of all the pressure he puts on himself, he explodes BIG and DRAMATICAL and WITH BAD WORDS.  Let’s keep in mind that his mamma is a card carrying member of the Good Enough Club and Husband aims for perfection but then he can’t ever remember where he put it, so we’re both quite puzzled about Liam’s need to be perfect.  Fortunately–or unfortunately–he often comes quite close: perfect report cards; chosen for this honor or that selective program or that elite soccer squad.  He works hard; he pushes himself; he’ll kill himself trying to get something right.  And also manages to be goofy and silly and dance around in his underpants to Kesha songs.

“Passionate” is the word I always use for Liam and I am reminded again, in these past few weeks, that passion is a double-edged emotion.  The highs are really, really high, and the lows are cataclysmic.  He’s in a cataclysmic low right now as he tries to suss out the new system, tries to remember that gray is now grey, and color is now colour.  There have been sinkers–not quite as epic as when we first arrived in Abu Dhabi, but close–and as usual, I try to deal with them with some ad hoc mixture of empathy, firmness, listening, berating, whispers, shouts, hugs, threats, and bribes.

Yes. My parenting has lacked consistency lately.  Thanks for that insight.  And Husband and I aren’t always on the same parenting page at the same time, which adds a whole ‘nother level of wonderfulness to the situation: he wants to cajole when I want to be firm; he berates when I want to offer hugs. I don’t know if we’re complementing each other or just muddying the already swirling waters.

I am trying to remember my own bear hunt lessons, oh yes I am. I tell myself we’ve just got to get through all this swishy-swashy grass–and my sister (so wise and yet…younger. How can that be?) reminds me (and I then remind Liam) that it won’t be like this forever. But. When your adorable boy in his navy blue blazer is whisper-screaming at you that you’re an idiot and (say it with me) you’ve ruined his life–in the elevator of our building–with other people on the elevator- AT 6:50 IN THE MORNING…well, let’s just say it’s hard to hang on.

For a brief nano-second I thought, what if I just smacked him? Just flipped his cheek with my hand to jolt him out of his hysteria?

I didn’t flip his cheek. In a triumph of will over emotion, I hugged him close and told him it wouldn’t be like this forever.

I am not sure he believes me. I am, after all, the woman who has ruined his life.

Going through it. That’s the thing that sucks, about life and bear hunts, both.

squelch-squerch-squelch-squerch…

image source

this post is linked up with the new improved (probably lemon-scented) blog formerly known as lovelinks: yeah, write. so yeah, right, click on over, read some fabulous writing, then come back later in the week and vote vote vote.

The clouds during the day often start to drift away by late afternoon and create great end-of-day lightshows over the city:

In any case, my list of what I’d like to see happen before I die would be your basic lefty media-elite wish for clean politics, clean air, clean food, clean water–and for there to be a veritable blizzard of invitations swamping the post office as gay couples all over the world decide to get (legally) married.  Oh, and I’d like teachers to get annual salaries that are even a fraction of what Newt and Mitt declared on their taxes (eighty gazillion and 3.1 million, respectively).

Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say. Dream on.  So the other option for the listicle today was things that make you anxious.

Did I say it was the beginning of the term? At this time of year, me and anxious are like besties. We’re tight. We’re IM’ing each other and DM’ing each other and generally just inseparable.

1. The opening day of the term. I’ve been teaching for years and years but still that first day, walking into the classroom…Anxious. I’m always sure I’ve forgotten my notes, forgotten where the classroom is, forgotten how to work the computer for powerpoint.

2. Anxiety #1 links to the fear that it will be this term when I am unmasked as a fraud. That someone will storm into my office or stand up in class and say “Lady, you’re just nuts and this stuff doesn’t make any sense and where you’d get your graduate degree anyway, back-of-the-matchbook university?” (Confession: Husband and I were married by my uncle, who was licensed as a minister by…yep, the church of the back of the matchbook.)

3. Anxiety #1 and #2 combine to create the recurring nightmare that all teachers have, in some version or another: you suddenly realize that you were supposed to be teaching an entire other course in addition to the one you’re teaching and you’ve never set foot in the classroom; or you’re being observed by your supervising teacher or your tenure committee and realize that you’re naked; or you’re standing in front of the podium and the wrong notes are in your hand, you have no idea where you are, and no idea what you’re supposed to do.

4. Unrelated to teaching: bugs. Cookie’s Chronicles gave us a lovely upclose picture of an earwig and I’d like to return the favor: Giant water bugs. Or as I like to call them chichihuahua bugs (with apologies to small dogs everywhere). They’re huge. They move way the fuck too fast; they crunch when you get someone else to step on them. I can’t actually post the picture here because then I’d scream and knock the computer on the floor and that would be bad.  I will say that as I write about these horror beetles, my toes are all curled up and I’m scanning the floor, wondering if something is about to come waving its antennae out of the drain.

5. That my children’s fears about me ruining their lives by moving us all the way to hell and gone are right. Well, okay, I don’t think that’s going to happen, or at least, not because I moved them here. They’re not teen-agers yet. I’m saving the big guns of life-ruining for a few years down the road. The life-ruining hasn’t even started, kids.

6. That my parents’ comment (repeated over and over again when I was in grade school and middle school…and hell, in high school too): that I’m not living up to my potential, is going to come true. Of course, given how close I am to fifty, I wonder how long a person has to have “potential.” Is there a statute of limitations on that concept?  I mean, can I still be searching for the fulfillment of “potential” at fifty-five? At sixty?

7. What if I’m attacked by giant water bugs and never finish my novel? What if I’m not attacked by giant water bugs and then I don’t have an excuse for not finishing my novel?

8. What if I can’t finish my novel?And in the meantime, what if writing blog posts and fiction have so thoroughly insinuated themselves into my brain that I can’t go back and write professorial prose when I need to (see earlier on FRAUD).

9. What if these yoga pants (purchased on sale at Marshalls in NJ with my beloved sister during the winter holiday. God I loves me a big-box store. Not enough of them out here in Petro-dollar land, unless you count the mammoth Chanel emporia scattered throughout the various malls)–what if the fact that I’ve worn these pants so constantly for the past ten days means they’re never going to come off?

10. What if I don’t wring every drop out of this opportunity to live in another world for a while? What if I get back to the States and think “why didn’t I….?”

So there you have it folks.  I’m riddled with anxiety and the only thing preventing me from dissolving into a puddle are my Marshalls’ yoga pants. Omigod. Why didn’t I buy a second pair? What am I going to do when these fall apart?

Given that conservative Islam, like so many other religions, is desperately concerned with women being virtuous (and virgins at the time of their marriage), I’m really curious about the properties of this gel.

Update: I spoke sternly to myself about my cowardice and marched back into the store the next day and bought myself some hymen gel. I mean, what if it’s a miraculous cure for under-eye bags, like what they say about Preparation-H? (full disclosure: my sister-in-law suggested this possibility) The package says “hymen gel is an all natural especially formulated herbal gel used as tightening and soothing gel.”  Hmm. The tube inside says it’s a “soothing gel and a lubricant gel.”  You apply the gel on the “intimate area” and then allow fifteen minutes for maximum effectiveness.

Which raises the question: wait fifteen minutes for what?

Is this the gel version of the Madonna song? Is the gel that will make us all “like a virgin, touched for the very first time?”

My sister-in-law, who is visiting us this week, rubbed some gel on her hand. We didn’t see any visible change in her skin, but now that hand is embarrassed to be seen naked.