Sharjah Diva
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My cat Huxley
For the past few days, J and I have been desperately trying to rehome our cat. He's an outdoor cat that has to stay in because he doesn't play well with others. He's a aggressive and one of my neighbors has finally had enough. Apparently, my cat has been bullying his cat for at least 6 months. Said neighbor did not bother to tell me until said neighbor was at his wits end. Anyway, J spent all day yesterday 'cat proofing' our garden. The cat can't get out. So, J and I didn't sleep. We listened to the cat howling for hours. Why do we love this monstrous being? Does he really want to be with us? My answer is simply 'No.' He'd rather be outside brutalizing other innocent animals. I talked to the vet. He basically said, 'Put him down.' Put him down. Something I would never consider back home. At home, I would bring him to a nice no-kill shelter. I would feel okay about giving him to people who would take care of him. Here in the UAE my choices are: 1. Death 2. Abandon him somewhere 3. Death 4. Adoption 5. Death. So, J and I posted an ad for Huxley on a few websites. We received a response today. I cried. Am I a horrible person that I'm giving away my pet? Anyway, J and I sat down and made a list of questions that we intended to ask the potential new owner. When we were ready to make the call, J went to one phone and I to another. I was sitting in front of a computer, so I googled the email address of the respondent. Oh my goodness! There were several sites with this person's email. Apparently, the respondent is a RARE ANIMAL TRADER. The sites we found mentioned that he was a crook and shouldn't be trusted. I was about to give away my cat as snake food. What would this person do with him? The local vet has also been quite helpful and gave us tons of advice. Feline Friends Dubai has been VERY helpful and might actually have our solution. They're helping us locate a place where Huxley will be happy and cared for. It's sad and depressing, but the cat just does not want to be inside. His natural desire to be outside along with his aggression, just do not make him the ideal pet.  I'm exhausted mentally and physically. I'm drained because I haven't slept well in about two weeks (is this what an infant's like?). Also, I just keep thinking that I'm a horrible pet-owner because I'm getting rid of my pet rather than dealing with it. After all, I wouldn't be able to do this with a dog or child (!). Oh boy.
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Beehive
So - a few days ago, I went out to water my plants and was shocked to find a very small beehive being created on my hose. There they were, dangling off the hose. What were they doing there? Don't they usually hide under eaves and inside walls?
J called the emergency number here and asked if they would come and remove the hide. There were, after all, hundreds of them on the wall right outside our front door. How would we get out? The 'emergency number' said that it was Eid and we'd have to wait a week. A week. A week? Do they know how enormous a hive can get in a week? A week.
So, I googled what to do. Yes, buy Sevin and kill the suckers. Kill them. I read on. These were honeybees I discovered. How could I kill honeybees? I like honey, so I like honey bees. Several US sites advised me to look up my local beekeeper and ask him/her to come and rescue my bees. Bees are very important you know. They are the basis of life as we know it. Without their pollination where would we _bee_? So, I tried to take the sites' advice. Looked for a beekeeper here in the UAE. Did I expect to find one? Not really. And I wasn't disappointed. Not a beekeeper about.
So, I called my friend C. She is a biologist. She studies the Monarch butterfly. But, she offered invaluable advice and support. "At night," she said, "when they're inactive, we'll move the hose to a new location." "Awesome!" I replied. J panicked. J thought of horrible scenarios where C and I both were stung so many times we had slits for eyes.
*Kids - don't do this at home.*
Last night, C came over at 11pm. She brought ice packs and newspapers; I provided a huge Roughbox and a clipper for the hose. We covered up, lined the box with ice packs and newspapers, clipped the hose with help from J and put it in the box. We saw one bee move from the hive. One. Just one. We then put a weight on top of the box and put them in the trunk of the car. We drove to an area where there are no people but plenty of flowers. We took the lid off of the box and those honeybees were still sleeping (thanks to the ice packs). We lifted the newspaper out of the box, and put the bees under a huge bougainvillea.
Hopefully those bees are happy this morning.
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Halal Wine
Heee heee! J started a groupof people who are willing to come to the house with an under 60 DHS bottle of wine. Everyone brings a bottle to share. You taste, you write a comment, you go on to the next bottle. The idea is to make a collection of 'ratings' of wines we can buy here. It went really well, and I think most people enjoyed it. It was a small group, so it didn't get too rowdy. You know what wine drinkers are like!  Anyway, it was great fun and we're going to try and do it once a month.
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Take the Skin Heads bowling....
...take them bowling! I was invited by a few of my students to 'compete' against another teacher at bowling. My experience with bowling is thus: 1. As a kid, I might have received some sort of 'talent' via osmosis from my mother. She always brought me to, and put me in, the bowling alley nursery. While she bowled, I howled in the crummy little room, with the overweight angry women watching me. 2. In high school, we had nothing better to do in my Midwest po-dunk down, so we went bowling every few months or so. ...so anyway, I chose my team, she chose her team, and we bowled. At a certain point of the game I realized my team was composed of America's favorite 'enemies'. I had, one Palestinian, two Iranians, and one Iraqi.
I just looked around at us all playing well - and fairly - together. It's amazing what individuals are capable of. We don't have to threaten each other; we don't have to kill each other; we can work together peacefully and well. My team did. We won the competition! 
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Suckling
Oh my. I have to share this posting from one of my friends on my Facebook account: Friend wrote: The gist: because non-related men and women shouldn't be together in the work place according to the shari'ah, a mufti came up with a brilliant idea: have an unrelated man 'suckle' (symbolically--but still) his female co-worker. After four times, she would become his step-sister, and then it would be ok to be in the same vicinity.
The mufti was at Al-Azhar in Cairo (the most prestigious religious university in the Muslim World) was eventually fired. <link deleted> (Thanks!)
I don't think I've laughed this hard in a while.
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