Teaser

We're here! Internet access is spotty, so we don't know how often we'll get to do this. But here is a sampling to tide you over.







Went to church yesterday. Great ward. Some few familiar faces.

My old friend Emanuele has been taking very good care of us. Had a cold supper with them last night on their terrace, and will see much of them over the next few weeks.

Wish we were better organized for the trip: my fault. But we're piecing it together. Restricted by kilometers, etc., on the car rental. And the budget will be better than exhausted by the time we're done. Oy veh!

Anyway, more when we can. Everyone says hello.

This Week in Engrish

Alright, so not all of these are fluent Engrish, but they're related conceptually.

Guess which category Jonah falls under . . .






A puzzler: look at the two pictures carefully. 10 house points to the person who figures it out.






And finally, this fella believes in full disclosure. Just in case you wondered where your money would go should you hire the truck (double-click to magnify) . . .




Shout-ats: us, for never keeping the promises to a) write a poem to the most "exotically" placed reader, b) post more in our continuing, one time series "This Week in Islam," and c) show vid of Riley make his electric guitar gently weep.

A: Will do, Mildew, when the winners are situated in New Brunswick, having left Vancouver Island behind. NB has so much more potential for humour than VI, which by now is a caricature of itself, which ruins all the fun.

B: We'll get back to this once we're back. Maybe we'll do a "This Week in Roman Catholicism" or "Mormonism in the Shadow of the Pointy Hat."

C: First, he broke a string. Then, while replacing the string, he broke a string. So we had to go in to Dubai to get a replacement, which has been placed, and is not broken. But now he's out of practice, and will be more so until the end of August. So stay tuned. We'll get there.

Alla prossima.

The Graduate (and other achievements)

So Amber and Dave think it's a big, fat, hairy deal that Dave has finished his MD/PhD and got to wear the hide of the velveteen rabbit (with accents) at long last. Pshaw! Jonah, it must be said, has graduated from nursery school. We're still waiting for news of a fellowship. (Kidding. Congrats, Edwardseseses! Venisti, Vedisti, Vicisti! Semper Laudanum et Mari Juanium in Formam Pillulam Percorramum--est!)

Anyway, back to our graduate.

Oed and Ted:




A very sober affair (clearly):




Jonah and his BFF (a true Welshman, one of the cymry and a right proper gent)




Jonah and another friend, clearly not Welsh . . .




He vants to suck yor bludd . . .



Actually, all the boys thought the gowns were batman capes. It's not surprising, given the confusion caused by talk of "cap and gown."

Quick story: Wendy and I had sent the older two to PG for a few weeks, and we just had number three (terror of the high C!) with us. He was just two years old. We went to Home Despot in Lethbridge (I misspelled that on porpoise), and he was growing restless being in the cart, so a kind sales associate gave him a roll of stickers. Jonah looked at him incredulously, but accepted the gift and then sat there considering for some time. I went back to the ceiling fans and he was quiet for a good long while. Suddenly he began exclaiming "I'm a genius! I'm a genius!" over and over. I looked back, and he was plastering the shopping cart with stickers.

The act itself wasn't remarkable: it was his command (use and understanding) of the word genius that was remarkable (and darn cute).

Well, here's proof: Jonah only went to school for the last two months, and he's already caught up with his peers. Behold the evidence:

First, a note from his delightful teacher, Ms. Sue, who's from Sohth Aavrick-a:




The cover page of his report card, decorated par soi-meme:




And the report:






Now our report: Jonah continues to keep us in stitches, and on pins and needles. He bursts into song regularly, and not always songs we'd like him to sing. He spells, counts, plays solitaire (but not solitarily: one is always informed about Jonah's whereabouts and activities a' la Howard Cosell, i.e. Jonah's own running commentary), plinks out tunes on the piano, leaves a trail of belongings throughout the house (like the old Family Circus kid, but with toys and items of clothing instead of dashes), imitates every accent he hears, can't say "mi chiamo" to save his life (comes out more like "mi cameo," which if he were attempting Spanish would be kind of apropos, because he behaves as though every moment of every day is his own highly anticipated cameo), and just loves being alive. This is infectious, obnoxious, and precious. I'm writing that tonight because we've had an inordinately high dosage of Calvin-Jonah lately, and we're accen-tuate-ing the positive.


Christopher, by no means a slouch, has also been honoured of late. We should note that he has also "graduate," as my students would say, from "prim'ry school," and will no longer have to wear knickers and dippy shirts, though during the hot months he'll wish that weren't so. He and his class put on their big year-end show tomorrow night, so we'll post a few pics or maybe a short vid clip before we leave (Wednesday!). In the meantime, here're two pics to tide you over:


In this first one, you can plainly see that the beatings with the ugly stick have increased in intensity and frequency . . .





And here's the cert. By way of explanation, C often uses his first name at school, to his mother's continuing chagrin (not because she doesn't like my brother Steve, or his name, but just because he's Christopher to us), and the school's obvious confusion. I think it's slightly devilish, not to mention mildly subversive, and therefore approve of it whole heartedly.

"What the heck?"

We never thought we'd hear an Arab use those particular words, but at the end of Shyamalama-ding-dong's new movie, The Happening, that is precisely what we heard. And by golly and gum, dude's right.



DO NOT, under any circumstances--we repeat, DO NOT--waste your money or time on this lemon. To put it simply: the premise is that plant life releases a toxin into the air that interferes with the human instinct for self-preservation, garbles their speech, makes them stand stock still and then walk backwards, and then finally induces them to off themselves with increasingly Magyveresque inventiveness. Death by knitting needle. Death by head-on collision with tree. Death by broken glass from head-on collision with tree. Death by tractor-powered lawnmower. Death by close encounters of the head-butting kind. Ay cafreakingramba!

And this isn't Jon's usual hate-love review. Wendy concurs, as does obviously the confused man in the dishdasha.

We suppose the movie is effective in one way: we very nearly harmed ourselves at several points in the film, and have placed each other on suicide watch.

We don't know what's happening here. The idiot-savant of filmmaking, Hitchcock's oriental heir, is himself moving in reverse: from savant to idiot. Gone is the delightful and creepy complexity of Sixth Sense and sort-of in Signs. Gone the metaphysical sensibility, the mystery, the panache. This one makes Lady in the Water look like an MGM Classic. It makes The Village scream Oscar. It makes Unbreakable, well, that one still sucks. Mark Wahlberg makes Bruce What'shisbutt look like a veritable screen genius.

"What's my motivation, Night?"
"Don't worry about that Mark. All I need from you is to stop, slouch your shoulders, and project constipation. Great. Now cry like the panty-waisted science nerd you are. Great. More sobbing. Good. Hold it. Hold it. And cut. Okay, now Zooey, for this scene I want you to look big-eyed and stupid. Perfect!"

We have only one thing to say: Je t'ai pret mon auto c'est la verite' calculus. Calculus. Calculus. Bang!



Shout-outs: Smash, for always being first. Smash, it's the folks who bought a certain big, white house who are coming to pass the time.

Today in Arabia (and in Roma in 12!)

Nice for the last few days--41/41 tops, and a little overcast (read: high altitude dust storm, though there were a few teasing clouds as well), so it actually feels quite pleasant. The direct sunlight is a substantial factor, obviously, except for mobile phones, as noted earlier.

In the news: here, complimenti al nostro grande amico e agente di viaggio volontiere (compliments of our good friend and volunteer travel agent) Emanuele Guidara, are some shots of where we'll be staying while in Italy:









Double-click to magnify. The "casale" is more or less central in every shot. Impressive views on all sides, as you can see. It will be lovely to be "in campagna" (een cahm-pah'-nyah) because of a reduced humidity and heat dispersion. In the city at night the stone and concrete release heat all night long, making sleeping in an a/c-averse culture nearly impossible.

It is apparently subdivided into a handful of apartments: ours is ground floor with private entrance. 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and single bathroom, so that will be an adjustment after our palatial villa here in Al Ain. We'll be taking the Wii for moral support (and rainy days).

We will also be joined by our good friends from Raymond for a couple of weeks. Plan to head up to Pisa, Florence, and Venice with them. Also down to the hall of sunbaked horrors that is Pompeii. I wish I could remember which rooms had the dirty pictures in them so our kids can avoid them: nudity is one thing, porn quite another, frescoed or no.

And yes, we do expect the boys' heads to explode at some point during our trip. Should be interesting.

Interior shots next week. Our objective is to make you as jealous as possible!

Pace vade vocum,

Us.

Quickie

We're all in end-of-term mode, so there mightn't be much of a post this week. We offer the following random stuff.

Jon was thinking about language tonight, and more specifically about letters. Anyone ever notice that every letter of the Roman alphabet generally approximates the physiology of its speech sound?

Consider A: capped, with a horizontal cross-beam. Now pronounce the medial "a" as in "sack": the sound is concentrated on the roof of the mouth, the lips are vaguely triangular, and the tongue crosses horizontally.

Consider B: the lips work together to produce this sound, both at the full, and pushing out together.

Consider C: (as in "c-at") see your mouth x-ray wise and sidelong, and what do you get?

Consider D: the tip of the tongue, slightly recessed, rounds out toward the opening of the lips.

Consider E: mouth is C-shaped, but wider and flatter at the back and throat, and the tongue sticks out and medially.

Consider F: top lip out, teeth slightly forward, bottom lip curled in and chin flattened.

Consider G: C-shaped mouth, but the tongue pushes flat and the sound reaches back into the throat.

Consider H: from the front.

Consider I: well, don't consider I. Well, maybe from the front, including the uvula.

Consider J: the jaw moves out, down, and back in and up.

Consider K: and then get over it.

Consider L: the tongue comes up and flat against the roof of the mouth, but the throat itself remains open vertically.

Consider M: take B and turn it 90 degrees to the left.

Consider N: make the sound from scratch: tongue-tip comes up, presses the roof, then drops away.

Consider O: well, duh.

Consider P: the lips are curled flat, and then blow out in a single breath as the jaw drops.

Q is a later invention, so fuggedaboudit.

And so on. I'm just sayin'.



Here are some pictures (not of our mouths in action).

Have seen one of these on campus everyday for the last few: biiiig flying beetles.


Also saw a deck of Uno cards scattered all over campus as well: nice shot I should have gotten of one lying in the red desert sand. But I'm not supposed to operate my camera on campus, which brings us to the next shot.

Wendy came with me this last week to see some of my students performing their year-end project for a colleague's theatrical production class. They did the highly orientalist "Ali Bab and the 40 Thieves" in the motif of toy theatre. Split the parts, which multiple actresses spoke simultaneously. Jim's really great with them: I discovered several of them actually do have voices!

Anyway, this is a shot looking back out across the courtyard (second floor) of the building I teach in:



Skating rink at our neighborhood mall from two floors up:



Bug on a step in our house: one of those beetles. Did I post this one already?



Jonah called this a "cloud stack." His phrase. It's stuck.



ec, go easy: I only ever have my iPhone on me these days: we haven't trotted out the real camera in aeons, but we promise we'll take it and the digital video to Rome. So no photo-criticism. You might scare off National Geographic.

Laters.

Incroyable

Speed Climber Owns Mountain

Saw this a few years ago. Still amazing. Mute the metal.

How hot was it?

It was sooooooo hot, that . . .

45 degrees today: bam! For those of you without a concept for this, 45 above means that stuff actually heats up, in or out of the sun, to the point that it becomes uncomfortable to hold. Case in to-the-point: cell phones (or mobiles, as we continentals call them). You stand outside IN THE SHADE, and the thing gets warmer and warmer in your hand.

Now, we realize there's a very simple principle of thermodynamics at work here--the phone contains metallic components, and it does not have an in-built cooling system--but knowing about it and experiencing it live are entirely different matters. Poolside is like being in an oven with the light on. Cancer on a stick. Hyperthermia served hot and spicy.

We look forward to Italy, and having things cool down to 40 degrees in July.

So what will August bring, you ask? Over 50, latest prediction. We are oh so glad we are not construction slaves. And we will make a practice this summer of carrying around boxes of water to hand out at roadside sites.

Christopher's piano is here, full bore. We'll give him a week and then record something so grandmas can be proud.


Finally, had a visit this week from a smashing fellow on an internship in Dubai. He's in BYU's Middle East Studies program, and spent a day with me on campus making contacts here. Very helpful, and I think we now have the will to move on it for next year.

While he was here, we took him up Jebel Hafeet, and were summarily swarmed by some smiling Omanis. Not because he was there, but he was, and they engaged, and he trotted out the ol' Arabic and impressed them. Mobile numbers were exchanged, and a gift was made of a cassette (yes, cassette, even though they have cds here) of some funkadelic Omani tunes. Sweet.

Pics (including, in the last frame, our friend Ahmad, which is pronounced Ah-h-mahd)--guess which one's the white guy:











A lady came up to Wendy's window (she'd stayed in Merv to keep out of the heat) and engaged her in what she deluded herself was English, but actually included three English words and some very excitable Arabic. Eventually, Wendy just started nodding in assent and saying "Oh, really?" We're learning Arabic this year. Halas! Anyway, couldn't get a picture of her because she was wearing a Groucho Marx and it would have been offensive if I'd asked.

They followed us part-way down the mountain, actually: like they wanted to show off their insane switchback drag-racing skeelz. Anyway, we ducked in to see the Mercure Hotel near the summit, and veered right to catch another view (closed, as it turned out). They followed us in and then bailed. Maybe they thought we were frightened. Maybe they just wanted their tape back.


One day, when we leave here permanently, we'll blog about our codes for the various getups, illustrated appropriately. But here's a taste: Groucho Marx, Skater Chic, Ichabod Crane, Ninja-sahn, Prom Night, Mumpsies. Them'll be good times. Stay tuned.